Zarathustra In Aphelion

[MiniKitty]

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Zarathustra In Aphelion
The spirit now wills his own will, and he who had been lost to the world now conquers the world.

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Leaving the secure sphere around Ames, the Kay immediately found itself shrouded by the dark matter storm encapsulating the entire system in violent radiation and corroded debris, pushed and pulled by forces akin to turbulences and jetstreams, mixed with the constant harassment of specks of dust and pebbles. And yet, boldly went the little gunboat deeper and deeper into the wilds, its pilot determined to challenge the odds in an attempt to save lives - at the risk of two. At least two.

Madeleine slowly stepped through the hallway of the gunboat. The door to the cockpit was open, revealing the sight of the cockpit windows presenting the death right outside the shield bubble, and a seemingly fearless pilot named Levan. A young, skinny boy, who always seemed like one or two sizes too small for the pilot's seat he resided in, leaning forward to the controls, his senses focused on everything ahead of him. To him, he was the only person on the Kay. To him, only his own life was at risk.

The girl with the orange-dyed hair slowly made her way to the cockpit. Her steps so lightfooted, if there was any sound produced by her, it was muffled by the rumbling of the engines and increasing pressure on hull and shields. Her gaze fell, just slightly, in thought of this situation. Her mind busied itself with the endless considerations of the here and now. What was the best way to deal with this? Confronting him? Blaming him? In one possible scenario, she would easily overpower him, take control of the ship and head right back to Ames. In one other possible scenario - one she deemed a lot more likely despite a lack of solid evidence to support this thought of likeliness - he would overpower her.

Madeleine knew there was something off about him. Something he was hiding for years. She knew he had a different persona buried beneath this cute appearance. He mentioned it a few times to her. Despite a constant profession-founded curiousity to find out more, she figured it was best to leave it buried. He had been through enough trauma, and it was not up to her to poke into it. At least not without his consent.



The black boot covering her right foot entered the cockpit. Then the long leg attached to it. In a sovereign motion, the rest of her tall yet thin body followed. A set of buoys in the distance, then the glowing orbs around the Prophet. Levan dismissed them and steered the ship around for the next set of buoys. Madeleine inched closer, the fingers and thumb of her right hand almost nervously massaging the palm of her left hand. Her body still didn't produce any audible noise. There were these anomalies right out there, and the wreck of a liner trapped between them. And yet Levan didn't care. It was nothing he wanted to care about anymore.

Levan.

There was a moment of silence as the Kay stopped dead in its track right next to the new set of buoys marking the passage to Colorado. Levan slowly leaned back into his seat, his arms taking the opportunity to relax onto the arm rests. He exhaled audibly. Despite the sudden wave of intimidation almost crushing her body, she stepped closer and closer until she arrived right next to him, facing the cockpit windows. Whenever he went silent and unresponsive, it disturbed her. This magnificent, breathtaking boy, otherwise causing the people around him, especially her and Monique, to smile, to laugh and feel love and joy in response to his beauty, his pheromones and his naive, undereducated antics. These brown eyes peeking through under a curtain of thick, black hair. This otherwise calm and youthful voice. All the things she loved about him, that made her hands sweaty in his presence, that made her body react with desire for touch, kiss and mating, for constant proximity and unreasonable loyalty to him. All that was shaken in this moment, when he fell silent.

She knew it would have been better to stay on Ames, to intentionally fall for his little deception to get her and Monique to stay in a safe place. And yet here she was, right next to him.

Take the co-pilot seat. We are scanning for debris.


Without much hesitation, she followed his command. The tall girl lowered her rear into the seat next to his and leaned forward. She had little knowledge about all the controls in front of her, but the scanner was rather intuitive to use. It was not the first time.

We are looking for anything with smaller levels of radiation and corrosion. That should give us a lead.

Are you not mad?

His head turned in her direction for a few seconds, giving her a piercing yet neutral stare. It then turned into an amiable smile before he faced Kepler again.

I think we both know exactly what you being here means.


The smile was contageous, and Madeleine found herself almost embarrassed at the realization that her lips had formed one.

You are far too intelligent to come here and ask me to return to Ames. You know I will not return. You made a conscious decision to stay with me despite me trying to fool you.

If anything, I just love you even more now, be it for your intention to either tell me not to do it, or for the intention to stay with me regardless.


To say Madeleine was intelligent was an understatement. Her perception, her ability to analyze and deduce as well as her empathy have proven to be assets that made her stand out, by a long shot, from the average person. It was only natural to her that pursuing psychological studies would be the career of choice. However, she herself disliked being called intelligent. She disliked the term, especially in how it is used in its colloquial aspect. Both Monique and Levan often praised her for her abilities, and yet she refused to take pride in it. To her, her level of thinking is something everyone is capable of, but simply elects not to aim for.

I'm not sure what could be considered intelligent about me staying with you.

And yet, here we are.

Maybe that is what makes us a good couple!

Maybe. What is your plan now?

Most pilots consider the route from Colorado to Ames easier than the other route from Galileo. The Zoners generally tend to use that route - just like we did when we came here. There are two waypoints of this path that are more difficult to navigate, and that is where I want to check for any traces. It is right ahead of us. Since everything else in the system is radioactive, it is safe to guess that if the ship is still out there, it is considerably less radioactive. That, or its debris. That is the plan.




On occasion, a bigger piece of rock bumped against the shields of the Kay, and Madeleine experienced constant reminders about how death was creeping up on them whenever the titanium plating deformed just enough under the constant pressure and force of violence to pester her with the iconic sound of metallic bending. Nothing the nanobots on and behind the hull weren't able to handle, and yet absolutely terrifying to a person that is not used to it.

Gulping, the young lady from David's Hollow kept her mind entertained with the various scanner displays. Visual, heat, radiation, light, pressure, sonar - sonar? Did sonic not require a medium to move? How was that possible in the vacuum of space? But then again, they were surrounded by gas and dust. Maybe that was enough to actually carry sonic waves? The impacts of rocks on the shields definitely caused sound. It probably made sense in some abstract way. Astrophysics were certainly not her forte.

These thoughts kept her busy. They passed the set of buoys at the most infamous junction of the path - surrounded by the surprisingly sharp rocks of what used to be the Denko asteroid cluster. Levan once told her about the abandoned Xeno asteroid as they passed by. Those people lost their home when the dark matter storm claimed the entire system. That was her immediate thought, until Levan told her that "those idiots had been living in a smaller dark matter cloud covering the region the entire time already".

It was weird to her, the idea of these people purposely living in the most hazardous areas of space, to fight for someone else's cause. Then she looked over to Levan, who right now was risking both of their lives in an attempt to save people who don't even know him, who don't care for him and, most importantly, are most likely dead already. This boy, this young man, who kept surprising her over and over again.

Irresistable. Simply built differently. Her eyes betrayed her thoughts as they were glued to him. His remarkably beautiful face. Not a single flaw in his skin, no beard stubbles, no pimples, no scars. Skin softer than her own. A small, thin body, devoid of any unnecessary fat deposit. Skin and bones, with just enough muscle. He was working out frequently, one way or another. He has never looked healthier than now. Still somewhat underweight, though, which was one of his few visible flaws. And how was he supposed to gain weight, when water and synth paste - or as he kept referring to it, WaSPs - provided him with the exact amount of nutrition and energy he would ever need per day. His skin-tight suit emphasized his body's silhouette, forcing a neverending reminder of his attractive shape onto her mind. Sometimes he conceiled it a bit more by wearing clothes over the suit, and yet his preferred choice of style only fueled her craving for this seemingly rebellious misfit, simply not bending to the conformity of 834 A.S.' sense of fashion.

All in all, she found her praised intelligence to melt away like butter in a frying pan. Brain cells sizzling and steaming, replaced by mankind's most primal instinct. The mere thought of his virility, of the most exciting, jokingly OSC-appropriated part of his body and what he, despite his supressed - no, satiated - libido, can make her feel with it.

Her barely contained desire for him didn't remain unnoticed as his brown eyes met hers, struck by realization of how - and what - she kept eyeing, her body reacting like a dog seeing a juicy, slightly acidic grapefruit, producing saliva. Her brain was no longer in charge of her body. Instincts took a rock and smashed all intelligence out of her head.



Coincidentally, a much bigger rock hit the gunboat at high velocity, causing critical damage to it.

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