(Note #1: All comments and constructive criticisms are welcome and appreciated.

Note #2: All artwork in this chapter was created by Steve Rayner.

Note #3: And finally, thanks to volunteer Literotica editor TheNyxianLily for her help with editing.)

Calley was worried. She’d been on Arrida for three sub-cycles and her meager savings were almost depleted. She needed a job, desperately. The Spacers’ guild house she was staying in didn’t charge much, but the guild master was no fan of Gynapsis like herself. Ever since her people’s homeworld had been made uninhabitable by an environmental catastrophe over six hundred cycles ago, they’d been wandering the stars. Once their ships had started to fall apart, they’d had to blend in with the populace on countless planets as best they could. Unfortunately, prejudice against them was widespread. Calley knew it all too well. And she knew that she barely had enough starcred for three days of lodging before she’d be tossed out.

It was bad enough she was a Gynapsi, with golden-hued skin that made it impossible to hide who she was from the bigots. But she’d left her last posting under bad circumstances. Given the choice, she’d have wished for a less remote port to be stranded in. The few ships that had come and gone since she’d become unemployed hadn’t been interested in taking her on. Maybe because of her race, or her bad reputation. Either way, she wasn’t confident as she left her bunk and put on her brown jumpsuit. She strapped her tool belt on and grabbed the duffle bag she carried her few possessions in. She slung her blaster carbine’s strap over her shoulder and headed down to the building’s lobby to look at the job postings, hoping against hope to see something new on the computer screens. What she found when she got there surprised her.

Calley had been wandering the galaxy since the day she’d been born, but she’d never seen a Bellixan in the flesh before. The Bellixans were not known as particularly convivial. They were major players in the political, business, fashion and entertainment arenas of the Inner Systems, but had a reputation for looking down on anyone of a different race or social class than themselves. Calley couldn’t think of a reason one would be so far from home, yet here they were. And it was undoubtably a Bellixan.

She stood about 185 cm tall, with black hair in a braid that came down to her calves. Her complexion was very pale, but she looked anything but sickly. Indeed, it seemed to perfectly suit the flowing, light blue sweater and darker skirt she was wearing. The lower garment came down to her ankles yet hung loosely and was cut sharply. Her head was oval, with exquisite features, a noble jawline and light blue eyes that matched her outfit. Calley had no doubt this woman was currently the most beautiful on the planet, maybe even this entire sector.

The Bellixan looked over at Calley and asked her, “Are you Calley Vanmussen?”

Calley was surprised the woman was showing an interest in her, but she quickly answered, “Yes I am. Can I do something for you?”

The Bellixan stared at Calley for a moment to size her up. The beautiful woman towered over the Gynapsi, who barely stood taller than 150 cm when she wasn’t slouching (which wasn’t often). Calley was acutely aware that her copper-colored hair was disheveled and that she hadn’t showered in three days. Her baggy jumpsuit was dirty, though the brown colour hid a few of the stains. Her black work boots had seen better days, with the soles having been worn almost smooth.

“Your skillsheet says you passed a level 4 biotech certification?” the Bellixan said, phrasing it midway between a statement and a question.

“Yes I did,” Calley confirmed.

“And you know your way around power systems and comm arrays?” Again, the woman seemed to be asking without actually asking.

“Worked on my share, yeah. If it’s on a ship, I’ve fixed it up whether it’s mechanical or biological.”

The dark-haired woman looked at her datapad and nodded. “Are you sure you’re eighteen cycles old? You don’t look a day over sixteen.”

“Yeah, it’s the rounder face I got. I still get checked when I go to bars, but I’m eighteen,” Calley assured her. “Um, not that I go to bars that often.” Smooth move Calley, she thought to herself. Pass yourself off as a drunk, why don’t you?

Without looking up, the beautiful woman asked, “What’s this about assaulting a crewmember abord your last ship?”

Fuck! Calley further thought to herself. Here’s where I lose the job. “He caught me alone and decided to give me a birthday present I didn’t want. He thought the little Gynapsi would be easy to force himself on. I jammed a power cable in his thigh.”

“I would have aimed for his crotch,” said the taller woman.

Calley said matter-of-factly, “I did. I missed.”

The Bellixan looked up from the datapad and stared Calley in the eyes. Calley met her gaze without flinching. At first, anyway.

“What’s the carbine for?” asked the raven-haired woman.

“Shooting.”

The Bellixan’s gaze turned cold. “Don’t be cheeky with me, girl. Most spacers carry pistols. Why the heavy gun?”

“Range. I need to hunt sometimes. When I’m between jobs.”

“I see. Do any hunting since you’ve been here?”

“Some,” Calley admitted. The woman’s stare was starting to make her nervous.

“Nothing around here but gul-birds and wild canines,” the Bellixan said. Both she and Calley had understood each other. Calley had just admitted that she was destitute and eating animals you’d find hanging around a junkyard. It wasn’t the best salesmanship, but even a lowball offer was one she was willing to accept right now if it got her off this rock of a planet.

“You’re an honest woman, Calley Vanmussen,” the beautiful woman observed. “It’s not easy for a girl on her own in the galaxy, is it?”

The question surprised Calley, but she couldn’t help but answer, “It sure isn’t.”

The Bellixan’s expression softened as she asked, “Interested in taking a trip to the Toron system? Standard Guild rate, your own stateroom and three solid meals a day thrown in no charge. You help me keep the ship running and you take care of any diseases or injuries that come up. And you won’t need to worry about amorous crewmates. It’ll just be you, me, and the captain, and he’s with me.”

A wave of relief flooded over Calley. Toron was weeks away, and weeks of standard pay would mean starcred in her pocket at the end of the trip. She was surprised the woman wasn’t charging her for room and board like she’d always had to pay her other employers. She was sure the Bellixan would find some sort of fees for travel permits or quarantine charges or something else to charge her. But if it got her off Arrida, the price would be worth it.

“I’m your girl,” Calley said as she stepped forward and offered the woman her hand and a smile.

The Bellixan looked at Calley’s hand but didn’t shake it. An uncomfortable moment passed before Calley withdrew it.

“Sorry,” she said, “I’ve never met a Bellixan before and I didn’t know you don’t shake hands.”

“We do, actually. You just happen to be very dirty. My name is Alezanna. Do you have any gear you need to grab before we leave?”

Looks like I’m not the only honest one here thought Calley about Alezanna’s brutally direct reason for not touching her. “No, just what I carry. I’m ready to go when you are,” she told her new employer.

“Let’s get out of here then,” said Alezanna.

The two stepped out into the dusty streets of the city and headed to the spaceport. Most of the city’s inhabitants had already settled into their offices and cubicles in the uniformly dull grey plasteel structures the duo passed by. Still, as the spacers made their way to their destination, the Bellixan drew her fair share of stares from the people they passed. Her exotic appearance played some part, Calley knew, but she suspected the way Alezanna wore her flowing outfit had a lot to do with it as well. It was so loosely-fitted that it seemed any stray gust of wind might expose one of her breasts or maybe a buttock. But every time it seemed about to happen, she would shift her body in such a way that the clothes would flow back to cover her up. It wasn’t unlike watching a cloud of fabric swirling around the woman’s body. Calley marvelled at Alezanna’s practiced skill and poise.

“How long have you been a spacer?” the Bellixan asked while keeping her eyes straight ahead.

“Since I was born,” Calley answered as she struggled to keep pace with her employer’s long strides. “Spent my life helping my mom patch up people since I could hold a scalpel. Picked up the mech skills as I grew up from whoever would teach me.”

“So where’s your family now?”

“Not sure. Dad died in a bar fight when I was five. That left Mom with me and four other mouths to feed. Not easy on what she was making. When I got old enough to find my own jobs, I took one and I’ve been on my own ever since. Mom and I still keep in touch with holo-mail though.”

“How long since you’ve been on your own?”

“Five cycles.”

“Not a lot of reputable companies would hire someone so young,” Alezanna observed.

“Guess I have a knack for finding disreputable people,” Calley said before adding “Present company excluded, of course.”

This earned her a laugh from her employer. “Don’t be so sure I’m reputable. This isn’t some pleasure cruise on a yacht you’re signing up for. We run cargo and sometimes the things we carry aren’t the most socially acceptable goods in the universe. We don’t run slaves though. The captain and I draw the line at that.”

“Good to know. I never served on a slaver ship either. Just starliners, tugs and a mining ship.”

“Then welcome to the wonderful universe of the tramp freighter,” Alezanna said as they reached the starport and walked down a wide staircase leading to one of the docking bays. “This is the Ravenfang, my ship. And before you tell me that ravens don’t have fangs, I didn’t name her. The captain did.”

Calley stopped midway down the staircase to take in her first sight of the ship. It wasn’t designed like any transport ship she was familiar with. They usually had rounded features and this one’s main body was an octagon roughly a hundred and sixty meters wide and thirty meters high in the center, sloping down to a dozen meters high at the sides. A cockpit protruded out from her front with a rounded plexiglass canopy while four tube-shaped thirty-meter-long engines extended from her backside in a diamond formation. Two atop each other in the centre while the other two were placed to her port and starboard backsides. The engines were white while the rest of the ship was gunmetal grey.

Calley could see two blaster cannons facing front, one on each side of the cockpit. The ship seemed to lack other armament. A fair amount of her hull looked like it had been patched up or replaced at some point, probably because of battle damage, Calley guessed. She noticed two round protrusions on the lower hull, one portside and the other starboard. She looked over to the top of the hull and saw another two half-orbs placed in similar positions.

A sensor dish protruded from the top of the ship, slightly to the right of the cockpit. Calley also saw six thin communication masts jutting out different points of the top of the hull at various angles. She was surprised at the number, as most commercial ships she’d served on made do with two or three.

”Guess you like to stay in touch with people, huh?” she asked Alezanna.

“Not exactly,” the woman corrected her. “The captain spends a lot of transit time scanning the newsfeeds. He likes to know what’s going on in the region so he can figure out who needs what and how much he can charge them for it. We get much better profit margins with him researching a job than we would getting them from the Merchants guild. He just has a knack for finding someone selling something cheap and then somebody else who’s willing to pay top starcred for the same thing somewhere else.”

Calley was surprised to hear Alezanna and her captain eschewed guild assignments. She knew the guild took a portion of any and every job they brokered, but always chocked it up as the cost of doing business. Setting up your own jobs seemed like a lot of work and a lot of risk to the Gynapsi. But if the two were doing well enough to hire her on, maybe there was something to their strategy.

The two women made their way down the rest of the staircase and approached the ship’s lowered gangplank. They made their way inside where Calley immediately realized the ship hadn’t begun life as a freighter. The dull grey and hard angles of her interior pointed to a more martial origin.

“Was this a warship originally?” she asked Alezanna.

“Something like it, yes. I think more of a planetary defense interceptor. One of our cargo bays used to be a brig. And as you’ll see from the berths, she wasn’t designed to be comfortable. You’ll get the biggest one we have, but it’s still pretty bare. The captain and I sleep in one of the cargo bays we’ve converted into a bedroom. But yes, she definitely started off as a military ship before the captain found her.”

As they entered the ship’s common area, they found two figures there. One was an old maintenance android sweeping up the floor of the galley. The other was a man Calley assumed must be the ship’s captain. Whatever she was expecting, he wasn’t it.

For one thing, he wasn’t a Bellixan. He seemed to be a run-of-the-mill human. Maybe 175 cm tall with brown hair and brown eyes on a sharp, angular face. She guessed he must be in his mid-to-late thirties, though a spacer’s face could make them look older than they were, depending on how hard they’d lived. He had a short beard that rounded out his look somewhat. From a distance, he might have looked a little weaselly. But up close, his face seemed friendlier. He wore a shirt that looked like someone had covered their nose in garish multi-colored paint and then sneezed on the garment. His pants were tan but clean and his boots were dark brown and shiny. He wore a gunbelt across his hips with what looked like a hold-out blaster in its sheath. He turned from stocking the galley with food and looked over at Calley.

“And who do we have here?” he asked.

Alezanna stepped forward, produced her datapad from somewhere within her clothes and handed it to the man. “Calley Vamnussen,” she said. “Our new medtech. I hired her for the standard guild rate.”

The spacer looked over the datapad and took in the information on it. He seemed impressed, as he let out a appreciative whistle. “Damn Alez, I thought finding gems in dung heaps was my job, not yours. Calley, if you can do half the stuff this thing says you can, standard pay will look like a bargain to me.”

“I promise you I’m a hard worker, sir,” Calley stated.

“Good,” the captain said. “One thing though: You sure you’re over eighteen? I don’t wanna get arrested for transporting a minor across star systems.”

“I turned eighteen three sub-cycles ago, like it says on my datasheet.”

“Just making sure,” the man said as he handed the datapad back to Alezanna. “I’m Captain Sal Collondo. You can call me Captain, Captain Sal or just Sal however you like. Welcome aboard the Ravenfang. Alezanna will show you around and get you stored away. I’m still waiting on a delivery of grammamite we’ll be taking to Toron. That should give you time to get cleaned up.”

“I was going to give her Goppu’s old room,” the Bellixan said.

“The luxury suite. Good idea,” he declared before adding, “It’s the only room we have that’s not a barracks. You’re lucky Calley. You’ll be able to almost stretch your arms out completely before you hit the walls.”

“Sounds like a palace,” Calley added to play along. There was something about his manner that seemed to invite you to relax in his presence. She’d only known him for a few minutes, but she felt at ease around him. It might also had been what Alezanna had said about the two of them being involved. She doubted the captain would make any unwanted advances when he already had such a beautiful companion.

Alezanna led Calley out of the mess area and showed her to her stateroom. She saw that Captain Sal had exaggerated how small it was, but not by much. Still, the single bed looked comfortable and she had a small desk of her own. The Bellixan admitted that it wasn’t much but Calley assured her it was better than most lodgings she’d had since going off on her own.

The bathroom was nearby and also betrayed the ship’s martial origins as there were four bunks in recesses along the port wall. There were also two shower stations lined up on the far wall. It looked liked some others had been removed and replaced by a large rectangular unit some 250cm square and about a meter high. A tarp covered it’s top. Calley looked at it for a moment before Alezanna noticed and cleared up her confusion. “Hot tub,” the tall woman explained.

“Wow,” Calley said. “I’ve never seen one of these before. The starliners had some but for the guests, not the crew.”

“Never been in one, eh? You’ll have to try it out on the trip during your downtime. We don’t have a lot of creature comforts on this ship so a good long soak will help keep you sane.”

Calley had to admit the idea of a long bath seemed inviting. “How much to use it?” she asked.

Alezanna looked at her strangely for a moment before she understood what Calley was asking. “Calley, it’s free. The water goes through a purifier after every time we use it so it gets recycled. You can pee in it if you want to. Just don’t do it if I’m in there with you. The power it takes to heat it up is nothing compared to what the engine gives us. It doesn’t cost us a microcred to use it, so if you want to take a bath, do it. Just let the captain know so that he doesn’t walk in and then get a power cable shoved at him.”

“Okay,” Calley agreed. Serving aboard this ship was shaping up to be a very different experience than she was used to.

“And that goes for everything else onboard. If you want to use the comms to send a message to your family, or to watch a holovid, it’s free. We pay to subscribe to the channels so whether we use them for an hour or ten doesn’t matter. Just don’t break anything you can’t fix, be ready to work when I need you to work, keep your hands off the cargo and don’t use the blasters on other ships unless they shoot first. Aside from that, we don’t have a lot of rules on this ship. Just respect the ship and respect each other. If you can do that, we’ll get along fine.”

“I understand Miss. I won’t make trouble.”

“Good,” Alezanna said. “See that you don’t. But drop the ‘Miss’. It’s ‘Alezanna’. They’ll only be three of us most of the time so we don’t stand on ceremony.”

Alezanna then showed Calley the medbay, which only had two beds but was well-stocked with common drugs and medicines. Not the place a brain surgeon might operate, but certainly adequate for a small crew. Next up were the two cargo bays, which currently stood empty. At the back of the ship, the Bellixan showed off the reactor room, which Calley saw was kept clean and well-organized. The reactor itself was a type that Calley didn’t recognize, though that made sense considering it was on a ship whose design was just as unfamiliar to her.

Alezanna described the ship’s speed and power output and Calley couldn’t believe her ears. Most ships of this size Calley was familiar with had Hi-Vel engines that could get you six or seven sectors away before needing to recharge. According to the Bellixan, the Ravenfang routinely did Hi-Vel jumps to destinations ten sectors away. It was one of the reasons the trade ship was so successful. They could deliver cargo further and faster than their competitors. The Lo-Vel engines weren’t quite as impressive but still top-of-the-line for a transport ship.

“Wow!” Calley exclaimed as she realized what the ship could do. “Whoever put this ship together really knew what they were doing.”

“The potential was there,” Alezanna agreed. “She was already fast when the captain found her decommissioned in some far-away corner of the galaxy. He bought her for a song, he says. He started doing short runs and pouring his profits back into the ship. By the time I came along, she was in decent shape but I like to think I did my part in getting her to where she is today.”

“So where’d you learn to work on engines?” Calley asked. She was keen to find out more about her new employers.

“The family estate on Bellixa. I was obsessed with anything that could get me away from there. When my parents started disabling the gravmobiles to keep me from running away, I learned how to get them running again. But no matter how far I got, I always got caught and sent back home. So I started studying starships because I’d need one to really get far away. Which I eventually did. That was almost twenty-five cycles ago and I haven’t been back there since.”

Calley was surprised at how old Alezanna had to be, but then remembered that the Bellixans aged at a slower rate than others, with some living to be over 200 cycles old. So despite not looking that much older than her, Alezanna was probably at least twice her age. No wonder she moves with such grace, Calley thought. She’s had a lot of practice.

On the other side of the ship from Calley’s room was the cargo room Alezanna and the captain bunked in. It had a large four-poster bed against the starboard wall, a cabinet and a large horizontal storage unit. There was also a desk with a garment stitcher atop it. The walls had some landscape images from arboreal worlds while the floor boasted a thick brown carpet. Calley thought it looked rather cozy in there overall. Cozier than anywhere she’d ever lived, anyway.

Alezanna turned to Calley and asked, “Are all your clothes as dirty as what you’re wearing?”

Calley was a bit ashamed as she answered, “Pretty much, yeah. The last couple of sub-cycles have been pretty rough.”

“All right then,” the older woman said as she moved to the room’s entrance and switched on a comm unit on the wall. “Captain, could you please stay away from the port side for the next half-hour?”

“Sure. Heading to the cargo bay now,” came the reply over the speaker.

With that, Alezanna turned off the comm unit and moved to a hamper near the storage unit. “I have to wash some things anyway, so you might as well put your clothes in with mine.” she said as she removed her top with one swift motion. “I doubt we’ll get our wardrobes confused.”

Calley, having lived her whole life in shared accommodations, was used to seeing women in various states of undress. What surprised her was what the older woman was wearing underneath her sweater and skirt. The lacy black bra and high-cut underwear she was expecting. The Bellixan just came across as too elegant to wear anything less sophisticated. But she was amazed to see a toolbelt strapped across her shapely hips, one that put her own set of tools to shame. Two knife sheaths were attached to it as well. She’d wondered why Alezanna went around the city unarmed, as most spacers didn’t, especially in a place like Arrida. But now she had her answer. Calley never would have guessed the woman had been wearing that gear since this morning.

She took her attention away from Alezanna’s equipment and took in her form. She was slender but not skinny. Calley could not clearly make out the Bellixan’s ribcage the way she could with thin women she’d encountered before. Her stomach was flat and toned but not too muscular. It was hard to tell because of the bra she was wearing, but Calley estimated that the older woman’s breasts were slightly bigger than her own, maybe a 75D size (34D if you use the antiquated measurements). Her hips were wider than Calley would have thought, but not by much and still suited her frame. Her legs were very long and well-toned.

The woman grabbed the hamper and put her clothes in with a few others already in it, then stepped back into the ship’s hallway. Calley followed her past the cockpit access and back to the mess hall. The android was still at work but the captain had left. Alezanna opened a large garment washer and tossed in her things. Not waiting to be asked, Calley quickly made her way to her room and grabbed her duffle bag. She took out the few things in it that weren’t clothes then went back to the washer where she handed the opened bag to her new shipmate. Alezanna threw everything inside the washer and then, after a quick examination of the bag, tossed it in as well. She then looked at Calley and declared, “There’s still room for some more.”

Calley took the hint and removed her jumpsuit. Unlike the Bellixan, she wasn’t wearing a bra underneath. She had never worn one. Calley wasn’t sure if it was a family trait or one shared by all Gynapsis, but she’d never needed one. Her breasts always stood firm despite being a respectable 70C. She handed her garment to Alezanna who placed it in the washer but didn’t close its door. Calley then removed her dirty white socks and her pale green underwear (the only article of clothing she had that matched her eye colour, not that many had ever had a chance to notice). She threw them in with the other clothes and the older woman closed the washer’s door.

“You have around twenty minutes before these will be ready to wear,” she told her nude shipmate. “You might as well freshen up in the meantime. Don’t try the hot tub as that’s not enough time to really take in the experience. Leave that for some other day.”

“Alright Alezanna,” Calley agreed. She’d paused between the two words as she wasn’t used to calling her employers by their first names. She and her shipmate parted ways as the Bellixan headed to the cargo bays and Calley to her stateroom to grab her toiletries. After returning to the bathroom and taking care of her oral hygiene, she stepped towards the showers. Out of habit, she set the water to as cold as she could stand. But then she remembered what Alezanna had said about the ship’s power and raised the temperature. If they weren’t going to charge her for hot water, she might as well enjoy some.

As she stood washing herself under the hot water, she thought about this new turn of fortune she’d chanced into. The pay sounded good, especially if her employers stayed true to their word and didn’t gouge her on trivialities. Alezanna seemed friendly in a no-nonsense kind of way. And she didn’t have much to go on with the captain beyond first impressions, but he seemed jovial enough. Still, if he had managed to take a decommissioned ship and turn it into this excellent freighter, he either had to be shrewd or crazy lucky.

She prayed to the Gods that she’d finally found a post where she could relax and not worry about drunk or sleazy shipmates. She’d had too many bad experiences and didn’t want any more. For her part, she resolved to do her job to the best of her ability. As soon as she was able, she’d check the data on Toron to see if there were any diseases the crew needed inoculation against. She’d keep the ship’s systems she was familiar with in top shape and help her crewmates as much as she could.

The water felt so good that she fell into a reverie and was still under the spray when Alezanna entered with Calley’s duffle bag and laid it out on the hot tub’s tarp. Calley turned off the water and grabbed a towel. The Bellixan turned to her and noted, “I think you overdid it on the hot water. Your skin is a little darker than I think it should be. You’re not used to hot showers, are you?”

“I’m afraid not,” Calley admitted as she dried her body. She then went to the tarp and noted that her clothes had already been neatly folded before they’d been placed in the bag. “Oh!” she said in surprise. “You didn’t have to fold my clothes. I could’ve done that.”

“I wanted to give you a few more minutes under the water. You seemed lost in your own world. Get dressed and go make your call. Then meet us in the main cargo bay. The cargo’s arrived.”

Calley quickly got dressed in some underwear and a white jumpsuit, which seemed appropriate given that she seemed to have been hired partially for her medical skills (most medtechs wore white). Besides, it had been a while since this particular outfit had been so clean, so she wanted to take advantage of that. She also realized that it had been too long since she herself was so clean.

She returned to the common area where she installed herself at the comm station she’d noticed on her way in. The call Alezanna was referring to was a spacer tradition. Before leaving on any trip, you had to contact someone and let them know where you were going. That way, if you didn’t arrive, someone would make inquiries as to why. Calley accessed the galaxy holonet and sent off a quick recording to her mother. She didn’t know where her scattered family was, but it was a habit for them to check the net to keep track of each other.

That done, she made her way to the cargo bay where she found her two shipmates. They were supervising the heavy labour androids loading the grammamite onto the ship. She saw that Alezanna hadn’t bothered getting dressed again and was still clad in only her bra and underwear with her gear in place.

“Hey, look who cleaned up,” the captain said loudly to be heard over the noise the robots were making. “Hard to believe there was a young woman under all that dirt. I thought for a second that I might be talking to a Siliconian.”

Even though the joke had been at her expense, Calley smiled. She felt better now that she’d cleaned up but wondered if a clean white jumpsuit had been the right choice to help load cargo.

“So now that you’ve seen the ship, what do you think of her?” Captain Sal asked her over the din of the robots.

“She’s something all right!” Calley loudly said. “I’ve never served on a ship this fast.”

“Captain,” Alezanna interrupted with a calm voice that somehow cut through the racket. “I didn’t get to show her the cockpit. Why don’t you take her there? I can supervise the loading on my own.”

“Great idea,” the captain agreed. “Come on Calley.”

The two left the noisy cargo bay and headed to the bow of the ship. “How did she do that with her voice?” Calley asked.

“No idea,” Sal admitted. “I’ve known her almost eight cycles now and only twice have I ever heard her raise her voice. Most of the time, she doesn’t need to.”

“She seems pretty amazing.”

“And then some,” he said with a smile. “Most of what this ship can do is thanks to her. She won’t brag about it, but a lo.t of the engine work and speed this baby can pump out is because of her. The Ravenfang was pretty standard until Alez came along.”

They reached the cockpit which Calley saw had the pilot’s station front and centre. Two other stations were behind the pilot’s, one on each side of the cockpit. The captain pointed out various controls and features to Calley, who sat down at the port station he pointed her to. She familiarized herself with the layout quickly, as it wasn’t unlike the systems on the tugs she’d served on in the past. However, when he pointed out the targeting displays, she was surprised.

“Don’t you handle the guns from your station, Captain?” she asked.

“The front ones, yes,” he said. He quickly looked outside to ensure the bay was deserted and then flipped four switches on a top panel. Calley heard a quick hydraulic whirl from the ship’s main body and saw her two targeting displays come to life. She also saw two similar displays turn on at the station opposite her own.

“Four turrets,” Captain Sal explained, “each with a couple of fire-linked blaster cannons. Two turrets up top for Alez, and the two on the bottom you’re responsible for. Alez may have fixed up most of the ship but the guns came from me.”

“Gods!” Calley exclaimed in surprise. “That’s a lot of punch for a transport ship. Is it legal to have all these?”

“Depends on the system,” he answered. He then flipped the switches back to return the cannons to their hidden positions before continuing. “It helps that we keep ‘em under wraps until we need ‘em. But I’ve also got the ship registered with the Mercenaries guild as a bounty hunter. We don’t actually go after bounties, but when we tangle with pirates, we tend to end up killing somebody with a price on their head. Some of those we end up cashing in and some we keep on record in case we ever need to justify our armament.”

“Seems to me like you’re leaving starcred on the table, Captain.”

“Maybe, but weapon fines are pretty heinous. In the long run, we’ve saved more starcred by having those uncashed bounties than they’re worth.”

Calley nodded as the captain’s reasoning sunk in. She didn’t really know what the fines for an overgunned ship might be, but what he was saying sounded plausible. “Still” she said, “with the ship’s speed and guns, it seems like you could make a pretty good living hunting bounties. Ten cannons could bloody the nose of even a capital ship, couldn’t it?”

“It could and it has. But there’s a couple of problems with that idea. First of all, take a look at our shield output.”

Calley turned back to her station and quickly found the energy shield display. She saw that the shield could absorb a fairly standard amount of blaster hits. Considering how everything else aboard this ship was so upgraded, she was rather surprised at the pedestrian nature of the shield.

“You didn’t upgrade it?” she asked the captain.

“We’d love to, but we can’t,” he said with a shrug. “It’s the one major flaw the ship has. I think this is why she was so beat up when I found her. We’ve looked at every shield upgrade on the market and not one of ‘em is compatible with the ship’s systems. So when we get into a fight, we shoot back but we also run. We’re not really built for an extended slugfest.”

“Yeah, I see what you mean.”

“The other reason is practical. You kill someone, they often have friends or family. So now you’ve got enemies. The ship may be a nasty little surprise in a fight but off the ship, I’m just a man. I’m not even that good a shot. Alezanna is the Hells on wheels with those daggers of hers but she still can’t keep the universe at bay. You might find yourself having to use your carbine to protect little ol’ me from the mean ol’ spacers out there. But kidding aside, I don’t chase bounties for the same reason I don’t deal in weapons unless I’m desperate. It’s a good way to get shot at.”

“Can’t say I blame you there, Captain. But I think I understand why the ship got its name. She flies, and she’s got weapons she shouldn’t have.”

“Exactly right!” the captain commended her.

They continued going over the ship’s systems until Alezanna rejoined them to announce the cargo was secure. The captain nodded and bade her sit at her station. With all three crewmembers present, he turned to address his new employee.

“Look Calley, I don’t know how you’re used to being treated out there. I know the Gynapsis aren’t always given a fair shake. And judging by the state you were in when you boarded, I’d guess you’ve swallowed your fair share of that shit sandwich. Me and Alez, we don’t care if your skin is gold, purple or translucent. Do your job well and we’ll treat you well. Do it badly, well, you can see we’re not shy about making upgrades around here. But we’re willing to give you the rarest and most valuable thing in the universe: A fair shot. What you do with it is up to you. Do we understand each other?”

Calley nodded and said, “Clearly, Captain. And you’re right about how rare that shot is. The Gods know my people haven’t seen it for a while.”

“Hopefully that changes today.”

With that, he turned back to his controls and got the ship underway while Alezanna manned the comms to clear traffic from their flight path. The ship rumbled to life and lifted off on its way to open space. Left with nothing to do for the moment, Calley took a deep breath and silently said a prayer that after all this time, she’d finally found some good fortune. Little did she know she was beginning a journey that would see her reach the highest of highs, the lowest of lows and transform her entire life.

NEXT CHAPTER: Calley gets to know her crewmates.