Observation Post 501-3

This story was originally written for the On the Job event in April 2025.

Thanks to

PennyThompson

for some invaluable suggestions and feedback.

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CHAPTER 1

A ripple stirred the face of water, spotless except for this shallow frown. A corn cob of lumpy bubbles touched the surface and popped soundlessly in the clean, mechanically treated air. More bubbles followed, and from where they broke through came gentle waves that washed over the gray banks of a room-sized basin. The waves retreated momentarily, exposing the smooth, silvery texture of the shallow container. Its slanted walls ran through several step-like shelves -- submerged, wet, splashed with droplets, and finally dry -- which gradually emerged from their arcing slope.

A few seconds later a figure started to appear. The silhouette seemed to repel the waning darkness, as the soft ambient light filled the chamber to illuminate its slow emergence. Though it was mostly above the water line, there were still many cascades that flowed around the distinctly humanoid shape, sliding down its bends and clinging to its sweeps. They receded but only slowly; the water drained from the dark, cerulean patches of smooth skin and allowed them to turn a lighter shade of blue.

"Dimmer," the figure spoke, as it carefully walked up the steps to exit the shallow basin.

As always in the morning, the watery burrow was reluctant to simply let go. It offered warmth, comfort, and that primal sense of safety which the dry land could never truly provide. But it was on land where the excitement and opportunity lay, and so it beckoned every living thing to learn to walk up those same careful steps.

Only then, eventually, they'd be able to take the giant leaps for their kind.

"Status?" asked the same figure, shaking the last few droplets off of its lustrous skin. Although it still shone in the scattered light of the cabin, the pale blue complexion was a telltale sign of acceptably low levels of moisture.

"No events warranting immediate attention," the response came, spoken in an automatic voice that had a vaguely feminine timbre. "Ten major and two hundred minor events available for review at one's convenience. Is there a desire for an abridged version?"

"There is," said the azure humanoid, letting out a soft wheezing sound, "but I'm reminding you,

again,

that your phrasing needs work."

"Apologies proffered. Priority of language model refinement will be increased."

A more breathy sound left its mouth in reply, which seemed to indicate mild exasperation. It cocked the rounded head and ran its fingers through the dense kelp of thin tendrils that reached all the way down to its midsection. Deciding that there was no need to grace the obstinate automaton with a verbal response, it shrugged its shoulders and took several more steps forward.

As the creature approached the double-span, sliding door which led out of the sleeping area, a small diode next to it turned light blue and emitted a pleasant chime. The door moved away with a quiet swish, and outside there was a tiny buffer area where walls were lined with an array of narrow shelves. On each one lay a stack of elastic garments, fitting snugly around the creature's slender body while allowing completely free and unrestricted movement.

It wasn't a standard issue uniform. Out there, beyond even the farthest of civilized regions, there was no need for such formalities. The clothes here could be as plain and as minimal as one desired, above all else emphasizing comfort and familiarity.

This was, after all, a long-term and often solitary assignment. For the sole crew member, stationed inside a very remote observation post, the freedom of choice when it comes to dress was one of the odd perks of the job.

"Much better," she said, as the tight fabric trapped the last bits of precious moisture around the sensitive parts of her body. It wasn't strictly necessary to cover them: even if the skin dried out completely, she'd only have to suffer through some mildly unpleasant itchiness. But she knew that this sensation would distract her for the remainder of the day, so she'd always make sure to shield herself from the sterile air of the station.

Besides, she simply liked putting on at least the bare minimum of garments. It made her feel like a proper

person

again: a clothed biped, walking upright and using tools and technology. Not like those wild, aquatic beasts that still roamed the vast oceans of her homeworld.

Or indeed like those long-nosed, amusingly playful creatures that the locals on the planet below called dolphins.

"Alright, let's see what the silly machine calls 'major'," she muttered as she sat down in her favorite working area on the main deck, tastefully decorated with soothing water fixtures. "Yesterday it was some new viral trend on their social media, so I don't have high hopes..."

She sighed at the increasingly vapid inanity that seemed to permeate the culture of her research subjects. Yet she couldn't help but to feel thankful that, for all their faults and indiscretions, the antics they'd been engaging in recently were -- from an outside point of view --

relatively

harmless.

Her name was Courjee -- that's how she would render it in one of the dominant languages of this curious planet. She had been stationed here for many tens of its orbits around the central star -- a pleasant and yellow lantern, rather more energetic than the weak reddish sun of her distant home. Basking in its abundant rays, the small bluish sphere also seemed to bristle with energy, which evidently contributed to the feisty nature of its inhabitants.

Courjee was in equal parts intrigued and put off by it. It was notably different from how her own species behaved. Most of her people believed in doing things at a gradual pace, preferring the languid waves of stable shorelines over the rapid flow of young rivers. They never strayed too far from the water basins of their beautiful oceanic cradle, even as the progress of civilization pushed them to settle very densely on every available island and inlet.

Few of them ventured far into the great unknown of outer space. Fewer still made it a habit to undertake interstellar voyages with any regularity. But because they'd had quite a large head start, they still managed to spread over a respectable chunk of the galaxy. Indeed, they had already established several large colonies before any other major race in the galaxy made it out of its ancestral planet.

Nowadays, her people were the thin backbone of the whole civilized space -- loved by many, resented by some, but widely respected as the foremost diplomats and communicators that they were. They weren't easy to find outside of their native systems, however, and only the most adventurous among them would go forth and investigate the newly discovered, seemingly intelligent species.

Courjee was one such explorer, eager to learn all there was about the up-and-coming alien cultures. She knew how exciting it could be, to closely observe an entire civilization as it gradually develops its science and culture over time. However, after a long and illustrious career in the field of xenocultural studies, even she would readily admit that watching over primitive aliens could at times get -- well, rather boring.

"Sporting event... Unimportant elections... Three-month low at the stock exchange," she read the itemized list off of a paper-thin, handheld device. "Sporting event... Music award nominations...

Another

sporting event... Seriously? This is what passes for major news now?"

Her automatic assistant had compiled this daily dossier while Courjee was asleep in her private pond. It did so by tapping into the low-tech communication channels used by the locals, such as the radio waves passed between their primitive satellites.

The assistant was a tailor-made A.I.. It had been trained over vast amounts of language and cultural data encountered by hundreds of observation posts scattered all over the galaxy. Its priorities should thus be unimpeachable, its judgments of extremely high quality -- and yet Courjee couldn't help but feel underwhelmed by most of its recent findings.

On the bright side, it also had enough good sense not to answer her rhetorical questions.

"Trifles," she summed up the report, sighing again as she set the pad back on the table. She leaned back in the chair and stared vacantly at the regolith ceiling. "Ceaseless Waves wash over me... Do I actually

miss

the days when these creatures were teetering on the brink of extinction...?"

Memories came back to her, hailing from the decades past -- just around the time when she arrived at her post. They were still fresh in her mind, like a salty breeze over a rocky windswept coast; Courjee inhaled them deeply.

She remembered how she was chosen for this assignment. The request came on a very short notice, because she had to quickly replace a rather less experienced colleague. He had been watching over the planet below for several hundreds of its years, ever since its denizens figured out the basics of gravity and orbital motion. U'eshay was an eager and conscientious Observer -- the official name given to specialists like him or Courjee -- but at the time he was still a young rookie who hadn't yet earned his fins.

He could do just fine during periods of relative stability, even if the locals would call one such period

The Industrial Revolution.

But it was clearly beyond his skills to handle an actual, planetary-scale crisis. He was even less prepared to carry out proper first contact protocols, which, at the time, seemed like they could be necessary. Had worst come to worst, if those foolhardy humans made a mistake in their global game of brinkmanship, the Observer would have no choice but to act decisively and reveal himself in the process.

After all, one does not destroy hundreds of nuclear warheads mid-flight and expect everyone to simply get over it.

"I'm glad that didn't happen," she whispered, and yet there was a trace of mischievous smirk curling her navy blue lips. "Although..."

Yes, Courjee remembered those days well, filled with a frantic scramble. Before she even arrived, still on board of her sub-light liner, she was already preparing for that dreadful and exciting contingency.

How do you impress upon three billion sentient beings, many of which had never ventured beyond their home village, that there is a whole vastness of civilized space outside of their stellar neighborhood?... Whatever you'd think you would do, the truth was that there was no real way to do it gently. Not to mention that when one half of the planet is firmly at the throats of the other half, there are still a hundred and one ways in which the situation can get ugly even in the absence of radioactive mushroom clouds.

Courjee knew that a massive cultural shock was pretty much unavoidable. There would be martial law everywhere and panicked riots on the streets. Worldviews would be shattered and people would struggle to pick up the pieces. Some would decide a universe where their species isn't on top of the pile is not a universe that is worth living in.

If they did, it would be their own choice. The only thing she was allowed to do was pity them.

But even as she pondered those grim scenarios, Courjee eventually had to crack a smile. She recalled telling U'eshay how they could fully expect the locals would call them gods, many a time, and that he should remember his Observer training and not let this get to his head.

He laughed in response. It was a heartfelt laughter, vigorous and full of life. What happened later was a particularly treasured memory of hers.

"Ah, if only you were still here..."

She leaned further back in the chair, activating a mechanism which gradually morphed the seat into a comfortable lounger. She brought her arms to her chest, then let the slender fingers travel down the length of her lissome body. They ventured swiftly past her narrow core and reached one of the two pieces of elastic garment that she wore.

This one clung to the delicate area around the joints of her lower limbs. It was a sensitive spot, important for both biological and social reasons, so female individuals would usually cover it to keep it moist. Though somewhat small and inconspicuous, this part of the body also had one very unique property.

Touching it was always intensely pleasurable.

"Ooooooh," Courjee let out a protracted, husky cry. "Aaaaaaaah!" she then added, as her hand rubbed the wet area between her legs.

She had only just began to massage it, working in circles and spreading the moisture all over its perfectly smooth expanse. But already she was feeling the rush of warm blood, pumping through every vein and artery in her gently twitching body. It was positively exhilarating, as this rising warmth spread to the distant extremities and heated her up with keen excitement.

And yet this delicious sensation was merely an appetizer.

Right at the center was the innermost region, hidden beneath a protective layer of darkly blue skin. The barrier was vestigial and largely perfunctory; it didn't take much to open it, and to touch the musky walls within. This tight, exceedingly warm interior was even more sensitive than the outside: the lightest stimulation could easily set off a cascade of exciting sensations. And if the touching and stroking continued, it wouldn't be long before they culminated in a blissful, shuddering crescendo.

"Ooooh... There... there it is..."

The blue-skinned female used her own fingers to pry open the wet folds of this enticing opening. She put several of them inside, and before long they were gliding in and out of the hot and cramped space. It was quite common for a solitary female to use her digits for this exact purpose; were she with a male, however, a different organ would likely be chosen instead.

"Owww, awww... ooooooh! Oooh..." Courjee moaned, picturing in her mind the taut and sleek form of her former companion. "Where are you now, U'eshay?... I need.... I need your

nakpi

inside me..."

Closing her eyes, she could almost feel it... A stiff and fleshy rod, working its way into the deep recesses of her soaked opening. The appendage was thick and wide, comfortably snug inside the narrow tunnel; it could practically seal it with its considerable length and girth. Once fully sheathed, he would move this solid shaft back and forth, rhythmically and without stopping, retracting it for just a brief moment and then pushing it all the way back inside.

Just like this wet canal of hers, along with all the delicate areas around it, this uniquely male organ was also incredibly receptive to stimulation. With enough rubbing and squeezing, Courjee's vigorous companion would experience his own apex of overwhelming physical pleasure, just as blissful and intense as hers. In his case, however, the thrusting organ would additionally release copious amounts of dense and rich fluid, all of which would be gratefully received by his older partner.

"Yeeees!" cried the excited female, lost in the memory of their energetic coupling. "Give it to me! Feed me... feed me all your tasty

selshee!"

Her whole body seized, as every muscle rapidly contracted and immediately released all of its pent-up tension. She let out a high-pitched shriek that echoed through empty corridors, crying out in primal euphoria at the very crest of her powerful climax. Crashing waves of pleasure washed over her, over and over again, wringing moan after throaty moan while she desperately gasped for air.

She could barely get enough: the station's air was dry and thoroughly unfulfilling. But she orgasmed all the same, overpowered by the intensity of her release, struggling for the slightest bit of oxygen and yet helpless against the relentless barrage of blissful sensations. It wasn't until her trembling body finally collapsed, and she fell back limply on the chair, that Courjee managed to properly catch a full breath; but she was still panting several minutes later, exhausted and totally drained.

"Mabla!"

she cursed. "I always forget... it's not a good idea... to do this on dry land..."

Nonetheless, the tired Observer couldn't help but to crack a wide smile. This short session of self-pleasure had predictably flooded her system with a deluge of rewarding chemicals; she was bound to feel incredibly good right now. While it was considered self-indulgent to engage in this kind of activity on your own, Courjee felt she was perfectly justified. All alone in this remote outpost, it wasn't like she had anyone else she could do this with.

"Worth it, though," she whispered, then let out a contented sigh.

She thought back to U'eshay again, and to that brief and joyous time they had shared. He would often put his

nakpi

inside her, each time making her scream louder and more ecstatically than she'd ever done with any other male. It puzzled her, how this younger and (presumably) much less experienced man could've been so adept at bringing about such exquisite pleasure.

There was an uncanny quality to his technique, a peculiar mixture of familiar tenderness and animated fervor. He would thrust his turgid appendage into Courjee's soaking wet depths with such raw and primal force that she'd often get overwhelmed by it.

Most of the time it almost felt like he was using her, having no regard for her own pleasure, but in the end she would climax with such breathtaking ferocity that the dry atmospheric air wouldn't be enough to keep her conscious. When she'd wake up after a short time, she would always find herself in the gentle embrace of her caring partner. He would gaze into her sapphire eyes and smile.

For a long time she mustered the courage to confront him about this unusual style of coupling. Every time she tried something would always come up, invariably related to the volatile situation that persisted on the planet below. Eventually, though, it became evident that the hotheaded species wouldn't actually destroy themselves in the foreseeable future, and so Courjee finally managed to broach the topic with U'eshay.

He was quick to flash her a broad grin in response, which was then followed by a hearty laugh.

"I'll show you," he said, and handed her a portable screen. It was playing a low-resolution video that depicted a pair of humans, who looked to be engaging in a strange physical activity. The female had assumed a quadrupedal stance, uncharacteristic of their species, while the male appeared to be pushing something into the hind section of her body. The throaty sounds they were making were unlike any of the myriad human languages Courjee had studied so far.

"What is this?" she asked reflexively, before taking a better look and adding, "Wait, this seems familiar... Are they doing the same thing that we do?"

"In a manner of speaking," U'eshay replied, a grin still lingering on his face. "When it comes to biology, the immediate purpose of this activity is actually reproduction."

Fascinated, Courjee watched the vigorous mating ritual. It was all new to her. Because of her nigh-exclusive preoccupation with crisis response and emergency first contact scenarios, she hadn't had time to familiarize herself with "irrelevant" trivia. This would include basic human anatomy -- which, shockingly to her, wasn't actually all that different compared to their own.

"Huh," she let out incredulously. "So this is simply how they breed? That's... quite sad, really, because I can tell this looks almost as enjoyable as --"

"No, no," her companion interrupted excitedly. "Breeding is just the biological function. They call this 'sex', or more colloquially 'fucking', and there's plenty of complex and shifting societal norms around it. But as far as I understand, in this day and age the reproductive function is often suppressed with the use of technology. So in reality, this 'sex' is used mostly for bonding and recreation."