Chapter 9: Touchdown

Tiness gave Tau-Tau and Ochio the same paint job as Spidley, only using a grass green and a sunny yellow on their legs and abdomen. They went everywhere with the girls and Alain and provided help with work and completing the mapping and inventory of both warships. Silth and human differences were ignored and the requested orders for components were handled by all three on both ships to get them done with plenty of free time left before they had to send the cargo drones back to each side. Asitha and Alain went through the documentation of the spider drones and built an interface to the media system so they could participate in the games and even play by themselves.

‘Hey, tiger, fluffball.’ said Alain when Asitha and Tiness returned from their daily parts run, together with Spidley and Ochio.

‘Darling.’ said Tiness, and kissed him and stole a piece of fish meat that he was slicing in the kitchen. ‘Missed us?’

He put down the knife and pulled her naked body against his. ‘Always, and not just because I love looking at you all the time.’

She blushed and chuckled. ‘I still can’t believe you like to look at me just as much as Asitha when I have that thing.’

He moved his hands down her back and buried his fingers in the thick fur of her behind. ‘That’s because the most attractive parts to look at are your eyes, your faces, and of course your ears and tails.’

Tiness sensed something growing below against her lower abdomen and giggled. ‘You’re going to cause me to get the same reaction.’

Alain grinned. ‘I don’t mind. I take it as a sign that I’m still attractive.’

Asitha grabbed his behind and pulled his face towards her to kiss him. ‘You’ll have to put it on hold for now, otherwise you’ll influence the health test we have to take, lover.’

Alain and Tiness chuckled and let go. ‘I almost forgot.’ said Tiness. ‘I’ll go first.’

Asitha looked down at Alain and licked her lips. ‘I don’t think you’ll have any problem with your health test.’ she said and chuckled.

He stroked her back. ‘The only thing out of the ordinary would be my blood pressure.’ he said. ‘Until they realise the cause.’

Asitha left after Tiness returned, but when she returned Tiness and Alain went silent at the sight of her drooped ears and her wide eyes. ‘Tiger, what’s the matter!?’ asked Alain as they moved up quickly to her. She looked at him, then at Tiness, and turned away. ‘You’re shaking! What’s wrong?’

She sniffed. ‘I... , I’m... ‘

‘What?’ asked Tiness. ‘Tell us.’

‘Pregnant.’ Asitha said softly. ‘I’m pregnant.’

Tiness and Alain gazed silently at her. ‘How?’ asked Tiness after a moment. She shook her head. ‘Stupid, I know how, but I thought you took your fertility blockers as usual?’

‘I did.’ said Asitha and clutched her arms around her. ‘I don’t understand why.’

‘Could the machine have been wrong?’ asked Alain.

She shook her head. ‘I repeated the test.’

He stepped back, sat on the back rest of the couch, and frowned at the floor in silence.

Asitha looked back at Tiness, and she looked at Alain. ‘If you don’t want to see us, we understand.’ she said.

He looked up at Tiness and saw her ears drooped as much as Asitha’s, and their tails tucked tight. ‘What?’

Tiness took Asitha’s hand in hers. ‘Hate me all you want, but please don’t hate Asitha.’

He gazed at the two for a moment again, then shook his head. ‘Why would I hate you?’

‘Because it must be me, that... ‘

He sighed. ‘I realise that’s the only possibility since I’m a different species, but I’m not going to hate either of you for this. In fact, it should be me who offers to withdraw if you prefer that.’

‘No!’ said Asitha and knelt in front of Alain and laid her hands on his lap. ‘I want this child to be just as much yours as ours! I want you to be a father to it.’

Tiness knelt beside her and carefully put her hand on his lap. ‘Please be the father, I might only be good at being a mother to it.’

Alain laid his hands on theirs. ‘I will become its father, but I’m worried about the birth and if we can raise it safely here. My mind is occupied with not just the two Silth that I love now, but the one that will come as well.’

Asitha rose and threw her arms around his neck. ‘I love you, Alain. I really love you.’ she sobbed in his neck.

He smiled softly at Tiness and opened his arm to her. She rose to embrace him tight. ‘I love you both, my cuties. I love our whole crazy family.’ he said, then slipped backwards from the backrest and tumbled with the girls upside-down on the couch. They laughed and kissed away their worries while the spider drones leisurely played their maze runner game on the media system.

***

Asitha couldn’t tell if her pregnancy or ceasing the use of fertility blockers was the cause, but she craved Alain even more and the three shared in their pleasure frequently on the couch on top of their daily time in bed. Asitha rolled in satisfaction on her back on the couch after Alain stilled her carnal hunger. She smiled at the sight of Tiness diligently cleaning him and caressed her larger abdomen. She had thought often about it but Alain had to have something to do with her unexpected pregnancy. There could be no other reason after they had confirmed she showed no abnormalities at the fertility tests and the blockers she had used were fine. The later discovery that she was carrying twins confirmed to her that Alain hadn’t changed his feeling for her or Tiness. He worried even more about what was needed for the young ones like a father would. She sighed happily and rested her head, then noticed the priority message led blinking on her tablet.

She reached out and picked it up because she couldn’t ignore it and opened up the messaging client. A chill went down her spine at the contents. ‘SHAZ!’

Tiness sat up startled and Alain’s heart skipped a beat. Asitha pushed herself up and thrust the tablet towards them. ‘They’re coming!’

Tiness took the tablet to read it. ‘What!? Who is!?’ asked Alain.

Asitha moved on her knees to him. ‘They found out about us living together! They had the cargo drones record the landings here because we drifted out of our orbit and they saw our home!’

Tiness showed him the photos that were sent, taken from above the warships and showing their pod home and the three of them at the side waiting to secure the drone after the landing. ‘They’ve charged us with treason and are coming to arrest us!’

‘Fuck!’ said Alain. ‘When are they coming?’

Her ears drooped and she slumped. ‘They’re sending a cruiser, should arrive in less than forty days.’

The message led on Alain s tablet blinked and he snatched it from the table. ‘Shitshitshit!’ he said at the new message. ‘Earth is sending a vessel as well. They want me for treason for collaborating with an enemy of the state.’ He threw the tablet on the floor and it bounced under the table. ‘They’re not going to take you away from me!’

Asitha and Tiness hugged him tight. ‘We won’t let them.’ Asitha said.

The three relaxed a little after a long hug. ‘We have to run away.’ Tiness said softly.

‘But where?’ asked Asitha. ‘We have no decent ship or even enough fuel for one.’

‘Now I regret that we didn’t keep that bandit ship.’ grumbled Alain.

Asitha turned to lean against his side. ‘We wouldn’t be comfortable having it around, knowing what they did on it.’

He nodded. ‘Yeah, but I could live with that if I’d known this would’ve happened.’

Tiness curled on the couch with her head on his lap. ‘I don’t ever want to go back, even if they hadn’t found out about us.’ she said and Alain stroked her head. ‘I’d rather be dead than be separated from you two, which will likely happen anyway in the case of treason.’ Tears ran down her face. ‘If they don’t execute me I’ll probably commit suicide to escape the torture.’

Asitha stroked Tiness’s head as well. ‘Please don’t say that. We’ll find a way out of this. We’ll escape somehow and then we’ll hide on a far away planet, somewhere with few people or maybe even uninhabited like the planet in this system. We’ll disappear.’

Alain’s mind went into overdrive at several thoughts clashing together. ‘Get dressed! We’re going to the Walkurea!’

‘What’re you thinking!?’ asked Asitha while they donned their suits and the spider drones went ahead through the airlock.

‘I have an idea but I don’t know if it’s even possible.’ he said and checked the suit’s functions. ‘I need the navigation systems of the Walkurea to find out. You’ll see what I mean on the bridge there.’

The six hurried to the bridge where Alain normalised the environment and activated the consoles. He projected the solar system on the main screen and marked the location of the warships. ‘This is our current situation.’ he said. ‘I didn’t know we had drifted out of orbit and should’ve kept a better eye on it, but it might be in our advantage now.’ He turned to Asitha and Tiness. ‘What you two said got me thinking, what if we commit suicide to prevent them from breaking up our family?’

Tiness gasped and Asitha froze. ‘If there is no other way, I will follow you in death without regret.’ Tiness said. ‘I have nothing else to live for.’

Asitha put her hand on Alain’s. ‘If you’re sure that’s our only way out I’m at your side all the way.’ she said and laid her other hand on her belly. ‘I want to save them from the painful life they would have if they were born in prison.’

Alain smiled softly at her and Tiness. ‘Thank you, but I didn’t mean to actually do that.’ he said. ‘I was thinking of making it look that way.’

Asitha sighed in relief. ‘How?’

He took a pen from the console and drew a curve from the ships to the planet nearby on the screen through the console with the smaller view. ‘We descend into that gas giant’s orbit and plunge into its atmosphere.’

‘You want to crash us into the planet?’ asked Tiness.

‘Not crash. Use it to slow us down and sling us to this one.’ he said and drew a new curve towards the second planet from the sun.

Tiness and Asitha looked at him. ‘Escape to the uninhabited planet here!?’

‘Exactly.’

‘They would track us there in a heartbeat!’ said Asitha.

‘Which is why we make the turn at the gas giant look like we’ve crashed ourselves into it on purpose.’ Alain said. ‘They think we omitted suicide to avoid capture. They can’t explore the gas giant without special equipment and knowing where we crashed, in the meantime we head for the second planet where we brake into the atmosphere and jump ship to land in a hopefully good spot to live out our lives.’ He looked up at the large screen. ‘It is a big risk and I don’t know if we can pull it off. If you don’t want to do this I will try to come up with something else.’

Asitha looked at Tiness. ‘What do you think?’

Tiness sat down in one of the chairs at the consoles. ‘I don’t know. The only other choice I see that we have is being taken away and I don’t think we will have a chance to escape or win in a fight against trained soldiers.’

Asitha nodded. ‘I have no hope that things might work out sooner or even a lot later when they take us.’ she said and looked at Alain. ‘I prefer to try and die than die in the end anyway. I want our children to live in freedom, even if it means living alone in the wilderness of that planet.’

Alain smiled and looked at Tiness. ‘If you need time to think it over, take it.’

Tiness looked up at him. ‘We’ll be together one way or another, right?’

He nodded.

‘Then I don’t need time. We go for it.’

Alain took a deep breath and sat down as well. ‘Damn, now that it’s settled my legs tremble like no tomorrow.’ he said and chuckled.

Asitha chuckled. ‘We’re heading towards an uncertain future after all. One even more uncertain than it already was’

‘That’s why I’m glad we do this together.’ Alain said. ‘It’s going to be a literally rougher ride than when we escaped the debris.’ he turned the chair and looked at the spider drones. ‘What do you say? You can come with us, or we can leave you in an emergency pod for one of the vessels to pick you up.’

He recognised the way they kept still as them discussing between themselves but the reply came fast. They waved their forelegs affirming they’d stay.

He turned to the girls. ‘We’ll have to calculate the manoeuvres, and confirm them on both the Walkurea and the Amaroth, and if possible a third way.’

‘I think these guys can do that.’ said Asitha. ‘They have the computing power and they can learn about orbital calculations from both ships.’

Alain looked at Tiness. ‘Can you do it with one of these guys on the Amaroth? Then I’ll do it here.’

She gave him a determined nod. ‘Ochio and I will get to work right away.’ she said and looked at Ochio. ‘Are you up for it?’

Ochio confirmed with a wave of his foreleg and Tiness kissed Alain with quick passion before leaving for the Amaroth. Asitha moved next to him. ‘What shall I do?’

He looked up at her and stroked her side. ‘We need to determine how much fuel we have left. Maybe our little friends have found something during their explorations that we’ve overlooked. It wouldn’t surprise me if we still had some here on the Walkurea.’

She nodded and looked at Spidley. ‘Coming with me? We’ll go back home to go through the information you gathered.’

Spidley confirmed and Asitha shared a deep kiss with Alain before she left. Alain turned to Tau-Tau. ‘Ready for perhaps the most critical task in your life?’

Tau-Tau first waved negatively, then positively.

Alain chuckled. ‘I know how you feel. None of us are actually ready, but we’re still going to do it.’ he said and turned to the console. ‘Come here, I’ll connect you to the navigation system.’

***

‘There are some smaller fuel pods on the Walkurea indeed.’ said Asitha as she looked at the short row of rounded oblong tanks. ‘They’re close to the impact zone and were probably written off. I’ll send you the details.’

Alain looked at the data. ‘No wonder I didn’t knew about them, the sections there are dead and I never took a look there to recover parts. Good work.’

Asitha smiled as she looked at Spidley. ‘It’s possible on or two fuel pods are on the Amaroth, I’ll let you know when we get there and confirm it.’

‘Thanks.’ said Alain. ‘Tiness, how’re you doing?’

Tiness entered the fuel data into the calculations. ‘I made a calculation of what’s necessary to get to the second planet in single steps for reference. I’m entering the fuel data and will do a comparison next.’

‘Well done. I think we can do a first comparison with my calculations when you’re done.’

Asitha called again later. ‘Just one fuel pod here on the Amaroth but it’s full.’

‘Still nice.’ said Alain.

‘I’m going back home now, maybe there’s other interesting things in the lists from the spiders.’

‘Okay, let us know if you find something we can use right away.’

***

Tiness and Alain sat on the couch and compared their results and those of the spiders. ‘How’s it look?’ asked Asitha as she sat down next to Alain.

‘Looking good.’ said Alain. ‘Minor differences that are within tolerance and can be corrected with the amount of fuel we have available.’

‘So we can do it?’

He nodded. ‘We should be able to do it. We’ll make our first course correction after our rest just like we did before. then we have twenty-six days before we hit the gas giant’s outer atmosphere and create some fireworks. After that we brake with the engines with a minimal amount of fuel for eleven days and go dark before either of our sides arrive in the system. Unless they actively search the system they shouldn’t spot us. We only activate radio channels at the last moment before we land thirty-four days later.’

Asitha picked up her tablet. ‘I went through the spider’s data and there might be some survival gear left, We have the cache of weapons of course but we should take tents, portable gear, and certainly rations. We should have at least enough supplies to last a month.’

Tiness and Alain nodded. ‘If we can’t find any source of food or water in that time, we’re screwed anyway.’

Asitha pulled up another list. ‘I did some thinking. There are enough emergency pods and cross sections to make a few combinations like this one, if we divide all the gear among them there’s a higher chance most will survive the landing. The combined pods also have a bigger chance to land in one piece compared to single ones because of the increased amount of parachutes. We should also move our pod on either the Amaroth or the Walkurea, I don’t think it’ll be safe here above the impact wreckage when the ships could bend or tear loose in the worst case.’

‘Good thinking.’ said Alain as he and Tiness looked over the list of requirements. ‘We can make more or less pod combinations depending on how much fuel we have left to use for the thrusters.’ He looked at the spiders. ‘We can leave the piloting to them if we set up connections to each pod.’

Spidley confirmed with his foreleg.

‘One thing I’d like to take with us is enough of the Walkurea’s garden resources to set up a source of food if we can’t eat the local vegetation.’ said Asitha.

Alain nodded. ‘We’ll take as much seeds as we can as well. Can you set up a plan for what we can take as a minimum in a four pod combination?’

Asitha nodded. ‘I’ll also see what we can take in this one.’ She looked at Tiness. ‘I assume you have no objection to give up your personal pod and move everything into Alain’s pod with me?’

Tiness chuckled. ‘None at all.’

Alain put his tablet on the table and leaned back in his seat. ‘On to our next adventure then.’

***

Tiness snuggled tight against Alain later in bed. ‘I’m beginning to feel nervous about the whole thing now.’

Alain stroked her back and kissed her forehead. ‘That’s normal, fluffball. I usually get nervous at the last moment.’

Asitha chuckled. ‘I want to feel nervous but I can’t for the kids.’

‘You can be nervous all you want after they’re born and take it out on me in the meantime, tiger.’ Alain said and kissed her.’

She giggled. ‘We don’t have much time but I’d still like to take it out on you in one way.’

‘And how’s that?’

She slid her hand down his front. ‘I think you can guess.’

‘I think that’ll ease my nerves as well.’ said Tiness and blushed.

Alain smiled at both of them. ‘Nothing I won’t try for my beloved cuties.’

***

‘Here we go.’ said Alain at the first tremor.

‘I read a slight increase in temperature on the Amaroth’s hull.’ said Tiness.

‘Angle is good.’ said Asitha.

Alain was glad to see Asitha and Tiness focus on their console in front of their seats. They rebuilt his original pod to place three pilot seats with consoles connected to both warships. It was a rush job and he hoped they held long enough to last through the first turn. Another, longer tremor went through the pod.

‘Temperature rising!’ said Tiness. ‘We’re going in!’

Everything shook while the views from the hulls on their screens showed the first glow of heated air at the edge and a screech of metal echoed through the structure. ‘Angle still good!’ said Asitha. ‘We’ll lose more parts of the hull on our way!’

‘Temperature rising on the Walkurea!’ Alain said and through the shaking they sensed the warships turning slowly.

‘Angle changing according to calculation!’ said Asitha while everything that was loose rattled around them.

The first flickers of fire flashed outside. ‘Time to send our message!’ Alain said and unstrapped himself from his chair. Asitha and Tiness joined him in front of one of the viewports and he turned on the camera to record them. ‘This is our message for the Silth and Earth vessels coming to arrest us. We, Asitha and Tiness from the Silth, and I,’ Another screech echoed through the structure. ‘I, Alain from Earth, decided we’d rather spend our final moments together than whatever time we may have left away from each other.’ A shock pushed them sideways and the girls clamped Alain’s arms while fire flickered brighter behind them and rumbling became louder. ‘We’re currently entering this planet’s atmosphere and will burn up or get crushed to death! We were lucky to have found love between us and we won’t let anyone take that away from us!’ Alain kicked the camera stand aside and Spidley hit it to make sure it broke. ‘That should do it!’

‘Well said!’ said Asitha and gave Alain a quick and firm kiss before returning to her seat while holding tight onto it through the shaking.

‘I could go out happily with a statement like that!’ said Tiness and kissed him as well before returning to her own seat.

Alain strapped himself in. ‘Remind me to come up with more statements if that gets me more kisses from you two!’ he said and checked the console. ‘Walkurea hull at two-thousand-and-thirty degrees!’

‘Amaroth at two-thousand, hundred-and-ten!’ said Tiness over the constant roar sounding through the structure.

‘Angle two degrees over calculation but within tolerance!’ said Asitha.

A sharp crack rang through the pod. ‘The angle between the ships decreased by half a degree!’ said Asitha. ‘The impact zone is under heavy stress!’

‘It should be strong enough to keep the ships together during this turn!’ said Alain.

Another shock hit them, followed by a crack and more tearing of metal and a flash of shadow in the brighter light outside. ‘Tiness switched quickly through the few camera feeds that were available. ‘The Amaroth lost a section of its side!’

‘Angle of the ships is reducing!’ said Asitha. ‘The drag from that breach must be compensating the increase from before!’

Tiness switched views again and gasped at the long trail of fire surrounding them. ‘Temperature at two-thousand, five-hundred-and-seventy! Three-hundred above specs!’

‘It should hold!’ said Asitha. ‘Specs are set to long term stress!’

A series of violent shocks rattled them and shadows rushed past them through the bright light of the fire. ‘Hull plate loss on the Walkurea!’ said Alain.

‘Ship’s angle to the planet is increasing again!’ said Asitha. ‘The angle between Amaroth and Walkurea has decreased by two degrees!’