Caelus Aurum (3 of 3)
#3 of Anomalies on the Caelus Aurum
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The bridge shone under a warm golden glow, eminating from the viewing window at the front. The room had been deserted hours ago when Crevan had given the order to try and research what was going on with the ship. It was like he'd said a magic word - 'research' and poof, the entire staff was gone, leaving nothing but glowing, unattended insturment panels.
Things were going well. Sarmor had turned out to be a young Dingo, an orderly assigned with the care of the cargo manifests. His shift had begun shortly before initial contact with the anomaly, and he had faithfully maintained his duties, oblivious that anything was amiss. He quickly learned otherwise as soon as he arrived at med lab.
Sarmor had stopped freaking out shortly after having things explained to him. The young dingo seemed eager - in fact - to do something that might help save everyone's lives. Crevan got the feeling that the poor kid didn't really get the fact that he was putting his life on the line, and that this plan hadn't been thought out too well, but he was eager nonetheless.
They'd fetched him a suit and a suitable power cable from one of the crew's quarters - well ... Sarmor had done most of the fetching, seeing as he was the only one really mobile in the tight corridors of the ship, but the point was that they were getting somewhere.They'd gotten him into the suit, and given him the power cable, all while he was complaining the suit was oversized. Crevan had smiled and assured him that he wanted it to be as loose as possible, and then headed off to the bridge.
Now he stood, feeling the warm glow of the anomaly's energy as it seeped through the window. He regretted having to expose himself again, and the golden glow kept reminding him of his time with Kat ... as brief - and wonderful - it had been, but all the controls they needed were here, and here alone. Besides, even with the thinner plating and window on the bridge, he wasn't risking nearly as much as Sarmor, with little more than a bit of metal and fabric protecting him from the effects of the radiation.
He concentrated, throwing the lurking reveries about Kat as far from his mind as he could. He tapped the comm button, "All ready?"
"Ready here," came Sarmor's muffled but enthusiastic reply, "At the airlock, depressurized and cable ready."
"Alright here ... I guess," Lethy's voice crackled over the intercom, "Give me the word, and I'll send our life-support power through to the engines. A plan I'm still not thrilled with, mind you."
"Then let's go." Crevan keyed open the airlock doors, and left the intercom on as the young dingo stepped outside onto the ships hull.
"Stepping outside," Sarmor reported, "It feels so warm ..."
"Keep moving, kid."
Several tense minutes passed, the ryhthmic thump of Sarmor's magnetized walking playing over the comm. It would take him a good bit of time to get to his destination, out in the exposed air. If anything went wrong, or if he grew too large for his suit, he was stuck out in space ... with no help in sight. Crevan tapped the transmit button, preparing himself to reassure their young space cadet that he was doing well.
Instead, a low, sensual female moan of pleasure came over the comm, accompanied by a sereis of deep male grunts ... almost as if ... Crevan took his finger of the transmit key, and the noises stopped.
"What was that?" Sarmor had apparently gotten the transmission, too.
"Ignore it." Crevan spoke over the sounds of passion coming from Lethys' end of the comm. "You've got a job to do. Report back when you've got the cable in place."
Crevan swore and turned the comm off, feeling slightly aroused just remembering the noise ... the low purr of a the female as she ... he shook his head, clearing any thoughts of sex from his mind. He stared at the control panel for a minute, finding the throttle and throwing it in reverse, jamming a chair up against the control so that it wouldn't slide back off. He sure hoped Caelus Aurum could start in gear.
He set Sarmor's intercom to broadcast across the ship, and headed out for the medical bay. Lethys had finally given in. Hell, maybe Marie had even aproached him ... those tremendous assets of hers ... that perfect hourglass figure ...
Ugh ... Crevan was really going to need shore leave after this one.
Whatever the reason, whatever the cause - and he was through with thinking of both - they'd lost a crucial piece of their plan. And he'd be damned if he was going to let everyone down.
The going was even slower that coming up. Crevan found himself having physical difficulty getting past bulkheads, and doors became a nearly impossible challenge. He actually found himself having to choose alternate routes to avoid some of the low corridors, costing him precious time. He had only made about two thirds of the way back down to the medlab when Sarmor's voice crackled over the comm.
"Cable in place, captain. Ready when you are."
Crevan cast about for a moment before finding a wall intercom. Pressing transmit sent more sounds of sex careening out over the airwaves, but it let Crevan respond: "Good job. Hang back."
"Captain ... y'know how you said it was good for the suit to be a little loose? ... Well ... it's getting a bit tight. Having a bit of trouble moving, actually ..."
Crevan swore again, "Alright. Stay still, get out of the light if you can, and hold on to somehting. I'm gonna start the engines directly as soon as I can."
"Roger." Came the last, worried reply. There wasn't so much enthusiasm in his voice now ... it must have finally dawned on him just how bad growing in small suit could be.
Crevan pressed on, doubling his pace. Sarmor said nothing more, but his slow rhythmic breathing could be heard during the quieter parts of Crevan's mad scramble. They spurred him on, reasurred him, and it wasn't long until Crevan was standing outside of the med lab.
He could smell the musk through the door - a quiet, unobtrusive reminder that he had cut his own lovemaking session short, and his body was still longing for more ... his mind started wandering again - Kat ... his very own goddess ... so strong ... so graceful ...
He cleared his mind as much as he could and opened the door. The smell of the musk intensified, throwing his reveries into full blown arousal. He felt his pulse, surging through his groin, his member swelling with anticipation, his testicles swelling larger as they prepared his seed for the conquest of the female body he smelled, so desperately in need of attention. The fact that the room was permeated with male musk as well didn't even register on his mind. He smelled the female, and he wanted her.
Crevan managed to get through the door before his anatomy got too awkward, Using his last remnant of sanity - clinging on to the idea that Sarmor was out there, and Sarmor was counting on him - he made it to the terminal. A single red light blinked on the console and he slammed his hand down on it, elliciting a low beep from the computer and a slight lurch as the world around him slid into motion.
His conscious faded away as he searched for the female, who was hidden from his sight - and at the moment, beyond his current reasoning facilites - behind the examination room door. Reluctantly, he began to tend to himself, to relieve the aching need.
The Caelus Aurum was picked up some hours later, drifting in reverse by the warship Attennius as it passed by her patrol station. When she didn't respond to hails, an astute observation from the comms officer noticed someone in a space suit standing on the hull of the ship, waving for their attention.
After Attennius' captain had been properly introduced to the single largest dingo's he'd ever seen - and after said dingo had been helped out of a space suit that appeared a couple sizes too small, the young canine identified himself as an orderly aboard the Caelus Aurum, and expressed concern that some of her crew might need medical attention.
When the medical away team returned, they didn't bring with them a single member of the Caelus' crew with them. They did however, bring back some fairly fantastical and ... well ... downright improbable stories. When the captain adressed the issue with the dingo orderly, he simply looked sheepish and nodded that it was true.
After confirming a couple of the stories with his own eyes, the captian had the ship towed back to the nearest station, where the Caelus Aurum was decomissioned. This was viewed by all as the only way to get some of her crew out.
As for the crew themselves, only one was considered capable of continuing on with a normal existance. Samor Davan was promoted, and decorated for service beyond the call of duty, eventually earning captaincy of his own ship. At seven feet tall, he stood as one of the largest officers in the service, and worked his way as into a national icon - a rather promiscuous national icon, but that was all kept well under raps by a cunning publicity team.
Kat and Crevan were among the largest of the crew removed from the ship, both breaking several universal records for size and ... well ... size. At twenty feet, Kat was recorded as the largest living sentient being to date, and retired with a couple of sponsorship deals into the country, affording a custom living evironment suited to her ... rather unique needs. Crevan, at just over fifteen feet, at the tip of his ears, was awarded a purple heart for his captaincy, and retired to live with Kat. The two lived in a state of almost constant sexual activity, taking breaks only to eat or work advertisements for Kat's lingere line.
And Lethys and Marie ... standing around ten feet tall by the time they were both done with their last growth spurts, they would have been able to live pseudo-normal lives were it not for the size of 'both their primary and secondary sexual attributes' - as the medical examiner's report read. Lethys was given a grant to continue research on the energy, and was given a homestead on a border world where he and Marie could continue to live together.
As for the rest of the crew, they retired into various subcultures, most notably, a group of them - led by a massive young hyena and bountiful vixen - formed their own pornography company. Apparently, sales were through the roof. As the anomaly was quarantined - and entry strickly forbidden, the surviving crew of the Caelus Aurum quickly became living legends - some more than others ...
Lethys stood over his desk, examining his most current experiment. Months after his encounter with the rift, he was finally able to recreate the energy. Now, he intended to go back and see if he could reproduce some of his earliest findings. He was sure he had seen no growth when he bombarded organic tissue samples with the radiation in his earlier testing. This was absurd of course. It most certainly did cause organic tissue growth. He was living proof of that.
His tail flicked back and forth in frustration.The results were the same! It didn't make sense. The radiation didn't affect the sample at all ... almost as if it was seeking out its targets instead of affecting everything, but that made no sense. How could there be intelligence behind a kind of radiation?
He was letting the experiment proceed, watching it carefully to see if extended extended exposure caused anything, when he felt a soft hand take a firm grip on his ass. He caught just the slightest whiff of feminine musk and the great beast between his legs began to stir. He sighed and turned to face Marie. It had been almost an entire hour since they'd last had a sexual escapade, and that was pushing it. He didn't know why he bothered putting pants on anymore.
His arousal grew as he saw her, wearing a thin lace bra and matching lace panties, showing off every curve and leaving nothing to the imagination - except what he was going to do to her. New lingere ... custom made, probably a gift from Kat's company. It really was a shame it wasn't going to survive the experience. He let out a low, bestial growl as his need came to a head, and tore away her clothing as she made short work of his.
The two fell together, a pulsing mass of animal passion and lust, unheeding and uncaring of anyhting that would get in its way. Seas ... oceans of pleasure flowed over the pair as they rolled around on the floor, knocking over tables and clawing a couch to shreds in one particularly mad scramble to switch positions. When at last he came, he exploded inside of her, and a warm glow washed over him.
A familiar warm glow ...
In his last moment of rational thought, he looked around at the mess they'd made. Saw the couch in ruins ... he'd liked that couch ... Saw the table that had been overturned. ... wait, no that couldn't be right ... The experiment in ruins, and the generator on the floor - spraying high energy particles out across the room uncontrolled. The glow intensified to a burning heat and he felt power surge through him, the room seemed for a moment to shrink around him ... and the need returned, stronger than ever.
He turned his gaze on Marie, locked in a similar state of need ... of growth and want ... and he pounced, uncaring of the consequences.