The rest of the voyage passed without incident – the only exciting points were where the engine needed to be engaged to assist with gravitational slingshots. At those points the little ship bucked and screamed like an unbroken colt carrying its first rider.
Hermes was lucid enough to answer some questions about how he felt, but little else. Fry and Leela weren’t confident enough in their knowledge of medicine to attempt setting up an IV, so they had to carefully assist the bureaucrat to swallow some water.
Between these activities, and stints on the bridge to keep Bender company, Fry and Leela spent the rest of the time in Leela’s quarters exploring their newfound intimacy. It had taken a brutal and deadly space battle to do it, but the barrier that had stood between them for too long had finally been broken. Now Leela couldn’t understand why she had held him at arm’s length all that time – had it been fear? Inadequacy? Blindness from a life of looking at the world with one eye, in two dimensions, flat and logical? In any case, it was no longer important.
Of course, both of them had had sex before, but this had been the first time either of them had actually made love. For Fry it was the consummation of the most meaningful and mature relationship he’d ever had, and the realization of a long-held dream. For Leela, if was the first time in as long as she could remember that she’d slept with a man and not woken to feelings of guilt or shame or a sense of having been used. They were both happy.
Bender had immediately noticed the contented glow on his friends’ faces, and had delightedly poked fun at them.
“‘Ello, wots all this then?” he’d said in his curious Londoner accent. “You two organisms finally succumb to your primitive instincts? Oh! Oh! You gotta name your first kid after me!”
And so it went; as the PE ship limped laboriously onward the two lovers cultivated the tentative and beautiful union that had blossomed in the midst of chaos.
Captain Zapp Brannigan was bored. With the successful deployment of the secret DOOP superweapon, there had been precious little to do in the Xylogen system except mop up remnants of resistance on the three inhabited worlds. There was nobody but Kif to listen to his victorious monologues, and the little Amphibiosan weakling had been infuriatingly disinterested of late.
The light supper he’d just enjoyed was sitting heavy in his stomach as he absently stroked the velure of his uniform while he reclined in his command chair.
“Sir?” Kif said quietly, appearing by his side.
“Can’t you see I’m busy, Lieutenant?” Zapp snapped.
“I’m sorry sir, but we have a ship on the scope, approaching our position.”
“Aha!” Zapp leapt to his feet. “Finally some action! Target it with every weapon we have, and some other weapons we don’t have!”
Kif sighed. “It appears to be the Planet Express ship,” he said.
Zapp’s eyes widened. “The lady Leela!” he exclaimed. “Of course, I remember now. She and her vessel were instrumental in operation Clean Sweep… and now that she’s here, she can be instrumental in operation Red Hot Loving.
“Kif! Beam me over to her ship.” Zapp put his hands on his hips and stood expectantly.
Kif stared at him for a long moment before replying. “Sir, that technology doesn’t exist,” he said.
“And with that attitude, it never will!”
The little green Lieutenant looked away in disgust, and noticed the monitor readout. “Um… sir?” he said.
“What, what now?”
“The Planet Express ship seems to have sustained some substantial battle damage and it… it is flying toward us on a collision course.”
Zapp spun around in alarm and looked out the Nimbus’s forward viewscreen. Sure enough, a little green dot could be seen growing ever-larger.
“What is that crazy erotic woman doing?” he muttered to himself as the nose of the PE ship expanded into startling detail. “Brace for sexy impact!”
At the last moment, the Planet Express ship pulled up, but not before Leela activated the main cargo bay doors on the underbelly. As she nosed the green freighter up and over the bridge of the Nimbus, three large crates of mud bricks sailed onward and slammed into the warship’s hull, smashing apart and dispersing into a small dirty nebula.
Leela had made her point clear. And she would remove all doubt when she landed.
The Planet Express ship was parked in the Nimbus’s cavernous docking bay, and Leela was giving instructions to maintenance crews and DOOP medics when Zapp arrived with Kif in tow. She didn’t notice his presence at first as she watched Hermes being carried out of the PE ship on a stretcher and a pair of paramedics struggling with a frozen block of Zoidberg.
“Well, well, well – look what the solar tide washed up on Zapp’s shore,” a silky smooth voice crooned into her ear, and warm pungent breath fanned her neck. Leela automatically lashed her boot heel up and back, feeling it connect with satisfaction into something soft and small.
Zapp went down like the sack of crap he was, and curled into a whimpering ball. Kif hung back and tried not to snigger.
“You son of a bitch,” Leela snarled, turning to look down on Brannigan in contempt. “You sent my crew and I on a suicide mission as a damn decoy. Three of them are seriously injured. Don’t you have any morals or sense of responsibility you disgusting oaf – we were nearly all killed!”
“But you… still came… to be… by my side,” Zapp managed to croak. “Face it Leela… you just can’t… stay away.”
Leela kicked him in the stomach, hard, and rounded on Kif.
“You!” she snapped. “Did you know about this?”
“N… no,” he stammered. “This is the first I’ve heard of it, I swear. I would never knowingly endanger Amy’s friends.”
Leela accepted that with a curt nod. “Alright Kif, I believe you,” she said. “I trust that the DOOP will take care of our damage and tend to the crew’s injuries. After all, this was sustained in the engagement of a military directive.” She spat the last part of the sentence with bitter venom, casting a sidelong glance at Zapp as he climbed unsteadily to his feet.
“Of course,” Kif said. He inclined his head to Fry when the redhead meandered over.
“Yes, naturally,” Zapp said. “We will gladly repair the damage to your crew and tend to your ship’s injuries. But in the meantime, Leela, perhaps you would like to accompany me to the Lovenasium and tend to a little something else?”
Leela saw red. The bastard just wouldn’t stop! She balled her fist, and was about to strike him, when someone else unexpectedly beat her to it.
Fry’s fist lashed out and connected solidly with Zapp’s jaw, snapping his head around and causing him to stumble backward. Leela gasped in surprise and delight as Captain Brannigan spat blood, and a tooth hit the deck; he looked stunned and his eyes watered slightly. Fry advanced on him and he took a step back.
“You got a whole mouth full of other teeth,” Fry said slowly. “I can take the rest of them out one by one, or you can apologise to my Captain.”
Zapp’s eyes widened as he realized the boy really meant it. He cleared his throat and swallowed hard, gingerly wiping blood from his chin.
“I’m… sorry Captain Leela…” he said hoarsely. And then, not willing to face any more punishment from the Planet Express freaks, he turned on his heel and marched away with as much dignity as he could muster.
When Brannigan was out of earshot, Kif let out a little giggle.
“Oh, that was wonderful!” he said. “Phillip – you’re my hero!”
“Mine too,” Leela said, quite impressed. She gazed at Fry in wonder and he grinned back at her.
“Just like the old saying:” he said, “violence solves everything.”
She didn’t bother correcting him; instead she stepped close and kissed him – inflicting physical injury on Zapp Brannigan was about the sexiest thing he could have done for her, and she was going to show her gratitude.
Kif gaped for a moment and muttered: “oh my,” before quietly taking his leave.
With skilful application of medical nanomachines, both Zoidberg and Hermes were back on their feet within two days. During that time, the DOOP ‘ground’ crew conducted a near-complete refitting of the Planet Express ship, stripping out all damaged components and replacing them – the vessel hadn’t seen so many new parts since it was built. The trick Leela had pulled on the engine impressed the technicians enough that they asked her permission to include it in the next edition of the starship emergency procedures manual.
Zapp Brannigan remained mercifully absent during the rest of the stopover. Kif told them that he had secluded himself in his quarters and could sometimes be heard talking to himself. Leela wondered how long it would be before ‘the Zapper’ finally lost his mind and his command – Kif could be a real leader, and she thought it was high time he was elevated.
But that wasn’t her business.
When the ship repairs were finally complete, Kif led Hermes, Zoidberg, and Bender into the docking bay to meet Fry and Leela. Hermes’ head was patched with sticking plaster, and Zoidberg’s midsection was wrapped in bandages, but their eyes were drawn inexorably to Bender.
“Nobody look at me!” the robot wailed. “I’m hideous!”
“Ohhhh, no you’re not,” Leela said uncertainly. “It’s very… slimming.”
“I’m afraid it was the only spare body we had in stock,” Kif explained. “As a temporary measure it will have to serve until you can find something more appropriate.”
Bender’s head had been mismatched to a skeletal robot body that made him look like an anorexic. Fry couldn’t help but chuckle.
“Hey, cram it lover boy!” Bender shouted.
“Sorry Bender,” fry laughed. “As soon as we get back we’ll go straight to Mom’s and get you a new bending unit chassis – I promise.”
“Glad to see you guys are okay too,” Leela said, addressing Hermes and Zoidberg.
“Hurray! Someone’s glad I’m okay!” Zoidberg shouted happily.
Hermes glanced at his watch. “We’re behind schedule,” he grunted simply.
“Well, thanks for all the help, Kif,” Fry said, clapping the little alien on the shoulder.
“My pleasure,” Kif replied. “Once again, I extend the DOOP’s apologies for this unfortunate chain of events. Oh, and please say hello to Amy for me.”
“We will,” Leela said, giving him a quick hug. “You watch out for yourself – don’t let that idiot get you killed.”
With that, the crew made their way toward the newly repaired and polished Planet Express ship that sat gleaming on the flight deck, ready to take them home. Hermes and Zoidberg went up the boarding stair, while the other three hung back for a moment to inspect the ship.
“She’s a beautiful girl,” Leela said, gazing at the smooth green lines.
“Yeah, she sure is,” Fry said quietly, looking at the ship’s Captain. Leela glanced at him and smiled. They drew close and put their arms around each other.
Bender took a swig from a bottle of beer and puffed on a cigar, both of which he had somehow acquired during the short walk across the docking bay.
“Come on, let’s get outta here,” he grumbled. “I wanna get home and back in a body that suits my delightful charisma as soon as possible. Then everything can go back to normal.”
“Well, almost everything,” Leela whispered to Fry.
The three of them marched onboard, and within a few minutes, the ship was blasting away toward a blue planet orbiting a yellow star somewhere out in the vast expanse of the Universe.
END.
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{And let us never speak of this again. If any of my RL friends knew I'd written a piece of romance they'd whip me to death with lengths of barbed wire...}
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