Only human-based life forms would be so idiotic as to choose to live on an ancient skeleton drifting in space. Savoness was a Free City, one of the many supposedly unaligned artificial city-states that floated around the more inhabited areas of space. Built on the remains of an ancient leviathan, the grey mottled ribs of the snake-like beast were now curving towers where the richest of the citizens now lived. Everyone else, specifically the workers, made do with the lower pieces of the spine where they mined the skeleton for some ultra rare mineral vital to maintaining the few hyperspace jump gates in existence. The entire thing was encased in an Angel-made gravity bubble, generated by drones that floated around the entire structure. By most understandable logic, floating cities like this shouldn’t exist, but Angel tech was crazy shit that nobody really understood.

I veered the ship towards the docking port waited for the port authority to grant me access. Ral’s voice behind me made me jump. “Free cities are havens for criminals and pirates.”

“For stars' sake, stop sneaking up on me.”

“I’m not sneaking, you’re not listening. Are you going to get a new hull there?”

“Yes.” Among other things.

There was a weird silence. Rumor had it that werewolves could sense lies. “I see,” he said finally.

I set the ship on auto-pilot, swiveled, and unbuckled myself from my seat.

He blocked my way. My face was only centimeters from his naked chest. His scent enveloped me, flashing images of what we had done.

I looked up at him, trying to ignore how close he was. “If you will excuse me, Your Highness, Red and Her Highness are waiting for me in the common area.”

He leaned in closer, almost close enough to kiss. I didn’t know if that was his intention or if he was doing that shifter-invasion-of-personal-space-thing in an effort to intimidate. A dangerous smile spread across his lips. “What games are you playing, Captain?”

I was warm all the way to my core. My back was pressed hard against the thin Space Force regulation cushions of my seat. “I don’t know what you mean.”

His hands came up to grip the corners of the two headrests in the cockpit, surrounding me with his brawny arms. “You know exactly what I mean.”

“I will explain to you and the rest of the ship, once you get out of my way.” I wrapped my hand around his thick wrists, as much as I could and tried to remove them. He didn’t budge. I glared at him. “Your Highness?”

He narrowed his eyes. I would be lying to myself if I said I didn’t know what he wanted.

Because I wanted it too.

I asked again. “Your Highness?”

He released his grip.

I wanted to breathe a sigh of relief but Ral was right behind me. There was no way I was giving him that pleasure.

Red and the princess sat at the table, immersed in laughter. Steam rose from their mugs. They saw me and instantly Seria went silent. Things hadn’t been quite the same between us since Ral told her I was taking her back to her father.

“Change of plans. We’re going to be docking in Savoness for repairs.”

Red blinked and crossed her arms.

I looked at Red. “There’s only so much you can do. I don’t really like flying a naked ship.”

Red grumbled, “I don’t want to say I told you so.”

“I need you to make sure the cards are ready.”

Her eyes widened momentarily at the code. “Yes, Captain.”

I took a deep breath. Ral with his crazy werewolf senses had almost certainly detected that lie. But Red would get it done. I turned toward the princess. “Your Highness, I know there are certain items you need. I won’t let it be known that the Coalition didn’t help properly care for a guest of such high priority. Get off of the ship and get what you need. Red will go with you. As the Prince said, Free Cities are full of criminals and pirates. They are easy places for people to disappear. So you need to be on your guard.”

The Princess and Ral exchanged a look.

“Take all the kids with you; they’re driving me crazy. Maybe if they got off this ship and got some air they’d be calmer.”

I turned back to Ral, still behind me.

He leaned against the bulkhead, his thumbs hooked in the waistband of his pants, right along that V-line. “I await your orders, Captain.”

“Your Highness will remain with me, on the ship, to ensure the Princess will return.”

He gave me a slow smile. “Somehow, I wouldn’t expect anything less.”

* * *

There was another risk to landing in Savoness that Red didn’t know about. I had done a stint working undercover as a pilot-for-hire to infiltrate some space pirate networks a few years back. My cover had been blown. If I ran into any of my old colleagues, there would be trouble.

I stepped out into the cavernous hangar where dozens of ships waited for entrance visas and clearance by customs. It smelled like old animal hide boots that had been left out in the rain too long. The bay echoed with the din of languages from all quarters of the system. Garbage and detritus rolled across the grimy metallic-sheeted ground. Across the hangar, I saw a grizzled old woman dig through an overflowing garbage can.

A customs official in a wrinkled gray uniform tromped up the bay doors of the ship. He didn’t even look up from his console as he started reciting the type of rote greeting that only came from bureaucratic clerks who spent all day saying the same thing. I entered false names into the tablet he handed me. I expected him to skip to the next screen but he actually looked at the names.

“John Smarthass?” he asked with a raised eyebrow. “You’re kidding me, right?”

If I turned and looked at my big shadow behind me, I’d burst into laughter. Instead I focused on the woman digging through a trashcan. She found something of interest and stuck it in the grimy bag slung across her body.

“It’s a werewolf name.” I said. “It’s supposed to be something growly in wolf language.”

The clerk looked at us skeptically. He looked at his tablet. Across the bay, a young guy all full of swagger and testosterone walked by and threw something into the garbage pile. It missed and landed at the old woman’s feet. Words were exchanged. Looked like a fight was going to break out.

I placed a chip containing too many credits on the clerk’s tablet. He swiped it on his own console, and it beeped, signaling a completed funds transfer. He swiped to the next screen.

The clerk let out an exaggerated sigh, then continued speaking in a bored monotone voice. “Do you have any plant or animal life unknown to the human habited worlds or unlisted in the Universal Library?”

A loud crash cut through the din of the hangar. We turned to look at a pair of wiggling legs sticking out of the trash can. The old woman leaned against the wall and took a swig from a brown canteen. Guess someone wasn’t so old and helpless after all. I turned back to the clerk. “No.”

“Have you been in close proximity to alien lifeforms not typically in existence in the human habited worlds, including but not limited to flesh eating sentient slime, singing plants, or griffins?”

As the old woman gazed around the bay, her eyes met mine. Did she pause for a nanosecond? “No.”

“Why griffins?” asked Ral.

“Griffins carry Morla disease,” I replied slowly. The old woman was avoiding my gaze. As I watched, she turned her back and started shuffling away. Fuck. She had recognized me. It didn’t bode well. Where was she going? I craned my neck trying to follow her.

The clerk suddenly snapped his fingers in my face. “Pilot! Pilot, I need Form B327.”

I stepped to the side. She was gone. That was too coincidental. “What form?”

He put his hands on his hips like he was a teacher and I, a petulant student. “The form that the towers were supposed to send you when you requested permission to land.”

“We didn’t get a form,” I said.

I swear he was about to make a nasty remark, but a glance at Ral changed his mind. “Well then you can’t land.”

“But we already landed.”

He turned his back and began to leave. “You’ll have to go back and request that form.”

I followed him off the landing pad. “But we can’t fly out without being cleared by customs.”

He kept walking. “Well, in order to be cleared, you have to have that form.”

I dashed in front of him, forced him to look at me. “So how do we fly out without being shot out of the sky?”

“Sorry ma’am. Not my problem.”

Holefuckingdark bureaucratic jerk! I clenched my fist. I was not going to fulfill the stereotype of the hotheaded female pilot. I took a deep breath and said as calmly as I could, “Don’t you have a copy with you?”

“Pilot, there’s no need to raise your voice.”

“I’m not raising my voice! You -“

He stepped back holding up his tablet like a shield. “If you’re going to cause a disturbance, I’ll have to call security.”

Ral moved between us, clapped the man on the shoulder and walked away several paces. The clerk's smirk turned to a look of trepidation, then fear.

After several moments, the clerk walked away. Ral walked back, several entry passes in his hand.

He handed them to me as he strode past me. “It’ll take a few hours to clear, but then we should be fine."

I followed him. “You bribed him even more, didn’t you?”

He walked past me towards the cargo bay doors. “Nope. Apologized, and explained that this was your first time landing in Savoness.”

“And he accepted it?”

Ral looked down on me, a glittering predatory smile on his face. “Well, I also explained he could call security, but then I would have break his arms and legs, and really it would be easier for everyone if he would take the bribe you already gave him and leave.”

Of course that would work for him. The big scary man act. This was one of those times I had to remind myself not to cause a diplomatic incident by punching him. I took a deep breath and willed myself to unclench my fists. “It’s not usually that easy to get rid of a customs clerk. They’re usually tougher stuff than that.” Not to mention the random old woman who apparently recognized me.

“They don’t usually have to deal with me.”

The kids were lined up at the entrance of the cargo bay doors. They couldn’t have been any more ready to spring if they were on catapults. I was torn between protecting them from the danger we were in and letting them off the ship for some steam.

Ral could see it. “I’ll tell them to stay on the landing pad.”

“They’ll listen?”

Ral gave me an incredulous look, as if I asked him if wolves had fur or something similarly stupid.

“Fine.”

We reached the entrance of the cargo bay doors. I waved the kids out. They went running. They had been through so much, but give them an opportunity and they would play like any other ordinary kids.

I left Ral with the kids and checked the clock. It was almost time for the performance of a lifetime.

* * *

A swipe of my hand brought out the full length mirror in my quarters.

I looked at myself in my lovely black exo-armor. The black scales were tarnished, but it was the kind of wear that spoke of survival and victory. I wouldn’t win any Gaian beauty pageants with my lack of body mods, but I looked like someone capable, strong and most of all, someone who couldn’t be cowed. It was my confidence, my crutch, my life all rolled into one. It was, for better or worse, who I was.

Starshit, was I really going to do this?

I took a deep breath and removed my exo-armor power harness, leaving the control vambrace on my left forearm. With a few taps, I logged the non-existent malfunction.

I went back to the central gathering area. His Highness was there leaning against the counter, sipping a cup of something hot. His gaze was as piercing as a multispectrum scanner, as he took in my clingy underskin, the only thing one ever wore underneath exo-armor.

He leaned back, barefoot as usual. For some reason, he was wearing a shirt, along with a computerized vambrace on his forearm, the type of device nearly everyone on the capital planets wore. He must have picked one up on his excursion out.

“I like the clothing change.”

I folded my arms across my chest. There was a chill in the air. I’d left the cargo bay doors open, primarily to air the ship out, but there were other reasons too. “I need to make repairs to my exo-armor,” I stated loudly for the benefit of the blackbox recorders. On special missions like these, black box recorders were turned on and off at the discretion of the captain. I had turned them on.

He came in close. “I could help you with that.”

I moved away. “I’m fine, Your Highness.”

He followed. “I want you to call me by my name.”

I turned my back on him, fiddling with my exo-armor spread out on the table. “That suggests a level of familiarity I’m not comfortable with, Your Highness.”

He came up behind me. He placed his hands on the table, one on each side, trapping me with his corded arms between him and the table, whispering in my ear. “If fucking you in your bed isn’t familiar, I’d like to know what is.”

I moved away. “That isn’t happening again.”

“We’ll see.”

I couldn’t let him keep flirting with me. It was easier to maintain distance by pissing him off or forcing him to talk about things he didn’t want to talk about. A chime sounded. I glanced at my console. I had to keep him here for a few more minutes. The pictures of the people he had shown me had flashed into my head. “Tell me about one of the men you left behind. The wolf with a cat. Kasen Soh.”

The look on his face changed abruptly into a frown. “You’re changing the subject.”

Did he think I was going to let him continue talking about my moment of stupidity? “Tell me who Soh is to you.”

He folded his arms, leaning against the wall, his eyes studying me too intently. “He has been more of a mentor to me than my actual half-brothers. He had been the heir to House Graystorm. Until he reached his late teens and discovered he wasn’t a shifter.”

“He found his parents weren’t who he thought they were?”

“No, he was their child all right. He was born with a genetic aberration. He can’t shift into wolf form. Sometimes that happens, even if you come from a long venerated line of werewolves.”

“I suppose that’s bad?”

“Each House has their own rules about nulls. In Graystorm, it meant he was out of the succession and disowned. I met him offworld on Galviss-9 during a short runaway stint in my irresponsible youth.”

“Let me guess, you were doing all the things a privileged teenaged prince wasn’t allowed to do.”

“No. After my mother died, Alpha was adamant that I return with him to Alzar-4 and learn the ways of House Nightclaw. I didn’t want to. I wanted to travel the stars. So I did. When I found Soh, he was running a fight club. He gave me a job. Eventually, we got into a situation where we realized Soh and I couldn’t run anymore. And Soh, who had grown up dealing with werewolf politics all his life, refused to let me go back into a house of wolves, so to speak, without preparing me for what I had to deal with.”

“You’re lucky to have had a mentor.” I hadn’t.

Ral took another step towards me. There was an irritatingly warm gleam in his eyes. His voice lowered as he smiled. “What else would you like to know?”

That voice was too much and he was too close. I rolled my eyes and pushed past him with an exaggerated sigh. I shouldn’t have asked. Because now I would actually have to go through with what I had planned. “That's enough for now.”

Heavy footsteps marched in. A tall man with white hair tied up in a top knot strode in. He had almost ethereal features, but the scars on his face attested to his experience. The meticulously cared for exo-armor followed his movements like a second skin, the mark of rare Angel-steel. That stuff was nearly impenetrable and cost accordingly.

“Anduin,” I said, stepping forward to shake his hand. “The Merc who Survived.”

“Captain.” He nodded to me politely as I had instructed. Anduin and I had worked together a number of times when I had been undercover fighting space pirates. Eventually he found out who I really was. And I found out who he was. The usual combination of life-threatening secrets and escaping near certain death together several times made for a mostly decent foundation for friendship.

“I heard you were in town, Captain.” He turned to Ral. “In order to complete this contract, I require half the payment upfront, and half in escrow. In the event of serious injury, such as dismemberment or death, the rest of the payment will be released to my heirs. Standard terms.”

Ral looked at me, looked at Anduin. He was a master at hiding his surprise. Telling Ral what I had planned would have probably helped, but I couldn’t risk it being recorded on the black box recorders if I had any hope of getting back to a Starbolt. Not to mention the bonus of watching the engines burn in his head while he tried to figure things out. Ral finally spoke. “I’ve heard of you. You were the one who rescued all those people from Sarkath Station when it was taken over by terrorists.”

I could see it in his face in the quick glance he gave me. While I couldn’t willingly disobey orders, it would be a different case altogether if he forced me to. Chances were he was too highly ranked to be punished severely for abducting a pilot, so long as we succeeded. I asked in my most innocent voice. “What’s going, Your Highness? Why are you hiring a mercenary?”

Ral tapped the vambrace on his forearm, and extended his hand to Anduin. Anduin did the same. As they shook hands, both vambraces beeped, signaling completed funds transfer.

Ral looked at the screen on his vambrace. I think he might have winced. “You’d better be worth it.”

Anduin smiled. “You get what you pay for.” He picked up the third cup of coffee on the counter. “Captain?”

Did I have to do everything myself? I rolled my eyes. Anduin picked up a mug of coffee. “Wait,” I said with the most ridiculous exaggeration. “Anduin, why are you pulling out your weapons?”

“This is a mutiny,” said Anduin, cup in hand as he looked around the counter for the sugar.

I jumped as Ral’s large hand closed around the bare skin of my wrist. His touch electrified me, as if I had touched a live wire. “I’ve got your exo-armor. Obedience is your only choice.” A slow hot wolf smile sparked in his eyes. I gritted my teeth, yanking my arm back. I know it had to be said for the black box recorders. But he took too much pleasure in this situation.

Anduin snorted trying to choke back a laugh. “She’s a feisty one. You sure she’s worth it?”

I was going to wipe that smirk off Anduin’s face with my fist. There was laughter in Ral’s eyes. “Yes. She likes to pretend otherwise, but in the end, she will obey.”

I kicked Ral in the shin, and he didn’t even blink. His smile only deepened. Stupid werewolf strength. When I got my exo-armor back, I’d teach him about obedience.

“I guess I have no choice,” I growled. I tried stomping away and sounding angry, but it didn’t work without the exo-armor boots.

“Hold on a sec,” I heard Anduin say. “Is there a reason why there are so many tiger-shifter commandos surrounding this landing pad?”