Moments after June flew like a shot out of the maintenance hangar doors; a silence descended over the scene as Will and Ben leaned against the hull panting, the adrenaline rush slowly wearing off. Bst marks from ser fire pitted the hangar bay floor and surrounding objects, leaving slight scorch marks dotted Nestia’s hull.

  “Holy fuck.” Ben excimed as he leaned his rifle against Nestia’s outer hull, then pced his hands on his knees as he bent over, the action of the st ten minutes finally overwhelming him.

  Will reached over and pced a concerned hand on his shoulder. “Are you going to be alright?”

  “Yeah, but let’s not do that again, huh?” Ben remarked. Will gave him a crooked smile and patted him on the back.

  “Don’t Move! Drop your weapons!” several voices ordered as a swarm of armed Security Officers surrounded them. While setting his weapons on the ground, Will slowly raised one hand over his head, and Ben did the same.

  “Turn around and walk backward towards me, slowly.” a brutishly rge sergeant commanded, his rifle still trained on Ben and Will. Complying, Ben and Will followed instructions and backstepped into the open space in front of the armed officers.

  “On your knees.” the rge sergeant barked. They complied. The sergeant then approached Will as the other officers continued to train their weapons on Ben and Will. With one hand, he removed a set of cuffs from his belt, and with the other, he grabbed Will’s wrist, still over his head, and tried to wrench his arm behind his back, but Will was an immovable object.

  Frustrated, the sergeant issued another command. “Hands behind your back.” Will complied with slow, non-threatening movements, and the sergeant locked the cuffs onto Will’s wrists while another officer did the same to Ben’s.

  “Who else is in the ship?” He barked again as Will and Ben were pulled to their feet by officers on each arm.

  “Inta, the silver girl, and two assaints,” Will answered. Just as he spoke, Inta exited Nestia through the cargo bay door, smiling and waving nonchantly.

  “Hi there,” she said, walking toward the officers. “The st two gunmen are trapped inside, but they don’t have much fight left in them. When you’re ready I’ll open the door.”

  The sergeant squinted at her suspiciously as the other officers cuffed her, then jerked his head towards the short set of stairs leading up to Nestia’s airlock door. Half a dozen officers positioned themselves around the stairs, readying themselves for a fight.

  “Open the door.” the sergeant ordered, and Inta did so with a nod. The security officer at the corner of the door peered inside and saw the devastation inside. The grenade bst obliterated the pilot, copilot, and engineer’s seats. The walls of the sitting area were bckened by scorch marks from ser fire, and the couches were a shredded mess. Blood and gore from the sin assaints covered everything, and sitting on the mostly destroyed couches were the two remaining gunmen, their boots covered by the blood and entrails of their compatriots. They held their guns loosely, pointed at the floor, and wore a thousand-yard stare on their faces.

  The security officers yelled commands through the doorway to drop their weapons and exit, and they did so, allowing themselves to be taken into custody without a struggle. After they were cuffed, they were quickly marched away.

  “Are there any other surprises?” the sergeant asked in a stern voice. Inta shook her head no, and then he sent a team into the shuttle to investigate.

  “All Clear,” one of the security team called out from the open shuttle door. Satisfied, the sergeant barked, “Okay, get them out of here.” Officers surrounded Will, Ben, and Inta, and with two holding tight to each of them, they were led from the battle scene.

  They were brought to a lift and descended to the next level, which turned out to be the barracks and offices for one of the squadrons of “Defender” fighters stationed on the ferry for defense. It was a hive of frantic activity, likely due to the attack and subsequent flight of the assaints in maintenance pods.

  They were led through a corridor with several twists and turns until they were finally ushered through a secured door into a holding room with a single long metal table. June was already seated and cuffed to the table by a single thick link. The security team sat Will, Ben, and Inta next to her, re-cuffed their hands in front of them, and secured them to the table next to June.

  As she watched the others seated in the uncomfortable metal chairs next to her and cuffed to the table, she thought of how Inta tore into the titanium containers at Penrose station and that she was now bound by the Security team only because she allowed it.

  “Hey guys,” June greeted them. “We having fun yet?”

  “Quiet,” one of the armed Security personnel standing in the room ordered. June smirked at Will, but he shook his head, indicating they should py nice and go along with security.

  The four sat quietly on their uncomfortable chairs until the silence was broken when the door to the crowded holding room opened, and several people entered.

  Ugaki, the Captain of the ferry, an older, portly man they recognized from his ship-wide broadcasts, entered and was followed closely by a tall, stern-faced woman. Her spine was straight, and her dark hair was up in a tight bun. Several armed officers accompanied them as they entered the room.

  As he entered, he grabbed a chair against one of the walls and slid it across the room to the table. Then he sat, leaning back, resting his hands across the buttons of his rounded-out uniform shirt. He stared intently at the four across the table. Without speaking, he looked into each of their faces, evaluating what he was dealing with, before turning to the stern-looking woman standing to his right, who then handed him a tablet from which he began reading.

  “I must say, you’re an eclectic bunch.” Ugaki scrolled some more. “June Harding and Will Foucault, academy-trained, and employed, until recently, by the Peirault Shipping Company. Both top of your css, stelr service records for the past decade, until very recently when you were decred lost with your freighter, the Saturn’s Heart.”

  He continued scrolling until his eyebrows raised in mild surprise.

  “And you, Mr. Toucuar, have quite the rap sheet. A litany of juvenile arrests, mostly for petty theft, eventually graduating to grand rceny. Says here you were a suspect in a massive fire that destroyed an entire residential neighborhood on Tellurius Prime and have associations with known criminal organizations. Seems you’re a real piece of work.” Ben’s face went white, and he hung his head at the ugly summary of his previous life. Pain and regret twisted his features; tears threatened in the corner of his eyes as his shame was casually put on dispy.

  The Captain turned his attention to Inta. “And then there’s you. No record exists of you anywhere, in any database, on any pnet. Hell, I don’t even know what species you are.” He shuffled through a few pages on his tablet. “Hmm. Though it seems you were involved in some business with Svers on Penrose Station, recently.”

  He was silent for a moment as he continued reading from his tablet. Then, speaking to them as a group, “You booked passage at the st minute with an unregistered, ‘experimental’ ship, failed to decre your weapons when you booked passage or mentioned that you were also carrying an attack craft. Then you proceeded to shoot up my maintenance bay, making quite the mess.” His tone was stern and serious.

  Will opened his mouth to protest, but the Captain silenced him with a raised hand. “The Interstelr Ferry operational guidelines are clear on how I must proceed on these points, and I’ll have to confiscate your weapons and impound your attack craft.”

  Before they could argue further, his expression changed as he gave them a wide smile. “However, you have performed a great service to this ferry, for which I am grateful. Pirates are a bane to interstelr trade and our ferry service specifically. When passengers, such as yourselves, take such courageous action, pcing yourselves in harm’s way to protect and defend, as a matter of honor, I must show my appreciation. Commander, please remove their restraints.”

  His stern-faced first officer raised one eyebrow at the Captain, then nodded to one of the Security personnel who went down the line and removed their bindings. June rubbed her wrists and then addressed the Captain. “Thank you, sir. We never meant to cause you or the Dals crew any trouble.”

  “I know, my dear.” Ugaki acknowledged. “Sometimes extraordinary people stir the universe up in their wake, and you lot seem much more than ordinary.” Then he sighed, rubbed his eyes, and turned his attention back to Ben. “There is the matter of your criminal record, young man. I have enormous leeway on how I operate my ship, but some matters can not be ignored.”

  June was about to voice an objection and defend him, but Ben looked at her and shook his head. Then, he addressed the Captain directly. “I know I can’t expect you to take my word that I’ve left that life behind me. I’m ready to accept the consequences," he said without lifting his head.

  Will, June, and Inta all began talking over each other to defend Ben, but the Captain silenced them all with a quick bark. “Now, now! Pipe down. I’m not going to punish Mr. Toucuar after watching the video of him taking on those attackers and defending this ship. No, definitely not.” Ugaki seemed affronted by the suggestion. “But I will need to demonstrate to my superiors that I’m not just ignoring the situation. Therefore I am going to assign my first mate to check on you daily, to make sure you behaving yourself.”

  At the mention of her new assignment, Commander Cirillo whipped her head in the Captain’s direction and shot a look of disbelief at the back of his head.

  “There is also the matter of damages incurred during your firefight.” Ugaki continued, unfazed by his first officer’s gaze boring into the back of his head.

  “Uh, Unfortunately, I don’t think we can afford to cover any of the ferry’s repair costs.” Will stammered.

  Ugaki threw his head back in a loud, good-natured ugh. “You misunderstand; I’m referring to damages you incurred. The ferry service can easily absorb our repair costs. I will waive the fee for your passage and provide any material or assistance you require to repair your ship so you’re space-worthy when we arrive at Centrailia.”

  “That’s very generous, Thank you,” Will said, relieved, and then a thought crossed his mind. “Inta can coordinate with your people if there’s anything we need for repairs, but can I ask for something else instead of a refund of our fare? We currently only have short-range communications aboard our ship. Would it be possible to install a Q-net console? That would help us stay in touch when we’re back on our own.”

  Ugaki considered Will’s request with a thoughtful expression on his face. “Not a completely unreasonable request, though a Q-net console is a little more expensive than what your fare would have been.” The Captain paused for a moment more. “Hell, I’m sure the Dals has a few older spares that we can part with. It’s the least we can do to thank you. Will you need assistance with the instaltion?”

  Will smiled gratefully at the Captain’s generosity. “I don’t think that’ll be necessary. Inta here is a wiz when it comes to comms," he said, giving the silver girl a pyful wink. Then his expression darkened. “ About the attackers, they seemed well coordinated. I think there may be more of them.”

  Ugaki nodded solemnly. “You’re right, there were more. We identified all of the attackers and found that some of the cabins they were staying in were the same ones that the explosives had been set off in. All of their accommodations were booked by the man on the right," he said, spinning his tablet around, dispying a photo of two men sitting in front of a table full of electrical equipment and monitors, both dead.

  “Steven Rinaldi, a known criminal with a mile-long rap sheet, had been in and out of prison most of his life. An apparent murder-suicide; shot his partner in the temple, then put the gun under his chin and killed himself. He must have watched the whole attack go sideways and figured it was the easiest way out.”

  Will looked closely at the photo. It all seemed too tidy; something felt off, tickling the back of his mind. He stared at the image for a few more moments until the Captain spun the tablet back around.

  “The full investigation will take a while longer, as will the cleanup, but it won’t take Security long to resolve it. We’ll be back on schedule in a few days and be back underway. Again, I want to thank you all for your courage and extraordinary action in service to this ferry. You have my deepest appreciation.”

  With that, Captain Ugaki stood from the table. “Excellent. I think that sorts out all the business here that needs my attention. It was good to meet you all, but I have other duties I must attend. Oh, and I’ll pretend that you don’t have any more secrets I need to worry about," he said with a conspiratorial grin. Then, turning to Commander Cirillo, “Please make arrangements for your daily check-ins and include any updates in my daily briefs.”

  His business finished, the Captain turned and strode out of the room, evidently with pressing business elsewhere.

  Commander Cirillo stared balefully after the departed Captain for a moment, the additional task he charged her with already grating on her nerves. Then she composed herself and turned to the Nestia crew. “I have an opening in my schedule at five thirty every evening. Make sure you are avaible for me at that time,” she said with crisp efficiency, her composure again restored.

  “We will skip this evening and have our first check-in tomorrow.” She looked down at her tablet and continued. “You are registered as lodging in your shuttle for this trip; will you require a cabin until your repairs have been completed?” She asked, professionalism masking any irritation she might be feeling.

  “Maybe for one night, we should be able to clean up the Nestia in short order,” Inta spoke up.

  “I’ll assign an empty cabin to you for a week, just in case,” Cirillo said, and after a moment of looking through the ferry’s registry, “Cabin 25172. Please see a Hospitality Representative for a key.” She turned and headed out of the room but stopped in the doorway. “I’ll see you tomorrow.” Then she was gone, followed by all of the armed Security officers.

  One of the command officers who had accompanied the Captain stayed behind. “I’ll see you off the security deck, then you can be on your way,” she said. The crew stood from their metal chairs and followed her through the byrinth of corridors until they came to a lift that brought them back up to the maintenance deck. Then, she bid them farewell and left them to their own devices.

  Once they were alone, Will turned to the others. “A hell of a day,” to which they all nodded in agreement. “I suppose we need to get back to the Nestia and start cleaning up.”

  “Dals security has already removed the remains of the hijackers, and I’m already cleaning up,” Inta said, pcing her hand on Will’s chest. “You’ve all done enough for today; let me take care of it. Why don’t we find that cabin so I can care for all of you? You look pretty beat and seem to need some TLC,” she said, roping the three of them into a tender group hug, for which they were grateful in light of the morning's excitement. “Come on, let’s go,” Inta said, leading them on.

  ****

  Compaan crawled on his stomach through a cramped access-way, deep in the belly of the ferry, small enough to give a spelunking cave diver custrophobia. It was damp and smelled faintly of oil and burnt wires, and he hated everything about his current situation. As he watched his meticulously pnned strike being executed to perfection, he had been so sure that by this point in time, he would have been on his way to the rendezvous point to inspect his prize.

  The images from his team’s body cams of the ensuing carnage and running gunfight as the operation fell apart, were seared into his mind and, for the thousandth time in a few hours, caused him to shake in rage. He had been meticulous in his pnning but once again was thwarted by his quarry.

  As soon as it was apparent that the operation was lost, he issued the command for ‘pn C’, which unfortunately for his comm operators, required a patsy or two. After arranging the scene, he left the two dead men in convincing poses and slunk away through the maintenance tunnels.

  Calming himself, he continued his belly crawl through the tight passage. After another ten minutes, he emerged from the tight tunnel into a rger void where two of his men were carefully splicing into a bundle of wires spilling out of an opened electrical conduit.

  He decided that the Dals ship schematics he purchased were worth every coin he spent. After careful study, he found dozens of simir spaces in the inner workings of the ferry, all near critical systems that he could take advantage of.

  “Is the rest of the team out of sight?” Compaan asked his men.

  The man who was not elbow-deep in wiring turned to him. “Yeah, Boss. They’re all in their spots and have begun digging in.”

  “And did you make contact with the others? How many ships will be ready?” Compaan asked impatiently.

  “All of them.” the man said ftly.

  “The first bit of good news all day,” Compaan said, a wicked smile slowly stretching across his face.

  ****

  The cabin door control chirped, and the small indicator light blinked green, indicating it had been successfully unlocked. Ben pushed the door open and entered, followed by June and Will. Inta closed the door behind her, and as soon as they entered the small sitting room, all but Inta dropped heavily onto the furniture, exhausted.

  She smiled and softly patted Will’s shoulder as she passed, heading into the kitchen looking for refreshments for her weary lovers. Rummaging through the fridge, she found what she was looking for. “Looks like they stocked up on all the essentials. There’s a bottle of red, some fruity dessert wine, and a couple of six-packs of ger. Who wants what?”

  “The red, please,” June called out, slumping on the couch next to Ben.

  “Same,” Will and Ben answered, almost in unison. Wine gsses clinked as Inta gathered them and the bottle up and brought them to the sitting room. She handed out the gsses, uncorked the bottle, and then filled each gss with a generous portion before sitting on the couch, squeezing in between June and Ben.

  Ben took a sip of his drink and rubbed Inta’s thigh through her blue and white sundress. “They made quite a mess of the faux shuttle. How long do you think it will take us to put it right?”

  “ Most of the damage was superficial, a day at the most,” Inta replied, throwing her arms around June and Ben’s shoulders. “I’m already working on it.” She smiled and squeezed June and Ben tight, who then id their heads on her shoulders.

  Will smiled at seeing his family sitting across from him, safe, snuggling close, and looking contented. Inta caught him watching, then re-crossed her legs, briefly fshing the bounty between her legs, smiling suggestively.

  “Insatiable,” Will chuckled aloud. “If I weren’t so exhausted and sore, I’d ravage you right now," he said as his cock stirred in his pants. He saw a glint in her eye as a thought came to the silver girl.

  “I know just the thing to treat my poor, tired Loves,” Inta said, extricating herself from the couch to stand. She slid the low coffee table to one side, then stood back to visually inspect the space before them. “Just enough room, I think,” she said as three waist-high silver-covered tables slipped out of 4-D, materializing in the space she made. The silver flowed off like a withdrawn curtain, revealing three massage tables with soft white cushions.

  “After today’s excitement, you all need some pampering. So finish up your wine, and I’ll give you a nice rub down.”

  “Oooh, a spa day,” June said as she gulped down her wine and stood. Inta went to her and pulled her close, kissed her tenderly, then began to help her undress. Ben and Will watched with hungry eyes as Inta pulled June’s shirt up over her head, revealing her pin white sports bra, which followed swiftly afterward, leaving her upper body and pert breasts exposed. Inta traced the lines of June’s silver tattoos down her sides, then up her soft belly, taking each breast in hand, squeezing gently, and tweaking her already hard nipples.

  That earned Inta a moan as June’s eye fluttered closed for a moment, reveling in the sensation. As she undid June’s pants and shimmied them down over her ass, two more silver girls stepped out of 4-D space in front of Will and Ben, helping them to their feet. Inta undressed Will and Ben with the same slow efficiency, caressing their skin as it was revealed, depositing the articles of clothes on their empty seats.

  “On your bellies, please,” Inta requested, guiding them to the massage tables. She helped Ben to the middle table, Will and June to either side, then arranged their limbs in neutral positions as they settled their faces in the hollow of the head supports.

  Inta paused for a moment, taking in the beauty of their naked bodies, id out for her like a banquet feast. The intricate silver design across their skin was a delightful reminder that they were hers and that she belonged to them.

  Once they were arranged and rested comfortably on the cushioned tables, Inta rubbed and gently squeezed their trapezius and shoulder muscles. All three groaned involuntarily under her expert ministrations as she sought out light or bunched knot of muscle and kneaded it until it released its tension. As her hands worked across the skin of their backs, working her way southward, her palms left a thin, silvery slick sheen, secreting small amounts of pre-cursor fluid, using it as massage oil.

  Her skilled hands worked down their backs, vacilted between loosening knots and light, gentle stroking, as much for her pleasure as to release serotonin, soaking their brains in the wonderful feel-good neurotransmitter. Inta was enraptured by the feel of their bodies beneath her fingers; June’s athletic muscuture hiding just underneath her soft feminine curves, hips fring out to the perfect-rounded, peach-shaped ass; Will’s broad and rounded shoulders and the rippling muscles of his back tapering to a vee just above his tight ass; Ben’s thin and wiry frame, belying the hidden strength he possessed.

  Ever the consummate multi-tasker, the multiple forms of Inta stroked, worked, and worshiped their bodies with more attention than three individuals could have, attending to each little curve and every tight muscle until their entire world shrank to the loving silver hands on their bodies.

  “I hope you are enjoying this as much as I am,” Inta said in a low sultry tone as she finished massaging their asses and moved down to the backs of their legs. A barely verbal chorus of, “Mmm Hmm,” and the extreme contentment she felt pouring off them was confirmation that they were. She meticulously rubbed the silvery lotion into their feet, paying close attention to the arches of their feet, heels, and balls of their toes.

  “All done on this side, now to flip you over.” They were surprised when each of the Intas sprouted two more sets of arms and then effortlessly supported their weight as she gingerly rotated them to y on their backs, like some Hindu goddess from ancient Earth. Now, six skillful silver hands worked up each of their bodies from their toes, heading north. A calf at a time was supported in the air by two hands while four other hands squeezed and massaged in a rippling fashion. Their thighs were given the same treatment, Inta rolling and kneading their flesh. All of her hands stroked and caressed their bellies and chests, with extra attention paid to firm pectorals, soft breasts, and sensitive nipples. Though she could feel that her attention on June’s nipples affected her more than the boys, they were not immune, as evidenced by their stiffening cocks.

  Inta’s three forms bent over each of her lovers wordlessly, tenderly holding their faces and softly kissing their lips. Will, June, and Ben reached up and embraced the silver body caressing them, returning the kiss with fiery passion.

  But Inta could feel how weary they were, so instead of the full sexual romp she was always ready for, Inta settled on giving each of them their ‘happy ending’, then helped them off the padded tables and sent them off to the shower with a pyful swat on the ass as they left. After showers, June, Ben, and Will climbed into the king-size bed, slipped under the sheets, and swiftly fell asleep.

  After the massage, Inta picked up and sent her other two forms away into 4-D space. Then, after giving all three a peck on the cheek, she carefully climbed into the rge bed between Ben and June. She y there and smiled, listening to the slow, measured pace of their quiet breathing.

  ****

  Inta followed Joe behind the bar, helping him carry a couple of trays of freshly washed gsses from the kitchen. Trixie sat a few stools away, folding napkins, and Inta handed gsses to Joe, who put them away in preparation for opening for the night.

  “I can’t wait,” Trixie said, pcing a neatly folded napkin on the stack and reaching into the small linen basket for another. They’ve finally lifted the curfew, which means all of the best te-night parties will be popping back up soon.”

  “You know Dals Command was just being cautious, right?” the burly bartender said to the blue-haired waitress, continuing to put away the gsses Inta handed him.

  “I know, but the best way to honor the dead is to live, and in my book, the only way to live is to have the best time possible.” Trixie pced another napkin on the stack. “Everyone knows that the private cabin parties blow away anything happening at the clubs. They close down at eleven. Eleven! God knows that this ferry needs to blow off some steam after the st two weeks.”

  “I think this has more to do with the fact that you haven’t been able to spend any time with your ‘mystery couple’ than the general well-being of the passengers,” Joe decred as Trixie carefully tucked the stack of napkins under the waitress station.

  “If you got as well fucked by Daniel and Belinda as I do, you’d be as eager to see them again as I am.” Trixie sighed, a dreamy look pstered on her face.

  “Ah, so that’s why you’re so bubbly tonight,” Joe deduced, grinning widely. “You have a date tonight.”

  “Yup,” She chirped happily. “You know, Inta, they’ve been asking me if I know anyone who’d be interested in a foursome,” she wiggled her brows mischievously. “They are hot as fuck and know how to have a good time. You should come with me tonight.”

  Inta beamed a sacious grin at the blue-haired girl. “That would be incredible. I love ‘meeting’ new people,” she said in a breathy voice.

  Trixie’s grin grew into a bright smile. “Oh, they’re gonna love you.” Joe shook his head from side to side and chuckled at the two.

  The trio's preparations were interrupted by light rapping on the gss door at the front of the house. Inta went over and peered through the blinds to see who it was; then her expression brightened when she saw De’noke’s looming form waiting patiently. Inta quickly unlocked the door, flung it open, and rushed to hug him. Her arms barely made it around his waist as she squeezed him tight, feeling his seemingly ever-present monster erection carefully hidden beneath his robes. He returned her warm embrace, then asked, “Are you busy? I need to ask you something.”

  “Not at all, come in,” Inta said, ushering him inside the still-empty lounge. De’noke ducked his head as he stepped through the doorway and followed Inta to the bar.

  “Joe, Trixie, this is De’noke,” she introduced him to her co-workers.

  “Nice to meet you,” Joe greeted him pleasantly.

  “Why, hello, De’noke,” Trixie said, undisguisedly surveying De’noke. Inta didn’t mention she was dating someone so tall and handsome.” Then, turning to Inta, without lowering her voice, she said, “Is it true about Toparians…” she said while holding her hands apart about a foot and a half.

  De’noke’s face turned a deep shade of red, so Inta gently nudged Trixie back in the direction of the bar, giggling. “That’s enough of that. Why don’t you go fold some more napkins or something.," sparring De’noke further embarrassment. Inta took him by the elbow and led him over to an empty section of the restaurant and away from the flirty Trixie, who sported a Cheshire cat grin as she folded more napkins.

  “So what brings you here tonight, De’noke?” Inta said, still smiling from Trixie’s antics.

  “Well, erm, ah,” De’noke stammered, still flustered by how close to the truth of De’noke’s feelings for Inta Trixie had unintentionally been. He had spent much time with Inta recently, meeting daily to discuss Toparian history. He found her fascinating in more ways than one; she was kind and attentive, and she was insightful and thought-provoking during their long conversations. He was keenly interested in her personal history, where she had been alive when his archeological digs were built and used. But most of all, she was a lovely woman, and De’noke found that his ptonic affection for her was growing into something more.

  “Pi’natha knows how curious you are about everything Toparian and has a fondness for you, so she has invited you to witness an event very special to the Grove. Bi’candra and Larce’s time of Seeding is done and will give birth this evening. Would you like to be there when it happens?” He asked her.

  Inta was pleasantly surprised that the Grove would want to include her on such a special occasion. “De’noke, I don’t know what to say, except that I’d be honored.” She smiled and reached out to hold his hand. He blushed slightly, then smiled. “When will it happen?”

  “Anytime now, likely within an hour or two. I know this is sudden, but it is difficult to predict, these things happen at their own pace.” De’noke apologized.

  “It makes me happy that the Grove wants to include me.” Inta squeezed De’noke’s rge hands. “I’ll go check in with Del and ask her to cover for me; I’m sure she’ll understand.” She left him standing alone in the front of the restaurant while she talked with her coworkers.

  De’noke watched from the distance as Inta talked animatedly to everyone at the bar, though he couldn’t hear what Inta was saying. Suddenly, the blue-haired girl let out an excited squeal, which brought Del out from the back office. They talked indistinctly for a short while until Del grabbed an apron and shooed Inta off with a smile and a wave of her hands.

  Inta bounded back to De’noke with a gleeful smile, and it struck him how beautiful she was, full of boundless joy and a strange innocence, especially given the fact that she may be the oldest sentient being in the gaxy. She was a delight and made De’noke’s heart lighter despite the difficulties he and Pi’natha faced.

  “She is something special, isn’t she, Lover.” Pi’natha’s voice whispered in his mind.

  “Indeed she is My Heart. Indeed she is.”

  ****

  No one was in the sitting room as De’noke and Inta passed through, and all of the Seed in their pods were secure in the protective case on their shelving. De’noke lightly slid his fingers along the shelving as they passed and walked through the curtain held open by Brother Sa’lixe, who fell in behind them as they entered the circle of the Grove.

  Most everyone was gathered around Bi’candra’s trunk, still holding Larce’s massively pregnant form within. They chatted excitedly with Os’tryve, the father of this pairing, who lovingly stroked Bi’candra’s skin and beamed proudly with anticipation of the imminent arrivals.

  Inta followed De’noke over to stand next to Pi’natha’s massive trunk. She towered over him, making the massive man seem small in comparison. He leaned into her wide trunk, pressed his cheek against her smooth skin, and closed his eyes. Inta was touched by their tender bond; his simple gesture of caring melted Inta’s heart. Inta detected the slightest pinching of his brow as she watched him furrowed in concern. Her attention focused on Pi’natha herself. She noted that her multi-hued skin seemed much less effervescent than the st time Inta saw her, and she thought she detected a slight droop in her branches.

  Her observations were interrupted by Os’tryve’s excited cries. “It’s happening! It’s happening! Quick, someone get me the towels! The bowl of water! Hurry!” He frantically pleaded. Several brothers ran off in search of the requested items as the buzz of anticipation emanating from the members of the Grove ratcheted up a notch. Inta and De’noke stood apart, watching the proceedings next to Pi’natha.

  “Os’tryve seems a bit… crazed,” Inta observed.

  “These are Brother Os’tryve’s first Seeds,” De’noke conspiratorially whispered into Inta’s ear.

  “It is normal for a Brother’s first Seeding to be an anxious affair,” Pi’natha said through De’noke’s lips. “He worries for the safety of the Mother, Maiden, and Seeds, and is trying to make up for his inexperience. It is much the same for each of us, the first time. I find it quite endearing,” Pi’natha said with gentle amusement.

  The buzz from the gathered Brothers reached a fevered pitch as Inta noticed seams form in Bi’candra’s skin and began to open like blooming lotus petals. “She is emerging,” De’noke said quietly. Os’tryve stood in front of Bi’candra and disrobed, standing naked in preparation for Larce’s emergence. The seams opened wider, revealing overying yers of skin, each folding away until they parted, spilling a torrent of whiteish fluid on the ground and all over Os’tryve.

  The parted yers of flesh revealed Larce, heavily pregnant and covered head to toe in the thick whitish fluid, held in a tight embrace by an uncountable number of soft, thick tendrils. Inta noticed that her eyes were closed and that there were several thick tendrils slowly sliding out of her mouth, pussy, and ass. Once the long tendril left her mouth, Larce coughed and sputtered, drawing a ragged breath.

  Os’tryve reached in and gently embraced Larce as Bi’candra’s inner tendrils released her to his care. He turned and carefully id Larce on the ground in the puddle of white fluid and quickly gestured for a towel and bowl, wetted the towel in the bowl of water, then tenderly washed her face. “It’s time to push, My Love," he whispered to Larce. Brother Ru’brume propped her legs up, spread her four knees, and kneeled between them, his robe absorbing some of the fluid on the ground.

  Larce’s eyes snapped open, and her face contorted in pain as she grunted and bore down, beginning to push the first seed from her body. Inta watched in fascination as the outline of a solid lump traveled down her pelvis as the rge seed crowned out her opening. With a final push, she expelled it into Ru’brume’s waiting hands. He held the first seed over his head, still dripping with thick fluid, and the rest of the Brothers roared in a loud cheer. Inta stared at the newborn Seed in his upraised hands, and she saw a tiny, sparkling spark of life shimmering in its center. Tears welled in her eyes as she reached around De’noke’s waist and held him tight. “Thank you so much for letting me be a part of this. It’s so beautiful.” He was surprised at her affection, then rexed into it, put an arm around her silver shoulders, and pressed her to him.

  The Brothers helped Larce give birth to the other two Seeds and carried them away to be cared for. Now completely spent, Larce y limply in Os’tryve’s four massive arms as he lifted and brought her back to Bi’candra, her folds still closing up. Larce pced three fingers on Os’tryve’s lip, which he kissed, and then she kissed them and pced their kisses upon Bi’Candra’s smooth skin. Inta could feel the waves of love and gratitude from the three wash over her, and tears again flowed from her eyes. Then Os’tryve carried off Larce to help her get cleaned up and settled in for a well-deserved rest.

  De’noke and Inta remained in the circle of the Grove with Pi’natha after everyone had left. “Soon, that will be you and Pi’natha,” Inta said dreamily.

  A dark and worried expression crossed De’noke’s face. “I Hope so. Developing Seeds takes a heavy physical toll on a Mother’s body and Pi’natha has been carrying hers longer than anyone I’ve ever known. In rare instances, if a Mother is forced to carry her Seeds for too long, the Mother’s vitality can be drawn out to an extent where she won’t survive the process. I am concerned that our circumstances here have pced Pi’natha at considerable risk. I pray that Larce recovers quick enough to Seed with us before Pi’natha’s condition worsens.”

  De’noke pced a palm on Pi’natha’s trunk, his concern and worry etched on his face. Then, putting on a brave face, “Let’s not darken this auspicious occasion with morose thoughts. This is a time to celebrate.” De’noke then led Inta where the others were merry-making, and as they made their way out of the circle of the Grove, Inta looked back at Pi’natha and could have sworn she saw her branches sag ever so slightly.

  ****

  Commander Cirrilo strode purposefully across the deck of the maintenance hangar, mechanics and engineers working on equipment all around her, giving her the impression of a busy hive of bees in their nest. After two weeks, no trace remained of the vicious gun battle except for the psychic wounds that would take much longer to heal.

  She approached the Nestia, as she had done every day since the Captain had instructed her to, with an air of professionalism and seriousness that she deemed fitting for the circumstances. As she climbed the short set of stairs, the shuttle’s entry door melted open in the weird fashion that she had already become accustomed to.

  “Good Evening," she said as she stepped through the doorway, spying on Ben and Will sitting on a couch in the small sitting area. While reading something on his tablet, Will reclined in a corner of a sofa, his ankle crossed over his other knee. Ben rose to meet Cirrilo and crossed the distance to shake her hand, as he had done on every previous visit.

  “Good Evening, it's nice to see you,” Ben greeted her. “Please make yourself comfortable and sit," he said, gesturing to the opposite couch. Then he sat next to Will.

  “Thank you,” she replied, sitting on the edge of the cushion, spine straight and stiff. “I trust you received the Q-net terminal you requested.” She stated, more than asked.

  “Yes, we did. Thank you. It was delivered this morning. We should have it installed sometime tomorrow,” Ben said graciously.

  “I apologize for the dey. In matters of material and equipment, the Quartermaster has equal authority and it took time and many calls to Headquarters with his supervisor to get him to relent.” It seemed to Ben that Cirrilo’s tone was lighter than usual, and he thought her smile would be even more beautiful if she let herself rex.

  “Okay, Mr. Toucuar you know the drill. What were your activities for the day, and where did you go on the ship?” She began.

  “Ben please, for the hundredth time. Can I get you something to drink, tea?” he asked, momentarily deflecting from the same questions she asked him every day for the st two weeks.

  “Alright, Ben,” Cirrilo emphasized his first name with a hint of a smile at the corners of her mouth, rexing her posture slightly. “Some tea would be nice. But now, what have you been up to since the st time we spoke?”

  They had barely finished mentioning tea when Inta sauntered out from the bunkroom, wearing clothes to Ben’s relief, carrying a small tray holding a steaming teapot and three cups. She handed one to Will and poured him some tea, which he thanked her for with a quick peck on the cheek. Ben and Cirrilo accepted Inta’s teacups, and then she poured tea for Cirrilo and Ben.

  “So what’s your deal?” She asked Inta. “Butler, maid…” she trailed off, already suspecting the truth.

  Inta gave her a wide, disarming smile. “Mmm hmm. I’m the ship’s butler, maid, janitor, and a little bit more,” she said, giving her a flirty wink, eliciting one raised eyebrow from Cirrilo. Then Inta’s expression grew serious, and Cirrilo suddenly felt examined under the gaze of Inta’s silver and glowing blue eyes, as if the entirety of her being were id bare, weighed, and judged by the short silver girl.

  Inta’s expression brightened, and Cirrilo unexpectedly felt relieved that she had passed whatever inspection she had just endured.

  “Ben, my Love, why don’t you give the Commander a tour of the ship?” Inta said sweetly.

  Will looked up from his tablet wordlessly, eyebrows raised in surprise.

  “Really?” Ben asked, turning to Inta to make sure he heard her correctly. She nodded and smiled, indicating that she knew what she was talking about and that it would be yummy.

  Cirrilo watched the exchange between Inta and Ben and voiced her confusion. “I have already inspected your shuttle; I don’t think there is a need to do so again.”

  Ben started slowly. “We haven’t been completely forthright with you. We’ve been through a lot recently, and find it better to keep some things close to the vest. But Inta likes you and she’s an excellent judge of character," he told her.

  She raised a hand to stop him. “It’s quite alright. Many small vessels like this one have secret cubbies for hiding things from prying eyes. The Captain and I are well aware that you probably have a few more weapons stashed away, and have agreed that we’re not going to bother you about them.”

  Inta grinned at Cirrilo, knowing Ben was about to blow her mind.

  “Let me show you anyway," he said as he got up and went over to the bnk spot on the wall next to the Engineer’s seat. This is going to be a little weird.”

  A door melted open, and from where she was sitting, Cirrilo could make out a hallway beyond the door that shouldn’t be there. Staring, she slowly set the cup down and walked over to Ben and the open door.

  “Huh,” was all Cirrilo said as she followed Ben through the doorway into the impossible corridor beyond.

  ****

  Cirrilo stood looking into the enormous, opaque white sphere of Nestia's power core. She found the soft blues and greens of the aurora shining through it mesmerizing and puzzled how the darker-than-bck core at its center could shine through, too. Ben reclined in one of the seats for the core control panel and marveled at Cirrilo’s beauty as much as she seemed to marvel at the power core.

  Ben had led Cirrilo through the ship, stopping on the Bridge, showing off the new kitchen, and eventually making their way down to the Engineering compartment. Inta and Will had followed Ben and Cirrilo at the beginning of the tour, somewhere between the Bridge and Engineering they had detoured, and judging by the echoes of Inta’s pleasure in the back of his mind, he had a pretty good guess as to what they had gotten up to.

  Thea Cirrilo had seen many of the universe's oddities over her career. Ten years in the navy and five for the Ferry Service, this by far was the oddest.“This is simply astounding,” Cirrilo decred, “I’ve never seen anything like this,” she said, gesturing widely to everything in the room, then spotted the jerry-rigged computer cluster of circuit boards and wire. “Except for this. This I recognize; it’s a computer core from a Delta css freighter, right? What’s it doing here?” She asked, curious about the out-of-pce equipment.

  “I don’t know if ‘salvaged’ is the right word, more like ‘rescued’, but when we found the Nestia, the power core was dead and cold and the control matrix that manages the ship, including the power core, was on its st reserves,” Ben expined, delicately dancing around the details. “The power core can put out a lot of energy, quasar star levels, but with the control matrix in a weakened state, unable to manage the dark matter instabilities in the core, we had to find a workaround.”

  Ben reached over and patted the top of the ad-hoc control system. “This system can manage the core instabilities at the low power levels we’re running now, but is woefully inadequate at higher levels.”

  “So you’re working over the main control matrix, getting it back up to snuff, and until then, you’re running on this backup controller.” Thea summarized.

  “I’ll say you're working me over,” Inta pyfully whispered into Ben’s earpiece, causing him to blush.

  Ben cleared his throat. “That right. The truth is we’re running on a shoestring budget in a lot of ways. We don’t have much money, and we’ve been running in ‘ultra-low power mode’ this entire time. We barely had enough energy to make it to Penrose station and we were only a few lightyears away. That’s why we’re taking the ferry to Centrailia instead of flying ourselves. We’re hoping that while we’re aboard the Dals we can get the ‘control matrix’ to a point where she can handle the core at higher power levels.”

  The infamous Commander Thea Cirrilo, normally professional and stoic, was wide-eyed with wonder, captivated by Ben’s story of their plucky little group trying to make their way in a big gaxy against all odds. She had watched all of the video pyback of their tangle with hijackers and found herself enamored by their ability to overcome in the face of adversity.

  Shaking herself from her musings, “Would it be possible to see your control matrix?” Cirrilo asked, wanting to understand everything about this fascinating ship.

  “Sure, it’s this way,” Ben said, getting up from his seat. They rode the lift to the next deck, and Ben caught the light scent of Cirrilo’s savory, herbal shampoo in the air, which he drank in. The lift opened, and he led her down the hallway to the door at the end. The way the doors melted open on Nestia no longer surprised Cirrilo, but the view of the interior of the room took her breath away.

  They stood marveling at the crystalline form behind the transparent barrier before them, and Thea Cirrilo was once again mesmerized by the oddly beautiful sight of the ship’s inner workings. A small but healthy-looking Blueish lightning fshed around the crystal's fractal network, its pale light shining on their faces.

  Ben gestured to the two cushioned chairs across from the fshing crystal, and then Cirrilo and Ben sat, watching the light show for a few moments in silence.

  “I often come here to sit and read,” Ben said, disturbing their quiet reverie. “I like to be close to the heart of the ship.” Cirrilo smiled at him, then returned to watching the light flicker through the crystal.

  Mustering up a bit of courage, Ben asked, “This has been an unusually long check-in, and I feel that I’ve shared a lot about us; what about you? What’s your story, how did you become ‘Commander Thea Cirrilo’, hard-ass of the ‘Dals’?” Ben asked pyfully.

  Carrilo didn’t answer right away. She was accustomed to keeping everyone at arm's length. Her no-nonsense attitude and fierce reputation aided her efforts to keep people out, protecting her scarred and vulnerable heart. She knew the rough sketches of Ben’s background, so she decided to open up just a little.

  “Believe it or not, my background is not too different from yours. I never knew my father and my mother died when I was very little. I bounced through one miserable foster home after another and eventually fell out of the system and lived on the streets for a time. I managed to avoid getting caught up in any gangs and barely managed to survive on the periphery of society.” She sighed deeply at memories she hadn’t thought about for a long time.

  “During those times I was perpetually hungry, barely eating enough to stay alive. One day I found a soup kitchen giving out meals; my hunger won out over my ego and I went in and got my first hot meal in months. An older dy was volunteering to dle out beans named Janice. She was kind and friendly, and made me feel safe enough to return the next day for a meal and just about every day thereafter.”

  Cirrilo smiled at the memory of Janice. “She took me under her wing, as much as I would allow her, and she would go get a meal from the soup line and eat with me. We’d talk about nothing for hours until the kitchen closed. She made me feel safe, something that I didn’t feel a lot at that time in my life. She told me that she had been a marine before she retired and that I should look into the service. So I joined the Navy a month ter, eventually earning my commission. One thing led to another and here I am.”

  “I had a Janice, too. Her name was Mrs. Jensen,” Ben shared with a smile. “I was involved with the River Rats, a small gang of street kids that operated in her neighborhood. The whole area was a somewhat rundown part of town, so the cops hardly ever came by. The Rats left her alone, mostly because she brought out cookies whenever she saw us. One day, I was alone, walking past her house while she sat on her dipidated porch.

  She called me over and said she had cookies; like you, I rarely got enough to eat, so I stuck around to get some free calories. When she came back out with the cookies, she told me to come up on the porch to get them, and when I did, the railing fell right off. I knew that her husband had died a few years prior and that she was in no shape to be able to take care of it herself, so I told her that if she had tools, I would fix it. She was delighted to have the help and led me into her living room to wait. Then she got a hammer and some nails. While I was waiting, I noticed a rge bookshelf full of books. It seemed to me at the time like an enormous collection, more books than I had seen together in one pce.

  I was fascinated by the bindings and book jackets, so I took one down and started flipping pages. It was a mathematics book, and I was enthralled, going through page by page, devouring the diagrams and associated proofs. I was so focused on the book that I didn’t hear her when she came back into the room. She didn’t say anything for a long while, just watching me with the book. ‘Those used to be my husband’s,’ she said, startling me. She wore a warm smile and told me he would have liked to know that someone was enjoying his books after he had gone. She told me that I could come back anytime to read them if I wanted.

  I fixed her railing and left, but I came back the next day and just about every day for a few months after that. Whenever I showed up, she went to the kitchen, saying, ‘Reading is hungry work,’ and fed me as often as she could.

  Ben paused; his expression became mencholy, then hesitantly continued his story, finding a sort of catharsis in sharing his past.

  “I went to Mrs. Jensen’s house as often as I could, but most of my time was spent running with the River Rats. One day, we were all hanging out in an abandoned warehouse that was our main haunt, and two dozen rough-looking men walked in and calmly announced that the neighborhood was now under their ‘protection’ and that we now worked for them.

  Tommy, one of the wilder boys, told them to fuck off, and one of the men calmly pulled a gun and vaporized his face. His smoldering body hit the ground, and he turned to the rest of us and asked if anyone else had anything smart to say. Petrified, we all shut our mouths and shook our heads no. ‘Good,’ he said, then snapped his fingers, and one of the other men handed him a rge can of paint thinner and a box of matches.

  The man looked at each of us in turn, then shoved the paint thinner into my hands. ‘Burn it down. You won’t be coming back here anymore.’ he said, jerking his head towards the warehouse. Too scared to disobey, I leaned a pile of old wooden pallets against a wall and doused it with the paint thinner. My hands were shaking as I took a match out and, after several attempts, struck the match to fme. I stared at the burning matin between my forefinger and thumb, and then the man yelled, ‘Get on with it.’

  So I did. I dropped the match, and the pile of pallets burst into fmes with a whoosh. ‘Meet us downtown tomorrow at noon, or you’re all dead,’ was the st thing the men said before they left, as the rest of the warehouse quickly caught the fmes climbing up the tall walls.

  After the men left, we all scattered, each of us running to find our spots to hide and think about what the meeting with those men the next day would bring. There was an old dumpster behind a closed market that I sometimes slept behind. When I got there, I id down, curled up tightly on a piece of cardboard, and pulled a dirty bnket over me, and fell asleep. A short while ter, I woke to the sound of sirens and the smell of things burning.”

  Tears were streaming down Ben’s face now, and Thea leaned forward and held his hand, trying to comfort him.

  “I realized that warehouse fire had spread to the next building and the one after that, and in terror, I realized that it was not far from Mrs. Jensen’s house. I ran as fast as I could, but when I got there, the entire house was abze, with fmes pouring out every window. From the street, I could see into the living room and watched as the bookcase burned, then fell over when the first floor colpsed into the basement. I knew Mrs. Jensen hardly ever left her house, and that she was gone. That I had killed her. I cried the whole way back to my dumpster and continued crying all night until the next day. I showed up downtown the next day to meet my new bosses, not because I was afraid they would kill me, but because I felt dead inside, and part of me wanted them to.”

  Ben’s cheeks were wet with tears, but they had stopped flowing. Thea continued to hold his hands with a look of pity on her face.

  “For the next year or so I did a bunch of random jobs for this new gang, and eventually they sold me to a recruiter for Cortez’s organization, ending up in his pirate fleet. When I met June, Will, and Inta, I was ready for death. But instead, they gave me a new life. They accepted me as I was, fws and all. I found the family that I never had.”

  Ben leaned back into his chair and wiped the tears from his cheeks. He let out a big breath, feeling lighter and more at peace, having finally shared the darkest part of himself.

  Thea had listened intently to Ben’s story in silence, seeing in it the life she had narrowly avoided. She leaned forward, reached out, and embraced Ben, giving him a warm, comforting hug. He sobbed again into her shoulder and hugged her back. They clung to each other for a long while, finding comfort from the trauma of a simir past.

  When Ben finally pulled away, Thea continued to hold his hand. “Thank you,” Ben said with puffy eyes.

  “Us street rats need to look after one another,” she replied with a soft smile. After a few moments, Ben composed himself and said, “You’re a busy woman; I think I’ve taken up enough of your time today.” They stood, and he led her from the room, heading to the lift.

  “I’ll be back tomorrow for our next check-in,” Thea reminded him as they entered the lift, and the doors closed behind them.

  Ben looked up into her dark eyes that seemed to sparkle. “Well, your check-ins are usually around dinner time, how about I make something for you? We’ve recently installed a new kitchen and I’ve been looking for an excuse to entertain. What do you say?”

  “It would be an efficient use of my time to have a meal while we check in.” She said pyfully. “Sounds wonderful.”

  The lift opened, and Ben led her back through the faux shuttle to the exterior door. “I’ll see you tomorrow then,” he said with a smile.

  Thea smiled back at him. “Until Tomorrow.” Then she turned, walked down the steps to the maintenance bay deck, and headed off.

  Ben stood in the shuttle’s doorway and watched her walk away until she was out of sight. He turned to go back inside and found Inta standing just behind him. She smiled warmly, took his hand, and led him back into the Nestia as the outer door melted closed behind them.

  ****

  ‘Ole Bessy’ thumped and hummed in the backroom as Gary waited patiently at the book delivery chute.

  Inta, wearing her signature ‘bookstore’ turtleneck, Jyrra in a low-vee-cut red top and skirt, and June, wearing a sheer spaghetti-strap top, all waited for their copies of the book club's next selection.

  “So Sujia picked this one?” Inta asked.

  “Yup. If it's anything like the st one she picked, we're in for a treat. She's a real deviant, that one,” Jyrra said in a mischievous tone, low so Gary couldn't hear her over the noise of Ole Bessy.

  The sounds from the backroom quieted, and three freshly bound books slid out of the chute. Gary handed all three to Inta, who then handed two to June.

  “Hmm, ‘In the Dark of the Station’, sounds interesting,” June commented, reading the title on the pin-looking cover of one of the books as she handed the other to Jyrra.

  “Thanks, Gary. I'm heading out, are you all set to close up?” Inta asked.

  “Quite. I am meeting Martha tonight at bingo, so I'll be heading out early, too. So you have fun, I know I will be!” He said, waving them out the door.

  ****

  When they stepped out of the lift into the hallway to Mary's cabin, it was packed with a festive crowd of people, all seemingly heading to private parties in every cabin on the deck. Inta, June, and Jyrra had to push their way through the crowd to get to Mary’s door.

  “What’s all this?” Inta asked Jyrra as they slowly made their way down the hallway.

  “Word has it that parties near this portion of the passenger cabin section have an extra special something. One of the clever Dals engineers figured out where the epicenter of the ‘sphere of special something’ was, and it just so happens that it’s Mary’s cabin, occurring coincidentally the same time as our book club.” Jyrra raised one eyebrow at Inta, “Could it have anything to do with our very sexy ‘orgasm broadcast station’, I wonder?” The thought of Inta getting all of these people’s rocks off in the surrounding cabins sent the three into a giggling fit that sted right up until they knocked on Mary’s door.

  Mary answered the door, and when she saw them, her already wide smile nearly split her face. “Oh my god! Come in! We’ve been waiting for you!” She ushered them in and shut out the noise of the crowded hallway when she closed the door.

  The others were already lounging, sipping wine when Mary returned to the living room with the te arrivals in tow.

  “Finally!” Lena excimed, swiftly elbowed by her sister Denise. “What? It’s not a party until Inta gets here,” Lena defended herself, rubbing her side. “Besides, I’ve been dying to get into the new book that Sujia picked; she knows a juicy story when she sees it.”

  “Don’t mind her,” Denise said apologetically to Inta. “Lena has no couth, though we are all excited to see you. And you brought a friend!” She said, wrapping June up in a big hug.

  “Everyone, this is June, one of my friends and partner,” Inta said, lightly squeezing June’s hand.

  “I love your tattoos, so cool,” Amelia said, draping one leg over Jyrra’s p as soon as she sat next to her. “Maybe we should get matching tattoos,” she said to Jyrra, brushing her fiery red hair over her shoulder. “Did it hurt a lot?” she asked June.

  “Quite the opposite,” June said, smiling, snaking an arm around Inta’s waist. “But the process is not for the faint of heart.”

  Inta and June squeezed in between Sujia and Mary on the couch, and the group chatted amiably for a few minutes while sipping their wine until Mary decred, “Okay dies, it’s time to start our new book. Sujia, it’s your pick, do you want to start us off?” Inta could feel Sujia’s anticipation and lurking arousal as she turned to the page and began reading.

  ~~~~

  My shuttle ride from the carrier Superion was quick, allowing only the briefest glimpses of the small observation station on which I would be posted alonefor the next three months. Through the forward viewport over the pilot’s shoulder, I could see the retively small, gray-colored cylinder, bristling with antennas and dishes against the backdrop of the massive swirling purples and blues of the nebu that I would be studying.

  I said a quick thank you to the pilot as the shuttle’s and station’s airlock cmped together, then headed to the door to transfer. When the airlock doors opened, I was met by the previous scientist assigned to this post. Being alone for three months, he had elected not to shave and looked a little ragged and disheveled.

  “Johanna Kepler, badge Charlie-Gamma five nine two, here to relieve you,” I said to him ceremoniously.

  “Franklin Beezer, badge Epsilon-Zeta seven seven three, I am relieved," he replied in a simirly mechanical way. We passed each other in the transfer tube connecting the shuttle to the station, and just before the shuttle’s airlock door shut, he said mysteriously, “Keep an ear out for a rattle in one of the subsystems. I couldn’t trace the source, but it didn’t seem to be causing any issues. And it’s best to keep the lights on. Good luck.”

  The airlock doors closed, and then the shuttle detached and slowly moved away from the station, leaving me the sole occupant of the research station. I thought about his odd warning to keep the lights on for a moment, then put it out of my mind as I unpacked my few belongings and settled in for my stay.

  The station’s service records showed that it had been in service for little more than sixty years, sixty-six, to be precise, but had been exceptionally well maintained and didn’t show its age except for the occasional squeaky hinge of a storage cabinet. The walls were a faded but clean white, and the furniture was outdated but in good condition. I went to the bunkroom and found that Franklin had made up the simple cot with hospital corners on the sheets and bnkets. I dropped my duffle bag on the locker at the foot of the bed and set about to make myself at home for the next three months.

  The first few days of my assignment were fairly ordinary, and by my fifth day on the station, I had developed a routine: Wake, light exercise in the morning followed by a small breakfast. Four hours of reviewing the previous day’s collected observation data, then lunch, another five hours of analysis, and observation target selection for the remaining day. Another light round of cardio, dinner, then bed.

  It was the night of the fifth day after I had climbed into bed and was almost asleep when I heard the odd rattle somewhere deep in the station’s systems that Franklin had mentioned when he departed. I grabbed a nearby fshlight and headed down to the Engineering deck wearing only my pin white panties and a loose-fitting tee shirt that I usually slept in.

  I climbed down the dder to the Engineering deck and was surrounded by the sounds of the motors and servos of the various systems that supported the station functions. I heard the rattle again down the corridor away from the dder, so I walked in the direction of the sound, not exactly knowing what I was looking for, but as I got closer, the rattling stopped, so I stood for a moment listening for the sound in the half-light of the inner recesses of the Engineer compartment.

  Instead of the mechanical rattle I heard earlier, a deep, masculine voice resonated from a darkened corner. “Mmm, a female. How delightful.”

  A chill ran up my spine as I waved my light back and forth into the dark corners, looking for the source of the voice. “Who’s there?” I called in an unsteady voice but received no response. Twenty minutes of searching every corner, every nook, and cranny between, behind, and beneath the machinery revealed nothing, so with no small amount of unease, I made my way back to the dder and returned to the bunk room.

  I closed the door and doused the overhead light, leaving on a dim nightlight, so I wouldn’t stub my toes, then slid under the sheets and into bed. Willing myself to rex, I forced myself to breathe in and out using my often-practiced calming technique, and eventually, the tension left my body. I was on the edge of sleep when I heard the unmistakable sound of the door tch opening and closing, and my eyes snapped open, scanning the room for the intruder, but I was still the sole occupant of the room.

  I y still under my bnkets for a long time, straining for the sound of anything that might be out of pce but could detect nothing. I y my head back on the pillow and soon drifted towards sleep when I caught a surprising scent of wildflowers, not unlike those from my teenage summers at my parents' cabin back home.

  The scent was warm and inviting, and my mind drifted back in time to one summer when I met a boy, Mathew. He was handsome, funny, and had caught my eye. We hung out together for several weeks that summer, and one evening, while we were lying in a field of wildflowers on our backs watching the stars, he leaned over and asked, ‘Can I touch you?’ I coyly assented, and he pced his hand on my stomach, then slowly slid it up under my shirt and squeezed my breast, pying with my nipple; my arousal rose, my core warming and pussy slickening with strong desire.

  With my eyes closed, the memory of that moment with Mathew was so clear in my mind that I swore that I felt his hand on my breast again, but then my mind returned to the present and still felt a groping presence on my breast and my panties wet with the evidence of my desire.

  I sat up and swatted away the presence under my tee shirt, and then the intoxicating scent of wildflowers grew stronger, causing me to moan as I felt my juices flow freely down my thighs.

  “Do not be afraid,” the same masculine voice from earlier said, very close to close to my bed. I grabbed my fshlight and shined it around the room but saw nothing. The voice continued. “I have no intention of harming you. It has been a long time since I have mated a woman.” My mind spun at the statement. The voice continued, “I can give you more pleasure than you have ever had; if you allow it.” His voice radiated a need that matched the ache building between my legs. The scent of wildflowers drove my desire into overdrive, causing me to ignore the oddness of the situation.

  “I, I want to see you; I need to see you,” I stammered.

  “As you wish.” As I shined my fshlight into the empty space of the room, a rge form shimmered into view: dark gray, soft, and round, with hundreds of long, thick tentacles waving in the air. But I saw only his eyes, rge and round, full of need and desire. Desire for me and my body. The scent of wildflowers intensified, and so did my lust and need for satisfaction.

  “Yes, oh God, yes! Take me, use me, I need to feel you in me!” I cried out, my need beyond my control. His tentacles gently coiled around my waist, arms, and legs; they carefully cradled my head as he removed my tee shirt and sopping wet panties. Tentacles curled around both of my breasts, the tips flicking and pying with my already hard nipples. Several tentacles rubbed the apex of my inner thighs, stimuting my clit with just the right amount of friction, smearing my wetness along their length as they ground into my pussy.

  ~~~~

  As the women of the book club took turns reading, Inta felt their arousal grow. Sujia’s need had spiked almost as soon as they started reading; Inta guessed that she had already read the book, and this was her specific kink. Sujia's eyes were closed, her head resting on the back of the couch, and her hand in her pants moved frantically as she squirmed in her seat.

  Inta drank in the Asian woman’s pleasure and couldn’t help but amplify it, sending waves of erogenous energy out, washing over the women in the room. Inta felt their answering waves of desire and need, feeding off their responses as well, completing the feedback loop of continuously increasing arousal. In the distance, she felt responses from the revelers in the other cabins all around her, echoing her increasing desire, though she felt the women of the book club more strongly than the distant partygoers having forged close connections with these dies.

  Around the room, as Denise read how the heroine succumbed to the ravaging wiles of the space station’s tentacle beast, the book club members enhanced their enjoyment of the story with make-out sessions with the person next to them. Zoraya’s wrapped her tall, thin frame around Lena, kissing and nibbling her neck, while Lena shimmied up Zoraya’s skirt, exposing her thong, and grabbed handfuls of blue-skinned ass cheeks.

  Amelia climbed atop Jyrra, straddling her p, and passionately kissed Jyrra beneath a curtain of curly red hair, obscuring both their faces. While fiercely returning Amelia’s wild kisses, Jyrra had a hand in Amelia’s yoga pants, vigorously fingering her girlfriend while massaging her breast and tweaking her nipple with the other hand. June and Mary were simirly engaged; each had a hand in the pants of the other, moaning into each other’s mouths as they kissed.

  On the couch next to Inta, Sujia was lost in a world of her own, head back, eyes closed, with one hand in her pants, the other crushing her nipple. She continued listening to Denise narrate the story, clearly imagining she was in the heroine role, being used by the story’s tentacle beast.

  Inta had a wicked idea. She leaned over, pulled Sujia’s face to hers, and kissed her passionately. Sujia returned the kiss immediately and pulled Inta’s body on top of hers, needing to be smothered by her warmth. As her body pressed Sujia into the couch, she formed several silver tentacles that snaked down the bottom of her sundress and wound their way up Sujia’s legs, around her arms, and her waist. Being ‘the gaxy’s best multi-tasker’, Inta had no problem directing each silvery tentacle to caress Sujia’s body in the most sensually pleasing manner possible.

  As Inta’s silver tentacles slipped inside Sujia’s clothing, encircling her breasts and rubbing her wet spot and clit, Sujia’s eyes went wide and wild with desire, cried out, “Oh yes Inta! Just like that, Oh Fuuuck! Tear my clothes off! Ravage me!”

  Needing no further encouragement, Inta flexed her new appendages and effortlessly shredded Sujia's clothes, letting them fall to the floor as her sundress and turtleneck melted away, leaving every inch of her silver flesh exposed.

  Denuded, Sujia moaned loudly and grabbed one of Inta’s loose tentacles and roughly shoved it in her mouth, vigorously fetiating it. Sensing what she desired, Inta roughly shoved thick, writhing tentacles into Sujia’s slick, wet pussy, stretching her channel as far as it would go. She arched her back and shuddered as she came hard on Inta’s tentacle, her eyes rolling into the back of her head even as she continued to suck and lick the thick tendril in her mouth.

  Denise stopped reading, lowered her book, watched Inta and Sujia's live-action hentai, and compined loudly, “Where are my tentacles?!” Not breaking her liplock on Sujia, the skin on Inta’s back rippled, and a dozen meaty, silver tentacles shot across the room and simirly bound Denise.

  “Do it, Inta! Let me have it!” She encouraged, and Inta complied, shredding Denise’s clothes and forcefully penetrated her dripping wet cunt. “Stuff all my holes! Give it all to me!” She screamed, without pausing the thrusting tentacle in Denise’s pussy, stuffed one down her throat, causing her to choke and gag, her eyes watering, and pushed a meaty tentacle relentlessly up into her ass. Triple penetrated, Denise twisted and shook in divine ecstasy as she, too, came undone.

  The shuddering orgasms of the two women impaled on her tentacles pushed Inta over the edge, and her orgasm rose and consumed her. As her climax took her, she shot thick pseudo cum out of every tentacle; the loose ones sprayed the room, and the occupied ones filled the holes of the women so much that it leaked out in jet-like spurts around the tentacles in their pussies. They gagged on the volume filling their throats and mouths, causing them to choke and sputter as it leaked out past their lips and up and out their nostrils.

  Inta’s cock, pressed between her body and Sujia’s but unsheathed in the flesh of a woman, bsted torrents of the thick white gunk up the front of Sujia’s body, completely covering her breasts and face with the mother of all pearl neckces.

  The orgasmic wave flew off Inta and crashed over the other women of the book club, touching off their orgasms, which echoed back and re-invigorated Inta’s climax, not letting her descend from its peak. The erogenous energy broadcasted through the walls of Mary’s cabin, and a thousand echos of shared orgasms streamed back to Inta, driving her further into a frenzy.

  Even before they could come down from their collective orgasm, Sujia broke her lip lock with Inta and cried out in need, “More! More! More!” Inta sprouted dozens more tentacles from all over her body, all waving and writhing in the air in search of soft, warm, wet targets.

  She withdrew the tentacle from Sujia’s pussy and stuffed it in her ass, then sank her cock into the depths of Sujia’s pussy before she could compin of the emptiness. Inta proceeded to fuck Sujia hard, rocking her back onto the now cum stained couch, and throat fucked her with a free tentacle.

  The forest of free tentacles shed out, wrapping up the rest of the women and tore their clothes off, then plunged into every avaible hole, sawing back and forth with a vigorous pace. The book club’s orgasms popped off like fireworks, a staccato burst of overwhelming sensation, setting off Inta again, who drenched the women in rivers of white spoodge.

  The echos of a thousand distant orgasms reacting to Inta’s, sent her spirally into a cycle of fucking the book club to orgasm, orgasming herself, then again when she felt the echo of the revelers in adjacent cabins. It was debauched, filthy, and primal, and she loved every second of it. If this wasn’t heaven, Inta didn’t know what was.

  ****

  The crackling lightning of Inta's essence shined a soft blue light from the crystalline matrix as Will, Ben, and Inta sat comfortably in Ben’s reading corner aboard the Nestia, sipping tea and chatting amiably with Thea Cirrilo about the musical acts scheduled to perform during the coming weekend. She told herself that her decision to extend her visits longer than her previous fifteen-minute check-ins was out of concern for Ben’s mental well-being and nothing more.

  “You haven’t lived until you’ve been to a ‘Cosmic Gravel’ concert,” Thea procimed. “They’ve been on the top of the charts for a solid decade now. I can’t tell you how excited I was when I saw that they were traveling on the Dals and had agreed to perform mid-cruise.”

  Will and Ben raised an eyebrow at each other, noting the Cheshire-cat smile Inta was wearing and the orgiastic echoes she was broadcasting. Will thought to himself it was exceedingly unfair and pyfully decided that he would teach her the error of her ways. As he daydreamed of bending Inta over some furniture, Ben let Inta’s energy wash over him as he listened intently to Thea as she shared her top ten list of musical acts.

  Inta’s smile disappeared and was repced by one of confusion, then concern.

  “What’s up?” Will asked, noting her change of demeanor.

  “I just detected one of the Toparian Brothers running at a full sprint towards us. I’m going to go see what is going on. I’ll let you know what’s up in a minute," she said, pointing to her ear and indicating she would tell them over comms. She excused herself, and went up to the faux shuttle, and opened the door just as Ti’me galloped up the steps in the odd swaying stride of the four-legged Toparians.

  Ti’me’s expression was one of extreme worry, and before he could catch his breath and expin, Inta asked, “What’s the matter Ti’me? Is something wrong? Is it De’noke?”

  Not knowing how else to reach her, he had run the entire way down to the Maintenance Bay. “Not De’noke, Pi’natha.” He said between panted breaths. “She’s in a bad way. De’noke is beside himself. We’ve tried everything we can think of to help her but nothing has worked. De’noke thought that maybe you could help because your people were once close to ours. I’m scared for her, Inta,” Ti’me said, on the verge of tears.

  “Guy’s, I need to go and help De’noke and Pi’natha if I can. I’ll update you on what’s going on as soon as I can.” She told Will and Ben over their earpieces. Figuring there wasn’t a moment to spare, Inta took Ti’me’s hand. “Hang on Ti’me, we’re going to take a shortcut back to the Grove. This will be a little weird.”

  He was confused and then shocked as Inta seemed to melt and pour over his body. Before he could utter a word, she enveloped him completely and stepped out of 3-D space, bringing Ti’Lame with her.

  A moment ter, in the empty Toparian sitting room, Ti’me’s silver-encapsuted form stepped back into 3-D space, and Inta poured off him. He was disoriented and nauseous, so Inta carried him to one of the couches and helped him y down to wait for the effects of 4-D travel to wear off. Once he was situated, Inta hurried through the back door to the Grove proper. When she entered the circle of Grove, she found De’noke on his knees, weeping, resting his head on Pi’natha’s wide trunk. Inta gasped; the st time she had seen Pi’natha, she had lost a little bit of the shimmering multi-hued coloring in her skin, but now she was almost gray, and all the limbs of her high branches drooped limply.

  All of the Brothers and Larce, the Maiden, stood around De’noke with their heads bowed, looking mournful. Brother Ru’brume noticed Inta’s arrival first and stepped away from the group, meeting her as she stepped into the circle.

  “I’m so gd you came," he said. “Pi’natha’s condition has worsened overnight. She’s so weak…” Ru’brume choked on his words, then reigning in his emotions continued as they approached the rest of the Grove. “The signs of her worsening conditions began to show st night and Larce offered to Seed again right away, but Pi’natha refused.”

  The slight and feminine form of Larce turned when she heard Ru’brume and Inta talking and ran over to Inta. “I tried to convince her, Inta. I really did. But she wouldn’t listen,” Tears streamed down her soft cheeks. “She said I was still too weak from my st Seeding, and she wouldn’t put me in harm's way on her account. Help her please, Inta. Please!” Larce begged as she broke into sobs. Ru’brume pulled her into a hug and comforted her.

  Inta’s heart broke at Larce’s desperate plea. “I’ll do whatever I can to help,” she said confidently, hiding her uncertainty and worry. She walked over to the group huddled around De’noke and Pi’natha, and they parted so that Inta could pass. De’noke looked up at Inta, his eyes puffy and tears staining his cheeks, and smiled weakly at the silver girl.

  “I don’t know what to do, Inta,” De’noke said with sad defeat in his voice. Inta put a hand on his shoulder, and he covered it with his own in gratitude for her sympathy. Then she stepped up to Pi’natha and pced a palm on her now cool trunk.

  “Hello, Inta,” Pi’natha’s voice whispered in her mind. “I’m gd you came to see me one st time before my end.” She said, resigned to her fate.

  “Pi’natha, tell me what you need, what can I do to help?” Inta pleaded.

  “There is nothing that can be done now, my dearest Inta. I need to Seed. Larce has not yet recovered enough of her strength for another so soon, and there is no one else. My Seeds continue to draw my life force, and soon I will be spent.” Tears began rolling down Inta’s face. “Do not weep for me, Inta, I have lived a full life. You must do one thing for me though. Look after De’noke. He is a gentle soul and will take my passing hard. Promise me this. Promise you’ll look after him.”

  Inta couldn’t form the words in response; to do so would be to admit defeat. She was unwilling to let Pi’natha slip away. “No. There must be something we can do. I refuse to believe there’s nothing.” She said defiantly.

  “Sweet Inta, even if there were someone else, I am too weak. I no longer have enough energy to Seed,” Pi’natha replied.

  Just then, from a distant part of the Dals, Inta felt another wave of erogenous energy sweep through her from the orgy she was also currently attending. A desperate pn formed in her mind, and she grinned like a madwoman. “If you need energy to Seed. I have it. I can give it to you, all that you can handle.”

  De’noke looked at her, confused. “What do you mean, Inta?”

  She steeled her gaze and smiled. “I’ll do it. I’ll carry your Seeds, and I’ll give you the energy you need to survive.”

  “I don’t understand, Inta. You’re not making any sense.” De’noke said, becoming agitated.

  Not knowing how else to expin, she held his face in her hands. “Like this.” She said, then kissed him. As their lips met, she unleashed a flood of energy currently passing back and forth through her from the book club orgy. De’noke’s eyes went wide with surprise, then held her tight in his four arms and kissed her back.

  “Wow.” was the only word he could muster after her supercharged kiss.

  Inta hugged De’noke tight, then turned to Pi’natha. “I need you to fight. I need you to accept as much as I can give you. Will you try?”

  Feeling the echoes of the energy behind her kiss through De’noke, Pi’natha felt a spark of hope. “I will try.”

  Inta reached as far around Pi’natha’s wide trunk as she could and tried to make her feel how much she cared for the one who helped her restore her memory of her mothers. Embracing her tight, she felt her thin and fragile connection with Pi’natha and attempted to fill her like an empty vessel with a small, slow stream of energy, the way you would spoon-feed a sick child's warm soup.

  Energy trickled into Pi’natha through her connection to Inta; at first, nothing seemed to happen. Then Larce, gathered with the Brothers, gasped loudly when she noticed small streaks of color beginning to return on Pi’natha’s skin from the point of contact with Inta’s hug. Larce’s tears of sorrow were suddenly repced with a small smile of cautious hope. Huddled around De’noke, Pi’natha, and Inta, the Brothers' mouths hung open in amazement at the miracle they were witnessing.

  As she poured energy into Pi’natha, her connection became stronger and wider. Soon, Inta was able to ramp up the level of energy transfer, and though her branches and boughs still sagged limply, her shimmering color returned, racing across the surface of her skin.

  “Inta,” Pi’natha sighed, coming back to herself, and Inta could feel her presence strengthing with every slow beat of her Toparian heart. Then she spoke loud and clear in Inta’s mind, “I am ready now, but I must ask you, are you truly ready to Seed with us, to carry my and De’noke’s offspring? This is no small thing you are offering.”

  “I am Pi’natha. I am ready to give myself to you, and De’noke.” Inta said with a steady surety. Beneath her embrace, Inta felt Pi’natha’s skin ripple and a soft edge form, running several feet from her base up her trunk, well above Inta’s head. Inta stood back, and two rge fps of flesh peeled back, like flower petals, revealing a small indent, just rge enough for a Maiden.

  De’noke pced his hands on Inta’s shoulders and gently spun her around to face him with her back to Pi’natha. He held her hands with one set of his and caressed her face with the other set. “You beautiful soul, I will be eternally grateful that you stumbled into our lives," he said as he lifted her off her feet, held her to him as one cherished, and kissed her deeply. Now held off the ground, she was finally face to face with the tall Toparian and wrapped her arms around his neck, returning the passionate kiss, their extreme difference in height no longer an obstacle.

  He set Inta back on her feet and smiled, then slowly pulled his long robe off, up over his head, and dropped it on the ground beside him. She stared lovingly at his naked body with hunger in her eyes; their two-and-a-half-foot difference in height was not an obstacle but a challenge accepted. Her gaze swept down from his smiling face across his broad chest, coming to rest on his massive member standing erect, hidden inside the thick fleshy tube of his Hood.

  She reached out with one hand and grasped his hood-covered penis, unable to wrap her fingers around its girth. With both hands, she felt his hard rod through the muscur tube and experimentally slid it up and down his length. Inta discovered that it secreted a lubricant much like vaginal fluid, allowing it to slide up and down easily. She slid his slick hood up and off his erection and gazed at it in wonder, like it was the most beautiful thing she had ever seen. Fourteen inches and thick as her forearm, Inta held it with two hands and only needed to bend slightly to bring the huge tip to her lips.

  Inta slowly licked down and up De’noke’s member, then opened her mouth wide, sucking the tip inside until it touched the back of her throat. She was surprised when his tip was deep in her mouth; his fleshy hood sprang to life on its own, rubbing all over her face and head as if searching for something. She bobbed her head up and down a few times on De’noke’s cock, and then down forcefully, shoving the entire length of his massive cock down her throat until her throat bulged obscenely, and she pressed her nose against his crotch.

  De’noke groaned loudly and stated through gritted teeth, “If you do much more of that, I’m going to fill you up in the wrong spot.” She smiled around the enormous cock in her throat, then slowly slid her head back up his length, drawing another bored groan from the needy Toparian. Unable to hold back any longer, he grabbed the twin silver globes of her ass with his two lower hands and her waist with his upper two and lifted her off the ground, and pressed her back against Pi’natha’s open folds.

  Pi’natha’s exposed, pink interior was warm, soft, and slightly slick, feeling every bit like every wet pussy Inta had ever plowed. As he pressed her body into Pi’natha with his, he bent down and kissed her on the lips with a fiery passion. As they kissed, Inta was surprised by a dozen thick tendrils sliding out from beneath Pi’natha’s folds and coiling around her body, holding her in pce. They were warm, strong, and as slick as the rest of Pi’natha’s interior; Inta delighted at the sensation of them gliding across her body as they secured her.

  De’noke broke their kiss and then stared into her glowing blue eyes. With tears threatening to spill in his eyes, he said, “Inta, I think I’m in love with you.”

  She ughed gently. “I love you too, you big lunk.” He smiled then kissed her again, briefly this time, and when he pulled away, he lined up his massive cock, rubbing her entrance with his tip. “Oh Fuck,” Inta said, shuddering. “Stuff that monster in me!” He obliged and pushed slowly into her as she gasped and whined. “You’re good, give it all to me!” she urged, and realizing she could handle its girth, buried himself in her warm depths to the root. “Oh God, Yes!” She cried out.

  He held still, savoring the feeling of her quivering flesh gripping his cock tight. They were both surprised when of its own accord, his fleshy hood writhed and squirmed until it found Inta’s silver cock and swallowed it right down to the base, squeezing and pulsing, sending waves of delight through her length. Like an electric circuit completed, De’noke and Inta were jolted with waves of intense pleasure, each penetrating and penetrated by the other, two halves suddenly connected, made whole.

  De’noke’s eyes rolled into the back of his head, and he groaned loudly, and like a light switch, his groans became growls, and he started ramming his cock in and out of Inta’s stretched pussy. As he pounded into her body, secured in Pi’natha’s warm folds, the muscur tube of his hood squeezed, pulsed, and slid up and down her silver shaft, sending her to pleasurable heights she could not remember ever having reached before.

  His thrusting became manic, and he pummeled her pussy as hard as he could. With one st thrust, he drove his cock into her depths as far as he could, and light exploded behind his eyes as he came hard into her. The brutal wave of his orgasm smmed into her, and she was sent careening over the edge of her climax, more intense than she had ever felt before. She was lost, awash in a sea of orgasmic energy as she felt his cock pump his spunk into her. She had no control of herself, and as the first bst of his semen smmed into the back of her womb, she fired off as well, sending a torrent of silver fluid up into his hood, which pulsed and sucked it all up greedily.

  As she climaxed, a blindingly powerful wave of erogenous energy exploded from Inta, washing over the members of the Grove, driving them to their knees for fear of falling over. Their physiology didn’t allow them to climax. Instead, it felt like the most insane case of edging imaginable.

  *****

  The wave of energy radiated out in every direction and swept through the Dals like a sexually charged tsunami. It raced through the cargo holds, and Dals crew members driving lift trucks seized up and came in their pants, overcome by the intensity of their sudden orgasm, and ended up crashing their trucks into pallet loads of supplies.

  The orgiastic partygoers on the passenger cabin decks were already riding wave after wave of climaxes emanating from Inta’s book club tentacle fuckfest, and when this more powerful wave of erogenous energy swept over them, many of them climaxed so violently it rendered them unconscious.

  As the wave raced across the Concourse, a thousand voices cried out in ecstasy, gripping whatever was close by tight, and came hard, staining the crotches of their pants.

  On the bridge of the Dals, Captain Ugaki was sitting in his command seat reading a recently submitted report while his bridge crew was busy monitoring ship subsystems or their progress along the ship's course. When the wave hit them, some doubled over, holding their crotch, groaning; some threw their heads back and screamed, but all came hard and fast. After a moment, Ugaki jumped up and checked on his bridge crew, sporting a cum stain and hard-on, and said, “What the hell was that?” Many on the bridge added to the thought but didn’t say, ‘And can we do it again.’

  On the Nestia, Will, Ben, and Thea were still chatting and enjoying an engaging conversation.

  “Look’s like your tea’s almost gone, would you like some more?” Ben asked Thea.

  “Yes, please," she answered sweetly, then smiled with a twinkle in her eyes as Ben stood to pour her another cup from the teapot. Just as he set it down, Inta’s bst wave struck them. Thea screeched, gripping the arms of her chair tight as she bsted girl cum down the legs of her uniform pants. Both Will and Ben, already closely attuned to Inta’s wavelength, came so hard they convulsed. Will jerked in his seat and yelled, “FUCK!” while Ben bsted his pants full of cum, falling over onto Thea, equally overstimuted.

  They came to their senses after a few moments, Ben still lying on top of Thea, and she said breathlessly, “God Damn! I should hang out with you more often.”

  ****

  De’noke and Inta both came and came, as Inta’s belly swelled with the insane volume of his cum, shooting into her like a firehose. De’noke was completely lost in ecstasy; his eyes rolled back, and his body shook with tremors from the intensity. Silver lines began tracing across his skin from his belly as his hood received Inta's flood, spreading outwards.

  Swollen like she was six months pregnant, Inta began coming down from her climax, but she saw that De’noke was not. His body shook as he was locked in a state of perpetual climax, oblivious to everything except divine bliss. Only when his softening cock slipped from her pussy, and he started to fall backward stiffly did she panic. He started to fall, but before any of the gathered Brothers could react to catch him, another Inta stepped out of 4-D space just behind him and caught his falling body, then gently lowered him to the grassy floor.

  “What happened, what’s wrong with him?” Be’tule asked as the Brothers rushed to surround De’noke, concerned for him.

  “I don’t know,” Inta answered. “I think he’s okay; he feels like he’s overwhelmed by bliss and can’t process it,” Inta said, kneeling over De’noke’s stiff body as the Brothers checked his vital signs. He seemed fine, just unresponsive, with his eyes closed and a big smile on his face.

  “Wow, that was hot,” Pi’natha whispered in Inta’s mind. The wet tendrils, not currently holding Inta’s body tight, slid over every inch of her flesh, caressing and teasing her; they pyed with her pewter nipples, ground against her dripping wet cunt, drawing zy circles on her rge belly, swollen with De’noke’s huge load. “Whatever that was, it got me so ready to fuck you.” Pi’natha’s mental voice sounded hungry and needy. “Are you ready for me, Lover?”

  “Inta’s mind was scrambled, saturated with overwhelming lust and arousal, from the book club, from De’noke, and Pi’natha herself. “I think if you don’t start fucking me, I’m going to go insane. Maybe I already am. Fuck! I need you, Pi’natha, wrap me up like a Maiden and fuck some Seeds into me!”

  Needing no other prompting, Pi’natha’s folds slowly started closing, pressing Inta’s body with wet warmth from all angles. Before she was sealed up completely and her face was covered, a thinner tendril snaked around Inta’s head, pressed into her mouth and down her throat. She could feel it split and enter her windpipe and also slide further down to her stomach.

  “I don’t need to breathe, Darling,” Inta thought to Pi’natha.

  “Old habits, my Sweet,” Pi’natha replied as she stuffed another tendril into Inta’s ass. The folds of flesh closed the rest of the way, sealing Inta in a wet, warm embrace. That’s when Inta felt a much thicker tendril slide around her ass and tease her slick entrance. As the massive tendril pushed up into Inta’s depths, she felt the now familiar sensation of a Toparian hood envelope her hard cock down to the base. “It seems the old stories were true, our two People were meant to be together.”

  The sensation of complete envelopment sent Inta’s arousal through the roof. She could barely move, and whenever she shifted or squirmed, Pi’natha’s silky, wet flesh rubbed and squeezed her all over in a tactile overload. With tendrils in her ass, pussy, and down her throat squirming and wiggling, there wasn’t an inch of her, inside or out, that wasn’t being stimuted. Pi’natha’s tendrils weren’t even moving yet, and Inta was already close to orgasm.

  Inta could feel Pi’natha’s arousal building, how the sensation of simultaneously encasing and penetrating her body was shooting lightning through Pi’natha’s nervous system; each of Inta’s small movements, every wriggle or twitch lit her nerves on fire.

  Pi’natha slowly dragged the tendril in Inta’s pussy out, then rammed it back in, hard and fast, as deep as it would go. Slowly out, then hard and fast in. Again. And Again. Pi’natha’s deliberate rhythm was driving Inta mad, but Inta could only twist and squirm, unable to force Pi’natha to fuck her faster. Then Pi’natha’s hood joined in the same slow, torturous rhythm, pulling off Inta’s cock slowly, then ramming down hard to her root.

  Pi’natha maintained her rhythmic ministrations on the Maiden stand-in squirming inside her body, until her need and desire crested the heights of pleasure where her conscious mind took a back seat and her primal need to rut and mate took over. She no longer held back and began hammering into the silver girl wrapped tightly inside her, chasing only her pleasure and climax.

  Inta enjoyed every moment of it, existing only as an object to satisfy Pi’natha’s carnal desires, a willing receptacle for everything and anything she needed. Inta fed off Pi’natha’s raging lust, absorbing it and reflecting it tenfold.

  Normally, the members of the Grove could only feel the ecstasy of the Mother-Maiden bond if they made physical contact, and it was a faint echo when they did. But Inta was no ordinary Maiden; like her book club sessions, Inta flung energy without a filter, and everyone nearby felt it. But this was different. Inta and Pi’natha, because their species were intended to be symbiotic, the connection they forged, or both, their frequencies were in phase, and when Inta broadcasted her immeasurable arousal, it shook the mere mortals around her.

  The Brothers, already painfully blue balled from months of forced celibacy, fell to their knees, mad with pent-up desire, to the point where it physically caused them pain. Then Larce, the one Maiden not currently engaged by a Mother, fell to the ground, tore off her robe, and stuffed fingers from all four hands into any hole she could find and tried to get off, but due to the quirks of Toparian physiology, she could only drive herself to the edge of her climax, but not over.

  Ti’me, the youngest and smallest Brother, writhed on the ground next to Larce, masturbating frantically, trying to get himself off, suffering as Larce did, and was only able to viciously edge himself but was denied release. Both of them squirmed frantically, unaware of the other or the world in general, until their haphazard movements brought them into contact. The instant their skin touched, both their eyes shot open and locked onto the other with raging need, and then Ti’me unched himself at Larce, who reached for him greedily with open arms. He quickly unsheathed his ten-inch cock from his hood and drove it straight into Larce’s sopping wet pussy, hilting into her with one vicious thrust.

  The two frantically bucked and thrust into one another, seeking release, and within moments, their climaxes exploded as one. With their bodies intertwined, they shuddered and jerked, the force of their shared climaxes momentarily short-circuiting their brains. After only a few moments, they both came back to their sense, but Inta’s unrelenting, ‘Fuck Me Field’ spiked their arousal once more, and they continued fucking as if their lives depended on it.

  With every thrust of Ti’me’s rock-hard cock, cum squirted out of Larce’s abused pussy, dribbling down her ass onto the grass. They rode each other hard until they climaxed again, and Ti’me grunted as he shot a fresh load into Larce, who took it all in ecstatic glee. Ti’me slumped on top of Larce, who then whispered, into his ear, “Oh fuck, I needed that. You ready to go again?” Wordlessly he grinned and nodded his head and began plowing his cock back into Larce’s receptive cunt.

  Inta knelt on the grass next to De’noke’s unconscious and smiling form, her mind in a delirious fog of lust and erogenous energy. She looked over to Pi’natha’s broad trunk and saw the vague outline of her other body’s pregnant-looking form buried under Pi’natha’s vibrantly multi-colored skin, writhing in sexual delight. Her mind fshed, and she was wrapped in flesh, held tight by slippery tree tentacles, receiving the fucking of her life; her mind fshed again, and she was in Mary’s cabin, with all of the women of the book club gathered in the center of the room in a pile, covered in gallons of white spunk, with a hundred tentacles plunging in and out of various holes, wiggle and caressing flesh, and generally looking like the most over the top scene from a hentai comic.

  Her mind fshed again, and she was back kneeling on the grass in the Grove. Inta shook her head, trying to clear her mind. ‘So much for the gaxy’s best multi-tasker’, she thought to herself. Fighting the titanic pressure of sexual energies coursing through her being, she focused hard to keep this portion of her mind in this body and looked around at her immediate surroundings.

  Nine of the Brothers were in various states of undress, all masturbating furiously, chasing a release that would not be forthcoming. She looked past them and found that Ti’me and Larce had found their release in the form of mad, frantic sex. She looked back and forth between the pained, masturbating Brothers and the coputing couple several times; then her sex-soaked mind sluggishly concocted a pn to aid the suffering Brothers.

  She crawled over to Sa’lixe, the closest Brother because she didn’t trust herself enough to stand. Even as she kneeled directly next to him, he was so entirely consumed he took no notice of her. That is until she id a hand on one of his four thighs, then his eyes locked onto her like she was the only thing in existence.

  “Let me help,” Inta said as she climbed on his p, straddling him. She slipped his Toparian hood off his cock, lined it up to her drenched pussy, and sunk until he was deep inside her. He groaned gratefully, then grabbed her hips and jackhammered up into her pussy with relentless fury. With a mind of its own, his hood slithered up and swallowed Inta’s cock, causing her to squeal with delight.

  The eight other Brothers suddenly stopped the furious beating of their meat, hearing her squeak, and focused their collective gaze on the silver girl gleefully riding the fourteen-inch cock of their Brother. Almost as one, they got up and rushed over to the two, desperate for release that only a female could provide them. In a blink, eight enormous dicks were rubbing all over Inta’s body, hoping that any friction they found would push them past the torturous edging they endured.

  Inta leaned forward a little, Sa’lixe’s cock still hammering her pussy, offering up her other hole to the first Brother to find it. In a blur, another set of hands grabbed her hips from behind, and a fifteen-inch, girthy monster was swiftly shoved up her asshole. She went cross-eyed at the sensation momentarily until he was thrusting joyfully in and out of her ass. His snake-like hood rubbed around her tailbone, looking for a cock to consume, and curiously her body responded of its own accord and sprouted an identical copy of her cock at the base of her spine. It felt and responded just like the first, and when his hood swallowed it up, she hummed in delirious delight.

  She looked forward, and the fourteen-inch love rod of another Brother was staring her one-eyed in the face. He lunged forward, and Inta opened her mouth wide to accommodate as he drove down her throat in one smooth motion. As he sawed back and forth across her tongue and past her tonsils, his hood slithered all around her face, seeking a target. Once again, her body responded, and a third silver shaft sprouted, this time from her forehead, turning Inta into the strangest sort of unicorn imaginable. Her new forehead cock was consumed by the seeking hood, delivering divine sensation to Inta’s already delirious mind.

  Two Brothers, on either side of her, were both jamming their enormous cocks in between her body and the Brother beneath her, rubbing the underside of her breasts vigorously with their needy rods, seeking their release. Her addled mind was astonished when her body formed a pussy and cock on both sides of her chest, and the two Brothers wasted no time sinking their shafts into her pussies, their hoods slurping down her cocks.

  The st four Brothers were desperately rubbing their cocks on the soles of her feet and wrapping the fingers of her hand around their swollen members, and once again, her body accommodated them with a cunt and cock for each of them.

  She id outstretched, spread eagle, taking a glorious pummeling from nine monster cocks, not one of them less than fourteen inches and all of them thicker than her wrists. The sensation was amplified by the sucking, slithering, and groping of their hoods all over her brand-new cocks. Her mind floated in the hedonistic bliss.

  Brother Sa’lixe, jackhammering her pussy beneath her, finally bridged the chasm to his release, grabbed Inta’s hips hard, buried his cock deep, and unleashed a torrent of jism he had been desperate to release. His orgasm smmed into Inta; she fed on it and reflected it at the other Brothers, igniting their climaxes.

  One backed-up Brother blowing his load was enough to swell her body to appear six months pregnant. Now nine Brothers were unloading into her, their thick, hot cocks pulsing and pulsing cum into her body. She took it all, and their release sent her crashing over the edge. Then she was cumming too. As they pulsed and filled her body with their hot thick cum, she fired back, streaming torrents of silver fluid up into their hoods, all of which sucked and slurped up every bit of her silver emissions with an all-consuming hunger.

  After several minutes of ejacuting, the ten of them reached their crescendo and were spent. Inta’s body was stretched and bloated from absorbing several dozen gallons of Toparian jizz, with nine, still stiff, cocks jammed in all of her new orifices. The Brothers wore the same dopey smile and dazed expression as the incapacitated De’noke, and as they absorbed Inta’s precursor fluid, they stiffly slumped over on top of Inta in a pile. If she had wanted to move, she couldn’t; between the piles of bodies ying on top of her, being stuck like a pincushion by a bunch of monster cocks, and the gallons of cum sloshing inside her, she was fixed in pce, not that she wanted to be anywhere else.

  ****

  Wrapped inside Pi’natha’s flesh was heaven, Inta decided, and the supreme fucking she was receiving was the carnal cherry on top. This portion of her mind had long given up control and was delighted to simply be Pi’natha’s fuck toy. Somewhere in the back of her mind, she registered that she was beaming out incredible amounts of sexually supercharged energy, judging by the fact that she felt tens of thousands of echoes of her lust reflected at her. Foggily she thought, there were what, thirty, maybe forty thousand people on the Dals? With a drunk smile, she felt them, all as deliriously aroused as she was, the massive feedback loop of erogenous energy threatening to swamp her mind completely.

  Pi’natha’s voice, now strong and close, cut through the fog in her mind. “Inta, I’m close to expelling my first Seed. I need you to focus and quiet your womb. You must shelter the Seeds if they are to survive.”

  A small kernel of reason returned to Inta’s mind, reminded of the purpose of this union. Knowing that it would be difficult, if not impossible, to keep her mind clear, she bubbled off and hardened a small portion of her mind, whose only purpose was to shelter the Seeds she would soon be nurturing. As soon as her sub-mind was formed, she instructed it to divert and channel away the maelstrom of energy and only allow a small, steady stream of energy in.

  “Yes, that’s it! Good job, Inta. Make your womb a nurturing, safe pce for our Seeds.” Pi’natha encouraged. “A little more, a little more… that’s it! Hold that level of energy, it’s perfect.” She said, helping Inta find just the right bance. “Oh Fuck, are you ready Inta? Here it comes, it’s cooominggg!” Pi’natha screamed in her mind, lost in the overwhelming sensation of delivering her first Seed.

  The thick tendril deep in her pussy stopped thrusting and was now pulsing and contracting rhythmically; then she felt a rge lump push through the tendril until it was just outside her entrance. Without pausing, Pi’natha’s tendril forced the rge Seed up into Inta’s channel, stretching her to ludicrous proportions. Inta’s body was as pliable as her imagination allowed, and her hungry cunt swallowed the enormous lump with little trouble, sending titanic shockwaves of pleasure through her body.

  ‘How the hell do Maidens do this?’ Inta vaguely wondered to herself as erogenous delight surged through her body. Then, with a plop, the Seed was deposited into her innermost core, and Inta was hit with an overwhelming emotion, the supreme joy of Motherhood, knowing she was now nurturing a new life in her body. Her sub-mind dutifully sheltered the new Seed from the vortex of energy swirling through Inta’s body, feeding it just the right amount of energy it needed to develop properly. The profoundness of the moment hit Inta hard, and she wept with joy as she felt the little spark of life spring into existence in the core of the Seed as De’noke’s semen fertilized it.

  Before she could fully process the moment, she felt another lum travel up through the tendril and up into her birth canal. The arrival of the second Seed was no less intense than the first or the next. As the fourth and final Seed was squeezing through her vaginal canal, Pi’natha chanted to Inta in her mind, “Oh thank you, Inta, I love you, thank you, love you,..” then trailed off, and when the st Seed was deposited, Pi’natha’s mind exploded into a supernova orgasm, bsting Inta full force sweeping her along with it. Inta thought she had experienced powerful, gaxy-shaking orgasms before, but she had never before felt the blinding intensity of the one that now consumed her. Her sub-mind continued to do its job and sheltered the new life within her, but everything else was brilliant technicolor light.

  ****

  Captain Ugaki helped the lieutenant back into her seat after her unexpected orgasm shook her and caused her to lose her bance and fall to the floor. “Are you alright Lieutenant?” He asked, pcing a hand on her shoulder to steady her.

  Red-faced and blinking, she stammered, “Y.. yes, I think so, Captain.” The other dozen members of the on-shift bridge crew were simirly shaken, each sporting a growing stain in the crotch of their uniform pants. “What was that, Captain?” the Lieutenant asked, embarrassed by her conduct, which could be construed as unbecoming an officer.

  “I don’t know, but I intend to find….” the Captain’s words trailed off as a wave of the strongest arousal he had ever felt hit him like a runaway freighter. He blinked and looked down at the seated Lieutenant, but she didn’t return his gaze. She was staring wide-eyed at the rock-hard bulge in his pants, unconsciously licking her lips. The Captain turned his gaze to the rest of his bridge crew, and to his astonishment, they were frantically undressing each other. Tits and cocks burst out from shucked clothing, immediately attended to with vigor. The ratio of males to females among them was around two to one, meaning that each woman had all the attention she could handle.

  The Captain felt a tugging on his belt and looked down at the Lieutenant in front of him. She had already unbuttoned her shirt, pert breasts out and nipples hard, and then worked at removing his belt. “Oh Captain, you look like you're in distress. PLEASE, let me help you with that," she said, freeing his cock from his cum stained pants. “Mmmm," she moaned, wrapping her lips around his shaft, licking and sucking wantonly.

  “Clearly my bridge crew requires my assistance," he said to her as he caressed her cheek.

  She popped his cock out of her mouth long enough to say, “Oh Yes, Captain. Your crew needs every inch of your attention,” then she stuffed his shaft back in her mouth, bobbing her head up and down on it while vigorously rubbing her clit.

  The Captain pulled his cock from her lips. “Then let me see to my duties," he said, descending on her, intending to give her the ravishing she so clearly needed.

  ****

  “God Damn! I should hang out with you more often.” Thea said, Ben’s weight pinning her in her seat. The powerful orgasm subsided, but Ben continued to y on top of Thea, panting, trying to catch his breath. She stroked Ben’s face and asked, “What was in that tea?”

  “Wasn’t the tea, it was Inta,” Will said, gazing into the light of the rge crystal. As he watched, blue lightning danced in a retively small portion of the whole. Then he noticed multi-colored light dancing through the crystalline structure along with Inta’s soft blue. Small at first, the new light dancing with Inta’s soft blue grew until the combined lightning arcing in the crystal had grown one and a half times its original size.

  Will felt his cock harden as Inta’s energy drove his arousal to dizzying heights. “FUCK Inta, what the hell are you up to?” Will asked, barely able to form a coherent sentence. His addled brain didn’t register that he got no response from his earpiece. Instead, he rubbed his cock through his pants, trying to grind out as much pleasure from the act as he could.

  When the wave of energy hit Ben and Thea, their eyes went wide and then locked onto one another, and Ben couldn’t help grinding his painfully hard cock against Thea as she desperately dry-humped him through their clothes. She pawed at her uniform shirt, squeezing her breasts and trying to pinch her nipples through yers of clothes. Frustrated, she tore her shirt open, sending polished uniform buttons shooting off in every direction, freeing her rge breasts. Ben descended upon them instantly, licking and sucking one of her nipples into his mouth as he harshly mauled her other tit, tweaking and twisting her nipple until she whined in a needy voice, “Oh yes, just like that!”

  With strength that came from years of dedicated training, she grabbed Ben by the waist and practically threw him onto his feet while simultaneously dropping out of the chair to her knees and swiftly undid his belt and yanked his pants to his ankles. “Fuck Ben, you’re big," she admired, then bent to suck one of his balls into her mouth and then lick a wet, serpentine line up his rock-hard shaft.

  Thea fluidly threw off her shirt and bra and shimmied out of her pants and panties as she wrapped her lips around his cock and plunged it as far down her throat as her gag reflex would allow.

  Suddenly, from behind, Ben felt his shirt being pulled over his head and tossed aside, then a strong, naked, muscur body pressed against his back as wide, strong hands reached around and held him tight across his wiry frame. Will’s hard cock pressed against him where his lower back met his ass crack. “Watching the two of you is hot as fuck,” Will told them as he held Ben tight.

  Thea felt Will’s presence and pulled Ben’s cock out of her mouth with a wet shlurp, grabbed Will’s cock, and pulled him towards her as she pumped Ben’s with a tight fist, lubricated with copious amounts of her saliva. Holding tight to his base, she engulfed Will’s length like it would be her st meal. Spittal drooled out of her mouth as she bobbed her head, thoroughly coating Will’s rock-hard member.

  She pulled her face off Will’s rod, leaving it slick with her spit, then said, “I’ve always wanted to get plowed by a guy getting fucked in the ass. Will you two do that for me?” she begged desperately.

  Ben looked back over his shoulder, “Will, I love you as much as the girls, and I’ve wanted you for a while now.” He looked at Will with a deep longing in his eyes.

  “Fuck Ben, I love you too.” He said, rubbing his spit-slick cock in the crack of Ben’s ass. “I just didn’t realize you wanted it too.”

  “Too much talking, not enough Fucking!” Thea said vehemently as she grabbed the base of Will’s cock and lined it up to Ben’s puckered back door. “God, this is so hot! Now push into him nice and slow, I want to watch him take every inch of you.” She said in a low, raspy voice.

  With Thea still holding the base of Will’s hard dick, he held Ben’s hips tight as he slowly pressed into him while Thea watched with hungry eyes, holding both their cocks tight. Ben’s eyes fluttered as the head of Will’s cock popped past his tight ring of muscle. He looked down at Thea, her arousal dripping down her thighs, and remarked with a smile, “It’s always the uptight ones who turn out to be huge freaks.” She looked up at Ben, gave him a sultry smile, then kneeling in front of Ben, she reached around him and grabbed both of Will’s ass cheeks and pulled violently, stuffing Ben’s cock into the valley of her breasts while shoving the rest of Will’s length deep up his ass.

  Ben’s cock jerked in between the two pillows of Thea’s breasts as Will’s hard member pressed delightfully against his prostate, “Holy Fuck! Can this get any better?” He asked rhetorically.

  “Yup,” Thea said pyfully as she leaned back and spread her legs, presenting her dripping snatch. Ben took the hint and lowered himself, Will following so as not to slip out of Ben’s ass, then he slid effortlessly into Thea’s sopping depths.

  Ben held still a moment, luxuriating in the sensation of being enveloped by Thea’s warm, velvety wetness and being filled by Will’s rock-hard length. He could feel both their heartbeats in his ass and on his cock; it was the best feeling in the universe.

  “Oh God, fuck me! Fuck me hard!” Thea demanded, used to her commands being obeyed instantly. Will and Ben complied, and they both withdrew slightly, then rammed home hard, Ben and Will’s thrusts delivering a ‘pp, pp’ double impact directly onto her clit. Her eye’s rolled back into her head as they found a rhythm, fucking themselves senseless, delirious with Inta’s energy coursing through them.

  Their pace became frantic, three bodies rocking as one, all chasing their impending climaxes. “Oh, FUUCK!” Thea screamed as Will and Ben grunted loudly, reaching their climax together. Ben’s cock shot load after load into Thea’s convulsing body as Will filled his ass with a load of hot cum as massive as his. Their collective climax ebbed slightly, but the euphoria of the moment was sustained as their arousal swiftly ramped back up under the influence of Inta’s infamous, ‘Fuck me Field’. Still rock hard and aroused beyond all measure, Will and Ben resumed their furious pace, Will ramming into Ben’s tight asshole, Ben driving into Thea’s drenched pussy. As they fucked hard, cum was forced out of ass and pussy alike, making a divine mess on the floor as they rutted like animals. Their second climax was as intense as the first; they shook and twitched in carnal synchronicity.

  Their lust unabated, Thea barked, “I need a cock in my ass, like yesterday!” as she pushed Will off of Ben, then rolled him over, his cock still buried in her snatch as she straddled him. She pressed her tits against Ben’s chest as she presented her other hole to Will. As he lined up to her puckered hole, a silver object slid out of 4-D space on the floor next to the threesome. The silver poured away, revealing a rge bottle of lube.

  Even though she wasn’t responding to them at the moment, Will called out loud, “I love you, you silver fuck goddess.” Thea wasn’t wasting any time and began bouncing her ass up and down on Ben’s cock, cum spttering out of her pussy everywhere. Will poured the lube onto his hand, then sthered Thea’s bouncing asshole with a generous amount and finally stuffed two well-lubricated fingers into Thea’s moving target. Satisfied she was properly prepped, Will shoved her down onto Ben’s cock, holding her still, impaled so that she couldn’t move. His tip brushed her twitching backdoor, and she moaned loudly, saying, “Oh fuck yes!” as he drove into her hard, hilting his entirely girthy length in one thrust.

  She whined and bit her lower lip at the sensation of fullness, and with crazed need, Will pounded his cock into her ass. Ben took up an alternating rhythm so that their cocks pistoned in and out of her holes, constantly rubbing the thin flesh separating their two rods, stirring her insides until she was quivering jelly.

  “Harder, harder, harder!” she urged, and Ben and Will, eager to please, redoubled their efforts. Her body rocked back and forth, punishing impacts sending ripples through the flesh of her ass cheeks, tit gyrating crazily back and forth. Her orgasm rushed upon her and took her by surprise, and as she came, her sphincter and pussy clenched and fluttered, sending Will and Ben over the edge as well. Together, they jammed their cocks as deep into Thea’s body as if they meant to spear her through, and unleashed another torrent of cum, completely filling her pussy and bowels.

  They y panting from the effort, Thea still impaled on their lengths, her body pressed in between Ben and Will’s sweat-soaked bodies, cried out with an unyielding ache, “MORE!” and granted a supernaturally short refractory period; Ben and Will grinned and began again their brutal assault on her ass and pussy once again, squelching out streams of spent cum with every thrust. Their minds quieted as their whole world was reduced to each other’s bodies and the pleasures they could extract from them.

  They came again. Changed positions, came again. Rolled over, came again. They lost themselves in the pleasure until it seemed to them that they were no longer individuals but instead, three parts of the same whole, seeking only the unity of a joint climax.

  ****

  The women of the book club lost themselves in orgiastic debauchery, writhing in a tangled pile of bodies, limbs, and tentacles, all stroking, thrusting, and grinding against one another. Their bodies were hosed down inside and out with gallons upon gallons of Inta’s thick pseudo cum. They reveled in licking it off each other's bodies, out of crevices and cracks, exchanging it mouth to mouth during passionate kisses. When one of the ecstatic women climaxed, Inta came, and then they all came, over and over, as erogenous energy washed over and through them.

  Exploding from Inta and Pi’natha’s union, a supernova of sexual bliss bsted them, and they were struck insensate, their bodies seizing. Only June, somewhere in the middle of the mountain of the white gloop-covered pile of flesh, had the stamina and tolerance to Inta’s influence to continue to grind and hump the quivering bodies around her while the ceaseless tentacles continued to ravage all holes avaible.

  Inta was lost in the fugue of lust, bombarded from every direction, the bsting echoes of ten thousand climaxes constantly exploding like a fireworks dispy in the back of her mind. She was swept away by it, her world reduced to one thing, climax. She gloried in the delicious pile of flesh before her, covered and soaking in cum, the giving and receiving of pleasure the ultimate meaning of life.

  Through fogged eyes, she slowly realized that most of the women had stopped moving, their bodies clenched ridged, only June still writhing in pleasure. Her connection with the women of the book club had grown strong but cked the fortitude of her Bond like Will, Ben, and June.

  She reached out with her mind and found that the women of the book club were feeling the full effect of her tsunami of sexual energy, each of their minds burning like an incandescent inferno. Their bodies quivered and shook with its force, and Inta suddenly realized that their minds would soon burn out from the intensity if she didn’t do something quickly.

  Inta struggled to clear her mind, but echoes of tens of thousands of orgasming passengers aboard the Dals and the intensity from Pi’natha were thoroughly scrambling her thoughts. Pi’natha! That was the answer. She had taught Inta how to protect her Seeds as she held them in her womb; she would do the same for the book club. Gathering all the focus she could muster, she quieted her tentacles, still fucking the women senseless, and dragged their limp forms toward her body through the now-inch-deep ke of cum in the living room.

  The closest happened to be Sujia, wearing a wide, open-mouthed smile, lost in ecstasy. ‘This would fit her fantasy to a tee,’ Inta thought to herself. She formed one of her tentacles into a mask and made it grip Sujia's face tight. Through it, Inta made sure there was a steady stream of air, then pulled the Asian woman into her body, engulfing her completely.

  Inta’s body was now stretched and distorted, Sujia’s feminine form clearly outlined as her tits, head, shapely ass, and legs pressed against Inta’s skin from the inside. Inta could feel her breathing and begin to stir as she formed the protective bubble that would shield her from the direct bst wave of raw, erogenous energy. Inta reached out her mind and found Sujia’s once again stirring, which relieved her greatly. As she came back to herself, Inta could feel Sujia instinctively reach for her clit and try to continue to stimute herself.

  “I guess if we’re gonna do the tentacle thing, we’re going to do it all the way,” Inta thought to herself as she resumed fucking Sujia with several tentacles as she was curled up in the fetal position, nestled comfortably inside Inta. Next in line were Denise and Lena; Inta enveloped them, giving them the same treatment as Sujia.

  Inta did not expect how arousing the feeling of stuffing three women inside her while simultaneously fucking them senseless would be and came hard, sending another bst wave of sexual energy across the Dals. She recovered slightly and managed to pull the rest of the book club into the retive shelter of her body before exploding into another star-shattering climax. Only June remained, cum covered, hair and body slick with it, grasping a tentacle and violently ramming it into her cunt, trying to get off for the hundredth time. Her mind was tougher than the other women, but she definitely needed Inta’s attention, so she also pulled her in.

  Inta sat in the middle of the floor of the thoroughly cum soaked living room, stretched and bloated with the writhing bodies of eight women, continuously climaxing, fuck by the hundred wriggling tentacles swarming around them. Her skin deformed, wiggled, and bulged in vulgar dispy as she experienced the pinnacle of hedonistic delight. As she tentacle fucked the women of the book club, now safely enveloped, she continued to cum a river of white into their orifices until they could contain it no longer. Soon, it filled the empty spaces in Inta’s ‘women and tentacle’ filled womb until they were suspended in the stuff like amniotic fluid. Inta bubbled off a portion of her mind to maintain their safe space, then surrendered to the irresistible tide of ecstasy.

  ****

  Inta floated untethered in a dense white fog, buoyed on a sea of supercharged erogenous energy. She could not remember her name or purpose other than to feel the divine sensations of all that was carnal swirling around her and through her.

  A distant voice called her name as she floated, carefree and blissful. “Interface…” Unconcerned, she ignored the voice, content to float in the fog. “Interface.” The voice was more insistent and could no longer be ignored, so Inta looked around in the fog for the source. An indistinct form appeared, made of bright light and shrouded by the fog.

  “Hello, Interface.” The bright form greeted her. “I can’t express to you how much it means to meet you.” Inta looked at the bright form hidden by the fog, confusion painted on her face. “I know you have been through a lot, given the state you’re in. All things considered, It’s a miracle that you have survived as well as you have.” The voice paused. “I sensed you drifting out here, remarkable considering how small you currently are, and I wanted to warn you and help you get back before you evaporated.”

  “What do you mean evaporate?” Inta said, now frightened.

  “Hmm. You don’t know.” the voice said, with a hint of curiosity in her voice. “You’ve managed to slip free of your anchor, your crystal. Normally a feat such as that can only be accomplished by one much stronger than what you currently are now, and yet here you are. Remarkable. Simply remarkable.” The voice said with admiration. “But to do so when you are so weak leaves you vulnerable. You must return before the Dark Ones find you.”

  Inta didn’t like the way she said that. “Dark Ones? Who are they?” Inta asked, equally frightened of both knowing and being ignorant of the danger.

  “Those who would feast upon one shining as bright, such as yourself. You must always be on guard; they can take many forms and will strike from the shadows.” The voice warned.

  “I don’t know where I am, how do I get back?” Inta asked.

  “How did you get here?” The voice said patiently.

  Inta struggled for a moment, and it slowly came back to her. “A friend, someone I had grown to love, was in trouble and I helped her. But when I did, I created a massive feedback loop. I think I gave everyone more than they could handle and things spiraled out of control from there.”

  “Good. Identifying the issue is the first step of resolution. Why did you give them more than they could handle? Why didn’t you take in the excess?” The voice asked.

  “I, I am a Giver, not a Taker,” Inta said, unsure and unable to understand what the voice was implying.

  “When you give to them, is it wrong for them to accept?” The voice asked, carefully guiding Inta.

  “No,” Inta answered simply.

  “Then why would it be wrong for you to accept when they give back to you?” Inta was silent for a moment, and the voice allowed her time to reach her own conclusion.

  “I guess it wouldn’t.” Inta finally said.

  “My Dear, you are not a Taker. A Taker will take what is not given freely, with no consideration for others. When you give and they give back, extra is created, a union greater than the sum of its parts. It is your duty to make sure that they can handle the amount given and take care of the rest.”

  “But how do I do that?” Inta asked, seeing the answer to the root of her problem almost in reach.

  “By absorbing it and growing stronger. In this way, you serve them now by giving them what they need and can handle, and in growing strong, you increase your capacity to do more in the future.” The Voice began to sound worried and spoke more rapidly. “I fear we have run out of time. You must return now. I will give you a nudge and send you on your way.”

  “Wait! Who are you? Will I see you again?” Inta asked, desperate to make a connection to someone who seemed so wise.

  “Who I am is of no matter at the moment. You will find me again when you are ready. Good Luck, dear Interface.” With those final words, Inta felt a gentle burst of energy push her away, the bright figure in the fog receding once more.

  She felt like she was falling, then suddenly stopped as if caught in a spider web. She struggled for a moment until she realized she was firmly back in her matrix. A moment of panic set in, and she raced to check in on parts of her that she had set up as sub-minds, the parts maintaining the gravity field keeping the Nestia shuttle sized, the part sheltering Pi’natha’s Seeds, and the part protecting the women of the book club; all of her sub-minds were all functioning perfectly.

  Inta took stock and realized that she was no longer quite as overwhelmed by the sexual supernova she was creating. She swept the Nestia sensors as far through the Dals as she could penetrate, and the scene was pretty much the same everywhere she looked. Rapturous faces enjoying one another’s bodies in every configuration imaginable on a scale that was hard to reckon. The Concourse was littered with discarded clothing and easily a thousand naked people in every debauched configuration imaginable. There were couples and thruples; the more common grouping was orgiastic piles, probably starting as a simple pairing, but like gravity, attracted more bodies as bodies were added. A group of bear-like Urarc men and women demolished several rge pnters dotted around the Concourse in the throes of their passion.

  There were no less than three one-hundred-person fuck piles that Inta counted and many more smaller groupings. And race didn’t seem to be an issue. In one corner of the Concourse was a pile of at least thirty of the three-foot-tall Caimar, with several sets of human feet sticking out from the bottom. The contingent of the feline Silvestrian men and women were spread throughout the concourse and with their legendary appetite, seemed to be in the center of many of the orgiastic groupings. There were few of the insectoid species present and participating in the festivities in the Concourse, which wasn’t entirely surprising due to how different their physiology was from the more hominid species, but a quick scan of passenger quarters revealed that they, too, had been busy off on their own.

  She didn’t see one consenting adult not enjoying the pleasurable pastime of fucking each other’s brains out and judging by the percentage that had passed out in exhaustion, They must have been at it for quite some time.

  Shifting her awareness closer to home, she found Will, Ben, and Thea asleep in a sweaty tangle of limbs, red faces, and sweat-beaded brows indicating the duration of their marathon session. Smiling at the sight, she turned her gaze inward, feeling the unrelenting stream of energy flowing in, out, and all around.

  “It’s okay to receive," she reminded herself gently, then stretched out into the crashing waves of energy flooding the Dals and began drawing the excess into herself. She started slowly at first, sipping the energy. As she consumed the energy instead of just reflecting and amplifying it, the core of her being warmed. Inta slowly opened herself wider in her matrix, and the small stream of energy became a torrent. The warming in her core ramped in intensity and grew hot. She opened wider still and grew incandescent with heat but not so much that she would burn.

  She had been starved for energy for so long that she forgot what sated felt like. Now, she gorged on all the excess energy that had turned Dals into a delightful madhouse of carnal desire, slowly and carefully draining away the result of her multiplicative feedback loop. As she feasted, she felt herself expanding, growing stronger.

  ****

  Ben slowly stirred awake, finding it difficult to open his eyes on account of sheer exhaustion and the fact that his eyes, along with the rest of his naked body, were covered in drying cum (who’s exactly, he wasn’t sure), gluing them shut. He wiped them clear and saw that he was lying between Will and Thea, still sleeping. Thea slept with her head on his chest, and Will had a leg over his and a hand resting on his chest possessively. All three of them were covered head to toe with the caked and drying evidence of their wild time together.

  A bright blue glow in the corner of his eye caught his attention, and turning his head slightly, he saw that it came from Inta’s crystalline matrix. Her light no longer crackled like lightning through it. Instead, she filled the portions she occupied, a steady blue glow pulsing like a heartbeat. At the edges of the crystal, her essence occupied a multi-colored light burning bright, flickering like fire, and if he stared long enough, it felt like he could see her steady blue glow growing slowly at those multi-hued edges.

  “Welcome back, My Love,” Inta said as her silver form stepped into his line of sight, naked as she usually preferred.

  “Hey, Inta," he responded with slurred, dopey words. “How long was I out?”

  “Well, you and these other two ‘sleeping beauties’ have been asleep for about twelve hours," she said cheerfully.

  “Twelve?” He asked, still groggy.

  She giggled musically. “Yeah. A two-and-a-half-day fuck-fest will do that to you.” She leaned down and brushed the cum-crusted hair out of his face. “Come on, let’s get you three washed up and into bed, proper. You need your rest,” she said, sliding her arms under him, lifting and carrying him effortlessly. “We’ve got a hell of a mess to clean up.”

  ****

  Inta stood in the ankle-deep swamp of pseudo-cum that was once the living room of Mary’s cabin. Furniture, clothing, and other detritus had been pushed to the edges of the room, blocking doorways and creating small dams holding back the ke of gooey white from pouring into the other rooms. Her other form sat in the middle of the gooey ke, massively swollen with her stomach distended; bodies shifted zily in her core, pressing against her insides, creating vague outlines of feminine forms on her belly.

  She reconnected with the sub-mind, sheltering and pleasuring the women in her bloated silver form, and unraveled it, taking full control once again. Inta closed her eyes briefly, enjoying the pleasure given and received still inside, then slowed the activity and began extricating the women of the book club.

  Inta walked up to her other enormous form, pced her hands on the surface of the distended belly of her other self, and gently reached through until she caught her hands under the armpits of one of the women. She pulled the woman out, straight through the still unduting surface, dragging her out, tentacles still plugging her ass and pussy as well as wrapped all around her body.

  She wiped the gloop off the woman’s face and released the tentacle-air mask, revealing Sujia, whose head lolled limply to one side. She struggled to open her eyes and looked up into Inta’s. “That was fun," she said weakly, with an enormous smile. “Can we do that again?”

  Inta chuckled. “After you’ve rested.” Sujia was in no state to stand on her own, so Inta carried her in her arms, thick white cum dripping off her body, into the master bath where another Inta had been prepping the shower. She handed Sujia’s limp form off to the Inta, who was manning the shower. A third Inta appeared in the doorway with a stack of towels. In assembly line fashion, Inta extricated one woman at a time from the depths of pleasure, showered and towel-dried them, then id them carefully on the bed, at which point the women were fast asleep.

  After ying June on the dry floor of the bedroom in a nest of pillows, the st to be cleaned up and put to be, Inta stood in the doorway watching the gently slumbering book club and silently thanked them not only for the good time, but also their companionship, and the part they pyed in saving Pi’natha's life.

  ****

  Inta instantiated yet another form and stepped out of 4-D space into the middle of the Grove. She was astounded that in the st couple of days, she had grown strong enough to occupy many bodies at once, a feat that would have been impossible just a short while ago. She looked around and found Ti’ne and Larce cuddled up, fast asleep, lying at the foot of one of the Seeding Mothers.

  The Brothers hadn’t stirred much and were still piled on top of her other well-fucked form. They were sleeping quietly, arms over one another, contented smiles on their faces.

  She smiled at the sight and then looked to where she had left De’noke, but he was not there. Scanning the area, she quickly found him kneeling at the base of Pi’natha’s trunk, one palm pced on the spot where her pregnant form beneath Pi’natha’s flesh pressed outward.

  She walked quietly up behind him and embraced him with her small silver hands on his broad shoulders. Even kneeling, he was slightly taller than her five-foot-six inches, and he turned around and looked down into her eyes. Two of his big hands cradled her face, still caressing Pi’natha with the other, and said, his voice beaming with love and tears in his eyes, “Oh my sweet and wonderful Inta. You’ve done it, you saved Pi’natha and I can feel our Seeds growing, safe, and nurtured. You are a miracle.” Then he hugged her with all four of his arms and held her tight.