(Note #1: All comments and constructive criticisms are welcome and appreciated.

Note #2: Once again, all artwork included was created by Steve Rayner.

Note #3: There are a few references to characters going to the “head”. For those of you not familiar with nautical terminology, this is what sailors call the room with a toilet in it. On the Ravenfang, the head and the bathroom are separate.

Note #4: And finally, thanks to volunteer Literotica editor TheNyxianLily for her help with editing.)

Veteran spacers like the Ravenfang’s crew never closed the hatches to their staterooms. If the ship was to suddenly lose power, they would be trapped in their rooms with no way to open the door. While this left the entire ship vulnerable should one area suffer a hull breach, almost all spacers preferred the thought of a quick death rather than waiting to slowly suffocate. Sal and Alezanna were of the same opinion, leaving the hatch to their quarters open at all times. They assumed that they could have intimate moments while Calley would either be unaware of what they were doing or she’d respect their privacy otherwise. But regarding that assumption, they were wrong.

The two were making love, naked, on the bed in their quarters. Alezanna was sitting in the captain’s lap with his penis inside her, grinding her body against his as she moaned in pleasure. Her hands held on to the side of his face as she tenderly caressed it. His own hands were feeling up her back and leaning her forward, getting as much of her body touching his as he could. She had her eyes closed as she pressed her forehead against his, letting the pleasurable sensations flow through her. Sal, for his part, also had his eyes closed as he enjoyed the union of their bodies. Even after all their cycles together, their sex felt wonderful to him.

With their eyes closed, the lovers had failed to see Calley’s head as she was peeking into their quarters. Her body was pressed against the frame of the entrance. She was wearing one of her utility jumpsuits and had unzipped the front as low as it would go. She’d been fondling her breasts and stomach earlier, but as her crewmates’ lovemaking had grown more intense, so too had her caresses. Her right hand was now in her underwear as she pleasured herself. She knew, from the sounds Alezanna was making, that the Bellixan was nearing orgasm, and she knew her own peak wouldn’t be too far behind. She also knew, from having surreptitiously watched the couple before, that after Alezanna had calmed down somewhat, the captain would flip her onto her back or her knees to pound her opening until he shot his seed inside her.

Before any of them could reach climax, the ship’s proximity alarm sounded, and the engines suddenly cut out. The two lovers were thrown apart as they fell out of their bed. Calley, for her part, went flying across the open entrance and let out a scream as she landed on the floorplates, bruising her left arm as she impacted on her side. It was only sheer luck that she hadn’t smashed into a wall and been more seriously injured. An instant after her fall, Calley heard the sound of something hitting the Ravenfang. It went on too long and shook the ship too much for it to be simply one impact, she realized in horror. She climbed to her feet unsteadily and took a breath as she put her left arm on the corridor wall to keep herself in place. As she began to move forward, Sal and Alezanna ran out of their room, each putting on a robe as all three spacers ran to the cockpit.

When they entered it, they were dismayed to see a field of asteroids floating outside. “Oh Gods!” the captain said as he moved to the pilot’s station and pressed his face to the front canopy. Alezanna took her station and started looking up where they had ended up while Calley started running a check on the ship’s systems, the pain in her arm forgotten the moment she took her own seat. She tried to concentrate on her task but had to clamp down her feelings of shame and embarrassment. Whatever had just happened had happened on her watch and she hadn’t been at her post. And her shipmates knew she’d been next to their door. She recognized that she was in deep trouble as whatever mess they were in was all her fault.

“This looks like an asteroid collision,” Collondo assessed. “Pretty recent, from the looks of it. Must be why the nav computer didn’t know about it. Alez, any idea where we are?”

His lover looked over her displays for an instant and replied, “Not sure. The sensors are out. Nav computer says we’re somewhere in the Tayoel system.”

The captain turned his vision to the side and looked over the front of his vessel. “Prophet’s breath! The sensor dish’s shredded! Alez, come take a look at this.”

The long-haired woman rose from her seat and slipped next to him. She looked out the canopy and groaned, “Oh Gods! There’s no way I can fix that.”

Calley felt afraid hearing her words. Without sensors, they’d be flying blind if they turned on the Hi-Vel engines. That would be tantamount to suicide. But unless there was some port nearby, getting anywhere at Lo-Vel speeds would take forever.

“Calley, how’s the ship looking from your station?” the captain asked her.

She looked over her monitors and told him, “Power output’s fine, but some systems are off-line.”

“Yeah, hundreds of rocks peppering your ship in a second will do that,” he reasoned. “What’d we lose?”

“No hull breaches, but life support’s damaged,” she grimly announced. “It’s gonna start getting cold in here soon. It looks like the guns up top aren’t getting any power either.”

“Not really important right now,” Alezanna declared as she returned to her seat. “What about thrusters? Can we maneuver our way out of here?

“I think some of them might be out too,” Calley informed her. “And the power readings to the Lo-Vel engines look wonky. We’ll have to be careful how we move.”

The captain sat down and started testing the ship’s maneuverability. “Careful, I can do. First things first. Let’s crawl outta this rockpile and get to a better position to start repairs. How we looking on communications?”

“Seem to be on-line,” the young woman assured him. “I don’t think we have the range we normally do though.”

“Okay,” he said as he slowly turned the ship around. “Alez, fire off a general broadcast of our position based on the nav data. Maybe somebody nearby’ll hear it.”

The Bellixan shook her head as she told him, “Doubtful. I’m looking over the library data about Tayoel and there’s no record of terraforming or settlements. Same goes for the surrounding sectors. The closest port is Rangxu but it’s still three sectors away. By the time we get there…”

She didn’t need to finish the sentence. All three knew that they didn’t have the food they’d need to travel that far without using the Hi-Vel engines.

He replied, “Don’t be so pessimistic, Alez. I have a couple of ideas on how we get back on the mag-track.“

He’d turned the Ravenfang around to a point where the three spacers could see the path through the asteroids the ship had carved on its way in. Collondo carefully moved the ship forward. Though the course was mostly free of obstruction, the crewmembers each winced every time the three heard a rock bounce off the hull. Eventually, the collisions tapered off and the view out of the cockpit’s front was clear.

“I think we can park it here,” Sal announced, breaking a ten-minute-long silence the spacers had fallen into. “Let’s get ourselves fixed up before we start on the ship. I dunno about you ladies, but our sudden stop gave me a nasty spill. Almost tore off my favourite organ.”

The three rose from their seats as one. It was then that Calley realized the front of her jumpsuit was still wide open. She quickly zipped it up but the speed she used made the action louder then it normally would be. She looked up and her gaze met the captain’s. It was clear that, whatever she’d just had on display, he’d seen. She didn’t think she could have been more embarrassed than she had been earlier, yet she was.

The three made their way to the medbay where Calley used her instruments to soothe a swollen bump on the captain’s head. Despite his earlier statement, he didn’t ask for any doctoring on his penis, to her relief. Instead, Alezanna removed her robe without a trace of modesty to show a sizable bruise on her rump. She leaned forward on one of the beds as Calley used an Ellium stimulator to repair the mechanic’s capillaries and treat the damage.

“Can’t have been fun sitting on that,” Calley observed. The older woman hadn’t spoken a word since they’d left the cockpit and the young spacer wanted to gauge her companion’s mood.

The taller woman had been looking out the medbay door and didn’t turn to face Calley as she responded, “Considering our circumstances, I’d say this is the least of our problems.”

“Not in my opinion,” Collondo chimed in. “That ass is one of the wonders of the galaxy. As your captain, I’m issuing a standing order that you both keep it in tip-top shape.”

The naked woman turned her head to tersely tell him, “Sal, this isn’t the time for jokes or flattery! We’re in trouble here. I know you’re trying to keep our spirits up, but what would make me feel better is knowing how you plan on getting us out of here.”

“All right,” the captain replied in a more serious tone. “We were already headed for Rangxu so we’ve still got the nav data on where it is. I can use it to calculate where it’ll be if we wanna intercept it at a later point in time.”

“What about every object in between?” Alezanna asked. “And even if we could account for them, which we can’t, we’ll still be moving too slow to get there before we starve.”

“No argument there,” Sal agreed. “So we have to get enough nav data to use the Hi-Vels. The sensor dish looks like it’s been through a shooting gallery, so it’s not gonna give us what we need. Do you have enough replacement parts to cobble together a smaller one?”

The mechtech shook her head and told him, “Not one good enough to get the range we need for a Hi-Vel jump.”

“But what if we only needed it to track a communication signal? If we re-task the sensors only for that, you think we could get a sector’s range?” he asked her.

Calley caught her breath and paused her treatment of Alezanna’s posterior. Both her shipmates noticed her reaction. The Bellixan answered the captain, “Maybe, depending on what I can salvage from the original dish” before turning to ask Calley, “Do you have an idea of where he’s going with this?”

“I think so,” the younger woman said. “My people call it “shpringen”. Mom told me stories of the days when the Gynapsi wandered the galaxy in our ships. When the sensors wore down, we’d send a signal in a wide range arc ahead of us. Tracking how far the signal went along each degree would give us an idea of what was ahead of us.”

“We call it jumping puddles where I come from,” Collondo added. “I learned the theory in my militia days.”

“I don’t suppose you ever actually put it into practice?” Alezanna asked him.

“Only once,” he admitted. “As an exercise. Only had to calculate enough data for a half-hour jump, but when we compared it against the nav computer, it checked out. So this can work, Alez. All I need is the best range we can send a signal and track it. We’ll probably have to make two or three little jumps to get to Rangxu, but we’ll get there.”

The dark-haired woman slightly nodded as she thought about Sal’s plan. After a few moments, she conceded, “It’s not the worst idea I’ve ever heard. Of course, I’ll have to see what shape the ship’s in. Getting it to a point where we can try this will take some time and a lot of work.”

“Don’t rush it, take your time,” the captain advised. “Get life support up and running. The rest can come later. I’ll be running calculations in the cockpit after I put on pants. Don’t wanna freeze my ass off.”

With that, he left the medbay. Less than a minute later, Calley finished her work on Alezanna’s behind.

“That should do it,” she announced. “How’s it feeling?”

The naked woman straightened up and shifted her weight from one leg to the other. “I feel fine. Good work, as always. What about you? Any bumps and bruises?”

“Fell on my arm when we stopped. Probably looks a lot like your butt did. I can fix it myself if you wanna get started on repairs.”

“Do it then. Then come help me in the reactor room. We’ll have to load every spare part we have and move the lot to the empty cargo bay. Oh, and make sure you make a long stop in the head. We’re going to be outside in those spacesuits a long time and I don’t want you distracted by needing to pee.”

With that, she turned and walked out the door without bothering to grab her robe. Before she could get any further, Calley called out, “Alezanna, about earlier, I’m sorry I was, um…”

She took an instant to figure out what she wanted to say. In that moment, her shipmate turned to look her in the eyes for the first time since the ship had flown into peril. “Calley, not now!” she said curtly. “We don’t have time to get into that. We’ll talk about it when we’re out of this mess. If we get out of it, that is. If we don’t, then it won’t matter anyway.”

The older woman then turned her back on Calley and went off towards the head, which was located in the centre of the ship, off the common area. The medtech used the Ellium stimulator again, this time to heal the bruise on her arm. She didn’t like being left alone after her friend’s abrupt exit. If Alezanna was even her friend anymore. She knew she should be a little worried about the captain’s plan. She hadn’t mentioned to her shipmates that, according to her mother’s stories, sometimes a ship attempting the shpringen was never heard from again. But try as she might. she couldn’t stop herself from worrying about if she had done irreparable damage to her relationship with her shipmates.

She mused on the subject as she fixed up her arm. That done, she took Alezanna’s advice and took a quick trip to the head to empty out her bladder, still worrying about her friends. Once she finished up, she nervously made her way to the reactor room. She found her companion still undressed and with her long hair tied into her usual long braid. She helped Alezanna load parts into some storage units they wheeled into the empty cargo bay on the starboard side of the ship. They didn’t talk much while doing so, their conversation limited to a few discussions about what to bring along the spacewalk.

Eventually they had packed up all of their gear and Calley stripped down to her underwear in order to change into her spacesuit. Alezanna donned one of her own, and Calley had a passing thought that this was one of the few times the older woman wasn’t better dressed than her. She was wise enough not to say anything to the mechtech as she doubted the joke would be appreciated. The two women checked the seals on each other’s suits, which was a standard precaution. They then made their way to the cargo bay where they sealed the hatch and vented out the air in the room. After a quick check to make sure their comms were working and the captain was on-line as well, Alezanna told him to cut the room’s gravity and open the bay’s outside doors.

Calley had been on many spacewalks before and was used to the feeling of suddenly being freed from the confines of gravity. She and Alezanna kicked themselves to the bay’s ceiling and proceeded forward. They used various protrusions from the ceiling to control their movements, all while pulling the storage units behind them. As they reached the open bay doors, they carefully flipped themselves around to make their way to the top of the outside hull.

“Oh Gods, this will take a while,” Alezanna observed aloud as she surveyed the damaged ship.

The captain’s voice came into the women’s helmets as he asked, “How’s it looking out there?”

“The ship’s lit up like a Prophet’s tree,” the Bellixan answered. “Lots of exposed and damaged power cables. We grabbed all our spares but I doubt we’ll have enough to replace every one that got hit.”

“We don’t need every one,” Collondo replied. “Just enough to keep us alive and get us moving again.”

“Right,” Alezanna acknowledged. “Calley, let’s put the crates at the centre. You can get started on life support while I survey the ship.”

The women made their way across the hull, noting numerous areas shooting out sparks. At least the damage will be easy to spot, Calley thought, though she again kept that observation to herself. She and her shipmate grouped the storage units on a relatively undamaged part of the hull and locked them into place magnetically. Alezanna pointed Calley to a section of the hull where Calley knew wiring to the life support systems was. She made her way there while her companion made her way to the Hi-Vel engines.

“I’m going to have to replace some cables to the life support,” Calley announced. “Captain, what’s the situation with oxygen levels and temperature in there?”

“Air’s good, but I can feel it getting colder. Can’t see my breath yet.”

“Okay. Cut power to the system and I should have it running again before you need to put on a coat.”

“I’ll hold you to that.”

“A few scratches on the Hi-Vels’ casings,” Alezanna declared. “Nothing to worry about here. Once we figure out a course, we can get there at our normal speed.”

“That sounds suspiciously like optimism, pet.”

His lover replied, “I’m just letting you know the ship’s condition. And reminding you that us getting anywhere depends on how good a navigator you are. Besides, there’s a fair share of bad news out here too. The topside Lo-Vel engines both took a bad beating and their casings have multiple punctures. I’ll bet there’s a couple hundred kilos of rocks rattling around in there.”

“What about the bottom engines?”.

“Stand by.” Alezanna made her way to the underside of the ship where she reported very little damage. It seemed the Ravenfang had blundered into the asteroid collision at an angle where the top of the ship had taken the brunt of the damage. While the mechanic was continuing her examination, Calley was busy getting life support running again. But she found it difficult to concentrate on her task. The captain’s use of the word “pet” had sent a shiver up her spine. It was a term he’d only used with Alezanna when they were intimate together. Calley had only heard it when spying on their lovemaking. For him to use it openly like he’d just done was surely his way of saying he knew Calley had heard him use it before. So he was either giving up on keeping it private or admonishing her for having heard it. Calley wasn’t sure which.

Despite being slowed down by her anxiety, Calley had life support fully functional by the time Alezanna made her way back to the top of the ship. The mechtech informed the captain both the top blaster turrets had severed power lines leading to them and one’s outside casing had been punctured. Finding out whether it needed repairs or replacing would have to wait. Calley, for her part, informed the captain that the central portside communications mast had been sheared at its base and was probably floating among the rocks they’d left behind. The remaining five masts had received minor damage that Calley assured her shipmates she could patch up. But she had to admit the missing mast would cost them some range when sending out signals.

“Doesn’t matter,” Alezanna observed. “The signal will go further then the new sensor dish will be able to track anyway.”

“How far will the sensors track?” Sal asked the mechanic.

“A full system, maybe  a little further. Depends on the size of the system, really.”

“I can work with that. Calley, make sure we can broadcast zaireon signals. They can travel across an average sector in six, maybe seven hours. I figure they’re our best bet. If we can track them reliably, we can hop to the next system, track a new set of signals, repeat that a few times and make Rangxu in three or four jumps.”

“Don’t neglect the other signals though,” Alezanna advised Calley. “We’ll still need to communicate with people if we get to where we’re going. If nothing else, to request a tractor beam to a docking bay if we reach Rangxu. The topside hull is in terrible shape and most of our patchwork repairs won’t survive entering a planetary atmosphere. The sensor dish’ll burn up for sure.”

“No chance of flying in unassisted?” the captain asked.

“I wouldn’t risk it. Better to pay the tractor beam fee and just add it to the cost of fixing up the ship. This is going to turn into a very expensive overhaul.”

“There goes the profit from this run, and then some,” Collondo mused over the comms. “Guess we’ll have to get rid of some non-essentials to help save starcred.”

Calley’s blood ran cold. The captain hadn’t come out and said it, but she was sure he meant that she’d be sent packing as soon as the ship reached a safe port. She thought his line about non-essentials had to be directed at her. He was only stating the obvious, she knew. She hadn’t been at her post when the ship flew into the asteroids, so all this damage was her fault. She’d only been a partner of the business a few sub-cycles and already she’d ruined the best opportunity that had ever been handed to her. She’d betrayed her friends’ trust and cost them what would probably be a fortune in repair costs. She didn’t blame them for wanting to get rid of her. She wondered if any crew would want to take her on after this disaster.

She tried to concentrate on her repairs of the communications masts while Alezanna kept her distance working on the new sensor dish. She hadn’t asked Calley to help and the young spacer figured it was another sign she and her former friend were on the outs. The sadness and self-loathing finally overwhelmed Calley and she couldn’t continue her work. She began to softly cry, being careful not to do it too loudly so that the others wouldn’t hear her over the open comm line.

If the captain heard her, he gave no sign. Alezanna, however, noticed her shipmate breaking down and quickly made her way over to her. She reached over to her companion’s wrist-mounted comm unit and switched it off before doing the same to her own. She then pressed her helmet to Calley’s, an old spacer trick to have a private conversation. The vibrations from your voice would cause the helmets to vibrate slightly. The counter-vibration in the other helmet would reproduce your voice and allow the other person to hear you.

“Calley, stop crying!” Alezanna ordered. “We’re going to get out of this. But that’s only if you pull yourself  together. I need you to get everything we can out of these masts so Sal’s plan can work. And for that, I need your helmet not to be filled with floating tears.“

“I’m sorry!” Calley blubbered. “I shouldn’t have been looking at you and the captain!”

“Oh, that. No, no you shouldn’t have,” Alezanna agreed in a softer tone. “If that’s what’s bothering you, you’re over-reacting. I need you to calm down and listen to me. We’re going to talk about it later. We won’t scream, we won’t cry, we won’t get hysterical. We will discuss what happened like rational adults, because that’s what we are. More than that, it’ll be because we’re more than just shipmates and partners. We’re a family, a better one than I’ve ever had. You hear me?”

That last statement surprised the young spacer. It calmed her down somewhat but she was still shaken up. She nodded to indicate she had understood her companion but realized it was better to tell her. “Yes. I hear you. I thought you were mad and you and the captain were gonna send me away.”

“Oh, for the love of the Gods… Over what? An indiscretion? No Calley. We’re not sending you away over you watching us make love. We’re going to talk about it when we have time. I certainly want to hear your explanation about that. But we’ll do it when the three of us are together and not busy trying to get the ship moving again.”

“But the asteroids. It’s my fault—” Calley tried to interject.

“No it isn’t!” Alezanna cut her off. “That’s just some bad luck we ran into. Literally, in this case. But you couldn’t have known it was coming so don’t start blaming yourself for that. The captain and I aren’t pointing fingers because two big rocks happened to smash into each other in our path. He’s been flying backwater routes since before I met him so if anyone’s to blame, it’s him. But none of us have ever objected to staying off established routes, have we? We get to where we’re going faster without the detours. So we’re all to blame for this mess. All three of us equally. The only difference is that Sal and I aren’t letting it get in the way of what we need to do. Now, can I trust you to do your work without being a drama queen or will I have to do everything myself?”

“No, no, I’ll get it together. I’ll fix up the masts.”

“Good. When you’re finished, we can see how many of the broken thrusters we can get working again. Better to concentrate on those than the Lo-Vels. No point in upping our speed in-system if we can’t maneuver. But we’re going to be out here a long time. Try to get rid of the teardrops you’ve got floating around your helmet. Swallow them when you get one near your mouth. And if you start getting sad again, try asking Sal for a joke. They’re not always great, but at least you can laugh at him if not with him.”

“Okay,” Calley agreed. She could see that her friend was right. Now was not the time for a breakdown. She’d have to account for not being at her post earlier, but that would have to wait.

“All right then. I’d give you a hug but these suits aren’t really designed for that.”

Calley was happy to hear some humour coming from her companion again. “I’m okay now. We should get back to work.”

Alezanna separated herself from Calley and drifted back to the partially-assembled sensor dish. Both women turned their comm units back on and got back to their repairs.

As predicted, the work took a long time. But the captain’s system checks from inside the ship indicated the women were making progress.  Eventually Calley had done all she felt she could do to the communications masts. Alezanna, for her part, had already moved on to the thrusters. Calley joined her and assisted in the repairs as best she could, though propulsion systems weren’t as familiar to her. Sal  announced he was testing the signal tracking and the two women turned off their comms again while he fired off a wave of zaireon signals ahead of the ship. After a few minutes, Calley and Alezanna switched their comms back on and asked the captain how things were going.

“Getting good data,” he informed them. “This isn’t going to be our course but if it was, I’d feel confident we could use the Hi-Vels. I’m going to let it run an hour just to make sure. After that, we can point ourselves at Rangxu and send a new pulse out. I want you back inside when we do.”

“Why?” Calley asked him. “You said it would take six or seven hours before we had enough data to jump.”

“It will,” he confirmed. “But we’ve all been at it for a while and I’m starting to see equations when I close my eyes. I want us all rested and at our best when we turn the engines on. If you wanna work on the thrusters some more, you can do it in the next system. We’ll have to recalculate our position and track a new set of signals so you’ll have time aplenty.”

“I see your point,” Calley told him.

“And we’re running low on parts anyway,” Alezanna added. “We’ll finish up on this thruster and come back inside. We should be back by the time you need to reorient the ship.”

The two spacers finished up their work and put their tools and parts away before they detached the storage units and moved them back into the empty cargo bay. Once they closed the outside door, the captain re-pressurized the room and restored its gravity. Calley immediately felt the hours of work she’d just done slam into her in a wave of fatigue. The captain’s voice came over the intercom.

“Don’t bother changing, ladies. Just lose your helmets and come join me in the cockpit. I’ve calculated a very narrow launch window and I want you to help me get the ship pointed the right way.”

The women did as instructed and made their way to the cockpit as quickly as possible while still wearing their bulky spacesuits. There, they found Sal wearing a grey sweater and thick tan pants. Calley assumed that he’d probably put them on while the life support was down to fight the cold and not bothered to take them off once the Ravenfang had warmed up again. He was seated in Alezanna’s usual station as he studied the nav computer data. He waved the taller woman to the pilot’s station and Calley took her regular seat. A quick examination of her monitors showed that their repairs had restored many of the damaged ship’s functions.

“Alez,” the captain  told the mechanic, “point us at mark negative five-seven port side three please.”

She did as he instructed and he continued to have her make small adjustments to the ship’s heading until a small ping came from one of his screens. “Perfect!” he announced. “Hold it here while I send out a new wave of signals.”

He moved his hands to some controls and pressed a button on the communications panel. Calley heard the console emit a sound that reminded her of a malfunctioning vid monitor she was constantly fixing on a tug she’d worked on cycles ago. “Tracking signal,” he said. “Data coming in. Feeding into the nav computer. Barring any more problems, we should be getting underway in seven hours. Plenty of time for some rest and a bite to eat after that. But first…”

He turned to look at Calley and her heart sank.

“…I think we need to have a talk,” he finished.

NEXT CHAPTER: Calley is exposed.