Freelancer
Windchaser growls softly to himself and paces back and forth across the bridge of his salvage ship, the Technomancer, restlessly, whining softly through his long, narrow muzzle while wringing his wings in frustration, the three long, delicate fingers at the main wrist joint of each wing, which stand separate from the wing struts themselves, interlocking from time to time. His stance is pitched only slightly forward and might easily be likened to that of any other anthropomorphic being. His demeanor at present is reminiscent of that of an agitated velociraptor.
Being hungry is not easy for anyone, and it is even harder for this particular mandrake halfling; it makes it so very hard to think, and that of course puts him at a distinct disadvantage, as one needs most to think when one lacks sufficient coin to by food. He pauses a moment, his long, almost frill-like ears perking and twitching, the pale green inner hide sparkling wetly with sweat in the ship's indoor lights. He snorts, dismissing whatever sound he thought he detected as simply another of the numerous computerized environmental control systems on board kicking on. Large ships like this are filled with them and at least one of them seems to be humming nearly all the time.
He continues to pace, the pale green, gash-like markings on his outer thighs, wings and tail rippling as the muscles under them continue to work at an agitated pace. He wears only a simple pair of black, skin-tight shorts, which are currently rather damp with sweat, brought on by his nervous pacing. He isn't actually suffering from exertion, as the simulated gravity of the ship is rather weak, but the fact that he is terribly worried about situations involving food and finances, or lack there of, tends to cause the same reaction. The only meager conciliation is that his mate does tend to seem more receptive to play when he has worked himself into a sweat.
Presently, the servo motors of the only door leading onto the bridge whine and the door slides open, a lithe dragoness, with a light, muscular frame and emerald scales, seeming to be made quite literally of cut and polished stones pads into the room on all fours, her head raised high on her long neck. She steps lightly up to her mate as he stops pacing and, being about as tall on all fours as he is on two legs, reaches out and nuzzles the base of his long, slender neck reassuringly.
"Any luck sweets?" she queries hopefully, a look of concern in her large, solid black eyes as she parts her slightly shorter, boxier muzzle to lick her mate across the nose.
Windchaser sighs and looks to his mate apologetically, "I'm sorry my beautiful Lightwing...but still nothing, I don't know what we'll do if there isn't some sign of something profitable soon."
She looks a bit uncomfortable and sits down, tail twitching, "We could always go back and ask my parents for some help..."
The mandrake glares, a look of hostility coming into his keen, slotted gray eyes, "No, absolutely not. How can you even consider that after the way they treated me?"
The dragoness sighs and shifts a bit, wings rustling, "Look, all I know is that if the point comes where we have to choose between that and starving, its going to be our only option, I know your parents don't have any real savings hoarded away."
Windchaser sighs and looks at the floor between his three toed, digitigrade, taloned feet pensively before looking up again, "Fine, I'll give it another day, if we can't find anything at that point, we will take your plan. But love, so help me, I won't be insulted again. If that mother of yours lays into me again like she did last time, lady or not, I'll give her a few scars across the muzzle to remind her of the cost of her lack of courtesy. I'm sick of being treated as a second class drake by people like her simply because I happen to be a halfling."
His mate smiles and lays a hand on one of his wing-hands, "I understand. You can rest assured you won't endure my mother's sharp tongue again," she chuckles a bit darkly, "and if I have to dull it myself, I will."
The mandrake nods and cannot help but smile back as they stroll towards the main viewing window together and sit side by side to gaze out into the seemingly endless sea of stars. No matter how bad things seem she can always make him feel better; it's been that way ever since they first met and nothing has changed.
He wonders again however, what ever could have convinced him it was a good idea to come this far out from the more civilized sectors of the galaxy. Indeed, he wonders why he chose this place over, say, something a bit closer to the old Earth system. Of course, that system its self would be out of the question, salvage laws there being what they are. Besides, everyone says nothing good ever comes from the earth anymore, and the more he sees of true Earthlings, the more he is inclined to believe it.
Shortly after the development of hyperspace technology, most of the respective peoples of Earth decided that they needed a little breathing room, which was a good idea considering just how much had changed over such a short period of time. Once the long-vanished otherkin and mythic races came back, or rather shifted back into their true states, things began to, at times quite literally when some of the more irate draconic types had their say, heat up on planet Earth. Fortunately, some of the more technically minded among the races quickly found a way to facilitate faster than light travel. Some of the more mystically minded were rumored to have made use of different methods, but information from that particularly transient period in history is very sketchy and he never found the time to read up on such a fringe area of study. It is a fringe area of course, because there is little known about it, and most simply chose to concern themselves with either comparatively recent history, or truly ancient history; those that study it at all that is.
In the end however, the result was the same, Earth, for so long held as the only habitable planet within reach, was largely abandoned and quickly became the home of an odd sort of political aristocracy, much of which centered around humans as well as some hangers on from some other races which for some reason were considered indigenous to the planet in question; whether they actually were or not is highly debatable. They even closed the borders of their system for a time, but that was mostly mindless political posturing given the vast distances involved. Not to mention that most considered Earth a sort of snooty resort of a fashion. In short, the result was that most would just as soon stay away at any rate.
He pauses a moment in his musing to consider the fact that he wouldn't have studied any of this if it hadn't been for Lightwing's love of books. Oh, if only she had come along earlier in his life...maybe then he might have really made something of himself.
Presently, as if on cue, he feels his mate twine her tail around his and purrs, smiling as she looks to him coyly, flickering her tongue.
He sniffs a bit, catching the sharp, unmistakable, sweet, musty, spicy scent of female excitement and chuckles, looking to her, "Oh really then...are you sure?"
She purrs and nuzzles his chest. The smell gets stronger, "Well, there hasn't exactly been anything on the scanner today, and I am terribly bored." She giggles and feigns pouting, pulling her bored aristocrat routine. The amusing part is that she does it so well, it's as if she really were an aristocrat, which she is most certainly not and by choice no less. She finds her parents very nearly insufferable most of the time. Indeed, the only reason she would even contemplate going to them for finances, would be the old draconic tradition that one can always count on one's family and clan for support.
The mandrake laughs out loud and smiles, deciding to stop worrying. If he's going to have to go see the much-avoided in-laws anyway, he might as well have some fun in the mean time.
"Alright then, I suppose it couldn't hurt to help my lovely lady find some intertainment...and after all, I've nothing better to do just now."
Lightwing smiles and purrs louder, then begins licking her mate's chest, slowly, sensually working her way down lower, and still lower...
"ATTENTION, STRANGE WRECKAGE DETECTED." The computer screams in an irritatingly calm, not to mention obviously synthetic female monotone.
"Oh by all the Gods!" Windchaser growls, putting his shorts back on with even more haste than he took them off and turning his attention from his mate to look out the large windows.
There is a whole wide field of debris, which his experience tells him is probably the wreckage of some sort of fighter, though there's not anything large enough to identify what kind or from where.
He sighs again, "Well, at least we'll most likely find something to sell finally..." he pauses, turning to his mate and looking apologetic, "Just hold that thought; I promise you, once we finish this we can spend the rest of the night on...other things."
With that, he sits down in the control chair and begins to operate the large manipulator arms on the sides of the nose of the large, wedge shaped craft, carefully gathering in as much of the wreckage as he can into the cargo hold to be sorted through later. At the very least, he is certain there should be enough remaining components and rare elements typically associated with such ships to be of some use.
The job quickly finished, he closes the cargo doors and retracts the manipulator arms then smiles and turns to his mate, "Care to help me down below?"
She chuckles lightly and smiles, "I don't see why not, who knows, maybe I'll even find something new to read...although I would have liked the other 'down below' a lot better."
The mandrake laughs loudly, "You and your endless hoard of books and..." he trails off and blushes, still too polite to actually say it, "...oh well, at least they're both things you get some use out of."
The emerald-scaled dragoness snorts and pretends to be offended as she pads lightly, cat-like down through the door, making sure to keep her tail arched enticingly for her mate following close behind. The two turn the corner left, and then another left, navigating the labyrinth of tight corridors in the belly of the ship until they come to a short flight of stairs and, padding down the stairs and making sure to re-pressurize the cargo hold before entering. Bits of wreckage are scattered everywhere, some in large piles, some not, and the two begin to pick their way through the field of twisted metal, ruined parts, and shattered polymers. By the look of the wreckage, the enemy must have hit the engens.
Windchaser picks up a small, cylindrical object, looking at it critically, then snorts, seeing the large hole melted through it, "It looks like someone was in a fire fight here..." he pauses to examine the object further, "It's not any design I recognize and by the looks of it, its been here a long time, which is strange considering the relatively small debris field."
He sighs and continues to pick through the sad wreckage before continuing his commentary, "At any rate, we'll be lucky if we can sell some of it for scrap. There isn't much left in the way of usable parts; whatever hit this thing even destroyed most of the enchantment based systems, almost as if that was their intention..." he pauses, picking up something else, a piece of some black material in the shape of a pyramid. Its surface is smooth, polished even, but swallows up all light that touches it, just like a tiny singularity in that respect.
"Now what do you suppose this is?" he queries, gazing intently into the void-black surface as he waits for his mate to look it over. It's almost as if he expects something to manifest there. Unfortunately, however, he is as clear as empty air to magic. It's not as if he hasn't tried, he can feel energy and other such things within himself, but his reach never seemed to extend beyond that.
His mate looks up and hurries over, looking at the piece quizzically, an odd expression on her muzzle, "I don't know, I've never seen anything like it before...it might be part of one of the computer modules, but I don't see any external markings at all; no ports or slots, no sigils..." she reaches out and touches it, "Now that's odd...there's a latent energy in it, but its not something I'm familiar with at all. The very nature of the energy is unfamiliar, and its as if its waiting to be activated...better leave it alone for now, no telling what it does. I've seen some truly hideous traps laid in even more innocuous places than that."
Windchaser nods silently and pads over to a small work table, fetching a small titanosteel box and placing the odd artifact inside before going back to work, sorting through the wreckage as best he can. It's nearly waist deep in some parts of the pile, the twisted fragments of hull and girders like some thorny, metallic bramble, and just about as unforgiving to the careless; fortunately, Windchaser is far too experienced to be so careless.
It is becoming quite plain that the most a large part of it will be good for is scrap. The oddest part is that the artillery, holes from which pock-mark most of the pieces, seems to have been a combination of fire, not from blasters, but a powerful laser of some kind supplemented heavily with what appears to have been a heavy barrage of rail-gun slugs. These are both obvious to any one of experience, as they rail-guns rely on blunt force for penetration as opposed to the searing energy that most blasters use, thus changing the type of penetration damage at the blast points. The laser has also marred the wreckage in its own unique manner, leaving vast, elongated cuts.
This is odd in the extreme. Lasers are still used on some of the larger gun ships, but rail-guns? No one uses those anymore at all, with the exception of a few old war buffs and hobbyists still clinging to and romanticizing past eras, just as others have no doubt done in previous times, and will continue to do even in the far future. But people like that are, for the most part, harmless and seldom if ever use their relics for actual combat.
After the technology for blasters was discovered, it became apparent that the technology for them was so efficient and economical as to render most other forms of armament obsolete. Even the relatively cost-effective rail-guns, previously the old reliable weapon carried by most during the early days of intergalactic travel, went by the way-side as the new systems proved more powerful.
Presently, he hears his mate let out a startled cry, "Windchaser dear...I think we have something you should be looking at over here..."
The mandrake halfling pads over to his mate, curious, as well as a bit concerned, "What love, what is it?" he pauses and sighs before continuing to mutter under his breath, "Something valuable I hope..."
When he reaches his mate finally, he finds her looking down at a fair sized cylindrical object, two thirds of a meter long and no less than a third of a meter wide. It appears to be armored heavily, indeed. The castings etched into its surface are strong as well and it is also sealed; there is a control panel at one end, displaying what appears to be a set of vital sign readings. Whatever is inside, someone has certainly gone to a lot of trouble to keep it alive.
"I think it might be a stasis tube...but it's so small, I wonder what's inside..." he murmurs distantly.
He carries it over to the workbench, seemingly bent on opening it, only to be nudged sharply in the back of the neck by his mate, who looks at him with an irritable expression on her muzzle. She really looks for all the world like someone just stepped on her tail tip.
"If we want whatever is in there to stay alive, I suggest we take it back to our lair where we can take care of it first." She growls, "By the look of it, it could be a hatchling, so I suggest you proceed with some degree of caution. Its not another blaster or generator you know."
Windchaser sighs and tucks the cylinder under one wing, carrying it up the stairs, this time heading away from the bridge to their more private quarters. He loves his mate deeply, but sometimes her mothering instincts can be rather strong...but he knows from experience that it is in his best interest to simply concede, or else find himself discussing actually fertilizing her eggs, and he has no intention of disturbing that den of cobras again. The very memory of the last time it came up is nearly enough to send him into a cold sweat again.
Once inside, the mandrake halfling sits down on the large, oval shaped nest bowl and proceeds to try his claw at opening the tube, hissing as he finds it locked with some sort of pass code. This would not be terribly irritating, save for the fact that the device is rigged to administer a small, but painful electric shock every time an improper code is entered.
"Open damn you!" he snarls after having tried several codes without success, and becoming more irritable with each successive shock.
"Oh let me..." his mate sighs, taking the package from him and laying the palm of one of her five fingered forepaws over the control pad, "I was always rather good at this you know, and the screen only has space for three digits. It can't be that hard to crack."
She concentrates for a few moments, and then there is a soft beep and the internal latches release, allowing her to slide the inner compartment out. As she does so, her jaws drop open in disbelief. Laying in the padded half-cylinder of the stasis tube is a male humanoid infant, with blue hair and very pale skin; it also seems rather thin for an infant, which along with the hair color negates the possibility that it is human, but its also unlike anything she has ever seen.
Presently, the infant opens his eyes and gives the dragoness and her mate a start. The eyes are light green, slotted and slightly luminous, with no whites.
"Oh wonderful..." Windchaser snorts sarcastically, "not particularly attractive now is it?"
His mate glares, "Oh do shut your maw, I think it's cute...and in any case, we can't very well leave it here now can we? I personally think that since we found him, it should be our job to take care of him."
The mandrake halfling sighs resignedly...this is a debate he cannot hope to win, "I suppose we have to at least take him with us for a while, and in any case, we have to get this shipment to the nearest colony so we can sell it. At least the alloys should be worth something. We can inquire about it when we get there..."
With that, he heads to the bridge, making ready for light speed travel. The engens of the ship whine to life and in a flash, it is off at nearly three times the speed of light, riding a contrail of sizzling, blue-white power.
Lightwing pads onto the bridge to join her mate as the massive light speed engens begin to gear down and he looks up to her, looking hungry and rather tired.
"Sorry about earlier love I've just been stressed out lately...did you find out anything interesting about him?" he queries.
She chuckles, rubbing one of the three sets of split scales on her underbelly that conceal her nipples, "I found that he likes dragon's milk as well as any hatchling I ever saw. I also found one word written on a scrap of paper with a note on it. Strangely however, though it was written in English characters, which all the humans and other less exotic peoples seem to use these days, it wasn't written in any language I've ever seen...as near as I can come to pronouncing it, it says Thaenrathi. I guess it's his name."
The mandrake halfling adopts an odd expression, "Was that all?"
The dragoness shakes her head, "That's the only word that was on the note, but above it, there was a odd rune of some kind, I know that's what it is because it radiates a strange power. Feels cold and tingly, sort of like the air before a lightning strike."
Windchaser sighs resignedly, feeling very tired, "I know your parents won't approve, but I'm actually beginning to agree with you love...he needs someone to take care of him, and given that no one else is likely to, we might as well do it. After all, its not like you didn't plan on having hatchlings eventually anyway after all." he tactfully neglects to mention that it will also end the string of heated debates on the matter of fertilizing eggs.
His mate smiles and sits back on her haunches, hugging her mate tightly. Again, he just can't help but smile contentedly.
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