Bird of Paradise

by MetusR

A Commander, a drunken night, a Carrier looking for a one-night stand, but the universe has other ideas. Characters for this one: Tico, Lexington (CV-16), and a Commander, as well as a few other OC's.

1. Chapter 1

Lima Eco Whisk Delta

It's funny, as you get older, you start to really notice things change, my friends in the Academy all went our separate ways for our first postings, we tried to keep in touch, but well things happen. Now, however, I was quickly closing on an honest to go full blow Captain's posting, man had I worked hard for it. But with fewer and fewer sea postings due to kansen being a thing, shore postings became a bit of a hot commodity. But I got lucky, a posting opened up at a small base in the Pacific, and it went to me, all that hard work I had put in for nearly a decade was finally paying off!

So yay me!

That all being said, I'm not there yet, right now I'm out here in San Diego, the last stop before I catch up with a small fleet of the girls that are rotating out to that base while some others are rotating closer to home. So, I had a night to kill, but that meant I got to link up with some buddies that are posted on the west coast to celebrate my good fortune! When the four bottles hit the counter, I linked them between my fingers, two bottles to a hand, just as I turned around to start going back to my table, I bumped into someone, spilling all the beer, getting it all over me. "Oh, sorry!" she said to me and I was speechless, she was so pretty, with gorgeous blue eyes, long light blue hair with some kind of flower in it just over her left ear. She was dressed for clubbing, with a short black skirt and tight white crop top that was leaving little to the imagination.

Sighing inwardly I start to turn to order new ones as I say to her, "It's crowded, it's all good."

She places a hand on my arm and says, "I got it." She then waves to the bartender to get their attention as she says, "Four beers and four coolers, please!" With the bartender starting to collect the bottles she turned back to me, smiled, and said, "I'm Ty, would you and your crew like to join me and mine tonight?"

Fuck she's pretty and friendly too.

"Rob. Do you and yours have a table?" I ask with a half shout over the music.

"Not yet, been trying to find a group that does." She winks at me.

With a laugh I counter, "Sounds more like you're asking if you can join us then."

"Why have you got a table?" she leans in to ask.

Damn, she smells really good.

"Yeah, do you four want to join us then?" I ask her.

She grins and winks before grabbing the four coolers and starting to walk into the sea of people, grabbing the beers I do my best to follow her, but once I lost sight of her I went back to my table, placing down the beers, one of my buddies gave me a sideways look as he asks, "What happened?"

"What?" I ask a little surprised by the question.

"You took a long time." He calls back.

I was about to say something when I heard her again, "Rob!" Turning in my chair I saw 'Ty' standing with a woman with blond hair in long pigtails and green eyes, another with blond hair that was pink-purple at the tips with blue eyes, and the last one had blue hair as well with red eyes, they've got to be contact lenses. 'Ty' gestured to each of them in turn as she said, "'Net, Mar, and Lou."

My buddies all gulped in unison, each one of these girls were solid tens, and we were all, at best, sevens, maybe eights. Each of the girls took a seat beside one of us, with 'Ty' sitting beside me, she smiles at me and asks, "Are you in town long?"

I shake my head and tell her, "No, I'm actually heading out tomorrow."

'Ty' brushes some hair behind an ear before placing a hand on my leg and whispering, in my ear, "Then let's make tonight a memorable one."

Fuck it, luck is on my side right now!

Under the table, I place a hand on her thigh and whisper, "What'd you have in mind?"

'Ty' gets up and looks to 'Net and asks, "Will you three be fine?"

'Net makes a dismissive gesture and winks at 'Ty' as she says, "Don't stay up too late!"

'Ty' looks over her shoulder at me and winks, swaying her hair to the side and giving me a glimpse of what looks like a tattoo on the small of her back, most of it hidden under her waistband before putting a bit of a suggestive tone on this word, "Coming?"

I risk a look at my buddies and one of them, all but pushes me out of my chair as I say, "Yeah."

'Ty' reaches behind her to take my fingers in hers and she leads me out of the club to a motel across the street and she asks, "You got some condoms right?"

I nod dumbly and she smiles suggestively before winking and pulling me in the door as she purrs, "Good."

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A buzzing sound pulls me out of the black, then a second buzzing sound, and that was when it hit me, my alarm! Fuck! I fell asleep!

Hopping out of bed, I hear a second set of feet hit the floor and I look to my right to see the girl from last night, memories of how good she was, the way her hips moved, and the way that tattoo looked like stylized wings when I could finally see it all. She looks at me over her shoulder and has a very satisfied smirk on her lips as she says, "I guess we fell asleep."

Grabbing my boxers and slipping them on, while she grabs her skirt and pulls it up I sigh, "Yeah, now I got to sprint to my hotel room, to grab a quick shower and get changed."

"Same." She sighs adding, "I got to get to work."

As soon as I had my shirt on she was pulling her hair out of hers and she came up to me, kissed me, and patted my chest before she went to grab her shoes and says to me, "You were great last night."

Before I can say anything she's already out the door, I grab my phone and see that I've got a text message, opening it, I see it's from 'Ty' and I give it a read, "Check your photos?" Going to my photos, I see I've got a series of lewds of her, then I get a second message and I open it and smirk, 'Something to remember me by.'

Damn, I really got lucky last night.

In a hurry, I finish getting my stuff on and head to my hotel room to get changed and grab my kit so I can get to the port before too much longer, I already knew I was going to be running late.

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Adjusting my duffle bag on my shoulder I hurry to the port to catch up with my ride out to the base. I kind of wondered what kansen I'm going to be riding with, I'd met a few of them before, mostly in passing, but this was going to be me, commanding a base full of them, so I was kind of excited. Tapping my pocket to where my phone was, I knew I was going to look at those… reminders of 'Ty' tonight, damn was she ever hot, way, way out of my league usually.

I rounded the last corner to the port, and I saw a group of four ships, two aircraft carriers, looking like Essex class, and long hulls at that too, and a pair of cruisers, one was clearly a light cruiser of some kind and the other was a heavy I think, but I wasn't familiar with the turret layout of it. Pretty rare for an Eagle Union heavy cruiser to have four triple turrets after the New Orleans class, these ones looked more akin to a Baltimore class, just with an AB-XY, rather than the AB-X on the Baltimore class. The light cruiser was the next one to really get my attention, it had dual gun turrets, again in an ABC-XYZ, but these guns were bigger than what was found on an Atlanta class, the hull was also larger than a Cleveland class too. Thinking about it, only two of the hull types were familiar to me, the long hull Essex class, and I wasn't in a position to see the names or numbers on them right now.

My attention is snapped to down the pier as I see a couple of women walking towards the hulls, one is in a blue and white puffy jacket, a blue and white skirt that goes to just above her knee, and she has green-rimed glasses that seem to match her green eyes, her hair looks kind of short and a light brown with a couple of small braids, on the top of her head is a great big white cowboy hat. Beside her the other one had socks of different lengths that went to spiked red and black running shoes, her red and black skirt looked to be tattered, and she was in a black top that had a pink heart over her left boob, around her neck she had headphones, with a thinner red and black jacket on, she had pink colored eyes that seemed to contrast her dark red hair that was held in place with a baseball cap. She looked at the brunette and said, "Seriously, Buffy, you need to go out and get fucked at least once. The whole 'good girl' thing you got going on needs to get shattered."

'Buffy' went bright red and looked down as she mumbled, "Wooster, I'm not sure that's a good idea, if I ever do that, I want it to be with 'the one', ya know?"

'Wooster rolled her eyes and groaned, "Are you fucking serious? You'll never meet 'the one' if you never go out and ride one?"

'Buffy' tapped her index fingers together and mumbled, "I'm sure he'll just find me one day, Wooster."

'Wooster' looked up and let out this great big exasperated sigh as she said, "Oh my god. I cannot believe I am going to be stuck with you for months."

'Buffy' took off her cowboy hat and used it to hide her face, then a moment later 'Wooster' rounded on her and all but shouted, "Never?"

Taking out my phone I checked the time, I needed to link up with the kansen that were heading out to the base I'm heading to. So with a sigh, I step out from around the side of the building, square my shoulders, and call out to them, "Hello!"

'Wooster' turned, and looked me up and down before turning to 'Buffy' and asking, "What about him?"

Doing my best to keep it in stride, I try and adjust the conversation back to what I need, "I'm Commander Robert Cooper, do you know where the task force that's heading to Midway is?"

'Wooster' just smirked and elbowed 'Buffy', causing her to lower her hat to look at me as 'Wooster' said, "Well you found two of us, Sir, and we're just waiting on the carriers to get here. I'm Worcester, CL-One-Forty-Four, the lead ship of my class," she pauses and gestures to 'Buffy', "This is Buffalo, the prototype of the CA-B program, an improved version of the Baltimore class. We're providing the escort to the carriers,"

Whatever she was going to say was stopped dead as I hear a woman saying, "Really, Ticonderoga, I told you not to stay out so late, we're running behind now."

My heart all but stops and jumps into my throat as I hear 'Ty' from last night sigh, "I know, I know. I didn't mean to fall asleep, Lexi. But hey, how's the new rigging treating you?"

"I like it for the most part, the new planes are interesting and so much better than what I used to be able to handle, though I don't much care for the Helldivers." 'Lexi' says to 'Ty'.

"Yeah, I understand that, I much prefer my Corsairs, but the Helldivers have their place." 'Ty' tells 'Lexi' with a pause to continue, "Sorry we're late Commander! I was held up this morning."

Please, please, please don't let it be 'Ty'.

I turn slowly around and see the same blue hair with the flower above her left ear, the dark blue and white kansen uniform leaving little to the imagination, hugging her in all the right places. When she sees me, the color drains from her face, her blue eyes going wide. Beside her was a tall woman with long pink hair and purple eyes, her outfit seemed similar to Ty's or I guess I should call her Ticonderoga.

Damn, I had no idea she had been kansen, just thought she dyed her hair and pubs. Still, she had been amazing last night, so win?

Ticonderoga takes a moment to take a deep breath and looks past me as she asks, "Are you all set, Commander?"

"Cooper. Yeah, I'm all set." I pause and look to the four hulls and ask, "Who should I catch a lift with?"

Wooster grabs my arm and says with a tone that told me she wanted me to do something, "Why not catch a lift with Buffy? She's never had a man aboard."

Buffalo covered her face again with the cowboy hat and squeaked out, "Wooster!"

I look at Ticonderoga and she looks away, her cheeks bright red, 'Lexi' looks at Ticonderoga with a small smirk on her lips as she says, "Commander, why not catch a lift with me, I'm sure I can find some way to…" she winks, "keep you entertained."

Sighing I get myself untangled from Wooster and move to follow behind 'Lexi', "Sounds like a good idea."

Honestly, her hip movement was almost hypnotic as we started to board her hull, I risked a glance over my shoulder to see Wooster frown and shove Buffalo while gesturing towards me. Turning my attention to my other side I see Ticonderoga moving to board her hull and I'm left wondering how awkward this trip is going to be.

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Putting my stuff down in the officer's cabin Lexington had given me to use, I made my way up to the flight deck, I kind of wanted to see her air wing firsthand. I had heard that carrier-class kansen were a wholly different kind, same for subs for that matter, but that's w whole other kettle of fish. I mean this wouldn't be my first time working closely with them, but Lexington and Ticonderoga were the first carrier-class I'd been able to work closely beside anyway.

Stepping out of the hatch onto the flight deck, I stopped as I heard two voices, "…You did what?!"

Then I heard Ticonderoga speak up, "I didn't know he was going to be a base commander! We didn't exactly do a lot of talking last night."

"Oh honey, were you careful at least? I mean we both know why we're being transferred out to Midway." That was Lexington for sure.

Now I was curious as to what was going on, I mean I knew why I was getting the posting, the current base commander was transferring stateside, but the details surrounding it weren't exactly available to me. But what I hear next sent a shock through my system and made me rethink the last twenty-four hours.

Ticonderoga sighed, "I know, I know, with Enterprise getting knocked up, they want two of us to take up the slack with her rotating stateside, but I was careful! The first thing I asked him before we went to the hotel was that he had condoms."

I slowly backed away from the hatch and made my way to the quarters I had on the Lexington to rethink the last couple of years and how some of the kansen I had worked with before had been rather flirty with me, let alone that they could get pregnant!

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A couple of days into the trip, that as I learned was going to take about two weeks, there is a knock on my cabin door, I kind of wondered if it was going to be Lexington. Putting down my laptop I called, out, "It's open."

The door unlatched and as it opened up, I saw Ticonderoga standing there, her hands were touching her belly and I suddenly felt, very, very scared. I guess it was obvious what I was thinking because she started to laugh when entering as she said, "Oh god no. So I guess you overhead me and Lexi talking on the flight deck the other day?"

Looking off to the side I nod as I sigh, "Yeah, I had no idea that kansen could, ya know?"

She comes fully into the room, making sure the door is closed behind her, she stops at the bed and gestures to it, "Can I sit?"

Scooting up a bit, I nod and say, "Yeah, of course."

Once she sits down, she looks at me and we start to say at the same time:

"About the other..."

"About the other…"

After a moment I gesture to her as I say, "Ladies first."

She smiles and brushes some blue hair behind an ear as she starts again, "So, about the other night, had I known you were a base commander, I never would've hopped into bed with you." after a moment when my features fall she quickly adds, "Not that you weren't good or anything!"

"Thanks?" I say with an unsure tone before looking off to the side as I continue, "To be fair, I'm not a base commander yet, I won't be one for about another week. And well, you were the first kansen I ever got into bed with." I pause and wink at her as I take on a mocking falsetto tone, "Not that you weren't good or anything!"

Ticonderoga looked hurt for a second before laughing and flicking some blue hair before getting off the bed and saying, "Alright, that was fair. But you're not one of those, 'kansen are property and not people' type, are you?"

Sensing possible future sexy times were at risk depending on my answer, I went with an automatic, "Nope." I mean honestly, I wasn't totally sure how I felt about them right now, but I knew enough that giving any other answer would've put me in for lonely times ahead, at least this way I get some time to figure things out.

"Good." She says to me before going towards the door, as she had her back to me, I saw the very tips of those stylized wings of that tattoo. Ticonderoga looked over her shoulder at me as she touched the door handle and asked, "Could you do me a favor and delete those photos I sent you?"

Damn it.

Hanging my head I took out my phone, accessed my photo gallery, selected the images she had sent me, and hit delete, turning the phone around I said, "Done."

She winked and said in a tone that suggested I really did do the right thing, "Good."

Before I can ask what she meant by that she was out the door, leaving me to flop on my back and groan, "This is going to be a rough assignment."

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