Breakfast developments

Dustin lounged in his seat the next morning, steaming cup of coffee in one hand while the other scrolled through a packet of letters from Earth. The news that the Solar Ascent would be returning ahead of schedule had gotten out - although judging by the letter Izzy had sent him they had kept the reason for the speed up under wraps for now. The latest news had been included - apparently the shipyards around Titan were working flat out to prepare Star Command a fleet of vessels from the Rabyth-built shells that were even now jumping into the system.

He closed the window with conflicted feelings before taking a bite out of the bacon sandwich he’d picked for breakfast. On the one hand, humanity was getting out to the stars, and the new ships would be the first step in that process. On the other, he felt bad that the people of Earth weren’t aware of all the dangers that lurked in the void - or that their first ships would be going out to actively hunt for those dangers.

At the sound of the door opening he glanced up from his muddled thoughts and gave what he hoped was a welcoming smile as Yril’k showed Naera in. “Morning you two. Bleu should be joining us shortly - apparently one of the patients still in recovery needed the doctor’s attention earlier but she called to say she was on the way a few minutes ago.” Naera looked around before heading to the automat at Yril’k’s direction, the insect woman retrieving her own meal at the same time. “Where are the others, captain?” The chef asked; Dustin glanced at the wall next to him and blushed.

The previous evening after dinner, Rye had rather shyly asked if he would mind them conducting the next part of the pairing ceremony - naturally, he’d said yes before she’d even explained. It turned out that at this point the ritual involved each of the partners playing with other people - a kind of farewell to the normally carefree Rabyth sex life he guessed. Rye had been at great pains to remind him that as he wasn’t a Rabyth the normal rules didn’t apply, and then more or less had shoved him into the ambassadorial bedroom where their other lovers had been waiting for him.

He’d expected her to join them - but instead she’d merely given the other three a brief wave before heading off to sleep somewhere else; it’d been Trea’k who’d explained when he’d asked that during the ceremony the other partner shouldn’t be present. Meli would have handled the explanation he was sure, but her mouth had been rather occupied at that point - as had Emely’s. Then, after a really good night he’d been more or less shaken awake at some ungodly hour of the morning by his fiancé, pushed to the doorway where Rye was stood, had the bunny girl give him a kiss that made his toes curl and then been shoved out of the room with the wall closing behind him. Rye had left him a message on the table - it was apparently her turn, and they’d be out in time for breakfast.

After heading to his own bunk and dozing for a bit he’d then gotten dressed, and was waiting for the others to emerge when Yril’k and Naera arrived. Trying to figure out how to explain the situation without saying “my fiancé, pridemate and mate are currently gang-banging my other fiancé as part of our marriage ritual” to the newest member of the senior staff, he eventually settled on “they’re just waking up - probably taking a shower and should be here soon as well.” That seemed to cover it, right up until the wall opened to reveal a very dazed Rye leaning on Emely and half-stumbling as the fox girl escorted her to the table.

“Sit, I’ll get you breakfast.” The Feliax woman murmured as Rye tried to rise once more after being poured into her usual chair. Dustin scrambled out of his seat to help, almost running into Trea’k as she too emerged from the ambassadorial chamber with the moisture of a shower still glistening on some of the harder-to-reach parts of her chitin. “Good morning, captain. Meli is just finishing up in the showers. Oh, Naera, so pleased to see you this morning.” The Vex’ess’s voice was softer than usual, and Dustin got the weirdest impression that she was keeping an eye on Emely and Rye as the two women settled into their morning meal.

Bleu’s arrival at the same time as Meli a short while later gave him enough of a distraction to briefly ask “everything alright with you three?” without attracting anyone else’s attention. Trea’k blushed and nodded. “I’ll explain later, if that is alright captain? I believe it is the kind of matter you do not wish to discuss with those outside of our relationship, but please do not worry - it is nothing bad.” Pretty sure there was no way the woman would do something bad to their mutual lovers, Dustin let the matter drop for now. The group proceeded with breakfast as usual at that point, idle chatter and grumbles from some about the quality of the meals; Naera in particular was quite verbose on just how terrible the automat’s offering was, and more or less insisted that she cook breakfast the next day so that they could see the difference.

Rye meanwhile slowly emerged from whatever daze she was in; Dustin’s worry about his bunny girl grew less as her usual banter started to return, and by the time the plates had been cleared away she was fully back to normal. “Alright, nerd, what was it ya wanted to talk to us all about this morning? Pretty sure I didn’t dream that part of our chat yesterday, right?” Meli’s ears flickered with amusement as she tapped her tablet a few times, bringing up the familiar holo. “You didn’t dream it. I wanted to raise an important point with the senior crew before we reach our next destination. Do you mind if I get started now, li’ah’a?”

At Dustin’s nod, the Velca woman gestured to the screens embedded in the table and continued. “For the benefit of the new members of staff, this is the remaining tasks we need to complete for our captain’s ambassadorial mission to conclude. You’ll note that most of them are simple enough - a handful more missions for other species that we can easily tick off on our flight back to Earth. The research data too is fairly easy to accumulate, especially given that Trea’k informed me last night that some of the scientists we rescued from the colony are of a similar mind to Naera - or at least, they want to help out as much as they can for the next few weeks.

Taking a deep breath, the Velca ploughed on “this just leaves one issue, and it’s a pretty important one for us as senior staff. Weave route charting.” Dustin sat forward in his chair at that point; they’d done a few experiments with charting new routes since his first experience in the pilots seat right at the start of their trip, but despite the huge number of threads that he could perceive there hadn’t been any massive skips detected on the routes they’d been taking. It had confirmed that humanity was highly weave-compatible however, a fact that had not been shared with any of the others up until that point - Meli had urged caution at the time and in light of the way the council was responding to galactic troubles Dustin could now see her reasons why. Apparently, she had changed her mind as far as their lovers and co-workers were concerned.

“Rye, I’m going to need you to work to improve the buffer throughput for the weave scans.” She began, glancing around the table. “This is likely to become public knowledge as soon as we get more humans heading out into space, but their weave capability is off the scale. Dustin personally has overflowed the buffers every single time we’ve tested it.” The bunny girl’s eyes went wide and she hastily swallowed the mouthful of drink she’d just sipped before **** on the hot liquid. After Emely had slapped her on the back a few times, Rye managed to cough out “overflowed the buffers? Fuck me Dusty, I knew you were good at filling things, but that’s ridiculous. And nerd…” then she paused to cough some more before finishing “It’s not possible to improve the buffers, right? I know I’m good, but even I can’t do the impossible.”

The other women around the table were watching the scene with varying degrees of bafflement. Naera broke the silence first “what the hell’s the buffer and why’s it so impressive the human can fill it?” Meli blinked, ears flickering into embarrassment before she answered. “Apologies, Naera - and the rest of you. I’m so used to discussing technological things with Rye that I forgot not everyone covered weave-jump science during their education.” She then proceeded to give the crew a crash-course in how weave travel worked along with just why humans were so ridiculously odd, before concluding “And as far as improving the buffers goes, Li’oha’a, I did the math. It’s theoretically possible to get them to handle three times the information they currently do - I have no idea how, but mathematically it’s possible. No-one’s ever done it because for anyone except humans the current buffers are more than enough. In any case, to get back on track, we need to actually travel some new routes; I suggest we don’t do so while we have refugees aboard. Unless there are any objections, that gives us the two weeks to Rakhsport to get ready.”

Dustin glanced from Meli to Rye and back again at that point and raised an eyebrow. “Li’oha’a, Meli? That’s new. You and Rye got on really well last night then I take it.” He said the words without even thinking about the company - then began to blush as he realized he’d implied some of what had gone on in front of the new crew. The Velcan term Meli had used was one she’d taught him fairly early in their relationship - and it wasn’t a term she’d used for Rye previously. Like most Velcan relationship terms it didn’t neatly translate, but roughly implied a similar level of bond to li’ah’a with a third party. Co-fiancé essentially, although with a lot more indications of love and commitment involved than just indicating a mutual lover. For Meli to use the term…

Both women were blushing he realised, before Rye nodded shyly, putting him in mind of when he had first met the bunny girl. “The nerd’s alright, ya’know Dusty? And we talked… well, there was some talking at any rate. A little talking. Yea.” For some reason, Rye’s eyes flickered to Trea’k as she said that although Dustin wasn’t sure he hadn’t imagined it, before a rather impatient Caenii voice piped up. “So the captain’s weird about space travel, the Rabyth and the Velca are officially banging, and we’re going to do some dangerous weave jumps once the rest of the survivors have been dropped off, have I missed anything? Because if that’s all, I really should get started on meal planning for the week.”