Disrupted

Well.

This one took awhile to get finished, for which I apologize; if you're reading this, I hope you've read its two predecessors. When this one begins, the intrepid Pixy Pfeiffer has just put herself in the middle of a deafening series of explosions. Let's see what she'll get up to now...

* * *

Pixy shrank back from the rear bulkhead, her face twisted in annoyance. "For fuck's sake," she muttered to herself. Every time. Every goddamn time the circuit ship's interphaser went, there was that same little high-pitched whine at the upper edge of her new-and-improved hearing, right there in that sweet spot where her new cochleas were more responsive than her old ones.

The problem with cloning, she thought savagely. It seemed like a panacea, being able to grow your own spare parts, until you realized that when you spend thirty-some years eroding your hearing, rounding off the uppers and lowers and getting your brain nice and used to your comfortably worn original equipment, it takes awhile to get used to the new one they just plucked out of the vat, still with the same auditory acuity she'd been born with. Complete with the ability to hear the upper pitches she'd forgotten during adolescence.

It didn't help that the pilot was edgy with the interphaser. Seemed to be afraid of going fast.

Serves me right,

she reminded herself sourly, lying on the guest bunk. Nobody had forced her to plop herself in the middle of a 10-kiloton-equivalent explosion with no more hearing protection than a pair of headphones offered. Of course, when death by your choice of Flasbard main battle tank or Flasbard dismounted rocket launcher was the alternative... well, there really was no alternative.

Pixy Pfeiffer was one of those officers who intended to do whatever it took to survive the War. Even if "whatever it took" killed her.

The berth was clean enough, even functional, but circuit ships were not renowned for their comfort. Pixy was just happy she was a full lieutenant, and thus rated a space to herself; last time she'd been aboard one of these pieces of shit, as a sublieutenant, she'd had to share with a short, smelly Linder. She didn't mind Linders, usually, but Pixy could be a sarcastic roommate and Linders were not renowned for their ability to take a joke. Weeks, that trip had taken, chasing the old USS

Jezail

around the Third Quadrant, and that fucking Linder sub trying to get her to put out the entire time. "Fucking stop it!" she'd said at last, aiming a savage snap-kick at the little asshole's noseplate; she'd gone spinning to the deck in a graceless tangle of limbs, but then they'd found the ship just two days later and so Pixy had been spared the awkwardness of rooming with someone she'd just kicked the piss out of.

She sighed, shutting her eyes, conscious of the empty space in the bunk beside her; she hadn't expected to miss Janelle so much.

At last report her ship, the

Pulver

, was making a garbage run out on the Perimeter, between Angerac IV and the scrubby little settlements along the Utari Nebula; even during the height of the War, human colonization of the Territories hadn't stopped. There was no end, she thought gloomily, to the degree to which humans would be able to rationalize finding new places to plunder. The word was that the Utari colonies were rich in a gum used in high-strength adhesives, which just meant that whenever she did find

Pulver

, the old ship would smell like a pig's asshole.

Once more, she tried to avoid thinking about the state the ship's books would be in when she was finally able to take a look. Supply was her department as Second Officer, but she'd been Acting First Officer for months now and she had no doubt the accounts were completely fucked. Word was that a new First had reported aboard while she was at the Coding Course, though, so finally she could look forward to doing her actual job now, rather than everyone else's.

Aw, fuck. Who was she fooling? She'd still be running the fucking ship. Nobody knew that vessel the way she did; between forty months aboard, her time as First, the time she'd taken over during the 447 battle, and her deft control of the ship's drug ring, she had her finger in every one of the ship's many pies.

She wondered idly how Captain Reye had been able to manage without her.

The faceless robot buttfuckers who ran the circuit ship had estimated there was a "high likelihood" they'd reach the vicinity of the

Pulver's

run within two weeks. That had been eight days ago, standard calendar. Pixy had been mindlessly bored after the fourth hour of Day One, her mind blasting into an immediate understanding of why people developed such crippling addictions aboard circuit ships. Pixy herself was very carefully rationing her supply of drag, the premium shit she'd brought from the ship, now dwindling into a small brownish pile in the wooden box she kept at the base of her locksack.

She spent most of her time in the grubby wardroom, where there was at least a viewport large enough to take in a respectable slice of starshine; the lack of a window was her biggest complaint here. She'd sit there for hours with her tabslate and the duvet she'd stolen from the robot working in the service closet, studying, making sure she understood the coding course she'd just graduated from.

She needed that course, she admitted to herself. Six months she'd been acting First Officer, or nearly that; it had amazed her how much supply info had gone leaching out of her head in that time. Then Fleet had changed all the coding procedures, and Sublieutenant Amisuul hadn't been able to keep up; it had been a welcome relief, the month on Lentilli Prime at the course. And the new cochleas had been nice, too, finally.

She leaned back on the mock-velour lounge cushion and sighed, stretching. She'd driven herself crazy in the little officers' gym yesterday, punishing her muscles to keep from going batshit crazy. And to keep her back flexible; always, nagging at the root of her brain since the Battle, the need to stay strong back there, to counteract the wound. The wardroom was empty today, the other officers probably moping in their quarters: the little duo of commanders tended not to hang out with the lieutenants anyway, but there was usually her and Potrek, then the sublieutenants Corso, Edwardes, and R'hoss, and finally a doubtful-looking junior lieutenant named Danska. Or Daskal? Disco? Something like that; he was a mousy-looking fellow, anyway, and kind of old for a Junior.

She looked lazily through the little galley off the wardroom, straight through to where the gym clanked and seethed. The robots usually kept all the hatches open on this level during the Standard Day, to improve ventilation, though all that really did was make sure there'd constantly be a vague odor of crotch sweat mixed with the scented leavings from the last inconsiderate bastard who'd used the nuclear oven to make popcorn or heat fish. On the worst days, Pixy usually countered that with a brief little snort of drag to calm her down, the drug lifting her into a semipermanent pinkish haze.

Not too much, though. She well knew what too much of that shit could do.

She was sitting with her back to the wall opposite the viewport, letting the coding mnemonics do their lazy work in her fuzzy brain, when slowly she became aware that the autowave had stopped with that distant, jarring ratcheting noise it always seemed to have. That meant the guy in the gym had finished with his workout. That he'd be coming through soon on his way to his quarters.

That she'd therefore have a view she could enjoy as he passed from the little galley.

He was a subcommander, and probably a newish one, with his rank badges still shiny. When they'd met, after the ship picked her up at Lentilli, she'd noticed he wore the black working uniform of Fleet Combat; vaguely, she remembered him saying he was some sort of engineer? Gunner? Something like that. He'd been quartered one deck higher than her, with the two or three other commanders looking through interstellar space for their ships, and as the people had come and gone from the circuit ship she'd soon picked up on his routine.

The commander always spent some time after dinner in the gym, when he was pretty sure nobody else would be there. He cranked along for twenty minutes or so on the hoverjag stepper before finishing up with a punishing autowave routine. Then he toweled off and came through the wardroom on the way to his quarters. Came through dripping, the fans doing nothing useful; they never did aboard starships, not after a solid workout.

Space travel encouraged claustrophobic interactions and constant monotonous encounters with the same people, leading to a reliably casual approach toward clothing. Fleet tended to attract adventurous people anyway, and although they might not have started out as exhibitionists per se, a few weeks aboard a cramped warship smelling the same crewmates soon broke down all sorts of barriers. So it wasn't really all that surprising when the athletic subcommander, on her first day aboard the circuit ship, appeared after his workout wearing nothing but a pair of workout briefs.

Not surprising. But certainly worthy of attention.

The Federal military was packed with fit, sexy people; a combination of post-space evolution, DNA modification, and a relatively active lifestyle had turned most homo sapiens into physical specimens that would have casually outperformed their ancestors, confined to Sol III and its easy lifestyle, without even understanding how far the human race had come. But even with all that taken into account, the subcommander in the workout brief was a fucking hunk of prime, grade-A, genetically-enhanced porkmeat.

So Pixy sat up as soon as she heard the autowave clink to a halt, turning her body on the lounge seat so that she could watch his approach; with nothing to do as the buttfuckers flung the ship along its endless galactic circuit, she'd long since figured out the best seat from which to watch the man move. He came out today with the sweat gleaming on his body, oil-like, matting even the minimal hair his barber had left atop his head. To say he was fit did the word a disservice.

He was perfect.

Smooth muscles under dark mahogany skin, the flare of his nose, the piercing black pits he used for eyes, all over a wide and expressive mouth; as it always did, Pixy's breath hitched at the sight of him. His body tapered in that perfectly symmetrical way, all flowing limbs and glimmering hairless flesh. As usual, his sweat had made the briefs cling to his body like wet tissue paper, and Pixy instinctively checked to see which way his cock was hanging that day.

Mmm. Left. Her supply-officer mind was keeping a running tally to pass the time; he only went left 32% of the time. Special day!

He was just as nice going as coming, a hard compact ass driving his legs with purpose toward the disinfection suite, and Pixy always enjoyed that view as well. But she miscalculated that day, the grin already twitching at the corner of her mouth as she dropped her eyes down his glorious body... but today, it was different.

Today, he stopped.

She was already staring hard at his hips under the briefs when she realized he'd halted in mid-stride so that he could cock his gorgeous head and look quizzically down at her with those luscious eyes. Slowly, Pixy hauled her own eyes back up toward his face, the drag in her system keeping her calm even as her heartrate picked up; she was not used to being caught looking, but in an instant she made her decision. Fuck. He was a beautiful man and he plainly wanted to be looked at; what the hell did she have to be ashamed of? She smiled up at him, hearing the dreamy note in her own voice as she finally met his gaze. "Yes, commander?"

He smiled back, more a smirk really, the sweat like tears running down his face. Pixy fought back the urge to lick him. "It's just that I see you here every day, lieutenant. I thought I should say hello."

Hello? Pixy thought fast, or as fast as the drag would allow. He wasn't stopping to say hello. "Thought you should stand there and be looked at." Her own playfulness amused her; drag had a strong dissociative effect in some users. Pixy felt like she was watching herself. She paused. "That's what you really mean, sir."

He nodded easily, genially, his thick neck rippling. "Of course that's what I mean," he confessed readily, and at once Pixy knew he was hers for the asking; this was what attractive people did on circuits. They fucked. She'd gotten nothing since that last night at the coding course, the strip club before graduation, when that dancer had made her cum on a pair of nimble little fingers. She saw the black eyes roam her body, and she made herself stay still and be admired. "Whenever you get your next promotion," he began in a pleasantly rumbly baritone, "you'll be taking dick on the Senior Deck aboard these fucking dumpster-ships. Come see what it's like."

"Certainly, commander." It poured out as a sweet, thick drawl, her long-suppressed Aries accent quick on her tongue now, as it often was when she was about to get laid. She stood gracefully, tucking her tabslate away in her left cargo pocket, and inclined her head toward the exit. "Lead me."

'This way." The voice was calm, efficient; it was the voice of a serving officer passing a formal announcement, not the quaver of a sexually excited male animal. No, this guy was no amateur. He was used to getting whatever he wanted, and the recklessness of a drag-induced stupor aboard an anodyne circuit vessel with a balky interphaser was pushing Pixy Pfeiffer right onto his cock.

She whistled randomly as she trailed him down the short corridor at the top of the ship; there were only three senior officers' berths aboard, so it wasn't a long trip, and that sweaty muscled ass towed her along with a magnetic force of its own. Pixy felt the euphoria grow, a sense of absolute confidence, of fierce elemental joy, and when the subcommander paused at his doorway to work the locktag she sidled up behind him, pressing her working uniform up against the flowing muscles of his back, inhaling the stench from his hair, his armpits, his groin, her own body responding with a sudden familiar tension in her pussy. He punched the keys casually, in no hurry at all, even when Pixy closed her eyes and pushed the workout briefs straight down his smooth legs to lie in a soggy heap on the deck.

He stood straight and tall, his body a wall in front of her as she reached around to grasp his penis; even through the haze of the drag, she remembered to use her left hand, to account for how he was hanging. She felt hot skin and coiled hair and the leathery pendulum of his nutsack, tasted his salty sweat on her lips as she kissed his spine, and as the hatch grated open he stood there still, waiting, showing the control she didn't know she was looking for.

But he knew.

He brushed her hand from his penis like a man bats at a fly. Pixy heard the excitement in her own gasp when his skin left her mouth as he stepped out of the briefs and into his quarters. He didn't even bother looking at her when he spoke. "I'm going to piss. You'll be on my bunk when I'm done, lieutenant."

The response was immediate, conditioned through the haze of narcotics and lust. "Aye aye, sir," and all at once there was nothing she wanted to do more than please this man. She bounded into the room as he drifted, unconcerned, into his latrine, clawing at her staytab with her dick-scented left hand, cursing the clothes for their sluggishness as they peeled themselves from her impatient body.

Ah

, she noted dully as the trousers crawled down her legs,

commanders get a bigger bed than lieutenants do.

No shock there; it's how Fleet worked, but she did wonder whether the mattress was any thicker. She smiled to herself when she realized she was about to find out.

At last, just as the heard the toilet churn, her boots unstrapped themselves and released her feet to take her to the bunk, made up with perfect Fleet precision by an officer who could only have gone to one of the Academies. Pixy had not; her bunk was always a disgraceful mess, but she reasoned that anyone who disapproved of a messy bunk had no business being in her quarters. It gave her a certain grim satisfaction, like a snowshoer making the first divots in an overnight snowfall, when she planted her knees on the hermetically stretched duvet and leaned forward to the sound of his bare feet slapping on the deck behind her.

Pixy ignored the twinge in her lower back as she arched herself on hands and knees, displaying her wet twitchy vagina for this man, her brain already numbed with excitement and anticipation; it occurred to her that she was grinning at the pillow beneath her, a most un-Pixy-like reaction.

Well

, she shrugged, mentally,

it had been a long and boring trip

... And then he was looming alongside her. She restrained herself from her usual glance at her man. This was not a hasty, sleazy assignation as part of a logistics transaction, a stolen naked moment with some other ship's supply lieutenant; this was different.

A dark, hard hand found her shoulder, unexpectedly light, and Pixy trembled. "So pale," muttered that baritone, the hand moving, his stink everywhere in the small space; the blowers were already kicking on in the walls, but the lowest-bidder air purifiers on a ship like this were not going to be able to do a goddamn thing about the pheromones now packing the room. She stilled herself, the fingers drifting along her naked body. "You're a fine one." A man like this did not need a reply, so Pixy didn't bother giving one; she hardly trusted her voice right then, anyway, the hand tracing over her taut ass now.

Though she did give a strangled squeak when his finger very unexpectedly, very thrillingly, plunged straight into her pussy.

"That's it." She could hear the dry amusement, brittle in his voice as he fluttered inside her, and the man had read her perfectly. His finger knew precisely where to go and what to do. "Squirm."

No,

she screamed at herself,

no;

this was all wrong, too soon, she never let herself get off first, but it was no use; drag always made her horny anyway, and she couldn't stop her legs from shaking like a sewing machine. "My, you're quite a responsive little whore."

"Please," she whined, barely able to think. Already. His smell was her world. Her mind was shouting at her to stop this, to turn toward him, to please him, but his finger simply felt too good.

"Please what?" God, the mockery; the man was so full of himself!

"I don't fucking know," she grunted, feeling a tickle at her thigh where the fluids were running freely down her leg, escaping his corking fingers. She couldn't stop herself from driving her body back against that hand, and she was never like that. "I don't."

"Good thing I do," he chuckled, sending his stubby fingers on one more trip around her vagina before, with a suddenness as startling as their arrival, he pulled his hand back out of her and shoved her hard onto her side, sprawling across that virgin bedspread. At last she saw him, standing with the sweat drying on his skin, that magnificent body naked to her overheated gaze. Everything about his shining body was perfection, the cock half-hard, taunting her from above that rugged scrotum she'd felt in her hand. He hitched his knee onto his bunk. "Prepare me."

Yes please,

and Pixy scrambled onto her back; now she was in her element, feeling her little tits do that ever-so-slight sideways thing they did, her nipples hard and dark in the corner of her vision, but then there were two smelly thighs bracketing her body and her mouth was watering as the cock between them swung toward her face, and she knew exactly what he expected from her.