Bree Bree Bree Bree—
The annoying chirp of the alarm on Stern’s data pad sang out until it was clumsily slapped by a rough worn hand that was more scar tissue than anything else. Stern opened a sleepy eye and rolled it around taking in the view of his cabin. Dim light filtered in from the two port holes the cabin offered, though it was all artificial light from the city anyway. Stern closed the eye and pulled the sheet over his head to the sound of his cabin door quietly opening and then closing.
He had to strain his hearing to hear the soft steps crossing his room but he knew full well who they belonged to. Slightly louder than the foot steps, a soft thunk of equipment being dropped to the deck and a zipper being undone preceded the swish-swish sounds of a body sliding between his sheets.
Stern mentally braced himself and pushed against the mattress with his remaining arm to roll over and saw a pair of sparkling red eyes framed by long, batting eyelashes looking back at him. The “invader” had pulled his sheets up over herself to cover her head, leaving only her cherry red face exposed. Delicate dark freckles dotted her nose and cheeks and her mouth was pursed in a mischievous smile.
“Ahoy there, Deck Officer,” Stern groaned, feeling more tired now than when the alarm had gone off.
“Ahoy, Cap’n. Good morning,” his First Mate said sweetly, not making any moves to actually get up.
“Do we have to do this every morning, Trina?” he moaned, throwing the sheet off of him, exposing a rich lattice work of scars crossing his body.
He glanced down to see the goblin had stripped off her jacket and combat pants, leaving her tight fitting tactical t-shirt, briefs, and a fair amount of exposed crimson leg. At least she’d taken off her boots this time. Her eyes followed his down her body and she gasped, covering her chest in mock modesty.
“Disappointed?” she asked, teasingly. “Where you hoping that I’d completely stripped this time?”
Stern rolled his eyes and flicked one of her large triangular ears. She made an inappropriate squeal and held her ear, gingerly.
“Captain! An infernal goblin’s ears are an erogenous zone, that’s sexual harassment!” she complained.
“If you’re to be believed a goblin’s entire body is an erogenous zone. Help me up,” he ordered.
“It is,” she said, as if stating a known fact.
She rolled up onto her knees and grabbed Stern’s outstretched hand, pulling him upwards as she stood up on the bunk. Despite her size, she was surprisingly strong. The muscles in her arm flexed and rippled as he pulled against her hand until he was upright enough for her to grab his shoulders and pull him the rest of the way. Stern had a pull-up bar that hung from the ceiling that he could use but Trina would take it as a personal offense if he touched it while she was next to him. She hopped off the bunk and positioned herself in front of him as he shifted his body to sit on the edge.
Many years ago, Stern had gotten caught on the bad side of a pack of humboldt squid during a mission. By all rights he should have lost his life, but thanks to Rex he got away with only losing his right arm and both of his legs. Few creatures in the deep were as aggressive as the humboldts but even they didn’t want to mess with an enraged shark man after he’d thinned their ranks. Since then, Stern’s body seemed to have become a museum dedicated to how many different ways a body could be wounded and recovered but the alternative was death.
Healing magic was rare in the depths as most of the species that had any talent for it had either left the planet or gone underground with the dwarves. The merfolk could do some healing, but they tended to only care for their own kind. That left damaged goods like Stern to rely on whatever tech he could get his hands on.
“Want me to help you into the fresher?” Trina asked, without a hint of her suggestive teasing.
“Not today. I’ve got an early briefing with Lucia. We’re getting saddled with babysitting some elf kid. Lucia’s supposed to be giving me the rundown on it,” he grumbled.
“An elf? What are one of those moon bastards doing down here?” she wondered as she lifted Stern’s prosthetic right arm up to his stump.
“Hey now, try to stow that sorta talk— at least when the moon bastard is around, yeah?” he smirked as he clamped the arm into place and the data spike from the unit docked into the receiving port that had been surgically installed over what had remained of his arm.
The prosthetic whirred to life and Stern flexed and wiggled the mechanical fingers to ensure that everything worked as expected.
“Aye aye Cap’n,” Trina said, tugging at the top of his briefs.
“It’s fine! They’re clean. I freshed up last night,” he said, blushing while hiking his briefs back up a bit higher than before.
The briefest hint of a pout crossed her face but was quickly gone, replaced by a look of indifference.
“It’s not like I haven’t seen it before,” she said, rolling her eyes. “Though I guess it’s lucky that the humboldts only took two legs and not all three, huh?”
“That was an emergency since that pyromorph was melting its way through my exosuit,” Stern huffed, looking away and absent-mindedly scratching at his thigh stumps.
“Mmm good times,” she teased.
Stern clamped the docking interfaces over his leg stumps and winced as the nerve spikes shot into him and connected to his nervous system. The arm interface wasn’t so bad so he tended to leave it on, but the leg ones were older and had a bad habit of generating sensation feedback errors when the legs were disconnected. Trina disconnected the cyborg legs from their charging station and fitted them over docking interface. Like waking him up in the morning, helping Stern into his prosthetics had also become a duty that Trina had taken upon herself and refused to let him do on his own.
“You don’t have to do all this,” Stern offered, going through the leg system checks as they came online.
“Since you’re going to see Lucia, do you want the formal shirt and jacket?” she asked, ignoring his statement and tossing him a pair of black leather pants.
“You’re like a commuting wife. No the gray shirt is fine,” he said shaking his head and pulling up the pants.
“You should be so lucky to have me for a wife. Too bad for you, I like men with legs,” she countered, pulling a gray shirt from a drawer.
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“Low blow, short stack,” he smirked, fishing through a drawer for a clean pair of socks, but coming up empty.
“I’m a goblin. All my blows are low,” she grinned, flashing a row of jagged teeth and pulling up her own pants. “Socks are in the second from the bottom drawer now, I moved them.”
“Why would you move my socks?” Stern asked, shooting her a confused look as he found the correct drawer.
“It’s more convenient to have them there instead of up higher,” she said incredulously.
“Convenient for you, or course,” Stern sighed, slipping his sock-covered robot feet into his boots.
“Duh?” she replied, accompanied with a look that suggested he might be an idiot.
“Such insubordination,” Stern accused, pulling the shirt over his head and popping the oral cleansing guard into his mouth.
“You love it and you know it,” Trina winked, as she zipped her jacket up and headed for the door. “See you top deck, Cap’n.”
“One of these days I’m going to have to either marry that goblin or jettison her out the torpedo tubes at 50 fathoms,” Stern thought to himself.
The oral cleansing guard beeped to announce that it had completed its task and was roughly tossed back into its jar of sanitary fluid for its troubles. Stern ran his tongue across his teeth and looked around for something to drink. The guard did a decent job of cleaning the teeth but always left his mouth feeling dry. He reached for the bottle of Fire Starter that he kept on his desk to find that someone had positioned a cup of water in front of it.
Stern pushed up the sleeve on his cyborg arm to reveal a built in data console. The time was getting away from him but he might have time for a quick breakfast if his pilot, and adopted daughter, Joyce was on galley duty this morning. Joyce was a responsible kid that typically got up early when she was on duty. Heavens help him if Rex was on duty or worse, Ooblek, the ship’s engineer.
Ooblek was crazy smart and an integral part of the crew, but entirely lacking when it came to dealing with anything that wasn’t a machine. Ooblek was also a Krakean, one of the deep sea species that resembled an octopus with way more arms than should be possible and communicated via telepathy. Anyone that it “talked” to got a splitting headache so it stopped bothering and would mainly communicate by text transmission.
It had a voice module it could use but, according to Ooblek, it was more trouble than it was worth. Since it had to type out the message anyway, it might as well just hit “send” rather than rely on sound waves like some sort of “unevolved” creature. Ooblek wasn’t very good at making friends, but it did know how to keep the ship running smoothly, and that was good enough for Stern.
“Ahoy Cap’n!” a young forest goblin called out from the control cockpit of a dive mech.
“Ahoy Gus,” Stern called back.
Gus had a cup of coffee in one hand and was jabbing at buttons with the other, going through regular system checks and maintenance.
“Cap, what kinda work do we have lined up?” Gus asked, looking up at the Captain.
Outside of the Captain’s Quarters, and most of the crew quarters for that matter, a gangway ran along the interior of the deck with an open area that looked down into the launch bay where the ship’s exploratory vehicles were docked. A variety of minisubs, power suits, and small mechs lined the walls, each plugged into their respective docks and waiting for service. In the center of the bay, the dive pool doors had been opened and Stern could see the inky darkness of the harbor below his ship.
“I don’t have the particulars yet, but I expect it’ll be a Search & Recovery type, maybe a Raid if we’re lucky. For now, go with a high speed, high DPS loadout,” Stern answered, making his way down the stairs to the launch deck.
“Aye aye Cap. Hit ‘em hard, hit ‘em fast,” Gus shot back, toasting with his coffee.
A dark and sinister shadow passed under the ship, making its way up through the dive pool. A familiar gray hand reached up out of the water and slapped the deck, followed by the over-muscled body of Stern’s best friend and Chief of Security, Rex. Rex pulled himself up onto the deck, dragging half of a tuna. Blood dripped down from Rex’s mouth and splattered across his tactical gear and light armor making him look like something from a horror movie.
Rex dropped onto his knees and shook himself like a dog, flinging water, blood, and bits of tuna meat all over the deck. Knowing what to expect, Stern had jumped back, but the deck was now a complete mess. He made a mental note to have Trina assign deck swabbing duty to Rex for the coming week.
“Hey Boss,” Rex said in a low timber, pulling a second tuna from the water, though this one looked to be mostly intact. “Breakfast?”
“You’re on galley duty? I’ll grab something in the city,” Stern remarked, eyeing the bitemarks in the fish.
“Suit yourself,” Rex answered, nonplussed, as he took a large bite out of the half eaten tuna.
“We’re raising anchor in six hours. I have to meet Lucia about our next client, wanna go?” Stern asked.
The Sea Nymph wasn’t actually anchored at all and was actually magnetized to the dock but some verbal traditions persisted.
“Not even a little bit,” Rex replied, a little too quickly.
“Coward,” Stern accused.
“Heh. Yeah, okay,” Rex chuckled.
“Alright, I’m heading out. Get cleaned up and make sure Joyce and Maria are up, you know they like to sleep late when we’re in port,” Stern ordered.
“Aye aye,” Rex answered as he crunched on the skull of the tuna and licked his fingers.
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Marie crouched on the floor beside Joyce’s bunk, barely able to see over the mattress in this position as she silently watched Joyce sleep. Her pale eyes were wide and unblinking with near perfect night vision— though the soft blue light of Marie’s bioluminescence gave everything a faint glow. Marie looked like she could be somewhere between ten and thirteen, though no one actually knew how old she was. Unlike most of the deep sea species, Marie had a mostly human-ish look if you could get past her otherworldly features. Marie was classified as a “Deep Sea Siren” though colloquially they were called “Angels of the Void”. Her skin had a scaly texture to it and glowed faintly at all times. Her eyes were unnervingly large for their size and had the squiggle-shaped pupils common among some of the cephalopod species. Not so large as to be obvious but just slightly large enough to feel like something was off.
Out of the water, Marie could pass for a human-shaped species but once in her element, three pairs of wing-like fins would unfurl from her back, giving the species the “Angel” nickname. The Nymph had found her tied to the front of a deep fishing troller. She had gotten caught in their nets and the Captain of the vessel had decided to use her as bait to attract larger game. The troller had received some heavy sanctions for the act and Marie had attached herself to the Nymph’s pilot, Joyce.
Joyce, herself, was the product of an “unholy” union between a human and a merfolk and likely came the closest to physically looking similar to Marie’s species. Like Marie, she was covered in scales and had a human shape, she even had some vestigial fins. She had been abandoned early on by her mother and the merfolk while many of the land species wanted nothing to do with her either. Her father had doted on her, but as a Mariner, he’d lost his life when Joyce was nine. Stern, a fellow Mariner and friend of her father, took her in and raised her the rest of the way, paying for her education and pilot training.
Marie rested her head on the crumpled sheet atop the bunk and continued staring at Joyce. She looked so peaceful sleeping, so alive and warm. Slowly, she reached up and gently prodded Joyce’s cheek with a black claw.
“Mama,” she said softly in her high, nasally voice.
One of Joyce's eyes half rolled open, looking somewhere in the distance before turning back towards the inside of her skull and closing again. She then rolled over, pulling the blanket over her head, though exposing her lower half.
"My chickens don't want your jelly.... it's made from badgers..." she mumbled.
Marie tilted her head a bit and propped herself up more on her knees, crawling halfway under the blanket, backside wiggling a little as she pressed her cold face against the back of Joyce's neck.
"MaaaaaaMA—" she repeated more insistently.
Joyce wriggled a bit from the cold pushed against her back and rolled over, wrapping her arms around Marie's head and smashing her face into Joyce's chest.
"Pancakes? but I ran out of sunfish roe... oh.. to fix the hull... yeah that makes sense..." Joyce muttered, still half asleep.
The blankets, so warm and cozy, hugging like a gentle parent... were violently ripped away and replaced with the cool rush of non-under-blanket air.
"Com'on fish lips! Boss man says anchor up in six," Rex said, holding the now cooling blanket in one massive hand.
Joyce coolly looked over at him and stuck out her tongue defiantly and closed her eyes again, crushing Marie a bit more. Joyce wasn't sure how the big guy even fit through the doors, he couldn't stand up straight. An orca class vessel, like the Sea Nymph, was probably the smallest thing he could fit on, but by anyone else's standards they were huge and spacious.
She really didn't feel like getting up yet and couldn't be bothered to motivate herself to do it. Rex would take care of it. It was part of their routine.
Rex let out a long-suffering sigh and dropped the blanket and replaced it with Joyce's ankle. He then lifted her up by her single leg, his hand engulfing the entirety of her leg from knee to foot. Joyce screamed and scrambled to grab something but lost her grip on Marie.
Rex unceremoniously carried her by the leg over to the refresher chamber she shared with Marie and dangled her inside, turning it on with a jab of his meaty finger.
"REX! BLUFFLUPPTTSH!! PAH!!" she blubbed as the water spray hit her face. She blocked the spray with a hand and yelled, "REX! AT LEAST LET ME TAKE MY UNDERWEAR OFF YOU MEGALADORK!!"
Sadly, this was also part of their routine. As most apex predators go, Rex was pretty merciless and her pleas fell on deaf ears. He rotated her around until she was thoroughly "refreshed" on all sides before pulling her out and setting her onto the floor next to her fallen blanket.
Joyce lay there breathing heavily and gulping for air. Unlike Rex, or the entirety of her mother's species, she lacked any gills or ability to breath under water. Rex’s arm console chirped, signaling the arrival of a new message. It was from Stern, ordering Rex to meet him over on pier 1187 to pick up a newbie.
"Hurry up fish lips if you want breakfast," Rex said as he paused at the door. "Marie, I caught a couple tuna, the big ones," he said with a parting wink.
Marie’s eyes lit up as she nodded her head eagerly. She pulled fresh underclothes for Joyce from the dresser and a clean uniform from the closet. Joyce was still trying to catch her breath from the morning “shower” and thus provided little by way of assistance as Marie stripped off the soaked t-shirt and panties. Marie, herself, absolutely hated wearing any clothing at all but Stern would always get angry if she ran around the ship naked. She refused to wear a full combat uniform like everyone else on the ship so the compromise had been a tactical t-shirt and panties that had been donated by Trina. Still, she threw them off whenever she thought she could get away with it.
As much as Marie enjoyed sleeping in late with Joyce, she was excited to hear that they’d be leaving port instead of staying longer in the city. It was always nice to get back out into the open ocean. With any luck she’d be allowed to swim outside of the ship with Rex. It would have been great if Joyce could swim too but she claimed that the rebreathers gave her a rash.