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Journal: J. Doom, Mission Time +155 Kiloseconds

Damn, damn damn! I'm such an idiot! I know I swore I'd relegate these journals strictly to my own scientific findings and other associated material, but things have changed. I am fucking pissed.

I had myself a nice little catch of a boy I was just getting to know. I said to myself "Don't screw this up and maybe you'll make your first real friend of your spacefaring career." But, oh no, we went right to the nookie before I really even knew him. Now he's cowering in the tent next to me. Damn, now how do I break it to him that I actually liked it? What will he say? Hell, what will I say in the first place?

I'm Doctor Julia Doom, dammit! Who the hell am I kidding?

I can do this.

You know, I'm not even going to mention my findings here, I'll just furnish a preliminary document on this new species set. They're interesting enough to warrant it, because they don't match anything else I've found genetically. Damn, I said I wouldn't talk about the damn plants in the journal, and, here I am doing it.

Biology of Briin 3: Article 1-342-031 - The Xenoplantae Rutiloform Domain

Chief Contributor: Dr. Doom (98.5%)

X. Rutiliform is a domain seen scattered across Briin in a number of subterranean locations, where animal-like proto-forms live out their life cycles in ground water. They are commonly spotted above ground in aquifer outlets, such as fresh-water springs and ponds, as well as key locations within some slow moving river systems.

Rutiliforms are all strictly photosynthetic during the sedentary period of their life cycle. However, the metabolic reaction that converts chemicals and sunlight into nutrients within their leaves does not produce metabolizable sugars. Instead, the plant utilizes the more diverse metabolisms of members of the Animal kingdoms to metabolize the water-soluble, starchy compounds.

Only within an ecosystem such as Briin's would this creature be capable of survival. Instead of selecting out this largely impractical method of photosynthesis, Rutiliform evolved a close comensal relationship with passing fauna. Rutiliform species have evolved to attract and temporarily keep fauna within contact of specially evolved circulatory surfaces located on the ends of modified roots.

These surfaces move the photosynthetic sugars of the plant into osmotic contact with the host. Most animals on Briin have some blood-cleaning organ. And most organs of this sort break down these starches into more manageable sugars. The nature of Rutiliforms' interfaces allow them to painlessly extract these sugars from thin or blood-laden areas of skin, especially interior cavities. The painlessness of the process was essential to not encouraging an avoidance response with negative reinforcement against Rutiliform's host fauna.

Some clades of X. Rutiliform have been known to use mimicry to attract fauna, providing a doppleganger image of the genetic gathering domains that make up part of the open reproductive cycle of the planet. However, analysis of specimen cells have shown the Rutiliform has no genetic origin in common with the parent species of Briin. This along with their alien metabolism raises more questions than it answers.

***

Tan watched the trees sail lazily by below him. Their expanse formed green crevasses plunging beyond his sight into shadows. The sunlit leaves of the canopy spiraled upward into the air from below, forming a frozen cloudscape of green islands.

For all of its amazing scale, Tan still couldn't be distracted. He hung from the lower access hatch on the side of the Kazemaru's freight pod. He was leafing through potential anchorage sites Julia had marked to weed out ones they couldn't manage with the lines they had available. But, he was most focused on her, not the lines.

What was sex anyway? Just some meaty pleasure now only useful to luddites trapped by the reproductive needs of meat-space or nymphomaniacs hungrily roaming the net for victims / lovers? It had felt lovely from what he now remembered. The sudden, thunderous loosing of pent up tensions over a girl he barely knew had flooded the fertile plains of his mind with the dayglow, contrasting madness of desire and passion. That had just been part of it, because he'd loved the way she'd reacted, how she'd seemed more enamored with the idea than even he was.

Of course, it had all been some clever lie on behalf of what higher power actually existed out there. It had teased him with the prospect, only to punish him for wanting it in the first place. How typical, how predictable. "How me," he said. He didn't deserve a woman.

***

Julia was surprised to see Tan as he hurried past her toward the quarters near the bridge of the Kazemaru. He shouldered past her, heading up the narrow ramp that composed the main accessway.

"We're anchored," he sighed as he turned the corner and disappeared from her sight.

'Damn,' she thought. 'I'm going to be hard pressed to break him out of his cocoon now, and I'd better. Who knows how bad he'll get?' Of course, even she realized she didn't know the half of it.

She made her way down the access way, guided by floor lighting to the moon-pool the Kazemaru used to deploy freight and passengers groundside. A popup superimposed over her vision as she walked in.

"Descent lines are already attached, call the drones to fly you horizontal tie lines - Tan."

Yes, he was more frigid than the Arctic Circle, now.

She sighed as she grabbed one of the descent lines, dangling at the lip of the cavernous, open floor of the bay. She knew she'd be descending alone. Tan would avoid her, she was a reminder of bad feelings. She guessed, in spite of how much he'd previously opened up, he was still a recluse when times got tough.

"Something troubles you, Madam," Suit politely suggested among her thoughts.

"Yes," she said aloud. "Engineer boy is having a crisis."

"I trust Madam will find a solution," the words weren't merely optimistic, they were almost suggesting. Suit always did baffle her with sudden bouts of concern and emotional entanglement.

"I suppose I'm the only one who can."

"There is always PTSD therapy, Madam."

She rolled her eyes as she turned and kicked off from the edge of the floor. She began to gently accelerate toward the treetops, her descent metered by a powered ascender she'd locked into. The device whined as she passed the tree-line. "And there's always gagging with a spoon," she added, voice dripping sarcasm.

"I must sadly admit that I fail to see your logic, madam," he said.

"You fail to see my irony." She scowled to herself. "It IS my problem, Suit."

"As I previously suggested."

Her fall softened until her feet fell onto the bough of a massive tree. The branches were covered in moss, rooting into silt buried in the fissures in the old, half dead wood. She stood on an island in the sky. "Of course," she replied. Her voice was calm in spite of her disquiet as Suit's ability to subtly game her. "I suppose we should make an initial survey of our operating column," she continued, not skipping a beat.

"Indeed," Suit said. "I've strung some cross-lines for you to link into. The one ahead encounters descent-line 3, which you can link into to enter the understory." Tan or no, Julia had a job to do.

She un-docked the ascender and played out the harness line linked down Suit's spine. Moments later, she'd snapped the device onto a rope passing horizontally overhead.

"Ally-oop!" she howled as she leapt along the line and into the air. The ascender screamed as she rocketed down the inclined line with ever-greater speed. Great tree-trunks like brown, mottled skyscrapers breezed by her - sometimes closer than arm's length.

The ascender hissed as it began to apply braking friction on the line. The line, in turn, sprouted knobby protrusions that aided the wheels as they gripped for stopping force.

She detached from the line as she came to a rest over a great crescent of soil and leaves, hanging in the air. Treelimbs formed caves, dancing through rays of light as they worked into the distance. The biggest of all, though, reached far downward, into the bowels of the abyssal forest. She turned left and surveyed the massive void it left in the scenery, all she could see miniscule with distance.

The great verticals of tree trunks disappeared ahead of her toes as she approached the edge. Sunlight fell in a massive column, forming harsh shadows against the scruffy puffs of greenery shooting out from the trees like ledges on a great sea cliff. A maze of bowl-shaped bromeliads the size of small ponds basked in the sun at the far side of the yawning abyss. They gave their water warily downward through small splits at the tops of their leaf-like borders. But, the small donations fell ever downward into other pools, collecting finally into one massive stream.

The narrow waterfall fell mostly unabated down into distant darkness. No leaves grew that far below her, and the fog of excess moisture hung broodingly over the twilight of that place.

Julia pulled herself back to the present. She had a personal survey to run. Moments later; the ascender was docked and she was gliding downward along line 3, descending into the maw of nature below her.

She busied herself scanning the many crannies and branching routes in the trees nearest her. She watched the trunks widen almost imperceptibly as they reached lower into the depths. The sun still shined down to her, but it wasn't the harsh, noontide light above her. Instead, it was a muted, golden-green that seemed so rich it hung in the air before her.

As she passed what seemed to be another dark nook of branches and leaves, the scene beyond the initial knot of limbs revealed itself. A bubble of open air retreated into the distance. The area was hemmed in by curving branches and sunlit leaves. A skylight of open branches peered through from above, forming a sort of balcony above the leafy, ethereal floor of the clearing.

She paused and regarded the space, surveying the rogue tree-trunks that shot through it. As she looked back over the space, she noticed movement. A white-furred form clung vertically to a tree trunk. It climbed completely into view with a deliberate steadiness that belied some specific purpose.

"A squiddog," Julia whispered, using Tan's homebrewed, elegantly innocent epithet for the creatures.

"Profiles of the creature show some morphological differences..." Suit said in her head. "But yes, it is more Squiddog than not, Madam."

The creature grasped a limb of the tree and twisted itself around it. It found a foothold on another limb and turned its front outward. Almost immediately, a pink budding rose from its haunches.

Fleshy extensions unfurled like petals as a pink length pushed outward, away from the creature's white body and into the sunlight. It seemed protuberant with anticipation which Julia could only guess the cause of.

"Not quite like the others," Julia thought-spoke.

"Its appendage seems much less... neutral," Suit remarked with a hint of disgust.

Julia watched speechlessly for a few minutes, attempting to muse over what this meant, when an answer suddenly followed the creature up from the underbrush of leafy tree branches.

About the closest example of a Normal female Julia'd ever seen made her way up the tree, careful to trace the same handholds as the creature. Julia hadn't seen a more pure specimen since she lived in Santa Cruz back on Earth. She had fair, smooth skin that nearly glistened in the humid sunlight. Muscle moved beneath her toned palor, honed in a way cybernetics could never accomplish. She was absolutely, positively natural... and mostly naked.

Ceremonial fringes hung from her waist, forming a dress that spoke of obscurity like fog spoke of opacity. Layers of mesh, tassels and beads were placed with the sensitive care of a ceremonial object. Above, her nudity was unfettered. Ample breasts rose skyward in their synthetic perfection, made of flesh but sculpted by a master.

Julia was getting mixed tells here. Not only was she dealing with some native human (or a freak stow-away on their ship, beyond all odds) but she wasn't sure if she was a Normal or Fabbed. As she puzzled, the woman climbed with nubile deliberateness. She made a final reach toward the creature, which had watched her ascent with intent eyes. He offered her a hand and lifted her up to his footholds with ease.

As she reached eye level, their lips met. About then, some arcane part of Julia's mental map clicked together. The squiddog was no longer some emotionally illiterate animal, it was a male - almost human in the way it moved - embracing his lover. His free hand stroked over her back with a certain familiarity.

Little had changed in Julia's material definition of the creature. But, now, she saw him from a different angle. That was doubly so as his length slipped gingerly through the tassels of the woman's skirt. Lips met eagerly in intelligent and consensual contact as his hips bumped against her.

The myriad parts of the skirts were parted by his movement. Beneath their wavering clarity, the woman's folds were parted wide by the creature's ripened length. It seemed to move of its own volition as it ground and twisted within her, augmenting the couple's own movements.

Fluids began to glisten over their bare flesh with frightening speed. As their rhythm picked up speed, their movements became audible. Pinpricks of light soared into the open air; sweat from the brow of the woman as she threw her head backward.

She failed to suppress cries of passion as her eyes clamped tightly shut. A grimace twisted across her face as her cries suddenly took on meaning. Julia realized she was crying out a name.

The length twisted against her, fattening as it slipped deeper into her. The creature audibly hilted within her inner reaches as a final, thunderous cry shook her. The creature hugged her tightly with his free arm, agile fingers playing over her spine. She gently freed her hands from their holds and hugged the creature with the casual, shamelessness of intimacy, now seemingly fully supported across her other point of connection.

The event was furtive and swift. Yet, Julia managed to expand her knowledge of weird things Normals did while doing it a full 200 percent.

"That was unspeakable," Suit said.

"It's more normal than what happened to me," Julia said, voice bubbling over with mischievousness. "At least they saw each other coming."

"Indeed," Suit said with mild disgust. "Your ability to grasp the events that have unfolded since planetfall continues to astonish me."

"I bet this will, too," Julia thought.

"Hey there!" she yelled as she waved toward the couple, still engaged with each other.

Both parties suddenly snapped their view toward her. "Hold on!" the creature said in flawless Colonial Trade Language. She sidled against him moments before he pushed off from the tree and backflipped outward. He disappeared into the brush with nary a sound.

"Yes, jolly good job, Madam. I am in awe of your supreme and uncontested competence within the field of first-contact protocol execution and diplomacy."

"Shut up," she said, scowling at thin air. "I was adlibbing, what do you expect?"

"I concede fewer better examples have been set. We aren't exactly trained in the matter, after all."

As if it were final punctuation on the discussion, Julia pushed off from the nearest tree and activated the ascender. She contemplated her next act as she sailed back toward the sky.

***

Chapter five: UNDER THE RADAR

***

"New line rigging," she said, focus darting toward nothing in particular as she thought aloud. She pecked one of her fingers with another. "Gotta find out who that girl was..." she raised another finger.

"What are you doing?" Tan said, voice surprised and defensive. Her gaze locked onto him as she realized she wasn't alone in the room. For a moment, she was latched onto the awkward feelings he'd brought of late. But, she shortly regained her cool. She wasn't called Doctor Doom for nothing. Though, it was mostly because that was her real last name and title.

She raised a third finger. "And Tan," she said to herself as she cracked a wise smile. She lingered for a scant moment before turning toward the freight bay's exit. Tan noted the haste in her step and wondered which was her actual mood; calmness or hidden fright.

As always, she remained an enigma that he had no solution for. As if it really mattered. Whether she was getting along well having realized she wasn't interested in him or was still freaked out by his mere presence, he still lost. It was as plain as that.

As if to seal that truth into eternity, the door shut behind her.

"Why?" he asked vindictively toward nothing in particular. "This friggin' sucks." He turned and kicked one of the camera drones out of the bay toward the treeline. As he predicted, it recovered from its spin and reversed course. It came to rest roughly where he'd attempted to end it in the first place.

"You're not helping me make this any easier."

The drone beeped a meaningless response as its low level intelligence reverted to sleep-mode.

***

There had been times Tan wished he'd brought working floor-plans of all his vehicles with him in his virtual workspace. If he did, situations like this could be avoided. He would have realized he was now in the airship's rec-room.

"You don't need help with the pulley tackle," he said, voice limp and numb. "Do you?"

"The ascent system doesn't involve Jacuzzis, now does it?"

"No it doesn't," he said. Delay, he had to delay. That way, he could get a handle on just what was going on here. "Tell me again why you're naked?"

"Why aren't you?" His eyebrows shot up as a surrogate response. Okay, perhaps that was too direct.

Tan fixed his eyes upward as he spoke, knitting his lower lip to vent his confusion. "What do you want me to say?" his voice cracked with frustration. Yes, that's exactly what he'd meant, and exactly how it went in those naughty dreams he'd had on odd nights. Well, save that whole tense, squeaky voice thing.

Where his ignorance failed him in that case was what led up to the eventual act of those dreams. No roadmap there. This was also bearing in mind said map would have been written in his mind's own ass-backwards scrawl.

Tan cautiously moved his gaze downward. Julia was frowning. 'Yes, great job, Tan,' he thought. 'Just let this catch get away like the last one, and the one before that, et cetera.' He cursed his mantra-twisted, pro-abstinent youth.

He cleared his mind by thinking of winged chinchillas flipping through the air over a tub of jello... yes, he was now awed by his own ability to make up weird thought experiments. A blank slate, then.

He sighed. "What do you want me to say? Didn't we both freak out last time we were naked in close proximity?"

"Surpise naked isn't the same as regular naked," she replied.

"Spoken like a master," he confessed to the floor. He dropped himself onto the nearby commode, making the cheap, prefab seat bow inward under his weight. As it popped into shape, he briefly lost his balance. His hands flew in a mad arc before he regained himself.

"Cute," Julia chuckled. "I think I could get used to having you around."

Of course she could, they had been around each other for the past four days. "Really?" he asked, sincere ignorance dripping from him, in spite of his intent otherwise.

"Really," she smiled. "Any reason you're still up there?" She gave him a cool, sidelong glance. Oh, he wanted this. Every fibre of his physical being wanted this.

But first; "You still haven't explained yourself."

"I... didn't like the outcome of that particular," she searched for the word, toying with one of her triangular ears. "That particular meeting." She really didn't seem prepared to explain herself. So she wasn't a magical fairy girl after all!

"Do you think it could have gone better?" He leaned forward, looking down at her as she floated in the recessed hot tub, coated in a sea of bubbles.

She shrugged. "We could have both been lucid... and not engaged by weird gropey things."

He blushed at the words he wanted to say, but managed to bear through forcing them out. He succumbed to a long, nervous blink as he spoke. "S-so you want to try again?" His mind was moving without him, swirling with tension he'd beat down into submission. It had won him, taken him again.

She giggled. "I think you should just get in here and we'll go from there." He hastily stood, then paused.

"D'you think you could turn around?"

"I think you could pay me back for all the times you've seen ME naked." She winked. "C'mon, cowboy. Wow me."

They laughed an awkward, but healthy laugh together. The remark was utterly stupid, and both of them knew it. But, it accomplished its intended purpose, Tan thawed. "Alright," he said as he lifted himself from his pants and tossed off his shirt. His boxers were scarcely off before he stepped down into the water.

Initially, he'd wanted to sit opposite her in the contours of the spacious tub. But, he thought he would be able to back down in that case. If anything else came out of this, he didn't want it to be that. He wanted more, and it seemed Julia was counting on that.

So; he took a knee in the center of the tub, head sticking out of the water before Julia's nude form. She reached out and ran soapy water through his hair. She chuckled ruefully as he spluttered. "You sure make a weird approach." Their eyes locked as she smiled. "Let me show you how it's done."

Her arms retreated downward until she was beneath his shoulders. She lifted him upward before he had time to react. His buttocks landed on her firm legs, his own pressed aside, forcing him into a weightless, close-legged kneel as she pushed at the back of his neck.

She drew him downward until their lips met. An expectant, nervous crack lit through him as he was pulled into a deep kiss. Her thin lips bared down on him for only an instant before she drew back. Tan grasped at the moment as it slipped away.

Her angular eyes carried an affectionate squint. "See how well that went?" He nodded, heart beating madly. "You're fine." Yes, Julia Doom would fix this situation yet. Gods only knew her own self-esteem needed repairing, too. Not to mention; she hadn't seen a cute guy in ages, much less done this with them.

He leaned in again, but this time, she moved out of the way. His chin came to rest on her velvety shoulder. "I'm not just a set of lips, you know," she said. "There is more to this than just kissing." That was a valid point, one Tan could fix. Social inequities of the act be damned. Enough time, enough virtual simulation computing, a copy of the Kama-Sutra and some trusted acquaintances and you could fix anything.

Tan moved his knees to land between her things. He sat on his lower legs and drew himself close to her. His cheek rested against her neck as his hands explored beyond the obscuring foam. He traced the line of her flank from her hip to the back of her shoulder. She hummed pleasantly, driving him into resoluteness. This felt like the right thing to do, he couldn't have any doubts now.

It had been enough just to know it was there, that it wasn't another tease-doll, thrown into a simulation with him to make him suffer for his own natural instincts. No, she was a real woman - a beautiful one with a good head on her shoulders, at that. He couldn't ask for anything more.

His hand traced the nape of her neck. She cooed a gentle encouragement in his ear as her breathing quickened. Her breasts pressed eagerly into his shoulder as she lifted him again.

"You better help me this time," she said. "I'm not lifting you in the air." She attempted to nudge him forward as she lifted herself out of the water. She was as glorious in her nudity as she'd ever been. Her black pelt shimmered in the low light, casting half-moon lines of reflected light along her breasts. He didn't need any encouragement.

His knees landed underneath her. She promptly settled down. "There," she said, satisfied. "Now you've got some room to maneuver." Her loins were hot on his lower thighs.

He smiled and made for the part of her at eye level. He nosed over the nape of her neck, admiring the fruit scents surrounding her. They were artificial, yet pure and beautiful in their own way, like some allegory of her physical form. He quested downward and left, tracing the curve of her other breast with his free hand. As his thumb traced her exposed flesh, his tongue found her at her other point.

He explored her sensitive skin, sliding his tongue over the nubbin of eager flesh at its center. The hiss of her rising, tense breath reached his ear as his lips captured her. Flesh explored flesh in a dance he knew well. Press just so with the tongue, but not too hard. Touch lightly, make it linger.

His free hand explored her left hip, tracing the curve of her buttocks. She squirmed under the joint contact of his lips and questing hand, now tracing over her inner thigh. "You know," she strained. "There's a time for heating the oven and a time for baking..." she trailed off as he pressed on, heedless.

His fingers traced up and down her petals, open in arousal. "S-screw it!" she stammered. Without warning, she grabbed him by the shoulders and lifted herself out of the water. Moments later, and with surprising haste and strength, she coaxed him up and turned him until he sat on the dry lip of the Jacuzzi.

"Water sloshes, you know," she cooed. She donned a devious smile and breathed deep before she advanced on him. As their lips met, she exhaled - as if not only air, but her own sexual frustrations left her.

She asserted herself into his mouth, coarse tongue tracing his teeth and sweeping over every inch of flesh she found.

The muted, mischevious chuckle that came through her nose sounded positively ridiculous, but neither cared. With her lips still locked around Tan, she grabbed his maleness, almost throbbing in arousal, and guided him into her folds.

His eyes widened amidst a stifled gasp. She only disengaged from the kiss after she'd settled fully onto him. Her feet, pointed over the bubbling water, curled as she pressed upward with a gasp. Tan could barely keep himself upright amidst the tumultuous contact. An arm failed him, forcing him to redouble with the other. Eventually that failed him and he scrambled with his hands.

He eventually found his way to Julia's flanks, hugging her tightly as she built rhythmic movements upon themselves. She gyrated against him, driving their closest contact into a sea of random, twisting fury. The soft fur of her loins brushed over his thighs, further igniting his sense of the contact.

"I" he croaked. "I-I'm gonna..."

Her words came one after another as she reached the apex of her current pistoning motions. "Do... what... you... want," she barked. "I-I've got a secret weapon." And it was a damn good thing, because she was nowhere close. "B-babel!" her voice cracked up an octave as she spoke the word. But, that was all she needed to do.

She tuned all her bodies to a secret word. What wondrous tricks nanomanufacturing can teach!

Thunderous release roared through her, sending her interior into fits of movement that clamped down on Tan's length. As she lost herself in the throes of climax, so did he. He silently howled into the air in an attempt to brook the tide. But nothing would stop the ceaseless ecstasy that overwhelmed him.

His head fell onto her shoulder as she went limp in his arms.

"Whoo," she panted. "That was, sure-as-hell, interesting."

"If by that you actually meant hellishly good, then yes."

"You didn't need to wrap it up so quickly, though..." She let the thread hang and sink into his mind.

"I'm not exactly used to this. Do you know the last time I let myself go like that?" he asked.

She decided to let him off the hook. 'Change the subject and see how grateful he gets.' "Ten seconds ago?"

He chuckled in response. That wasn't quite where he'd meant to go. "More or less, I suppose," he conceded. "But, I mean... well I don't do this often."

"Go on," she stroked his back.

"When I'm alone and I try to... I get dark thoughts." He paused. "Not when I'm around you though."

She smiled with satisfaction. A valid and worthy tangent indeed. "I think we should have breakthroughs more often."

"I think we need more excuses for breakthroughs," he responded.

"How does the day after tomorrow sound? I've got plenty of them available then."

"Or, we could just have another," she shivered as he said the words. "Just give me a few minutes. This body is barely transhuman, you know."