Chapter 68

The Fastest Man Alive

Chapter 68

By: BigToFu

Jean and Gwen

Prepare for trouble, and make it double. To unite all people within our nation. Jean, to denounce all evils of truth and love!… Gwen, Dynamic woman faster than the speed of light. Jean, surrender now or prepare to fight.

Beep! Beep!

Beep!

Beep!

Blankets shifted as a well-toned arm rose out from underneath the covers, only for dainty fingers to point towards the offending alarm clock. Before the alarm clock knew what was happening, it was hit with a pulse of telekinetic force. The offending alarm clock shattered as it flew across the room in multiple pieces to land in a box labeled OFFENDERS.

If anyone were to check that box, they would notice the blue line marking a limit with a counter ticking up once more as it finally broke into the double digits. Grumbles and muttering started to fill the room as the lights slowly illuminated the room; starting at a low dim to settle slightly underneath full brightness.

Lights slowly illuminated cream-colored walls that wrapped around a surprisingly advanced and sophisticated room. The bed lay within the middle of the large room and directly underneath a wide expansive window that traveled up and into the ceiling, eventually stopping over the bed.

On the bed beneath such a breathtaking view of two ladies lying entwined with each other, a head of red hair spread out onto the pillow was intermixed with a head full of golden blonde. The redhead pulled her arm back underneath the blanket as she wrapped it around the waist of the golden-haired one.

There was a low moan accompanied by shifting bodies, entwined legs, and moving limbs. It was the golden-haired one that moved first as she rose slowly above the red-haired one, arms extended. As she hovered over the red-haired one, a soft moan left the lips of the one beneath her as their nipples rubbed together when her snowy peaks trailed across the other’s body.

Leaning down, she captured the red-haired one’s lips with her own, then entwined the tongue with hers, battling for dominance. Fingers curled into hair as bodies were pulled closer, the tension only broke when a resounding thwack rang throughout the room.

The red-haired one yelped in surprise, as the golden-haired one moved with surprising grace and swiftness. The blankets were tossed to the side as the golden beauty scooped up her bedmate, flying them both into the waiting showers before the blankets even hit the floor.

Half an hour later, the red and golden-haired beauties made themselves presentable before leaving their quarters. Arriving at the dining area, they both sat down to start the morning off with a plate of bacon, toast, and eggs.

[[=]][[=]]

Leaving their quarters with her helms in hand, Jean strolled alongside Gwen as she listened with one ear about some of the latest medical discoveries. Honestly, she loved Gwen, but could barely keep up with her when she went into doctor mode. Even with her acquired knowledge in the medical fields, Gwen was just leagues ahead of her.

Maybe that’s why Ben had brought Sue home, so Gwen could have another just like herself to speak with. Turning and giving her rambling lover a smile, Jean turned her attention to her own plans for today. They had finally been able to get the Eternal out of her cryo chamber and woke her up. After clearing the concussion, Jean had put together an expedition team to head to the moon, Titan.

From what she was able to get out of Nadia, Titan was an old Eternal colony and she was on her way to Earth to get help when the mad Thanos had attacked her home. Unfortunately for Nadia, that was well over a thousand years ago. Lucky for Nadia, Jean wasn’t willing to stroll through her mind, but the information was corroborated with the files on the black server Benjamin had set up for interesting situations.

Even now, the ship they had recovered the Eternal in was still being held outside the space station inside of a special containment area. From what Gwen had told her, they had discovered some foreign microbes and pathogens. This was good for the scientist and Gwen sure, but it was not so good for everyone else since these were pathogens from thousands of years ago.

They of course used the blood sample from the Eternal to create antibodies, but security forces didn’t want to risk taking anything back to Earth either on a shuttle or teleportation room. There was also the little-known fact that there was no way Ben was going to give up that ship and its obvious tactical advantage. She wasn’t one of his military advisors, but even she could see the usages of a secondary warp core or FTL systems in case some Empire was able to disable their current ones.

That doesn’t even take into consideration the star charts, computer systems, and the numerous corpses kept fresh in their own cryo chambers. Nadia was not happy to find out what little crew she had, died in their sleep because of faulty systems. Even those were going to be used to benefit her Empire.

Gwen had been delighted to go over the new genetic samples before sending a bulk of it back home to be reviewed by Sue, before getting added into the Astartes program. All in all, the boons for going to this Titan now instead of later were just too good to ignore. Yet, she was also excited that there might be some Eternals alive on Titan.

When they had finished a family call, Benjamin had pointed out that they were one of the first races made by the same Celestial that made humanity. Then there was also the little-known fact that the Mad Titan himself was from our solar system and he was still alive and a nasty piece of work. Jean grimaced at that little bit of conversation, it was always chilling how much information Benjamin was able to provide them.

As a family, they were working on his paranoia problem, but she herself felt like a hypocrite with how her powers worked. Ben had to always maintain control, otherwise, as he put it, he could get easily lost in time whenever he used his speed. Yet, for her, most if not all of her powers responded at a thought, while the more strenuous feats of might came with help from the Phoenix.

That same Phoenix cosmic force she was connected to gave her answers and insight into people that she rarely had met. Then there was the insight into how the cosmos worked, and all the minds she could touch with barely a thought towards the matter. It was why she understood his paranoia because there were times she could hear the cries of planets enslaved. Or planets exploding with people begging for help, for salvation.

The phoenix was all-powerful, yet even with all of its might, the entity was a cosmic force and couldn’t understand life the way that it needed to be understood. That was why the entity needed a host, to be able to understand the life that it helped breathe back into the cosmos.

That’s why she sometimes felt like a hypocrite, her mind had touched what was out there waiting for their little Empire, yet while she was telling Ben to slow down and not to be so paranoid. Jean herself was also making plans and contingencies.

“Jean, are you even listening?”

Pausing slightly as she was pulled out of her thoughts, she looked at Gwen with a sheepish smile on her face. Gwen rolled her eyes, but Jean had noticed that they were already at the elevator, guessing it was time to get on the road. Gwen shook her head at her, then pressed for the elevator, tablet in hand.

Levitating the tablet out of Gwen’s hand with a finger and smile, Jean hovered in closer. The elevator doors opened with a swish, Gwen didn’t stand a chance as she was swept off her feet and kissed fiercely. Unfortunately for Gwen, the elevator was express, so when it arrived at its destination. She was left breathless, walking with wobbly knees.

A cocky smirk was on Jean’s face as she noticed the looks they were getting from a few of the spartans. Head held high, back straight, she walked with confidence with Gwen at her side as she made her way over to her flight team and scientist.

Standing a short distance from her team was Nadia looking better, sure, but it was obvious that she could use some more rest and recuperation. The only reason why Nadia was coming along was that she blatantly refused to stay behind and wanted to discover what had happened to her people since she was never able to get assistance.

Jean had let that go since this was from over a thousand years ago. Nadia had never explained and Jean had decided not to ask. It was clear that she was keeping secrets, but Jean was alright with letting her keep them a little longer. Benjamin had trusted her with this task and as Queen, she would not fail her Empire or her hubby.

Smirking at the image of that big teddy bear intimidating people, Jean gathered her team around for a quick briefing. With Gwen at her back, Jean walked into the cargo hold of her ship before turning around then waving a hand. Lights shined down from the ceiling and a few strategic locations around the room.

In front of Jean and Gwen, holograms sprang to life, showing the same briefing everyone had gotten on their oni’s over three days ago. Preparations had been made, all they had to do was leave here and go look around without falling into stupid movie tropes, as Emma liked to put it.

“Alright, today we are going to explore what we have found out to be a lost colony of Eternals from Earth. Nadia had been kind enough to give us the IFF codes in conjunction to the main computer from her ship with the proper networks and protocols.” Jean repeated as the information hovered before her and the team. “From what we understand, the defense network might still be up and this will allow us to get through. Unfortunately, we can’t actively depend on that, so be prepared for evasive maneuvers if the systems have changed or our code turns out to be too old.”

Gwen nodded at her side, “Remember, backups for the backups, and trust nothing at face value if it doesn’t try to kill you the first time around.” Gwen said as she waved her own hand to change the holograms. “You have all been given the immune booster shots, but let’s keep our hands to ourselves please.”

“Exactly, we have been bringing stuff from Earth to test to make a clean call on it all, but don’t put yourself in a situation that will force you to be placed in medical contamination confinement.”

Gwen looked at Jean before nodding, “Jean’s right, if we do find natives, keep your dick in your pants for the guys and no shaggin’ up for the ladies. If you do decide to get your dick wet or if you ladies decide to sample some of the goods, know that you are looking at ten days under the tender mercies of hospital food as we try and figure out if you are going to die or not because you fucked one of the indigenous people.”

Jean grimaced with a shake of her head, “Yeah, glad I am not a doctor, but I will put whoever fucks up on cleaning detail for the next ninety days with restrictive pay. So fuck around and find out.”

The smile she gave them was all teeth and very predatory, those who made eye contact shuddered. Seeing the reaction, she nodded before turning on her heel with Gween following at her back. Getting into the cockpit, Jean strapped herself down as Gwen took the scanning station to her left.

Her co-pilot, Robards, came in and took his seat with a grunt, “Alright big boss lady, are you ready to fly today?”

“Yeah, I am actually: my only worry is that you might not be able to keep up.” Jean snarked with good fun.

Robards chuckled at her statement. “Ohh, that would have hurt if I wasn’t there during your first few flights.”

Her cheeks turned red, but it was the next sentence that made her face go scarlet.

“Ohh, I never heard about that,” Came the voice of Gwen from her sensor station.

Robards chuckled evilly as he kept flipping switches and checking his readings. Jean gave him a glare that could kill, but stayed silent since he didn’t say any more. Really, it wasn’t her fault, stupid Ben breaking the window while trying to escape from her. Honestly, her first flight wasn’t that bad. It was those birds’ fault for getting in the way, same with the bridge for not being on the map and that asteroid that came out of nowhere. At least she hadn’t crashed into Pluto.

Huffing, Jean checked the readings on the engine and found that while it had warmed up, she had received checks all across the board. That could only mean her mission was a go and the communications control was waiting on her.

A hand went to her right, settling down on the throttle, drumming her fingers once, then twice, before a mental command activated the communications channel.

“Flight command, this is Phoenix One, ready for take-off.”

“Phoenix One, this is flight command, you are clear five by five. Safe travels ma’am.”

A feral grin split her face as she heard the sound of the docking clamps unlock with a resounding clunk, matching the flash of green on her dash. The throttle control slid forward, kicking the ship into motion with just ten percent power to the thrusters. The world around the cockpit shifted with the passage of the space station’s interior.

Everything went from white and eclectic blue to pitch black and twinkly stars in the distance. Her left worked the flight stick, bringing them around the space station on an elliptical, she loved flying in a three-dimensional space. Something about it was so very freeing for her with everyone stuck with two-dimensional movement.

Throwing the ship into a roll, the space station twisted and turned out the corner of the hologram window of the cockpit. Coordinates appeared on the holo-viewer with swift motions from Robard. Tilting sixty-three degrees on the Y-axis, Jean waited for the computer to line up properly before upping their speed.

They had waited for this day to launch, because, from the astrological data, Titan would be in the line of sight. They could of course go anyway, no matter the position of the moon, but there was safety in the madness. With Titan being in line of sight with the space station by satellites and high-powered telescopes. Then if they were to run into any sort of issues, emergency help would be launched immediately, regardless of her abilities to survive in the void.

With a quick check over navigation, Jean then set the ship to cruise at about eighty percent power, just under FTL speeds.

{ETA TO DESTINATION 10:00}

With the countdown set, Jean sent a page through to the back to call Nadia to the cockpit. From the back, the sound of steps could be heard clunking along the hallway. She could only let out a grimace at that, that clunk was only another one of Benjamin’s paranoid setups. The general spacesuits worn by everyone were made out of the UMF material that also includes a vibranium mesh sole boot.

From what she understood, it was a specialized mag-boot that made next to no noise with each step. That was a vast difference to the suits worn by guests when they visit aboard the ships, they had the same system built into their clothes. Yet, the paranoid part is that they would need the proper access code to activate the boots, otherwise the sound of their steps gave them away. This was done in case a passenger turned hostile when trade and passage was opened for the nations of Earth. Or the other scenario that worried him, pirates.

The sound that the boots made alone would give away a person’s position if they didn’t show up on any of the sensors. The possibilities were endless and Benjamin was trying to prepare for them all.

Pushing those thoughts aside as the light for door confirmation popped up, Jean gave it a quick check before hitting the open selection. The swish of the door was followed by the feel of another’s mind, a mind that Jean hadn’t placed on that little list of those she could ignore naturally.

Jean kept her hands on the controls while letting Gwen direct Nadia to one of the available seats. The clock ticked down as they flew and she checked the heading twice before activating the autopilot.

Swiveling, she checked the instruments and she found something strange as they passed the halfway mark. Checking to see if it was a possible contact, Jean’s hands flew across the controls, pulling up the sensor logs and enlarging the area with magnification.

At first glance, Jean found nothing, but that didn’t stop Robards from discovering a ping just inside sensor range, but right outside the weapon’s reach.

Jean mulled it over before coming to a decision and speaking up, “Nadia, what’s the range on that defence net?”

A hologram appeared before Nadia and Jean could tell that she was checking the scans against the coordinates. There was a lot of muttering and mumbling, but it was ignored since that wasn’t the answer to the question Jean asked.

More decisions were rapidly made as she strapped herself in, then hit the dash. The button she had hit was an alert system, letting everyone know that evasive maneuvers were going to begin in the very near future. They had found that even with inertial dampers, it was all still dependent on the computer system and gyroscopes to keep people properly on their feet. The response time was less than five milliseconds, but those milliseconds, no matter how small, still mattered during high G maneuvers.

This wasn’t the case with the smaller ships, but life was meant to be lived on the edge. For the universe, it was like that was the start signal as light bloomed on the holo screen from the starboard side. Her senses were already heightened to the limit and that shown with the response of the ship.

The ship moved up, down, and pulled multiple barrel rolls: commands were spoken with speed and accepted just as quickly. Behind the co-pilot’s seat, Nadia’s hands were running across the keyboard. The screen flashed red, once, twice, and then green on the third try.

Everything outside of the ship stopped, but Jean was still performing evasive maneuvers in case the weapons system was giving a false response. In the main view window was the large yellow moon, planetoid Titan.

From their approach vector, Saturn was on the port side of the viewing holo-screen, she barely glanced at it and the majesty of the planet’s rings almost took her breath away. Hands flew across panels, checking shields, hull integrity, and multiple systems that kept them alive out here in the deep.

Gwen was calling out all clears, which her copilot answered because Jean had her focus on flying and keeping them alive. As they got within five clicks of Titan, the tension rose once more as the scans started to pick up low-level communications signals.

The signals were low powered enough to stay within the moon’s atmosphere, which from the readings, would allow them a full range without being picked up by outsiders. That would have worked a lot better for them if we didn’t have the IFF codes and a cannibalized communications system from that trashed ship. There was that; the other was the decision that because they were a long-lived race they felt it foolish to improve upon their tech since it wasn’t broken.

The HUD zoomed in on a satellite that was looking in their direction. Making a snap decision, she launched two stealth EMP torpedoes to hang near them in case those satellites turn out to have weapon emplacements attached.

Beep! Beep!

Beep! Beep!

Beep! Beep!

“Jean, we are being hailed on that Eternal Emergency IFF channel,” Gwen called out from her location. As Qwen said those words, the satellites that Jean was keeping her eyes on shifted slightly. Updating some commands for the torpedoes to activate if there was a build-up of power, Jean hit the controls for communications while signaling to Nadia.

Nadia activated the controls and Jean watched from her own controls as a man with red hair shaped in an upside crescent moon appeared. He wore a jumpsuit with white around his neck and down the middle with red arms and legs. The boots and gloves he wore were also white to match the middle.

Jean allowed the now named Eros to speak with Nadia as she watched the progress of her Ai break the encryption and made its way past the communications firewall. Tuning out the conversation, Jean pulled up the summary of Titan’s history.

As she read the unfiltered history of the place they were about to visit, Jean noticed when Gwen had made herself known in the video call. Rolling her eyes, she sent a quick message to Gwen not to drag her into the talks.

There was another ding from her controls and once she checked it, Jean found that Eros had sent them information for a flight path to a docking bay hidden in the side of a mountain. She didn’t want to say it out loud, but Jean felt that it was far too easy. Even if she had listened with one ear to Gwen and Nadia talking with this Eros.

She had noticed that while Nadia was a mixture of sad and excited, Eros was just bland. The tone of his voice didn’t shift one iota as the conversation progressed. Honestly, she wanted to dismiss the creepiness of it all, but it was always the gut feeling that kept you alive. So with that gut feeling in mind, Jean sent out a few messages across the Omni to two of her reserved special ops Spartans.

She would be on her guard, but if at any time that she or Gwen went down without communications, they would then come in with a vengeance. Jean got a reply on her Omni as she piloted her ship into the mountainside ship dock. As they flew across the planet, she noticed the devastation in the more metropolitan area of the planet.

The only thing that did was push up her creepy meter more and more. Yes, the destruction matched the history summary, but still, that was more than seven hundred years ago. The fact that no one actually tried to clean up most of it said more than enough. It meant that whoever was in charge was a little more than just incompetent.

Letting out a sigh Jean had to shake her head at it all, just the glimpse alone was enough to make her wonder. It was one thing visiting a dead world and exploring and it was another visiting a dying world with its people still alive and slowly dying.