MGiS 6 - Proportional Response - Chapter 9

Chapter 9

Life inside a space-ship was far more boring and day-to-day than most people realize.

We didn’t go racing from trouble to trouble, engaging in interstellar battles with a half-repaired ship twice a week, or swoop in to save someone from pirates every other day.

Like most jobs, it was long stretches of boring monotony, interspersed with bouts of tense nerves and tight deadlines.

Most of the days were routine, just going through the motions and keeping ourselves fit. The adepts aboard the Fist of Defiance didn’t have regular posting, so we were left to amuse ourselves between Rifts.

Sure, it was nice to have that freedom, but also stressful.

Had we trained enough? Had we prepared enough? When the time came to test us, would we break?

Keeping the balance and learning when to relax became key.

~Desmond McLaughlin, personal journals.

“I still don’t like leaving you alone for those extended periods,” Chloe grumbled under her breath as Arsenal trooped through the ship’s corridors.

“It was part of the request made by Master Skytreader,” Desmond reminded her, reaching up to pat the hand on his left shoulder with his own. He felt Chloe’s grip there tighten for a moment before relaxing.

“You’ve mentioned that before, but that doesn’t change how I feel about it,” Chloe said, sighing explosively.

“Chloe… do you think you are clinging a bit too closely to our adept?” Audra asked gently from Desmond’s other side.

The large Nagat woman had become more and more comfortable as the days passed, to the point where she finally had begun to act like she belonged. Desmond still kept a close eye on the quiet woman, intent on making sure she didn’t retreat back into her shell, but his girls had been welcoming to the red-skinned woman thus far, so he had very few worries.

Chloe didn’t respond immediately, and Desmond caught Sasha and Lila exchanging knowing glances ahead of him. The Va’Aelfa and the Hyreh-Taari hybrid were leading them towards the shuttle bay right now, as they had come in to dock with another station while Desmond had been at his latest lesson with Gregor.

The station which just so happened to have their two newest adepts waiting to be picked up on it. Apparently, the new adepts were transferring over in a shuttle rather than walking through the station to avoid being caught up in the mass exodus of the crew departing on shore leave.

“Am I being too controlling, Des?” Chloe asked in a worried tone, and Desmond glanced upwards at his horned lover.

Chloe was gnawing on her bottom lip, her leaf-green eyes worried and her brow wrinkled in concern as she paced along at his side.

“I wouldn’t say so,” Desmond said to reassure her, squeezing the large hand on his shoulder again. “You are worried about me and protective. Add in the clan dynamic and our relationship status on top of me being an adept and it makes sense to be a bit more intent.”

“I didn’t mean for it to come across as an insult,” Audra murmured as soon as Desmond finished speaking. “I was honestly wondering… I’ve been studying the other adepts on the ship, and we already guard Desmond more closely than any of them do. I just… well I’m still learning to read and understand a male’s emotions and I couldn’t tell if Desmond was getting annoyed with you and hiding it…”

“Good luck trying to understand him,” Raegan chuckled from the rear of their formation. “The Little Boss has the depths of an ocean to him, no one can really understand what is going on in his mind.”

“I’m more of a murky puddle than an ocean,” Desmond countered playfully, latching onto Raegan’s comment in an attempt to use humor to ensure no one felt hurt.

“Oh no, you are definitely mysterious, Chief,” Sasha countered as they came to the hatch that led into the docking bay. The lithe, green-skinned woman tapped the button to open the hatchway and looked through quickly before gesturing that it was clear to proceed.

Desmond was about to argue further when Lila joined in as well.

“She’s right, Desmond,” The Va’Aelfa said as the group slid through the airlock and into the far larger space of the docking pay. “You have to remember that you don’t act like most other males in the Hegemony. You are more assertive and dominant, while also taking direction from us in the moment. You are to the point and don’t play games or hide your emotions, while still managing to surprise us with gifts. You are aggressive and dangerous in sparring, but lovingly dote on us with massages or brushies. It’s confusing and wonderful at the same time. So it’s no wonder Audra is struggling to learn how to read you when the rest of us can’t either.”

Chloe squeezed his shoulder in silent agreement and Desmond sighed.

“Fine, far be it from me to argue with my mates over something like this,” he said and got a round of laughter from the girls.

“See, that was a response like most males in the Hegemony would give. But I couldn’t tell if you were going to agree or keep fighting because you felt like you needed to make a point,” Audra sighed, throwing her hands up for effect. “I’ll never get this figured out…”

That triggered another wave of snickers from the girls as they hurried across the brushed metal of the decking to where Adepts Mia Rowett and Jessica Tearclaw already stood assembled with their teams.

While Mia was a vulpine Taari and had her team split between more of her kind and Hyreh evenly, Jessica stood at the head of her guards as the sole Uth’ra in the mix. Five of the guards that stood with Jessica were the green-skinned Hyreh women, while the sixth was a Latsu that Desmond remembered was named Luna. The bottom-half of the woman’s body was that of a large black panther, and she paced idly back and forth behind Jessica’s group as if too excited to sit still. 

Before they made it more than half-way to the other two teams of waiting adepts, Desmond spoke up to put a cap on their previous conversation away from prying ears.

“To the earlier comment. No, I don’t think you are clinging too close. I know that a few of you express your affection by touch and proximity, and I appreciate it. Also, you respected it when I asked to be alone to speak with Gregor, even if you didn’t like it.”

Desmond gave Chloe’s hand another pat and got a gentle squeeze back in return. Rolling his head on his neck, he glanced back at Raegan, who was grinning broadly at him too. The Uth’ra woman was the next biggest ‘offender’ when it came to cuddling, tending to either sandwich him with Chloe or sit on the floor to lean against his legs. The comparison in her behavior to a big dog that thought it was a lap dog was always so apt in Desmond’s mind.

“It might become a more common thing as years go by, or it might not. But for now I can understand anxiety about it because we’ve spent basically the last two years living in each other’s pockets all day, every day. Just like with the relationship, trust that I’ll tell you if I need space. Just like I trust you all to bring it to my attention if you have a problem or desire.”

Sasha’s tail flicked sharply at that, the only indicator of her own thoughts, but Desmond suppressed a grin. He knew exactly what was running through his green-skinned mate’s mind. She’d approached him weeks ago about a possible threesome with Chloe, explaining that she’d had a crush on the large horned woman almost as long as she’d had one on Desmond. He hadn’t had a problem with it, since he saw their family as one large unit, not a network that radiated out from him.

If they’d been alone, Desmond would have pointed Sasha’s reaction out to tease her some, but they’d arrived at the other group at that point, so he filed it away for later.

“Adepts Rowett and Tearclaw, good to see you. Ladies,” Desmond said, his girls splitting to either side to mesh with the other adept’s and their guards, allowing the three adepts to occupy the center of the group with their guards at their backs.

“Oh, are we playing those games then, Adept McLaughlin?” laughed Jessica Tearclaw, her glowing orange eyes dancing in amusement. “I thought Mia and I had both told you to call us by our names.”

“I didn’t want to presume,” Desmond said with a smirk of his own. “I am the most junior of the adepts aboard, and we do have new people coming.”

“Most junior for about the next five minutes,” Mia snorted, her large, fox-like ears wiggling in amusement “Captain should be returning soon based on flight times.” The vulpine Taari’s tail swayed back and forth behind her, the fluffy red brush swaying sinuously as it continued to convey her amusement.

“Depends on who her pilot is,” Lila interjected with a grin. “I bet I could have already had her back by now.”

“And probably violated a dozen port speed laws,” sighed Sasha from behind the Va’Aelfa. The comment got grins from the other adept’s guards as they all settled in to wait.

“You looking forward to not being the newest badge on board, Desmond?” Jessica asked, flicking one hand towards the rank badge on Desmond’s uniform.

Glancing down at the badge, Desmond checked the polished silver oval out of habit. It was one of his most prized possessions, after the gifts he’d received from his girls, and he took good care of it to ensure it remained polished and clean.

The oval of metal was the size of his palm, with a broad, diamond-pattern band decorating the outer edge. The sigil of the Valor’s Bid, his ‘home’ academy sat at the top. The sigil was a gauntleted fist closed around the blade of a straight sword, holding it hilt-up like it was offering it to the sky. Below the tip of the sword at the middle of the badge was a scrollwork banner showing his name and rank: McLaughlin - Adept. The bottom half had ten stars, with nine of them being four-pointed and arranged around a tenth that had eight points.

The badge was sewn into all of his uniforms, and he even had a second set of plates that were attached to his combat armor. The symbol had become something that Desmond was used to seeing, but it still made him proud to wear it.

Qualified for early graduation on merit, first in over a hundred years for the Valor’s Bid, not too shabby, Desmond thought with a grin before pulling his mind back to the question at hand.

“Honestly? It never really bothered me. It isn’t like you all rode me as the ‘new guy’ or anything.”

“I’m pretty sure if anyone was riding you, it’d be your mates. And they’ve already expressed how very upset they’d be with anyone taking liberties,” Jessica snickered.

“Not that some of the girls aren’t interested despite that,” Luna called from the back of the group with a grin while her black-furred tail lashed the air behind her.

“Luna isn’t wrong,” Jessica said, picking up for her guard without missing a beat. “I can’t fault you for snatching up Audra as soon as you saw her. Nagat are rare enough already, and they end up dealing with the same issues as the Latsu because of the differing body-types.”

“I can’t fault me either,” Desmond said with a grin, shooting a wink at the faintly blushing Nagat woman on his right. “Audra fit right in from day one, and she’s been working hard to keep up. To the subject of my sixth, well I’m waiting on a response right now.”

“Oooh? What prompted the change? I’d thought you had been planning to stay on the lower end of the headcount.” Jessica asked, her tone shifting to excitement as she leaned forward. Mia’s tail picked up speed as well, but it was the only indicator the Taari woman gave to her own interest.

“The last few weeks,” Desmond said and got understanding nods from the other two adepts. “Things have been stressful being under-headcount for the adept teams, and I realized how much stress it was putting on my squad to be short handed.”

“I can empathize with that,” Jessica said with a grimace. “Thanks by the way, for stepping in to heal folks. Adept-assisted healing always does better than the tech work. Doc Hestia is a miracle worker, but some of us would have been working short handed without that help.”

“Happy to lend a hand, it’s just mana to me,” Desmond said with a shrug.

“Yeah, but your weird blend of spells and your specialty lets you work like you have a minor in the Medical class of spells. If Jess or I tried what you do, we’d burn far too much mana to be safe,” Mia interjected.

Without a way to argue that, Desmond just shrugged and accepted their thanks. The fact that Hydra was overpowered was something he was intimately aware of. Doctor Astrid Wristbreaker back on the Valor’s Bid had often complained about how she wished there was a way to distill him down into a drug treatment, the Uth’ra doctor was convinced that there had to be some way to refine the human’s boosted healing ability into a new technological advance to help save lives in the Hegemony.

“Either way, the feasting time is over now,” Jessica said with a grumpy frown. “Sure, it sucked pulling extra duty for the last few weeks because that idiot Windracer couldn’t see past her own tits, but damn today’s payday is going to be nice!”

“Just make sure you don’t skimp on supplies,” Mia warned, sounding so much like a bossy older sister that Desmond had to strangle a laugh. “I know everyone likes to celebrate on shore leave, but we are only going to be in port for two days.”

“That’ll still be enough to wet my lips. Both sets even,” Jessica joked, waggling her eyebrows expressively and getting a chorus of playful groans from her guards.

“As long as you don’t blow all your credits on spoiling a boytoy,” Mia said with an explosive sigh. “Desmond has been performing wonderfully, but right now the Fist has three squads of nearly brand-new adept teams. And I’m set to retire soon. So don’t fuck up!”

“Eh, it’ll be fine,” Jessica said, waving her hand dismissively. “Arsenal already acts like a veteran team. As long as Desmond and his girls don’t get overconfident, then we can still count him as one of the veteran teams and be fine.”

Desmond watched as the two friends bickered playfully back and forth, with Mia continually reminding Jessica to be responsible while Jessica insisted that Mia needed someone to ‘pump some kinks’ out of her tail.

A quiet trill from his comm-cuff got his attention and broke through the discussion that the two adepts were having. Glancing at the multi-purpose communicator, Desmond keyed through the menus and scanned over the message, his amused smirk widening into a full grin.

“Wonder what he got,” Jessica murmured. “If I saw one of my girls smirking like that, I’d expect her beau sent her something smutty.”

“Not always. Sometimes you just get good news. I know it’s not the payout notification from the quartermaster, since that would also ping us too,” Mia countered while Desmond typed away with one hand while Chloe peered over his shoulder curiously.

“Oh, that’s good timing,” Chloe said, giving Desmond’s shoulder another squeeze.

“You just gonna tease us like that?” Jessica asked while pouting playfully as Raegan craned her neck to see over Desmond’s other shoulder before whooping happily and pumping a fist in the air. “Okay, seriously. You gotta tell us what’s going on.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Desmond said with a wave and a smirk, flicking his fingers through the holographic screen to dismiss it. “So have any of you been on this station before?”

“Yes, but you gotta tell us what that was about,” Mia said with a laugh. The vulpine Taari nodded to the still-celebrating Raegan, who had turned to whisper rapidly in Sasha’s pointed ear, her words making the green-skinned woman’s stoic face break out into an excited grin as well.

“Can’t,” Desmond answered with a shrug and spread hands. “All I can say is that I got some good news.”

“Can’t, or won't?” Mia asked briskly, her head tilting questioningly.

“Can’t. No, I’m not winding you ladies up. If I could tell you, I would. But let’s just say I and my girls have something to celebrate when we finally get released for our shore leave.”

“Which should be soon. The captain is really good about being aware of stuff like that,” Jessica said with a sigh through her nose that made her nostrils flare wide. “Fine, I won’t pry. But if you need to celebrate then I recommend—”

Just what Jessica was about to recommend would remain a mystery, because all three of their comm-cuffs chimed and interrupted her. Before they could check it, the lights by the sealed hatches that led out into space began to flash and cycle between blue and red.

There was a quick bit of scrambling as the groups broke up and fell into their respective blocks as the shuttle bay door split open with a woosh.

A thin film of green light remained behind, an empowered forcefield that kept the atmosphere from being vented out of the ship while the shuttle entered.

Shaped like a rather chunky hammerhead shark, the shuttle was one of the ubiquitous models that the Hegemony used for troop transport and insertion into hot zones. Desmond knew that there were larger troop ships for when they needed to drop larger chunks of the ship’s complement of marines, but these shuttles were the ones he was intimately familiar with.

It had two doors, one off of either side, flipping forward to form blast shields for the troops disembarking. There was also a rear hatch, but it was rarely used unless docking externally with another ship. The cockpit had a rounded front with specially treated armored crystal as a clear view screen for the pilots, and Desmond grinned when he spotted a familiar Boghet woman in the pilot's chair.

“Looks like Zee got tapped,” he murmured to his guards. Lila responded with a snort.

“Looks like she’s just loving having drawn the short straw and having to ferry around the captain,” Lila murmured, and Desmond couldn’t argue with the fierce scowl he saw on the Boghet woman’s face as she brought the shuttle in for a landing neatly.

While the ship whined and settled in, Desmond checked the other new message on his comm-cuff, nodding along. It was a text-only message warning them that the captain’s shuttle was on approach, confirming their suspicions.

“For all I bitch about these,” Jessica murmured as the ship’s engines cut out, “I do appreciate that Captain Skytreader has very few ceremonies where I have to stand around with my hand on my muff for no reason.”

“Why do you think I’ve spent so long onboard the Fist?” Mia murmured back. “I just wish we’d gotten word on who was coming in. This wasn’t like when Desmond came aboard as a last-minute addition.” 

Before anyone else could respond, the locks on the shuttle door disengaged and it swung open to reveal Captain Bree Skytreader and prompting a wave of salutes through the assembled crew.

The scarred Uth’ra captain had a contrived neutral expression on her face as she stepped over the lip of the door and down the short ramp to the decking. She was dressed in her regular uniform, as immaculate as she always was with her short mane of black hair glimmering in the bright lights of the shuttle bay.

She took a moment to study the three groups standing to one side of the ship before nodding and addressing the group.

“I appreciate you all being here to welcome our newest additions to the crew. This won’t take long and you’ll be released to enjoy your shore leave.”

Captain Skytreader returned their salutes finally and everyone relaxed as she stepped to one side.

The next person out of the ship was a Va’Aelfa woman with a long fall of straight black hair. She wore a suit of the standard-issue Hegemony combat armor and had a stubby laser SMG attached to her hip by magnetic clamps. She paused at the head of the ramp to blink at the assembled crew, before her eyes landed on Desmond’s group and she blinked rapidly.

A gentle push from behind got the Va’Aelfa woman moving again though, and she hurried out to stand on the captain’s left with her six-woman squad assembling behind her in their armor and carrying duffel packs that Desmond assumed held the rest of their things.

Desmond made a note of the two ursine Taari that assembled behind the new Va’Aelfa adept as well as the four other Va’Aelfa that fell into either side of her.

Going to have to watch them to see if they are going to be bigots against Chloe and Sasha. I rather hope not, since it’s been so nice to avoid that aboard the Fist, Desmond thought to himself before turning his attention to the door as the second adept team started to flow outwards.

A pair of feline Taari that looked familiar stepped out, scanned the deck for a moment and then beckoned the others inside. Before Desmond could place the two, someone he definitely recognized stepped up to the doorway and down the ramp.

Jorgia Tre’Unath smiled broadly when she caught sight of him, her  light-blue eyes dancing in amusement as she strode down the ramp surrounded by her guards.

While no one said a word, Desmond heard the shuffling of movement behind him and a quiet grunt from Raegan. He could imagine the girls elbowing each other and sharing a few quick grins before Skytreader’s voice cut through it all as she began introductions.

“All right. I want you all to welcome aboard our two newest adepts and their teams, Natalie To’Yannu and Jorgia Tre’Unath. Ladies, these are your contemporaries. First is our most senior Adept…”