So Frantically Hectic
Casey and Dev go too far, at least in the purely linear sense. Starships, smut, and Sweet. How can you go wrong?
Casey and Dev go too far, at least in the purely linear sense. Starships, smut, and Sweet. How can you go wrong?
Writing about troubledogs is my anti-drug. And I've needed a distraction, so here :3 Have some triangular adventures from your favorite triangledogs. This one is pretty simple! Casey and Dev get closer together. Something that's been a long time coming finally happens? There are no explosions, I think? Thanks to Spudz for help making this somewhat less Coyote than it was originally :P
Released under the Creative Commons BY-NC-SA license. Share, modify, and redistribute -- as long as it's attributed and noncommercial, anything goes.
"So Frantically Hectic," ** ** by Rob Baird
"What happened to waking me up with a blowjob or something?"
Casey's smirk flashed over momentarily into a wicked grin that bared teeth. "You slept in too late. C'mon, we're almost to the Banshee's Nest."
The coyote found enough purchase to push the jackal away. "Christ. You morning people..." But he sat up, rubbed the tension from his neck, and sighed. "Fine. I'll be there in five minutes."
Five minutes gave him enough time to brush his teeth, throw on a jacket, and curse the jackal's ability to summon reserves of energy when she thought it would be aggravating.
And, true to form, when he got to the cockpit she turned and winked at him. "Shove it," he growled. "It's too early for you being a goddamn jackal at me."
It was 1300, ship's time; he'd gotten a solid seven hours of sleep. This was not the point, and Casey didn't mention it because he would have reminded her of the thirty straight hours it had taken to get the Long Tall Sally ready to travel. "I'm always a jackal," she reminded him. "Strap in."
"How long?"
"Seven minutes. I might back off a bit, though. There's nothing from the hyperspace beacons."
Dev took his station and secured his harness. "Sure about the plot?"
"Yes, coyote. I'm 'sure about the plot.' There's just a lot of interference."
"That's what you get for working with smugglers." His eyes swept the readouts of the engineer's console. "Let me run a filter on the directional scanners; see if we can't clean this up. Got the beacons now?"
"Mm..." She trailed off. "Maybe? Yeah, there they are. 'Sure about the plot,'" she scoffed. "Who's the pilot, huh? We're on course." But then, coughing subtly, she added: "Thanks."
She couldn't see him roll his eyes; then again, she also couldn't see his grin. The freighter closed the rest of the distance to the hidden outpost without incident. It wasn't on any official charts--which explained why the beacons transmitted so quietly.
Their underworld contact--and only source of information--had warned them that the approach would be 'tense.' Casey cracked her knuckles. "Ready? I'm cutting the hyperdrive in three... two... and..."
A heavy, ominous vibration ran through the hull. "Shields up. They're holding, but... fuck, jackal, that asshole wasn't lying--the radiation is completely off the charts."
"Is it a problem?" Outside the cockpit windows, 'space' had a bizarre violet glow. Sapphire ribbons coursed through it like slow lightning strikes. The jackal was concentrating on her instruments, ignoring the garish display illuminating her fur.
"Not a problem, but watch the density gradients."
"I have been flying for a while, coyote. I know how to do this." She reached over her head, adjusting a few switches without looking, and the shuddering eased. "What'd I tell ya?"
"Sure, Case. But there's enough shit you're flying through here that we're getting actual drag. It's not all interference with the thruster plates slowing you down."
"So much for all that bullshit about a body in motion. I'm having problems holding course, too." He could tell that much: it came as a kind of turbulence, buffeting the Long Tall Sally despite the inertial compensators designed to handle their changing acceleration. "What's going on?"
"The particle field is creating some kind of... resonance in the deflector couplers. I think the discharge cycles are--"
She growled. "Didn't you say your shield modifications would work?"
"And didn't you say you'd been 'flying for a while' Didn't you just say that? Pilots." Pilots and morning people, to boot. "Look. You either need to slow down, or speed up. But if you speed up... ah, fuck. Fuck."
"Talk to me..."
"I don't have enough power to keep all the shields working. So if you increase speed, you'll need to do it by a lot, and I'll put everything into the forward emitters. That sound okay?" Of course, he didn't need to ask; he was already making the changes.
And she didn't need to answer. "Tell me when you're ready, Devvy."
"Deflectors are on, double-front. Do your worst."
"You don't mean that," Casey said, laughing. "What's my limit?"
He figured the shields were good up to ten or twelve thousand kilometers an hour. "Stay below about four thousand." She was doing eighty percent of that as it stood, and he figured he was liable to be ignored.
"Noted. I'm picking up the approach transponder. Can you send our recognition codes?"
Devin assumed that if he outright told Casey to cross her fingers, the jackal might take her paws off the control stick to do so. So he settled for not telling her about his concerns: "Yes. Active. And... and... wait for it..." Try crossing your fingers, 'yote. "Approved. We got a handshake, thank fuck."
"Good job. Let's see who's home. Eyrie control, this is the independent trader Arkona, I'm requesting approach clearance."
"Arkona," a gruff voice answered. "Transmit your flight logs." He sent them over, and again waited apprehensively to see if they detected anything amiss with the forgery. "Arkona, you are cleared to approach. Caution, outbound traffic 2-0 at six hundred kilometers."
"I have the traffic in sight," Casey said. "Mother of God, Devvy, look at that..."
The coyote's eyes widened when he called up the sensor data, and stayed wide. The other ship was five kilometers long, an egg-shaped hulk with organic curves wrapped in rippling conduits that gave it the appearance of a veined, living thing. Even as he stared, it seemed to shift fluidly, stretching out in length, defying its mechanical origin. "Is that a Pictor galleon?"
"I think so. I've never seen one in person."
"They're not supposed to be in the demilitarized zone."
"Maybe we share more in common than we thought."
"Maybe." It had been years since Devin learned about the Pictor Wars--and by that point, they were centuries in the past. Nobody had seen the Pictor in the intervening time. "Here's something we don't. They outmass us by eleven... no, twelve--"
"Twelve what?"
"Orders of magnitude. I can't use the high-res scanner; it's too big."
"Well, she's not big enough for us to feel it."
Dev wasn't sure about that. Of course, the sheer mass of the galleon wasn't a problem. "The engines, though. She's accelerating at a steady .3 gees. There'll be an interference wake from the impulse drive in this particle cloud."
"Fuck, you're right. Fuck--she's generating a bow shock, too. Hold on, Devvy. Emergency power to the structural integrity generator."
The coyote's tense breath whistled from between his teeth as he scrounged for anything the ship had in reserve. He'd tied the Long Tall Sally's auxiliary power banks into the deflector shields--their contact had been quite concerned with the radiation surrounding the Banshee's Nest--and there wasn't much left for her to give.
"Now, Devvy..."
Be nice to me. Please be nice to me, he thought. It was directed both at Casey, and at the ship's powerplant. "The main reactor's running at one-ten. I can give you a hundred and thirty percent, I think, but not for more than half a minute."
"Let's hope it doesn't--brace!" As pilot, the jackal had a few milliseconds of extra warning before turbulence tossed the freighter unceremoniously off-course. "God damn it!"
"Structural integrity is holding, but--"
Impact, impact. The computer's voice was stern. Casey sounded more startled: "What the--it's throwing debris at us!"
The immense size of the galleon, coupled with whatever exotic propulsion they were using, had it flinging bits of rock in all directions with enough kinetic energy to count as an anti-ship weapon. "Space junk doesn't have a mass compensator. Our shields really don't like this, Case."
"That's two of us!" She wrenched the Long Tall Sally upwards, and a boulder-sized asteroid missed them by a hair's breadth. "Gimme that power now, coyote."
"Thirty seconds. You have thirty seconds."
"Right."
Dev felt the kick of the sublight drive as Casey dumped every bit of extra reactor output into the engines. The Long Tall Sally shivered under the acceleration... but, ten seconds later, the battered shields stopped taking new hits. Twenty seconds later, the ride had smoothed out.
She backed off the throttle. "Good start, huh?"
"No comment."
"Yeah. I'm taking us in. Nice of them to have showed us the easy approach..."
The Banshee's Nest hummed with activity: at least a hundred ships were gathered, everything from small freighters like their own to huge star carriers no less imposing than the Pictor galleon. The prospect of unregulated trade apparently drew countless thousands to the repurposed belkazium refinery.
"I've never seen most of these hull configurations before," Casey said, wonderingly, bringing the Long Tall Sally in towards the edge of the landing area. "Is that a... holy fuck, it is. That's a suncatcher, coyote..."
She raised her paw, pointing to a jet-black, frigate-sized ship the shape of a heavily faceted pinecone. "No idea what you mean, Case. I've never heard of that."
"You shouldn't have. They're gone." The ship disappeared behind the slab-sided hull of a bulk freighter as the Long Tall Sally dropped closer to the pad. "A fleet of them could grab almost ten percent the output of a star; direct it to an antimatter refinery. Thousands of times more efficient than the Rubin process."
"Must've been a problem, right?"
"Yeah. Sometimes the stars would become unstable. The last Areshi refining fleet was hunted down a century ago."
"Maybe it's a museum piece."
"Maybe. Even so, Devvy... who the hell are these people?"
Their contact, a treasure hunter, said the Banshee's Nest was simply a trading depot, and he wanted to sell his ill-gotten relics far away from any threat of interference by the Star Patrol. At the time, it made a sort of sense to Devin and Casey.
Dealing in antiquities offended the tender sensibilities of the Terran Confederation, after all. A station in neutral space would be a good opportunity to stash them until they could be collected by an unscrupulous buyer.
This, though... the Nest was a massive operation, and too large for it to be anything as innocent as a neutral harbor for illicit traders. If it was connected to any of the common underworld channels, they would've heard about it before.
They had not. Just the smuggler, telling them about a radiation-soaked asteroid base where they could offload some ancient trinkets. Robot loaders were already standing by to take off the containers; the only thing that remained was to collect payment.
Casey would handle that, having asked her first mate to stay behind and guard the ship. He agreed--but warily. "Not to coin a phrase or nothin', jackal. But I got a bad feeling about this."
Whatever he'd expected, Casey just shook her head. "Same."
Devin pulled a small box from his pocket and opened the catch. Inside was a bit of metal the size of a grain of rice. "Local transmitter. If you had augments, I'd be able to hook directly into your neural gear, but..."
Casey took it carefully from the container. "Audio only?"
"Yeah. Put it in your ear and it'll find a good place to pick up the vibrations when you talk. Click your teeth together twice and it'll turn the thing on or off. If something goes wrong, I'll be monitoring the channel."
She nodded, and tipped the tiny device into her right ear. "Keep the ship ready. I'll be back in an hour."
The sooner they could get off the station, Devin agreed, the better. He kept watch, nervous even for a coyote. Eavesdropping on radio traffic deepened his conviction that the Terran freighter was in unfamiliar territory: even the term 'Banshee's Nest' was an approximation, translated from an alien tongue the universal translator refused to tell him more about.
An automated security program searched them, so subtly that he almost missed the quiet ping. It wasn't very polite of whoever was trying to scan the freighter. At least he'd caught it in time; the coyote killed the link and isolated them from the network as a precaution.
Finally he heard the chime of the hatchway being unlocked, and hissing open. Thank God. "Time to wrap this up, eh--"
Dev had just enough time to see that the huge, shadowy figure was not jackal-shaped. Then he was on the floor, and everything had gone dark.
He came to sitting in the ship's medical bay. He hadn't been restrained. Facing him was two and a half meters of something scaled, muscular, and imposing. They held a gun in their right hand. 'Restrained' or no, Devin stayed put.
"A tranquilizing device," she explained. "Cooperate, or I'll stun you again."
"Who are you?"
"I work as an interrogator for the overseers. My name isn't important. We will offer you a trade, if you'd like to avoid the more unpleasant side of 'interrogation.'"
"Where's my pilot?"
"We will offer you a trade," she repeated. "In exchange for your ship, the overseers can give you passage back to the Confederation. You will be unharmed."
"What about my pilot?"
"The offer is extended to you, on your own. Your pilot is valuable to us for other reasons. She was exposed to the Mazon flu as a child. Her blood has priceless antibodies--every liter will go for a fortune. She's worth a hundred of you."
On the one hand, this was not something Casey had ever seen fit to mention to Dev. On the other hand, perhaps she'd forgotten, or it embarrassed her--or the whole thing was a lie. It didn't really matter, since he wasn't about to agree to the deal. "Gee, thanks. What about the ship? Why do you want the ship?"
"You can't fly it, anyway. It's old, and fast. It has uses."
"What kind of uses?"
"What do you expect, dog? Do you expect some... overwrought monologue where I reveal our plans to you?" She snickered. "Fine. I can just take the ship from you. The control codes aren't going to be very difficult, are they? Not for us."
The paw that held her weapon moved, but rather than threatening him, she holstered it. Then she closed her eyes, stepped forward, and ran her fingers along the coyote's cheek. His interrogator paused, then. She tapped his cheek again a few times, each with increasing pressure.
"Something's wrong with your mind."
"What's the matter? Can't read it?"
When her eyes opened again, they were glowing. "I can find a way to decrypt you, terran. Your brains aren't very complex. Just need to understand how you react to stimulation. Something like..." She drove a claw into his thigh, smiling when he winced. "Yes, there's the pain response."
"Lovely."
"Perhaps not enough." The alien stepped back. She snapped a knife into her paw, slitting his shirt open. Her next touch was both gentler and more provocative, sliding her fingers through his belly-fur. "And there's the pleasure one... tell me about those control codes, coyote..."
"If it's all the same, I'd rather not."
"This doesn't motivate you?" She left her palm on his stomach. Dev felt as it rippled, and her form changed--russet scales shifting into slate grey fur and charcoal rosettes. Now a snow leopard, she worked one sharp claw in a lazy circle. "Better? Or this..."
She morphed again. The rosettes vanished; her muzzle sharpened and a black mask melted about her eyes. He was a little too surprised to answer, but she took his shock as approval.
"I see. Raccoons, hmm?" Nimble, jet-furred fingers caressed between his thighs. "I don't have to read your mind to detect the other... physiological changes."
Some of them were, as it happened, more obvious than others. Devin didn't know if the alien was genuinely familiar with Terran species, but she sure as hell fondled his crotch like she knew what she was doing and, against his will, he found himself reacting.
"This can still end well," the interrogator cooed, opening up his khakis and tracing either side of the swelling sheath within them. "You can still get what you want."
"I... already said..." She squeezed, sending a gasping shock of pleasure through the coyote. "I want my companion back. That's... it..."
But the raccoon's knowing smirk was filled with justified skepticism, since there wasn't much helping the purely biological 'reaction to stimulation.' "Clearly it's not. I wonder... I wonder, what happens to your stubbornness if I go like... this?"
Fur, soft as velvet, teased the slick warmth of undeniably stiff coyote cock. Devin had to gasp, even if it did widen the alien's grin of superiority. She repeated the movement. He was almost too distracted to hear it when she prompted: or perhaps like this...
And glided down to kneel before the chair. He held up a paw to stop her. A wet kiss crowned the tip of his shaft. The coyote's paw faltered, and fell. She took him into her muzzle slowly, dragging his cock along her soft tongue for a few careful strokes.
She let him go and stood, leaning close. "So, what do you think?"
Dev swallowed, licked his lips and swallowed again before speaking. "I think I'm keeping the ship," he said. The weakness in his voice didn't help his persuasive abilities. "You need me to run it anyway."
"Do I? Our hackers are the best in the sector. You could make our job easier, though. Don't you want to?"
"No." And if she was asking, the coyote realized, she wasn't any closer to reading his mind. That left some opportunity, even if it was rather hard to concentrate.
Her fingers worked their way up his cock. "Yes you do," she insisted. The next time she fondled him, he raised his right paw, tentatively brushing the raccoon's side. "That's right..."
"These hackers," he began, stammering his way through another lingering squeeze. His claws quivered at her side, moving lower to her hip, just barely keeping himself from outright groping her. "Do they know hardware?"
"Why?"
"Because." Dev's eyes narrowed. "I do."
His fingers closed around her holstered weapon. It wasn't locked. As soon as he pulled the trigger, the raccoon went rigid. Then she relaxed, boneless; without another word, she toppled to the floor. He didn't know her species, and he didn't know how sensitive they'd be to the tranquilizer--but, at least, she seemed to be alive.
Mindful of her ability to shapeshift, he wrapped the interrogator in as much cabling as he could find on short notice. Her body was still inert--and, despite her appearance, she still had the mass of a two and a half-meter beast--but he did the best he could, dragging her to the airlock where she could be kept between locked doors. Then he set up a motion-sensing alarm, and went back to the cockpit.
The coyote's first bit of good news was that he could still get a signal from the communicator he'd given to Casey. It was a faint signal, to be sure, but a signal nonetheless.
After a little more work, Dev was able to turn the communicator on. For a worrying time he heard nothing from the microphone. But, with the gain turned all the way up, at last he picked up a regular, low-frequency rhythm.
At least her pulse is relatively normal. For a jackal. He took a deep breath and trigged the transmitter. "Case. It's Dev. Can you talk?" Nothing. "If you can't talk... uh... tap your right ear."
The sound was deafening. He yelped, grateful for the closed channel--but even more grateful that Casey was answering.
"Okay. If you're by yourself, tap twice. If you're not, tap once."
One tap.
"Okay. I'll keep monitoring this channel if you get a chance to talk to me. I'm trying to figure out where you are. I got ambushed on the ship, but... everything's mostly alright. For now."
He used the time to set up a connection to the Banshee's Nest and its computer network. Only half of the protocols were anything close to familiar; like the interrogator, they were alien of a sort that was completely mysterious to him.
Presently, the radio interrupted his efforts at investigation. He was grateful for the distraction. He was, for that matter, even grateful to hear Casey's voice, muffled and muddy as it was.
"Coyote. Talk to me."
"What happened?"
"I was on my way back to the ship. Somebody grabbed me. I think this is supposed to be a prison. There's a lot of people here, and none of 'em are happy."
"Yeah. Your signal is coming from a secondary complex about twenty kilometers from the main landing pad. The security on their computer network is pretty tight... I just barely managed to find a map."
"They told me that after the evening meal in three hours, I'm being transported somewhere else. If I heard right, they like my blood."
"You heard right. Three hours?" He shook his head. "I don't know that I can find a way over there in three hours, Case. It's a long way from here."
"On your map, do you see a big open yard?"
Dev spun the schematics around until it became clearer what she was talking about. "Yeah. I guess everything around is cell blocks?"
"Uh huh. It's got a big airlock on top, with an atmospheric force field underneath. You think you could hack the controls for the doors?"
"Maybe. Probably."
"It's tight, but the ship will fit if you can get them open. You can land her in the yard."
The coyote double-checked the blueprints. 'Tight' amounted to a margin of only thirty meters to any side of the Long Tall Sally. "If you say so. I'll get started on a plot for the autopilot."
"Hey. While you're at it... I'm not the only one being taken away. We need to get help, Dev. Is the radio working?"
"Yes. But I've got the ship isolated from the Nest's comm system. If I try to tap into it, it'll give away my position. I could try on the legacy narrow-band, but without calling a relay I'm not gonna be able to reach further than... I don't know. If I'm lucky, maybe the Edra sector."
"I don't think I like what you're saying." In the pause that followed, he could clearly picture the way her eyes would roll in resignation. "Just don't tell me, how's that?"
Sending a distress call was the easiest part of the job. Harder was trying to work through the encryption used by the Banshee's Nest security system. It was a newer protocol, and as the coyote probed it for vulnerabilities he was acutely aware of every passing second that he risked triggering some alarm.
Ninety minutes had gone by. He'd burned up half his time, without even getting a chance to look at reprogramming the freighter's guidance software. Work faster wasn't cutting it. What the fuck are these low-lifes doing with such advanced protection?
He stopped.
Well. They're criminals, right? That explains why the system's not off-the-shelf. Somebody had reverse-engineered a corporate AI--he recognized many of the tell-tales--but they'd done a good job of it, changing just enough of the minor details that his previous experience wasn't helping.
As an occasional criminal himself, Devin knew that hoping someone unscrupulous enough to take the job would have also been a second-rate programmer reflected poorly on the coyote's own professional pride. No, they were plenty skilled.
Skilled enough that they adapted the AI specifically for the quirks of this damn environment. Which means they were here_. Which means they knew what was going on... which means they were a liability... which means..._
Once he knew what he was looking for, finding the backdoor took under five minutes. It wasn't sophisticated--the designer needed to plan for accessing the network from within the prison--and once he was in, all the intricacies of the complex were unveiled to him.
"Hey, Devvy."
"Hi, Case. Good news: I can get the doors open. You'll need to send a command from inside, but any terminal will work--even the food dispensers."
"Great. So, that's about to come in handy--they moved dinner an hour earlier for what they called 'security reasons.' You need to head over now."
His heart sank. "Uh. I haven't had a chance to get the autopilot maneuvers in. I need that other hour."
"Too bad. Fly it manually."
Her mumbling made it hard to read the tone in her voice. He assumed it was sarcastic fatalism, but he wasn't in the mood. "Thirty minutes, then. I'll do my best, jackal."
"Dev. Listen to me. We don't have time. You need to fly the ship yourself."
"Casey, you know I don't know how to do that."
He could, at least, hear her gritting her teeth. "Put it this way. The worst you can do is crash the damn thing."
"That's pretty worst, Case."
"The other option is having my blood sucked out. At least if you crash, you're coming with me. Get into the damn pilot's seat, coyote."
Devin gave one last look at his console. Realistically, there was no way he could get the ship running on its own in thirty minutes. Even the full hour would be cutting it dangerously close. How had time escaped him so completely?
He checked to make sure their guest was still sleeping off the stun gun in their airlock, steeled himself, switched positions--and immediately regretted his choices.
Suddenly the cockpit seemed terrifyingly complex. Everywhere he looked something else greeted him: another bank of switches, another row of opaque dials and monitoring screens. And the seat was cramped--claustrophobic even. Obviously, it belonged to the jackal.
Not to me. But hey--needs must, when the devil drives. "Fine, Casey." And really, what was a harmless lie between tricksters? "What now?"
"The reactor is hot, right?"
"Yeah."
"The first thing you need to do is energize the engines. There's two separate controls. The main drive, and the maneuvering thrusters. There's a panel on your left side, just about mid-thigh. You see it says 'impulse' and 'maneuver'?"
"Yes."
"Flip both sets of switches forward and you should see the light on the control stick turn orange."
The switches felt solid, clicking into place with a worryingly dramatic thunk. "It's red. It was off before; now it's red."
"Red? Well, maybe it's supposed to be red, then. Okay. Now the stabilizers. Look up and forward. There's a row of six knobs. They're silver."
His eyes swept what proved to be a dizzying assortment of such things. "Okay. I see 'Boost,' 'Low,' 'High,' 'L/R', 'A/F', and 'DB.'"
"What? No. That's the hi-fi, Dev."
At least the incongruous VU meters now had an explanation. "Okay, then where--"
"Under that. I think."
"Uh. 'Yaw,' 'Roll,'--"
"Turn all of them clockwise. Unless they don't go that way. Turn them whatever way they can turn."
"Clockwise. Now the stick light is orange."
"Huh. Well, good job. Everything else is still dark, right? There's a switch that says... 'SYS MAIN.' Lift up the cover and flip it."
"What about the one next to it? 'PWR'?"
"Oh. Yeah, that's important."
She hadn't told him which order to activate them in, but he started with the power switch. With 'SYS MAIN' on, every screen in the cockpit flickered to life. The coyote found himself surrounded by flashing displays, each of them dense with information optimized to be highly useful for a pilot, or a jackal.
And none of them particularly clear for someone who was neither. The screen with 'ENGINE STATUS' on the top, for example, was not polite enough for a simple 'IT'S ALL GOOD' or 'WATCH OUT.' Instead, as he stared, 'P2 PRESS' climbed from 0.24 to 1.1 and, immediately thereafter, 'RC BYPASS TEMP' dropped from wherever it had been to a blinking '0.0,' watching him like a pair of widened eyes.
"This is nuts, jackal."
"Nothing to worry about. You've seen me do this all the time."
Yes, generally just before I ask you if you've lost your mind. 'RC BYPASS TEMP' blinked three more times and settled on '0513.5K.' Was that acceptable? Was he about to explode? "Am I ready to take off?"
"Is the control light green? If it's green, here's the deal. Put your left hand on the throttle. There's a four-way switch there. Don't touch it yet. It's pressure-sensitive. That moves you left or right and up or down. The throttle moves you forward and backward. The reversing switch will be under your thumb. Push it in to release the throttle lock."
"Right now?"
"No. Put your right hand on the control stick. That changes which way the nose is pointed. I'm about to tell you to take off. Take it real easy, Devvy. Okay?"
"It's not okay, Case. But sure."
"Push real gentle on the four-way switch. What happens?"
He nudged the control, and with a shudder the Long Tall Sally began to rise. The very ponderousness of the maneuver did a good job of reminding the coyote that better than a hundred tons was in motion at his highly unqualified command. "We're going up."
"Do you know your way over here?"
"More or less."
"Great. Point the ship where you want to go, then."
Carefully as he could, Dev tilted the control stick. The freighter tilted, too. Startled, he pushed the stick in the opposite direction, and the ship leveled back off. "I'm... twisting. Why am I twisting? I want to turn left, jackal."
"Oh. Right, put your feet on the pedals. I--oh, wait."
"Pedals? Why are there pedals?" The radio was dead. "Casey?"
Nothing. Why were there pedals and a control stick and the switch for the thrusters and the throttle and about a billion little buttons with arcane fucking labels like a goddamn encryption machine?
Had he been feeling charitable, Devin might have acknowledged that the ship's engines were no more comprehensible to Casey. He was not feeling charitable. Instead he thought: What the fuck is wrong with you pilots? The question would have to wait until he could pose it to her in person. Pushing the left pedal forward slewed the nose around; that was more like it.
When he was finally lined up, he tried the throttle. He felt like he'd moved it all of two millimeters, but the Long Tall Sally jumped forward like a spurred thoroughbred. Pulling back on the control stick drew them upwards, away from the landing bay and out towards the surface of the asteroid.
He was getting the hang of it, even figuring out a few tricks Casey didn't have the time to explain. Changing the position of the switch at the top of the stick from 'FREE' to 'ALIGN,' for example, seemed to use the ship's maneuvering thrusters to keep them moving straight forward, without any sort of drift.
And, even better, he found the seat adjustments. No longer feeling quite as squeezed, he took advantage of the straight course to try a few cautious rolls. And then a few less cautious ones.
Devin wasn't about to say this is easy, or even this is fun. But the nearer he got to the prison, the more confident he felt. All he needed to do was land the ship, and since his partner was still incommunicado he had the time to practice that, as well, in the limited time remaining.
Despite her sharp tongue and her bravado, Casey had earned a reputation as a skilled pilot. It wasn't something Dev had been able to judge on his own, but he was beginning to learn. The certainty grew when he picked a suitable spot on the surface of the asteroid, appreciably close to the size of the prison yard.
At first he overshot the site. Then, in correcting, he overshot it again. The uneven terrain played tricks on his eyes--holding the ship level was nearly an impossibility. His initial descent was too fast, and he overcorrected until the freighter had started climbing again. He'd taken the opportunity to sabotage the facility's sensors, hiding the Long Tall Sally from view; in the moment it had seemed like a good security precaution, though now it also kept him from feeling self-conscious about the work involved in getting the ship to behave.
In the end it took him five minutes to do what the jackal routinely managed in a tenth the time. He wasn't about to admit that to her, of course. Instead he told himself it would be a matter of practice. And that he might even ask her for help, when she was back aboard.
If.
Fuck, don't think like that. She'll come through, coyote, don't worry. And fortunately, it wasn't long before the radio turned on. "Hey, Dev? Are you still alive?"
"Thanks for the vote of confidence. I landed. I'm near the main hatch."
"Good 'yote. You need to break me out... pretty soon. 'Now,' in fact. That would be nice. Can you do now?"
"Piece of cake." He pushed the four-way switch on the throttle; the dorsal thrusters fired, slamming the Long Tall Sally hard into the rock below with a wail of protest from a structural integrity alarm.
"Uh--Dev?"
"Nothing! Nothing, nothing. Everything's perfectly all right now! We're fine." He tried the switch in the opposite direction, and the freighter glided back into empty space. "How are you?"
"Coyote..." She sighed. "Can I open the doors? I'm at a terminal."
"Yes. Right. The command is 'open main entrance.'"
"It's what?"
"You have to enter it three times."
Security through stupidity, he freely admitted. On the other hand, it wasn't like having control of the prison doors mattered much... unless there was a starship waiting. He was coming in above them when they began to slide open.
At last, somebody noticed him. The guard towers were being manned; bolts of energy spattered and sparked against the hull. Dev glanced around until he could find the pilot's control for the deflector shields. They didn't even require calibration--nothing the prison guards had was a match for the ship, and--
In his distraction, the Long Tall Sally thumped into the edge of the hatch, hitting in a solid crunch and bouncing back with a drunken, ungainly arc to its descent. Growling, Devin did what he could to level off and guided the freighter towards the middle of the yard.
She thumped down on her skids. He could see Casey through the cockpit window, crouching behind a table for cover. The yard was pandemonium, guards and prisoners alike running helter-skelter.
"Gimme a few seconds," he told her, and got up from the seat. Of the freighter's two defensive turrets, only the top could be fired when she was landed--but that would be more than enough. He set the guns to lay down covering fire.
Casey didn't even wait for his order; as soon as the turret opened up she was on the move, sprinting towards him. Some of the other prisoners had figured out what was going on; he wasn't going to have time to make the rescue especially orderly.
And so he retook the pilot station, putting his finger on the control for the lateral thrusters. "Do me a favor, Case. We have a guest on the inside of the hatch. Roll her down the gangplank when you're aboard, okay?"
"If--I don't--get shot--watch it, Dev, Jesus--" Her voice was ragged; harried. "Don't aim so close!" She was at the hatch, though; he heard the chime for the airlock cycling. "I'm in!"
He nudged the thruster to give the ship a couple meters of altitude. No need to let the interrogator fall any further than necessary, even if the coyote wasn't sure they were likely to meet a kind fate in the developing melee.
The freighter's door closed. He heard quick footsteps, and a familiar voice. "Trade places?"
"I'm good," he answered.
"Then get us out of here." She did, Dev couldn't help noticing, take the copilot's seat rather than his own engineering console. "Move!"
"Want to make sure I'm doing this right." He cast his eyes up, gauging their angle to the open hatch, then reached out and twisted the dial marked 'DB.' "Am I?"
...was like lightning. Everybody was frightening. And the music was soothing--
Casey narrowed her eyes. "Devin, this is not the time."
Yeah, yeah, yeah. He ignored her and howled with the stereo. "And the man in the back said everyone attack and it turned into a ballroom blitz!" He was giving the thruster switch everything he had--the Long Tall Sally was rocketing upwards precipitously. "And the girl in the corner said--"
Impact! Impact!
"Dev!"
The freighter slammed into the edge of the still-open hatch, knocking the coyote's muzzle shut with a clack that turned his singing into a throaty growl. They rolled with the inertia, spinning wildly; he waited until he saw stars and shoved the throttle forward.
Her control system used the main drive to smooth out the course nicely. Any instability was gone by the time the story continued. It was electric--so frantically hectic... Casey took up the mantle. "What the hell are you doing? Dev, Jesus Christ!"
He glanced over at her expression and grinned. So that's what it looks like. "Casey, I've spent more time patching this ship up when you break it than I have sleeping. The integrity field'll take the hit, no problem. It took a fucking black hole. You know what won't take an impact like that?"
"Me?"
"Those doors. Won't be closing anytime soon. Can we go to lightspeed?"
The jackal tried to scowl, and her approving grin almost stayed hidden. "Bastard. Yeah, I had the plot ready before we docked. Can I get my seat back, Captain Ramming Speed?"
Dev went back to the engineer's station. "Reactor output stable. FTL drive charging is complete, and... we've got incoming, so might as well, right?"
"Might as well." The freighter jumped into hyperspace without a hitch, and as the last notes of the song faded Casey turned the volume down. "So, is closing the doors a concern? Are they going to have company?"
"Probably. Also, Mr. Kai sends his regards."
She'd ended her relationship with Satari Kai acrimoniously after he slept with her sister, and considering her irritated grunt the jackal had evidently yet to forgive him. Satari, on the other hand, seemed to have no such hard feelings.
And the Kai Syndicate was well-armed, and happy to make a name for itself in knocking one of the other families down a few notches. Sending Satari the security codes and an inventory of the complex's warehouse had netted the promise of a two-point share in the proceeds.
Casey didn't care about that, but she did care that Satari promised to free everyone imprisoned in the complex. Her satisfaction with the outcome didn't extend to gratitude, exactly... but she forgave Dev for reaching out, and the coyote took that as a victory.
"Where to next? I'm thinking--"
"I note, as junior partner in this venture, that trafficking those relics to the Banshee's Nest was your idea. So was that whole Tevanista... situation."
"Does that mean you have a better proposal? It's not selling my blood, is it, 'yote?"
"Last I heard from my mom, she and dad were working the main port on New Karaj. I'll ask for a steer."
Casey leaned back heavily, looking up at the ceiling. "The fuck is on New Karaj? That's an aggie rock, right? The Sally won't carry bulk."
"I know. But they also export Karajian cobalt. The Nizari use it in traditional medicine--it's supposed to be very soothing on their wings. We could clear nine or ten credits a jar, Case. Twenty thousand credits, easy."
"With landing fees and fuel, we might even afford..." She puffed her muzzle, running the numbers in her head. "A pretty good dinner?"
"And a decent hotel room." Nizar wasn't exactly cheap. For visitors, incapable of unassisted flight, their vertical cities and floating resorts required rather expensive accommodation. "You know what's banned on Nizar, Case?"
"What?"
"Shooting at people. If we're fast, we can get there in time for the famous Nizari festival of Not Risking Severe Hull Damage. I believe that's what it's called--I might be mistranslating."
"I think you are," the jackal agreed, straightening up and turning her attention to the flight computer. "New Karaj is about nine days off. Maybe we'll hear from that asshole Satari by then."
And find something more rash to do--that was the implication. Devin didn't let her bait him. She adjusted the ship's course and got up to change into something other than her prison attire.
"Fashionable as it is," she scoffed. "I think it's cotton, for God's sake."
Dev's work in the cockpit was done, so he followed her. "I don't think they had fashion in mind. Something more sinister."
"At least we avoided the worst of the trouble. That's unusual, for us."
"Did we? Because, you know, the part where you got captured seems like trouble. The part where I learned to fly the ship, on the other hand..."
She stopped at the cabin door, crossing her arms over her chest. "I'm not sure I'd agree with 'learned to fly the ship.'"
Dev snorted, and pinned her against the door with his nose pressed to the jackal's. "Say that again?"
"They dock you points for crashing, in case you weren't aware." Casey uncrossed her arms enough to poke his chest; then her brow wrinkled. "How did you lose your shirt, anyway?"
"I landed safely. Twice."
The jackal's eyes glinted, though; she was obviously inclined to take the opportunity that had arisen for distraction. "That raccoon in the airlock? She 'ambushed' your shirt off?"
"Don't change the subject."
She wriggled her arms free completely, draping one lightly around him while the other slid lower to remind herself what clothes the coyote still had on. "Hell of an ambush, was it?"
"Don't change the--" For the second time that day, he felt a paw on his crotch. And for all that, it was easy enough to remember that the interrogation hadn't been completely bad. "Or if you're going to change the subject..."
"What?"
He felt around for the door control, and when it opened, managed to guide the pair's graceless tumble so that it ended on the bunk, with him between her legs. "Be careful--" the coyote bucked with an accent on the word careful. "What you ask for."
"Is that a threat?" Coy, almost like she hadn't shuddered when their bodies had met. But Casey found 'coy' too much trouble: he hadn't even answered when she shoved her hips roughly back, grinding against him. "What am I asking for?"
Talk about flying later, he decided. Fair trade, that. In a matter of seconds he had his pants on the floor, and Casey got the idea. Her own loose-fitting prison garb came off without difficulty--so easily, indeed, that Dev couldn't say for certain who'd been the one to do it.
Of course agency wasn't the point. The point was the jackal beneath him, wearing only a grin and a willing surrender to indecency. "Showing me how that ambush went?" she asked.
"Don't be a bitch, jackal."
Her grin widened. "You don't mean that."
True enough. Casey's head tilted when he moved in for the kiss; it was deep and hot and clashing as soon their muzzles were crushed together. Their tongues met, and their growls blended together into one panted, pent-up demand.
He felt her fur between his fingers, and her fingers in his fur--felt her grasp at him, clutching wildly, seconds before he realized consciously he was doing the same thing. A possessive grope, a sharp exhalation bursting against his lips, and her legs parted to bring him close.
Heat, smooth and soft, pressed in around his cock. They both halted with the shock of it. Then he adjusted his stance, letting the steady pressure do its work; sliding into her as far as he could go. Her pointed muzzle quivered--far more graceful than the guttural, sated oath that gasped from it.
It only took a few strokes for Dev to build to his rhythm. A few more and Casey was matching it, jerking her hips up to drive each solid thrust deep. Slick warmth engulfed him--beckoned him--commanded him to push back inside her, harder and harder.
His partner's ears pinned and her eyes shut as the powerful fucking overwhelmed her. Casey's counterthrusts faltered and came to a shaky stop. The yelps ran together in a high, pleading moan that surged louder as he buried himself in her. He was pounding it from the jackal--my jackal, his hammering pace clarified.
"Yours!" Her voice was cracking and thin, wild in its guttural exultation. Dev didn't stop to ask if he'd actually said it aloud. An irrelevant question--it was true, anyway. And they both acted the part: the coyote staking his claim in heavy pumps that filled her completely with his cock; the jackal clinging tightly to his upper back as she rode his growling, bucking assault.
His thrusts became faster, but even as his knot worked with growing difficulty into the jackal Devin managed to keep the motion of their coupling steady. Kept himself from losing control. From going erratic and quick, slamming his way needfully into his yowling partner. From giving in to his urges and just having her.
Not to say the urge wasn't there, fuck--it was clutching at the baser instincts of his mind. His feet scrabbled and shoved, fighting for purchase with the effort that hilting in the tense and shuddering trickster bitch required.
At last he gave up on pulling out. His bucking drove their bodies together and kept them locked. Casey's legs were wrapped about him, close and insistent. She didn't need him tied to keep the coyote from going anywhere--but as long as he was she swiveled her hips to grind herself against his cock... and her claws scored the back of his neck... her muzzle jerked open in a howl...
Everything had gone very jackal. Devin growled into her throat as the squirming drove that home. Her paws tugging his scruff. Her cry filling the cabin. The squeezing warmth around his cock--gripping his knot, teasing the tip his fevered rutting had ensured ended deep inside her--
The way he was about to. With a groan, the coyote arched his back and went still. His shaft twitched, jerking to every pulse of seed that filled her. Then his mind blanked, the throbbing pleasure overcoming him... somewhere in it all he fell against her. Somewhere in it he bit down on Casey's shoulder, her name a hoarse snarl lost in her pelt. Somewhere.
Neither of them would actually have been able to reconstruct the precise sequence from her guttural barks to the gradual slowing of the coyote's forceful thrusts while the last of his release splashed into her. They were both senseless, panting through their recovery.
But she regained her wits first. "Did you cum? Good boy." And she tousled his fur playfully with her paw.
"Like you didn't know." It had the same tone as you morning people, with the energy sapped by the lassitude of the afterglow until all that was left was an underlying, subtle fondness.
"Maybe I just wanted to call you a good boy," she suggested, giggling.
Devin nipped at the closest bit of jackal he could find. Her ear twitched. Heedless, he did it again. "You know, when you say it like that, it sounds a little..."
"Degrading? You're a coyote."
"Well... yes, that's true."
Her paws came to rest. "Thanks for saving my life, though."
"Any time. It's good to have you back."
The jackal hesitated; the movement of her fingers slowed and became gentle. "It's good to be back. I didn't know if I'd see you again."
"Same." He pushed himself upright, until their muzzles were level and their eyes met. "But I'm glad I get to. I was worried there, for a bit."
"Me too. I like you," Casey said, leaning up the half-centimeter it took to give him a kiss. "Even if you are a coyote..."
"Even if." Their eyes stayed locked. He lost himself in the striking, sharp carnelian fixed on him. "Are you gonna make me say it, Case?"
She smiled. "Maybe."
"Maybe," he echoed, teasingly.
"Try it and see how it sounds?"
The next kiss, at his initiative, was lingering and deep. After five seconds, her eyes closed. After ten, she'd started to pant again. At last he pulled away, and lowered his muzzle. His teeth held to the rim of her ear until it stopped flicking.
His voice was low, soft and smooth.
"I can fly your damn ship."