Gateway to the Stars

As you gasp for air, he wastes no time. Chet gently pushes up on one of your knees and lines up his cock with your wet slit. You reach up and pull him to you.

He glides inside with no resistance, filling you and stretching you. He moans, louder than you expected and you hear an echoing groan from Arven. Looking over Chet's shoulder, you see Arven, his eyes glued to your body, frantically fisting his cock.

"Ugh ugh ugh UGH!" Chet begins thrusting wildly into you, grinding into your sex on every down thrust, sending wild sensations through your core.

"Oh god, oh god," you moan, lifting your legs towards the sky as he picks up the pace, his hips a blurr as he fucks for all he's worth.

"Brenna, Brennaaaa" he groans in your ear, a breathless prayer to his goddess, his acts of carnal pleasure a personal incantation. He pauses, balls deep inside you and feel him swell. You lock your legs behind his hips and squeeze, urging him onwards.

"Oh fuuuuuuuuuuuck" he moans as Chet empties himself inside you. You hear a strangled gasp from Arven and look over in time to see hot, white ropes of cum flying through the air, erupting from his cock as he reaches completion at just the sight of you.

Chet nestles into your body for a moment, resting on you, hot and heavy. You shift him off of you so that you are laying next to him, two spoons facing each other. A moment later, Arven stretches out behind you, his one arm wrapped around your waist as the three of you share an intimate laugh while waiting to find your breath.

###

The soft whirr of your platform sounds painfully loud in your ears as you coast through the cavernous interior of the OCC battlecruiser. The air is moist and damp as you descend deeper into the labyrinthine tunnels of the ship.

Occasionally, you see workers down below or a distant platform flying by but you give them a wide berth and hope that your dark clothing would keep you from raising too much of an alarm. Once, a platform careened past you at a good clip but it was empty of people, carrying only two crates side by side.

Finally, you rise up a small tunnel and through a diolating door to an arched chamber. According to the half-remembered shreds from Droust's mind, the secure holding facility is supposed to be in this area of the ship but you are unclear as to where.

With a whir, the platform rises into the chamber. In the middle of the room, a large metal sarcophagus fills the space, with a lone figure in a spacesuit kneeling before it.

As you enter, the figure in the space suit draws a glowing pistol but you are ready and snap off a glowing net, entangling them before they can get off a shot.

"Motherfucker! Brenna?!" Esiar's frustrated voice cries out from inside the spacesuit. She pops off the helmet showing her waves of brunette hair.

"Esiar? I'm so sorry!" You race over and with the help of a vibram knife, slice through the nets.

"How did you get away? How did you get here?" You ask. She shakes her head.

"Those Bishops took me down to their quarters as a 'serving girl'," her lips curl with disgust. "Luckily, I gave them the slip on the way there and found these."

She pounds her fist against the wall and a hatch pops open showing a narrow smooth-walled tube of a tunnel, twisting down into the depths of ship.

"It's a narrow squeeze but these passageways run through the entire ship and they are completely unguarded and unused." says Esiar. "Once I borrowed a spacesuit with the magnetized boots, I can climb where I need to go."

She gives a huff. "Although it is a long climb, this is a big ship." Then, as if realizing for the first time. "Wait, where are the boys?"

"Getting the ship ready, we just need to find Lia." Esiar gives you a big smile.

"Mission accomplished sexy!" She points to the sarcophagus. "There she is."

The sarcophagus, twisted gray metal with flickering lights on the side, seemed huge and ominous.

"Is she alright in there? What is it?" You ask.

"Talmudic Respirator," says Esiar, returning to her spot at the base of the device, pulling out wires and punching buttons. "It puts someone into a state of suspended animation for deep space travel."

You look up at the alien device, putting your hand on its smooth surface.

"Why would someone do that?" You ask. "Can't they just travel in a spaceship?"

"Sure, if you are using a HavenConduit or making a small jump with a Gyrodrive. But space is large and if you want to travel deep into uncharted territory and not end up a withered old husk? You use these. Colonists use them. Explorers. Scientists. They are rare but I've seen them before..." there's a spark from the wires Esiar is working with and a hissssss of escaping air.

The sarcophagus unfolds like a floor, piece by piece, revealing Captain Lia Vummai, still in her jumpsuit. She flops forward into your arms, her silver hair wet and stringy, as you struggle to hold her up.

"Uggnnnnn... " she groans, eyes shut. Esiar points a wrist device at her from her space suit.

"She's going to be alright but we need to get her back to the ship." Esiar flicks a switch and the sarcophagus starts to close back up.

BREEET BREET BREET BREET BREET. Alarms blare from lights at the top of the chamber.

"Oh shit." Esiar says. "That's our cue."

The two of you haul Lia onto the platform and with your digital pad, you command the platform to lift... but it refuses to move.

"That's not good." You say.

The door at the bottom of the chamber diolates closed with a solid click.

"The tubes, quick!" Esiar says. "I'll go first and you can slide her in after me. We will go slow until we can find you some equipment." She climbs into the tube, propping her feet on the side as you feed Lia's semi-unconscious form to her and then climb in.

The walls are ribbed, and the space narrow, providing just enough friction to allow you to descend through the curved passageway. Slightly bigger than a playground tunnel, the air feels different here, almost breezy as you spend the next twenty minutes following the tube horizontally. At each intersection, Esiar stops and checks her wrist computer and proceeds.

Just as your arms and legs are really beginning to ache from the exertion, you hear a familiar voice echoing throughout the ship.

"Attention those who carry the word," Admiral Stasha's voice floats down some speaker distantly above you. "We have several escaped prisoners on board. They are proven heretics and are considered extremely dangerous. Therefore, I am activating the Moray Protocol. Please secure your worksites and activate your pheromone emitters now."

"Moray Protocol?" Esiar wonders. "What is that?"

You dig through Drougt's memories and the answer comes back almost instantly. Teeth and undulating flesh.

"Uh, Esiar, I think I know what these tubes are for. And we need to go. Now!"

You hear a hiss and there's a gust of air and then a slithering sliding sound echoing down the tube. Coming closer.

You and Esiar scramble to the nearest intersection as fast as you can while pushing and pulling Lia. Esiar punches frantically at her wrist computer. You hear a scraping from behind you and the gnashing of teeth.

"Esiar..." you say anxiously.

"We are close. Really close. But... Uh uh.. that's not good. Um, okay, we have three choices."

Esiar goes to work on the grimy hatchway, cranking on the manuel override as you keep watch down the tube. The hissing gets louder, accompanied by a clanging banging echoing up towards you.

"Come on...." She braces her legs against the side of the hatch and pushes... there's a rending sound of metal and it opens just enough. She wriggles in and you urge a slowly waking Lia in after her.

You glance back just in time to see one of the creatures race up the tube towards you. It's body filled the corridor and it's bottle-shaped head was lined with teeth. Behind its inky black eyes glimmered a fierce intelligence. At the sight of you, it leaps forward lightning fast!

"Noooope!" You say to yourself and leap through the grimy hatch. The moray snaps at your heels, narrowly missing your leg as Esiar slams the hatch shut behind you.

BANG! BANG BANG! The metal bends as the moral rams the bulkhead, but it does not break. Finally the banging stops and the rattling of the moray retreats.

"Holy shit." Says Esiar. And the two of you sit for a moment, Lia propped up between you, as you try and catch your breath.

"Mmmhmmm did not like that." Mummers Lia, stirring slightly.

"Oh, now you decide to grace us with your wit and wisdom?" snarks Esiar.

"...never had a need with Brenna here... seems like you were doing just fine without me..." she gives you a warm smile.

"Do we have any idea where we are?" You ask as the three of you begin exploring the cavernous sealed room, Lia's arm wrapped firmly around your shoulder as her legs still retained the consistency of jello.

The space was a giant mess of machinery, with massive pillars of machines rising from the floor to somewhere far above in the darkness. The only light in the room came from a glowing central altar, for it could be called nothing else. A shining pyramid of circuitry and power stood on a stage at the front of the chamber with all sorts of equipment plugged into it.

"Is that what I think it is?" Esiar is in awe. She steps forward, making her way through the piles of tools and debris strewn about on the floor and points her wrist computer at it. "Oh my gods." She exclaims looking at the readings, "That's a... "

"... transdimensional fusion drive." Admiral Stasha Tristai's voice echoes through the grimy room. "Built by the original Starwalkers. Your own personal HavenConduit." You turn, bringing your ReelNet to bear but she is alone, picking her way through the equipment, her shimmering gold dress a brilliant contrast to the dark interior of the ship.

"Stasha..." Lia groans weakly. "How..."

"Oh the Moray's let me know. I could have dispatched a whole Cloister here but I thought it was best that we speak alone first. There's no need for violence."

"That's news to me." Lia says, struggling to stand on her own feet.

Admiral Tristai's voice goes soft for a moment. "Lia, I'm sorry for what I had to do but I needed to make it look good. That's why I put you in the Talmudic Chamber! You would be safe and have time to heal during our journey."

"What journey?" You ask pointedly. She clicks her teeth irritated.

"Native girl, didn't you already steal an escape pod and leave? How are you still here?" She waves a hand, already dismissing you in her head.

"... you cracked the secret, didn't you?" Esiar returns to your side, a laser pistol in her hand but she hadn't pointed it yet. "After all these years, you finally figured out how to make the engine work."

"Well, not me personally." Admiral Tristai says. "That would be Reverent Jeremaih, but yes, after many years of failures, we have finally cracked the secret to travel without the HavenConduits. No need for years of construction costs and planetary mining, we can finally cross the universe in a blink of an eye or better yet, peel back the layers to another dimension full of new wonder, new miracles."

Lia stirs in your arms, struggling to hold herself upright.

"With that kind of power, the OCC will spread to every corner of the galaxy... they will not stop, they will never stop." She holds her head up, shaky and defiant. "But you never cared about any of that did you?"

She shakes her head. "Of course not, why do you think I had Reverent Jeremiah executed? Of course he fled to that little backwater world, what was it called?"

"Bolaheld." Lia whispers softly. An icy hand of horror grips your heart.

"Yes, Bolaheld. Such a shame what we had to do to the natives there but we couldn't very well let Reverent Jeremiah go after cracking the code. He would have activated the drive on every ship in the fleet! No, better to keep things quiet. As the sacred texts say, the space between our wicked lies is where we hope to keep safe from pain."

Oh god, Arven's village. His family! You look over at Lia but she shows no reaction. She knew. She knew!

"So what was the anomaly we found? If the drive works..." asks Esiar.

"Oh the drive works, it just leaves behind some nasty side effects. But that won't matter for us, will it, Lia?"

Lia shakes her head. "No." She says firmly. But Admiral Tristai continues.

"It will be like we always dreamed!" The admiral draws closer, pleading. "We set the drive to the farthest setting and travel to the edges of the universe. We will be safe inside the Talmudic Chambers. When we arrive, young and beautiful, there will be nothing but virgin worlds for us to explore. To discover! Just you and I, blazing across the universe!"

"No! I can't just leave... everyone and everything I've known." says Lia, struggling to keep upright. You help support her trembling body but her voice is strong.

"It isn't right, Stasha. You have so much power, you could be helping people, making their lives easier."

"Oh, like you? How does petty theft and larceny make the universe a better place?" The admiral's voice is bitter and biting. You glance at Esiar who is edging to the side, trying to get an angle on the Admiral.

"At least I'm trying!' Lia shouts. "You! With your fake piety and hundreds of servants! What have you built for yourself here?"

"I've built it for you!" She shouts. "All of it, all of this! Now, we can finally have the life we hoped for..."

TSEW TSEW TSEW!!! Esiar's laser pistol blazes in her hand as pink bolts hit Admiral Tristai in the side of her body. There's a glimmering flash of green and bolts go scattering through the room, leaving the Admiral unscathed. With a snap of her wrist, the Admiral hurls a red pebble at Esiar.

"Red Flash!" Lia shouts in alarm and Esiar hurls herself to the ground, covering her face and head with her spacesuit clad arms. You turn away as a blinding red light fills the chamber.

"Did you really think I would come here unprotected? Please, body shields are standard issue for all command officers." She says mockingly. "Now, enough delays."

She hits a button on her digital pad and the engine behind you hums to life, filling the room with a deep rumble.

"Since you are already on board, we can make the jump and sort out the details during the flight." The machine crackles behind you and you feel the pulsing thrum of the anomaly firing up.

"We can dispense with the meddlesome arch magistrate, flush your shipmates out an airlock and finally, at long last, be together!" She throws back her head in exaltation. You catch Esiar's eyes from her crouched position. It is now or never.

BOWSsssssss. You fire off a net which wraps around her body, crackling against the energy shield but knocking her to the ground. Esiar scrambles forward and snatches the digital pad off the ground where it fell.

"NO!" shouts the Admiral but you race forward, firing net after net ontop of her, burying her and entangling her as she struggles to get free.

"I can't shut down the drive!" shouts Esiar as you help Lia past her fallen lover towards the Admiral's platform, landed a few paces away. "The ship is going to make the jump no matter what!"

"Then let's not be on it when it does!" You shout back as Esiar hands you the digital pad, and you launch the platform into the air, ascending up through a shaft in the ceiling. Distantly below you hear the Admiral screaming something but you can't make it out.

Lia looks down, forlorn and heartbreaking but the Admiral is quickly gone as you race through the maze of tunnels towards the docking bay.

"No sign of the morays!" Esiar shouts, scanning with her wrist computer. "Are we close? We've got minutes, barely."

"Almost there!" The platform careens around another turn and then zooms into a wide docking bay where the Silent Leopard awaits, engines already fired up with their distinctive gray blue fire.

Distantly behind you, the battlecruiser rocks with an explosion and you feel the space around you stretching and warping, as if someone was pulling on the edges of your vision.

The platform crashes into the docking bay floor, skidding and screeching to a halt at the foot of the ship. You, Lia and Esiar tumble off the platform and haul yourselves up the ramp into the ship. You punch the comms button.

"Time to go!" You shout and the ship lurches forward. Esiar closes the ramp behind you and feel the tightening twisting of space around you. Racing to the porthole, you see the starry field of space come flying towards you as the ship races out of the docking bay.

You are thrown to the side as the ship spins, artificial gravity straining to keep up and you see the OCC cruiser, rupturing and splitting as a glowing white energy blossoms from the center of the ship. At the edge of your vision, you see another ship racing away from the battlecruiser and then...

FWWOOOSH! The ship bends inwards on itself and winks out, vanishing from sight, leaving only a few drifting pieces of broken machinery in its wake. The comms box squawks.

"Brenna! Tell me we got everyone! Are we okay?" Chet demands. You look over, Esiar completely winded and struggling to remove the space suit. Lia, with tears in her eyes, watching the void where the battlecruiser had been.

"Yeah, we got everyone." You answer. But okay? That remains to be seen.

###

Chet's lips are soft and playful as reaches up your shirt to fondle your breasts. You moan appreciatively, playing with his hair as the two of you make out in the narrow nook off the residence hallway on the Silent Leopard.

You hadn't planned on it, you had just been heading to the mess hall when he asked you to grab one of the tools from his kit down below. Chet had his hands all in the guts of the ship above the bulkhead. You knelt at his feet, retrieved the hyperspanner and brought it up to him, rubbing yourself against his firm body and capturing his lips.

The teasing couple of kisses quickly disintegrated into a full make out session, as you pull his body to you, grinding yourself into him, as he gently squeezes your breasts and kisses your throat.

You moan encouragingly, glancing down the hallway to make sure no one is coming, and fumble with the zipper on his jumpsuit, trying to reach his dick.

CRASH! You hear shouting from the mess hall and something smashing into the wall hard enough to shake the cables in the ceiling above Chet. More shouting echoes down the corridor.

"The fuck?" Chet says but you recognize the voices. Arven and Lia. You regretfully push away Chet and cautiously follow the sounds of the racket to the mess hall.

The table in the middle of the room is now kindling in the corner. Arven waves his new bionic arm, with its exposed gizmos and gears twisting, at Lia.

"You fucking hypocrite!" He bellows. Lia has her arms crossed and is holding her ground, just out of reach of Arven.

"I needed to be sure. I needed to have proof!" she shouts back.

"You knew the OCC murdered my family, burned my home and village, and you said nothing?! All these years together and you never mentioned it? Never thought I would want to know?"

"What good would it do?" Lia shouts. "You had already made your peace with it - best case scenario, I'd have to break you out of lock up after you tried to kill Stasha."

"Yes, your ex-girlfriend. You wouldn't want anything bad to happen to her!" Arven begins to pace menacingly, he and Lia circling like two angry dogs facing down over the last bone.

"We needed proof. We needed evidence. Why do you think I took the job raiding the data depot? That's where the manifest of Reverent Jeremiah's ship was held. Once we had the hard evidence, we could..." Lia pleaded. You stand there, helpless as the two warriors face off.

"What? Finally tell me what happened?" Arven shouts. "How was that conversation going to go Lia? 'Sorry I kept this secret from you for the last eight years. Anyway, let's go broadcast it on the wave?'" With an enraged shout, he hurls one of the broken legs of the table at Lia. She easily knocks it aside with a chop.