Learning to Blush (30 page)

“What's wrong?” Ellie asked urgently.

Penny's lip quivered and she led them back into her and Thorton's apartment. “Nothing,” she sniffed.

“Penny, did you get hurt during the—?” Tom began, reaching out to grab his sister gently by the arm.

Penny interrupted him. “No! I'm not hurt…” She frowned and her eyes glassed over with tears. “I just… hate him! I hate that horrible, horrible bastard!” she said, seeming to point in the direction Thorton went.

“Oh.” Ellie guessed right away that Thorton had probably spanked Penny; maybe even for the first time! Ellie wanted to console her, tell her it was just something that happened just in the very beginning of marriages and then died down… But she didn't want to lie to her. Swarii men were hard-handed and as stubborn as goats!

In any case, she definitely did not want to talk about spankings in front of Tim and Tom, who were looking like a couple of lanky goons with bed-head, already slowly sneaking off to Penny's kitchen to look through cupboards, foraging for breakfast.

Penny raised her eyebrow, looking distracted as she watched her brothers. “Are you guys… High?”

Tim didn't respond with words because he already had a full muffin in his mouth. He pinched air between his thumb and index finger, leaving an inch of space to illustrate, '
a little
.'

“How is that even possible? Did you find weed or something?” she demanded, marching over and stealing a carafe of orange juice out of his hands.

“Nope. Went to visit Graham, raided the cupboards at the hospital. There's ways to get high on every planet, Penny,” Tim said around a full mouth of muffin. He paused and then added thoughtfully, “Or
between
planets, as it were.”

Penny gave a pained look. “Tim—you don't even know what you're getting high
on
! Try being sober for once?”

“What's the point?” Tom replied for him, seething at nothing in particular. “We're getting sent away no matter what, Penny. We're basically kidnapped with no way of getting home. I had dreams, you know? I wanted to go to Cancun on spring break and have myself an orgy with a couple of chicks that have Daddy issues. Will that ever happen now, Penny? So what if we want to numb our senses a little?”

“He talks a big game,” Tim added, motioning towards Tom with his half-eaten muffin. “But he didn't take nearly the dose I did. I'm gellin'.” He gave a wide smile. “And I already had an orgy. Kim Miller and Judy Faust,” he boasted.

Penny made an angry grunt, but Ellie stepped forward, saying suspiciously, “I thought Kim and Judy were lesbians…?”

“That's before they had a slice of Tim a la carte…” Tim bobbled his head back and forth. “I'm telling you; my side-business got me pussy up to my elbows! Here, I might as well donate my cock to science. It's not going to get any play otherwise… Four-to-one male-to-female ratio here, Penny! Four-to-one. I'm in hell, and hell's put on a sausage festival…”

Ellie and Penny found themselves dealing with Tom's angry-drunk ranting and Tim's high regaling's of his sex life well through the morning. As the hours passed, so did breakfast, and before they knew it, Mike suddenly entered Penny's apartment without knocking, sporting a Dennis-the-Menace grin on his face. “Guys,” he said, swishing his hands through the air as if he was going to make an important announcement, “you won't believe what they just asked me to do.”

“What?” Penny asked, figuring that if they couldn't believe it, then they probably wouldn't be able to guess it, either.

“You know that thing Ellie designed for the Swarii to spy on the Frians?
The Fledge
? You know, that thing that picks up all the communications between the Frian ships?”

“…Yeah?” Tom asked after Mike had made a lengthy pause to heighten the dramatic effect of his next words.

“They just asked me to
fix
that! It's totally not working now, and the bridge of the Mothership is freaking the hell out! Total chaos. It's awesome.”

Everyone just blinked at him. “So? Didn't you fix it?” Tom asked finally.

Mike snorted loudly. “Fuck no! Not after Thorton was in my face for thinking for
myself
not last month! If they're gonna call and treat me like some damn monkey, that's exactly what they're gonna get!” Mike hooted. He then proceeded to give an impression of himself from an hour before, when they'd asked him if he could fix the fledge, “
Why now, as you said… I'm stupider than cheese. I'm too young. Got too much of this pesky insolent human blood in me! And this project?
” He whistled. “
Looks like a lot of thinkin' work… Why don't you ask Ellie? Wait, wait!” He covered mouth with his hand. “That's right! You fired her this morning! Wow… Bad timing!
”

Mike gave Ellie a wink.

Ellie's mouth dropped open. “You seriously said that? To who?”

“The admiralty… And Thorton! The folks on the bridge came to
him
first. They figured he’d know how to fix it ‘cause he was your
boss
… Lo and behold, he couldn’t figure out what was wrong. Probably worked on it all morning.” Mike grabbed a muffin from the counter and shoved it hungrily into his mouth. “I tell ya, things around here are gonna get pretty fucking funny,” he said around a full mouth. “You wait. Right now I bet they’re brandishing up their forks and getting ready to eat a slice of humble pie.”

Penny turned to Ellie. “Don’t cave,” Penny said, poking Ellie’s shoulder with her finger. “Don’t you do it! You make them get on their hands and knees before you pick up a single screwdriver. They can’t take advantage of you. They either need you or they don’t.”

Ellie swallowed and churned that around in her mind. “Bet they come to the twins next. They won’t come to me RIGHT after firing me if they can help it. They don’t like the taste of humble pie, you see. It’s an acquired taste.”

“I hear that. I fucking hate humble pie. It’s lemon meringue or nothing,” Tim agreed, winking.

Ellie shrugged, looking skeptical. “They’ll never ask,” she said decisively.

“You wait and see, Sis. Give them a week and they’re gonna come begging like dogs without a bone,” Mike said, reaching over and tugging on Ellie’s braid happily.

* * *

Fourteen Hours, Thirty Nine Minutes Later…

“I’m not asking you, I’m telling you. I know you guys know how to fix this kind of thing. You’ve been working hand-on-hand with Ellie since you were old enough to hold a wrench!” Thorton growled. He didn’t know why, except for a final act of desperation from so much pressure from the bridge and the admiralty, but he added, “Do it or else.”

“Oh, Massa wants us to go work on the Fledge!” Tim mocked, having already flatly refused—twice. “Wouldn’t want him to a go an’ get the hose!”

“Swing Low… Sweet Chariot…” Tom added theatrically in song as Tim used an invisible whip on him.

Thorton rubbed his temples. Penny was right; when he stopped by the apartment, the red-headed, angry little thing had told him that her brothers would rather die than raise a finger to help any of the Swarii at the moment. Particularly not by fixing a machine that Ellie created before she was canned. Yesterday the admiralty had gone so far to say that she wasn't needed nor wanted for any facet of the service!

The admiralty forbid Thorton to even ask Ellie unless there was absolutely no other way. Well, Thorton was quickly running out of options. He picked up his communicator and called the admiral. “If you want the Fledge to work, it’s gotta be Ellie,” he told him as the boys still continued to horse around in front of him. “Her family’s gridlocked.”

“Maybe you should ask Mike again.”

“He says he doesn’t know how,” Thorton groaned.

“He’s lying. He knows,” Jack replied.

“I know he
knows
! All Ellie did for six weeks journey from Earth was tell him everything she’d ever figured out! But he’s going to play coy and stupid with us until the end. He
wants us
to crawl to Ellie. I had another Admiral—Admiral Kui, who even tried to bribe him.”

“Did you try bribing the twins?” Jack asked.

“With what?” Thorton cried incredulously. It was the most ridiculous suggestion he’d ever heard, even if Jack hadn't comprehended how farcical it was. Jack didn’t know the Jonas family as well as Thorton did. “What are we gonna offer the twins?
Pie
? A new video game? They’re the simplest people on the planet; and resourceful. Trust me; I’ve lived with them for two months. If you gave them a spoon and two feet of rope and sent them into a forest, they could build you a city. They don’t need
stuff
.”

“Fine. I’ll come with you when we approach Ellie. The admirals are still claiming they’re not going to repeal their decision on her.”

“I have a feeling that if they don’t repeal their decision, they’re not going to get their spy system.”

“Ellie’s a good girl. She’ll know that helping us is the right thing to do,” Jack said, oh-so-confidently.

* * *

“Hey, Pop. What can I do you for?” Ellie asked, looking oh-so-casual—
too casual!
— with her hands under head as she laid comfortably on the couch.

“Cut the crap, Kitten,” Thorton demanded. “I didn’t get a wink of sleep last night and I haven’t eaten a thing all day.”

Ellie sat up and said, “This is what happens when big boys take their training wheels off too early…”

“Eleanor,” the Admiral said lowly. “Be serious. The admiralty needs your help. Now, they haven’t repealed their decision, but it would be an act of good faith that might bring out good changes for you down the road if you’d help them fix their—”

Ellie was already shaking her head.

“Eleanor…”

“No, Jack. You guys can’t have it both ways. You can’t fire me except when you need me to fix something. When the admiralty is ready to pull their heads out of their asses, then we’ll talk.”

“You'll talk after I come back with the paddle,” Jack threatened, turning around and walking off. “You've needed a good spanking for a while now. Especially for that mouth of yours!”

Ellie pursed her lips angrily. “No. You can spank me and spank me and spank me and I won’t care! I’m not saying you can’t torture the information out of me, but if you do, I will never forgive you. You know how wrong that is.”

Jack turned and gazed at her. “Little girl, I’m telling you, you will help,” he told her. “Are you going to help us like a good girl? Or like a bad girl with a red bottom?”

Ellie’s cheeks flushed, and she said angrily, “Spank me. I don’t care. I’m not doing it.” She lifted her chin and narrowed her eyes to slits. “Besides, I don’t know what would happen if you forced me to work against my will. Mistakes might happen,” she said threateningly.

“Are you saying you’d hurt the ship over this?” Jack asked, incredulously. “Over a tantrum? Ellie, you were punished from your past record of being a miscreant. Don’t do this. Don’t behave this way,” he ordered desperately.

“Are you saying you'd beat me into doing slave labor for you?” she countered toughly, putting her hands on her hips. “That sounds a lot like something
the Frians
would do! Why would I care if you win or the Frians win? All ends the same way for me!”

Thorton was tired; especially from being harangued about not being able to fix that damn fledge. The admiralty being this panicked was not a pretty sight to behold. They were normally just arrogant men, but under this sort of stress they actually had become quite frightening.

Jack had even felt the pressure; well, enough pressure that he would think about bribing or pleading or threatening. He was scared. He really didn’t want to lose this war; the Fledge had already helped them get into so many good positions and win so many battles. For once they finally had the Frians against the ropes.

“
Graham
would never make me do it,” she added. “He’d know how wrong it was.”

“Graham would spank you for throwing a tantrum, little girl.”

“Oh, I haven’t even begun to throw a tantrum. You don’t know what a tantrum is! This isn’t about me paying my dues, this is about my worth! Now either you tell the admirals where they can shove it, or you can tell them to come down here and start turning back the clock and get me my rank, my job, my work license, and you should also become aware that all of my cousins—including your wife, Thorton—will be helping me on my next modification project.”

“Alright,” Thorton said, more frustrated than he’d ever been in his life. “That’s it. I’m gonna shoot her.”

“Well then that’s
really
not going to fix the fledge, is it?” she retorted immediately.

Thorton bunched his hands into fists and shook his hands. “Urggh!” he groaned angrily.

Jack put his hand on his shoulders. “We have to talk to the admiralty, Boy. There’s nothing else for it. But you—” he pointed at Ellie, who’s eyes widened with a sparkle of victory. “You’ve just opened up a can of worms with me, and you’d better believe we are going to have a long discussion about this later on.”

“Which is why I want them to recant it in front of the media,” Ellie said, crossing her arms confidently in front of her chest.

Jack’s jaw dropped. “They can’t—”

“Pretty hard to take back your word once it’s been recorded and displayed in front of the whole galaxy, isn’t it? Just in case lying crosses any of the admiralty’s minds…”

Thorton looked back and forth between Jack and Ellie, and Thorton felt like he was a boy again, about to watched Kella get punished. Because he knew that look in Jack’s eye and, even though he hadn’t been disciplined by him in nearly fourteen years, he still delighted that that look wasn’t directed at him for once. He wouldn’t trade places with Ellie for all the stars in the sky.

But she was still going to get everything she wanted for her next project… Even his
wife
?

Chapter Twelve

Jack had raised Thorton, and he was the one boy in the universe that had seemed to come out of the womb pre-programmed to know to push every one of his buttons. Thorton had even stolen his car once and gone partying on ‘Paradise Island’, faking his true age, back when he was a teenager. He had nearly flunked out of his primary school. From playing ball in the house, Thorton had single-handedly broken most of the antiques and heirlooms that Jack had ever possessed.