Running through the Darkness

Human had to admit - the aliens were far superior to humans in technological aspects. Traveling in their 'borrowed' space ship was smooth, he barely felt any turns, and the space garbage seemed to have no effect on the hull, so no external repairs were needed

As they traversed the universe, Mark was learning tirelessly. He suspected his nanobots kept him sharp at all times and that’s why he was never bored of it. He finally discovered the length of a galactic cycle, it constituted of nine days and fifteen Earth hours and some minutes.

Then he jumped into the O-gates. Their purpose was to shorten the galactic travel between solar systems with planets of interests. Otherwise it would take dozens of cycles to travel. Galactic community built them on a whim of the deity like being, the big-giant head. Sadly, there was no info about who invented the technology, or who built the first set of O-gates.

“So… who is the big-giant head exactly?” He asked, trying to research for that information, but was getting some conflicting informations.

Kaliasi, who tried her best to make herself comfortable, lying across two chairs with legs high up, sighed.

“It’s our Lord and saviour. Literally. It’s brilliance saved us from the plague and few wars. It’s also a source of status quo between civilized galactic forces, keeping them at bay and reducing the severity of the conflicts to the minimum.”

“Ah…” Mark was beginning to grasp the concept of it. “So it’s like UN, but actually functional…”

“UN?” Kaliasi asked, curious.

“Just an Earth thing. It’s-” Mark was about to explain, but the red alert showed up on one of the displays.

“We’re being tracked, Mark.” She interrupted him, noticing an automatic alert on the console she was using. Mark also picked up on it.

“Sandanians?” He asked, remembering the race of that alien commander he met in prison and assuming some facts.

“Yeah. The Holy Sandanian Order doesn’t just let go of their fugitives.”

“So the prison already recovered from the Nightmare?”

“Hah, no.” She shook her head. “I may have just a little bit triggered an alarm when I started up a ship and it may have automatically alerted some authorities…”

Mark cursed silently.

Kaliasi yawned, stretched her arms, and then got up.

“We’re almost on Cirrus, so when we drop to the planet, they won’t attack us. But in space we’re a free game.”

“Right.” Mark also got up. “Wait, by saying drop you meant land, right?”

“Oh yeah, totally, we will land.” She winked to him. “Follow me.”

The moved to the cargo area where she picked up some sort of back pack with eight fastened straps, and after scanning her hand on top of it, it opened. She quickly checked the insides.

“Looks like we’ve got everything we need. Strip.”

She said with a grin to Mark.

“I don't think we have time for sex now...” He responded with a smile and began undressing.

“Yeah, not now. We’ll be doing something and you need to wear a special suit, otherwise you won’t survive in space.”

“In space? What will I be doing in space?” He really counted on not having to be outside and doing any repairs. Not when they were being chased by an alien space ship!

“I’ll explain later.”

She said, and then began undressing herself. Mark saw her naked body already, but the effect was similar to the first sight of her like that. She was immaculate, beautifully shaped breasts, muscles, mass where it’s supposed to be. Mark was also finally able to figure out what a spiraling set of letters on her stomach meant.

“The Flower of the Lost Nebula.”

“Congratulations, you learned how to read. Now I can call you Mister Primitive.”

She commented, and began putting on a black suit with red stripes. A skin tight suit that perfectly showed her assets, brilliantly thick, muscular thighs, and many other body features that made Mark just stare at her, stunned.

“Oh, come on, just start dressing up, Mark. We don’t have much time before we jump.”

“Jump?”

“Through the O gate. Shit, I forgot that you are like a million light years behind. We use O gates to travel great distances between solar systems.” She said, finishing up with her suit.

Mark breathed a sigh of relief.

“I know what an O gate is, it's just... For a second there I thought we were going to jump outside. I'm not too keen to go out in space again.”

“Whaaaaaat?” Kaliasi asked, with her eyes wandering around the room, looking anywhere, just not to match Mark's eyes. “Naaah, we won’t do that.”

Human looked at her suspiciously, but didn’t say anything else. He put on a suit which was a bit more loose than hers, but covered every part of his body, all the way up to the head. It was tight, but stretchy, like it was adjusting to his physique. Then, he noticed an absence of something.

“So where are the helmets?”

The Alearan woman stopped checking for something in the bag, looked at him, and burst out with laughter in response.

“So no helmets? Really?”

“No helmets. We’re not primitives, Mark.”

Veers shook his head.

“Ok, so we are covering every part of the body except the one that came up with the idea of protection?”

“No, you idiot. We’re going to wear masks.” She looked at him with pity in her eyes.

“Masks? Oh…”

Kaliasi pointed at the rubbery object that she had in her hand. It had a small visor and some strange wires at the ends of it. She pulled it on her head and it looked actually good. Her hair got automatically hidden by the wires and then it connected itself to the rest of the suit.

Mark did the same, and the mask was surprisingly comfortable. He also could see through it without any issues, and breathe as well. It felt way better than those surgical masks he had to wear way back on Earth when he was sick with a flu.

“How do I look?” He asked, looking at her.

“Like a sexy soummon.” She answered with a word that his implant only translated into letters recognizable by him. He quickly raised his arm and noticed that he could still access the cuff in the suit, the display was going through and was perfectly visible to him. Mark looked up the word in some kind of alien encyclopedia.

“Sexy type of fish?”

“Yeah. And you don’t have to look at your hand in this mask. It has a head up display in a visor that connects to it. Just focus and you’ll see.”

Mark did just that, and… It worked, just as she said it would. Somehow it could read directly his thoughts and he quickly saw what he couldn’t unsee - amateur made art of that fish species he looked up earlier. A very liberated, nude form of art,

“Ewwww, what the fuck is that?!” He complained loudly.

“The combo of the suit, your cuff and the stuff I put into your skull earlier allows the mask to read your surface level thoughts.”

“Surface level?”

“Let’s say there are several types of thoughts." Kaliasi was explaining. "The loudest ones, the ones that are very nearly said by you, are being read by the Tech."

“Got it.”

Veers quickly noted in his mind that he should avoid thinking loudly about things. Definitely not nude alien stuff. Though he did wonder for a second there about the nude Alearans and he saw more of Kaliasi's species in all their glory.

“Come on, we’re close to the O-gate.”

The Alearan woman led him back to the cockpit. Few seconds later they were sitting in the chairs. The displays still showed the red warnings. They were bigger than before.

“Oh, look, in two moments Sandanian destroyer will catch up with us.” Kaliasi mentioned casually.

“Wait, what? Shouldn’t we like… Prepare?” Mark asked.

“Nah, there is no way we can fight against their cannons. They’ll blow us to pieces as soon as they detect that our guns are unlocked.” She stretched, the leathery material gave out a weird noise when she did that.

“So it’s over, right? We’re done? Dead?” Mark was beginning to panic, just a little bit.

“Nah. I said that in two moments they’ll get us. But in one moment we’re about to travel through an O-gate.”

“O-g-!"

He began, but never finished. The gaping hole in space swallowed their ship completely.