“Aly, is there some kind of space radar on the Solstice?” Allan asked, his eyes automatically searching the vast darkness of open space for anything that may have dragged the ship into the area and done the damage. 

“Yes, the sensors are not detecting anything other than the ship, it's strange though, this ship would be known if it had been here long as this region of space is not densely populated, but it is not barren of life or travel in any way.” Aly said looking at the monitors of the control panels. 

“I don’t know if we should be here.” Jalla said, her voice carrying a tone of worry, most likely for whatever had slashed its way into the ship. 

“Can we scan the ship for anything that might be worthwhile of going on board?” Allan asked. 

“Apparently not,” Aly said scanning the messages scrolling across the screen above the controls for the sensors, “the ship itself seems to be made of some material that doesn’t play nice with our sensors, and the sheer size of it means that we would only be able to penetrate through one or two layers of the ship.” 

“So I want to go check it out. What do you all think?” Allan said after thinking for a moment. 

“I do as well.” Aly said. 

Jalla and Tillia took a moment to converse in their native language. “Jalla wishes to stay onboard the Solstice and keep an eye out for any danger, but I will go.” Tillia said. 

“Okay, can we teleport aboard?” Allan asked.

Aly shook her head. “No, whatever the metal of the hull is, it is incredibly dense, more so than anything I have ever encountered before, the chances of winding up teleported into a wall have gone from the normal point-zero-zero-zero-zero-zero-one percent to twenty-three point-seven-nine percent, so I would highly recommend we take a shuttle.” 

“We have a shuttle?” Allan said, surprised, as he had never seen it before.

Aly nodded absentmindedly. “Three of them, actually. Get what you both need and then meet me next to the cargo bay entrance.” 

The three of them left, Jalla remaining to watch the sensors as well as keep them apprised of anything approaching. Fifteen minutes later, Aly was waiting for Allan and Tillia as they arrived, she handed them each a device reminiscent of a walkie-talkie.

“These should be able to penetrate the material and allow communication within the ship. When we get there I am going to look for any access to their computer system, and if it is operational, get as much data as I can back to the Solstice with this.” Aly said, holding up a small cube with several cables dangling from it. 

“Okay, Tillia can help you, as I have yet to really learn much about the systems here on the Solstice, let alone an unknown computer system. I’ll see what I can find as far as stuff.” Allan said, reaching into his backpack, which he had emptied, he pulled out the only items inside it. 

“While on Earth I purchased a lot of stuff, one of the things that I got were these.” He proffered Aly a Glock 43, and offered a Glock 19 to Tillia. “That is a Glock 43, it holds six rounds per mag, and one in the chamber, but it will fit in your hands a lot better than the 17 that I use or the 19 that I just gave to Tillia. I hope that you have no need for them. Tillia, that Glock 19 holds fifteen rounds per mag, and one in the chamber. I have extra mags, but I don’t have the holsters and mag pouches made for you all yet, so you only have the rounds in the weapon.”

After the battle on Aly’s homeworld, all three women had expressed an interest in shooting so between Allan, Eddy, and Several others, they had quickly learned to handle the weapons with a decent amount of proficiency.

“Now I have what may be a really obviously dumb question.” Allan said, and both women looked up from the guns that they had been checking the safeties on. “I am assuming there is no atmosphere on that ship, do you have spacesuits or something?”

“Not a dumb question at all.” Tillia said, and Aly nodded. Aly stepped to a panel that Allan had assumed was an electrical panel of some kind, as there were many of them spaced throughout the ship, and three on the bridge. Inside sat metallic-looking circlets. Aly handed one to each of them, and then placed her own around her neck.

Aly stopped them from doing the same. “Before you put it on there is a switch on one end that has two symbols, please flip the switch away from the current position, to the other position, to take the suit out of aquatic mode.” 

“Aquatic mode?” Allan asked, flipping the switch.

“Aquatic mode is for creatures with gills, rather than having an atmosphere, the suit emits a gel directly onto the gills. You would both die if you utilized this mode.” Aly said matter of factly.

“Good to know.” Allan said memorizing the symbol on the switch which signified ‘not-aquatic’ mode.

They all took the things that they had brought and stepped into the cargo bay, and Aly stepped up to the control panel and pressed a button sequence. In the ceiling of the cargo bay, a hatch slid open and a shuttle that filled a quarter of the cargo bay was lowered onto the deck. It seemed to float on the deck.

“That's cool.” Allan said, looking underneath the shuttle. 

“Magnetic launch and retrieval rails.” Aly said, opening the door, and they all pile in. 

A voice spoke in Kreshian once they were all strapped in and Allan heard a whir of electricity. “What's that?” 

“The reason we store everything in those metal crates is that rather than spend the fortune required for an atmosphere retention field, all the cargo is magnetically affixed to the floor, and then the door opens after the atmosphere has been purged.” Aly responded. 

Allan nodded and watched through the front viewport as the cargo bay opened. And then he was pushed back into his seat as the magnetic rails launched the shuttle out the door. 

“So where do we go in?” Aly asked as the shuttle maneuvered to align with the ship. 

“There.” Allan said pointing to the massive claw mark that was farthest to the right in their viewport. “The bottom seems to open into a clear area.” 

Aly nodded and Tillia held the straps that held her into the seat tightly as they entered the massive derelict ship, passing through almost three meters of strange gray metal, making the claw marks all the more ominous. 

The open space that Allan had noticed turned out to be a massive hangar, there were no ships, but the cargo strewn about and even floating in zero-g told them what it was. 

“Well, I guess that answers where all the people are.” Tillia said as they took note of hundreds of docking clamps as they floated down the massive bay, looking for a door into the interior of the ship. When they found it, they set the shuttle to hover about half a meter from the floor, and then they all stood and moved to the back of the shuttle which faced the door. 

“Well, I guess the guns are useless if the shit hits the fan.” Aly said.

“Why?” Allan said, looking at her quizically. 

“I mean it’s in the name. Fire-arms. There is no oxygen or anything else for that matter to use in the explosion.” Aly said confused.  

“Oh that’s not an issue, almost all proverbially modern ammunition has oxidizing agents in the ammunition, so they will fire.” Allan said. 

“Oh, well that is good.” Aly said, and then distinctly tapped the circlet around her neck five times. 

As Allan watched a strange silvery liquid flowed out and covered her from head to toe. He and Tillia followed suit, and quickly they were all three enveloped in exceptionally form-fitting exosuits, as Aly called them, she showed the two of them where to hook in the small communication devices so that they would boost the built-in communications of the suits. 

“We could have worn our battle armor.” Tillia said, her voice not overtly happy. 

“That is…” Allan thought for a moment and then nodded. “That is true. And I am sorry I didn’t think of it sooner. If we ever do something like this again, I will remember.” 

“Regardless, let's go.” Aly said and then opened communication between the three of them and the ship. “Jalla, we are here, and we are about to leave the shuttle.” 

“Okay.” Jalla said. “Nothing out here for now.” 

Aly pressed a button and a light above the rear cargo hatch flashed yellow for a moment and then green and the door opened. They entered the hangar and approached the door. The first thing that really struck them when they left the shuttle was the scale of everything this ship was massive, it could hold at least a hundred thousand humans.

“I knew it was big but this place is titanic.” Aly said. 

Allan chuckled. “Remind me to show the movie Titanic from Earth.” He said. 

The door was sealed, and Aly set to work on a panel that was set to the left of the door, she activated a hand pump that Tillia worked to open the doors, and soon had it open enough that they could walk through one at a time.

They found themselves in a long hallway, that disappeared into the darkness. “Okay I am going to check the rooms on the right, you guys want to take the left?” Allan asked, taping a spot on the back of his gloved hands that activated a light that seemed to come from his shoulders, as he had seen Aly do. 

“Sure.” Tillia said, and Aly nodded. 

Most of the doors were open, so it was not too difficult. Other than grabbing some odds and ends that looked intriguing Allan had found very little when he heard Aly through the comms. “Allan come help us.” 

Allan floated out the door of the room he was in and pushed himself up the hallways a few more meters to where Tillia and Aly were at a door that was partially closed. “We think that this room has a computer connection. See?” She gestured through the crack between the two halves of the door.

Allan peered closer and saw that there was indeed some equipment that was reminiscent of computers. “Okay, let's get this door open.” 

That task turned out to be more work than they anticipated, and finally, by using two metal rods from another room, Allan and Tillian were able to brace off of each other and force the door open. 

“Okay you guys stay here I am going to check a few more rooms, then I think we should head back. Unless you get the transfer started, then we will stay as long as it takes. Yell if you need something.” Allan said and They nodded, already setting about trying to figure out how to use the machinery. 

Allan took one of the rods and moved to the room next to the one in which they had found the rods in. This door was cracked open and inside he saw crates that were still strapped to some type of machine. He set the rod into the door so that it was halfway in the room and halfway out, then pushed his hands and legs against the door frame and pushed the rod with his back. After a moment of straining the door began to give way. 

With whatever was holding the door closed loosened, Allan was able to grab the door halves and force them all the way open. He went in and found several computer terminals. He ignored them and went to the crates. After some fiddling, he managed to one open. And laughed out loud.

“What is it, Allan?” Aly asked. 

“Tell me, is gold as valuable out here in the stars as it is on Earth?” Allan asked. 

“Yes, probably more so, as most races do not allow mining for precious metals to anyone outside their race. So the supply that is publically available is small.” Aly said.

“Well, I think we are set for life, my love.” Allan said as he watched the light reflect off the contents of the crate. It was filled to the brim with gold coins. Each coin was stamped with strange symbols. Allan closed the crate and checked the other three crates. Each one held gold coins. 

“You found gold?” Jalla asked from on the ship. 

“Yeah, a lot of it. It looks like gold coins were their currency as it all in coins.” Allan said, examining the strange device that the crates were on. “I’m going to try and load it into the shuttle.” 

The three women talked excitedly, as Aly had also gotten the computer to power up and was transferring data to the ship. Allan looked at the device once more and on a whim hit a button that was pitch black. Upon hitting it, the button changed from black to white, and the platforms that the crates of gold rested on began to levitate on a cloud of white-blue light, in front of the button he had pressed a handle of the same light materialized, and Allan could not help but smile.

“Oh now, this is fucking cool.” Allan said grabbing the handle and finding it solid pulled gently. With zero resistance the carts moved. He pulled it out into the hall and the four crates snaked out in a line behind him. Aly and Tillia who had stuck their heads out of the room they were in saw him coming and agreed with his sentiment.

“Once I get this on the shuttle, I am going to check the hangar for anything useful.” Allan said as he passed, the four crates following obediently. 

“Okay.” Aly said smiling at him. 

The remainder of the time that they spent transferring data, Allan spent checking crates. He found a few more of the floating platforms stored in a box, so he put that crate on the shuttle as well. He found other odds and ends and several tools that he assumed were out of power. All of this made it was into his pack.

“You guys almost done?” Allan asked. 

“Yes, there is a lot of data that we could not access at all, but we just finished what we could.” Tillia said as she and Aly reappeared at the doorway. They all agreed that they should seal the door once more. Several minutes later they were back on the Solstice and Tillia was helping Allan unload his finds, all of which were insanely heavy now that they had a gravity field. 

Aly had gone to the bridge to mark the ship with a salvage beacon and register it in the databanks so that it would be logged the next time they were in contact with a Jumpgate. Allan and Tillia had just finished unloading and stowing the shuttle where it belonged when Aly called them to the bridge of the ship with fear in her voice. 

Allan sprinted with Tillia to the bridge, when they entered, they both looked where Aly and Jalla were looking with open mouths. Upon glancing in that direction, Allan and Tillia joined in, their mouths hanging open in shock. Directly behind the massive ship was a creature of equal size. 

If Allan had to describe it, he would say that it was a whale with a shark's head and two long ghoul-like arms. As they watched the creature reached out to pull itself to float above the massive ship. It noticed the Solstice then, turning toward them, with six eyes on either side of its face focusing on them. 

Allan finally managed to speak. “Where the fuck did it come from.” 

“I don’t know.” Jalla and Aly said together, equally quiet.

“We should run.” Tillia said, fear coursing through her voice. 

Just then a strange sound seemed to pulse through the ship. The Communications panel lit up. Aly glanced at it. “Its…It's communicating with us.” 

Suddenly all four of them felt their heads explode in agony. And in unison, they felt a wave of emotion that seemed to impart an idea of possession, anger, and so many other ideas. When it stopped they all climbed up from the floor to find the massive eyes of the creature, mere meters from the viewports of the ship and they all froze in fear. 

The eyes were unblinking, and as they watched the eyes backed off,  never leaving the Solstice, and finally when the creature was back over the top of the massive ship, it locked its claws into the existing claw marks and it began moving at a speed that defied logic, before a bright flash of light occurred, and both the creature and the ship were gone. Only a few crates and other things that must have floated out some other opening remained. 

“What the fuck!” Allan said, and Aly moved over to the communication panel. 

“The communications AI is gone, totally destroyed. But there is one message.” She said and tapped to open it. “There are only a few words. It says, keep you took, take I leave.” 

We all agreed that it meant we should keep what we took from the ship, and take what it left behind. The remainder of the day was spent rounding up the seven crates that were floating in space, and several other odds and ends. Upon getting the final piece on board, we immediately set our course to finish the trip to the core worlds. We all also agreed that we would not speak of this to anyone who we did not trust implicitly. 

The remainder of the trip was spent in a strange mood, we were constantly on the lookout for the creature. It did not show itself again, and when we finally entered the system that held the Core Worlds, or at least the system that held their offices and all the diplomats, we breathed a sigh of relief. 

We docked on an orbital ring of the seventh planet in the system and, after getting Allan’s translator and everyone else’s equipment, took an elevator to the surface to meet with the client that had requested the services of the Jushintorg. Upon stepping out of the elevator we were greeted by seven beings with weapons leveled at us. 

Without thinking, Allan drew his weapon and drew a bead on the apparent leader's head. Jalla and Tillia had moved with their preternatural speed to be standing toe to toe with two of the beings, their own weapons pressed firmly to the being's heads.

Aly was the only one who did not move and instead looked to the leader, deciding that she would take the role of negotiator. “I am curious who you are. As you can see my husband and my friends do not take kindly to weapons being pointed in our direction. I should also inform you that should you decide to fight, while you do outnumber us and would probably kill us, most of you would die as well starting with you and the two who are directly in contact with Jalla and Tillia.” 

“Forgive us daughter of the Jushintorg.” The leader said, brushing their hood back, revealing the face of a brightly colored Quillinar. “But we must have words with you and your blasphemous husband.”

“You can speak without weapons can’t you?” Allan growled. “So was this all a setup? The job request, all of it?” 

“No, we merely heard that you were on the planet, so we arranged to be here when you finished your decent from the orbital ring.” The leader said. 

Just then, three other beings in dark cloaks and several Gish approached the group, and suddenly the seven Quillinar found themselves with laser rifles pointed at the backs of their heads. 

A Gish who looked as if he had been through more battle than was reasonable for anyone, chuckled, and growled out his words. “Now then, you don’t think that I would let anyone harm them do you?” 

The Seven Quillinar dropped their weapons, and planetary security seemed to materialize from the shadows and arrest the Quillinar. They informed Allan, Aly, Jalla, and Tillia that they would be holding the party for several days if they wanted to file a report. 

Allan turned to the grizzled old Gish. “So to who do we owe the thanks.” 

The old Gish chuckled. “To the little lady in the cloak, and no thanks are necessary, honored one,” the Gish gestured to the mark of honor that Hilx’Nit had given him, “I am simply thankful to the man who saved my family from the scale rot.” The Gish clapped him on the shoulder and he and his friends disappeared into the crowd. 

Allan and Aly turned to the three cloaked individuals. “Greetings, Clan Jushintorg, we are the clients that you are here to see. Please follow us to the meeting area.” A feminine voice said, and then proffered a data tablet, which Aly took and glanced at before nodding. 

A few moments later they were all seated in a comfortable area with food of various kinds on platters. Allan had taken to nibbling on different things as Aly spoke with the three beings, who were all still hooded. When they had finished introductions and some idle chitchat, the beings removed their hoods and Allan nearly choked. 

“Dryads!” He exclaimed and then immediately sought some water to clear the chunk of food from his throat, as he coughed. 

“Excuse me, but what is a dryad?” The creature who had been doing most of the speaking said, looking at Allan quizzically. 

Allan finally managed to swallow and clear his throat. “Sorry, you look exactly like the depictions of mythical creatures from my homeworld.” 

“Ah, so you must be the one who the rumor mill is burbling about.” One of the others said, giving him a look of disgust. 

The one who had spoken first, clearly the leader, made a gesture, that silenced the other immediately. “I apologize as well for my sister's rudeness.” 

“Oh, no worries.” Allan said smiling. “I would love to know why your sister is so upset and what the rumor mill is saying about me.” 

The leader looked at Aly nervously, and she nodded with a knowing grin on her face. “Many find you to be intriguing as you have spoken with a God. And others like my sister, find you repulsive since you mix bloodlines with no regard for species.” 

“Well, both are true. Have whatever opinion you want, but keep it to yourself, deal?” Allan said, his brows furrowing at the strange ideology that seemed to be inherent to every species.

“Please, do not think less of us, I actually believe that my sister is an outlier in our people, we have few of the same compunctions that most other races have about crossbreeding.” The leader said bowing. 

Allan looked at Aly and she nodded confirming what the woman had said. “Okay, no worries.” He said, choosing to let the topic die.

“So what did you all wish to request our services for?” Aly asked, taking the dismissive tone from Allan as a chance to restart the talks down a constructive path.

“We are daughters of the ruling family of the Jeglithin people. Our father, the brother to the emperor, and diplomat to the core worlds, has passed on from this life and into Halleshin’s arms. We wish to bury him in accordance with our people’s beliefs, which requires a tomb of equal standing with the one who it is to contain, and that our father can only be buried on the homeworld. We wish to commission you for two things, the first is transport from here to our homeworld, and also to construct the tomb.” The leader said. 

“Very well, will you require anything special during our trip?”  Aly asked. 

“We have traveled with Quillinar often during our time as diplomats' daughters. We are acustomed to the sleeping arrangements and rules of the Quillinar. We are fully prepared to accept the hospitality of the Jushintorg clan, in accordance with the treaties they have agreed to.”  The leader said. 

“Understood, please allow me a moment to converse with my clan members, as they are not Quillinar and they do not know what this entitles.” Aly said, a hint of nervousness in her voice.

“Very well.” The leader said, and she and her sisters retreated to the opposite side of the room. Aly pulled Allan to the far side, and Jalla and Tillia joined them.

“So we can do this, it will be heavily dependent upon you Allan, as they will most likely want gemstones to compose part of the tomb.” Aly said.

“By tomb, I assume they mean a coffin that they can put on a dais?” Allan asked and Aly nodded.

“Yes, that is not what I am worried about though. Normally, as the Quillinar are used to it, they would simply sleep in the sleeping pit with us. But none of you three are quillinar. I want to know how you feel about this before we let Tillia negotiate the terms of the contract.” Aly said.

“It doesn’t both us.” Jalla said after giving, and receiving, a questioning shrug from Tillia. 

“I…” Allan said and then thought back to his first days aboard the Solstice with Aly. “I’m fine with it. But if any of them make any fuss about me being lovey-dovey with you or Jalla, or Tilllia, I’m assigning them rooms. Deal?” 

“Good.” Aly said with a relieved and surprisingly horny smile. “I don't think I could stand to not have you for the three weeks that it will take to gett there. Tillia if you would please inform them of the stipulations, and negotiate the contracts.” 

“Consider it done.” Tillia said, and moved over to speak with the three women. 

An hour later we were parting with the sisters, agreeing to meet on the orbital ring the following day. Allan, Aly, Jalla, and Tillia decided that they wanted to know more about the group who had attacked them, so they made their way to the nearest planetary security station, and were directed to a holding cell. 

Apparently, these particular Quillinar could not stand the fact that someone not of their peopl would have the audacity to speak with their Goddess. Apparently, they had also not gotten word of Zall’s report where she verified that what I had said was indeed true. Upon hearing this apologized profusely, and at Aly’s request, Allan decided that there were no charges that should be filed, on the condition that their weapons be turned over to him by the security rather than back to them. They agreed and Allan was able to talk the security officers into releasing them and into giving him the weapons. 

The rest of the day was spent exploring the massive shops and having fun. When the night began to fall, Allan, Aly, Jalla, and Tillia decided to retreat to the ship for the night and took the elevator back to the orbital platform, where they found the three sisters and four other beings sitting on the floor around a stasis pod in front fo their ships docking point.  

“What are you doing here? We did not expect you to arrive until tomorrow?” Aly asked gently, out of respect for the presence of their father's corpse. 

“We did not have anything else to do, so we arrived early.” The leader said with a tone that set alarm bells ringing in Allan’s head. 

“Well please come on board. We will get you situated and we can depart in the morning.” Aly said and opened the cargo doors, the seven hooded figures grabbed the stasis pod and moved it inside. They placed it in an open spot on the floor in the cargo hold.

Allan expected the other four to leave then, but they all waited expectantly. “I’m sorry,” Allan said, “but who are the four who came with you?” 

“They will be traveling with us.” The leader said, her tone once again setting off alarm bells in Allan’s mind. 

Tillia stepped forward. “Our agreement states that we will be transporting you and your younger sisters, no one else.” 

“Yes, I have six younger sisters, they are all here.” The leader said. 

“Ohh fuck it.” Allan said and waved them all inside. The cargo doors began closing, and Allan addressed the new additions to the crew. “You all understand the agreement, and the stipulations in it then?” 

He was greeted by a chorus of confirmation from the seven women. “Very well, as long as you understand.” Allan said as they arrived at the sleeping chamber, Aly led them in, and Jalla and Tillia followed, cutting the leader off to wait. Allan pulled her aside.

“I don’t know what is going on, but I can tell that something is fishy, and I don’t like it, we are all going to go to sleep now. But I want you to know that tomorrow you better start explaining.” 

She nodded, eyes widening, and they both walked into the sleeping chamber. Allan realized very quickly that the sisters were all in excellent shape and had the bodies to prove it, as they stripped alongside him. 

Aly snuggled up to Allan, and Jalla and Tillia snuggled up to him on his other side and all around him was a pool of flesh from the seven sisters. Allan kissed his wife and closed his eyes wondering what surprises the new day would bring.