The Journal Entries

"Hello?"

Fezzik raised her head, identified me, looked surprised, and sputtered. "H-- Hi! What are you doing here?"

"Looking for something to do other than genetics. Why?" I glanced around her little laboratory, identifying the parts from four or more different Starksuits lying around. "I was wondering, since you were one of the few people on board who knew combat Stark, if you'd be willing to go a few rounds?"

Before she could answer another voice said, "If she doesn't, I would."

I turned around. The speaker was a Human woman, about 165 centimeters tall, white with black hair that fell about her shoulders in loose, suggestive curls. Her face could be best described as innocent, with pale skin, rounded cheeks and large eyes above a playing smile. Pretty.

"And you are... ?"

"Elizabeth Zofrani. Liz." She stepped forward and held out a hand. I shook it firmly. "I've wanted to meet you for a century, Ken."

"Only that long?" I smiled. I was incredibly grateful that she just used my first name, and oddly surprised that she treated me as if she knew more about me than your average reporter.

"I'm only that old." She smiled again with a mysterious glance that told me she knew more than she wanted to tell me.

"So... would you like to do some hand-to-hand Stark sparring? Do you have your own suit?"

She nodded to both. "It's an older suit, a Stark-4. I assume you have the latest and greatest."

I nodded. "Stark BDE 15," I replied. "With secondary virtual life support."

"Combined with your internals, that must make three layers of protection, not counting all the different kinds of coverage it gives you." She paused. "So, you wanna do a few rounds?"

"Would you like me to take a handicap?"

"You can mimic a Stark-4, right? I'd appreciate that."

We met in one of the unsambo designed for this kind of abuse, a large room with force field projectors designed to protect the walls from two people interested in throwing each other around. She stood across from me in her multisectioned armored, painted white to blend in with the environment she was about to enter, namely the frozen wasteland of Ritacha. I faced her in Battle Dress / Environmental, the colors changing in reflection to the point chosen, namely her, and so to her I was effectively invisible. I was also about twenty times stronger than she was. I ratcheted that down to practice levels, then further down to the practice levels of a Stark-4.

We started with a slow, circling step as I disabled the camouflage unit. I waited for her to start. She did.

It looked like a straightforward charge, an attempt to get one arm under the crotch of the suit and get me down to the ground. I braced for that. What I got instead was a sideswiped dodge that came around the throat, grabbed the other arm, and hauled me off over her head. I went flying across the room, slammed into the opposite wall and fell to the floor. She leapt at me.

Fortunately, the statis fields had managed to absorb most of the impact, and I was barely dazed. I rolled to the left and kicked. I timed badly and missed sweeping her legs out from underneath her.

She dodged on the kickback, leaping over my head as I rolled in that direction. She was all over me-- and while I normally like that, not when I'm in combat! A pair of blows to the chest, one to the head, and I went reeling back. The judge ruled that I had been incapacitated.

She reached down a hand to pull me up. "Are you okay, Ken?"

"I think mostly my pride is wounded," I growled. "I'm sorry. I'm usually much more of a challenge than this."

"Again?" she asked.

"Gimme a minute." I took forty seconds, then nodded. "Ready."

This time, I was better prepared for her akido-style tricks. She didn't try the same swiping attack again, but instead went down low, actually trying a lift. I responded harshly, with a strong blow to the back of the head that slammed her into the pavement. She grunted in pain and the judge immediately registered her as down. "Better," I commented.

"For you, maybe," she growled. "Okay, let's try this again." We again took a minute, then faced off. We were starting to get a better measure of each other. This time we didn't circle at all. Just stared at each other. Waited.

Waited.

I analyzed her stance, position. I looked for any weaknesses. She had adopted a very traditional guard position, one that was traditional for the usual reason-- it worked. She watched me.

I went for it. This time, she was prepared for my offensive. She had apparently figured it was my turn to strike, and she was right. And this time, she took me down easily, a roundhouse elbow to the chest followed by a straight sucker to the upper side sending me skidding across the floor out of control. By the time I had managed to roll into a crouch she had jumped past my own landing point and with a kick sent me down and out.

"Okay," I gasped. "You've proved your point."

"But you got me easily that second time."

"You were overanxious to clinch it," I said. "I knew where we were going long before you came in."

We sparred for quite a while after that, alternating between all-out brawling and careful, planned attacks. In theory, the suit I wore could have picked up a large shuttlecraft and tossed it fifty metres, but with the strength turned way down we were evenly matched in power. Her skills were better than mine, however, and after an hour, the score reflected that difference clearly.

I heard clapping from the doorway. "Bravo, Miss whoever you are. Kick his butt."

I looked up and spotted Nishipo Parzec leaning against the doorway, wearing only a billowy shirt and black silk shorts. "Tails!" I shouted, addressing him by his preferred nickname. "Haven't see you in a while." I shut off the externals for a second, had a brief conversation with Lance, then turned the externals back on just long enough to start undoing the helmet.

He blushed. "Hi, Ken."

"Good to see you," I said as I took off the helmet. "Get this girl some decent armor, would you?"

"Uhm, Ken?" Liz interrupted. "I'm a Terran. I paid for this."

I knew that. I brushed the hair out of my eyes. "Tails, get her some decent armor anyway. SDS ten or better, if we have some lying around."

"Better yet, why don't I give her my old suit of fourteen?" Fezzik asked as she came down from the observation booth. "I've upgraded two stages. It'll take a little retooling of the hardplates-- you're a little shorter than I am, Miss Zofrani-- but I can have that in a day or so. It's more solid armor so it has a higher kinetic survival rating, but it's not as strong as standard fourteen. It has a failure rate of 127 over .125."

Liz blinked. "You guys are kidding, right?"

"Not particularly," I commented. "At least, I wasn't."

"Nor was I," Fezzik said. "We're stuck on this vessel, I have more suits than I know what to do with, and you obviously know what you're doing."

"But-- But-- Stark-4 is nearly five centuries old. It's failure rate is 32 over .110. Taking me up to-- that-- how can I repay that?"

"You don't have to. Consider it a gift. Now, is that suit of Stark mated to anything in a Shirow line?"

She nodded. "Disraeli Mark I."

I didn't recognize the line at all, but Fezzik did. "Woo-hoo, a real antique. Does it still have the reactive armor plating?"

"I replaced it with ARCplate a long time ago."

"A good idea. Want me to take a look inside and see if we can refit it? I'm bored and would like a challenge."

Elizabeth look flustered. The three of us, grins all, were offering her an upgrade that would have probably cost her a half-century's income. "Why are you doing this?"

"Let's just say that I have reasons," I grinned. "It's not like you could use it against us, and a little voice tells me you're a troublesome young spirit at heart. I just like being nice to people like you."

"I-- I can't. There are people in my crew who deserve it more than I do."

"But none of them were willing to come up and challenge us. You're the only person who has just casually walked in here in the two months since we've left Pendor and said, 'Wanna wrestle?'"

Liz's fluster continued. "Nickolai was right about you."

"Nickolai who?" I asked, puzzled.

"Nickolai Dittrich Shigokai."

"You're that Liz?" I asked, surprised. I looked at Nishipo. "I'm telling you, it's a meme. Keep this up and soon Unity will be inherited by the meek. And I'll have no time to myself." I turned back to Liz. "I'm very pleased to meet you at last. I've been waiting as long as you have for this day. Not that I intend anything from it."

"It's not as if you have anything to give me that you haven't given the entire human race. Other than a new suit of powered armor."

"Hey, I do what I can for friends, and the friends of friends that I like, too."

A few hours later, the four of us sat down to dinner in one of the commons rooms. Elizabeth looked around, slightly uncomfortable when she noticed a crew of Terrans sitting at another table, giving her sidelong glances. "What?" I asked.

"Them," she said. "They know something's up."

"Does it bother you?" I asked, "Knowing you have some destiny, somewhere, and that it might not lie with your own kind?"

She looked at me. "I look at you and I don't see someone who's not my own kind. I look at her, at him, and I don't see someone who's not my own kind." She was pointing at Fezzik and Nishipo. "Terra's going through another racist cycle and I don't want to be part of it."

"You're a student, Elizabeth," Nishipo observed. "Universities are full of people who know a lot but are still insecure." He rolled his eyes. "Listen to me. You're older than I am."

"Not by much," I pointed out. "And you're both old enough to know better." I felt a hand on my knee, my left leg. That was where Nishipo was sitting, and I gave him a wink. He smiled back, his muzzle twitching with anticipation. If he was giving me a hint, I was willing to take it. After tossing Elizabeth around for the past hour, I was supposed to be exhausted. Instead, I wanted to ravish someone madly. Nishipo was volunteering.

The more we talked, the more his hand would stray onto my thigh, and the more I would caress his touching arm. It had probably become obvious to the two fems a while back. "I've got to get back to my lab," Fezzik said finally. "Liz, if you want, we can do that fitting now and leave the... boys... alone for a while."

Elizabeth nodded. "I think that would a good idea." They rose together.

"When you two have come back to the real world," Fezzik said with a grin, "Why don't you join us and see what we've done?"

"We'll do that," I said, returning her grin. After they disappeared out of site, Nishipo and I rose and dashed for my place. I hadn't felt like this in weeks! I really just needed his attention, right now.

The door opened, let us in, closed. I grabbed him by the fabric of his shirt, dragged him into the bedroom, tossed him on the bed, and leapt upon him. "I hope you're in the mood to get the stuffing fucked out of you, Tails."

"By you?" he asked. "Anytimmmphh..."

I silenced his reply with a hard, open-mouthed kiss. The world became a hazy place as his tongue attacked mine. I pinned his wrists down as I kissed him, and small, passionate whimpers came from him as we kissed. He tossed his head to get away from the kiss. "You're hot!"

"So are you," I growled. I don't know why I got so hot, but I didn't question it right then. I could feel his erection poking through the fabric of his shorts. I hooked one hand into the waistband and pulled down, tugging out his pale, hard cock. It wasn't very veiny nor the head very pronounced. It was of average size-- a size I like. As my hand closed about his scrotum and squeezed gently, he groaned and squirmed underneath me. "Please... don't hurt me."

"I won't hurt you," I replied. "As long as you give me what I want."

"You, you can have anything you want!"

"Suck," I said, crawling forward and presenting my crotch to his muzzle. Considering that I was fully dressed, that order may have seemed difficult, but Tails managed to tug open the buttons of my fly with his teeth. He jammed his muzzle into the fly, his agile tongue locating my cock and pulling it into his mouth. His face bobbed back and forth and it looked like he was fucking the fly of my jeans with his muzzle. Even better, it felt like heaven. He had me rock hard in less than a full minute.

A hand under his chin, against his throat, pushed him away. "More!" he whimpered as I slowly manhandled him down to the bed. I turned him over onto his belly, his ass jutting up into the air.

"You're such a wanton slut, Tails," I growled, straddling his hips and grinding my cock against the material of his shorts.

"I'm wantin' you," he gasped.

"Good!" I dismounted his body. "Stay!" I ordered. I pulled his shorts down off his ass and over his knees. He helped as much as possible and soon I had a bottomless Vulpin male lying in my bed. His two tails whipped furiously in the air. "Spread."

He spread his legs a little further apart. Not enough for me to get my body between but that wasn't my intention. I knelt behind him, straddling one leg. "I could spank you," I said as I stroked his ass with one hand.

His buttocks tightened at the suggestion, then relaxed. He tossed his head and his tails tossed in time. "I don't like that!"

"I know," I said. I grasped his tails at the base and his whole body went limp. "Please," he begged.

"I will." I knelt over and kissed his asscheek delicately. He moaned. He knew what I wanted. My hands pulled apart the two cheeks with care and looked inside at the rosy pale hole that awaited me. I pressed my face into his cleft and tongued his asshole gently. "Yes," he sighed. 'Oh, yes."

I caressed his asshole with the tip of my tongue. It clenched and relaxed at my straying touch. I felt the subtle ripples of flesh around his sphincter shift and move as I kissed and probed. My tongue dug deeper. My mind spun.

Spicy, musky, musty, fleshy-- there are a dozen cliche's for the taste of a clean manhole and none of them really pull off describing what it does to me. I could inhale deeply and enjoy the smell of masculine pheromones and more all day long, if I could control myself. But sometimes I just can't. I pressed inwards harder, seducing his hole to open, to let my tongue in. He groaned, his body trembling.

My lungs started to burn. I had my whole face pressed between his buttocks, my nose buried in the cleft, and even then it took a few seconds for me to realize I couldn't breathe. I still pressed inwards until my head began to spin with more than lust. His hole tightened around my tongue as I continued, forcing my way in.

I pulled myself away from him and the stale air in my lungs rushed out of me. It took five or six breaths before my mind cleared enough for the next step. I ripped my pants off and tossed them aside onto the floor. Then I pounced on a helpless little fox. "Hi," I whispered into his ear.

"Hi," he said. His ass pressed upwards against my crotch. My cock, already mostly hard, pushed back against his suggestion.

"You want this?" I asked.

"I want you," he replied.

"Then you can have me." I pushed myself up onto my knees and looked down at my intended target. His firm body and tight ass lay still underneath me. He was breathing hard though, anticipating. I always keep a bottle of lubricant on the bedstand and I grabbed it now. Seconds later, I was pressing my cock down into that gorgeous, boyish butt. He moaned as the head of my cock touched his hole and again as it slid past his sphincter and into his ass.

I felt him bear down on my cock, tightening his asshole as I slowly plunged deeper into him. My hips met his ass and I lay down hard against him, trying to get that one extra centimeter into his body.

"Ohhhh..." We both said it in unison. "Okay?" I asked.

"Yessss..." he sighed. "Now..."

I smiled. He couldn't see it. But he could feel what happened next as I slowly withdrew my cock from inside him, then pushed back into him. With my hands I separated his tails apart and let them drape about my thighs as I lay down on top of him, my head next to his, my mouth kissing and licking the nape of his neck. He moaned in time with my thrusts, growing ever rougher as I pinned him down to the bed and fucked his ass.

I slowed to give myself more time and to look at his face. All the muscles there were straining, like the rest of his body, taking and taking what I had to give. "Gods, Ken... it's so good!"

"Well," I said, each word a breath, "I hope you like more!" I thrust my cock into him hard, feeling the slick insides of a man holding and stroking my cock as I turned his body into a piston chamber for my wants. The bed was creaking under the force of our sex. I was going to come soon. He was shifting his body, pressing his hips into the air, forcing my cock down against his prostate gland, pushing me back into more of a kneeling position.

I grabbed his hips and hauled his ass up into the air, pulling him onto his knees with me. Holding onto his pelvis, I jammed myself into his guts, withdrew, repeated my assault. Like the crew of a battering ram, I could imagine the gates to paradise splintering, about to give way. My whole body wound up tight as marching drums as I ravished the handsome mel beneath me, and when I came I let loose a cry of triumph they might have heard in the Captain's quarters.

I looked down at the wreckage of my lust. I opened my hands and Tails slowly fell away from me, collapsing to the bed without a sound. He curled into a ball on his side, and I lay down beside him, wrapping myself around him. "Tails?"

"Fah, that was so... GOOD!" His body trembled as he said it.

"You sure? You're not hurt or anything?"

He let himself take a few deep breaths before answering. "I'll live. Ohmifah."

"You sure?"

"Yes!" His voice sounded like a celebration. "That was wonderful!" He turned around to me, grabbed my head and pulled me to him, kissing me as hard as I had kissed him earlier. "Why can't I get fucked like that all the time?"

"Because we'd all wear out if we fucked like that all the time. Besides, when will I ever get my turn?"

"Oh, I'd give it to you, I guarantee it!" He giggled.

"Gods, Tails, you're gorgeous."

"And you are incredible, Ken."

We lay there, holding one another. It took a while to recover after such an incredible upheaval, but we managed. Soon afterwards, we showered the lube and whatnot from our bodies and headed back out to dinner. I needed to locate P'nyssa and Cordelia. And I wanted to stay in touch with Elizabeth.

As I bid adieu to Tails and watched his lovely two-tailed form disappear down the hallway and onto a SDisk, I felt oddly sad. Pleasures like the ones we shared seem to come along so rarely, and we never have enough time to really explore them. Even when Time seems infinite, memories fade with its passing, and life has a way of intruding.

Still, it had been joyous, and I felt better for it. And if I could find my coimelin or a certain Han, I might have someone to share that joy with.