That thing could have killed me, she thought as she watched the Marvin’s doctor and nurse hauling up the anvil, giggling and bumping against each other like the boys back home did when they got into mischief.
She scowled at the image. I did not join HuFleet and get my pilot training just so I could die on a stupid away mission because I think the captain is an attractive man.
But he was so attractive…
She rubbed her clavicle (The bones below your neck! This is PG-13!), thinking about his chiseled jaw, his long legs. She did like them tall and lanky. How he was so confident and laid-back at the same time. Most of the people she’d grown up with were constantly uptight, always concerned about rules and decorum. Jebediah Tiberius was so different from them. Just how far did that difference go?
She left the log playing but opened a new file and typed out her letter of resignation. Then she went to change into something that would have gotten her The Pit on her homeworld. If she was going to quit HuFleet, she planned to go out in style.
***
The door chime woke Jeb from the first long sleep he’d been allowed since his concussion. Groggily, he rose, shoved his arms into his robe, and shuffled to the door, hand combing his hair into place. “This had better be important,” he started as the door slid open. The rest of what he was going to say got caught in his throat as he took in the beautiful woman in an elegant and revealing gown that stood before him.
“I resign my commission,” she declared.
He squinted. Was he dreaming? Hallucinating? Had they entered an alternate dimension where he had replaced the evil version of himself? “Say again?”
She reached out and touched his bare chest. “Do you know where I was before I joined HuFleet, Captain?”
Her hand was warm, moist, and sent a curious shiver through him. He pushed his sleep-addled brain to find the answer to the question. “Gilead Four?”
“That’s right. I was raised among the strictest society in the Union. I learned to milk cows and churn butter and never give a man a sideways glance, but prepare myself to be seeded by whatever husband was chosen for me. I was eighteen when I escaped, but it’s taken even longer to push past that indoctrination.”
She stepped forward, her foot on the threshold.
“I think you’re making great strides now,” he said, and she giggled at his unintended pun. It was a very warm giggle. What had gotten into her?
She had both hands on his chest now, and it felt a little too right. He grabbed them in his but couldn’t quite let go. “Ensign Becca, are you all right?”
“Daphne. And I’m righter than I’ve been in a long time. I know what I want. I want passion and joy, and to get my freak on all night and in the morning act like it never happened. From you, Captain. You’re capable, aren’t you?”
“Uh… Is this a mirror universe?”
“Would that help?”
He was starting to sweat, but he didn’t even care. This had to be the mirror universe. He knew what he had to do.
He gave her a stern look. “My dear, I am a starship captain. I have been trained in multiple techniques, a broad variety of pleasuring.”
“Oh, Jeb, you bad boy!”
She pushed him into his room. The doors closed on his “Yeehaw!”