Surrender Among the Stars (Alien BDSM Science Fiction Romance) Read online

  Surrender Among the Stars

  by Macy Babineaux

  Copyright © 2016 Macy Babineaux. All Rights Reserved.

  Junior Commander Cora Riggs was down on all-fours in maintenance shaft number twelve, her executive officer Dack Mason behind her, hands around her waist, thrusting himself inside her. Aboard the USS Salvation, she was the commanding officer and he was second-in-command. Her short, dark hair flew up around her head like a pom-pom and her ample tits swung with every pump.

  “Slap my ass,” Cora said between heavy breaths.

  Dack paused for a moment, looking surprised. “What?”

  “I said slap my ass,” she said, sounding a little annoyed.

  “I—I’m not sure. I mean, you’re my superior.”

  She looked over her shoulder at him. He was pretty to look at. No doubt about that. His blond hair was buzzed to a regulation crew cut. His chiseled body and lean face bore a light sheen of sweat, despite the cool air in the maintenance shaft.

  Cora sighed. “Nevermind.” He resumed fucking her, and she tried to get back into the groove. All she wanted were a few little smacks on the ass. She’d been thrust into the role of commander too early, and commanding the Salvation was particularly stressful. It was the ship holding the last humans alive in the universe.

  Every person on earth had been killed in the invasion. The Salvation had been on training maneuvers when the Kolrathi attacked. At first they had tried to engage in the battle, but the ship had sustained heavy damage, and Commander Garrett had died in the fighting. Cora had taken the helm, and her first command was to retreat. She hadn’t wanted to. The first thing on her mind was to avenge Garrett’s death. But they were drastically outgunned. The Kolrathi plasma beams cut through human ships like hot butter. They would run, and live to fight another day.

  But a Kolrathi ship had fallen in pursuit, and never let up. Human ships were no match with raw firepower, but they held their own when it came to speed. So the chase began, as it had for the last four months, the Salvation and its crew only stain a hair’s breadth ahead of their pursuer. They were unable to stop for supplies, to rest, to repair. They were constantly hounded by the threat of imminent death. And when they were gone, there would be no humans left.

  So Cora had slipped her XO a message to meet her in maintenance shaft twelve, probably the only place on the ship they could have a little privacy. They had very nearly torn each other’s uniforms off, kissing deeply, and clawing at each other with an urgency that only the impending threat of annihilation could generate. They might all die soon, and Cora didn’t intend to go down without a fight, but she was also a woman, with a woman’s needs. In the mantle of leadership, the responsibility for all those lives, weighed heavily. All she wanted was a good fuck.

  And Dack was pretty good. At twenty-five, she was far too young to be commanding a vessel like the Salvation, and Dack was only two years older than her. His body was lean and muscular, a well-honed soldier’s body. And he knew how to fuck. He had grabbed her ankles and spread her wide on the cool, steely floor of the maintenance corridor, pushing himself inside her and thrusting with power and precision. Before he could come, she had put her hands on his chest, and pushed him up, so she could roll over onto her hands and knees.

  She wanted to be taken from behind, like an animal in the wild. She wanted him to pull her hair, to bite the back of her neck, to smack her ass while he fucked her. She wanted him to be completely in control. She was tired of being in charge. She was tired of all the responsibility. She wanted somebody else to take it all away from her, if only for a little while.

  And then she felt the palm of his hand slap her right ass cheek, and she let out a little cry in surprise. He hadn’t struck her as hard as she would’ve liked, but it was a start.

  “Again,” she said, and he smacked her other cheek this time. She felt her tits swinging below her, the nipples hard and pointed. The maintenance shaft was colder than the rest of the ship, and goosebumps had broken out across her body once she had stripped. But now she felt on fire. His cock felt like liquid gold, the pounding of his hips against her ass was amazing.

  She felt her body tense as he smacked her on the ass one more time, and then she squeezed her eyes shut, hissing. Oh God, here it came. Don’t stop, she thought. Please don’t let any emergencies happen for the next thirty seconds.

  And then light exploded behind her eyes, the beautiful warmth blooming between her legs up into her belly and down her thighs. For just those few blissful moments, everything in the world still okay.

  And on the heels of her orgasm, Dack came as well. She thought absently for a moment about birth control measures. Part of fleet training had been on the use of contraceptives. They discouraged fraternization, especially among the commander in her second-in-command. But that was then. The idea of using birth control was ridiculous now. There were only two hundred and eighty-seven humans left in the entire universe.

  A bitter smile crossed her lips as she felt his hot liquid squirt inside her, some trickling out down her thigh.

  He let out a heavy gasp, pulled out, and let himself fall to the floor beside her, breathing heavily.

  “That was—” Dack began.

  “Let’s not talk about it,” Cora said. She didn’t know what he was going to say. Incredible? Amazing? Yes, it was all those things. But until just a few minutes ago, their relationship had been entirely professional. In the fate of everyone on board, of all humanity, still rested in their hands.

  She had needed that. God, had she. But a part of her still felt guilty, not only for slinking away from the rest of the crew for a private fuck, but for letting herself feel pleasure at all. Until the threat of the pursuing ship was off their back, she didn’t feel like she deserved any rest or reward.

  Cora slid her legs into the pants of her uniform, then her arms into the sleeves one by one. Dack looked up at her with a goofy smile on his face, looking at her breasts still hanging out of the front of her uniform.

  “What are you doing?” she asked.

  “Enjoying the view, ma’am,” he said. “And not talking about it.”

  She let out a little laugh as she sealed up the front of her uniform.

  “We need to go,” Cora said. Dack let out a groan.

  “Can we stay just a little longer?” he asked. “Give me just a couple more minutes and I can definitely do that again.”

  She shook her head. “We probably shouldn’t have even done that,” she said. “We have duties. We have responsibilities.”

  “But were still human,” Dack said, his smile fading. “We can’t let the Korlathi take that away from us.”

  He was right, of course. Over the past few months, she was beginning to feel less and less like a person, and more like a machine, driven to a singular purpose. To stay alive. But she didn’t want to talk about that either. She needed to get back up to the bridge. She had work to do, and the longer she was away the more suspicious it looked.

  “Will go back the way we came,” she said. “Don’t go straight to the bridge. Stop at the commissary. Have your rations for the day before heading up.”

  “It’s kind of nice having a little secret,” he said. “I never thought—”

  The ship lurched, just a tiny bit. Nothing dramatic, but definitely noticeable.

  “What now?” Cora said.

  The wrist-com on her uniform chimed. She held it up to her mouth. “Go ahead.”

  It was Kayla, the head ship engineer. “Commander Riggs? You’d better get down to engineering right now. We have a problem.”

&nb
sp; Cora and Dack didn’t bother with worrying about whether anybody saw them climb out of the maintenance hatch near junction twelve. Kayla’s voice sounded urgent, so they headed down to engineering together.

  She was waiting for them as they stepped onto the engineering deck. Kayla had obviously let uniform regulations slip a bit. Cora hadn’t been down here in what, two weeks? Three? Kayla was wearing an orange jumpsuit, but she had cut away the middle part, exposing her belly. The pants portion was held up with a purple neon belt, and she had tied the bottom ends of the top together under her round breasts, hefting them up like a push-up bra. Her red hair was done up in twin pigtails. Cora would have to talk to her about the military dress code later. They were still part of the fleet. Rather, they were the fleet. And they still needed to dress and act like it.

  But now wasn’t the time. Kayla looked frantic, her eyes wide, wringing her hands. Besides, at that particular moment Cora would feel a little hypocritical lecturing someone about military protocol.

  “Oh God,” Kayla said. “This is bad, boss. Real bad.”

  That annoyed Cora, too. Being called “boss”. But she needed to get to the issue at hand.

  “What’s wrong?” she asked.

  Kayla bit her lower lip. “Better just to show you.” She led them past the computer systems handling all the complex calculations, and through the tunnel of supercooled helium that kept the engines from melting. They emerged into the engine core, where a shallow pit was ringed with a red guardrail. In the center was a glowing grid of yellow, interlocking crystals. The lattice, the source of all the ships power. And Cora could tell at a glance that something wasn’t right.

  She was in the command structure, not engineering, but every good commander had at least a passing knowledge of how everything on the ship worked. The lattice was a hyper-charged matrix of artificial crystals, configured to encapsulate millions of fusion-based micro-reactions. It was a delicate balance, but when the lattice was working properly, the cascade of fusion reactions across its surface looked like little waves on a crystal ocean.

  In a properly-working lattice the waves rippled across the surface at regular intervals. But as Cora watched, she saw the waves break apart, forming little whirlpools of light on the surface of the crystals. She didn’t know exactly what was happening, but Kayla was right. This was bad.

  “What’s wrong with it?” Dack asked.

  “The micro junctures are falling out of alignment,” Kayla said. “It’s happening slowly right now, but it’s going to get worse.”

  “You can’t fix it?” Cora asked.

  “To do that, I need to take it off-line,” Kayla said. “That would mean shutting it down. And that would mean—”

  “Stopping the ship,” Cora finished. She spoken to her wrist com. “Nav, how far out is the Kolrathi ship? If we slowed to a dead stop, how long would it take for them to reach us?”

  “Um, just a second, Commander.” Haywood had been from Oklahoma, little more than a farm boy. He hadn’t been ready to be head navigator any more than Cora had anticipated being in command, but he had grown into the role nicely.

  “Sixteen, maybe seventeen minutes,” Haywood said in a Southern drawl.

  Cora looked at Kayla. She didn’t even need to ask the question. Kayla’s eyes were wide as she shook her head. Not enough time. Not even close.

  “How long before it shuts down on its own?” Cora asked.

  “I don’t know, boss,” Kayla said. “I’m not exactly sure what’s wrong. The calculations are—”

  “Just give me your best estimate.”

  Kayla looked down at the catwalk grating and chewed on her lower lip. She could look her commander in the eye. “Two days,” she said. “Maybe three.”

  Cora saw Dack’s shoulders slump out of the corner of her eye. He knew what it meant. They all did. But she couldn’t look worried. It was her job to lead, and to lead you had to look strong at all times, especially times like these.

  Especially when it looked like it was all about to go to shit, and the end was at hand.

  Cora sat in the command chair on the bridge, staring out at the stars falling away behind them. She had the view set to the rear of the ship. Always looking over our shoulder, she thought. Waiting for the day the wolf finally closed the gap. There were no days in space, only the cold passage of generic time, every second like every other. And now they had precious few seconds left.

  Everyone on the bridge went about their routines, but by now word had spread and everyone knew. Several times Cora had reached out for the ship-wide com to deliver a message, but each time she had withdrawn her finger, not sure what the hell to say. Part of her wanted to tell them this was it, so go ahead, abandon your stations. Find someone you like and fuck them anywhere on the ship. Crack open that bottle of wine you might have been saving. Say whatever prayer might bring you peace. Because this was it, folks.

  And yet, that wasn’t very inspiring, now was it? Maybe most of them secretly wanted her to give them permission to give up. But what she thought most of them really wanted was an answer, a way out of this. They’d already beaten the odds by escaping the massacre back home. Maybe they were the lucky ones, the chosen ones. And she was their leader. She’d find a way out if there was one, wouldn’t she?

  Only Cora didn’t feel like she had any cards left to play. Or did she?

  “Lissa,” she said, “Try to establish communications with the Kolrathi ship.”

  The communications officer swiveled in her seat to look at the commander, her eyes wide with disbelief.

  In all this time, they’d never tried to talk to their pursuers. What was the point? They knew the Kolrathi’s intent. They’d all watched as the world had burned, and those with the stomach had continued to monitor transmissions from earth until, one by one, they all fell silent. There would be no negotiation with their enemy, or so everyone had assumed.

  But what choice did Cora have? She had to try something, didn’t she? Perhaps the commander of the Kolrathi ship that pursued them was not as zealous as the ones in the armada that had destroyed everyone on earth, though his relentless pursuit said otherwise.

  “Yes, Commander,” Lissa said, turning back to her console.

  She would try to talk to them, see if there was any way they could find common ground at all. But she would not beg. There was no need to die without honor. They could at least still have that.

  “The Kolrathi ship,” Lissa said, seemingly stunned that it had been so easy to establish communications. “They’re responding to a request for an open channel.”

  “Put them on screen,” Cora said.

  Cora held her breath as she waited for the image on the screen to materialize. They knew very little about the Kolrathi, but they did know that the aliens took human form, whether as a form of intimidation or mockery. It certainly wasn’t to empathize or relate to humanity.

  The image shimmered into view, what looked like a human man, bare from the waist up. His features were exaggerated, his chest and arms massive and muscular. His eyes were larger than normal, expressive and piercing. His jaw was square. His skin was a dark shade of blue. He looked like a human, only a superior version in every way. His expression was serious, but the corner of one mouth looks slightly upturned in a wry hint of a smile.

  For a second, Cora wondered who should speak first. She thought back to her fleet training on first contact, almost a cruel joke right now with most of humanity dead. Was she supposed to let him speak first, or should she take the initiative?

  “I’m Cora Riggs,” she said. “Commander of the USS salvation. We wish—”

  “What you wish is irrelevant,” the alien interrupted, his voice resonant and powerful. “And you are the commander of nothing.”

  Not a good start. But then, Cora hadn’t been sure how this was going to go. She hadn’t actually expected to get this far.

  “If you would be willing to open negotiations,” she said, “I would meet with you to barter for the
life of my crew and the safety of the ship.”

  “You have no power to negotiate,” he said. “You have nothing to barter with.”

  “Is that really true?” she asked. “You’ve chased us now for a long time. You want us dead. I get that. But cannot really be the only thing you want?”

  The alien’s brow furrowed slightly. Cora’s heart leapt. She had said something that struck a note. He leaned to the side, and she could see him whispering something to another out of view, though she couldn’t hear what it was. His lip stopped moving as he listened to the other alien, whispering back. He straightened up again and stared back at her. That stare. It made her feel insignificant, powerless, which she was. But she couldn’t let him see that, and she couldn’t let her crew since it either. So she stood with her back straight, her head high, and her shoulders back.

  “You are correct,” the alien said. “The only thing we desire is your destruction. And that will happen very soon. But perhaps I will find your words amusing, so I will listen to your offer.”

  Establish common ground. That was one of the phrases from the fleet training that popped into her head. She almost laughed out loud at how ridiculous that seemed right now, but she stopped herself, keeping her emotions in check for the moment. This truly was a last-ditch effort, and the odds of this working were virtually zero. But if she crack so much as a smile, that was it. She had to hold it together. She’d only get one shot.

  “I would like to offer myself,” she said, “in exchange for the life of my crew.” The crew members on the bridge all turned to look at Cora.

  The alien did laugh at that, a bizarre, throaty approximation of a human laugh, dark and disturbing.

  “I was correct,” he said. “That is very amusing. Why would I take one of you when I could have all of you?”

  “Are we really so much more valuable in death than we would be in service?” Cora asked.

  “What do you mean ‘in service’?”