Bob took a Back Seat.

  Sheena let out a primal scream of such frustration that the man who knew he was about to be beaten to death by his former slaves like a living pi?ata asked, "Damn?! Are you alright, lady?"

  She looked at him, dangling there, obviously in pain, and aware he was about to die, and all her frustration faded. "Yeah, dude. I'm... I guess, I'm fine. I was just thinking about how much paperwork this whole crazy day is gonna be..." She sighed.

  It would be so much more than paperwork; there would be an inquisition before the high council of the government, the adventurers guild, the wizard's college, and scariest of all Bethany's Mom...

  "Gosh, that seems like a real hassle." Sheena chuckled and the pirate continued to try to maybe somehow talk his way out of this. "You could just go rogue and not deal with it at all. I hear there's almost no paperwork involved with being a pirate captain."

  "Hmm..." Sheena feigned considering it, "I am not so sure I should be taking advice from a man in your... Esteemed Position. Perhaps you are a bit biased."

  The enslaved members of the bridge crew were free, the dragons had eaten their gems, and most of the other gems, in fact. They were about to 'Lady and the Tramp' the last bit of the amulet when instead, they started growling and play-fighting over the last few gem.

  "Flix, Flox, finish your meal." Sheena wagged a finger at the two dragonlings, "People's freedom is on the line."

  "Mra mer mra maa ma mra," Flix squawked back while chomping down another gem. Flox ate the remaining two, quietly.

  "Is it me, or was that a sarcastic tone from his little dragon mouth." Sheena asked the soon to be dead man.

  "Sounded sarcastic and sassy to me." The captain said, eyeing his ex slaves that had started reequipping the weapons Yorna had pulled from them.

  "Thanks, I'm not crazy then."

  Sheena squatted down and put a hand out for the dragonlings and they scampered up her arm to made themselves comfortable on top her her helmet. They let their noodly bodies drape down onto her shoulders. On top of her helmet they started to do that thing cats do where they're giving one another a bath, but also battling a little. The loser is the one that gets licked most. Some biting allowed.

  "Well, I hardly know you. But you seem pret- AAHHHHH!!!!" One of the ex slaves had just prodded him with his own Electro-sword. "Pretty sane. Do you mind Carl? I'm trying to have one last civilized conversation heEEEEEEEre. "

  Sheena laughed and Carl actually stopped prodding him to look at Sheena to see when it was cool to continue.

  "Ahh, captain... whoever you were."

  "Bawn, Seen Bawn." More than just Carl was ready. "I'd shake your hand, but."

  "Thanks for helping me take a step back to see the big picture, Captain Bawn." She patted him on the head. "Appreciate the candor, and good luck with Carl. Carl, all yours."

  "Thank you, ma'am." Carl's smile grew wickedly large as he poked the old captain again.

  "AHHH!!! That is very sensitive Carl."

  "Give us a call when you're ready to back your ship out." Carl said, tossing her a comm device. "We'll seal the bulkheads that need sealing from the bridge. Don't want you to blow anyone out into space when you back out."

  She gave a little two finger salute and did an about face to head back to her ship... to the bridge airlock.

  The sounds of small arms fire throughout the ship, let Sheena know things were proceeding along quickly.

  "Bob, how're we gonna fix the ship, that airlock can't be good for our structural integrity can it?"

  "Oh I think you'll find my workmanship more than up to snuff for your current standards. Some of what Yorna and I did to the ship is permanent. I think you'll find her much more combat capable in the future with a full team of wizards aboard, too"

  "About that. What exactly are the long-term consequences of tapping off Yorna's mana like that going to be?" She was walking past the two gut-shot pirates moaning on the ground. One reached out for her for help, but she managed to step away, choosing to leave them to Yorna's justice.

  The other reached out and caught her by the ankle. She and the pirate both discovered that the leftover mana in her system was still plenty hot and spicy. Bob leaned in to help out with a little Backseat Driving to help Sheena's magical wishes come true.

  The man's hand was severed by his wrist armor pinching shut, clamping it clean off. She heated the edges of the armor to cauterize the wounds too, as she shook the hand off. Satisfied with her handiwork, she continued down the stairs on the way back to her ship.

  "Attention all hands, this is Carl. I'm on the bridge with the captain strung up and ready for a beating. If you want to come get some hits in you better hurry up." Carl let the sound of the captain's scream echo through the ship.

  More than twenty free men passed her on the way. The ones who knew who she was saluted, the others figured it out and saluted too. A lot of confused but grateful 'Thank you, Ma'am's.

  When Sheena was outside the new airlock to her ship she signaled the Nuphidri inside to unlock. Once she'd got inside, she used the comm device Carl had handed her to let them know, "This is the Chrysaora, requesting permission to depart."

  "AHHHHHGHGHghhh!!! Hey, quit stabbin' him for a second! We gotta work for like ten seconds." A voice, probably Carl's said over the comm. "Sure, Chrysaora. Count to thirty, and then you can go. If anyone is still in there they deserve to get spaced."

  Sheena checked her crews vital signs in her heads up display as she picked up Bob's skull to sit down in the pilot's seat.

  The Nuphidri was stressed, the boys would be hungry when they woke up, and Bethany's suit was having a malfunction, reporting her current mana as negative several billion percent, but her breathing was strong, and pulse steady.

  Flix and Flox hopped off her head and dove through the empty eye sockets of Bob's skull. They both went fully inside, rearranged themselves like a liquid, and then popped their heads out, one for each eye socket. Together they scampered off to the galley with their little legs sticking out the bottom.

  This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  "Hey! Come back here with that!" Bob shouted with Sheena's voice, just before Bob's lights flowed from Sheena to the skull as it ran away.

  Sheena just started laughing. Wild, uncontrolled, 'holy shit I almost died so many fucking times today' laughs. They were only interrupted a half minute later when the Nuphidri spoke.

  "It has been more than enough time. As the captain of the day, I order you to undock the ship." The formality of it snapped Sheena back to reality.

  "Yeah. Right. Here goes everything."

  The ship's shield emitter was still functional, but it wasn't producing a shield just now. It needs a meter clearance in all directions, and low particle density.

  A nice surprise for Sheena, however, was that Bob and Yorna had given the outer layer of the ship a sort of... Mucus system that kept them from being scratched open easily. Not that they knew it yet, but a very low level electric charge could be run through the mucus to make it harden for atmospheric entry, wherein it would operate like a heat shield. Well researched magical materials science stuff, but forgotten arcana now.

  They blorped out of the wound they'd left in the Destroyer, angled away on the warp vector Lucas had routed before, and hit it.

  Once they were a few seconds away, Sheena programmed in a new route, one toward a guy they knew that would pay full price for all the gems and jewels. He was out of the wild sector too, just inside the borders of 'civilized' space, where they needed to be headed anyhow. He'd give them a safe harbor to get their heads straight before they went back to face the various musics.

  "We're airtight, right?" Sheena asked.

  "The system shows us as such, and my suit agrees. We have atmosphere in here."

  "Good. I'm gonna desuit and shower, then come relieve you."

  "Copy, I will maintain the watch."

  Sheena desuited and cleaned herself up. She put on some fresh clothes before she returned to the bridge to tag out. While the Nuphidri was showering, Lucas and Bethany both awoke as well and went to desuit and clean themselves up in turn. Rex was the last to wake. Sheena helped him to his feet and told him to go clean up and get ready for dinner. When the whole crew was clean, it was well and truly dinner time. Sheena set the ship to stealth mode, dropped them to low warp - so that they were essentially impossible to spot or intercept - and joined her crew in the galley.

  There were some truly astounding smells floating out of the kitchen into the ship as she appeared in the doorway.

  "Sheena!" Rex shouted. He had a big goofy grin on his face and held up a Flix-wrapped hand. The little green menace was 'ferociously' biting Rex's thumb knuckle. "Bethany taught me a spell to make me uneatable! I can do magic now!"

  "He's enleatherized himself, that's all." Bethany said. She put one finger up and condensed a small ball of water from the air, converted it to hydrogen and oxygen and ignited the output like a welding torch for but a moment before it sputtered out of fuel. She smiled at herself. "It's all sooo much easier now. I feel like... a REAL wizard for the first time. Did you see that? No suit and I can do that."

  "Does this mean you can do combat magic now?" Sheena asked.

  "Probably." Bethany said, summoning a new ball of water, "Catch Rex!" She flung it gently at his head. He opened his mouth to try to catch it. Some of it hit his mouth. Most of it hit his face.

  "Maybe accuracy practice sessions before we test it out in a real battle." Lucas said from the cooking surfaces in the kitchen... two seconds before a pea sized ball of water flew past his head and splashed into the sink behind him.

  "Good plan," the Nuphidri said, letting go of a rare, sensible chuckle. "Very close Bethany."

  Bob and Flox were in there, 'helping' Lucas cook. Bob was actually trying to help, Flox was as helping like a cat might help make to make a meat pie, that is to say, not at all.

  "Flox, let that go..." Lucas considered sticking his fingers near Flox's mouth to force it opened, but settled on pulling on the other side of the S-meat package. "That's ingredients still, not dinner yet you little... varmint!

  "GrrrrRRRRrrr." Flox growled and tugged like a dog just having a grand ol' time playing tug-o-war.

  "I said NO, little dude!" Lucas realized, they seemed to understand common perfectly well already, so he said, "Does anyone oppose dragon meat pies?"

  Flox let go of the S-meat, stuck out his tongue, and from it, issued a little static electricity strength shock to Lucas' fingers twenty centimeters away. Satisfied with his 'win' Flox dashed away and jumped and glided over to Rex, where he scrambled up his broad back to claim the highest location in the dinning area.

  From his perch on Rex's crown Flox 'roared' mightily. He's a three foot long winged, legged snake. His roar was about as intimidating as a kitten trying to puff up and be big. Had a very 'meow that turned into a long yawn' quality to it as well.

  Flix was not one to be out done. He released Rex's arm and finger-chew-toy, and for the first time used his gravity bladder to fly. He floated upward toward the ceiling, 'roaring' back at his brother as he went. He realized he wasn't stopping like he seemed to want to, and he hit the ceiling with a thunk.

  Flox looked up at his brother, stuck up on the roof, and cocked his head. He jumped off Rex's head and fell upward at his bother, and together the two started a snarling, scrabbling, wriggling noodle fight.

  "Is that... going to be a problem?" Sheena asked, pointing at the very small dragon battle in progress. Flox belched a small burst of flames at Flix, and Flix fired back with a touch of ice magic.

  "HEY!" Bob shouted. "No magic when you wrestle! Bad Dragons, naughty."

  They both stopped and looked at Bob in his skull, considering what sins they might commit next.

  "I'll use your full True Names with magic you little miscreants," Bob threatened, "and then you'll be stuck walking for hours and hours. Is that what you want?"

  Flix swallowed a fireball he was about to belch in his brothers face. Flox stopped preparing his counter with magic. Both started slowly drifting down to the table, contrition in their innocent little baby hearts.

  "Thank you," Bob said. "So to answer your question Sheena, yes. Them play-fighting with magic while aboard the ship would absolutely end in disaster. You may have Rex proofed the ship before, but these two are a whole new level of trouble."

  Everyone laughed, Rex joined them a moment late, happy to laugh along with his friends. "I'm so glad we didn't blow up today you guys, and even happier we got pets!"

  "Rex," Sheena said, "These dragons are more like babies than pets. They will grow smarter than any of us in time, and be capable of speaking eventually, right Bob?"

  "We'll all surely rue the day they start," Bob said. "Enjoy the pet phase while you can, I say, just be ready for them to start talking one day in real words, not just trills and chirps."

  "Oh good!" Rex enleatherized his other hand and snatched both dragons for a wrasslin'. They trilled a happy sound as they went to glorious battle with Rex's leatherized hands. Worthy foes.

  A short while later Lucas and Bob served the finest meal the crew of the Chrysaora had ever eaten aboard the ship. S-Meat done three ways, like bacon, like roast beef, and like pastrami for a sandwich Bob had concocted from wheat plants he grew and processed with magic. He also grew strawberries, grapes, peaches, and four kinds of borbellian brunderspuds, all from the same plants. Borbellian brunderspuds taste like chocolate, like way too much like chocolate to just be a spud that grows that way in the ground. They come in 'dark' and 'milk' varieties naturally, but Darsun had some druids invent a darker version, and a white chocolate version. Bob made a few plants that grew all manner of other weird shit, but left them as barely more than seedlings. Those flavors would have to wait for later.

  He didn't mention it to the crew at the time, but he was using up the ectoplasm from the revivification tank to do it. He'd linked himself to it earlier - to sort out Yorna - and now had used a bit of old magic Darsun had come up with to grow those plants from scratch with ectoplasm. It was the great maker's true passion, food. All the space ships and golems and weird magic artifacts were mostly made in the pursuit of more and more interesting and unique flavors.

  That's why there was a cooking mode on the codpiece. They almost didn't notice when Bob summoned it to them, and had it start playing a certain song, quietly under the table.

  Everyone erupted in laughter and sang along. And when it was over... a different song came on, and they smiled, and ate their hard earned feast, drank some pilfered pirate's rum, and enjoyed the new, old, strange music coming from the diamond encrusted codpiece under the table. They fed the baby dragons more than a few portions, and forgot all about the mess of troubles they'd faced to get to this day, and the ones they'd face in the coming ones. And they kept a place set for Yorna, just in case she was already ready to pop back in already.

  pausing point for now.