She didn't much care for the folks who'd only ever read her name on a Wanted poster. They always got it wrong anyway. "Coa-lastaid?" Wrong. "Cula-stead?" Wrong again. "Seel-est-ahd," she would correct them. And then she would usually either brain them with one of her drumsticks, or zap them with a tazer she kept on hand at all times. Or both, after all she had four hands and could easily wield another two weapons in them.
Coel (that's pronounced 'seel' remember... sigh) wasn't hot on killing people, of course. But there were so many idiots that could recognize her on big Fed worlds that she had to slink around in seedier places, to avoid those 'upstanding' citizens. And obviously that meant she had to watch out for the seedier of those but for different reasons entirely.
It was true that she turned tricks for some money, but who didn't these days? Without the other kinds of entertainment - like say, music and dancing... - that left people with a lot of spare energy. What better way than to dodge diseases and snoop through people's wallets when they were crashed out after a hard night? They did enjoy her many-hands-on approach to sex, and she was not afraid to go for whatever with whatever... She could always blame it on the latest pills or concoctions that her brother made for them to try out.
Galactirock was her family, but truth be told she did miss her home world a bit. It seemed at once more quiet and more full of life than most of these heavily populated civic centers they dove into. Quiet was obvious - there were far fewer people per square klik than any big Fed city. But full of life... she looked around and saw nothing but filth, disease, and sorrow. Sure, sure, there were places around every world which were beautiful and clean, with space to move and no one jumping out at you trying to sell you something, or buy you, or take things from you. But those places were most often reserved for the ultra-rich, the high-class, the Federation folk who had bowed and scraped to the right people at the right time.
Coelestaad wanted to do something more than just spread the music around. Her heart ached to see these people with smiles on their faces. Clean them up - some of them were beautiful if only they didn't have to live this way.
Since the Galactirock as a starship crew made its money by doing courier work, smuggling, trade and very rarely transporting people, Coelestaad's own income was pretty much disposable. While her brother was off stealing medical chemicals and mixing supplies, and Sideshow was picking fights with creatures his own size (how nice of him, because they're the only ones who could withstand it), Coelestaad took this week-long trip to a Fed world as a bit of a vacation. But more, to scope out what kind of infiltration could be done to stir things up a little.
She knew that the one guy who had bought her services the night before recognized her from a poster or two, and she made sure to knock him out cold with that sweat-activated contact chem Arick gave her. One drop or so at the back of the neck after a good hard workout, and he was unconscious for hours. Coel carefully looked through his clothing for identification - found out he was a low-ranking but well established official in the city. Found out he had a wife and two kids, who probably wouldn't like knowing that daddy was seeing hookers on the side. Found out also... that he was blackmailing someone else in his department - the photos he'd lazily stashed in his overcoat's hidden lining pocket were all good stuff. Things that any good Fed official would be horrified to see go public.
Things that she herself could stand to make a big profit with, while making a mockery of this little man sound asleep on the bare mattress next to her.
It only took a few minutes to locate the name and further information on this poor sap in the pictures. The things he did with hookers was the stuff of legend, surely the rest of his department had to know already! But apparently they kept their secrets tight, these men.
Coelestaad was about to send him a message, informing him that not only had he been seen and photographed, but he was about to be blackmailed by a familiar face... and then she grinned widely and pressed a different set of coordinates for her call. The female on the other end of the voice-only chat sounded worried, a bit angry, tired.
"I know this won't come as either much of a surprise, or anything like good news Mrs Pesk," Coelestaad deepened her voice for this charade, "but your husband is currently asleep on the bed of a brothel..." Coelestaad waited for a response, which was the woman letting out a strange groan. "However... I want you to make the most of this situation."
"How ... is that?" Mrs Pesk almost audibly shook her head to clear it. "What do you mean?"
"I have information that your husband was carrying, about a coworker of his. It's rather... hot information. The kind that someone could easily pamper themselves for the rest of their life if used correctly. Send the kids to college or offworld... Buy a nice cottage in the hills..."
"Wh... why are you telling me this? Who is this?"
"Who I am is hardly important," Coelestaad repeated a line from a movie she'd watched, "but the point is I can help you dig yourself out of a bad relationship, and set yourself up tidily by ... doing what your husband was about to do to his own coworker."
There was a good long pause on the other end. Finally, "that bastard ... he was going to 'check out that island property'...." Mrs Pesk sighed and obviously stretched her neck and shoulders, rearranging herself to probably stand up straighter, even though her caller wasn't able to see. "But he also left messages to some floozy in the District Management department... I know he was having an affair, I didn't realize he was also seeing prostitutes."
"Well, then, Aidela," Coelestaad used her first name, pretty certain that she wouldn't be keeping her soon-to-be-ex's last name, "perhaps you should make sure that you get to it first. I will deliver the information you need. I suggest changing the locks on your home and maybe starting whatever legal processes you need to deal with your husband in the meantime."
With that, Coelestaad delivered a second dose of the chemical onto the slumbering man's back, assuring that he would sleep for at least another eight hours. By the time he woke, he likely wouldn't even remember which of the many hookers he'd been propositioning downstairs he wound up with - many were blue, several had multiple limbs. Coelestaad wasn't stupid, after all, she didn't want to stick out in a crowd if she was actually stealing people's money at a whorehouse.
***
"So how was your stay?" Ija grinned, already knowing the answer, but probably Morrel didn't, and Brantian hadn't gone anywhere since his little accident that broke his leg last time.
"I helped adjust the economy for a family in need," Coelestaad laughed. "Hey, bro?" Arick looked up faintly from his monitor spot, "make more of that knockout juice, it works really well."
***
The whole crew had to behave themselves, mostly, whenever they were on a world expecting to find a dragon. Or, more accurately, for a dragon to find one of them. In this case, the world was circling the star Saavis 10, a place called Aanu'sil to the natives. It was lovely, primitive, but not a backwater world to say the least. It exported dragons, some more or less considered people. The culture there, though, it wasn't subject to the Vocorr or the Fed as the Galactirock knew it. Maybe they'd wobbled through a dimension or two, some of the terms were the same, but the place wasn't under the laws that forbade music or supported the uptight attitudes of those in power hundreds of light-years away.
It was there that Coelestaad met up with a particular creature that they'd vaguely encountered its breed before: an Asana. "Zeets has an Asana-blood," Coelestaad muttered to herself. "Magic, and ... and music..." The others in the nest were pretty active, this one chocolate-colored dragon flopped itself over to Coel.
And then let off a perfectly pitched howl that shattered two wine glasses three rooms away.
"Looks like you're the one!" Coelestaad laughed.
She learned the dragon's name, Reno, and hoped that the magic inherent to her kind would blossom on their ship.
Name: Reno
Gender: Female (pending)
Species: Asana
Genetic Code: Coc*m!mDD - C~C'm*MdD - C'CMMDd
Magic: Sound
Bond: Coelestaad