She playfully smiled. “I don’t know. I kind of like it.”
“You’re a riot, kiddo,” he snickered, unhooking the complex clasp and carefully removing it from her neck. “Hey, anytime you want to play slave, we’re up for it.”
“Ha ha.”
He laughed and patted her on the rump. “I’ll go make you some coffee. Why don’t you put something warm on.”
“Maybe I’d like you to stay and keep warming me up.” He kissed her on the nose. “I’d love that, but I need to get back up to the bridge and go over the systems schematics for replacing that relay when the others get back.” He hesitated, then leaned in close, one hand brushing between her legs. “Later, I promise, I will let you use my body any way you see fit.”
“Now who’s the tease?”
Ford and Aaron returned an hour later with the relay. Emi was bundled in sweats and sneakers. When Ford and Caph set off for engineering to replace the part, Aaron grabbed her arm.
“Thank you, Em.”
She shrugged. “Hey, we’re crew. If positions were reversed…” Suddenly, she felt there was no good way to finish that sentence, not with knowing what she knew about Aaron’s past. “Look, it was a little embarrassing, it was freaking cold, but I’d do it again in a heartbeat. It’s not like I had to walk down the center of Main Street in New Phoenix dressed like that. Although that would be a lot warmer than it is here.”
He nuzzled her neck, his lips warm against her flesh. “Em, you’re an amazing woman.”
“Yeah, just remember that when I use this to guilt trip you guys into doing stuff for me later,” she quipped.
It took them three hours to replace and test the relay. They picked up a spare to be on the safe side and were on their way again the next day. As they backed the Tamora Bight out of the docking berth, Emi shook her head. “Next time, let’s break down near a planet where the guys have to run around naked, okay?” The men laughed. “I can’t promise that,” Aaron said, “but we’ll run around naked for you whenever you want.”
“Not the same, but that’s a deal I’ll take.”
Chapter Seventeen
They arrived at their first planet, dubbed XP-3 by the DSMC, three days later. Emi stared in wonder as the vid screens showed the purple and orange planet beneath them. Twice the size of Earth, it had a similar climate, atmosphere, and gravity, but more studies were needed before a detailed pre-settlement team would be dispatched.
One of Emi’s jobs was to man the scanners on the drones sent to explore the planet’s surface. The water appeared purple, taking up approximately half of the planet’s surface, and the orange land mass was due to the overall color of the vegetation on the surface. Instead of Earth’s greens, oranges, reds, and umber tones defined most of the local plants.
Animal species abounded, many quadrupedal like on Earth, but looking like nothing they’d ever seen before. There weren’t many reptiles, at least not large ones, and the temperatures, even at the equator, were slightly cooler than Earth averages.
They spent three weeks orbiting the planet, making detailed maps, studying different areas, gathering readings of water, polar ice, and air in various regions.
“Why aren’t we using the rover here?” Aaron shook his head. “No orders. We can only use it on planets where we’re the tertiary exploration, meaning they’ve already done what we’ve done here and deemed it safe enough to explore. Don’t worry, you’ll have a few chances to go four-wheeling,” he teased with a playful grin.
Working with the men was far from a chore. One time, the boys had to walk around naked for three days after losing a particularly aggressive game of strip poker to Emi.
She loved playing poker and suspected they might have lost that game on purpose.
Another time, she ended up cooking dinner for a week when she lost. That one she did lose on purpose, because she had grown tired of Caph’s soup entrees, not that she would ever admit it to him.
Disaster struck one morning when Ford was on watch. She awoke before Aaron and Caph, pulled on a pair of sweats, and went to the galley to start coffee.
The Java Max wouldn’t run.
“Nooo!” she screamed, nearly panicked. Aaron and Caph ran into the galley, both scared and still naked, at the sound of her desperate wails.
“What? What is it?” Aaron asked.
Near tears, Emi slapped at the side of the coffee machine. “I can’t get it to work! It won’t work!”
Caph bit back his laughter while Aaron pulled her away from the coffee machine. They’d learned early on not to get between her and her first cup of coffee in the morning under risk of serious bodily injury.
“It’s not funny, Caph!” she yelled, fuming. “What are we going to do?”
He lost his battle to stay silent and roared with laughter. “Sweetie, it is funny. You’re the lady who thought nothing about parading around naked on a strange space station, and you’re about to have a nervous breakdown over the coffee machine?” He wasn’t as dedicated a java drinker as she was. She shoved him, hard.
“It’s not funny!” she screamed. Emi wheeled on Aaron, who was bent over it. “Fix it! You have to fix it!”
“I will, sweetie, just give me a minute. Calm down, Em.” Ford, drawn by her anguished cries, ran into the galley. “What’s wrong? What’s the matter?”
Caph clamped his lips closed, trying to quiet his laughter.
Emi cried. Maybe it wasn’t just coffee, maybe it was a tangible link to a normal life being taken away from her that had unnerved her, a wrinkle in her familiar routine that helped keep her sane and focused. Until now, she could almost imagine being able to walk outside and get what she wanted from New Phoenix. Living in the ship in space wasn’t much different than living in the ship in dry dock, as long as she didn’t look at the bridge vid screens.
She burst into tears and headed for the hydro lab, her other source of peace and comfort. The large room was now a virtual jungle, overflowing with fresh fruits and vegetables. She sat on the floor between two of the tanks and looked up, the ceiling nearly obscured by climbing squash and bean vines trellising on wires she’d run all over.
Ford found her twenty minutes later, a steaming cup of coffee in his hand. He sat next to her and she cried, relieved, as he handed it to her.
“You fixed it!”
“Sweetie, it wasn’t broken. If you hadn’t run off like that, you’d have known. I cleaned it last night and forgot to plug it back in.” Embarrassment flowed through her. Ford’s amused smile set her off into another bout of tears.
“I feel like I’m losing my mind,” she admitted. “I thought I was handling this so well. I don’t understand.”
“I think you need a couple days off. We all do from time to time—it’s normal. We’ll change the watch schedule and let you get some rest.” He stroked her cheek. “You spend all your time trying to shrink our heads, baby girl, but the truth is, you need some TLC too.” She sipped her coffee and settled against his firm shoulder. “How stupid am I? I mean, I thought crap, no more coffee for years, and I panicked.”
“I would have panicked too, except for one thing.”
“What?”
He kissed the nape of her neck. “We have another Java Max down in the cargo hold, and plenty of spare parts for them both. If you think I’m going without coffee, you’re fucking nuts.” Emi froze, then burst out laughing. Ford joined her, and eventually she calmed down enough to let him lead her back to the galley. Caph sat at the table, eating.
“I scrambled you some eggs, sweetie.”
“Thank you.”