Chapter 3

“Wait,” Cindi said, her hands holding up in an unconscious emulation of the guy from the alien channel talking about aliens. Like, you know, the image used on all those memes that came right after first contact where they replaced ‘aliens’ with ‘dragons.’ “Why the heck aren’t we going to his parents?” She thrust her finger at me, which made me wave at her excitedly.

“That is a good question,” Princess Kira said, looking at me.

“Oh! They’re busy,” I said, nodding sagely. “Mom and Dad are in the Magellanic Clouds, doing some diplomatic work with one of the Drow kingdoms out there. I bet it’s going great!”

Merton Miles Castrovel dangled from his ankles, his arms aiming at the web strewn floor. The sound of distant air thrumming through web-shrouded air vents was the only noise he could hear other than the faint creak and groan of depleted uranium chains and enchanted webs that stuck his wife, Relix Miles Castrovel, to the wall across from him. Her muzzle was covered with a webbing gag, preventing her from speaking any of the verbal components to her various spells. Not that the magic dampening field in the cell would let her get past the first somatic pass.

“Well,” the former Princess Gildenstiena, sixth in line to succession for the Drow Matriarch of the Magellanic Clouds, said. She was the only one who had been chained to the floor rather than the ceiling. “I guess Mom really didn’t like Hamilton.”

Merton sighed. “At least Brash is with Aunt Lisa...” he muttered.

“Mmphmm!” Relix grumbled. Translated from web-gag-ese, that was: I’m blaming you for this, you know?

“Super great!” I said, looking ominously at the only unoccupied wall of the ship. Slowly, P90 leaned into my field of vision.

“What are you looking at?” she asked.

“The fourth wall!” I said, cheerfully. “You know! Where Linkara lives!”

“ ... who?” Princess Kira asked as Cindi slapped both palms over her face.

“The question I really need answered,” I said, spinning around on my heel in the tiny cockpit of the Rusty Dragon to face Princess Kira, who was mashed up against G282 because, again, this was a tiny cockpit on a relatively small space yacht. The forward cockpit window was shuttered against the deleterious effect of subspace on most non-dragon psyches. What is subspace, I may hear you cry? Well, first, it was that headpsace that submissive get into when they’re really into a scene, which their dominants help them get out of with aftercare. But after a few hundred years of space flight using spelljammers and planar portals to get from place to place faster than mean old Farmer Einstein wants us to, some smart cookie that I’m pretty sure was a gnome invented the subspace drive.

And since he named it the subspace drive, I think he was some kind of combo of kinkstro and awesome particle physicist, like Heisenberg!

Still, subspace drives use negative energy drawn from the Plane of Negation to create a rapidly rotating hyperdimensional object that is able to literally punch a hole from the Prime Material to an area of the multiverse that I believe most gods have described as “oh, that bit.” But where gods found a massive area of incoherent spatial distances relatively useless, us dragons (and everyone else who uses subspace drives) found it crazy useful. Basically, every point in subspace is a random distance from every other point, in this huge confusing mess of snakes and ladders. But that array of connections has no bearing on the physical universe that we’re currently in!

Sooooo, if you wanted to get from point A to B in the Prime Material universe you’re in but those points are several thousand light years apart, never fear! In subspace, all you have to do is find a route that corresponds to point A and then fly to the point that corresponds with point B and take advantage of the topological differences so ensure that you arrive there way faster!

This did mean that sometimes a subspace jump could take five minutes while other times it takes five weeks depending on the layout of subspace points. Again, it was a random spread of distances between corresponding points.

Fortunately, Cindi’s navicomp had a huge advantage!

... spoilers, the advantage was me.

“ ... is?” P90 asked. I realized I had been thinking of subspace for, like, five seconds. I shook my head.

“Right! The question I need answered is what the ding dong heck is fucking going on!?” I said, turning to Princess Kira. “Why are Mind Flayers chasing you?”

Princess Kira sighed, quietly. “The Illithids are merely one of the agents that have been hired by our true enemy. Lord Darkeye.” She said the name and in the distance, you could hear faint rumbling and growling of thunder and lightning, even though we were in a spelljammer deep in subspace and nowhere near a spooky castle.

“The hell kind of name is Lord Darkeye?” Cindi asked, giggling. “Was Darth Evilicus taken or something?”

Princess Kira frowned. “Lord Darkeye is no laughing matter, Miss Fong.” She shook her head as G282 held up her hand, flexing it so her wrist thrust into the air. A bit of her golden skin folded backwards, revealing a glowing crystal that hummed and flared, projecting a flickering hologram of Lord Darkeye himself. Imagine, if you will, a sphere about the size of a small tank. But instead of a turret, it has a huge eye in the center of its body. And rather than armor plating, it has a bunch of tentacles writhing from the circumference of said body, each one tipped with a smaller eyeball. That’s a Beholder, right? Well, Lord Darkeye had a few tiny differences from the standard Beholder look. For one thing, his body looked covered in scars, with the snarling mouth most Beholders have being covered by a cow-catcher style cybernetic prosthethsis. Two cybernetic arms were attached to either side of a chicken-legged cybernetic walking seat that the Beholder looked wired into. Basically, imagine a Beholder that had joined the Adeptus Mechanicus and they had built him a Mad Cat (or, I guess, Timber Wolf if you’re a clanner scumwad) to tool around in.

“Yeesh!” I shook my head. “What happened to him?”

“An adventurer named Sojara the Red managed to almost kill him. Almost.” G282 clicked her tongue. “She left him without hovering organs, but Darkeye managed to survive. He was nearly killed five more times by other Beholders and evil creatures, but he survived each time, thanks to his cunning and skill with both diplomacy and exceedingly well timed betrayals.” She closed her fingers, the hologram vanishing a moment later. “He forced dwarven and gnomish cybernetic experts to construct his war-frame, adding its armor and force projection to his already innate powers. He carries tactical nuclear weapons as a matter of course, ontop of the emergency plane shift drive.”

Cindi gulped, loudly. “W-Why hasn’t the UN tried to kill him?”

“He’s so far kept himself to the galactic south,” G282 said. “Far from UN space. They know he’s a threat, and would kill him if they could. But...” She spread her hands. “The United Nations may be very strong. It may have the fastest growing navy in the galaxy, and the backing of every metallic kingdom and republic in the galaxy, but it’s still only one planet.”

“Two!” Cindi said, somewhat defensively. “We Made It!”

“Fine, one planet and one barely established colony,” G282 said, frowning.

“Humanity, represent!” I said, lifting my hand to get a fist bumpster from Cindi. She looked at my fist, then at me, then slowly bumped her knuckles against mine.

G282 sighed, then started to tick off her fingers – with a tiny ding ding ding as gold met gold. “His allies don’t just include Mind Flayers. He’ll have aligned himself with drowish pirates, druger slavers, Ousters, Zindi, Bethrezan, the Lich.”

“The Lich?” I asked. “Like ... from Adventure Time?”

G282 cocked her head. There was a faint whirring sound. “The children’s show? Absolutely not, this Litch is a serious threat and highly dangerous entity.”

“ ... so, the Lich from Adventure Time!” I said, nodding.

Cindi sighed. “So, what do we do?” She asked. “If staying on Earth is just giving these bad guys a chance to raise hell, where can we go?”

“Currently, the Mind Flayers are the biggest threat,” P90 said, her arms crossed over her chest, her frown intent. “They have shown the ability to track us – until we figure out how, anywhere we go is going to have them show up. So ... I suggest we head for a place where they can cause the least amount of damage.” She lifted her chin, looking straight at G282.

“Oh no!” G282 said, shaking her head. “Absolutely not, are you insane?”

I looked between the two as P90 shot back: “Desperate times, Gee.”

“Desperate times, yeah, but not that desperate!” G282 said. Kira was also watching them lobby back and forth – but unlike me, she was looking increasingly irritated as they sniped.

“We have an in with them,” P90 said. “We need to take advantage of it.”

“The political ramifications of that are-”

“Enough!” Kira shouted, slamming her foot down, her hands clenching. “I may have been knocked unconscious for most of this little escapade so far, but I’m awake right now! And right now, I demand to know what our options are. Then we, as a group, can decide how we’re going to solve this. We’re in this thing together now. WE need to act like it.” She crossed her arms over her chest, squishing her smallish breasts against her chest as she scowled fearsomly at her two golems. Both golems bowed their heads.

“Apologies, your most serene highness,” G282 said.

P90 grunted. But it was a very apologetic grunt.

G282 frowned, then looked at us. “Mind Flayers will be able to dominate a distressing swath of the galaxy. However, there is one planet where they will be utterly stymied. Because everyone there will have the exact same power.” She sighed. “Necronox IV.”

I gasped.

Cindi scowled, slightly. “You say that like either Brash or I would know what or where that is.”

I blushed. “C-Cindi, I was trying to hide that by gasping dramatically.”

Cindi’s scowl shifted, for just a moment, into a little smile. “I know, Brash.”

G282 did her neato wrist trick again. She projected a planet that looked like it was super stylish. There was one side that was a bright yellowish brown, shimmering like Arrakis or all the subpar Arrakis wannabes that populated space. Not that I had actually read Dune. But I had seen the miniseries from, like, 2001 with the amazing hats. Which was basically the same thing, though I had kinda fallen asleep in the middle and wasn’t quite sure where all the cool hats had gone. But whatever! The important thing was that Necronox IV had another cool part. See, one half was all desert-ey. But the other side was nearly pure black, and glittered with millions of bright flickering lights. And in the midsection, there was that terminus of evening time that looked faintly green and welcoming.

“This is Necronox IV,” G282 said. “A tidally locked planet.”

“Like...” Cindi cocked her head. “Like, uh, it doesn’t have tides?”

“No.” G282 said, the hologram shifting, to show Necronox IV in its orbit around its star. It spun in a circle, constantly keeping the desert side facing the sun, like it was a guy in a hospital scrub who was unwilling to show off his butt to the doctor, no matter how important butt showing was for this particular procedure. Come on, the doctors wouldn’t have made your butt available if it wasn’t freaking important, guys! “Necronox IV is, essentially, a land of eternal night. This is why it was settled...” She paused, dramatically. “By the Camarilla.”

“Holy fuckballs, Otto Von Bismark was a SPACE ALIEN!?” I squealed. “I fucking KNEW IT!”

“No, they’re vampires, Brash,” G282 said, frowning.

“Oh.” I blinked. “Neat!”

The subspace route from SOL to the star charmingly referred to as Necronox was pretty circuitous. We’d need to spend two days jumping around subspace until we got to a point that would drag us right to the solar system – and for those two days, we had to figure out how to survive. There were five peeps in a yacht built for, at most, three. Moi, Princess Kira, P90, G282 and Cindi. Cindi, being no longer required to maintain the spelljammer bubble since we were in the only barely real realm of subspace, slept in the cockpit. P90 and G282 both didn’t need to snooze but also didn’t have privacy issues, so they crammed themselves into the closet in the one stateroom, which Kira took.

Meanwhile, I shrank to tiny cat sized and found a nook to curl up and snooze in!

However, in the middle of the first day, when I was traipsing towards the tiny kitchen and the tiny fridge that had a bit of food in it, I stopped myself dead. “Holy fucking what!?” I squeaked. This little squeak of surprise drew a muffled grunt of surprise and a loud prang sound from the kitchen, followed by a muffled stream of extremely angry swearing in Dwarven, which my head computer refused to translate beyond filling my subtitles with #*! and @!(!.

Yeah, I had subtitles. I have a head computer with a HUD. Why wouldn’t I have subtitles? Subtitles are crazy useful! They also help you tell which homonym someone is using!

Still, I sprang into the kitchen and saw P90. She had put a dent the size of her head into the fridge and was holding the pulped mass of a cucumber in her hand. I hissed angrily at the cucumber, leaping onto the tiny counter top in the kitchen. “Grr! Cucumbers!”

“What?” P90 snarled, rubbing her head. Then, quickly. “I wasn’t doing anything!”

I cocked my head. “I ... didn’t say you were?” I asked.

P90 flushed, then thrust her green goop splattered hand under the faucet. Water sluiced her hand clean and she shook her head. I frowned and slowly narrowed my eyes, willing myself to go into Batman style detective vision. Unfortunately, I wasn’t actually a detective. So, instead, I just had to ask: “Uh, why were you holding a cucumber, Pee?” I paused. “Okay, that is a terrible nickname. Should I just stick to P90?”

She sighed. “Yes. And I was...” She paused. “Looking for ... a ... candy. Snack. For. Uh. Maintenance.” She nodded, slightly.

“Wow, and I thought I was a bad lieman,” I said, shaking my head slightly.

P90 sighed. She turned to face me, holding a washcloth. She rubbed it along her forearm, drying the last bits of water that had skidded along her muscular, pink arm. She looked right at me, frowning. “I couldn’t just stand around, okay? I’ve got enough energy in my nuclear taffy reactor that I want to just burn a hole in the ship. I don’t like that we’re going to a Cam planet.”

“But you suggested it.” I said, shifting to my human form. I put my palms on the kitchen counter as I lay there, looking seriously at P90. For some weird reason, P90’s cheeks flushed a dark red, turning her pinkish skin nearly into gumballs of raw embarrassment. I grinned at her. She looked cute when she blushed. Her eyes drifted down, then back up to me.

“Just because I suggested it didn’t mean I liked it,” she said, leaning slowly against the wall, crossing her arms over her chest. Almost like she was trying to be super casual. But she was actually doing a really bad job at super casualness. Her eyes kept flicking away from my eyes to travel over my body. Which, to be fair, made sense! I was crazy cute! I grinned at her and leaned forward.

“Does this have something to do with the political ramifications that G282 mentioned?” I asked.

“Basically? Yes.” P90 said, her tongue darting out. Her eyes had dropped down to my thighs basically permanently now. I grinned and shifted slightly on my seat, the cold tile of the counter top warming under my buns. I was trying to figure out why P90 was looking down at my junk. Was I bulging? I usually did bulge. I had, like, a big ass cock. If you could shapeshift, why not have a big dick? Science says: No reason not! Still, I was a bit curious about this political arrangement thing. But P90 didn’t look ready to elaborate ... which reminded me of why I had gasped earlier.

“Gasp Part Two!” I said.

“W-What?” P90 jerked her eyes up, her cheeks flushing even more. I slipped off the counter, feeling a slightly cool chill slide along my balls coming from the partially opened fridge door. I put my finger against her chest, scowling slightly.

“Kira never said why Darkeye was hunting her!” I said.

P90’s lips were pursed and she looked like every iota of willpower was being used to keep her eyes on my eyes. Her hands slowly slid along her sides, then settled onto her hips. She was breathing shallowly. Her voice was quite. “Brash ... I came here ... because the energy I’m feeling is...” She clenched her jaw. “I’m ... so fucking horny, and I want to jill off, but I’m literally stuck in a godsdamn broom closet and you swinging that goddamn baseball bat around is not fucking helping.”

I blinked.

I looked down.

“Oh! Pants!” I laughed. “That’s what I forg-”

P90 grabbed me and kissed me. Hard. Her tongue slipped into my mouth – but it was an awkward thing. Like, have you ever kissed a combat golem that had never kissed anyone before? They totally know that tongues are supposed to go into your kissfriend’s mouth, but they are totally lost past that point. Her tongue pressed against mine and her teeth bumped against my lips and she grabbed and squeezed my ass, grinding me against her. My cock hardened, growing longer and thicker as blood rushed to all the right places. My tongue and hers met and dueled and P90 proved that she was really good at learning. My hands went to her shoulders, feeling her broad muscles. Then my hands slipped along her arms to her wrists, squeezing her as I slipped my tongue back, then bit her lower lip. P90 drew back, panting heavily.

“I-I don’t even need to breathe,” she whispered, her voice husky and eager. “Why am I panting?”

“Cause I’m really damn good at this,” I murmured, then leaned forward. This time, I gave her the old extending tongue trick. Dragons, it is well known, have extremely long tongues. I let my humanish tongue transform into a full dragon’s tongue, uncoiling down P90’s mouth, into her throat like a wriggling tentacle. Her whole body stiffened. Her eyes went wide ... and then slowly closed as she leaned into my kiss. There is something so stupidly erotic about feeling a throat constrict around your tongue. It’s even more intense when the girl you’re kissing doesn’t need to breathe – and knows it. My hands cupped her ass now. It was like squeezing two athletic peaches, and when I squeezed her, she groaned against me.

I broke the kiss. But my tongue was long enough that it remained in her throat for a few seconds before retracting fully. P90 quivered. “F-Fuck...” she whispered.

“Lets keep this quiet...” I murmured, taking hold of her tanktop. She nodded, eagerly, as I tugged her shirt up and off. Her breasts rose and fell with the movement, jiggling deliciously. Her dark pink skin glimmered faintly, like she was freshly oiled, and her nipples were two tiny red-black hard candies, thrusting out against her skin. I leaned forward and caught one, sucking on it. A sweet burst of flavor exploded on my tongue and P90 had to bite her lip hard enough to leave white dimples to keep from moaning. My right hand cupped her breast, rolling her nipple gently, with my left slipped between her thighs.

Her completely hairless pussy was dripping with arousal. I slipped two fingers along her folds, feeling the friction-less gum opening eagerly for me. I teased her with two tips – then drew mouth and hand back. P90 had upgraded from biting her lip to chomping down on her own hand to keep quiet. I grinned wickedly at her, then tested a hypothesis.

My tongue slurped up the juices my finger and palm had collected. It was quite a lot of slickness, by the way. She was positively dripping with arousal. My eyes didn’t leave hers as I licked, and from the way P90’s legs quivered, she liked seeing me so eagerly devour her juices.

She tasted like bubblegum.

Like...

Exactly like bubblegum.

I dropped to my knees, grabbing her thighs, sliding my hands to the backs of her knees. P90 barely had time to grab onto the few handholds the wall of the kitchen offered her before I lifted her up and dove in. My mouth pressed to the folds of her sex and I slid my tongue into her, my nose grinding against the white and pink speckled jellybean that was her eager little clitty. As I teased her clit, my tongue tasted the exotic swirl of flavors that came from eating out a candy golem. Her skin was bubblegum and her juices were bubblegum, but as my tongue quested inside her soaked cunny, I tasted first gum, then tangy lemon, then zesty watermelon, then a shocking burst of pure sourness. But touching that sourness made P90 lock up, her legs clenching, her heels drumming against my back as she arched her spine.