Escape from 196 Askadar

"Come fuck me. I want to suck your cock first, but after that, I want you to fuck me."

I walked to the bed and sat down.

"Where did you get all this?"

"What?"

"Why are you naked and where did you learn to say that?"

"Mack and Walt said this is what I should do and say when you men come to see me. Isn't this what you wanted?"

"Well, I sort of like undressing a woman, and I'm not really into her saying things like that."

Barbara wrinkled up her brow.

"Mack and Walt liked it. What should I do for you?"

"Next time, stay dressed, and don't tell me what to do. I can figure that out all by myself."

Barbara grinned.

"OK. Are you going to fuck me now? Oh, you probably didn't want me to say that either, did you?"

"Well, no, but I understand. Were they nice to you, Walt and Mack?"

"Oh, yeah. Mack taught me how to suck his cock, and Walt said I did a good job. They fucked me after that. I wanted them to fuck me again, but it took a long time. They were too soft at first and I had to suck their cocks to make them hard again. I need to be fucked a lot. My mother told me fucking was good, but she said it would hurt the first time. It didn't hurt though. I don't know why."

If she'd been a robot, it would have been funny. Barbara wasn't a robot though.

"Barbara, you can say things like that when you're with Mack or Walt, but please don't do it when we're together. It bothers me."

"What should I say?"

"Nothing unless you're feeling something. Then you can say anything you want. Just don't keep saying 'fuck'."

Barbara grinned again.

"OK. Are you going to teach me what you like now?"

"I'm going to try."

Her breasts weren't as large as I remembered a Lucy's being, but they were soft, round, and they didn't feel like silicone when I fondled them. They just sort of moved away from my fingers. It was a welcome change from Lucy. So was what Barbara did.

If you squeezed a Lucy's breasts, she'd say something like "I love it when you do that" or "You have nice hands". At my first touch, Barbara caught her breath.

"Mack and Walt didn't do that. Do it some more. I like how it makes me feel."

"How does it make you feel?"

"Mmm...this little tingle went all the way from my boobs down to my tummy."

I stroked her breasts, I gently squeezed her breasts, and when I ran a fingertip around her right nipple bed, Barbara shivered and then looked down at her right breast.

"My boobs have gotten all bumpy like that when I got cold, but being cold never felt like this. Is that supposed to happen to me?"

"You mean the little bumps and wrinkles? Yes, if you're getting excited."

"They didn't do that with Mack or Walt."

"Well, maybe they were in too big of a hurry. I'm not."

She smiled.

"Show me what else you can do."

Barbara hadn't been very vocal except to ask me questions. That changed when I put two fingertips around her left nipple and gently squeezed. She made a little moan and then murmured, "do that again".

Barbara might not have known much about sex, but the engineers at LMEC had gotten the response part right. Just a touch to her nipples resulted in a quiet little moan. When I kissed them, the moan got louder. When I sucked her right nipple between my lips, Barbara caught her breath and her hips lifted just a little.

She took a deep breath, then whispered.

"Is this how you like to fu...I mean, have sex?"

"It's part of what I like."

"I like it too. What comes next?"

A Lucy was soft and smooth, but they were nothing like Barbara. From her breasts to her flat tummy to the swell just above her mound, she was pure silk. Unlike a Lucy, she wasn't shaved either. Crimson curls covered her sex. I swirled my fingertips through those curls and Barbara moaned again. After working the tangled hair apart, I stroked her lips. Barbara caught her breath again, and I felt her stroke my back.

"Are you going to fu...put your cock in me now?"

"No, not yet. I don't think you're probably ready for that."

"Mack and Walt didn't wait."

"That's just the difference between them and me."

The fingers on my back kept stroking as I slipped a fingertip between her lips. Barbara was already wet and slippery, but since I was teaching her what I like, I thought she should get the whole lesson.

I stroked her rippled inner lips while she moaned. I moved up to her clit and gave it a very soft rub. Barbara gasped and her hips rocked up. When I slipped my finger inside her, Barbara moaned and tried to push my finger in deeper by lifting her hips.

She seemed to be getting very aroused from such a little amount of foreplay. It was the hormones I figured, but I just wasn't used to a woman responding so much so quickly. The Lucy I'd used on my last job was ready in seconds, but that was just programming and didn't mean she was really feeling anything. Barbara was truly aroused, and I was finding it hard to not go further. She made it a lot harder when she wrapped her slender fingers around my stiff cock and started stroking it.

"Mack and Walt wanted me to do this to them. Do you like it too?"

"Yes, but don't do it very hard or you'll spoil it for both of us."

"With them, I only did it a little and then they'd put their cock in me. Are you ready to put your cock in me now?"

"Just about. Relax and let yourself feel what I'm doing. If you do, then I'll be ready."

I slipped my finger down to Barbara's entrance and made a little circular stroke before pushing my finger inside her. She moaned and lifted her hips. I felt her nails dig into my back.

Just a few strokes later, Barbara was rocking her hips into each stroke of my finger. I was sure she was ready when she contracted around my finger and I felt a little stream of wet warmth flow onto my hand. I knelt between her upraised thighs and positioned my cock head between her parted outer lips.

Barbara shuddered when my cock slipped inside her. I looked up at her face. Her mouth was open and her eyes were squeezed shut. I pushed my cock deeper, and Barbara moaned so loudly I was sure the sound carried all over the habitat. When I pushed my cock all the way in, she gasped, wrapped her legs around my back, and pulled her body up with them and tried to push my cock in deeper.

After that, well, I'd been with a few real women before, and I'd had a Lucy for two years prior. None of them were like Barbara. The real women had sort of just lain there until the final moment when they came. Even then, usually they just jerked once or twice and moaned a little. A Lucy would dance all over the bed moaning like crazy.

Barbara didn't do either. She just started using her legs to pull me into her body and her hands were stroking my back. The only sound I heard was when I kissed her. After our tongues met, she purred a moan into my mouth and I felt her tummy roll against mine.

She did get vocal a while later. At first, she was just matching my strokes, but I felt her rock her hips a little faster. I sped up and so did she. I'd been going slow because it felt good, so we really didn't speed up that much. It was just enough I could feel the tension starting to build.

I felt it in Barbara too. She rolled her face to the side and she was starting to pant. I kept feeling little contractions around my cock. I was getting close to losing it when she dug her heels into the mattress, lifted her body up, groaned, and raked her nails down my back.

She fell back to the bed, but on my next stroke, she raised up again and started to shudder. I felt her dig her nails into my ass. When I tried to pull back out, she arched up even higher and tried to keep my cock inside her. I was able to make two more strokes before the surge raced up my cock. About the time I groaned and the second surge splashed inside her, Barbara cried out and her hips shook up and down so fast I didn't have to stroke.

My third spurt left me gasping and she was still arched up. She dropped her hands to the mattress, grabbed the sheets with both hands, and then lurched her body up hard. She hung there, her hips doing a little up and down rocking dance while she held her breath. Then, she gasped and eased back down to the bed. I went with her, mostly because she'd grabbed my ass again and wouldn't let me pull my cock out of her.

We lay there for a while before she opened her eyes. When she did, she smiled.

"Is that what you like?"

"Yes."

"Am I supposed to feel like I do?"

"I don't know. How do you feel?"

"Mmm...I feel all warm inside and all tingly and just really, really happy."

"Yes, that's how you're supposed to feel if we did it right."

"Hack and Walt must not do it right then, because I didn't feel this way with them. It felt good to have them fu...to have them have sex with me, but not as good as this."

A little bell went off in my head when she said that. Jack had said Barbara wouldn't have a preference of which man she slept with, but she'd just told me she did. I wondered if she was just saying that to make me feel good, or if she really meant it.

I decided it was just probably what she thought she should say. I did have this nagging doubt though. She could have faked the orgasm she'd had, but if she did, she was damned good at it, better than I figured a girl so young would be. It was possible LMEC had put those words in her mind somehow, but I didn't think they could implant the way she responded.

I felt her tap me on the shoulder.

"What are you thinking about?"

"Oh, nothing."

Barbara stroked my cheek with her fingertip.

"As long as you're here, could we do it again? I want to see if it's the same the second time."

It was the same, except it was better. When I went back to my room, I was pretty convinced Barbara hadn't been faking it. There was no way a human could consciously move her body that fast. It had to be involuntary. The sheet on her bed was really wet too and I knew I wasn't all me.

The next day everything went well. I thought the blast from the charges Walt set was a little bigger than the day before, but there's always some variation between charges, so I didn't think anything about it. We loaded the bins and then when the shuttle docked, loaded the bins into the shuttle. The shuttle undocked and left, and we went to eat.

The next morning we were sitting there drinking coffee after breakfast when Mack asked me about Barbara.

"What the fuck did you tell Barbara when you fucked her?"

"Just what I liked, why?"

"The little bitch kept trying to get me to rub her tits and when I put my cock in her, she kept saying I should slow down. I didn't do either. She was a good fuck, but I don't want no fucking woman telling me how to fuck her."

I shrugged.

"I don't know what LMEC put in her head. Maybe they put more in there than Jack told me."

"Well, she better not do that again. I tell a woman how to fuck me, not the reverse."

I sent Mack and Ward to load the elevator with more charges. As soon as they left, I knocked on Barbara's door. She smiled when she opened it.

"I didn't think you'd be back until the day after today."

I stepped into her room and closed the door.

"Barbara, I won't be with you until tomorrow night, but I need to tell you something. It would be best if you don't tell Mack or Ward about how we have sex. Just do what they say they like. Can you do that?"

"Is that why Mack seemed upset last night? All I wanted to do was feel like I did with you."

"Yes, and that's why I'm telling you what I am. We have to be here for a year, and it would make that easier if you just do what they like."

Barbara frowned.

"But I really liked feeling like I did with you."

"I know, and I liked it too, but I need you to do what I said. Can you do it?"

"I suppose so. I won't like it though."

I left then and went to the elevator. Mack and Ward were waiting on me. Mack grinned.

"Went back for a quickie, did you?"

"No, I went back to check one of my books to see the best way to dig around those fissures without making them any bigger."

"And what did your book say?"

"That we're doing things like we should. I think in another week or so we'll have the column free. If the wall behind it doesn't have any fissures, we'll take out the column and keep going."

I didn't like the way Ward said, "Whatever you say, boss man, whatever you say."

I marked where I wanted the bore hole locations on the rock face with chalk and then watched the fissures to see if they were moving when Mack and Ward used the air drills to sink the holes. They didn't seem to be doing anything, so I spent the time mapping out how far we'd expanded the mine. I was still taking laser measurements when Ward came back to pick up the charges. As he walked away, I said, "remember, five joule charges and only five of them".

"Right", was all he said, but his voice told me he wasn't pleased. I didn't really care if he was pleased or not. We didn't have a quota to meet, and my way was the safe way.

Mack and Walt came back to the elevator just as I was stepping into the car.

Walt nodded.

"They're all placed. All we need to do is touch 'em off. You going somewhere?"

"Yeah. I just shot the new section and I'm going to go add it to the database so they'll know back at the smelter how much we've dug. I'll be back in a few minutes."

"You want us to wait or should we touch 'em off."

"Go ahead. It'll be a while before the dust settles. I'll be back by then."

I'd just stepped out of the elevator when the ground under me shook like hell. I knew immediately that Walt and Mack had used more than the twenty-five total joules I'd told them to use. I might have felt a small tremor if they had, but nothing like this. A second later a plume of dust flew out of the shaft and then immediately started going back in. There was only one reason that dust would be going back inside the shaft. One of the fissures had broken through to the outside of the asteroid and the pressurized atmosphere inside the ESE was pushing the dust back down into the mine and out into space.

The atmosphere makeup system was good for about half as much atmosphere as the ESE held, but that wasn't going to last long if the crack was very large. I started running for the escape pod and hoped Mack and Ward had sense enough to do the same. When I looked back at the shaft, I knew it didn't make any difference if they did or not. The dust from the mine was gone and had been replaced by a swirling column of atmosphere that had picked up dust and debris from the floor of the ESE. It looked like the swirl of water you see when you open the drain on a tub or sink and was pulling that dust down the shaft. If Mack and Ward weren't already in space, they were being extruded through the fissure on their way out.

I was opening the door to the escape pod when I saw Barbara running toward me. I waved her on and yelled at her to run faster. It was getting hard to breathe when she reached me. I pushed her into the pod, then jumped inside and slammed the door shut. The automatic atmosphere control came on and pumped fresh air into the cabin while I sat down at the console.

Going back to the moon would have been too risky. With any luck, the asteroid would stay together and just bleed all the atmosphere out of the ESE. LMEC wouldn't be able to mine it anymore like it was, but they could split it along the fissure and then attach an ESE to each piece. If the fissure was too long, the asteroid would disintegrate and rain rocks down on the moon. I didn't want to be in that if it happened.

It took a few seconds to program the space port in San Diego into the control, and I felt the ESE starting to shake just before the display said "Coordinates Accepted". The hydrogen/oxygen engine automatically fired and blasted the pod free of the ESE. It wasn't until then I had time to see what had happened to Barbara.

She was sitting in the seat beside me with her harness buckled correctly, and she looked scared.

"Are we going to be all right", she asked.

"Yes. In about two days, we'll land in San Diego."

"What about Mack and Walt?"

"They didn't make it."

"What happened?"

"I don't know for sure. What I think happened is they thought I was being too cautious so they used more blasting charges than I said was safe. When they blew them, they blew a crack through the asteroid."

"I guess it's a good thing we got away then."

"Yes. It was lucky I wasn't down there with them or we'd all be dead."

"I wouldn't be dead. I'd be in this escape pod just like I am now. That's why I started running toward it when I felt the ground shake."

I looked at Barbara.

"I didn't know you even knew the pods were there. Even if you got to one, you wouldn't know how to enter the right coordinates."

"Yes I would. After the first day, While you and Mack and Walt were working I read the books about the ESE and how to work it."

"You think that was enough?"

"Sure I am. It's not that hard. I found out where the escape pods were the first day, and the second, I learned how to make them take off and go where I wanted. I memorized the coordinates for where I grew up in Idaho. I was going to go back there."

"Why Idaho. There's nothing there."

Barbara's face was a frown mixed with fear.

"I read the little book they gave you about me this morning. I know what I am, and I know what will happen to me if they find me. I don't want to die. I thought if I went to Idaho, I might be able to hide there. I know my memories aren't really mine, but if they're accurate, maybe I can find a place where they won't think to look."

That first night with Barbara, I'd thought she wasn't quite what Jack had said. Now I knew she wasn't. Jack thought the only things in her mind were what LMEC had put there. They'd given her what they thought was a limited ability to learn. I didn't know how her brain had rewired itself, but if she could figure out the operation of the ESE and the escape pods in three days just by reading about them, she was smarter than Jack and most of the engineers who worked for him.

She had also just told me she didn't want to die. That meant she had a sense of self and that meant she was human according to the law. That only made things for her worse. LMEC would have to do what Jack had called "deactivate" her. If anyone ever found out they'd cloned a human, LMEC would cease to exist because everybody from the CEO down to the lab techs would be in prison.

There was no way I was going to let LMEC deactivate her. I smiled at Barbara.

"Do you still remember the coordinates for the place you picked in Idaho?"

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LMEC tracked the escape pod all the way from the ESE to where I landed it in Idaho. It took them two hours after we landed to get a helicopter to the site. By then, I had Barbara safely hidden in a ravine a mile away with all the supplies from the shuttle. I was hesitant to leave her because I didn't know how long it would take me to get back.

Barbara just grinned.

"They gave me memories of camping out here with my dad. I know what to do. Just hurry back."

When I went back to the pod, I put a jumper across the overload sensor for the hydrogen/oxygen engine, fired it up and then ran like hell for the nearest rock. The pod traveled about a hundred yards and then exploded. A minute later, the pod was just a smoking ruin. I was standing a little way away and watching it burn when the helicopter landed. The guy in a black suit who got out asked if I was by myself. I just nodded.

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Two hours later I was sitting in a conference room with several other men in black suits. The guy at the head of the table asked me what happened. I didn't have to lie about that because I was pretty sure I knew.

"Well, Sir, I can't be positive because I couldn't ask them, but I think the two miners used more hydrogen/oxygen charges than I told them to. There were several small fissures, but we'd been working our way around them. In another week, we'd have been back in solid rock, but I guess they thought they knew better. The blast shook the asteroid enough to have been about two hundred joules, maybe more."