Note: although this can be read as a stand alone story, it works best as a follow on from 'Kon Tiki', to which there is a link below. Hope you enjoy.

2: ASYLUM

Through the view screen in his private quarters, Major Redford was cursed with a bird’s eye view of the undulating, writhing mountains of flame-coloured gas banking up against the containment field. In twenty four hours the situation had deteriorated rapidly; now only fleeting glimpses of the planet’s blue-green surface could be seen below. No alternatives remained, no other solutions. Everyone knew it. He tried to imagine the panic, the violence, the insanity enveloping the world below as survivors looked skyward and realised they had been abandoned to bear witness to the hypnotic, swirling end of the earth.

By his side, Sofia, the soft-spoken, young French-born technician on his staff gazed down at the panorama, forehead resting sadly against the screen, watching the curtain-fall with its otherworldly colours: luminescent yellows, flaming oranges and angry, infernal reds. They reflected in her wide eyes, grim consternation painted across her pretty face.

“Apocalyptic blues?” Redford clumsily hazarded, fumbling for something supportive to say. He was a military man through and through. Emotional self-expression largely evaded him. But where Sofia was concerned he felt compelled to make an effort.

She looked at him, her feline, almond-shaped eyes welling up, “not exactly.”

He could only just make out her features in the low lighting of the room, her hair, smartly cropped into a feathered bob, the slender curve of her neckline where it met the fitted blue of her tunic, her petite, lithe frame.

“What’s the matter, Sofia?” he tried to maintain his stern facade, tried to ignore the delicate scent of her shampoo and body lotion.

“I’ve really screwed up, Sir,” she sounded close to tears.

“Okay,” he said, as softly as he knew how, “just tell me what’s happened.”

“My virtual drive is corrupted; electromagnetic artifacts from The Event, I guess,” the whites of her eyes appeared brilliant in the gloom as she rolled her gaze to the beleaguered planet below, “I’m supposed to upload critical data for the flight crews briefing in an hour and it’s completely messed up; unusable.”

Sofia had been evacuated from earth to The Gatehouse soon after the European collapse became undeniable. She was an outstanding programmer with a genius-level IQ and had been attached to Redford’s staff, gradually insinuating herself into his thoughts during the sleepless nights and image-laden dreams.

“You’re meant to back your drive up hourly,” his reprimand sounded limp, soft-edged.

She nodded helplessly, “I know, Sir, things just got so... hectic.”

“It’s okay, I can fix it,” he heard himself say, contrary to the rigid protocol which governed his life.

“You can?” She rallied a little.

He nodded, “just keep this between us, okay?”

Relief spread across her dainty features. It was intoxicating. In a heartbeat, she was too close; pressed against his chest, the flat of her palm over his heart, her warm breath on his neck.

Redford was mid-way through his forties, but he had taken care of himself; steel haired, firm jawed and physically hard with eyes the colour of copper sulphate. Did he dare imagine that this pocket-sized Venus, twenty years his junior might, in this time of insanity, want him physically? His feelings, confused with loneliness, stress and sentimentality swirled around his underlying conditioning, much like the chaos beneath them.

He held her, sensed willingness transmitted through her touch and then suddenly, it was happening. He clumsily thumbed open the catch of her tunic, unzipped the figure hugging material, allowing access to her soft, bare flesh.

Sofia turned, pressing her bum into him, fingers stroking the side of his face then reached downward, squeezing the hard protrusion in his crotch. She began shedding her uniform, knickers dropped to the floor as his hands sought her out, cupping her tits, pinching her prominent, swollen nipples and caressing her tight, flat abdomen. He teased and tugged at the neat little triangle of hair between her legs, bending her over the desk, his slender, hard dick in his hand; there was no going back. Looking down at her body, the eerie orange hue of oblivion glinted off her pale skin, accentuating the black wing-like tattoos at her shoulder blades, the italic lettering across the small of her back and the long, tiger-stripes wending down over her hard, shapely rear.

The subject of Sofia’s allure had come up in the Officer’s mess more than once. It was said that she was deeply in love with someone aboard The Gatehouse. Redford smiled as he pressed the head of his cock against her pussy, feeling her desire to commit to the act expressed by her wetness, her warmth. Though it was not in his nature, he allowed himself a moment to gloat. Where was this lover now?

“You know Sir, I’ve always wanted to be your little private slut,” she purred.

He slid deeper into her, aflame within the bondage of her interior, “I’ve wanted this too.”

He kept going until his abdomen was pressed against her haunches, then withdrew before pushing himself in again, harder, riding her up onto the desk, pursuing, forcing her to brace herself against the screen with the palm of her hand.

How long had it been?

Two years since he had admitted to himself that his Wife and their children would never leave earth, would never be joining him in the stars beyond the containment field. It was eleven months since they had last spoken via a crackling, failing satellite uplink; then nothing. He pushed the memories from his mind and drove himself into the moment, fucking her until his thighs and her buttocks were slick and fragrant with her juices.

The light cast by The Event danced a heady, malevolent tango in her eyes as she inclined her head towards him, coronas of blue and green melting into fiery orange. “I want you to shoot your fucking spunk all over me,” she smiled darkly, “all over my butt,” her hand resounded against her bare skin with a crack as if to emphasise the point.

Redford slid his fingers up her spine, cupping the nape of her neck, reaching for a fistful of her hair and drawing her up tight as she squealed in pleasure. He bore down on her, only seconds remaining before he could contain himself no longer.

“I will,” he said, “I will.”

They dressed themselves quickly, listening to grim, panicky reports from other areas of the station. The superstructure was failing; The Event having unforeseen effects on the stations shielding. Departures of key personnel were to begin imminently. As Redford watched her zip up her tunic, he discretely accessed his retinal display and scanned the shuttle manifests, looking for Sofia’s name: nothing. With a dark pang of grief, he realised that she would die aboard The Gatehouse.

“Are you okay, Sir?” she asked, catching sight of his expression, “you aren’t regretting what just happened, are you?”

Redford smiled and brushed the side of her face affectionately “of all the many things I regret in my life, this is not among them. Here,” he retrieved a memory stick from a hidden compartment beneath his desk and pushed it into Sofia’s hand, “I don’t have time to isolate what you need but this grants my level of access. You can refresh your data streams and make the briefing. If anyone finds out I gave you this, we’ll both be mopping the toilet floors until we retire, so for God’s sake, just lift what you need and blank it straight away.”

She smiled with eyes that seemed to resonate with a ring of orange light and planted a soft kiss on his cheek, “you’ve just saved my life.”

Redford paced swiftly through the corridor leading to his ready room, trying to shrug off the brewing emotional hangover. As he entered, he could feel Justin’s eyes on him.

“Everything okay, Sir?” his emotionless baritone resounded from the shadows.

“It seems our appraisal of this stations fortitude have fallen well short of expectations. We’re in full retreat now and we don’t have long.”

“Ready when you are Sir.”

“It gets worse, I’m afraid. As we feared, we will be unable to evacuate the majority of the technical staff. They will remain behind.

Redford’s personal security operative, impassive as ever, registered no discernible emotion. The man stood somewhere over six foot tall, athletically built and malevolently handsome with a permanently furrowed line of a brow and glinting black obsidian for eyes. In his light assault vest and ship-board armour over black fatigues, he cut a menacing figure.

Redford didn’t entirely agree with the Coalition’s decision to allow civilians onto The Gatehouse while military personnel had remained behind, fighting for survival on the planet’s surface. While there was no denying Justin’s efficiency, on occasion he had wondered about the man’s inner landscape. He was sullen and detached. He knew Justin had served with British military and in the private sector. During the European collapse he had allegedly traversed hundreds of miles alone on foot, as around him the seas boiled, the earth cracked and people tore each other apart. He survived, tracking down the last Coalition bastion in the south and volunteering his services before the continent was abandoned. Who knows what he had seen and done to get there?

Redford was jolted from his thoughts by a personal message, direct to his retinal display. He read it then deleted it.

“Justin.”

“Sir?”

“We’re up. Initiate startup on the shuttle, rendezvous with Captain Price and his staff. They will be sharing our ride. Then, come back and collect me. Double away.”

“Yes Sir,” he intoned before adding: “it won’t be safe for you outside. I wouldn’t be doing my job correctly if I didn’t insist you stay here and don’t open the hatch until I come back,” with that, he headed for the exit.

Redford watched him go, saw him key his headset; his lips uttered a couple of words that were lost in the noise of the corridor beyond.

Justin entered his personal access code and swept silently one deck down to the embarkation corridor. Beyond the next bulkhead he made out the blue uniforms of three Officers, including Major Price and the incongruous olive fatigues of Pablo, a fellow contractor. As he came closer he saw the Columbian was taking no chances with his charges, standing at high alert, his submachine gun drawn. He saw Justin approaching and nodded a greeting.

Pablo was ex-Columbian Special Forces, trained by the former US government to disrupt and subvert drugs cartels. He was quick and tough. He was also a good man; a family man whose Wife and child would right now be facing the final hours of their lives amid the broiling mania of downtown Bogota.

Justin read his eyes; he looked distracted, torn, his mind elsewhere.

He stepped through the hatchway and trapped the barrel of Pablo’s weapon with his left hand. The Columbian registered only a millisecond of surprise before reacting, producing a dagger concealed against his forearm and slashing upwards in retaliation. Justin’s pistol came to bear, its mass striking the inbound blade, deflecting it. Pablo felt the muzzle of the weapon locate beneath his jawbone and braced himself for his last moment.

The shot resounded; it’s searing crack in the confined space momentarily stunning the three Officers. By the time the Columbian’s body hit the deck, Justin had his pistol pointing directly at Major Price. He fired twice at his torso, before the man could draw, sending him sprawling back against the bulkhead, where a third round ended his life.

The two survivors stared in a mixture of confusion and horror, fumbling for their weapons, as Justin switched to a two-handed grip and fired again. Four more brass casings tinkled onto the deck and went skittering across its plating.

He stepped over their bodies, calmly checking the time on his watch and used his clearance to unlock the hatch leading towards the communal decks.

“You’re a very bad boy, aren’t you?”

He allowed himself a hint of a smile as she stepped through the door and into his arms, their lips meeting as she ran her hands over the black clad angles of his chest.

“You were right, they’re only evacuating the select few,” he said, “do we have it?”

Sofia smiled and nodded, “Redford’s shuttle clearance and authorisation, trajectories for all the fleet assets, all the nav data we need to survive this.”

“He just handed you his system clearance in exchange for a fuck?”

“Not exactly; most of it was encrypted, but the Coalition’s security walls are outdated NATO stuff mixed in with Chinese protocols that weren’t made with multinational cooperation in mind. They aren’t as clever as they think they are.”

“Did you have a good time?”

She nodded again, biting her lip at the still fresh memory, “the old boy was damn fine.”

Justin let out an amused exhalation, “we have less than a minute before he’ll work out something’s wrong. Follow me and stay close,” he said, striding down the corridor towards the shuttle.

He had just stepped over the threshold and heard the reassuring whirr of the docking servos when, behind him, there came the sound of a hatch sliding back followed by a startled inhalation of breath from Sofia. He drew his weapon, turning in a single, reflexive movement, zeroing in, knowing what he was going to see.

“I thought I had at least another thirty seconds.”

“Justin; I promise, as God is my witness, you are going to pay dearly for this,” Redford had his slim muscular arm wrapped around Sofia’s throat, his head and torso aligned behind hers, his pistol touching her temple, eyes dark with rage, “place your weapons on the deck… both of them.”

Justin smiled and shook his head, hoping the gesture would enflame Redford further.

“Is something amusing you?”

“I’m wondering why you haven’t already killed me, Sir?” he tilted his head on one side and calmly weighed up his options while slowly drawing and setting down his guns.

“You don’t deserve a quick exit for what you’ve done and you aren’t going to get it. Now step past us. You’re going back into my quarters where you will surrender yourself to the security detail,” he hissed, skillfully keeping his head and vital organs tucked behind Sofia’s quaking body.

“And if I refuse?” Justin asked, staring at the Major like a mongoose eyeing a snake.

Redford hesitated just a moment too long, “then, I’ll kill Sofia.”

“I find that unlikely. Besides, unless we board that shuttle right now, none of us are going to live long enough for me to answer for anything.”

Justin’s questing eye caught a flicker in the surface of Redford’s exposed pupil, a pulse of white light glinted across its surface suggesting he was using his retinal display to frantically summon security to his assistance. Such a diversion of brain power would erode his concentration, diminish his fighting edge. The barrel of his pistol lolled momentarily; dipping just a fraction, exposing a little more of his left eye.

That was all it took.

In sickly slow motion Redford saw his opponent’s hand slide past his assault vest, palming a blade, presenting and hurling it in a blur of motion. Instinct fired his synapses and he jerked the weapon toward Justin’s face, firing without hesitation. He was still quick.

The Major’s final thought was one of satisfaction as a dark red fan tail of blood sprayed out from the traitorous contractor’s cheek. A fraction of a second later the cold steel slammed home into his eye socket, piercing his brain. His grip on Sofia loosened and she slipped away from him. As the harsh strip lights of the corridor faded to black, beyond them, he saw his family waiting.

Justin lifted Sofia off her feet, feeling her shuddering vulnerability beneath his grip and depositing her inside the shuttle’s hatch. The station-wide communication channel he was monitoring in his headset suggested that the lower decks were engulfed in mayhem as people fought to secure a way off the crumbling station. Perhaps twenty seconds remained before the security detail came in shooting. They would probably be just as keen to secure the shuttle for themselves as to come to Redford’s aid. Justin took the time to pick his pistols up off the deck and slot them back into his holsters before ducking his head beneath the hatch and tapping the emergency initiation panel. The hatch hissed closed and sealed them in with a satisfying clunk.

“It’s over; the containment field is gone,” Sofia said, wiping her brow, regaining a little of her poise as she focused on her display.

“Then so is earth,” Justin remarked dispassionately, monitoring the space around them as shuttles carrying the valuable, the rich and the lucky were catapulted clear of the vast web-like superstructure like fireworks streaking across the night sky.

“Uh-huh, but that’s not all. The structure is critical; it’s going to go any second.”

“Then, what are we waiting for?” something that sounded like a battering ram struck the outside of the hatch, hard.

“Nothing; engines firing in ten,” Sophia snapped, rapidly absorbing the launch protocols as a piercing whine filled the cabin, giving way to the roar of the engine throttling up.

Justin unclipped his vest and dropped it onto the deck, throwing himself down in the forward-most seat and casually tilting it backwards, “you don’t have time to clip in, you’d better get over here and hold on to me.”

She smiled, still focused on her display, “putting your cock first, even in the face of death?”

Somewhere beyond the flimsy hull an elemental groan emanated from the station as it lost its battle with the vacuum beyond. Sophia straddled Justin, locking her fingers tightly through the webbing straps over his shoulders less than a second before the automated launch cycle engaged, firing the shuttle free of The Gatehouse’s sprawling steel limbs.

They were rammed against each other, compressed into the seat, gravity dragging at their body tissue as the shuttle rocketed forward, the onboard computer shrieking at them that it had detected an unsecured passenger. Millions of tonnes of twisting, buckling metalwork, the human race’s best efforts, hurtled past them in a cacophony of noise and breakneck motion. The roar of the engine, the drag of acceleration, the fleeting image of a shuttle like their own being swallowed in a sucking, implosive end mixed with a thousand other images of destruction were glimpsed on crackling monitor feeds as the velocity of their escape climaxed.

Then, the noise began to subside; they were clear.

“He nicked you,” Sofia said dabbing at the deep, ready-cauterized gash on his cheek, cut by Redford’s final bullet.

“He was a pro,” Justin said by way of a nonchalant epitaph, locating a tear in Sofia’s uniform. He pushed his index finger inside, ripping the material across her rump, then casually snapping gusset of her knickers as though it were a single strand of cotton. He squeezed her buttocks hard in his calloused fingers, pushing them together then splaying them wide open, finding her arse hole and massaging her rim with his middle finger.

“So it’s like that,” she looked down at him in mock disapproval, “straight to my butt.”

“It’s not just like that,” he rumbled, pulling her downward so she was straddling the shaft of his fat, stiffening cock, “but I’ve heard it’s good for stress relief.”

“Really?”

“You’ll be glad of it when we’re living on some expeditionary ship surrounded by Officers and scientists.”

“I’ll be glad of your cock being squeezed up my bum hole?” she teased, sliding herself back and forth, in little caressing motions, wetting him in the process. She closed her eyes and used his girth to tease open her pussy while his finger began to dip inside her back door. It couldn’t be denied, those two things together…

She tried to marshal her thoughts before the situation got out of control as it usually did, ending up with her his toy, entirely devoted to servicing his needs, “there won’t be any Officers or scientists where we’re going,” she managed as he squeezed himself up into her, haltingly filling her cunt.

He looked up at her quizzically. The passage was smooth now; the drive engine having ebbed away to a distant rumble and the screaming alarms and sounds of destruction, replaced by the little clicks and whirrs as the computer system moderated flight operations.

Sofia produced the memory stick that Redford had lent her and held it up in front of his eyes, “they were due to rendezvous with a Coalition mother ship for new tasking,” he moved deliciously inside her as she fought to keep her mind off just being fucked; his dominating, impossibly powerful physique pushing her to insane, uncontrollable depths of lust.

“So?”

“So, it would be easy to make that rendezvous, claim asylum, tell them that Redford and the others were killed before they could evacuate. Thing is,” she put her head on one side and rolled her eyes mimicking an archetypal bored teenager, “taking orders from a load of politicians and geeks for the rest of our lives doesn’t sound any better than what we’ve just escaped from.”

“Are you suggesting we float around here until we get a better offer?”

“Not exactly,” Sofia reached downward and slipped the rubber coated memory stick between her thighs, inserting it into her supple, wet interior alongside Justin’s cock. She withdrew it, glistening wet and licked it, “Major Redford was onward bound to join a team tasked with investigating the, shall we say, misplacement of a rather large and very sophisticated Coalition asset.”

“So, we might be upgrading our living arrangements soon?” he asked, his powerful hands cradling her pelvis as he subjected her to his full length.

She dug her nails into his shoulders, the sensation of being physically possessed engulfing her rapidly.

“You can count on that.”

And then there was nothing but the two of them.