Organism Ch. 02

It was almost infuriating just how perfect his cock was. Kevin was her ideal length at eight and a half inches with a two-and-a-half-inch girth. He was just wide enough to where she got that stretchy full feeling minus the sharp pain and soreness that came with taking an unnaturally large dick.

But it wasn't just his size. For a man his age, Kevin could seriously go the distance. By the time he'd finally started to slow down, Samantha had already come three times. He speared her with that golden rod of his again and again, being sure to pound against the fresh welts on her ass from his palm, sending lightning bolts of pleasure up through her nerves that set her brain on fire.

By the time he'd gassed out entirely, she was seeing stars, having come five times in a row while he was still fully erect. Once the endorphins and other lovely neurotransmitters had kicked in, she dropped to her knees to return the favor, performing a little magic trick by making his full length completely disappear down her throat.

This was the reason why he couldn't get enough of the navigations officer despite the fact she was constantly giving him shit. Aside from her tremendous ass, Samantha could suck dick like no one else, and she wasn't afraid to swallow, either. Which was why, after their rage-fueled bouts of debauchery, he had no qualms finishing down her throat, where she proceeded to drain him completely dry.

Finally, she slapped Kevin's thigh and pulled her mouth off his penis, gulping what remained of him down before looking up at him through smeared mascara. "Truce?"

He nodded his head, now drenched in sweat, huffing for breath, and completely spent. "Yeah...yeah, truce."

On shaky legs, Samantha climbed up onto the bunk and nestled into his side. He wrapped one of his thick, powerful arms around her, giving a brief squeeze to one of her small, firm breasts, before sliding down her flank and resting on the swell of her hip. Samantha wrapped a hand around the now half-chub of her lover's deflating member and massaged it casually.

"Feels like we've been stuck here a month," Samantha griped.

He grunted at her, caressing Samantha's hip while she gently stroked his cock. "Yeah, well, I still think it was a bad idea landing on that damn planet in the first place."

"Okay, but seriously though. What was that thing?" she asked, a twinge of worry in her voice. "What did we just see down there?"

Kevin shrugged, indifferent as always. "Fucked if I know. Whatever it was, it's not our problem anymore."

Samantha sat up and glared at him in disbelief. "How can you be so apathetic about this? We just made contact with alien life for the first time in human history, and it tried to eat the doctor."

"We're in deep space. Weird shit happens all the time out here."

"Doesn't it bother you? Knowing what's out there? What if this isn't the only one? What if there are other sites with more of those...things hiding on other planets?"

He didn't respond at first, seemingly lost in thought about something.

"So, we're still getting our bonuses, right? If the Doc wakes up, I mean."

She gawked at him incredulously before shooting up off the bed and grabbing her bra and underwear, an appalled sneer on her face. "You know what? Forget it."

"What?" he asked with his hands up in bemusement. "What'd I say?"

Samantha clothed herself before heading to the bathroom to wash the taste of semen out of her mouth. That was the problem with Kevin. Any time they hooked up together, she always felt like she needed a shower afterward.

With a lot still weighing on her mind, Samantha decided to head to the crew lounge. There she found Owen and Rebecca sitting on opposite couches, both looking just as lost as she felt at that moment.

"Guess you guys can't get it out of your head either, huh?"

Owen sighed glumly. "Not for lack of trying."

She took a seat by Rebecca. Who at that moment was nursing a cup of hot chocolate, her go-to comfort drink whenever she couldn't sleep.

"I've just been thinking..." he continued. "...before today, I used to think we were alone in this galaxy."

Rebecca raised a brow at that. "Really?"

He nodded, relaxing back in his seat and staring up at the ceiling. "I mean, hell, maybe there was life out there at some point. But whatever it used to be, it's gone now. As far as I could tell, we were all alone out here."

Samantha thought about his words for a moment. "I used to read a lot of science fiction as a kid. Not like the new stuff with all the cheesy romances and convoluted plots. I used to read the old old-school kind of sci-fi. You know? Back when we still thought the galaxy was just teeming with life."

Rebecca nodded and sipped her hot chocolate. "I like classic literature too."

"There's this one quote by a famous author from that time period that's been stuck in my head since this whole debacle began," she continued. "Two possibilities exist. Either we are alone in the universe, or we or not. Both are equally terrifying."

Owen leaned forward and rested his elbows on his knees. "See, that's just it, though. My happy ass was just fine going on believing we were the only ones out here. Maybe aliens existed at one point, maybe they didn't. Wasn't my concern, and I was doing just fine not thinking about it."

"Why?" Samantha couldn't help but ask.

He looked down at the floor for a moment, wrestling with his thoughts before staring at the far wall. "When I was a kid...my parents were real big into the Church of Requiem."

They nodded along, listening intently.

"It's a fucking hoax," he insisted bluntly. "Requimism, I mean. They go on about how we were all created by the intelligent design of those who came before, and how we're all destined to be reunified after death in Heaven."

"You're talking about that religious group that worships the precursors, right?"

He nodded. "They have a different name for them, but yeah, it's the same bunch." Owen scoffed. "Bullshit is all they are. Their whole religion is just a scam to dodge taxes and profit off of membership donations." The engineer frowned in thought. "Sure drew my parents in, though. My whole childhood was pretty much devoted to the church. Wasn't until I was older that I finally found the common sense to get out while I could. Haven't spoken a word to my folks since then."

There was a lull in the conversation at the conclusion of his story.

"So, be honest. Do you guys really think Doc is gonna be alright?"

Owen shrugged. "There's no way to know for sure until Brooke finishes with her tests."

Samantha sighed. "Maybe we should apologize to her. Everyone was so quick to gang up on Brooke back there, but she was really just trying to protect the crew."

Rebecca shrugged. "Maybe. Still doesn't change the fact I wouldn't have been able to sleep for a month if we just left him to die down there. I couldn't do that to a member of my own crew, and I know for a fact the Captain couldn't either. No matter the danger."

"Why do you say that?"

She raised a curious brow at Samantha. "You mean you don't know?"

"Know what?"

Rebecca and Owen both looked at each other and nodded, before turning back to her.

"Chris used to serve on the Chromwell," Owen explained in a low, hushed tone. "That cargo freighter that blew up six and a half years ago?"

A brief flash of shock flew by Samantha's face upon hearing this. There wasn't a spacer alive who didn't know about the infamous IFC Chromwell disaster. When a Class-A Commercial Freighter carrying over fifteen-hundred crewmen suffered a catastrophic malfunction that resulted in the entire ship spontaneously erupting. It was one of the biggest tragedies of the last century. Of those fifteen-hundred crewmen, only about a hundred and fifty survived. And what made it so much worse was that no one had any clue what happened, or why the ship suddenly exploded.

"His best friend died on that ship," Rebecca stated glumly. "The Captain's never been the same since."

Samantha shook her head in pity. "Jesus..."

Owen nodded in agreement. "Yeah..."

There was a long silence as the three crew members all retreated into their own heads again. The sooner they were back in cryosleep and away from this system, the better.

~~

The captain's quarters aboard the Cordoba were nothing to write home about. They were about the size of a small studio apartment with an adjacent bathroom that Chris could never fit his six-foot-one bulk in comfortably. Still, it offered one luxury the others didn't have. Privacy. Something he'd been making ample use of with Brooke.

Chris was in the middle of filling two short crystal glasses with small cubes of ice when he heard a knock at his door.

"It's open," he called out.

The automatic door slid open, and Brooke came lumbering in, looking like she just aged about fifteen years within the span of the last hour. Her eyes were still puffy from all the tears the nurse had shed, and her expression told the story of a woman who was too tired to be worked up over anything anymore.

"Well, you look like shit," he joked, a force of habit in stressful situations.

She looked at the two glasses through glazed-over eyes, barely acknowledging his comment. "What's this?"

"My attempt at an apology," he admitted while unscrewing the cap of the expensive cherry bourbon he took from his private reserves.

While he poured two glasses, Brooke sat opposite him at the lone table in the middle of the small room. The moment he finished, she took the glass and downed the burning liquid in less time than it took him to fill his own glass, whereupon she offered the empty vessel to be filled again.

"I take it you have an update on Jacob?"

She nodded, waiting until he was done pouring before taking a healthy swig and setting the glass down on the table, her gaze cast to the floor.

"He's completely clean, Chris," the nurse spoke in a low, remorseful tone. "I ran every conceivable test under the sun, and I cannot find a single trace of whatever the hell that stuff was that got in his system."

The Captain sighed, taking a swig of his own drink before running his hand through his beard. "Maybe I was just seeing things. But it really did look like something had gotten into his suit."

"That's just it, though. Something did get into his suit," Brooke insisted, sounding more frustrated now than anything. "Those puncture holes didn't come from nowhere. I could see where that thing had torn into the material just as clearly as you could."

"So what happens now?"

She shrugged, downing another healthy gulp of bourbon. "We keep him under observation until he wakes up, then he's quarantined for a week. Assuming everything is all clear after that, we can all go back to bed."

Chris narrowed his eyes curiously at her for a moment. "There's something else bothering you about this, isn't there?"

For a long while, she didn't say anything, seemingly lost in her own head. Finally, Brooke finished off her second glass and rested back in her seat.

"That sample Jacob sent me...shortly before he was attacked...something about it disturbed us both, and now I can't seem to get my mind off of it."

"What about it disturbed you?"

She bit her lower lip nervously, wrestling with her thoughts for a moment. "The sample he collected, the one we carbon dated, it's over eighty billion years old."

Chris lowered the glass from his lips mid-sip, his mouth slightly ajar in stunned disbelief.

"Eighty...billion years old?"

She nodded her head. The Captain let that sink in for a moment.

"Are you sure?"

"Mira seemed confident the result was accurate," she insisted. "Not that that makes any damn sense. How can something be older than the universe it currently inhabits?"

Chris shook his head vehemently. "It must have been a bad reading. AI's aren't perfect. They're just as capable of making mistakes as we are." He looked up at the ceiling. "No offense, Mira."

"None taken, Captain," the AI assured. "Admittedly, the results retrieved from Dr. Warren's genetic sequencer baffled me as well."

"See? Even she was perplexed. I'm telling you, whatever that stuff was, it gave our equipment a bogus reading."

Her brow furrowed in thought momentarily, whereupon she looked up at the ceiling. "Mira, do you have any working hypothesis regarding what we found?"

"Based on my own personal calculations, Nurse Holloway, there are only two possibilities that seem remotely plausible. Either the substance we tested reacted with our equipment in such a way as to provide false data. Or..."

"Or what?" Chris asked nervously.

"Or the unknown lifeform we discovered comes from a point in space and time that predates our own universe."

A nervous chill ran down both their spines at that moment. Chris poured himself another glass.

"It's a false reading," he insisted.

"But what if it's not?"

"It has to be. Brooke, what she's saying is simply not possible. There's nothing older than the universe itself. It's just...not rational to think that way."

She frowned in thought before finally relenting. "You're probably right."

He nodded and took a swig of his drink. "I know I am."

"But let's just say for hypothetical's sake you're wrong."

Chris raised a brow at her.

"If this thing really is that old, we'd be dealing with an organic lifeform that isn't simply ancient. It would be..." She struggled to think of what to say. "...fuck, I'm not even sure there's a word for that. Antediluvian, maybe?"

"What's your point?"

She sighed. "My point is. If this...creature really is that old, old enough to come from a reality that's not our own, then who's to say the laws of this reality would even fully apply to it?"

A sinking feeling came over the Captain at that moment.

"If that were the case...what are the chances our equipment would even work on something like that?"

Once more, the cabin was filled with dreadful silence.

"We are still talking purely hypotheticals, right?" Chris insisted.

She nodded. "Of course."

"Then it's a non-issue," he assured. "Whatever's going on with Jacob, we'll have him checked out the moment we're dry-docked again. In the meantime, we'll continue to follow protocol."

At that, a familiar gloom enveloped her being. "Protocol...right."

He frowned at her worriedly. "Brooke, talk to me. I can see where your head is at."

"Maybe Jess was right. Maybe I'm just grasping at straws here, Chris." She shut her eyes as tears threatened to flood over again. "Coming up with whatever ludicrous explanation saves me from thinking about the fact I almost left him to die down there."

"Brooke..."

"He saved your life," she spoke miserably, her lip quivering as the guilt hit her all over again. "Despite what we both know, despite his own feelings, he still jumped on that grenade for you. And I almost...almost..."

It was too horrible to think about. Brooke clasped a hand over her mouth and shook her head from side to side in utter denial. Chris set his glass down and gently placed her hand in both of his.

"How am I supposed to look him in the eye again?" she wept. "How am I supposed to look that man in the eye and tell him what I almost did?"

"He'll understand," Chris tried to assure her. "Listen to me, you did nothing wrong."

Without warning, she crawled over the table and latched onto him like a small child, refusing to let go.

"Tell me I didn't just almost kill my best friend, Chris. Please. Please tell me I didn't do that."

"You didn't." His voice was soft and assuring as he gently stroked her hair while she cried on his chest. "This is all my fault, Brooke. I should have told you about the override code. All of this could have been avoided if I'd just been more honest."

Slowly, she began to calm down, finding comfort both in his words and in his arms. She couldn't even be mad. Why would she be? That decision ultimately saved Jacob's life.

Chris gently tilted her chin up to meet his gaze, a loving smile on his face. "Elizabeth Brooke Holloway, you are the most wonderful person I have ever met in my life."

She laughed through her tears, finding her smile again.

"The most kind, the most thoughtful, the most loving," he continued, peppering her hand with kisses as he did so. "And the most beautiful. I may regret not telling you my decision, but I will never regret saving the doctor's life. Because thanks to him, I still have a life with you in it. I'll always be grateful to Jacob for that. Always."

Finally, she wiped her eyes and sniffled, her smile having returned in full. "You're such a sappy dork, you know that?"

She kissed that goofy grin of his away before resting her forehead against his and breathing a sigh of relief, her mind finally at rest again.

"I love you so much," she insisted softly. "So so much. And I'm so grateful that you're safe."

Brooke kissed him again, and then again after that. She wrapped her arms around him as he took her waist. Right now, she just needed this man as close to her as humanly possible.

She settled on his lap, kissing him feverishly as Chris unzipped the front of her jumpsuit, his hands gently gliding up her naked belly to cup her breasts, caressing them through her mesh bra.

Finally pulling away, Brooke tugged her arms out of the sleeves of her jumpsuit and pulled her bra over her head before attacking his face far more vigorously. Almost frustrated by her lack of contact with him, she tugged furiously at the zipper of his jumpsuit, desperate to feel that lean, hardened muscle of his against her skin.

The room heated up around them as Chris finally sat up and pulled his arms free as well. During which time Brooke hopped up off his lap and pulled her jumpsuit completely off, along with her underwear. He stood, and she jumped up onto him, latching around his waist like a spider monkey and kissing him feverishly as he carried her to the bed.

He tossed her down onto the mattress, and she splayed out on her back, that look of fiery desire in her eyes that never failed to pull Chris in and hold him there for so long as she wanted him. The Captain pulled his jumpsuit and briefs away and joined her on the bed, his body crashing onto hers, pressing them close as they kissed once more. This was what she wanted. Right now, this was all that mattered to her.

The first moan of arousal left her lips as he kissed along her neckline, leaving a trail across the swell of her breasts, her perky nipples, down to her belly and lower still. Sparks flew across her lower half as he kissed and tongued her vigorously, only allowing him to remain between her legs for a moment before grabbing him by the hair and tugging him up to kiss her again. More than pleasure, what she needed most right now was him. Those gorgeous muscles in her hands, his lips pressed against hers.

It was only upon feeling that beautiful length of his spread her out and fill her up she finally pulled her lips away and gasped, shuddering in arousal as he slowly worked his hips back and forth. She began moving with him, savoring the feeling of being connected with her man. Her lips found his again, and their hands explored wherever they may.

This is why she loved him more than anything in the whole galaxy. This one feeling right here. Never in her life had she ever felt this way with another man before. When they made love, Brooke didn't just feel warm and blissful, she felt safe. She felt loved. But more than any of this, she felt a burning fullness in her heart that simply never came with anyone else but him.

Sex with Chris was never just fucking, it was love and bliss and all the things she used to scoff away as unrealistic before he came into her life. When she was with this man, Brooke was cuddling a giant teddy bear while standing in the middle of a roaring fire. The things he would whisper in her ear, the feelings he pulled from her heart, the sparks that would fly off her body with each movement of his hips, at no point in her life did she ever feel more beautiful or more special or more loved than in these moments he had her in his room on her back.