Chapter 9

Once we were back at the ship, Thivkari went straight to engineering while I put the weapons and ammunition back. She kept a single 7.5mm round for measurements, but I recommended that she use the 5.5mm rounds instead, which would make the mines lighter. While she worked, I prepared dinner. It was a few hours after sunset when she had a pair of prototypes. One of them took thirty-six 5.5mm rounds. The other took twenty-five 7.5mm rounds. The square blocks of plastic had recesses for the cartridges to sit in front of a hinged back plate. The plate had a spring and an array of strikers to contact the primers. The rounds would sit at slight angles, fanning out from the center. The arming mechanism was a simple pull handle to pull the spring-loaded plate back until it locked against a set of tabs. The trigger was a simple lever that would retract the locking tabs, allowing the spring plate to snap forward. One side had folding stakes to allow it to be secured in the ground. I suggested adding “barrels” to the front of the device to both protect the rounds from rainfall, and allow expanding gasses a chance to build a little more pressure and increase the velocity of the projectiles.

She made notes while we ate dinner. We showered together, scrubbing the dirt and combat stress away. I was horny and my arousal was evident, but Thivkari was not interested. We went back to our shared cabin and lay in bed. She pulled my arms around her. “Are you doing ok?” I asked.

“What do you mean?”

“Not to be crude, but you never turn down sex.” I reached up and caressed her tit.

She sighed. “I ... I’m sorry. I should not have ignored your needs.” She started to roll on to her back.

“No,” I stopped her, “I ... that’s not what I meant. I mean, normally you are very receptive and eager to have sex, so if you aren’t...” I trailed off. “Are you doing ok? How are you, emotionally?” I sighed. “Combat is traumatic, and that can cause changes in the way you interact with loved ones and peers. I ... after my first combat deployment, I needed to talk to a therapist to help me process what I’d been through. Being shot at is bad, it’s stressful. Seeing friends get killed is ... I needed help after that. So, I want to make sure that you’re doing ok. If you just want the intimacy of being held close because you’re still processing your feelings, that’s ok. But if you’re having problems dealing with it, please let me know.”

She rolled the rest of the way over, until she was facing me, the reached behind herself to free her tail. She gave a contented sigh once she was no longer laying on it, took a breath, and the floodgates opened. She talked about how she felt when she woke up in sickbay and learned that the rest of her clan was dead, and how she burned with hatred for the Yishkak. She talked about how she was filled with relief that I had shot them down. She talked about how she was filled with dread when we learned that they had survived and were heading for us. Then she got quiet, and talked about how conflicted she felt during the ambush. How sickeningly frightened she was when the Yishkak shot at her, and me. How glad she felt when she saw the enemy fall to her gunfire. How guilty she felt about being alive when her clan was dead. How relieved she felt that we were both ok. How conflicted she felt: a sense of relief that she had avenged her clan, anger that she hadn’t killed all of the Yishkak, and guilty fear, knowing that she wouldn’t be able to. She broke down crying, and I held her until she fell asleep.

When I woke the next morning, she was gone. After using the head, I got dressed and went looking for her. She was in engineering, sitting at the fabricator workstation. Various mine shells sat on the table next to her. She turned at my approach. “This one,” she said, handing me a round plastic box with nine holes for 7.5mm rounds in it, “can be buried and will trigger when stepped on.”

“That seems dangerous. Either one of us could accidentally step on it.”

She looked at me like I was stupid. “Mark the locations where you deploy them on the map.”

That made sense. “Sorry, I don’t think very well first thing in the morning. How are you feeling?”

“Better. Purposeful.” I leaned down to give her a kiss. She continued, “This can be buried. Dig a hole about a centimeter deeper than this, load the ammo, close the back, and pull this handle to prime it.” She took hold of it and turned it around so that the front was facing me. There was a small ring. “Pull this once it’s in the hole, and carefully cover it with brush. When the enemy steps on it, it will fire up in a slight arc.”

“Going to be dangerous to test.”

She nodded. “That’s why I want to show them to you. I can design and make them, but I don’t know how to safely test them.” She held two up, they both had twenty-five 7.5mm barrels. “These are almost the same. This one has the barrels arraigned in an arc, and this one is straight.” She held up the other two. “These are the same, but they take 5.5mm ammunition. Needless to say, these are all single use devices.”

I nodded. “Same arming mechanism?”