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.

Auora Awakening - Part 3

The next morning I was out of bed lightquick and on my way to the horticult wing before Fa even woke up. The hort chief kept early hours – she said it was a habit that never left her, even though she hadn’t been planetside in years – and I recked I could catch her in their gym before mess.

Sure enough, she was there, yoging, so I tried to sit tight as quietly as I could until she was done. Truthing, I ended up doing some work on the weight bench that had nothing to do with my regimen; it was just to blow off nerves.

The hort chief stopped twisting and stretching and lay down on her back real quiet for a few minutes, so I powered down. I recked I needed a few minutes to think what to say, anyhow.  I liked the hort chief. Beauchene was her name, and she was a good chief by all accounts, with way more shout-tos than I’d ever have. She was somewhere above 50 cycles, with dark hair streaked with iron gray, and eyes that told you she’d seen enough that maybe it was best to just shut your face bay and listen.

Like I said, she had dozens of shout-tos, but she always gave me my due as a chief, even though she knew that as long as I stayed on the Aurora, my total was going to stay stuck at one. She was smart like that – she thought long-term, like me, and knew it wasn’t any scrap off her bundle to treat me like an equal, and would probably net her more than a few favors down the road. Which it sure as thumping did.

When she opened her eyes, I went over to give her a hand up from the mat – just as a bit of respect, see. We both knew she didn’t need one. 

“You’re up early, Chief Yu,” she said, grabbing a towel and focusing those laser eyes on me a little more sharply than I was easy with. I dove in with the story I’d specced out, explaining how Fa and I had had to troubleshoot the steam coils for so long the day before, and that I recked the low-shout horts needed a little more back and brain in it when it came to blowing out the lines at the end of the next run.

Chief Beauchene is big on prop discipline, so she agreed right away and asked me to lay out in a doc where the problems had been so she could make sure the blowout would be done right the next time. I recked a few horts would be wondering if their ears had been singed off not too long after mess.

“But that’s not something that would need to get you up at this hour,” Beauchene said, and her eyes hopnear burned a ventilation shaft straight through my head.

So as we walked back to the lockcubes I told her I recked I had a little problem what with rooming with a direct shout-to and all, and I wondered if we could work a trade, and maybe she could reassign one of the horticults to bunk with me.

Which wouldn’t have been such an odd request if I’d made it when we first launched, but we’d been out for weeks now. She knew hopwell that something had to be up. Beauchene kept looking at me with those eyes that could bore through ten-inch steel and kept asking short, completely official questions and I knew she’d seen me and Fa together dozens of times and somehow I ended up flopping down on the bench by her and the whole thing just unspooled. All of it. I couldn’t even look at Beauchene after I was finished. Just sat there with my hand over my eyes wishing I could blam into a million pieces just for the distraction.

She was quiet for a minute, and then all that came of her was a murmur.

“Hellscratch, Yu.”

I felt her sit down next to me and I knew she was staring at me, even though I still couldn’t look up. She finally continued in a tone that was angrier and gentler at the same time.

“This isn’t like you.”

I sank even lower. At least clutching my head with both hands gave them each something to do. Beauchene kept talking.

“You’re too good a fixer for this. You’re just treating the symptom… You’re putting a sound buffer over a knock instead of opening the panel to see what’s making it.”

I wasn’t sure why, but that got my spikes out a little. I recked it was maybe that she was complimenting and shanking my fixing skills at the same time. Or maybe it was that she was right – deep down I knew I was quicktaping instead of fixing.

On the other hand, Beauchene didn’t have to spend every night three feet away from an angel who was blissing out on multiple orgasms. She clearly didn’t understand that this was serious rumble. I looked up at her to tell her that we can’t all be horticults and nurture everything in a hot room, but when I saw her face, it was so full of sad at me that I stumbled and didn’t end up with near the effect I wanted.

Anyway, I worked my fix. Beauchene said she recked I could switch out and she’d put a hort in with Fa – a nice one, she said before I even asked – but that we were fixed to make planet the next day and the horts would be busier than an outpost gambling bot for the next few weeks. She recked she could ask a hort to move in once we blasted and they had a little more off time again.

So it was good as fixed, only I didn’t feel as flush about it as I should have. Torment or no, I knew I’d miss Fa, truthing.

And I still had to go and tell her.

Fa was in our cabin and suited up, but she hadn’t gone to mess. I recked she was waiting to see if I came back and wanted to go together, which made me feel even worse. Fa raised her eyebrows in question at me, wondering where I’d been so early. I might have been leaving, but I hadn’t gone full coward yet.  I recked it was only fair to tell Fa straight off instead of springing it on her at the last minute.

I’d told her I’d been to see the hort chief about the steam coils, and then, maybe not being totally clear about whose idea it was, I told Fa what the new bunking situation would be once we’d blasted planet.

Her eyes filled with tears, but she didn’t let them fall. I was proud of her for that. I found something else to look at so she could pull herself together and assigned Fa to calibrate the temperature control systems, which we both knew was hopeasy work, and told her I was skipping mess that morning. I recked Fa needed some time to herself, and I couldn’t find my appetite.

I assigned myself to reinforce the blast panels by the main engines. I needed something to slam.

I pushed hard through the morning, and then I skaffed a couple of gel packs instead of going up for lunch. OK, maybe a little cowardice had crept in there somewhere. But I recked it couldn’t hurt to put some clicks between me and Fa for a bit.

Which worked just great until my medchip alarm went off. Two days of working in heat and not enough stopping to guzzle. I should have known I’d get dinged for dehydration, but, like I said, I wasn’t planning ahead so great around Fa. According to regs, I had to drop work and head straight to the med center.

And, truthing, once I tried to stand up on the catwalk where I’d been working, I recked my chip hadn’t signaled any too soon. It must have had trouble calibrating with the med bay computer when I was that deep in the bowels of the ship.

I had a case of the spins, and wasn’t thinking as clearly as I should, Fa or no Fa. I half-fell down the ladder and then hit my beacon and had a scoot bot walk me in, just so I could lean on it. Jamila took one look at me and hopnear punched me in the face. Instead she shoved me into a bunk and jammed a drip into my arm, scolding me the whole time. She also gave me a bottle of electrolytes to sip. It tasted rancid, but you’d better credit I started drinking it as quick as I could stomach, what with Jamila about to redline her mad gauge and all.

The next thing the regs said Jamila had to do was, when I was ready for release, call a team member or my bunkmate to scort me back to my cabin. Big range of choices there. I flat-out begged her not to, and when I finally explained that Fa was upset because I’d told her I was switching out, Jamila looked like she would hit me again and then gave me that funny look from before.

Then she sat next to me on the bunk and gently pushed my head instead of cracking it.

“Scratch,” she said, real quiet, “I knew you had gears in your head, but I’ve never seen them go off on a tear like this before.”

I recked that didn’t require a response. Jamila took my hand by way of pretending to check my drip and said, even quieter, “You sure this is what you want?”

I told her it was the only thing that made sense, though I couldn’t quite look her in the eye when I did.

Jamila went off to ping Fa and I lay in my bunk, punishing myself by guzzing electrolytes and thinking about the fact that I couldn’t make tears at the moment. Not that I would have, just that I was thinking about it. But even if I could have, I recked I wouldn’t have.

I was 90% sure, anyway.

When Fa came in, it was clear she’d run from whenever she’d been when she’d gotten pinged. The look she gave me made my heart do a barrel roll. I was shamed on a couple of counts and turned my head away, but she charged over and pushed my bangs back and looked into my eyes.

“You OK, Chief?”

“Yeah, just stupid.”

Suddenly I was exhausted and just wanted to sleep, right there on the bunk. Maybe with Fa still sitting next to me. That was what my body wanted.

But Jamila wasn’t having it. She agreed the dehydration would make me want to sleep all right, but she recked I could do that in my own bunk and leave hers open for someone with real problems. I shot her a look, but she was most likely right. And besides, a ship doc can give a shout to anyone, even the Captain.

Fa had been on light duty and still looked like she had first thing that morning – perfect, if I’m truthing. But I was covered in grime. I’d stopped sweating at some point in the afternoon, but that sure as thumping hadn’t been the case that morning. I didn’t want to go anywhere near Fa. I looked like I’d been pulled backward through the main gears and probably smelled like dried sweat and greasecake.

But I’d like to see any six forward battle units stand up to the combined force of Jamila and Fa when they set their minds to something. My plan was that I’d walk on my own, next to Fa, and if I fell down she’d either wait it out or call a scoot bot. Or leave me there to crawl back. Hellscratch, I deserved it.

Their plan, as you’ve likely inkled, was my arm around Fa’s shoulders and hers around my waist, with me leaning on her for support. Fa was stronger than she looked, truthing, but I hated the thought of her being disgusted with how rank I must have been as much as a part of me loved us being pressed together like that.

But I was bone tired and not thinking my best. Now that the adrenaline had worn off, I was sinking fast. Eventually I just took the pleasure and necessity of leaning on her for what they were and half-sleepwalked my way back to the cabin with her. A dim little part of me tallied up the fact that Fa wasn’t chattering at me – not even trying – and that wasn’t normal. I didn’t know if I could stand it, truthing. So I talked.

“You can take this as disincentive training through negative instructor example,” I tried. Fa and I liked to make fun of the training manual lingo. Usually.

Fa gave one short laugh – more of a short exhale, really – and then stayed silent for the next few minutes.

Finally, as we got to our row, she spoke.

“That was really dumb, Chief,” she said softly, pulling me a little tighter to her.

“Affirmative,” I said, and drifted a little farther down into the sleepy feeling of my head being nuzzled against that flower-scented blonde hair.

Fa popped the door and I’d recked she’d dump me into my bunk, grime and all, and leave me to worry about wheedling an early set of fresh sheets out of the laundry crew later. Instead, I felt her propelling me into a turn as we cleared the door, and the next thing I knew I was being drenched in cool water. Fa had packed us both into the shower, fullsuits and all, and turned it on.

The jolt woke me up a little, and I felt the amazing sensation of laughing against her – me pressed into Fa, Fa pressed against the wall, and my forehead resting on the cool tile as she hugged me and we both laughed at the sensation of our boots sloshing with the water that trickled down through our suits.

Fa pushed my head back and I felt her slap a handful of shampoo into my hair and scrub it, moving my head around to get all the gunk out. I made a bleary attempt to look at her, and she said, “Cut that out. You’ll get it in your eyes.” So I closed them again and leaned back in. “I am not carrying you back to the med bay,” she teased as she knuckled a bit behind my year.

She popped the showerhead out to give me a rinse, then there was a little pause, and then I felt her gently tilt my head back again. Fa was carefully soaping my face and neck. “Eyes closed!” she scolded again, and I gave in. I couldn’t remember anyone ever taking care of me like that – not as an adult, anyway – and the feel of her gently smoothing her fingers over my skin made me go off plumb. My heart started pounding at the way she was touching me, but my brain just wanted to sink into it – to sink into her. To just let go trust her to take care of me and drift off to sleep.

Fa levered me back so I was leaning against the other wall and she had more freedom to move. She braced me with one arm and rinsed my face with the other, and then used her fingertips to smooth my hair out of my face.

My main seam was halfway down before I realized she was pulling off my fullsuit.

I lurched back so hard I cracked my head against the tile. When I stopped blinking, I looked down and saw that I had hold of both of Fa’s wrists and she was staring at me, eyes wide and as hurt as it’s possible for just one person to be.

I stared at her, mean, jumpy, and stupid. I know I had my mouth open, because the only thing that felt good about the situation was the water hitting my tongue.

“You were going to leave it on?” Fa asked, with less sarcasm than I deserved. “You’re a mess.”

“Sorry,” was all I could manage as I let go of her wrists. “I’m a little sparky.”

Well, once you’re crammed into a running shower with someone who’s seen you naked a dozen times, it does seem awfully tipnose to suddenly insist on privacy. And I’d already ruined the softness of Fa taking care of me. Ruined it hard. I couldn’t think of many things I hadn’t ruined lately. And now I’d just forced us to stand side by side and try to strip off and soap up like it was no big deal while we going out of our way not to look at each other.

Like I said, Fa wasn’t much the worse for her day’s work, so she gave herself a lightquick soap and rinse. And then finally she looked into my eyes again.

“You OK on your own?”

I nodded and she scooped up our boots and fullsuits, waving off my protest that I’d get them, and hopped out and left me to it. I scrubbed myself with a fury. I’d have beaten my head on the tiles if I hadn’t been afraid of landing myself back in the med bay.

When I finally got out, Fa had bribed someone to bring us trays from evening mess, complete with an extra water jug and some more of those hopfoul electrolytes from Jamila.

I thanked her too much and not enough, and she shrugged it off.

I drank and ate and drank some more while Fa studied a life support manual instead of chattering at me. I cleared the trays out and flagged a scootbot to take them back, then thanked Fa again and collapsed into my bunk, wishing I’d just stayed in the engine bay and shriveled into jerky.

Fa turned out the light, and for a minute or two, we were both quiet. And then she asked me.

“Don’t you like me, Bailey?

Not “Chief,” and not my last name, Yu.

Bailey. My first name.

It was on my ID patch and on my neck tag, but I didn’t think Fa had even noticed it. Almost no one called me Bailey, and Fa sure as thumping didn’t.

She wanted a plumb-straight answer from me, and I couldn’t give it.

I told her I liked her fine, which was way less than the truth, and said how we’d still work and go to mess and even rec together, but that it was just best that we split up for bunking according to regulations.

And then we both lay there thinking about the no fewer than thirteen different systems I’d already taught Fa to re-jigger so that they were more efficient but way off-regs. I’d given her bad scrap, and we both knew it.

Like most every night, I woke up later to the sound of Fa. Only this time she was sniffling, and her herky breathing was because she was trying to cry as quietly as possible.

Once on my first junk I spent three full shifts in a row belly-crawling through rat-infested air ducts to burn out a mold infestation.

I’d rather pull that duty all day every day for the rest of my life than hurt Fa like that again.

Aurora Awakening - Part 2

But finding a new cabin wasn’t as easy as I’d planned.

I went and talked to Jamila the ship doc first, since she and I had gotten to be good friends during the last run. She may be a med on duty, but she’ll tear your head off at spinhockey. I liked her fine and we understood each other, so it seemed like an easy jump that we’d make good cabinmates. Plus I recked she’d scan me when I explained that it just wasn’t ship-proper that I’d be bunking with my shout-to.

Instead, Jamila acted like I’d asked her to singe a couple of my toes off. She looked at me all strange, like her inner gyro was skewed, and asked if I wouldn’t rather think about it first. Who did she reck she was plugging into?

Of course I couldn’t tell her everything, but I made a hopgood argument as to why it was best, and she still wouldn’t pay it any scrap. She said she liked her bunkmate fine, but I could down some caff with her anytime I wanted to swap thoughts.

Thanks.

Plenty of people on the Aurora owed me favors, as you probably already inkled, but I couldn’t get anyone to pay up. My friends in Nav and on the swab crew were no jingle, and copypaste that for the galley, uniform, and basic maint crews. Guiterrez on the fire team recked I could switch into her tiny second-deck cabin if I hooked my cabin up to receive illegal scan feeds before I left and didn’t mind that her two bunkmates were on a love-hate cycle with alternate bouts of sex and fighting that could make the dead sit up and bang on the walls.

I said I’d get back to her. And I damn near did after that night’s performance from Fa.

Scratch, I still don’t know how she had the energy for it. We’d spent our whole shift working on the steam coils for the first hot growroom, since we were hopnear to making our first planet. To make sure the coils were clear and working, of course we had to turn them on, and natch there were a bunch of blockages that we had to find and clear. That was the horticults’ fault for not blowing and clearing them properly after the last run, but it was thumpsure our problem now.

Fa was down to just her tank and skivs within the first hour. I made it another two, but by that point there was no pretending I wasn’t melting in my fullsuit. And since Fa and I had seen each other naked or in skivs dozens of times by then, it was more awkward to make a point of not stripping off.

So I did. After all, I recked me in my skivs and tank was no big show, and Fa was going to stay like she was either way. All the same, I was off plumb, and Fa inkled it. Tension filled the room even faster than the steam did. I was trying hard not to look at Fa, which meant I wasn’t talking to her much, and that was making us both nervous.

Finally some poor third-rank horticult walked in on us climbing through the beams and pipes half-dressed, and actually gave a little shout of surprise before running back out. Fa and I hopnear fell off our ladders laughing, and after that it was easier.

Easier, but not easy. After we got the coils clear, we had to safecheck all the boil units under the floor panels. Once you know it, it’s a one-person job, so the crawlspaces were built with one person in mind. That’s efficient, like a light-crew ship should be, sure, but a real pain in the hams when you have to take someone down there and train her how to do it.

And this time that her was Fa. We spent three hours down there, sliding along with our spread-out fullsuits under our backs and working shoulder to shoulder, thigh to thigh. We were both shining with steam and sweat, and more than once, Fa had to crawl right over me so she could see the gauge I was trying to tell her about. She crawled across my chest just the once, and then after that I thumpsure found excuses to flip over so she slid across my back. Because a panting, sweaty Fa pressed up against my back was so easy to take.

Between the steam and the work and the scent of Fa, I was dizzy by the time we finally climbed back out and suited up to go to our cabin. And what with seeing those lean, perfect legs of hers all day and the raw mental effort of feeling her skin sliding against mine most of the afternoon and trying not to let it affect me, I was falling-down exhausted by the time we got in. Fa let me peel off and shower first. I was a mess of emotions, and my head was full enough of Fa that I was tempted to give myself a lightquick release in the shower, but then I recked even a few extra minutes between me and sleep was no scrap.

So I stumbled out and nodded to Fa as she brushed past me – naked, of course – and didn’t even bother to finish toweling off my hair before collapsing into my bunk.

I fell dead asleep for a bit, but I was bang flush awake when I heard Fa hit the sheets and then snap off the light. I reck my system was just tuned to her at that point, and my body calculated that if she came into the room, it must be important.

I listened for her to settle down and stop moving, but she never did. I heard the soft rustle of her hands slowly moving under the sheets. She was so close and I was so tuned in to her that I recked I knew what she was doing.

Fa and I slept parallel, our heads even with each other. So I knew that when the rustling of the sheets was lower down, she was tracing her fingers up and down her thighs. And when it went higher up, she was circling her pretty little breasts.

She stayed there a long time, making only the quietest sounds with her movements, but starting to breathe harder and make those tiny, strained noises in the back of her throat. I knew she was brushing her hands over her pink little nipples, and I recked every time she whimpered she was dragging her thumbs across them or giving herself a little pinch.

The more I tried not to picture what was going on, the more my head was full of her. I squeezed my eyes shut tight and tried not to think about how much I wanted to be the one getting her to make those little sighs.

Her skin seemed so delicate, and her breasts were the palest part of her of all. I thought about how my tanned hands would look against them, and whether the row of calluses I had along the bases of my fingers would feel too rough to her or make her shiver. Well, if she found my hands too rough, I could always trace my lips over her nipples instead…

That one made my neglected clit throb so deep that I reflexively hunched my knees up and pulled the covers hard around my shoulders. She paused for a moment when she heard that, then I reck she regrouped. I heard the rustle of a hand snaking downward, then a rhythmic sound that I was thumpsure was the motion of her wrist as her fingers circled her clit.

Hellscratch. I began to think out how upset she’d be if I jumped out of bed and just tilted lightquick for the shower. There was no way I could get there without a convo I absolutely did not want to have, so I stayed where I was, rigid as one of our central loadbeams.

Fa couldn’t get where she needed to be either. As tormented as I was, I felt sorry for the poor squib. I heard her working faster, moaning in whimpering in what was sounding more like frustration than pleasure. Her whole body was moving by then, and she’d forgotten entirely about trying not to make noise.

I heard her throw off her sheets, and then her fast, jerky movements as she whipped off her skivs. Fa was three feet away from me, naked and fit near to blam with wanting to come. Suddenly the steam coils seemed refreshing and comfortable.

And I recked I understood what she needed, too. Sometimes the problem with using your hand is that you can’t surprise yourself. Most of the time that’s no scrap, but sometimes you just need the unpredictability of another person to make it happen. A sudden change in rhythm or the flick of a tongue you didn’t expect. Or sometimes you just need someone else to take you to a place you didn’t know you wanted to go.

I recked Fa would stop and yank the covers back over her if she heard me stand up, which was too bad for more reasons than I could count. A little patch of my brain was yelling that if I just went to her, she’d let me take over and give her that release.

I’d spent close to a decade fine-tuning delicate instruments and trying to find the tiniest fraction of sensitivity on any gauge I came across. I knew I could touch Fa the way she needed if only she’d give me the chance. I could tease her pretty little bubs until her head was spinning, then push her thighs apart and let my lips and tongue do what her hands couldn’t seem to.

I could still hear the faint noise of Fa working her clit and the sound of her writhing on her bunk. I recked she was pushing her hips right off the sleep pad.

I pressed my thighs together as I wondered how hot and tight she’d be when I pushed my fingers inside her and thought about the noises she’d make as I lashed my tongue across her clit to finally push her over the edge. 

And for the first time, my clit throbbed hard enough that a tiny noise of frustration welled up in my throat.

I was terrified she’d heard it, but I recked she didn’t have time to think about it because a second later Fa finally blammed. She let out one sharp cry and then rolled over and buried her face in her pillow to muffle the noise as she came. Four quick yells into the pillow, and then one long shivery release. 

Most beautiful sounds I'd ever heard.

Fa panted a few times as she recovered, then I heard her pull the covers up and sigh as her breathing deepened and she fell asleep.

Me, though? I was awake for hours, trying to cool down and wondering what in hellscratch  to do.

Aurora Awakening - Part One

You have to plan ahead when you’re a fixer on a deep-space rig.

Thinking on your feet will save your hams, sure – if there’s a hull breach, you’d better be scrambling lightquick and getting real creative with that weldgun – but that’s for the crazy stuff that happens three or four times in your career, tops. It’s just the sauce.

The real protein of the job, sure as thumping, is thinking long and hard about every possible variable for years ahead to make sure the crazy doesn’t happen in the first place. Because when you’re two years deep, there’s no going back for that extra splitseal you didn’t think you’d need.

That’s why I love my job. I spend plenty of my time climbing around the engines and grids, but it’s not like some cargositter job where you get back from the deep and find out your brain’s gone to sludge. I’ve met plenty of them when I’m on stationleave. Years of haul-and-stack leaves those cargositters with muscles that will make your tongue pop its airlock, but unless they thought ahead to bring a full datastack of books and lectures, all they can talk about is their biggest poker wins and whatever kickfights they could pick up on the scans.

Cargositter girls are thumpsure fun and ready for a scrumble – Who isn’t when they’re on station leave? – but I need a little something more to get the synapses firing when it comes to a relationship, even if it’s just a fling.

That’s just as well, though. You get attached to someone while you’re on station leave, you’ve got yearcycles, easy, before you see her again. And thanks to the deep-space travel, odds are if and when you finally manage to meet up again, you won’t be compatible ages anymore.

That wasn’t any scrap to me at this point last cycle, though. I’d been planned out since I was 20 cycles old, and not one bit of it had anything to do with settling down any time soon. The mistake most people make with the deep-space runs, see, is they take time off after every run and break for a three or a sixmonth or even a full cycle. Well, hellscratch, you do that and you lose a third of the bundle you could have had right there. The Company isn’t merciful, and it sure as thumping isn’t dumb.

You read the bennie charts carefully – which I did, two whole cycles before I even signed on for my first junk – and you realize your bundle stacks every time they can slot you into a new run on the same ship, nice and tidy. And you take a hit every time you decide to blow ship just so you can spend some time wiggling your toes through stationsand. Re-training is expensive, and the logistics of putting you to a new run without having to deadhead you for a cycle just to get you to a ship that actually needs someone with your skills are a nightmare.

On the other hand, the Company also doesn’t expect anyone to do a ten-cycle brick without a planet break either. Which means you can surprise ‘em and pick up bennies they almost never expect anyone to collect. If you really commit to a life of deep-space, no breaks and no offship retraining for a new career vector, you can stack and stack your bundle like you wouldn’t believe, not to mention bonuses for extra-long hauls and hazard runs.

With the exception of a little station time while the ship’s in dry dock for maintenance, I’d been pulling steady in deep-space since I got my degree at 21, and I recked I’d be able to retire at 40, still plenty young enough to find a one-and-only to spend the rest of my life with, and with enough of a bundle to buy a patch on a resort planet and spend my time reading, slathering myself in nonscorch to soak up the rays, and maybe repairing hoversplashes for tourists if I needed to scrape the rust off the gray cells.

See? That’s why I’m a damn good fixer. I think ahead.

Sure, I got a little restless between stationdocks sometimes. A long run with no one to play with can get a little bleak, but, hellscratch, that’s what hands and toys are made for. And, like I said, once you do get back to a station, there are always plenty of girls ready to shake off the hoarfrost. Sometimes even the oppsex girls are ready for a scrumble.

So when I signed back on after dry dock right around this time last cycle, I was feeling pretty well soldered. I was signing back on to the Aurora, of course, and wouldn’t have had it any other way.

I’d been part of her crew for seven years, since I was 23, which meant another bonus got slapped onto my bundle. But to be honest, other than a warm feeling when I looked at my credit balance, I almost didn’t pay that any scrap.

The difference between working deep-space and short-haul or shuttle stuff, see, is that your ship isn’t just some getaround, it’s home. And the Aurora was the best I could imagine. She was an older rig, but I didn’t give two flips – well made is well made, and we’d saved each other’s hams plenty of times, that ship and I. We understood each other.

Or at least I understood her. As chief fixer, I’d seen every last bolt and panel on my baby more times than I can count. I recked there were parts of her that only I knew about, and I sure as thumping knew how to make her purr. I’d thought more than once that it sure would be nice if the old girl could return the favor, but, hellscratch, she kept me breathing and was keeping me very well jobbed. I recked that was plenty when it all shook out.

Thing was, though, with the new sign-on, I had a new fixer to train. Tum had signed off when we made station. He hadn’t been the best fixer I’d ever had under my shout – he had three drops too much lazy in him to ever be a really great fixer – but he knew fixing and he knew the Aurora and mostly we got along fine.

The Aurora has a small crew for a deep-space ship. We do botany runs, hitting moistworlds to bring back samples for station farms and leisure enviros. Which means a lot of the space that would normally go to crew is for planters and growrooms, not to mention the seed vaults.

So when it comes to the fix crew, it’s just me and my shout-to. That’s another drop to my bundle right there, see? No redundancies mean extra scrambling in a tough spot, so that’s a hazard bump right there. Plus it meant I made fix chief after just two years of humping under someone else’s shout.

Like I said, I think ahead about things.

Except for one.

Normally, of course, the Company won’t assign crewmembers on the same team as cabinmates – you’d get sick to the point turning inside out, having to look at each other’s faces all shift and all your off-times too – and they sure as thumping won’t room you with your direct shout-to. That’s just asking for a legal intervent and having to send someone home in a stasis pod, if not the brig.

Thing was, though, those room assignments get made somewhere in an admin center on a home station somewhere, and out there in the deep, well, sometimes you have to make do.

Officially, if you read the datastack, I was bunking with Jerly the Nav. But he and Ty from the galley had fallen crazy in love yearcycles ago, so it just made sense to switch out on the quiet and let them bunk together. I’d been cabined up with a real nice botanist for a couple of runs, but she’d finally gotten her fiancé transferred on board after two years of dry, and there was no way in scratch they weren’t going to bunk up after that. In fact, they were officially bunked, which set off a chain of trying to untangle who really belonged where and who was switching and who wasn’t and long story short, I ended up with my own shout-to filling the vacant bunk in my cabin. We recked it would just be a temporary patch and we’d get it sorted out next run.

Which wouldn’t have been so bad if she’d just been a normal fixer, and used to deep-space runs.

Or a normal anything, really.

Fa was stationborn, on her first deep-space run. No shame in that, no more than in me being planetborn. Nor was there anything wrong with the fact that she was just starting out as a fixer at 25. In fact, I was impressed, in a way. She’d bucked her rich stationborn parents and their Company office plans for her, and instead she’d gone out and gotten her fixing degree so she could see a little piece of the universe. Absolutely no finish on her, not as a fixer, and not as a crew, but she was definitely sharp and eager to learn.

And she was willing to put in a shift full of work that probably made Tum’s back hurt from right across the sector.

None of that was wrong either.

What was wrong with Fa was that she was cute. Extracute, if I’m truthing. Big blue eyes – I couldn’t remember if I’d seen real blue eyes in person before, and sure as thumping none like hers – and blonde hair in a short pix cut that left just enough to keep me thinking about running my fingers through it. My hair is short too – Every fixer has heard that old station myth about the fixer who gets pulled into the slipgears by his ponytail – but it’s only cropped short to the ear and I keep my bangs a little longer. They flop into my face sometimes, and I tend to push my fingers through them while I’m reading or puzzling out a problem. Which I didn’t know until Fa leaned in one evening and pushed her fingers through them for me, her smiling face right up close to mine.

She laughed at my reaction, which I rec was pretty surprised. And that was another problem with Fa – she didn’t know how to act like a regular shout-to. She was never technically insubordinate, of course. She was too bright for that, and she understood that deep-space fixing is serious rumble. So she followed my shouts and paid attention when I had to throw some knowledge to her – it was just the way she sort of twinkled around when she did it.

Fa laughed all the time, giggled even, and looked me in the eye. I mean, sure, your shout-to is going to look you in the eye eventually when you’re running deep-space. You spend years together, after all, and you either relax around each other a little bit or you should just go ahead and blow your head out the airlock. But it was the way she looked at me – always with a little laugh behind it. Not mocking, not really, but something else that at the time I just couldn’t figure out. Like no matter what the shout was, she was happy to be playing some kind of game underneath.

And sometimes she’d wink at me before going off to obey a shout. Made my insides flip over, truth, and that made me annoyed because two-person team or not, there’s no way a chief should react that way. And it pinged my heart a bit, if I’m truthing. I might have been on ship for close to a decade, but I still knew that winks meant flirting, and there’s no way Fa really meant that toward me.

I wasn’t any mouthfish or anything. I knew I looked well enough to always find playmates when I was on station leave, and, hellscratch, I’d even managed to bed a glowpretty microbiologist for one memorable run. I had my natural brown hair and eyes, which made people think I was brave and unusual instead of pure lazy about getting colors, and to be honest, I liked them fine. My skin was tanned from working in the grow rooms with the lights on so often, and I made ripsure to keep it as soft and smooth as I could.

And I worked out, of course. Long periods of antigrav will make your heart go bad, so you pretty much have to to a certain extent, but my station leaves were short enough that I didn’t have much time for hunting up friends. Best to have arms and abs that could do half the work for me. And, like I said, I think ahead. If I was going to make my body (and the rest of me) wait another decade to settle down, I sure as thumping had better keep it shipshape so there was no catching up to do when the time came.

Normally I didn’t worry about my looks for a nano, but something about Fa made me think she couldn’t possibly like them. Those eyes, of course, which put any sliderjob I’d ever seen to shame. And something about how pale and creamy her skin was – stationborn and station raised, no doubt. She scratch-near glowed.

And where I was muscled, she was soft. Don’t get me wrong, she could scramble in the grid right along with me, she just wasn’t hard like I was. She was built small all over, even her sweet little breasts which just barely added a curve to her fullsuit. Not that I was looking.

She was so different and so delicate that I recked I’d break her if I wasn’t careful, no matter how hard she worked to prove to me that she was tough. That, and the shared room, and the worry that her pretty little face would twist up in disgust if I so much as touched her shoulder wrong, made me extra light around her in the off shift. I felt like any minute the the collision klaxons would go off and then the whole ship would know.

Not the image a good fixer chief needs, you scan me? Even on a botany rig.

Fa being Fa, though, my distance in the off shifts only made her try to pull closer. Literally, often as not. The hugging drove me crazy. She loved to pounce up on me from behind and press real close, resting her cheek against my shoulder as her arms slid around my waist. Sometimes she did it when she was right out of the shower, just in her skivs or even less, and all I could think about was those sweet little bubs and how little cloth there was between me and them.

She loved me, sure as thumping, but that’ll happen with your first fix chief – happens to almost everyone, in fact. The practical part of fixing is so much all at once and you’re out there in the deep and you realize that your hams really on the line, not to mention the hams of everyone else on the crew. Of course you cling to your fix chief like a stationdock when you’re out there, and you learn to love them like anyone who teaches, punishes, and protects you.

But what Fa had was teacher love, not love love, and I recked I’d leave a sidepanel unhitched before I’d be so dumb as to forget the difference.

That’s why when Fa hugged me front-on I didn’t do a thing. It happened a few times, when I’d saved her hams from getting blasted by a faulty security trap that was ready to blam, or when I’d stayed long past shift to make sure she really got the fine points of handling the Aurora’s oxygen sensors. Once when I passed her name up for a prop from Captain Gully – which she totally deserved, by the way. I’d shifted in four hours early and stayed long, see, to purge and re-seal the fuel tanks one by one, and when Fa found carbon scoring on an engine she knew I was busy and then would be dead beat, so she scraped and scratch-near rebuilt the thing by herself instead of calling me in. No way in hellscratch that’s a one person job, and she stayed three hours past shift to do it. She only woke me up when she was done to check her work.

I was touched, truthing. I was the chief, but here she was taking care of me. I thanked her, sure, and then quietly put her in for the prop when she went off to shower. Gully’s real good about stuff like that, especially for the new crew, or maybe he was bored that day. But the notifier that she was getting a bonus and a star on her record came back down while she was still putting her bed skivs on. (Did I mention she slept in only skivs? Well, that’s normal, I reck, but as far as I was concerned, it was pure torture.)

When the notifier chimed in, she jumped up and hugged me full-on, even zapping a kiss onto my cheek. Like I said, I didn’t do a damn thing. Didn’t let myself smell her hair, and only barely put my arms up, and it took just about every thing I had. I looked at the ceiling and tried not to think about the fact that her bubs were pressing right up against mine while she held on for a bit, then I gave her a quick thump on the back and told her she deserved it, and that I was hop grateful that she was so thoughtful.

She pulled back and looked at me for a minute, almost worried, which I couldn’t figure out, since I was thanking her and all, but soon enough that smile crept back in and she kissed me on the cheek and then scrambled into her bunk.

Not that that meant my torture was over. Fa was new to deep-space, see, and she didn’t know all the little things about ship life.

Like how when you spend every night with a cabinmate, you have to learn to come hard, fast, and above all, quietly. I’d been making do while Fa was in the shower, or in absolute silence when I was thumpsure that she was asleep. Still, I was scratch close to losing my mind. Our shifts were the exact same while I was training her, and I was the person she knew best, so she was point-likely to tag along with me to the rec area and the mess hall too. I recked my toys were going to freeze up from lack of use.

But Fa, see, if she was going to pick up that little bit of ship culture, she’d have to do it from me. And she hadn’t yet. I recked she thought I was just made of stone instead of discretion.

But Fa sure wasn’t.

She’d wait till the light was out and my breathing got regular, sure, but for such a sharp fixer, she wasn’t much good at telling when I was really asleep. And she sure as thumping wasn’t good at keeping quiet. We slept close enough that I could hear the motion of her wrist under the covers if she went hard enough – I sure as scratch could hear those sweet little sighs and moans she made when she got closer.

And when she came, she damn near couldn’t stay quiet at all. She made one perfect vowel, “Ooh, ooh, oooooooooooooh,” and she sounded like she was in a bath of pure joy and pleasure.

It drove me sparky. She sounded so good I could barely stand it, and if I made a mistake and wondered what that pretty little face looked like when she was in full bliss, I had to just write off the next few hours to using every bit of will I had to keep from following her example.

Not long after that last time she’d hugged me and then followed it up by setting my brain on fire with three sweet, cooing orgasms in a row, I recked that I’d have to switch cabins before the run was up, no matter how much it might hurt her feelings. I couldn’t stand the thought of doing that, truthing, but, hellscratch, it would be better for both of us. And I had a ship to maintain.

A Request

Hello, lovelies!

Thanks so much to everyone who stopped by to read "The Art of Mapmaking." The response has been wonderful and heartening. Thanks especially to everyone who was kind enough to leave a comment. (And yes, Karen, my commenting angel, I am looking at you.)

I just made "Mapmaking" available on Kindle. If you enjoyed reading it here, I'd be incredibly grateful if you would be willing to drop by the Amazon site and leave a review.

In case you're concerned, I'm experimenting with Kindle, but I fully intend to keep posting filthy little stories here free of charge.

And, yes, I'm working on a new one right now.

Thanks again, and see you soon.

Thalia