5 comments/ 8809 views/ 8 favorites Tease the Dragon Ch. 01 By: RedMonkeyButt Welcome to my futuristic sci-fi world! As the story goes on, the characters will be explained a bit more as to what they are. Thanks to my editor, pandybear311, for the help with the editing. :) As always, comments and feedback are welcome as long as it's constructive. Thank you for reading and I hope you enjoy the story! "Well, you're a new face around here," the bartender commented as he set my drink in front of me. "We don't get many off-worlders in this area. What brings you here?" I sipped the drink and put it back on the bar with a grimace, unaccustomed to the harsh liquors of this backwater mud-ball. "Business," I said, hoping it would halt any further attempts at conversation. "Oh!" He had come back to lean against the bar back. I should have known better than to come into a mostly empty bar, but they were the only place advertising food unless I wanted to go across town and sit at some nasty diner. "You're here for the off-world convention?" I looked at him. He was fairly normal for a human male – about six feet tall, muscled and lean, handsome enough. I couldn't figure out why he would think I was here for a convention of off-world nerds who still thought science fiction was something to celebrate, and not the challenge it actually was. "No, I'm not here for the convention." "Then I don't know what business you could be here for," he said, crossing his arms over his chest and making sure to flex enough to stretch his shirt over his biceps. "Not much business here for your kind." "There's plenty of business here," I said. "You just have to know where to look." The waitress came through the door from the back with a plate of food and what looked like a drink pouch. She glanced at me shyly and set the pouch under the plate, indicating I probably shouldn't show it to the bartender. Arranging my plate better, I let the pouch fall into my lap behind the bar where I could put it in my pocket when he turned away. "Plenty have come looking, darlin'," he said, and I cringed inwardly at the familiar name. "No one seems to have found anything they can do that us humans can't do on our own." Ignoring the bigoted remark to the best of my ability, I began to eat the food. The waitress and cook had obviously been off-world, because the food was fantastic and spiced to my liking. I didn't think the bartender could boast such knowledge. "You wouldn't happen to know where I could get a room while I'm here?" I tried to make the question sound just pleading enough that the man would think I really needed his help. Truth was, I could have holed up anywhere but being out in the open would make it more fun. "Little place across the street rents space by the hour, honey," he said, moving his hips in a disgusting show of male egotism. "I'm not your type, 'honey.' I need a place for at least two weeks," I shot back at him, flexing my hip to make sure I had my knife on me where I could get to it easily. More than likely the situation wouldn't come down to threatening the man, but it was always better to be safe than sorry. "Besides, you wouldn't be able to handle me." "I can handle anything you throw at me, baby. But if you're looking for long term lodging, there's a place a couple blocks north of here. It's a hole in the wall, but their rooms are clean." I hadn't expected him to actually tell me where I could find a room. A back alley place was probably more to my liking than one of the space motels closer to the port. "I appreciate it," I wiped my mouth and put my napkin on my plate, slipping the pouch into a thigh pocket before standing and heading for the door. "Give my compliments to the chef." ~*~*~*~*~ The day was hot and bright as I stepped out onto the sidewalk. This little rural area outside the main suburbs of the space port wasn't important enough to rate the moving belts of the more populated areas. People here actually had to walk. It was a nice change, though, walking through the streets between the two- and three-story buildings instead of towering skyscrapers with the layers of moving belts and skimmer speedways. I almost couldn't believe that some of the wealthiest people in the area lived out here. Almost. I found the hole-in-the-wall inn and got a room for two weeks, paying in advance. My appearance caught the eyes of the staff, but the older woman at the front shushed everyone and showed me to my room. It was plain, with a bed, a vid screen, and a catering slot. The bathroom had a water closet and a steam shower with hot and cold running water, though, so that was enough. I set the slim carrying case that had been strapped to my back on the bed and went to the bathroom for a quick shower. It was surprising to find that the shower stall also had a drying unit, but it made sense that the establishment wouldn't have to wash towels. My hair, freshly dried and brushed, cascaded down my back to brush along the base of my spine. In the months it had taken me to prepare for this job, it had grown out enough for me to wear the dress that was in the slim bag. The dress itself was a deep, forest green with gold wires woven through it to make it shine. It stood out against my silver skin, and picked up the gold strands in my mostly black hair. It didn't do much for my violet eyes in my opinion, but it did the rest. The hem fell to just above my knees and flowed out from my hips. I had tried to find it with wider straps, but it would have detracted from the overall look. So I dealt with the thread-thin straps by pulling some of my hair over my shoulders to give the illusion that they were more substantial. The back of the dress was a different matter altogether. From the point where the straps attached to the sides to just above my ass was completely bare. The black scars that criss-crossed my back would be more visible than I would have liked, but my hair hid a lot of them. Because of the low cut of the front of the dress, I couldn't wear a bra of any kind. The saleswoman who had sold me the dress had also recommended little flower-shaped stickers to go over my nipples, but I decided against wearing them. Unlike a human woman, I could control every reaction my body might have to certain conditions. With the dress on I went back to the bag and took out a slim black case that I slipped into a garter high on my left thigh. The case held my lock picking tools on the inside and a wafer thin black plas-knife that was sharper than anything made out of steel. The dress wouldn't allow for anything else to be secreted about my person, so I checked my hair and makeup in the dingy mirror and was satisfied with what I saw. I had called for a ride to the space port ballroom and sighed when I saw the skimmer waiting in the street when I walked out. The driver smiled appreciatively as I walked up to the side door, but didn't say anything when I shot him a look. We set out a bit slowly from the town, but once we were clear of the edges the skimmer picked up speed and rose to the level that would take us to the ballroom. It took much less time to return to the space port than it had taken me to get to the tiny town. When we arrived, the driver quoted an obscene amount of credit for the ride, but I managed to talk him down by three-quarters with a few choice words and a flash of the knife. I was not just some ignorant off-worlder to be taken advantage of, and I made sure he knew that. The slow-moving belt up to the ballroom was lined with people hoping to get a glimpse of a celebrity. I caught more than a few lustful looks my way, but I wasn't famous so they didn't last long. It wasn't enough to be unique in this place; one had to be famous as well. The dismissive glances were fine by me. I wouldn't be able to do the job if I garnered too much of a following. Once I was inside the ballroom, I let out a sigh of relief. There was no way I would stand out in the crowd of off-worlders where the Terran Human was in the minority. This job was looking easier and easier as I slid through the crowd to a door that was obscured by a well placed vid-screen displaying a boring tapestry. I passed the door by, glancing around to make sure no one was paying any particular attention to me, when I saw him. His skin had a copper-like shine to it, but it was his eyes that caught me. They were such a vivid green that even from across the room I knew I would see them in my dreams with no loss of detail. He smiled and turned back to the large marine male he had been talking to when I caught him looking at me. A quick scan of the room told me that no one else seemed to know I even existed, so I walked back to the door and slid my lock picks from the garter. The door put up little resistance and I had it unlocked within seconds. Another glance assured me that the party would continue without my presence. I pulled the door open and slid through. I had walked into a service hallway that wasn't being used for this ball, and hurried along it to another door that opened into an empty office. Here, I had a chance to pull the legs of a skin-tight black body suit out from under the dress. The dress had almost not fit right to hide the body suit, but I had been elated when I found it would work. I removed the dress to pull the body of the suit up over my breasts and pulled the sleeves down to where the end hooked over my middle finger. With a few quick movements, my hair was up in a tight bun and the gold cuff was dropped onto the pile that was my dress. From the blueprints I had studied of the space port, I knew that the air vent in this room would open directly into the admiral's office. I also knew that while the admiral was currently drinking and flirting out in the ballroom, he would have left only a petty officer at the door outside the office. The stability of the air vent surprised me as I lifted myself inside. I had been prepared for a small amount of noise, but they were made of a different alloy than the usual cheap material. It felt very solid under my hands. In the stronger-than-expected air vent I was able to make my way to the office quadrant faster than I had anticipated. When I reached the right office, I waited for a couple minutes to be sure no one was sitting in the office just out of sight. Satisfied that I would not be interrupted, I pulled the grate to the side and dropped silently onto the carpeted floor. The office was well appointed – as was fitting for an admiral – with a large, heavy desk on one side and all manner of awards and certificates in frames lined the wall behind it. I wasn't interested in any of that, however, and turned to the wall of bookshelves. The admiral wasn't so naïve as to put his safe behind some fake books, but he was bold enough to put something very valuable on the shelf itself. My job was to find it, take it, and deliver it to the person who had paid so much to have it. The only problem was that it was a sheet of data-film and could be wedged into any one of the books on the shelf. I could spend hours searching for it. For any other thief, this could be an enormous issue, an all but impassable obstacle to the mission. Me, on the other hand, I had a distinct advantage. I was known as a Copper – a being with an affinity for all things technological. With my sense, I knew that the admiral had no less than five pieces of data-film hidden on the shelf. I was also able to discern that there was no alarm system rigged to the book shelf or any of the books. Among other talents, I was able to change my body between the silvery form I took most of the time and the form of a small silver and gold dragon. With a small amount of discomfort, I felt my hands shift into talons with no fingerprints and I went through each of the books that had flared on my other sense. All five revealed a thin sheet of data-film tucked within the sheets, and I put all of them in a slim pocket stuck to my hip. The man who had paid me could sort out which one he needed and do what he wanted with the rest. My mission finished without so much as a noise from the hallway, I lifted myself back into the air vent and replaced the grate. The ball was still rolling when I slipped quickly back through the hidden door. I wasn't as unobserved as I had been when I slipped out since a server came up and said that door was off limits. I feigned having drunk too much and muttered something about looking for a ladies room. He pointed me in the right direction and pulled a key out of his pocket and locked the door, checking to make sure the lock was working. I left in the direction he indicated, but didn't make it as far as I would have wished before I was intercepted by the coppery man I had seen earlier. His eyes were even more vividly green than they had appeared from across the room, his scent spicy and intriguing. "That was a long time to be lost looking for a restroom," his voice was deeper than I would have thought, but it fit him somehow. "It's a big space port to take a wrong turn in," I said, turning in an attempt to get out of his grasp. He didn't immediately release me, so I pulled away from him with more force. "I don't think it's so big a space port, Anya," his face lost it's slightly drunk look and I stared at him. How did he know my name? He smiled at my obvious surprise, winked and started acting intoxicated again, "I think we should divest ourselves from these folks and retire for a cup of coffee." Not knowing what to do with this man who knew me, I nodded and began walking with him. Out of the corner of my mouth, I asked, "Who are you?" "I'm the man that is going to get you back to your room alive," he said through a smile as he nodded at another man. "We can discuss intimate details later." The guard at the door was walking toward us and the man steered me off to the side. It was obvious to me that the guard hadn't seen us veer off, and he walked to where we had been talking and started looking around. The man I was walking with tugged my hand as he continued to walk toward the door. No more guards came in while the one that had been looking for us didn't yell out. We made it out of the space port without being stopped, and he pulled me to a lift that whisked us up to a parking hangar. We had walked past two aisles when a security vehicle hummed up the next aisle. Suddenly, he was pushing me against the base of a skimmer rack and kissing me, his hands on the sides of my face. I shoved him away after the skimmer had passed, but held back from beating him to a pulp. If they were looking for me specifically, he had just effectively obscured my face from being seen. He pulled me down the third aisle and we took a lift to the third level of racks. The skimmer he opened was a new model, sleek and angry looking. I made a sound of appreciation as I slid into the soft foam seats, making sure the dress didn't ride up too much. The skimmer started smoothly and he pulled it out of the parking rack. We drove at a sedate pace out of the hangar and away from the space port. "So," he said once we had gotten out of the busier part of the port city. "Where did you hole up?" "About an hour outside of the city, a little town called Bastien or something," I told him which level to take out and about how long the trip would be in a skimmer as fast as his. "You mean you holed up in Barsten?" He asked as we passed through the suburban areas surrounding the center of the city. "What in the galaxy made you go way out there?" "I prefer not to be in the city," I said. "It's too close to the object of my job." I turned to face him as much as the seat restraints would allow. "Now, tell me who you are." "My name is Grey. That's all you need to know right now. I can also assure you that I am not the only one at that ball who knew what you were there for, but I'm the only one that can kiss really well." "The mariner you were talking to? Or the man you nodded at us as we left?" "Both; and you'll meet them later," he glanced at me, his gaze going to the length of thigh that had been exposed when I turned in the seat. Maybe it had been too long since I'd had a man look at me like that. Maybe it was the small amount of adrenaline that had raced through my veins when he had kissed me. Whatever it was, I didn't care that I was all but exposed to him. "Why were you there? At the ball?" I asked, leaning my head against the seat. "We were there because we were your competition. You didn't think your man was the only one after that data-film, did you?" He smirked at the thought. "There's valuable information on that film, and plenty of people have been after it. My guy was going to go in when we spotted you and decided to hang back." "I don't know what's on the film, and your man would never have found it without being caught," I turned back to the front and watched the scenery slowly turn more rural as we sped through the air. "You don't ask questions about what you're lifting?" "Nope," I pointed to the exit we needed to take to get off the level we were on and into the town. "I don't need to know what the client needs me to acquire for them, so long as the money's good." "So you never even peek a little bit?" He sounded doubtful. "I have no need to know. Get in, get out. That's always been my mantra. Leave as few ripples as possible and get paid." "That's," he floundered a hand in the air. Giving up, he continued, "You have absolutely no idea what you have in that pocket on your hip?" I looked at him, startled. "Don't look at me like that, you're lucky that dress wasn't just a touch thinner or everyone would know you were hiding things under it." He slowed as we rode through the town, and I pointed him to the door of the place I was staying. I lifted the door and got out, walking up to the door and not caring if he followed or not. He did, of course, and there was a soft chirp as the skimmer's security system was keyed on. I walked up to my room without a word to the lady at the desk and opened the door to my room. He stood just inside, looking around. "Quaint." "It's sufficient for my needs," I said, unclasping the dress. "Whoa, whoa! That kiss wasn't an invitation, darling," he had his hands raised in front of him. "Don't flatter yourself. The bathroom isn't big enough for me to change in." I reached under the skirt of the dress and pulled the body suit down to my knees, then pulled the bodice over my breasts before letting the garment fall to the floor. "You could have just gone on your merry way, you know." "Not as long as you have that film, Anya," he said. "That's been bugging me. How do you know who I am?" "You're Anya Sterling, best Copper thief this arm of the galaxy. The right people know who you are," he sat down on the bed since it was the only place to sit. "The unfortunate people find out who you are when you're done with them. My men will be here shortly, and then you can listen to us." "Great, I'm not a very good listener." He cleared his throat, not quite hiding the chuckle that came when I said that, and then looked at me, "What did you mean when you said my men would never have been able to get the film?" I smiled, "I never steal and tell, but you can trust me on that one." There was a knock at the door and he rose from the bed, "I'll get it. They're here for me anyway." The mariner and the other man from the ballroom walked through the door when Grey opened it. Suddenly the room wasn't large enough. I knew why he would want a mariner on a job – they were strong and could get out of just about any kind of bind – but why he would bring a man that dabbled in casting was beyond me. Maybe that was how he had hoped to find the film in the office, though I doubted the man's abilities would give him the sight of a Copper. "Hey, boss," the other man said when he was done assessing me. "We never stood a chance against her. If you hadn't seen her and stopped our advance, we would have been caught in the admiral's office empty handed." Tease the Dragon Ch. 01 "Don't sound so down about it, Lee," Grey told him. "I saw her the minute she stepped through the ballroom door. You always keep an eye out for the competition on a big job like this." The mariner looked down at me and his voice sounded as though his throat were parched, "Did you get the film, child?" I didn't argue the nickname with the mariner. He was probably centuries older than me and it was a fight I would lose. "Of course I did," I scoffed. "All five of them." "Five?" Grey looked at me. "We were only sent after one." "Well, he left a few red herrings. I would have had to use his system to see what was on each one, and that would have more than likely set off alarms. I took them all." Lee whistled, "You had to put us up against a Copper, boss. Always with the challenges." "I didn't put you up against anything. She showed up on her own. Gersha, you know what's on the film. Fill her in while me and Lee go have a chat." Gersha, the mariner, looked at me while Grey and Lee walked out the door and listened until their footsteps faded. "The film you were sent to steal holds a fifth of the financial information for the inhabitants of this quadrant. There have been discrepancies in the governmental spending logs, and our mutual employer works for a faction that wishes to expose some or all of the dirty officials to 'clean house,' so to speak." "So I'm holding the credits of trillions of beings?" "Not trillions, but hundreds. The film you were contracted to steal holds the financial history of a few hundred government officials at various levels of office." "Then what are the other four films holding?" "I do not know. I'm not even sure how you found the films in the first place." He looked at me expectantly before sitting down on the floor and pointing to the bed. "They were in the books. The safe didn't hold anything but jewelry, and I wasn't going to risk setting off alarms just for some gold. I took the films and I left, that's when Grey stepped in and here we are." He nodded and leaned against the wall. It was the most relaxed pose I had ever seen on a mariner, and it was odd. "The man who employed you – who I believe employed all of us – was killed about an hour before you made it to the ball. Grey is of the mind that that film is worth a lot of money to the right people." "Is he going to sell it back to the admiral? Or sell it to the faction that wants to clean house?" "He'd sell it to the highest bidder. Grey's never been the altruistic type. It will probably depend on exactly what's on that film." I looked at the door and Gersha seemed to follow my train of thought. "Yes, we should see what's on it before they get back. If you can stop him from doing anything too rash or just plain stupid, that would be great." I glanced at him as I reached into the body suit and retrieved the films from the pocket on my hip. I sat on the floor next to the mariner. Gersha took them and slid them into the slot of a small pocket viewer, bringing up gallery after gallery of intimate photos of several high-placed government officials and women who were most definitely not their wives. The first three films were the same, but the fourth was different. It seemed to be some sort of hit list with known criminals and their last known whereabouts. I took the viewer from Gersha and scrolled down until I found my name, highlighted in red which probably meant something important. My last known location was from nearly six months ago, on a job that had gone so wrong that it left me wondering if anything could be right again. If they were looking for me there, then they would never catch me. Gersha finally took the viewer back and slid the fifth and final film through the slot. The screen filled with numbers, and it took me a moment to realize they were account numbers and balances with an occasional name along the side. I recognized some of the names as the men in the pictures from the first three films. I leaned back against the wall next to Gersha and sighed. "What do we do with this now? There's more than enough blackmail on all of those films for us to use to clear our names," I had seen Lee and Gersha on the list, but may not have scrolled far enough or been paying enough attention to see Grey's. "I don't know what to do with the account numbers or anything." "You were carrying around enough credit on this one film to buy your way out of every situation you get into for the rest of your life," Gersha held the films out to me and I put them back in the hidden pocket. "You two got cozy while we were gone," Grey's voice made me jump as I only then realized he was standing in the doorway. "He's not your type, Anya." Looking at Gersha, he asked, "What's on them?" "Some revealing photos, a list of criminals, their known associates, and their last known confirmable locations, and somewhere around fifty trillion credits strewn across more accounts than I care to try to count," Gersha ticked the list off on his fingers. I got to my feet and pulled the sleeves of the body suit down while the men talked about what a massive fortune they had at their disposal. Bending, I pulled the legs down and closed them over my feet and slipped into my boots. From the slim case that was still on the bed, I pulled a set of coveralls and stuffed my booted feet into the legs. Grey watched as I tied the arms of the coveralls around my hips, leaving the top of the body suit as my shirt. "Gersha tells me our employer was killed," I let my voice rise at the end, but there was no question. Gersha handed me the viewer with the list of criminals on it and then tapped a name. The face of the man who had paid me came up with a long dossier of more activity than I would have given the man credit for. "That's him, but it's not the same name." Gersha grunted at that as though I should have known the man would use an alias. "What do we do with the information?" I ran a finger over the bottom of the viewer and Grey grimaced at me as the screen went completely blank. "Damn you, woman!" Gersha took the viewer from me. "I'll have to reload all the running programs. That was completely unnecessary." "You gave her the films back didn't you, old man?" Lee said from the corner he had taken over, smiling when Gersha growled at him. "You're too nice." Tease the Dragon Ch. 02 Author's Note: I just wanted to put a note in here about the use of italics for the speech of the characters. Anya speaks verbally in her changed form as a Copper, and to differentiate it from her usual speech patterns it is in italics with quotation marks. Gersha speaks mentally when he is in his changed form, and it is marked by italics with no quote marks. You'll know it when you see it. As usual, thank you for taking the time to read my stories. Feedback is welcomed, whether you use the contact feature on my biography page or leave a comment here. It is appreciated as long as it is constructive. Any errors are entirely my own fault. I did not use an editor on this one as I usually do with most of my stories. Feel free to point them out if you find them. * "I erased it because I really don't think there should be copies of these films just laying around," I shot in the general direction of Lee's tiny corner. "Even if it is on a viewer Gersha probably carries everywhere." Grey nodded and sat on the floor by the door. Not liking being the only one left standing, I sat back on the bed in front of Gersha. He nodded at me and said, "I thought that since she had stolen them, she could be the one to hold them. I mean, come on, Grey, you had to touch her to know she had them or you would have let her be taken by the guard." I glared at Grey but he only shrugged and shot a nasty look at Gersha while Lee sat in his corner and chuckled. Gersha said something in what must have been his native language, and Grey nodded, "No, no. You were right to give them back." "Uh," I held up a finger and looked around, though Lee continued to do whatever he was doing in the corner. "Nobody ever answered my question. What -- exactly -- are we going to do with the films now that we have them and the man that wanted them is dead?" Lee spoke, looking up from his corner, "We can reroute some of the money remotely, but the rest we would have to physically be at the bank to move unless they change their policies. Every one of us would be recognized on the spot if we walked into these establishments. The pictures will be a challenge, but I think if we play it right and feed them slow, we could make a pretty nice nest egg off of them." "What are the politicos doing right now?" Grey asked. Lee looked at a vid screen in his lap that I hadn't seen earlier and tapped a couple things out on the surface, "No one seems to have noticed that the films are missing yet. The guard at the ball must have just been there because she got caught coming out of an off-limits hallway. Either that or the admiral hasn't taken his latest find to his office yet. Our intel said his routine was to take whatever he managed to pick up back to his office, have some fun with them, and then when they'd left he checks to make sure everything is straight in his office. My guess is we should probably be off world by the time he checks everything in his office. This guy isn't above having troops go door to door and tear things apart until whatever he wants is found." "Right," Grey looked as though he were lost in thought. "See if you can put a small amount of the money into a private account under a pseudonym and get us a comfortable ride off this dirt ball." He looked at me, "All of us." ~*~*~*~*~ It seemed to take days for Lee to arrange our pick-up and shuttle tickets, but I knew it had only been a couple hours. We would have to take a shuttle to a moon base and then link up with a cruiser, but he had gotten us decent berths and we would have a comfortable ride to wherever we wanted. Or course, 'wherever we wanted' had to be together since I had the films and they wouldn't let me out of their sight. We were on the shuttle and heading to the station when the vid screens cut to a news broadcast about the robbery. I knew what was missing, but the admiral must have gone over the edge when he discovered the films were gone because the shots of the office on the screen showed that it had been ransacked. The admiral was shown stating that he checked his belongings every night, and tonight something had been taken. A security chief came on with the usual spiel about how they would find out who had perpetrated the robbery and that they already had several leads. The broadcast ended and the usual views of where the shuttle was headed returned. "We'll have a couple hours to wait for the cruiser then we can take it wherever it's going," Grey had taken the seat next to me and had seen the broadcast. "Lee's pulling up the ship's itinerary now and we can choose a planet later." The station proved to be just like every other space station I had seen -- plain and utilitarian. I used some of the credit Lee had managed to get for us and got some new clothes. The tight leggings and loose, flowing top were not my idea of a good outfit but Grey had told us that with the amount of credit we were using to travel we had better look the part. I was counting on being able to find clothes that were more to my tastes when we reached our destination, wherever that may be. We boarded the cruiser and were shown to our compartments. I was more than surprised to find that Lee had only booked two rooms -- one for him and Gersha and one for me and Grey. Grey brushed past me into our berth, only looking back when I didn't follow. "It would have been suspicious if a group of four bought separate berths for the trip. Not to mention it would have cost almost as much as Lee took to cover our entire trip." I was a little skeptical that that was the only reason when I saw that the room only had one bed, a small table with a chair, and a tiny bathroom. When I made to back out of the room, Grey stopped me with a hand on my back. "I can't sleep with you," my eyes must have been wide and terrified because he dropped his hand and looked at me. "You can switch with Lee if you'd like, bunk with Gersha," his voice was low and he was obviously trying to be soothing. "Their compartment is outfitted so that Gersha has a tank and Lee will get the bed." "Then why wasn't that the case when he passed out the room cards?" "Because Gersha is a morph and in a tank he would be in his more natural form, and Lee is more comfortable with him like that than I am," he said, his face turning a little pink at the admission. "But you are welcome to try to sleep in a room with him." The thought of sleeping in the same room on a shuttle as a morph made me shudder and I changed my mind. Sharing a bed with Grey had to be better. I shoved him into the shower compartment so I could change into something slightly more comfortable to sleep in and then climbed under the scratchy covers with my back to the room. The shower hissed to life and I sighed. With Grey in the shower, I could slip out of the berth and do some snooping around the shuttle on my own. I slid into a body suit as quick as I could and palmed the door open. My hair was back in a bun, and I strode down the corridor away from the front of the ship. If it was run like any of the other shuttles I had been on, the maintenance crew would be the only people lurking around in the hallways. Sure enough, there was a welder working on a door near the galley and no one else in sight. I found the rear lounge empty and quiet except for the hum of the engines underfoot. The shuttle was a newer Star Class, but aside from being larger and having better first-class appointments it was laid out much the same as a Planet Class. In the empty lounge, I would be able to shift more of myself into my other form than I had been able to in weeks. My arms lengthened and my hands grew into full talons. The body suit had a slit in the back that allowed my tail to be free. I sighed as my face began to shift to a more reptilian shape and I was able to stretch my jaw fully open. Where I had had silver skin before was now covered in tiny silver and gold scales shining in the dim light of the room. There wasn't enough room for a full change, but I longed for the time when I would be able to stretch my wings. With my facial changes came the eye shift that allowed me to see every single electrical conduit running through the ceiling, walls, and floor. The brightness of those lines running with electricity made me squint after being accustomed to the duller sight of my other form. I let my head fall back and stretched my arms toward the ceiling, smiling when my talons scratched along the metal panels nearly nine feet above where my head had been. "You and I aren't that different, child," a voice said from the door. I spun to see Gersha leaning against the wall. "Your other forms are just larger than mine." As I stared at him I allowed my body to return to the more constrained form I'd had when we first boarded the ship. It was almost painful, like putting my foot back into an ill-fitting shoe after having taken it off. "How did you find me?" He smiled and walked toward me once I was back to something a little less spectacular. "It wasn't that hard. You couldn't have gone far. It gave Grey a good scare, though, coming into the room and not seeing you there. He thinks you were going to try to leave us high and dry and take the films for yourself. But I'm a morph. I understand that need to stretch." "If I was going to try to leave the lot of you, I would have done it on a planet." "I think if you had wanted to disappear on this shuttle, you could have done it and we'd be hard-pressed to find you before we docked." I nodded at that because it was true. The Star Class shuttle would have given me a handful of easy hiding places that would have given me a chance to get away from the men. I just didn't see the point. As he had said, I wouldn't have gotten far. "I came back here to shift. I don't get to take the tall form all that often, and I did need to stretch." He put his arm around my shoulders and steered me toward the door he had entered. "I made Lee switch rooms with you. My room is larger and you can shift for the rest of the trip if you want." "Grey said you would be confined to a tank." "And I'm sure the first thing that flashed through your mind was a small fish tank not even fit for a goldfish. We're on a Star Class for a reason, child. My tank is bigger than the entire room Grey has. The room itself is large enough for a dry morph to use. I have room to swim, and you have room to stretch out. How big is your wingspan?" The question caught me off guard and I stopped to look at him. "Don't look so surprised, girl. The way you were standing there I was surprised you hadn't shifted into them in that lounge." "I have roughly a twenty-five foot wingspan, tip to tip. They wouldn't have fit in the lounge." "They'll fit in my room." He held his arm out to me and we started walking again. When we reached the rooms, Grey was standing outside the door I had walked through barely an hour before. He glared at me but then looked at Gersha. Some non-verbal signal passed between them and Grey shrugged and went back into his room while Gersha palmed open the door to his own. "Our fearless leader is not accustomed to having to accommodate for more than one shifter. He does not know the freedom of having more than one form." His hand on my back was strong as he ushered me into the new room. I stopped just inside the door and stared. He hadn't been lying about the size of the tank meant for a wet morph, or the size of the room meant for a dry morph. The dry room went down three levels, and the entire floor seemed to be a bed covered in blankets and pillows. But the tank was the true vision -- it had to hold enough water to supply the ship for an entire interplanetary run, and it was all meant for one man to morph comfortably. "I should have taken Grey's offer of a room change when we first boarded, but you were right. I thought it would be a small tank like the Planet Class shuttles have. This is almost as good as a Galaxy cruiser offers." "So," and suddenly the ease between us turned to slight tension. "I show you mine if you show me yours?" "You've already seen mine, but my full form isn't really that big." The mariner shrugged and stepped onto the lift platform. I watched as he sank below the level of the entrance and disappeared. When he was out of sight I stripped out of the body suit and let my full form take over my mind. My face and body stretched and reformed until I stood in silver and gold scales. I lashed my tail behind me and stretched my wings, letting out a moan as they unfurled fully and didn't touch the walls on either side. The three-story drop was child's play in this form, and I glided to the floor just as the lift came to a stop. My head came to his chest, and that seemed to surprise him after the sight of me in the lounge standing almost ten feet tall. "I told you I wasn't that big. Now it's your turn, fish-man." He smirked at the common epithet and walked toward the tank. There was an antechamber that I hadn't seen, and I watched as he stepped inside and sealed it before stripping out of his clothes and putting them into a box that whisked them off to the bowels of the shuttle to be washed. His body in this form was magnificent, if a bit oddly formed. The upper half of his body was the picture of male perfection -- all muscles and bulges. It was his hips and legs that seemed to have muscles in odd places. I was jerked out of my observation when he hit a button that started an alarm, and I caught the smile on his face as the chamber began to fill with water. I watched as his skin began to turn a shade of turquoise with a slight opalescence to it. His hands elongated into talons that could rival my own, and his own tail was flat. When he smiled again I could see rows of tiny teeth lining his mouth behind the full lips and I wondered that he didn't bite himself. I squinted and walked up to the glass of the chamber and tapped lightly with a claw. His smile disappeared and he made a rude gesture before swimming to the now open tank. I leapt into the air and followed his upward progress, reveling in the feel of using my wings to go where no others could. When I landed back on the entrance platform, it struck me that I couldn't see any conduits in the room even though I was in my full form. I must have looked slightly panicked because I instantly felt a presence in my mind. Calm down, Anya! What's wrong? "I can't see anything in this room!" I spoke out loud, not knowing if he would hear me if I just thought the words. Gersha made a frantic gesture in his tank, and then I heard, Well, you saw that. What do you mean you can't see anything in here? "The electrical conduits. I should be able to see all of them in this form, but I can't!" Beginning to panic, I went to the door and out into the hall. I could see every single conduit in the hallway, but when I looked back into the morph room it was blank to my eyes. Gersha wasn't at the top of the tank anymore, and then I heard the alarm sounding signaling that he was draining the chamber. "Anya! Come back inside before you give one of the humans a heart attack!" His voice echoed up through the room. I turned back toward it just as the door to Grey and Lee's room opened and Lee came into the hall. "What's going on? Gersha said something was wrong." "No," Gersha said from the door. "Nothing's wrong. She said she couldn't see the conduits in the room. You can see them out here?" I nodded and started to shift back to my usual form as Grey joined the party in the hallway. We all went back into the tank room and I grabbed the body suit from the entrance platform as we all piled onto the lift. Gersha slid into what looked like the bottom half of a wet suit and pushed a button on the wall that made four chairs appear on a platform. "That's how you found the film, isn't it?" Gersha asked as he sat in one of the chairs. He was still damp from his swim. "You can see electrical fields." "Not just electricity," I said, taking another chair. The shifting had been exhilarating, but it was also draining. "I can see technology of almost any sort. I don't use that part of my vision in this form, but when I shift I can't stop it. It freaked me out not to see anything in this room, that's all." "Can all Coppers do this?" Grey asked from beside the platform with the chairs. He looked nervous next to the tank. I shook my head, "We all have different affinities. Just like not all morphs are wet, and not all humans are wastes of space. I have an affinity for technology. I'm not really sure how to explain it since it was how I was born." "I think the room is shielded so that you don't have to see everything, then," Gersha said. "Coppers aren't that common, but there are enough of them traveling that the shipyards would have taken notice." "It makes me feel as though part of me is missing, though," I said. "I don't particularly like it." "If you don't want to stay in the room, you don't have to," Gersha looked as though saying that hurt a little. "Oh yes, me and Lee just love sleeping together," Grey said sarcastically from his place off to the side. I snorted and looked at Lee. "You did fine until you realized you couldn't see everything," he said. "And you could see everything in the hallway, am I right?" "Yes. It's just this room that's blank and it freaked me out a little." Lee looked at Grey, "Then I think you'll be fine staying here. I know I wouldn't mind a night or two in a room that actually gets dark. Get some sleep. We can figure everything else out later." With that he went back to the lift and waited for Grey to join him. When they left, Gersha sat staring at me. "You really don't have to stay." "Are you kidding? Except for being half-blind in here, this is the most fun I've had in months. It's been almost that long since I've been able to shift fully." "Poor baby," he shot back as he stood and pulled me out of my chair. "I only get to shift when we find a transport equipped for it or we stay on a planet with clean water long enough." "Well, at least I know you'll be putting in a vote for a water world." "I'll try to find one with enough cliffs for you to enjoy it, too," he started walking back toward the tank, peeling the shorts down his legs as he went. "Don't tap the glass this time, girl. It hurts my ears." *~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~ I woke the next morning curled in a nest of blankets and pillows with my wings tucked along my back. My talons sliced through the foam padding when I stretched, my left wing hitting the glass of the tank before I remembered where I was. I shifted back and stretched out on my stomach when a now familiar presence pressed against my mind, You snore. "If you fart in the tank, where do the bubbles go?" Out into the room with you. The alarm sounded as the chamber drained, and then Gersha stepped out. "Young ladies should not talk about farting." "Old men should not walk around naked, either," I shot back over my shoulder as he sat on the floor next to me. "I'm not an old man." "Then stop calling me 'girl,' and 'child.'" "But you are a child compared to me. That doesn't make me old, just older than you." His fingers were cold and damp when he touched the scars on my back, and I tensed until he stopped touching me. "My apologies, but they don't show up in your other forms." "That's because I was in this form when they happened and this form when they healed. The scars don't shift with me." "Where do they go?" "I don't know." His fingers traced the long scar that ran from my shoulder to my side again, but this time he didn't stop when I tensed. After his fingers slid along a second and then a third scar I started to relax again and just let him touch me. "What did you do to the man who did this?" Tease the Dragon Ch. 02 The question hit me and I flinched, remembering the pain of each lash as his fingers touched it lightly. "I killed him." "I could see it in your mind, in your dreams last night. You've never let anybody touch you like this." "What else did you see in there?" "Enough to know you wouldn't have gone back with Grey no matter how badly it scared you to be half blind in here. The man who did this was like him, like Grey, wasn't he?" I rolled onto my back and faced him, his hand on my stomach now. "He was my mentor, and my lover. But no, he wasn't like Grey. He was another Copper, the only one I've ever known with the same affinity with technology as me. That was what attracted me to him at first. He taught me everything I needed to know to be a good thief. One day an offer came in that he couldn't refuse -- turn me over to a merchant for enough credit to set him up for life. Only thing was, the merchant wanted both of us. In the end, I think he liked what the merchant made him do to me for entertainment." "You killed the merchant, too." "Yes." "Do you dream about them a lot?" "Every single night." "Would you let me help if I told you I could block it out for you? I can't erase the memories, but I can block the dreams from your mind." His hand slid across my stomach to my hip, leaving a wet trail behind. "How?" He looked embarrassed when I asked, but he answered, "We would have to be together. The level of connection it takes to block dreams would require you to be completely open to me." I stared up at him and wondered what it would be like not to dream about the events of those years. Would I miss remembering his touch, and how good it felt to be with another of my own kind? The merchant's face flashed through my mind and I nodded. "Alright. Do it." Before I even got the whole consent across my lips, a flash of heat at my hip warned me that this may not be just sex. I tried to remember what I knew about mariners, but dream manipulation wasn't something I had heard of in association with them. He bent down and kissed me then, and it was as though he were inside my mind. I could feel a slick wet presence in the back of my mind, but it wasn't imposing. Then those thoughts left me as his soft lips traveled across my cheek and neck to my shoulders. His hand was moving, too, sliding between my thighs to trace fingers along my nether lips. A teasing touch, but one that had a small moan leaving my throat in no time. His mouth found my nipple just as his fingers opened me and moved over my warmth. I arched my back off the floor, pushing my breasts against his face and opening my legs wide for him. The slick presence in the back of my mind warmed and grew, and it was as though it were buried deep in my body and not in my mind. I heard myself moaning as the motion of his tongue matched his fingers in my depths, and I felt my body tightening around him. He pulsed in my mind and sent waves of sensation ripping through my body as he pulled his fingers from me. The emptiness left me whimpering on the foam padding, but then the presence took over my mind and left me with nothing but sensation as he moved his head down between my legs. His tongue was hot and felt longer and wider than it should have been as he ran it along the length of my slit. The lips that had looked so soft earlier were firm against my button as he kissed and sucked and licked until I was just a whimpering puddle in front of him. Still, the presence was there, pressing on my mind, wanting to be let in further. With every flick and plunge of his tongue, I felt myself losing my grip on a hold against the slick presence I hadn't even realized I'd had. With my hands in his hair, holding his mouth against me as I cried out and lifted my shoulders off the floor to watch him, I let go of what I was holding back. I let the presence in just as I came screaming, and he had to hold my thighs down as he continued to lick and suck. When I finally calmed, he lifted his face and began to kiss his way up my thighs and stomach. He paused at my breasts, and I could feel the presence in my mind swelling to fill every last lost space. Then his fingers slid over me again and I was out of my head and back in my body, shuddering and moaning as he pinched my lips and clit until I was left gasping under him. He slid the rest of the way up my body and kissed me, long and full, leaving the taste of me behind when his mouth left mine. His fingers left me, but were quickly replaced by him at my entrance. I arched my back, sliding over the tip of him and shuddering as the aftershocks of the orgasm washed over me. He was wide, and the stretching was an exquisite pain that had me holding on to his shoulders and wrapping my legs around his waist. The presence was moving in my mind as he started to push more and more of him into my body. When he had gone as far as he could, he reached back and pulled my legs around to his shoulders. I could feel the presence growing in my mind and start to search for something, but just as I was about to try to fight it Gersha began to plow into me. With my legs up around his shoulders and his powerful legs pushing against the foam of the bedding, he was soon sliding in and out of me and bringing cries from me with almost every thrust. My legs moved down his sides as he moved over me, and I heard him moan as I rolled us over so I was on top. The moment I was over him, though, I could feel the presence in my mind over everything else and I started to fight it. Gersha rolled us again and kissed me as his movements gentled. His hands on the sides of my head brought me back to my body and all the sensations he was awakening in me. The feel of his chest against mine as I clung to him and screamed my pleasure into his shoulder; the heat that radiated from him as he shuddered inside me, trying to stop his own release from happening too soon; it all collided deep in me and broke in one massive orgasm. I felt my body start to shift as I lost control, and then I felt the presence in my mind truly enter my soul. His movements lost their rhythm then, and we clung to each other as he finally got his release. He slid out of me all at once, and I was empty and alone in my mind once again. The tears that slid down my face were silent as I realized that something that had been broken for a long time had finally begun to heal. *~*~*~*~*~*~*~ "There's a Galaxy Class cruiser heading to the far end of this arm of the galaxy. The final destination is some resort planet," Grey waved his hand through the air until Lee showed him the screen with the planet's name on it. He pointed to the screen, "That one. We should be able to make a decent living there on our own." He looked at me, "A legitimate living, so we can hide out longer until we figure out what to do with the films. They're used to off-worlders vacationing there, so you and Gersha should be comfortable. Best thing is this cruiser has three morph-berths, like the one this shuttle has but bigger, and last we checked all three were free. We can't buy out two of them, but one should be sufficient for the two of you. Me and Lee will bunk together again, preferably with two beds." "How long before it arrives here?" Gersha asked from across the table we had taken in the dining hall of the moon base. "It got here three hours before we did," Lee said. "But it had a messy morph in one of the berths, and a couple Andromedas in the cargo hold. It'll be in dock for the rest of the day and won't leave until 2200 tonight." "The Andromedas would have been enough to keep it in cleaning until then. Make sure we don't get the messy morph-berth. They try to clean a tank in a few hours when it should be completely drained and refilled. They can't do that on a moon base, so it'll still stink from the last one." "I procured us enough funds to get us there comfortably," Lee said. "But we'll have to slow it down on that money once we get the tickets lined up. I pulled a little extra for food and clothing -- Anya, no more body suits -- but no fancy furniture or anything until we get to Ryoda." "Wait," I held a hand up before Lee could continue. "I can't go to Ryoda." "Why can't you?" It was Grey who asked. "Because I'm wanted for a major job I did there last year. I thought I got away clean but apparently they had security footage with my face on it around the time of the heist. I'll be taken in as soon as we dock." "It's a good thing we didn't buy the tickets, then," Lee said and tapped at the vid screen in front of him. Finishing, he slid it over to me, "Is there anywhere on this list that you can go?" The screen had a list of about twenty systems, five of which I was wanted in. I tapped those to highlight them and slid the screen back to him, "I can't go to any of those." "Ah," he whined when he looked at the screen. "You're wanted in all the fun systems." "Figures," I shrugged. "They were the ones with the best security." "Let me see that," Grey took the screen and started scrolling through the list. He stopped about halfway down and highlighted one before passing it off to Gersha. "Would that one work for you? It's not a resort planet, but there's water." "Anything works for me," he said, glancing at the screen before sending it sliding across the table to Lee. "What matters is if it will work for all of us." "Plenty of work to go around on that one," Lee grunted. "And the cruiser will dock there for a day to restock." "Good," Grey stood. "Book the tickets as soon as you can." "Hey, I don't get a say in it?" He looked over his shoulder at me before turning back to head toward the serving slot, "You had a say in where we couldn't go." *~*~ "He'll get over it, Anya," Gersha said when we got to the morph facilities they had set up on the base. "He's used to getting the women, and his pride is hurt. Until he gets used to the idea that he lost to the mariner in the group," he stopped as though in thought before stripping out of the bulky spacer suit he had been wearing. "I think he would have handled it better had you slept with Lee." "I don't think that's it," I said, watching as he stepped into the access chamber to the base's tank and motioned for me to keep talking. "I think he's just mad because I'm interdicted in all of the fun systems." He's been to all those systems. He's not missing much other than a whole lot of temptation to get into a ton of trouble. The alarm sounded as the chamber filled with water and he morphed. We're going to Lomba, it's not going to be hard to find stuff to do there. "Lomba? Seriously?" I sat on the bench next to the tank, watching the one other wet morph swim along the other side. "What are we supposed to do in Lomba?" We're supposed to stay straight. Lee and Grey will most likely get jobs in tech security, I snorted at that. I can get a job in regular, old-fashioned physical security. You, I don't know, spaceport electricians are hard to come by and it pays very well. "Spaceport electrician? Is that an actual job or did you make it up?" The other morph was more fish-like than Gersha, probably from a Sector V planet. Gersha had a powerful flat tail that swept from side to side to help him slice through the water. This other one had what looked like the back half of a fish attached where the back half of his body should have been. It's an actual profession. And hey, aren't you supposed to be watching me, all star-struck or something? He swam up to the wall of the tank where I was sitting and struck a pose. By the way, how are the dreams? "I've seen you, though. I've never seen another shifter who changes almost as much as I do," I looked past him and had to resist the urge to smile when he acted as though he was hurt by what I'd said. "You should know how my dreams are now. Thank you, for that." Most marine morphs don't change that much, or even as much as I do. The Sector V planets are the exception, I glanced sideways at him at the subtle acknowledgement of my guess as to the other morph's origins. None of us change as fully as a Copper, though. So you're unique. Even among the weirder species, you are unique. I let it go that he had ignored just how much of a bond had been formed between the two of us on that first night. Through that bond I knew it wasn't something he had expected or wanted, but that he tolerated in order to learn more about it. He swam off with easy movements and I turned back to the empty dry morph room.