Dry, No Lube Ch. 02: Pixy's Choice

"You know who has even more experience than me, though?" Reye was not amused. "Captains of actual transport ships." Pixy was nodding; there was nothing she could disagree with here.

"Well, sir, that's true... but of course, there are no transports here at the moment. And, as I said, time is important."

"Yeah." Reye thought for a moment, then sighed. "It always is."

"I've got reservations, sir, about the hull." Pixy saw her chance, glimmering in the distance, and went straight for it. "That carbon scoring..." Both men blinked at her. "I think, Pickles, that Captain Reye and I would feel much more comfortable heading out with our scoring ablated, and with a fresh electrocoat."

"I can't make that happen," Pickles snapped instantly. He could see where this was going, and so could Reye.

"No," the captain mused, "but Admiral Tshorr could. If she, you know, placed a call to the Yard Captain..."

Pickles blinked. "Sir, you guys need to be underway in thirty hours..."

"Then she'd better call soon." Pixy's tone was implacable. "I'd recommend vox."

* * *

She ventured a short personal comment as they watched Pickles undock, tentatively, like he didn't fly much. "You're pretty acerbic yourself, sir."

Reye smiled grimly at her. "You know what all this means of course, Ms Pfeiffer."

She watched the shuttle twinkle away toward the flagship and smiled tightly. "Means we get that scoring taken care of, sir."

"That, yes." He turned to look at her, evaluating. "I don't think our new First is going to make it aboard in just thirty hours." He let that sink in. "That's what I meant, Lieutenant."

She sighed and looked back at him, stricken. "Oh."

"Mm-hmm." He turned back to head for the gym. "Dry, Ms Pfeiffer. No lube." He started off. "Maybe Mr diBiase, to handle the Army guys? He'll need to figure out berthing and weapons storage, and he should probably light a fire under it. Something simple: bunks in a cargo bay?"

"Aye aye, sir." Pixy's heart fell. "I'll get him right on it."

* * *

The infantryman arrived that same morning, long before diBiase had even thought about where to put any of them. Before lunch, even.

He flew his own shuttle, which was a surprise to most of the bridge watch. Pixy, on duty, picked up the contact before the scanner tech did. "Hey!" she grunted, testy. She jabbed a finger at the plot board. "That's a contact, Herriot, you dumbfuck. Why am I picking up a contact before the scanner tech does?"

"Sorry, ma'am." She knew the answer, though; Herriot had bought a quarter-dose of morph last night from Ana. Herriot blinked hard into the scope, trying to return to the right universe.

Pixy gave the tech five seconds to get sorted out. "Well?" she growled. "Report."

"Single contact. Personnel shuttle, bearing one-five-seven by eleventy-one low. Standard closure at 5 meters per second."

"Identify, hold at Blue Point, calibrate gravity, assign to Docking Ring Three, yada yada," Pixy groused. "I'll go down and meet it myself. I've got to take a shit, anyway." She thought about how long she wanted to spend in the latrine. "Dock it in ten minutes, Herriot, not before."

"Ten minutes. Aye aye, ma'am."

"Sure." She swung over to old Chief Quannax, the only other person on the bridge. "Take charge, Chief. Remember, we've got that carbon-scoring party coming over at 1930; if I'm not back, go ahead and clear them to begin work."

Quannax had been forty years in space. He knew what it meant when the Basin people began expediting Pulver's repairs. "Sure thing, Ms Pfeiffer." He smirked at her, all false teeth and wrinkles. "Pulver Rising, ma'am."

Pixy limited herself to a withering glare by way of reward for that kind of fresh comment. She felt kindly toward Chief Quannax; he'd be dead before she would, most likely, and that made her feel protective. She made sure her minitab was in her back pocket before she left; she found it difficult to shit these days without something to read. It was the only free time she got anymore. Just yesterday, she'd left her tablet in the wardroom when she'd headed for the latrine; it had been mortifying to have to go back and pick it up, gliding silently in and out of the room while everyone else shut up and watched her.

She sighed as she settled herself on the seat, wondering as she often did quite when medical science would get around to eliminating the need to shit. They'd cured smallpox, cancer, menstruation, the flu, the plague, blindness, hemorrhagic fever, the jolt, even the common cold. Why not poop?

But it was breathlessly nice, she reflected, the feeling of finally getting a massive turd out. It was like the aftermath of anal sex; she'd never been into the act itself, but the feeling as the guy pulled out came close to an orgasm. As usual, Pixy stayed on the seat while she flushed, enjoying the faint waterfall-mist sensation of the clean water spritzing her undercarriage. She found herself craving that, especially when the gravity wasn't working and they had to resort to dry-flushing; space held many hazards, but she'd always felt that lack of a proper flush was among the worst.

But then everyone knew that Pixy Pfeiffer was a woman of strange quirks.

She checked her chronometer as she sat back, the toilet doing its mindless work of scrubbing and disinfecting. Still three minutes before she needed to meet the shuttle, unless Herriot had forgotten how to tell time. Which, she reflected, was probable.

So she headed straight down to Ring Three not quite knowing what she'd find, but presuming it would have something to do with Admiral fucking Tschorr's secret little mission. The successful shit had put her into a better mood; plus, it was nice getting off the bridge, and she whistled one of her father's old tunes as she walked. She rounded a corner and nearly ran into her own Ana the Tygon Whore, shambling aimlessly along the corridor with a faraway look in those golden Tygon eyes. "Whoah! Ana! Watch where you're going, girl. Doing okay?"

Ana shook her head. "Shit, Ms Pfeiffer," she blurted, nowhere near her normal self, "wait'll you see what just came through Docking Ring Three." Pixy checked her chrono again, irritated, only to discover that Herriot had indeed lost the ability to tell time. "He's a stud, ma'am."

"What the fuck are you on about, Ana?" But the tall Tygon was already lost to sight down the corridor, still dreamy, still aimless. Pixy shook her head; the Tygon Whore was normally the picture of calm, as chilly and professional as they came, but she had a major weakness for attractive male humans. Well, no time to wonder about it now: Pulver had a visitor, and her First Officer needed to find out who it was. She sidestepped a robot near the lox vent, one of the 4B4 models, the buttfuckers, and as always she suppressed a shudder when she looked at it.

One last turn, with two excited female sailors whispering toward her, forgetting themselves in their gossip. Pixy waited until it was obvious they weren't going to salute her; a First Officer had to care about these things. "Can I help you ladies?" she demanded loudly, secretly enjoying the flushed faces that replied beneath a too-rigid pair of salutes.

"Sorry, ma'am. Pulver!"

"Rising. Watch where you're fucking going next time. You don't ignore an officer, no matter how busy you think you are." She smiled sweetly. "Not really busy, though, are you?"

The sailors looked at each other. The second one, older, taller, one of Amisuul's girls, just smiled knowingly. "You'll see, ma'am." She tossed her braided hair back toward the Ring. "He's back there."

The fuck was going on here? First Ana, and now a seasoned onboard prostitute? What had come out of the docking ring? Who was in that unidentified shuttle?

She found out soon enough.

He stood with his feet apart and his arms folded across a broad chest, an air of amused confidence seeping out of every pore. His body tapered sharply down like a cone: massive shoulders over narrow hips and fine, quick feet, the whole thing topped off by a pleasantly oval face fringed by sandy hair cropped closely in Army fashion. Shit, she noticed dully as she walked up; he even had a dimple on his chin. Strong nose, generous mouth, the kind of squinty blue eyes made to look at distant horizons, nobly...

Wow.

Pixy caught herself scanning south for his penis before she was even aware of it, but then he turned his laughing eyes toward her and put on a pleasant smile. Pixy found herself speaking before he could open his mouth, babbling even, not thinking at all. "Well, hi! I'm Pixy Pfeiffer, the First Officer, and I'd love to welcome you to the USS Pulver..." She trailed off then, having nothing further to say, powerless to resist as he pulled her effortlessly into his orbit. Dimly she was aware of two other sailors, women, on the other side of him, just standing there and not working, and though it was her job to beat the shit out of them and send them back to work she found it impossible to blame them.

The man was just too delicious.

"Hello." Christ, even his voice was perfect, a grumbling tenor with just a hint of playfulness. "Am I supposed to salute the ship, or ask permission to board, or buy someone a drink?"

"Oh, you could definitely buy me a drink," she gushed, hating herself but unable to say anything else, and then she was laughing and touching his arm, her own violet gaze going to the two sailors watching: at ease, bitches. This is officer cock. They got the message immediately and backed off, huffing, all narrowed eyes and the kind of smiles that are not at all friendly, and then she was practically pulling him up the corridor. "It's a very busy morning, but we'll find time for you."

Fuck! What was she saying? This was not her, not at all. The crew would be talking, starting with those two little tarts at the docking ring, but she couldn't help it. The Fleet just didn't have men like this one. He wore the green uniform of the Stellar Infantry, his cape the short one of a first lieutenant, with a less-than-modest splash of campaign ribbons on his left chest, especially for an officer so junior. "And you are?"

"Oh, my apologies." He was still smiling, warmly, easily, his manner passing straight through her brain and flashing behind her pussy. "Lieutenant Cooper-Crick; I'm leading the P/E platoon you'll be taking on our little adventure." He flickered his gaze theatrically from side to side, aware that the mission was secret and aware, too, that maybe it really shouldn't be, that classified material is really just for those old farts up on Staff, that here, at this level, the lieutenants' level, aren't we all just good friends? "I'm here as the advanced party, coordinating to make sure you're ready for us."

For you? Born ready! Pixy shook her head; what the fuck was the matter with her? Lack of sex, possibly, but she'd always been a sexual camel and Klonmyre did what she could... Focus! "Well, like I said, we're extremely busy. I'm not sure we've even had time to figure out your billeting."

"Right. I apologize; we're used to transports, and they're used to us. I know this is new for a GP vessel." He stared into her soul, tragic, making like he was the source of all the galaxy's ills, but not to worry; those broad shoulders could handle it. "We don't need much."

You need me. "No. Well, still. We want to be helpful in whatever way we can." She knew she should take him up to Captain Reye, but he was due at the Flagship at 1015 and would be preparing for that now. So she steered him subtly toward her own office, the First Officer's space right up near the bridge. "Hey." She grabbed a passing sailor. "Pass the word for Lieutenant diBiase. He's needed in my office."

"Aye aye, ma'am." The sailor stared with open curiosity at the infantryman. "Nice cape," he added casually as he left.

"Shit." Pixy swung toward the Army guy, mortified. She wanted to go charging after that sailor and knock his teeth out, but she was acutely aware of how that would look as a reflection of Fleet. Desperately, she turned back to the man; even at middling height, he was still taller than she was. "I'm terribly sorry, Lieutenant Cooper. We're not usually this informal; our people don't have a lot of experience with Army rank, I'm afraid." She knew that guy's face, though: Sceviour, from Commo, with the temporary arm while his clone order went through. He'd been wounded in the Battle, but not as wounded as he'd be when she tracked him down. "He'll pay."

"Not at all." He smiled and her heart stopped. "These are confusing times. They'll get used to us eventually."

She returned her own smile, seldom used and never very impressive. "My office," she managed, slapping the hatch open. It was just as Densborg had left it; Pixy never much cared what her space looked like, and this was just a temporary billet anyway.

But it did have a viewport. She did enjoy looking at the stars.

"Have a seat, Lieutenant."

"Bulfinch, please." He folded himself into one of Densborg's old mock-wood chairs and made sure his cape billowed over the back; his motions had a subconscious grace to them, an athleticism that reminded her of gymnastics or martial arts. "Can't wrinkle the cape. People call me Bull."

She could not stop smiling, certain she was going to leave a stain on her chair. She felt giddy, and found herself wondering whether he used one of those pheromone colognes or something. "Bulfinch?" She arched an eyebrow. "Family name?"

He shrugged disarmingly. "Maybe. It's a large family." He was staring at her with an odd fixity of attention. "Most of us are in the Army, but I'm starting to think I should have joined Fleet." His grin spread. "It seems all the most interesting officers serve here."

"Oh, I don't know about that..." She leaned across the table, her mouth opening; she felt obscurely like flirting.

But then the intertube at her elbow crackled. "Lieutenant Pfeiffer?" It was diBiase. "I'm down in the forward hold. Captain told me to figure out billeting. Did you need me up there, or what?"

She smiled apologetically at the infantryman and leaned toward the tube. "Sort of. You're billeting a bunch of Army guys..." She looked inquisitively at Cooper, who mouthed forty. "Forty guys. Their leader is up here in my office."

"Cool. Send him down, ma'am."

Pixy frowned. He'd been aboard transports; he could get there. All he had to do was tell the lift tube where he was going. But she had no wish to see him leave her office, was the problem. "Um. You're sure?"

"Absolutely. He can tell me exactly how he wants this done."

Pixy and Cooper exchanged glances, hers unusually uncertain, his warm and confident. "Sure," she stuttered, wondering where the hell her decisive self had fled to.

"Ah. Well, then, I guess I'll be going." He raised an eyebrow a fractional millimeter; excellent control. "I was wondering," he went on coolly, that smile running straight toward her vagina again, "what kind of companionship I could expect aboard this ship. Say, from someone close to my own pay grade, someone who understands responsibility." His eyebrows ascended innocently. "Perhaps even someone like you, Lieutenant Pfeiffer? Or, what was it? Pixy?"

Holy shitfuck. He was making a pass at her. Pixy descended into immediate shock; it had been a long, long time since anyone had tried that with her. Once it had been normal; she was far from unattractive. But this was a warship, and everyone knew everyone by smell, and it was known that Pixy Pfeiffer was not looking for random romance. So, very rusty, she had no real way to figure out how she should respond to the sexy Lieutenant Cooper-Crick. "Do what now?"

He leaned back in the chair, his legs in the well-fitting uniform crossed. "You know. I suppose you hear this sort of thing all the time," he went on, smiling winsomely, "but are you, um, available?" He gave a peculiar drawling chuckle, and like everything else he did she found it mindlessly alluring.

"Me?" It came out as a humiliating squeak. Hating herself, Pixy immediately cleared his throat. "Lieutenant, do I understand you to mean that you're propositioning the First Officer?"

"Not at all." If anything, he looked even more relaxed now. "I'm not in the Fleet. I don't work for you, Pixy, and on top of that?" He struck a sad-eyed, melancholy tone. "We might never see each other again. Hell, I might die!"

Pixy felt her jaw drop. "You're shitting me."

"Oh, not at all. Ma'am." He winked in a most impertinent manner, and even as her pussy gushed slightly Pixy felt vaguely offended by his presumption. So she clamped her mouth shut, glared across at him, and assumed her coldest, most venomous tone.

"The acting Second Officer aboard this vessel, Lieutenant, is a Tygon named Rocky Amisuul. He handles all the onboard prostitution. You can find him in the junior officers' billets, third door on the left. There's a brochure outside his door, with pricing and available services." She pulled her keyboard back out and began pretending to work, proudly defying her own insistent vagina. "He'll be glad to accommodate you."

"Oh, come on." Cooper showed nothing but confidence, even now, all perfect teeth and twinkling blue eyes. "I never pay for it." He winked and made a great show of examining her body. "You're sure?"

"If you don't pay for it," Pixy shrugged evenly, "there are always other options. An officer of your experience will realize, I'm sure, that ship-based gravity does not affect masturbation much at all." She studied her monitor, which had nothing on it. "Just make sure you properly dispose of any fluids you might generate, Lieutenant. Now, if you'll excuse me?" She smiled sweetly. "I'm a very busy woman."

Lieutenant Cooper paused a moment, letting her know he was only leaving because he felt like it. Then he rose, his cape flapping gallantly even with that simple motion, and stood over her. "Please, Pixy," he insisted, his voice honey-golden, "call me Bull."

She nodded up at him, civilly, not really trusting herself to speak. She was proud of how she'd handled this, for the most part, but that squeak she'd let out earlier had freaked her out a little. When she was sure she'd sound more like a grown-up, Pixy spoke diffidently. "Feel free to stop by anytime."

He winked, threw off a casual Army-style salute, and looked over his shoulder as he left. "By the way? That viewport behind you." He smiled, a crotch-meltingly gorgeous smile. "I can tell there's nothing on your monitor." He was still smiling as the hatch snicked closed behind him.

* * *

She spared a painfully, even selfishly brief thought for Klonmyre that night, because the poor little engineer never stood a chance.

Pixy had her called from the bridge, waking her out of a rare nap; it had been a long day in the engine room, doing final calibrations, and the captain had only certified everything ready for launch at 2120. "I should wake her up, ma'am?" The sailor on the bridge had been confused.

"Yes." Pixy was already stroking her clit, wondering why the hell she was taking care of this herself. There were supposed to be benefits to having a bedwarmer. "Get her up here. My quarters. It's about, uh, the engines."

"Aye aye, ma'am." The bridge watch was an increasingly difficult place to be, now that the electrocoaters were right outside the viewports doing their survey, which was always noisy. But even so, this was hardly a routine request. "I'll get her up there."

"Thank you." She was waiting in an anxious, teeth-gritted sweat when Klonmyre's usual quiet knock sounded at the hatch. "Enter!" And if it hadn't been the engineer, Pixy would have had some explaining to do; she was already naked, wallowing in a stinking broth of her own juices, ready to attack whomever walked through the door. Her pussy, stoked high by weeks of stress and then given a fresh flood of fuel by the suave Lieutenant Cooper, was at a high boil. "Get your fucking ass in here, Janelle," she hissed, already three fingers in, and Klonmyre responded with creditable speed.