Aurora Awakening – Part 5

 

The next week was torment, sure, but a different kind that it had been before. It was kind of fun, if I’m truthing.

Fa knew she had me, and recked it was just a matter of getting me to break. I most likely would have gone completely off-plumb if I hadn’t seen Fa looking at me that night – she was hopnear merciless. But I’d scanned how things stood now, and I nothing was going to make me abandon my plan, even Fa.

I sure enjoyed her trying, though.

Now that Fa knew I was sparky for her, she did everything she could get in my path. She found reasons to brush past me in tight corridors and leaned over my shoulder to watch me work, holding her cheek so close to mine that I could feel the heat radiating from her skin and letting her breasts brush against my back.

She pretended to forget her fresh linen ration and left it on the bed so that I’d have to come into the shower and give her towel to her. I’m not shamed to say I was close to dropping the whole thing and giving in right then. She looked perfect – shining with tiny water droplets and leaning just so against the shower door as I came in.

I pretended to still be shying away, of course, but I let myself have the pleasure of looking at her just enough to let the color creep into my cheeks – I recked seeing me react to her would stoke Fa’s engines, and it did. I made to scurry out quick like I would have before, but Fa playfully grabbed me by my shirt, pulled me toward her, and said “Thanks, Chief,” before dropping a little kiss on my cheek.

The look in her eyes when I just nodded and left was worth a week of station leave.

She was smart enough to know that just being naked around me would lose its power, so the devious little squib kept finding reasons to be half-dressed or in the middle of dressing as much as possible. If I was tinkering with mirrors on my bed, she found a reason to be reading on the floor with her shirt seam undone low. And of course she came over occasionally to bend way over and ask me how things were going.

I recked two could play at that game, so one night after Jamila had nailed me hard at spinhockey, I managed to be twisting around trying to smear antibruise on myself, high on my ribcage on my side, just as Fa got back to the cabin. As brazen as she’d been and as lightquick as she offered to help, I still felt Fa’s fingers tremble when she first touched me.

Fa had been chattering at me again lately, for which I was sore grateful, but we both got quiet as she smoothed the salve over my skin. Fa offered to massage my back and shoulder out – just so I wouldn’t be sore in the morning – and for once I let her, just to keep her hands on me. For just a second, I wondered about getting one of the fauna biologists into the cabin to take a pheromone count. I reck the place would have pegged her meter.

It almost wasn’t fair. I knew what was up, so I could give in to feeling how surprisingly strong Fa’s hands were, and how gently she used them on me. But poor Fa just about unspooled. She was inches away – one pass of her hand – from something that would either shatter all the pretense and finally have us kissing each other or get her fired and sent home in a stasis capsule.

On the other hand, when I thought about how just that afternoon she’d used the excuse of an overpacked lift to press up against me and gently roll her hips back and forth, I recked she deserved it.

Fa and Tazuma were deep in conversation at morning mess the next day, and I smiled into my caff because now I knew why – Tazuma was a friend, someone she could slide secrets to, not a lover. And if she was in any way responsible for the little gambits Fa was coming up with lately, I owed her a drink.

It wasn’t all teasing and quivering, though. Fa’s scratch near ruthless attempts to break me during the day – and what looked like some sort of noble resistance on my part – made her tender with me in unguarded moments. She found an excuse to bunk down after I did every night that week. Fa still thought I was a heavy sleeper, so she took the small risk of touching me, just once, before she bunked down herself. One night she stroked my hair, lightly as you can imagine, and on another she traced her fingers across my cheek. One night I felt her sit on the edge of the bunk and I had a sparky hope that she’d just lie down and sleep there with me. I’d calculated it out ages ago and recked she’d fit just perfectly with her head cuddled just below mine and my arm around her.

The day before we blasted planet, one of the skiff pilots did a low run over the area we’d been collecting from and sent a realtime scan up for everyone to watch. They played it on the huge screen in the main rec area and Fa and I went as a late mess break. We stood together, almost close enough for our shoulders to touch, and watched as beautiful green hills and meadows rolled by, then laughed at the lurching feeling when the pilot swooped back and forth to follow the path of a river.

The skiff pilot dove into a clearing in the woods and then she hovered there for a minute, slowly circling so we could see how strange and tall the trees were. As she gradually lifted the skiff up, up, up and back out into the sun, I realized that Fa and I were standing shoulder to shoulder, arm to arm. I recked anyone looking thought we were just being companionable, but you wouldn’t have made much scrap trying to sell that to the nerves up and down the right side of my body.

The skiff wheeled out and came down over the mass of huge leafy plants Fa and I had walked though. They looked hopnear magical in the late afternoon sun, and I felt Fa’s fingers twine through mine. I tried to control my pulse rate as the pilot circled the little lake. I could feel Fa looking at me, but I kept my eyes front. I knew I was only barely keeping myself soldered. No way either of us was thinking about a thing except for Fa naked underneath me and my thigh between hers.

The pilot pulled away and sped up to head for some nearby foothills, but Fa and I didn’t drop hands until the scan was done. When I finally turned and looked at her, she was scratch near ready to give up the game. Her cheeks were pink and her eyes were huge, looking up at me and just aching to go ahead and ask. I had to get out of there, so I told her gentle-gruffly to get back on shift, but then she looked so sad and confused that I couldn’t leave it at that.

“We have a full load to rack to get ready for tomorrow, Fa,” I said, looking into those big blue eyes, “but I promise you’ll enjoy it when we get there.”

Fa brightened a little, but if possible she looked even more confused than she had been. I touched her forearm and left the rec area as cool as you please, but hopnear broke into a run once I cleared the door.

I wasn’t kidding about the load of work we had, either. I spent the afternoon on the run to every section of the ship, checking to make sure no one had any last-minute requests and doing my best to rig something up for those who did. There were plenty of last-minute fixes up in Nav and on the bridge, as there always are. I was prepped for that, but making myself seem just a little busier than I really was helped me call in a favor or two.

The next day was set, and I recked it would be perfect.

I’d put Fa down in the big bay, supervising a team of engine grunts to make sure everything was shipshape before we blasted. She was still down there when I stuck my head in to check on her, and I recked she was doing a fine job. She made it clear she was leading a team that she was a part of, not an interloper who’d come in to give shouts, and she was using her brains and power to get her shouts followed, not her prettiness. I was so proud of her I was fit to blam.

I leaned back so I could watch Fa without interfering. Elspeth, an engine grunt I’d scrumbled with once or twice when we were both feeling unspooled caught the way I was looking at Fa and gave me a raised purple eyebrow and a grin. I tried to look innocent, but Elspeth just laughed and nodded her approval.

Well, hellscratch, I recked anyone who cared would find out soon anyway.

Once we hit evening mark, I had Fa give her last shouts to the team and then pulled her off – fixers get so busy when we blast planet that it’s against regs for us to work at all the night before. And that’s one set of regs I follow.

Fa and I had an unusually unrushed dinner at evening mess, then headed back to the cabin. I recked I had holes in my skull from the way she’d been staring at me. She knew something was up, but sure wasn’t making any scrap figuring it out.

I kicked back with a datastack of checklists to review before the mandatory preblast early lights out, but Fa wasn’t having it. She chattered at me, asking relevant questions about her first real shift in the key room, but also trying to figure out what I had idling in the back of my mind. I couldn’t help but grin as she asked me questions from every direction, trying to inkle what was up.

Finally, still asking questions and still looking me right in the eye, Fa stood up and peeled off her fullsuit. Slowly, making sure to bend over as she stepped out of the legs, so I could see down her tank. Then her tank, bra and skivs went. I’d steeled myself for that sort of thing, but I knew my cheeks were flushing, and my breathing wasn’t as steady as I would have liked.

Fa bent over to pick everything up then walked over to bundle it into the hamper. I recked I’d made it through the show, but then Fa sat down opposite me on her bunk and pulled out a bottle of lotion, and she began smoothing it over every inch of her pretty white skin, still talking, and smiling at me now, knowing she was gaining top hand. She reached her breasts and I watched her nipples stand and strain toward me.

I pretended to find something interesting in my datastack so I wasn’t looking right at her, but Fa knew she’d gotten me. She was smoothing the lotion over herself slowly, enjoying my agitation as much as the feeling of it against her skin, I reck. She kept chattering to pull my attention in her direction, then finally snapped on her reading light, snapped off the main, and said, “What do you think, Chief?”

I looked up and lost my breath again. The lotion made Fa look like she had a sheen of tiny diamonds all over her skin. It made her look like she was sparkling in perfect moonlight. I knew Fa had never been in real moonlight, and that was a shame. I recked it might be worth taking a real shore leave to walk through some with her.

“Well?” she asked, lifting up on her toes a bit and twirling around. And then she giggled at my first try at answering because my mouth had gone dry.

“Real nice, Fa,” I managed. “You look hoppretty.”

“Just pretty?” she asked with a beckoning little smile.

“Beautiful, if I’m truthing.”

Fa took a step toward me, and I wanted her to keep on stepping more than anything I’d ever thought of.

But if I gave in now, we’d both be up for hours. And one thing the Aurora couldn’t afford was to have both her engineers off-plumb on the morning of a planet blast.

It took every bit of will I had, but I turned and tucked myself into my own bunk and snapped off my reading light.

“Lights out, Fa. We both need to be at full charge in the morning.”

Fa stared at me with her mouth open. She’d been sure she had me.

“We both have to be ready for the key room tomorrow, Fa,” I said, and then I added, gently as I could without giving too much away, “You’ll like it more than you reck. I promise.”

Fa stared at me in disbelief for just another nano, then slipped between her sheets completely naked, making sure I got a good look at what I was missing as I did so.

Like any good fixer, I couldn’t resist one last little tweak:

“And make sure you get some real sleep tonight.”

I scrunched my eyes up tight, but I know Fa whipped her head around to stare at me before she snapped off her light.

Aurora Awakening - Part 4

The next few weeks were as terrible as you’ve inkled.

Most of the time settling into a nice, easy orbit is my favorite part of any run. There are no urgent calls to worry about, so I can tinker with the Aurora from bow to stern. She was a fine ship when she came into my care, but I’m not venting steam when I say I’ve made her faster, more efficient, and even a little smarter. And almost all of that happens while we’re rolling planet and I really time to think.

Fa had a sharp mind and I’d been eager to put our heads together so she could help me dreamstorm, but that was before I’d crosswired everything. Now we were hopnear tiptoeing around each other, especially in the cabin. Fa kept her nose in a datastack, and we mostly didn’t speak unless we were apologizing for bumping into each other because we barely made eye contact anymore.

Fa was sad, but I recked she couldn’t be anywhere near as off-plumb as I was. I was the only one who knew we were both miserable.

And she was starting to open up and spend time with other people around the ship more. Which I recked was a good thing, and something that had to happen eventually, but that didn’t make me feel better about the reason. Plus she’d started hitting mess hall with a pretty young horticult, Tazuma. Nowhere near as pretty as Fa to my mind, but still. Tazuma had had her hair and skin dyed to look like those pictures you see of tigers – and she’d even have a slide job to give her bright green eyes with pupils like a cat. Not my thing, but there was no denying that she was gorgeous. Jamila caught me staring at them during evening mess and whacked me in the back of the head with the heel of her hand, which was no more than I deserved.

Tazuma and Fa whispered a lot and I sometimes caught them both looking at me. I recked Fa’s little chief crush was as good as dead. I should have been relieved about that, but I couldn’t seem to fund much bliss in it.

I finally did what I should have done ages ago and went and saw the hort chief. I owed her a favor anyway – might as well ask her if she wanted any tinkering. Beauchene recked she did. Our growrooms gave the plants doses of heat and artificial sunlight, but the timers just faded the lamps on and off in straight cycles. Beauchene recked that light that traveled so the plants could follow it would be better, and days that lengthened and shortened to match the home planet’s year would be better yet.

Once we got to thinking about it, I recked I could design and program some ductwork extensions to allow for random breezes to blow through and an extension to the entry lock that might mean we could bring real pollinators insects onboard. Which was best even though, truthing, tricking out mech pollinators to spec is one of my favorite things.

Programming the basic pattern of the growroom lights was nothing, but getting them to mimic the gradual changes through the year and randomizing proper breezes was fun and took some real fixing. I also figured out a way to randomize the misters while keeping an overall drop count to stay inside optimal specs. Beauchene couldn’t wait to try the whole system out.

Still, I recked we were dealing with a square room. Some of the plants along the central line were going to catch more artificial sun and start to shade out the others. So I worked out some retractable shade baffles and – this is the part I’m really proud of – started spending my spare time working out a system of swiveling mirrors that could take care of any runts that were missing out on sunshine.

I was packing up my personal stuff a little bit each evening to prep for the move, but the clutter was expanding. My desk and bunk shelf were full of mirrors, servos, and lens grinding gear. I hoped I wasn’t driving Fa sparky what with me spending most evenings cross-legged on my bunk grinding out new curves and sending flashes of light all over the room, but she was being so polite with me there was no way to really tell. One night I was concentrating hard and I felt her next to me. I thought she was maybe about to push my bangs out of my eyes and then stopped herself, but I recked it was my imagination. She just picked up the refresher stack on bot specs next to me and flopped onto her own bunk to read.

She did clamp a safety harness on me when she caught me hanging from a ladder by my knees to get a test mirror tweaked just right, though, so at least she didn’t want me to break my neck. I calculated that was as good as I’d be getting for a bit.

The Basic Maint crew probably wouldn’t have minded seeing me with a broken neck when they saw the work order for the dozens of extra clamps I wanted installed for the mirror system, but I called in some favors from Supply and the Galley crew and threw them a thank-you feast and those clamps went up lightquick. If nothing else, Fa was learning how a deep-space ship really runs.

Chief Beauchene was happy enough with the way the experimental growroom was shaping up that she offered to let Fa and me take a little tour planetside once most of the collecting was done. She even got us loans of some hort hot-weather gear for planetside – T-shirts that were even thinner than our tanks and khaki shorts. There hadn’t been a single med incident the whole planetstay and the horts were getting casual enough to enjoy themselves.

I’d hoped we could take it on separate shifts, but Beuchene said we’d have to take it during a crew shuffle when two transport slots were available, so we went. I was grateful that Tazuma wasn’t on our shuttle, but it made for a quiet ride down.

The planet was a stunner, though, full of green and nearly as pretty as Fa. The horticults still had work to do, so our guides begged off pretty quickly. They showed us the basics and gave us a cheatmap of the trails they’d been using and told us to spin off out of their way. It was awkward as all scratch, but after an hour or so, it was all so beautiful that Fa and I both started to loosen up. We tried all the paths and finally took a trail through what looked like hectares of deep green plants with big flat leaves like elephant ears and purple flowers. I recked if there was a beach, I wouldn’t mind spending my bundle setting up my retirement there.

We didn’t find a beach, but we did pop out into a clearing with a little pond in it that looked hopclose to perfect. I started walking around the edge and lost myself in the greenery for a bit, maybe getting a little distracted by looking at which plants were doing in the shade and which were straining for the light.

Which I shouldn’t have done. Like I said, Fa was stationborn and station raised. Which meant that anytime she’d been near a lake or a pond before, it was in a station enviro, engineered to be safe. If you grow up on planet, you know that you can’t just dive into a lake or a pond you haven’t swum in before, because there might be rocks just under the surface or who knows what kind of beasties in it. But Fa didn’t know that, and there’s no reason it would have occurred to her.

When I turned around, she’d stripped all the way down to nothing and was headed for the water. I gave a shout and she broke stride and turned her head just in time for me to tackle her. We tumbled into a heap and I ended up on top. I got three words into yelling at her for doing something so stupid when my breath left me in one big whuff.

Fa was under me, naked and more perfect than anything I’d ever made. Our legs were in a tangle and I could feel how warm she was against my thigh. I didn’t know if Fa realized that, but she thumpsure could feel my heart hammering against my chest. I watched her face change from astonishment at being tackled to a knowing grin. I scrambled back and away from her as fast as I could and handed Fa her skivs, but it was too late. She knew now that my problem wasn’t that I didn’t like her; it was that I did.

My shouting brought some third-class horticult charging into the clearing, and once he saw Fa hopping back into her shorts, he knew what was up. A third-class normally takes the abuse instead of giving it, and he lit in to Fa like he’d been saving it up for years. I let him yell at her for about the 45 seconds she deserved, then stepped in and said that I recked this was a team disciplinary issue, and if he had more to say he’d better take it up with Fa’s chief.

He declined.

Fa thanked me for sticking up for her and apologized, and I don’t even remember what I mumbled in reply – I couldn’t look at her face. We walked back to the main landing area to catch a shuttle and I could feel Fa’s eyes on me the whole time. I was glad I’d been spending so much time under the grow lights. I recked I was bright red enough even under my tan.

The thing is, see, it wasn’t just a shuttle ride back. When you’ve been on-planet, you have to go in the cooker to get sterilized before you can go back into the main ship. And somehow the horticults on our shuttle all scrambled into the other chambers together. I hadn’t remembered them being so clannish before. Maybe they were more annoyed with having to cart me and Fa down there than I thought.

So Fa and I surrendered our borrowed clothes (and our own skivs) straight to the laundry chute for a bleach-and-boil, and then the two of us climbed into the cooker to get clean. And that’s when Fa decided to repay me for the hurt I’d given her. I stood there under the red heat lights, wearing the dumb little goggles they give you and trying not to look at Fa or be looked at, as if such a thing was even possible.

But Fa basked. She put her arms over her head, stretching her slender, perfect form out as far as she could, and then laced her fingers behind her back and stretched again, pushing her chest towards me and grinning, knowing she was torturing me. I looked at the lights, at the walls, at the floor, anywhere but her. I recked the white outline of my tank against my tan couldn’t much compare to Tazuma’s tiger stripes, so I tried my best to pretend that Fa wasn’t looking at me. I was so ready to get back into the post-planet fullsuit I’d left for when we got back that I scratch-near fell over trying to get into it.

Fa wanted to talk to me when we got back to the cabin, but I lied told her I wanted to check the grow lights and get a workout in. I ended up doing both, because I couldn’t go back to the cabin with Fa there. I recked I’d figure out how to deal with her in the morning, but I needed some space between me and her until then. Or at least until I could stop feeling her heat against my thigh.

I threw weights around and ran in the hamster ball until I was dead beat, then said a silent thanks to the Aurora when I got back to an empty cabin. I pushed the thought that the cabin might be empty because Fa was with Tazuma down as far as it would go.

I was asleep as soon as my tail hit the bunk, but of course I woke back up when I felt Fa come back in. I stayed as still as I could as I heard her move right up to my bunk. She stood there for a moment, and then she gently trailed her fingers up my arm. I felt every nerve in my skin come alive as I wondered what to do.

Fa went to her own bunk and got in without even turning off the light. As if I hadn’t had enough torment that day, I heard her clothes hit the floor, and then the soft rustling of sheets as she began one of her performances – something she hadn’t done since I’d told her I was moving out. I heard the sound of her hands moving up and down her body, and then of her squirming against the sheets, and then the rhythmic sound of her wrist moving, sooner than she ever had. Something had her ready.

I’d never given in to the temptation before, but I recked I’d been sorely tested. And that with me moving out soon maybe just once, just once, it wouldn’t be so bad. And, scratch, Fa sounded so sweet. And there was a shelf full of mirrors right next to me. So for the first time ever, and just that once, I cracked an eye open and looked in one of the mirrors at Fa. And then I clamped it shut tight again, because what I had seen wasn’t at all what I expected.

Instead keeping those big blue eyes closed in pure bliss, Fa had been looking right at me.

I reck I took it pretty well, considering my brain was flooded with the realization of how dumb I’d been.

I could have gotten up and joined Fa right then, kissed her long and hard enough to make her forget every last bit of the last few weeks, and then pushed her hand away and finally let my lips go where my thigh had been so happy that afternoon.

I could have done that, sure, and Fa would have been as happy as could be.

But I’m a good fixer. And a good fixer likes to plan.