G9’s chest ached as they laid on the lounger room. It had been more than a few hours since Sal had left, but the shame in their chest still lingered. What had they done wrong? They were told by their fellow juvenile-kin that humans, especially the males, enjoyed such interactions. Was there context missing? Was it too soon? Sal had smiled many times in their company, but G9 couldn’t be certain of the motives behind those smiles.
Softly hissing to themselves, G9 curled up on themselves, clutching a pillow. Groaning with frustration, Xin stood and walked towards the alien. She had returned from her candidacy with flying colours, and her new companion was now playing on her comm-device. Marcus, another of Sal’s team had also returned from a similar meeting but had holed up in his room with his partner.
“Look, G9, I know you are still a bit sore about it, but honestly, don’t worry. That’s Sal just being… Sal. And well, it was a bit sudden, but if you asked, hell if any chick- I mean nice… person asked, he would say yes. Probably. So, it’s not on you, ok?” Xin had said similar messages a few times over the past few hours since she had returned. However, G9 wasn’t convinced. The look of distress, no – disgust, on Sal’s face as he left still lingered on their mind.
Seeing she wasn’t getting through, Xin sat next to the Cambiar and sighed. Flickering her hair backwards, and adjusting her sunglasses, she reached for Sal’s computer and activate the projection screen.
“Ok, I get it. You feel bad, down in the dumps, right? You think there’s no way out, and that things will be like that forever, I know. But… check this,” Xin had slotted a memory card into the side slot of the laptop, and browsed the files. After searching through the messily organized documents and media, she eventually came across an older photo of Xin, tattoo-less but still smoking a vapour cig.
“See that? That was me a decade ago. Don’t I like cute, huh?” G9 weighed up how cute the younger Xin was but when the alien glanced at Xin, G9’s lack of expression left the Torcher looking crestfallen.
“Eh… forget it.” Xin said, coping and seething. “I age like wine anyway. So, moving on, that was me ages back. I had just signed up as a pilot for H&H’s defence force, in the Harlson system. It’s right on the border between CCH space and some of the outer clans of Heaven’s Doctrine, real risky stuff. Now, for ages, I always thought I was invincible, the best in my fleet.”
Xin’s face was lit up, grin wide and dazzling. Even her partnered alien looked up from intensely playing a game to watch her expression.
“I did goddamn amazing, if I say so myself. Took out eight fighters in one engagement singlehandedly!” Xin sighed, as if dreading the next part. “And then… I wasn’t so lucky.”
She lifted her right leg’s trouser leg. From calf to thigh, a huge white scar, carving through flesh like a ravine, snaked upwards. Muscle had obviously been surgically removed, and the upper leg throbbed with every heartbeat.
“A flare round cut straight into my cockpit, and the shrapnel tore most my leg off with it. Barely managed to steer back to base through the fire and pain. At the time, they did what they could. They offered a prosthetic but…” She trailed off, deep in thought. “I couldn’t do it. I had thought myself unstoppable, untouchable. But that was a lie, just a dream. I felt that if I had taken them up, gotten an augmented leg or a graft, or something, that I would slip back into that haze. So, I left.”
Xin’s expression had fallen sharply, sunglasses slid to the tip of her nose. For a few seconds, she sat there, thinking. G9 contemplated reaching out, to comfort her, but memories of Sal’s fury stopped her dead. But then, a faint smile graced Xin’s lips.
“Ah, so it seems like that’s the end – things were shit, and my idea of who I was turned out to be wrong. Time to cry about it.” She mimicked the sound of an incorrect buzzer. “Wrong! That’s when I met these two bozos.” She gesticulated towards the screen.
Displayed were a trio of engineers, with Xin standing unsteadily at the front, an uncertain expression filling her face. Behind her were the giant Abel, his pearly white smile almost creating a lens flare, and a younger looking, but still scowling Salvador. His beard was thinner, and he lacked some of the roughness around his eyes, though his gaze was still heavy.
“I had thought I was in the worst place on earth. Crippled and coming from distant clan heritage, I thought the engineers of the Expedition Fleet would treat me like a pariah. And sure, some didn’t like me, thought I had crashed and burned, and was looking for an easy gig, but these two – these idiots.”
Xin smile was restored in all its glory. “I don’t think I’ll properly get a chance to say it without them taking it as a joke but… they saved me. They took me in and treated me like family. You see us walk around, kinda slow compared to the other crew? They’re all looking out for me, even if I can’t keep up with this gammy leg.”
The screen flicked to a later image, with Stannock and Marcus now part of the team. Xin’s smile was as bright as her first picture, and her distinct sunglasses covered her eyes. Tattoos had begun their development along her arms, with one sleeve obviously mid-work, the outlines done but not filled.
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“So, G9, what I’m trying to say is that things might feel bad, hell, feel terrible, but they will get better. I promise you that. And, to be honest, I don’t think this applies just to you.”
G9 tilted their head, curious.
Xin continued “I mean, Sal is Sal, you know what he’s like in the week we’ve been here. But, if I’m spilling it all out… I don’t think I know Sal’s whole story, hell maybe not even Abel does. He’s mostly open, if a bit of an ass about it, but ask him about his time before the Recon Fleet, or where he got that big chest scar from… and he clams up, goes quiet or he gets pissed.”
G9 remembered tracing that mark along his torso, the way he tensed up as if lightning had shot through him. If it was a harsh reminder of his past, no wonder he was upset. Though the sorrow in their chest lingered, G9 thought it felt lighter.
“So, G9, its bad now, maybe for both you and him, but give it time, see if you can pry him open. I promise you, it’s possible. And well, saying it is one thing, but to prove my words-” Xin rolled her trouser leg back down, and patted her thigh.
“When the situation is a bit clearer, and this is all sorted, I’m going to get my leg fixed, one way or another. That’s a promise.”
The Cambiar thought long and hard about the advice. In some ways, they hadn’t considered Sal’s past, what he might have gone through. If G9 could truly rationalize and explain their life so far in the Out-Han, they hadn’t done or gone through many notable experiences. Their life had been simple, following orders and doing what was needed. In some ways, it was almost as if The Great Awakening had never gripped the Cambiar at all.
And yet, G9 knew now that change was needed. G9 would make the effort, to not only feed their curiosity, but to help Sal’s and the other humans, as well. With great effort and having spent some time adjusting the muscle groups in their face over the past few hours, G9 gave a faint Mona Lisa smile.
Xin looked over and gave a small cheer. As she settled down, she gave a glance towards the distracted Cambiar on the other couch. She rubbed her chin, thinking for a moment. “Hey Ace, either keep your head down or don’t tell anyone about this, ok?”
The Cambiar tried to look as annoyed as an alien without lips or eyebrows could. “My name is not Ace, Ms Rouse, it’s- “
“Yeah, yeah, just keep it on the down-low, Ace” Xin retorted
The Cambiar looked up, snapped their jaws in annoyance, before resuming their gaming. Xin checked to make sure the visitor alert was active for the dormitory was on, ensured that Marcus was busy in his room, and slunk back over to the computer.
“Now, this is pretty private, but it might help you with your Sal issues… somehow. So, Sal remembers us doing this, but had no idea I recorded it. Hell, neither did I until I dug around on my comm-device.” Xin was searching through videos on the memory card, which appeared mostly to be Xin filming the Torchers during celebrations or off-shift. She stopped on a video, its thumbnail dark and unclear.
“You see, me and Sal had an… occurrence a bit back. Now, we were drunk, and we’re all cool now, but for one night we got a bit… closer than expected.” A red flush filled her face. Pressing play, the video was revealed to be a handheld recording from a comm-device. The visuals were hard to make out, but the sounds were of human contact, and of flesh meeting flesh.
G9 didn’t understand what was going on until the Xin recording moved the phone to a better view. It showed Sal drunkenly copulating, mating hard, with Xin, breathing heavily as she moaned in the background. Despite being naked, and in the middle of having sex, Xin still had her sunglasses on. G9 unintentionally let out a gasping hiss as Xin giggled.
“What on Prime Nexus?” Ace looked up for a second. “Why do you still have sunglasses on?”
“Quiet, Ace,” Xin turned back to G9. “Yeah, yeah, it was dumb and pretty irresponsible, but a hell of a lot of fun. Seeing as you want to know a lot about Sal, I’ll send you a copy of this, ok?” Xin winked at the alien.
G9’s focus however was fully on the screen, watching Sal’s thrusts and groans, his scrappy attempts to make out with Xin and occasionally fully pulling out of her dripping insides after moving too frantically. Exposing his penis to the open air, G9 ran some calculations on his length for later comparison against their own anatomy. Just for personal reasons. Based on the sounds, the Sal in the recording was reaching his limit, grunting loudly as he groped one of Xin’s breasts firmly. In time with his climax, the camera rotated around to close in on Sal’s nuts pumping seed into and then flowing out from Xin’s orifice when they inevitably parted. G9’s hand moved downwards unconsciously, tracing towards a matching spot on their crotch where no structure was. Well, none for the present. G9 eventually broke from the screen to look at the amused human, who had watched the alien’s subtle movement.
“Won’t Sal be upset about me seeing this, with me… knowing?” G9 asked.
“Only if you tell him!” Xin paused the video as Sal once again started thrusting with great vigour, apparently too horny to worry about such limitations as ‘the refractory period’. ‘Ace’, as he had been labelled, had been watching the video, and was now looking back and forth between both versions of the tattooed human is shock. He took a moment to take a photo of the screen before returning to gaming, shaking his head as if he were disappointed.
G9 looked downwards, with wild thoughts rampaging through their mind, thoughts they had always felt the basic forms of from since joining Out-Han and wondering about extraprimus life. Swivelling their head, G9 met Xin’s gaze. From here on, G9 had to handle this topic with great care, not too firmly, but they couldn’t ignore it either.
“Xin… do you know of anyways I could appear… better… to Sal?”
The woman’s face lit up, and a conspiratorial grin spread wide. She reached over and pulled G9 in tight in a hug, “Oh, I’ve got plenty of ideas. This and that, here and there. We’ll start slowly and then build it up. After all, you Cambiar are very, well, adaptable, and we’ll put those skills to good use. How does that sound… sis?” Xin’s tone was somewhat unsure with the last word. Despite the odd expression, being referred to as one of the human sexes, G9 enjoyed the feeling it instilled in them. Or moreover, how it would sound with Sal saying it. Of Sal saying their name, her name.
“I would like that, Xin. I would like that very much,” G9 said, tail wagging against the couch.