Work Text:
Despite what the wider galaxy assumed, Dorothea Arnault did not enjoy traveling in space.
She was sure there’d be much outrage and controversy on the wider extranet, even (or maybe especially) among the people who could afford to participate in real-time interstellar forums. And somehow she suspected that it would generate discussion even more toxic than her disappearance a year ago had caused.
Oh yes, her vanishing from the public eye under duress from truly hideous men had caused an outpouring of concern, but the ‘Mystical Songstress’, whose costumes were said to carry the stars in them, not actually liking the wild black yonder that separated her fans across hundreds of planets? Far more controversial and worthy of heated discussion than threats to her life.
Dorothea turned to the poster that was taped to the wall of the bedroom: it didn’t feature the top of her face, her mouth—curled up into a coquettish smile—was the prominent feature, at least until it got down to her boobs, a generous amount of cleavage showing. Her jet black dress in that poster glittered with thousands of stars: in the old days they’d have just used glitter woven into the outfit to achieve that, or diamonds for the super expensive, but that hadn’t been enough for the sponsors of the tour. No, they’d had to take diamonds and lace them with nano LED strips to give them a glamor that put a supernova to shame.
She had to admit she’d loved that dress, and it was keeping in theme with ones she’d worn on other tours styled after famous nebulae, or constellations, or the one replicating a black hole that was so artificially dark they’d had to use special cameras to capture it. And as much as she didn’t like space, she’d never pass up the opportunity to see one of those phenonunom in person.
But she just didn’t like being on a space ship for any extended duration. She didn’t like having her survival be entirely dependent on mechanical systems, and the knowledge that her steps were controlled by a fake gravity always made them seem less stable. The fact that she’d spent the worst years of her childhood orphaned on one of the galaxy’s largest space stations certainly had something to do with it, forced to bunk down in sectors with bad air filters. Even on the excellently maintained ship she was on now, with large hydroponics garden and large plots of plants arranged throughout the ship to supplement the oxygen, she tasted an artificialness to the air in her lungs.
How she longed to be planet or moon side, where the stars were still visible in their infinite array: maybe something like Brigid IV-B, the tropical moon one of those dear to her came from, a moon orbiting a blue gas giant with one of the galaxy’s most famous rings. Lounging on one of those beaches in the nude while looking up at it and the stars sounded like heaven.
But that sadly wasn’t a good option right now, and neither were the dresses she’d loved so much. Now she wore a comfortable but simple jumpsuit that served as the under layer for the spacesuit/armor that was stored in the armory right now.
A gentle knock on the door broke her from her reverie, and Petra entered as the door automatically opened. “It’s our bedroom, you don’t need to knock,” Dorothea said with a smile.
“I was not wanting to startle you,” Petra said with a smile so soft and genuine it made her feel guilty for tricking such a kind soul into feeling it for her, but she suppressed such feelings, she knew the others would reschedule their whole day to handle it. “Ashe and Hapi were looking to play some games, we thought we should all gather in the recreation room before dinner.”
“That sounds lovely,” Dorothea said, walking up to Petra and giving her a quick peck. “Though is it games, or ‘games’?”
Petra smirked as they left the bedroom. “There were games of videos and boards being pulled out, but I suspect we will not be playing those.”
Dorothea felt a small tingle in her core at the thought. “Well then, let’s not keep our lovers waiting, five credits they may have already started.”
Dorothea grabbed Petra’s hand in hers and two made their way through the ship. The Blue Sun was a remarkable ship: the four people on it had enough space outside the work and maintenance areas to be decently spacious, helped by the one bedroom they all shared, and they could give emergency accommodations to another 8-10 people for a good length of time if need be, a handful more on the short term, which they’ve had to do a couple times. And those living spaces were top of the line to the point of being luxurious, the money that hadn’t been spent on making the ship unnecessarily large put into maximizing the quality of what they had, both for personal enjoyment and the practical: best in class weapons, shields and armor, stealth system, FTL drive, and other systems that kept the vessel running smooth and quiet.
And that included the recreation room, as she and Petra reached it and walked through. It had the highest quality holographic viewing screen you could get for movie nights with a very comfortable couch in front of it, a small bar where drinks were stored, and other cabinets that contained various toys, games, and sporting equipment. When the screen wasn’t on, the couch provided a wonderful view for the far window that took up a good portion of the far wall, which right now was looking to the endless tapestry of stars as they moved between systems at faster than light.
Hapi was on the couch, though from here they could only see her legs and feet kicking in the air, her body lying on the ground on the couch’s other side. “C’mon Freckles,” she said. “Why’re you looking through all that stuff when we’re probably just going to fuck?”
Both Dorothea and Petra laughed, and off to the side Ashe jumped slightly as he went through one of the cabinets. “Oh, hey you two,” he said with an endearing smile.
“Our better halves here?” Hapi asked. “Good, you can help me tell him to drop the pretense, I just spent an hour staring at maintenance readouts and I want my R&R to be more vigorous than a movie.”
Dorothea smiled as she walked over to the couch and looked over it to see Hapi’s hips resting on the seat cushion and her head on the floor with her arms behind her back. “Well, you’re already in a good position for that,” she said with a wink.
Hapi smirked up at her. “Getting piledrived sounds fun, though with how my neck feels right now probably shouldn’t.”
“Then you really shouldn’t be sitting like that right now,” Ashe said, closing the cabinet and returning empty handed.
Hapi rolled her eyes and let herself fully slide onto the ground before getting up. “Yeah, yeah, maybe I just want you and Princess to give me a massage.”
“Ooh, that does sound lovely,” Dorothea said. “Though I agree with Hapi, I feel in the mood for some fun.”
Ashe turned a bit red and scratched the back of his neck. “What is being the matter, Ashe?” Petra said with a teasing lilt as she moved to join her and Hapi by the couch. “Is the thought of making love to your girlfriends disagreeable?”
“Yeah, you think we’re ugly or something?” Hapi said, and Dorothea added to it by giving him the best pout she could.
“No, no!” he said, waving his hands frantically. “You’re all the most beautiful and wonderful women in the galaxy, and I’m the luckiest guy…” he trailed off, smiling as he shook his head. “You really shouldn’t tease me so much.”
“We wouldn’t gang up on you all the time if you didn’t fluster so easily, Ashe,” Dorothea said, reaching out to either side and managing to pull Petra and Hapi towards her. “Getting these two to blush is almost impossible.”
“And you are being too cute when you are blushing,” Petra added, and Hapi snickered.
Dorothea smiled warmly as her lover snorted and shook his head again while looking at them with affection, while feeling the warmth of her other lovers pressing into her. It was hard to imagine a year ago that she could have found herself in this situation: her needing to flee a powerful suitor after defending herself from him had left a permanent mark, and Petra wanting to escape the hostage situation interstellar politics had forced her into. A mutual friend had arranged a daring escape with the ship they were now on, but they’d been pursued relentlessly for a couple weeks until they’d encountered a reluctant smuggler with a heart of gold and a woman on the run from a company that had experimented on her on some far-flung planet willfully beyond the reach of governments, where corporations did all their horrible profit-making things. Both of them were flying a ship at risk of breaking apart on its next jump, so a mutually beneficial arrangement had morphed into a now close to year-long relationship.
Dorothea loved them all dearly. She and Petra had known each other for a while and were already very flirty, during their first few weeks alone together they’d ended up entwined in the sheets in a desperate mutual need for relief. And when Ashe and Hapi had joined them…it had happened fast, the four becoming one unit. Ashe knew what it was like to hate looking at yourself in the mirror as you thought of the things you’d done to keep yourself fed, but he still somehow had an earnestness and belief in the inherent goodness in people that one Dorothea couldn’t help but fall for, if not be a little envious of. With Hapi she shared a deep cynicism about the state of the state of the galaxy and the people who ran it, and they enjoyed griping with each other, along with their argument about planet versus spacer living. After experiencing what a wayward sigh could do a planet with large wildlife, and fighting off a few parties interested in untoward things, she could understand her desire to stay on the run, and she had to admit there was a thrill in knowing that they were the only living beings for at least a few light years in every direction.
She brought herself back to the present as Petra pulled away and walked towards Ashe, swaying her hips expertly. She gave him a kiss on the cheek before playfully shoving him towards his other girlfriends. Ashe laughed as he let himself stumble towards them, the two of them catching him just to make sure he didn’t fall on his face. Petra made her way to a covered lever on one of the walls. “Shall we add more fun to it?” she asked, flipping the lid open.
Dorothea smirked as she looked to her other partners. That particular lever disabled the gravity in this room, the only room that had the feature. It did have a myriad of purposes: Petra often liked to play handball with the extra challenge of restricted movement, and Hapi liked to float as she stargazed out the window, but when starship companies advertised their isolated zero-G rooms the implication of what they’d be used for was always implied.
“That sounds delightful,” Dorothea purred as she reached for the zipper on her jumpsuit, pulling it down enough to expose the bra beneath it. “Though let’s get our clothes off so they don’t get in the way.”
“Yeah, last time Freckle’s suit was floating in front of you two 69ing and blocked the money shot,” Hapi said as she peeled her own suit down to her waist, then unhooked and tossed her bra aside. Dorothea swooped in and grabbed Hapi’s breasts, giving them a firm squeeze before urging her back down into the position she’d been in earlier.
Hapi smirked up at her as Dorothea worked off her shoes then grabbed the suit pooled at Hapi’s waist and started pulling it off, snagging her underwear on the way. Hapi smirked up at her, but Dorothea focused on her eyes, the ruby orbs sparkling like the stars outside. Those eyes had been dull and guarded during the first few months they’d known each other, even (or maybe especially) when they ended up in the bedroom. Dorothea had known that look well: she herself wore it with all her partners until recently, and quite often when looking in the mirror. But now they shone with trust and affection, and she relished it and hoped her own eyes conveyed the same back.
She tossed Hapi’s clothes over her shoulder as the other woman spread her legs with a smirk. Dorothea was tempted to clamber over the couch and dive in, but she was enveloped from behind by what she recognized as Ashe’s arms reached for her zipper and started gently pulling it down, hands expertly unhooking her bra then grabbing her breasts and squeezing them, while his mouth gently kissed and nipped at her neck. She let out a moan as she allowed Ashe to keep pulling her jumpsuit down, a hand moving from one of her breasts to brush over her cunt, already starting to get wet from the anticipation. She could feel his growing erection pressing against her ass, and she eagerly pushed her hips back against it until he pulled back to pull her outfit down her legs. She stepped out of her footwear and let him pull the jumpsuit off, leaving her naked as Ashe collected both her and Hapi’s clothes and started folding them.
“Ashe,” Petra said with amusement, “just be tossing them out,” and Dorothea turned to see her tossing her clothes in their direction. He grabbed them then quickly started to disrobe himself, and once everyone was fully nude he placed them out of the room and shut the door.
“Be coming here, Ashe,” Petra said, and he dutifully waddled over to her while holding his erection to keep it from wagging. Dorothea snorted in amusement and licked her lips at the sight: thank the Goddess genetic enhancements to improve zero-G blood flow were common nowadays, because the three of them deserved to enjoy the monster he had between his legs no matter the gravity level, damnit.
When Ashe reached Petra she got onto her knees, and he placed his own hand over the button that would turn off the gravity. Hapi clearing her throat loudly brought Dorothea’s attention back to her, positioning herself over the couch. “How about I push myself up when gravity goes off, my cunt right into your mouth?”
“Oh, that sounds lovely,” Dorothea said, checking to ensure the couch was bolted to the floor before leaning over and trying to line up directly above Hapi’s now glistening cunt. “Ready over here.”
She briefly moved her eyes to see Petra take Ashe’s cock into her mouth before giving a thumbs up, and at that Ashe flipped the switch. Dorothea turned her attention back to Hapi and after a few seconds of thrumming a sudden weightlessness lifted her off the ground, making her clutch the top of the couch harder.
From below, Hapi gave herself a small push as she lifted into the air, and Dorothea licked her lips in anticipation as Hapi’s hips gently collided with her face, making her lose her grip on the couch and carrying her up towards the ceiling. She’d misjudged her aim slightly, and her nose became wet as its tip pushed at Hapi’s entrance, but she reached out and grabbed at Hapi’s butt, stabilizing it and moving it so her tongue was probing at it instead. Hapi had also not pushed straight up, causing her to start slowly spinning in the air and taking Dorothea with her as they joined. She lost her view out of the window of the passing galaxy, but turning to see her other two partners was well worth it.
Petra’s arms and legs were spread out like a starfish as she tried to keep Ashe’s cock in her mouth as they both floated upwards. “Ah…AH! Mind the teeth,” Ashe said with a brief shout of panic, and both her and Hapi winced. Petra let out a muffled huff of defeat as her hands grabbed Ashe’s ass and pulled his hips towards her, and meanwhile her feet found purchase on the forcefield that now covered the room’s surfaces to mitigate a painful collision and kicked off, sending the two flying towards them.
“Ahh…oh, watch out!” Ashe said, looking over his shoulder back at them. Dorothea gave him a wink as she kept her focus on Hapi, making her squirm and moan as the other woman held out her arms above her head to brace for the incoming bodies, fingers clenching in pleasure.
Ashe’s back collided with Hapi’s fists, and the momentum transferred through her and caused Dorothea to lurch back, breaking the tenuous grasp she had on the other woman’s ass. As she floated back she saw Petra had been knocked off as well, now clutching one of Ashe’s ankles. Hapi had wrapped her arms around Ashe’s waist and pulled herself against him, crawling over him until his cock was right in her face. Petra pulled herself back towards it as well, and the two women shared a kiss before running their mouths up and down either side of his cock.
Dorothea’s back pressed against the wall, and she kicked off to send herself flying back towards the group, holding her arms out in front of her in a superhero pose. She caught Petra’s eye, who pulled back enough to give her a smirk and holding her own arm out, grabbing Dorothea’s wrist once it came in range and yanking her up to join them. Dorothea planted a kiss on her cheek, then Ashe’s cock, running her tongue along it to its head before moving to take it in her mouth.
Petra yanked on Dorothea’s leg and shot forward, sending her and Hapi tumbling away as she grabbed Ashe. Dorothea let out a gasp of surprise as she tumbled away: Petra was not a selfish lover who’d steal one of the others away like that. Unless she was planning something.
“I would be proposing a game,” Petra said, and Dorothea did her best to keep her eyes on her as she slowly tumbled in the vacuum. She got a good view of Petra lining up her hips with Ashe’s and guiding him inside her, the woman letting out a satisfied moan as she did.
“You planning to hog the one real dick on the ship?” Hapi asked.
“If you are wanting a turn, try to be catching us,” Petra said impishly, thrusting her hips into Ashe and causing them to tumble away.
“Guess I’m along for the ride,” Ashe said.
“Aww, sad we’re using you more like a toy than a person?” Dorothea teased. “You know we love you. We could have one of us put on a strap I suppose.”
“Yeah, but as fun as pegging Freckles can be, wouldn’t exactly want to be switching back and forth with a dirty strap,” Hapi said. “Plus accidental A to V is way more likely with us all floating like this. No thanks.”
“Also, using Ashe is providing a winning condition,” Petra said. “Whoever he is cumming inside of is the victor.” She punctuated this with a few more thrusts of her hips, and Dorothea felt her core ache at their spin reached a point where she briefly had a perfect view of Ashe’s cock, now soaked with Petra’s arousal, spearing her as he started thrusting his hips as well.
“Oh, it’s on,” Hapi said, and Dorothea turned to see her push off the ceiling and launch herself towards the conjoined couple. Dorothea’s foot hit the floor and she also pushed herself forward, trying to aim at where she thought they’d end up being. Petra caught her eye and started thrusting her hips in a more sideways motion, altering their trajectory just enough that Hapi passed over them and Dorothea passed in front of them, the songstress almost able to grab Petra’s hair but feeling the locks slip through her fingers.
She let out a joyous laugh as she spun to face them again. She’d had sex plenty of times before her current lovers, and those encounters had been pleasurable a decent amount of the time, but it wasn’t until the last few months that learned just how fun sex could be. And silly too: here they were, essentially playing tag, and she was having the time of her life.
She launched herself back towards the goal, while she could see Hapi hanging back and planning her next move. Petra tried to divert, but Dorothea was lucky this time, her forehead colliding with Petra’s butt. “Got you!” she said triumphantly, wrapping her arms around both.
Petra huffed in playful frustration and after Dorothea gave them more room, pulled herself off Ashe. “It would be sporting to give you a few seconds head start,” she said, giving Dorothea a quick kiss.
“Why thank you,” Dorothea said, playfully pushing the other woman away before wrapping her arms and legs around Ashe. He reached a hand down and guided himself into her, and she let out a wanton moan, playing it up just to make the others a little jealous. “Having fun?” she asked him with a smile.
Ashe let out a small laugh. “Yeah, I’m glad you’re all enjoying yourselves.”
“You’re too sweet,” she said, giving him a quick peck on the lips. “We really need to teach you to be more selfish.”
“We’ll turn him into a dom yet,” Hapi said, and Petra laughed.
Ashe shook his head with a smile, and Dorothea gave him another kiss. “Now giddy up! Don’t let them catch us!”
Ashe let out a small laugh and started thrusting, and Dorothea moaned as they started moving towards the far wall. She knew she couldn’t properly bask in their lovemaking with Petra and Hapi determined to pull her off him, but the fun of the chase more than made up for it.
Having sex in zero-G was always an interesting experience: at Ashe’s first thrust her breasts bounced up towards her head, then didn’t fall back down. It obscured her vision of that lovely freckled face a bit, but Ashe’s own laugh made her grin at how it must look to him, and the look his eyes gave her as his head moving down to take one of her nipples in his mouth made her melt.
With Ashe’s eyes now too close to her boob to see the room, she had to keep her head on a swivel to tell him how to angle his thrusts into her to direct them away from the other players. Both Hapi and Petra missed twice, but on the third Hapi was able to grab at Ashe’s arm. Ashe loosened his grip on her, and Dorothea reluctantly pulled away to let Hapi take her prize, and the red-head wrapped her own body around Ashe, Dorothea obligingly guiding Ashe into her before pushing herself off and giving them their grace period.
Ashe resumed thrusting and sent them floating further away, and both Dorothea and Petra launched themselves at her. Both overshot the first time, but Petra was able to grab them on the second go, and Hapi let herself be pulled away with a huff. Petra positioned herself to have Ashe take her from behind, facing the two of them and holding her arms out like a goalie as she thrusted her hips back, sending them away.
Both Dorothea and Hapi launched themselves, and both were on target, but Petra knocked them both away and towards the ceiling. A second attempt yielded similar results, and Dorothea could tell that Ashe was starting to get close.
“Hey,” Hapi whispered into her ear as they grabbed each other and stabilized themselves against a wall. “I’ll let you raid my cookie tin if you pull off Petra and let me win.”
Hapi’s jealousy guarded her cookie tin, the chance for a few of those confections was too good to pass up. “Deal.”
Dorothea pushed off the wall with as much force as she could towards them. Petra was able to mostly dodge them, but she was able to grab Petra’s hair more firmly this time, using it as an anchor to grab the woman properly and pull her off Ashe. She wrapped herself around Petra, pulling her head back enough to smile at the woman who squirmed in her grasp but wasn’t making a serious attempt to escape. “You are betraying me,” Petra said with a smirk.
“Hmmhmm,” Dorothea affirmed before bringing her into a deep kiss, one hand firmly wrapped around Petra’s back as the other ran down her body, briefly squeezing a breast before sliding down those wonderfully toned abs and pushing two fingers into her cunt. Petra stopped squirming and returned the favor, the two of them pumping their fingers into each other as they broke their kiss to watch Hapi and Ashe, whose moans were both getting louder.
Ashe let out a deep groan as he grabbed Hapi’s hips and pulled them flush against him, and Hapi muttered reverent curses as she shook with her own release. The two of them weren’t far behind, Dorothea’s hitting her unexpectedly under Petra’s precise ministrations, and then Petra’s as Dorothea added a thumb against her clit and rubbed hard.
The four of them continued to float through the room as they caught their breath, Petra eventually pulling away and gently pushing off Dorothea towards them. Dorothea smiled serenely as she floated away towards the wall, pushing herself softly back towards them when she hit it. She watched as Petra grabbed Hapi and pulled her away from Ashe, then shoved two fingers into her cunt. Ashe looked on curiously as globules of his cum began coming out of Hapi, hanging in the vacuum. “Hey,” Hapi said, “What—”
Petra brought her hand up and brought it down on Hapi’s ass with a resounding crack, sending the other woman spinning end over end through the room. Ashe’s cum continued to come out of her, leaving a rough trail of loops behind her as she cartwheeled. Hapi crossed her arms, giving Petra a frown and a raised eyebrow when their gazes met, and then a casual middle finger as she hit the wall.
A large dollop of cum was right in Dorothea’s path now, and unable to change her course closed her eyes and let it coat her face as she flew through it. She twisted to see Petra kick off the ceiling towards another large dollop and grab it in her open mouth like a shark snapping up a fish, swallowing it down with a satisfied groan.
“Trying to make art, Princess?” Hapi asked, rubbing her backside. “I still won.”
“I am just creating the greater entertainment,” Petra said, swiping at another floating glob of cum and rubbing it against her arm.
“I can get the cleaning supplies when we’re done,” Ashe said.
“No need,” Hapi said. “Princess has the right idea, and Songbird’s already helping.” Hapi pushed herself off and closed her own eyes as her face flew through some cum, licking her lips.
Dorothea reoriented herself as she floated towards the floor and pushed herself up, hitting part of one circle with her breasts and catching another part in her mouth and swallowing the sweet and salty meal with a satisfied gulp, most of the rest hitting various parts of her body. Ashe pushed himself towards the gravity lever and hung onto the handle next to it, clearly content to let the three of them have their fun as they collected all the loose cum in them or on them. They could turn the gravity back on with a voice command, but it was always good to have someone at the manual override.
After several minutes of them bouncing around the room, all the cum floating in the air was now either swallowed or coating part of their bodies. Dorothea had gotten a fair amount in her hair, but she didn’t mind too much, their actions were as much practical as sexual: a quick visit to the sonic showers was far faster and more efficient than having to clean the floor when the gravity came back on. It wasn’t 100% efficient, especially with tiny droplets of both sweat and their own arousal that had formed from their activities and were floating throughout the room like tiny stars amidst a wider galaxy, but they’d gotten most of the heavy stuff and the room’s filters were built to handle stuff worse than this.
“We are ready,” Petra said, as the three of them eventually managed to arrange themselves on the couch, holding onto the base as an anchor. Ashe flipped the lever, and Dorothea felt a downward lurch as her butt sank into the couch cushion. Ashe cast his gaze towards the door, no doubt thinking about grabbing their clothes for them, but at their urging he trodded over and took the last space on the couch, the four of them cuddling against each other.
“That was fun,” Hapi said.
“We must be doing it again,” Petra said. “So I can be claiming the rightful victory that was taken from me.”
“Yeah, I’d love that,” Ashe said. “So…do we want to watch something?”
“Could certainly put on a movie, or I’m sure Petra wants to watch the latest sports games we downloaded at the last comm buoy,” Dorothea said.
Petra rolled her eyes, clearly trying to stop herself from going into a deep dive about the various sports she liked to watch. “Perhaps we could have some cocktails and be debating,” she said instead.
“I’ll handle it,” Ashe said, sitting up as the three all tried to grab him.
“But you just sat down,” Dorothea whined, but he was already making his way to the bar and mixing the drinks. “You know there’s a machine that does that, Ashe,” she called out.
“I know,” Ashe said, arranging glasses on a hovering tray before tossing ingredients into a shaker.
“Hey, if he wants to spoil us with cocktails handmade with love and all that, I’m not complaining,” Hapi said. “Let’s just watch the stars for a bit, if that’s okay.”
Dorothea gave her a smile as the three of them stared out towards the endless horizon of space. The cum on her body was starting to dry a bit, but she paid it no mind, far too content to sit with her lovers. After a few minutes the sound of multiple cocktails being shook filled the room, and Ashe was over shortly after, the tray containing their favorite cocktails splitting up into small coasters that moved to hover near them. Ashe sat back down, the three quickly absorbing him back into their cuddle pile. “So I guess you didn’t decide what to watch while I was away,” he said.
“One of the zero-G rugby games we downloaded is having playoff implications,” Petra said. “And given our recent activities it would be fitting.”
“I suppose,” Ashe said, “but we’re halfway through The Serios Chronicles. We technically pirated that, so we’d want to finish and wipe it from our system before the next port.”
“Oh, I hear Serios and Wilhelm have the most beautiful sex scene in a couple episodes,” Dorothea said with a grin. “Apparently the actors did it for real in it.”
“That’d be fun, but I’ve also got my movies,” Hapi said. “We’re due for Christmas in Connecticut”.
“How are we being due for the Christmas movie?” Petra asked in confusion. “Especially one that was made before our kind had even visited our moon, let alone other stars.”
Hapi shrugged. “It’s a white Christmas somewhere in the galaxy right now.”
“A tree—a real tree—would be nice, we could decorate it together,” Ashe said wistfully, no doubt thinking of the snowy forests of his home planet.
Dorothea did like that idea, and it had been almost a full year on this ship…a little holiday celebration would be a wonderful idea. “But then we shouldn’t play that movie until we have those set up, and we’ve got a delivery to make on Galatea VII, and I’m pretty sure they don’t have the type of tree we’d want.”
The four of them descended into debate over what they should watch, their drinks all being slowly consumed as the holo-screen stayed turned off and the stars continued to pass by the window. Eventually their drinks emptied, and Dorothea felt her stomach rumble as a warning that they’d passed their normal dinner time, and she could tell she wasn’t the only one who was now quite hungry. They left the room, Ashe scooping up their clothes and promising fresh ones as the girls went to the sonic showers, quickly cleaning themselves as Dorothea looked longingly at the proper water-using bathtub in the corner. They then made their way to the dining room, where Ashe, dressed in a backup jumpsuit, had set up the heated leftovers from a few nights ago. Three similar suits were near their chairs waiting for them, but after an exchange of looks they walked past them and sat down in the buff, giving Ashe smiles until he also disrobed and joined them.
Dorothea let out a satisfied sigh as the food sat on her tongue, the leftovers that had been made a few days ago with such love tasting absolutely divine when she compared them to the fresh and expensive meals she’d been given on tour. As she chewed she took the time to look at everyone else, giving them a smile that they all returned. In a perfect galaxy perhaps they’d have a nice home planet-side instead of being on a ship, with enough large holoscreens to all watch what they wanted separately, but she still wouldn’t trade what she had right now for anything the galaxy had to offer.