Aftermath

Dustin had opted not to go for the med spray. Both of the women had seemed surprised by this, but he’d explained it simply enough. “Right now, there’s only the three of us. If we’re doing things with just two of us, I won’t need it, and if you’re both involved I won’t need the synthetic, right? So I’ll leave that until my duties need me to… expand my options.” From there, the three had curled up on the room-covering mattress some distance away from where they had just fucked. “I suppose we should work out a plan to clean the bedding in here…” Meli had begun to say, before Rye shook her head. “Naa, not this room at least. Some of the proportions are a little off - probably because whoever planned it had limited info to go on, but this is an ambassadorial class chamber. Bedding should have self-cleaning nanotech in it; as soon as Sola detects the room’s empty of occupants they’ll purge any remaining stains. Safe to run the process while we’re in here to be honest, but it the vibrations can upset some species so we default them to waiting for a clear room.”

That’d been that - they’d made some idle chatter, all of them quite fucked out from the threesome and none of them particularly feeling like leaving the warm closeness of where they were all curled up together to go and do anything else. After a while, the conversation died down and Dustin glancing to either side found that the two women curled up to him had fallen asleep. He stared up at the ceiling for a moment, then closed his own eyes. “Lights out”.

When he awoke, Dustin found himself alone; he’d half-hoped one or other of the two would have woken in a frisky mood - but it seemed they’d had other plans. Rising and checking the time, he realized he’d slept through to the next day. With a groan, he pulled himself up and headed back out into the ready room. Inside, he found Rye sitting at the desk and sipping on a drink while checking something on her tablet. “Morning captain. Meli’s gone to go double check we’re all good for the next mission - the one after dropping off the audio recordings. We should be done with that one in a couple of days so she wants to make sure all the drones are good to go for the repair job afterward.”

Dustin nodded. “Fair enough. I need a shower and a drink before I do any big planning. What are you reading? No, actually don’t worry - tell me after I’ve woken up.” With that, he turned and headed through to the showers to clean up. On his return, he found a steaming mug of mocha along with a plate of bacon and eggs on the table. “Drink and breakfast, Dusty” Rye said from behind her tablet. Sitting down and cocking an eyebrow at his chief engineer, Dustin asked “Dusty?” Rye lowered the tablet and grinned at him. “Meli’s idea. I was talking about how it was weird calling you captain all the time when you’ve… anyhow, she suggested I find a name to call you outside of both work and bedroom activities. Do you mind?” Dustin shook his head. “Honestly you two could call me anything at this point and I wouldn’t mind. Dusty’s fine.” Then he grinned, adding “it does mean if Meli ever tells you to blow something dusty you’ll have to double check what she means you know?”

That caused Rye to break into chuckles as Dustin rapidly finished his breakfast. It was nice, just spending time with her like this - between her heat and engineering work, he’d not spent as much time with just the two of them doing nothing as he had with Meli, and he made a mental note to prioritize just hanging out one on one with all his partners - even if it was just one meal a week or something. As he finished, Rye set her tablet down and leaned forward. She seemed about to say something, when the room lighting suddenly flashed red and a low siren began to ring. “Alert all hands: Battle Stations!”

Dustin arrived at the bridge at a flat run a moment later, Rye leaping alongside him to keep pace. Meli was stood in front of her console, hands blurring as she worked several systems at once. Without pausing for orders Rye darted to the engineering station, hitting a couple of buttons and pulling some of the load away from the Velca. Dustin dropped into his seat, glanced at the view screen and asked “status?” Meli didn’t bother to look up as she replied “On entry to the system Sola’s sensors detected several projectiles being fired at us from one of the asteroids in the nearby belt. Point defence is currently taking care of them, but whoever it is is burrowed in too deep for me to track them down while we’re using sensors to prime firing solutions.”

Rye nodded at that. “Small arms fire it looks like Captain. My work should be able to hold it off if needed, shall I…” Dustin cut the Rabyth off with a wave. “No. No sense showing our secret ace to a bunch of what is probably just pirates. Meli, can you get a rough area lock on them? And Sola, any response to comms?” The science officer tapped her console and a red targeting ring appeared around a smaller outlying cluster of asteroids even as the AI’s voice answered. “No response, merely a looped message demanding we broadcast our surrender. Captain, cross referencing the signal and projectiles I believe this to be the work of the Scairan league - small scale pirates who will encamp on a trade route for a month or so then move on before the authorities can muster a response.”

Dustin nodded at that. “So no risk these are just random poor folk trying to get by that have turned to crime to survive then. How close do you estimate we can get with point defence?” Meli started to reply when Sola interrupted her. “The chief science officer is currently utilizing ten percent of available point defence systems. With twenty percent we can close to full firing range.” Rye and Meli both looked at their captain open mouthed at that, even as Dustin grimaced and gave the order to activate the additional weapons systems. “Ten percent?” Meli finally managed in a half choked voice, her ears flattening into something akin to incredulity. “This is already almost as much defence as a light cruiser. What did your species think it was going to find that’d need ten times that much defensive power?”

Dustin sighed at that, even as Sola closed in on the pirate’s position. “Firing solution locked captain, we are in range for both missile and rail weaponry. On your order I will remove the threatening outpost.” The AI’s voice cut across the bridge, and Dustin sagged in his seat before reaching down and tapping a button on his armrest. The whine of rail cannon filled the room for a moment, before the asteroid that had been peppering them with shots exploded as a projectile punched through it at an appreciable fraction of the speed of light. As the light of the detonation faded away and the ship turned to resume it’s previous course, Dustin looked up at the two women, his face heavy and shrugged sadly. “Something as bad as humanity’s worst?”