Who gets to sleep with Gerald?

Inside the Kalia Greir, the rec room had been reformed into a grassy hillside. A picnic blanket was laid out beneath an oak tree, while far above the warm spring sun warmed them from the crisp mountain air. It felt so real that Gerald found himself truly relaxing, and it reminded him of how much more at home he felt outside than in a classroom or a building.

Cadbury ran about happily, flapping her stubby wings, and occasionally running headlong into the tree.

While the rest of them wore their school uniforms, Ilrica was wearing a Terraxian outfit that kind of looked like cargo pants and a tank top. It was a good, casual look that fit perfectly with her personality, and somehow made her seem more feminine. Gerald caught himself studying the delicate womanly sweep of her back. If she noticed, she didn't let on.

"HA! You didn't say UNO, Duchess," Zurra shouted, growing a dog tail and wagging it happily.

"This is absurd," Cha'Rolette complained. "I shouldn't have to shout out like some kind of maniac. It's perfectly obvious that I only have one card left."

"I'm afraid those are the rules," Gerald said from behind his cards. "Now you have to draw four."

Cha'Rolette grumbled to herself as she levitated four fresh cards into her hand.

"Your turn, Trahzi."

Trahzi had her cards laid down on the blanket before her. Concentrating, she carefully grabbed one by the corner, but it burst into flames at her touch.

"Dangit, Trahzi, these cards are collector's items," Zurra complained.

"We are sorry," she said stamping the card out. She held it up for all to see. "This used to be a green seven. Now it is... brown."

"Well then, you shouldn't be able to place it," Zurra said.

"It still counts," Gerald assured. Zurra turned her head into a giant tongue and gave him a raspberry as Trahzi laid the burnt card down on the pile.

Gerald had at least two dozen cards in his hand. He glanced over at Ilrica and grabbed at one.

"Dyson, if you skip me again I'll rip out your spine," Ilrica growled without looking up.

Realizing this was no idle threat, Gerald grabbed a different card and threw it down.

"Wild Draw Four."

"Oh, you torg!" Ilrica swore.

Gerald laughed.

"Hey, you can't play that unless you can't play the current color," Zurra protested.

"I can't."

"What do you mean, you can't? You've got like half the deck in your hand. How can you not have a green?"

"I'm telling you I don't have any green," Gerald defended.

"He really doesn't," Ilrica groaned as she picked up the extra cards and placed them in her hand.

"What color are we now?"

Gerald looked at Zurra and thought. "R..."

"Don't do red," Ilrica cautioned. "Her last card is red."

Zurra pulled her card in close. "You cheater!"

"I'm not cheating."

"Yes, you are. You looked at my card."

"How could I look at your card?"

"Easily."

"Yes, she's probably been bending time and walking around to look at our hands this whole time," said Cha'Rolette.

"Now, why would I want to shorten my lifespan just to do that?"

"Because you are vain and petty," replied Cha'Rolette.

"You're just mad because you are losing."

"Tch. I'm not losing. I have a strategy."

"A strategy to lose."

"Oh, be quiet, you hair ball."

"You really shouldn't cheat, Ilrica," Gerald said.

"It's not cheating to look at your cards."

"HA! So, you admit you were looking," accused Cha'Rolette.

Ilrica pointed over to Trahzi. "She has her cards laid out, so the rest of you are cheating for looking at hers."

Worried she had done something wrong, Trahzi grabbed a nearby stick and flipped her cards face down.

"I don't think that counts as cheating when they are laid out like that," Gerald said.

"Who knows what counts, this game makes no sense. Why should I have to start with as many cards as the rest of you, anyway?" asked Cha'Rolette.

"Ask Gerald, he knows the rules."

"Good point," Ilrica said. "Do the rules prohibit a player from bending time in order to look at other player's hands?"

Gerald moved to scratch the back of his neck, but caught himself. "I don't know that the rules cover that specifically..."

"Ha! You see?" Ilrica boasted.

"...but it is against the spirit of the rules."

Ilrica waved her hand. "Oh, spirit-schmirit, call the color, Dyson."

Gerald looked over at Zurra, who was shaking with excitement as she held onto her last card.

Cha'Rolette's eyes narrowed. "Don't do it, Dyson. If you call red she'll win."

"Well, the only fair thing is for me to call the color I would have without Ilrica's information.

"But you will lose," Trahzi observed.

"Well, it's not about winning or losing, it's about having fun playing the game."

"That is just something losers say," chided Cha'Rolette.

Gerald sucked in deeply and folded up his hand. "I call red."

"Blast," Cha'Rolette said, folding up her cards. "I never should have agreed to this."

Zurra nearly exploded with joy. "Yay! I win!" She threw down her card, which was yellow.

"What the crap?!"

"That is not a red card," Trahzi said. "You may not play it."

"Ha ha haaaahahahaha!" Ilrica laughed, throwing her head back.

Zurra came to a quick boil, bubbles foaming up through her body. "You did that!" she accused with a long finger. "You froze time and swapped out my card!"

"Prove it, toilet monster!" Ilrica goaded, laughing even louder.

Zurra threw up her hands and turned to the others. "I am not a toilet monster. And my last card was red, I swear it!"

"We do not see a red card," Trahzi affirmed.

"Ah ha ha! Haaaaahahahaahaaaa!" Ilrica laughed, falling onto her back and grabbing her sides.

Gerald placed his face in his hands. "This was supposed to just be a friendly game. Why do girls have to be so aggressive?"

Zurra waved her arms around. "Of course we're going to act this way when the stakes are so high."

"Stakes?"

Ilrica, Zurra, and Cha'Rolette looked away, feigning innocence.

Gerald folded up his hand. "Okay, what's going on?"

"Nothing."

"Spill it."

Zurra broke first. "Okay, the Kalia Greir was only planned to house two students. Now, it has two spare rooms, but there are five of us. That means that two of us will have to share a room."

"I still don't get what the big deal is."

Ilrica's emerald eyes twinkled. "So, Zurra, the Duchess and I decided that whoever wins this game gets to share a room with you."

"You can't just go and decide something like that on your own."

"We already did," huffed Cha'Rolette.

"I'm about to win, so I get you all to myself for the rest of the trip," Ilrica boasted.

"You aren't winning! Zurra yelled. "I have the fewest cards."

"You sure about that?"

Zurra looked down and her eyes became as big as dinner plates. "Ahh! Where did all these flippin' cards come from?" She held up her hand. She was now holding seven cards.

"Looks like you are pulling in fourth place, Immestria."

Zurra shook her head, her pigtails flapping back and forth. "No, this isn't possible. I said UNO last turn, how can I have seven cards now?"

"You must have miscounted."

"Snograt!" She swore. "You froze time and shoved more cards in my hand!"

"Prove that, too."

Zurra appealed to the others. "Trahzi, you can back me up on this. She shoved extra cards into my hand, right?"

Trahzi shrugged. "We only agreed to do this for novelty's sake. We do not care who wins."

Zurra's mouth became bigger than her head. "YOU TRAITOR!"

"We find that ironic, coming from you."

"I'm gonna win," Ilrica sang happily to herself, rearranging the cards in her hand.

"You aren't winning, you're cheating! It doesn't count!"

"Winning always counts, Immestria. I would think your people would have learned that by now."

Zurra boiled again. "Ohhhh, that is a low blow, Faolan!"

Ilrica leaned back against the tree nonchalantly. "Meh, go post about it on a Bertulf hate-site on the net. There's plenty of people there who want to echo-chamber with you there, but the fact is, no matter how much you scream that life isn't fair, it still won't bring your planet back."

Gerald could tell that her comment hurt Zurra deeply. He reached over and patted her head sympathetically, which she appreciated. When she started giving off a little purring noise like a cat however, he stopped.

Cha'Rolette folded up her hand. "This posturing is pointless. Rather than competing for him, we should simply setup a time share."

"You only want to do that because you're losing."

"We can take turns, that way, each of us will get him every third night," offered Cha'Rolette.

Trahzi was irritated. "Why not just have two of the females bunk together? That would make the most sense."

The other girls all turned and looked at her.

"I thought you didn't care?"

Trahzi folded her arms and looked away. "We... don't."

"Now who's lying?"

"Very well, we shall move him from room to room. Is everyone in agreement?" asked Cha'Rolette.

"I'm not a piece of furniture!"

Ilrica and Zurra nodded. Trahzi looked conflicted.

Gerald put his hands into a T shape. "Time out! Don't I get a say in this?"

"This doesn't concern you. This is business," replied Cha'Rolette.

"It absolutely concerns me."

Cha'Rolette sighed. "Fine, we shall allow Gerald to have a say by putting this matter to a vote. All in favor?"

Zurra, Ilrica, and Cha'Rolette raised their hands. "Aye!"

"And against?"

Gerald raised both of his hands. "Nay!"

"The Ayes have it. Motion passes 3 to 1, with one abstention"

"Hey, I had both hands up!"

"Fine, motion still passes 3 to 2, with one abstention, so shall it be written, so shall it be." She tapped a stick against a rock as if it had been a gavel.

Gerald turned to Trahzi. "Why did you abstain?"

Trahzi looked unsure of herself. "We... do not speak to us!"

Ilrica reached out and grabbed his sleeve. "I get him tonight!"

"No you don't!" Zurra yelled, grabbing his other arm. "We never agreed to that!"

Ilrica grabbed him with both hands and tugged at him. "I was closest to winning, so I get him first."

Cha'Rolette reached out and grabbed his collar. "I negotiated the agreement; that I be given special consideration is simply a rule of etiquette."

Gerald yelped in pain as he was pulled in three directions.

Suddenly the ship lurched and gave off a sound like a car bumper being scraped across a brick wall. The lights flickered and the ship came to a halt.

"What did you do?" Zurra accused, letting him go.

"I didn't do anything! You wouldn't even let me touch the controls, remember?"

They ran up to the bridge, which was bathed in red emergency lighting, and the girls plugged themselves into the network. Gerald intentionally kept his hands in his pockets as he looked out the view screen. The stars slowly rotated before them as the ship listed lifelessly in space.

"Where the trell are we?" Ilrica asked, bringing up the star charts.

"About two million parns above the galactic axis," Trahzi reported.

"How did we get so far off course?" Gerald wondered.

"Looks like the navigation beams got misaligned," Ilrica diagnosed.

"How is that possible? There are six redundant systems in place to keep that from happening," cried Cha'Rolette.

"With Gerald, all things are possible," Zurra quipped.

"So, why have we stopped?" Gerald asked.

"The fuel pumps have been operating in reverse," Trahzi explained.

"How is that...?" started Cha'Rolette.

Ilrica held up her hand to cut her off. "Yes, we get it, princess."

"Duchess."

"So, we've been shunting fuel this whole time?" Zurra asked.

The lights of the screens made Ilrica's grey fur glow. "Yeah, we've lost so much that now we're below critical mass."

"So, we cannot use the aether drive?" Gerald asked.

"Not without more fuel, we can't," Ilrica explained.

"But we have so many spare parts," Trahzi reasoned

"Spare parts, yes, spare fuel tanks, no."

Zurra threw her hands up. "Oh great, so the one thing we don't have a backup for is the thing that failed!"

Cha'Rolette folded her arms and closed her eyes. "Well, don't blame me. The fuel cells comprise a full half of the ship's mass. If you had two sets of them, there wouldn't be room for anything else."

Zurra turned to glare at Gerald. "Sometimes I really hate you, Geri."

"Um... sorry?"

Cha'Rolette leaned forward and rested her cheek in her hand. "I'll activate the beacon, looks like we're going to be stuck out here until help arrives. This is so embarrassing."

"I think I can get the maneuvering thrusters back online."

Gerald pointed at the view screen. "Well, what about those black ships? We can ask them for help."

"What black ships?" Zurra asked. "I got nothing on sensors. We're the only ones out here."

Gerald stepped closer and pointed them out. "Yeah, they're right there. You can see 'em against the backdrop of the nebula."

Sure enough, there were about a dozen knife-shaped ships hanging in formation as specks in the distance. Already two of them were turning towards them. The girls looked at each other in concern.

"Shadow tech!"

"What? They can help us," Gerald said.

All the girls began working feverishly. The ship's defensive systems breathed to life. Corridors were locked down and flooded with impact-absorbing foam, armor panels were energized, and weapon systems were readied.

"No, they are not here to help us, Gerald," said Cha'Rolette.

"What do you mean?"

Ilrica looked up. "Those are pirate ships."