Sexy Space Babes: Chapter Twenty Four (Patreon)

“I’m gonna be sick,” Jason grunted, pulling his helmet off and letting it drop to the deck as he slumped against the ship’s bulkhead.

“Yeah, that’ll happen,” Assisse said casually from behind him. “Your average sapient isn’t used to gravity switching constantly like this.”

She gestured to the weapon in his hand. “That’s why you’re carrying that. You make a mess and you’re cleaning it up.”

Jason glanced down at the mop he was somehow still holding onto.

“Right that’s enough of a break,” She said as she scooped up his helmet, and shoved it into his chest. “Put that back on and try not to throw up in it. I can promise you, the smell will never quite go away if you do.”

Jason gagged a little, but did as he was asked. Truth be told, the exercise itself wasn’t all that tiring. Move down a hallway. Check each room as he passed it. Use the method Assisse had shown him.

Slicing the cake was what she had called it. Where he swept his ‘weapon’ from one side of the room to the other while minimizing his own profile. Apparently, it would ensure that he never had too many potential threats directly in front of him at any given time.

It was a fairly slow process, truth be told, but one where he was constantly in motion. Which made just moving down a hallway a deceptively strenuous exercise. Still, he could have handled that without too much trouble - given that Assisse didn’t seem fully aware of the relative difference in stamina between a Shil’vati and a human - if it weren’t for the other factor in this little fun house exercise.

Just as he was finishing the third room in the set, Jason’s stomach lurched, and he desperately tried to reach for the controls on his wrist as gravity shifted and he became weightless. It was too late though, and he found himself floating down the hall, feet kicking ineffectually as he tried to anchor them to anything he could.

He failed, and continued to float like the world's saddest balloon down the ship’s hallway.

“Another failure, kid.” Assisse said from where she’d been ambling along behind him, her own feet securely magnetized to the deck.

Jason might have retorted, but he was too busy trying to keep his lunch down as he span through the air.

“You also missed me, human.” Scales stepped out of a room using the curious gait that magnetic boots required. “I was behind a console.”

“Right, so you also just got shot in the back,” Assisse hummed. “More importantly, you just got me shot in the back.”

That was the opening Jason had been waiting for. “If I just got you shot, wouldn’t I have a team with me when I do this?”

“Ideally, yes.” Assisse shrugged “In practice though… there’s only three of us. Sometimes that means people get injured or killed.”

Scales gave her friend a sardonic glance. “More often though, we have to split up to cover a ship faster when we’re working against a deadline. Merchant ships don’t like being pulled over for a ‘routine inspection’.”

Assisse rolled her eyes. “Yes, and while normally I’d tell them to blow chunks, they tend to complain to Gurathu’s governess when I do. Who in turn complains to the Admiral about lost trading opportunities. Who in turn complains to Tisi about possible budget cuts. Who in turn complains to me about being yelled at by the Admiral.”

The woman seemed perfectly laconic about it, but Jason could see just a subtle hint of irritation in her delivery. Of course, whatever sympathy he might have held for her position disintegrated as she smiled at him.

“Run it again!”

“No!” A voice squawked from Jason’s headset. “I’m invoking medical privileges. If the ship’s gravity shifts one more time for this insane exercise, I’m going to go insane.”

He took a moment to place the voice, before realizing it was Cerilla, assumably speaking from her position way down in medical.

Assisse sighed, putting a hand to her ear. “Kid’s got to learn.”

“As he should,” Cerilla huffed over the line, “from a trained professional. Not whatever… this is.”

Assisse actually looked a bit offended. “Hey, I’m working with what I’ve got here.”

“It is effectively the same thing they had Assise and I do during our Zero-G Ship Sweeping Program at Point Station.” Scales added, backing up her friend. “Just… simplified a little.”

Given that Jason was currently holding a mop, he had to wonder just how many levels of simplified this was.

“Whatever,” Cerilla stated. “I’m done. I don’t know about our newest private, but I’m about to lose my own lunch.”

“I would also appreciate an end to the training program,” Yaro piped in. “The constant shifts in the currents of the sky-ship have… most disrupted my inner energies.”

Assisse sighed, and Jason had a feeling she’d be stamping her foot if the magnetic boots she was wearing didn’t make that a more complicated proposition than it was worth.

“Captain?” she said finally.

Silence reigned down the line, and Jason could almost imagine the entire crew holding their breath. He knew he certainly was.

“Do what you have to do to get him up to speed,” Tisi’s voice announced, audible regret and not a little queasiness present in her voice. “We can all suffer a little motion-sickness if it means he’s halfway able to fulfill his duties when we reach the Fuel Point.”

Her words only served to make him feel guilty. Sure, it hadn’t been his decision to arrive here half-trained, but everyone was suffering as a result.

“Ok kid, you heard the boss,” Assisse said, sadistic amusement and vindication in her voice. “Run it again.”

…Never mind. He didn’t blame himself.

He blamed this monster…

Then gravity reasserted itself, and he dropped to the floor like a sack of potatoes.

-----------------

“Oh.”

Jason glanced up from where he’d been comparing the technical manual in his hands, to the banks of machines in front of him. There, standing in the entrance to the engine room, was a particularly small and wiry looking Shil’vati.

Well, small and wiry for a Shi’vati female at any rate.

“You must be Kernathu,” Jason said, standing up as he walked across the metal walkway towards her and extending a fist. “Private Jason Linford.”

The young woman moved to bump it, before realizing that her hands were covered in… something black and grimy.

“I, ah…” she said vaguely waving her hands. “Don’t want to get you dirty.”

Jason just shrugged. He wasn’t personally bothered by a little grime. Lord knows he’d been up to his own armpits in worse over the years. Still, he appreciated her somewhat chivalrous attempt not to immediately smear him on their first meeting.

“No problem.” He smiled, much to her relief. “I figured I’d come down here to familiarize myself with the ship, given that I’ll apparently be helping you around here for the foreseeable future.”

He resisted the urge to frown as he thought of the nebulous status of his training. “I don’t have any formal degrees as such, but I’m pretty familiar with most of the underlying concepts of what’s in here.”

“Ah…” the ship’s resident engineer said, before trailing off, the oil stain on the bridge of her nose shifting as she scrunched her nose up cutely in thought. Jason waited for her to say anything else, and though it was clear she was trying to think of something, no words were forthcoming.

The silence dragged.

“All crew report to the lounge,” blared from the ship’s intercom, Tisi’s voice warped by only the slightest crackle.

Glancing at his wrist-comp, Jason noted that it was time for the all-hands meeting. Looking up at the engineer in front of him, he saw that she was still searching for something to say. Perhaps it would be best to show her mercy by stepping out now?

“Ah, I guess we’ll have to cut this short,” he said, making his way toward the exit. “I look forward to working with you though.”

The woman just nodded as he stepped around her, eyes studiously on some spot slightly to the left of him. Jason resisted the urge to sigh as he stepped out into the hall.

Despite what his experiences in basic training might suggest, he wasn’t unfamiliar with shy Shil’vati. They existed. Which wasn’t all that surprising when one thought about. Given the gender disparity in the race, more than a few of the female’s only point of contact with a male was their father. But of course, society placed a lot of a woman’s value on her ability to find and ‘snare’ a mate.

That meant that when many of these less outgoing Shil’vati finally did meet a man, they inevitably froze up under the pressure. He’d seen it happen plenty of times during training.

So no, the entire race wasn’t comprised of gregarious and outgoing horndogs. He sincerely doubted even most of them were. What he did know was that the ones who approached him were invariably those specimens whose interest in the opposite gender and confidence were each at the correct ratios.

Even Raisha, for all of her adorkable nature, was more of an extrovert than anything else. The same could have been said to have been true of any other member of his little circle of ‘friends’ during basic.

With the notable exception of Freyxh.

With any luck though, Kernathu would calm down a bit after she’d gotten a bit more exposure to him.

“Nice to meet you!” the girl in question suddenly shouted from the entrance to the engine room.

Jason smiled and waved back at her, making her fidget in place, the soot stains on her face fading as her features shifted to blue. She seemed relieved though, likely conceding that she hadn’t totally messed up their first meeting.

…Or, at least, that was his take on things. For all he knew, she was just relieved the primitive ape was out of her engine room.

He was also wondering how long it would take her to realize that ‘all crew’ included her. He momentarily considered doubling back to inform her, but decided that doing so might do more damage to her ego. Better to pretend they both forgot.

A line he stuck with when Kernathu showed up blue-faced and panting to the meeting five minutes after it had started.

----------------------

It was both a humbling and awe-inspiring experience, to watch a storm system the size of Earth itself, rippling across a gas giant’s surface.

For all that Jason knew he liked to complain about his current circumstances, he could admit that they provided some pretty amazing opportunities. While it wasn’t quite a window, the view from the high fidelity screens on the bridge were no less breathtaking because of it.

“Impressive isn’t it?”

Jason nearly jumped out of his skin as he turned and found the captain standing at the entrance to the bridge. He froze, all too aware that he should technically have been sat at the duty station.

“Relax,” Tisi smiled. “You’d hardly be the first member of the crew I found staring out the window – or worse – while they were on night shift.”

Jason nodded, even as he somewhat sheepishly, made his way back to the console he was supposed to be sat at.

“Where’s Rocket?” the Captain asked as she settled into her chair.

“Bathroom,” Jason said simply.

Something he was kind of relieved about. The shuttle pilot could be fun in small doses, but after a while her talkative presence got downright overbearing. Perhaps that was how she always was, or perhaps it was just because he was male? Either way,  her trip to answer the call of nature had provided him a welcome reprieve from the woman’s unsubtle flirting.

In truth, he recognized that part of his discomfort in her presence was because she reminded him of Raisha. Which in turn made him feel guilty about even thinking of acquiescing to her unsubtle suggestions to have a ‘quicky’ to pass the time.

While he’d like to think he’d acclimatized rather well to the Shil’vati notion of having multiple partners, every now and then he found some unconscious hang-ups coming back to haunt him.

“I’ll have to go and make sure she’s not sleeping in there if she doesn’t show up again soon,” Tisi said, more amused than annoyed. “Wouldn’t be the first time I’ve caught her catching five with her pants around her ankles on the steel throne.”

Jason chuckled at the thought.

“Will you be sticking around for a while then, Captain?”

The woman tilted her head to the side. “Trying to get rid of me, private?”

Jason didn’t rise to the bait. “Hardly, ma’am. Just wondering why you’re… here?”

Rather than in bed, where he’d dearly like to be right now. Unfortunately, the duty roster had him up here for another two hours, before Cerilla and Yoro came to relieve him.

“A little insomnia,” Tisi admitted. “I’ve long learned that I’m better served wandering the ship for a while than lying awake.”

Finished looking over the console attached to her chair, she moved over to the camera feed Jason had been looking at before she’d come in. “Pretty, isn’t it?”

Jason had to resist the urge to snort. The way she’d said it had just been so stilted. As if repeating something she knew to be the case, but couldn’t quite see for herself.

“Yes, it is pretty.” He dutifully repeated.

Something of his amusement must have peaked through despite his best efforts, because the woman flushed slightly before turning back to the massive wall sized monitor.

“Has anyone ever mentioned why we’re out here? What the Whisker actually does?”

That actually perked up Jason’s interest. “Not in so few words. I mean, I know we’re a patrol ship, but no one’s ever actually explained why we’re here.”

Space was big after all. It would take a truly staggering number of ships to cover every approach to any given world. To his mind, it would make more sense to have every ship sit in orbit of the world you actually planned to defend. Sure, that gave you next to no warning when an enemy showed up, but at least you’d have defenses in place to act on it.

Though he could understand why that was also pretty unfeasible. Ships were expensive, and having a fleet of them over every world in the Imperium would be ruinously expensive.

Instead of either of those options though, they’d flown who knew how many light years away from Gurathu and sat in orbit of this gas giant for the last day or so.

“Fuel,” Tisi said simply, clearly more at ease now, discussing practical matters. “The Gravity Drive which we – and the rest of the galaxy – use for FTL requires hydrogen. Copious amounts of it, in order to jump.”

Jason glanced at the gas giant they were orbiting. “And most gas giants are mostly hydrogen and helium, ma’am.”

“So worlds like this serve as good chokepoints in space.” Tisi smiled happily, before it turned somewhat sadistic. “I’m glad you get it without me having to explain. I was beginning to wonder if that line about you having experience in engineering was fabricated when you didn’t show any interest in any of this during the trip.”

“I was slightly busy, ma’am.”

Undergoing Assisse’s training from hell. Or trying not to be sick in the brief intervals between said training sessions. Certainly, he counted himself as being of an engineering mindset, but said mindset had limits. Unraveling the mysteries of FTL travel while trying not to upchuck his lunch was not his idea of a good time.

“Fair,” Tisi admitted. “Has Kernathu been helping you settle in?”

“She’s doing what she can, ma’am.” Jason nodded.

The girl was still stumbling over her sentences around him, but at least she was talking in sentences now. He’d count that as a win.

“Good, I meant what I said about trying to make this time valuable for you.”

Jason just nodded.

“So what happens if a fleet, or pirates or whatever, does jump in?” Jason asked.

“Ma’am,” Tisi corrected politely, before turning her attention back to the ‘window’. “We run, of course. I love the Whisker but she’d last less than a second in a straight fight with any real warship.”

She leaned on a nearby console, crossing her arms. “No, we run as soon as we get a half-decent idea of the size of the attacking force. Given that we’re fully fueled, we’d get back to Gurathu and be able to give the governess there a decent warning, before the attackers could refuel and follow us. In that time, another ship at Gurathu could jump out to inform sector command.”

Jason frowned. “That still gives the attacking fleet a decent window to do some damage before reinforcements show up, ma’am.”

Tisi shrugged. “That’s life out in the colonies. It’s why pirates like the Roaches are still kicking around when we’d squish them like the bugs they are in a straight fight. Unfortunately for the universe at large, the insects can make a decent trade on salvage even before they cash in the Consortium’s bounty.”

She sounded more than slightly irritable at that, and Jason decided to let that topic lie. While the Shil’vati seemed apathetic about the Alliance, the Consortium got a significantly more rabid response.

Not that he didn’t understand why, even through the lense of Imperial propaganda, he couldn’t exactly see a slave trading corporatocracy possibly being a particularly nice place. Especially if they were apparently funding pirate raids.

“Hey Captain,” he started, jostling the woman from her own thoughts. “I’ve been wondering, how would I go about sending someone a message?”

Rather than be annoyed, Tisi seemed rather relieved by the interruption. “Well, normally you’d-”

“Hey Jason! You should see the size of the crap I just…. and the captain is here…” Rocket trailed off from her bombastic entrance as she seemed to shrink in on herself under her superior officer’s glare.

The woman sighed.