10. Interdiction in Progress

Auren spectated bitterlyas Ophion won another round of the holo-game against Lupo. They'd been playing all afternoon, too preoccupied to converse with him. However, he had caught Lupo looking at him concernedly several times and felt guilty for shouldering him with his tears earlier that morning in the fab bay.

He watched as he laughed with their alien invader, outmaneuvering him on some corner of their digital battlefield. Auren realized that how he was drawn to him seemed to be shifting. More and more, he found himself fixated on the way the big man's lips curled into that familiar smile. His eyes lingered on how his huge hands manipulated the delicate inputs so confidently. And Auren realized he was attracted to him. He'd never been attracted to anyone before. Let alone a man. And the thrill of the realization caused an unexpected warmth to begin to ache in his crotch as his synthetic cock began to elongate and harden within his flight suit. But then…

"Warning: interdiction in progress. Warning: interdiction in progress," the ship's computer blared.

The ambient noise of crickets and a woodland creek was obliterated as the ship's warning klaxons flared. The vessel's lighting pulsed orange and yellow, alerting them that the shields had been raised and the weapon systems were being brought online.

"Bridge!" Lugo yelled over the din, scrambling out into the hall.

To Auren's dismay, Ophion was right behind him. He trailed the other two up to the bow.

"I thought you said only the military can interdict someone in hyperspace?" Auren yelled.

Synth or not, he was terrified at the thought of being boarded or blown out of the sky. Lupo didn't have time to answer him. They were ripped from hyperspace with a lurch that made him vomit, sending all of them crashing to the floor and tumbling across the bridge as the entire ship groaned and strained against the sudden imposition of artificial gravity.

"Everyone okay?" Lupo cried out from somewhere near the bow.

"Never better," Ophion hissed.

"I'm okay," Auren called out.

But his voice trailed off as he looked at the viewscreen in horror. Directly before them, an enormous battle cruiser lurked in the void. It was unmistakably a vessel of war—covered in menacing railguns and plasma cannons, many times the size of their relatively diminutive craft—and it was now pulling them forcibly into its docking bay, their small engine no match for its gravity lasso.

"This is less than ideal…" Lupo mumbled, sharing Auren's horror as they watched the battleship's armor-clad bay door grind open.

An invisible tether wrapped itself around their vessel. They were slung effortlessly inside, and the huge door slid closed behind them.

"If I use the ship's weapons in here, we'll likely blow ourselves up just as soon as blast our way out," he warned. "Auren, let's go get the weapons from the fab. Ophion, maybe it's better if you stay hidden."

Auren took off at a dead sprint to the fab bay.

Ophion had slipped out of the bridge ahead of him, and he watched as the lizard slunk into the cargo bay and emerged with his invisibility mantle. He slipped it on in the doorway as he ran by, disappearing once more. Auren suddenly wished he could do the same.

"No time to gawk, there is a small army of pirates assembling out there," Lupo warned. He passed into the fab bay and began zipping into one of the Keth bodysuits. Auren eyed his own reluctantly, hatefully, but then did the same. The fabric was like nothing he'd ever touched—black and glittering, soft as silk.

"I am prepared for battle," Ophion said.

Auren turned to look at the doorway but saw nothing but the faint, rippling outline of the alien standing there.

"Ophion, don't you need a gun or something?" Auren asked, ready to hand the lizard the weapon he'd made for him in exchange for getting to stay behind, safe from whatever was about to happen out there.

"Negative," the lizard replied.

"Everyone ready to meet our hosts?" Lupo asked hesitantly, glancing anxiously at Auren.

"Ready," Auren assured him, not at all feeling it.

The trio approached their ship's airlock, and Auren felt his legs turn to jelly as they neared. The alien rifle was cool in his hand, the metal polished but etched with a texture that made it easy to grip. A simple holo-screen served as both a targeting scope and an ammo indicator. It wasn't dissimilar from a human weapon, although something about it did feel very alien, much like with the armor.

Lupo turned to him, his face pale.

"Before we go out there, I want to say something…" he started. But then he stammered awkwardly over his next words, unable to get them out.

Lupo made to speak a few times but failed at each attempt. He stopped talking and tilted his chin up to meet Auren's eyes. He seemed to consider what he was about to do for a moment, and then, to Auren's total shock, Lupo grabbed him by the chest fabric of his bodysuit and pulled him roughly into him. Their bodies thumped together in the confines of the hallway. Auren looked up into his gentle eyes, and his lips parted instinctively as Lupo brought his closer.

The touch was electrifying. For a time, Auren forgot that anything else existed in the universe. He'd never been kissed before. He'd never even touched another person outside of a high five or a handshake. And the feeling of Lupo's big, warm lips and hot, fevered breath against his face made his heart thump so hard it rattled his teeth.

Auren kissed Lupo back. His kissing was clumsy and fervent. His desire was feral. He'd spent many hours in his youth longing to meet someone who might spark this passion in him—so many that he'd eventually given up on the dream of connection altogether when it had never happened. He realized now he'd been looking in all the wrong places.

Lupo pulled away abruptly, and Auren was dropped right back into the unpleasantness of his current reality. His lips still tingled from the friction.

Auren giggled.

Lupo winked at him with a lopsided grin that made him blush.

"Sorry, I didn't want to die before I got to do that," Lupo said.

Auren smiled, feeling weak in the knees, wanting nothing more than to resume what they'd just concluded. And that's about when he realized that the shimmer of Ophion was gone.