"Pheromone Pharmacopia"

by Brandy Dewinter

(c 2001, All rights reserved)

 

Chapter 19 - "Misogynist"

The time until launch seemed to evaporate like ice cream in the hot Florida sun, leaving a blurry residue of memories of last-minute tests and training that made the actual launch seem like just another drill.

Until they started heading up. And up.

It didn’t take a very large portion of the ten minutes at high thrust to make it clear this was no drill. The first staging was also their first zero-g period - and for the first time they were grateful for the prior experience in the Vomit Comet. The next stage engines kicked in quickly, followed by yet another staging and more zero-g. By then they were in ‘outer space’, well above the 50-mile limit to qualify for astronaut status. It also meant that the remaining engines could nudge them into higher orbit more gradually, with less thrust though for a relatively longer period.

After a time that seemed very long to those in the mid-bay and very short to the busy pilots, Jacqui leaned back and smiled at Vanna.

Vanna smiled back, pointed at her nav display, and confirmed what Jacqui’s own instruments had told her. "Yep. From here, we just keep on falling. Welcome to space."

"You okay back there?" Jacqui asked of the remaining crew.

"Just fine," Marilyn promised, hoping as she looked at Carol that it was true. Carol seemed okay though, showing enough interest in the view through a port to make any motion sickness seem unlikely.

"Okay," Jacqui said. "You can unstrap and move around. Next mid-orbit burn in 45 minutes."

"Roger that," Jaymi said jauntily, grinning at Sandy. Then she pulled off her elliptical helmet, put her hand over the mike near her lip and whispered, "Did you ever think you’d make it into space when you were growing up?"

"Absolutely," Sandy replied as she pulled of her own oversized hard hat. Then she carefully covered her own mike and whispered, "Doesn’t every little boy dream of being an astronaut?"

Jaymi’s nod was interrupted by Jacqui’s curious voice. "What did you say, Sandy?"

The purple-clad pilot had drifted into the mid-bay with a soundlessness that wasn’t possible when fettered by gravity.

"Oh, I, um, was just talking with Jaymi. She asked if I had ever talked about being an astronaut when I was growing up."

Jacqui laughed and grinned at the innocent-looking girl. "Oh, and your friends were boys even when you were a little girl? Didn’t you play house with other little girls?"

Carol came to her rescue. Laughing good-naturedly, she poked at Jacqui and said, "Look, shorty, some of us learned that playing with boys was fun at a very *early* age."

"I guess I did, too," Jacqui admitted, no real apology in her tone.

By then the whole team had found a port to look through. Jaymi, as the mission specialist responsible, opened the bay doors to get the radiators on line and that gave them additional windows on their suddenly expanded universe. Despite the tightness of their team, the girls immediately divided into two groups; those who just wanted to look out the ports, and those for whom it wouldn’t be real if it weren’t recorded on film.

Then there was a third group, created by Marilyn as she tugged at Jacqui’s arm. "You got a minute?"

"I’ve got, um, 8 minutes, actually," Jacqui said, grinning. "Before I have to start working on the next burn."

Marilyn smiled back and said, "Let’s find a place to talk."

On the cramped shuttle there weren’t many places that could be considered private, but the rest of the team knew what was going on so they stayed behind while Marilyn and Jacqui returned to the flight deck. Marilyn was clearly uneasy about what she had to say, and Jacqui noticed. That was not particularly noteworthy - neither that Marilyn was a little uneasy with their newest team member, nor that Jacqui was sensitive enough to notice - but what Jacqui said was a surprise.

"No, I don’t blame you for sending Oz to Australia," Jacqui announced.

"I, uh, what?"

"Oh, Marilyn, you don’t need to den mother me," Jacqui laughed, then her own expression changed as her humor became more self-directed. "Or maybe you did. I have to admit, if the zipper on this silly skinsuit had been a little easier to reach . . . "

"But, it wasn’t," Jacqui continued. "I have to admit, Oz got my afterburner heated up a couple of times. But now that I’ve been, that my hormones haven’t been doing my thinking for me, I’m glad to have had a little room to breathe."

"So, you’re happy with the way things turned out?" asked a very relieved Marilyn.

"Oh, hell yes!" Jacqui laughed. "God, I still get aroused just looking at myself in a mirror. It’s like I’ve got a lifetime of sensuality bottled up inside of me that I’ve never noticed before. Of course, part of that is just keeping up with the other girls - and you. Lordy, I was really the odd duck before. But you can’t hang around Sandy, or Carol for very long without appreciating what God gave all women to work with."

"Um, yes," Marilyn murmured, though Jacqui didn’t notice her distraction.

"But," Jacqui continued, "I’m still learning to use these new weapons you’ve, um, armed for me, and Oz was way out of my league."

"Only in experience," Marilyn corrected her.

Jacqui nodded. "Yes, and that’s part of what I’ve realized since he’s been away. I started out replaying all my memories of him like a lovesick school girl. And that included the memories from before he showed any interest in me. He can be a real macho bum, but he can be charming, too. Sorting that out will take a while."

"Damn, Jacqui, maybe I should be asking YOU for advice."

"Not hardly," Jacqui snorted. "God knows what I would have done if Oz hadn’t been sent away. But now . . . well, I think I’m ready for round two."

"Good for you. And my money is on you, for sure."

Jacqui laughed again, ostentatiously patting her hair and arching her back to display her . . assets to best advantage. The effect wasn’t quite what she expected - since in their weightless condition her assets had a very unusual motion. Highly interesting - one might even say ‘breathtaking’ - but not exactly what that trained pose would have accomplished on earth. They both broke into laughter at the sight, giggling with a shared though unspoken image of what poor ol’ Oz’s eyes would have looked like if he tried to analyze that particular orbit.

"Oh, God, we have GOT to get some movies of that," Marilyn gasped.

"Not on a bet!" Jacqui countered. "At least, not unless we get all the girls in the film."

"Don’t tempt me," Marilyn countered. "It would make one hellacious recruiting film, don’t you think?"

"For what, horny goats like Oz and Waylon?"

"It’s a start," Marilyn observed judiciously, prompting another round of shared snickers.

"You two sniffing at the laughing gas again?" Sandy asked, calling from the mid-deck. "It’s not polite not to share you know."

"Oh, Sandy," Jacqui promised. "You would *definitely* need to share in it."

"Oh?" Sandy said, but her curiosity was not to be satisfied.

Jacqui raised an eyebrow at Marilyn, then turned to her displays. Marilyn just shook her head, smiling at Sandy but holding the reason for their mirth as a private moment between the pilot and herself.

The demands of orbital mechanics made the old Army complaint about ‘hurry up and wait’ seem mild by comparison. Despite a speed of over 18,000 miles per hour, their approach to Seward’s Folly seemed glacially slow. Every thrust took a counter thrust, and the total of all their speed changes (‘delta-V’) was strictly limited. As a result, they’d thrust just enough to gain a little speed on their target, then wait patiently while they drifted closer.

Once their orbit matched that of the space station closely enough that they were on a constant bearing angle, Jacqui aimed an antenna and called to the man they knew only through news reports and old photos.

"Seward’s Station, Shuttle Echo, ready for approach."

"Right. Activate your onboard cameras."

"Roger," Vanna replied, flipping the switches that sent images from all parts of their shuttle to the waiting recluse.

"Very nice," the voice purred - not a soft sound at all, more like the rasp of a rattlesnake’s rattle. "You’re cleared for the approach."

Seward’s Folly showed the typical sprawled out look of ‘real’ space stations, so different from the classic rotating wheel. Huge solar arrays dominated the design, with the actual living spaces only a small portion of the whole and not nearly enough to justify a ring of any meaningful size. In this particular case, there were additional reasons not to introduce a centrifugal pseudo-gravity. Arms with laboratories or processing chambers for the zero-g pharmaceuticals which were the station’s nominal reason for existence stretched off as spindly branches in several directions. In addition, there was one arm of particular interest that had *not* been on the pirated plans.

"Those must be the Brilliant Pebbles," Vanna pointed as they drifted closer.

She routed a camera view to the screens in front of each team member though not visible to Seward’s watching cameras. What they saw was a grid of oddly shaped rods, illuminated by the bright Earth in a way that glinted off reflecting surfaces without really revealing the nature of the objects. Jaymi worked her own camera controls to zoom in on a portion of the arm holding the devices.

"Looks like a single major harness running back toward that round module."

Sandy compared the view to what she had studied on the station. "If the plans we have are right, that module should be - let me think - Computing Module 3. It also controls power for that whole side of the station."

"Right, that’s what I remember, too," confirmed Jaymi.

They neared the docking port, short blasts of maneuvering thrusters roaring on and off as their path became constrained ever more tightly. Jacqui’s piloting skills were up to the task and with a minimum of wasted fuel she nudged them to mate with the docking tube.

"Seward, Shuttle Echo, docked," Jacqui reported.

The next command from the raspy speakers was expected, though it had not been included in the official instructions. "Very well, all of you move to the mid-deck and ventilate your cabin with station air."

Though expected, it should have been a surprise so of course they were ‘surprised’, at least that’s how they acted. Vanna, as co-pilot, took her cue.

"Say again, Seward? We need to be careful about contamination."

"So do I," the voice said. "I have some . . . sanitizing agents in my station air to make sure you don’t introduce any germs up here."

"Can’t we, um, just do a sample or something?" Jacqui asked. "After all, some of what we’re bringing you is fresh oxygen. Your station air must be, um, well-used by now."

"This is non-negotiable," Seward said. "If I don’t see all six of you on the mid-deck in the next 30 seconds, with air ventilated 30 seconds after that, I’ll block access to the station and, well, you don’t want to know the rest."

"Chill," Carol said, interjecting herself into the conversation in a way that seemed to chastise her crewmates. "We’re going to board the station in a little while anyway. Sharing air is no big deal. Let’s do what the man says."

"A good plan," the dry voice sneered.

The girls assembled in the largest compartment on the shuttle, then Vanna worked the controls to share air with the station. The results of that action were unprofessional, but undeniable.

"Oh, God! . . . Damn that’s good . . . Ooooohhh yessssss."

The girls’ voices squeaked out in uncontrolled reaction to the effect of Seward’s invisible security interrogation - all but one of the girls, that was. Jacqui blushed a very fiery red that clashed desperately with her purple skinsuit - not that she noticed - but her only verbal response was a stifled grunt. More . . . direct responses showed as well in the form of hard buttons that popped into sharp relief in deliberately thin portions of her skin-tight flight suit. All of the suits. It wasn’t enough for the lurking ‘host’.

"You, in the purple, approach the camera," Seward’s voice ordered.

"You would be . . . Jacqui Cleaver, right?"

"That’s right," Jacqui said through gritted teeth, panting in her effort not to surrender to the sensations singing in her most intimate nerves.

"That’s close enough," Seward said, when she had turned to face the camera and moved to within a few feet. Complying with his next order was less easy for Jacqui.

"Take off your suit," he said bluntly.

"What?"

"You heard me. My ‘sanitizing’ agent is really female human pheromones. It assures me that you are truly women, or at least it should. Your response to my pheromones was not . . . convincing. I want to see you naked, or I’ll . . . "

"You can take a flying leap out an airlock, for all I care," Jacqui snarled, starting to turn away.

"What’s your home town?" Seward asked in an apparent non sequitur.

"Me?" Jacqui asked in surprise.

"Never mind," they heard his voice say. "According to my records, you’re from Sioux Falls, South Dakota, is that right?"

Jacqui just nodded.

The disembodied voice took on a reasonable tone, but there was no mistaking the gloating threat within it - even aside from the words themselves. "Then Ms. Cleaver, let me put it to you this way. Either you strip so that I can see you are really a woman, or I’ll drop the equivalent of ten thousand pounds of high explosive on your hometown. Oh, and that of all the others on your shuttle, too. Which will it be?"

Jacqui sent a look at the camera that should have fractured the lens, but all that earned her was the raspy rattle of a self-satisfied chuckle. Seward was so sure of his position that he didn’t bother to give her a deadline. He just started a low, ‘dum, dum, de-dum’ warble that was too tuneless to be called a hum.

The curvy pilot looked at Vanna, who just shrugged. It was confirmation enough that there really wasn’t any choice so Jacqui reached for the zipper at her collar. In a moment, she had her skinsuit open to display quite unambiguous proof of the effectiveness of Seward’s airborne potion.

"Now, Jacqui," Seward’s voice took on a patronizing tone. "A thorough astronaut like yourself, surely you don’t believe in doing things halfway."

Jacqui sighed in resignation. "I’ll need some help with the corset laces."

"I’m sure that beautiful blonde in that so-interesting black suit will be glad to help you," Seward said without remorse. Then, though the speakers were transmitting his voice with equal clarity to all portions of the shuttle, he raised his voice and said, "Just because one of you was so . . . uncooperative, I think we need to conduct a few further checks. Let’s see . . . "

"You, the other blonde in the shapely blue outfit, you open your suit, too." His voice took on a tone that implied she should be grateful for his generosity when he added, "All you have to do is how me that your little pleasure buds are really your own. Don’t bother with your own corset."

"However, Miss Cleaver, *you* have pissed me off, and for that, you go all the way to skin."

"Oh, Mr. Seward," Marilyn called languidly - smiling sensuously at the pleasure she was receiving. "I, um, we’ll be glad to do what you want." She giggled and continued, "Especially if you keep sending us those, um, whatchamones things, but would it be okay if the other girls start moving the, um, cargo? We were told that we had to get it on the station right away."

"Huh? Oh, okay. Just, uh, I have cameras inside the station, too, so don’t try anything."

Nodding at the others, Marilyn floated over to where she could block most of the camera’s field of view and began a slow, sinuous strip tease as she drew the zipper down on her own skin-tight suit. Behind her, the rest of the team worked frantically to complete tasks of their own while Seward’s attention was so captivated. Out of line of sight from the camera, Sandy’s eyes sent a desperate message to Jacqui, begging her to go along for the sake of the mission.

Though her fury showed in hot spots in her cheeks, Jacqui nodded. When it was her turn to present herself to the camera again, she couldn’t bring herself to continue Marilyn’s deliberately enticing distraction. That might not have been a good idea anyway, to change so completely from her previous disdain, but she did proceed slowly, granting Jaymi and Sandy time to get some items through the airlock that were definitely NOT on the manifest.

"Very nice," Seward said in a lascivious tone that brought fresh spots of fire to Jacqui’s cheeks. "Too bad you’re not nice as well. Get suited up again, but you’re staying on the shuttle. I don’t want to see you even looking into the airlock, do you understand?"

Jacqui just nodded, turning to Vanna for help getting back in her suit. She was interrupted by another order from Seward.

"No, get that big redhead to help you. She’s the one who’s supposed to do the antenna module replacement, right? She can stay there and get ready after you’re suited up again. I want, which one are you, Vanna? I want Vanna and, um, Marilyn to report to my control room right away."

Marilyn’s foresight, for this is exactly the way she had planned their disposition, was hardly a surprise to the team. Seward’s next order, while not expected, didn’t seem like a problem either.

"You two blondes, and the two brunettes who are hauling cargo, bring your helmets with you. Don’t put them on. I just want to know where they are. Rack your helmets on *my* side of the airlock, in plain view of the camera."

The four team members who would enter the station gathered up their matching elliptical helmets. When they cycled through the lock, the rack Seward had mentioned was obvious, comprised of mannequin heads fitted with bungee straps to hold the helmets securely.

As the team moved further into the station, then went into ‘whisper mode’, a tactic they had worked out to defeat Seward’s surveillance devices. Carefully noting the cameras in each compartment they entered, they made sure they were looking away, and spoke only in the faintest of whispers into their tactical microphones if they had any team business to conduct. If they were discussing the things Seward knew about, they spoke in normal tones, and they made sure that there was enough ordinary conversation to make their occasional silences unremarkable.

The first of those ordinary conversation topics was actually reconnaissance by voice. Marilyn spoke to Seward. "We’re through the lock, but, um, where did you want us to go?"

"Report to my control room," Seward repeated.

"We’ll be glad to," Marilyn said, then pouted. "But we don’t know where it is. We were just told to move cargo from the airlock down, um . . . ?"

"Passage 3," Seward snapped. "It’s to your right. But have the brunettes do that. I want you to come down the passageway right in front of you."

"Lordy, I DO like the way you welcome a girl," Marilyn cooed. Vanna nodded happily, drifting in a weightless ballet that was graceful and lazy at the same time.

"Damn," they heard Seward’s voice mutter. "I might have been better off with that snotty brunette. You two are just too responsive."

"Responsive is my middle name," Marilyn chirped happily, wiggling in mid-air in a way that demonstrated a lot of motions not possible in gravity.

Sandy and Jaymi were disappearing down the noted passage with packaged supplies when Vanna’s lazy spiral caused her to drift against one of Seward’s surveillance cameras and dislodge it.

"Ooops," she said, giggling. "Clumsy me."

"I would not call you clumsy," Seward’s voice said, a husky note showing more than dispassionate interest. "But you are slow. Proceed down that passage immediately. Why do blondes have to be so damn dumb?"

"I’m not dumb," Vanna protested. "Just feeling *really* fine."

"I’m, well, okay, maybe I’m not as smart at Sandy. Or Jaymi. Or Jacqui," Marilyn said, calling the roll. Then her voice took on a teasing tone, "But I’ll bet I know things that they don’t know. *Fun* things those stupid dark-haired girls don’t even know are fun."

"Come down the passage," Seward’s voice called, coaxing like he was summoning a reluctant kitten. "You’ll like what you find here. We’ll have fun."

"I’m all for fun," Marilyn cooed, drifting that way.

"Me, too," Vanna said, twirling as she resumed her dance, but at least she was now headed in his direction.

 

Jaymi and Sandy headed for the power control room, carrying appropriately labeled boxes of supplies. The labels were the only part of the boxes that were appropriate - from Seward’s perspective - but the carefully graceless lurches with which they transported the weightless cargo made that pair of women and their activities less than interesting to Seward. Once they were in the key control compartment, they busied themselves stowing the supplies they had brought with them.

"I hope Marilyn and Vanna were faking the, um, effects of this air," Jaymi whispered. "If they’re really that hot and bothered, they’re likely to get us *all* in trouble."

"I think they’re okay," Sandy replied. "Based on my own reactions, it’s, ah, distracting but not incapacitating. How about you?"

"I suppose that’s as good a way to describe it as any," Jaymi concurred. "And now that I think about, it, Jacqui wasn’t affected all that much. I guess Marilyn and Vanna must be doing that deliberately."

Sandy nodded, "Yeah, as long as it doesn’t get any worse, I think we’re okay. If anything, it seems to be diminishing, either because we’re getting used to it, or because the chemicals are deliberately concentrated in Seward’s part of the station."

"This has to be the right place to get control of the Pebbles," Jaymi whispered to Sandy, returning to their own task. "See, the marking on that harness matches the one I saw coming from the Pebbles."

"Are you sure?" Sandy asked.

"Pretty sure," Jaymi confirmed. "We’re in the right module, and it’s obvious that particular harness was added later. See? It’s the only one on that side that’s wrapped in blue instead of green."

"How do we bypass his launch codes, if he’s in the control room?" Sandy whispered to her red-clad teammate. "The plan was that Marilyn or Vanna would lure him away from there."

"Well, the things have gotta get power from somewhere, and a signal through an antenna. That takes different kinds of wire. If we can find the circuits, we can put an interrupt in them," Jaymi explained.

"But . . ," Sandy began, then stopped when the futility of what she was going to say registered. There were any number of ‘buts’, none of which had obvious answers.

"Um, right. Now what?"

"Why don’t you bring the other took kit, the one with the electronics? I’m going to see if I can tap this line," Jaymi suggested, anchoring her heels in a pair of the clamps that were the justification for the spindly footwear in the first place.

Sandy nodded and started floating back down the passage. "Okay. Be careful."

"You, too."

"I better get into my helmet and start pre-breathing," Carol said as she finished tying off the re-tightened laces to Jacqui’s suit. The still-blushing raven-haired pilot didn’t notice that the taller redhead’s breathing was as labored as her own.

"Thanks for your help," Jacqui said.

"Um, any time," Carol replied, turning away.

Jacqui grimaced as she finished pulling the zipper on her skinsuit up. "Damn, what’s he call ‘em? Pheromones make it hard to think straight. And my body feels like, well, it’s a good thing we’re both girls, or I’d be . . . awful naughty right now."

"Uh, yeah. I know what you mean," Carol said, blushing. *Lordy do I KNOW what you mean!* she thought to herself.

"Hell, even ol’ Oz Anderson might have a chance, with a supply of this stuff," Jacqui went on dreamily, not realizing the effect her musings were having on her panting teammate. Nor the distracting effect the residual pheromones were having on her own thoughts, especially now that the countering effect of her initial anger was subsiding.

Carol donned her helmet out of sequence, but she wanted to be breathing filtered air as soon as possible. After she was protected from her invisible assailant, she reached for the extra parts of the EVA rig.

Jacqui shook her head as though to clear it, then grinned ruefully at the redhead. "Well, it’s not by the book, but I understand what you’re trying to do. Now let me help you."

The thin - actually thinnest - portions of their skinsuits were strategically located to provide unambiguous evidence of response to the chemicals pervading the station air supply. When actually going outside the pressurized compartments, it was necessary to add what were essentially ‘pasties’ to the costume, plus of course a backpack with independent air supply. The latter was no problem, but when the time came to apply the pasties . . .

"Damn," Carol muttered, her words picked up by the helmet mikes and retransmitted over speakers in the compartment. Jacqui wore a boom mike of her own so that they could talk.

"What’s wrong?"

"I can’t see to put these damn things in place while I’m wearing this stupid helmet," grumped the taller woman.

"Calm down," Jacqui said. "I’ll get them for you."

Whatever Carol’s intentions might have been, the feel of Jacqui’s hands on her already-turgid nipples was anything but calming.

"Don’t hyperventilate," cautioned Jacqui.

"What, oh, yeah, well, I’m working on it," gasped Carol.

As she breathed the independent air, pure oxygen that would support her breathing at a pressure low enough to avoid the need for a hard spacesuit, Carol began to recover from the forced effects of the airborne pheromones.

Or maybe it hadn’t all been because of the pheromones.

 

(continued in next part)

 

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SMITE 2 - Pheromone Pharmacopia © 2001 by Brandy Dewinter. All Rights Reserved. These documents (including, without limitation, all articles, text, images, logos, compilation design) may printed for personal use only. No portion of these documents may be stored electronically, distributed electronically, or otherwise made available without express written consent of the copyright holder.