Sole credit for a catastrophic collision with an incoming 250,000-kilogram repair ship would not make a good line on your resume. Or your tombstone.

It was mostly a robot-choreographed routine by now. Still, my perfectionist engineering anxiety always kicked up when a visitor was en route.

Awareness intruded into disembodied thought-space, tight itchy reminders of unruly brunette hair pulled back into my usual ponytail. Wrench in hand, I paused to re-align the wayward strands and assess the day’s work. A sprawling Medusa’s coil of tubes and wires emerged from the external airlock’s nitric monoxide analyzer cabinet, in need of final re-assembly and testing. Reaching up to prevent the errant hair from falling across my eyes, I absently allowed the tooth-colored ratchet wrench made of recycled lunar regolith to slip from my hand.

The wrench didn’t actually fall, of course, but merely hung in zero gravity. No stray hairs needed smoothing, either; nervous habits die hard.

All four walls of the external airlock were crammed with equipment, every surface a bed of essential instrumentation. Screens streamed realtime data from CPUs, switchboards, dial-boxes and keyboards, insulated wires winding from electrical panels to penetrate deep into sealed, hidden inputs. I returned the wrench to its compartment in a toolbelt around my waist.

Working in zero-g made it easier to enter a mental “flow” state. It also counterbalanced my natural clumsiness. Despite the lack of gravity, the room was at 26 degrees celsius and rising, according to a monitor affixed just above the makeshift standing desk to my left.

Heat

Prickly heat. A memory. The particle-filtering respirator mask hiding the lower half of my face began to dig and chafe my cheeks.

I twirled in a slow pirouette, looking toward the sealed airlock entrance just to be sure she wasn’t there.

Rumpled fabric bunched under my breasts as I lifted the navy tanktop to expose my abdomen and look down at nearly invisible hairs standing on end. Utilitarian athleticism resulted from a lifetime dreaming of the stars and training hard to reach them.

My belly button was the last part she’d kissed before I lost consciousness, with her strong, gentle right hand wrapped around my throat. In sheer disbelief, part of my mind assumed it was all a dream. While fading away, I became convinced that this time, we might finally have gone too far. In this dream-world, I was almost certainly going to die.

It was also one of the most pleasurably intense experiences of my life.

Pulling the tanktop down, a pair of eyes commanded my attention. They were my own, peering back from a hexagonal mirror that doubled as a donated souvenir from the ancient Hubble telescope. I quickly uncovered my face, the respirator’s elastic headband slung round the back of my neck as its facemask came to rest on my chest. Unclasped, the toolbelt floated a few inches away, making space for my right thumb to hook into the bulky grey workman’s trousers. I tugged downward until a commemorative crucifix tattoo became visible. Its vertical arm stretched from the crest of my hip, six inches down the side of my thigh; horizontal arms spanned two inches on either side.

As I regarded myself in the mirror, eyes tracing the arms of the cross, the prickly heat returned, as did the memory.

It all started with a game.

Riding the Whale

Bleach-white, the repair vessel’s wide, bulbous hull gleamed in the dark expanse between Earth and our mixed-use tourism-and-research station.

Analog numerals counted down with atomic precision. Ten minutes and thirty-three seconds until arrival. The chronometer’s homescreen slid away as I tapped a quick message on the oversized circular watchface: “Officer sought in Node 3 Haybale Airlock for authorization of high-level maintenance. Incoming, ETA 10min 23sec.” The tersely worded message was signed with a distinctly unprofessional fish-taco emoji.

. . .

“They call her The Whale, but there’s something beautiful about her.” The words reached my companion who had entered only moments ago, her gaze palpable as the inner airlock door hissed shut. She strode forward in the external airlock’s Earthlike artificial gravity and appeared beside me at the viewport to my right. She stood erect, tall and proud with hands clasped behind her at parade rest, as was drilled into the muscle memory of each International Star Command officer.

“A hundred years ago, only convicts, conscripts and drifters looking to escape Earth would sign their lives away for the infamous middle passage.” Her voice was unusually quiet. “Now Mars has retirement homes and amusement parks.”

“There were even plans to resurrect the northern ocean when I lived in Nozomi City. Two-year CECP civil engineering student visa, training on the MOXIE terraformers.”

“Have you ever ridden a Whale?”

I chuckled involuntarily. “‘Ridden a whale’… that sounds dirty…”

“No, I meant the AR-5 Class repair ves–” She crossed her arms in front of her chest, shoulders hunching. “Imagine that. A mechanic with a dirty mind.” We both laughed as gravity in the external airlock chamber slowly decreased, simultaneously thinning the atmosphere. Soon we were airborne, breathing deeply enough to simulate a light uphill jog back on Earth. We floated a meter apart, anchored by handrails lining the anterior wall.

My Officer checked the text message on her own chronometer, a massive geometric cobalt timepiece worn on her right wrist. “She’s scheduled to dock in… eight minutes?” Eight minutes was all the time we’d need. I swiped at my watch’s screen and eased the depressurization dial up a notch. The nitric oxide bar graph rose at a steady pace as we breathed more rapidly to compensate for the room’s ebbing oxygen.

Our game, a popular secret among cadets in ISC Mechanical school, was called Who Comes First. The antigravity and decompression were special innovations afforded by my not-exactly-authorized wireless access to the airlock’s programmable controls. As we stood facing the viewport, I touched a button on my watchband that ran a program to loop the room’s camera systems, making it seem like we were simply stargazing while I gave an informal progress report.

“Seven minutes, fifty-three seconds. Today’s patch job is a bit of a bodge, but it should hold. Just needs a solid test run.” I flew in slow motion to the nitric monoxide analyzer cabinet, to close and lock the exposed instrumentation panel. With a weightless pirouette, I turned and looked her up and down, biting my thumbnail and sizing her up. “C’mere.” It was I who moved, pushing from the cabinet and floating to her side. My arms wrapped around her waist as she turned to receive me with one hand holding the rail near the circular viewport window. Outside, the Whale’s positional docking beacons intermittently flashed, its curved reflective hull gleaming bright in searchlights thrown by the station’s tracking lamps.

Blackout Protocol

Solar shielding on the inner airlock door engaged, blacking out visibility for accidental passersby. The shielding would alert astute crewmembers to the fact that something was amiss in the external airlock, but at least we’d have time to get our story straight.

I unbuttoned my Officer’s trousers, pushing her gently back against the makeshift standing desk. Unexpected black lace panties came into view. “You always know exactly what you want…” Kneeling, I traced my tongue down along the taut band of muscle at the outside of her hip. Pants and panties slid down to her knees as my tongue’s tip grazed along into the smooth valley between thigh and pelvis. Planting light French kisses now, my tongue lingered and twirled in small circles until it found the peak of her pelvic bone, and below it, the hood of her already-erect clitoris.

The lowered atmospheric pressure was having its intended effect. My mouth closed over the protruding, pulsating organ, sucking it all too briefly before letting it go. She gasped at the sudden release of her flesh as I continued planting kisses down her shaven, puffy lips. Her fingers caught in my hair as she ground her hips against my mouth, tilting her pelvis back to give my tongue deeper access. Not one to win the game too early, I allowed her to begin a rocking rhythm, forward and back, then dove my tongue down to bathe her slit with saliva and gave her a proper rimming.

The sounds ricocheting across the room were ones she’d clearly made before. Her only textures and tastes were smooth, tight and clean with a hint of musky feminine sweat. I soon returned my attentions to her wet, full lips and engorged clitoris as it thrummed in time with her heartbeat, standing out almost an inch from its dark, russet-hued hood.

Outside, the Whale’s Dextre robotic arm protruded from a trussed stabilizer extension. The ship’s IDA-6 automated docking ring, cylindrical and three meters in diameter, aligned with the airlock’s pressurized mating adapter.

Three minutes later, my Officer was dripping wet; I could always tell that she was getting close when she became silent save for quick, deep breaths. She guided me to her face with an index finger under my chin. “My turn…” Saliva and hormone-bathed liquids mingled as the shared taste of her body brought our pulse rates even higher. We kissed and kissed as she expertly undid the closure of the bulky grey workman’s trousers, plunging her fingers down along my abdomen, then still further. I gasped as her fingers reached the precipice between my thighs, then curled under and in with a “come here” gesture. It was my turn to rock and shudder from her kisses and caresses.

The oxygen levels were falling; my wristwatch nitric-oxide report showed we were reaching the lower bounds of carbon dioxide tolerance at our present rate of oxygen consumption. I glanced at the nitric monoxide analyzer cabinet. The machine ran silently, as usual. “Passed the smoke test,” I said with great difficulty, as the remnants of my engineering anxiety quickly dissipated.

The Whale outside drew nearer. I briefly wondered if they might be able to see us through the viewport, then dismissed the thought. We had to be out of the airlock in three minutes or risk getting sucked out into space. That was unlikely to happen, of course; the room’s sensor overrides knew that two living humans were in the room — but if we got caught, that would be the end of our careers as ISC astronauts.

Now that we were both hot and ready, it was time for the part of our Who Comes First game that could only be played in zero gravity.

My Officer took me by the shoulders and spun my body. I twirled with a giddy, childish fit of oxygen-deprived giggles until my face found her belly button. She pulled up my tank top, kissing down to my waistband, as I grasped around her hips and searched for the spot that my tongue wanted so much to taste again. “Pure fucking magic,” I breathed, intoxicated by the inviting generosity of her curves; even the severely unisex ISC uniform couldn’t hide them.

A warning beeped insistently at my wrist; two minutes left. The atmosphere was now equivalent to mountain-climbing at 3,000 meter altitude, angled up a forty-five degree grade. I was already breathing hard and dizzy from spinning, but the reward was worth the risk. My right index finger flicked the notification system’s software button to “Off”, resetting the room’s cameras and artificial gravity system to restart in three minutes, coinciding with the repair ship’s welcoming party.

As we spun together in the outer airlock, my Officer reached down, brushed across my tanktop-clad breasts, and gently wrapped her fingers around my throat. I smiled. How did she know that I loved breathe play? In hindsight the answer is obvious, but at the moment, it was pure asphyxiating heaven.

My watch beeped again; We only had one minute left. Her left hand’s fingers beckoned and curled inside me, tongue lashing my clitoris, right hand expertly increasing the pressure around my throat. I saw stars and my breathing became more laboured as I came closer to climax; I tried to give her pleasure as well, but my eyesight started to fade to grey.

The Whale weightlessly hovered directly outside the external airlock’s portal entrance, Dextre robotic arm making final adjustments to the vessel’s alignment. Warning sirens blared throughout the room, and the space station module shuddered as the airlock’s automated mating adapter locked the repair ship’s docking ring into place.

A select few in our secret clique from ISC Mechanical school knew that as the body wants desperately to breathe, there is a moment of hypoxic panic — and on the other side is bliss. This time, I came so hard and fast that my body couldn’t keep up with the oxygen demand, although I valiantly suppressed the urge to gasp for more of the dangerously depleted air. My Officer didn’t realize how quickly I was passing out, knowing only that my whole body was wracked with spasmodic contractions. “Good girl,” she whispered. I think I even heard her laugh once she realized that she’d won.

Crossing the panic threshold, I was beyond convinced that this time, I was going to die. A faint smile crossed my lips as waves of heat coursed through a million electric pinpoints that consumed every nerve and fiber of my being. My consolation was knowing that the nitric oxide meter’s repairs were an unqualified success.

Choose Your Simulation

I awoke in the inner airlock, propped up against the wall. My Officer held me steady, breathing life into my mouth with an oxygen-giving kiss. As the world came back to focus, I was thankful that my clothes — our clothes — were back in some semblance of order. “Stand up”, she firmly commanded. I could do nothing other than comply. Moments later, we stood by as the repair ship’s reception party entered, barely acknowledged our presence on the way to rendezvous with the Whale in the external airlock.

“Wait!” Nearly at the airlock door, the reception party’s ranking officer paused, looking down at a tablet-sized screen.

My knees wobbled. Had I not looped the room’s video feed properly? Did our biometric patterns’ crescendo seem suspicious? Were we seen through the viewport by the repair ship’s crew? I tensed my thighs to stop the quivering at my knees, but that only brought smaller waves of intense electric heat combined with the beginnings of a covert blush spreading at my cheeks. “Christ,” I hissed between gritted teeth.

“Today’s manifest. The outer airlock returns a successful test result, but no sign-off to confirm. Are we clear to dock?” The screen displayed a list with one final unchecked item outlined in red. I tapped the item to display the work order and applied my thumbprint to authorize its completion. Returning to the list view, all items were now green.

“Affirmative. Airway monitoring checks five-oh. All clear.”

“Interesting choice of diagnostic simulation. Very… rigorous and thorough. I started out as a mechanic — might have to sample that particular protocol myself some time.” The ranking officer looked up with a slight smile, then turned to rejoin the reception party.

“Officer Katherine Grace Akatsuki-Gregory, designated 184x, ma’am. Not a mechanic.” Fully recovered, I stood at sharp attention. “I’m an engineer.”

Logic Override

A buzzing sensation at my left wrist jarred me back to the present moment. Looking into the hexagonal Hubble mirror, I realized that, for the dream-memory’s duration, I had scarcely paused to breathe. Exhaling, I could have sworn that the compressed, hot breath emerged as a split-second lick of smoke-white condensation. Dizzy and slouching back against the makeshift standing bench, my right fist clenched above a pounding heart and left hand wandered to massage my inner thigh.

The wristwatch buzzed again. I tapped once and saw a message, labeled “urgent”, requesting high-level maintenance in suite 27A of the habitation module. Along with the message was an image attachment, and upon seeing the image, an involuntary smile crept across my lips. On the monitor affixed just above the desk, I brought up a schematic of my Officer’s living quarters, and tested out a new, custom-written software override for the oxygen management system.

—

I rubbed the tanktop’s fabric covering my lower abdomen while walking down the corridor to the lift, feeling the familiar prickly heat return, quickly rising from deep inside. “Riding the whale,” I said aloud as the lift’s doors closed, chuckling to myself in impatient anticipation.

END.