Slowly, my consciousness started to return, bringing with it a splitting headache. I didn’t even want to open my eyes, afraid that the light would make things worse. When I tried to swallow, my mouth was completely parched with a vile taste lingering in it.

With a little more of my mental faculties awoken, I realised that something was missing, something I normally had around me at almost all times, my ship-suit, or really, any piece of clothing. There was a strange feeling of warmth pressing against my back and somehow, the pillow I was half lying on, a feeling my senses slowly resolved as the feeling of naked skin pressing against my own skin.

A moment of panic manifested, as I tried to figure out just where, when or with whom I was and the knowledge that I would have to open my eyes to find out just what had happened because my memories seemed to be absent, the cowards had to have abandoned me for some reason.

Cracking a single eye open let some dim light filter into my brain, not that it illuminated a lot, but after a few blinks, the blurry image in front of me turned clear, even if it only caused things to get unclear for me. An expanse of lightly tanned flesh was stretching in front of my face, part of it an arm that I was using as pillow with the rest of it wrapped around me. In addition, there was a naked breast and looking at it brought a flash of memory with it, a memory of me, gently nibbling at those magnificent breasts.

Beyond the torso, I saw a familiar bulkhead, making me reasonably certain that I was on the Tyton. Either that, or it looked exactly like Airah’s cabin. That thought brought all mental activities to a panicked, screeching halt as my head slowly shifted upwards, to ascertain who I was using as a pillow.

Sure enough, the familiar looking chest was attached to a graceful neck leading up to a beautiful face, with a serene smile on it and a corona of golden hair curled around it. It was Airah, alright, naked as the day she had been born. Her face brought with it another snippet of memory, this one of her, eyes blazing with lust and my hand wrapped in her hair, pulling her towards me. My eyes flickered to her lips and the memory of their sweet taste bloomed in my mind.

Part of me wanted nothing better than to flee, to run as fast and far as possible but the realistic part of me doubted that I’d get further than a few steps in my current state so I let my eyes fall closed again, trying to scare up the rest of the memories if the last evening.

I remembered that we’d been to the office, getting a shipment of information and some strange crate for our next stop, the Nebula, whatever that meant. I realised, if I truly wanted to be an equal partner, I’d need some more information and contacts.

After the office, Airah had suggested that I needed to celebrate all the birthdays my new identity had missed and promptly decided that, now that we were out of the Federation, we didn’t need to confirm to Federation Standard time and longer and thus, it was perfectly fine to use the time-zone of some town on some planet she had looked up on her tablet, a location where it just happens to be five o’clock, at least that’s what she said. A little too amused to protest, I had gone along with it and she had dragged me to an establishment that seemed to cater to a particular type of spacer, the type that had been cooped up in a metal box that kept the nice, breathable atmosphere contained within, while outside was nothing but the cold vacuum of space. A type of metal box where you had to be prepared that, at any time, something could go wrong and would require your full mental faculties to deal with it, or face a loss of that nice, breathable and warm atmosphere that humans were so attached to. It was an environment where relaxation was something never fully achievable.

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The club was for those people, a space where they could cut loose, drink far too much, dance like nobody was watching to music that would constitute a weapon of mass-destruction on most civilised planets, partially due to the music itself, partially due to the volume and simply enjoy themselves without fearing that the next thing they heard was the alarm for a breach or some other emergency.

My memories of the club were a little blurry, I remembered Airah buying me a round, maybe two, or they might have blurred together, I was quite sure I had danced with Airah and a few other people but other than that, nothing. At least nothing that would explain why I had some fragmented memories of a different type of dance, performed with Airah right in this very bunk. Or why I was naked and using an equally naked Airah as pillow.

A soft purr, coming from somewhere very close to my ears, pulled my mind back into reality, just in time to feel the warmth on my back shift and a warm hand caress my backside. The touch was enough to break through what little composure I had and firmly trigger my fight or flight-reflex into a flight-position. I was a pilot, so flying was always the preferred option.

I somehow managed to get out of Airah’s grasp without waking her, mostly thanks to the fact that we only had six percent of our normal weight, allowing me to gracefully fall out of bed, without impacting the floor too hard and stumble to my feet, with no objective but to get away.

Luckily, my cabin was just across the passageway, and I got there without walking into too many bulkheads. I was able to grab a fresh ship-suit before staggering into the head, hoping that a full-power shower would somehow change the space-time continuum and send me back in time, so I could either avoid what had happened or at least be fully cognisant of it.

The shower helped, or maybe it was just the time I spent standing in the sonics, letting the warm air caress my body, my head leaning against the stall, trying not to think too much. It was a pointless attempt, whenever I managed to get my head clear, a new memory of the last evening and night would flash into my mind, some images, like the view of Airah, from a position with her legs wrapped around my neck, others tastes, sounds or feelings. For a moment, I considered to set the air-jets, responsible for getting rid of the detritus loosened by the sonics, to some sort of arctic blast-setting in an attempt to drive those memories away but somehow, I wanted to keep them. What little I remembered had been glorious.

Finally, when I was reasonably sure that I would be able to walk without looking like the victim of some horrible, biological tragedy, I carefully stepped out of the shower and pulled on the fresh ship-suit. Being dressed helped my mental state a great deal, being naked aboard a ship felt wrong to me, a mental state carefully conditioned by the Academy.

My steps now somewhat more secure and determined, I went into the galley and considered what to do. My stomach seemed to be on some weird sort of strike, demanding food but giving me the impression that it was merely an attempt to find something to throw back up in protest. Instead, I made a large mug of the delicious tea, letting the vapours of the tea drift into my nose, while I sat there, focusing on their smell. It helped center my mind on something else, not the fragmented memories of last or, maybe even worse, the future.

Because that was a massive questionmark right now, one that was only worse due to my lack of information on the past, just how had Airah and I ended up in her bunk?

Would she remember what had happened? Would she hate me, if she did? I simply had no idea, what if I had pushed her into it, while we had both been drunk?

Did I want her to remember what had happened, maybe hope for an encore with me fully sober? If she didn’t remember, should I tell her, should I mention it at all? I remembered her telling another female recruit, back at the Academy, that she was not interested in females that way.

Taking a slow sip from the tea, I tried to plot a course out of my current situation, one that wouldn’t land me in a black hole or blow up the ship, but without knowing where I started, I couldn’t really start to calculate. Another sip made me realise that I’d have to see what the situation was first and that meant waiting for Airah to wake up and see what she would say. Or if she had anything to say at all, maybe she’d been as drunk as I had been and any stray memories would be relegated to a particular type of dream. I certainly had enough of those, starring her, but maybe that was just me.