Stowaway

by Z D Dean

  The move got him free of Samix’s mount, but no further. Regaining her composure Samix locked her feet behind his back, and the two rolled into the guard position. Zade took his turn raining down blows, none of which were as effective as Samix’s from the mount. She slid her feet up Zade’s back and waited for the right moment to strike. A sloppy right hand was the opportunity she was waiting for. Trapping the lazily thrown punch against her chest, Samix slid her legs over his shoulders and locked her right foot behind her left knee. She pulled down on Zade’s head and buried the triangle choke even deeper. The choke was deep, and she knew that Zade would be asleep momentarily. Zade immediately pushed down on top of Samix knowing that it was the only way to win the match. If he could push down the pressure from her legs would be applied more to his shoulders and keep him from passing out.

  Unable to break her guard, Zade regained his feet, wrapped both arms around her thighs, and stood up. After he had lifted Samix completely off the ground, Zade slammed her back into the mats. In triple gravity it used up the remainder of his energy, but it did break the choke hold. Exhausted but free, Zade pushed off of her and tried to stand, it was his undoing. Samix caught his hand and spun into a perfectly executed arm bar. Too tired to fight it, Zade could only admit defeat and tap out.

  The sparring match had lasted just over thirty minutes and both Zade and Samix were exhausted. They laid on the mats panting, without the strength to even stand. Using his interface again Zade set the gravity in the cargo bay back to normal levels. The reduced weight allowed both fighters to sit up next to each other and regain enough energy to talk.

  “I have to give you props, you are the only person who lasted longer than thirty seconds against me.” Samix said.

  Holy shit, this woman is amazing. Fuck it, I’m going for broke. Zade thought.

  Zade put his hand on the back of Samix’s head and leaned in for the kiss. Samix, too tired to fight, went with it, but when she realized what was happening turned and pushed Zade away. Confused Zade just watched as Samix flushed a dark blue, as she began to stand.

  “Sorry buddy, you have to best me first.” Samix said as she headed out of the cargo bay.

  Zade could only watch quietly as Samix left. Taking in every bit of her tight athletic body as she walked away. If he didn’t know better, Zade could have sworn that Samix was giving him a show as she left, fully accentuating her swaying hips as she walked. As she disappeared into the hall just outside the cargo bay, Zade laid back on the mats, hands folded behind his head. Two hundred was a little older than most women he dated, but he was sure he could make it work. Zade dozed off thinking about Samix’s perfectly sculpted firm butt.

  ∆∆∆

  What just happened? Was he really trying to come on to me? Is there something wrong with him, no one has ever tried to hit on me?

  The questions were spinning through Samix’s head as she headed to her quarters to clean up. Her entire life was, up to this point, spent with no good attention from men. Xi’Ga society was broken into two distinct classes; the upper class was obsessed with heritage and the lower class still adhered to strict religious roles where women did nothing on their own, and only lived to serve their spouse. She was undesirable to the upper class Xi’Ga because she was an orphan and didn’t know her bloodline. She was undesirable to the lower class Xi’Ga because she didn’t fit the subservient female stereotype they wanted. Up until the day she left on this mission she constantly had to battle the cruel jokes about her actually being a man, caused by her drive to succeed in the Unity fleet. The jokes and overall nastiness from the males of her species were some of the main factors that drove her to be the best at the Academe.

  She had only been hit on once, and that was during her class graduation celebration. The whole class went drinking at a local bar, to celebrate fleet assignments. Sometime during the night, she caught the eye of an extremely drunk and equally crass Marlog. The night ended with her fighting the guy after he grabbed her. A fight in which most of her male classmates cheered for the Marlog, hoping he would beat her, taker her home, and give her what she deserved. Luckily the local security broke up the fight. Samix knew she would never be able to beat the Marlog, but just couldn’t let his actions stand. They were both bounced, and the Marlog was arrested for assaulting a fleet officer. It was the story of her life, most of the men she met hated her because she could outperform them, the rest pitied her.

  Samix entered her quarters and stripped down for the shower. Looking in the mirror she could see dark purple bruises surfacing from the sparring bout, the largest of which covered her whole back from where Zade slammed her. It was a nasty move that would have won him the match had he not pushed off her to stand. After a shower and meal all of her injuries would heal. With only a few hours before they made orbit, Samix knew she needed to get some sleep, but she couldn’t stop thinking about what had transpired in the gym with Zade.

  As she redressed and headed to the galley to grab a meal, Samix decided that she had to determine why Zade was interested in her before deciding what she would do. On one hand he seemed to be everything she had hoped for in a man. On the other, she had only known him for a short while and thus felt she didn’t know enough about him. Either way she had survived over two hundred years on her own, a short while more to ensure she was making a good decision wouldn’t kill her. Realizing that there was no time like the present to learn about Zade, Samix headed to his quarters to invite him to eat with her. There was no response when she knocked on the door, and she immediately feared the worst. Instead of assuming that he was a heavy sleeper, or that he was in the shower and didn’t hear her knocking, Samix concluded that he was angry at her snub. Samix sat down to eat alone, wondering how she could patch things up between her and Zade.

  ∆∆∆

  Zade awoke, disoriented, surrounded by a place that was not his quarters. He had fallen asleep on the mats after his sparring session with Samix. Gingerly he stood, still sore from the session. Checking his interface, he saw that he had only been asleep for about an hour, and the ship was now in its night cycle. His neck and elbow were still extremely sore from Samix, and after a quick check, he could see dark bruises had formed from the strikes that she had landed. His shirt, still damp with sweat, stunk. Because it was nighttime, Zade figured he wouldn’t run into anyone, so he took off the foul smelling garment and headed to his quarters for a much needed shower.

  Zade knew he would have to clear the air with Samix after his little kiss stunt earlier. He headed into his lab to close it up before he went to the upper deck. He had left it open while he was setting up the gym, and fell asleep before he closed it. Closing the rolling door as he entered the lab, Zade quickly policed up the different scraps that were lying on the work surfaces. Tossing them all into the recycling chute to be used in later projects. Zade exited his lab through the man door and headed towards the front stairwell.

  On his way to his quarters, Zade war gamed the best way to breech the subject, when he saw her next. She didn’t have a violent reaction when he tried to kiss her, so Zade assumed that he didn’t offend her too badly, but he couldn’t be certain. Different cultures on earth had different social norms and different measures of acceptable behavior, Samix was a completely different species, god knows how his actions could be construed. Plus, there was the whole command structure issue, Zade’s actions towards the captain of the ship blatantly spit in the face of good order and discipline, and Samix had already stressed earlier that she took her position as captain seriously. Zade was so engulfed by his own train of thought that he didn’t notice the crewmember sitting in the galley, finishing her meal. As Zade opened the door to his quarters he heard a voice behind him.

  “So first you try to plant a kiss on me, now you wonder around my ship half naked.” Samix said from behind him.

  Shit.

  “Sorry captain, didn’t think anyone would be up during night cycle.” Zade said as he turned to face her.

  “We
need to talk.” She said as she stood and walked towards Zade.

  “Can it wait until I’ve had a shower?” Zade asked, more out of a need to fill silence than to actually request permission.

  Not waiting for Samix to respond, Zade turned and opened the door to his quarters again. So desperate to get away from his current situation, Zade didn’t notice that Samix had followed him in. Zade kicked off his shoes and socks and headed for his bathroom, still unaware that he wasn’t alone. He turned on the shower, as hot as he could stand it, and stepped in. Samix meanwhile, waited until the noise of the shower could mask her movements then sat on his bed.

  “So, what’s your game Alex?” Samix asked, startling Zade so bad that he jumped and hit his head on the shower.

  “What the fuck? Isn’t there a thing called privacy on this boat?”

  “It’s my ship, I can go where I please. You didn’t answer my question.” Samix retorted enjoying watching Zade squirm.

  “What are you talking about? I don’t have any game.” Zade said as he peeked out of the bathroom to see Samix relaxing on his rack.

  “Remember I’m an unwilling victim of circumstance in this whole situation. I had no plans to travel the stars when I left for that patrol back in Afghanistan.” He continued as he returned to his shower.

  “Not on my ship, no game with me.”

  “No games. I saw something I wanted, and I went for it. You never know how something is going to work out until you try.”

  “I understand that. You aren’t that big of a mystery, guys are guys. Why do you want it?” She asked.

  “Honestly Do you know how many times I’ve met a woman that could best me on the mats…None.”

  “Do you know how many times I’ve met a woman who was smarter than me…None.”

  “You…You package that in a beautiful athletic body. Blue alien or otherwise, I would have to be crazy to not make a move.” Zade finished.

  ​The silence that followed was punctuated by the sound of his door opening and closing. Samix left his quarters and headed for her own. Zade knew when to leave well enough alone and finished his shower in peace. As he changed Zade brought up the navigation data on his interface and saw the ship still had eight hours before it hit orbit. Plenty of time for some sleep. Zade dozed off wondering how things were going to work out, both between him and Samix, and when they returned to Unity space. The only thing he did know was that, as Samix so eloquently put it for guys, women were women. Just as difficult to understand in space, as they were back home.

  Chapter 10

  An interface notification woke Zade up. The ship was completing its final orbit, Mur had fabricated the SSILF landing team while he slept, and Samix needed him in the ready room. Zade quickly dressed in a new set of fatigues and headed out of his quarters. As usual, the ship seemed empty, if Zade had to guess Axis was either in his quarters or in his lab and both Samix and Jorloss were in the ready room waiting on him.

  As Zade walked towards the ready room, now almost entirely by memory, he pulled up the results from the orbital scans. The planet they were currently orbiting was a densely jungled planet, which had some plant life that Jorloss had marked for further investigation. Like any other jungle, this planet had a wide variety of lifeforms ranging from apex mammalian predators, to a myriad of smaller species which used poisons or venoms to survive. The dominant species on the planet was a class one sentient apelike species, that lived in small villages.

  The species was very much feudal in nature, organized into small villages of farmers and hunters. It appeared that groups of villages geographically proximate to each other were protected by a chieftain who controlled a small fighting force that could protect the villages from natural threats, and other chieftains who were looking to expand their influence. After reading the reports Zade brought up a map of the objective. It was located in the middle of the largest land mass on the planet, and was in a relatively remote location. The nearest ape settlement was roughly thirty kilometers north of the objective.

  As Zade neared the door to the ready room he realized that he had forgotten his morning cup of sloop and decided to circle back to the galley to grab one before he had to sit through the brief. Cup in hand Zade walked into the ready room and took a seat next to Jorloss. Unlike the previous mission briefing, Samix was nowhere to be found. The ship itself, through Mur, was running the briefing.

  “Where’s Samix?” Zade asked Jorloss as he waited for the brief to begin.

  “In her quarters. Said something was bothering her.”

  Zade sat, worried about Samix, as Mur began the briefing. Most of his portion of the brief was a reiteration of the notification that had woke Zade up. Mur took the liberty of creating a four SSILF landing crew, which were already outfitted for the mission and waiting by the loading ramp of the ship. The ship could not land at the objective due to vertical obstructions and instead would be landing three kilometers south of it, in two hours. After Mur finished Jorloss stood and started his portion of the brief. After moving to the front of the briefing room, Jorloss tapped the briefing screen and brought up two images. The first was an overhead view of the objective, a small open patch of vegetation. The second was a close up of the small bioluminescent plant that Jorloss needed to study.

  He began his portion of the brief with the zeal that only an excited scientist exhibited. The plant appeared to be a relative of one native to his home world, Lassf. It had the same characteristics and chemical makeup. The Gornoo, Jorloss’ species, used the plant to cure a genetic birth defect which was fatal if left untreated. Due to the climate change caused by the development of the Gornoo home world, the plant had gone extinct almost two decades ago. Since the loss of the plant, the Gornoo population had begun to steadily decline and according to Jorloss, would become extinct itself within four generations. The objective of the mission was to collect samples for Jorloss to test aboard the ship. Jorloss hypothesized that if the plants were similar enough, he could increase their toughness and reintroduce them back into the Lassf ecosystem. The briefing concluded when Jorloss finished his portion of it.

  Upon realizing that this mission was a standard security mission, Zade let his mind wander. He spent the duration of the briefing thinking about Samix and how she was doing. After the mission brief finished, Jorloss headed to his lab to collect the equipment he needed, Mur appeared to power down, and Zade headed to the captain’s quarters to check in on Samix. There was no response when he knocked on the door to her quarters, so he sent her a private interface message.

  “Hey captain, just checking to see how you’re doing. Jorloss mentioned that you were under the weather.”

  Zade knew that if there was anything between them, and he wanted it to work he would have to stay professional with Samix while they were on the job. He had the feeling that, by the way Samix handled his post grappling stunt, she had some negative experiences with guys and the last thing he wanted to do was undermine her authority while he was a part of her crew. As Zade waited for a response he leaned against the bulkhead and cranked up his hearing mod hoping to hear movement in her quarters. Samix’s quarters must have had sound deadening, because although Zade could hear Axis breathing in his lab, which was down one floor and on the other end of the ship, he couldn’t hear anything from the quarters behind him. After five minutes with no response Zade shot her one last message and headed down to Jorloss’ lab to see if he had any specific needs for the mission.

  “Well we’re disembarking in a couple of hours. It would be nice if the captain saw us off.”

  After three high intensity deployments Zade knew how to focus on the mission at hand. He had become a master at compartmentalizing and although his mind wanted to stay focused on Samix, he pushed the thoughts back so he could dedicate himself to the mission. Whether Samix was actually sick, or just upset with him, it didn’t matter, he would deal with it after he got back to the ship. Now he needed to prepare for his fourth planet fall.

  The for
ward stairwell put Zade right outside Jorloss’ lab. As he entered, he could see the amphibious scientist digging through different boxes, apparently searching for a much-needed piece of equipment.

  “Hey, are you going to need one of the pack mules for your stuff?” Zade asked, earning him a hold on sign from the scientist who was buried head and shoulders in an equipment box.

  “No, unlike some of the more spoiled members of this crew, I can pull my own weight.” Jorloss replied as he stood, triumphantly holding that which he had been searching for.

  “You’ve been doing this longer than I have. Are you expecting any issues from the locals?”

  Jorloss placed the piece of equipment in a pack that he was loading on one of his worktables.

  “No, we should be in and out before they even figure out we were there.”

  “Well that’s reassuring. I’m heading to my lab to functions check the SSILF and put my kit together. See you in the bay.”

  Remembering that Mur had already staged the SSILF in the cargo bay, Zade walked to the rear of the ship. As he entered the cargo bay, he could see four matte black SSILF armed to the teeth lined up against the ramp. Zade walked up to the first and placed his hand on its shoulder. This caused the SSILF’s operations profile to populate Zade’s interface. Zade scrolled through the data searching for the diagnostics and calibration program. After finding it and starting it, the SSILF’s profile condensed into Zade’s left eye and a visual of what the SSILF was seeing populated his right. The SSILF readout was the exact view the SSILF had overlaid with a status bar, location relative to Zade, and ammo counter. Zade watched as the SSILF completed the program, ensuring that the firing reticle was working and there were no other issues. Upon completion the readout disappeared from Zade’s field of view and the profile expanded.