Helen moves behind me, dropping my tail to use her hands. A moment later, she grabs it again, and then I feel something wet and warm close around the tip. She’s put it in her mouth. My cock immediately jolts to attention as hot sensation prickles up the length of my tail and up my spine. Focus, Mathiras, I remind myself. She’s just doing as you told her.
We crawl through the shaft, and she doesn’t let go of my tail even as I turn left, and then right again. I want to tell her how proud I am of her, but there’s a tickle in my sac every time she moves her tongue against my tail tip, and maybe it’s better to say nothing right now. The package chute tilts downward at a forty-five degree angle as we near the control room, and I pause, bracing an arm so I don’t slide downward. “Hang on,” I tell Helen. “Brace yourself for this next part.”
She spits out my tail. “Bracing.”
I hear her adjusting herself, pressing a hand against the metal. That’s all I hear, other than our breathing. Have they not figured out how to bypass my program, yet? That’s a lucky break. Someone’s sending cheap mercs out instead of the highly skilled ones.
That…is almost disappointing. It means whatever Zebah knows, it’s not that dangerous.
CHAPTER 47
MATHIRAS
I slide down the tilted end of the chute until my feet hit a grate. A moment later, Helen’s feet press against my back, her slight form pushing against mine. “Let me squeeze this open and let’s see what we’ve got,” I whisper to her. “Stay still if you can.”
Using my fingertips to guide me in the darkness, I find the edges of the grate and squeeze it open a fraction. This particular chute is designed to spit out packing materials onto a conveyor belt below me, so I don’t want to open it all the way and risk falling flat on my ass in front of Zebah and whoever she’s working with. I crack it open just enough to see out and have to squint at the light that floods into my eyes. Keffing bright.
When I can see clearly, I scan the room below. It’s the control room all right, looking as defunct and dusty as the rest of this place. As I watch, an overfed rat scurries across a panel of switches, set in a semi-circle around one large chair in the center. It’s got several monitors around it—all dark—and I imagine that back when this place was functional, the overseer sat here and watched his employees work. Now, the occupant is one Zebah ak’Ven, a spoiled, pouty-looking female mesakkah with long legs, longer hair, and a bad attitude. She slouches in the chair, studying her nails, a bored expression on her face. Behind her are two moden, which surprises me. They’re a heavy-built, aquatic race from a low-gravity world that tend to be unpleasant and don’t play well with mesakkah. Why she’d have them guarding her is beyond me. I’ve worked with Zebah once or twice in the past, and I know she trades on her looks and on flirting to get what she wants. Moden don’t play into that. Most of them are dull-witted. Huge and bulky, fast in water, but not extremely clever. They’re gray-skinned and muscular, their smooth faces appallingly blob-like. These two are wearing uniforms of the processing station, but judging from the tight, bulging fit, they’re borrowed.
“You said he was coming,” one says to Zebah, glowering.
At my side, I feel Helen wriggling. She shoves her way in next to me, her breasts squeezed against my shoulder as she peers through the crack with me. I put a finger to my lips, holding the grate a smidge wider so she can see out from her angle as well.
“Look, he landed,” Zebah says, picking at an imaginary bit of lint on her skin-tight bodysuit. “I’m sure he’ll be here soon. I’ve done my part, all right?”
One of the moden moves toward her. He pulls a blaster and aims it at the back of her head, between her horns, and Zebah goes still. “Call their ship again.”
“He’ll suspect something,” Zebah says, staring straight ahead. “I don’t know him well enough to be on a chatty basis. I told you. I’ve barely met him in the past. Maybe he thinks this is a trap. It’s not exactly subtle.”
“If he doesn’t come here, you’re dead.” He cocks the blaster, and I watch as Zebah swallows hard, nodding.
For a moment, she looks young. Like a stripling playing at an adult. “He’ll be here,” Zebah says. “He wants information, right? He can’t get it just sitting on his ship with his thumb up his arse. He’ll come on board soon.”
Does she not know I’ve already boarded? Or is she misdirecting them? I let out a small grunt and whisper to Helen, “Well, this explains a lot.”