Chapter 4 - Station and Stalking

Present.

The origins of the station we obvious the moment they jumped in. Solar charged battery cells lit up the sensor screen, but no additional power signatures from the station kicked on immediately. Civlian stations presumed that anyone coming back would do so with purpose and have the means to bring things up to speed. A military station would operate on a worst case assumption and keep as many lights off as possible, given the chance that there was hostiles about.

"Getting a solid transponder response." Lieutenant Sable stated for record and the Valkyries. "Military Station PX-332-5MS. Logistics and Resupply Station. Bean, bullets, and all that brings boom." He smiled. "Maybe we can fit a couple rocket pods to this boat. Give it some bite." 

"I love you, sir." Corporal Angela drawled in a husky voice. The heavy weapons marine was lacking any real firepower; save her muscles, and her cock. 

"Do we have a record of its last inventory?" Cadet Wolfwood asked. 

"We don't. But one of these will." He scanned through the list of transponders currently lit up around the station. These waypoint markers were there to keep any FTL field from opening too close to the station. Linked, they formed a subspace pillow that gently forced any FTL field to slowly let its vessel out in designated areas, depending on the mass and the settings active on the station.

So hostiles would fast find themselves fighting the gas giant's gravity well if they tried to drop in uninvited on a station.

One of the transponders carried a duplicate signal to another transponder, add to it that it wasn't correctly aligned in the anti-FTL arrangement, it stood out if you were looking for it. 

"Blackbox located." Sable spoke with the hush of a temple cat. "Transmitting legacy authorization codes." As Admiral Class override codes were phased out of active use, they were archived and distributed to lower ranks for use in accessing abandoned or decommissioned facilities. Anything of tactical value or monetary worth was likely already gone, but it didn't mean the codes weren't attached to a kilometer of red tape.

The blackbox gave up it's contents, and likely left an encrypted marker in the boat's systems that would piggyback to the Oversight Bureau at the earliest opportunity. "Fucking let it." Sable growled under his breath.

"Let what?" Specialist Roan asked. 

"Blackbox tagger." Sable replied honestly. "Okay, inventory. Pushing to your Visors." He stated and brought up the Flight Control codes. "Prepping for landing." He saw a number of maintenance flags and he sighed. "We're going for a walk once we land. Looks like there was a recall on the umbilical seals they used on this station; a year after the evac."

"Well, we're all dressed up; and hey you get to stretch your space legs a bit." Doc Hona replied as she filtered through the medical supply list. "Most of the general and critical care supplies are in long duration stasis. I can flag them for thaw, but you need to confirm, sir."

Sable saw the prompt on one of his screens and authorized it; the station recognizing the codes and granting the orders the same level of urgency those an Admiral once commanded and putting all due automated speed behind it. "Done. Any other requests? I gotta take my time lining this up. We're landing on the tertiary delivery hanger, only one with working doors."

"Can I have a bigger gun?" Lance Corporal Verily cooed into the comms. "I know 'I am the weapon' but I'd like a gun with a fun button when the shit hits the fan."

"I'm seeing all kinds of nostalgia in this armory list." Sergeant Nolan spoke from her seat near the cockpit door. "Ooooh, by the holy mother of war." SHe smiled. "They've got DR-90's."

"Bullshit!" Came a chorus from the chalk's heavy weapons, specialist, and sharpshooter. 

"Oh, they ruined the DR's after the 91!" Verily squirmed in her seat as she confirmed that the unfettered assault weapon was in stock aboard the station.

"Padded it for the softies, is what they did." Specialist Roan added, "Present company excluded, Sir." She spoke toward Sable on the channel, "You're plenty hard."

"Is your hand down my pants, Specialist?" Lieutenant Sable quipped. "Cause if it was you'd know this approach has me all manner of limp."

The station hanger doors had opened and, to his chagrin, revealed a mess of damage and scorch marks. "The station logs say everyone left in an orderly fashion." He stated and fed the images to the marines. "This, isn't orderly by anyone's standards, certainly not Fleet." He started an image capture of the scarring along the walls. "This ringing any bells?" He asked, depending on the weapon, the engine, or power core, and explosion left a pattern that could be attributed to the technology behind it. 

Marines trained in going into difficult and often under-informed situations, and were educated on these 'signs of trouble' and what they meant. It wasn't reasonable to expect everyone in the chalk to know every tell or sign, so they studied in specifics and worked off each other's knowledge.

"Nothing I've seen." Sergeant Nolan sounded off.

"It's engine burn, big engine burn. But I can't tell the layout. Verily?" Corporal Angela turned and the Lance Corporal shook her head.

"Sorry, Darling." Beverly 'Verily' Denver sighed. "But there's two layers of burns, someone hit their brakes; hard, then left in a hurry."

"No Evac or medical ship makes a burn like this." Lance Corporal Doctor Maya Hona crossed her legs and looked at some of the images. "I am seeing what looks like crystallized bio matter floating near one of the main airlocks."

"The one with the Med-bay label?" Sable hazarded as he focused the sensors on that part of the hanger, and immediately started seeing results. "All right, spectrometer has the gunk it its sights, it's coming back as... crystallized bio matter, damaged beyond distinction. Great."

"At least it's not acid blood." Doc Hona assured the chalk. There was a genuine easing of tension at the comment. 

"Pix, you see the way the engines have that staggered flaring?" Specialist Roan leaned close to the Cadet-Ensign. The smaller Valkyrie nodded.

"I think it's Halum." Pix leapfrogged the line of thinking.

"Halum? In this part of Space? Not much hunting out here." Sable's navigation sensors found a spot in the hanger that wasn't shredded or compromised in some way. "Fuck walking, we're floating to the door." He sighed and began to ease the ship in.

"If someone's bleeding they might be coming back from a hunt; or on the chase if they left in the hurry they did." Darling suggested.

"They might not have been young bloods then, usually they're too eager for the glory and let themselves bleed dry rather than let a hunt go." Nolan rubbed under her arm absently.

"So they were smart enough to tend their wounds," Doc Hona gathered as the ship shuddered with its braking thrusts. "Plus they're hunting something deadly enough to hurt a Halum that intelligent."

"Possibly," Pix chimed in, "But it might just a member of their pack, with a Veteran leading them." She crossed her arms, "Worse case: it's a Rhokum scouting party." That mood of tension returned, in force.

"We're down." Sable punctuated the conversation with the shudder clamp of metal on metal as the launch landed at last. "Fuck me," He sighed, "and that is an order," he replied to the chuckles, which became outright laughter, "As soon as we find some safe, clean, beds with real gravity."

"Fresh sheets sound nice." Verily smiled, "So do fresh clothes, sink washing doesn't do enough."

---

Present minus.... ah hell, it was after Moira flooded Max's ass.

"My turn!" Beverly whined as she wrapped her arms around Max's waist. "Aw." She rested her head on Max's shoulder as Moira pulled Sable's face close and plunged her tongue back into his mouth; his twin tongues danced around her thick mouth python "Fuck, Corporal," Beverly reached up and ran a hand over Sable's neck, "I can feel that here." Sure enough there was a bulge in the pilot's throat from where the Marine's tongue was reaching in deep. 

Moira pulled back, spit forming thin ropes that held in the zero-g. 

"I wanted to get him ready for you." She pointed down, at where Sable's cock throbbed erect again, even as the filled condom floated, attached, above his cock.  Beverly signaled something to Doc as she eased Sable of the sagging slab of a fuck stick Darling had drilled into the prodigious pilot.

"Feels like my ass is full." Max sighed with a smile. "Whoop!" He arced his back as something wet and slick covered his ass. "Wuzzat?" he slurred momentarily dizzy.

"Ass patch." Doc smiled. "Don't want you gaping all over the place and leaking anything." Sable nodded, but wondered at Beverly as she smiled even wider from her where she guided him toward her seat near the pantry. "Besides, I think your asshole just got a reprieve." The leggy Valkyrie pushed Sable into the chair and he felt it hold him in, and hold him tight. 

"Oh!" Sable let out a gasp and worried his lip as his triple fucked ass (Cock, tongue, then cock again) hit the crash seat. It was a good kind of hurt, like after a workout or a fun spar. Alexandra slipped in to pull the condom from Sable's shaft and deftly slid another one on and over it. "Thanks, Pix." Max nodded and looked to where the Aug-2 Valkyire was stroking her thick clit-cock and teasing the lips of her pussy. The folds glistened wet as she pushed two long fingers into her slit, masturbating over Max. "Not that I don't mind a show, but-Mmmph!" Sable's sass was cut off as Verily rocked herself forward. Her augmented clit pushing between Sable's lips and into the embrace of his twin tongues.

"Oh, I was hoping for this." Beverly groans as she hooks her feet under Max's knees and presses in until the Max's nose grinds against her heavy mound. Max could see the thick inner bulge of her recessed augmentation stirring, building up and filling with the load she was going to blow down his throat.

Max reached up and with one hand stroked and pressed into the lips of the Lance Corporal's womanhood, and with the other he squeezed and pressured the heavy mound and teased her further toward a thick white climax. Verily pulled back and the pressure from Sable's lips brought bubbles of spit forward; with a low purr, the purple tinged marine rocked her hips forward and loudly face fucked the pilot.

----------------

Present.

Sable laid his hand on Sergeant Nolan's shoulder, and tapped twice, indicating the rest of the chalk had stacked up. His VBSS training carried over well to creeping advance they'd been making into the dark station. He followed the rule of lead from the front, but acknowledged that Sergeant Nolan's experience was more critical at the front than his commission. The survival pods in the launch had held enough Arek-31 Anti-personnel rifles for everyone to carry two, and Darling was large enough to wield two and not look like she was faffing about with them.

She stood behind Nolan then Sable, and Pix followed shortly after. Doc was in the middle, Hoss and Verily covered the rear. Everyone had layered on anti-ballistic plates onto their skin tight vacuum suits. It was more effective than it was intimidating, unlike if the Valkyries were going down the hall each in at least 500 kilos of powered armor. 

Even absent the walking tank suits, the marines moved with purpose, and teamwork. Not wanting to mess with that contributed to Lieutenant Sable taking second spot, and letting Sergeant Nolan lead her team.

Sable progressed around the next intersection, slowly moving around the corner, her rifle held tight and ready. When she stood, aiming down the hall, she nodded and started down, the rest following her path and watching the dim red corners for any potential surprises, following the trail of blood.

As soon as the chalk was inside the airlock, they'd encountered another surprise, wet, pulpy, blood.

"This, is less than good." Nolan's voice had echoed over their helmet comms. Until the Doc could get the life support back up to full, or they found a clean, isolated ward, they were keeping their suits sealed. No arguments from when Doc Hona put her foot down there. "The thrust scarring was fresh, but I didn't think this fresh."

"It's definitely Halum." Doc said as the blood sample ran through a test in her medical module. "This things slower than my usual rig," She'd groused. Sable had smiled. He usual rig could have paid for a small city hospital. "But no major red flags, yet. I'll get back to you.

Half way down the hall that lead to the medical ward, a sealed ward with its own closed life support and quarantine system, there was a chirp and everyone froze. "About those results?" Doc Hona asked. "Do you want them now, Lieutenant?"

"Seeing as were about a dozen meters from potentially meeting that blood's former owner; yes, please." He could have stuck to the yes please, but that chirp had put the squad on its toes. Valkyrie armor extended their augmented senses so they could operate with them even in vacuum, it was a simulated sense, permitted by an expensive suite of biomechanisms. Normal Vacuum suits were like walking around with an eye closed and both ears covered while theirs noses were being pinched.

And they could still put bullets in baddies at crazy range and have rounds left in magazine for later. 


"Well, there's no augment traces, or any poisons or radiation in the sample." The squad listened, even as their eyes and sights panned over potential 'ambush points' in the wall plating or vents. "But the sample does tell us that the Halum in there is a female, and she is in the start of her heat."

"Oh. Fuck." Corporal Angela swore on behalf of the squad, Hoss and Verily looked confused; Sable, the Sarge, and Pix all shared Darling's grim look.

"I'm sorry, Doc but 'heat'?" Hoss half-laughed, "Like a dog?" 

"Like a Badger-bear." Pix corrected the Specialist, "A horny, angry, angry that it's so horny, horny that its so angry, Badger-bear." 

"Oh." Hoss understood, "FUCK."

The squad looked down the hall at the sealed infirmary door, suddenly aware that the occupant might not have been left behind because of the damage done to it.