Cowboys and Aliens Ch. 35

This, of course, is all just hypothetical as, from what Ra'ki said, there could be an infinite number of rift nebulas in the network and they may never use the same rift twice, but eventually our normal seeding ships will detect the sensors in, or around, these nebular clouds and we can react to anything that comes through them or, if we can map them, maybe we can use the rifts ourselves."

Liyana asked, "So why 4 rift jumpers?"

Mark realized he hadn't explained, "Sorry, I forgot to explain the second pair! Once the first pair enter the rift, we may never know if they worked, and one thought that had crossed my mind, referred to something else that Ra'ki had said... smaller ships go through the rifts quicker than large ships... since the rift jumpers are pretty small, they may catch up to the Destructors on the other side and possibly be destroyed, they do have shields, but the shields didn't seem to do much good for the Star Hunter. So the second pair of rift jumpers will follow the first pair by 100 hours, they will work on the same jump count as the first pair. All 4 ships will record their own jump counts into the sensor IDs, that way if we ever find these rifts we'll know which jumpers have found it and what their jump counts were."

Ra'ki sat in amazement, "You guys can really do that? You guys are definitely in a different league from anyone else we've ever met. We thought Sebastian and Brian were pretty advanced, but I guess not. I also get the sense that you guys don't seem to like Sebastian much, he seemed nice from what I saw, was he really that bad?"

Mark said, "We can't make that determination for you, let's just say he's a wanted criminal on pretty much every planet we've ever found. Maybe some more of the bridge logs will shed some light?"

Hoping she would see the kind of man he was for herself, they returned to reviewing some of the Star Hunter bridge logs. Fortunately any logs that involved firing weapons were tagged, so they were easy to find. After the meeting with the Rifters, they found the logs of the attack and devastation they bestowed upon Thulark.

From the bridge video, which is actually at the front display looking back at everyone on the bridge. They clearly heard a person on the bridge mention Thulark and they could see Brian and Sebastian discussing a suitable target to test their weapons on, then instructing a technician to lock on to the target they had chosen. They smiled as they said, 'Fire away!'... then it seemed like there was a bit of a ruckus, everyone seemed to be shouting all at once and nothing was comprehensible and then the video seemed to cut off suddenly at that point.

Upon viewing that video, Ra'ki, and most everyone present, was crying and their fists were clenched in anger.

Ra'ki asked what happened to Thulark, so they showed her the video that Liyana had made for AFNN, showing the devastation of the planet and the senseless killing of over a billion people.

After watching the video, Ra'ki excused herself and left, as all of the girls followed just to make sure she was OK.

Everyone else was visibly mad, saying that they hoped Sebastian was still alive, so they could torture him to the brink of death, heal him and then do it over and over again.

A notification came through to Adam saying the medibed was now displaying 1:12.

Adam informed everyone, "We'll hopefully get more answers in a little over an hour, when that Hawker tech gets out of medical."

Trayak was very near the edge of the sensor network, so the Poseidon's sensors were already scanning far out into uncharted space. They dropped a couple of sensor beacons to cover the gap between the nebula and the rest of the network, so at least this nebula was now monitored.

Ahead of them, the scanners were detecting the gaseous anomaly and had correctly identified it as a nebula, but was suggesting avoidance. Mark now understood why Ra'ki called them micro nebulae, usually nebulae are massive clouds hundreds or even thousands of light years across, thought to be the dust and gases of an exploding star. This nebula though was still fairly big, at roughly 200,000 cubic kilometres in size... but quite small on the galactic scale, about two-third of the distance between the Earth and the moon.

They continued toward the nebula, with those on the bridge enjoying the beauty of the blue, purple and green cloud in front of them. While everyone was commenting about how pretty the cloud was, Adam and Mark just stared in awe at the slowly morphing nebula, wondering what mysteries lie inside and beyond.

Myrria and Nyssia informed Adam that they had determined from the computers and data, that Hawker and Sebastian had managed to board a shuttle and escape before the ship exploded. They couldn't tell the shuttle's destination, but they did see it got away OK and it was headed in the same direction as the other ships. So there was a good chance that they were now with the Rifters.

During the sub-light trip from Trayak to the nebula, the Sentinel had completed all four rift jumpers, so they stopped at the edge of the nebula and deployed the first pair of rift jumpers. One was set to go into the nebula and the other was set to go around the nebula and drop 6 sensors.

Everyone watched in anticipation, as the rift jumper entered the nebula. They could detect it for a brief moment and then it disappeared from the scanners. Mark stared at the point in the nebula where the rift jumper went in, knowing that if it couldn't communicate, it was programmed to turn around, exit the cloud and drop sensors around the periphery. After a minute, there was still no sign of the ship and it wasn't detected on the scanners, so Cricket set the protocol parameters, for the other rift jumpers, to drop six sensors around the nebula before entering it. Hopefully by having six sensors covering the X, Y and Z axis, they could make an approximate calculation of where the rift in the centre of the nebula was.

They then watched the second rift jumper as it proceeded to circumnavigate the nebula as it deployed the six sensors. Several minutes after deploying the second rift jumper, the first rift jumper emerged from the cloud, albeit in a different spot from where it went in. It updated it's protocol and joined its partner dropping sensors until all six were deployed, then they both entered the nebula.

Since the other pair wouldn't enter the nebula for days, there was nothing more they could do. Adam then suggested heading by Thulark on the way back to Silica, so the Hawker tech was going to be fully recovered soon and they could see what they did to the poor people of that planet.

More time than they thought must have passed, while they watched the first stage of the experiment, for as soon as they entered FTL, a message from the medical staff informed them that the Hawker technician would soon be out of the medibed.

Mark and Adam made their way to medical, just in time to meet the guard escorting the Silican woman to a cell.

Like other Silicans, the technician was tall, she was close to 7'6" in height and looked very fit and was knockout attractive. She was very attractive with her long blue hair and blue eyes, she had huge breasts that had to be at least DD size, and a very shapely body.

Upon seeing Mark, she smiled and said, "You look exactly like Sebastian described you, I suppose you're here to torture and interrogate me?"

Mark laughed, "No, that's not our way. Besides we downloaded everything from the ship so there's not a lot that we don't already know. What is your name and what was your role on the Star Hunter?"

The technician replied, "My name is Astra, and I was Brian's mistress, I didn't really have an official role on the ship. Do you think Sebastian and Brian survived?"

"Well there's a good chance they survived, they both managed to get into a shuttle and flee before the ship exploded."

"I hope you catch them, I want to rip Brian's balls off for leaving me to die!"

Adam and Mark both laughed, as Mark asked the next question, "Do you have any idea how many of those construx devices Sebastian had?"

"Once we met the Rifters, they started working on some designs for new ships and I remember Sebastian saying he only had 9 left, those might be the devices you are referring to? The Rifters didn't have faster than light travel, so from what I gathered, they were going to go through the rift, build some huge new ships and transfer everyone to those and then lose the Destructors by using faster than light speeds. Then the plan was to find a habitable planet and call it home."

At that point in time Annabelle and the rest of the girls showed up to see the new girl.

Mark nodded his head as he turned and explained to everyone else what he was thinking, "That's exactly what I would do in that situation as well. As soon as Ra'ki said nothing was faster than light, that immediately told me how to lose the Destructors. If they can only travel at sub-light speeds, I would go through a rift and, if there's no planets anywhere close to that rift, I would find an asteroid field and build the new ships, then transfer everyone to the new ships and use FTL to escape, leaving the old ships there for the Destructors to destroy. That would leave the Destructors in the middle of nowhere and no one to chase, but at sub-light speeds it could be hundreds to thousands of years before they encounter another habitable planet."

Adam then asked the next question, "Do you know why they attacked Thulark?"

The look on Astra's face dropped in a heartbeat, "That was just awful. They wanted to try out some new automatic targeting system they had developed, so they were going to fire the particle weapon and some missiles at Thulark's moon. Unfortunately the targeting system went awry and instead of targeting the moon, it locked on to all the cities and started launching missiles. They tried, but couldn't gain control of the system, so they eventually powered down the entire ship and restarted it to get control back, but by then the time everything came back online, the damage was done. They couldn't bring themselves to go down to the surface to see if anyone survived. I take it you've been there? Were there any survivors?"

Mark said, "Yes, we've been there and out of more than a billion citizens, there is less than 50,000 survivors on the entire planet! We've given them a fighting chance at survival, but they're a long way from getting over what happened."

As Astra started crying, Mark turned to Adam and quietly said, "I don't think she is much of a threat."

Adam shook his head in agreement and asked, "We're still returning to Thulark and then Silica though aren't we? She probably has family worried about her."

Astra pleaded, "Brian said that once we left there would be no going back. They're probably going to arrest me and lock me away. I went through university as an engineer, I have skills, can't I just stay with you?"

Mark said, "Well, that is a possibility, but we do have video evidence that you weren't an active crew member on the bridge, so hopefully they'll be lenient."

Adam then left for the bridge to begin the journey back to Thulark, just as Annabelle, Rayven, Ra'ki and Athena showed up and Mark introduced everyone, as Astra then asked, "What are you going to do with me am I going to be put in a cell?"

"No, you're our guest! Don't you have any family that would be worried about you?"

"My only family is my sister, and she is one of the reasons I left. We've always dreamed of visiting other worlds and since the Empire found us and we knew there was life on other planets, we both promised each other if we ever had a chance to go off to another world we'd take it."

Annabelle smiled, "You sound just like Luna, she almost begged us to take her with us when we left Silica. We really should have, she was a lot of fun."

Astra was curious now, "Luna? Is she a tour guide with blue eyes and blonde hair that is usually in a pony tail?"

Annabelle smiled and nodded, "Yeah, she was awesome!"

Astra smiled, "She's my sister!"

Rayven said, "We could probably call Luna during a comm-stop and let her know you're safe."

Ra'ki then asked, "What's a comm-stop?"

Solara explained, "When you're travelling faster than light, there's no real-time inbound or outbound communications. There's exceptions and protocol changes from time-to-time, but the current standard procedure is to stop at least once every day to allow for communication updates to occur, but I think most ships actually stop twice a day now."

They then took Ra'ki and Astra for a tour of the Poseidon. They eventually ended up in the royal quarters as that's where the girls had decided they should stay since there was still a number of unclaimed rooms in the residence.

During the walk, Annabelle had said, "We really should have taken Luna with us, I miss that cute little heart tattoo on her ass!"

As they were shown around the royal quarters, Astra and Ra'ki each claimed one of the unused rooms, Laruun and Marta still had their room, even though it was currently unoccupied.

Ra'ki was giddy, from not only now travelling faster than light and safe from the Destructors, but that she actually had her own room. Apparently the Rifter ships were quite crowded, so unless you were a senior officer, there really wasn't any personal space. When she claimed her room, she flung herself onto the bed and writhed in the blankets with a look of bliss on her face.

Astra picked the room right next to Ra'ki's, so as she sauntered in she looked back at Annabelle and said, "Did her tattoo look anything like mine?", as she crawled onto the bed with her ass facing the group and slipped her pants down off her hips, giving them a full moon and a beautiful view of her pussy, complete with a heart tattoo just like Luna's, but on the other cheek.

Annabelle wasted no time in going to the bed and kissing Astra's butt cheek right on her tattoo. Then licking through Astra's pussy and saying, "Yes, but hers was on the other cheek!"

Astra then turned around and started undressing as Annabelle and Rayven did the same. All of them giving Mark sultry looks, as he stood just inside the door with a very visible bulge in the front of his pants.

When Ra'ki looked in to Astra's room, she just smiled at the scene developing on the bed as she patted Mark's bulge and said, "That bed looks pretty crowded, why don't we take care of this in my room?", as she grabbed his hand and led him next door to her room.

Once inside her room she jumped up on Mark, wrapping her legs around him so she was tall enough to kiss him. It was a bit different with her long forked tongue, but enjoyable nonetheless, as they both worked to remove the other's clothing while still engaged in the kiss.

Mark unzipped her jumpsuit down to her waist while she removed Mark's cowboy hat and shirt. Mark lowered her to the floor, her jumpsuit continuing it's journey to the floor as she stepped out of it. Her shimmering scales morphing between the yellows, oranges and reds as her naked body was on display for Mark to admire.

Ra'ki sank to her knees and proceeded to unbutton Mark's pants and pulling them down around his ankles. Then staring at the huge bulge in his underwear, she grabbed the elastic waist and pulled them down, allowing Mark's cock to spring free, slapping the grinning girl in the cheek. Her long forked tongue darting out from between her lips and wrapping around his cock.

Surprisingly, she had not only strength, but control of her tongue as she was able to hold his cock steady, as she turned her head, then pulled it into her mouth.

She must've used her tongue, or maybe it is something her species can do, but she was able to take his entire cock into her mouth and throat, all while seeming to be stroking his cock.

Looking down into her slitted reptilian green eyes, Mark could see she was enjoying what she was doing.

Sensing Mark wanted something more, she guided him back onto her bed, never allowing his cock to leave her mouth, and as he lay back on the bed, she spun her body around so his head was between her knees and his eyes looking up at the area between her legs. Her cute little rosebud asshole was clearly visible, but you had to look pretty closely to even see the slit where her pussy should be.

Using his hands, he grabbed ahold of her ass and upper thighs and squeezed softly, spreading the skin between her legs and exposing a beautiful black pussy, not just black skin with pink insides, the insides were black as well, just like her mouth.

With the exception of the colour, it looked like a very tight human pussy with a very small clitoris. She moaned as Mark ran his tongue through her very exposed, very wet pussy. Her pussy tasted a bit like coffee, but it could just be that she did drink her coffee black, just like Mark and that was the way her body processed it. Either way, Mark enjoyed the flavour very much as he continued to devour her pussy, licking as deep into her as his tongue would reach.

With Mark's attention focused on the delicious pussy in front of him, he wasn't getting any closer to cumming himself as Ra'ki soon started orgasming. Her pussy excreting a sweet and slippery substance and aroma. In that state, Ra'ki got up, repositioned her pussy above Mark's cock and let it slip all the way inside as she lowered her pelvis to his.

She started moving her body almost like a snake as Mark could feel her pussy massaging his cock.

With a huge smile on her face, she asked, "I know it's different from other girls, but do you like this?"

Mark raised up and kissed her, "This is incredible, I didn't think you'd be able to take me all in like that."

Ra'ki said, "I can take more!"

Mark gave her a sly look, "Really?", as he felt the tingling in his cock as it began to grow inside her.

Ra'ki groaned as she felt his cock growing. She started weaving her body more and more as Mark went further and further into her body.

Suddenly her eyes got huge and she let out a very lusty groan, "Oh wow, you're touching my womb. This feels incredible!"

She began to rock a bit more as her body continued to undulate, it felt like the entire inside of her body was massaging the entire length of Mark's cock, yet they were barely moving.

Soon Ra'ki threw her head back as her body began to orgasm, squeezing Mark's cock, yet continuing to massage him, feeling her tighten around him soon had him joining her as he began to squirt what seemed like litres of cum deep inside her.

As they came down from their orgasmic bliss, the others had apparently came into the room to watch the grand finale. Suddenly realizing they had an audience, Mark's cock kept it's hardness as Ra'ki said, "You might want to pick me up and lie me down before pulling out."

Doing as she said, Mark picked up the shimmering girl and laid her down on the bed, the central portion of her upper torso a brighter red than the rest and a clear outline of Mark's cock going all the way up to the base of her breasts.

Everyone saw the outline of his cock, as Annabelle said, "Are you kidding me?"

She then moved in so she could stroke Ra'ki body where Mark's cock was. Ra'ki said, "You can pull out now."

Mark began to withdraw from her steamy depths as everyone watched, licking their lips. The telltale bulge of his cock retreating from Ra'ki's body as Annabelle's hand followed it down.

When Mark finally exited her body, everyone gasped at the size of his cock. Rayven quickly dropped to her knees and put her arm beside it, his cock was almost the size of her arm and about 24" in length.

Annabelle quickly spread Ra'ki's pussy slit apart and licked the leaking cum from the panting girl. Rayven quickly joined her and in no time, they had all the cum cleaned up.