The Hierarchy of Now and Forever Ch. 08

Ssivik crossed her arms under her scaled breasts and grumbled.

"Well, that'ssssssss just rude!"

Then she slid back into bed, leaned against the wall, and used her tail to turn on a new season of All My Anatomy.

***

The Excalibur popped out of the SOF with a crackle and spray of exotic particles - and with her commanding officer at the helm. John leaned back in his seat as Pixie bounced excitedly from foot to foot. Arrayed before them were three Vornash Obsidian class fire-tenders. Each one was about a quarter of the size of the Excalibur and had only a single Vornash aboard - but the enigmatic Vornash didn't really need more. The documents that the UNN had been provided on the Vornash by the Omnidrones and the Qorr had been relatively sparse, if only because neither of them had managed to get a Vornash to talk to them beyond a terse refusal to surrender or an equally terse refusal to accept surrender.

"So, what do you think they're like?" Albert asked, grinning from his console to Eugene, who was frowning slightly.

"Assholes," Eugene said.

"Well, duh," Triana said, grinning slightly as Albert snickered.

"Shey, do you have the recording of the ship that was following us?" John asked, turning in his seat to face her. "They might have picked up the energy emission and are curious." He smiled. "I think they'll be happy to know there's one less Kruul. They're fighting just about everyone according to our intelligence."

"I do, captain!" Shey said, still looking quite smug. The fabrication of the mine had been her and Kat's idea, and it had quietly put paid to the Kruul sneak following after them. Though...part of John wondered if it had maybe been too easy. According to Dr. Darling, the Napoleon incident should have been enough 'narrative texture' to allow for an undramatic conclusion to the Kruul's plot. But...but if it was...John shook his head. He had to focus on the here and now for the moment.

"We're being hailed," Shey said.

"Voice or visual?" John asked.

"...one way visual," Shey said, sounding faintly shocked.

"Put it on," John said.

The screen flickered and a blazing wave of bright light screamed out of the screen and into their eyes. Albert cried out, while Triana covered her eyes with her hands. Eugene, though, was fast enough on the draw to find and slap the right button. The light levels dimmed to a mere dull gray, and John lowered his hand. "Goddamn, what was that?" he asked as a screaming roar came through the cameras - it sounded like a howling screech.

"I don't know, the universal translators are struggling with it," Shey said. "Adjusting. I think-"

The light flashed off.

"We're getting audio this time. Piping it through my earpiece..." Shey said, then frowned. "It's in the Zemturga trade tongue - Captain, they are demanding to know what we're doing in their space."

"Tell them that we're a trade ship from Trade-1, heading to-"

John was cut off by Shey lifting her hand. "Sir, they're demanding that we provide tithes. They want...biomatter? Hydrocarbons?" She lifted her head. "Gasoline?"

"Who uses gasoline?" Triana asked.

"Tell them we're preparing our tithes," John said. "And ask how long we have to fabricate the materials?"

"Thirty minuets," Shey said after a few moments of frowning.

"Pushy bunch," Eugene muttered, his arms crossed over his chest. John stood and walked over to Shey's console, Triana hurrying over to join him. All three peered down at the initial burst of energy that had been sent to them.

"Do you think it was a mistake?" John asked.

"No..." Shey said. "It was deliberate, I'm sure of it."

Triana scratched her jaw. "Well, remember when the first contact of Lithanoids? They sent a message that took four weeks to decode, because they're...rocks. Maybe this is another one of those translation mishaps."

"We dimmed the image and it was just gray," Shey murmured.

"Maybe filter out frequencies of light? Pitch it up and down the spectrum?" John asked.

Shey nodded, then started to adjust buttons and dials. As she did so, John's wrist com chirruped. He tapped it on. "This is Tangent-"

"John you asshole, what the fuck kind of work order is this? Fifty tons of gasoline? We don't have that much fucking hydrocarbons on the ship!" Kat's furious voice came up the line. "And even if we did, do you know how many byproducts that shit would put into the fabricators? We'd need those magic fabricators that the Zemturga had back in the starbase, and even then it'd smell like rotten eggs for weeks. What kind of lunatics are you meeting out there-"

"Hold please," John said, then tapped off the line.

"She's fun," Triana said, grinning at him.

"Only when she goes into heat," John muttered.

"I can...induce that you know..." Pixie whispered in his ear.

"Shush," John said.

The image projected on Shey's screen shifted, altered and-

"Oh my," Shey whispered.

"Fhew," Triana whispered.

"Huh," John said.

"...guess she's pretty h-" Pixie started, but then squeaked as John managed to clap a hand over her mouth - it might have looked a bit odd to the rest of the crew, but they were getting fairly used to their captain taking hold of someone that wasn't actually there.

The screen showed a ruby red boudoir - flame red curtains, flowing lava-bright carpet, and an obsidian bed with silky red sheets on it. Sprawled across it, two legs crooked up beneath her curvaceous hips and wasp thin waist, was a woman made entirely out of glowing flames, her body sculpted far beyond what any normal biological form could support, creating an exaggerated proportion that fitted screen or holovid better than reality. Her eyes were ruby bright pits of flames, and her hair were cascading, shimmering walls of ash-gray curls that glowed with an inner like - like burnt through logs, peeling and tumbling apart with the poker still brushing through them. Her nipples were dark black and jutted out from tits the size of John's head, and she had a dainty little slit between her thighs, with a snarl of obsidian black crystal where her pubic hair would be. The screaming roaring sound that the speakers had emitted was, instead, a language that the translator could process.

"If you can see and understand this, then please...speak to me of the secrets of fire, strange aliens." She crooned, her voice sultry and soft.

"It was a test," Shey whispered.

"Think we can get out of the tithes by sending the message?" John asked.

"it's worth a shot, sir," Triana said.

John nodded. "Put me on, Shey," he said, holding his hand out. She lifted the communication wand after detaching it from the console. John held it, then took a step away.

"Just in case," he said.

"In case of what?" Shey asked.

"Oh no, good point," Triana said. "Pixie, I know you can hear me. Get ready with some kind of thermokinesis."

"Got it!" Pixie said. "Tell her I said got it."

"She said got it," John said, then spoke into the communication wand. "I know the secret of fire, Vornash captain."

There was a short pause.

Then an explosion of flames swept from John's feet to his brow. When it was done, the communication wand hit the ground, smoking faintly.

"Knew it," Triana said. "Now, it's all in the Captain's hands. And tongue. And dick."

Shey and she turned to the main screen, watching the three alien ships hover ominously.

"Lucky bastard," Albert muttered.

***

Captain John Tangent appeared in the Vornash ship and, for a moment, heat so intense that it left him staggering blasted his body. But Pixie was on the ball. A pale blue field surrounded him, flashing to life for a few seconds - and it did a great job protecting his skin. His uniform burst into flames and peeled off his body, leaving him completely nude within the lava drenched, flame wreathed bedroom. The Vornash captain smiled at him with teeth made of dark obsidian.

For about as long as it took for his clothing to burn off.

"Terran!?" She exclaimed.

"Well, I would have explained that if-"

The woman's body shifted, twisted, and grew. Flames swelled outwards as she exploded into a near total inverse of her curvaceous, feminine body: Her shoulders grew huge and muscular, her head twisted into a snarling death's head mask, her hands grew thick, long claws. John tensed and then sprang backwards as the claws slashed through the air, moving fast enough that he was pretty sure they would have cut, even with Pixie's defensive thermokinesis. He started to speak as he did so. "Do you want to remain battle thralls of the Zemturga forever?" He asked.

"Yes!" The woman snarled.

John ducked forward, rolled, came to his feet and backed against the bed as she slammed into the wall near where he had stood. Her body inverted on itself with a roar and crackle. John thought even faster. "Just to be a mindless fire? Burning up the universe for distant masters that don't care about you?"

She surged forward, shrinking down to move faster. John caught her wrist, hissing. The contact was hot, but not scalding. John swung her around, and with a tumble, the two of them fell into the bed. Her body shrank and shifted and John found himself pinning the curvaceous woman down, panting softly as he looked into her obsidian dark eyes. They flared with hatred as she lifted her knee, pressing it against his chest. Her voice was venomous and soft. "Your kind are my kind's hated foe...the Zemturga told me all about you. You're...water."

"Mostly water," John said, his voice soft. "But my people have long had a...close relationship with fire."

"W-What!?" She asked, her eyes wide.

"We cook our food with fire - we even use it to boil water into steam." He grinned. "For most of our history, even now, we use fire to boil water into steam - it seems to me that we have more in common than we have in enmity."

"I...d-didn't realize..." she whispered.

John leaned forward, his voice growing soft. Crooning. "What's your name? Mine's John. John Tangent."

"I'm Cinder," she whispered.

"What a lovely name for a lovely flame," John said. His hand cupped her cheek and she quivered.

"S-So cool!" She whispered. "I've never felt cool like this before." Her hand gently pressed to his chest. Some of his chest hair sizzled before Pixie grunted and thrust out her palms, her brow furrowing as she focused her energies. Crackling power popped and hissed through John's skin, and he felt the coolness growing more...solid. John's fingers touseled through Cinder's hair, squeezing her gently as he leaned forward and pressed his mouth to her dainty lips. Her mouth opened and her tongue, a coal-bright tongue of flame, pressed into his mouth. The tingling, bubbling feeling of saliva boiling contrasted oddly against the utter lack of pain.

Her mouth opened and she moaned as he drew away from her.

"I didn't know...water could feel so intense..." Cinder panted.

"Just you wait." John grinned, his cock achingly hard. The danger of her was almost as exciting, almost as enticing, as the form of her. His hands slid from her cheeks to her shoulders, feeling the texture of fire as his palms cupped her breasts. He squeezed her and her tits deformed around his fingers as she grabbed onto the obsidian headrest of her bed, her back arching to press her tits into his palms. She moaned lustfully as John leaned forward. He took one nipple into his mouth, tasting the faint tingle of charcoal - like when you bit into a steak cooked just right over a BBQ. His mouth then kissed along between the valley of her tits, leaving hissing, steaming marks with every plunging kiss.

"This feeling!" Cinder moaned. "I never knew...ah...it's like normal mingling, but we're still two separate beings. Captain Tangent, it's quite remarkable..." She laughed softly, her hands sliding along his chest. One slipped up to cup his neck, to draw his head down to her breasts. The other plunged down, stretching slightly to caress his cock. "Ah, but this I am aware of from the Zemturga broadcasts...this is your stamen?"

"Close, actually," John said, amused as he kissed to her other nipple. He sucked and her fingers tightened around him eagerly. She moaned and bucked, her thighs beginning to spread - instinctively, it seemed. John drew himself away from her, purely to shift his stance, his knees sliding along the outer edges of her thighs. His hands planted to either side of the beautiful alien's head and he crooned quietly. "Ready?"

"F-For the mingling?" she chuckled, nervously. "I'm not nervous, I'm not a virgin. Just..." She paused. "Be gentle. I've never mingled with water before."

"Again. Mostly water." John grinned, then leaned forward. His mouth and hers met and he started to press his cock against the folds of her sex. The flickering sensation of her pussy around his member, growing warmer and warmer, was more intense than he had expected. He started to push into her harder as Pixie bit her lip, leaning in and watching. Heat flared and grew brighter still as he eased another few inches in, then bucked his hips and pressed in, in, in, filling her to the brim. The curvy fire woman's body arched as she bucked her hips back up against him - her ankles hooking one over the other above his buttocks as his balls gently clapped against her ass.

"Oh John!"

The moan that filled his ear was enough of an enticement to draw out - then thrust back in. He grunted as his balls slapped against her ass more roughly now. Flames grew hotter and brighter around the room - the whole ship seeming to react to the heat of their joining as John thrust and thrust and thrust again - one arm snaking behind her back, the other cradling her head. He kissed her neck, groaning as he leaned forward, whispering into her ear. "You're so perfect and hot, Cinder. Ah. How does that feel?"

"Amazing!" She gasped. "Ah! It's so exotic and strange and...and so perfect!" She cried out, her body quivering from her head to her toes, her legs tightening around him.

John felt his own pleasure starting to crest. He forced it back, focusing as he reared back, watching her huge breasts bounce with every thrust. His free hand slid down, pressing to her clit - finding it in the snarl of obsidian curls she had. A tiny ruby, gleaming with its own inner fire. He started to rub her, stoking her flames hotter and hotter with his hand as he jackhammered his cock into her faster and faster. Her cries blurred together as her tits bounced and slapped up and down, up and down, up and down.

"Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes! YES!" she gasped. "Fuck me silly you bag of...ah...mostly water!" She moaned. "Cum in me! Cum inside me! I want to feel your cum boiling in my furnace! Yes!"

John groaned low in his throat. His finger pressed even harder against her clit and hot, blazing red girlcum splashed against his belly, smoking and hissing against his thermokinetic shield while his balls twitched and he spurted into her. Her body dimmed for a moment, then flared even brighter as she cried out in a raw, feral passion. John gasped, then leaned forward and kissed her hungrily. Their tongues played together as the flames of her body dimmed, then dimmed, then dimmed some more. Her legs slowly opened and John rolled off her, panting.

He didn't want to squish someone on first contact, after all.

Satiated and exhausted, a Vornash looked like a coal that still flickered from the inside out. Her skin was almost slate gray, and were it not for the seams in her body, she almost would have looked humanoid. She smiled, wryly, as she laid beside John.

"So," John whispered. "Want to discuss some diplomacy?"

She giggled.

***

At the edge of Vornash space, a Kruul fleet drifted.

A signal came, winking from the darkness.

The Kruul fleet vanished into the space opera field - post haste.

TO BE CONTINUED