Beth's Stable

by Amanda Milo

  “Sounds like Vera had a little to do with that,” I return, brows raised meaningfully, and I enjoy Beth’s cheeks going dark again.

  “Stop it!” she chides, but she’s grinning. “And wow, you guys aren’t very grateful to the robot that has to run around and—and—”

  “Service us?” I offer helpfully.

  Eggs could be fried on Beth’s face. “Yes!”

  Ekan makes a noise. “Truly, Beth, she doesn’t care.” And he’s being sincere, actually trying to lessen her discomfort. “She can’t. She’s just a machine in a female-shape. Serious as a Phytor’s tusks are long, we had to program in her every response—and I mean every response. For the earliest edition, we had this feature where…” His lips peel back as he grimaces, “We’d make the noises we’d want to hear a woman make.” His brows pinch and he’s quick to add, “We manually altered her pitch, of course.” He scrubs the back of his neck. “For the playpack during… playtime. It wasn’t ideal, but you make do,” he says, with a roll of his shoulder. “All’s well enough until you hit the wrong button to start her, and you realize you made a selection mistake because she’s calling out one of the other guys’ program sequences… in their voice.” Ekan’s eyes dart to me before he laughs, his eyes squeezing shut at the horrific memory. “I heard Prow’s voice under me screech, ‘Ride me harder, Koundy!’”

  Beth twitches. “My translator just gave me ‘Daddy,’ ha!” She snorts. “Where I’m from, that’s maybe a little taboo to call out during sex, but it’s pretty mild. It can even be kind of hot.”

  I murmur in her ear, “With you under me, I’m willing to be convinced it could be hot here too.”

  One of Ekan’s brows go up. “I want to hear about all the taboo and hot things you know from your planet.” Then he gives himself a shake. “But imagine you’re on the brink of release, your partner is emitting all the properly programmed encouraging phrases to finish you, and suddenly your partner’s voice turns into the man whom you consider to be nearly your brother…”

  Beth claps her hand over her mouth. “Ack, that didn’t happen...”

  Ekan’s eyes widen. “It did. To all of us.”

  Seeing she understands now, Ekan throws out his hand, “Exactly! Prow’s voice could screech out anything in that moment, and it’d pretty much scar you. But you hear koundy and you know more than you want to about what he likes Vera to scream at him. Let’s just say, it’s an all-around traumatic incident.”

  Beth’s looking a mixture of horrified and hilarioused. “That’s awesome!” She starts to wheeze her laughter so hard that barely any sound comes out.

  Ekan shudders. “I couldn’t get it up for a week.”

  Beth chokes.

  Ekan nods almost solemnly, but the smile playing at his lips gives him away. He’s loving Beth’s reaction to his tale of woe. “Come to find out, some machaii added it to all our programs so that each of us got disturbed during the big finish.” He shakes his head. “Scum sucker. We were all out of commission, and giving Prow sideways looks for his proclivities—meanwhile, we’re thinking he’s getting the full use of Vera by himself since none of us can regain much, ah, focus, so it’s rotations before we realize—it wasn’t Prow who programmed her to say it at all.”

  “Then who?”

  Ekan doubles over, guffawing. “Qolt! He did it to skylark on Prow, and it worked better than he ever expected—he pranked all of us.” He shrugs. “Of course, we had to wonder how Qolt got that recording; no matter what Prow said otherwise, nobody believed he didn’t initially make Vera say it.” He squints, staring off. “Still don’t. Tevek Qolt for spreading that imagery around. There are some things you never want to visualize.” He shudders and eyes her. “Don’t ever share if Prow asks you to call him Koundy.”

  Beth turns and tries to unsuccessfully smother her snickers into my arm. “Got it,” she chuckle-gasps. “And ha ha—way to go Qolt!”

  Ekan’s lips are quirked up—but then his eyes cut to the far doorway. “Speak of the Na’rith…” he mutters when Qolt stalks in, but instead of greeting us—even just greeting Beth—Qolt stomps right past our trio. It’s almost as if he doesn’t track that we’re here. He walks up to an ilsab bulb, rips it out of its hydrosoil plug, and crunches on it—raw.

  Ekan and I stare at him.

  The ilsab is a natural remedy for headaches. I didn’t even know Qolt knew how to identify it, let alone know what it does. If he’s suffering from an aching skull, I could have made him a draught, masked the taste a little to make the remedy more palatable.

  No one eats them raw.

  Beth, who isn’t aware of just how strong and wild the flavor of an ilsab is, let alone how tough an unboiled husk is to get through, looks plenty upset anyway—perhaps more at the distant way Qolt’s behaving. He’s lacking in reaction to any of his surroundings, not sparing her or even his brother (ergo, rival) a glance. “Qolt?” she asks.

  He’s mid-motion, bringing the bulb back to his mouth for another bite—but at the sound of her voice, he fumbles the ilsab and spins to Beth, surprise coloring his expression.

  His features light up at the sight of her; he’s almost unrecognizable. This is the most pleased I’ve ever seen Qolt, I realize. “I was afraid you were a dream,” he rumbles to her.

  I glance down at Beth, seeing her brows curling inward with worry, then my gaze flicks to Ekan, catching the concerned way he’s looking at Qolt too.

  Qolt steps forward. “Can I make you…” he pulls out his tablet, murmuring, “What time is it?”

  “Time for you to leave,” Ekan warns low, his concern instantly shoving over in favor of re-bristling at his sibling.

  Qolt ignores him. “Lunch?” He looks back up to Beth. “Or dinner. Whichever you prefer.”

  “What’s the difference?” Beth asks.

  Ekan bares his teeth, silently hissing, but Qolt doesn’t take his eyes off of Beth. He even adds an unconcerned roll of his shoulders. “Food’s the same, so it’s just the time we share a meal that changes.” He smiles at her and advances another step forward—as if he doesn’t clearly see that my arm is around my Beth.

  This is my Beth-time. I refrain from knocking him back but only out of respect to his already scrambled brains.

  “We could start now; hit both,” he offers.

  My arm flexes, and I struggle not to hit something myself. Someone. But I remind myself that there’s no honor in beating an injured man—plus, Beth and I have many, many rotations ahead of us. I’ve enjoyed spending time with her and will get the chance to do so again.

  Even if I have to steal her from these lug-brains later to get my chance back.

  Across from me, I watch Ekan grit his teeth. He wants to block Qolt from coaxing Beth away—which I believe was his very own plan, a process he was skillfully beginning to spin before Qolt’s arrival.

  Foiled but not fighting his injured brother’s intrusion, all Ekan does is swallow hard, jaw muscles jumping, and glance sharply away from the interaction.

  But Beth’s head comes up, her eyes narrowed astutely, glancing between the three of us like she can see our hackles rising at each other—and she doesn’t approve. She doesn’t dislodge where I’ve claimed her, staying under my arm like she’s settled under my protective wing, but she does cross her own arms and straighten her spine.

  Thankfully, before she can become irritated or stressed by her involuntary involvement in our Beth-territory battle, Prow enters; gaze crafty, easily reading the tension in the room.

  He sets right to breaking it.

  He waves a low-sided pan that has probably never been outside of the galley. None of the rest of us have shown a particular aptitude for baking. “Heyf!” he calls affably. “Haff youf tried Beff’s deffert?” he asks through a mouthful of sticky brown sludge that stains his teeth.

  “Chew; then talk,” Beth offers helpfully, one side of her lips twitching before it quirks high. “But, just so you know, I haven’t—”

  Prow rushes
us, eyes dancing, and shoves a bit of brown square into her mouth.

  Ekan and Prow both go tense, looking more alike in this moment than I’ve ever witnessed. I too have taken on the same aggression-stiff stance, instinctively reacting to another male feeding my Beth.

  Beth is oblivious. “Ummmm…” she purrs around Prow’s thumb and finger—and everyone stops looking at Prow like he’s a threatening interloper in favor of staring at the beautiful Beth. And the dessert pan. But mostly at Beth.

  When she glances at us, she notices the attention she’s receiving and she covers her cheeks, still chewing. “Stopf it, you’rf mekking meef selff conshiss.”

  “Chew dear; then talk,” Prow advises with overly-innocent eyes that don’t fool Beth for a moment.

  Chuckling, and sending him as stern a look as she can manage while doing this, she swallows her mouthful with a hard gulp and orders, “All of you eat something; quit staring at me!”

  We do as she says. We dive for the dessert.

  “But just so you know,” Beth starts—but she doesn’t get to finish what she wants to say, because Prow’s stuffing another square into her mouth. Laughing, she tries to fight him, but only for a moment before she exclaims, “Gaffff, thiff is sof goof!”

  This is all the affirmation Ekan and Qolt need. They bite into their own pieces—and explosively spit them out.

  *Pthew!* “Tastes like Krortuvian ass!” Qolt complains, scraping his tongue and hacking the leavings onto my (other than some stray mulch bits) clean floor.

  I glower at him, unimpressed.

  Ekan’s chuckling darkly and giving Prow a look from under his threateningly low brows that promises retribution. “Scummy trick, you sack muncher. Sleep with both eyes open and an energy saber under your head.”

  Prow grins. “That’s not where I plan to sheath my energy saber tonight.”

  Beth raises an eyebrow.

  Prow quickly shoves another dessert bite at her with a very rapidly uttered, “Sorry; that was crass, narra.” He holds her gaze imploringly and repeats with great feeling: “I’m so sorry.”

  “Narra-whipped,” Qolt coughs.

  Beth raises both of her eyebrows at him.

  Qolt promptly rolls his shoulders and smacks the back of his own head. “Tevek. Look, I call it like I see it; I didn’t say I was opposed to being narra-whipped myself. In fact,” his eyes narrow as if in thought, “Sounds like a delightful way to pass the time to me.” He tips his head. “Care to make me whipped, narra?”

  Ekan’s eyes are slits. “What’s it called if I’m the one whipping you?” he inquires, his tone a touch acid.

  “A nightmare,” Qolt deadpans.

  “Boys!” Beth claps her hands. “Cut it out!”

  I’m still holding the square I took between two fingers—still untouched. With this lot, I’ve learned to expect a set up, therefore I was watching the others and waiting, rather than fall for the lark right alongside them.

  When Prow sees this, he groans. “Tevvvvek.” Then he grins good naturedly at me. “I’m never going to prank you!”

  Ekan’s attention is pulled from Qolt and fastens on Beth as something occurs to him. His fighting stance relaxes at once—and he’s starting to look pleased. “Narra,” he says in awe. “You went along with one of our games?”

  “I didn’t!” Beth denies. “I didn’t make the treats—and the squares Prow gave me tasted good.” She turns to Prow, waiting for an explanation.

  Prow opens his hand, showing slightly smushed dessert squares. “Two batches. One rigged for you lot; one batch for Beth.”

  Qolt blinks at him. “You can bake?”

  Face puzzled, Ekan jerks his thumb back at Qolt. “What he said. Since when?”

  Prow swallows another bite of the good squares. “Since forever. Just takes a lot more work than I’ve ever wanted to put in for your ugly mugs.” He holds out another square and wiggles it at Beth. “But the rest of Beth’s batch is sitting on a cooling rack in the scullery to make up for it, you sluggards.” Then he promptly reaches out, takes Beth’s hand, and plies her with the teaser square, using this bribery to get her to follow him.

  She glances back at me, looking bemused, and I feel my lips twitch in answer to her expression. Just this minute change in my countenance causes the set of her shoulders to ease, and her eyes soften for me.

  She almost seems to forget Prow when I’ve got my eyes trained on her, even as he vies for her attention.

  I give her a full smile then—and send Prow a full smile too, making him trip in shock.

  Because he just helped me to realize that I don’t have to exert effort to steal Beth. I just need to keep offering her a place to regain her sanity: safe harbor.

  That, my sweet narra, I can do.

  CHAPTER 31—PROW

  PROW

  After a blissfully spent evening of playing cards and fooling away the spans, Beth and I hit my berth—where we did nothing but ‘spoon’—a pastime where we lay on our sides with me curling against her, touching as much of her as I dared.

  At one point, Beth directed my hand to rest over her stomach so I that I could feel our spawn kick. Before that moment, all I could think of was how poundable her ass felt pressed up against me. Once I was feeling the life growing inside her though, it diverted my baser thoughts, calming my ardor, at least a little.

  Beth seemed to draw just as deep an enjoyment from the simple embrace, but she found it difficult to remain comfortable in any one position for long. Eventually in the wee hours, we called the sleep effort a bit of a waste, and got up for the day. We’ve been on the bridge ever since, with me teaching Beth skills she’s starting to enjoy immensely.

  “Prow, did I break it?” Beth asks.

  “No narra,” I assure her, and offer her another handful of freeze dried opta kernels to snack on with me while we wait. “You're breaking in.”

  Our system chimes.

  Beth bolts upright in her seat. “Did I just hit paydirt?”

  “You just accessed their security grid,” I confirm, watching as a system screen pops up, signaling that our ship’s code has eroded our mark’s defenses. We’re into their mainframe. For all intents and purposes, we are now the phantom captain of their ship; we have master access to everything that can be run remotely—and nobody knows we’re even here.

  “What’s next?” Beth asks.

  “Find their weapon’s room, and lock it down. Secure door pass access so we can cut off permissions at will—and craft us a master pass so we’ve got full run of our new playground.” I walk her through just how to do this, and she becomes more and more confident as she learns to create the layers of safeguards.

  Beth is now the master of our next enemy ship.

  She’s loving this.

  Before, she’s felt powerless when we’d leave her for a mission. Makes sense—who likes being helpless? No more—now our narra’s directly involved in making certain we’re as safe as possible. If she wants, she can sit in the captain’s chair and monitor us using our mark’s own security cameras when we’re in the midst of a heist.

  Normally, the cyber side of things and the hijacking legwork is any of the crew’s job—but mostly Qolt’s and mine. Qolt especially has a knack and affinity for all things electronic. But this task can be Beth’s now too. She’ll be able to monitor our progress and assist from the inside. Meanwhile, we’ll feel secure knowing she’s not panicking while we’re out pirating.

  Knowing she wasn’t enjoying heists as much as we were was starting to sap the fun out of stealing.

  We’re Na’riths—stealing should always be fun.

  But here we are, problem solved. Grinning, I throw an opta up into the air, and catch it in my mouth.

  Beth claps for my achievement.

  “You’re absolutely wonderful fun,” I tell her.

  She smiles at me. “Thanks.” She closes one eye. “Am I more entertaining than pirating?”

  I tsk. “Best of the worlds—we have both.�
�� I spread my hands in confusion. “Why choose?”

  Laughing, Beth allows this as an answer, and I start to show her how to hunt for and discreetly latch onto just the right spot on our mark’s ship. I also stroll with her through the process of extending the stealthport, which is the temporary connection bridge that’ll allow us to travel from our ship to theirs—all the while keeping our shields up so they never detect that we’re taking a ride.

  Ekan enters the room, suiting up for the venture and smiling widely when he sees Beth at the helm. “How are you doing, narra?” He spares a glance at me and greets me with a levelly-delivered, “Prow,” in the same way you’d say, hello there, you female-stealing sack of Krortuvian dung.

  Beth’s brow is furrowed in concentration. “I think I’m doing good…” she finishes the maneuver we’re going for, and there’s only the barest rock of our ship when we catch ourselves fast to our mark’s hull.

  “Nice,” Ekan compliments. Beth looks giddy at her accomplishment—and pleased at the praise.

  It’s all so new and fantastical to her that she’s adding enjoyment by light-years to this adventure. She may just give pirating a run for its creditsticks in the entertainment department. Watching her, I feel smitten. I offer her another dessert square—of course I saved back some for her. I knew the other hogs on this ship would gobble the leftovers down like starved animals. “Want to watch something that will disgust you?” I ask her.

  Chewing, she frowns. “Notf reeflly…”

  I jerk my head to indicate Ekan. “You know how long it took us to get set where we want to be?”

  “Yeah...” Beth agrees warily.

  “Prepare yourself,” I tell her, grimly watching as Ekan grins at us and strolls forward.

  With great flourish, he waves at me to unattach our ship from our mark’s so that he can dazzle our favorite passenger with his luck. When I finish, Ekan winks at Beth, and brings his elbow onto the screen, smearing across command keys randomly—but somehow, like almost every time we try this, he accomplishes the same cog-damned thing.