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.)

The trip to Toron took six days, not the weeks Calley had expected. They were able to reach the system in one Hi-Vel jump instead of two, so they saved a lot of time not having to wait until the engines were recharged. Calley could have been worried that she'd get less starcred than originally expected, but after the first few days of their trip, her shipmates were already talking about her helping with the maintenance once they'd landed. It seemed like they were planning on keeping her around for a while.

She was happy not to worry about the next job for the time being, and she discovered more benefits to her current situation. It turned out the captain liked to cook, so she never had to. The meals weren't fancy, but they were hot, satisfying and much better than what she was used to. She made sure to thank Sal after every one. He seemed genuinely pleased with her thanks.

Her fears of having part of her salary withheld for unexpected expenses turned out to be unjustified. At the end of each run, the captain loaded the standard guild rate into her finance account. After a few runs, Calley found herself sitting on a decent amount of starcred. Had she been inclined, she could have left the ship on a decent port and lived off her savings long enough to search for a different posting. But she doubted she'd find as good a fit with better employers so she stuck around the Ravenfang and neither Captain Sal nor his beautiful companion seemed to mind one bit.

She helped Alezanna with the ship maintenance, especially the comm arrays. They needed re-tuning after every trip through an atmosphere, so Calley was fiddling with them more often than not. After the first few runs, the Bellixan just let her work on them unsupervised, assured that the young woman knew what she was doing.

It was on the third trip, delivering four hundred Wolsa birds to a farming collective in the Risarius system, that Calley made another amusing discovery about the captain. She needed to inoculate her shipmates against an outbreak of Rubeola that had broken out at their destination. She found them both in the cockpit with Alezanna in the pilot's station and the captain scanning the comm channels at the starboard station. After giving the Bellixan her shot, she asked the captain to turn to her, but all he did was grunt as a response.

"He can't listen to you right now," the older woman explained. "He's looking for our next job. He gets so laser-focused on it that nothing else in the universe exists anymore. Just give him the shot. He won't care."

Calley rolled up his shirt's sleeve and inserted the needle into his shoulder to give him the shot. If he noticed it, he gave no sign.

"He's really concentrating, isn't he?" she observed.

"Nothing short of a ship alarm will distract him," Alezanna agreed. She addressed him and said "Captain, there's a space dragon off to starboard."

Without looking up, Sal grunted.

"You try one," she invited Calley.

"Captain," Calley began, "pirates have boarded the ship and are stealing the cargo."

All she got in response was another grunt.

"Captain," Alezanna said, "Calley and I are going to get undressed and make love in the galley, if that's all right."

He let out another grunt.

She turned back to Calley and said, "If that one didn't snap him out of it, nothing will."

"Why the galley?"

"Because we eat there, so it's disgusting."

Calley burst out laughing, and her shipmate joined in. The captain, meanwhile, continued what he was doing unawares.

The next time she saw the captain in such a state was a few days later. They were on another run and it was her turn on watch. Someone was always required to be in the cockpit when the ship was underway in case the Ravenfang's computer should detect something and cut the Hi-Vel engines. But aside from sit there, there really wasn't anything specific you were required to do. Calley had already read up on their destination and taken all the necessary medical precautions called for. So she had spent most of her watch playing computer games and catching up on her favourite holo-vid series. Every now and again, to amuse herself, she would say something outlandish to the captain since he wasn't paying attention.

On a whim, Calley got out of her seat and stood to his side. She unzipped her jumpsuit and pulled it open, exposing her chest. "Captain," she asked him, "are my breasts getting bigger?"

She got the standard grunt in response. However, she hadn't expected Alezanna to appear at the very next instant and take in the scene. Calley was frozen in embarrassment while her shipmate started laughing.

"If you can see your face right now," the Bellixan said. "It's priceless. Gods Calley, please tell me this isn't the first time you've let a man see them."

A red-faced (well, in her case, more like a shade of orange) Calley zipped up her jumpsuit and nodded her head while avoiding her older shipmate's gaze.

"Now that is a tragedy," the raven-hared beauty said as she sat down in the port station, leaving Calley standing. "Such a lovely sight wasted on someone who couldn't appreciate it." Turning serious, she asked her companion, "Has there really never been anyone?"

Calley felt a little sad as she answered, "No, no one. I moved around a lot. And when I served on a ship for a while, my crewmates were always older so I wasn't interested. Most of the time they kept their distance."

"And those that didn't got the power conduit. Well, at least you kept your honour. These days, that's quite an achievement for a girl your age."

"Thanks, but sometimes it doesn't feel like something to brag about."

"Don't be so hard on yourself, Calley. There's nothing wrong with taking your time. On Bellixa, because of how slow we age, we're only considered adults at 30. The day after my 30th birthday, I lost my virginity. Neither he nor I had any clue what to do, so it wasn't the most enjoyable experience."

"Were you in love with him?"

"Gods no!" the older woman replied with a chuckle. "We barely knew each other. I just decided I wanted to know what sex was like. And if seducing a politician's son embarrassed my parents, so much the better. Unfortunately, the scandal it caused was so minor they barely bothered to ground me. Maybe I should have set my sights on his father instead."

"You really disliked your family enough to do that?" Calley asked in disbelief.

"I did. In hindsight, I see it was less them and more Bellixan society as a whole. If you're lowborn, you have more freedom to make choices about your life. But for the highborn like me, it's a life of rules, family honour, arranged marriages and constant intrigues. I wanted no part of it. I hated it, I hated my place in it and I hated my family for going along with it. I couldn't take my anger out on society in general so I concentrated on my parents. I tried to find something I could do that would make them send me away so I'd be free to live my own life. But no matter what I did, they never let me go. So finally, I ran away."

"Did your family come after you?"

"I was chased, yes. For quite a while I was much like you, moving from place to place. But in my case, I was keeping ahead of bounty hunters. And I was also discovering all the galaxy had to offer, so maybe I would have been rootless anyway. What was important to me was that I was finally making the decisions in my life. So overall, I was happy most of the time. And if I did some things that I wasn't proud of, well, at least they kept me free. I got rather good at justifying some terrible things. Looking back on it now..."

Alezanna let the statement hang in the air and then shook her head. "That's enough reminiscing for now. I'll take over the watch. Get some sleep. I'll need you to help me calibrate the Lo-Vel engines later."

As Calley was about to leave the cockpit, her crewmate added, "Oh, and Calley? In case you're wondering, a blowjobwillshake the captain out of his trance. So don't try that one unless you're willing to live with the consequences."

Calley wondered if the Bellixan was warning her off her man, but the smile she gave her younger shipmate seemed to indicate otherwise. "I won't ask how you know that." Calley said.

"Isn't it obvious?" the dark-haired woman asked with a smirk.

Calley went to her stateroom and turned in, thinking about her conversation with her crewmate. Every time she found out something about her, it always seemed to lead to more questions. She was definitely an interesting lady.

One thing that wasn't in question, however, was that she and the captain were in love. It was obvious if you spent more than a few minutes with them. Their manner towards each other was familiar, like a couple of friends who had known each other and been bickering all their lives. But whenever they were close to one another, it seemed like their hands always found themselves drawn to the other's body. A quick caress of an arm or a hip. Sometimes the grope of a buttock. They seemed to do it automatically. Calley didn't think they were even aware of it most of the time. If they were, they didn't seem embarrassed about it in the slightest. Nor was the Bellixan shy about getting Calley to keep contraceptives stocked in the medical supplies.

She could understand that captain's attraction. On her worst day, Alezanna could turn heads wherever she went. On the ship, she wore tight outfits that wouldn't get in her way when doing maintenance. They did little to hide her figure. It was only when the ship was docked that she bothered to really dress up. So the captain was always treated to a beautiful vision of his lover. It was clear that, however long the two had been together, it hadn't been long enough for him to stop enjoying the view.

The captain's style of dress, on the other hand, was very casual. While in space, he favoured a series of loose robes tied with sashes. If she hadn't been around, Calley assumed he'd have left them untied if he bothered to wear them at all. On planets, he'd go out wearing plain pants and one of a collection of garish shirts. Said excursions usually preceded by Alezanna asking him, "Are you really going out dressed like that?" Once, perhaps because Calley was within earshot, he explained his choice of dress.

"If I go out looking as elegant as you do, my dear, then the people I buy from would think that I have starcred to burn and hike up their prices accordingly. And when I'm selling something, they'd assume that I'm well-off enough that I won't be offended when they give me a lowball offer. No, when making a deal, it's always best to look poor, but not desperate. That's why I never bring you ladies with me when negotiating. As distracting as you are, the traders would figure I must have something going for me to have two lovely ladies like you at my side. And since I'm not that good-looking, they'd assume it was starcred. That, or one monster of a penis."

Calley knew that while the captain had complimented both of them, it was really Alezanna he was talking about. She was the one who went out dressed elegantly. Calley doubted the Bellixan could have passed unnoticed even if she tried. Not that she seemed inclined to do so. The Gynapsi secretly wondered if her beautiful shipmate looked forward to leaving the ship in order to show off her exquisite wardrobe. Even on mundane trips to buy provisions or hunt down rare engine parts, Alezanna dressed like she was attending a high-class gala.

But the captain's point about her presence sending the wrong message in trade talks seemed valid to Calley. Captain Collondo, as personable as he might seem, was absolutely cutthroat when it came to negotiation. On one run, Calley overheard him hammering out a deal to transport and sell betorite gas to a mining colony on Tarssus. She'd never heard so much swearing in her life. For him, every microcred was something worth fighting for. And if that struggle turned out to be to the death, well, so be it. Things got so heated between the captain and the mining chief that the latter threatened to shoot the crew on sight and the captain threatened to strafe the mining camp. But by the end of the communication, both sides seemed satisfied and wished the other well.

After he turned off the comms. Sal turned to find Calley staring at him, wide-eyed. He smiled at her and said, "Business is war, Calley. Don't let anybody ever tell you different."

"I'm glad you're on my side then," she said. "But for a man who says he doesn't like to get shot at, you sure didn't seem afraid to push that guy to the brink."

"Well, both parties in that discussion might be a wee bit guilty of exaggeration here and there. But he's a miner, and they work hard. They're not pushovers when it comes to negotiation. They can't afford to be. And in the transport business, we can't afford it either. He understood that. There's no hard feelings between those miners and us. Still, maybe stay close to me with that carbine of yours when we unload the gas."

Calley thought he said it in jest, but she wasn't sure. The captain had a flippant manner that could be very disarming but kept his true motives hidden sometimes.

As driven as he was to make as big a profit when it came to cargo, he did seem to have a soft spot when it came to passengers. Six sub-cycles into Calley's tenure on the Ravenfang, the ship was hired to take a family of Ravonites on a religious pilgrimage to Ravona. They were nice enough, but Calley doubted they had two credit units to rub together between the lot of them. Alezanna had expressed similar doubts when the captain had announced the charter to his shipmates.

"There's no way we're turning a profit running that lot to where they're going," she told Collondo.

"Actually, they paid three thousand up front. Now that may not sound like much..." he started to explain before the Bellixan interrupted him.

"Because it isn't. Three thousand will barely cover the cost of getting there before we factor in feeding them."

"We don't feed them. They can't eat anything but those wafers of theirs until they finish their pilgrimage. And since the buyer of the plastex we hauled here got herself arrested before she could take it off our hands, I had to find another buyer. Nobody around here wants it, and the closest buyer I could find happens to be on Ravona, so we have to head there anyway. Which makes that three thousand a nice little extra profit."

"And I suppose if I were to look for a buyer on a planet full of construction projects like this, I wouldn't find any either," Alezanna stated before she threw in the towel. "Fine. But if any of them try to convert me to their religion, I'll throw them all out the airlock."

A little later, while she was helping the older woman replace some defective power cables, Calley asked her, "Is it really a bad idea to run that family to Ravona?"

"I suppose not," Alezanna conceded. "This is just something Sal does every now and again. He'll meet somebody with a hard-luck story and suddenly we're taking on passengers. Always on the cheap. I guess not every run can pay off like a gilsa mine, but I just wish he'd at least try to make these charters worth our time a little bit more. Still, I can't ask him not to show a little charity now and again. If he didn't have a soft spot for the unfortunate, I'd have never ended up on his ship."

Seeing an opportunity to find out more about her shipmate's interesting past, the younger woman asked, "So you were a hard-luck charter too?"

"Not a charter, but definitely down on my luck. I'd been running a bar that had gone belly-up and racked up quite a few debts doing it. One of the men who came to collect fancied himself a mobster and tried to strong-arm me. But I could tell he liked looking at me so I cozied up to him. I figured having a criminal on my arm would keep the other lupines at bay for a while. It worked, but instead of a syndicate boss, all Feyro turned out to be was a low-level errand boy with a taste for chems. The only reason his bosses tolerated him was because they liked having me around and I could keep their leader's classic gravmobile running. Beautiful vehicle that was. Zephyr-29, cherry red exterior, white detailing, back fins like a Nespartian razorbeast. Pain in the arse to maintain but Gods, what a ride!"

"Sounds like you liked it more than you liked your boyfriend. Why didn't you just seduce one of the higher-ups?"

"The thought crossed my mind," Alezanna admitted. "And they certainly had an interest. But that world, Calley, it's too much for me. I'm no angel, girl. If you threaten me, I'll do whatever it takes to make sure you can't harm me. But hurting people is all those people do. Trading in slaves, dealing chems, running rackets and all that. It's an industry of misery and I didn't want a bigger part of it. No, I was looking for a way out."

"So what happened?"

"Since the syndicate head had that classic gravmobile, some of his lieutenants started getting some of their own as a mark of status. I worked on all of those and this made me need parts that were old and hard-to-find. Hard-to-find means expensive and this is where Captain Sal Collondo makes his entrance."

"As he does when there's a profit to be made."

"Precisely. He delivered a load of parts I'd ordered and that's how we met. Feyro and I went over to pick them up from the Ravenfang and I could see the ship could use a mechtech. When I pointed this out, the captain admitted that the ship's last one had drunk himself to death a few runs back and asked me if I knew anyone he could take on. I liked that, right away, he had realized that I knew my engines and wasn't just Feyro's arm candy. After sub-cycles of dealing with sexist mobsters, it felt nice to be recognized for something other than my looks or that I was a Bellixan. Then Feyro tried to shortchange him on the price of the parts. Well, you've seen the captain negotiate so you can imagine how that went. Honestly, I'm surprised Sal didn't send him home wearing a barrel held up by suspenders."

Calley laughed at the image as Alezanna continued her story. "So after we got back to the garage, I assessed my situation. Despite my time with the syndicate, I was still destitute. Feyro was working the last of my nerves. My behind was red from constantly getting pinched and, sooner or later, some more dangerous mobster would try to take me for his own. As a girlfriend if I was lucky, as a working girl if I wasn't. And to top it all off, I'd been on Sallist almost an entire cycle and with a price still on my head, I figured it was time to go. I gave Feyro his chems and pretty soon he was nice and sleepy. I packed my wardrobe, made my way to the spaceport where I woke up the captain and offered him my services. And he turned me down flat."

"What?" Calley asked in surprise.

"He told me he didn't want to get on the wrong side of the syndicate. I told him nobody would care if Feyro complained but he was more worried about the other gangsters. He told me I'd be too much trouble. So I turned on the charm and offered to share his bed. But he turned me down again, if you can believe that. Granted, it wasn't my most polished of seductions but it had always worked before. The bastard had too much self-control to fall for it. It got me close enough to him though that I was able to put a knife to his throat and tell him he was taking me off-planet and that's all there was to it."