1. Starchaser


    Date: 10/18/2014, Categories: Fantasy & Sci-Fi, Author: spectreofhell, Rating: 0, Source: LushStories

    It was a going away party. There were words to be said, things to be done. Some things to be undone, if possible. The next day, they would be gone, and only God, if He existed, knew when, or even if, they would ever return. Captain Marco Kensington woke slowly. Very slowly. The computer monitoring his vitals was careful. Precise amounts of stimulants were being fed into him at calculated intervals. He rose from the nothingness of suspended animation into a fog of barely conceivable reality. They had warned him about the sensation of dislocation. He had experienced it before in the trials, but those had been days, sometimes weeks in the state they called hypersleep. This time, eleven years would have passed. If nothing had gone wrong. If the hull had not been breached, if radiation had not damaged the computer despite the thick shielding, if no one at the ESA had goofed the math and put them off target. Marco would wake, he would rise from his chilly coffin, he would exercise and eat and be tested by the computer to make sure he retained cognitive function, and then he would go to the command module. He would open the shutters. He would gaze out upon a new world and a new sun. Maybe. He wasn't confident anymore. They said he would not dream, but memories tugged at him. Events that could not have happened. Which was real? Making love to his best friend's wife on the eve of departure or the fantasy that he was an astronaut, the commander of the first ever interstellar mission? ...
    Perhaps both. The hypersleep was real, he was fairly sure of that. The rest, though... maybe he was hallucinating. Maybe he was psychotic. It had happened before. Esmeralda. She had a beautiful name. A beautiful soul. His fingers tingled with the memory of touching her face. Soft skin on her cheeks, the slight ridge of a scar on her forehead, pliant lips, heat from her neck. "I shouldn't have said anything," he had told her. "No, you shouldn't have," she had agreed. But he had. How could he not? Eleven years would pass before he woke again. She would be in her late forties. The barely noticeable silver strands in her hair would have multiplied. Soft skin would be showing signs of wrinkles. Her eyes would still sparkle like the stars, though. Her laughter would still lift his soul. Her lips would still taste like ambrosia. The kiss was unexpected. A sudden lunge, her hands pulling at his shirt, rising on her toes to match his height, her lips crashing into his. The scent of her had filled his nostrils, hints of sandalwood and hairspray and the menthol cigarettes her husband smoked. She pulled away, eyes blazing, nostrils flaring, watching him fearfully. Afraid of the fire she had ignited. Wanting it to burn them both to ashes. Had it been real? Or fantasy? Could his imagination create the taste of her? The salty flavor of sweat on her chest, the fragrant powder on her nipples, the musky tang from between her legs... those had to be real. Through the mists of awakening he could ...
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