Chapter 8 #2
Haven nodded happily. “Yeah. Vytln’s fun. I like repairing things. I feel like this could really work out between us. It’s like an arranged marriage or something. We’ll fall in love later, but I’m already in the trap, so why fight it?”
“How very alien of you,” Grace said, understanding in her smile.
She and Haven had been away from Earth so long, the culture of the Coalition was starting to imprint itself in their heads, changing their way of thinking and looking at the world and situations.
“I mean, it’s the truth, so it’s not like we’d be lying to him. But…”
“But what?”
Grace looked at Garnet who continued to stare at Haven curiously. “You know who these guys are, don’t you?”
“You mean murderers?” Haven asked calmly.
The three women stared back at her. Their expressions blank.
Waiting for Haven’s reaction. Waiting to see what she thought about the males they had taken as their own crew and family.
It was, Haven recognized, their way of protecting them.
The males on this ship didn’t need any sort of physical protection – absolutely not.
But the kind of people they were, the things they’d done, were the kind of things most would not consider forgivable.
And judgment, disgust, hatred were things they absolutely could and would shield their males from.
Haven smiled at them. “They haven’t killed anyone that I’ve seen. They haven’t tried to hurt me. They’re trying to be better. I can respect that.”
Her words caused an immediate change. All three women noticeably relaxed and they smiled, the action much warmer and more welcoming and genuine than before.
“I better get to work then,” Grace said, looking at Garnet as though for permission, which she got with a single nod of the head. “I’ll be back for some information from you Haven.”
“Okay. Bye,” Haven waved her off.
“I still want to examine you,” Goldie said.
“Sure. Whenever Vytln lets me out.”
“Does he, er, know?” Garnet asked her grin widening. “That you’re planning to accept his mating?”
“He knows,” Haven nodded happily. “He says no. Right now, anyway.”
“Right now?” Garnet snickered.
“We’ll see how long he can resist biology,” Goldie agreed, looking back.
Vytln hadn’t left the room. Though he couldn’t understand what they were saying in English, he remained in the area.
He had pulled something out of his pile of half finished projects and was working on it on his workbench.
Haven couldn’t see what it was, but it appeared to be half electronic and half fabric of some sort.
“We’ll be back later then,” Garnet said, snickering. “Welcome aboard, Haven.”
“Bye,” Haven waved them off, smiling, feeling like she’d won. At least halfway. She was sure the male half of this ship still considered her more of a prisoner, but the female half had accepted her decision to remain.
That made sense though. After all, the three of them had chosen to stay. They chose to hitch their wagons to this particular train. They knew what it was like to want to be here. To want to be with these guys. So long as Haven was accepting of them, they’d be accepting of her.
After they left, the room fell quiet. Well, as quiet as it could be with Vytln tinkering and the constant hum of the engine in the background.
The shielding helped deaden the sound a lot – along with blocking the majority of the heat and all the radiation – but it wasn’t completely gone.
The rumble was comforting to her as she watched Vytln work.
They didn’t say anything for a while. He worked; she watched him work.
It was comfortable in a way she rarely felt with people.
Vytln didn’t demand small talk from her.
He already knew she was likely to mess with things and break things down, and he clearly didn’t care.
It was probably the most unbothered she’d ever felt around someone.
“What is that being?” She asked some time later when he finally stood straight, looking over the thing he had spread out on the workbench.
“It’s an envirosuit.”
“Oh?” Her head popped up, excited. “Really? Let me seeing.”
He didn’t come to get her out of the trap, but he did continue. “If the life support in the ship shorts again, it could be something worse next time. You need an envirosuit. The other females have one already, and if you’re our prisoner, you’re our responsibility.”
Haven nodded eagerly in agreement. She’d seen envirosuits around but hadn’t actually been able to get her hands on one.
Most of them were too big for her because most every alien species in the Coalition was bigger than her.
But they also tended to be tailored to a single person.
Not just in the way they fit, but in the life support they provided.
Getting one was definitely on her list, but not a task she’d been able to check off before.
An envirosuit, especially a good one, could do a lot.
The most basic types needed to be able to withstand the vacuum of space, as that was their primary purpose.
On starships, there were many redundancies in place to keep people safe.
Multiple systems often had to fail before things would become dire.
All beds on starships, for instance, were required to be pod style that could and would seal in case of hull breach, protecting the occupant inside.
On most starships, with few exceptions, it was also required that people had an envirosuit to don in event of emergency.
A ship the size of the Humility was definitely one that would need everyone to have a suit. Haven had always just accepted the risk that she would be vulnerable if something happened.
But Vytln was working on what appeared to be an older, spare suit. One definitely not big enough for him or one of the other males. And she couldn’t help but notice he started doing it only after the short in the air recycler.
“Is that being mine?” She asked, smiling.
He didn’t respond verbally. He tensed, however, his shoulders bunching up. He kept working on the suit though.
That answer was enough, and she beamed at his back.