Sisterhood of the Iron Mind

Despite the synthfleece lining of my jacket and pants, I shivered against the cold air of the station. The installation was once the headquarters of a mining operation on the dwarf planet it orbited, billions of miles from the star at the center of the system, which itself was multiple parsecs from the nearest Corporate Authority. Heating was a constant challenge, and it seemed its current operators could barely keep the temperature above the freezing point of water. Thankfully, the artificial gravity was rotation-based, so unlike on so many other power-rationing stations, my feet were firmly planted on the floor.

It was the ideal place for shady deals and served as a hub for transit that needed to be kept covert for one reason or another. I was no stranger to such derelicts in my work hunting rogue psions for the Sisterhood. Though this was my first time going undercover as myself. Kajiyashiki Yuki, youngest child of Kajiyashiki Hikari, the sole owner of the Corporate Authority of Kajiyashiki Enterprises.

Solveig, my bodyguard, stood beside me. She was dressed in similar gear, though the cold didn't bother her one bit. As an Enhancer, she had perfect control over her body's functions. She was probably accelerating her metabolism to warm herself up. As a Level 4, she might even be able to manually make her cells vibrate faster using pure psionic power. She was also a Level 4 Metacog. I understood on some level that the value of a Level 4 Null warranted this level of protection. But being guarded by one of the Sisterhood's most lethal weapons created a pressure that was difficult to live up to.

Like most psions, Solveig was beautiful. Platinum blonde hair tied back in a practical ponytail, sharp features, piercing blue eyes. Only slightly less striking than her appearance was her height: easily two meters tall. This kept her other most striking feature, her massive breasts, eye-level with me. Even packed into a sports bra and confined under her baggy jacket, they were still bigger than my head. It made it hard to keep my gaze on Solveig's when I was speaking to her.

She noticed me looking at her (thankfully not her chest), and gave me a curt nod before returning to watching our surroundings. I bit back a sigh at the oppressive professionalism. Solveig had been guarding me since my graduation three years ago, and she was about a decade older than me. And there was a distance between us that felt as unreachable as this system's far-away star.

We were waiting in a large cargo bay. It had solid steel flooring, with matching walls and ceiling. The space was expansive, with doors to delivery bays spaced at regular intervals. I could picture the crates of raw ore being brought up here for transport to refining facilities a dozen lightyears away.

Solveig suddenly perked up and turned, positioning herself between me and one of the doors. She must have picked up on something with her metacognition. And from the subtle stance she got into--one foot back, legs tensed--it was a safe bet it wasn't our contact coming to pick us up. I continued to lean against the wall of the station, waiting and watching.

The door opened, and we were immediately hit with a wave of raucous laughter and the smell of alcohol. A dozen men spilled out into the cargo bay, all unkempt and, apparently, tipsy. Judging by the lack of uniforms and the general disorder, they were pirates here for some shore leave. Stations like these didn't have much in the way of amenities, but they were the only venues willing to host extra-corporate customers.

The ones at the front noticed me and Solveig, stopping to look at us. This created an almost comedic effect when a chain reaction started as the pirates behind them bumped into the head of the procession and angrily demanded why they'd stopped, which repeated twice and left the entire crowd bickering at a halt.

"Alright, shut up," one of the pirates at the front ordered with some success. He was muscular, and almost as tall as Solveig. He was also the only one with a clean shave. Once his subordinates were adequately wrangled, he turned back to us. Rather than keeping his gaze straight ahead to look Solveig in the face as he spoke, his eyes roamed down to her chest. "Well... did they hear we were coming and sent some girls? I like the way your stationmaster does business."

Solveig looked down at him with a fierce glare. "Keep walking." The commanding tone in her husky voice made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. It would be best for the mission if these creeps didn't bother us, but part of me wanted them to pick a fight so that I'd get the chance to see Solveig in action.

The pirate captain's grin deepened. He leaned a bit to look past Solveig, his eyes moving across me. When I shivered again, my breath coming out in a white vapor, he leaned closer. "Ah, don't be like that. Your friend back there seems cold. Maybe I should warm her u--"

His suggestion was cut off by a punch to the gut. Quicker than any of us could see, Solveig's fist was in his stomach, doubling him over. He let out a breathless gasp, then vomited onto the deck. Solveig shoved him hard back into the rest of them, the entire crowd stumbling backwards from the force. Then Solveig got into a proper stance. She held her arms like a boxer. "Anyone else want some?"

I backed off once the brawl started. I might have been able to take a few of the pirates on with my rudimentary enhancement and kinetics. Better not to give them the chance to grab me and use me as a hostage, though. It would turn into a massacre if Solveig had to go to full output. The law was negotiable on stations like this, but it was best to avoid the hassle. I watched from afar as the group surrounded Solveig and jumped her.

They never stood a chance, of course. Even if Solveig hadn't been a master of hand-to-hand combat, it was literally impossible for her to be injured without serious firepower. She was brutally efficient, one blow for each thug as they came at her. Quickly realizing how outmatched they were, two of them grabbed one of her arms when she was in a backswing. She lifted them both off the ground, slamming them into their friends.

The show of overwhelming force had me heating up against the station's chill. The way she was throwing the pirates around like they were nothing lit a fire in my chest, imagining her giving me similar treatment. Pinning me to a wall, stealing kisses... going further. I'd had plenty of experience with women during my time training in the Sisterhood, but Solveig was special. Everything about her was sublime, from her elegant features, to the statuesque physique hiding under her baggy clothes, to her huge breasts. And especially her superhuman strength.

The fight took less than a minute. When it finished, Solveig was standing alone. She was surrounded now not by assailants, but by groaning men on the floor. Some of the pirates were unconscious, others nursing wounds while looking fearfully at Solveig. She stepped over them, approaching me. Her fierce expression had softened back to the neutral one she always wore.

My heart hammered. A speck of blood marred her otherwise immaculate face, so I produced a handkerchief from the inside pocket of my jacket. I wet it with my mouth. Once she was beside me again, I beckoned her down. She bent forward so that we were eye level, and my heart skipped a beat. I looked deep into her eyes, desperate for her to see in mine what I wanted. I wiped the blood off her cheek. I was too nervous to smile, eyes wide at the woman in front of me.

She stood back up straight once I'd finished. Then noticing something in my expression, she put her hand on my head and ruffled my hair. "Thank you, Yuki. And don't worry; I would never let anything happen to you." Then she returned to scanning for threats.

I had to fight against another sigh. Her final declaration would have been so romantic if she hadn't also been patting my head like I was a child. I had thought long and hard about how to get Solveig to look at me the way I looked at her. It wasn't as if I wasn't womanly; like most psions, I had curves in all the right places. My breasts were also big for my frame, even if not as big as Solveig's. And I knew she was into women from the stories some of her friends had told me about her time in training. There was nothing for it but to try harder.

The pirates had realized by now they'd been let off with just a beating, and they began picking themselves up. In a surprising display of camaraderie, the ones who'd gotten off more lightly helped their companions who had trouble walking. With fearful glances at Solveig, they went back through the door they'd entered from, probably to return to their ship to recover.

I checked my wrist. Our contact was cutting it close. Just as I turned to ask Solveig what we should do if they didn't show, a door on the wall opposite us opened to reveal a figure in a gray parka that blended in with the station's steel backdrop. They had the hood up, and their face was further concealed by a mask that covered everything but the eyes, which themselves were covered by dark reflective goggles. Combined with thick pants, heavy boots, and black gloves, none of their features were visible. They approached confidently. In a slightly-muffled androgynous voice, they asked, "Are you the customer?"

They were looking at Solveig, but I produced a large coin from a pants pocket and held it out. It was about the size of my palm, smooth bronze on both faces. There were ridges on the sides. They took it and examined the ridges. Then they nodded, satisfied. "Come with me."

Solveig and I followed the figure back through the door. Some of the tension had drained from me as the first stage went as planned. We'd lifted the coin from its original owner, a representative of my mother's company. The poor woman and her bodyguard were out cold in a rented room on this station, not to wake up until some time tomorrow.

We entered a smaller loading bay. There was an airlock at the far end which would lead to an umbilical connecting the station to the jumpship. The jumpship was operated by a secretive courier service. The man we were going to meet was too paranoid to allow a ship operated by a Corporate Authority to his secret facility, and my mother had likewise not wanted her representative to be reliant on him for transport.

The jumpship was not much warmer than the station, and it was cramped; Solveig needed to stoop in the halls to avoid hitting her head. The courier brought us to a room where Solveig could barely stand up straight. It had a desk, a door they said led to a bathroom (with shower), two jumpseats side-by-side against the wall, and a single bed just large enough for two people.

The courier departed after telling us the jump would take about eight hours. Once the two of us were alone, we placed our bags on the floor, then got into the jumpseats to prepare for the jump. I turned to look at her once we were secure, getting an eyeful of her chest emphasized by the constraints of the harness. I forced myself to look up at her face.

She closed her eyes for a few moments, her brow furrowing as she used her powers more intensely than usual. Then she relaxed, and her deep blue eyes turned to me. "We're not being eavesdropped on or recorded. The construct can deliver messages to this room, but it can't perceive anything happening in here besides whether or not we're in our jump seats."

I was unsurprised. The company transporting us had a reputation for discretion, and betraying that trust was more trouble than any secrets were worth. While someone in the company knew that Kajiyashiki Enterprises had booked transport, the courier only knew there were two passengers with a confirmation token. Which had given us our opening.

We felt a lurch as the ship undocked. Then the inertial dampeners kicked in, and there was no sign of movement. Thanks to how far this station was from any significant gravity wells, the jump could begin as soon as the ship oriented itself toward our destination. Lacking any windows to view the outside with, there was no indication that anything was happening. After about thirty seconds, we received a notification from the construct that the jump had been initiated and that we could leave our jumpseats.

I took a seat on the bed, hoping Solveig would join me. Instead, she got in the desk chair, turning it around so that we were facing each other. Thanks to the tight space, our knees were almost touching. But it didn't feel as intimate. She asked, "How are you feeling? This is a big departure from our usual work."

"Fine," I lied, nodding reassuringly. Our 'usual work' consisted of hunting down psions who had betrayed the Sisterhood in some way, either capturing them for re-education or eliminating them. I was Level 4 in Null, the secret sixth discipline which held power over psionics itself. Though Solveig was the one who executed most of the apprehensions and eliminations once I'd disabled the rogue psions' powers.

I was nervous, but I knew I didn't need to be. I was reassuring myself just as much as her as I continued, "Dealing with corporate big-wigs is what I trained for before I awakened my powers. I have a decade of experience with this stuff. No one will suspect a thing."

Solveig replied with a nod of her own. "We just need to determine if Multifarious Dynamics is breaking the treaty. Once we have the evidence, we get out as smoothly as possible." The treaty she was referring to was the Ironbound Treaty, enforced by the Sisterhood of the Iron Mind against every organization in the galaxy. One of its articles gave the Sisterhood the sole right to study the nature of psionics, lest another group try to break our hegemony on it.

"Are you still unable to perceive the facility using your metacognition?" Solveig's ability to pull information about our targets and destinations gave us an invaluable tactical advantage. Normally only a Metacog of equal or higher level (or a trained Null) could counteract it. But somehow, the research facility we were headed to was under a similar effect, despite there being no unaccounted-for psions capable of protecting it.

Solveig gritted her teeth in a rare display of frustration. "Yes," she confirmed after a few moments. "There are metacognition-impairing instruments he could have acquired legally. But if this is a result of something he's cooked up himself, it's strong evidence that he's broken the treaty. And the larger secrecy is suspicious--working in the depths of extra-corporate space, not telling anyone but the courier service the location... It goes beyond mere paranoia."

I agreed. When the Sisterhood presented the mission to me, I was surprised that my mother was interested in investing in such a shady company, even considering folding it into Kajiyashiki Enterprises. True, some of their tech was revolutionary. But was it really worth the risk if it turned out to be in violation of corporate treaties? Not to mention what the Sisterhood would do to her and her company if Multifarious did turn out to be in violation of the Ironbound Treaty. There was no way I could let her get burned by this, so I was eager to take the lead on this mission.

Wanting to get away from the nerve-wracking mission talk, I shifted the conversation to a topic that was nerve-wracking for different reasons. "How are you feeling, Solveig? It must be difficult knowing you won't have much control over how the mission goes." I had a hard time keeping eye contact with Solveig as I asked, though I was careful to keep my gaze fixed on the floor instead of the two things jutting out right in front of me.

"Just think of me as a backup plan," Solveig replied. She took on a gentle smile, and I was half-worried she would start patting my head again.

Frustrated with the one-sentence answer, I asked, "Did you ever go on missions like this with your previous partner? Or did she stick to hunting rogue psions?" Solveig's previous partner had been a Level 5 Null who was much older, and who had retired from service shortly before my graduation.

"Hunting rogues. Though I don't know how useful the experience was; she was incredible. She didn't really need a bodyguard by the time I met her." She paused at the expression on my face and said, "You'll get there with time. But until then, I'm here for you."

I gave in to the urge to sigh this time. Here I was trying to get her to open up to me, and all she wanted to talk about was how she'd take care of me while I figured myself out. This wasn't working; I needed to do something more extreme. I got up from the bed and said, "I'm going to take a shower."

Rather than moving to the bathroom first, I unzipped my jacket right in front of her, revealing my long-sleeved white shirt. I grabbed the bottom and pulled it over my head, the lacy black bra supporting my large breasts coming into view. My shoes went next, but when I looked back up after I'd taken them off, I saw that Solveig had turned her chair around and was doing something on the desk.

Frustrated, I quickly stripped out of the rest of my clothes, leaving them in a pile on the bed. I was completely naked, and she wasn't paying a bit of attention to me. Did she not think of me like that at all? I moved up right behind her, resting my bare chest on her back as I looked over her shoulder. The pleasant, powdery smell of the deodorant she always wore enveloped me. I asked in a voice I hoped was sultry, "Everything good to go?"

She'd taken her jacket off, revealing her muscular arms and the gray sleeveless turtleneck she wore underneath. Mundane materials blocked psionic output, and while I didn't have to worry about that as a Null, clothes made from normal fabrics like I was wearing would hamper Solveig's metacognition. Solveig's outfit, however, was made from exotic textiles that conducted psionics almost as well as air. She was inspecting it before the mission, making sure the advanced equipment was in perfect condition.

Solveig froze when she felt my breasts against her, though she didn't turn to look. Instead she replied, "I'm checking the mending after our last mission. I'm much sturdier than this fabric." Her hand was running over a stitch across the back of the jacket, from where our target had gotten her in the back with a sword. Solveig had been fine, but she'd needed to get her clothes patched. The seamstress's repair had left the damage barely noticeable.

I gritted my teeth, wondering if I should take things even further. Maybe I could whisper something in her ear? I decided not to push it, instead heading to the bathroom. It was small, with barely enough room for the sink, toilet, and shower stall. The water was hot, a welcome reprieve from the chill of the jumpship.

As I cleaned myself, I continued to strategize. A new possibility I had not considered was emerging. I'd thought Solveig simply didn't realize I was flirting with her, but could she really be that oblivious when I'd pressed my bare tits against her? My heart began to sink as I realized she might just not be into me. But even then, there was a snag. If Solveig knew I was into her and didn't feel the same way, she was the type of person to tell me that to my face, especially as I was more and more forward. I resolved to escalate further and see how she reacted.

The shower blow-dried me once I was finished, and I went back out to the room. Solveig was still going over her equipment; she'd put the jacket back on and was inspecting the shirt and the sports bra that had been hidden underneath. Her huge breasts were much more apparent now without the constraint of the undergarment, and it was that much more difficult not to look.

I distracted myself by getting dressed. I moved the clothing I'd been wearing into my bag, with the exception of my lacy black thong which I put back on. I covered my top with a red camisole, similarly bedecked with lace, which came down to my belly button. It had a low cut, emphasizing my ample bust while still keeping me covered. I sat on the bed and started brushing my hair.