Personal Space Ch. 01

I didn't want her to go. I wouldn't know what to do without her. A familiar feeling of panic crept over me, as I envisioned myself alone, adrift in space. I cleared my throat. "Congratulations."

--

Nothing was the same after that. Her shiny new ship was waiting for her at our next destination, and although I hated nothing more, I was taking her there. I considered feigning engine trouble but even if she'd fall for it, which she never would, I wasn't prepared to stoop that low.

She caught me looking a lot. Once or twice she imitated my frown theatrically, but mostly she just ignored it.

"You looked so angry, so serious when I first met you," she had told me once. "But now that I got to know you, there's a sense of humor under the mask."

I didn't want to admit I was flattered by that, but as the days passed, I felt like that humor had melted away. I was moody and short with her, even when I didn't mean to. It was only a matter of time before things would escalate.

"Yes, Captain Moody," Lisa replied as she jerked the stick a little too briskly.

-"Excuse me?"

-"I can't help that there's asteroids, or that you had to get out of bed. I could have handled it, there's no reason to take it out on me."

I gritted my teeth and looked forward, at the passing debris. A million answers flashed through my head as I guided us through. I opened my mouth to reprimand her, but closed it again.

"I bet the AI will change vectors more smoothly when I'm gone, so you can rejoice." She was out of line but her words stung too much for me to react.

Instead, after yet another awkward silence, I changed the subject.

"I hope you made log entries about your modifications, in case your replacement won't be as um, clever as you." I could tell Lisa wanted to leave the room, but the job required her being there.

-"I'll miss you too," she grumbled.

-"Look, I..." I am capable of destroying your new ship if it meant you'd stay.

"The ship won't be the same without you."

-"No? Then, how will it be?"

A box. A husk. "Just... Different." I glanced her way, and I could tell she was enjoying this. Trying to focus on dodging space rock, I continued digging my hole. She'd be gone in 2 weeks, anyway.

"I enjoy your work. The ship is in good shape, thanks to you. And um, having you here made it a good place to be at."

-"You will miss me," she interjected, sounding surprised. After plotting the next part of the course, she stared at me. Now I was the one to wish I could leave the room. I could feel her eyes on me. She was waiting for a reply, but I was drawing blank. I just shrugged. Never had I been so relieved to hear the proximity alarm.

I blinked and looked again. "Miners? They're a long way from home." My screen showed a mining ship facing us, but something was off. Their drill bit was out and ready, something only possible when the vessel was clamped down on an asteroid, unless the safety mechanisms were somehow disabled. But why would...

-"They're union," Lisa groaned. My penny dropped: Whatever they were unhappy about, they were about to take it out on us in the name of a better future. For them, anyway, there would be no future for us in their ideal world, where justice was served through terrorism. With a bleep, the hologram showed the ship to be powering up its thrusters.

Lisa's reaction was immediate, faster than mine, even. Instantly, she was pinned in her harness and enveloped by holographic screens. It baffled me every time, how she could handle so much information at once. Even over her shoulder, there was the fuel indicator.

I liked to keep it simple, with graphical representations of the things around us. I fly on a gut feeling, luckily I was usually right.

"Escape vector." It sounded like a question, but Lisa was already setting the arch.

-"Negative. They'll outrun us." Obediently, she deleted the settings. "With a full cargo, our center of mass is very low. We'll meet them head on, and twist out of the way last second. Balls to the wall."

She understood, and followed orders. Our rust bucket picked up speed, and I realized we had just started an oversized game of chicken.

The mining ship extended its drill but its crew didn't want to damage their own ship, so they approached us at a slow crawl. Our relative speed was already far beyond anything they had planned for.

When they realized we were too fast and close to maneuver out of the way, they fired their reverse thrusters. There is no sound in space but my mind filled in the bang of the jets we saw firing. At the exact same moment, I threw the stick to the side and we turned upside-down relative to them, twisting the bulk of our vessel out of the collision course.

With another small adjustment, we managed to graze past them.

My euphoria was short-lived however, when the mining ship's automatic harpoon fired into our hull. One security measure they forgot to override, the idiots.

A dry pop, like a balloon bursting, told me that we were losing air pressure. Lisa immediately isolated the leak with the doors. I cursed loudly as I imagined my baby's pain while the line drew taut, and with a sickening crunch, the hook tore Theseus' belly open.

The harpoon detached on their end, and the jerk brought the backwards accelerating ship off course, into an asteroid. They were crippled, but they would survive. Good, I would hate the moral dilemma of having to save our attackers.

"The hook is causing a short," Lisa informed me while I dodged asteroids at breakneck speed. "We're leaking power through gravity and climate control."

-"Kill gravity, then," I ordered, and the next moment I felt myself become weightless, held in place by my harness. When I could, I took one hand off the controls to jerk my bandana in place.

--

A lack of air around the ship means that a ship's momentum will carry it forward using minimal power, the autopilot (I named him Otto because I'm hilarious) keeping gravitational noise from nearby stars at bay. The process is safe enough for us to leave the bridge and assess the damage.

"They're fighting for a good cause," Lisa said in the comms.

-"This is not a war zone. It's a protest. One that almost cost us our lives." I was throwing a small fit in my space suit, the sight of the tear in our hull fueling my rage.

Lisa was catching on, and opted to stay silent. So in silence we continued to work, until I made the mistake of gazing into the void.

"I bet you'll miss this," I told the nothingness.

Lisa replied, to my relief. "Holding a ship together with spit and a prayer? I won't know what to do with all my spare time." I chuckled. But looking over my property, I had to admit, it was nearing the end of its life cycle. This tear could be patched, but hull integrity would never be what it was. I sighed.

"It's not so bad, James." I leaned over and looked her in the eye through the hole in my ship to make my point. She laughed, a sound that made the imminent destruction of my spaceship a trivial matter.

Again, the silence lingered after she finished. I sunk into concentration, like I would when doing this job by myself. I was able to move heavy metal plates into place with one hand, and welded them in, while Lisa patched the insulation and started on the power conduits.

It was near sleeping time when I finished and we got out of our sweaty vac suits, but Lisa knew better than to suggest leaving repairs for tomorrow. Some dinner and a steam bath later, we were at it again.

I never found my concentration again, though. I tried not to stare above me with Lisa hanging there, but working without my mind going places was proving impossible. I felt defeated and ready to admit it.

"I will miss you."

-"Hmm?" Her tone told me she understood me perfectly.

-"In case you were wondering. I don't know how many more runs this ship has in him, but... I'm not sure if I care."

I detached my karabiner and left this part for what it was. I didn't need this patch job to outlast the rest of the ship. Looking up at my assistant, I realized I'd have to pass her by to get to the living quarters, and smiled to myself. With the lightest of touches, I pushed myself off towards her.

Her socks passed my view, her one leg wrapped under the ladder steps to pin herself in place while working.

And that ass, my god. I braced myself against the walls and stayed there for as long as my conscience allowed. I could kiss her, then and right there. I wanted to test if her outfit could withstand my blunt teeth, if I could hurt her if I tried. I moved on before I lost that fight.

I could imagine how the curve of her sides would fit inside my hand, how I could find her ribcage through- bah, ponytail.

I grasped onto the handles again, and prepared to launch. But just as I opened my mouth, she backed up, slowly, forcing me to plant myself against the tube wall. Still she came in, much further than necessary, until her back touched me and I was pinned in place. "Oh my," she cooed.

She must have been able to feel my heartbeat. I didn't know what to say, or where to put my hands. And when she breathed, "Caught you looking, James," I didn't know what to think, either.

-"I'm sorry, I'll-'

-"Don't be." She left the tools against the wall magnet and turned her head. No matter how much I tried, I couldn't hang on to my feeling of guilt as I looked into her eyes. I now knew where her power over me came from: Those pools of green seemed to look right through me.

Reaching back, she combed her fingers through my hair. "Why so moody, my captain? What's got you so riled up?"

I put my hands on her in an attempt to free myself, my head swimming. Instead, she took hold of my arm and wrapped it further around her. I didn't fight it. She kept whispering little nothings in my ear as she encouraged my hand to roam over her.

The impossible softness of her caused sparks behind my eyes, so I closed them and watched the fireworks, her body taking shape between them as my palms explored further over her thighs, her sides, her breasts.

Her rump gyrated slowly against me as she sighed. "Do it, James. I need it." She released my hand but I kept going, as ordered. "I need it so bad..." She released the ladder, sending us adrift inside our ship. It seemed to cradle us now, shooting through the emptiness while the warmth of her mixed with my own. "Do it," She begged again, as I hesitantly brushed over the zipper.

It went all the way down to her belly button, but I didn't dare go that far. I just needed to feel her skin, her nipple grazing my wrist. I pressed my lips in her neck and she encouraged me, gripping my hair as I gave her my teeth. "Yes," she murmured idly with every bit that she liked. Still, I was careful with her.

"So gentle," she mocked me with a smile, biting my ear. She took the liberty of undoing her zipper all the way down and pushing my hand into the gap. "No more games, James. I need you now." I wanted nothing more, but a little voice still protested.

I tried to explain. "I'm your captain..." I reached further down into her suit, soft hairs between my fingertips.

-"Yes... Yes, my captain, taking advantage..." My eyes flew open, but she seemed in a place far away. "Go on, then. You bastard... Do it. See, I'm clean..."

Gritting my teeth, I clutched her to me and before I knew it, cupped her pussy in my palm. Lisa grabbed on to me as I explored between her legs, grinding her backside into my crotch and talking in incoherent whimpers.

I started pulling her suit off of her, pinning her arms behind her back. She bumped my erection and took hold of it, inside its painful confinement. Her slow massage drove me further into my clouded state of mind, reassuring me that no matter how much I was going to regret it, I was going to make her mine.

We had to break loose briefly for her to kick her suit off, and just like that, she was naked but for her socks. I noticed that we were in the living area now, and because of our slow spin, now drifting apart.

I reached out to her but she didn't take my hand, letting us part ways. She gave me a little show as I waited for a wall to push off of, playing with herself while looking me directly into the eyes. She looked like a goddess with her pale skin, rotating towards me, caressing herself, daring me to forget my rank and give in to my desire.

That's exactly what I did, feeling the wall under my feet as I threw my shirt to the side. I pushed forward, slightly off target. She caught me and held me where I had landed, with my face by her stomach, arms now wrapped around her waist.

I pressed my lips against her, feeling her on my cheek. I then crawled lower, pushed by her, and sensed how she wrapped her legs around my head and shoulders while bracing herself against the wall.

I glanced up as she removed my bandana; she was staring, wide-eyed, trembling as she almost forced herself on me. Greedily I licked her, her ass in my hands as I put my tongue between her nether lips and lapped at her for all I was worth.

Lisa writhed and mewled, calling my name and begging for more. She kept us from floating, clinging on to anything she could find. She couldn't keep her legs still, shuddering with each wave of pleasure I sent through her.

I couldn't move much but I could slide my hand in, spreading her and trying her entrance. Her own hand flew from my hair to guide mine in, urgently, until two fingers were fully in and fucking her forcefully.

Lisa's cries increased in volume, her words in harshness. She scolded me for taking advantage, asked me if I enjoyed abusing my authority. It fitted so perfectly, making me angry and determined to do exactly that.

Her orgasm punched her as I dragged my nails down her back harshly, her words now lost on me as her thighs covered my ears.

I guided her down her climax with gentle laps, until she twitched and pulled her over-sensitive self away. She laughed a little at my glistening face, as she embraced and kissed me.

Grabbing on, it was my turn to pin her against the wall, my need growing as our tongues explored the other's wishes.

"Fuck me, James," she told me between wanton licks, and I intended to, yanking at my belt.

My arms pulled strongly as I entered her, pushing all of me inside her. She gasped and clawed at me. "Fuck me you bastard," she growled, and I shoved her forcefully into the comm panel. "Oh God."

I don't know what came over me. She made me feel so powerful, in control over her. She alternated between reassuring and blaming me, clearly just as lost in this mind trip as I was.

Lisa pushed my upper body away and looked down at us, where I was buried inside her. She sought me out, caressing me there while observing with eyes and fingertips how I fucked her deeply.

"You like that? You like fucking me? Captain? Mmmh yes..." She arched her back a little as I took hold of her ass. "I'm so sensitive there..." My eyes must have rolled back, seeing only the mental image of the cleft of her bottom I was exploring.

I wanted her to cum with me, but I knew it wasn't going to happen. She teased me too expertly, her voice was too sweet. My thrusts became erratic, needy, and she egged me on.

"Touch my ass, Captain. I love the attention. Right there..." Something inside me snapped and my back locked up, as I clutched at her violently and orgasmed like never before. I know I hurt her, I must have. But she only hissed, "Yesss..."

I didn't let go as I shuddered all though my descent. I had her here, I would never let go. I kissed the side of her head repeatedly, as if to apologize for being so rough, while she stroked my hair and kept me from slipping out of her.

Once again, I didn't know what to tell her. My free hand continued to caress her, testing her supple skin, the curve of her ass. With my face buried in her neck, I watched our nipples touch. Eventually, after the longest time like this, I said it.

"Don't go."

She stopped moving. I felt her sad sigh and in response, pinned her a little more tightly again. She seemed to enjoy that.

"Don't go," I repeated, feeling all pretense of authority drain from me. I was a child, afraid, alone, clinging on to some forlorn feeling of belonging. In deep space with nothing to hold on to but her.

She patiently brushed my wafting hair from her face. "James." She motioned me to look her in the eye. "It's a desert island. You'll get over me when I'm gone, and fall in love hopelessly again with your next crew."

My brain told me she was right, but I shook my head.

-"This is different." It shocked me how strongly I felt about it. "I m-... I need you."

She continued to keep my stubborn hair back, seeming occupied with that task. "More than your ship?"

I couldn't imagine what Theseus had to do with it. I looked towards the bridge to my left, and the bedroom to my right, where my pillow floated in the doorway. It stung to think how much I was going to miss my ship when it inevitably ended on the scrapyard, but did not at all change how I felt. "Of course... But I don't see..."

She smiled a little, warming me up. She then looked squarely at me, holding my hair taut in a pony tail.

"The Narwhal needs a crew of three, James. I'll need a pilot with good gut feeling." She reached down between us and took hold of my cock as it slipped out wetly.

"A good member to join the crew, if you will."