Scales Like Stars (Dragons...in...SPACE! Book 1) Page 7

  “All right, fuck it,” Carlos said, then hopped to his feet. He had quite a bit of himself to move, and he kinda wished he could pull a ‘Merton’s weird internet girlfriend’ and go into a fancy space tube and get all swole and badass. But as he didn’t have that chance, he simply jiggled his fat ass over to Trevor. There, he gently put his toe against Trevor’s shoulder, shaking him.

  Trevor sighed explosively. “No.”

  “You don’t even know what my plan is!” Carlos said.

  “No,” Trevor said.

  “It’s simple!” Carlos said.

  “No,” Trevor said.

  “We go and we-”

  “No,” Trevor intoned.

  “-explore the ship and see-”

  “No.” Trevor’s voice had become like the tolling of the Black Bell from Warhammer 40,000.

  “-what we can see and-”

  “No.” Doom, that voice tolled. Doom .

  “-maybe figure out a way back to Earth or something?”

  Trevor did not say no. Carlos presumed this meant he was down. He turned to Lisa, who had gotten her phone out and was already flicking her thumb across it. She looked up at him, then grinned. “I’ve got it set on recording. We’ll make a video log of what we find.”

  “Swag!” Carlos gave her a thumbs up.

  As the three of them headed for the door, Merton’s Mom looked over. “Uh, kids, where are you going?” she asked.

  “An escape pod,” Lisa said.

  “Certain death,” Trevor said.

  “Oh these jokers!” Carlos said, sliding his thick arms around both his friend’s shoulders, drawing them against him and beaming. “We’re gonna find a pool!”

  “Well...have fun?” Merton’s Mom said, her brow furrowing.

  “We will!” Carlos said before either of his friends could speak up. Then he walked backwards and out of the room that they all shared. Once they were in the corridor, Trevor sighed and slid out of Carlos’ grip. Carlos shot him a wounded look – but then Lisa grabbed his wrist and squeezed at a pressure point that sent shooting pain up his arm. Squeaking, Carlos lifted his arm as she stepped out from under him, then started down the corridor. She held up her phone, swinging it around.

  “The corridor appears to be about three meters by two meters, with a convex roof. The lighting seems to come from the same source of energy as the rest of the appliances – supposedly magic. Gravitational forces are earth normal, and the air seems to be a nominal N/O2/CO mix.” She swung the phone around to aim at Carlos and Trevor. Carlos waved. “No negative effects have been spotted in any of us.” She swung the phone back to her face. “This level of technology combined with sociological evidence we’ve seen makes this Five Talon Empire the biggest threat to the future of the human race in recorded history.”

  “First officer’s log, supplemental,” Carlos whispered. “Fuck you Wesley Crusher.”

  Lisa hit pause, frowning. “Can you take this seriously?”

  “Uh, dude, we’re in space . With dragons ,” Carlos said. “I’m pretty sure I’m going to wake up any-”

  Lisa stepped up and smacked him across the cheeks. The blow was not hard, nor was it fierce. It was a dispassionately light smack that still was more physical violence that Carlos had ever faced in his short, sheltered two and a half decades of life. He staggered and Lisa pursed her lips.

  “Can you do that again?” Trevor asked, showing one of his first smiles in days.

  “No!” Lisa and Carlos said at the same time. Carlos stood up, rubbing his cheek slowly.

  “Okay. Fine,” he said. “This is not a dream. And it is serious. But what can we do? Merton’s the happily married boytoy.”

  Trevor smirked ever so slightly. “Yeah. Bet he’s really enjoying that.”

  “Maybe she’s sweet once you get past the total bitchy Princess angle?” Carlos suggested.

  “Don’t. Romanticize. The monarchy.” Lisa repeatedly stabbed Carlos’ chest with her finger, making him grunt with every poke. “Empires are built on the back of slaves, genocide and mass exploitation. From Rome to the United States, you look under the gilt and fanciness and you’ll find a pile of blood.”

  “Does blood pi-” Carlos started, but Lisa cut him off with a glare. Then Carlos’ face went white. Trevor’s did too, though that was less impressive. Lisa’s brow furrowed – and then she turned around to see what they saw standing behind her.

  It was a monster.

  Specifically, it was a two to three meter tall amalgamation of humanoid form and insectoid strength. Digigrade legs that looked as if they had been spliced from an armored grasshopper, with armor-carapace growing over his shoulders. His eyes glowed like red coals, and were set in a face that was furrowed with hideous burn scars and hatchet-like hacking cuts across forehead and chin. His arms were exposed and heavily muscled, while his clothing was something between battle armor and court dress. He had a pair of swords strapped to his back, a rifle slung over one shoulder, two pistols on his hips, a wrist mounted rocket launcher (with micro-rockets loaded along a bandoleer that slung up his arm in a corkscrewing helix pattern), a wand that was tipped with a slowly pulsating black sphere that made Carlos’ blood run cold, the handle of a whip that was connected to a neon glowing energy field that coiled in a tight circle, and finally, a pair of brass knuckles that spelled out the words: FUCK and NAZI.

  Lisa was the one who got her voice to work first. “I-Is that...descriptive or suggestive?” she asked, pointing at the knuckles.

  “Who won?” the monster asked.

  “Who won?” Carlos asked.

  “We did,” Lisa said. “We kicked Hitler’s ass so hard he shot himself in the head.”

  “What the fuck are you talking about?” Carlos whispered.

  But then…

  The monster laughed, clapping one scarred hand on Lisa’s shoulder. “Good! Fucking great , even!” He looked at Carlos and Trevor, then back at Lisa. “What about the Russians?”

  “It’s complicated,” Lisa said, then grinned. “So, what’s your name?”

  “I am so confused,” Carlos said.

  The monster shook his head. “Not exactly the fastest draw in the west, is he?” he stepped past Lisa, crossing his heavily muscled, heavily armed arms over his muscled, armored chest. “The name is Bertram Gummer. The Princess calls me Gunner. I am her Master at Arms. But I was, first, a member of the 11 th Fighter Group, United States Army Airforce. Ace twice over before I got yanked into this nonsense.”

  Trevor and Carlos gaped.

  Lisa frowned. “Can you show us the escape pods?”

  “No,” Gunner said, his voice flat.

  “We’re kidnapped, just like you!” Lisa said. “We can take you with us – we-”

  “No,” Gunner said, again. He shook his head as he turned, gesturing with one hand. “Come on. I want to show you something.”

  Lisa looked at Carlos. Carlos looked at Lisa. Lisa looked at Trevor. Trevor raised his eyebrows. Carlos grinned. “Come on!” he said, then started after Gunner – following the immense man and his thumping progress down the hall. Lisa frowned, but turned her phone’s recording back on. Her voice was soft as she whispered her latest findings into the phone. They walked through the corridors of the ship – which seemed to just go on forever. They walked past doors that led into chambers filled with weaponry, with supplies, with machines that did something Carlos couldn’t guess at. They walked past rooms where servants of dozens of races worked and chatted with one another.

  At last, they came to a door that opened into a huge park area. Carlos’ eyes widened as he walked out onto the balcony that was set before the door. A pair of stairs wound down to either side of the balcony, but he didn’t need to walk down to marvel at the park. It was easily a mile, two miles wide, covered with greenery and trees. Houses were positioned here and there, and he could see families – groups of various races, some of them children. Some kids ran by underneath him, laughing as they played tag, or threw clods
of dirt at one another, in classic children style.

  Gunner stepped up beside him. Lisa joined him, as did Trevor.

  “What is this?” Lisa asked.

  “This is why I am still here,” Gunner said, quietly. “This was the pleasure harem of the former owner of the Talon-9 , Princess Relix’s uncle. When he was assassinated and she took over, she took a glance at this, scoffed, said it was a terrible waste of space, tacky, overdone nonsense. So, she had the harem ripped out. But she didn’t sell off the pleasure servants. She kept them on. She had her seneschal find them wives and husbands. She took me in, out of the fighting pits I had been trapped in for...years.” He shook his head. “Every one of my men at arms, she rescued. Hell, she rescued Thuwit . And when she did select a harem for herself, she...”

  “So what?” Lisa asked, her voice not holding an inch of give. “She’s a good person because she throws you scraps ?”

  “She’s the best she can be in the context of the world she’s in,” Gunner said. “High sight better than you have any right to expect. And while I’ve served her, I’ve saved this ship five times, and her life ten.” He looked at Lisa. “And because I did that, I’ve saved every life here . Let's say the Red Bas, er, sorry, the Red Baron gets in charge here.” He snapped his fingers – making a sound like a gunshot. “The attractive women go into a harem. The men are sold at the nearest spice mine. This ship becomes a gilded slave factory again.”

  Lisa frowned.

  “During the war, we fought with the Soviets. And they were bad. The Nazis were worse.” Gunner shook his head. “And you know what? I don’t feel a jot of guilt working with the Princess.”

  Carlos watched a child run by.

  “Holy shit,” he whispered. “I have never been happier knowing that Merton knows Hackmaster.”

  Lisa, though, was frowning. “What exactly happened to the Princess’ old harem?” she asked, quietly.

  Gunner sighed. “Come with me.” He gestured. “We’ll need drinks for that story.”

  ***

  Bex was in a smallish humanoid form as he read the physical printouts he had ordered of the five “PeeDeeEff” files that the techthralls had yanked out of the primitive computing device that Relix’s consort had given him. He was slowly reading through The Zealot’s Guide to Wurld Conversion . He frowned as his eyes settled on the rules block for the Zealot character class. Specifically the Zealot of Shona, the Goddess of Games and Ritual Combat. His eyes narrowed as he read the following.

  They may purchase any of the following skills at half the initial BP cost: crane, cricket-in-the-peapod, eye of the tiger advantage, kidney bruiser, mortal combat and any Martial Arts combat procedure listed in the Combatant’s Guide.

  Bex pursed his muzzle. Smoke roiled from his nose.

  He picked up the Combatant’s Guide to Slaughtering Foes.

  He flipped to the Martial Arts section.

  He began to read.

  And slowly…

  Bex began to laugh .

  ***

  The four armed purple skinned chick looked down at the biomorphic engine control panel. She had carefully programmed in two routines. It had been quite tricky – but fortunately, she had the first program set to run after a five minute break. The second program should not run, not unless someone pushed a large ‘engage’ button underneath the snarl of spell-glyphs and code runes. Slowly, the four-armed purple skinned chick pointed at that button and said, clearly and loudly: “It would be highly unfortunate if anyone were to push this button. I now will go to perform routine maintenance.”

  She turned and walked out of the room.

  Merton, who was currently strapped into the biomorphic engine, looked at the large number of crystal tipped spikes mounted on articulated, gimbaled arms. Each one was starting to glow with a throbbing blue-white light. He winced, then said: “Uh, Julia, you failed to mention the fuckspikes!”

  “Pfff!” Julia said, stepping out of her hiding space. “I’d endure far more than fuckspikes for magic! Heck, I endured the fuckspikes for a super cute, totally legal cooter!” She giggled, then twirled herself around on her toes. Her T-shirt fanned out wide, exposing her flat belly, before settling as she stepped up to the control console. “Ready?”

  “No,” Merton whimpered, looking at the spikes that were slowly starting to aim at his eyes.

  “Don’t worry!” Julia said. “It doesn’t actually hurt.”

  “Oh, real-”

  And that was when it started to hurt. A lot. The pain bloomed inside of Merton’s head, fanned outwards and downwards. It tingled through his feet, buzzed along his cock, burst along his spine, and punched him into his very soul. Fortunately, it lasted less than a second. Then the pain subsided into a haze of half-sensations. He floated on a massive sea of space. His eyes went unfocused and he could see the ship around him slowly dissolving away into nothingness. He was adrift on tides of time, his body stripped naked before the cosmos. He looked outwards, though, not down, not at himself. He didn’t care about himself.

  The galaxy was a great, majestic dance of suns. They flared red and gold and black and purple and white, glittering and pulsating to the beat of a cosmic heart. He could see thin stands of connectivity reaching outwards between stars, like gossamer fibers being sewn by some great cosmic tailor. His brow furrowed as he looked at the lines...and saw that they glowed with an eldrich light. A quiet breath sucked into his lungs as he spread his arms wide.

  “Ley-lines...”

  Then the galaxy faded and his eyes opened as Julia’s face filled his face.

  “Merton?” she asked.

  “Hey,” he said, slowly, then blinked. “Are your lips blue?”

  Her lips were, in fact, not blue. They shimmered and rippled between blue, purple, white. Lines of light crackled from her tongue as she spoke: “Uh, no, but that sounds sexy as balls.” She grinned. “And I don’t even like balls that much.” She laughed nervously. Her voice caused the shining colors of her lips to crackle faster. Merton blinked and the colors faded, replaced with a more normal set of hues. She leaned forward, her eyes filling his.

  “You okay?” she asked.

  “I don’t know...” Merton blinked, then gently grabbed onto the edges of the biomorphic engine. He stepped out, staggered, caught himself. His arm shook and quivered and he looked down at his body. His muscles had been toned and tightened, while his skin had been freed up of blemishes. There was a noticeable lack of arm and leg hair. And pubic hair. He looked down at his shaft, gaping slowly as he looked at the thickness of his member, resting on balls that looked as if they had swelled up a few notches on the ‘ball-o-meter.’ He shook his head slowly, his palms going down to squeeze his scrotum.

  His cock twitched, growing harder and he saw that it actually got quite a bit larger as he felt a jolt of pure arousal rocket through him. Julia licked her lips slowly.

  “Okay, I’m not normally a size queen but, uh, yum?” she whispered, slowly kneeling down on the floor. Her palms closed around his cock as she looked at his cocktip, her teeth biting down on her lower lip as she furrowed her brow in concentration. A thick drollop of pre cum rolled along her knuckles as she started to pump her hands up and down his cock. Merton’s eyes half closed and his knuckles went white as he gripped the tabletop. He had to lock his knees to try and stop himself from collapsing on the ground.

  Then Julia closed her mouth around the head of his cock. Her tongue swirled tentatively around his member as she closed her lips tight around his glans, fastening herself and sucking eagerly. Merton had never gotten a blowjob in his life. He just had to go on descriptions he had read online. Those descriptions hadn’t been anywhere close to what the feeling was. It was...chaotic. It was spikes of sensation that were as shocking as lightning crashes – sensations that came without warning. When he touched himself, he knew what his hand did, what his thumb would caress.

  Everything Julia did was a revelation, even as she pushed her mouth forward an inch or two, choked
softly, then drew back. She coughed, gasping as she turned her head to the side. “W-Wow, how do girls do that?”

  “Practice?” Merton asked.

  “No, I’m pretty sure it’s magic,” Julia said, grinning at him. “Also, I hasten to add...I expect some cooter nomming.”

  Merton grinned. “Oh horrors .” He licked his lips, then looked around the room. He spied a recovery couch. His hands grabbed onto Julia’s shoulders and he tugged her to her feet. The two of them hurried – giggling like high schoolers – and collapsed onto the cot. It was far too advanced to squeak under their weight. Their hands caressed one another, and Merton did what he had been waiting to do for years . He slipped his hands underneath Julia’s shirt and found the smallish, perky mounds of her breasts and squeezed. They were silky soft, capped with tiny nubs of hard, sensitive nipple, which he coaxed gently, bringing out a sweet giggle-moan combo that escaped between their locked lips. Then Merton found himself pushed back. He thumped down and watched as Julia swung one limber leg over his hips. She sat down and trapped his newly embiggened dick against his tummy.