Starchaser Ch. 02

This is an edited rewrite of the first publication of this story by the same title. Readers' comments were spot on (thank you to everyone who commented) about the difficulty of following which voice each paragraph was written in that disrupted the flow. This rewrite includes voice clues according to the key that follows this paragraph, and also includes enriched details that expands the backstory and scenes. All comments are welcome.

This key is to clue the voice change that continues until the next voice change:

=N= is for narration voice

o/o is for male character

-/v\- is for female character

A little visual clue perhaps and hope you enjoy your read, please leave a comment.

-/v\-

I look up at Barrett and hope nothing has changed now I am aware of my boob pressing into his chest. He doesn't seem to have noticed so I am not about to move away at all. His demeanor has a subtle change while he is looking in the distance. It is like his eyes are not fixed on anything, that look someone has when they are listening to someone, perhaps listening to a conversation. That would be normal except for the fact that besides he and me there is nobody around, just the two of us in the dark underneath the starry night sky. And the Moon of course, the moonlight is making everywhere look like it is glowing in a soft blue-white light.

Barrett is a strange man by how different his mannerisms are from people I have been with before. Different yes but I have no sense of danger or dread and instead I have a curiosity and an intrigue with no sense of worry. It is a comfort I have only felt when being with family before, yet I have known Barrett for less than a couple hours. Our hands are still clasped together and I sense no change in the pressure of his hand and his fingers on mine nor any other movement of his hand holding mine.

Then just as suddenly as he had been whisked away to the unheard conversation, he is back to looking at me as if the conversation he had been listening to ended. It is so difficult to see anything in the dim glow of light but I can see and feel his eyes are on me again. And by feel I mean it feels like he is looking directly into my heart. I cannot take my eyes off him and I don't care if I am looking at him way too long because he is doing exactly the same thing to me. I know fully well how my mother always told me to be wary of being swept off my feet by a stranger.

Technically Barrett is a stranger like she warned me about because I really don't know anything about him. But if her concern was a worry that I would be swept away to experience the thrill of adventure in the rarest of pure love, then I am at a great risk of becoming a disappointment to her. I feel an attraction to Barrett stronger than any feeling I have ever felt before. He smells so good and I'm guessing it is just his natural body scent I keep breathing in deeply.

My heart is beating quickly and my mind is going straight into my favorite fantasies and past daydreams. I know I should remain calm and keep my mind clear as best as I can. Bad things happen to good girls in situations like this and some of them are never heard from again, or worse, found sometime later having suffered a tragic death. My daydreaming has never been perilous but something always happens to me that is very naughty and very exciting, and those naughty and exciting things happen to me as the good girl I am. They have me believing that good girls can get into compromising and erotic situations while still remaining a good girl. A good girl can also be a bad girl for the right man and I have never before met the right man but I am sure I am leaning against the one I want now.

o/o

I look at the beauty who is leaning her body into mine and holding my hand. I refocus on her in the pale blue-white moonlight and notice she is looking at me as if she can read my mind. I have seen this kind of look from a woman before and before it was unsettling but somehow with Noel it is all new and different and intriguing. The Datastream information arrives and tells me that her eyes hold the key and reveal evidence that her genetics include Avalonian tracers.

That information changes all prospects for Noel. Prospects of whether she could be a suitable partner to would she choose to be my lifetime partner. That change in perspective is an epic paradigm shift I had not expected and such a quick turn of event has made our meeting tonight feel more like a prearranged appointment than mere happenstance.

The situation has quickly shifted from amazement at meeting her tonight as a delightful and attractive woman to considering how much time would be needed before I could ask her for a decision that she would need to make. To get to that point would of course require me to move the discussion to where I could give her a choice that would require her decision. A choice that would forever change her life.

I can already feel how I want to trust her. I can feel it deep within me. A focusing fact that she is genetically predisposed to stepping off planet with me. First and foremost though is the matter of trust. I have only been aware of Noel's existence for a couple of hours and there is a lot of ground yet to cover before any hint of her joining my crew can be made.

Trust is absolutely essential for me as Captain when choosing a member to join my crew. The Captain chooses first who should have the opportunity to join the crew and then a two-way consideration begins first with the prospective crew presented with the opportunity and then second the potential crew member needs make their own decision. The crew must be absolutely certain the Captain is worthy of their absolute trust so that when commands are given they are already committed to following orders implicitly, without questioning, delay or doubt.

=N=

Documented in the historical archives are accounts of Captains who fell prey to individuals who influenced them for emotionally biased decisions to become crew, only to discover later the crew had ulterior motives and had in fact chosen them and their ship before they met. Nothing untoward was detected in meetings archived in Captain's logs entries or Command Dispositions nor at any time before the individual was invited to become crew. In each case discovery of subterfuge happened later with a commonality of the crew had employed manipulating behaviors and techniques to get aboard ship.

Archives show these events happened without a preference to either the Captain's gender or the type of starship, and no trends have been discovered to correlate motivations beyond avarice for putting the safety of all involved into jeopardy. Upon recognizing the perpetrator's motives, the universal Captain's decision has been to protect the ship, to restore the sense of social balance, and to reestablish the harmony essential for everyone involved in extended space travel. What is considered the practical decision is a Phased Transport for the malevolent crew from Point to Oblivion.

Examples of these events are core curriculum at the Academy to illustrate to what level a situation must reach for this action to be taken as appropriate. Appropriate as an action of a magnitude equal to the threat and when properly documented justifies Point to Oblivion Phased Transport to physically offload the perpetrator's rogue spirit from the ship. Because it involves the destruction of the spirit's physical manifestation, it requires the highest level discernment of all Command decisions.

Barrett's primary instructor had taken care to use the most extreme examples to motivate his students. He emphasized the benefit of Phased Transport to offload the spirit as a sensationless separation of the spirit from the physical body. He also cautioned it would require a calculated deceit on the part of the Captain to command the starship to perform an act that goes against the ship's fundamental programming. An act that can only be commanded when the ship's core processor is in harmony with all prior command decisions, emphasizing the importance of consistent and competent leadership that builds credibility and cohesion between a sentient and a processor-cortex.

The instructor's key takeaway point was to develop a seamless coordination with the ship's artificial intelligence to make second nature the mental coordination each student should have with their ship's core processor from its earliest processor-cortex development. This part of the curriculum is used to promote a concerted mental coordination that begins during preparatory coursework for the student's neural communicator implant procedure at the beginning of their 13th year.

The implant is made at the same time the core processor is receiving its initial programming at the Farpoint Shipyard's Artificial Intelligence Systems Division. The Captain is then tapped into the communication stream through the core processor halo of its supporting architecture that will later become the central operating system for the Captain's DS Cruiser.

At first the link is a way for the Captain Apprentice to learn about the ship in its construction and the information downloading into the core processor halo databanks. The link soon becomes the primary portal to the Captain Apprentice's virtual reality classroom and classes then take on a relevant realism where the instructor guides students through the complexity of Captaincy and the Captain's place, in the Avalonian Combine in general and in the Fleet in particular.

The ship's systems continue to be assembled while the Lexan Matrix hull is formed increasing the complexity of the construct that grows to include all manners of sensors, detectors, monitors, displays, devices, and actuators. Each new system and subsystem guides the ongoing coursework about ship maintenance, functioning, and management. The completion of the bridge draws on earlier lessons of navigation and astral physics. The completion of the propulsion unit draws on lessons of energy and mass especially conversions and efficiencies.

The installation of deck gravity plates and the level up and down tubes draw on atomic defect and its aggregate attractive principles and physics of universal gravitational bodies. Installation of food processors and reclaimators draws on nutrition, chemistry, biological processes and societal norms.

Some systems as they are installed have no prior learning to link to and the Captain Apprentice receives advisories about functioning and other matters of importance, such as Phased transportation units and Hyperspace Drive units that draw on principles Farpoint Engineers have yet to fully understand. For these systems knowing what not to do and why not to do it are the salient points to be learned to the level of expert.

o/o

I search myself and find no hint of warning signs with Noel, no internal walls going up, no intuitive apprehension of any kind. If anything I am finding the usual reasons to avoid someone or limit how close I will let a woman get to me either relaxing or completely absent. She might just know where the controls are hidden for my emotional drawbridge or she might have a master key to my innermost places. It doesn't matter to me at this point as I am quite certain I want to keep our conversation going in the direction it is going.

The Datastream information Starchaser found in Central Cortex search proves she is supposed to be with me, right here and right now. All that remains really is for her to choose what I hope she will choose, and I know if I make any attempt to influence her decision it will end badly, she must do all her own decision making to be confident in her conclusion. My part is to prime the pump and the conversation needs to start somehow. "Have you ever wondered what is out there? Up there in the sky, the stars, far beyond the planets..." I look into her eyes knowing fully well that I am looking at the eyes of an Avalonian Human woman.

I can see Noel is listening to me by the way her eyes are taking in everything about me. "I'm sure you have seen the NASA Webb Space Telescope Deep Field photograph of endless galaxies in what was previously thought to be empty dark space." I look at her and apart from her nodding yes to my question, she has not flinched or reacted adversely but she is watching me closely. It is at this moment I first notice that her breast is pressing into my chest. I don't know if she is doing it intentionally. Perhaps it is something she doesn't notice herself, so I don't do anything to draw attention to it and just quietly enjoy her touching me this way.

"Noel, please know that I am not intending to make another calculated pickup line here, or maybe I am, but not in the way you're probably going to be thinking I am..." Now I can't stop noticing her boob on my chest, I'm unable to stop myself from leaning into her a little more feeling it mold against me a little more, but her boob is firm enough to not change shape very much. "I'm not from around here. Someone in my family lineage was from here but mostly they were from somewhere else." I am still being vague on purpose because, should I get any troublesome information through the neural communicator, it would be easier to put some distance between us if we don't get too deeply into each other's business to be able to sever all ties, even if she is the most amazing woman I have ever met, after my own mother of course.

-/v\-

I am listening to his heartbeat and his breathing. I love just sitting here in the moonlight, the two of us together in our semi-naked state. Yet as easily accessible as we are in what we are wearing, Barrett and I might as well be fully dressed and in a public place as he is not behaving in any way selfish as men so often do around me and to women in general. I have not been in the presence of such a gentlemanly behavior since I used to spend time with my own father. I wonder if he has even noticed my boob pressing into his chest, or maybe he just did from the sudden increase in his breathing depth and speed, and the uptick in his heart rate I can feel against my boob. I'm amazed I can do that.

He hasn't pulled away from me so if it is my boob against him he has discovered, then he is truly a clever man by not moving away from my touch. And who then would I be more drawn to than a man who realizes my breast is against him and he allows me to continue my discreet and somewhat naughty behavior? Or could it be an innocence perhaps? It might be I want to draw more attention to myself by dragging my body across his body, but I don't dare. I exhale only just managing to not moan when I feel him press his chest more firmly into my boob. I know my breathing and my heart rate just increased significantly too.

Oh Noel, get a grip on yourself girl, I swear you have not grown up one bit! Wanting to tease Barrett the way I would purposely tease the first man in my life, my wonderful and eminently patient dad. Oh... my dad, the one person I miss more than anyone else since I left home. Dad, I know you did your best to behave yourself, as if you didn't notice your little girl was growing up to be a woman and I certainly tested your character. You never fooled me and I know I got my sexual drive from you, sir, and it was definitely not from my mother.

It was no surprise to me that mom was always watching me and trying to keep me as her good little girl even when I was at college, as long as that lasted. I purposely left mom in the dark about all my daydreaming and fantasies, those erotic stories that began running through my mind constantly since they began when I was much too young to be having those thoughts. At least according to my mom's favorite childhood psychologists she quoted any time she saw a young woman my age who looked like she might enjoy sex attracting that kind of attention. Her goal achieved, unfortunately by turning me into a sexual introvert, something I so much want not to be.

I look again at Barrett's amazing eyes and he is doing that looking off in the distance thing again. I know the phosphorescence is attractive and all that, as is the Moon hanging low in the sky making a blue-white trail across the ocean to the shore, but he doesn't even seem to be looking at any of it. He said 'out there.' I can't help but remember one of my favorite fantasy daydreams about a man from space, from some distant place in the universe who came to find me, somehow knowing I was in my bedroom and in my bed, his sole purpose was to find me there, to mate with me for raw passionate sex to produce a next generation Starfighter. Like Alex Rogan in that movie 'The Last Starfighter' of Peter Quill in 'Guardians Of The Galaxy', oh baby, the fantasies I have had since seeing those movies that still have me reaching so many intense orgasms.

=N=

A feature that was introduced with the debut of the Equinox Flyer the year before Barrett received his was a newly understood feature called Photon Shielding. Photon Shielding is a technology that establishes a micron wide energy field separation above a solid surface that intercepts light photons incident to the energy field and conducts them to the exact point on the opposite side of the shielded object where the light energy photons are released to continue in the exact path they had been traveling without any distortion or disruption. In effect the Photon Shielding allows a solid object to be present in plain sight while remaining completely hidden without a shadow, reflection or refraction.

The technology was another of the secrets unlocked by Farpoint Engineers studying the wealth of devices discovered within the shell of a space station that nearly surrounds its central neutron star core and power plant. The station has a diameter approximately the size of the Sol system's innermost planet Mercury with a surface area of the station greater than the surface area of all Sol system's planets combined. With Photon Shielding active, the shuttle can arrive without being observed and, with the systems configured appropriately, it can make no disturbance to any of its surroundings as it arrives.

o/o

The neural communicator confirms the shuttle transport has departed the docking bay and is on its way with Photon Shielding active. I use the opportunity to get an update on sector scans and quickly review other routine actions that Starchaser does continuously and see the usual Nothing Significant To Report or NSTR results.

I blink and notice that she was watching me again. I can see she is smiling and seems to be more interested and curious about me with no signs of irritation or having objection, judgment or drawing conclusion. It doesn't take any imagination to know that she is observant and nonjudgmental and all the while patient enough to find out what is going on in due time. Some on this planet would call it the patience of a Saint but they would not know it is actually an inherent trait of an Avalonian.

-/v\-

He's doing it again, he was talking to me and then just pauses as if there is someone else standing right next to us he's listening to, he actually nods this time. How curious, and how marvelous! A real mystery man to make this evening a real adventure and so much like something from my daydreams and fantasies. Oh my fantasies, I hope he doesn't have a great sense of smell because he will know what effect he is having on me and my bikini is way too small to hide much.

I inhale deeply and smell myself and him, our scents so complimentary. I must focus and keep myself from being too easily taken by him. My god I am so much like a silly little girl running around keeping just outside my ability to get hold of myself and keep me from being naughty. Still, I hope my naughty little girl is too quick for me to catch to make myself behave.

"Where did you go that time Mr. Barrett?" I say with playful eyes, purposely bumping my boob into him to provoke a response. "Just where are you from anyway, and please Barrett, please don't make any jokes or just not answer me. I really want to know and I do believe you are not from around here. Is it somewhere up there?" I glance upward for just a moment and point upward with my finger in no specific direction hoping he will catch my meaning without me having to sound like a lunatic by suggesting he might be from outer space.