by Stella Cassy
I just stared at her. What can you say to that?
But I realized one thing.
I probably would follow her into a black hole, remarkable creature that she was.
“Sir,” I said to Tarion when he stepped aboard. He’d arrived by private shuttle. He was in the midst of a tour, visiting all of the Hielsrane captains before the grand assault.
Tarion gave the slightest nod of greeting, barely glancing in my direction. No longer did his gaze drip with disappointment or contempt. A simple nod was an indication of recognition that I wasn’t a total screw-up. That’d I’d made progress.
It was a start.
“Sir,” Essie said politely. While she was still the tough-as-nails commander I’d fallen for, she could put on a show of respect. She could sweet-talk as well, as I knew from personal experience, and had the scars on my dignity to show for it.
“Take me to your bridge and show me what you’re working with,” he commanded.
“Right away.”
Essie and I walked side-by-side, Tarion behind us with another Drakon that I did not know. Presumably a senior aide of some kind. His mate, Carissa, must have stayed on their flagship to manage the complex communications that must surely be ongoing.
There was no small talk on the way over, but Essie and I exchanged knowing looks and little smiles. Nothing to do with the war, or with battle plans. Just the two of us enjoying each other’s company as we worked together.
“Sir,” I said when we arrived at the bridge. “Captain Black is running things at this end. As you know, my expertise is ground-based.”
Tarion gave a half-little nod. It was the perfect time for him to have a dig at me, or worse, considering what I had done during the Pax invasion. But he didn’t. In some small way, I had redeemed myself in his eyes.
“Captain?” Tarion asked, glancing toward Essie.
“Oyna,” Essie called to her faithful lieutenant. “Let’s start by showing the commander the fleet we have assembled. I want visual images of the ships in the center and a listing of their types and sizes on the sides.”
Tarion stared at the black center screen while Oyna worked. The wait was short, but with the lack of small talk it felt interminable. I considered asking Tarion how his shuttle flight over was, or some other meaningless jabber, but I knew it would not be appreciated.
When the requested information lit up the black screen, Tarion stared at it for a few moments before slowly blowing out a long, hot stream of air from his flared nostrils. He was impressed.
“So,” Essie started, “as you can see, our preparations are progressing as I indicated they would. We are not quite at full strength, but we should be within two solars. We have nearly one hundred ships, and a good number of those are highly capable, battle-ready craft. A few will remain as support vessels, but even those are equipped with moderate armaments. None of my acquaintances fly their ships without means to defend themselves.”
Tarion appeared to be tallying up the numbers of each kind of ship, his eyes flicking between the list on the right and the visual images in the center. He was silent for some time. Finally, he turned to Essie.
“You assembled this fleet in the time since you were released?”
She shrugged as if it was nothing. “Not entirely. Of course this includes my own personal fleet, which I have been building for some time. They are in the center of the images.”
“But you have managed to get more than eighty ships to drop into the system in short order. That’s very impressive. I wish my other commanders were as… efficient as you.”
“As I said, this isn’t the result of a couple of solars’ work. It’s more than a decade of busting my ass across the system, from end to end and back again. This was not easy to achieve, and I doubt there are many private enterprises in the verse who could have done it.”
Tarion turned to me. “You knew she was this capable?”
“Sir, I like to think I’m a good judge of character. From the moment I met her, I knew she was quite remarkable.”
“We are talking about her prowess as a commander?”
I wasn’t going to tell the commander about her prowess in the bedroom, though it was perhaps just as impressive as her work out in the starfields.
“I… yes, sir. Of course.” I glanced at Essie for support and saw that her cheeks had the gentlest of pink glows to them. Pride, or embarrassment? Both, I decided. “She is the most capable ship commander I’ve served alongside.”
Tarion smirked at that. “You were ground-based, Moddoc.”
Before I could dig myself in any deeper, Alm distracted Tarion by smacking him on the leg. I stared at the fluffy little creature, hoping she wasn’t getting us into serious trouble.
Tarion peered down at the minor annoyance, and a slow smile crept across his face.
“What is it?” He took the proffered hydration pouch from Alm and smiled down at the little creature, squeezing its hand in thanks.
“It’s Puff,” Essie said.
“It’s Almor... Alm,” I said.
Tarion looked back and forth between us.
“Should this Alm... or Puff… be aboard the bridge?”
“He’s harmless, and good for morale,” Essie said before I could respond. She nodded toward the hydration pouch Tarion was holding. “And even helpful, sometimes.”
Tarion chuckled and shook his head in amusement. Thank the stars he did not seem to be angry at Alm’s presence.
“As long as the little creature doesn’t cause any disturbance, I see no harm. This little fleet you have here is unconventional enough as it is.”
“Nothing wrong with being different,” Essie said with a cheeky grin toward Tarion.
He gave her a serious look. As a Drakon, like most of us, he rather did think there was something wrong with being different. The only way a Drakon should be ‘different’ is by being even more exceptional than your comrades in something worthy of admiration — combat prowess, ability to command, sky-racing. Perhaps the only outlier to this general rule was that of mates; it was now becoming acceptable to take a mate of another species. Human, in particular.
Tarion turned to me.
“Moddoc, I am pleased with this visit. After Carissa told me about the communications we had received from your ship, we were somewhat… disbelieving. That you could have assembled such a useful fleet in such a short time seemed to be pushing the bounds of credibility. I am relieved that our worry was for naught and pleased that we will have a significant new contribution to our war effort for the upcoming assault.”
My chest welled with pride, but I tried to keep my face stoic, offering him a small nod of thanks for the recognition.
“Speaking of the assault, what’s the plan?” Essie asked.
Tarion slowly nodded to himself before responding.
“Now that I have seen what you have here, I will make minor amendments to the full battle plans and have them sent to you before the day is out. For obvious reasons, I needed to inspect your command first.”
“Makes sense,” Essie said with a shrug.
“The basic situation is this. The Pax have completely overrun Thirren. Our planet. It is an outrage, the likes of which the Drakon race have never suffered before.”
There was a cold edge to Tarion’s voice, and I decided I did not want to draw his attention at the current time. The success of the Pax assault on our planet had been partially my fault. My delay in sounding the alarm had allowed them to make far faster progress than otherwise would have been possible. Of course, they still would have been successful. But my role had hastened that success.
“They have dozens of ships patrolling the planet’s airspace and surroundings. From your perspective, your main purpose will be to attack, distract, and destroy as many of their ships as you can. Every single one that is out of action is one less that can interfere with our ground assault.”
Essie was nodding along.
“Cool. I think we can be of great assi
stance there. A lot of these ships may look like heaps of junk, but that’s deliberate; they’re vicious little bastards underneath. That will give us an edge that I intend to exploit to the max. They’re not going to send more than a craft or two after what they think is a lumbering freighter, and then, pow—” Essie smacked a fist into her palm “— they’ll get blown to smithereens. I’ll send my fast attacks ships to harass the Pax Prime vessels, and then we’ll use some of the others to take out some of their ground placements.”
“Yes, that is approximately what our plans are. Glad to see you’re on the same page, commander.”
Essie shrugged. “It’s just logical.”
“Sir?” Oyna said to Tarion. “You have a call.”
“On screen,” said Tarion.
Essie shot Tarion a glance which he missed, but I did not. I gave her a little half-smile of support. She didn’t like Tarion ordering the call to be on the screen of her bridge. But I hoped she understood that Tarion was our superior now, our commander. I don’t think she’d had a superior in a very long time. If ever.
“Commander Tarion,” Ranel said as soon as his image appeared. “I have several officers with a, err, disagreement—” he really emphasized the word, making me think they were probably fighting each other in his ship’s war room, something which was most definitely not allowed “— if you could provide a pronouncement on the correct course of action I think it might be most helpful. What’s happening, is Captain—”
Tarion held up a palm in front of the screen and Ranel stopped speaking.
“I have completed my inspection here. I shall return before I continue my rounds. Tell them to cease their… discussion immediately and await my arrival.”
After the call was disconnected, Tarion addressed me.
“I shall depart now. Moddoc, I did not think you would ever redeem yourself, much less so within a short space of time. But you are making progress. If this battle goes well, I shall see your reputation is restored with Ranel and with Thirren”
“Thank you, sir. I appreciate it.” My words were nothing compared to what I felt. How could they be?
With a final glance around the bridge, Tarion departed back to his shuttle.
After I had escorted him, I returned to the bridge, a broad smile across my face. I rested my hands on Essie’s shoulders.
“You, are magnificent.”
“Magnificent, huh?” she said in a throaty voice, her hands dropping on top of mine and rubbing gently against them. “You’ve got something pretty magnificent too…”
21
Esmerelda
Magnificent. That’s what he’d called me. Can you believe it? After years and years of fawning from my amazing but, let’s be honest, sometimes sycophantic, crew, to be called magnificent by a Drakon was something else.
I put my hands on his. They were warm, hot with vitality and power. The meeting with the commander had gone well, and I was feeling good.
Real good.
“Come on,” I said as I stood up and grabbed one of his hands.
“Wh—”
He didn’t get a chance to finish because I pushed my index finger up against his lips. After glancing left and right to make sure no one was looking, he sucked it into his mouth, teasing it with his sharp teeth. The scrape against my skin sent a shudder through me.
“Wrigo, you have the bridge,” I called to my second in command.
“Yes, sir.”
With Moddoc’s hand firmly clasped in mine, I dragged him off the bridge and out the door. I didn’t want to go back to my cabin. It was too far, and it would ruin the moment. I wanted him, now.
“That’s a supply closet,” he said as I went to push open a door.
“Good. Now come supply me.”
We went inside the tiny room, which was almost completely filled by shelves stocked with provisions. Once the door was closed the only light was a dim orange glow that filled the room, emanating from an illuminated strip around the door access panel.
As soon as the door slid closed behind us, he was upon me. Although I had brought him in here, he was quick to take control.
“You just got yourself in trouble, Esmerelda Black,” he growled in my ear.
I felt two big, heavy hands around my waist, and a moment later my pants were being yanked down. There was no questioning, no teasing.
As my pants went down, so did Moddoc. On his knees in front of me, he tore my underwear off my body in one yank. Then his mouth, and tongue were there, just where I needed them to be, right when I wanted them.
“Oh, fuck,” I said, leaning back, my hands resting on a shelf behind me and holding my weight as my knees quivered at the first probing lick of his hot tongue.
“You taste better than the finest melberry,” he said with a growl, before thrusting his head back between my legs.
I gave myself over to him. I kicked off my pants, leaned back against the shelves, and rested my feet on his shoulders while my hands went over his head, pulling him toward me, into me.
“Oh fuck, fuck, fuck that’s…” By the time I got to the end of a thought I’d forgotten the beginning. His tongue worked like magic on me, around me, inside me, teasing and tasting, probing and thrusting, then working on me like he wanted to make me…
“I’m… I’m going to…”
It had only been seconds. But such was my need, and such was his energy and deft skill with his tongue and lips that my body answered his call in record-breaking time.
I squealed as I quivered and shook, my hands brutally pulling his head between my legs as hard as I could as my muscles contracted.
Then, he was standing. There was no lingering moment, no pause. He was up and in front of me, pressing his lips against mine, making me taste what he had been feasting on.
My head felt like it was full of feathers and spinning in a drum as he undressed his lower half, releasing his cock from the constraints of his clothing. One of my hands dropped down to feel him and I could barely believe what I held between my hands. So thick, and long, and muscular it seemed to pulse like it, too, was a living dragon. A hungry one.
“Fuck me.”
Moddoc didn’t need telling twice. Grasping me by the buttocks he lifted me bodily into the air, and then lowered me onto him, filling me so deeply I would have worried about an injury if my mind hadn’t already fucked off to planet pleasure.
He wrapped an arm around my upper back, the other clasping me around the waist as he began to move me up and down on him, as if I were a plaything designed for the purpose of pleasuring him.
My body seemed to think the same thing, my muscles squeezing around him as he slid in and out, never wanting to release him.
“Captain Black,” he mutter-growled in my ear. “You are… perfect for me…”
Then his words failed, turning into a deep growl as my body gave itself to him for the second time, and he reached his own release.
I moaned in his ear as his heat soared into me, filling me up. I could do nothing but clutch at his neck and bury my head into him as I saw stars that didn’t exist.
Panting, breathless, he held me against him for some time, before gently lowering me to the floor. My legs felt as weak as if I’d run a marathon on a two-gee planet, and it was all I could do to stand upright.
“Holy stars,” I whispered in his ear. I let my head full back, not caring when it thumped back against a shelf. “That was something else.”
22
Moddoc
With the battle preparations as complete as they were going to get from our position far outside the orbit of Thirren, the decision had been made to return and ready the assault. The fleet that Essie had assembled now consisted of over one hundred and twenty ships, the most diverse group of characters I’d ever heard of coming together at once.
It was amazing. That she, a lone human female could achieve such grandeur in the verse. I was truly blessed to have met her.
“Wrigo, you have the bridge,” Essie said as
she stood up. She gave me a meaningful look and jerked her head toward the Captain’s preparation room that led off the bridge. She called it her war-room, after the same name she’d used back on her own ship.
With her hair held up with gold, silver and platinum pins, decorated with rubies, emeralds, diamonds and other gemstones, she truly looked like a crowned queen. She even walked with a regal demeanor.
The war-room was dominated by a large table around which were a dozen chairs, but we were the only occupants. Once we’d left the bridge, some of the facade of toughness dropped, and she gave me a big grin.
“Nearly time, huh?” she said, her eyes dancing with delight at the thought of the upcoming battle.
In my own veins, blood was coursing in a way I couldn’t remember since before the loss of Almordae. I didn’t think I’d ever feel anything again, not as strongly as this. When she died, I was doomed to a muted existence of shadow-emotions and barely conceived purposes and goals.
But something had changed, was still changing, inside me. While I would never be again what I was in the youth of my adulthood, some long-lost vitality was returning.
“Yes. Soon the battle will be joined. Together, we will reconquer Thirren and be classed heroes.”
Essie pushed out her lower lip and slowly nodded her head. “Heroes, huh? I’ve never tried to be one of them before. I was more hoping to get rich. I guess I could live with being a hero, too though.” She paused thoughtfully. “A rich hero.”
“Are you still after a Pax Prime ship?”
It was the payment she’d mentioned to Tarion when she first tried to make a deal with him.
“Oh hell yeah. With one of those babies the trading lanes of the universe will be my oyster.”
I gave her a quizzical look, not understanding what a sea-mollusk had to do with trading and piracy.
“It’s just a mangled Earth expression,” she said, waving it away with a flick of her hand. “I mean, I’ll have a lot of options once this is all over.”