Aboard the 4th Wish, Nathan was once again going over some of the extra cargo that the ship had picked up from Nova Caedes when the 4th Wish dropped out of the Stellar Lane it was traveling on. It had only taken a couple weeks, but traveling through the Stellar Lanes was not a perfect science. The Mendival engine aboard the ship had to be charged with enough power to tear open reality to enter a sub dimension with a little bubble of reality around them to keep the foreign reality at bay. The biggest limitation being that large enough gravity wells in real space would cause problems during travel, so Humanity had plotted the Stellar Lanes, where a ship could travel from one point to another without something in the vastness of space having enough gravity to rip the ship to pieces.
Nathan had read the same reports as most other supply officers when determining what route ships needed to take and where. Sailors had come to calling this other reality the Dark Ocean after a famous poem and humanity found that there were certain oddities that ships began to report. Sometimes ships would arrive at their destination before they technically even left, some sailors would swear up and down that their ship would get infested by ghosts, there were even ships that claimed to see great monsters lurking in the Dark Ocean, but no one ever came up with anything substantial. As Humanity once again worked on rebuilding itself after the Great War, the rumor mill had only gotten worse.
Captain Irlanda had not been in the best of moods when Nathan stepped onto her ship, but he managed to smooth things over by opening up a few of the crates for her and her crew. He was sure that it technically wasn't a violation of any regulations because the extra booze, ice cream, and chocolate wasn't purchased using Fleet money, nor was it donated for a favor or two. It was a legitimate private purchase, there was just a lot of it. He was tempted to admit to Captain Irlanda that he had no knowledge of the order with his sign off, but Nathan didn't want to cause any waves within the Fleet that might revoke the order. Not needing to hire a civilian company to move all of the freight meant he could use that money set aside to simply purchase more that he initially thought. Everyone in Fleet Medusa knew about Nathan's purchases of extra food, he didn't even try to make it a secret. There had been initial inquiries into the fear that Nathan might be taking bribes but those died out when Samara had said that he was making purchases on her behalf, which forced the higher ups to allow Nathan to continue.
Nathan had been initially shocked when he entered the ship and saw all of the empty bays that had been cleared out in advance on the 4th Wish. It simply wasn't done. Space on a ship was a premium that was valued only slightly less than oxygen in space. The 4th Wish was supposed to be ready for anything, designed to not just wage war in vacuum, but also able to act as a staging ground for the Gorgons aboard it yet so much of it stood empty. Someone was very unsubtle in their attempts in trying to bribe him. Otherwise, why put his signature on the order? It could have been so much easier to use someone else and then hide the order under a bunch of paperwork so that it wouldn't ever cross the desk of the signature's owner. Nathan's thoughts ran round and round as he continued to visually check each of the more delicate containers to make sure that everything made it through the trip. This part of the ship was fairly silent, save for the slight clank of his footsteps on the metal of the cargo bay and the quiet but intense thrum of the engines. So far everything checked out on his data pad and none of the containers had ruptured while in transit.
This kind of work was a lot easier than dealing with all of the new recruits that they had on board the 4th Wish. The Gorgons weren't exactly ready to begin training a bunch of recruits, nor were all of said recruits there to become a Gorgon. The 4th Wish crew however, was incredibly adaptable. Captain Irlanda and her officers had already set up sleeping arrangements ahead of time and splitting the recruits into different groups that had a liason of some sort attached to them that could answer questions. Truthfully, the recuits had provided a very receptive audience to all of the stories that both Gorgons and crew had to tell about their lives. All of the extra food that Nathan had brought on board had made the whole thing much less claustrophobic for everyone involved. Things were a bit messy, but that was easily smoothed over by having access to great food even decent alcohol.
A message alert popped up on his screen moments after entering real space. Nathan appreciated it instead of the words simply popping up his vision or someone speaking directly through his implant. Having someone's voice directly in his head was just a little off to him. He wasn't sure how the Gorgons all managed it with their much more cybernetically enhanced brains. He checked the message and saw it was a general alert message for everyone aboard the ship.
"Arrival at Acheron system. Rendezvous with Fleet in 12 hours. Prepare for transfer to Whale" the message read.
Nathan finished up his inspection of the crate of ice cream and started to make his way to his quarters to pack up his things. It was still a few more hours before the current shift changed across the ship but there was always something that needed doing. Stations needed to be manned and with the announcement of meeting back up with the rest of the fleet, things needed to get done sooner. Exiting the cargo hold, the silence was replaced by more boots against metal and the voices of the crew that drowned out the hum of the engines. Nathan had been on the 4th Wish long enough that he didn't need the painted pathways anymore and his trip back to his room was short. One of the benefits to being a Handler was that he got his own room onboard a ship and the Whale. Even with this immense privilege, Nathan wasn't allowed to bring along any of his vast collection of potted plants from the Whale. He very much missed the cacophony of colors that plant life added.
Compared to what the Gorgons and crew had in their berthing compartments, Nathan might as well have had a veritable palace all to himself. Because of the advent of cybernetic augmentations, things had to be built bigger to accommodate for those bigger soldiers. Except whoever had put together the designs for the 4th Wish had messed up. The bed and its frame were built into the structure of the ship because the bed had storage underneath it. The closets and bathrooms were likewise built because the bathroom had a door that separated it from the rest of the room. In order to save money, the designers had used to the designs for the Gorgon's living quarters and transplanted those measurements into the single person rooms. So Nathan had a comically large bed, closets whose top shelves he couldn't really reach and a bathroom/shower combination that was a little bit awkward to use. Fleet Medusa's solution to all of these problems was a stool with the room number printed on it. Nathan's dignity was at least spared when it came to his desk, because the chair was not directly built into the structure and assembled later. It ended up being a little wide, but the chair and height of the desk were at least "normal". In the end though, Nathan got his own shower, which was still a luxury aboard a warship. Even if said shower was currently being occupied when Nathan entered the room.
Nathan knew that Samara had not only heard him enter the room, but probably heard him walking down the hallway even through the sound of the shower but he still gave the bathroom door a brief knock. Of course he could just call her through their implants, but Nathan and Samara liked the physicality of hearing the other's voice that an implant couldn't quite replicate.
"Hey Sam, I'm back!" Nathan called out.
The water of the shower slowed down and Samara's voice came through the door.
"Hey Nathan, sorry, were you trying to grab a shower?" Samara asked.
"Just got back from cargo, it's all good. I can wait" Nathan replied.
He took another look at the room and noticed the pile of clothes in both the white and dark hampers were getting a little full with two people in the room. He missed his plants back on the Whale.
"Are you sure? You could always join me in the shower!" Samara offered.
"Sam, you already know, despite many attempts, that both of us will not fit in that shower and get clean" Nathan said.
He could practically hear the shrug in Samara's voice through the door.
"We can shelve the idea until we get to the Whale. Did you need something, dear? Besides hearing my lovely voice?" Samara asked.
"I was gonna run the laundry this time ahead of the rush and before they normally come around to collect, you got any clothes in there you want washed?" Nathan asked.
"Yeah, gimme a sec" she said.
Nathan waited patiently to the side as he heard some light splashes and footsteps, with a bit of cursing, before the door opened up a crack. In Samara's hand was a jumbled pile of sweaty PT clothes with her bra and underwear placed on top.
"There are these, and can you wash the other two bras in the closet? The one that's hanging is completely clean" Samara said as Nathan grabbed the bundle of clothes.
"Got 'em. Are your wash bags still in the blue duffel?" Nathan asked.
"Yeah, thank you! Oh, Kho is at the laundry right now. She will point you to which machine to use! When the laundry comes back, I'll make sure to pack it all away" Samara said as the door closed and the sound of water resumed.
Nathan grabbed Samara's wash bags from her blue duffel, placed a bra into each one and sorted out the laundry into their appropriate hampers. Thankfully, Samara had left her bras on one of the lower shelves of closet so that Nathan didn't need to grab the stool. He reflexively gave it a dirty look as it sat in the corner. Giving one last look around, Nathan exited his room and made his way down to the laundry room. He had two large bags for the bright and dark laundry, plus a third only slightly smaller sack for Samara's wash bags. The sheer size of the wash bags necessary for Samara never stopped amazing him, no matter how many times he did her laundry. Even if he could barely see where he was going when carrying it all.
As he got closer to the laundry room, the hum of the engines was replaced by the sound of industrial washing and drying machines. Currently, it was a bit of an inbetween timing of the usual laundry cycles so there weren't too many people entering or exiting for their own clothes. The ship's crew typically used their own laundry system where it was all collected, separated, and then washed and dried to be delivered later, but the Gorgons being semi-regular passengers had their own section of laundry machines they used. With the Gorgons disembarking soon, those laundry machines were going to be a little competitive within the hour.
While Samara was about as tall as a Gorgon could reasonably get after the surgery, Kho had not become a veritable giant and was instead simply incredibly tall. Nathan could look into a Gorgon's files to see what she might have looked like before the surgery, but as a Gorgon, Kho's dark skin, hair, and eyes matched her more angular features. But none of that matched her fairly outgoing and large personality. At the moment, she had the vacant stare of someone who was using their implant to browse the internet until Nathan called out to her.
"Hey Kho, Sam said you could help me out?" Nathan asked.
Kho paused whatever she was doing and re-entered reality when she heard Nathan's voice. Upon seeing the hamper sacks and wash bags, a huge grin broke out on her face. The other Gorgons, recognizing the sound of Nathan's voice, all gave polite nods or waves at first, also broke into grins seeing sheer volume of laundry in Nathan's arms.
"Ah, Handler Shivers. Gotcha wrapped around her finger eh?" Kho said.
"C'mon now, couldn't you have ever considered that I simply use someone's bra as a pillow case?" Nathan complained.
Kho simply raised a single eye brow.
"You? Naaah. You'd probably pay better than the other guy at least" she said.
That got a few chuckles and nods from the other Gorgons waiting on their laundry. The ship's crew looked a little bewildered and concerned until some of the Gorgons waved them over and starting telling one of the funnier stories that made its way into Gorgon mythology. Nathan looked through the washing machines and saw the usual pink duct tape that marked which machines were for the delicates.
"Which one should I toss her wash bags in, I don't wanna mess up the schedule you all are running" Nathan asked.
"You can just leave them with me, I'm on laundry duty anyways" Kho said.
Nathan tried to shrug his shoulders, but the mass of clothes completely hid the gesture.
"Lemme at least toss them in and start the machine if it needs it. It's my laundry too" Nathan said.
"Alright. Sam signed you both up into the schedule before you got here. Toss her delicates into number 3 and start that machine up. Number 9 is open for brights and 16 has room for darks. They will start up when Melia gets here with her stuff" Kho said as she gestured to each machine.
Nathan followed the instructions, making sure that pink marked machine was set to gentle. He was in the middle of finishing up when he just about jumped out of his skin hearing Kho's voice come from right behind him.
"So, Nathan..." Kho started.
He whipped around with a glare that could have melted the armor plating off the hull. He hated how the Gorgons were able to move so sneakily despite their size. It made no sense. As his fight or flight reflex faded, Nathan simply waited for Kho to continue. It was a bit odd, Nathan had not seen this side of her before. She was picking her words carefully, probably building up to something. Kho kept going.
"You and Sam, have uh, been going pretty steady for a few years right?" Kho tentatively asked.
Nathan immediately brought his expression back to neutral and looked around the laundry room. The crew of the 4th Wish simply went about their day, amongst the hustle and bustle of the laundry room. There were always more things that needed washing and the machines hardly ever stopped spinning. The Gorgons however, were doing a very bad job of pretending to be disinterested at Kho looming over him.
Everyone had an implant that allowed them to wirelessly interact with the world and people around them. Nathan simply liked using separate devices. The Gorgons were on another level, and could actively share what they were looking and what they were hearing in real time. As a Handler, Nathan could tap into the Gorgon's network at any point, but he tried to leave it to them. He was sure they would just find a way around his access anyways. Samara didn't immediately say anything about Kho broadcasting across the Gorgons. Nathan decided to just trust in whatever she had to say.
"Yeah, I would say things are going pretty steady. Probably like 6 or 7 years, why?" Nathan asked.
Kho leaned in a little closer, doing her best to conspiratorially whisper in a laundry room filled with cyborgs who could hear and catalogue the various liquids running through the pipes.
"So when are you gonna ask her the question?" she said.
"The question?" Nathan asked.
The other Gorgons in the room immediately stopped everything to focus in on listening to whatever Nathan had to say. All pretense was dropped.
"Yeah, the question!" Kho said as she frantically waved her hands. "The big one! When are you gonna try and put a ring on her finger? Marriage!" she continued.
"Oh. Yeah we talked about it" Nathan said.
"You two have already talked about it? C'mon give us some details! When are you gonna ask?" each question Kho asked got more frantic than the next.
"You got a ring picked out? Have you already asked? Do you know her ring size?Kids? How many are we talking?" Kho kept going until Nathan put his hand out in the universal stop sign.
"Kho, how much money do you have riding on my answers?" Nathan asked.
Kho had the self awareness to at least look vaguely somewhat in the general vicinity of being possibly guilty.
"That isn't the point" she said.
"Kho you didn't deny that you had money on whatever it was I was going to say" Nathan said as his eyebrows reached towards the ceiling.
"Nathan, c'mon, you're killing me here. There are girls that have been waiting endlessly on some of these answers" Kho said.
"Okay look, if I give you an answer to one of your questions, will that satisfy your ever burning curiosity?" Nathan placated.
Kho's eyes narrowed as she searched Nathan's face for something. Whatever she found, she threw up her hands in exasperation.
"Fine. Alright. Answer one and I'll be satisfied with that" Kho said.
"Yes." Nathan stated matter of factly.
"What?" she said.
Nathan was sure that his face held the smuggest grin that had ever graced the 4th Wish in that singular moment.
"Yes. I answered one of your questions. Yes." Nathan said.
Nathan stared directly back at Kho. Confusion. Bewilderment. Understanding. Disbelief. Fury. Fear. Anguish. A rerun of disbelief. Landing on acceptance and then morphing into the poker face that all Gorgons got good at. Kho's expressions fired off one after the other, the synthetic muscles going into overtime as they tried to keep up with her cybernetically enhanced mind. Nathan's human eyes were not able to keep up with Kho's own reactions.
"Yeah, fairs fair then. Sorry bout that" Kho said as she stepped aside.
Nathan stood there for a moment, shocked at the change in attitude. Unable to parse the abrupt change in his subordinate, Nathan walked past Kho with a short nod to the other Gorgons watching the pair. Over the din of the machines, Nathan did not notice as they moved to comfort Kho.
By the time Nathan had made it back to his room, Samara had finished her shower and to Nathan's disappointment, already fully dressed in her working coveralls.
"Hey Sam, shower available?" he asked
"Yup, all finished up" Samara said.
Nathan started taking off his coveralls, when he noticed that Samara was very pointedly looking right at him.
"Yes, dearest?" Nathan asked.
"Oh no, please don't stop on my account" Sam said with a smile.
Nathan shook his head, but did continue to strip in front of her. Her smile was infectious. He quickly and methodically, removed each layer while he was talking.
"Kho had a few questions when I ran into her at the laundry" he said.
"Oh really now? Did she grill you again to figure how I beat her at cards?" Samara asked.
"Mmmm, no, not this time. She asked some more pointed questions" Nathan said as his shirt came off.
Samara gave a little "oooo" of appreciation. Nathan had to admit it felt nice to be appreciated.
"What kinda questions then?" Samara asked.
"Your favorite ones, she wanted to know when I was gonna propose, how many kids you wanted, if I had a ring yet. Those kinds of things" Nathan said as he got each boot off.
"Well?" she asked.
"Well what?" he said while finally able to get the rest of the coveralls off.
"Do you have a ring picked out yet?" Samara asked as Nathan opened the door to the shower.
"Sam, if I tell you I have a ring picked out, the I would never be able to surprise you with it because you would immediately go looking for it" he said as the shower started.
If there was one thing Nathan did not miss about being a pilot before New Petrichor, it was the lack of consistent access to hot water for a shower. Being a Handler had its advantages. Samara followed him into the bathroom, but wisely did not enter the small shower compartment. Nathan continued speaking.
"You would go looking for it and then immediately find it because there is only so much Whale that I can hide it in" Nathan said as he timed himself scrubbing.
He tried to keep his showers at roughly 3 minutes, but sometimes let himself have a few seconds more when on a ship.
"There is no way I would be able to search the entire Whale for one ring" Samara exclaimed.
"Oh no, you wouldn't search the whole thing but Sam, I bet that you would bully the other Gorgons into helping you search it" Nathan retorted.
Samara thought about it for only a moment.
"Got me there" she.
"Hey Nathan, I got a favor to ask" Samara said as she watched him quickly lathering his hair.
"Sam you pulled me out of a burning Nomad when it was shot out of the sky, you have more than earned any favor" Nathan said.
Samara glanced down at his butt again. His stomach and lower back still held the faint scars of what had happened. The helmet had saved his face. The armor on his torso had stopped his major orgrans from being annihilated. Flames and shrapnel had taken most everything else. The cloned replacement bits didn't have the scarring and the doctors were able to clean up his limbs. There had been other patients and there was a lot more skin on the torso, so it hadn't been replaced.
"I was just doing my job. Does that mean you will tell me if you got a ring?" Samara asked.
"Ah, no." Nathan said.
Nathan didn't miss the scoff Samara made behind him as he started rinsing off the soap and shampoo.
"Well you stayed and saved some of my girls when they thought they were going to be left behind, so I think we can call it even" she said.
It was a conversation that had been tread many times. Each time, trying to ascribe more credit or valor to the other, but always ending in a stalemate. Samara continued on.
"I did want to ask about another favor, if I can't get a ring out of you quite yet" she said.
"There is a new girl who is having some problems with the surgery. She isn't quite used to the new body and is still having some problems with showering as a group. Her first trip off the Whale was the job fair. Can we go hit the mess hall and she grabs a shower with hot water while we are out?" Samara asked as Nathan turned off the water and turned around.
"Excuse me madam, but I can't reach the towels if you stand in front of the shower like that" Nathan said while still dripping wet.
"Mmm yes, but if you get to the towels, that means you then get to the clothes" Samara replied while giving Nathan a look over.
"If I don't get to the clothes, the new girl doesn't get a shower with hot water" Nathan said while making a shooing motion with his hands, splattering Samara with some water drops.
Samara graciously stepped aside and allowed access to the towels.
"The sacrifices I make for those under my command" Samara said as she opened the door for Nathan to get out of the bathroom.
"Yes, yes, you are a most generous queen, go ahead and give her access to the room so she can shower. The mess hall sounds great right now, given all the cargo we brought aboard. Let her know to message us when she is done? And also that she doesn't need to rush. We have the time." he said.
Nathan quickly toweled off, hung the towel out to dry, and got dressed in his own coverall uniform. He was pretty sure that the coveralls were supposed to be for a prison, but the ID of where they came from had been removed. He put the thoughts out of his mind and put aside a fresh set toiletries for the new girl. Samara opened the room's door and he followed her out.
"Sam, how does the officers mess sound? I think they still have some of their grilled selections available" Nathan said.
"Sure, I will never say no to something grilled. They do work some wonders when they have the right ingredients. Should have enough time to eat, let her get a decent shower, then we can get some real sleep before meeting up with the main fleet. Escort this generous queen?" Samara asked as she held out her arm to Nathan.
"Of course, my lady, it would be my honor" Nathan said as he locked his elbow with hers.
The Gorgon's wild red hair danced as she shook her head with a grin as Nathan played along. She glanced down expecting to only see his pale blue hair, but his grey eyes met her emerald green. They both wore stupid smiles as they walked arm in arm down the ship.
Nathan later woke up before his alarm went off to being partially compressed by the volcano named Samara. No one would ever accuse Nathan of being out of shape, or ever going soft even with his desk job. Being aboard a space vessel of some sort for most of his adult life, meant that not working out his body could cause a whole host of problems. Artificial gravity and radiation shield had gotten better in the centuries since mankind's first colony ship began to terraform Mars. But part of Nathan actually enjoyed working out. Nathan would never be participating in one of the many interstellar body sculpting competitions or being featured on the net for his maximum lift, however he felt that kept himself in pretty good shape. This meant nothing to a Gorgon.
Samara's body was made of alloy, ceramic, and polymers. And she was hot. Samara was very attractive, by purposeful design when she underwent the Gorgon surgery, but her actual temperature was slightly higher than a normal human's by virtue of all of her electrical components. This, combined with her synthetic muscle mass, meant that Nathan did not have to worry at all about ever feeling cold.
Nathan opened his eyes to his vision being obscured by a mass of red hair as Samara slept with her head on his chest and slightly draped over him. In order to fit both him and Samara on the bed and indulge Samara wanting to use him as a pillow, they both had to lay diagonally across the bed with Nathan's head in the corner. Nathan however, was still mildly trapped underneath Samara, but he wouldn't have traded it for the world. Only moments after opening his eyes and taking in the situation, did Samara speak up. The sensors in her cybernetic body had probably determined when Nathan was waking up before even he knew it himself. Or his heart beat gave him away.
"There are still 27 minutes before we have to get out of bed" Samara said as she moved a bit to get more comfortable with her pillow.
"Any sleep at all?" Nathan asked.
"Slept some, I think. It's... different after the surgery. Hard to explain how it feels." Samara quietly said.
Nathan obliged the quieter start to what constituted as a morning for them and slowly ran his fingertips across Samara's back, from one shoulder blade to the next. He traced the synthetic muscles and bones, sometimes creating an outline of each before moving onto the next or gliding across them with a light touch of well kept fingernails. Samara shifted a bit like a cat, giving Nathan better access and a wider available area on her back to reach. The methodical and random motions led him into a daydream of him and Samara traveling the Stellar Lanes together. Moving from point to point on her back, traveling from system to system with no real destination needed. They could just travel in circles when the fancy took them, or they could travel in a straight line, going forward until they reached the edge of the universe itself. He could bring all of his plants with him, Samara could bring her paints, and together they could just live. Eventually, the alarm clock went off and brought the two back to the present from their daydreams.
Quickly getting dressed, Nathan and Samara had time to finish packing up their bags and hit the officer mess hall before the ship arrived at the rally point with the rest of Fleet Medusa. As the last few hours passed towards the 4th Wish finally arriving at the rally point with the rest of the Fleet Medusa, the activity of the ship picked up dramatically. The Gorgons all had finish packing and stowing away what few possessions they might have, but the new recruits they had taken on were a little more difficult to manage. Their luggage alone was much bulkier and took up so much more space and they weren't used to the more rigid nature of life aboard a warship. Thankfully, because there were almost 2000 Gorgons on board and the amount of extra cargo it was carrying, the 4th Wish was going to dock to the Whale directly instead relying on shuttle transports.
Nathan and Samara were in the officers mess hall when the rest of Fleet Medusa came into human visual range. Fleet Medusa had 26 large ships with an even larger amount of smaller vessels, but only 21 of the biggest were actual warships. Oddly enough, those 5 auxiliary ships were also the largest. There were 4 Fish-bone supply ships, each almost a kilometer long, where the only actual pieces of functioning ship were a blocky head where the crew actually resided, a long and thin spine with ribs that allowed for the anchoring of cargo containers and shielding for those containers, and then a fat stubby tail that just a large mass of thrusters. Even larger still was Fleet Medusa's mobile base of operations: The Whale.
The Whale was an old multi-kilometer wide and even longer colony ship that had been designed to do anything and everything that a colony could possibly need. The Whale housed manufacturing facilities for production, space docks for ship repair and refit, habitation blocks for the entire population, and even self sufficient food production facilities to feed those people as well as produce oxygen. The Whale was home to many of the members of Fleet Medusa, and home to all of the Gorgons. The other ships in the fleet were constructed with a much more vertical profile, but they were relatively newer and much more industrial looking. They had been built to wage war and looked the part. The new ships were all right angles and sharp edged, but whoever had built the Whale's had opted to make her much more organic looking with curved edges and slopes. But she wasn't the only ship that looked like it had been grown instead of made in a ship yard.
A kilometer long and sitting underneath the Whale like knife hiding behind a back, was Fleet Medusa's most infamous ship: the Sarpedon. It housed Fleet Medusa's administrative AI Euryale and was where initiates were sent to undergo the surgery that would transform them into a Gorgon. The Sarpedon had no standing crew on board. Where the other ships in the fleet had to include all of this room to make it livable, the Sarpedon instead dedicated that space to manufacturing and storage of the remote drone bodies that the Gorgons used to supplement their fighting power. Terra United's interstellar laws forbid the use of autonomous and AI controlled weaponry, but with a Gorgon's cybernetic brain, the limitation of having only a single body to wield could be easily side stepped.
Nathan watched the Whale grow bigger and bigger through the view port in the mess hall as the 4th Wish approached the fleet. Between the general chatter of the mess hall, the clinking of silverware on plates, and the bustle of the kitchen, Nathan heard his data pad give a little chirp to announce an important message. Nathan sighed and opened up the offending mail.
"Hey Sam" he said.
"Hmm?" Samara intoned, food filled fork barely entering her mouth.
"How do you feel about underwear?" Nathan asked as he kept reading through the message and all of its attached contents.
Samara raised a skeptical eyebrow as she finished chewing her bite of food.
"Nathan, you know I look great in it, but I left most of it on the Whale. We leave a Gorgon on watch over our laundry for a reason" she said with a meaningful wave of her fork.
"Of course I know you look great in it, but I am asking because we are gonna have all the E-9s and Gorgons in one place. Serra-Sola has paid for a photo shoot with their stuff while we are in transit on board the Whale" Nathan said as he forwarded some of the attachments to Samara.
Samara hardly blinked at what was being planned out.
"Oh wow, this is gonna sell. Do we get to keep what we are wearing? Serra-Sola's stuff is actually pretty good. Their crew is even letting us direct a few of these shots" Samara said as she looked over what Nathan sent.
"Yeah, looks like our marketing department came through on this one. I think some of the photo shoot has already started, but yeah, Serra-Sola sent us a bunch of product to show off in the photo shoot. I think they hope you all keep wearing it after the shoot. Extra marketing beyond what they initially paid for and all that" Nathan said.
Samara kept on reading.
"Oh. Serra-Sola wants us to use some of our gear too. It's been a while since someone wanted the Gorgons to wear some lingerie and play with our guns at the same time" Samara said wistfully as she picked away at her food.
"Can you ask around and see who would be interested? The popular Gorgons are being asked for by name, but management also wants to use this opportunity to get some new faces out there" Nathan said as he finished off the rest of his food.
Samara's gaze went vacant for a moment as she entered the Gorgon's own network. Nathan preferred using a physical device, despite his implant letting him do the same. Only a few moments passed before Samara re-entered the real world.
"Honestly, looks like everyone wants to get a couple photos taken. Serra-Sola is a big name in the fashion industry. Getting some stuff for free is what a lot of us hoped would happen when we signed on. Sponsorship deals from a big company are a dream come true" Samara said while toying with some of the food on her plate.
"Besides" Samara said with a wiggle of her eyebrows, "Did you know that there is an aftermarket-".
"Yes Sam, I manage a couple thousand Gorgons, I am unfortunately very aware" Nathan said as his data pad chirped again.
He frowned a bit as he started reading.
"Well, Sam, it looks like we finally have some idea of what the fleet wants us to be doing here. I'll get some more details when I meet with the other Handlers and management onboard the Whale, but it doesn't really make a lot of sense" Nathan said.
"Conflicting?" Samara asked before refilling her mouth with food.
"The details are a bit sparse, but the orders are for city protection against the native mega-fauna. The whole fleet is being mobilized for it. What the hell is down there they need almost 40 thousand Gorgons to shoot at?" Nathan asked.