Chapter 1

Princess Relix Castrovel of the Third Talon of the Spinward Front of the Chromatic Arm of the Galaxy reclined in her chair and considered destroying a planet out of pique. Her tail twitched and slapped against the divan that she sprawled across while her seneschal – a savant-slave that her father had purchased from the world of Torel – sucked down the vial of pure mana, smacked his lips, and recited the missive from memory.

Relix yawned, her hand covering her muzzle, as he went through the litany, and tried to not fall asleep.

“Your father, Emperor Dogan of the Five Talon Empire, wishes that you, his daughter by his fifth wife of the Third Talon, take a proper and noble mate from the sub-classes within the next galactic standard cycle. I hasten to remind you, Princess,” Seneschal Thuwit said, his head inclining in a slight bow. Relix thought it made him look rather silly, as his head was entirely bald and his long, pointed ears wobbled with the motion like a pair of radio antennas. She covered her mouth with a scaled, ring bedecked hand to stop the giggles from escaping.

“I hasten to remind you,” Thuwit said, again, as if he had sensed she wasn’t really paying attention. “The FTE is not the most stable of political constructs. A feudal dominion enforced by unity between chromatic and prismatic dragons, with the houses of the Dragonmoot balanced against-”

“Yes, yes, Thuwit, I know.” Relix sighed. She laid her head back and let all seven of her limbs sprawl as they would. Her tail lay across the floor, dripping off the side of the divan, while her wings unfolded and hung limp. She cast her arms over her head as if she was a fainting maiden, and wondered if Thuwit was so addled by the mana extract and his savant training that he couldn’t recognize the beauty of her scales, her jewelry. Her breasts. Her body. She doubted it. Because she doubted it, she let her irritation show as she snarled. “Father wants a controllable male to keep tabs on me and get some eggs for his precious spinward sectors” She shook her head. “I won’t be his brood mare...”

Thuwit coughed. “There is also the matter of tradition. Legality. The fact that in a centicycle, you will be of age to be courted, and chromatic dragons do not tend to take no for an answer...”

“What? Is some red in his battlefleet going to come by and just steal me like we were back on Home in the age of magic?” Relix scoffed.

Thuwit frowned. “Shall we ask Gunner that?”

Relix paused.

Thuwit had done something that irritated her immensely.

He had raised an eminently good point.

Relix stood, folding her wings primly behind her back. As she walked, she called up the holo-com with a click of her foreclaws. The small bundle of technology and magic hovered over on ducted fans that hissed nearly silently in the air, and then projected a perfect recreation of her body. Relix paused to check herself over. Her horns were growing out, curling along the edges of her rainbow hued frills, while her eye-shadow had started to run. She tapped at her wrist computer and the eye-shadow reset, the smart paint flowing back into circles that accented the gold of her eyes. She tapped through some colors before settling on a subdued black, which offset her silver scales. Her belly and breasts were mostly exposed by her filmy gown, which was more similar to a collection of ropes than a contiguous dress, the cloth reaching around and under her arms and her wings and her thighs to conceal everything that propriety demanded, while leaving everything else out to be admired.

Relix considered it.

She could scandalize old Gunner. Or she could actually get useful information from the crusty soldier. She sighed, then wiggled her fingers. Her robes plumped up, until she was surrounded in layer after layer of fabric and cloth and gold, glittering and gleaming. She looked like a great big cake, with hardened ridges of ornamentation surrounding her shoulders, cresting her head. Relix muttered under her breath in the vilest draconic she could think of, then tapped the holo-com on.

Gunner was a mountain of a man. She had forgotten which world he came from – some backwoods place the Empire hadn’t even contacted or thralled yet. He said that he had fought in some big war against some people called the Nasties or something and the FTE had grabbed him from a hospital and run experimentation on him – that had been during a spree of inventive medical research being carried out on sub-thrall races. The experimentation had worked, as he had legs again. They just happened to be the legs of some kind of insect. Carapace had grown over his shoulders and his eyes glowed coal red. If Gunner didn’t like what had happened, he had learned to keep quiet about it.

It wasn’t like he could go home again.

“Ma’am,” he said, inclining his head.

“Thuwit says that I need to be concerned about military action aimed at me,” Relix said, sighing quietly. “Specifically, some kind of kidnapping?”

“My men have been hearing rumors that several chromatic dragons have their eyes on your hand, ma’am,” Gunner said, shrugging. “Our men-at-arms are trained to stop kidnapping, but nothing’s perfect...”

Relix scowled.

“Let me guess, ma’am, you are thinking about what husband you want?” Gunner asked.

“I need a noble to shut my father up ... someone from the sub-races, to continue to wed the empire together ... and they need to be had before this cycle is up so no one tries to kidnap me...” Relix tapped her finger against her snout. “But someone I could control. Someone weak. And facile. And without magic.” She paused. “Say, Gunner, you said your people were mage blind, right?”

“Uh-”

“Right!” Relix brightened. “And you only live a few decades without augmentations!” She clapped her hands. “Ship-soul, attend! Set course for...” She paused. What had been the name of that place?

“Earth?” Gunner said, slowly.

“That was it!” Relix beamed. “Set course for Earth.”

The slavering were-rat was approaching the window at a dead run. Its claws scraped into the stone of the abandoned church of Selune while Rene realized that his plan might have been ill founded. It had been simple: Distract the were-rat from Mephilef and Tarak and Roslyn, and they would hopefully smash the were-rat to pieces with their weapons before it could clear their melee range. The only problem was Meph had no melee weapons, Roslyn was still trying to hold in her intestines, and Tarak...

Well.

Tarak just honestly didn’t like Rene that much. So, she didn’t try particularly hard to swing as the were-rat scampered past her and towards the taunting bard.

The were-rat leaped through the window and-

“Nat twenty!” Merton said. “ ... fuck.”

He looked up from the dice to the horrified players sitting at the rest of the table. In his effort to maintain his diet, Carlos was chowing down on his fiftieth strawberry in the past half hour, while Trevor had his hands over his face, peeking through the fingers, as if willing might change the die result. Lisa was tapping away at her phone – likely yelling at white supremacists on twitter. Merton sighed, drew in a deep breath, then rolled the damage die. It’d be okay, he just didn’t need to roll max damage-

“And that’s max damage,” he said. “Uh, Rene, you take twenty four damage-”

“Which puts me at negative bloodied. Well, I’m dead.” Trevor groaned, slumping his head to the side of the table, almost putting his long blond hair into a plate of grease – all that was left from the pizza.

“To be fair,” Lisa said. “It was a great plan, save for...” she pointed at the three twenty sided dice that had been each character’s attempt to slash the rushing were-rat as it ran past them. “One. Five. Four. Sorry, Trev.”

“At least we don’t need to keep listening to that French accent you were trying,” Carlos said, licking his lips clean of strawberry juice. Trevor glared at his friend, who held up his hands, as if to apologize. Merton, meanwhile, started to try and re-balance the rest of the dungeon with the idea of losing a fourth of the party. And he had already given them a non-player character to assist them, and she was currently bleeding to death. He rubbed his hands on his face ... but he had already gotten the plan in mind.

Unfortunately, the dice were red handed tonight. A cascading series of 1s left poor Meph slowly sinking in a pit of acid quicksand, which forced Rosylin and Tarak to decide to retire to the countryside – the whole table having decided that maybe they needed to try new characters. As they shuffled their character sheets away, Carlos grinned: “Well, we could play Exalted-”

“No,” the rest of the table said at the same time.

“Aww!” Carlos pouted. “Exalted’s cool.”

“I don’t wanna spend half the combat encounter fucking around with a rules set so complicated I need a six hundred page book telling me what to do!” Trevor snapped, clearly still testy about his bard’s unfortunate fate as were-rat droppings.

“Ah, yes, because 4th Edition D&D is soooo rules light!” Carlos shot back, throwing the half a dozen cards that he had been using to track his character’s powers before her unfortunate trip down the acid-shaft. The group split shortly later – Merton collected the pizza money, pocketed it, and waved as Lisa ushered them all out of her apartment. The three boys ambled to the elevator, and as it buzzed down, Trevor slapped Merton’s chest. “So, Mer, you up for the new Keanu movie?”

“John Wick?” Merton asked. “Nah. I can’t watch a movie where someone’s dog dies. Too depressing.”

“Does it help to know that he shoots everyone? Literally everyone?” Trevor said.

“What about the guys he stabs?” Carlos asked, grinning at the two of them.

“Hmm, still not really interested,” Merton said. “What I want to do is go home and go to sleep. I have work tomorrow.”

“You’re barely out of college, that’s when you start living, Merton!” Trevor said, walking with him as Carlos ambled after the duo. “That’s when you cut loose and see the world!”

“When I’m saddled with crippling student debt?” Merton asked, laughing. “No. No. Trevor, I’m going home. I’m going to sleep. And tomorrow, I’m going to be literally flipping burgers.”

“At least you work at In and Out!” Carlos said, grinning. “They pay pretty good.”

Trevor shrugged. “Well, fine. Carlos and I are going to see John Wick. Right, Carlos?”

“Si,” Carlos said, faux-seriously. The two of them walked left as the trio came out of the front of the apartment building. They rounded the corner almost immediately, vanishing into the parking lot that sprawled next to the complex. Merton sighed and rubbed his hand along his head. He closed his eyes and leaned against one of the pillars and pulled out his phone. He grinned and started to text his girlfriend.

Heading home! See you online soon! <3 <3 <3

Merton’s brow furrowed as he looked down. The ground underneath him was starting to shimmer and glow with a pale purple light. He stepped away from it, his mouth opening, then closing. “What the fuck?” he whispered, then looked up. Was someone using a drone or something? No. The light didn’t seem to come from anywhere. Then his skin started to prickle, as if he had been rolling around on a shag carpet. Static electricity crawled and he felt a growing sense of dread. Electricity sparked along his phone and crackled along his glasses. Merton’s eyes widened and he opened his mouth to scream-

And that was when the lightning bolt smashed into the ground. When it was gone, there was nothing but a scorch mark and a single smoldering iPhone case.

The smoke cleared and Merton waved his hand before his face, coughing. He was standing on a raised plinth of brass and wood, inset with six crystal plates. The crystal was a pale purple, and smoke rose from around the seam that joined it to the wood. The plinth had a series of steps leading down to a smooth black floor – it looked like obsidian, polished smooth enough to reflect anyone who stood on it. There was a control platform – or something that looked like it. Standing behind it was a...

Woman?

She had purple skin. Antennas. Large, dark black eyes. Hair the color of bleached teal. And she wore something that could have been called a “robe” in the same way a BDSM gimp outfit could be called a “business suit.” A thin strip of red cloth over her breasts, two plunging lines of leather between her thighs, barely covering her sex – she had to be hairless down there cause ... uh ... wow, hair would show. Her hands were each three fingered and covered with large work gloves. She tapped a few switches while a loud clicking came from the winding corridor that led out of the room.

Then around the corner came...

A...

A dragon.

Well, a dragon, if the dragon was also an unbelievably gorgeous woman. Her head came to a narrow, tapered muzzle. Her head had a shimmering array of feather-like ‘hair’ that came in a rainbow of cascading colors, starting with golds and reds and moving down the spectrum to blues and purples near her heart shaped rump. Her wings were elegant and hooked around her shoulders like a cape, while her breasts were roughly melon sized and as perky as if they had never known gravity or age in their life. The sheerness of her crisscrossing robe (only slightly less revealing than the purple skinned girl at the control console) made it abundantly clear that, yes, she had nipples.

Her tail twitched from side to side as she stood before Merton. Beside her stood ... well ... a bald elf. And bald was not a look that worked for elves. His lips were stained silver-blue and he had this slightly fidgety, twitchy look to him. Like he was about to collapse into spasms at any moment.

“Greetings, my honored noble guest,” the dragon said, her voice elegant and cultured. She was speaking English. Somehow. “And welcome to my ship, the Talon 9. I am Princess Relix Castrovel of the Third Talon of the Spinward Front of the Chromatic Arm of the Galaxy and I wish to offer you a chance few if any of your kind will ever see: The chance to win my hand ... in marriage.” She bowed her head low.

Merton blinked slowly.

Princess Castrovel looked up at him.

“Did ... did you say ... Chromatic Arm?” Merton asked.

“Well, yes,” she said. “The Five Talon Empire controls the Chromatic, Prismatic and Gemstone arms, as well as the Core and the Clouds of Tiamat!”

Merton opened his mouth, then closed it again. “Holy shit you control the Magellanic Clouds? How many planets do you have? Like, do you have the cool million, or are you more densely settled than the Imperium?” He put his hand on his forehead. “Holy shit, what’s your FTL like? Is it point to point teleportation, alternate universe, or do you just have a warp drive, where you bend space? Are you actual dragons, like, dragon dragons? Or ... wait, do you have magic? Or is it just super advanced technology? Wait, wait, how are you a Princess of just one part of the Empire? Or is this like ... wait, you have more than one Princess, so it is dispersed, isn’t it?” He looked around the ship, trying to drink in every detail, his brain whizzing at a million miles an hour.

Then what she said sank in.

“Wait, your hand in what?”

Princess Castrovel looked at her bald elf buddy. “I thought. You said. You grabbed. An idiot!” She snarled.

“I did!” The bald elf said.

“Hey!” Merton shouted.

“The psy-scan said that he had been doing simple arithmetic while thinking of counter-factuals in a barely coherent manner!” The bald elf continued as Castrovel growled at him. “It fit the exact patterns of young children, and yet, his age was consistent with one who should be fully grown!”

“It’s fucking Dungeons and ... Dra ... and ... it’s a game!” Merton said. Here he was. In fucking space, talking to fucking space people, and they were still looking down at him for being a nerd! What the fuck! Then he shook his head. “And fuck you it was barely coherent, it’s not MY fault our bard decided to play ratbait!”

Castrovel snarled. “Put him back and get me someone more tractable!”

“Well, he is mage blind-”

“I don’t care!” Castrovel said, grabbing the bald elf’s shirt, shaking him. “Have you not seen a single speely? Take in the seemingly simple savage, and before you know it, he’s bedded half the female members of the household and is toppling the Empire! It happens every time. What do you suggest we do next, give our men-at-arms face concealing helmets and standardized uniforms so that enemy agents can infiltrate us more easily?” She shook him again. “Send him back!”

Merton blinked, slowly.

The bald mage shook his head. “We can’t.”

“You can’t?” Castrovel snarled.

But it was the purple skinned woman who broke in – and good thing, too. From Merton’s perspective, the bald elf looked ready to collapse into a heap. “Princess Castrovel, the law is clear. No mage blind sub-race can be returned with knowledge of the Empire to their homeworld, not unless they are being officially inducted as a Thrall World.”

“Fine!” Castrovel said, flinging up her hand. “We’ll thrall the planet! Your people seem to be reasonably useful. We can do it with this ship alone.” She turned to the purple woman. “Tell Gunner to prep the vortex torpedoes.”

Merton’s eyes widened. “I wouldn’t do that if I were you.”

Castrovel slowly turned her head to look at him. She looked furious. Tiny sparkles of lightning crackled from around her muzzle as she said, her voice as sweet as a summer day. “And why, human, is that?” she asked, and Merton’s throat felt dry. But he had spent years learning to think on his feet. And ... well...

He grinned. “The human race doesn’t take well to being enslaved when other humans are doing it. People will leap to their deaths to escape slave ships, and murder their masters at the first easy chance they got...” He shrugged. “And so, humanity has created a defense against enslavement that will defeat any attempt that your Empire can throw at it.”