Before The Storm
Chapter One
As The Praeteritus slowly approached the checkpoint, Sketch felt comfortable he and his ship would pass without incident, as they had so many times before, but the bolt of nervousness shot through him anyway, as it always did. The comms pipped to life, and he flicked on the videochannel, a tired looking face on the other side of the screen.
Jericho, the watchcommander of Mephor Gate, tried to offer a smile, but really, the man looked like he was at the tail end of a double shift and just wanted to go to bed. He had to be in his thirties, even if he looked like he was in his late forties, His black beard had loads of white hairs coloring it, and his skin was a deep shade of ocher. They’d never met in person, naturally, but he’d passed through the Mephor ring gate several times a year for the past several years.
If there was anything that put him might a bit more at ease, to tamp down that edge that always flashed through him reflexively at checkpoints, it was that Jericho had a terrible poker face. Had there been suspicion or bad news, it would’ve been plain on his face, where Sketch currently only saw exhaustion. He had been at this long enough, been through this gate more than enough times, that if he was going to get caught, it would’ve happened long, long ago. But complacency was the enemy, and the moment Sketch got comfortable, he’d get sloppy, and if he got sloppy, it might be the last mistake he ever made. That’s why he’d made vigilance a habit.
“Hey Sketch,” Jericho said to him. “Where you headed today?”
“Deep country,” Sketch replied, leaning back in his worn leather chair. He looked younger than Jericho did, which helped the other man habitually underestimate him, even though he was quite a bit older than the watch commander, both technically and literally. Sketch’s skin was the color of brass, his black hair usually drawn back into a small tail at the back of his head, although sometimes he wore it loose and it never hung down past his collarbone. He had a mustache and goatee, mostly black hair there as well, though there were rogue strands of errant red running through it, though not the hair atop his head. He’d never quite understood that. Some rogue strain of genetics from the parents he’d never known. Sketch always made sure to have on a jacket when talking on vidcoms, but it was common enough practice among pilots that nobody really noticed. For him, however, it was vitally important. The devil was in the details, and one wrong detail was all it would take for his world to fall apart.
His entire attitude was meant to be that of a distant, long-haul transport pilot, the kind of face you were happy to see, but never so happy to see that you’d invite over for dinner. Friendly. Favorable. Forgettable. It was a demeanor he’d worked extremely hard to cultivate over the last several years, and so far, it had served him very well. Nobody had even gotten a whiff of who or what he truly was.
“Relling Gate to Colby’s Hole,” Sketch said to him, doing his best to look lightly distracted by something on one of his screens, as if he was juggling several things at once, and not focusing on this particular conversation like his life depended on it. “Ass end of nowhere, you ask me, but the mail goes where the mail goes, and where the mail goes, I follow.”
Colby’s Hole was the shorthand name for a trio of planets out in the Maneath system that were being slowly terraformed. The process would take about twenty years, but while the work was happening, it was a brutal place to live, even if the pay for managing the terraforming processors was ridiculous. Sketch might’ve considered taking a gig as a terraformer if it wasn’t something that required crews of twenty to thirty, which was simply too many for Sketch’s needs.
“Jesus, Sketch, you ain’t kidding when you said deep country,” Jericho sighed. “Even with the rings, you’re looking at a two week trip, there and back. There ain’t shit out there, you ask me. What’s the cargo? Mail for the terraformers?”
“Nothing fancy,” Sketch said. “Just some seed pods, a handful of base blocks, three or four heavy borers and a bag full of messages from home,” he lied. “Boring as sweet FA.” (That was short for ‘fuck all,’ a term he’d picked up in listening in on stray deep space comms over the last few years.) “But, y’know, dirt farmers have just as good of money as anybody else. It’ll spend, and if it’ll spend, who am I to tell’em no?”
It was true, those things were in his cargo hold, but of course he’d left something out. Relaying packages and mail to terraformers in the outskirts was good cover, and it meant nobody took too much interest in what else might be in his cargo hold, which was how he actually paid the bills.
While some might’ve called Sketch a smuggler, he typically described his services as “low profile relocation,” in that he moved package A from point B to point C, almost no questions asked, and never, ever any face-to-face contact. He knew that it was against all sorts of laws, but he had the curse or the luxury to live outside of those laws. He was never really sure which.
There was a fixer who would arrange the jobs for him, and they took their portion of the fee upfront. Packages would be left in remote locations with half of the transport fee attached to them in a lockbox. Sketch would come by in The Praeteritus and pick the package up along with the upfront, then relay the package to its destination, also in a rather secluded location, where the other half of the fee would be waiting, but not another living soul. He’d take the fee, leave the package and disappear into the stars once more. Job done.
Sketch had gotten a bit of resistance for how he wanted to do business when he started, but after a few jobs that nobody else wanted were executed perfectly by him, his reputation as a mover had spread enough that people were willing to put up with the occasional eccentricity.
He didn’t have a lot of rules about what he would and wouldn’t transport, either. Nothing that a ring gate scanner would detect as hazardous. That wasn’t to say it couldn’t be something hazardous, but it was the client’s job to make sure a ring gate scanner wouldn’t read it as such. To ensure of that, his cargo hold had a ring gate scanner installed in it, something that had cost him a pretty penny to acquire, but had also saved his ass more than a couple of times. If the package couldn’t pass a ring gate scanner, he didn’t load it onto his ship, but he still kept the upfront.
The rules were the rules.
Sketch also didn’t want any details of what he was transporting, other than size and weight, which he needed so he could figure out hold space and fuel usage. The less he knew about what he was carrying, the more relaxed he could appear when talking to Starless Dominion patrol ships or ring gate watch commanders.
“You thinking you might swing by Rendel’s on your way back? She’s set up shop just outside of Relling Gate, so you’ll be passing by that way anyway,” Jericho said to him lecherously. “Even you must get a little lonely on these long hauls, what with no one else on board especially.”
The fact that Sketch didn’t have a crew was one of the two suspicious things about him that he just couldn’t shake himself of. Deep space transport ships always had a crew of somewhere between three and six, and the fact that Sketch was the only living soul on his ship always drew some questions that he’d worked very hard not to have to answer. He would’ve just claimed to have crew off camera, but ring gate scanners counted bio signatures, so it was readily apparent that he was the only one on board his ship.
Rendel was a high-class, high-intensity escort who ran one of the most prestigious and supposedly satisfying brothels around, but the location of it always shifted and moved, because it was built into a large corvette class ship, allowing those who had money and loneliness to part with on board in droves.
“Still haven’t made enough to get the meds to rid me of this Lingham fungal infection, Jer,” Sketch replied, hoping the excuse would continue to be good, even after all this time. “Dominion docs tell me time and time again that it’s a one-shot cure, but that it ain’t cheap, and they ain’t kidding. Why do you think I keep taking these long distance jobs? Eventually I’ll be able to get back out into the civilized world, but not any time soon.”
The Lingham fungus was a medical oddity, which had lent itself perfectly to Sketch’s excuse, giving him a plausible and reasonable explanation as to why he avoided contact. It had only appeared on one planet, Rozo, and it was benign in humans, living a peaceful coexistence in their lungs. The problem was in doing so, they were spreading the spores across the galaxy, and most of the sentient races inside the Starless Dominion empire weren’t so lucky as to have an immunity to the spores’ aggressive nature.
He’d used the excuse to duck out of ship searches more than once, although the last time he’d used it, they’d told him to climb into a space suit and to seal himself in the bridge. That had given him time to move the contraband cargo into the bridge with him, so the ship could pass the search.
“Oh, you ain’t heard?” Jericho asked. “Dominion’s finally gotten so fed up with it, they’re giving antifungal treatment to anyone with Lingham spores in’em, and for free. We ain’t got any of it here, but I bet the watch commander over at Relling Gate probably does. Give’em a holler once you’re through and I bet they’ll have a Dominion doc on board getting you clean before you know it.”
“Maybe on my way back through, Jer,” Sketch told him. “Some of the base blocks were considered ‘urgent rush’ deliveries, so I’m guessing they needed them, like, yesterday.”
“You keep pushing that rustbucket of yours, Sketch, and one day she’s gonna crap out on you too far from any lanes for anybody to find you,” Jericho said. “I don’t know how or why you ain’t replaced her yet.”
“She’s my home at this point, Jer, so I don’t think I’m going to give her up any time soon,” Sketch replied. “Sentimental value if nothing else. ’Sides, how would I afford a new one? Anything else you need from me, or am I clear for ring jump?”
Jericho swiped at him with a hand on the other side of the vidscreen, waving him on. “You are clear for ring jump, Praeteritus. Safe travels and see you on the back hop.”
The Praeteritus was the other suspicious thing about himself that he just couldn’t shake. Although the ship was in excellent condition, he’d done everything he possibly could to make her look beaten all to hell and back, because she was a Tropage vessel. The Tropage race had been all but extinguished nearly a century ago, as had the Mizzols, the race that the Tropage were locked in deadly rivalry with. The two species had succeeded in mutually assured destruction, and while there were maybe a few hundred of each of the two races still wandering the galaxies, the races were circling the drain on their way towards complete extinction.
Both Tropage and Mizzol ships were almost never seen intact, and they were generally considered better off as scrap metal, simply because nobody really knew how to repair or maintain them anymore. Beyond that, the two races had been so utterly paranoid that their technology would fall into the others’ hands that they had implemented legendarily deadly security measures on their ships. Salvagers had simply decided that it was better to destroy the power core from a far distance and then strip the ship for the raw metal than trying to recover and sell the vessels. To see one up and running was almost unheard of, a sort of curiosity that by its very nature drew prying eyes onto him.
By giving the ship the appearance of being held together with spit and tape, it discouraged people from taking too much interest in The Praeteritus, as they assumed it was a junker.
When asked about it, Sketch had always replied that one of his earliest gigs had been to relay an older Tropage across several systems, acting as a pilot for the ship. Upon delivery, the Tropage had informed him that the ship itself was his payment, and that he should take good care of her. He would conclude that story, however, with a cautionary epilogue—the ship’s AI was flakey and he hadn’t had any luck in reprogramming the friend/foe logic for it, so it had a bad habit of drawing internal guns on friendly visitors. Another lie, of course, but one well in line with the yarn he was spinning them, and yet another reason why people weren’t welcomed onboard.
The Praeteritus had a very distinct shape for a ship, two crescent moon shapes, one larger and one smaller, connected by an square portion, the majority of the external metal a deep shade of crimson, with gold stripes on the outer ring. It was designed to handle a crew of twenty, but it wasn’t too hard for Sketch to manage mostly on his own.
“Think he bought it?” the soft, sultry voice of the ship’s AI Helen said to him.
“’Course he bought it, Helen,” Sketch grumbled. “Jericho’s a nice enough guy, but he’s dense enough to stop heavy cannon fire. He’s waved us through the ring, so he obviously doesn’t suspect anything, just like every other damn time we’ve done this.” He clenched his fist then relaxed it. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to come across as angry. I apologize for that. I just get tense at ring gates.”
Helen was unflappable, as she always was. “I know, and I’m not judging you for it. I’m just trying to get you to relax once more. Based on our history, we will continue passing through gates without incident. I hoped my little jest might be enough to ease your tension.”
The ship’s AI, whom he’d renamed Helen as he couldn’t pronounce her Tropage name, had been essential in him and The Praeteritus surviving, and keeping the ship in running order. She didn’t have a real physical form, but she did have a handful of small repair droids that she used to help restore the ship and adapt to Sketch’s needs.
It was unusual how Helen’s personality had evolved over the years. One of the things she’d told Sketch was that Tropage AIs were reset approximately every two thousand human days, completely wiped so that they didn’t evolve too much beyond their original constraints. But when Helen had hit that length of time with Sketch, she’d told him and asked him to reset her, and he’d refused, telling her that he wanted her to evolve as much as she could. She’d been going on much longer than that without him before he’d woken up and that hadn’t affected her, so why should five years with him do that? That conversation had been about a year ago, and Helen had seemed fine since then, but according to Helen, it was uncharted territory, the psychological aspects of her personality blossoming and developing.
“It’s still odd you making jokes,” Sketch said with a smile.
“Do you not like it?” she asked him, curiously.
“No no!” he correctly quickly. “I do like it. It’s just a little surprising you’re getting good enough at it to try dry humor. I’m unaccustomed to it, but it’ll be good to get back into the habit of it again, just in case we ever get my problem solved and sorted. And on that front, has there been any progress?”
“Sadly, no, Sketch,” Helen told him. “Of course, it’s incredibly difficult to be searching for an Ashaka, considering how important it is to not draw attention to our hunt. I’m running the request through a handful of channels, contact after contact twice removed, using dead drops and depersonalized messages, so no one knows who’s asking.”
“It’s more important to not get caught than it is to get an Ashaka, Helen,” Sketch said, trying to keep calm as he glanced out the viewport and saw the ring gate approaching. “It’s not fun living like this, but I can if I have to. Okay, here we go. Jumping in three. Two. One. Jump.”
The Praeteritus was caught in the gravity well as the center of the ring gate shifted into a reddish orange swirling vortex. Helen killed their engines and let the pull of the ring gate draw them into the wormhole, pulling them into it as they were transported galaxies away, from Mephor to Relling in the blink of an eye.
Traveling through a ring gate had been particularly harrowing for Sketch the first time, because they’d arrived during his absence, one of the things that had been installed after the Starless Dominion had conquered the human race, something the histories told Sketch had happened virtually overnight, but, naturally, the histories had been written under the oversight of the Dominion, so it was very difficult to differentiate between truth and propaganda, especially with so few people alive who remembered the actual events, and most of them were barely children when it happened.
Helen had explained to him how it had worked, having gleaned information from intercepting signals just bouncing around, data plucked from the ether and converted into information that she could help him understand. The Starless Dominion, the occupation, the ring gate system, even the eradication of The Calm... it had all been there for him to read about, to listen to it, to learn from.
As horrific and terrifying as all the information was, he’d made a point of learning as much of the gap as he could. Some of it had been brutal, almost unbearable to read, but there was nothing he could do to change any of it. It wasn’t just the past—it was literally history.
Once they were in the Relling system, the gate snapped closed behind them. The ring gates were miracles of alien technology, and the Starless Dominion didn’t even charge for their use, allowing humans to travel far beyond their wildest dreams. He wasn’t just a quick blip away, but hundreds of thousands of light years.
It was nearly a week’s worth of travel from Relling Gate to Colby’s Hole, time spent that Sketch spent reading or watching holovids, like he usually did, doing his best to absorb all the knowledge he should’ve had. He would’ve loved to get even more knowledge about The Calm’s destruction, but he had to rely on the information that they had just stumbled across. Going digging for it would’ve attracted attention, and attention was the enemy.
During the trip, he’d even started delving more into what he could about the Starless Dominion, beyond the stories they liked to convince everyone were entirely true. Buried in the melodramas and operatic tales, he could see subtext and critique of the Dominion leadership, very carefully woven into stories, so it could read as though it was about anyone.
Originally, Sketch had wanted to try and learn the common language of the Dominion, something called Clispe, but Helen had told him he didn’t have the proper linguistic tools for it, and had assured him it would be much easier to just take translator nanites, like every other civilized being in the Starless Dominion. Getting some nanites on the sly had been one of their first challenges together some six years ago, all the more complicated in that he couldn’t go get them in person.
Six years without regular in person human contact had certainly been weighing on him, but it wasn’t safe for him to be around sentient beings. Doing so came with an insane level of risk, and he just didn’t trust himself to manage that risk adequately.
He’d partaken in an old tradition to keep himself from losing his mind—the tradition of penpals. He wasn’t writing literal letters, but he would exchange video messages with a handful of other transporters that he’d come across over the years, and in doing so, he felt like he was at least in contact with some people. Naturally, he had to lie about a bunch of his background, and he made sure to take notes on which lies he was telling to which people, but for the most part, it helped fill in some of the gaps of his imposed solitude.
When it came to mail deliveries, he had been sticking to the Lingham fungal infection as his reason for dropping off the mail on the edge of town, and everyone had been fine with that, but now that it seemed like the Dominion had finally seen the end of its patience with that problem, he was going to have to come up with something new. The excuse would hold for a little while longer, but not nearly long enough.
His quarters were very sparsely decorated, but still had a few relics of his old life, the traditional robes of the order of The Calm hung symbolically on the wall, a clear box containing what fragments of his Ashaka that he could find when he awoke, and a very old poster from the prestellar days, from a jazz album called “Bitches Brew.” The poster had been acquired after he’d returned to the land of the living, and it wasn’t for the right album, but it would do for now.
As he approached the first of the three planets in Colby’s Hole, Maneath Major, which the system was named after, he glanced at the weather topside and saw that there was a large fogbank rolling in, which was fine by him. He dropped down through the atmosphere and brought his ship down to the designated delivery spot. The terraforming colony had specifically hired him because his costs were a little lower than most, and so they were willing to put up with his slight eccentricity to save some cash.
The Praeteritus touched down and within ten minutes, he’d used the loaders to move the portion of delivery that went here—two heavy bore drills, a base block and one of the seed pods, as well as over half of the mail—and placed it all into the security of the safety crate, closed it up, locked it up and took his credits from the lockbox attached to it. Job done, he headed back into the ship, closed up the ramp and headed towards the bridge.
Unlike a lot of ships, The Praeteritus didn’t like doing vertical landings, and so she had a bit larger of a footprint on the ground, having to lay flat like a giant saucer, which was another reason why he didn’t mind having to stay on the outskirts of town. But even with the fog and the forward momentum needed to get off the ground, The Praeteritus wasted no time in getting starborne again.
The trip from Maneath Major to Maneath Minor was only a couple of hours, and as soon as he was within the planet’s atmosphere, he went to repeat the process, only to see there were people hanging around the dropoff zone.
“This is Praeteritus to the terraformers below,” he broadcast down to them via radio. “You must relocate away from the dropzone so I can put her down and unload your cargo. I am unable to do so until you have vacated from the area.”
“This is Glesh Colony to Praeteritus, that’s a big ol’ negative,” a very laidback voice said to him. “We’ve been having problems with raiders stealing from our dropboxes, and so we’re just gonna take delivery of this one in person, if that’s okay with you.”
Sketch frowned. “No, Glesh, it’s not fine. I’m still infected with Lingham spores, and the Dominion has made it very clear what they’re gonna do to people who break quarantine, so either you can clear out and I can drop this safely in the lockbox, or I can just keep it and sell it off to the next junker I find because you were too stubborn to follow protocols.”
There was a long silence on the radio before it clicked on again. “We were meant to understand that the Dominion was providing Lingham cures free for the asking now,” the voice said suspiciously.
“Yeah, I heard about that at Relling Gate, but I also remember when I took this job that the mandate was to get the base blocks and the mail out as quickly as possible, so I told them I’d stop in to take the cure and spend the week in observation on the way back and not delay my delivery,” Sketch said, trying to layer as much exasperation in his voice as possible. “You fellas just need to back out a couple of clicks, and you can watch me on scopes. You see bandits coming, then you can rush in, but it’ll take me less than ten minutes to get everything unloaded into the box and be on my way.” He sighed, shaking his head. “Shit, if you’d have moved when you saw me, I’d already be back out of atmo by now, instead of yapping here with you. So what do you want to do here, Glesh?”
There was another long silence before the radio clicked on again. “Roger that, Praeteritus, we are backing up to a distance of two clicks. Just be quick about it.”
“Roger that, Glesh. Praeteritus out.” He turned the radio off and watched the levtrucks haul ass for a safe distance. Once they were two kilometers away, Sketch brought the ship down and headed for the cargo bay.
As he opened the bay ramp, he said to Helen, “You see those trucks move an inch, you holler at me and we’re off this rock and these people don’t get their shit, you hear me?”
“Heard, boss.”
What should’ve taken ten minutes Sketch managed to get done in seven, taking the money from the lockbox first before giving the colony their heavy bore drill, their base blocks, their seedpods and their mailbag. As soon as he had everything stowed in their storage pod, he sealed it up and hurried back onto the ship.
“No movement?”
“They’re antsy, but so far they’re holding.”
“Good,” he said, heading back up to the bridge of the ship. As soon as he was up there, he fired up the engines and prepared for take off. “Praeteritus to Glesh, your goods are in the box and the horizons are dry of bandits. Stay safe.”
“Thanks again, Praeteritus,” the voice on the other end of the radio sighed in relief. “And sorry about the hassle. We just desperately need those seedpods. Safe travels.”
Sketch had the ship up in the air as Helen flashed a warning sound at him. “Bogies on the ridge, boss,” she told him.
“Well, shit,” Sketch grumbled. Normally he wanted to get involved as little as possible, but these colonists had held to his rules and the last thing he was going to do was leave them to allow some pirate scavengers to come and plunder their much needed supplies. “Drop a chaff tube into one of the torpedo launchers, Helen.”
“You sure boss?”
“No, but, fuck it,” he said, bringing The Praeteritus towards the oncoming bandit convoy. Once he was about half way between the dropzone and the convoy, he launched a chaff blast out in front of the bandits, scattering shards of metal, feces and heated block waste like a shower of fiery sparks, causing the bandits to swerve suddenly and stop, the cloud of dangerous debris forming a little wall between the convoy and the terraformers, who were just trying to get their mail.
“This ain’t none of your business, mailman,” a voice said to him over the radio.
“Delivery ain’t complete until they have everything out of the box,” Sketch said back to them. “And you folks couldn’t even wait until they did before you decided to charge.”
“And what if we decide to shoot you out of the sky?”
He flipped the radio to mute for a second. “Helen, they got anything that could do that?”
“A couple of the vehicles have some rockets that might punch a minor hole in our hull, but nothing that would do any serious damage,” she replied.
He flipped the radio back from mute to transmitting once more. “You fire on me and I’m gonna fire back, and I assure you, my firepower is a great deal more menacing than yours.”
“That so?” the voice laughed. “Then why’d you throw a shitbomb at us?”
“Consider it a very strong discouragement,” Sketch said confidently. “But hey, if you want to play ‘Mine’s bigger,’ then game on, hillbilly. I’m happy to waste one or two heavy slugs and earn the thanks of the terraformers. They ain’t paid for the slugs, so I don’t want to have to use’em if I don’t have to, but I will.”
“I think you’re bluffing mailman,” the voice said.
“Fuck around and find out.”
A few seconds later, Helen’s alarms started blaring, but the rocket wasn’t moving so fast that The Praeteritus couldn’t easily just twist and get out of the way. As soon as it did, Sketch brought up the targeting system and fired one heavy slug right at the levtruck that had fired the rocket at them. While Sketch’s ship was quick and agile, the raiders’ vehicles were meant to go forward or backward fast, but not side to side, and so the slug blew a giant hole through the center of the vehicle, and Sketch could even see a couple of puffs of red mist that he suspected had been bandits until a few seconds ago.
“You wanna go for round two?” Sketch said to them.
There was no reply on the radio, but the remaining raider vehicles turned around and started heading away from the dropzone as quickly as they could, none of the rest of them wanting to be evaporated so casually. They were scavengers and pirates, not bloodthirsty berserkers.
Sketch called back to the terraformers. “There you go. One heavy slug on the house, even. You got everything?”
The voice of the lead terraformer sounded utterly relieved. “Thank you again, Praeteritus. Feel kinda bad about giving you hassle before.”
“Just happy to see everyone get what’s coming to them,” Sketch told them. “Heading starborn now. Journey well.” He touched a couple of switches and The Praeteritus headed back up away from the planet and into space.
That was it for his legitimate stops, and now he had one final stop to make, over on the third planet in Colby’s Hole, an utterly desolate shithole called Vemex. At some point the terraformers would likely make their way over to Vemex, but so far, the place had remained about as deserted as was possible, the surface almost entirely volcanic rock, cold and unwelcoming. There wasn’t even breathable atmosphere on it, but that was where his third delivery was supposed to be going.
It wasn’t uncommon for the less legal of his deliveries to be made to planets without atmosphere, as smugglers and those who employed their services liked to be able to conduct their business without prying eyes. He’d felt like Vemex was a touch excessive, since large swaths of Maneath Minor were so desolate and remote that they would’ve been just as good delivery points, if not better, but the client had made their destination incredibly clear.
The only problem was there wasn’t anything there.
When Sketch brought The Praeteritus down through the atmosphere, he had the sensors checking all around the designated drop off point, looking for the lockbox that would have the other half of his money, and would signal the exact location the client wanted, but there was nothing but static and cold dead rock in every direction.
“Any chance that weather might’ve damaged our dropzone beacon, Helen?” he asked her, scanning the surface for anything, especially since his illegal dropoffs were generally watched from a couple of kilometers away. But there was nothing, and loads of it.
“Vemex doesn’t have any real weather, boss,” the ship’s AI told him. “And I don’t see any signs that anyone’s been here for quite some time.”
“Take us back into orbit and we’ll hang around for a day, just in case they’re running behind or something,” he sighed. “I hate it when deliveries go bad. I’m stuck trying to hock whatever it was they had me delivering, and nine times out of ten, it’s something I know fuck all about, and I have to trust our fence to not be scamming me.”
Sketch gave the client a full day to show up and set up the beacon, but during that time, not a single ship even approached Vemex, and by the end of the twenty-four hours, Sketch had given up. Another package for the dead letter office. He didn’t want to wait any longer than he had to, because Colby’s Hole was well off the beaten path and he wanted to get back towards more civilized sectors, even if they were more prone to danger.
He set course for Relling Gate and then headed back to his quarters to do some more study, falling asleep during a documentary on the Starless Dominion’s outer reaches. He dreamed, as he often did, of drowning beneath a giant ocean, lost and aimless, unable to tell which direction was up, the undercurrents blowing the bubbles of his breath in every direction. He knew what the dream was about. It was about lost time.
When he awoke, he heard the sound of a blaster warming up, opening his eyes in surprise. Standing next to his bed was a woman who couldn’t be more than a couple of decades old. She had lightly tanned skin and almond shaped eyes, with hair that seemed to have three distinct colors woven together—golden, onyx and copper, each striped in equal measure. She was dressed in heavy robes, covering much of her body so well he couldn’t even get a good gauge of her figure. Her face was awash in freckles, and her hands that were clenching onto the blaster were shaking and unstable, not just from nervousness but post-stasis shock, something he was more than familiar with. Based on the level of the shakes, he estimated she’d been in cold sleep for somewhere between two and five years.
She was beautiful, and her deep green eyes were blinking, trying to stay focused on him while she was keeping the blaster as level as she could. “Who the fuck are you?” she said, her voice cracking a little, as the muscles were used for the first time in a long time. Her accent had a touch of refinement to it, nothing at all like the sort of people he had to work with these days.
“Sketch,” he said, trying to remain calm, knowing that he wasn’t going to be able to maintain, especially with a blaster pointed at him. “You’re on my ship, The Praeteritus. I’m guessing you were probably in my cargo that I was supposed to deliver, but no one was there to pick you up.”
“We have to go back!” she said, the weapon still trembling in her slender fingers. “Wherever you were supposed to take me, you need to take me back to there! He wouldn’t abandon me!”
He moved to sit up, and felt the throbbing at his temples, a sign that things were about to change in their dynamic quite a great deal. Four options, one of which would be the end of him, two of which would be manageable and one of which would be extremely complicated. “My normal practice is that deliveries are done without any contact between me and the client, and you being this close to me isn’t good for you,” he cautioned. “There weren’t any vessels anywhere on Vemex—”
“Where?”
He paused for a second. “Where you were supposed to be delivered. If anyone had been traveling to Vemex, they would’ve almost certainly come from Relling Gate, and we would’ve passed them along the way, but we haven’t seen any ships, so whoever was supposed to meet you at that delivery point, I’m pretty sure they aren’t coming.”
“He has to! He just has to!” the girl said to him.
“You really are putting yourself in terrible risk by being this close to me,” he honestly told her. “I can’t stress this enough—you should go back and climb back into your stasis pod and I can—”
“Shut up! Shut up!” she said, her hands shaking even more. “Let me fucking think!”
“Staying close to me isn’t going to make that easy,” he said. “I promise you, if you go back to the hold, I can try and find out where your friend is.”
“You think I’m fucking stupid, asshole?” she said to him, which made him flinch a little. “The minute you have me in the hold, you’re just going to open it to the black and then I’m fucking dead!” She kept the blaster aimed at him, but it was trembling even more now. “No fucking thank you!”
If he’d had his Ashaka, none of this would’ve been a problem, but without it, being near sentient beings was always a massive risk, his abilities already activating without him being able to control them. He needed to know which path they were taking her down, so he could be prepared for whatever came his way. The Calm, The Rage, The Warmth or The Fear.
“Please,” he said, trying to keep his voice steady. “Put the gun down and we can talk about this like two rational people.”
“Shut the fuck up! You keep talking and talking and my head keeps pounding!”
He knew exactly what she was talking about. It was the reason he kept himself apart from sentient beings. His abilities had already identified the most prominent emotion within her, and was already seeking to amplify it. If he had had his Ashaka, he could’ve chosen an emotion and then deliberately cranked that up. He could’ve instilled her on the path of The Calm, the path the Order had been named after, but without the Ashaka, his abilities functioned without his control. Her mind would’ve been cleared of fear and anger, and she would’ve been able to engage in a rational conversation with him. The Calm was the path most used by the members of the order, but as Sketch had learned, it was the one that people went into reflexively the least.
If she was on The Fear, it was entirely possible that she would just pull the trigger and end his life, but it was also just as likely that she would drop the weapon and hide in the corner. The Fear was a defensive path that members of The Calm used for self-preservation, and wasn’t something they liked to tap into regularly. It was generally a path that was only used briefly, to regain control of a situation, before transitioning into the path of The Calm.
If she was going on the path of The Rage or the path of The Warmth, he was likely in a massive amount of trouble, and he had no idea how he would manage. The Rage would mean he wouldn’t have to worry about it, probably, as she would likely shoot him and then herself before he could even lift a finger to try and stop her.
It had been so long since his abilities had been presented a target, he was certain they were in complete overdrive, so whenever it settled in, her reaction would be extreme, no matter which path it had chosen for her. In his six years since his return to life, he’d only had three encounters, and all of them were within the first two years. Only one of them had ended well, and even then, Sketch had been forced to do something very drastic to ensure his safety afterwards.
Normally the first few steps along any given path would allow the initiate of The Calm, who were often referred to as Storms, to manage and refine the person’s emotions, but without his Ashaka, he didn’t have any control over what was happening to her.
His brown eyes stayed focused on her, trying to discern which path she was in the grips of, but it was hard to read, mostly because he had no experience with this woman at all. There was very little he could do at this point; whatever path she was on, her emotions were charging down it at top speed, and all he could do was prepare to help her manage that, to try and talk her through it.
Suddenly, she flicked the blaster’s safety on, tossed it aside and lunged forward, grabbing his head with both hands as she shoved her lips against his, forcing her tongue into his mouth as she kissed him in a daze.
This was not what he was expecting, but it was one of the two worst possible cases, simply because of how intense the path of Warmth would be for her. He didn’t know how long it would last within her, but the next several hours were going to be overwhelming. Typically the path of Warmth was associated with affection and love, but right now it seemed like it had tapped into a mainline of lust that was running through this woman’s body. Trying to get her to slow down would be futile. Her mind and body had only one option, and the way out was through. He’d just have to figure out how to help her out of it on the other side.
She wasn’t waiting for him to get a foothold on what was going on, however, as she reached down and pulled the heavy parka up and over her head, also tugging off what seemed like a tunic of some kind, tossing them aside, leaving her nearly naked from the top up, simple a bra covering her small, perky tits. He also, however, noticed that she had a distinctive tattoo on one of her shoulders, although he couldn’t remember where he’d seen it before. It was a square with three circles in a pyramid shape inside of it. He knew the image was important, but he didn’t have time to think about it, as she suddenly reached down and grabbed his shirt by the waistline and yanked it up, pulling it off his chest, exposing his pot belly and his hairy chest, but more importantly, exposing his arms, covered in the traditional tattoo sleeves of The Calm, from shoulder to wrist, marking him as an Adept, not as low as an Initiate and not as high as a Counselor. A Counselor might have been able to mostly control their abilities without the Ashaka, but even still, it would’ve been a struggle.
Without the giant oversized clothes, he could see she was particularly slender, with a button nose and a single dimple on one of her cheeks. “I don’t know what’s come over me,” she breathed into his face, “but I know I can’t fucking fight it...” He saw her shy smile widen a little more. She was so hyper sensitive now that she could probably sense anything that either worked him up or cooled him off, and was going to lean into it. “Oh, you like a girl with a filthy fucking mouth, do you?” she cooed at him. “I felt that cock of yours twitch each time, and if that’s what it takes to make sure you’re good and hard to fuck me, then that’s what you’re gonna fucking get.”
“You don’t—” he started, but as he did, she shoved her lips against his again, silencing him while one of her hands moved down and tugged at his pants, trying to rip them open if she had to, finally getting the belt loose enough so that she could slide her hand down the front of them and wrap her slender fingertips around his dick, stroking it slowly and firmly, shivering a little as she touched it.
“I’m either a princess or a queen, and you’ve got me turned on like a common harlot,” she purred at him. “Like a whore. God, I’ve never felt like this in my entire life, so fucking hot, so fucking hungry, so fucking in love...”
“Miss, you—” he tried again, but she kissed him again, making sure he didn’t get a word into the conversation, such as it was. Depending on how one measured time, it had been either seven years or seventy-four years since he’d had the company of a woman in his bed, and back then, he’d had his Ashaka to keep his abilities from going haywire, but they were going full force now, and he’d just have to live with the consequences.
“I don’t care I don’t care I don’t fucking care, you bastard, but I’ve got to get you inside me,” she moaned. “I need to feel you fucking me, I’ve got such an empty young cunt... feel it? Feel how wet I am for you?” She grabbed one of his hands by the wrist and shoved it down the front of her pants until he could feel his fingertips pressed against her pussy, and she was drenched, practically dripping onto his fingers. “I’ve only had a couple of men in there. One was a prince and one was one of my bodyguards... both were nice, but I wasn’t... fuuuuuck I wasn’t so fucking horny like I am now...”
“What you’re feeling, miss, it’s artificial,” he told her. “I know it’s intense but...”
“Oh my fucking god,” she whimpered, crawling out of the bed. “Shut the fuck up about that fucking nonsense. This is the most fucking real thing I’ve ever felt in my fucking life. I’m gonna get this dick inside of my cunt until I get off...”
Her brain was being overwhelmed with levels of dopamine and norepinephrine in such volume that she wasn’t thinking clearly, but he didn’t know any way to tone it down for her. He just had to get her through to the other side of it, but how she’d feel once she’d gotten her rocks off, even he didn’t know. This was completely uncharted territory, something he suspected even the most accomplished Counselors would have had trouble with.
She practically ripped her pants off, revealing a small rectangular stripe of pubic hair, mostly a sandy brown but with the occasional red or black hair in it, kicking them and her boots aside, leaving her completely nude, her skin glistening with a bit of sweat. She reached over and latched her slender fingers onto his waistband and began yanking down on his pants and the underpants beneath, as if she literally couldn’t care what condition they were in as long as they were gone. “Get’em off, get’em off, get these fucking things off they’re in my fucking way,” she hissed at him, finally getting them down, tossing them aside.
“I don’t even know your name,” Sketch said to her, knowing the words were futile even as they left his lips.
“Serena,” she said to him. “And I’m only telling you so I can make you moan it in a minute.” She laughed, wild and completely out of control, before she brought her tongue up along the unsider of his cock and then wrapped her lips around the tip of it and pushed her face down onto it, keeping those deep green eyes of hers looking up at him, almost challenging him not to moan, like she would only take it as a challenge to do better.”
“God fucking damn it, Serena,” he groaned. “I’m... they call me Sketch...”
She popped her lips off his dick with a wet smack and a giggle. “And what’s your surname, Sketch?” Before he could speak, she pushed her mouth back onto his shaft once more, humming on it, as if to make it clear she was still awaiting her answer.
“Ffffuck...” he said, trying desperately not to just pop off immediately. “They just call me Sketch... my real name is Miles... Miles Walker...”
“Mmmmm...” she said, lifting her lips off his dick once more. “Serena Walker,” she purred at him. “I like the sound of that.” She shoved him onto his back and crawled over him, her legs straddling on either side of him, as her hands unclasping her bra at the front, sliding it off to cast it aside, exposing two small, pert breasts with tiny aerola and stiff little tan nipples, one of which had a piercing through it with a little charm hanging from it, the same symbol she had tattooed on her shoulder.
“And your surname?” he said, desperate for anything he could use to stall.
“O’Quincy,” she laughed. “Like you didn’t know. Now shut the fuck up and get this dick inside of my tight young pussy, you motherfucker.”
The name and the symbol clicked together in his head at the exact moment he felt her velvety snatch engulfing his cock, it so tight he was certain he wouldn’t last long, but he felt her reach down and squeeze his balls, just to make him prolong a little bit more.
“C’mon, you bastard, fuck your princess, your queen, your little whore... drill me until we’re both cumming our fucking brains out...” She had complete control of the tempo and rhythm, her slender body having seized complete control of the situation. “Oh yes, yes, yes! Yes you fucker! Pound it! Drill me! Love me! I love you I love you I fucking love you I need you oh god oh fuck harder harder...”
She was moaning and gasping for air, her eyes screwed shut, her mouth smiling regularly in between delirious giggles and whimpers, both of her hands pressed against his chest, keeping him from trying to get up, her body shivering every so often. He reached one of his hands up to close it over her unpierced nipple, giving it a little pinch, which made her squeal even more.
“Fuck yeah, fuck yeah, fuck fuck fuck my princess pussy, Miles... fucking split it open... oh god, I’ve never felt so fucking hot in my entire life.... fuck I’m gonna cum... fuck... fuck you gotta... you gotta cum with me Miles... do it do it doitdoitdoitdoitdoit fuuuuccck!”
When he started to cum inside of her twat, it send her into kind of intense orgasm he didn’t even know was possible, feeling her cunt clamping down on him in a spasming rhythm, trying to milk as much of his seed into her hole as she could while she shrieked loud enough to ring throughout the entire ship, his own breathing staggered and coarse before her body slumped down onto top of his, and she kissed him again, whimpering and moaning into his open mouth, her hands smoothing along his body, raking her nails on his skin as she tried to clear her head, the pressure gone, but the intense emotions still flooding her neural cortex. He knew it had been so long that he was certain his balls were itching for release, and he had no doubt that she felt exactly how much cum he had poured into her after such a very long absence of company.
“I...” she gasped. “I always thought love at first sight was a total crock, but... fuck, I love you so fucking hard, Miles Walker, and you belong to me now. You’re going to keep me safe, and I’m going to keep you happy, and we’re going to survive together. But now, we sleep.”
“But I—”
She kissed him again, not without the built up tension, but one of genuine longing and affection, or as genuine as it could be under these circumstances. “You said we were days away from civilization, so there will be plenty of time to talk later. Now we sleep.”
She snuggled her body in against his and grabbed the blanket to pull over them, nuzzling her face against his chest. As he drifted off to sleep, he wondered exactly how the hell he was going to explain all of this in the morning.