Page 32

Garnet

S he felt like she was walking funny.

Was she walking funny?

Oh, damn, was it noticeable?!

No, she was fine. She was totally-

It was noticeable. Fuck!

Garnet and Tanin walked into medbay together, Garnet doing her level best to look like she hadn’t just been fucked within an inch of her life. She already checked and there wasn’t any bruising around her neck from his hand – though she hadn’t really expected any, since he hadn’t gripped her there quite that hard.

Her hips and ass, however, were another story. There were definitely bruises there already. Old from last couple days, and fresh from this morning. Not to mention the plethora of hickies Tanin left all over her body. She was wearing long sleeves and pants to cover her arms and legs, and she had moved her hair forward to hide her neck, so she thought she was safe.

But she swore she could still feel him there between her legs. She’d cleaned up as best she could but was convinced he was still leaking from her. More than that, however, was the stretch on her thighs and her poor, abused pussy. The old gal had taken quite a beating – and she definitely wasn’t accustomed to being so thoroughly fucked. So many times. In such a short period.

Garnet was doing her best not to walk with a limp or bow legged. But judging by the knowing smirk that passed briefly over her twin sister’s face when she came in, she did not succeed.

Goldie, however, very kindly didn’t bring it up as she turned from the mediring scanner with a big smile, her hair pulled back in a messy bun. She had that look whenever she figured out something particularly complex while studying.

“I think I got it,” she said immediately upon their entrance. “I had Alred download some instructions for how to use this thing. It is wildly complex, by the way. Like, I thought MRI machines were impressive. This thing? Holy cow. I can’t even fathom half the science that goes into it. Did you know there’s crystals in those rings? Like, legit crystals. They power the engine, too! Like the crystal girlies were right! Crystals totally have energy and-”

“Goldie, focus please,” Garnet cut her sister off with a chuckle. While she usually wouldn’t mind listening to her sister ramble, her legs were shaking with the effort it was taking to stand right now. Her whole lower back was sore and her inner thighs were aching from the strain of standing there.

It felt good, but like in a bad kind of good way. Like, she was paying for the sex, but she was happy to keep paying that same price again and again.

But damn, it was taking some effort to stay upright.

As if he could read her thoughts, Tanin put a hand to her back. Not quite supporting her weight but silently promising to do so if needed. Like, say, if her knees collapsed out from under her because she had no strength left in them.

Cocky bastard. He was lucky the dick was as good as the arrogance, or she might have thoughts left to have something to say.

“Right, sorry,” Goldie laughed, brushing back her hair. “Anyway, I definitely want to go through the tutorials slowly later, really learn how to use this thing. But I kind of skipped ahead and had Alred search out how to find hidden items. They’re not that common, and there are only a few types. One of which really is invisible to the scanner and absolutely cannot be detected. But the way to make it is a super closely guarded secret, and the number of people who can get their hands on it is practically negative. But the other ones can be detected. Of those ones, we only needed a software update to locate the most common, and so I had Alred do that.”

Alred winked into position at her side. He performed an exaggerated bow. “ I am, of course, always happy to be of service. Especially to our chief medical officer. ”

Goldie giggled. “You’re funny.”

“Focus,” Tanin said this time, giving Alred a look.

Garnet gave him one as well. A bit more confused. He sounded a bit too sincere saying that for it to be a joke. But there was no way, right…?

“Anyway,” Goldie continued, smiling brightly. “We have them installed now, and I’ve read through how to run the programs in the mediring. I feel like whatever is inside us has to be one of these. I say that they are the most common, but they are not at all ‘common’. Very few people would have the means and money to get ahold of things like this. And not many people would even think to look for them, much less have the program installed in order to do it. It took forever to even find where Alred could get them.”

“ I had to do some… creative downloading to get the programs, ” Alred said.

“He stole them,” Goldie whispered.

Alred gasped, like he was affronted, putting a hand to his chest. “ I? Never. Besides, aren’t the ones who would charge for knowledge the real thieves here? ”

Goldie was laughing again. “Okay, okay. I said I wouldn’t tease you about it anymore. So, we have the programs, and they’re ready to go. I just need Garnet to lay down and let me run the scan over you to see if it works.”

“Awesome, I’m down,” Garnet beamed.

“And if it doesn’t work?” Tanin asked.

She shrugged. “Then, either there’s nothing to see, or the type of device he used is one of those that require hardware updates, which Alred cannot pirate.”

“ I mean, I could . But it would take more time. And we’d have to intercept it once I had the order en route to the dummy delivery location made to hide us. There would be a whole-… You know what, that’s irrelevant. The point is, we’re ready to swing into subspace. So, I think, while we’re inside, we can run the program. That way, if there is a tracker detected, we can remove them before we leave subspace again. ”

“Great work you two,” Tanin said, earning a bright smile from Goldie and a tilt of the head in acknowledgement from Alred. Tanin turned to Garnet. “You ready now?”

“Yeah, let’s do it!” She beamed brightly, excited to get off her tired legs.

Tanin led her forward to help her onto the bed. For which she was grateful because she wasn’t able to hide her wince when she put pressure on her pussy. Goldie was too focused on the console to notice, but Tanin, who had picked her up by the hips to set her down, definitely did. His eyes flashed as he ran his fingers down her thighs when he pulled his hands back.

‘Stop it,’ she mouthed at him, swinging her legs up so she could lay down.

“ Starting the subspace swing now, ” Alred announced.

Garnet’s belly dropped, like an elevator that came to a stop too quickly. She immediately felt the pangs of nausea and discomfort starting, but Goldie fetched both of them one of the subspace sickness pills that she eagerly swallowed down. It took some time for the subspace sickness to get really bad, and the meds kicked in relatively quickly, so she wouldn’t be uncomfortable for long.

“Are we ready?” Goldie asked then, looking at Alred.

“ You are clear to go, ” he said, earning a bright smile as she quickly turned to the console.

This was another long scan, like the last one, but aside from that, Garnet didn’t notice any difference from her end.

However, whatever Goldie was doing clearly took a lot of focus, because her hands were moving fast over the holo displays.

Garnet didn’t really have to do anything though but lay there as the rings slowly moved around her. Doing their careful, advanced scan.

“You whore,” Goldie suddenly said in English, snickering.

Garnet turned her head, glaring at her sister. She responded in English, “I will fight you.”

“You fucked him, didn’t you?” Goldie laughed. Tanin looked between them, not understanding a word of what they said. Alred, however, was vibrating, like he was trying to hold back laughter. Which had to be a deliberate choice, because his voice was just a fancy mp3; he could choose not to laugh or move at all. He was silently letting them know he was in on the joke.

Garnet put her nose in the air. “I did, and it was fantastic. You can be jealous.”

“Jealous?” Goldie scoffed. “Yeah, right. He has dick spikes.”

Garnet scoffed. “Like you even know that much about them. We barely talked about them before.”

“Oh, please.” Goldie gave her a look around the displays. “Like looking up the basic anatomy of all the guys on the ship wasn’t the first thing I did when I got my combot?”

“And that included their dicks?”

“As it happens, yes, it did,” she said with a huff. “I am a woman of science. I had questions. Especially if my sister was going to be fucking one. And the one you chose is the only one on the ship that has dick spikes. Bold.”

“They’re not that bad,” Garnet mumbled. “If you don’t try to rip yourself off of them, they’re just this really nice pressure inside your-”

“Ah!” Goldie held up a hand, stopping her. “I do not want to know. Now, hush. You’re a science experiment right now. Act like it.”

“You’re the one who-”

“Shush!” Goldie cut her off again.

Garnet fought the urge to snicker, fingers drumming on her belly as she continued to wait. It seemed like this scan was taking a lot longer than the previous ones.

Her eyes moved over to where Tanin was leaning back against the wall, hands casually resting in his pockets. He didn’t appear at all bothered that he had been deliberately excluded from the conversation. He remained calm, watching her carefully.

The weight of his gaze wasn’t unpleasant either. Like a heavy blanket, it was warm and comforting in its way. She smiled at him, wiggling her toes. A ghost of a smile crossed his lips. It was such a small thing, but it thrilled her.

He didn’t smile at anyone else, for anyone else. As small as it was, that was something only for her. He even wanted to dance for her. That sounded so fun and sexy.

“Found it!”

Goldie’s sudden shout made Garnet jump. Tanin straightened as Alred flickered.

“You found it?!” Garnet stilled, like she was just told there was a bomb inside her.

“Look, there! See!” Goldie pointed to one of the displays.

“No!” Garnet yelled, trying to tilt her head to get a good look at what she was indicating, but the display was at an angle, and she couldn’t quite catch it.

“ Oh, yes. I see, ” Alred said. “ Very good work, Goldie. ”

“How are we supposed to get it out?” Tanin asked, coming up behind her sister

“Will someone tell me something?!” Garnet snapped. “Where is it? What’s happening? Is it huge? I’m going to cry!”

Goldie chuckled, giving her a look. “You’re so dramatic. It’s no different from microchipping a dog or a cat.”

“That does not make me feel better!”

It was one thing to think that there was a possibility that there was a tracker inside her. It was another thing entirely to actually know that there was. Garnet suddenly felt violated. Like something horrific had happened to her. She didn’t know what it was or where it was, but she knew she needed it out, like, now .

“I think if I make a cut there, I can get it with some forceps,” Goldie was saying to Alred and Tanin, pointing at the screen.

“If you don’t tell me where it is, I’m getting up and going over there to find out.”

“No!” Goldie frowned at her. “I might lose it. I need you to stay still. And calm your heart rate down. You’re going to have a heart attack.”

Garnet opened her mouth to, again, demand to know the location, but before she could do more than take a breath, Goldie was already speaking-

“The tracker is about the size of a grain of rice, and it’s under your right arm. My issue is that there’s some important stuff there I don’t want to hit, but it’s not directly under the skin. So, if I go digging, I’ll have to be careful. Can you lift your right arm up over your head? Yeah, like that. Oh, yeah, that changes the whole position of the anatomy. Okay…”

Goldie started mumbling to herself, pointing at the display. Garnet said nothing as she waited, now hyper aware of her armpit in a way she’d never been before. She reached up with her left hand, intending to touch around and see if she could feel it, but Goldie chastised her, forcing her to drop it back down again.

“Doesn’t this machine have a function to remove foreign bodies?” Tanin asked, frowning at the mediring. “It’s one of the few things on this ship I didn’t get for cheap, so it should still be fully functional.”

“Yeah, and it is,” Goldie agreed. “And you’d normally be right, but the material the tracker is made of that makes it practically invisible to the mediring also makes it resistant to the mediring moving it. I could probably get her flesh to move it up for me instead-”

“Gross,” Garnet grumbled.

“-but I don’t know how to do that yet. But I did figure out how to close lacerations. So, we’re just going to cut it out the human way.”

“You better have numbing meds,” Garnet snapped at her sister, earning an evil laugh. Like Goldie might not have numbing meds.

But of course she did. It wasn’t a syringe and needle setup like she would have expected. Instead, Goldie loaded a medicine into an injector, like a mini-epi pen, and pressed it to the skin of her armpit before hitting a button. Garnet barely felt whatever was inside get injected, but the warmth followed by numbness in the area was trippy because of how fast it worked.

Then, Goldie broke out the scalpel.

Garnet quickly averted her gaze. Twins definitely didn’t share everything. Goldie was not a violent person, but she didn’t mind the sight of blood, even her own. In contrast, Garnet was always ready to throw down, but blood skeeved her out, and the sight of her own made her dizzy. She very deliberately did not look as Goldie worked. She didn’t even feel the pressure she normally would if something was numb. At least, not in the direct area. She could feel the skin tugging around the area that was Goldie working in.

Garnet tried to think about anything else. If she thought about the fact that a knife was literally cutting into her armpit right now, blood oozing up, medical tweezers digging around-

Ugh, she was going to hurl.

“Got it,” Goldie declared approximately an eternity later.

Garnet whipped her head around, ignoring the blood on her armpit entirely, to look at the tiny thing Goldie was holding up in her gloved fingers. It was nothing. Not only was it the size of a grain of rice, it looked like one as well. An oblong, white oval with just a bit of her blood on it shining in the light like it was made of plastic.

It was nauseating but relieving. She was glad it was out of her, but the idea that someone had shoved that into her in the first place made her want to scream.

Tanin took the thing from her sister, uncaring about her blood that stained his bare hands, as Goldie removed her gloves and returned to the console. The process to fix the hole Goldie made was shorter than the scan to find the device in the first place.

While that was happening, Tanin and Alred were muttering over the little thing. Alred had him take it to a machine in the corner where it was scanned again, directly this time.

“I thought it couldn’t be picked up on scan,” Garnet said as she sat up, gently touching her underarm, but there was no sign she had been cut at all.

“ Not on mediring scan, ” Alred said brightly. “ But scans that we can’t subject fragile bioforms to? Oh, yes. Those can find it easily. I’m just learning about it before we destroy it .”

“Okay. My turn!” Goldie announced excitedly, coming around to the scanner table, numbing injector already in hand. “Garnet, take the scalpel!”

“Wait, what?!”

Garnet didn’t know why she was surprised. Obviously, Goldie couldn’t go digging around in her own armpit for the tracker embedded in her. She was able to set up the machine to autoscan, now that she had performed the initial steps on Garnet. And since the machine knew what and where to look, her scan didn’t even take half the time.

The problem was that Garnet absolutely could not cut her sister open. It didn’t matter how well Goldie explained it or if she showed her pictures or pointed right where to go or that she even prepped the area herself with the numbing meds. To just go deliberately cutting into her own flesh and blood like that was repulsive.

“You literally beat a guy’s face in!” Goldie yelled at her, annoyed, gesturing to her exposed, numbed armpit.

“That is not the same as cutting my sister with a knife!”

“It’s a scalpel!”

“A blade by any other name would smell as sweet!”

“That’s not how that phrase goes, you ignoramus!”

“I will stab you!” Garnet threatened her with the scalpel. “Stop yelling at me!”

“Don’t you threaten me!”

The two of them were practically shouting over each other. Garnet didn’t even notice Tanin getting close until he was pulling the scalpel out of her hands. No hesitation. No questions. He just hit cut right into Goldie’s armpit.

Again, Garnet quickly turned her head. Maybe it was because Goldie was her twin, but she couldn’t handle her blood either. She gritted her teeth, shifting her weight as Tanin worked. He wasn’t as quick as her sister, but he eventually stood straight, announcing-

“Got it.”

“Great!” Goldie chirped. “Now, Alred, just start the healing program that I set up.”

“ It’s going. ”

“Thanks.”

Garnet turned back, watching as Tanin brought the little bead to the scanner where hers was already sitting.

She cautiously walked up behind him, looking over his shoulder at the little things. Aside from a smudge of blood from him putting the beads down, there actually wasn’t much red on the little white devices themselves.

Then, suddenly, there was a tiny Alred beside the trackers.

About three inches tall, but otherwise exactly proportioned as he was before, Tiny Alred circled the beads inside the scanner while Garnet peeked around Tanin’s arm. She didn’t know why she was surprised that Alred could shrink. His light form was just a fake projection he made for them to have something to talk to, it wasn’t his actual body. He wasn’t actually bound to it looking any particular way. Everything was a personal choice for him.

And, apparently, he wanted to walk around the beads as Goldie was being healed.

“ Very sophisticated little things, ” he said, his voice tiny to match his tiny body. Garnet had to bite her lips to keep from squealing about how cute that was. Tiny voice was, like everything else, a choice. Alred was a funny kind of guy, and it was really adorable. “ Even with this scan, I couldn’t recreate these. I don’t even know how these parts were made, much less assembled. ”

“Anything useful?” Tanin asked.

“ No. Just that these are definitely capable of sending off signals. They would only react to a prompt though. They have to be pinged to alert the location. Which is why I can’t sense them sending off any data. It’s not constant or reliable enough for me to be able to detect it. At least, not without better sensors at my disposal. ”

“Then, they’re worthless.”

Tiny Alred shrugged. “ Pretty much. ”

“Destroy them.”

“ Aye, captain! ” Alred laughed.

The box sparked once. It was quick. So fast, Garnet didn’t even realize what happened until the two little beads were suddenly charred and one had cracked open like a split pea. Alred destroyed them just like that.

“What is this, the microwave from hell?” She asked, tapping the glass.

Light form Tiny Alred chuckled from inside the box, completely unaffected by whatever had destroyed the tracking beads. “ It’s an inorganic scanner. Similar to the mediring, but it can’t be used on anything living. The depth of the scans are often lethal to living tissue. ”

“Don’t appear too kind to non-living tissue either.”

Tiny Alred nodded. “ Just so. The trackers are well and truly busted. You two should be safe. Well, from Gissrn, anyway. ”

“Really?” Garnet brightened, looking up at Tanin for confirmation.

“It’s a big universe,” he said simply. “Unless he happens to know exactly where we’re going to be, he can’t get you. And even if he tries again, I’ll deal with it.”

Garnet smiled, turning back to see Goldie sitting up, looking at her armpit with a wide, curious smile, like all her hopes and dreams might be tucked away under there.

“You hear that? We’re officially stray dogs on the lamb!”

Goldie sent her a smirk. “Thought you didn’t like being compared to being microchipped like a dog.”

“I do not. Which is why we’re celebrating us being free ladies once again!” Garnet beamed. “Because I am not microchipped like a dog anymore.”

Goldie switched to English with an evil grin, “No, but you’re apparently getting fucked like one. Or maybe a cat is more accurate since, you know, dick spikes.”

Garnet huffed, crossing her arms with her nose in the air as Alred blinked back into normal size between them. “You’re stuck out here in the wider universe with me, you know. Any dick you get from now on is going to be just as weird.”

“Yeah, but at least it won’t have spikes.”

Alred was turning his head, looking between them as they mocked each other back and forth. He was faceless, as always, but there was still something contemplative about him.

“We done here?” Tanin asked, interjecting before Garnet could start coming up with ideas for strange dicks that her sister might swallow one day – a wiggly tentacle in the throat didn’t sound at all appealing to her, and she bet it would make Goldie gag.

Goldie just barely managed to say that they were when Garnet suddenly found herself lifted in the air. She cried out, grabbing onto Tanin. He’d picking her up around the waist again, leaning her against his chest as he walked out of the room.

“This is not romantic!” Garnet stated, knocking her fist against his shoulder. “Can’t you do like a bridal carry or something?”

“What is that?” Tanin asked, still walking down the hall.

“You know, when you carry me in your arms. Delicately! Like I’m a princess.”

“Is there a difference? You’re still being carried.”

“Yes, there’s a difference! This is not romantic. I’m a princess, not a potato! I’m-Ah!”

He dropped her. For a split second, Garnet was absolutely sure he’d tossed her down, annoyed with her – mostly – jesting complaints. But before she could even cry out, he was catching her again. This time, laying in his arms. It still wasn’t quite a bridal carry – one arm was going over her knees, not under them – but it was close enough.

Her arm went around his neck, just under his quills, her face now beside his. He hadn’t even broken his stride. Didn’t grunt when he caught her. He showed no effort in the way he held her up. His gaze darted towards her, bright red eyes catching her gaze for just a moment. He smirked and looked forward.

Garnet giggled, kissing his cheek. She kept kissing back until she got to the edge of his quills and ran her lips over the flat edge there at the base. He never let her touch them, worried that she was going to cut herself. She was surprised by how sturdy they felt under her lips. They were hard like bone or rock, coming to a harsh point at the end, the edges becoming sharp about an inch or so off the scalp.

She licked one, just because she couldn’t help herself, before continuing down, kissing and licking his earlobe. Having fun playing with him.

“You’re right. This is better,” he said, voice deep and rumbly.

Garnet hummed in agreement. The sound right in his ear. His hands tightened on her. She caught the hard cartilage in her teeth pulled a little, tormenting him.

She was distantly aware of a door sliding open, but she was more focused on kissing and nipping at Tanin’s neck to pay attention. Even when the world tilted and she found herself lying on his bed, she didn’t let go.