We coordinated with the local resistance team who directed us to an empty outpost we could stay at for the night. Apparently, cities just outside the combat zones were used to teams moving through and had spare barracks and supplies set up all over—like some halfway station, the last civilized stop on our way to the frontlines.

  The sky finally darkened as we made it to the outpost, and even in the dwindling light I could see it looked pretty much the same as the roadside outpost we’d all been questioned at earlier in the day; apparently these popup structures were quite popular for the vyranes in wartime.

  The transports parked outside with a couple guards and towers surrounding the outpost, and our teams exited and made their way into the barracks with all our gear, ready to bring a close to the long day of traveling.

  I hadn’t seen much of the first outpost since I was taken aside and locked in a small containment cell, but the inside of the new barracks was clearly well-used, yet comfortable. There was a command or meeting center right in front, and then off to the side there was a day room for the soldiers, looked a bit like what we had back at the old fire stations on Earth—but obviously more futuristic. There was an eggshell television and some old couches and recliners, probably donated for the war effort. Off in another room there was a small kitchenette, though I wasn’t sure if we would get much use out of it or if all the available food would just be for vyrane consumption. There were large communal showers, and then several rooms with cots set up to house a full platoon of soldiers, more than enough space for our company.

  Before anyone could get too comfortable, Captain Seash stopped in front of the little command center and faced our company, waving us all in, “Gather round everyone before you knock off for the night.”

  Our team circled around our commander with some of the militia soldiers staying with us, while quite a few moved on to get things organized with some of the outpost guards.

  “We owe a lot to the resistance soldiers, so let’s make sure we show ourselves as good guests for the time being.” He looked around at all the soldiers around him, a pleased smile on his grizzled maw, “And since our hosts are being kind enough to manage guard duty for us tonight, I’d say it’s okay to take a break from the armor and dress in your casual fatigues for now.”

  There was a cheer amongst our soldiers, and right away people started stripping out of the heavy battle armor. From there, it was a bit of a frenzy as everyone started heading towards the rooms to claim a cot and change into the more casual fatigues. I was glad we could have a break from the heavy armor, but it wasn’t like we were able to wear regular comfy clothes. The casual fatigues we packed consisted of black tactical pants that hardly seemed futuristic, with a form-fitting tank top that was made of some strange durable material that almost made it seem armored itself, though much lighter and more comfortable than our full battle gear.

  I’d just stripped out of my armor and was about to put on the casual fatigues when Eve put a hand on my arm to stop me.

  “Let’s grab a shower first before we get changed.” She insisted.

  I eyed Eve suspiciously, “Wanting to get frisky in the communal showers?”

  Eve rolled her eyes, “Even I know when to behave. No, I figure we should take this chance to get a real shower now; we won’t know how long it’ll be before we get another chance like this once we start traveling on the highway, better not waste the opportunity.”

  Kianna walked into our room followed by the other researchers, and when she saw us grabbing the shower supplies from our packs, she threw her gear down on the nearest cot and started rummaging around inside.

  “You guys heading for the showers too?” Kianna asked, grabbing out her own toiletries.

  Eve and I picked a room at the far end of the compound, hoping for a little privacy—or at least a break from the soldiers. But since the researchers all clearly felt safer around Eve, it wasn’t surprising they followed along after us.

  A far cry from how things used to be when Eve was first brought aboard The Radiance, but after she saved us all from dying in the crash, it definitely made sense.

  I shrugged, “Yeah, guess so. Everyone else coming?” I asked.

  Seemed like everyone was eager to get out of the armor and have a real shower, so everyone in our room followed after Eve and myself to the nearest shower room. The setup was incredible basic; a couple squares of four short stalls each with their own showerheads.

  I wasn’t sure if it was an Empire thing or a military thing, but everyone got undressed and into the showers without much fuss. Gorgam, Hennor and Ryo went over to their own square, while Kianna followed along after Eve and me as usual.

  Of course, Eve didn’t want her own stall and instead got right in with me.

  I turned on the water and was incredibly thankful it was heated, taking my time just relaxing under the hot water while Eve hugged me from behind, content to stay there as long as I was.

  “Did Captain Seash say anything to you about being pulled aside by the vyranes?” Kianna asked mildly from the stall next to us. Even with as short as she was, the stalls barely covered anything, so we could all clearly see each other—like the shower scene from the movie Starship Troopers. But this was a different kind of nudity, so Kianna wasn’t embarrassed at all now.

  “No, why would he?” I said.

  Kianna shrugged, taking her time enjoying the hot water too it seemed, just standing there with her eyes closed and head tilted back, “Figured he’d want to know why one of his soldiers had been pulled aside by the resistance. We’re helping each other and everything, but it’s not like we have authority over each other; seems like they kind of overstepped with that maneuver.”

  “Considering that maneuver was all at gunpoint, I don’t think traditional command had much they could do about it.” I responded.

  Kianna turned to look at me, “Yeah, but afterwards, once it was all resolved. Still seems surprising he hasn’t said anything to you.”

  I shrugged, “Well what about you guys? How did that all go down once you were cleared? Was anyone mad or upset, anyone try to put up a fight?”

  “Despite being led in by guns, it was all surprisingly calm and methodical.” Eve answered behind me, resting her head against my back, “Some of the resistance soldiers even apologized while they were testing us, but they said over and over how they couldn’t take any chances, how dangerous the separatist assimilation was—how it could completely destroy the resistance with one bad leak.”

  Kianna nodded along, “Yeah, and once they gave us the all-clear, they lowered their guns right away and insisted that would be the last of the testing, that we could be fully trusted from that point on. And then they got all chummy with us, trying to lighten the mood clearly; the soldiers all started swapping stories, they offered to carry our gear back, tried to bribe us with some field rations—the generic protein packs nearly anyone in the Empire can eat. It was obvious they didn’t mean any harm with their suspicions—and it was all reasonable too, so our team let it all go rather easily.”

  This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

  “I wasn’t so easily dissuaded and demanded they take me to see you right away, but they insisted they still needed you for additional testing.” Eve said.

  I chuckled at that, “I’m surprised you actually complied and waited for me then.”

  Eve huffed out a quick sigh, “I had to consider how badly things would go if I didn’t comply, so weighed my options on the best possible outcome. In the end, I decided to wait around for a few more minutes, but if they held onto you much longer, I would’ve burned the compound down to rescue you.”

  I rolled my eyes, “I hardly needed rescuing…”

  Eve trailed her nail down across my chest, “No matter what adventures we end up on, you should now I’ll always want to take care of you.”

  I tried to look behind me to see what kind of expression Eve had on, but she was pretty much locked against my back, “Well I hope you don’t baby me; you know a little bit of danger will make the adventures more fun.”

  Eve shook her head against my back, “You are my baby.”

  Before I could offer a proper retort, the door to the shower room opened once more, and a handful of vyranes filtered on through, with Almana right at the front. She looked around briefly, and when she saw us, she smiled and made her way over towards our stall.

  “Figured this is where you were. I saw you dropped your packs in the far back room, and since I’m acting as your escort, we’ll be staying with you there too.” Almana explained, then removed her towel like it was nothing and got into the stall next to ours and turned on the hot water, clearly happy to be out of her combat gear with the way she stretched out.

  I figured now it must’ve been a military thing, everyone okay with the lack of privacy like this. I wasn’t in the military back on Earth, and we certainly weren’t like this back at the fire station, so I wasn’t used to this kind of openness with your brothers-in-arms. Of course, after what all we were exposed to back in the Holistia Nebula, this much was rather normal in comparison.

  Looking at Almana now, I could see she really was quite curvy, and she looked rather fit too, with a few defined lines of muscle along her legs, arms and abdomen. She was only a little taller than Kianna—short for a vyrane even, but was proportionally as curvy, with full breasts, wide hips and surprisingly plump ass. Her red hair was finally out of those messy buns beside those large curling horns, so I could see now it was actually quite long, all the way down to her lower back. It was also kind of funny, but her breasts were actually bigger than Eve’s now that she was in the petite celicapoz body but would’ve been way smaller than Eve’s human-hybrid form’s breasts. Made me wonder if Eve missed having those huge tits and outrageous ass, or if she liked this more petite form.

  It was simple curiosity that had me looking at the nude vyranes, but not wanting to look like I was gawking, I quickly turned away as I finally grabbed up the soap and started washing myself, done soaking for now. Eve and I passed the soap back and forth to each other, working in tandem cleaning each other without saying anything, just taking our time washing and massaging each other’s sore muscles.

  “Oh, oh right there, my neck, yeah that’s it.” I said as Eve worked out a particularly stubborn knot.

  “Here?”

  “A little lower.” I said, and Eve worked my muscles with her delicate fingers, the best masseuse I’ve ever known—better than the androids back on the Glorva Corp stations even, and much more loving. “Oh, that’s perfect.”

  Almana chuckled beside us, “You two have quite the interesting partnership.”

  I turned to see Almana was watching us with obvious interest, “You think so?”

  Almana nodded, “Vyranes in pretty much any kind of dangerous job who disclose their relationship can’t actively work together for fear of compromising safety protocols, and we continued with that for operations within the resistance. Honestly, I’m surprised the Imperial military doesn’t have a similar rule.”

  Kianna leaned over the barrier to my stall, “Adam and Eve are kind of a special case; we wouldn’t be able to succeed in our missions without them.” She offered, clearly trying to hide a smirk.

  Almana quirked up an eyebrow, “So because the two of you are such valuable resources, you’re allowed more freedoms than most soldiers?”

  I shrugged, and Eve swatted my shoulder lightly to stop me from moving so she could keep working the muscles, “Something like that.” I offered.

  I could see Almana was amused by us, but also curious—intrigued maybe.

  “And how long have the two of you been working together?” She asked.

  “Oh, a few years now.” I answered dismissively.

  Clearly I wasn’t dismissive enough, as Almana’s curiosity wasn’t dissuaded, “And how did the lone human from a pre-contact planet end up as the communications partner to a heavy weapon specialist on an Imperial special forces team?” She pressed.

  Eve moved to stand in front of me, working on my shoulder muscles now. She looked into my eyes and I could see she was clearly annoyed with Almana’s questions, and her gaze seemed like it was almost warning me of something, but she didn’t say anything now, not even with the secret vibrations. Perhaps she just wanted me to be cautious with the questions—or maybe she was jealous over the attention I was getting.

  I turned just my head to face to Almana, “As the lone human in the Empire, I didn’t have much I could offer, so I ended up joining the military. I’d say I had a rather unremarkable career, relegated to technical support roles most of the time, moving through varies units and deployments, never really leaving my mark on anything. Then during one particularly dull deployment on another frontier world, I crossed paths with the team and met Eve. I was just supposed to work as some guide around the local outposts, but Eve and I bonded right away, so she got her commanders to give me special permission to continue on with them for the mission. By the time it was all over, Eve fired her old communications technician and insisted I take the open position, and considering how…difficult Eve could be with all her old technicians, her commanders jumped at the chance to have her work with someone she actually got along with. Since then, we’ve been inseparable, and as our results speak for themselves, no one says anything about our relationship.” I explained, using our planned cover for our backstory.

  Eve smiled before me, “You make me sound rather insufferable.”

  I smirked, “To everyone else besides me, you kind of are.”

  Eve swatted my shoulder again, but she laughed while she did it.

  “Just like that, you get abducted from your pre-contact planet, join the Imperial military and luck into an incredible job thanks to this alien girl who was immediately taken with you? Sounds like that dumb human luck you were talking about.” Almana said, sounding a little surprised, maybe even a little doubtful.

  “What can I say?” I smiled and wrapped my arms around Eve’s waist, pulling her into an embrace as she melded right against me, “I’m incredibly lucky to have found my Evie.”

  Almana shrugged then, seeming to let go of her lingering doubts, “Well, even if you consider yourself quite fortunate, I can’t really blame her for being smitten with you.” She said mildly, and could see she gave me a quick, appreciative once-over.

  Mere curiosity, or was there another attractive alien woman who found the humans quite beautiful?

  Didn’t matter either way of course, Eve was the only girl for me, and I really did consider myself fortunate for having found her—or for her finding me. And really, it didn’t matter how attractive any other female was, no one would ever compare to my perfect mate, to my Evie.

  Still, I was creating a mental list for all the alien races I wanted Eve to transform into so I could fuck, and I decided to add the vyranes onto that list too.

  We all finished up our showers, everyone taking their time to enjoy the hot water as it was clear this could be the last hot shower we might get to enjoy for a while once we started on the freeway.

  Unfortunately, there wasn’t much privacy to be had anywhere else in the bunker. Kianna wanted to hang around with us, same with our escort Almana. We lounged in the casual fatigues for a little bit, but there really wasn’t much for us to do except hang out in the day room with all the other soldiers, most of whom were quite rowdy now, not really a relaxing scene to be around.

  In the end we decided to turn in early, and right way Eve pushed her cot beside mine so we could lie together. The others filtered into the room shortly after, completely eliminating any chance of privacy. It was obvious that was how things were going to be from now on, so I was thankful for the time we shared back in the hotel in Wesseran. But as we held each other there, enjoying each other’s embrace, I worried that would be the last of the little comforts of peace before we entered into the warzone on the way to destroy our next Predazoan target.

  Still, so long as I had my Evie with me, it was sure to be a thrilling adventure, and I believed I’d be able to survive without a few creature comforts—at least, I hoped.