Betrayal on Aztiko

"Not exactly ideal." Jacob tried not to let her cadence bother him. The last thing he wanted was a confrontation, especially with so little sleep. "It wasn't the pilot's fault... well, maybe the last part was the pilot's fault."

Her head swiveled and pointed upward to face him.

"Last part? What happened?"

"I don't know much about military spacecraft but I'm guessing you noticed something was wrong?" He pointed his thumb over his shoulder towards the general direction of the transport. "Supposedly something happened with the autopilot and he hit some debris. I don't know. Apparently I'm marooned here for a little while." She let out a sigh and nodded.

"Well, that explains that. I'll have somebody look at the flight recording later, then I'll have to make a note to inform Colonel Curtis about this."

"Oh, you know him? Does he have some sort of history with this?"

She raised the visor of her helmet and looked into an ocular scanner. A series of high pitched beeps and the door in front of them opened. She motioned for him to go in first and he walked into a hallway, slightly ecstatic at the revelation that he felt climate controlled, cool air around him.

"Kaslowski has a history of 'autopilot failures' and I've been wanting him taken off of flight duty for a while now. He very nearly got some good people killed not too long before we got set up on this rock."

She repeated the process with her visor again and walked him to a small room with a desk and matching set of chairs. Atop the desk was what looked like a large camera. The walls were adorned with flat electronic screens alternating between various propaganda art pieces.

"I told them a probationary period wasn't enough. He's just too damned incompetent."

Jacob breathed a sigh of relief. So, she wasn't being pissy with him, she was just mad about the pilot. He was worried he'd somehow done something to look suspicious.

"Have a seat, Mister Caldwell. I'll try to make this go as quickly as possible. No offense, but you look like you need some rest." He laughed weakly and plopped into the chair parallel to her as she also sat down. His laugh was cut short as he realized that she knew his name without him having told her. With a quick movement she freed her webbed hands from the gloves of her armored security uniform, then reached up to detach the helmet from her neck. After a bit of fiddling it came loose and she pulled it off before placing it down on the desk, the bushy frills atop her head quickly standing up straight, no longer constrained by the headwear. Her bright pink skin glistened as a small mist of water came from her suit to moisten her. In between blinks, her matte turquoise eyes reflecting the glaring light of the small office. "Jazz? Is that you?!" She grinned at him, as though she was satisfied he'd not been able to figure out who she was up until that point. Jacob felt a burst of excitement at seeing his old friend that pushed a decent amount of his fatigue aside, at least for the moment.

"How you been, Jacob, you pencil pushing pussy?"

"Besides almost puking my guts out on the way here, just fine, Jazz, you dumbass meathead."

"What, no alliteration?"

"I'm surprised you can even pronounce that word."

She feigned anger and leapt onto the desk chest first, wrapping her arms around him in a merciless hug.

"You calling me stupid, nerd?!"

He tried in vain to pull her arms from around his neck and chest, panic slowly rising in him at the air rapidly leaving his lungs.

"I... I already called you a dumbass... Jazz... LET GO!"

With a wicked laugh and one final squeeze, she released him before sliding back into her chair, that same smug expression as before returning to her face. Exasperated but still happy, Jacob rubbed his neck and slowly regained his breath.

"Jeez, I missed you too."

She pretended not to notice his discomfort and pressed a few buttons on the desk. A screen rose out in front of her and flicked to life. She swiped at it a few times and a keyboard flipped out. She hunted and pecked at it.

"I guess they didn't teach you how to type in the marines."

She glanced over at him then back at the screen.

"Unless you want me to choke the life out of you again I suggest you quiet down, *Jacob*."

She gave him a playful glare as the odd camera looking device Jacob noticed earlier came to life. It slid across the desk to rest directly in front of him and a red beam suddenly flashed in his eyes. He moved to cover his face and she held her hand up.

"Try to keep your eyes open and stare into it. It's registering your ocular pattern into the system."

"It feels like you're trying to blind me."

She laughed.

"If I wanted to blind you I'd just kick you in the head a few times."

The scanner let out a beep and ceased flashing, then slid back to its original position. Jacob blinked a few times and shook his head, a pulsing light lingering in his vision for just a few seconds longer.

"Alright, I've given you access to all civilian wings of the academy, which in all honestly really isn't that much. You'll be able to get something to eat, find a place to sleep and even work out if you feel like you need to."

Jacob rubbed at his eyes, the excitement from seeing an old friend wearing off and his fatigue slowly returning.

"Thanks, Jazz. Being stuck here will be much less terrible with you around."

"Well we won't really be able to hang out very often." She pressed a button on the desk and the computer sank back into it. "I have a lot of shit to do here. Just because these people are training for special operations doesn't mean they're the most professional. The Lunars never cause any problems, it's our people I have to worry about."

She shook her head and sighed.

"Did you know one of the cadets actually brought a porn holo here? A fetish porn holo?"

He gave her a bemused, disbelieving look.

"Who was he?"

"That's the thing. It wasn't a 'he'. Her name's Corporal Samantha Telly and just last week she started a massive fight that involved damn near every Pulsar cadet. I don't even know what the hell it was about, but only one guy wasn't involved, at least not directly. He showed up at the last minute, he might have thrown a few punches but none that I saw or that surveillance picked up. He was busy doing... something else during most of it."

"Something else?"

A grin spread across her face.

"Yeah. My guess is the Lunar Sister he spends most of his downtime with."

Jacob sunk into his chair and shook his head. Although he never really spent much time thinking about what life as a soldier or marine was like, he didn't imagine it was anything like this.

He also never imagined Jazz would ever be in a position that commanded this much responsiblity. It's not that she was lazy while they were growing up and during university, it's just that she had a hard time keeping her mind on things. The most she ever concentrated was when she'd be doing competitions with the rest of their school's sharpshooting team. She never missed.

"How did you end up doing this? You know, this security thing? Don't they usually recruit MP's from the army?

She let out a small laugh and shook her head.

"I wasn't really recruited. The whole thing is... kind of complicated. Maybe I can explain later."

"Well either way, I'm surprised, but also I'm kind of proud of you. I'm amazed you're handling something this big, you know?"

"Thanks, Jacob. You're reacting to this a bit differently than I thought you would, but I guess I should just be thankful that I have your approval at all."

He shot her a confused look in response to her sudden sarcasm.

"How did you think I would react to this?"

"Really?" She scoffed. "I remember what you were like at university, constantly trying to hook up with any professor you saw, so long as she was in charge of one of your classes at some point. You were always horny for women in some kind of position of authority over you."

She leaned back in her chair, clasping her webbed hands behind her head.

"You should be drooling over me, I'm way better looking than any of those ladies were."

Jacob nervously cleared his throat and averted his gaze away from her.

"Well... maybe things are a little different because I knew you before your uh... I guess promotion."

"Or maybe I just need to boss you around a little first. Give you some discipline."

Jacob felt his face warm up.

"I uh... I don't know."

Her sardonic grin turned into a warm smile.

"Listen Jacob, about what happened that last night we hung out, before I got deployed. You know, when we made out?"

He turned to face her again, looking into her eyes.

"Yeah I remember... I mean it was mostly just you kissing me. You kind of pounced on me."

"You aren't wrong, and that's why I'm bringing it up... did you like that? I know I should have asked before I did it, I still feel bad for that but... did you like it?"

His eyes lowered as he remembered it. The memory was so vivid, he could almost still feel her fist clenched around his collar yanking him down. Her cold, moist lips pressed against his. Her long tongue nearly filling his entire mouth. Her other hand pressed hard against the back of his head, shoving their faces together.

A smile crept on his lips and he looked up to meet her gaze again.

"I certainly didn't hate it."

"That's a relief on my part. I was worried it traumatized you or something."

"Oh come on, you aren't *that* scary."

She ignored his final barb and slid the gloves back onto her hands and tapped at a few buttons on her neck, spraying another burst of moisture onto her face.

"I'm gonna be busy for the rest of the day, but I might have some time off tonight. If you're awake, you can come see me here in my office, it's open to people with civilian clearance."

She slid the helmet back on and it let a low hiss. As she rose from her seat he also slowly got up.

"Your office? Don't you have private quarters or something like that?"

She cocked her head.

"Really? I give you one kiss years ago and now you think you're just gonna get in bed with me?"

He shook his head and stuttered.

"No! I just... these chairs are really uncomfortable and... I don't know I was hoping-"

"Calm down, Jacob. I'm fucking with you. I'm always fucking with you, don't you remember? You should be used to it."

He leaned forward with his hands on the desk and glared at her. She just laughed in response.

"We'll figure something out, don't worry. In the mean time I'll show you where the mess hall is. You can set up shop there and pay all the cadets. Don't worry about me, get me in last. I'll also see if I can get you something to eat if you promise not to puke it all out."

He let out a sigh and followed her as she exited her office, lugging his computer in his arms.

"Yeah, that sounds fine. Thanks Jazz."

He cleared his throat nervously.

"And I'm sorry, I'm just really on edge because of the ride here, and that ship getting damaged and this whole thing is just really-"

She turned around and gave him another tight hug, knocking the wind out of him yet again.

"It's alright, Jacob. I get it."

He lazily hugged her back and smiled.

"It's good to see you again, Jatzenkali."

She grinned as he stumbled over her full name, yet still managed to get it right for the most part.

"You too, Jacob."

She released him and they continued to make their way towards the mess hall.

***************************************** *****************************************

"Caleb, you've arrived!"

Molly's eyes lit up and a subtle smile tugged the corners of her mouth as she saw her favorite alien walk through the archway leading out of processing, lugging two large bags over his shoulder. After several long strides she stood in front of him, hand held out both in greeting and as to offer assistance in carrying the bags.

He let his shoulder go slack and handed her one of the bags. It seemed to be the lighter of the two, which made her visibly confused.

"That one's for you, Molly. It's a present."

She opened it slightly and looked inside at the wealth of sandwiches, the confusion not leaving her face.

"Sandwiches. Meats and cheeses between two pieces of bread. Not real meat, lab grown, but it tastes the same. It's a kind of food that a lot of humans eat." Caleb placed the other bag down and rolled his arm around, rubbing his shoulder. " I didn't think you'd like hellbender food too much, but I might as well let you try some human food instead. Sound good?"

Molly shrugged and let the bag fall to her hip. Shrugging was something she did a lot more than the other Lunar Sisters who had only picked up a few nonverbal means of communications from humans and hellbenders, seeing as they spent a lot less time hanging out and all. Caleb couldn't help but feel a little bit honored that she'd made so much of it a habit for his sake.

"I'll eat them later, Caleb. Thank you very much for the gift." Her smile broadened ever so slightly and she winked at him. That was about as close to a public display of affection as he would ever get from her. She was willing to adopt some Pulsar behavior to make him more comfortable around her, but she still muted her emotions and acted with a strict sense of military professionalism at almost all times. He in turn made sure not to hug or kiss her when they were being watched by other people. As much as he wanted to he understood that pressuring her to break her peoples' taboo on that subject just wouldn't be fair, especially considering how eager she'd been to compromise and adopt all new manners of nonverbal communication entirely for his benefit.

It didn't bother him too much in the long run, because when they were in private things were a very different story. Caleb didn't know if it was the fact that Lunar Sisters very rarely had male sexual partners or if he was just that good, but it seemed like any time they had alone together was spent with him either underneath her or held tightly in her embrace with no means of him getting away (not that he'd really want to). Obviously they'd done a lot more than just fuck, and she'd taken great interest in showing him some of her people's equivalent of holofilms and letting him hear her music, but she was adamant about having one of her arms around him at the very least and holding him extremely close.

At first it embarrassed him slightly. Sure, he didn't mind cuddling with her or whatever, he really liked her. Hell, he loved her, but it took a while for him to accept the fact that she was leagues stronger than him, and it was kind of hard for him to feel manly that one time she wanted to try having him sit on her lap. It was something she saw in a romcom holo, a girlfriend sitting in her boyfriend's lap, laying her head on her his shoulder while he nuzzled his face into her hair. Molly saw it and immediately wanted to try it with her new human partner, but with her being almost two entire feet taller than him they'd have to reverse the roles. He did end up enjoying feeling her lips pressed softly against the top of his head as it was halfway buried between her massive breasts. He felt "safe" for lack of a better term, but he made it very clear that if she ever told anybody that they had done that - or that they'd actually made a habit out of doing it - he would never forgive her.

She wouldn't even dream about betraying that trust, even though she'd probably greatly enjoy seeing him get flustered. Ever since that night in her shelter on Green 11 he'd woken something up in her that she'd never felt before. It's not that sexual desire was unusual for her or anyone else in her species, and she'd taken part in virtual erotic simulations many times, but when she had his body beneath hers something clicked. He was brave, tenacious and strong willed, but he gave himself over to her and relinquished all control. Seeing him go from a headstrong and boisterous fighter to a submissive and compliant lover at her whim made Molly more excited than she'd felt about anything in her life.

And he was so expressive! Humans were already terrible at concealing emotion, but when she was in control he was gushing with happiness and desire, simultaneously eager to please and desperate for stimulation and release. It was never a contest for control with him, but instead a contest to see how long it took for her to break his stoicism and make him whimper and moan shamelessly. The trust he had in her, his willingness to be vulnerable around her made her very happy. Happier than she'd ever been before.

As they both made their way to their barracks, Caleb inquired about the Fleeter who scanned him at the entrance.

"So what's with the newbie? The one out there by the landing pad?"

"Newbie? As far as I'm aware, there have been no cadets introduced during your absence."

"No, there was a Grand Fleet cyborg out there by the entrance. I'm pretty sure they aren't the one that was here last month to instruct us on those new particle rifles. They look a bit different."

"Oh! Twenty-One Six! They arrived very recently. Two days ago I believe."

"Do you know why they're here?"

She nodded.

"I know of rumors. There are assumptions that they brought a new piece of technology. Some form of powered combat armor for humans and hellbenders to use."

"Kick ass."

Caleb couldn't help but get excited at what might be in store for him. Unlike the Lunar Sisters, the Grand Fleet were usually more than eager to share new technology with allies. "New" being a relative term, of course. Although it was ludicrously advanced compared to anything the Lunar Federation and the Pulsar Defense Enclaves had, it was still ancient by Grand Fleet standards. Their technological achievements were frustrating to most Lunar Sisters who weren't used to being left behind in the dust like that, ironic considering a lot of them had no problem with bragging about their superiority over Pulsar tech. Still, most of the jealousy and humility were thrown out the window when a Sister got ahold of a fancy new toy that melted armor or disrupted shields.

"I've heard that another human was arriving alongside you. Was this true? Do you know anything about them?"

He nodded.

"Another guy did come in with me. His name's Jacob... Caldwell, I think? He's a civilian. Payroll or accounting. Apparently he's stuck here for a while."

"Oh?"

"Yeah. The pilot hit some space debris and knocked out one of the thrusters on the transport. He says it was an autopilot glitch, but I don't believe him."

"You assume far too many people have the worst intentions, Caleb."

Caleb gave her a sideways look.

"Really? I don't think so. I think just don't have much patience for shitty pilots. I've had too many bad experiences."

"I myself personally have had far more positive experiences with citizens of the Pulsar Enclaves than negative ones. Perhaps my judgement is a bit biased, however. I do have a very close relationship with the best human alive."

"Oh really, who would that be?"

"I believe you're already well aware of who I'm referring to, Caleb."

She looked down at him and gave him another small smile. He returned it and they made a left in the halls.

***************************************** *****************************************

The untested warrior screeched in anger and pain as the old warrior dug into his face with a wicked talon.

"You call me a coward, yet you do so muttering under your breath? Why not shout it loudly?"

The response was a glare of rage and malice, pupils expanding in preparation for the next strike, the strike that mercifully never came.

"You are not brave. The only blood you have seen spilled is your own just now, and you want me to risk the blood of many warriors who have proven their faith to the Patriarch through years of holy combat against the unfaithful?"