Posted on 2018-06-07 16:11:15
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from the source

The Magog class starclipper Weronika was the greatest vessel in the Tau Ceti ore war - and the greatest enemy of the Weronika’s crew was boredom.
Tesserarius Fei Schooley drummed his stun-stick on the wall as he walked the outer ring, and told himself again that he wasn’t getting cabin fever. Maybe the grav was off, and that’s what was making his muscles tense. Those stories of men going mad and spacing half their crew were overblown holotropes. Sure, they happened - but no more often than on good, clean, sun-spinning geosyncs or terracolonies. And nothing ever happened in sub-space, when ships were mid-warp - especially when that ship was a Magog.
Which was why, when he entered the docking area and saw Pilius Prior Ulysses bounding toward the airlock controls, his mind refused to process it. It was only after the commander of the vessel began punching the holo, and klaxons began filling the atmo with sounds you were only supposed to hear during crisis drills that Schooley found his senses. The ship chugged to a stop with the sudden, gut-wreck of an emergency waypoint, and the tesserarius’ move forward turned into a stagger.
“Prior!” he cried, grabbing the officer’s wrist and twirling his superior away from the grid, “what are you doing, sir?”
He expected to be chastised - berated for questioning an officer. Instead, he was met with a stupid, vacuous grin. “The girl,” Ulysses mooned, “she’s waiting for me.”
“What girl?” The words fell out of Schooley’s surprised mouth, and he quickly amended: “I don’t understand, sir.”
The pilius turned to the nanogel window - the one he had been about three milliticks away from opening to the void - with the look of a holocast Romeo. “Don’t you see her?” he breathed, speaking as if Schooley were a boon companion instead of a centurion, “She’s so beautiful!”
“I don’t see anything, sir.” And then he did. Coalescing out of the void, seeming to gather from the stars themselves, was a woman - very lovely and very nude, draped cozily over the mooring cable as if the cold void of space was no inconvenience.
The voice of Optio Puri burst over the comm. “All stations report! Why the rec are we stationary?”
Instead of responding, Ulysses began to reach once more for the airlock’s interface. Schooley forced himself to overcome the taboo against putting hands on an officer, and yanked the commander’s hand away. With his free fist, he slammed the comm toggle.
“We’ve got drakking xenos!” he barked, “They’ve done something to the pilius prior! He’s trying to blow the airlock!”
“Intel!” Puri demanded, “What kind of xenos? The prior has locked off eyes in the docking area.”
Schooley stared at the sparkling woman and amped his brain, trying to recall something - anything, really. He was no xenobiologist, and stellar basics was a long time ago. He just took his orders and followed them. Then it came to him - stories that dated back as far as spacing - and even back to the vessels of Earth-That-Was, if stories were to be believed.
“Psirens!” he called out. The stories were the sort of things old hulks told the young lads and lasses who were too young to enlist but old enough to yearn for the void. It was said that they were roving fae that wore the faces of beautiful men and women, and lured starfarers to their doom with songs of enchantment.
No sooner had he thought of it than the melodious voice came to his ears. Songs couldn’t travel in space, but that didn’t matter. The sound might as well have been wired into his jawbone receiver.

The moon could crumble before our eyes,
then break apart and vaporize.
The stars could explode and boil the seas,
and rip the fabric of reality.
Well I don’t care if all that happens,
Everything is fine as long as there’s a you and me…

Schooloey stared at the girl. She was pretty - and she seemed so far from the rage and worry that was life aboard a warship. He wondered if she could really be a source of trouble. Maybe if they could talk to her, if she could just come inside…
The tesserarius was blasted out of his fugue by the pilius’ fist colliding with his left cheek. “Stop looking at my girl!” the commander roared. Despite the red bandana marking his rank, he looked like a young buck who was too flush with drink and endocrine, and it was the look in his eye as much as the shock to his skull that took Schooley aback. It was a look that could go wrong very quickly.
“You’ve been doxed, sir” the centurion said, as calmly as he could manage. Prior or not, Ulysses’ punch smarted on more than a physical level. “The xeno is working some kind of numina on you, and you’re about to…”
Drakk. Had Schooley been about to do the same thing?
“See?” the pilius shot back, “you can’t even deny it!” He gave Schooley’s shoulder a shove, daring him to fight over the
lovely, soft…
hostile outside.
“She’s a psiren, sir! She’s trying to space you and decomp the whole vessel!”

Even when the sky is falling,
Back to you I’ll travel and escape with
no matter how many times it should be
I’ll keep you moving on
Like a soliton, a soliton, a soliton…

“She loves me!” the pilius raged absurdly, “You don’t know what it’s like out here in subspace…”
Schooley wasn’t listening. His eyes were drawn

like a soliton, a soliton…

to the girl out the window. She was joined by another, with skin of rich brown - and another, green like no woman ought to be.
“Come to us,” the green one smiled, draping lazily across the edge of the nacelle.
“We want to be your friends,” the dark one added.

Even when the moon shatters the tide,
I will always follow you through the pain.
You can always count on me through everything

It was a promise - a vow - and centurions of the Semper Fi respected promises. Schooley’s hand reached for the holo interface and hovered there, nearly won over by honeyed sounds from the abyss.
“Do it, soldier,” the pilius’ voice affirmed - except, had it come from above the roof of the hull?
Optio Bes burst through the door to the access hall. The dwarf saw the position of Schooley’s hand, and his small legs covered the length of the bay in three bounds. He spun his pulse rifle and struck the larger tessarius a blow on the side of the knee, bringing him down to the deck. As a second strike to the sternum left Schooley crippled with gagging, more men poured in behind him. More psirens joined the ones out side in answer - one for every conscious man in the bay. Tessarius Grim seized the pilius prior’s arms as if he were a common prisoner, while the playful, nubile predators joined into the song.
“No!” the pilius cried, like a stim-doll deprived of his fix, “She’s waiting for me!”

Posted on 2018-06-07 16:20:48
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"Ulysses and the Sirens ,1909 oil painting by Herbert James Draper"

I love the classic inspiration, also the text is so beautiful <3

Posted on 2018-06-08 06:14:54
Score: 1 (vote Up)

... This just reminds me of the Sinbad movie.