Pirate Bebop

Ch.21

After I assassinated Beth Carver, I left the Mess to get more familiar with the ship-shaped megacity. Steel Tech already sent a replacement store runner with high-end BX-series combat droids to dissuade a repeat ransacking. I also ended up adopting another new crewmate. “Wee~!” The young bat-girl cheered from where she was on my shoulders.

Aurora was an orphan running the machinist shop near Steel Tech’s store. The adorable 14-ish year old lass was basically a second Edward and I promptly told her to close up shop and that I was taking her to join my crew away from all these deviants that she somehow avoided. It’s not kidnapping, it's a surprise adoption! “If you think this is fun, we’ll be flying back to the ship on a swoop bike.” I regret that it’s a one-seater, but Aurora has wings and she has a strong grip.

“An actual swoop bike! The rasks don’t let me near working vehicles! Oh! Besides Shekka! I was really sad to hear she left. She always got me such neat stuff.” Aurora flapped her wings/arms and made carrying her slightly easier for a brief moment.

“Well, she’s part of my crew now, so yew’ll be reunited.” This got a high-pitched squeal of joy from the bat-girl and I was still perplexed about her species. There were no bat species in any of the Three Galaxies that I knew of. Who is she? Where did she come from? What is she? So many questions, but Freedom had no answers because Aurora had no answers. Nobody did, at least to social perception. “We also have an asari kid who behaves a lot like ya. I’m sure ya two will get along famously.”

“Cool~!” Aurora cheered and I carried her out to the garage where the rasks took umbrage with me taking Aurora anywhere like the surprisingly good neighbors they were, but when I explained I was adopting her, they skeptically agreed and demanded that I bring her back for visits now and then. I mounted the swoop bike and had Aurora wrap those powerful arms and legs around me. She was like a limpet, she wasn’t going anywhere.

The visiting part wouldn’t be an issue since Hunter and his group had installed spying equipment throughout Novahome. I could use that to keep an eye on her when she’s visiting. “Hold on tight! I’ll arrange for yer stuff to be brought over!” Most of it was junk, but Aurora had made some really cool stuff out of it. Like the rocket-powered sledgehammer. I can’t use it, but I still want it if she’ll let me have it.

I flew her to the base with no issues other than her shrill squeals of excitement. I parked in the motor pool and carried her on my shoulders down to the Bebop where I found Ed watching Spike get his ass handed to him by Hunter. “Hey Ed! I got ya a sister!” I declared and the asari blinked at us before locking eyes with Aurora and it felt like something clicked in reality before they did a simultaneous squeal and Aurora jumped in a frontflip off of me to land by Ed.

The two tech-terrors babbled miles-a-minute and then scurried inside with Aurora nabbing a droid head from somewhere and carrying it over her head inside after Edward. The sight filled me with longing and I rubbed my stomach as my body reverted to my base form. Hot damn are those kids precious. They’re in their respective teens and so full of youthful wonder.

“I know that look.” I turned my head to Brennie when she approached. “And with the Aspect of Life, it’s even more…” She had a thoughtful look on her, trying to find the right word to describe it to someone who hadn’t been a woman until recently.

“Intense? Sensational?” Vinnie came up beside her and hugged her close. “Natural~?” She purred as they giggled and nuzzled their noses together. Seeing them so cute together made me want to hug them, but right now I’m buzzing with this odd desire. I...think I want to have pups. Not just the sexual desire to breed, but the desire to have and raise those pups.

“Instinctual was what I was going for, but yeah, those work as well.” Brennie commented and she was right; it was an instinctual desire to start a family. I mewled and rubbed my lower stomach in desire, an ache I’ve never felt before. Brennie and Vinnie pulled me by the hands inside of the Bebop with gentle and understanding expressions. “We’ve been there.”

“We were like you before, where we used to be a man originally, but then we met wonderful people and when we brought out our feminine sides, well, it was amazing. We can’t do that for you right now though. Even with Navel Pearls, you’re nowhere near overpowered enough to think it’s safe to be pregnant during a war you’re supposed to participate in.” Vinnie said and I whimpered. I already have someone I Love profoundly and now I can’t fulfill this raw need to have children with her? War sucks!

🎺

“Ugh...War sucks…” Jim groaned as he rubbed his sore and aching body. After Urta and Penny passed down their Aspects and made him a full-fledged god, he was found passed out in the private training room, drenched in his own glowing purple cum. He passed it off as passing out from an unknown surge of energy and was promptly informed he now produced Argent.

He even had to turn into a woman to get her mind-blowingly huge beach ball breasts milked and he didn’t dislike the sensation, but Jim always felt distinctly off when a woman unless in the throes of passion. That was hours ago and he was coping with the new extrasensory attributes of being divinity. He could feel the constant skirmishes across the Three Galaxies, the constant flow of Power both literal and figurative.

He also felt sick because of the deplorably low birth-rates and declining population of the Three Galaxies. People were dying too quickly and not having enough babies to maintain a stable population. He had the sense that the population never surged after the Fall, that this tragic state of things was the result of the Corruption, of the Taint convincing people to give up on the next generations and effectively kill themselves in a slow decline.

He genuinely would go female if that would help, but this wasn’t an issue of lacking in eager breeders, it was in the almost nonexistent Fertility. Urta and Penny may not have felt this so acutely from within Paradise, but he doesn’t have a near-perfect pocket dimension to bury his snout in and ignore the rest of reality like they did. Then again, they’ve been trapped for so long that they couldn’t do anything about it. He could.

“Since it’s my job now, I guess I need to start somewhere.” Jim mumbled to himself and undressed. He was lying in Amelia’s bed and he hoped to entice her, to ease her into the idea of helping him defy their superiors. The strict taskmistress had a soft spot for him, which he believed was aided by her previously unknown raging libido, which he could take advantage of.

He willed his mane to transform into rose petals and willingly shed them along the floor to the bed and around the bed before he rid himself of his mane and shortened his tail to his dock. He then posed like a predator waiting for his prey moments before the door opened. Romantic music turned on and he enjoyed the dumbstruck look on Amelia’s face as she gawked at him and he could taste the surge of Love as she dropped her drink, the no-spill bottle rolling away.

“Amy~. I’ve been waiting~.” Jim’s deep, rumbling voice purred as he shot her his best come-hither look and crooked his finger. Her pants dropped faster than he ever saw them do and she jumped at him with a ravenously manic expression that made his loins pulse.

🎺

“Hm.” Pillar hummed as he looked towards the ceiling of the Bebop’s hangar.

“What’s up?” Faye asked from inside the cockpit as she worked on the Red Head, her new mobile suit. It was more of a cosmetic thing with the cockpit, but since it was the most heavily armored of the suits, it drew Pillar’s attention and he offered to hand her tools.

“Nothing we need to worry about, yet.” He cryptically replied before turning to inspect the other mobile suits. “When were these first manufactured?”

“The Zaku Warrior is a Relic, meaning before the Fall. The Taurus and Zaku II are Post-Fall. They’re well-known models used by Govs. The Zaku II is interchangeable between space and ground operations while the Taurus is mostly a rapid-response strike craft able to act as a starfighter. The Rodis are actually the most recent, a product of the UnSC using the modular Rodi Frame System. Luca’s Worker Rodi and my Labrys Rodi are two variant loadouts.” Faye responded before she poked her head out with a sly expression that meant it wasn’t Faye.

“According to everyone, the newest shit is better than the old shit, but nowhere near as good as the original shit. Hand me that spanner, hot stuff.” Swerta, Faye’s companion Black Knight, winked at him and he had a pang of longing. She reminded him of Svartr when she was feeling particularly playful, only this was Swerta’s default. No wonder she was just a grunt in Gywn’s order of knights with that lack of discipline. “So, do you guys have mobile suits of your own?”

“We call them Atlan Titans.” Pillar answered as he passed her the spanner.

“Yeesh, you even gotta give them a flowery name. I wish I was around when you guys were, life would’ve been interesting, but then I wouldn’t have met Faye.” Swerta returned to the cockpit and began adjusting something. “Yes, this does need to move if you want to keep me around. I will not stay a small-tits McGee!” Ah, she was preparing the cockpit for a boost in thiccness.

“You know, you seem to know a lot of modern concepts for someone who just awoke from being a haunted suit of armor from Equus’s First Era.” Pillar noted with a raised brow.

“I was asleep, yeah, but I was constantly surrounded by people talking, talking, talking! You pick up shit subconsciously I guess, but at some point someone talked about engineering principles and shit and I have more of that in me than Faye, so I’m doing the work here even while she’s bitching and complaining about me wanting bigger boobs when I used to be stacked like a Catarina whore.” Swerta huffed as she did something with the cockpit that made a whirr.

“Right. Also, flowery name?” Pillar asked in confusion.

“Fire off a list of names for your weapons and stuff. I’m sure I can point out how overcomplicated they are. These are MS’s, Mobile Suits. They are what they are, you call them Atlan Titans. That’s literally just near-alliteration replacing the T and I of Titan with A and L. Even if they were first designed by someone named Atlan or in a place called Atlan, naming an entire series of something after it’s place of origin goes against engineering philosophy of KISS: Keep It Simple, Stupid. You could’ve just called them Titans.” Swerta rambled over another whirr.

“I suppose so.” Pillar said with a shrug.

“Know-it-all Edgelords. At least you’re sexy and effective. Could you hand me that cable? I need to program the targeting system to sync with the missile racks. This baby will be able to launch hundreds of independently targeted missiles simultaneously. It’ll be like firing a cloud of explosive death. It’ll need restocking immediately after, but Red Head isn’t a far-ranging suit by design.” Swerta held out her talon/foot with the claws grasping for the nearby cable held on the edge of the lift that Pillar was standing on.

“Here.” Grabbing the cable, he handed it to her, but she accidentally grabbed his wrist and squawked when she pulled herself out of the cockpit and flailed as she held on to his unmoving wrist by her talon. This caused the hippogriff’s short shorts to split and she squealed as she tried to cover her crotch and the exposed striped panties. “What are you doing?”

“Don’t look~!” Faye squealed as she tried and failed to pull herself up or at least hide her panties from view. “D-don’t just stand there!”

“Why not let go of my arm?” Pillar retorted with a flat look. “You were supposed to grab the cable, not my wrist.”

“I didn’t plan for this! Also, I can’t fly!” Faye wailed as she flapped her wings uselessly. Pillar raised a brow in confusion to that statement. “Part of why I was put into cryostasis was because I had a degenerative disease, okay! My wings can’t support my own weight, now pull me up!” Faye frantically demanded.

Hearing this, he quickly pulled her onto the lift and turned away so that the hippogriff could fix herself up. “Sorry about your wings.” He apologized while she tossed her ruined shorts off of the lift and heard her pull on a new pair. “May I try something on your wings?”

The pink hippogriff blinked as she adjusted the exact same kind of shorts and Pillar sweatdropped. “What exactly do you want to try?” Faye asked before she accepted the cable from Pillar’s hand and she climbed back inside the cockpit with it. Considering she just experienced being dangled by the foot around 30 meters in the air, she recovered rather quickly.

“I want to see if I could fix them. Other than Runner and Hunter, I’m the best healer among my siblings.” Pillar offered and she looked back at her wings longingly.

“Maybe-after I’m done with this!” Swerta interrupted with a grunt before she firmly plugged the cable into a port and started typing into the console.

“I would like your point of view; what do you see when you look at us?” Pillar asked neutrally.

“Ancient gods with the might to crack a planet and the sensibility of Old Testament angels with the wrath to match.” Faye commented as she focused on the screen and Pillar flinched.

“Ah, that’s...fair.” Pillar sighed sadly, but he expected that to be the answer. He couldn’t fault her; they are ancient gods with powers that could rip and tear planets asunder. Only his own people truly understood them, everyone outside would view them differently. Then again, thus far, they hadn’t really done much to dispel such a notion in the short time they’ve been here. Looking at Faye analytically, she was the most normal person here by most social standards.

“Hey, would you guys be willing to take in anyone who wants to live on your side?” Swerta asked and Pillar nodded his head. “So, the rumors were true. You saved some of the Empire. Why?” This former Black Knight, while irreverent, was sharper than one would expect.

“They started to believe the Empire had lost its way, so they came to us. They wanted out and we brought them in. Skaven, Mandalorian, Clones and many others just to name a few. They revoked their Imperial citizenship and became Argentine citizens from then on. Same for those from the Milky Way. Triangulum wasn’t properly established until just before the Fall.” Pillar answered with a regretful tone. “Our wives native to here even begged for us to take refugees. The fact they kept their retreat to Paradise a secret until the last minute told us why.”

“The gods didn’t betray us, we betrayed them. You and the other Argentines don’t seem to get that this mess, this ruin of a society? This is the reward our ancestors gave us for their Corruption and shunning the gods. I’d welcome them back in a heartbeat if it meant living a life of peace and if not happiness, contentment. I don’t want to be a mobile suit pilot in a crew of pirates, but I have to or I’d be some ten credit whore on a dark street corner.” Faye sniffled.

“Not gunna happen.” Swerta hoarsely growled as she kept typing into the console.

“Berserker theorized that the First Betrayal was a setup to divide us, like it was planned all along. I’m starting to believe her.” Pillar told the symbiotic pair.

“You mean when Urta committed a genocide. Yeah, that made no sense and what historical records I’ve seen paint her as a madgod who showed her true colors. Pfft, fucking historical censorship. They probably poisoned her with a rage-inducing concoction. I don’t know how potions back then worked since we don’t have many left, but they sound like miracles in a bottle.” Faye replied and sneered at the screen, backspacing a bit before continuing.

“It wasn’t a potion, Urta is immune to physical substances. It had to have been done through subtle psychic manipulation. I wish Hunter was there at the time of the incident, he said he felt some sort of psychic presence when he came to this galaxy. Knowing that to be possibly true, I feel like an even bigger fool.” Pillar shook his head in shame until Swerta cheered.

“Done! This baby can blast several squadrons of fighters or suits at a range of a few hundred miles in space or several miles in an atmosphere simultaneously!” Swerta unplugged the cable and climbed out before hooking the cable back on the lift and closed the cockpit before sending the lift down. “I could use a drink, how about you mister holy robes?”

“I could probably have a pint or two.” Pillar shrugged and the hippogriff snorted.

“You spoiled brat, we don’t do things in pints here. We only have 12-ounce cans, you’ll have to double up and go overboard.” Swerta chuffed with a pat on his lower back, which nearly failed since she had to reach up to do it and pretty much patted his butt.

“Good thing Omni-currency is a thing, we could buy more if you like.” Pillar offered and the hen blinked up at him.

“Wait, you have counterfeit credits that are actual credits?” Faye asked as the lift reached its wheeled mount and they stepped down to the floor.

“The credit system we have developed back home allows for easy translation from one digital currency to another. Since we do so much business beyond our dimension, it only made sense to have generally accepted currencies. In case it’s a society that only deals in physical wealth, we still keep a hefty cache of gold bits which are unmarked and simple. Berserker dubbed this as Omnimorph tech and to this day doesn’t like mentioning Wiatr came up with it.” Pillar snorted.

“Well, she was the goddess of Commerce. A universally-accepted system of currency seems right up her alley.” Faye commented when they reached the galley, which was mostly empty aside from Ed, Ein and some cute bat girl eating sugary cereal while chatting miles a minute. “Hey Ed, who is this?” Faye asked curiously and Ed hugged the girl, who reciprocated.

“This is Aurora! She’s my new sister! Silver said so!” Ed then scarfed down the rest of her food and Aurora did the same before the two ran out of the galley, squealing in an impromptu chase after Ein, the corgi clearly beyond happy to have another person like his person.

“Ugh, well, this dysfunctional family could always use another reason to smile.” Faye sighed and went to the fridge, bending over and retrieving a few cans of beer. Two of which she handed up to the towering 14 foot tall white wolf, who had to hunch not to bump his head in the admittedly generously tall rooms of the Bebop.

“So, hot stuff, you never mentioned why your mobile suits are called Atlan Titans.” Swerta chugged a few gulps of her beer and sat down at the table, putting Faye’s foot-talons up on it as she leaned back in her chosen chair and he sat down on two chairs due to his size.

“It’s more of an ironic nickname because they’re as tall as actual Titans, ancient demons of Hell that towered over skyscrapers. Atlan is the official designated name since he was the designer.” Piller informed her and Swerta’s feathers fluffed up as her eyes widened.

“Holy shit, so they were bigger than Giants then. At least the mobile suits are reasonably sized, but if you had to fight fuckers that big I can see why. They couldn’t have been multi-purpose though. Can they fly in space? I can’t imagine the logistical nightmare of moving them.” Swerta chugged the can of beer and promptly opened her second one. He hadn’t even opened one...

“You’d be surprised. Atlan was actually a Crusader who built these things to be versatile, even managing to make them space worthy. You could tailor it to your liking.” Pillar chuckled before using his Gravity powers to open his beers and drink it all down in one go.

“Hm, cool. Then again, you have giants of your own in your society, right? I bet having them be the pilot takes a lot of the material usage out.” Swerta assumed after finishing the second can and she got up, bending over at the fridge to get more beer. “Don’t mind me, just drinking Faye down from her lingering panic from that near-fall.”

“Thanksh, Shwerta.” Faye slurred as Swerta piloted her body just fine to sit on Pillar’s lap and hand up two more beers. “Here ya go, shexy.”

“Don’t mind her, she’s a lightweight.” Swerta chuckled and Pillar rolled his eyes.