Title: DEAD WEIGHT

Author: R Schultz ( cousindream@aol.com )

Series: Voyager

Pairing Code: Janeway/f

Rating: NC-17, for sexuality.

Summary: The Ceriean Crisis has lingered on for nine years, but it is now resolved. Speed is of the essence in spreading word of the treaty to the affected worlds. In the need for speed, many hasty expedients are used, including sending out a newly minted Ensign Janeway. Green behind the ears, young, fresh from the Academy. Her job is simple. Bring physical proof of the treaty to the avian Cerieans who share a frontier planet with Terrans.

Apologies to Tom Godwin.

Disclaimer: All Trek belongs to Paramount and ViaBorgCom, who have not only abandoned their vulnerable series characters, they seem to have looted their own company in a manner we are more accustomed to associating with South American dictators building up nest eggs in Switzerland. Only they've used the Cayman Islands banks instead. IRS estimates 800 Billion dollars is stashed illegally in laundered offshore accounts by American corporations. ViaCom, it seems, is one of them. Wonnerful. This story is mine under Berne Copyright Laws. 9000 words long. Written September, 2002, for the FFF -- http://www.oocities.org/femme_fuhq_fest/ .

Comments to R Schultz ( cousindream@aol.com )

DEAD WEIGHT

by R.Schultz

It was nothing more than an escape pod, and the instruments were both simple to use and read. I read them with a cold and bitter heart. The stars were my heaven, but they looked more and more like cold implacable hell tonight.

I sat for the longest time, slumped forward over the damning instruments, trying not to let my emotions get the better of me.

The uniform didn't seem very beautiful to me right now. It was overly elaborate and heavy. But you could spill many things, or shed many tears, on it's sleeves, and it would never show a thing.

I checked again, running a full scan with all the tools available to me, but the results were the same. The fast Galactic Clipper ship had winked out of warped space, deposited me in the direction of the sun Prophet's Word, and already winked back into warp space.

I was on my own, and the second brightest star in my sight was the frontier world Fastnor itself. The brightest was the stable M sequence sun it orbited.

A piece of cake, the Lt. Commander had told me.

A piece of cake.

For the third time I ran all the instruments, and fed all the data into the limited Computer aboard this ersatz "courier" ship. Weight, fuel expenditures, jettisonable items, all of it.

Hell, it was nothing but an escape pod and a badly maintained one that was missing half the components mandated by Federation law.

Less than a twelfth of the fuel mandated, a twentieth of the food and water, a gaping hole in the instruments board, and the air regenerator was all we had and it was smelly. The smell was our oxygen being inexorably transformed into carbon monoxide and sulfur dioxide. We had no air tanks. Remind me to lodge a official complaint when and if I got back to the bosom of StarFleet.

That'll solve everything.

I had to lean forward once more onto the sleeve of my uniform jacket. Wishing.....

Wishing.

I lifted my head and dried my eyes when a tentative scrape of feet came to my ears. The bunk cabin door, of course, needed fixing. It made a creak when the stowaway opened it enough to exit onto the spacious nine by six by ten meter forward space.

"Who's there?" I inquired in a very tired voice. Twenty-one year old Ensigns weren't supposed to get this tired. I felt sixty.

"Masera," said a very tentative female voice. As if that name explained everything. Even without turning around and looking, I felt the urge to cradle my face once more in the sleeve of my burgundy red jacket. I could hear her come a few steps closer, and imagined her hand outstretched in a gesture.

I snapped erect, dried my tears, and spun in my seat to face my stowaway. It was somehow expected that she would be both beautiful and young. Andorian as well. The two antennae atop her head were cute, I suppose. It didn't get any easier.

A young woman, dark blue hair, light blue eyes, dark blue lips, a few dozen small necklaces, I think they called them dowry chains. Later on she said changing hair color was quite fashionable on the Andorian home world.

Arms and feet were uncovered. Taller than me, but then most humanoid females were. A waist pack, and no other jewelry. My stowaway.

I didn't hold out my hand in greeting. I ignored her outstretched hand and eventually she let it drop to her side.

"What are you doing on my ship?" I asked in cold tones.

"It's only an escape pod," she replied.

"For the moment it is a StarFleet courier craft under my command," I returned. "I repeat, what are you doing aboard this ship? I already know you're a stowaway." No friendliness existed in my spare words.

The directness shocked her. She didn't relish my tone, and was a great deal more tentative than she had been a moment ago.

"I just want to see my brother," she blurted.

She stowed away to see her brother. I hope my face showed nothing of what I was thinking, but it must have. She dwindled in my sight, suddenly very afraid of whatever punishment she was going to receive.

By some force of will I stayed in my seat and did not immediately wrap her in my arms and try to give her comfort.

An innocent, of course. No evil intent to her act. My age probability, but I felt much older at this moment in time. She'd gone off on a lark, an impulsive jaunt to see her brother. Presumably he was a colonist or Federation bureaucrat on the frontier planet lying ahead of me in it's predestined orbital place.

The shipboard clock told me it was four hours and nineteen minutes to torch and atmospheric entry. The clock was running.

"How old are you, Masera?" I asked in as soft a tone as I could manage at the moment.

"Twenty-two Terran," she said. "I'm married to the new Andorian Counsel on Detta. It's one of those new Vulcan-ethnic peopled planets. Just opened up to contact and trade this year. But we'll be there ten years, probably.

"Fastnor was so close, and I might spend twenty years, thirty. before seeing my brother again. I'll not cause any trouble, honest. I just want to see my brother. Is that so bad?"

Slipped off the Clipper liner, which wasn't supposed to be possible if the equipment was working and it was turned on and if the guards were there and if they were awake. A lot of if's. After a week on a Galactic Clipper I mentally decided none of the safeguards were in play. Typical Clipper operation. Presumably that meant this situation was not my fault. Wunnerful.

She probably thought she had succeeded in her jaunty trick. She was going to see her brother and then go off to some new developing planet where she would be well cared for, but probably bored to tears in four years. Bear a few kids, yeah, that'd break the monotony.

Four hours and sixteen minutes to torch. I instructed Computer to turn off the clock's visual display. It'd warn me when we got close to planetfall torch.

I'd go insane if I kept seeing the figures creep down to zero.

One thing I DID have to do, however.

"Okay, Masera," I said in a weary voice. "You're here now and we have to do a few things. For one thing I've already sent notification of a stowaway to Planetary HQ ahead.

"Maybe you hoped to charm me, and persuade me to let you disembark without any official rules having to be invoked? Look the other way? But they've already been notified and the disembarkation isn't going to happen.

"How were you going to live while on the planet? How were you going to leave once your visit was up?

Masera was a little shamefaced now, but she pulled a few items out of her waist pack.

"I've my UFP and Andorian Diplomatic Passbooks, and I've five or six credit filches. I wouldn't have had any trouble paying my own way, I wouldn't be a burden to anyone. Honest! And I would have left planet on the first visiting vessel to arrive."

She smiled again, nice smile, how damned guileless she looked with that smile. Probably had her husband wrapped around her little finger.

"Tiermas, that's my husband, would be annoyed with the delay, but his peeves are my problem, not the UFP's."

"I just wanted to talk with Hamna before I settled down to married life. That's all, honest!

"Well, maybe I hoped he could come to the spaceport and see me before you shipped me back.

"Is that so bad? I'll take whatever punishment you give me, honest I will!"

We will both be punished, I thought to myself.

Trying to give myself an agenda, I stalled. "Can I get you anything to eat or drink? So long as it's either water or survival rations, I can give you anything you want."

- - - - - - - - - - - - -

She unwound as gram by gram she allowed herself to eat one of the emergency bars. It was an ancient prune fruit nutrition bar, it's usage date about fifteen years past. She thought it rather tasty. I shuddered to think of what Andorians were raised on.

"You and your brother were close?" I asked.

""My father was gone much of the time, so it was left to Hamna to raise us girls in a proper manner. Our oldest brother has traveled with Father for years and years. Hamna became the man of the household. He raised us and spanked us and told us how to behave and what to do. Bossy, I guess, but it seemed right at the time.

"And you?"

Chit-chat was not something I wanted, but I admitted to being raised by women all my life. My father was a StarFleet Admiral and he was just a visitor. Grandma Gretchen is the one raised me and Phoebe.

"However," Masera went on, "it was Hamna to whom we looked to for love and everything else. He was away on service to the Federation when I got married, and I missed him so.

"Now I go to join Tiermas, my husband, but I leaped at the chance for this tiny adventure when I heard you were journeying to the planet he now works and resides on.

"So I stowed away on your ship. Are you very very mad at me?"

Am I mad? Mad was not the word I would have used.

Give me strength.

The idiot girl gave me full particulars when I asked. Especially her brother's name and his job description. Second assistant planetary coordinator sounded quite impressive, but I estimated there probably weren't eight Federation service people on the entire planet, including the governor himself.

Lack of government is why a lot of people emigrate. To get away from the Federation. They believe a smaller planetary government will treat them better than the Federation, and not give them so much trouble. They want the frontier and it's lack of laws. So they inevitably start up another government.

What fools we mortals be.

"We're forced to use antique radio propagation in this vessel," I explained to the Andorian woman. "They've never kept up their emergency escape pods on the "Glimmerworm". I understand most Galactic Clipper ships are accustomed to disregarding pod rules."

"This vessel lacks sub-space, and if I had a few hours and the equipment I could cobble something together to serve as one.

"But we don't, and we'll be hearing our first messages from Fastnor shortly. I shouldn't be surprised your brother will be on the horn when we establish contact."

Masera brightened considerably at that prospect. "Will I be able to talk with him then? You'll let me talk with him? That'd be so great, really it would!" With that the naive female flung herself across the small space separating us. Her hug took my breath away and broke my heart.

Please, please, oh dear God in Heaven, do not let her be grateful to me, if there is any mercy in Heaven, do not do this to me!

Naturally she kissed me as well, her hand in my long auburn hair. She smelled of cloying spices and a little acidic sweat and unfamiliar oils. Her long gown was light and soft, and made rustling noises as she came to squat alongside me.

She held my hand, her eyes downcast, her gratitude open.

Let there be mercy in Heaven. Hail Mary full of grace, I am a great sinner, forgive us both, grant us mercy.

The stars looked further away and the frontier planet of Fated already seemed closer. I would not ask Computer how long till torch. Hail Mary....

The radio chose that second to crackle and invade our space with it's demands and confusions. I would have to wait for my answer to travel the distance to the planet, as they would have to wait for my own words.

It was the brother, Hamna. It would be.

"Masera!" the voice cried. "What have you DONE?!?"

Masera had to be forced to wait for both reply and a chance to answer, but she told her brother she had stowed away when an opportunity availed itself. She was very sorry, but she absolutely HAD to see her favorite brother one last time before she became a dutiful wife so far away. Dutiful? I doubted she would have ever been dutiful.

I tried to ignore their inane and useless gibbering, but I couldn't. It was listen or mentally try to estimate how long until it was time to torch for planetfall.

I managed not to cry while listening to the two fools. Hamna was evidently a few years older than me, but Masera was definitely a bubblehead. They still felt like children to me.

She was quite pretty, actually. Taller than me, striking straight blue-black hair, light blue eyes with very little white, a pair of jewelry studs in her right cheek. You couldn't tell much about the figure in that long dress, but whatever it was, I had the feeling she was perfect and knew it.

So young. And still a year older than me.

A new voice came on the radio, full of anger and rigid calm. It was no one less than the Governor himself. Even if it's only a small drop in the Galactic pool, Fastnor WAS an entire planet, and he ran it, so far as it needed running.

I took over the radio, presenting my particulars to him and his planetary Computer. It felt comforting to lapse into established procedures. It broke my heart.

Naturally he had already heard of the treaty, and knew the Cerieans would be abandoning Fastnor as part of the agreement. He also knew that the cultural mindset of the aliens demanded that they receive a very official emissary with a very official copy of the treaty. They needed this formality in order to be willing to abandon the frontier planet.

Don't ask me why. Ask the diplomats, the Xenobiologists and Xenoanthropologists.

I was the Emissary and I had a very official scrap of vellum with lots of official clauses written on it.

I had to read off the weight, velocity, trajectory, and fuel to him. Especially the fuel. I hoped my Comp was malfunctioning and all was well.

There was a long pause of five or six minutes, and I shushed Masera when she wanted to talk more with Hamna. Talking with Hamna was something she had risked severe punishment in order to accomplish, and she meant to do a lot of it.

I could already tell the intervals between our sentences were diminishing. Fastnor was drawing closer and I could sense torch rushing upon me.

The Governor finally came back on the horn. I suddenly empathized with him, for his voice was firm and full of misery.

"Would you please repeat your particulars? Especially projected torch time and fuel reserves? Please give me all your pertinent vehicular data again. Please. We want to double-check, here.

The hollow misery of his voice came through the radio link. Masera suddenly realized things were not as wonderful as she had anticipated. A few seconds and it had gotten colder in the pod. I commanded a little more heat from Computer.

Silence for a few moments, and then the Governor was back. He seemed to have recovered. His voice was crisp and businesslike, the voice of a man in command and accustomed to being in charge.

"If your math, especially concerning real mass and fuel are correct, and I presume you've already checked them out yourself....

"If these calculations are correct, your present torch will be too late and of insufficient force and interval to allow safe reentry.

"Is this also your conclusion?"

"It is," I replied in my best dry Academy voice. "A later torch would be insufficient to retro-orbit me, and an earlier one will bring about upper atmospheric incineration."

I was looking at Masera as these words came from my mouth. She understood somehow that my words spelt very bad news, and she became ashen under her lovely dark blue skin. I wondered if it would feel smoother than human female's skin. It looked it.

"Wha.... Is there something wrong, Ensign?"

"We have too much mass, too much weight, and too little fuel and there is no craft on planetary surface capable of reaching us in orbit. None.

"We are committed to our present trajectory and we don't have the resources aboard this escape pod to survive planetfall or any sort of stable orbit."

Don't look at me like that, Masera. Please don't.

"What does that mean..." she began, but the voice of Hamna came from the speakers. Loud.

"Nasmi, you idiot, you foolish, foolish woman!?!?! What in the name of all that is hollow have you DONE???????"

"Hamna....," she began again.

"You have KILLED yourself!" he broke in, not expecting or allowing a reply.

"That's ENOUGH, Administrator," came the voice of the Governor.

To me he was cold and precise. He was full of anger and despair when we could hear him talking to Hamna. I don't think either one realized normal transmission blanking protocols didn't apply to an antique radio transmission. Cupping a hand towards the view screen didn't work for a microphone.

You couldn't blame him. In the normal course of events he'd use the radio for communicating maybe zero times in his long life time.

"We can hear every word you say," I pointed out to the Governor. My voice was calm and loud.

For long minutes we listened to his asides to Hamna, cold with the frigid regret in our hearts.

"Maybe there is a solution to this PROBLEM that does NOT involve spacing your sister, Hamna. We must explore all our options while time remains. Until then you will --"

Sudden silence from the speaker.

They had just listened to my interruption. I could taste the blood from where I'd bitten my tongue.

What else was I capable of doing in this predicament? Nothing.

She was so pretty, I decided, and her face was lighter under her blue racial beauty. Brows almost meeting, long nose, full lips almost black, an attractive girl. In thirty years she might even have been beautiful, almost certainly stately.

I tasted blood again. She was never going to have those thirty years. No children. No arguments with her husband, and no making up. No tears, no lying awake at night, no spending too much at some shop, or puzzling out the meaning of her existence. No secret clandestine lovers, no complaints to in-laws, or games or gossip with other women her age. Nothing.

There is no pity between the stars. Only truths.

The voice of the Governor resumed. I didn't even know his name. Did it matter? Nothing and no one mattered anymore. There was just myself, a sorry excuse of an escape pod, and the till-breathing dead weight opposite me. Afraid now to speak.

"Let's explore our options again, Ensign Janeway," the Governor came back. He made no comment about the words he and Hamna had sent on to Masera's shocked ears.

"What weight can be jettisoned? Maybe there is enough so that we can find an alternate solution."

We ran down the list. A few liters of water in the tanks. A few iron ration packs. Our clothes. The fittings to the bunks, which might amount to ten kilos once they had all, somehow, been ripped off and thrown out the airlock.

We could even stand to lose a few liters of air. Air had weight. Not much, but some.

As for the rest, how to dismantle them? I needed my chair for re-entry, and how could I rip it up anyways? Same for the bunks themselves, and the sliding door to the sleeping chamber. We even allowed for the waste from bodily functions.

In all Computer stated we could jettison thirty-two kilos of everything.

We had no tools, no means to dismantle anything else and jettison it. The sliding door looked promising until I realized there was no way to bend it once removed, and no way it would fit through our tiny airlock without being bent or folded.

Masera was a little over weight. Pretty, shaking, long lovely soft hands. Her blue skin was almost silken, definitely softer than a human female's.

There was still thirty-three kilos too many aboard this ship and not enough fuel to take us down after torch and retro.

Together, we and this escape pod probably massed eight and a half tonne. Thirty-three kilos seemed terribly small in comparison to that, but it was enough.

Oh, My Lord God, hast thou forsaken me?

I hadn't prayed to my childhood savior for years, and I felt a little foolish doing so now. But I was a desperate woman.

Thirty-three kilos too much, even with the jettisoning of whatever we could pry loose. Thirty-three kilos.

"If we dumped all this stuff, could you scrape us by? Just enough to reach the surface?" she babbled. "Why can't we orbit until another ship comes by, or they can cobble something together and reach us?"

I had to explain to her again that we were a fraction of a millimeter away from survival. But that was a deadly fraction. We didn't have quite enough fuel on board.

Our air regenerator was failing, that was why we were getting the horrible smell and migraine headaches.

We had to land now, or die, and we couldn't land. We could make a beautiful falling star in the upper atmosphere when we burned up. We would hold together long enough to make a spectacular hole in the ground.

Eight and a half tons would make a good sized impact crater.

A piece of cake the Lt. Commander had said. I shall rip out his gizzard and eat it raw when I get back.

Though I told Masera how deep and how wide the impact crater would be, she hadn't started crying yet. She was still in denial.

Masera turned back to the radio, desperate now, pleading for her beloved brother to find some other way out of my dilemma.

I turned off my ears as they talked, said stupid things. Through it all I tried not to notice, but I did in any case.

Hamna cursed her, and the Governor did not interfere. Then Hamna cried to her, telling her of his love for her and the love of the rest of the family for her, and then cursed her again.

Masera was sobbing and often incoherent now. The intervals in transmission were much shorter. We were very close, now, to the planet Fastnor. It sat there, in the view screen, a bright tiny speck of a pearl that was already swinging us into a quickly decaying orbit.

I had to put my head down on my sleeve again and cry into it. Sick to my stomach, thinking of what I would put in my official report, and in my unofficial report as well. Someone would - maybe - pay for this. Maybe not. The Federation didn't say much to the freighter and passenger lines. They needed them too desperately.

It took my mind off how short the interval was now between the planet's transmissions and ours. Torch time was coming on feet swifter than Ceres'.

Turning, I let Masera comfort herself in my arms, then broke in on the meaningless words of rebuke and solace Hamna continued to spout into the ether waves.

"Governor," I stated. "One solution is allowed, as I'm sure you are well aware. And thank you for your efforts in this matter."

The now strong male voice cut me short.

"Ensign Janeway, listen very carefully. This is for the record.

"As there is only one solution to your dilemma, I order you to take it.

"Under the authority granted me by the United Federation of Planets, I hereby order you to jettison your extra weight. I understand this is a harsh and brutal decision, but I see no alternative.

"For the record, I hereby order the immediate execution by spacing of your stowaway. Not for any crime, but in order to save at least one of you from this debacle.

"On my authority I demand you save yourself and execute this spacing order immediately, or as soon as you are able to do so."

He followed with a few code words, computer sigils. For the record. I thought I could hear a few tears in his precise syllables.

He could have left the decision entirely up to me. As a StarFleet officer, he knew I would have done what was needful. Executed this useless pretty helpless woman, without his intervention being necessary.

He had probably wrecked any hope he had of advancing in rank and position in the bureaucracy.

At the end of his commands, I asked the Governor what his name was, what they called him. What his friends called him.

"Cranach Cordwainder, I'm called Joiner, after my grandfather, I'm a Martian. And you?"

"Ensign Kathryn Janeway. Call me Katie. Please. I hail from Indiana, in North America." No sound now excepting for Hamna still muttering to himself in the radio's background, and Masera sobbing in my ear, all was silence.

"Over and out, Fastnor," I spoke through the radio. I turned off the radio in my end. Leaving my universe to consist of me, this pathetic escape pod I called my ship, and the dead woman.

She was accepting her death, now. Her own bright mind had raced and raced in ever decreasing circles until it finally told her the truth.

She must be jettisoned. It was the both of us or just her. I was needed to guide this pod through torch and re-entry.

We had to comfort each other, it was a necessity. I was her executioner, what else could I be? But I was all she had to touch, to cling to. For a while.

She told me of her sisters and mother now. Tales about her father or brothers was necessary to give reality to her shortening life.

Her tears never completely dried, but then neither did mine. We were reduced to two women in pain, in each other's arms.

She mentioned her tiny useless pet dog, her toys, her past.

I babbled about my Irish Setter, Jake, my sister Phoebe and her renown as an artist. My mother, my grand-mother, my Admiral father.

Near her town was a cliff line she would visit, then gaze out upon her home to the serrengetti below, the vast grasslands stretching across a quarter of her world. She recalled her first horse, being part of thousands of horse-riders as her clan swept towards the rising sun and back. Forty thousand horses and their riders being part of a whole.

My prairies were full of flowers, I said, our crops stretched away for fifteen full sections, a vast array of bounty being tended by legions of machines and devotion. The hordes of migrating ducks and geese overhead in the fall, the brown trout in my river, the taste of tomatoes and grapes straight from the vine.

We were, after all, just two women. Our universe could be remarkably small when we women allowed it. We did not talk of onrushing torch point. She had to realize that was the point of time in which she must be ejected from this ship.

I should have killed her as soon as the Governor gave the order, and jettisoned her immediately. As I peeled my skin and soul from my bleeding body, I mentally resolved to never again hesitate in the face of inevitable decisions.

I doubted I could ever be that cold-blooded, and wondered of my suitability to someday command a StarShip. Too emotional, I thought, I could see the words noted in my service jacket.

Eventually Masera came to talk of the few males, and surprisingly, the many females she had loved. All unconsummated, she now wailed. She was a wife in a culture which thought of lesbian loves as a customary thing. It helped keep wives faithful, was the logic. That was news to me.

Loving other females was not that unusual. A wife might love another wife and it just happened, without punishments. Andorians were, after all, an alien race. She had even had a crush on her oldest sister.

She asked if I had a crush on my sister, Phoebe? Not so, I said to myself. A little one, I admitted to Masera, and as I said it, I knew it was both a truth and not so little. She asked of my men, my women, how was it to make love to another woman?

Oh where has the love of God gone?

I tried to tell her. I lied. I admitted to Jennifer, changing my one-night stand in the Academy into a long-term passionate affair. Realizing my mistake when Masera held me close and falteringly whispered her few words directly into my ears.

"Please, Kathryn, please, will you show me what is it like to love another woman? I can't....."

"Do I ask too much from you?"

Long pause.

"Do I ask too much from you?"

All mercy has fled, it is left me bereft and broken.

"Masera..."

"Please, Kathryn, you are all I have now. I forgive you my death, it was my fault, I was a foolish, foolish, foolish little girl. It was my fault.

"But can you send me to my maker complete? This one boon I ask of you, please. I want you to .... do whatever it is women like you do to each other. Please?"

I am sent down amongst the fallen angels for my pride and arrogance and grievous sins.

"You have had other women, you know of the ways of making love to a woman. Could you give me this last gift? I need something to take with me when I breathe vacuum."

One unsatisfying night and now I'm an old dyke. Lord, thou doth punish me for my sins. Me and my big mouth. Mine conceit is put down.

There was, protect me, but one thing left to do. I subvocalized computer and told it to give me count-down to torch, on the clock.

I now had a schedule and a task. Where, oh where, hath the love of God gone?

I became the heroine of those lesbian-oriented bodice-rippers I had read. I was now this woman accustomed to the feel of women's skin, the hardness of aroused nipples, the patter and dialogue stolen from the most lurid fiction I had ever pored over.

I was smooth, I was one smooth dyke. I had to be. I was giving the condemned her last request.

Masera became quiet as I took her in hand, caressing her with what I thought of as a loving caress, improvising my motions, remembering patterns of speech in a novel, movements seen in a Porno Holo, being the woman who could love this exotic woman.

I rose her up, petting her head, letting her fingers work through my long unbound hair. She loved my hair, she loved the smell, the perfume lingering behind my ears, the slight taste of salt she got from my skin when she kissed my throat.

Her throat tasted foreign, erotic, novel, exciting.

Her long thick blue-black hair smelled of musk and cloying spices, an exotic scent of a dark erotic sensual houri. Her fear could be tasted on every one of the passes of my tongue upon her skin.

She managed to stop sobbing as I began to undress her. I sought to give her unveiling the mystique and power I always wanted to experience when I was disrobed. I wanted to make this perfect.

In time my mouth found her naked breasts, large flowing breasts, made for suckling. They became my playground and my hell. She was laid down upon my jacket and trousers and her own clothes. She was robust and flawless, her smile was so pathetic and desperate, she worked herself with one hand, the other kneading her soft breasts. Her tongue tip peeked out of her mouth, inviting me.

Her mons was sparsely covered with pure white pubic hairs. They were fascinating, surprising, even enticing. Pure white, short and curly. You cannot imagine the contrast of white hair on that dark blue skin.

I never stopped smiling, or leering. Or telling her how lovely she was and what I would do to her and how she would enjoy my doing it. Her light blue eyes were shining diamonds as I finished taking off my own clothes.

I smiled, I cooed, I lay down upon her and kissed her with as much passion as I could imagine.

I put my face in her pure white body hairs and inhaled her, spiking, knowing her scents aroused me even now. I could not recall how Jennifer had tasted or smelled there, but I knew she had never tasted as pungent or sharp as did Masera.

She came. Genuine big O's, a reaction to her situation, desperation, I don't know. I thought of cranberries as she fed me her juices. Sharp, aromatic, a lingering taste. She enjoyed what I did for, with, to her. Every porno Holodrama I'd ever seen was carefully recalled as my hands and mouth wandered all over her body before once more settling between her legs.

As I said, it was good for her. It was the only thing within my power to give.

When she lay her lovely head between my legs and feasted on my sex, I became a quadrant-class actress. She was ... She did not know, I am sure she was convinced of my joy and love for her actions. I even had the sense to give her small bits of advice on how to please me better with her mouth. I talked a great game.

The condemned prisoner had her last meal of choice, I said to myself. I had to bitterly repress my desire to giggle hysterically.

I felt absolutely no sense of sin in doing this last favor for her. It allowed me look away from the ticking count-down and concentrate on this loving woman lying skin to skin with me.

I was given a blessing.

Somehow I found myself peaking as her unskilled mouth and tongue and teeth and sucking mouth worshipped the last living being she would ever love. The last in all the universe.

Am I cursed?

Afterwards we lay in silence. She was being brave now, or fatalistic, or both. I acted content and loving and close. My skin was peeled from me and my soul burned in oils of regret.

She rose, looking down on me, enjoying my pale beauty and nudity. She thought my skin translucent, incredibly beautiful and fragile-appearing. I knew I was beautiful and my young body was desirable, excepting my too-short and wiry legs. Forgive me, oh Lord, I visibly preened for her gaze.

She began to put on her clothes, looking at me kindly, lovingly, tears again in her eyes. She did not look at the clock, I think.

"Can I go now?" she asked me.

"What of Hamna?"

"Tell him I loved him and could not bear to again hear the pain I caused him."

I held her, and almost subvocalized a command to Computer while caressing her long blue-black hair. I tried to visualize the hair bone white. I decided that would be beautiful as well.

Enter here if you wish to read Ending #1

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Enter here if you wish to read Ending #2

. ~~ENDING #1~~

I held her for a few minutes, then finally subvocalized thecommand i wished not to give. I caressed her long hair, inhaling it's dryness. She lept my hair before her face, inhaling me while she could. She was a woman now, in her own mind, and she'd taken on a woman's burden. I palmed the hypo now sitting in
front of the Med Box. We circled, my nude body whispering against hers, my face somehow dry.

The subvocalized command created a hypo full of enough come-along to put ten Andorians to sleep permanently.

She never even felt the hypo, I thought then.

Masera held my hand as we went the few steps to the airlock. It opened for her, she put one foot inside it. I could not cry then, I dared not, but I did anyways.

We kissed, she leaning out of the tiny airlock, with me still outside.

"What was in that shot, Kathryn, my dearest?"

"You will go to sleep." And never waken I said to myself.

"Can we hold hands until I do?"

"Of course."

It didn't take long. I folded her hands in her lap, and kissed her one last time. She was sitting comfortably, her sleep shallow and quiet.

"Fast emergency cycle," I commanded the Computer.

Explosive force ejected Masera into a long fast orbit, I knew. If we were to travel onwards for months, eventually her orbit would be that of a infinitesimal speck of a moon in oblong orbit about this pod.

I sat in my pilot's seat, staring out at the growing orb of Fastnor.

Computer found a small pair of clippers in the med box, and I shaved all my hair off.

It was just dead weight, anyways.

Now, formalities must be observed.

As I re-dressed myself, I contacted the Governor. Our speech was instantaneous now.

He was informed of the execution of the stowaway, death by spacing her out of the airlock. He noted my completion of his order. There was no sound in the background, so I presumed Hamna had retreated to somewhere else, some spot where solace might be found.

When I landed I knew the Governor and I would hold each other too close, too tightly. If the Governor wanted to find solace in my body, I badly needed solace myself, and I knew our age difference wouldn't mean a flying fuck. Pain seeks company.

"Five minutes to torch and counting," the Computer intoned.

"Terminate countdown," I commanded. "Just torch when the instant arrives. Don't bother me until we land, unless an emergency comes up." Yet you still needed a live pilot as back-up, even for this pod.

I sat and watched the deep blue ball of Fastnor came closer. And looked to the quadrant visible to my port. I did not ask the Computer for relevant information about trajectory, but I was too much the graduate of the Academy. I already knew where I would see the little firetrails when my orbiting body first touched the upper traces of atmosphere.

There! That recurring spark!

That was Masera. A few lines of white in the deep dark sky, at first.

We skipped across the upper reaches together, her leaving increasingly long firetrails in the sky. We bounced free together, and re-grazed the rarefied molecules together.

The third time we grazed the atmospheric envelope, torch was initiated. The escape pod swiveled on its axis, so that I was
facing out. Looking back along our glide path. I had a perfect seat for watching Masera abraded and burned down to nothing.

It took a long time. She was a steady point of light and firetrail now. The people down on the planetary surface could look into their sky and watch Masera in her funeral pyre.

It was possible to order Computer to occlude the screen, but this was dear Masera. She might take her Valkyrie's Ride on her funeral barge thrice across the entire sky of Fastnor. She would be spectacular.

I did not cry as she became a living flame across the firmament, a long-tailed brightness when seen from below.

Sometime after the fourth torch and slowing, I could see her meteoric existence end in a spectacular fireball. Bright sparks spread out across thousands of kilometers of the early morning sky. Still small enough in my view to be held in the palm of God's hand.

In a day or a year or a century, she would drift down to the surface. Finally come to earth on the planet of her journey's end.

"On that final day," I said, "He shall rap the sides of all resting places with his strong staff, and call them forth for their time of judgment. "Rise up," he shall command us all, and we shall rise, to be counted.

"And the blessed and the forgiven shall walk in Paradise that day."

Now I could cry.


END

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. ~~ENDING #2~~

The subvocalized command would have created a hypo full of enough come-along to put ten Andorians to sleep permanently.

~~back~~

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