Page 61 of Right on Time

Nitiel was more stunned than Chloe, so she replied. “Thoroughly consummated.”

“Eeee!” Trixie clapped again, while next to her Vrixiel looked uncomfortable.

“Commander, why?” Nitiel still sounded incredulous.

“Why did I break the law to help you find your niela?” Siriniel took another small sip of his drink. “Because this rule about clan-less Gaenthians not being entitled to the ASI’s assistance is bullcrap, to use the Terran term. I’ve served with several clan-less males, Subcommander Nitiel, so I know better than the legislators: horns and skin color do not make a male deserving. His deeds do. And you, my friend, have proven yourself on and outside the battlefield countless times. Consider this little machination of mine my parting gift to you.”

“But–But…” Nitiel scratched the base of his horn and fluttered his wings.

Chloe squeezed his hand. “But why not tell Nitiel I was his niela from the very beginning? Why let him believe he had to keep his distance from me? His sense of duty nearly prevented us from getting together!”

Siriniel nodded sagely. “That sense of duty, Lady Chloe, is why I had to resort to unorthodox methods. I feared that if I told your niel how I had broken the law for him, he wouldn’t accept this gift. He would consider himself undeserving and choose to never pick you up from Terra. He is prone to self-punishment like that.”

“He is,” Vrixiel tuned in. “Commander Siriniel consulted me before initiating his plan, because of my close friendship with the Subcommander. I advised in favor of keeping my friend in the dark. For that, Nitiel, I beg your forgiveness. But know I would do the same if given the chance, knowing what it is like to have my niela by my side. You deserved to find yours.”

Wow. Just wow. Chloe didn’t know what to think.

“How-e-ver,” Trixie spoke up, her eyes shining in excitement, “the boys didn’t know how to deal with the wee problem of Nitiel keeping his hands to himself. An additional intervention was needed to crush his sense of duty to his Commander.” She blew a raspberry in response to Vrixiel’s accusatory look her way. “I’m saying things as they are, boo bear, so shush. And that’s where this alien romance expert came in!” She waved her hands in the air. “I chose the perfect tropes for you two based on what I was told about you. I kept adapting my plan as things progressed, and it worked!”

“With many hitches, my bean. You have to admit it.”

“Yes, many, many hitches, but all is well when it ends well, you Gaenthians! Love conquers all!” Trixie downed her glass of kids’ champagne, then filled it once more. “Ask away, Chloe, I can see you’re dying to.”

Chloe shook her head. She had no idea where to start with the questions. Nitiel was still speechless and staring at Siriniel calmly sipping his drink.

“Okay, I’ll explain everything.” Trixie rubbed her hands together. “The first thing I wanted was to get you in close proximity to each other. That malfunction of the artificial gravity aboard the limo? It was switched off at my instructions. Again within the forced proximity trope, I had Chloe's baggage misplaced and your ship to the station sabotaged, so that you would need to use each other’s body heat. Preferably naked.” She winked.

“My God, we could have died popsicles!”

“Now, now, Chloe, we both know you enjoyed that ride. The sabotage was a well-controlled one, you weren’t in real danger.”

“I knew Nitiel could reroute the heat to the cockpit,” Vrixiel added.

“When you two getting up close and personal from the get-go didn’t result in you declaring undying love for each other upon arrival at the station, I had to up my game.” Trixie nodded at the Commander. “He had to stay out of your way, or else his inability to lie would have him confessing to everything.”

“But you told lies to me, Commander,” Nitiel found his voice. “You sent me to get your niela.”

“I never called her my niela, remember? I ordered you to bring the niela to the station. I kept using her name when giving you instructions to guard her. And when I told you I couldn’t meet with her because I needed more time to prepare my speech?”

“You spoke of a speech for the unique circumstances… I assumed you were referring to the uniqueness of having found your niela, but you were talking about–”

“My speech for this very moment, yes.”

“Unbelievable,” Chloe muttered. Now that she thought back at everything that had happened to her since meeting Nitiel, the script became more obvious.

“You put the pests in Loe’s cleansing chamber,” Nitiel rumbled, his glare switching between the three conspirators one after the other. “They could have burned her skin off!”

Trixie winced. “Chloe was supposed to hide in the shower dome until your arrival. I did not expect her to disregard my warnings and go pet the little monsters!... But you came to her rescue and everything went back on track in the end, didn’t it?”

Nitiel rumbled some more. “You emptied my wardrobe and had my bench sabotaged to fall apart. So that I would be forced to share a bed with Loe.”

“You bet! And not just that: we had a programmer change the settings of your bed gel, so that any modifications to its structure would last for no more than 15 minutes. In case you decided to build a wall between you two. By the looks on your faces, I gather you did try to build one?”

Chloe kept shaking her head in disbelief.

“I honestly didn’t expect it would take so many interventions on my part to make you act on your feelings,” Trixie continued. “I was growing desperate, so I decided to bring you closer together on a flight. That’s so romantic, surely you would appreciate being flown in Nitiel's arms, Chloe… But that pesky teen Biriniel J didn’t follow my instructions. Instead of releasing just one or two of the young cibiris – enough to prompt Nitiel to fly you off to safety - he set all of them loose.”

Chloe gasped. “Trixie! They nearly killed Nitiel!”

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