Date: Thu, 21 Sep 2006 22:58:30 -0700 (PDT) From: Amanda Subject: Starlight Lover Chapter 1 (Ff,Mast,ped,cons) I am Kirstin Melchovic, I captain the Nova Princess, a freighter I converted from a passenger vessel after taking over the mortgage on it. Five years of my life had been poured into the ship making runs from Earth to Mars or Europa even out as far as Century Station in the Proxima Centaury system. Mostly though I ferry Ice between Europa and Uranus. I hardly ever took passengers, being that I had only my own state room, my engineer's quarters and four rooms I'd kept just in case. Besides the flight was not very comfortable since most of the ship had to be kept below freezing to preserve the ice. My ship was large enough that I could carry sufficient ice to restock a station's fresh water for at least six months with current recycling technology. Of course like all things the ice routes would eventually dry up due to better treatment facilities and I'd have to find a new type of cargo to haul. Two hundred years ago on Earth there were people that ferried goods around the various territories in what must have been large vehicles for the times. They were called truck drivers in North America and basically that was really all I was. My life was really simple. Gerald, my engineer kept to himself back in the engine room. I might only see him once or twice in a month. I entertained myself with ultrawave programs or virtual reality and I liked the solitude. I'd had a few lovers, once upon a time I'd had a girl in every port but in the ten years I'd been serving on and now commanding freighters I'd lost interest in women as a whole. Not that I'd gained interest in men, no and if I had Gerald was right there. No, he had to content himself with the Betty he'd pulled out of the scrap heap on Mars. For me, things just never seemed to click with any of my girl friends. After salvaging her, Gerald had wiped the Betty's memory. Most of them had a huge storage capacity and the lion's share of it was filled with ways to pleasure us humans. Not `Mindy' as he called her. She had the basic hooker program running, it was in her ROM after all, but he'd nearly filled her drive with engineering information and ship maintenance. Leave it to a gear head to turn a Betty into an engineering assistant. I didn't mind the extra hands though. I didn't have to pay her, and her AI wasn't as plastic as most bots. She could cook and had some basic conversation built in so once in a while I'd have dinner with her. I even slept with her one night, taking my engineer's suggestion that I `get laid'. It was way to artificial for me. Not only that, even though she could really scream and squirm, I knew she wasn't actually able to cum. As I said, pretty simple. Boring to some but just right for me. I mean you really don't want to much excitement during space travel, as it usually means something life or death is happening. My troubles though, if they really could be called that, started after picking up two containers from the Demos observatory over Mars. The observatory really had no facilities to speak of. Just enough living quarters for the astronomers. But it had a huge port as it had originally been used as a base station for getting goods off of and on to Mars. The containers were actually living quarters modules headed for Europa and since I was due to pick up a shipment of ice there I thought why not get paid for the trip. Once the containers were loaded the Dock Captain called over standard radio to clear me for launch and I was on my way. Everything from here on would be done on ultra wave radio. It took a lot of power from the ship but faster than light communications was critical even in intra-system travel. Ten days out and at a speed of around one hundred eighty six miles per second Mindy said something that puzzled me. I was in the mess having dinner and she was cleaning the kitchen when she turned around, tilting her head to the side. "Will the girl eat with you tomorrow?" She asked. I'm sure the lift in her voice was suppose to sound like she was confused, but she could neither mimic the expression or the tone. Questions meant something did not compute though. "What girl?" "Female, approximate age ten, hair blonde, four feet three inches tall. Eye color could not be determined." "Did you see a girl at the station?" "The young female is traveling with us in the cargo hold. She has requested that I do not reveal her where abouts but I must know if I need to prepare more food." "Mindy damnit, when were you going to tell me about this?" I snapped. "I was not Captain, as the female requested. However she stated that she is hungry and I must now prepare her food in accordance with directive two." "Directive two?" I didn't really understand robotics. "I can by no act or omission of an act allow harm to come to a human." "Yeah yeah." I got out of my chair, heading for the cargo hold. "And for fuck sake Mindy ask Gerald to explain ship's protocol to you." "As you wish Captain." I made my way down to the hold as quietly as I could. I didn't want to scare the child. I crept through the first set of living quarters, checking closets, bathrooms, everything. If the kid had been there she hadn't left any sign. I went in to the second set container and in the first room I found a small sleeping bag and a pile of trash, mostly candy wrappers and chip bags. The kid was missing but she'd been there. I snuck through the container until I came to the last room in the set. As quietly as I could I entered the room and went to the closet. With a deep breath I opened the door. I almost didn't see her huddled in the shadowy corner of the small closet. There she was though, pretty much as the Betty had described her. "What's your name?" I asked crouching down to be at eye level with her. The girl just stared at me, shaking either from the chill in the air or fear. "Hey kid, what's your name?" She almost seemed like she didn't understand the question. "Nombre?" I was getting annoyed at this point. "Hey! Your name kid!" She jumped when I shouted. "S-Star." She stuttered. "Well Star, you're in some real deep sewage, you know that don't you?" I was only half telling the truth. Legally I could have put her out the airlock but that wasn't me. Especially not with a child. There was something more going through my head. What could be so terrible to a child that she would stowaway on a ship, especially with the risk involved. The risk of being found, or worse, being on a ship that doesn't maintain life support in the hold. My ship was a conversion, it wasn't possible to dump the air in the hold, I wish it was, it'd save a lot of power. And who knows what might have happened to her if she'd boarded a deep space vessel. Some of the crews of those ships didn't have women. Some didn't even have Bettys on board. "Why are you on my ship?" I asked the girl as we sat down at the table in the mess. "One ship's good as `nother." She said. "No, not really. You're lucky to be alive. What if I sealed the hold and blew the atmo in there? You're blood'd boil and your head would pop." I folded my arms across my chest. The girl was dirty but even under the dirt I could see how pretty she was. "What're ya gonna do with me?" "I don't know." I answered honestly. "I suppose put you up in quarters and ship you home when we get to Europa." "No! I don't wanna go home! Please anything else, you can give me to the police or even keep me here, I can be real helpful, but don't make me go home, pleeease!" She was begging. "What's wrong with home?" I asked, hearing the desperation in her voice piqued my curiosity. "Dad died bout three years ago. Now mom just drinks or smokes Tril all the time'n she fucks people to get money. We been thrown outta three places cause she couldn't pay the rent cause she spent the money on drugs. She even said I'm older now and it's time I earn my keep. She said she gonna make me do what she does to get money. I don't wanna do that, I hate all those gross men. They're all dirty from the mines, and drunk and they're mean." It might have been a lie. The girl might be making this up but, but she might not. Legally I was Kidnapping her if I didn't turn her over to the authorities when I got to Europa. The Federation had a strangle hold on the system. Everything was charted, cataloged, monitored and taxed. But the tighter they held on the easier it was to slip things by. My ship was equipped with a transponder that had encoded within it's signal, my license number, cargo and passenger manifest and crew compliment. Highly secure, trusted at all the major checkpoints, and very easy to replace with a jacker. A completely programmable transponder that would say whatever I wanted it to. A good jacker, like the one I had, could cost a year's pay but was undetectable even with microscan. Basically even the best forensics couldn't tell the difference between a real transponder and one that had been replaced. Not yet anyway. My transponder was nearly always legal, but it wasn't to tough to reprogram it to show the kid as my daughter. The hard part came in her PIC. Personal ID chips were harder to tinker with, mostly because the data was encrypted with one thousand twenty-four bit encryption. It didn't matter much, I seriously doubted I'd even need to add her information to the jacker. They rarely did bio scans at check points. Most of the time they were just in a hurry to get you out of the docks. My departure scan was on the net by now though so it was better not to change anything at all, otherwise I risked raising the eyebrows of some over paid, over weight federation transport officer. Most of them could care less what you were hauling as long as it wasn't undocumented explosives or weapons. But there was always that one, the new gung-ho guy trying to make a name for himself. "Why should I believe anything you've told me?" I asked the kid. She sat silently for several minutes before she turned in her seat and pulled her shirt up over her back. Her back showed several bruises as well as some much older scars, even one that seemed like she might have been cut with a blade. I still didn't know if she was telling the truth but it was obvious that the kid had been through something rough in her life. The girl pushed her shirt down as she turned back to face me. "Mom was high about a week ago and she tried to make me fuck this man, I told her no. She beat me bad. But I got away, I ran. I hid in Old Town on Mars until I caught a ship up to the station and then I found you." I sat quietly for several minutes, contemplating the girl. I found myself wishing I'd installed cryo chambers. It'd been nice to be able to just put the kid in one and let her sleep all the way to Europa. "We'll you've met our Betty, Sorry, Mindy." I finally said. "Gerald is the engineer. You could be on the ship for a year and never see him. I haven't seen him since we left Earth docks about a month ago." "You'll let me stay?" She asked sounding a bit excited. "You know I can't. I can get you to Europa, maybe even get you in with some people that can help you but I have a ship to run here, I can't have a kid around." Something in me went out to the girl though. If I turned her over to some of the shady people I knew on Europa she might well end up in just as bad a situation as she'd come from, and there was little doubt she'd be turning tricks by the time she was sixteen. I knew a forger though. Some one that could rework her PIC for her. We could legitimize her being on my ship. A niece or cousin or something. She could even attend class via the ultrawave. I couldn't believe what was going though my head. This kid, this stowaway already had me thinking of ways to keep her on my ship. Expensive ways at that. Reworking a PIC could easily cost more than I'd make on my next run. There was something about her though. Like I'd said, she was pretty, and there was something in her eyes. I felt for her, I felt myself draw to protect her. "If I stay I can cook and clean and stuff." "I have Mindy for that. And I don't have to feed or pay her." I told the kid. "I'll do anything just don't send me back." She plead with me. "Fine... For now. We'll figure this out when we get to Europa." Legally speaking I should turn her over to the law at the next check point. Stowing away was a serious crime. She was a kid though and in all reality couldn't understand how serious what she'd done was. "First things first. I guess I need to get you a room, and you are in dire need of a shower." I led the girl out of the mess and to the elevator. We went to the upper deck, the passenger's area. I gave her a small state room and left her there while I made my way down to the engine room. "Captain!" Gerald said with some enthusiasm as I stepped into the room. "Mindy said I need to explain ship's protocol to her. What'd she zero on?" "Well, we had a stowaway." Gerald raised his eyebrows. "And she knew?" I nodded my head. He look embarrassed. But this was a situation even I wouldn't have thought to explain to a robot. "You put'em out the airlock?" "Course not." I snorted. "Man? Woman?" "A kid." I answered. Gerald rolled his eyes. "Well I ain't no fuckin' baby sitter." He said. "I just wanted you to be aware in case you saw her around." I left him there and headed up to the bridge. My bridge. More than my stateroom, was my heaven. The ship basically flew itself once you set the course. I just loved to sit up there and watch the stars. I was absorbed in my thoughts and the stars just outside my portals when the comm chimed. I rolled my eyes and tapped the transmitter. "Yeah?" "I'm lost." I heard Star's little voice come back over the comm. "Okay, what does it say on the bulkhead above the comm pad?" "Four twenty seven G." "I'll be there in a minute." I closed the comm link and stood up out of the pilot's seat I normally occupied when I was in the con. I went down to the passenger deck and found Star sitting on the floor patiently waiting for me. "I guess I need for you to follow me around for the next couple days until you learn your way around." I held out my hand and helped the girl to her feet. I showed the girl where my quarters were as well as Mindy and Gerald's. Once Star was sure she could get from her room to mine I took her up to the bridge. I'd never allowed a passenger on to the bridge before. I don't know why it was that this kid showed up and suddenly there were no rules any more but that is what seemed to be happening. Now clean, her blonde hair still wet and falling around her face. I found myself staring at her. She stood looking shyly up at me with her shining blue eyes. She was actually a beautiful little girl. "Are you hungry?" I asked. The girl nodded her head. The more I had looked at her the more nervous she seemed to be getting. I pressed the softkey on the comm panel and waited to hear the chime. "Mindy can you bring some sandwiches up to the bridge?" Several seconds passed before Mindy said she'd be up in a few minutes. "Are you married?" Star asked, obviously trying to break the ice. "No. Never met a girl that seemed to be able to stand me long enough for that." "I had a girlfriend once." Star said absently. "We kissed alot. It was nice I guess." "Really?" I said trying to sound interested. "She was kinda like a boy though, like she had a short spiky hair cut and she always kinda dressed like a boy." I smiled to myself as she described the little butch girl. I thought it was cute. I was actually not having to fein interest so much. I found myself growing interested in the child. I was about to ask her some questions about her girlfriend when Mindy came through the hatch holding a plate with several small sandwiches on it. "She's pretty for a robot." Star said looking up at Mindy. "Cybernetic artificial humanoid." Mindy said dryly. "I am made up of human flesh grown over an endoskeletal structure with a syntho-organic neural net as my central processor." Star starred blankly at her for a moment before taking a sandwich off the plate. "Ok your pretty for a Cyber human thingy." "Thank you. And if you are interested I am programmed in multiple same sex techniques." "Mindy!" I tried to sound angry but I was laughing too hard. It was no surprise that a Betty, especially one that had been on board a ship for most of her life, or existence or what ever they call it, would not know what a child was outside of the most crude understanding. "Mindy, she won't need that type of service from you." "Yes captain." "Just leave the plate. You can go." Mindy left me there alone with the girl. I ate my sandwich quietly, watching the child. I had not even known her a day but I was feeling a bond with her already beginning to grow. Whether or not everything she said was true was becoming less important. What was important was that I wanted to do something for her. I wanted to take her in. It just seemed funny to me how quickly it was all happening. Chapter 2. Fifteen days out and we were holding behind a passenger liner. The Federated System Liner Queen Elizabeth was passing through the first of two check points between Mars and Europa. A flash of light indicated the liner's engines re-ignighting. Within a few seconds it began to move forward slowly. It was hard to see much detail. In space, lines could be hundreds of kilometers long. The passenger liner, huge ship that it was, was hardly visible to me at a distance of five kilometers, the minimum safe spacing dictated by Federation law. The comm popped and chimed. "Nova Princess, proceed to dock two fourteen A." "Acknowledged." I responded. "Star, you need to head for your quarters." I said to the girl. Star nodded and silently headed through the hatch and toward her room. It took about twenty minutes to get to the checkpoint. I eased in to the dock and waited for the docking ring and gang plank to attach to the ship. The metallic thump echoed through the ship. Any second now a dock officer would be calling on the comm. "Captain Nova Princess, state your cargo and destination." I hit the responder button on the comm. "Living quarters to the Europa colony." This was a formality. If he was following normal protocol he'd already received this information from the transponder. Several seconds passed. "Please transmit current logs." Something else he would have gotten automatically from the transponder. He was just trying to catch any discrepancies. I turned the pilot's seat around and slid it to the computer console where I called up the logs and sent them through to the dock officer across our comm link. "Logs received. Thank you Nova Princess. Disengaging docking apparatus." I sat back in the seat and closed my eyes. I had to admit I was nervous. It was extremely rare to be boarded, but well, Murphy's law and all. "Captain Nova Princess, you are free to go, dock officer Reading out." I turned my chair back around and engaged the reverse docking thrusters. I felt sweat on my brow as I backed away from the dock and turned the ship back out toward open space. Once we were under way again I left the bridge and headed down toward the rooms to retrieve Star. I didn't like the Martian run very much. It was the only one in the system with two check points. The one we had just passed and a second where it intersected with the Jovian route from the inner planets. That was the one that worried me. Lots of smuggling went on between Earth and the moons of Jupiter. The officers tended to be a little more attentive to details. "Star." I said quietly as I tapped her door. A moment passed and the door slid into the bulkhead and I found myself looking down in to her pretty face. "Would you like to go up to the observation lounge? We could take some sandwiches and have kind of a picnic." I offered. The little girl nodded her head. We prepared some food and went up to the observation lounge. It was a huge glass bubble, a room with several lounge chairs that allowed one to sit back and just stare up at the stars. We sat down on the floor and quietly ate our sandwiches while looking out at the majesty around us. "Does this ship fly faster than light?" She asked me, her eyes fixed on Orion. "I have a slip stream drive. We can get up to L seven." "Seven times the speed of light?" "No, light speed times itself seven times." I moved closer to the girl. Over the past few days we'd become quite close. I liked her. She was a sweet kid but there seemed to be more to it. It was a bit frightening. I was beginning to think that I was attracted to her. Just a hundred years ago the mere thought was a terrible taboo but things change. Especially since the invention of the first Bettys. These days about one in five of them was a child. It was still seriously looked down on but pedophiles had rights, some of them even enjoyed relationships openly. If I really was feeling what it was I thought I was then it was not the end of the world. But I really didn't want to be a pedophile. "Do you liked being here?" I asked the girl. As much as I didn't want things to be the way they were, I felt an overwhelming urge to pursue it. "It's pretty." She said, still captivated by the stars. "It is. But I mean do you like being on the ship?" Star looked me in the eyes. She smiled and tilted her head shyly. "I love it." Star leaned close to me and put her head against my shoulder. "I love you." I tried to smile but my mouth had gone dry. I sipped at the synthetic wine I had brought with us. I was trying to think of a way to approach the girl. I wondered to myself how they did it, how did people start these types of relationships? I moved around until I was in front of the girl. I put my hands on her knees and smiled down at her. "I like having you here." I told her, sounding shaky. I was nervous. She'd run from a situation where she would have been forced in to prostitution. I didn't want to make her run from me. Without any idea what the right way to do this was I just leaned in and pressed my lips against hers. I only held the kiss for a moment before I sat back to judge her reaction. "Why'd you do that?" She asked me. "Because I like you." I pushed a lock of hair from her face. "It's not like with your mother though. I mean you don't have to do anything you don't want to." Star didn't say anything, she just leaned forward and wrapped her arms around me. I pulled her close, stroking her back. It was really nice, sitting there holding her, surrounded by stars. Finally relaxing a little I moved her back and kissed her again. Longer this time, parting my lips and flicking my tongue against her lips. Star sat back smiling. "I like kissing you." She said. "Me too." I wanted so much more from the little girl now. I wondered how far she'd be willing to go. Gently I caressed her body, running my hands over her chest, down to her hips and curling my hands around to hold her ass. The feeling of some one so small, such a tiny lover excited me more than I wanted to admit. I had to be gentle with her. I did not want to frighten her or take things to far too fast. Above all I had to make sure that she had time to say no. Gently I caressed her tiny body through her clothes. It was an unbelievably powerful experience. This little girl was awakening things in me I did not know had existed. Suddenly I realized that it all made sense. All the women, all the girlfriends, things had never worked out because they were not what I wanted in my heart. This was it though. This was what I wanted. Having this little girl at my side, touching her, making love to her, this was what I had been seeking all along. I paused, looking down at her, trying to smile. Timidly I reached out and tugged at the zipper holding her jumpsuit closed. I looked down at her flat chest. Her young flesh was beautiful. My eyes traced down her body to her belly. It was so perfect, so smooth and flat. With Star's help I pulled the jump suit off of her. She lay before me wearing only a high cut pair of panties. Underwear that seemed strangely mature for a girl her age. The child swallowed hard as she studied my reaction to her. "You have to take off your clothes too." She said, sounding nervous. I nodded my head. To put her at ease I lifted my shirt over my head, then slid the shorts and thermal leggings I normally wore off. Now I sat in front of her in nothing but my panties. I reached for her panties and tried to pull them off but she resisted. "You first." She said. Again I nodded. I'd forgotten how self concious Martians could be. The colony had originally been settled by Mormons. Christianity was a distant and nearly forgotten religion now but at least on Mars some of it's moral trappings were strong. I leaned down and kissed her mouth before sliding my panties off and tossing them to the side. Star looked relieved. Seeing me naked, she lifted her bottom and allowed me to take her underwear off. I began slowly, kissing from her lips down her throat and over her chest. She had only the slightest softness in her tiny breasts. Still everything felt so right. Having this pretty little girl as a lover was more natural than any other affair I'd had. I found myself hesitating, nervous, as I kissed her protruding hip bones. I was aching to taste her young sex but I was afraid she would stop me, that she would loose her nerve. Finally I found my courage and made my way down her body, coming to rest between her legs. I glanced up at her over her mound. She was looking down at me, smiling. With a smile I pushed forward, pressing my tongue against her clit and sucking it into my mouth. I felt the girl tense, she pulled her knees up slightly and sighed. As I lapped at her tiny clit and caressed her body, teased her nipples, lavished in the feeling of her soft skin she moaned and writhed. I felt a tiny hand in my hair and noticed that she had begun to buck her hips. She seemed to gasp with each breath, begging for more. Suddenly She arched her back and pushed her soft sex towards me. I sucked hard on her clit, then slid a finger inside her, causing her to gasp and tremble. I could feel her walls spasming around my finger, and she jumped with each one. It was more erotic than anything I'd ever experienced, feeling a child climax at my touch. Eventually she relaxed and laid back against the deck. She took long deep breaths, her eyes blank and fixed on the stars outside. I laid next to her, gently stroking her stomach, circling around her cute little belly button. "Should I do that to you?" She asked. I wanted her to, oh did I want her to, but I just smiled and shrugged. I didn't want to rush her, we had another twelve days out and I was already finding myself thinking of ways to keep her on the ship. Star sat up and with a silly grin and kissed me. The little girl began kissing down my neck, working her way toward my breasts. I could tell that she was working up her courage. If she was even half as nervous about this as I was then I don't know how she was managing to concentrate. Star finally reached my sex and paused, starring at me. She glanced from my vulva to my face and turned away blushing. "I did this to my friend once." She confessed. "But this is different." "You don't have to do anything angel." I assured her. "I know, but I want too." Finally the little girl closed her eyes and leaned in, reaching out with her tongue and touching my sex tentatively. Slowly she became more courageous until finally she was lapping at my clit, sending wave after wave of pleasure throughout my body. Sex had always been something I could have taken or left. I had had many women in my life but I enjoyed something else in the relationships. This was different though. I wanted to hold her, to cuddle her close to me. I wanted to kiss her and feel her little body against mine, but unlike with any woman I'd ever been with, I wanted to make love to her. I wanted to feel her body tremble with orgasm under my fingers. I wanted her to touch me the same way, to lick me, kiss me, to push her tiny fingers in to my waiting body. The orgasm was building within me. She had slid several of her fingers inside of me and was working them in and out while lapping at my clit the best that she could. It raced from my loins through out my body. I nearly screamed, panting, moaning as I orgasmed, once, twice, and to my great surprise a third time before little Star pulled her fingers from my body and slid up to lay next to me. We dozed next to one another for some time. Now and again I would find myself suddenly awake, looking out at the stars with my little lover pushed hard against me. Her warmth comforted me. In one such of these wakeful moments I found myself contemplating what it would take to get the girl's PIC reworked. I knew I had the money, that wasn't the issue, but finding the right person to do it, some one that could make it undetectable, that was the trick. Chapter 3. Check point number two. Mindy was sitting next to me on the bridge, she was busy sending the logs through the comm link while I was explaining the presence of an undocumented child aboard my vessel to a doc officer who'd decided a bio scan was in order. "...I told you she was a stowaway." "Why didn't you report her at the previous check point?" He asked me for the third time. "Because I didn't find her until after I was through." "That is inaccurate Captain, we found the child prior to entering the first check point." Mindy corrected. I tapped the mute key on the comm. "I know this Mindy. I am ordering you not to answer any questions about the girl until further notice. Nothing Mindy, except her name." The Betty nodded her understanding and I unmuted the comm. "We'll be taking her in to custody." The doc officer finally announced. My hart froze. That was the last thing I'd wanted to hear. Technically he was allowed to take her, but because she was on my ship etiquette dictated that I could decide what to do with her between the moment of finding her and when I reached my final destination. What made me most nervous, I hadn't made any entry in the logs about her. It was my hope that he would not take the time to go through my logs as carefully as he'd gone through everything else. "Please officer miles, come aboard and let's discuss this." "Federation law is very specific." He shot back at me. There was a pause, a long pause, "prepare to be boarded." He finally said. I was not normally relieved when dock officers boarded my ship but in this case, I felt it gave me some hope of keeping the little girl. Either way though, I could see that I would be in this docking bay for quite some time to come. Twenty minutes passed before the doc officer appeared at the airlock portal. I tapped the soft key on the console and the door released with a loud hiss. The officer stepped on to the ship. "Permission to board Captain?" It was not a request. Federation law provided that I had no choice but to let him on. "Of course." I answered with a polite smile. "Doc officer James Miles." He offered his hand and I shook it. "Captain Melchovic." "Well captain, you asked me here so I assume you're going to plead for me to leave the girl in your care?" I nodded my head. "Federation Law says she's a prisoner, and due to her age, she'll be returned to her family." "If you'd talk talk to her you'd see that she doesn't want to go back." "Look I know the rule of thumb so to speak, on stowaways. Most captains either put them out an airlock or work them as slave labor until they get where they're going. I don't want either happening to a kid." The officer said in a less firm tone. "Neither would I. I'm going to take her to Europa and we'll get her back to her mother from there." I tried to assure him. There was a long pause as he seemed to contemplate his options. "I'll tell you what. I'll let the girl decide what she wants, but either way we have to contact her family to let them know she's all right." "Thank you." I gasped. Relieved that he wasn't being a hard ass about the situation. "Get her and meet me back here, we need to go in to the dock and sign some paper work." I hurried up to Star's room, then ushered her back down to the airlock, a fifteen minute trek even with me rushing the girl. When we finally got back down to the airlock, we found Officer Miles sitting down, smoking a cigarette. I didn't mind very much that he was, I simply found it rude that he didn't bother to ask. The officer dropped his cigarette on the floor and crushed it with his heavy boot. He then smiled at Star and took her hand, leading her to the airlock. I tried to follow but he stopped me. He then closed the door and began talking to Star. I knew what he was asking her. Had I hurt her, had I raped her, Had I forced her to work and so on. I wondered to myself about the rape. We had not slept together since our picnic and Star had grown a bit distant. I wondered if perhaps I'd gone too far too fast. After what seemed like an eternity they both entered the ship again. Officer Miles did not seem happy but Star was smiling. "Well I don't approve of the relationship the two of you have but since your not breaking any laws there's really nothing much for me to say. Thus we're going to go put in a call to her mother." We walked through the airlock and down a long hall before coming to an office. The dock officer gestured to a pair of chairs in front of the desk before taking his own seat. He taped the pad in front of the computer console then opened the top drawer of his desk and withdrew a PIC scanner. He leaned across the desk and scanned first my PIC then Star's. A moment later he was placing an ultrawave call to Mars. I wondered what time it would be back on Star's home planet. It didn't matter though because her mother answered. "Hello I am Federation Dock Officer James Miles. We have your daughter here with us. Apparently she stowed away aboard a ship and is now about three quarters of the way from Mars to Europa." "They didn't put the little bitch out an airlock?" I heard a gruff, sleepy voice come back across the connection. "Ma'am we need to know when you'd like to have her shipped back?" `Shipped Back!' I thought to myself. He had said he would let me keep her until Europa if she wanted... If she wanted, I wondered if she had told him she didn't want to stay with me. "I don't want to go back!" Star shouted, sending a wave of relief through me. "And I don't want her." Came the woman's reply, having heard her daughter. "Let her slave away on a ship, maybe then she'll appreciate what I did for her." The dock officer looked upset. He was silent for several moments. "Ma'am I cannot take custody of her without your authorization. I am sending a document through to you now, please review it then put your print on it." He finally said. He tapped the soft keys on the pad and several silent, agonizing moments passed before the computer chimed, signaling an incoming file. "There, she's your problem now." The woman abruptly closed the connection. "Well, what a lovely lady." The officer scoffed. "She has deferred temporary custody to the Federal Transit Authority. And since I am the officer in charge, I am willing to turn over that custody to you. Star seems happy on your ship and has told me that she wants to stay with you. But this is only temporary custody, you have ninety standard days to file for full custody or she will be sent back to her mother." The officer pulled a tablet from his desk, tapped a few lit softkeys and presented it to me. I read over the document it was displaying before pressing my thumb against the interface pad. "She's all legal now?" I asked. "You have to enroll her in school, provide for her, basically for the next ninety days she's the same as your own kid. I'm leaving the pad with you, the print has been recorded. It will provide the information you need to file for permanent custody. I don't suspect you'll have any trouble getting it..." He looked at Star, "I'm sorry kid, you really got a bad deal when it came to moms." "I have Kirstin now, I don't care about her anymore." Star said with a smile. We walked slowly back to the ship and closed the airlock. I felt good, very good. Star really did want to stay, and now, at least for a little while, I didn't have to do anything shady or illegal to keep her. We made our way up to the bridge and called over the comm for clearance from Officer Miles to get under way. He cleared us immediately and within an half hour we were heading in to open space. I walked Star down to the galley and called over the intercom for Mindy to join us. I also asked our engineer, but I knew he wouldn't come. "Captain, I will prepare the evening meal." Mindy said as she stepped in to the galley. "Grilled cheese and tomato soup." I told her. "So, Star... Your really sure you want to stay with me then?" "Uh huh." She mumbled. "You know you'll have to go to school now right?" She nodded her head. We'll get you enrolled tomorrow morning. "You know I only have you like this for a little while. We'll have to actually get a federal court order for me to keep you forever." "I know. I heard. I was sitting right there remember?" She sounded annoyed. And rightly so, I was treating her like she wasn't the bright little girl she was. "Sorry." We sat quietly waiting for Mindy to finish cooking. When she finally served the meal Star tore in to the food like she hadn't eaten in a week. "Star." I said, trying to get her attention. "You know, we haven't been spending much time together since our picnic. Did what we did, well did it bother you?" I asked. "No." She crammed the sandwich in to her mouth. "You're sure?" I said. She nodded her head. "I was embarrassed. You saw me naked." She said around her food. "Oh." I tried to sound matter of fact. "Well, it's okay you know. I mean you saw me naked too. Besides, you shouldn't be ashamed of your body." "I know, I'm just shy." She said, her eyes on her plate. Jupiter is huge. You really can't appreciate how big it is until you see it looming before you, while you're still four days out. It's massive, taking up three quarters of the forward view port. By the time we were within standard radio range of Europa, it would be all you could see out the port. I reached over and tapped the operations softkey, then slid the powerlevel indicator for the forward magnetic deflector all the way to full. The deflectors normally ran about one third power, enough to deflect normal cosmic radiation around the ship, but Jupiter radiated at a much higher level. By the time we reached Europa we would be operating the shield at one hundred twenty percent of maximum. I set up the automatic monitor to keep raising the shield level as rads increased, overriding it and allowing it to exceed the design limit. The shields would hold like this indefinitely, as long as there was fuel to turn the engine, but in all truth, I really needed to upgrade my mag deflectors. It was on the to-do list and now with the kid on board it seemed to be gaining in priority. Maybe I would accept the twenty four to thirty six hour delay and do the upgrade while I was in port. Time to think about it later, I had four days before I'd arrive at the Europa docks. It would be another two waiting to get loaded and if I was lucky I might be able to get the shield updated during that time. One day out... I switched from ultra wave to standard radio and began a search on the local network for some one that could upgrade my shields. It took me an hour to find some one that could do it while I was docked. From the bridge I went to Star's room and asked her to come along with me while I inspected the cargo. I thought it would be nice to spend some time with the girl but I also wanted her to help clean up the mess she had made in the living quarters before I found her. The cargo hold was fifteen hundred feet deep, nearly one half mile long and another twelve hundred feet wide. It would take more than just a moment to get down to the living quarters which took up less than a standard city block. My ship was not very big however, not until one attempted to maneuver in Europa station. My ship was a Vigo class cruiser, the largest type allowed in the docks. Anything larger had to orbit above Europa and ferry passengers and smaller goods via shuttle. Large cargo could be docked the old fashioned way. Not a major problem really, until it came to refueling the nuclear engines, or hydrogen cells. While in the docks, the docking apparatus included fuel lines. Refueling was automatic. For the really big stuff. Ships as large as thirteen miles bye eight miles wide bye three deep, the fuel had to be ferried out and it was costly. The nuclear fuel tanks on the big ships were often larger than my whole ship. A break for us smaller haulers, since it made cargo deliveries to one of the Terran System's oldest ports far to expensive for the large vessles. About the only Jupiter class or larger ships that ever went to Europa were passenger liners. There was always talk of expanding the upper levels of the Europa ports to accommodate the largest vessles but as yet, no docs had been printed. Honestly it was not in the large hauler's interest to work within the Terran system. Short runs to Mercury, Mars, Earth or Neptune and Uranus simply did not yield high enough profit to be worth taking. The large haulers were designed for intersystem travel and that was what they were best at. Sixty person crews, luxury accommodations, bettys for each person. It all cost the same amount whether the ship took the fifteen day jump to Century Station, or the fifteen day trip to Uranus. Even the fuel cost was similar since the slipstream did not require the engines to burn once it was entered. "Quite a mess you made here sweetie." I said as we stepped into the room she had spent the earliest part of the trip in. "Well lets get to work. I loose pay if these things aren't perfect when I deliver them." That wasn't exactly true. There was no damage to the unit, it was just wrappers and such. It would fall under normal cleaning. "I'm sorry." Star said, looking ashamed. "It's okay angel, we'll just clean it up and no one will ever know." We got to work. There wasn't much to do. We were finished within twenty minutes and headed back up to the bridge. "How do you like classes?" I asked her while we rode the lift. I was lucky, most smaller ships did not have lift systems that could move throughout most of the ship. Mine did. It had been a passenger vessel so such minor conveniences could be expected. Chapter 4. Europa... Originally it was established as a research station in the later part of the twenty first century. They bored in to the ice, eight miles to the ocean below. The world, at the time just Earth, hoped to find smart little fish swimming around, communicating and using some kind of technology. No such luck. There were however thermal vents at the bottom of the sea around which whole ecosystems had developed. Europa had life, under intense pressure and heat. Europa Station as the ports and main hub were most often referred to, had many things. Two shopping malls, hundreds of bars and Betty houses, repair shops, drugs, and a zoo. The zoo featured animals from Earth mostly, but there was a section dedicated to those creatures found under the ice of the little Jovian moon we now orbited. There was also a museum with thousands of exhibits. Star and I were headed this direction. We would muse as the little crab like animals, jelly fish and squid like creatures from Europa, and then I would take her to see the extra terrestrial fossils. skeletal remains found under the Martian surface. They were strange animals. Mostly six legged for those rare ones that moved on land, or odd little snake like fish creatures I suppose most like eels. It seemed evolution had not had much time to get the fish out of the sea. We had the time to see all of it. Our cargo had shipped out early on another transport, and we would have to wait an extra two days, four total, in port for another load to be ferried to the station from the planet below. Pissed does not cover the emotion I felt when Europa Ice and Water informed me that my pre-arranged load was gone. I felt a little better when they agreed to pay a six hundred cred per day penalty for having me sit. The better part of the day was spent with Star and I starring wide eyed and all the strange creatures. Animals from Earth that existed no where else in the solar system except this zoo. Animals from Europa crawling around the high pressure tanks. We saw mummies from ancient Earth and fossils from Mars. We even spent an hour taking a virtual tour of the city of Los Angeles as it was in the mid twenty first century before it was inundated by the sea during an tectonic shift. And Tokyo. The Japanese city wiped out by an early twenty second century tidal wave. Hundreds of thousands of artifacts adorned a cavernous one square mile room. There simply wasn't enough time in a single day to see everything the Zoo and Museum had to offer. We rode a transport from the zoo back to the ship. Once aboard I walked with Star to her room. There at the door I paused. I didn't want the day to end, even though I was exhausted from all the walking. I knelt down and looked her in the eyes. "Did you have fun?" I asked. She nodded furiously. With a smile I leaned in and kissed her. She kissed back, her lips parted and her little tongue awaiting mine. "Can we do it again?" She asked me. "Of course angel." I stood and walked with her in to her quarters. The lights automatically came on when the door opened and the room was brightly illuminated. "Computer, lights to half." I said. The computer chimed, indicated that it had understood the command. The lights dimmed. "Think you won't be so shy now?" I asked. Star smiled up at me. We made our way to a sofa that stood in the middle of the front room of her quarters. She had left the video system on. I tapped the softkey on the viewer's interface pad and it shut off. I sat down on the sofa and pulled her backward in to my lap, wrapping my arms around her waist. "I sure have wanted to hold you like this for a long time now." I told her. "I like it." She told me. I turned her around on my lap and we began kissing. Softly, gently. I loved the feel of her soft little lips against my own. I unzipped her jump suite. The only item of clothing she owned and slid it from her shoulders. I made a mental note that we would go shopping first thing in the morning for her. Star seemed less shy, less embarrassed. I don't know if it was that I'd already seen her, that she felt more comfortable with me, or if the lower light made her feel better, but she did not make me strip before she could be coaxed out of her clothing. Once I had her undressed I went to remove my own clothes but she pushed my hands away and began fumbling with my zippers. I took a little longer when all I wanted to do was hold her naked body against my own, but it was worth it to feel her warmth pressed against my skin. I caressed her entire body. I gently pinched her nipples, kissed them, lapped at them. I rubbed my hands over her back, her bottom and hips. I loved the way this little girl felt. She was softer than any lover I'd ever had. She felt so lovely, so delicate I could hardly contain myself. Finally I eased my hand between her legs and began to massage her clit. She closed her eyes and let her head fall against my shoulder as I rubbed my fingers over her clit in slid them inside of her wanting sex. She was wet. I wanted to pulled my fingers from her vulva and lap her honey from them, but I continued to rub her, continued to stimulate her, to make her moan and huff. Little Star gripped my arm tightly and pulled herself against me. She moaned, wined and squealed as an orgasm ripped through her little body. When it was over Star fell back against the arms of the sofa and dozed. She was to tired to go on, the day had been to much for her. I ached to feel her touch but I didn't have the hart to wake her. I slid my hand in to my panties as I looked down at her sleeping face. I ran my fingers over my clit and slipped them in to my self. I was soaked, my fingers we instantly wet as were my underwear. I rubbed myself, wanting to draw it out as I looked down on my beautiful little lover but I was already on the verge of climax. My orgasmed washed over my like a tidal wave, sending waves of pleasure throughout my body. I trembled and convulsed with each wave. Finally spent I slipped in behind my darling Star and draped my arm over her waist. "I love you little angel." I whispered as I drifted in to sleep.