THE SPACE NAVY AU (18+)

"Oh, we played war games together as kids. Reenactment Society. They take a historical battle and re-fight it with period gear and everything, it's fun. A few of us kept in touch, and when Deuce heard I washed out of Academy and ended up a noncom, he pulled strings until he got me on his team. Fleet had me teaching first-years how to do pushups, suddenly I'm on Valdi 4 smoking giant rodents with a fucking RPG. My soul got whiplash." He laughs.

 

"Hell yes, lead on."

 

"I want to meet these aggressive crabs of yours," Murfey grins. He samples the moonshine himself and gives an impressed huff and low whistle. "If this shit's what y'all have been drinking, no wonder Deuce asked me to open a bar. I was like, 'bro, everything's gonna be so overpriced by the time I get it out there,' and he was like, 'you don't understand, these guys will drink floor wax if you pour it over ice with a little umbrella.' Hey, you think there'd be much interest in a mechanical herdbeast? I've always wanted to run a bar with a mechanical herdbeast. Watch lil' teal cuties try and thigh-clamp it into submission all day long." Wistful sigh.

 

"To ride! It tries to buck you off, you gotta stay on. Some places sharpen the horns for extra fun, but I don't wanna gouge up your crew, boss. It's funny enough watching cocky assholes get that suprise face on when it goes into the fast spin phase of the program." He wags his eyebrows, grinning, and takes a swig from the bottle. "Hey, this ain't bad. All right if I ask that guy to brew this in bulk? I can order in what he needs so he doesn't have to gank official supplies."

 

"Relax, boss, I've been on both sides of the power imbalance and I can put myself in the other guy's shoes. I got a code." He thumps his chest with a closed fist to emphasize the seriousness of his code. "I can bounce troublemakers in my own bar, though, right? Deuce warned me not to boss folks around outside my own space, caste or no caste, but he said he reckoned you'd be okay with me keeping order inside it. I know crewmen need to let off steam but I won't have anybody breaking bottles or fucking on the tables, and if I need to put boot to trousers to get the point across I'm gonna go ahead and do that."

 

"No thanks, I had a sandwich just before we docked. That freighter's cook is a monster, you oughtta try and hire her off it. I ask her for a tuna melt, I get like an entire loaf cut in half and dripping cheese and fried onions. I might not be hungry again for a week." He kicks his boots off at the door and rolls up the bottom of his jeans so he can wade in the tidepool and pester the crabs with his toes.

"Too good for gardening, huh? Lemme guess, he gave you that 'I'm a specialist, let me do my specialty' speech of his. I guess he's kinda got a point on one level, but sometimes you just need another warm body with an entrenching tool, you know? I used to just keep bringing him a shovel and going 'bro you dopped this' until he threw a tiny shitfit and then came and helped us fill sandbags or whatever just to make me shut up. Folks used to ship us pale for that, but I've met his moirail, whew, she's a sledgehammer. She'd just be like -- 'Bel, quit fucking around.' And suddenly Deuce is all obedience." He chuckles at the memory. "We call him Double Deuce cuz he used to always say he could get more done with .22 caliber than the rest of us could do with long .50, and he was usually right." Tilting his head, he studies Aspera with a smile. "You pick up any interesting Academy nicknames, Cap?"

 

"Hey, it's better than some I've heard. I got 'Waffle' by bitching about my boots. You can't boot-slide in combat boots, though. It was cramping my style." He looks around, delighted. "Hey, this is nice. You did all this?"

 

Murphy sits down beside him, and proceeds to try to get one crab attached to each toe. They're not as cooperative as one might think. "I love all the green spaces and shit you have going here, not just this one but all over the ship. Makes me kind of want to do one as part of my bar, have it be kind of a pretend open-air thing, but I've got a black thumb. Maybe if the place makes money I can hire somebody to do it."

 

"Bet we could get a real good illusion going," Murphy says tentatively. "Double high ceiling? Deuce said that's a thing we can do. Paint it nice and dark and install tiny fader lights on a randomizer so they twinkle, then do bushy trees so they mostly obscure it. Route in some nice strong ventilation so you get a breeze. Uh... you probably draw the line at importing fireflies and crickets, though, huh?"

 

"Me too, man. I miss fireflies like hell. None of the planets I got sent to had anything like 'em." He drains the last of his shandy and sets the bottle aside, then leans in a bit and tries to catch Aspera's eyes. "Hey, so, what's going on in your quadrants? You don't seem to mind me flirting, but I don't wanna overstep, and I figure the best thing to do is just ask."