Lust on the Way to Vega

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A ship system meant to suppress sexuality has malfunctioned.
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Leenysman
Leenysman
1,927 Followers

Disclaimer: All sexual activity described in this ebook is between fictional characters over the age of 18.

~~~~~

December 12th, 2109, Earth

Cairo Sendet activated two hover-cameras, letting them focus on the two occupants of the room. Colonel Darius Sullivan was the first member of the Proteus mission who had been willing to talk to a member of the press in the year since they had gotten home. Cairo had a long list of questions, sure to drive her hit count.

Otherwise ignoring the recorders, she started, "Happy 85th birthday, Colonel."

"Please, Cairo, call me Darius. I'm only 85 on paper. The doctors tell me my biological age is still only 25. Younger than you, I believe. Although, with the relativistic effects of traveling at 90 percent of light speed, I effectively only spent 26 years in stasis and one year awake, out of our 59 year voyage."

"I will come back to that. First, the crew of the Proteus has developed a reputation for avoiding the press since your return, Colonel Sullivan. Could you explain that for my audience and why you changed your mind to talk to me?"

Sadness crept into his smile. "I chose to speak mainly because of my birthday, to get across the idea of being time shifted like we are. As for why we haven't allowed interviews before this, wouldn't you be quiet, if it turned out that the mission you had dedicated your life to making a success turned out to be completely irrelevant? We said goodbye to everyone we knew, knowing that most would be dead before we returned. 59 years sacrificed, for nothing. We got back, with all this survey data on Vega's planets, only to find out that Earth had already established a colony on Vega-4 22 years earlier without needing any of the information we gathered."

"Because the jump drive technology was invented during your mission?" Cairo asked.

Darius said, "Especially because the first ship to use it launched after our departure from Vega. We left Vega in 2079 on the calendar, not even knowing that Earth was researching the new technology. There was no hyperlink station at Vega then, for obvious reasons, and we were just then getting light broadcasts from Earth from 2054. The earliest of our transmitted data didn't start arriving on Earth until 2103, the last the next year. We arrived back at spacedock just 4 years after our data."

Cairo jumped in with, "The Vega-4 colony was founded in 2086."

Darius frowned at the interruption, then continued, "Right. We were two years into our return travel when the Kincaid jumped from Earth to the outskirts of the Vega system in a week's time in 2081, then made another jump and established an orbit around Vega-4, regathering the same information we had collected so the colony could start 5 years after that. If the scientists had succeeded just three years earlier, the Kincaid could have come to get us during the survey portion of our voyage and at least saved us the 29 years of the return trip. The other survey missions launched around the same time as us were to stars from 5 to 15 light years farther away, so they arrived to find an Earth ship already there, in some cases with a colony already in place."

"Why couldn't the Kincaid come after you after getting to Vega?" Cairo asked. "Jump ships are faster, right?"

"Yes and no. Technologically, they both rely on the metaverse that the physicists discovered back in 2035. They just leverage it differently. The power systems on the Proteus drew energy from that universe to let us accelerate continuously and power our shields without having to carry fuel."

"And the Kincaid?" Cairo asked.

Darius answered, "Jump ships like the Kincaid open a portal into the metaverse big enough to fly into, travel through the metaverse under its different physical laws using a separate set of engines, then open another portal to reenter our universe. It's important to understand that the distance they traveled inside the metaverse imparts no velocity in our own. They exit with the same velocity they entered. So, to match our speed, they would have to accelerate the same way we did, in our universe. One advantage jumping gives them is that instead of trying to start from Vega and catch us from behind, they could have actually jumped ahead of us, then accelerated towards Earth, matching our speed at the same time that we overtook them. Hopefully without colliding into them."

Cairo asked, "So, why didn't they?"

Darius answered, "I've actually talked with Malcolm Harris, the captain of the Kincaid at that time. They had several reasons, from less powerful engines for our universe that would have taken longer to match our speed, to a lack of stasis equipment that would have meant the crew had to age by several years to accomplish it. But the biggest problem is they wouldn't have been able to signal the computers on the Proteus to wake us up from stasis to participate in the docking. They would never have been able to do it alone. In the end, the Kincaid did the only thing it reasonably could have done, let us come back to Earth as originally planned. The rest of the sub-light crews were returned to Earth between 10 and 20 years before us, never even doing their surveys."

"Without their ships," she added. "Yours was the first interstellar crewed mission to leave and the only of those ships to return."

Darius said, "Cairo, there's not much prestige in being the only one of those ships to return to Earth, when the data we returned was worthless and our friends and family died off in the meantime. I would much rather have gotten back sooner."

"Is that resentment I hear?" Cairo asked.

Darius said, "Regret, at time lost to a circumstance that only arose because Earth had a technological breakthrough at a time that didn't help us. Nobody on Earth did anything wrong in sending those missions and what happened was what we expected to happen, when we signed on for the mission. Can we talk about something else, please?"

"You mentioned that you spent only 26 years in stasis, while you were away for 59. Can you explain that difference for our audience?"

Darius said, "It's an effect of special relativity. The closer a ship is to the speed of light, the slower that time passes inside it. At our top speed of 90 percent of the speed of light, 2.3 years passed outside for every year inside. Within the ship, 7 months passed during acceleration, 11 years and 7 months while remaining at our top speed, 7 months slowing down. That adds to 12 years, 9 months ship time, 29 years outside, to travel 25 light years. Add in the year spent around Vega doing our survey, then repeat the same coming home, and we were gone for 59 years, the ship's time was 26.5 years, in stasis for 25.5 of them. Boosting to .99 might have gotten us back to Earth a few years sooner, but since we weren't going to age in stasis anyway, the mission planners chose to avoid the higher risk of collisions that .99 would have brought."

"And yet, I have heard that it was a collision that almost doomed your mission." Cairo leaned forward, saying, "And resulted in three babies being born on board the Proteus, while you were in the Vega system?"

"That's supposed to be classified, Miss Sendet," Darius said.

Cairo shrugged, "It's even harder to keep secrets now than when you left, Darius. It's going to come out, once the secret classification gets stripped from your ship's logs, any day now. I know several Senators wrangling for just that. Wouldn't you rather you be the ones to tell the story?"

Darius' smart watch beeped. He looked down at it, and saw the text he received from his crew-mates, who he knew were watching the live broadcast. They had gotten wind that Miss Sendet had this information, so were prepared for this.

Darius said, "Not on live air, Miss Sendet. I will tell you the story, but you will definitely want to edit some parts out for your audience to hear. If you broadcast it at all."

"Well, folks, you'll have to wait a while for the rest of this story, as I go offline." She pressed a few controls on her own smart watch, and both cameras lowered themselves back to the table, their record lights going off. It was illegal for a hover-cam to record with the lights off. Darius had only agreed to the interview because he had heard that Miss Sendet was a stickler for those rules.

"Why don't we take a break and then we'll resume, with the cameras in record mode only?" Cairo asked. "Give you some time to recall the events. Don't bother with anything but the truth. You and your crew departed Vega 30 years ago, and that's the current limit on classification of government recordings. Whatever happened, happened before you left Vega, and will be public knowledge very soon."

Cairo got up from her chair and left the room.

"Holy shit, she bought it," muttered Darius, transferring the text version of the interview to that point as a foreword to the book he'd already been planning to publish. Everything else had been edited already. He shot it off to his publisher with the note, "Get it online immediately, before Sendet comes back to the room. Then buy instant ad space on her next show, with the tag line "The Whole Story". We'll be number 1 before the day's out."

~~~~~

Excerpts from "The Proteus Mission, Revealed", by Darius Proteus, aka Colonel Darius Sullivan, SpaceForce, Retired, copyright 2109:

~~~~~

Our crew was four men and four women of mixed races. None of us was over 30. I myself was 27 when I left.

The Men:

Executive Officer/Chief Pilot: James Clapton

Chief Engineer: Milo Devore

CoPilot: Darius Sullivan

Engineer's Mate: Langa Darby

The Women:

Captain: Dierdre Washington

Navigator: Nancy O'Toole

Ship's Doctor: Keiko O'Hara

Pilot Apprentice: Ashley Munson

~~~~~

About six light years away from Vega, as we were coasting along through mostly empty space, the Proteus went through some kind of radiation field that the shields could not block. We still don't know exactly what it was, but somehow it interacted with the energy we were drawing from the metaverse. A number of overloads affected our systems, that were not immediately detected by the diagnostics systems, as the affected systems were not active at the time. The other glitches that it did detect, it could handle and our voyage continued.

Luckily for us, our shields were not one of the affected systems, as they saved us from about a dozen impacts after that point that could have each destroyed the ship. Nor was stasis affected, or we'd all have died.

We were reaching the point where we were supposed to start slowing down for a year of real-time, half a light year away from Vega, about 7 months of ship time, when the computer attempted to activate the propulsion system, to begin decelerating us for arrival in Vega, when it finally discovered that the propulsion system was among the storm's victims and could not be restarted.

The crew was woken up early, to make the repairs. The first to be revived were Deirdre and Milo. Thankfully, the gravitational plating in the decks was also working or we'd have been stuck in zero-g while trying to make repairs. The computer relayed its diagnostic information to them. Milo ordered a fuller system diagnostic, flagging another 10 subsystems that were not operating correctly within systems that were normally only activated when the crew was awake. Life support was functional enough for us to be awake and breathing, but systems to produce food for us were also among those that were damaged.

Captain Washington made the decision to wake the rest of us up, so extra hands could be available for repairs. We had all been given training on several systems, that would free Milo up for more difficult tasks.

That first day, I was helping Milo with the propulsion system, along with Nancy. I asked, "Do we have a time limit on this, Milo? Some point past which we can't recover the mission?"

"The sooner we repair it, the better," he answered. "The longer we're awake before arriving in the Vega system, the more food we consume that we need to have available for us while we're in the system. So long as we do get it fixed and any other significant systems repaired, Nancy and the computer can calculate a revised course to get us into the Vega system to start our survey. We might just have to leave early due to a lack of food, is all."

"I must still be loopy from stasis," I said. "Why revise the course? Aren't we already pointed at Vega?"

"You really didn't pay attention to the celestial navigation class, did you, Darius?" Nancy asked, laughing. "The basic thing you need to understand is that Vega is moving, around the Galactic Core, just like Sol does. The distance between the two stars doesn't change quickly, so we think of it as constant. However, we don't navigate to where we see Vega in the sky from Earth, because that light is already 25 years old. Nor do we aim for where Vega was when we left. We aimed for where Vega would be in 29 realtime years, down to a year for us now, and our deceleration is supposed to deliver us to that point at the same time Vega is there, so we meet up. Then we can use a combination of our propulsion and the gas giants to navigate the system, especially if we're off by a few AUs on arrival.

[Note to readers: An AU is an astronomical unit, equal to the average distance between Earth and Sol, roughly 150 million kilometers. It is used as a measure of distance inside Solar Systems, where light years is a measure used between stars. A light year is roughly 9.5 trillion kilometers, or over 63,000 AUs. There will not be any quiz.]

"And we're late starting that deceleration," I said.

Nancy said, "Yes. If we can't fix the propulsion at all, we won't slow down, short of running into something, which I don't recommend. We'll reach that point in space six months before we were supposed to, six months before Vega reaches it, and we'll pass a good 25 AUs or more ahead of Vega, going the same speed we are now. Even at that distance, we'll probably encounter the outer reaches of the dust disk that surrounds the system. Pray that the shields hold up against that, at 90% of light speed. The longer it takes us to fix this, the less time we have to decelerate and the more speed we would still have when we get near Vega, and either we use the gas giants to help slow us down, or we simply shoot through the system and have to loop around with the propulsion system. With the metaverse providing power, we can keep maneuvering as long as it takes."

Milo added, "So long as all or most of us are back in stasis and letting the computers control propulsion. Otherwise, we could run out of food."

We had a number of problems, but had not yet identified the one that changed all of our lives. That hit us while the three of us were under a panel of the propulsion electronics, identifying burned out circuits so that we could locate spares in the ship's stores. I realized I was getting an erection at the proximity of Nancy's flat-chested body to mine, seconds before her hand closed over it, bringing me to full stiffness.

This wasn't supposed to happen. The ship had been equipped with emotional suppressors, that were supposed to keep conflict from happening and also shut off our sexual desires, so that hanky-panky wouldn't occur. Earth was in one of its moralistic phases when we left. Sex in space was against the rules.

Obviously, that system was broken, resulting in instant turn-on.

"What are you two doing?" Milo cried out, as Nancy started to slide the fastener to my uniform pants down and haul my 11 inch cock out into the open. Her lips were sliding over the engorged head as she mumbled, "Can't help it, so horny." I swept her blond hair out of the way so I could watch.

"Suppressors broke," was all I managed to say, before I began to moan. We had been celibate the last six months before departure, as the suppressors at the training base were gradually increased to get us used to them. Suddenly, my sexual urges were back, stronger than I had ever felt them, even as an eighteen year old.

"Oh, shit, I feel it, too," Milo said, pulling himself out of the maintenance tunnel, then grabbing at Nancy's legs as well, pulling her off of my cock and into the passageway.

"Hey, she was blowing me!" I sputtered, as I pulled myself out as well.

They were both almost naked by the time I got out of the tunnel to confront Milo. Milo said, "I'll take her pussy, you can get her mouth again. Okay?"

"Stop talking and give me those cocks!" Nancy cried.

Nancy was down on her hands and knees, her small boobs barely visible to me. Milo and I both dropped to our knees, Milo behind Nancy's ass, me in front of her, reaching under her to grab her nipples. Milo's first thrust came just as Nancy engulfed me in her mouth again, shoving her forward and me partway into her throat.

Caught by surprise, she gagged and pulled back, only to slowly ease me back into her tight esophagus, pacing herself to Milo's thrusts.

Neither Milo or I were destined to last long, given six months of enforced celibacy before the voyage, combined with what felt like an amplification of emotion, rather than suppression.

All three of us were in the midst of an orgasm just two minutes after the urges had hit. It seemed to calm all of us down immediately.

"Oh, shit, that was hot. Short, but hot," Nancy said. "We've got to tell the Captain." She started dressing again. "C'mon, you two. Get dressed."

The three of us sought out the Captain, over in the food services area. We found her, naked, and sucking on the long, thick cock of Langa Darby, the Engineer's Mate, whose head was stuck under one of the food processors, tinkering with it. Her left hand was pressed between her legs, diddling her clit softly, but without much urgency. The only thing I could think of was fucking her. Only her rank stopped me.

Deirdre was Nancy's total opposite, physically. A big black woman, 6'3", with plenty of curves and the force of personality that let her rise to Captain in SpaceForce. Even her clit looked big to me. I salivated at the thought of wrapping my lips around it.

"Captain?" Nancy called out. "It's affecting you, too?"

"We found this actually helps Langa focus," Dierdre said, taking her mouth off of his cock, but continuing to stroke him. "We already fucked to one orgasm apiece. I agreed to suck his cock, if he'd get back to work. Better one of us working on repairs, than neither. Nancy, can you take over? I've got to check on the rest of the crew."

"Ummm, sure," Nancy said, lowering herself to the floor, and taking Langa's cock in her hand. She muttered, "You're almost as big as Darius, Langa," before pressing her tongue to his slickened cock head and starting to suck him off.

Deirdre grabbed my hand and shoved it between her thick thighs, where her pussy was sopping wet. She grabbed my cock through my pants, before saying, "It seems to be easier to withstand whatever the emotional systems are doing, if we maintain some level of stimulation. They need to be checked next. Don't remove your hand, but walk with me. Milo, stop staring at Nancy's ass. Go find Ashley on the bridge and get her to help you with propulsion. That's got to remain your priority. Whatever she needs to do to keep you focused on it, I order her to do." Ashley was a confirmed lesbian, so I wondered how that would go. "Oh, and let everyone know there's to be no sex on the bridge, no matter what."

Controls and emitters for the suppressors were in medbay. We found Keiko and Jim on one of the exam beds, in a 69, just as Keiko started to shake. They were both soaked in sweat, so I guessed that they'd been fucking and sucking from the moment that the suppressors went haywire.

Leenysman
Leenysman
1,927 Followers