Beyond the Rim

Nerys was further beyond explored space than she had ever gone before, in the fraying regions of known as The Rim. The silence of the voids roared around the Crested Hawk, her Mark-7-7-5 explorer-cruiser. Most genuine economic activity, these cycles, was done by the drones, and there was too much excess to bother with competition or the pretense of scarcity.

All activity, of course, except for the collection of Durionite, which was used in making the best sort of starship engines. There was an extremely limited supply to go around, and for that reason, Durionite engines were normally only available to members of those fancy, hereditary guilds her ancestors hadn't belonged to. Well, they could stuff it, as far as she was concerned. When she finally hit the mother-lode, anyone who wanted share of her excess had better have an excellent forgery, and a team of expert engineers, to repay her. Until she had a large enough haul, in fact, she was planning to keep going outwards, even if it would take years.

It had, already, taken seven months, four standard cycles, and ten hours, with no Durionite readings of real note. Her drones had already gathered a few kilograms of ore, but to make an engine would take at least four tones, and ten, if it was to be a really good one. And it was.

So, after finding nothing of note in yet another system, Nerys set her auto pilot to a system two thousand light years away, a longer jump than her normally more methodical sweeps of the star clusters. Maybe something good would be out there, and her gut told her that it just might. This would be the mother-lode, and she would get not just enough for herself, but enough to pay for the install, too, and an upgrade to all her gear - with favours left over to spare. Then this ship would get rocking, proper, and nobody would look down on her ever again.

She walked the empty corridors, humming to herself, with the high-legged jumping exercise she always did, now. It paid to stay in shape, and besides, it was a way to keep the mind busy. Sometimes, space could be boring, and lonely.

She did her patrol, the system checks, and then hit the gym. She had devised her own routine, and after setting the ship to spin, and adjusting the gravity, she bounced between the walls, which became the floor, and so on. It was fun, and more importantly trained her legs and back well, in just the sort of way she needed to keep to stay healthy. Artificial gravity or not, a ship was still not a planet. Ladders, elevators and metallic corridors do not flowing hills make, as far as her muscles were concerned.

She exercised, showered, and masturbated, letting her mind wander into the weird and macabre, before finally cumming with a loud, shameless moan. With nobody around, and no risk of disturbing anyone, she found this all only too natural after so many years as a solitary space explorer.

Most people travelled with one or more partners, and for a while, she had, too. Friends, and then lovers, but none of it had been right for her. She liked it just fine on her own, at least on the shorter sort of trip. Two to three months, that was standard for her, and then she stayed at one of the starports, to de-weird a bit, normalize, and connect with her fellow beings, alien, human, or whatever. It was good to talk to people who weren't simulated.

Still, that it was difficult hadn't stopped her, and if it was up to her, nothing would. She was tired of travelling slow. She paused her notifications and went into the game chamber, naked as was by now her norm. The ship, simply, stayed at her perfect temperature, and in the game room, appropriate clothes was projected anyway, with all the rest of the surroundings.

"Resume dragon slayer", she ordered the computer, which responded first with a cheery bleep, and then a green and flowing landscape to match. She mounted her horse and dove into her adventure game, oblivious of the flashing, red light which told her there was a problem.

When she came out, hours later, she didn't see it at first, and headed for her bedroom with a satisfied yawn. Those had been some good battles, and maybe, tomorrow - then she saw it.

"Dammit", she mumbled, and darted for the cockpit. She got to the cockpit, and leapt into her sturdy chair, spinning into her place in front of the monitors. "Alright, what have we got, what have we got..."

What she saw gave her pause, and her first thought was, that can't be right. According to the relative positioner, she was more than forty thousand light years from where she had started, a trip that should have taken at least several more hours than it had. "What the fuck?"

She revived her event log, from oldest to newest.

Time index 4,833,7:27 - Course drift detected.

Time index 4,833,7:35 - Anomalous phenomena detected.

Time index 4,833,7:36 - Unable to correct course - disabling engines.

Time index 4,833,7:36 - Unable to disable engines - reason unknown.

Time index 4,833,9:49 - WARNING: Approaching unmapped stellar body.

Time index 4,833,9:51 - Unable to disable engines - reason unknown.

Time index 4,833,10:04 - Entering unmapped system - blue dwarf

Time index 4,833,11:43 - Entering planetary orbit

Time index 4,833,11:46 - Anomalous vessel detected

Her stomach turned. That was twenty minutes ago. The computer had, apparently, not deemed any of this life-threatening, and therefore, not worth overriding her 'do not disturb'. Those settings, she thought, just might need a tweak. "Show the vessel on screen.", she said, and nervously swallowed nothing. The question of how she'd wound up here could wait for later.

A huge picture, perfectly clear with the computer-increased brightness, flowed in the air in front of her. For a moment, it took her breath away. A cigar-shaped ship, torn open by battle-scars, carrying with it a field of orbiting debris, floated in the void beside her the Crested Hawk. It was in a stable orbit around a gas giant in this system, and according to what her sensors was telling, had been there for a long time. At least two hundred thousand years, at least if the radiation signatures were to be believed.

Its design was alien and unfamiliar, and besides, no known species operated in this area of space. That's what drew explorers here, after all. Her computer's database couldn't match it to any known models. She took a deep breath, trying to force back her nerves, and sat up straighter in her chair.

"Do a full sensor sweep, please.", she told the computer. She wasn't in the habit of asking it nicely, but right now, it somehow seemed like the thing to do. "Speculation on why we were led off course? And how we travelled so far in a few hours?"

"Not enough data to speculate", said the deep, rusty voice she had programmed the computer with. "Most likely explanations would appear to be an encounter with an as-yet unknown phenomena of physics, or advanced technology, which diverted us along a form of stellar slip-stream, increasing our rate of travel. A similar phenomena is proposed by the Albigensian theory of -"

"That's enough. Scan results?"

"Processing. Complete."

After a moment, a broad, foolish grin spread on her face. No dangerous radiation, no signs of life... and huge concentrations of Durionite. According to the scan, nothing less than forty tons. Enough for her engine, installation, upgrades, and then some.

"Computer", she said, after a moment, taking a deep breath. "Take us into orbit, and get close to one of the breach points. Scan for any live munitions, and keep me posted if you detect any. I'm going in."

A few minutes later she stood, hands trembling, at her airlock, and secured her helmet. The dexterous, skin-fitting suit of silvery, smooth material would protect her against both radiation and the cold, in spite of its flimsy appearance. It also carried water, and let you pee without returning, which was nice.

She took another deep breath, and hit the big red button. A moment later the air had left the chamber, the hatch had opened, and she was looking directly at the alien ship. She stepped forward, slowly, and her hand gripped the edges of the airlock. Above and below her was the star-dotted blackness, and in front of her, the slumbering, alien leviathan. It was hard not to be terrified, especially considering its size. It easily dwarfed her ship hundreds of times over. On what remained of the black-purple material, it had a smooth, almost woven texture, and looked to her more grown than manufactured.

She dove across the void, floating towards the dark innards of the alien ship, with her the simple torch on her suit lighting the way. The frayed, twisted material at the sides of the ship yielded, at first, to a gaping, twisted cavern, like a wound the flesh of a great monster. But, a bit deeper in, a tall, narrow doorway lead deeper into the ship.

What sort of being could use a door like that? She hoped not to have her question answered by any ancient, desiccated corpses as she pressed forward, and to her relief, did not. A long, sleek hallway led ran into the innards of the ship. The whole hallway was round, with a strange, grooved floor, and little holes along the side. They seemed, disturbingly, like the sort of hole a snake or a spider might crawl out of, and the large, round corridor, and the strange, tall doorways begged the question - what sort of being had once mad this ship home?

Still, the computer said no organics, and no energy signatures, so there should be nothing to fear. After all, her sensors could penetrate any known materials, and they had cleared everything before she'd gone in. Safe, safe, safe, that's what she told herself, as she flew down the corridor towards the concentration of valuable minerals. It was several minutes before things started to go sour.

As she neared her target the ship around her seemed to shake, and then, she fell to the floor, and did not get pushed back up. Gravity had been restored. She started to speak, to ask her computer what was going on, but just then, her display changed to indicate that the signal had been lost. She turned around, and her worst fear became real.

Behind her, where there had been a corridor, there was now a wall. "Fuck", she muttered in her helmet, as slowly, the walls began to glow with a dim, red light, and some sort of mostly-clear gas began to pump into the corridor. She had her own air supply, of course, but that didn't make it any less ominous.

"Fuck", she repeated, turning in place, and drawing a blank as to possible ways out. "Fuck." Her sensors told her that the atmosphere was nitrogen-oxygen, like the Earth her distant ancestors had hailed from, but with much more of the oxygen. Enough, in fact, to get you pretty high, not that it mattered.

She looked about, and froze in place when she finally saw it. She let out a terrified moan of defeat as a dark, thick rope, like a snake, or a sentient tree-vine, made its way out through one of the holes that ran along-side corridor, followed by another, and then another. All around her they emerged, intertwining, already numerous enough to cover the walls.

She stepped back, wanting to step away from the walls, but was tripped by one of the tentacles, landing in the grip of another, which quickly wrapped around her chest.

"No!". She screamed, and struggled, in a sheer panic, but her words only echoed, unheeded, in the dim, alien corridors. She kicked, and one seized her ankle, and a third griped her other leg. She whimpered and struggled, one last time, as one more snaked its way around her waist, and another locked itself around the neck of her helmet.

With a gentle click, the helmet came undone, and by reflex, she took a deep breath, closed her eyes, and turned away, like a child trying to deny the reality of the monster in front of them. For a moment, nothing happened, and then the forceful appendages lifted her up in the air, towards the centre of the round corridor, and curiosity finally overcame her - she opened her eyes. All around her they hovered, now, thick, dark, purple in a shade similar to the ship itself, and almost like rubber in appearance. A clear fluid leaked from the tip of each, filling the heavy air with an intoxication, foreign musk.

She looked about, feeling almost like she was in a dream, when her eyes met a single, large, clear purple one, emerging from the mass of fleshy matter that now surrounded her. She panted, deep in terror, as she heard and felt her suit being ripped from her body, and as more limps wrapped around her arms, and legs, locking her firmer into her floating, spread-open position.

"What are you?", she whispered, more to herself than anything, as she met the gaze of the alien terror.

In response, all she got was the feeling of warm, damp air on her now-naked body, and the sure knowledge that each of the tentacles were warm, hard, wet, and strong, beyond all belief. She took another deep, fearful breath as one snaked its way up her inner thigh, gracing her sex, before reaching down to touch her belly.

"Ah!" She cried out, and jerked, as the heavy air started to dim her mind, and something soft and wet, ran itself over her stomach, then her chest, before finally latching on to one of her breast and beginning to suck, almost as if feeding, softly at first, and then with more urgency. "Ah..."

Her body shivered, and her mind raced with strange, heavy images, and flashes of secret, unspoken fantasies. What was going on? As if to answer her question, just then, another one of the appendages latched on to her other breast, forcing another, surprised moan out of her, and another rubbed against the entrance to her sex, coating it in warm, sticky fluid, which left her skin tingling and sensitive.

"What's", she tried, weakly, which provided the opportunity for yet another to enter her mouth, just as the other slowly forced itself into her pussy, more than two knuckles deep in an instant, begin to leak warm, thick fluid into her.

Reflexively, she bit down on the intruder, but although the surface she bit into felt distinctly like flesh, her teeth did nothing to deter it pushing in, before coming to a rest at the entrance to her throat. Her tears flowed freely, by now, though even she was no longer sure of their meaning. When she looked up, she saw that a purple eye, at the end of another tentacle, had lowered itself, and was watching with keen, intense interest. She swallowed the fluid leaking into her, having no other choice, and was surprised to find it sweet, and not at all disagreeable.

She moaned into the appendage, as her mind drowned in sensation, and the creature forced itself deeper into her pussy, and at the same time, slid another appendage into her ass. Her body shivered uselessly against the restraint as orgasm after orgasm began to rock her slim frame.

Her body shook, now far beyond her control, and what little her eyes still saw was brighter, wilder, and more like a dream or drug-fueled adventure, than anything to compare with her real-life experience. By this point she had given up on the idea of resistance, and when the intruder in her pussy began to widen, to force her open, all she could do was cum, again and again, as the first egg forced its way into her womb, joined by the thick, intoxicating cum of the alien.

Soon, another one in her mouth followed, and one in her ass, and it kept fucking her, endlessly, feeding her its inhuman cum, until her mind slipped away, hopelessly, into the darkness. By the end, her breasts felt heavy and swollen, and her body, stretched and used beyond any limit, but still, she could no longer look away from her captor, would not, as the trance overtook her, and a sure knowledge began to rest itself in her heart.

She was going to be a mother.