Chapter 37: Problems

Reaching the spaceship, only one of our new crew members was vocal as we showed them around. "Wow, This is quite the small little ship. I can see that this will be a tight fit," Nyava said, "But I can make do Micronization for many things in the medical area these years. The Potioneering supplies, though, will be a bit more critical. I have so much I want to do, and you even have a storage closet doubling as a slave-holding cell. Perfect, I could even get my hands on some test subjects! Interesting," Nyava went on as she literally almost jumped around to the machines that I had no idea what they did. "Ah, this scanner is pretty high grade. I wasn't expecting to have something runnable while I worked after being purchased. Interesting," Nyava continued completely in her own world.

We watched from the door to see the energy that Nyava was running around the medical bay. "This is my area, right?" She jumped back to us, her movement extremely swift. I almost felt like she had that haste spell that Ura mentioned Oxrock used. 

"Yeah, we expect you to be the ship's doctor," Ura replied, and Nyava smiled brightly, turning around and surveying her land. 

"This is small and cramped, but that is okay! Challenges are challenges that I can overcome with hard work! Please," She turned around to look at me and down at my injuries, "I want to look around and see what I have to work with, but those injuries were not taken care of properly. Please come back in ten minutes after I look around at my current stock and figure out what can be done for you with my current knowledge." Nyava finished and pointed at the door, "Please." She insisted.

Being dismissed from the medical bay was surreal as she had just entered the ship. Nyava was an interesting woman, and I couldn't help but wonder about her mental health. She seemed to be a classic case of attention deficit disorder, and her energy was all over the place. I could literally see her transfixed on something for the briefest of moments, like it was the only thing in the world only to jump and run to something else and repeat the process. 

What I knew for sure about her was that the ship was about to get more lively. On the other hand, Emily looked around with a cold eye as she looked things over. We brought her to the engine room and showed her the tools, and I could see her frowning. "Can I act like that Nyava woman for a bit?" Emily asked, looking things over.

"Please be open; We are about to take off from the station after we get our delivery, so knowing now is better than not," I replied with Ura nodding, looking very interested.

"Fine, I have good and bad news for you," Emily said, grabbing a tool that seemed to be a handle with a point that almost looked like a wielder. She quickly started to motion over something on the engine, pulled a panel off a couple of seconds later, and shook her head. "Just as I suspected," Emily said and turned to look at Ura and me. "I don't know who has been running this ship, but I have to say a couple of weeks ago, someone did a couple of burst jumps. That brings me to the good news; You have about seven to ten jumps with these parts." She said, looking at the engine again. "Bad news, if you don't find some replacement parts for me to fix this engine within those ten jumps, you are going to be stranded. Someone abused the fuck out of this engine a while back. I am very wary of wanting to be on this ship with an engine in this shape." Emily finished, "This is just a preliminary look too. After checking more thoroughly, I could bring back better or worse news for you."

I was frowning, but Ura looked furious, and finally, she cursed, "Fucking little shits did Short Bursts in my fucking SHIP!" She roared, "Fucking pirate dumb fucks." She lamented a second later.

"Sorry," I said, "What are short bursts, and why are they bad?" I asked.

"New to space travel or slipstream?" Emily asked while Ura walked away for a moment to calm down. "FUCK!" I heard Ura cruse a little away, and I turned to look at her.

"New to space travel," I replied, "More of a gun girl," I finished with a smile.

Emily laughed, "Not trying to depreciate you, but that is typical Rish thinking." She said while laughing. She shook her head after a couple of moments before turning to look at the engine. "Slipstream is different from other modes of transportation. Big ships cannot really move through it, and it is faster than most modes of transportation. In the military, they use Slipstream on small corvettes to send messages that can't be put on the galactic network, and they use them as scouts. The tech is still fairly new, but one of the things that hurt the life cycle of Slipstream drives is very short Burst jumps—bringing you into slipstream space for fractions of a second to jump a great distance. The engines are not built for it, and it damages them a lot. It is fine if it is only one or two jumps, but it seems that someone accidentally stuttered a jump because of a lack of skill to make it only one jump. I am not completely sure, but I will need to look more into it before I can tell you for certain. What I can tell you is that there was some damage." Emily said, her face showing concern, "Also if you don't believe me, we can always bring the ship into the next port and have another specialist look into it." She pursed her lips and turned to look down into the engine. "Another set of hands fixing this might not be bad either. I need to take some time and look through all the engine parts and crawl through the ship. But the capacitor here," She said, pointing at an object in the engine, "See the edges?" She pressed her finger, and I noticed that it pushed down and seemed more secure while she was pointing at what looked like scratches, "This capacitor shook loose, and that isn't the only part. I need to look through to see if I can give an overall look into things. We are good for a long jump for now, I don't recommend it, but I think getting out of a Pirate station for safer grounds makes a lot of sense." Emily finished.

"Okay," I replied, "Look into it and take pictures if you can as well. We might need them in the future in case the ship was built incorrectly as well." I told her, "Or if it was deliberate sabotage. Ura will need it, and because pirates recently took over this ship and we retook it not long later by Ura and myself, there may be other issues. Please look into it, Emily." I finished, and she nodded.

Emily's stomach then rumbled, and she blushed cutely, "Um, Can I have some dinner first, please?" She requested, "I can work better full."

"No problem," I replied with a smile, bringing her to the crew quarters.

—-

New Trait unlocked: Personable.

You make people more easily like you when you're being friendly towards you.

—-

I noticed the notification as Emily was now smiling as I brought her to the kitchen and pointed at the table for her to sit down. "The Beds are above us, and the crew quarters are tight. There are five rooms, and Ura and I claimed one." I told her as I opened the fridge and started to bring out the ingredients. I started the prep work while Emily looked me over.

"You don't seem like a typical Rish'an Locktor," Emily said as I turned on the stove.

"What do you mean?" I asked as I pulled out a pan and started to heat it up.

"I mean, Rish tends to be more, Crazy. You haven't pulled out a gun or stroked it softly, whispered to it, or anything like that. I met a Rish back in school, and she wanted to use Slipstream engineer job to fund her gun nut obsession because a lot of gun manufacturers told her to go away." Emily told me, "I was in her dorm for a couple of weeks before they separated her into the more confined room where she could be crazy by herself; for those few weeks, though, she was stroking her gun every day. She whispered goodnight to it every night, and she had this long rifle that she would use as a body pillow to sleep with. It was insane, in my opinion." She finished.

I looked at her surprised and thought about my experience as a Rish in this game; This Race if my feelings were the norm when it came to touching things, then I could understand why the Rish loved their guns. When I felt a gun, it was so smooth, and there were no microfractures or things that drove me crazy. Guns with minor faults like that would break quickly under strain. This made it so the people of my race loved guns which made people scared of the race. I pulled out my handgun and stroked it lightly with a finger. The smooth texture sent a light shiver up my spine because I was thinking about it, and I turned to her. "Do you know that stroking a gun makes me feel good?" I told Emily before I put my gun back in its holster. I returned to the food prep and continued, "I can feel the defects in things with my fingers. When I lay down on bed sheets, if they are too low of quality, it is like my skin is being scratched poorly everywhere it touches my skin. My skin is extremely sensitive in many ways." I told her bluntly, "Now, the metal of a gun makes euphoria hit me a little as I stroke my gun. Do you have something that brings pleasure every time you do it?" I asked her.

Emily looked at me oddly, "What do you mean you can feel the defects." She asked me.

"I mean that on this pan handle that looks perfectly okay, there are micro fractures in it from the poor making of it. The quality is bad, and each time I touch the handle, I can feel them, which drives me mad." I told her the truth looking at her, and I flipped the food as I cooked. "What you think might be crazy was a young Rish trying to keep her sanity in a world of poor quality items that drove her mad." 

Emily looked at me, shocked, and I chuckled, "Don't know if that is the truth, though," I told her, turning to her, "Don't know any of my race, really. I kind of just found myself a couple of weeks ago on a cot naked in a Bounty office and decided after saving a hot alien spaceship captain to take me to the stars." I shrugged, being vague.

Emily pouted, and when I turned, I saw Ura leaning on the bulkhead with a soft smile. "Making dinner?" She asked, looking over to the new hot crewmember that was sticking around.

"Yup, some for Nyava, too, if she can tear herself from the medical bay," I replied.

"She is looking for you to do medical treatment." Ura reminded me, and I frowned.

"Well, Food comes first; she can come over and grab some food before the damn treatment," I told Ura solidly before Nyava came out from behind her.

"Nutrients are important, but one of the drugs that I want to use on you I need to have you lacking substance in your stomach temporarily. So no, you are not allowed to eat. Come for treatment now and eat afterward." Nyava commanded, and Ura walked over to replace me.

Somehow without the gamer in the damn spaceship knowing, Nyava became the defacto in charge, and I had no choice. I was soon wincing as Nyava poked and prodded my body and made me swallow something before taking off my bandages. "You took a lot of damage and your Rish's kidney equivalent which I am not used to the term your race has called it is damaged. You will need some regen treatment and an overall temporary hormone replacement pill for the regrowth of the damaged organ. I will need to do some research into the proper hormone. In the meantime, your wound is improperly cauterized, probably from the wound itself. We need more antiseptic and fresh bandages along with a small treatment." Nyava told me before ordering, "On the bed and strip; I need you naked so I can check for anything else." 

I sighed, got up, and stripped naked for Nyava, who was now looking down between my legs. "Oh, Interesting. A Hermaphrodite race, not common but not uncommon either. No, Rish are not fully Hermaphrodite race, so you are an interesting case." Nyava looked me up and down and pointed at the table, "Lay down, and I will get to work with a numbing agent," Nyava said before she stuck something against my neck; suddenly, the world tilted a little. I felt the scratchy cot disappear from under me.

Nyava then got to work and shoved a pill into my mouth. I swallowed it on instinct, it felt like, and she started poking me, which I barely felt. Suddenly she was wrapping something around me, and the time just flew as my head wavered oddly. Nyava then moved down to my legs and continued to work before coming back up to my arm, and she seemed to address my gunshot wound. 

"Incredibly Lucky! You didn't get an infection," Nyava commented, "Tell me, now that I am almost done, SleepyWonder," Nyava said as her face suddenly appeared above me, her smile curious, "What are your proclivities in the bedroom? I am much the type that enjoys being treated roughly, and I would hate not to have a partner for years on end. I prefer keeping myself in the lab and not having to search for partners."

My head kind of swam, and I looked at her, "You really are a little bitch," I commented, looking at her, "You are a little Masochist who needs a stern hand guiding you in the bedroom. I saw you enjoying those strong shocks like an electro slut. Let me guess, another bitch that wants to be dominated by a big girthy woman such as myself. Huh?" I asked her while my head just swam. I felt myself talking, but it all felt weird.

"Oh, Joy, Looks like I won't have to look far," Nyava said with a smile, "now, The counter agent for the drug I gave you. I am sure you will remember all of this and feel a little nauseous, but it will disappear quickly with calories. Do punish me later. Be rough and hard as you can. I really want you to spark my nervous system response to your treatment of me. I would hate to need to find someone on a planet or pay for it. Just a waste of credits that can be used for research." Nyava finished as she ranted and pressed something against my neck.

A moment later, I was leaning against the side of the bed, barfing hard. I coughed, and memories of moments ago hit me as Nyava walked away. Her tail swished happily, and she turned and smiled, "I heard Dinner is ready, Sleepywonder; Care to punish me once you're feeling better?" She asked, and my eyes narrowed.

I realized as my memories of what happened moments before were no longer hazy came to me. This Nyava was a hardcore masochist, and she was the type to do whatever it took to get it. She was going to be a problem, and my eyes narrowed. Either I punished her, and she got what she wanted, or I let her walk all over me after Nyava drugged me. That would ruin a lot of my authority over her. I felt my eyelid twitching, and I spat on the ground with the taste of bile in my mouth. I would have to think about what to do with Nyava and need to know soon.