Scenes From Space

Chapter Thirty: The Next Mission

I dodged a punch from Kuzzon and returned a swift kick to his ribs. Kuzzon hissed and fell a step back. He quickly readjusted and came at me again.

"You know I feel like you held back some data," Kuzzon said. I rolled my eyes.

"I gave you six backwater planets with rumors of Assymirun presence and the research was put together in just a few cycles," I said.

"And what of my human request?" I jumped back to avoid another swing of Kuzzon's arm. He approached quickly. I aimed a low and dirty kick to the inside of his ankle. He lost balance briefly but recovered. And, apparently, that dark-haired human from the other night was not him moving on.

My com crackled and Grey came in over the speaker with a very helpful, "Hey, Guinevere you need any help down there?" He hadn't used the rebel language.

"Not yet," I responded and dodged a lunge from Kuzzon.

"Guinevere is a lovely name," Kuzzon complemented with a smirk. "And what does your Captain call you?" I aimed a kick for his knee but Kuzzon jumped back. I sighed and went on the offensive with a series of punches and jabs. I wasn't going to touch that question. Would 'nothing, I actually just started seeing my handler' be a good response?

Kuzzon managed to swing one of my throws and use it to grab me in a hold from behind.

"Now, I'm trying to have a conversation, not a fight," Kuzzon said lowly, his voice right next to my ear. Kuzzon adjusted his hold on me, one of his arms was wrapped tightly around my torso, keeping my arms pinned down. I struggled against him nonetheless. Kuzzon brought a finger up to my right ear and ran it down from the edge of the tech mask, passed all the holes for my earrings, and over the cancer constellation tattoo behind the ear. 

I shivered. 

I managed to pull my knees up and jolt them down. The momentum dislodged Kuzzon and I yanked him over my shoulder. Kuzzon coughed upon hitting the ground. Which was fair, I probably did knock the wind out of him.

"Sorry," I said while breathing heavily.

"I honestly did not think you had that in you," Kuzzon said from the ground. He leaned up on his elbows.

"I know we aren't actively trying to hurt each other, but boundaries, Prince Kuzzon, I have some," I said. I crossed my arms in front of my chest. Kuzzon stood up and began to dust himself off lightly.

"You have a similar marking to the human I'm looking for," he said. Yeah, I did...

"Plenty of species across the universe perform body modifications," I said. "It's a pretty common thing." It kind of actually wasn't. A lot of species had piercings, maybe tech inserts, but tattoos were rare. I could only think of the Hipertaph people, a sub-culture on the planet Yiperan, off the top of my head.  

Kuzzon looked like he was going to respond but his com went off with one of the women from his team. "Package is in our possession. Rebels knocked out but not seriously injured per your orders."

"Thank you," Kuzzon said back to his teammate.

"I see that you won this round," I said with a nod and then a big smile. "Still puts ahead though, on missions."

Kuzzon rolled his eyes. "Shouldn't you go retrieve your team?"

"See you next time," I said with a wave.

"So, crew," Ben said as we were all in the kitchen. Mako was currently wrapping his bruised ribs. "Let's talk about what went wrong on this mission."

"We didn't communicate in the rebel code," Grey said.

"We didn't have enough information about the facility we were infiltrating," Danyl said.

"I'm an angel and I did nothing wrong," I said. "Except, you know, that time I sex with Kuzzon a while back." Ben sighed and winced at the pressure on his ribs. "Speaking of, he's getting a little too interested. I should probably go back to sniper for a few missions."

The rest of the crew had stopped everything they had been doing, including breathing, to turn and look at me with wide eyes. Ooops, I had forgotten that I only told Ben and Graham about that.

"What, when?" Boo gasped.

Ben pinched the bridge of his nose and closed his eyes tightly. "I'm going to nap and then do a healing treatment. Everyone else is doing combat training until my ribs are healed."

We all groaned but went to the training deck anyway.

I was sweaty and tired by the time we made it back to headquarters. My vision was blurred around the edges by the end of meeting with Graham and the Commander.

Graham's human hand made comforting up my neck and down my shoulder. "You look like you need a nap," he said.

"I do," I yawned pathetically. Graham smiled, though, like he thought it was cute. We slowly made our way to his room. I kick off my shoes and face planted on his bed.

"Come on, Gwen," Graham said softly. Gwen. That was nice. I pushed myself up and crawled further into his bed. Graham slid my jacket off my arms and draped it over his desk chair. I pulled back his blanket and slid under. Graham pulled his shirt off and left his shoes by his desk before joining me in bed and pulling the blankets up over us.

I snuggled into his chest. "I think I missed sleeping in the same bed as you," I slurred tiredly. "I've slept like shit since coming back from that mission."

"Me too," Graham said softly. He pressed his lips into my hair and I fell asleep.

I woke up to Graham running a finger over the tattoo on my hip.

"Wha'iz't?" I mumbled.

"Sorry I wasn't trying to wake you," Graham said softly.

"No worries," I yawned.

"Can you tell me about this one?" Graham asked as he continued to caress the colored on my hip.

"You ever heard the Earth legends about King Arthur and the Wizard Merlin?" I asked and looked up from Graham's still bare chest. He smiled and shook his head.

"So there's this island on Earth called the United Kingdom and one of the regions on that island is called Wales. Long, long ago a young boy warned a King that the site he had in mind for his castle was directly above an underground lake, where two dragons lay sleeping. The king started to build his castle anyway and upon digging the ground, the King's men found two dragons. One red, one white, fighting fiercely. After the scuffle, the red dragon won." I paused. "So, Wales, a region on an Island on Earth has a flag with a red dragon on it to honor this supposed victory. And, my Dad's family hales from this region and he loves the Merlin and King Arthur stories so much that he named me after the woman that cheated on King Arthur."

"So why'd you get the tattoo?" Graham asked.

"Reminds me of family," I answered.

"And this one?" Graham asked, running a finger behind my ear. Instead of it feeling creepy, the movement tickled and I squeaked a little. Graham snorted at my reaction.

"It's a constellation you can see from Earth called Cancer," I said. "Uh, I got it with my Godmother when she got sick with a disease by the same name." I blinked a few times to clear up the water in my one eye. Graham's arm pulled me in tighter and that felt good. He let up when I smiled against his chest.

"Are you ready to face the cycle?" Graham asked.

"Do I have to be?" I asked looking back up at him.

"Not quite yet. Why?" Graham asked. I waggled my eyebrows and Graham laughed loudly.

"You're ridiculous," he said before rolling on top of me and laying a really nice kiss on my mouth. His metal fingers gripped my chin and held my face at the perfect angle for Graham's tongue to sneak past my lips.