Surefoot 37: Second Class

USS Surefoot-A, Deck 3 Fore, Alpha Squad Quarters, Stardate 49702.79:

"The time is 0600 Hours. The time is 0600 Hours. The time is 0600 Hours-"

"Acknowledged," surrendered Zir Dassene, though that was her only concession to the arrival of the morning. She continued to lie there in the dark with the others in the room, refusing to get up, at least, not just yet. She desperately wanted to try and get back to sleep, though her experience told her that it would be a fruitless attempt; even discounting her current anxieties, she still hadn't grown accustomed to sharing a room not just with one other, but five others.

Her friend Stalac was no problem, of course; he was directly below her, but the environmental chamber he slept in was insulated, and contained any noise he might make in his sleep.

But the others? She turned her head; the other females in her squad shared the bunk beds across from her: Flight Ops Cadet Astrid Michel took the upper bunk, and spent her sleeping hours making rude sounds in her sleep, while Engineering Cadet Tori Emoto was beneath, snoring -- making more noise when she was asleep than she did when she was awake.

On the other side of the room, Medical Cadet Peter Boone was quiet enough, while below him, Security Cadet Urad Kaldron mostly lay perfectly still because of his bulk... but in those times when he did shift, the entire bunk bed structure would creak. Unignorably. He'd done it nine times through the night, she was certain of it. She considered stunning him to make him sleep more soundly, except that he was Hroch, and most phaser beams were said to wash over them like water. Maybe a heavy sedation, or possibly smothering him with a pillow...

Zir tried to dismiss it as a by-product of her anxieties about the day, that she was augmenting little, niggling things into major crises. But that didn't help much.

On the other hand, they couldn't be late, so soon after arriving. "Computer: Lights."

The room illuminated, triggering curses from the boys. Zir kicked off her covers and swung her olive-green legs out over the edge, hopping down to the floor. With her right heel she kicked the side of Stalac's chamber a couple of times, until she felt it rumble in reply.

"Good morning, Squad Leader," came a honeyed voice from the girls' bunks.

Zir looked up. Astrid Michel half-sat up, allowing her bedcovers to drop down in that way that the woman preferred, making the most flirtatious move seem accidental, displaying the lacy, revealing snow-white nightwear that the coffee-skinned human preferred, her regal high cheekbones and narrow chin broadening with a smile, her tight burr of black hair in place and seemingly not requiring the sort of morning maintenance that Zir's own ginger-black hair needed. "Morning."

Astrid swung her legs out and dropped to the floor with the grace of an athlete, ostensibly unmindful of how the move made her nightwear reveal far more of her perfect body than Zir would ever have been comfortable with showing, especially to a human male like Peter Boone. Astrid stretched out her arms and twisted her neck like some lioness up for the hunt, before suddenly bending over, straight down -- revealing yet more of herself -- as she looked in on her lower bunk mate. "I felt you shaking the bunk last night, sweetie. Let me know if you ever want someone to join you, teach you a few things--"

Zir saw the reaction from Tori, and intervened. "Cut it out, Cadet. I've warned you about that."

The human straightened up, unflustered, her French accent as soft and seductive as her clothes. "Just trying to be helpful, Squad Leader. But if you've got dibs on her, just say--"

"Just get in your workout gear."

"What, can't I go in this?" she teased.

"No."

Astrid shrugged -- and then stripped off what little she had on, as Zir turned away, ostensibly to get her own workout clothes. "The rest of you, I want all of us in the gym in five minutes! Be there, or I'll rip you all a new one!" She stopped and kicked the black box under her bunk. "No exceptions!"

The side of the box slid up and away, releasing a hot blast of air from the darkness onto their feet, as from within, a rumbling voice like a speaking avalanche emitted. "Do I want to know what a 'new one' is?"

*

They mostly had the place to themselves at that time of morning, for which Zir was grateful, as it let her lead her squad without the usual scrutiny; the other two squads didn't have such... atypical lifeforms such as Stalac and Urad. Or Zir herself, for that matter, she guessed.

Astrid did the minimal work, more content was she to stretch and pose for the mirrors on the walls. Zir couldn't figure her out: she was the daughter of Charles Michel, a Terran trillionaire with an extensive shipping and shipbuilding industry headquartered on Mars. The girl should have been spending her life cruising around Risa or Casperia Prime in some flyer given to her by her Daddy or some idiot admirer. Instead, she was here, still acting like royalty, attention-seeking and flirtatious and arrogant. At least her Flight Ops scores were high. And she was beautiful. Very beautiful, with those long legs and full breasts and--

Zir wasn't envious. Really.

Next to her, Peter underwent push-ups, raising and lowering his slim, muscular frame with ease. He was from some farm world near the Klingon border called Gault, which Zir had never heard of, and his scores in Medicine were impressive. And Zir was convinced that he was attracted to her; she often caught him looking in her direction, and then quickly looking away. Zir certainly never encouraged anything like that from him, or anyone else; Orion women already had a bad reputation with offworlders, and she wanted to be taken seriously, both as a Starfleet cadet and as a Squad Leader. She kept watching him, seeing the sweat patch onto the back of his shirt, and the way his shorts lay, outlining his muscular rear--

She forced herself to look away, seeing Tori struggle on the gravity bars. Silently, of course; the girl might not have said more than a dozen words since they all first met days ago, boarded the Surefoot and became Alpha Squad. She was a slight thing, seemingly content to let someone like Astrid walk all over her. Zir approached as she saw pain tighten across the human's face. "Wait." Tori paused as Zir adjusted the gravitic weights on the bars. "You're holding it wrong; grip the bar tighter closer to the centre, to account for your height."

Tori nodded, did as Zir suggested, her face showing her relief at the greater ease she had now.

"That's it," Astrid teased. "Get some muscles into that right arm, I could use it later tonight--"

"You're done here, Cadet," Zir informed her. "Don't you want to get back and into the shower first before the peasants come along to dirty it?"

"Good point." As the dark-skinned human glided to the door, she smiled and offered, "But you can join me if you like... I'm curious to see if every part of you is the same shade of green--"

"Go."

Once Astrid left, Zir turned back to Tori with a look of disdain. "If she really bothers you, then tell her, or raise an official complaint. I'm not here to fight your battles."

"Yes, Ma'am."

Zir moved onto a more confident member of her Squad, watching with continued awe the immense weight he was lifting up. Urad Kaldron's height wasn't impressive, but his bulk certainly was: the heavyworlder was squat, just about reaching Zir's height, but he was wide and heavy, his grey hide thick, his arms so muscular that he was allowed to wear a sleeveless version of a Starfleet uniform, with additional adjustments to the legs leading to huge, wide hooves.

He looked up at her, breath escaping from the large nostrils on his wide snout, but otherwise showing no evidence of exertion despite the weight he pressed. "Ma'am, begging your pardon, but would you please request permission from the appropriate authority to have the weight restriction lifted for the machines in here when I'm using them? This one only allows me to lift 250 kilos at most. Hardly an effort for one of my people."

Zir smiled. "Of course, Cadet." The Hroch were a regimented, military race, whose Ascendancy had conquered their sector of space in what was said to be a colourful, glorious history, before their government shifted towards a more democratic structure, and they eventually joined the Federation. Urad was the first of their people in Starfleet Academy, and if his other scores were as impressive as his strength, he would do his people proud... and his Squad too, she noted to herself. That he came with a sense of military protocol didn't hurt, either.

A rumbling sound from behind drew her attention, and she turned to see the large lump of orange-brown rock struggle to keep up on the customised treadmill, the cilia along the uneven perimeter of his body working hard, and the voder unit in the Starfleet combadge bolted on the front of the rock expressing exhaustion and exasperation in equal measure. "This... this is torture... I will complain about you to the Egg-Mother..."

"Do that, and I'll tell her about all the Carrera Marble Cake you've been eating. No wonder you're having trouble maintaining the Academy Physical Standards for Hortas." Zir couldn't help but smile at her friend -- and marvel once more at the Fates that had brought them together. She hadn't found living with a roommate at the Academy easy; they tended to spend their time ogling Zir whenever she undressed, or asking her stupid questions about dancing or piracy or the Syndicate... or they would double check their belongings to see if she had taken anything.

Meanwhile, Stalac -- like Zir the only member of her race at the Academy at that time -- would get treated like an inanimate object. People knew about Hortas, of course, or at least knew all the stories about them: a race of silicon beings on Janus IV, eating rocks and tunnelling with acid generated from their bodies, an unknown race until a century ago. But though they didn't have the same notorious reputation of Orions, their non-humanoid nature put many on edge.

Someone at the Academy had the idea of putting the two of them together. It was the best thing that could have been done, for both of them. And the fact that they were on the same Squad here on the Surefoot was a double measure of luck... something she usually felt was in short supply with her.

*

She basked in the gentle sonic waves washing over her in the shower stall back in their quarters. It was an infrequent time when she could completely relax, and not worry about... everything.

She was currently the only Orion cadet in the Academy, had barely made it in even with sponsorship from a Starfleet captain after her... escape. She and her family had been ordinary people, merchants in kivas in the city of Tar'Mekina; they had no involvement with slavery, with piracy or the Syndicate or any of the other horrifying things that her people were known for in the rest of the Quadrant. But that didn't stop the Ignorati from making snide comments -- or sexual overtures. Admittedly, most of that came from her fellow cadets, or from civilians whenever she left the campus. The faculty and senior officers acted more professionally... though she found that she was still subject to more 'random' security checks than other cadets.

Her hand moved to her side, as if she could feel the implant in there, the embedded device that suppressed her body's urge to produce pheromones that could affect those around her. That was another condition of her enrolment into the Academy, and she understood the reasons behind it, justifying it as being similar to Deltans requiring an oath of celibacy to live and work with non-Deltans.

She realised that she was a different case, that she couldn't keep her body from producing manipulative pheromones any more than a human could keep from sweating. But still, this felt like... a violation. Like it was put inside her to teacher her a lesson. See? Your people invade us, our space, our very biologies with impunity. How do you like it being done to YOU?

But she endured it. Because it was worth it.

From the adjacent stall, the sound of Peter singing to himself continued. She cursed him, not for his voice, which was lovely and melodious, but for reminding her that he was naked, like herself, with only a thin wall separating them...

Thoughts of her imminent meeting with Captain Hrelle threw a proverbial bucket of cold water onto her arousal, but for once, she was glad of it. She turned off the sonic waves and dressed fully before departing the stall, glad that Peter had left moments before, in case he could tell something was up with her.

She stopped as she saw Astrid standing at the bathroom mirror, applying moisturiser to her face and hands and arms, and clad in a tiny silken robe that, like her sleepwear, seemed more a token than anything meant to actually cover her. "Hurry up, we're on a tight schedule."

The woman never looked away from her reflection, clearly enraptured with what she saw. "It's only breakfast. I never eat much in the mornings anyway. Go on without me, I'll catch up."

"We go together. We're a squad, not just a collection of people you happen to sleep with."

"Oh? Am I sleeping with all of you? No wonder I'm exhausted."

"Move!"

Astrid looked to her, pausing just long enough to almost invite insubordination, before setting aside her beauty products and padding out and back into the bedroom section.

Zir followed into the common room, glad to see the others also in uniform and ready -- even if Stalac's own consisted of a holographic ring of blue denoting his Science speciality emanating from his combadge around his upper half. The Horta rotated slightly in place. "Well, I don't know about the rest of you, but I look superb."

"I need to eat, Ma'am," Urad suddenly announced. "Soon. Very soon. My metabolism requires it."

She turned to him. "Show some discipline, Cadet. What would you do if you were on a planet in hostile territory, and couldn't get fed right away?"

"I would position myself so when I inevitably collapsed, it would be onto the enemy, Ma'am."

"He has a point," Peter offered. "Hroch do have a high metabolism; they need to eat frequently, and copiously--"

"Thank you, Mr Boone." She looked away from him -- damn, he looked good in Medical Blue -- as she pounded her fist on the bedroom door. "If you're not out in ten seconds, I'll drag you naked to the Mess Hall!"

"She might like that," Tori suddenly muttered.

Boone snickered at that, Urad chuckled, and even Stalac gave a little tremor, though it seemed more a reaction that the other girl spoke at all than what she said.

The door slid open, and Astrid stepped out like she was on a model's catwalk. Unlike the other humanoids in her squad, she chose to wear the skant variation of the cadet uniform, one that went halfway up her long, slender thighs, and black boots rising to the tops of her calves.

Zir had initially objected, as it made the human seem distinctive from the rest, less a part of the group, until Astrid pointed out, perhaps with some validity, that their team already had members with more radical variations to the uniform. "Thank you all for your patience. As you can see, it was well worth it."

"Well, I don't have eyes," Stalac told her. "So I'll have to take your word for it."

Emoto looked down at him, murmuring, "You can't see?"

"Not like you Carbs. My whole outer shell acts like a multispectral sensor array, chiefly focused on vibrations and chemical properties and signatures." He rumbled slightly. "You have nice salt deposits, by the way."

"Um... thanks?"

"Flirt," Zir teased him. "Come on, let's go before Mr. Kaldron faints and we have to carry him. Assuming we can."

*

Most of Alpha Squad sat together at a table. Two of them sat underneath: Stalac, with a tray of replicated assorted rocks, occasionally sliding over the tray to dissolve and swallow one of them, and Zir, sitting cross-legged opposite him, a bowl of sweet porridge untouched in her hands while she stared at nothing.

"Eat," he urged her.

"Not hungry," she lied. And her gut betrayed her.

"Wow. You know, when you're hungry, your stomach makes sounds like the filthiest curses in my people's language."

"Shut up." Still, she spooned some of it into her mouth. "He's going to kill me. He'll make it look like an accident, of course. 'I don't know what happened, Admiral, the last I saw her, she was stepping into the airlock...' Then what will happen?"

"We'll need a replacement Squad Leader. I want a Vulcan this time; I like the copper in their blood."

"It's not funny."

"But you're making it funny."

She grunted. She knew Hrelle had been a slave at the hands of the Orions for years, had been made into a fighter in the Deathmatches, forced to kill or be killed. When he finally saw her, the living representative of those people, that system... he would snap.

And to make it worse, just days ago, he had been the victim of an attempted assassination! He might even think she was involved in it, somehow!

Her thoughts returned to the here and now, as someone walked past Stalac -- but not before intentionally stepping closer in order to catch one of their feet on him. The Horta rumbled, "Sorry!"

Zir set aside her bowl and climbed out from under the table. "Hey!"

The figure turned, though Zir could already tell from the curved-back horns on the head that it was Jexa-Naku, Gamma Squad's Leader. She was a Grazerite, with a pronounced, deeply-furrowed brow and a bovine snout, and a layer of fine, downy snowy fur covering her hide-thick skin, though it was the horns, about eight centimetres long crowning her skull, that really drew the attention of others. Her voice affected an air of gathered patience at being interrupted from more important matters. "Is there a problem, Squad Leader?"

"Yeah! You did that deliberately! You came over and practically kicked my squad member!"

Jexa-Naku smirked. "I came over to enquire as to your whereabouts. I never expected you to be... hiding under the table."

Zir glared; in the short time she had grown to know the other cadets onboard, she had developed a strong and vibrant hatred for this arrogant Slis'pul, who had a relation on the Federation Council but went on like she was Queen of the Quadrant. She seemed to have developed a particular dislike for Stalac, often remarking about the alleged inconvenience his very presence caused them, and this wasn't the first time she or one of her cohorts had 'accidentally' tripped on him. "Are you kidding me? You expect me to believe you didn't see him there?"

"Zir, it's okay," Stalac urged at her feet. "It was just an accident."

"There, see?" Jexa-Naku simpered, adding, "Perhaps, to avoid further accidents, maybe you can get him to eat... somewhere else?"

Zir felt her blood boil and her face tighten, and became aware of everyone else watching them now. "Who the Hell do you think you are, making a suggestion like that?"

"I'm simply trying to be helpful--"

"You're simply trying to get your head shoved up your ass!"

"I wouldn't recommend that," came a new voice. "I imagine the view won't be up to much."

All the cadets in the room rose to attention at the entrance of Counselor Kami Hrelle, the sepia-furred Caitian female walking in, holding hands with her young, thigh-high male cub Misha, who was dressed in a miniature Starfleet uniform in Command Red, complete with four Captain's pips. The cub smiled and waved at Stalac. "Hi, Rocky!"