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maderrStart of Chapter Two - the prologue and chapter one being what you've already read. Shall add more to this as I get a chance throughout the day. Cheers!
Planet 111819111-3554 (moon of kreska), private settlement
Sean woke feeling warm - almost hot. But rather than pull away he instead pressed closer to the source of it, hand sliding across soft flesh and smooth scales as he lazily caressed Mendel's chest. He let his blue eyes slide shut again, perfectly content to stay where he was until someone or something forced him to get out of bed.
A deep chuckle broke through the hazy remnants of sleep and reluctantly he cracked his eyes open, angling his head up to glare gently at the man he was curled up against. "What?"
"Nothing," grass-green eyes sparkled with amusement. "As hard as you work during the day, it is always funny to see you so lazy every morning."
Sean let out a faint 'hmph' and resumed stroking Mendel's chest, fingers dancing lightly across flesh and pressing more firmly at scales until Mendel was doing anything but laughing. Sean continued to tease him, hands flitting across stomach and abdomen, dropping lower for a moment before moving back up his chest. "Lazy, am I?"
"More like evil," Mendel managed.
Snickering, Sean tangled his fingers in Mendel's light gold hair, lifting himself up to kiss the Draconis soundly and moaning as Mendel began to return Sean's taunts full measure.
Their good mood was absent a few hours later, as they worked in their office, pouring over new reports, transcripts of recorded conversations and a handful of other documents, all of them pertaining to one thing.
The Draconis.
Rather, the questionable treatment and preservation of the Draconis.
Currently the outlook wasn't promising. On the surface was a conflict as to how safe it was to permit the continued existence of the Draconis - and it wouldn't be the first time a genetically engineered race had been destroyed. The governed sections of the known galaxy were divided into three primary quadrants. Of these, one through three had outlaws genetic experimentation. And the last was allowed to conduct them exclusively for medical reasons.
At least officially.
More difficult, there were several someone's tangled up in the uncertain fate of the Draconis. Their creators, the Coni, wanted to refine them back into what they were originally meant to be - magics energy supplies. Still others - some Coni, the Draconis and their mates, and a few other supporters - wanted the Draconis to be left alone.
The four quadrants were commanded by the Infinitum Government, and they currently were arguing quietly among themselves as to what to do with the dangerous Draconis. The majority wanted them wiped out as being far too dangerous to keep alive; still others said that if the 'mating' tendency were destroyed, they could be permitted to live.
And then there were the few who kidnapped Draconis and their mates and carted them away to the fourth quadrant for experiments that were anything but medical.
Mendel sat at a wide desk, surrounded by touch screens and a bank of half a dozen viewing screens. He typed at a rapid rate, the faintest chimes sounding with each stroke of the keys. His green eyes were hard with concentration as he worked, switching rapidly from file to file, collating and shifting information in a manner that made little sense to all but he. Faces flashed as personal files came up, vanishing again to be replaced by long lists of numbers and what appeared to be detailed information on various unknown persons.
The sound of a door swishing open broke his concentration, and he watched as Sean entered.
Who was failing miserably at his attempts not to yawn. Beads of water still trickled down his chest from a recent shower. Stifling another yawn, he pulled a gray tank top over his head. He halted behind Mendel, nuzzling his neck and pressing a kiss to a scaled shoulder before moving to his own desk.
Once there he pulled on a dark blue sweater he'd been carrying, then flipped open a small, square leather case. Carefully stored inside was what appeared to be a contact lens, a barely visible strip of black lining the edge of it. An Information-lens, or In-lens, used to store any and all manner of data - codes, passwords, schematics, nearly anything so long as there was room or a way to access information stored elsewhere.
Sean slipped the In-lens over his left eye, blinking until it settled into place. His stored unique data on everything he and Mendel did, and was one of only two places to locate the codes to the information stored on Mendel's computers. "Anything of note?" he asked as he sat down, activating his own small private computer, thumbing through notes he'd made the previous day.
"No. Reports are in from the Seasons, which I've just keyed to you." Mendel didn't look up from his work. "And all four will be available for conference today, in approximately thirty minutes."
Nodding, Sean called up the reports, skimming them briefly before going back to the first and beginning a more detailed perusal. One-handed, he occasionally typed in notes on a smaller, separate screen. The two worked in silence, speaking only occasionally and then only in half sentences and partial questions, in the manner of people familiar and comfortable with each other.
Several minutes later four images appeared in a semi-circle above and around Sean's desk.
The first light screen held the image of a well-built man, roughly forty years or so in age, with white-blonde hair and pale blue eyes. He was dressed in a well-made dark blue jacket, with silver trim at the high color and silver frogs in the shape of infinity fastening the front of it. His features were large and sharp; he looked as if he'd been carved from a block of ice. He nodded a slow, stern greeting to Sean.
In the screen next to him was an image of a woman, her skin tainted red from the peculiar chemicals unique to those inhabited planets of the first quadrant. Her hair was a dark, coppery brown, as were the piercing eyes behind the In-specs she wore, a much more powerful version of the more common In-lens. Her dark lips were pursed, as if she'd just eaten something particularly unpleasant but was too polite to say so.
The next image was of another woman, a full blooded Draconis. Her skin was a pale, pale green, jewel green scales fanning out from her forehead and nose to cover the majority of her face, trailing down her neck to vanish beneath her black robes. More scales were visible on her arms, crawling down to just brush the knuckles of her hands. Her dark gray hair was neatly plaited and wound about the back of her had. She smiled warmly at Sean, despite the shadows in her emerald green eyes.
The last screen was also of a Draconis, this one a male with skin a strange creamy-gold color, his scales just a shade or two darker. His gold brown hair was cropped short, feathery strands of it brushing against his cheeks and forehead. His features were pretty, a masculine sort of delicate; the frustration clouding his face seemed horribly out of place.
"Summer," Sean nodded to the male Draconis. "Spring," to the female. Next to the redheaded woman, "Fall, and the man. "Winter. I'm glad all of you could make it."
The group murmured brief greetings and acknowledgements. Sean continued as they quieted, "Fall - any luck yet?"
The red-skinned woman shook her head. "No. I'm still trying, but I'm just not that high up on the ladder. I'm only a lab assist, stuck with all the grunt work." She hesitated, "I…I may be getting closer, but it's going to take some time yet and I don't want to promise results I may or may not get."
"That's all right. Trying is the most we can ask of you. Your reports are still plenty useful. Have you had any trouble with sending them to us?"
Fall shook her head, copper curls flying about gently. "Only the usual and I deal with them well enough. If things get to be too difficult, I'll let you know in the agreed upon way. Never fear."
"Very well." Sean shifted his attention to the pale man beside her. "Winter?"
The man reluctantly shook his head, "Slow going here as well. My position is at least as tricky as Fall's. My field is narrowing, but I'm starting to think that those left to investigate are all involved in some way."
"Isn't that always the way in politics? Everyone has their hand in something, if not several things." Sean sighed, "Any prime suspects?"
Winter nodded this time, "J and S at the very least - though J I haven't quite figured out. I'm keeping an eye on him, but if it's all right, I'm going to focus most of my effort on S. He's the easier of the two, and the more likely to get information from."
"I trust your judgment. Just keep us informed."
"Of course."
Sean moved on, turning to the Draconis. "Things are going so well on Coni, are they?" he asked the elderly woman.
She shook her head, "The officials and diplomats and ambassadors and I swear even their servants are all fighting like children over what should be done with us." She scowled at her thoughts. "Meanwhile, we Draconis are getting crushed underfoot - both accidentally and intentionally. It's frustrating; there's so much bickering and backstabbing no decisions are being made."
"Things aren't much better amongst the stars," the second Draconis said sourly. "The general impression is that the Draconis are dangerous. Everywhere I go I get suspicious looks from those that recognize what I am. More than once I've had the authorities called for no good reason at all. I don't know whose seeding or feeding the rumors, but we're not well thought of. I'd almost swear it's the Temperast disaster all over again."
Sean grunted, "It's not completely unlike it. Except that the Draconis aren't dangerous animals rapidly destroying the planet on which they were made. And wiping out the Temperast didn't mean killing off mates as well. Which is something I've noticed these rumors all fail to mention. But I guess the deaths of upwards of 40,000 Draconis and their mates don't much matter to people."
The group fell into a grim silence, until Sean sighed again and resumed speaking. "Have you obtained any new information, Summer?
"None. To date there are twenty four missing persons - twelve Draconis and their mates, which corresponds with information sent to me from Fall. Of those twenty-four, only six of the mates were reported missing. All the others were unattached, most likely chosen for that very reason. The few reports of suspicious persons or vehicles all mention a silver ship, but the description they give could be any merchant-class ship in any port from here to the end of the stars." He let out a frustrated huff of air. "No one has reported any suspicious persons, so I have no idea where to look next. I probably won't until Fall reports new arrivals at her lab. I'll keep on what few leads I have but I doubt I'll learn much."
The copper haired woman looked unhappy, "We never see the ship arrive or leave - the one thing I can tell you is that we're buried deep, deep underground. I can't even remember the last time I saw the sun. New 'specimens' just show up in the lab. I can't even give you names, all we get are vitals."
"The pictures you send are more than enough," Sean said soothingly. "We can usually use those to figure out who they are, and eventually what they were doing at the time they were kidnapped. It's just the 'where are they being taken' that's eluding us. You're right where we need to be and damned if any of us can figure out where that is."
Chapter Two
Planet 111819111-3554 (moon of kreska), private settlement
Sean woke feeling warm - almost hot. But rather than pull away he instead pressed closer to the source of it, hand sliding across soft flesh and smooth scales as he lazily caressed Mendel's chest. He let his blue eyes slide shut again, perfectly content to stay where he was until someone or something forced him to get out of bed.
A deep chuckle broke through the hazy remnants of sleep and reluctantly he cracked his eyes open, angling his head up to glare gently at the man he was curled up against. "What?"
"Nothing," grass-green eyes sparkled with amusement. "As hard as you work during the day, it is always funny to see you so lazy every morning."
Sean let out a faint 'hmph' and resumed stroking Mendel's chest, fingers dancing lightly across flesh and pressing more firmly at scales until Mendel was doing anything but laughing. Sean continued to tease him, hands flitting across stomach and abdomen, dropping lower for a moment before moving back up his chest. "Lazy, am I?"
"More like evil," Mendel managed.
Snickering, Sean tangled his fingers in Mendel's light gold hair, lifting himself up to kiss the Draconis soundly and moaning as Mendel began to return Sean's taunts full measure.
Their good mood was absent a few hours later, as they worked in their office, pouring over new reports, transcripts of recorded conversations and a handful of other documents, all of them pertaining to one thing.
The Draconis.
Rather, the questionable treatment and preservation of the Draconis.
Currently the outlook wasn't promising. On the surface was a conflict as to how safe it was to permit the continued existence of the Draconis - and it wouldn't be the first time a genetically engineered race had been destroyed. The governed sections of the known galaxy were divided into three primary quadrants. Of these, one through three had outlaws genetic experimentation. And the last was allowed to conduct them exclusively for medical reasons.
At least officially.
More difficult, there were several someone's tangled up in the uncertain fate of the Draconis. Their creators, the Coni, wanted to refine them back into what they were originally meant to be - magics energy supplies. Still others - some Coni, the Draconis and their mates, and a few other supporters - wanted the Draconis to be left alone.
The four quadrants were commanded by the Infinitum Government, and they currently were arguing quietly among themselves as to what to do with the dangerous Draconis. The majority wanted them wiped out as being far too dangerous to keep alive; still others said that if the 'mating' tendency were destroyed, they could be permitted to live.
And then there were the few who kidnapped Draconis and their mates and carted them away to the fourth quadrant for experiments that were anything but medical.
Mendel sat at a wide desk, surrounded by touch screens and a bank of half a dozen viewing screens. He typed at a rapid rate, the faintest chimes sounding with each stroke of the keys. His green eyes were hard with concentration as he worked, switching rapidly from file to file, collating and shifting information in a manner that made little sense to all but he. Faces flashed as personal files came up, vanishing again to be replaced by long lists of numbers and what appeared to be detailed information on various unknown persons.
The sound of a door swishing open broke his concentration, and he watched as Sean entered.
Who was failing miserably at his attempts not to yawn. Beads of water still trickled down his chest from a recent shower. Stifling another yawn, he pulled a gray tank top over his head. He halted behind Mendel, nuzzling his neck and pressing a kiss to a scaled shoulder before moving to his own desk.
Once there he pulled on a dark blue sweater he'd been carrying, then flipped open a small, square leather case. Carefully stored inside was what appeared to be a contact lens, a barely visible strip of black lining the edge of it. An Information-lens, or In-lens, used to store any and all manner of data - codes, passwords, schematics, nearly anything so long as there was room or a way to access information stored elsewhere.
Sean slipped the In-lens over his left eye, blinking until it settled into place. His stored unique data on everything he and Mendel did, and was one of only two places to locate the codes to the information stored on Mendel's computers. "Anything of note?" he asked as he sat down, activating his own small private computer, thumbing through notes he'd made the previous day.
"No. Reports are in from the Seasons, which I've just keyed to you." Mendel didn't look up from his work. "And all four will be available for conference today, in approximately thirty minutes."
Nodding, Sean called up the reports, skimming them briefly before going back to the first and beginning a more detailed perusal. One-handed, he occasionally typed in notes on a smaller, separate screen. The two worked in silence, speaking only occasionally and then only in half sentences and partial questions, in the manner of people familiar and comfortable with each other.
Several minutes later four images appeared in a semi-circle above and around Sean's desk.
The first light screen held the image of a well-built man, roughly forty years or so in age, with white-blonde hair and pale blue eyes. He was dressed in a well-made dark blue jacket, with silver trim at the high color and silver frogs in the shape of infinity fastening the front of it. His features were large and sharp; he looked as if he'd been carved from a block of ice. He nodded a slow, stern greeting to Sean.
In the screen next to him was an image of a woman, her skin tainted red from the peculiar chemicals unique to those inhabited planets of the first quadrant. Her hair was a dark, coppery brown, as were the piercing eyes behind the In-specs she wore, a much more powerful version of the more common In-lens. Her dark lips were pursed, as if she'd just eaten something particularly unpleasant but was too polite to say so.
The next image was of another woman, a full blooded Draconis. Her skin was a pale, pale green, jewel green scales fanning out from her forehead and nose to cover the majority of her face, trailing down her neck to vanish beneath her black robes. More scales were visible on her arms, crawling down to just brush the knuckles of her hands. Her dark gray hair was neatly plaited and wound about the back of her had. She smiled warmly at Sean, despite the shadows in her emerald green eyes.
The last screen was also of a Draconis, this one a male with skin a strange creamy-gold color, his scales just a shade or two darker. His gold brown hair was cropped short, feathery strands of it brushing against his cheeks and forehead. His features were pretty, a masculine sort of delicate; the frustration clouding his face seemed horribly out of place.
"Summer," Sean nodded to the male Draconis. "Spring," to the female. Next to the redheaded woman, "Fall, and the man. "Winter. I'm glad all of you could make it."
The group murmured brief greetings and acknowledgements. Sean continued as they quieted, "Fall - any luck yet?"
The red-skinned woman shook her head. "No. I'm still trying, but I'm just not that high up on the ladder. I'm only a lab assist, stuck with all the grunt work." She hesitated, "I…I may be getting closer, but it's going to take some time yet and I don't want to promise results I may or may not get."
"That's all right. Trying is the most we can ask of you. Your reports are still plenty useful. Have you had any trouble with sending them to us?"
Fall shook her head, copper curls flying about gently. "Only the usual and I deal with them well enough. If things get to be too difficult, I'll let you know in the agreed upon way. Never fear."
"Very well." Sean shifted his attention to the pale man beside her. "Winter?"
The man reluctantly shook his head, "Slow going here as well. My position is at least as tricky as Fall's. My field is narrowing, but I'm starting to think that those left to investigate are all involved in some way."
"Isn't that always the way in politics? Everyone has their hand in something, if not several things." Sean sighed, "Any prime suspects?"
Winter nodded this time, "J and S at the very least - though J I haven't quite figured out. I'm keeping an eye on him, but if it's all right, I'm going to focus most of my effort on S. He's the easier of the two, and the more likely to get information from."
"I trust your judgment. Just keep us informed."
"Of course."
Sean moved on, turning to the Draconis. "Things are going so well on Coni, are they?" he asked the elderly woman.
She shook her head, "The officials and diplomats and ambassadors and I swear even their servants are all fighting like children over what should be done with us." She scowled at her thoughts. "Meanwhile, we Draconis are getting crushed underfoot - both accidentally and intentionally. It's frustrating; there's so much bickering and backstabbing no decisions are being made."
"Things aren't much better amongst the stars," the second Draconis said sourly. "The general impression is that the Draconis are dangerous. Everywhere I go I get suspicious looks from those that recognize what I am. More than once I've had the authorities called for no good reason at all. I don't know whose seeding or feeding the rumors, but we're not well thought of. I'd almost swear it's the Temperast disaster all over again."
Sean grunted, "It's not completely unlike it. Except that the Draconis aren't dangerous animals rapidly destroying the planet on which they were made. And wiping out the Temperast didn't mean killing off mates as well. Which is something I've noticed these rumors all fail to mention. But I guess the deaths of upwards of 40,000 Draconis and their mates don't much matter to people."
The group fell into a grim silence, until Sean sighed again and resumed speaking. "Have you obtained any new information, Summer?
"None. To date there are twenty four missing persons - twelve Draconis and their mates, which corresponds with information sent to me from Fall. Of those twenty-four, only six of the mates were reported missing. All the others were unattached, most likely chosen for that very reason. The few reports of suspicious persons or vehicles all mention a silver ship, but the description they give could be any merchant-class ship in any port from here to the end of the stars." He let out a frustrated huff of air. "No one has reported any suspicious persons, so I have no idea where to look next. I probably won't until Fall reports new arrivals at her lab. I'll keep on what few leads I have but I doubt I'll learn much."
The copper haired woman looked unhappy, "We never see the ship arrive or leave - the one thing I can tell you is that we're buried deep, deep underground. I can't even remember the last time I saw the sun. New 'specimens' just show up in the lab. I can't even give you names, all we get are vitals."
"The pictures you send are more than enough," Sean said soothingly. "We can usually use those to figure out who they are, and eventually what they were doing at the time they were kidnapped. It's just the 'where are they being taken' that's eluding us. You're right where we need to be and damned if any of us can figure out where that is."
no subject
Date: 2004-11-03 04:24 pm (UTC)Because I do. <3
no subject
Date: 2004-11-03 04:57 pm (UTC)Hee Hee ^_^
no subject
Date: 2004-11-03 10:23 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-11-04 03:39 am (UTC)But what about the
sexrum?no subject
Date: 2004-11-04 04:12 am (UTC)I enjoy reading this story. It seems to be going to very interesting paths...
...wait... you added some more... *goes to read new parts*
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*hugs maderr* in regards to your other post about political opinions, I hope that whoever made disparaging comments about those who support Bush would open his or her eyes. It's difference of opinion, like in an analysis of literary work. As long as you have factual support, anything goes. It's not like as if you just woke up one day and decided "I'm going to support Bush because he wears nice shirts" or something like that.
///
no subject
Date: 2004-11-04 06:03 pm (UTC)*hugs back* Glad you're liking so far. We'll see how it progresses. Sci fi is hard - or maybe I'm making it hard?
no subject
Date: 2004-11-04 06:05 pm (UTC)I'm trying hard to avoid the mumbo-jumbo that always aggravates me in most sci-fi stories. Seems like I'm succeeding to some degree - thankee.