The Hierarchy of Now and Forever

Author's Note: Hey, you may be wondering why there was a THREE MONTH break between updates! What happened? Well, it turns out my slowly worsening mood and energy, ability to focus and cognitive functions were, in fact, NOT because I hit 30 and this is just what your 30s are like! No, it turns out that I had a condition called 'sleep apena'

Sleep Apnea is when your throat relaxes too much during sleep and closes. This causes you to suffocate! Then you wake up a little bit after choking and gasping for a bit, then fall back to sleep. This all happens so fast that your brain doesn't actually remember waking up, but it plays absolute hell with your sleep cycle.

So, functionally, I was going to bed at 10 PM and waking up at 6:40 AM and functionally getting maybe a half hour of real sleep. It was not pleasant. But fortunately, I got this diagnosed and was able to get a CPAP (Continual Positive Air Pressure) machine. Now, I sleep with a mask over my face that blows warm, humid aid down my throat to keep it open. It's not comfortable, but you know what it means? It means when I

sleep

, I actually

get sleep

.

The change has been remarkable and I can actually write again. So, uh, if any of these symptoms seem familiar to you, if your loved ones or significant others are reporting that you snore a lot? Get a sleep apnea test, and get a CPAP machine if you need it! This shit's seriously bad for you - not only does it ruin your ability to think, it can really fuck up your heart and put you at risk for heart attacks, strokes and more!

Now!

On with the show.

Captain John Tangent stood in the airlock of the

Waa-1

and adjusted the collar of his civilian clothing. That was Kruul civilian clothing - not Terran. He remained in the guise of the Kruul, thanks to Pixie's psychic abilities, and that was why the clothing was bearable at all. Kruul skin was thick and tough enough to turn small knives, it could handle the fishhooks worked into the inner lining of the jacket, or the chain brace that swept across his barrel chest with...mild discomfort. The whole idea was to embrace the pain and evil that was at the root of the Kruul Malicocracy's culture and civic code.

"It also happens to look weirdly hot..." Pixie said, rubbing her chin as she flitted around him, taking advantage of the fact she was just a psychic projection living inside of his brain due to a persistent and still unidentified alien fungus growing in his gray matter. "Black jacket, tight leather pants, all on that big hunky Kruul body. Man. And I gave you so many piercings with my biomorphic disguise,

mmmmm

I do good work!" She kissed her bunched fingers.

"Quite," John said, dryly.

"Now, with you and the Paw captain, Tygress Starchaser, faking a romantic entanglement to explain why she has you in her companionship despite the Paw and the Kruul being at war, you two are going to infiltrate Trade-1, the biggest of all Zemturga trade stations in this part of the galaxy - with one goal! To find any hint of what the Zemturga have done with humanity and wring it out no matter how dark the cervas, how deep the pit! With this information, you, Captain John Tangent of the UNN

Excalibur -

the last and only surviving battleship of the United Nations Navy and the final hope of the interstellar alliance of free worlds that once stood against the now victorious Zemturga Totality - will set forth in a rolicking adventure across the galaxy with one goal! Freedom!" Pixie clenched her fist, dramatically, against her chest.

John arched an eyebrow. "...why did you summarize that, Pixie?"

"This frigging airlock has been cycling so dang long I feel like I've been stuck here for two frigging months!" She threw her arms up. "I'm going crazy in here."

"Trade-1 isn't exactly a new station," Starchaser said from where she was lounging against the wall. She was still dressed in the Paw navy uniform of thong, bikini and large cat-paws that covered the more humanoid shape of a Paw's actual hands. Those paws were built with magnetic seals, additional claws, and other in-built weapons that made them far more dangerous than they looked. "Give it time."

The airlock door chimed and the beige light above it turned a bright chartreuse.

"Gah!" Pixie covered her eyes. "So garish."

"Your hair is pink," Starchaser said, snickering as the door started to grind and squeak open.

"Pink on pinkish-brown is a very respectable human tradition, I'm told. There was once a land known as Japan, where-"

"Shhhh," John said, gently, and used his mental connection to Pixie to gently

tug

at her shoulders. She seemed to slip to the left, out of his line of sight. She was gone - but not gone. She was in his mind, peering out through his eyes, waiting for her chance to manifest again. And those eyes...they saw the interior of Trade-1 as the door, finally, clunked open.

While John wouldn't have said it was two months of waiting, it had still been a long wait...

For what a

reward

.

Trade-1 had been built solidity at Tier-1 of the Space Opera Field. Hence the name. It was far from the

first

trade station built across the sprawling interstellar empire of the Totality - and it took advantage of the inherent convenience of being in the shallows of the dimension that allowed interstellar travel to exist: It looked like someone had taken a groundsider city and folded it in on itself, spires and towers looming past one another like jagged teeth. Winding bands of glittering white sparks flitted here and there - but they weren't sparks. They were hover cars and auto traffic, threading between structures. Huge barges covered with Zemturga propaganda floated by, their hanging billboards projecting glowing holograms, and distant voices seemed to murmur from every direction. The airlock that John and Starchaser stood in opened out into a broad thoroughfare that looped around the edges of the rectangular station, and countless thousands walked past, streaming too and from work.

"By the cruel whips of my dark gods," John whispered, remembering to play the part of romantically captured Kruul Captain. "This place is huge. It has to have...millions of people inside."

"It was built for that many, yeah," Starchaser said, snaking her muscular, striped arm around his back, drawing herself close against his bulk. It was a passable display of intimacy, helped by their shared time back on the

Excalibur

, but despite knowing he was no real Kruul, there was still a tension in her arms and her posture. As if some part of her body was reacting to his muscles, his tusks, his grayish skin, his tufted fur. John wondered, then...if it was displeasure or pleasure that she was trying to conceal.

As Pixie had so helpfully said:

Opposites attract.

"What do you mean?" he asked as he started away from the airlock, his own arm around her shoulder.

"The station's big, but mostly empty. A bunch of that auto-traffic is just background detail, running with nothing in it. The whole station has maybe has five, six thousand people in it at any one time. But the place sure looks impressive, doesn't it?"

"Quite," John rumbled.

"A Kruul and a Paw, walking arm in arm! Now that's a new sight!"

John and Starchaser turned, Starchaser already scowling.

And John...realized there was a damn good reason why people might avoid visiting Trade-1. Yes, the tier it was sunk to let it have fantastical artificial gravity, made rent always cost roughly as much as you had in your cred-stick (unless you were about to meet a long lost lover, enemy, friend, or war buddy), and meant you would age slower, healthier, and look sexier over time. But there were downsides. One of those downsides was that in a galaxy spanning, decades long war that involved almost twenty species and fifty billion sentients, John Tangent - who had never once set foot off the colony world of Zeta in his entire life - could find himself face to face with a woman who he recognized.

Jadestone Fireheart grinned at him, looking for all the world exactly like the holo that his parents had kept on their mantle-place for his entire childhood.

The famous Unbroken Blade herself, the Qorr sword-mistress who had once boarded an entire Totality warsphere by herself and lived to tell it. His godmother-in-absentia who his parents had always promised would one day see him, once the war was over and they returned to Alliance space. She looked a bit older, in the way that Qorr did - with her head feathers slightly longer and droopier - and she had earned a new scar that furrowed her scaled muzzle. But other than that...she was exactly how John had always imagined she'd look from the photographs and the stories.

She was about three meters tall, towering even over his disguised self, with a broad muscular pair of shoulders and scales the color of a forest's green leaves. Her belly - exposed by the halter top she wore and the low slung jeans that clung to her curvaceous hips - was bright crimson and that crimson edging was added to the sides of her head feathers, which frilled around her head like an elaborate headdress. Her horns swept backwards and to the sides, like handlebars, and four eyes were bright, slitted and gleaming. Her long, muscular tail dragged along the ground, and her hands went to her hips as she grinned toothily down at him and Starchaser.

John noticed, also, that she had a two handed sword strapped to her back, two knives on her hips, a Qorrian bladepistol on her ankle holster, and two bandoleers of throwing knives crisscrossing her chest - shelving and presenting her...impressively large tits for the whole world to see, straining as they were against her tight gray top. She wore a new insignia on her shoulder, and John was fairly sure it was whatever the Qorrian Matriarchy had chosen for their standard once they had been made Battle Thralls. She also sported a familiar looking badge, right above one of her tits.

"Oh steppy me," Pixie whispered in his mind.

"What business is it of yours, lizard?" Starchaser asked, her voice aggressive. "What's a Qorr even doing here?"

"I'm here on the orders of my mistress," Jade said, her voice amused, like she thought Starchaser was nothing but a yappy little...kitty. John shook his head to banish the mental image. Instead, he gave Jade his warmest smile - but being shapeshifted into a Kruul at the moment, John was fairly sure that his smile was not exactly having the best impression. Jade cocked her head ever so slightly to the side, narrowing her eyes. "A smiling Kruul. I should be alarmed, no?"

"He's an apostate," Starchaser said, her hair floofing up slightly as she snaked her arm even tighter around his, drawing herself in close.

"Dangerous, that," Jade said, lifting her head a little. Her large, muscular tail twitched slowly from side to side. "I've heard apostates don't live long in the Maliceocracy. But I suppose...that's why you're on Trade-1 and not out and about." She narrowed her eyes ever so slightly, regarding John with a slow, measured look. John shifted his posture slightly - not sure what it was that she was looking at. But whatever it was that Jade saw, the Qorr made no mention of it. Instead, she simply chuckled quietly. "Good luck.

Apostate

."

She turned to go. Starchaser frowned. "I had no idea that Jadestone Fireheart had bent the knee," she whispered to John. "Do you know her?"

"My parents and her were good enough friends that I could recognize her despite never seeing her in person," John said, quietly, his hand sliding down to pat her hands. "Did you notice that badge she wore?"

"A battle thrall insignia, sure," Starchaser said.

"No, the one above her breast," John said.

Starchaser coughed. "It was a bit hard to notice anything

but

...I mean, she's a lizard, why would-"

"That badge had the symbol of the Zemturga on it - not a battle thrall, but of the Totality itself. I bet that mistress of hers is a Zemturga!" John whispered. He bit his lip, then glanced at Pixie, who was bouncing from her toes to her heels to her toes again. She brightened at his attention.

"Oh sure!" she said. "I can astrally project-"

"Absolutely not," John whispered. He started to walk again, to avoid drawing any attention in the thronging sidewalks of Trade-1 - while the rest of the station might have been near abandoned, this area was still full of Totality merchants. They moved into an area where stalls had been set up - working serfs and pleasure slaves alike of every species were there. The pleasure slaves were easy to tell apart - they were not just naked, but oiled and wearing the traditional collar of submission that the Totality mass produced for their pleasure slaves, projecting an invisible life support field, so that even in vacuum, pleasure slaves couldn't get the dignity of clothing.

John took advantage of the increased commotion to mutter in Starchaser's ear - and knew that Pixie would be able to hear him quite clearly. "The Totality has psychics - quite a few of them - the last thing I want is someone to notice a silvery tether and trace it back to me. Can you do a biosculpt on me and Starchaser?"

Starchaser huffed - but Pixie beamed brightly. "Of course! Though, for my powers to really properly influence Starchaser, she will need to have a sympathetic link between..."

John saw his moment. He tugged Starchaser behind some boxes and crates stacked up near a narrow alley. There, in that close confine, it could almost be imagined that they were on some terrestrial bazaar - the scents of spices and unwashed travelers tingled along his slitted nostrils, and the shadows of the buildings cast him and Starchaser into a murky gloom that made her a vague, feminine shape and a wild mane of poofy hair. The only thing that stood out was Pixie, who looked as brightly lit as if she was a projected hologram, until she let out a soft 'oops, sorry!' and dimmed herself to the appropriate gloom.

"So, Pixie says we need a sympathetic link," John said.

"Ah, right. Of course." Starchaser's paws slid along his muscular body, down to his broad, cushy belly. She hooked her fingers onto the hem of his Kruul style pants. "How absurd of me to think it'd require anything else." She slid to her knees.

"...actually, some saliva would...work just as..." Pixie started, then trailed off, shrugging. "Ah, well, nevertheless."

John opened his mouth, about to interject - but Starchaser's gentle, nimble fingers had closed around the heavy knot of his Kruulish dick. She squeezed him as, in the darkness, her tongue feathered out and teased along the narrow, tapered tip of his cock. She licked around and around and around his cock, letting out little kittenish mews with each soft lick. Lick. Lick. Her tongue had just enough texture to feel absolutely

divine

. John placed one palm against the wall, above his head, and leaned his forehead against the cool steel as Starchaser's palm cupped his balls. She squeezed gently as her mouth opened and, in the darkness, her warm moistness began to envelop him. She pushed forward, then pushed forward another few inches - stopping only when she made a soft

gluck

noise as her throat convulsed around his shaft. She paused there, and looking down at her, John could see her eyes glinting with a fierce, attentive eagerness.

"Y-You know, I-" John started.

Starchaser pushed forward harder. Her throat stretched and her eyes watered as she pushed forward more and more until her lips pressed against the knot at the base of his cock. She groaned around him, then drew back, and back, and back until his cock sprang free from her lips. She panted and gasped while John groaned, low in his throat.

"Y-You may be larger in this form, but..." her hand closed around his shaft. "I'm a captain in my people's star navy, goddamn it. If I can't suck a cock this big, what good was my training?" She opened her mouth and slid his cock down her throat again, her free hand squeezing his balls even more forcefully - startling a grunt from John as his hips bucked and a thick droplet of pre-cum soaked along her throat. Starchaser began to bob her head eagerly - almost roughly - her moans adding vibrational bliss to John's cock.

John had no choice but to add to the movement - his hips began to work, his big hand cupping the back of the catgirl's head, his fingers lacing through her wild mane of hair. His cock drove down her throat and his heavy Kruul balls clapped against her chin with a rhythmic, lewd

plap plap plap

sound while Pixie watched with eager, glittering light in her eyes. She licked her lips as Starchaser bounced her head against John's lap more and more eagerly, her eyes growing hazy and slitted with pleasure. John felt his orgasm ratcheting up inside of him, inch by inch by inch until he had no choice. His hips bucked and he groaned low in his throat...and Starchaser started to drink. Her throat bobbed and bobbed again as she swallowed blast after blast of thick, Kruulish cum, until John started to draw his cock out of her mouth. She gasped wetly and moaned as thick spurts of seed gushed against her face, splattering cheek, hair, forehead, ear.

"Ah...fuck..." John whispered.

"God, breed me already..." Starchaser whispered.

"I mean, I can make that possible, or do you want me to do the shifto shapo?" Pixie asked, giggling as Starchaser shook her head - her cheeks darkening with a blush.

"N-No, we have to hurry," she said, thrusting herself to her feet. She wobbled and almost collapsed against John's chest before he slipped his arm around her back, holding her close. Pixie giggled.

"What form?" she whispered.

John nodded, slowly. "I think...we want to fit in. Make us both Paw. Male for me, female for Starchaser. But make us...bland."

"Got it!" Pixie made a pair of fingerguns - and psionic energy crackled and sparked in the alleyway - almost loud enough to cover the sound of cartilage moving and bone creaking...

***

Jade strode confidently from the populated area of Trade-1 to the unpopulated part, her clawed feet rasping on the ground. She didn't look back behind herself - she instead kept cutting forward past monolithic apartment blocks that hung above and stretched from below. The slidewalk, designed to make passage through the cyclopean space swifter than mere walking, had long since been left to decay in the emptiness of the unused part of the station - so rather than whirring briskly along to bring her faster than her feet could carry her, it instead merely let out a series of soft

whumps

with every footstep, rubbery-surface deforming under her weight. She didn't spare a glance for the vastness around her. Instead, she simply kept walking.

About fifty meters back, John and Starchaser followed after, their brown furred tails twitching.

"I kind of hoped we'd have more cover," John whispered.

"Don'tcha worry!" Pixie said, giving him a pair of finger guns. "I've got a no-see-um psionic field on you. She won't think to look behind herself until-"

"She's noticed us," Starchaser said.

"Ah dang it," Pixie said as Jade snapped her head over her shoulder. A Qorr could stand quite still when need be - her feathered crest was the only thing that moved, frilling and spreading outwards in an instinctive threat posture. Then Jade leaped off the slidewalk. She fell straight down into the vast empty space between slidewalk and buildings - her arms spreading wide to catch at the air. John sprinted forward, hissing between his teeth, only to see her shooting back up again, her feet skittering towards the ceiling. He blinked, then watched as her course jarringly shifted at a right angle as she hit the midpoint between two of the huge apartment blocks.