The Hierarchy of Now and Forever Ch. 09

Laying in a bed of literal fire, arms hooked behind his head, while a woman of magma and ash stroked his chest, was...honestly, not even in the top ten weirdest things that had happened to Captain John Tangent in his career - and he was only relatively new to his role. He grinned, wryly, at Cinder as she breathed out a sigh rich with the scent of charcoal and brimstone. Floating beside him, her elbows resting on nothing and her chin upon her knuckles, Pixie kicked her legs up and sighed.

"Ah, young love," she said. "Anyway, you have approximately an hour and a half before I run out of psychic energy and you stop being thermokinetically shielded from this room. Which is, like..." She looked around herself. "Approximately thirteen...hundred to twenty two hundred degrees."

John snapped his gaze around to her, eyes widening.

"Oh, sorry, I was using your archaic form of units, pulled on the wrong part of the brain," Pixie said, flitting around and waving her palms in apology. "Closer to eight hundred to twelve hundred."

"Ah," John said.

"Mmmm?" Cinder murmured, hooking one ashy thigh along his, nuzzling against his neck with her cute little button nose. John slid his arm around the small of her back and tried to not think of his skin baking and peeling. Instead, he focused on what truly mattered in times like this: Cementing a successful first contact.

"Ladies," Pixie said, wiggling her eyebrows.

John did his best to ignore his invisible, intangible psychic assistant.

"So, Cinder..." John said. "I think usually at this part of a first date, we do get to talk about ourselves."

"I thought first dates came before..." She giggled. "...before trying to quench me, my gorgeous water-based life form." Her finger traced his faintly glowing chest - hissing faintly where his sweat beaded through the thermokinetic shield and flash-fried into puffs of steam. John let out a quiet chuckle, then shifted in bed, rolling onto his side as he looked into those brilliant ruby prisms that the Vornash apparently used for eyes.

"First contact between starship captains is never so conventional," he said, grinning at her.

"True..." She sighed, a bit sadly. "Sometimes, I wish life could be a little less interesting - though, as a patrol captain, I do tend to avoid most of the weirdness."

John nodded. It was a well understood facet of interstellar travel that people who had dull jobs tended to keep away from the most esoteric forms of anomaly produced by the Space Opera Field. Right up until they didn't.

"How did your people become Battle Thralls?" He asked, his hand caressing her thigh.

"The same as many, I'm afraid," she said, sighing and rolling away from him to sprawl upon her back. Her chest rose and fell - coals flickering beneath ash-plating as her inner fires were stoked by her breath. The effect it had on her physiology was...quite arresting. The kind of thing that made John wish Pixie's psychic powers could last just a bit longer. "Our people were merely innocent coredwellers in our homeworld. We didn't even know that there was life beyond the great coldness that surrounded our home. The pressures were so intense, the heat so warm...an entire ecosystem had evolved there, you know?" She smiled. "We believe it was because our world was stricken by so many repeated mass extinction events that we ended up with extremophiles, going further and further into the world - seeking after warmth and heat to feed themselves..." She shook her head. "I'm sure our one celled ancestors would wish that we had stayed down there, in the warm core."

"What happened?" John asked, sitting up. This view was even more arresting, something that Cinder noticed, her lips quirking up.

"Are you sure it is a geohistory lesson you want?" Her hand cupped one of her hefty breasts, playing with the ruby gemstone of her nipple.

"Mmmmm, maybe we can multitask?" John said at the same time Pixie said. "I think the Captain can multitask."

John shot her a glance.

"Jinx!" Pixie said.

John ignored her.

"Who it is that you keep glancing too?" Cinder asked, grinning wryly.

"Oh a useful psychic fungus," John said.

"Mew!" Pixie squeaked.

"Her name is Pixie, she is quite sweet," he added seamlessly, sliding around so that he was settled between the thick, deliciously curved thighs of his hostess. His palm caressed along said thighs, brushing aside ash to reveal flickering, glowing flames that spilled through his fingers, tickling against them with the delicious eagerness of a cat's fur.

"Awww!" Pixie crooned.

John delved down. His mouth found the pert lips of Cinder's eager cunt and his tongue thrust into her, slowly sliding up, then down - leaving a tingling, hissing spread of steam that misted around his eyes and caused her hips to buck. She bit her knuckle, gasping. "Oh my Captain! Ah! It feels so...exotic!" She laughed. "A-Anyway, as...as I was saying...our civilization grew in...in technological capability and...interest and-" she squeaked and bucked her hips as he found a place deep inside of her that was clearly as sensitive as a human woman's G-spot. His fingers rubbed within, two pressing together as her hips jerked in time with his finger-fucking. "And we theorized t-that there was life beyond the cold barrier, mmmm, Captain!"

John nodded, his tongue adding to his finger's work.

"Then came the...Shattering..." She whispered, biting her knuckles. Despite the warmth in her words, a coldness crept into her tone, forcing John to work even harder to continue to wring pleasure from Cinder's curvacious form. His tongue delved into her, his fingers thrust, and his ears perked up as he took detailed note of every word she said. "It was a kinetic weapon. An imapactor. Thrusting deep into our world by a-an alliance of powers fighting against the Zemturga, five thousand of your, ah, oh by the core!" She quivered and bucked as her glowing, lava-bright juices dripped along John's tongue. "It shattered our world apart."

John drew away, licking his lips. "Five thousand years...there were other alliances than the one we humans joined?"

Cinder, panting heavily, the ash sliding off her body as her flames flickered and flared to normal brightness, nodded slowly. "Yes. My ancestors would have died - but the Zemturga came. They conquered us, easy as it was, and forced us to choose our form of service. Our technology to control fire and heat made us clear Battle Thralls - and so, we were pressed into their service. In exchange, we were given worlds of molten heat and intense pressures..."

"Such as Venus?" John asked, licking his fingers clean.

"What is Venus?" she asked, cocking her head.

"A world from the home system of Earth," John said. "Heavy acid rainfall-"

"Ooh!"

"Pressure intense enough to crumple steel like it was held in God's fist," John said.

Cinder sat up, her breasts swaying, her eyes shining.

"And, did I mention it's hot enough to boil led?" He grinned.

"...a mite chilly..." Cinder said, frowning.

"Ah, well, nothing's perfect," John said. "What has life been like for your people, after five thousand years of Zemturga domination?" He frowned. "I can't even imagine a length of time - a civilization lasting that long."

Cinder chuckled. "And what makes you think it was one continuous civilization?" She asked, grinning wryly as she drew one flaming thigh up, squishing her breast into it, laying her arm along her knee and simply lounging there. She cocked her head and smirked at him. "Did your world have such an impossibly long lived civilization?"

"The Romans tried their best," John said, amused. "But the Zemturga-"

"The Zemturga are..." She frowned. "They're distant masters. They live for centuries, they travel between the stars - some of us think that they go into cryosleep and relativistic speeds in Tier 0, in the real universe, all to stretch their time out while we dwell our flickerlives." She sighed, quietly. "The first Vornash civilization that served them was the Kingdom of the Cinder. They lasted six centuries - a long time, born through fire and flame over the long war against the alliance of powers that they fought then, which included the Urghats and the Ilgath, who would become the Kruul."

John nodded.

"But when the alliance was destroyed - turned into thralls, slaves, serfs and mass graves..." She made a face. "Well, then the Zemturga put us into the Hierarchy and drew away. The Kingdom of Cinder fell, and the Vornash split apart into a dozen powers, all claiming to be the true battle thralls and inheritors of the Zemturga's mandate. One came to power, the Fetax Heresy. They were crushed when the Zemturga returned, and the Second Kingdom of Cinder was founded as the Hierarchy had found a new alliance to quell - this one included the Myg'gar'gar and their client races."

John slid next to her, his hands caressing her shoulders. "That's not how our allies described the Hierarchy...nor how the Hierarchy describes itself."

Cinder snorted loudly, smoke roiling from her shoulders as her flames grew brighter. "Oh please!" She laid her head gently upon his shoulder, sprawling against his chest. "Solids! Cellulars! Mollusks! They all cling to immortality in the form of states - we Vornash know that our sparks go to the stars and live forever. We're immune to their hubris."

John repressed a smile and managed to not sound ironic: "I see. How doleful for them."

Despite his efforts, Cinder's cheeks heated. "W-Well, that's what my teachers said at least."

John chuckled, then pushed her forward. She squeaked as she fell onto her hands and knees, and the view - even from the side, occluded by the elegant arch of her back, the sweep of her shoulder muscles - of her breasts swaying from side to side was more than enough to reignite-

"No pun intended!" Pixie chimed in.

-his passions. His cock slapped against her meaty buttocks, flames flickering around him as his precum dripped onto her ass and let out a tiny puff of steam. That contact made her back arch, her fingers digging into flame red sheets as she rolled her head back. Cinder's low, hungry voice groaned into the chamber. "Should I show more hubris, then, if it-" She gasped, her voice cutting off as John thrust into her, sliding his cock down to the hilt into her tight flaming snatch. Her fingers clenched harder, sparks shooting from her knuckles as her spine arched even harder and she moaned aloud. "Oh Johnathan!"

John gripped his lover's hips, holding her firmly in place as his balls clapped against her flaming ashes, her jiggling motion sending the last few scraps of ashes drifting down onto the bedspread. Cinder's tits swayed in time with his thrusting, her fingers tightening more and more as her deliciously warm moans echoed off the walls. "Ah! Ah! Yes! Yes! Yes! Fuck me! Fuck my pussy, ah, oh by the core, I'm losing my mind, you gorgeous hunk of mostly water, yes! Yes!"

John leaned over her back, whispering hungrily in her ear. "So, Cinder..." His hand slid around, cupping her slightly cushy, flaming belly, finding her breast, squeezing. "Have you ever seen a Zemturga civil war before?"

Her breath hitched and she glanced over her shoulder, her eyes wide.

"Never..." she whispered.

John nodded, his finger teasing her nipple. He nuzzled against her neck, and started to fuck her even harder, even faster now. The passionate slapping sound of thigh against thigh, the lewd squelching of her soaked pussy, the sizzling hiss of her lava-bright juices puddling between her thighs, all of it was so intense, so erotic that it was all that John could do to not immediately cum inside of her. But as he thrust, he started to hear her gasp out. "Wait! Wait!"

John slowed - then blinked as she bucked back and slapped with one palm. He slid from her, his cock gleaming with her ruby red juices, the lava dripping from his foreskin. Before he could say anything, Cinder had swung herself around, pushed him onto his back, then impaled herself again. But this time, she was atop him. Her flaming hands caressed his chest and her hips drove down onto his cock again and again and again, her face a mask of pure bliss as she rolled her head back.

Needless to say, John couldn't stop himself. His palms cupped those full, heavy tits and he started to buck up into her, fucking her back with just as much ferocious eagerness as she rode him. His mouth found one nipple, then the other, sucking greedily, his free hand sliding around to squeeze her ass, fingers sinking into flames up to his knuckles. She groaned and clenched him, her cunt squeezing him even more fiercely, even more tightly than she had the first time around.

John couldn't help it.

He groaned low in his throat, bucked again, and came. His balls tightened and his spunk spurted up into her waiting snatch, and once again, steam hiss from inside her body as her flames dimmed and chilled, her eyes rolling to the sky, her head tilting back, her mouth opening in an O of perfect, intense orgasm. She quivered, then dropped down. Cinder sprawled atop him, squishing John into the bed. Her breasts mashed against his chest and her mouth found his, kissing ferociously, hungrily. Her tongue and his met and steam hazed the air around their contact as John caressed her...

Afterwards, she sprawled half on, half on him, panting softly. "I think I can get used to that," she said, a little smugly.

"As can I..." John said, then chuckled. "So, ah...um...mmm..." He smiled at her. "I hope you don't think it...caddish to ask about current politics and how they stand between our peoples?"

Cinder sighed, her finger tracing his chest slowly - once more finding lines between his chest hair. "The Fifth Republic currently remain Battle Thralls. Nothing you can do to me can change that. But..." She frowned. "What did you mean by a Zemturga civil war?"

John told her - of the two variation of Zemturga warsphere, of their battle.

"We have not hear of such things - but it sounds as if the battles are far from our territory." Her pensive expression grew grave. "It explains what we've seen in the movement of other races though - they've been so eager to go to war, so ready to fight."

John nodded - but he didn't even need to mention what he had heard about the Vornash, because Cinder looked aside. "A-And our senate is not exactly shy from sending our fleets raiding too, I know." She nuzzle her head against his chest. "Mmm..."

"My people...we hope to overthrow the Hierarchy - to free the galaxy from the Zemturga," John said, taking her hand in his. He squeezed and she looked at him with a mixture of pity and shock. Cinder shook her head.

"You can't stop the Zemturga. They're too mighty. They have too much of the galaxy under their thrall..." Cinder said, quietly.

John rolled around to face her. His grin was wild. "And yet..."

"Hmm?"

"The Space Opera Field. It makes the impossible and the implausible happen every day - is overthrowing the Zemturga any less possible than breaking the speed of light barrier? Or meeting the ghosts of ancient kings?" He grinned, thinking to the Napoleon incident aboard his ship. Cinder chuckled, then flicked her finger against his chest.

"Flights of fancy are nothing to a warsphere, you silly bag of mostly water..." She paused. "But even if we could drive off the Zemturga, would it truly be better than what we have?

John found himself taken aback. Cinder continued. "Under them, civilizations rise and fall. We build cities, we have lives, we get married, we spark off. Is it truly so much worse than the alternative?" She shrugged. "Without them, do you think the Kruul or the Myg'gar'gar would avoid wars of conquest? We'd replace one large war that ends with endless smaller wars, that never would." She sighed. 'It's simply the way of things out of the core - cold and entropy steal away everything, leaving all against all..."

John surged upright. He gripped her hand, and spoke from his heart, heated and fast. "I don't believe that..." He looked into her eyes. "I don't believe life survived every extinction event thrown at it - on your world and mine - and clawed its way into space, and found a way to breach lightspeed itself, to give relativity a jaunty wave and a smirk, to just continue making the same mistakes endlessly. I don't think the Zemturga impose order - they steal futures! They steal entire histories. What do you think the Kingdom of Cinder might have been, had you been free to leave your world at your own pace, with your own time, rather than having it shattered apart?"

Cinder blinked up at him. "I...I don't know..."

"Wouldn't you like to find out?" John asked.

Cinder looked aside. "Maybe..."

"And..." John caressed her hand. "There is still a secret. A mystery. Something the Zemturga have kept to themselves for time out of mind. Something that I think can not just break this cycle of war and conquest, but can break their entire damn rotting empire."

Cinder arched an eyebrow. Even Pixie seemed curious, perking up as she leaned in from where she had been voyeuristically observing everything.

"W-What is that?" She asked.

"Why," John said.

"...why?" Cinder asked, cocking her head.

"It may seem a simple question," John said. "But it's the one that's never been answered. Why. Why do the Zemturga conquer? Enslave? Why do they have pleasure slaves at all, for god's sake?" He laughed. "They're the size of elephants and they find humans pleasurable from a sexual perspective? I mean, the SOF does a lot, but elephants remain elephants."

Cinder blinked. "Resources! Slaves! What empire has ever needed more than that?"

"No, we live in space, Cinder," John said, shaking his head. "There are infinite resources. And why take slaves when you build starships. Slavery went out of style on Earth in the 21^st century - you can't enslave technological civilizations without hampering that very civilization in a million different ways. That kind of brain drain and distension nearly destroyed our whole world."

"And it does seem to be destroying the Hierarchy," Cinder said, rubbing her chin.

"I am seeking the answer to that question. I have a contact that may reveal it, and...well..." John grinned. "If that answer points to freedom, do you think the Fifth Republic may answer the call?"

"...we may..." Cinder said, slowly. "I will take your words to my senator. He will take it to the Republic. Though, I suggest you be several dozen lightyears away before I get the message to him - whether we agree to listen or not, our military will be sent to destroy the Excalibur."

John nodded. "Without a doubt."

Cinder's cheeks flared. "T-Though our records of what the Excalibur exactly...looks like may be a bit distorted." Her thighs rubbed together and she squirmed. "You know. Computer errors."

John's grin was cocky. "Of course."

She flushed even more. "Don't let it go to your head, Captain Tangent."

"He will!" Pixie said.

"I won't," John said.

"Liiiiiiiar!" Pixie started. "Oh shazbot, we need to get you back to the ship!"

Cinder pointed. "Your thermokinesis is flickering," she said.

John chuckled. "Let me steal at least one more kiss then."

He leaned forward and their mouths met.

It burned - like biting into bread too swiftly pulled from the oven.

It was worth it.

***

"Excellent work, Captain," Triana said as she and John strode onto the bridge. John, having showered off ash, sweat and bits of dead skin left from the cells that had drifted through the thermokinesis shield and flashfried. He was in a new, fresh uniform, and was feeling more settled and put together. "Think that they'll actually listen to her?"