Space Relations Pt. 21

"Shoot that fucking thing, Willow!" Margo cried out. "Look at how big that fucking thing is!"

"No, don't shoot it!" Mary countered. "It isn't doing anything threatening yet!"

"What do you mean not yet? Is it a threat or isn't it?" The big cook shot back.

"Well, of course it is a threat!" Mary returned. "But it'll be a bigger threat if we shoot at it and piss the thing off! If it cries out for help, guess what, Margo, we'll have to deal with the entire flock of them!"

As cool as a cucumber, acting captain Willow Smith sat in the ship's command chair. When Mary's Happy Kiss hadn't calmed her enough, Mary had gone a step further and given her a Happy Tongue. Willow was now so mellowed out she was nearly at the point of physical sedation. Her mind, however, was as quick as ever.

They had a considerable problem before them. A short while ago, they picked up a ping from Captain Washington's hand-held. It wasn't much of a signal, but they were able to gauge an approximate area of origin of about half a mile wide. The ping had come from an unexpected location; it was nearly a thirty-degree angle away from the captain's set route. All Willow had to do was to take the ship over there and start beaming out her own calls to the missing crew.

Unfortunately, the Space Relations couldn't get any closer to the new search area. This was because a flock of five very large birds had come in from another direction to get in their way. The birds weren't just very large; they were huge! Their wingspans ranged from twenty feet to fifty feet wide. If one discounted the people-size feathers, the forms of the birds were somewhat like Earth's prehistoric pterosaurs. The birds had huge beaks and huge sloping heads to counterbalance them. If they had teeth, they were probably pretty small, as the close-up images couldn't pick them up.

The problem they had was that the biggest bird or dragon or whatever had decided to take a closer look at the Space Relations. Apparently the creature didn't like the look of a giant silver shoe floating in the sky, and so it made a couple of angry swoops to scare the ship away. When that didn't work, it belched out a long stream of fire from its mouth that would have struck the ship if Willow hadn't jerked it out of the way. Willow flew the ship up and over the hovering flock, only to have the biggest monster come up after them. Twice more the giant bird tried to fry them, but the smart brunette countered the stream of flames by going up higher.

"The next time it opens up its big mouth, you give it a taste of our plasma cannon!" Margo encouraged.

"No, Willow, don't do that!" Mary bickered back. "That could be the mother or father of all the rest of them. If you kill it, you'll leave the smaller birds without a parent. You don't want to hurt their mommy, do you? And like I said, what if you shoot one and then the rest of them get pissed off? What if we end up having to kill the entire family?"

Very relaxed, Willow spoke up. "It doesn't matter. Thor hasn't shown me how to use the ship's weapons. I can probably half-ass using them, but I'm nowhere near the expert that he is."

"How can you be so calm at a time like this?" Margo asked.

Willow considered Margo's extra large breasts. Their outline was clearly visible through Margo's orange shirt. Those were big milk jugs, Willow considered, recalling how Mary and Margo had been humping each other earlier, and how Margo had set her big body on top of her. The brunette winked at Margo.

"She's horny." Mary frowned. "Maybe I went too far with that Happy Tongue earlier. Willow, what we want to do is to avoid causing injury to any of those birds. I guess they're more like phoenixes that regular birds, but anyway. You know the saying; out of sight, out of mind? If that big mother bird can see us, it might assume we're a threat to it. If it doesn't see us anymore, maybe they'll all go on their merry way."

Willow thought this over quickly, calmly and efficiently, very unlike how she normally did things. "I'll ascend so high into the sky that the birds won't follow us. When our scanners show they've moved away, we'll come back down and resume tracking the rest of the crew."

"What if those birds eat the crew?" Margo asked.

"They don't have any teeth." Mary said. "They're not biters, they're gulpers."

"Well, they're big enough to gulp the crew!"

"That's true, isn't it?" Mary sighed in frustration. "I'll tell you what. They weren't heading toward the crew when we first saw them. Let's do what Willow said and go up higher. If it looks like they might be going after our men, we'll have to do something about it. I really don't want to hurt any of those birds, Margo!"

Observing that the mother bird was coming in for another close pass at them, and possibly try to torch them again, Willow directed the ship to start its climb. The trio of women felt as if they were riding a high-rise elevator for the next few seconds, thanks to their adjusted magnetic field and off-kilter gravity.

"Woo-hoo!" Mary called out.

For about a minute, the giant bird looked as if it wanted to come after them. Then, finally, it swept back toward the rest of its flock.

"See, Margo, disaster averted." Mary said, sarcastically.

"I'll show you a disaster." Margo grumbled. "Between my legs! And you're going to like it!"

In the captain's chair, Willow felt her body flush. She wondered why nobody ever talked to her that way. Well, Cruz and Mary did sometimes, but she always felt so dirty after hearing such things that her instinctual response was to run away from them. If somebody said something like that right now, she was going to respond to it. Willow wanted some action!

"I'm going to, uh, I'll position the ship closer to where we heard the ping." Willow decided. "That way when we descend we'll be right over the spot."

Mary looked over and held Willow's gaze. Maybe the blonde was catching her feeling of lust, and why wouldn't she? It was Mary that had given her that Happy Tongue in the first place.

"Are you okay, Willow?" Mary asked.

"I'm fine." Willow lied. She was so primed up at that moment that she wanted to sit on Mary's face. "Once we find our men, you and me are going to have a little talk about your Happy Tongue."

"Woo-hoo!" Mary exclaimed, as she went back to watching her monitor.

Margo was looking at Willow as well. The slender brunette winked at her again, before she started navigating the ship in a new direction.

Captain Washington had been growing increasingly worried, as he and Thor hurriedly sent off radio messages from the high point of the tree they'd climbed. This was because down on the ground, two of the cat-women were getting closer and closer to his science officer. At one point, they looked to be jumping over Cruz's body, and baring their claws close to his face. These actions prompted Washington to remember how cats on Earth played with their prey before they ate it.

As he and Thor made their way back down, fortunately he saw that Cruz had things under control. The two felines, one black and one orange, were still taking turns in getting near the man. When they curled their fingers and claws close to his face, Cruz would playfully slap them away as if he were playing patty-cake. The felines were making a strange noise that sounded like quick hiccups at being treated like that.

"I think they're laughing, Captain." Thor observed.

Washington glanced over at the big man. "Really? You think that's what they sound like when they laugh? That's really weird!"

"Well, they're not crying. That's for sure."

As the two men reached the ground, the captain noticed that the other felines had climbed down as well.

"What do you think, Thor?" Washington wondered. "Should we lie down like Cruz did?"

"Negative, Captain." Thor answered. "If these felines try anything against us, we won't be in a good position to defend ourselves. For the moment, let's just see how Cruz interacts with them."

Only those two cat-women were drawing near to Cruz, the captain noticed. The other four felines were still keeping away from them, and from each other. Washington thought they might all be rivals in some way. He asked his battle tech, "Do you think they might be establishing a hierarchy right now?"

"Captain..." Thor nodded toward Cruz.

Washington turned in that direction. The black feline had dropped her body on top of his science officer. Instead of rebuffing her, Cruz snatched her with his arms. They were now rolling around on the grass together, with the feline still making those strange hiccup noises. Suddenly, the cat-woman lunged her head forward, as if she were about to take a bite out of Cruz's neck. Washington's hand immediately went to his plasma gun.

Strangely, the cat-woman drew her head up and hiccupped again. She started writhing over the man in an obvious sexual tease.

"It's okay, Captain." Cruz called out. "I'm not hurt. I think this is their way of conducting foreplay."

"That's weird, Cruz." Washington replied.

"I'm going to try something, Captain, in the name of science."

As the other two men watched, the science officer reached down to grab two good handfuls of the cat-woman's rump. The feline responded by rubbing her breasts on his chest.

"I think it's working, Captain!"

"Whatever you're doing, Cruz, I suggest you stop it." Washington warned.

"It's for science, baby." Cruz replied.

The next time Cruz grabbed the cat-woman's large rear end, she sat up on his waist and started bouncing up and down on him. The orange feline withdrew from the couple on the ground, the two men still on their feet noted, as if she'd lost and the black one had won. A musky, sweet smell started permeating the air.

"She's giving of pheromones, Captain." Cruz surmised. "I think she's in heat."

"I don't think you want to take things too far with her." The superior man said.

His words came too late. Already, Cruz was running his hands up and down the feline's sides. His science officer groped at the pair of black, furry breasts a moment later. The Captain was reminded of their encounter with the Worf, where they'd ended up having extreme dalliances with those people in a galactic sex contest. Washington hadn't done very well that day against those hairy people.

As the two men watched, Cruz rolled the woman over on her back. She seemed in a hurry to take the top spot, as if she was the conqueror and not he. Cruz managed to keep the feline on her back while he started undressing.

"I want to show you something." Cruz spoke to the cat-woman. "This may or may not cause you to change your mind about me, baby. You see, our bodies aren't quite as hairy as yours. This is why we wear clothing, so we won't be seen naked. Here, this is my shirt. Do you see? This is what I look like when I don't have my shirt on."

"Cruz, please put your shirt back on." The captain said. "You're making me very uncomfortable right now."

"Obviously, she's from the genus Homo, the same as we are, Captain." Cruz replied. "Look at my feet, baby. These aren't my real feet because I'm wearing shoes. Under my shoes I'll have what are called socks. Here, let me get all this extra stuff out of the way."

As Cruz sat down to continue stripping, Washington turned to address his other crewmember. "Thor, I'd like you to have a talk with our science officer. You need to convince him that what he's doing might not be a good idea."

Thor was about to make a reply, when one of the calicos came by on all fours and started rubbing against his legs. The big man looked down, watching as the cat-woman's tail stood up to expose her full backside and feminine genitals. Apparently, this one was giving off pheromones as well.

"Captain, I think he's right." Thor said, after taking a deep breath. "Except for their layer of fur, these creatures are more human than not." The cat-woman continued to rub her butt on his leg. "Captain, I think you should close your eyes for a few minutes."

Thor reached down to pat the feline's back and rump. When he caught her strong, sensual scent, he dropped to his knees and pushed her on her back. The two started to push against one another until the calico ended up over the bigger man.

"They like to wrestle, just like Margo does." Thor said. "They're strong, too."

Washington backed up until he was next to the tree they'd climbed earlier. Before his eyes, his science officer and his battle strategist stripped nude. The cat-women looked to be intrigued by their human forms. They touched the arms and legs of the naked men, running their clawed fingers further onto their chests and stomachs. Both women softly pushed at the men's erections, watching as they sprung back into place. He was stunned further when, at nearly the same time, both cat-women mounted his underlings. Instead of the hiccups he'd heard earlier, the sounds the felines were making sounded like wails, like caterwauling even.

The captain caught the strong smell from the other cats, as if the entire pack was giving off a sexual lust. The gray cat-woman came up beside him, on her feet instead of on all fours as the rest of them. She looked at him with her large eyes and her handsome features, before she rubbed her front on his. The feline pushed the man back against the tree trunk, before she turned and rubbed her backside on him.

Washington could only take so much. Because the cat-woman was standing up like he was, he couldn't really consider her a wild beast. Her form was a woman's form, despite the pointed ears and tail, and all the gray fur. She was intoxicating him with her smell, provoking him to reach out for her sides. Her fur, her skin was warm to his hands. The curve of her hips was more pronounced than it was on most human women.

Washington reached out for her belly and abdomen. He let his fingers glide down between her legs, finding what felt like a woman's cleft. The fur felt like any human woman's pubic hair might feel. The shape of the cat-woman's vagina was just like a woman's.

"Damn it, I'm a married man." Washington said, trying to keep from becoming overwhelmed by the sounds, smells and tactile sensations he was experiencing. "I have two wives, for crying out loud!"

When the gray pushed her butt against his hips, the captain's resolve floundered. He started groping her sides and breasts. He held her by the waist and started grinding into her behind. When she purred at his actions, Washington's erection nearly burst out of his pants. In his mind, there was no longer any question that this was a woman he held in his arms, or at least a semi-human woman.

He did push her away, but only so he could start removing his clothes.

"I'm not picking anything up." Margo shook her head. "Why aren't we able to pick up their computers with a regular scan?"

"The atmosphere of this planet is affecting our sensors." Willow replied. "Or maybe Thor changed the settings somehow, I don't know."

"Well, they've been gone for over four hours now." Mary complained. "We have to do something, Willow!"

Once the phoenix birds had left the area, which took a good while mind you, Willow had brought the ship down close to the planetoid's surface. Since the area they had to survey had a diameter of about half a mile, she decided to start out at an edge and circle around in a tightening arc. So far, they hadn't picked up anything, no calls, no blips on the thermal screen, nothing. The brush was too thick for the normal visual screen to see through, and there seemed to be a river or stream that gave off some kind of radiation that blurred everything else out.

"Boots on the ground." Mary said.

"We can't just leave the ship." Willow protested. "Somebody has to stay here to send out a distress call if we have to. I don't know if the call will penetrate all the way out of Saturn's sheath, but at least we'll have a beacon for somebody that gets close to Zeus.

"That would be highly unlikely." Margo frowned. "Nobody even knows where we are."

"We don't all have to go." Mary resolved. "Land us somewhere on a high point. I'll go out and look for them myself. We'll find you with that beacon you just mentioned."

"I'll go with you." Margo said. "Two pairs of eyes are better than one."

"I don't want to stay here by myself." Willow said.

"Tough titty." Mary told her. "Margo and I are going and that's final. If we're not back in, what, four hours, five hours, Earth Standard, then you mark the location and go get the cavalry. You can do it, Willow, and you have to because you're the only one left who can fly the ship."

"All right." The acting captain nodded. "I'll find a high point. I'll set us down in a few minutes, but you guys have to promise you'll be careful out there."

"Danger is our middle name." Mary said, as she marched out of the bridge. "Come on, Margo. Let's get our blasters out of the armory. We've got us some men to find!"

The two women found the surface treacherous. Willow hadn't even found a good spot to land, so she simply got close to the running water below them and let them jump out. Willow steered the ship back into the sky to continue her search that way, while Mary and Margo would search on foot.

"Hold on, Margo." Mary said, as she saved their location on the hand-held. "Okay, I have our aerial map, which isn't going to do us any good because we couldn't see all that much thanks to all these blasted trees."

"Which way are we going again?" Margo asked.

"Willow is going that way." Mary pointed, watching the Space Relations hover off. "We'll go in the opposite direction. That way we'll bump into each other and give each other updates when we circle around the perimeter. Are you ready to go?"

"Yeah. I want my captain back!"

"And I want my Cruz back!"

The women sloshed through the water they'd jumped into and onto the clayish soil of the stream's bank.

"Wait while I do a composition scan for the water." Mary said.

As she crouched down to get a sample, Margo studied the landscape ahead of them. She made a face at the tangle of vegetation that started up when the dry soil did. "We have to go through all that? Look at those leaves! They're bigger than we are!"

"We'll go around them."

"No, the leaves go all the way down the stream."

"Don't drink the water." Mary cautioned. "It is water, but it has a lot of iron oxide and ammonia in it. There is something else in there too, but the computer can't identify it. Whatever it is, the computer says it is organic and carbon-based, but the traces are too small to register." She scrutinized the plants running along both sides of the stream. "Those leaves are coming from the giant vines. Maybe the vines are putting something into the water. Let's go, Margo!"

The two trudged along on the bank, feeling the soft clay give way under them and nearly causing them to fall on their rumps the entire time.

"Screw this." Mary scolded. "We're going to have to climb over some of these vines until we get to more stable ground."

The vines were huge, bright green and as thick as the women's bodies. They stretched out for hundreds of feet up the hillside bordering the river, with thousands of giant green leaves that were colored purple and pink along the edges. Apparently, the vines originated somewhere among the trees and stretched out their ends all the way to the water. They were difficult to move through because some of them were stacked two or three high in places, plus there were so many leaves it was difficult to see the ground under them. The going only got easier once Margo started using her plasma gun to saw through the bigger stems.

Both women were sweating by the time they reached the top of the hill, only to find that was another bigger hill behind it.

"Who was it that decided to land on this part of the planet, anyway?" Margo whined. "Why couldn't we land on a flat, grassy plain?"