Chapter 12

Anyway, for the rest of the month, I got rammed hardocre by Ra. Like, not even kidding, she did not quit fucking me for more than two days straight. I think it was because I did kinda sorta keep egging her on, by being a snooty little cutie, but also, it was maybe a little bit inspired by just how incredibly cute I was on space HRT ... and ... like, also, I had a load of free time and technically, Ra was my bodyguard. So, I’d be all like: “Hey, Mary, I think I will go out on the grounds, I think I will need my bodyguard.”

And Mary would be like: “ ... really? I mean, oh, yes! Right! Of course!”

Then wham.

Smash cut to me, tits down in the grass, ass in the air, pussy stuffed to the brim with Ra’s thick, delicious cock as she gripped my hips and just slammed me into the dirt, snarling and grunting quietly - the three of us surrounded by nature and the twittering of birds. Yes, the three of us – Mary did always come with and always stand off to the side, watching with wide, glowing eyes and blazing cheeks. Then Ra would dump a thick load of hot, delicious robot cum into my tight pussy, then smack my ass, call me something crudely complimentary, and I’d be all like ... really ... deeply profoundly happy.

And that’s how the month went!

... except for when, uh...

Ra ... sometimes?

She’d sometimes, like ... push me against a tree. And growl in my ear.

“Grow your dick.”

Then she’d, like, grind her dick against mine, lube her cock, and then fuck my ass until I came over myself. That was usually followed by her then rubbing my nose in what a filthy mess I made and what a little girl slut I was.

So, yeah, sometimes, I’d lay around and be deeply and profoundly overjoyed beyond my wildest imagination!

Ah...

But, alas, months cannot last forever and eventually, Amelia got back to me – not just with a letter, but with his own personage. He met with me in the sitting room, looking as luminously gorgeous as ever and soon we were sipping tea and swapping stories and generally having a good time catching up. “Now, about this question in your letter...” Amelia said once he was done hearing about my latest adventures with a flying horse.

“Can it be done?” I asked, curiously.

“Oh, easily,” Amelia said, setting his cup down with a faint clink click. “My ship actually needs the practice – we’ve been pillaged.”

I gaped. “Like ... with Vikings?”

Amelia laughed, a deep, wonderful laugh that made me entirely forget the entire sentence. He leaned back in his seat. “No, no, the Otter, my charming girl.” He smiled. “She’s a fast frigate, fresh off the lines, and in a bad need of fresh hands, so her captain plucked half my foremast Jacks, Jills and Wills to fill out her crew.” He shook his head. “Left me entirely at a loss for the moment ... I rather liked the crew I’d managed to get...”

“Can’t they just make more?” I asked, my brow furrowing.

“Oh, certainly, they’re always making more,” Amelia said. “But the problem is combat ready Wills are downright rare – the issue being that most Wills are built to crew starships, but they’re not built for fighting. When they were first programmed, we didn’t know if there even would be fighting in the furthest reaches – and changing the baseline code of a stable machine-line is...” he paused. “Well, the Most Honorable Royal Machine Company is loath to do it. So, unlike Doras and Theos, most Wills are more than happy to sail frigates or transports and passenger liners ... but only a small bare fraction are willing to clap to to a coilgun and match blades with an autowar’s boarding morphs.”

“Ooooooooh,” I said. “So you have to steal them!”

“Well, it’s not really stealing ... they just were a higher rank than me...” Amelia grumbled. “ ... okay, fine, it was stealing.”

“Wait, why don’t you use Doras and Theo-deeoh...” I chuckled. “Little did you suspect, it was I, Dio! In your Spaceship!” I giggled more into my cup.

Ameilia arched an eyebrow. “You’re not going to believe the answer.’

“Oh, but I shall!” I said, as dramatically as possible.

“They think fighting in microgravity is ... gross,” Amelia said, nodding his head solemnly.

“ ... gross?” I asked.

Amelia nodded again.

“You know, that totes makes sense, like...” I paused. “Like, they have fighting instinct. Like Orks, from Warhammer 40,000!” I rubbed my chin. “So, like, they have all these instincts for punching and bayonetting and musketing, and stuff like that, but in space, it’s all space bayonetting and space musketing. It’d be like walking with an inner ear infection! All your instincts are wrong.” I shook my head. “It’d definitely feel gross, that’s totally sensible.”

Amelia smiled, then opened his mouth- but then I cut her off.

“Wait, what about the Wills on your ship? Can’t they say ‘hey, whoa, wait, I don’t wanna go with you!’” I asked.

“Well, yes, but ... I told them to go ... it’d be improper to refuse a superior officer,” Amelia said, her brow furrowing slightly.

“That was silly of you,” I said, cheerfully. “So, you have some new Wills and such, as your crew?”

“Worse,” she said. “I have some human voidsmen too.”

I choked on my tea, impressive considering how there wasn’t any in my cup. “Humes? Soft squishy, radiation sick getting, not built in a factory humes? With the fingers and everything?” I asked. “But how? Why? When? Where? What?!”

Amelia laughed. “Humans do enjoy a spot of adventure from time to time, despite the best the top secret eugenics program has managed.” He says, cheerfully.

“There’s a top secret- oh, you’re kidding,” I said, blushing, as Amelia grinned mercilessly at me. I crossed my arms over my chest, huffing as huffily as I could. “So, you have some human goons? Are they suspicious Treasure Island types or jolly Jolly Rodger types?”

“Those are both pirates,” Amelia said, his voice dry.

“Ah, no!” I raised my hand. “One will wait until we’re at the island to kill us. The other will wait until our backs are turned to kill us.”

“They’re mostly kids, about your age,” Amelia said, his voice dry.

“So, about your age,” I said. Amelia tried to look properly proper, sitting up further in his seat.

“I have attained the lists, they are merely noble wastrels who are playing at being a sailor,” he said, sniffing officiously. “There’s only three, though: Mr. Herbert, Mr. David and Mr. Drake.”

“Three boys, eh?” I rubbed my chin. “Bishi or Bears?”

Amelia arched an eyebrow at me.

“Good point, boys drool, ladies rule, he/him lesbians excluded!” I said, nodding and standing up, my skirts rustling around me. “All right! So, how much do I owe you for the ship?”

“Honestly, if you just buy the target skiffs off the junkyard, and the drone crews for them, and the coolant powder for my coilguns, and the ferroshot, then ... well, to be frank, I should be paying you for letting me run my crew through their paces.” He smiled. “So, how about instead of paying me in something as low and common as money, you instead give me the favor of spending more time in your delightful presence?”

Duh hurrrrr girl yes ... I thought.

Out loud I said: “ ... y ... yes ... g ... good, money ... b ... Me ... Mary, uh ... Maid ... make ... money ... thing.” I moved my hands in a vaguely throwing gesture. “Make money thing.”

“Got it, young miss!” Mary said.

“Okay, are you-”

“Oh, wait, Mary!” I said, writing this part down before I started writing what happened next. “Don’t let Jeanette know! It’s gonna be a surprise!” I nodded, then winked at her, then tapped the side of my nose.

“Got it, young miss!” Mary said, then scampered out of the room.

Okay, now scene break.

“Okay, are you ready?” I asked, as Jeanette walked forward, awkwardly, her arms reaching out before her, as if she was afraid of running into anything. To our left, Jenny and Ra were keeping pace, Ra looking thoughtful, Jenny looking maliciously eager. To our right, Amelia was ambling along, with his hands behind his back, a cheerful smile upon his face. And to our ahead, there was Jeanette, blindfolded and nervous.

“Oh, tarnation...” she muttered. “Why do I let myself get talked into these things?”

“Cause you love it?” Jenny asked.

Jeanette grumbled under her breath – but then I grabbed onto her blindfold and tugged it off. “Voila!” I said. “Behold ... your ship, Madame Capitoline!”

Jeanette stood in complete shock – her mouth would have been gaping if she had had one. Because we had quietly managed to abscond with her to the docking spar of my habitat home – reachable via the basement. Since, you see, the ring done did a spinny to make the ‘stick on the ground field’ that we all knew and love. So, if a ship wanted to dock with us, she had to fly into these, like, hooky bays that thrust out of the bottom. Like scoopers! You would fly down, move ahead of a scooper, then slowly slow down relative to the scooper until it had scooped you up and bam, you were there. If you wanted to launch your ship, the scooper would just hinge out and let you “drop” away from the spinny. It was all very clever and I’m sure there were fancy space words for everything I’d just said but ... whatever.

So, we were standing in the scooper – with the force dome keeping all the oxygen inside – and there was Amelia’s ship, the Lilly. She was this needle thin, graceful looking starship of wood and glittering porcelain that Amelia had told me were actually super advanced materials but, hey, it looked like wood and porcelain. There was a deck, there were spars that looked like they could hold sails, and there was a huge set of rocket engines at the back, while the sides of the ship had heavy duty portholes on the sides – and a few narrow, snub nosed guns that peeped out of recessed holes in them. The whole thing made me go ‘oooooooh’ and put my hand to my face, my mouth opening.

“W-What is this? My ship? What?” Jeanette asked.

“My crew needs a bit of practice at handling the rigging and the guns,” Amelia said, cheerfully, clapping his hand upon Jeanette’s shoulder. “And your mistress said that your dearest dream was to captain a ship. With you giving the orders, I can walk among the Jacks and Wills and see how well they manage things.”

“I ... I...” Jeanette stammered. “Mistress, young Miss, I ... this is so much!” she put her hands to her face, metal clicking gently on metal. “ ... is that a pirate flag?”

“I put that on, it was me, I did it!” I said, bouncing excitedly, pointing at the pirate flag that I had thrown over one of the railings. “Yar har fiddle dee dee, motherfuckers!”

Ra shot me a look.

I coughed. “ ... being a pirate is all right to be...” I muttered. Trailed off. Quieted down. Blushed.

Amelia smiled.

“Do you want to take a tour of your ship, my captain?”

“YES!” Jeanette squealed.

And thus, we were off – all of us scrambling aboard. Going inside the ship was almost as exciting as peering at it from a distance. The entire thing looked like it’d be cramped and close in and kinda ugly, and the first two were true, but the last was absolutely NOT true by any stretch of the imagination. Everything was glossy brass and dials and gauges and glittering lights in filigreed cages of wrought iron – it was like that ship from James Cameron’s The Titanic, whatever it’s name was, I had seen Kate Winslet’s nude body and all thought had left my brain for nearly a week afterwards. Except what if that unnamed ship had also been in space.

And it had guns.

“This is the bridge, that’s astrogation, these are the firing control systems,” Amelia said, cheerfully, gesturing around himself at the various bits and bobs. “And there’s the seat for the countess.” His hand swept out and I followed it at the obvious termination point: A comfortable looking seat of gold and red cushions, with a few small lenses settled around it. “Complete with force screens and ejection systems.”

“Oooh- hey!” I said. “I don’t need to be coddled.”

“Ah, but you do. As my guest, and also, a rank civilian, you have to be coddled to the upmost. Imagine how I’d look, if I let you come to some kind of bodily harm while aboard my ship.” Amelia shook his head. “The Admiralty board would have my head.” He clicked his tongue. “Into the seat.”

“She does have a point, young miss,” Mary said, ducking her head to lean in close, her fans whirring softly.

“And as the honorary captain for this here outing...” Jeanette added in, while Jenny nodded in mute agreement.

“I do think-” Ra rumbled from the background.

“Fine! Okay! Christ on Crutches, you are the most clingy group of ambulatory boilers I have ever met!” I said, then put my tiny tush down on the comfy noble chair.

“For the last time, we’re not ... there’s ... no BOILERS!” Jenny exploded.

“Then why’s steam coming out of your ears, touche, checkmate, you are the weakest link,” I said, while the protection fields hummed to life with a soft woob woob woob noise. But as Jeanette started to give directions to the (mostly) mechanical crew of the Lilly, Amelia leaned himself against the wall beside my comfortable chair, tipped his tricorn hat backwards, then said.

“So...” he grinned. “You can’t escape now.”

“Well, yeah, of course I can, that’s what this button’s for,” I said, pointing at a red button.

“That’s the servant call button,” Amelia said. “The ejection controls are automated.”

“I ... well...” I paused, then thumbed the red button, experimentally. Mary hurried over, then leaned down to whisper against the side of the humming protection field.

“Do you need something, young miss?” she whispered.

“Validation,” I said.

“You are an extremely pretty princess,” Mary said, seriously. “And an excellent Dracula.”

“Yay!” I said.

“You ... ask your servants to call you Dracula?” Amelia asked, his brow furrowing as he looked down at me. I huffed.

“If I’m going to have fangs and need to drink blood to cure my hemophilia,” I said, as if this was some kind of onerous burden and not the best possible universe I could have possibly found myself in. “Then I am going to at the very least own the mystique and the hotness.”

“You know, in the novel, Dracula was a weird, creepy fellow with a single eyebrow, right?” Amelia asked.

I snorted, muttering under my breath. “Gary Oldman could fuck me, just saying...”

Amelia glanced down the long, narrow corridor that made up the center of the ship, while Jeanette barked orders that could have just been ‘ship shippington, ship it up!’ for all the sense they made to me. Deep, resonant rumbling noises began to creak and groan through the hull, and through the narrow portholes on the sides of the bridge, I could see that we had fallen away from my home station and were beginning to spread our sails out. The sails themselves weren’t ... like ... cloth. They were a glowing orange-white fabric that unfolded in geometric patterns, guided along nearly invisible wires and struts that the mechanical crew laid out, clad in their bulky looking space suits. Note to self, ask why robots had to wear space suits. Within a few minutes, the sails had hit their full spread – and goddamn, it was a lot of sails. Like, they stretched on and on and on and on, a vast maze of interlocking rectangles of sail, which didn’t so much ‘bell’ as it shimmered and glowed with an inner light.

“They’re catching the photons, cast our by this merry old sun,” Amelia murmured to me. “Once we’re a safe distance from the station, we can activate the voltaic-hydrogen rocket and put on some real speed – pulling us out to where the target ships are moored. And along the way, you can tell me what you did with the real Albert Fitzland and who you are, Lucy.”

“Well, I-” I stopped, then snapped my head around. Amelia was looking quite serious, his face settled into a frown, his dark, dark black skin making him look like an ambulatory shadow in the otherwise brightly lit interior of the Lilly. “W ... Wha ... t ... ever ... do ... you mean?”