Page 29 of The Alien's Major Dilemma

He didn’t think he could handle the ship malfunctioning on top of everything else.

His pants hit him in the face as soon as he turned to look for them, followed by his shirt.

“You’re on your own for underwear,” she told him. “And I would kill for a clean pair of socks right now but we’ll work with what we’ve got. Who are we taking fire from?”

“I can’t tell yet,” he said. “I’ve sent the drones to scout but the ship says the explosion was a proximity hit, not a direct one.”

“So they’re dialing in their targeting, got it,” she said.

“Probably,” he acknowledged. “Won’t know until we get another hit or the drones come back with more answers. Either way, I’m not opening the blast shield until we have more information. Can you wear my underwear?”

Marissa blinked at the question then shrugged. “Maybe? I think we’re close enough in size, at least. They won’t look as good on me as they do on you, though.”

Cooper snorted and reached over to open his clothes storage drawers. He tossed her a clean pair of underwear and socks, then grabbed some for himself and closed the drawers. She ran to the bathroom and he could hear the water running while she did the same thing he was about to do.

The blast shield would hold through almost any weapon on the planet so they had time to clean up and get dressed in clean socks. He used the cleaning oil and his old underwear to clean up the worst of the mess they’d made before bed, this time taking care not to stroke the places that were likely to trigger his arousal.

Not that he objected to a repeat of the night before, he just didn’t want to attempt it while they were under attack. He finished wiping off and tossed the dirty laundry in the cleaner, including the pieces Marissa had left behind when she’d run off to get dressed.

Cooper was dressed and refusing to dwell on the glimpse of Marissa’s backside he wished he’d gotten a better view of when she ran off. It was cute and creamy and jiggled just right and he was going to get himself in trouble if he kept thinking about it so he went to make breakfast. The reports followed him on panels around the ship and he kept an eye on the drone reports while he started the coffee.

One of the many things he loved about the planet he’d found himself on was coffee. He’d drink tea if it was offered, or sodaif it was the only option, but he’d developed an immediate love for coffee that had only strengthened as he’d gotten to know it in all its forms. While it brewed, he pulled out one of his other indulgences; fresh eggs.

They were easy to cook, could be done quickly with his tools, and made an excellent excuse to talk to all the locals. Learning how to barter for eggs had taught him a half dozen languages, how currency and exchange worked, and gave him a baseline value for food and other things.

Most planets had something like eggs. That wasn’t something covered in any of his training but he liked to think he wasn’t the first Chelion Scout to figure it out. If he was, he had serious questions about the capabilities of his fellow scouts.

Marissa joined him in the kitchenette just as the coffee had finished brewing. He handed her a cup and a bowl of fluffy eggs which she looked at, then up at him.

“What’s this?”

“Coffee and eggs. I believe your people refer to it as a light breakfast.”

“Where did you get the eggs? How did you make breakfast so fast?” she asked. “Why did you make breakfast if we’re under attack?”

Cooper shrugged. “We don’t know who’s attacking, where it’s coming from, or how we need to handle it. And we can’t leave the ship until we have all of that information. The drones are still scouting and the weapons don’t do any good until we know which ones we need and that might take a minute. We’re going to need the fuel, thus, breakfast.”

He could see her working through his answer while she sipped her coffee until she shrugged. “I can’t find any fault with your logic, it just feels weird to me to not be scrambling to deal with the problem.”

“I can respect that,” he said. “And if we were somewhere else, I’d be the first one reaching for the blasters. As it is, the blast shielding on the ship can handle anything short of a nuclear missile.”

She took the fork he handed her and sat at the table. He joined her, his eyes on the reports from the drones while they ate.

“What are you reading?” she asked.

Cooper adjusted the display to split out the drones into individual feeds, which had the added bonus of making them larger and easier to read. “These are real time terrain and movement reports from the drones. They can all send live video feeds, but it’s easy to miss anything unusual trying to watch all of them at once. What they’re doing is flying over terrain they’ve scouted and relaying any changes in a dozen different parameters. If anything is outside of the range of reasonable or accepted changes, it’s flagged in red and I can review the video feed from that section.”

Marissa nodded. “How much change does it allow for?”

“There are some desert birds nesting in that drone's territory,” he said, pointing out one screen. “I knew when they’d laid eggs and when those eggs had hatched.”

“So a person walking through or a couple dozen people in armored vehicles will show up.”

“Absolutely. My concern is if they show up outside of the perimeter I’ve set. I don’t patrol past those every day because there shouldn’t be anything outside that perimeter that can see this ship.”

“And if they’re inside the perimeter?”

Cooper shrugged. “Still shouldn’t be able to see it, but could make things unpleasant if they guessed right.”

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