The Flight

Man I wish this fucking shit had more mark colors
The seat you are pushed into is reasonably comfortable, all things considered. It is cushioned enough to absorb minute shock even if the texture could be smoother, and you have some degree of wiggle room thanks to the fact that the seat is designed with a space suit in mind. Once you are seated, she draws near and helps buckle you up. The harness is more than enough to keep your body from flying around once the vehicle starts moving, but the rough and well-worn texture of the straps irritates you through the uniform covering your body. “Want it tighter?” she asks as her spare hand taps against one of the keyboards on the side, and several of the display screens littering the cockpit lights up. The grin on her face when you say no, and the fact that she tightens the belts anyway reaffirms your guess regarding her name. Still, you dismiss the stray thoughts and try to focus on the task at hand.

The control system of a space pod is somewhat different from what you are used to, but is still similar enough to give you a modicum of confidence. You quickly rest your dominant hand on the rotation-translation control – the flight stick – is positioned on top of a box protruding between your legs, and you start feeling thankful towards the harness that will keep you from plunging forward whenever the vehicle moves backward. The thrust control is… nowhere to be seen.

Damn it.

Your eyes dart around, and soon you find what passes as movement control for this humble worker pod. At the tip of the control stick sits a small thumbstick, with a ring built in for your thumb to turn – and especially pull – it with ease. The limited range of the stick means it probably does not give you very fine control over the movement of the pod… or its thrusters are too weak to justify finer control system. At the very least, the symmetrical nature of the control system does not look too bad, and the thumb ring means this space pod can move, however slowly, in three-dimensional space without needing to turn beforehand.

“System boot-up sequence complete. Now-” your other hand moves instinctively towards the keyboard by your side and taps on the well-worn key designated tocould also be "as, for" automatic control. As the hardened plastic clicks against your fingertip, you can hear the faint, yet high-pitched whirring sound of flywheel coming from behind your head. Immediately, the space pod begins tipping forward, its light design making it surprisingly agile. As expected, the view from behind her floating body spins upward, aligning your floor with that of the hanger… and then beyond it without any sign of slowing down.

It is at this moment that you know you screwed up.

Your finger, still clinging on the keyboard, slams the button immediately, and the flywheel grinds to a screeching halt. You can start the following sentece like you did or with "You clutch", in which case some changes marked would not apply, and some others would have to be marked. Your choice. Your hand clutches against the control rod tight-ly could be used here and pulls back as far as it will go, commanding the flywheel to spin in the opposite direction. Still, the lingering momentum is more than enough to turn the floor before your eyes, just before the rodent-like girl’s body obscures your entire vision. With a heavy slam, her body crashes into you, sandwiching you between the rough seat and her soft torso. The warm touch and scent from her not necessarily needed here occupies -y instead your senses briefly, before the reaction and to(?) the realigning pod sends her body flying back. Even with her tail, she still lands on the front canopy with a loud thud, followed by a slightly less loud cry. That must have hurt.

Without automatic control, it takes a few more jerks back and forth against the stick to stabilize the pod. By the time your world finally stops spinning, you look up and see a displeased Narim staring at you, her arms crossed and, judging by her pouting face, so is her. With your body strapped in place, you can only turn your gaze away from her glare and apologize. If nothing else, calling her by her “name” makes the corner of her tight lips twist slightly upward. You can already feel the embarrassment when she inevitably tells you what that word actually means.

“Step one: go through the checklist before touching anything else,” she gives your stomach a light kick, spreading the sticky feeling of the uniform across your abdomen. Her tail has anchored her to one of the mechanical arms enveloping the cockpit, and she soon moves towards you once again. This time, she pauses herself right before you, her lower body blocking you off from the keyboard. Retreating from her imposing bodyslight repetition here, your hand swings back and attempts to hold onto the glove-like control system by your side, but another glare from her freezes your movement completely.

“Back on my ship you’d get astrodomed for that,”Might want to put something she did here and end the sentence here, it would flow a bit better. you instinctively apologize once again, your brain barely processing anything she is saying. You ask if she would like to be the one on the pilot seat instead, but then not really needed she shakes her head. Her finger points you towards her rear, and the thick tail protruding from beneath the skirted uniform. You do not need her words to realize that her kind – whatever that is – would need a specialized seat to accommodate for their tail,very slight repetition here, not that bad something that this ship definitely does not have.

“Anyway… seems the control system’s toasted on this pod,” her hand turns one of the monitors towards her, the hazel eyes scanning its "the" flows more naturally here lines of letters and numbers,end the sentence here. “maybe that’s why it’s "it was" would be more appropriate left behind.”

“Yeah no, unless you know how to recalibrate the control system, we’re stuck with manual,” she concludes, and you curse beneath your breath. Her rodent-like ears twitch in response, and you soon feel her hands resting on your shoulders. For a brief moment, your body braces for whatever punishment it might receive, but the only other thing you feel is her tail coiling around the control stick between your legs, its thin tip resting on your thumb at its tip. “At least the other systems still look functional enough.”kinky.

“Manual’s good enough for us. It’s not like we’re docking a shuttle or anything,” we are not? Regardless, with her body locked right before you, you can feel her tail tightening slightly against your hand, and its tip begins to tug your thumb against the thumbstick.YAMEROOOOOO You can hear a faint whiff of gas leaking, and the space pod starts lifting itself off from the floor. Like you expected, the cold gas propulsion does not give any significant acceleration, and the limited propellant tank also means its speed will stay painfully slow. Still, it is better than getting slammed around every time you adjust its speed and direction.

With her guidance, the rest of the journey towards the airlock is rather uneventful. Both the front and top canopies are closed shut, ensuring that none of the precious air is going to leak out once the egg is thrown into the void. She also spends some time completing what appears to be a checklist in her mind, turning on and monitoring subsystems of the space pod one by one. Unlike most things you have encountered so far, this vehicle appears to be mostly functional apart from its automatic controller. Soon enough, the pod moves into one of the large alcove-like maintenance airlocks, and the tip of her tail glides across the tip of the stick, stopping the vehicle in place. The door behind you seals the light from the hanger away, and the world is basked in… probably red – you still cannot tell. A blare signals that the air is beginning to drain from this tiny space, a process that can take a while as the life support system recovers as much of the finite air as possible. As the noise of leaking air blends into the background, the silence gradually becomes louder as well.

“So… you’re a pilot or something?” you try to break the silence, even though you are not really expecting a straight answer from her. After all, she has been rather tight-lipped about herself ever since you two met. But still, she seems knowledgeable and experienced when it comes to piloting, which narrows things down considerably even if she is also proficient with other skills.

“No, not really,” she shakes her head in response. You are surprised both because she is giving a straightforward answer about herself, and that she is not a pilot by occupation despite her knowing more about piloting than simply could be used here activating autopilot. Maybe she is some kind of mechanics? Do engineers know how to fight nowadays?

“Our pilots don’t really pilot vehicles that way. Still useful to learn,” another blare interrupts the question you have in mind. The measurements displayed on the screen by her side show that the egg is effectively floating in a vacuum, and the fact that you are not breathing it means the pod should keep both of you alive on the other side of the hull.

“Airlock opening. Stay safe,” the synthetic voice of the automated system said says, and the door before you parts way, revealing the void surrounding the ship. Your dimmed vision obscures most of the stars, turning the outside world into a pitch darkness.

“Thanks,” she responds to the automated system by typing something on the keyboard, and the monitor soon informs you that the transponder – both automatic and manual – has been disabled. At the same time, the tip of her tail tugs your thumb again, signaling you to move forward into the void. You do not doubt what she is doing, but you nonetheless asks her about it.

“This egg’s defenseless enough as is. We don’t need to give them something easy to lock on,” she explains while her fingers continue to dance on the keyboard. Defenseless against who?

“We’re not alone here. Remember that laser gun? The one that almost blinded you?” her fingers briefly leap away from the keyboard to pinch your nose. It makes you sound funny.

“It’s a pilot’s sidearm. Its internal battery’s charged by plugging it somewhere in a pilot’s cockpit,” her words make you look around the claustrophobic cockpit – as much as her pinching hand allows. Even with the only source of light being the multiple monitors around you, you can still see enough to tell that no such sockets could be either one here tbh, either singular or plural, your choice exist here.

“No, it’s not from this egg,” she tugs your nose. She seems to find your altered voice funny.

“Even they’re not going to give any random maintenance worker a deadly firearm. It’s probably from a fighter or a shuttle,” but you do not remember seeing either -

“Exactly. Wherever it got the gun from left the hanger afterwards. That means someone else’s piloting it,” her tail pulls your hand gently, turning the space pod aside. The view outside does not seem to change significantly. Now that the light from the abandoned hanger has disappeared behind the airlock completely, the void has seemingly consumed everything beyond this tiny world for two.

“We’ll just pretend to be a warm piece of debris drifting alongside the ship in case anyone’s looking. Given the ship’s state, we should be able to sneak all the way to the front and get in through an airlock. Then… hey, are you feeling alright? You’re awfully quiet… I’m almost starting to miss your squirming,”she interrupts her explanation with a dry chuckle, bringing your wandering mind back to the conversation. You tell her that this place is too cramped for you to talk back.

“Heh, stop whining. It’s downright comfy compared to astrodomes,” an astro-what? You vaguely remember her mentioning something similar.

“You know, the bubble window room usually attached to astrogation. It’s there so that even if all the instruments have failed, you can still work out where the ship’s at with… with… what’s that thing called in your language?” she stumbles with her words a few times, before supplementing them with her free hand. She lifts a finger and starts drawing a triangle before your face repeatedly. You have no idea what she is talking about.

“It, um, it’s a tool that lets you measure stars. With a map and enough points, you can work out your exact location,” your eyes widen. As primitive as it sounds, the fact that it is apparently part of whatever ship she is from still amazes you. You ask if it actually works… only to be answered by a giggle.

“Yeah no, it works, but if the ship’s too busted to locate itself, it’s too busted to do anything with it anyway,” you cannot help but feel a bit disappointed, but it still sounds quite interesting. You have an urge to learn how that works if you manage to survive this escape. You wonder if she can teach you.

“The astrodome’s mostly there to isolate troublesome people. You know, you make a mess, you get assigned to astrodome duty,” even without knowing anything about her kind, you can nonetheless tell that she was, maybe still is, a regular for such a treatment. “It’s like scrubbing decks and hull, except you can’t turn off your brain. You have to take measurements that the computers have already taken much more accurately.”

“Meanwhile this egg gets a cushy seat and its own life support. You can probably even bring your own entertainment while the computer handles the actual work,” you point out that at the very least, people do not have to share an astrodome with someone else.

“Oh, you sweet unweaned child…” an indecipherable grim emerges on her face. She refuses to elaborate on whatever she means by that. With the conversation sinking into the silence, her hand holds onto you tight and she pulls herself closer towards you. You feel her nimble tail winding around the control rod, rubbing its tip subtly as you feel her breath upon your face.YA. ME. ROOOOOOOO! You can feel the faint thrust pushing the pod sideways, and her body soon follows suit as much as the tiny cockpit allows. Before your eyes, a blanket of faint red light emerges from the darkness beyond, its glow depositing into the vague contours of this small compartment.

This is not the first time you have seen a liquid droplet radiator – glowing-hot liquid raining down from one side to the other, dispersing the heat into the void in the process. Yet, you remember the droplets being much dimmer… and much less impressive. Here, instead, you can see the red rain clearly through the amber tint, its contourNot necessarily a repetition by this point, but I would personally still choose a different word than contour here bent by magnetism back to the collector like a brilliant shower. You cannot help but wonder if the damage you saw inside the ship has anything to do with the difference, or if the perilous journey has made you more aware of seemingly mundane things.

Maybe having a companion witnessing it with you at such a close distance matters as well.

The space pod continues to drift, from a safe distance away from the searing hot droplets sapping away the remaining heat from the corpse of a ship. Despite the additional lighting from the angled radiators, you cannot see the damage done to the space ship – in fact, its silvery shell looks almost pristine apart from a few small holes on the side. Without the hindrance of air, any smoke leaking from these wounds are is long gone, leaving behind only dark sunbursts marking the location of small explosions… ones that probably originated from within the ship, if the blossomed metallic thorns around the holes are of any indication. Just like what she said, the weapon killing this ship is one that leaves most of the structure intact. It is only with "due to" would flow better here your own experience that you can tell the inside of the ship has been turned into a graveyard.

“Beautiful, isn’t it?” she suddenly comments as her face is illuminated by the red rain and blue screen-s, maybe even -light. Your thoughts have distracted you enough that you are no longer sure what she is referring to, forcing you to nod in agreement. Without the need for another thrust for now, the cockpit falls still once more. The quiet humming of the machines around you has faded into the stale air, leaving only her presence in your senses. Perhaps because this space pod is designed to keep only a single person alive, the thin layer of air between you and her is barely moving, trapping her comforting warmth and scent inside the seat.Don't do it man, the tail is not worth it. Without the cold touch, the feeling of your skin becomes less and less distinct, and you start to feel a bit drowsy. You wonder if you are straining the life support systems(?) too much. You cannot see the monitor due to her body being in the way, but at least she is also looking at it. Surely she would tell you if something dangerous is going to happen.

In a strange way, this is the safest you have felt since you get got thrown in the brig. Your mind barely cares to register the dangers you are still in. For this brief moment, that death trap of a ship does not matter. Here, your world consist of just this tiny, cramped cockpit. Just you and her, watching over you.

This sense of comfort lures you to rest. You feel your eyelids getting heavier, and the shade before you blurrier. Soon, the amber world melts into darkness, and you let your mind dissolve in her presence.

Weirdly sexual with the tail/10 good job vnugget