Rig Runner

"That feels nice...use your fingers like that...yeah that's good..." She sighed contentedly as he kept up his massage, some of the foam escaping from her head and slipping down her back as it followed the indent of her spine. His eyes tracked it as it passed the two dimples in her lower back, some of it catching in the straw-colored fur of her tail, the rest slipping over the ample cheeks of her rump. He returned his attention to her head, trying to suppress the twinge of excitement that he felt in his loins. His cock seemed to want him dead almost as much as she did.

"What do I do about your ears?" Eriksen asked, avoiding the two furry protrusions that jutted from the top of her skull as he washed her hair.

"You can wash them, but do it carefully. Don't get any soap inside."

He enclosed one in his hand gingerly, it almost looked like the ear of a teddy bear, and he felt her shiver as he started to work in the shampoo. Her ears must be sensitive. It might have been cute were they not attached to a homicidal alien that seemed bent on his torture and enslavement. He took both ears in his hands, and she writhed as he rubbed them. The fur here was shorter and more akin to that which covered her limbs and tail than the longer hair on her head.

"Your fingers are so soft," she giggled, she sounded almost gleeful. "No claws, you can just...rub me all over without me having to worry about you getting clumsy and cutting me. I hate getting soap in a cut, it fucking stings."

His fingers were starting to cramp, she was so damned large, and there was so much hair. He couldn't imagine how long it might have taken to wash had it not been cut as short as it was. Finally, he had covered her entire head in a soapy lather. He reached up to remove the shower head from its mount, setting it to a more gentle spray and playing it over her head. She shuddered again and crooned happily, her long spine arching as the jets hit her scalp.

"Oh, it has settings! You're such a pampered race, to have enough free time and energy to concern yourselves with such trivial matters...it does feel nice though..."

"And what do Borealans concern themselves with?" Eriksen asked, running his fingers through her hair to dislodge the more stubborn suds.

"Borealis is a hostile planet, you kill to eat, and you fight to live. We have no time for comforts and pleasantries. That there is a shower and that it works, that is all we need."

"Well, I'm sorry to burst your bubble, but we've had shower heads with multiple settings for going on six hundred years now. I don't think not having time is a valid excuse."

"This is the problem with humans," she said, Eriksen rolling his eyes as he carefully rinsed her ears. "Technology is supposed to make you stronger, more efficient at what you do, but humans are so advanced that they have become dependent on their tools. It makes you weaker, less capable."

"I'm going to assume that you've never seen what a battleship with a nuclear payload can do to a planet," Eriksen scoffed.

"A rifle can help you to hunt, but you should be able to hunt without a rifle, you understand? You might be able to destroy a planet from orbit with your spaceships, but where would you be without them? One of ours can take ten of yours in a fight, that's why you need us so badly, that's why you want Borealans for your armies."

"So you're saying that we can't survive without our technology? That's probably true, but it's redundant because there's no way to take it from us. We're a multi-planet species, we inhabit dozens of worlds, and we have a fleet made up of thousands of ships. Maybe back when we were confined to Earth, a collapse might have been a possibility, but now we're essentially immortal."

"Yet you fear the Betelgeusians, and you rally the Borealans and the Krell to fight them."

"The Bugs are everyone's problem, you should be thanking us for protecting Borealis. You guys are right next to contested territory, and you didn't even have space travel when we made contact with you. How do you think Borealis would fare if a Bug fleet decided that it looked like prime real estate? They wouldn't even need to land, they could exterminate your entire species from orbit, and you wouldn't have been able to touch them." She tensed as if she was about to go on a tirade, but he continued hastily. "My point is, you need our ships and our technology, and nobody would put up with you furry psychopaths if you weren't the most dangerous things on two legs. I don't know what's happening on the front, I'm just a glorified delivery man, but the Coalition is all about banding together against common threats. You don't need ships if we can provide them, we don't need to be warriors if we have you. There's such a thing as a mutually beneficial relationship you know. For fuck's sake, why am I bothering? You see every relationship as a goddamned fight for dominance, don't you? Even the UNN couldn't drill it out of you. That's the reason you're here robbing me instead of hitting on terrified recruits in a bar somewhere."

"I told you, the UNN would have me clawless. It was my choice to leave the integration program."

"Yeah yeah, I remember. But the Galaxy is changing, and your people are adapting. Within a single generation, you've discovered that you're not alone in the universe and you've been thrust into a Galactic war. I get how jarring that must be, but that's the reality, and if you can't adapt then you'll be left behind."

"Enough of that," she announced, "you're spoiling my good mood."

Eriksen suppressed a sigh and finished washing her hair, replacing the shower head when he was done. She seemed pleased as she ran her claws through it, preening as he watched her.

"Every day I discover things about you that just make me want to keep you for myself more than I already do," she said with a smirk, turning her head to look back at his reddening face. "Don't take this as an admission of failure, there's no doubt in my mind that I can break you and induct you into my pack. I can feel that natural subservience radiating from you whenever I have you at a disadvantage. Some part of you knows how to behave, I just have to draw it out of you. Humans love their ranks and their formalities, but on some level, you crave dominance."

She rose to her feet, her wide butt pressing Eriksen up against the wall of the shower, and she turned around to plant her hands to either side of his head as she leaned down towards him. She boxed him in, the still flowing water splashing off her tanned skin. He felt as if he might melt into a puddle and disappear under the intense gaze of her golden eyes, but he stood his ground.

"There's something I don't understand about you, though. In my experience, humans always act with their own best interests in mind, they're calculating and scheming. What I've offered you should be a utopia for a human in your position, you wouldn't have to worry about money or rent ever again. I'd be freeing you from your debts and obligations." She took his face in her hand, her fur damp, and angled his head up so that she could scrutinize him. "You're captivated by my body, don't try to deny it. You could lie with me to your heart's content, and you'd never have to worry about going hungry again. All I ask in return is the satisfaction of your obedience, and yet you deny me that. You fight me every step of the way, even though you can't possibly hope to win."

"We see things differently," he replied, her massive body casting a shadow over him. "You see subservience as freedom from responsibility while most humans see it as oppression. We've fought wars over the concept. It's unacceptable to me, to be at your mercy and beholden to your whims, it's a matter of principle."

"I could kiss you," she whispered, Eriksen suddenly painfully aware of her full lips as she spoke softly to him. "We could do it the way humans do, make love in a bed, slow and careful. I can be gentle and considerate when I have cause to be. Just become my little cabin boy, join my crew and hand over the code. I can do terrible things to you, or I can do wonderful things..."

"You can't intimidate me and you can't bribe me," he replied adamantly. "You're not getting into the cockpit."

She ran her fingers through his hair, still holding his face in her hand, her claws tickling his scalp as the water cascaded over the pair.

"You're making things so difficult for yourself...but as you wish. We'll do things the hard way."

Suddenly she pressed him up against the wall aggressively, leaning closer, Eriksen trying in vain to turn away as she held his chin between her thumb and index finger. She parted her pink lips slightly, poised to kiss him, making him wait for it as her warm breath tickled his skin. She made as if she was going to follow through, then backed off a little, repeating the motion a second time as she teased him. His heart hammered in his chest, he felt dizzy, the steam from the shower only adding to the feverish heat that gripped him.

She released him and took a step back, Eriksen placing a hand on the glass to steady himself, his knees weak as she glanced at his renewed erection with a knowing smile.

"If you won't play ball, then we'll just have to resume our shower. Find something that I can use on my skin."

Damn it, damn it, she had left him wanting and embarrassed with nothing more than the promise of a kiss. She was learning how to push his buttons, and that was a problem. He had to get himself under control, or maybe she really could break him with her seduction and teasing. He knelt and searched for another bottle, finding one that contained shower gel, hesitating as he held it in his unsteady hand.

"Well? Do my back first. I'll sit down so that you can reach."

She sat cross-legged again, and Eriksen poured a handful of the blue gel into his palm, spreading it across her shoulders. Even her back was muscular, he could feel it beneath her smooth skin, bunches of firm tissue that ran down her spine. Wherever he put his hands was soft, however, with a subtle layer of cushy fat that made her body feminine and inviting. She wriggled happily as his hands glided across her slippery skin.

"Deeper," she murmured, "really dig your fingers in."

Realizing that she wanted a massage as much as a bath, he pushed his fingers into her flesh with more force, kneading and rubbing the muscle beneath. He had to suppress a laugh when he realized that she was actually purring, a low rumbling that shook his bones, like the growl of a panther but obviously contented rather than aggressive. She leaned forward, resting her arms on her knees, trance-like as he pressed his thumbs into her neck and rolled them in slow circles.

He was beginning to understand her infatuation with him. Her kind had claws like curved meat hooks that would have torn through flesh as if it was butter were they careless with them. One would have to be attentive and skilled indeed to pull off a similar kind of massage without causing injury. In comparison, even his clumsy fingers must have been a rare delight.

He crouched to reach her lower back, stopping just above her tail, the appendage flicking and twitching as he approached its base. Once the considerable surface area of her back was covered in the slimy gel, he pulled back, her ears flicking in irritation as she turned her head.

"I didn't say stop."

"Well you're too...big, and the cubicle is too small. I can't reach you properly."

"How about if I lie down?"

Eriksen shuffled backwards as she stretched out like a cat, lying on her front, supporting herself on her elbows presumably so that she didn't squash her breasts against the tiles. Even so, it looked like she was resting on a pair of space hoppers, the top half of her body lying outside of the shower due to her stature. He retrieved the shower head from its mount on the wall and ran the jets across her body, turning up the pressure setting a little so that she could feel it. He knelt beside her prone form, unsure of what she wanted from him now.

"So, uh...what am I doing? Am I washing you or giving you a massage?"

"Both," she muttered, "just spread the gel around and use your fingers. Do you need to be instructed every step of the way? Use your initiative for once, make an effort to please me."

"Please you?" he muttered sarcastically as he squeezed the bottle of shower gel, depositing a fat blob of the liquid into the small of her back and beginning to spread it with his hand. "You can't hold a gun to my head one moment and then expect to be treated like a queen the next, humans don't think that way."

"Just shut up and do as you're told," she chuckled, her tone commanding but playful.

Eriksen took a few more minutes to rub her back, the gel making her soft skin wonderfully slippery, bringing out every fine detail of her developed musculature as he leaned his weight on her. He roamed down towards her rump, playing the soothing jets of water over her glistening body to keep her moist and warm, daring to take some liberties as he sank his fingers into the pliant meat of her ass. Her flesh sprang back like rubber, perfectly shaped, firm and round. He could almost see his reflection in her dark skin as he lathered her with foam and the water slid off her in sheets.

He reached her thighs, his fingertips glancing their sensitive inner surface, Nazka twitching in response as he moved down to where the blonde fur on her lower legs began. It was oddly abrupt, it looked almost like she was wearing furry socks, and he touched it tentatively. It felt like cat fur, soft and silky, damp from the shower water.

"What are you doing?" Nazka laughed, "I guess you've never explored a Borealan body before?"

"When would I have?"

"How does it compare?" She turned her head to look back over her shoulder at him, glancing conspicuously at his erection. There was no way for him to conceal it and so he just scowled at her, the bottle of gel in one hand and the shower head in the other. She smirked and rolled over onto her back, posing like a model at a photo shoot, presenting her naked body to him in all its glory.

"Do my front. All of it. Don't get shy on me now."

Trying to avoid staring at her heavy breasts as gravity attempted to take hold of them, Eriksen squeezed a blob of gel onto her belly, watching her chiseled abdominal muscles tense as the cold liquid met her skin. He spread it gently, feeling the contours of her six-pack beneath his palm, mounds of firm flesh that flexed at his touch. He spread the slimy gel all over her midriff, coating her hips and belly in the lather, stopping just short of the tuft of silky pubic fur between her legs. She shifted and writhed all the while, partially a genuine reaction to his questing fingers and partially an attempt to seduce him. Every subtle movement or shift in her posture accentuate her figure, muscles rising from beneath her wet skin, catching the light in ways that drew his attention.

Eventually, all that was left were her boobs. He could finally lay hands on those maddening breasts, she had been parading the damned things around since she had arrived. He felt a pang of guilt at his own excitement. He was supposed to be doing this under duress, but her relentless teasing was getting the better of him.

Fuck it.

He lifted his soapy hands towards her bust, the inviting mounds wobbling softly as her chest rose and fell, pink nipples contrasting with her dusky skin. Her yellow eyes followed him as he lathered her chest, weighing the fat globes in his palms, the flesh so soft and yielding that it spilled through his fingers under its own heft. They were larger than his head, calling them watermelons would have been descriptive of their size, but their mass was so much greater. They were of ridiculous proportions by human standards, but on Nazka's huge body they were more appropriate, albeit no less impressive.

She sighed as he dug his fingers into the meat, feeling firm breast tissue beneath the copious fat, kneading and squeezing as his lust started to get the better of him and the pretense of massage or bathing was forgotten. Nazka seemed to enjoy it, crooning as his digits sank deeper into her generous bust, the gel making them slippery and evasive in his grasp as he attempted to handle the oversized mammaries.

He caught one of her swollen nipples between his fingers, pinching it gently as he worked the pliant flesh beneath, a gasp escaping her lips and her thick thighs rubbing together.

"Careful, little human. I may be relaxed right now, but if you rouse me, then I'll have my fill of you again. Maybe that's what you want?"

He retreated a little. As aroused as he was, he didn't think that his body could take another ravishing on the cold tiles. Frustrated, he backed off, finishing up his massage and rinsing her body clean with the water jets to leave it glistening under the artificial lights. The mist still pervaded the room, Eriksen was drenched even though he had spent little time under the shower head itself. He was hot and sore, his body protesting its prior treatment at Nazka's hands more loudly as time went on, and he was beginning to crave the comfort of his bed. Nazka seemed to notice his exhaustion, and he glimpsed a rare glint of sympathy in her golden eyes.

"Very well, you can go now. I am satisfied. I'll want to do this more often, however. It's like you were made to serve me. I've paid good money to visit hot springs on the homeworld that I'd rate lower than sharing a bath with you. Though the company of a pair of eager concubines is a tough act to follow, maybe I'll put that tongue of yours to good use next time."

He blushed at that. It was hard to tell when Nazka was genuinely complimenting him or just being crass. She might not know the difference herself, she behaved like she had been raised in a barn. She seemed to take great pleasure in offending him and making him uncomfortable. He rose to his feet and made for the door, pulling a towel from a nearby rack and wrapping it around his waist, the still prone alien watching him as she relaxed on the floor.

"I'll see you tomorrow," she said, in a tone that could be described either as suggestive or ominous.

CHAPTER 7: MELTDOWN

Eriksen was awoken by blaring alarms. He rose out of his bed groggily, rubbing his eyes and wincing as his soreness from the previous day's activities made his muscles ache. What the hell was going on now?

He pulled on his clothes and left his room, yawning sleepily as he tapped at a nearby terminal. Nazka emerged from the cabin adjacent to his, already in a bad mood, her ears flat against her head as she sidled up next to him.

"What's with all the fuckin' noise?"

"That's what I'm trying to find out," he replied irately, scrutinizing the touch panel as she flicked her tail impatiently. "Oh fuck, that's not good."

"What's not good?"

"Reactor three is nearing its thermal limit, it must have been damaged in the explosion. The early warning system has been triggered."

"Early warning?"

"Yeah, that reactor is nuclear, it uses plutonium fuel rods to heat water which turns into steam and is forced through a pipe. The steam then spins a turbine to generate electricity, which is fed into the superlight drive and stored in the battery banks to power the ship. You can get smaller ones, like the ones on Yachts or Coursers. Those are much more compact, but they generate a lot less power. On a ship this size, we use large-scale models, advanced boiling reactors. Problem is if they overheat then they tend to uh...catastrophically melt down and turn the entire aft section of the ship into radioactive slag while dosing the crew with enough rads that your cancers will get cancer."

"You idiot!" Nazka exclaimed. He recoiled, afraid that she might claw him. "This is your own damned fault. If you hadn't blown a big ass hole in the engine room, then this wouldn't be happening. We're lucky those reactors didn't go off like a fucking tac nuke!"