Rhidi rumbled low in her throat as she dragged herself up from her rack, sliding a hand down her nose as she let out a few coughs.

  Her tongue tasted like a truck did a burnout on it, her muscles felt like they were going to try and crawl off her bones, and her head was pounding with the same bass as a whale’s heart.

  All in all, a normal Monday morning.

  “Fuck’s sakes…” Rhidi mumbled as she leaned up from her rack, looking across at her roommates.

  They had a room switch up due to command “not liking the current arrangement", which meant a lot of fussing in the halls as everyone was scrambled about. Their permanent berthings were all ship-side, so command had little tears to shed about jumbling them around in their temporary barracks.

  The barracks themselves were very much in the same spirit as a college dorm, with not much room for privacy and way too much chance of awkward intimacy.

  Inthur was still passed out asleep in her own bottom rack, leg hanging over the side of her bed with her cartoon blankets strewn all over her like seaweed. Annoyingly, the blue furred Kafya still refused to wear a shirt to bed, resulting in everyone having a rather wobbly greeting when she snored.

  Oin was awake and browsing her data-slate above Inthur on her own bed, giving Rhidi a sleepy wave when Rhidi nodded to her and flicked the blankets off of her legs. The black furred Kafya was becoming more and more her left hand, able to pull up most technical information she needed before anyone else could whip out their data-slates.

  Below Rhidi, Imiridit still snoozed happily, curled up in her floral blankets as if she were napping in a meadow. The pink furred Kafya was becoming, oddly enough, her right hand, though it was a constant fight between her and Anfilid.

  The racks they were sleeping on were still annoying, squeaking, steel framed menaces that sat on each side of the room, with their lockers either in between the wall space or near the door. Rhidi longed to be in her own bed again aboard the Wild Hunt, with a door that kept out Inthur’s snores and Imridit’s sleep-talking.

  Rhidi yawned and slipped down off her rack with a light thump of her paw pads hitting the tile floor, stepping over towards her locker and retrieving her gym clothes.

  One of the nice things about her MOS was that their group physical training was mostly inside the gym, though there were runs that were outside in the morning sunshine from time to time.

  As she slipped on her black tank top, sling bag, and her dolphin shorts, Rhidi thought back to that odd little white fur her sister was hanging out with.

  It had been odd to see Lirya walking around in the middle of night, and it had been a few days since that little chance encounter. When Rhidi had asked Tyllia about her yesterday, the white fur was apparently running around with the brown one and talking to a bunch of religious Officers about something or another.

  To be fair, the entire encounter was still a bit of a blur in her head, but Rhidi shrugged as she closed her locker.

  She’d ponder about it later, but for now it was time to once again crack on with her workouts.

  With her workout paw shoes on her feet, Rhidi jogged out of the barracks and off to the gym, puffing out through her nose as she smelled the DFAC warming up for breakfast. She could smell waffles and fried chicken, which was always a wild day in the DFAC when everyone got off their physical training cycles.

  Rhidi was glad she was prone to going early, which meant that she was going to get there before the main bulk of troopers arrived.

  Pulling up her data-slate as she pushed past the doors of the gym, Rhidi slid her finger along her “to do” list; Normally, to avoid fatiguing the hell out of themselves, Rhidi and the other Heavy Onslaught Troopers broke down their workouts into certain muscle groups.

  Today was abdominals, one of Rhidi’s least favorite muscle groups.

  “Ugh.” Rhidi muttered with a frown, tapping on the list and looking at the workouts.

  She decided to start with the most straightforward lift: The humble cable crunch.

  Finding a free weight station, she slid the bar into place for her weight schedule and grabbed onto the woven ropes as she came down onto her knees. Unlike the other exercises in this group, the cable crunch at least felt like she was doing something besides suffering.

  For her duties, she had to focus on strength and strength alone, which meant a lot of doing things to failure with heavy weight loads. She looked good for a Kafya, that could not be ignored, but the Humans could do far, far more than she could at the moment.

  Shorsey outclassed her by a fair margin despite being shorter than her, and she always wondered how different beings could be so unique in details… despite looking quite the same in a lot of ways.

  As Rhidi bared her teeth and curled forward, the ends of the ropes near her cheeks, she thought about Human muscles; Despite being shorter than Skalathir, their muscles were so tightly coiled and strong that they could keep pace far better than any other race she could think of.

  She had seen videos of ancient strongmen exercises and was flabbergasted by the damned things, as well as the odd sports Humans still practiced such as the Highland Games. Despite how hard she worked, she always fell behind the female Humans or couldn’t keep up with them, and it frustrated her to no end.

  Rhidi was still the only Kafya, male or female, to manage the Skógarskera armor trials, with male Kafya nearly ripping themselves to pieces in order to achieve the feat.

  Rhidi let go of the ropes on her last set and let the weight bars slam down with a metallic ring, puffing out a breath as her stomach muscles keened at her.

  If she wanted to remain on top, she had to keep hacking away with whatever allowed her to be as strong as she was… even if it meant being a few steps behind the Human females.

  Rhidi dusted her palms as she walked towards the plank-drag-pull station, the sled already loaded with weights and the rope coiled up in front of it. She felt her buttcheeks jiggle in her shorts with a smile, and looked up at herself in the mirror.

  She was an absolute slayer now, there was no denying it, nor was there denying the looks the male Humans and Kafya gave her. While Inthur was rounded curves, hers were hewn… though to be fair, she was making up for what she lacked in her chest with her legs and stomach.

  Rhidi threw the rope across the ground as the early-rising Humans worked out around her, everyone engaged on their own tasks and not too keen to let their eyes wander; It was best that way, as it tended to make the gym a little awkward if you zoned out while staring at someone’s thighs or something.

  Getting down onto her elbows and tips of her padded toes, Rhidi formed a solid plank then reached out towards the rope, pulling on it with a single arm and tugging the sled across the ground.

  Rhidi alternated hands back and forth until the sled came to a stop before her, her abs feeling as if they were going to try and start clawing their way out of her skin, and she let out a sigh.

  She really hated abdominal day…

  —

  “I’m going to die!” Lirya cried out, her arms wobbling as the ten pound dumbbells hung at her sides with trembling fists.

  Sweat dripped off her fur heavily, and her hair was tied back in a rough, short pony tail.

  Michael chuckled cheerfully from the front of Lirya, his arms crossed and his smile bright. “You’re not going to die, it’s only been two sets.”

  “I can’t do this!” Lirya quietly wailed, tears forming at the corners of her eyes. “How am I supposed to do five sets of these after the presses?!”

  Michael sighed out his nose, never losing his smile as he looked over towards Tolt, the brown furred Kafya talking happily to Mohki. “Alright, go ahead and set them down.”

  “Thank you!” Lirya gasped out as she broke at the knees, plopping the dumbbells down on the ground and instantly falling onto her back in a roll.

  Michael, a Human physical fitness instructor, had been tasked by the Army to get Lirya into shape… which was turning out to be a rather larger task than he had first anticipated.

  Lirya cracked open a tired eye at the Human, breathing out raggedly past her lips; The Human was a brown haired, fair skinned, and brown eyed man with a short cropped beard, his hair befitting his taste in Kafya.

  It had been amusing at first, seeing a more “standard” color of Human compared to the wilder eye and hair colors… and perhaps fate was taking revenge for those thoughts.

  Lirya had been rather surprised to find the Human walking into the civilian gymnasium with a brown Kafya, Tolt, at his side. She had first thought the two were merely friends… but that changed when Tolt had kissed Michael on the cheek before heading off to train Mohki.

  Michael, much like Tolt, was lean and muscular, nothing like Rhidi and the other drop troopers’ bulky form that spoke of raw brutality.

  At first he had her do small things, like sit ups and other workouts she still didn’t quite know the names of… but these “curl” things were starting to make her arms feel like a ball of unraveling yarn.

  While Lirya’s chest heaved up and down from her little spot on the ground, Mohki squatted down next to her, poking her in the cheek.

  “Hanging in there?” Mohki asked, tilting her head at Lirya while Tolt and Michael shook their fluid filled shaker cups in the background.

  Lirya dragged in four more long breaths, then turned her head towards Mohki. “Why… why do I have to work out again?”

  “Part of the job contract.” Mohki replied airily, lifting Lirya’s arm and giving the limp appendage a wiggle. “They’re creating a whole new rank and place for you in their military religious system, but they still need you to be somewhat combat ready.”

  “Can’t I just wear the fancy suits of armor?” Lirya whined, then let out a quiet cry when she saw Michael grab a ten pound kettle bell.

  Mohki giggled at that, prodding Lirya in the cheek. “I’m afraid that is not a part of your uniform. Now come on, hop up and let’s finish out these sets so we can have breakfast.”

  “Farmer carries!” Michael called out happily, holding up the kettle bell like it was nothing. “You’re gonna love these! All you have to do is walk.”

  Lirya turned her head towards Mohki, her eyes dire. “I don’t think it’s going to be that simple…”

  “No.” Mohki agreed, clasping Lirya’s hand as she offered it and hauling the smaller Kafya to her feet. “Everything is rarely as simple as it sounds.”

  —

  Rhidi grunted as she dropped the sixty pound kettle bell to the ground with a heavy “thunk!” of the rubber bound iron, then leaned back as she let out a breath.

  Her abs were screaming after the last set of farmer carriers, and sweat was pouring off of her fur in little drops onto the highly absorbent floor of the gym.

  Rhidi’s stomach let out an angry grumble as she hefted the kettle bell once again and carried it over to the rack of its fellow weights, setting it down and then dusting her hands.

  She picked up her data-slate and checked the time, smiling as she input her results into her workout tracker. “Six minutes to spare, nice.”

  “PFC Rhidi.”

  Rhidi’s ears perked up as she looked around at her name, and saw one of the medics leaning out of an office door. It was a female Human, her eyes bored and tired as she stared out at Rhidi.

  “Hop on in here, you’ve been flagged with that workout.”

  “Flagged?” Rhidi asked with a furrowed bro, jogging over to the office and stepping inside once the medic stood to the side. “Why am I flagged?”

  The medic shrugged, running a freckled hand through her brown hair as she stared down at her data-slate. “Says to take a look at you and check your physique. Pull your top up just under your breasts and shuck those shorts up until your ass can taste them.”

  Rhidi let out a wry snicker as she hiked up her shorts and rolled up her shirt, the medic pulling out a medical scanner and a pair of calipers.

  “Still unable to use the ol’ boob tuck trick, eh?” She mused, tapping onto the scanner’s screen.

  Rhidi sighed out. “Look, I’m just happy they at least look like something now.”

  “High fat and protein diet with enough chest days will do that for you.” The medic said flatly, scanning Rhidi’s hips. “You should have seen the early trials of combat stimulants, women lost all their fat and just looked like pretty dudes with mustaches.”

  Unauthorized content usage: if you discover this narrative on Amazon, report the violation.

  “They lost… everything?” Rhidi murmured in horror, looking down at whatever she had already gained.

  “Mmhmm.” The medic hummed, taking a caliper to Rhidi’s abdominals. “Morale for the troopers plummeted, so it was scrapped after that. The Army was hoping to save money by just pumping them with steroids to save on food costs, but it turned out just feeding troopers enough calories and fat gave them a better edge. Plus the dudes were throwing a fit that their balls were shrinking.”

  Rhidi giggled at that, as well as the medic.

  “Turns out, a soldier lasts longer when properly fed and worked, and the test soldiers kept burning out too fast. Plus they suffered a litany of mental problems.” The medic went on, quickly measuring Rhidi. “You’ve seen some substantial progress, enough to allow you to instead work on maintenance instead of more growth.”

  “How strong am I compared to the Human females?” Rhidi asked, wincing slightly as the caliper pinched at her thigh muscle.

  The medic shrugged. “You aliens have different muscles than us. Your folk are lithe and flexible, but you will always be behind us in raw, enduring strength. Right now you are top percentile for a Kafya, but you’d only rank twentieth percentile compared to the female Humans.”

  “Fuck’s sakes…” Rhidi groused, frowning down at her legs.

  “Don’t take it personally." The medic said, patting Rhidi on the side of her calf with the flat of her hand. “You are plenty strong, just don’t go getting into a wrestling match with one of the female Droppers.”

  “How about a Reg?” Rhidi asked.

  The medic snorted. “Oh you would fuck up a Reg, I have no doubt. I’m still surprised you were able to get through the Skógarskera trials, ain’t another Kafya yet who has managed it.”

  “What about the other star children?” Rhidi asked, watching with avid curiosity as the medic felt at her thigh muscles with her fingers.

  “Here and there.” She said idly, tapping at her data-slate. “I believe a male Lilgara managed it in another unit, but he is the only one I have heard of. You may find it ‘hard’ to believe, but none of the Pwah have managed it.”

  Rhidi snorted, holding out her arms as the medic began measuring her biceps. “No Kojynn?”

  “Not cost effective to have a Kojynn Dropper.” The medic replied, pinching at Rhidi’s tricep with her caliper. “Requires highly specialized suits, double the servos and motors, and if the bugger dies in the suit we can’t just pass it through refit.”

  Rhidi nodded, and knew it was likely the same answer for any Skalathir that managed the trial either; The suit would have to be huge.

  “Looks like you’re in good order.” The medic said finally after completing her measurements, tapping along on her data-slate as she leaned her hip against her desk. “I’m updating your regimen to reflect maintenance. While we Humans could handle climbing higher, your muscle structure would likely start to fray. The good news is that you can do shorter exercises and start combining regimens, which means less workouts over all through the day.”

  “What about running?” Rhidi asked hopefully. “I can cut back on that too, right?”

  The look the medic gave her made Rhidi groan, and she placed her hands on her hips.

  —

  Lirya’s lungs were burning as if they were filled with acid, and she heaved in air by the side of the running track.

  To her relief, Mohki was breathing hard next to her, the two of them bent at the waist with their hands on their knees.

  “Why… do we… have… to run?!” Lirya panted out, her eyes squeezed shut and mouth open as she dragged in the warm Georgian air.

  Mohki coughed a few times, then shook her head. “I have… no idea!”

  “Because runnin’ is good for you!” Michael said airily as he came to a stop behind them, sweat trailing down his pale skin as Tolt came to a halt at his side. “Come on now, it’s only been half a mile! You can jog for half a mile without dying!”

  Lirya leaned up from her knees and looked up at the happy blue sky, still breathing hard as her heart hammered in her chest; She had thought squats were terrible, but nothing compared to this whole “jogging” thing.

  She had run plenty of times, normally for her life, but that had been quick sprints away towards safety. Continuously jogging was akin to something of torture, and it annoyed her to no end how the Human did it with such little effort.

  “An untrained Human can jog for up to three miles. You’ve managed half.” Tolt called out, clapping her pawed hands together. “Come on you two, let’s get back to it!”

  Lirya let out a quiet cry as Mohki straightened up, flicking sweat from her hair and then staring at her long bangs.

  “I need a haircut, I think.” Mohki muttered to herself, turning with Lirya as they both began to jog again.

  —

  Rhidi slid into the short line with a hopping-skip, coming down to the ground with a thwack of her paw shoes hitting the tile.

  The Human in front of her turned, his black eyebrows raising as he recognized her.

  “Oh hell, hey Rhidi!” He called out with a laugh, turning and clapping hands with Rhidi. “How’s it going? Heard there have been quite a few scuffles with you and our Kafyan Regs.”

  Rhidi shrugged as she let go of the man’s hand. “You know how it is, someone has to keep you engineers in their place.”

  The line chuckled together, Human, Pwah, and Lilgaran heads turning at the comment.

  The Human male laughed as well, tucking his hands into the pockets of his shorts. “Ah, well, you know how we Regs can get. Have you guys finished your new suit trials? We’re all getting itchy down here planetside.”

  “Yeah, we just finished up yesterday.” Rhidi replied, grabbing a tray as they came into reach. “All the Dropper units are cleared for duty.”

  “Thank God!” A female Human cried out from near the middle of the line. “I am so sick of just dicking around on this fucking base!”

  “I hunger for the starsss again!” A male Lilgaran agreed, holding up his fork. “We need to courssse amongst the skip-lanes!”

  “There have been pirate raids, as well.” An infantryman said, the Pwah leaning back to look at Rhidi. “Fringe planets have been getting hammered at their stations by something called the Luphora.”

  “Sounds like we’ll have work.” Rhidi chirped, plucking a knife and fork from the silverware rack.

  They kept moving the damn thing around for some reason, and it was always a crapshoot on whether it came before or after the line.

  “Do they know who is sending them?” A female Pwah asked, smiling broadly as she got her waffles.

  “No news yet, it’s pretty hush hush.” A male Human replied, his head as bald as an egg. “But they were wearing patches similar to the Doch.”

  Rhidi narrowed her eyes at that, grabbing a plate from the stack. “The same patches as the Doch?”

  “That’s the rumor.” He replied, then became lost in the line as everyone made their way along.

  Rhidi pondered that for a while as she got her serving of fruit salad and stewed mushrooms; If these “Luphora” were connected to the Doch, that would be another brick onto the foundation that Alias was building.

  After getting her waffles, fried chicken tenders, butter, oatmeal, and ham, Rhidi set off to find Alias.

  Normally he got his workouts in quite early at the civilian gymnasium, and he had a crippling addiction to waffles.

  She spied the Pwah enjoying his waffles with a bright smile in the corner of the DFAC eating area with Shasta, and made a beeline for them.

  “Good morning!” Shasta hissed out happily, his reptilian cheek full of ham and his hood fully flared. “It isss a great day! Look at all the meat they gave usss this morning!”

  “Good morning, Shasta.” Rhidi replied, then returned the Lilgaran’s high five when he offered his hand to her. “Alias, have you-”

  “The Luphora, yes.” Alias replied with a narrowing of his eyes, then stopped his fork mid cut through his waffle. “Are you going to ask me a bunch of questions during my waffle time? You know waffle time is sacred, Rhidi.”

  “Fine, finish your waffles, but I have questions.” Rhidi groused, picking up a chicken strip and biting off half of it with quickly chewing jaws.

  Alias held out his hands at her, gestured down towards his waffles with a “this is waffle time” look of raised brows, and went back to enjoying his breakfast.

  Alias had to do a bit of haggling to get a double waffle ration, and there was nothing that was going to get in his way of enjoying every last bite.

  Shasta, on the other hand, was full of happy chatter as he munched on his chicken strips.

  “How isss your mother, Rhidi?” Shasta asked, his hood still flared and cheek full of meat.

  Rhidi dipped her chicken strip in a small cup of maple syrup with a twist of her mouth. “She’s on dad’s ship and is currently making herself a walking storm. Apparently she’s not allowed within a hundred feet of me unless I give her permission, and my poor dad has been getting an earful about it.”

  “Ssshe should just hang out on base and go to the mall.” Shasta replied with a tilt of his hooded head. “Ssshe likes malls, doesn’t ssshe? Lots of clothes there!”

  Rhidi snorted. “She’d likely spend the entire day attempting to correct their color choices or going on and on about how she could design better clothes. I’d give the mall half an hour before they run her out of there with torches and pitchforks.”

  Shasta laughed gleefully at the mental image of that, waggling his hood back and forth with mirth. He took a drink of his coffee, then set down the cup. “What about your sssister?”

  “She’s going to be working with that white furred woman as some kind of… recorder, or something.” Rhidi replied, tearing off a hunk of her waffle and tossing it into her mouth. She chewed for a while, trying to remember what Tyllia had told her, then swallowed. “I guess the Army is hiring the white fur for something, probably in supply or something else easy, and Tyllia was offered a job of being her helper or whatever. Not that it matters, since dad is more or less planting the family here.”

  Shasta chewed on his own cut of waffle for a long moment, then narrowed his eyes. “The white furred Kafya that was mean to you?”

  “No, another one.”

  “There’sss another one?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Where?”

  “She came in on dad’s ship.”

  “Iss’she going to join the UAA Army?”

  “I’d reckon not, she is built like a pool noodle.”

  Shasta barked out a hissing laugh at that, chuckling to himself as he gnashed a fresh chicken tender in his teeth.

  Once he had the room to speak, Shasta smiled at Rhidi. “Ready to head back up? It hasss been awhile since we have sssseen the Wild Hunt.”

  “I’ll be happier aloft.” Rhidi agreed, holding out her fist for Shasta to bump it.

  Shasta was quite fond of high fives and fist bumping now, and she quickly found her knuckles bumping against his as he beamed at her.

  “Did you get your new shoulder cannon by the way? I saw you and a few others went off to the range yesterday.” Rhidi asked, knowing that Alias had gone off to dork around with a new chain-fed grenade launcher.

  “Aaah yesss.” Shasta said with a nod, rubbing the tips of his fingers together to free them of chicken strip breading. “The new ITA-4, rather interesssting weapon. Sssits on our back and is fed via another trooper, allows usss to have mobile artillery. Alias’sss new grenade launcher is rather interesting!”

  Alias chuffed at that, chewing his last bit of waffle and setting down his fork. “Damn thing kicks like a mule. It’s a 70mm low velocity grenade for clearing out stuff hiding behind cover. The targeting system was pretty cool, actually.”

  “Belt fed, isn’t it?” Rhidi asked, knowing that her weapon was probably never going to change.

  Not that she minded, she quite enjoyed her little buzzsaw of doom.

  “Yeah, I have a ten round chain that I dump when I’m done with it.” Alias said with a grimace. “I carry an extra belt on my back, and it kinda sockets into place on the other side of my battery like your MG-111 does.”

  Rhidi smirked at that. “Not as heavy as mine though.”

  “Mine isss.” Shasta said proudly, his hood flaring again. “The rockets are 100mm!”

  Alias smirked back at him. “Yeah, but you need people to help you load the damn thing.” He turned to Rhidi. “They’re going to have a Mule running after him the entire time to carry his ammo, it sockets into place on our new drop pods.”

  “What’s new with the pods?” Rhidi asked through a mouthful of fresh fruit.

  Alias drained the rest of his orange juice, setting the cup on his tray. “Nothing really of note except for extra ammo stowage, smoke launchers we can engage if we need them, and more emergency rations. Command picked up a few things from our drop on XJ-1 and made the pods mildly self supporting. There has also been talk of a ‘scout pod’ that can be used as a recon base.”

  “Interesting ideas…” Rhidi murmured, wondering just what the hell would be dropping in a scout pod.

  Alias nodded, leaning forward on his elbows. “Word around the headquarters building is that we are going back up there in a few days, something about stations getting hit.”

  “About time.” Shasta said with a smile. “I like Earth… but it gets a bit boring compared to being aloft.”

  “Look at you using nautical Human language.” Rhidi said with a grin, knowing what Shasta was going to say next.

  Shasta glowered at her. “You know I wasss trying to learn naughty Human language in order to flirt.”

  “You couldn’t figure it out after the first hour?” Alias laughed out, catching a smack to his arm from Shasta’s tail.

  “It was confusing!” Shasta whined. “Seaman, spreader, cuntline! It all sounded like something a Human would say to flirt!”

  “Whatever you have to tell yourself buddy.” Rhidi intoned, winking at the Lilgaran as he made a low growling noise of frustration in his throat.

  Alias chuckled to himself, then looked towards Rhidi. “What are your parents going to do?”

  “Hell if I know.” Rhidi said flatly. “They know I work for the UAA, and they sure as hell can’t follow me on the Moose, so they are going to just stay here if I had to imagine.”

  Alias wiggled his empty fork at Rhidi. “Speaking of parents, where is Morris by the way? Seems like he’s been missing for quite some time now.”

  Rhidi shrugged, her eyebrows furrowed with annoyance. “I don’t know, he just keeps saying his flights keep being delayed…”

  —

  “What do you think about it?” Bloodmourne asked quietly, running the tip of his finger around Miss La’s draconic navel.

  Miss La smiled to herself, laying next to the man with her tail hanging over the side of her hotel bed. “About me going up with the fleet? Don’t be silly, Jacob! I have my classes.”

  “If you stay on the station, you won’t see me for another cycle you know.” Bloodmourne said craftily, now letting his fingers drift and tickle in other places.

  Miss La breathed in deep as Bloodmourne’s finger trailed up the cleft of her chest… and she didn’t really like the idea of waiting a whole cycle to see him again. The past few days she had barely left her hotel room, with Bloodmourne only leaving to see to his duties.

  Half the meals she had eaten came from delivery or room service… and she had only worn her pants a mere handful of times.

  It wouldn’t be hard, technically, as she could easily pawn off her classes on the other teachers aboard Station First Horizon, especially since they were chomping at the bit to replace her. At the same time, she could live onboard the massive battleship that palled around with Bloodmourne’s ship.

  It had plenty of civilian rooms on board, more than enough safety measures… and she could see Bloodmourne whenever she was allowed.

  As she felt Bloodmourne’s lips touch to her ribcage and slowly trail up along her softer skin, Miss La was finding it extremely hard to figure out reasons why she shouldn’t go.

  She would be close to Rhidi, right in line with the action to record and write her reports, and could be on the front lines to create more of her propaganda pieces for the other sides of space…

  “If… I did, go,” Miss La began, causing Bloodmourne to stop his little kisses as he rounded the edge of the mountain he was summiting, “What would that mean for me? For us?”

  Bloodmourne considered that, pondering the orb in front of him and giving it a soft wiggle with his fingers. “Well… you’d live onboard the Moose, more than likely, as the Wild Hunt is a purely combat ship. If you are coming with me as an adjoining paramour as per AR 69-909 regulations, you will receive a part of my income as a stipend, plus food and clothing allowances.”

  “Clothing huh?” Miss La asked with a smirk. “Not like you were super keen to see me in any of that the last few days…”

  “Why hide a work of art behind curtains not befitting to obscure its beauty.” Bloodmourne said idly, something that always made Miss La blush. “Plus you could always buy interesting things with the clothing stipend.”

  “Such as?...”

  “I hear thigh high socks are all the rage.”

  Miss La giggled at the idea, knowing that any chance of her finding socks in her size would be astronomical.

  “I wouldn’t start holding your breath on that one.” Miss La sighed out, feeling Bloodmourne’s palms sliding down her thighs.

  “I suppose my hands will have to do…” Bloodmourne murmured, and Miss La let out a gentle gasp.