Calley's Chrysalis

(Note #1: All comments and constructive criticisms are welcome and appreciated. If you wish for a response but don't want your name appearing in the comments everyone can see, feel free to e-mail me through my profile.

Note #2: Those of you wishing for a quick story to wank to will want to look elsewhere. Although there are a few nude scenes described in some chapters, the intercourse only starts in chapter 7.

Note #3: And finally, thanks to volunteer Literotica editor TheNyxianLily for her help with editing.)

Calley was worried. She'd been on Arrida for three sub-cycles and her meager savings were almost depleted. She needed a job, desperately. The Spacers' guild house she was staying in didn't charge much, but the guild master was no fan of Gynapsis like herself. Ever since her people's homeworld had been made uninhabitable by an environmental catastrophe over six hundred cycles ago, they'd been wandering the stars. Once their ships had started to fall apart, they'd had to blend in with the populace on countless planets as best they could. Unfortunately, prejudice against them was widespread. Calley knew it all too well. And she knew that she barely had enough starcred for three days of lodging before she'd be tossed out.

It was bad enough she was a Gynapsi, with golden-hued skin that made it impossible to hide who she was from the bigots. But she'd left her last posting under bad circumstances. Given the choice, she'd have wished for a less remote port to be stranded in. The few ships that had come and gone since she'd become unemployed hadn't been interested in taking her on. Maybe because of her race, or her bad reputation. Either way, she wasn't confident as she left her bunk and put on her brown jumpsuit. She strapped her tool belt on and grabbed the duffle bag she carried her few possessions in. She slung her blaster carbine's strap over her shoulder and headed down to the building's lobby to look at the job postings, hoping against hope to see something new on the computer screens. What she found when she got there surprised her.

Calley had been wandering the galaxy since the day she'd been born, but she'd never seen a Bellixan in the flesh before. The Bellixans were not known as particularly convivial. They were major players in the political, business, fashion and entertainment arenas of the Inner Systems, but had a reputation for looking down on anyone of a different race or social class than themselves. Calley couldn't think of a reason one would be so far from home, yet here they were. And it was undoubtably a Bellixan

She stood about 185 cm tall, with black hair in a braid that came down to her calves. Her complexion was very pale, but she looked anything but sickly. Indeed, it seemed to perfectly suit the flowing, light blue sweater and darker skirt she was wearing. The lower garment came down to her ankles yet hung loosely and was cut sharply. Her head was oval, with exquisite features, a noble jawline and light blue eyes that matched her outfit. Calley had no doubt this woman was currently the most beautiful on the planet, maybe even this entire sector.

The Bellixan looked over at Calley and asked her, "Are you Calley Vanmussen?"

Calley was surprised the woman was showing an interest in her, but she quickly answered, "Yes I am. Can I do something for you?"

The Bellixan stared at Calley for a moment to size her up. The beautiful woman towered over the Gynapsi, who barely stood taller than 150 cm when she wasn't slouching (which wasn't often). Calley was acutely aware that her copper-colored hair was disheveled and that she hadn't showered in three days. Her baggy jumpsuit was dirty, though the brown colour hid a few of the stains. Her black work boots had seen better days, with the soles having been worn almost smooth.

"Your skillsheet says you passed a level 4 biotech certification?" the Bellixan said, phrasing it midway between a statement and a question.

"Yes I did," Calley confirmed.

"And you know your way around power systems and comm arrays?" Again, the woman seemed to be asking without actually asking.

"Worked on my share, yeah. If it's on a ship, I've fixed it up whether it's mechanical or biological."

The dark-haired woman looked at her datapad and nodded. "Are you sure you're eighteen cycles old? You don't look a day over sixteen."

"Yeah, it's the rounder face I got. I still get checked when I go to bars, but I'm eighteen," Calley assured her. "Um, not that I go to bars that often."Smooth move Calley, she thought to herself.Pass yourself off as a drunk, why don't you?

Without looking up, the beautiful woman asked, "What's this about assaulting a crewmember abord your last ship?"

Fuck!Calley further thought to herself.Here's where I lose the job."He caught me alone and decided to give me a birthday present I didn't want. He thought the little Gynapsi would be easy to force himself on. I jammed a power cable in his thigh."

"I would have aimed for his crotch," said the taller woman.

Calley said matter-of-factly, "I did. I missed."

The Bellixan looked up from the datapad and stared Calley in the eyes. Calley met her gaze without flinching. At first, anyway.

"What's the carbine for?" asked the raven-haired woman.

"Shooting."

The Bellixan's gaze turned cold. "Don't be cheeky with me, girl. Most spacers carry pistols. Why the heavy gun?"

"Range. I need to hunt sometimes. When I'm between jobs."

"I see. Do any hunting since you've been here?"

"Some," Calley admitted. The woman's stare was starting to make her nervous.

"Nothing around here but gul-birds and wild canines," the Bellixan said. Both she and Calley had understood each other. Calley had just admitted that she was destitute and eating animals you'd find hanging around a junkyard. It wasn't the best salesmanship, but even a lowball offer was one she was willing to accept right now if it got her off this rock of a planet.

"You're an honest woman, Calley Vanmussen," the beautiful woman observed. "It's not easy for a girl on her own in the galaxy, is it?"

The question surprised Calley, but she couldn't help but answer, "It sure isn't."

The Bellixan's expression softened as she asked, "Interested in taking a trip to the Toron system? Standard Guild rate, your own stateroom and three solid meals a day thrown in no charge. You help me keep the ship running and you take care of any diseases or injuries that come up. And you won't need to worry about amorous crewmates. It'll just be you, me, and the captain, and he's with me."

A wave of relief flooded over Calley. Toron was weeks away, and weeks of standard pay would mean starcred in her pocket at the end of the trip. She was surprised the woman wasn't charging her for room and board like she'd always had to pay her other employers. She was sure the Bellixan would find some sort of fees for travel permits or quarantine charges or something else to charge her. But if it got her off Arrida, the price would be worth it.

"I'm your girl," Calley said as she stepped forward and offered the woman her hand and a smile.

The Bellixan looked at Calley's hand but didn't shake it. An uncomfortable moment passed before Calley withdrew it.

"Sorry," she said, "I've never met a Bellixan before and I didn't know you don't shake hands."

"We do, actually. You just happen to be very dirty. My name is Alezanna. Do you have any gear you need to grab before we leave?"

Looks like I'm not the only honest one herethought Calley about Alezanna's brutally direct reason for not touching her. "No, just what I carry. I'm ready to go when you are," she told her new employer.

"Let's get out of here then," said Alezanna.

The two stepped out into the dusty streets of the city and headed to the spaceport. Most of the city's inhabitants had already settled into their offices and cubicles in the uniformly dull grey plasteel structures the duo passed by. Still, as the spacers made their way to their destination, the Bellixan drew her fair share of stares from the people they passed. Her exotic appearance played some part, Calley knew, but she suspected the way Alezanna wore her flowing outfit had a lot to do with it as well. It was so loosely-fitted that it seemed any stray gust of wind might expose one of her breasts or maybe a buttock. But every time it seemed about to happen, she would shift her body in such a way that the clothes would flow back to cover her up. It wasn't unlike watching a cloud of fabric swirling around the woman's body. Calley marvelled at Alezanna's practiced skill and poise.

"How long have you been a spacer?" the Bellixan asked while keeping her eyes straight ahead.

"Since I was born," Calley answered as she struggled to keep pace with her employer's long strides. "Spent my life helping my mom patch up people since I could hold a scalpel. Picked up the mech skills as I grew up from whoever would teach me."

"So where's your family now?"

"Not sure. Dad died in a bar fight when I was five. That left Mom with me and four other mouths to feed. Not easy on what she was making. When I got old enough to find my own jobs, I took one and I've been on my own ever since. Mom and I still keep in touch with holo-mail though."

"How long since you've been on your own?"

"Five cycles."

"Not a lot of reputable companies would hire someone so young," Alezanna observed.

"Guess I have a knack for finding disreputable people," Calley said before adding "Present company excluded, of course."

This earned her a laugh from her employer. "Don't be so sure I'm reputable. This isn't some pleasure cruise on a yacht you're signing up for. We run cargo and sometimes the things we carry aren't the most socially acceptable goods in the universe. We don't run slaves though. The captain and I draw the line at that."

"Good to know. I never served on a slaver ship either. Just starliners, tugs and a mining ship."

"Then welcome to the wonderful universe of the tramp freighter," Alezanna said as they reached the starport and walked down a wide staircase leading to one of the docking bays. "This is the Ravenfang, my ship. And before you tell me that ravens don't have fangs, I didn't name her. The captain did."

Calley stopped midway down the staircase to take in her first sight of the ship. It wasn't designed like any transport ship she was familiar with. They usually had rounded features and this one's main body was an octagon roughly a hundred and sixty meters wide and thirty meters high in the center, sloping down to a dozen meters high at the sides. A cockpit protruded out from her front with a rounded plexiglass canopy while four tube-shaped thirty-meter-long engines extended from her backside in a diamond formation. Two atop each other in the centre while the other two were placed to her port and starboard backsides. The engines were white while the rest of the ship was gunmetal grey.

Calley could see two blaster cannons facing front, one on each side of the cockpit. The ship seemed to lack other armament. A fair amount of her hull looked like it had been patched up or replaced at some point, probably because of battle damage, Calley guessed. She noticed two round protrusions on the lower hull, one portside and the other starboard. She looked over to the top of the hull and saw another two half-orbs placed in similar positions.

A sensor dish protruded from the top of the ship, slightly to the right of the cockpit. Calley also saw six thin communication masts jutting out different points of the top of the hull at various angles. She was surprised at the number, as most commercial ships she'd served on made do with two or three.

"Guess you like to stay in touch with people, huh?" she asked Alezanna.

"Not exactly," the woman corrected her. "The captain spends a lot of transit time scanning the newsfeeds. He likes to know what's going on in the region so he can figure out who needs what and how much he can charge them for it. We get much better profit margins with him researching a job than we would getting them from the Merchants guild. He just has a knack for finding someone selling something cheap and then somebody else who's willing to pay top starcred for the same thing somewhere else."

Calley was surprised to hear Alezanna and her captain eschewed guild assignments. She knew the guild took a portion of any and every job they brokered, but always chocked it up as the cost of doing business. Setting up your own jobs seemed like a lot of work and a lot of risk to the Gynapsi. But if the two were doing well enough to hire her on, maybe there was something to their strategy.

The two women made their way down the rest of the staircase and approached the ship's lowered gangplank. They made their way inside where Calley immediately realized the ship hadn't begun life as a freighter. The dull grey and hard angles of her interior pointed to a more martial origin.

"Was this a warship originally?" she asked Alezanna.

"Something like it, yes. I think more of a planetary defense interceptor. One of our cargo bays used to be a brig. And as you'll see from the berths, she wasn't designed to be comfortable. You'll get the biggest one we have, but it's still pretty bare. The captain and I sleep in one of the cargo bays we've converted into a bedroom. But yes, she definitely started off as a military ship before the captain found her."

As they entered the ship's common area, they found two figures there. One was an old maintenance android sweeping up the floor of the galley. The other was a man Calley assumed must be the ship's captain. Whatever she was expecting, he wasn't it.

For one thing, he wasn't a Bellixan. He seemed to be a run-of-the-mill human. Maybe 175 cm tall with brown hair and brown eyes on a sharp, angular face. She guessed he must be in his mid-to-late thirties, though a spacer's face could make them look older than they were, depending on how hard they'd lived. He had a short beard that rounded out his look somewhat. From a distance, he might have looked a little weaselly. But up close, his face seemed friendlier. He wore a shirt that looked like someone had covered their nose in garish multi-colored paint and then sneezed on the garment. His pants were tan but clean and his boots were dark brown and shiny. He wore a gunbelt across his hips with what looked like a hold-out blaster in its sheath. He turned from stocking the galley with food and looked over at Calley.

"And who do we have here?" he asked.

Alezanna stepped forward, produced her datapad from somewhere within her clothes and handed it to the man. "Calley Vamnussen," she said. "Our new medtech. I hired her for the standard guild rate."

The spacer looked over the datapad and took in the information on it. He seemed impressed, as he let out a appreciative whistle. "Damn Alez, I thought finding gems in dung heaps was my job, not yours. Calley, if you can do half the stuff this thing says you can, standard pay will look like a bargain to me."

"I promise you I'm a hard worker, sir," Calley stated.

"Good," the captain said. "One thing though: You sure you're over eighteen? I don't wanna get arrested for transporting a minor across star systems."

"I turned eighteen three sub-cycles ago, like it says on my datasheet."

"Just making sure," the man said as he handed the datapad back to Alezanna. "I'm Captain Sal Collondo. You can call me Captain, Captain Sal or just Sal however you like. Welcome aboard the Ravenfang. Alezanna will show you around and get you stored away. I'm still waiting on a delivery of grammamite we'll be taking to Toron. That should give you time to get cleaned up."

"I was going to give her Goppu's old room," the Bellixan said.

"The luxury suite. Good idea," he declared before adding, "It's the only room we have that's not a barracks. You're lucky Calley. You'll be able to almost stretch your arms out completely before you hit the walls."

"Sounds like a palace," Calley added to play along. There was something about his manner that seemed to invite you to relax in his presence. She'd only known him for a few minutes, but she felt at ease around him. It might also had been what Alezanna had said about the two of them being involved. She doubted the captain would make any unwanted advances when he already had such a beautiful companion.

Alezanna led Calley out of the mess area and showed her to her stateroom. She saw that Captain Sal had exaggerated how small it was, but not by much. Still, the single bed looked comfortable and she had a small desk of her own. The Bellixan admitted that it wasn't much but Calley assured her it was better than most lodgings she'd had since going off on her own.

The bathroom was nearby and also betrayed the ship's martial origins as there were four bunks in recesses along the port wall. There were also two shower stations lined up on the far wall. It looked liked some others had been removed and replaced by a large rectangular unit some 250cm square and about a meter high. A tarp covered it's top. Calley looked at it for a moment before Alezanna noticed and cleared up her confusion. "Hot tub," the tall woman explained.

"Wow," Calley said. "I've never seen one of these before. The starliners had some but for the guests, not the crew."

"Never been in one, eh? You'll have to try it out on the trip during your downtime. We don't have a lot of creature comforts on this ship so a good long soak will help keep you sane."

Calley had to admit the idea of a long bath seemed inviting. "How much to use it?" she asked.

Alezanna looked at her strangely for a moment before she understood what Calley was asking. "Calley, it's free. The water goes through a purifier after every time we use it so it gets recycled. You can pee in it if you want to. Just don't do it if I'm in there with you. The power it takes to heat it up is nothing compared to what the engine gives us. It doesn't cost us a microcred to use it, so if you want to take a bath, do it. Just let the captain know so that he doesn't walk in and then get a power cable shoved at him."

"Okay," Calley agreed. Serving aboard this ship was shaping up to be a very different experience than she was used to.

"And that goes for everything else onboard. If you want to use the comms to send a message to your family, or to watch a holovid, it's free. We pay to subscribe to the channels so whether we use them for an hour or ten doesn't matter. Just don't break anything you can't fix, be ready to work when I need you to work, keep your hands off the cargo and don't use the blasters on other ships unless they shoot first. Aside from that, we don't have a lot of rules on this ship. Just respect the ship and respect each other. If you can do that, we'll get along fine."

"I understand Miss. I won't make trouble."

"Good," Alezanna said. "See that you don't. But drop the 'Miss'. It's 'Alezanna'. They'll only be three of us most of the time so we don't stand on ceremony."

Alezanna then showed Calley the medbay, which only had two beds but was well-stocked with common drugs and medicines. Not the place a brain surgeon might operate, but certainly adequate for a small crew. Next up were the two cargo bays, which currently stood empty. At the back of the ship, the Bellixan showed off the reactor room, which Calley saw was kept clean and well-organized. The reactor itself was a type that Calley didn't recognize, though that made sense considering it was on a ship whose design was just as unfamiliar to her.

Alezanna described the ship's speed and power output and Calley couldn't believe her ears. Most ships of this size Calley was familiar with had Hi-Vel engines that could get you six or seven sectors away before needing to recharge. According to the Bellixan, the Ravenfang routinely did Hi-Vel jumps to destinations ten sectors away. It was one of the reasons the trade ship was so successful. They could deliver cargo further and faster than their competitors. The Lo-Vel engines weren't quite as impressive but still top-of-the-line for a transport ship.