Bryce

The New Eden Space port was a massive sprawling complex of landing platforms, flight terminals, and customs offices that had been pieced together and added onto as needed over the years.

Navigating the resulting labyrinth took the two of us nearly twice as much time as the walk over here, and coupling that with the time it took for us to finish getting ready at the motel meant that it was already well into the morning by the time we arrived at Teolix’s private hangar.

That was when we saw our new ship for the first time. It was all dark, elegant curves, and it’d be impossible to not notice that it was a luxury yacht.

The only hints that it was something more were a series of trenches along the sides and belly of the ship that likely concealed armaments.

My best guess put it at maybe fifteen meters tall, but the actual height varied along its nearly seventy-five meter length.

The ship was shaped like a massive, narrow arrow head that slowly broadened as you got further from the front until the back third, where it flared out far more dramatically in order to accommodate the six massive engines that were clustered on the back. The ship was almost entirely smooth with curves and had very few sharp edges, except for several strategically located stabilizing fins that gave it an aggressive feel.

It was built for speed and maneuvering inside the Aether, but relying on aerodynamics would be a disadvantage in the vacuum of real space. Something that we’d need to keep in mind.

“Bryce, you’re liable to make a girl jealous by staring like that.” Thea commented with mock indignance from beside me.

“I never took you for the jealous type.”

She had a point though. Not about making her jealous, but about me being so focused on the ship that I hadn’t even seen the rest of the hangar.

I can honestly say that before that exact moment I didn’t know where a dragon crime lord would park their luxury yacht, but when I took in that hanger for the first time, it was like I had always known.

It could have easily fit two more ships and that was without removing the gold plated shipping crates that took up about a third of the space.

That’s right, gold plated shipping crates. I didn’t know what could be so valuable as to justify plating the damn shipping crates in gold, but I half thought that they were there just to add color to the massive room. Because the floor, walls and ceiling were all made of a mirror polished black marble with dark red veins running through it.

The whole thing redefined opulent in the way that only a dragon could.

We were still standing by the entrance, which left us a decent distance away, but from there I could see three people. One looked like a heavily modified human, I couldn’t make out too many details but the way they were standing it seemed like they were preventing entry to the ship, the other was talking to them and it seemed like they were angry about something, and the last was sitting on the ground leaning against a one of the ridiculous golden crates.

“I’m not usually the jealous type, but I could definitely tell that you wanted to be inside her.”

I groaned at the terrible pun, which only caused Thea’s shit-eating grin to grow wider.

“Well, maybe you should feel jealous. I bet the ship wouldn’t get wing sauce on my favorite jacket.”

That shut her up for about as long as it took her to find the sauce stains on the underside of the jacket’s left sleeve.

“Oh damn it, I love this jacket. Sora! Sora, this sauce doesn’t stain, does it?” Thea started shouting as she walked towards the trio of figures.

I followed, and Thea’s shouting caused two of the three to turn towards us. It became clear as we approached that the person leaning against the crates was deeply asleep. She had the hood from her jacket pulled down low over her face and her crossed arms moved rhythmically with her chest.

“Sora, do you know if that sauce from last night stains? I just got this jacket and I don’t want it to be ruined already.”

Sora was wearing a pair of flowing black baggy pants and a lavender shirt with a neckline that revealed most of their hairless chest. Their two fluffy white tails were flicking back and forth that made it clear they were annoyed even without the irritated glances towards the modified human.

“That depends. I don’t know what you ordered. It wasn’t Sheila’s special, was it?”

Thea’s antics seemed to cause Sora’s irritation to be replaced by amusement. That probably meant they weren’t too upset about us being late.

“No, we were going to, but our waitress said they were really spicy, so we went with her recommendation instead. I’m Bryce, by the way.” Sora shook my outstretched hand and gave me a warm smile.

“It’s nice to meet you. Well, actually meet you. Thea introduced me last night, but you were indisposed,” they chuckled before continuing. “I’m surprised you made it out of bed before noon. You’ll have to share your hangover cure with me.”

It actually had been really hard to get out of bed that morning, just not because of a hangover; but I wasn’t about to correct them. Alcohol seemed like a better excuse. Maybe not better, but it was less embarrassing.

“Bryce didn’t drink that much. She was just tired after a really long day, and I don’t get hangovers,” Thea responded while rubbing at the stain on the jacket sleeve. She was probably just making it harder to get out.

“Oh? So you just overslept?” Sora was looking at me with a raised eyebrow, but they directed the question at Thea. I think they probably noticed the heat that was rising in my cheeks.

“Not really. Bryce woke up early, which woke me up early, and we kind of just stayed in bed. It was really nice.”

Thea’s explanation was full of half-true insinuations, and Sora picked up on every one of them. I could only imagine what was going on behind the coy smile that was being weaponized against me.

“Sounds like it.” Sora replied to Thea, but their grin only widened towards me.

Thankfully, my embarrassment was interrupted by a cough from the modified human who was standing away from the group.

He was a mountain of muscle and covered in colorful tattoos that stood out against his pale complexion. He was wearing leather pants and a matching jacket that somebody, probably him, had torn the right sleeve off to reveal a chrome prosthetic where his arm would have been.

“Where are my manners? Bryce, this obstinate oaf who has known me for years yet still refuses to let me aboard, is Alfonse.”

Alfonse smiled brightly at me and offered his metallic hand. I shook it and was surprised to find it soft and warm instead of the cold metal I had expected. The warmth hinted at it being on the higher end of prosthetics and pushed my danger assessment even higher.

“It’s just Al. Sora thinks that calling me by my full name will upset me and that angering me would somehow get them aboard faster. What they don’t realize is that my mother is a saint and I love the name she gave me.”

“I’ve met your mother and,” a glare from Al interrupted Sora and they seemed to pivot their statement at the implied threat. “She is now and will always be an excellent woman. Even made me cookies. They were delicious.”

“Yeah, that’s what I thought,” Al turned back towards me, again shifting to a pleasant smile. “The boss said nobody was allowed on board until the paperwork was done, magic and physical. He’s old-fashioned like that. Sora helped with the official stuff already. Just sign these two and I’ll lower the ramp before I head out.”

He proffered an old-looking vellum scroll and a thin tablet computer. I read through the scroll before pushing some of my mana into it as a way of a signature. I had to give a thumb imprint for the tablet.

Both said effectively the same thing. I would be given official custody of the ship now and in exchange, I would perform a onetime delivery of unspecified cargo to an unspecified location.

It was exactly as shady as when Teolix first offered me the deal.

The Vellum burned to an ash that evaporated towards the ceiling, and I handed the tablet back to Al.

“Excellent. There are eight crates piled here that go aboard. Feel free to use the hanger’s loading bots, Sora knows how they work, and then there’s this.” Al handed me an intricately carved ivory box that looked to be locked. “Everything is sealed and if anything gets opened by anybody other than the intended recipient, it’ll send a subspace transmission to us and the contract will be considered broken. Now this part is important. Don’t give her that box unless she refuses to accept the delivery. It’s carved from one of the boss’s claws and he made it sound like it’s a big deal.”

I gave a reluctant nod and Sora moved towards one of the far walls, presumably to activate the loading bots, but I still had a few questions, so I followed Al towards the ship.

“Who are we meeting and where? Also, will Teolix be reimbursing us for fuel and food?” I had to rush to keep up with Al’s longer stride, and he wasn’t slowing for me.

“I loaded the destination onto the bridge computer. Assuming Sora remembers how to fly after all these years, you shouldn’t have any issues finding it; as for who, she’s a woman by the name of Lyscantra. All I know about her is that the boss thinks she’s important enough to trade his favorite ship for a single delivery.”

She was probably pretty damn important. I was betting on another dragon. Maybe a potential mate or business partner? This wasn’t getting less shady and Al hadn’t answered about the reimbursement, so I pressed him a little further as he lowered the ramp into the ship.

“The pantries are stocked according to the boss’s tastes, should be plenty to last the four of you for a few months without having to restock. I also checked the fuel reserves myself. They’re topped off, but she doesn’t have much of a capacity. Instead, there’s an aether converter. If you’re running low, just shift and then fly around for a while and you’ll be full up.”

“Did you say an aether converter?” The sleepy question came from the newly awakened kitsune.

She was still wearing her oversized green hoodie, but the hood was back down, which revealed a young and dirty face with almost no resemblance to Sora.

This kitsune had darker skin, compared to Sora’s near ivory color. Her fox-like features were also a chestnut color instead of Sora’s silver and she only had a single tail, unlike Sora’s two.

“Welcome back to the land of the living, Samira.” Al replied as he reached up and touched his metal hand against the surface of the ship, causing a wide ramp to lower.

“Thanks Al, but did I hear that right? I’m going to get to play with an aether converter?”

Samira looked excited, but I was worried about Sora’s little sister messing around with a piece of equipment that even I didn’t fully understand.

“Hey Samira, I’m Bryce and this is Thea,” I greeted her and Thea waved energetically. “Would you mind not playing with the incredibly expensive or potentially explosive parts of the ship?”

“Um, what do you mean?” Samira tilted her head to the side and sounded confused. She looked towards Al, but he just lifted his hands and shook his head.

“Don’t look at me. I’m all finished here, and any conflict is between the four of you. Leave me out of it.” Al walked away towards the exit of the hangar.

“The Fury is a black-class luxury yacht, Omni-tech’s highest classification, at that tier, everything aboard is fully customized and only made to order. Besides, it’s powered by an over-sized P-432 fusion reactor and converting aether to mana-enriched tritium is endothermic.” Samira must have recognized my vacant expression because she switched tactics. “Everything aboard is expensive, fusion reactors don’t meltdown, and an overloaded aether converter will freeze us to death, not explode.”

I was speechless and Thea started laughing, but thankfully, Sora joined the conversation just in time to save me.

“I see you’ve met Sami. She’s the only person who I trust to make repairs or modifications on any ship that I’m navigating,” Samira was beaming at Sora’s statement until they continued. “She is also a show off that forgets most brats her age aren’t engineering prodigies, and that she should expect any reasonable person to assume she’s normal. At least, until she opens her mouth.”

That had somehow made me feel worse. When I was her age, I was in a similar situation. Well, it was arcane magic instead of engineering, but I took to it when I was really young and the only arcane practitioners were ancient elves that tended to be elitist gatekeepers.

“No, it’s alright, now I feel like an asshole,” I turned towards Samira with my best apologetic face. “I’m sorry Samira, I shouldn’t have assumed and I’m fine with you handling the repairs.”

“It’s fine, captain. Honestly, I’m just looking forward to seeing what this thing can do.” Samira said.

“Sounds good, but I’m not the captain. Thea mentioned she wanted the title this morning, and she said that she had already passed it off with Sora.”

That seemed to confuse Sora, so I looked back to Thea, who just smiled sweetly back at me. That was a terrible sign.

“I never said I wanted to be the captain. I just said I wanted to sleep in the captain’s quarters and you agreed. You are the captain, they are your quarters, and I’ll be sleeping in them, with you.”

That was bad, really bad. I looked towards Sora in desperation, but they just shrugged.

“She told me last night that you were going to be the captain. Which made sense. I mean, you were the New Eden Executive for like thirty years or something, and I figured if Thea didn’t want to be captain, then I sure as the hells didn’t.”

“But, Al mentioned he already did the official paperwork with you.”

“Yeah, we took care of it all while we were waiting for you. Officially, this morning Teolix Balidred sold Bryce Virra a luxury yacht. I even watched Al send the files off to The Federation.”