A Talk Long A-Comin'

Posted on Sat Jan 6th, 2024 @ 3:28am by Lieutenant JG Jane Sinclair & Lieutenant Alisha Reno

2,895 words; about a 14 minute read

Mission: Operation Tokyo Return
Location: Subspace Comms
Timeline: After “Traditional Anime Group Bath Scene”

Alisha fairly bounced in front of her comm screen on the planet where her film, 'Voltron Origins: Allura' was filming. She wasn't allowed to tell anyone and this particular communication was bouncing off of no less than five subspace bouys, including one wholly owned by the production company, Her red hair was put up in large curls that bounced right along with her. In the background behind her was one of the new proposed promotional posters that the team had come up with, the blue lion crouched down in mid-roar, with an image of Alexis Silverstar as Allura posed in front, eyes wide open and pistol out, red curls spilling out the sides and back of the helmet, as if ready for whatever fight was ahead.

As the screen pulsed in a 'waiting' visage, she looked around worriedly. This was a lot of fun, being an actress again, but it wasn't the only reason she were here and the other bit was bothering her. Still, she had little time apart from her official work for a film production that was driving everyone into the ground to complete things as quickly as possible. So much so that she'd barely been able to send more than a cursory update message or two because she'd needed her sleep, all three and a half hours a night she got. Even with that, she was cheerful as she waited and really hoped that Jane would be able to answer.

The timing could not have been more perfect. Jane’s late shift on the bridge had just ended and the computer in her quarters was sounding an alert that Alisha was calling her right as she walked into her quarters. Her face beamed with joy as she ran to her desk, sat down, and activated the comm system. “Hey you,” she said with a grin.

"Hey YOU!" Alisha responded, "Hopefully the ship hasn't been falling apart since I've been gone?" She waved that away, "Before I say ANYTHING else: I love you Jane, I love you, I love you, I love you!" She leaned in and kissed the camera before wiping it clean again.

Jane returned the kiss to the camera excitedly, pecking it five times before sitting back down. “I can never hear it too much,” she said, perking up after a long day. “I love you too, Alisha Reno. So much.” She found her eyes starting to water, her voice catching on the word ‘much’.

Alisha caught the hitch and reached out, wanting SO much to be there to comfort Jane and this somewhat broke her heart. "I do need to let you know that this line is being monitored, but only because of the Non-Disclosure Agreement and only about details of the movie." She rolled her eyes, "The Corporation is really really strict about things, but I did get them to agree to a few little details... Like, before the movie gets released to the public as a whole, there will be a screening on board Myogi if we can convince the Captain to do it. I'm probably going to get to keep one of the costumes or so and they've promised some really kitschy farewell presents once we wrap! There's another surprise I can't talk about at all, so that's going to have to stay a secret. Oh, and the person monitoring the call is himself under an NDA, nothing we say that doesn't have to do with the movie gets out, period."

“So not a word about the movie,” Jane repeated, “but we can be open without any problems.” Seeing Alisha nod that Jane understood, she continued. “Good. Because it’s been a bit hard here and I’ve wanted to talk to you about it. The Captain has everyone at their wits’ end. And I.” She stopped herself as she tried to find the right words. “I came way too close to doing something I’d regret forever.”

Worry crossed Alisha's face, disregarding what had just been said about the Captain, because she knew that had just been flavoring for what was really bothering Jane. "Do you need me to come back to Myogi? What happened? You know I won't be angry, no matter what, right?"

Jane sighed. “You don’t need to come back, please be assured of that. I’m fine, I really am.” She took a deep breath. “So the past day or two have been way more stressful than usual. I won’t get into it on a monitored line, NDA or not, but it’s been hard, though nothing we can’t handle, just hard. And well, um, you know how you and I help each other deal with stress?” After a moment she held up her hand. “I didn’t. But I was tempted. Way more than I ever thought I’d be. I was enjoying some holodeck spa time with Mia and it almost got out of control. Somehow Mia of all people was the voice of ‘wait before you jump into bed’.” She looked Alisha in the eye. “You’re not mad?”

A flurry of emotions had flooded through Alisha, from genuine concern about what the Captain had been doing, to now the admission from Jane that she'd almost slept with someone else, but as she'd kept going, it turned out that she'd had to fight back what seemed to be a manic giggle, but now she couldn't hold it back, "Heh, you mean to say," She snorted once, "That MIA refused to sleep with you when you gave her the offer? The same Mia that once came up to us to ask if we had enough spice in our lives?" She couldn't help but break down in laughter, "God, I owe her dinner somewhere nice, don't I? But no, Jane, sweetheart, I'm not angry. I understand completely and especially if the Captain's being rough on you all." She composed herself, but kept that genuine smile, making a motion that was intended to emphasize the distance between them, "I suppose we should have talked about the possibility of something like this happening way earlier, shouldn't we have?"

“Probably,” Jane agreed, smiling at Alisha’s good natured laughter and wiping some small tears from her eyes — now tears of relief. “It was so sudden, so it didn’t come up. We probably should have had this talk months ago. When you were here, it was always possible that you’d be sent away on a mission for weeks or months at a time.” Then she started to giggle. “Somehow we, of all people, forgot to establish a ‘Jane or Alisha gets horny while the other is away’ contingency. After all, that never happens to us, no, ma’am.” She said this last part with mock seriousness and struggled valiantly to keep a straight face.

“Of course not! EVERYthing goes perfectly to plan with us!” Alisha laughed, shaking her head, “All right, but seriously, this is rather quite important to figure out as it is.” She wiped tears of mirth out of her own eyes. “First thing’s first: We both love each other, and I trust you, Jane, to do what you feel in your heart is the right thing. I believe that openness with each other is going to be the key, but without quite saying ‘Let’s have the ability to go to town with whoever, whenever’, perhaps we just let the other know with who and when?” She smiled at the image of her girl on the other side of the video link, “You’ve got a far higher sex drive than I do, but then again, you’ve managed to rev me up a fair bit.. I still don’t foresee me doing much of anything with people here, but apparently you’ve got a bit of a thing for Mia, and I’ve no doubt that she’d enjoy indulging that with you!”

“Not to toot my own horn, but I have absolutely zero doubt on that,” Jane quipped. “And you’re right. We love each other deeply and trust each other implicitly. I might need to scratch an itch sometimes, and that isn’t a bad thing. I promise it won’t be a regular thing, and when we’re together you’re my only priority. And even if you don’t foresee it, you’re free to do the same on your end. No jealousy, since at the end of it all, we come home to each other.” She gave a sideways smile and shrugged. “And you’re right. Mia’s hot, I have a bit of a thing for her.”

Alisha snickered, “I’d be lying if I said I wouldn’t be tempted by her myself.” Her grin widened, “Under that bad-girl attitude she’s got, she seems like a pretty good gal. And this is why I love being with YOU, Jane Sinclair, because you are a practical person, just like me! Now, with those little sordid details out of the way… I HAVE been given permission to show you a couple things, including sending you a video clip from Day One of filming.” Alisha picked up the camera she was using, holding it so that Jane could see her and everything else behind her and she glanced over her shoulder to make sure things were in the picture, “They took some liberties with Allura because they’re pinning the whole thing onto ME, so not blonde or white hair, the red that everyone associates with Alexis. But this is me with my Blue lion, which yes, they built to scale for certain scenes!” It was a closer up of the poster that had been behind her before.

“That’s incredible!” Jane said, gasping at the incredible detail of everything she saw. A scale re-creation of the blue lion! “You look amazing! It all looks amazing!”

“Now for what they’re really hoping for…” she moved over several feet to bring another holoposter into view, this one with all five lions lined up in various poses of aggression, Allura in the middle, a victory ‘V’ held out in front of her with a massive smile on her face, winking at the viewer with her helmet in the crook of the other elbow. In other poses, the other four pilots stood or crouched, hints of their uniform colors visible, but otherwise intentionally greyed out. Black and Yellow were obviously men, but Red and Green were just as obviously women, with the curves to match. A laser sword, pistols, a device and a rifle were visible in various sets of hands, seemingly ready for use. Only Allura had any distinct features, “This is gonna be teased later on before the initial screenings, but they haven’t decided on people for the various parts. They want to make sure that ‘Allura’ is a success before committing those sorts of resources.”

“That makes sense,” Jane said. She remembered stories of old film franchises, some of which succeeded with massive interconnected stories, and others which were planned as such but flopped in such a way that they had to throw everything out and restart. “Do you know who they’re considering? Even if nothing is set in stone?”

“They’ve got a short list of about ten people for each role, and you wouldn’t believe some of the.. Names.” Her eyes flicked to the side as something caught her attention, “But I can’t give you any of the potential names, confidentiality and all. They did pick my own brain when they showed me who and mayhaps get to help choose who gets offered in what order.” Her eyes went back to Jane with a slight grimace, “Got the yellow light for that one, means I can’t tell. But I think this is going to go much better than ‘The Fantastic Four’ reboots that keep going bad.”

“That’s fine,” Jane said, waving it off. “It was a long shot. I won’t ask things like that next time. By the way, we’re a few days from our destination, but I expect I won’t get much time like this for the next little while. Once the situation resolves, and we’re in person again, I’ll give you all the details.” She blew a kiss to the camera. “Know that I love you, Alisha. More deeply than you can possibly imagine.”

“And I love you too, Jane, trust me, I think I know EXACTLY what you’re feeling.” Alisha smiled softly, “Anything else going on over there? I know you mentioned an Ami Rori? Little sister, eh? Sounds interesting, she does!”

“She is interesting!” Jane replied. “She’s gotten me into Tankery. It’s a whole new sport that I never knew about and now very much want to follow! And it’s fun to play! You saw the pictures I sent of me on the tank?”

"I did! You looked SO happy and I've got one of those holos sitting on the table right over there!" Alisha pointed off to the side, to a point off the camera where she'd set it down again and planted herself in front of it once again, "I'll admit, I've never heard of Tankery, but it definitely sounds exciting." Her eyes opened and she grinned, "What's it like being inside one of them?"

“A bit cramped,” Jane admitted. “Probably would have been more comfortable if I were a few centimetres shorter. And very loud. But when the whole thing vibrates when the cannon fires?” She made a chef’s kiss with her fingers. “It’s a feeling of strength and control, different from how I feel in a pilot’s seat but equally interesting. Maybe it’s something I can share with you when you’re next here.”

There was a twitch on Alisha’s face at the reminder that she was going to be gone for quite a while longer, but she gamely fought it off to keep the smile up. For Jane, at least, couldn’t really show what she was thinking or feeling, could she? “I’d love for that, Sugarcube, I really would! Not sure I’d get into it as much as you, but hey, who knows? Lots and lots of styles of old tanks.” Her smile did finally fall a bit, “But I suppose I should be going, we’re still doing a bunch of filming here aboard the Azure Wind,” She mentioned the name of a very fast luxury liner that had been chartered for their flight, “Corrid-” She cut herself off before she could be warned, “Whoops! Almost spilled it! Gah, it’s like my brain isn’t here sometimes!”

“Didn’t even hear it!” Jane said with a giggle. “When you’re back, we should also find some time to continue ‘Shoot to Kill’,” she suggested. “I think the next session doesn’t need the role of Ginger Fox, so I might continue without you, until you re-appear on the Dramatis Personae.” She grinned. “Honestly when you do get back, whenever that ends up being, I should probably take a couple of days off. Then again, if I did that, we might not leave my quarters!”

"When I get back, we're BOTH taking a couple days off and I don't care who tries to tell us 'No'." Alisha said firmly, "And if we leave your quarters, it'll be to get something or maybe medical attention." She waggled her eyebrows with a giggle, "But in 'Shoot To Kill', you're right, Ginger Fox isn't strictly needed in the next segment, BUT there's an optional session if someone does opt for that role. Probably some lab stuff or something, but if I have time, I may see about going through that one. One thing is for sure, though, Ginger and Jane aren't supposed to meet during it! It'll be interesting to merge our sessions and see what that does."

“I’d love that!” Jane squealed. “I know you probably have very little personal time, but let’s try to do this. I’ll send you the recording of my portion, you send me yours. We can talk about it after. Like a drama club!”

"So long as I don't get taken hostage by the bad guys... Again!" Alisha winked at Jane, "God only knows that it would be totally bad for the Bond Girl of the show to keep getting captured! Really bad for the complexion, you know." She blew a kiss at Jane, needing to figure out how to keep HER little secret about the role of Ginger Fox. That had been one of the rules of taking that role in the holoprogram, "All right, Sugarcube, I need to get going for now... They've got a wakeup call for me in about four hours and I'm going to need to be bright-eyed and bushy-tailed."

"Then sleep well, my love," Jane said. "Sweet dreams. We'll talk again soon." She blew a kiss to the camera and waved with her long fingers.

"Love you." Alisha blew her own kiss to the camera and with a wistful smile ended the communication.


***************

Post by

Lieutenant Alisha Reno
Temporary Civilian (on Leave, or is she?)

and

Lieutenant (jg) Jane Sinclair
Chief Flight Control Officer

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