Scales Like Stars (Dragons...in...SPACE! Book 1) Read online

  Then what she said sank in.

  “Wait, your hand in what ?”

  Princess Castrovel looked at her bald elf buddy. “I thought. You said. You grabbed. An idiot !” She snarled. “I want a husband, not a new harem .”

  “I did!” The bald elf said, looking just as surprised as Merton felt.

  “Hey!” Merton shouted.

  “The psy-scan said that he had been doing simple arithmetic while thinking of counterfactuals in a barely coherent manner!” The bald elf continued as Castrovel growled at him. “It fit the exact patterns of young children, and yet, his age was consistent with one who should be fully grown!”

  “It’s fucking Dungeons and...Dra... and...it’s a game!” Merton said. Here he was. In fucking space , talking to fucking space people , and they were still looking down at him for being a nerd! This was reaching a level of ‘fuck’ well past ‘absolute fuck’ and into the realm of ‘ubiquitous fuck.’ He tried to keep a clear head, but his brain just kept going around and around that point in an endless circle: He was being mocked for being a nerd by a space dragon . Through sheer force of will, he managed to speak again.

  Unfortunately, it wasn’t exactly the most pertinent thing to point out.

  “Fuck you it was barely coherent, it’s not my fault our bard decided to play ratbait and I had to ditch fifteen pages of pre-written adventures!” Merton pointed at his chest. “I was running on improvisation and two cans of Coke zero and zero sleep!”

  Castrovel snarled. “Put him back and get me someone more tractable!”

  “Well, he is mage blind-”

  “I don’t care!” Castrovel said, grabbing the bald elf’s shirt, shaking him. “Have you not seen a single holoplay ? Take in the seemingly simple savage, and before you know it, he’s bedded half the female members of the household and is toppling the Empire! It happens every time . What do you suggest we do next, give our men-at-arms face concealing helmets and standardized uniforms so that enemy agents can infiltrate us more easily?” She shook him again. “Send him back!”

  Merton opened his mouth, then closed it. He lifted his finger, pointing at the princess. “Wait...what?” Did she just...was she just... his brain spluttered. He was reminded, suddenly, of the first time he had met his girlfriend and how his brain had gone from ‘oh, a girl’ to ‘oh a nerd ’ in about five seconds.

  The bald mage shook his head. “We can’t.”

  “You can’t ?” Castrovel snarled.

  But it was the purple skinned woman who broke in – and good thing, too. From Merton’s perspective, the bald elf looked ready to collapse into a heap. “Princess Castrovel, the law is clear. No mage blind sub-race can be returned with knowledge of the Empire to their homeworld, not unless they are being officially inducted as a Thrall World.”

  “Fine!” Castrovel said, flinging up her hand. “We’ll thrall the planet! Your people seem to be reasonably useful. We can do it with this ship alone.” She turned to the purple woman. “Tell Gunner to prep the vortex torpedoes and begin targeting unmanned orbital defenses…”

  “Isn’t that unwise, ma’am?” The bald elf asked. “The codex draconis states that thralling should begin with preliminary bombardment of major cities.”

  “That sounds like it’ll take way too much work, though,” Castrovel muttered.

  Merton’s eyes widened. Shit had gone from surreal to nightmarish pretty fucking fast. He had no idea what a vortex torpedo was in this context, but he was almost positive that there was no way that those two words could possibly be combined in a good way . “I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” he said, trying to use his best GM poker face.

  Suddenly, a lifetime of asking people to roll perception checks without making them get suspicious was coming in handy.

  Castrovel slowly turned her head to look at him. She looked furious - like all the irritation she had been feeling had a new target. Him . Tiny sparkles of lightning crackled from around her muzzle as she said, her voice as sweet as a summer day. “And why, human , is that?” she asked, and Merton’s throat felt dry and he thought: What would my girlfriend do?

  He GMed games for his friends. But he also GMed smaller, more intimate games with his girlfriend - using text messages and way more simulated fucking than his in face games. And one thing about Julia was that she had never played a character without maxing out two things: Charisma and Bluff. And...shapeshifting, if the system allowed for it. So, Merton thought of what Julia’s various characters might do.

  And he grinned.

  “The human race doesn’t take well to being enslaved when other humans are doing it. People will leap to their deaths to escape slave ships, and murder their masters at the first easy chance they got...” He shrugged. “And so, humanity has created a defense against enslavement that will defeat any attempt that your Empire can throw at it.”

  Castrovel snorted. “As if...”

  “It’s called...the Corbomite Defense Grid,” Merton said. “Run a scan of the planet for caches of, uh, tritium. Uranium. Plutonium.”

  Castrovel rolled her eyes. “Ship-soul, attend! Scan the planet for the elements he mentioned.”

  Less than a second later, a cool, male voice spoke: “Fourteen thousand nine hundred and sixty eight, spread primarily the northern latitudes of the two major landmasses. They appear to be affixed in long range guided missiles – primitive, but capable of launching into orbit. I believe they are weapons of mass destruction – comparable to primitive fission weapons used by stellar pirates and Atomorcs.”

  “That won’t stop a FTE fleet!” Castrovel sniffed. “Hell, that won’t even stop this ship!”

  “Exactly,” Merton said, his hands behind his back so she couldn’t see them shaking. “It’s not for you. It’s for us . That’s how seriously we take slavery. If any other country invades, they will be eradicated. And if anyone like you invades, we immolate the whole planet.”

  Castrovel narrowed her eyes, looking right at him. Merton crossed his arms over his chest and gave her his best, biggest shit eating grin. “So. Go ahead. Try us. Then go and explain to Daddy about how you got an entire life bearing planet full of viable thralls set on fire .”

  Castrovel’s hands clenched. Lightning crackled along her body, smoke rising in its wake. Then, with a snarl, she tossed her head. “Fine! Thuwit, toss him in the brig!”

  “Wait!” Merton said, hope blooming in his breast. So far. So good. He just needed to push it just a little bit farther. He held up his hands, placatingly. “I promise, I won’t talk if you send me home. I mean, I have family! Friends! Girlfriend!” He grinned, shakily. “I have every reason to keep the secret too, I don’t want the Earth to be thralled. Or destroyed.”

  “Oh, right. I wouldn’t want to separate my husband from his family,” Castrovel snarled, her voice still furious. “Grab them too and throw them in the brig and set course for the sector capital!”

  Merton opened his mouth to speak – but then the purple skinned girl was flipping switches.

  “Wait, wait, wait!” Merton’s hands were now waving above his head, desperately.

  A series of crackling lightning bolts slammed into the platform behind him. When Merton spun around, he saw Trevor, Carlos, Lisa, his mom, his dad, a middle aged black man that he had never met in his life, and a bright orange house cat, all of them looking rather shocked. Trevor and Carlos both held huge buckets of popcorn. Mom was in her nightgown and was holding a small cup of bourbon. Dad was holding a Wii remote and was in workout clothes. The middle aged black man was dressed in a white T-shirt and nothing else. He protected his modesty by holding a laptop over his junk.

  The deck of the ship shuddered under Merton’s feet…

  And he realized they were underway.

  Rocketing away from Earth and their lives.

  And it was all his fault.

  ***

  The Talon 9 emerged from subspace with a cascade of magical radiation that blew out behind the spindly engines like the bow-
wave of an olden age sailing ship. The Talon 9 herself was a beauty: A twenty meter needle of hardened adamantite and bio-engineered dragonscale mixed with deep-space life forms. Void whale blubber, to soak up radiation and emit electronic shielding. The crystal foci of the great brane-brains of Thalax to provide the apertures for the magical weaponry. Fanes of spinward protomolecule wiring to soak up solar radiation for some extra power.

  Mixed with the bio-engineering, though, was good old fashioned artifice. Four railguns were mounted along the entire spine in a series of canted tunnels that looked like the snout of a dragon, while nearly a hundred plasma torpedoes were tucked under each atmospheric wing, with backup magazines holding the planet-scouring vortex weaponry that made the ship a true terror.

  The ship, thanks to a linked demiplane, was a considerably larger inside than out. Relix took advantage of that size to stomp a great distance before arriving at the bridge. She threw herself into the command throne as several of the men-at-arms that had been hand picked by Gunner looked at her curiously. They were a motley collection of people that Gunner had snapped up from slave markets and arena halls and pain-palaces. Scarred, tough, and bizarrely loyal, they normally struck Relix as being painfully boring.

  But now?

  Now, she was just glad to see sub-races that did what she expected: Bow their heads and go back to their consoles. Oh, come on, a part of her muttered. You’re just mad he made things complicated. It’s not like you’d actually have thralled the planet, and we both know it.

  “Forward view!” she snarled.

  “I take it the proposal went well?” Gunner asked as he ambled up behind her. His hands were clasped behind his back, his insectoid legs thumping on the deck heavily.

  “Fantastic. My husband’s family is moving into their quarters...” Relix snarled as the front of the curved bridge shimmered, flowed, and became a visualization of space ahead of them. The sector capital was built atop an immense red star called the Redshaka, suspended on a hover platform protected by immense shields to keep the fierce corona from burning the palace to ash, using energy harvested from the sun itself. Despite being old and cranky, Redshaka had more than enough solar energy to power the anti-gravity engines and the shields and everything in the palace itself. That just pissed Relix off even more. It was all so showy . It infuriated Relix. Then her brow furrowed. “What are those?”

  “They appear to be cutter-craft, flying House Thresh banners,” the man-at-arms in the sensors seat said, turning her head to look at her. “Ma’am, they’re opening lascoms.”

  Relix leaned her chin against her knuckles, cocking her head to look at the approaching cutter-craft. Each one was basically on par with her ship, though they had less luxuries. Sub-races didn’t need demiplanes and servants to man their deadly little ships. That, unfortunately, meant that if those cutters took down the Talon 9 , they’d kill hundreds of her servants.

  While sub-races were supposed to be expendable, Relix had been taught to not do so unless one had too. And besides…

  She had just gotten all her stuff settled properly. That was the only reason why she was concerned. She didn’t care about any of her servants, and anyone who claimed such in the gossip circles was decidedly mistaken. Relix lashed her tail, grinding her teeth together at the thought that her secret, er, that someone might make that up. That entirely untrue fact up. Ugh. Draconinc politics. This was why she cruised around in this backwards part of the FTE. She realized that her moodiness did not, in fact, translate itself into orders and that her servants were looking at her. She leaned back in her chair, then waved her hand.

  “Put them on,” she said, sighing. “It won’t come to violence. Probably.” Then, quieter, she muttered. “I wouldn’t have even thralled the stupid planet…”

  “Thresh are reds,” Gunner muttered. “And I’ve never met a red that doesn’t make it about violence eventually.” Then, quieter still, he murmured. “Shall I tell that to your husband?”

  Relix’s face heated.

  The forward screen rippled again. The image that filled it doused Relix with cold ice - fear washing away her embarrassment. Which meant it was not all bad.

  Sitting in one of those cutter-crafts, wearing obsidian power armor crafted by dwarves and covered with the trophies of his two thousand and two hundred and twenty two kills, was Bex Thresh, the Red Baron of the Singularity Principality. He was everything a red dragon was supposed to be: Broad shouldered and as muscled as an exceptionally deadly barn, his snout bristled with horns and smoldered with smoke. But the worst thing?

  He was smiling.

  Like he was happy to see her.

  “Princess!” he boomed.

  “Baron,” she said.

  “I hear that your hand remains unclaimed,” Baron Bex Thresh said, leaning slowly forward, resting his muzzle on his knuckles, his elbows cocked against the skull-covered armrests of his command chair. The orcs that he used as a bridge crew stood at attention behind him. “I have come to take it.”

  “My hand?”

  “With a sword. If I must.” He grinned.

  Did he think that was flirting ? Wait, no. Dismemberment was how reds flirted. He wasn’t joking. Shit. She beamed at him, putting a falsely sympathetic note in her voice. “Oh, no, I’m sorry. Didn’t you hear? I’ve been swept off my feet.”

  Baron Bex narrowed his red eyes. “Were you?”

  “By a noble from a sub-race,” she said. “Yes, he’s mage-blind, but he’s so intelligent. So charming. So...amazingly, incredibly hung . Like...an uberhorse . ” She grinned, cocking her head slightly. “Why, he and his family are moving in – the marriage is going to be held in just a week or two, once things are finalized.”

  Baron Bex’s eyes narrowed further. “Is it now?”

  “Yes!” Relix nodded.

  “And where is this fiance?” Bex snarled.

  “He’s settling in!” Relix said, quickly.

  “Then...I invite him. And you. To dine. With me. At our estates in the palace-city on Redshaka.” Bex’s eyes gleamed and he seemed to think that he had set out the perfect trap. Either Relix’s husband wasn’t real and she was easily claimed, or he was, and Bex could brain him.

  Relix frowned, slightly.

  And then beamed.

  “We’ll be there tonight!”

  ***

  “Well, it could be worse.”

  “How?”

  Lisa looked at Merton as he stood in the center of the palatial estates that the servants of Princess Castrovel had led him and his family and his friends too. Lisa was about five foot nothing of redheaded fury – her eyes crackled, her hands were clenched, and her jaw was taut enough to slice through glass. Merton couldn’t blame her. Lisa was married. And after the last time he had mentioned a significant other had gotten his entire family and group of friends kidnapped, he didn’t want to get Lisa’s wife yanked into this ship too.

  Lisa, seeing his lack of response, hung her head forward and started to rub her hands through her hair.

  The rest of the group was also trying to adapt. Mom and Dad were sitting with the black man, who had gotten a blanket to wrap around his hips from one of the beds. Trevor and Carlos – both of them bachelors with shitty jobs and worse families meant that they were taking this better than the others. But, as Merton thought about it, he remembered that Carlos did have a favorite cousin, and Trevor loved his grandma to pieces. But neither were thinking about that now. They were just admiring the room they were in.

  To be fair.

  It was a really fucking nice room. It looked like a palace garden, with wide walls and a curved ceiling covered with a gleaming mural of the galaxy. Ferns in purple and green and blue grew from pots of earth, while a fountain sat plonk in the middle of the chamber, burbling and giggling happily as water splashed into the fountain. Large cushions were strewn about for place to sit, and there were several doors that led to other chambers. Investigating those had revealed palatial bedrooms and vast bathing chambers an
d more.

  “We could be on fire!” Merton said, at last.

  The orange cat rubbed against his ankles. Merton leaned down and petted it. The cat seemed to take this well.