Chapter 11

CHAPTER 11

A couple of days later, Seiwa couldn't avoid his job any longer, so he gave me a tablet of my own, kissed me like the nympho he was—not a complaint—and hopped off to work. I showered, dressed in brand new clothes, and used my tablet to guide me to the mess hall for breakfast. Now that I was thinking with my brain, I had a lot to think about and getting out of our sex dungeon seemed like the thing to do so I could get all that thinking done.

Standing in the doorway to the mess hall, I realized that I hadn't noticed just how big this ship was. While not that crowded at mid-morning, this one room set up with tables and chairs and buffet stations was about the size of a football field. It could probably accommodate about three hundred people. I kind of remembered reading that there were over two thousand crew members, so this had to be one of several mess halls on the ship. If they were all this big… Yeah, the entire size of the ship was blowing my mind. I had nothing to compare it to. A skyscraper? A battleship? But up in the sky over Cleveland, it looked like a toy.

"Did you just clue in to how big the ship is?"

I flinched and turned to see that I was blocking four men from coming into the room. I recognized all of them as the mates of various Norlons, each of whom had been featured for a while on one of the trashier websites that loved to speculate on what it might be like to be mated to a Norlon. And, look at me, I could now confirm the sites were actually really accurate.

"Hi. Um, yeah, I did." I moved into the mess hall so they could come in.

Prince consort Logan Parrish patted my shoulder. "Happens to all of us at some point. The size of the ship is usually after the omigod-I'm-in-space moment."

I chuckled and nodded since I'd been there, done that and gasped at Owen Devin walking in. He was the face of all my official, not smutty Norlon news since he broadcasted daily from somewhere on this ship down to the PBS News offices.

"Owen Devin," he said and put his hand out.

I shook it. "Yeah, I know. It's so cool to meet you."

"Aw, he's all star struck," another guy said with a Southern accent. Louisiana?

"Oh, you're Squire!" I said excitedly. "With the, um, volunteers."

"That's me. Nice to meet you, Ellis."

"Ellis," Owen said quietly with a nod.

"Shit, yeah, I'm sorry. I'm Ellis Cole." Good grief, I needed to calm the fuck down.

The last guy—bearded, a little older, and somehow familiar—stuck out his hand. "And I'm Quincy Boone."

I did not calm down and instead gasped and clasped his hand in both of mine. "Oh, my god, you're the Marine who saved that Cero guard! That whole thing with the car chase and his arm… Is he okay now?"

Quincy smiled and patted my hands. "Ram's great and his arm's as good as new."

I let him go and had to ask, "You're with the Norlon guard now, right?"

"I am, yeah. Sort of a consulting position, military to military."

"Right, okay, so… Is, like, the secretary of defense or someone like that coming after the Norlons for military tech? Like demanding it? Or are they letting the FBI do that for them?"

They all blinked at me.

"I've been in some of the meetings Seiwa was having with the FBI and NASA but got the feeling they weren't the only ones at the table, you know? Some of them wore suits but, like, would've felt more comfortable in a uniform?" I cleared my throat in the face of their continued staring. "I'm with— I mean, I was a research analyst with the FBI and they assigned me to watch Seiwa, so any meeting he was in, I was…there. You all have no idea what I'm talking about, huh?"

Logan suddenly barked a laugh. "Fuck me, you're going to be a fun addition to our club."

The rest of them laughed, too, and I joined in even though I wasn't completely sure what he meant.

"Let's get some breakfast," Quincy said, "and you can tell us all about everything."

So I did. While we moved from station to station getting every breakfast food imaginable, I told them about everything from the little robot to Stubbins' final demands. To hell with any and every piece of paper I'd ever signed that swore confidentiality and national security because, hello, I didn't work for the FBI anymore—probably—and was kind of a Norlish citizen now anyway. Was there a way to formally give up Earth citizenship?

Besides, if anyone was going to know what to do, it would be these guys.

Seiwa still wanted to hack the FBI, so he was out.

"Okay," Quincy said as we sat down with our trays around a boring table with six utilitarian chairs. "While I've been in a couple of meetings where they've asked about weaponry, they've rescinded their requests when we let them know that if we give weapons to one country, we give weapons to all of them."

I snorted a laugh. "And then you had meetings to tell them all that, no, they're not the exception."

Quincy pointed at me with his forkful of eggs. "Literally everyone had a reason why they should be exempt. But my point is that America isn't the only country with a space program or an investigative branch of the federal government."

"Oh," I said, drawing it out. "I didn't even think about that."

Owen said, "I bet the rest of the world has been thinking about it."

I cringed because, yeah, that was bad.

"They have," Logan said before sipping his coffee. "We've been getting a lot of…complaints."

I had a feeling there were some threats in there, too.

Squire tsk ed with a shake of his head. "You'd think the nanobots being distributed globally was enough to make everyone happy."

"Well, for some people it is." I couldn't help teasing with, "I know I'm thankful to them after three days alone with my new mate."

They all snickered and toasted me with their drinks.

"That doesn't stop, you know," Logan said with a grin.

"No?"

"Nope. As the elder mate of this group?—"

Owen interrupted with, "Because they've been together for a whopping three months."

Logan rolled his eyes. "I can confirm that we are as athletic and enthusiastic now as we were at the beginning."

"Same," Owen said.

Squire was chewing, but he nodded and held his hands up as he did a little dance.

"My mate," Quincy said, "has a self-thrusting cock. I will never not hop on that thing every chance I get."

That revelation startled a laugh out of the rest of us, and I'm pretty sure we all paused to imagine it for a moment.

Owen cleared his throat. "Back to the task at hand, what if the commander could provide something like the nanobots that was actually for everyone?"

I frowned at him. "The nanobots aren't for everyone?"

"Well, no. Some people don't need them."

"And they can't help other people," Quincy added and knocked his knuckles on his thigh.

Right, I remembered now that Quincy had a prosthetic leg and the nanobots couldn't help with injuries like that if they weren't brand new.

"Okay," I said, "so something that wouldn't hurt anyone—obviously—but that could benefit literally everyone on the entire planet."

"Yeah, like…" Squire looked down at his plate. "A food maybe? Something easy to grow anywhere?"

"A way to easily make clean water?" Logan offered.

Quincy pointed at Logan. "Like from saltwater."

"Or a new way," Owen offered, "to make something that isn't environmentally friendly now but could be if we made it the Norlon way."

"Oh!" Squire exclaimed. "Did you know they grow the rock used to make their buildings on Nor? And when it's cut really thin, it's flexible enough to also use to make ships like this? They grow it in all sizes and shapes for each individual project."

"Well, damn, that's cool." I thought about that for a second. "Actually, that's something that might make both NASA and the FBI happy. You know? They asked for tech, but that's kind of close."

"And," Logan added, "once they learn how to make the engines and fuel and whatever else, they'll have the stuff to make the ships ready to go."

"Fuel," Squire said. "Lord, I can't tell you how often I was stuck walking somewhere because I couldn't afford to put more'n a gallon or two in my car. And the Norlons are out here making theirs from sea water."

"Hold on," I set my fork down with a clink. "They're making fuel— rocket fuel —from sea water?"

Squire gazed warily back at me and nodded.

"They could still gate-keep that," Quincy said as he munched his toast. "Not everyone lives near the coast and can scoop up a gallon of saltwater because they need to go to the grocery store two towns over."

"And if you can't make it in your kitchen," I said with a nod.

Logan added, "Plus, what about converting all the engines to use the new fuel?"

"It would get everybody out of the Middle East, though," Owen said with a one-shoulder shrug.

My mind was racing with the possibilities. "Adding pumps to the nanobot distribution centers could be a thing, couldn't it? They've got lots of them all over the place and could add more. Then they control the production and distribution."

"The engines, though," Logan reminded me.

"Sure, but if the fix is easy and any mechanic could do it…"

"They'd want to get paid," Quincy said. "Some people would be shut out of it then."

I sighed and we sat in silence for a while then, finishing our breakfasts. The food was actually really good. I hadn't expected much, equating it to being on a plane, but it was tasty stuff.

"They're not using, like, food synthesizers, are they?" I asked the table in general.

Logan shook his head. "No, nothing so sci-fi. There are cooks and bakers and all that using supplies from Nor." He huffed a laugh and looked a little embarrassed. "Sometimes they'll get stuff from the surface, too. I once said I missed peanut butter and…" He gestured to his half-eaten piece of toast with peanut butter on it.

I chuckled, pretty sure Seiwa would do something similar for me.

"Well," Quincy said, "I need to get going, but I'm hoping we helped somehow."

I nodded. "You've given me a lot to think about. I'll see if anything appeals to Seiwa and if any of it is possible with the stipulation that it won't be something anyone could keep away from anyone else."

Before we all went our separate ways, I made sure to link with each of them on my tablet. Logan immediately added me to the equivalent of a group text called Human Mates Support Group wherein the last conversation was about whether you could overdose on nanobots if you had a particularly vigorous weekend with your horny mate. Squire had assured everyone that you couldn't since the brothel his mate owned on Nor used that stuff by the gallon for the workers.

I chuckled over the other conversations they'd had before switching over to send a message to Seiwa. He was working on something important somewhere, but I wanted to see if I could talk to him now, while the information was fresh on my mind. The thing to give humans, that was, not the lube.