Melinoe Ch. 06-10

Max Intel: Melinoe

Chapter 6 - Goat

Max opened her eyes and the first glorious thoughts in her mind were of the women in her life now lying next to her. She held the two lovely visions in her arms and Max listened contentedly to their breathing as they slept.

Max felt so good about the fact they were now both with her; she also felt a strong desire to protect them and keep them safe.

In that regard, Max felt she could do better: she really needed data on Int Ops. Specifically, her status needed clarification so she could figure out what she needed to do to keep both of her ladies safe.

Her ladies... her family.

Max felt her wife stirring, so she looked her way and watched her yawn widely. Grass-green eyes tried to focus, then looked at Max.

She smiled. That smile melted Max's heart every time.

Joon kissed the breast she had snuggled up even closer to.

Max craned her neck and kissed Joon on the forehead. "Good morning, my love," Max whispered, "how do you feel?"

Joon winced a little, and whispered, "Kind of sore, I may have gone a little overboard last night."

Max made a comforting face and hugged her gently. Max whispered, "You looked amazing."

Joon smiled as she moved up to kiss Max, "So did you, I really enjoyed seeing you ride Ag's face like that."

They both heard purring and looked over at the steel-grey gilded with silver cat-eyes of their girlfriend.

Agatha smiled as she projected waves of affection over her bonds, "Good morning." Joon beamed and moved up further, dragging her large breasts across Max's nipples as she deeply kissed Agatha.

Max carefully cupped her wife's small round ass and was delighted she caused Joon to moan into Agatha's mouth.

When the kiss was finished, Agatha moved up to kiss Max and their tongues swirled briefly.

Joon slipped off the bed and padded to the bathroom and was followed by Max and Agatha a moment later.

During the morning toilet and wash rotation Max began to outline what she wanted to accomplish today and then asked what everyone else wanted to do.

Joon wanted to dig into medical, but offered to help in any way she could.

Agatha was interested in actually shooting firearms, and Max thought it might be possible if they moved deeper into the woods.

"All the guns?" Joon glanced at Max.

"I was going to just use the XR75's," Max responded.

Joon pursed her lips, "I did see some pretty big weapons down there." Joon mused.

Max glanced at her tiny wife, "Are you saying you want to shoot big guns?"

"Oh no, but I would like to watch you do it." Joon smirked, glancing at Agatha.

Agatha smiled at Max.

"We'll see." Max smooched Joon and Agatha.

They headed down to the cargo bay for the morning kata. Max thumbed the DNA lock on the bay door, revealing the dark but brightening forest. The morning chill rolled in as Max, Joon and the four Agatha limbered up.

Max stood tall and bowed.

The others bowed in response and the kata began.

As the kata progressed, Max watched the marked difference with Agatha's form. Joon's expression showed she noticed it too.

Agatha had surpassed Max in form and technique. Max realized she shouldn't be surprised, Agatha had one brief lesson with Howard and was able to absorb his kata.

After the third rotation had concluded and everyone bowed. Max and Joon came together smiling.

"She totally got that from daddy," Joon nodded.

Max agreed, "Yup, her kata is flawless now."

All four Agatha came together and stood before their girlfriends.

"Was that acceptable?" One Agatha asked, with a shade of worry on her face.

Max glanced at her wife.

Joon replied to Agatha, "It was perfect, now we just need to go over actual fighting stances and you'll be set.

Max nodded, "I'll work out something with Howard, It will pay dividends to have him instruct her with combat.

Joon thumbed the cargo door closed, stopping the relentless morning chill: her erect nipples were still sore.

All of them went to hot showers. Max, Joon and one Agatha in one and three Agatha in the other.

Joon commented, "I think we're in trouble if Ags decides to learn everything and take over the Federation.

Agatha gasped and her eyes got huge. "I wouldn't do that! Joon, I swear it!."

Max held up her hands in a calming gesture and a big smile on her face, "It's okay Ags, Joon was just fucking with you."

Agatha blinked, "Oh! okay..."

Joon hugged her girlfriend with a giggle saying, "Just try not to upstage me on guitar. I probably would not take that well."

Joon and Agatha giggled together at her comment as they rinsed themselves off, dried themselves, and dressed. Max wore her soft BDU's and Agatha her black pleated skirt and loose blouse. Joon wore a pretty dark green dress and some suede platform heels.

Everyone enjoyed a hearty breakfast. Joon insisted on making Max's favorite, her father's recipe for pain perdu. Agatha delighted in it.

They all cleaned up together after breakfast, chatting about clothes and accessories. Joon got an excited look on her face and went to the command cabin followed by an Agatha. Joon dug out the bag of stuff from PharMart and showed Agatha four high quality hairbrushes. Agatha beamed as her other bodies came into the command cabin.

Max went to the bridge, eased into the command chair, and started looking around the holonet. There were many scores of operations still underway in the Sol system and so many discussion rooms addressing the Admiralty's failures that Max had to just ignore them in her search to find any mention of the real facts about the TFN status.

She mulled over another reconnoiter of dark corners.

She decided yes, it should be safe because it was sterilized last time she was there.

Max just hoped she wasn't being stupid as she logged in as Ms_Muffit.

Ms_Muffit entered Dark Corners.

0o0

Joon was comfortable with people, she even liked most of them. Her music allowed her the opportunity to use her insights into people in general, it also gave her an excuse to observe them more closely without being obvious about it.

Agatha listened to Joon's observations while she was brushing out her long, glossy, beautiful hair.

"Max said there were all kinds of people, good and bad." Agatha stated.

"That's very true, most people fall in between those two labels though, and it can be flexible depending on what they have gone through or are going through."

Joon paused her lecture a moment, "Max did not have a good start in her life. Someone who doesn't know her might only look at her start and her job and say she was a bad person."

Agathas' eyes grew wide, "Max is not a bad person, Joon."

"From our perspective, no of course not," Joon responded. " However, Max did do a lot of bad things for our government."

"It would be difficult for a person to look objectively at what she did in her job and not think of her as a villain."

"Max was not doing those bad things because she liked it or wanted to, she was doing something called duty." Joon's mouth was thin-lipped and serious.

"Her reasons for being a villain, for duty, was to find justice for Deirdre."

Joon smiled, her serious demeanor melted away, "So sometimes good people do bad things, and bad people do good things, you should judge a person by what they have done but try adding the reasons for why they do them as well."

Agatha nodded gaining new insight into humans in general, as well as Max and Joon.

The four Agatha all braided their hair in a display of coordination where they started and finished in unison.

Joon beamed, "I love it when you do stuff like that, it's like a dance.

Agatha happily accepted the compliment.

"I'm going to go on patrol, do some research and go hang out with Max." Agatha announced.

"Great! I'm going to get in trouble in medical," Joon giggled and asked, "Want to help me?"

Agatha went to the bridge, two went to the armory and one Agatha nodded and followed Joon.

Small, but well equipped for a ship this size, the corvette's medical was designed to make use of all available space.

Joon eyed every piece of medical equipment, recognizing everything. She immediately went to one in particular. She turned it on and tapped the self-diagnostic sequence and nodded, then went to the communications desk and slid in.

She tapped furiously on its interface while making a bored face.

Agatha tilted her head while watching Joon.

"I'm getting my file from Pinehurst, the medical facility where I work, and I'm going to use it for calibration."

Joon crossed her eyes, "And of course I have to jump through bureaucratic hoops."

After several minutes Joon smiled. "Got it." She moved back over to the machine, pulled a small, packaged item with two solid ends and a long tether out of a bin and opened the hygienic package: plugging it into the machine.

Joon pulled up her sleeve and touched the item to her skin, then placed it into the device.

Agatha smiled as Joon winked at her.

She tapped out a few sequences and waited.

"This machine looks at the sample I just took, and will compare it to my file, and since my file is current, it should match." Joon smiled at Agatha as she explained her actions.

The medical machine showed the scan results and Joon reviewed it.

Agatha looked over her shoulder, so Joon explained some of what the information meant.

"Would you like to start a file on me?" Agatha asked.

Joon smiled, "I was hoping you'd let me."

"I would like you to, I am very curious also." The alien girl's eyes danced.

Joon changed out the tip of the sampling device with a new one from the hygienic packaging.

Tapping a few things out on the machine's interface, Joon smiled at Agatha, "Okay sweetheart, this won't hurt a bit."

The sampling device just lightly grazed Agatha's skin. Agatha watched and felt nothing at all.

Joon plugged it into the machine port, she tapped a couple more times and waited.

Agatha rested her chin on Joon's shoulder and Joon reached up to cradle her girlfriend's face with a gentle palm.

The display came alive with information.

"Whooooa!," Joon whispered, her eyes wide in surprise as she went over the results.

0o0

Dark Corners didn't appear to be any different from her last visit.

Max initially navigated Ms_Muffit around at random but eventually Max decided to actually do some exploring: she had no idea how big it actually was.

Ms_Muffit went through a chat room, but it was shaped weird. Like a biscuit with a bite taken out of it. She moved along the edges and slipped through the wall.

Max froze, she tried to back out and couldn't, "Shit." Max knew she could log out, but the account would just log back in here.

She was in some kind of tunnel, it was round, not square. The texture was different too, like stone.

Agatha appeared next to the command station, watching what Max was doing. "Are you okay Max?" Agatha asked, glancing at Max, "You felt anxious."

"I'm not sure, I'm wandering around in dark corners and I'm trapped in a tunnel." Max sighed.

"Can I sit in your lap and watch?" Agatha smiled looking hopeful.

Max grinned, "Oh, sure."

Agatha crawled up into Max's lap and immediately began to nuzzle her neck before settling in to watch.

Ms_Muffit traveled down the long tunnel. Ms_Muffit came out of the tunnel into what appeared to be a massive open vertical shaft. Moving to the edge Max could peer up and down and noticed the slow incline ramp around the edge of the shaft. Like a massive spiral staircase going up and down.

Max pursed her lips in thought.

"What would you do Ags?" Max asked without looking away from the holographic projection.

"I would go down the ramp." Agatha said with certainty.

Max nodded and navigated Ms_Muffit down the ramp.

"So dark corners is like an open source MMO?" Agatha asked.

"Yea... one that can get you executed." Max replied.

"Oh... right." Agatha bit her lip.

Ms_Muffit walked down and down. Then after ten minutes of descent, the ramp leveled out.

The shaft was surprisingly bright here, the center of the shaft bottom looked like it was in full sunlight.

"Now what?"Max looked vexed.

"I think it's a puzzle," Agatha postulated, "it's called dark corners, so look for a dark corner."

Max smirked, "I'm not so sure it's that simple."

Under the ramp was the darkest part of the shaft bottom and as Ms_Muffit got closer to that point an archway began to take shape.

"Whoooa." Max stared at the outline, "Maybe you should be doing this."

Agatha giggled, "Nah, I like watching you." and she kissed Max's neck, getting a smile out of her girlfriend.

Ms_Muffit walked towards the archway and slipped into darkness.

"FEE, FI, FO, FUM, I smell the blood of an Englishman! Be he alive, or be he dead, I'll grind his bones to make my bread."

"What--The--Fuck?" Max asked.

Agatha calmly said, "Not by the hair on my chinny, chin, chin."

"What?" Max looked down at her.

Agatha looked all sweet and innocent, "I might have looked in the small notebook..."

"You're getting very good at using that look, has Joon been giving you lessons?" Max inquired with humor.

"Are you going to answer it?" Agatha raised an eyebrow.

"Okay, okay, one moment." Max put in the response.

Ms_Muffit appeared in a rectangular room where there was a table in the center with four chairs and no visible exits.

"It's just a chat room." Max commented. Agatha looked at it, "Sit in a chair."

Ms_Muffit sat in the closest chair and the room changed around her.

Max looked around, there was someone standing in the corner facing a white post board, the username was BG_Gruff.

"Oh, shit there's someone here!" Max was immediately stressed again.

"It's ok Max, we can't be backtraced so we'll be okay." Agatha spoke calmly and softly.

Max breathed in slowly... then exhaled.

Before Max could do anything...

BG_Gruff: Dammit Yance, where the fuck have you been?

Max just stared at the construct on the holographic projection.

BG_Gruff: The least you could have done was let us know you were alive.

Max had no Idea what to say.

BG_Gruff: Yance?

Ms_Muffit: Not exactly.

BG_Gruff: Who is this?

Ms_Muffit: Anders...

Seconds slowly ticked by.

BG_Gruff: Mission status?

Ms_Muffit: Who is this?

BG_Gruff: Boggs

Ms_Muffit: Mission-Fail, Asset Loss-13, Witnesses-None

BG_Gruff: WTF, Anders...

BG_Gruff: NVM... Everything is different now.

Ms_Muffit: Different how?

BG_Gruff: Int Ops is scrubbed... I was picked up by TFNI last night... reassigned.

Ms_Muffit: Shit... So, I'm out in the cold?

BG_Gruff: No... Not yet... I might get you a home if you want it.

Ms_Muffit: Why would you do that?

BG_Gruff: I did the homework on you, Anders... Before you were brought inside.

Ms_Muffit: What does that mean?

BG_Gruff: Don't be dense... Denby Square... Gilmore... Smith... I made your file.

Ms_Muffit: So, what does that tell you... I'm a criminal?

BG_Gruff: No, Anders... You were learning how to hunt.

Max's mind raced, if Goat was serious about bringing her in from the cold, she wouldn't face charges.

A home meant a new job, but what kind of job, Max needed to find out.

Ms_Muffit: What's the offer?

Seconds slowly ticked by.

BG_Gruff: I don't know yet... Give me 24.

BG_Gruff has logged out.

Max sat there for a while rolling scenario's around in her head. Max logged Ms_Muffit out of dark corners.

Agatha had watched the whole exchange, "Who is Boggs?"

"He was Int Ops NCOIC, basically my manager." Max reflected.

Agatha listened, and then asked. "Is he a good person, or a bad person."

Max had to think about that, "I think he is an honest person, which is more than I expected to find."

"Joon found out something important about me," Agatha mentioned casually.

0o0

Max walked with Agatha into medical.

Joon and Agatha were standing at a medical device staring at a holo readout.

"What did you find out, sweetheart?" Max asked with a curious look in her eyes.

Joon looked right into Max's eyes, "Agatha is fucking amazing." She said it in a wistful tone.

"I knew that... anything specific?" Max smirked.

Joon walked over to Max and grabbed her hand, dragging her over to the device and showed her the readout, pointing out details in data and explaining them... or trying to.

"Okay, first of all, this part is human, like really human." Joon started with enthusiasm.

"But then you have the other side, which is totally not, but they are laid over each other, like some kind of nano-lattice."

"She has carbon AND silicon structured matrices, every part of her is half of each, in the same space!" Now Joon was starting to talk faster.

"Agatha's DNA is like nothing I've ever heard of. It has three helixes," Joon started bouncing on her toes, "I really want to show mum all of this, she will lose her shit!"

"Calm down sweetheart, I promise we'll talk with her." Max smiled, "I have some news too."

Joon stopped bouncing and waited for Max to continue.

"I talked to Goat." Max raised her eyebrows with emphasis.

"Your crotchety old Sar-Major?" Joon peered at Max curiously.

"Yes, and I think he might be able to help me." Max smiled hopefully.

Joon started bouncing again, her breasts playing havoc with her green dress. "Yay! my wife won't be executed!" Joon cheered.

Max raised her hands in a calming gesture. "I hope not sweetheart, it would really put a crimp in my social calendar."

They all giggled.

"I will speak with him again tomorrow, hopefully he will have something for me." Max concluded.

Joon leapt into Max's arms, and they kissed deeply, and Max's stomach growled.

Joon leaned over and started talking to her wife's tummy, "Oh poor widdle tum tum is hun-gwee."

Max looked down at her, "I am so relieved my possible stay of execution has put you in such a happy mood."

Joon unbuttoned Max's BDU and lifted her undershirt kissing her muscled abdominals.

"Mmmm, that's nice," Max closed her eyes.

Joon suddenly jumped up... "Oh Max, let's see if we can have lunch with mum and daddy!"

Max pouted at Joon for stopping her kisses, "Sure, I'll call Howard." Max leaned down and smooched her adorable wife.

Max returned to the bridge, slipped into the command couch and pulled up a holocom to Howard.

Howard was sweeping his dojo while it was still cool out.

He was in a peculiar place in his mind. Howard knew things would always change and yet stay the same. Thinking briefly of the errand he ran at dawn and about his amazing and growing family he was so proud of.

His watch beeped.

Howard glanced at his service comwatch: Holocom-unknown. Howard blinked; but he accepted the call.

Max appeared in the holo on a small TFN bridge at the command station. Max smiled, "Morning Howard."

Howard smiled back, "Good morning, Max, how are you today?"

"I am very well, thanks." Max looked into Howard's face.

"I'd like to ask you a couple questions." Max asked with curious eyes.

Howard nodded for her to continue.

"Would you be willing to instruct Agatha in combat stances and tactics?"

Howard narrowed his eyes, "Only with your assistance."

Max smiled, "Done."

"Your other question?" Howard returned the curious eyes.

Max raised an eyebrow, "Would you mind four more for lunch?"

"ETA?" Howard asked.

Max responded, "Thirty?"

"Done." Howard nodded, waving a farewell.

Max waved goodbye, as Howard closed the call. Howard smiled; he had a little prep to do before he made lunch.

0o0

Max returned to medical expecting Joon and Agatha to still be there; but it was devoid of beautiful women. She looked in the command cabin... still, no one. So, Max skipped down to the FCQ and found three Agatha and a Joon--win!

"Hey ladies," Max got their attention, "lunch with the folks is on."