FSE

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formerly SoFurry search engine

Sterile, sweltering air rushed into the sleeping compartment as Oryza opened the panel to the main cabin. Her ears popped from the pressure change and she growled in annoyance. Back when they were on the station, function had certainly been favored to form, but that had been downright luxurious compared to this escape pod. To think the vessel was rated for four dragons! It was already cramped, and that was just with her and Corymb living in it.

She pushed off gently and floated through the door, keeping her wings tucked close to her body. The cabin might as well have been a sauna. She could already feel the urge to pant welling up inside of her—it was a familiar feeling by this point, and was something she had accepted, if not gotten used to.

The cabin itself was a gray torus, almost wide enough for her to spread her wings fully, but just frustratingly short of it. Every surface was covered in square panels, concealing lovely amenities such as food, water, equipment, the bathroom—every creature comfort one could want, tens of millions of kilometers from the nearest habitable planet. Space travel was never quite comfortable, but even this was on the lower end of the spectrum.

Corymb was floating on the other side of the cabin, halfway inside of his own sleeping compartment—probably for warmth. Oryza almost envied him; it had been many moons since she had felt properly cold. But she knew the human likely felt the same way towards her, whenever she bemoaned the heat while he was constantly shivering. Just because there was a sliver of tolerable temperatures for them both didn't mean that they were remotely comfortable.

“Someone woke up early," Oryza said.

“I couldn't sleep. And I figured it couldn't hurt to get a head start on putting this back together." Corymb ruffled the fabric of his half-shredded jumpsuit, which he was currently trying to wear. He had a needle in one hand and a spool of thread in the other.

Oryza felt her ears flatten against her skull. “Sorry," she said.

“It's fine. Really. I'm nearly done, in any case." He put in another few stitches. “What about you? Sleep well?"

“Well enough. Better than last night."

“I'll bet." He grabbed the needle between his teeth and tied off the thread. “So… you're good now, then? No desire to go on a lust-fueled rampage?"

Rampage. She knew Corymb was trying to play the situation off lightly, but the word struck closer than he could know. He had never heard the stories of those who had, in their frustration, felled entire trees with nothing but their own claws; of those who had scratched their flanks so raw that their scales never grew back; nor of those who had killed another in some baser, animalistic contest for a mate. These were extreme cases, perhaps, but hardly impossible.

The ardeo had helped with the withdrawal-induced headaches and removed any chance of a “rampage", but the aphrodisiac effects of the reproductive drug still clung. Though he had done his best yesterday, Corymb was no dragon, and Oryza was still only half-satisfied. Thankfully, he only had a human nose. She pulled her tail down and angled away from him, hiding her unsated arousal. It would be an annoying couple of days unless she took care of it properly.

“No, it's all fine. I'm better now," she said, and pushed off towards the food compartment, going out of her way to keep her rear pointed away from him. If Corymb noticed anything, he didn't show it, keeping at his needlework.

“How often does this happen?" he asked.

“Every moon or so." She yanked on the door, bracing herself with a pair of nearby handles. The compartment opened with a dull snap.

“Every moon…" Corymb pursed his lips. “We won't be back by the next one."

“No," she said. “But at least we can stop worrying about it for now."

“It'll happen again."

“And we'll handle it again."

Oryza poked her snout inside their food supplies. It was already somewhat of mess in there, with cluttered packages floating about from earlier perusals. She selected a couple of food items at random and closed the compartment: some protein paste—which normally needed a spoon, but such things were unnecessary in zero-g—along with a bit of alcohol, which would hopefully help to wake her up.

She faced Corymb directly and let her face soften. “You're alright, too?"

He snorted. “No. I'm cold and I have a headache. I'm more tired than I've ever been before, and I'm stressed to the point of feeling sick. I've been worrying about everything we did yesterday on loop, and I can't think straight." He made an exasperated sigh. “Sorry. It's getting to me."

“It's fine. We need to take care of ourselves," she said, peeling open the protein paste and taking a bite.

Corymb was right about yesterday, though. She couldn't stop thinking about it either. In all likelihood, that had been the first time someone had mated with a human. The station was supposed to pioneer many joint initiatives and promote interspecies unity, but mating was a very loose interpretation of those goals. There would be reviews, once they finally docked. She was sure they wouldn't find any wrongdoing, but that didn't mean her actions would be considered diplomatic. The whole thing would be a disaster, and Oryza was not looking forward to it.

“I'm sorry about all that, yesterday," she started. “I imposed my needs onto you—“

“No. You didn't impose, you asked. And I said yes."

“But you didn't have a choice! We had to mate, or I'd have a dangerous withdrawal or a dangerous… 'rampage'. Asking was only a nicety." She took a nervous bite of protein paste.

Corymb closed his eyes. “I get what you're saying. Really, I do. But the fact is, I could have said no. And sure, maybe bad things would have happened because of that, but I could have said it. I know you'd have respected that decision, even if it meant taking the risk onto yourself."

“But that's exactly the point! It wasn't a fair decision! There were strings attached, and a time limit, and I put you in a horrible situation!"

“Fine!" His shout reverberated tinnily through the small ship. He coughed into his arm. “You're right, okay? You're right. You could have hurt me, we could have broken something. We could have spread some disease—hell, maybe we already have. And that's to say nothing of the political ramifications, which I don't even know how to think about, let alone what we do next. There was no time to think about any of that. And sure, abstaining would have been safer, but if you had died from a withdrawal… well, I would've had to live with the knowledge that I could have prevented it." He buried his head in his hands. "You said you needed it, and I thought it would be hot… which it was. Those two things superseded everything else."

“But… would you have said yes if I didn't need ardeo?" she asked. “That's what I want to know, Corymb. That's what's eating away at me. What if I had just asked to mate, with no other context? Would that have been enough for you?"

“I would have liked more time. I don't know. Maybe." Corymb rubbed his nose on the one sleeve that was still intact. “Look, we broke through a barrier of norms. That takes energy. That takes urgency. If you had asked me without those things backing it up, I don't know if I could have brought myself to try… mating… with you. Even though it turned out that I like it."

Oryza nodded solemnly and licked the last of the paste off of the foil wrapper. It was the answer she had at once feared and hoped for, and the same answer she would have given to him. Corymb hadn't been her first choice, either. She had been curious, maybe, about human anatomy—perhaps even a little more than most—but she wouldn't have dared to ask, not when it could jeopardize their relationship with humanity.

But all that was out of the way now. Corymb was right—even if the methods weren't perfect, a barrier had still been broken. They had shed that layer of diplomacy they were both supposed to wear. Why go through the effort of putting it back on, of keeping up the charade, the lie? They were companions now, in more ways than before, and were freed from all of that posturing.

He had said he liked it—she had, too. That was all there was to it, wasn't it? They were tens of millions of kilometers away from any politics or punishments or consequences. They were independent of it all.

“There's no point to hiding it," she said. “Anyone who sees the crew distribution, sees a dragon and a human and no one else on an escape pod, for this length of time… they'll know what we did. It's causal. There's no secret."

“For you, maybe. Not for humanity. We still know nothing; you all are so tight-lipped about ardeo."

Oryza unscrewed the alcohol pouch. “Only out of caution and discomfort. And not for much longer, if this whole situation is anything to go by. It was never going to be a secret forever."

“Secret or not, I'm not bringing it up with anyone. Someone else can unpack that can of worms."

Corymb tied off a stitch and shoved his arm through a now-contiguous sleeve. He rolled his shoulders back and stretched. There was an audible crack.

“Oh, that's much better," he sighed.

“Finished?"

He flexed his arms and checked the seams on each. “It's hardly art, but it'll hold."

“That's good." She drained the rest of the alcohol—it went down sweetly—and stashed it in the refuse bag strapped to the wall.

“As if nothing ever happened." He slapped his hands to his chest and chuckled.

“So long as it all looks the same in the end… everything in the middle doesn't matter." Oryza focused on the tip of her snout. She could feel her heartbeat in her eyes and in her loins. If they were going to mate for fun, then the earlier they figured that out, the better. She wouldn't impose again, but surely it couldn't hurt to float the idea.

She started, “You know, we could go again. If you're comfortable with it, I mean. And want it, of course. We already mated, so it's not like it's a big step—“

“Oh." His face was a mix of emotions. “You want to go again? Now?"

“You liked it. I liked it. Just an offer, for whenever. Now, if you want." She regretted that last bit the moment it came out of her mouth. She was offering, not pushing. That was dangerously close to the edge.

“You can say no," she added.

“That's not it. I want to, too… but not if it's like last time."

Oryza still didn't quite remember what exactly had happened then. Based on Corymb's recounting of events, she had been a little rough, smothering him and squeezing him with muscles that had evolved in the relatively stronger gravity of Arche—which would have been fine, had the ardeo fever not made her unresponsive to his requests for her to stop.

“It won't be like yesterday," she assured. “This mating would just be for fun. We'd be in control."

“I know it'd be fine. I can reason through it, and I trust you. But that's not enough. It's like… jumping out of the plane when skydiving, or getting ready to rappel down something. I know I'll be fine, but my body doesn't feel that way."

Oryza let her head droop. “You're scared of me," she paraphrased. It was a weird feeling. No one had ever said that to her before. It wasn't the kind of thing that made her feel powerful. It was vilifying. It was horrible.

“No—“

“That's what you just said."

“I'm apprehensive, is all. Look, Oryza—you're strong, pointy, and decidedly not human. We're alien to each other. None of that is bad, but it takes getting used to. If you'd asked me a few days ago I'd say I was used to it." His eyes were distant. “But now… it's different. Intimacy is different. You frightened me yesterday."

She felt her ears flatten against her skull. Things hadn't gone the way she had wanted, either. Blame was one thing. Blame was something she could fix, something she could make up for. But fear? Fear was an animal reaction. There was nothing social there, nothing that could be smoothed over.

“So what do you want to do?" Oryza asked.

He shook his head. “I don't know."

Asking was imposing. She wouldn't ask. Not directly.

“Well, what do you normally do when you want to do something but are afraid?"

Was that pushing? Leading? No, she told herself. It was helping—if she had insinuated backing out was bad, that would be too far. But this was still fine, still open.

“I don't know. Close my eyes and do it? Because the anticipation is the worst part, and I'll regret it if I don't." He frowned. “It's okay to just ask, you know. No need to beat around the bush."

“I want you to want me too. If I ask, is saying no letting me down? Offering is different—“

“Oryza, stop. You're over-thinking this. It's fine."

“It's fine?"

“Yeah, yeah." His face turned red. “Okay. So… you want to start… now?"

“Sure, but we can't while there's still all that fabric in the way."

Corymb swallowed. His hand slowly drifted to his jumpsuit's zipper and wavered. A shiver ran down his body.

“I only need one part," she cooed, drifting closer to him. “And it won't be cold for long."

“Yeah, yeah." The zipper began to buzz as Corymb lowered it from his neck down towards his waist, ripping open bead after bead of velcro along the way. He resealed each one after passing by, keeping as much heat trapped inside the fabric as he could.

Oryza hummed eagerly, letting her eyes wander down to his waistline, towards what she imagined was a bulge. The loose-fitting jumpsuit made it hard to tell, but she had an idea of what was hiding behind it: that smooth, external, alien genitalia, making up in girth what it lacked in depth. Not just warm, but hot. Human body temperature hot.

Corymb took his time adjusting his billowing clothes as he continued pulling down the zipper, smoothing the holes along the seam. When he finally stopped, it looked as if he hadn't unzipped anything at all, except for a small opening at his pelvis. He left that part loose, letting the fabric undulate in the microgravity. The shape almost looked like a slit.

But when Corymb pulled the fabric to one side and finagled his penis through that pseudo-slit, what came out was not at all what Oryza expected. She tried to hide her revulsion. Calling that chunk of skin phallic would be gracious; it was closer to a dried fruit, all shriveled and floppy. It was nothing like she remembered it being, if that was even the same organ.

“What… what happened?" she asked, doing her best not to recoil. “Are you okay?"

“What? Of course." He looked confused for a moment, but then his expression lit up. He laughed. “I suppose you've only ever seen me erect. This it what it normally looks like."

“And that's the whole thing?" She inspected either side. There didn't appear to be more penis hiding anywhere.

“It gets bigger, when I get aroused. Engorges."

“Huh. I'd like to see that."

“I… uh… suspect you will."

“Hmm." She looked back-and-forth between his crotch and face. Corymb understood her tacit request, and gave a quick, slight nod.

Oryza grasped him firmly by the hips and dropped down until her head was level with his penis. She tried not to look too closely. His scent had been present before, but here it was much stronger. She was a bit disappointed in the lack of that heady, characteristic note of an aroused drake, plus all the aphrodisiac qualities that came with it, but that was okay. She had other senses she could use.

She redoubled her grip and pulled him closer, until she was practically touching his cock with her snout. While she did her best to remain clinical, there was no denying how alien that organ was.

Corymb winced. “A little tight."

“Sorry." She relaxed her hold on him somewhat. “Loose enough? I don't want to get you with my teeth on accident."

“Teeth." He squirmed instinctively, but not out of her hold on him. “Right. It's fine. Everything is fine. Your grip is… fine."

She gave him a skeptical glance. “It is?"

“Yeah, yeah. Nothing we haven't done before, I suppose."

“Kind of. This time, we get to savor it."

Oryza opened her mouth and hesitated, making the mistake of taking another glance at his non-erect penis. It was objectively gross, she decided. Something that shriveled and gamy certainly didn't belong inside of her mouth. But she forced herself to push those feelings down. Corymb was an alien; alien organs came with the territory. Disgust was always the first reaction. Once she had gotten exposed to the physiology and learned it, it became normal. That was how it had been for fingers, or not having a tail: bizarre, at first—disgusting, even—yet with time, it became normal. Besides, she had already taken him into her mouth once before. The difference was purely cosmetic.

Oryza flicked out her tongue and grazed the tip of Corymb's cock. His breath caught and she took that as a sign to continue, letting her tongue rest and slide over the sensitive skin there. The texture was pliable and soft, nothing like last time, and had a vague, saline hint of sweat.

She went a little further, coiling and lathering and lashing over his foreskin and then some. When her tongue got dry, she pulled it back into her mouth to re-wet, only to jump back in a moment later with renewed vigor. She guided herself by touch alone, feeling for those dry spots where she had yet to reach. Corymb's penis was still only warm, not yet the hot, human-body temperature flesh she remembered so vividly. That part was surely imminent.

Corymb started moaning. The noises were quiet and airy, as if he were afraid of being caught. Oryza found them cute. Being found was a human concern—there was no hiding the scent of mating from a dragon nose. It was an announcement echoed for longer than any cry and lingered on one's person for days.

Oryza sped up her licks until the soft, wet schlicking sounds between her tongue and jaw conducted through her skull to sound louder than Corymb's rushed breaths. But the increased intensity came at the cost of control, and the floppy organ slipped loose, swaying in the absence of gravity. She touched her snout to the tip and pinned it to his belly, turning her attention instead to its underside.

His penis was definitely bigger now. There was plenty more surface for her to play with, and not a single part was safe from her tongue. She didn't even need to move her head; she could keep his shaft steady with her snout, let her jaw hang loose, and still reach everything. Her tongue was just slightly wider than his cock, which made it easy to have plenty of contact as she placed one long, heavy lick after another over the entire surface.

Corymb's breath caught and he arched back, into what would have been a small thrust were there anything to anchor himself to. Instead, his body conserved its momentum and he flailed for a moment before grabbing onto one of Oryza's horns, stabilizing himself as politely as he could manage. She held her grip firmly on him the entire time.

“Don't make me hold you tighter," she warned.

“Sorry. Please don't snap my pelvis. We can't fix it here."

Oryza sniffled, shaking off his hand and pulling back for a quick glance. His penis was thicker and stiffer now, much more like how she had remembered it, though it was now also throbbing and glistening in a wet sheen of her saliva. It had finally become something that could penetrate, something that could breed. Not that such a thing could be fruitful, of course. But that didn't mean it couldn't be fun.

She opened her mouth wide and guided his tip in with her tongue. It seemed bigger, inside her mouth. Or maybe her mouth was smaller than she imagined it was. She nosed her way through the opening in his jumpsuit bit by bit, taking in more and more until she felt his tip prod against the back of her tongue. It radiated so much heat that it felt like her whole head was in an induction heater.

“Oryza…" he huffed.

She made a throaty hum and a sweeping lick, which Corymb seemed to like so she kept doing it. Truth be told, having his cock in her mouth wasn't so different to having it in front of her. Harder, maybe, now that she couldn't see what she was doing, not to mention the challenges involved in working around a mouth filled with human penis. What previously would have been precise licks were instead rendered sloppy as she had to wrap around him to hit the spots she wanted to.

But if Corymb thought the quality of the oral had dropped, he certainly didn't show it. His cock was dancing sporadically in her maw, jumping up every couple of seconds to kiss her soft palate. He would grace it with a strand of pre, before she managed to wrestle it back down and admonish him with a few more licks. His moans were louder now, too, in time with his breathing and the particularly long strokes of her tongue.

Oryza realized then that Corymb might not give her a warning; he could cum any moment now. Maybe that was what was different, what made this seem so much naughtier than when she had just been licking. There, it might have ended up on her snout. But if he came now, it was all going into her mouth.

The thought was turning her on. Not the act itself; Corymb's penis was halfway to scalding, and the novelty of that had since waned into discomfort. Her jaw was beginning to feel sore, also. These things weren't arousing at all. The enjoyable parts were instead in the image and the intimacy. They were in the way he made different noises and squirmed depending on where she licked, in the amount of trust he had placed in her. If he was comfortable with his cock so close to her teeth, hilted all the way into an orifice that had evolved to be good at biting and gnashing above all else, then surely he could trust her to put that organ elsewhere.

But first, Oryza would take him over the edge. She closed her eyes and began to lick even faster, fast enough to ignore the heat and shape. She imagined, for a moment, that the creature in front of her was a very pent-up drake, so enthralled by her soft mouth and dancing tongue that he would give her everything. One of those licks—who knew which?—would send him over the edge. He'd be in too much ecstasy to warn her. She'd feel it as a gooey warmth, first. The taste and texture wouldn't register for another second. By that time, she'd have seed leaking out of the corners of her mouth with plenty more on the way, and the drake's eyes would go vacant, his body unable to do anything but finish his orgasm. She'd love every moment of it.

Corymb could never give her that, but the act of pretending felt good. It was a fantasy that could hold until he came and disproved it. It wasn't rude; her imagination was little more than an embellishment. It didn't change what they were doing. They were still both enjoying themselves. That was all that mattered.

Oryza kept licking at random, sliding his cock around her mouth. Corymb was trying to thrust again, but Oryza's pose was rigid and her grip fast, such that her snout was pressing into his groin the whole time and admitted no such motion from him. She was already going as fast as she could, as ardently as she could. There wasn't anything more to reach for, no more intensity to provide. Surely he couldn't hold it in much longer. It would only be a matter of time—

“There—“ Corymb whined.

Oryza pulled him closer. She couldn't take him deeper—it wasn't physically possible—but the motion added pressure, ensured he wouldn't slip free. She waited, slowing down to a few continuous licks.

His cock jumped up, away from the slippery grasp of her tongue, and launched its first streak of cum right into the back of her throat. There was more texture than taste. It jumped again, and another streak joined the previous one. Corymb groaned, and his cock spasmed weakly a couple more times before resting.

The illusion of her drake shattered. Corymb's orgasm was just… hollow. The amount was paltry, the intensity lackluster—if she didn't know better, she'd have thought he was holding himself back purposefully, and that this was the little bit he failed to suppress. But she knew that was not the case.

Oryza swallowed and hummed to hide her premeditated disappointment, giving his cock a few more licks to top it off before she let it slip from her mouth. It felt good to be able close her jaw again. She hadn't realized how much continuous effort it had taken to keep it open so long.

“Fuck, Oryza," Corymb exhaled. “That was just… mmh."

“That good, huh?"

“Yeah. How ever will I thank you?"

“I really have no idea." She pushed until she hovered prone in front of him, stopping her spin by bracing her tail between his thighs. Her pussy now exposed, they both got a good look at how aroused she was. Oryza wasn't sure how much of it was from the ardeo and how much was from giving the oral, but the result was the same: she was swollen, wet, and very much ready to have a turn.

“Oh. Um…" Corymb looked down, between her legs, his softening cock floating just above it. “There's uh, refractory. Do drakes"—

“Yes. But there's more than one way to pleasure a dragoness, you know."

“Oh, sorry. It just looked like—ah, never mind."

Corymb scrunched up his sleeves to his elbows. Oryza's breath caught at the thought of having all that bare skin shoved into her. It was an absurd image—if he managed to push that far, it would constitute a medical emergency—but that didn't make it any less arousing.

His fingertips started tracing over the fine scales of her vulva, circling, teasing. It felt good, but he was going too slowly. It had to be on purpose; she was more than aroused enough for Corymb to notice. If a drake had seen her in this state, they'd already be mating by now. Oryza growled in annoyance.

“You're no fun."

Oryza was about to retort about all the fun Corymb had just had when he plunged his middle finger all the way into her, turning her comment into a pleasured exhale. The penetration wasn't that deep, but there was something about having someone else do it. The lack of control, maybe, or the anticipation of what might come next.

But just as soon as he had put his finger in, he pulled it out, and she squeezed onto empty space. A thick strand of lubrication trailed behind.

“I forgot how wet you can get," he said, watching it catch the light.

“Hmph."

“Well, not forgot forgot. Just reacquainting myself with the reality of it."

Oryza snorted. “Yes, it'll be nice and smooth. Now try reacquainting your fingers with my pussy."

She caught a flash of his teeth as he grinned, but stopped paying attention once he sunk a few fingers into her down to the knuckle. Her squeeze was involuntary. This time, her walls found purchase on those digits and dragged them further in.

“Nice and smooth, my ass," he said. “That is some grip."

“Getting you where I want you," she rumbled.

Corymb added his other hand to the mix, stretching and plying and rubbing at her sex. The sheer number and control of his fingers was exotic, the kind of thing she would expect from a contraption rather than a companion. But there was too much warmth and intent behind the motions for him to be a machine. Corymb was responding to every reaction she had. If she gave even the slightest indication that something had felt good, he'd latch on to it. Anything she marginally shied away from, he wouldn't repeat.

He started sweeping, applying a firm but gentle pressure to her walls at different angles and positions. Oryza had never felt anything like it before. It was the kind of thing she would try to do with her tail, just to try something new, but that impression paled against the wider, directed force Corymb could apply.

She exhaled half a breath when he hit a particularly sensitive spot. He noticed and focused his efforts there, turning the tingling sensation into pleasure that demanded all of her attention. Her hind legs rose and quivered of their own accord. Her thigh brushed against his side, and she had a sudden urge to brace herself against him, to pull close so he wouldn't slip away. She looped both legs behind his torso and squeezed.

“Tight!" he gasped, pausing his efforts to push uselessly against her legs.

“Sorry," she grumbled, loosening. She had registered the interruption to her pleasure sooner than his cry.

Luckily, that interruption was short. Corymb dove back in with renewed vigor. He didn't do anything differently; he simply gave her more. More was enough. Her pleasure rose and rose, and he kept going, rubbing and pushing in all the right places. Oryza was content to let him continue, to drift away in their mutual desire to make her feel good. And it worked, for a while, but eventually she began to plateau.

Being fingered was stimulating, sure—the sensations were all new and intense—but it lacked that raw quality of being mated. Oryza wanted to be pinned or pinning, to be tangled up with another dragon, both of them laser-focused on mating in a way where all other concerns faded into the background. It was unfair to Corymb to expect him to match that. But fair or not, she was running into a wall.

“More," she growled, keeping her teeth hidden.

Corymb sped up to a pace that might as well have been aerobic exercise. The cabin went from near-silent to being filled with the sounds of his grunts of effort, of his digits surging wetly against her pussy, and of her own quiet hums, hums that she wanted to lose control of and let grow into yowls of orgasm. But it still wasn't enough. That hollowness persisted, like she was chasing something forever out of reach yet still so close.

She closed her eyes and envisioned that drake again. It was difficult, this time. Corymb's movements were too alien. They didn't map to thrusts, nor to anything a tail—or even multiple tails—could do. Maybe a very creative tongue? It would have to suffice.

That drake would have his snout buried in her crotch, keeping as little of that slippery organ to himself as possible. His jaw would be sore by this time—anyone's would—but he'd power through. She imagined him delirious after being so thoroughly entrenched in her scent. It was an exaggeration, perhaps, but that didn't matter. She liked the image a lot.

Almost! She felt a deeper, fuzzy tingling spread throughout her pelvis, felt her walls spasm of their own accord. But for how good it was, it was still only pleasure. Empty, stagnating pleasure. Pleasure that no longer portended an orgasm.

She could ask Corymb for more, though he was breathing at a rate that would qualify as hyperventilating for a dragon, and the cabin was now flooded with the scent of sweat. He knew his own limits better than she did, for sure, but she wouldn't ask him to push it. This would have to be enough—or not. She tilted her head back and tried to ignore the noises, focusing instead on the sensation.

But the only sensation she felt was Corymb's hand slipping out. She kept her head back and eyes closed, waiting for him to plunge back in. It was taking longer than was polite. Maybe he was having a breather—he needed one, from the sound of it. His breaths had became raspy coughs. Still, he could have at least had the courtesy to leave something inside her in the meantime.

“Corymb?" She let go of him.

He doubled over and starting tumbling in the microgravity. His coughs turned to sputtering wheezes, and he buried his head into his elbow, signaling to her to wait.

And so she waited. Corymb kept coughing. Still coughing. This one, maybe, would be the last. Or perhaps the next. But it wasn't. Too slowly, she came to the realization that he might not be okay.

“Corymb? Are you all right?" The question was rhetorical; she was already rushing to him. Her wings banged against the cabin walls as she repositioned.

But Corymb's only response was to keep coughing. That was better than the alternative, at least. Coughing meant the airway was clear, that his body was doing what it needed to do.

“Choking?" she asked.

“No—“ he managed between coughs, rubbing his throat forcefully.

She nodded, and said, “It'll pass. Try to stay calm and let it finish. You can still breathe. You'll be fine."

The coughs did slow down, and eventually concluded with a particularly violent and productive one. Corymb made a face at the sputum and wiped it off onto his side. “Ow," he croaked.

“Better?"

“Think so. I didn't know coughing could hurt that much." His voice was weak and raspy.

“I don't suppose that's happened before?"

Corymb snorted and shook his head, still massaging his neck. “Explains a lot, really. The headache. This cold makes it hard to tell, but now that I think about it, I'm pretty sure I have a fever."

“You're sick," she realized.

“Thought it was stress, at first. Or no gravity. Or isolation." He made a pained grin. “Nope! Well, maybe it's those things, too. But still."

While sickness had been considered an eventuality for the joint station, that did not mean there had been no precautions taken to avoid it. In addition to regular hygiene practices, there were the cross-species communicable disease tests. For Oryza, they had checked that she was unaffected by or immunized against most common human microbes, pathogens, and viruses—benign or not—just as humanity had ensured the same for their astronauts. But really, the tests were unnecessary for dragons, especially after being given the new resistances.

Being pumped full of a gestalt of the latest and greatest in military immunotechnology made one's bones feel like they were on fire, the doctors had said, as her immune system lost a battle to the newer, better one that would replace it. Oryza couldn't quite corroborate that; she had been anesthetized for the six days that process had taken. After that, testing against human diseases was merely a formality. Such maladies all lacked design. She had been made immune to biological threats that were far more intentional.

Really, the challenge was the other way around—making sure humans didn't catch anything off of them. Human immune tech was almost non-existent; a comprehensive checklist was practically cutting-edge. Luckily, their species was hardy enough already, even if there was room to improve, and it only took a few immunizations. They were safe for each other—but that still did not make disease impossible, and it had indeed been planned for.

“Okay, give me a moment," Oryza said, turning away. “We have stuff for this."

She floated over to the medical compartment, curling her tail around one of the handles to counteract her motion. The door snapped open sharply, having not been as broken-in as some of the others. She rifled through the bags inside until she found the human drug pouch. The antibiotics and antivirals were easy to locate, the capsules being larger than a tooth. She knew exactly what ones she would give to a dragon, but giving even a reduced dose of something that strong to Corymb would give him diarrhea for the rest of the trip. Best to stick with the human ones. The tiny font size was quite annoying, though. He would just have to read his own dosing instructions.

She prodded the bottles towards him. He caught each one in either hand.

After glancing at the labels, he said, “Kill all the bad stuff inside of me, huh?"

“Better safe than sorry. There's no hospital here."

“Fair enough." He unscrewed one of them, saw the size of the pills, and blanched. “Oh, lovely. Well, better to start sooner rather than later, no? I suppose I better get some rest." He turned to his sleeping compartment.

“Oh, one more thing." She rummaged through the medical compartment once more, procuring a wrapped spatula and tube. “Hold still."

She scraped off a bit of the sputum from his jumpsuit and wiped it into the sample tube. It clicked softly as she sealed it. The green, viscous substance was contaminated, but that was fine. She had worked with worse before.

“You're going to analyze my snot?"

“Have to entertain myself somehow. Besides, there's a chance I'll actually figure out what you've got."

Corymb snorted. “Well, have fun." He waved to her with one of the bottles and snapped open his sleeping compartment. “I know I will." With one sharp motion, he pulled himself inside and closed the panel behind him.

The snap reverberated longer than Oryza thought it would. She stared at the closed door for a long moment. Somehow they had just gone from fucking to worrying to separated in the span of three minutes. Her lust had faded in that bout of panic, and now that that it was gone, she simply felt alone in the dull and lifeless cabin.

Well, it could at least stand to be dull, lifeless, and comfortable. She was turning down the temperature immediately after being struck by the thought. It would take a while to cool down, but any respite from the heat was a welcome one. No more panting for her!

It was too bad it would have to be temporary. Oryza envied those who had ended up on a homogeneous crew; they'd all have a comfy temperature for the whole trip. It would have solved all of the issues around ardeo, too, if she had been on a pod with her own kind. Some message of unity that was. They were supposed to mix. Anything else ran counter to the ethos of the station, towards that mission of shared discovery and collaboration with humanity. But it was also their situation. Now that they were fragmented and scattered, it was only natural that the mission would be, too.

Still, it could have been worse. There had been eighteen escape pods and forty-four bodies to go in them. She had run the numbers—almost surely, someone was all alone on one of those escape pods. Most likely a few people were in that situation. That kind of isolation, the kind had in interplanetary space, was vastly different to being isolated on a planet. Here, the only company was a metal box, endless vacuum, and a very limited view of the stars. There was no other world to escape to; there was only void beyond those walls. She and Corymb at least had each other to anchor themselves upon. Those others wouldn't have anyone.

On the surface, it was funny how similar her current situation was to theirs. Corymb was just in the other sleeping compartment, yes, but she wouldn't dare interrupt his recovery, except for extreme emergencies—and even then he might be more of a hindrance than a help. In effect, her situation was identical to theirs, except hers was temporary. The idea that Corymb might not recover, and that their situations were more identical than she had imagined, danced in her mind before she forced it out. After all, she hadn't had any say in the matter just yet. And there was still work to be done there.

Oryza pulled their Orion box out from one of the general equipment compartments. This was a great excuse to use it, though lacking an excuse had never stopped her before. The many occasions on which she had been told it was not a toy had only served as a good reminder to be more covert when she next used it as one again. There was no harm in it, after all; playing was just learning as long as she didn't break anything. And she had learned quite a bit.

The genetic multitool could do many things, but today she only needed it for one purpose: to list all the things with DNA that were put inside of it, sorted by whatever definition of quantity one could want. From the biological standpoint, the Orion box was already behind Arche's state-of-the-art, but it was the collaborative design that made the device special. Before, analyzing a sample would have taken a team days of poring over reference books for matches. The process was organized, but not automated. Human microprocessors and digital image sensors changed that. The ultimate result was technology a century ahead of its time for both species, wrapped in an impossibly small, innocuous box. A shame their use was still so heavily restricted.

She powered it on and pulled out a single-use plate from the back. By the time she had plated the sputum, the Orion box had booted, and she slid the prepared sample into a slot on the side. The screen turned green. The glowing text was large enough for her to read unmagnified: eight hours to process. Lovely. More waiting.

She'd acclimate to it eventually. Fifty-seven days was too long a time to permit anything else. The boredom was something she would have to learn to live with, which she was especially aware of now that she didn't have Corymb around to talk to. That truth was laid bare; she couldn't bury it in distractions or balm it with conversations. There were none to be had.

Though thinking about it, that wasn't quite true. There were the others she could talk to. Surely it couldn't be too hard to get in touch with another escape pod. It was surprising, even, that no one else had had the same idea and tried to contact them already! They couldn't be that far away from each other. While space was indeed large, everyone had started at the same place and time, and with the same destination. Even after a jump, their orbits would still be fairly similar.

But that did leave the problem of knowing where to find anyone. The pods were all fitted with radio antennas, but they were dishes and therefore directional. The others could be close enough to have a conversation with in real-time, but she still had to know where to focus the beam to have any hope of chatting.

There was the telescope—she could scan for them—but they only had the inbuilt one, and it was designed for basic navigation. It could work, technically, but it wasn't made for that kind of searching, and the astrometry software was not particularly enjoyable to work with.

Luckily, Oryza had a much easier solution in mind. She flapped over to the terminal and logged in. Every escape pod communicated through the system repeaters back to ground control, and ground control had given everyone flight plans. That meant they knew where everyone was, had been, and would be. Asking seemed the simpler solution—for the locations directly, or even just negotiating connections through the repeaters. The message practically wrote itself.

After sending it, she waited a few minutes for the repeater's confirmation of receipt, and then logged out. It would take around five minutes for her message to reach Arche—by now it was likely already there—and another five to get a response back. Of course, that didn't factor in the time it would take for someone to compose the reply. Ground control were always prompt with such matters, but they were meticulous, too. She'd get something soon enough, but there was no point in waiting anxiously. It wasn't like she was in a rush; there was nothing if not an abundance of time.

There was still another fifty-plus days of floating around doing nothing. Two standard days had barely dented that figure. It was a long time even with distractions, and those were infrequent enough, especially now that Corymb was holed up in his compartment. She'd have to find other ways of distracting herself.

Oryza slid her tail loosely between her legs, more out of habit than anything else. With the action came a shadow of pleasure. It was a promise of something good, if only she would escalate. Seeing as she now had the cabin to herself and nothing better to do, escalating seemed a fine idea.

She opened her wings until they scraped against the walls, keeping her in place. Once steadied, she licked liberally at her tail tip until it was sufficiently wet and ready to be thrust inside her. She wasted no time making this a reality, letting the tapered end part her labia and sink smoothly into herself.

Phallic or not, her tail was stiff and bony, and getting off with it was always a bit of a chore. Still, it delivered that sense of fullness and gave her something to clamp down upon, and that was usually enough.

She pushed in until her tail began to pinch from being curled up so tightly. What she wouldn't give for more flexibility! But sadly, tails had not evolved for the purpose of masturbation. That they were phallic and could be bent in such a way was already a happy accident of nature. She could only complain so much.

Oryza dropped a forepaw to ply at her clit. She knew her own limits and buttons better than Corymb, but she'd take his overly-cautious treatment over this any day. Claws were no substitute for hands, nor scales skin, and having experienced what human fingers could do, she knew her own claws, or even those of another dragon's, could never quite compete. But competitive or not, it was better than leaving her forepaw idle.

She wanted to imagine that drake once more, to hack her body with some lustful imagery, but it just wasn't sticking this time. Her thoughts were too abstract, flitting from one idea to the next with no chance of lingering. Maybe taking things into her own claws was too much of a distraction. It was lacking raw closeness.

But even if her mind had only a passing interest, her body was excited enough. She glanced down towards her hips—maybe the sight would spark something in her. Between the heaves of her chest she noticed the thrusts of her tail, the wetness, the peeving arousal. She felt all these things, too, and related them as cause and effect, but there was a disconnect. Her body was loving it, yet her mind was bored.

And so she went faster and pressed harder. The orgasm would come eventually, given enough stimulation. It didn't matter how impressed or unimpressed her head was. And soon it did begin to peak into a mounting pleasure, spurred on by her change in intensity and teetering on the precipice of an orgasm. It struck Oryza that even if she went over the edge now, it would be a short and empty ride. That was fine. Enough parts of her would be content with that.

But though she tried, she couldn't quite make it there. It didn't matter how deep she pushed, the variety of angles she used, nor how much she ignored the soreness from her aching tail. Nothing was enough. It was like her body knew she was trying to fool it. It wanted to breed, and her tail was too poor a substitute to trick it.

No—it wasn't her body. Her tail had always been enough. This was ardeo. The drug wanted her to breed. Masturbating through an ardeo fever was futile, and while she was past the worst of it, it had apparently decided to keep its claws in her for a little while longer.

The pleasure was fading now. She kept pistoning her tail anyways, out of habit, maybe, or some vain hope that it would start to feel good again. But now there was only soreness and the same kind of empty friction that came from rubbing one's flank.

She might have been stuck in that hollow cycle for some time, if not for the chimes of the terminal interrupting her with enough urgency to break out it.

Oryza let her body relax, ignoring the pestering noises for the moment. Stopping bothered her at first. Her body wanted to keep going, even though she knew nothing would come of it. But she came to her senses soon enough and knew it was the right decision.

She was panting still, though it was from exertion this time, rather than the temperature. She flapped sluggishly to the terminal, trying to cut through the fog in her mind. There was a notification for her. The response to her request to talk to the other ships had come in:

CONFIDENTIAL

SENDER: PERPHIA GROUND CONTROL

RECIPIENT: AIRLEAD ORYZA *

Your request for the flight trajectories of other escape pods has been noted.

While enabling direct communication between pods could have a positive effect

on the wellbeing of crew members, it currently presents too great a security

risk to consider until all crew have been debriefed.

• Airlead-General Luynis *

Oryza had to reread the message several times before she made sense of it. What was Luynis thinking? There was no security risk—hell, they had all been living on the same station previously! How could virtual face-to-face, or even just radio for that matter, be more of a security risk than talking in-person?

But it then dawned on her that something had changed since they had all been living together: the reactor had undergone a containment fault. She assumed it had been a fluke. After all, space was unforgiving, and the fact that there was a contingency plan for such an event meant that the situation had at least been considered. But the underlying cause didn't have to be random chance. Sabotage was a definite possibility.

There were a myriad of reasons why someone might want to sabotage the station, though the procedures around astronaut selection and training were supposed to all but eliminate those risks. Even so, the public had plenty of concerns around having technology stolen or being spied on, with a healthy dose of xenophobia to top it off. Add to that various political struggles and the number of potential motivations became dizzying—and that was just on the dragon side.

Yet there was absolutely nothing she could do about any of it. It was better to not think about these things, for the sake of her own mental wellbeing. The cabin fever was just getting started, and piling more worries on top of the ones she already had was asking for trouble. It wasn't procrastinating; it was requisite postponement.

She went to the porthole and glanced out to the stars. If she was going to wait, she might as well have a view, even if it was a limited one. The cabin was finally comfortable. She wished she could feel that way about anything else.

Oryza wasn't sure if she had dozed off or daydreamed, but her body was stiff from being still for so long. She didn't feel like doing anything right now besides looking out the porthole to the few blurry stars she could make out. The sound of a compartment opening behind her snapped her out of the trance.

“Oryza," Corymb huffed, speaking between forced breaths. “My chest is… starting to hurt. Breathing is… harder."

“That's not good." It was an understatement. This was an emergency. She was already out the door, swinging around towards the medical compartment. Once she had the stethoscope and oxygen equipment in claw, she spun back around to Corymb's chamber, leaving the compartment door open.

“The symptoms just started?" she asked.

He shrugged. “Kinda. It's been gradual-ish."

“You should have told me sooner," she said, swiftly donning the stethoscope. “You wouldn't have been interrupting."

“Hard to tell," he rasped. “I'm sick. I'm supposed to have symptoms. And it's still not that bad. I'll manage."

“Oh, you'll manage, all right. With this." She gave him the oxygen mask, which he frowned at but wore without complaint. “Just breathe normally."

Oryza set the stethoscope atop his chest. She didn't actually know what a healthy human heart was supposed to sound like. For dragons, she had a decent understanding, but her human expertise was decidedly lacking. Hopefully that knowledge extrapolated between species. It was always startling how much did.

“Sounds fine to me," she decided. “I can confidently say you're not having a heart attack, at least."

Corymb pulled the mask away from his face. “Lucky me."

“Hey, leave that on. Being pithy isn't more important than breathing."

His grumbled response came responsibly muffled through the mask.

Maybe the oxygen was overkill. No, it probably was; that was the nature of prevention. If Corymb needed oxygen, he needed it five minutes ago, not after she finished diagnosing him. The only cost to applying it was his comfort, and that was low priority right now.

She was interrupted by a soft chiming from the cabin, unusual enough to cut through the incessant droning of the ship. This tone was different from the one the terminal used. Oryza knew what it was instantly: the Orion box had finished.

She whipped back around towards the cabin, leaving the door to Corymb's compartment ajar, and flapped to the box in such a sudden and pointed way that she pulled a wing muscle. That was foolish of her—she was letting situation get to her. She needed to be efficient, yes, but not hasty.

The Orion box report was long. At a glance, everything looked normal, or at worst benign. The box was smart enough to test for known diseases, and nothing came up. It was possible whatever Corymb had was too mutated for it to pick up on, but the escape pod was hardly an environment ripe for that kind of thing. The portion that went unclassified was infinitesimal in comparison, so probably wasn't that, either.

Oryza had an idea and sinking feeling at the same time. The idea was the sinking feeling. It had to be wrong. After all, there had been plenty of synthetic tests on the biocompatibility between dragons and humans. They could breathe the same air and drink from the same glass without fear of disease. Hell, they could even mate without issue. It was all safe. But still, no test was perfect. There would be holes, or at the very least some degree of uncertainty, and it might not extrapolate to their situation.

She didn't know exactly what she was looking for as she kept scrolling down, but she knew it when she saw it: dragon lactobacteria. It wasn't horribly out of place considering how close they had been recently, and that was before accounting for the sample being contaminated. But this bioengineered strain of vaginal flora was present in Corymb respiratory tract at a level one-thousand times higher than could be considered incidental.

Those early biocompatibility tests definitely checked on lactobacteria. Dermal exposure, oral exposure, definitely. Inhalation? Maybe at a low level. It didn't really matter now, though. Corymb was infected with it. Maybe his body was supposed to be able to win this battle, but it was having a rough time with it. Human antibiotics wouldn't help against those hardened cells. Even dragon antibiotics would struggle.

Corymb ought to know. She flapped back over to his door—slower, this time, and with less force on her sore wing—and cracked open the door, sticking her head into the sweltering compartment.

“Diagnosis is in. It's pneumonia," she said.

He pulled the oxygen mask away from his face, just enough to speak clearly. “Pneumonia." He choked out a laugh. “How did I get pneumonia in space?"

From her, she almost said. But this answer felt callously direct. Or did she just not want to let the blame fall upon herself? It didn't matter, really. She would be circumspect about it in either case.

“The bacteria that can cause it are everywhere," she said. “They're inside everyone. But a healthy immune system can handle it easily."

“You're saying mine isn't."

For a moment she considered telling him the truth. It was wrong to say it was his fault. But perfect honesty would raise questions she didn't know the answer to. They wouldn't be safe for each other any more. Would he see her as diseased? Or like some animal he could get sick from? It would destroy their relationship, both professional and personal. Certainly, the sex would stop, which would be a shame, because it didn't need to. Now that she knew, she could tell Corymb she didn't want his mouth anywhere near her pussy. Justification wasn't needed; he'd respect it as a choice. Vector eliminated.

“Frankly?" she forced out. “I think it's stress. We've had enough of it lately. And I know you haven't been sleeping enough, because I haven't, and you've been up even more often than I have. It's not your fault, but we have sleeping pills for a reason."

It wasn't an outright lie. There was truth there. But the omission was too massive to feel good about, even if the advice wasn't wrong.

“Guilty as charged." He raised both hands. “But it's done. Still, I'll make sure to be better about that."

Oryza hoped her face didn't betray the muddy, sinking sensation in her chest. Corymb was committing to healthier habits, which was good, and nothing about their relationship was going to worsen, which was also good. It didn't even matter where the disease had originated; neither one of them could have known. So why did she still feel so bad about it?

“So what now? I just get more rest and hope?" he asked.

“Well, now that I know what the strain is, we might be able to do better than blindly feeding you antibiotics. I'll see what I can do. But yes, in the meantime, get some more rest. And keep that mask on!"

Corymb nodded and slid back into his sleeping compartment and flipped off the light inside. Oryza closed the door for him and slowly exhaled.

There had to be something she could do. The dragon-grade antibiotics weren't going to cut it, not without using a dosage large enough to kill Corymb in the process. She needed something more precise, something targeted. Something that could get rid of the battle-hardened bacteria without touching anything human. There was only one kind of thing with that degree of specificity. And wasn't Corymb lucky—Oryza was the only one in the crew with the know-how needed to make something targeted like that. A part of it, at least. Which was really for the best, all things considered.

It was a biological tool—well, set of tools, really—for the aerosolized delivery of payloads to specific dragon cells. What that payload was, exactly, was outside her purview. Ideally, one was never developed. Most likely, she hoped, it was only non-lethal and had gone unused. But the technology need not be used a weapon. It was straightforward to use it therapeutically instead.

First, she needed something that could take care of the lactobacteria. There were plenty of viruses that had it as host, though her modified cells would resist them. She had a trick for this, though—not only to get past their defenses, but also to shield the payload from the cell unless it was definitely the one she was targeting. The secret to this existed in only two places: somewhere in the high security records of the Western Laboratory's basement, and inside of her head. Once she had that set up, it was simply a matter of putting something inside that would destroy the lactobacteria.

Normally the Orion box would complain about printing something based off of a virus, to the extent where it outright refuse to do it. But the way it checked this was brittle and easily defeated by adding in enough junk base pairs. She had done it before, and repeating the process posed no challenge.

Then it was a matter of waiting once again. Had doing things always required so much idling? Or was it just that there was always something else to be done? Here, there was nothing. No more messages to check or send. Nothing that needed fixing or managing or cleaning, for now—that was baked into their routine and would only be a waste of supplies. She watched the progress bar move for ten minutes instead. It never stopped, and that was entertaining enough. It was already a third of the way there.

But she just couldn't get over this feeling that there was something better to be doing. It was just a habit, she was sure. Normally, there was something that needed doing. Even recreation was better than doing nothing. But unless she counted sex, there was none of that to be had, either. And besides, she wasn't quite in the mood for that right now, and Corymb was far from able.

The Orion box eventually finished. It felt quick; maybe she had gotten better at waiting, after all. In any case, now that the treatment had been produced, it was only matter of getting Corymb to inhale it. They had empty nasal injectors for just this purpose, though they were intended to be used with “approved medicines", which this was most definitely not. But that didn't mean it wouldn't work.

The theory was good, and she had done this kind of thing a hundred times before—albeit only on tissue samples. But that was still very convincing! The only risk was if it would affect things she hadn't intended, but if she screwed something up, the more likely outcome was that nothing would happen at all. And if the worst came to pass, only Corymb's respiratory microbiome would be affected, which wasn't great, but was still an acceptable and limited risk.

Oryza loaded the treatment into the injector, and opened Corymb's door for what she hoped would be the last time today.

It had taken the rest of the day for Corymb to begin feeling any better. By the next morning he had little more than a fever and headache, he had told her, and after taking a few painkillers he was feeling normal by lunchtime. And then it was like nothing had happened at all; the cabin was back to its sweltering temperature and they were both back to being bored out of their minds. But boring meant uneventful, and compared to yesterday, Oryza was quite content with that.

As she munched on a snack, Corymb went over to the terminal and began working on it. As far as Oryza knew, there was nothing important they needed to be doing on it now.

“What's the weather like?" she asked, her mouth half-full of protein bar.

“Zero bars of pressure. A really high UV index. Probably best to stay indoors today and keep the windows closed."

“That's a shame."

“I mean, we do have a few EVA suits, if you want to risk going for a stroll."

“Hah. Ground control would lose their minds." They both laughed at that. “But really, did you find something to entertain yourself with on there? Only asking because I, too, would like to be entertained."

“You could say that." He tapped a few more times. “I've been thinking… the escape pods all have the black box data from the station, right? That ought to include a fair bit of reactor telemetry."

“You work with reactors, right? That's your specialty?"

“Yup. Computational magnetohydrodynamics."

“Fusion reactor design," she translated.

“Not always. But these days? Basically. I'll probably be the one leading the technical side of the investigation, once we're at a place where we can do that. But it can't hurt to get a head start."

Oryza studied him carefully. It made sense that Corymb would be interested in the data. She certainly shared his desire to get answers. But she also remembered Luynis's response. And while there was no reason Corymb shouldn't look at the data, and there was certainly no way of tampering with the copies aboard each escape pod, for just a moment Oryza imagined Corymb not as a companion, but as a saboteur. He had the know-how to mess with the reactor. If anyone could pull it off, he could.

But the thought evaporated as soon as she had it. She couldn't imagine Corymb doing that. Frankly, she couldn't imagine anyone on the crew sabotaging the reactor. There were potential motivations, maybe, but once she pictured their smiling faces, recalled everyone's shared passion and enthusiasm towards the joint station and everything it represented… she just couldn't see it. Maybe that was naive. But there surely had to be other reasonable explanations for the reactor failure.

“Are you expecting to find anything?" she asked.

“Well, something went wrong, so yes. What exactly that would be, I'm not sure. We've had stable anisotropic fusion reactor designs for decades now, but the station had the largest one we've ever jumped. On paper, that should have been fine, but it hadn't been done before." He pursed his lips. “Still, I wouldn't rule out anything just yet."

He worked at it for a few minutes, tapping and grunting and humming at the screen. Oryza thought he might have even showed more emotion to the terminal than he had towards her.

Corymb's face blanched. He blinked a few times, drifting closer until his nose nearly touched the screen. Then he recoiled as if burned. His hands flashed across the terminal as he initiated a reboot faster than Oryza thought was possible.

The atmosphere was electric, and her scales were tingling from it. “Corymb?"

He was eerily still, mouth agape, transfixed by the blank screen.

“Is everything okay?"

Corymb collected himself, exhaled, and pushed away from the screen. “Yeah, yeah. Sorry," he said, looking warily at the startup logo. “Just a prank… made less funny due to our circumstances."

“How so?"

“It's a bit of a long story."

“Not like I've got anywhere to be."

“Fair." He drummed his fingers on his side. “Okay. But this isn't exactly public information. Not for security reasons, mind you. It's just embarrassing to have a ghost story in official record."

“You realize this only makes me want to hear it more."

“I suppose it would. Okay. I doubt anyone will ask, but if they do, you didn't hear this from me." He paused for her nod of agreement. “All right, here goes.

“This was a few decades ago, on the first ship we sent to Arche: Prometheus-VII. It was a science ship whose main goal was to figure out why there were so many issues with replicating fundamental physics experiments on Arche."

“We had trouble replicating a lot of things," Oryza said. Such was the challenge of learning most of a language from research papers and assorted books alone. There was a wealth of information to be had, but half of it had been inconsistent gibberish. Still, they had done their best and learned quite a bit from it all.

“Right. We figured that it stemmed from a language barrier. It was the kind of thing that would be easier to rectify in-person, and such an expedition would be diplomatically useful as well. So we a small team over with all the necessary equipment to carry out those experiments.

“Everything was working fine before jumping from Sol to Barnard, but after the jump, not so much. The big one was with the three polarizing filter experiment. By adding a third filter between two orthogonal ones, more light is able to pass through the entire system. But of course, you can also do the experiment with one photon at a time, to demonstrate quantum behavior. The photon has a certain probability of making it through all the filters to the other side, depending on the angle of that middle filter.

“Now, this process is entirely random. But the team on Prometheus-VII found they were getting a repeating pattern out of it. That was a common failure mode for their equipment, actually; a six-lightyear jump is quite hot and the splintering is not exactly friendly towards electronics. I only mention this particular experiment with the filters because it'll be relevant in a moment.

“So the team lands on Arche with a bunch of frazzled equipment. But a fair chunk still works as expected, and it's beside the point, anyways, since they're supposed to work with your equipment first. They're all taken on a quick tour and then get to work on the dragon setups. Most of the experimental apparatuses were easily diagnosed, if not fixed. Think stricter temperature control, unintuitive noise sources, and the like.

“Then they get to the experiment with the polarizing filters. That same repeating pattern comes through. But this time, it's being monitored and diagnosed. The same pattern, every few hundred samples or so. Plotting it makes no sense. It's clearly some kind of interference. And then one of the team members—Carlos, actually, who was one of my instructors, and tells this story a lot better than I can—accidentally opens it as a text file.

“The message said 'LEAVENOW', repeated over and over again. As soon as he saw it, that laptop connected to the measurement equipment died. He didn't tell anyone what he thought he saw, figuring it was too much oxygen or gravity or stress. And once they got everything hooked up again, the experiment started working as expected. The whole thing was chalked up to a power surge that at simultaneously broke the laptop and fixed whatever was wrong with the measurement equipment."

Oryza had let herself spin during Corymb's story until she was upside-down, in a lazy kind of focus. “Let me guess—they checked the laptop afterwards, and that 'LEAVENOW' message never existed."

“More like they checked the drive and found it had been completely wiped. And not the cheap way, either. It was secure, full-erasure at the hardware level."

“So, a prank. Or your instructor was losing it."

“Maybe. I'm not done yet, though." He cleared his throat. “So they wrap up. Science was had and all was good, but it was finally time to head home. They get back on the Prometheus, and Carlos remembers that they all had seen that weird pattern from the filter experiment on the ship, too. So he checks that."

Oryza guessed how it would finish: “And finds the message 'LEAVENOW' there, repeated a bunch of times."

Corymb nodded slowly. “I've seen the file. It's official, signed and everything. There was a massive investigation into the software on board the ship, on the laptops, on anything digital that was jumped. Keep in mind, too, that even though this was decades ago, the electronics were still modern. There were provably-secure quantum certificates and everything. End result, we got about as close as humanly possible to verifying that there was no malicious code on the ship. And while that convinced some people that the crew had just made the whole thing up for attention, remember that these were astronauts picked for the first crewed mission to Arche—a first-contact milestone. They wouldn't do that. I've met them all; there's just no way."

Oryza thought on it for a moment. That didn't leave a lot of explanations. But that was assuming it was all true—that the crew didn't invent it, that reviews were done in earnest. It was assuming that Corymb was telling the truth, even. The story was a puzzle, but that didn't make it not a story.

“Well, I don't believe in ghosts," she said. “Especially not ones that can handle a six light-year jump and have memorized character encodings."

Corymb tapped gingerly at the terminal. “I didn't believe in them, either." His voice cracked.

His finger was shaking towards a blank icon on the screen. Oryza moved closer, until she could just about squint and make out the filename: LEAVENOW.