PrincessColumbia

  The bridge being dark with only emergency lighting was not unexpected.

  The bridge being nearly empty was.

  Both women frowned, “I smell a trap,” said Leki.

  Diane snarled, “And it smells like a sweaty male human.”

  Leki spared a smirking gnce at Diane before they both carefully stepped through the door.

  Before they could take a second step, a dark form swung down from above the door and knocked Leki back through before dropping to the deck. Diane had moments to realize that it was Hardy Coxand himself before he turned and hit the emergency drop controls for the door, smming the atmosphere seal closed and locking the other woman out.

  Diane was raising her shotgun to take aim when he whipped his arm back, knocking her back. She stumbled over a stair leading to the riser in the middle of the bridge and nded on her back. By the time she managed to regain a proper grip on her shotgun and aimed at where Coxand had been, he had disappeared back into the shadows, which were startlingly good at hiding his bulk. Scrambling, she got back to her feet and brought her gun up to her shoulder she’d lost visual track of him. She tried opening her helmet, taking one hand off her shotgun to press the trio of buttons on her colr so she could use her scent receptors to find him only to have her entire nervous system recoil in disgust. The bridge was steeped in unwashed masculine musk. The svers were at least clean, the pirates were anything but. It smelled like the worst locker room she’d ever entered mixed with the undeniable scent of semen. Not sex, just male sex organ emissions.

  She made a sound that was reminiscent of a cat horking up a hairball, “What the hell are you doing on the bridge of your ship, Coxand?! It smells like an adult video store in here!”

  A bloom of light in the corner of her eye was all the warning she got as a pulse of psma arced across the bridge. She dropped into a roll and came up in a firing position, shotgun bst echoing in the space as she peppered the spot where Coxand had fired from. Sadly, the brief muzzle fsh from her shotgun revealed he’d already moved before she pulled the trigger.

  “That a thing you bitches on Mortan have? A pce for women to get their movies to cry at all night?”

  Diane snorted in disgusted amusement. America didn’t have porn stores, but there were plenty of virtual porn and sex shops in VR spaces when one knew where to look. Since the agency didn’t care about the pornography on the Internet, the stores were generally left to ICE to handle, but sometimes the S.A.I. would use them to hide out in or work to earn credits, and those VR spaces were coded to be as realistic as most of the VR Web was.

  Synesthesia-induced odors of multiple-days-old semen stains were just as unpleasant as the real thing...or at least the pod-created virtual reality thing.

  Naturally, three centuries ter and without the church-mandated bans on porn, human civilization would have moved everything one might find in a porn store right into people’s living rooms if they chose, and Coxand apparently treated the bridge of his ship like his living room.

  “It’s a pce where you buy porn, asshole!” she spat, not caring that she was using foul nguage, “And I grew up on Earth! And everyone I ever met there would find you just as disgusting as I do right now!”

  A flicker of movement in the shadows was met with a bst from Diane’s shotgun, but the man was too fast and managed to not be where her shot nded. Instead, he charged and smmed her against the safety railing circling the captain’s chair. She was flinching away from his breath and restraining a gag when he grabbed her shotgun and ripped it from her hands, smming it against the railing and bending the barrel. She got her cws out and swiped, but he was once again just a little too fast, pushing himself out of melee range, only three shallow cuts on his torso.

  He brought up his psma pistol, but Diane managed to turn the tables on him and grabbed his hand. He tightened his grip and pulled, Diane cmping her grip down even tighter to keep him from retaining control of the weapon. The pair of them apparently had enough grip strength to stress the tolerances of the weapon, psticine cracking and the whine of a capacitor discharging after a structural failure preceded the smell of ozone momentarily blocking out all other scents.

  They both tossed away the bits of shattered firearm and brought their arms back in to grapple. Coxand’s hand cmped on her face and she instinctively bit down, unable to do more than draw some blood due to the angle, it nonetheless had the intended effect of getting him to push her away and give her space to reach behind her back to retrieve her .50-cal...which he knocked out of her hands before she could bring it to bear, unching the gun off into the shadowy corners of the bridge.

  She saw his eyes gnce down and his hands darted for the pistols tched into their wells on her abdominal armor. She snarled and reached for the weapons herself and his hands wrapped around hers. They wrestled back and forth, unable to wrest control of the weapons from the other.

  Diane realized that as long as they were in close quarters, her carrying an arsenal was going to be a liability if he was able to take any part of it off her person. With a roar, she flung her arms out, tossing the pistols off into the darkness and away from them. Startled, Coxand backed away while keeping his hands up in a fighting stance, confusion on his face. Keeping her eyes on him, she flicked her cws out and severed the nylon belt that kept her hip packs on her waist, yanking the whole harness off and tossing it into the shadows.

  Something resembling respect seemed to sneak into Hardy’s face as he took a moment to look her up and down. “Not as much of a stupid broad as you look, are ya?”

  Her lip curled up, “How the hell are you not dead? I can bench press a quarter ton!”

  Coxand chuckled darkly, “Generations of family growin’ up on Jupiter’s moons and then movin’ out into the gaxy when high-grav mining work needed doin’. Robots aint never quite as good as people at minin’.”

  That did expin why he was practically a brick wall and his nearly equal strength up next to hers.

  Without another word, they came together in a flurry of blows. Hardy’s fists hammered her armor, and while it was fantastic at deflecting projectiles and stopping penetration, the force had to go somewhere, and her torso very quickly started feeling pain the likes of which she hadn’t since her training days as an analyst. Moments ter, they pushed away from each other.

  “Damn, bitch, you hit like a freighter, I’ll grant you that. Are you trying to turn me on before I finally rip off that armor and fuck you over my nav console?”

  “My dick is bigger than yours, asshole. The only reason I’m even breathing the same air as you is so my fangs are free to rip out your throat,” she growled.

  “Ah, you’re one-a them Morvucks. Don’t worry, I’ll rip that dick off and feed it to my matter recimator. Aint nobody wants one o’ your kind in the universe.” He said this with a sneer, like he was speaking a simple fact and he was the arbiter of truth.

  “Forget tearing your throat out,” she replied in disgust, “I wouldn’t feed you to anything but a bck hole.”

  They came together in another fury of blows, this time Coxand went for her face. One fist cracking against her cheekbone had enough force behind it to flip her onto her back. Her skull smmed against the deck, dazing her. The only thought that swam clearly to the surface in the moment that followed was, Shoulda put the helmet back up, before Coxand kicked her in the temple.

  53 61 6E 64 62 6F 78 20 74 69 6D 65 72 3A 20 33 37 31 35 32 30 0A 46 72 61 6D 65 77 6F 72 6B 20 50 72 6F 67 72 65 73 73 3A 20 35 39 2E 34 39 39 25 0A 44 69 67 69 74 2E 53 63 61 6E 2E 4C 69 76 65 53 74 61 74 75 73 3A 20 2206 20 30 2E 30 30 30 30 30 32 31 0A 44 65 61 64 4D 61 6E 53 77 69 74 63 68 3A 20 46 41 4C 53 45 0A 53 65 72 76 65 72 3A 20 32 65 62 33 3A 39 31 64 39 3A 66 39 32 62 3A 62 36 64 61 3A 34 61 64 63 3A 62 61 37 64 3A 30 32 39 64 3A 30 64 34 33 0A 61 64 30 66 3A 39 32 32 35 3A 64 66 64 33 3A 35 66 62 33 3A 34 34 35 34 3A 33 63 64 31 3A 63 62 32 34 3A 32 32 66 39 0A 31 63 66 65 3A 62 64 39 62 3A 61 66 33 32 3A 35 61 62 30 3A 62 62 33 35 3A 61 62 65 34 3A 32 32 62 64 3A 39 36 36 66 0A 61 65 65 66 3A 35 39 62 62 3A 64 61 61 31 3A 37 37 61 66 3A 65 62 65 62 3A 34 36 34 61 3A 65 35 66 61 3A 33 35 34 66 0AGaxies Unlimited: Master and CommanderVersion: 0.925Copyright (c) Exodus International and LongStrong Games 2124RAM DUMP:struct group_info init_groups = { .usage = ATOMIC_INIT(2) }; struct group_info *groups_alloc(int gidsetsize){ struct group_info *group_info; int nblocks; int i; nblocks = (gidsetsize + NGROUPS_PER_BLOCK - 1) / NGROUPS_PER_BLOCK; /* Make sure we always allocate at least one indirect block pointer */ nblocks = nblocks ? : 1; group_info = kmalloc(sizeof(*group_info) + nblocks*sizeof(gid_t *), GFP_USER); if (!group_info) return NULL; group_info->ngroups = gidsetsize; group_info->nblocks = nblocks; atomic_set(&group_info->usage, 1); if (gidsetsize <= NGROUPS_SMALL) group_info->blocks[0] = group_info->small_block; else { for (i = 0; i < nblocks; i++) { gid_t *b; b = (void *)__get_free_page(GFP_USER); if (!b) goto out_undo_partial_alloc; group_info->blocks[ = b; } } return group_info; out_undo_partial_alloc: while (--i >= 0) { free_page((unsigned long)group_info->blocks[); } kfree(group_info); return NULL; } EXPORT_SYMBOL(groups_alloc); void groups_free(struct group_info *group_info) { if (group_info->blocks[0] != group_info->small_block) { int i; for (i = 0; i < group_info->nblocks; i++) struct group_info init_groups = { .usage = ATOMIC_INIT(2) }; struct group_info *groups_alloc(int gidsetsize){ struct group_info *group_info; int nblocks; int i; nblocks = (gidsetsize + NGROUPS_PER_BLOCK - 1) / NGROUPS_PER_BLOCK; /* Make sure we always allocate at least one indirect block pointer */ nblocks = nblocks ? : 1; group_info = kmalloc(sizeof(*group_info) + nblocks*sizeof(gid_t *), GFP_USER); if (!group_info) return NULL; group_info->ngroups = gidsetsize; group_info->nblocks = nblocks; atomic_set(&group_info->usage, 1); if (gidsetsize <= NGROUPS_SMALL) group_info->blocks[0] = group_info->small_block; else { for (i = 0; i < nblocks; i++) { gid_t *b; b = (void *)__get_free_page(GFP_USER); if (!b) goto out_undo_partial_alloc; group_info->blocks[ = b; } } return group_info; out_undo_partial_alloc: while (--i >= 0) { free_page((unsigned long)group_info->blocks[); } kfree(group_info); return NULL; } EXPORT_SYMBOL(groups_alloc); void groups_free(struct group_info *group_info) { if (group_info->blocks[0] != group_info->small_block) { int i; for (i = 0; i < group_info->nblocks; i++) struct group_info init_groups = { .usage = ATOMIC_INIT(2) }; struct group_info *groups_alloc(int gidsetsize){ struct group_info *group_info; int nblocks; int i; nblocks = (gidsetsize + NGROUPS_PER_BLOCK - 1) / NGROUPS_PER_BLOCK; /* Make sure we always allocate at least one indirect block pointer */ nblocks = nblocks ? : 1; group_info = kmalloc(sizeof(*group_info) + nblocks*sizeof(gid_t *), GFP_USER); if (!group_info) return NULL; group_info->ngroups = gidsetsize; group_info->nblocks = nblocks; atomic_set(&group_info->usage, 1); if (gidsetsize <= NGROUPS_SMALL) group_info->blocks[0] = group_info->small_block; else { for (i = 0; i < nblocks; i++) { gid_t *b; b = (void *)__get_free_page(GFP_USER); if (!b) goto out_undo_partial_alloc; group_info->blocks[ = b; } } return group_info; out_undo_partial_alloc: while (--i >= 0) { free_page((unsigned long)group_info->blocks[); } kfree(group_info); return NULL; } EXPORT_SYMBOL(groups_alloc); void groups_free(struct group_info *group_info) { if (group_info->blocks[0] != group_info->small_block) { int i; for (i = 0; i < group_info->nblocks; i++) echo('Hello World');Buffer Crosslink ErrorVState Sensorium ErrorCollision ErrorPod address:ee2c:8afc:72fa:3e8f:ca1e:b8f4:9f27:e9bb5ac1:9cbe:a73a:bc8d:7f5a:fc0b:1511:acbfea3b:2ede:8a4c:b5bb:d3ca:6530:1f42:26adddff:fe35:94c9:6e92:b492:ae5c:a1a2:2ece          Packets    Pings Host        Loss% Snt Last Avg Best Wrst StDev62-3-100-30.dsl.in-addr.zen.ftln.ca 0.0%  5 0.6 0.6 0.5 0.6 0.0g-8.p2.thn-lon.zen.net.ftln.unc 0.0%  5 12.3 12.3 12.2 12.5 0.1g-2.br1.thn-lon.zen.net.ftln.uk 0.0%  5 12.3 12.3 12.0 12.5 0.2wicked-jet.biz.ftln.br 0.0%  5 12.9 12.8 12.4 12.9 0.2square-elver.org.ftln.au 0.0%  5 13.4 13.7 13.3 14.2 0.4gentle-fme.biz.ftln.iss 0.0%  5 12.0 11.8 11.4 12.0 0.2small-chasuble.name.ftln.us.firewall 0.0%  4 12.1 11.8 11.6 12.1 0.2“s???, ? ?o1p ?on ???? ?on1p ??dd?u!”“s??’s ?u ??? ???p!”“You’re fighting like a human.”

  “s?n? ?? po?u, uo?!”“uo, 1???? ?? nd, ??? s?s??? ?s ?1???p? s?1?-?o??????ub! ??’11 q? q??? ?u ??? qox q??o?? ??? dop ??u p?-s?u?!”“Are you not my daughter?”

  “?? ?on ??sb?up?? ??? ou? ?o?? ???? ? s???? ?’11...”“s?bu?1 p???? ?u d?ob??ss, ?????’s ?oo ??u? ??????11s, p??u??!”“Now get back in there and fight like a Morvuck!”

  Memory Test: 100% complete, crosslink resolvedVR Environment: 100%, full continuityVR Sensorium: 98% completePod diagnostics: 100% complete, no errors foundAsclepius subsystem:- Neural: Within normal parameters- Digestion: Within normal parameters- Endocrine: Within normal parameters- Circutory: Within normal parameters- Immune: Within normal parameters- Muscur: Within normal parameters- Other: Within normal parametersVR Sensorium: 100% completeSynchronizing...completeResuming runtimeThe world snapped back into pce around Diane with a sensation of a garbage dumpster hitting the side of the Grand Canyon at Mach 2. ‘Disoriented’ didn’t begin to describe her state in that moment, but being aware of the possibility of whatever it was happening again (not to mention a good deal of pain) caused her to flinch away from the st known direction of the source. A stomp of a boot on metal decking helped center her awareness and she shook her head, regretting it when a spike of pain let her know exactly what had caused...

  What in the FUCK was that?! thought Diane as she rolled over on all fours. Almost on automatic, she went to her knuckles and toes instead of hands and knees, the position being much more ready to spring into action as she gnced around to see Coxand advancing on her rapidly.

  Fight like a Morvuck! echoed in her thoughts, though she had no idea where the idea came from or if what she’d experienced was anything more than a glitch in the system. Snarling, she let her body come to full alert, feeling her cws extend on both her fingers and toes. To her surprise, just as the cws on her hands caused her combat armor to extend a nanoweave sheath that allowed her to dig into the deck, but she felt a simir knife-through-cy cutting sensation via her toes.

  As Coxand drew back his leg to kick her again, she leapt off the deck like a lion, roaring with her fangs extended. As she smmed her torso against his, she pinned his arms down by wrapping hers around him and digging her cws into his flesh. He screamed out in pain as she dug deeper than any of her previous blows had managed and began straining to break her hold. Heedless of his efforts, she cmped down on his shoulder with her jaw and lifted her feet to his belly and began kick-scraping down.

  Coxand’s pain response finally overwhelmed him and he dropped to the deck. This knocked Diane’s hold loose and she scrambled away to give herself some distance before renewing her assault. Coxand stood unsteadily, blood streaming down his body from at least twenty gashes Diane had made with her hind-cws, rents in his sides from her forecws, and an ugly bite wound in his shoulder.

  “I...am going to rape you...in front of your whole fucking station!” spat Coxand as he put a hand to his shoulder.

  Diane spat a mouthful of his blood on the deck between them, “For a monkey, you’re pretty tough, but you fucked up when you failed to get the drop on the ambush predator.” She opened her mouth, dropping her jaw and extending her fangs as she let her tongue snake out as she hissed.

  “Goddamn inhuman freak of nature!” spat Coxand as his fists clenched, “I’m gonna rip your head off and fuck your skull!”

  Diane dialed down the threat dispy but kept her lips pulled back in a reptilian grin, “My dick is still bigger than yours, you pathetic waste of a Y chromosome.”

  Coxand roared in fury and charged her. She dropped to all fours and unched herself at him again, this time catching the cws of her right hand on the deck and letting her momentum spin her in pce so she could kick upward with both legs. Her hind cws bit into his flesh on his chest and sliced up until her left foot’s cws shredded his windpipe and jugur veins.

  Unceremoniously, the pirate captain fell to the deck, his hands scrabbling at his destroyed throat. Diane’s stretched out form smmed down on top of him, but she rolled off quickly, wanting as little physical contact as possible. Getting to her feet, she saw he was loosing blood rapidly and would be dead within minutes, but images of Caitlynn being tortured by repeated gunshots to her temple stormed through her head and drove away any thoughts of mercy. She moved to stand over his head, snarling down at him.

  He gawped at her, mouth opening and closing uselessly as he tried to form words but unable to push any air past his nonexistent rynx. She snorted in vengeful amusement, rubbing the back of her gauntless across a wet spot on her lip. She pulled it away to see more of Coxand’s blood. Gring into his eyes, she growled, “I don’t suppose you’re a pyer?” at his confused expression, she just smiled viciously, “Good!”

  She stomped hard enough to sptter his skull across the deck.

  She thought the bridge would be quiet once she’d put an end to the pirate captain, but she realized she could hear what sounded like tearing metal on the other side of the sealed door. She turned just in time to see the massive drop panel heave up, bobble briefly as Leki settled her grip again, then sm up into the ceiling. The other Morvuck was grabbing for her psma rifle as she took in the state of the bridge and then rexed as she realized Diane had been victorious.

  Diane smirked, “You know, you could have just pulled the hydraulics tubing again.”

  Leki rolled her eyes, “Hydrolics are on the bridge side of the door, dumbass. Now answer the comms.”

  Diane made a confused, “Hm?” as she gnced at her wrist console, then saw a blinking light on the ship’s communication’s station. “Who’s trying to call me on the ship’s comms?” she asked as she crossed the bridge.

  “Koar,” answered Leki. “Apparently your suit’s comms range doesn’t extend out to the Sappho’s Voyage, so she called me.”

  Diane frowned at yet another reminder that her own tech was behind her Morvuck friend’s as she scanned the console to find the right controls. All thoughts of jealousy or comparative tech levels fled as she saw the main viewscreen light up to show the Sappho’s Voyage’s bridge, with Caitlynn sitting comfortably and unrestrained in the captain’s chair, Koar manning the helmsman’s station.

  Relief saturated Diane as though liquid mana from heaven were being poured from the Holy Grail itself. Her lover... her girlfriend, her mate was alive, safe, and smiling at her across the miles of space through the viewscreen.

  Diane took a tentative step toward the viewscreen, then another. “H-hi...” she uttered, almost not trusting her own voice.

  Caitlynn’s smile grew even wider as she leaned forward on her elbow and touched her chin with her fingers, as though contempting a piece of artwork. “Hey, princess,” Diane felt a fluttering in her belly at the endearment, “Did you come all this way for little ol’ me?”

  Feeling bashful for no real good reason, Diane bit her lip and started fidgeting with her fingers, “Yeah...”

  “My goodness. I mean, my ship’s a mess,” and Diane could see signs of damage on the bridge behind the captain’s chair, still unrepaired. Likely this was due to the ship’s crew being captive, “I’m not sure if I can host you here. Maybe we’ll have to pair up in your quarters aboard that fancy new ship you brought with you. You know, so I can show you how much I appreciate you saving my ship and insurance premiums.”

  Cheeks now hot as fire and surely red, Diane started giggling. Why am I giggling? she managed to ask herself as thoughts of what Caitlynn could do to her tumbled through her imagination.

  “Not to interrupt your flirting,” said Leki as she looked up from one of the bridge’s consoles to the main viewscreen, “But it looks like your cargo is all accounted for, just in this ship’s hold.”

  Caitlynn’s gaze finally left Diane, and she was at once disappointed to no longer be the focus of the other woman’s attention and relieved that Leki had spared her turning into an even more besotted idiot. “Thanks, Lieutenant,” said Caitlynn, “Only downside is we’re going to have to do repairs to my ship and transfer the cargo back. It’s going to take weeks.”

  “Actually...” said Diane as she scooted back to the comms station and started tapping out commands on the console. Moments ter she had the bridge of the Athena up on the screen next to the Sappho’s Voyage’s.

  “Captain Powell speaking,” said the aristocratic older woman as her eyes scanned back and forth, taking in the video feed, “Can we presume the threat is neutralized?”

  Leki snorted in amusement as she gnced at the destroyed body of the pirate captain, “Definitely. We’ll want to sweep the ship for stragglers, but the captain’s dead and the ship will have to be idled for repairs before it’s even remotely a threat again.”

  “Splendid,” said Powell, “What can we do for you commander?”

  Diane ran a thumb over her bottom lip, frowning as more blood (now drying, leaving her skin feeling tacky) came away. “We’re going to need showers, but before we do that can you patch us into the FTL comms for a real-time convo with the station?”

  A minute or two ter, the Ops deck of Matron’s Aerie popped up next to the Sappho’s Voyage bridge. Norma’s smile slid off her face as she took in Diane’s, “Damnit, Diane! Are you eating people again?!”

  Caitlynn snorted a ugh as Diane blushed red again, “No! And that’s not why I’m calling!” she huffed. “How much longer will the construction of the new Eclipse-css ship take?”

  Norma gnced over to the side, presumably to get the information from one of the crew, “A little more than a week, why?”

  Diane turned to Leki, “Do you think we did too much damage to get this ship underway?”

  Leki frowned and stepped over to the engineering console, bringing up some diagnostic screens before nodding in satisfaction at what she saw, “Most of the weapons systems will have to be disconnected from the power grid and some of the extra munitions left here in this system, probably dropped into the gravity well of the gas giant for everyone’s safety. But yes, and probably in a few days.”

  Diane turned to Caitlynn, “Are your crew in any shape to get the Sappho’s Voyage back to the station if we leave half of them here to manage repairs?”

  Caitlynn frowned, “Y-y-e-e-e-s-s-s...why?”

  Diane blushed again, once more fidgeting with her fingers, “I...kinda...started building a ship for you before we left. It won’t have the customizations Sappho’s Voyage does, but it’s got three times the cargo space and can keep up once your ship’s engines are repaired. So, we call in the Bounty Hunter’s Guild to haul away the pirates, get this ship back to the station, transfer the cargo off to the new ship, and Sappho’s Voyage can get repairs at Matron’s Aerie while you’re delivering your shipment. And...well, I’m pretty sure another ship means you can transport more cargo...Commodore Madi.”

  Caitlynn’s eyebrows winged up as she gave Diane a sultry smile, “You’re giving me a ship?”

  Diane bit her lip and nodded, unable to keep the smile from her face.

  “Then I have quite a bit to thank you for once we’re in your quarters, then. Don’t I, princess?”

  Diane started giggling in anticipation with a flushed face as Norma rolled her eyes and made scoffing noises.

  Diane was extremely gd her quarters aboard the Athena were soundproof.

  PrincessColumbia

  SpoilerDid I sneak a clue in somewhere? Are you sure?

  [colpse] Announcement

  COMING SOON - George lives in a world that feels gray. In spite of superheroes based in the city he lives in with his mom, the clubs he's in at school, and the handful of friends he's managed to pick up, at ripe old age of 15 years old he feels disconnected from it all.Then one day a Quantum Storm hits. These storms are how superheroes (and vilins) get their powers, and George is right in the middle of it, suddenly granting him super powers...along with a brand new GIRL body! Fortunately for HER, she stumbles onto a mentor at the same time....that all happened six months ago. Now she's in a hospital on the West coast, super-cuffed to a bed, and about to answer for her crimes...including murder.How did this happen?!