Derelict 0006

"Fuck. Floorplan." The gridlines painting the room faded to a pale, translucent yellow, and subverted behind a layout as best her HUD could display it. There was some skewing at the edges, which she guessed was probably because the ship was cylindrical and her suit was designed to show two dimensions.

After a bit of searching, she found what looked like an approximation of an elevator shaft eight hundred meters away. Her motion sensors still hadn't detected anything. No sound beyond her own breathing and footfalls. Not a groan, or a shudder. No mechanical humming. The urge to illuminate her path was brief and fleeting; it wasn't needed. Hitomi moved quickly and quietly through the black, the butt of her M-2 high and tight against her shoulder.

There were regular narrowings in the hallway. She guessed those might be sealable bulkheads, to prevent a vacuum leak from spreading, but it gave the impression of rooms. All identical but more familiar and less alien, and that calmed her nerves a fraction for reasons she couldn't process in the moment. She had good traction against the material on the floor. There was a light layer of dust, at most, but her smooth, gliding stride kept sound to an absolute minimum.

She slowed as she entered the eighth room. Abutted into the far corner was, as near as she could tell in zero light, a hole in the ceiling. The floor beneath it was flat and undelineated, utterly unremarkable under her feet. She gazed up as she moved under the hole, her HUD painting the shaft through to the third level. That's where I want to be, she thought, lowering her rifle for the first time. She ran her hands along the walls, finding a granite-like texture; no handholds or rungs that she could feel. Nothing to help her get up there. Hitomi walked back out into the center of the shaft and sighed. The fact that her craft obtained solid maglock on the outer hull was a good sign that she might be able to scale the wall with the ascent kit, but that was back in the cockpit.

She turned to head back, and then paused when her suit detected a small power surge. The floor surrounding her began to glow; a broken line of soft yellow. Hitomi backed into the corner away from it, M-2 raised and scanning, but there were no targets. The pale light did next-to-nothing to illuminate the room. An urgent, panicked feeling gripped her as she realized how exposed she was, but before she could dart away, she felt the floor rising. She dropped down to one knee, trying to look everywhere at once, as the elevator climbed.

She grit her teeth as she approached the second level, eyes wide in acknowledgement of her tactically inferior position. She swung her rifle over her shoulder and withdrew her M-109. The platform continued upwards, taking her past the second level.

It happened slowly, but as Hitomi reached the third floor, she saw more of the insides of the ship for the first time. Indirect, ambient lighting gained in intensity, and she gawked. The proportions here were scaled down, looking very much human-sized. Not just human-sized, but human-like. Hairs raised on every part of her body. This could be any room on any ship she'd ever served on.

She swallowed hard as she took her first step off the platform and onto diamond-plated decking. "Are you getting this, Colonel?" Nothing. "Colonel?" She winced as her comm burst in a static-filled shriek, and cursed. Her cautious combat glide carried her surely through the empty vestibule toward an extremely human-looking door on the far side. Nominal oxygen and nitrogen levels; breathable. HUD put her distance to the node at nine hundred meters. The door opened in front of her as she cautiously approached, and she tensed. Hitomi switched back to her M-2, inspecting the room beyond as much as she could before pressing through into it.

The second room was more spacious than the first, otherwise unremarkable except for the raised, rectangular platform in the middle. An oblong, translucent bubble, approximately two meters long, covered most of the platform. Hitomi's eyes darted from corner to corner, assessing the threat while keeping her peripheral vision on the object around which the entire room had been designed. She was nearly on top of it before she let herself really look at it.

Her rifle fell away, becoming lead in her hands, as she stared through the frosted glass. Her left hand reached forward, unbidden, palm flat against the shielding. "I—" Her throat closed entirely, cutting off her voice in a squawk. Her lips moved without sound as she stared down, eyes widening. The rifle clattered noisily against the deck plating.

She jumped as the cover retracted back into the platform, revealing the comatose body of a young human female. one-point-six meters tall, with long blonde hair. Her clothes were just like Hitomi remembered them, right down to the damp, bloody bullet hole in the shirt. Hitomi clicked off her helmet, letting it too fall from her fingers with a crash. "Al..." she croaked. "Alise?"

It can't be real, she thought. It can't be real. It can't be real. For the first time since holding Alise as she died, Hitomi Motomo felt fear. Paralyzing, mind-numbing terror. She managed a half step backwards before Alise's eyes popped open.

"No!" Alise screamed, as she sat up. "No!! Oh God!!" Her hands pressed tight over her stomach. "Oh God, is this my blood?" She pulled at her shirt with crimson-covered fingers, revealing the smooth, taut stomach that had been there right up until the last second. No bullet hole. "Am I okay?" Her panicked, labored breathing slowed slightly as she looked up. "Tomi?"

Hearing her pet name again after so long had a jarring effect on the confused and stricken Marine.

"Tomi, are you okay? Is this your blood?"

"I ca... I ca..."

"Where the... what happened to your hair? Whoa, and where have you been hiding that suit?"

"Alise?" Incredulity overrode all thought, all emotions.

"The last thing I remember is my legs giving out. Are we in a hospital or something?" Alise raised her shirt again and poked her finger through the bullet hole. "The blood on my shirt is still warm." She grimaced as she lifted her shirt up and over her head. "Euugh..." The tops of her jeans were soaked too.

"Al..." Hitomi stared, mouth agape. Alise had often gone without a bra. Didn't need one. Hitomi had always been a little jealous, as her own breasts were just large enough to require it. The blonde's puffy nipples popped in the cold, and Hitomi whimpered.

"Where did you—" was all she managed before Hitomi lunged at her, taking her head in both hands and kissing her fiercely. The blonde recoiled weakly, smiling despite the liplock. "Christ, Tomi," she murmured. "I'm fine. I just—"

"Shut up," Hitomi hissed, her fingers raking through dirty blonde silk. Alise moaned happily into the kiss as she reached down to unbutton her pants.

"What if the Doctor comes—"

"I said Shut Up." Captain Hitomi Motomo glared intently, and with every ounce of her rank, but the girl grinned mischievously.

"Yes Ma'am," she crooned in response.

Hitomi grabbed the zipper of her flight suit, and suddenly they were racing to be naked. Alise had the advantage of starting halfway there, but her sneakers slowed her down. By the time she had them off and out of the way, Hitomi was already down to just her polyester shorts and fully nude mere seconds after that. Alise coyly dragged out removing her jeans, pointing her toes and letting the fabric bunch in the webbing of her thumbs as she bared the sun-darkened flesh inch by blessed inch.

"Have you always been that ripped?" Alise asked, as she laid back on the rectangular platform.

"Do I have to sit on your face to get you to shut up?" The wry quip popped out without thought. It was her go-to with Givens; he wasn't a big fan of cunnilingus, and analingus was completely off the table.

"Yes Ma'am," Alise crooned, even more emphatically. The end of her lip and eyebrow rose in unison.

Hitomi hesitated only a moment before hurdling onto the table, completely unable to stop herself in the moment. The blonde giggled as she lowered herself, and she sighed as a tongue slithered down along her slit and pressed against her backdoor. She reached back and grabbed her cheeks, whitened fingertips sinking into her muscular rear. Alise whimpered, happily smothered, her tongue burrowing in earnest.

"Oooh fuck," Hitomi moaned, her head rolling back into her shoulders. Waves of long-missed pleasure spread outward from her core, and her breathing became labored. Intentional or not, having edged twice already today wasn't helping; her wellspring of emotions was churning and threatening to boil over. She bent forward, planting one hand on the platform for balance, while the other dove into Alise's wet cleft. Her fingers curled inward, easily finding the g-spot from muscle memory, while her thumb rubbed down on the blonde's sensitive button. Alise's muffled groans ripped through her middle.

Hitomi gasped watching the muscles in Alise's stomach clench and contort as she struggled for breath. The blonde pulled her legs up, knees out and toes pointed. The deep blue polish on her nails shined as brightly as it had when Hitomi had put it there. Alise groaned harder, louder, tonguing her even more emphatically in response to her frantic fingering.

"Mmmfuck," Alise slurred. "Thasshuit made you sho shweaty."

Hitomi fought as hard to hold back, as she was at trying to get the woman below her to cum first, but her raging orgasm would not be denied. She moaned louder and louder, her knuckles white around the edge of the platform, as she inched closer to the release she couldn't manage on her own. She pressed herself down, feeling Alise's hot breath blasting against her skin as she came. Her voice echoed loudly in the square room.

"Keeegoin," Alise mumbled. "Iwannacumwishyou."

But Hitomi was already cumming. Her fingers moved with rabid desperation, trying to bring Alise to completion, but the thin blonde showed no signs of being close. She rolled forward onto her elbow, panting through the agonizingly-sudden peak. Her hand snaked around Alise's hip, smearing and spreading the stream of fluid that flowed down out of the blonde's slit.

"Yes! Two fing-Yes!" she screamed, as Hitomi penetrated her ass.

"I remem..." Hitomi trailed off as the young woman beneath her broke into a frenzied twist. She hung her head and swung off the side of the platform, bracing herself against it for support.

"Gaawd," Alise moaned, several glorious seconds later. "You play my body like an instrument." She squirmed on the dais, relishing in the warmth. "Mmmmmm, how long until the Doctor gets back?"

Hitomi knelt down, taking the blood-stained shirt and jeans in hand. "The Doctor isn't coming."

"I'm okay then?"

"At 1632, Four May, 2461, you were shot in the stomach." Her voice was mechanical. Empty.

"It's a good thing I got better," Alise said dreamily, not really listening.

"The bullet struck your abdominal aortic artery." Emotionless. "You didn't scream or cry. You just looked confused, and then you passed out. Dead within seconds. They told me there was no pain."

"That's... that's not funny," she whispered, sitting up.

"It was a stray bullet, fired from almost two kilometers away. The opening shots of an armed uprising in the Corliss Cluster."

Alise blinked. "Why are you talking about it like it's—"

"This is not a hospital. We are not in the Corliss Cluster. It's not 2461."

With every word, Alise curled in on herself more tightly. "Tomi, you're scaring me."

Hitomi looked back over her shoulder, her eyes reddened. "I joined up the next day. I couldn't handle it, so I bottled. Shut it up in a jar that I only opened whenever I got one of them in my sights. I shared my pain with every pull of the trigger."

"You? You couldn't—"

"Do I look the same to you?" Hitomi stood again, putting her muscled, scarred body on display. "Do I look like I'm still 22? Can't you see the... the haunted tightness around my eyes?" she shouted, pointing emphatically. "I promise it's there! Every psych eval I've ever had talks about it."

"But last night! We were—"

"Last night was 23 years ago." Finality permeated every word.

Alise was quiet, really looking for the first time. Her eyes roamed to the door opposite the one Hitomi had come in from, widening in fear. "Wh-where am I?"

"I have no fucking idea."

"Then how did you find me?!"

"I wasn't looking for you, I just... did." Hitomi looked down at the ruined clothes in her hands. It was so much blood. "Can't wear these. Here." She tossed Alise her own smallclothes, and picked up her suit. "We can't stay."

"Why not?" she asked, as her head popped up through the neck of the shirt.

Hitomi blinked. "We just... can't." She zipped her flightsuit up over her bare skin, tucking the gloves into a leg pocket as she bent to pick up her rifle.

"Whoa! Tomi!" Alise slipped away from her, to the opposite side of the platform. "You know how I feel about those things."

"Yeah, well you might change your mind if you had to see what one of these did to your girlfriend."

"No," Alise said, shaking her head. "I don't think I would."

Hitomi laughed bitterly, running her tongue along the inside of her cheek. "That's real easy for you to say."

"That's not fair!"

"Watching you die wasn't fair," she snapped.

"Please, I'm trying to understand!" Alise whimpered, as Hitomi moved toward second door. "Are you dead too?"

"Don't be absurrrr..."

Hitomi blinked as she stepped through the door and into the open streets of Taunin III, major trading hub of the Corliss Cluster. Light cloud cover in a blue sky fading to orange in the afternoon light. The twin suns burned just below the silhouette of the city skyline ahead of them. Her mind reeled.

"I thought you said we weren't in the Corliss Cluster?" Alise's voice was distant as she moved to stand next to Hitomi.

"We... we aren't. This isn't..." Hitomi squinted and shook her head, stupified. "Can't be."

Alise walked past her, looking everywhere. "Is this a dream?"

Hitomi took a few steps to the left as she stared at the sky, and frowned. "Do those clouds look right to you?"

"Who cares about the clouds!"

"We're on a vessel in space," Hitomi insisted.

"Well of course we are," Alise said. "I mean, what is a planet?"

"That's... that's not what I meant." The Marine stared at the walls of the alleyway. Ahead and behind. "We're on a craft of some kind."

"Isn't this the alley behind Fouchad's bistro?" Both women leaned to the side, staring up at the skyline. At a drab, brown building half a kilometer away. Yellow towels hung over the balcony of a room on the 18th floor, waving slowly in the breeze. They'd left them there to dry after spending the morning at the beach. Suddenly, Alise spun, looking back the way they'd come from. "That door went into that little knick knack shop. The one you kept sneezing in."

"This isn't Taunin," she argued.

"No, but the way it just shifted from one place to another..."

"This doesn't make any sense."

Hitomi continued down the alley, following it around a bend, until it emptied out onto a back road. The street was empty except for the two of them, and all the little shops were still there. Fouchad's was still there, right where she remembered it. A tiny restaurant specializing in classic recipes reinvented with local ingredients. They'd gone there every day for lunch during their stay, indulging in one of Taunin's best kept secrets. There was only one table outside; both chairs were tipped over, just as they were the last time Hitomi had seen them. The concrete sidewalk was stained red behind the chair tipped over backwards. Alise moved slowly to hover over the pool.

"This is where it happened, isn't it? That's my blood."

"Hello?" Hitomi cried, as she walked toward the door to the little shop. No answer. She shielded her eyes and pressed her face to the glass window, but the storefront was dark. Something was off. "Does that counter look right to you?"

"This is where I died," Alise whispered. "I feel like I'm standing over my grave right now."

Hitomi squinted into the distance, listening. There were indistinct murmurs, the sounds of life in a city. Transports, local creatures that vaguely resembled birds. Distant conversations. Nothing close enough to see. Nothing close enough to understand. She turned back to Fouchad's and tried the door, but it was locked.

"Please say something."

"I think this storefront is fake," Hitomi growled.

"That's not what I—"

Hitomi spun her rifle around and slammed the butt against the tinted glass in the door, shattering it. The sudden crash of sound echoed loudly down the street, and Alise jumped back a few steps with a scream. Hitomi bashed the door frame a few times, knocking loose the jagged remains, and froze. Just at arm's length inside the store was a wall. She leaned through the door and scraped the tips of her fingers against the painted facade in horrified confusion. "It's fake."

"Is that all you can say?" Alise's voice was choked, but she barely heard it.

"This is all fake." She turned and stared at the cringing blonde. "None of it's real. That's not Fouchad's and you didn't die there."

Alise's face pinched with tears. "...When did you become so cold?"

That hit Hitomi like a slap in the face. She'd lost count of the number of times she'd heard that over the years, but to hear it coming from Alise hurt. "I'm sorry," she said softly.

"I get that you've been through some stuff, but I'm going through it right now." Alise looked so fragile. She'd always had such an indomitable free spirit, and Hitomi ached to see her like this.

"I'm-I'm sorry."

"I don't know what to do with this, Tomi! Why the fuck am I here?"

"I don't know."

"Rhetorical," they said simultaneously. Alise laughed softly through the tears, as she padded closer on bare feet, but Hitomi looked like she was going to be sick.

"Thank you for not forgetting," she whispered.

Hitomi nodded weakly, looking anywhere but at the pretty blonde pressing against her. "We should keep going," she croaked. Alise nodded and fell in beside the Marine, as they headed down the street.

"I know these aren't real," Alise said softly, as she stared into the buildings and windows they passed, "but I don't care." Hitomi nearly jumped out of her skin when the young blonde took her hand. No sooner were their fingers intertwined, comfortably familiar despite the years apart, than Hitomi was pulling back, putting her hand firmly on the stock of her M-2. "Your hands are rougher than they used to be."

Hitomi nodded, fighting to keep the panic from her expression. "A lot's changed."

"I didn't say that was a bad thing," Alise whispered, flashing her not-so-innocent smile. "What I meant was that I'm... I'm happy to have you any way I can get you." Hitomi nodded and swallowed, looking everywhere but beside her. "Are you going back to our hotel?"

"I—" She came to a complete stop. The drab, brown building loomed ahead. "Alise, I'm here on a mission. I wasn't looking for you."

"I don't understand."

"I was sent to investigate this ship. When I got here, they sent me to investigate a part of it. That's where I'm going."

"So we're not... going to the hotel, we're just moving in that direction."

"Yes," Hitomi said, sighing in relief.