Aspirant 2: A Sci-Fi Harem Adventure

by Maxx Whittaker

  Jacinta gapes. “They’ve never tried that before. Crimson Dawn will never let–”

  Kara halts her with a raised hand. “None of that matters right now. We’re leaving immediately. Ready the Ezio.”

  They’re what? Whatever madness Jacinta expected, this wasn’t it. “But we have no supplies. No crew. No destination. What are you–”

  Kara takes a long step forward, eyes flashing. “We will take care of those matters when we’re airborne. My girls can man the ship and supplies can be purchased in other zones.”

  “You can’t just teach new blood to run a ship like this in five minutes!” Jacinta protests, leaving out the fact that she can control the ship by herself through her tattoos. No one but Graham knows that, and she’s leaving that particular ace in the hole a secret. “How will we–”

  “Do not make me leave without you,” Kara hisses, and she looks angry enough to make good on the threat. “We’re leaving. Now.”

  Jacinta Tavares is many things. Pirate. Thief. Warrior. Former nurse. Widow. But there’s one thing she’s not, and that’s a coward. So, it’s a surprise to her when she doesn’t bristle, doesn’t argue further.

  Because something is off.

  Something is happening.

  Jacinta steps aside, mastering her burgeoning rage. She beckons up the ship’s ramp, bowing slightly. “After you.”

  “Thank you,” Kara says, flashing her a suspicious glance at the sudden change of mood.

  Kara and her girls troop up the ramp, going single file as they mount the narrow passage. Each of them is tense like they’re ready to fight at any moment; hands linger on weapons and their bodies are ready for battle. The elven girl and the amazon in particular look like they’re a heartbeat from doing violence.

  Curiously, Kara doesn’t send the messenger kid scampering with news or orders. He heads up the ramp last, and his gaze lingers on Jacinta’s generous tits as he goes. He stations himself near the ramp, not following the women.

  Why does she need a messenger in the sky?

  Graham and the men that aren’t incap are gathered on the ship’s deck, spread seemingly casually over the thirty feet between the fore and poop decks. Jacinta knows better. They’re ready for shit to hit the fan. With a glance, she calms them, then looks to Graham.

  Not yet.

  “Best view from the poop,” Jacinta says. “Care to join me?” She mounts the ladder going up without waiting for a response.

  Kara growls from below.

  Good.

  Jacinta nods to Graham where he stands near the ship’s wheel. His hand rests against the pommel of his sword. Jacinta shakes her head and he relaxes as she crosses the quarterdeck and continues to the poop. Kara and her girls are up just behind her, vaulting up athletically. She’s heard stories about how the women of Kara’s brothel double as her personal guard. How they’re trained to fuck and to fight.

  Up another ladder and her boots impact the poop deck. She leans against the railing next to the ladder, crossing her arms casually. As the last of Kara’s girls files up, she moves her hand so her finger hovers a millimeter from a tattoo halfway up her left arm. Time to test a theory. “So, you say you’d like to take off immediately?”

  “Yes,” Kara says without turning around.

  “Then why haven’t you released the magical docking chain?” Jacinta buffs her nails against her shirt as if uninterested. In reality, her heart’s going one hundred in a school zone.

  Kara turns slowly. “Docking chain?”

  “You know. The one you placed on the ship when we signed our contract? The one only you have the magical key to? The only thing that’s kept me stuck to this goddamn spire for the last two months?”

  “Oh, right,” Kara says, flustered. “The docking chain. Yes. We’ll take care of it when we lift off.”

  Jacinta fights to school her features. That’s now how the chain works at all, and Kara should know that. Then again, perhaps she just knows how to lock one and has never bothered with the details of the docking chains actually function.

  Maybe.

  Or maybe not.

  If she’s wrong about this…

  She hops up onto the rail. The moment her feet leave the ground, her fingertip brushes red and black ink, as gentle as a painter’s brush.

  Two years ago, Jacinta’d paid an enormous sum to have a spell imbued into the wood of the poop deck. A spell that, up to this point, she’d had no use for. A spell she’d cursed a few times when she’d been low on funds and alcohol.

  But today, it finally pays for itself.

  Instantly, the wood of the deck changes form, from solid to liquid in an instant. Kara and her girl’s sink ankle deep into its surface, shouting in alarm and flailing before it solidifies.

  Trapping them.

  “Now,” Jacinta says, hopping down and pulling her sword. “Let’s talk.”

  “Captain,” Kara growls, “what the hell do you think you’re–”

  “Shh, shh, shhhh,” Jacinta whispers, slow walking the perimeter of the deck. She runs her sword along the railing, and the scrape of metal on wood sounds more like metal on bone. “The next time you open your mouth, it’s going to be in answer to a question that I rather hope you’ll treat with perfect honesty. Because if you don’t, I’m going to reactivate the spell that put you in the floor, and you’re going to fall through it. If you hadn’t noticed, the section of ship you currently occupy has no dock underneath it.” She stops in front of Kara, flashing an ivory grin. “It’s a long way down, boss.”

  Kara grinds her teeth but doesn’t answer. Her girls watch warily, strangely calm despite the danger they’re in. All but the amazon, who looks ready to open her mouth and interrupt. Jacinta points her blade at the hulking woman. “I can also activate individual sections of decking,” she says, gesturing at a small section of tattoo at her wrist. “So, by all means, dear… Continue.”

  The amazon closes her mouth with an audible snap.

  Kara leans her ass against the railing, planting her blade in the wood at her feet. She cocks her head, weighing.

  Last chance to back out of this. Say it was a misunderstanding. Apologize.

  Instead, she looks at Madam Kara, one of the most powerful mages in the world. A mage that’s following her order to stay silent instead of roasting her alive where she stands…

  Jacinta smiles.

  “You aren’t Madam Kara.”

  ***

  The moment my feet sank through the floor, I knew the game was up.

  The captain, Jacinta Tavares according to Wick, stands in front of ‘Kara’ and asks her question. And in that moment, I know we’ll have to fight a captain who can apparently control her ship by the dark tattoos that spiral up her cinnamon skin and has a crew of at least a dozen heavily armed players within shouting distance.

  That is, unless I can talk their way out of this.

  Astra, transformed to Kara, looks to me. Her dark red eyes are wide with panic. What do I do?

  What do they know of Jacinta? Not much. Wick only had a little information about her. That she’d been stuck on the spire for months, that she’d signed a contract with Kara just before that, and that previous to said contract she’d been what most termed an ‘honorable pirate.’ Meaning she stole from other players but didn’t kill them in the process.

  Up close, she looks like a badass. Tall, beautiful, and fearsome, her thick black hair is tied in a simple braid that rolls down her back. Large, intelligent green eyes take in their every move and betray nothing; she could be a moment from letting them go or a moment from killing them for all Sam can tell. Full lips are a hard line above a prominent chin that she rubs with one hand. It draws his eye along her tattooed forearm and the tiny sun shaped symbol a finger of her other hand hovers over. Her body is curved and generous, swathed in clothes straight out of a Pirates of the Caribbean movie. Her blade glistens even in the dark of the poop deck, and there’s something about it that looks terrifyingly sharp, almost l
ike Syl’s claws.

  I search her face again for some sign of what to do. What to say.

  No help there.

  Her ship, gorgeous as it is, lends no obvious help, either. It has a definite steampunk vibe, and the dark wooden deck is only interrupted by thick, snaking steam pipes. The lights at the corners of the deck and along the railing are electric; tight bundles of wire in dusky glass throw moody splashes of light across the backs of the sailors that stand ready to assist Jacinta.

  Astra’s eyes reflect the coral light of the dock. A dock that could swarm with Obsidian soldiers at any moment.

  Time to roll the dice.

  I nod. Show her.

  Instantly, Astra’s body silvers and reforms as herself. In the dim light, her body reflects every ambient bit of illumination; the low torches at the corners of the deck, the lights of the dock, even the dull green glow of the fake spear she’d fashioned for me. My breath quickens. She looks like a living rainbow. Gorgeous.

  After she’s back to normal, she moves onto our disguises. I’ll never get used to the feeling of my clothes suddenly going liquid and flowing off my body, but this is even weirder. To make my disguise authentic, she also made me a woman, and I can’t say that I hated the odd weight of thick tits attached to my chest. They didn’t have feeling, but that somehow made hefting their naked weight in my hands even hotter.

  Definitely discovering new and possibly disturbing fetishes every day.

  The disguises had been good enough to bluff our way up the airship spire, though. Kara is apparently feared enough that even the usual stuffy, bureaucratic types that demand ID no matter who the hell you are clammed up the moment we passed by.

  By the time we’d reached the Ezio and this goddamned captain that somehow has seen right through our fake bodies, I’d almost come to like being a sexy warrior woman.

  The others seemed indifferent to the disguises, and Dusk was outright hostile. Of course. But she went along with it rather than be left behind in the middle of a city that hated Obsidian and a guild that had apparently marked her as a traitor.

  Jacinta watches, unruffled, as our skin and clothes melt away in long silver channels that flow along the deck and absorb into Astra’s ankles. Her body swells as the material rejoins her to the point that the deck cracks as her feet expand. She doubles in size, but as soon as the last bit of herself returns, she shrinks back to normal.

  We stand, still trapped, staring at our captor. Hoping. I ready my power; I’ll knock her ass off the deck to plummet the two hundred thirty-four stories I counted on our way up if she tries anything.

  That is, if her ship doesn’t have any other tricks.

  Jacinta crosses her arms and smiles sardonically. “That’s better.” She points to Astra. “That was amazing.” To Mika. “You are hotter like this.” To me. “I preferred you with tits.” Syl. “I really hope that’s another disguise.” Her gaze pauses on Dusk. “You. I know you. You’re Obsidian.”

  Dusk looks away. “Not anymore,” she says bitterly.

  I shake my head. Jacinta’s response is about as far from what I was expecting as you can get. I feel like a kid whose been caught by his parents stealing a drink from the liquor cabinet, and instead of getting pissed and going in with the belt against his bare ass, his father pours him another drink.

  I wiggle my leg. “Any chance you’ll let us free now?”

  Jacinta smirks. “Why would I do that? These may be your true forms,” she says with a glance to Syl, “but you still snuck aboard my ship and tried to bluff us into the air.” Her finger still sits poised above the symbol for ‘drop us through the deck.’ I hold my breath as she licks her lips and considers us. Finally, she cocks her head. “Why?”

  “We need to escape the city,” Mika says.

  “Right now,” Astra adds.

  Jacinta’s generous hip rests against the deck as she turns to look over the edge. “Any chance you all are responsible for all the calamitous shit going on within city limits?”

  I sigh. If she thinks we’re too much trouble, she’ll probably boot our ass to the curb. Or worse, get rid of us entirely. But I’m done lying and bluffing, so I nod. “Yeah. Obsidian wants us. Kara wants us.”

  “Why my ship?”

  “Kara mislead us,” Syl says.

  “She hired Sam and I to do a job for her. Retrieve one of her kidnapped girls.” Mika’s cheeks pink in anger. “All bullshit. She tried to kill me and take him. The reward was supposed to be a ride anywhere we needed to go aboard your ship.”

  “We completed the job.” I still hold my power tight, fighting the ache in my brain. “I still think we deserve the ride.”

  Jacinta’s silent a few moments longer. Finally, she laughs, which I really fucking hope is a good sign. “So, you put on the best Halloween costumes of all time and bluffed your way past about a thousand guards on the way up here so you could hijack my ship?”

  “Not hijack,” Astra clarifies. “We were going to tell you.”

  “You know. When we were safely back on the ground,” I say sheepishly.

  Jacinta taps something on her arm. My heart leaps; this is it. She’s bluffed us back with her easygoing attitude and is about to send us below. Maybe if I anchor us to the dock we can–

  But I’m wrong. The only change is something pushing us gently upward so that we’re no longer trapped.

  Jacinta smiles. Damn. It’s heart stopping. “I like you. You’ve got guts. Or stupidity. But I’ve had a lot of brave and dumb friends and I enjoyed the company of both. I’ll take you where you need to go.”

  Mika’s eyes narrow. “You don’t know us. Don’t know where we’re going.”

  Jacinta’s green eyes sparkle. “You see that giant prick sticking up from the ground over there?”

  Astra’s brow vees. “You mean… The docking spire?”

  “Yep.” Jacinta reaches out, palm open. “Anywhere is better than here. And I’m assuming, considering the aforementioned hijacking attempt, that you’ve got somewhere to go. Somewhere, as I emphasized, that is better than here.”

  I step forward to shake her outstretched hand. Her fingers are powerful and heavily calloused, though I see no ropes anywhere on the ship. “Thank you, Captain. You have no idea how much this means to us.”

  Far below, something explodes. Something big enough that we hear it all the way up here. Jacinta flashes another crooked smile. “I believe I know exactly how much this means to you.” Her shrug is the barest rise of her broad shoulders. “Besides, if you’re trouble, I’ll just throw you overboard.”

  I can’t help the laugh that climbs my throat. “That’s fair.”

  “Now, before we go, we have two problems.”

  I tense. “What are they?”

  “One,” she ticks, “I won’t go anywhere with an Obsidian.”

  Dusk bristles. “I told you. I’m not with them anymore. They tried to kill me.”

  Mika coughs. “Ah, technically, you are. Your guild tag…”

  “You can really see that?” Dusk blinks. “I thought that was bullshit back at the bar. That you’d just heard of us.”

  “Nope,” Mika says, smug. “And yeah. You’re still in Obsidian.”

  Dusk crumples. “Yeah. You’re right. I’ve just… Been with them so long.”

  Surprisingly, it’s Syl who lays a hand on Dusk’s arm. “They are not worthy of your regard. Betrayal of those who trust you is the lowest form of dishonor, and when they die, they will be denied the embrace of the Broodmother.” Her tongue flicks between sharp teeth. “They are scum.”

  Dusk recoils, her normal disdain erupting into full blown rage. “Don’t fucking touch me,” she says vehemently.

  Syl shrugs and turns away. “My words are truth. Your dislike for me does not change that.”

  Astra’s mouth quirks. “I spent my entire life in the service of a cause that was true. But when I realized the methods of my makers were false, corrupted…” Her eyes glance to me, full of love and gratitu
de. “I took a leap. A chance.”

  “Yeah, yeah, Hallmark card bullshit,” Dusk snaps.

  “They’re showing you kindness you don’t deserve,” Mika grates. “And we didn’t ask you to come with us.”

  “No, you just… Just… Screwed my entire life up to the point where I had no choice!” Dusk spits, and the tears in her eyes may be the most surprising thing I’ve seen in Lifestream.

  “We didn’t ask you to come after us,” Mika shoots back. “If you hadn’t–”

  I quiet her with a gentle touch. “Dusk,” I say softly. “I’m sorry.”

  Her sapphire eyes flash. “I don’t want your pity.”

  “You don’t have it. That’s honesty.” I laugh quietly. “A week ago… Something like that? It feels longer. Anyway, a week ago I died. And then I woke up and had to fight for my life. I’ve been torn apart and put back together more times than I can count. I’ve fought shit straight out of my nightmares and survived with no small amount of future PTSD for my efforts. I didn’t ask for any of it.” I reach out and touch Mika’s arm. “But it wasn’t all bad.”

  Dusk’s face is still as she waits for me to finish.

  “Every person in this place, you included, has dealt with tragedy. Fear. Heartbreak.” At my words, two fat tears run down her cheeks. “We didn’t ask you to chase us into Three’s,” I say, pushing on despite her sadness. “You didn’t ask to lose everything. I didn’t ask to die and run the world’s worst game of Mouse Trap. But it all happened anyway.” I take the longest step of my life forward so I can rest my hand on hers. “You’re here. Now. Fuck Obsidian. Help us. Or leave right now. But whatever choice you make, make sure it’s the right one.”

  The night’s utterly silent, broken by Jacinta after ten beats of my heart. “Not bad.”

  Mika chuckles. “Yeah, he’s pretty great.”

  Dusk ignores them. Her eyes search mine for a few minutes more before she slumps and closes them. “Fine,” she whispers. “I’ll… Stay with you. For now.”

  At that, she does something. Her entire body shudders and blue sparkles fall from nothingness above her, dousing her skin. For a moment she glows, luminous in the night, before they disappear.