Chapter 23: Shower Power
The steam in the shower was thick, carrying the clean scent of sandalwood soap. Stacy stood under the punishingly hot spray, her head bowed, letting the water beat against the knotted muscles of her shoulders and neck. The day had been long, a tense, silent battle in the ship’s guts to disable canisters of something Redmond called ‘Cognitive Dampener A7.’ It had smelled like ozone and rotting flowers. Now, under the heat, she could finally feel the adrenaline bleed away, leaving a hollow fatigue in its wake.
The shower curtain rustled.
Stacy cracked an eye open, water beading on her lashes. Jan, naked and grinning, slithered into the stall, the water immediately darkening her fiery hair to a deep auburn. “Room for one more, Coach?”
Before Stacy could answer, Jan’s hands were on her hips, spinning her gently but firmly to face the tile wall. The cool ceramic shocked her skin. Jan pressed close from behind, the soft curves of her breasts against Stacy’s back, her mouth finding the sensitive spot just below Stacy’s ear. “You’re wound tighter than a spring, babe,” Jan murmured, her voice a low vibration against Stacy’s neck.
Stacy let out a breath, a half-laugh, half-sigh. “Long day, Jan.”
“I know. Let me help.”
Jan’s hands slid down Stacy’s slick abdomen, tracing the defined lines of her abs, following the paths of the cascading water. Her touch was possessive, knowing. She sank to her knees on the shower floor, her hands hooking behind Stacy’s powerful thighs, urging them apart. Stacy braced her hands against the wall, her breath hitching as the humid air filled her lungs.
“Coach needs to relax,” Jan purred, and then her mouth was on her.
There was no gentle preamble. Jan’s tongue was a rough, flat stroke over Stacy’s swollen clit, a jolt of pure sensation that made Stacy’s legs quiver. Jan hummed, the sound buzzing right through Stacy’s core. She spread Stacy wider, her thumbs digging into the firm muscle of her inner thighs, and dove in.
She ate pussy with a voracious, focused intensity. Her tongue licked broad stripes, then focused into a tight, rapid flicking directly on Stacy’s clit. She shoved her face deeper, her nose pressing against Stacy as her tongue thrust inside, fucking her with it. The sounds were obscenely loud in the tiled space: wet slurps, Jan’s low grunts of pleasure, Stacy’s sharp, choked gasps.
“Fuck, Jan… right there…” Stacy’s fingers scrambled against the tile, then found Jan’s wet hair, tangling in the red strands, holding her in place. Her hips began to move, shallow jerks that fucked herself harder onto Jan’s mouth. The heat building in her gut was immediate and fierce, a coiling tension that had nothing to do with the day’s stress and everything to do with the wicked tongue currently violating her with exquisite precision.
Godfrey II sat just outside the bathroom door, his golden head resting on his paws. He watched the two women with the profound boredom of a reincarnated entity who had seen it all before. A squeaky toy would have been more interesting.
The bathroom door swung open.
Mara stood there, still in her sleek slacks and silk blouse, her phone glowing in her hand. “Jan. We have a problem.” Her voice was the crisp, clear tone she used in a courtroom.
Jan pulled back, her chin glistening. She peered around Stacy’s thigh. “Hey, Counselor! Join us. Water’s great.”
“I don’t want a fucking shower, Jan,” Mara snapped, but her eyes flickered to Stacy’s form, muscles taut and gleaming under the spray. She pinched the bridge of her nose. “There are gremlins on the ship. The karaoke bar’s sound system just melted, the lights started spinning like a disco ball from hell, and five passengers swear they saw little green men stealing their cocktail umbrellas.”
Jan laughed, a bright, careless sound. She planted a kiss on Stacy’s inner thigh before standing up. As she rose, her hand slid between Stacy’s legs, two fingers slipping inside her with a smooth, practiced ease. Stacy groaned, her forehead dropping to the wall.
“Fati already texted me about the gremlins,” Jan said, working her fingers in and out of Stacy’s soaking cunt. “They’re just bored. They’ll chew on some wires and piss off. Come on in, Mara. You’re getting all tense just standing there.”
Mara stared, frustration warring with a deep, familiar ache Jan’s presence always seemed to stir. “Goddammit,” she muttered. With sharp, irritated movements, she began unbuttoning her blouse. “I’m only doing this so my clothes don’t get soaked while I’m trying to talk sense into you.”
She undressed quickly, folding her clothes with lawyerly precision on the closed toilet lid before stepping into the shower. The stall was instantly, intimately cramped. Steam billowed around three bodies now. Jan, still fingering Stacy, reached out and pulled Mara close with her free arm, kissing her neck.
“Remember that time in college?” Jan breathed against Mara’s skin, her fingers still pumping steadily into Stacy, who was biting her own fist to stay quiet. “When Stacy came to visit? I introduced you two, and then we all ended up in the shower together in the dorm. That was a good night.”
Mara, pressed between Jan’s body and the slick wall, let out a shuddering sigh. “We didn’t know you had magic back then, Jan. We just thought we were… exceptionally horny and susceptible to your suggestions.” She tried to focus. “The gremlins. They’re a problem. They could disrupt navigation. They could start a fire.”
“They’re twelve inches tall and obsessed with gears,” Jan said dismissively, her mouth traveling to Mara’s breast. She sucked a nipple into her mouth, her tongue circling it. Mara’s head fell back with a thud against the tile.
Stacy, trembling on the edge, finally spoke, her voice strained. “If Mara says it’s serious… fuck, Jan, don’t stop… it’s serious.”
Jan eased her fingers from Stacy, bringing them to her own mouth to taste them, her eyes locked on Mara’s. “Okay, fine. What’s the real emergency, Counselor? You didn’t come here just for gremlins.”
Mara forced her eyes open, fighting the drugging pull of Jan’s proximity, the warm water, the sight of Stacy flushed and breathless beside her. “I got a text. From a blocked number. It claims to have a key to Hornpipe’s private safe in his quarters. Plans. Personnel files. A drop point is set up. Tonight. In an hour.”
That got Jan’s full attention. The playful lust in her eyes sharpened into something more focused. She released Mara. “Where?”
“Deck seven, portside, the old service corridor behind the cinema. I have to go.”
“We’ll go,” Stacy said immediately, pushing off the wall. Her body was still humming, but her voice was steady, the protector clicking back into place. “You’re not meeting a mysterious stranger alone.”
“Obviously,” Jan said, already turning off the water. The sudden silence was heavy. “I’ll go too. Three musketeers.” She grinned, grabbing a towel and tossing one to Mara. Then she paused, a look of faux-innocence on her face. “Hey, Mara? If you have this super-secret meeting in an hour… why’d you climb into the shower with us?”
Mara shot her a look that could curdle milk as she briskly toweled her dark hair. “Because, you chaotic bitch, it was your idea for me to step in here, and it was the only way to get you to stop eating Stacy out long enough to listen to me. The gremlins were the headline. This is the front-page story.”
Jan wrapped her towel around herself, still grinning. “Semantics. Alright, alright. Let’s move.” She rubbed Godfrey’s head as she passed. “Come on, boy. Walk time.” The puppy stood and shook himself, following with a resigned swish of his tail.
In the bedroom, they dressed in efficient silence. Stacy pulled on dark jeans, a black tank top, and shrugged into a lightweight jacket, checking the concealed holster at her back. Jan threw on a flowing embroidered tunic and leggings, looking every bit the bohemian enthusiast. Mara, ever precise, donned fresh dark jeans and a charcoal grey sweater.
As Mara fastened her watch, she looked at the two of them. “This could be a trap. The Consortium knows we’re here. They know we’re interfering.”
“Of course it’s a trap,” Jan said cheerfully, slipping a few polished stones and a twist of dried herbs into her pocket. “But it’s a trap that might give us their playbook. And we have something they don’t.”
“What’s that?” Stacy asked, checking the clip on her 9mm.
Jan winked, a spark of green magic flickering in her pupils. “A red tornado, a counselor, and a coach with a really big gun. And a dog who doesn’t give a shit. Let’s go see what they’ve left for us.”
Mara and Stacy exchanged a look—a mixture of fond exasperation and unwavering resolve. Together, the three women and the golden dog left the cozy stateroom, stepping out into the hushed, carpeted hallway of the sleeping ship, moving toward the shadows of Deck Seven.
Together, the three women and the golden dog left the cozy stateroom, stepping out into the hushed, carpeted hallway of the sleeping ship, moving toward the shadows of Deck Seven.
The ship’s hum was different here, deeper, a vibration that came up through the soles of their shoes. The plush carpet gave way to scuffed linoleum trimmed with steel. Conduits and pipes ran exposed along the low ceiling, casting ribbed shadows under the sparse, flickering fluorescent lights. It smelled of salt, stale grease, and a sharp, coppery hint of ozone.
“Charming,” Mara muttered, her voice barely a whisper that still seemed too loud.
Godfrey’s nails clicked a steady rhythm ahead of them. Jan held up a hand, stopping them at a junction. A faded placard read ‘P7 – Auxiliary Storage’. The corridor to the left was dark, a pool of ink. The air there felt thick, cold.
From that darkness, a figure stepped into the dim light.
Vivian Chase looked pale, her red hair a shock of color against the grey metal. She was supporting Dale Foster, his arm slung over her shoulders. He moved with a stiff, pained limp, his face drawn and sweaty, the scars on his chest visible at the open collar of his shirt. His eyes, though, were alert, scanning.
“You,” Stacy said, her hand drifting under her jacket.
“Wait,” Jan said, stepping forward. “You got the text too.”
Vivian nodded rapidly. “An hour ago. It said it had proof Hornpipe was dirty, details on the Entity. I thought… I thought it might be another agent like Dale, someone who wanted out.” Her gaze darted to Dale’s face, full of a protective fear.
Dale coughed, a wet, raw sound. “It’s a null-field generator signature. Faint. Can you feel it?” He looked at Jan. “The air’s dead here. No background magic. It’s a cage.”
Jan closed her eyes for a second, then opened them. “Shit. He’s right. It’s sterile.”
“We should leave,” Mara said immediately, her lawyer’s mind sensing the closing walls of a perfect, adversarial setup. “Now.”
Before anyone could move, a blinding, white light exploded from the ceiling panels, flooding the corridor. It wasn’t light they saw with their eyes; it was light they felt in their bones, a vibrating, piercing luminescence that drilled into their skulls. Every muscle in Jan’s body locked solid. She could not blink. She could not scream.
From the corner of her frozen eye, she saw Stacy, a statue in a combat stance, one hand reaching for her gun. Mara’s face was caught in a rictus of furious understanding. Vivian’s shadows writhed under her skin but could not break free, pinned by the light. Dale’s jaw was clenched, his body rigid against Vivian’s.
A voice echoed, metallic and genderless, stripped of humanity by digital filters. It came from everywhere and nowhere. “Synchronous capture confirmed. Five human subjects. Designations: Green Moon Initiates O’Connor and Chase. Traitorous asset Foster. Civilian controls Henderson and Steinberg. Welcome to the lab.”
Jan’s mind screamed. Chase. They thought Vivian was Green Moon. They didn’t know what she really was.
“You followed a data-breadcrumb a child could have traced,” the voice continued, a synthesized sneer. “Your emotional attachments and pathetic curiosity make you predictable. You are now a consolidated test group. Objective: to measure the degenerative neural impact of prolonged Green Moon exposure. To see what happens to the mundane mind when it bathes in your particular brand of irrationality.”
Panic, cold and liquid, flooded Jan’s veins. A test. They were going to be lab rats. Mara. Stacy.
“The former agent is a bonus. We will learn how deep the psychic contamination goes. How a trained mind unravels.”
Helpless fury burned in Dale’s frozen eyes.
The light shifted, and with it, a low thrumming vibration. Their frozen bodies levitated an inch off the floor, held in the radiant grip of the field. They began to move, sliding down the corridor like statues on a slow conveyor belt. Jan could only watch the passing rivets in the wall, the grime in the corners.
A heavy bulkhead door slid open soundlessly ahead, revealing a stark storage room lined with shelves of cleaning supplies and spare parts. The air inside reeked of bleach and static.
As the field carried them across the threshold, a small, golden shape trotted past the doorframe, unnoticed. Godfrey, ignored, dismissed as a simple animal, paused and looked back. His intelligent eyes tracked the floating bodies. Then, with a soft whine, he turned and ran, a streak of gold vanishing into the dark corridor.
The door hissed shut behind them, sealing with a final, hydraulic thud.
The light snapped off.
Feeling crashed back into Jan’s body like a wave of needles and fire, and she collapsed to the cold metal floor, gasping. Around her, the others did the same, a chorus of coughs and pained groans. They were trapped. The only light now was a dim, red emergency bulb above the door.
Dale was already pushing himself up, his face ashen. “Null-field generators. In the walls. We’re in a Faraday cage for magic.”
“And everything else,” Stacy spat, rapping her knuckles against the wall. It was solid steel. She drew her gun, but the look on her face said she already knew it was useless.
Vivian’s shadows finally leaked from her fingertips, swirling weakly before dissipating against the charged walls. “It’s eating my power,” she whispered, horrified.
Mara stood, smoothing her sweater with trembling hands, a futile gesture of order. “They think we’re an experiment.” Her voice was low, venomous. “They think they can just… measure us.”
Jan crawled to the door, placing her palms against it. The metal was warm, humming. She reached for the well of her magic, for the joyful, spreading warmth of the Green Moon. Nothing. A hollow, silent void where her power lived. A total absence.
She let her forehead rest against the door. The dread was a physical weight.
Then she pushed back, turning to face the others. Her smile was all teeth, a stark, fierce thing in the red light. “They missed the dog.”