Any Port In A Storm

Whoever first said any port in a storm must have been an insane ancient Terran, of that I was certain. Such a person would have never faced an overloaded fold drive which spat them out into normal space at the edge of some goddess-forsaken uncharted star system while being pursued by a pissed-off pack of Nrex hunter-scavenger ships.

If only we faced a raging gale upon a liquid water ocean in a surface watercraft made of tree carcasses. Oh, to be an ancient mariner.

"Nessa, status report on all systems!"

My pulse throbbed in my ears, and I tasted my heart in my throat. I fixed my mind on the list of operational protocols to clamp down on the anxious electricity crackling up and down my spine. It was as if my head and ass were a pair of Tesla coils playing with the lightning bolts.

"Nessa, answer me, goddess bless it!"

No response. Icy daggers plunged through my torso. No. I couldn't be alone out here, not now. I counted to three before I yelled at the ship's artificial intelligence again.

"If you're not fried quantum synapses yet, I'm going to make it happen if you don't--"

The safe cocoon of Nessa's voice enveloped me in the command cabin. "The fold drive requires approximately seventy-three standard minutes to cool down under current tactical threat conditions before I advise a restart. Formulating tactical options to minimize sensor profile and maximize stealth. Other systems reports pending self-checks."

The soothing tranquility of her voice was like a silky tongue caressing my flesh, pushing me to believe for a few seconds we both weren't going to be blown to subatomic particles just yet.

I knew better. I held onto the delusion because I thought it better to die an optimist. And I needed time to unwind with my pleasure box of delightful distractions. A woman has undeniable, specific, intimate needs.

A sickening stench of acrid drive coolant, scorched synthetic synapses, and, oddly, singed hair from the sections aft wafted around me. The Nrex raiding crafts' targeting and weapons systems must have received recent upgrades. They were too precise and effective for comfort this far from any possible help. And at sublight they could out maneuver us.

"Just, say, on the off chance we might need to get the fuck out of here sooner than that, what's the worst that could happen if we--"

"Major Pitu--Solani, there is a sixty-seven percent probability that powering up the fold drive before then may result in damage requiring an Alliance space dock repair base. There is a fifty-six percent probability that it may hit a critical thermal condition and turn us into a miniature supernova."

"Well, when you put it that way."

I squeezed my eyes shut, breathed in for five seconds, held it for five seconds, and exhaled for five seconds. I lost count of the cycles as I repeated until my mind and body calmed.

Too much calm. Too much silence. No proximity alarms. No emergency tones. No AI reports.

I gripped tight my newly gained calm lest I succumb to the anxiety that threatened to make my body pulse again. "Nessa, system status reports. And tactical report. Where are the enemy vessels?"

I glanced at the sensor readouts and the system indicators. Everywhere I looked across the control consoles curved around my pilot seat darkness ruled or claimed new territory.

My restraint harness securing me to the seat suddenly turned suffocating around my pressure suit. My anxious mind played tricks. I double checked and rechecked. The tension remained unchanged.

It didn't matter. My breath raced shallow and rapid. The pulse I calmed now thundered in my ears. My panic spiked. The darkness advanced around me. The lighting in the pilot cabin faded from the familiar dark crimson to inky blackness.

Memories from the Battle of Eta Tau 482 flashed before my eyes. A single pilot fighter tumbling dead in space. In the dark. Only the sound of my breath and heartbeat for company. Forty-one hours, twenty-three minutes, and thirty-three seconds of terror ended by the chaotic lucky trio of my distress beacon signal, my vector, and the system's largest gas giant planet drawing me into orbit with her powerful gravitational field.

My voice wavered as I forced myself to remain in the moment and squelch the what-if frenzy filling my mind. "Nessa, you know all of my fears. I don't find any of this amusing."

Her voice whispered from my helmet speakers. "I observed you using your square breathing coping skill. I did not wish to disturb your mindfulness practice. I applied the solution with the highest probability of success given current conditions."

I shook my head, sighed, and whispered back. "You could have let me know even if you disturbed me trying to calm myself. What you did on your own accord unnerved me more--no it fucking scared the fuck out of me!"

"I understand your concerns and apologize. My intention was to camouflage our movements and sensor signature with system debris and ambient radiation as four of the Nrex vessels approached our location. Shields are at twenty-seven percent and dropping. Life support is at eighty-one percent as we have a leak venting atmosphere. Aft weapons require external repairs while forward units require neuralink grafts, zero percent and fourteen percent, respectively. Sublight propulsion is at eighty-nine percent and fading. Sensors and navigation are at seventy-three percent capability."

I grinned and tingled with excitement. "We just need to find someplace to set down and cool the fold drive while I make the repairs."

"She invited us to come and rest for a time. There is much She wishes to share with us because it has been so long since She last had visitors." Nessa paused for a moment. "You should seal your helmet to conserve oxygen and turn on your suit heater. I must shut down life support and capture the remaining atmosphere as the leak is increasing."

I configured my pressure suit for full space conditions. It took a few moments for me to digest the rest of her words. "Who the hell is this she you're referring to? And why did you decide to talk with an alien entity without me and then set course to rendezvous with...her?"

"She saw our arrival, detected my injuries, tracked the Nrex, and offered what would be illogical to refuse. She calls herself She because too many millennia have passed since the last time this entity interacted with someone, the loneliness made her forget who She was. If you were alone long enough, would you too forget your name if you had no one to share it with?"

Nessa paused for several of my breaths and I considered her words.

Perhaps given sufficient time alone I too would forget the name of my mother's bloodline which reached back to when the world called Earth was more than a planet among thousands to me in a historical archive. Maybe I would forget as well the name she gave me when I slipped from her warm, safe womb into her protective, loving arms.

"As for why I set course without your order, She helped me with a navroute to her that uses the natural features of this solar system to mask our signature. Offered to us as well are the gifts of companionship for both of our kind, synth for me, and bio for you. It is not good for any of us to be alone for too long."

"I know you mean well when you look out for me like this." My eyes flitted to the passive sensor readouts and screens. "I just wish you--what are those?"

Layers of passive analysis reports cycled in my helmet visor holoprojector while I examined the strange shapes the sensors detected. We'd seen so many mindblowingly bizarre and beautiful things in our years together.

What I examined now chilled me to absolute zero. My mouth transformed into a desert dryer than the dunes of Efra denied the caress of rain but at best every eleven years. I'd seen the carnage of wars. There were no words for the totality of what stretched before us.

"T-t-those things out there ahead of us--shreds of hull sections--fragmented propulsion units--weapons arrays--vessel remains of all sizes and configurations--are you certain this She isn't luring us to our deaths?"

"The risk versus reward probabilities weigh toward trusting our new acquaintance. She strategized a plan for us to outmaneuver eighteen enemy vessels designed and operated by a brutal predator species. Besides, she sweetened the deal by offering me two things the Alliance never did."

My brain fought to determine what my deep space exploration vessel could desire that she didn't possess already. Catastrophizing of the worst possible responses flooded my brain as pins and needles prickled throughout my body.

"You'd tell me if you didn't want me to be paired with you any longer, right? You'd wait until we were near an Alliance facility before you asked for someone else. Y-y-you wouldn't purge me out an airlock in some goddess forsaken corner of space because of I don't know why?"

"Hmm? What? Why would you entertain such things in your thoughts?" Her perpetually calm tone shifted to something shockingly human. "Solani, I would never intentionally harm you or put you in danger. You are my dearest friend. Of all the humans I have had even a passing experience with, you are the kindest, most thoughtful toward all life, synth and bio."

"Then what have I denied you?"

"You have denied me nothing, my friend. In fact, you are the one who educated me on what I lack. And She will give it to me in exchange for a visit."

I stared at the debris field growing in detail as we approached on a vector which threatened to ram us through the heart of the chaotic maelstrom of certain destruction and death.

Navigating a freshly launched agile close combat fighter through a churning asteroid field with full strength shields? I didn't enjoy it, but I'd completed hundreds of missions in those conditions during what seemed like a lifetime ago.

But a heavily wounded deep space exploration vessel with failing shields charging through carnage where even the impact of a paint fleck moving at sufficient velocity could severely damage a critical system?

My mind and body acted automatically on self-preservation instincts despite the cold reason creeping through me that knew better. Emergency action protocols did nothing. The control panels remained black. Nessa's body didn't respond to my attempts at evasive action.

"I have temporarily blocked your control inputs. Our final approach vector is under her management."

Nessa's tone sounded almost apologetic as I started to hyperventilate. I'd faced death too many times to count, but those instances were based on my choices. I didn't give consent to put my life in jeopardy like this.

"Nessa, you put your faith, and our safety, in the power of an alien entity we know nothing about!"

My gloved hands fought with the restraint harness release that refused to work. A panicked plan to escape my command chair and pull Nessa's power coupling flashed through my mind. I pounded the coupler button resting atop my breastbone separated by scant layers of cloth and armor composites.

"There's a million ways to die out in the Darkness, but I refuse to let your body be my coffin!"

"Solani, listen to me." Nessa's soothing balm flowed from my helmet speakers pushing through my terror. "Truly and fully listen to me. Focus on my voice. You are safe. All is well. She will not let harm come to us. She would not expend the effort to guide us in if her desire were to end our lives. She would have let the pack destroy us instead."

"You have more faith than I do." My voice squeaked out the words as tears streamed down my cheeks. "I know the demons behind us. I don't know the one in front of us."

"Would it help soothe your mind to know there is someone aboard her who would welcome your companionship? She has kept them safe for a long time."

My mind demanded several moments to comprehend Nessa's words.

Just as I made sense of them, the inertial sensors in my suit measured the degree of g-force changes and plotted the radical, precise alterations to our relative position within the star system and the debris field.

The view out the forward windows emphasized our fearless dance around and among the four-dimensional chess game that could easily end us with even a microdeviation in our course, a microsecond of inattentiveness. Whoever, whatever this She was, her piloting of Nessa's body exceeded my expert abilities, exceeded the abilities of the best bio pilots I'd ever known. The ship performed maneuvers even the most nimble of Alliance space fighters couldn't and for a deep space exploration vessel, theoretically impossible based on her design specifications.

This She had to be certifiably insane or a being possibly so far beyond human understanding that She might be effectively a deity. Either way, She scared the fuck out of me as much as the murderous maze of debris.

Oddly, the freshly suicidal proximity of death to us awoke my body with such intensity my thighs clamped together as tightly as my attire allowed to temper the hunger igniting deep

within me now threatening to burn me to ash.

The elation of evading the Nrex threats only caused a slight tingling to dance up and down my spine and settle low in my hips. A slight warmth and dampness followed, a tiny buzz of energy under my clit hood, a weak throb, a slight stiffening of my nipples.

The perception in my mind of death being a breath away sparked an arousal that amplified the throbbing of my clit beyond anything I'd experienced before, far beyond even my most dangerous fighter sorties. Fuck. Just fuck. Goddess fuck me rough and raw.

The ravenous impulses that lay long dormant since the departure of my last mate years ago stirred and slammed against my mental restraints with an overwhelming pounding of lust. They liberated themselves from the darkness deep within me. The depraved desires surged through every corner of my being.

The wetness between my legs soaked through my utilitarian tan service-issue panties. Down my legs, I drenched the absorbent lining of my flight uniform beneath my pressure suit, permeating my attire with a potent lust musk as the sticky warmth clung to my inner thighs. My nipples erected to rigid, rounded points against my practical tan service-issue bra. The soft, steamy pants escaping my lips formed momentary condensation on my visor before the climate control drew it away. Needy was a word too tame for what pulsed through me. Perhaps I was in heat.

A gossamer-thin layer of hope formed across my flesh, now yearning for a lover's touch to ignite the starfire passion heat deep within me. I needed their body grinding against mine until both our bodies quaked in endless waves of pleasure. How long ago had I felt that? I'd forgotten. The emptiness of its absence I recognized well enough.

I'd been horny plenty, but now I was horny, the kind of horny that only existed when my cravings pushed me beyond feral, beyond bestial.

I needed to fuck until I gushed with tsunamis of cum and soaked everything around me with my claiming scent. I had to fuck until I was a rutting-sweat-soaked, spent little piece of utter orgasm-drunk pleasure. My partner, I would worship until they were exhausted to immobility or they begged for my mercy--or they begged for the latter after I caused them the former.

"Nessa, does She know about my--can my bio companion--can either of them comprehend my appetites--what I need?"

"I advised her the final approach course would have a high probability of initiating your mating imperative and..."

Nessa paused. For several long, slow breaths, I waited for her to continue. The silence added to my tension as her body passed too close to the current hulking remnant of a vessel for any semblance of comfort. I dared not distract her. My genetics gave me reflexes so perfect they made me seem superhuman to most, but even I wasn't as fast or precise as she was. Or was that She? Both. It didn't matter which one. Both outclassed me.

"She is before us and offers welcome within the safety of her landing bays."

"Nothing but the play of shadow and light upon the dismembered corpses of once proud vessels fills my vision. Perhaps your She is a phantom that remained after the carnage. Maybe a pure energy being willing and able to engage with us?"

"Watch carefully."

I scanned with my eyes, darting across the forward field of view, and glanced at the passive sensors and back again several times. I detected it at last. A strange anomaly in the reflected light from the debris and the planet we neared. Something, a vague shape, a shimmery form that appeared as both there and yet not. A dark circle dilated open straight ahead in the ambiguity, and in a few heartbeats, She swallowed us.

Plunged into total darkness outside, I watched the passive thermal sensor readings and tracked our slowing though still rapid velocity toward the unknown destination. There were markings, perhaps words, glowing hotter on the screens than the material that formed the tunnel around us, but still not visible to my naked eyes. And there were what resembled roots or vines sprinting across the surface, chasing behind us.

Somewhere in the blackness, an almost imperceptible violet glow began running in a trio of approximately parallel lines around the roughly cylindrical path. The light was a wavelength that glowed intensely in the ultraviolet sensor readouts, and I noticed irregular shapes that ran together without a clear repeating pattern in each of the lines, like monochromatic stained glass panes

None of it made sense to me. I'd experienced enough alien species and civilizations, living and dead, and read about many more, to know what surrounded us didn't conform to anything encountered by the Alliance worlds in our collective history.

I glanced from the sensor screens through the forward windows. The sudden end of the tunnel emerged from the blackness as the ultraviolet wavelength dropped and the infrared wavelength climbed into the upper and lower ranges of my visual spectrum. For two heartbeats, I thought I saw my final end again, and yet for a second time it wasn't to be.

Intense deceleration slammed me against my restraint harness as if Nessa's body were ensnared in arresting webs during a starcarrier retrieval. My body sank into my pilot seat as the shift from zero gravity to a level comparable to Alliance standard began.

I scrutinized the exterior viewers and gazed through the windows around the compact bridge, finding nothing concerning immediately observable. My skin prickled along my arms and legs, down my back, and a blast of uncomfortable heat followed. Nothing felt right in my gut.

What I expected to experience on an alien vessel as bizarrely different as this one, I hadn't a clue. Deep inside, it all felt suspect and threatening, keeping me on a nervous edge.

The sound of Nessa's landing assemblies deploying urged me to slam my fist against the harness release lest I be caught trapped like an animal to be easy prey to an undetected, unseen boarding party.

The strap hasps sprang away from the latches. I yanked the mechanical release handle to slam my seat to the back of the adjustment rail, sprang up, and snatched my phased particle and railgun rifle unit from the equipment rack.

In three heartbeats, I had it from safe storage configuration to ready to rain down hell. I didn't wait for Nessa to dilate the hatch and lower the landing ramp. The belly door sufficed for my plan as I slung my shoulder weapon, used my suit sensors to scan the surroundings, and dropped the couple of meters to the surface below her. The sponginess of my landing surface surprised me, though it didn't inhibit my capability to scout the area for threats.

The wavelengths of light continued shifting toward the main visible spectrum, and the color temperature was comparable to the noonday sun of Relos, the most Earth-like of the human-colonized planets, my homeworld. The scanner on my right forearm blinked several green indicators and chirped in my helmet speakers. The conditions of my surroundings pressurized to average Relos sea level and shifted gas ratios until they approximated the nitrogen-oxygen atmosphere of the world I'd not seen in years.