MGIS 5 - Gathering Strength - Chapter 4

Chapter 4

All the power of the galaxy at hand. Access to a power previously unknown to humanity. Surrounded by four beautiful women who loved me unconditionally.

And I still managed to get bored.

In my defense, it can happen to the best of us. And I understand that it really was more to do with the fact that we spent so much time racing from training to training that when we did have down time, it was hard to not just keep being productive. Also, with the limited space we had aboard the ship, you couldn’t really accumulate hobbies without serious thought.

~Desmond McLaughlin, personal journal.

“I’m annoyed that it was that easy for them to get the measurements made,” Desmond sighed, letting his head fall back against his pillow and stretching his legs out in front of himself with a groan.

“We should have thought of it sooner, but there is only so much we can really do to go back and correct the mistakes we made in the past,” Chloe said from her position acting as Desmond’s pillow, wrapping one arm around her adept and mate’s shoulder to drape her arm over his chest and pull him into her side.

They were seated in their usual corner of the primary enlisted recreation room right now, with the other three girls on Desmond’s guard team arranged around them. The large room was brightly lit and there were easily two or three hundred other crew members wandering around, discussing things, playing cards, or some sort of digital game.

Desmond couldn’t help but grin at the six different groups he saw at tables gesturing wildly while metallic dice rattled every so often. The area around their little group was clear of onlookers for the time being, though there were observers for each of the games currently in session.

With his scan of the room done, he turned his attention back to his team while twining the fingers of one hand with Chloe’s hand that was draped over his shoulder.

Lila and Raegan were conversing in whispers with grins on their faces to Desmond’s left, the two of them tapping on their data-tablets and flicking files back and forth while they worked on something. He wasn’t sure what yet, but Desmond knew that Raegan had been taking a break from her chemical research.

Reminded of the other half of that project for Raegan, Desmond glanced over at Sasha, who had been helping with research and designs for a new type of round that they both wanted to use that would miniaturize the explosive payload from Raegan’s chemical mixtures into something they could use in their auto-shotguns. It had been an off and on project for the last several months for the two of them, but they’d recently buckled down and gotten serious about it.

Sasha was also working on her data tablet, but the way that her pointed feline ears flicked amongst the spikes she had styled into her blue-and-black-striped hair and how Sasha would pause to scan the room every so often told him that she was on her guard even while she worked.

“We’ve got the catalogs, we have the measurements. We just need to sit down and discuss the goals. I know I’d rather not pay to have the armor shipped out to us, so it might be better to compare the cost of that versus contracting the fabricators to make them for us and doing our own assembly,” Chloe said while Desmond studied Sasha.

Chloe’s statement got the green-skinned woman’s attention and she glanced up at them with a thoughtful look.

“You know, I’d almost prefer that we get the fabricators to make the parts. That way, I can run simulations on the gear and it would be easier to troubleshoot them all. I don’t want to be filing down armor plates in the final hours before a deployment again,” Sasha said with a sigh that made her pointed ears wilt.

“That only happened once and because you were trying to balance too much,” Desmond reassured her, getting a soft smile from the Hyreh-Taari woman.

“Yes, but I should have seen the issue coming. That’s part of my job as the technical-minded member of your group. Not just fiddling with my projects like this,” Sasha gestured to the tablet in her hand before slumping backwards with a sigh. The motion made her figure jiggle distractingly, which got a giggle out of Sasha when she realized where Desmond’s eyes had been drawn.

“You are way too easy to distract, Des,” Chloe chuckled, rubbing his chest lightly with the hand that had twined fingers with his.

“Hush, you. Pillows don’t make fun of the person using them,” Desmond countered in a mock-imperious tone.

“Clearly you are missing out. All the best pillows make fun of their user, then make them do other things,” Chloe returned, leaning down to press a kiss on the top of Desmond’s head.

The motion brought her horns down into his field of vision, and the overhead lights glimmered off the polished tungsten ring that sat halfway down one of her horns.

Too bad there isn’t much call for welding work out here. I never thought I’d miss the smell of hot metal, Desmond thought ruefully before returning his attention to Sasha.

“So what are you working on, Sasha?” he asked, shifting again to get comfortable and rub his head against Chloe’s left boob, which he was using as a pillow still.

“I’m trying to find or design a holo-table or something similar that can project game maps and the like. The challenge that I’m finding is that the assets are all copyrighted for the majority of the programs used, and especially for the units and character models.” Sasha sighed again, this time in annoyance. Desmond did get to appreciate the motion still, he was just more subtle about it.

“Have you talked to Bell about that? She’s good with programming and might have an inside line on where to source programs that aren’t under lock and key?” Desmond asked. 

Sasha nodded once before shifting to reach back and fish her tail out from behind her. She started idly stroking the fuzzy rope while she thought for a moment before answering Desmond.

“I’ve messaged her, and her response was a rather long-winded rant about how tight-fisted any of the popular media companies are. Sure, there are hundreds of thousands of assets out there, but no one likes to play nice and share, so you have to buy the usage rights to them piecemeal. I could whip together a projector, or even just buy one. The downside of buying one is that some of the companies are part of larger business conglomerates where their tech is programmed to not be compatible with their competitors' software.”

“That… wow, that is slimy,” Desmond said with a distasteful grimace. “They can get away with that?”

“It’s part of a ‘mutually-supportive business partnership’ so yeah,” Sasha replied, waving the hand holding her tail as if the appendage was an instructor's baton and she was indicating points on a display with it. The fact that her tail thrashed irritably while she did it made her points all the more serious.

“It would be really cool if we could get a custom asset pack together to use for the games, but if they are going to nickel and dime us with the individual models and even prevent us from using all the ones available…” Desmond shook his head, to which Sasha made a quiet growl of agreement.

“It’s why I’ve been looking into building my own holo-table for stuff like that. The problem is still the assets though. You can buy rights to use them, but once they are introduced into a program, the timer starts. The initial rights are only for a limited timeline. So if you use a model once on the projection, it has a countdown timer until it deletes itself. The basic license is for seventy-eight hours after first use.”

Desmond frowned at Sasha’s statement, confused at the time measurements before he remembered that the Hegemony ships operated on a twenty-six hour clock.

“So three days is all we get for the asset we’ve paid to use?” Desmond said in disgust. “ ‘You’ll get used to not owning anything and like it’ my ass,” he growled in annoyance.

“Basically. There is a higher tier license that you can buy that extends the timer, or you can buy permanent access to the asset, but that is where the system locks come in. You can only use them on the proprietary hardware that it is encoded to use.”

“Which is why you wanted to design your own, maybe to try and trick them into playing nice?” Chloe asked thoughtfully.

“Yeah. It’s mostly just a thought experiment at this time though, I don’t know enough about programming to get that part working, and Bell is more focused on operating systems and the like for what she’s building.”

Chloe and Sasha continued to talk about various other issues that Sasha might run into, with Sasha mentioning that she was going to ask Lila to look into licensing laws and see if there was some loophole they could use there too, as the Va’Aelfa had a knack for paperwork and forms that she’d inherited from her parents.

While the two of them talked, Desmond continued to think over his boredom issue. Even the packet that he’d gotten from the ambassador the previous day didn’t really spark his interest. Sure, there was a lot of media on there to read and the like, he’d also had the chance to catch up on a few of the stories that he’d wanted to.

The Hegemony politics sound just as convoluted as the Antecedent’s assembly did in that book. Too bad I can’t just hop in a giant robot and smash a bunch of bugs to force people to be fair. Hell, I wish I could sneakily copyright all this media from back home to make money on, but it’d never fly and I’d likely get into trouble for it. I didn’t get pulled to an alternate universe, though sometimes it feels like it, Desmond thought, smirking as he remembered reading over the most recent book in that series that had been included in the packet.

An unfortunate side-effect of his training as an adept was that his speed-reading and retention had gone through the roof. It was necessary to keep up to date on everything that would come down as reading from the instructors. And partially because of his own drive to excel and do well. This made it easy to plow through recreational reading, but harder to actually relax and just enjoy it.

The enhancements he’d put on himself to boost his studying and retention had ended up contributing to it as well. Even now, they had tuned his mind to the point where he could read and absorb information faster in general. Not as much as when he had the boosts going, but still to a peak of human capability.

Kind of makes it hard to just relax and enjoy reading at times too, he thought with a sigh. But that’s the price I paid to have the knowledge and be ready to help my girls.

Desmond knew that several of the cadet-adepts had simply fobbed off some of the reading on their guards and then gotten a digest from them regarding the reading. He’d also noted that usually those were the adepts from well-off families or had snootier attitudes.

Well, as long as the guards went in knowing what they were getting, Desmond thought with a sigh before glancing back to Sasha and Chloe, who were in an animated discussion now about something from the game.

No… I think Chloe found the collection of Gloomtreader books on the drive, Desmond thought with a smile. Maybe they’ll get some ideas from those books. I know they were fun reads back in the day. I preferred the Crowloft books myself, should see if they are in the packet.

While listening to the girls discuss gaming items, Desmond turned over in his mind the various things he could do to both distract himself and occupy his time. He knew that, if he didn’t find something soon, he’d end up worrying about the upcoming meeting that the ambassador had set up.

He’d sent his agreement to answer questions for the governmental leaders once his connection had stabilized and then logged out of the secured data portal earlier that same day. When Steelbender set up the meeting, he wasn’t entirely sure. He just knew that it would have to be while the Fist of Defiance was within range of the Vigilant Titan in order to piggyback off the flagship’s secured comm array. Even then, his message back to Steelbender wouldn’t actually be sent until they were within range of the Titan, so he could only worry and review the mental list of potential talking points that Steelbender had sent him.

Stop it, Desmond chastised himself mentally. He gave the concerns a mental shove and turned his attention back to the women around him. 

Breathing deeply, Desmond inhaled and savored the faint scent of frankincense that lingered on Chloe’s skin from the soap she kept stealing from him. The smell as well as the steady presence of his lovers all around him helped Desmond to calm his nerves.

Not like it’s that big of a deal. Just going to be in a Q & A session with government leaders sometime in the near future. You’ve talked to galactic admirals, plural for that matter. So generals back on Terra shouldn’t be that concerning, Desmond thought to himself and had to bite back a laugh at the thought.

Yeah, no. They are concerning because of how hidebound most politicians are and I know there will be some in the call just because they threw their weight around. And that means others will see just how dumb Terrans can be. That makes me worry about my own racial reputation.

Mentally, Desmond shoved the thoughts aside. Obsessing over them wouldn’t help him right now, and he needed to be able to focus. To focus, he first needed to relax.

The sheer ridiculousness of the thought made Desmond burst into laughter, which derailed both conversations going on amongst his guards.

“Uh… is the Little Boss okay?” Raegan asked, her orange-red eyes wide as she stared over at him in concern.

“I don’t know,” Sasha replied, her eyes wide and ears pointing straight up in concern. “He was just sitting there quietly then started laughing with no prompting.”

“I’m… I’m fine,” Desmond gasped between laughs as he wiped at his eyes. “Just, give me a moment.”

It took him another ten seconds to calm his laughter and put his thoughts into order so he could explain what had made him laugh so suddenly.

“Was just thinking that I needed to stop stressing out so much and just relax. And it struck me as just so ridiculous. I’m stressing because of the meeting I agreed to with Steelbender, so I need to relax. But I can’t relax and keep thinking about it, and my inability to relax is stressing me out more.”

“That’s not good, Des,” Chloe said gently, pulling him tight to her side with a one-armed hug. “Circular thinking like that can tear you up inside if you let it continue.”

“Yeah, it was the sheer ridiculousness of the loop itself, and knowing that it was a negative loop, but not being able to break out of it that made me laugh.” Desmond patted the hand on his chest reassuringly. “My mind just needs to find something to occupy itself with. I need a hobby or something that engages my mind. Whenever I’d get in these loops back on the Valor’s Bid, I’d go and work on my mana manipulation. The mental constructs I’d come up with helped distract me.”

“And since the Fist doesn’t have a space that has the mana-absorptive plating, you can’t do that here,” Lila finished with an understanding look in her bright cyan eyes.

Desmond nodded in agreement and tipped a finger in her direction as well.

“Got it in one, gorgeous,” he said with a smile for Lila, making his star-studded Aelfa blush faintly.

“There is a lot you can do though, Little Boss,” Raegan broke in. “You have all that media that the ambassador sent, or you can work on the campaign more for Gloomtreader. I mean, that’s what Lila and I are doing. We wanted to run something where you could play too, so we are planning one out.” Raegan brandished her tablet with one large hand and Desmond felt a swelling of affection in his chest for the big woman.

“The media wouldn’t work though,” Sasha said, and Desmond glanced over to see her slitted eyes glittering in understanding. “He needs something that engages his mind, and the vids or music won’t really do that, right Chief?”

“And I’m just not feeling books right now. After having to speed-read for so much of the adept coursework, I’m a bit burnt out on just reading mindlessly,” Desmond sighed. “Was just thinking about how it was amusing that I missed my old job welding. It was many things, but creative was not one of them. You needed to focus on what you were doing to ensure the welds were done properly though, because lives might depend on it.”

“Hmm… sounds like you need a creative hobby, Little Boss,” Raegan gnawed lightly at her bottom lip, the gesture making little dents in her lip with the sharp teeth she had, but thankfully not piercing her skin.

“Yeah, but what can I do? While we have some space in the little suite we have, it’s not like I can try out a bunch of stuff.” Desmond let his words sink in and turned his mind back to what he used to enjoy. Besides the axe throwing league that he was part of, he hadn’t really had time, money, or space for much back on Terra before he’d been forced into the stars after all.

What kind of hobbies do they have out here? Beyond the obvious salacious ones that all folk in the armed forces have, Desmond thought with a smirk.

He couldn’t really practice that one too much, as he didn’t want to wear his girls out. While the healing he could lend them ensured no one was sore for long, his natural regeneration had boosted his sex drive to the point where keeping up with four women wasn’t a challenge at all. He could heal soreness and bruises, but exhaustion was still a problem.

“Fair,” Chloe agreed. “It is already snug with the five of us living together in that small suite of rooms, and it’s only going to get smaller when we finish out the six members of the squad.”

“You four are all that I need,” Desmond said instinctively then blinked in surprise when the four women each shot him wry looks. “What?”

“Desmond, you can pretend to not see it as much as you want, but we all know that you are going to end up with a full team of guards eventually,” Lila said gently, setting her data tablet down on the table in the middle of their little circle of couches. “As a clan Sire, you’ll have a large family eventually, but you are barely a month into your ten years of service. I think I can speak for all four of your mates that we wouldn’t mind expanding our group to ensure you actually make it to retirement.”

Desmond wanted to argue that he was already spoiled for affection with his girls, but the serious looks in all their eyes told him it was pointless. He wasn’t an idiot, despite how often he was lovingly called that by one or more of his girls. They had been on active duty for a bare fraction of his service time, and they’d already stumbled into something life-changing and very dangerous.

He didn’t need to speak for the girls to understand that he had accepted the statement, the way that he’d sighed and just settled into Chloe more told them all they needed to know.

“Don’t worry about it, Little Boss. We aren’t going to be dragging in anyone without thought,” Raegan reassured him with her gleaming Uth’ra smile on display. “Lila set a strong example of how any new members need to get along with all of us first. And you have the ultimate authority to veto anyone from the squad.”

“And we aren’t insisting that you add more folks to the squad or even the family, Des,” Chloe rumbled from above him. “But we wanted to give you something to think on. The ultimate decision is yours, love. But we wanted to remind you that we are okay with it, we trust you not to bring someone in that will clash with us. You have to see how all the mundane marines eye us, knowing that you can pull on the ship’s marine complement to fill out your squad as well as others in the fleet if you decide you want to.”

“How did we get onto this subject from talking about hobbies?” Desmond asked with a small laugh.

“Complaints about space, which are common here. Heck, you remember the corporal that ran that first Rift with us?” Chloe responded with a smile, squeezing him gently again as if to remind him of her love.

“The one who did the models?” Desmond thought back to the energetic Aelfa who talked a mile a minute as well as her Latsu sergeant that had helped him and Chloe out during their first year.

“Yeah. The fact she had a storage unit aboard the Valor’s Bid holding all her models was ridiculous but also kinda sweet. Except for the idea of stepping on a miniature sword that got lost during assembly, that just… ow,” Chloe said and Desmond could hear the grimace in her tone.

“Fair. Would be kind of fun to do that though… at least for some of them—” Desmond said thoughtfully before Sasha suddenly stiffening interrupted him and he turned to look at his cat-eared mate. 

Sasha was furiously tapping away at her tablet with her tongue stuck out between her lips cutely while she searched through for something in particular. The furious way she was working drew the attention of the others as well, and the four of them waited for Sasha to finish what she was doing.

“Chief, you said you wanted to work on something creative, right?” Sasha mumbled, peeking over the edge of her tablet with bright eyes and a small smile.

“Yeah, it would be good to get my mind working on something like that,” Desmond said, wondering where she was going with it.

Rather than speaking aloud, Sasha turned her tablet around to show it to him with a broad smile while her tail lashed happily behind her.

On the screen of her tablet was the standard 3D modeling program that he remembered using when he’d modeled the dice for the Radford triplets in the ship’s armory before they’d used the nano-forge to create the items.

“What if you did the work digitally? It’s the same idea to what Raegan and I had with the explosive rounds. If you design them yourself, then you can use them however you want. I can use the digital models on the holo-table I build, and if you make one you really like, we can have the nano-forge print it up for you.” Sasha’s ears were twitching madly with excitement at that and it was just so cute to him.

“What about the copyright issues?” Lila asked, though Desmond could hear a bit of excitement in the Va’Aelfa’s tone too now.

“Claim they are based on Rift monsters,” Sasha said, turning to shoot her a grin that revealed her tiny fangs that normally hid behind her full lips. “Besides, as long as they are for personal use and not commercial, it’s not worth harassing an adept about it. Even then, we can check it against the databases for similar creatures and tweak it if we want.”

“I like the idea,” Desmond said, rubbing his chin with one hand. He’d never been much of one for digital art, but the modeling software he’d used to create the dice had been pretty intuitive.

“If you need help with poses, we could always lend a hand with that,” Chloe said with a small laugh and Desmond twisted to look up at his horned lover.

Chloe was grinning down at him, amusement and lust rippling in her green eyes and he wiggled his eyebrows meaningfully at her.

“Are you sure about that? You’d want to pose for me knowing that the model would be seen by potentially thousands to millions of sentients if they do go out to the greater market?”

Lila let out a low moan before Chloe could respond and that got a laugh from their entire group.

“I think Lila is definitely excited by that idea,” Sasha giggled.

The blushing Va’Aelfa shrugged, but Desmond could see the hard tents in her tight top that marked how erect her nipples were at the thought, as well as the way that Lila was rubbing her thighs together.

My little exhibitionist, Desmond thought before blowing Lila a kiss that made the embarrassed Aelfa smile wider.

“I like the idea,” Chloe added on. “If you don’t want to do it, Des. I might.”

“Nothing saying we can’t both do it, Precious,” Desmond bumped his head sideways into her boob affectionately, making Chloe laugh. He did feel the short shiver of pleasure that ran through her at the pet name though and it made him smile wider.

“Why not give it a shot then, Chief? The basic software the ship uses to machine parts is free, and if you like it, I’m sure that either I or Bell can find something more refined. The nano-forges can handle just about anything we throw at them, might as well make the most of them while we can,” Sasha suggested.

His interest had been growing throughout the discussion, and Desmond couldn’t deny the fact that working with metal, even as an artistic pursuit rather than a practical one, was appealing to him. Plus, he was definitely going to take advantage of the offer to have his girls model for him while he rendered anything that he could base on them.

“Why not? Can you send the link over to my tablet?” Desmond’s response got a grin and happy bounce from Sasha.

“Mine too, please?” Chloe added, getting a nod from her green-skinned clan-sister as she tapped away.

Sure, there are other digital models out there and I’m sure the VI’s and AI’s could do it too, but this is fun and amusing for me, Desmond thought with a grin. Plus, any chance to see boobs is a good one. Boobs win, after all.