Patterson stirred awake in berthing, uncomfortably squeezed between Stocky and the bulkhead. He was hard asleep and still had one arm draped over her chest. She smiled as she shifted her position as best as she could. She moved softly, trying not to wake him. It felt good to be in strong arms. It was exciting and safe. But she needed a new position to sleep well.

“Are you okay?” he mumbled as he pulled his arm back. He leaned his head closer and breathed deeply, moaning in satisfaction.

“I’m just trying to get comfortable.”

“Okay, get comfortable.” He kept his eyes closed and tried to doze off.

She squirmed and tried new positions, but nothing worked for comfort. The bulkhead pressed against her on one side and his solid bulk was uncomfortably close on the other. The bulkhead had a layer of padding, but it wasn’t enough. And Stocky was made of stone. She tapped the media center’s display to show her the time, and she knew that she couldn’t both keep her promise to stay and obtain good rest.

“Stocky, I’m sorry but I have to go.”

“Can’t you wait to pee?”

I don’t have to pee. “I can’t sleep here. It’s not comfortable with you.”

“Why?” He pulled her tight so that her head was next to his and he buried his face in her hair. “You’re so soft and smell so good.” He breathed deeply, seemingly delighted. “So good.” He kissed the side of her head.

She playfully pushed him. “But you’re not soft. Lying next to you is like trying to sleep on a pile of rocks.”

He finally stirred awake and looked her over.

See? I’m in a vice.

“Maybe I can make some room.” He backed himself close to the edge.

“It’s not going to work,” she said shaking her head. “These bunks are hardly large enough for you; we had to rip out the head and foot storage bins and it was still barely enough. I need to go to my own bunk now.”

He looked at her for a silent moment, breathing in slow, deep breaths. “I have a better idea,” he said. “You stay here and I’ll jump in one of the spare bunks.”

“You’re too big. And the beds aren’t made.”

“They don’t need to be. I’ll pull out the head and foot storage bin like I did for mine. It’s not a hard job, dear.” He gave her a gentle kiss. “I’ll throw a sheet on top of the mattress and it’ll do.”

He ripped open the privacy curtain and then backed out of his bunk and haphazardly spread the blanket over her. He pressed his face against her neck and smelled her hair. “You stay here and smell wonderful. You can close the privacy screen and take off your bra and whatever else you like. Keep this blanket against your body for warmth and get down to your skin. I want your scent on everything.” His voice was one of desperation.

“My scent,” she said while feeling the blanket’s fabric. She watched the way he looked at her body and understood. It wasn’t her visual appearance that he was infatuated with (at least mostly not) but instead pheromones and other chemicals that he could smell. Stocky had a working vomeronasal organ, and her scent was flooding his brain with chemical cocktails like a drug. She wondered why she hadn’t thought of this earlier.

There really wasn’t much privacy on the Nineveh now that he was aboard. If she passed gas – even if quietly – he knew. If she was on her period, he was aware of the fact. He knew that she was now in the fertile window of her menstrual cycle. He knew it all from scent.

And he knew about what was happening in her body right now, even if he didn’t understand it. Her own arousal stimulated increased blood flow in her vulva and vagina, moistening them. Her Bartholin and Skene glands were secreting in anticipation of penetration. Detecting this change – smelling it – he was driven to further explore her femininity with a frenzied passion.

His passion was raw and animalistic. And though sincere, it was foolish. Even treacherous. This wasn’t love, it was desperately latching onto the first light that drove away the dark cloak of ignorance that he had been under. And he needed to be taught not to do such things. There was nothing truly romantic to this. Romeo and Juliet is a tale of two fools who destroyed everything over a false hope.

Once the current crisis had passed, she would make certain the worship services focused time on Delilah, and Jezebel, and the many foreign wives who led Solomon into sin. She would help Stocky to understand that impulsive desires can lead to sorrow just as easily as to happiness. And, when they got back to Zeta Reticuli, she would have the Captain afford him appropriate time ashore to gain fluency in social settings. She could stomp down any pushback from Engineering Department.

But she liked it. But she wouldn’t admit that to him. She turned her face to him and kissed him on the cheek with a wide smile as she moved to the edge of the bunk. “You really don’t know why you feel this way, do you?”

He leaned back into the bunk and wrapped his arms around her and kissed her wildly. She felt his lips hard against hers and decided not to tell him. She would let him rest for the night believing in love. Maybe even a few nights. She would watch and see if his desire lessened once she was past fertility. She wasn’t even sure how to tell him without causing embarrassment.

His hands raced over her back. One went across the side of her butt and then down her thigh. His other hand came closer to her breasts, and she covered her boobs with her own hands as best as she could. “You be good.”

He looked in her eyes with a moment of silence, slowly processing the gravity what he tired to do. “You’re right,” he said. “I’m sorry. I just haven’t been able to get you out of my mind since the shower.”

Nor will you. She glanced down toward his erection and giggled. “Sorry about that. We had to wash.”

“Your parents were right to name you Amanda,” he said.

Why are you calling me that? She knew the meaning of the name, but he didn’t know what love was.

The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

She watched his eyes look back and forth between her own eyes and her breasts. “Okay,” she said as she unzipped her pants beneath the blanket and began to work them down her legs. She might as well make herself as comfortable as she could. “Let’s get a few hours of rest like we planned.”

He nodded and backed out of the bunk, standing near her waist. He watched her moving under the blanket and she smiled happily. It was so obvious that he was imagining her undressing herself. He rubbed a hand over the blanket, feeling her curves and movements beneath.

She kicked her pants toward the end of the bed. “And Stocky,” she said to get his attention. She flung the blanket off to give him a last glimpse of her body, her legs now bare. She seductively rubbed her hands over her thighs. “Sweet dreams.” If you’re very lucky I’ll take off my shirt and bra…and give your blanket lots of skin.

He breathed in the air and then leaned over her, inhaling deeply.

Very deeply.

Danger flashed in her mind. “Stop!” She tried to push him away when he climbed back in the bunk. But he shoved her arms away. His hands raced over her body as he began to kiss her wildly. She turned her face away from him and thought about trying to punch and kick her way free. It would be a dangerous gamble. She could probably strike him hard enough to stun him.

“I need you,” he said. His voice had an unnerving desperation.

She wondered whether hitting him would make him regain his conscious sense or whether it would just make him angry. She knew that she couldn’t risk the latter. He could easily kill her without meaning to. Instant death with a single blow. Even more terribly, it might cause a slow, painful death.

Sticks and stones break human bones. (Even splicer bones)

She thought about ordering TURING to patch her through to De Silva and calling for help. But what if she couldn’t get Stocky to act civilly before they came? Visions of carnage filled her mind.

She felt his hot breath on her skin as he kissed her wildly on the side of her face. His erection pressed hard into her inner thigh, threatening her with shame and violence. Her heart was now beating so hard that she could hear its rhythm in her ears. He (being a Bioengineered Hominid) couldn’t even have kids with her this way and she silently prayed for God to remind him of that. He easily forced himself in between her legs. And then he violently ripped her shirt open.

“Get off me, please!” she screamed.

Her eyes watered and she strained with all her might to push him off. She couldn’t budge him one inch (and she knew at the start that it was impossible), and she began to cry. It was hopeless. He weighed twice as much as any other crewman and was (at least) three times stronger than all of them combined. She balled her fists but froze in dread. It would only make it worse.

He silently froze for what seemed like an eternity. “What is it?” he asked, still kissing her neck. He did so lustfully at first, then more apologetically. And then with genuine concern. “Amanda?” He gently turned her face toward him.

His breath on her face was terrifying. But at least he wanted to talk. “Let me go. Please, let me go.” She kept her eyes closed while crying. She didn’t want to see him like an animal.

He wrapped his arms around her back was silent for several moments while holding her close. His warm breath blew over her skin. The silence was even more terrifying – it sparked the imagination – and she couldn’t bring herself to look at him. His touch became increasingly tender and she anticipated a gentle penetration but lasting shame. And he would then hate himself.

And then the door opened. Light from the hall filled the Berthing.

No! Not now!

She turned her head to look at the visitors and instantly recoiled. It wasn’t help that had come to her, but another nightmare. Monsters who had once been Zhu and Soliman stood at the doorway, grinning with evil intent. They were transformed similarly to how she had altered the worst test subjects, and they carried tools as weapons. Tattered remnants of their clothing clung to their bodies.

The Zhu creature was taller, lanky, and horribly emaciated, and its skin had become almost leathery and was covered in dark lesions. Its eyes were sunken in dark pits ringed with pus. The eyeballs themselves were gone and something refractive had been crammed into their place. It wore (if that was the right word because it was bolted into its flesh) one of their augmenting exoskeletons for lifting. Its legs were entirely replaced with mechanization. Somehow, it still looked like it was afflicted with grievous pain. And it tapped a pipe wrench against its leg.

How has he changed so fast?

The Soliman creature was far more monstrous and alien. Hardly recognizable. Its arms and legs had grown, giving it a lankier figure too. Its jaw had enlarged too, and was filled with great teeth showing though receded lips. Powerful muscles connected it to a considerably heavier brow. Its skeletal structure had been altered to where it barely looked human. Hardened plates of keratin now covered its skin, and it had the same sore lesions. It stood naked before them with no genitals. And it was armed with an axe.

It’s cannibalizing us. And it can rapidly convert dead tissue.

“Stay here,” Stocky whispered as he cautiously backed out of the bunk and faced them.

She had no intention of staying. She flew out of the bunk, slipped into her pants, and threw on her coat, keeping behind him. She looked around frantically for her shoes, and then she remembered. They’re at the opposite end – by the creatures. She didn’t dare go for them.

“Hello,” the creature that had once been Zhu said. “I’ve been asleep for many hours it seems. Can you give me an update? Are we outbound and getting ready for FTL? And where is Moussa?”

Zhu! It sounds like Zhu and can talk! But the brain can’t be intact. The neurons had all died.

She now remembered that the Captain heard voices in Systems Access. There was another creature on the ship that had once been Fuller.

“Where’s the rest of the crew?” the creature that had been Zhu asked.

“It’s time we join them,” the one which had been Soliman said with a threatening, toothy grin. “And help you with this crisis.”

“Leave us,” Stocky said in a guttural voice. His breathing had become more tense, angry.

“This isn’t normal conduct from you,” the Zhu-thing said, now seemingly agitated. “I’ll have to report it to the Captain.”

Stocky charged the intruders with surprising quickness as they stepped into the doorway. He brutally crashed through them, knocking the Zhu-thing down on the deck and crushing the Soliman-thing against the metal panels on the opposite side of the hallway. The sound of the metal buckling and the terrible popping from the creature’s shattering bones was shockingly loud. She thought to herself that they may even had heard it from the Mess.

But she couldn’t count on that. She needed to warn them. She raced to the other end of berthing and slipped on her shoes, not bothering to tie the laces, and watched Stocky fight. The Zhu-thing swung once with its club, but Stocky caught and pulled it from its grip. The Soliman-thing crawled away on the floor while Stocky was distracted.

Many of Soliman-thing’s lesions had ruptured and were now bubbling a foul substance. It spit up an unnaturally dark form of blood while it screamed with rage with its threatening mouth agape. It moved with difficulty, but it was a wonder that it could at all. Its internal organs had to have sustained massive trauma.

She watched Stocky catch a punch from the Zhu-creature in his hand and heard its bones crumble within his grip. Dark, vile blood squirted between Stocky’s fingers. He ripped most of the creature’s now mangled hand off with a violent jerk, leaving a twisted stump beyond the wrist. Not a single finger remained. He threw the bloody and mauled flesh on the deck.

These new creatures were as fast as Stocky but nowhere near as strong. He was brutally overpowering them. He would be fine by himself. It was the rest of her crew who were threatened. And she needed to reach them now.

“Kill them, Stocky!” she yelled. She saw him glance back, his eyes now wrapped with nictitating membranes. Monster eyes. Then he began looking around and smelling the air.

“Kill them and I’ll warn the others!” she said again, and she watched him turn towards them. She crossed an arm over her chest to support her boobs and sprinted for the Mess, kicking the dropped axe down the hall and away from the monsters. She prayed there was time and that her research had progressed enough so that they were prepared to handle a mass infection.