Tooley pounded out a few more controls into her console, but stopped short of initiating their flight sequence.

“So, all set up and ready to go, cap,” she said. “Except one little thing. I notice we aren’t pointed at Paga For.”

“Yeah, because why the fuck would we go right to the people who got you stabbed?”

“So I can stab them back,” Tooley said.

“All things in time, Tooley,” Kamak said. “Look, whatever’s going on, someone’s clearly keeping an eye on us. We go right to Paga For, they’re going to know something’s up. We just happen to go to Paga For later on, maybe their guard’s a little lower. For now, we’re doing a job, acting like we don’t know what’s going on, playing it cool.”

“And what if they leave while we’re being clever?”

“If their intent is to leave, they will likely leave long before we arrive on the planet regardless,” Farsus said. “Paga For is on the furthest edges of the known universe. It will take us quite some time to arrive.”

“It’ll take a long time to get where we’re going anyway, might as well be going somewhere useful,” Tooley grumbled.

“We need to be smart, though,” Doprel said. “And who knows? Maybe while we’re stalling, people might lose interest in us.”

“Your optimism is as inspiring as it is naive, friend,” Farsus said.

“Well, seems like we have a majority vote, but in the interest of everyone having their voices heard: Corey, what do you think?”

“I’m with Tooley, actually,” Corey said. “If somebody’s got it out for us, we need to be doing more to get them first.”

“Well, there you go,” Kamak said. “And we are doing something. Strategic inactivity is still a kind of activity. That’s tactics. Or something. Tooley, we have an accord. Push those buttons.”

Though she grumbled under her breath about it, Tooley complied, and the ship lurched into faster-than-light acceleration. As soon as she’d finished up her post-flight check, Tooley stood up and left the cockpit.

“We’re on a straight shot for the next three swaps,” she grumbled. “Get comfortable.”

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It was hard to get comfortable on the ship, in spite of Corey’s best efforts. His “bedroom” on the Hard Luck Hermit was slightly larger than some closets back on earth, and even that space was dominated by a slab of a bed that was only barely big enough for him to lie down flat on. The cushion was soft, at least.

The slab of a bed had enough room for him to lie down and hold up his tablet, a position he made liberal use of. He’d been perusing some of the media in space and found a surprisingly engaging gameshow, in which a variety of species with differing numbers of arms competed in games of reflex and dexterity. His translator chip had rather awkwardly turned the title into “Varying Arms Competition”, but he preferred to think of it as “Arms Race”.

As engrossing as the show was, Corey still looked up from it when the door to his bedroom slammed open, and Tooley strutted in. She had her eyes locked on Corey, but her fixated gaze broke slightly when the door behind her jingled. She looked over her shoulder and saw that Corey had affixed several small chunks of scrap metal to the handle.

“What are those for?”

“Noise. Doors on here are too quiet,” Corey said. His mother had often stressed the importance of never letting anyone sneak up on him, even in his own room. “I don’t want anyone getting the drop on me.”

Tooley might have called that paranoid a few cycles ago, but considering how recently she’d gotten stabbed on this very ship, she was far more understanding. She got her mind back on track and started making a beeline for Corey.

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“What’s up, human?”

“Nothing much...whatever your species is called.”

“Wouldn’t you like to know?”

Lacking anywhere else to sit, Tooley hopped up on to Corey’s bed and squeezed into what little space there was at the end of his bed. She straddled the soles of his feet and then propped a leg up on top of his.

“I could sit up, you know.”

“No no, stay right there,” Tooley said. “So, I got stabbed recently, if you recall.”

“Distinctly,” Corey said. “You feeling alright?”

“Feeling fine, thanks for asking,” Tooley said. “I’ve been a lot closer to death than that plenty of times. I’ve got my usual coping mechanisms; swearing a lot, drinking heavily, and fucking.”

Tooley leaned forward and slipped further along Corey’s bed -and his body. She settled into a leaning position with her hips raised and her chin resting on Corey’s chest. The arc of her hips and the mischievous glint in her eyes made her look like a cat ready to pounce.

“Can you guess which of those three I haven’t done yet?”

“I think I can.”

“Alright then. What do I have to do to convince you?”

Not much, it turned out.

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“Fuck, watch it,” Corey gasped. “You’re going to break my knees.”

“Oh fuck that, we’ve got medkits.”

Corey had easily guessed that Tooley liked it rough, but he had vastly underestimated just how rough. The longer the sex lasted, the more aware Corey became that Tooley’s species were natural carnivores. Every embrace felt like a death grip, every movement a killing blow. Corey considered himself lucky Tooley had other carnal appetites in mind.

Tooley currently had him pinned to the bed, and was riding him with an energy that would permanently alter Corey’s definition of “ferocious”. He had hands on her waist to try and contain the more violent thrusts of her hips, but he could only do so much to combat the surprising fervor in her body. Her skin was almost uncomfortably warm to the touch, like a hot stove top, but Tooley wasn’t even sweating.

“Come here,” Tooley demanded. “Like this.”

She grabbed on to Corey’s shoulders and pulled him upright, then pushed him against the back wall, into a sitting position. She wrapped her arms and legs around him and held Corey tight, using the constrictive grip for leverage as she continued to bounce.

“God yes,” Tooley groaned. “Right there, right there…”

While she wasn’t sweating, the exertion -and pleasure- of her efforts was written all over Tooley’s face. Her blue lips occasionally parted in a delighted smile, baring sharp teeth as they did so, and her deep black eyes were locked on Corey’s chest.

He had admired Tooley’s body on more than one occasion, thanks to her many attempts to embarrass him in the cleanser, but he’d never really seen it in action. It was equal parts exciting and curious -she had muscles where muscles weren’t supposed to be, at least by his standards. It was hard for Corey to do a comprehensive analysis of her anatomy, especially since two very specific parts of it had most of his attention, but every now and then he noticed a flexing muscle or a tensed tendon that didn’t exist on the human body. Every time he got distracted by anatomy for too long, Tooley dragged him back to the action at hand, forcing him to pay attention to her and her desires.

As Tooley’s relentless onslaught of lust continued, Corey gradually adapted to her hunger -and realized he wasn’t exactly doing his part. Not that Tooley seemed to be unsatisfied, or even care about his presence beyond being a warm body to fuck, but Corey had slightly higher aspirations than just a “warm body”. He wrapped his arms around her waist and pulled her closer, before pressing his lips against hers in a passionate kiss. The sudden assertion prompted a pleasantly surprised squeak from Tooley, before she pulled away from him.

“What was that?”

“Just something us humans do,” Corey gasped. Even as he started to assert himself more, it became clear that he could not physically keep up with Tooley’s raw predatory stamina.

“Well, I don’t get it,” Tooley said. Corey found it hard to believe that nobody else in the universe had invented kissing, but he wasn’t thinking much about that sort of thing right now. “But it seems to get you excited, so-”

Tooley returned the favor, and kissed him back. It was an awkward imitation, but it did get Corey excited. More so than he was already.

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The deed was long since done, but neither participant had moved yet. Corey was on his back, still catching his breath, an effort made all the harder by Tooley lying on top of him. It wasn’t cuddling, though. Tooley was unwilling to move, and Corey was unable.

“So,” Corey finally gasped, hoping conversation might make Tooley move. “That your usual ‘barely-survived’ routine?”

“I do it other times, Corvash,” Tooley said. “If I only fucked after I almost got killed I’d start conditioning myself. Get turned on every time someone pointed a gun at me.”

“I figured, I was just, you know, wondering…”

“Wondering when we’re going to do it again?”

“Maybe.”

Tooley cracked a smile and let out a low, devious chuckle.

“We’ve got three swaps to kill and not much better to do,” Tooley said. “Unless you’d rather go back to your game show.”

“I don’t know, I really want to see how that episode ends,” Corey said. Tooley laughed at him again and swiped his discarded tablet off the floor, then dropped it on his face. They needed a breather anyway.