The Reaper Diaries: Fetch Job, Part 4
04 Dec 2015Michael Wolfe
I woke up to see Kyndi slightly below me, huddled in front of the computer in her new (to her) flannel pajamas, sipping some coffee and munching on a ration. She noticed that I was awake and gestured to the coffee pot that she must have liberated from the ship’s galley while I was still asleep. It was an amazing thing to wake up to.“You sure do love those pajamas, don’t you?”
Kyndi looked down, and then back at me. “I really do. It felt like you were loving ‘em quite a bit, too.”
I sat up and shook my finger at her. “Now, what happens while a man’s asleep can’t be held against-“
“Matt?” Kyndi smiled slightly.
I sighed. “What?”
“I’m just teasing. You were a perfect gentleman.” She giggled. “Well, most of you.”
I shook my head. “I’m getting some coffee and a shower.”
It turned out that there had been a male occupant in the crew quarters, as well. Well, we’re all just chickens in the coop after so long, right? Luckily, it wasn’t a big deal to wear another man’s t-shirt after the kind of day we had. The shower wasn’t bad, either. I felt like I was entitled to a long one.
Knock knock knock. “No funny business in there, Matt. I want a shower, too!”
“Ok, fine, I’ll hurry.”
To my surprise, I saw the door open, and there was Kyndi-
Totally goddamn naked.
I actually forgot to breathe. She stepped in with me, and started to wet down her hair. I hadn’t budged an inch, so she turned to face me.
“Can I still trust you to be a gentleman?”
I still hadn’t recovered my powers of speech, so I just nodded. Kyndi smiled. “Good. Then hand me the soap.”
Wordlessly, I handed it to her. I didn’t dare look down. “I, uh- I think I’d better get dressed.”
She turned again and giggled as the suds started running down her body. “Let me guess- ‘you’ll be in your bunk’?”
What was there to even say to that? Without a word, I opened the door and stepped back into the crew quarters.
Behind the door, I could hear Kyndi laughing.
“Storm’s letting up.” Kyndi was dressed in her atmo suit again, sipping another cup of coffee in front of the terminal.
“About damn time.” I had been trying my best to interest myself in some big game hunting magazines that were stuffed in a compartment by the top bunk. It was pretty dull stuff for someone who hunts people for a living.
I jumped down from the bunk and started getting back into my atmo suit. “Before we check out of the Hotel Derelique, let’s see if there’s a workshop or something. We might be needing a few tools.”
Kyndi was gathering up a few things in a backpack- the artifact, a couple spare oxygen canisters, and the ID of the pilot we had found.
“What the hell for?”
I shrugged and gestured outside. “We just sat through a day and a half of ice-storm. Our ships are probably a couple of pointy ice cubes by now. Plus, we might have to do some digging just to get out of here!”
Kyndi pulled a ‘not bad’ face and nodded. “Well, you had to have a good idea sooner or later. Pickaxes and blow-torches?”
I smiled. “You read my mind.”
Finding tools wasn't difficult, not with the power on again. Before long, we found a tiny workshop by the engines. What was left of them, anyway. So, I brought a pickaxe, Kyndi a shovel, and both of us donned a tool belt with some handheld plasma torches.
“You ready to head back?” I was just slipping the backback on over my atmo suit.
“I’ve been ready ever since we found that little alien toy.”
I nodded and pointed to a terminal. “Want to shut ‘er down? No sense leaving the lights on.”
Sighing, Kyndi walked over and started to kill the auxiliary power that had sustained us through the night. “I bet you were such a good little boy growing up, weren’t you?”
I shrugged as the lights started to go out. “No complaints about my childhood.”
Kyndi smiled bitterly. “Well, that’s real sweet. At least someone in the ‘verse can say that.”
I raised my eyebrows. “Something you need to talk about?”
She walked by me, striding down the corridor with purpose. “Not with you, I don’t. Now let’s get the hell out of here.”
The walk back wasn’t nearly as terrible as I remembered. Yeah, I was weighed down a little more, but something about being lucky to have made it through the night made my burdens pretty dang bearable.
I’d been right about our ships being ice cubes, too. They were side by side, covered in filthy rock-encrusted ice. I wasn’t worried about damage apart from loose sediment getting into the engine nacelles- but that wasn’t anything a filter change couldn’t fix once we got back to Cartmill City.
“I guess we could clear the access ramp seams so that it'll at least lower.”
Kyndi had a totally disgusted look on her face. “Right now, I would let someone take a beam laser to my ship just to get this crap off my hull.”
I chuckled. “That’s saying something.” I held up my pickaxe. “My ship or yours?”
My partner looked at me skeptically. “I think I’ll let you ruin yours first.”
Getting the ice off wasn’t actually so bad. Making a trench around the seam of a ship’s entrance wasn’t difficult, and all you had to do to get to your ship controls was be careful with the torch when melting away the snow around it. The ships themselves were fine. Their hulls were reinforced, and the canopy glass could take direct autocannon rounds without cracking (to a degree, at least), so a little bit of rock and ice flying around didn’t even scratch them.
It wasn’t difficult work, just hard work. Despite Kyndi being in better overall shape than me, we were both huffing and puffing pretty badly by the time I triumphantly hit the controls to lower The Professor’s ramp.
I walked into my ship’s pilot cabin, dropped the backpack, and collapsed onto my bed, not even caring that I was dirtying the blankets with my filthy atmo suit. For about ten minutes, I just laid there, happy to not be swinging a pickaxe.
Then, my communicator beeped. It was Kyndi.
<Ship still warming up. Want some company?>
She still wasn’t sick of me? That was a pleasant surprise.
I took a look around the pilot’s cabin. No messes, bathroom was clean, I had a few beers in my fridge- sure. I could entertain.
<come right in>
A few minutes later, I heard a knock on the door. I opened it, and Kyndi strolled in, a small bag hanging on her arm. She took a look around with her hands on her hips.
“Well, it looks nice, but it ain’t got much personality.” She smiled. “Kinda like you.”
I shook my head. “I don’t know why I keep thinking you’ll be nice to me.”
Her smile grew just a smidge. “Well, that’s kind of why I’m here. I know I’m kind of a smartass sometimes, but- I really do appreciate everything you did.”
She took my hand. “So, I thought maybe we could take some time and celebrate a little. Just you and me. Before we get back on the road, you know?”
The hell does this woman have cooked up?
“Celebrate, huh?”
She smiled seductively. “Yeah. But, uh- you’ll need to lose that atmo suit. Think you can do that for me, flyboy?”
I smiled back. “I reckon I can.”
By the time I was finished stowing the dingy atmo suit, Kyndi had stripped down herself. All she was wearing was pair of black boy shorts, a black camisole, and a smile. She patted the bunk bed. “I still think you’re wearing too much. Lay down here on your stomach. You look like you could use a backrub.”
Stripping off the last of my clothes, I laid down on my bunk, not even minding the leftover grime against my skin. Almost immediately, I felt something warm and wet drip on my back.
“It’s almond oil. Brought it with me in my bag. I figured you wouldn’t mind.“
Her hands began to work in the oil into my back with skill and gentleness. It felt amazing, all the more so because, well- it was Kyndi. I felt her knead the knots out of my back, by neck, my scalp… and then I felt her sit on top of me, over my buttocks. Something was different. It was smooth, but didn’t feel like fabric against my skin, so I looked and-
“I figured there was no harm, since you’d seen it all before, right?” Kyndi was now wearing only the smile. I smiled and glanced up at her.
“You might be surprised.”
Her mouth opened in a wide smile. “So- you really did avert your eyes in the shower?”
I just smiled and laid back down. Her hands resumed their magic. “You really are a gentleman, aren’t you?”
Stroke by stroke, Kyndi continued rubbing the oil into my tired muscles. I felt her lean forward, breasts touching against my back, mouth inches away from my ear.
“Pretty soon, I’m going to make this whole thing worth the effort. You just relax and hold still, ok?”
I smiled and nodded with my eyes closed. Behind me, I heard the rustling of fabric as Kyndi retrieved something from her bag. Hell, it’s already been worth it, even without the reward.
Kyndi pushed a strange-feeling object against my spine. I couldn’t tell what it was, but it felt like it was cupped in her hand. She slowly moved it between my shoulder blades, pushed harder, and-
ZZZZZZZZZZOT!
My entire body convulsed uncontrollably. It felt like fire was radiating out from where Kyndi had pushed the mysterious object. It lasted for only a few seconds, but I felt completely drained after it was done. I wanted to get up, grab Kyndi, and demand to know what she had done, but I couldn’t move.
I. Couldn’t. Move.
But I could feel. Her body weight disappeared as she got off of me, hopped off the bunk, and squatted down to meet my panicked gaze.
She was smiling the same smile as when she had agreed that I wasn’t being paid enough, but more. For a moment, she just looked mockingly into my eyes.
You fucking bitch.
“Of course, I meant that it was about to be worth my effort.”
I couldn’t move, but I could glare. She twisted her face into a pout and put a finger over my lips.
“Oh, don’t be like that, Matty Matt! You’re acting like you’re the first guy to ever fall for a pretty face and a tight ass. You didn’t really think that you hooked a partner for a measly twenty grand, did you?” Kyndi smiled and got up, walking towards the other end of the room. Normally, it was a view I would have relished. Right now, I was just seeing red. She removed the artifact from the backpack and held it aloft, admiring it.
“I'm in LHS-3005 for the same reason you are- to find this damn thing! Except my client is offering triple the reward that yours is. You’ve got to work on your negotiating skills, Matty! And when I saw you there, holo of that artifact on display for the whole ‘verse to see, I just knew I had the perfect rube to make things go easy for me!”
Kyndi re-packed the artifact and started to get dressed, shaking her head. “You know, plan A was to just put a bullet through your head at this point. But when you came through for me on my suit yesterday, I started to reconsider. And then, when you proved to be an honest-to-God gentleman, well- I just started feeling awful about the thought of doing you in. Especially in light of what I’d been doing to you the whole time.”
She reached into her bag, walked back up, and dangled a small vial of purplish-red liquid in front of my face.
“Pheromones, Matty. Custom-made for my body’s PH, and double the usual dosage. Odorless, tasteless- and handy for persuading a man do whatever the hell I want- and all I have to do is smile and wiggle my rear.” She grinned triumphantly. “It’s why you’ve been feeling so hot and bothered these past few days. And still you resisted making a move. Even with me pressed up against you all night. Even in the shower.”
She tossed the vial back into the bag. “Impressive, Matty. Very impressive. Most men try to get my clothes off within an hour. Half an hour, if I’m wearing the perfume. But you-” She shook her head. “You’re something special. And you really are kind of sweet, in that noble idiot sort of way. So instead of a bullet, you got the stunner. Don’t worry. The effects start to wear off after a few hours.”
By now, she was fully dressed, with the backpack containing the artifact slung over her shoulder. She looked back at me.
“I understand that you’re angry. I don’t even hold it against you! But since I like having a pretty good head start against potential stalkers”- she picked up the bolter carbine from off of the wall rack, along with the spare clip- “I think I’m going to see what happens when I empty some tungsten slugs into your engine exhaust. One clip per engine ought to do it.”
My eyes widened and I tried to will my lips and tongue to form words. The best I came up with was hnnnnngh.
Kyndi walked over, gun in hand.
“I guess this is goodbye, Matty Matt. I’ll be sure to shut the door behind me. It’s cold outside, and, well-”- she patted my naked buttocks- “your ass is showing. Tah-tah now!”
From outside, I could hear the ramp retracting to its closed position. Then, about thirty seconds later, I could hear the staccato ting ting ting ting ting ting of my bolter carbine being fired.
<Module malfunction>
Yes. Thank you, Betty.
Tingtingtingtingtingtingting.
<Module Malfunction>
Thank you again, Betty.
So there I was, naked, on my stomach- ass exposed for all the ‘verse to see.
Well, you HAD wanted to end up naked with her, hadn’t you?
A few minutes later, I heard the sound of Kyndi's Diamondback powering up its thrusters. A minute after that, I heard it lift off and fly away. I still couldn't move a muscle, and I was starting to drool out of the side of my mouth. The only thing I could do was wait. Wait, and stare at the door that Kyndi had walked out of with the alien artifact. My thoughts drifted to what my father would say to me right now.
Son, there’s only one thing worse than not getting what you want: getting it.