“One more time?” Bonnie said, wrinkling her nose.

 

“You look hot in glasses,” Wren said, giggling.

 

“Not that!  What am I…”

 

The two of them stood in a cleared out space in the hold, with a few hastily painted target markers, x’s on pieces of cardboard, hung across the wall in front of them.  Bonnie’s new gun, a compact assault rifle, or CAR, was loaded with blanks, and after many hours of frustrating experimentation Wren had fashioned an interface that spoke to it.  It was a corporate brand that was friendly with Trimark equipment, and there had been some starting points buried in reference material in the databanks she hadn’t wiped.

 

“Right eye twitch to mark potential targets,” Wren said, repeating herself.  “Left eye twitch to mark definite targets.  When you kind of, like, narrow both eyes ahead of action, which is a normal human thing to do when the sympathetic nervous system is kicking in, you’ll activate those targets.  You can certainly activate them on purpose, but theoretically anything that makes you nervous will do it too.  All you need to do is swing that gun across the definite targets and the gun will fire.”

 

“What about the potentials?”

 

Wren yawned, stretched, and tried to cover her mouth all at once, but really only managed the first two.  “I’m still working on the best body language to enable those once you’re in active mode.  I need to gather a lot more of your facial expressions, the resting range.  That kind of thing.  The glasses are watching you just as much as you’re looking through them, so this is gonna be a process.”  She paused, and then added, “I might make it so that potential targets need you to stay trained on them for, like, I dunno, half a second, but I also kinda think a half second delay might be way way too long.  We’ll fine tune something.”

 

“Okay,” Bonnie said, hesitantly.  She shook out her shoulders and shifted her weight from the ball of one foot to the other.  “I hate using blanks.  The weight is too close to right, so I can’t tell.”

 

Wren said, “We’ll work up to that,” as she brought up the makeshift display.  “For now, try to target the left and right x’s as definite, and the middle target as potential, and then sweep across all three.”

 

“This is gonna be great if we ever get attacked by the end of the alphabet.”

 

Wren, tired as she was, completely lost it in a fit of hysterical laughter, and could not compose herself no matter how much she tried.  Bonnie just stared at her in patient amusement.

 

“I’m having to adjust my recognition scans to pick out different humans based on a varying set of detectable factors,” she said, eventually, still giggling at the thought of anthropomorphic letters in pitched battle.  “It’s a lot harder than I thought it was going to be.  It’ll be ready when it’s time.  For now, just...” She gestured at the wall and shook her head.  “God, I’m tired.”

 

Bonnie squared herself against her targets, but Wren watched her displays.  One was a closeup of Bonnie’s eyes, tracking the subtle movements of her eyelids, while the other was capturing footage of the targets overlaid with Bonnie’s targeting choices.  In the blink of an eye, more or less literally, Bonnie marked all three targets even as she brought her arm around in a wide arc, like she was swinging an axe.  The CAR barked in spurts of three, twice in rapid succession, like brrrp brrrp.  The overlay approximated the path of the bullets, with all three bullets having hit the first target and two out of three striking the second.  The sixth bullet was approximating a seventy two percent miss, but with a little deductive reasoning Wren realized that it was a twenty eight percent hit.

 

“Holy shit,” she said, at the same time that Bonnie said, “漂亮!”

 

“Oh,” Wren said, turning and smiling.  “I like that better.  漂亮!”

 

“Is that…”  Bonnie pushed the glasses down her nose, and then back up again.  “Are those red dots the impact points?”

 

“Approximate impact points,” Wren said softly.  “Yeah.  There’s always some fuzzy math when it comes to rifled rounds.  They spiral somewhat unpredictably.”

 

“Can you make it more accurate?”

 

Wren rubbed tightly at her eyes, and said, “I can shrink the window the gun thinks it has available to it, but the number of shots it’ll fire is directly related to how long you stay trained on the target.  You swung pretty quick, and given its fire rate three per target was what it thought it could—”

 

Beside her, pointed at the ground, Bonnie’s gun barked rapidly in full auto mode, brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrp, sending both of them jumping for the rafters.  Bonnie, like a seasoned pro, though, kept her grip on the gun and held it aimed safely at nothing where Wren would have thrown it like a complete goober.  Even though it was firing blanks.

 

From her place behind a foot crate where she was hiding with her arms over her head, Wren shouted, “I know why that happened!  I can fix that!”  She didn’t need to see Bonnie’s glare to know it was there, or that it was fierce.

 

***

 

Cheng Shih Station was one of a handful of ancient space stations that predated the Corporate Alliance, but whose place in the network was fundamental.  There had been many takeover attempts through the centuries, but to Wren’s knowledge none of them had ever come close to succeeding.  She wasn’t sure she understood why.

 

On Cheng Shih Station, the Alpha Gamma wing was an entire section of docking bays that had been ‘under construction’, in phases, for over one hundred years.  Various disasters had befallen the section, setting back its ability to function as it was originally designed.  Several of those disasters had even been real, or at least unplanned, and it was in this constantly wrecked and rebuilt warren of the station that the loosely-affiliated-and-as-yet-unnamed rebellion had germinated.

 

The Daedalus was nestled in one of those sections of the docking bay that didn’t exist, hidden from scans and not present on any version of the schematics filed on record within the station’s databanks.  It was now their permanent berth, and as far as Wren knew hers was the only ship with access.

 

It was an overstatement to call it a rebellion.  It was more of a thriving counter-culture, in the truest sense, combined with a simmering frustration among the general population and a council of wise old men who were thinking really hard about maybe doing something about it.

 

They had just docked again, after another mildly successful operation.  Wren called it an unqualified success, but she could tell that the cloak and dagger nature of what they’d been doing was starting to bother her girlfriend.  Bonnie wasn’t built for stealth.  The fact that what they were doing was building up to something bigger had helped, initially, but she was clearly nearing the end of her rope.

 

The redhead’s mood had improved dramatically upon return, though, when one of Jackson’s people had delivered a crate of goods.

 

“Yeah,” Wren said, yawning, “I’m not wearing that.”

 

Bonnie folded her arms across her chest, and, judging by her smirk, it was a calculated move.   She’d never worn very many shirts with sleeves but, upon finding out how fascinated Wren was with her arms, that frequency dropped to zero.  Wren was fine with this, even though she was completely aware Bonnie was using it against her.

 

No amount of tattooed biceps were going to change her mind on the bland tactical gear Bonnie had laid out for her.

 

Then she added, thoughtfully, “Not unless I can customize it.”

 

Bonnie frowned.  “Customize it how?”

 

“Like I did,” Wren said, without looking up, “with that pistol you gave me.”

 

At this, Bonnie stared straight ahead and blinked.  “What did you do to the pistol I gave you?”

 

Wren pulled the thing out from where she’d stashed it, in the waistband at the small of her back, and held it up with her index finger extended alongside the barrel like she’d been shown, well away from the trigger.

 

Bonnie squawked, saying,  “It’s pink!”

 

Wren nodded enthusiastically, turning her attention away from the blacks and grays and admiring her work.  “I electroplated it.  Made it lighter too!”

 

She handed it over to Bonnie, and Bonnie’s eyebrows rose as she hefted it.  “What the hell did you do to it?”

 

“Made it non-lethal!” Wren bubbled.  “I tried to tell you that guns weren’t my thing, but then I started thinking about how I’d do it different, how I could make it more fun, and once I got going it turned into a super fun exercise!”

 

“Is this an Adidas logo?”  Bonnie whirled it around in her palm to hold, and went through a few quick drawing actions.  “It’s too light!  A nine millimeter is supposed to have a little heft to it!  What the hell did you...” She stopped and narrowed her eyes. “Wait, how did you make a gun non-lethal?”

 

Wren reached over and took the gun back.  “I started with rubber bullets, but they were hard to aim.  Well, not rubber, but a rubberized polymer.  They’d deform, and wouldn’t rifle correctly so they’d spin out at even short distances.  Inaccurate is worthless, so I started rethinking the whole process.”  She caught her breath, licked her lips, and smiled.  “I started messing around with non-Newtonian fluids.”

 

Bonnie just stared at her.

 

“Like ketchup!” she said.  “It’s got plenty of surface tension, and holds its shape like a solid.  Turn the bottle upside down and nothing comes out... until you shake it up.  Then it gets runny and shapeless like a fluid, deforming to fit the shape of the container.”

 

“Are you telling me this thing shoots ketchup packets?”

 

“No!” she said, laughing.  “I mean, kinda, but no!  I brushed up on my chemistry and maybe invented something new, I don’t know, but I made these shaped projectiles that splash on contact.  It still hits with kinetic force” —she paused, nervous but excited— “but it doesn’t pierce!”

 

Bonnie tilted her head and stared down at the gun.  “And it works?”

 

Wren drew the gun smoothly, turned, and fired a round at a food crate, which toppled from the shelf on impact and hit the ground with a heavy thud.  A light mist of clear backspray washed over them, making them both flinch.

 

“Why did it sound like that?” Bonnie asked, as she walked around the shelf to inspect the crate on the floor.

 

Wren’s face visibly fell.  “Sound like what?”

 

“Like a prop.”  Bonnie knelt down next to the crate and ran her fingertip over the dent.

 

“Awww, I worked hard on that.”  Wren frowned.  “See, it doesn’t shoot the projectile like a bullet.  Bullets are packed with explosi—why am I telling you this?  Anyway, this kind of fluid loses its consistency with an impact like igniting a propellant.  It would turn to mist in the barrel.  I took out all the explodey parts and turned it into a handheld railgun to accelerate the round, and then I installed a little speaker in the grip to give it that pop!”

 

“Needs less oomph,” she said, absently.  “I don’t know.  What I do know is that thing made a hell of a dent here.”

 

“Wait, less oomph?”

 

“It’s trying too hard.  Like… uh…  long pork.”  She stood up and came around, hand held out in front of her, and Wren obligingly handed her the pistol.  “You added a muzzle flash too?”

 

“Yellow and red LEDs,” Wren said, grinning widely.  “Super short bursts, randomized eruption patterns.  I put a battery in the clip, so there’s always enough juice for twenty rounds, and I can recharge them later when I reload.”

 

Bonnie gave the pink-plated gun a respectful look, grabbed it between her index finger and thumb, and carefully handed it back.  “It’s the prettiest abomination I’ve ever seen.”

 

“Yay!” Wren gushed, punctuating her statement with a little jump into the air.

 

“You made that,” Bonnie said, watching closely as Wren retucked the gun into the small of her back.  “Like, from scratch?”

 

“Yeah!”  Then she added, “I mean, design-wise, from scratch, yeah!  There’s still some original parts in there, though.”

 

“When did you have time?”

 

“While I was recompiling Jackson’s system for the new hardware,” Wren said, as she moved around to pick up the food crate and put it back in its place.  “Before I started playing DBX, but after we arrived at Sirius.”

 

She didn’t make it to the crate.  After a couple steps she found her way blocked by a very strong arm, which made her giggle.

 

“It’s my turn,” Bonnie growled, “you know.”

 

Wren’s heart skipped a beat.  “I hadn’t forgotten.”

 

“You made a railgun,” she said.

 

“Just a little one,” Wren replied.

 

Bonnie pinched the bridge of her nose with her free hand.  “You blow my mind.  You know that, right?  I mean, every time I...”

 

Wren giggled.  Bonnie licked her lips, and Wren melted just a little.

 

“Upstairs.”

 

“Okay,” Wren said, ducking slightly.  “Lemme just quick put the—”

 

“Now.”

 

Wren shuddered, and felt her skin get hot.  “Okaaaaay.”

 

Since her confession that she couldn’t orgasm, Wren had agreed to a) allow Bonnie to control alternate sex sessions, and b) reformulate her cockail of drugs to be less lethal.  Potentially.  To the latter, Wren had found that she liked having more of her mental faculties available to her, because Bonnie was absolutely shameless with Wren’s cock in her ass.  There was nothing she wouldn’t do or say, in the heat of the moment, and Wren was only able to appreciate how magnificent that was with her full attention.

 

To the former, Wren was unreasonably happy.  The last time, Bonnie had worked a strapon in her ass for nearly an hour straight.  The time before that, they had taken some hallucinogens and fondled each other for hours.  Before that, Bonnie had fisted her, leaving her cross-eyed and drooling a little.  In each case, it had never felt like it was building to something more wonderful than the sum of its sensations, but those sensations were already pretty incredible.

 

Somewhere in all of that, there was a realization that ego was the root cause of her problem.  She had assumed, wrongly, that her own design on sex was the best and only solution, and had probably missed out on some pretty great things along the way.  She was determined, now, to experience everything she could, and despite a militant, head-down approach to most problems Bonnie was no slouch when it came to imagination.

 

Wren vaulted up the ladder, and was through the galley and into her quarters in record time.  She was shirtless and bare-assed a few heartbeats after that.  Bonnie took a bit longer, time which Wren spent squirming around on the bed in delirious anticipation.

 

She was almost disappointed when Bonnie sauntered in still fully clothed, with just a little scrap of cloth in her hand.

 

“Are you ready?” Bonnie asked, smirking.

 

Wren nodded savagely.

 

As Bonnie approached and held it up, the scrap of cloth turned into a blindfold, the kind with a little arch cut into it for the nose.  Wren sat with her legs under her, knees together, and watched it as Bonnie held it up demonstratively.  One hand held up the face while the other hand pulled back on the elastic band.

 

“Once I put this on,” Bonnie said, “no touching.  No reaching for me.  You will sit with your arms behind your back unless I tell you otherwise.  Got it?”

 

“Can I—”

 

“Whatever you’re about to ask,” Bonnie said, “the answer is no.”

 

“But—”

 

“No.”

 

Wren chewed thoughtfully on her lip.  “But what if—”

 

“No.”

 

“You’re not even listening.”

 

Bonnie said, “No.  I’m not.”  And then she smiled.  “This is just as much about you controlling yourself as it is about whatever I might do.”

 

“But I’m no good at impulse control!” Wren cried, exasperated smile not quite covering her anxiety.

 

“Then this will be over quickly,” Bonnie said, easily, “and we’ll try again next time.  Maybe.”

 

Wren nodded, and licked her lips as she reached both arms behind her back and grabbed each opposite elbow.  The last thing she saw, as Bonnie lowered the mask into place, was the near-malevolent grin on Bonnie’s face.

 

“So, what now?” she asked, nervously.

 

Bonnie tugged the mask back and forth a little, getting it to settle onto Wren’s face until the light was completely blocked.  Even the sliver beside her nose disappeared, and Wren fidgeted.  Wiggling her butt back and forth.  Shifting her feet so that her heels were slightly further to the outside, for better balance.  Suddenly her balance seemed of the utmost importance.  She could feel the depression in the bed beside her, where Bonnie was sitting, and she could hear Bonnie’s breathing, but both of those things were on her left and so she was not prepared when she felt a feathering touch on her right nipple.

 

Almost the entirety of Wren’s sexual experience had been rooted in the things that happened below her waist (excluding the things involving her tongue).  Her numbness, and the ways in which she tried to compensate (or, more accurately, overcompensate), had been such a point of focus for her that she had largely ignored and forgotten the fact that her nipples were so sensitive.  Or that she had nipples at all.

 

Wren twitched away from the touch at first, and brought both arms out from behind her to… she didn’t know what she was going to do, but before she could do anything, she heard Bonnie’s voice close to her ear.  Such a soft whisper, but delivered so close that it was still hypnotically loud.

 

“Don’t.  Move.”

 

She was so shocked by the voice that she almost hadn’t realized that Bonnie had stopped touching her.  In fact, if she had to guess, Bonnie had stopped touching her the second that she’d started moving.

 

Wren said, “I’m not going to get any more warnings, am I?”

 

Bonnie didn’t answer, but Wren could tell she’d moved a little further away.  And maybe slightly in front of her?  The not knowing was delightful and scary and nerve-wracking and wonderful and—

 

Pressure between her knees.  Pushing them apart.  It wasn’t enough pressure to move her legs, so Wren took that as instruction rather than force and shifted her legs apart.  Exposing herself.  Then, when she thought about it, she shifted her posture again to be more… upright.  Not rigid, but open.  Less slouching.

 

Her reward was a soft, almost-imperceptible grunt of approval, which made her shiver.

 

Bonnie moved around behind her, bed betraying the weight of her, and this time it was both of Wren’s nipples.  She gasped, not expecting it on her front, and as both of her nipples were pinched and tugged ever so gently, she realized that trying to guess where it was coming from, and where Bonnie’s attention was going next, was the whole point.  She wouldn’t be able to.  Wren had to let go.

 

When one of Bonnie’s fingers pressed against her lips, Wren wet it.  When one of Bonnie’s fingers pushed slowly between her cheeks, Wren shifted her hips to open herself up slightly.  When Bonnie kissed her shoulder, planting a row of kisses that worked its way up her neck, Wren tilted her head away.  She opened herself to the experience, literally and metaphorically, and Bonnie did not disappoint.

 

She gasped when that finger started to worm its way inside her ass, to the first knuckle and then the second.  It stayed there, pushing and pulling very gently while the pad of the fingertip explored inside of her.  At a tug on her shoulder, Wren twisted at the hip, and cried out when Bonnie licked at her nipple.  Bonnie’s tongue was so warm, and saliva lingered on her skin.  Wren wanted more of it.  She couldn’t help it.  She arched her back, puffing her chest out, and the tongue vanished.

 

She whined, piteously, and tried to reposition herself where she had been.  Thankfully, that finger had remained inside of her, though it had twisted slightly to be stroking at a slightly different part of her walls.  Once she settled into her space again, there was that tongue.  It flicked and lashed at her nipple, and then there were teeth.

 

Glorious teeth!  Sharp, acute, stinging, and Wren made a long, wordless sound.  It hurt, and they pulled, and Wren’s modest breast flesh stretched.    Somewhere in the middle of that sound, the one coming from her own throat, she realized there was an undertone of laughter.

 

When Bonnie reached between Wren’s legs, to touch Wren’s cock for the first time, she was surprised to realize how hard she was.  It was just a simple grip, no stroking, but it said so much about how in touch Wren was with her body.  Or rather, the lack of it.

 

Nipple.  Nipple.  Ear.  A tongue across her belly.  Across the inside of her thigh.  Bonnie’s fingertips danced across her ribs, and the underside of her chin, and over her hips.  She was so wired, and so alight, that every part of her body was an erogenous zone.  Every touch turned her on a little more.

 

Even the anticipation of it.  When she knew Bonnie was close.  Feeling the bed move.  Feeling Bonnie’s breath on her skin, as the other woman hovered over her, or next to her.  It was incredible.  Too much, in the best possible way.

 

Bonnie continued to keep her guessing, giving her signs from one direction before delivering from another.  Wren never saw it coming.

 

“I— oh god,” she moaned, as Bonnie took her breast in hand and gave it a squeeze.  She felt her nipple slide into a crease in the other woman’s palm, and when Bonnie’s hand moved it gave her such an amazing little pinch.  “I… I don’t…”

 

“Then don’t,” Bonnie said.

 

Slight pressure on her chin.  Bonnie had reached around her neck, and was pushing her to face the other woman.  Wren yielded to the gentle direction, and was rewarded with a long, slow kiss.  Her arm brushed against Bonnie’s rock hard nipple, and she squirmed.  In her mind, she did backflips.  It was beyond surprising to think that Bonnie was turned on.  Wren hadn’t done anything!  Not one thing!  It had been all Bonnie!  She couldn’t figure out what part of that would have been exciting for her girlfriend…

 

...because Wren had never once, in her entire life, considered that anyone might want her for her, rather than for the things she could do for them.  To Wren, her value could be measured in centimeters, in the tabulation of orgasms, or volume of fluids produced.  Even in their more recent escapades, with everything they’d tried, Wren still hadn’t really had her moment of realization.

 

Not until Bonnie kissed her, there on their shared bunk, with that blindfold on.

 

Wren couldn’t take it anymore.  That sliver of realization had been all she could handle in the moment.  She moved quickly, reaching up with one hand to cup Bonnie’s cheek while the other ripped off her blindfold.  Bonnie’s eyes flashed at her, but Wren stayed close.  Too close to let the redhead retreat.

 

Bonnie smirked.  Smirks were a good look on her.

 

At some point, Bonnie had gotten naked, which was convenient, because that meant Wren didn’t need to tear anything off of her.  As she leaned in, Bonnie laid back.  As she moved, Bonnie spread her legs.  As she penetrated, Bonnie groaned.

 

Wren managed exactly two thrusts before something hit her, like a spark to a pool of fuel.  Her eyes went wide, and her jaw went slack.  Bonnie seemed to intuit what was happening because she stayed there, nose to nose, and stared right back at her.  She wrapped her arms around Wren and tucked her knees in tight alongside Wren’s ribs, holding her close.  Holding her tightly.

 

She felt something come out, inside of Bonnie, and her legs quivered.   Whatever it was, it ignited within her and was over.  So brief as to defy description as a flare.  A flicker, perhaps.

 

Her heart was pounding, and her eyelids felt heavy.

 

“I think I…”

 

“Yeah,” Bonnie said, warmly, as she brushed a few stray blue locks behind Wren’s ear.

 

Her body felt heavy and slow, and so Wren stopped trying to support herself.  She collapsed into Bonnie’s embrace.

 

She whispered, softly, “Was that it?”

 

Bonnie’s eyes moved slowly over her face.  “Was what it?”

 

“It was…  It was so small.”

 

“Maybe,” Bonnie said, nuzzling the tip of her nose against Wren’s.  “Everyone’s are different.”

 

“But that was so much work!” Wren cried.  She twisted and craned her neck, trying to look for the clock, but realized she didn’t know what time they’d started.  She’d been too amped up.  It felt like it had been a long time.  “Everyone else seems like they’re having an eruption!  You did so much, and for… for…”

 

“I’d do it again, too,” Bonnie said, easily.  “Even if you didn’t orgasm.  Even if you never finished again.  As long as you enjoyed it.”

 

“Holy shit,” Wren said, slumping even less gracefully.  “Did I enjoy it?  I mean, holy fuck, babe.  The not knowing!  It was, like I kept trying to… and then you’d, like, but I couldn’t—”

 

“I love it when you’re flustered,” Bonnie said, grin widening.  “It’s so cute.”

 

“What the hell was that?” she said, turning and looking down at herself.  “That’s never happened before!”

 

“Did you like it?”

 

“I liked every part until the end!” she cried.  “That wasn’t worth it!”

 

Bonnie laughed.  “Aren’t you maybe being a little hard on yourself?”

 

“Maybe,” Wren said, letting her head come to rest on Bonnie’s shoulder.  “Shut up.”

 

Bonnie kissed her forehead.  “I can’t believe I’m explaining this to a woman who has only ever slept with other women, but you know that wasn’t the point, right?  I wasn’t trying to get you off.”

 

“I mean, yeah, but—”

 

“No buts,” Bonnie said, interrupting her.  “The point was to let me try to make you feel good.  To focus on you, for a change.  Did it feel good?”

 

“Yeah, but—”

 

“No buts,” Bonnie repeated, just as evenly and wisely.  “Did it feel good?”

 

Wren struggled to find a way to vocalize yes but that wouldn’t get her interrupted, and eventually just nodded.

 

“Good,” Bonnie said.  “Do you want me to keep going?  Do you think you could?  Most guys can’t, after.  Not right away, anyway.”

 

Wren curled more closely alongside her girlfriend, and retreated inside her head a little.  Bonnie was so warm.  “No,” Wren said, softly, eventually.  “No, but… could we stay like this?”

 

Bonnie smiled, kissed her forehead again, and said, “For as long as you’d like.”