Page 17 of No Strings Attached (Mated Fates #1)
Vi awoke to the sound of Acken’s shout with Bobby nestled between her legs. They both quickly sat up, blinking in surprise.
Bobby recovered from the shock first and yelled, “Yes, we’re in here!”
She looked out across the big pool at the cavern walls and could see a rectangular square of light with Acken’s silhouette framed in it, just above the water line.
“SWIM OVER TO ME.”
Bobby still had the lead and shouted, “Give us a minute!” He got up and started gathering up Vi’s clothes.
Vi grimaced as she shucked on the still-damp clothes, then strapped on her sandals while bracing herself against Bobby. They walked over to the water and into it.
He turned to her and said, “Hold on to me and I will swim us over.” He bent his head down so that she could wrap her arms around his neck.
Instead, she placed her hands on the sides of his face and rose up to kiss him lightly on the mouth, “I’m sorry that we didn’t get our ‘next time’ today, Bobby, although I am kind of relieved that we aren’t going to die in here.”
“I am too, Vi,” he said, returning her kiss with a little more insistence, “but we promised not to tie strings on each other, and I won’t.”
Vi let out a short laugh at the butchered, but still surprisingly accurate, phrase, then wrapped her arms and legs around him and found his body going immediately rigid. He let go of her legs and leaned back down to indicate she should let go. She did, and he turned around.
“I think you better travel on my back this time. I’m right on the edge of readiness.”
Vi flushed a little, then went to him, wrapping her arms around his neck and her legs around his strong, muscular back. Her over-sensitized pussy was nestled right on top of the base of his very thick tail. She suppressed a groan as she felt the first rub against it.
He said, “You can sit up once we’re in the water,” as if he had heard the groan that she hadn’t made, “that way the water won’t be going over your face as I swim. I can stay underwater until we get to the other side.”
She was relieved once they were underway and she was sitting astride him, that she wouldn’t be grinding against his tail the whole way. If she had been, who knew what state she’d be in when they reached Acken? And since when had she become so fucking insatiable? She’d already had four utterly mind-blowing orgasms in the space of a few hours. Her previous lovers had been doing great to even approach that number in a month.
And as they reached the far side, with Acken reaching down to pull her up through the doorway, Vi looked back at her and Bobby’s temporary, but wonderful, little sex paradise and felt the most profound sense of loss she had experienced since losing her parents.
Now she sat in the strange little lounge slash bridge on Qlu’s ship with Acken, Caussus, and Malachite. Qlu had outfitted his ship so that a large number of people could sit idly on sofas in the lounge area and watch bridge operations, for which very little room had been allocated. Thankfully, Acken had confirmed, much of the controls were set to run on auto, so he had just plugged in the coordinates of the meeting point with the ship from Dim and they were on cruise control. Vi had asked that Acken turn on the view screen so she could have her first visual experience of traveling through space. It wasn’t nearly as exciting as she thought it would be.
There had been a whirlwind of activity on the asteroid following Vi and Bobby’s rescue. Acken had promptly informed her that Malachite had been in contact with his planet and they were on their way to retrieve him. Acken had been unwilling to provide the coordinates of the asteroid to anyone, so they had arranged to meet as far away from the asteroid as Acken felt prudent, and it was necessary to leave within the hour. Acken had shown her the written communications exchanged in some kind of galactic standard notation on a little computer tablet, but it had been meaningless to her. He had indicated a series of symbols which expressed their specific desire to meet, and thank, the person who had delivered Malachite from his fate—meaning she needed to come along. How long would they be gone? Three days.
Vi had grabbed Caussus and asked him to find her some clean clothes, as well as prepare to come along with them. She wanted to have some time to talk with Acken and Caussus about what came next. Then, she had asked Bobby to find Trak and both come back to her. The three of them discussed what to do about the incoming cargo ships and, in the end, Bobby had had the best idea. Why not let them land, disembark, unload, then head to the bunk room as usual? At the bunk room, they could be secured, and the situation explained to them.
They had called snake guy and Mister Beastly over to explain and ask them to serve as security backup for Trak and Bobby, who both also believed that the kitchen and security system Trallians would be happy to help out. Those Trallians had apparently slept in the garden last night, then meticulously cleaned up from the feast and promptly started cooking a morning meal for everyone. One of them had even tended to Qlu, giving him water and feeding him all the kibble he wanted, which apparently wasn’t very much. Vi had laughed, then asked them to see that Qlu was taken to the cage room—her cage, fed regularly, and relieved of his dildo gag, adding, “But go ahead and toss it in the cage with him in case he gets bored or lonely.”
Someone had brought her a big plate of food, causing her stomach to rumble loudly, but she had asked them to send all the extras from the morning meal to the ship. She could eat then when there wasn’t as much to do.
She had found the security system Trallians and asked them if they handled Qlu’s buyer communications. They did. She told them to prepare a message, and make it sound like Qlu, stating that a major new buyer had purchased all of his merchandise in one lot at 10 times the value he had hoped to earn selling them singly, so he—regretfully—was cancelling the auction. She hoped that it would turn away at least half the buyers. The security system team informed her that the first buyers weren’t due for another couple of weeks, so it was something she could continue to deal with when they returned from the rendezvous with the ship from Dim. She had also given them a special, secret assignment.
As the four of them had prepared to leave, Vi had not been able to stop her gaze from sweeping around the room to find Bobby. There he was, back in a coverall and hands in his pockets, eyes fixed on her. She had felt a smile come to her lips when their eyes met and a zing shot through her body at his answering smile.
Now, her little crew lounged in comfortable silence as they made their way from the asteroid. Caussus had found her a beautiful piece of fabric and skillfully wrapped it around her into a surprisingly comfortable and secure toga dress.
Vi asked Caussus how he had broken it to Friend that he needed to stay behind.
“I put him in charge of Kompi, madam… Vi …Madam Vi. I told him he was responsible for making sure that Kompi ate, and slept, and relieved himself in appropriate places.”
Vi laughed, grateful that Kompi had been seen to.
Caussus smiled, “I also gave Kompi a ball and taught him how to throw it for Friend. I believe it could be satisfactorily considered a win-win for both parties in that relationship. I don’t think Kompi will ever tire of throwing that ball, nor Friend of retrieving it.”
Acken slapped Caussus on the back, companionably, but Caussus was nearly knocked off the sofa. Acken helped him back up and looked a little sheepish.
They were sitting on one of Qlu’s ubiquitous horseshoe sofas, Malachite and Vi on one side, Acken and Caussus on the other.
Vi turned to Malachite, “I’m glad that you’re able to go home, Malachite. I just wish that we had been able to communicate more with each other. I would love to know more about your species and planet.”
Malachite pulsed a steady, green light.
Acken cleared his throat and said, “On the subject of going home…”
Vi shook her head. “Bobby and I talked about it. He made it clear to me that there wasn’t going to be any way to locate my planet without getting the coordinates from someone who has already been there.”
“The Ulus,” Acken mused.
“Yeah, the Ulus should know. But…that conversation with Bobby also led me to realize something. I’m…I’m not sure that I have anything that I need to go home for. I certainly don’t have anybody waiting for me. I guess that getting home to Earth was just something I had in my mind as a given. You know? Like, of course I would go home—there’s no place for me out here.” She watched Caussus look down into his lap, then continued, “Then I realized that might be the case for this whole little band of misfits, right?”
Caussus looked up and Acken grinned at her, “So you will be our queen, then?”
“I’m really not thinking in quite those terms. I’m wondering this: if we stayed together, what would be our purpose?”
“What do you mean? Survival of course!” Acken boomed.
She shook her head, “Survival is just an imperative of every living being. We would need a purpose that informed our decisions and actions. I have an idea for one, but I don’t know enough about the state of the galaxy to know what is possible. That’s why I asked Caussus to come along. I need an education.”
Acken leaned forward onto his knees, “Tell us this worthy purpose, Queen Vi.”
Vi blew out a disgusted breath and waved him away, “Enough with that ‘queen’ shit. Ok, I’m thinking that we have an opportunity to influence the way people are treated. We were all captured to be sold at a fucking auction, like the lives we were living were of no importance. I’m assuming that we weren’t going to be sold cheap, either, which means it is the rich and powerful in the galaxy driving this situation from the top down. I was going to be a fuck toy. Malachite was probably going to be broken apart and made into jewelry. Caussus was going to endure a life of servitude to rich assholes. You were probably going to be taken to some awful fighting pits.”
Acken muttered, “Wouldn’t be the first time.”
Vi ignored him. “And look at the Trallians: they’re just treated like an almost disposable workforce, but they have all the positive qualities that you look for in people of good character. Loyalty, courage, compassion. It’s despicable that they are regarded as lower life forms to be used, abused, and discarded.”
Acken sat back and stretched his arm around the back of the sofa before saying, “I think you value one specific Trallian most of all.”
She blushed deeply, but then screwed up her courage and said, “Yeah, OK, let’s deal with that. I have feelings for Bobby. How does that make you feel? Disgusted?”
Acken blinked at her, then simply said, “Jealous,” and Caussus nodded.
“Oh.”
After a moment of awkward silence, Acken said, “Look, little she-beast. In order to have influence, we need to have power. In order to have power, we need to have money. And even if we had both, it is an uphill battle to change the ways of the galaxy. Slavery exists on a myriad of levels throughout most of the planets.”
Vi thought for a moment, then said, “But we do have some power. The power of all of us together. That must be unique, right? Imagine if I walked into a gathering of the rich and powerful with an entourage of you, an Ophidian, and a Garoxian. Wouldn’t heads turn and my words make an impact?”
Acken nodded thoughtfully, “I do not know of anyone in the galaxy who walks before such a unique guard force. You would be a formidable queen. But not as formidable as one with ships, weapons, and armies.”
Vi shrugged, “Eh, those can be acquired. Yesterday, we didn’t have an asteroid. Anyway, the Queen of Oz needs to win hearts and minds on her own merits. Only after that will we want to drop big rocks on the holdouts.”
“Oz, Madam Vi, is a terrific name for our little asteroid,” Caussus said, smiling.
She narrowed her eyes thoughtfully at him, then said, “Stand up, over here.”
He did, then she went to stand beside him, linking her arm in his. They were almost the same height, the same skin tone, and looked the same species. His striking white hair and her striking black hair added an eerie element to the pairing.
She asked Acken, “What do you think? King and Queen of Oz? Especially in outfits of the same fabric.”
Acken considered, then nodded slowly, “You are a very striking couple. Incredibly beautiful to behold. You are each very lovely alone, but somehow the two of you are ethereally beautiful together. That kind of beauty can also be wielded as power in this galaxy.”
Vi gave Caussus a pat, and they both sat down. She noticed him blushing, deeply. “OK, so we can fake the power, that just means we need a lot of money. To change the galaxy,” she said, laughing tiredly. “Give it to me straight, how do you both feel about that purpose? That mission ?”
Acken regarded her, but Caussus spoke first, “Madam Vi, your decision to consider us all in the same situation in those cages, to trust us and include us, and your behavior since we acquired the asteroid, they have…well, they have been unprecedented for me. I have never seen fairness, or kindness, or compassion such as that. It is my fervent wish that more beings in this universe who have also never experienced it have that chance. It would be my honor to support you in such a mission.” Malachite pulsed brightly while Caussus smiled, looked down, then looked back up at her mischievously, “And my duty, of course, as King.”
Acken brayed out a startled laugh, moved to clap Caussus on the back again, then thought better of it, before saying, “And mine, as Chief Warrior! Now of course, I love a good fight, but a fight for what is good and right in the universe, that does sound like a noble purpose. And I must admit, every time I have doubts about you and your plans, you prove me wrong!”
“Well,” she smirked, “don’t expect my luck to hold out forever. OK, so king, queen, chief warrior. Those are all fake titles that we present to the universe. Before we get home, I want us to have a long conversation about our organizational command structure. Acken, you declared me in charge yesterday, but while I was missing, you took control. I’m glad of that…grateful, even. So, if you’re going to make me Captain of this crew, I think I’m going to insist that you be Second-in-Command. We’re going to need a command structure that works as well on a ship as the asteroid, as well as one that works when we’re on space stations or planets pretending to be in other roles.”
Acken nodded, “As your second, I will think about the command structure needed and we can talk about it on the way home.”
Vi smiled wearily and gratefully. Malachite stood and moved to the bridge controls. Acken followed his movements, then turned back to Vi and said, “He’s accessing communications. Probably letting the ship from Dim know that we are in route.”
Vi said, “Well, this seems like a great place to stop talking and find the food they sent with us.”
Caussus stood and retrieved a box full of delicious things the Trallians had prepared for them while Malachite headed back toward the interior of the ship.
Vi noted, “He probably doesn’t want to watch a bunch of disgusting organics ingest things,” and laughed.
After eating, since Malachite hadn’t returned, Vi stretched out on her side of the sofa for a nap. But she didn’t fall asleep; instead, she found herself thinking of Bobby and their strange relationship.
Although it felt much longer, they had only known each other for days. And she knew extreme, dangerous situations fostered extreme, dangerous emotions. But there was something so straightforward and pure about Bobby, she truly believed that she would have felt drawn toward him in any situation. At a bare minimum, as a trusted friend; and wasn’t that where the best relationships started? Her parents’ relationship had started that way, and they had been blissfully happy until the day they died. She felt easy and natural with him—witness her sexual propositioning of him if there were any doubts about that—and she knew that he didn’t display any artifice when he was with her.
She enjoyed being with him, on every level, but let’s be honest, especially on the sexual level. That had been…what? Entirely outside of her experience. And if she were truly being honest with herself, she had been more than a little disappointed to have been rescued from their little love grotto so soon. She had been looking forward to another round, both the toe-curling orgasms and the comfortable interludes of conversation while wrapped up in each other and floating aimlessly around the warm water, still joined. She enjoyed his company, enjoyed the way his mind worked, and enjoyed the feel of his body against hers, even when he wasn’t making her scream out in ecstasy. So, how exactly did she feel about him? She wasn’t ready to give it a label, yet, but she knew unequivocally that she wished he were there right now, curling up behind her for a nap. It was going to be a long three days.
Thinking that, she finally fell asleep.
Someone was gently sliding a hand down her arm. “Bobby,” she said, sleepily, and smiled. But no, she realized, the hand was much too big to be Bobby’s.
“Wake up, little she-beast.”
She opened her eyes to see Acken looming over her. She was on a sofa, on Qlu’s private ship. Consciousness flooded back into her as she sat up suddenly and said, “What’s wrong? What’s happened?”
“Everything is fine, Madame Vi,” Caussus said from behind Acken. “Malachite is back with a gift and a message.”
Acken took his place on the sofa beside Caussus, opposite her, and she looked over to see Malachite standing and holding a metal box with his right arm. His left arm was gone. He set the box down on the sofa beside her and took out the tablet lying on top of the contents, handing it to Acken. Then he sat down on the other side of the box.
Inside the box, which was probably 18 inches square, were emeralds of all shapes and sizes. Vi looked from it to his missing arm and back, bewildered astonishment on her face. She was incapable of speaking.
Acken read, “Violet, Acken, and Caussus, I wish to support your mission. Since I can’t survive long off Dim, I can’t join your crew or your fight. But I have asked the crew of the ship coming to retrieve me to each provide gems of themselves that you may use as money, to show their gratitude for my safe return. These gems, of me, I would be honored if you would fashion into adornments as symbols of your royal house, the House of Oz. Then I will always be with you as part of your noble mission.”
Tears streamed down Vi’s face as she looked at Malachite and listened to his words from Acken. She still didn’t feel capable of speech, so she simply leaned over and placed her hands on the place where his left shoulder had once connected while she wept.
Eventually, she whispered in a hitching voice, “Will it grow back?”
Malachite pulsed brightly, once.
With a breath of relief and profound gratitude, she whispered, “Thank you, Malachite, we are the ones who are honored, deeply. We will wear you with absolute pride.”
Malachite pulsed and held it. Violet looked at Acken and Caussus and saw her emotions mirrored on theirs. Though neither was weeping, they were as profoundly moved as they each said, “Thank you, Malachite,” then stood and bowed low to him in unison.
Vi picked up one of the emeralds from the top of the box. It was about the size of a tangerine. She said softly, “The House of Oz,” and laughed. Getting questioning looks from Acken and Caussus, she went on, but addressed Malachite. “Oz is an imaginary land in a story for children on Earth. A book. Do you have imaginary stories that are written and read for fun?”
Acken and Caussus nodded.
“OK, so in the land of Oz, there is a great city. The capital. It is called,” she paused and looked at each one of them for dramatic effect, “the Emerald City.”
Acken brayed out laughter, Malachite pulsed, and Caussus smiled.
Malachite’s rendezvous ship from Dim held four crew members, each of whom had sacrificed an arm in thanks, providing Vi and her gang with boxes of similar size to Malachite’s emeralds: one each of ruby, sapphire, pink diamond, and blue diamond. She joined Acken and Caussus to bow deeply as each was presented, working hard to control her emotions. Each received this gesture, then retreated toward the airlock. They had traveled between ships without a connecting tunnel or suits, as she would have expected from sci-fi movies, so their bodies apparently could not be damaged by the cold or vacuum of space. Malachite moved to join his fellow Mineralites in the air lock, but Vi stepped forward, grabbed his only remaining hand, and kissed it, suppressing the urge to hug him and say, “I think I’ll miss you most of all.” He wasn’t a scarecrow and she wasn’t a Dorothy, damnit all, she was the Queen.
After the departure of the Mineralites, they sat and admired their five boxes of gems, selecting various ones to hold up into the light.
Vi had joked, “So, what’s our net worth now? Can we contend with the rich and powerful of the galaxy?”
Acken, for once, had been quite serious. He slowly shook his head and said reverently, “No, we can buy and sell them all but the top one percent.”
Vi was shocked, “What do you mean?”
“We could own a good chunk of the galaxy with this, Madam Vi. If we can monetize enough of it. It’s no wonder that the Mineralites won’t allow anyone to learn the location of planet Dim. Because gems from Dim go for 20 times what their mined equivalents fetch, on account of the purity.”
Vi sat back and regarded them both in wonder, seeing the same expression on their faces.
She took a moment to wonder that the rich and powerful were all alike no matter where you went—eager to spend nauseating sums of money on useless things—then said, “Ok, monetization, let’s talk about that. I assume we’ll need to find a trusted broker connected to people with ready money, right? So, we can get paid right away.”
Acken held up a pink diamond the size of an apple, then nodded toward it, “We won’t find anyone who has the ready money for something this big. We may need to sell them in dramatically smaller sizes.”
“OK, I’m sure we can do that. So, then we’ll have plenty of funds, right, for the supplies, fuels, and materials we’ll need on a ship and on our little asteroid. What else do we need?”
Acken said instantly, “A large, imposing gun ship.”
Vi thought about it, then said, “How about a royal luxury yacht, armed to the teeth, instead? Sounds like we can afford it. We could have it custom made to fit us.” She looked Acken up and down, then said, “Wouldn’t you like a cabin that was actually designed for your size, with a bed and bathroom you weren’t way too big for? And we could be crewed by Trallians, they all seem to have a wide range of useful skills ready to employ. Of course, they’ll be a voluntary, free, and paid crew.”
Acken and Caussus both smiled, nodding.
She thought for a moment, “But what about the asteroid? Do we want to keep it? It seems like it might be able to be turned into a good base for us and potentially made self-sustaining. We could also keep it running when we’re away with a crew of Trallians—again, voluntary, free, and paid Trallians. I think we’re going to need to make a decision about keeping it soon, before whichever auction buyers show up and we have to deal with them. If we’re not going to keep it, we can just leave before they arrive.”
Acken spread his arms out across the sofa back and looked up at the ceiling, saying, “I lean toward keeping it. A home base is always something good to have, even with the best ship in the galaxy. And none of us have our own places to serve as such.” Caussus nodded and Acken continued, “But I think we need to spend a day inspecting the entire rock and its facilities. What can be produced there? What kind of supply chain will we need to maintain from nearby stations? What defensive or offensive capabilities does it have? How many Trallians will volunteer and what are their skills?”
Vi agreed and was grateful again to have Acken as her second-in-command. She looked at him appreciatively, “Those are excellent points. It sounds like we’ll need to make that inspection, assessment, and decision our first priority when we get back.”