If I manage to time it right, the Christmas episode will happen near Christmas. This was totally not planned.

"So, I press this, which sets... the gravitational scale?"

Jura nods and continues combing her fingers through my... her... my hair.

I really wish I had more agency in my life. Right now, I've been instructed by Meia to work with Jura to figure out those nav computers like the one inside Vandread Jura's cockpit. So far, I've learned a lot about what not to do in user design, namely, lots of bright pictures obscuring other bright pictures. It's a jumbled mess. I want to have a word with whoever designed this.

Normally, I'd still be fine with this. I've dealt with worse user interfaces. However, Meia had to go and say that I had to obey Jura, no matter what her commands. I thought I was going to be in trouble, but most of her requests were reasonable. Transforming into her and letting her play with her own hair on my head isn't really that bad compared with "Let's have sex!"

"Okay, so I press this, then that, then hit the back arrow-" The spherical screen starts displaying the current gravitational fields around us, the most prominent being the Nirvana's gravity generators. The next biggest is the combined effect of a clump of asteroid things floating a few dozen kilometers away. I never really figure out astronomical terms, so these might be meteors. There's no trail, so they're not comets. I know that free-floating rocks in a belt are asteroids, but we're too far from any star for this clump to display any noticeable orbit.

Anyway, I'm getting the hang of the nav computer. It's not hard once you know what you're looking for, it's just sifting through the data dump is annoying. I question if this is even needed when we have transmitters embedded in our skulls anyway, and I bet I can use that data much faster.

Jura twists my hair into a bun and secures it in place with a pin of some sort. "Perfect! I'll use this hairstyle at the Christmas party!"

"A) it's still a month until Christmas. B) I don't think this is going to be 'hip' like you think it is." It feels like my scalp is being twisted in every direction at once! Why do girls do this to themselves?

"Well then John, do you have any better suggestions?"

"Ponytail."

Jura frowns, and I just catch it out of the corner of my eye. "Yes, but that's your preference, not Barnette's."

"I could just go ask her." I say for the eighth or so time. "It would save so much guesswork."

"How can you pick up on the hardest parts of our computers so simply, yet when it comes to romance..." She shakes her head. "Us women like to be surprised when we get a gift. If we know it's coming it cheapens it."

I shrug and go back to staring at the swirling, colorful lights. I'm just glad Mejare systems use English as their written language, or these lessons would be a lot more excruciating. "Why are you considering a hairstyle a present though?" I ask. "Does Barnette have a hair fetish?"

Jura puffs herself up. "Nope! I'm her gift, just like every year, and as such I must have the most beautiful wrappings!"

"...Have you tried the bow-kini?"

Jura's eyes lock on my face expectantly, and she gives me a quizzical look.

"It's when you take a ribbon and tie yourself up in it." I explain. "It's like how you wrap a present so you can just pull the bowstring and it unravels."

"I'm... not sure what you're talking about. Can you show me?"

I resist the urge to sigh, noting that I"ve been doing that a lot more than usual once getting on this ship. "Do you mind if I end up in your body with hardly any clothes on?"

"I don't see why not."

"Modesty laws?" I mutter under my breath. "Fine, give me a second."

A second or so later, There are two Juras: One with her standard black dress outfit, and one in a ribbon that's... probably not wide enough. I think Jura could walk around deck with this on, but I'd have to double check... nope, widen the ribbons.

"That's..." Jura hesitates. "I like it! But, I would have to walk around in front of everyone like that?"

"No, just put a red coat on over it. Some Mrs. Claus costume or something."

"Mrs claws?" Jura absentmindedly pulls the pin from my hair and it flops down in a soft golden curtain. "I don't know what you mean."

"It's... just a red overcoat. Can I go back to being me now?" I complain.

"Not until we cover one last thing." Jura sits down opposite me and the sphere in the center goes away. I immediately notice her serious face and I straighten up, which... Uh, changing from ribbons now. "You need to think about presents for your three girls."

"They're not mine."

"They're certainly closer to you than anyone else. Aside from your word, I think everyone would assume that you're in four-way relationship."

I wave my hand. "I'm still trying to figure out what to do on that front. They all seem to genuinely care for me, despite all the stuff I've done to stop that from being the case." I lean back and slowly start reverting to my own form, hoping she won't notice the change if it's slow enough. "I think I've given up trying to dissuade them."

"It's about time." Jura sniffs.

"Yeah yeah. It still doesn't mean I return their feelings. I'm still working that one out."

"Who do you like the most?" Jura asks nonchalantly.

I give her the stink eye. "Ain't touching that one. Aren't we talking about presents?"

Jura rolls her eyes at my change of subject. "Right, presents."

"Since there's not exactly a store anywhere, they have to be hand-made." I hold up my index finger. "Also, they need to be unique. They're going to notice copy-paste gifts."

"Copy... Paste?"

"Er, rinse and repeat?" Jura still looks confused. "If I make them very similar gifts, they're going to notice." She nods in understanding. "Next, the gifts should be relevant to their interests."

"For Zan, that's obvious, she adores music."

"And I have a good idea for that." I stand up and pose. "I can sing her a song!"

"She would like that." Jura approves. "How about Dita?"

"Dita likes... aliens and me. Maybe I could find some old x-files type things... Do you guys have internet?"

"What's that?"

"Eh, lot's of people hooking together a whole lot of computers so they can communicate. It allows you to talk to other people remotely, share files, learn the news..." look at porn...

"So, our communications system?" Jura asks.

"Sort of. The internet is a lot... bigger. More stuff. Videos, music, games." porn... I shrug. "Back home, I used to spend most of my time there."

"Well, back at base we do have a large movie database, but we're too far out of range to grab anything off of it." Jura muses. "Does that sound right?"

"Yeah. I wish I could see that. Hell, I'd like to figure out what kind of network you're using. I'll have to ask Parfet."

"Back to Dita."

"I'm going to get her an alien movie to watch, if I can. If I can't, I'll... Well, she likes to cook too, so I could teach her one of those recipes I know."

Jura looks at me askance. "You can cook? I though men lived off those pills."

"Tarak males, yes." I smirk at her. "I'm not from Tarak."

"And you still won't tell me where you're from." Jura pouts, though it's as unconvincing as she can make it. "I think Dita would enjoy it, if only because she'd get to spend more time with her 'Mister Alien.'"

"I've had worse nicknames."

"Oh? Now I'm curious."

"Well, most of them are based of my real name, so they wouldn't make sense." I say.

"...Real name?"

Whoops. "Er, y-yeah. Real name."

Silence.

"Isn't John your real name?"

"No, it's not." I grumble a bit. "It's my internet name."

"You have an internet name?"

"It's... the internet was kind of anonymous, once upon a time. I went to great lengths to separate my internet me and my real me." I start drumming my fingers on the computer console. "Johnny Wycliffe was the name I picked when I first got going, and I never thought to change it significantly."

"Then, what's your real name?"

"If I was going to say, you'd think I would have said it by now." I smile wanly. "I'm not planning on telling it to anyone."

"That's not fun." She holds a finger to her lips. "Maybe we should all make new names for ourselves. We can make our own internet!"

"With blackjack and hookers." I deadpan. "Not to get us back on track, but for Meia..."

"Yes?"

"Yeah, I got nothing. Help her maintain her Dread? Make up new attack patterns?" I snort. "She's more of an action type girl. If we we're back home, I'd take her to this mountain I used to like going to. I bet she'd enjoy hiking."

"How far is your home from Tarak?" Jura asks.

"I don't know. I'm not even sure where anything is in relation to everyone else. For all I know, we've been heading away from my home planet." Not to mention, different universe, different time, etc.

"Why are you so stubborn when it comes to information about yourself?" Jura grumbles. "Okay, we'll finish for today."

"Mister Alien!"

I manage to brace myself for the flying tackle before Dita can quite bowl me over. "Hey, Dita."

"I made you lunch!" She produces a small box tied up in a small handkerchief with an alien stitched on it.

I gratefully accept the gift, and then hesitantly wrap my arm around her shoulders. Awkward at our disparate heights, but I think I got the point across. Dita's face is almost the color of her hair. "Where do you want to go to eat this?" I ask.

"W-why don't we go to the hangar?" Dita suggests, already recovering from my sudden contact.

I'll have to work on that. Dita clearly likes hanging out with me, and enjoys physical contact. Zan doesn't care for the excessive touch thing Dita likes, and neither does Meia. Fortunately for those two my default state is "do not touch." Or look at. Or make eye contact with.

ANYWAY.

"So, I was working on my Dread, and guess what?"

"What?"

"Some of the circuits are changing! The Paksis must be modifying the Dreads to make them work better."

"Hmm." Looks like I won't be getting a break from memorizing parts anytime soon. "Do you remember what the modified circuit was?"

"It's the Star drive module. It's all different from the last time I tried to use it, and it's got a lot less surface mount components."

"At least it'll be easier to maintain." I offer.

We get to the hangar, and to my surprise Zan is already there. I quickly pull my hand off of Dita, who looks slightly put off for a fraction of a second. Zan is standing in front of my Vanguard and muttering to herself.

"Zan!" Dita calls.

Zan turns and smiles at her friend. "Dita! What are you doing here?"

Dita gestures to me. "That's my line. Mister Alien and I are going to look at some changes to my Dread over lunch."

Zan looks up at me. I nod. "Okay. Do you mind if I join you?"

I look at Dita. "Your call."

"Sure!" Dita smiles. "The more the merrier, right?"

The meal ended up being chicken on rice, which is delicious.

And so, we sit down to eat. Halfway through, Dita moves over to her dread and strips some component out of it quickly to bring over. She starts pointing out what had changed, namely that the number of surface mount components had been reduced. Or, rather, that they have been consolidated and made more streamline. Thinner. Probably a bit harder to break as well. Nice going, Paksis.

Once we finish, Zan splays out on the hangar floor. "How do you two understand all of that complicated stuff?"

"Five years studying it." I answer.

"I learned from some of the ladies that took me in after my dome shut down!" Dita replies chirpily.

"Dita, what exactly happened to you when your dome shut down?" I ask. "If you don't mind telling me, of course."

"I don't mind." She picks at her gums with a fingernail. "It was hard to get a job, because neither of my parents stuck around. Nobody to vouch for my skills. I got traded around between orphanages quite a bit until I turned fourteen. I managed to get a job at a parts shop, and I learned all about circuits and machines. One of the orders that came through was for the captain, and I met Zan!"

Zan smiles. "Yeah, and despite my best efforts, here you are."

"I wasn't going to be able to meet any aliens on Mejare." Dita complains. "Captain Magno promised me I could meet aliens, and so I joined up." She smiles slightly. "You know how my first mission turned out."

"Ah, that was your first mission?" I snort. "Wonderful. For some reason, I always assumed you'd been a pirate for longer than that. If I had known I'd have stopped combining with you."

For some reason, both of the girls blush.

"What?, No, you can't blush now, it's what we've been saying for months! Just because it means something to you now-"

"Why didn't you stop us?" Dita asks plaintively. "Now it sounds dirty!"

"Yeah, well... I thought this was some sort of cosmic joke when I woke up on the Nirvana." I say. "I wasn't exactly attempting to interfere with anything at that point."

Zan gives me a weird look, but Dita plows on. "We need to change it to something better!"

I suggest "Merging" and "Integrating" but Dita didn't like either of those on the grounds that they sound too mechanical.

Zan suggests "Grouping", but that's too general for our purposes, at least in my opinion.

Dita herself comes up with "Couple" and "Fuse." I immediately point out that "couple" is worse than combining, and that "fusing" sounds more permanent.

Thus, the end resolution is that we combine, and that's that. It's enjoyable to watch how the normally air-headed girl gets now that she associates combining robots with sex.

Just wait until Vandread Pyoro shows up. That's gotta be one hell of a sexual metaphor. For a brief second, I wonder if we could somehow switch Jura and Zan, and I'd have me my own little harem ship. This though live all of a second before I squash it flat and burn it with mental fire. It doesn't matter if it'd be true, I don't want to think that way.

"So, what are the plans for Christmas?" I ask, allowing me some time to turn my brain off. I already know the general details anyway.

Zan and DIta start to discuss the upcoming event, and I content myself to smile and nod.

"Meia?"

She turns around in her seat. She's got rings around her eyes, which I can only see in the light from the door. The room is dark, and the table has a glowing screen on it. "Ah, John."

"Are you okay?"

She nods, then shakes her head. "I don't know." She finally decides. "I was going over tactics, and... suddenly, none of them made sense anymore."

I glance at the currently accessed plan. "Looks like a standard formation to me."

"Yes, but-" She presses a few buttons. "-if we just link up and do Vandread Meia, Vandread Jura or Vandread Dita without sending out other pilots the overall survival rate goes way up."

Cautiously, I sit down next to her. Closer than I would've in the past. Progress! "Isn't that a good thing?"

"It would be, but the four of us who would be heading out regularly have vastly reduced chances of surviving any particular engagement. Since you're always out there, your chances of survival go down very fast."

Some numbers come up on screen, and... wow, yeah, it's not looking good. So far, we've gotten lucky and none of the pilots have died, but there have been a lot of broken starfighters that had to be ejected from. Seeing as my Vanguard doesn't seem to have an eject, I can see where her concern comes from. "Ah, well, I'm willing to take that risk." I flex my arm, as if I had any muscle definition to show. "I'll do my part to keep everyone safe."

"But I want to keep you safe." Meia says, putting her head in her hands.

"...Ah." I stroke my chin. "Um, I know why, but you do realize that I'm gonna go out there and fight no matter what, right?"

"I can't even realistically stop you." She says. "the Vandreads are too effective to relegate to a backup plan. Following from that, it quickly becomes ineffective to have anyone other than the Vandread out on the battlefield. More targets for the enemy, and we hardly gain anything from it."

"Hmm." I slide my chair to be nearly touching hers.

"Did the other me have to deal with this?"

"I'd say no, at least, not right here and now. You didn't fall in love with Hibiki right away like Dita did, so trying to pull him out of the fire prematurely never really comes up."

She bobs her head. "Okay. So, what do I do?"

I shrug. "Trust me not to die stupidly?"

"Hah, big talk, coming from someone who doesn't trust anyone else."

...What?

Meia turns to face me again, which makes her legs knock into my chair. "Tell me, John, who you trust on this ship?"

"Uh..."

"Yeah, that's right. 'Uh.' You don't trust anyone."

"I..." I shut my mouth for a second. "It's not you guys, it's because of who I used to be."

"And who is that? John isn't even your real name!" Meia bangs her fist on the table. "I know more than anyone else on this ship about you, and you haven't even told me your real name."

"..."

"It's stupid to trust someone who doesn't trust you." Meia jabs her finger into my chest. "And I don't see why I should trust you."

"...Every single time I've trusted someone, I've gotten burned. Every. Single. Time." I take a deep breath. "The last time really hurt, so I shut myself down."

"Most of the crew has some sort of sordid backstory, welcome to the Nirvana." Meia spread her arms wide. "We're a family now, and we take care of each other."

I look at her, barely visible in the glow of the table display. "I get that. I do, but I can't just say 'oh, gee, I trust you now.' At least, I can't say it sincerely." I stare off into the middle distance. "If it makes you feel better, I probably trust you more than anyone else I know at the moment."

"That's not that comforting." Meia says. "But it'll have to do for now." She turns back to her display.

"You know, you should probably take a break." I suggest.

"And do what?" Meia asks.

"Er... do you... want to go on a date?" A slap smile on my face.

"What is this?" Meia holds up an orange disk, about two inches across.

"That," I proudly grab one of my own. "Is a pumpkin cookie."

She eyes the confection suspiciously. "What's in it?"

"Pumpkin, oatmeal, brown sugar, white sugar, flour, some eggs, vanilla, chocolate chips, baking soda-"

She holds up a hand. "Okay." She looks back at the cookie. "Why is it so moist?"

"Lots of pumpkin. At home, we had to put a slice of bread in the container we stored them in or they'd melt together." I take a bite of the cookie, and it tastes slightly different than I'm used to, but that's probably due to how the ingredients are made. Still tasty as all get out, though.

Meia takes a bite, and her eyes light up. "Wow, it's actually good!"

"I'm offended." I sniff dramatically. "I'll have you know I was in charge of desserts for thanksgiving back home!"

"Thanksgiving? What's that?"

"Er, a holiday for my country. Everyone gives thanks for what whatever, then everyone overeats and watches too much sports. I always made a few desserts."

"That doesn't sound like you were in charge."

I shrug. "I can afford to exaggerate. None of them can contradict my story, right?"

"You're so weird."

"That I am, yet here you are."

She grabs another cookie, which I take as her actually enjoying them rather than attempting to spare my feelings. "On Mejare, we only celebrate Christmas, Valentines, and Birthdays."

"Yeah, because your society is based off of... er, your society is similar to Japan's in the late 90's." I correct myself. "Your Christmas isn't at all like the ones I'm used to."

"Really?"

"Yeah. You guys treat it like a present swap, which is similar to what we do. We have this person called Santa Claus who goes around delivering presents to good girls and boys. You know that costume Magno wears? That one. So far, this is similar. However, where I come from, we also have this guy called Jesus, who supposedly dies so everyone else could go to paradise after death."

"...What?"

"Remember that cult from the spine harvesting planet? Like that, but they praise the guy they say created the universe and his son instead of the harvesters. It's a bunch of bullshit if you ask me."

"That sounds complicated." Meia takes another bite of cookie. "I like our version."

"Me too. It focuses on materialism and disregards the whole religious debate entirely."

She gives me the eye. "Stop making up words."

"I'm not!"

She finishes up her cookie and I pull the last batch out of the oven and set them on the tile counter to cool. It'll only take a few minutes... "Hey, Meia. Once these are done, wanna head for the arboretum?"

"The what?"

"You could've just said park." Meia says.

Right now, we're lying down side by side on a blanket in the park area under the bridge, staring up at the stars.

"I could, but I like big words."

"Most of which you make up."

"I do not! If I had a dictionary, I'd show you."

"Tarak or Mejare dictionary?"

"Good point." I mutter. "I guess Mejare? I can read Mejare."

"It's convenient for you that our text is legible to you."

"It means I don't need an interpreter when you send me a message or some orders." I poke her in the ribs with my index finger. She squirms away from the attack.

"Yes... You know, I've been thinking."

"Uh-oh."

She ignores my snide comment. "Right now, you only know spoken Mejare because of that chip in your head, and I don't know Tarak at all. You speak Tarak normally though."

"Yeah, that sounds right."

"So, why don't you teach me Tarak?"

"Hmm. I'm not sure the proper way to teach a language, but I can always try."

For the next few hours, I attempt to teach Meia some English, or "tarak" until she fades away to sleep, with a smile on her face.

When the two of us are woken the next morning, it was in what most people would label a compromising position.

And we're finally moving the romance along. That's totally what this was supposed to be, right? A romance novella?

*checks tags* "Sci-Fi" and "Angst"

Okay, so next time: John returns to Whiny bitch mode, now the 3.7 version. Meia shoots lasers from her fist. Space! Action! Depression!

...I need to finish college. I can feel my brain melting.