Bluebird's Schadenfreude Mode

[Doctor Azure]

The Chiss stared into his coffee cup, drinking a bit before he said anything back to Rawnie. Then he very deliberately put the cup down and nudged over on the counter so he could sit closer to her.​

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"I'm not joking. You're cute, funny, and you seem to be interested in me for some reason. The only thing stopping me from literally just leaning over and kissing you has been my own stupid lack of a spine."​

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[member="Rawnie Tal'verda"]​

 

[Rawnie Tal'verda]

Rawnie went silent as the grave. She moved aside to let him sit next to her, feeling like a stupid kid. This would be less awkward if she wasn't wearing a bra and a pair of leather pants. She really shouldn't have been so stubborn this morning. But she wasn't actually blushing right now. She was thinking really, really, hard.

Okay. So he wasn't joking. What did that mean then? Well, it meant they had a mutual attraction. That didn't seem bad at all. No. So why was she just sitting there? Alright. She'd figured it out now.

"Alright then, my little blue coward. I'll go first."

She was smiling as she put a hand to his cheek to guide his face to hers.

[member="Doctor Azure"]

 

[Doctor Azure]

"Coward, huh? Proving you wrong will be fun, I guess."​

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Lorane pulled Rawnie into a kiss, leaning an arm on the counter so they wouldn't fall off. She felt so warm, and she smelled good, even though he'd almost literally dragged her out of bed. And... wow... he hadn't expected her to feel soft. He held her as close as he could with one arm, feeling like his brain was short circuiting.​

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[member="Rawnie Tal'verda"]​

 

[Rawnie Tal'verda]

Fething finally. Okay. So she hadn't really been waiting for this. She honestly hadn't seen this one coming at all. But when their lips met, she was wondering why she hadn't expected it. It seemed so obvious now that she was in his arms. Her hands fell from his face to his shoulders, snaking up to drape around the back of his neck. Sweet force... This would make their partnership awkward if they ended up being incompatible sexually. Nah. She didn't have to think about that right now. She had little enough experience that just about everyone was incompatible.

[member="Doctor Azure"]

 

[Doctor Azure]

Lorane slowly slid off the counter, picking Rawnie up far less awkwardly than before. His arms were around her waist as he stumbled backwards out of the kitchen, and into the living room. With absolutely no attention to his surroundings, he fell over the arm of the couch and landed, with the blonde girl on top of him. He breathed hard as he laid there, and then smiled more happily than he ever had in his life.​

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"You're an amazing girl, Rawnie."​

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[member="Rawnie Tal'verda"]​

 

[Rawnie Tal'verda]

She was on top of him now. This could go fast. Too fast. Might be a mistake. A wave of panic washed over her. What if -?
He smiled. She smiled back. It was alright.

"You're an amazing kisser, " she complemented back.

[member="Doctor Azure"]

 

[Rusty]

"Well, this is awkward."

Rusty wasn't entirely sure about the details of the contract, only that someone had heard of his work and wanted him to consult on a project. The contract had been sparse on specifics. He was supposed to meet a ship named Bluebird in the spaceport at a certain time and hope it wasn't a trap. Not that he had really given anyone any reason to kill him recently, but a little healthy paranoia went a long was in the Shard's preferred line of work.

The boarding ramp was down when he got there. No hails on the comm, warnings to stop or die, so on and so forth. The Shard figured the owner was expecting him, and strolled up the ramp like he owned the place. It was either that or sit out in the open like an idiot/target, and he wasn't overly fond of either of those options.

His audioreceptors picked up the faint sounds of conversation coming from the galley, so that seemed like a good place to start. Unfortunaely, it was also accompanied by the sounds of what could have been a fight.

Rusty unlimbered his revolver and stalked cautiously down the corridors, only to find what appeared to be a Chiss and a half naked human woman locked in a tight embrace. Well then.

[member="Doctor Azure"]
[member="Rawnie Tal'verda"]

 

[Doctor Azure]

"You're pretty good yourse-"​

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Lorane looked away from Rawnie, to the source of the metallic footsteps. Having the blonde girl on top of him didn't embarrass him too much. He was way too happy to have actually expressed his feelings towards her to feel embarrassed about the situation. He tightened his arms around her a little bit to cover what little was probably visible of her back.​

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"This is exactly what it looks like, and I'm damn happy about it. Anyway... You're Rusty, right? Welcome aboard the Bluebird."​

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He slipped off the button-down shirt he'd fallen asleep in, and wrapped it around Rawnie as he sat up.​

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"Rawnie, this man is going to help me make our lovely songbird into a hunting bird."​

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[member="Rusty"] [member="Rawnie Tal'verda"]​

 

[Rawnie Tal'verda]

Her fingers had found their way to his collar, to the buttons. She was already fiddling with the top one when a voice scared her straight out of the lustful haze she'd found herself in. She almost fell off of him, she was so startled. If not for his arms wrapped tightly around her, She would be on the floor. So embarrasing. Her cheeks were as red as his eyes.

She took the shirt he'd offered, covering herself like lightning as he introduced their guest.

"You never told me we were expecting company, " she sighed, trying to shake the blush off her face. She took special note of how he said 'our' in reference to the ship. She would smile about it if she was able.

[member="Doctor Azure"] [member="Rusty"]

 

[Rusty]

"Heh, sorry about that. You should have left a sock on the door or something."

Rusty slid his revolver back into its holster and averted his eyes. He had about as much interest in the female as he would a passing fence post, being a Shard and all, but it was polite.

"Yup, I'm Rusty. It's a pleasure to meet you both. Um, I'm gonna step outside for a minute, let you two get settled."

And with that, the Shard retreated into the hallway.

[member="Rawnie Tal'verda"] [member="Doctor Azure"]

 

[Doctor Azure]

Lorane sat up with Rawnie still in his lap, watching her put his shirt on. He somehow found that a bit more attractive to watch than if she'd been taking it off. Maybe it was because she was blushing and staring at him like that...​

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"I woke you up for it, but then I had the best distraction ever."​

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He somewhat nervously took her hand after helping her button his shirt on.​

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"Actually, I'm seriously excited, now. Bluebird's going to have a big ol' refit done on her weapons and engines. And... well... I'm glad you're with me for it."​

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[member="Rusty"] [member="Rawnie Tal'verda"]​

 

[Rawnie Tal'verda]

He was too cute for words. The way he fumbled to help her button his shirt, the way he took her hand, how he got shy just then. The way he spoke about that ship, Rawnie almost felt like it was their... baby? He was so proud of it, so excited when it got new things. Rawnie smiled at him, closing her fingers around his hand as she sat there still on his lap.

"Wouldn't miss it for the Galaxy," she said, leaning in to give him a light kiss on the cheek.

So, that didn't go the way she'd expected it to. Stopped just short of the real fun. Still, now that it was out in the open, they had all the time in the world. Tonight, it would be interesting to see how sleeping arrangements changed.

[member="Doctor Azure"]

 

[Rusty]

After a suitably lengthy wait, Rusty stepped back into the galley.

"Alright, so what did you have in mind for this thing?" he asked, looking around for subtle signs and clues about what had already been done to the ship.

The galley might not seem like an obvious place to start, but it was inevitably one of the more heavily modified areas. Most ships were designed to accommodate as broad a range of species as possible, which inevitably meant human and humanoid. That, however, still encompassed a wide array of nutritional needs, and even among the same species, cooking preferences varied wildly.

In this case, the galley was tastefully redone with an emphasis on sturdy and functional. Nothing fancy, unless the caf dispenser counted. It was a work of art.

That told the Shard that there were probably already some modifications, and that the owner wasn't too concerned about keeping it factory mint.

[member="Rawnie Tal'verda"] [member="Doctor Azure"]

 

[Doctor Azure]

Lorane sighed happily when Rawnie kissed him on the cheek, needing a moment to process that Rusty had actually stepped back into the room. He gestured vaguely around the room.​

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"Well, I don't need cosmetic changes, obviously. Rawnie and I have been getting into a lot of fights in Bluebird lately, so it's occurred to me that we need to upgrade the guns and armor. That'd cause a lot of stress on the engines, though, which means souping up the engines, too."​

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He gestured towards his tech-gaunt lying on one of the tables across the room.​

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"I've managed to rig the whole ship to my voice command setup, but I'll probably have to do it over to fit whatever we end up adding on."​

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[member="Rawnie Tal'verda"] [member="Rusty"]​

 

[Rawnie Tal'verda]

Rawnie stood up quickly when [member="Rusty"] walked back into the room. It was still somewhat awkward that he walked in on them during a makeout session. Still, could have been worse. She could have been much less clothed. She really just wished it hadn't been in the middle of their first kiss...

She stood by the couch, watching as Lorane explained their needs. He knew this ship far better than she did. She was still just getting to know Bluebird, after all.

[member="Doctor Azure"]

 

[Rusty]

"I can probably tie you into the existing fire control matrix pretty easily, but if it comes to that, it shouldn't be a problem."

Rusty was impressed. Voice command setups that worked were few and fair between. In the stress of battle, one's voice often changed dramatically, and the racket from wailing alarms, firing weapons, and explosions as rounds impacted on shields and hulls further degraded reliability. That's one of the reasons many captains employed astromechs. The little droids were often temperamental, but they were very good at interpreting orders and acting on their own initiative.

To have a working voice command system, one usually had to spend hours programming it and stress testing to refine the programming. It was a difficult job that often refused to pay dividends. The Shard was definitely impressed.

"So what sort of fights have you been getting into? The easiest way to do this is figure out what you're likely to be facing and work from there."

[member="Rawnie Tal'verda"] [member="Doctor Azure"]

 

[Doctor Azure]

"Surprisingly little ship-to-ship. We've been running into private army type of dealies, with airspeeders and walkers and stuff. I was actually wondering whether scramjets are effective on a ship this big. It'd kick atmospheric speed up a few notches."​

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Lorane thought about the other big problems they'd had on their last few missions. There had been dogfighting, on a couple of occasions. Stock Firesprays were not made for dogfighting.​

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"Might also have to upgrade the steering somehow. Maybe add thrusters in different directions."​

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[member="Rawnie Tal'verda"] [member="Rusty"]​

 

[Rawnie Tal'verda]

Where did he get the credits for these sort of upgrades? She wanted to ask, but the answer was annoyingly obvious. Doctor. This was why mothers always wanted their daughters to marry doctors. They made real credits. Wait, if that was the case, why was he flying around with her, making what could essentially equal loose change to him? That answer was also annoyingly obvious now. Because he liked her.

[member="Doctor Azure"] [member="Rusty"]

 

[Rusty]

"Not on this thing, they're not. Scramjets are all well and good on something aerodynamic, but you try to fit them on a Firespray and you're gonna splatter yourself against the air, if not something a little more solid."

Ship upgrades weren't Rusty's area of expertise, at least not the parts that didn't involve making things go boom, but he had seen enough to know more than the average ship mechanic. Shields be damned, if you got a spacegoing craft like this thing too fast in the atmosphere, you ran the risk of air friction alone blowing it apart.

"Maneuvering jets are always an option, though that's gonna eat at your fuel consumption. And lot of the effectiveness will depend on your inertial dampers, though. Firesprays were meant to be deep space patrol craft, not CAS. Upgrade the shields first, then dampers, and THEN worry about making the old girl dance."

[member="Rawnie Tal'verda"] [member="Doctor Azure"]

 

[Doctor Azure]

Lorane nodded. What Rusty was saying made sense. Most people might have balked at the fact that somebody else was telling them how to fly their own ship, but the Chiss accepted it.​

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"So, we gotta figure out how much to soup up the main engines to make up for extra stuff, first, right?"​

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[member="Rusty"] [member="Rawnie Tal'verda"]​