Pirate's Bane; Black Star
Chapter 11; Revelations

Coreance’s eyes were already near to as large as tea saucers but at Alex saying that she would waist anytime in telling her captain that the two men they had just rescued could be something other than soldiers made no sense. Alex is still looking into her cup as she had been for the majority of their time together in this place. “I just don’t understand.”

“What don’t you understand?” She asks of her glass.

“If you had any information about the soldiers that you had saved why did you sit on it as you humans say?”

Alex stops her hands and looks up from the water that so fully held her attention for the majority of this interrogation, or so it seems, she is beginning to worry that she knows what that scan from the bathroom has revealed. Focusing on the swirl of the water in the cup is the only thing that is keeping her from falling apart from the visions that the memories brought to mind. She looks up at Coreance and clears her minds of the memories, but it hurts her to try and wipe the image of Lerra lying asleep in the bed beside her from her mind, she never wants to be without that sight if she cannot be with Lerra herself. She had caressed every curve of her body with her eyes, memorizing each and every inch of her form and thanks to her implant she could review every inch of her just by closing her eyes.

Sometime in the night she had rolled and the thin sheet they shared and slipped off her chest and bunched up around her waist. The willow like branches that pass as her hair pooled around her shoulders, she had ran her hands through them enough times to know their warmth, their softness, they move and act like real hair only they had tiny leaves sprouting from them like the leaves of a thyme bush and had the bright green of fresh spring growth, they never seemed to tangle no matter how much she played with it and they did not threaten to cut into her skin when she wrapped them around her finger. Her lips were pursed slightly as she breathed slowly and steadily in a depth of her soothing dream, they looked so much like they did before she kissed her that she had to fight the urge to lean forward and press her lips to Lerra and taste their sweetness and wish once more that her lips were like hers with their natural cherry like crimson and shine. Through those pursed lips air came in to slowly fill her lungs and caused her chest to raise and fall with the slow pace of her breath, her bust was already ample and would temp even a priest sworn to a life free of women they only grew larger as she breathed in to fill her lungs and returned to their merrily mesmerizing size when she breathed out the lung full of sweet rose scented breath. As the sheets had bunched up at her hips her eyes fallowed the curve of her frame to the depression of her waist, when she wasn’t covered in engine grease and muck she was a beauty, she wasn’t much less of one cover in filth and sweating either but she just looked so much better when she was clean and the natural pale green of her skin with her freckles of darker green made her look like a mystical creature and Alex could not believe her luck at being able to sleep with such a beauty as Lerra.

It hurt to even think about trying to wipe the image of her from her mind and in the end she wasn’t able to, there was a chance that Lerra would live, but there was also a chance that she might die on the medical table. In the end she speaks even though she sees Lerra and not Coreance. “I didn’t know if I should have.”

“If you don’t mind I have a theory that might explain it.” She does not speak a response but nods her acquiescence. “I believe you were worried that your actions would be the cause of those men’s deaths.”

Alex looks down at the water in her cup again to think. “I guess so.” She only halfway admits to him thought she still does not believe it completely, yet.

“You are still haunted by the ghosts of the Iowa.” He continues. “It only makes sense that you would fear causing the deaths of anyone after being vilified for killing before. Is self-preservation not part of human nature?”

“Yet here I am again being vilified for one more death.” Alex says as if she is about to cry, absently rubbing her hand over her stomach.

“You are here to clear yourself and as far as I am concerned you have,” Coreance tells her yet she does not react, “I don’t believe that you could speak the way you do of Lerra and not have loved her, no that is wrong you do love her. And at the same time I think you are greatly haunted by what happened on the Iowa.”

“Would you still be haunted by something like the Iowa?” She asks to her cup.

“In all honesty,” Coreance admits, “I wouldn’t even try to think that I have tried to live with anything near to one tenth as bad as the Iowa but I do understand what you’re saying to some extent. You were a soldier, and you were trained to kill but as a navigator you would never have had to use a gun if you were lucky, yet you admitted to have been cleaning and preparing you shotgun for a fight you hoped would not come. Somewhere in the back of your mind you were preparing for war.”

“Training is hard to kill.”

“Indeed.”

“Do you want me to continue?” She asks looking at Coreance over the lip of her cup.

“Yes, but…” Coreance takes a deep calming breath to prepare himself before continuing though Alex has a good idea what Coreance wants to tell her, it had been on her mind ever since the scan with the toilet. “We must talk first.”

“I think I know what you want to talk to me about.” She puts down the cup and looks down at her stomach and her hand still on it. “You have the scan results don’t you?” She doesn’t need him to answer her since she already knows, she had seen it in his eyes the moment he got the news. “They say I’m pregnant right? The baby’s Lerra, it has to be, it’s our daughter.”

“You knew?” He asks.

“No but you just told me.”

“If you would like we could finish this in your cell.”

“I don’t want anyone but you to know what happened next.”

“What happened?”

The next morning when we woke I still didn’t want to confront James with what I found. I woke up first and took a moment to fill my eyes with Lerra’s beauty before I moved to wake her, the sheet had fallen off her chest in the night exposing her from her navel up. I slid forward until my body was mere inches from hers and slid my hands under the sheet around her waist until I was hugging her and then I leaned forward pressing my breasts against hers and pressed her lips against my own. Before she opened her eyes to wrap her arms around my waist and pulled me tighter to her as she kissed me back I made a silent prayer to a god I didn’t even believe in hoping that nothing bad would ever happen to her, I guess I didn’t pray hard enough huh? I didn’t want to leave that bed, or that kiss but she broke away from me and captured my eyes with her own.

“We have things to do today.” She cooed to me and I groaned as my answer. “I know, I know, and believe me I would prefer to stay in this bed with you, but James needs to know what you found out.”

“Do we have to?” I groaned again burying my face in my pillow and covering my ears with the sides.

Lerra just giggled at me and kissed the back of my neck before rolling off the bed and patting my ass. “Come on.” She said jostling me on the bed. I finally took my face out of the pillow and glanced over at her, or I had only planed on doing that but once I saw her my eyes stayed totally focused on her. For the most part she had her back to me but she was completely and totally naked so my eyes were filled to the brim with her silhouette, gliding over the curves and rise of her breasts and all the curves of her body, especially the peach shape of her ass as she bent over to retrieve the underwear we had thrown on the ground the night before and tossed mine on top of my back before she pulled on her own pair of boxers, they weren’t the sexiest things but by the same note neither were mine. The cloth slid over the hills of her butt exactly opposite to how my hands had the night before when I stripped them off of her. She kicked a few of the random pieces of clothing around the floor until she found her bra, it was plan like her boxers but the shear act of her wearing made them look elegant and beautiful. Her undergarments on she reached into the clothing on the floor and found her coveralls and pulled them on over her legs and slipped her arms into the sleeves though she stopped short of zipping it up all the way, leaving her chest exposed from the top of her belly button up, showing off the straps of her bra and the curve of the muscles in her chest, all eight of her abs just barely showing. She only did it to force me out of bed because I knew she would be happy to walk through the halls like that and I would in turn be so jealous of anyone who even thought to look at her that I would either punch them in the face or throw a towel over her to cover her up so she left it down so that I would zip it up and stop either from happening. Sadly it worked just as she had planned cause I rolled out of bed and walked over to her, still as naked as the day I was born, and took a firm hold of the zipper and pulled it up to her neck with my lips pressed to hers and my eyes focused on hers as they sparkled with mischief, even half lidded due to our kiss just like mine.

“Jealous, aren’t you?” She teased.

“You are mine,” I said possessively with a little growl in my throat as I pulled her against my chest by her collar and held her there, “that means that only I get to see you like that.” Her eyes were so playful I almost wanted to pull her back into the bed and make love to her again. I might just have if she hadn’t began to laugh. “Stop that.” I told her walking away from her under the guise of getting dressed myself.

“I’m sorry,” she said walking up behind me wrapping her arms around my waist and kissing me on my neck, “it’s just that you look so cute when you act all serious, you get a cute little wrinkle between your eyes.”

I rolled my eyes and took her hand off my waist so I could bend over and went back to getting dressed, or more I should say got so far as to putting on my underwear before I stupidly stood up and Lerra wrapped her arms around my waist and her hands over mine lacing her fingers between my own and kissing the back of my neck, again. “I thought we had things to do?” I said leaning into her kiss, involuntarily.

“We do.” She said rubbing my hips and caressing my neck with her lips. “But it can wait a little bit longer.”

“You’re incorrigible.” I told her as her lips bounced their way down my spine to my shoulder blades. “And you’re also a hypocrite, would you give me my bra?”

“Only if I can put it on you.” She pried kissing from my neck to my shoulder and pressed her hands on the muscles of my stomach pushing them down toward my groin but keeping above the line of my panties.

“Alright.” I conceded as she put pressure on my body from behind and in front. I should have known that she had already had my bra in hand since she just pulled it around my bust, just under my breasts and feed my arms through the holes until she kissed her way up both of my shoulders as she slide the straps up to fallow. She kissed down the length of my spine from the base of my neck to where the straps would connect to close me in and clipped it shut. I put my hand on her head and pressed it and her lips into my shoulder. “We really have other things to do today Lerra.” I whined though I wanted to say anything else. “So I need to get dressed.”

“Here,” she said putting my shirt on my free shoulder while still kissing the other, “I’m not going to keep you from getting dressing, it’ll be just that much more fun getting you undressed later.”

I rolled my eyes and released her head before I stepped away from her and began to get dressed, I pulling my tank top on over my head and reaching down to pull on my pants and buckle them tight with my belt. Dressed that much before I sat back on my bed and pulled on my boots and a light jacked over that, the same stuff you found me in, before I could get up from the bed though Lerra trapped me between her arms and under her body before leaning forward to plant one more kiss on my lips. “No matter what happens with James I want you to know that I love you.”

I looked into her eyes and said. “I love you too, anywhere you go I go.”

“Same thing goes for me sweetheart.” She said kissing me one more time before letting me up off the bed. “If you leave this ship I’m coming with you.”

“What about this ship, I thought you practically help build it?”

“I did but I can replace another to work on easy enough and one that has you to.” I cried at that and she brushed the tear away with her thumb. “I love you that much Alex.” She reached her hand down and helped pull me up to me feet by mine but didn’t let go. “So we’re going to do this together, alright.”

I gave her hand a squeeze back and held on tight. For the first time we walked through the ship hand in hand not afraid of who saw us and made our way first to James’s quarters but he was not there so we went to the cockpit and found him preparing to release us from our anchorage on the asteroid. With on last switch we fell back into the empty embrace of space, the anchors released and coiling back into their holding areas. Before he started us moving I got his attention with a cough.

“What the hell is wrong with you?’ He asked turning his chair around. “Lerra didn’t keep you warm enough at night or something?”

“Shut up and listen to her you damn idiot.” She snapped at him.

“Alright,” he said cautiously, “what do you want to say?”

I crossed my arms over my chest trying to look as imposing as I could and spoke up. “I have some information.”

“Alright,” he said leaning back in his chair, “so spill already.”

“Those soldiers we saved…”

“You saved,” he snapped slamming his fist into the side of his chair and rushing forward, “I try to stay away from both Alliances as much as possible.”

“Who cares who saved who you idiot,” I snapped back, “just listen to me they aren’t soldiers of either Alliance.”

James rolled his eyes at that. “I may not be Alliance anymore but I still know what an Alliance uniform looks like.” He focused on me with a glare like pulse fire. “I also know what Alliance guns look like, just like how I know what Alliance shuttles look like. They had all three and I needn’t remind you that I didn’t want anything to do with them in the first place.”

“Look you arrogant self-centered piece of shit,” I yelled at him, my patience done with being talked down on, “my H.N.I. locked onto their distress signal and then linked with the one in their ship locking them on to our coordinates and vice versa! I didn’t go looking for them we just stumbled onto the detection range of their H.N.I. and they called me first, I didn’t break radio silence until they called me! By that time our location was blown, anyone within scanning range would have been able to pinpoint us through their communication signal, me calling them and then us saving them does change anything!”

“You should have just blown them out of the void! Two damn shots with the cannon would have saved us a shit load of trouble and headaches!” He yelled back slamming his fist into the armrest of his chair. ”Bang, Bang, and we’d all be a whole hell of a lot safer!”

“What the hell do you want me to be a, damn murder?” I yelled. “I don’t kill people!”

“If that keeps us alive, yes!” He yelled back. “I want you to be a murder!”

I actual started to ball my hands into fists so tight that my nails began to cut into my palms, I was about to punch him in the face, and more than once, if I had my shotgun I might have shot him but lucky for him I didn’t have it. I would have done it to but Lerra stopped me with a hand on my shoulder and a tender look in her eyes. “Alex calm down, take a deep breath and calm down, sometimes he’s just not worth it.” She commanded so softly that I was sure that only I had heard her and I fallowed those commands like a soldier fallowing the orders of a commanding officer. “Good,” she said when she felt the muscles of my arm relax and my fists uncurled enough that I wasn’t stabbing myself with my own finger nails, “now tell him what you told me last night, I don’t think he will believe you otherwise.”

“What the hell should she tell me?” He snapped at her and I felt my nails dig into my palms again, he could insult me all he wanted but to insult Lerra caused me to want to shot him out the airlock after I punched him black and blue and put a deer slug in his stomach. “I know you two have been sleeping together, I’ve known about that for a few days, hell I’ve already talked to her about it so what’s so damn important?”

“She not talking about us fucking you fucker!” I yelled.

“Alex.” Lerra said firmly and I felt myself relax a little.

“Then what the hell did she mean?” James asked only a hair shy of a yell.

I took a deep breath and steadied myself to tell a truth I wanted only to hide. “My name is not Alexis Monrow.” I admitted somberly.

“That was obvious enough, you flinch slightly every time someone but Lerra calls you Alex, it’s like you’re waiting for the cops to pick you up for just being alive.”

I snorted but decided it was better to continue that snap at him again. “My real name is Alexandria Maxima Perez, you might remember me as Lieutenant Alex Perez of the Iowa.”

“You’re the Butcher of Iowa?” He growled at me.

This time Lerra couldn’t stop me fast enough and I stomped forward before Lerra caught me with an arm across my chest that only grabbed empty recycled air. “Don’t you dare even think about calling me that? I’m not some damn mass murderer!”

“What the hell else should I call you?” He spat at me. “You killed twenty five humans along with all of those Zarinian commandoes. I’ve been flying thought Black Space on a Black Hole Run with a god damn mass murdering bitch. Oh yeah a mass murderer who is legally entitled to take my ship if she kills me, and you Lerra, are you telling me you knew about this and didn’t tell me. Hell you were fucking the bitch and you knew who she was. What, were you planning to just sit back and let her kill me and take my ship and live together like Bonnie and Clyde or something?”

Lerra glared at him hot enough to light him on fire. “Your people may hate Alex but I owe her my life, I’ve told you that before you son of a bitch.”

“And back when you told me that I told you were completely fucking crazy!”

“Look,” I snapped, “I don’t give a damn what you think about me, just listen to me and leave Lerra alone.”

“Why the hell should I listen to anything you have to say, I should call the Alliance and leave you floating anchored to a damn rock.”

“Like I’ve been trying to tell you, you goddamn fool those guys aren’t who they say they are and I told you the truth about me they didn’t do the same about themselves.”

“James just get your head out of your ass and check them out.” Lerra demanded.

He got out of his chair and took the gun from the holster on his hip making a show of cocking it. “I’m not going to do this for her but I will for you Lerra if only because of our history together but when I get back no matter what I replace out you,” he pointed the gun at me, “and I are going to talk long and hard about you lying to me.” He turned to the door and stomped out of the cockpit, turning to glare at me as the door slid shut behind him.

“I’ll be waiting.” I said hugging myself and shivering as if I stood naked on an ice planet, if Lerra hadn’t hugged me to keep me strong I would have broken down and cried like a baby right there, I think I might have when she hugged me.