Business as Usual

[Admiral Hart]

Landing briefly on Callisto to pick up their stray crewmen, Hart, who was at the gate to meet them, halted Mr. Altair, who had all his effects in hand, ready to disembark.

"Where do you think you're going?" The Captain asked. Beau replied, confused.

"You said I couldn't stay on. So I'm ready to leave."

"I say a lot of things. You were being tested, kid. And you passed." Hart explained. "You can stay."

The young sniper looked confused. "I don't understand."

"A spy or a lech would have thrown a big fit at being told to leave. You calmly accepted the facts. Granted, you weren't happy about it, but you didn't raise a fuss. So, you can stay. You're on Morgan's boarding crew." Hart replied, chuckling and patting him on the back. "Welcome aboard."

----

Three had not returned. And the seven that did come back felt very, very bad about leaving. Which pleased Jo immensely.

"This is your captain speaking. We are en route to the Cove for a supply run and a fence run. There are no outstanding missions, no secret relatives or relations to discover, and the Heart Breaker should be out of comission for a while. Everyone, at ease, until shore leave. After that, I think we might be entitled to a nice spa visit at Aphrodite's. Hart, out."

[Cassiopeia Reyes-Hart]

"You knew? And you didn't say anything?"

Cassi grinned guiltily in the face of Beau's flabbergasted disbelief. The half-smile he was wearing helped take the sting out of his incredilous words and she chuckled.

"I'm sorry!" she gushed, from where they both sat in the mess-hall eating lunch. "When I heard that she was making you leave I went to go argue your case," she admitted, blushing a little. Actually it was more along the lines of throwing a boarder-line fit, but she didn't want to give away all the details. "Jo told me then what the plan was, but she made me promise not to tell."

"Man," he heaved, reaching down to play with his food. He shook his head. "You pirates are sneaky as hell." Cassi grinned, winking.

"It's all part of the job description, Mr. Altair. We loot and we plunder, we pillage and sack."

And then the rest of the mess hall suddenly yelled out, "Drink up me hearties, yo ho!"

Cassi pealed with laughter, as did most of the other crewmen, while Beau just shook his head in mild disbelief. She sighed after a bit. "I'm really glad you decided to stay," she admitted then. Then she blushed a little again, realizing how intimate the words had sounded. "I-I mean, with you and Clara on board now, I'll have people closer to my own age to talk to and hang out with."

Beau just smiled at her, those dark emerald eyes of his making her belly do flip-flops again. "Me too, Cass. Me too."

[Admiral Hart]

"So, what is the purpose of this? Some sort of mating dance?" Clara asked as she followed Cassi's movements exactly. Cassi was quite agile, but Clara's body was, for a reason no one quite understood, beyond human physically, so anything the elf-like girl did, the tiger could follow.

"No, silly, it's just for fun." Cassi replied. "And exercise."

"I see." Clara went up on her tip-toes and made a graceful, sweeping motion. "And there's nothing sexually charged about this? It's not to attract a mate?"

"Well, I mean, some girls dance like that. But they're usually, um, paid to do it." Cassi replied, blushing just slightly.

"...I will never understand human culture." Clara sighed, bending her body back and doing a little twirl. "Have you ever mated?"

Cassi turned red-faced and began to stammer, her embarrassment obvious, and not just to Clara's empathic link. "N-no! No, I . . . I've never even been kissed before." Her expression, and the emotion Clara felt, became tinged with sadness. "I . . . I was only fourteen when we left Mars, and before then all the guys I ever met were really boring and pretty much cared about my parents' money."

"But surely you've met suitable males since then." Clara replied.

Her face was nearly purple then. "W-well . . . yah, I guess. But . . . it's complicated."

"How so?" The bestial girl asked. "What's stopping you from fulfilling the genetic imperative."

Now she was laughing as well as blushing. "Oh my gosh. It's not so simple as that, Clara. Well, at least for most girls it isn't. I mean . . . I'm not saying I DON'T want to . . . you know, but . . . it's supposed to be special. You're supposed to have your first time with someone really important. Someone you really care about."

The red-striped girl was giving Cassi an incredulous look. "Humans make things so much more complicated than they have to be."

"Well...have you ever...?" Cassi asked.

"Oh no. I've never met any male suitable to be my mate." Clara replied, miming a hop on her toe-tips and another spin.

"Has there ever been anyone you've, you know, felt attached to? Like, a crush or anything?"

"No. Never." The red-head replied, her ears twitching.

"Never?"

"Never. There have been some attractive boys, but no emotional bond." Because I killed them. was unsaid.

"Okay, now put the whole routine together." Cassi replied. And Clara did the whole routine back at her friend, flawlessly, the metallic-eyed girl gaping the entire time.

"Like that?" Clara asked, outwardly questioning, but inwardly knowing that there was nothing crafted by Man that she could not exceed.