FTL-6 …Faster than Life.

Chapter 6

I wake up feeling well…I’m not sure? I’m in the tank and I feel Patrick’s arms around me still and him pressed to me still holding me, still floating together spooning. My breather mask is still on my face and I …sort of feel at peace.

Which is a welcome thing from the replaying of everything that has been going on in my head since the battle against that Technarch killing machine. The girls sent Patrick my way and while it wasn’t the way that I pictured losing my virginity…it was still better than I had imagined.

While there’s all these romantic types out there that me floating here recuperating might seem like he was taking advantage. I honestly like him. I’ve masturbated to him and there’s a real attraction there. Honestly I was just too chicken to act on my feelings because I was caught up in what I thought it should be like in my head and there’s even part of me that was clinging to my passed.

Life’s not a holo-game, it’s not some sim-feature or game it’s life. Patrick coming to me and us making love in the rejuve-tank in the middle of the night brought me back to life.

My family/bunkees/best friends sent a man I’ve been mooning over to me last night and he made love to me, kissed me and he breathed for me as he took me to places inside my heart I didn’t know were there.

How many girls can even claim to have that kind of a first time experience?

I can tell he’s awake and I smile a little bit and fire up the opaque privacy screen and ping him through our OBC links.

“Mmmm, morning Patrick.”

“Morning Erin, are you okay?”

“Yes, last night was…”

“I’m sorry, I was very….forward.”

“That’s what I needed, I think. You did me a lot of good last night.”

“I did?”

“Yes you did. I’ve been wanting you for a long time even if I was scared to go there.”

“Oh…I scare you?”

I shake my head no. “No not you, I went through this in joining up to start my real life but somewhere I stalled at taking this step.”

“But you’ve only been a woman for…”

“Less than a year but more than half just under eight months actually and I’m that very last girl to lose her virginity in the whole conversion batch. I’m not some blushing stumbling freshly converted teen or twenty something Patrick, I’m a grown woman I might have gotten a youth down to looking like this but I’m fifty some years old.”

“There’s no time limits on stuff like this Erin.”

“No but I’m old enough to get when I need something Patrick. I did it when I finally faced up to being who I really am. I’m grateful for this, for us being here and it being you.”

“Okay…but we’re good?”

“Oh Patrick, You’re such a guy. Yes we’re good.” I roll/turn in the tank to face him and I pull off the mask and kiss him. “Now are we done? Because I’d really like to try that again….”

“Oh…okay…”

This much time, this much human evolution and bio-technology and even on body computers and a guy apparently is still a guy.

It was good, better than last time actually I’m more self aware instead of that shocked by the fact that I was actually having sex. This time I’m enjoying it, feeling it and him moving inside of me, through me and riding the highs of this…It get’s to the point of him really not being able to breath for both of us and I get the mask on which is a relief because I’ve needed to scream, to be vocal since my last orgasm and I do a lot of that…and beating on the walls of the glass with my hands or my feet.

I really didn’t get just how freeing it is having sex, making love or how visceral it is. I’ve had sim sex; I’ve been a sim-girl. It’s not the same, it’s good, it’s cyber-dirty and it’s fun but it’s either someone else’s recorded sexual neural responses or a simulation.

It’s not me having an orgasm that leaves it with no comparisons.

Patrick leaves and the tank injects its nano-cleaners and I get a bit of crass because you’re in the military jeers and clapping from the medi-techs and the nurses as I lower the privacy screen.

I’m about midway through the morning when Corporal Stillwater comes in with a transipaper (Clear paper) bundle and she looks me over and then presses the “Flush” button.

“Get cleaned off and get dressed Stone, if you’re healthy enough to fuck them you’re healthy enough to do other things.”

“Yes Corporal.”

***

They start me out doing light duty and stuff for the first three days out of the tank. I was back into uniform and working back into astrometrics and something had changed. I was still doing the Scut work, still getting coffee and number crunching but there was this different look from them, from everyone actually like there was something better?

I get referred to as Stone rather than recruit in the Astrometrics decks. I get called Erin by a lot more people in my year, or close to it while in my off time. It’s like so many people know who I am.

My friends the girls in my bunk were ecstatic about having me back and I got hugged an awful lot and they all kind of spoil me except for Anna when I first got back to my bunk. She just sort of ignored me and kind of grunted? Is that the right word? No more like a hrumpf kind of a thing. “It’s a good thing you’re back I was getting tired of doing your share of the stuff around here.”

Later that night in the bathroom Carrington held me tightly and to me and cried. I held her through the worst of the quiet sobs while crying myself too.

“Oh Erin I was so scared when we heard what was going on over the comlinks.”

“I was scared to Care, I though for sure that I was going to die.”

“I was on training duty in the com center and we all could hear it and see it as they got vid feeds locked onto what was going on.”

“It was worse inside of there Care it was…..it was hell.”

I ended up having a really good cry with her and honestly its there that I really realized just what kind of friend I’ve got in her and not just a bunkee or a year mate but a real live best friend and it cemented things between us in a way after that that honestly I didn’t know about.

There’s friends you make online or out in the Net that are sometimes even closer than family. And in this day and age that’s honestly the bulk of most human interaction or at least from worlds where I’m from. There might be those that have a small tight knit group of friends in the real world but there’s not a lot of them. Sometimes there’s close families and more than often there’s not. Even as a child as most children the bulk of anyone that might have been a friend was a net-friend.

But this… this was something really new to both of us and grounding for us too. I mean our lives had been net-lives and then here in the forces and same years and bunkees but now there’s someone that I can honestly say will be a real part of my life even after my time in fleet.

***

I’d been out about three days when I was called to the command deck. Not the bridge but the level for the ship where there’s the bulk of the upper officers quartered and the officer’s mess and club as well as all the offices and meeting rooms and stuff.

I’m directed to the Ship commander’s ready room.

My palms are sweaty and I’m nervous as I guess nervous gets with Stillwater with me and insisting on me being in my full dress blacks. I knew it was something out of the ordinary when I seen Stillwater in her dress black’s as well.

I’ll admit she really cuts a striking figure in them. She’s opted for the woman’s dress pants version and the blouse and the vest along with the full dress jacket. She might be a corporal but there’s an impressive number of battle medals and citations there that tell of a career soldier. I’m not a lesbian but she’s very dapper and stunning in a beautiful tough capable way and the dress sabre on her hip and the gloves and the long perfect braid of her hair just makes here seem like a knight from those archaic world sims.

I’m proud and intimidated to stand beside her at the same time.

The commander comes into the ready room with his Ex-O and a few other officers, out of the tank and before him in person he’s even more impressive. Older with a balding shaved head and a salt and pepper trimmed beard he’s tall six three, broad shoulders and big arms and in really good shape. He’s got the most amazing blue eyes and that just something about him thing that just stirs this military bit in me he’s one of those officers that you’d follow into hell.

The woman side of me is insanely turned of by this ma being so close and I swear my nipple must be showing through my dress jacket. It’s only been a few minutes and I’m getting damp.

Oh … he just looked right at me and smiled. I get all fluttery and butterflies in my stomach as it were.

“Thank you for coming Corporal, Cadet Stone. I called you both her for one you as her training head as a witness Corporal Stillwater and you young lady are here to be awarded with these.”

One of his staff steps forward with a tray with boxes of polished to a shine of carved bakorite… (It’s a type of space coral found only in planets with rings, it looks like obsidian with glittery flecks in it like stars. It’s semi common, used a lot by the fleet though.) As nice as the boxes are there’s medals inside them.

He takes the first one out. A steel pip with red garnet inside it. “For being wounded in battle against an enemy of the wounded the red star.” He passes it to Stillwater who takes it and pins it on me. There’s this look in her eyes of pride that makes me fight this huge lump in my throat and I’m trying not to cry.

He takes out another medal. “For quickness of thought and deed on the battlefield, I present you with the Celera star.” It’s a steel pip with a light shiny blue silvery stone. Again he passes it to Stillwater who pins me.

There’s one more. A small black rectangle with a sword embossed in it. “For committing to an action that saved your fellow soldiers while facing death we award you with your first sword. And with this comes the rank of ensign 3rd class in a brevet rank until you complete your training where you will be fully promoted to the full rank of E3C. You will from this point on receive payment equal to your current rank.”

Stillwater pins me and they both, well all of them give me a salute before they leave. I stand there a little in shock at the promotion. In fleet I’d have come out as a crewman first, or if I was lucky enough to pass my bridge exams I’d start as E3C, but I’m getting out a full rank above everyone else.

Corporal Stillwater looks at me. “Congrats Stone, you get through training and you’re on your way.”

“Uhm thank you Corporal. I’m…I’m still shocked at all of this.”

“Yeah and you got some serious training to do?”

“Excuse me?”

“You got your first sword. It’s a valor medal but everyone of us that have that pin learn to use a sword.”

“Learn to use a sword?”

“You got it, this isn’t protocol, it’s custom stone. It’s an honor thing.”

I look at her and the sabre on her hip and it kind of hit’s me. Usually only officers and marines use swords. I look at her medals and sure enough she’s got this pin like mine only her swords are crossed on it. That’s for someone who got commended like I did at least ten times.

Ten times….

Seeing that map of what she’s done, gone through, lived through just starts to sink in and she said she was proud of me…tears leak out. Not happy or sad just moved.

“Ah fuck, C’mon Stone your friends are throwing you a bash and we need to be hung-over for the funerals tomorrow.”

“Hung-over?”

“Tradition girl tradition.”

With that she hauled me to a private party in one of the storerooms and there was a lot of my year mates there with me and all my Bunkees.

Patrick comes over with a long box made out of wood but like you’d see long-stemmed flowers in it.

“Congratulations Erin, I hope you like it.”

He passes it to me and I nearly drop it it’s that heavy. I set in on one of the makeshift tables and open it and move the synth-silk aside and there’s this shiny almost bluish colored steel blade in this flat slight curve.

“It’s called a Wakizashi, it’s a Japanese type of sword.”

I lift it out and stare at it and him and the others around me.

“They made it out of metal from the shuttle for you.” He tells me and gives a nod towards a bunch of the tech and engineering guys that were there.

I look at Patrick, Stillwater, my friends and everyone else.

“Th..thank you…I try to always do this justice.”