Chapter 2, Rider, and the crew of the Phoenix begin their journey to Trellis, finding the warrior society of Diraki in their way. Unintentionally offending a local chieftain, Rider fights for her crew. Not as much sex as the first installment, but I think you'll like what is here. A few good fights, too.
As always, please let me know what you think, your comments are why I write.
The creature across from me was Diraki, he had to be a good thirty centimeters taller than me and outweighed me by at least forty to fifty kilos, all of it muscle. His fur, a beautiful burnt umber, danced in the light breeze. The lavishly decorated horns on the sides of his head curled in a massive arc, making two full circles before ending in sharp points capped with decorative metal coverings; even for a Diraki, he was impressive.
Olan crossed one hoof in front of the other, holding the talif lightly in his right hand, spinning the battle staff slowly as we circled the arena, gauging each other as opponents, both trying to identify the strengths and weaknesses of a challenger we had never faced before. He reminded me of a Satyr from ancient Greek mythology.
I was tossing my talif, a wooden staff about one hundred centimeters long with one end shaped into a 'U,' from hand to hand, spinning it in lazy circles, trying to get a feel for the weight and agility of the weapon as I matched Olan's pace around the ring. I had used a quarterstaff before, and this was not too different.
This was a fight for dominance, not to the death, but serious bodily injury was not uncommon. It was a version of the combat the Diraki used to resolve challenges for positions on the Tribunal and ultimately for Kilar, the leader of the clan tribunal.
In keeping with tradition, Olan and I were both completely naked, that meant a little more to me since I didn't have twenty centimeter long fur covering my body, but not enough to cause me to lose my focus. I could still see his ample package between his legs, and if my limited experience with alien species told me anything, it was that it was probably as good a point of attack here as it was on earth, if it came to that. His fur also provided plenty of hand holds and his horns, while extremely dangerous, also probably meant he was a little top-heavy.
The purpose of the challenge today was to determine the fate of my entire crew; should I dominate Olan, we would be freed, if Olan dominated me, we would be sold into slavery. We moved around the circle in silence, the only noise was the crowd of Diraki watching from the seats around the arena, they were expecting a quick victory, their barbs and jeers directed exclusively at me. While I was hoping for the same thing, I was going to do everything I could to ensure it was not the one they wanted.
Dirak, as the locals called it, was about a third of the way to the gate Drell had been launched through. It had taken us three jumps to get here, being careful to keep them small, since none of us knew exactly what was out here. While Jazz and Drell had connected the dots and we knew where we were going, the Earth data was not what the Trellians would have considered navigation quality and we had no idea what was really in our way, so baby steps.
Once we were away from Earth, Drell opened up a little more on some things he had intentionally kept secret; he explained the dynamics of his family and gave us an idea of what we were walking into, thanking Granger for stocking the armory in the process. His uncle Curish, had held a grudge since Drell's father had taken the throne, believing it should have been his. Drell's grandfather had been very specific in his instructions and it had only made matters worse. There was speculation that Curish had played a part in the accident that had caused Drell's parent's death, but nothing could be proved. It was certain that he had sent Drell into exile through the gate; it was not going to be a happy reunion when we got there.
He also let us in on a little physics lesson. Space is full of waves, things like light and gravity, all impacting the fabric of space time. When you get into FTL, a lot of the equations change, and you can do some interesting things, for example, at about 2.0 FTL, it is possible to tune the frequency of your FTL engine to create resonant frequencies, much like harmonics in music when a chord is perfectly in tune. The effect of this is, it is then possible to latch onto one of those frequencies. If you choose the right one, you can increase your effective speed almost exponentially, and effectively jump massive distances through space seemingly instantaneously.
The gates Drell had mentioned were nothing more than huge FTL tuning forks, The Phoenix's top speed of 2.5 FTL, made it possible for us to do the same thing, as long as we took our time and didn't try to go too far in one jump, even in FTL, going through a star of or a planet would seriously ruin your day. We had covered to 4 lightyears to Alpha Centauri in as many hours.
The second jump was just as impressive but the third had been a challenge to tune and the same 4 lightyears had taken four days, Our plan was to use our next stop to analyze the engines and see what had caused the degradation. We had spent two months at the ship yard in San Francisco for a technical exchange; Drell had given the engineers there the schematics for the biomass replicator on the ship and done a deep dive into the theory and function of FTL drives with a group of physicists in exchange for some upgrades to The Phoenix.
We now had a photon cannon mounted on a swivel below the ship and twin rail guns on the bow. Adding in the time we spent surveying the star systems we had targeted for the first two jumps. Counting the two months in San Francisco, we had been on the ship for over six months, had become a very tight team, and had discovered serious options for Earth's expansion out of their solar system. My confidence in my piloting skills was close to matching what Drell was convinced I could do, Granger knew the ship as well as Drell did, and Jazz had mastered the nav and communications systems, both were becoming fluent in Galactic Standard in the process as well as picking up a lot of Old Trellian; most of which was not suited for mixed company.
Drell also took it upon himself to expand our knowledge of Trellian culture; I believe what really happened is he finally saw Granger completely hard. Trellians don't have a concept of sexuality, there is no straight, or gay, or lesbian, or bi-sexual; sharing pleasure is just something you do with someone you like, or think are hot, or well, is hung like Granger.
While humans had become much more liberal in their views on sex over time, there were a few taboos that draw surprise when mentioned.
"Granger," Drell's face took a serious tone. I had experienced his directness when it came to asking for sex, but Jazz and Granger had not, "I noticed yesterday when you were with Jazz how large you are, I believe I would enjoy having you inside me, if you're agreeable."
Granger dropped his coffee, the look on his face was priceless, his eyes darting back and forth between me and Drell and Jazz, Drell had inadvertently hit on one of those taboos and it had surprised the hell out of Granger.
Drell's expression changed to confusion, "Case, was that improper?"
I was trying not to laugh, "Humans have become very open about sex but there are some things that our society still has issues with. For some reason, while we readily accept two women together, a lot of people have reservations about two men. I think you just caught Granger off guard, is all. To be honest, I was a little surprised myself."
"He's just," Drell blushed, "well, so big, and I am the only one who has not enjoyed his...," he didn't finish the thought, but we all knew what he meant. You could have cut the awkwardness in the room with a knife.
"Sounds fair to me," Jazz chimed in doubling over in laughter as Granger tried to maintain his composure, "but that would mean I would be the only one that had not been with Drell."
