The Living Gift Box
"I think you and Jessica need some time alone together too, Oppa."
"Eep."
"What? Honestly, this is overdue if anything."
"I-Is that so?"
Even Marian — the very woman Jessica had shoved into Icarus's arms — was whispering in her ear and coaxing her along. Faced with that, their dear Jessica finally nodded under the superhumans' persuasion and let herself be talked into it.
And deciding that, while they were at it, they might as well give their commander a proper surprise, the superhumans built a kind of "gift box" for Jessica to climb into. Then they stuffed her inside and arranged to have her delivered to their commander, "tastefully packaged," as they put it.
Jessica went through with it.
There was just one small problem.
"By the way, Grianar — you somehow managed to scrounge up a gift box like that?"
"Hmm? That? No, no. I made it a while back."
"Is that so…"
"I originally built it to go inside myself, but since things turned out this way, I decided to give it to Jessica as a present."
The superhumans' plan had been nothing more elaborate than stuffing Jessica into a simple box and sending her off. The problem was that, the moment she heard the words "gift box," our Professor Grigri had gone and fetched the special living gift box she'd been intending to use herself.
"Hold on. You made it to go inside yourself? What does that mean?"
"It's for luring any infiltrators who sneak into the base!"
"They'd fall for a mere box?"
"Yep. It only looks like a box — it's actually a mimic-type lifeform."
"…What does what to what, exactly."
On top of that, for various reasons the box normally camouflaged itself as an ordinary crate, and only when something climbed inside did it behave like a mimic. So the moment our Icarus accepted the delivered package and opened it—
"Mmmphhh!!"
"Whoaah?!"
—he found Jessica bound tightly hand and foot (so she wouldn't escape midway), the internal camouflage dropped, writhing tentacles and slime companions thrashing around her. He nearly jumped out of his skin.
A short while later.
"Uuuugh…"
"What on earth were you thinking, getting into that thing?"
Jessica looked like she'd just crawled out of a frog's salivary glands. Once she'd finally washed off and more or less put herself back together, I found myself tilting my head — this wasn't Grianar, so why had Jessica wound up in a situation like that?
Hearing my question, Jessica — every scrap of her usual outfit already in the laundry, wearing nothing but a bathrobe — only flushed and twitched those distinctive rabbit ears of hers.
"W-Well, you see…"
"Don't tell me Grianar pranked you this time? That would be a bit much."
When Jessica hesitated and couldn't quite get the words out, I decided this had to be one of Grigri's usual nasty tricks. Without thinking, I caught one of her rabbit ears — spinning on its own as it tried to dry the wet fur — and pressed her in the calmest tone I could manage, trying to get a handle on the situation.
But to that question, our bunny Jessica only—
"Uuu… W-Well… Um, i-it's not that I didn't want to…"
"Huh."
"A-Actually, I wanted to with the Commander… y-you know."
Her face went as red as a tomato. She poked her index fingers together, then flattened those twitching rabbit ears back against her head and opened her mouth in a tiny, ant-crawl of a voice utterly unlike her usual self.
"This is really hard to say, but the truth is…"
"Hmm?"
"Commander… how about doing it with me… j-just once…?"
But for all that shy little voice, her hands were already parting the bathrobe that had been covering her. Fresh from the bath, her glamorous figure filled my vision, wrapped in the fragrant scent of shampoo — and Jessica, become pure sensuality itself, stared up at me with a sultry smile even as her face burned scarlet.
I gave a short nod at the sight of her.
Then—
Whoosh!
"Eep?! C-Commander?"
"After going at it so thoroughly with Marian, I realized something. I don't need Grianar's drugs. I'm plenty virile on my own."
"Ah… i-is that so…"
"So Jessica — if I accept your feelings and thoroughly take my fill of you… I won't go easy even if you cry and beg. Understood?"
"…That's exactly what I want. More than anything, Commander."
"Hmm?"
"Rabbits are in heat three hundred sixty-five days a year, you know…♡"
"Oh."
I scooped Jessica up — reduced to the perfect naked form she'd been born in — and dived straight for the bed in my room.
From there, Jessica and I ran through every position and play possible in human form for a full five days — far longer than Marian's first night… no, her first time. Along the way Jessica fainted roughly fifty-four times and climaxed a hundred twenty-eight, among other things. All in all, it was an absolutely spectacular stretch of time.
Unfortunately, after Grianar's previous schemes had been exposed, every surveillance camera and anything else capable of recording "video" had already been stripped out of my room. So five days later, all the other superhumans got to see was Jessica barricading herself away for two full days on the excuse of poor condition — and me.
"Jessica! Jessicaaaa!!!"
"Why is the Commander acting like that?"
"Without Jessica, he has to handle every scrap of administrative work a commander is supposed to do by himself."
"Ahh."
"Jessicaaaaaaa!!!"
Jessica was stuck in the recovery ward trying to close holes that refused to stay shut, which meant she couldn't move. Stuck doing all her work on top of my own, my mental state shattered, and the only thing anyone saw of me was a man howling Jessica's name.
Meanwhile, with Commander Icarus away from his post, the superhumans had no choice but to hold the line and maintain the status quo. And at that very hour, inside the Leviathan Fleet, an unseasonable discontent was about to boil over.
And what, exactly, was that discontent about?
"Doesn't this wound your pride, Admiral?"
"…"
"Commander Icarus is one of the reasons the Federation was ruined, isn't he?!"
Not something that had only just appeared — for all sorts of reasons everyone had been far too busy, and the resentment had never had a chance to vent. It had simply piled up and up: Why are we helping the bastard who attacked the Federation?
And as if to certify that the discontent was about to explode, the talk even reached Admiral Ranka — the man who had physically blown the Security Council chairman's head off. Ranka first "processed," under military law, the one who had dared say it to his face. Then he had his personal guard swiftly suppress the rest of the complainers, shook his head, snipped the tip of his favored cigar, lit it, and spoke.
"You know nothing. Commander Icarus was thoroughly just conducting business as a mercenary."
"Is that so?"
"Of course. He took money and handled a job — pure business. How many times have we watched commanders do that sort of work?"
Having said that, Admiral Ranka drew a long pull on the cigar and exhaled. Cold, razor-sharp reason lived in the eyes that looked out through the smoke.
"But he did attack us. That much is fact, isn't it?"
"Unlike those Humanity scum, he didn't attack us with some deeper purpose. He simply wanted resources."
"Hmm…"
"Which is precisely why, when we lost to Humanity, fled here, and requested surrender, he accepted us without hostility."
At that, one of the officers the personal guard had dragged in shook his head again in rebuttal. Admiral Ranka only snorted at the sight of him.
"But Admiral — right after we came out of the Tannhauser Gate, Commander Icarus's fleets surrounded us in a hostile stance, did they not?"
"If you were in his position — the other side started by blowing up your Dreadnought and the rest of your ships before you'd even met — would you react warmly?"
"…"
Watching the officer fall silent, unable to argue, Admiral Ranka took one more draw on the cigar, stubbed the still-lengthy remainder out in the ashtray, and delivered a short but heavy lecture.
"This matter is supposed to be taught to every officer from training camp onward. You really are incompetent."
"What do you mean…!"
"Have you forgotten the unwritten rule among powers — that there is to be no separate retaliation for the mercenary activities of 'Commanders'?"
"…"
"He inflicted serious damage on us? That simply means he's an outstanding mercenary. So we hire him anew. That is all."
"…"
"In any case, I believe there is nothing more to discuss. Escort him out."
"Understood, Admiral Ranka."