War Angel: part fourteen

Sarah and Gina sat quietly, consuming the leftovers still sitting out from that evening’s dinner rations. They began with their own plates, Gina’s having never been touched, and eventually moved on to finishing everyone else’s foods. Spying one piece of bread left in the center of the table, each eyed it with barely repressed desire.

“Flip a coin for it?” Sarah asked.

Gina swallowed the piece of lettuce she was slurping into her mouth. “Oh, come on. You know that’s mine.”

“How so?”

“Hunger is a manifestation of grief and anguish at our current situation.” Sarah nodded at her. “That said, there are other forms of hunger that arise in a traumatic scenario, and of the two of us, only you have a readily available source for relieving that hunger. Ergo,” she smiled gently, “in order to best sate my own hunger, all I have is that piece of bread right now.”

Sarah’s jaw dropped for a moment; then she collected herself. Richard had told them earlier than everyone was onto the two of them, so Gina’s response really shouldn’t have been surprising, all things considered. And as much as she wanted to deny or defend, the truth was the truth. The young woman took her napkin from her lap, wiped her face and lips, and stood up from the table.

“Want to know a secret?” Sarah asked. Gina nodded, her curiosity piqued. “My callsign- Supersonic- not because of my aeronautics background.”

“Really?”

“Nope. Given to me by a lover. We were having one particularly incredible night, and I let out a… noise… that stunned the both of us with its ferocity.” She began to feel wistful. “After that, his goal was always to get me to ‘supersonic’.”

Gina laughed. “Wow! Must be an amazing man.”

“Absolutely. And better for me, he’s on this ship.” She turned around and started walking out of the mess.

“Gotta go- I’m hungry. Enjoy the bread.”

Richard Park replaced the front panel on the ship’s comm. controls and gave a small fist pump. “Yes! That should do it. We are definitely in business.”

“Umm, a question occurs to me,” Jack said. “You say they won’t be able to trace us, which is great, but what if they have other ships out patrolling the system and scanning for EAD remnants? How vulnerable are we right now where we’re sitting? I know we have to keep some line of sight to run this, but after that, what’s our best bet for hiding?”

Clover scratched his chin and thought about that for a moment. They’d been assuming the invasion was completely Earth focused, but having subdued the EUG and the EAD, perhaps the Omegans would be searching out pockets of potential resistance. No question, the War Angel would be vulnerable to scanning at their current location. Or even worse…

“I don’t think that’s our only risk. In fact, I can think of one more basic scenario that could put us in even deeper shit…” His train of thought suddenly derailed at the sound of footsteps. The two men turned their attention to their approach, and soon saw Sarah came around a corner junction.

“Hi Richard, Jack.”

“Hey,” Richard responded, “How’s Kate? You and Gina get her back to her room okay?”

“She’s resting comfortably. Thanks for asking.” She turned her attention to Jack. “Richard, are you at a place where you can spare Jack for a while?”

“Well, we have the scans up and running, and data should start flooding into the main computer within the next few minutes, and then we’ll need to start parsing through it and…”

Sarah cut him off. “All things you can take care of alone, yes?”

Richard shrugged. “I guess so. I mean, it’ll take longer by myself but if, you know, there’s something else Jack needs to do, maybe we can work on that together…”

“Unnecessary. Thanks Richard.” She turned her attention to Jack. “Let’s go.”

She turned on one heel and began walking away. Jack eyed Richard and shrugged his shoulders. “I’ll see you later, Rich,” he said, and began following Sarah.

Morrison pored over the maps on his screen, making sure that he was precise in what he was about to tell his crew. Pluto was currently near its aphelion, and they might not have a better opportunity to get a jump on going extra-solar and passing through the interstellar medium and outside of the heliopause. One of the few things that Earth had discovered was that the Omegans came from somewhere within the Oort cloud, science having pierced its veil enough to discover that it held planetary bodies. Thus, that had to be avoided. However, the planets that had been discovered within the binary system of Alpha Centauri- those were fair game. Evidence suggested that at least one held the promise of water and the capability to support carbon-based life at one point.

That, the Captain thought, would be where they run. With the tachyon drive, they could get there within eleven days. It was a longshot, of that there was no question. But within their own solar system, there was nowhere to run. There were no supplies to be found.

Perhaps in another part of the universe they would find other life that was friendly, and they could begin to determine a way of removing the Omegans from their home once and for all. It was a good idea. They had the technology to make the journey. He could sell it as a chance to not only survive, but to make history, to do something that had never been done by a human being before.

Goddamned if it wasn’t even inspiring.

“I can make this work,” Morrison thought. His head began to swim with pride.

Sarah collapsed onto Jack’s chest, both heaving and gasping for oxygen from their efforts. As much as he had always found Sarah to be a robust and enthusiastic lover, there was definitely something different about her today. Indeed, she had barely made a noise- unusual enough considering the nickname he had given her- choosing instead to repeatedly bite into his shoulders so hard that she drew blood. As she rolled off of him and onto the sheets next to him, he realized that wasn’t the only way he had been wounded. His back felt irritated by the fabric, and he knew that she had left her mark there, as well as across his chest.

This was a new Sarah, Jack thought. And he found himself liking her very much.

The room remained silent for a few minutes as the pair got lost in their thoughts. Jack wondered if he should say something, anything, to break the quiet hanging over the room. Was now the time to start talking about today’s devastation? Could he offer words of encouragement borne of his great-grandfather’s journals? Earth had twice faced down the Omegans and twice was victorious. Surely that counted for something. Or should he do something traditional, something that men in his position had done for centuries when faced with behavior from their women that they didn’t comprehend?

“Yep,” Jack thought, “that’s the right move.” He reached over onto the nightstand and took a long drink of water from a half-empty glass. “Sarah, I lo-“

She quickly rolled onto her side, draping her arm across his upper thigh and taking hold of his cock. Startled, he stopped talking, and as he did, she began stroking him with intensity and intent. “What do you say, cowboy? Shall we go for three?” she asked.

His biological response answered for both of them, and he mashed his lips into hers and rolled her onto her back.

“Clearly,” he would think later, “that is not what she wanted to hear.”