THE SPACE NAVY AU (18+)

Erskin yelps, wipes the butter off on to the floor, then adjusts his towel to make a head-tent. Thus armored, he continues poking through Bel's stuff.

"You didn't eat your tablet," Galley corrects. "Only the camera and speaker hardware, and one of the corner paddings. The rest you just seemed to forget about."

 

"Sounds like I was doing some kind of anti-surveillance paranoid thing. Ugh. I hope I haven't got sharp wires poking holes in my stomach right now." You flip a couple pancakes. "Have you been locked in your block this whole time with no visitors? Is there anything you need?"

 

Galley sounds amused. "Bel, holy shit, if I started listing every fuck-headedly absurd thing you just said to me we'd be here all night. So: no, I'm fine. Thank you for asking."

A moment or two of contemplation, and Galley says, "I amend the prior statement. Can you bring me a pancake? I've never had one and would like to engage in research on how they compare to regular cake."

 

"Sure, no problem. Oh, wait, problem. I don't have a sylladex right now, I'm not sure how I -- oh, no, wait, I think..." You take the pan off the heat and go rummage through some decorative boxes on your bookshelves, gifts from Pancho. You're fairly sure you have -- yep, here it is, a stack of spare moduses you keep around because every so often someone will have a problem with theirs, or have it taken from them or something. You equip a workshop modus, fiddle with the interface for a few seconds to make sure you know how it works, and then go back to your cooking. "Problem solved. Would you like an egg and bacon as well?"

 

"Sure, why not! Throw in some orange juice, and a great big bowl of crawly-o's, and a muffin, and hash-browns, and toasted grubloaf with marmalade," Galley says, still amused in a dry, detached sort of way. "And a magical blue fairy kiss that will turn me into a real boy! Won't that be nice?"

From the couch, Erskin quietly snorts into his towel.

 

You roll your eyes indulgently. "I don't know how much you can eat without getting sick, Galley. I'm just offering to share. If it would be a bad idea then just say 'no'."

 

There's such a long, static-crackling pause that Erskin peers over from under his towel.

"Just one small pancake," Erskin says. "Not too much syrup, either, helmsman, I'm not keen on some of the blood-sugar alerts I've been getting forwarded from Maintenance."

"You'll be less keen on my monster dick getting rammed through that hideous cavern you pass off as a think pan--" Galley snaps. While he blusters crudely and at great length and volume, Erskin gives Bel a quick, fond, conspiratorial grin, then goes back to dragging a finger laboriously over the pages of an ancient poetry journal.

 

You think you kind of get it now. Oh god, that's adorable. You carefully pour a heart-shaped pancake (slightly lopsided), and the moment it's cooked you put it on a little dessert plate with a pat of butter and a drizzle of syrup, and captchalogue it immediately so it'll still be warm when it gets to him.

"I'm not sure when I'll have time to bring it to you," you say as you load up much larger plates for yourself and Erskin. "I'm sure the disciplinary thing with Carmin isn't the only work that can't wait." You hand Erskin his breakfast and ask him, "What's the situation there? Is she still in medbay?"

 

"Oh, er... I'm not sure!" you gesture towards where your phone is across the room. "She should be, though, your Sergeant would have sent her off with the rest of the patients, wouldn't she? And I doubt anyone's going to be playing silly buggers now that they know I've got my eye on them."

Your mouth full of pancake, you add, "I could bring your little love token to Galley if you like but I don't think it'll mean as much if I'm the one handing it over. I am the ship's reigning champion at No Romo."

 

Blushing a bit, you give your plate a crooked grin. "No, I want to see him. I just want to make sure no one's burned the hive down, so to speak, while I was indisposed. I am so not up for a full work night, but I can save Carmin from a pitchfork mob and find out what kind of terrible mess is going to need cleaning up where."

 

"Much obliged," you say. "Here, why don't you take Twitch along? She's young and zippy, she needs occupying. She had to clear out of the infected medbay pretty early on, I don't know what she's been up to since. Possibly watching the same terrible pornography over and over— no, wait, that's Galley."

Your phone makes a rude noise at you.

 

"Really, Galley? We'll have to hook you up with some quality pornography," you deadpan, and chomp a bunch of bacon to keep yourself from giggling.

 

"Is that my queue? I feel like that's my queue," you say, striking the sort of pose that makes Lainey laugh. "He won't appreciate it, though, he keeps watching Debbie Does The Entire Dallas Cavalreaper Squadron In A Variety Of Improbable Positions And Even Less Likely Scenarios And Also Their War Mounts. He made me watch it."

"It's a work of art," Galley says.

"It's a hideously cruel torture device and you know it," you tell him.

There's a brief loading chime from the phone. "Your requested ringtone change has been authorized, Captain," Galley says in smooth, robotic tones. "It is now the entire audio track of Debbie Does Etc. You're welcome."

 

"Well, I hope the first ten seconds of the film are loud, or you're going to miss a lot of calls," you say brightly. "Personally, I like my porn artistic. I think I have... ah yes, there, on your left, second shelf from the top, the dark green binding with the silver wave pattern. Do not touch it with your bacon hand, there are only five copies in existence, all the woodcuts are hand-colored."

Contemplatively munching eggs, you watch him investigate the priceless work of art, which involves seadwellers and tentacles. Lots and lots of tentacles.

Some bluebloods are into hoofbeasts. You can't imagine why.

 

"Oh, hello, there," you say, flipping through, your eyebrows steadily raising. "I say. I— oh, haha, Lainey's got this one as her desktop background! Good lord. I didn't know it was from somewhere. Does she know you have this? You won't ever get it back if she does, I should think."

You glance back over your shoulder. "If you're trying to have a porn cluckbeast contest, Commander, I would like to advise you that you're several sweeps too late to actually upset me with any possible combination of appendages and orifices. This filthy tubful of reprobates has corrupted whatever tender soul I may ever have possessed."

Galley cuts in with, "He mostly just likes pictures of titties. It's disgraceful." You wave the priceless antique hentai at your phone in gracious acknowledgement.

 

You sigh and shake your head slowly. "I was trying to improve your mind, you uncultured slob. That? Is art." You very nearly manage to keep a straight face, too.

 

"Oh, really, art, hmm," you deadpan. "Well of course I wouldn't recognize art if it slithered up and fucked me in the mouth hole." You flip through a few pages, then hold a particularly improbable page up at him— the poor chap in question's managed to contort himself far enough that you can see his ass and his flexed-wide frontal gills, and the very nearly rig-like mass of tentacles plugged into both. Also he's got extra fins on his elbows and ankles, which looks incredibly stupid.

You suggest brightly, "If this is art, why don't we stage an enlightening performance for the whole crew? I'm sure we could all use a spot of culture around here."

 

You pull a horrified face. "I'm never going near your tidepools again." Then you get thoughtful. "Actually, you might have an idea there. Not about the porn performance! I mean, how we could all use a spot of culture. We've got our grand plan to entertain layover crews and make a few caegars, what if we throw in a little art and literature? I could set up a reading room where people could have a look at all these antique books, I'd just want someone on duty to make sure they don't get wrecked or stolen, some of them really are priceless. And I know we've got some artists among the crew, there's Pancho with her wood and bone inlay work, and I've seen your sketches, they're charming as hell. Maybe the occasional performance of some kind. Murf plays guitar and sings country music; I hate the stuff, but I can't deny he's pretty good at it."

 

"Hmm, open up a forum about that on the local web, perhaps. I don't see why it shouldn't work, but then, I don't really know art from—" you wave the book. "I don't much care for performance, actually. But I'm sure some chaps around here would love to. I know there's a music club, they meet up in the grassland biome block every week or so to enjoy themselves."

 

"If Murf doesn't know about that already, I should tell him, he'd like that. Yeah, as soon as I've got my own phone and stuff back I'll open a memo or something. Do we know what Lainey's up to right now?"