Making of a Starship Captain Ch. 13

[Note: This Science Fiction story is an intense character study with occasional sex scenes.]

Taylor was all alone.

With Mark gone, every single person on the ship had been incapacitated by the virus except for him. Taylor felt the tremendous weight of responsibility on his shoulders.

They were still 32 hours away from the rendezvous point, what Taylor hoped would be the rendezvous point when they exited the nebula.

Ship systems were failing more and more rapidly now. Taylor simply didn't have time to feed everyone and take care of the ship. He was now reduced to handing out meals room by room, quarters by quarters, only once per day, and they were no longer well prepared sandwiches, but handfuls of bread and turkey and whatever else he could find in the galley.

Taylor felt exhaustion taking its toll. He willed himself to be strong. He just had to hold out for little more than a day.

And then the life support system failed.

********

There was a problem with the oxygenerator. Taylor couldn't figure out what it was. Perhaps when his brain was in peak condition four days ago he could have figured it out. Now he was exhausted, sleep deprived, and slowly falling prey to the virus. All he knew was that it was... broken.

Taylor spent several minutes trying to understand the nature of the malfunction. He simply didn't have the training or the experience or the mental energy to deal with his problem. He slowly collapsed to the ground, his back sinking against a wall, and started to laugh bitterly.

As he sat, and laughed, he noticed movement out of the corner of his eye. He turned his head and saw Sarah Blade.

And this time, she wasn't alone.

Sara was nude, on her back, with her legs spread. And between her legs was a man, pumping way. It wasn't until Taylor craned his head that he could see who it was.

It was his former classmate, Bill Kenilworth!

"Uh, uh, uh, uh," Sarah grunted, smiling and bobbing her head every time Bill thrust into her willing vagina.

Then her eyes wandered and she noticed Taylor. "Oh, hi Mike." She gave him a friendly smile even as her body jolted with each thrust.

"Hi Sarah," said Taylor, in a guarded tone. "Whatcha doing?"

"What does it look like?" Sarah grinned. "Oh, Bill, baby, that's good, like that, just like that," she said, rubbing his hair. She turned back to Taylor. "You know Mike, when they caught me, they found out I was involved with several cadets, not just you."

"So I was told," said Taylor, watching Bill continue to pump between Sarah's legs.

"They made me name names, Mike. I had to, to avoid a court marital! Ug!" Her head bobbed from an especially strong thrust. "But I never gave your name up, Michael. Not you. Not ever!"

"I wondered about that," said Taylor.

Sarah's eyes were filled with nothing but adoration for Taylor as another man gave her vaginal intercourse. "What you and I had was special, Mike. I always knew you were going to be a great Survey Service officer. I didn't want to jeopardize that."

"I really appreciate that," said Taylor. He paused, watching Bill's buttocks clench and unclench as he made love to Sarah. "But that doesn't really explain why you're fucking Bill right in front of me."

"Me? I'm not fucking anyone, Mike," she said innocently.

"It sure looks that way to me," said Taylor, watching Bill as he groaned, getting closer to climaxing.

"Bill is fucking me. I'm not fucking him," said Sara, smiling mischievously at him.

Taylor sighed. "All right. Why am I watching Bill fucking you?"

"Because times change, Michael. You're no longer my fair-haired boy toy. You give up too easily."

"You wouldn't be referring to the fact that we're all about to run out of oxygen and die of asphyxiation in the next two hours, are you?"

"You got it, Mike," she said, pausing to kiss Bill and to whisper an encouragement in his ear.

"Sarah...." He sighed. "Maybe I could have puzzled a way to fix this if I were rested, and well. But I'm not. I'm exhausted. I can barely keep my eyes open. I'm too tired to think clearly. There's no way I can fix this."

"Why does it have to be fixed?" Sarah asked. She whispered something to Bill, and he started sucking one of her nipples. "Oh, yeah, baby," she whispered, smiling sexily at her lover.

Taylor said, "Well, maybe it has to be fixed because the oxygenerator is only four percent effective. That's not nearly enough to supply air to an entire starship."

"Who said anything about supplying air to an entire starship?" Thrust thrust thrust, thrust thrust thrust.

Taylor bit his lip and looked at her with confusion in his eyes as he watched Bill Kenilworth, still moving in and out of Sarah, kissed a trail from one breast to the other and back again while Sarah giggled hysterically. For an older woman, she had remarkably firm, round breasts that were very squeezable, and very suckable.

Taylor found it very hard to have a conversation with his former lover while she was fucking another man. Sorry, while she was letting another man fuck her. "We need the air for the crew."

"But not the ship," said Sarah, winking at him.

"But the crew is spread out all over the ship," said Taylor.

"And what if they weren't?" Sarah asked.

Taylor's jaw dropped open. If the entire crew were in one room-

"Say, the shuttle bay, for example," said Sarah.

The oxygenerator, even in its depleted state, might be able to supply enough oxygen if focused on one room.

"Would that be enough?" Taylor asked.

"Sure!" said Sarah, her body jolting by the minute. "If you want an extra margin, just open the doors to both shuttles and turn their oxysystems on full blast."

Taylor had never thought of that.

Or had he just thought of it right now?

But... in order to make this plan work, he would have to bring the entire crew to the shuttle bay. He would have to carry them, one by one.

"I'd offer to help, but my hands are a bit busy right now," Sarah laughed, wrapping them around Bill's back.

Only, it was no longer Bill's back she was wrapping them around. It was his back. Bill had morphed into another version of himself, another Michael Taylor, completely naked, thrusting between her legs, just as Sarah was climaxing

Taylor watched himself making fast paced rapid thrusts like mad as Sarah yelled out, "Oh... oh... oh... oh, Mike!" She yelled, tossing her head back, her face a portrait of exhaustion and pleasure as she climaxed..

A moment later she recovered and turned to Taylor, the real Taylor, and said, "Thank you, Mike."

"No, thank you," said Taylor.

********

Taylor half lifted and half carried Ensign Goldstein to the shuttle bay. He could tell very quickly that this wasn't going to work. He was exhausted just bringing one person there. He needed an advantage of some kind.

He quickly got an idea.

He went to the bridge, and dialed down the gravity until it was only ten percent of Earth normal. Then he went from room to room and started to drag crew members along the floors of the corridors to take them to the shuttle bay.

The crew, who were by now quite out of their minds, had no idea what Taylor was doing with them. Some protested as he pulled them, while others simply screamed. But they were too weak to really fight him, and Taylor didn't really mind. In fact, when they yelled at him, often times it made him laugh.

But even dragging bodies in one tenth G was tiring, when there were 57 bodies to drag, and so Taylor quickly started dragging them by a single leg. It was rather humiliating for the crew to be dragged through the corridors, whining and screaming, as Taylor pulled on one of their legs, but to Taylor, that only made it all the more amusing.

The tides had really turned. When he had boarded the Charleston, he had quickly become a laughing stock, the lowest of the low, and now he was running the ship, and everyone else was insane, yelling madly as they were dragged across the floors like dust rags.

Taylor smiled broadly as he dragged Commander Kinneret to the shuttle bay and watched as his arms got stuck in a corridor junction. Mike gave a good yank to get him free.

"Ow!" Kinneret cried. "You are the worst waiter I've ever seen! I want to speak to the manager!"

"But the manager doesn't want to speak to you," Taylor said, as he continued to drag Kinneret by the leg. "He says he's tired of all the bad reviews you've posted about his restaurant online. He's ordered me to throw you out the nearest airlock."

"What? What? No!" said Kinneret. "I didn't mean it! It's just... how can you call yourself a deli when you don't have any schmear?"

"Commander, the nearest schmear is twenty six billion miles that way," said Taylor, pointing down the hallway. "You have to make allowances," he said, continuing to drag the Commander down the corridor. Another thought suddenly occurred to him."You're also a terrible tipper."

"Wait, wait!" Kinneret cried, convinced he was being dragged to his doom. "I'll tip you! I'll... I'll give you five percent!"

Taylor didn't answer. He just continued to drag Kinneret by the foot.

"Ten percent!"

Taylor shook his head.

"Fifteen, and that's my final offer!"

Taylor stopped dragging him. "Twenty five percent."

"Twenty five percent is highway robbery! What do you think I am made of, platinum? I'd rather go out the airlock!"

"As you wish!" Taylor said cheerfully, pulling Kinneret through the doorway of the shuttle bay. It took Kinneret more than a minute to stop screaming, when he finally realized that the lack of a good tip would not lead to death by asphyxiation.

********

Taylor so enjoyed his talk with Commander Kinneret, that he also told Missy Burns that she was going out the airlock too. But the reason he gave her was decidedly different.

"You've been giving too many people Space Herpes, Missy."

"What? I thought I was cured!"

"A slut like you can never be cured," said Taylor, as he pulled her by the leg. "You're going out the airlock. That's the only way the contagion can be stopped."

"The Survey Service will never allow it!"

"The Survey Service were the ones who ordered it!" He relished the expression of surprise and shock on her face. "Admiral Wainright was not amused to find you left him with a little souvenir after your late night visit to him on Starbase 4." This was but one of many sexual encounters that Missy had bragged to him about.

"No!" she cried.

"There's only one other option. You have to wear a chastity belt."

"A chastity belt!"

"Made of pure durasteel." Taylor gloated.

"And who will hold the key to it?"

"The emir of Ramada," said Taylor, making it up even as he spoke. The words simply seemed to flow from him, like magic. "And if you try to tamper with it, there is a failsafe mechanism in the device which will flood your insides with fast hardening dermacrete if you try to open it."

"No!" said Missy. "I'll stop sleeping with men, I promise!"

"All men, Missy?" Taylor asked.

"Just let me sleep with one man." She paused. "Or two." She paused again, considering it. "Or three. Four, four is all I need... at least for a while!"

Taylor laughed and laughed as Missy screamed the rest of the way to the shuttle bay. In the low gravity, he was able to toss her into a pile of moaning bodies. "There's your four guys. Have fun!"

*********

"What do you think you're doing, boy? This is no way to treat a God!" said Doctor McCrae, as Taylor dragged him by the leg through the ship's corridors.

"I'm taking you to the followers of Aura, Doctor McCrae," said Taylor, in a stern voice. "They're very angry to hear that you've been impersonating the Goddess, by calling yourself a god."

Taylor no longer knew why he was doing the things that he did. He actually liked Doctor McCrae. And yet his mouth seemed to be operating on automatic, and he seemed to have little control over what he said.

"Impersonating a Goddess?" said McCrae, as Taylor dragged him by the foot down the corridor.

"That's right!" said Taylor. "They think God is a woman, and they're very, very angry with you, Doctor McCrae!" Taylor cackled wildly.

"What... what do they want with me?" McCrae asked.

"They want to cut off your male organ," said Taylor.

"Cut it off?"

Taylor nodded vigorously. "Yes. Then they are going to cook it, serve it to you in a warm bun, and make you eat it, during a musical service to the she-Goddess." He turned and looked McCrae in the eye "You are about to make the ultimate sacrifice, Doctor. The ultimate penile sacrifice!"

"No!" McCrae cried, as Taylor tossed him into the landing bay. His body glided thirty feet before coming to a halt by Ensign Goldstein, who, like the others, was too weak to move.

*********

"We're giving you to the Ramadhans, Chief Ashanti," said Taylor, as he dragged her by the foot to the shuttle bay.

"What? Why?" She was clearly startled.

"It's the price we had to pay to get them to let us go," said Taylor.

"But why me?" Ashanti asked.

"They are desperately in need of skilled engineers," said Taylor.

"But... I don't know anything about engines!" said the Chief Engineer.

"Just think of all the women and girls on Ramada that you'll be an inspiration to," said Taylor. "When they see someone who looks just like them being an engineer, they'll know that they can aspire to a future other than baking babies and cleaning in the kitchen."

"But what happens when they find out that I don't know anything about engines?" Ashanti cried, as they reached the landing bay.

"I imagine you will find yourself beginning a new chapter in your life, a fabulous second career of baking babies and cleaning in the kitchen." Taylor paused. "Or perhaps you'll be baking in the kitchen and cleaning babies. I'm not entirely sure."

As Ashanti screamed out in terror, Taylor tossed her into the landing bay. Her body hit Missy Burns' with a thud. Missy giggled hysterically. She had already long since forgotten that she was slated to be thrown out an airlock, and was fascinated by the blinking green and yellow lights on one of the control panels.

********

Taylor saved Captain Hauslohner for last. The Captain was almost lucid, at times, and as Taylor dragged him down the corridor, Taylor found himself explaining his plan to Hauslohner.

"What? This is insane!" said Hauslohner. "You never should have gone into the nebula into the first place."

"It's too late for that, sir," said Taylor, giggling aloud.

"And you're putting all of us in the shuttle bay? We'll all suffocate!"

"That's a definite possibility, sir," said Taylor, laughing again.

"Taylor, we can't survive! Let's take the shuttles, and a handful of the crew, and get out of here! At least some of us will live."

Taylor stopped pulling on the Captain and looked down at him for a moment. "We can't do that."

"Why not?'

"Because the Survey Service doesn't leave people behind," said Taylor. For a moment his face was expressionless. Then he broke out into a giant grin. "And also, because your ass is too big to fit into a shuttle. Ha ha ha ha ha ha! Don't worry sir, I've disabled both shuttles in case you somehow manage to fit your big, beefy ass cheeks inside one of them." Humming contently, Taylor started pulling on Hauslohner's foot again.

"Your plan is crazy. It won't work, Taylor!"

Taylor stopped pulling again for a moment. "You forget who you speak to! I am no longer Taylor!"

"Then... who are you?"

Taylor raised his chin. "I am not merely Taylor. I am SUPER Taylor! I am the greatest of the greatest! I am perfection unbound! I am more brilliant than the brightest sun! Aren't you honored, to even be in my presence?"

"No, I'm not, you're crazy, I won't go, I won't!" Hauslohner tried to struggle, but he was too weak to resist. Even in the low gravity, he couldn't escape Taylor's grip on his left foot as Taylor, laughing, started to drag him down the corridor again. Hauslohner looked up at Taylor. "I order you to return me to my quarters! Do you hear me? I order you!"

"I'm sorry, but you don't give the orders around here anymore, sir," said Taylor.

"I'm the Captain!" Hauslohner roared.

"Not anymore. I'm the Captain now," said Taylor smugly. He paused. A new thought occurred to him. "But if I'm the Captain... then what are you?" He paused a moment longer. "If I'm the Captain, then you must be the floor sweeper." Taylor's tone hardened. "You've been derelict in your duty, mister! These floors are a pig sty! Get to work, man!"

And then, rather than drag Hauslohner directly to the shuttle bay, Taylor started to drag him around the corridors of the ship, using the Captain's body to collect dust. He pushed and pulled the Captain's body like a mop, cleaning an entire length of corridor while Hauslohner screamed in rage.

Taylor ignored him, humming rapidly as he rubbed Hauslohner's body against an especially dirty section of the corridor outside the hydroponics lab. Then Taylor actually flipped Hauslohner onto his back so he was lying face up, and admired his handiwork. Haushlohner's back, legs, and especially his ass were coated in dust and tiny bits of debris.

"You were right about your ass sir," said Taylor. "It may not be big enough to command a cruiser, but it sure is big enough to clean a floor with! But now since your backside is dirty, let's do some more mopping with the front!" And he proceeded to do more mopping with the Captain's body, this time with the Captain face down. Hauslohner screamed in rage, even more so when his head bumped against a wall of the corridor, but Taylor didn't mind. He simply said, "Sir, with all due respect, you are the loudest mop I have ever heard." And then he laughed hysterically and dragged the Captain to the shuttle bay.

********

Taylor had almost forgotten about the pirates. After Taylor had dragged the last crewmember to the shuttle bay, he realized that there were still six pirates in the brig. They would slowly suffocate while he focused all the oxygenerator's efforts on the bridge and the shuttle bay. For a moment Taylor thought about just leaving there, and laughed at the thought of asphyxiating them.

But even as he laughed, he sighed and started the long walk to the brig.

But first, he checked out a compression pistol from the armory. He sighed as he held it up. "My favorite weapon," he grinned. Truthfully, Taylor preferred compression rifles best of all; they provided much more accurate targeting than blasters.

Taylor entered the brig. The prisoners looked at him expectantly. "I have a big surprise for you," he said, smiling broadly as he pointed the pistol at them and lowered the force field. "I have to move you to the shuttle bay, where you will be electrocuffed to a very stout metal bar. Transporting you there will undoubtedly save your lives. But it's occurred to me that you might try to take advantage of my generosity! Therefore, purely as a precaution, I have decided to stun you before I take you there."

The Ramadhan pirates started protesting.

"Quiet!" said Taylor. "Unfortunately, compression pistols aren't exactly like blasters. They don't have obvious stun settings. This one," he said, holding up his pistol, "has eight settings. The eighth will kill you where you stand. That would be the simplest setting to use, I suppose." He sighed, trying to remember what he had learned at the Academy. "They say that setting three is usually sufficient to stun someone. But it's a very light stun. See?" And he fired at one of the pirates, who yelled as he fell to the ground.

"You're not really stunned, are you?" Taylor kicked the pirate with his foot. The pirate groaned. "You see? It's not nearly enough. Now setting four has a little more kick to it." He fired at another pirate, who fell to the ground before he could say a word. Taylor kicked him, but he didn't respond.