FTL-25... Faster Than Life.

Chapter 25

*Before…

It’s one of the best sexual times I’ve ever had and one of the most beautiful moments too as Liz slipped out of the bed and brought us some heated steam damp towels to clean up with and two cups of this hot date drink with coffee blended into it and she slips back into the sheets with me and we’re sipping and we’re spooning and setting the cups out on the little window edge as we snuggle and look out into space together.

It’s one of the best reasons right now I can feel about enlisting as we’re just doing that and the ship does this slow maneuver on its axis to a sideways movement as we’re slipping into an orbital track and I can see this huge grey mass of a moon and space bases on it so close that we can make out the vague city like shapes as it fills our window for almost a full seven seconds and then we’re passed it and then window gets partially filled by this lovely green and white profile of a planet.

I will never get tired of the view of a planet from orbit I don’t think and this is just…it’s the perfect end to a perfect night.

*And Now…

There’s a few hours left of me being off and we take our time with our drinks and watching the planet and there’s just something about being able to see something like that and the little motions and flickers of starcraft going back and forth across the sky.

I leaned back into Liz. “This was really nice I had an amazing time.”

They nodded and nuzzled my neck and played with my hair some. “I’ve duty up on the flight decks and in the mission rooms bur I’ve time for a shared shower.”

I lean into it and enjoy the feelings that Liz sort of brings out. They’re one of the Varied Gender people and more masculine than not or whatever the term is…I’m not good with the differences really I’m full on just a standard transition.

Funny that, home I’m seen as sick and wanting to be cured out here it’s a major procedure but it’s not that big a thing.

And being able to actually choose things medically that you feel whole as yourself on any of those levels is just not a big thing here in fleet as long as you’re biologically sound and fit for duty.

We share Liz’s shower which is really nice to have to one’s self or rather together.
I really liked washing her with all of her tone and muscles but not like one of the big amazon combat types she’s just built from working out and not being all binary gender curvy that we see now.

She was washing my hair which was wonderful when she asks. “Are you converted Erin?”

“Yes is that okay?”

“Sure, I’m not really picky with those kinds of details it’s just you’re really not like the other converted women I usually see.”

I shrug a little. “I used to do Sims and stuff pre-conversion and one of the things that I found off putting was there was this whole thing about beauty. Honestly I always sort of thought that I’d just be fine if I was me as I was supposed to be and that would be fine.”

Liz moves her hands lower to my neck letting the shampoo do its thing and bubble and fizz the dirt and things away. Oh…oh I think that I might actually try spending credits sometime on getting a massage because this feels wonderful and Liz knows how to do this.

There’s a thing…a star fighter pilot that gives massages.

She says. “I know a lot of conversion women and a lot of them are very nice and very beautiful.”

I slowly nod. “I was always of the opinion that I honestly didn’t know how to be beautiful in that whole popularized sort of menu choices I was just really satisfied with just being myself instead of ideal.”

“That’s kind of brave.”

“No that’s me being realistic maybe? I just think that I’d feel fake and if I felt fake then maybe I’d act fake.”

“I kind of like that you’re as genuinely you as you are.”

I turned to look at them with a hand on my forehead to keep the soap out of my eyes and I kiss them. “Thank you, that’s probably the best compliment I’ve had in a while Liz.”

“Denada Erin.” Then they kissed me back with a smile.

It was challenging in a good way too after that with the shower sex and then each of us getting dressed and out of her quarters in a timely fashion.

……………….. It’s a slow day getting back to regular duties now that we’re in orbit. With the general duty schedule being SOP right now and after so much that has been going on and has gone on getting back to the regular schedule seems like a luxury.

I’m in Sense-Nav doing the control for our local space and we’re in orbit over New Ithaca and I’m enjoying it really. There’s the traffic and there’s banter from the people and some of it ours when you’re doing easy flow on the coms and then you’re working with people that you know and keeping the sky safe and clear and I’m even fielding calls from some of the places we’re expecting deliveries and give then ETA’s.

I like doing this and I like hearing the other com traffic too with the other pilots that are working with us and the accents that they have and seeing the little occasional I.D. thumbnail pic or even better thumbnail vid of who I’m talking to as I guide them through our traffic.

And honestly as much as I like being the go to for the commander of Sense-Nav I like being in my chair too. I don’t ask to stand out or anything and I like doing my job and learning more on how to do my job really.

I know this sounds a lot like I’ve already been through the academy but it’s not this is practice, it’s the scrub duties that we’ll be doing everyday all the time and we need to learn it in the way we are to be familiar with the bustle and flow and the chatter.

We’re told that it’s so we can know what’s going on while and if we have to do other things. It’s like knowing what’s going on when you have a vid going on in the background and you’re familiar with the program.

Things like that are of critical important as our shift commander says. “When the screens decide to get full and space is giving you the hairy eyeball.”

I am not sure if he’s making a testicle reference with that one.

Even if he’s not…eeew, that’s some messed up genetics.

If space itself had genetics.

But the point is to get us used to the small stuff in this job before we get to the academy and we start doing serious training and the big number crunching maths for doing jumps and other things.

Things like I’ve heard about combat tracking and plotting to know where an enemy might be or to know when something like torpedoes are coming towards us and those kinds of things.

Hopefully interspersed with things like learning Nav skills to deal with gas clouds and nebulas and what to do in the Nav sense when we hit electrical storms and ion storms or how to chart things.

I’m actually pretty interested in things of that sort.

Honestly I never signed up for the action that I’ve seen and I really hope that it’s a rare thing in my career.

Though with these Tekker incursions and attacks I have a bad feeling about how things might be shaping up in the future or the near future.

My duty shift gets done and I head down the outer halls so I can watch things coming and going through the windows and I can see that there’s shuttles and skiff’s coming in for landing and that they look like the same sort of shuttles that I came here on.

The Zodiac’s are still part of the Colonial Union even if way sort of politically fringe and all so it’s still likely that we’re going to be picking up new recruits and all.

I’m heading back to my quarters when I get a ping from Logistics saying that I have mail?

Like packages mail?

I ping them back saying that I’ll be there shortly.

“Who would be sending me mail?”

I don’t really know anyone out here except who I’ve served with and well my family…well they’ve pretty much disowned me.

I head down and that whole section’s a busy place really especially now with things coming and going and I find the actual packages offices where you send physical mail out or get it and I ping them my I.D. scans from my OBC and the man behind the desk comes over with a data pad for me to retinal and thumb and a cadet behind him is pushing a dolly with several crates and smaller boxes and two of the crates look like they’re refrigerated?

I look at the data pad again and see it’s from the merchant and his sons that I had helped from the escape pod during the crisis and I look at the manifest.

“Food? They sent me food?”

The clerk looks at me. “That’s a lot of mass it’ll seriously eat up your allotted space.”

“Is it safe did it all pass bio-scan?”

“Oh sure it went through three times.”

I look at the manifest and there’s raw lamb and there’s things called figs and figs in honey? And then there’s cucumbers and yogurt and cheese and olives and olive oil?

“Well I’ve had some of these things. What should I do with the rest do I store it or what?”

“Can you cook?”

“No…not really?”

“You could maybe donate it then to the mess hall.”

I nod and look at him. “I’d still get to try it then right?”

He grins and he nods. “Yeah, you could even like spend credits and have a meal cooked for like people that you know and have an off duty dinner.”

“Really?”

“Yeah the fighter pilots and the combat crews do that a lot usually pooling their money together but yeah it’s a thing.”

“Expensive?”

He nods. “Seriously so it’s taking the mess crew’s time from other things.”

I nod and think. “I’ll take the figs and the figs in honey and leave the rest here for now until I can get a time from the kitchen.”

“Who you going to invite?” He asks as he’s passing me two smaller boxes.

“Well this is from some people I helped out while on duty so I was thinking that I’d use it to treat my duty cadet shift crew and maybe my bunkmates.”

He nods and I open up the figs and honey thing and look in it and it’s a box or a round box made of transparent glass but fitted with clamps around it and the label is all in the local Greek? I run a translation app and it’s summer fresh figs that have been steeped in fig-grove honey and brandy?

I try one a little hesitantly and it’s messy, like hold your hand underneath sort of messy and the fruit is strange and yet it’s like this sweet and gummy natural jam inside of a fruit but it’s also so soft and ripe but preserved right on that edge in this syrup.

I get it down and offer the clerks some. “They’re very good but I could so go for a caff right now.”

They all take one each and try them and the clerk passes me a soy-caff black as he’s sucking on the one he’s eating like it’s something he knows and likes quite well.

The caff helps cut the sweetness and the richness. “Thanks for that I’ll ping you soon as to what’s what.”

I leave with my figs heading for my quarters but I ping my duty commander as I’m going and offering up my idea to share the wealth as it were for like a team building thing.

We actually start to ping back and forth talking about what was sent and the first thing that I do need to do is to give a return thank you to those people for sending those up here to me because it was likely far from cheap.

I stop by the PX and I buy a small sheaf of real paper and an envelope and a pen and I go to my quarters and I start to write a thank you to them and a real letter.

The girls are coming in and I open the figs and the honey for them and they start to check it out too and some are trying the equally as unfamiliar with things as I was with them.

I ping the kitchens too and find out what that’ll cost and they ask what I have and they are going to call me back with a price and recommends.

I still want to do this, other people do this and I kind of want those kinds of memories too before we all are off ship and gone to do our different things.