Dry, No Lube Ch. 02: Pixy's Choice

"Shit, ma'am." Klonmyre kicked the hatch closed and worked her staytab. "I thought you were on watch."

"I'm the First fucking Officer," Pixy grated. "I'm always on watch." As always, she enjoyed the slow unveiling of Klonmyre's flesh as her clothes came inching off, the younger woman still rubbing sleep from her eyes.

"The engines are doing fine, thanks for asking." Klonmyre stepped out of her boots and posed just out of reach, always such a little fucking torturer. "You sure you don't want a quiet night of cuddling, Pix?"

"I saw the engine report already," she replied evenly, "and no, I don't want a quiet night of anything." She uncoiled herself off the mattress and lunged, ignoring the twinge in her back, yanking the little engineer bodily into bed. "Fucking tease," she muttered, rolling Klonmyre over onto her back.

"Yeah, well." She scrambled up toward the pillows, her brown eyes wide and sparkling; Jannelle Klonmyre was not a woman to shy away from sex, no matter how tired she was. "Long day." Whatever she was about to say next was stifled at once by the force of Pixy's body on hers, the twisting lips that began to devour her mouth, and her own responsive moan as her legs came up and around.

It had been days since the two of them had warmed each other's bed, but that wasn't enough to explain this; Klonmyre was already breathless and struggling to keep up as Pixy grappled insistently at her little body. She was used to Pixy's wiry strength and passion, but this was something else. "Jesus," she gasped once she was finally able to get her face disengaged, giggling as Pixy sucked at her neck. Their arms were tight around each other's bodies. "Was it something I said?"

"Less talking, more screaming," Pixy replied viciously, and then it started: the wild, vicious licks and kisses all down her body, and Klonmyre settled in. These kinds of nights had a rhythm, a pattern: Pixy was not generally a woman who liked to be taken care of, which meant Klonmyre spent a great deal of bedwarming time on her back with the older woman's face between her legs.

Klonmyre did not mind that at all.

"Yes," she whispered simply, her hands hitting the plot repeater as she gained leverage to drive herself down the mattress; Pixy was already down there, running her tongue across Klonmyre's mound, that well-known little nose tickling at her clit. She shivered, as she always seemed to when Pixy got her hands on her ass and started prying her skinny little pussy open with her sarcastic tongue, and felt the tension leave her body in a rush as she let her hands toy lazily with Pixy's hair. Everything came out in a massive sigh, those gorgeous purple eyes staring up into her own mousy brown ones, and it was at times like these that Klonmyre's face started to hurt with all the smiling.

Klonmyre tasted like sweat and flesh and the glorious, intoxicating musk of arousal, but this time Pixy wanted more than that; it wasn't enough to nibble on her sensitive, enticing clit, nor even to feel those strong smooth abs rippling against her forehead, and Pixy obeyed an urge she only half-understood as she came away, her face shiny.

"What?" Klonmyre's eyes lit up; she always got unduly excited at the prospect of being the nibbler, rather than the nibblee, and it wasn't something she got to do often. "Want me to do you this time?"

"Sort of." Pixy's voice came out as a chopping, harshly controlled set of syllables. "I want to ride someone tonight," she announced, and then she was crawling up the younger woman's body, accepting the embrace of Klonmyre's snaky arms, their legs already tangling. "Been trimming your fingernails, Jannelle?"

The engineer grinned deviously, craning her head up to give little lizard-licks at whatever part of Pixy's body came into reach. "Wouldn't you like to know?" She never felt playful like this, not even with her husband. "I suppose you can find out, if you really want to."

"Oh, I want to." Pixy reared up over Klonmyre, sitting on her thighs now, both of them panting as they took in each others' nude, twisting bodies. Klonmyre was already moving her hands down to where Pixy's legs met, toward the long, eager slit that stared at her now in all its slick, shiny glory. "Go ahead, little bitch."

"You first." Klonmyre rested her fingertips just outside Pixy's vagina, right where her inner lips peered out red and swollen. Always teasing. "You're in charge here, remember?" A gentle caress across the older woman's clit. "I feel like I need a little professional development."

"Fuck." Pixy's violet eyes fluttered, her hands resting gently on Klonmyre's belly, and then they began to drift lower, inward. "I'm going to fucking destroy you tonight," and Klonmyre's face showed how badly she wanted that very thing, and then it was all fingers in cunts and twisting grimaces as the two of them went at each other's holes.

Within just a few minutes, Klonmyre knew she was in trouble.

Pixy was always considerate; she felt it was important to make Klonmyre feel good, but there were some nights, nights like these, that she tended to take things too seriously. She swiveled her hips over Klonmyre's fingers, fucking her like she was a man, and all the while her thumbs dug insistently for Klonmyre's clit. It was intense and stinky and sweaty and the room blowers were having a great deal of difficulty fanning away all the heat in the air, and all the while the stars whirled in the viewport surrounding the unwelcome boots of the electrocoating crew.

"Shit," gasped Klonmyre, and Pixy reached down to smack at one of her breasts.

"Something wrong, little Jannelle?" she taunted, murmuring, with unusual cruelty in her eyes. "Losing control, maybe, just a little?" Their bodies kept driving together, grinding, their hands sore where they weren't numb, and then Klonmyre came with a compact, efficient series of thrusts and grunts, her brown eyes rolling back in her head while Pixy, towering above, just laughed. "That's it..."

But she didn't stop there, her fingers still twisting and rolling at Klonmyre's pussy, and the younger woman squirmed; it was all too much, too fast. Her eyes wide and rolling, Klonmyre grabbed for Pixy's wrist. "Slow down," she managed, begging. "Feels fucking good..."

"Oh, I know it feels fucking good," Pixy snarled, her hips still driving. "Keep that finger up in there, Jannelle!" She was getting close, the sights and smells hypnotic, and now she gripped Klonmyre's breast with painful intensity. "Keep it up in me!" She was wild, her whole body swinging and shuddering. "Come on!"

When Pixy finally got there, Klonmyre was still numb with her own extended orgasm, her body way overstimulated; both women glowed bright red and blotchy, and even through her own stormy brain Klonmyre was able to give a sigh of delight when she saw Pixy's eyes close. The older woman's body shuddered and thrashed violently for a time, and then the stillness came, and both of them collapsed into the ruined sheets and panted, listening to the overworked room conditioners.

"Christ." Klonmyre rolled with difficulty to face Pixy. "You okay?"

The purple eyes blinked back. "Sort of?" She darted forward for a kiss. "Sorry, Jannelle. Didn't mean to scare you there, but... I mean, a woman's got needs sometimes."

"Fuck." Easy cuddling then, the warm flesh meeting, their breath mingling. "If I'd have known this was coming, I'd have gotten more rest earlier."

Pixy took a deep breath and stared out the viewport. "Well. Go ahead and get some now; I won't stop you."

"I'd say I already got some." Klonmyre waited until she heard a laugh, then pushed her head into Pixy's chest and closed her eyes.

* * *

PART II: The Voyage

* * *

"Jesus fuck, Amisuul. You're doing it again."

"What's that, ma'am?" His expression remained carefully sheeplike; Pixy had a flash of insight, realizing her nagging wasn't going to make him a better performer.

She modulated her voice, even though that made it nearly impossible to hear her in the cavern that was the Pulver's Main Bay. "You're fucking up, is what I mean, but just think about it a second. What is it we're making room for here?"

"The Army's shuttle."

"Yup. And that shuttle's going to need to be loaded, ultimately, with what?"

He frowned. "Soldiers, ma'am." She just kept staring until he got it. "Ah. Explosives."

"Explosives. Bolts. Bullets. Bell charges. Detonators. Platter charges. Mines. Grenades. All the mindless shit that soldiers carry." She waited, forcing herself to count to five while he hopefully figured it out. She got to six, going on seven, before he finally snapped his fingers. "That needs to be loaded in the..."

"Shuttle! We should manifest all that ordnance in here, instead of Bay Three!" He shook his head. "But I thought explosives couldn't be stored where sailors are billeted."

"You've been studying. You're correct, Mr Amisuul, and congratulations on knowing Transport Regulation #15.7. But see, that regulation mentions sailors. It says nothing about soldiers." She smirked, a very supply-officer smirk. "Does it?"

He cocked his head doubtfully. "But, isn't the intent to separate the people from the bombs?"

"Sure. But two things, Mr Amisuul: one, they're soldiers. They're trained to deal with explosives, and they're going to end up carrying them anyway. And two? It's a regulation. The intent doesn't matter, just the way it's written."

He sighed and yawned, flipping the manifest pages. "I just... it feels wrong."

"Of course it does." She gave him an encouraging clap on the shoulder. "That's why supply officers don't have feelings. Cheer up, Mr Amisuul. We're heading out tonight; after that, all this crap will be secured and you can go back to pimping." He did brighten at that, but the grey fatigue in his face was still there three hours later as the Army shuttle came into range.

"Docking ring first, then Main Bay." The captain himself was controlling all this, a delicate maneuver that required a long, painful checklist. Getting a troop shuttle into a cargo bay was not a simple task. "Lieutenant Cooper can offload all his guys at the ring, then their pilot can come around to the Bay. That'll be your piece of the puzzle, Ms Pfeiffer."

"Ready, sir." She was spectating for now, standing back by the hatch. It was weird, she reflected, to have a full bridge crew after all this time in the Basin; weirder still to see Joop Koster in Pixy's seat, minding her monitors. No, scratch that; it wasn't her seat anymore, not for this trip.

No, her ass would be planted in the big chair at the helm from now on, steering the ship. That was the First Officer's station at general quarters, and now it sat empty because the Pulver still wasn't moving. She'd be there in a few hours, though, once the shuttle was secured and the time came to move out.

Above her head, the last of the electrocoat was going onto the hull armor; the job still wasn't 100% complete, but it was close enough for Fleet work. She frowned as the shuttle approached the Blue Point where it would need to shut off its gravity to avoid messing with the Pulver's systems. "Magnify," she told the scanner tech, and the little ship leapt into focus. "Looks weird, sir, doesn't it."

"Hell yes." They both stared: a normal, run-of-the-marbleck shuttle Mark III, type large, subspace, and yet it looked so different. "I'm so used to seeing them in grey." The craft was green, with oddly rippled stripes fanning back from the nose.

"Apparently it's their own ship. Like, just for that platoon. Cooper was telling me about it." The Placer/Extraction platoons were designed to be totally self-sufficient, he'd explained. "Got their own pilot and crew chief and everything."

"Must cost a fortune, outfitting a unit like that."

"They say that's why the invasion of Cygnus XIX cost so much, sir: they had to send in, like, twenty P/E platoons just to do all the recon properly." She assumed it was the same for any major-planet invasion, but that was the only one Cooper had been on. "Cooper was saying they spent thirteen days with no relief, just off what they brought along. I guess doctrine is, like, ten days."

Reye glanced coolly at her. "Getting to be quite friendly with Lieutenant Cooper, sounds like," he muttered.

Pixy just stared back, coldly neutral. "I'm trying to make sure I know what the Army's needs are in this mission, sir. Nothing more."

Reye's quick stare in return was just as neutral, carefully so. "Excellent."

"Blue Point, sir!" The tech had one job: that one announcement. He called it out with flair and a certain panache, like a guy introducing a singer.

"Okay." The captain picked up the microphone to call the shuttle, and that's when Pixy headed for the hatch; she had work to do. The Main Bay needed to be depressurized, its tiedowns checked, the gravity burped, all the windows deiced, guidelights checked and calibrated for the shuttle's speed...

"Sir, what closure rate are you going to give them at the Main Bay?"

Reye paused. "Three meters per second."

"Cool, sir." She was out the hatch without bothering him further; they'd all learned, and quickly, that Zonn Reye did not really enjoy small talk. Aside from his silly fucking motto, which still made no sense to anybody, he seemed decent; at least he could make a decision, which was more than anyone could say of old Captain Crick. That one had collapsed to the deck in a pool of vomit when in crisis, and Captain Reye didn't seem like the type.

She got all her supply geeks behind the barrier, doing a headcount before she punched in the depressurization code. Kluwer was off in a corner with Denman and Ana, trying to figure out what odds to give on the over-under for the Rat Bet. "Hurry it up," Pixy growled. "Place your bets; we've got real work to do here."

"Just a sec, ma'am." Kluwer had been slow to emerge from his shell, but he was an experienced warrant officer who'd run a betting pool on his last ship. More whispered consultation followed, and then the vague rustle as pay chits went into his pocket. "Okay, ma'am. Over-under is sixteen; want any action?"

"No." Pixy never gambled, especially on something so stupid. "De-press!" she called, then counted the requisite five seconds, and then she slapped the valve. At once the windows went cloudy grey, showing the sudden and intense fog of explosive decompression. "Get on the gravity, Ana."

"Aye aye, ma'am." The Tygon Whore laid competent fingers on the lever, waiting for the order. "Set."

"Right. Everybody grab on." The fog cleared. "Kluwer? You ready to count?"

"Sure!"

"Gravity, Ana." The hiss made the trip tremble slowly. The hulls on these GP ships never liked localized gravity burps; the rumor was that doing too many of them could cause a breach, though nobody would ever swear to having seen one firsthand. Pixy felt slightly sick, like she always did, as her feet slowly left the deck, rising as zero gravity took hold. She felt herself drifting clear of the window and then casually reached out for one of the handles. A green light shone on Ana's console.

"Clear, ma'am," but Pixy was already working the deicers, and Kluwer leaned forward as the view cleared. In the hold the rats were rising, their little lungs ruptured by the decompression; most would drift out into space as soon as she opened the doors. His finger was jabbing at the window. "Got it, Klu?"

"Think so." He jabbed a few more times, then frowned. "Got it, ma'am."

"Cool." She reached over to trip the hatch alarm, the chimes ringing briefly through the whole ship, and then the massive arc of space appeared at the far end of the bay as the doors louvered themselves open.

"Twenty-two!" Kluwer announced, to the mingled groans and cheers of the folks who'd bet. He glared over at Pixy. "My over-under was off. Gotta get rid of some of those things, ma'am, before next time."

"I think I just did," she shot back, watching as the frozen little creatures tumbled around randomly. She was checking to make sure the guidelights were set for 3 m/sec. "Okay. Now we just wait." She glanced around, the younger sailors already doing what young sailors did in zero-G, spitting so that they could watch their saliva form globules, shoving each other into the ceiling; the usual. "Limit your grab-ass, people. We'll be back at normal G in about three minutes." Already she could catch the glow of the shuttle's landing lights as Reye turned the ship to catch the glidepath. "Shit. More like two minutes."

The shuttle was there, suddenly, the micrometeor pits gleaming dully. It was already backing in, looking like it was allowing just the barest amount of lead to account for Reye's momentum; the pilot must think he's a badass, she reflected. He swept past the zero point with a stylish fishtail. She spotted no wobbles, no wavers as the shuttle closed with the Main Bay; impressive. At forty meters, the Army pilot straightened out and flipped his tail, and then he was well into the glidepath. "Sweet," murmured Ana. Pixy could only agree; she was a fine pilot herself, and usually she spent moments like this spotting flaws.

The mottled green craft settled, knocking a rat out of the way; the little chunk came bouncing off the window in front of Pixy. "Let's see if it goes out into space," Denman piped up; just as well, too. She was the lowest-ranking sailor here, meaning she'd be sweeping up the little corpses after re-press.

"Two meters," Ana called, eyeing the landing gear. "One meter..." She didn't bother calling zero, as they all felt the magnets engage as a dull metallic clunking noise through this entire side of the ship.

"Hatch alarm. Get ready for gravity." The great doors slid shut like a wheezing old man settling into a tub, the servos working hard. "And... gravity in three. Two. One." People worked, contorting their bodies to get their feet under them before Ana threw the lever, but it was no use; there was always some staggering that went on. This time, it didn't seem anyone was puking at least; that would have made Denman's day all the brighter. "Everyone okay?"

A chorus of affirmative syllables, the rustle of swapped money, and the evolution was over. Pixy kicked the valve. "Repressurize and secure."

The hatch opened automatically once the pressures equalized, and Denman was out there with her broom with commendable speed; pretty soon, Pixy told herself, little Denman would outrank that horrible fart McChang. "Okay, everyone. That's it. General quarters for departure at 2100; until then, go ahead and carry on with whatever Chief has you doing."

The shuttle vented, harmless hydrogen drifting toward the scrubbers, and Pixy reached the side hatch just as it cranked slowly open. "Hey, in there!"

"Hello." The man was old, cracked with time, like he'd been shattered into a million pieces and then epoxied together. He descended carefully after the steps swung out. Pixy was no expert on Army ranks, but there were a lot of stripes on his arm. "They call me Woj."

"Pfeiffer." She offered her hand, his feeling like a bag of bones as she shook. "A pleasure. That was a nice fishtail."

"Thank you." He squinted up at her. "Are you the Pfeiffer with the medal? The one with the overpowered hard-dock, out at that 447 engagement?" Pixy sighed. She was used to questions like that by now; Detached Engagement #447 was what Fleet was calling the battle that had made her reputation and destroyed Okonfwe.

"The same." She nodded toward the hatch and Woj fell into step beside her. "Just a lucky day for the shuttle."

"With you aboard? I suppose. Lucky for the whole ship too, or at least that's what I read."

Twenty dead, Pixy reminded herself, but this Woj clearly meant it as a compliment, so she smiled. "Thank you. One of your people should be here for you shortly; we've got you folks in the Number Four hold for now, but you'll be billeting in here with the shuttle." And the ammo, she left unsaid; a man this experienced would have noticed the stacked pallets right away. "Just give my people an hour or so to get things tidied up in there."