Bightmares

Chapter Six

Emi eagerly sat in front of the bridge view ports and watched as the Braynow Gaston slowly rolled into the hangar bay on top of several large hover lifts. Once the Braynow Gaston had been positioned and secured, Emi raced out of their ship and down the gangway to wait at the airlock while the docking crew completed the connections.

As soon as the all clear tone sounded, the dockside gangway doors opened. A moment later, the ship’s hatch opened. Donna raced down the gangway and slammed into Emi with an excited squeal.

As the women hugged, Emi was aware of the Kendall Kant’s crew joining them outside the gangway. After Donna stepped away from Emi, she threw her arms around Captain Elloy and planted a long, lingering kiss on his lips. First Officer Sam Johnson next received a hug and kiss, as did Mate Gregor Davis.

The men barely resembled the stiffly starched, regulation-bound military grunts Emi had first met in the sim.

Elloy smiled as he left his arm draped around Donna’s waist. “Dinner tonight, our treat,” he told Emi. “Please join us, you and the guys.”

“What about us?” Captain John Tarrence of the Braynow Gaston joked as he appeared in the gangway. He carried several large bags, as did his First Officer, Alex Parisi, and the mate, Jules Green.

Emi silently snickered. Donna never was a light packer. Emi wondered how many crates in the Braynow Gaston’s cargo hold belonged to her.

The men of the Braynow Gaston handed the bags off to the K-2 crew. “Of course you guys can tag along,” Elloy joked. “You brought our missing crew member to us. We owe you.”

Parisi snorted. “You thank us now. You should see how much crap she brought with her.”

Emi finally laughed. “That sounds like the girl I went to school with.”

“Oh, come on, it’s stuff I need,” Donna groused. “Not like I can pop out to the store any time I run out of my favorite shampoo or eyeliner.”

Elloy kissed her again. “You don’t need makeup.”

“You say that now, but you have no clue.”

They finalized dinner arrangements. Emi waved off Donna’s invitation for Emi to join them while she got settled in on the K-2.

“No, I think your guys have plans for you,” she teased.

“Got that right,” Parisi mumbled as he shouldered one of the duffel bags. His eyes had never left Donna since he spotted her, his unbridled passion hitting Emi’s empathic senses in strong waves that made her want to return to the Tamora Bight and drag her own men into bed.

Emi grinned as she returned to her ship. Donna would be doing a lot of things that afternoon. After all that time spent away from her men, however, unpacking probably wasn’t one of them.

When they gathered at the restaurant later that evening, Donna sported a love bite on her neck that hadn’t been there upon her arrival at the station. Emi noticed all three of the K-2 men appeared more relaxed than they had before.

Emi arched an eyebrow at her friend as they stood in the lobby and waited for their table to open.

“What?” Donna asked, snuggling closer to Gregor Davis, her arm hooked through his. “They missed me!”

Caph snorted with laughter. “I bet they missed you two or three times worth each this afternoon.”

Donna grinned while Gregor’s face turned red. “Maybe even more than that,” she teased. Emi laughed. Donna had no problems dishing it out, her ball-busting attitude a perfect complement for the K-2 crew. A Beta-ranked healer, her rating not as high as Emi’s own Alpha ranking, but still a respectable achievement and nothing to sneeze at. Apparently she’d used the journey from Earth to bone up on the region they were traveling to and had compiled all available reports and information on the colony.

“They’re a huge agriform group,” she explained to everyone at the table once they were seated. “They didn’t have to terraform the planet, but they have done a lot of genetic crop engineering. It’s been an active colony for four Earth years, and they’re slated to go online in three years as a far-space permanent base for the ISNC and DSMC to use as a jump point for more distant explorations.”

Emi scrolled through some of the information in the hand-held reader Donna had taken from her purse. “No idea what their problem is?”

“No. The transmission cut off before it finished. They declared a class C-3 medical emergency. That means something widespread, of unknown origin, and potentially fatal. They asked for research and medical support, as well as security support.”

“Security?” Aaron asked. “Why?”

“I don’t know.” Donna took the hand-held back as their waitress appeared to take their order. “It’ll take a four-week jump to get there. I’m hoping the DSMC can send us more info before we jump.”

Once their jump drive engines kicked in, the jump couldn’t be stopped or changed until they reached their destination, and they couldn’t receive outside communications from the DSMC. Because of their ships’ configurations, they would execute a tandem jump, joined together by tractor beams, which meant they could still have ship-to-ship communications between them.

The security request explained why several crates of weapons had been added to their cargo manifests, as well as an emergency retrofit adding large, powerful long-distance plasma cannons to all three ships. The docking crews currently working on their vessels would finish just hours before their planned departure late the next day.

The landing vehicles were also switched out on all three vessels, providing them larger vessels that could carry more passengers and cargo from the ships to the planet’s surface and back. And unmanned cargo transports were added as well. While she’d thought their cargo bay was full before, Emi realized she felt practically claustrophobic in the cavernous space. Every square inch of space that could reasonably be utilized had been filled.

Despite their dinner’s convivial atmosphere, Emi sensed a disquiet in all the men, enough to outweigh the happiness in Captain Elloy’s soul over having Donna back with them. Aaron and Elloy seemed especially disconcerted. Perhaps Captain Tarrence, far less experienced than the other two captains and with a background in research, not combat or space missions, didn’t understand something the other two captains did.

Halfway through their meal, Donna and Emi excused themselves to the ladies’ room. Donna opened up to Emi. “They’re great!” she called out of her stall. “Oh, my God, those guys are fantastic! Man, did I miss them.”

Emi used the facilities, washed her hands, and waited for Donna to emerge. They had the bathroom to themselves. “I didn’t get the impression when I met them that they were…fluffy kind of guys.”

Donna laughed as she emerged and washed her hands. “I definitely wouldn’t call them that, but they sooo have their soft spots.” She grinned. “I’m hoping I can work on them and get them into an arrangement like you’ve got.”

Emi’s eyes widened before she laughed. “Somehow, I don’t see Elloy bending over and taking it up the ass from anyone.” She hadn’t told Donna about Kels. “My boys had a very unique beginning. Remember, they’ve been together twenty years now.”

“I meant a single group cabin.” She winked. “I’m going to chip away at them one point at a time. Not like they haven’t seen each other naked before. Why waste time having a stuffy, old schedule to follow.” A smile filled her face. “But who knows? Maybe I can work on loosening their inhibitions.”

Emi suspected Donna might have her hands full. “Isn’t something like that against ‘regulations’?”

Donna examined the hickey on her neck. “Yeah, well, I set them straight about their rigid view on ‘regulations’ from the start.” She slyly grinned. “Then I proceeded to jump on the table and offer them a free sample. By the time I turned them loose, they were drooling and begging me to sign with them. I talked to the Braynow guys first, though. Then again, that all happened in the sim.” She shrugged. “They were nice and everything, but they didn’t flip my switch. You know what I mean?”

“Yeah. So why did you decide to join the DSMC?”

Donna blushed. Emi didn’t miss that rare event. “I saw how happy you looked with your guys. I’d been thinking about it for a while, after you joined.” She shrugged. “Hey, who knows what the future may hold? I’ve got three guys who are crazy about me and sort of have them held captive. Not going to complain about that or about the money.”

The question Emi longed to ask. “What’d they do to you in your sim session? What did Dr. Graymard have the techs put you through?”

Donna shuddered as her face went from flushed to white. “Gods, it was horrible. Graymard said we didn’t make it nearly as far as you did, and we had different scenarios, but we did well enough.” She applied more lipstick as she thought about it. “Let’s just say that when push came to shove, my guys found they couldn’t make the choice to leave someone behind, even if it meant risking their own lives and disobeying direct orders. They said screw the fucking regulations and decided fighting to the death for me was their only acceptable option.”

Then Emi felt a deep wave of love from her, directed at her men. When she spoke, her voice sounded quiet. “If you made it a lot further than we did, and I know how fucking bad our sim session was, then I can only imagine how bad it must have been for you when they finally pulled the plug.”

Emi remembered screaming for Aaron as he walked away from the three of them to a certain death, sacrificing himself so Emi, Caph, and Ford would live. She remembered fighting Caph and Ford as they dragged her out of what she thought was an alien’s bedchamber.

Emi nodded as she shivered at the memory she hoped she’d never live through in real life. “Yeah. It was pretty frakking bad.”

The crews bid each other good night at the port. Before returning to their respective ships, the three captains agreed to meet first thing the next morning to finalize the departure sequence and logistics.

Emi quickly stripped and settled in the middle of their bed. The men didn’t hesitate to join her.

Unlike their rowdy arrival romp, this gentle, tender lovemaking session found Emi cradled in Aaron’s arms while Ford went down on her. He took plenty of time teasing her until she finally cried out as she came. This time, the men were content to take turns slowly fucking her as the others held her, reminding her in many ways of the first night they spent together, although without the frenetic energy of that initial encounter.

By the time Caph went last, the men had coaxed another rolling orgasm out of her that nearly took her breath and mind away. Exhausted and sated, she curled up between Caph and Aaron, with Ford on Aaron’s other side, and fell asleep.

The next morning, Emi was the first to awaken. She received a message from Dr. Graymard as she waited for her coffee to finish brewing. Fortunately for her, the Java Max Excel 10k coffeemaker hadn’t been a figment of the simulation. Ford, as dedicated a coffee drinker as Emi, insisted there was no way in hell, unless the Tamora Bight was blown up, that they would go without coffee.

She skimmed Graymard’s message, mostly “how are you” and status report request bullshit. Then she reached the bottom.

Dr. Stevens packs almost as hard a punch as you do.

Emi smiled. Upon emerging from the sim session and realizing that not only would Aaron not die but that Graymard had tricked them, Emi had viciously slugged the man. Her three men pulled her off Graymard and into the security of their arms. Ironically, her fighting skills had been learned in the sim, not in real life.

She sent Graymard a short reply. Better learn to duck. You still have to pair the Braynow Gaston crew.

Send.

She prepared breakfast for the men and went to wake them up. Ford tried to pull her back into bed with them, but she managed to extricate herself. “Lift sequence, babe. Don’t forget, Aar has a meeting with Elloy and Tarrence, too.”

Aaron moaned. Caph still slept, his arm slung around Aaron’s waist and his face buried against his shoulder. Aaron gently elbowed the larger man. “Wake up, big guy. Work to do. Last night was our last luxury of no night watch for a while.”

Caph groaned as he snuggled closer. “Don’t wanna.” Aaron smiled and ruffled Caph’s hair.

“Breakfast is ready, guys,” Emi said. “I made you bacon, Caph. Fresh and farm-raised here on Mars, not frozen.”

His eyes popped open. “Bacon?”

“Bacon.”

Aaron sat up, extricating himself from Caph’s embrace. “That got his attention.”

“Mmm, bacon,” the twins parroted, making Emi and Aaron laugh.

The men dressed and joined her in the galley for breakfast before they split up for the morning. Ford and Caph would start final preparations, including securing the last-minute additions to their cargo load, systems checks, and other priorities. Emi wasn’t sure what they wanted her to do.

Aaron answered her unspoken question. “I want you with me at the meeting. As med officer, you need to be involved in this if we’re dealing with a medical crisis.”

They joined the other captains in the common area of the Kendall Kant. Donna sat next to Rob Elloy and managed to look like she was draped over him even though her body didn’t touch his.

In the years she’d known her friend, Emi could never remember seeing her so happy. Elloy seemed more than happy to have Donna by his side.

The captains coordinated their tractor beam setup, went over last-minute information briefs that had arrived since the night before, and finalized their lift sequences. When they adjourned the meeting, Donna took Emi on a brief tour of the K-2. Emi had never before in real life set foot inside the ship.

“Did you get space sick?” Emi asked her.

“Oh, gods, yes. I felt like I’d puke up a lung before it finally passed. Spent the first two weeks in bed after we lifted.”

Donna’s cabin was at least twice the size of the one Emi saw in the sim. Before she could ask about that, Donna laughed. “They did a little reconfiguration for me.” She winked. “I broke out the sock puppets, so to speak, about why a larger space was logistically necessary and a very wise investment on their part.”

Emi smiled as she shook her head. “Leave it to you take on military guys.”

She shrugged. “Just need to know how to speak their language is all.”

“What language would that be?”

Donna’s wide grin left no room for error in interpretation. “Body language.”