“Captain Honore, this is Captain Helen Hunt of the Fleet Strike Carrier Hermes. That would be the “Giant piece of shit we choose to call a ship”. I would appreciate your company in my ready room ASAP. I think we have some items of mutual interest to discuss. When do you think I can expect the pleasure of your company?”

Chapter 12

Ted had managed to lose himself in the peaceful tedium of caring for his plants for a time, the soothing business of trimming and pruning taking the place of the terror from earlier. He was certain he had escaped detection until he was startled from his reverie by the sound of his com system coming from the cockpit.

“Unidentified craft, respond.” That certainly got his attention and he awkwardly walked on his hands out of the ag area into the microgravity which held sway in the rest of his ship. As he launched his body toward the cockpit, he heard the voice again. “Unidentified craft, unless you respond we will disable your engines and tow you back home. You have 3 minutes to acknowledge.”

He was frantically flinging himself into his seat and enabling two way communication with barely five seconds left. “This is Captain Ted Honore of the Wanderer, who the hell are you? What do you mean threatening me like that? What the fuck is your problem, you misbegotten sons of bitches!?” At this point he was hanging on to one arm of his chair and using the other hand to draw him closer to the audio pickup so he could scream more loudly into the mike.

“Captain, I suggest you take a look at your sensors. We are fighter craft from the Fleet Strike Carrier Hermes. We have orders to escort you to our mother ship whether you like it or not, so I would recommend following our instructions. You might remember our mother ship, the big ass thing that moved out of your way while you were pretending to be a rock?”

Ted’s anger was replaced with a sudden dry feeling in his mouth and a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach. “Aw, crap! Why can’t you people just let me go? It’s not like I was attacking you, I was just trying not to be noticed!” He thought furiously for a moment, seeing no way out of this fix. “Alright, fine, I’ll come with you, just give me a few moments to figure a course. I don’t exactly have fuel to burn, you know!” He shut off his own audio feed, still uttering imprecations under his breath and furiously punching at his control boards with one hand as he strapped himself down into his seat with the other. In another moment, he had his solution and jabbed at his audio pickups.

“Alright, you assholes. I’m engaging engines now on a course back to that giant piece of shit you call a ship. Do me the kindness of not shooting at me, huh?”

The dry voice which responded did nothing to help his mood or calm his fears. “Roger that, Wanderer. Transmit details of your intended course to us and we will maintain overwatch.”

Ted did as instructed and waited until the first scheduled burn sent him toward a slingshot around one of the moons and back in the direction from which he had come. At this point he retrieved his vaporizer and sat taking hit after hit from it until the retro burn began, slowing his ship into a parking orbit relative to the huge bulk of the carrier. He triggered his com again. “Alright, boys, I did what you said, what the fuck do you want now!?”

The voice that came back to him was different, a warm contralto that made him think of what he hadn’t had for at least a year now.

“Captain Honore, this is Captain Helen Hunt of the Fleet Strike Carrier Hermes. That would be the “Giant piece of shit we choose to call a ship”. I would appreciate your company in my ready room ASAP. I think we have some items of mutual interest to discuss. When do you think I can expect the pleasure of your company?”

The sound of her voice made him flush all over and he shifted his position in his seat, unconsciously try to hide his reaction to her voice. “Maam, I’m a singleton here and I don’t want to leave my ship hanging out there by herself. Is there any possibility you could join me over here?” He knew that wasn’t likely to happen, but the sound of her voice and the feelings it awakened within his loins suddenly made him feel ashamed of his body, of the painful emptiness where his legs used to be. He had problems admitting it, even to himself, but the truth was he felt as much unmanned by the lack of his legs as he would have if that lock had shut a second sooner and emasculated him.

“No, there is no possibility of that, but if you’ll follow the beacon and dock in our number three boat bay, I’m sure your ship will be safe in its berth and I will sign a statement to that effect. I will also sign a letter of safe conduct for you. Will that do for you, Captain Honore?”

He thought frantically for a moment. He still had no indication of just what navy she was a part of, but a letter of safe conduct signed by the captain of a warship was the next best thing to law. Her offer left him with no real choice but accept. He finally toggled his mike. “Captain Hunt, I will accept your gracious offer. I have a lock on the beacon and will be in your number 3 bay within 15 minutes. Wanderer out.”

The next few minutes were consumed with maneuvering his craft and worrying about how exactly he was going to present himself. 2 minutes in the shower to wash the stink off, followed by dressing in a fresh shipsuit(The last one he had). He put his vaporisor away after a last deep toke from the device, trying to calm his desperately racing heart. He was just finished with strapping his prosthetic legs on when his sensors told him that pressure had equalized outside the airlock and he was free to disembark.

A last twitch of his pantlegs to ensure that they fell as naturally as he could manage, and he triggered the outer airlock door, stepping through to the twitter of a bosun’s pipe. He braced to attention as best he could and managed to say, in a mostly calm and clear tone of voice, “Captain Honore of the Wanderer. Permission to board?” A young looking ensign snapped off a salute to him.

“Permission granted, Captain. Here is your letter of safe conduct, signed by the Captain. Please follow me.” She turned in a militarily precise about face and marched off down a line only she could see, directly toward a hatch which yawned before him. He stumped along in her wake, cursing the clumsiness of his ersatz appendages. He wondered what was to become of him, having noticed that the uniform she wore was that of the Earther Navy, but his train of thought derailed when he noticed the Martian starburst set above her insignia of rank.

He knew full well that no one in the Earth navy would be allowed to flaunt that badge and it sent his eyes looking around at the insignia of the personnel in the boat bay. He saw Martians, Loonies, Venusians, the emblem of the Jupiter Union, Belter’s splashes, just about every mark of nationality he could think of. By the time the doors of the lift closed and cut off the view of the bay, he was beyond confused.

So it was that he marched stiffly into the captain’s ready room, ready to explode with questions. The woman who stood from behind his desk to shake his hand blew all of them out of his mind.

“I’m Captain Hunt, and you, I presume, are Captain Honore?” The warmth of her voice sent shivers down his spine and made the stumps of his legs hurt. He was aware that he was hardening in his pants as her gaze took him in. “Have a seat, Captain. Do you like Scotch?” She gestured at him with a bottle he knew full well to be at least 80 years old and aged for 30 years before that. “I’ve got a nice single malt here that I think you just might appreciate. I’m pretty sure it’s the last bottle left. I think something like this calls for civilized discussion, don’t you?”

“Well, to be honest Captain, I don’t have anything to compare with that, but I do have my latest hybrid buds. I’m sorry to say that the prospect of your boys shooting at me depleted my supply considerably anyway, but if you’ll take what I’ve got, I’ll be glad to accept your generous offer, There’s no way I’m just going to take your generosity without giving something, even though it may not be of equal worth.” He withdrew a small package from his pocket and tossed it on the desk between them.

She was busily pouring two fingers each out of the bottle into rocks glasses. “Captain Honore, I won’t beat around the bush here.” That turn of phrase was unfortunate as it caused his groin to throb and twitch to the point he was sure she could see. “I need what you have, and I think you need what I have. It strikes me that we could come to some sort of agreement that could be of benefit to us both. What do you think?”

That was an even more unfortunate statement that the previous one and he nearly doubled over, glad to have the distraction of accepting the glass from her as he held his arm angled in such a way as to obscure his throbbing erection. He couldn’t come up with anything to say that wouldn’t just sound incredibly stupid, so he took a moment to think, just long enough for him to get his more animal instincts under control. That didn’t exactly work.

“Maam, I’d be willing to talk about it, but I don’t know what the hell I might have that you could want, you being Earth Navy and all that. Uh, Maam, just so you know, I have my fusion plant set to overload in about 5 minutes, faster than your folks can get her out of your bay. I don’t know what you have in mind, but I do know damn well that I can take your ship out of space right now. The way I see it, I’m sitting in the catbird seat at the moment. The question is more like what do you have that I want?”

He watched her hand inch toward a control on her desk. “Captain, I wouldn’t do that. I’ve got about 20 kilos of high explosive packed inside my legs here. Any attempt to remove them or to kill me will set them off, killing you in the process.” He hefted one of his legs onto her desktop, knocking on it with his knuckle and producing a dull clunking sound. “If I were you, I’d be real careful what buttons my fingers touch from here on in, Captain Hunt.”

She froze, an expression of disbelief on her face, before she burst into laughter. It was almost a full minute before she managed to restrain herself, to the bemusement of her erstwhile companion. “Captain Honore, you must understand that I am not your captor. I am not offering you terms of surrender, I am offering a mutually beneficial arrangement. There is no more Earth Navy, hell, there pretty much is no more Earth, or Mars, or anything else. All that bullshit has gone the way of the Dodo. Oh, and by the way, my crew can have your ship out of number 3 bay in under a minute.” She leaned forward, her amusement fading into well worn lines of sorrow. “All that you knew, all that I knew, all that anyone knew, is dead, gone, kaput. There is no more Earth Navy, no more Martian Solidarity, no more Jupiter Union, no more anything but those few of us who managed to survive the last battles. I’d be astonished if there are 50 million humans left alive in the entire solar system.”

She paused for a moment, a shadow of grief crossing her face. “Captain, I’m going to reach into my desk drawer now. I have a vaporizer in there and as soon as you accept a sip of my scotch, I’ll take a toke of your weed. Oh, by the way, could you disable your overloads please? I would hate to waste your ship and have nothing to show for it.”

Oddly enough, the pressure in his groin had not decreased as she spoke. If anything, he was more aroused, but that feeling had taken on another dimension, one that years of only having prostitutes and bar whores to satisfy his appetites had made him unfamiliar with. His voice was just a little tight as he replied. “Hey, I got no death wish. I’ve spent more energy staying alive than anybody I know.” He thought for a moment. “Well maybe other than you. If you can give me some kind of reason to keep on doing that, I can’t say it would exactly hurt my feelings.”

She favored him with a warm smile over the edge of her glass and at that moment, he realized the last thing in the universe he wanted to do was harm this woman. He played a quick sequence on the control surfaces hidden in his fake thighs and disabled the self destruct sequence on his ship.

“Ma’am, go ahead and get out your vaporizer. I’d be honored to accept a wee dram and I’m ashamed I have nothing better to offer you.” He raised the glass to his lips and took a tiny sip, tossing the burning fluid to the back of his mouth and swishing it around his tongue, savoring the flavor until it faded into a pleasant aftertaste. “Holy shit that’s good. I don’t think I’ve had a better sip in my life, ever. My great grandfather would kill me if he knew I was enjoying this more than a fine cognac.” He tossed a rueful expression at her as he took another tiny sip and couldn’t help but utter a little moaning exclamation.

He looked “I gotta tell you that you can’t just bribe me with good liquor and expect me to fold. You want me to sign on with your outfit, I have to know something about what kind of person you are.

She leaned back and took a deep drink from her glass before speaking. “When the orders were given to obliterate the cities on Mars, I went renegade. With the help of some belters and some others from the Jupiter Union and the Martian Confederation, we launched massive bolides at Earth. I wish there would have been a better solution, but at that time the Earth Navy was focused on destroying all other settlements in the solar system and we just couldn’t allow that to happen.”

“I didn’t know what else to do. They were preparing a fleet of ships that would have ensured the dominance of Earth over the entire solar system as far into the future as we could see. We took the only action we could. I killed my own family to keep that from happening. We are out here alone, with no hope of relief, no option but to try and make something better out of the dog’s breakfast we have been handed. I will admit I’m a bit angry at the way you tried to escape our notice. I’ve got two members of my crew in sickbay with fairly severe injuries right now because of the way we had to maneuver to avoid what we thought was a rock!”

She leaned toward him, her face set in harsh lines and painful patterns. “I’m pissed at you, but I need what you have to offer. You have the ability to find ores and materials we will need in the future if we’re going to rebuild some kind of civilization. I, on the other hand, can offer you a degree of safety you could never find on your own. You see, I think we each have things the other can make use of, things that just might be essential to our mutual survival and to maybe one day getting beyond just surviving.”

“Well,” he leaned back in his chair and took another sip of his scotch, this time not even tasting it, “You know, I thought I had it pretty bad, but I gotta say, you pretty much got me beat. I think maybe we should put this liquor away and you should get your vaporizer out. The only thing I can taste right now is ashes. You got any slash, or maybe just some bug juice?”

She simply stared at him, astonished. “You know what?” He stood on his clumsy explosive laden fake legs and took her glass from her frozen hand. He grasped the bottle on her desk and carefully poured the liquor back into the bottle, ramming the authentic cork stopper back into its neck when he was finished. “Let’s save this for when we have something to really celebrate, something worthwhile, ok?

“Captain Hunt?” He snapped his fingers in front of her face. “Um, captain? I’m gonna go ahead and get your steward, ok?” She still sat frozen in front of him. “Ok, well, I’ll be back in a minute. You just sit tight.” He spun on a poorly balanced heel and clumped his way toward the hatch.

He was brought to an abrupt halt by the sound of her voice, as cool and calm as the first time she had ever spoken to him over the coms. “Captain Honore, please sit down. I think we have each vastly underestimated the other and I would like to remedy that situation.” He found himself having to deal with as powerful a sexual response as he had ever experienced. Something about her voice and the way she spoke to him made him instantly regain the heightened sense of arousal he had experienced when he first came into her presence. He was, for the first time, grateful that he could hide his rampant erection from her with the clumsy gait caused by his ersatz legs. He didn’t want her to know how powerfully she affected him because he was still dealing with what he saw as the shame of his lack of legs.

“I’ll agree with you that perhaps we should save this fine liquor for another occasion, but right now, I feel the need for a drink. I know you asked for slash, but it turns out that some of my officers are just a bit more resourceful than that. We happen to have some rather tasty potato vodka available.” Her nipples tightened almost painfully as she leaned toward him, every nerve ending in her body singing. Things she hadn’t felt, even in her dreams, not since the war went into full swing and she was forced to become the demon lady slaughterer of billions thrilled down her nerve endings. She realized with a sudden shock that she was aroused by this half destroyed man, to an extent that even her (presumably) late husband had not caused her to feel.

The tension between them did not abate as he sat facing her across the desk, him grateful that he could hide himself in the folds of his clothes and her equally grateful the she had chosen to wear a bra with some padding so her erect nipples were not quite as visible through her uniform as they would have been in her normal sports bra. Neither set of clothing stopped the scent each gave off.

“Captain Honore, I think some vodka would be quite suitable. Unfortunately, I don’t have any caviar to accompany it.” She was almost squirming in her seat with her own arousal.

H was close to squirming in his own chair for much the same reason. “Ah, well then we are perhaps most fortunate. It just so happens that I have possibly one of the very last tins of Beluga caviar in the entire solar system on my ship. I would say I have been saving it for a more important occasion, but right offhand, I can’t think of one. Madame Hunt, would you care to share an ancient Russian delicacy with me? I can’t think of a better time to have it, or a better person to share it with. As someone once said, eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we may die!”

It was barely a quarter of an hour later that the steward delivered the promised caviar and they sat across the desk from each other doing shots of peppered vodka with ersatz sour crá¨me and slices of boiled egg on actual authentic wheat crackers. The constant hits of Ted’s truly excellent weed only served to enhance their appetites(Not just the ones for food!)Any Russians aboard ship would have given their eyeteeth for such a feast, but by the time the two sank teeth into the first bite, everyone aboard knew what was happening and none of them resented it. In truth, the only care they had was maintaining security overwatch on the ship. The simple knowledge that their captain had pulled out of her murderous depression was enough for them. If they had known how the rest of the evening went, they would have thrown her a sympathy party.

They woke the next morning, cuddled in each other’s arms. He was hugging her from behind, tweaking one of her nipples in their mutual sleep “Hey, what the fuck do you think you’re doing!” He moaned in a semi awake state.

“Er, jeeze, I’m like so totally sorry. Please don’t be mad at me, I wanted you so much! I guess it must have been the vodka!”

She twisted away from him in the microgravity environment of her bed, shoving herself out into the full gravity field she maintained as a courtesy to others. The result was that she fell almost a full four feet onto the floor of her cabin. The sudden jolt awakened her and she ran for the head, only to realize that she was actually wearing panties and had to pull them down to relieve herself.

It took her just a moment to realize what that meant. Her realization was confirmed when she peeked out of the head the see that Honore was still wearing his underwear as well. She took a moment to explore herself and review the video records before she realized what had truly happened. This man had slept with her and had not taken advantage of her even though both of them were very drunk. More than that, he had even apologized for playing with her nipples while they were in something close to the most compromising position possible.

“Hey, you awake?” She was answered with a heavy inhalation which would have likely been a snore in a full gravity environment. She walked over and poked him in the shoulder, sending him drifting into the bulkhead on the inside of the bunk. “Hey, you motherfucker, wake up!” She poked him harder.

He bounced off the inner wall of the bunk and encountered the full gravity field, slamming to the floor with a whiff of air expelled from his lungs. “What the fuck?” He looked up into her eyes for a moment before consciousness returned. “Uh, Captain Hunt?!” He scrabbled around for a moment, looking for his pants, then reality sank in and he began to look more pitiable than astonished. “Um, Captain, could you please hand me my legs? They’re over there in the corner, with my shipsuit”

“Hey”, she answered playfully “You know they have perfectly functional antigravity setups for that kind of thing?” She took a moment to undulate her seminude form in front of him, taking pleasure in the undeniable reaction it drew from him. “You know, I don’t really remember what happened last night, but I’m pretty sure it was hot as hell!”

“Captain, I can’t even tell you it wasn’t that way because I don’t remember, but I promise I will never ever touch you again in any way that isn’t appropriate in your eyes. Believe me, the last thing I would ever do is take a woman against her will! If that happened between us last night and you didn’t want it, I would willingly kill myself! Oh god, just give me a knife and I’ll deal with it! You can have my ship and everything!”

To his astonishment, she stepped off the gravity field of the floor and drifted into the bed with him, cradling him into her bosom. ”Hey stupid, nothing happened. The video records tell me we went to bed and you cuddled me, and that’s all.” She thought to herself for a moment, replaying the video in her mind.

“Ok, that’s not all. I did everything I could to seduce you into making love to me and you just refused. I don’t know exactly why, but you kept insisting you weren’t enough man for me” She cuddled him into her ample breasts for another moment and felt his manhood rising in response. “I don’t know exactly why you feel that way but I have to tell you, I want you more than I have ever wanted any man in my life. More to the point, I want you right now.”

She spun him around in her arms and sank herself onto his willing shaft. The next few hours were spent discovering the delights and difficulties of sex in microgravity.