This file is a part of Elf Sternberg's Collected Works on ASSTR.  The
complete archive of Elf's work can be found on his website at:

http://www.drizzle.com/~elf

The author can be contacted at:

mailto:elf@drizzle.com

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                            Meeting Elizabeth

Journal Entry 229 / 01028

Elenya, Narquel 18, 01028

"Hello?"

Fezzik raised her head, identified me, looked surprised, and sputtered.
"H-- Hi! What are you doing here?"

"Looking for something to do other than genetics. Why?" I glanced around
her little laboratory, identifying the parts from four or more different
Starksuits lying around. "I was wondering, since you were one of the
few people on board who knew combat Stark, if you'd be willing to go a
few rounds?"

Before she could answer another voice said, "If she doesn't, I would."

I turned around. The speaker was a Human woman, about 165 centimeters
tall, white with black hair that fell about her shoulders in loose,
suggestive curls. Her face could be best described as innocent, with
pale skin, rounded cheeks and large eyes above a playing smile. Pretty.

"And you are... ?"

"Elizabeth Zofrani. Liz." She stepped forward and held out a hand. I
shook it firmly. "I've wanted to meet you for a century, Ken."

"Only that long?" I smiled. I was incredibly grateful that she just used
my first name, and oddly surprised that she treated me as if she knew
more about me than your average reporter.

"I'm only that old." She smiled again with a mysterious glance that told
me she knew more than she wanted to tell me.

"So... would you like to do some hand-to-hand Stark sparring? Do you
have your own suit?"

She nodded to both. "It's an older suit, a Stark-4. I assume you have
the latest and greatest."

I nodded. "Stark BDE 15," I replied. "With secondary virtual life
support."

"Combined with your internals, that must make three layers of protection,
not counting all the different kinds of coverage it gives you." She
paused. "So, you wanna do a few rounds?"

"Would you like me to take a handicap?"

"You can mimic a Stark-4, right? I'd appreciate that."

We met in one of the unsambo designed for this kind of abuse, a large room
with force field projectors designed to protect the walls from two people
interested in throwing each other around. She stood across from me in her
multisectioned armored, painted white to blend in with the environment
she was about to enter, namely the frozen wasteland of Ritacha. I faced
her in Battle Dress / Environmental, the colors changing in reflection to
the point chosen, namely her, and so to her I was effectively invisible. I
was also about twenty times stronger than she was. I ratcheted that down
to practice levels, then further down to the practice levels of a Stark-4.

We started with a slow, circling step as I disabled the camouflage
unit. I waited for her to start. She did.

It looked like a straightforward charge, an attempt to get one arm under
the crotch of the suit and get me down to the ground. I braced for that.
What I got instead was a sideswiped dodge that came around the throat,
grabbed the other arm, and hauled me off over her head. I went flying
across the room, slammed into the opposite wall and fell to the floor. She
leapt at me.

Fortunately, the statis fields had managed to absorb most of the impact,
and I was barely dazed. I rolled to the left and kicked. I timed badly
and missed sweeping her legs out from underneath her.

She dodged on the kickback, leaping over my head as I rolled in that
direction. She was all over me-- and while I normally like that, not
when I'm in combat! A pair of blows to the chest, one to the head,
and I went reeling back. The judge ruled that I had been incapacitated.

She reached down a hand to pull me up. "Are you okay, Ken?"

"I think mostly my pride is wounded," I growled. "I'm sorry. I'm usually
much more of a challenge than this."

"Again?" she asked.

"Gimme a minute." I took forty seconds, then nodded. "Ready."

This time, I was better prepared for her akido-style tricks. She didn't
try the same swiping attack again, but instead went down low, actually
trying a lift. I responded harshly, with a strong blow to the back of
the head that slammed her into the pavement. She grunted in pain and
the judge immediately registered her as down. "Better," I commented.

"For you, maybe," she growled. "Okay, let's try this again." We again
took a minute, then faced off. We were starting to get a better measure of
each other. This time we didn't circle at all. Just stared at each other.
Waited.

Waited.

I analyzed her stance, position. I looked for any weaknesses. She had
adopted a very traditional guard position, one that was traditional for
the usual reason-- it worked. She watched me.

I went for it. This time, she was prepared for my offensive. She had
apparently figured it was my turn to strike, and she was right. And this
time, she took me down easily, a roundhouse elbow to the chest followed
by a straight sucker to the upper side sending me skidding across the
floor out of control. By the time I had managed to roll into a crouch she
had jumped past my own landing point and with a kick sent me down and out.

"Okay," I gasped. "You've proved your point."

"But you got me easily that second time."

"You were overanxious to clinch it," I said. "I knew where we were going
long before you came in."

We sparred for quite a while after that, alternating between all-out
brawling and careful, planned attacks. In theory, the suit I wore could
have picked up a large shuttlecraft and tossed it fifty metres, but with
the strength turned way down we were evenly matched in power. Her skills
were better than mine, however, and after an hour, the score reflected
that difference clearly.

I heard clapping from the doorway. "Bravo, Miss whoever you are. Kick
his butt."

I looked up and spotted Nishipo Parzec leaning against the doorway,
wearing only a billowy shirt and black silk shorts. "Tails!" I shouted,
addressing him by his preferred nickname. "Haven't see you in a while." I
shut off the externals for a second, had a brief conversation with Lance,
then turned the externals back on just long enough to start undoing
the helmet.

He blushed. "Hi, Ken."

"Good to see you," I said as I took off the helmet. "Get this girl some
decent armor, would you?"

"Uhm, Ken?" Liz interrupted. "I'm a Terran. I paid for this."

I knew that. I brushed the hair out of my eyes. "Tails, get her some
decent armor anyway. SDS ten or better, if we have some lying around."

"Better yet, why don't I give her my old suit of fourteen?" Fezzik asked
as she came down from the observation booth. "I've upgraded two stages.
It'll take a little retooling of the hardplates-- you're a little shorter
than I am, Miss Zofrani-- but I can have that in a day or so. It's more
solid armor so it has a higher kinetic survival rating, but it's not as
strong as standard fourteen. It has a failure rate of 127 over .125."

Liz blinked. "You guys are kidding, right?"

"Not particularly," I commented. "At least, I wasn't."

"Nor was I," Fezzik said. "We're stuck on this vessel, I have more suits
than I know what to do with, and you obviously know what you're doing."

"But-- But-- Stark-4 is nearly five centuries old. It's failure rate is
32 over .110. Taking me up to-- that-- how can I repay that?"

"You don't have to. Consider it a gift. Now, is that suit of Stark mated
to anything in a Shirow line?"

She nodded. "Disraeli Mark I."

I didn't recognize the line at all, but Fezzik did. "Woo-hoo, a real
antique. Does it still have the reactive armor plating?"

"I replaced it with ARCplate a long time ago."

"A good idea. Want me to take a look inside and see if we can refit it?
I'm bored and would like a challenge."

Elizabeth look flustered. The three of us, grins all, were offering her
an upgrade that would have probably cost her a half-century's income. "Why
are you doing this?"

"Let's just say that I have reasons," I grinned. "It's not like you
could use it against us, and a little voice tells me you're a troublesome
young spirit at heart. I just like being nice to people like you."

"I-- I can't. There are people in my crew who deserve it more than I do."

"But none of them were willing to come up and challenge us. You're the
only person who has just casually walked in here in the two months since
we've left Pendor and said, 'Wanna wrestle?'"

Liz's fluster continued. "Nickolai was right about you."

"Nickolai who?" I asked, puzzled.

"Nickolai Dittrich Shigokai."

"You're that Liz?" I asked, surprised. I looked at Nishipo. "I'm telling
you, it's a meme. Keep this up and soon Unity will be inherited by the
meek. And I'll have no time to myself." I turned back to Liz. "I'm very
pleased to meet you at last. I've been waiting as long as you have for
this day. Not that I intend anything from it."

"It's not as if you have anything to give me that you haven't given the
entire human race. Other than a new suit of powered armor."

"Hey, I do what I can for friends, and the friends of friends that I
like, too."

A few hours later, the four of us sat down to dinner in one of the commons
rooms. Elizabeth looked around, slightly uncomfortable when she noticed
a crew of Terrans sitting at another table, giving her sidelong glances.
"What?" I asked.

"Them," she said. "They know something's up."

"Does it bother you?" I asked, "Knowing you have some destiny, somewhere,
and that it might not lie with your own kind?"

She looked at me. "I look at you and I don't see someone who's not my
own kind. I look at her, at him, and I don't see someone who's not my
own kind." She was pointing at Fezzik and Nishipo. "Terra's going through
another racist cycle and I don't want to be part of it."

"You're a student, Elizabeth," Nishipo observed. "Universities are
full of people who know a lot but are still insecure." He rolled his
eyes. "Listen to me. You're older than I am."

"Not by much," I pointed out. "And you're both old enough to know better."
I felt a hand on my knee, my left leg. That was where Nishipo was
sitting, and I gave him a wink. He smiled back, his muzzle twitching
with anticipation. If he was giving me a hint, I was willing to take
it. After tossing Elizabeth around for the past hour, I was supposed
to be exhausted. Instead, I wanted to ravish someone madly. Nishipo
was volunteering.

The more we talked, the more his hand would stray onto my thigh, and the
more I would caress his touching arm. It had probably become obvious to
the two fems a while back. "I've got to get back to my lab," Fezzik said
finally. "Liz, if you want, we can do that fitting now and leave the...
boys... alone for a while."

Elizabeth nodded. "I think that would a good idea." They rose together.

"When you two have come back to the real world," Fezzik said with a grin,
"Why don't you join us and see what we've done?"

"We'll do that," I said, returning her grin. After they disappeared out
of site, Nishipo and I rose and dashed for my place. I hadn't felt like
this in weeks! I really just needed his attention, right now.

The door opened, let us in, closed. I grabbed him by the fabric of his
shirt, dragged him into the bedroom, tossed him on the bed, and leapt
upon him. "I hope you're in the mood to get the stuffing fucked out of
you, Tails."

"By you?" he asked. "Anytimmmphh..."

I silenced his reply with a hard, open-mouthed kiss. The world became
a hazy place as his tongue attacked mine. I pinned his wrists down as I
kissed him, and small, passionate whimpers came from him as we kissed. He
tossed his head to get away from the kiss. "You're hot!"

"So are you," I growled. I don't know why I got so hot, but I didn't
question it right then. I could feel his erection poking through the
fabric of his shorts. I hooked one hand into the waistband and pulled
down, tugging out his pale, hard cock. It wasn't very veiny nor the head
very pronounced. It was of average size-- a size I like. As my hand
closed about his scrotum and squeezed gently, he groaned and squirmed
underneath me. "Please... don't hurt me."

"I won't hurt you," I replied. "As long as you give me what I want."

"You, you can have anything you want!"

"Suck," I said, crawling forward and presenting my crotch to his
muzzle.  Considering that I was fully dressed, that order may have
seemed difficult, but Tails managed to tug open the buttons of my fly
with his teeth. He jammed his muzzle into the fly, his agile tongue
locating my cock and pulling it into his mouth. His face bobbed back
and forth and it looked like he was fucking the fly of my jeans with
his muzzle. Even better, it felt like heaven. He had me rock hard in
less than a full minute.

A hand under his chin, against his throat, pushed him away. "More!" he
whimpered as I slowly manhandled him down to the bed. I turned him over
onto his belly, his ass jutting up into the air.

"You're such a wanton slut, Tails," I growled, straddling his hips and
grinding my cock against the material of his shorts.

"I'm wantin' you," he gasped.

"Good!" I dismounted his body. "Stay!" I ordered. I pulled his shorts down
off his ass and over his knees. He helped as much as possible and soon
I had a bottomless Vulpin male lying in my bed. His two tails whipped
furiously in the air. "Spread."

He spread his legs a little further apart. Not enough for me to get my
body between but that wasn't my intention. I knelt behind him, straddling
one leg. "I could spank you," I said as I stroked his ass with one hand.

His buttocks tightened at the suggestion, then relaxed. He tossed his
head and his tails tossed in time. "I don't like that!"

"I know," I said. I grasped his tails at the base and his whole body
went limp. "Please," he begged.

"I will." I knelt over and kissed his asscheek delicately. He moaned. He
knew what I wanted. My hands pulled apart the two cheeks with care and
looked inside at the rosy pale hole that awaited me. I pressed my face
into his cleft and tongued his asshole gently. "Yes," he sighed. 'Oh,
yes."

I caressed his asshole with the tip of my tongue. It clenched and relaxed
at my straying touch. I felt the subtle ripples of flesh around his
sphincter shift and move as I kissed and probed. My tongue dug deeper. My
mind spun.

Spicy, musky, musty, fleshy-- there are a dozen cliche's for the taste of
a clean manhole and none of them really pull off describing what it does
to me. I could inhale deeply and enjoy the smell of masculine pheromones
and more all day long, if I could control myself. But sometimes I just
can't. I pressed inwards harder, seducing his hole to open, to let my
tongue in. He groaned, his body trembling.

My lungs started to burn. I had my whole face pressed between his
buttocks, my nose buried in the cleft, and even then it took a few seconds
for me to realize I couldn't breathe. I still pressed inwards until my
head began to spin with more than lust. His hole tightened around my
tongue as I continued, forcing my way in.

I pulled myself away from him and the stale air in my lungs rushed out of
me. It took five or six breaths before my mind cleared enough for the next
step. I ripped my pants off and tossed them aside onto the floor. Then
I pounced on a helpless little fox. "Hi," I whispered into his ear.

"Hi," he said. His ass pressed upwards against my crotch. My cock,
already mostly hard, pushed back against his suggestion.

"You want this?" I asked.

"I want you," he replied.

"Then you can have me." I pushed myself up onto my knees and looked down
at my intended target. His firm body and tight ass lay still underneath
me. He was breathing hard though, anticipating. I always keep a bottle
of lubricant on the bedstand and I grabbed it now. Seconds later, I was
pressing my cock down into that gorgeous, boyish butt. He moaned as the
head of my cock touched his hole and again as it slid past his sphincter
and into his ass.

I felt him bear down on my cock, tightening his asshole as I slowly
plunged deeper into him. My hips met his ass and I lay down hard against
him, trying to get that one extra centimeter into his body.

"Ohhhh..." We both said it in unison. "Okay?" I asked.

"Yessss..." he sighed. "Now..."

I smiled. He couldn't see it. But he could feel what happened next as I
slowly withdrew my cock from inside him, then pushed back into him. With
my hands I separated his tails apart and let them drape about my thighs
as I lay down on top of him, my head next to his, my mouth kissing
and licking the nape of his neck. He moaned in time with my thrusts,
growing ever rougher as I pinned him down to the bed and fucked his ass.

I slowed to give myself more time and to look at his face. All the muscles
there were straining, like the rest of his body, taking and taking what
I had to give. "Gods, Ken... it's so good!"

"Well," I said, each word a breath, "I hope you like more!" I thrust
my cock into him hard, feeling the slick insides of a man holding and
stroking my cock as I turned his body into a piston chamber for my wants.
The bed was creaking under the force of our sex. I was going to come soon.
He was shifting his body, pressing his hips into the air, forcing my
cock down against his prostate gland, pushing me back into more of a
kneeling position.

I grabbed his hips and hauled his ass up into the air, pulling him onto
his knees with me. Holding onto his pelvis, I jammed myself into his
guts, withdrew, repeated my assault. Like the crew of a battering ram,
I could imagine the gates to paradise splintering, about to give way. My
whole body wound up tight as marching drums as I ravished the handsome
mel beneath me, and when I came I let loose a cry of triumph they might
have heard in the Captain's quarters.

I looked down at the wreckage of my lust. I opened my hands and Tails
slowly fell away from me, collapsing to the bed without a sound. He
curled into a ball on his side, and I lay down beside him, wrapping
myself around him. "Tails?"

"Fah, that was so... GOOD!" His body trembled as he said it.

"You sure? You're not hurt or anything?"

He let himself take a few deep breaths before answering. "I'll live.
Ohmifah."

"You sure?"

"Yes!" His voice sounded like a celebration. "That was wonderful!" He
turned around to me, grabbed my head and pulled me to him, kissing me
as hard as I had kissed him earlier. "Why can't I get fucked like that
all the time?"

"Because we'd all wear out if we fucked like that all the time. Besides,
when will I ever get my turn?"

"Oh, I'd give it to you, I guarantee it!" He giggled.

"Gods, Tails, you're gorgeous."

"And you are incredible, Ken."

We lay there, holding one another. It took a while to recover after such
an incredible upheaval, but we managed. Soon afterwards, we showered
the lube and whatnot from our bodies and headed back out to dinner. I
needed to locate P'nyssa and Cordelia. And I wanted to stay in touch
with Elizabeth.

As I bid adieu to Tails and watched his lovely two-tailed form disappear
down the hallway and onto a SDisk, I felt oddly sad. Pleasures like the
ones we shared seem to come along so rarely, and we never have enough
time to really explore them. Even when Time seems infinite, memories
fade with its passing, and life has a way of intruding.

Still, it had been joyous, and I felt better for it. And if I could find
my coimelin or a certain Han, I might have someone to share that joy with.

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The Journal Entries of Kennet R'yal Shardik, et. al., and Related Tales
are Copyright (c) 1989-2000 Elf Mathieu Sternberg. Distribution limited
to electronic media not-for-profit use only. All other rights are reserved
to the author.
