A Scanner Deeply

Tenal Region -- 9-TYH Constellation -- CUY-8YB System

" ... offered them cargo, we offered them gold, our bodies and servitude... They wanted nothing. They left nothing intact. Now we drift, dwindling in numbers as our metallic coffin grows colder. My only relief is that Eusethia is at peace, keeping an eye on what remains of Yoggoth... click.."

The metallic husk of the diminutive emergency launch ship drifted within sight from the deck and idly bumped off the shields near the forward assault pad of the Rapier class Minmatar force recon ship, spinning randomly upward like a disarticulated puppet.

"Commander. It looks like a Vherhokior emergency shuttle, sir!" Her fingers clicked on the sleek underlit keyboard. "But the message is stamped by what seems like a derivation of the Sarum family stamp, sir. How can it be?"

"click... (Unintelligible garble)... Aura... (more garble)... Iteration 48670983... They called themselves the Oarsmen of Cthulhu. They came many and well armed. They turned our escort to dust. We offered them cargo, we..."

The half dead sun of this system glinted dully off the surface of the cockpit, sending capricious incarnadine glares towards them. The transmission clicked again, the synthetic female voice repeating impassably her message in an almost bewildered tone.

"Sir, with an iteration time length of 321 seconds," said a male voice "this means that this recording has been playing for 495 years, 4 months, 29 days, 13 hours and change... That's unreal... The Vherhokior Liberation Struggle dates back only 110 years and the first human settlers that came through New Eden gate only 367... What is this thing? "

"I don't know, but I hope it's alone. We're only supposed to be on reconnaissance. Confirm tracing the signal to the shuttle. Then confirm the navigation records of the shuttle and get its point of launch. I want to know exactly where it came from."

The launch point was not hard to find. It turned out the shuttle was launched from a relay for a larger convoy. What were harder were the interminable warps under cloaking condition. 495 years can let a shuttle drift quite far from its base ship... When they got to it, they were not able to identify the ship, having been so abused by interstellar radiation, debris and whatever harm those Oarsmen visited on its hull.

"Sir, it seems like there are several intact compartments in the structure. I read a significant amount of unknown radiation signatures from within, sir. It will take me a little time to analyze it."

"No time. We should already be back and docked in the Hel's guts. Nate, Emerson, Calixte, you're going in. Salvage drones will escort you and hack away at the metal scrap. Make it quick. Maybe this trip won't be wasted after all."

They had no idea how vast the wreckage of this ship was. By the time they reached the inner compartments, their ears were tired and their nerves on edge from the screeching and clanking of the dead husk of the ship under the implacable salvaging beams of the drones.

The intact isolation sasses were of no known design. No wonder their implants had a hard time decoding this thing. Central command could be there months trying to crack the algorithms, even in a reverse engineering lab on one of the outlying control towers. Calixte pointed out how lucky they were that this thing had not been colonized by any rogue drones. Emerson nodded and opened the last sass. "Breathable air, mate... Kinda stale, though."

Calixte gagged, but checked herself. Nate gasped. Those were battle-hardened teammates Emerson had. Dozens of frozen corpses were littered on the floor of the dark and dank compound. This center room that their headlight beams were illuminating was vast, by any ships standard, and very ornately decorated on every visible facet. No style or writing they could link to anything known. Something had to be maintaining an artificial gravitational field, since they could walk on the floor and feel the weight of the inert bodies, some grotesquely contortioned in a parody of a dance, brutally interrupted. The light made the shadows prance incongruously as they advanced towards the center of the room.

"Hey sister, check out the miniature city!"

Nathaniel pointed the ornately carved center of the room to Calixte. The shapes evoked buildings, temples, markets, official compounds of some sort. And in the center stood some sort of ziggurat. Curious hieroglyphics ran along its surface. Bizarrely, the hieroglyphics at the top seemed to writhe under the eye, not wanting to be caught and read. Emerson took out his scanner and pointed it to the small shrine. "This must be what we were picking up earlier on the analyzer console. Let's check this coffer out and get the hell out of here. This place is making my skin crawl. Nothing else of interest on scan, aside from hallways full of dead people and age old technology."

Nate started fiddling with the locks of the temple-shaped box. He seemed to be satisfied with the progress he was making. "Man, this is oldschool..." Emerson looked at the top of the ziggurat again. The letters froze. Eusethia. Not a coffer... this was a tomb.

The cap shifted sideways with a sigh, like a breath held for centuries in the dried out lung of a dust-coloured corpse and finally released. Dust motes puffed up out of the coffin.

The motes seemed to suddenly glow blue. Blue radiance coming from within the tomb. Or just above. Another sigh, this time like a woman stretching in bed after a sex coma, coming from nowhere, or everywhere. A slight groan, more distinctly yet evanescently human and the cerulean radiance seemed to coalesce immediately above the coffin.

The shape of a woman formed in the dust motes. Not so much the shape of a woman, but the idea of the most beautiful girl in the world.

Emerson was the closest to the coffin, since Nate had taken a few steps back, his face pale and his eyes aimed downwards towards the opening of the coffin. He seemed oblivious to the apparition, but Emerson could not. How could he... Her eyes bore directly into his, a face so flamingly beautiful he almost didn't notice the firm naked breasts just beneath it. She held his gaze.

Everybody seemed frozen in place for what may have been a long time. The voice of the woman brought their thoughts back into focus.

"Such a long time waiting, sleeping, wondering... dreaming..."

"Who are you? WHAT are you?" Asked Calixte, a little flustered, reading the lusty look on Emerson's face exactly right.

"I am Eusethia, guardian of Belial." She breathed dreamily. "Why have you woken me." She trembled slightly. "Are we arrived? Is our duty relieved? It's so cold here..." She drifted slightly towards Emerson.

"Arrived where?" inquired Calixte, speaking the thoughts he could not get past his uncooperative lips. "We are in Tenal region, very close to the Drone Regions, in the 9-TYH constellation. I believe this sun and system is the furthest away from the center of the galaxy in this constellation. A long way from any known station and a hell of a lot too close to rogue drone outposts." They were, indeed, almost teetering on the edge of the galaxy, wondering what lay beyond. Nathaniel was still transfixed by something on the ground or near the coffin.

"Tenal? I have never heard of this place." She replied with a shudder "Why am I so cold?" she whispered, getting even closer. She raised a translucent blue hand and placed it on Emerson's shoulder. Her radiance was almost blinding and her touch - ... he knew she was touching him but he could feel no weight on his shoulder. When she reached his skin through the void-walking bodysuit, it was like an electric flash... She gasped... a glimmer of understanding crossed her eyes... She smiled..." ... so long ago... I am now spirit..." Her face was now fractions of an inch from his. He could feel the stirring of the air that her breath was and he could see the smoothness of her face, the creases around her mouth as her beautiful lips parted. "... yet I long so strongly..." Her other hand curled around his head. " ... Emerson..."

"Don't touch him!" screamed Calixte in a catlike screech, launching herself through the room with her taser mace. Her scream ended abruptly as she hit something hard and invisible in her path and crumpled to the floor. Eusethia smiled as her lips touched his.

Somehow he could feel the curves of her silken body as he wrapped his arms around her.

Her blue light ignited his skin as he held her tight in his arms, his mouth now pressed eagerly against hers. Her tongue was urgent between his lips, around his, playing with it, seeking every inch of it, as if what her mouth really wanted was to feel a hard cock and explore its length. He thrust his tongue deep between her lips and made it hard. She sighed, responding to the simulation of a male member.

Emerson's hands fumbled for her clothes and he realized with certain pleasure that her form had none... Only the soft curve of her breasts and hips. He squeezed her ass and it made her giggle. Her laugh sounded like wind chimes in a desert breeze. He reached his hand further down and inward, slipping fingers between her ass cheeks and onto the delicate smoothness of her pussy lips. As she pushed her face off of his, she was smiling largely and her eyes danced with intense joy. She knelt -- or whatever floating beings do to lower themselves -- to the level of his navel and stroked his skin beneath his bodysuit. His cock was now straining inside and his hands were tingling from not feeling her anymore.

As she reached his pubic region, Emerson quickly unzipped the bodysuit down to his crotch and sighed with relief as his cock popped out of it, giving it ample place to expand and harden under the immaterial touch of his radiating blue lover. She slid her hands along it, as if cherishing a rediscovered treasure then abruptly wrapped her mouth around it. She sucked with intense passion and her fingers moved urgently along his shaft, making it harden more than it ever had before. The sudden rush of pleasure made him clamp his hands onto her head, losing his fingers in her glowing lush hair, pressing her head onto him, holding his cock at the deepest point inside her throat. Her tongue still moved and he gasped, releasing her."Don't be too fast if you want to enjoy more of this" Emerson breathed softly.

She got back up and pushed him backward and downward. He stepped down and sat, laying his back on the flat floor, legs bent and parted. She walked above him. Her shimmering feet stopped at the level of his torso and she knelt. Her pussy was now inches from his face and Emerson began softly licking it, then more and more eagerly, sensing her body tremble and heave at each lick on her clitoris. He could glimpse her arching her back and grabbed her breasts. He could hear her moan louder and louder. He grabbed her ass cheeks and tried probing the rim of her ass with the tip of his tongue and that seemed to drive her wild. His tongue explored the inside of her pussy and sometimes flicked the area between her ass hole and her pussy. Suddenly her hands left her breasts and brought his face hard onto her pubis, his tongue slipping deep inside her pussy. He felt the pounding of her orgasm on his face.

As her orgasm subsided, she swam her body along his, her head coming down to his, her breasts brushing his torso with electrifying softness, her ass cradling his cock between its cheeks. Her smile was not only seen but felt in the air, like a pleasant thrumming background sound. "I want all of you" she said. Emerson grinned and nodded. She slipped his cock into her pussy.

As she straightened up and started grinding his cock, he took in more of her shape, letting his eyes appreciate the pert lines of her breasts and her flat stomach, her small navel and the bounciness of the way her hair settled on her delicate shoulders. He was completely drawn in by the pleasure she gave him, going up and down along his cock, pressing it inside her, almost pulling it in. She was biting her lower lip as she accelerated her rhythm, making him groan and clasp his hands on her hips, half following her motion, half helping her move. Faster and faster their grind became. Soon he could swear he heard her skin slapping against his with the frenzy of her ups and downs. She opened her mouth for louder moans.

She grabbed her own ass, stretching her pussy wider so he could go deeper. She must have slipped a finger (or more) up her ass, because he felt the pressure of her pussy change and her breath come much faster. He could feel her pleasure igniting his own.

As his cock throbbed harder and harder in her, she bent forward a little and braced herself with a hand on his chest, her face and lips now slack with the pleasure building in her.

He couldn't hold it anymore and came hard, his groans echoing wildly across the chamber. Pumping hard into her. She gasped as she came as well.

As Emerson regained his breath, the blue glow of a woman had lowered her chest against his. A contented smile lifted the end of her lips a little. He noticed her radiance was less brilliant and her form somewhat more full.

Somewhere in the room, Nathaniel stirred and babbled "Emerson, man... it's a shriveled corpse in there... way older than 500 years".

Eusethia traced silly lines on Emersons torso with a pale blue finger. "Thank you Emerson, for your energetic contribution." She breathed between perfect teeth.

"How do you know my name?" It seemed that until now, all his throat knew how to produce were groans of pleasure. He was surprised at his boldness and as if his voice would dissipate the vision of her.

"Oh, I have your name...." She stood herself up, pulling him upward.

"Emerson!..." screamed Nathaniel hoarsely.

"... now all I need is your body." she sighed and swam fast through the air through him.

" She'll take your -- ".

Emerson had not heard the end of Nate's outcry. But the clink of his head against the glass of the cloning chamber told him that he was in the cloning vat module of the Hel class supercarrier, safely in his backup clone. And that Eusethia had stolen his body, far, far away from here.