Derelict 0006

//Author's Note: This story is part of a small collection of Lesbian stories I'll be uploading this week. This particular one is an edited resubmission of a story that was previously posted on Literotica. Apologies if you've already read this (although, given the low view count before, that seems unlikely!). This one was posted in a different category, so overlap is unlikely.

Enjoy!//

*****

"More," Alise cried. Her tan skin glistened with sweat in the waning afternoon light filtering through the window.

"That's already your third." Hitomi fell back on her haunches and grinned as she licked her two middle fingers. "Mmm. It's getting thicker. Aren't you thirsty yet?"

"Don't... don't tease me," Alise whined, as she writhed on the bed. She hadn't opened her eyes in twenty minutes. "Just get in there already!"

She grinned as she moved between the blonde's legs. Hitomi loved it when her girlfriend was nice and syrupy. She ran her tongue along the trembling woman's inner thigh, collecting a melange of sweat, ejaculate, and the spattered drippings of several extremely vigorous fingerings. She moaned happily as her tongue slipped between pink folds, her wet finger poised below-

Hitomi shook awake and gasped. "No," she croaked. Her mind lurched to process the cold, sterile walls around her, but her body was on fire. Don't think! Her hand, stiff and lethargic from sleep, moved as fast as she could manage. Underneath the waistband of her polyester shorts. She clamped her thighs together tightly and rolled onto her side, fingering herself mindlessly. Relentlessly. Don't think! Don't think! It was so close, she could taste it. She needed the release of it. Needed it badly. Don't think!

"Fuck!" she cried, as she rolled onto her back. As her orgasm drifted out of reach. She pressed her palms into her eyes and groaned. Her sheet and pillow were soaked in sweat, and the neck of her shirt felt grimy against her skin.

The sweat cooled quickly as she rolled to the side of her bunk and put her feet down. She hadn't thought about Alise in a long time. Had fled hundreds of thousands of light years across the galaxy to get away from the memory of her. And yet, as Hitomi stared out at the dark side of Ganymede VII and at least two of its moons, she could still smell her. Could still taste her; sharp on the back of the tongue. Slightly bitter, and yet...

A very long time indeed.

With a resigned sigh, Hitomi dropped to the deck and started her morning PT. Her throat felt more raspy than usual as she counted off, but the quality of her voice was an increasingly distant concern as the number of reps rose higher. Up. Down. Up. Down. She pushed through the aches and groans in her elbows, certain, as she was every day, that today would be the day she would match the numbers she could do in her twenties. Or her thirties. After the push ups it was crunches, to give her arms a brief rest before pull ups. She finally got a look at herself in the mirror nearly an hour later as she staggered toward the showers.

"She wouldn't even recognize me," she said out loud to no one, shocking herself that she'd spoken at all. She absently ran a hand through her short-cropped hair, missing the long, dark locks for the first time in decades. She'd also added thirty lbs of muscle, and another ten of indiscriminate origin in the last few years as time refused to pass her by. Hitomi stared at herself for a long while, rattled by how rattled she was. The Corps had been a more than adequate distraction for twenty years.

She tried fingering herself again in the shower without success.

***

"SITREP."

"Hello to you too, sunshine." The broad grin of Corporal Givens was blurrier than it should have been. Hitomi grunted, sipped at her coffee, and waited patiently for the awkward silence to force Givens to get on with it. "I uh... I got the geothermals back online, so Units 104 through 212 are running again."

"Just the geothermals?" She leaned back and squinted at the readout beside her. "Oh." Gale force winds were the norm on Ganymede VII. When the storms hit, as they did often, the wind-powered units shut down automatically to prevent mechanical damage. It also meant Givens was grounded, as takeoff and atmospheric flight near the equatorial belt were difficult under the best conditions.

"Yeah. Gotta wait for the—"

"I got it," she barked, interrupting her subordinate with the full weight of her rank. Givens clammed up and sat a little straighter. "What does that look like to you? Category nine?"

"Probably a ten before it's all said and done, sir."

"I'll check back in with you tomorrow at 0700, but it looks like it's just you and your hand for a while."

Givens grimaced and nodded. It looked like he wanted to say more, but Hitomi shut down the comm before he could. The good news was that it would be blessedly quiet. Givens was a competent fuck when the chips were down, but he never shut up. The talking during sex was barely tolerable. She drew the line at small talk afterwards.

The bad news was that it was just her and her hand too.

She blew on her mug as she switched feeds to one of their nearby satellites. Dawn on the fourth moon of Ganymede IX was something she tried to watch every day when she could. Unlike most moons, Fenome (her private name for it) was not tidally locked, had retained its atmosphere, and rotated fast enough to keep it. Most important, though, were its oceans. Fenome's oceans were heavily populated by a unique algae that turned magenta during photosynthesis. Every day, Hitomi sipped her coffee and watched dawn break across the surface, followed several dozens of kilometers behind by an awe-inspiring wave of color. Most Marines had a bit of the stars in their eyes when they joined the Corps, and although she wasn't one of them, she was one of the few who actually got to see something amazing. She savored the view every lunar rotation.

A minor alarm tried to pop up in the middle of her viewing, but she quickly cancelled it and closed it out. The station safety alarms had a very different notification system, and none of the minor ones would require her attention in the next eight minutes. Hitomi tried to refocus and enjoy her moment of zen, but even dismissed there were lights going off in her peripheral vision that were highly distracting. She shifted in her seat, pressing two fingers to her temple to block out sight of it, but that only bought her another minute before—

"Captain Motomo!"

Hitomi was on her feet, saluting crisply, before the mug shattered against the deck. "Sir! Good Morning, Sir!"

Colonel Gormes enlarged head glared furiously at her through the commlink. "At ease. Is there something wrong with your laundering systems, Captain?"

"Lost a bet, sir!"

"If that ain't the lamest excuse I've ever heard, it's sure as shit in the running." It was a lame excuse. She'd just gotten caught being lazy in her shorts and t-shirt. "How about your proximity alarm? Anything wrong with that?"

"The prox..." She turned, really looking at the alarm that had been quietly-but-determinedly attempting to get her attention. "Proximity?" She would have noticed a collision alarm.

"Goddamit Captain, what is the point of having you out there if I'm gonna find out about this shit before you do?! All you had to do was turn your goddamn head!"

"I'm sorry, sir!" When the Colonel didn't immediately launch into another tirade, she took a chance to head him off. "A proximity alarm, sir?"

"I know you've never had the pleasure, Captain, but do I strike you as the kind of man who enjoys repeating himself?"

"It's not that, sir, I just—"

"It's a first for humanity. I get it, Captain, now shut the fuck up and look at your damn readouts!"

Hitomi darted over to the insistent blue warning light on the dashboard beside her chair, and tapped rapidly. "A-Are you seeing this?" she stammered.

"I'm starting to understand why we stationed you out in the interstellar equivalent of Buttfuck Egypt. Why do you think I'm calling you, Captain?!"

Hitomi stared blankly at readouts on which she'd only had the barest training. Training not even her trainers had ever seriously considered would be used in their lifetime.

"At Local 0706, deep orbit satellite Ganymede X LL19 detected an object on a near-impact trajectory. Confirmed at Local 0707 by Ganymede X LL12. Are you paying attention over there, or are you actually stupid enough to waste what might be the first interspecies contact in human history?"

"How did we not pick it up farther out? This is practically on top of us!"

"Captain, I've gotta wait for this info to be relayed to me through a dozen FTL comms and a half dozen intelligence handlers. I should not be telling you any of this!" She could practically feel the spittle coming off of his lips as he ranted. "Where is your goddamn corporal?"

Despite her mind reeling, she finally found her wits and shook her head. "Stranded planetside. Sir, that thing is huge!"

"Congratulations. That's two useful pieces of information you've given me today, now shut the fuck up before you ruin the wonderful first impression you're making. These reports tell me there are no FTL-capable ships out there in the ass end of nowhere?"

"Sir! No, sir!" Hitomi straightened herself and squared off with the holographic representation of her superior, although she couldn't pull her eyes away from the flood of data that the outlying satellites were sending back.

"I don't have anything even remotely near there that isn't grounded for repairs or already doing something I can't spare it from. Early telemetry data says this thing is coming from dark space, heading toward dark space, and fast. We've got about a 24 hour window."

Dark space. Those two words put ice in her spine. Every FTL jump she'd ever made had been fraught with panic at the idea of ending up somewhere different than the intended destination, somewhere that was nowhere, no matter how insistently the navigators argued that it was impossible. Because of parity, or something. No one had ever gone so far as to call her an idiot for not believing them, but she was also aware that her reputation, which she took no efforts to disabuse them of, incorrectly attributed her mastery over several lethal forms of martial arts. Her terse, brooding nature had served her well.

"Sir, first contact protocol is clear that—"

"Are you trying to weasel out of orders before I even give them?"

"No, sir!"

"Prep your scouting craft and suit up!"

"Right away, Sir!"

"We're feeding intercept telemetry info now, but once you get within thirty thousand clicks, you're gonna have to put it on manual. We can only get so accurate about its course with the third-rate equipment sitting out there with you. Trying to find it after it passes through the other side of the orbital plane would be worse than pointless without concrete heading and velocity."

"Understood, sir."

"Get out there, map its course, run every goddamn scan you have access to, and head back before you hit BINGO."

"Yes, sir."

"Congratulations, Captain. You're about to be a goddamn hero to the human race. Colonel Gormes, out."

"Givens," Hitomi cried, as she started the automated prep routine for the second short-range scout. The nav data was already transferring. "Givens!"

"The first dick pic is free," Givens chuckled, "but after that it's gonna cost you." Visual was slow to sync, riddled with artifacting.

"Get up here, now."

"Christ, woman, I've only—"

"Corporal Givens!" Even in the slideshow visual, Givens straightened and dropped his smirk. "Get off that rock right now."

"Sir," Givens said, swallowing with difficulty, "that wind is hitting 2,000 clicks an hour!"

Hitomi gnashed her teeth and killed the connection; there was no way he'd get through alive. She'd only ever met one pilot she thought could pull off breaking atmosphere in those conditions, and that crazy sonnuvabitch was long dead. She hurled herself down the ladder into the armory, unlocked the cabinet, and grimaced.

"Captain?" Givens voice crackled over the PA. "Why am I getting alarms that the armory is open?"

"Can you get up here in the next hour, Givens?"

"No?"

"Then shut up and stop distracting me." Her mind raced, balancing mobility and carrying space against the worst her imagination could summon. She'd have brought two of every gun if she could have, but had to settle for her kinetic rifle and the compact submachine gun.

"Why is the proximity alarm going off?" After a brief pause, he added, "Wait... the proximity alarm?!"

"Can it, Corporal!" Hitomi sprinted back down the hall, past the galley and into their quarters, and pulled out her armored flightsuit.

"Oh shit, Colonel Gormes was on the comm?"

"Corporal!"

"I'm coming up there."

"Corporal Givens," she shouted, staring angrily at the security camera he was likely watching her from, "you will not think about leaving your position until winds drop below 1500 clicks, and you will maintain radio silence until I tell you otherwise! Is that clear?"

"Sir! Yes, sir."

She finished suiting up in a fit, stormed up into the docking portal, and stowed her weapons. The nav system was reporting ready, but the scout craft was only through 80% of its preflight checks. Hurry up and wait never went out of style in the military.

***

Hitomi Motomo popped out of her light sleep seconds before the timed alarm went off. She stretched as much as she could in the cramped cockpit and took in the visual diarrhea of her HUD. 80,000 m/s, distances to and from. Yaw, pitch, and roll values, and her AGP. Hitomi was a barely passable pilot in space, with zero skill in atmosphere.

The HUD had the object highlighted, but it didn't look like anything. Black on black, 100,000 km away. She held out her hand and spread her fingers, but it was wider than the distance from her thumb to her pinky. Over the next twenty minutes, Hitomi stared in muted horror and childlike awe as the black spot in front of her expanded, blocking out everything beyond it. Thirty-seven km end to end. Seven km wide. Cylindrical and rotating, probably to generate gravity. No thrust, but plenty of momentum. The comm light flashed on her left.

"Captain Motomo," came the voice of Colonel Gormes. "Right on schedule."

"Thank you, sir."

"You're gonna have about a six-hour window with this thing before you need to head back, so we need you sharp. We fast-tracked the reports coming back from your sensors. We're not seeing anything that looks like an attempt at communication."

"Neither am I, sir."

"No power, very low heat signature."

"Going manual."

"You've got some time with it, Captain. For now, just stay parallel until we can pinpoint speed and trajectory."

"Roger that."

Hitomi shook her head as she banked alongside the hulking mass. She couldn't make out any features, even as close as she was. The most she could say about it was that she knew it was there because she couldn't see stars through it, and that it was bigger than any ten ships she'd ever seen combined. A couple hours passed in silence before the comm light flashed on her left.

"Captain."

"Yes, sir?"

"We're picking up something a few clicks ahead. We need you to move in closer, and we'll direct the sensors."

"Roger that."

Hitomi hit the thrusters, although nothing she could see or feel changed. The hulk was still an indistinct mass on her right. A node showed up on her HUD above her, slowly circling away from her as the vast ship rotated. She frowned and tapped at a panel on her right, and the HUD painted yellow gridlines over the surface of the hulk. She couldn't get her head around the scale of it. She watched as the node curved further and further away, reaching its apex ten minutes later and beginning the slow arc back toward her.

"Captain."

"Yes, sir."

"We're gonna need you to touch down on the surface when that spot comes back around. No clue how long the scans are gonna take or what they're gonna show, but there's no point in having you try to corkscrew to keep pace with it as it spins."

"Roger that."

A tiny bit of thrust, as she matched the position of the node, and she rolled 90º on her Z axis. She brought her craft in close as the node circled back around, and touched down roughly.

"Confirmed maglock."

"Copy that, Captain. Stand by."

Hitomi sat back and breathed a quiet sigh of relief. The space above her cockpit was full of stars again; she hadn't realized how much it had bothered her when they'd been blocked out.

"Captain Motomo, we're not getting the kinds of readings we want through the hull. Get a tight seal and tunnel through the bulkhead."

Hitomi shook her head slowly. "Roger that." She knew it. With a few taps, the docking shroud lowered itself below her craft, and her pilot's chair flipped. "Good seal. Pressurizing. What am I looking for when I get inside, sir?"

"Eyes open, Captain. We're getting a weak energy signature so you're going in after that, but everything you see is on the menu. Get footage of it all."

"Roger."

"Captain, I can't understate how important this is. You're venturing onto what is almost certainly an alien craft. The scale of it is beyond us. Take no chances, and come back alive."

"Acknowledged." Hitomi strapped on her helmet and freed her weaponry. The compact SMG, her M-109, snapped into a molded holster in the small of her back. The kinetic rifle though, the M-2, she kept in hand while the shroud lasered through the outer hull of the unknown craft. She rechecked the battery charge on the M-2 twice, her ammo stock four times, and re-ran the diagnostic on her in-suit recording and communications suite. Green lights lit up the length of the docking shroud, and Hitomi took a deep breath. "I'm goin' in."

"Godspeed, Captain. Gormes out."

Servos in the shroud lifted away the excised hull plating, and Hitomi moved slowly, dragging herself along by the handholds. Pressure equalization had been minimal. Her equilibrium wailed at her skull as she fought to reorient; she wasn't lowering herself out of her ship, she was climbing upward into the other one.

Her M-2 was the first thing to emerge on the other side, followed shortly by the top of her helmet. She turned, checking in all directions. "Begin recording." Pitch black, except for the three soft blue lights along the grip and barrel of the kinetic rifle. No sound. Gravity was a light 0.4 Earth. She turned and turned, carefully listening and observing, but there was nothing. Very low oxygen levels; breathable only in an emergency. Several seconds later, her HUD painted gridlines along the inside of her helmet, and Hitomi gasped.

She'd emerged on the side of a long hallway, one that ran lengthwise with the ship. There was a T-junction twenty meters ahead, but what had her jaw hanging was the scope of it. The width and height of the hall were massive in scope. She had no interest in meeting the thing that needed its hallways so vast. Everything seemed to fit at right angles to her eye; geometric and clean. Elegant, if unadorned, in the darkness. After a few more turns, she sighed and looked up. The node was some distance above her now.