Morning Surprises

Dustin shook his head frantically as the others woke up and looked at him. “I don’t have… I mean, no offence Sammie, but it’s not… Rye, would you please stop laughing.” The bunny girl struggled but just about managed to get her giggles under control, although she still couldn’t look at the pilot with a straight face. Sammie meanwhile had buried her head in her hands and was groaning to herself. “Perhaps you could explain what is going on to the rest of us, Dustin?” Trea’k’s voice was far calmer than Dustin felt at that precise moment in time.

It took a few minutes to explain the situation to the others; Emely found the whole situation almost as amusing as Rye and the pair kept periodically breaking into more giggles. Meli nodded along, both her and Trea’k seeming to get the general gist of what had occurred instantly. Naera meanwhile looked more and more confused as time progressed, until eventually raising one hand rather timidly. “So, why is Dustin so worried about another woman wanting him? He’s an ambassador, it goes with the job - even I know that much.”

Meli looked about to speak, but Rye swallowed her latest laughing fit and answered first. “Two reasons, Nae-nae. Firstly, humans have this whole weird thing going on about sex and only having one partner - pretty sure we talked to ya about that already, right? More importantly, tho, ambassadors don’t usually have fuck-buddies from their own species. It’s not unheard of, but it’s pretty rare. And thirdly - yea, I know I said two reasons, but I just thought of another - the context matters. You were all completely trashed, and that’s putting it politely.”

The plant woman nodded slowly in reply and stood up. “That makes sense. Well, now that I know that, I’m going to go make breakfast - you don’t need me to discuss anything else.” Dustin was about to interject before Naera leaned back down and kissed him rather firmly before smiling to herself. “Still not quite used to being able to do that, captain. But seriously, you don’t need me - I spent a bunch of time working out if I was okay with fully signing up to everything becoming intimate with an ambassador would involve before I even asked Emmz to help me out.” Then she hesitated and turned to Rye, blushing furiously as she did so. “I would like to spend some time with you before anyone new gets added though Rye.”

At that, the shortstack darted for the kitchen, leaving Rye to blink a few times before a rather dopey smile crossed her face. “Wasn’t expecting that from her. Emmz, remind me I owe you one for getting that hottie to join us.” She then became aware of the eyes on her and shrugged. “What? Rabyth, remember? Dusty and the nerd got my sex drive working properly, so I’m gonna say stuff like that sometimes.” Meli tapped her chin thoughtfully. “Yes, just not generally with other people around” and gestured to Sammie, who had been slowly trying to edge towards the door without anyone noticing while the conversation had carried on.

“You seemed to have some kind of plan to proposition Dustin” Meli mused, beckoning the human woman back “but more importantly, it was a plan for later on - which implies that you are either going to be far more social with us than you made out when we first met you, or something else is happening.” Sammie winced. “Yeaaa, about that.” Dustin sighed. “We need to talk. A lot. But, given the smell coming from the kitchen, I suggest we do it over the breakfast table.”

The group filed out of the bedroom and gathered round the ready room table; Dustin paused a moment to retrieve a couple of pitchers of juice from the automat, as well as a coffee dispenser after a moment’s thought. He was going to need the caffeine - and looking from the state of things so would Sammie. Once everyone was seated and drinks had been handed out, he gestured back to the pilot. “So, two things then. Firstly, what’s going on that’ll give you a chance to get to know us better that I don’t know about, and then we’ll deal with… the other matter.”

Sammie sighed and looked around the assembled women before flopping forward onto her crossed arms. “The General is gonna kill me.” She muttered before straightening back up. “Alright, Ambassador, I’ll keep it quick because I don’t know all the details myself yet. Whatever you’ve got going on in space, you’re going to need more defences than the Solar Ascent currently has. To that end, at some point during your stay in Sol space, she’s getting a retrofit to house two fighter wings - ten of the craft like mine - in place of shuttle bays three and four I think, and a chunk of the auxiliary storage. Based on your reports, you shouldn’t even notice the loss of the storage, and the shuttles can be doubled up in the other bays without any issue.”

Dustin blinked at that, but the woman continued “anyhow, with two wings you need someone to be in charge of them; additionally in light of your report on the stresses of weave-piloting, you need a dedicated pilot. The very best of the pilots Axworth recruited got to do an additional training program to try and meet his requirements for that role. Out of the ten of us that took the course, only one passed.” She smirked then, before sighing to herself. “So yea, unless I’ve fucked things up to the point you’d rather not have me on-board, which wouldn’t be out of the question I suppose, I’m coming with you when you leave Sol space next.”

That revelation caused Dustin to drum his fingers on the desk for a moment before Meli reached out and rested her hand on his. “Li’ah’a, what do you think?” He shrugged. “I understand the reasons for it - I just dislike the fact that an exploration vessel is having to become more militarized. Hate that the galaxy’s making us do this.” Then he glanced up and saw the worry in Sammie’s eyes. “Shit, sorry, before that - no, you haven’t fucked things up by getting drunk with me last night and deciding to tell everyone you want to fuck me the next morning. If you’re as good as Axworth thinks you are, then I’ll need you on my crew.” Then he grimaced. “We do need to talk about the other business as well though. You seem rather too informed about what’s going on between me and the others here.”

That comment caused Sammie to shrug. “I guess I’d better come clean there then as well. Word about what ambassadors get up to leaked onto the under-net about a week or so after you left Earth - and there’s been speculation about who you’ve been hooking up with from the aliens aboard ever since on some… err.. we’ll just call them fan boards for now…” the pilot blushed heavily at that point, before she hastily continued “…and well, I’ve known I’m bisexual since forever, and polyam for years. My last polycule kinda fell apart when the other ladies decided they wanted to get married and move to the Martian colony, but that was over a year ago… which isn’t really relevant right now, but basically the point is that I was reading up everything I could find about you and the others here even before I joined the angels.”

Dustin frowned, and met Meli’s gaze - for once, thankfully, the Velca seemed to be on the same page as him about holding off on someone jumping into their bed. “Sammie…” he began, resting his hands on the table in front of him. “Don’t say it, Ambassador. I barely know you, you barely know me, and besides the others would have to agree and I’ve spent enough time watching holos of Velca emotional signalling to recognise that Meli’a isn’t enthusiastic about the idea right now - probably for the same reasons you are.” The pilot took a breath after her interruption before continuing. “That was why I said what I did to Rye earlier. Eventually, not right now. Gods, I am well aware that my knowledge of you all consists of dry official reports and lurid under-net tales most of which are pure fantasy, as well as one night’s heavy drinking which I did not have planned…”