Aly was excited; she felt Allan still throbbing hard inside her, she wanted more, and then he spoke. "Aly. What the fuck is that?"

Aly stopped mid-stroke as she wanted nothing more than to continue riding him until her legs gave out, but she stood slowly, savoring every inch of the feeling of him sliding out of her sex. She turned to face the window; she saw the Jumpgate in the distance and smiled. To one who wasn't used to space travel, she was sure that it looked quite odd. "That is the Jumpgate, Allan; now let us…."

She broke off as he stood behind her, his pants falling to his ankles from when Aly had undone them. Allan placed his arm across her shoulder and pointed, not to the Jumpgate, but to a series of red and purple lights that seemed to move along the ship's hull. "Not the Jumpgate, that."

"Gilnash'kul." Aly cursed under her breath. "Jul'Xinas," she said loudly, and the dome that had retracted earlier began to climb back out of the floor; Allan quickly did up his pants, and Aly grabbed his hand, pulling him along, heading to the bridge. "That would be one of two things; it's either a security patrol from the core worlds or its pirates."

"Why would a security patrol from the core worlds be here?" Allan asked; from what Aly had told him, the Core Worlds was some kind of governmental body that handled the enforcement of treaties and quarantines.

A bright flash of pink embarrassment ran across Aly's face, "Well, I may have broken a few laws by going to your world and violating the quarantine that most death worlds are under. If it is security, and if they find out that you are a sentient from a deathworld, they will capture you, execute you, and then move to execute your whole planet."

"Huh," Allan took a deep breath, "Well, here's to hoping it's pirates then." He moved quickly, scooping Aly into his arms and then taking off at a speed that forced Aly up against him, his adrenaline pushing his body to its limits. They made it to the bridge in record time, and Allan placed Aly on her feet, and she quickly and somewhat hesitantly moved to the panel that Allan assumed was a comms panel. A blinking light on the panel indicated that someone was hailing them.

Aly pressed the button and switched from English to Galcom, the standard language of the galaxy, and motioned for Allan to be quiet; thankfully, he understood. "Hello, this is Jushintorg clan-ship Solstice, accepting hail from an unknown ship," Aly said, praying that they sent back a demand for boarding as pirates.

"Solstice, this is Core Worlds Security patrol Gamma-Nine onboard the ship Bastion of Law; you are suspected of violating the deathworld quarantine law of several hundred deathworlds, most recently of a Class VII deathworld, you will be boarded; any move to activate weapons of a blink drive of any kind will result in the termination of your ship with extreme prejudice, Bastion of Law out." The comm-link cut out, and an indicator as to what airlock would be used was sent over.

Aly quickly related what had been said to Allan after switching back to English. "You want me to hide, or do you want me to kill them all?" The certainty in Allan's voice as he asked this sent a tingle down her spine, awakening an ancient fear in biology, and she looked at how his body seemed poised for action, his muscles rippling in anticipation. "Hide," Aly squeaked out, her mind overriding the instinct that drove her to hide from what it perceived as a far superior predator.

Allan nodded and smiled at her, "Meet them at the Airlock; I will be nearby." Allan said, then dashed off at that insane speed that he seemed to be able to maintain forever. Aly moved to walk to the airlock and hoped that everything she held dear would not be torn from her once more.

As Allan jogged away, he made a mental note in his mind of everything that could lead to his discovery and went straight to the sleeping chamber; when he got there, his first order of duty was packing all his belonging into his pack, he then took the Glock 19 that his mother had given him, checking that the slide moved with a clean action. He slammed a magazine home and pulled the slide back. It slid forward with a round now in the chamber and placed it in his waistband. He moved to the sandpit that had clear imprints in the sand of two beings. He knew that given enough time, the sand seemed to reset, becoming smooth, so he helped it along, stirring it with his hands. The whole pit took him about five minutes; from what Aly had said, he had about five more. He glanced at the sleeping pit, stirring the sand with his hand at his last footprints, it wasn't perfect, but there was no way someone could tell just from looking that two people were using the pit.

Allan scooped up his pack, jogging off to the engineering bay, and stashed his pack, minus the Glock and three magazines, in an empty container and then shoved the container into the farthest corner of the room. It wasn't the best, but it was what he could do; Allan then moved to the airlock, and when he got to within a turn of the door, he stuck his head around and saw Aly waiting for the airlock to cycle before he pulled his head back and sat listening, his mind focusing as he listened for what he could hear. He slipped his boots off and quickly stashing them in a ventilation duct with a corner he could reach around. Just in his thick wool socks, he ran in place and smiled; between some kind of rubberized covering that seemed to cover all the floors and the softness of his socks, his footsteps were virtually silent.

Aly could swear she had just seen Allan, but he had said he was hiding. She shook her head, "Keep it together, Alyniqual Jushintorg," she said to herself, and then she sent a quick prayer to the Goddess, "Please, Goddes, don't let this be the end of my time being happy." She heard the buzz that signaled the competition of the cycling of the airlock and looked up just in time to see fifteen bipedal lizardlike creatures step into her ship.

"Hello," She said in Galcom, trying to sound more confident than she felt. "Welcome to the Solstice." One of the creatures stepped forward. He was head and shoulders taller than Aly and wore a cloak and helmet of strange design. When it removed its helmet, Aly took a breath; this was not good; it was a Galgax. "Lord, Galgax," Aly said, lowering her eyes to the floor, her mind racing as she thought of something to save them. But nothing she could think of sounded as if it was a good idea.

"Hello, little Quillinar," The Galgax said, its voice sounding as deep as the deepest oceans. He gave her an appraising once over. "So you are the one who has been going to deathworld after deathworld. I must say that without permission, this is not acceptable. Where is the rest of your clan?"

Aly dropped her head, "It is just me now; the last of my clan died fourteen years ago." Aly knew that the Galgax race was renowned for their ability to feel a lie with their sensitive scales; she hoped that the love and hope she held for Allan would be enough of a distinction in her mind that he would not pick up on the slight.

The Galgax nodded and shook his head. "How are you still alive then? I was under the impression that if your kind lost their clan, they withered and died within a year. I am also sorry for your loss." He signaled for his men to return to the airlock, no threat was evident, and Allan smiled from his spot, where he watched with only a single eye slid forward enough to see.

"That is true; I have sustained myself minimally by convincing myself that the plants I gather from the deathworlds are my clan now. I do not think I am what you would call sane, but I can survive until I find another willing to join my clan properly." Aly said, again hoping that the Galgax would not pick up on the deception.

"Plants? Are you a botanist? It is forbidden to take any biological matter from a deathworld." The Galgax grabbed Aly by her wrist, hurting her as he spoke.

"Please, lord Galgax, you are hurting me. And no, I am not a Botanist but an artist seeking new colors." Aly said, trying to squirm out of his grasp.

"Show me to these plants." He demanded, and Aly nodded, leading them down the hall away from Allan. Allan was furious, the Glock was in his hand, and he was fighting every urge to shoot that scaly fuck right in the head. But they were leaving, so Allan called upon his 18 months as a safari guide to move quietly and shadow the two.

Aly led the Galgax through the ship, taking him to a place that Allan had not even been shown yet; when they came to what appeared to be a slightly off-color wall, Aly spoke a command word in a language that neither the Galgax nor Allan recognized, in response the wall lifted into the ceiling, revealing a massive room that seemed to run the full length of the ship. Inside were terrariums, each labeled in Quilnarish with the world from which the contents came.

"Oh my." The Galgax said, walking from one to the next and looking into each gravity-controlled and environmentally-controlled terrarium.

The only one that was not sealed was one that Allan, as he snuck from one shadow to another, recognized as labeled in English, and each plant was lovingly potted in pots that he recognized as having been sold at a local Home Depot thanks to the tags on a few of them. This terrarium was the largest and held hundreds of plant specimens.

The Galgax made as if to reach in, and Aly stopped him. "Lord Galgax, I would not do that if I were you; that chamber's gravity is three times standard. Gathering these flowers nearly cost me my life."

"They are beautiful." The Galgax said, a strange rattling noise emanating from under his cloak, and Aly knew that he meant what he said. "But they are contraband."

"Please, they are my clan; they keep me going," Aly said, tears coming to her eyes. She loved her garden and had meant what she said about them being a replacement for her clan.

"I can not allow you to keep them; I must destroy them and with them, you. This is the law." The Galgax said, turning to look at Aly, a merciless look on his face. He threw aside his cloak to reveal the long chitinous scales, each carved into a unique pattern with different colored dyes applied; the whole effect was rather mesmerizing, but Aly could not appreciate it, as this was the end. Aly dropped to her knees, sobbing as the Galgax drew a sword of some kind and raised it over his head.

Allan had had enough; he saw what was happening and moved. It looked to the Galgax that as his sword descended to end the pitiful Quillinar, another being with a fire blazing in its eyes appeared out of thin air next to him and punched him hard enough that the Galgax was catapulted a solid thirty units to slam into a support column. Even then, he heard the crunching of some of his scales breaking off.

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The Galgax watched in awe as the creature walked over to the open terrarium, reached in as if the tripled gravity was nothing, and pulled a flower from a very spiky-looking bush. It walked back to the Quillinar, snapping off thorns as it walked, and then spoke in a guttural language; the Quillinar blushed of all things and accepted the flower.

The Galgax raised its arm to call for help, and the creature looked at him and moved again; in the blink of an eye, it was there ripping the tech band from the Galgax's arm and winding up to strike him once more, that demonic light burning in its eyes and the Galgax closed its eyes to accept death.

"Allan, Stop!" Aly cried, looking up as she felt the air shift, and Allan almost seemed to teleport to the Galgax. The punch Allan had thrown stopped in the air, a hairsbreadth away from the downed Galgax's head.

"Why?" Allan asked, rage and anger filling his voice. "I don't know what he said, but he was going to kill you. For that, he dies."

"Killing him will do no good," Aly said, explaining that if he did not return, the rest of the crew of his ship would come looking. The Galgax looked up at the Quillinar, still holding the flower as the strange fleshy creature stood over him; the two were arguing. He knew it was his chance; none were stronger in close-quarters combat; he needed to act now. He grabbed the flesh creature's extended appendage and rolled in a movement drilled into all security officers' cadets; it was designed to break any hold and the offending limb.

Allan was surprised when the alien at his feet reached up, grabbed his wrist, and then started to roll like an alligator. Had he never experienced anything like it before, he would have been screwed, but he had been trained by a bastard who was the best and rolled with the strange-spined alien. When the alien stopped, Allan completed his roll and slammed an arm across the alien's throat next to him. Keeping his pressure on the thing's throat, he climbed on top of it, pining it to the ground.

"Aly." Allan said calmly, a deadly tone in his voice, "Tell the wannabe crocodile here that the next move he makes will be his last unless it is to surrender."

"Lord Galgax, please stand by one moment as I upload a codex to your translator; Allan wishes to speak with you; if it is not complete, I apologize as I am not a language specialist," Aly said to the Galgax and then explained what she was doing to Allan who nodded.

When the creature under him next spoke, a speaker on his helmet still clutched in his other hand relayed what was said in English, "What are you?" The creature demanded.

"Now, see, that's not nice," Allan said, standing and dragging the Galgix to his feet. "Just to be clear, you make a single move I don't like, and I will shoot you," Allan said, stepping back next to Aly, who slid under his arm, taking comfort in the fact that she felt as if the whole galaxy could not make it to her there. Allan finished this by reaching into his waistband and pulling free a black metal device that gave off no electric charge or control signals according to the Galgax's retinal display.

The Galgax crossed its arms and rattled its scales in its racial sign of surrender, deciding that since he hadn't even noticed the strange creature, it would be wise to heed its warnings regarding its weapons. The Quillinar whispered what the shaking was to the fleshy creature.

"Good," Allan said, smiling but never taking the barrel of the Glock off the creature. "Now let's start again; hi, my name is Allan; what's yours?" He asked in only a slightly condescending tone.

"I am Hilx'Nit Gartinbrox, commander of the Bastion of Law and the soldiers it holds," Hilx'Nit said, his scales rattling. He was upset; no creature had bested him as well as this Allan had, and he had a nagging feeling that Allan had been holding back considerably on account of the Quillinar's request.

"Hi, Hilx'Nit," Allan said, genuinely trying to recreate the strange cacophony of base notes that made the creature's name." This is Aly." He gestured to Aly with his head.

“Alyniqual Jushintorg.” Aly said, her mind was racing; never had she heard of a creature getting a Galgax to reveal its name.

"So here is the thing, Hilx'Nit, we have stuff to do. And frankly, as Aly has said, you aren't likely to just let us go." Allan took a breath and felt Aly pull on his shirt, he looked down at her, and she whispered only one word, "Honor." and then looked pointedly at Hilx'Nit. "But she has told me that your people and mine share similar ideas about honor and conviction. So here are your choices, we let you go, and you lie, recapturing us, killing me, killing Aly, and then going after my homeworld. Two, we consider that little scuffle that we just had a duel, and you recognize that I have given you your life, and you know you owe me that life, and in payment, you agree that you and your subordinates will never get in our way. Or three, we keep fighting, I kill you, then I delve into the task of eliminating every life on that ship of yours, and I take it back to my homeworld Earth, that class VII Deathworld, and tell them everything I can about flying it."

Allan let him think for a moment and then spoke again. "Hilx'Nit, I have no desire to keep fighting you or kill your crew, but Aly is my clan now; she is all I have that I care about out here in space. So when you threatened her, you threatened me; I can promise you that if you accept my second offer, I will not be rampaging across the galaxy; my only goal is to help Aly. You can even take me onboard your ship and check me for diseases." Allan felt Aly tense under his arm at this, but he slid his arm down to gently rub the scales where her spine met her hips, and she almost melted. Allan grinned, filing that away for future use.

"I assume that Aly, as you call her, would come with you to my ship," Hilx'Nit said, the robotic translation still somehow managing to sound as if it were deep in thought. Allan nodded. "I also assume that if my crew were to attack you, you would have little trouble getting through them and to me to kill me." Allan smiled viciously and nodded again. "Very well, Allan, I accept that I lost this duel; I nor my subordinates will ever impede you again, I will have to file a report, so I can't guarantee that others won't search you out, but I will do what I can to uphold the terms of our duel. All of this depends on you and this one not being carriers of any terrible disease from your homeworld."

Allan walked up to Hilx'Nit, extending an arm, and Aly quickly explained what was happening to him. Hilx'Nit extended his hand and grasped Allan's, trying to display his strength as Aly had said was common in Allan's world, only for his hand to be crushed with greater force. "Cool beans," Allan said, "Let's get this over with so that we can all go our own ways."

The next several hours were a blur as doctors and machines whirred around Allan and Aly. One even checked over Hilx'Nit, informing him that he had fractured much of his primary skeletal system, especially where Allan had struck him. By the end, every doctor on board was begging Hilx'Nit to keep the human, as he had learned Allan called himself, onboard since he not only carried no diseases, but it seemed that his blood held the key to several ailments that were rampant in the core worlds.

"Is it just my blood?" Allan asked, and Hilx'Nit jumped; this man could move so preternaturally quiet that with even one other around him, the air vibrations barely noticed him. After coming onboard, Allan had snagged Hilx'Nit's helmet and was using it to translate for himself.

"Oh yes," The first excited doctor said; Allan had a hard time thinking of the reptilian creatures that served under Hilx'Nit as anything other than velociraptors, as that is what they looked like. "A vast majority of races have only monocellular blood systems; the Quillinar have two separate blood systems, two hearts, one that each pumps a single cellular mixture. Yours is the first race we have heard of that carries both cellular mixtures in a single system."

"Are you talking about red and white blood cells?" Allan asked, confused; the two doctors stuck their heads together and spoke in their native language, only increasing how much Allan thought they were dinosaurs.

"No, the cells that we are speaking of are technically not cells; rather, they are pieces of matter that operate on an almost subatomic level to influence how a body heals. If what you say of coming from a deathworld is true and of your race's science level, it would not be surprising that you carry both and are unaware of their existence yet." The second doctor said.

"How much would you need to analyze and see if it is possible to synthesize a cure?" Allan asked, an idea forming in his head. "Ohh, about this much." The first doctor said, placing a container roughly the size of a soda can on the table.

"Okay, I can do that easy; that's less than when we donate blood back home," Allan said, and there was a flurry of activity as the doctors led him to a bed bay where a robot was. The next few minutes were spent by Allan explaining how they should have the robot draw his blood; after some quick drawings and animated conversation, the doctors nodded, and when they finished adjusting, the robot hit a button. The robot quickly and carefully withdrew the desired amount of blood from a vein in Allan's arm.

When they were finished, Hilx'Nit stepped up, "Doctors, will that be all? Can we let them go?"

The doctors nodded, waving dismissively as they spoke animatedly about how to best test the blood. Hilx'Nit escorted them back to the Solstice, and when they stepped through the final door of the airlocks, Hilx'Nit handed a stone that felt like sandstone to Allan, "You must now claim the right of a victor." Hilx'Nit said, stripping his cloak off, revealing the master artwork that was his back full of scales.

Aly looked like she was going to die of fright. She quickly explained that when a Galgax acquired a mate, they would begin carving the history of their life into the scales on their backs, each scale a monument, the first usually being the day that the mated pair met. When either was defeated in a duel, it was as if their past lives were destroyed; the victor would scrub the scales from the back of the loser, erasing their history in shame.

Allan shook his head and tossed the stone back to Hilx'Nit. "Keep your history; as long as you hold up the deal we have, I consider your debt to be paid; I don't want to shame you; I just don't want you to try and interfere with what we have to do."

Tears of joy spread down Hilx'Nit's face; he would still be able to return to his family and not have to end his own life." Thank you, Allan. I will honor it, and my children and grandchildren will know your name and the endless honor that you hold. None of the Gartinbrox family will ever harm you." Hilx'Nit reached under his arm, pulling free an uncarved scale; he held it delicately and pulled out a small tool and rapidly carved a beautiful symbol into the scale, and then he sliced his finger open and dripped an emerald green blood into the symbol; it seemed to dry and harden staying the same color, instantly. Hilx'Nit handed the scale to Aly, repeating the process and handing one to Allan.

"If you ever require help, no matter what, present either of these to any Galgix, and they will either inform me and my family or fulfill your request. You have spared me the horrors of never seeing my family, children, or friends again." A thought occurred to Hilx'Nit as he spoke, and he spoke into his helmet, and moments later, a squad of ten velociraptors entered and spread throughout the ship.

"Whoa, whoa, what's this all about?" Allan asked, looking apprehensively at Aly to make sure that none strayed too close.

"I have instructed my mechanics to ensure the ship's safety and to update your ship's Gally and medical bay with what the doctors and our superior medical AIs learned and postulated regarding your biology; it will take an hour. Please accept this gift. At the very minimum, it will ensure that you can get proper medical treatment and that the two of you can eat something other than bland nutrient paste." Hilx'Nit said, assuring Allan that there was no danger.

An hour later, they all left the ship, and Aly and Allan, standing in the large dome, watched the Bastion of Law use the Jumpgate; one moment, it was there, and the next, it seemed to vanish. "Well, that was one hell of a day," Allan said, looking at the Jumpgate; it would take an hour to recharge enough for a ship of their size.

Allan was surprised then by the feeling of Aly reaching around from behind him to undo his pants. "We have an hour, and I intend to finish what I started before we were so rudely interrupted." She said, still standing behind him, her breasts pressed into his back, her hands reaching around him to stroke his hardening manhood; her other ran up and down his chest, her claws eliciting groans of pleasure from him.

She moved and pushed him down to the floor on his back and slid herself onto him, "We have one hour before we get busy doing things that probably won't make us many friends." She said as she bounced on top of him; already she was gasping out words as the pleasure built itself into a great wall inside her. "Until that Jumpgate is ready, I expect you to fuck me senseless."

Allan lifted her, placing her next to him on her hands and knees, and knelt behind her, grabbing her hips and sliding into her gloriously tight sex. "Yes, ma'am," He said, beginning to thrust hard and fast.