Chapter Text
Being the captain of a starship was no easy work. Assuming you managed to make it through the academy course without being knocked down, you still had to get recommended by your professors before you could begin field training, and you had to excel in your field training (some literally didn’t survive) before you were maybe - just maybe- given charge of your own ship.
Adonis had been the youngest starship captain of their generation. That alone came with its own, new difficulties; despite humanities advancements, they still strained to keep an open mind, and accepting someone so young as someone so powerful, so worthy of power, was difficult. There were many who would love to prove that Adonis was unfit for their position.
This meant that keeping up their appearance was incredibly important. Adonis had been questioned over errors as little as wrinkled uniforms, or poor posture.
That alone made the fact that they were sprinting through the largest outer ring space hub, covered in grease and missing their captain's jacket, that much worse.
Nothing could really be done about it now. The jacket had been lost hours ago, and it would take hours to find again. The grease would be a thorough sonic clean, the type that took an hour in itself. Maybe even a real bath, with real water, too. Another thing they didn’t have time for.
They had been following their senior mechanics officer on their scheduled tour through the bowels of Adonis’ ship. It was a final sweep before they departed again, after spending nearly a month at the hub. They swear they blinked and suddenly they were elbows deep with Beth, grease up to their eyebrows, trying to reconfigure the injector so it pumped the alocite faster, which would help avoid the issue of the alocite sticking to the injector walls and slowly gumming up the whole engine. The problem with running a ship with an experimental engine, was that one never knew what problems their crazy mechanic would find them all in.
The gummy Alocite dropped from Adonis’ mind nearly as fast as their stomach dropped when their second in command suddenly appeared between the piping. “Captain,” T’Lak began, the monotone of the Vulcan’s voice a familiar comfort by now. “You are going to be late”
So there was Adonis, sprinting down the busy halls of the hub, splattered with grease and half dressed. They didn’t even truly have time to curse themself before they arrived at the bay doors, greased boots slipping across smooth white floors. They caught themself, too-big gloves finding more traction than their boots had, somehow, and they managed to avoid landing on their face as the pressure doors fell away with a soft whoosh.
Through the windows of the docking bay lounge, Adonis caught a glimpse of two figures descending the ships boarding ramp. A flash of blonde hair floated along behind the smaller figure, as if picked up by some breeze that didn’t touch anyone else.
Adonis ducked back out of sight, trying to wipe the grease off their face with the bottom of their shirt before hastily tucking it back into their pants. They ran a quick hand through their hair as one of the bay operators chuckled at them, and pulled themself up to their full height. Unfortunately, this was the best they could do. It wasn’t too important, all things considered.
The doors between the docking bay and the control room slid open with a whoosh of their own as Adonis stepped forward, their most charming smile already spread neatly across their face.
The ambassador's nose wrinkled in not-so-subtle disgust when he finally noticed Adonis approaching. He was a tall man; a human man, Adonis couldn’t help but notice. It was possible that they were two of the only 160 humans on the outer ring.
167, if you were exact.
168, if you counted the man who had still failed to school his features by the time Adonis had come to a stop before him.
”Captain Jonnoh,” The man all but sneered, running a hand across his jacket to smooth out the non-existent wrinkles. The man was nothing special, tanned skin that betrayed his ties to Earth’s warmer regions, and thinning hair cut to old earthen military standards. The type of person that already didn’t like Adonis.
“Ambassador,” Adonis replied warmly. They held eye contact for a moment, the older Terran’s gaze boring into Adonis. Adonis’ smile never faltered.
The ambassador turned away first.
”Allow me to introduce to you Vee A’Nusa, and her symbiotic counterpart, Queen Omolas.”
Adonis bowed low, hand sliding from the dip in their collar bone, up their throat and off their chin. It was a crude mockery of how the Queen’s species showed their respect for their royals, but it was the best a solid humanoid creature could do. A pleased humming filled the air, a vibration that went right through Adonis’ chest and filled the space around their very soul.
A part of them that Adonis suspected wasn’t them at all melted into the sensation.
“And welcome to you as well, Vee A’Nusa. It is my greatest pleasure to meet you, and my greatest displeasure to do so in such a state. I owe you my deepest apologies,” Adonis sighed, allowing their smile to falter into something tinged with embarrassment.
Perhaps its wasn’t the way a captain should have allowed themself in front of alien royalty, but a bond was what Adonis was truly after. Friendship, if personalities allowed. After all, they were meant to work together.
Adonis finally looked at Vee A’Nusa as they rose again. She was a rather small thing, for an Orion. Most Orions stood above Adonis, though they were not small by any stretch of the word, but Vee A’Nusa barely came up to their nose. She had long, pale hair that seemed to float around her shoulders, and golden eyes that seemed to sparkle as she looked them over. Her skin was green, like most Orions, but she was paler than any other Orion Adonis had ever seen, and tinged blue in some places, with the faintest of blue freckled splattered across her cheeks, around her eyes. If you had told Adonis that she had been pulled from the sea, like a mermaid born of sea foam, Adonis would have never questioned it.
Vee A’nusa’s lips twitched, the beginnings of a smile creeping into her sharp face. Her jaw tightened, then relaxed, nearly imperceptibly. The humming in Adonis’ chest eased, but the grip on his soul never swayed. It was a little like getting trapped in a tractor beam, pulling them ever closer to her.
The Queen.
It made sense, after all Mars had told them.