“Owe,” he grumbled. “What did you do? Did you bite me?”

“Ahh, is my big baby gonna be okay?” teased Aika, smiling wickedly at Reece with a hint of red on her lips. “Don’t worry, momma will make it feel all better.”

Reece watched as Aika bit down on her tongue before rejoining her lips to his. As she pressed her bloody tongue into his mouth, he felt his tongue begin to feel better. By the time she sucked his tongue back into her mouth, he was as good as new. He was now aroused and Aika, whose leg was draped across his hips, must have felt it. His suspicions were confirmed when she briefly pulled away from him.

“What have we here?” she purred as her leg moved to the side and her hand slid down his stomach and into his boxers, grabbing ahold of him. “Mmmm, I think he wants to play,” she giggled lustily.

With a dexterity that could only be supernatural, she continued to kiss him while pushing down his boxers and straddling him between her warm thighs. She must have fed recently. Within a couple of seconds, he was home and she was rising and falling with a sensual rhythm. Little sighs escaped her lips as she enjoyed herself. Looking down into Reece’s lust-clouded eyes, her own glowed red as she smiled wickedly at him.

“I wish I could explain just how much better this feels now that I am what I am,” she purred. “When Karina explained to me that every sensation was heightened, I had no idea she actually meant every sensation. Oh, when I... ugghhh!”

Aika’s words were lost in the depths of her pleasure as it reached a peak that left her shaking for over a minute. As she finally came back down, she began moving with an even greater gusto, causing Reece to fight to hang on and hold out for as long as possible. He didn’t want this to end anytime soon. They continued like that for several minutes, with Aika throwing her head back and shuddering more than once as she reached the heights of her pleasure. When she came back down after the latest one, she gave Reece a wicked smile, her red eyes gleaming.

“I want to try something new,” she stated seductively. “I was always afraid to try it before, but I don’t have anything to worry about with this new vampire body.”

With that, she lifted herself off Reece and repositioned herself forward a bit. Then she grabbed him and lined him up a few centimeters back and wiggled herself back down onto him. Reece gasped. It felt incredible and incredibly tight. Aika just sat there for a moment, getting used to him before she started her rhythmic rising and falling again. It only took a few seconds before her moans were replaced by screams of ecstasy.

“I...I... ugh...had no idea it would be this good,” sighed Aika in overwhelming bliss. “We should have done this a long time ago.”

Reece couldn’t hold out anymore and nearly blacked out as waves of pleasure flowed through his body, energizing him, and bringing him back to life. He couldn’t help but smile widely as he stared into Aika’s eyes. Her red eyes stared back, half-lidded in lust and euphoria. She gave him a little smile as she brought her body down to his and embraced him.

Reece wrapped his arms around her, still noticing that he was still inside of her. She didn’t seem to mind, and he wasn’t about to complain. They lay there for a couple of minutes before Aika began to subtly move back and forth against his body. It didn’t take long before they started round two.

Several hours later, Reece and Aika emerged from the small officer’s quarters looking refreshed and radiant. They were dressed plainly, and Reece had grabbed his backpack which had been left under the bed he had slept in for a week. He checked it and found his goddess-gifted suit within.

Checking the suit, he verified that the nightcore was still safely within his possession. Satisfied, he slung the pack over his shoulder and nodded to Aika as they walked down the hall. Reece felt like a new man and noticed that Aika had an extra spring in her step. He could get used to this. For now, it was time to find something to eat and get a handle on the current situation.

Aika walked with him up to the carrier’s mess hall and accompanied him while he quickly downed a bowl of soup, noodles with chicken. It wasn’t half bad, considering it was galley food. Downing a couple of cups of water, Reece and Aika headed above deck to see what was going on. They both had to shield their eyes once they walked out onto the deck. It was mid-day and the sun was beating down. Reece could just make out heatwaves emanating off the landing pads to his left.

“There’s our hero,” came a familiar voice from off to his right.

Reece nodded to Angel, who was sitting around a large table with several other folks. Reece recognized Bjorn, Aspen, Naeva, Jorgen, Micah, Captain Schwarzenegger, and Li Jie. A pair of swarthy teens sat there as well. They were a boy and girl but shared the same skin and hair color, each with the same purple-tinged eyes. A tingle went up his spine as he recognized the pair from his latest ‘dream’. He tucked the thought away for later.

At once, they all stood and applauded Reece’s arrival. Capt. Schwarzenegger walked up to him with a big smile and gave him a friendly pat on the shoulder before leaving her hand there. Using it, she directed him towards an open chair around the table.

“Please, come and sit with us,” she said, still smiling. “We all owe you a great thanks since you managed to save us all from near-certain death.”

Reece allowed her to lead him to the chair and sat down, letting his backpack drop to the deck at the foot of his chair. Aika sat down in another empty chair next to him. Karina sat on his other side. Reece couldn’t help but smile.

“Well, this is a bit much,” began Reece as he extended his hands to everyone around the table. “After all, it seems I’ve been sleeping like a baby while you all cleaned up the mess. I owe you all thanks for that. So, Aika filled me in a bit, but I’d like to play some catch-up with you all. What’s the situation?”

“Well, surprisingly, we have mostly good news,” answered Capt. Schwarzenegger. “We’ve had some luck locating other communities of survivors and are currently on our way to assist one of them right now. The Order had been uncharacteristically silent. We believe these last couple of battles set them back significantly. With the forces they threw at us, they couldn’t have expected to lose. We think we’ve gained some breathing room...”

“Still, we must...” interrupted Li Jie before the captain cut him off

“I know, Jie... we need to remain vigilant,” she stated. “Easy come easy go. Look, Jie has been very vocal about not resting and taking this win for granted. And I for one am not about to ignore the advice of a master tactician. He’s right, of course. We need to take this opportunity to shore up our defenses and maybe even go on the offensive where we are able. They may be licking their wounds, or they may be setting up their next attack, ambush, or trap. We can hope for the best, but we need to prepare for the worst. So, let’s assume that they are preparing several traps for us.”

“Alright, sounds good,” replied Reece. “Do we have any idea who or what is running this Order? That would go a long way in staying ahead of them.”

“Actually, we do,” answered Li Jie. “The hard drive you provided to us was instrumental in figuring it out. It took some time to piece together, but between the drive, common knowledge, and interweb research, we were able to determine that it is the reclusive billionaire, Abel Hargrove.”

“Seriously,” interjected Reece, completely flabbergasted. “The playboy heir to the Hargrove fortune? Where has he been hiding all this time?”

“Uh, that’s something I wanted to discuss with you in private,” cut in Angel. “But he was with us aboard the space station.”

“What do you mean?” asked Reece, tilting his head and squinting as he tried to puzzle it together in his head. “I know what the twerp looks like. He wasn’t aboard. I would have seen him at some point.”

“Wwwweeeelllll,” started Angel, clearly hesitant to enlighten Reece. “He had already gone through somebody modification treatments and you got to know him pretty well. It’s Commander Rogers, Reece. He is actually Abel Hargrove.”

“That can’t be true then,” argued Reece. “We killed him several months ago, together.”

“That’s what I thought too,” answered Angel apologetically. “It turns out that what we killed was a clone of the real Abel Hargrove.”

“Are you fucking kidding me!?!” screamed Reece, standing, and slamming his hands down upon the table before calming a bit. He asked the next question through clenched teeth. “Was it the clone that was aboard the Zhengzhou with us?”

“No,” answered Angel, almost timidly. “That was the real Abel Hargrove.”

“So... the asshole that betrayed all of us and got Thato, Thomas, Sora, and Sebastian killed? He’s still running around, fat, dumb, and happy... the very same shit-stain that basically doomed our entire planet? Oh, that’s just great.”

“Well, unfortunately... yeah,” replied Angel meekly. “For what it’s worth, we believe that Sora is still alive.”

“Yeah, I know she’s probably still alive,” grumbled Reece, his voice calming for a moment. “She confided in me... ME! ...that she was losing herself to the shit that jackass injected her with. For all I know, that may have been what happened to the rest of the crew too.”

“You may be right about that, at least partially,” agreed Angel. “At least for the Beckers. They always seemed like good people until the end. I think they were brainwashed too, or whatever. Aldo was always a mal tipo*... as was Jared.” *(Spanish for bad guy)

Angel spit after saying their names.

“Okay, well... that doesn’t make me feel any better,” replied Reece. “It seems to me that we need to hunt this muy mal tipo down and turn him into fertilizer. It’ll probably be the first time the man will have done anything to help the planet.”

“Okay, this may be a dumb question,” said Pasha. “But if the commander you guys killed was a clone, then how did he have any of Commander Roger’s memories? I thought clones simply shared the same DNA.”

“Nah, that’s not a dumb question and you’re not wrong, Pasha,” answered Micah. “I’ve given it some thought and there were a few hints about the possibility on the hard drive from the Zhengzhou. I believe they found a way of using the hive-mind properties of the serum to basically make a copy of someone’s mind and implant it in someone else. They attempted it with regular people, but they all went insane. The thought was that the brain couldn’t handle two sets of memories or two personalities at the same time.”

“Alright, but what about his age?” queried Pasha. “I know they’ve made some progress in accelerated aging from the cloning projects back in the twenties, but nothing like this.”

“Right,” answered Micah. “We’re just going to have to assume that they’ve made tremendous progress in that area. We already figured out that aging isn’t a natural process at all, but something that can be manipulated. We just couldn’t get around the metabolism paradox.”

“Oh, you mean the one where a super-sped-up metabolism is required for rapid aging,” replied Pasha. “But it consumes energy so fast that the person’s body basically eats itself to death?”

“Yeah, that’s the one,” answered Micah.

“Okay,” cut in Reece. “It sounds like they have a few more tricks up their sleeves than we thought.”

“I’ve heard enough,” cut in Karina, standing as well before putting her hand on Reece’s arm in a calming manner. “It seems like we have a couple of strategies to discuss. Reinforcing the remaining survivor communities, culling the undead, collecting intel on the enemy, and erasing the ‘shit-stain’ as Reece so eloquently put it. Does that sound about right?”

Everyone around the table nodded in ready agreement.

“Love, can I talk to you for a moment?” Karina whispered into Reece’s ear as she gently pulled his arm to follow her.

Reece nodded silently, still fuming, and allowed the girl to lead him away from the rest of the group. Once they were out of earshot of everyone, the lilitu turned towards Reece and gave him a serious look.

“Reece... look over at the table and tell me what you see?” she commanded.

Letting some of his anger go, he looked back to the table of friends and comrades and studied them for a moment. Many of their eyes were downcast, small frowns on their faces as they glared holes into the table or each other. Several were talking forcefully amongst themselves, nearly spitting the words from their mouths. Something was clearly wrong, and Reece had an idea what.

“I caused that, didn’t I?” Reece asked, already knowing the answer.

“Yeah, when you lost control of your emotions you let loose a wave of negativity and now it’s infected most of them,” answered Karina, using her analytical tone. “You need to figure out how to undo it, now. If it helps, I vow to help you find Mr. Hargrove and make him wish you’d already killed him.”

“I think I like the sound of that,” replied Reece darkly. “Okay, you’re right. I need to fix this. And Karina... thanks.”

“Anything for you, lover,” she replied with a little grin.

Smiling back at her, Reece turned and walked back to the table and stood before everyone.

“Listen everyone. I just wanted to apologize to you all for losing my cool. This new info was just... shocking.”

As Reece spoke, he also concentrated on emanating hope, confidence, determination, and love to temper the anger now coursing through his veins.

“Now that I had a moment to process, I think I was more afraid than angry. No longer. Hargrove threatens all of us, but he’s just a bully. The thing I didn’t realize at first, is this… together, we are stronger than him and he knows it. He’s afraid of us. We are a threat to him and his plans. That’s why he’s thrown so much at us. But, you know what? We’ve overcome all of it, and it’s made us stronger. He now has no idea what we are capable of, individually or together. None of us are the same people we were before this nightmare began.”

“This pandemic, plague, war... whatever you want to call it...it’s toughened us up, brought us all together, and bound us to each other. We’re a family now, and this family isn’t one that won’t be trifled with. That pathetic excuse for a man doesn’t have that. All he has are lackeys and mindless tools at his disposal. In the end, he is alone, and when we finally find him, he will die alone. The only thing he’s gained by staying alive so far is to prolong his suffering.”

“So, we’ll let him live a little longer while we take care of our own. You all are what is important, and I lost sight of that for a moment. So again, I apologize and I gotta thank you all for continuing to stand with me, even after getting to know me,” continued Reece, his serious expression giving way to a grin. “That’s true friendship. So, I think it’s about time to bring the fight to Hargrove and his Order of insufferable assholes.”

Reece looked around the table and saw faces soften and nod in agreement as he spoke. He even saw a few smiles break out. Breathing out a sigh of relief, he felt a hand on his back and noticed Karina standing next to him. Aika put her hand in his and squeezed. The last of his anger dissipated and his smile spread across his face.

“Now,” Reece added. “Who else could use a drink?”

His question broke the spell of silence, created by the tension they had all felt, and everyone started laughing.