“Hi Katie!” I push through the door and snag her before resting my feet against something solid and pull her into a kiss. Moments later she pushes away.
“I’m working Penny. So don’t get too carried away.”
I pull her into a big hug and push to separate us to a respectable distance. “Sorry hon, I’m just really excited to see you! I thought you were in the HAB?”
She looks down and the makes eye contact with me, “I, uh volunteered to staff this supply station while my department gets settled in the HAB and their quarters.”
Universe, thank you. “That’s very sweet of you hon, the crew is lucky to have such a considerate supply clerk. BUT! Hey, I uh, found out that I have two days off before I get on a devil of a schedule, so do you happen to have any time off tomorrow or the next day?”
“Yeah, I have the second day free to get my stuff and my office in order before the big pre-deployment inventory. Which will take us . . two weeks? I think.”
“Would, you want to, uh, spend some of your off day with me? Maybe share a meal and tangle up and watch a movie together?” Why am I so nervous?
“And then bend me over a console in engineering?”
404, brain not found. Rebooting. “Uhh, I mean, that was supposed to be a long-term goal? But what do you want hon?”
“Pen pen, I want your whole day. I want to wake up and do breakfast and kick your feet while you rant about some travesty of academia. I want to tangle up while we read and flirt while we eat lunch. And I want you to show me your nerdy invention and hear you explain it to me while you fuck me against it. I want you to think about that moment, with your hand inside me, until you can’t think about your invention without thinking of me. And then, I want you to hold me in the absolute silence of space until I can hear your soul.”
Okay, fuck me that was a lot. Hot as fuck, but a lot.
“Uh, I . . . Uh, . . . yes please?!” I exhale a heavy breath of relief. “Can we maybe include you talking about yourself until your smell saturates my hair?”
Katie finally looks up at me again, like she sees me as her partner for the first time in months. “Yes please?” and her lip starts quivering and I can’t.
I shut the door, throw the lock and hug her and my delicate Countess digs her fingers into my sides and buries her face in my neck. “You know, I was never into blood play before I met you. And now, I kind of crave it Penny. Can I?”
“I’m sorry, and yes, of course you can, Katie. I’m yours.” She nods and nuzzles, and stabs me with her sexy teeth. My brain blanks for a second and my abdomen pulses. Fuck, Katie, “I love you.”
“I believe you, love.” She keeps licking my neck and grabbing my hair. She’s teasing me with those copper curls and fuck if I care. Her tongue on my neck and my hand in her hair is all I need in this life.
I polite nock sounds. Katie pulls back with a smile and licks my nose while shifting my uniform to cover my wounds. “Full day, scandalized console. You owe me Snuggle Bitch.”
I nod vigorously. She shakes her head and hands me a canvas bag stamped with “ENGINEERING” with an elastic band around it. I unlock and open the door and see a cute second class with a mousey look trying to nock again.
“Sorry . . . Campbell. Engineering being bullies again. Supply lady is available to assist!” I turn to wink at Katie, “Bye LS1.”
I hook the satchel through a loop on my belt and drift through the halls and ladders back to the Goat Locker. To find Petra and Ivanka topless with their hands down each other’s pants.
“Really, ladies? I was gone for less than half an hour.”
Seeing it’s only me, they keep fucking each other. Great. This is what I have to look forward to. While they continue to breath heavy and make moaning and squelching noises, I re-program their data pads to make goat noises when their physical data is similar to now. Randy ass Russians. It is pretty hot though, so I need to not be here anymore. I can never unsee that, assholes, and they just kept on going when I closed the door! Be honest with yourself, that was a recruitment drive if I ever saw one. ‘Join us Penny. We’re so hot, and you’re wearing too many clothes. We both have an extra hand for you, Play with us!’
Universe damned Russian Succubae.
Five minutes later I hear loud goat noises, some stumbling and swearing and undignified crashing. I wonder if they tried to de-link the console before breaking the tablets I placed around the room. Their tablets. Mine is in my hand. The goats be bleating! My chuckle turns into a cackle while I review the false gravity data on humans.
“YOU!” Ivanka comes out with murder on her mind.
“I asked you stop with the advances. Learn some respect Senior Goat.”
Petra loses her shit and cracks up laughing from the floor in our bunk room.
“You can’t expect that I will never have sex in our room.”
“I mean, I could ask that you get creative, but I get it. But you knew I would be back right after my supply run and planned for me to walk in on you. I told you I wasn’t interested Chief, and if you insist on doing this, I’ll move out and find somewhere else to be. I’ll let you walk that wherever you want, but come up with a warning so I don’t have to see that again.”
“Mercer,” Petra chimes in, “She is not an enemy you make.”
“Volkov, I’m just asking for professional courtesy. If courtesy is an enemy-making moment, no one aboard this ship will survive our quarrel. Advise her to try another tack, will you? “
“You make it difficult, Mercer. She is not used to being denied, and you have done nothing but that.”
“I’ve cooperated with her at every turn, just not sexually. Is conquest her only metric?”
Silence resounds and Petra confirms the problem.
“Well, that’s a shame. I like you Chief Volkov, but if I need to keep this professional.”
She nods. Grabs my face, pecks me on the lips and tweaks my nose. “Maybe you understand that some can have friends while collecting assets, Yeah?”
This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.
“Da, Petra.” I give her a peck back. “[I could consider you a friend.]”
“You stop. Ivanka is jealous already. I come to you in Propulsion some time yeah?”
I nod at her dismissal. She’ll find me on watch when her reactor business might overlap with my propulsion business. It makes me worried for what Ivanka might do. She seems awfully focused on me lately. Petra seems to be permissive and understands the woman, so . . . who knows, I have so little relationship experience that I know that Petra and Ivanka have something that is way more complicated than my whole life experience.
On a list of things I don’t need right now, this is not one of them. I have a sinking feeling this is not the end of any of this and I would be better off transferring to normal crew quarters. Day one trauma. Typical Mercer Magnet crap. I can’t believe my life.
My date with K-bear is everything I had wanted for us. We spend a whole day in HAB, we cuddled and worked while tangled, and cuddle some more. She then insisted, yes she did, my demanding Countess, that I make her sweaty on my equipment. Those dials have seen some things, my boobs and blood included, on possibly the most erotic experience of my life. I made love to my Irish vampire while I talked tech to her, slowly stimulating her amongst my machines. It was Universe damned glorious. It feels a little hipocrytical after yelling at Ivanka, but I made the effort to hide, damnit
“Katie, I know this might not be the most ideal place for you, but surrounded by my machines, and feeling loved by your blood kisses, I . . ., I want to be more when we get back to Earth, Katie.”
“What?! Penny, how can you . . . you want to . . . Huh? Like I want to climb inside you but I also want to smack you? PENNY!”
“My vampire goddess, I feel so complete with you, I just.” The tears! Oh god. Universe, give me the strength! “Please, Katie, be my . . .”
Her massive spindly mitt covers my face. “No Penny. Don’t. I really want to. IF you ask me I will throw caution to the wind and love you open and freely. But is that’s what’s best for us Mercer?” and I made my favorite person cry. Aww, shit why?! Why does she want to say no, but also say yes?!
“I don’t know what’s best, but I want you to know how I feel so you don’t just throw us away!”
/I don’t know how to say this, so I won’t. I love you Pen Pen, but if you ask me to spend the rest of my life with you, right now, I feel as thought it will ruin the both of us. I love you so much, but this, this right now would ruin me for anything else. I don’t know how to explain that I love you to the detriment of my existence, but I do./
/Fuck, Katie, I don’t know what to do, I want to be with you, always, and. . . and this is so much. But you are saying it’s too much now? I don’t know what to do, or even how to cry for this./
/I, we. We’re going to be separated frequently for HAB rotations, and maybe we should focus on the future before committing all of it?/
It feels like she stomped on my boobs and then kicked me in the teeth. I take a second to make sure I’m fully clothed and then kick off toward engineering aft.
/Okay baby. I’ll focus on work again, instead of . . . you know, fuck honey. I, I got so wrapped up and I didn’t mean to scare you. I just , no. no. no. I got caught up. Sorry Katie. I’ll, see you in a couple of months when I have time to sleep./
/MONTHS!? Penny wai . . ./ communication cut off. I consider briefly going back to my bunk, but I don’t feel safe there anymore. After wandering engineering, making it look like I’m working and giving Katie enough time to clear out, I settle back in next to the console where Katie and I broke a dial like a bunch of degens. I cry into nothing. I resolve to get blankets and a console setup here, but right now, I’m afraid and alone for the first time I more than a year, and I feel wholly and completely betrayed.
The next two weeks of qualifications I have exacting standards and exactly no patience for anyone including my supervisors. I embody malicious compliance and have no time for lunch with manipulating scabs.
“Penny, you have to understand. You are out of regulations and Ivanka needs to”
“No, Petra, Senior Baiul needed to fucking let me live. But she wanted to start shit, and then throw her authority around. I’m not hitting my grav requirements this month because she is creating a toxic environment and she can fucking deal.”
“You’re not going to win this Penny”
“You’re right Petra. No one wins. All of us loose. My health declines, two officers have to deal with my shit because Baiul is stubborn. Nobody wins Petra. SO I sleep in engineering aft where no one is willing to find me and I log my interactions for those that do.
Three weeks later, all of my kids have passed their quals and I’ve been sleeping behind my gear with a bunch of blankets I’ve smuggled out of the Goat Locker. I re-install the goat sex alarm every time I head that way.
By the time XO Zhao calls me to her office, I look like a stained sheet caught in a propellor. The engineering chief and reactor chief are also present in the room. I am last to arrive. We get yelled at for a solid five minutes. Baiul paints a stark and irresponsible account on my part not getting any sleep despite recommendations and Petra Volkov stays silent.
“Mercer. I am ordering you to provide an account. Start. Talking.”
I tap my interface and ask to link with her directly. I send her my files as I speak.
“Senior Baiul established a report early in Genesis training, but it seems that she took offense that I was committed to someone not her? My girlfriend LS1 O’Connell is very pretty and I am devoted to her and I believe that Senior Baiul took offense that my devotion was not to her alone.” I further explain her sexual relations while I was in quarters and provide logs to back them up. Commander Zhao, though she does not like me, does not seem impressed with the actions of my saboteur.
The impromptu hearing doesn’t last long. Zhao doesn’t side with any party but continues to advocate our separation. She does order me to spend at least ten hours a week under gravity, going no longer than two days without being under gravity. I get why she’s doing it, and she’s not dumb so she knows I’m likely to get harassed, but what other options does she have? Send me back and forth from the HAB everyday? As efficient as our airlock system is, it would still be a waste of air and time.
So, I resolve to eat lunch and dinner in the Chief’s lounge and make myself scarce after that. I wasn’t friends with any of the other Chiefs in the mess, so the rest of them treating me as an odd decoration is par for the course. Ivanka reins in her temper when other chiefs are around, but she’s taken to assigning me menial tasks that could definitely be handled by other MMs that have less to do. Petra, luckily, only assigns me tasks that she needs me specifically to handle.
“MM1, a word” a tall, masculine voice says while I tinker with a nozzle design mockup I printed yesterday. I look up to find Commander Nugent and two second classes behind him.
I hop to my feet, “How can I help you sir?”
“We start main propulsion sequences tomorrow and these two helpful Sailors will assist you in moving your hovel from engineering aft. I am disappointed that this is necessary, as you should have moved it yourself already.”
“It’s just an arm-ful of blankets and sundries sir, I can . . .”
“Then these Sailors will ensure that you do it now. Report to maneuvering when you are finished.” He interrupts with authority and then pushes off toward the ladder well.
“Well, gents, follow me I guess.” I snicker and huff that I’m being forced to acknowledge this. I’ve moved my “Hovel” out of the Propulsor machinery as it was legitimately dangerous to be in those areas with the propulsor and the collider on.
I direct them to a plastic sack and a travel tote stuffed behind a tool locker near the turbine generators. “Where are we supposed to be taking this?”
The sailor with patchy chin scruff replies, “Your assigned rack in crew berthing.”
I guess the XO did the admin shuffling she necessary should a chief have opted out of the gravity testing program. I wonder if I’m going to get my ass kicked if I sleep there. Nothing for it right now. I drop my things off and head down to maneuvering as ordered.
“You wanted to talk to me sir?”
“Yes. Float with me.” Weird thing to say, but as he pushes off I get the idea and match him. “With the XO bringing this unsavory interaction to leadership’s attention, I understand that you’re going through a lot. My only interest in your personal issues, however, is if the best engineer on the ship is going to be able to do her job while she wades through that mess.”
“Sir, I’d have to be dead before I’d let anyone keep me away from keeping that Propulsor in top shape. Even running at 80% I’m still the best you have.”
“There’s the arrogance. Good. If you’re healthy enough for pride and vanity, then I have confidence you won’t break a multi-trillion dollar space vessel. Now go get some sleep. We’re starting the collider at 0400 and the maneuver and cooldown is scheduled until 1600 and I want you in engineering for every event.”
“Aye aye, sir. I’ll make sure I stuff snacks in my pockets.”
I don’t get a smile out of him, but I can tell I’m growing on him. Like a fungus.