Two faces appeared onscreen. Rather, the lower halves of two faces, in ultra-high resolution. The left-most sported the square jaw of what might be considered a classically handsome, clean-cut man-in-charge. The other was currently flushed red with apparent anger.
Doyle was dismayed to discover he could see up both of their noses.
“Sir,” they said in unison, a baritone and an alto voice.
“I don’t imagine you’d be so good as to duck your heads down, or kneel, would you?” Doyle asked.
The chins appeared to trade glances, then the pair tried to squat down in their seats, giving the Star Station bridge a glimpse of their eyes before two foreheads took up most of the view.
“That, uh, better, sir?” asked the alto.
“No,” remarked Doyle, who took a moment to gaze around the command center. More than one officer had their mouths covered with their hands, possibly trying to hide an inappropriate display of emotion. He let a creeping sense of impatience seep into his voice. “Can you scoot back or something? All I can see are your foreheads.”
A confused moment of mumbling, muttering, and possible curse words ensued, much to the collective embarrassment of the witnessing Federation officers. Finally, an unobstructed view of two familiar faces peered into the camera, both disheveled and visibly unnerved.
“Rear Admiral Hawke,” Doyle acknowledged, a growl in his throat. “Commodore Corvus.” Less growl.
“Vice Admiral,” they acknowledged in unison. Hawke tried for a grin, while Corvus settled for a distinct frown.
Doyle cared little for either of them, truth be told. Hawke had secured his position prior to Doyle’s appointment as Vice Admiral. A complete bumbling moron. Corvus, then? Forever jealous of her superiors, it was a trait he could make use of. A means to an end … an imminent end, for one of them. “We’ve been expecting you.”
“Of course, sir,” Hawke replied.
“We?” Corvus always was the smarter of the two.
Doyle allowed a small parting of the lips, a predator’s grin. “The Grand COG awaits your presence.”
Hawke’s grin slipped, while Corvus’s frown practically reversed itself. No doubt she could sense blood in the water.
Opportunity knocks, eh, Commodore?
“The Grand COG is here?” asked Hawke, as if the Vice Admiral needed to repeat himself.
Doyle arched an eyebrow. “Indeed, Rear Admiral. The Center of the Galaxy, Himself. It’s not every day you lose a flagship, is it?”
Hawke sank further into his seat, while Corvus glowered across the distance between them.
“Docking request granted,” Doyle continued into the heavy silence. Sneering at the viewscreen, he added, “You’d best be quick.”
2
Harry
Harry floated onto the bridge of the SS Bray, which was odd considering his present host was a donkey. When did Buddy learn how to float? Assorted lights blinked on the paneling that lit the bulkheads. The viewscreen was still blank, which meant Node must still be pouting over his failed attempt to take over Spiner’s body. Of the four seats in the area, only the captain’s chair was occupied.
“Is that you, Harry?” queried a familiar feminine voice. From where Harry was floating, he could make out the shiny glint of the mechanical power armor that framed her useless legs. “Come closer.”
What could he do but comply? After all, he was a pirate and she was his captain. He floated into the center of the bridge and hovered in front of Captain Cass, the biggest badass in the entire Galaxy. Well, not as big as Redbeard, Harry amended to himself, but she definitely had the best mean-face of the bunch.
Cass regarded him with an appraising gaze. “You’ve come a long way.”
“All the way from Cern,” Harry blurted. It had been an exciting few months since he and his herd had been abducted by cargo herders from his idyllic backworlds home. If only his Grandma Ambly could see how far he’d come since being exiled from his tribe of sentient ticks.
“All the way from Cern,” the captain repeated, shaking her head. “You’re a full-fledged pirate now. You’ve saved our ass twice. Where would we be without you?”
Harry couldn’t help but beam with pride. Happy tears trailed down his cheeks. Compliments were unheard of back home. If they knew what he was accomplishing now, would his tribe accept him back?
He blinked back the tears. Something was different about the captain. Maybe it was the smile. No, that’s not it.
She quirked an eyebrow. “What is your deepest desire, Harry?”
He let his eyes break contact and his gaze wandered down her cheek toward her spotted neckline. Spots? … spots! That must be what was out of place. Trailing down the edges of her hairline to her neckline were dark spots, similar—no, identical—to the ones Jadzia Dax had in the Deep Space Nine TV show! He drew an unsteady, excited breath.
“Well?” Her fingers tapped the arm of the command chair.
Harry had never been able to make use of the human seats … not while riding within his donkey host. He’d made a bumbling attempt more than once, but never when the pirates were around to witness. No matter how hard he’d tried or which way he’d twisted, he couldn’t get his donkey bottom to fit.
Captain Cass’s gaze followed his down the length of her body to her hips. “Oh, Harry, you dirty bird.”
“Bird? Is that the animal that flies? Because, I could see how you’d make that comparison right now.”
“Shut up.”
“Umm, okay.”
“What do you want, Harry.”
Nervous excitement threatened to undo him. Trembling, he attempted to steady himself. “Well, uh, I’d really like to know what it feels like to sit in that chair.”
The captain ran her hand suggestively over the plush leather seat cover. “Would you now? Would you like me to move, then?”
Droplets of drool dripped down off Harry’s muzzle, making a gentle plip-plip sound against the metal floor. “I’d really like that, but…”
“But you don’t … fit?” Her dreamy voice lingered on that last word.
“Yeah.”
“So what could I do to help you … fit?”
The droplets of drool were now forming a small puddle on the floor. He’d have to clean that up later with the cart Kitt had rigged up for him. Focus, Harry, focus! The captain was making an invitation. It sounded like she wanted him to…
“Would you like to ride me, Harry?”
Harry gasped. Oh … my … by the Overlords, did she just ask me to?
“Well?”
Ever since the first time he’d seen Dax on TV, a female human host merged with a symbiont, he’d fantasized about one day being able to ride Captain Cass. But it had only been a fantasy. She was too much of a mean-faced badass for him to ever muster up the courage to ask.
Only now, she was asking him… and all he had to do was say yes.
“Harry?”
“Yes,” he whispered. His floating body suddenly felt heavy. Maybe that was his host preparing to let him step away for a little while. And he was soaking wet … he must’ve settled down in the pool of drool.
“Harry?” the voice repeated, with more urgency this time.
“Yes!” he shouted. “Yes, I’ll ride you, Captain!”
“Blimey,” muttered a second voice that was distinctly not the captain’s. “Did he jus’ say—”
“Haha, the donkey wants to—” another voice practically shouted.
“Shut up, both of you! Harry, can you hear me?”
The captain!
But it was dark. Were his eyes closed? Groggy, Harry attempted to blink them open. The world appeared blurry, unfocused. He tried again, this time picking up the hazy outlines of three figures standing over his body. His donkey body … which lay on a soft surface. A bed?
A hulking purple figure in a white lab coat leaned over his face, blocking out the other two humans. “Harry, do you remember me? I’m Dr. Bonecrusher.”
H
arry frowned. That name sounded familiar. He tried to speak, but all that came out was a croaking sound.
“I’ll take that as a yes.” The purple-skinned man held a tablet of some sort. He hummed to himself as he tapped on its surface. “Wake up, you piece of crap...”
“I am awake,” Harry mumbled.
“Not you,” the doctor replied. “Wake up, damn it!” He rapped his knuckles on the tablet, a snarl on his lips. “Argh!” He hurled it across the room.
Harry ignored the shattering sound and attempted to lift his head. A fourth figure approached the bed: a kindly woman in smooth blue garb, a red cross emblazoned across the chest.
“Hi Harry,” she said sweetly. “I’m Dr. Brenneke, the vet. How are you feeling?”
“Umm.” He let his eyes wander around and take in the room as he collected his thoughts. He’d been dreaming, he realized. They were not on the SS Bray. He was in a sterile white room. And there was some sort of big tank of water in the corner.
His memories came flooding back as his eyes settled on Captain Cass and Redbeard. “We’re alive,” he said aloud. “The Feds … Zuckberg. My host—Buddy, he’s alive!”
The captain reached out and placed a gentle hand on his head, giving him a scratch between the ears. “Yes. We did it. We’re back on Haven.”
“An’ no one’s ridin’ the cap’n,” Redbeard said with a smirk, and she reached her other hand back and smacked him on the chest.
“I was dreaming,” Harry said, feeling slightly embarrassed.
“Not bad, far as dreams go,” Dr. Bonecrusher remarked, ignoring a glare from Captain Cass. He exchanged glances then with Dr. Brenneke.
Oh right, the vet! Harry thought. She was going to help his host get better. Looking at the regeneration tank again, he suddenly remembered that he’d insisted on going into it with Buddy. There had been some uncertainty about what that might do to him, as they’d never tested it on a symbiont lifeform before.
But he hadn’t been about to leave Buddy at the time. Not at his host’s most critical moment! Not after everything he’d put Buddy through….
Dr. Brenneke stepped closer to his bed. “Well, I have some good news and some bad news.”
Redbeard looked down at the floor, avoiding Harry’s questioning gaze. Cass bit her lip.
“What is it? Is Buddy going to be okay?” His host felt okay. A little tired, but notably absent of pain.
The vet smiled. “Your host is going to live. We had to remove half of his front right leg, as well as the left hoof, but otherwise he’s just fine.”
Harry found the strength to lift his head again and peered at his legs. “Oh wow... ”
“Now, you’re probably thinking the amputations are the bad news, but…”
Harry was still staring at the stump of his front right leg. Buddy was missing everything there from the knee down. But it didn’t hurt. “How is Buddy going to walk?”
“How are you going to walk?” Dr. Bonecrusher amended, stepping up behind Dr. Brenneke, who frowned at the interruption. “With apologies to everyone else,” Dr. Bonecrusher continued, “I’ve got things to do. So, enough with the pussy footing.” His startling blue eyes landed squarely on Harry. “Harry, going into the regeneration tank with your host was a bad idea.”
Harry frowned, remembering his commitment to take care of his host. “Bad idea? But I couldn’t leave Buddy behind. He needed me!”
“Well, that won’t be a problem anymore,” Dr. Bonecrusher replied.
The vet shook her head. “Come on, Doc, be gentle with our patient.”
“What’s going on?” Harry asked, feeling very confused. His host was going to be okay, so what was the problem? “I don’t understand.”
Redbeard swore under his breath and turned his gaze to the far wall.
The purple-skinned doctor shrugged his massive shoulders and rolled his eyes. “Gentle, right. So, you know how you could crawl in and out of your host?”
“Sure...” He could, but he hadn’t in a long time. Not since his exile from his tribe. He hadn’t even really had the desire to go anywhere else lately … except, of course, for that urge to ride Captain Cass…
His eyes drifted over to her and he sighed wistfully, remembering his dream. She’s just sooo badass.
“Yeah,” Dr. Bonecrusher said, bringing Harry back to the present. “While you were in the regeneration tank with your host, the medical nanobots and growth hormones saw fit to fuse you to the donkey’s spine. You’re not going anywhere. Not without surgery … and ripping you out might kill your host.”
Harry gaped at the pair of doctors. “Wait, what? Fuse? Like—”
“Like tied together, Harry,” Dr. Brenneke supplied. “You’re part of your host, now.”
“Oh.” Harry felt dizzy with questions. Or maybe just dizzy. His head thudded down against the supportive bedding and his eyes drifted closed, even as his mind digested this new information. Fused to his host. Part of his host. Like, permanently? He attempted to open his mouth to ask them to specify, but all that escaped was a yawn.
“We should let him rest,” said a kindly voice. Dr. Brenneke, Harry reminded himself.
“Arrr, poor little feller.”
“Thanks, doctors,” said the captain.
If he was now fused to his host … did that mean he would never have the chance to ride her, after all?
“Come on, Red,” she said, and Harry’s ears twitched to follow their voices as they moved away. “We should get to Djerke’s trial.”
Trial? Curiosity replaced confusion. The last thing Harry wanted to do right now was rest. But his now-possibly-permanent host had other plans, and he sank into a dreamless sleep.
3
Redbeard
Redbeard grumbled as he and Cass jostled their way through the crowds at the Haven market. Unfortunately, the quickest path to the rooms of the Pirate Court of Justice was straight through the busiest section of the floating station.
Of course, making way through a mass of people wasn’t so hard for him. He just growled threats and shoved shoulders and people got out of his way quick enough.
Captain Cass, on the other hand, was a different story.
Even in her powered armor, her frame was much slimmer than his, and though she was tall for a human woman, her head hardly reached his shoulders.
A passing family of pirates shoved by the pair of them, the man knocking into Cass’s left side and making her stumble against Redbeard, their four children giggling as they split and darted past like a river flowing around rocks.
Redbeard caught Cass around the shoulders to steady her and scowled at their retreating backs. “Disrespectful curs!” he bellowed. “Ye better watch where ya goin’ next time or I’ll knock yer heads together!”
His threat was lost in the commotion of the marketplace.
Cass chuckled. To his surprise, she wrapped her right arm around his waist and stayed close. “It’s all right, Red. Can’t be helped in a place like this.”
He swallowed hard and tried to keep his focus on wading through the crowds, instead of on the way his captain’s body was now snug up against his. They’d never really been this close before. Not unless you counted that time on the moon of Ontera, anyway. Which, of course, he didn’t, because they’d been focused on not getting eaten by giant moon worms at the time.
He cleared his throat. “Yeah, well … still ain’t no excuse fer bein’ rude.”
“Hrmm. Aren’t you the one who regularly stinks up the bridge without remorse?”
Redbeard pulled at the neckline of his loose-fitting shirt with the hand that wasn’t currently wrapped around the captain. He already had the top three buttons undone, his mountains of unruly red chest hair spilling out, but for some reason the shirt still felt like it might be choking him. “Uh, er, well…”
He’d never been much of one for hygiene or manners, but having Captain Cass suddenly pressed so close—in a non-life-threatening situation—was really making him rethink hi
s choices in these areas.
He shoved another pirate out of their way and ignored the offended protests, chauffeuring the captain through the masses, and still came up with nothing to defend his past behaviors on the bridge. “Well, I, uh....”
Mercifully, the shrill voice of a child cut through the bustling noise of the market at just that moment. “Hey!” the child called. “Hey, you, mister! The big hairy one and the lady!”
Redbeard cocked an eyebrow and swiveled around to his right to spot a girl of about five years perched atop a bank of shoe-shining chairs.
Her blue eyes met his and a big grin split her face. She enthusiastically waved him over toward her, a tumble of golden curls in pigtails bobbing with her movements. “Come on, come on!” she urged. “You need your boots shined for sure! You’re the crew who blew up the Federation ship, yeah? My dad will give you a special discount! A hero’s discount!”
Redbeard paused in his determined march across the market and glanced down to his boots. Beside him, Captain Cass did the same thing.
Their boots were awfully dirty and scuffed up after all their adventures on Irrakeen and the Federation flagship. And they were kind of heroes, after all.
He looked to Captain Cass, and she shrugged. “Why not? It may not be a Federation gala, but we don’t want to show up to the trial with dirty boots.”
Redbeard wasn’t entirely sure if she was being sarcastic or not … but she looked serious enough. So he shrugged. “Yeah. Why not?”
Cass released her hold on him to push her way over to the shoe-shine girl, and Red was both saddened and relieved at the loss of contact. He trailed after her, muttering. Maybe he’d take a shower after the trial, or something.
#
To Red’s surprise, the girl helped her father with the shoe-shining business. And she weren’t half-bad at it, either. He and the captain had their boots all shined up in no time.
And to his greater surprise, the girl then reached deep into a pocket and fished out some coins. She grinned again as she held out a golden coin stamped with Tone E’s visage toward each of them. “Here. Please take this. For the honor of serving you!”
Starship Ass Complete Omnibus Page 42