First Contact: Birth of the Phoenix

"Don't worry Rider, Jazz and me, we'll figure something out, we always do," there was a long pause, "so, this stuff with the ship, it just doesn't make sense, you know that right," It was Granger's curse, he just couldn't leave a technical problem alone?

"So that's what's keeping you awake, figures," I laughed.

"I mean, you've got plenty of power, but not enough to run the main engines, coms work but only one way, your med bay and replicator are fine but if you turn on the lights in the cargo bay, you lose lights everywhere else, and no matter what, life support is rock solid. It's too specific."

I let him keep going. He spouted ideas for thirty minutes before he asked if he could see the engineering console. Moving to the engineers station, I brought up the controls, accessing each system as he asked about it and translating what was on the screen, we had been at it for over an hour when he finally threw up his hands and turned to walk away, almost running over Jazz, who was standing right behind us.

"Why don't you just reboot the damned thing, couldn't hurt. I mean Drell and Rider have been all over this thing for days, inside and out, it's not mechanical, and it's doesn't make sense. The only thing I can think of is somebody fucked up the software; and what do you do with a computer when it gets wonky; you reboot. Hell, it's been that way for over four hundred years, ever since that jerk Gates invented Windows."

"You know, humans are loud," Drell smiled as he stepped into the light of the console, "and while that is a good idea, it is not possible. It requires that we shut down the entire reactor and we would need something to initiate a reaction to restart it, so we would effectively be killing ourselves to try and save ourselves. You don't happen to have a portable fusion reactor with you, do you?"

I looked at Granger, he looked at me," Oh shit," Jazz shouted."

"Well, Drell actually we do," I went on to explain the power supply for my EVA as best I could, assuming it wasn't destroyed in the fall, it should be more than enough to jump start the ship.

Realizing we were all standing around the engineering console completely naked, we broke to shower and to get dressed and would reconvene in the crew lounge for breakfast and to lay out a plan of attack. Drell scanned Granger and Jazz into the ships system, giving them interpreters and showing them the replicator, they chose the same selections as me and we had a de facto uniform on the ship.

I was getting clean clothes from the replicator in our cabin when Drell walked in, there was a subtle difference in his scent, the pleasantly almost sweet aroma that I had grown used to now had a slightly bitter edge. He got in the shower without a word.

I followed him, "Drell, what's the matter?"

"Nothing, really, it's just that for some reason, I find myself jealous of your encounter with Granger."

"Oh," I looked down, "you know about that. Drell, I don't know what to say."

"Trellians have a very good sense of smell, it is accentuated when," he paused, "bonds are formed. My scent, and yours, were on him and his on you."

"This really bothers you, doesn't it?"

"I have no right, but yes, it does; Case, even when we get to Trellis, I would prefer to not share our attention," When Trellians blush, their faces turn a lovely rose shade of purple. It was possible the nicest thing anyone other than my mother had ever said to me.

"I think I can handle that," I slipped into the shower with him, wrapping my arms around his neck and my legs around his waist, guiding him inside me. Enjoying each other in the tight space was amazing.

We ate quickly, deciding on delegation of duties as we finished our coffee; Granger, Jazz, and I all agreeing that the coffee was reason enough to help get Drell back to Trellis. Granger and Jazz were going to work on my suit, Granger had already unpacked his toys; tools, sensors, and meters were meticulously arranged on the counter across the room. Drell and I would search the cargo bay to see if we could find something to build a connector.

It took almost six hours before Jazz screamed, "Fucking hallelujah, Granger you gorgeous genius, it works!"

Connecting it to the reactor took another hour, we all waited patiently as, one by one, the four recharge bars on the console slowly turned yellow and, then green, and then blue. I looked at Drell as I moved my hand to start shutting down systems. One by one the options on the console went dark until only the main reactor was left, I looked at Drell again; he nodded, then Granger and Jazz; they nodded; I held the safety with one hand as I turned the small lever to the left with the other and the soft hum that had underlay every other sound on the ship went quiet, the only thing left were the four blue bars for the recharge battery.

Drell wrapped me in his arms, Granger did the same to Jazz and we waited, it took five minutes for the console to flash and reset, the blue bars were joined by a green button with the Trellian word for 'RESTART' on it.

"Go ahead," Drell relaxed his arms and I reached out, turned the lever back to the right, and pushed the button. A soft whine, then a muffled bang sounded from the engine core, the ship shuddered briefly, and the four blue bars were quickly dark, but the familiar hum was back and lights flickered on all over the ship, it had worked. One by one systems came back online, the console was alive with status checks and multicolored readings. Several times the Trellian messages 'Corruption encountered,' and 'Corruption resolved' flashed on the screen.

We were all physically, emotionally, and psychologically exhausted. Granger packed up his toys while Jazz and I permanently attached the EVA reactor to the engine core; we didn't know if or when we might need to reboot and the four bars on the console were filling again. Drell busied himself with the replicator, preparing a celebratory feast of Trellian delicacies, including finding a bottle of a Trellian wine in his personal stash.

The food was delicious, the wine had been enhanced with a drop or two of Trellian pheromone, by the time we had finished eating and cleaned up, we were all so horny we couldn't stand it. Drell handed Granger and Jazz each a small container, instructing them to remove the top and touch the exposed receptor with their index fingers, before touching their neck just below their chin and the inside of their opposing wrist. They followed his instructions, he smiled and told them to have fun as he grabbed my hand and half dragged me to our room.

"Do I get one, too, I smiled at him?"

"Trust me, you will not need it."

He was right.

"Case, Case, wake up, I told you I monitored your communications, remember," Drell was doing his best to rouse me from my orgasm induced coma?

I heard other voices, one familiar and the others not.

"Base this is Alpha, still no sign of Granger and Jazz, Rider either for that matter."

"Alpha, this is Marshal, did you find the crawler?"

Fucking Marshall had sent a team to find Granger and Jazz when the storm broke.

"Affirmative, parked at the top of the canyon, the storm covered any tracks so there's no evidence of which way they went, possibly over the edge, not sure if by choice, that storm was pretty bad."

"Roger, set up camp at the crawler and do a standard search from there starting first light, and keep me informed on everything you find, I don't care if it's a god damned hangnail; I want those deserters back here so I can hang their sorry asses properly. Marshall out."

"Well, that sucks," Granger was standing in the doorway, Jazz under his arm, they were both still naked and had obviously been interrupted by the voices over the com system, "so Drell, you wouldn't happen to know anybody looking for a few good people for their crew would you, kinda looks like we don't have much to go back to either," he looked at me and gave a weak smile.

"And for more of that stuff you gave us after dinner, I'd follow you anywhere," Jazz was absolutely glowing. I was amazed either one of them was conscious.

Granger smiled and kissed Jazz on the top of her head, "to be fair, we pretty much already decided to go with you anyway, before desert."

We skipped breakfast, but the coffee was a deal breaker, after we'd all had a cup, or two, we got to work. We had no idea how long it was going to take the marines above us got to the ledge we had been perched on which meant we needed to be someplace else. Drell and I took the controls, using the maneuvering thrusters to slide down the wall to the bottom of the chasm where we could engage the main thrusters to make our way to its southern edge, up the side of the chasm, disengaging them to glide just off the surface and out of reach of the camps sensors to a smaller chasm just outside the secure zone where we could figure out what to do undisturbed. Jazz was working on updating the nav computer with enough information to sync with what it already knew and was monitoring all communications in and out of Candor while Granger was taking inventory to determine what we needed to find for the trip to Trellis.

It worked perfectly, the only comm traffic was standard chatter, the later it got, the less there was. Jazz was making progress and Granger had finished his inventory.

"You'd think this thing was a diplomatic transport or something, the closet things to weapons are effectively ceremonial, we have plenty of soft stores, water and biomass for the replicator, but it wouldn't hurt to get more, and you need a new EVA, in fact, I wouldn't mind having several of the new models on board, just in case."

"You're going somewhere Granger, just say it."

"Jazz, can you bring up a surface map on this thing?"

"Sure," she touched a spot on the map and the display quickly zoomed into our location. Granger panned out slowly until another canyon to our southeast came into view adjusting the display to show the entire area.

"Recognize any of this," Granger looked at me?

"Yeah, war games last year, there's the riverbed and there's the gulley," I smiled and looked at Granger.

"Yup, and that whole area is still full of crap that has never been cleaned up, if we're careful, and a little lucky, we could back up to the garage door and take whatever we want."

"I don't understand what you're saying, isn't that the control center for your entire base," Drell pointed to the mountain that towered above the area Granger and I were talking about.

"It is exactly that, and this," I pointed to the gulley, a narrow canyon running due east from the bottom of the mountain, "leads to a tunnel that leads to the main storage area for the war games. Everything we could ever want will be in that facility, all we have to do is walk in and ask nicely."

"What about security?"

"First, anybody on duty when we go in is going to be so low on th ladder, they're probably still in diapers, second, the one thing I know for a fact about the marines in that base is, they are exceptionally well trained and the one thing they are trained to do better than anything else, is follow orders, so, if a Master Sergeant and two Staff Sergeants in full EVA, even if it's beat to hell, come in and start barking orders and know the proper protocols, hell, they would give me General Santiago's jock strap."

We decided to go ahead and move to the next chasm before the sun came up, just to put more distance between us and Alpha squad, the flash from our engines got pinged once by the scanners but it was written off as unexploded ordinance since there couldn't possibly be anybody out there."

Granger had already disabled the trackers in our suits so we spent the next day getting my suit working, I wouldn't have my converter but the rebreather would give me two to three hours of air which would be more than enough time to get in and out of the base. Granger and Jazz had more than enough in their tanks to get the job done. Drell helped Jazz with the map and monitoring com, the only news was that Alpha squad didn't find anything and Marshall was sending help to expand the search.

"Excellent, Marshall was looking the wrong way."

Just before dinner, I slipped into my suit, pressed the rank insignia on my chest and felt the familiar rush as the suit compressed to fit my form, the helmet locked in pace and when I said 'system check', my heads up filled with green and yellow indicators, the obvious exception was the CO2 converter indicator which flashed bright red and started to give me countdown for the air available through my rebreather. There were a few issues with the pneumatics, but nothing critical; we were good to go.

For the first time since I had woken up in his bed, Drell and I did not make love, neither did Granger and Jazz, I slept fitfully as thoughts of what was coming and knowing full well the risks involved, if caught, we would all be doomed to our own personal hell. At 0200 we got up and put on our suits, Drell and I navigated the ship down the shallow reverbed and into the gulley, spinning it around and landing just outside the large doors to the tunnel and opening the ramp to the cargo hold. By our calculations, we had just enough room for three full sleds of gear, we probably only needed two.

Suits on, Granger, Jazz and I headed down the ramp and into the tunnel while Drell stayed behind to assist with loading from his end.

"State you name, rank and business," came the voice over the speaker.

"Master Sergeant Case, spot inspection, now open this door soldier," I barked with all ten years of my experience.

The door opened and we made our way to the second set of doors and the air lock, a single Private stood there, if he had been on planet a week, it had been a very short week, I could see it on his eyes.

"Who's in charge of this mess private, I need to see them right now," a Lance Corporal who looked like he would rather be anywhere else but here walked up behind the Private," Can I help you Sergeant?"

"Spot inspection, open this door now, Corporal!"

"I'll need to see your...," I didn't let him finish, explaining in great detail that this was a spot inspection and not something he was not supposed to know about and that I he didn't cooperate, he would be monitoring comm traffic in the ring before he started shaving. The door opened. I spent the next two and a half hours playing a sadistic version of Simon Says with Private Simmons and Corporal Evans, having them unstack and restack as many things as I could while Granger and Jazz went shopping for whatever we needed. By the time we were done, we had filled our list and managed to borrow several crates of whatever was in Colonel Marshall's private reserve, it was beautiful. Simmons and Evans were exhausted and glad to see us leave; oddly, everything in the warehouse was almost exactly where it had been when I got there. It would take weeks to discover what we had taken.

We retraced our route down the gulley and through the riverbed, into the chasm, using the sunrise to mask our engine burn, we flew straight into the sun until we were clear of the planet, circling around, Jazz identified an abandoned mining colony in the ring where we docked and went to bed.

I don't know how long I slept, but I awoke to the rich, aroma of Drell's musk and a familiar warmth spreading from my crotch though my legs and torso. Moaning as I opened my eyes to find him buried between my legs, using his lips and tongue to tease and excite my most private parts.

"Good morning," I let out a long sigh as a wave of pleasure washed over me. He kissed my clitoris and smiled at me, "and please don't stop on my account," another soft moan. He smiled again and went back to his task taking me deeper and deeper into that glorious warmth, kissing and teasing and nibbling at my core bringing wave after wave of sexual gratification, each one stronger than the one before until I had no choice but to surrender completely to the mother of all orgasms, my body shuddered and then froze as I screamed, "Oh my fucking gawd!"

Drell worked his way up my stomach, his tongue leaving a wet trail in his wake, pausing and toying with my navel, slowly making his way toward my breasts as I fought to catch my breath, his lips found my engorged nipples, gently sucking at my breast, he entered me driving me once again into the throws of rapture, his scent overwhelming my senses as he climbed with me to the pinnacle of our mutual delight. We exploded together, falling through a seemingly unending surge of pleasure, clinging tightly to each other as the spasms turned to shivers then to gentle swells, he slid from my aching wetness and the sweet soft scent of apricots filled my head.

"Drell, how do Trellians ever get anything done," I laughed as he rolled from on top of me, heading for the toilet?

"We are amazingly focused on what is important to us," he looked over his shoulder and smiled at me," I thought you would have figured that out by now," the door closed behind him and I found I could not help but smile.

The next days were spent sorting through our bounty and trying to figure out what to do next. We had made almost no progress in getting the nav map to synch with our current location and that meant we were still stranded, except I was now officially dead and Granger, Jazz, and some mystery red head were fugitives from military justice. The ease with which we had waltzed into a secure area had been a major wake up call for base security throughout the solar system, while they didn't have an exact inventory of what was missing, Marshall was beyond pissed.

We listened to all com channels vigilantly discovering that the leading theory was that Jazz and Granger had been working with a group of Ringer pirates. This meant that patrols throughout the ring had been intensified and we had to move frequently to avoid detection.

On a good note, among the items Marshall had donated to our cause was actual food from Earth; a case of chicken eggs and several slabs of real, grain fed, Iowa bacon; absolute fatty, salty deliciousness; Drell got his wish and with his mastery of the replicator, was able to program it into the standard rotation. We feasted on the real bacon and eggs and Trellian coffee for two days. There were also an assortment of beef, lamb, and various birds, vegetables, and fruits, along with several bottles of wine, some excellent whiskeys, and a few brandies, Drell was able to integrate all of it into the replicator without a problem.

The ship was in perfect condition, the reset had been one hundred percent successful, our biomass container was full, the armory was completely stocked, we had EVA suits to spare and the most diverse menu in the entire galaxy, we even had a large supply of items we had hoped we could trade along the ring for things we discovered we might need; all we lacked was an exit plan.

The heightened security greatly limited our access to the three places that could get us the information we needed, Candor, Luna Research, and the Titan deep space array; as commander of EF Marine security, Marshall stood directly between us and all three points.

Military patrols had almost found us twice, so we left the ring and found a small crevice in Eureka, one of Mars' trojan asteroids, to hide in. We were nestled in the cockpit enjoying the view as the galaxy whirled by in front of us, I was nestled in Drell's lap and Jazz in Granger's, the faint smell of Trellian perlemoens and Kentucky bourbon still filled the air.

"So, why don't we go around Marshal," Jazz left the comment hanging in the air?

"And just how do we do that," Granger nearly pushed the buxom brunette out of his lap?

"Santiago," she got up and started pacing," just hear me out, ok? When I got posted on Mars, I tried to get assigned to his personal staff and I learned everything I could about him," she took a deep breath, "he has a cabin in Colorado; he goes there in the Earth summers, no security" she paused, "listen I know it sounds crazy, but if we could get to him, we could fix everything."