Trying to sleep on the first day out from port is always difficult. You get used to a sol cycle even if it isn't your own and your body doesn't wanna break from it just because you're in a lightless metal canister being flung through a dimensional shortcut corridor outside the fabric of normal space-time. The ship jittered occasionally as it caught an ion cloud and surged forward, but that wasn't what kept him laying there awake.
He'd signed on to the UHA Armada as a way to escape his backwater world on the rim of the Canis Major Dwarf Cluster. Roughly the size of the original Sol planet of Pluto his world had taken to terraforming a little too well and had become swampy. Their exports were mostly minerals, but they also sent out massive amounts of animal pelts as well. Daxos father had been a hunter by trade, their family spending months in the rural undeveloped wilds of the southern hemisphere of the world, stacking camen and Beaver as high as the hull would take, and rarely seeing another soul. Enlistment had been a shock to his family, but for Daxos he saw it as a way to see more than swamp, and eat more than lizard and beaver. Truthfully, he'd scarcely had a meal as good since. Turns out not every world grew spices as well as his home, or was as rich in sodium chloride.
When the UHA recruiter found out he was an experienced hunter he was given his choice between the 12th infantry and the 13th extermination fleets. Feeling he'd rather be shooting at shit that didn't shoot back he went with the 13th, and boy what a mistake that was. Humanity rarely came into conflict with sentient Xenos (or Aliens as they were once called.). They viewed us mostly the way you'd view a poor child on the street, with compassion at best, indifference more often than not. Their technology so far eclipsed our own, the worst they'd usually do was toss a crum our way. The Infantry mostly put down bandit rebellions, wannabe planetary coups by small militias, that sort of thing. The 13th on the other hand dealt with hostile non-sentient xenos. Apex predators, hives of scavengers and omnivores, parasite infestations, etc. Daxos didn't dwell on it too long, sufficient to say in his time with the 13th most his squad had been wiped out by an acid-blooded xeno hive species, and he'd lost his left hand and his right foot to them. Though the military supplied living-metal prosthetics that were as good or better, and gave him a medal for outstanding bravery for the trouble.
Thassa'd been his squad lead for a while then promoted to platoon lead. She'd quickly recognized the talents of a young soldier who'd spent his formative years tracking prey, hunting game, and who had experience not being at the top of the food chain. She'd insist on him coming with her whenever she went in the field, even going so far so as to work rotations so she never went in the field without him. At first he'd hoped it meant his feelings for her were reciprocated, but over time he realized she just saw him as talented. After the incident on Rabiah 2. A hive meteor of a species humans had dubbed "Demon Ants" had crashed into a terraformed world and started pouring the 3' long dog sized insectoid fuckers out like a kicked fireant hive. 13th was called in but by the time they got there most of the settlements had been overrun or abandoned and only about 35% of the planet's population survived. It was a hellish field to be on, Daxos shuddered in his bunk just thinking about it.
When they'd gotten out of the military after the battle, Thassa requested discharge due to the psychological impact of the men she'd lost in the battle, Daxos receiving medical discharge due to his missing foot and trigger finger; Daxos had intended to head back to his home. But Thassa told him that she needed her most loyal soldier by her side, that she intended to buy a freighter with her retirement and go into business for herself, and she'd need a good First Mate. He'd agreed, seeing another chance to see the stars, maybe this time with a little less cosmic horror. "Young, Dumb, and thinking with your cock" He muttered to himself as he turned onto his back again. He heaved a heavy sigh and reached over for his cart, hitting it and drawing a long breath of sweet salty smoke and intoxication. It settled him just enough for him to close his eyes and center, and allow him to drift off to sleep.
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"So, You wanna talk about it?" Nylea asked, not looking up from her console as she checked Calix's shift logs, looking over the current readouts and entering her own data into the logbook. Daxos sat in the captain's seat at the helm, staring at the view wall displaying what amounted to a tourist brochure of whatever human inhabited nebula they were currently blasting through. Mankind loved windows and viewports, space didn't, especially warp corridors. They'd given up trying to make it work eight centuries ago and since then it was rare for a ship to fall apart in warp. Now there were cameras and sensors for docking, drones for when those went down, and a bigass viewscreen for the captain to watch space fly by outside of.
"Do you think I wanna talk about it?" He asked with a huff, running his fingers through his hair. He'd had Nylea do the handoff alone and informed the captain he'd be a few minutes late to start his shift over the intercom to avoid seeing her face to face and try to dodge the fight he knew was likely coming. He suspected she'd do the same in the morning. As confrontational as they both were, neither enjoyed hurting the other.
"Yes, You'll pretend you don't to maintain the image of the stoic, maybe even try to convince me I'm wrong when I say that this isn't just a job you're quitting, it's a relationship you're breaking up, but in the end you'll crack. Because we have twelve hours of staring at the fucking in-warp screensaver and nothing else to talk about unless you wanna tell me those war storries you keep so close to your chest." She said knowingly, finally looking up and affixing him with those piercing emerald eyes of hers. He turned from her out of both frustration and a need to dodge her heavy gaze. "Alright. I can wait" She muttered in annoyance as she stood and walked over to another console and began working on it. The bridge was technically designed for a crew of four to operate at a time but it was rare for them all to be on shift at once outside of docking or flying manually between worlds in the same system. They also preferred to use the remaining four crew rooms to shuttle passengers and make some extra cash. Daxos finished his log reports and kicked back, pulling up the latest Gunslingers of Gromiah novel on his data pad and settling in for a long shift.
"It's just that...You two have been desperately trying to hide that you're fucking for three years, as long as I've been on the ship. Seems weird to have a public breakup from a relationship like that and keep it professional afterwards..." She muttered, loudly enough for him to hear just as he picked up his place in the book. He resisted comment, keeping his focus on the fictional tales of hard men on the frontier of a massive newly terraformed world, with ferns as tall as terran redwoods and unknown xeno species around every corner. "I mean, she's hot, you're...ruggedly handsome. It's not like Calix and I haven't noticed you two sneaking into each other's quarters while on shift or sneaking off when we're in port. I've been on this crew for three years and you've been together all that time. You're gonna toss that over a job?" She asked, still not looking at him. Daxos sighed and tossed the data pad onto the console.
"We're not together, we've never been together. I've asked, I've tried, but she doesn't want to 'Mix Business and Romance'. Yes we've fucked, No we're not together. So the only thing I'm 'Throwing away' over a job is a fuckbuddy and what I thought was a friendship. Do you have any more questions?" He grunted, glaring at her. Nyliea stared at him definitely and smirked.
"How big's your dick?" She asked, without breaking eye contact. Daxos couldn't help but sputter with laughter at the sudden off color question, breaking the tension that had been rising in the room since the start of their shift. Nyliea smiled and laughed as well, and for a moment things were back to normal. They finished up their logs and Daxos headed to the kitchen to get them their morning meal. As he passed through the crew quarters he could hear noises coming from Thassa's quarters, meaning she was still up at least, but he dared not disturb her so he quietly passed and entered the salon. The older woman who'd asked about medication before was sitting at the table eating some sort of meal, it smelled good, but looked mostly like a red brown mush. He waved at her in passing and he nodded, heading to the galley and pulling out two of their cryo locked meal packs and turning the microwave on. He tossed the meal packs in and set it to cook them before returning to the salon momentarily.
