Flung Out of Space (and Time)

"I have had about my fill of your insubordination, Lieutenant. This is your last warning. I will field no more questions about this mission, do I make myself clear?"

"Yes, sir," I reply and turn on my heel back onto the bridge.

When I walk onto the bridge I find Jenna looking at me, concern on her face. I point to her chair and she understands. As we pass each other, each heading to their respective chairs, her fingers reach out and brush by my hand. This brings a smile to my face. Sitting back down in the chair I look over at her. She now seems like she's a mile away. I look over to the monitors and see that they are moving one group of "miners" out of the mess hall and another is making their way up there. The monitor that shows the stasis chamber shows ten filled already, meaning that the group coming up is the last of them.

"What'd he say?" Jenna asks.

"We are to act like 'professionals' was the gist." I air bunny the professionals part.

"Meaning?"

"No affection of any kind while this group is onboard. I asked if they were military and he got angry. He made it clear that I'm on thin ice and to not push it."

"Damn," is all she can say. I close my eyes and lean back into my chair, waiting for our turn to eat and then get into stasis. Once there Jenna and I can connect, that asshole Markos cannot stop us from doing that, we can get down to the business we started back at that hotel.

"Lieutenant Ortega, Sergeant Hwang, your presence is required in the mess hall," Mother's voice calls out over the comms.

We walk, close but not touching each other, to the mess hall at the back of the ship. Passing through the narrow hallways, through air lock doors, we walk into the mess hall. There's an octagon shaped table, white in color, with white booths against the wall and chairs surrounding it. Fenster and McMannus are in the booth and Captain Markos sits away from them. Jenna and I take two chairs and sit down and soon Nero is placing a large tray down in the center of the table. On the table there are five bowls filled with a milky, white-grey slurry. Captain Markos grabs a bowl and starts eating, normally he has something to say about expecting a good mission before we eat but not today. Occasionally he looks up and glares at me while the rest of us begin to eat the foul tasting slurry.

"Uh-oh, Mommy and Daddy are fighting," Fenster quips, there's a slight edge of malice in his voice, whether its directed at me or the Captain I don't know.

"Can that shit, private!" Markos growls, glaring at Fenster.

"What is this crap?" McMannus throws his spoon down into the bowl, the whitish liquid splashing up over the lip and onto the table.

"What did I just say?"

"That was to him, I was asking a question." McMannus protests.

"It's rations, McMannus. Tastes like ass but provides all required nutrients." I state flatly. We never have rations, always regular food. Easily prepared and rarely great tasting but real food. This is practically a liquid meal.

Markos slams his fist on the table, rattling the bowls and silverware. The table falls into an uncomfortable silence as we finish our meals. Unease fills the room, no one feeling confident about this mission. Fenster and McMannus keep sharing nervous looks and I catch Jenna shooting me similar looks as well. I catch her eye and we lock in, I'm hoping that my look will calm her and in the process calm me but I'm honestly not all that confident about it. Captain Markos stands up when the Major walks into the room. The two men confer for a moment before leaving, heading towards the bridge.

"Ok guys," I say as I stand up. "You three head on into the stasis chamber while I get the coordinates set. And you," I lean in and whisper into Jenna's ear. "I have plans for you once we're under."

Nero passes me as I walk back to the bridge, he's clearly heading to the stasis chamber. He doesn't utter a word, of all the androids that I've worked with he is by far the quietest, and we barely acknowledge each others presence. Stepping onto the bridge I see the Major and Captain Markos at the nav screen, the black expanse of space stretching in all directions out of the window behind them, they're talking quietly. Well, the Major is talking and the Captain is listening. The Major stands up, his back ramrod straight, when he see's me and Captain Markos whirls around.

"What is it, Lieutenant?" He asks, angrily.

"Your orders were as follows: eat, set coordinates and then report to stasis chamber. It is my duty to set the ships navigation to get us to Mining Colony 7."

"You are dismissed. Please get to the stasis chamber Lieutenant as Captain Markos will set the coordinates." The Major intones harshly, giving me no option.

The stasis chamber is full, in addition to our four pods there are another six or seven in this room. They must have put two in the Captain's quarters and fit more into the hold. I see Nero, tall and unnaturally thin (you can always pick out an android by how thin hipped they are, I could seriously wrap my hands around Nero's waist and have both my middle fingers and thumbs touch) with a wisp of blond hair covering their head, is waiting for me. The rest of the crew is already asleep just like the soldiers, I mean miners. Nero gives me an approximation of a warm, reassuring smile as I unzip the zipper of my uniform and kick off my boots. Nero presses a button and a shelf extends from the foot end of the stasis pod, picking up my boots he places them carefully in the storage container. I step out of the uniform and fold it up. Standing there in my standard issue white panties, white half tank top and sports bra I hand the folded uniform to Nero. Again he places what I hand him into the storage container and then pushes the button and it retracts into the pod. He stands next to me and types a code into the interface at the main console of the stasis pod and the yellow tinted lid slides open. Nero extends a hand to the inside of the pod and I climb in. The soft, nearly pillow like lining of the stasis pod sucks my body in slightly. Nero looks down on me and smiles again.

"Will you be connecting with Sergeant Hwang again for this trip?" His voice is flat, mechanical and impersonal. He has already asked Jenna this and she has indicated that she would like to connect with me, now he has to confirm.

"Yes, Nero, I would like that very much." I smile back at him and say.

The stasis pod door slides shut and I get that familiar feeling, one I get every time I get into stasis: claustrophobia. I hate tight spaces, places where it feels like the air could be sucked up and extinguished quickly. This feels like the modern equivalent of a coffin, something none of systems known use anymore. The tech of stasis pods escapes me, all I know is there is a brief moment that I'm conscious before I go under. When under you can do one of two things: black out, one minute you lay down and the next minute you wake up and are vomiting as your body reacts fairly violently to the stasis or you can connect via the neural net. When one connects via the neural net you can do many things: learn, train, take in copious amounts of media content or my favorite: connect with someone else. Jenna and I do this quite frequently. When connecting, if you get tired of the other person one can always choose to disconnect and return to blacking out. As your minds connect one or both of you can determine: the settings of the encounter, your appearance, among other things and all at the speed of a thought.

Chapter Three: Lust and Love, Not Uninterrupted

Jenna is waiting for me when our neural nets connect as I'm transported to a room of all white. The floors are a blonde wood, the walls are cream colored and bare, in the center of the room is a bed. It has four posts and has thin sheets of what I think is muslin. An open door on the other side of the room lets the breeze in and the sheets flap and beat in a loose rhythm. I find that I'm in a thin, loose, white chiffon dress that flows down to the floor, dragging behind me. It too flaps in the breeze. My strawberry blonde hair is braided behind me and runs all the way down to my waist, I pull it over my shoulder and let it hang down in front of me. I can feel my bare feet on the wood floor, so unnatural in this day and age, as I walk past the bed and towards the open door. Brilliant, yellow, sunlight floods the room and causes my eyes to squint the closer I get outside.

Stepping outside I'm hit with the smell of pine, fresh air and flowers. Birds are chirping and I can hear a soft burbling of water and as my eyes adjust to the sunlight I see that a mountain stream runs just past the deck that we're standing on and dumps into a mountain lake. I see Jenna leaning forward on the wooden railing of the deck as I come to her from behind. She has a similar dress on to mine though hers is more of a cream or off white color. She senses me and turns around, her face filling up with a brilliant smile. Her dark hair is tucked behind both of her ears.

"What's with the hair?" I playfully ask while holding the braid up. Normally my hair is much, much shorter than that and typically kept in a loose and low ponytail.

"Fits the setting, I think," she replies with a half smile on her face.

What a setting it is, behind her I see white capped mountain ranges in all directions. In the West, just beyond the lake, is a thick fog that blurs the view about a hundred feet up but there's still sun where we're at and it shines off of the flat, mirror like surface of the large body of water. Jenna's really outdone herself with this creation, it's truly stunning. With the one track mind I've had we would have been back in that dingy motel room where we were so rudely interrupted. Taking two long strides I walk over to her and with one hand I grab her by the waist and with the other I lace my fingers through her hair. Somehow her smile gets even wider just before we kiss. My lover, and sometimes mistress, makes a quiet noise of approval in her throat when our lips touch. Our mouths open and our tongues touch, lightly.

In the neural net everything feels real, if you want it to. Jenna and I have been known to come out of stasis glowing like we actually had sex, just like in the physical world. It drives Fenster nuts and that secretly makes it even better for me. She reaches out and grabs the material of my dress just above my hips and pulls me into her. This tips us backwards slightly into the railing but we still don't break our kiss. In fact we start to even kiss harder. She slowly lets the material slip from her hands as she moves them to my backside. Gripping it, she pulls me in as close as she can. Our tongues greedily rush into the other's mouth.

"Ow!" I break our kiss when Jenna leans too hard into my hand, pressing it into the wood railing.

With this break she pushes up with both hands and balances her backside on the railing, wrapping her legs around my waist and pulling me back in. Her dress is hiked up high on her waist exposing all of her beautiful legs. My left hand runs up her leg and comes to a rest on her thigh as we start kissing. As my hand slips up under her dress I move to kissing her neck. She again moans, softly and practically into my ear which sends me into overdrive. I let out a loud, lust filled breath and my lover senses my change in energy. My hand pulls out of her dress and both of my arms wrap around her back. She locks her hands around my neck as I lift up her body. We awkwardly make our way across the deck before I stumble. Her body slides off of mine and she stands up. Looking at me she lets out a giggle before she takes me by the hand and leads me inside, letting her dress drop to the floor when she reaches the bed. She pushes aside the muslin, still flapping in the slight breeze, and climbs up into the bed. That breeze rustles the material of my dress and fills the room with the smell of mountain flowers. I let my own dress drop to the floor and climb in with her.

My lover is biting her lower lip and her eyes bore into mine. Flipping the heavy braid behind me I straddle her waist and place a light kiss on her cheek. Then I start working my way down her body, spending some time kissing her neck before moving down to her chest. My lover's small, perky breasts are waiting for me and her nipples are already hard. Taking her left nipple, hard as a rock, into my mouth I suck in. Jenna's hands are resting high up on my thighs and as soon as I start playing with her nipple, using my teeth and tongue to please my lover, one of her hands moves to my stomach. It slides downwards and reaches my already wet core. When she slips a finger in I let out my own moan and pause slightly in my pursuit of playing with both of her nipples. I rock my hips backwards and forwards, helping her finger do its work. When she slips in a second finger in I moan again, my head first pulling up from her breast and then dropping down onto her chest. Panting heavily, I continue to rock my hips back and forth with increasing speed.

"Oh...my," I pant. I'm building up a sweat as I get closer to orgasm. Jenna's thumb presses in against my clit and starts working it in a circular motion. Right as I crest, something I've needed so bad all day I shout out. "Oh, fuck, I'm coming!"

As it crashes over my body I fall limp on top of her. I suck in huge breaths and swallow hard, even in the neural net your voice can go hoarse from shouting too loud or too much and I shouted much too loud. Jenna slowly slides out of me and with her other hand she tugs lightly on my chin, pulling my face towards hers. We kiss, lightly and full of love, before I slide up to the side of her. Placing a few light kisses on the tip of her shoulder I let out a loud, satisfied sigh.

"Don't get comfy, Delphine," she turns to me and whispers into my ear. "You have work to do."

I look up to her and smile, even this slightest bit of dominance drives me wild. With light, well placed kisses, I start moving my way down from her shoulder to her stomach. Her taut, sexy, stomach is just begging me to kiss it and I oblige. My hips and body shift down the bed, legs poking between the end of one piece of muslin and the start of another. I place another kiss on the protruding bone of her hip before making my way to the area she most wants me to be in right now. The scent of her arousal is so strong now, so aromatic, that I want to quit taking my time and dive right in. Jenna drapes a leg on top of my shoulder and I hit the little strip of her pubic hair. After a kiss to the outside of her thigh, prompting a grunt of frustrated passion from Jenna I push my tongue into her.

When fully into her Jenna takes her other leg and rests it on my back, pressing me down and into her. My tongue is moving into and out of her at varying speeds. I can hear as she starts to pant and let out the occasional moan. Pulling my tongue out I give her clit a flick with the tip of it before sucking in on it lightly. Above me I hear her cry out, some curse word that I think is Arturian but cannot tell, I'm to busy focusing on her. First her stomach trembles and then from there it ripples out from her body as my lover gets her own orgasm. When the orgasm passes her legs let me go and I crawl back up and give her a quick kiss while she's still in the throes of it before resting my head on her chest. I let out a contented sigh and pull her closer to me.

The breeze kicks up, the muslin sheets flapping louder and sending a chill up my spine. Using my toes I bring the sheet up and over us as we lay there on the bed. Jenna's hand reaches up and starts stroking my head. I feel so content right now, so happy, with all the bad vibes this mission has been giving me starting to melt away. That would be but a brief reprieve. A loud, blaring, beeping sound rips out through the neural net. Both Jenna and I shoot upright, never having heard this sound. Before either of us can say anything Nero walks into the room from the outside deck. He's holding his hands up, as if to say he's not armed.

"Lieutenant Ortega, Sergeant Hwang, I'm deeply sorry to interrupt your private time in the neural net but there is something we must discuss, something I don't quite think McMannus nor Fentster are prepared to hear." He talks, his voice trying to approximate the sound of regret.

"Step out onto the deck, Nero, we'll meet you out there." I say as I pull the sheet up to cover us completely.

Jenna looks at me, this is so out of order, with an eyebrow cocked. Nero, or any other android on a Company ship, has strict orders to not enter a person's neural net while they are in stasis. Because he is part of the system, an extension of the ship, a human cannot make him leave. The Company put in protocols to prevent the androids from doing this, no matter how much they tinker with the behavioral modifications they cannot seem to eradicate the scientific nature of the droid. That nature leads them to be slightly unethical when it comes to subjects they want to study and if they hide themselves in the neural net they can get an unobstructed view of the human psyche. I return her look and slip out of bed and back into my dress while Jenna does the same. When we step out onto the porch I see Nero looking away from us, out onto the lake.

"Was this Sergeant Hwang's creation?" He asks, inquisitively.

"It was," I reply, flatly. "Why have you violated Company code, Nero?"

"Again, I find it most regrettable that I had to take such a measure but it was the only way, I'm afraid. Part of my core programming directives is to check in with the Company on a regular basis; to let them know what's going on during each mission, updates on personnel, observations, that kind of thing. When I reported back to them after the completion of putting all humans under stasis I got some troubling news, news that compounded earlier troubling news."

"Go on," I wait for him to get to the point already.

"The Company has our ship listed as rogue, an escalation over my last report for the start of a mission: probationary status. They had no idea we were headed out on this mission. In fact, they were expecting us to return to Quantos after I checked in with them at Tamur. The Captain was due for a hearing in front of the review board, with the remaining four of you scheduled as witnesses. I fear that the Captain has joined the Confederation Fleet, or is allowing himself to get used by them, and by default the rest of us have joined it."

"If you knew all of this shit why didn't you notify the Company?" I angrily demand.

"I have, they in turn logged an official complaint with the head of the Confederation Fleet but as you know, the war with the Jolanai rebels is escalating. This has caused the Fleet to adopt unconventional tactics and that includes violating COPS treaties and laws, mainly those that involve operating under commercial flags. Our last two missions were military in nature. I believe Lieutenant Ortega has feared this."

"That motherfucker!" I shout. "I knew this shit stank! He's put us all into a position where our careers could be sunk, for something we didn't do." Jenna reaches out and rubs my shoulders, works on calming me down. I take a few deep breaths in and out, let the anger levels die down. "Ok, so what do we do about this?"

"As long as the Captain is still in control of the ship, there's not much I can do, my mission parameters prevent me from doing much more. If he's removed from power then we can make an appeal to the review board, get our crew put on probationary status again under our new captain, Ortega."

Captain, me with control of my own ship. I've dreamed of this since I was a little girl and here the opportunity presents itself. The real question becomes: how do we get rid of Captain Markos? He will never abandon his ship, it is the only thing that gives him power now that he's operating outside of the protections of the Company. Jenna's eyes go wide as her face turns slightly towards me. Thoughts of mutiny dance in my head but the realization that Fenster will almost surely not back any action, that's less because of loyalty to the Captain and more because of a dislike of me, brings those ideas crashing to the ground.