Chapter 14 Don't Leave Me Broken Hearted

Phin and I made out in his bedroom for a good half hour before I giggled against his lips and broke contact. I stared into his eyes. "Quite the adventure we just had."

"And we have more yet to come." Phin smiled at me. I mussed with his hair and then I pulled his jacket off. He helped me get my shirt off and then we started kissing again.

"Anything in mind?" I asked him.

"I think we're on a pretty good journey right now, if I'm being completely honest." he was smirking at me and I stared into his beautiful eyes and kissed him a little more. I liked kissing him, and I didn't want to stop kissing him. "Do you want to keep going?"

I nodded, "Uh-huh." and we went all the way that night. Tonight was a good night, we all deserved to be happy, even with some of our sadnesses. I could always repair SAM, and that could wait till after my fun. I had plenty of time for it. I kissed Phin's neck and he ran his fingers up the length of my back. I tingled and shivered but it was a good feeling. I let him do it, liking every second his fingers traced my skin. "Mmm…" I grunted and put my hand in the waistband of his pants. He giggled and I played at the waistband of both his pants and undershorts. "You like that?"

He smiled at me, "Of course I do." I felt his bulge against my knee. I began to undo his belt and he and I kissed as I did so. He pulled his pants off while we kissed and I laughed and groped him. "Mmmph!"

"This is good," I said tenderly and he nodded in agreement, staring up at me. I was above him and I removed my pants. The blankets were twisted and I plucked at them, pulling them over us and removed my underwear. He did the same. "Looking good, doctor."

"I could say the same to you, Captain."

"I like that, I like it when you call me Captain."

"Good, because I won't stop." he winked and I pecked his lips as I felt him up.

I loved the way I could make him moan at my every touch, and I think he liked the way he made me squirm at his every touch. I grunted as he squeezed my ass and I smiled down at him. "I'm glad I'm doing this with you." I told him.

"Yeah, and not with that grimy scum representative on board the Groundbreaker."

"Oh hush you, I was drunk off my ass and very confused that day."

"Confused you say? Does this confuse you?" he put his hands on my back, applied a little force, wrapped one leg around me and we flipped over. I now had my head on the pillow and he was above me. The blanket was slipping.

"It makes me a little chilly."

"Right, sorry," he giggled awkwardly. He fixed the covers. Then he kissed me, "This is all that matters, you and me." he said.

"Seems like someone wants to sit down," I giggled and he rolled his eyes.

The next morning an alarm clock blared loud in my ear. I said, "ADA, turn that off," before realizing that I was not on my ship.

"You're with me, remember. CARMA, stop!" Phin said.

"CARMA?" I asked.

"Computerized Artificial Reasoning Mainframe Actuator." came the groggy reply.

"That is correct," said the computer and the alarm stopped.

"Can you get me some coffee? I'll be right there. I may need to take a shower alone this morning."

"No problem!" I said and went to make coffee. I saw Paisley was already in the kitchen. "Good morning."

"Morning. Ugh, I hate Mondays." she groaned, leaning her head back. Her mug said 'I love Mondays.' I laughed at the irony. "I made enough coffee for all of us, but grumpy butt won't get out of bed."

"Phin will probably be out when he finishes his shower. He has to get up first too."

"I'm already showered. Would you like to use the Unreliable's bathroom?"

"I will after I've had my cup of joe."

After all was said and done, the four of us met in Phin's dining room. "What's on the docket for today, Captain," asked Walt.

"So, I need Alex for another important mission." Phin started.

"What is it, doc?" asked Paisley.

"I'm planning on waking up whoever is in that pod. However, after careful calculation, I've come to realize there isn't enough dimethyl sulfoxide."

"So what are we gonna do?" I asked, cocking my head.

"There's a shipment heading away from Terra 2. I want you to intercept it just outside the second ring before it makes it to the Groundbreaker. If you leave here by ohhhh, O 900 you should arrive at the coordinates on this navkey about half a minute before the cargo ship is due to pass by the same coordinates."

"What's to stop them from just going around?" Walt asked.

"They are a company that follows a direct flight path and it's against their policy to diverge from that. They will be forced to stop."

"What's to stop them from calling UDL?" asked Paisley.

"All good questions and I've come up with every permutation." Phin had one finger in the air. "I painted some scorch marks and scratches onto the Unreliable last night. It'll look like you just had a bad accident. You'll need to tell the people on the ship that you just got into a bad accident but the other ship did not stop to exchange insurance information."

"Good thinking," I grinned at my scientist. My scientist, I liked that.

"Oh, it's excellent thinking! I'm quite proud of myself. Now, my plan to get the dimethyl sulfoxide. That's where Paisley comes in."

"What am I gonna do?" she asked.

"With an okay from you significant other, you are going to seduce the engineer."

"Wait what? Why!?" Paisley spluttered.

"And why would I be okay with that?"

"You did cheat on her before, she kinda gets this one." I told him.

"Fair." he shrugged.

"The reason being is that he will hopefully be willing to come aboard your ship to fix your supposedly downed engines. You'll have to keep him from that task."

"That makes sense. The engines won't actually be down." I commented.

"Meanwhile, you Alex will be retrieving some more dimethyl sulfoxide from the cargo bay. I have something for you I've been working on. I call it a Shroud." he handed me a little device that I could see attached to my armor somewhere.

"What does it do?"

"With this ID cartridge, it'll disguise you as part of the crew. You'll sneak on board while Paisley is doing her seducing, allowing you to easily steal what we need."

"Sounds good!"

"Now hurry, hurry! The 9 o'clock hour is soon at hand." we all scrambled to get into place.

"ADA, engage engines."

"Will do, Captain," she said.

"Take off at 9 o'clock exactly, no sooner and no later."

"Got it, Captain."

Against all odds, the Unreliable took flight. Well, probably not all odds, I was only messing with myself, thinking about the false scuff marks. I hoped this would all work out the way we wanted. Our ship stopped suddenly, throwing me to the ground. I could hear a cry from the cargo bay, and knew Paisley had fallen too. "Now deactivating engines. We will be adrift for the next several minutes. Let's hope this plan will work." said ADA.

"It will, Phin is a smart man." I saluted her and then there was a hail.

"What is yo ship doin' in the middle of our flight path, boy," said a woman with poofy hair and dark skin on my screen.

"Oh Laws, I am so sorry!"

"Y'all didn't answer my question now."

Paisley ran onto the bridge. "Oh Captain, the engines are just no good! Walt is struggling." she put her acting skills to the max. I saw she had done her hair and put on makeup. Maybe a little overdone.

"What is going on over there! Talk to me baby," she checked her nails and blew a bubble of Rizzo's purpleberry bubblegum.

"[Engineering 20] You see, we just got into an accident with another ship and our engines have fried."

"Where's the other ship then baby…Oh boy that does look rough though."

"They just left! Can you believe that?" I asked her.

"That's just awful. Tell y'all what, how about I send my engineer on over to help y'all out."

"Thank you oh so much."

We docked with the cargo ship and their engineer came aboard. "Oh hey there big boy," Paisley fluttered her eyelashes at him.

His eyes bulged out of their sockets, "Oh boy…" he pulled on his collar.

I walked forward toward their ship. "Permission to come aboard? [Persuade 30] If we're all gonna be waiting for those engines, we might as well be on break."

"True baby, you're all good." she nodded and I moved onto her ship. I passed by some crew then found a nook to hide in as I activated the Shroud. I looked at my hands that now appeared to have on gray gloves. I looked to be wearing the armor uniform of the cargo crew. I ducked out of the nook and went toward the cargo bay. There were some crates stacked up and they were labelled fragile. I opened the first one I saw and read the label on the large vials within. It was dimethyl sulfoxide alright. I grabbed as much as I could hide on my person and moved off.

"Hey, Tomlinson, what are you doing?" came a call from one of the crew members. "Why aren't you at your post?"

"[Intimidate 30] Why aren't you at yours? I could report this you know."

"Tell ya what, if we both just back off, let's call it even?"

"Fine." he backed away and ran off. Then I found that nook again and deactivated the Shroud. Then I returned to my ship. I nodded at Paisley who appeared to have her hands full making out with the cargo crew engineer.

She shoved him away and made a grimace, "Ugh, you're a terrible kisser!"

Walt stepped into the entryway and said, "Hey, guess what! I got the engines fixed. Thanks for you damn help by the way, what've you been doing with my girlfriend?" he punched the engineer in the face and there came a snicker from the other ship's captain.

"Baby, you deserved that. Terrible kisser and ever'thin'. Glad y'all got those engines fixed by the way. Sorry he was slacking off. Come on Samuel." she grabbed his ear and pulled him on board. We disengaged our docking.

I hailed Phineas when we got onto the bridge. Paisley had smudged makeup and Phin laughed when he saw her, "How good was her acting."

"A little too good," Walt grumbled.

"I can see that. Did you get the dimethyl sulfoxide? Have one of your crew bring it to me and head on down to the surface of Terra 2." said Phin.

"Why's that? You don't wanna see me?"

"Of course I do, but when I wake him up his pod is going to eject him, and since it won't be in its hibernation chamber on board the Hope, it'll eject straight onto the planet. I have a tracking beacon for you so it won't land in a bad place."

"Okay."

We did everything he asked, Paisley and Walt got off the ship to bring that to Phin and I waved goodbye, departing for Terra 2. I gave Phin a kiss before I left. He smiled and waved back. I couldn't keep the scientist off my mind as I paced back and forth in the spot where the beacon needed to be. I wasn't one hundred percent certain where I was supposed to put it to be completely honest.

"Alex! Alex, get the fuck out of there!" came Phin's voice over the comms. I looked up and saw the pod falling, right on top of me. I threw the beacond and made to dodge. The pod shifted a little and I was in a good spot to jump away from but it crashed right onto me regardless…

I felt my body on fire and I thought I was dead. I probably was. There was a bright white light in my vision. I felt sick, like I was gonna throw up, but nothing came out. The white light started to fade from view and I wondered what was going on. I closed my eyes and I listened to the noises around me. The pod hissing, the cur-chuf of boots hitting dirt, then nothing. Was this the void? Had my soul lifted into the aether? I didn't have the answers. But my body was still on fire and I blacked it all out.

"He's dead, there's absolutely no way he's getting up from that…" Paisley and Walt went to check on their Captain.

"I can't believe it…" Walt was shaking his head.

They reported to Phineas and he burst into tears. "I was nonchalant about it with Cashew but…"

"I suppose this means he's our new Captain?" asked Walt.

"No…this journey is over…you guys can go on your way." Phin sighed. "I guess I'll start from scratch. Maybe Cashew plays for this team too…no no, focus on what you must focus on…" Phineas was kicking himself for not explaining things better to the Captain. "By all the stars!" he threw a bunch of papers to the side in a raging fury. It was over. He sank to his knees crying.