Xeno

1.
Jennifer got into a routine—during the day, she would do all the things she was supposed to do—put up posters covered with cartoony flowers and ‘Welcome to Crane Dorm!’ in big loopy calligraphy and attend Orientation Counselor meetings and all of that nonsense—and at night she curled around the communications node Starscream had given her. She could barely wait until after dinner, sometimes, so she could excuse herself, go back to her RA room, and lie in bed listening to it. Her heart ached hearing the Cybertronian syllables again—so much of her research. She still had her notes and her preliminary lexicon, but these were too fast for her to translate, She could only pick out random words or phrases.

It reminded her of when she still had a chance for a career. She was going to be The Name—the person who unlocked the secrets of the Cybertronian language. Now, she had so many black marks against her she had barely been able to get this job, with a TA position for LING 101 in the fall semester. By the time she found another project and finished her PhD, maybe people would have forgotten enough about Jennifer Silver, the government bad-listie, enough to allow her to find some nice quiet obscure little teaching post somewhere.

Not what she’d ever wanted, but it seemed the best possible future right now.

The alien syllables poured over her, half-comforting, half-tormenting with the promise they once held. It was a pain she held close to herself, a reminder of…everything.

She heard the jet’s voice, enough to begin to try to guess his mood from the timbre. He seemed…more sarcastic or harder with the others than she’d ever heard him. Sometimes she heard muffled sounds like distant explosions in the background, sometimes a hollow silence. Still, it was his voice, and she felt some strange connection hearing it, even if she didn’t understand a quarter of what he had to say.

A few days later, right before the start of move in day, she was startled from her half sleep hearing her own name.

“Jennifer human,” Starscream’s voice came over clearly. “Are you there?”

Her hands shook with surprise as she pressed what he’d told her was the response button. “I’m here.”

“Why have you not contacted me?”

“I-uh, didn’t really have anything to say.”

“Nothing to say? Are you doing well?”

“Yeah, fine. Everything’s fine.”

“I remain unconvinced. Do you not wish to contact me?”

“No, it’s just that…well, you seem really busy.”

“I can see that you are listening during your night hours. We often engage with the enemy at night. It is tactically beneficial.”

“Yeah, busy. Like I said.”

“I am not occupied during the daylight hours. Why have you not tried to contact me then?”

“You have to sleep sometime, don’t you?”

“Sleep? Oh, recharge. We have facilities to force recharge in under one of your hours. That still leaves many available for you to contact me.”

“I do have a job, you know.”

“I am aware of your incredibly inconvenient employment, Jennifer human. However, if I can find the opportunity to contact you during my optimum expected efficiency hours, you can as well. If you want to.” She heard reproach and something else in his voice. Insecurity?

“I’m sorry. I just didn’t want to bother you.”

His voice softened. “You do not bother me, Jennifer human. Such a statement follows no logic. Why would I give you communications ability and not desire you to utilize it?”

“I guess you’re right.” He wasn’t really good to argue with, she’d already discovered. Best just to change the subject. “So, what have you been up to?”

“Up to? I am unsure in what calibration you would like the answer.”

Stupid idioms. And she should know better. “I meant what have you been doing. These last few days.”

A tedious sigh. “Oh, this and that. Mostly small missions to harry the enemy. Disrupt their supply lines. Erode morale. Nothing of exceptional interest. And you?”

“Nothing. Just meetings and stuff like that. I made,” she felt really stupid saying this, “a big banner yesterday to put out for the new arrivals.”

“Ah, your dormitory is about to become populated?”

“Yeah, they should start showing up in about,” she glanced at the clock, “six hours.”

“And what is this banner for?”

She felt herself color. How stupid! “You know, to make them feel welcome. It’s really stupid, honestly. I drew flowers and the school mascot and stuff on it. Kinda childish, but, you know, not scary.”

“Why would a dormitory be scary?”

“Not the dorm, the whole college thing. First time on their own, most of these kids.”

“First time on their own and they have a safe place to stay? And they have no one trying to offline them? That still does not sound very scary. My first time on my own—no, wait,” he cut himself off. “Six hours, you said?”

“Yeah. Six hours before they start showing up.”

“I shall be there in under half.” He cut the comm.


2. Banner

She heard engines roar overhead, then cut out, abruptly. The jet landed agilely on his feet in the courtyard of the U shaped building. He seemed pleased that she was waiting for him. She felt like an idiot—she’d actually gotten dressed—a flowery sundress that probably looked like a mess of greys and blacks in the darkness. He’d only seen her not in crappy stuff like jeans and t shirts once. She’d even done the whole eyeliner thing. Why now? She told herself it was to do something to fill the half hour, since her body wasn’t at all interested in sleep.

He crouched down closer. “Your appearance looks…effortful,” he said. “Is the effort for me?”

Right then, Jennifer wanted to fall through the floor. His tactlessness was mortifying at times. “Uh, yeah.” She stared at the pavement, feeling her face flush to the ears.

He tilted his head to one side. “It disguises your shape. It is…intriguing.”

Please, she thought, change the subject.

“You have done something to your eyes as well,” he said. Dammit, would he stop noticing? “It is very attractive. You may do this again.”

Her mortification changed to laughter. “So I have your permission.”

“You do. Now, where is this banner?”

Bad to worse on the embarrassment scale. She gestured vaguely. “Other side of the building. By the parking lot.” She’d hoped he would just let it go. No such luck.

“I shall inspect. Would you like me to assist you?” He extended a hand to her. She sighed, and stepped on, holding one of his thumb talons for balance. He walked, a little more carefully than she’d seen him do before, around the U toward the parking lot. He sat down in front of the banner, considering. “Do you humans normally use this much color in your written communications?”

She laughed. “Not really.”

“What is that thing in the corner and what is it doing?”

“It’s supposed to be a bear. It’s our school mascot. And it’s supposed to be waving.” She sucked at drawing—even she could laugh at this.

“It does not look like any of your bears that I have seen. And that would make a better attack gesture.”

“It’s supposed to be a teddy-bear. A kid’s toy. A stuffed animal. I told you, to make everything seem friendly and kind of goofy.”

“Ah,” his eyes went distant for an instant, which she’d learned to associate with him accessing some data. “I see. A specific kind of bear. They must live some place I have not yet seen.”

Jennifer giggled. There was no sense in explaining this to him. It would only cause more questions and sooner or later she wouldn’t be able to answer them. He watched her reaction, a little confused as to what she found so amusing.

“Ah, yes,” he said, settling her in front of him. “I was beginning to tell you. When I was first on my own. Do you wish to hear the story?”

“Will it make as much sense as that other story you told me once? About the ambush?”

“All of my stories make the same amount of sense, yes.”

“Okay, let’s hear it.” She didn’t have high hopes that she’d follow the moral of this story any better than the last one.

“Those of us who can fly—you might not know that not all Cybertronians have this ability—have to undergo a test of our navigational instincts. You humans can only move in two dimensions—we must move in three. And in space, one must be able to navigate without a fixed referent. You understand?”

“So far.”

“We are led out by the older Seekers, some coordinates we have never been. They overpulse us, and we come back online probably several of your hours later, alone. We must find our way home.”

“They just leave you there? There’s not like, anyone watching over you?”

“That would obviate the purpose of the test. We are alone. It is…frightening.” His voice dropped on the last word, as if he didn’t want to admit to it.

“So, like, if you don’t come back in a certain amount of time, they send someone out for you, right? To look for you?”

“No. If you cannot find your way home, you are not a Seeker.” He said it like it was the simplest thing in the universe and that she was a little dull for not understanding it.

“You could die!”

“Indeed. Many do.” He noticed the distress on her face. “Do not be upset, Jennifer human, I passed that test. Long ago.” He gave a strangely sad smile. “What I remember most is that when I returned…there was nothing. No recognition at all. As if it did not even matter, what we had been through in those terrifying cycles. Those who did not return got a remembrance ceremony, of course. Those of us who succeeded…we had no banner, silly or otherwise.”

He looked down at her in the circle of his long legs, his hands hanging limp, studying the expression on her face. He traced the line of her shoulder and arm with one hand. “I did not mean to distress you,” he said, softly. “It is just what I know of being out on my own.”

She managed a smile, but only because he didn’t seem to want her looking sad.

He nodded his head in satisfaction at her smile. “Now, Jennifer human, we still 4.78 hours remaining. How shall we spend them?”

Despite herself she shuddered. “You make it sound so final.” What else could she think after his story?

He laughed easily. “Oh, no. Simply that that is what remains to us tonight. There will be other nights.” He slid one exploratory talon up the hem of her skirt. “That is, if you actually ever contact me,” he teased.

3. Stars

“Should you like to see the stars?” he asked, leaning back on his arms, head tilted toward the sky. “I cannot take you above the upper atmosphere. The air is too thin for you beyond that. But even so, you might find it compelling.”

What could she say? Her last boyfriend’s idea of a thrilling date had been Six Flags. “Sure.” She dusted her skirt as she stood. “How do we do that?”

He looked at her for a moment, deciding something. “There is the easy way,” he said, “and then, there is the fun way. I say we do it the fun way.” He fired his thrusters enough to hover in the air. He picked her up with a whir of his bladed hands, somehow easily managing not to even scratch her, and tossed her in the air above him as he transformed.

She landed hard in the cockpit seat. Her hands clutched at the arm rests, her heart jumping out of her chest. “That was the fun way?!” She tugged the hem of the skirt, which had flown up over her thighs, back down, fiercely.

“It was.” He seemed pleased enough to purr. “You are to be impressed at my dexterity.”

“Are you crazy?”

“I have been called that before. Non-diagnostically, however. Now, please fasten the included safety equipment.”

She dug the harness buckle from somewhere under her butt (that was sure to leave a bruise she was glad she wouldn’t have to explain to anyone), and snapped it over her chest. She hadn’t been much in the mood to look the only other time he'd flown her. The harness somehow felt less secure than the cage of his fingers. Probably because of the 270 degree visibility canopy. Her fingers dug into the arms of the pilot’s seat as he accelerated, more gently than it seemed he normally did.

He flew her up to the upper atmosphere in large, lazy circles. Getting altitude and staying there until she acclimatized to the pressure, and he could compensate for the air flow. Then another step. Then another, until she could see the curve of the earth below her, spreading out as if it was all somehow pouring away from her, the night’s darkness swallowing most of the shape. Above, the sky was rich velvet black, dotted with stars that no longer sparkled, but glowed brilliantly, in more colors than she could name.

“It’s just like the pictures,” she said, finally, leaning around in the cockpit.

“Ah,” the jet said. “If you allow me to adjust, I shall show you what it looks like through my optical sensors.” The canopy blanked, almost as if it were a TV screen instead of a clear window, and then flickered back on.

Red digital lines and symbols fluttered over the view. “Ion speed and charge,” Starscream said, highlighting one, and then of another “Neutrinos, and this,” to a third, “solar winds. These are required for flight calculation, among other factors,” he lit up a series of other indicators, “that are tedious to explain.” Underneath the flight calculation overlays, though, the universe now blazed with color, fantastic watercolored blues and reds and greens, somehow mixing together without muddying. It was…gorgeous.

“Do you like it?” He sounded anxious. “I realize the flight calculation overlays are distracting. If you like I shall remove that information.”

“No, please don’t.” She sat back. This is what the universe looked like through his eyes. Brilliant and beautiful and entirely alive. She wondered what she looked like through these same optics, and then blushed at her own vanity. “It’s beautiful,” she said. “Really.” Even the shifting information from the overlays had a kind of rhythmic beauty to it. She suddenly felt so…limited.

“Why me?” she said, her voice small.

“Why you?” Her turn to confuse him with a sudden veer of conversation.

“I mean, well, why did you, you know, pick me? I’m nothing special.” Certainly not someone who deserved a view of the universe that would make astronauts want to throttle her.

“You are,” he said, his voice strange. “I believed I had explained this back on Diego Garcia. You have not judged me, when you so easily could have. That is…special.” It wasn’t really what he was trying to say, but this was the best he could manage. He tried to distract her. “That, now,” his pilot’s HUD illuminating a drifting sparkling object, “is one of your satellites. Ground communications, if I am not mistaken.”

“Huh.” She was just as glad as he was to step away from that uncomfortable vulnerability. “Weird how up here even the most boring things are beautiful.”

“The best things,” the jet said, mysteriously, “are beautiful all of the time.”

4. Countdown
“Three point two hours left,” he said, helping her down into the clearing. “One point six eight until astronomical sunrise.”

“Would you stop doing that?” Jennifer said.

“Doing what?”

“Giving the countdown? It’s depressing.”

“Why is it depressing?”

“It just is.” She twisted her hands in the skirt of her dress.

“Jennifer human, do you enjoy spending time with me?” His voice took on a sly tone. Fishing for compliments. “Will you be sad when the night is over?” Oh yeah, definitely fishing.

Still, he deserved it. She thought of the last time they were together: his earnestness and concern. Maybe it wouldn’t hurt to stroke his ego a bit. “Yes,” she said. “I like spending time with you.”

“Why?” He leaned over her. “What is it precisely that you like spending time with me?”

Oh, this might have been a mistake. “Well, I like your…voice, for one thing.” She grasped for the first thing she could think of.

“My voice?” he blinked. “It is merely a modulator run through a translation protocol. It is nothing impressive.”

She shrugged. “Am I not allowed to like it, then?”

“No,” his eyes flared with concern. “You may like my voice, if you wish.” He blinked again. “Is—is that all?”

Oh, he was shameless. Part of her wanted to say yes, just to see his reaction. He really had a terribly uptight sense of humor at times. But that would be cruel. And he’d been so nice to her. Tonight, and the other time. And really, at Diego Garcia as well. In his way, he’d been as sweet as he would allow himself to be. She exhaled, deeply. “I like you.”

The red irises of his eyes spiraled wide, gratified. “What part of me, in particular,” he pressed.

It was just about even wickedness and desire to avoid answering (and hearing for herself how freakin’ weird her attraction was to a three-story-tall robot) that made her touch his arm. “Well, I like this, for one,” she ran her fingers into the elbow joint, and up a narrow gap between two armor plates up to his shoulder. “And here.” The wires and hoses and cables under the plating seemed to vibrate under her fingers. She felt him shiver.

“Is—is that all?”

She bit down on a laugh. Oh, she’d show him. “This too,” she said, her hands tracing what he’d told her was his interface access hatch. “This is nice.”

He sucked in a breath. “Is it?” he said, tightly.

“It is,” she said, teasingly echoing his strange diction, stressing the verb.

“And?” He rolled onto his side, lowering himself closer to her. She felt his free hand curl around her, one thumb teasing at her dress’s neckline.

“And what?”

“What else?”

“What else do you want to know?” She drew a line down the seam of the interface hatch. His turn to look nervous.

“I.” His talons flirted with the hem of her dress. “I would like to know if you like this.” He bent forward, kissing her gently. “Yes?”

“Yes.”

“Ah. And then there is this. Do you like this as well, Jennifer human?” his delicate glossa drew a slow, wandering line up one leg, under her skirt. He pushed the fabric aside, enjoying the tremor that ran through her body almost as much as the feel of her skin.

“Do I have to answer that?” Her voice was shaky.

He looked up. “Yes.” He teased at the seam where her leg and body joined. She lost her balance, tilting into his hand. “Yes,” she answered, unsteadily.

“What is this irritating garment?” he asked, drawing one long talon along the waistband of her underwear.

“It’s called underwear.”

“It serves no useful function. Please omit it in the future.”

What? No way. She was a good girl. Wearing underwear was a must happen. He was lucky it wasn’t the cotton ones with the butterflies on them. “It serves a plenty useful function,” she retorted. “It frustrates you.”

“Is that its purpose? It works well then.” He pinched it with his labial plate, ripping it off her body in a swift jerk. “Do you desire to frustrate me?”

“Why not?” She squirmed in his grasp, pushing the skirt back down. He firmly lifted it back up.

“You are not as successful as your garment,” he observed. “But perhaps I should try this as well. Perhaps I should endeavor to frustrate you. Shall I?”

“Uh, you don’t have to,” she squeaked, as his glossa drew a complex shape across her inner thighs.

“I do not. I want.” He teased her thighs with his talons, their coolness making her squirm. “Have I succeeded already, Jennifer human? Are you frustrated?”

Which was better—to give in or not? Before she could decide, he prodded his glossa between her thighs. She gasped.

“Barricade told me that if the xeno’s access port was wet, she was feeling desire. Is that true, Jennifer human?” His eyes winked.

“Who—who is Barricade?” She groaned as he probed her again with his glossa, teasing the edges.

The jet grunted. “He is someone who does not matter now. But you are evading the question.” Another lick, this time, exploring the top of the pleat.

She cried out, her hands clutching at whatever they could find. One caught on one of the bars of his eye cages. “Are you feeling desire, Jennifer human?” he repeated, his voice, husky.

“God, yes!” She could barely get her breath under control as he prodded again.

“That is not my name, Jennifer human,” he reproached her, mockingly. “But I shall accept the promotion.” He licked her again, long and slow up the folds of her labia. She squealed, twisting against him. “If Barricade is right, you must desire me very much,” he observed.

Whoever this Barricade was, she was going to punch him in the face. When, and if, she ever got control of herself. Right now, all she could manage was some incoherent cry. Every touch of his sent shivers through her. His gentle teasing was driving her crazy. She was used to the other two times, when he’d been the one trembling with desire. Not that she was any more used to having that kind of power over anyone else. Much less a jet.

He shifted forward, kissing her gently. She could taste the salty thin taste of her own lust on him, while he continued to tease her with a talon, tracing the folds of her labia, hesitantly, curiously inside her. She gasped around his kiss.

“Do you desire me? Me above all others?” She heard a strange intensity in his voice. As if this was the question that really mattered.

One talon probed further inside her, while another slid up the folds to circle that little node of sensitive flesh he’d found earlier with his glossa. She shrieked, her hands clawing at him, her entire body wracked with ecstasy. He waited, holding her, frozen, until her breath calmed down and her eyes opened.

“Was that an affirmative?”

She punched him in the face. “Yes,” she said, hotly, sitting up, carefully. Obediently, he withdrew his talon from inside her. He sat back for a moment, licking at his wet talon.

“Good,” he said, absently. “Because I desire you.” He pushed her back down, opening his hatch and grabbing his module. It was green lit and had been pinging him for most of the night, especially since feeling Jennifer’s warm body in the pilot’s seat. It had made him reckless, showing her stupid things that probably bored her, making him say stupid things. He’d forced it down, concentrating on Jennifer’s response, halfway between an experiment and a self-torment. He wanted to know what pleased her, but there was only so much of that kind of experiment he could take.

He pushed her thighs apart—she fell obediently backward against his hand as he thrust the module into her. This. This was what he had wanted, why he had flown missions for so many consecutive days, so that he could get an entire mission window to himself. He trembled as his datastream pulsed inside her heat, her wetness, the delicious and sensitive pressure of her access port against him. He ran his hands down her legs, marveling at the swell of her calves, flowing to the impossibly thin ankles, the curved sweep of the arch of her foot. His desire built through his datastream, pulsing faster. Without another connection to try to come to synchrony with—it was so different. Normally two datastreams had to come to some common rhythm. This was just his. Just him, and her reacting to his pulses.

Her body twisted on his hand, rising and falling with his datastream, twisting the fabric of her dress. Her hair slipped from its bun and tumbled across his hand like a silky net. She desired him. Not just for this. But this…oh he wanted it, too. He…wanted…this.

The overload skittered along his sensor net, firing most of his systems as it passed—his turbine ignition, his coolant system, his flight controls. Even his weapons systems self-checked, his chain guns clicking to new chambers. It was as if something ripped him out of himself, leaving him expanded, wider than the world. He almost didn’t want to go back into that frame, into those too familiar systems, into all of the problems and pettiness that that body entailed. He just wanted…her. Here. Now.

He faded back from his overload with something like regret. But she was still there. Warm and desiring. Pure, somehow. Unlike last time, she’d laid against him, her hands stroking his fingers, exploring the edges of his finger barbs. “You okay?” she asked.

“I am functional,” he answered absently. “We have very little time remaining to us tonight.” He indicated the horizon, already starting to turn from black to purple to orange-pink. He suddenly realized why the countdown had made her sad.