"Oh fuck, breakfast!" Bethany squeezed out of the big ol' Rex bear hug, and back into the kitchen to take the meat off the heat. "I can't believe I burnt the S-meat."

  "Bethany, if it was anyone else I wouldn't bother, but do you want to learn how to unburn meat?" Bob was sitting on the counter, during the long boring night before he'd 'integrated' himself into the ship's systems, so now he could read the sensor readouts from anywhere. "I saw you playing with water to fire spells last night, I think you could do it."

  "Oh that's a wild idea, Bob. Can you teach me to unscramble an egg too?" She asked, half certain he was joking.

  Bob laughed, he was not joking, he really could teach her to unburn meat. "First let's teach you to crawl. We can worry about mountain climbing in roller skates, later."

  "The meat portion of breakfast will be a few minutes late," Bethany said, realizing she was about to do the impossible. "Sorry."

  No matter, the rest of the crew had something to snack on in the meantime; fresh fruit. They had grapes, kiwifruit, schnozz berries, and lorpti. Lorpti is a teardrop shaped blue 'xenofruit' that is a three bite-sized watermelony kinda tasting thing but with the crisp bite of an apple, and no real core. You just eat the seeds.

  Bob had made himself busy with the plants in the hydroponics bay. I've called it a hydroponics bay like the Chrysaora was a flying city with a thousand or more crew. No, Bob had made himself busy in the supply closet with a grow light that they'd rigged up because Sheena knew that if you don't eat some fruits and vegetables you end up with scurvy, even in space.

  So they snacked on four kinds of delicious, weird fruit's they'd never seen before while they waited for Bethany to 'unburn' the meat.

  The combination chemistry lesson, magic lesson took only a few minutes. Bob was delighted to discover that certain people were still being taught the elements are things like, hydrogen, helium, carbon, oxygen, and not fire, water, earth, and air, or some nonsense like that. Bethany already had a basic chemistry understanding. Very basic, but it was enough.

  Breakfast was delicious, no one would have known it had been burnt by the way it tasted, nor the texture. Bethany was the only one not fully satisfied, because she knew she could do better.

  They ate, and were merry. The codpiece played new, strange musics that none but Bob had ever heard before. The dragons ate, played, ate, and played some more. Like kittens or puppies, but long and scaly, and generally considering gravity as optional.

  As they wrapped up breakfast, Sheena said, "I think we should run full-warp, continuously, until we get to civilized space. That means 24/7 shifts."

  Everyone grumbled, not because they disagreed, but because they knew she was right. Except Rex, he grumbled because they were out of breakfast fruit.

  "We can make it to Sadao the Seller's secret space station six sleeps hence." the Nuphidri alliterated. "But can cut it down to four if we run continuously."

  "Exactly." Sheena said as she pulled out a deck of playing cards. "Lowest two cards are on night shifts until we get there. That means back to bed right after lunch. Top two take middle watch, and middle card gets morning shift, alone."

  She shuffled the deck, and spread the cards across the table.

  To her left the Nuphidri flipped a ten. Rex flipped a four, and Lucas a two. Bethany pulled a king, and Sheena a jack. The boys would cover the night shift. After the card picking was done, the dragons crashed into the table from above, scattering them everywhere.

  After breakfast, a brief freakout was had when it was discovered that Bob had made liberal use of several liters of their precious ectoplasm. That stuff wasn't too terribly expensive, but getting more meant dealing with a certain very annoying merchant's guild. They were kinda broke at the moment, but there was some upset because they were below the functional limit of the revivification tank with it missing that much goo. Their crisis was averted when Bob taught the whole crew how to make more ectoplasm, even Rex. The Nuphidri would learn, later, when her magic had been properly opened up.

  "Remember, any ectoplasm you make that you don't dump in the tank, or enfirmamize yourself with magic WILL cool things down on things like a snowball as it evaporates." Enfirmamization is the magical process of making ectoplasm stable outside the spirit realm. Only Bethany was up to such a thing just yet, so Bob would save that lesson for later. He'd hoped she'd figure it out on her own.

  Pulling ectoplasm was so simple and fundamental to spirit magic that Bob hadn't even considered that they might not know how to do it. In the maker's time, it was basically a small child's training spell that you teach to children before their own magic even awakens. Parents commonly gave them wands or other tools to use to pull raw ectoplasm. It helped build their mana reserves before they awakened. Bob didn't bother to tell them it would also help them grow their mana limits, he just taught them new magic by idea blasting it into their heads.

  They easily refilled the goo tank. Afterward, getting Rex and Lucas to whip goo balls at one another for fun was almost too easy for Bob. "I bet you a can't hit Lucas in the back of the neck with a ectoplasm ball from here," was all it took. Once he got them started, Bob excused himself to float off up to a ledge and watch the results of his pot stirring for a little while.

  Lucas took Flox and Rex took Flix and they had themselves a good old fashioned ectoplasm ball fight in the cargo hold. This really was a cargo hold, not a mislabeled closet, like hydroponics. It was mostly empty, except a couple of crates of F-Meat, and a couple of crates they thought were empty, but had, in fact, been filled with hundreds of kilograms of Flux's extra-dimensional pocket weed by Yorna.

  The cargo hold became their play space; the gooball fight arena.

  Their one footlocker worth of actual treasure, mostly what they'd looted from the pirate ship, was stashed in secret storage. You know, just in case they got boarded and 'inspected' by anyone.

  Flix and Flox decided to practice shield magic to help their respective shooters and the two men became boys again for nearly an hour. They both ran themselves so low on mana that they felt dizzy. The great thing about a gooball fight, is that the ectoplasm balls evaporate so very cold, so it's like a time-released sticky-snowball. You get hit, it feels sticky and gross. Then it feels like sticky gross snow for a bit, and then it evaporates away and you don't even need to shower... unless you have an hour long battle with them, then you probably should shower.

  Because direct attacks were being blocked by dragon shields, the boys learned to curve and control their goo balls as they threw them. Pitching curve balls, and spinners, and weird moves that couldn't possibly be done with an actual baseball. At some point the dragons became fair targets to try to 'take down the shield generator' before hurling a volley of gooballs. It was effective, getting a face full of goo did make it hard to keep a shield spell up for the little dudes. By the end of the 'battle' the dragons were projecting two shield panels at once, one to defend themselves, and one to defend their shooter.

  Sweaty, and exhausted from playing way harder than adult men should play, the boys (dragons included) rolled into the kitchen along with a wave of sweaty man-stink. They'd been called eat by Sheena on the comm.

  S-meat lunch was served along with some of the fresh weird produce. Bob had also had Sheena pull up some whole borbellian brunderspuds. He had plans for them, but wanted them to sit out of the hydroponics for a day before they'd be 'cured' enough to use for his delicious designs.

  They ate lunch, and Bethany brought the Nuphidri he's on the bridge. After lunch, while Lucas showered, Rex did the dishes.

  While he did the dishes, Rex noticed some delicious looking brunderspuds... just... sitting there... deliciously. Mocking him. Taunting him. Begging him to...

  Anyhow, there was a Rex-sized bite missing from of the extra dark brunderspud, and the milk chocolate tasting one.

  _____

  By time Rex had showered and got back to their shared room, Lucas was already laying in his bunk, petting the dragons.

  Oof, that sure sounds like a euphemism.

  "I tried to lock them out but they can work the door mechanism - including a deadbolt - with magic." Lucas said, beaming with pride. "They'll be able to help us get into all kinds of places. Imagine the loot we'd have been able to get off Trundelcko 4 if we could have unlocked doors with magic."

  Stolen novel; please report.

  "That sounds like something to ask Sheena about." Rex said, swinging into his own bunk.

  "It sure is, buddy." Lucas laughed, knowing Sheena wouldn't approve . "It sure is."

  "I feel so much more tired than I expected to be this early." Rex said. "You think it was all the goo fighting."

  "Almost certainly." Lucas replied. "I expected to toss and turn and drink four cups of coffee to get through the first shift tonight."

  After a few minutes of silence, he scooped up both dragons to pass them down below. "Here, you want some dragons?"

  He wasn't about to sleep with those little memory extractors willingly.

  "Oh, sure. Thanks!" Rex wasn't even fully aware that his history had been shared with his crew.

  Not five minutes later both were sleeping. Neither of them had ever blown through their whole stack of mana like they had this morning, because neither had even known how to use their own magic before yesterday.

  The dragons initially fell asleep with Rex... but his guts and borbellian brunderspuds were not the best of buds. His insides brewed up some fresh, hot blasts of boiled bowel perfume. Heinous anus odors that could peel the paint off a ship's hull.

  It is probably no surprise that dragon noses are more sensitive than human noses. More akin to the sniffing powers of dogs and cats. Now, anyone who has raised dogs and cats knows that both love a good butt smell. Well, space dragons too, while they're still in their animal phase anyhow. Once they start talking most of them only love it as a guilty pleasure.

  Rex had not made a good butt smell, however. This was rancid, foul, cantankerous stuff he was releasing. If they'd had words, they would have immediately told the rest of the crew to not let Rex have uncured brunderspuds... ever. The air sensor in the wall of Rex's bunk flashed red, and the air purify cranked up to 100% power, and even that was not enough.

  The dragons were tired from all the shielding and mana usage of their own this morning, but the smell was too strong, they had to leave.

  In search a nearby, less stinky place to sleep, they found Lucas. He was already far too deeply sleeping to notice two warm-blooded flying lizards slithering their way inside his sleeves.

  _____

  He was swimming in a purple sea, with a sexy mermaid... and he then he saw the black and purple dragon, lurking. Flox was partially hidden by the colors of the sea, but that was a dragon.

  Panic swelled in Lucas, and if he wasn't already wrapped up in a dream with two other dreamers, he might have wrenched himself awake, then and there. No such luck though. He splashed about in the purple water, and looked up to see the green and golden one, and he knew he was had.

  "Oh fuck." he mumbled aloud, and to an outside observer you might have thought he'd smelled what Rex was brewing, because he seemed to be gasping for air.

  Lucas was drowning, down he went into the purple drink, and the next thing he knew he was a toddler, being forced to punish a slave by whacking her slave gem with a special hammer.

  "Good boy, teach that fool her place." His mother's voice slammed him firmly into his toddler body.

  Reliving this memory with adult eyes made Lucas feel sick, or maybe it was the real life smell.

  No... no, it was this.

  Breaking a gem killed the slave, a slow, horrible, painful death. With a crushed gem they'd feel like ice picks constantly being drilled into their brain, until they died. For most, it left them so wracked with pain that they would die within a few days.

  This particular slave had been his nursemaid, and his mother had decided she was too close to the boy, and needed dealt with. It was Lucas' first horrible memory of his birth family, but not the last.

  He wanted to cry out, escape his mother's iron grip, and to run over to the woman who had actually cared for him during the first few years of his life, to tell her he was sorry. But that is not what had actually happened; so he giggled, thinking she was playing a game with him, and by his mother's encouragement, he smashed that gem with a hammer until it broke.

  Lucas wanted to leave, wanted to escape his own tiny body, but he couldn't, and when his mother set him down, the dragons dropped in to comfort him, for now it was more dream again than memory. He walked away, and found a door, and with the dragons on his shoulders, he walked through.

  ____

  He was seven, or maybe eight, and there were slaves in some mines working for his aunt. He was old enough now to know that she was high up in the pirate hierarchy, and that he and his mother had certain benefits and responsibilities because of her position.

  He'd come with his mother to whip some overseers into shape. He still had his gem-crushing hammer, and his mother had made the overseers lay out all the gems they had for the slaves here... Thwack thwack thwack.

  He smashed them haphazardly, cutting down their workforce somewhat as his mother had commanded. They would receive a resupply in a few hours with a batch of fresh miners anyhow. They were delivering more, and his mother said this would keep them in order.

  Adult Lucas wanted to look away, to do anything but be here, again. The dragons floated through the overseers office, taking in all they saw: the spatial coordinates of the mines, shipping routes, old passcodes written on paper, a ledger full of numbers and symbols that Lucas wouldn't have understood then, but surely could now with a little thinking and decrypting.

  ____

  He was eleven, and refused to thwack with the hammer anymore. He had realized what it does. The issue boiled to a head with his mother, and they fought about it before a raid. The last thing he said to her was, "I hate you! You're a fucking monster and I hope you die!"

  She came back with a hole in her head big enough to see through. It was cauterized the whole hole through.

  Some kind of new blaster sniper rifle got her, and three others. In a brutal ambush.

  The new captain didn't want him around anymore, so dropped him off with his aunt, and it was then that Lucas learned she wasn't just any high ranked pirate, she was nigh on the Pirate Queen, for she sat at the Pirate King's side.

  ____

  His aunt became the Pirate Queen. She sat upon a throne of fear, cruelty, and slave collar based control. Lucas hated her from the day he arrived, and she had at first just chalked it up dead mom. That's enough to make any kid mad. It was surprisingly empathetic of her.

  Still, he quickly learned to mask his disdain for Dear Aunt, lest it became a problem for him, and she considered it something other than a bad case of deadmom-itis. He learned to lie with his face.

  The longer he lived with her the more more he had to begrudgingly respect her, and not just because she'd beat him senseless if he didn't. She instilled a sort of barbarous civility into the entire pirate fleet. No raping, no cannibalism. End of rules list. If you disobeyed, she collared you. Lucas knew that was not the end of your punishment from there, but he never bothered to investigate what she did with people who were too foul even for her taste.

  She alone commanded the artifact that produced enslavement collars and their command gems, and through the handing out of gems and collars, she controlled all the pirate captains.

  The old pirate king, who she had betrayed and killed when Lucas was sixteen, had been cautious and slow in his use of the artifact, but she had allowed the pirates to grow their crews and fleets rapidly, enslaving any and all they could capture alive.

  She saw the old king's treasure horde as a resource to be spent, and it was vast, like she thought her empire might be.

  _____

  Lucas was eighteen, and had been sent to lead the boarding party to capture some VIP civilian. The daughter of a rich noble woman that wasn't playing nice with Auntie.

  The Queen had successfully paid off the marine attachment in the military escort that had been sent. It was supposed to be a cakewalk. The escort ship disabled itself, according to plan, and the civilian vessel couldn't even do real damage anyhow, but whoever was in that turret was a mean gunner. Lucas ordered his men to only take stunner rounds. They were to collect as many non-ransom worthy people as they could, as tribute to for the Queen.

  There was a slight, Rex-sized wrinkle in this plan, but they did stunned him down eventually. It costs the lives of several bad men, and sixteen fingers, one arm, and three kneecaps of bad men that lived. Speaking of bad men, a number of the survivors were pissed off that all their troubles had come from that one guy and they wanted to kill him.

  "You can't kill him, you animals. He's a a tribute to the Queen. Besides if he killed that many of us, and we put a collar on him, then he'll kill that many FOR us next time. Those guys should have been better at taking cover."

  The pilot had been relieved of his command codes, and the controls... and his life. A pirate pilot, one in a collar, had been installed in his place, and they were off to meet the Queen. They kept their haul sedated for the two day journey, only allowing the ship's doctor to awaken, to tend to his crew.

  Some of the lads aboard the ship were still pissed, and had insisted that if they couldn't kill Rex, they should be allowed to do something else to 'blow off some steam' and 'have a little fun'.

  "Play video games in the little princesses quarters or something. Whatever else you're thinking, request denied."

  Lucas started guarding the pile of stunned and sedated chattel, piled in the cargo hold. He went so far as to sleep in there himself, albeit away from the fresh meat, and hidden in the cargo. He knew the only rules had been made for a reason, and he certainly didn't trust these vile old fuckers who willingly joined up as pirates to obey them. He hid himself amongst the cargo with the deadly blaster he took from Rex, and waited.

  In time, they came.

  "Stop."

  "Where are you?"

  "Leave. Now."

  "We don't want the VIP, we get it, she's special."

  'Be very careful what you say next, scum.' Lucas remembered the thought clear as ever.

  "But what about her friend?" and then a different one chimed in with a sort of vile Logic.

  "What if we kill her first, then it isn't rape is it? It's just fucking dead me-" The man didn't finish the word.

  ______

  "You killed your entire boarding party." She was furious, she was plotting something, Lucas knew it then, and dreaded it now.

  "Not the entire party. The slaves lived, and Klara. And we delivered the package, unraped."

  "You could have stunned them!" She grabbed him by the face. "You've cost me slaves, Boy!"

  "I'm sorry," Lucas said, even though he wasn't. She released his face anyway and he continued, "I brought you some new ones. That big blonde guy is a monster. He killed way more of the boarding party than I did. "

  She pushed a button on a remote on her desk, and an image of Sheena and Bethany in a prison cell together flashed on the screen. "Are these the two you were protecting?"

  "Yes, ma'am."

  "And this one, he's the one you're so enamored of, because he killed half your boarding party?"

  "I wouldn't quite put it tha-"

  "LUCAS!"

  "Yes... ma'am. That's the guy."

  "Lucas... I'm going to teach you how it was supposed to go, understand?" And then she shot him in the gut with a precisely calibrated stunner round. He didn't fully lose consciousness, but did lose control of his body. Sleep paralysis style.

  The Pirate Queen squatted down over where he had fallen on the ground, and rolled him to be facing up. "That's better. Now you can see."

  She pulled a collar with the gem still attached from her coat pocket. "I hope you come up with a good story, boy, because if they know who you really are, you're done for."

  She laughed as she put the collar on him and snapped the gem off, enslaving him, for what he'd thought, was life. "Good luck with your new friends, hopefully the girl's mom pays for all of you, and not just her, cause otherwise, it's to the mines with the lot of you."