In a barren, broad expanse of unwanted space, a vessel slides through the darkness. It appears to be derelict, its lights nearly all off. Yet there are some points of illumination. There is life inside the hull, were one to look.
Within, the hallways of the ship pulse at a low hum, the engines pushing the vessel forward steadily, through gas clouds, dust, and radiation fields. Those corridors inside are cold, sterile, and still, the lights set low to a cool cyan. Rays of blue wash over black, gleaming tubes that run like in bundles like veins, insulated against the cold. Those conduits churning fuel, coolant, oxygen, and other substances throughout the body of huge the ship, circulating what the vessel needs to function. There is very little here that isn't hard and unforgiving. Chitinous, gleaming, reflective black panels line the vertical walls, with interfaces located here and there that blink in greens and reds, as if to lure in a crew that's no longer there.
This isn't to say, of course, that the vessel is unmanned.
There is one person within this climate-controlled shell, walking the pathways he's walked countless times. The sound of his boots is a harsh clap on the polycarbonate flooring, echoing down the narrow, open spaces. His reflection walks with him on either side, revealing a slender body clad in pseudo leather pants, canvas and rubber boots that strap up to his knees, and a tunic of neoprene, all of it in black. His left arm bears a gauntlet strapped tightly to his skin, with a keypad on the underside of his wrist. The man's arms, wiry and thin, are pale and bear tattoos – vines of circuitry, all flowing at right angles back and forth across his biceps, elbows, forearms, and down to his palms. Ink winds even around his index, middle, and ring fingers on both hands, leaving his thumbs and pinkies starkly bare.
His features, however, are obscured by a narrow helmet. Broad straps around the back of his head hug a gleaming black carapace to his face. His sure and careful stride gives evidence that his vision is in no way hindered by the plate. Slender tubes coil back and then join together, flowing down the nape of his neck into a flat, silent respirator pack on his back.
Without fail his stride is regular and constant, his head up and facing forward even as his right hand types in commands onto the keypad attached to his gauntlet. The glow of the rubberized keys gleams over his black faceplate, bars of green streaking in diagonals across the golem-like, featureless facade.
At last his steps take him toward the back of the vessel, and a moment to type in a code to his keypad unlocks and opens a certain door for him. Once he walks through it, he keys the door to close and lock once more, sealing in the room atmospherically. One never knows when it will be necessary, and today is a special day.
He has never gone in this room before, though he knows what it is. What greets his gaze first is a gallery. Comfortable seating is provided, rows of upholstered couches all face a huge, dimly lit warehouse. There is an electrical frame around the open viewing space – an emitter for a force field, to allow the spectators their entertainment while keeping the object of their amusement at a safe distance. At present the force field has not been activated, and the slight layer of dust on the couches and controls suggest that no one has been in this part of the ship for a very long time.
The man in the mask ignores all of this for now, choosing instead to pass through the viewing suite and into the warehouse, which is itself a containment facility. In full view of the gallery, this massive open area is populated with glowing stasis tanks. All of them are stored in neat rows, hundreds upon hundreds of tanks, each some two meters in height and a meter in diameter, filled with a light blue, viscous fluid. Many of them contain dormant creatures. These specimens have remained like this for countless years, collected first and stored, their tanks humming with the slight effort of life support as the ship had passed through space, abandoned and, curiously, fully functional.
All manner of creature has been collected. Humanoid beings of the same shape as the man in the mask, as well as other, more exotic forms of life. A breathtaking variety of body shapes, from the beautiful to the monstrous, float in silent captivity for the delight of their captors, now numbering only one. Each captive is unaware of its captivity, their eyes closed, mouths and noses occupied with tubes, and their neural activity quieted almost to nothing with a steady flow of drugs. Sensors monitor each creature's vital signs, and small input screens on the side of each tank provide data in real time about their current state. The entire system runs without sound, the containment facility like a tomb for the living.
The masked man walks quietly down the various cylinders, examining them, assessing them. The contorted reflection of the occupants glide over the man's face plate, each passed over and rejected. He nears the end of the seventh row when he comes upon a dark specimen. At first he observes it casually, just like the others. Tubes in milky white flow out of a mask strapped to the lower half of the specimen's face, the lifelines coiling like umbilici towards the top of the tank, to the filters and nutrient rationers there.
This creature, despite having feminine arms and legs, has a torso that bears no signs of breasts. A long, muscular tail, with a ridge of silken hair along the topline, curls down around the creature's legs, the limb flexible in appearance as it floats limply, measuring nearly one and a half meters on its own. The creature, with skin as dark as ink and a long head of hair as silky and black as that on its tail, would stand at one- and three-quarter meters in height, were it standing on its own feet. In that case, it would be at the same height as the masked man currently looking at it.
If pressed, the masked man wouldn't be able to give a reason for his fascination. The creature's alien beauty is unquestioned. She is clearly designed, by nature or mortal intent, to be deadly. Talons grow from its digits, and its general physique is whipcord fit, despite the clear effects of tank atrophy. While there is nothing overtly sexual in the creature's naked body, the man considers her form regardless, admiring it like a work of art.
Longer moments pass in front of this tank than in front of any of the others before, and eventually he steps around to look at the readout panel. Slender fingers type in a command to pull up the creature's identifying information, though the system only has a number, species, age, and gender on file.
Number: 231
Species: Nalatine
Age: 32 Terran Years (upon capture)
Gender: Female (subgender: Sterile Drone)
For nearly an hour the masked man continues to observe the floating creature; her subtle movements, the compulsions of dreams, making her deadly fingers slowly curl or uncurl, her tail's tip moving almost imperceptibly. The man's mask finally tilts down, and another command is keyed into the interface, whereupon motors begin to whir in earnest. The masked man walks back down the aisle of cylinders as that particular stasis tube, housing Specimen 231, is detached from its base and lifted with cables, guided on a track in the ceiling towards the space directly before the viewing gallery. The other tubes move, their bases on tracks as well, smoothly flowing back like a flock of birds deeper into the cavernous warehouse in the guts of the ship.
The tube holding Specimen 231 is brought to the forefront of the large containment facility, and walls descend from the ceiling and slide into place, creating an adhoc detanking suite in full view of the gallery. The masked man moves back into the gallery and keys in the force field to take effect, creating a barrier between himself and the rest of the containment facility. A gentle caress of his bare finger along the barely perceptible barrier results in the sharp snap of ozone and a stinging shock, and he moves back, keying in a new sequence on his wrist.
The floor of the newly-arranged detanking room is made of durable rubber mattering, pierced with holes to allow drainage into the sewage grates below. Mechanical arms descend from the ceiling and begin the process of disassembling the tank, beginning with the filter system within the heavy cap. Lights flutter and lessen on the readouts, glowing bars melting down to zero first on temperature, then nutrient, then sedative provision. The last function to be terminated is respiration, and once that happens the tubes at the top break away with a hiss, their moorings detached from the cap to leave the tubes to sink into the dense fluid slowly.
A broad, black hose is fastened to the base of the tank, and a churning motor begins to suck out the gel. Without the buoyancy provided, the creature begins to sink, until at last it remains curled up at the bottom of the clear polycarbonate cylinder. The man looks to the side, watching as the room begins to change, providing canisters of water and food, and a showering facility lifts up from the floor, well-lit and inviting. His head is only turned a moment, but when he turns back to the cylinder he notes that it's empty.
His reflective mask tilts slowly to the side by a fraction of a degree, his bare fingers hovering over his keypad as he watches. A pop and snap, like an electrical fixture overloading, comes from the ceiling of the detanking room just out of sight from the gallery, then a spark. He approaches the force field and looks up, just in time to see a slime-covered black tail slide up into the grating where a panel has been torn out.
Immediately he keys in a sequence to his wrist pad, and red lights and klaxons go off around the ship. Doors seal, though if the creature is in the ceiling space, locked doorways won't be of any use. As he looks up at the grated paneling, he notices a trail of dripping fluid, the same kind of viscous gel from the tank, leading away to the right. He then looks up at the force field, and notes with relief how it pierces up through the grating to the upper limit of the room, creating an impassable barrier in the crawlspace as well.
A clatter originates some fifty meters further away in the warehouse, beyond the temporarily erected walls of the detanking room. To fill the entire warehouse with sedative gas would take countless hours, and if the creature has been capable enough to escape containment within seconds, hours might give it control of the ship. The man turns towards a cabinet and he unlocks it, pulling out a personal force field emitter. He straps this to his bicep and turns it on, and the crackling hum of the invisible barrier around his body comes to life. He also takes up a tranquilizer rifle and enough cartridges for twenty shots, and pockets them in his tunic. He pushes through the room's force field, his own negating the barrier and letting him through into the containment facility.
Shouldering the rifle, he cautiously walks back through the detanking suite and past it, the lights low over hundreds of square feet of flat, grated floor space. A trail of slime drips towards the back, and a puddle gleams in the distance. An object rests at the center of it, and when he approaches it he can see that it's the face mask, with the nasal and oral tubes still intact on the inside while the umbilici are intact on the outside. The length of the tubes, meant to provide oxygen and nutriment, are considerable, and wouldn't allow the mask to simply fall of. It had to be physically removed, pulled out intentionally. The ceiling above is unbroken, the grating just large enough to have allowed it to fall through. The creature must have removed the mask on its own and disposed of it. Whatever sedatives had been in its system are not hindering its cognition now.
A sudden clattering echoes deeper in the facility near the other stasis tubes. His mask turns toward that direction, though there is no sign of movement. A minute later, the sound of skittering feet, then a thud, and the squeal of wet skin on glass-like polycarbonate are a prelude to the rattle of another ceiling grate, a trembling in the panels which begins to approach the man directly. He pulls the rifle in tight to his shoulder, the first cartridge loaded, and he tilts his head to aim along the sights. The clattering stops as soon as he lifts the weapon, and drips of fluid begin to weep down from the grate some thirty meters directly ahead of him.
Suddenly, the grated ceiling ten meters to his left clatters and drips, and the man turns and quickly fires a dart up through the bars. Another clatter sounds to his right, and he fires again. A third, fourth, fifth... and all the while, that initial drip has kept dripping, a puddle of stasis fluid collecting beneath it, growing and spreading.
The man in the mask pauses, listening. There is silence, though the original source of the dripping continues to exude the fluid. Slowly he lowers his gun, takes a step back, and prepares to reload more cartridges. As he does so, the grate some five meters in back of him lifts silently, placed carefully out of the way, and a slender, black body drops down, landing on all fours. Gleaming, orange eyes narrow, focused on the masked man's back, though just before the creature slinks up to him he turns, firing the gun.
The dart strikes the rubber mat where the creature had been only a second before, the smear of stasis fluid left in its place. Her white teeth flash in a snarl as she lunges forward, her wasted body glistening and taut with fury and hatred. He kicks at her head, his boot thudding with the solid mass of her skull and hurting his foot. While it doesn't phase her, it does deter her enough to halt her charge. A swipe from her arm catches his ankle and sends him sprawling backwards. The impact is painful, but it's not enough for him to lose his aim. He squeezes the trigger and fires his gun three times in rapid succession at the black, slimy body rapidly crawling after him. Each dart, at last, finds its mark, and the black creature bellows in frustration, sinking down to her hands and knees, and then, finally, onto her side.
Still on the floor, the man lets the gun fall to his side with a clatter. He leans tiredly and painfully on his elbow as he take a moment to collect himself and stop the shaking in his hands. The reflection of the fallen creature slides across his mask as he looks at her, until at last he turns away and stiffly gets up, setting the next part of his plan in motion.
Chapter 2Specimen 231 lies on a steel table, her body strapped down tightly. For the last hour, the masked man has cleaned her off, using a hand-held spray nozzle to rinse the stasis fluid from her dark skin and long hair. It's given him time to examine her as she dries, her body relaxed and unconscious as the tranquilizers maintain their effect.
Each of her hands has four digits – three fingers and a thumb – and her feet are arranged in similar fashion, with four human-like toes each. Hard, curved nails grow from her digits, and dewclaws are present on her ankles and wrists. The dewclaws aren't attached by bone, as revealed by a body scan - the hooked talons are attached to powerful muscles, allowing her to climb and grip even on slippery surfaces, such as the rubber matting of the containment warehouse.
Her tail is long and tapers, curled now on the table by the creature's bound feet. As he enters notes into a nearby console, the tail slowly begins to uncoil, its muscular curve slipping from the table but coiling just before the last few inches hit the floor. Beneath the table the fixtures of the straps begin to strain, the pseudoleather whining as she begins to stir. Her lean, hard body trembles and tightens, her rib cage rising and falling faster as her body wakes, demanding more oxygen. Cords of muscle stand out beneath her skin, her fat content nearly at zero from having been tanked too long. Straps restrain her wrists and ankles, and even more wrap over her neck, chest, stomach, hips, thighs, and shins. Orange eyes slide open, the drugs still leaving her dazed, but even so the circular pupils slowly contract, lids blinking a few times. Her eyes turn towards the side of the table where the masked man stands, and her head slowly turns, wet hair squeaking softly on the rubber pad beneath her skull.
This time the masked man is prepared and moves away, gripping at the serpentine tail that lifts to grab at his thigh and trip him. The limb is muscular, firm and slender, writhing like a snake in his grip. His arm tenses, the muscles standing out sharply beneath his tattooed skin as the creature's snakelike appendage writhes and struggles. Specimen 231 grunts, arching against the straps actively now. Her fingers flex, her nails clicking and scraping on the metal table in distress as he turns to look at her.
Her face is reflected in the man's mask, her beautiful, fearsome features changing from angry to wary very slowly before she asks in a husky growl "What are you?" As she speaks, her black lips part to reveal her teeth. They are white, clean, and arranged like a human being's, save for four dog-like fangs, two above and two below.
The man in the mask tilts his head, then looks down. While his left hand holds the squirming tail, his right taps a code into his keypad, and he moves to face her again. The voice that issues from the mask is filtered, the tonality almost completely stripped, though it retains a masculine timbre. "I am Janus."
The creature's eyes narrow, and her body settles back onto the cold, steel table, somewhat comforted that her captor can speak. Thinking creatures can be reasoned with or tricked. "What is a Janus?"
Noting that she isn't struggling anymore, the man releases her tail and takes a step back, remaining out of reach. "It is my name. I..." he gestures to his chest, "...am Janus."
The answer's simplicity frustrates her, and she turns her head to look directly up at the ceiling, studying the grate above her. With his filtered, flat tonality, it's difficult to get any feel for his inner thoughts. Without sight of his face, there are no small expression cues to observe. He is maddeningly impossible to read. Still, her orange eyes slide again toward him, and she presses her lips together for a moment before asking tensely "Where are the others?"
With a confused tilt of his head, Janus asks "The others?"
"The other Nalatine prisoners. There were six of us - a Compliment. I looked, but they weren't among the stasis tubes."
Janus looks down, then he turns fully towards the computer console and types in a quick series of search strings. "Records show that the other five Nalatine were sold before I acquired the ship."
The creature's eyes close and she tenses angrily, her jaw clenched. "Who purchased them?"
Another series of search strings are entered, and Janus recites "All five were purchased by a conglomerate, called 'the Guild'." His fingers type a little more, and he stands up straighter, saying with slight hesitation. "They were sold three hundred and ten years ago."
The Nalatine on the table closes her eyes, her body riddled with strain even as she tries to school herself. Several minutes pass in silence, and Janus closes down the records program, moving closer to the table, but still not close enough for her tail to reach him. "Were you searching for them when you woke up from stasis?"
"Yes" she hisses, not opening her eyes.
With a nod, Janus moves back to the console. "I don't mean you any harm" his voice assures, though with the flatness of the tonality, his sincerity is difficult for her to discern.
"Then why am I bound to this table?" she asks with a displeased rumble, her tail slowly lifting and prodding at the latches of her straps.
"You attacked me," he points out, gesturing politely towards her.
Her body arches and writhes, though after a quick series of keystrokes on his part, the straps simultaneously tighten, especially around her ribs and her throat. Her flesh, despite having suffered tank atrophy, is still hard and fit, the straining straps only pushing down into her skin slightly as she struggles. The creature snarls past bared, sharp teeth, writhing in earnest. "You fired a weapon at me, Janus!"
The man faces her for a few moments, considering her point of view. She glares at him and stills, seething, watching him. Slowly he turns his head back towards the console, his fingers typing in another sequence. Just as quickly as the straps had snapped into tightness, they now fall loose, resting on her body only until she slowly sits up on the table, cautiously plucking away each one.
"You are correct" he says at last, moving away from the examination table altogether, turning his back on her.
The creature moves down from the table to the floor in silence, her body tense as she crawls on all fours, stalking him. Almost casually he types a brief sequence into his wrist computer, and the creature suddenly collapses, howling in pain and curling into a ball.
Janus turns slowly towards her, the vision of her agony writhing and contorting as it's reflected in his faceplate. She grips at her head and screams while his serene, mechanical voice explains "When you were unconscious, I installed an obedience chip. Do not try to remove it – the microsutures will disconnect your cranial nerves if you do. You will die."
"PLEASE MAKE IT STOP!" she cries desperately, her darkly-nailed hands gripping at her head in torment as her tail lashes heavily on the laminate flooring.
By nearly all appearances he seems unmoved by her suffering, though his fingers hover over his keypad as he says "If you attack me, I will cause you pain. If you try to escape, I will cause you pain. If you disobey me, I will cause you pain. Do you understand?"
The shaking creature wails "yeeeeeeesssssss!" slightly slurring the words with disorientation.
Janus's head tilts downward in assent, and his fingers finally press in the sequence, bringing a sudden end to her misery. While she lies there, gasping and shivering, the man asks, "Do you have an individual name?"
"No..." she grunts, remaining on the floor, not daring to make any movements or startle him. "I am a drone. The Mothers do not give drones names."
"How should I address you?" Janus asks, his voice uncannily polite despite the looming threat of nearly unendurable pain.
Reluctantly, the creature's orange eyes open and turn up to briefly look at the masked man before dropping away, her savagery beaten nearly out of her for the time being. "Nalatine will suffice. I am the only Nalatine on this vessel now."
"That is acceptable. Are you hungry, Nalatine?" The man's fingers slowly move away from the keypad, though as she sits up and snarls at him, his fingers fly back to the keys, making her cower and look down.
"Yes, I am hungry, Janus," she mumbles, cowed.
From the corner of her eyes, she looks up at him in humiliation, to see him incline his head. "I will find you nourishment. Come with me... and remember what I said about obedience."
Nalatine gets to her feet, rubbing at her arm. "Yes, Janus. As you wish."
The pair leave the medical bay, and while Janus doesn't appear to turn his head in her direction, Nalatine guesses that she is being watched regardless. Her footsteps are silent, taken on the balls of her feet, whereas his are loud and distinct. After the passage of ten minutes, Janus suddenly asks "Nalatine, are you cold?"
She shakes her head. "No. Drones do not need clothing."
"I do not know very much about your species. Inform me of them."
Nalatine narrows her eyes. "We are..." she pauses, then frowns, looking at her reflection. The image of her body, tamed and atrophied, makes her feel keenly how alone she is, and how lost. "We were well-known throughout our sector of the galaxy. We are four genders – Fathers, Mothers, and then the drones, male and female. We drones cannot be Mothers or Fathers – we were bred to work any number of jobs and carry out a variety of tasks."
"Drones are specialized?"
She nods, her tail flowing behind her, help aloft a few inches from the floor. "Yes, though various faction heads have different views on what is appropriate." Janus nods slowly in consideration, and she continues "My faction desired soldiers. I am one such, designed for scouting and, if need be, assassination."
After a lengthy pause, Janus says "You are well-suited to such pursuits."
"Is that why you detanked me, Janus? Do you wish to have someone killed?" As the minutes pass, Nalatine has calmed down, sensing that the masked man won't abuse the obedience chip he's installed.
"No."
Nalatine narrows her orange eyes and looks down at the floor, her frame growing tense even as they continue to walk. "The Guild purchased the other five drones. They were all female-drones."
"I have no personal experience with the Guild..." he offers, turning his mask slightly towards her "...if that's what you mean. I do not know why they were purchased, nor to what use they had been put."
His steps come to a halt. Nalatine is so lost in thought that she only notices some three meters from where he'd stopped. She turns to look at him, then notices the door he's gesturing to. "Your quarters, for the time being" he announces.
She cautiously approaches, looking into the four meter by four meter room and seeing that it's outfitted spartanly to the extreme, holding just a small shower unit towards the back. Smooth, durable white surfaces gleam in the glow of fluorescent, recessed lighting set along the seams between the floor and the walls. Her black body is reflected in the panels, her feet padding soundlessly on the cool carbonate black flooring.
Noting her confusion at the lack of any furniture, Janus takes a step in and turns on the console set into the wall. Nalatine walks over and looks, noting several options in varying colors, all labeled with cyphers in a language she doesn't understand.
Janus turns his mask to her, his fingers lingering over the touch screen. "I believe this sequence is for a desk..." he muses, touching the glowing rectangle. Nalatine turns to see a panel lift up at waist height from the wall, and a small, padded cylindrical stool lifts up from the floor to serve as a seat. Janus presses it again, and the desk and stool sink back into the wall and floor, respectively. Her eyes turn to him, and he moves away. "Experiment with it, and you will soon find what you require."
"Do you not know this language?" she calls after him as he leaves.
For a moment, Janus pauses in the hallway, his upright, prim bearing almost like that of a dancer or an aristocrat. "I don't need to know it to pilot this ship."
Nalatine lingers by the door as he walks further down the hallway, the sound of his boots easy to track. She listens to them for a few moments, then turns her eyes to the console, finding the symbol for the door and taps it, shutting herself inside.
Chapter 3For the next few days, as measured by the Terran calendar, Janus and Nalatine coexist without incident. After this initial period of good behavior, she is given permission to leave her quarters unaccompanied and explore the ship at her discretion. The obedience chip that Janus had installed functions also as a tracker, and so he knows at all times where she is.
Either due to the threat of pain or her innate drive to obey, Nalatine shows no more inclination towards violence. There are limits to her technical capability – she has not been trained to code, nor has she been trained in skilled electrical maintenance – but she is willing to assist with physical repairs, crawling up into tight spaces to apply adhesive patches to leaking pipes, tighten fixtures, and so on. While this isn't the reason Janus had detanked her, he finds that having an assistant is useful.
After one of these maintenance forays, Nalatine crawls back out of the ceiling grate, using her dewclaws to hang upside down as she moves the entry panel back in place. Janus observes as she drops back down to the floor, landing on all fours before pushing up to her feet again. "The repair is finished, Janus. What other tasks are there to do?"
For a moment, the masked man turns his head slightly to the side, his fingers moving fast over the keypad on his wrist. So far as Nalatine can imagine, he is seeing information within the faceplate of his helmet. Not once has he taken it off while she has been in his presence. "There are no more tasks for today" he finally says, turning the mask back towards her.
She nods, swiping away some of the gray dust that's settled on her skin. "Very well. I am going to bathe, then eat."
"I will join you."
She tenses, her orange eyes looking directly at his mask, before he himself stiffens, quickly saying "No, not like that. I only wish to join you for your meal."
Nalatine's tail lashes in agitation, her lips forming a line. "As you wish. Shall I meet you in the cafeteria?"
"Yes. I will await you there."
The two part ways, and Nalatine returns to her quarters, feeling unsettled. The shower helps to soothe her nerves, but her flesh is still sensitive and feels warmer to her fingers than usual. While examining herself, her fingertips slide over her forearm, where several small gray and white speckles are beginning to appear on her black skin, no larger than freckles.
"No... no no no" she hisses nervously, and when she checks her other arm she notices the same spots. Desperately she tries to rub away the speckles with water, hoping that they are flecks of dust, but of course they are not. Her fingers shakily scrub at her skin, her muscles more substantial due to proper activity and nutrition over the last few days. With a groan of frustration, she presses her forehead to the brushed steel wall of the shower unit, sliding her fingertips down her fit body thoughtlessly.
Her touch glides over the slender curves of her waist and hips, feeling the slight channels of her cut musculature beneath her smooth, utterly black skin. Slowly her eyes close, the sensation of her own caress making her breathe a little heavier, her heart beating harder. Nalatine's mouth opens gently, her teeth just visible, the points of her fangs wet as water sluices down her nose and over her full, tingling lips to then drip down her chin to the drain at her feet. The warm water trickles over her tongue, and every so often she has to spit it out, the sensation making her spine dip and tail lift in reflex, and just then her touch slides down over her hairless sex, hidden between her thighs. The electric jolt at the moment when her fingers touch her genitals makes her gasp, her tail lashing and back arching sharply as she grits her teeth.
Immediately she pulls her hand away and finishes her shower, toweling off and paying special care not to rub too hard between her thighs. Since her detanking she has gone without clothing, but now she elects to wear a pair of baggy black workman's pants and a snug neoprene shirt in black, with sleeves long enough to reach down to the dewclaws on her wrists.
When she walks into the clinical, brightly-lit cafeteria, Janus is waiting there, sitting at one of the tables. There is no plate or cup set before him, though his fingers dance over his keypad, the readout within his mask keeping him occupied. She walks over to the table and knows when he notices her, because his fingers halt over his wrist.
"You are wearing clothes, Nalatine" his serene voice muses aloud.
Her voice is thick and distracted as she mutters "Yes."
There is a pause, and he asks, "Are you feeling well?"
It's at this point that her compulsion to tell the truth is a hindrance for her, and she grits her teeth behind her lips. "I am... hungry." It isn't a lie, but it isn't quite the answer she knows he's looking for.
After a few seconds he turns his mask and gestures to a machine set flatly into the wall. "That is a food processor, much like the one in your room."
Nalatine nods and makes her way to it, her step a little quicker than necessary. By now she's figured out how to request cooked meat, or at least a protein substitute that tastes similar enough. While she waits, she can see Janus's reflection in the console's surface. Her body is, physiologically speaking, nearly identical to his, save for the tail and the talons and fangs, and so the sight of him, slender, his arms so fit, whipcord muscles rippling as he quickly taps out commands to his keypad... Nalatine swallows, feeling her face grow hot. The ding to announce her meal's readiness startles her, and her tail tip lashes. A breath helps to settle her racing pulse, and she gingerly takes her tray over to the table and sits across from him.
"I do not believe that you are well," Janus mentions, his mask faced oriented slightly to the left and down as he keeps typing on his keypad, "but I cannot find a disease list for the Nalatine."
"Drones do not succumb to disease" she grumbles, prodding at the slice of brown and red substance on her plate. A small dish of gravy has been provided, and she pours this over the rubbery slab, finally committing to cutting off a piece and eating it. It tastes better than it looks, and so she centers her gaze on his moving fingers, rather than the food itself.
"You are succumbing to something, Nalatine. Tell me what is wrong with you." His mask is turned toward her now, and she swallows nervously as he adds "Please do not make me force you to tell me. This time has been going better than expected."
She sets down her cutlery, the synthetic meat sitting poorly in her stomach. "I am... in season," she finally admits.
Janus's head tilts slightly. "But you had said that drones are sterile."
"Yes, we are. But some of us have not been stripped of the desire to attempt breeding." Apologetically she adds "Perhaps it was left in our genes to give us an extra edge. Perhaps it was just amusing to watch us become so agitated."
Janus's fingers lace politely before him on the table. "One would think such drives would be a distraction."
Once again Nalatine sets to eating her meat, and she mutters "They are. I wish this did not happen." She sullenly chews and swallows, then murmurs "I don't wish to be an imposition. I am very sorry." Despite her best intentions, the sensations of the meal flare in her awareness. The saltiness of the gravy, and the way the synthetic meat crushes between her teeth. Her lips tingle as she takes a sip from her water glass, and the feeling of swallowing down her drink is distracting. Any interaction with fluid is distracting, and the harder she tries to ignore it, the more ferociously it dominates her awareness.
"There is no need to apologize. I did not expect this situation, but then, I did not expect to have to shoot you either. And we have surpassed that slight faux-pas together. I am certain we can overcome this as well." With no response from Nalatine, other than her intense focus on her plate, he adds after a moment "Is there any remedy or therapy that might ease this process for you?"
"Being mounted, or just attending to myself." It's clear that she hates saying such things, but she feels compelled to answer. Even speaking of such therapies aloud makes her skin ripple with desire, and her thighs press together, her hips tense, as if trying to fight against the urge to crawl up onto the table and demand attention from him.
"Am I in danger?" Janus asks, catching her by surprise.
When she looks up at him quickly, a spread of gray and white speckles appear on her inky black cheek bones, creating almost a starfield beneath her orange eyes. Had he read her thoughts? "No, Janus. I would not harm you now." Her nerves weaken her will power to fight against her body, and she swallows, sliding her hands away from her plate to press her palms flatly on the table.
The mask inclines, and he tilts his head again. "Is this why you are now wearing clothes?"
Nalatine swallows and nods. "It is... a safeguard, to ensure proper behavior." Even now her hips shift in her seat, and her toes curl, unseen, beneath the table, at the feel of the material against her sensitive hidden flesh. "I may touch myself without realizing it."
The rest of the meal is spent in silence, both parties feeling disinclined to speak further.
Some hours later, Janus is in his quarters. The layout is similar to Nalatine's, but larger, with a secondary and tertiary room devoted to computer systems hooked up to the cabling in the ship. It's with this setup that he pilots the vessel, charts its course, and keeps an eye on various engine and life support functions. The furniture and appliances are all out, folded up and out from the floors and walls, and sometimes down from the ceilings. It leaves his quarters somewhat cramped, but it's nothing that his typically precise steps can't get around.
Right now, Janus is in his sleeping quarters. His slender frame is sitting on the bed, reclined against a stack of pillows and a wall. His tunic has been removed, and his slender chest, dotted here and there with scars, breathes slowly, dusky nipples tight and hard. Slowly is right hand moves within his pseudo leather slacks, which have been unfastened to allow him more room to touch himself.
Upon a screen pulled out from the wall is the feed from a hidden camera set up in Nalatine's quarters. Ethical questions aside, the angle gives a good view over the shower stall and the bed, the latter of which she has summoned out from the wall. Unlike his messy quarters, hers are pristine, the sheets of her bed typically pulled crisp and tight around the mattress pad.
Yet today her black body, naked save for the loose cargo pants, rests on the thin foam mattress, the sheets around her crumpled from movement. She squirms and writhes slowly, her body undulating as if guided by a slow, lazy tide. Her back arches as the fingers of both her hands touch, rub, and finger at her desperately needy genitals, the sight of such contact hidden by the pants themselves. The movement of her hands can be seen beneath the fabric, their quick, expert flicks and caresses making it clear that she is hard at work. Her breathing is deep, her chest rising and falling visibly, shaking now and again just as her hips jerk and her thighs tense once in a while. The flash of white teeth past her curled black lips can be seen as she groans, and she tilts her head back further into the spill of her long, black hair, gasping as she grows close.
Janus's mask reflects the video feed of her invaded privacy, his hand pulling out his erection from his pants to stroke it faster. The muscles of his right arm quiver, his fingers tight around his shaft as he observes her pleasuring herself for the third time today. He had only watched the first time he'd noticed her masturbating on that camera feed, fascinated with how her body, so human and so not, writhed and moved, her flesh so sensitive even to her own touch. The second time he'd given in and rubbed at his erection through his clothing, though he hadn't brought himself to completion.
For hours he's been tormenting himself, knowing she'd have to see to herself again. And for hours he's allowed himself more and more, until at last, this time, he jerks quickly at his own cock, his chest heaving, his breath heavy, forcing the respirators of his mask to work overtime, the aeration tubes quivering with every intense exhalation. When he comes at last, just after she does, his seed splashes over his hairless chest, the splattered milkiness trickling over the little circular scars there. Droplets of melted and healed flesh, more numerous near his collar bone and neck, are bespeckled with droplets of his spunk, which shiver as his skin twitches and shudders.
Janus hadn't detanked her for this either, or so he's told himself. He hadn't expected this situation to even occur. If he never brings it up, she will never know that he's been watching her and pleasuring himself to the sight of her. Slowly his head leans back against the wall, the tubes running back from the faceplate deforming just slightly with the weight of his head. Thoughts enter his mind – daring, inappropriate concepts. Offering himself to her to use as she likes. Seducing her. Forcing her to submit to him. But each scenario is discarded before it has time to really take root in his intentions.
With a sigh he pushes the console screen back into the wall and shuts it off, wipes himself clean, and gets dressed again. If nothing else, a long, tiring stroll down the corridors of the ship will help. They have always helped before.
Chapter 4Her season has persisted for two long weeks, and after today's third session Nalatine is tired. She's aroused, still. That never abates. But her flesh is exhausted well enough to keep more inappropriate urges at bay. Another shower is taken, cleaning off the glistening remnants of her private tryst as well as the scent of it, though even as she towels off, the pheromones that waft from the little pale speckles on her arms, cheeks, and now hips and thighs spice the air pleasantly, half-lidding her eyes all over again.
Just before she braces her hand on the wall to begin a fourth session, she growls and stops herself. Her body ripples with frustration, but if she begins all over again, she'll never leave her quarters. She tugs on her pants and shirt, then quickly exits her room. Jogging down the corridors helps at first, her body exerting in a rhythm that is close enough to sex to be satisfying. Yet after half an hour, the very action of running reminds her of hunting. Flashes of her early life, when she was made to hunt for her food, flare back into her mind's eye. Her muscles quiver and tense, and finally she gives in, leaping up to grasp the grating on the ceiling with her fingers, tail, and dewclaws before she slips a panel aside and slithers up into the crawl space.
On all fours up, within the ceiling's space, the light from the walkway checkers over her black skin from beneath, sliding over her as she crouches on all fours. She quickly stalks down the various walkways, scenting the air now and again. Janus's smell is all over the ship, but it's fresher in this direction. There is no conscious decision to hunt him, she simply does so, abandoning all thought towards the consequences of her actions.
As quietly and quickly as she can, she tracks the aroma of his skin, growling with pleasure as she knows that she's growing close. The sound of his footsteps ahead, turning a corner, draw her attention sharply, and she follows him quietly throughout the ship. He turns down this corridor and that one, until he unlocks a portal and proceeds down a long, dark, glistening subcorridor. The drip of water and the scent of musty air permeates the place, the environment humid and warm. It isn't the sewage system, it's the ship's reservoir systems. Huge tanks are filled with water, slowly cycling through hundreds of filters to clean it again for use, either as coolant in the engines or as water to bathe in, drink, or clean with.
She's so distracted by this new place and the groaning, echoing shifts of hundreds of tons of water in tanks, that when she turns back to her task she realizes that she's lost her quarry. Nalatine pants with stress, frowning as she swallows. Losing her reason won't help. "What have I told you about obeying?" Janus's synthetically filtered voice echoes down the tunnel.
Nalatine gasps, her orange eyes wide, claws gripping at the gridwork of the ceiling panels she rests on. She can't make out where he is, but he clearly knows that she's following him. She creeps along the grating above, until that comes to an end abruptly, forcing her to descend to the tunnel itself. Her feet land in a puddle with a warm splash, and her tail sways behind her. There is little insulation against the vibration of the ship's hull here, and she can feel the occasional rattle and buzz in her bare feet as they press to the metal. "You have given me no order not to follow you" she counters, scenting the air.
"Then I am commanding you to follow me, and to find me."
She snarls with excitement, descending to all fours as she tracks him at a run. The wetness of the environment traps his scent far better than the dry, filtered air on the main deck. Her speed is so great that to corner she must spend a few strides along the walls of the cylindrical tunnels. Minutes more of the chase pass, his swift pace echoing down the dark, wet tunnels, his boots splashing in the puddles as he sprints, exciting her further.
There is a moment at a T intersection when she cannot quite place just where he's gone, and she snorts and lifts up onto her feet, resting a hand on the wall as she looks around. Suddenly there's a small explosion, as if a compressed gas charge has gone off, and the tense, coated metal weave of a net wraps around her tightly. Nalatine cries out and falls heavily onto her side on the wet flooring, the fibers hugging at her body and cocooning her. The net fixes upon itself and keeps her arms trapped against her sides, and her legs and tail are all pressed firmly together.
A cable, connected to the net by her shoulders, pulls taut and slowly drags her further into the subsystem, her body writhing and trying to get free as she scrapes over the filthy, wet ground. There's not an inch of give in the mesh, the cording metal, but covered with a polymer to prevent cuts against flesh. The winch steadily pulling her grinds to a halt only when she's lying in the center of a perfectly dark, large room from hundred meters ahead of where she started.
At first all she can hear is her own labored, agitated breathing, and the crunching grate of her trapped body against the gritty flooring as she writhes, turning her head this way and that. The darkness is absolute, a solid black miasma that leaves no difference between open eyes and shut. Her throat tenses as she growls, the furious rumbling wavering towards a pathetic, frightened whine as the minutes pass on, her insecurity winning out over her other feelings.
The sound of Janus's boot steps suddenly emanate no more than a meter to her right, circling around her slowly. Nalatine startles and jerks, her teeth gritting as she comes down from her anxiety, which only leaves her angry all over again. She snarls, unable to see him, but she can smell and hear him.
"Were you hunting me?" he asks, crouching down by her hips.
"Yes" she hisses, trying to wriggle her arms away from her sides, but finding herself unable to get even that much freedom.
"Why were you hunting me?" His voice, peaceful and articulate, fills the abysmal space with menace.
A period of silence follows, then the quick sound of fingers typing. Nalatine whines as the feeling of invisible pins prick at the nape of her neck, not so painful as to make her suffer horribly, but enough to remind her to be obedient.
"Because I want you" she admits at long last.
"To use sexually?" comes his infuriatingly pleasant tone.
With a pained whimper, she admits "Yes." A few more keystrokes, and the feeling of pins leaves the nape of her neck, the pain completely gone.
Her skin prickles and she shivers, her thighs rubbing together at the subject matter. It comes as a great surprise when he says, "I am going to bring you relief," guiding her to roll onto her back.
She groans as she's moved, her back arching even as he reaches inside the wide weave of the mesh to unfasten the fly of her cargo pants. His fingers are cool and slender as they caress over her smooth, heated skin, and Nalatine swallows, unable to part her thighs because of the net. The feeling of being bound by his hand again makes her heart pound. Like when she had been strapped to the table in the medical bay, the restriction and bondage of her strength had burrowed into her mind, exciting the part of her that requires direction. Despite her independence and capability, Nalatine had been designed, as all drones are, to crave dominance, instruction, and discipline. Emotionally, yes, and especially during their season.
And so, being bound, overcome, and touched so brazenly only makes her desperate with desire. Despite the press of her legs, his slender fingers find her sex and stroke it, making her gasp and writhe. His digits are slightly larger than her own, and the confident touch, clearly not deterred by fear or propriety, attends to her. She quakes, trying to grind her hips slowly along his digits, begging him to deepen his touch until at last his middle finger slides inside of her, thrusting slowly.
"Yes, oh yes, please don't stop..." she cries desperately, not caring that she's trapped in a filthy, wet, dark room, being touched by a human who is, ostensibly, her captor. That doesn't matter. None of it matters. Only that blessed, rough touch in the dark, her hips grinding, her back flexibly and sinuously bending to demand every angle that can be achieved. Her pussy lips, flushed, smooth, and full, grip at the base of his middle finger, her tunnel squeezing it and shuddering with every undulating stroke to her G-spot.
The sounds of his molestation are soft in truth but seem loud to the ear, the rustle of fabric nearly subsumed by the heavy rasp of her heated breathing. From this hot tumult of sound, his filtered voice says, "I will not stop unless you tell me to." For a few more seconds he touches her deeply, until at last he pulls his hand away. She waits in silence, her heart pounding, and she hears the hiss of a seal being broken, and then the wet sound of a finger being sucked. Tasted. The seal is then rejoined, the whine of pressure being re-established, and he moves her onto her side, pressing her knees close to her flat chest.
The belt holding up her pants is unfastened and pulled out, and the pants themselves are pulled down carefully, the grip of the tight net making the passage of those slacks difficult. With determination he manages it, revealing her bare backside to the darkness. Janus pushes her knees up closer to her chest, exposing her swollen, needy slit through the broad weave of the net, and he touches it again, making her shiver and moan hotly. Her tail shifts and moves out of the way as well as it can, the creature desperate to offer herself.
And then the blessed, hot, smooth feel of his crown presses up against her sex. His knees grate on the flooring to give himself better leverage, and she's pushed and adjusted, until at last he looms over her on all fours. Again his cock presses against her, and she trembles. "Please...take me. Please have me. Please!"
His left hand braces on her shoulder as the other keeps her thigh pushed forward within the limit of her bondage, and he slowly sinks his cock into her, inch by tight, impossible inch.
"Is this what you wanted?" comes his serene voice, though she can hear the respirator working over time as he breathes hard within the mask.
"Yes, Janus, oh yes!" she cries, her stretching gates leaking with desire, lubricating his penetration. Her voice echoes against the hard walls all around them, a chorus of women singing out in need and the beginnings of satisfaction.
After several seconds of concerted effort, he finally presses his hips to hers, fully sheathed within her. Nalatine whines, her tunnel stretching slowly for him, accommodating him reluctantly, despite her arousal.
"You're so tight" he says quietly, his body tense. She doesn't realize why he isn't moving, until she notices how his cock is already pulsing, his fuse terribly, frustratingly short.
"No, Please!" she begs, trying to shift her hips back against his dick, but it only makes him shudder and pull away, leaving her to ache with unspent need. She can hear him get to his feet and fasten his pants, and she listens as he begins to walk away. "Janus, please!" she calls, writhing in the netting.
"I am sorry" he calls. "I should not have done that."
"Don't leave me here!" Nalatine cries, writhing harder in the wires until she starts to hear them snap. With a growl she wriggles harder, pushing or pulling at this spot or that one as it gives, until finally the fixtures lose their hold and snap entirely. She slips out of the net, angry, frustrated, her flesh on fire, and she can hear the sound of his boots running back the way they'd come.
It takes a second to pull off her clothing from her feverish body before she chases after him, her teeth gritted tightly as she charges ahead. He's fast, his use of her not having tired him appreciably, and his knowledge of the ship is greater than hers. Even so, she is able to follow him, simply running down the hallway behind him like a wild animal. There is no thought to outmaneuver him or out-think him. All she can do is outpace him, and then subdue him. It's all she wants to do.
He leads her on a chase throughout half that level of the ship, taking side corridors, service corridors, and slipping through rooms. She follows, hot on his heels, pausing only once or twice to study a wet footprint or to scent the air at an intersection. Her reason is nearly gone, her instincts swollen and forcing her to bring him down however she can.
She's close now, so close. Turning around a corner at long last, she turns her head and sees him. He's within reach. Feeling as if time is slowing down, she kicks off the wall and reaches for him, catching his vest with her talons. The momentum of her body is enough to slow him down, letting her grapple him around the middle and curl around his body, falling hard onto the floor with him and rolling to a stop. He appears dazed, the side of his head having struck the flooring, giving her time to move back over to him. In no time she has him pinned on his back, her teeth bared as she yells "You cannot do that to me during this time, Janus!", flecks of spittle landing on his faceplate, marring the reflection of her bared, bright fangs.
"I am sorry" comes his voice, though he doesn't try to push her away.
She notices that his fingers don't reach for the wrist pad, and even as her tail lashes, she realizes that he doesn't want her to stop. This entire time he has consented to her behavior. She doesn't know what this means, but it certainly doesn't mean that she's going to stop. Nalatine straddles his hips and leans over him, slowly unfastening the tunic to reveal his bare chest. Janus tenses and arches his back as she licks along his sternum, suckling on each of his nipples. Her inky black lips purse around each little bud, cheeks hollowing, until at last her light pink tongue slides out to roughly taste it. The scars, looking to her eyes like a splatter pattern long healed, are noted but ignored, especially when she crawls down lower, tasting at his stomach even as her fingers unfasten his pants.
Surprisingly he's hard again, her mouth watering at the sight of his cock. She'd only felt it, unable to do anything other than accept it into her body. Now, of course, she scents at it and tastes it, noting that her own flavor still coats it deliciously. Holding his cock upright and still at the base, she tilts her head, her heavy fall of black, wavy hair draping over his right thigh as she dips her head and suckles on the tip to enjoy the salty, musky flavor of his pre. Her orange eyes flick to his hands, but they still haven't moved to his keypad, his silent consent still given.
Once more her mouth sinks down upon the dusky, dark pink shaft, black lips wrapping around it as her cheeks hollow. If he's of such a short fuse that he barely withstood one thrust into her, she knows that she can't rely on him to satisfy her. Not yet, anyway. She must do that herself. As she starts to slowly bob her head, her free hand slides in between her thighs, caressing at her flesh and feeling the remnants of his seed. With every excited clench of her inner muscles, another thick, opalescent dose of his cum dribbles out over her black fingers like icing on bands of black licorice. Her hips grind and writhe slowly against her own touch, and at long last two of her fingers curl and slip inside her, making her tense and shiver.
Her orange eyes flutter closed and she breathes in hotly through her nose. Every slow, thick thrust up into her molten, used core is matched by a slow, tight suck. The crown of his cock rubs back farther and farther along her tongue as she pushes downwards with slow determination, until at last she is swallowing at his head. Her nose nuzzles into his pubic hair as her own fingers bury themselves up to the knuckles and curl, undulating and petting at her G-spot.
The wet, quick sounds of her own fingering are easy to hear in the quiet hallway, and the odd, synthesized moaning coming from Janus's mask rests atop all of it. The sound comes into her awareness slowly, and her fiery eyes slowly open and roll upwards, half-lidded. With a purr, Nalatine lifts her mouth from his cock, the click and pop from his cap leaving her throat making her swallow one last time. Her light pink tongue slides slowly over her lower lip, collecting a sheen of saliva and pre, which a swallow guides down her throat. "This is what you detanked me for..." she purrs, dipping her head to lick at the underside of his crown once again.
"No, no that is not true" Janus protests, his hands still resting at his sides, but now balling into fists.
"Isn't it?" The woman crawls forward, leaving her sex neglected as she looms over him. The passage of her body rubs the underside of his cock along her throat and chest and stomach, until at last she is straddling him again, rubbing at his shaft with her spread, wanton lips while offering no chance to enter her. Her mouth descends to his neck, licking and sucking at the delicate, scarred skin there, dotted much in the same fashion as his chest.
"No..." his voice is soft, his cock grinding up against her, trying to join with her but unable to, held at bay by the angle of her hips and slit.
"Then why did you lure me down to the tunnels, capture me, and fuck me?" she hisses into his ear, sliding her tongue along the edge of the mask. Her hips move more quickly, painting his shaft thickly with her hot nectar and his seed, even as she uses him like a toy to pleasure herself.
He groans in desperation, squirming beneath her, trying without success to shift that last little inch and get inside her. Finally realizing that she won't let him unless he tells the truth, he says "Because... I wanted companionship."
Her purring is deep, and her mouth leaves kisses on his throat as she tilts her hips, slowly rubbing his cap along her slit before slowly, hotly sinking down onto it. He groans into the mask, his voice buzzing up into her mouth through his throat, and at last his hands move to her hips, guiding her to ride him. This time he lasts longer, and with her hands free, she slips her fingertips down between them to rub at her clit. It doesn't take her long to finish, her tunnel rippling, clamping, and milking at his cock. Her head dips, the tips of her fangs gleaming past tense lips. Thick, wavy hair, half sodden from being bound by the water tanks, shivers and trembles as she grinds against his rod, buried deep inside of her.
Janus's fingers dimple into her dark skin as he pulls her down hard onto his cock, sheathing himself into her vice-like, exquisite, quivering embrace. His shaft throbs once more as he spills himself into her a second time, only a few seconds after her own climax. Her body shudders and she gasps as her pussy suckles him successfully, her hips rolling slowly of their own accord. Seconds feel sluggish, and with a wince she moves her fingers away from her clit, a nail catching by accident to send one last electric shock up her spine, stiffening her with a soft snarl. The two of them remain tense, even as she eventually climbs off of him and gets to her feet. Janus only sits up slowly, tucking himself awkwardly back into his pants and fastening them again.
It's only now that Nalatine notices the spiderwebbed crack in his faceplate, and she crouches next to him, placing a hand on his shoulder. "Janus, are you alright?"
He nods, his hand moving slowly until his fingers touch her thigh.
She narrows her eyes, then asks "Is your mask broken?"
Another nod. His demeanor is tired, but the disorientation seems far more than what sex might provide. For the first time in their relationship this man, her captor, seems helpless.
"Would you like assistance to the medical bay?"
He nods again, and she helps him to stand up, guiding him carefully down a few quiet corridors. The bizarre change from heated, passionate tryst to delicate medical emergency isn't lost on her, but with her libido having been tempered somewhat, she's able to focus and think. Once in the medical room, she guides him to sit in a chair.
"Do I need to remove the mask to fix it?"
For a long while he just sits there, the seconds passing tensely, until he barely nods. Her hands lift, though when she touches at the straps he flinches, his hands pushing hers away.
"I'm sorry, Janus. I will wait." She considers something and walks over to the door console, pressing a button to turn down the lights to almost nothing. It bathes him in shadow, but she can still see him, watching as he lifts his tattooed hands up behind the mask to first detach the respirator tubes. Then he flips a switch on the side of the mask, hidden within the edge near his cheek bone. A dull, mechanical whine dies down, as if the last vestige of power holding the mask up is being released, and the faceplate slowly comes away in his hands.
Nalatine waits by the door, watching him finally remove the piece. And when he does, she narrows her eyes thoughtfully, taking in his true face. Without the straps covering the back of his head, his black, glossy hair is visible, wavy, and perhaps 5 or 6 centimeters long. His face is slender, the angles fine... or would have been fine, if he hadn't been chemically burned.
The manner of the scarring makes her think it was acid or something similar, the proudflesh looking like something was splashed onto him across his eyes, and from there it had dripped down to his neck and chest. His mouth is left intact, as is his nose, though within his nearly closed sockets his eyes are a milky white, and as he leans back in his chair, it's obvious that those orbs can't focus on anything. Slender plates are grafted onto his skin at his temples, contact points for the mask to allow the information to flow towards implants on his optic nerves. A slender channel all the way around his face shows where the mask adheres and creates suction, sealing in the area of his features so that he can breathe more easily.
"So, Nalatine... what do you think?" he asks, his voice a rich baritone, sonorous and tinged with bitter amusement.
She approaches slowly, humming in thought. The sound she produces is meant to let him know where she is. "I think you are a desperate man to let me break your mask so that I might have you," she chuckles, placing a hand onto his shoulder.
His mouth pulls into a grin, and his sightless eyes look down in habit. "I've been alone for a very long time. I... well... it was very good. You were amazing" He turns his head towards her. "Thank you, Nalatine."
Seeing him revealed does something to her. It makes her feel protective and patient. Affectionate. "Perhaps I should have seduced you another way, Janus."
The man breathes in deeply through his nose, shrugging his shoulders as he slides a hand up along the back of her thigh, around her backside, and up to her hip. "But it wouldn't have been nearly as much fun. I'm not a dinner and a movie sort of guy, and I don't think you'd care much for flowers."
"No, they do not taste all that good" she agrees. Slowly she bends down, her wavy hair sliding cool and slick along his bared chest. Her fingers gently caress over his face and he tenses for just a moment, the sensation clearly unusual for him. He allows her to continue, the hand on her hip keeping track of where she is, his other hand lifting to cup over hers on his cheek, then sliding down slowly to cup at her elbow. Very slowly he guides her forward, and she takes the hint, knowing she's being given permission.
Their first kiss is tentative, unpracticed, and sweet. It's clear that neither of them have had much occasion for romance or affection, but they still try, staying gentle and patient with one another. When their lips part, Nalatine pauses, her heart fluttering a little.
"Was that pleasing, Nalatine?" Janus murmurs, his expression growing concerned. Without his mask he can't see her expression.
Nalatine smiles and guides the hand on her elbow to touch her face, letting him feel her happiness. Feeling her smile begets one on his face as well, and she nods gently. "I have never been kissed before. It was nice." A tingling silence follows, neither sure whether to try kissing again or if they shouldn't. Janus is out of sorts from the loss of his faceplate, and Nalatine has never been in this position before. In the end, she clears her throat, sliding her fingers through his hair to calm him down and show her feelings in a way that is more familiar. "How shall I fix your mask?"
He grunts, leaning his head back into her touch, grateful to be out of that awkward pause. "That's the thing. I don't know... I can't see where the damage is."
Nalatine slowly crouches before him, sliding her hands along his arms until, at last, they come to the mask. "But I can."
His eyes close as she gently guides his fingers to the locations of the cracks, describing how each component looks on that side, compared to the other side, which remains intact. They move their operation to the steel table she'd woken up on, and very slowly and carefully she begins to make the repairs he describes. To her eyes the fix looks ugly, her unskilled hands having done their best, but she contents herself to wait and see. Several minutes pass to let the solder and adhesive cool, and then Janus lifts the mask again, setting it onto his face.
Once more he flicks the switch at his cheekbone, and the seals that adhere to his skin lock on again. The atmosphere inside the mask returns after he affixes the tubes. His fingers type out a few sequences on his wrist pad, and while she can see his throat working, she can't hear anything. He's trying to speak, the mask muffling his voice for a few moments, until at last the audio output kicks back in, and that serene monotone issues out once more.
"It isn't at 100%, but this will let me see until we can find a spaceport to get a new one."
Nalatine smiles with relief, nodding. Janus awkwardly lifts his fingers to her cheek and caresses her, tilting his head. "Thank you... I am not good at this."
"I have been entertained, thus far," she says with an airy smile, tilting her head into his touch. "It is not easy to court a Drone, but you have managed it."
"Is it not?" he asks, his filtered chuckle leading her to affectionately slide her tail over his leg. "I am gifted, but I already knew that. Come on, Nalatine. Let us find a port to sell this vessel. It is far too big for us." His hand caresses down her neck to her shoulder, and he suggests "Perhaps a two-person freighter?"
Her fingers slide up his chest, then move down, the tips of her talons just lightly grazing the taut skin of his belly before they hook into his trousers, pulling him up slowly against her. "Mmm," she purrs, swaying her tail, "I'd like that."