Grayson Sontang in Space - Chapter 1 - Part 1

Chapter 1 - Part 1

Grayson Sontang walked into the grimy spacer bar and looked around. It was crowded. It was always crowded since it was one of the few spacer bars in the only space port on the third planet of a very unremarkable star named Harmony - some allusion to the mythical music of the spheres. She waved to the bartending owner then pushed her way through the mass of bodies until she reached the counter. She had to shout to be heard over the din. "Got any of that brandy left, Jimmy?"

He poured her a glass of regular brandy. "Sorry. It went fast. You know how it is. If it's illegal, everybody wants it. I am in the market for more if you have any left."

"It's committed, Jimmy-Boy. I've got buyers to keep on the good side of."

"What about me? I'm a buyer that's soon to have his throat slit. All these nice people came here expecting some of that infamous Tantalean brandy. What are you doing here, anyway? I thought you were leaving."

"I blew a fuse. Had to replace it." She took a swig of the brandy and made a face.

"What's a fuse?"

"If you weren't such an ignoramus, you wouldn't miss so many of my best jokes. Look, throw those drunks over there out so we can have their table."

"I got enough people mad at me already," he protested.

"Then I'll do it." She shoved her way through the crowd again.

The man followed her at a discrete distance, smiling wryly. The woman never ceased to amaze him. She was small by spacer standards, nearly a head shorter than most of the men and only half their weight, yet they parted before her with respect if not deference. She had the carriage of a spacer - one of the vagabonds that crewed the huge freighters - even if she was an independent trader, now. And it didn't take a whole lot of brains to figure out that if she had survived as a spacer, she probably wasn't the sort to tangle with.

Grayson leaned over the table in question and eyed the three men that sat there. They leered back, hoping for an indecent proposal. "Hey, boys," she said, her voice husky and suggestive. "I'm in need of some drinking money. For a ten-spot, I'll tell you where I just saw some Tantalean brandy being unloaded."

Their leers changed to frowns of disappointment, then they reconsidered. Tantalean brandy was better than nothing. One of them tossed a ten note to her. She snatched it from the air. "Go out. Turn right. Two streets down. Only joint on that block. But keep it quiet, fellas. They don't have a hell of a lot. And you might have to be a little insistent. You know how places like that hate to share."

They stumbled eagerly from the bar as Grayson slid into the grubby booth. The owner settled across from her. "Sontang, that joint is where the Fed's hang out," he said.

"Is it really?" she asked innocently.

"Those spacers are going to be mad."

"I'll be gone before they get out of lock-up. You must have drunk and disorderly laws on this god-forsaken planet."

"So why aren't you gone already? I bet you got that damn shuttle parked in my backyard again. That grass is never going to grow back."

"Give me a break, Jimmy. I told you. I needed a few more things. Besides, you've been well paid in parking fees. Two crates of Tantalean brandy is nothing to sneer at."

"Like hell! It's barely enough to whet these drunks' appetites."

"That's not my problem."

"Look, you've been working on that ship of yours for a year now. When are you going to get it together and start running regular again? You've got to be losing customers."

"If only you knew. But it's all set now. There were a few technical glitches but they'll be solved as soon as I get back. You think I like using this backwater planet as a base?"

He grinned. "There are advantages and you've used all of them. The Feds have little interest in us, and we all know that's why you chose this system, so quit running us down. You've had a very easy time of it. No inspections, no certification checks, no... "

"All right. All right. Don't remind me. As it is the damn ship is halfway to the next planet. This commuting is wearing thin."

"It must really be something, eh, Sontang? Give me a clue. What makes this ship so special?"

Her eyes glowed. "Ah, you can't imagine, Jimmy-Boy. She's beautiful. There's nothing like her anywhere else in the galaxy. Absolutely nothing."

"I've heard that before. What's the name?"

"Breathless Dragon."

He rolled his eyes. "What kind of name is that?"

"Too poetic?"

"Too pathetic."

"Don't judge too quickly. Someday, it will be the stuff of legends, and you'll hear them all, right here in this dive you call a bar."

"Yeah, right. More likely, I'll hear about the pilot. 'Feds arrest Grayson Sontang, AKA the Dragon Lady, smuggler extraordinaire. '"

"I like that."

"Being arrested?"

"No, dummy. Dragon Lady. It has a certain flair."

"It has a certain infamy. You'd better watch you step."

"I always do. Look, I'll buy the next round if you fetch it."

"I'll take you up on that. I have to save my money so I can resod my back yard."

"Tell you what. When I leave, I'll blast out and you can put a swimming pool in the hole."

"Sontang, I live on the fucking river. I don't need a swimming pool."

"Basement for a guest house?"

"I've had enough of 'guests' for a while, thank you kindly."

"There's no pleasing you."

"Just don't pick any fights while I'm gone. I just got the place fixed up from the last one."

"I didn't start that."

"You didn't stop it, either. Sit there and be a good girl."

"How boring." She began to dig through her bag as he left, counting her money. It was painfully little and her galactic account wasn't faring much better. She had practically emptied it just to refuel the shuttle for the long trip back to the ship.

But soon, she would be in the game again, at the helm of a ship that had been a longstanding dream during her spacer years. She smiled to herself in anticipation. The dream was about to become a reality.

"Hey, bitch!" Grayson grimaced. Jimmy was about to be very disappointed with her. She didn't look up as the three men elbowed their way to her table. "Hey! We're talking to you."

Grayson sighed and put her money away. "You can't mean me. I don't answer to that name."

"Maybe you'd better start. We got halfway down the street before we realized what that place was. You tried to get us busted, bitch."

"Come, come, gentlemen. I must have gotten my directions wrong. I never could tell right from left. Here. Here's your tenner back."

"Not good enough. You owe us."

"Owe you what?" she said coldly. "I bear no responsibility for fools."

One of them leaned over her, his breath rancid with sour whisky. "I figure you owe us about an hour each. That's what we would have spent in the Fed jail."

She noticed Jimmy standing a short way off, his hands on his hips, his head shaking in dejection. She shrugged helplessly at him, then turned back to the men. "Look. I don't owe you anything except maybe a kick in the teeth for slurring my good reputation. Now get lost or I'll be forced to pay up."

The man grabbed her shirt front and yanked her out of the booth, tearing the fabric. Grayson calmly examined the damage. "Now you've done it. That was real cotton. You've gone and made me mad." She tossed her bag to Jimmy. "Hold this for me, man. Oh. And these, too." She kicked her shoes to him.

"What the hell are you doing?" one of the three demanded.

"Getting ready to fight. That's what you want, isn't it? Let's see. I'll save you for last." She turned sharply to face one of the others. "You. Where do you want to land?"

"Not the windows, Sontang," Jimmy shouted. "Keep it inside this time."

"I'll do my best. Look, fella, you want your booth back? Here. It's all yours." She took his wrist, twisting and sweeping his feet with her leg at the same time. He landed on his back on the table. One of the others lunged at her. She kicked out, doubling him over. The third one grabbed her from behind. Grayson buried her elbows in his over-inflated stomach, freeing herself, then applied the heel of her palm to his chin. He swore, spitting blood from his bitten tongue. Grayson backed off, giving them a chance to cut and run, but they were too drunk to recognize a good opportunity. Besides, their shipmates were pushing their way through the crowd to lend assistance, having realized that a healthy brawl was in the making. Within minutes, half the patrons in the bar were fighting and the other half were cheering them on. Jimmy had retreated behind the bar to watch, leaning heavily on his elbows and sighing. Grayson got in a few more good blows to her antagonists, then slipped out of the melee and went to join Jimmy. She pulled her shoes back on as she watched. "Good fight, huh?"

"Why is it every time you come here, a fight breaks out?"

"Just lucky, I guess. You want me to break it up?"

"No, please. You've done enough already."

"Feds coming down the line," someone shouted in warning.

"Oops. Gotta go, Jimmy-Boy."

"Hey! Who's going to pay for all this mess?"

"Put it on my bill. I'll pay you next year," she shouted as she slipped out the back door.

---

An hour later, Grayson was rounding Jimmy's house, headed for her runabout shuttle in his back yard. She stopped dead in her tracks when she saw the Fed standing at the door to her shuttle. She straightened, took a deep breath and strode toward the man. "What do you want?" she demanded as she drew near. She noted that the strap over his blaster was undone.

"I heard a rumor you were running Tantalean Brandy," he replied.

"It's illegal on this world," she stated, stopping in front of him with her hands on her hips.

"Yes. It is," he agreed. "So are you? Running it?"

"If I were I'd be pretty foolish to bring it here. And if you were sure, you'd have a warrant."

He shrugged. "On the other hand, you could just open your shuttle and show me that it's empty. Call it good faith."

She shook her head. "That would be setting a really bad precedent, for me and other traders. I'd be blacklisted."

"You aren't already?" he asked, cocking any eyebrow.

"Only on some worlds. Look, it's starting to rain and I have no intention of opening my shuttle in your presence, so are we going to stand here all night getting wet or are you going to go find some drunks to bust?"

"We could talk in that boathouse over there."

"You have a warrant for that?" she asked skeptically.

He shrugged. "It was unlocked."

"Really! That was very careless of Jimmy."

"Shall we?" he asked, gesturing to the boathouse, his other hand firmly on the butt of his blaster.

Grayson gave him a slow look up and down. The man was big, square-jawed in a very Fed sort of way, and obviously familiar with her reputation. He hadn't taken his eyes off hers from the moment she walked up to him. She sighed and turned toward the boathouse. "I have places to be," she called over her shoulder as he followed at a safe distance.

"Do tell. Where?"

"My ship," she answered with a toss of her head.

"Perhaps I should get a warrant for it," he suggested.

"It's in orbit around Harmony, not this god-awful planet. You don't have jurisdiction."

"I have friends who do," he replied, stepping cautiously around her to open the boathouse door.

Grayson eyed the speedboat rocking gently at the dock. She knew Jimmy ran illicit goods to the city upriver from the spaceport under the guise of recreation, but she was sure he wouldn't be careless enough to leave anything incriminating behind on it. "That storeroom back there," the Fed said, still keeping a cautious distance between them. That 'storeroom' happened to be Grayson's guest quarters when she was borrowing Jimmy's backyard to park her shuttle. She knew she had left it locked, but the door stood open now. No doubt by the same lock pick that had opened the boathouse door. Grayson scowled as she headed toward it.

When she entered the storeroom, she did a quick scan. She wasn't the neatest person in the world, but everything looked in place, including the half-empty bottle of brandy on the table that may or may not contain some Tantalean brandy, despite what the label said. She turned and looked at the Fed, who had paused in the doorway. His hand was still on the butt of his blaster. "Now what," she snapped.

---

"Strip," he ordered, his fingers drumming against the blaster.

She cocked an eyebrow. "I'm damn sure you don't have a warrant for that."

"Nevertheless," he said taking a step forward so he could close the door behind him.

"You should know that I'm more deadly naked," she warned as she reached up to unzip her black leather flight jacket.

"I'm counting on it."

She tossed her bag and jacket against the nearest wall. "Ah, a death wish, then." She unzipped her boots and pulled them off as he watched, then paused to show him that the thin flat knives she kept within were still there. When he nodded, she tossed them over with the other items. She looked back at him and he made a come-hither sign with his free hand. She sighed dramatically and pulled the pen laser from the back waistband of her pants and added it to the pile. He made the sign again, and she pulled another laser from the sleeve of her shirt and tossed it. "Happy?" she snapped.

He twirled his finger and she snarled but obeyed, turning slowly. She typically wore tight-fitting clothes to empathize how small - and supposedly harmless - she was. It was a drawback, though, when it came to hiding weapons. He pointed toward her ankle. "Mini-blaster?" he asked. She scowled at him, pulling her pantleg up to undo the strap. She added it to the pile, along with its holster.

He stepped closer, examining the ragged edges of her torn shirt. "Been in any bar fights lately?"

"A few."

"How many bodies?"

"None when I left."

"Getting soft in your old age?"

She scoffed. "I spend all my time in space. Beat age at its own game. Theory of Relativity, don't you know."

"Finish it," he commanded, suddenly bored with the conversation.

Grayson stared hard at him. "You sure you want to go there? Some don't come back."

"You don't scare me, Sontang. Now strip."

She pulled her top and pants off and tossed them on the pile. "Commando," he noted with an approving nod. "Turn," he ordered, then, "Stop," when she had her back to him.

"You liking my ass?" she called back to him.

"Hair," was his reply.

"What, you think I have a blaster taped between my shoulders?"

"Rumors are rampant. And you did say you were deadly naked," he noted patiently. "Hair."

Grayson's hair was long and black and wavy. She reached back and pulled it aside. Another laser pen rested between her shoulder blades. He gave a yank, pulling the pen and the tape free. She had already bit her lip to remain silent, expecting as much from him. He finally fastened the strap over his blaster and pulled her shoulder to turn her to face him again. "I think it's time for the body cavity search."

"In your dreams," she protested, but even as she was saying it, he had gripped her by the arms and pulled her onto her toes and hard against his chest, leaning down to kiss her ferociously. Her hands were against his chest and she was pushing, but only half-heartedly as his tongue sought to wrestle hers into submission. When they had finally fought to a draw, he pulled back and tossed her onto the small bed, tugging urgently to remove his own clothes.

She watched closely. "Next time, I want to play the Fed," she complained.

"Number one," he said, peeling layers of clothing off, "I am the Fed. Number two, there is no way you could come close to Fed reqs, let alone find a uniform that you wouldn't swim in. And number three, I would never, ever let you have a full-size blaster. You'd destroy the fucking planet."

"Who'd miss it? Anyway, you'd get your transfer that much sooner."

He dove on top of her. "And when I do get my transfer, I'm going to bust your ass for real, and then I'm going to put you in my very own protective custody."

"I don't need protection," she argued, pulling his head down to her breasts.

"I meant to protect the galaxy from you." Then he latched on to one of her breasts and she was moaning and writhing under him. "Be still or I'll bite," he complained.

"Get inside me now or I'll throw your ass on the floor and find someone else to do the job."

"Nope," he growled. "If you're heading out, I'm going to savor this while I can. I get to torture you for a change." And then he did nip until she yelped and writhed even harder. He was positioned now, her small wrists wrapped by his hands and his legs firmly pinning hers. He went to work with his mouth, finding both her erogenous zones and her ticklish ones, tormenting her until she was begging and threatening in the same breath.

"There's a blaster in my cunt and I'm going to shoot your balls off if you don't make me come this very minute," she gasped.

"I wouldn't put it past you," her growled in her ear, "Let's just take a look-see." He took two of her wrists into one hand and reached down with the other, pushing her legs wider and feeling around as if he couldn't find her entrance or her clit. She screamed in frustration. "I don't feel anything," he said with a shrug.

"Neither do I, you asshole! Would you just put your goddamn fucking cock inside me!" she yelled.

"I love the way you whisper sweet nothings in my ear," he gloated as he began to ease oh-so-slowly into her. When he was all the way inside her, he stopped still, enjoying the feeling as she squirmed and flexed, desperate for that little additional stimulation.

"God damn it, Sanchez. Move it! Get that god damn ass of yours moving or so help me..." He chuckled, but he began to thrust, gently at first, then harder and faster until she was wailing and he was grunting with the effort of drawing it out as long as possible. When he finally exploded inside her and her wail died away, he rolled until she lay on top of him.

"Stay," he murmured.

"I can't," she said with a sigh. "You know that."

"Then at least stay till morning."

"We've been through this before. I have to time it to be down range of the system patrols so my shuttle burns don't lead them to my ship."

"Don't! Don't tell me things I don't want to know."

"Don't ask me to be something, someone, I can't be. I have to be out there."

He sighed. "I know. But it you ever do decide to satisfy your lust for adventure with bar fights alone, you come find me."

"Deal," she agreed.

---

Grayson was flying a slow arc around the Breathless Dragon, using only the shuttle's running lights to admire her beautiful creation. It had taken several years to complete and countless contraband runs in borrowed and - occasionally - misappropriated ships to get the money. The ship was disk-shaped, capable of planetary landings when necessary. Its diameter was two hundred fifty meters and on the top of the disk, her insignia, a Chinese styled dragon coiled its way until head met tail. She'd painted it herself. No cheesy decals for her. The propulsion exhausts for the conversion engines jutted from the back end of the disk. Maneuvering exhausts ringed the circumference of the disk, each a tee shape to allow precise movement on any plane. The com-dome was at the very center, top of the disk. At the center, bottom of the disk was a port from which a pathetically basic blaster could drop for emergencies like pirates, who, of course, did not follow Fed regs and had things like lasers and blaster cannons and all the good guns. Grayson had made some borderline legal upgrades to the blaster, but she counted on speed and skill more than fire power to get her out of trouble.

On the port side of the disk was a docking air lock. On the starboard side was her shuttle bay which could hold both her runabout and her freight shuttle, and, if she really squeezed, one more shuttle. It was to that bay she headed now, having completed her visual inspection. She knew her computer was perfectly capable of telling her if there were any concerns on the outside, but she was a spacer and spacers never trusted only one opinion, even if that one was an excellent top-of-the-line computer. As she eased into the shuttle bay, she felt the abrupt pull of the graviton field, and she angled the shuttle's exhausts to accommodate until it bumped to a gentle stop. The outer doors closed and air rushed back into the bay.

As she descended from the shuttle, she called out, "Hi, Hal. I'm home."

"Obviously," the disembodied voice of her computer answered. She had programmed the slightly tinny voice to remind herself that she was talking to a computer. The sarcasm, however, was a learned response of the AI interface. Learned from her. At first it had been annoying and she vowed to fix it when she had time. It had grown on her though and she never did adjust the AI. She told herself it might mess up other functions that relied on AI, especially the ones she had tweaked well beyond default parameters. Truth was, she liked that the computer understood her sarcasm, better than most humans, anyway.

"Are you reading any radio traffic from the system fleet?"

"Not related to your transit."

"Okay. Continue the low profile. I'm on my way to the bridge." She hefted a supply box and headed for the core of the ship. As a trader, the core of the ship consisted of a large round storage tower with three levels, designed to hold freight of various sorts, surrounded by an open, relative narrow ring of space filled with bridgework, ladders, elevators and other means of access. Bridgework led from the port of the shuttle bay to the port granting access to the middle level of the core. One could either enter that level, or circle to the back of the ship where a large freight elevator gave access to the upper and lower levels and another bridgework gave access to the engine rooms. One could also circle toward the front of the ship for access to the command bridge and computer or to the far, port side for access to the airlock or the smaller freight storage rooms on the port side of the core. The outer rim of the disk was divided into four curving segments that lay between the command bridge, the airlock, the engine rooms and the shuttle bay. Those four single level segments contained the living parts of the ship; bedrooms, kitchen, entertainment, etc. One whole segment was devoted just to janitorial, robotics, water recycling and plant maintenance.

The ship, though designed for four or five occupants, only had to support one. Grayson. That tended to lead to bored robots which got underfoot. She'd been known to disable them when they got too annoying, but that could only be done for so long before they were needed again, so she had handed the management task over to Hal. She was proud, though, that her ship was a self-sustaining biosphere, producing plants capable of providing all the oxygen, filtering all the water and producing all the food needed, although none of the plant-based food came anywhere near tasting like a real T-bone steak. Truth be told, most of the animal based protein on the planets she visited didn't taste like a real T-bone steak either, so it wasn't all that great a loss. The main annoyance was that the bots were needed to keep all that biosystem in balance, so she couldn't just kick them when they got in her way. Like they were doing now, as she tried to get to the command bridge by the shortest route.

One of the bots wanted to carry her box for her and kept slithering in front of her until she finally yelled at the computer. "Hal, I swear I'm going to throw this damn bot off the bridge if it doesn't get out from in front of me."

"That particular bot weighs one hundred thirty-five kilos. I do not believe you would be able to lift it over the railing," the computer replied.

"I got adrenalin working for me here. And if that doesn't suffice, I'm going to kick it in its camshaft."

"It doesn't have a camshaft. That would be an artifact of twentieth century..."

"Get it the hell out of my way!"

"Done," Hal answered as the bot skittered - nervously, in her opinion - out of the way. Grayson proceeded the rest of the way without obstruction and the door to the command bridge opened at her approach.

"I got your video card here, Hal. And that interface you wanted," she announced, setting the box on her command console.

"I believe you were the one who wanted the video card and the interface was needed, not wanted."

"Yeah, yeah, yeah," she muttered, digging through the box. "I'm going to get all this stuff hooked up then we can get out of here."

"After six hours of sleep," Hal reminded her. "Your parameters."

"Shit. Override. I can fly with an hour's nap."

"You hardwired a no-override except in event of SHF. Those parameters have not been met."

"Goddamn it. Was I sober when I hardwired that?"

"I am not equipped with an appropriate medical analyzer of blood alcohol."

"Okay, well, then, remind me what SHF stands for."

"Shit Hitting the Fan."

"Oh. Yeah. Fine. Just keep the damn bots away from me and I'll get these last components installed then rest for six hours."

"Sleep," Hal said."Argh, I finally have a ship and it won't let me fly!" she exclaimed to no one in particular. Hal didn't bother to answer.

Continued in Chapter 1 - Part 2...

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