Dominion of Terra Ch. 01

Terra

I love the United Dominion Navy.

We're planetside on Mars and they've got us in quarters with real, honest to god, hot water showers. I can't think of a thing I love more than waking up to hot water. I yawn, stretch my legs out. Hot water only just beats out leg room, just.

I nuzzle into the shoulder of the woman sleeping next to me and kiss her neck, jaw, cheek, ear, shoulder, whatever I can reach. She's never been a morning person, so when she mumbles it's cute as hell. She hates waking up.

"Petra." I whisper. She grunts and curls up tighter, pushing her ass against me. That perfect ass. She wiggles it against me, getting comfortable under the real blankets. This is the life. I circle my finger on the smooth skin of her shoulders, trace her ear and jawline. I let that same finger fall down her collarbone and to a nipple. I let my finger just barely graze it, circling and feeling it stiffen.

She mumbles again, this time with a little less enthusiasm, her breathing slows and deepens and she grinds that ass into me. I trace my finger down her taut belly, following the curves of her body with my hand until I reach her legs. She lifts her leg, turning over toward me and mumbling something. She wraps that leg over me and her lips meet mine, her tired tongue in my mouth and her eyes still closed.

We kiss for a long time, we don't have anywhere to be, just enjoying the feeling of the warmth of our bodies wrapped in one another. Then her hand is between my legs and her fingers find me wet and ready for her. She circles my clit with her finger and I moan into her, moving my own hand to her cunt, returning the favor. Our mouths are still locked together, moaning into one another.

I feel the energy building, kissing her harder, finding my own breath hard to catch. She finally opens her eyes and I lose myself in them, her fingers graceful. We cum together, pouring out everything and moaning it out. It lasts forever, rolling over us, until we are left in each other's arms in a comfortable bed, content and half asleep.

"How long do we get to stay here?" Petra asks, surprising me. I thought she'd fallen asleep.

"In bed? I have work in four hours."

"No, planetside." She says. "I like this."

"Few more weeks. Don't think about it." I don't think about it. We've been handed a huge gift, don't worry about it. Couple weeks planetside finishing up work on this new ship before we launch, then we launch on a brand new Haelstorm-Class Destroyer. The Archer. Sexy ship, almost as sexy as Petra. Almost.

"Want some coffee?" I ask. I think Petra might cum again at the mention of it, the way she moans. We've had real, real coffee here too.

"Yes. Absolutely, yes."

"Want to shower?" I nibble her ear, then I whisper into it. "I got a surprise for you." Her eyes finally open, Petra loves surprises. This one she'll definitely love, there are so many perks about being planetside.

"Surprise, then coffee?" She says.

"Race you there."

Findlay

"Wake the fuck up!"

I wake the fuck up, with all the grace I can muster in the moment. It wasn't much. I struggle from the itchy fire blanket and thin sheets, tangled around my legs and arms. Bright white lights blaze to life overhead, revealing dozens of metal bunk beds in neat rows. Revealing tired faces with sunken eyes rimmed with dark circles, revealing half dressed or entirely undressed soldiers, men and women alike.

I hardly even notice it now, I sleep in boxers most nights myself. I'm too busy pulling on the dark gray shorts and matching socks they issued me, followed by a t-shirt emblazoned with my name on the breast. None of the recruits bother with looking now, four weeks of Sergeant Gray and Sergeant Blue is enough to see to the death of our collective sex drive. Let your tits hang, let your dick fly, no one gives a fuck anymore. It's Sergeant Blue that parades the barracks now, roaring commands and using his baton to strike at any recruit that moves too slow for his liking.

"Findlay!" Blue roars, smacking me across the lower back. "Shirt but no shoes? You going to run in bare feet, you fucking idiot?"

"No Sergeant!" I roar, pulling the shoes out from under my bunk.

Goddamn it, I think. Some asshole has tied the laces of my shoes together. Sergeant Blue's grin immediately identifies the culprit. I get to work pulling with my thumbnail, freeing the laces up.

"Come on, Fin, trade me." Private Recruit Neesha Howland says, grabbing the shoes and working at the laces with her smaller fingers and sharper nails. In exchange, I receive a knotted shirt. She's topless in front of me and I'm more focused on the goddamn shirt, because of course I am. Kneeling on the floor together, we work at the problems. We've been been assigned as fireteam partners, attached at the hip and suffering the same punishments. It's a boatload of fun.

"Two Section, let's fucking go!" Private Recruit Konner Varejo shouts. He's been recently assigned as Section Leader and has turned into an enormous prick almost immediately. Not that I blame him, Section Leader is not an enviable position.

"Why the fuck are we even doing this?" Howland mutters, finally pulling the laces free and trading it for the unknotted shirt. She pulls on her shirt and I pull on my shoes, jogging out the barracks to join the rest of the platoon. Sergeant Gray is waiting, cheap cig in his mouth, smoke curling up around his head. Man is always smoking, keeps him thin I think, like a beanpole.

"Form up." He grunts, cracking his neck and pinching the red tip of his cig off, crushing it beneath his boot. "Five miles today, stretch it out."

We do, following his lead. Basic range of motion stuff, things we're getting used to.

"How many weeks of this left?" Howland whispers to me.

"Six more weeks." I say. "Six more goddamn weeks."

"Findlay! Eager to talk? Why don't you and Howland set pace."

Aw, fuck. We both groan and jog to the lead, starting the run.

Welcome to the United Dominion Marine Corps.

This shit sucks.

Terra

"You hear? Lampray went off the rails." Petra whispers it, not supposed to talk about stuff like that, can cause a panic on a ship. Like everyone doesn't gossip, not much else to do in port.

"No shit!" I say, tapping my pad to send the report on the electronics panel to engineering. Everything looks good, as it should, brand new ships shouldn't have electronics problems. It's not like we're working on some rusty tub.

"Yeah, they were shooting between Sol and Cygnus, no one knows much more than that." She's so furtive, eager to share this. It is big news. Ship like that goes off the rails, well, it's going to be news. Usually older transports do that, only a handful of crew get lost. This a different story. I finalize the report and stand up, brushing off my pants and heading for the corridor.

"Christ, Lampray is a battleship, that's gotta be seven hundred hands or more."

"She had a full company of UDMC grunts too, nearly a thousand souls, stuck out there in the black." Petra says, following on my heels. Petra's in logistics, she has less to do than I do. I'm on my third round of quality control checks for electronics, engineering doesn't have a lot to do on a brand new ship.

"Better not talk about it too loud, likely to run into someone that's lost a friend, or family." I say, nudging Petra as we pass two other UDN officers, nodding at them. We're all just pacing the ship now, caged dogs waiting to be released.

"Hey, Petra, Terra!" Naylor jogs the corridor to catch up with us.

"Naylor. You're unbuttoned." I point it out. Naylor is a decent sailor but he's a pretty shit officer. We're all wearing our working uniforms. Petra gets a dark blue uniform with pants and a tunic, braided with gold. She's considered part of the Command, they wear the fancy shit. Naylor is a security officer, almost more marine than sailor. He wears a dark gray with a black braid, a full suit that's meant to fit under the light armor that he and his wear during general quarters. Right now he's missed a button and it's left him looking haggard as fuck.

Since I'm engineering I get to wear a dark orange jumpsuit, even as an officer, with a yellow braid. Remove the braid, you get the uniforms of the non-commissioned sailors, easy enough.

"Oh, shit." Naylor fixes himself. "You hear about the Lampray?"

"Christ, Naylor." I say. "Does anyone not know?"

"It's huge news! Thousand hands lost, it's twenty percent of Eighth Fleet's firepower! Everyone fucking knows. Outers have been making a big deal of it too."

"Shut up." I hiss, a few officers passing by us in the corridor. I hear one of them whispering about Lampray so clearly that was a waste of effort to shut Naylor up.

"Why?" He asks. I look at Petra and she laughs behind her hand. Naylor is big and dumb, some of us have a bet on why he ended up in the navy instead of the marine corps. One prevailing theory is that a recruiter hated the navy and snuck Naylor through the process, just to mess with us.

"It's huge." He whispers, deciding that the issue is he is not being conspiratorial enough. Except when Naylor whispers it is like a ship's engine. "Rumor is they're going to deploy us to back up Eighth, outers have picked up the fight."

"Shit. Lead with that shit!" I say, punching Naylor in the arm.

"What?" He is still confused. On cue, the shipwide comms light up.

"Attention all hands, attention all hands. Officers to the bridge, repeat, officers to the bridge."

Naylor lumbers off ahead of us, but Petra grabs at my arm and stops me from following.

"Terra..." She whispers, looking around. "I left it in the shower."

I laugh. Naylor just told us we're probably deploying to a combat zone and she's worried about a fucking dildo. I look too, quickly kiss her, and then we head for the bridge, giggling about the surprise for the next officer assigned to that room.

Findlay

We shower communally, racing through the process under lukewarm water. We have thirty minutes to shower, shit, and shave. Plus make our bunks to their standard, throw on the black and gray camouflage working uniforms and the maroon berets. We also have to strip our rifles and lay them out, then we'll be inspected, fail inspection, and be punished in some new, fantastic way.

"Why are we doing this?" Howland asks, washing herself beside me. We've taken this fireteam partner shit seriously, they beat it into our heads enough. Never be away from your fireteam partner, never more than arm's fucking length.

"I don't fucking know." I say, scrubbing my face. I'm already sweating and I'm just in the fucking shower. "Something about patriotism? Sure as shit isn't the money."

She laughs. Thirty seconds later we're toweling off, heading back into the barracks to start dressing. Once I've got my pants on I start on the bunk, straightening sheets and blankets, getting them ready.

"Alright." She's just in a bra and the working pants, helping with the sheets. I steal a quick glance down her cleavage.

"Christ, Fin." She says, grinning. "Four weeks you've seen my tits, almost every day for four weeks."

"Can't help it, Howler." We get the first bunk done, onto the second. We have fifteen minutes. Then it's on to breaking the standard issue long rifle of the UDMC. We lay out the pieces as the platoon agreed, that was the first week when the Sergeants demanded we work that shit out. They really enjoy this, I know it.

Once they're laid out, we finish throwing on clothes, five minutes left. The rest of the section gets checked, everyone's squared away, even if the Sergeants will find something to rip apart. Sixty seconds.

"Check me out?" Howland asks. No time for jokes now, they're about to kick in the door. I do a quick once over of her uniform, no straggler threads.

"Clean, check me?" She does.

"Clean."

We take our positions at the bottom of our bunks, adopting the at-ease position, hands behind our backs, staring straight ahead. Twenty seconds. I take a deep breath.

Ten.

I blink, trying to control my heart rate. Worst part of the day is starting it.

The door opens.

"Room!" Someone from the far end shouts. We come to attention. I hear more pairs of boots on the floor, it's not just Sergeant Blue and Sergeant Gray. They thump down the hall between the bunks, heavy steps, hard steps. I stare ahead, breathing.

"Private Recruit Jayme Findlay?" The voice is stern, older. Captain Mehar. She is severe, we hardly ever see her, this is odd.

"Ma'am."

"Your brother is Corporal Anton Findlay? UDMC."

"Yes ma'am." Now I'm confused. Why is she asking about my brother. He's on the Lampray, they're in orbit near the Jupiter Rayle Station. I got a message from him just a few days ago.

"I'm sorry." She says. I look down to see that she is holding a gold pin. Oh.

Oh no.

I take it with a shaking hand. Sergeant Blue and Sergeant Gray both seem apologetic. Slow blinks, no yelling, nothing. My brother went off the rails. He's out there in the emptiness of space and we'll never find him.

Captain Mehar is gone after that, no fanfare, no big deal of my brother's inevitable death. It's just a fact of life.

"You good, Findlay?" Sergeant Blue asks.

"Yes Sergeant." My voice cracks, betraying me. I tuck the pin into my front pocket. Sergeant Blue steps forward and opens my pocket, takes the pin out, and pins it to my collar. He looks human for a minute, like a real man with real feelings instead of the heartless instructor he's been for the past four weeks. He talks quietly, maybe Howland can hear but she'd be the only one aside from me.

"You're a marine now, son. You wear this pin, wear it proud. Your brother was a good man. Deserved better. Put all that, everything you're feeling, into this. Got it?"

"Yes Sergeant." I answer him quietly, as he finishes attaching the pin. Then the man, Sergeant Blue, is gone. In his place is the asshole, Sergeant Blue.

"Did you get dressed in the dark, Howland?" He roars. "Look at this shit!"

Got nothing else now, nothing but the Corps.

Terra

"Now, none of you should know anything about this but I'm certain you all do." Captain Wren knows the score. "We are being deployed to assist the Eighth. I'm sure you are all aware that Lampray went off the rails, along with a company of marines. It is a substantial loss in the middle of unrest with the outers."

"Show of force then?" Rymer is the XO, he runs combat stations and personnel.

"Exactly it. Since we're new, they want us to do a proper test run. They've set out ten weeks for it. On the way back, we're picking up a platoon of fresh marines and running them out too, UDMC wants extra bodies."

Shit. That's really bad. We can only carry a platoon and on our first run they want to use that space. I regret not sleeping in longer in that warm, comfy bed. I'm not going to see it again for a while. Awkward shipboard bunks for me.

"Engineering, I want us ready to launch. XO, I want crew accounted for. You all know your jobs, get them done. Dismissed."

We file out and get to work. Petra is pulled off so I won't get any more gossip or secret kisses, shit. Time to work, time to be professional and get this tub into space. Looks like we're deploying sooner than we expected. I feel the excitement of it, the nerves that linger behind it.

"Terra." Laurel is the Chief Engineer, my boss. We work in the belly of the ship, the grimy parts. We work a bit more relaxed than some of the crews, until the ship is in trouble. Then we work everywhere.

"Boss?" I ask.

"Everything's ready?"

"I have checked this ship from nose to asshole three times, I've checked the panels, wiring, stations, fucking everything. We are ready to fly."

"Good to hear." Laurel nods. "I want you to run three teams, rapid response, if something breaks on launch I want them ready to hit it."

"Seen, boss man."

He laughs, shakes his head at me, and is off. Laurel is...odd. Not a people person but, he is an engineer. We're all a bit odd.

No matter, we've got ten weeks of travel ahead of us.

What could go wrong?

Findlay

Day's over, thank fuck.

We have three hours of free time, time for us to do whatever we want. Like study, run through weapons drills, polish boots, all the things we really want to do. I sit on my bunk and rub my thumb over the gold pin. All it's bought me was a single day of breathing room from the instructors, a day of pity and it was hardly even that.

"You alright?" Howland asks me, sitting on the bunk beside me, hand tucked inside a boot and the other polishing it to a shiny black mirror.

"Not really." I tell her.

"Yeah." That's all she's got for me. Not much else to say on it. Nothing anyone can do, when a ship goes off the rails they can't track where or when. Avlan Rayle invented the greatest tool that humanity has ever had at our disposal, the massive stations that are capable of crossing universe gaps in days, instead of years. But, sometimes, in very rare cases, a ship goes off the 'tracks' between a and b.

We can't get them back, we can't find them, they've left the tunnel.

I have to live with that.

I'm left with that when it's lights out, all of us laying in our bunks and passing out. Except for me. When I close my eyes I feel the darkness pressing in around me and it's like a fist around my heart, clogging my lungs. I toss and turn and break into a cold sweat. So I quietly slip out of my shitty blanket and sheets, pull on a shirt, and pad down between the bunks in my bare feet toward the toilets and showers.

I push open the door just enough to slip through, poor shits that sleep near the door are always complaining about the light and I feel bad about it. My feet slap quietly on the cold tile, echoing in the hallowed halls of sinks and toilets. I turn a corner and stop, half past the wall, pressing myself against the wall.

Wasn't my feet echoing.

It's Varejo. Well, more accurately, it's Varejo and Erskine. Erskine's got his cock halfway buried in Varejo's ass, one meaty hand on our section leader's shoulder and the other gripping the smaller man's hips. Varejo is bent over, both hands holding on to a sink for leverage. Erskine pumps steadily, his cock sliding in and out with each thrust, Varejo biting his lip.

"Perv." Howland scares the fuck out me, whispering into my ear. "They've been at it for two weeks now, I think it's love."

Erskine grunts, plunging his cock to his balls and cumming, throwing his head back when he does. Then he pulls his cock out, dripping cum on the floor, before dropping to his knees and swallowing Varejo's own offered cock. Erskine bobs his head up and down the length.

"Christ." I breath out. "And Varejo is still that tense?"

"Come on. Don't be weird." She pulls me away, both of us quietly leaving the two of them to keep at it. She leads me past a bank of stalls, through a smaller hall, into the showers. It's darker here, only the lights in the main washroom stay on all night. Something about saving power. Around the edge of the room there's a short lip that sticks out from the wall, a place to shove your shit while you hurry to shower.

We find a place and sit.

"Couldn't sleep?" She asks, sitting against me.

"No. Keep...I keep seeing him in the dark."

She sucks air through her teeth.

"Shit. Sorry Fin, I mean...I don't know what to say."

"Nothing to say, Howler. Is what it is, just gotta put one foot in front of the other, you know?"

"Didn't know you were a philosopher." She says, elbowing me gently. I laugh, just a little laugh. She smiles.

"Look, Fin." She says, a few seconds later. "I wanna ask you something. I don't want you to freak out or anything but, well, look."

"Spit it out, Howler." I say, leaning my head back against the cold tile and closing my eyes.