Page 19 of Warped

“Okay, great. I’m sending the live image to you now.”

I start to head back to the bedroom, but then I stop. I’m still completely naked, and it feels a bit weird wandering around an unfamiliar place without any clothes on. I quickly grab a robe off one of the hangers. It barely comes down to the tops of my thighs, but it’s better than nothing, and the light blue silk it’s made from feels as smooth as butter against my bare skin.

I rush back to the bedroom.

The room is still dim, but now the screens are displaying an image of the vast, black void of space scattered with thousands of glittering stars. And there, right in the middle of one of the screens, is our immediate destination. A floating metal wreath bristling with vanes and antennae encircling an inner whirlpool of multicolored light.

The Warpgate.

Even though it’s only an image, the sight of it takes my breath away. I climb onto the bed and sit there, mesmerized by the beautiful swirl of light.

Wow. If people can create something as amazing as this, maybe there really is hope for humanity after all.

A voice comes over the intercom again. This time it’s Traven.

“Preparing to enter the Warp in ten… nine… eight…”

As he continues his countdown, the image of the Warpgate keeps expanding, until it fills the entire field of view. The spiralingrainbow of light is almost hypnotic. I can’t pull my eyes away from it.

“Four… three… two…”

I’ve made it. I’m safe. And soon the people of Caldera will be safe too.

“One…”

The wall imagers glitch briefly and go out. The bedroom sinks back into darkness. For a moment, I wonder if something has gone wrong, but I don’t feel any jarring sensations, and I don’t hear any alarms. Everythingseemsto be fine.

Then the feelings come, hot and fast.

An explosion of lust ignites within my core and surges outward to my extremities, scorching every atom of my being with a hunger I’ve never known before. I drop back onto the bed with a desperate cry as my fingers dart between my legs to try and extinguish the fire burning within me.

CHAPTER 9: REK

Ican hear Binx moaning all the way from the cockpit, and I don’t even have the intercom on. I don’t think I’ve ever heard a companion make such a ruckus before. Certainly not this soon after entering the Warp.

That sound turns my dick into diamonds.

It’s normal for me to get hard as soon as we pass through the Gate. Happens every time. That’s just the nature of the Warp. But this time, the needy sound of Binx’s voice is making my arousal even more intense than usual. I’m so hard it fuckinghurts, and it’s a wonder my dick doesn’t rip right through the front of my jeans.

It’s all I can do to keep from jumping out of my control cradle so I can rush downstairs and fuck her into silence. And although he would never admit it, I know Traven is feeling the same way.

But there’s still work to be done. Our need is gonna have to be put on hold while we set a course through the Warp, and Binx is just gonna have to manage without us until we’re done.

She’ll be okay. Nobody has actuallydiedfrom arousal before.

At least not that I know of.

I do my best to block out the sounds coming from the bedroom below, and I focus on the task at hand.

Traven and I are both lying on our backs in our respective control cradles, looking up at the ceiling of the cockpit, where the main viewing screen is located. The cockpit is designed thisway because it more accurately reflects how the ship is moving. When it’s landed, theNomadlooks like an upright egg—or the head of a cock, according to some of our past companions—but when it flies, it flies tip first. So by lying on our backs and facing the ceiling, we’re actually facing the direction the ship is flying.

Like always, the viewing screen blanked out as we breached the gate, but a moment later it comes back on again, providing us with a view of the churning, multi-colored foam of the Warp.

Home sweet home.

I’ve always felt more at home in the Warp than in the mundane reality of the material realm. I guess the sailors of old must have felt the same way about the sea. They talked about the sea like it was a woman, and they ascribed moods to it. Well the Warp, she’s got moods as well. Storms and doldrums and all that stuff. There’re things living out here too, and I’m not just talking about us tiny little humans in our tin cans. You ever see one of those old-timey nautical maps where the uncharted regions say “Here be dragons,” and then there’s some crazy-as-hell drawing of a giant sea serpent? Well, those old cartographers wouldn’t even know where to begin drawing some of the stuff I’ve seen swimming around in the Warp. Big stuff. Real fucking big.

And if you think sailors were a superstitious lot, just try talking to any warper for five minutes. The biggest superstitions revolve around companions. The right companion can be like a good luck charm for a ship. The wrong companion, well…

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