She laughed so hard she snorted, getting up and stumbling out of Silus’ reach as he sprawled on the ground. “This - this jump is three hours. So I’m going to go -”
Bette paused, putting her hand on the bulkhead to steady herself and moving her feet away from Silus as he tried to get up. She shook the bottle in her hand, listening to the slosh.
”You nearly finished it while I was doing all the work.“ She tsked, pitting the bottle to her lips and tipping it all the way back.
yo ho yo ho a pilot's life for me
Silus started to get up but decided the floor was probably the better of two evils. He watched as Bette tipped the bottle up.
“No...save me a dr...hic..drink.”
Bette pretended to glare at him as she took a third swallow, and then she straightened up and passed him what was left. Or, at least, she tried to. The handoff was a bit sloppy.
Hell, I’m a bit sloppy.
Bette left Silus to fumble with the bottle and staggered into the crew quarters in search of water.
Silus started to follow Bette to the back of the shuttle but his battle with drunkenness was seriously not going his way. With walking and generally doing things that normal people do becoming less viable by the moment, he decided his best course of action was to make himself comfortable.
His first challenge was to remove his belt, which was much harder than it really should have been. He was able to figure it out though and triumphantly tossed it to the other side of the shuttle.
He laid down with his arm under his head but it just wasn’t comfortable enough. He sat up and looked around his immediate vicinity but couldn’t find anything that would make a suitable pillow. In a moment of clarity he reached behind his head and grabbed his uniform shirt and undershirt and pulled them off with a single tug.
He balled both shirts up and laid down. The floor of the shuttle was much colder now, but it seemed a decent trade off. Once he was settled in he called for Bette, but he was sound asleep before getting any reply.
Last edited by Silus Xilarian; May 6th, 2019 at 04:41:15 PM.
Bette heard Silus call her name and walked slowly back to the cockpit, water bottle in hand. When she got there he was shirtless and asleep on the floor.
”Figures.” She rolled her eyes and thought about shoving him awake, but slumped into the pilot seat instead. “Someone has to keep an’ eye on... things...” She eyeballed his half naked body, and then reluctantly turned her attention back to the console.
According to Imperial standard time, which all ISDs adhered to religiously, it was ...pretty late. Bette wriggled down into the seat, and after a minute her eyelids began to droop.
BEEP BEEP BEEP
Bette jerked awake, half-empty water bottle dropping from her hand to the floor as she lurched toward the console. The real space reversion warning was going off.
“Fuck!” She kicked Silus’ feet as she pulled her crashwebbing on. She stared down at herself, confused. When had she taken off her flightsuit?
There was a vague memory of getting water and comfortable at the same, which left her in her tank top and boyshorts. Annoyed, she yelled at her traveling companion.
”Wake up! We’re reverting in ninety seconds!”
She still felt a little tipsy. That must have been some good whisky.
"You've gotta be fucking kidding me..."
Silus wasn't sure if he was waking up or being stabbed in the brain.
"Where the fuck are my clothes?"
He got up and plopped down in the co-pilot's chair and pulled his crash webbing over his chest. It wasn't until then that he actually noticed that Bette was missing some clothing as well. He went blank for a minute and started rewinding the trip in his head. Waking up half naked, whisky, whisky, whisky, whisky. It didn't occur to him that while this was processing he was effectively staring at Bette the entire time.
The reversion to real space went smoothly, as it usually did. It was that 1-in-1000 occurrence where you got thrown to the back of the cockpit in a rough transition that made you realize why regulations for crashwebbing were what they were.
Bette input the next jump, stretching across the console to hit a button Silus easily could have gotten for her, and caught him staring.
”Eyes up front, flyboy,” she barked, and then she winked, slapping the hyperdrive controls.
"Yes ma'am." He said with a slight grin.
As soon as they were in hyperspace Silus was out of his chair and in the back of the shuttle digging through his stuff. He yelled back to Bette who was still at the controls.
"I'm gonna get a shower an......" Bette interrupted him. "This is is a short jump, we have thirteen minutes before realspace." Silus rolled his eyes. "I'm gonna get a short shower..."
Nine minutes later he came out of the bathroom wearing track pants and a t-shirt with a white towel draped over his head. He grabbed two bottles of water from the coldbox and plopped down in the co-pilot's chair, offering a bottle of water to Bette.
She hadn’t gotten out of her seat and was sitting with her legs tucked up underneath her when he returned with water. Bette accepted one when he offered it.
”Thought you might have to ride out the reversion in the sonic,” she said, popping the top of the water and taking a swig as the shuttle reverted. Spluttering as water surged past the opening and down her neck, Bette coughed and wiped her mouth with her hand. Reaching for the controls she wedged the open bottle between her thighs as she reoriented the shuttle with sublights and set the next jump.
”You can jump in here at any time, you know,” she said, then grinned when her brain caught up to her mouth. When they’d worked together before Silus had always been a mentor, looking out for her as she navigated what life was really going to be like in the Imperial Navy. They’d never screwed around and she’d been pretty sure he wasn’t interested but the vibes she was getting during this reunion were definitely a thing.
Or maybe it was just the whisky talking.
Bette got the shuttle safely back into hyperspace and slowly released her crashwebbing. “It’s almost 02:00 and we’ve got twelve hours and twenty-five minutes until we arrive at our final destination.”
She got to her feet and stretched out her petite frame. “I’m gonna have to change my shirt,” she grumped, walking back toward her bunk with a little extra wiggle in her hips than was strictly necessary.
Last edited by Bette Davis; May 6th, 2019 at 10:15:03 PM. Reason: Typo
Silus was fairly confident that Bette had been flirting with him earlier. Now there was absolutely no question about it. As he watched her disappear into the back of the shuttle indecision flashed into his mind. He re-examined his entire history with her, from the moment she ghosted him in a training sim to the day that he was kicked out of Shadow Squadron. All of that was weighed against 'Did you seriously not just see that?!'. There was a devil on his shoulder who was incredulous that he was even still sitting in his chair.
Silus knew that trap though. The devil in him only spoke of reward, never consequence. He had to see further than his own wants, he had to gain a measure of clarity. He looked to the angel on his other shoulder, who peered back at him with heavy lidded eyes and slurred 'We just drank nearly that whole bottle, I don't know what you're expecting out of me...' That was pretty much everything he needed.
As Bette pulled her shirt down over her body she felt hands clasp around her waist, followed by lips pressing against the base of her neck.
Bette grinned as Silus came up behind her, tilting her head to the side to give him better access to her neck. This was a moment when she should have had something witty or seductive to say, but instead her brain was coming up empty.
She leaned back against him for a moment as his lips traveled up toward her jawline, then she pulled away and turned to face him. Her eyes were hungry as she grabbed his shoulders and jumped into his arms. Bette wrapped her legs around his waist and put her hands on either side of his face, locking her lips onto his.
Silus pulled her tight against him as he took two stumbling steps backward, bringing her with him as he dropped down on the cot behind them. As they hit the cot Silus bumped the back of his head against the wall which managed to briefly stun them both before they frantically began pulling each other's clothing away.
**Some time later**
Silus and Bette laid side by side behind the pilot and co-pilot seats, starting out of the viewscreen into the swirling vortex of hyperspace. Beneath them was a pile of mattress and blankets they'd pulled from the crew quarters when it became obvious that the cots back there weren't designed for their activities. Silus leaned over and kissed Bette on the forehead before kissing her on the lips.
"You know I missed this..."
Bette gave him a confused look and laughed "We've never done this."
He laughed and pulled her closer to him. "No, I mean just being off the ground, being out in the middle of the black with nothing but freedom in every direction."
“Mmmm,” agreed Bette, snuggling in tightly against him, one leg draped across his lower body. She fit just so under his arm, her head on his chest as they watched hyperspace swirl past.
”Flying is ...almost the best feeling in the world.” She looked up at him and winked. “The first best is what you did to me a few minutes ago.”
Bette pulled herself on top of him, hands on his chest to steady herself. “I suppose we should probably get some slee-eep!”
She yelped as he surged up and wrapped his arms around her, neatly putting her on her back and reversing the situation. “Or, this is ...good too..!”
***
Bette stepped out of the refresher in sweatpants and a tank top, padding over to the tiny seating area in the crew compartment.
“I’m starving, is there anything beyond basic rations in here?”
Last edited by Bette Davis; May 6th, 2019 at 10:52:18 PM.
"Not at all. I've got some stuff I snatched from one of the machines back at HQ before I left. Check my bag, if you can find it."
He looked around seeing the chaos they'd wrought.
"We made a fucking mess."
After a few moments he grinned, way more proud of himself than he should be.
"Get it?"
She laughed, rolling her eyes at him as she looked around for his bag.
“Found it!” Bette bent over and picked it up triumphantly, setting it on what was left of her bunk to investigate its contents. Pulling out a sealed bag of cheese crackers she sat cross-legged on the floor to open them.
”So,” she said, popping a cracker into her mouth. “What’s the mission?”
"That was it. Been planning it for months."
Bette laughed at threw a cracker at him. "You shit!"
He laughed as he sat up, rolling his shoulders a bit and stretching.
"The mission. Well, what I can tell you is that we're heading to the Telos IV. We'll be flying a custom Corellian freighter that's rigged up with a few data servers." He got up and walked over to sit by Bette.
"I'll drop in, get to their server array, plug in a gizmo and all the data will be beamed to the freighter. Then you'll pick me up and we'll celebrate all the way home."
He leaned over and kissed her on the cheek before kissing her on the lips. "Oh god, you taste like cheese crackers...gimme one of those." He popped the cracker in his mouth and got up headed for the refresher.
She got up and dragged some of the bedding back to where it was supposed to be, piling all the pillows into her bunk and snuggling down into them. When Silus re-emerged she was finishing off the crackers and barely visible in her makeshift pillow fort.
”So that’s it? Drop in, gizmo, data, and retrieval?” Bette frowned, thinking. “What’s on Telos IV?”
“The part I’m not supposed to tell you.”
He went over and sat on the cot across from her.
“We don’t know for sure yet, but Nel thinks that the Cizerack may have thrown in with the Rebels.” He watched Bette’s eyes go wide.
“Right now, a lot of the higher ups are thinking Nel’s talking big shit to keep her career safe. Doesn’t seem like her to me, but I’ve never seen what she’d do if you backed her into a corner. The data we’re after is a weapon system that Nel believes was developed by the Pride and given to the Rebellion. Something big...”
Bette sat up, a couple pillows falling onto the deck. “Woah.”
The Carshoulis Cluster was called the breadbasket of the galaxy, it’s main export grain that went straight to Coruscant and other Core worlds. If the fiercely independent system was about to finally pick a side...
”Woah,” she said again. “The Ciz are so protective of their ship specs. Sharing weapon plans? It doesn’t... sound like them.”
“That struck me as curious too. I’m pretty sure all the info she has is from sources in the rebellion. I know we’ve bought information from sources in the Pride, but none of it can be verified and a lot of it’s probably bullshit anyways.”
Silus rubbed his eyes and stood up, stretching.
“I hope it’s bullshit. It’ll suck for Nel, but it’s light years better than the alternative.”
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