“Welcoming? What does that mean?”
“What we just did. You donated, and I welcomed.”
Kodiak snorts, and makes a hand gesture I don’t recognize, bent shaking fingers. “Oh, Fédération softy lingo.”
I roll my eyes. “Do you still use hut and shihut,top and bottom?”
“Of course. It makes more sense.”
“Unless the shihut is literally on top.”
“So sensitive.”
“It’s a hierarchy, Kodiak. Top and bottom are not value-neutral terms. One implies more worth, which is all about homophobia. And homophobia is really all about misogyny, because in Dimokratía eyes to welcome is to be female, and to be female is to be lesser. Words matter.”
“Okay, okay,” Kodiak says. “In any case, thank you for ‘welcoming’ me.”
I harrumph, then start running my hands over his chest, smoothing the hair down flat. “ThatwasAmbrose’s first time welcoming, by the way.”
“You are usually hut?”
“Yep.”
Kodiak chuckles. “It sounds like a riddle. Two tops are in space together...”
“I’m ready to be versatile,” I say.
“Yes, and you were wonderful at it,” Kodiak says. “I am ready as well,” he continues after a moment. “In fact, I have already been so, during training.”
I shake my head. “Unbelievable. Here I thought you’d be the one who needed to learn the ropes.”
“There were many guys living together in close quarters, in the primes of their lives, all of them very fit, often very sweaty, so of course sometimes we were erotiyets...,” he says, voice trailing off.
“Okay, got it, thanks.”
I can’t help it; something about our whole interchange has gotten me giggly. Kodiak joins in, his body shaking against mine.
Once my breathing has returned, I sigh. “I’ll look forward to these practice sessions.”
“Me too,” he whispers. “We can schedule them in. Five times a day. Maybe we’ll go down to four times a day in a few years.”
“Five times a day! That means we’re almost due to—”
“Yep.”
Something else comes to me. “You know, before we started this very enjoyable diversion, I thought there wassomething else you wanted us to do, something we had to keep secret.”
“There was something,” he whispers. “I thoughtyouwere the one pushing us to do this instead.”
“That thing, that unspeakable thing,” I whisper. “The ship, it won’t be able to...”
“Shh,” he says, laying a finger on my lips. I kiss it, staring up at him. He nods.
Tears fill my eyes. I place the gauzy blanket over us and type into the offline tablet.Let’s go commit murder.
_-* Tasks Remaining: 3010 *-_
We’re finally ready to put our rebellion into action. We stand at the entrance to theAurora’s engine room—and its set of Kodiak clones. To go inside, all we have to do is leap into zero g and bust through the printed polycarb. If Rover weren’t blocking the way.
