Flying Rumors

[Willie Barbary]

Willie sighed in exasperation. She sat on the bridge of the Excalibur, in the pilot's chair during the "dead" shift while most of the crew was sleeping. The only other person up here with her at the moment was Tammy Wilkes, the Comm. Officer. Though she had liked her well enough before, over the past few days the tall, dark-haired woman had become a major pain in her ass.

Mostly because she was doing her damndest to try and wheedle out any and every bit of information about Miller and his sexual expertise as she could. And wasn't taking a huffy "I don't wanna talk about it," or "there's nothing to tell," for an answer.

"Come off it, girl," Tammy spouted at present. "You can't tell me there's nothing to tell. You were screaming so loud I don't think the entire C-Deck got any sleep that night." Willie felt her face heat uncomfortably. If she and Miller were going to continue "seeing" each other, she needed to invest in one of those high-tech sound-proofers or something. She was fairly vocal with most guys, but that damned Snake-Boy made her broadcast her current state to the whole damned ship and not give a two-bit damn about it, at least at the time. "It sounds to me like he's world class," Tammy continued impishly. "But then again, I heard that most of those Mamba soldiers are. I heard that they train them to be able to make a girl mindless with pleasure, for secret operations. Infiltration and stuff."

Willie just laughed at that, rolling her eyes. "And I think you read too many smutty spy novels."

That couldn't possibly be true . . . could it?

"So are you guys an item or what?" Tammy demanded.

Willie sighed loudly, glaring at her console. She wasn't even terribly sure of that particular herself. Miller was continuing to let her lead for the most part, not asking anything more of her than she was willing to give, only firm on the point that he wanted something of her. However much that something was, he entirely left up to her. At present, they had settled into a nice, friendly companionship with occasional mind-blowing sex, which was enough for now. How long it lasted, though, Willie couldn't be sure.

When she didn't respond, Tammy wagged her eyebrows. "Or is it just fuck-buddy benefits? 'Cause if so, I might try to give him a test drive myself."

Willie did a very good job practicing restraint, at the thought of the very pretty, slim Comm. officer being anywhere near Miller in anything that wasn't a strictly platonic sense. She didn't get up immediately and bash her brains in with a landing-gear lever, after all.

Instead she cut her eyes over to the other woman, sneering. "Just the other day you were starting a pool as to whether or not he was gay, crazy or both."

"Yah, well, that's before I found out he's apparently an absolute beast in the sack."

Willie bit back an immediate, violent reply, and did her best to focus on the console instead. It wouldn't do to overreact. There were enough rumors flying around about them as it was. And more than one retarded crewman who had been sniffing around her, trying to see if they could get a piece of the new "easy" pilot. She'd bet money Jackson had a little bit of a hand in that too, but she didn't have any proof. And so far a sound verbal lashing had been enough to send the few over-eager lechs packing.

Willie was glad when, an hour later, her relief came in. She practically leapt up out of the chair and took off for her bunk, deciding a nice hot, soothing shower would be just the thing to calm her down. And then maybe by then Miller would be up and about, and she could find something else to distract her.

~~*~~

Hours later, Willie lay prone with her head pillowed in Miller's lap, the both of them sitting in the cargo hold beneath Fang. The Mamba had a well-worn red leather book held up in front of him, reading, while the pilot chewed gum and re-painted her nails. Fang hovered near-by, listening intently to the story.

"Wait, wait, wait," Willie suddenly called, causing Miller's reading to falter to a halt. She tilted her head back a little to stare up at him when he glanced down at her. "Don't tell me Gollum falls for that," she demanded, incensed. "That's such a bitch move!"

"It does seem a little one-sided," Fang agreed, nodding. Miller just grinned.

"I'm never going to get through this book if you two don't stay quiet and let me finish."

Willie and Fang both huffed simultaneously. The slender pilot lifted her hand then, revealing the electric green and gold stardust pattern she had decided for the day. "There you go, little bit, whatcha think?"

Fang hovered over to inspect them, her tail twitching. "Not enough blue," was her final assessment, nose lifting into the air primly.

[Admiral Hart]

Later that day, while Willie was on duty yet again, Miller adjusted a few things in Fang's massive leg. It was not really a necessary adjustment, just something to keep him busy and prevent him from passing out from boredom.

Willie was interesting. And he was pretty sure he felt strongly for her. The possibility of her getting hurt was more than he could really bear. Which made the rumors nearly intolerable.

He had had quite enough smarmy comments about "banging that slut pilot" and "think I have a chance with her"? Over the past few days, he had almost, but not quite, gotten to the point of snapping, "Back off, she's mine." Almost. He calm was intact, and that was a good thing. Because if any of these clowns snapped it by talking bad about HIS woman, he was not entirely sure he would be able to stop himself.

Mamba training had tuned his physical reflexes well, but it was his mental reflexes, built up and conditioned by stressful, live fire exercises, those were the ones that were going to get one of these idiots killed.