Based on his PT sessions, he was taking VERY well to his new essence-handling system. Watching his ‘sparring’ sessions with the troopers was like watching a deadly, beautiful dance. I knew he was powerful before, but now that he wasn’t fighting his own body, every movement was fluid, efficient, and forced you to forget the map of scars that covered him.

  If it weren’t for the fact that his achieving a gold core and purifying his form would put him forever, cosmically beyond my reach, I’d be cheering for it. The thought of him becoming an even more perfected version of himself, one I could appreciate even more… No. Stop it, Roisin.

  Yeah, no. Things were simply not lining up. Better to focus on the goal: my own ship, my own command. Avoid bonding altogether. I was already a spiritual Journeyman, which was strong enough to resist all but the most determined forced bonding.

  If I could get to Adept or Master someday, even forced bonding would be nearly impossible, and likely deadly for the one attempting it. Some Maenads gained that kind of mental fortitude, becoming examples of overcoming our genetic weaknesses—honorable, if ultimately lonely, legends.

  Bonded Maenads were always stronger than unbonded ones; that was one of the few upsides to our vulnerability. But they only achieved Gold Core and beyond with their bonded partner. The unbonded? We had to claw our way there entirely on our own.

  The elf clutched at his chest dramatically. “You wound me! Perhaps that wound could be healed if you were to allow me to do some sort of favor for you. Just before we leave, I have a shipment of both Gimdar cores and Median ganosh truffles… if you would deign to share them with me, I might survive the injury…”

  I sighed and shook my head, sending Scratcher back to his charging bay with a mental command. “First Class Petty Officer Dienne-Lar, if the ship’s stores include a shipment of Gimdar Cores, I am almost certain you won’t have exclusive rights to them. Allocation will be based on the needs of upcoming conflicts. And unfortunately, I could never accept Median ganosh truffles. I am violently allergic to chocolate. I doubt you’d appreciate me projectile vomiting my lunch onto your undoubtedly expensive shoes.”

  He actually looked serious for a moment, a surprisingly better look on him than the indolent, cover-model pose he usually affected. “May I ask you a serious question?”

  I nodded, calling forth a smaller, bipedal golem from its pod. “Of course,” I said, as I began inspecting its articulated finger joints.

  “Look, I get that you might be upset that I didn’t pay attention to you before your… Chrysalis,” he began, sitting down cross-legged on the deck, ignoring the potential for grime. “But to be fair, I didn’t even realize you were female. And I don’t believe for one second you are only interested in women. I saw how glued you were to Wasserman in the loading bay. You looked at him like you wanted to eat him for dessert. You have truly… blossomed since then, and I am honestly interested. But you are really, really cold. You never unbend professionally, you never use my nickname or call-sign, and I just… I really don’t understand.”

  He spread his hands. “Is it because I am an elf? I know there’s been bad blood between some breeds in the past, especially if you are half-goblin, like Braxis says. I don’t hold to that lower races philosophy crap. Anyone can ascend; it’s just supremacist garbage. Or…” he leaned forward slightly, his voice dropping. “Is there someone else? I don’t mean to offend or come across as a homewrecker. I just… really want to know.”

  I sighed, putting down my tools. Maybe honesty, or a version of it, was the best policy here. “Honestly, you should have tried leveling with me like this in the first place. The whole ‘I am too gorgeous to be ignored’ flirting act creeps me out. In my experience, that’s predator behavior. I don’t mean to be cold, but it might be easier to think of me like the XO. My breed is attracted to auras, not bodies. Compatible and reinforcing affinities. Your sorcery and my spiritualism are incompatible. They mix like oil and water, and my hormones know it. To me, you are about as exciting as one of my drones.”

  I offered a slight, apologetic shrug. “It’s not meant as an insult. Obviously, you are aesthetically beautiful, but it’s like a painting or a symphony. You can appreciate it, but you don’t want to try to have sex with it.”

  He chuckled, a genuine sound of amusement. “Is this the part where you give me the ‘It’s not you, it’s me’ speech?”

  I shook my head. “It’s not really me either. It’s the whole genemod package. I would like to be friends with you, but to do that, you have to stop treating me like a conquest. I almost wish I hadn’t matured; things were a lot simpler. As much as we might wish otherwise, we are simply… biologically incompatible.”

  It wasn't the full truth, but it wasn't a lie either. His aura was incompatible with bonding. And without that deep, spiritual pull, I just had no interest… at least, nothing that could compete with the gravitational pull of a certain damaged paladin.

  He nodded slowly, then a mischievous glint appeared in his eye. “I take it your… uhh… gremlins, don’t just do it for fun?”

  That earned him a full-on glare. “Petty Officer First Class Dienne-Lar. I am a good, God-fearing Church girl, and a virgin. I will NOT ‘just have fun’ without being married first, and I don’t play the loophole game either. Even without ascension, I will live almost as long as you will, and my species life-mates. I will NOT have that potential ruined by casual ‘fun’ that could wreck the rest of my existence.”

  He was holding up his hands in immediate surrender, actually backing away a little on the floor. “Whoa. Okay. I honestly didn’t realize your breed was lifematers. Forget I asked. Uhh… I am not ready to become a lifemate myself. Actually, I’m only a hundred and fifty. Just a kid, really, barely old enough to join up.”

  Huh. The whole lifemate thing seemed to have genuinely spooked him. Was it some kind of elven cultural landmine? Hooking up with a lifemate meant you were signing on for the long, long haul, and you couldn’t just wait for them to die of old age in a few decades… he looked genuinely terrified for a moment before his customary semi-arrogant confidence reasserted itself.

  I was tempted to press the advantage, to be flirtatious myself and really watch him squirm, but that would be cruel, and he’d likely see through the act instantly.

  I offered a small, genuine smile. “I really am allergic to chocolate, though. I think it was actually modded in intentionally. My world had elves too—they call themselves charlottes, after the arcology they were first modded in—but every once in a while we had… weirdness. Elves LOVE chocolate, and sometimes they just don’t… get… that what they consider a transcendent culinary experience is literal poison to someone else.”

  The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  He snorted, relaxing again. “Yeah, I know my kind. Well, the elders. They live a really, really long time, and sometimes they forget that not everyone is elven. They tend to get… offensive about what they consider the shortcomings of shorter-lived races. Me?”

  He grinned. “I love them. They are more… in-the-moment. They live harder, faster lives, and do everything with an energy and excitement I can’t help but find infectious. Especially the girls. I mean, a human girl can fall in love, go crazy in bed, have huge reams of drama, fall out and back into love two or three times, become worst enemies, turn into best friends, and then move on with her life in the span of a few months. It’s exhilarating.”

  “With your chrysalis, and how quickly you went from something that looked like a goblin to someone that looks like… well, that,” he said, motioning vaguely at me, “I thought you were even quicker than that. A mayfly. I apologize for the misjudgment.”

  “Someone that looks like that?” I asked, one eyebrow raised.

  He nodded. “Yes. You went from looking like a… well, a humanoid frog, to looking like some kind of fey princess faster than the old legends, like you were kissed by a prince. I’d never heard of a gremlin before. I thought it was a goblin subspecies that turned into a sexy woman overnight.”

  I sighed and shrugged, turning back to my golem. “You don’t have to pretend. I know full well what I look like, but I do appreciate the backhanded compliment. And in answer to your previous question, yes, there’s someone I resonate with. But it’s not going to happen.”

  “The warrant officer?” He blinked. “Lord, he’s like a wrecked hoverbus. Err… sorry, no offense intended. But the two of you… It boggles the imagination.”

  I snorted. This was more familiar ground. Lighthearted insults were the bedrock of military social interaction. “I get it. Now your mind can’t unsee it. Just imagine me naked on top of him, licking my way from scar to scar, my ears flopping like handlebars as I—”

  “No! Scrot, woman. You are vicious.” He laughed, a real, unforced laugh. “Are you going to lifemate with him? He’s a baseline, I think, or a low-mod. That could cause some problems in the long, long run, but some elves have done it before.”

  I shook my head firmly. “Of course not. I mean, there’s a bunch of reasons. Our rank, for example.”

  He watched me work, seemingly content to just talk now that the pressure was off. “That’s not impossible. Sure, you’re not even copper yet, but with our op-tempo, base metals pass REALLY quickly. I came in as a tin. The only reason I’m only a high copper is because we kept running into a string of high-tech rifts and had to pull in for a major refit after a bad run, only three months after I got on board. If we’d stayed out? I’d probably be knocking on orichalcum by now. Once you’re both past condensation and into foundation, the power difference matters less. It’s only between full mortals and foundation-stage cultivators that you have real problems. But you already said you can live as long as an elf.”

  “Not that kind of rank,” I said, my voice soft. “Military rank.”

  “Oh,” he said, understanding dawning. “Because of the whole fraternization thing?” He grinned. “This is the Crow. The rules are… different here.”

  I looked at him, my interest genuinely piqued. “What do you mean?”

  He sighed, as if explaining something obvious. “Look, it’s like this. The rules exist for two reasons. The first is to keep a senior from taking advantage of a junior. That crap happens all the time in the regular Fleet, regulations or not. Here, we have the rules, but what they mean in practice is that the junior kinda has to be the clear aggressor. They have to be, or you could screw over the senior for abusing their power, even if it was consensual.”

  “The second reason is that Fleet advancement is based on commendations and politics, not always pure merit. Some Valkyrie ships are like that, too, but most are just civilian vessels hosting delver teams. Hell, we’re practically in that category ourselves. But our XO is a Taer. Advancement here is based exclusively on merit and her recommendation, and the Captain’s. We have a tiny crew, barely two hundred people. Once you start fighting side-by-side in the rifts, bleeding together, little things like rank don’t matter anymore socially. You’re the person watching my back.”

  He glanced around the bay. “In a place like this, when we’re in port interacting with the regular Fleet? We have to play the game, wear the uniforms, salute the idiots. But once we are underway, the wardroom closes up. Troopers, officers, enlisted… we are all just warriors. The only one who stands truly apart is the Captain, but that’s because she is basically God while we’re underway. She might have to make the hard choice to sacrifice us all. Making close friends with people you might have to order to their deaths would destroy her. That’s why you’ll probably never meet her in person unless you scrot up spectacularly and get sent to mast, since we don’t stand bridge watches.”

  He grinned his trademark grin. “Do you really think I restrict myself to exclusively girls my own rank, who don’t work in my division? For a whole year at a time? Yikes! As long as we keep the drama to a minimum, things tend to work out. Having an empath for an XO keeps things on a surprisingly even keel. There are a couple of women on board I avoid like the plague specifically because Commander Taera pulled me aside and told me it would end in tears or blood. With you, she just laughed and told me to give it my best shot.”

  My mind was reeling. An open-door policy? Socializing allowed? “She… told you to flirt with me?”

  “She has an open-door policy, and she’s serious about it,” he confirmed. “When bad things happen—and they will, when friends die in rifts, when your heart breaks—she is there to help you through it. The reason we had that refit where I got stuck was because a soul-wailer caught us by surprise. It tore up half the crew, killed and drained twelve people, including the two droners you replaced. They were a couple. Lifebonded wolfkin. The wailer got one; the other killed herself after. It also got both the flight lieutenant and the primary drop officer. Braxis is hot shit and refused a commission, so they decided to roll the officer’s duties into whoever replaced the lieutenant.”

  I was paying rapt attention. This was the real, unvarnished truth of service on a ship like the Crow, the stuff they didn’t cover in manuals or training sims. But my focus kept snagging on the first part of what he’d said. “So… we are allowed to be social with the troopers? With… anyone?”

  He nodded emphatically. “You had better be! Look. We are a light drone carrier. Our offense, our defense, even our ability to run away, is based entirely on the eight of us droners, or rather the five droners and three golemists, and our rate of advancement. That means ANY time we hit a rift, they push us onto the drop teams! We are the elite in space; we’re the sword, the shield, the armor, and the feet. Heck, after that gremlin-in-the-engines stunt, you’re probably more the ‘feet’ than the rest of us.”

  “You need to make friends with them. All of them. Ask them stupid questions, work out with them if you can handle the gravity, ask to see their family photos, share your rations. Snuggle up with them on watch if they’ll let you. They are the ones in the rifts who are the true elite, just like we are in the void. They are what stands between us and a rift monster eating our guts for breakfast. You want them to LOVE you. Literally, figuratively, whatever it takes. If they decide we die in a rift, we die. It’s probably best to wait until we’re underway to declare your undying love to your warrant officer, but even if it flops, you'd better be friends with him. Your life depends on it.”

  He stood up, brushing off his immaculate uniform. “Just remember that when we’re playing with the Fleet, we need to act Fleet. I am Dienne, but when we’re in drydock or have Fleet brass onboard, I am Petty Officer First Class Dienne-Lar. Princess is Midshipman Princeton, and Taera is Commander Taera or ‘the XO.’ The rest of the time? If you don’t want to get personal, you use their call signs or nicknames if they have them. Although the Captain is always ‘the Captain’ or ‘Captain Timur.’”

  He gave me a final, unreadable look. “Think about it, Gabby. Your life here doesn’t have to be as lonely as you’re making it.” With that, he turned and left me alone in the bay with my golems and my whirling thoughts.

  Huh.

  So not only did I have a chance to get to know what Chief Warrant Officer Wasserman was really like, to find out his goals and missions… I was practically obligated to do so.

  The thought was equal parts thrilling and utterly terrifying.