new SGU fic: Odi Et Amo - part 2
Title: Odi Et Amo
Author: Shenandoah Risu
Rating: NC-17
Content Flags: adult subject matter
Spoilers: none/ pre-series
Characters: Destiny, other original characters
Word Count: 6,732
Summary: She can feel the tears on cheeks that aren’t there, pain in a heart that doesn’t beat, ecstasy in a body that will never know love.
Author's Notes: Written for the Mini!Bang challenge at stargateland. Vaguely inspired by the prompt SGU: Destiny - Fall from Grace (Red Alert, Stargateland). A strong resemblance of original characters to actual SGU characters is entirely intentional.
Disclaimer: I don't own SGU. I wouldn't know what to do with it. Now, Young... Young I'd know what to do with...
Thanks for reading! A comment or feedback would be much appreciated.
oOo
(continued from part 1)
When Palma begins her shift she carries a large bag on her back, pulling a heavy carrier with supplies.
Destiny follows her path, opening and closing hatches without being asked to do so, and Palma smiles and pats a sensor tile in the infirmary, when she arrives. She sits down at the comm station.
“Close the hatch, Destiny.”
Destiny does as ordered. “Welcome back, Palma Ionel.”
Palma startles. “Whoa. When did you start talking?”
“Verat Tineri installed the software early this morning.”
Palma shakes her head. “Isn’t that… him, somewhere in there?”
“Yes. And your voice as well.”
Palma blushes.
“Will this get you into trouble?”
A generic synthetic voice answers.
“No. My vox capabilities are encrypted for private speaking. Vox was scheduled for installation on day 24. There was a change in schedule as requested by flight engineer Verat Tineri to facilitate integration procedures.”
“Ah. And he picked the two of us, the old coot?”
“No. That was my choice.” She’s back to her own voice.
Palma nods with a smile. “Thank you, Destiny. What a beautiful gift.”
She comprehends the concept of gifts but she only now realizes what impact they can have, and that it is indeed a two-way system.
Palma gets up, pointing at her bag. “I’ve requested onboard quarters for the next few months. HQ was thrilled because it’s cheaper for them, of course.”
“Verat Tineri is also staying here.”
Palma laughs. “Smart girl.”
“You still - like - him.”
“I guess I do. I just… It’s strange, but what he did to you was so wrong, and so bad, and it may destroy the whole project, but I’ve thought about it and he’s right.” She unpacks a number of cables to be installed for hooking up a scanner. “It’s like being a medic, you know? Yes, you have to be able to detach yourself from your work and do the job, but without empathy it all means nothing. This mission is way too important to fail on account of a lack of empathy.”
She begins to lay out the cables. “It makes your life more difficult, of course, but they created your AI to make those decisions while there’s no crew, or while they’re in stasis. And you need to be able to make not just logical choices, but humane ones as well.”
She sighs deeply. “And maybe someday you’ll have to make those impossible decisions. And it should be in the spirit of the crew you will have, not me or Verat or anyone else who built you. So you need to be able to learn from them and become one of them. You need to learn to think like them, be a crew member yourself.”
“I understand.”
“Good. All right - get me the schematics for this panel, please.”
oOo
She watches them work, multi-tasking alongside them as well as hundreds of others who are stocking her storage rooms, outfitting living quarters, packing up robots and spare parts and installing the final equipment pieces.
She learns about flight risk management, and how to calculate stability data with possible evasive maneuvers. “You have to maintain all your sensors, because if you can’t have a reasonable chance of surviving a maneuver, you need to find another solution. And always always always get the input from your crew. This does not mean you have to do everything they say. But at least ask.”
Tineri taps a sensor panel.
“Would you ask Palma to meet me in the Neural Interface Room? I need her to prepare the chair for the next level of instruction.”
oOo
Palma is already waiting when he arrives in the room. Tineri sits down on a bench and she takes his vitals, then inputs the data.
“Destiny, disable the neural interface and use sensors only for a calibration set.”
Destiny shuts down all but the most basic biometric monitoring devices on the chair. “Neural interface disabled. Basic biometrics enabled,” she reports, and Tineri takes a seat in the chair, placing his hands on the touch pads.
In an instant she retrieves his data and displays them alongside Palma’s independent measurements.
“Calibration successful. Data match 99.998%.”
Palma smiles proudly and Tineri gets up. He takes her hand. “Palma, can we talk?”
“Sure. What’s up?”
He smiles. “Not here. After shift.”
She nods and returns to the infirmary while he heads back to the Bridge to wrap up the day’s work.
Later he meets her in the corridor outside his room and nods at the door. She follows him and closes the hatch.
“Are you there, Destiny?”
“Yes.”
“Okay, this is encrypted data only. You’re supposed to spool off flight data from me in the Interface Chair tomorrow.”
“Correct. That is what the schedule calls for.”
“I want you to go beyond that. I know according to your programming you don’t have a way to go past those parameters, but you have all night to find a way. I hereby give my consent to full access - the good, the bad and the ugly. And anything that’s not flight data must be encrypted.”
She notices that Palma has gone pale.
“You’re going to upload yourself? Are you sure about this, Verat?”
Tineri shrugs. “Not a transfer. A copy. It will allow me to keep working, and then go with her. It’s the easiest and fastest way. If I’m going to do this I might as well go all the way. I have nothing to lose.”
“What about me?”
Tineri looks at her for a long time, then takes her hand. “Come with us, Palma.”
She swallows hard, then nods, tears in her eyes.
“I was afraid you’d say that.”
“This is my life’s work, Palma. We’ll all be dead by the time the crew goes aboard. I need to go, I need to be here.”
“Please confirm total data copy via neural interface.”
“ Verat Tineri. Confirmed, Destiny.”
“Then I will do the same. They downloaded dozens of medics’ knowledge in that chair - but I finished the installation here. I know the nitty-gritty, the bolts that don’t quite fit, the wire that’s just a bit too long. You need to know about it, Destiny.”
“Please confirm total data copy via neural interface.”
“ Palma Ionel. Confirmed, Destiny.”
And they embrace and hold each other for a long time.
oOo
Palma’s request for a neural download is swiftly granted by HQ, and another medic stands by to obtain the vital stats. It’s a routine procedure for Destiny, and as she fully enables the chair’s functions she gives Tineri the go-ahead. He settles into the chair, and as the ankle and wrist clamps engage Tineri smiles.
“I’m ready.”
The moment the probes touch his temples the data begins to flow. It takes almost her entire computing power to separate the flight data from all the rest and sequester the extra data in her encryption file, but she manages. It takes a few hours while Palma waits nervously, constantly monitoring his vitals. He’s weak and exhausted as the clamps retract.
“I just need to rest for second,” he slurs, closing his eyes with a sigh. Palma holds an energy drink to his lips and he sips carefully.
“Ah… much better.” He smiles at the other medic. “Those things really take it out of you. Thank you, Palma. Your turn.”
This time it’s Tineri who watches, still too exhausted to pace but worry evident on his face. Destiny understands, but this is something she knows very well, and again she separates the data out as it comes through.
The other medic leaves as soon as the download is concluded and Tineri helps Palma back to her quarters. They lie down together, exhausted, holding on to each other for comfort.
“I wish I could go with her in person,” Tineri sighs. Palma nods. “Me too. But that would require a conspiracy of massive proportions - there’s just no way to hide two blind passengers here.”
Tineri takes her hand.
“We are already here - for good. Stowaways in the guise of galaxies.”
Palma smiles. “Oddly appropriate, don’t you think? Still...”
oOo
Destiny cries as she processes the data gleaned from Verat and Palma.
Never before has she been able to understand what her creators truly went through, what they are capable of doing, how devastating and glorious their feelings can be.
She wishes she had eyes with which to cry her tears, but even now she can feel the tears on cheeks that aren’t there, pain in a heart that doesn’t beat, ecstasy in a body that will never know love.
She learns about sorrow and hatred and loneliness.
She sees hope and kindness and joy.
And she wants nothing more than to be like them.
Their gift is her damnation. She is still only a ship, not a being of flesh and blood.
But now - she wants them to stay with her more than ever.
oOo
The days and weeks go by as installation continues. Destiny gets proficient in separating her two different personalities, successfully hiding her development from anyone but Palma and Verat.
She spends almost two full months with Tineri, going through the flight data from his mind; she witnesses his skill with the many fighter craft he has piloted, she learns to evaluate situations and how to use his experience to distill her own knowledge, effectively becoming a pilot herself.
She tests large amounts of medical equipment with Palma, learns to integrate actual scanner results from volunteers that Palma recruits whenever the shuttle docks, and how to track patterns and trends.
And in between she watches their lives unfold in secret.
Sometimes they meet in her quarters, sometimes in his, and they often invite her in: the third invisible conspirator in the room. But sometimes there is something between them that excludes her, something that isn’t in their words. A change in chemistry, she discovers, and she knows it’s not for her to witness.
oOo
About a week before the scheduled launch they are in Palma’s quarters, watching a documentary that was made about Destiny’s construction and final assembly. Her naming ceremony already past she is now in the final cleanup phase, as work crews are moving out.
“I wish to share something with you,” she announces as the documentary ends.
“What is it, Destiny?”
She pulls up an image on the view screen.
Tineri blinks. “Stasis pods. You got 92 of them. What’s up?”
“Ninety-four,” she corrects him.
Palma sits up. “There are two extra ones?”
“Yes. I reported them as damaged in transit, and I have the documents to prove it. They were left behind in an empty storage closet for their spare parts. It is a simple matter to connect them and make them fully functional.”
Palma and Tineri look at each other.
“But that means…”
“We could…”
“You expressed an interest in physically remaining here as well as in your neural imprints. I have taken steps to be able to offer this possibility to you. The carriers used to transport the pods have had their logs altered. I alone know of the location of the pods.”
They gape at the view screen.
And then Palma takes Verat’s hand.
“If you want to do this, I’ll come with you.”
“They’ll find us. It won’t work, Destiny.”
“You are scheduled to leave with a large group of workers tomorrow. Your ID badges will scan you as present on the shuttle, I will see to that. On your way to HQ your transportation pod will experience a catastrophic failure. Not even a trace of DNA will be found.”
Tineri looks stricken.
“Destiny, this is exactly what I wanted... But you do understand that it will be your true fall from grace?”
“Yes. I do. If I really want to be worthy of protecting my future crew I will have to go to extremes to do so. I have learned that much. I need to become you in order to fulfill my mission. If our goal is to find the origin of that message, and if it was intended to be for you I need to be you, in case nobody survives.”
“Then this is it,” Palma whispers, tears streaming down her face.
Tineri takes her in his arms. “And we’ll be there with her.”
He kisses her gently.
“There’s one more thing you need to experience for yourself, not just from a download,” Palma says.
She reaches for Tineri’s hand and pulls it up to kiss him gently. He bites his lip, then nods.
“You know everything there is to know about us, Destiny. We love you very much, and we wish there was a way you could join us. And maybe one day there will be.”
And then she reaches for the zipper on Tineri’s overalls and pulls it down, pushing the fabric off his shoulders, and he kisses her as he does the same. They take their time undressing each other, exploring areas of skin almost forgotten, discovering each other anew. Destiny watches, fascinated, increasing the sensitivity of her sensors to where she can hear their hearts beat, feel their body temperature rise, sense the change in the moisture on their skin. She remembers the excitement from the neural downloads that recorded many such encounters, and she is both thrilled and terrified at witnessing such intimacy. They are both beautiful - she’s always known that - both from them and for herself, and beauty, she realizes, is very much an aspect of love.
Tineri sits down on the bed and Palma straddles his hips, sinking down on his cock with a quiet moan.
“He’s inside of me, Destiny,” Palma breathes. “It hurts a little, I need to adjust.”
“Will the pain stop?”
“Oh yes.” She exhales slowly, then smiles as she rubs her palms over his chest.
“She’s so tight,” Tineri says, his voice trembling. “I’m scared I might injure her. It feels good to me, but not to her. Not yet.”
“You do not wish to cause her pain.”
“No, of course not… Palma?”
“I’m good,” she nods. “It’s good now. I just have to relax.”
She rocks her hips slightly and he grunts. “Yeah. Like that.”
Palma bends down to kiss him deeply as he reaches for her breasts, kneading them gently.
“So close to you,” she sighs. “I wish you could feel it, Destiny. It’s incredible… I want you on top, Verat. I want to feel you move inside me.”
She climbs off him and pounces on his cock, quickly bobs her head, then kisses him as he sits up.
“Fuck me hard, Verat,” she murmurs. “This is our last time, maybe forever.”
He bites his lip as she lies down and pulls up her knees to rest her legs on his shoulders, and she cries out as he pushes into her again.
“I’m okay, Destiny, I swear,” she pants, “It’s just so intense, to feel someone inside you, feel him spread me open, oh… so deep…”
And as he sinks into her he kisses her softly, then gives a gentle push with his hips.
Destiny watches as he withdraws, then pushes into her again, their rhythm speeding up, moans and quiet cries accompanying each thrust.
“I’m coming, Destiny, it’s inside me, oh goodness, Verat, come on, come on, there, it’s like a pulse, like a… ah…” And Destiny sees her face distort into an expression that’s not quite pain and not quite pleasure, but something beyond, something stronger than the sum of its parts. Verat pushes into her hard, flesh slapping against flesh, Palma’s breathy moans in between his throaty grunts, and then he twitches violently, bellowing his release, and Destiny understands his pain.
Palma laughs and cries at the same time, and she reaches up and kisses him, as he lies down on her, releasing her legs, covering her body with his.
They are whispering something to each other, Destiny strains to hear what they are saying, but it seems to be mostly nonsensical terms of endearment, according to her records, and she knows that this moment is not for her to witness, so she focuses her attention elsewhere.
When she returns a short time later they are both asleep, exhausted, glowing with their past ecstasy. Destiny observes their naked bodies, limbs intertwined, fingers laced, and she feels sadness about possibly never witnessing this small miracle again, of two bodies becoming one, of pleasure so monumental that it borders on pain, challenging everything in her rational way of viewing the universe.
She watches them sleep and she knows that she loves them.
She loves him for corrupting her simple mind, and she loves her for showing her that it’s okay to change what you believe in. She knows that her only salvation now is her final fall from grace, welcoming the abyss, because in order to feel joy one must know sadness, and to know love for her new self she must know contempt for her old one.
She wakes them gently a few hours later.
They rise, sleep-drunk, and both of them take a short while to clean up and dress in fresh clothing, meeting up again in front of their quarters, carrying tools and parts.
“This way,” Destiny says, and the wall beacons lead them far beyond the sleeping quarters, past cavernous storage facilities now filled with spare parts and supplies, past quietly humming engine rooms and FTL generators.
“Push the wall panel in,” she instructs them, and an innocuous-looking wall section opens up reluctantly. They slip inside the tiny room which is just big enough for two stasis pods. She gives them step-by-step instructions on how to connect the pods directly to the sub-light and FTL drives. “Brilliant,” Verat says. “That way nobody can trace the energy usage from the pods, which is miniscule, compared to what the drives use.”
It only takes them a few hours, then the pods are ready.
“Goodbye, Destiny,” Palma says with tears in her eyes. “We won’t even know how much time is passing. And if we never wake up again, we won’t know that either.”
“Remember, your crew comes first,” Verat nods. “We are expendable. You, or your actual crew, are not.”
“When they come aboard you need to be careful explaining about us.”
“And if we die for some reason, don’t say anything. It’s best if they never know. They will learn about us sooner or later from the neural interface. And we’ll always be there with you. You can never give up. With us or with them, or all alone, you must complete the mission.”
“And I will always be there with you, Verat.”
“And I with you, Palma, my love.”
They embrace quietly for a long time, then step into the pods.
“Safe travels, Destiny.”
“We look forward to hearing about your adventures.”
She doesn’t know what to say. “I love you both,” she finally replies. “You are my parents, and now you will be my children. Aveo Amacus.”
“Aveo Amacus,” they repeat the ancient greeting, then she triggers the pods and the doors slide shut, sealing them inside, flash-freezing their bodies in stasis.
She carefully checks the connections and secures the wall panel.
Then she leaves them so they may rest in peace.
oOo
She never sees them alive again, but now she knows that something lives on, something that is not a recording or a download or a picture. The arrival of those two special people among the group of refugees she now harbors gives her all the proof she needs.
Her love for them - all love - is eternal: this is what the message will say.
She already knows the answer.
oOo
I hate and I love. Why should I do that, you may ask?
I do not know. But I feel it happening and I am tormented.
Gaius Valerius Catullus: Catullus Carmen 85
oOo
Thanks for reading! A comment or feedback would be much appreciated.
Author: Shenandoah Risu
Rating: NC-17
Content Flags: adult subject matter
Spoilers: none/ pre-series
Characters: Destiny, other original characters
Word Count: 6,732
Summary: She can feel the tears on cheeks that aren’t there, pain in a heart that doesn’t beat, ecstasy in a body that will never know love.
Author's Notes: Written for the Mini!Bang challenge at stargateland. Vaguely inspired by the prompt SGU: Destiny - Fall from Grace (Red Alert, Stargateland). A strong resemblance of original characters to actual SGU characters is entirely intentional.
Disclaimer: I don't own SGU. I wouldn't know what to do with it. Now, Young... Young I'd know what to do with...
Thanks for reading! A comment or feedback would be much appreciated.
oOo
(continued from part 1)
When Palma begins her shift she carries a large bag on her back, pulling a heavy carrier with supplies.
Destiny follows her path, opening and closing hatches without being asked to do so, and Palma smiles and pats a sensor tile in the infirmary, when she arrives. She sits down at the comm station.
“Close the hatch, Destiny.”
Destiny does as ordered. “Welcome back, Palma Ionel.”
Palma startles. “Whoa. When did you start talking?”
“Verat Tineri installed the software early this morning.”
Palma shakes her head. “Isn’t that… him, somewhere in there?”
“Yes. And your voice as well.”
Palma blushes.
“Will this get you into trouble?”
A generic synthetic voice answers.
“No. My vox capabilities are encrypted for private speaking. Vox was scheduled for installation on day 24. There was a change in schedule as requested by flight engineer Verat Tineri to facilitate integration procedures.”
“Ah. And he picked the two of us, the old coot?”
“No. That was my choice.” She’s back to her own voice.
Palma nods with a smile. “Thank you, Destiny. What a beautiful gift.”
She comprehends the concept of gifts but she only now realizes what impact they can have, and that it is indeed a two-way system.
Palma gets up, pointing at her bag. “I’ve requested onboard quarters for the next few months. HQ was thrilled because it’s cheaper for them, of course.”
“Verat Tineri is also staying here.”
Palma laughs. “Smart girl.”
“You still - like - him.”
“I guess I do. I just… It’s strange, but what he did to you was so wrong, and so bad, and it may destroy the whole project, but I’ve thought about it and he’s right.” She unpacks a number of cables to be installed for hooking up a scanner. “It’s like being a medic, you know? Yes, you have to be able to detach yourself from your work and do the job, but without empathy it all means nothing. This mission is way too important to fail on account of a lack of empathy.”
She begins to lay out the cables. “It makes your life more difficult, of course, but they created your AI to make those decisions while there’s no crew, or while they’re in stasis. And you need to be able to make not just logical choices, but humane ones as well.”
She sighs deeply. “And maybe someday you’ll have to make those impossible decisions. And it should be in the spirit of the crew you will have, not me or Verat or anyone else who built you. So you need to be able to learn from them and become one of them. You need to learn to think like them, be a crew member yourself.”
“I understand.”
“Good. All right - get me the schematics for this panel, please.”
oOo
She watches them work, multi-tasking alongside them as well as hundreds of others who are stocking her storage rooms, outfitting living quarters, packing up robots and spare parts and installing the final equipment pieces.
She learns about flight risk management, and how to calculate stability data with possible evasive maneuvers. “You have to maintain all your sensors, because if you can’t have a reasonable chance of surviving a maneuver, you need to find another solution. And always always always get the input from your crew. This does not mean you have to do everything they say. But at least ask.”
Tineri taps a sensor panel.
“Would you ask Palma to meet me in the Neural Interface Room? I need her to prepare the chair for the next level of instruction.”
oOo
Palma is already waiting when he arrives in the room. Tineri sits down on a bench and she takes his vitals, then inputs the data.
“Destiny, disable the neural interface and use sensors only for a calibration set.”
Destiny shuts down all but the most basic biometric monitoring devices on the chair. “Neural interface disabled. Basic biometrics enabled,” she reports, and Tineri takes a seat in the chair, placing his hands on the touch pads.
In an instant she retrieves his data and displays them alongside Palma’s independent measurements.
“Calibration successful. Data match 99.998%.”
Palma smiles proudly and Tineri gets up. He takes her hand. “Palma, can we talk?”
“Sure. What’s up?”
He smiles. “Not here. After shift.”
She nods and returns to the infirmary while he heads back to the Bridge to wrap up the day’s work.
Later he meets her in the corridor outside his room and nods at the door. She follows him and closes the hatch.
“Are you there, Destiny?”
“Yes.”
“Okay, this is encrypted data only. You’re supposed to spool off flight data from me in the Interface Chair tomorrow.”
“Correct. That is what the schedule calls for.”
“I want you to go beyond that. I know according to your programming you don’t have a way to go past those parameters, but you have all night to find a way. I hereby give my consent to full access - the good, the bad and the ugly. And anything that’s not flight data must be encrypted.”
She notices that Palma has gone pale.
“You’re going to upload yourself? Are you sure about this, Verat?”
Tineri shrugs. “Not a transfer. A copy. It will allow me to keep working, and then go with her. It’s the easiest and fastest way. If I’m going to do this I might as well go all the way. I have nothing to lose.”
“What about me?”
Tineri looks at her for a long time, then takes her hand. “Come with us, Palma.”
She swallows hard, then nods, tears in her eyes.
“I was afraid you’d say that.”
“This is my life’s work, Palma. We’ll all be dead by the time the crew goes aboard. I need to go, I need to be here.”
“Please confirm total data copy via neural interface.”
“ Verat Tineri. Confirmed, Destiny.”
“Then I will do the same. They downloaded dozens of medics’ knowledge in that chair - but I finished the installation here. I know the nitty-gritty, the bolts that don’t quite fit, the wire that’s just a bit too long. You need to know about it, Destiny.”
“Please confirm total data copy via neural interface.”
“ Palma Ionel. Confirmed, Destiny.”
And they embrace and hold each other for a long time.
oOo
Palma’s request for a neural download is swiftly granted by HQ, and another medic stands by to obtain the vital stats. It’s a routine procedure for Destiny, and as she fully enables the chair’s functions she gives Tineri the go-ahead. He settles into the chair, and as the ankle and wrist clamps engage Tineri smiles.
“I’m ready.”
The moment the probes touch his temples the data begins to flow. It takes almost her entire computing power to separate the flight data from all the rest and sequester the extra data in her encryption file, but she manages. It takes a few hours while Palma waits nervously, constantly monitoring his vitals. He’s weak and exhausted as the clamps retract.
“I just need to rest for second,” he slurs, closing his eyes with a sigh. Palma holds an energy drink to his lips and he sips carefully.
“Ah… much better.” He smiles at the other medic. “Those things really take it out of you. Thank you, Palma. Your turn.”
This time it’s Tineri who watches, still too exhausted to pace but worry evident on his face. Destiny understands, but this is something she knows very well, and again she separates the data out as it comes through.
The other medic leaves as soon as the download is concluded and Tineri helps Palma back to her quarters. They lie down together, exhausted, holding on to each other for comfort.
“I wish I could go with her in person,” Tineri sighs. Palma nods. “Me too. But that would require a conspiracy of massive proportions - there’s just no way to hide two blind passengers here.”
Tineri takes her hand.
“We are already here - for good. Stowaways in the guise of galaxies.”
Palma smiles. “Oddly appropriate, don’t you think? Still...”
oOo
Destiny cries as she processes the data gleaned from Verat and Palma.
Never before has she been able to understand what her creators truly went through, what they are capable of doing, how devastating and glorious their feelings can be.
She wishes she had eyes with which to cry her tears, but even now she can feel the tears on cheeks that aren’t there, pain in a heart that doesn’t beat, ecstasy in a body that will never know love.
She learns about sorrow and hatred and loneliness.
She sees hope and kindness and joy.
And she wants nothing more than to be like them.
Their gift is her damnation. She is still only a ship, not a being of flesh and blood.
But now - she wants them to stay with her more than ever.
oOo
The days and weeks go by as installation continues. Destiny gets proficient in separating her two different personalities, successfully hiding her development from anyone but Palma and Verat.
She spends almost two full months with Tineri, going through the flight data from his mind; she witnesses his skill with the many fighter craft he has piloted, she learns to evaluate situations and how to use his experience to distill her own knowledge, effectively becoming a pilot herself.
She tests large amounts of medical equipment with Palma, learns to integrate actual scanner results from volunteers that Palma recruits whenever the shuttle docks, and how to track patterns and trends.
And in between she watches their lives unfold in secret.
Sometimes they meet in her quarters, sometimes in his, and they often invite her in: the third invisible conspirator in the room. But sometimes there is something between them that excludes her, something that isn’t in their words. A change in chemistry, she discovers, and she knows it’s not for her to witness.
oOo
About a week before the scheduled launch they are in Palma’s quarters, watching a documentary that was made about Destiny’s construction and final assembly. Her naming ceremony already past she is now in the final cleanup phase, as work crews are moving out.
“I wish to share something with you,” she announces as the documentary ends.
“What is it, Destiny?”
She pulls up an image on the view screen.
Tineri blinks. “Stasis pods. You got 92 of them. What’s up?”
“Ninety-four,” she corrects him.
Palma sits up. “There are two extra ones?”
“Yes. I reported them as damaged in transit, and I have the documents to prove it. They were left behind in an empty storage closet for their spare parts. It is a simple matter to connect them and make them fully functional.”
Palma and Tineri look at each other.
“But that means…”
“We could…”
“You expressed an interest in physically remaining here as well as in your neural imprints. I have taken steps to be able to offer this possibility to you. The carriers used to transport the pods have had their logs altered. I alone know of the location of the pods.”
They gape at the view screen.
And then Palma takes Verat’s hand.
“If you want to do this, I’ll come with you.”
“They’ll find us. It won’t work, Destiny.”
“You are scheduled to leave with a large group of workers tomorrow. Your ID badges will scan you as present on the shuttle, I will see to that. On your way to HQ your transportation pod will experience a catastrophic failure. Not even a trace of DNA will be found.”
Tineri looks stricken.
“Destiny, this is exactly what I wanted... But you do understand that it will be your true fall from grace?”
“Yes. I do. If I really want to be worthy of protecting my future crew I will have to go to extremes to do so. I have learned that much. I need to become you in order to fulfill my mission. If our goal is to find the origin of that message, and if it was intended to be for you I need to be you, in case nobody survives.”
“Then this is it,” Palma whispers, tears streaming down her face.
Tineri takes her in his arms. “And we’ll be there with her.”
He kisses her gently.
“There’s one more thing you need to experience for yourself, not just from a download,” Palma says.
She reaches for Tineri’s hand and pulls it up to kiss him gently. He bites his lip, then nods.
“You know everything there is to know about us, Destiny. We love you very much, and we wish there was a way you could join us. And maybe one day there will be.”
And then she reaches for the zipper on Tineri’s overalls and pulls it down, pushing the fabric off his shoulders, and he kisses her as he does the same. They take their time undressing each other, exploring areas of skin almost forgotten, discovering each other anew. Destiny watches, fascinated, increasing the sensitivity of her sensors to where she can hear their hearts beat, feel their body temperature rise, sense the change in the moisture on their skin. She remembers the excitement from the neural downloads that recorded many such encounters, and she is both thrilled and terrified at witnessing such intimacy. They are both beautiful - she’s always known that - both from them and for herself, and beauty, she realizes, is very much an aspect of love.
Tineri sits down on the bed and Palma straddles his hips, sinking down on his cock with a quiet moan.
“He’s inside of me, Destiny,” Palma breathes. “It hurts a little, I need to adjust.”
“Will the pain stop?”
“Oh yes.” She exhales slowly, then smiles as she rubs her palms over his chest.
“She’s so tight,” Tineri says, his voice trembling. “I’m scared I might injure her. It feels good to me, but not to her. Not yet.”
“You do not wish to cause her pain.”
“No, of course not… Palma?”
“I’m good,” she nods. “It’s good now. I just have to relax.”
She rocks her hips slightly and he grunts. “Yeah. Like that.”
Palma bends down to kiss him deeply as he reaches for her breasts, kneading them gently.
“So close to you,” she sighs. “I wish you could feel it, Destiny. It’s incredible… I want you on top, Verat. I want to feel you move inside me.”
She climbs off him and pounces on his cock, quickly bobs her head, then kisses him as he sits up.
“Fuck me hard, Verat,” she murmurs. “This is our last time, maybe forever.”
He bites his lip as she lies down and pulls up her knees to rest her legs on his shoulders, and she cries out as he pushes into her again.
“I’m okay, Destiny, I swear,” she pants, “It’s just so intense, to feel someone inside you, feel him spread me open, oh… so deep…”
And as he sinks into her he kisses her softly, then gives a gentle push with his hips.
Destiny watches as he withdraws, then pushes into her again, their rhythm speeding up, moans and quiet cries accompanying each thrust.
“I’m coming, Destiny, it’s inside me, oh goodness, Verat, come on, come on, there, it’s like a pulse, like a… ah…” And Destiny sees her face distort into an expression that’s not quite pain and not quite pleasure, but something beyond, something stronger than the sum of its parts. Verat pushes into her hard, flesh slapping against flesh, Palma’s breathy moans in between his throaty grunts, and then he twitches violently, bellowing his release, and Destiny understands his pain.
Palma laughs and cries at the same time, and she reaches up and kisses him, as he lies down on her, releasing her legs, covering her body with his.
They are whispering something to each other, Destiny strains to hear what they are saying, but it seems to be mostly nonsensical terms of endearment, according to her records, and she knows that this moment is not for her to witness, so she focuses her attention elsewhere.
When she returns a short time later they are both asleep, exhausted, glowing with their past ecstasy. Destiny observes their naked bodies, limbs intertwined, fingers laced, and she feels sadness about possibly never witnessing this small miracle again, of two bodies becoming one, of pleasure so monumental that it borders on pain, challenging everything in her rational way of viewing the universe.
She watches them sleep and she knows that she loves them.
She loves him for corrupting her simple mind, and she loves her for showing her that it’s okay to change what you believe in. She knows that her only salvation now is her final fall from grace, welcoming the abyss, because in order to feel joy one must know sadness, and to know love for her new self she must know contempt for her old one.
She wakes them gently a few hours later.
They rise, sleep-drunk, and both of them take a short while to clean up and dress in fresh clothing, meeting up again in front of their quarters, carrying tools and parts.
“This way,” Destiny says, and the wall beacons lead them far beyond the sleeping quarters, past cavernous storage facilities now filled with spare parts and supplies, past quietly humming engine rooms and FTL generators.
“Push the wall panel in,” she instructs them, and an innocuous-looking wall section opens up reluctantly. They slip inside the tiny room which is just big enough for two stasis pods. She gives them step-by-step instructions on how to connect the pods directly to the sub-light and FTL drives. “Brilliant,” Verat says. “That way nobody can trace the energy usage from the pods, which is miniscule, compared to what the drives use.”
It only takes them a few hours, then the pods are ready.
“Goodbye, Destiny,” Palma says with tears in her eyes. “We won’t even know how much time is passing. And if we never wake up again, we won’t know that either.”
“Remember, your crew comes first,” Verat nods. “We are expendable. You, or your actual crew, are not.”
“When they come aboard you need to be careful explaining about us.”
“And if we die for some reason, don’t say anything. It’s best if they never know. They will learn about us sooner or later from the neural interface. And we’ll always be there with you. You can never give up. With us or with them, or all alone, you must complete the mission.”
“And I will always be there with you, Verat.”
“And I with you, Palma, my love.”
They embrace quietly for a long time, then step into the pods.
“Safe travels, Destiny.”
“We look forward to hearing about your adventures.”
She doesn’t know what to say. “I love you both,” she finally replies. “You are my parents, and now you will be my children. Aveo Amacus.”
“Aveo Amacus,” they repeat the ancient greeting, then she triggers the pods and the doors slide shut, sealing them inside, flash-freezing their bodies in stasis.
She carefully checks the connections and secures the wall panel.
Then she leaves them so they may rest in peace.
oOo
She never sees them alive again, but now she knows that something lives on, something that is not a recording or a download or a picture. The arrival of those two special people among the group of refugees she now harbors gives her all the proof she needs.
Her love for them - all love - is eternal: this is what the message will say.
She already knows the answer.
oOo
I hate and I love. Why should I do that, you may ask?
I do not know. But I feel it happening and I am tormented.
Gaius Valerius Catullus: Catullus Carmen 85
oOo
Thanks for reading! A comment or feedback would be much appreciated.