The Confederation, a group of independent worlds bonded together for mutual trade and defence, have a dirty little secret in how they make their trading ships - hijacking the souls of dead transgendered. Please follow one subject's rebirth into the Confederation.

Sorry, no space battles this time, only social disasters.

---

Overnight I finished the exams, so when that was signed off in the morning I was now officially Lieutenant-Commander Kim Harpagornis. Jet beat me by a few minutes, but I said I was the real winner as it was only because Tag screwed me for longer. Fix passed his later in the day, then spent the rest of his first day as Acting Commodore doing hand-over from Commodore Jaral, our commanding officer to this point.

Official handover was midnight, but I wasn't really expecting the boat I noticed motoring towards me just before 1am.

"Tag, wake up." I shook him.

"Not another round honey, I'm tired."

"You beast!" I shrieked at him in mock anger. "Another round? You haven't done me since last night!"

"Wow, hold on!" he said, now waking up properly. "What did I just say? Shit! Sorry, sorry, sorry!"

"Save it! The Commodore's about here!" I said, jumping out of bed.

"Nice view!" he said, his concentration entirely on my jiggling chest. OK, maybe he wasn't completely awake yet, but the succubus in me did have the slightly loose chains of cartilage and tendons looped through my breasts that kept them looking completely natural, without sagging or hurting when moving around too much, like jumping out of bed.

"Is that really the time?" he said, looking at the clock reading 12:58 over the door.

I gave him the stare.

"All right, all right."

I was fully dressed in uniform when he only had his undies on.

"I'll go meet him." I said, heading down to the cargo bay. By the time he pulled up, I was standing there with the rod rotated open and the ramp down, lapping gently against the waves that were thankfully small right now.

"Permission to come aboard?" he asked formally.

"Permission granted. Welcome aboard, sir." I snaked one of the smaller cargo tentacles from the roof out to pick up his luggage, while giving him a snappy salute.

"I suppose that captain of yours is asleep somewhere?"

"No sir, he's waiting for you on the bridge." I said as the ramp retracted as we walked up it. The Commodore looked slightly disappointed. Actually Tag had only just got his uniform on and was waving the shaving wand over his face, but at least our stateroom opened onto the bridge.

<<We're on board and heading for the bridge. I told him you were already there.>>

<<Will be by the time you get there.>>

The cargo tentacles slung his bags from one to the other Tarzan style, sliding them gently into the lift just before we go there.

"Very slick. You been practising that move, Lieutenant-Commander?"

"No, sir." Actually I hadn't, but when you have as much compute power as we do, calculating throws and catches to minimise jarring is actually very simple.

"Of course not. And how long as your captain been on the bridge?"

"Ever since we knew you were coming, sir." At this the lift opened and we stepped out. There was still a short walk to the bridge. The bags stayed in the lift, going up to one of the double staterooms on the top deck.

"And how long ago was that?" he was clearly enjoying himself trying to put me on the spot, so I played up to it.

"I'd prefer not to say sir."

"Umm." He suddenly seemed a bit nervous. "I didn't interrupt anything, did I?"

"Only sleep sir." I thought I'd throw something in to liven him up. "Not for lack of trying though, sir." I winked, and that got a short guffaw out of him.

"How long to Rigel?" he asked.

"Once we break atmosphere, it's only two spins. Traffic control around Rigel will take longer, sir." i was relaying this to Tag as well.

"It's supposed to be three spins, Lieutenant-Commander."

"That is true, sir."

"Not being too ambitious for your first super-light spin?"

"Sir, after being the first dimension spinner on our side ever, I'm hoping I can manage a slight extension of usual spin range in a ship with this much raw magical power for its size."

"Just checking." he said with a grin, as we round the corner and stepped into the bridge.

"Commodore on the bridge!" I announced, bringing Tag out of the captains chair he had only just sat down on, and into a salute.

"As you were," the Commodore intoned, "and with only the three of us, let's make that the last of the formalities until we're planet-side again."

"Aye, sir!" we responded together.

"Tag, can you get this crate into space?" he said, obvious aiming for a ribbing by the gleam in his eye.

"Hey, I resemble that remark!" I responded.

"Kim, get us out of here before I am subjected to any more bad jokes from either of you two." Tag ordered.

I stuck my tongue out at him. "You're only jealous I got in first." As I said it I brought up on the display screen our position, already a kilometre up, with projected path to the proposed spin point.

"Long way around?" the Commodore asked.

"Rigel's currently on the other side of the planet from us." Tag responded quickly as I mentally fed him the information. "Kim prefers not to aim through large local masses if she doesn't have too."

"Good thinking, but if she hasn't jumped before, how do you two know each other that well?"

"We've been meshing very well, sir." Tag replied.

"Jaral, not sir, at least for now." the Commodore replied.

<<Nearly there, can I spin as soon as we get there?>> I asked.

"Spin when ready, ship." Tag responded verbally for Jaral's benefit.

"Aye, spin, spin, spin!" I said, not even slowing down as we approached the spin point. This was an easy spin as we were going for distance to an area without much even in the way of cosmic dust. The next one, into the heart of a complex moon system around a massive gas giant, was going to be much harder.

"Smooth for your first jump, Kim."

"Thank you sir."

This was actually a bit more complicated since I'd never been there, but I had the charts and could calculate where everything was supposed to be. I gave myself fair margin for error.

"Spin calculated, estimated flight time one hour on arrival." I had actually ceased moving this time, but with nothing for a few light years for reference no-one noticed.

"Spin on my mark." Tag replied. "Three ... two ... one ... Spin!"

I had already looked up Rigel Three's control frequency.

"Rigel Three Flight Control from Harpagornis, arrived by spin, squawk follows." I announced us to flight control, followed by a data packet indicating current location, ship size, and current instructions.

"Harpagornis from Flight Control, follow inbound beacon Hotel Lima Eight Zero One." A data packet followed containing confirming details.

"Flight Control from Harpagornis, following inbound beacon Hotel Lima Eight Zero One." I acknowledged.

"Fifty seven minutes flight time on this course unless they divert us." I informed everyone. "But I can get you there in about thirty three if you'd like, sir."

"Better not break any rules, Kim."

"Oh no sir, that's how long until I'm in casting range of the spaceport."

"How safe is that?"

"My accuracy isn't one hundred percent at that range, I'd have to aim you about half a centimetre above the deck, sir."

"I think I can survive a fall from that height, Kim."

"I should hope so, sir, I've survived longer falls in high heels when I was learning."

"Can you come with me? We are supposed to report in together."

"Not for another ten minutes after that, sir. Otherwise I'd be casting my human form further than conventionally acceptable for soul separation."

"That only saves thirteen minutes then, Kim." Tag said gently.

"Certainly, but think of the coolness factor to be the first to arrive that way."

"They won't know that, Kim." said the Commodore. "There are a fair number of mages who have memorised the pattern at immigration and can teleport there."

"Yes, sir. But not too many mages can do themselves, two others, and luggage. It would at least raise an eyebrow."

"Young lady, officially I heartily disapprove of your flippancy and sense of theatrics. That said, let's do it."

We probably shouldn't have, it turns out there's too much paperwork to fill out because none of us was registered as a teleportation-capable mage. By the time we'd cleared immigration, I'd been docked long enough for a normal immigration. At least Tag and I were both now registered as teleportation-able, so it's be faster next time. I'd suggested we register him as well in case I needed to cast him sometime when I wasn't going to be joining him.

The Commodore thought it was a huge joke at our expense.

"See, I told you officially I didn't approve."

"Yes sir, but you were out faster than any of us!"

"Privileges of rank." he paused, as if debating whether to relate an anecdote to us. "And having a history of unusual arrivals, I've filled out most of the weirder paperwork already."

We looked up who we were supposed to report to, and she wasn't available for another six hours. We made an appointment, then all trudged back to my ship body to get some sleep. Well, the others slept, I caught up on the latest info-burst. Interestingly there was an email for Tag. I decided to be good and not open it.

When he got up, I told him about the email. He told me to open it and read it to him.

"I take it Jan Geltone is your mother?" I asked.

He groaned.

"What does it say?"

"Dear Tag, please thank Commodore Jaral for his kind advance notice you and your lovely fiancé were coming to the Rigel system. Your father and I have moved up our plans for visiting your sister to coincide with your arrival. Please notify Kess when you arrive."

I knew Kess was his sister, but I hadn't heard him refer to his mother by name,

"We've been set up."

"The Commodore?"

"Oh, probably everyone." He paused, a worried look came over his face. "Look, you know I'm not ashamed of you, but given her history I'm afraid how Mum will react if she finds out you're a ship before she gets to know you. We can tell my father and Kess when Mum's not around, in fact Dad's probably figured it out already."

"I understand, but I'm going to embarrass you horribly as compensation."

He smiled. "That's OK, I know you love me too much to really hurt me."

I pouted. "You take all the fun out of it!"

"Better send a message to Kess. You got her address?" I nodded.

"Dear Kess, in Rigel Three spaceport, awaiting finding out what my actual orders are in a few hours. Will let you know when I know what's going on. Love, Tag." He paused. "Send it from my ID and register that ID to you, so the ship ID doesn't go on the email, no point giving the game away."

"Way ahead of you, big boy, how do you think we got the first message?"

We decided to go out for breakfast, just to get our feet on a different planet. Since we'd already completed formalities, a quick combined fingerprint and DNA scan got us out the door. We found a nice but overly expensive bistro nearby, and ate there, playing footsie under the table, watching the world go by. When the Commodore got up I told him where we were. He grabbed a quick cereal breakfast, a short workout in the gym, and a shower before leaving. He grabbed an earpiece on the way out with my private crypto on it so he could find us easily. We finished up and moved to join him, heading off for our meeting.

The meeting was anti-climactic, about a quarter of the Admiralty was there and the rest would review the video log later. It was basically a debrief of everything that had happened so far. After the first session the numbers halved, and then it got into even more details, reviews of logs, and over-analysis. They were interested in the ship-to-ship psionic links, but the idea wasn't foreign to them as they already had a network of mages to do something similar for flash-priority traffic that didn't require bits of people to be distributed. They did find the combat implications interesting, though.

They found a lot of interest in the casting process, and eagerly reviewed the recommendations from the marine lieutenant we had worked with on what worked and didn't in their mock combat simulations. We were basically told to hold while they discussed this.

I was happier, because I'd been placed on "special secondment to the Admiralty" status, which got me a decent pay that ate into the principle of the loan almost as fast as combat pay, even if it was only going to be for a few days.

We sent an "In military hurry-up-and-wait limbo, will get back to you." message to Kess. Real-time video wasn't really an option as Rigel Four was in the same orbit as Three, but on opposing sides of the gas giant, and radio had to bounce of Rigel Seven, giving a seven second round trip delay. The daily period of Rigel Three and Four was the same, slightly less than the standard 24 hours, so every Sunday morning and some Saturday mornings the time between 2am and 3am didn't exist to compensate. I made sure to calculate the local variations into my internal calendar.

I noted ship-me was getting a lot of attention from gawkers. Rigel Three had a lot of military traffic so the base green wasn't unusual, but I'm sure the unusual inclusion of wings and silver highlights were setting a few tongues wagging.

The next day was filled with an almost identical set of questions to the previous day, from all the people who hadn't turned up yesterday but now felt they had to ask the same questions. We gave a few demonstrations of casting, then were asked to come back tomorrow. We were also told that for now casting was classified.

I relayed this back to my four sister ships, who of course then grilled me on what was going on. Jet 'fessed up to the others about our panty-less dinner, and I was forced to tell everyone exactly what I had done, all the while Jet pretend-complaining that I hadn't told her about the voluminous dress trick. It was good to catch up with the girls again, and fantastic we could do it over this distance.

The next day we were told they wanted to do more testing on casting, and had two normal cargo ships lined up they wanted me to teach it to in carefully controlled steps.

Tag noted that we were currently using space in a heavily congested spaceport, and maybe we should move to another less congested facility, pointing out there was a secure scientific facility on Rigel Four that could be used.

"No problems in theory Captain, but I would like to know your ulterior motive." said the Vice-Admiral he was pitching this to.

"My sister is on Rigel Four and I haven't seen her in four years." he admitted sheepishly.

"Fair enough. Neither of the two ships we had in mind is here on Rigel Three, so Four is as good as anywhere. Hold on a minute while i draft up the orders."

Actually we waited outside his office while a rating did all the paperwork as instructed, but we got what Tag wanted.

"Dear Kess, managed to wangle it so our little project has been transferred to Rigel Four. Be there soon-ish. Love, Tag." was the message he dictated to me as soon as we had a copy of the orders.

Unexpectedly we got a reply just as we completed emigration transfer forms. Everything was interconnected in-system, so we wouldn't have to do immigration on Rigel Four.

"About fricking time! Mum & Dad driving me crazy here. If this mythical "Kim" doesn't show up, I'm not taking responsibility for your health! Ret still thinks you faked the holo or paid some floozie off. :-) Cya, Kess." I knew Ret was Kess's husband.

We made good time, and put down in a nearly empty dock in a crescent bay overlooked by the research facility. We checked in with them, then we headed back so I could change out of uniform. It was colder on this area of Four, more a cool temperate than the tropical weather we had on the equator of Three, so I went for a warm black skirt that came to mid-thigh with black boots with a low heel that came to three-quarter thigh. Above I had a had a deep green turtleneck jersey, covering a peach scoop-necked sleeveless top, in case it was warm enough inside to take the jersey off. I also conjured up a brightly coloured scarf for contrast.

We grabbed minimal bags, because any clothing we needed I could just conjure up, and off we went. From the facility we requisitioned a small electric golf-buggy like vehicle, and drove to the local high-speed train station. The vehicle was remote controlled so I piloted it back to the facility as we got tickets and boarded the train, and Tag sent a message to Kess telling her what train we would be on from his little-used PDA.

"I've become used to a much nicer assistant." He smiled at me and we had a quick kiss, before going back to gently holding hands while watching the scenery flash past.

We covered the five hundred kilometres to Kess's place in a little over an hour and one train change.

"Tag, you scoundrel!" someone boomed as we got off the train.

"Ret!" Tag yelled back, and they went up to thump each other on the back like some bizarre gorilla ritual.

"So who's the lovely lady?" Ret asked, giving me the once-over.

"Ret, this is Kim, my fiancé, so hands off or I'll stick my sister onto you. Kim, this is Ret, my brother in law and all-round trouble maker."

They had the friendly camaraderie of people who respect each other and have spent a lot of time around each other. The good mood was infectious.

"I have to ask," Ret queried as he grabbed my bag, letting Tag carry his, "how much did my brother in law pay you to come on this little jaunt?"

"One heart," I said, the answer jumping into my head, "but that's OK, I gave mine to him in return."

"Oh boy, she's a keeper!" Ret said, then looked funny at Tag. "My lord, you're serious about this one, aren't you?"

"This one?" I interjected.

Tag had the good graces to look embarrassed. "I was serious about all of them."

"All of them?" I asked, my voice rising.

"Don't worry, " Ret said, clapping me on the back in a way hat would have knocked me about if I wasn't enhanced, "you're only the fourth he's been engaged to in two hundred years."

"Hey! The first one was only seventy years ago!"

<<You're not helping!>> I passed to him privately.

"Seventy four, but who's counting?" Ret asked.

"Is there something you'd like to tell me, honey?" I asked, but it wasn't a very icy tone. Honest.

He turned and placed a hand on each shoulder.

"I thought I loved them. The first time neither of us was ready, the second was a gold-digger who left when she found out my family didn't have as much money as she thought, and the third. Well, yes."

"Jill was with Uncle Hep when Qualyata went up." Ret said quietly. It didn't take too much to figure out what he was talking about. Hep must have been the ill-fated brother of Tag's mum, Jan Geltone, which his ship went mad. I had no idea now if the ship killed them, or the ship self-destructed by remote command and took them with her.

I moved in and hugged him.

"We've got each other now. Even if, heavens forbid, something should separate us, I'll always treasure our time together."

"Thanks." he said quietly, we were both misting over.

"C'mon you lot, before night falls and we freeze to death." said Ret, breaking the melancholy mood. "Car's over here."

He threw my bag into the boot, and held the boot open for Tag to put his in. He shut the boot, then ran around to open the passenger door.

"For me? You are getting polite in your old age." Tag grinned at him.

"Get stuffed." Ret said, with the sweetest smile on his face you could imagine.

"Thank you, Ret." I said, stepping up and giving him a peck on the cheek before rotating into the car.

"Hey, kisses only for me!" said Tag, climbing into he seat behind me.

"I'll make it up to you tonight." I said, while Ret was outside with the doors closed and couldn't hear. "Especially if you want to stay behind me, if you get my drift."

Ret climbed in and set off speeding down the road. He pointed out a few local landmarks, before we pulled into the driveway of a nice big house in the middle of nowhere. It had one of those roundabout style rings in front of the house, and he pulled into a gap before jumping out of the car and running around to open my door.

"My lady, a pleasure." he said, doffing an imaginary hat.

"A gentleman and a scholar, so rare to find good breeding these days." I said, showing I could return the favour, as I threw a curtsey.

He laughed and went to grab the both the bags, a fact that didn't go unnoticed.

Tag looked meaningfully at me, so I opened the psychic link.

<<I think you passed.>> he said.

<<I think he's going to be the easy one.>>

<<You're probably right, but you've already won me over.>>

<<That's all that really counts in my book.>>

"You two going to stare moony-eyed at each other all evening, or are you coming inside?" he laughed, and we looked sheepishly at him and quickly followed him inside.

Kess called out from the kitchen, so Tag and I went that way while Ret took our bags up to he "usual room", wherever that was. I was following Tag, so the first I saw of Kess was her head as she enveloped Tag in a hug.

I waved, and she broke the hug just enough to grab me and pull me into a three-way hug.

"Kim! Good to finally met you!"

"Likewise, I've heard so much about you from Tag here."

"None of it's true, I assure you. Thanks to my informative brother, I know next to nothing about you."

We broke the hug and she motioned for us to sit down at the kitchen table. Tag and I held hands without really thinking about it as we sat down.

"OK, I need the goss. How'd you meet?"

"Boring, unfortunately. I was in the officer's mess with a girlfriend, but it was busy so the two of us sat at the only table available which was for four. This strapping lad and another decided to join us so they had somewhere to sit down."

"He try anything straight away?" she asked, as Tag made wounded faces, clearly in jest.

"No, actually his partner in crime sat next to me. Tag and I hit it off later hat night, when we went for a walk on the beach."

"What number date?" I knew exactly what she was asking, and Tag coughed quite badly at the question.

"Not until after he proposed, about thirty."

"Really?" she asked.

"No reason to lie." I responded. "As long as you're equally as honest when I give you the third degree."

"Maybe when the boys aren't around." she smiled.

"An excellent plan." I smiled back. "We have to keep some secrets."

"Help with dinner?" she asked.

"Sure!" I said.

"Mum and Dad are out, they'll be back in an hour or so." Kess said to Tag.

"Right, I'll go see what Ret is up to."

Well, I could hear from here, watching some kind of sporting show on the holo.

"Sports!" I rolled my eyes at Kess.

"It does have some good points." she defended.

"Only the sports with men in tight clothes." I smiled back. "And it keeps them out of our hair."

"Yup, that's most of them!"

"Right, so what needs doing?"

"Nothing actually, I have a roast on, and I'll throw some peas, corn, and beans on when it's nearly ready."

"Any cleaning need doing?"

"Not really."

"OK, I'll set the table then."

"Sure, but not this one, the one in the dining room through there." she waved in the general direction of a door.

Actually I didn't know what the correct method of setting the table formally was here. I guessed it was the same as in the officer's mess. I checked on-line, found a minor difference with the desert spoons, and had everything laid out quickly.

Soon we were back at the kitchen table, having a mug of tea each.

"I saw Ret taking the bags upstairs." she started.

"And you want to know why my bag is so small for somewhere so cold?" I asked.

"Pretty much."

"You like the scarf? i asked, which I had undone and left hanging loosely over my shoulder.

"Yes..." she said, obviously unsure where this was going.

"Here, have one." I said, conjuring an identical one onto the table in front of us.

"Ah, a mage like Dad! How long will this last?"

"Oh, that's permanent. None of that ectoplasmic stuff for my future sister in law."

"So it can't be dispelled?"

"No, it's real. Can still be disintegrated like anything else, though."

"Neat!"

"Oh yes, saves a bundle on clothes. I had to take a seamstress course to be able to make something that looked half decent. My first efforts were like a blind mad one-armed woman's creations."

"That bad?"

"Oh yes, you have to hold it all in your head at once when conjuring, If you're making it normally you only have to concentrate on a bit at a time."

"So you're doing something with that ConFed research station?"

"Yes, but it's classified, sorry."

"Is that how you really met Tag?"

"Yes, we were both stuck on some backwater for a different stage of this project."

"So how'd he propose?"

"It was actually really sweet. Did you know he'd volunteered for the ship captaincy programme?"

"Lord no. I knew he wanted to, space has always been a big dream of his. Mum would freak, though."

"That's what he told me. Anyway, we'd been dating for a while, and he comes to me one evening really upset. Turns out he'd been selected as a captain, but he realised he didn't want to do it if it meant he had to give me up. So he proposed, saying he was going to use the "changed circumstances" clause as a way out of the program."

"Wow!"

"Yes, well, I of course asked if he was proposing just because he had cold feet about the program. I didn't want to be an excuse. You know what he said?"

"No, go on!"

"I love you, Kim. This is just the thing that gave me a kick in the arse to make me do the right thing."

"That sounds like him."

"Then I asked him, 'Just so I get this right, you're prepared to give up your dreams for me?', and he responded, 'Small price, baby. It took these orders to make me realise this.'"

"Wow! You must have made an impression."

"Well, he certainly made an impression on me."

"And you seriously hadn't gone all the way when he said this?"

"No, that came later. The furthest we'd been before that was second base."

"A guy doesn't get past second base in thirty dates and proposes? We are talking about my brother here?"

"Apparently even the immature ones grow up eventually."

She laughed at that. "You know what they say, you can only be young once..."

We finished together in chorus "... but you can be immature forever!"

"But you have done it since then?"

"Like rabbits at first, when work allowed." I smirked at her. "A lot more casual now."

"Is he good?"

"You really want to know if your brother is good in the sack?"

"Sure why not?"

"Actually he's pretty good. Likes anal every now and again, which is tough since he's so wide, but even then I still get off on it. How's Ret?"

"Long, thin, knows what to do. His stamina is almost too good, sometimes he doesn't get off, but it feels fantastic on my side and he reckons the ride is better than the ending."

"How long have you been married?"

"One hundred and thirty nine years. Married at forty eight."

"Everyone in the family have nanites?"

"Yes, my two have left home. Emma just hit fifty and is engaged now."

"You have holos? I haven't seen them."

She pulled out a slide show and went through a whole lot of family shots. We were still there when the door opened.

"Mum, Dad, in here!" Kess shouted. "With company!"

"That no-good brother of yours finally made it?" a rapidly approaching female voice shouted back.

I heard Tag fall over himself in the entertainment room.

<<OK, honey?>>

<<Banged my knee, trying to get there before Mum does!>>

The woman who walked in could almost have been Kess's twin, and the man behind her a somehow simultaneously more rugged and and more weathered version of Tag.

"Mum, Dad, this is Kim." said Kess.

"Hi!" I said, walking up to them and giving them both a quick hug, as Tag tumbled into the room, smacking his shoulder on the door frame.

"Dinner's nearly ready, everyone into the dining room." Kess hollered loud enough for Ret to hear over his sports show, before adding quietly to me "Not you, you can help."

Their parents were obviously busting with questions, but acquiesced to their daughters request in her own house. I suppose it also meant questions and answers didn't have to be repeated for Ret.

I helped Kess serve up.

"Still got the desert spoons around the wrong way!" her Mum muttered as Kess went past.

"Blame Kim, she set the table." Kess whispered back.

"Oh no, not you too?" she said, louder this time and directed at me.

"Mum! Let us at least start before you hoe into them!" Tag interrupted, drawing smirks from the other two males present.

"What did I do wrong?" I asked.

"You did it the formal, civilian way around."

I remembered things were the other way around in the officer's mess.

"I was brought up in a civilian household, why should I do things the military way? And it's not like this is a state dinner."

"More like an interrogation." Ret mumbled, just loud enough to be heard. He got glares from Tag and his parents for that, and put up his hands in mock surrender.

"OK, OK! But I get grumpier the longer I go without food." he said, and even though it wasn't all served, started heaping food onto his plate.

Kess and I brought the last platters in, and we sat down next to our respective partners. Tag's parents were at the opposite heads of the table, and we were arranged to it was all males at one end, all females at the other. We all started to serve ourselves.

"So, do you have dinner like this with your family often?" Tag's dad asked me, obviously probing for information.

"No, there was a car accident and I lost my parents and brother." Technically true but not in the way most people would think.

"What happened?" asked Tag's mum, with genuine concern in her voice for the first time.

"I'd rather not if that's OK with you, it's a painful piece of my past. I want to move forward with my life, not look backwards at things that can't be changed."

That kind of put a damper on the conversation, so I tried to bring up something else.

"So, Tag and I are working on something classified for ConFed, but what does everyone else do?"

"Dad's a mage." Tag said.

"Kim's a mage too, dad!" Kess said. "Pretty decent one given the scarf she conjured earlier."

"Is it still around?" he asked.

"It's permanent," I said, "not an ectoplasmic construct."

"Oh?" he asked, apparently intrigued. "How do you hold it all in your head at once to conjure it?"

"A seamstress course, a very good memory, and lots of memorisation." I laughed.

"So we could go for a shopping trip, not buy anything, and you could make it when we got back?" Jan asked, her eyes lighting up.

"Yes, but I'd have to pay the designer a royalty, so it's not completely free."

"Saves a bundle, though, I bet."

"Sure! Maybe we could have a girls dressing session later." I suggested.

"Maybe tomorrow, I have an early morning conference call." Jan said. "Kess's place is lovely, the only problem is it's a few hours behind the main commercial centre. It was supposed to be later, but due to conflicts got moved earlier, unfortunately."

"We have to get up early too, we have to get back by 8am, What do you do that needs conference calls in the wee small hours?"

"I'm a VP for a software programming company."

"That's actually how I met Kess," Ret jumped in, "I work for the same company. Jan invited Kess along to a company function, and we hit it off."

"A bit of a coincidence, my first job before manifesting as a mage was as a software programmer."

Jan laughed. "Neither of us are programmers, I'm VP of marketing and Ret's in project management."

"When did you manifest?" Ret asked, interested now.

"Aforementioned accident." I responded.

"Oh, right."

"Kess and Ray, who wants to go first?" I asked, trying to shift the topic.

"I paint for a living." said Kess.

"Wow! Do you have a studio here?" I asked.

"Yes, would you like to see it later?"

"That would be great!"

"Ray, that's your cue." smiled Jan to her husband.

"Officially I'm an investigative mage."

"Police?" I asked.

"I work for ConFed, I consult out to local police forces that need my help."

"Get to travel a lot then?"

"He travels too much." Jan smiled at her husband.

"Yes, but it means I get to memorise them so I can teleport you there instead of having to catch a ship."

An expression of distaste came over Jan's face.

"You know you're going to have to get over that one day." Ray said back, full of concern directed at his wife, but I'm sure a sideways glance to me was a significant one. I'm pretty sure he was letting me know he knew about me.

"Tag gave me the summary," I said, "so how about something more pleasant?"

"Right, hot stuff," Kess said, looking at her brother, "how did you meet Kim?"

This would be interesting, she'd heard my side of the story.

"Well, we were at the officer's mess..." he started.

"We?" Ret interrupted.

"Dirk Lunga was with me."

"Yeh, I remember him, good guy."

"Anyway, the base we were at was a training base, and we'd heard there was a new group of ships that had just come in for growing."

His mother visibly flinched at that.

"So we thought we'd head down to the officers mess to have a look."

"Because you knew ships were all oversized and easy, right?" Kess teased her brother.

"Err, well, actually it was just we wanted to play 'spot the ship'". He paused. "Anyway, the mess was more crowded than usual, probably because everyone else had the same idea, so there weren't too many seats around."

I had noticed the mess got quieter while we were there, I hadn't realised everyone was trying to spot us.

"So that's why there were so many blokes clustered around the new blonde bombshells at the bar." I jumped in. Tag had the decency to look pained.

"Anyway, I'd noticed these two good looking women hiding up the back a few times." Tag continued.

"We'd been trying to keep out of the way, just get some food and get out, since it had turned so busy with guys ogling the new arrivals." I helped out.

"So one night they weren't in uniform and were at a table for four."

"It was the only one left when we arrived." I said, but started to get the vibe from Kess I should be letting Tag tell the story.

"So we invited ourselves to sit with them. I actually sat down next to the other girl, Pif, but she was a bit straight, and Kim here had a sense of humour closer to mine. Then they went to the ladies, and when they came back decided to swap seats." He nodded at me, so being cued I said something.

"Yes, Pif and Dirk were a better match, the both have a straighter sense of humour, so we decided to swap when we got back." I nodded back at Tag.

"Right, so later when we left we decided as a group to have a walk on the beach, although the girls kicked up a bit of a fuss at that idea."

"We were in heels and stockings!"

"You went anyway." he said, smiling at me.

"Honestly? You were the nicest guys Pif and I had met while we were there." I replied. "Also, it was nice to finally get some attention with all the guys there drooling over the bombshells."

"Was that why you were dressed up?" Kess asked.

"Pretty much."

"So he still needed something to whap him over the back of the head to notice a nice girl?" Kess said, looking at her bother while a smile on her face, obviously still teasing him.

"Hey!" said Tag.

"So what happened after that?" asked Ray.

"Well, we saw each other every night from then onwards." Tag said to his father.

"So what triggered the proposal after only a month?" asked his mother.

This was going to be tricky.

"I had registered for the ship's captaincy programme." Tag admitted, which drew in a sharp intake of breath from his mother.

"Tag!" she exclaimed.

"Mum, it's my life, and that sort of stuff doesn't happen any longer."

"Jan!" warned her husband, then nodding at Tag to continue.

"Anyway, there were twenty-four of us and twelve ships, so of course we were all trying to pick who the ships were."

"So why go out with Kim here?" his mother asked.

"Originally, I never actually intended to go out with her, it was just one of those spur of the moment things."

"Kim, did you know this?" Jan asked me.

"He didn't tell me, but it was fairly obvious he was in the programme. In some ways that made it all safe, you know, a 'no strings' relationship?"

"So what happened?" Jan asked, now driving the conversation.

"She came to mean too much to me." Tag said, squeezing my hand, and I blushed.

"I started to feel relieved when the announcements came about the pairings off. It was down to two ships left and fourteen potential captains, so I started to relax."

"Why didn't you just withdraw?" Ret asked.

"Didn't want a black mark on his record for pulling out half-way through a selection?" his father asked, and Tag couldn't meet his face.

"Yes." He looked up again. "Then one day it all changed. I heard the eleventh ship had chosen a captain, and then I received orders to turn up to a selection panel tomorrow morning. I asked around and found out I was the only one who had been asked. Scuttlebutt had that this stacked blonde Mar was the last ship, and I'd bumped into her the day before at lunch and had a bit of a conversation with her."

I hadn't known that it had got around that the woman I'd set up as the likely ship, nor had I known Tag had talked to her. His fear seemed a lot more practical now.

"So you thought she was going to ask you to be her captain?" Jan prompted.

Tag nodded. "Then it all fell into place for me. I couldn't give up Kim. I knew a mage on base who was a good conjurer, so I went to him and got to make the ring for me. I proposed that night."

"And I nearly didn't accept." I said. "I wasn't sure if he was proposing because he loved me, or because he was trying to weasel out of a black mark on his record."

"Because if family circumstances change you get excused from the program." Jan recalled.

"Right." I agreed.

"So what made up your mind?" she asked me.

"I put the question straight to him, he said ''I love you, Kim. This is just the thing that gave me a kick in the arse to make me do the right thing.' That wasn't enough to convince me, I knew how much he wanted to be a ship's captain, so I asked 'Just so I get this right, you're prepared to give up your dreams for me?'. He responded 'Small price, baby. It took these orders to make me realise this.' The look of sincerity and love on his face was enough to convince me." No need to mention I had actually accepted the ring in between those two snippets of conversation, nor what took place immediately afterwards.

"That's so sweet." Jan said, looking with relief at her son.

We had just about finished off the main at that point, so after Kess, Jan, and I cleared everything away and served desert. The men talked about sports and us women talked about fashion and Kess's art.

Dinner would down and Jan made excuses to go to bed since she had to get up early, and the rest of us moved to the entertainment room so the men could watch some other sporting event.

Then came the question I was dreading.

"Was that actually how it happened?" Ray asked his son.

"Yes, dad." Tag asked, looking a little confused.

"He knows." I told him.

Tag looked a bit worried, and Kess said "Knows what?"

"What we left out was what happened immediately afterwards." I said.

"What are you going on about?" Kess asked.

I looked straight at Ray. "I told him I knew who the last ship was."

He smiled at me. "Did he get it?"

"No, but given the emotional ringer he'd just put himself through, I excused him that." I replied. "I had to tell him the name of the ship."

Ray was clearly enjoying his son squirm. "Did he do the fish thing with his mouth?"

"Yup!" I smiled back.

Kess had obviously got it. "But you're not..." she gaped at me. There was a pause while this sunk in.

"Would someone fill me in? I've clearly missed something." Ret said.

"I told Tag I knew the last ship's name was Harpagornis."

Ret still looked blank.

"Honey, that's Kim's last name." Kess put the pieces together for him.

"Holy crap! Your mum's going to have a cow!" Ret exclaimed.

"Which is why I presume you told her not to tell your mother?" Ray asked his son.

"Yes, dad. I wanted mum to get to know her before telling her."

"You know the longer you wait the greater her sense of betrayal will be, don't you?" he asked gently.

"That was actually the reason I hadn't asked you to captain me earlier." I told Tag. "I was afraid you'd have nothing to do with me after my deception."

Tag didn't say anything, clearly trying to process all of this.

"You have to tell her in the morning. Make it after her call so she's not flustered during it." his father said.

"But dad..."

"No! Trust me on this, you take longer than that, you'll turn your mother against you. It's going to be tough enough to bring her around on this as it is."

"Tag, we have to do it." I told him. "Ray's right."

"Kim, " he said, looking at me, "it'd please this old man if you called him 'Dad'. I'm impressed you didn't actually lie the whole way through."

"How did you know?" I asked. "You seemed to know even as you came through the door."

"I keep my ear to the ground, I knew Tag had signed up for the programme. I knew your last name from Tag's messages, so to satisfy my curiosity it was simply a matter of checking the ship movement logs around when he was entering the system."

"So when you said you'd lost your family in an accident, " Ret said, "you actually meant you had died in the accident, your soul had come here, and so you'd lost access to them?"

"Right in one." I said, winking at him.

"Since we're in the mood for confessions, " I said, "Dad, did you arrange for Jan's meeting to be moved so you could force our hand?"

He smiled. "You are a sharp one, it's going to be good having you in the family."

Tag spluttered at that one. "You devious so and so!"

"Guilty as charged!" he father smiled back at him.

"I have a question." Kess asked. "Why are you so ... well ... normal?"

"I wanted to be normal." I said. "I can't explain it much more than that."

"I can." chimed in dad. "When their human bodies are being fixed, ships are asked to think of their ideal body image." I nodded confirmation.

"They're all transsexuals, and have had male hormones floating through their system up to a few seconds ago, at least as they perceive it. The body image tends to be on the slightly sexual side, and the imagined libido tends to be the male-standard they are used to, which is higher than female-standard."

Again I nodded confirmation. "But none of us ended up how we imagined."

"Right, the succubus DNA that goes into them enhances certain things. They invariably end up with a larger bust size and a large libido than they wanted."

"Yes, I wanted to just be a normal woman, I only wanted a C up but got double-D."

"And you probably ended up with a normal male-level libido, so you avoid the most common problem between ships and captains."

Now I was intrigued. "Which is?"

"You may have noted there's a required review every thirty years, and ships are encouraged to switch captains."

"Yes, I assumed that was just to freshen things up."

"Partially, it is. The real problem is most captains can't keep up with the ship's libido, they get worn out. There's a fundamental power imbalance between a normal human and something as large as ship. The captain's only real balancing factor is the ship's inbuilt instinct to obey her primary sexual partner's orders. If he gets worn out, she starts resenting the lack of sexual relations, and the relationship breaks down."

"Wow. Is the compulsion really that strong?"

"Not really, it's low-level but insidious because it's not at the conscious level, and is backed up by the culture and regulations."

"How common are those like Kim?" Kess asked.

"It happens about one time in a hundred." my new father responded. "But they tend to keep their heads down and do their job, so they don't get noticed as much." He turned back to me. "I do have a sensitive question for you, though."

"Yes?"

"Had you had sex with my son before he proposed?"

I blushed like a beetroot. "Umm ... no."

"You dated this hot piece for a month without getting any?" Ret loudly whispered to Tag, before realising we were all looking at him went almost as red as I had.

"Excellent!" Ray exclaimed after Ret's outburst, and like everyone else in the room I looked at him in askance.

"It means even the low-level conditioning wasn't a factor when you agreed to be his wife. That decision was yours alone. If he had accidentally influenced you to accept, you may have grown to subconsciously resent it later."

"So Tag and I should be able to have a normal relationship?" I asked.

"Yes, your libido will be a bit higher than the average woman's, probably in the top fifteen percent, but otherwise everything should be as normal as it can be when one of you is two hundred and fifty metres long."

"You looked up my specs!" I said, joking with him. "Is that like looking up a girl's measurements in a dirty magazine?"

Ret laughed uproariously.

"Oh yes, you'll fit right in." Dad said.

Kess gave me a hug. "Welcome to the family, sis, no matter what mum says."

"Thanks everyone. I really appreciate your support."

"There's something else you should know, Tag." his father said. "Despite what you said to your mum, there are still problems, we just have better ways of dealing with it now."

"We both know about the remote trigger self-destruct circuits." I said, wondering if he was avoiding saying that directly. His eyebrow shot up at that.

"You know about that?" I nodded.

"Well, what I actually meant was that in around the double the incidence of your 'norms', about one in fifty, we get those who so wanted to be sexually active as females their ideal image was, to put it bluntly, a slut."

"And when that gets amped up by the succubii DNA?" I asked, in realising horror.

"Yes, they basically become uncontrollably demanding. We try to deal with it through counselling, and in some cases novel solutions with group sex. Some of them can't cope with their own lusts and start to engage in self-destructive behaviour. We try to spot it and deal with it before it's too late, and are generally successful."

"So in the case of Jan's brother Hep?"

"Yes, his partner ship, Mil Qualyata, wasn't coping. It was suggested that she might take on some additional volunteers for relief, but she wanted to remain faithful to Hep. No-one realised how far gone she was, but she lined up to ram into a docking station. It turned out the local commander and counsellor had suspicions and had obtained her codes, so they triggered them in self defence."

"And Jill was on board?" I asked.

"Hep was giving her a lift back to save on money while we were saving for the wedding." Tag winced.

"Just so you understand, that's why the interest rate on your ship repayment is so high, because the finance companies think the risk of losing the investment altogether is so high. After you've got half the principal paid off, with a psychiatrists recommendation, you should be able to switch to someone else with a lower interest rate and get the rest paid off faster."

"Thanks Dad, you've been a great help." I smiled at him, and Tag squeezed my hand, and I felt the warmth flowing through it.

Around then the pre-game cheer-leading started, and the guys attentions were riveted to the bouncing on screen. Kess and I shared a look, then snuggled up to our respective partners. I contacted Pif and gave her the highlights of the conversation, since she was in the same boat as me. She in turn expressed concern at how Jan was going to react.

After the game, he dad told Ret and Kess to go to bed as he had something to say to us in private about dealing with Jan.

"You'll have plenty of time in the morning. I know the facility you're supposed to report to, and I can teleport you there."

"Thanks, Dad."

"I think if you try and tell her, she might reject what you're telling her. It'd be best for her to figure it out herself."

"How do we do that?" I asked, curious.

"Get her some tea during the conference call out of uniform to reinforce how normal you are. Then turn up in uniform after her call, and be ready to get out. She was in the trading fleet at one point, so although red doesn't automatically mean ship, she'll figure it out. If she goes overboard, I'll deal with it, but I think she'll just clam up."

"I'll trust in your judgement, but I'm really worried about this."

"There's something else I wanted to talk to you two about alone. There's one other facet about succubi you may not be aware of, that may be relevant."

"Go on." I said, feeling quite nervous inside.

"You need to understand how natural selection has led succubi to their current state. They're one of the primary breeding forces among demons."

I nodded.

"Their outstanding regeneration has developed so they can survive the sexual molestation of their kin and in some cases to survive the birth of their offspring."

"We were told we couldn't get pregnant."

"Mostly true, although succubi are continuously fertile, there needs to be some common DNA for conception. As long as you don't get impregnated by dragons or demons, you should be fine. However, some magics do exist to allow ships to have children. The laws on this are deliberately obscured so you won't find it unless you know what you're looking for, but you need to be free of debt and married for fifty years, and in a relationship with the same captain for one hundred years before they'll let you do it."

Tag and I looked at each other. We hadn't even attempted to discuss children, so this was pretty deep stuff for us.

"However, that's not what I wanted to warn you about, I already have two lovely grandchildren thanks to Kess and Ret. There's another dangerous aspect to the succubi tendencies, which tends to inflict normals like yourself more than others."

Now I was getting very worried.

"Succubi have effectively been bred to be dominated, often painfully, as those who can't cope don't get to breed. Although your libido is lower, the need for domination, although low, hasn't changed. For those ships who engage in sex often, just being underneath most of the time is sufficient. For ships who engage in sex less often, there is a tendency to need a slightly greater level of domination, and this can express itself in usual ways. Just increasing the frequency of sex is often enough to stave it off, others engage in a little role-play where she has to do what he says. Sometimes a little bit of pain during sex is what's required instead." Tag was turning red as a beet hearing this from his father, and I know I was blushing down to my breasts. "Every ship deals with this in her own way, and it's usually unnoticeable in those getting regular relief once or twice a day. Regardless, Kim, if you think you're slipping into a problem related to this, I urge you to get professional help as fast as possible."

"Thanks, I think." I said, still feeling horribly embarrassed being lectured on my future sexual kinks by my prospective father in law.

"It's a bit different for those who fail the first test." He seemed to be waiting for me to respond.

"The man outside the door?" I asked, being careful not to blurt out to Tag details of my first sexual experience as a proper woman.

"The induction process is highly classified and I don't have access to all of it, but there's a magical compulsion to increase your libido off the scale, and they wait to see what happens. The earlier soul-screening means most pass, but a few don't. That small minority end up with female captains, and the domination component for lesbians tends to end up very kinky."

Tag made muffled choking sounds, and my red flush reinforced itself again.

"I didn't really need to know that." I said. Dad winked back at me, and I was sure he'd told us that just to get a reaction from us.

"You don't really need to worry," he continued, "the Confederation has a vested interest in you surviving sane long enough to pay off your loan, and will normally schedule you for psych evaluations every year for the first ten years, and then trail off the frequency after that. They look for things like this, and they tend not to warn you straight up, as fear of something like this can create a worse problem than the issue they're warning you off. I think you're level-headed enough to take the truth, as as they say, forewarned is forearmed."

"Thanks Dad, I do appreciate you telling me all this, even if it is a bit much to take in."

"That's my girl. Now, off to bed, you've both got a tough day ahead of you tomorrow."

I hugged him in thanks, and took Tag by the hand and we went up to our room. Tag and I went to bed, and although we both got naked and kissed and cuddled, not much else happened. The importance of the evening's conversations and the threat of the morning had a lot to do with that, but given Tag's embarrassment at our last public outing, I think that the walls were not completely soundproof and his parents were in the next room had something to do with it as well.

I got up and had a shower when Jan was on her call, and dressed in a nighty and robe before going downstairs to fix breakfast. I did pass Jan some tea from off-camera while she was on her call. Tag had a shower after me and came downstairs in uniform.

Jan's call went a bit longer than expected, and soon dad was downstairs too.

"Uniform time." he told me.

I looked at him with a raised eyebrow.

"Yes, I know she's not off her call, but stay in here. Oh, thanks for breakfast."

I went up to our room and conjured my red uniform, then set about getting dressed. After one try I had learnt before not to try and conjure a uniform straight on. Clothes support one's body, so trying to create them directly tends to involve them merging with the top layer of skin, which is very painful. I'm just lucky I'm a regenerator, or I may have needed skin grafts or something.

I came back downstairs and Jan was still on her call. Tag and Ray were devouring their sausage, egg, toast, beans, and hash browns. I sat down with them and had an orange juice.

Finally Jan got off her call, and came to the kitchen. "Thanks for the tea." she called, before stepping in, and then she stepped in and saw us. The shock on her face was obvious as she saw me in my red uniform, and her mug slipped out of her hands. I telekinetically caught it before it hit the ground, and smiled as I realised dad was doing the same.

"You..." she got out, still in shock, then her face turned to a snarl of rage.

"Get out!" she screamed. "Get out of my house!"

"It's Kess's house, darling." Dad said in far to reasonable a tone of voice, and I feared for him as her eyes that looked like they could kill turned to him.

"Shut up!" she yelled at him before turning back to me. "Get your filth out of my sight!" she screamed at me.

With all the dignity I could muster, I stood up carefully. I tried to keep my tone as civil as possible. "Have a good day, dad! Tag?"

"You stay right there young man! What the hell do you think you're doing?" Tag was standing up, and placing a hand on my shoulder I felt him him open our link for the first time.

<<Let's go, Dad needs to calm her down.>> Tag sent to me.

"And you! How can trash like you dare to refer to my husband as your father!"

We walked out of the kitchen, down the hall, and out the front door, all while his mother was screaming at him to come back and condemning me as scum of the universe. Just as we were closing the front door, we heard her change to great sobs before announcing "Oh Ray! I've lost him too!"

<<What now?>> I asked Tag. <<I doubt your father's going to be able to teleport us any time soon, and it's a bit too much of a walk to the train station.>>

<<Can you ask for flight clearance to come pick us up?>>

<<I could, but wouldn't that freak your mother out more?>>

I could sense his temptation to do so anyway, so as to show he wasn't caving into his mother's phobia, before it gave way.

<<You're probably right, much as I would love to rub her nose in her prejudices.>>

I enveloped him in a huge hug that he returned. It felt good after the confrontation for him just t hold me. Always doing more than one thing at once, I did a search through the local network for any other options.

<<Got it.>> I thought at him. <<There's a taxi service in the area, we can get them to run us to the train station.>>

<<Do it.>> he thought back. <<Let's walk to the road.>>

So we walked arm in arm down the driveway to the road. I sent a message to Kess explaining what had happened, apologising profusely, and telling her we'd called a cab. I sent another to Ray just mentioning the cab and apologising for the trouble, even though I didn't know when either would read it. SIx minutes later a taxi pulled up for us.

We sat in the train with me snuggled up to him, both lost in our thoughts, concerned for how things were going to work out with Jan. When the train got close I requisitioned the same remote controlled cart and had it meet us at the station.

As we reported in, we were directed to a conference room.

"Mage Hok!" I said to the solitary occupant of the room.

"Kim!" he exclaimed. "How's my curious student?"

"Great, thanks. How are you?"

"Well, I was puzzled, but now you're here I have a better idea. Are you the one I've been hearing about who came out silver?"

"Yes, that's me."

"Silver indeed! Any idea what your speciality is?"

"That's classified, but to be honest I'm still not sure myself."

"Probably why we're here. And the others?"

"You were spot on."

"And who is this fine man?"

"Oh, sorry, Mage Hok, this is my captain, Tag Hargel. Tag, Mage Hok was our first magic instructor."

They shook hands and grinned at each other. It looked like they'd get along, thankfully.

We sat around making small talk until an Admiral walked in.

"First up, Tag and Kim, you're allowed to tell Mage Hok here everything that's happened so far. His team is going to be experimenting first with your casting ability, and after that with your extra-dimensional ability."

"Ma'am, does that include the political situation?" Tag asked.

"Yes, in fact he's the one who first received the warning that led to the creation of your series of ships. That's why he was involved in your first lessons, Kim. Tag, you are to report to Mage Hok. Mage Hok, you are to report to me on at least a daily basis. We've cleared you for an initial two weeks of work, which may be extended as required. Any questions?"

We all shook our heads, then Tag piped up.

"Ma'am, I have a potential breech of classified material."

A raised eyebrow from her was all he needed to continue.

"My father is a ConFed Investigative Mage. Before we arrived he already knew more than he should have, such as the dimensions of the Harpagornis. I suspect he's only digging because of the family connection, but with his ConFed recognised skills he may turn up more than anyone intended."

"What's your fathers name?" she asked.

"Investigative Mage Ray Harjob, ma'am."

"Hold on a minute." she worked furious on a keyboard for a minute.

"Hok, he's already got enough clearance to be let in on this, and his investigative skills may be useful in resolving the political situation. He's not currently assigned, we could pull him onto your team. What do you think about that?"

"Any problems working with your father?" Hok asked Tag in turn.

"None at all. My mother, maybe, but my father's fine."

"Anything I should be aware of?" Hok probed.

"Tense family situation. My mother's brother was killed when his ship's self destruct sequence was activated when she went rogue, and my mother has personal problems with ships as a result. We left when my father was calming my mother down after she found I was now a ship's captain."

"You don't believe this would cause a problem?"

"No sir, I think both myself and my father are capable of handling the situation."

"In that case, Admiral, I think I'll take up your offer. Ray has a good reputation but I've never worked with him."

"Done then, I'll make the offer after we break. Anything else?"

No-one had anything further to say.

"Ok, dismissed!" Tag and I gave snappy salutes while Hok gave a cheery wave. The Admiral left and Hok guided us to a smaller meeting room.

"So, what's going on? Start from the beginning." he asked.

We spent some time laying it all out for him.

"OK, we've been tasked with casting first, and I'll leave the political situation until we find out if your father will be joining is. So, Kim, my obvious question to you, is why can't you get your human body back to your ship body?"

"I cast by building up a spin field, and then excluding myself from it. It doesn't work for things outside my body."

"Yes, exactly. Your body, not your ship body. Your soul and thus the magic extends to your human body. Even if your focus chamber is doing the spin calculations, you should still be able to centre the spin field on your human body."

"Really?" I asked in surprise.

"Yes, it's exactly what mages do when they teleport. The difference with us is that we don't have the computational power for blind jumps. We need to have a connection to a place, usually by memorising features of it. Then we kind of feel the path to the known location magically rather than calculating the path, and spin through that 'feel'. It's just different ways of plotting the same course."

That gave me a lot to think about.

"Can I give it a try now?"

"No," he laughed, "we have to set up a lot of sensors, magical and mundane, first. We've always known in theory these were flips sides of the same thing, after all that's why we mages designed living ships in the first place, but now we may be getting real cross-over, which could be invaluable to both."

As we worked through the day, we found I could get my human bit back to my ship bit. I could even get my human body to spin to places I could directly sense with either my human or ship senses. Hok seemed to think I'd eventually get the memorisation trick, but that it took years to develop for mages so was likely to take even me months to develop.

It also seemed I couldn't teach my casting trick to ships or mages just by describing it, I needed to communicate psychically to teach it. Once learnt, no-one else seemed to be able to pass it on.

Although mages couldn't cast heavy objects, they did seem to be able to cast things up to about ten percent of their own body weight to anywhere they could normally teleport to. It was thought this could revolutionise the fast courier business, as mages couldn't teleport too often without depleting their personal energy, but the energy loss was far less with casting.

I got an email back from Kess telling me that she'd been woken up by the ruckus, but that there was no need to apologise and I was welcome back any time, regardless of what her mother thought.

Dad popped in, literally, at the end of the day.

"Hi Kim! Where's Tag?"

"Biological break, he'll be back in tick. Since you're here I assume you've been roped into this too?"

"Only to find out what my son and daughter in law are up to."

"You know I'm not technically your daughter in law yet, thanks to regulations preventing me from getting married until I've paid off my debt, it's going to be a very long engagement."

"I've read the preliminary material from Hok, it says you have a psychic bond with with Tag?"

"Yes, but we did cheat a bit on that."

"Doesn't matter, if you have that kind of bond and still both want to get married, the service is a mere formality." His smile melted my heart, and I hugged him, sobbing in happiness.

"What did you do now, dad?" asked Tag, returning from the toilet.

<<It's OK, he's just made me very happy.>>

"Women!" he said, but the smile on his face put a lie to his tone.

"So how's the situation with mum?"

"Tense. Kess made it clear you were both welcome back tonight, and your mother threatened to leave. I told her she needed to let Hep go, and that if she wanted me to teleport her home she was going to stay and make nice. She said she'd catch a ship home instead. Kess actually laughed at that, which didn't help. I said if she was prepared to do that, it was a bigger step than playing nice with you. She caved at that point."

"Tension plus." I moaned.

"It's not that bad. Once we'd got sorted out that she wasn't running away, I had the conversation I had with you last night, pointing out that 'normals' like you are the lowest risk category, and that we all knew Tag had his heart set on being a captain even if she refused to admit it, and you were the best choice both as a person and as a risk. I asked if she wanted to drive you away and have Tag go heartbroken to a floozie of a ship and blame her for losing the love of his life."

"Going for guilt trip city?" I quipped, liking this less and less.

"I'd rather it hadn't come to this. She really is a lovely person except for this one blind spot, because she never got over her grief from Hep. I think she actually blames herself for Tag losing Jill as well, because it had been Jan's suggestion that Jill catch a ride with Tag."

"That's a nasty mix." I commented.

"Yes, it has been, but there's never been a way of directly addressing it before. I'm hoping you can act as the lance to excise this boil."

"Thanks for the lovely analogy." I said with a slightly sour face.

"You are most welcome!" he said with such buoyancy I couldn't help but smile.

"Thanks, I needed that." I said.

"Right, back to work. I have some questions on the situation, if I may?"

"We've got the time, they're doing tests with the casting learn rates for the other ships, seeing how long they need to practice to do various things." Tag said.

"Can we do it in the Harpagornis?" he asked. "I want to spend some time there to start to memorise, I can see it might be handy to be able to teleport to my son and daughter-in-law."

"How much do you trust me?" I asked him.

"Not as much as my son does."

"OK, you can go second then." I grabbed Tag in a big hug and gave him a deep kiss. In the middle of the kiss, I did the reverse casting trick and teleported us back to my bridge. I broke the kiss.

"Be right back." I said, and disengaged then cast myself back to Ray.

<<Tease!>> Tag thought at me.

<<I'll make it up to you, I promise!>>

<<I may hold you to that.>>

<<As long as you hold me, I'll be happy.>>

"Sorry, only practised enough for one at a time." I said, giving him a less saucy hug and bringing us back to my bridge as well.

"Don't I get the platinum service?" he asked.

"Sorry, tongue only for the captain." I said with as straight a face as I could manage.

He looked like he was going to say something, then let it pass.

<<I think dad wimped out.>> Tag thought at me.

<<Agreed. Pity.>> I thought back with as much cheekiness as I could manage.

"The bridge probably isn't the best target. The front right lift is best." I said.

<<I just figured out the artwork.>> Tag sent at me,

"Why the lift?" Ray asked.

"Well, it has access to all levels, is almost pure diamond for viewing, and has air-lock functionality so even if hull integrity and atmosphere is lost, it should still be safe."

"Makes sense."

"There's also murals on the floor and ceiling of the front right lift, three dolphins intertwined on the floor and a stylised sun being eclipsed by a water world on the roof."

"Specifically unique to act as a teleportation key?" Ray asked.

"Exactly." Tag said, as if it had all been his idea in the first place. "Not only that, but if someone arrives uninvited, they're already isolated."

"It was one of our design objectives when we considered what we'd do after the current conflict, and diplomatic ships was one of our ideas. The other three in my generation have similar but different murals on the front right. The front left is left blank for regular use, to avoid unnecessary questions." I said.

"The exact designs were wiped after creation for security reasons, but there was mention the last four ships were modified for diplomacy and medical use. Can I get a tour?"

So rather than the planned meeting, we ended up giving him an impromptu tour of me.

"So where is your focus chamber and exit?" he asked at the end.

"Not telling. Only my three fellow ships know, and then only because we did our designs together. We all have them in different locations with different access methods, though."

"Not even Tag?" he asked.

"Oh well, of course Tag knows. I might need him to bring a change of clothes." I said flippantly.

"You don't have them hidden in the exit?"

"Of course I do, along with a shower. No, I may need him to move people away from the exit point so no-one knows where it is, or meet me with some equipment for whatever situation we find ourselves in - because no doubt we will be in a situation if I've just lost a human body."

"You've really thought this out, haven't you? Not just that, but the teleport point and everything else."

"I intend to keep your son and I alive as long as humanly possible, dad, but I'm sure I haven't thought of everything. Overconfidence is a weakness."

"Most new ships go heady on either the power or the sex."

"I've always tried to be practical, and in my last life I was paid to be pre-emptively paranoid."

He looked askance at me.

"I was a computer consultant, mainly in networking and security, with a heavy programming element for both. However, there was no magic that I know of in the world, which is why I get the basics wrong occasionally. I've read the theory, but I'm sorely lacking in the practical experience."

"We need to get back to talking about these others, though." he said.

We ended up having the conversation in the lift, to give him memorisation time. We broke when Hok asked for a meeting. Ray announced his intention to try and track the mystery workers who had taken DNA samples. He didn't think it would lead back to the Faithful, but thought he might find a connection to whoever leaked the self-destruct codes.

Hok was intrigued at the issue of passing the casting knowledge only via telepathic transfer. He wondered if this was how the religion of the so-called Faithful survived, that only mages sufficiently brainwashed would be passed the dimension-spanning knowledge needed in their minds to secure themselves, both to bully others and to escape the Foe, should they turn up again.

Then the end of the day came.

"You know, we could just stay here." I said hopefully.

"You're not wriggling out of this any more than she is." Dad intoned. "She needs to confront this, and if you don't help deal with it, it'll always be hanging over you in this family."

"I know you're right, but that doesn't mean I'm looking forward to it."

"I don't think any of us is looking forward to it." Dad replied.

"I'm with Kim on this one." Tag joined in.

"You're not getting out either." Dad gave him the hard word as well.

"So, when do we hit the firing squad?" Tag asked.

"Hang on a tick." I said, holding up my hand.

<<Calling Kess.>> I said to Tag.

"What's she doing?" Dad asked.

"Calling Kess to see if the coast is clear."

The video link picked up. She wasn't actually seeing me, but a generated image of me in casuals in my stateroom.

"Kim!" she exclaimed.

"Sort of." I said. "Computer generated me, real me is in a secure area with Tag and Dad."

"It's safe for the moment, she's in our study, with Ret, trying to ignore each other as they work."

<<It's clear.>> I reported to Tag.

"Thanks, we'll be there soon." I said to her, at the same time telling Dad and Tag "Jan and Ret are in the study, can you get yourself there Dad?"

"How soon?" she asked.

"Hang on, I'll ask." I responded, while at Dad's nod I gave Tag another kiss and teleported us both to right behind Kess.

"This soon enough?" human me and video me asked in stereo, as I disengaged from Tag.

"That's more than a little odd." said Tag, gesturing at the two of me.

"She's my evil twin!" we both said together, pointing at the other one.

"Oh, no." Tag and Kess rolled their eyes together, before I felt something and stepped sideways to make room for Dad as he popped in. He wouldn't actually have come in sharing space with me, but we would have been close enough to risk tripping over each other.

"What did I miss?" he said.

"Kim is just demonstrating her very rough approximation of a sense of humour." Kess replied.

"Help me, help me! I'm trapped in a computer!" video-me said, apparently banging on the screen. Kess hit the disconnect button, and I pouted.

"You know, I have to find excuses to travel like that more often." said Tag. I gave him a mental image of me poking my tongue out at him.

"No sense rubbing it in." Dad said, indicating my uniform.

"Eep! Be right back." I took a second look at Kess in jeans and a pastel blue top with puff sleeves and sandals with a small heel, and dashed up the stairs to our room to change out of my red uniform into a similar top that was pastel green, jeans, and flat sandals instead of heels so we were closer to the same height. I re-did my hair from the military bun into something closer to her style as well, then came back downstairs.

"Going for the twin look?" Kess asked. Tag and Dad were nowhere to be seen.

"Going for the sister look." I replied, eliciting a smile from her. "They decamped to the entertainment room?"

"Of course. Now help me with this salad."

We spent the time preparing dinner in idle chit-chat, getting to know each other. I didn't have much to contribute, not wanting to contribute much from my previous life, and not having been around that long here, but with my ready access to the local network could cover my lack of knowledge by pausing and looking things up. It was actually fun, because I found things I'd never have found otherwise.

"Now, you need to announce that dinner will be ready in five." she said.

"Is this your way of letting your mother know I'm here?"

"See, I knew you were more than a pretty face."

I debated silly comments, and decided to conserve my quips.

"Dinner's ready in five minutes!" I yelled down the hall.

<<You trying to invite something?>> Tag asked.

<<Yes, you to dinner.>>

<<You know what I mean,>>

<<Kess's idea, blame her.>>

<<You know I'm not looking forward to this.>>

<<You and me both.>>

Kess and Dad both insisted that we all sit in the same positions as last night, so Jan would be sitting on one side of me and Tag on the other. She was the last one to show up. The men were engaged in another conversation about sports, but were also carefully watching our end of the table.

Jan asked if we were still able to do the fashion clothing thing we had discussed before. She seemed a bit nervous about it, but I assumed she was just trying to do the right thing against her judgement. We then talked the rest of the evening about what we were going to try, and I sensed approval from the other end of the table that we were at least trying. I think everyone notes she hadn't said it was OK for me to call her Mum, though.

After dinner the men went back to their sports, and the three of us women went to Kess's room. We brought up various designs on the screen in her room which was linked back to ship-me, and then I'd conjure versions tailored to us, sometimes with colouring changes.

The system was that we got a 2-D picture of the design. I could then download the full design for a small fee, which allowed me to accurately model on screen how we would look since I'd scanned everyone's sizes. Of course, just because it looked good on screen didn't mean it felt good wearing it. I'd download an average of eight designs before finding something we actually made, an average of two or three times for each design. I was scrupulous about recording everything I actually made along with any colour or textile changes, along with the actual measurements used, and fed this back to pay their royalties in real time. It ended up costing a fair bit, but not as much as if we'd brought half of that in stores. I had a great time, and I think Kess did too, but Jan was giving off odd vibes, like she couldn't decide if she should be having fun or hating me.

At the end, Jan said she wanted to pay her share of the royalties. Not wanting to make a big thing about it, I only told her about the per-unit royalties, not the up-front design royalties. She then made a big production out of deciding she didn't really want some of the items if they were going to cost that much. I'd already made the payments, but she didn't know that, and again I didn't want to make a big thing out of it. I was pretty sure she was trying to bait me into an argument so she could paint herself as the victim, whether to others or her own convoluted mind I wasn't sure.

I didn't argue with her, just took notes of the items she now didn't want, and put them aside in a suitcase I conjured, saying I'd only register the items she actually wanted. Of course the money was long gone, but it kept her happy and got me out of trouble.

Kess and I went down for some tea after that, and she agreed Jan had been acting really weirdly and was probably trying to manufacture an incident. Tag decided to retire to bed early, mainly to collect on my earlier promises, and Kess said she'd talk to her father about her mother's odd behaviour.

It was hard keeping quiet, I'm pretty sure Tag was doing his level best to make me moan as loudly as possible, and with his mother in the next room. I thought I'd created an exhibitionist monster, but he informed me later he just wanted to rub his mum's nose in the fact we were enjoying ourselves. I told him he was a bad man given we were trying to build bridges.

Next morning I made breakfast again, before Tag and I popped to work. Most of the day was pretty boring, especially for Tag, as all we did was cast objects and animals around and have vast amounts of measurements made.

That night we found out Jan had made an escape during the day, apparently she had to go to her office for work and would be back tomorrow. We actually had a fun evening.

The next day was more casting and measuring, until just before 10:30 when I got an unexpected call from a legal firm.

"Coopers Legal for the Harpagornis Corporation."

Since there were legal problems with non-citizens entering into contracts, for royalties and some other stuff Tag and I had set up a corporation with him as sole director and 51% owner, and myself as 49% owner. I suddenly had a really bad feeling.

"Please hold." I said, and got Tag who was bored on the bridge reading some basic training material on magic and teleportation, as he wanted to have a better understanding of what was going on.

<<Tag, I have a legal firm on the line for our corporation. I used it to run the royalties for our little fashion event the other night.>>

<<On screen.>>

"Tag Hargel, director of the Harpagornis Corporation, what can I do for you?"

"Sif Panvox here, I'm sorry but we've had a fairly serious allegation that one Kim Harpagornis has been conjuring products we hold the license for in this system without paying royalties. She hasn't acted directly with us, but she's registered as a mage in your corporation which has royalty arrangements with us, so we wanted to get your position."

"Just hold on a moment while I look up our records." Tag said.

<<What's going on?>>

<<Your mum is screwing with me. She had me make some stuff, then said she didn't want to pay for it. I already had, but humoured her and pretended I wasn't going to register the items in question so to avoid the argument. All records on your screen now.>>

<<Send these to him.>>

<<Done.>>

"Sif, I've just sent you a copy of our records. I've talked with the mage responsible who says everything occurred as per the records. If there's any discrepancy I'd love to know."

"Hold on a minute." There was some furious typing on the other end. "Your records match ours exactly."

"So what's the problem?"

"We've been presented with a number of garments which we have been told have not been placed on this list, nor paid for."

<<Honey?>>

<<Not a chance. I registered and paid for everything, including noting textile and tailor changes, actually before I did the conjuration.>>

"Sif, our conjuration process uses computer assistance. I understand our system has checks in place so no item can actually been created until after it's imaged in the computer, and final imaging cant occur until after your royalties have been paid." Nice ad-lib there.

<<The royalty payment verification number is sewn into each garment in micro form, the exact position on file with each application.>>

"Furthermore, the payment verification number is sewn into each garment, in a location filed with each application."

"I wish everyone had a system like that."

"We take these allegations very seriously, and are happy to split the costs of independent verification with you, pending the outcome of the investigation."

"Any preference on verifier?"

"None at all at this stage, I'll leave that up to you, but we reserve the right to have it checked again later."

"OK, that's reasonable, I'll have it done today."

"Thanks, get back to us via the same contact route."

"Will do." and he signed off.

<<I recorded the whole thing, I think you need to get your father in here now. Now we know what the 'urgent work' thing was your mum had to do.>>

<<Can you put me through to him?>>

<<Done.>>

"Hi Tag!"

"Dad, you need to get to the Harpagornis as soon as you can without dropping stuff."

"What's wrong?"

"Mum's gone off the deep end."

He teleported to the lift and was in the bridge before I was, my human body was helping with the tests and I begged off saying I had to help Ray with something.

We replayed the video recording of the call, and I described the process I had gone through with the royalties, and his wife's strange requests at the end,

"Yes, Kess mentioned that, she thought Jan was just trying to provoke an argument."

"Well, that's what I thought too. Do you mind if we call Kess, I have something to ask her?"

"Sure."

So I called Kess, who was luckily available.

"Kess, remember that bag into which I packed the clothes your mother didn't want?"

"Yes."

"Is that still in your room?"

"No, you didn't come back for it, I think Ret put it in the basement."

"Sorry, my fault. Can you check with Ret?"

"Hold on."

A few minutes later she came back with Ret.

"It's not where I left it." Ret said. "What's going on?"

"Shall I show them?" I asked the others. Tag was ashen-faced, and I could tell he was worried about where this was going, but Dad nodded. I played back Tag's discussion with Sif down the line.

"So what happens now?" Kess asked.

"Well, assuming there are no surprises, the investigation will clear us, but dump your mother in hot water for making a false report." Dad replied.

I did some very quick on-line checking.

"I may understand what she thinks she's doing." I said.

"What?" Tag asked.

"Well, the lawyer said the complaint was made against me. As a non-citizen, my right of counter-claim is severely restricted. She probably thought she'd get me in trouble, and if it backfired there's nothing I can do. But she's stuffed up because everything was filed correctly through a corporation with all directors and majority owners being citizens."

"Tag's the sole director?" Dad asked.

"Yes, and on file he owns fifty-one percent and I own forty-nine percent."

"Crap." he said. I'd never heard him swear before.

"What's wrong?" I asked.

"Law firms in this system are allowed to pursue criminal charges against individuals making claims of illegal activity they know to be false."

"So they'll sue mum?" Tag asked.

"Yes." Dad responded grimly.

I did some more searching.

"Actually, there's a way round that, but it's not going to be fun." I said.

"Explain." Dad said, obviously stressed.

"She can plead temporary insanity to avoid it. There's plenty of precedent, but it would mean she'd get a mark against her as a prejudiced individual. They may legally force her to undergo court-sanctioned therapy."

Well, that hung in the air, no-one said anything. I decided to put my foot firmly in my mouth.

"Can I assume from the lack of response that everyone is thinking that might not be a bad thing, but the family repercussions are awful?"

Again, everyone stayed silent, but they all looked guilty. I guess I'd been spot on.

"All right then. We need to find out how much they want to sue for, and see if we can pay it off quietly?"

"No." said dad firmly. "We split the difference. Tag, get Sif back on the line and tell him we think the report came from someone with a family grievance who may be temporarily mentally disturbed because of recent trauma. That should hold them off making any decision until they know more."

"Shouldn't we be contacting Jan?" I asked.

"Not yet, let's wait for the report to come back so we have a firm position. Tag, make the call." Dad ordered.

<<Put me through?>>

<<Doing it now.>>

<<Let everyone else see it, but he only sees me.>>

<<Done.>>

"Hi Sif, I've done some investigation on our end and have some relevant info."

"Yes?"

"It seems one Jan Geltone has had a recent trauma and may be temporarily mentally disturbed. She's the prospective mother in law of our mage in question. She had ordered the items concerned, but then declined to pay for them, and is believed to have removed them from a third parties property without the owner's permission. I'm transmitting a list of the items concerned, it's a subset of the original list."

I transmitted the list, wishing he'd given some notice he was going to commit to that.

"All the other items are at the residence I'm transmitting now," Damn him again! OK, that was easier. "if you need to inspect them, although none of the parties involved own that property, we can co-ordinate with the owners."

"Anything else?"

"No, that's it."

"OK, I'll pass this list on to the verifier."

"No problems. Again, if there's anything we can do to help, we take these allegations very seriously."

"Noted. I'll let you know soon."

"Thanks."

<<Cut it.>>

<<Done.>>

"Smooth, bro." Kess said.

The next hour was tense, then we received a call back from Sif.

<<Call from Sif.>>

<<Put it on.>>

"Hi Tag. The verifier has concluded that the items on the list you provided as removed without permission are the items in our possession. Looks like a time-waster, sorry about that, we'll refund you your portion of the verifier costs and claim it back plus damages from the person reporting."

"Good to hear, but the mage concerned has indicated she'd prefer to handle it in-family. Can you send us the bill for all your costs and we'll pay it on her behalf straight away, as long as we get the verifier's report, her original report to you, and an itemised invoice from you, and transfer of authority to pursue?"

"Don't see why not, saves us the trouble. I'll get that to you soon."

We got the full details four minutes later. The costs were significantly padded, and damages were times two instead of times three as we were taking the risk.

"Hefty but reasonable under the circumstances. Pay it." Dad said.

Tag winced at the cost but approved the deal. We looked at the video of her original report, and no-one was happy with it.

"Now I get my wife on the phone and read her the riot act. Kess, I don't want you to hear this."

"OK, cya!" and she cut the connection.

"Call her now?"

"Go for it, use my ID and record it."

It rang, and then she answered audio mode only.

"Hi Ray, what's up?"

"You know what's up, your little stunt trying to drop Kim in it is beyond the pale."

"What are you talking about?"

"Don't bother, their lawyer has shown me the video of your report. Unfortunately for you, Kim had paid for everything before she created it and had the royalty authority number sewn into each garment."

"It doesn't matter, the little bitch is a non-citizen so she can't do anything."

"If you talk about Kim like that again, I will divorce you."

Silence on the other end.

"Right, now that I have your attention, Kim didn't pay the royalties directly. She and Tag have a company set up to avoid non-citizen legal problems. That means, whether you intended to or not, you've knowingly made a false claim against a corporation."

Silence from the other end.

"You still there?" Dad asked.

"Yes, Ray." You could feel the iciness down the line.

"Right, so from here either you pay a huge fine, or you pay a smaller fine and get a black mark for being involved in a hate crime, or you plead temporary mental insanity. Either of the last two is probably going to result in instant termination from your VP job for 'conduct unbecoming'."

"'Hate crime', Ray?"

"To a court it's clear you are unfairly prejudiced against ships, and have engaged in criminal behaviour for no other purpose than to advance that prejudice."

"Oh dear."

"I don't think 'Oh dear' quite covers it."

---

For your information:

Name	Relation
Kim Harpagornis	Narrator
Tag Hargel	Kim's Captain
Kess Gelhar	Tag's sister
Ret Samkeg	Kess's husband
Jan Geltone	Tag's mother
Ray Harjob	Tag's father
Hep Tonegel	Jan's brother, deceased
Jill Winivora	Tag's ex-fiancé, deceased
Mil Qualyata	Hep's ship