Bones

Vira and Foru walked into the busy cafeteria called a ‘mess deck’ and quickly stepped in line. They had been on the Terran ship for the seven days the Terrans called a week, which had origins dating back to several ancient Terran pantheons. Which was weird. Vira knew that Torwen had more than a few dead mythologies, but to still firmly base your every day life off of dead gods seemed very unsettling. Alwen had said it was just more convenient to keep things the way they were rather than change, but Vira found the whole idea morbid.

That said the Terrans themselves were friendly enough, despite the mountain of dead deities they based their whole society on. Vira hadn’t much time to really get to know the crew of the Astaroth (whose name also creeped her out), but that was due to all the work they had to do to get themselves ready for whatever came their way. Most days in the mess deck were quiet as the Terrans quickly scarfed down their food and rushed back to work.

Today there was a different energy around the mess deck. Some sort of danm of pent up energy had burst and now the Terrans were talking, laughing, and gesticulating wildly with their hands. Vira felt the infectious enthusiasm wipe away the lingering remnants of sleep just by standing there. She was looking for a place to sit when a Terran man with a bushy growth of hair on his upper lip stood up and waved them over.

Vira turned to Foru who shrugged. It was as good as any other place to sit, besides the occupants of that table looked particularly strapping compared to the other Terrans present. They walked over and sat in front of the one who had waved them over, a tall pale pink skinned one who had been in the Med bay during the drill.

“You’re Liney right?” she asked, unsure if she had the name right.

“Limey, it’s a derogatory term for British people” he said by way of explanation.

A Feliniod Terran with white fur and black ringed spots turned their big head and spoke in definitively feminine voice “Don’t put yourself down like that, when we say Limey its always with the friendliest of intentions.”

Vira cocked her head to the side “I take it you’re the Marine captain, Alice right?”

Her lips pulled back exposed rows of pearly white fangs “That’s right. You’re Bone’s old classmates from med school?”

It sounded like a direct statement, but something about her body language told Vira that it was meant to be a question. English was so weird. “Yeah, I’m Vira and that’s Foru.” Vira said introducing themselves. “You’re the Marine captain, does that make the rest of you also Marines?”

Limey gave Vira a broad grin that lifted his well-groomed facial hair, something called a mustache. “That’s right, we’re mean, lean, crayon fed Marines.”

A head poked up at that last statement. The women had previously been too preoccupied with shoveling down her stew to look up, but now that she lifted her head Vira saw her lightly tanned skin and dark brown hair that fell in little wave around her face. “the fuck do you mean crayon fed?”

Another head popped up; this one was male with very similar features to the women except with short cropped hair. “Is that what happened to all our crayons?”

They both gave Limey a pointed accusatory look. Limey just shrugged “If I wasn’t supposed to eat the crayons then they should have put that in the field manual. Really what did they expect? Giving us new equipment like crayons without a hundred-page field manual to tell us not to eat the crayons.” He shook his in disappointment at however ‘they’ were.

Alice cleared her throat “Before Limey embarrasses us further, yes we’re the ship’s Marine attachment. I’m Alice, or Ghost. The two twins are Sombra and Sussuro.”

“You can call me Izzy.” The pretty human girl said.

“You call me Gabe.” The male one said.

“And to your left that’s our rookie hacker, Steve.” Alice put a teasing emphasis on the name, and Steve’s ears went red.

Vira “Why doesn’t he get a nickname?”

Alice shook her head “those are earned, for good or for ill. Stay aboard long enough and you earn a few for your achievements and mistakes.”

Foru spoke up for the first time since sitting “You called Alwen ‘Bones’ earlier. Which one was that?”

“Definitely achievements, wouldn’t want a first day like she had when she joined up.” Limey answered.

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“What happened?” Foru asked.

Alice locked eyes with him “It wasn’t exactly her first day, but it was close enough. Cap’n thought it was a good idea to let her see what kind of work we did first hand, so she wasn’t told what kind of ship she was on at first. We hit this up and coming mining consortium and the Cap’n called her up to see the ship fire upon a Union ship, told her that she was on a pirate ship and then sent her off to deal with a Snipe who needed an emergency amputation.”

Vira and Foru blinked in unison. They had all been surprised by how much Alwen had changed in her time off Torwen, and they all knew there were sad stories attached to that change. They just hadn’t expected something that drastic from the start.

Alice saw the look in their eyes and nodded “and to top that all off, Gato got impaled on girder and needed emergency surgery immediately. Obviously she saved his life, but the whole rush of it left her shaken to shit.”

Izzy nodded “Yeah, and then she got caught in the middle of the sneak attack on Femeri.”

Alice nodded. “Yeah, rough day. Anyway, having to do an alien amputation in the middle of a space battle on a pirate ship is the kind of thing that gets you a name like Bones.”

“Plus you have those face bone things” Limey added at the end.

“That too.”

Vira sat their stunned “That… that doesn’t sound like the Alwen I knew at all.” Her mind flashed back to that night on the beach during their first year of med school. The smell of the bonfire, the taste of the keno, and the bitter felling of resentment.

“Right” Foru agreed. “The Alwen I remember wasn’t that brave. That girl couldn’t kill a fly. Its hard to imagine the old her as the same person we see today.”

Alice huffed out a long breath. “That’s because your still thinking of her as little Alwen Djani, she’s Saint Bones the Godslayer now.”

Vira blinked “I’m sorry, what?”

The faces of the veteran Marines lit up. Alice leaned in “Don’t tell me you haven’t hear the balled of Saint Bones the Godslayer.”

“Balled?”

The tiger woman’s lips curled back, once again showing off all her very pointy teeth. Vira wasn’t ashamed to admit she was a little flirty, maybe even slept around a bit too much. But she couldn’t see herself ever dating one of these Uplifted Terrans. They’d seemed nice enough as people, but she couldn’t imagine having a relationship with one like Alwen was. The humans on the other hand were fair game.

“Well” Alice began “Settle in, you’re about to here the ships unofficial anthem.”

~~~*~~~

Alwen’s breaths came in short desperate gasps, and a low moan escaped her lips. She clutched the bed sheets as Gato bore down on her, his tongue working in gentle circles. Another higher pitched moan came out and he paused, he looked up the length of her slender body and she knew it was time. He slowly padded up the bed to lay a gentle kiss against her lips, she responded with a deeper more passionate embrace and slid her legs up the smooth fur of his body.

She squeezed him between her legs and he took his cue and flipped over. She saw the light glint off his reflective cat’s eyes as he looked her up and down hungrily. “Hermosa?” he growled as he drank in the small curls of her lithe body. It made him hungry for more. His hands trailed up her legs and she let out another groan, but not from pleasure. It had started off as pleasure, but it quickly turned into a deep knotted pain in her.

She gripped her sides and rolled off him as she groaned with another wave of pain. Gato had caught on to something being wrong and was up and turning on a light. The sudden brightness made her shut her eyes just as a wave of pain paralyzed her.

When she opened her eyes he was kneeling at her side, worry and panic in his soft green eyes. She tried to give him a smile to reassure him, but it quickly contorted into a grimace. He took one of her hands in between his and gently stroked it as dealt with her invisible attacker.

Minutes passed and eventually it passed. By the end she was in a pool of cold sweat and was gasping for each breath. She turned her head to Gato and managed a weak smile “Its fine, I think its passed. Sorry for killing the mood.”

He shook his head “Don’t be, never be, that’s not something you need to apologize for.”

“Still” she said as she finally managed to sit up. he passed her the shirt she had tossed off earlier.

“What was that?” he asked as she threw the shirt over her head.

“Don’t know, it felt like someone put my guts in a blender and pressed purée.”

He shivered at the description, “Sounds like period cramps.”

She shook her head as she pulled the shirt on “It can’t be that, we Torweni don’t have that little evolutionary ‘fuck you’ like humans do.”

He nodded and made a ‘hmm’ sound. “Is this the first time or-?”

“It’s the second, or third. They just started earlier today.”

“And you didn’t think to check it out?” He asked sharply, concern softening the harsh edges in his tone.

Alwen wanted to shrug off his concern, but knowing him he wouldn’t so much as touch her until she properly explored the subject. “The issue with being a doctor is the urge to react to every little thing your body does. It only happened the one time so I wasn’t concerned until now. I might just be having a reaction to some of the ingredients in the ship’s food and the extra ‘activity’ caused it to flare up. I’ll do some blood work in the morning.”

“You never had any issues with Butch’s cooking before.” He pointed out.

“Except for the time I drank chocolate milk” she countered. “Maybe Butch is putting something new in the food, and my body isn’t liking it.”

“Maybe,” he mused, obviously not convinced “What else causes cramps?”

Alwen rolled her eyes “Literally a thousand different things, once you really study the body you learn just how much of a miracle life is…” she trailed off as a stray thought crossed her mind.

“What?”

“It might be nothing.” She said quickly as she tried to suppress the idea.

“You wouldn’t have made that face if it was.” He pressed.

“Its just, there… I might have one idea. But its dumb.” She said quickly.

“Your not a dumb person.” He pointed.

She frowned “sometimes women will get cramps when our bodies are trying to shift our reproductive organs. But that only happens in a few cases, and only in homosexual relationships. Its mostly the men who experience that sort of pain and they’re not to comfortable talking about it.”

He thought for a minute “So your body is going through that chromosomal shift thing.”

She shook her head “It can’t be, you’re a man, there’s no reason for it to shift.”

“But I’m an alien to you, maybe your body recognizes that something isn’t adding up and is trying to…adapt” he said.

“That’s not possible. We don’t just change because something isn’t right. We’re two different species from two different world.”

“Different species reproduce all the time on Earth.” he pointed out.

Alwen felt her heart skip a beat. She thought of the very human daughter of doctor Bachir and the very strange conversation that followed. Whatever the Union did to the Uplifted made them cross compatible with each other and humanity. The mechanisms were still a mystery to modern medical science, but there were some idea about how it did so.

She seriously began to entertain the idea, and the more she thought about the more it seemed plausible. At least on paper it did.

She shook her head. Before she went any further down that line of thought she would need to confirm whether her body was trying to shift or not. Thankfully there were a few easy ways to find out. “I’ll have to look into that, but in the morning.”

He nodded, then glanced down at her still bare thighs. “Do you want to-?” his voice trailed off.

“Not tonight, the pain really ruined my mood for that.”

“I see” he said softly.

“But… but could you stay for the night. I’ve missed you this last week.”

He smiled “Of course.”