Jelly didn't do any fancy flying like Perginia did. She did her job and got me where I needed to go and then ferried me back and forth from the ship. It was exactly what I needed and the six hour shift passed by before we knew it. We went back to the ship and landed in the shuttle bay, and Jelly once again stated how nice it was to not have to use the umbilical on the bottom of the shuttle.
I agreed with a nod and we went up into the ship. After I changed, I led Hailey to the kitchen to get the leftovers from the meal I had cooked and went to the dining room to meet Jelly, Kalina, Simone, and Gleas. After twenty minutes of their delighted thoughts and two helpings of food, Sheph called and told me not to worry about the Hailey situation and that no one was going to complain that the Hero of Chofaris was caring for her.
With that happy news, we all retired to the living room and sat on the couch. Hailey sat on my lap, of course, since that was the only spot she approved of. Gleas was fine with that, since she got to sit beside me like every other time we watched the screen and she picked what we watched. Simone had been kind and offered to let Jelly sit on my other side, since she was new to the group, and Jelly politely declined and sat on the other side of Gleas.
Simone settled in beside me and Kalina sat beside her. The couch was still comfortable with five people on it, even with Hailey on my lap. The evening went by quickly and then it was time for bed. They all bid me a good night and I carried Hailey back to what was now 'our' room. I saw that she had opened a lot of the boxes and had packed away a lot of her clothes and I asked her to get her sleeping clothes ready while I got the bath ready.
Hailey was very happy about that and quickly assembled a pair of knee-length loose shorts and a baggy top with long sleeves, then tucked a pair of underwear under the shorts to hide them from view. With her change of clothes at the ready, I asked her to close her eyes. She did, and I led her into the bathroom.
“Ta-da!” I said and she opened her eyes. She gasped at the huge tub that was completely filled with sudsy bubbles and all of her toys were arrayed around the tub. Before I could ask, she had her clothes off and had jumped into the tub with a splash. I laughed and caught the water with Presence and put it back into the tub. She stayed in there for almost an hour and played and had fun, while I was occasionally allowed to wash her when she wasn't 'too busy to bother with that stuff'.
I eventually managed to convince her that she needed to get out so she could get to bed. I dried her off and she reluctantly left the bathroom, after one long and lingering stare at the tub. I told her to get dressed and promised that she could have another bath tomorrow if she wanted. I emptied the tub and took a quick shower and dried off, then dressed for bed myself.
When I came out of the bathroom in my male version of an old fashioned frill-covered nightgown, Hailey laughed and laughed as tears came to her eyes. I ignored that and picked her up and put her in the bed and climbed in under the blanket with her. It took her almost ten minutes to calm down and to stop laughing. When she did, she reached out and touched the soft fabric and looked into my eyes.
“Yes, I wore it for you.” I admitted.
“Th-thank you.” Hailey said and her tears changed from mirth and joy to utter sadness about what had happened to her today. I pulled her in close and let her cry her eyes out for as long as she wanted. She held onto my nightgown and sobbed for quite some time and I stroked her back and her fuzzy hair the entire time. When she finished, I felt an invisible weight that was inside of her lift slightly. She had a long way to go to come to grips with everything, and I vowed to help her as much as I could.
Hailey eventually fell asleep and kept a firm grip on me and my frilly nightgown. I held her close and entered a meditative state to stay alert, then went to sleep myself. It had been a long day for me, too.
The next morning we got up and I took her to the kitchen to get breakfast. Since we were the first ones up, I prepped breakfasts for everyone else as well. As I got them ready, they showed up and sat down in the kitchen to wait. When they started to fully wake up and saw what I was wearing, they started to laugh.
“Why is everyone so loud?” Simone asked as she came into the kitchen, then she gasped at everyone's thoughts and turned to look at me. “Oh, goddess.” She whispered and covered her mouth to stop from laughing with the others.
“Go ahead.” I said and turned around to give her the full frilly view, and they all laughed. “Breakfast is served.” I handed out the prepared trays and sat down beside Hailey and started to eat.
“I saw him in it first.” Hailey said, quite proud of that accomplishment.
“How long... did you laugh?” Gleas asked between laughs.
“Almost ten minutes.” I grumbled and they all laughed again. Simone sat there and let their thoughts flow over her and soaked it all in. She took an occasional bite of food to fill her stomach while she filled her mind. We all had a good meal and then it was time to get to work. Simone and Jelly put on their military space suits and I went back to my room and put on my flight suit, then I met them in the shuttle bay.
“You're really sticking to the SAR shift rotation.” Jelly said as we left the ship and flew out to the next wreck.
“I should have given you the same orientation speech that I gave the others.” I said and explained how it left everyone alert, kept up morale, let them get plenty of rest, and everyone was happy... especially me.
“I think I want to retire and let you hire me officially.” Jelly said with a laugh. “This job is so easy!”
“We're leaving the system when the contract is up in a couple of months.” I said. “The others have agreed to come with me as I hunt down the people responsible for that explosion.”
“That's what you're going to do when you leave?” Jelly asked and swung us around a large wreck.
“Among other things.” I said cryptically.
“I have a life here and...”
“It's all right.” I said and touched her shoulder. “You have your own responsibilities to take care of. There's no need to explain.”
Jelly took a breath and let it out. “I'd really like to go, though.”
I chuckled. “The lure of facing unknown danger is quite a draw, isn't it?”
Jelly nodded and brought us to a stop near the next wreck on the list. “We're here.”
“Then close up and Simone and I will get to work.” I said and stepped back into the passenger compartment and the blast door slid into place to block off the cockpit.
“Decompressing.” Jelly said over the suit com. “We're clear. Go for it.”
I opened the hatch and stepped out into space and reached back for Simone.
“It's so weird that you can do that.” Simone said and took my hand.
“Only because you haven't seen me in combat mode... and now I'm wondering if the military is going to release the footage of me rescuing Hailey.” I floated us over to land on the hull of the wreck.
“I doubt it.” Jelly said. “Orders from on high covered up your involvement the first time.”
“Then how did you know about it?” I asked and drew my Light sword and cut into the wreck.
“They said something about making sure the military knew how much you were helping us.” Jelly said. “It was one of the oddest orders my commander ever had.”
I chuckled. “I can imagine it was something like, 'tell your people about this; but, keep it quiet and don't tell anyone else'.”
Jelly laughed. “Fill that with a bunch of military terms and a few political mealy-mouth words and you got it nearly perfect.”
Simone and I entered the wreck and started to salvage what we could. It was a fairly small wreck, so it only took an hour to strip it of everything valuable and we moved on to the next wreck. We worked for the full six hour shift and headed back to the ship for lunch. When we all sat down, Jelly turned and looked at me with a serious face.
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“Hunter, I've been meaning to ask you something.” Jelly said.
“It's probably going to take a couple of years to get my hair to grow down to my shoulders.”
Jelly shook her head. “No, that's not... well, I did want to ask that...”
Simone, Gleas and Kalina laughed.
“What's your real question?” I asked with a smile.
“Why did you buy a flight suit for yourself?” Jelly asked, and she was genuinely curious about it. It got everyone's attention and they looked at me while they ate.
“That's a simple answer.” I said and finished eating. “The embarrassment factor.”
“The what?” Several of them asked at the same time.
“From the descriptions of the suits, I knew they would be more form-fitting than the ones I had seen before. I didn't expect them to be quite so tight and they turned out to be more like a second skin, though.” I chuckled. “Rather than buying them just for the women and having them walk around, and possibly think that I was objectifying them, I bought one for myself to prove that what was good enough for them to wear was good enough for me, too.”
“R-really?” Gleas asked, surprised.
I wasn't surprised that the thoughts of the others matched hers, so I nodded. “If I had known how revealing they were before buying them, though... I might have forgotten to wear mine that first day.” I said with a grin as I stood up. “Wouldn't that have been a shame?”
The four women exchanged glances and then watched me intensely as I cleared the table of the empty food trays, then I carried them over to the counter and slowly slid each one into the available slot.
“Can Hailey sit in the third seat of the cockpit and watch me work for a little while?” I asked with my back to them.
“I... don't see why not.” Gleas managed to say. “She's going to need a suit.”
“I've got quite a few of them stashed around, so that's not a problem.” I turned around to face them and walked back to the table. “Come on, Hailey. Let's go and find your first space suit.”
“My first space suit!” Hailey exclaimed and hopped up. I caught her and she wrapped her arms around my neck and held on as I sat her on my hip.
“There's going to be a lot of extra straps to make it small enough to fit you.” I said and walked away from the table.
“That's okay. I'll grow into it!” Hailey said, happily.
*
When Hunter and Hailey disappeared from view, the four women turned towards each other.
“He bought his flight suit on purpose.” Gleas said and her face flushed a little red. “For us.”
“He bought it so we could look at him while he wore it.” Kalina said and took a breath and let it out. “So we wouldn't be embarrassed when we wore ours.”
“Is he for real?” Jelly asked. “Most people wouldn't even consider something like that.”
“Remember what he said.” Simone chimed in as the view of Hunter from behind in a practically skin tight suit was burned into her mind. “He wanted to create a happy and productive work environment.”
“Oh, I'm happy all right.” Gleas said and smiled. “Who else gets to go to work and do the easiest job they can think of, gets paid top wages, receives free equipment that any pilot would kill for, and also lets them ogle their drop dead gorgeous boss occasionally?”
“It's a shame about the hair, though.” Kalina said.
“Even without all that golden mass of hair, he's unbelievably handsome.” Gleas countered. “It's too bad we're all employees and can't enjoy it more than we already do.”
Jelly didn't point out that she was only working for him and officially she wasn't an employee. Of course, that made her face flush red and the three other women at the table pointed and laughed.
“I wasn't thinking about it!” Jelly tried to deny it and that made them laugh harder.
Gleas tapped Kalina's arm. “We better go and see if Hunter is putting that poor girl in the suit first before he adjusts it.”
“Good idea.” Kalina said and they left the kitchen.
Simone's eyes were drawn to their backsides and she blinked her eyes to shake away the thought of comparing them to Hunter's.
“They really are like a second skin.” Jelly said as she watched the two women walk away. “Are they even wearing underwear?”
Simone caught her breath and looked at Jelly, who just understood what she just said.
He's not wearing underwear. They thought at the same time, then they both thought about him standing up right beside the table, that was at just the right height to frame him perfectly.
“I need to use the bathroom.” Simone said as she stood and quickly left.
*
I had been trying to adjust the suit after putting it on Hailey when Gleas and Kalina came over to us.
“Stop that.” Gleas said and waved at me to back away.
I caught their thoughts that I was doing it wrong, so I raised my hands in surrender and backed up.
“You go and get ready to go back out.” Kalina said. “We'll have her sorted out by the time you reach the shuttle.”
“I'll leave her in your expert hands, then.” I said. “Thank you.”
Both women nodded and I gave Hailey a little wave and walked down the hallway towards the back of the ship. I caught a quick spike of pleasure from Simone's room as I passed it. Instead of knocking, I decided that she needed another couple of minutes alone. I walked to the stairs and went down into the cargo hold, then over to the shuttle bay.
“Hi, Jelly.” I said. “We're going back to the last wreck. I need to grab the power cables and the control panel for that alien mining droid.”
Jelly didn't look at me and I could see that her face was red. I caught some of her surface thoughts and stopped myself from leaning in and whispering confirmation of her thoughts about me being naked under the suit. I didn't want her distracted, not while flying in such a dangerous environment.
“Are you all right?” I asked.
“I'm fine.” Jelly said and the Presence wavered slightly.
“Do you need a short break?” I asked.
“N-no, I... I'm just...”
“...preoccupied with... something.” I said and she blushed. “Get off the shuttle.”
“Wh-what?” Jelly turned and looked at me in surprise.
“If you can't put your thoughts and feelings aside right now, I can't trust your skills while flying in a dangerous situation.”
“But... but... it's your fault!” Jelly exclaimed. “You just told us you bought that suit so we could see you like that, then I realized you didn't have any underwear on!” She said. “You're naked under that suit!”
“You're naked under your clothes, too.”
“Wh-wh-what?”
“I am literally covered from my neck to the tips of my toes in thick cloth, and yet you think I'm naked.” I said. “With that reasoning, under your clothes you are naked, too.”
Jelly didn't respond and just stared at me.
“You're starting to understand.” I said and stepped close. “It's what a person thinks that makes things sexy and appealing. When I wore this in front of everyone for the first time, it was sexy and appealing to them and embarrassing for me. The second time, it wasn't as bad. The third, fourth, and fifth time? It became the normal thing to see me in and it's stayed that way.”
Jelly's thoughts went over how the other two women reacted to finding out why I had bought my suit, and neither of them had freaked out about it. They accepted it and really liked that I did it for them.
“The same goes for the women.” I continued. “At first they were embarrassed to be protected so close to their bodies, then the next time it was a little easier. The time after that, since we were all wearing the same thing, it became normal and no one overreacted or became too excited. We all still see it; but, we don't over-exaggerate our reactions because we've already seen it before.” I explained. “Being turned on by something that's appealing is normal. For everyone. Both men and women can be affected, and that's okay, as long as it doesn't change your reactions to everything else.”
“But... you...”
“That's why I asked if you need a break. You need to get used to seeing me like this, because you're going to see it a lot.” I said. “I didn't hire one pilot because as soon as I entered the room with her, she jumped and squealed. She couldn't even be in the same room with me without overreacting.”
Jelly closed her eyes and took several breaths to calm down. I stood there and felt her thoughts filter around and the very personal ones were pushed aside. They were still there, because she didn't get rid of them; but, she had a firm hold of them and I knew she wouldn't let them affect her performance as much now. She opened her eyes and looked at me.
“I'm okay. I can do this.” Jelly said, confidence in her voice.
I nodded. “I know you can.” I said. “Now don't look while I bend over and pick up my helmet and gloves.”
Jelly sighed as I turned around and bent over to grab my helmet from the seat it was on. “Oh, goddess.” She whispered as she stared at my backside like it was the most interesting thing to ever exist. “You did that on purpose, you teasing bastard.”
I chuckled and turned back to her. “Yeah, and you didn't freak out or let your thoughts derail your mind from your job.” I said and slipped on my gloves. “Do you think you have enough self-control to still handle flying?”
“Damn right I do.” Jelly said as she let anger enter her thoughts. “Do you know how many hostile engagements I've been in?”
“No.” I said and put on my helmet. “How many men have you been engaged to?”
Jelly opened her mouth to tell me how many flights she had under enemy fire, then she gasped when she realized what I had asked. “”Hey! That's not what I meant!”
“I know.” I said and turned to the shuttle's hatch. “Come on in, Simone.”
“You're not done arguing, though.” Simone said and walked up the ramp.
“It's a polite discussion.” I said. “How much of that did you hear?”
Simone understood what I meant about 'hearing'. “I got it all.”
“I'm glad.” I said. “We have a lot of work to catch up on.”
Simone nodded. “We're a day and a half behind schedule.”
“We'll catch up fast.” I said with a smile. “I'll pull, you carry.”
“Only the small to medium things. You can take the big stuff.”
“Deal.” I said and hit the chin button for my suit com. “Baby Bird to Mother. Are you ready for visuals?”
“I said to stop calling me that.” Gleas said with a laugh. “Hailey's practically jumping around while she's waiting to see you.”
“Simone, pipe your signal to the cockpit and Jelly can relay.” I said and she nodded. She hit a combination of switches and then we all heard a squeal of delight. “Calm down, Kalina! It's just me! The Hero of Chofaris!” I said and waved at Simone.
“That wasn't... never mind.” Kalina said and we all heard Hailey's giggle.
“Jelly, take us out and give Hailey a good view of the ship.” I said.
The shuttle floated out and around the ship to give a wide shot, then we floated in front of the cockpit. Hailey didn't look at us and waved out the window and then giggled as she saw her own hand wave.
“All right, Jelly. Let's get to work.” I said and the shuttle floated around and back down into the mass of wrecks. We all enjoyed Hailey's girly oos and aahs as we weaved around a couple of the floating things, then she gasped when Simone and I jumped out into space and landed on the wreck.
“It might get boring after this part.” I said and used my Light sword to cut into the wreck, and Hailey laughed.