Chapter Fourteen — Part 3

“I’m asking for you to help me, Captain Bit.” He wasn’t speaking to me, but around me, as if he thought someone more important was listening.

I humored him as best I could. “Tell me what I need to know, and I’ll see what I can do.”

“I’d rather speak with your boss.” The Commander said. “This is a personal matter, after all.”

I rose slowly, almost gracefully, and poured the Commander another glass of wine. When he sipped from his glass, I started to take off my clothes.

“I’m trying to help you, like a good Captain should, and all you can do is question both my intentions and my position on this ship.” My voice was soothing. “If this is personal, then we really need to be friends. And if we need to be friends, I need to know that you trust me.”

Once I was down to my bodysuit, I could see it took all his effort to put his wineglass back on the table without shattering it. His nervousness kept me from changing right away — the original intent behind my removing my clothes. I got right in his face, rubbed his nose with the tip of mine.

“Well, Commander, can we be friends — or not?”

“Though I must say that Captain Bit has wonderful taste in women, I really need to speak with her personally, and not with her servitor.” Commander Barrot said, trying to be polite and failing miserably.

My emotions flashed from seductive to angry, and I shifted to my angelic form, my puppy fangs bared. It took every ounce of will to keep from winging him upside the head.

“I’m the Captain, you moron. Can’t you get that through your thick skull? What do you want?” I tightened my wings around my shoulders and chest.

“Oh.” He answered, stunned to see me in my angelic form. “Oh.”

I laughed at him. “You’re beginning to annoy me, Commander.”

“It appears I’ve made a fool of myself. Rumor had it you were a shape-shifter, I should have known it was you all along.” He swallowed another glass of wine and set it down. After three glasses, he was beginning to loosen up. “A Lenitian trader took my son to sell as a slave, and I want you to get him back.”

“If this is a kidnapping — ”

“No it’s not a kidnapping, it’s a misunderstanding between the mother and myself that caused this.”

“Explain this misunderstanding.”

“The situation is one of diplomatic severity.” He said, trying to whisper.

“Don’t bother whispering, I’m not recording this conversation, but my crew is. They like to play it back as training material for future encounters.” I wondered what could possibly matter when one’s own son is in jeopardy.

“I don’t care what you do, but I can’t have my superiors hearing about this conversation.”

I smiled, shifting back to my human form. “Persimmon, seal all exterior hatches, and activate the secure perimeter defenses. Focus the Otherspace drive on this room and ensure our privacy.”

“Your necklace changed.” He said, a curiously superstitious look crossing his face.

I diverted his attention from my chest. “Yes, well normally I look like an angel in Otherspace and in Realspace I look more like my human mother. It’s a strange side effect of being an angel born into a human body. Now, what’s this deep dark secret that you can’t tell anybody but a cutthroat pirate? And be careful, you might damage my innocent ears.”

“You seem anything but innocent.”

“I’m a virgin, you jerk, and I’ll stay one until the end of all time with idiots like you flitting around the galaxy. Get to the point.”

“Five years ago, when I was new to Kottanna, I found a woman and got married. Things didn’t work out so well between us, and we promptly filed for a divorce. We had a child during the marriage, and after it was determined that the child in question was a boy, she asked me what I, as the father of the boy, wanted to do about it.

“The child was mine, and I wanted custody — which should’ve been no problem — she didn’t want to raise the boy alone. We agreed verbally that I would raise the child and she could visit it any time she wanted. The woman in question, however, had other plans. After I paid for all the medical expenses and raised it to a somewhat decent age, she sought to spite me by selling the child to a Lenitian trader and leaving me without my son.”

Advertise Here