The Rembrandt Legacy

Her eyes flared up. Wrong move, Rem. But instead of gutting me, she cut off the rest of my remark with a warning fingertip on my lips.

"I am a Zuthrian still, Rem. I am proud of my accomplishments. That woman had to die. And her last stand, carved into my body, shall always remind me that I rid the world of a slaver and a poisoner, intending nothing but harm to her own tribe."

"I didn't mean to offend. Sorry."

Her smile was back. "No worries. If I had been truly offended, I would have dragged you into the Circle of Truth, beat you senseless and then maybe taken your butt cherry."

"Well, good for me you're not, then." Unconsciously, I rubbed my bum.

"But here's an idea-"

"Attention Lumia," came Vaelia's voice over the ship's intercom. "If anybody can find Rem, send him to the cockpit. He's late for his flying lessons. Also, five minutes 'til jump. If you've got any pressing business, get it over with. I won't be responsible if you get reassembled with the wrong body parts."

"And I thought we'd be using the TransNet," Padari mused. "Anyway, Rem. If you want, we could honor the memory of your fallen friend together. Send her off in style. Sand dragon, Sconoch, and..." She caressed herself invitingly. "Before we dive headfirst into a Faceless seed ship." She rose and claimed her discarded shirt, then challenged me with a long stare. "How about it?"

I gulped down the rest of my coffee and stood up as well, pulling Padari into my arms. Burying my face in the soft of her neck, I inhaled deeply. Against my chest, her nipples hardened and I could feel her cock stir against me. I raised my head and looked her deep in the eyes. Somehow, a massive weight I hadn't realized was there had lifted from me. Gathering all my courage, I kissed her on the lips. Her hands dove into my briefs and clawed at my butt cheeks, pushing my pelvis hard against hers while her lips parted, allowing my tongue to slither into her mouth. We kissed for a breathless moment before she withdrew, a hungry look in her eyes.

"You're lucky the pilot wants you. Otherwise..."

"Postponed, but not forgotten. Promise."

"I'll remind you."

* * * *

Fully dressed and kitted out, I flopped into the seat. "You called?"

Vaelia shot me a sidelong glance. "First time you're late. Did you have company?"

I sighed. "It's a long story. Let's just say things went a little crazy when we came back from the Waystation." I pulled down the headset and put it on.

"I can imagine. Found your clothes in the lobby earlier. And Cosina replacing the sofa covers."

Now I blushed like a teenager caught with Dad's porn stash.

Vael laughed merrily. "Don't worry. That's nothing compared to the shit I've seen... or been in since I've joined Lily." She looked away. Then: "Ready for your first zero-latency jump?"

"As ready as I'll ever be, I guess. Walk me through it."

"There isn't much we can fuck up. We feed the start and end coordinates of our jump into the nav computer, hope there's no solid stellar body in the way and press the 'Go' button. The machine does the rest."

"The Zuth's locked up with me loved to tell stories about mis-jumps or crews horribly mutilated when their drives malfunctioned. What's up with that?"

"That's the spacefarer's version of hunter's tales. I'm sure humankind has them as well. Giant monsters eating sand-faring vessels, crews living on the insides of sand dragons..."

"Oh, these. Sure. We have giant squids pulling ships to the ground of the oceans or monster whales eating whole boat crews, only they survive on the inside of the monster's stomach."

"What's a squid?" Vaelia asked, her eyes twinkling.

"An aquatic lifeform with eight to ten long tentacles. Most of them are yay long," I moved my arms, "but those in the stories could pull down whole war ships. I'll have to show you pictures."

"Hmmm... tentacles," Vaelia purred. She had slid a hand into her -- as usual wide open -- flight suit and was playing with her breasts.

"Um... Vael?"

"Oh, sorry. Got a bit lost in memories. Lily and I had a bit of fun with a Faceless stripper on Waystation 63 not too long ago. So. Many. Tentacles. Um." She sat up straight and adjusted her suit. "Where were we?"

"Jump preparations. Why are we not using the TransNet, anyway?"

"Because our fearless boss has decreed we should go stealth from now on. Every time we cross a portal ring, we leave a record which could be traced. Since we don't want to accidentally lead the Nor Navy to our prize, we use the jump drive."

"I have done some reading. The SolarWing yachts, like our Lumia here, usually has a common FTL drive, with a 4x relativity factor."

"Which would make for that kind of speed your typical playboys, corp execs and holovid stars can afford. We, on the other hand, have to be a bit quicker. We dumped the old drive after Lily had liberated me. One of my exes was kind enough to 'lose' one of the jump drives during a routine inspection and we haven't looked back ever since."

"Must be a nightmare to maintain, considering the different tech bases."

"Yup. Thanks to Cosina it still works. I'm sure she wants to show you how to keep it running soon."

"Can't wait."

Vaelia punched something into a keyboard and a star map showed up on her half of the main screen, a red line connecting the outskirts of Oreas with a system closer to the core of the Nor Republic. The tag '46 ly' hovered next to the line.

"We're not going the full fifty?"

"Better safe than sorry," Vael said. The line turned green. "You want to do the honors?"

"Sure, why not."

I tapped my earpiece.

"This is your pilot speaking. Please remove any genitalia from your sex partners and prepare for jump in ten seconds. I repeat..."

I could hear the pained groans from around the ship as I counted down. Smiling, I placed my hand on the big red button on the center console.

"Three. Two. One. Jump." I pressed the button. In the depths of the Lumia, the jump drive spooled up. Several displays on the dash flickered unsteadily and a painful jolt of static crackled through my ear piece.

"Is it supposed to do that?" I asked Vaelia. She shook her head and opened her mouth. A moment later, there was the unnerving feeling of a free fall, of being stretched way beyond your normal limits. Then the sensation of reality snapping back around me. My head hurt and my eyes watered while the cockpit spun around me.

Vael coughed. "Fuck, that was rough."

I could see that as well. Several readouts glowed red, among them the power core and the heat dissipation system. We had also suffered serious damage to the internal structure from the forces which had shunted the ship over forty-six light years in less than a second. Whining like lost souls, the shields came on, putting even more strain on the overtaxed power systems. I interrupted the shield recharge until the power balance had stabilized.

"Maybe Lily should think about upgrading the power core before adding any more high-drain systems," I suggested. "Phase shields on this power grid?"

"You try telling her," Vaelia snarled. "Purging heat sinks. You can turn on the shields now." She tapped her earpiece. "Cosina. Mind getting your cute blue butt belowdecks? The power grid nearly gave out this time."

"Do you need me? I could go help."

"Fine by me. I'll make sure there are no pirates hiding in this system, then I'll take a break too. Crush can man the sensors for a few hours. If you see him, send him my way."

"Will do." I clapped her shoulder, then left the cockpit.

I found Crush and Padari in the gym, in the Circle of Truth. Both were almost naked, sweat-drenched and curled into what looked either a very tantric sex position or a mutual submission hold. I couldn't tell which.

The Circle of Truth had initially been the Gravon idea of justice. If two Gravon had a grievance to settle, they would draw a twenty-foot circle on the spot and duke it out. Depending on the severity of the issue, it would go from first hit to first blood to knockout to death. The winner was considered to be in the right. The practice had quickly spread to the other members of the Galactic Community, especially in mercenary or pirate circles, the Circle of Truth had been adopted as the dispute-settling measure of choice.

But here it looked they were dueling just for the heck of it. If they had noticed the rough jump at all, they didn't show it. I caught Padari moving the front of Crush's briefs with her teeth, then her mouth closed around his cock, sucking noisily. The Gravon tapped out.

"I can't win if you cheat like that," he complained.

Padari let him slip free, grinning. "You were a bit loose when defining the conditions. No one said 'no fellatio'." Her tongue slithered up his rod.

"True. Well, now that I'm thoroughly beat... what will you do?"

"Isn't it obvious? Have my way with this," Padari laughed, waving his rod.

I cleared my throat.

"Sorry to butt in, but Vael wants to see you, Crush."

The Gravon folded his arms under his head, relaxing while Padari fought with his massive erection. She couldn't wrap her hand around it and her mouth looked two sizes too small as she slurped his glans between her lips. "No problem. I'll be there."

"Enjoy yourselves, you two." I left them to it and used my comms to find the machine room.

* * * *

If there was one room belying the slick outer appearance of the Lumia, it was the heart of the ship, the machine room. Here, nothing was slick or bright or stylish. My first impression was that of a bowl of technomantic spaghetti with subsystem meat balls. In the center of all of this was the power core, a simple, reliable dark matter converter. In conjunction with the scoops mounted to the leading edges of the Lumia's wide wings, it could scoop infinite energized particles from space and run indefinitely. The only problem -- it was obviously not up to the task of keeping the Lumia supplied under full brunt. The heat inside the room was oppressive. The Zuthrian jump drive, life support and all other major systems could be accessed from here as well, if one could find his way through the bewildering forest of cabling, struts and supports.

Like an ominous, bulbous spider, it's feed lines appearing like curiously bent legs, the jump drive had been mounted above the power core. Before a jump, it would draw immense amounts of energy from it to shunt the ship up to fifty light years, after which it had to cool down for around eight hours. Even with the cool down period taken into account, this method of travel was still faster and flexible than standard FTL travel. The only other means of interstellar travel even coming close was the TransNet, but ships using it were limited by fixed entry and exit points and not many systems outside the Nor Republic had been connected yet.

Cosina sat cross-legged in front of a console near the door, a hand splayed over the keyboard. On the screen, I saw schematics flash past, then status readouts, virtual switches being flipped. She waved.

"Do you hear me?" I asked her.

"Yes." Her voice came over my comm. "But I'm rather busy right now. Seems like the resistance in the main power lines is way past normal. Several fuses have blown."

"Point me in the right direction and I'll replace them."

"I have the spares with me," she said, motioning with her free hand to a box next to her.

I claimed the fuses, a pair of non-conductive work gloves and dove into the chaos, guided by Cosina's calm voice. Even without my Legacy active, I could see that the Lumia's internals were a hodgepodge of technologies. Most of it was the high-end, but still civilian-spec stock systems, intermingled with Zuthrian military-grade systems, Grey cabling and even some Terran tech. My head hurt from simply trying to understand how it could even work, much less not explode horribly. There were no zip-ties involved, but some of the connections looked rather tenuous, with jury-rigged adapter plugs or hand-soldered logic boards interfaced between systems which should, under normal circumstances, not even work with each other. Degeera had insisted on running a safe ship. She would have kicked everyone out of the airlock had her machine room looked even remotely like this.

I pulled the blown fuses free and replaced them, then settled back on my haunches.

"I'm amazed we're not dead. Who built this?"

"I would rather use the word 'grown'. It has... grown over time," Cosina explained, joining me.

"What kind of redundancies does this tub have?" I asked, rubbing my face. A murderous headache was creeping in. The heat inside the machine room was killing me.

"We have a few capacitors for the weapon systems which can double as batteries if the core should fail and we can use the synthesis engine's reaction mass tank for fuel if need be."

"That's it? How about... oh I don't know... life support?"

"If all else fails, Lily's cabin can sustain us all for some time. It has autonomous systems."

"Wonderful. Let me see the power system readout, please."

She walked me through the console. The main power distributors creaked under the strain and the wiring sang with barely contained energy. I pulled some diagnostic tools from my belt and wormed my way along the main power lines. The results were disheartening, but I needed to make sure. Gnashing my teeth, I pulled my gloves off and grasped the cables. The insulation was hot and mushy under my naked fingers. I had to remind myself not to squeeze to hard. The last thing I needed was an impromptu electrocution. I manifested.

No wonder the ship creaked at the seams. These cables had never been designed for the kind of strain they were under. They had been top-shelf stuff once, but too much time under too much strain had turned them into charred husks instead of conductive arteries. A wonder there hadn't been any shorts or fires yet.

I returned to the waking world, blowing on my seared palms. "I think before we can jump again, we need to transplant some thicker cables in here. And I have no idea how we can ever switch to a better power core."

"Lily's cabin is that way," Cosina said, indicating the far wall of the machine room. "Or rather, the clamps holding it in. We had to modify one of the cargo bays for it to fit."

"And in doing so, you blocked off the only way we might have had to remove the power core without cutting open the hull." I shook my head. "Lily probably won't like it, but to keep the Lumia running smoothly, we'll need a refit facility and some serious labor. But until then, we can at least make sure the core systems won't crap out. How much reaction mass do we have?"

Cosina checked the terminal again. "Our tank is full. Enough for about a month's food, repairs and reserves."

"We'll probably not have enough to replace all the affected lines, let alone the plasma conduits. But we can fix these." I pointed to the lines going off the primary distributor, those which had melted into a barely working clump. "Can you get me a copy of the ship's spec sheet? I'll need to see what stats the original wiring had and upgrade it to something more durable."

"Yes, Rem." Cosina placed her hand on my comms and sent the data I needed. I then busied myself at the machine room's synthesis engine. It was a much larger version of the ones built into the cabins, able to create spares, tools or, in this case, spools of high-durability, high-voltage cabling. Each spool took more than ten minutes to synthesize.

After half an hour we had enough to replace the faulty wiring in the machine room. The humming synthesis engine only added to the already oppressive heat levels.

"Now for the fun part," I grumbled, pulling the sweat-soaked shirt over my head. I tried to swab my head, but managed only to wipe more sweat everywhere. Cosina had unceremoniously shed her plating as well.

"Which would be?" she asked, openly eyeing me. Her hand caressed the spot on her thigh under which most Silicians had a subdermal pouch. From my accomplice I knew many kept their phallus there when not in use.

"How to switch the wiring without plunging the whole ship into darkness. If you had an auxillary power core, we wouldn't have this discussion."

"We could use the weapon capacitors as backups."

"Hm. Lily won't be happy if we pull Lumia's teeth. One sec." I switched on my communicator. "Lily?"

"Yes, Rem?"

I explained the situation to her. As expected, she wasn't happy.

"It worked before," she said.

"It won't much longer. To me the whole power system looks like it's ready to give any moment. Maybe one, maybe two more jumps, but that's pushing it. Anyway, which of the weapons can you live without in the near future?"

She thought for a moment. "If you absolutely have to disconnect one, take the EMP cannon. Hands off my disintegrators."

"It's only temporary. And it would be better if we didn't jump until we've replaced most of the important lines."

"Sure. Do what you have to do."

"And Lily...?"

"Yes?"

"We might have to acquire these phase shields later. First, what you really have to buy is a new power core."

Lily snorted in disgust. "Do you have any idea how much one will cost? I could buy a new ship for that kind of cash."

"Well, what's wrong with a new ride?"

"It took me nearly a decade to have the Lumia where I have her right now. She's almost like the eighth member of this team."

"She won't be much longer when your power grid goes poof and we die horribly without life support or motive systems."

I heard Lily inhale for a rebuttal, but at that precise moment, alarm bells went off and Cosina squealed behind me. I whirled around and was greeted by an impressive light arc and spark shower where two cables were shorting happily.

I dove to the console and rerouted the power. The cables stopped arcing.

"What was that?" Lily snapped. "My pool water is going cold."

I squinted at the readouts. "Says here 'main lounge systems'." You might want to dress, boss."

"Ugh. Fine. Get it working again, please. I'll look around for a new core. Anything particular you'd like?" she asked sweetly.

"Well, we'd need a refit yard to get it installed. To minimize work time, we could try one of the new Nor singularity cores."

"Dream on, handsome," Lily said. "I think maybe a Grey zero-point generator might be in our budget. Maybe. If we whore ourselves out. Let me know when I can get back into my pool, okay?"

"Will do." To Cosina, I said: "Let's give this Frankenstein a new lease on life, huh?"

* * * *

It took nine sweat-drenched hours to rewire the whole machine room. Most of the time I was in trance, using my Legacy to guide my hands. Without it, it would have taken days, if not weeks to decrypt the convoluted system layout. Cosina was an invaluable help, the extra pair of hands I never had before. With minimal downtime and even less injury, we pulled out the old leads and wires, one subsystem at a time, rerouted them through the EMP cannon's capacitor to keep them running without the core and replaced the burnt-out ones with the new, higher-capacity cables.

I had no idea how I even managed it under the shower, much less into bed. But here I was. And, going by the arm around my hip, with a soft hand not very far from my crotch, I wasn't alone. A warm body was snuggled up behind me, soft breasts against my naked back and a leg tossed over mine. I opened one eye. The light had been dimmed down.

Soft lips brushed the nape of my neck. "Good morning, Rem." The hand caressed my stomach.

"Hey Cosina. What are you doing here?"

"Well, I helped you into bed earlier. And since I was here already, I thought I could take a quick nap myself. Your bed is large enough."

My lips twitched into a little smile. "Pure pragmatism, eh?"