Melinoe Ch. 01-05

Max gently cleaned the little pink rosebud located between Joon's parted cheeks with a circular motion, so her middle finger caressed the knot of muscle. Joon began panting. Max didn't react the same way as Joon did with anal stimulation.

She knew Joon loved it, however and through the years Joon had experimented with various implements and plugs to keep herself entertained. She had settled on a few as her favorites: one was a beautifully jeweled Butt plug that vibrated with a signal from a personal device.

She would wear it at work and used it to stave off fatigue from long hours on her feet. The practice was more common than Max would have previously thought. When it came down to it, Joon found ass play very satisfying, so Max catered to her desire at every opportunity.

"Max," Joon gasped, "That's really good, please finger my ass, oh please!"

Joon knew exactly the buttons to push with Max: she put them there. Max wasn't a Dom, but just a little begging lit Max up like a furnace.

"Oh baby," Max started, "I'm going to make you feel so good."

Kneeling next to the smaller woman, Max bent her across her shoulder, her middle finger slowly, but insistently, pushing into Joon's anus. The panting soon followed and became interspaced with moans and gasps; and soon Joon's fingernails dug into Max's back.

Gently holding Joon with her left arm, Max reached down and gently motioned for Joon to spread her legs. With Joon's breasts on her shoulder and in her face, Max took a hardening nipple into her mouth, rapidly flicking it with her tongue.

"Oh Max!" Joon gasped as she began to shake. Max carefully moved her left hand and began to gently strum Joon's clit, her right middle finger buried in her wife's tight ass.

Then Joon just came, crying like a banshee: her sphincter gripping the intruding finger like a fist while vaginal fluid sprayed out all over Max's legs. Joon was barely able to stand there as her body continued to shake violently in orgasm. Max relinquished the captive nipple as Joon's climax subsided. Joon giggled and grunted her satisfaction.

"Fuck, Max!" Joon exclaimed, "You are way too good at that!" Joon giggled again.

Max held Joon as she finished shaking, gently removing her finger and encircling her in strong arms. Shower sex was fun, but the danger of a shaking orgasm leading to a bad fall was very real, and Max would never allow that to happen.

"You taught me everything I know," Max casually replied, "and I know you do your research thoroughly."

Joon giggled, "Oh kay, I guess training you to play me like a fine classical instrument is my fault."

They toweled each other dry, dressed in clean house clothes and headed into the kitchen. The fact that, when Max was home, they did near everything together wasn't lost on either of them. Max had sometimes been away as long as six months, and when they reunited, they both felt complete. Joon loved her job and profession, but she knew in her heart she would drop them like a hot rock for Max. Joon thought about the conversation they'd had, the decision they reached a decade earlier.

Max wanted justice for her guardian, Deirdre; the kind and brilliant TFIS inspector who adopted Max. Joon wanted justice for her, too, and so they agreed that Max would shape her career to gain the necessary skills and place herself where she could eventually learn the necessary information that would lead to bringing Deirdre's killer to justice and punish those who made it happen.

Even if she had to end up doing it personally.

Joon was under no illusion about Max's capabilities. She knew Max's perseverance and dogged determination were astounding. She did falter at times, but she never gave up. Glancing up at Max, Joon was momentarily lost in her soft brown eyes.

"I love you." said the petite woman.

Max leaned down to kiss her. "I love you." Max responded.

They sat down to eat poorly folded omelets with spinach, mushrooms, and cream cheese which they washed down with glasses of fruit juice. They talked about the Lion and the Lionesses a little more, commenting on their flawless figures and how the group was so uniform in body and still so different in expression. Joon was fascinated with Jade, the alluring green skinned Lioness.

It was obvious she wasn't human, and Joon was both personally and professionally intrigued.

"I don't know what the Lioness recruitment policy is, but It seems neither you nor I fit that mold," commented Max.

"That's okay Max," Joon nodded, "I am just glad they are on our side."

Max responded, "Me too."

Joon tilted her head to the side as she did when she thought about things. "What's up, Babe?" asked Max, as she gathered the dirty dishes and immediately began cleaning them.

"Umm..." started Joon, "When do you think you'll be heading out?"

Max paused a moment, "I'm not sure, I have about a day left on my pass, before I have to leave, would you like to do something special?"

Joon just smiled, "Every-time I'm with you is special."

"Da'aw," Max chuckled, "I feel the same... so no expensive night out on the town?"

"Mmmm," Joon visibly struggled, but then relaxed, "Nah... I'm good," she giggled. Max looked around the flat, growing nostalgic as memories passed through her mind. Glancing at the wing-back chair brought a momentary flash of pain across her face. Joon saw that expression and walked over and put her hand in Max's.

Max sighed... "Gonna hurt for a while."

Joon nodded, "Yea, it's part of life." Joon looked up into Max's eyes, "This is the price we pay for loving, and it is still worth the price."

Max nodded. Joon started to drag her wife back into the bedroom, "I need cuddles... and Holo.

They settled in and immediately saw the flood of news stories surrounding events at a Terra dance club. Following the feeds and reports of a dinosaur appearing live in the streets outside the club and a ship to surface attack by the Invictus.

Joon and Max stared at the feeds trying to process the reporting.

"What the hell, Max! Is it terrorists?" Joon muttered, still lost in the information. "I'm not sure," replied Max in the same tone, "I think someone tried to kill the Lionesses!"

"All of this happened yesterday evening, after the ceremony." Said Joon, Max agreed, nodding slowly. Joon glanced at Max, "That's some serious shit Max. I'm pretty sure you're not allowed to shoot ship's guns in a city."

Max affirmed, "You're right, that's some serious shit."

Max went to the kitchen and got a bunch of snacks and drinks for them.

There were hours of speculation by holo-cast commentators...Then a TFNN special report interrupted: The image of Jehanna Elani appeared standing in front of an open troop hold of a raptor, standing next to her in a suit of pristine white power armor, sans helmet, was the Lion, John Blake.

"Oh shit!" Joon squealed as They both sat up immediately and watched with mesmerized expressions.

0o0

The interview with the Lion shows the now unmistakable image of the Invictus some distance away. In the background is a mountain. John Blake recaps the events at the night club and detailed information leading up to that moment in a steady and calm manner. He takes pains to make it clear who the players were that resulted in drama that unfolded the night before.

"-so, we tracked the group responsible for the explosion back to their lair," John replied, turning slightly and gesturing towards the mountain.

0o0

Max and Joon's jaws dropped as the mountain on the holo shimmered and disappeared as the vision was replaced by a wicked looking stone fortress; something out of a dream.

"Whooooah," both women responded simultaneously. Ears perked even more as both continued listening to the interview revealing both the murder count and the list of contracts an assassin's guild had orchestrated and that it was all now in the hands of authorities.

Max fumbled for her data pad, scrolling through the contacts she had with Jericho TFIS and found that in the past two hours well over a hundred cases were updated with new information.

Max felt a sudden great weight lift off her shoulders. She started to cry, and tears began streaming down her face.

Joon crawled into her lap and held her as they watched the Lion interview together. They were overwhelmed as they watched the firepower on display as the lightshow of destruction of the horrid assassin's base transformed the whole mountain plateau into molten rock in a matter of seconds.

0o0

"I'm just happy to do my part, Jehanna," John said, giving her a respectful nod. "I consider it a privilege to be able to protect the citizens of the Terran Federation from evil, whatever the source."

0o0

Max and Joon hugged tighter and sighed happily. A few hours later Max and Joon stood together at the flat's front door, "I don't want you to go," muttered Joon.

"I know sweetheart," Max hugged her wife, "I'll be back as soon as I can." Max's obligations to the TFN didn't change just because her long-term goals might have. After a long goodbye kiss, Max departed her home once again and made her way back to the unit. Many hours later, Max signed in from liberty with twenty-eight minutes to spare.

Being efficient with leave was an art-form.

0o0

"Anders!," A bellow erupted from the NCOIC office, Max grimaced but immediately went there and peeked around the corner, "yes Sar-major?"

Max saw the much older but remarkably well-preserved gentleman affectionately referred to as "goat" he was Sergeant Major Irasmus Boggs, no nonsense, no fluff, never a kind word when none would do.

"You get your crying done?" The goat glared at Max raising an eyebrow.

"All done Sar-major." Max knew how to respond without antagonizing the goat. He didn't dislike Max; he just didn't like anyone. The pass had been last minute, and the goat only did last minute for missions, so Max pulled her perfect record card, something she could only get away with once.

Goat didn't get mad; he knew Max wouldn't do that on a whim. So, she got her pass. "You have ten minutes to gear up. Commander Yance got the call right before you walked in," Muttered goat. "You have the best timing Anders."

Max immediately went jogging through sterile corridors to quarters, the hallways always kept cold and clean. Turning into her unit's quarters she immediately went to her bay. Stripping out of her BDU jacket and civvies Max dove into the thick black body sleeve used by her unit, pulling on the tactical webbing and boots, her personally altered gauntlets with the integral computer for her demolitions programs.

At that moment one of her teammates jogged by her bay and skidded to a halt "Anders!" the beefy man exclaimed, "Great! I hate demo! C'mon! We're getting the brief on the way." Max swung by the armory for her weapons and go bags and immediately noted the three pallets being loaded with crates full of explosives prepared for deployment.

Boarding the purpose built TFN corvette her unit had used from time to time, she continued watching the pallets being loaded into the hold of the small ship with a hawk's eye, Max followed suit.

Preflight checks done; Max crowded into a small briefing area. Her unit, codenamed Charlie Alpha Tango, were all assembled and the towering unit leader, Commander Stephen Yance, was talking quietly to Buzby, his bulky first sergeant.

Yance looked around the room. Everyone felt the corvette begin to move and knew the mission had begun. All talking ceased as the unit awaited the beginning of the brief.

"Gentlemen..." Yance began, not dreaming it necessary to note any exception, which Max was just fine with since she was accepted for her skills rather than her sex. "At 21:20 local, Admiral Carl Weber extended orders to unit Charlie Alpha Tango to commence a 'black' mission to "secure, obtain and sequester" a target designated as "Alien132". This mission is under "Hade's" protocol."

"Primary: grab and go, Secondary: zero intel." With that phrase, Yance nods at Max. Max knew exactly what Hade's protocol meant: all peripheral assets and sources were to be eliminated, no witnesses. Max was the expert demolitions technician; she had the highest tech level in the unit.

Yance continued punching up a holo image for the unit to see, "This is the Vitalis Corp freighter, the Quinton. So named for the CEO of Vitalis, Hanz Quinton. It's essentially a Battleship with a huge amount of cargo capacity. She carries a detail of a few hundred security personnel."

"We are going to rendezvous while in hyper, approach at sub-light and in stealth, and breach her once she enters hyper again. Our mission is to locate and extract the target while setting up that ship for scuttle."

Max realized now why there were three pallets: it was her job to destroy a battleship sized freighter in hyper, not just a simple blow and go. Her unit was the very best and worst of the TFN military. They were never given a choice of targets or missions--refusing to comply with a mission was the same as suicide.

Max knew that going in. Learning how to do these things was what she agreed to do... to find justice. A justice the Lion had just earlier that day doled out when he took out her mentor's killers and supplied the evidence necessary to bring those who orchestrated it to justice. Max no longer needed this training or experience, but she was here, nonetheless. Max needed to do her job, whether she agreed with it, or not.

The flight through hyper was thirty-eight hours of preparation. Max's unit was divided into two teams, Target team and Demo team. they would all be in full nanoweave, even the explosives were in nanoweave rigs so everything about the insurgency would be invisible to the naked eye.

Max went over the ship schematics with Yance and Buzby. They agreed the reactor core and engines were the trigger points for the Demo team. Max thankfully didn't need to worry about the target team's objectives as the target could be in a dozen different places on the ship.

Fitful rest as the hours crawled by, no one in her unit was very talkative. A few of them could be entertaining, but on mission, no one was. This team was exceptionally professional, and the institutional apathy was palpable.

Everyone felt the ship come out of hyper: it was showtime.

The trick was the rendezvous in stealth. Max couldn't see what was going on, but she knew in her head how it was taking place. The corvette was covered in sensor-baffling nodes, allowing the ship to register almost no profile to sensors. Even an active sensor sweep gave very little return when the suite was active; passive sensors wouldn't register the corvette at all.

Hours later Max could feel the magnetic grapples fastening the stealth ship against the hull of the Quinton; a silent remora attached to a massive shark. More waiting, then everyone felt the telltale signs of going into hyper once again.

Everyone automatically initiated a final gear check and all HUDS lit up showing each unit member's status in the upper left. This was primarily used for tracking team members location and movement coordination and allowed for silent and invisible infiltration with the nanoweave optical camouflage.

Max and demo team each loaded out with fifty kilo charges in nanoweave rigs equipped with low power repulsors. Making sure each and every charge was ready was part of her professional pride.

Yance appeared, "Minus twenty minutes, Anders, get your team on and off ASAP."

Max affirmed, "Copy that, boss."

Yance nodded and disappeared again back to the command deck.

Weapons check completed. Max carried a heavily modified XR75 with extended magazines and a suppressor. She wasn't the top shooter in the unit, but she was competitive. There was a healthy level of competition when it came to skills at this level, and all of them acknowledged Max her's.

Buzby was hands down the best shooter in the unit, his natural marksmanship was uncanny; that's why he led the target team.

Target team took point on breach and with electronic baffles in place, the lock-pick program did its job. Seamless entry into the Quinton was a walk in the park with the nanoweave covering any visual sensors as they were rerouted one by one. It was the slow methodical work that Max's unit excelled in.

Two security hostiles were silently eliminated on deck 2 as Max and Demo team worked their way towards engineering: removing obstacles and clearing as they went.

The deadly and silent dance concluded with three demo charges placed around the fusion plant of the Quinton. Backtracking towards deck 2 again, the team went on to propulsion: again, eliminating and clearing as they went. A fifty-kilo charge was precisely placed on each of the massive drives that drove the Quinton.

Demo team, now done with their part, made their way back to deck 2.

Then the ship's battle stations Klaxon went off, and chaos enveloped the mission. Scores of security personnel bolted out of berths, only a handful of them on shift, but all fully armed and armored.

"Demo team, report" Yance's voice crackled in over coms.

"Charges set, proceeding to breach" responded Max, her team covered the corridor as she paused.

"Belay that, go to deck 5, target team is pinned down, break them out," Yance's voice was steady, but he was obviously not happy.

Demo team worked through, clearing dozens of security squads along the way: finally coming out into a corridor where target team was pinned down just as someone lit up the hallway with a heavy MG, tearing through bulkheads and eviscerating two of Max's Demo team. Sliding down the corridor while keeping low, Max tossed a frag grenade into the doorway where the MG was shooting from.

As the grenade went off, Max sprinted into the opposite end of the hall before seeing two corpses splayed out in pieces, obviously from her unit. She slid into the cubby next to Buzby.

"Extract Buzz!" She spat. Buzby pulled a container out of the cubby, patting it and then Max's shoulder.

Nodding, Max gripped the built-in handles of the rectangular container, its rounded and reinforced corners gliding along the floor, an integral display showing some kind of medical readout.

Max maneuvered the case along the edge of the hallway, holding her rifle to cover their forward progress. A security detail turned the corner in a rush and her finger caressed the firing stud, dropping them as their bits splattered across the walls. Max kept moving forward, staying low. The Demo team continued clearing the path while the Target team brought up the rear.

Along the way back up to deck 2, the security became painfully aware of the visual camouflage Max's unit employed. At several choke points their solution was effective, they began saturating the corridors with shrapnel and anti-personnel rounds. Max lost both of her Demo teammates as Buzby and his last team member cleared the way to the breach. Max pushed the container into the breach securing it just inside the airlock.

That's when a massive staccato of grenade and small arms fire filled the air. Max watched as the two remaining unit indicators went dark, suddenly realizing they were gone. Slamming closed the breach to close the airlock, she thumbed the com, "Yance! Target secure! Disengage!" Short precise reporting followed by, "Anders, we are clear."

Max tapped on the arming programming and hit the detonation signal. Small arms fire blared over the com and echoed through the ship. Max immediately engaged her nanoweave again, now aware of hostile combatants aboard the corvette.

Max knew every inch of the interior and quietly advanced at speed, covering the hatches along the way. Upon entering the command deck Max listened, hearing labored breathing. Stalking closer to the bridge, Max spotted three corpses, two were bridge crew, one was Quinton security. Peering in on the bridge, she saw Yance and another two dead Quinton security personnel. Yance's eyes were wide, and he was pale. Max did a quick scan of the whole bridge, not seeing any active targets she disengaged her nanoweave.