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18+ years old only please!
Marcus was looking to get passage on a transport offworld. It was how he made a living, planet-hopping, getting odd jobs aboard ship and after making planetfall. But those didn't really pay terribly well, so he got himself a side hustle. It just so happened that his customer today was a little out of the ordinary.
This was a story I had rolling around in my head for a while. I had plans to write more stuff that went on in the same universe but that kind of fell by the wayside. I started and finished the rough draft for this back in February of 2018 and I only just recently got around to proofing it. Chances are whatever ideas I had for this concept have long since died away. Oh well. Hope you still like this, even though it ended up way longer than my original idea.
Content:
Dragon, Dog, Canine, Lynx, Cat, Hermaphrodite, Musclegut, Muscle, mild hyper, Unbirthing, Pregnancy, Male Pregnancy, Endosomatophilia, Masturbation
~ ~ ~ Story Sample ~ ~ ~
The buzz of enormous anti-grav thrusters filled the air, sounding like the largest, angriest hive of bees ever amassed. Thankfully, the insectoid colonies were on the opposite side of the star system. And they tended to be rather even keeled, all things considered. It didn't change the fact that the physics-defying engines had the most obnoxious buzzing sound imaginable. Marcus hated listening to them, but he didn't really have much choice. He went where there was work, and that usually meant chasing jobs halfway across known space. If he could afford the fare.
The big, rusty-colored dragon sighed as he watched the latest transport come to a soft landing. It really was a marvel of modern technology, able to lift off and go into orbit as well as return from outside the atmosphere to soft-land, all without using chemical rockets. It allowed for exploration beyond the homeworld. And that homeworld felt so very distant now. It was just one little speck among millions in the night sky. Expand or die. That was the motto. Marcus had been doing a bit of that himself.
The doors to the space port finally opened, occupied by a number of guards who metered how many were permitted in. Off world travel was something of a premium. Only the super rich got to travel for leisure. Everyone else had to find a way to make the trip into something related to a livelihood. After a few moments of seeing the throngs of canines, felines, avians, reptiles, and even a few aquatics trying to push their way to the front in the hopes of being granted access, Marcus realized he wasn't going to be getting on board anytime soon. It would be at least a couple of hours before he could make his way to the guards and request passage.
So, rather than remain stuck in the pulsing, writhing crowd, he opted to slip his way out and head elsewhere. The intention was to get something to eat. It had been a while since he woke up, and he hadn't had breakfast yet. He had originally hoped he could get on board and eat there instead. Transports almost always had aeroponics in at least a couple of compartments. It was enough to feed the crew and passengers. Of course, the higher up on the ship you lived, the better the vegetation you got. At least there was plenty of resequenced meat. But that was rationed out in the same way. He would have to settle for the less than stellar food stuffs the outer region of the city had to offer.
After a brief shopping trip, Marcus had a small bag of what amounted to emergency rations. They weren't marketed as such, but they were virtually identical. Some food processor had the idea of re-branding to sell to the lowest of the low income. At least they were required to meet the most basic of nutritional standards. The dragon found a quiet little public lounge and rented a private room for a couple of hours. It would give him plenty of time to charge, eat, and rest before he had to be back at the spaceport gates.
He took a seat in one of the too-small chairs, finding it to be just cheap enough to not worry about breaking it but just nice enough to actually be somewhat comfortable. He pulled a cord from his satchel and plugged it into the wall. The other end he brought up to the back of his neck and plugged it into a port just above the line his shoulders made across his back. He stiffened and grimaced as the connection was made. After the initial shock of linking in, he relaxed and sighed.
The interface appeared in his vision, giving him a notification that he was indeed charging. It wasn't entirely necessary, given that he could just charge up his power cells by eating, but this was far cheaper. And he didn't have to choke down any more of the nasty 'econo-meal' bars. It was one of the benefits of his condition; flexible fuel sources. He still felt hungry if he didn't eat anything, though. With the connection made, and the standard diagnostics completed, Marcus dove online. The private room came with a generous supply of bandwidth and a high cap on data use. He wouldn't get anywhere near the limit in just two hours, and it would let him conduct his little side business.
"Let's see if we've got any nibbles." he said to himself before opening the door to a virtual shop he had set up.
There had not been any visitors since last he looked the night before. That left him slightly disheartened. He almost always got a customer or two well before now. It looked like he was going to have to work extra hard on this next trip. He sighed and renewed the pop-up notification he had put out on the central net, but with very little hope. With it being so close to time, anyone he got would likely just be desperate, and that usually came with a few unwelcome risks. Still, money was money.
Within half an hour of sitting patiently, charging up, and perusing the feeds looking for potential jobs so he could plan his trip, Marcus heard a chime indicating someone was interested in his services. Since money was money, he had no reason to turn them away. It didn't hurt to at least hear someone out, no matter how desperate they were. A rectangular window appeared in front of the dragon, semi-transparent, with a thin green line running through it. The words 'voice call only' appeared in small green letters just beneath it. That meant one of three possibilities; the caller was trying to keep their identity a secret, the caller was off world already which meant they wouldn't be of any real use to him at that moment, or the caller was pure organic and couldn't put on a VR headset at the moment. There was only one way to find out.
"Hello, is this Discrete Deliveries?" asked the disembodied voice, making the green line come to life as a waveform.
"You're in the right place. What can I do for you?" Marcus asked.
"I'm interested in your transport services. Do you have any limitations on what you will or won't carry?" asked the voice, which sounded male now that they were speaking more than just a few words, possibly canine.
"Transport is limited to anything with a class one rating, safe for contact with bio-matter. Stasis available upon request but carries a surcharge." the dragon replied, sounding casual as he tried his best to not come off bored.
Usually, situations like this ended up resulting in the caller declining. If they weren't carrying at least some sort of implant or wearing a headset so they could speak face to face, then they usually just weren't terribly serious about his offerings. It was an assumption that gave him a roughly ninety percent kill rate. But occasionally, that other ten percent carried a surprise or two.
"That sounds fine. Would it be alright if we met in person? I can't stay on too long." the perspective client asked.
That caught Marcus' attention. If they wanted to meet face to face without even discussing what was to be transported, then that usually meant they were eager for a fast contract. Of course, he had some idea of what it was they wanted moved. He catered to a certain clientele after all.
"That depends on your location. If you're not in system with me, I can't help you-" the dragon said, quickly looking over the connection information that had scrolled by when his ID algorithm kicked in earlier, "But from the looks of things, you're not just in system, you're actually pretty close by. I'll give you the address to meet me at. Since I'm on a short timetable, you have five minutes to get here if you want me to consider your job."
He hated being so heartless on how small of window to offer, but he wasn't going to spend most of his time waiting for someone to show up only to have them flake. It had happened a few times before, and that had prompted the abrupt nature of his opportunities. If they were serious, they'd make an effort to get there.
"Five minutes. Understood. I've got the address. Thank you for your time." the caller said.
Without even giving the drake a chance to offer his own farewell, the line disconnected and he was left to sit in his little storefront by himself. He let out a quiet sigh and closed his eyes. The digital world dissolved away and the material world reappeared when he opened them. He didn't bother unplugging, but he wasn't going to dive back in. He sent a quick message to the caller's number with a phrase to tell the lounge manager when they arrived. That way, they could be directed to his little temporary sanctuary. The drake sat himself upright, no longer slouched in a more comfortable, laid back position he took while online. Instead, he crossed his legs and let his arms fall slack on either side. His breathing became slow and even as he settled into a brief moment of meditation.
This was a little trick he had developed over the years he had been doing this. It helped to calm him if he had been overly anxious or annoyed by the throngs of people desperate to get aboard ship. It also gave him a chance to run a couple of diagnostics, which he did frequently. Past experience taught him to do so at least twice a day just to be sure nothing was going wrong with his cybernetic components. But the biggest reason why he preferred to do so--especially right before meeting a potential client--was because it created a sort of atmosphere, a mystique. He hesitated to think of it as intimidation, but it gave the other person the impression they were interrupting him. That combined with his size and the exotic nature of it--since virtually no one meditated unless they were a monk or extremely serious or something--created this sense of power, tipping in Marcus' favor.
Given his line of work with this side gig of his, it was certainly a good thing. It helped to cut through the nonsense that was all too common in dealing with the public. He wouldn't have time to finish a full diagnostic but he'd certainly be able to get a good portion of it done. And he could complete it later. Of course, if things went the way he was hoping they might, he would likely want to start all over again. Before he had time to finish the first of several cycles in the diagnostic, there came a soft chime signaling someone was just outside and needed his attention. That was surprisingly fast. It hadn't even been two minutes. They must have been terribly close. That or they ran the whole way. That implied desperation.
"Enter." the dragon said in as even a tone as he could muster.