Chapter 3

“Dey!”

Dey sat up. Somehow, during the night, she had managed to get her panties on her face while tossing and turning. She shook her head and her panties hit the lap. She spent a few moments wondering if she should get back into bed. For the past three days, the Enterprise had been making its way across the Atlantic ocean, heading straight for the southern edge of the African Union. Around that cape, then up to the Indian Ocean.

It had left her and her shipmates – an alien tourist who was way in over her head and a squid from Miami – bouncing off one another worse than crew on a USAF light cruiser.

So, getting back into bed would make sense. It’d prolong the time until she had to deal with the others.

“Nazis off the starboard bow.”

Okay.

That was worth getting out of bed for.

When Dey came onto the deck, she was wearing some short shorts and carrying one of the weapons she had brought with her on this madcap adventure. Though, technically, any weapon she could have bought on the civilian market paled next to her own body.

And the sexy, attractive, clever, creative, immensely intelligent-

[Humble, ] Dey thought in the middle of Loki’s speil.

Ah, yes, humble too. Thank you. But yes, I do help.

Dey grinned and mentally squeezed her integrated AI’s butt. [You’re worth ten thousand furious Englishmen, Loki. But... ] She hefted up her SPAS-12. [There’s something great about holding a shotgun.]

The SPAS-12 was a design that was nearly a hundred and fifty years old. That had meant it had plenty of time to get broken down and remodeled in an age of moderately cheap 3d printing. She had purchased one from a dealer with a fluxmag added. A DV emitter contained in the stock exapanded the eight slug magazine into an eight hundred slug magazine, with a flipping mechanism to bring the kind of slug she wanted. She’d loaded it with birdshot for when she wanted to just cause really fucking painful wounds and knock someone on their ass without killing them, buckshot for when she wanted to gut someone, and solid slugs for distance and armor work.

“What’s a Nazi?” Xee asked.

“Bad guys,” Dey said, scanning the horizon. Xee – X’Chur N’Xok – was a Huntress. A race that had evolved on a small, icy planet as far from their sun as Pluto was from Earth’s sun. Their bodies had to maintain a core temperature that would make helium turn to liquid. On planets like Earth, they kept themselves from melting into a puddle of muscle and liquefied brain matter by using hardened environmental suits. Dey wasn’t sure what Xee looked like under her suit. But the suit itself clung to her body so tightly that Dey could say that Huntresses had breasts, hips, and asses that did not quit. Firm and round and oh so spankable, Xee only compounded her curvy sexiness by being utterly clueless of the fact that her body drove Dey and Loki both crazy.

“What kind of bad guys?” Xee sounded nervous.

“Ones with really shitty history teachers,” Dey said, spotting the ship that Skylar had spotted. Skylar was not an alien, even if he had eight tentacles, eight eyes, and a circular trunk of flesh instead of a torso. Squids had been introduced to humanity by several other races as ‘people you just had to meet.’ It turned out, Squids had gotten along with humanity essentially from the word go. Multiple ethnic groups, a fondness for inventing new religions and new government types, talk show radio hosts, genocides and global war? All topics of commonality between squids and humans.

With their own homeworld occupied and a desperate economic and ecological niche on Earth had made the migration of several hundred million Squids to humanity’s homeworld a foregone conclusion.

But Sky had been born in New Miami.

So he was technically not an alien.

In the same way that the other ship wasn’t technically a bunch of Nazis. The flag flying over the bow was bright red, had a white circle on it, but the actual symbol that filled it was a Celtic Cross. Sometimes used by the Catholic Church, sometimes used by increasingly strident and desperate white supremacists. Then Dey’s brow furrowed.

The fuck? Loki whispered.

The flag underneath the red flag was a blue one, with a circular symbol that had central line drawn through the middle with two branching lines creating a kind of three pronged line. The symbol was bright white. Under the blue flag was a green flag with a golden flower on it. Below that was a purple flag with what looked like a dragon’s spreading wings.

[Okay, that’s a peace symbol, isn’t it?] Dey asked, managing to tear her eyes from the flags to the rest of the ship. It looked like an old style cargo hauler, the sides covered with fins and panels that thrust into the sun, tilting to soak as much rays as possible. The flat top had been covered with green. A few dozen smaller ships milled around it – several of them lashed to the side of the ship by thin ropes.

“That’s fucking weird,” Sky said.

“What is it?” Xee asked.

“Okay, uh, imagine if you...” Dey dredged what little she knew of Huntress culture from her brain. “Imagine if you found a Perseus Mumbler-”

“You mean a Veil Keeper?”

Dey waved her hand. “To-may-toh, To-mah-toh,” she said, shaking her head. “Imagine that, but they were also flying a Xeth peace program overhead. So, basically, one is super evil, but the rest is not so evil?”

“Huh,” Xee said.

Dey walked back to the cabin. Her bed sat next to the computer systems, which she tapped on. She brought up the radio, then picked up a chunk of plastic older than first contact, and spoke into it. “This is Captain DeShane Gallagher of the Enterprise. Care to tell me why the fuck you’re flying a Nazi flag? Over.”

There was nothing but static.

Then her radio crackled.

“That’s, like, your opinion, man.”

The voice that came through the radio seemed slightly distracted. Dey’s brow furrowed.

“No, you’re flying a Celtic Cross on a white circle with a red field, that’s basically a Nazi flag. Over,” Dey said.

More static.

Then a different voice came through. “No, Cedric, go to the grass. Uh, this is the Free Ship Peace and Love – I am, ah, volunteer radio operator Cherry Blossom. Um. Peace be upon you, fellow traveler.”

More static. Dey frowned and figured, after a minute, she was never getting an over.

“You’re flying a fucking Nazi flag!” Dey growled into the radio. “What is your deal? Over.”

The static came again. Dey revised her opinions on the ship’s radio etiquette from ‘annoying’ to ‘kill it with fire.’ When the static cleared again, the woman responded with what sounded like a prepared speech. “This is the free ship Peace and Love, sailing the sea of seas to unlearn the ways of violence and consumerism as professed by the modern society that has started to spread its tentacles throughout the sea of space. We fly the flags of hatred to symbolically cleanse them of their evil ways, so that the world might once more know peace.”

Dey opened her mouth to respond – but then the girl continued.

“Oh, and I am told that a life choice of extreme value will be accomplished if you come on-board. So, um, feel free to visit. If you wish it!”

Dey closed her eyes. Waited a half a minute to see if more was incoming. Then, quietly, she growled: “Sky, load torpedoes.”

“Huh?” Skylar looked at her.

“Nevermind,” Dey said, shaking her head.

Being a bit harsh on them, Dey? Loki asked.

[My grandma was beaten to death by far-right assholes who flew flags exactly like that, Loki, ] Dey said. [I’ve got exactly zero patience for hippy dippy fuckwits who wouldn’t know how to change the world if it came up and bit them on the-]

A loud gurgling bang sounded from the back end of the Enterprise. Smoke started to roil into the air and Dey had no time for any complaints. She hurried back while Skylar leaped into the ocean to come at the problem from underwater if need be. At least Xee remembered what she was supposed to do in an emergency. She grabbed onto a life vest and started struggling it over her environmental suit. As her arms flailed, Dey got to the engine compartment itself. More oily black smoke was starting to reach into the sky, twisting and curling in the heat of the sun.

“Shit!” Dey hissed, holding up her hand as she kicked at the covering. While in Guyana, she and Sky had paid a local engineer to refit the Enterprise from a pure sailing ship to one with an engine. Right now, Dey was thinking that they should have paid the engineer in kicks to the head. One of the M-Halfs that were used as batteries during the night-time hours had exploded and turned a rather large chunk of the engine into so much melted, cherry red slag.

The fact that the engineer had decided to use DV batteries that hadn’t been set to safe mode was just...

Ugh.

Skylar swam up, his tentacles lashing around the side of the Enterprise as he got his beak above water.

“Nothing’s bad down here, but-”

Dey cut him off with a jet of fire retardant gel, sprayed from one of the many extinguishers stashed on the Enterprise. Once she was done, the fire stopped flickering and the only thing she could see of the engine was a thick, rapidly expanding foam. She lowered the extinguisher and looked at Sky. Sky sighed.

“So, we’re going to need to-”

“Don’t finish that sentence,” Dey said, holding up her hand. She glared at the distant Love and Peace – then looked back at Skylar. He shrugged. Dey had been born too far into the future to find the movement of squids strange. It was just natural to her that a being with eight tentacles and eight eyes might shrug.

“Fuck,” Dey muttered.

The inside of the Peace and Love smelled like a barely interrupted orgy. The smell of sweat and human bodies that had gone too long without a shower was almost thicker than the smell of weed and beer and other intoxicants. The people who met Dey as she, Xee and Sky stepped through the hatch from the Enterprise’s gangplank to the side of the ship looked exactly like what Dey had imagined. They were middle aged, grungy, and dressed in diaphanous silken robes and wore red armbands with swastikas emblazoned on them.

“We take your peace and good will,” the woman started, holding out her fingers in an L shape, then bringing her fingertips to the armband she wore. “And accept them into these hate symbols to renew the cycle of reconciliation.”

“So mote it be,” the man said, holding up a triangle. He struck it with a faint ding.

Dey’s jaw popped.

Well, that’s... Loki paused, searching for a diplomatic word.

“The name’s Captain Gallagher,” Dey said. “You said you’ve got the parts we need.”

“Of course, ah, Sister Ga-” the woman said, her brow furrowing at Dey’s tone.

“Captain,” Dey cut her off. “I’m not part of this ship, and I don’t come into your houses and tell you what to call people.”

The woman’s brow furrowed further. She opened her mouth, then closed it, then shrugged. “Captain Gallagher, please. Come to the deck. You can rest there while our machine speaker and her acolytes in the arts of technology take a look at your ship.”

The man rang the triangle again.

“This is fascinating!” Xee said, bouncing slightly up on her toes.

Dey and Sky’s eyes met. Their expressions, despite the number of eyes and presence or lack of a beak, was identical. The two hippies led Dey and her crew through the ship. Xee looked around herself with a perpetual :O emoticon on her faceplate. Sky walked along his tentacles and tried to look casual. Dey just wished she had remembered to bring her shotgun. Though there was one thing that did make her feel slightly better. Half the cabins that they walked past had someone fucking. And usually, they were fairly attractive. It was hard to keep a scowl after walking past the third room with a beautiful (if dirty) freckled blond chick getting railed hardcore by a (slightly grimy) man.

But Dey tried to keep it up as the hippies took them to the deck. Here, though, Peace and Love showed that – despite the idiocy of their supposed spiritual mission, they ran a good sustainable ship. Solar panels and green houses that burst with fruit and vegetables and other sources of fresh food. There were also some genetically modified crops, carefully segregated from the rest, that Loki identified as being medicinal hybrids and pharma-crops.

“Where’d you get those?” Dey asked. “Those are Monsanto strands.”

“Ah, we, um, found them,” the man said, before the woman could speak up. The woman shot him a glance.

Dey arched an eyebrow. “So, you’re running an illegal biotech pharma plant in international waters, huh?”

The woman sighed. “The ship needs parts.”

“So, you are willing to engage with capitalism in so far as it takes to keep your private fuck palace running?” Dey asked. “How moraled.”

The woman scowled slightly. She actually looked irritated, which Dey took as an improvement over her earlier look of serene simpering sanctimoniousness. Before she had a chance to explain, Xee gasped and pointed.

“My word!” she said. “A shockpod!”

Dey blinked. It couldn’t be.

It was.

Kuz the Shockpod walked around from one of the greenhouses, his broad shouldered body draped in flowers and sheathed in diaphanous robes, just like the rest of the hippies. He looked as beatific as any member of a race genetically engineered to be the ultimate warrior could – serene, calm, and as if the only thing he ever wanted to do in his life was water plants and tend to the greenhouses. He walked with an admittedly adorable looking Asian chick hanging on his arm. And ... walking with a slightly bow-legged stance.

That made Dey’s eyebrow shoot right up.

“Oh, Kuz,” the woman said, looking at Dey. Her voice was familiar. “This is the woman you said you knew?”

“Yes, Cherry Blossom,” Kuz said. “But now, I admit, I must admit that I have lied. I did not swim here to escape the violence of the world, nor did I ask you to invite Dey because of spiritual matters. Rather, it was because your ship and the Enterprise were going to cross paths. According to the Google Maps.”

Cherry Blossom looked somewhat taken aback. But before she could ask any questions, Kuz stepped away from her, grabbed his robes, then cast them aside dramatically. Concealed underneath was ... ah ... nothing. He was completely fucking naked under there. And Dey had never thought she’d end up standing on a ship filled with hippies and illegally hijacked pharmaplants checking out a Shockpod’s junk. Naked, Kuz’s body retained the same broad shouldered, wasp waist form that he had while armored up. But his chest rippled with muscles, giving him the sculpted look of a mid 50s action hero, and unlike those steroid ravaged bodybuilders, his cock and his balls looked anything but shriveled. Dey hadn’t been sure what she expected, but a thick, almost tongue like prehensile cock was not one of them.

And it was true what they said.

Shockpods really did have four balls.

“DeShane Gallagher!” he said. “I am unarmed and unarmored. I cannot be disarmed, for these are my arms! And so! I challenge you to mortal combat!” He pointed his finger at Dey. “We shall end or fuse our lives in the only ritual of kal’kin sha that matters!”

Dey sighed, rubbed her temple, then turned to the hippy who had been giving her the tour. “Sorry about this,” she said. “I don’t suppose you have an arena?”

Kuz looked as if Dey had offered to suck every single one of his ... quad.

“If you hurt him!”

Dey rolled her eyes at Cherry Blossom. The arena of the Peace and Love wasn’t really an arena. The ship had once been an ocean going transport ship, and the interior of the massive cargo hold had been partitioned and filled with the needs and rooms of the people living aboard. That meant a gymnasium, which meant a large area with a workout mat. Hippies who had been curious about the upcoming ‘religious debate’ were all filing insdie.

“He’s a shockpod, did you really think he wanted peace, love and fellowship?” Dey asked, scowling at Cherry Blossom.

“It’s possible,” Xee said, butting into the conversation. “There are several well known shockpod philosophers among the outward rim-”

“Fine, fine!” Dey waved her hand. “Xee, aren’t you going to go and help Sky with the engines?”

“Well, he said that he didn’t need me tripping over his tentacles,” Xee said, her shoulders drooping as her faceplate turned into a :(. “He also told me that if his bodyguard got herself killed or injured, he’d want me here to kick her butt...” She trailed off.

“And?” Dey prompted.

“And he said that he can tap into my helmet camera and watch while working.”

“Great,” Dey said.

At first, the hippy captain – the woman Dey had been gleefully baiting – had clearly not wanted to have a fist fight on her ship. But then Kuz had saved the day by pointing out that this kind of ritual combat was part of his religion. And they didn’t want to be religiously intolerant, did they? Dey had to admit, as she started to undo the buttons on her shirt. They had a point.

I don’t get why you have to be naked too, Loki muttered.

[Jealous?] Dey asked as she casually skimmed her pants down. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw that a new emoticon had flashed onto Xee’s faceplate: >///>

No, just concerned about this whole thing. You turned down the fight before. Why accept now?

[Honestly?] Dey asked, her hands opening and closing. [I’m sick of this shit. I don’t want to spend the rest of my life beating him off with a stick. So. We get this over. And... ] She paused, her hands sliding along her shoulders as she got used to nudity again. The Air Force had communal showers, and the DIs during basic were real good about getting you to not worry about what other people thought of your naked ass without actually using a single cuss word. But it still had been a while.

And?

[I haven’t been laid in a fucking month, ] Dey hissed. [If it’s not that stupid trigger, it’s bullshit getting in the way. I’m horny enough to pound bulkheads down with my clit. So, I figure, I beat some aggression out on a naked alien dolphin, then we can maybe get it on back in our cabin.]

Loki simulated a hand slapping her rump. The meaty slap sound was music to her ears.

Lets kick his ass.

“If you hurt him,” Cherry started again.

Dey looked at her.

The asian girl bit her lip, looking Dey up and down.

“M-Maybe, uh, talk to me after?” she asked, smiling shyly.

Dey smirked, then swaggered through the door. Then she stopped and backed up. “You gotta be fucking kidding me.”

“What?” Cherry asked.

The sign above the door read – in smudged, somewhat poorly scribed, letters: Orgyarium.