The needle in the haystack

Jaisyl was definitely not doing this so that Dustin would look at her. There was no way she’d have stooped that low, even if he was jogging nearby, his stupid hornless face glowing slightly with effort on the treadmill. No, she was doing this - steadily running in a scandalously short outfit that Sammie had told her was apparently normal human sportswear - because Yaerwen had asked her to, and she was doing her best to accommodate friendly requests from the women around her. That was all, it was just a friendly run with a friend and the man who’s muscles were visible where sweat had stuck his t-shirt to his chest and...

Dustin grunted as the treadmill adjusted to a gentle incline while he ran. He was dimly aware of Jaisyl’s eyes on him, but didn’t comment any more than he had when she’d turned up in sportswear that was far too covering for the amount of effort running was taking; long leggings and a top were fine if you were doing yoga, but for an intense jog like this one practically every other woman he knew would have stripped down to shorts and the smallest sports-bra that could still retain it’s function. Hell, if it wasn’t for the fact that this was a public gym, several of his lovers would have forgone even that - on those prior occasions when the whole harem had felt like exercising together, Yaerwen had booked out one of the smaller gyms in it’s entirety so that she, Rye and Emely could exercise naked. It was a fur thing, apparently.

They were currently in the middle of a weave jump to what hopefully would be the system of origin for the stealth probe. Sammie was flying this one solo; she’d insisted as soon as Bleu had cleared her for pilot duties again, on the grounds that if things went south on arrival she wanted to be the one in the pilot’s seat as soon as they returned to real-space. Dustin had agreed, and then promptly been bullied out of the ready room by Meli and Bleu, the two women insisting he do something other than sitting in the same seat for the six hours of flight they were expecting. Thus, the gym.

Reaching the end of his run, Dustin was relieved when the treadmill returned to the horizontal once more. Stepping off the machine, he took a bottle of water gratefully from Emely who’d been watching from nearby. “You could have worked out too if you wanted, pretty sure some light walking would be fine by Bleu,” he commented, gesturing to the free treadmill on the far side of him as the fox girl tossed more bottles to the princess and Hoxx as they too concluded their runs.

“I could… but my preferred workout involves a lot of ups and downs and less running.” The Feliax’s grin was practically devilish as she stretched before sauntering forward. “Maaaybe sir would like to help me with that later on?”

Dustin glanced around. Asides from the other two women, the gym was only sparsely inhabited, and most of the rest of the crew were busy on weight machines and not paying attention. Leaning in, he caught Emely’s chin between forefinger and thumb, stepping into her space as his other hand ran over the swell of her stomach. “Didn’t I give you enough help with that already, kitten?” He said softly, pushing his voice into a deeper register than normal as he did so, before adding “but if you insist, maybe tonight I’ll…”

A cough cut him off in mid dominant flow. Glancing to the side, Emely’s face still cupped in his hand, he saw Jaisyl doing her best to blush, pout and look offended all at once. The sight of it almost made him burst out laughing, but he swallowed it and turned back to his submissive to whisper “…we’ll continue this later, when we won’t offend our company…” before kissing her nose and stepping back.

Emely’s whine and Jaisyl’s answering snort made him smile as he turned and headed for the showers.

Yril’k tapped her chin thoughtfully, chitin clicking against chitin as she peered across the carefully assembled hatchery. “You wish’k me to pick one’k to train?” She asked for a second time, glancing sideways at Trea’k. “That is’k not how our kind’k works, we both’k know this.”

Trea’k shifted C’harl’ette from one arm to another, the infant cradled against her chest as she replied. “It is not. But the evolution will impart knowledge, skills and nothing more. You will impart heart. The willingness to risk your own life to save those you are with, or to keep a ship running and the guns firing even when you lack the bioform for it - those are what I wish for your… apprentice.”

The warrior Vex’ess frowned, then nodded. Stepping forward, she ran a hand delicately over a couple of the egg-cases before stopping, a blade arm flicking out to carve a notch in the metal frame above one of them. “This’k one. She is’k strong-willed. That’k will help.” Yri’k turned abruptly, facing the envoy and added. “Evolve her’k to scholar first, not warrior’k, when she finishes her grub state. She should’k learn to value, before learning’k to kill. How will you raise’k the others?”

Turning to lead the way back to the nursery, Trea’k sighed. “I am unsure yet. I feel… some of them at least should have mentors as well. But as to who? I had thought to ask Bleu if she or one of the medical team would mind supporting one, and perhaps Naera another? For the time being at least, our chef is not intending to join me in motherhood, and so I do not feel bad asking for her assistance. The remaining two will be handmaidens and will be with me and C’harl’ette most of the time anyway, so they are less of a concern.”

The ship dropped out of the weave without any fanfare besides Sola’s usual chime. As the screens came back online, Dustin frowned. “This is the first target system?” he asked, eyes drifting across a pair of stars engaged in an elegant dance, a handful of planets in a polar orbit above the midpoint of the two stellar bodies.

“It’s really pretty.” Aricia’s comment was the first, the butterfly woman tapping at the console she’d taken and capturing a number of images from the feed that drove the vidscreens. “I’m not… huh, that’s odd…”

Dustin’s eyes flicked across to her. Meli and Yril’k already had the main sensors sweeping the system for any kind of life, but oddities had been how they’d found the probe that was currently still sitting in one of his cargo bays where it was being stripped down by the engineering team. “What’s odd, Aricia?”

The Lieviran tapped her screen again, and the main monitor shifted to show the view she’d taken of the planets floating above the two stars. It was a great image, and Dustin was tempted to ask for a copy to set as the background for his tablet - but then with another tap and a swipe of her finger she highlighted two of the worlds in red. “They’re too far apart to influence each other - but look at the tides.”

Another tap, and the image zoomed in on one of the worlds. Dustin frowned - he couldn’t see anything wrong, although judging by the intake of breath his first wife could. “You can see whatever it is too, Meli?” he asked, before flicking his eyes back to the flighty woman operating the cameras. “I’m afraid I can’t figure out what you’ve spotted, Aricia.”

The butterfly woman was practically vibrating as she replied. “The water’s too high. The moon is on the far side of this planet, which should pull the water around towards it and cause a low tide - but the tide is high. The nearest planet is way too far away to have an impact - the only way we’d see this kind of swell is if there were two moons on opposite sides of the world but…”

Dustin’s gaze flicked back to the screen. “But that planet only looks to have one moon. Which means if there’s another… it’s cloaked.”