Chapter 1: Promotion
"Could you repeat that please, Ms. Lui?" Roberta asked for the third time into the comm.
"You heard her, Roberta. She's gone now," said the head engineer, Ripper Tennin. It was only Roberta and Ripper on the bridge and it was an arrangement which had recently become the troubling norm.
"But that can't be true. Darla Brown as the new First Mate? Darla Brown from Security? Did she even interview? And what's Yunice Lui doing in the Captain's chambers anyway?"
"Oh you know what she's doing, officer. We all signed The Agreement. Things are clearly going to shit so we have bigger things to worry about than to stand and gawk while it happens."
Ripper was right. It had only been a few short weeks since The Reyblade, a small army cruiser under New Order command, had had an encounter with a navigational anomaly. Although High Admiral Lorna had commanded Captain Eipom to avoid the anomaly's coordinates, The Captain had disobeyed her. Despite seeing and scanning nothing after arriving at the coordinates, events and personalities had been unraveling ever since. The Captain's previously predictable and conservative use of the Free Use Agreement had gone haywire, Rion Flaks had been dishonourably discharged as First Mate, Eipom had taken Navigational Officer, Ami Tanaka under his wing (leaving the less experienced Roberta to manage the position almost full time), and tensions among the crew had hit a fever pitch.
"Well then do I contact Darla or do we go rogue?" Roberta asked flatly. The regularly unflappable Ripper Tennin was stunned. She had served under Captain Eipom for the bulk of her career and like many of her colleagues, she had considered it a near perfect arrangement up until now. He was a competent Captain, but not charming or likable enough to fall in love with to complicate matters and although Eipom hadn't used Tennin sexually in years, those experiences had always been pleasant at worst. But Tennin, along with all of her colleagues, had never seen Eipom acting the way he currently was. Ripper and Roberta had just discovered that The Reyblade had been disguising its flightpath and was closing in on the anomaly that everybody believed they had jumped away from weeks earlier. Yet The Captain hadn't even answered the distress call himself. He was in the middle of an encounter with Ami Tanaka and Yunice Lui in his quarters and sent the latter to announce the new first mate and have her deal with it.
"Both," Ripper finally answered. "If we don't tell Darla she got First Mate it'll just put us under suspicion down the line. Plus, how long did you say we had before reaching the anomaly's coordinates?"
"A few hours."
"Aw shit."
In the security booth, Darla herself found herself once again the only person working while her co-worker Paulina Cabbage and the Weapons Director Jez Farmer fooled around in the corner.
"Don't you have work to do as, y'know, a section head?" Darla said loudly, not hiding her annoyance at the pair anymore. Jez just laughed.
"Oh please, Darla. Do you remember the last time I had to actually send out pilots? We've been a glorified delivery service for years."
"Less talking, more sucking my nipples," Paulina said, presenting her topless chest to the woman she was straddling.
"When did you start giving the commands?" Jez smirked back.
"I learned from the best," Paulina cooed and pushed her left breast into Jez's face, gasping with relief when the 31-year-old Director parted her lips in welcome.
Darla rolled her eyes then proceeded to scour the security video feeds in front of her. She had been feeling increasingly anxious recently and couldn't put her finger on why. Of course, it likely had something to do with how she had been convinced to be part of a underground group to support and pass along information to former First Mate Rion Flaks who still sat in The Reyblade's Prison Ward. But that wasn't the whole story. Darla hadn't been feeling like herself at all recently and the uneasy feeling had been magnified by a very recent sexual encounter with The Captain. Sexual events with Eipom hadn't been uncommon during her five year tenure on The Reyblade, but the most recent time had made her desire him in a way she wasn't used to. She kept thinking back on the event and the mixture of pride and degradation with which Eipom had talked to her. She realized her concentration had been broken when the buzz of the intercom made her jump.
"Officer Darla Brown, Security," she answered as soon as she was able to push the 'talk' button down.
"I think you mean First Mate Brown," came the curt reply in Ripper Tennin's distinct voice. That was enough for even Paulina and Jez to stop their antics.
"I'm not sure I understand," came Darla's reply, but she was lying. Of course. It made sense. This was her destiny. This is what The Captain had been trying to tell her during his last visit to the Security Office. Thoughts swirled in her head and she remembered how former First Mate Rion had seduced her in the showers. How dare she take advantage of me like that, Darla suddenly thought for the first time.
"Eipom made you First Mate. He's too busy plowing Ami and Yunice to tell you himself, but there you go."
"You will speak respectfully of your Captain, Ms. Tennin. Back to your station."
Darla felt her pussy grow wet from speaking to one of the longest-serving and most respected Section Heads that way and only noticed Jez and Paulina gaping at her after Darla broke communication.
"How the FUCK did that happen?" Paulina said. Her tone was unreadable.
"This is amazing!" Cried Jez. "The ultimate woman on the inside! Let's go break out Rion!"
Darla raised her eyebrows. She had to play it cool until her arm unit was actually upgraded to reflect her new powers. How could she have been pushed around by such a layabout like Jez? She took a deep breath.
"I think that might be a little too rash, don't you, Director Farmer?"
"Jeez, Darla, call her Jez."
