Dreams. Fuck dreams.
Lanis is inside the Demeter, again. She’s bereft of her implants- no joint articulations, no neural net jacks: just herself, naked and squirming, unable to hide. She’s led into the navigation plughole by a trio of hardware-masked ship tech, their faces abloom with hissing metal implants and green-lettered micro screen readouts.
“Let go!” She screams, but no words escape her, just a panting groan. I’m not ready; no implants, no prep, what the hell are they doing? She struggles, but it’s like swimming in honey, and then she’s being shoved into the pink wet acceleration gel, her hands scrabbling futility against the closing hatch.
A shock of cool wetness. She’s in. She holds her breath, eyes wide open into the darkness. Red lights blink on around her. She hears massive groaning, like an ancient animal stirring, and recognizes the A-matter drives powering up. No, not ready, no, no, no. She sees a neural jack burst from the plughole’s wall, gurgles a drowning scream as it bores its way into her brain where her implant should be. A voice booms through her skull:
UCS DEMETER TO CREW: WARP JUMP IN THREE, TWO, ONE-
Even in her hysterical panic, the training jumps in, drilled in through thousands of hours of instruction and jump-meditation. She opens her mind to the dimensional possibilities that even the Jupiter Class ship’s AI cannot comprehend, ready to fold its ten-thousand ton carcass through the warp jump and into a new spatial possibility.
Nothing could prepare her though, nothing could prepare her that there would be something else waiting for her there, something from every nightmare, from every darkness, from every bleeding cancerous rotting gnashing bitingsquirmingcuttin—
----------------------------------------
She thrashes, gasping for air, her scream escaping from her lungs as a rasping, high-pitched groan. It takes several seconds to register that the hand squeezing her shoulder doesn’t belong to one of the Demeters’ savants, that instead she’s in some strange bed with some woman she barely knows. Mirem. That’s her name. And the bed- she clutches at the linen comforter, feeling its reassuring texture- well, they’ve all been strange for some time, haven’t they?
Just an echo.
“God, are you ok?” Mirem asks, eyes wide in concern. The room’s lights come on, a faint glow that reminds Lanis involuntarily of the Demeter’s Nav capsule.
This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings.
She realizes that she’s soaked in sweat, and slowly releases her death-grasp on the bed’s sheets.
“I- I’m fine. Thanks,” she mumbles.
She squeezes Mirem’s hand and slips out of the bed, pulling off the sweats that Mirem gave her and padding quickly to the bathroom. Mirem hears the bathroom faucet turn on, the splashing of water to a face, coughing, a glass being filled.
Lanis returns with a glass of water and leans heavily against the doorway, one arm crossed over her small breasts as she takes a long sip. Her naked form is backlit by the dim nightlight of the hallway, and she seems strangely fragile to Mirem in a way that wasn’t apparent last night, like a fawn that might bolt at any sound. She finishes her water, seems to think for a long moment, and then walks tentatively back to the bed.
“Sorry about that. I should have known…” She shakes her head. “I’ve been drinking enough that I haven’t been having dreams. I guess I better just get used to them. Again.” She sits at the edge of the bed, one leg folded beneath her, the other dangling.
Mirem considers the young woman. She corrects herself. Navigator. Perhaps a client? Despite herself, it’s difficult to think in those terms.
“Ever since what happened?”
Lanis nods. She stands up again, slowly, eyes searching for her clothes. “I should go,” she says, but with a softness that suggests uncertainty, and a sadness at having outworn a brief welcome. Mirem reaches out her hand and rests it on her hip.
“You should stay. If you want to.”
There’s a delay, as if Lanis is probing a wound of an uncertain depth. She turns her head, looking down, her eyes meeting Mirem’s again, but for the first time, in a way. I wonder if those are her real eyes, Mirem thinks.
“Are you sure?”
“Yes,” Miriam says. She slides out of bed and stands in front of Lanis, slowly. Again, the involuntary thought of her as some sprite or forest creature, ready to bolt at the first unusual noise. She takes her hand and runs it gently across the shortness of Lanis’ hair. Then she leans in and kisses her; a long, slow kiss that Lanis returns, at first tentatively, but then deeply, like a second, even more grateful drink of water. She can’t remember the last time she kissed someone sober.
She withdraws, looking into Mirem’s eyes. Mirem feels a tightness in her chest. It’s a bit like being starstruck, the way she hasn’t been since she first started at Kaisho-Renalis a decade ago. Though, to be fair, Lanis might actually be one of the rarest people on the planet. Dammit. She strokes her head again, her other hand moving to Lanis’ slim waist. How on brand, Mirem thinks, inwardly groaning, to be so instantly attracted to someone who is so clearly and thoroughly broken.
They come together again.