Fading Stars Ch. 01

Deeva panted happily as her hand slid along the shaft, gently kneading and rubbing herself.

"I have heard stories but never seen it in person before," Tabby purred, only inches away from Deeva's ear. The Silician shot up into a sitting position, heat flushing her features.

Tabby, wearing a fluffy pink towel like a turban around her head and nothing else, stood next to Deeva's bunk, her coppery fur still slightly damp in places. She beamed playfully. "Go on, keep going. Or is that all for me?"

"How long have you been watching me?" Deeva asked. She didn't feel shame, rather surprise. She hadn't noticed the bathroom door opening nor Tabby moving.

"Long enough to realize I want a piece of that," the Felinoid said, crawling onto Deeva's bunk. Hungrily, she eyed Deeva's pleasure probe, erect and standing proud in front of her navel. "Or am I intruding?"

"If you're asking about me and Vecora then no," Deeva said, scooting fully onto her bunk until she was next to Tabby, in a sideways 69 position. She locked eyes with Tabby and resumed her stroking. "We see each other regularly but we are not what you would call 'an item.' I bet she and Gaia have already showered together."

"Hard to imagine. Most Nor I've met are like cold, tired fish in bed. Maybe except for the Aquarians. Can you believe the captain refused when I offered myself to him? I really don't want to be here." She meowed pitifully.

"Then you are rather important, it seems," Deeva mused. Her curiosity, nearly on par with her desire to feed her phallus to that adorable mouth, won out and she stopped caressing herself.

"I was at Waystation 52," Tabby said. "Made me an eyewitness. So they pulled me off my own ship and 'drafted' me." She growled in the back of her throat. "Can you believe it? From captain of my own little freighter to ensign on this tub. Fuck martial law, meow." Her hand reached for Deeva's phallus. "May I?"

Deeva made a mental note to investigate "Waystation 52" before nodding. "Of course. It would be impolite to get your... pussy all excited and push you away, kitty. Meow?"

"You are a riot," Tabby snorted, her slender fingers wrapping around Deeva's hardness. She inhaled sharply in surprise. "Not what I was expecting," the Felinoid murmured. "I thought it would be plastic like a vibrator or strap-on. But this is... hmmmeow..." Her mouth engulfed the tip of Deeva's phallus and her tongue fluttered against her hardness. The Silician threw her head back and sighed happily. The cat-eared alien certainly knew how to 'give head.' Grinning wickedly, Deeva activated a subsystem hidden inside her phallus, causing it to slowly vibrate. Tabby's head shot up from it in surprise.

"We certainly did imitate the Precursor species initially but no one said we weren't allowed to improve," Deeva giggled, her hands caressing between Tabby's thighs. The Felinoid was definitely excited, her labia spread and her folds wet.

"It's a weird time to ask," Tabby muttered, licking along the pulsing shaft, "but why have boobs and dicks and all that? You don't procreate like we do."

Deeva dialed down her arousal enough so she wouldn't be distracted too much. Her fingers played with Tabby's engorged clit, causing the Felinoid to meow happily around her probe before answering.

"In the beginning, the Core gave us only a basic form so we could perform all those tasks a sentient planet-computer couldn't perform, like building delicate items. The Core knew of the Precursor species -- Nor, Zuthrian, Gravon, Human. In fact, most intelligent life in the galaxy is built along similar blueprints. So he made us bipedal, with two arms and a torso and a head."

Deeva's hand playfully cupped Tabby's furry behind and kneaded it. The similarities to her own were profound, including the pink, puckered rosebud under the tail's root. The Felinoid pumped Deeva's shaft and licked clear droplets off her tip, smacking her lips self-indulgently. "You even taste nice. Is that sunfruit?"

Deeva grinned happily. "Yes. I can alter the taste of my lubricant, which doubles as ejaculate when using my probe like this. Fun, isn't it?"

Tabby answered with lewd, slurping noises as she devoured more of Deeva's probe each time her mouth went down on her.

"When our Diplomats made contact with the Zuthrians about a thousand years ago, they quickly learned that there were more ways of interacting with intelligent species than talking and fighting. Each new iteration of Diplomats was built more like the species they were to make contact with until they were able to perform all the functions said species were capable of. Well, except psionics. That's something we will probably never manage."

"Oh, with tools like these you don't need mind tricks, meowwwww" Tabby purred, grinding her sex against Deeva's probing fingers. "You're no diplomat though."

"True. Network studies showed that Diplomats, with their sex organs, were much happier, much more creative and in general more fun to be around than those without defined body features like that. Over the centuries, our species adapted until every newly codemerged being was either a Type-A male or Type-B female."

"With options," Tabby laughed, shaking Deeva's probe. "God, you make me so horny. Won't you... interface with me?" She rolled onto her back, spreading her legs invitingly, her tail sensuously curling between her ankles. "Can your males detach their pleasure rods too?"

"Yes, and many do. Even if only to have it out of the way during everyday tasks."

"I'd love to be on one of your ships one day, meow. I bet you're incredibly kinky."

"Quite so. Often you would find small groups of off-duty Silicians join in recreational coupling. Threes, fours, depending on how many openings and probes are available." Deeva bent low, licking Tabby's folds and sucking on the Felinoid's engorged clit. She decided there had been enough explanations and canceled her arousal dampener. Tabby seemed to agree, placing both hands on Deeva's temples and holding her firmly in place as she rode the Silician's tongue. Grinning, Deeva used the overflow of juices to lubricate one of her fingers and pressed it against Tabby's rosebud. The noises the Felinoid made became incomprehensible. Purrs, meows, gasps, all rolled into one. Tabby's tail whipped against her thighs as her hips rolled madly on the bunk but not to get away from her intrusion, far from it. To Deeva's surprise, Tabby's anal muscles afforded little resistance and her finger slid inside easily, setting of a furry bomb. The Felinoid squealed and bucked against her, climaxing furiously amidst heated meows. Deeva smiled at her, finger buried up to the second knuckle in Tabby's behind.

"More, kitty-kitty?"

"Meow!"

"Is that a 'yes?'"

"No, you computerhead. It's a 'meow,'" Tabby laughed. "Please, fuck me already!"

Deeva withdrew her finger from Tabby's bum and scooted closer, rubbing her leaking tip over Tabby's mound.

"You're making a mess!" Tabby complained half-heartedly. "After you're done with me, I'll need to shower again..."

"I can come with you and mess you up really good," Deeva whispered, bending over Tabby, nibbling on the Felinoid's pert breasts. Tabby's hands slipped between them and angled Deeva's probe between her labia.

"Shut up," Tabby purred, pulling Deeva's head up until she could close her lips over the Silician's. Their tongues dueled furiously. Tabby wriggled her bum until Deeva's probe slid effortlessly into her well-slicked tunnel, filling her with vibrating goodness up to the hilt. The Felinoid held on to Deeva's shoulders for dear life as the Silician's thrusts came, slow, torturous and oh so deep. Despite having climaxed so recently, Tabby's insides tightened already, grabbing Deeva's miraculous alien schlong like a desperate, velvet glove. There was no restraint in Deeva's actions any more. The harder Tabby convulsed around her, the faster and harder the Silician's thrusts became until Tabby feared she would come up through her esophagus like some weird sex tentacle she had seen on VRNet programs. Deeva's hand closed around the root of Tabby's tail, one of the most sensitive and erogenous zones on a Felinoid's body. Screaming into her lover's mouth, she came again, even harder than before, mewling helplessly as she thrashed, impaled on Deeva's insane pleasure probe. Deeva wasn't done though. She withdrew from Tabby's ravaged privates and scooted up her torso, the dripping, throbbing probe leading the way.

Purring helplessly, Tabby guided the azure phallus between her lips and tried to relax as much as possible as it thumped against her throat. Deeva grabbed two fistfuls of her damp hair and held her head as she hungrily speared herself into Tabby's mouth, the Felinoid making gurgling noises. Every so often, Deeva allowed her to catch her breath before indulging some more, thrusting with cute little gasps rising in pitch. Then she groaned, pulled her probe from Tabby's mouth, pumped her shaft two, three times and erupted. String after string of clear, sweet-smelling liquid poured from her phallus, slapping against the headboard of the bunk, drenching freshly-showered Tabby and dribbling in puddles onto the fur covering her breasts and neck. Sighing contentedly, she bent down, kissing and licking Tabby's face, the Felinoid laughing in disbelief at the incredible mess she so suddenly had become the center of.

* * * *

"Meow, that was fantastic," Tabby said, toweling herself down. "Almost made me forget why I'm here."

Deeva clicked the last of her body plating back into place and sat on the freshly-made bunk. "I'm afraid I'll have to remind you."

"Huh? And I thought we would go and surprise Vecora next."

"You are one horny kitty." Deeva chuckled.

Tabby nodded happily and hopped onto the bed next to Deeva and rolled onto her back, spreading her thighs invitingly. "An inbred trait we Felinoids all share. We get horny at the slightest provocation, can party harder than a whole cave full of Zuthrians and are never satisfied. Meow."

"Doesn't that interfere with your job as a ship captain?"

"Mental exercises do help. Butt plugs too." Tabby giggled. "So, are we going?"

"No. I wanted to ask about Waystation 52."

"Meow, you're no fun." Tabby sat up and pulled her towel around herself, suddenly very sober. "Never saw anything scarier."

"What happened?"

"Originally, I'm from Salvation-III, a boring little bread basket. Mom was a stripper in a spaceport bar, dad a Zuthrian who had had enough of sand."

"Hm. You don't look much like a Zuthrian. Your skin is very fair."

"Got the incredibly good looks from my mom, my wanderlust from my dad. So, when I was old enough, I pleaded and begged until he showed me how to fly his old freighter. Got my license at sixteen, been shuttling supplies and spare parts ever since. Had a nice route going, delivering yummy treats to all the free ports and mining stations around the Salvation system. All was well until about two months ago when I approached Waystation 52. Most boring place you can imagine. A science habitat circling some gas giant. All they did was pull samples from the atmosphere, hoping to find a compound worth extracting. Been there a couple of times before. Even the sex is horrible there, the lay there always does the quick in'n'out and leaves me terribly unfulfilled. Meow." Tabby snuggled up to Deeva, trying unsuccessfully to arouse the Silician.

"So, what happened?"

"Oh, yeah. Well, the last time I was there, the gas giant was gone and the habitat was encrusted by some organic sludge with ...things growing out of it. Or into it. I'm not sure. The moment I had a decent full-spectrum scan, I booked it. Not a moment too soon. Three ships swung out from behind the habitat, smaller than my Toy Box, and opened fire. Took two hits to the top cargo bay and another cored Engineering."

"Pirates?"

Tabby shook her head, eyes large with remembered fear. Her neck fur stood on end. Deeva pulled her close and held her. Tabby sighed contentedly and took a few deep breaths.

"You know what, I'll show you," the Felinoid said.

"Are you sure? If what you saw had you drafted, it must fall under military intelligence."

"Do I look like I give a fuck?" Tabby slid from Deeva's embrace and padded to her bunk. "I happen to have a data vault and the spooks didn't exactly want to detonate my pretty face to get into it. I'm in the habit of backing up anything valuable. Or creepy, for that matter." She dug into her bag and produced a data chip, still sealed. Tabby bit into a corner of the vac-seal and ripped the clear foil off the chip then inserted it into a jack under her hairline. Her eyes went blank for a moment then she pulled the chip free and tossed it to Deeva.

"Thank you," the Silician said, slotting the chip into her own data jack. The interface decoded the information into a format she could process, resolving the data into two files, labeled "sensor sweep" and "wtf?!" She opened the first.

Suddenly she was in a different body, awash with endorphins and panic. A vibrating butt plug threatened to distract her but the wailing proximity alerts managed to wrench her focus to the here and now. Deeva understood. She was witnessing a body recording. Her eyes swiveled frantically to the side, where an old sensor console beeped and twittered. The object on the scanner was alternating between a heavily damaged OrbTech science habitat and an Unknown Entity. The scanner wasn't sure if it was looking at a machine, a life form or a cluster of life forms. Worse yet, the life form bits didn't register in any data set she had loaded. Like crusted-over stalagmites, sharp, jagged claws jutted from the habitat's main orb, dripping strands of a thick, viscous substance into space.

Of much greater concern were the three ships highlighted in red on the threat scanner, dark things more swimming than flying, their wide, manta-like wings undulating in the nothingness of space. They were much smaller than her ship but also much faster. Their rear ends curled upwards, like some weird space scorpion's stinger. Tabby didn't know what these ships were but she was a veteran of the spaceways, quickly punching in orders for evasive maneuvers. Despite her best efforts though, the ship shook three times as it got hit by whatever the attackers had shot her way. Tabby decided to risk it all, even firing up her FTL drive in what should technically have been the gravity well of a planet. But the gas giant had vanished and going by the angry red alerts all over her dashboard, she didn't want to slug it out with these attackers. Gritting her teeth, Tabby grabbed the FTL drive's activation lever and pushed it.

Deeva blinked furiously as the body recording stopped, her own systems firing on all cylinders after being thrust so violently into a fight-or-flight situation. But slowly, another emotion surfaced. Excitement. More than three years after leaving the mainframe-ship, she had something. The first traces of the unknown entity her captain was so worried about. Quickly, she opened the second file.

Again, she was thrust into Tabby's body. This time though, she was deathly afraid. Afraid that the old spacesuit she wore might not be completely sealed. Afraid of the things which might have happened to her ship. Afraid to be stuck in this uninhabited system until life support ran out. Afraid she wouldn't be able to afford the repairs. Tabby hated being afraid.

A quick glance at a diagnostic panel showed her where the attackers had pierced the hull of her ship. The Toy Box was an ancient freighter, barely more than a long spine with engines in the back and a small command section in front, housing the bridge and Tabby's quarters. Along the spine, on standardized clamps, were the cargo bays, four rows of four containers, turning the Toy Box into a long, flying brick with a tiny pointed nose. One shot had missed the power core by what seemed just a couple feet, two more puncture wounds blinked in cargo bay 12. Tabby checked the enviro-seal for the sixth time and opened the bulkhead. Without motive power, there was no gravity so she used an old hoverball repulsor belt for propulsion, slowly floating down the spinal hallway of her ship, the swaying beam of her helmet lamp creating way too much movement and imaginary specters for her liking. Cargo bay 12 was closer but filled to the gills with boxes full of food rations, probably torn off their restraints after the attacks. That was a source of sharp-edged death she didn't fancy dodging right now. So the engine room it was. She fired off the jets again and barreled down the corridor. The emergency seal was in place, limiting the hull breach to just the engine room. If the hole wasn't too big, she could weld it shut. Wouldn't be the first time. She turned around and engaged a secondary bulkhead, to limit the loss of atmosphere, and disengaged the seal to the engine room.

The power core was untouched, the old mass converter thumping silently in its armored alcove. But that was the last bit of good news. The hole in the side of the engine room was taller than she was, jagged shards of metal bent inwards at sharp angles framing it. And in front of the core, half-buried in what used to be the secondary ship control console, was the projectile. At least seven feet long and seemingly made from a hard, crystalline substance, it lay in her engine room like the tip of a giant's spear, sharp edges and glittering surfaces. And, as she watched, a whole section, two feet in length, cracked open. A thick, purple something oozed out of the thing but instead of weightlessly drifting upwards or towards the hull breach, the mucus seemed to adhere to the ship's flooring. And then she caught movement besides the mucus, a pale feeler or pseudopod, crawling from the missile. The strange manta-ships had shot living projectiles at her, some kind of egg or cocoon, and now whatever was the payload was trying to crawl out.

Tabby didn't stick around to learn more. She bolted, halting only long enough to re-engage the emergency seal. Back to the command section she flew, nearly crushing her ribs as she impacted the bulkhead after accelerating too hard. Into the command section, to the bridge. With shaking fingers, made even clumsier by the thick spacesuit gloves, she cracked open the panel with the emergency release levers. Putting all her weight behind it, she disengaged the connections holding the rear end of the ship in place, freeing the command section. Using the maneuvering jets, she put some distance between herself and the contaminated rest of her ship, ending up facing it.

Gnashing her teeth, Tabby fired up her plasma cannons. They were mainly used to clear incoming space debris and to make her feel not so alone, but they packed more than enough punch to deal with an aging bucket like hers. She fired until the bird-brain of her ship's computer warned her that she would only have enough power for a week's worth of life support and shut down the cannons. Then she curled up into a weeping ball.

* * * *

The chip clicked into Deeva's palm. Tabby sat next to her, knees pulled up to her chin and her tail loosely wrapped around her ankles. Wordlessly, Deeva pulled the Felinoid close and hugged her. She was rocked to the core by the force of Tabby's emotions.

"I'm sorry about your ship," she whispered, caressing Tabby's damp hair.

"The important parts are in the same space dock we launched from earlier," the Felinoid said with a shrug. "Not that I'm seeing that again. The spooks have claimed it as evidence, along with the bits I couldn't incinerate."

"How did you manage to make it back to Norwan anyway?"

"Like any marooned skipper would. I lived inside my space suit for two weeks, only using minimal resources to recharge it and had my emergency beacon on full blast. A patrol vessel picked me up and, after I stupidly cried on one security's shoulder, they hauled my sorry butt out here. I was about to be transferred planetside for some more interrogation but your Captain Orix said he'd do it on the way. Meow."