Character List, as requested by some anon:
Marshal H. S. Kiering – Some dead dude, they named a ship after him
Andi Smythe – Spess muhreen, resident tomboy
Ian Graffin – Spess muhreen, top half of homosex couple
Fareed Ranjaneesh – Spess muhreen, bottom
Jay Bentley – Spess Muhreen, Love Machine
Philip C. Morehoffman – Ship's Captain, beard expert


	They had been at space for nearly three months now. The men and women, sailors and marines, of the Human Space Ship Marshal H.S. Kiering were growing restless. The alien menace waited for them at the fringes of the known universe, and the young soldiers were chomping at the bit for action. Of course as often happened on mixed-gender ships like the Kiering where the crew is kept waiting, they distract themselves with a different sort of action. You couldn't hardly enter the any of the heads on the ship without finding a couple going at it like rabbits. It frustrated Ian to no end that even when the women on board were literally handing it out like candy, he remained a virgin.
	The young marine was seated at a table with three others from his squad. They each had a hand of five cards, real physical ones, not the hologram ones that were the latest craze back on Earth. Across from Ian was his squad leader, a handsome but pale Corporal called Fareed. Ian thought Fareed was probably the only person on the damned ship getting laid less then he was. Next to Fareed was the only female in the entire platoon, a cute Private with a shaved head. Ian had actually gone through Marine Training School with Andi, she had a full head of hair the color of deep space when they first met. She had her cards face down on the table, her head propped up on her hand looking bored. Across from Andi was another person Ian had gone through training with, a colony boy from New Berlin by the name of Jay. Jay was a pretty boy with strawberry blond hair down nearly to his shoulders. He was fucking one of the Navy docs who loved his hair. She gave him a special get-out-of-jail-free card that basically said he could grow it as long as he wanted, regulations be damned.
	Ian studied his own cards intensely. Two kings, two fours, and a ten, all different suites. He made his decision and looked at Andi, who stared back. “Do you have any kings?” he asked seriously. The girl practically leaped across the table to strangle him. “I swear to God if you start this Go Fish shit again!”
“You people have no sense of humor.”
“It was considerably less funny the fifth time, Private,” commented Fareed.“Fine. I'll fold.” Ian placed the cards face down on the table, the same as Andi. He knew it wasn't a terrible hand, and he knew more about poker than he showed, but winning was boring. He had dominated the first few games they played three months ago and realized that winning didn't bring the same satisfaction as simply sitting around the table shooting the shit did. After Ian folded, it was down to Jay and Fareed. Jay raised, Fareed did the same, and eventually Jay went all in. Fareed won the pot of thirty five credits with two pair and Jay lost the last of his week's pay. As Fareed tapped his tablet to Jay's to transfer the funds, the half hour warning for lights out came over the ship's comms system.
“Come on,” Fareed commanded. “If we drink fast we have time for a beer.”
	The bar was just across the hall from the rec room, making it the favorite spot for marines and sailors alike to end their day at. Or to begin one at, for those working the night shifts. Of course, being highly disciplined fighting men (and women,) the regulations limited them to only two beers per night. Now of course being good little soldiers, they did what they were trained to do: circumvent obstacles with liberal applications of cunning and explosives. But they were on a ship, hurtling through the vacuum of space, and all of the explosives were under electronic lock and key in the armory.Cunning would have to do. Andi used her feminine wiles to convince a pair of the straight edge sailors watching a movie to buy additional booze for the marines. That way, each of the four could have an extra beer. The crew didn't seem to care that of four, only Jay was old enough to drink. In a few days they would hit Alien territory. And when they hit, they would hit hard. It didn't seem right that the majority of the front line grunts would die without having their first beer. Besides, underage alcoholism was a marine tradition. They all drained their beers as fast as they could before the final call for lights out. Ian was used to the beer by now. When he got his draft notice, he was just seventeen. By the time he turned eighteen, he was running up and down mountains until he puked in Marine Training School. Soon enough he'd be asked to die boarding an Alien warship. The least they could do for him is let him develop a drinking habit in peace. After making the poker games a near-daily routine, he was beginning to dislike the alcohol less and less. The closer they came to the possibility of combat, the more he realized: he was scared. The beer helped though. At the very least, it let him sleep at night without worrying about waking up in the middle of a ship-to-ship siege.
	They all got back to their respective gender-separated barracks just in time for the final lights out warning. The sleeping arrangements on a warship are expectedly cramped. Carved into the thick metal walls were seven-foot-long coffins with thrift store single-digit-thread-count blankets and rocks for pillows. In between each “bed” was a roll-out drawer to dump all of your crap in. For a marine on deployment in deep space, Ian's crap consisted of one pair of navy blue nut huggers (underwear sold separately,) one pack of smokes (tobacco replaced with lab grown tobacco-like substance,) and one CR5-A1 carbine, with two magazines full of 5.56, courtesy of the Human League Defense Force.Ian didn't bother messing with anything except for changing out of his Naval Combat Dress (fancy word for solid blue skin-tight space suit) and into the nut huggers. It proved difficult to manage, as the rest of the room's occupants were all trying to do the same thing at the same time. Shorts were donned. Weiners were tucked in. Everybody except the poor souls who pulled fire watch went to sleep.

	Ian woke up in darkness, not knowing where he was but knowing that he was the closer to pissing the bed than he'd come in over a decade. He threw the blankets off of himself and swung a leg over the edge of the bed, forgetting that he was in the fourth slot in the wall and that he was just asking to break a leg. Miraculously, he made it to the ground without any shattered bones. The next step was running to the closest head without leaving a trail. He would have succeeded too, if it weren't for the marine on watch nearly shooting him in the face out of surprise. The objective of the mission changed to tossing his shorts in the wash and grabbing a shower. The laundry part turned out to be the easiest, as  some unfortunate sailor was about to load up the day shift janitors' uniforms. Ian threw his shorts into the basket and walked the rest of the way to the shower naked. Lucky the corridors were so empty at night.	The showers turned out to be just as cold during the night as they were during the day. On the bright side, there was only one other dude inside and he didn't seem to care that Ian had crashed his fap session. The young marine had never showered so quickly in his life. The sailor wasn't about to let something as small as a little marine ruin his private time. Ian took a towel from the rack bolted in to the wall and made a tactical retreat back to the laundry room after drying off. He stole his shorts from the now-dry pile of janitor uniforms and made his way back to his bed, but something caught his eye. The door to the Officer's Lounge was open. There was light coming from the crack in the door. He could hear music. He recognized the song, it was the number one hit on Earth when he left home. Lunatown Lovesong, by Job Miles. Hesitantly, Ian pushed the door open just a little bit more. He could clearly see someone inside. Someone sitting on the overstuffed leather couch. Fareed? What was his squad leader doing sitting in the Officer's Lounge listening to jazz? Ian pushed the door open even more and slipped inside.
“Fareed, man, what the hell?”
“Ian?” Fareed looked surprised to see him. Of course, he was probably just surprised that someone found him. “What are you doing here?” Ian pointed at the glass in Fareed's hand, filled with an amber liquid. “Boss, are you stealing booze?”
	Fareed had no defense against that except to get up and pour a second glass. “You ever had it? They get the good stuff up here. Not the watered down piss they give us in the enlisted rec rooms. “
“Am I having a nightmare? If we get caught in here drinking the O-club's liquor it won't just be the MTS Instructors giving us the knife hands. Like, its a real crime. We could be shot.”
 But of course Ian reached for the glass anyways. If Fareed was bold enough to sneak in in the first place, the chances of getting caught must be slim. What was the harm? Ian took a gulp much like he would the beers in the rec room. Fareed grinned at him as he nearly choked. “I told you brother, this is the real deal.” Ian took a sip this time, wary of another coughing fit. Fareed got a little closer as he did this. Ian was too busy with the liquor to notice or care. He got closer. Ian noticed it this time. Fareed got closer, grinning that flashy grin, his forehead nearly touching Ian's. What the fuck. Before Ian could react, Fareed's lips were pressed against his. Ian was so surprised he dropped the glass. It shattered against the ground, loudly enough to be heard. Ian nearly jumped out of his skin at the sound of the glass breaking. “Don't worry,” Fareed assured him. “I've got an... arrangement with Captain Morehoffman. I can use this place whenever I want, no one cares. We've got the place all to ourselves.”
What. The. Fuck.
	Fareed pulled Ian in for another kiss, this one gentle but more probing than the last. Ian pulled away and spat on the ground. He had never imagined his first kiss would be with another man. Fareed didn't give him time to recover though. The Corporal had the Private backed up against the wall within an instant. He was still wearing that grin. “Fareed, I don't– ” Ian felt a warm hand on the front of his nut huggers before he could finish the sentence. Fareed was giggling – seriously, what the fuck? – fucking giggling like one of the girls from Ian's high school.He couldn't deny it though: the sensation felt good as Fareed began running his hand up and down the front of the pants. Soon enough Ian was pitching a tent and Fareed's hand was pulling the shorts down so he could grasp the member directly. The feeling of someone finally, at long last touching him was too much for Ian to bear. Without thinking, he put his hands on his squad leader's shoulders and push him to his knees. In less than a second Ian was in pure ecstasy. He was so hard he could jackhammer his way clear through the metal walls. Fareed's tongue traced the ridge of Ian's cock, running up and down the spine like it knew and little detail of the terrain. Soon enough Ian felt hot lips on his head, swallowing the entire length achingly slow. The suspense was too much for the young marine, who shot his hot load straight down Fareed's throat. The man swallowed and grinned up at him. Ian's legs weakened and buckled. He slid down the wall to a seated position. Fareed took a seat next to him, wrapping an arm around his subordinate and pulling him close. Ian wasn't sure how to feel about this. He had never thought himself capable of having a sexual experience with a man, but at the moment it felt right. He could feel the arm around his shoulders, the breath on his neck, the smell of the alcohol. He felt something, inside, that he'd never felt before in school or at home. He felt like he belonged somewhere. He belonged right there, next to Fareed, that much he knew. Nothing had ever felt so right before in his life.“You ready for round two?” Fareed whispered into his ear. Ian could barely get the word to come out through the lump in his throat. “Y-yeah.”
“You're so cute.” Fareed lifted up momentarily, removing his arm from Ian's shoulder to slip his shorts off. “You'll have to do the work on this one, kid.” Fareed strolled towards the couch and spread out on it. Ian stood up, shaky, and made his way over to him. “Don't call me kid,” he grunted.
“So cute.”
Ian paused for a moment, unsure of himself as he positioned his cock at Fareed's entrance. Was he sure about this? He began panicking but Fareed grabbed him by the head and pulled him in for a kiss. This one wasn't the sloppy drunk kiss from earlier. Ian pushed himself inside his friend and felt the warmth around his cock once again. After taking a second to gather his courage, he pushed even deeper inside. When he couldn't push any deeper, he slowly pulled out, a move that garnered moans from Fareed. Ian took it as a good sign and began thrusting in and out. This time he moved in for the kiss, pushing his tongue inside his friend's mouth and meeting no resistance. Fareed's tongue chased his in an impromptu dance as Ian pumped harder and harder. The harder he thrusted, the louder Fareed moaned. The last straw came when Fareed wrapped his legs around Ian and pulled him in closer. Ian felt his cum burst forward like a flood breaking a dam, flowing out inside Fareed. When he regained control of himself, he was lying on top of Fareed, who had his arms wrapped around Ian.“Well,” he said softly. “I can' say I've ever had anyone fall asleep on top of me.”
“I think I'm gonna be sick.”
“My God, a poet!”
“Shut up. It ain't funny.”
“That's usually my line, you know.”
“Mmm.”
“You know its almost morning. I don't think either one of us wants the Lieutenants to come in for coffee and see us cuddling.”
“We're not cuddling. Men don't cuddle.”
“We're cuddling.”
“I kind of just made a big life change last night. You could leave at least some of my dignity intact.”
“So cute.”