The Ship

A ‘stand-alone’ Science-Fiction Tale of Suspense and Lust

{This post is very definitely NSFW; it is also entirely unsuitable material if you’re underage in your locality; only read on if you’re an adult and you like explicitly sexy stories.}

[Fantasy, suspense/horror, non-consensual sex with alien ‘creatures’. All ‘participants’ are adult, imaginary, and entirely fictional - any resemblance to a real person is sheer coincidence.]

I awoke, suddenly, with that awareness which comes only with long experience - something was wrong, but what? The life support systems seemed to be optimal - the faint hiss of the air exchangers working as normal and no life support alarms sounding, so that was good for starters. I listened intently. The faint throb of the drives, more felt than heard, was just as it usually was. I glanced across the chamber at the nearest status panel; rows of LEDs, glowing green and indicating that all systems were operating normally, and giving everything in the chamber a greenish cast.

But there it was again…

Something. I’m not sure if it was a faint scent, a sound right on the edge of hearing, or…

Something else.

Selection for flight crew begins with a series of aptitude tests. One of those tests is designed with two things in mind - firstly to determine whether you have the ability to sense, without even knowing you’re doing it, slight changes in the environment; secondly, and no less important is how you then react. The reaction they’re looking for is one which acknowledges the change having noticed it, and then analyses it to work out what, if anything, to do about it… Even if the change is something potentially catastrophic - such as the beginnings of a containment failure. Panicking, and acting on impulse, like a jungle fowl which has been decapitated, is likely to prove counter-productive, and tends merely to hasten whatever disaster may be approaching.

So… There seemed to be ‘something’ - I had woken unexpectedly and, now that I looked, at least five hours earlier than usual. That definitely wasn’t normal - something about this environment seemed to ensure that I usually slept really soundly. All the craft’s systems appeared nominal, to judge by the status panel on the opposite wall of the chamber. I should check another status source, just to ensure that the panel hadn’t malfunctioned - although they were supposed to ‘fail safe’ - i.e. all the lights should illuminate red in the event of panel failure. I unzipped the cocoon far enough to get my arms out, and reached for my personal monitor, currently velcroed to the bulkhead. I tapped it, and it awakened.

“Status please!” I typed on the virtual keyboard. The system didn’t require good manners, but its neural networks were roughly equivalent to the minds of about ten humans - i.e. it was a damned sight cleverer than me, so I figured a bit of courtesy couldn’t do any harm. I wouldn’t want to piss off something that clever! Of course, maybe using ‘unnecessary’ words would be exactly the best way to annoy it, but it was supposed to be designed to interact with humans, so I figured politeness was the best bet.

The monitor hummed faintly and then reproduced a virtual copy of the status panel - all illuminated green.

“All systems nominal.” it intoned.

“Confirm life-form status specifically please.” I typed in response.

“255 Homo sapiens sapiens in stasis; 1 active.”

Everything was fine. It must have been my mind playing tricks. Maybe the time had come to bring another of the crew out of stasis, and allow them to take over being ‘sapient watch’ over the craft and its cargo of Homo sapiens sapiens, while I took a turn in stasis to give my body, but more especially especially my mind, a break from the stresses of the role. I would finish my sleep first though. I turned the monitor to standby, placed it back on the bulkhead, zipped the cocoon up again, closed my eyes and settled back to sleep.

I woke again. Still dark; only 44 minutes since I last awakened. Status panel still nominal. Maybe I was a bit ‘rattled’ by my first awakening, and that’s why I was awake now. But no. There was definitely ‘something’. It felt oddly as though I was being observed.

I retrieved the monitor again, and repeated the process, being particular about checking the number of life-forms, and getting the same answer as before - there were 256 humans on board, and only one of them, me, was awake. That was exactly as it should be. I couldn’t be being ‘watched’ because there was nobody there to do the watching. I really did need to exchange with one of my fellows - clearly my mind was going. So, there being nothing more I could do, I zipped myself back into the cocoon, turned my face to the bulkhead, and went back to sleep.

I ‘came to’ again, to find that things were definitely not ‘nominal’. For starters, the luminators were on, and the chamber was bathed in the warm white glow they were designed to emit during the hours of ‘evening’ - though out here in the blackness of interstellar space ‘evening’ was an almost meaningless concept - meaningless except for the needs of the crew. I’d just slept, so they should be in ‘bright white’ morning mode.

But that was the least of it.

I was floating in mid-air. Floating wasn’t terribly unusual - we usually ran with the grav-fields off - they consumed a lot of energy. They were usually turned on only for exercise time. So floating was normal… But floating, stationary, in the middle of the chamber, definitely wasn’t normal. Here, Newton, and his laws of motion, could be a problem - getting moving again, with no ‘purchase’, might prove interesting, and I couldn’t reach anything solid to get hold of - my sleeping cocoon, the food prep station, treadmill, gym equipment, ablution chamber door - all of it was out of reach.

That wasn’t all.

By any means.

I was also naked - I could see my body sleeve, outer garments, belt, and other equipment, and they were also ‘floating’ out of reach. My boots weren’t though - they were still velcroed to the chamber bulkhead where I’d left them. And I was…

Well, not to put too fine a point on it…

Sticky! Covered in some sort of ‘goo’. It smelled odd. Heck, I smelled odd. The scent was vaguely familiar, but I couldn’t place it. Maybe it would come to me.

Newton really is a sod, I said to myself, as I wriggled, trying to move, or, at the very least, turn around. I knew perfectly well that it wasn’t Newton’s fault - he had only formalised, mathematically, the laws that had always existed and by which the universe functioned. But, inertia being what it is, I was, in a word, stranded. Ordinarily, in circumstances like this, I’d take off my belt - which was weighted, quite deliberately, for potential moments like this, and throw it hard, thereby gaining momentum equal and opposite to that which I had imparted to the belt. I might not move fast, but I would move - and continue until I came into contact with something, such as, for example, a bulkhead. Whatever, or whoever, had done this was definitely familiar with good old Isaac… And this was clearly a deliberate act by someone or something; they knew exactly what they were doing. I was marooned here, completely helpless; I couldn’t actually think of a better way to render the ‘sapient watch’ helpless.

Panic wasn’t something I did. But I was definitely a bit rattled. I felt sure that I was being watched now. Whoever, or whatever, it was, was behind me. Turning my head helped me see a little ‘behind me’ but not by as much as I could have if I’d been on ‘solid’ ground, because, thanks to good old Isaac, as I turned my head, my body turned, slightly, the other way. Even trying to turn my upper body relative to my lower didn’t get me far. I definitely couldn’t see much behind - I figured that there was a ‘blind spot’ of at least 90° that I couldn’t see however much I contorted myself. If ‘it’ was clinging to the bulkhead, ‘it’ could easily be human-sized, or even bigger. If only air was both denser and more viscous, I reasoned, I might be able to ‘swim around’.

Ah, now there was the germ of an idea - denser fluids! I thought for a moment. If I could direct a stream of urine away from my body, that would give me a tiny amount of ‘equal and opposite’ momentum. It would also make a fearful, and slightly corrosive, mess, which would take hours to clean up… There is a good reason why ‘space toilets’ are so complex, and why they tend to be so bulky - you really don’t want urine, or ‘the other stuff’, on the loose in your craft. The ‘pee solution’ would be a last resort, if I really couldn’t think of a better solution to the problem. And problem it was - I knew full well that if I couldn’t move at all, then, sooner or later, I would dehydrate and die!

And then I heard something move.

Behind me.

The sound I heard was a sort of, slightly sucky, slithering sound. There’s no other way to describe it. It was quiet, stealthy even, but unmistakable to my attuned and fear-enhanced sense of hearing. There was also a faint moaning sound; not the sound of pain, definitely pleasure. I strained to try to see, but still couldn’t.

And then I felt it.

Something.

Touching my bare right buttock.

I don’t mind admitting that, at this point, I screamed. Not some girly squeal, this was a proper, full-throated, womanly, scream. Not surprising, and excusable on the grounds that I had thought that I was, effectively, alone on the ship.

The touch turned me.

Not much, but just enough to see what lurked behind.

The sight that met my eyes was like something out of my worst nightmare… And the most surreal erotic dream.

It was beyond nasty, far beyond.

It was also, somehow and at the same time, supremely erotic.

The ‘thing’ looked as if whoever created it had heard a description of an orgy, and created a single ‘entity’ which fulfilled all of the features of an orgy in one go. It was a many-limbed thing consisting of: tentacles - some of which ended in appendages like erect penises, others like hands and feet; soft flesh shaped like voluptuous breasts - topped by erect, raspberry-like, nipples; rounded buttocks framing delicious-looking vulvas; faces (some of them familiar - copies, or at least I hoped they were copies, of some of the people currently residing in the stasis hold).

It was a strange and horrifying hermaphrodite which, whilst most of its parts were identifiably human, was, taken in total, far from human - or far beyond human.

My scream became a full-on meltdown.

I totally lost it.

I must have blacked out because…

I awakened to find myself cocooned.

Not encased in my sleeping cocoon, but within the grasp of the ‘thing’.

I was wrapped in warm, sensuously slippery, flesh.

Part of me was utterly horrified - as ought to have been normal. But another part of me was feeling the sheer erotic power of this ‘orgy-creature’. I had regained consciousness to find myself having sex, in every possible way, with the creature (or, more accurately, being ‘ravished’ by the creature - I didn’t have much choice in the matter). I was also very, very, turned on… It had clearly learnt how human sex was done from a very good teacher.

One of its penis-like tentacles had penetrated my pussy and was, actually quite gently and considerately, giving my cunt a thorough fucking; another was deep in my arse, fucking in anti-phase with its partner in my vagina - one in, one out and vice versa - a most odd, but hugely pleasurable sensation; a big, soft, warm, breast was held over my lower face, the nipple between my lips - I was sucking it, eagerly, revelling in the way the warm softness contrasted with the rubbery hardness of the nipple and the way its sweet warm milk squirted into my mouth; one of my forearms was held firmly in one of its hands, using my hand as a dildo to fist-fuck one of its supremely slippery vagina-like orifices; the fingers of my other hand were being sucked sensuously, one at a time, by another of the mouths; yet another of the mouths was sucking my nipple quite hard, its tongue flicking the tip, making my breast quiver and my body spasm uncontrollably with each flick.

Everything about the thing was smeared with some sort of ‘goo’, so that it glistened, wetly… And that was clearly the source of my earlier stickiness… For fuck’s sake, this must be the second time the creature had (ab)used me. The odd thing about fluids in zero-gravity is that they don’t really ‘drip’ - if free, they form perfectly spherical globules which drift about on the air currents; if attached to a surface they either form globules and drift off, or else they spread themselves over the surface. I had a feeling in the back of my mind that this much mess was going to take days to clean up. But actually, the far bigger problem, which ought to have been exercising my mind, was what the heck this ‘creature’ was and where it had come from…

But actually, for all that I ought to have been terrified, I wasn’t. In fact, I was rather enjoying being fucked, in every orifice, in all its various ways. I was experiencing a collection of amazingly erotic feelings, all over, all at once. I could feel the approach of my climax…

And its climax (or climaxes?) too…

Things seemed to be reaching a crescendo. And suddenly there we were, thrashing about in boundless, weightless, ecstasy, great spurts of fluid filling orifices and leaking everywhere, strewing the atmosphere willy-nilly with a veritable cloud of the products of our arousal and consequent orgasms. Then I knew nothing more.

I woke to the alarm. ‘Well,’ I thought to myself as I began to stir, ‘that was a thoroughly weird dream.’ Clearly I needed urgently to begin the process of awakening one of the other crew-members to take over as ‘sapient watch’ before I really did go insane.

I began my day in the usual way, by going to the ablution chamber and washing, as per regulations, following that with my first meal of the day. Whilst eating, I spotted it - a single, cloudy, droplet of liquid, hanging in mid air. What the heck? There should be no free fluids when in zero-gravity - there were complex systems to prevent it - not least because they were a potential danger to the craft’s systems. How had it got there?

Unless.

Perhaps.

It hadn’t been a dream after all.