FSE

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READ THE TAGS AND DISCLAIMER FIRST PLEASE! YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!

Disclaimer: I haven't done a built-in disclaimer in a long time. I think this one could use it, though. So, it has some crude language, a lot of blood, and less-than-subtle implications of hard vore on the menu. Hehe...vore on the menu...There's also rimming and oral sex and weird stuff like that, too. This is a new subject matter for me, that I haven't had a lot of contact with before. I hope you guys don't mind it.

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H.P.F. Ralacath Commercial towing vessel Cargo: assorted mineral containers. 22 000 000 tons Destination: Earth Current Location: UNKNOWN

Dexter's eyelids felt like concrete. His whole body felt like concrete. He was weak, his throat was sore, and he had a splitting headache. The room was too bright, with its white walls and white lights dazzling his addled eyes. Letting his head flop to the side, he could see the white walls, mattress, and pillow of the pod he currently lay in. And judging by the imprint in the cushion, he'd been in there for quite a long time.

"Of course. Cryosleep," he thought. No wonder he felt like shit.

A whoosh of air rolled over his pod as the bed to the right slid open, spilling chilled air over his bare skin and making him shiver. That was...Schneider's pod? Or was it Lidia's? With a groan, he reached forward and grabbed the edge of the bed. His skin looked so pale now. When he was back on Earth, he'd take his share straight to Hawaii.

Hauling himself into a sitting position, Dexter glanced over to his right groggily. The first thing he noticed was the beard, as everyone does. A massive, untamed gathering of hairs that looked just like Santa's, only greyer. Schneider was enough of a Santa Claus, anyway. Certainly the only thing to brighten the mood on a tug like this.

"Mmm, that was a great catnap," Schneider said, stretching his thick arms over his head in an exaggerated fashion. He carried a bit more weight on him than the rest of the crew, but he had quite a layer of muscle under there. The Ralacath's reining arm-wrestling champion for four generations, and the miner in charge of the cargo. "I come with the ship," he'd said on the first day.

Dexter was the ship's mechanic. They only needed one. The ship wasn't too big, on an interstellar scale. A six-man crew, or five plus Schneider. This was his first trip with the company, promised a big signing bonus if he left the garage he was working in to come out here. So far, it hadn't been so bad. The exhaust filter needed to be replaced a few times, and they'd almost lost the inertial dampener getting out of orbit, but other than that, it was a sturdy ship.

"Dexter, you're the mechanic. The coffeemaker was working before we went under, right?" a voice asked to his left. Lidia was just getting up now, shaking her head and shrugging her shoulders out. As soon as she was stretched out, she took a thin red hairband off her wrist and bound her long, blonde hair in a ponytail. As the pilot and first officer, she'd made a habit of keeping her hair out of her face. Without a full field of view, she might just run them into an asteroid.

"Who do you think I am? The Maytag repairman?" he asked. "The caffeine shit machine wasn't broken the last time I used it."

"Well then I'm going to make some caffeine shit," Lidia replied. She stepped out of her pod shakily, clutching the side to ensure her stability before wobbling off and down the hallway. A rack of white robes sat waiting just inside the corridor, and she slipped one on slowly as she passed.

"Did Lidia just leave?" That was captain this time, coming into Dexter's field of view from the right. Renner was his name, although he didn't know much more than that. Sure, the captain was around at dinner, but he never spoke outside the conversation, and never shared more than his favorite brand of beer.

"Yes, sir," Schneider replied, hauling himself out of his pod to stand next to the captain. "She wanted to poison the coffee before you got up."

"Lidia! Don't you dare put creamer in that pot! That's an order!" Renner roared, and made a fast march for the mess hall, grabbing a robe on his way by.

"Wow! What...what's going on?" Shane asked, practically jumping out of his pod. His hands shaky after months of disuse, the science officer fumbled while trying to slip his glasses onto his face.

"Nothing Shane," Dexter replied. "Go get some food in you. You look like you're going to fall over."

"I...uh...yeah," he replied, rubbing his eyes as he wandered off with the others.

Dexter climbed out of his own pod, feeling unsteady as soon as his feet hit the floor. He kept his hand on the rim for balance while he stumbled gracelessly towards the hallway. About three feet from the doorway, he was suddenly cut off by the massive form of Liam, their protection. Piracy was dying out in the outer rim, but the company still saw it beneficial to have to guns on board, and someone who knew how to use them. He had a 'shoot first and ask questions later' policy, as per usual, which he tended to use on the crew as well. He always had his pistol during poker games.

"Better hurry up, wrench jockey. There might not be any coffee left by the time you get there," Liam jeered, striding past as if he'd been on the treadmill for the past six months.

"You'd shoot the guy who got the last cup, anyway," Dexter replied, increasing his pace as he got the hang of walking again. "You coming, Schneider?"

"Right behind you," the man called, and took off after him.

At the end of the hallway was the mess hall, a large room that connected all the other sections of the ship. A large, round table was the centerpiece of the mostly empty space, with a line of dispensers along the back wall. Lidia and Shane had already sat down at the table, while Renner had made his way to the front of the room, where the ladder up to the bridge was.

"Dexter, bring me up a cup of coffee while you're over there," Renner called as he climbed up and out of view.

"Yes, sir," he replied.

"I wonder how far out we are?" Shane asked. "I can't wait until we can finally take some leave."

"What do you mean? You haven't done anything on this trip!" Lidia scoffed.

"Are you kidding? I had to analyze three hundred mineral samples before we could even take on the cargo," Shane replied defensively, pushing his glasses back as they slid down his nose.

"Yeah, well geology's not a real science," she shot back, taking a sip of her black sludge with a smirk on her lips. "Who'd want to study rocks, anyway?"

"There are millennia of information in those 'rocks'," he said hotly. "We never would have found this ore without geology."

"Yeah, well until I can go into a bar and by a drink with a pebble, I don't give a damn."

Shane was starting to boil at this point, his face reddening, and his hands clenching into fists. The man didn't take well to teasing, if his shouting matches with Lidia were any indication. Then again, that was why she bugged him in the first place. The joke was that she did it to deal with her raging libido, but they figured she would have just cornered somebody and defiled them if she really wanted to. Not that any of them would have minded.

"Come on, Shane. How's about we go check on your collection?" Schneider asked. He was great at defusing these kinds of situations.

"Yes...Yes, you're right," he replied, his shoulders tensed around his neck as he led Schneider to the ladder to the lower deck. "I'm sure the dust build-up has ruined all of my illustrious geodes."

"Have fun with your rock collection, kids," Lidia called, smiling and waving as they disappeared behind the closing door.

"You are a terrible person," Dexter said, picking up the second mug he'd just filled at the machine.

"And you are a teacher's pet," she replied, nodding to the mug in his left hand.

He just shook his head.

"You sure teacher wouldn't want an apple, too?" she asked. She was enjoying this far too much.

"All personnel, report to the bridge immediately." Renner's voice rang out through the loudspeaker in the corner, and everywhere else in the ship.

"Why don't you bring it to him yourself?" Dexter asked, and headed for the ladder.

****

"Alright, here's the deal," Renner began, pacing back and forth behind his command table. A large star chart took up the table's entire screen. Normally, there would be a bunch of little blinking dots on it. A red one would show where the ship was, an orange one was the mining station they were supposed to hit. A bunch of green ones would show every relay beacon en route, and a big blue dot was Earth. None of those dots were there now. "I have no idea where the fuck we are."

"How is that possible? The ship was on auto-pilot since we went to sleep," Lidia replied, leaning over the table.

"I don't know. You and I both reviewed and authorized the flight plan before we went under, so I'm sure that we didn't make a mistake." Renner replied.

"Have you tried calling for help?" Schneider asked.

The captain nodded. "On every channel. As far as we know, there's no one else out here."

"So what's the plan?" Dexter asked.

"Well, first things first, we need to find out where we are. Dexter, I want you to divert power from wherever you can and run it into the main sensor. I want to know how far we are from any relay line. Schneider, you go help him. I'm going to take a look through the computer's logs, see if there's anything in there I can dig up. In the meantime, Liam, I want to you make sure the weapons are ready. I don't want to rule out the possibility that we were diverted into a trap."

"Wouldn't it have been easier to just break into the ship and take it?" Lidia asked.

"I don't know what they did, alright!" Renner shouted, and slammed his hands down on the desk. "What's important is that we get cargo, the ship, and us, back to Earth in one piece."

"In that order, huh?" Lidia asked dryly.

"You have your orders. Now go do them."

****

"Okay Schneider, throw the switch," Dexter called, pulling his head out from the inside of the sensor assembly.

With the whir of industrial-strength fans, the status lights on the sensor were lit one by one. He sat there for a moment, waiting. Waiting for the crackle and burst of sparks as the fuses blew. Their load was far higher than normal, after all, and he couldn't be sure just how much power this thing could take, or the ship could dish out to him. But the sensor held, and according to the boot-up diagnostics, was in working order. Nothing blew up. An intercom panel was mounted on wall near the door, and he made his way to it.

"We're all set down here, captain," he said.

"Good. Hang tight in case something goes wrong," the captain's voice replied.

"Aye, captain."

"I'm starting a long-range scan now," Renner said.

Silence.

"Nothing at five-hundred thousand miles."

Silence.

"Nothing at five million miles."

Silence.

"Nothing at two-hundred-fifty million miles."

Silence.

"No contacts within one billion miles," he sighed. "Alright, I'm shutting it down."

"Hold on, what's that?" Lidia's voice came through muffled.

"You're right, there is something there. It's pretty weak, barely even shows up on the long-range scope. I'm switching to short-range scanning. There. It's much clearer now."

"What is it, sir?" Dexter asked.

"One hundred miles out. It's a beacon...sort of," Renner replied.

"What do you mean 'sort of'?" he asked.

"It's giving of a signal, but it's not one of the nav beacons we're looking for." Renner said, sounding distant. "Lidia, let's go take a look."

"Aye, captain. Adjusting course." She replied.

"Dexter, Schneider. Meet us outside the cargo bay." Renner came in through the speaker.

"Wait, captain. Do you want to bring this thing aboard?" Dexter asked.

"It looks like a small load, Dexter. I'm sure we'll be fine," the captain said.

"It's not the size I'm worried about," Dexter grumbled.

****

"But aren't there any kind of containment protocols?" Dexter asked, leading Schneider down the hallway. The cargo bay was on the right, and they were beginning to come across windows that looked in on it. It was mostly filled with battened-down crates full of spare parts and equipment, but there was a relatively large space in the center of the room. That was, he supposed, where they would put this mysterious deep-space beacon.

"It's a beacon, and it's small. It could be an escape pod or something. Someone could need our help," Schneider replied.

"Come on, how could an escape pod end up all the way out here? We didn't see any wreckage on the scope. No one else is out here," he said. "Besides, what kind of ship would be all the way out here?"

"Prospectors?" Schneider replied.

"There aren't any planetary bodies for light-years," he retorted.

"They could have been chasing a comet."

"Well, whatever it is, I think we should leave it alone." Dexter stated. "It doesn't make sense for anything to be out here, and there's no way it could be an escape-"

"Captain, we're within ten miles of the object. I've got a clear visual on it now," Lidia's voice interrupted through the loudspeaker. "It looks like an escape pod. External marking lights are active and the stabilizers are still firing."

"Damn," Schneider exclaimed. "We should have made a bet."

"Yeah, well, I still don't like it," Dexter grumbled.

"Don't worry about it," Schneider said reassuringly. "I'm sure Liam will have some kind of gun ready to blow the balls off anything inside."

Dexter sighed. "Yeah, I guess you're right."

"Of course I am," the big man replied, a big smile on his face as he clapped him on the back.

They turned the corner to find Renner and Liam waiting by the cargo bay door. As predicted, Liam had what looked like a shotgun under his arm. Something about the long, sleek, killing device made Dexter feel even more uneasy about bringing this thing onboard.

"I'm opening the exterior doors and turning off the gravity panels inside the cargo bay," Lidia said over the intercom. "You're going to have to tell me when to turn them back on."

"We've got you covered," Renner replied. "Let's see what we've got."

The warning siren inside the cargo bay was muffled slightly by the thick metal walls, but the red strobe lights shone clearly through the windows. Across the vast room, the wall began to part in the center. The air in the sealed chamber was violently sucked away with a loud whoosh. They could see the escape pod with the naked eye, now, floating just outside the doors. It looked like a big, metal coffin, spinning ominously as a stabilizing thruster fired every minute or so. The pod crept slowly through the doors and across the room.

"Lidia, you can close the doors now," Renner said. He sounded tense. Maybe he wondered if something was wrong, too.

"Aye, sir. Closing cargo bay doors,"

The massive set of doors away from them slowly merged back into a complete wall, and air was once against being pumped into the chamber. The flashing strobe and screeching siren ceased when the air pressure and density returned to normal.

"Activate the gravity plates,"

A moment later, the floating pod began to descend towards the floor. Dexter assumed that it had some kind of gravitational and proximity sensors onboard, because it began to rapidly fire its stabilizers until touching down on the floor with little more than a thud.

"The pod is on the floor. Good job, Lidia,"

"Thank you, captain," she replied. "You boys have fun. I'm going to keep an eye on things up here."

"Copy that,"

Renner led the group into the cargo bay, with Liam right behind him and Dexter treading a few feet back. Now clearly visible, the pod did look very coffin-like. Black metal and hexagonal, it didn't look like the kind of thing a living person would escape on.

"Are you ready Liam?" Renner asked, moving to the right of the door, where the external release panel was located.

"Stand clear, safety's off," Liam replied, shouldering his gun to the left of the door. Schneider and Dexter stood just behind him, wary bystanders.

Renner punched a few buttons on the panel, and it began to chime. Once, twice. On the third chime, the whole door blew out. It ripped across the room and crashed into the crates against the opposite wall, faster than any of them could really see. One moment the door was there, and the next it was gone. They turned their heads, only to see a cloud of dust rising in the back corner.

"Oh my god..." Dexter said.

He was looking at the pod now, its insides bared to them. The once pristine white interior was coated in blood. It had dripped and congealed in disturbing patterns, and the cushion of the built-in cryobed was completely saturated. There was no body.

"What...what happened?" Dexter asked, his breathing getting shorter. "What the hell happened!?"

"Calm down, Dexter!" Renner said, taking a hold of his shoulders. "Whatever happened, it's long gone by now."

"How can you say that!? There's no body! Where'd the body go? Where did this damn thing even come from!?"

"Hey, hey," Schneider said quietly, taking him by the shoulders and leading him towards the door. "It's been a rough day, waking up from cryosleep and all. Let's get you to your cabin."

"Right, there's nothing more to see here," Renner said, giving the pod one last look. "We'll get all of this cleaned up tomorrow. You're all on call for the rest of the day."

"Aye, sir," Liam replied, flicking the safety switch on his gun and heading out.

Now alone in the room, Renner glanced back at the pod warily. A clunk in the ceiling above him made him jump, pressing his back to a crate behind him. He stood there in silence for a long moment, watching the ceiling with sweat rolling down his forehead. Shaking his head, he made his way to the exit, his pace a bit brisker than usual. After squeezing through the door at the soonest opportunity, he pressed a few keys on the panel next to him. After the door slid closed again, he could hear the heavy clunk of the lock falling into place. After glancing back at the pod through the window, he made a fast walk to his cabin.

****

As soon as Renner was in his cabin, he keyed the door closed and locked up tight. The large grey room was his sanctuary. Nothing could touch him in here. Not that there was anything around that wanted to, but even so, his ship didn't normally make noises like that. He'd have to get Dexter to take a look tomorrow. It was just a duct shifting. He was sure of it. All of that sudden tension had drenched him in sweat, and after six months without bathing, he was starting to smell his own fear. Stripping out of his clothes, he made his way to the bathroom in the front-right corner of the room. The fake linoleum tiles felt cool and refreshing under his bare feet, and the painted white walls gave it a very clean feeling. Pulling open the door of the shower built into the opposite wall, he shut himself inside the glass enclosure and turned the tap in front of him. Warm, steaming water spilled from the showerhead above him, quickly filling the room with a thick mist. He found himself repeatedly glancing back towards the door as the mist thickened. He'd forgotten to flick the fan switch by the door.

There was a soap dispenser built into the wall, which spilled into his hands when he held them beneath its nozzle. Lathering it into his hair, he was momentarily blinded when the suds dripped down his bangs and onto his face. Startled, he grappled out to his right, searching the wall, and flinched back when he felt his hand come against a different texture. It was soft, like a fur, almost. After realizing that it must be the washcloth, he grabbed it and used it to clear the soap from his eyes. He cleaned himself slowly, enjoying the cascade after such a stressful day. But soon he had scrubbed clean every part of his body, and he no longer had an excuse. Reluctantly, he turned the water off and climbed out into the murky bathroom.

There was a towel rack to his left, just over the sink, and he pulled the first one from it. Starting at the top, he dried his hair and face, but did his best to never have the towel over his eyes at any one time. As he moved the towel down over his right shoulder, he caught a glimpse of an object in the corner of his eye. He jumped back and stared at it, his heart racing in his chest. It was just a bathrobe, hooked on the back of the door. With a shaky sigh, he finished drying off and returned to the main room.

It seemed strange to Renner that after being asleep for so long he felt so tired. He was sure that it was just from all the excitement. The queen-size bed was looking awfully comfortable, though. He stepped over to it and pulled the red duvet back before climbing inside. His feet reached the bottom edge of the bed, where he used his feet to grapple the comforter and pull it up towards him. The duvet felt warm and resistant to his kneading feet. It must simply be stiff from disuse. It felt like it was moving against him, in just the slightest way. He must be imagining things. Comfortable in his warm bed, he curled up and closed his eyes.

The bedding under his feet disappeared. He hadn't moved at all, it just wasn't there anymore. He threw his eyes open to check, and froze. Something was in the bed next to him. It was long and white, with sleek fur running down its neck to where it was concealed by the duvet. Its mouth was parted and lips curled back in a maniac smile, with a wide, flat tongue dancing inside a cage of wicked teeth. It didn't look like its mouth could look any different. The jaws made him sweat, but it was its eyes that kept him frozen and quiet. Surrounded in a ring of black fur, its slit eyes were the most striking shade of yellow that Renner had ever seen.

They stared at each other for an eternity, neither making the slightest sound. Where had this thing come from? Had it been in the escape pod? Were there more of them? He didn't dare blink, for fear that he'd see the inside of that mouth if he opened them again. The thing lying in front of him put its hand out and rubbed the side of his face, Renner beginning to shake as he felt the back of its black claws against his bare skin. He couldn't help it anymore, he blinked. In that split second, the thing was around him, wrapped in a twisted knot. Something was pressed against his face, wrapped around over his shoulders, pressed flat against his stomach, and folded in between his legs.

He felt a long, soaking wet object constrict around his thigh, weave down and tickle between his toes, and then shoot back up and disappear, leaving a trail of slime in its wake. It reappeared a second later, lightly running up the cleft between his legs before wriggling up beneath his balls. It flailed and twisted, massaging his sensitive flesh. He hadn't been with a woman for over a year, so he was quick to rise under the monster's touch. The appendage slipped out and up, completely wrapping around his shaft and beginning to squeeze and swipe against it. He couldn't help but moan, and when he did, the part of the creature pressed against his face pushed hard against him. He felt two padded parts, maybe its feet, pressing against his back. The soft, furred flesh against him was contoured into a crevice that hugged his cheeks, and a wide, muscular part that slipped under his chin. A ring of muscle was contracting against his chin and bottom lip, almost as if it was trying to kiss him. His mind clouded with pleasure from the oral treatment he was receiving, he couldn't even begin to comprehend exactly which part of the creature was touching which part of him.

He felt his balls tighten up, and with a breathy groan, he released against the flat surface pressed over his cockhead. He only felt it there for a moment long, before the wet appendage retreated, tracing back between his legs, up through the cleft of his ass, and through a long serpentine path across his back. The fur against his face pulled away, letting light reach his eyes so he could see the pelvis and winking anus slip down to hang about his chest. A powerful tail travelled up the back of his head and wrapped loosely around his forehead, leaving him a little room to struggle. That long, wet appendage traced his collarbone and then slipped up the left side of his neck, up around his ear. It passed up and back down his neck, before travelling up his cheek and flicking away under his eye. The creature's face reappeared in the corner of his left eye, hanging over his shoulder from behind. The appendage, its tongue, was slightly curled at the end, and it relaxed it to let the semen trapped there drip freely over the edges. With a slow, deliberate stroke, it rubbed his own semen against his cheek, and its grin got wider, more devilish. The tongue retracted back into its owner's mouth, and then-

****

"I'm telling you, there's something not right with that pod," Dexter said, putting his hand on his desk. He and Schneider sat in his cabin, he at his desk and the larger man on the edge of his bed. It was a small room, a little smaller than the other cabins on the ship, but fine for him. The bed sat in the corner across from the door, and the desk sat to the left of the door, and that was about it. There was a door to a pocket bathroom three feet from the foot of the bed, and he had about that much room to move between the other pieces of furniture. Things were very...compact.

"Well, we all know something's not right with it," Schneider replied. "It's just a matter of how wrong it actually is."

"It's very wrong. It's full of blood for god's sake!" he exclaimed, throwing his hands over his head. "How could it be any more wrong?"

"Well, it was empty," Schneider reminded him.

"Yeah, but where did it come from? What did...that!?"

"I'm sure that whatever it was, it's either long gone or long dead," Schneider said calmly.

"What do you mean 'dead'?" he asked.

"Well, I'm not going to rule anything out," Schneider said with a shrug.

"You think something living did that? You think it was an animal?"

"Like I said," Schneider replied firmly. "I'm not going to rule anything out."

"I'm going to talk to the captain," Dexter said, standing up from his chair.

"Save it for the morning, jumpy," Schneider replied. "Renner's probably asleep already."

"Well, no harm in checking," he said, heading for the door. "I just can't get it out of my head."

"Okay, well you have fun with that," Schneider said, standing up from the bed. "I'm going to bed. See you in the morning."

"Good night," Dexter replied flatly, distracted as he headed off down the hall.

****

Liam sat with his feet up on his desk and a hot cup of coffee in his hand. Comfortable in his light fatigues, his eyes danced between the displays in front of him, whose glow lit the room without need for a lamp. Six monitors, cycling through the ships security camera feeds. Three camera feeds per monitor, giving him a perfect view of the entire ship in a matter of seconds. Everyone was where they should be, Dexter and Schneider in Dexter's cabin. Lidia with a dirty magazine on her bed. Shane was brushing off his rock collection. And the captain...where was the captain? He'd gone into the bathroom a few minutes ago, but he hadn't come out. He'd better not use all the hot water. Just because he is the CO, does mean he gets to waste resources. But wait...what was that on the bed. The cameras weren't in color, with the damn suits cutting back the cost of outfitting ships. There was definitely a large blotch of discoloration on the bed, the same shade of grey as the duvet that lay ragged across the matress. It was the same shade as the duvet, which in color was a shade of...red.

He had a bad feeling about this. Standing up from his chair, he stepped over to the intercom and buzzed the captain's room.

"Captain, this is Liam. Please respond," he said into the box.

No response.

"Captain Renner?" he asked. "Please respond."

Nothing.

"Captain, this is a mandatory security verification. You are required to respond," he tried. "Captain? If you don't answer, I'm going to bust that goddamn door down."

Dead air.

"This isn't right," Liam said with a grimace. The weapons locker was tucked into the corner at the foot of his bed, just across from the door. Inside the locked cage were a few pistols, a shotgun, and a sub-machine gun, which he took and rooted against his right shoulder. After pocketing two clips of ammunition, he turned and-

The grate in the air vent above him suddenly blew open, and a lanky white creature slipped into the room and stood between him and the door. Crimson caked its clawed hands and skewed lips, and drops of bloody saliva collected behind its hellish grin.

Liam didn't even have a chance to compress the trigger before the thing was on him, slashing the gun out of his hands and leaving a crippling gash through its barrel. Ducking down underneath the arms of the monster, he grabbed the combat knife sheathed in his boot, and brought it up in a swing at its thigh. It cartwheeled over his strike, and then slinked around his second and third slashes. It was like water, flowing around him without leaving even a hair for his blade. He lunged forward, trying to catch it off-guard after a slash, but the thing lunged back. It wrapped its body around his arm, grabbing onto his shoulders and hips to support itself, and then began to twist. He felt his wrist, elbow, and shoulder roll and snap, leaving his arm a mangled wreck while he collapsed to the floor. The thing surged onto his back, pinning him to the floor on his stomach while it began to shred his clothing. With a hand on the back of his head, he could only grunt and stare straight ahead, at the closed door. A moment later, the thing's bloody face appeared before him, upsides down as it bent over him. It grinned at him for a moment, the edges of its mouth stretching and contracting as it's smile twisted and distorted. It turned Liam's head to the left, towards his good arm, and to where the thing's head moved out toward his fingertips. Opening its maw, it slowly slipped his arm down its throat, the muscular tube rippling around his squirming hand. Inch by inch, his arm disappeared, passed the wrist, the elbow, all the way up to the shoulder. At this point, the creature clamped its fangs down and yanked. At the same time, a claw wrapped around his neck, and-

****

It was a bit of an inconvenience to go between cabins on this ship. Each cabin was in a different area, putting the occupant closer to their workplace in case of emergency. He was at the aft of the bottom deck, closer to the engine room, while Lidia was on the top deck, two decks above, closer to the bridge. Shane and Schneider were next to each other at the bow of the bottom deck, next to the laboratory and cargo hold. Liam was tucked up near the mess hall, the center of the ship, which gave him easy access to anywhere he needed to be with a gun. And Renner, being the captain and all, had a great big suite at the aft of the middle deck, overlooking the engine wash and the massive containers of ore that they hauled.

As Dexter headed up into the mess hall, he heard a clunk in the ceiling above the aft hallway, and froze. That was the second time he'd heard that. That had never happened until today. Sure, some of the bolts on the ship's ventilation weren't high quality, but the vents wouldn't be falling apart now. He heard another clunk, this one heading towards the foredeck, and tiptoed as quietly as possible down towards the captain's cabin. Were there some rats that had broken into the food supply while they were asleep?

He took a left at the intersection in the corridor, away from where Liam's closed door stood at the end of the crossing hall. Another right, and he could see Renner's door not fifty feet away. From there, he could see the bright red 'lock' light on the door's control panel. The captain hadn't locked the door before. When he was within reach of the panel, he opened up the intercom mike.

"Captain, can we talk?" Dexter asked.

He waited for a minute, but there was no response.

"Captain? It hasn't even been half an hour yet. You're not asleep already, are you?"

Still nothing.

"Maybe I should just wait until morning," he sighed. He was about to turn and leave, but stopped. Something didn't feel right. Maybe it was just leftover nerves from the escape pod incident, but Dexter didn't like that locked door. He might get shit from the captain later, but better safe than sorry.

Like any good mechanic, Dexter always kept a multi-tool of some kind on him at all times. It was in his right pocket, rubber-gripped folding pliers with a few screwdriver heads and a knife. Unfolding it, he flipped out the Philips head and unscrewed the four fasteners on the panel. A mess of colored cables and connections lay inside, currently operating to keep the door locked in place. There was a small lockbox on the right side of the panel, which he could open with one of the many keys on the key ring attached to his belt. A small input lay inside, a circular port designed for an electrical probe that currently sat in his toolbox down below. It was a lock override, in case lock codes had to be replaced for any reason. While it was designed to accept the probe, it could in theory accept any electrical source, like a few wires from the panel. Sure, it would be a little broken until tomorrow, but if the captain was asleep, he could have everything back to normal before he even woke up.

Slicing a few of the wires that connected to the panel's status lights, he turned them around and pushed them into the socket. If an electrician saw him right now, he'd probably have his certification removed right then and there, but it seemed to work. The panel beeped three times, and a tiny green light blinked on next to the port. He typed in '1234', the door's new lock code, and the light blinked off. Tomorrow, he could just leave the code reset on, and the captain could put it back to normal. Without bothering to close it up, Dexter typed in the new password, and the door slid open.

The lights were still on when he stepped inside, and the air was hot and humid. The bed directly across from him was all askew, sheets and pillows tossed about, and even torn open. One of the pillows was at his feet, a large gash on its face leaking stuffing. It looked like a lion had got a hold of it. Along with Renner. He'd missed it at first glance, but the red that ran over the white bedspread and pillows was not the comforter. It was a massive stain, or rather, a pool. It arced across the wall behind the bed, and dripped down onto the floor into another puddle with a soft drip.

"Captain?" he asked, taking a tentative step towards the bed.

He stood at the foot of the bed, terrified to go any closer to the blood. Tearing back the duvet, there was nothing. It should have been a relief to not find any body parts or corpses, but to Dexter it was even worse. It was just like the escape pod. Not a scrap of a body, everything was gone. That could only mean that something was loose on the ship. Glancing around, he saw the ventilation grate lying in a mangled heap in the corner, and the security camera, facing towards the bed. Had Liam really missed this? He had to tell him. He'd know what to do. Turning on his heels, he dashed out of the room and back down the hall.

****

"Oh ho, hmhmhm," Lidia chuckled, holding the magazine sideways and letting the fold-out drape across her bare stomach. She lay naked across her bed, the old but unread issue in her shaky hands. She bought every issue, but never read them at home. They were always left in the packaging, safe for a few select days in the lonely emptiness of space. The glazed page felt cool against her skin, but the picture emblazoned on it made her hot everywhere else. There was a man she'd never met laying sprawled across the page. She could just make out a pile of clothes at the edge of the shot, probably placed on purpose by the photographer. Boy, did he look...virile. Maybe on the next page, she could see it buried in...

"Oh ho, yeah," she moaned.

The man was buried to the hilt in a buxom young woman, on her hands and knees. The camera was placed in front of her, at floor level, angled back towards her face and the man behind her. The shot had been taken in the midst of a thrust, where the man's hefty sack slapped against the front side of her mound while her breasts bounced forward towards the camera. In the front, another man's legs were just visible in frame, and the girl was tonguing his cock like she would eat corn on the cob. Lidia wished there was some corn in the picture, so she could see the comparison. It was probably digitally enhanced, but it was probably a close contest all the same. The great thing about the past fifty or so years was that STDs and all of those nasty things had basically been eradicated. She didn't know how, she wasn't a doctor, but all she cared about was that now most of the sex put in magazines and movies was real. If she had internet access, she could watch the video that the picture from her magazine was from. Oh, that would've been hot. She'd have to bookmark this page for when she got home.

She flipped the page, to where another woman was being vigorously spit-roasted between two men. Her right hand slithered down her side, tickling her bare skin, and slunk into the wide cleft between her spread thighs. As her fingertips brushed against her swollen labia, she shied away with a hiss as a spark of pleasure jolted through her.

"Oh, that's pretty raw," she smirked, circling the outside of her lips without actually touching them. The massaging was enough to stimulate her, and she stopped in case her pleasure broke over too soon. "I wonder if any of the boys are feeling sensitive tonight."

While she was more than willing to try seducing one of the men, if the company caught her, she'd forfeit her paycheck. And with Liam's damn cameras all over the ship, she was bound to be caught. In fact, she bet Liam was watching her right now, with that beady little camera aimed right down at her bed. He was probably sitting there, unable to contain himself in the face of her overwhelming beauty. She was the only woman around, after all. She gave the camera a smirk and a sly wink, before lifting herself up to display her folds directly to the lens.

There was a loud slamming noise off to her right, and with a shriek she fell back against the pillows, her arms and legs reflexively crossing to hide her modesty. The ceiling had exploded, and a long, lanky, creature stood atop the rubble. The grin plastered on its crimson-stained face was anything but happy. Its sharp yellow eyes pierced Lidia's, leaving her quivering and unblinking. The thing slid towards her, not using its legs to walk so much as lunge forward and catch itself. Those eyes, never blinking, never wavering, always locked on her...until it glanced down at the bed. When she'd fallen back in surprise, her magazine had been disturbed. It now lay haphazardly at the edge of the bed, turned to a page of a woman, lying on her back, rolled above herself, and kissing her own lips. The thing turned back to her, and its grin grew even wider. Then it was with her.

It had taken it less than a second, but it was now in the bed with her, pressing its warm, furry chest against her side. Less than a second later, it slipped beneath her, wrapping up around her back. A vice grip clamped her wrists and ankles, pulling them apart to expose her chest and hips. Her lips quivering at the edge of a scream, she stared down her body to the head of the monster, tucked in between her thighs. She felt the creature pull, and her mouth fell open in terror as the creature's head, and her own pelvis, were forced up towards her head.

Lidia wasn't so detached from common society. She did yoga and Pilates, regular weight loss and health trend things, although her instructor had never given her this position before. It was rough and stressful on her back, but when her inner thighs brushed against her ear lobes, she felt relieved that her spine was still in take. This was overshadowed, however, by the creature's bloody face looming an inch from hers. She could feel its hot breath on her face, running down her nostrils although she was too terrified to inhale by herself. Liquids dropped onto her face from the two pairs of lips hanging there. A flat, snake-like appendage slithered out of the thing's mouth and dipped into her gaping one, exploring the walls for a moment before wrapping around her tongue and dragging it out. It was a stretch, but it dragged it all the way out to her lips, and even helped her take the first lap. She'd never done this before, and despite the razor-sharp fangs glinting just above her head, her previous arousal made it easy for stimulus to pervade her mind. Her mind momentarily wandered to where her head was resting, between both her thighs, and the creature's thighs. But she felt nothing back there. Was it a 'he', or a 'she'? Maybe it was just an 'it'.

The thing's tongue left Lidia's dangling in the air while it went to work, ringing around her folds slowly. It skirted into the cleft between her leg and pelvis, wetting her skin and bringing a flush to her face. Maybe it was just looking for a friend. Putting her own muscles too work, she lifted her head higher and pressed the flat of her tongue over her folds, making her tense as she simply held there. The thing caught her eye, glinting in the weak light, before lashing its tongue back to hers with a wet slurp, throwing saliva all over her. Wrapping around her tongue again, the creature led her inside writhing against her insides like a snake burrowing into the soil. Deep inside, constricted by the creature's appendage, her tongue was surrounded and clung to by a tongue that mimicked her contractions. Her lower back muscles began to spasm as long-neglected areas once against sprang to life, although she had nowhere to go with the furry body wrapped around her.

Realizing that she hadn't taken a breath of air for quite a while, her burning lungs forced her to pull away from the creature's grasp and take long, puffy gasps as her torso was awkwardly contorted. Without her there, the creature seemed to redouble its efforts, wriggling at twice the speed and intensity. She closed her eyes and released a deep moan, losing the air she'd hastily collected. After taking another breath, she leaned forward again, tongue extended. She felt the creature shift minutely beneath her, the wet tongue sliding upwards across her anus. With the creature working at her other hole she was left to tend to herself, licking up across her vulva and shivering with pleasure all the while. In the throngs of lust, she forgot how terrifying this thing was. It no longer mattered how long its claws were, how sharp its teeth, or how demented its features were. She was enveloped by it, its soft, warm body pressing against all sides as they both worked to pleasure her. She found it very intimate, and was suddenly very disappointed that her partner her no genitals. It was working so hard to help her enjoy herself, and she didn't have any way to reciprocate.

The tactile tongue flicked down her body again, sidling across her lips. They dove into her passage together, intertwined and wriggling against her delicate nerves. She felt a soft weight against the top of her head, where the creature had set itself down on top of her, and a deep purr rumbled against her back from its chest. It was such a magnificent thing.

They twisted and squirmed for a few long moments, the pressure between Lidia's loins building up. After months without release, the rush came more quickly than she'd like. With a euphoric shriek stifled by her own lips, her tunnel exploded into a flurry of contractions, while viscous fluids poured across her face. Her hips jolted in strange directions as her strange position ruined her regular post-orgasm routine. Instead of collapsing against the thick, sweat-slicked chest of her lover, she just hung limply, her feet falling beside her shoulders. She pulled her face out of her folds, puffing breath from the exertion, and was almost able to rest her chin on her ass. The creature above her retrieved its tongue from her depths, splashing fluids everywhere as it flailed in the open air before returning to its maw.

"You're such a beautiful creature," she puffed. She tried to move her hand, wanting to stroke through its luxurious fur, but it still had her bound up. She tried to shift sideways, but found herself stuck fast. Giving up her struggle, she simply leaning back against its chest, it's thicker fur tickling the side of her face as she listened to its rapid heartbeat. Without any way to clean herself, her fluids continued to drip down her body, especially as they passed over her cheekbones and down her face. Her tongue stuck out to the side, picking up some of her own honey, and a smile crept across her face. "You want a taste?"

The creature's long tongue suddenly flopped against her right shoulder, brushing past her next to dab and swipe at her face. Sometimes here juices were there, other time he was simply enjoying her. She felt the weight lift off her head, and with a laugh she closed her eyes and enjoyed the rare post-sex play. She could feel its humid breath washing down over her face from above, and soon it began to wrap around her head with strange eddies and currents. The air around her got hot, and drops of sticky fluid dripped onto her face. When she opened her eyes it was completely dark, and when she glanced down, she could see razor-sharp teeth silhouetted in front of her breasts. Her body tore into action, struggling against the grips on her ankles and heels that would not give. She screamed out, praying that someone would walk by and hear her, when a slimy appendage was suddenly thrust into her mouth. It was the creature's tongue, roving and exploring her insides again. She bit down on it as hard as she could, and-

****

"Oh my god," Dexter whispered, transfixed by the monochromatic monitor in front of him. The creature's jaw flexed and rippled as it took in as much of Lidia's upper body as it could. He turned away from the monitor, back to the spray of blood that painted the walls around him. Was this about to happen to her? He couldn't bear to look at the screen again, but looking away only left the bloody mess that must have been Liam. That thing was just killing everyone. It had to have come from that escape pod. Keeping his eyes away from the monitor as best he could, Dexter closed the current camera feed, and brought up the recorded footage from the cargo hold yesterday. He scanned through the footage, watching for when the black pod floated ominously through the doors. He played at normal speed from there, watching as four men entered the hold and surrounded the pod. The captain stepped up to the pod, and the door blew open, just as it had when he'd been there. Unsatisfied, he rewound the footage and played it again, staring intently at the pod as the door blew open upon release. Time after time, he watched the footage, looking for anything out of the ordinary. It was on the sixth viewing that he noticed something on one of the frames. The briefest black shimmer, right when the door cracked open, and right when they all turned to leave the room. He backed up again, and played it at half speed, his face an inch from the screen as he watched. It was clearer this time, the black smudge gaining a semblance of shape for the second it was visible. Backing up again, he went frame by frame. He could see the top edge of the pod door detach first, and just behind that, a lanky, shadowy figure can be seen just inside the dark capsule. It disappeared as the door sails away into the crates out of frame. But when the second shadow appeared, right in front of the camera, he could make out its gleaming eyes and freakish smile in the low light. He stared at it for what felt like an hour, its piercing eyes freezing him through the monitor. Forcing himself away from the console, he ran to the intercom next to the door. Sidestepping around the blood making a run for the door, he mashed on the panel until it told him that he was connected to Schneider's room.

"Schneider! Schneider? Are you there?" he asked.

No reply.

"Damn it!" he shouted, and jumped back to the camera console. He shuddered once more at the picture of the things face across the screen, before backing out and bringing up the camera in Schneider's room. He was sound asleep, as if nothing even happened.

"Why is he such a goddamn heavy sleeper?" He cursed, and turned back for the door. He noticed the weapons locker standing ajar in the corner, and after a moment's hesitation, grabbed a pistol from the rack. It felt big and heavy in his hands, but if something was going around the ship eating people, he'd be glad to have something. Then again, a gun hadn't helped Liam, if the mauled weapon lying in the blood was any indication. Nonetheless, it felt nice to hold, and he kept it tight in his right hand as he slipped out the door and down the hall.

****

Dexter hit the lowest deck in ten seconds, faster than he'd ever moved before. Sprinting through the passage at top speed, grabbing pipes and boxes to pull himself around corners and through tightly-packed areas of the busy deck. He came to the intersection at mid-ship, where the hallway branched to the left towards the cargo hold, and straight towards the lab and cabins. He could see the escape pod sitting in the hold, its black shape standing ominously against the lighter walls. It almost seemed to absorb the light around it, surrounding it in unnatural shadow. Halting in his tracks, Dexter stared at it for a long moment, as if he were staring into an abyss. As if it commanded him, he turned and headed down the hall towards the cargo bay, and stepped inside.

The air seemed to get heavier as he moved towards the pod, suffocating even. He circled around to the front, where the doorframe lay open to expose the crimson-stained interior. Then he stepped inside. The cushions against his back were hard and unyielding, but that didn't stop the feeling of claustrophobia that suddenly overtook him. It was like the pod was trying to swallow him up. He didn't want to be in there, being framed by someone else's blood, but it could hold clues.

Next to the doorframe, in front of Dexter's right hand, was a small panel with a circular speaker inset in the stained white wall. It looked like an audio recorder, like for a logbook entry. It seemed strange to him that a pod designed to induce cryosleep would have a recording device, but nevertheless, he pressed the 'on' button.

On a small screen above the buttons, a message read "There is 1 save message."

Dexter hit 'play'.

"My name is Jonathon G. Garristol, of the long-range survey vessel H.P.F. Minoc. If you're listening to this, it means that I escaped the explosion. I am the only survivor of the Minoc crew, with the nine other crewmen either dead or presumed dead. It was terrible...terrible..."

There was a break in the recording, and what sounded like quiet sobbing in the background. A loud, sobbing gasp made Dexter jump.

"At sixteen hundred hours, on January nineteenth, twenty-one-eighteen, the crew came out of cryosleep. We were a long way off course, nowhere near any of the beacons the ship was programmed to drop along the route. Perhaps we went so far that we ran out of beacons. I don't know. We spent a few hours sifting through star charts and navigational data, but we couldn't find anything noteworthy. Then a blip came up on the radar. Turned out to be an escape pod, which looked like it had come out of another survey ship. We picked it up, but the damn thing was totally empty. Drenched in blood, but nothing else. I played the audio log myself, but the woman never even finished her name before she started screaming, then there was some scuffling, and then it was silent. The log had automatically ended after fifteen minutes."

Dexter glanced down at the panel, where the screen now showed the runtime on the file. It read "3:01/15:00."

"That night, everything went to hell," the recording continued. "We found the captain and pilot dead first, then the chief engineer and his apprentice. The kid was only twenty. It was just me, the security officer, and the comms officer. We made for the escape pods, knowing that we couldn't fight whatever this thing was. It...moves through the vents or something, but it can get across the ship in minutes. Jameson...er, the security officer, he covered the Rachel, the comms officer, and I while we got into the escape pods, but we heard the bullets stop and his body crumple against the floor a few seconds after we turned away from him. Then the thing went after her. I could her get torn from the pod and toss like a pillow across the room and into the wall. I think the impact broke her neck. I managed to get the hatch closed and the pod launced, but if you find the ship, do not board it! I repeat, do not...huh? What was-"

It sounded like someone was rubbing felt over the microphone. The abrasive sound continued for a good minute or so, and then the audio fell silent, save for the occasional huff that sounded like a deep sigh. The time on the recording was "5:04/15:00". With a shudder, Dexter jerked his hand down and stopped the recording. He lay panting against the cushion for a moment, as if he had just run a mile. So they were just one in a chain? The thing had come to that survey ship on an escape pod, just like it had come to his ship on one. Perhaps there had been more victims than just those three ships.

"The escape pod's long range distress beacon must be what attracts ships to it," Dexter reasoned aloud, as if to ground himself. "Even if I just crawl into an escape pod now, I could just as easily end up like them. I've...I've got to trap it here. I've got to trap it here and kill it."

He leapt from the soiled escape pod and rushed out of the room.

****

"Oh, you poor thing!" Shane exclaimed, rushing over to the last open display cabinet in the row of four. They were all lined up against the far wall of the lab, across from the door, where they would be out of the way, and yet dazzling as soon as one entered. The rest of the room was clinically white, and covered with dusty mineral samples that had no luster before he went six months without dusty them. Across the left wall was a counter and shelving unit filled with various tools, utensils, and equipment. In the center of the room were a large stainless steel table and a cutting laser mounted on a dexterous mechanical arm that swiveled and pivoted from the ceiling. One of his old mineral samples sat on a tray in the center of the table, a good slice taken from it so he could examine its contents. But right now, that was of no importance.

"Oh, how could this have happened to you?" he asked, reaching into the glass display and cradling what he had picked up against his chest. "Oh, my poor sphalerite."

The geode was about the size of a football, with a series of nearly perfect tetrahedrons jutting from its craggy shell. It was one of his favorites, jet black crystals, with a little bit of chalcopyrite behind which gave it a golden sheen when the light passed over it. But in his absence, the entire surface of the geode had been covered in a coat of dust, which blocked its brilliant shine. He had been cleaning them all in order, but after seeing his prized possession so dirty, he just couldn't wait any longer.

Pushing his glasses back up his nose, he set about meticulously cleaning and polishing the gem and surrounding stone. He sat down at his lab stool as he worked, the gem hovering an inch from the end of his nose, until he heard a loud thud from the other side of the wall he shared with Schneider's cabin. He stopped for a moment, lowered the geode from his gaze, and listened. There came another thud, and then a crash, a third thud, much louder than the first two, and then nothing. With a frown, he put his cloth down on the table and headed to the door. He'd probably just tripped or something. He rounded the corner of the table and came to the door frame, when a giant white thing turned the corner and stood less than a foot away from him. Shane jumped back with fright, the geode hitting the floor with a crack.

The thing just stared at him, filling the door frame with its massive frame. Blood dripped from its clawed fingers and maniac smile, and a thrashing tongue darted out to scoop up some of the fluid before retreating from between its dripping maw. Shane just stared right back at it, his arms raised to his face and his breath coming in short, hyperventilating gasps. The thing took a step into the room, and took a moment to examine the stone that lay neglected on the floor. Then it fixed on Shane a fierce, yellow glare that he could not escape from. It slunk closer, slithering forward through the air as if it didn't even need its legs to move. Shane backed up a step, bumped into the table behind him, and froze again. The thing closed within an inch of his face, its head twisting and pivoting while its eyes remained fixed on him. Its clawed hands rose to caress his face, and Shane gasped and stiffed as the warm fur and blood streaked down his cheeks. The claws turned and dropped into the collar of his shirt, shredding it into ribbons that flakes off his skinny body. Then it hooked his pants, adding them to the pile of fabric on the floor. The thing even bent slightly at the waist to slice off his shoes and socks, leaving him stark naked and exposed. He was by no means an imposing man in any place, but that didn't stop the creature from taking an interest in his groin. It nuzzled and nosed against his sack, and its tongue snaked out for less than a second to coil entirely around his rapidly extending member. Shane let out a gasp, never having been touched like that before.

Apparently deciding that it liked the flavor, the thing smacked its lips and slipped between Shane's legs. He heard a single tap against the tabletop behind him before he felt two hands grip both his shoulders, and his head was suddenly surrounded in fur. He jumped and reached up, but stopped the second a single claw pressed into the center of his back, about halfway down his spine. His arms suddenly went limp, and his legs felt stiff as stone. He couldn't seem to move at all, and he could feel as the claw retracted from inside his skin. It wasn't painful, but he could simply feel the tugging on his skin as the sharp claw slipped out of him and returned to his shoulder. Lights flickered across his vision as the fur in his face shifted, allowing him to barely see the thing's tail swing past his chest like a pendulum. The cleft between its legs hung a foot from his face, letting Shane see the long, narrow anus pulse and ripple. He simply stared at it, too shocked at that point to do anything else, until he felt a hand on the back of his hand push forward, and they exchanged a big, wet kiss. The slit squelched around his lips and nose, and there it held, the hold on the back of his head too strong to break.

Shane stood there, his face embedded in a strange creature's anus, and wondered what it wanted from him. It had burst in here, drenched in blood, paralyzed him, as far as he could tell, and what did it want to do now? He felt one hand close above his hip, and a warm, wet length slipped between the cleft of his ass, dancing across his own anus. So that was it. It wanted to rape him. Well, it went right ahead, driving straight into him with unreserved force, twisting and curling inside him. He'd never felt anything like that before in his life. He couldn't feel his arms or legs or anything, but he could feel that more than anything. Nerves fired inside of him that he'd never known were there, sending garbled signals of pure pleasure up his shorn spinal column. A moment later, he felt the tip of the thing's tail brush over the head of his member, and tickle at the bottom of his sack with lightning-fast stroke. It was intoxicating. He felt that, maybe, this thing was only looking for reciprocation. It was clearly genderless, from what Shane had seen of it. He wasn't a biologist or anything, but it wasn't hard to tell. No breasts or testes, or genitals of any kind. Maybe it was a dying species. Well, he was stuck there anyway.

Shane opened his mouth and pushed his tongue outward, a feeling that seemed alien after remaining perfectly still for so long. As soon as his tongue left the confines of his lips, he was assaulted by warm, rippling muscle all around him. He reached out and flexed his muscles, expanding his fleshy organ outward against the walls, and was rewarded with a contraction, and an increased pressure against the back of his head. His face was pushed forward further, the soft fur rubbing against his skin like warm wool. He realized that he had been holding his breath for quite some time, which he released in a gasp, and the air disappeared up into the tunnel. A moment later, he inhaled, and the air he received was thick with scent. Thick, earthy aromas travelled through his nostrils, probably musk of sorts, although for a genderless creature Shane had no idea what it would be for. Regardless, inhaling the heady air only heightened the pleasure he felt from the tongue now flailing madly inside him.

A moment later, the tongue disengaged from him, tearing free of his passage with a loud pop. It left his anus spread wide, with fresh saliva dripping into the top it as the old stuff dropped out the bottom. He could no longer contract his sphincters, leaving it bare against the cold draft of the room's ventilators. And to his dismay, the anus against his face was pulled away as well, leaving him feeling bare on both ends. But atop his shoulders he could feel the creature shifting, turning around and repositioning itself for its next fancy. It slunk down his side, like a snake coiling around its prey, until its face was in front of his member, its ass was pressed against his, and its tail wrapped around again to wrap under his armpit. Shane felt the creature's hot panting roll over his groin making him twitch with need. He wanted so badly to reach down and stroke himself, but he could not move his arms.

And then the strangest thing happened. The creature thrust its anus up against his own, creating a seal between the two with the saliva they had both spread. Half a second later, they separated again, creating a pop and a tingle of pleasure up Shane's back. The thing then sped up, battering him forward to where the open, grinning maw lay in wait for him. Each time its ass pounded against his, his member would bump forward, be momentarily embraced by the prehensile tongue, and then return to the open air. Shane moaned aloud, his senses overloading with pleasure. It was a bizarre and amazing feeling. Did regular sex feel like that?

"Alert! Self-destruct protocol initiated. The ship will self-destruct in two minutes. All personnel please evacuate to the nearest escape pod." A computerized voice rang out through the ship.

Shane barely had enough sense left in his brain to understand the implications of what was happening. The ship was going to blow up, and he couldn't move. And yet, he was happy right where he was.

****

Dexter dashed headlong through the mess hall to the ladder. Gripping the side rails, he slid straight down without need of the rungs, and then began his dash towards the bow of the ship. He had to see if Schneider and Shane were still alive. He dashed down the hall, passing the cargo bay and rounding the corner. His shoes screeched against the floor as he leaned back on his heels, coming to a sudden halt. Before him, a pool of fresh blood dripped from under the door to Schneider's room. It leaked out across the floor, pooling in a crimson mess that Dexter would have to sidestep.

"Shit," he whispered, as tears began to roll down his cheeks. "God damn it...God damn it!"

His hands curled into fists so tight that it made his knuckled white. Without thought or reason, he reached over and punched the wall as hard as he could, his own skin splitting open and dripping blood into the pool. Standing there sobbing, he down the hall, where the door to Shane's lab sat open. Sidestepping slowly around the pool of blood, he stepped quietly up to the doorframe, doing his best to stifle his cry to a sniffle. Tears still poured openly from his eyes, giving him a maniac appearance.

He turned into the quiet lab and froze midstride. There it was, right there in front of him. The thing that had murdered the rest of the crew. It's snow-white fur was so much starker in real life than on any of the cameras, its claws seemed longer and sharper in person as well. It was wrapped like a snake around Shane's waist, the man completely unmoving, save for the quiet moan coming from his lips. It had its tongue against his cock, and their asses were slapping together in a lewd display of dominance and humiliation. Reaching into his right pocket, Dexter drew the gun he'd taken and leveled it. With a determined glare, punctuated by his puffy, tear-stained cheeks, he pulled the trigger. The bullet shot through the air, and blew through Shane's skull, bursting out the other side and painting the wall behind him. The creature's head whipped around to face him as the body it'd been holding suddenly collapsed to the floor. It slithered out of the way, letting Shane's body hit the ground with a thud, and glared at him with piercing yellow eyes. It opened its jaw wide and roared at him a shrill, piercing sound that made him want to cover his ears. Its tongue lashed back and forth like a whip, throwing saliva in a wide arc. Dexter only stood his ground for a moment, before turning and bolting down the hall. He could hear the thing thumping around against the walls as it bounded after him.

Dexter dashed headlong down the hallway, the one-minute warning sirens blazing in the background of his hearing. His heartbeat blasted across his eardrums, accompanied by his own heavy breath. He flung himself around the corner, and hazarded a glance over his shoulder. The monster was right behind him, its claws scrapping the floor a foot from his heels. The escape pods were just ahead, all he had to do was get there first. He turned back and fired off two rounds at the monster, both missing, but forcing it to drop back another step behind him. Then it leapt to the ceiling, and then to the wall. It was a blur of random motion, not to be outdone by a simple handgun.

It was a race to the escape pods. Hanging a right, Dexter dashed passed the cargo bay, the monster's claws closing an inch behind him. He could almost feel the thing's fetid breath on the back of his neck. He could see the escape pod hatches, six round bays about four feet in diameter. He poured the last ounces of his strength into his legs, the muscles screaming in protest but just as eager to survive. His body was a tangled mess of adrenaline and pain, rolling across him in crashing waves every time his foot collided with the metal below him. Things seemed to move a little bit more slowly, and everything all of the sudden looked very real. He realized at that moment that he didn't have anyone at home who cared about him, and that he should really change that. His first night back on Earth he was going to go to a bar, the first bar he saw, and he was going to find a beautiful woman, and he was going to take her home, and drop her on his bed, and then they were going to strip naked and-

"Thirty seconds until detonation," the computer said matter-of-factly.

Survive first, fuck later.

Dexter whipped his arm around and fired another shot at random in the direction of the creature. It ricocheted harmlessly off the wall, but the monster jumped over to the left side of the hall. When the two of them broke into the wider room at the end of the hall, Dexter charged to the right and dove into the open pod. His ragged breathing echoing like thunder inside the cylinder, and he began to mash his right fist against side panel, looking to get the door closed. His pistol was waving back and forth in his unsteady left hand, aiming through the opening from between his parted knees. It was totally quiet outside the pod. No scratching against the metal walls, no ragged breathing, no rustle of fur against an air vent. Dexter was being hunted. He was just like a rabbit in its hole, and the wolf was coming to dig him out. And in a blur of motion, the wolf was there. Its claws reached up around his legs and latched onto his shoulders, while the thing's gaping maw and lashing tongue approached from between his legs.

"Ten seconds until detonation"

"Get away from me you son of a bitch!" Dexter yelled, and pulled the trigger as fast as he could. Four bullets and over twenty clicks roared through the metal tube. The first bullet missed high over the left shoulder, while two punched through its chest, and one through its right shoulder. Then he threw the gun at the thing with as much force as he could muster, hitting the thing square in the face and causing it to stagger and roar. With what little time that afforded him, Dexter lifted his right foot and slammed it down into the creature's face as hard as he could. It lost its grip, its claws gouging shallow but bloody gashes down his abdomen as he kicked it out the door. He slammed the door panel again, and the thing slipped free of the slipped free of the tube as the pod door shut. He heard a clunk as the metal plate above his head was shot free, and then his guts lurched into his feet as the pod rocketed away from the ship. He wasn't sure whether that had been the pod's thrusters, or the ship exploding. The pod was a windowless, grey cylinder, with some cushion and a tiny control panel on it. He had no idea whether the thing was dead, or in another escape pod, or clinging to the bottom of his, or anything. With a feverish glance, he checked over his head, but above him was just cold, grey metal. Everything was just cold, grey metal, except for the hard, black foam cushions behind his back. For the first time in what seemed like forever, he breathed a sigh of relief.

"Automatic power-saving and cryosleep will commence in twenty seconds. Please lie flat on your back, with your arms at your sides. Place any small materials in your pockets, so they do not become a hazard during space travel. You will be revived upon the opening of this escape capsule."

"There should be another survey ship out here eventually, when Earth realizes that the survey ships didn't make it home," he thought aloud. "I could really use a nap."

Little spray jets emerged from the side of the pod, and a fine white mist began to fill the space. It was cold against his skin, like standing out on a winter day, and as he breathed, he felt his eyelids getting heavier. He just couldn't manage to hold them open anymore, and he settled into the darkness.