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.

A return to some action!

---

"What do you suggest?" Jan asked, and I could sense fear in her voice.

"You really want to know?"

The pause was longer than "significant."

"Yes."

"Hep died a long time ago because he chose to captain the easiest ship going, then couldn't keep up with her demands, and didn't want to face up to his mistakes." There was strangled yelp from the other end. "It's time you got over that. Kim is nothing like that, she's sweet and some of the other ships refer to her as "normal" like it's a bad thing because she's the complete opposite of Mil."

"So what do you want me to do?" came the extremely sullen reply.

"Beg for her forgiveness, and agree to get professional help. If you agree to that, I'm sure I can work out something with Tag and Kim to keep anything official going on legal records anywhere. We may even be able to get Tag's corporation, as the aggrieved party, to buy out the legal case and then drop the whole thing." Of course we'd already done everything except the "drop" part. "But to do so would need the agreement of all the shareholders which would mean you need to convince Tag and Kim."

Again, a long pause.

"Do you think I should get professional help?"

"If you had a mutant cancer that had bypassed the nanites healing, and it was affecting your work and personal life, wouldn't you want it fixed?"

"Of course, but this is completely different." Jan said defensively.

"No it's not!" Dad thundered back. "Your career is over unless you beat this sickness, and you're alienating your son and daughter with it. Your son has chosen to marry a beautiful young lady who has everything going for her, and you want to sabotage that. You've betrayed your daughter's trust by lying to her, stealing from her house, and setting up one of her friends for a crime she didn't commit. It's exactly the same, you're just to stubborn to admit it."

The line cut off.

"Line's cut, sorry." I announced.

"Call her back." Dad ordered.

"Diverting to voicemail, carrier side-channel reports it's been switched off."

"Hang up."

"Done."

Silence reigned for a moment.

"You two know her better than me." I intruded. "Is there any chance we have to worry about self-harm to avoid facing the issue?"

The concern radiating off Tag doubled, as he looked at his father.

"I'd like to think not, but then I'd never anticipated this silliness." Now he looked concerned as well.

"She's switched her phone off but not her PDA." I announced, having been trying to find her.

"Audio capability?" Dad asked.

"Tied to her phone."

"Can you send her a message?"

"Sure. If you want I can even track delivery of the message and get a rough location for her."

"OK send this from my ID: Call me back in five minutes or I'll report to the police that I'm concerned about you committing self-harm, and get charges filed officially so they can chase it up. No going back from that."

"Last chance to re-word?"

"Send it."

I sent it and traced the delivery through the network.

"OK, she's near somewhere called Pavtulcue." I looked it up on the map. "That's just off the train route back to Kess's."

"Put me though to Kess."

"Ringing."

"Hi Kim!" said Kess, as we looked at an empty art studio.

"Actually it's me." said her father as Kess walked into view. "Your mum is on the way home. Can you grant Kim access to your security system?"

"Sure, what's going on?"

"I wish we knew, but we're pretty sure she's lost it. She's been called on what she's done and I think she's refusing to face up to it."

"Hold on a tick." She was entering a code in the background, then I got the access codes to her security system.

"I got the codes and I'm in, thanks Kess!" I said.

"Right, now your mother should be back in ... " as he paused I looked up the train timetables and flashed up a number on screen "... around an hour and a half. Make sure you're not there, and you're no-where she might bump into you."

"Dad?"

"I want to see what she's up to, to determine her state of mind. All three of us can teleport there in seconds if we need to."

"OK, Ret's in at work today."

"Can you contact him and see if your mum has been in the office at all since she left yesterday?"

"I'll find out and call you back." and she cut the connection. She called back five minutes later.

"No, he did the old 'has my mother in law been in, I'd offer her a ride' routine, and security told them she hasn't been in since just before Tag got here."

"Thanks, now make sure you're out in plenty of time!"

"Sure dad. Love you all!"

"Love you too sweetie." Dad said, Tag waved to her, and I flashed up "Love you too - Kim" on the screen, then for once I cut the connection first.

"Now we wait?" Tag asked.

"Now we wait." his father confirmed. "But we have a heap of other work to be done. By the way, those two people who visited all the ships? They were here to install cargo management trackers, and went back to a military base they haven't left since. I need to go interview them to make sure as soon as we get this sorted out. Kim, get back to whatever Hok had you doing, let us know as soon as the security system picks up anything."

"Yes dad" I said, and cast myself back to the testers.

"Fine woman you have there, son." he said to Tag.

"She can still hear you, you know." Tag said. Dad's only reply was to smile.

She took half an hour longer than we expected to get there. We hadn't followed through on our threat and informed the police, since dad wanted to judge her state of mind first.

"She's home!" I announced to Tag and Dad, standing on the bridge. I brought up the video of her walking up the driveway.

"No taxi?" Tag asked.

"Maybe that's what's taken her so long." Dad said.

She walked into the house and dropped her purse and bag on the floor by the front door.

"Not good, she usually places them on the side-table." Dad commented.

From there she went into the kitchen and made herself a cup of tea, we got the video from the phone there. After finishing her tea she went up the stairs. We didn't have video coverage there, just motion sensors.

"She's going into your room, she's moving around." I told dad.

"She's leaving your room, moving to ours?" I wasn't sure what was going on here.

Dad's face set.

"She's gone to our bathroom. The house management system shows power draw from the hot water system, so she must be running the taps."

"This isn't good. Kim, can you get your human body back here?"

"In the middle of something, I need two minutes. Sorry, still officially on the clock and we haven't declared a family emergency yet."

"Keep it that way, but we don't have two minutes. OK Tag, you're with me."

They vanished from the bridge and re-appeared in the front entrance of the house, and they went quietly up the stairs. I maintained audio from downstairs.

"Kim, call the ambulance!" I faintly heard from Dad. Knowing they couldn't hear the video from upstairs, I sent back a thought to Tag.

<<Calling now, what's wrong?>>

<<She's slit her wrists in our bathtub.>>

<<So we'd be the ones to find her?>>

<<Just get that ambulance!>> I could sense the fear and frustration.

<<Still ringing.>>

They answered, and I explained the situation.

"You're in a remote area, we're an estimated eleven minutes away."

"Hold on, I may be able to help, I'm teleportation-capable. Can you give me their exact location?"

"Sure." he bliped it to me.

<<Get Dad to teleport back here.>>

I managed to get free from actual work, and said I needed to do something for Ray and would be back in five minutes. I spun to the bridge and then cast myself to the ambulance's location, immediately jumping out of the way.

"Tell the ambulance the crazy woman they just about ran over is their teleportation ride."

"Oh, right." It screeched to a halt, turned around, and came back. A man and a woman leapt out, leaving only the driver inside.

"Sorry, one at a time."

I grabbed the woman and spun for a corner of the lift. No-one else there, back to the ambulance, grab the guy, spun to another corner of the lift which was now on the bottom deck adjacent to one of the medical bays. This time Dad and Jan were there.

"Grade AA medical facilities this way." I said, assisting them to carry Jan though a corridor, and airlock, and into the medical facility. She was actually still conscious, something I hadn't realised, but moaning very quietly.

"Suicide attempt?" the woman asked.

"We believe so." Dad answered.

"Where are we?" the man asked.

"Ship, Harpagornis. Can you get me flight clearance to your hospital?" I responded, while the woman was applying a tourniquet to her arm to staunch the bleeding.

"You still got the dispatcher on the line?" he asked.

"Yes!" said the dispatcher. I'd kept him on speaker. "Organising now."

He blipped an authorisation code, which I immediately blipped to flight control and took off.

"There in seven minutes. Sorry, no blood of the right type ready, and we'll be at the hospital before I can synthesise some."

"We'll pump her full of saline for now." he said. I extended a saline bag pre-warmed to human body temperature with an attached drip and let them put it in.

"Either of you healers?" the woman asked as she applied a tourniquet to the other arm.

"Not enough for this." Dad said.

"Sorry, never been trained." I responded.

"I'll see what I can do. Ship, can you lend me some power?" the woman asked.

"Yes. Let me know how much you want." I started low and she started to heal the worst of the slit veins.

"Actually a little less, this is delicate."

"OK." I responded, as she continued the careful work.

"ETA one minute." I announced to all, including the dispatcher, although I'd been giving him a telemetry feed. The hospital had a standard triangular docking arrangement on the roof, as well as a few helipads.

"How do we transfer her to the cargo bay?" the man asked.

"Actually, the lift outside can lower beneath the ship." I said. "Just get her there and I can drop you all on one of the the helipads."

"Helipad two, Harpagornis." said the dispatcher.

"OK."

The gurney she was lying on got pushed up slightly from the floor to expose its wheels, and the drip transferred to a pole on the gurney, and we wheeled her out to the lift just as I was getting into position and a team was arriving on the pad.

Everyone left, leaving me by myself. I spoke to the dispatcher.

"Everyone away, requesting return authority."

"Transferring you to general flight control with return authority."

Once I had my return under control, I cast my human body back to the house and collected Tag. I'd been giving him mental updates throughout. I hugged him without the kiss this time as I pulled him back to the ship.

"Rough day." I said.

"Tell me about it." he responded.

"Well, I have to get back to being prodded and carrying twice my weight in sensing equipment."

"Good luck with that."

"Thanks."

The rest of the day was an anti-climax. Dad called part-way through to get me to transfer all the legal stuff we had to the hospital, apparently she was physically safe and he was working on getting her sectioned. I really admired the concern for her in his voice.

I got fined by ConFed for running off without authorisation, and docked pay, both ship and salary, for the time away. It was annoying and I told Tag, but I understood it was unfortunately what I had signed up for.

I got a call from the ambulance service asking how I'd teleported to their ambulance without a memorised point to jump to, as that could be extremely useful for them to get to patients faster. I told them that because of my concern for a family member, I'd used a risky technique with a one percent chance of smearing me over a ten metre radius. They decided that wasn't something they wanted to teach their ambulance workers. I did mention what had happened to Hok's team, and the cover story I had provided, so later if this went mainstream they could contact them about the "improved" technique. I got fined again for breaching need to know.

Although we joined everyone for our usual dinner, I couldn't face sleeping in the room with a bathroom where Jan had tried to kill herself, so I left a remote to relay video from the room so I could hear if anyone called, and Tag and I slept in our combined stateroom on the Harpagornis. Kess had arranged for professional cleaners to come in the next day and remove the bloodstains from the bath and the floor, the latter from when Tag and Dad had dragged her out.

I filled in my ship-mates on the problems of the day. Kart offered to teach me some magical healing techniques, which was very welcome, I'd been quite scared through it as to how I would have handled things had it been Tag injured and we were in the middle of nowhere. Kart and Red seemed to think that a relationship with a captain should be professional and sexual, after all that's why they kept separate rooms, so they could have individual times. They didn't think there was any need for families to be involved. Jet believed in professional and sexual, but not in individual time. Pif privately expressed the opinion to me that Jet may be one of those who imagined themselves as sluts and may get into trouble later. Pif thought it romantic that Tag and I were trying to make things work even with family problems, and hoped she would get to met Dirk's family one day.

Dad called later to let us know Jan had been diagnosed with post traumatic stress disorder, and treatment started for her phobia from that incident many years ago.

The next day at work they were done with casting, and moved on to the dimensional transfer spins.

"I'm not sure I want to try random spins to unknown dimensions." I said when the subject of targets came up. "Dimensions could be discreet and I suspect we'll end up smeared if we target something that doesn't exist."

"And there's probably a good reason no-one has figured out how to cross dimensions before now." Hok added. "I agree with Kim."

"Could we just make a few jumps to the one dimension we do know?" asked one of Hok's assistants.

"No, too dangerous." Dad said. "We warned them off, they seem to have left us alone. Any jaunts into their dimension could be seen as a threat and hostilities will restart."

"Mage Hok, you seem to have a number of inter-dimensional correspondents." Tag started. "Is there any way we could try to spin to one of them?"

"Possibly, but the danger involved in tuning the process when we don't have an exact fix is going to be difficult." he said.

"Why don't we try casting to one of them?" asked another assistant. "That way we can check if it works before trusting anyone's life."

I for one was mentally head-slapping that I hadn't through of that.

"Kim?" Hok asked.

"Well, it's much harder to cast than spin, for me at least." I looked around and saw the various mages nodding. "However I have cross-spinned before, so I may be able to do it."

"It's worth a try, then." Hok declared. "Let's start working something up."

I entered a mental link with Hok, with our hands on each other's heads, and he picked someone he knew who should be asleep now. We managed to make contact with her, and after some time explaining what we were doing, and me working hard to try and lock down where she was dimensionally, I cast a box prepared by one of the assistants. As part of the test, neither Hok nor I knew what was in the box.

We encouraged her to wake up and open a box if she could find it, and we waited for her to come back. It was three hours later that we found her again.

<<This is fantastic! I was too excited to get back to sleep. Thanks for the necklace, although the box it was cracked and seemed to have fallen from a great height.>> she sent to us.

<<I couldn't be precise so I aimed high.>> I explained.

<<Can you describe the necklace?>> Hok asked.

<<Gold, fine links, large ruby as the centrepiece with very small diamonds laid around it. A king's ransom!>>

I passed this information back to the assistant who had prepared the box, and he nodded.

<<Thanks, how long until you normally get up?>>

<<About another ...>> followed by something about three or four time measurements we didn't quite get.

<<Sorry, we don't understand what you just indicated, probably because we measure time differently from you.>> Hok explained.

<<I suppose we don't even speak the same language?>> she asked, picking up immediately what the problem was.

<<I wouldn't expect so. We may need to touch to initiate a mental link to communicate.>>

<<Well, that better be with Kim then, because physical male to female contact outside family is forbidden here.>>

<<Right, we'll leave you to it then. We intend to arrive in around half of one of our days, hopefully that will be sufficient. Can you try to broadcast your position?>>

<<Looking forward to it!>>

We drifted away from her, then broke the contact between ourselves.

"Well, it looks like we have successfully initiated contact." Hok said. "From what we can determine it's a magically aware pre-industrial society, and we aim to cross-spin there later today. Kim and I will be the only ones to leave the ship, but most of you will be on the Harpagornis for measuring and so we can get your impressions of cross-spinning. As an external operation, Captain Tag will be in command in my absence. We also want to get baseline measures on magical flows and any changes in universal constants in this other dimension, so that's a lot of work for everyone. Start moving equipment to the Harpagornis cargo bay, and do all your tests there to check the equipment and for comparative purposes. Move, people!"

Tag and I called Kess and told her we wouldn't be making it tonight. Dad wasn't coming with us, but he wouldn't be making it either, he was off to Bunmir to chase up some leads in his investigation.

We were all ready to go by 6pm. We lifted into space, as spinning in or from an atmosphere creates problems as the air is rapidly displaced. This spin was quite complicated as it was inter-dimensional and around two thousand light years. I was aiming for space near the planet our contact, Lishkoa if I got that right, was on.

"You may proceed, captain." Hok stated.

"Ship, spin on my mark." Tag ordered. "Three ... two ... one ... Spin!"

I wrenched us through a spin, and it wasn't my best.

"Aye sir, spin completed."

A couple of the people on the bridge and in the cargo area looked a bit green.

"Thank you, captain." Hok said formally. "Remarkably smooth for the complexity of that spin." I think he was more trying to settle everyone else, as for this spin we'd agreed that bridge audio should be relayed throughout my ship.

"Begin measurement protocols." Hok ordered. "Captain, find our contact and arrange to drop the contact team there."

"Aye, sir." Tag replied. "Ship, please find our contact."

"Outside useful sensing range due to safety distance, sir."

"Time to range?"

"Eight minutes, sir." <<It would be thirty if we were following traffic control's standard maximum speeds, but there's no-one to run into out here.>>

"Close the gap, ship." <<Just as well.>>

"Aye, sir."

"In orbit over Bim, commencing search." I said a few minutes later, looking for the signature of the radio tracker embedded in the necklace.

"Contact found." I said. "Proposed trajectory on screen." I said, as I brought up an image of the planet, our contact's location, and my proposed path to reach it.

"Thank you ship. Environmental?" Tag asked one of the sensor specialists on the bridge. She'd been working as soon as I had specified the location, although we didn't have line of sight.

"Hold for line of sight." she said, as I raced around the planet.

"On a rocky narrow isthmus sticking out into a bay. Looks like a lava plug in an old volcano where the side collapsed and let the sea in. Sheltered from worst effects of wind, sub-tropical area. Currently just before local midday. Tilt places them in late spring, estimated temperature 20 Celsius. Good farming land on the inside of the volcanic rim, it's eroded flat near the water over the years. Adequate farming land on the alluvial plains to the north of the volcano, stretching off to a nearby mountain range which is the source of the alluvial material. Pre-industrial, can't tell you much more than that for now, sir."

I of course had access to all the same raw sensor information, since she was using my senses to obtain this data, but it was instructional to learn how she directed my senses and what conclusions she drew from this. Apparently ships tended to pick this up from sensor specialists and their own experiences over the years, but the nature of the system was that for missions that required it there would still be sensor specialists, the whole "two sets of eyes are better than one" philosophy.

"Thank you environmental. Do we have a visual on the location?" Tag asked.

"On screen." I replied. Our angle was fairly low but getting better, seeing a view of a rocky ring, what would have been an island in the middle except for the narrow isthmus joining it to that part of the ring opposite the entrance. Except for the peak of the ring, which was covered in a tough hardy brown grass, it was fairly green inside. Animals that could have been sheep appeared to be grazing. The most apparent feature was what appeared to be a castle on the rocky knob in the middle. The land there had a shear cliff facing the entrance, but the smoother rear had harbours on both sides, using the rock for protection from any waves that made it through the external gap.

"Looks to be a perfect harbour." Hok stated.

Yellow report lights flashed up from environmental and tactical. Standard rules were that if someone had information they wanted to bring to the attention of the captain, they activate a light. The captain would then mention the position's name, allowing that officer to talk, who would nominate when they had finished by "sir" or "ma'am".

"Tactical?" Tag asked first.

That was also my queue to change the tactical light from yellow to green.

"Seem to be heavy ballista and catapults on both sides of the outer entrance. The castle also has ballista designed to be aimed upwards, sir."

"Conjecture, tactical?"

Typically only facts would be stated, on first request, if the captain wanted the officer to add opinion he or she would ask for it.

""From the upwards pointing ballista on the castle I think we can assume they have to defend against dragons or flyers of some kind. In that case the weapons are probably magically enhanced in some way, sir."

"Thank you tactical. Environmental?"

The "Thank you" was my cue to turn off the reporting light, and to the officer to get back to whatever they had been doing.

"There are scattered dwellings outside the castle which have higher than usual magical signatures. Our contact location is in one of them, sir."

"Conjecture, environmental?"

"Suspect mages conducting experiments are housed outside the castle for safety of those inside, sir."

"Thank you environmental. Mage Hok?"

"From the apparent number of mages, we have to assume magical defences and I agree with tactical on magical enhancements to weapons. We have no idea if our contact has managed to warn the locals, or if she has been believed. We don't know the language so may run into trouble trying to convince them of our intentions."

<<Do we even need to contact them?>> I asked Tag mentally. <<We can get all our readings from here.>>

<<True, but I think the plan from the brass is to open trade relationships with them.>>

Of course, I should have realised that would be at the forefront of a trade confederation's priorities.

"Sir," Tag said, "maybe we should get all our readings from up here, then do a quick fly-over and land outside their external harbour. That way they can send someone to meet us or not, but we likely won't be shot at."

Hok looked around. "Comments on that proposed course of action?" he asked. Some of the mage types looked like they weren't happy with the idea, but no-one said anything.

"OK, Captain, give me a proposal." Hok stated.

"Ship, modify proposed course to do a fly over from the southern approach at half local speed of sound, increase if fired upon, and aim to land two kilometres past the opening." I updated the approach on screen.

The light from tactical went up.

"Tactical?" Tag asked.

"I recommend five kilometres until we have a better idea of their weapons range, sir."

"Thank you tactical. Ship, amend course to land five kilometres past the opening, but hold here until observations are complete."

"Aye, sir."

"Acceptable, sir?" Tag asked.

"Yes, captain." Hok replied, then went down to the cargo deck to help supervise the experiments.

It actually took two hours until everyone was happy with their observations. As I was just inside the upper atmosphere, I was actually visible to those on the ground if anyone cared to look up.

Hok finished conferring with one of his assistants, then announced "Captain, please proceed with your landing as planned."

"Ship, commence landing."

"Aye, sir."

I came in as planned, before I sensed something and Tactical yelled something a moment later.

"Incoming Fire!" yelled the tactical officer, one of the few things he is allowed to yell outside normal bridge sequence.

<<Magically enhanced ballista, approaching and mach 4.>>

"Evasive!" Tag replied, the mental command getting to me before the verbalised one, and I jinked to the side. "Tactical, free!" That was the code freeing tactical from normal bridge communication rules, so he was allowed to provide updates as he saw fit, and for me to bring up a green reporting light on his console.

"Seeking!" yelled tactical, as indeed it had changed direction so it was still on a path to intercept us.

"Ship?"

"Evading." I stated calmly, flying straight and level until it was nearly on me, then I rolled to the right and put on a temporary burst of speed so I was going mach 5 sideways. The thing missed easily, but looped around to still be aiming.

"Still seeking!" yelled tactical. "Two more inbound!"

"Point defence!" Tag responded. We'd "talked" about this during the time we were waiting, and we'd agreed to try and avoid accidentally shooting anything on the ground. I used a rear-ward facing emitter to blow the first ballista out of the sky even as I slowed back below the speed of sound. Ships as large as myself casually breaking the sound barrier made one hell of a sonic boom, and we didn't want to scare them too much.

"First destroyed!" updated tactical.

"Ship, combat spin underneath incoming, then point defence. Now!" Tag said calmly.

Not to many others could calculate a short-range in-atmosphere spin that fast, but it took me less than a quarter of a second, and I successfully destroyed the extra missiles. It would have created two nasty bangs, one from the air rushing in when I left one location, and the other from it being displaced when I arrived. The violent upwards shift in air created a few wisps of condensation.

"Area clear!" announced tactical.

"Ship, gain height at just less than the speed of sound, then resume course."

"Aye, sir."

"Recommend not landing at this time, sir." Tactical continued, still being under free instructions. "Range of weapons is probably to the horizon."

"Ship, take us straight up to the edge of space, no sonic booms unless fired upon."

"Aye, sir."

"Conjecture, tactical?" Tag asked, putting tactical back under normal rules but asking for comments.

"Only safe approach would be from distance using planet curvature and their own mountains as cover. No sign of weapons mounted on the plains facing side of the volcano, sir."

"Thank you tactical. Mage Hok?"

"We have the initial information we needed, let's go back and see if we can contact Lishkoa and try for contact again tomorrow."

"Ship, recommended spin course?"

"One cross-spin and one light-spin, sir."

"Not one as before?"

"Not tracking someone so we don't need to do it in a single jump, this way is smoother, sir."

"Thank you ship. Mage Hok, do you want to set up instrumentation before the return jump?"

"Yes, actually, especially since it will be a cross-jump only, it will help us isolate the different components."

So we waited while everyone checked that was ready, then we spun back to our dimension and then home. Rigel Four was less congested than Three, so we managed to get down in less than half an hour. By the time everyone was clear, it was 10pm. Tag and I cast to Kess's house, since I detected through their security system that a person I assumed to be Ret was still in the entertainment room.

"Hi guys!" Ret greeted us. "Busy day?"

"That's not the half of it." Tag said, exhausted.

"The cleaners came and did everything today."

"Thanks, Ret." I said. "I just need to feed my man and get him into bed."

"Kess is in the bath, don't interrupt her unless it's urgent." Ret added.

<<Only cereal, I don't think I could wait for anything more than that.>> Tag thought at me as he plopped down in a chair.

I wasn't going to let him down after a day like today, so I went to the kitchen, grabbed a big bowl, and cheated by conjuring a bunch of already cooked tender cubes of beef. So what if every one was completely identical? Then some plain rice and peas and corn. I wanted to put a bit of onion in for flavour too, but didn't have enough memory of samples to make it properly, nor time to quickly brown some. I tossed what I had together, and brought it back out to him where he was zoning out watching the news. Since it wasn't sport I thought I'd sit down as well.

"Hey, that smells great!" Ret said. "How'd you make that so fast?" he then asked, his eyes narrowing.

"Trade secret." I responded as Tag tucked into it.

"I'm still a bit peckish, can you make me some too?" he asked, hopefully.

"And knowing you, with plenty of cheese?"

"You know me too well, even if it means another kilometre on my morning run."

"Coming right up!" I went to the kitchen and repeated my conjuring trick, although since he'd already eaten I only made about a third for him. Kess kept plenty of cheese in the fridge, so it was easier for me to quickly grate some and mix it through rather than try to conjure something I wasn't that familiar with.

"Thanks, Kim." Ret said as I handed him the bowl. Tag was just finishing up.

"Did you inhale that or something?" I asked him.

"Pretty much, now just ready for bed."

"Goodnight, Ret!" I said, as I let Tag lean on me as we went up the stairs. He hadn't slept well the previous night, worried about his mother and his part in everything. We'd had to get up early this morning, so given it was quite late now he must be close to running on fumes.

I helped him strip off and get into bed, and he was asleep by the time I had likewise stripped and got in with him. It was cool in the room, just the way I like it, so I snuggled up against his back, placing an arm around him. Even asleep, he took my hand in his and squeezed in.

He slept much better that night, and in the morning he had his usual hard-on, while spooned into my back with us both on our left sides, and with his arm over my rib cage and the hand gently cupping my left breast. I lifted my right leg slightly, opening a bit of space, and wiggled around a bit so his hard on was pressed against my cleft. This felt really good, and soon a little bit of lubrication escaped me and sat between myself and his hard dick.

I started moving ever so slightly, to spread the lubrication around. I felt him start to stir, which was only to be expected given the stimulation I was giving him. I felt warmth and a feeling of contentment radiating off his surfacing brain. I shared me feelings of love and joy with him, and he snuggled into my back a bit harder. His level of awareness seemed to go back down again.

Being quite flexible, I was able to rotate my shoulders so they were a bit flatter and could turn my head around so I was looking straight up, while still keeping my hips in their current position. This shifted his hand slightly on my breast, and his awareness started to increase again. I reached down with my left hand, gently caressing the head of his cock and my clit at the same time.

<<Mmmm.>> he thought at me, his eyes still closed, sharing his enjoyment of the sensation.

<<Good morning, hot stuff.>>

<<Exactly what are you doing to me?>>

<<You're the one snuggling quite forcefully into me with a hard on, not that I'm complaining in the slightest.>>

<<Apparently my subconscious has excellent taste.>>

I giggled mentally at him. <<All of you has excellent taste, but after a stressful few days I think we both need to to finish what you started.>>

<<Like this?>> he thought, the hand already on my breast starting to make small circles. I twisted my head around a bit further so I could kiss him, although the angle was a bit awkward. His eyes snapped open.

<<That's a good start.>> I said, rocking my hips against him.

<<Doggie or missionary?>> he asked, cocking an eyebrow.

<<Missionary, I want to see you.>>

He pulled back his hips just far enough for his hardness to be free of my hips, and I twisted them around to face him. I snuck my right arm under his body so I could feel his back, as he pressed himself forwards again. I was so slick, and him already partially covered with lubrication, that he slipped right in.

<<Oh, yes.>> we thought at the same time.

He pulled himself on top of me as I spread my legs so he could penetrate further. He leveraged himself up quite high, so I could see down the gap between us to see him penetrating me. He thrust a few times like this, then lowered himself so our chests were just lightly rubbing against each other. We looked into each others eyes, the love and wonder still felt so fresh. My arms were now wrapped around him, and I pulled harder so his full weight fell onto me. Even though he was significantly heavier than me, with my reinforced skeleton and musculature it was never going to hurt. There was quite a pleasant almost-burn sensation from where my breasts were being pulled backwards and forwards by his thrusts as they were sandwiched between us.

We started kissing again, somehow choreographing it so we never bumped teeth even with his by now quite violent thrusts. I spread my legs even wider, pushing my hips slightly off the bed to give him better access. Our hip bones were now meeting quite forcefully.

<<That's it, I need it hard right now.>> I thought.

<<You OK, you haven't orgasmed yet?>> He's right, I usually would have by now.

<<Building for a big one, the only thing wrong is I need you harder!>>

He took that as instruction and began really pounding into me. I knew if I was human and not a regenerator I'd still be loving this now, but really regretting it later. He'd reached that point men get to where even language in thought isn't really normal, I was just getting waves of emotion from him. Lust, love, dominance, respect, and a building insatiable desire to empty himself into me.

I let him feel my love for him, my joy at his actions, my complete submission to his alpha male, and my massively building orgasm.

Then I knew he'd passed the point of no return, and the explosion of animal passion sent me off into orgasm even before the first of his seed erupted into my belly. It was hard and fast, and by the time I'd come down from it his deflated tool had already withdrawing from me. I felt a sense of of loss as it slipped out, a desire to continue being dominated by such a fantastic man.

<<Sorry honey, look at the time, we need to get going.>> he said, and made a mad dash for the shower. The stupid idiot had forgotten we had an extra hour and a half after the late finish last night.

I caressed myself a little, to help ease the sense of loss at my man running away while I was still fired up. I gave up in frustration and went to join him in the shower.

<<You do remember the extra time we have this morning, right?>> I said, stepping in.

I felt the flash of genuine guilt.

<<Sorry, I forgot, I seemed to have woken up preoccupied and not thinking straight.>>

I could feel his genuine remorse and so didn't want to push it. I gave him a deep kiss in the shower, and put a hand down to play with his member, but it was not rising to the occasion.

<<Sorry honey, I guess I'm still too stressed.>>

I let go with the hand, and pulled him into a hug as we continued the kiss.

<<That's OK, you seem a lot less stressed than before.>>

<<Getting shot at yesterday when we were just trying to help, after the business with mum has just put me on edge.>>

<<I know, I needed the stress relief just as much as you.>>

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

<<I'll hold you to that, buster!>>

My hair was now quite wet as I hadn't put it in a shower cap before getting in, so I was going to have to handle it properly.

<<I'll leave you to your lovely hair.>> Tag thought, and stepped out of the shower.

I looked at his body with longing while he dried off, then shook myself into action, doing a proper shampooing and conditioning of my hair, even though as a regenerator I didn't really need the conditioning. Somehow the process of doing normal things a normal woman would do made me feel more grounded.

Much refreshed I exited the bathroom, dressed in uniform, and went downstairs to see what was going on. The other three were already there.

"Made you breakfast, sweet stuff!" Tag said, shoving some toast with honey and a big glass of apple juice in my direction.

"Because you go to SO much more effort than I do." I responded, poking my tongue out at him.

"Good point, Kim." said Ret. "Since it takes you no effort to make something, can you make me some breakfast, then?"

"You've already eaten!" Kess said.

"Didn't stop him last night, he saw what I made Tag and wanted more." I added.

"And you haven't even gone for your run this morning!" Kess added.

"Hold on, hold on, the nanites will just increase my metabolism, no extra fat on this supreme body!" Ret defended himself.

"Yes, but that doesn't help muscle mass, and I do so love your muscles." Kess said. "There'll be something in it for you tonight if you have a proper run now." she winked at him.

"Doesn't Tag get forced to go for a run?" Ret asked in mock outrage.

"He's already exercised enough this morning." Kess laughed, and Tag and I gave it away with a slight blush from both of us.

"You cant do that!" Ret continued with his mock outrage. "Kess will have to clean the sheets and I get less nookie time!"

"Idiot, you're the one who does the non-clothes washing." Kess playfully slapped him.

"Cleaned anyway." I said, waving my fingers and having a slight shower of sparks dance between them.

"Magic's so boring," Ret said, "removes all the juicy evidence so I can't collect blackmail material."

"You're into blackmail?" I asked, joining him in the mock outrage stakes.

"Sure! How else do you think I landed a girl this hot?" he said, grabbing Kess and pulling her onto his lap, and they gave each other a big kiss.

"Flattery will get you everywhere." Kess said to him, giving him one last peck before jumping off and loading the dishwasher.

"Be done in a tick." I said.

"Nah, you can just use your magic fingers." Ret smiled.

"They're reserved for Tag." I deadpanned with the "clueless bimbo" look, then pretended to look like I'd just realised something fantastic. "Oh, you mean using magic to clean them?"

Unfortunately Ret had finished eating and drinking, or it may have ended up everywhere based on the way he laughed so hard he coughed. It would have given hours of ribbing material.

I transferred the last of the toast to one hand, and used the other to carry my plate and glass into the kitchen, where Kess grabbed them and loaded them into the machine.

"Why don't you use your magic more often, you know, for mundane things?" she quietly asked me.

"I just want to be normal." I said, somewhat sadly.

"Hey cheer up, I think of you as my normal but goofy future sister in law. I don't think of you as a ship or a mage."

"Thanks, Kess." I said to her, giving her a quick hug. "You don't know how much that means to me."

"Actually, I think I do." she said somewhat cryptically, giving an odd smile.

"Right!" she said louder. "I have a shed-load of work to do today, and Ret has to go for his run, so you lot need to run off somewhere and play with your toy soldiers."

"But there's only one toy soldier I like to play with." I pouted, looking meaningfully at Tag's crotch. Kess rolled her eyes at both of us.

Tag swept me up in a hug and kissed me passionately.

<<Whoa! Big boy! Where did this come from?>>

<<Aren't you going to teleport us?>>

Yes, OK, that association was entirely my fault. I teleported us back to our stateroom on board me, and yes I know how loopy that sounds.

"A flair for the dramatic, husband-to-be?"

"Any excuse to express my love to such a wondrous lady as yourself."

"You know we have three quarters of an hour before anyone expects us."

"I do, but I also know that someone's going to turn up early to look at their equipment after having an idea overnight."

"I do so hate it when you're right like that." I pouted at him, but let humour flow across our link.

Hok turned up a few minutes later, timing it I think he started walking from his office at pretty much the exact time I teleported in. I'd have to ask him how he did that sometime. He gave the welcome news that he'd authorised combat pay for yesterday, and wanted us to try and contact Lishkoa again.

Hok and I joined again and went searching for her.

<<Hello, Lishkoa. I'm sorry if we created problems yesterday.>> Hok greeted her.

<<When I told them to expect travellers from another dimension in a flying ship, my fellow mages scoffed, so no-one believed me.>>

<<And after we showed up?>>

<<One of our scryers was convinced it was a cross between a dragon and a demon.>>

<<That's understandable, the magic involved does give off a lot of strange signatures, and she is a living creature, with a human soul bound into her.>>

<<It's alive?>>

<<Actually, I'm the soul bound into the ship.>> I jumped in.

<<Really? Why would you agree to such a thing?>>

I tried to state only the truth from a certain point of view, as Hok had.

<<I died, and there were things I had left undone. Beyond that, I'm afraid I'm a bit embarrassed.>> It would be embarrassing to admit I used to have a male body.

Hok jumped back in before any more questions were asked of me.

<<Is there any point us coming back again, or are we likely to be fired upon again?>>

<<I can't guarantee anything. You did win some credit by clearly having good offence but only using it to defend yourselves.>>

<<We had considered landing outside the mountain range. Could you get there to meet us?>>

<<I can teleport to a nearby farm.>> We got a rough image of a map, with the farm placed relative to two tunnels through the walls of the volcano.

<<Kim?>> Hok asked.

<<I have it, and have matched it up with our aerial records.>> I shared with them.

<<Around the same time as our flyover yesterday?>> Hok asked.

<<I'll be there. I'll send up an illusion of a glowing bird to show you exactly where I am.>> Lishkoa thought.

<<We can track the necklace if you still have that.>>

<<No, it's being investigated after yesterday.>>

<<Fine, we'll go with looking for the illusion then.>>

<<Be great to finally meet you in the flesh!>>

<<Yes, see you then.>>

We withdrew from the link.

"We launch in eight hours, captain." Hok said.

We had agreed to keep the cargo bay clear this time in case we had guests, so the amount of equipment was reduced, and that which remained was moved into the various barracks areas. With a bit more time on our hands, I tried to talk to as many people as possible to gain a better understanding of what they were up to, and filter the summaries back to Tag so he had some clue as well.

Today we'd be going there in two spins like our return yesterday, so they could get the cross-transition only in the other direction. Apparently my first spin yesterday, with the distance and the cross-dimension in one spin, was too complex for them to be exactly sure of what they were looking at.

We spun on schedule, and the queasier members of our crew reported it was much smoother this time as two separate spins. We came down over the horizon from our target, and flew in low to the arranged meeting spot.

As we came in I could make out a comparatively miniscule phoenix rising, with a glowing trail leading to a point on the ground. As per the plan, I cast Hok and myself down to the ground near the base of the glowing trail. Hok mad memorised my lift, as Dad had, and was to teleport back there at the first sign of trouble. Being the supposedly expendable one, which I understood intellectually but was not very happy about, I was to hang around to see if the situation was recoverable, and bug out if I deemed it wasn't.

A red-haired lady dressed in the likeness of a formal medieval gown stood before us, with a man next to her dressed on what looked like regal finery from the same period. I assumed the lady was Lishkoa, and hoping my knee-length skirt was not offensive, curtseyed to them, before approaching Lishkoa. Hok and the other gentleman eyed each other warily.

I placed my hand out in front of me, palm up but edge on to her, just below neck level, as I understood from Hok this was the formal way of requesting a mental link in their society. She mirrored the move, and our palms touched. I extended my mind to the point of the contact of our flesh, and felt the mental contact establish.

<<Greetings, Lishkoa. I am Kim, and this is Hok with me.>>

<<I thought you were the ship above us?>> Lishkoa asked in confusion.

<<This body is an avatar so I can interact with people more normally.>>

<<So you're in both places at once?>> she asked, excited now.

<<Yes, my brain resides in the ship, but my soul extends to both ship-me and human-me you see before you.>>

<<Amazing!>>

<<Who is the gentleman with you?>>

<<Oh, this is Prince Zoopeg, youngest of the King's sons.>>

<<Are you effectively acting as translator for him?>>

<<Unfortunately yes. He's not skilled enough in magic to protect his mind in a link such as this, so he may not form a link with Hok.>>

<<Thank you, I will inform Hok. Are you interested in seeing aboard my ship?>>

<<Yes, but I will ask Zoopeg.>>

We broke the link. I curtseyed to Prince Zoopeg, then turned to Hok and spoke fairly rapidly.

"This is Prince Zoopeg, youngest son of the King. He's not allowed to form a mental contact with you due to his inability to shield. I've offered a tour of our ship, which Lishkoa is currently relaying to him.

"The King is probably concerned at our combat ability after yesterday's display, so wants to send one of his sons to show he is serious and wishes to pay us full diplomatic courtesies. However, his youngest is probably the most disposable, so sending him indicates he's extremely wary." Hok commented.

"Agreed."

Lishkoa and Zoopeg were now nodding at us, although Zoopeg looked extremely worried.

"Tell Tag to land so we can board."

I brought up my report light on Tag's console, needing to do this in sequence so everyone else knew what was going on.

"Ship." he said.

"Mage Hok requests landing for diplomatic passenger pickup, sir."

"Thank you ship. Commence landing."

"Aye, sir."

I brought myself down a short distance away so I didn't squash any building or fences. I didn't land so much as hovered at ground level, and opened up a cargo bay door and extended a ramp down.

Lishkoa took my hand, more in a "holding hands" style than the formal style of before.

<<Hok and Zoopeg should walk ahead of us, and we can translate from behind.>>

I relayed this to Hok, and for the benefit of brevity I won't repeat everything translated.

"Hok, is this your ship? She's huge!"

"Actually, the ship is not mine, her captain is on board. I'm in charge of the flight, a group of three ships, but we only brought one today. Also the ship is a living ship with a human soul bound into her, with an avatar who is providing translating duties."

"You have more like this one?"

"This is actually the smallest one."

That's because the other two were traditional cargo ships. We walked up the ramp into the cargo area.

"Why is the inside empty?"

"We are a confederation of trading worlds, and trade is most important to us. Even diplomatic ships such as this one have half their internal space dedicated to cargo so they can perform trading duties. The living quarters are at the rear."

Zoopeg was following Hok to the left-hand lift, the un-patterned one, even as we continued to translate. The prince seemed to relax a little at the explanation.

"But surely you have military forces?"

"Yes, but extremely limited in number, mainly for policing actions. We have found that invasion costs more than trade, both monetarily and in lives. It's really not worth it."

He was clearly trying to wrap his head around this concept.

"But what if someone insults you?"

"If someone does something bad enough, we simply don't trade with them anymore, we basically ignore them in all ways."

"But what if they then attack?"

"We are a Confederation, each member world provides money to run the trading fleet, and a small amount of that is used to run our police forces. No one world has the strength to defeat even a small fraction of the combined police forces of all worlds, so no-one tries."

"So you have a shared military bound by treaty to defend against any nation that proves aggressive?" he asked, seeming to grasp it at last.

"Yes, exactly."

We had been walking slowly, so it was at this point we reached the lift.

"Please, come up to our meeting room."

The nerves reappeared on Zoopeg's face as the lift slid smoothly upwards, and he visibly relaxed when we made it to the main conference room. The holo at the back was playing a gentle garden scene with water flowing through some channels.

<<Yes, it's an illusion.>> I sent to Lishkoa.

From there things were reasonably straight-forward. We explained we were only a scouting team, gave them some gifts as a sign of good faith, and asked that they allow one of our diplomatic teams to negotiate to establish trade relationships. Zoopeg proved he was a prince once negotiations actually started by broadly hinting at offering the everything but promising nothing. He was actually pretty good once in his element. We agreed to return the following day to get the answer as to if they would allow a diplomatic team to approach. As a time saver we lifted off, showing them the bridge screen information on the holo wall, and then cast them down to the castle as we flew over it. We didn't get shot at this time.

We had been careful to not let them see the bridge nor the patterned lift ,as the last thing we wanted if things turned sour was for them to try teleporting in anywhere important. In fact they had seen no-one except Hok, myself, and a rating who provided drinks and biscuits. At the end we had shown them one of the double-sized staterooms, but that was as far as it went.

We spun back to base uneventfully, and we got back to Kess's place quite late. Tag had eaten dinner on the bridge while we were flying back from Rigel's spin-in point, so there was no need to feed him and we went straight to bed. because of the late hour, I let myself quietly out of bed in the morning, showered and got ready before waking him up.

<<Morning, sleepyhead, time to get up.>>

<<Well, I can't sleep now, the best pillow in the bed has mysteriously vanished.>> I knew he was referring to me.

<<Get up and get moving, I'm pretty sure your dad is downstairs.>> I'd heard three voices coming from downstairs, and was pretty sure he was one of them. Ret or Kess had changed the codes on the security system so I couldn't cheat to check any more.

<<OK, moving.>> he said, pulling himself out of bed.

<<Oh, the temptations you give to a girl.>> I said, grinning and indicating his morning woody, before quickly scurrying out of the room.

"Dad!" I said, giving him a bug hug as I walked into the kitchen.

"Hey, Kim! How's that layabout son of mine?"

"Cleaning up, he'll be down soon."

"What have you two been up to, stealing in during the middle of the night?" Ret asked.

"Probably a romantic dinner somewhere." Kess winked at me.

"I wish!" I responded.

"Secret stuff again?" Kess asked.

"Unfortunately yes." I said, then going for the redirect "What have you been up to dad?"

"I'm up to my neck in secret stuff too. I'm going to check on Jan before going back to the secret stuff, though."

"How is she?" I asked.

"We were just talking about that. The doctors say it's too early to tell, they have her under a mild tranquilliser at the moment. Physically she's fine, but mentally they think her bias has been allowed to remain for too long and it's going to be hard to work through."

There was a lull at that, although I was relaying it to Tag.

"Kim, the doctors have asked if you might be able to make yourself available as part of the healing process, but have warned it is unlikely to be pleasant."

"Sure dad, I'll do anything I can to help." I thought for a moment. "I'd like to have someone with me for support, though."

"Thanks, Kim. I don't think that will be a problem." The look of approval in trying circumstances on his face made me feel good inside that I was doing the right thing.

"Well, I'm gone, be back later." Ret left with his running gear on.

We pottered around, me mainly cooking and cleaning since I only had an orange juice. Tag came down the stairs in uniform, and I had a hot plate of breakfast ready for him just as he walked in.

"You sure you're up to helping with mum?" Tag asked. Kess was looking at us oddly.

"I think so, but I won't know until I try." I replied.

"How do you two do that?" Kess asked.

"What?" Tag said, while I simultaneously said "Sorry?"

"You" she pointed at me "had his breakfast ready at exactly the right time. You" she pointed at Tag "knew what we'd been talking about while you weren't in the room. It's spooky."

"You haven't told her yet?" Dad asked with amusement in her voice.

"Are you holding something out from me?" Kess asked, realising that there was some great secret she wasn't privy to.

"We have a psychic bond." Tag announced proudly, and I gave him a peck on the cheek. he should be rewarded for the pride he showed in our link.

"That's not normal for ship / captains, is it?" Kess asked.

"No, it's very rare." Dad said. "Reasonably common between sister ships, but very rare to the captain."

"So you two are living in each other's heads?" she asked, now curious.

"Not really," I said, "it's more like we can whisper privately to each other, very fast."

"And we can also choose to share our emotions with each other." Tag added.

"Can you share senses? 'Cause that would be wicked during, you know..."

Tag and I both visibly winced.

"Kess, you know I want to be normal. How would you feel if you sprouted one of those poles between your legs and felt you needed to shove it into anything warm?"

"Umm ... " she looked around at the two men in the room, and clearly modified what she was about to say to avoid offending them. "I don't think I'd be at all comfortable with that."

"Exactly. Trust me, we think we can do it, but it always feels very wrong when we start to try."

"But you can share how much you love each other during it, right?"

"Oh, absolutely, and it's why we're sure we want to be together forever." I said, smiling at Tag and losing myself in his warm brown eyes, as we shared with each other what we felt for each other.

"Flight control to Kim and Tag! Come in, Kim andTag!" Kess said.

"Sorry Kess." we said in stereo, both blushing slightly as we broke our gaze to look at her.

Dad was smirking. "That's why I let her call me dad, with those two like that there's no chance they won't get married the second they can."

Kess grabbed Tag and I in a big hug.

"I'm really happy for you both." she said. "Tag, you deserve some happiness." She broke the hug and backed off, and I could tell some kind of joke was coming.

"Kim, you seem like a kind and intelligent girl. Whatever possessed you to get engaged to my brother?"

"I was secretly brainwashed by his evil sister as part of one of her nefarious schemes." I smiled back at her.

"Touché." she smiled back, and I knew everything was going to be OK.

Tag finished his breakfast while Kess, Dad, and I chatted. I cleaned up and then we teleported back to ship-me, and then walked hand-in-hand to the main base building, rather than casting since we had the time and weren't officially on duty yet.

We walked into the appointed meeting room, to see dad there with Hok.

"Where have you two been?" dad asked.

"Sir, we have another seven minutes and thirty four seconds to report." I said.

"OK, we may as well start while we wait for everyone else." Hok said. "We're hoping they will give the green light to a diplomatic visit, so today we're going to guide a diplomatic ship in a cross-spin and back again. Once we've done it a few times, we'll go and see their King and do hand-over. Before that though, we're going to have to hand over everything we know to the diplomatic team, and that includes on the Faithful, anyone involved in cross-spins needs to know what they might be up against."

The entire morning was spent in discussions with the purple-uniformed diplomatic team. reviewing all our reports, video of the various incidents, asking us why we did certain things and what we thought of their reactions, and so on until we were all thoroughly sick of it.

Then we were off to do the spins. One of the two women in the diplomatic team, a Captain Rix, took me aside.

"Kim, I understand we need to do some kind of psychic link before I can initiate a cross-spin?"

The look on my face must have given me away.

"Never met a ship who's fully paid off before?" she smirked.

"No ma'am, not that I knew of, anyway."

"That's OK, I take it as a compliment when other ships don't make me. You new?"

"Nine months, three days, ma'am."

"Can we do this transfer thing now?"

"No, ma'am, Mage Hok wants us subjected to more sensory equipment when we do it."

"Makes sense. Let's go find him then."

We did the transfer with lots of machines and mages watching us.

"Intriguing." Hok said on reviewing the first notes from the mages. "It seems there was some kind of flare of demonic energy between you two during the transfer."

"That makes sense, since the only things we know that can cross dimensions are demons, and we're both part demon." Rix said.

I was immediately puzzled.

"Mage Hok?" I asked.

"Yes, Kim?"

"If we can only cross because we're part demon, how did the Faithful's mages do it?"

"I was just wondering the same thing, Kim. My best guess would be that their spin assistance devices have a demon bound into them."

"Sir, given their complete and utter fear of demons, doesn't that seem a little unusual?"

"Yes, it doesn't make sense, does it? An interesting conundrum."

"Sir, I have a theory." one of the mages piped up.

"Yes Farley?"

"We know about demons, but we have no idea about the capacity of silver dragons. Maybe they have the same ability, and that's why the Harpagornis has an easier time of it, being able to lean on the heritage of both her DNA donors."

"Interesting theory, and worth investigating, but it still doesn't explain how the Faithful manage their spins."

"Yes sir, but we understand a silver dragon was involved in their acquisition of the ability. Is it possible they took body fluids or parts from this dragon and use it to somehow power their rigs? That might also explain our inability to pass on the casting ability, it needs some silver dragon ability to pass it on."

"Lieutenant-Commander Kim, " I was surprised at Hok's formal address, he usually seemed to avoid formalities - it certainly seemed to attract the attention of everyone around us, "remind us all what happened to the two captured ships?"

I realised he desperately wanted to be able to inspect their spin drives.

"They were towed into the sun to guard against possible problems with their nanites, sir. Their nanites were sufficiently different from ours it was difficult to determine their function, and we did lose a number of marines to nanites that disassembled still-living marines."

"You didn't try to stop them?"

"All the scientists and mages available to the base at the time concluded they had all the information they needed from the ships. The orders came from a Commodore and I was a Sub-Lieutenant at the time and not involved in the destruction, sir."

"And why do you think the Commodore made that decision, Lieutenant-Commander?"

"Because it is standard operating procedure to destroy potentially dangerous uncontrolled nanites, sir?"

I was starting to get the feeling this performance was not to dress me down, but because he was working up to some point for everyone else's benefit.

"And is there any way we can obtain more of these ships for study, Lieutenant-Commander?"

"Maybe, sir. The answer should be no, because we warned them off saying we'd leave them alone if they left us alone, and we're not in a position to start a war against them, sir."

"Maybe, Lieutenant-Commander?" he asked, still on his high horse but cresting.

"There might be another vector, but it is classified, sir."

"And unlikely to bear fruit anytime soon, Lieutenant-Commander?"

"Yes, sir."

"So we're on the verge of discovering something really important, and because standard operating procedure says to destroy rather than contain, we can't get any further at present?"

"That would appear to be the case, sir."

"Right!" and now he seemed to be addressing everyone else. "That's why I've been saying for years that SOP should be changed. They could have been ordered to tow it into the moon's high orbit and leave it there, which would have neutralised the nanite threat."

He paused, surveying everyone again.

"Right, back to work, everyone. You two," he indicated RIx and myself, "in my office now."

We walked to his office wondering what was going on.

[[Nicely handled.]] RIx sent to me on ship-to-ship messaging.

[[If I knew what he was winding up for, I might have helped him out by answering differently. Still, we don't know if the ship had some kind of transponder the Faithful could have used to track it, and we don't know if some backup system could have brought the nanites back on-line to repair the ship. Parking it in high orbit and leaving it unmonitored would still have been risky.]]

[[True. He's probably just sore he wasn't brought in for the original investigation.]]

"Right, " he said as I closed the door behind us, "sorry about ambushing you in there, Lieutenant-Commander, but I needed you to be honest. This isn't the first time we've lost valuable research material because of that particular piece of procedure."

"Yes, sir." I said, still not particularly happy about it.

"Now, in there you said 'Maybe'. What was that all about?"

"You'd be better off talking to Investigative Mage Ray, sir. He suspects there's still a Faithful operative active in our dimension. If such a person exists, they may have some method of getting home. If we can get hold of that, or trigger a rescue by the Faithful, I'm sure we can get away with doing what we want to their tech if it's in our dimension, sir."

"There's a lot of 'ifs' in that sentence, Kim." I relaxed a bit at his shift from my rank to my name.

"True, sir. I just wanted to let you know the chance of getting some information was not zero."

"Rix, what do you think?" Hok asked.

"We don't know if some backup system would have re-enabled the nanites, and we don't know if some kind of tracking device was still on the ship. It would have been risky to leave it anywhere. I think the decision to destroy was the right one, the mistake was made earlier when they should have brought in a specialist team to deal with the analysis for something that important, not just use whoever they had on hand."

Hok looked slightly surprised she had disagreed with him.

"You're probably correct, Rix." he said grudgingly, then paused as if in thought. "Kim, how's the repeatable calculation going?"

Normally when calculating a spin you calculated just for the current factors. With a bit of work you could create a "repeatable calculation" from a unique spot to another unique spot. One still had to make adjustments for the time, as all the celestial bodies moved around, so the trick was to recalculate for different future times and then include some interpolation so the current time could be plugged in an a spin calculation for "right now" would drop out. There was also some adjustment for size and shape of the ship spinning. It's what I had done back at Vechog when we were doing our drop and run of the prisoners.

"Done, sir. I've finished two cross-spin calculations that should be smooth for six months and rough for two years, one for each direction. I wouldn't use them after that."

"OK, file them on the local server. Rix, grab the data from there. Kim, let your captain know we'll be heading off soon, we can do the initial landing and then we'll leave the rest to the diplomatic team."

"Aye, sir."

"Also Kim, make sure to allow Rix to get your casting trick before you go, she's agreed to the transaction."

"Transaction, sir?"

"Ah right, no-one's told you yet?"

I shook my head.

"Well, you seem to have the unique ability to teach mages and ships how to do this casting trick. We're a trade confederation with powers to control a desired monopoly."

I saw where this was going.

"So the Confederation has set a price for me to teach it to others?"

"Exactly. You get half, the rest goes into registration and licensing who will handle the applications for you. To prevent the monopoly provider from being swamped, it's initially restricted to those above a certain rank or those with approved ConFed priority, but you won't have to worry about that, R and L will handle it for you."

He typed something on his desk's keyboard, and I received an email from registration and licensing with all the details. My cut was about the same as a week's worth freight hauling, or a day of combat pay. Hopefully I'd get swamped with requests and I could pay myself off faster.

"Sir, what about those I have already taught?"

"Is that just your ship-mates and the two testers here?"

I nodded.

"They were all paid by ConFed to test the process, so they're excluded as part of the proving process. Send a message to R and L anyway to make sure it's all entered into databases."

"Right you are, sir." I paused. "What about cross-spinning?"

"Same deal in theory, although currently it's declared a strategic ability and no-one is allowed to apply for it. ConFed can still direct you to do it, and in a move I'm not sure is entirely legal, the price is set at one credit while it remains declared as strategic. The flip side of that is you need to be on 'special secondment to the Admiralty' status and pay for them to so direct you, so it won't be a complete loss."

"I'm betting you'll be paid off in fifteen years." Rix said, smiling.

"Don't you believe it, they made us force grow and made us pay for it. More like thirty."

"Still, that's better than the two hundred year average."

"Yes, really it is fantastic, I wasn't looking forward to making my fiancé wait that long."

"You're engaged? Of course you are!" she said, looking at my ring. "Congratulations! That hunky captain I saw before?"

"The one and the same!"

"Ladies," Hok interrupted, "I'm due to leave here in twenty minutes, and I have a fair bit to do before then. Would you mind doing this somewhere else?"

"Aye, sir!" I responded as for a formal acknowledgement of an order even though he phrased it as a request, and the two of us left for a casual stroll down to our respective ships. Halfway there registration and licensing sent me another message, authorising me to teach casting to Captain Rix Phaistos.

"I just got authorisation to teach you casting, shall we do it now?"

"Might as well." Rix replied.

We linked hands and I spent thirty seconds mentally describing the procedure and pushing the pearl of knowledge that seemed to activate the ability.

A cargo canister appeared next to me, a few millimetres above the dock, and made a empty clanging sound as it settled.

"That's really neat, thank you!" Her good attitude was infectious. "I can think of a huge number of pranks to do with this. Sorry, I have to go!"

She winked out, and I could feel the traces of the spin and knew she'd gone to her bridge.

I sent a message back to R and L confirming completion of the training. It was only a few moments before they confirmed she had agreed and my ship debt reduced by a small amount - small, but if this happened frequently enough, it would make a big difference.

I spun back to my bridge.

<<Nudge me.>>

"Ship?" Tag asked.

"Confidential information to relay, captain."

<<Why don't you just tell me mentally?>>

<<I need to show you.>>

"Thank you, ship. My stateroom."

We walked in, and I brought up the various messages from registration and licensing on screen to show him.

"Honey, that's fantastic!" he said, and I bounced excitedly into his arms.

"The only ship I've taught under the new arrangement is paid off, and thinks with this I can be in thirty years!"

"That still seems too long for an engagement." Tag said, somewhat downcast as he released me.

"It's a whole lot better than another two hundred years, when you've doubled your age."

"You know I was expecting to only wait a year or two when I proposed, right?"

"Don't complain to me. You also thought you were giving up your dream of being a ship's captain. Now you get that with " and I rubbed my hands up my sides " added bonuses."

He laughed.

"Not wrong there! And how I love your added bonuses." his hands caressed the underside of my breasts.

"Down, tiger." I said. "We still have a mission and hand-over to do, we're due to launch soon."

"Always the spoilsport."

"But you know I'll make it up to you later." I winked, opening the door and moving back out to the bridge. Tag stayed behind to have a proper read of the documents.

In her own body, a ship effectively gains half a rank, so I outranked and could order around everyone from a Lieutenant-Commander down. However, today's tactical officer was a Commander, so she outranked me. As such, I silently sat down in my chair, the only one without a console, next to the captain's chair.

Tag came back in a few minutes later.

"Captain on the bridge!" I announced through a speaker rather than in person, so the behaviour would be the same when my human body wasn't there.

"As you were." Tag said.

It was eleven minutes later when I raised a report light.

"Ship?" Tag asked.

"Mage Hok has just teleported into the arrival lift."

"Guide him to the bridge, thank you ship."

"Aye, sir."

"We're all on the bridge." I relayed to Hok. Well, in fact I'd already said it in anticipation of Tag's order.

"Be right there, Kim."

[[Rix, we have Hok on board, are you ready?]] I messaged the diplomatic ship.

[[No, my group is walking from the meeting he just left.]] she messaged back.

<<Tag, the diplomatic group are walking from the meeting Hok just left, so they'll be a few more minutes until they reach the Kutnarhaa.>> I sent to my partner.

Hok had the bag he always carried with a spare change of clothes in case we got stuck somewhere, so clearly he thought it possible we'd have to stay longer than planned. He walked into the bridge. "Captain." he nodded in Tag's direction, as he placed the bag against the wall near the door.

"Mage Hok," Tag replied, nodding back. "The diplomatic team is proceeding to their ship in a more sedate fashion, they'll be a few minutes."

"No need to wait, captain." he responded.

Flight control liked separation, so they'd probably prefer us to lift off first.

"Ship, request clearance."

I'd already filed a flight plan and had it approved, so it was a simple matter of requesting a window.

"Clearance granted for departure in thirty seconds, captain."

"Proceed, ship."

"Aye, sir."

So we lifted off, made it out of the atmosphere, and spun to the cross-spin point. A few minutes later the Kutnarhaa spun in, only a few second's travel out of position, and moved into the correct spin position.

[[Ready for cross-spin?]] I messaged Rix.

[[Ready as I'll ever be. You'll be right behind me?]]

[[About a second, just long enough to check our out-spin signature.]]

I raised my report light.

"Ship?" Tag asked.

"Kutnarhaa reports ready to spin, requesting that we lock in our spin a second behind after scanning, sir."

"Proceed."

"Aye, sir."

[[Confirmed, give me your countdown.]]

There was a pause before I got the next message.

[[Spinning in three ...]] RIx said.

"Spinning in ..." I said on board.

[[two ...]]

"Three"

[[one ...]]

"Two"

[[spin!]] arrived and she was gone within a hundredth of a second.

"One" and I checked her out-spin signature, it looked like it went as planned.

"Spin!" I announced, and there we were, near the Kutnarhaa.

"Ship, proceed to landing point on planned approach."

"Aye, sir."

"Tactical, keep an eye out."

"Aye, sir." the Commander responded. She'd been picked for this mission as one of the best at spotting threats from low-tech, high magic worlds.

We landed as before, and got out to find only Lishkoa and the farmers there. I cast out, and raised my hand in their formal request for mental contact.

<<Greetings, Lishkoa.>> I said.

<<Greetings, Kim.>> she responded. <<The king has agreed to meet with your diplomatic team.>>

<<That's good because they were impatient and came with us, they're waiting overhead in their own ship.>>

<<I must relay this news.>> she said, breaking contact.

She sat down, careful not to crush her skirts, and closed her eyes, and appeared to go into some kind of trace. After a minute she broke out of the trance, and stood up again, bringing her palm up. We re-initiated contact.

<<This is not entirely unexpected, but we assumed that you would bring the diplomatic team in your ship.>>

<<I have duties elsewhere, and they didn't want to rush things.>>

<<Anyway, the chancellor has asked if your other ship can set down in the water immediately to the south of the castle?>>

My reply went not to her, but to Rix via ship-to-ship message.

[[Rix, they want you to land in the sea immediately to the south of the castle.]]

[[Hold on a tick.]]

There was a pause, presumably while something was discussed on board the Kutnarhaa.

[[Be there soon. You going to stand high guard?]]

[[I'll ask.]]

I raised my report light.

"Ship?" Tag prompted me.

"The locals have requested that the Kutnarhaa land in the sea to the south of the castle. The Kutnarhaa has agreed, but ask that we stand high guard while they land, sir."

"Tell them we will. Thank you, ship."

[[Yes, we'll stand high guard.]] I sent to Rix.

<<They are on their way to land.>> I told Lishkoa.

<<Thank you, I better get back then.>> Liskhoa replied.

<<Farewell and may luck be with you, Lishkoa.>> I said.

She looked at me oddly.

<<Farewell to you too, Kim.>> she broke contact, closed her eyes to concentrate, and spun out. The signature looked like she'd gone to the castle.

I had a quick look at the farmers and then spun back to my bridge.

"Ship?" Tag asked without prompting.

"Contact complete, sir."

"Right, get us up and to a high guard position."

"Aye, sir." I said, lifting off.

If a ship is landed and loading or unloading cargo, every second can count if something nasty comes along. In areas with an element of danger, often one ship stays in the "high guard" position, directly above the first ship but just out of the atmosphere. That way, any need to fire on incoming meteor showers or similar is not hampered by atmosphere, as well as getting better deep-space sensor readings. Downwards, a good view of the surrounding area unrestricted by low-to-ground horizon issues in case of incoming dragons or other peevish fliers is obtained.

Two minutes later we were up in high guard position.

"Captain, may I have a word?" Hok asked.

"Yes, Mage Hok?"

"Are we likely to be here for a while?"

"I would assume at least an hour, until the diplomatic team feels comfortable the ballista and catapults that are now above it aren't going to be a problem."

"Would you mind if I did a quick trip down to the surface? I'd like to check something about the local sheep."

Well, the look on Tag's face was certainly one of confusion.

"In our first visits we received some very off magical readings from a number of the sheep, one of my assistants asked if I had the time if I could grab some wool samples from the normal and unusual sheep."

The tiniest hint of a smirk crept onto Tag's face.

<<The master becomes the errand boy?>> he sent to me.

<<Seems so.>> I communicated humour back.

"No problems. Would you like Kim to cast you to the surface?"

"Actually if she could come with me I'd appreciate that. Preferably to a valley or similar area without line of sight to the volcano so they don't pick up our spin signature."

<<Have a problem with that?>>

<<No, but something stinks about this.>>

<<Probably you when you make it back.>>

<<Har har.>>

"Ship, accompany Hok as directed."

"Aye, sir."

I placed hand on Hok's shoulder, and we were down on the surface. I got an instant mental flash of an explosion in the near future. I saw him pull his PDA out of his pocket, and the sense of doom increased markedly. A very quick scan using my more unusual senses indicated Hok had nothing sharp on him, nothing to cut wool off a sheep with. While a part of me was exceptionally concerned at the image of an explosion, another part of me wondered if he had left the cutting implement in the bag he had brought on board with him.

<<Panic!>> It was more the emotion than the word I sent to Tag.

Hok was punching something into his PDA, but it was facing away from me so I couldn't see it. At the same time I was scanning his bag, and found something I didn't want to find.

<<What?>> Tag replied, concerned.

I replied simultaneously in a number of forms.

<<Radiological alert, Hok's clothing bag has a low-level active nuclear source!>>
"Radiological alert, in this ship!"
[[Rix, Radiological alert, suspected nuke smuggled into me by Hok in clothing bag.]]