For the Fun of It

PDF for download

It had been a week. That is; seven days, twenty four hours each. Sol-Three-Standard. The Highwayman had taken just two days to make it to Imperial space, and my Old Friend Wald only required another five hours to find the help our rag-tag-team had needed. Leaving Shay and I far behind, riding in my newly acquired Assault-Ship, being kept abreast of the situation via transmitted tidbits. I had about learned to love her, but Core-Dynamics had decided that One-Hundred and Sixty-Eight hours and counting was an acceptable travel time for a few hundred light years. Shay had instantly become at home within the five rooms available to us. Four rooms, if you stopped lying about it and called it a hallway. I had found it increasingly difficult to cope with a companion onboard. I'd never dealt with a corporeal co-pilot before, let alone a Trans-Human with a penchant for pants-lessness. Her womanly nature was just adding to my stress. Fortunately for me, her inability at the controls of a spacecraft left me with every excuse to plant myself, alone in the pilot's chair for whatever endless stretches I required. It didn't hurt that pre-packaged coffee was as readily available as Hydrogen Fuel.

Some of our travel time was in fact not due to the 'Shifters inefficiency, but due to the shocking lack of amenities onboard. We had no Chef, and basic bunks. There was a shower, but it was a military grade sonic resonator booth, and running it gave Shay migraines. So we were making regular stops along the way. Having never been concerned with the well-being of a passenger before, I found I was taking much better care of myself than usual.

We had pulled over to yet another backwater outpost looking for something quick to eat. The microgravity there made it easy to drag myself around with my not-yet fully-healed fracture. I had noticed that Shay was being regarded with less open-disdain the further out of Federal territory we went. Here on the ragged no-man's land bordering the three major powers of the Human Bubble; people seemed to understand the correlation between the unusual and the dangerous, so we were just being quietly-avoided here.

“We should make effort to find place with gravity, next time.” Shay announced as we searched the corridors for a restaurant, the unusual rolled R's of her speech accented her physical oddity perfectly.

“A Gee while you eat, keep ya guts neat?” I quoted a child-rearing idiom from my homeworld. Shay smiled and gave a small shake of her head.

“The pouches used in low gravity make smelling the foods on offer rather difficult.” Shay explained. “And therefore, selecting our eatery is made many times more difficult, also.” She sniffed the air then shook her head dismissively.

“You into Imperial Cuisine?” I asked as I pointed at an animated holo-billboard alternating languages, some of them recognizable to me.

“I am not familiar with this foodstuff.” Shay said derisively.

“Mostly noodles, cheese. They're fond o' vegetable sauce and sausages too.” A small sliver of a silver lining to my memories returned to me.

“Sausages, I am familiar with!” Shay declared excitedly, already pushing herself towards the eatery.

I was pleased to find that the Imperial doctrine of culinary craftsmanship was in no way hampered by the Lo-G polymer packages they were serving in. Shay seemed pleased when she was nervously asked what her order was, rather than outright ignored by the staff. I commented passingly through a mouthful that it had been too long since I'd last eaten 'Fettuccine', though I almost certainly mispronounced the name. Shay had ordered what I'd ordered, only triple servings. I put her at ease when I'd explained the sausages were broken up into the sauce, alongside the cheese.

“When did you last eat this?” Shay asked, dabbing her lips with a napkin, before tearing open her second serving.

“Last time I came through Imperial space, I grabbed some.” I hoped that would serve as explanation enough.

“How long ago were you last in Empire territory?” Her curiosity was less easily sated than I'd hoped.

“Years.” I was betting on my finality severing further attempts at questions.

“Were you shipping, using your previous wessel at this time?” Her polite, amicable tone ran in stark contrast with the answers she was working towards.

“Nah, This was before The Flottvogn's time.” I answered the easier part of her question, remembering my missing better-half.

“What did you fly?” She sipped her drink as she asked the implied harder part.

“A Vulture.” I'd started to blush a little. Shay raised an eyebrow and stuck down her beverage.

“This is not an effective cargo transport.” She half-joked. “Would this wessel even be capable of the jump distances for such use?”

“She didn't need jump range, before 'shifter tech was really out. We docked them to the Farragut’s.” My answer was delivered mechanically.

My delicious noodles were going cold in the pouch in my hands. Shay tilted her head at me, and flicked her ears a little. On I rambled.

“The idea is to drop the Farragut from Hyperspace directly into the hot-zone, scramble the Condors and raise havok. Then deploy the Corvettes and the heavy fighter wings, mop up what's left. Never goes according to plan though.” I let out a nervous laugh. “We ended up stationed next to a starport for like three weeks, waiting for a declaration of war.” I put some cold food into my mouth, and swallowed it. “We never got that letter, just decided one day to go red-alert. Fuck, I was on the 'port when the order came through! I ran to the cockpit, I thought we were under attack, well they was, I thought I needed to scramble t-to-to defend it, I mean. Shit, when I strapped into the chair and I looked at the Gottdamn comms panel...” I blinked a few tears from my eyes and looked at Shay, I'm not sure if she could go pale, but her expression made the same point.

She slowly showed me her open-palms in a calming gesture. She carefully reached for her food and took another bite, I did the same. She'd stopped me from talking, before I started babbling about how I followed those fucking orders. I think she figured it out though, she had a practiced tact with how she was dealing with me. We finished our meals in pensive silence.

After we finished eating, Shay had made the suggestion that we find proper accommodation for our subjective night, I had been convinced to agree. The hotel room was nicer than I'd have ever bothered to buy into, but Shay was paying and refusing to accept discourse on the matter. The lady at the front desk had taken a little bit of convincing to accept the Massive Mercenary's credits though. Once inside the room Shay had made the observation that the beds were small but would have to do. I was used to sleeping strapped to a chair, so to me the bunks were cavernous and comfy. For the first time in a while I had a dream other than ploughing The Flottvogn and myself into Altair's photosphere. The nightmare I had was a much older one, dredged back to the surface.

Vici, My Vulture bucked and weaved through the Furball, in as many seconds five foes were felled. Vici's movements were fluid, my hands barely caressing the controls to make her dance to my whims. Before us, a Viper was cut in half by our beam laser, his wingmate felled by a blast from our cannon. The spectral voice from my co-pilot's chair told me they were bearing the big guns. Like a fool, I thanked him.

With a swiftness that shot blood into my eyes, Vici rolled around to face our opposition. The Coriolis starport in the near distance flashed it's weaponry, the mailslot bared its serrated fangs. We dodged the first stream of laserfire. The beams coiled and tightened, noose-like around us. A second and third set of iridescent claws reached out, grasping. We broke free with a deftly timed thruster boost. The maw of the starport clenched shut, we blasted the teeth from it's jaws as we flew through.

All I could hear was the rhythmic pulsing of the monster's heart, drowning out the thrum of Vici's engines. Pseudopods whipped at us from the walls of it's mouth, but were repelled by our shields. We flew a few loops, blasting indiscriminately at the beast from inside. One of our shots tore a hole in the soft flesh of the creature's gullet, we looped again and fired into the gap. The rend widened revealing wet, red innards. I flew us through the wound into the ichor. Vici made a new, but familiar, gooey metallic clang on impact.

I woke with a start, I could feel the slimy caress of the monsters hot guts wrapping tightly around my body. I fought for a moment, grasping at a flightstick that was not there. I kicked, and the laser-hot blast of pain from my ankle brought me back to reality. I stopped fighting the bedding that had me coddled, and tried to calm myself. The shooting pain from my leg needed to be dealt with, I'd re-split the fracture.

I unstrapped myself from the bunk and slid myself over to the cupboard where my flightsuit was. I ground my molars down stuffing my broken leg into the suit, it took ten minutes. The damn leg had about healed, or so I'd thought. The suit made a vague attempt to tighten around my ankle, but failed. I guess I had to get a professional to look at it. Defeated I zipped up the collar of the suit and made my way towards the door. When it opened Shay spoke up, I'd either woken her up with the light from the hallway or sometime earlier.

“Where do you go, at this hour?” Her voice slightly groggy, a little coarse.

“Just gonna go get a look in on my leg, it's still buggin' me.” My voice showed more of the pain than I'd intended.

“Oh. Good good, it sounds very painful. We will meet in concourse in morning.” She yawned. “There is nice looking bar across pathway from noodle and sausage place. You can tell me who Vicky is.” Her groggily trailing off was punctuated strangely by the sound of her de-cocking her revolver as she returned to sleep.

The medbay looked like the Alliance had built it, though long ago. The unusual aesthetic of having been state of the art in an age past. It was mercifully close to the hotel, even without gravity each movement was agony. The secretary had her hair in a tight bun, she looked upset to see me, but I don't think that was personal.

“What's the problem, Commander?” She asked me in a nasal voice.

“Leg's Broke.” I grunted. It had taken a week, but it was finally starting to be a problem that my ankle was fractured. Had I kept my flightsuit on for a week? No... just slept in it lots.

“What happened?” She asked with an old P.A.D. at the ready.

“Landing went shitty. Ugh, in the impact.” I wanted to get this part over with quickly.

“How recently?” Her finger swiped at the screen.

“A week.” I grunted.

“How long have you been out of cryo?” Her tone was routine.

“Never went in.” Her finger stopped in the air, she hesitated for a moment, then turned to me.

“You've had it broken for a week?” She made a tutting sound through her teeth. “I know it doesn't hurt much in Zero-Gee, but that's very bad for the bone, Commander.” She scolded.

“I wasn't in Zero-Gee for all of it. If I hadn't had a fucking nightmare, it woulda stayed set and I wouldn't had to bother you tonight, Miss.” She gasped a little.

“Just... Wait here Commander, I'll call the surgeon.” Damn, there was no point in arguing, but I'd hoped not to have to get opened up again.

They only took a second to get my leg back out of the flightsuit, I screamed. They gave me an anesthetic but I didn't go all the way out. It didn't really hurt when they cut into the leg, but I felt it.

“Look at this fucker's ankle, stupid auto-splints and stupid people. You think he walked around on it much?” The surgeon joked, his staff laughed. “Ugh, this is ugly; the compound fracture healed out of place here, and here.”

A metal implement was jammed into my leg twice.

“Now there's a new fissure here.” He illustrated by dragging the scalpel point back and forth along the crack a couple of times.

“What's the plan?” A nurse asked as he played an imaginary drum kit with his fingers.

“Snap it. Scrape it. Pin it.” The surgeon fired up a tool that made an unsettling sound.

It didn't take all that long to break apart and rebuild my ankle, felt like it took longer to staple my leg shut, I guess they figured I would be able to see that part. I lay on the table, held down with some clear tape, as the surgical staff milled around the theatre dealing with their post-op chores and letting the medications kick in. A voice echoed through the walls, they were saying something with the Intra-Outpost speakers. Did they say 'Concourse'?

“Disturbance in the Concourse. Security personnel to the Concourse.” The tannoy in the medical bay repeated the message. Then I heard it, again muffled beyond the opposite wall.

I sat up tearing the tape holding me down, the nurse let out a tiny shriek and let go of a platter of tools. It spun lazily before him as he stared at me, the implements on it clinging magnetically.

“Where's ma flightsuit?” I asked him. He just opened and closed his mouth a couple of times. I turned to the anesthesiologist and repeated my question.

“How the hell are you conscious?” He asked me instead of answering.

“Yer shot did shit. Where's ma clothes? My friend's in trouble.” It would turn out that this was a drug-addled, but lucky guess. The surgeon threw my flightsuit to me, and it slipped on surprisingly easily.

The concourse was just adjacent to the alley the medbay was on. I scanned around looking for the Noodle-Place. Spotting it, I looked opposite it for the bar Shay had mentioned. There was a cluster of station security holding position just outside a graffiti-emblazoned door tucked between two low-rent storefronts. 'Nice-looking' indeed.

I pulled myself past the security team without much fuss, they looked pretty reluctant to go inside themselves. I slipped down an inclined hallway into the bar proper. There was a Commander rotating end over end, bent almost in half with their toes nearly touching the back of their head. They had a spatter of red, marking the neckline and trunk of their stark-white flightsuit. Their visor was shattered, twinkling shards catching the dim light. Their limp shoulders bore a white and blue jacket designed to match a Gutamaya craft presumably docked nearby.

A Heavy-set woman with a broken mechanical arm and intact mechanical leg was sitting-out the remainder of the fight, floating near the entrance I occupied. I think she was the Bouncer. Two other Commanders in white flightsuits were dancing around Shay, their magnetized footsteps ringing staccato across the nearly emptied pub. Shay was facing them, but suspended in her stance, motionless beside the bar.

“Stultus Canina! He was only joking!” One of the pair shouted angrily. Shay made no reply.

“I guess we should introduce her to Iustitia Imperatoris then?” Said the other as he pulled a hooked knife from the back of his belt.

“Excuse me.” The Bouncer said to me in a sing-song tone as she slipped past me, and out of the bar.

The Imperial Commander lunged with his knife, Shay twisted away and placed her foot onto the edge of the bar-top. She grasped his wrist from inside his swing, then she kicked and used her weight to stagger him. His boots hadn't the strength for them both and he instantly came loose from the floor. The pair immediately began to rotate on their center of mass, Shay's upper torso. After tucking her legs in to increase rotational velocity, Shay let go of the Imperial and let him tumble away into the ceiling. His knife was now dwarfed by the Massive Mercenary's hand. She caught herself, with her toes against the floor, and turned to face the remaining ivory-suited Commander.

“Stercore! You aren't trained anyway. Your owner overpaid!” He drew a compact magnetic-accelerator pistol and aimed it at Shay. She spun her new knife between her fingers and emitted a low rumbling noise from her throat.

“You lack the salt to use your weapon.” She told him. Her off hand flexed dangerously close to her holster as she continued to flourish the knife.

“Monstrum turpem!” He shot the insult and thumbed the safety, his weapon hadn't finished charging it's capacitors before the klaxons sounded.

Powerful electromagnets in the floor activated; snatching the handgun, and the knife out of their hands and sticking them to the floor. The Imperial flailing near the ceiling came down with a horrid crunch, as did his comatose compatriot. The more recently disarmed commander fought to stand but was brought to the ground by the magnetic pressure. I was dragged down into a folded position; lighting bolts of pain shooting through my back, but oddly not my ankle. Shay's legs tensed as the floor pulled her to it, but she remained standing. Shay wasn't wearing a flightsuit, so the magnets had less to pull on, but I think she might have been able to stand anyway.

Seventeen people streamed into the room, two full squads of eight and the Cee-Oh They wore black fatigues, translation rigs, armoured helmets with mirrored visors. We were lucky though, they all had gold stripes on their shoulders, only the Shadow-Ops units wore red.

“By order of the Federal Navy, you are under arrest.” The Cee-Oh announced.

His squads punctuated his declaration by brandishing their plasma rifles. Shay slowly turned her head towards this new threat.

“Culus Foederati! What do you think you're doing here?!” The remaining Imperial Commander shouted from the ground. “She's ours!” He added

“Yes, I can see how you have It. Two down, one disabled. You Imperials sure know how to make a catch.” He adjusted his uniform. “Now, you can thank me for fishing you out of this fire later.”

The naval officer glanced at the immobile Imperial with the shattered visor.

“Well, some of you can thank me later.” He gestured at Shay. “You should come with us, we can take you home.”

The hair on the back of her neck stood up, and she suddenly turned on her heel to face him squarely. Shay barked at him. The eighteen marines all flinched at the sharp sound she made. My ears rang.

“Oh come now, you have to be getting tired of this?” His feigned concern would be the pride of the naval academy.

Shay took a threatening, shuffled step towards the firing line.

“So be it” The Federal officer produced his sidearm and leveled it at Shay.

The pair of squads had barely aimed their weapons when Shay snatched hers from it's holster and held it muzzle down at a half arm's length to her side, she cocked the hammer. Her hand moved like a ship 'Shifting.

“What are you do-oh” His eyes bulged. “Oh no! Hold-Fire! Hold your fire!” The Naval officers tone shattered to panic.

He safetied his plasma pistol and held it muzzle up in front of him while showing his off-hand's open palm, a bead of sweat formed on his brow and clung there.

“S-Sir?” one of his squad questioned him.

“That bitch has a Double-yew and Ess Ay-Ay-Arr You idiot. That cannon can punch a hole through to the void from here. Hold Your Fire!” His fearful recognition made Shay smile.

“Back.” Shay commanded.

The troupe of marines followed her order immediately. All except the officer. He held his place bravely, or foolishly, it's hard to tell.

“Calm down! We can talk about this!” The Cee-Oh tried.

Shay charged him, in an instant she had crossed the room. The electromagnets in the floor half-way ripped the soles of her boots off, but failed to hold her back. She wrapped her hand around the federal officer's throat, her fingers meeting at the back of his skull, and pulled his face into a dangerous proximity to her muzzle. The retreating squads shuffled, but made no attempt to stop her. Shay kept the barrel of her pistol aimed squarely at the ground, the room was bordered on it's other faces with more Outpost. The Cee-Oh held onto his sidearm but kept the muzzle pointed away from Shay, for safety.

“But, talk is for people; there are only monsters here.” Shay quietly informed the trembling Navy-man before tossing him aside like an abused plaything.

The plasma pistol was left spinning in the air beside her. She swatted it away and stepped towards the exit, the gaggle of uselessly armed men parted for her. She paused when she found me stuck to the floor near the doorway. Shay tilted her head at me in a quizzical glance.

“Commander Revenant? Have you been here whole time?” She asked me in an surprised, but amicable tone.

“Most o'it, yeah.” I croaked from my folded position on the ground.

She turned to face the sixteen marines awkwardly milling around the bar. There was a panicked moment for them, before their sapper deduced what her stern glare was requesting and he deactivated the pacification system remotely.

The pressure holding me down vanished and I was free to wince in pain as I tried to unfold my spine. Shay's stance loosened and she slipped off the floor into microgravity. We left the still conscious Imperial and the recovering Naval officer to their arguing. I suspect that the Outpost authorities would have had more to say to us if we had made any indication that we weren't leaving immediately.

The anesthesiologist was waiting on the docking pad, when we arrived.

“Glad I found you, we forgot to give you this. You sorta rushed us along after the surgery.” He laughed, and held out something. It looked like a collapsible baton, but it had a hooked handle and was much thicker. Less mass than a baton too.

“What's this fer?” I asked him as I turned it over in my hands.

“Walking. It won't be noticeable in microgravity, but your right leg is almost a centimeter shorter now.” He said as he made his way out of the docking area. “You should probably see if you can get a lift for your boot, or something.” He added from the stairwell.

Confused, I thumbed the release on the side of the device. It extended to about the distance from my hips to the bottoms of my feet, and three small padded tips unfolded from the base of it. It was a cane.

“A badge of life well-lived.” Shay told me as she climbed onto the ship.

A soldier's lament, I'd dodged them in the past. Now I was old, my dodging days we're ending. Two jumps later Shay asked me a question, as she took off her boots.

“I lost chance to ask in bar. Who is Vicky?” She handed me a pilfered pouch of spirits.

“Vicky?” I took the pouch and pierced it with the straw as I asked, I didn't follow her.

“You spoke this name while you slept, in hotel.” Shit, I guess I was still talking in my sleep then.

“Oh, Vici. She... She was... An old flame of mine, when I was a young man.” Shay's habit of probing questions was unsettling.

“Do all past girlfriends of yours have shields and thrusters?” Shay joked. The sound of her belt buckle rang out from behind me.

“I'd be lying if I didn't admit to that.” I chuckled as I replied. We shared a laugh.

I'd been getting better at speaking in a stable meter while Shay undressed. I had watched her turn a man into processed proteins, but it was her seeming obliviousness towards modesty around me that I had trouble with.

“I hope your more recent 'flames' are kinder to you than Vicky was.” Shay's tone was less serious than what she had said.

I stopped laughing. I'd never thought of Vici as having been unkind to me before. To Shay, the opposite was obvious. I wondered what I'd said in my sleep.

“One of them sure-as-shit was, the other... I guess she's alright too.” I patted the throttle a little as I said it.

Shay slipped her boots together and tied them to the pedestal of the chair with her pants. Her belt, she looped around the armrest. I pointedly looked out through the canopy, away from her, as per usual. You are supposed to keep your eyes pointed through the canopy when the vessel is in motion though. I spooled the shifter. Neither of us spoke for another three jumps, then curiosity got the better of me.

“Shay, what happened in that dive-bar?” I vyed for an unaccusatory tone.

“Nothing.” She explained matter-of-factly, then she sniffed at the air.

“If that's nothing, then I'm Prime Minister of the Alliance. What'd that Imperial say ta ya?” Had to be something bad, poor bastard would be lucky to wake back up.

“He... Offered to purchase me.” My compatriot was a mercenary and bounty-hunter by trade, her tone and choice of words informed me that she did not mean in that manner.

“Gottdamn! That ain't right!” Shay was Half-Wolf, but the rest of us could be Half-Pig when we tried.

“Such is life.” She said nonchalantly as she pierced her own pouch of spirits.

“What 'bout that Navy asshole, what'd he mean by 'Home'?” Shay looked me over for a few minutes before slowly answering,

“He meant a cage.” I looked over at the Trans-Human next to me.

“Shay?” She was blinking, a lot.

She dragged her forearm down across her face and leveled the pouch to her mouth. With one hand she gripped the armrest. With the other, she squeezed the liquor from the packet. She swallowed the spirits in-one and turned to me, some moisture still matted near her eyes.

“I think a Pilots Federation member would understand more than most; that the place you are from, is not by default your home?” I nodded. “I also assume, I need not explain to you the varied reasons to not wish to return to that place?”

We broke eye contact momentarily, I know I had to fight a tear.

“Oh Gott, Shay.” I throttled the ship down and brought us to the relative stillness of thirty kilometers a second. “What happened?” I unlocked from the pilot's seat to face her properly.

“I was made, I was used. I grew strong, I left.” She had a venom in her voice, after she spoke she paused and her eyes unfocused.

“What ya doin' now?” I formulated a question for her that a smarter man would have asked himself years ago.

“Now... I am my own woman. My past is just that: past.” She tried to convince herself, her tone suggested not-unsuccessfully. “I have my own goals, I need only occasionally deal with these... Petty annoyances.” She belittled her haunts too, though her's seemed to be physical.

“Can I do anything? Can I help?” She happened to be talking to the galaxy's foremost expert on running from the past.

“We have spoken about what you do, or do not know, that may have helped me. My journey is however, not yours. Worry not.” When we first met she'd railed me about where I'd heard of Moreaus.

She'd been quite disappointed when I told her it was from the obsolete and racist propaganda of my childhood, and that she was the first full-on Trans-Human I'd ever seen.

“You're tryin' ta find other Moreaus, aren't ya?” She gave me a slightly accusatory look before her eyes softened.

“For a time the only proof I had, was myself. I have been to more worlds than could be counted, only finding those like me had become history there.” She lamented. I looked at her slumped shoulders and flattened ears.

The enormity of her self-appointed quest washed over me. A billion worlds or more, a clock that started ticking away generations ago. Like the fool I was, I'd thought avoiding Biggs Colony was hard. I locked back into the chair and looked out the canopy into the endless night.

“I'd take you there now, if I knew where to go.” Was all I could manage.

“You can help me, to find the places not to go back to. We have already found several.” Her laugh was slightly forced, but I chuckled sympathetically anyway. “We should cease our sentimentality, there is still long journey ahead of us. You fly, I wish to listen to music.”

The Massive Mercenary patted me very gently on the shoulder, then made her way out of the cockpit.

“Gottdamnit boy! You tryin' to get in that freak's pants or sommit?” My father's ghost squawked at me from the recently emptied co-pilot's chair just as the cockpit hatch sealed.

“She ain't the freak.” I muttered.

“Ya can't even handle a skinny cougar, what gives you the idea you could bed an eight-foot fucking-tall Gottdamned half-breed?” His voice was like being stabbed.

“Shut up pops, it ain't nothin' like that” I spoke meekly.

“What is it then? Huh? What the fuck you doin' with trouble like that on your ship? This ain't even your ship!” I sat in silence, no defense from his accusations. “You gonna take this beast and get back into it, like old times?” I wasn't sure how he meant that.

“No.” Either way.

“Then you just floatin' blind in the night, like the fool you is!” I let a few tears roll down my cheeks as I spooled the next jump. Pops cackled.

Blind, maybe, but we weren't floating. I stayed up all night, subjectively, and put more distance behind us than we'd done so far that week. For all the trouble we'd had after the noodles, we always stocked up on coffee first and I'd gotten a fuel scoop installed right before we'd left to eat. The Techie had given me quite the look when he saw the Assault-Ship, I don't think he'd ever installed a category five scoop on one before. It was earning its 'A' rating when Shay made her way back into the cockpit. She was just waking up, she was only wearing one of her oversized short-sleeved shirts. The one with an advertisement for some band's pithy eight-system tour of Thirty-Two-Seventy across the front of it.

“I hope you are not too shaked-up.” She told me carefully, making a slight whistling sound with her teeth when she said 'shaked'.

Well shit, now she was treating me fragile. This was both highly uncharacteristic of what I'd seen of Shay, and terribly unwelcome by me.

“Nah, leg's fine. Pressure from the flightsuit, no weight on it. Don't worry 'bout me.” She was there when I was walking on it broken, why was she worried about my leg now?

“This is good to hear.” She hesitated. “But I did not mean your leg. I hope you are not shaked-up, from bar-fight.”

I considered correcting the tense on 'shook-up', or questioning her sudden nascent lisp, but instead tried again to assure her that I was fighting-fit.

“Ain't nothin' a magnet can do to my back's gonna be worse than what put it in the shape it's in now. Lemme tell ya what.” I forced a laugh. It hung in the air for too long.

“Also, good to hear, only... I was referring, to my actions.” She spoke with a meekness that did not suit her.

“You didn't kick my ass, why should I be shook-up over it?” This was followed by a less forced, though equally awkward laugh from me.

Shay made a sound like she was going to speak then didn't. I heard her place herself into the co-pilot's chair, followed by the sound of a cork being pulled from a glass bottle. Shay took a swig then spoke again.

“I have decided that I like you.” A bottle of dark alcoholic liquid was held out to me, I took it without looking.

There is a technique to drinking from a bottle without gravity, but if you're at the helm you can cheat with the throttle. I don't know the technique.

“You didn't before?” I held the mostly emptied container up, but hesitated as I waited for an answer.

“I was... Less sure” Shay, so it seemed, whistled her Esses when she was drunk.

“What changed? Waldo sent ya a copy of his credit balance report?” She snickered before answering.

“I have been refused passage for lesser outbursts than the one you saw in bar.” As I considered Shay's slightly slurred explanation, I took a swig of the bourbon. It reminded me of Indi, I missed Indi.

“Shay, I seen bigger 'outbursts' than that.” I took another swig and returned her bottle to her.

“Precisely.” She pointed at me with the hand she took the booze with, before finishing it with a practiced swirl of her wrist. Then she gritted her teeth, maybe from the alcohol. “No no, this is the incorrect,  I make no excuses for my outbursts. I mean... You are not frightened by me, them, me... Or, at least you are stoic about it.” She looked into the empty bottle and held it tightly with both of her hands.

“Hell, I'm a little frightened by ya, but no more than most people. You're... Just a little scary when you want to be, is all.” I was aiming for a friendly jab, but she glared at me after I'd said it. Her eyes cut through me.

“You are first person I meet to speak of this distinction.” She waved a hand as she sorted her thoughts. “Ehm... 'Scary when you want to be.'” She settled for my wording.

“You turn it on an' off real sudden-like, but... It's just fer folks who deserve it's all. We all do that, least a little bit.” She nodded at me excitedly.

“'Just for folks who deserve it' I like this phrase, and...” Her voice caught in her throat, no she hiccuped from the drink. “... I must remember this phrase.”

She handed me the cork, and left the cockpit. I turned it over in my hands and thought about setting up a new and more secure keepsakes container somewhere.

It had been five more days, deep in Empire space, it was beginning to at least feel like we were getting closer to the system Waldo had stopped in. Shay and I had encountered far less open hostility in the Imperium, but instead we had found ourselves being accosted by the wealthy and presumptuous. Their offers seemed shockingly lurid at first, but had become distressingly routine in a few short days.

“Speciminis conquisitae et wonderful!” The expensively dressed Imperial socialite exclaimed in her smokey voice.

I froze, a loaded utensil hovering next to my lips. Shay continued eating with an unaffected pace.

“Erus, would you consider the sale of your Bellae et Bellicum Focariae?” She had her thin, pale face turned to me as she spoke; but her hands were directed towards my still eating companion.

“Y'see... Uhmm...” I put the fork back down into the plate of food. “Yer uh...”

I shot a glance at Shay, torn between wanting her to speak for me and worrying what she would say. She was nearly-imperceptibly rolling her eyes, and quietly watching while she ate.

“Five million Accredos.” The socialite spoke sultry. Her aide stepped forwards and displayed the transfer, ready and waiting on an exquisitely engraved P.A.D.

I looked from the woman to Shay and then to the stupidly-shiny P.A.D, overwhelmed. Seeing my dismayed stalling, The Massive Mercenary made two tiny but fascinating gestures. Shay smirked, and she pointed upwards with her fork. Having successfully transferred some of her confidence to me, I took Shay's lead.

“Yer lowballing us-uhm Me.” I ate a mouthful to imply my lack of interest in the Imperial's offer, Shay's smirk widened.

“Five million et five hundred-thousand Accredos.” The socialite's tone had become an iota more forceful, but retained her sensual sound.

Her aide tapped the screen and adjusted the numbers. I gave her a theatrical sideways glance, then rolled my eyes at my food.

“Foederata autem sagaci; Ten million.” The Imperial's shift in tone showed her shift in posture. There was a harsh finger-on-glass tapping.

I shared a look across the table with Shay, she was having trouble keeping a straight face while eating. I was wishing Marine Equipment moved for credits like this.

“Fifteen million.” The Thin Lady's latest offer sounded like a threat, the look Shay and I had shared had been taken for a direct refusal of her last one.

“Ya gotta beat forty million credits, just ta open up negotiations properly, hun.” I didn't even have to lie.

The Thin Lady gasped, out of the corner of my eye I could see her desperately trying to decide between being insulted or horrified with her face. Shay was still smiling and eating, but no longer fighting laughter.

“Rustico intonsum! You needn't insult me. You could simply say that It is not for sale.” She made an angry gesture to her aide, who stowed the shiny P.A.D.

Shay calmly put the fork onto her empty plate, and slowly stood up. She took a single step towards the woman and her aide, towering over them.

“Nay contoo-meliosum seet, Lenullus.” Shay carefully informed the startled socialite. “I am not for sale.”

Shay’s words were final, and she strode away from the table. Several paces away, Shay snapped her fingers in a beckoning gesture over her shoulder.

“Ma'am” I said to the Thin Lady with a polite nod. “Sir.” I added for her aide with a matched gesture. Then I followed Shay out of the restaurant, barely hiding my amused grin.

As we continued to travel Shay was staying stoic about it, 'At least their offers are fair.' She had told me, 'At least their offers are polite'. I found myself becoming more and more disgusted by Humanity on Shay's behalf. As unfazed as she was appearing to be, I'd noticed she was spending more time in the bottle. I'd been joining her in there. We were just about competing to see who could eat faster when we docked, too. It took two more days of transit through the Empire for our routine to be broken.

“Check scanner. Check scanner.” The Assault ship told me, her croaking, mechanical voice still striking a harsh comparison with the Lakon-standard lady I had grown accustomed to.

My new craft had served me unexpectedly well so far, but had yet to let me know what her name was. When I dreamed: I was still at the helm of my, now lost Type-Seven. That's not completely true, but the other nightmare was less welcome. I looked down at the scope, just a star, a pair of gas-giants, and a couple of rocks; but no contacts. I looked to my left, an unidentified signal source was highlighted for me to see. The Flottvogn had been able to distinguish between them with her warnings, but Core-Dynamics had decided that accuracy was less important than immediacy when programming their firmware.

“A wessel?” Shay gripped the back of the pilot's chair to ask. I shook my head and mumbled that we weren't sure yet.

I had yet to completely acclimatize to the Massive Mercenary's ability to cope with 'Cruise acceleration forces without securing herself to the ship. Though she assured me that her arms could more than deal, I was still being feathery with the throttle.

The signal source was further out than I was used to catching them, either Core-Dynamics had much better sensors than Lakon could boast, or the signal was being projected by something powerful. I pointed us at it and gripped the throttle.

“Ya got hold-a somethin' Shay?” I asked, my gaze fixed defensively through the canopy.

“Will you ask this every time you shift?” My furious politeness was clearly wearing thin for my Moreau compatriot.

“We ain't jumpin'. I'm gonna go see what this signal is.” My chair was rocked by her shifting her weight against it.

“Captain Wald is awaiting our arrival. The cryopod, the Iovianus'?” For the first time I had seen, Shay was taken aback. I held out a hand in a gesture of calming.

“You read the message, Terentius is out, he's recovering. Shit, by what Waldo sent, it sounds like Quintina ain't got no hard feelings for ya neither. I think we got time ta 'cruise a couple thousand light-seconds to see whats sending this signal so far, huh?” I risked a glance over my shoulder, Shay was blinking and looking at the bulkheads, I didn't even check if she had pants on this time.

“You are right, I find I am... concerned for the well-being of the pair.” Shay, I think apologized, before making her way back out of the cockpit.

The ship resolved the signal as we approached, Distress Beacon. Speaking with the internal comms button held down, I warned Shay we may see some trouble. She yelled through the walls to ask if I meant her specialty or mine. I simply replied that I didn't yet know. We approached a Jovian, blue and green clouds swirling around. The signal was coming from the ragged edges of it's atmosphere. The undersized shifter wailed as we edged our way to a Nav-Lock.

In the final moments of 'Shift-speed, the outpost slung itself into view. I'd thought I'd seen about every type of structure Humanity could slap into an orbit, but I was wrong. The outpost was constructed of high-end pre-fab sections mated to a central portion that was custom built, by my reckoning. The outpost was equipped with thrusters, much larger than the orbit-maintaining boosters usually used, and they were flaring hard. A colossal ribbon ran down into the clouds from the underside of the outpost, several strands each about ten meters wide. Half of them were encrusted with fuzzy crystalline growth. I'd barely begun to try and fathom what the ribbon was for when the radio came to life with a chime.

“Hmm, Core Dynamics Golf, Uhh Oscar Romeo. Are you reading us? Over.” Crackled the controller's voice.

Tinted with the erudite accent common to Old-Martians, but lacking in the usually associated disdain. I reflexively checked the scope, looking for another ship, before I recalled the loss of 'Lakon' as the prefix to my callsign yet again.

“Loud'n clear, Control. Saw the distress call, out by drop in. What's yer boggle?” I figured I'd ask about the mysterious planetary-tether later.

“Ummm, Spiders. We've got eight people need evac.” I could tell by the controller's voice: that was not a joke.

“Shit! It safe ta dock?” I had already cut throttle in response.

“Yeah, yeah. We've got them sealed into the processing plant and the engineering section.” His tone suggested this was a less than permanent scenario.

“Okay, give us a pad, we'll see what we can do.” I slowly reopened the throttle.

“You are cleared to land, we only have the one pad here.” The guide-holos fired up in response to the statement. As I deployed the landing gear, I turned to shout over my shoulder.

“Shay you ain't arachnophobic, are ya?” I called to the Massive Mercenary

“No. Why?” Her reply came back through the ship.

“Hopefully, no reason.” I assured her, and re-assured myself.

A man in a suit was waiting for us on the docking pad. His collar and cuffs sporting luminescent patches, aping the style popularized by Mr Yong-Rui. He stood amongst a cluster of cargo containers and seven cryopods, one of them was open. Shay and I stepped out of the ship to meet him. I was slightly surprised to feel a bit of a Gee beneath my feet, the outpost was losing the fight to maintain its altitude.

“Controller said eight.” I said to the Businessman in a businesslike tone.

“I'm getting in that one, and Verne is going to have to ride bare.” The man said without looking up from his P.A.D.

“Verne's the guy I spoke with?” I asked him.

“Yes. He's our security contractor. We're short a pod.” He replied.

“These pods gonna be okay strapped down? We ain't packing a cargo rack.” I probably should have considered that before now.

“They should be fine as lo-” He stopped talking as soon as he looked up.

His gaze was transfixed onto Shay. Who was casually leaning against the black hull of the Assault-Ship with her arms crossed.

“What's that?” He rasped, I think he was aiming for a whisper.

“Oh, 'that's' just my friend. Her name's Shay.” I let him gape for another moment. “You're approaching being rude, Bub. You ain't gotta worry, she don't bite or nothin'.” I tried to cut at the tension with my joke; he either didn't find it funny, or that phrase was more colloquial than I'd thought.

“Right, right. Er, no judging, sorry. Where was I? Oh yeah, we should be fine, just don't skimp on the tie-downs.” He shot a quick glance towards Shay. “Verne's just closing up shop, he should be down here in no time.” The Businessman said before climbing into his cryopod while taking a deep breath. The pod sealed with a truncated, dry sucking sound.

For a few minutes I looked at the cryopods, I looked at Shay, and I listened to the creaking and groaning of the construction around us begging to become unconstructed. A horrific implication dawned on me; Shay was awaiting my lead. I did nothing for a second but fight the rise of my pulse, I should say something. I furrowed my brow at the pods, trying to think of words. We ought to load the pods, probably. I decided to say that.

“We-” I was cut off by the metallic rasping sound of a nearby hatch opening.

A tall, older man wearing an ill-fitting, older-style flightsuit under a faded and patched leather jacket tromped into the room. His magnetic boots semi-superfluously clinging to the floor and ringing with each step. He must be Verne, I concluded.  An absurd feeling in the back of my mind insisted I had been here, and done this all before, somehow.

“Oh, I see you've not loaded the pods. As your ship is still parked, I presume you would like to negotiate payment?” There was that familiar Martian disdainful tone. My bulk-trade instincts kicked in, grasping at a social context I could cope with.

“Two hundred and fifty credits a pop, I'm givin' ya' a deal.” Going rate for Human transport ran about one Priceless Lakon-Seven and a centimeter off my right leg. The deal I was giving him was in fact, fantastic.

“The name's Verne G. Descartes, by the way.” He extended a worn-gloved hand in a sarcastic greeting. The feeling of familiarity in the back of my skull went off like a bomb.

“I'm Al-” My hand froze halfway towards his.

I shot my eyes onto his jacket again, the faded black leather, the patches, the red-edged epaulets. There was a flight-jacket just like it, only with my name on the breast; buried in the wreck of my Extinguished Flame on the face of a barren Graveyard-Rock on the opposite side of the Human Bubble.

“Lieutenant-Colonel Descartes?” The recognition my question brought to his eyes, pulled my heels closer together.

“Not for a long-long while...” He gave me the inspection gaze. “Cee-Dee... Victor-Italia-Charlie?” A smile spread across his lips as he rattled off the dusty callsign.

“Gottdamn... The odds o' this gotta be astronomical.” I exclaimed, then I thought for a moment. “A hundred-flat each” I half-jokingly added.

Shay cleared her throat to get my attention, Descartes' face showed little surprise when he caught sight of her.

“Reminiscing is more than possible later. Shall I begin loading the cargo, Commander Revenant?” Her question snapped my mindset back into the present.

“Oh, shit yeah!” I nodded my head, Shay grabbed the closest pod to herself and hauled it up onto her shoulder. “Ell-Tee, would ya mind helpin' me with this one?” I gestured at another nearby pod. Descartes laughed.

“Jesus, Sonny. You do not need my permission to order me to load my shit onto your ship. Navy gave me my discharge papers twenty Earth-Years ago!” He grabbed his end of the pod. “Not to mention the fucking space-spiders. Let's roll, Commander… Uh, Revenant?” His words contained more amicability in a short moment than my entire previous dealings with the man had contained, by far.

“Oh, but that's a long story. Call me whatever you want Lieut-uhhh, Descartes.” I was surprised to find my leg had no protests for the lifting and carrying beyond the dull pain where the seam was.

“Okay then, Commander. Just call me Verne, I don't want to be referred to by incorrect rank again, that's an order.” He almost finished his sentence with a straight face, but burst into a deep laugh towards the end.

“Have I heard 'space-spiders' correctly?” Shay asked with an arched eyebrow as she was grabbing a second pod.

“Yes ma'am. The real issue is that we have them quarantined inside the maintenance areas, and the mine needs maintenance.” Vern filled us in. “Sirius tapped the wrong gasball on this one.” He whistled to punctuate.

“How large are these spiders?” The Massive Mercenary asked, the erect hairs on her shoulders betraying the calmness of her voice.

“Roughly a foot and a half, maybe two across the leg-span.” Descartes answered casually.

“A... 'Foot'?” Poor Shay was stuck in a conversation with two of the only people in the galaxy who knew that extinct system of measurement.

“Umm... Fifty-ish centimeters... I think. Why ya still usin' cave-man units Verne?” I filled in Shay, and jabbed at my re-acquaintance.

“Gimme a break, It's hard to unlearn shit from kid-school, okay.” He chuckled.

“Have they... Venom?” The Massive Mercenary's final question was asked quietly.

“Before we sealed the lower decks, there was twelve staff.” Verne answered solemnly.

Shay's responded by slinging the cryopods she carried into the ship, and grabbing another with vigour.

It only took us all a few short minutes to load the pods, and the other cargo, onto the ship; securing them safely took longer. Three of them were stowed in the remaining space amongst Shay and my own things in the redundant section forwards of Shay's room. I think there may have been a medbay there once, but it's contents had been salvaged long before this vessel and I met. The remaining cryopods were strapped to whatever space was available in the large multipurpose room that took up the starboard side of the interior. Core Dynamics had included enough space for equipment storage and secured standing space for eight marines comfortably, so more-often-than-not sixteen. The disused sonic-shower was also in there, alongside the spartan lavatory. The two cargo containers that fit nowhere else were strapped to the floor and ceiling of the hallway. My ankle didn't hurt the whole time, but by the last ratchet-strap my hip felt like it had been hit with a pneumatic-hammer. Shay followed me; stealthily approaching and tightening the last five tie-downs that I'd tried to tie down. We were probably under a tenth of a gee here, I lamented internally.

I excused myself to the cockpit, I needed to sit down. I'd learned, to the benefit of my back, how to disable the automatic mag-locking of the pilot's chair. I closed my eyes for a moment, trying to let the feeling in my hip subside. The door to the cockpit opened, It was Verne, the footsteps were light.

“So, how's accommodation supposed to work? I've been informed I should speak with you about it.” His intonation implied an interesting encounter had happened without me. I considered the nature of his question for the first time.

“I just nap in the seat, there's not a lot of room on board.” I more-or-less thought out loud.

“There's room in the barracks for us all if we squish, or take shifts.” He was suggesting Shay share, or vacate her room. This was off the table.

“I, uhh.... “ Convincing another Human being as such on the other hand...

“I could rock this co-pilot's?” Verne suggested carefully.

“Oh, okay yeah. If that's okay by you then.” I was forced to accept.

I hit a button and the hangar depressurized, the Assault-Ship rose with it's docking pad out into the void. We came loose and I pushed us away with a short burst from the ventral thrusters.

“Check Scanner, Check Scanner” The ship announced that she could still hear the distress signal.

“Umm, there any more folks need help here, Verne?” I hesitated with the landing gear still deployed.

“Nope.” Descartes took a moment to grasp my concern. “Oh, the beacon gets it's power from the backup generator, and the only way to turn it off it to reset the system.” He explained, in his mind effectively.

“So, why didn't you?” Something seemed terribly wrong about leaving the beacon lit.

“Access to the backup is in the maintenance section, with the spiders.” This also seemed to be a suboptimal situation.

“Oh.” I accepted this for only a moment. “Wait. What happens to the next pilot that checks out the signal Verne?”

I didn't need to ask, what would happen is that they would go into the maintenance sections to turn off the beacon, first thing.

“The mine's falling, there's not a big chance of that.” He waved a hand dismissively.

“How long you think it'll take to break up.” I became slightly concerned that we took a huge risk even docking with it.

“What am I, an engineer? A few years probably.” He said nonchalantly. “I don't wanna be rude, but I've been up for the last fourty-eight.” Descartes yawned and reclined the co-pilot's chair.

I just flew us through the subjective, and literal night. Descartes snored away, magnetically glued to the seat. In what was to be called the morning, Shay arose unconventionally early and presented Verne and I each a packet of coffee and another of grain-meal. I was relieved that she was dressed.

“I trust both of you have slept well.” She told us as she handed out breakfast.

“Jesus! You can just hold on in Supercruise?” Verne asked her groggily as he received his packets.

“Yes.” She said curtly, as she grasped the back of his seat.

“We're jumping.” I announced before hitting the control.

The Assault-Ship spat a countdown shortly thereafter. Shay braced herself between the co-pilot's chair and the floor grating for the flash through Witchspace. Waiting until we dropped back to 'cruise to extend her arm and hand me the packets of breakfast. I swiftly pierced, and began to consume the coffee. Shay relinquished her grip on Verne's chair as I throttled up to bring us away from the star. The vessel moved out from under her and Shay slipped backwards through the cockpit and the hatchway beyond.

“Enjoy your meals, I will be in my room if I am needed.” She said as she brushed the hatch-frame with her hand to rotate herself.

“Neat.” Verne concluded, as he opened his grain-meal packet.

“I should ask if dropping y'all off at the next outpost is okay?” Really, I should have asked this much earlier.

“If the next outpost has no ties with the Imperium, that's fine.” Verne's answer was delivered casually, in discord with the ramifications it brought.

“So... No then. What's th' Empire got against ya?” I was a little put off by this criteria, but tried to keep humored about it.

“Oh, that mine was illegal as shit. The substrate tether would have the Imperial Environmental Council on the warpath.” The way Verne spoke ate at my good humor.

“Gottdamnit Verne! Federation must have some deep pockets ta get you ta do something stupid like that.” He'd never seemed like that big a risk taker before.

“Not deep enough, I'm on the Sirius payroll for this one. Either way, I'm just a subcontractor kept in the dark, plausible deny-ability all-round.” He winked and make a matched pair of clucking noises against his molars.

I sighed. Five more jumps and it was time to fuel-up, the dirty yellow star we were next too would do.

“Shit, you're scooping with an Assault-Ship?” Verne's attention was drawn by the heat warnings, and the flashing lights.

“Yeah, she's fine.” I assured him.

“Excessive Heat, Excessive Heat!” The ship's voice rattled, as if in response.

“I should hope that I don't need to tell you that Core-Dynamics has a tendency to push for performance everywhere, but the Dispersion-Vanes, right?” He half-joked nervously.

“Yep, keeps the scope-profile lower at idle.” I quipped as I cut throttle deep in the corona.

“Jesus! Here I am thinking your crew was weird because of the big-tittied Moreau.” He chuckled. I just raised an eyebrow in his direction. He laughed again before speaking. “If every pilot was this comfortable to drift this deep into a star, the hydrogen refining market would crash overnight.”

He let out another nervous laugh. It was warm up close, only place out in the black that feels like daytime. I never really understood Descartes' perspective on space.

A few jumps later and it was time to stop for some real food. I leaned to the port side of the console, and started picking through the nearest parts of the galaxy map. I found a small unaligned system with a service oriented economy only a jump away, I reset the route.

“We stopping?” Verne asked casually as the HUD changed to reflect the new course.

“Just for a proper bite t'eat, maybe grab a shower if there's a rec-centre t'be found.” I let him know. He made a tutting sound.

An Ocellus starport slid into view outside the canopy as we dropped to realspace. Stumpy, but with a pair of hab-rings. It lazily twisted, the ball of ice below it shining a glut of reflected light back into space at us. The Starport was basking in an abundant bi-directional glow.

“Korr-Dynamicz, Gulf Ozkar Rrumeo. Pleeze opzerve ztarrport prrutocol during yourr vizit Kommandar.” A man with a nasal variant of Shay's accent broke the silence of the cockpit with his traffic controlling.

“This here's Cee-Dee Golf Oscar Romeo, requesting docking.” I spoke mechanically.

“Doecking rrequezt grranted, huld vektorr forr apprroach to laending ped furr-fiive.” The controller said carefully. “Laend here at yearr own rrizk, Kommandar.” He added as he signed off. Only my crackling ship's computer spoke through the final steps of docking.

The docking ring was bustling with all manner of activity, transport vessels large and small loaded and unloaded, as crews of all description worked at all manner of jobs everywhere you placed your glance. It was the sort of bustle that made being alone quite the easy task, I felt in-place for a moment.

“What a dive!” Descartes announced as we touched down. “So what's our Eee Tee Ay on the Ell-Zee, Commander?” Shay and I usually ate together so such planning had never before been necessary.

“Eight hours.” I tried to say an arbitrary number with some semblance of confidence. Verne nodded once then got out of the co-pilot's chair.

Shay was revealed by the aft hatchway of the cockpit when Descartes opened it. He apologized and awkwardly shimmied past her to get by. Shay's shoulders began above the top of his head. Their inadvertent parody of a comedy routine only occupied the hatchway a moment.

“This looks like busy port.” Shay announced after the cockpit hatch closed behind her.

“Busy hubs like this usually have the best food, in their ugliest corners.” I mentioned.

“Your opinion will do, for me. I see that your compatriot is not joining us.” Shay was stating facts, not asking questions.

“No he's not, he's... I haven't seen Descartes in a very long time. Honestly if he'd changed much less since then... I'd be less happy about having him aboard.” I think I was exaggerating.

“Is this man not your friend?” Shay probed impressively.

“You could, maybe call him a friend.” Or a mentor, substitute father figure, Cee-Oh, follower and giver of orders.

“You think him untrustworthy?” Shay jabbed amicably.

“I don't think so... It can be hard ta tell these things sometimes.” Shay just smirked.

We walked away from the docking ring and began to make our way towards the entryway into the main station. Where most Starports draw a line with red-tape and customs procedures, this place had a stunted yet loud bazaar. The gibbering horde of salespeople and customers were far too enveloped in the mercantile madness to take any heed of anyone not showing wares or any interest in them. Shay and I passed invisibly through the throng. A short skip-and-hop through the minimal gravity had us arriving at a trolley platform amongst a group of other people wishing to make their way to the middle sections. Shay busied herself with an older model P.A.D. I'd never seen before as we awaited the achingly-slow arrival of the public transportation system.

The cart wasn't too horribly packed, and it even had seats. After sitting down, Shay plugged a wire into her P.A.D, the cable split into two about halfway along its length. She handed me one side of the split-ends. I took it and looked at her, she had stuffed her side into her ear. I looked at my end of the wire, it had a tiny ergonomic nub on the end of it with an even tinier grating in it. I held it close to my ear, I could hear miniature music coming from the thing. I tried twice to stuff it into my ear like Shay had done, but there must have been some kind of trick to it, so I gave up and held it in place with my fingers.

A fairly generic piece featuring a pair of guitars, a drum-set, and a keyboard; that could have been written anytime between now and pre-pre-fusion was coming to an end. A fraction of a moment of silence followed before a synthetic voice, counter-parting as female to the one onboard the Assault-Ship, read out the filename of the next piece of music.

“Behold The Night dash Larysa Kuzmenko, parenthesis Bee fullstop one nine five six, parenthesis two zero one one.” If any of those numbers were dates, this song was older than Biggs Colony. Older than the air on Mars.

A small orchestra erupted into music wavering between ominous and imposing. A tightly-knit choir began to sing. It was Shakespeare, the curriculum of my youth had ensured I knew. A choir sang the words of the nameless Fae from the beginning of one of the Old Bard's works. After a turn in the music they sang lines belonging to Puck, spoken later that night.

I'd looked over at Shay a couple of times while the song played; she had her eyes closed, a slim smile on her lips. I'd looked out through the windows of the tram at the darkened interior of the tube it ran though. For a fleeting moment we passed a row of windows and I saw the hab-rings to our right, and the sun to our left. Then nothing again. Suddenly more windows and another moment of view, only this time I saw the reflection of the sun on the icy surface below the starport. Then only the dark tube once more. All the while, a group of ancient spirits treated me to their music, and an even older master of lyric lent them a hand. Of all the things I'd found people doing, to which there was no true analogue back in Altair; rendering music portable was by-and-far the one I had most missed out on. I was so lost in the songs that I almost missed our stop.

The trolley placed us at the base of one of the hab-ring support arms, there was barely any gravity here, we made our way through the transfer station to the perpendicular track. The crowd was denser here, and people have never gotten the hang of moving en-masse in microgravity. Shay and I slowly traversed the platform, making efforts not to barge through.

“Show a-body yer oosey-tits, love!” A slurred call rang out from nearby, for a moment I convinced myself it was directed elsewhere. Shay's ears twisted around.

“Cor! Yer a Sonsy-Lass aren't ya, fancy a shag?!” The skinny man fighting his own drunkenness declared.

He battled the density of the crowd around him to make his way towards us. Time slowed as I watched Shay reach for her weapon.

“Steve? Oh, wheesht!” Another slurred call rang out.

An equally skinny, but less disheveled man launched himself at Steve tackling him into a mid-air spin.

“I'm right-sorry for Steve, ya braw pair, ya. Me brither likes his blether, is all. Dinnae let a pair ah drouthy Teuchters like us ruin your honeymoon, sa'right?” I was too relieved by Shay leaving her firearm untouched to be put-off by the torrid assumption.

We continued as quickly as we could to the next trolley, this one was much less densely packed. We seemed to be running opposite to whatever the local schedule had declared the flow of Human traffic to be. As the trolley made its way to the outside of the hab-ring's diameter, the pull of gravity slowly increased. I watched as Shay's hair transitioned from nearly floating above her head to hanging against her temples.

“Smell anything good?” I asked Shay once we were clear of the tram station.

“Not as of yet.” She replied.

We walked on through the thickly-urban section of hab-ring, moving into a mixed commercial and residential district. Clothing was hung to dry across the pathway by a multitude of lines, a multitude of stories up. While lacking the fury of the bazaar in the docking ring, this street boasted a larger and more locally oriented marketspace.

“I may have found something promising.” Shay announced as she sniffed at the air.

“I'm followin' you.” I let her know. All I could smell was city, nearly masked by the gray smell years of puffing on my pipe had cemented into my nostrils.

Shay's senses led us towards a small restaurant that looked like we had arrived only a few hours behind a raucous misuse of public space. We entered to find a badly lit eatery with a bar and several tables. A cluster of frontier hardened folks sat at the bar while a man in an apron and heavy gloves rotisseried something large and quadrupedal behind it. I noticed a scaly pelt hung, dripping wet, over a couple of chairs drawn up nearby.

“I will pay for four servings of whatever delectable smelling animal you are preparing.” Shay shouted to the chef, then she looked over at me. “Five servings, actually.” She added with a grin.

We seated and were served, Shay delved into her food. They had served us with five alike platters; each containing a large roughly cut lizard steak, and a handful of small starchy tubers. I jabbed at one of the root vegetables with the knife I had been provided, they seemed supple but their flavour was bland. I glanced at Shay, who had combined her four plates into one stack of steaks, that she was attacking with both of her utensils. I looked down at the slab of meat, the lizard's cobalt-blue blood still seeping from the flesh. It did smell quite good though, I hesitantly tried a small piece. It was savory but had been prepared it with a sweet glaze. The meat was a little greasy, but combining it with a chunk of the starchy vegetables they had served it with made for a wonderful combination. To be honest, that delicious meal may have been the freshest thing I've ever eaten.

Our stomachs satiated, we placed alcoholic orders. Shay called for 'Something properly distilled' whereas I asked the apron-clad man operating the eatery if they brewed anything station-side. Shay knocked back a series of chemical-smelling shots while I enjoyed a frothy mead-like, brewed from some kind of algae that grew on ice mining equipment.

“How much longer aught we keep your maybe-friend waiting for us?” Shay asked as she looked into her glass.

“Aww hell, I told him to meet us back at the ship in eight hours.” I remembered out loud. Shay laughed, and downed the shot.

“Have you sorted-out some plans as to how I and you are supposedly spending the remaining six?” Her whistle was back.

“Naw-shit. Descartes asked me all Ell-Cee-style and I just said a number.” Shay laughed again.

I blushed, then waved my hand and ordered another round. The Rustic Restaurateur brought our drinks promptly, but his eatery was about empty aside from us.

“Why do you say his name this way?” Asked Shay after downing the first shot of her current order.

“Ell-Cee?” I thought I'd about stopped calling him that, a difficult habit to unlearn.

“Day-cartz.” She made an inebriated, but quite effective impression of my voice.

“That's how... Ya say... It?” I had been sure of this a moment ago.

“He introduced himself as Verne Dez-kartess, yet you call him Ell-Cee and Day-cartz. I do not understand.” Rather than address this astute inquiry, I introduced a new one with drunken finesse.

“You call me Commander Revenant, that ain't mah name.” Shay held her next shot near her lips for a moment, then placed it back onto the tabletop.

“That is good point. I find this alias of yours much more... Thematic than 'Gore-Wound'. That moniker is... Macabre.” She downed the delayed shot. “Unfitting I think, for you.”

“That ain't mah name neither.” I took a steadying draw from my glass. Shay tilted her head at me.

“What were you named before this?” I would have been ready to answer where 'GoreWound' came from, but Shay asked the deeper question instead.

I had answers for her. In rescinding order: Stupid-Space-Trucker for all-too-little time, Nothing for nearly a decade, Smarts, Cadet, Pilot, Murderer, Failure, Mistake. I took another draught from my beverage, places like this brewed their beers powerful and I approved. No, I had answers, but they were not for sharing.

“A good smuggler has no name.” I quoted some hackneyed holo-drama I saw once, and drank what was left of my brew.

We dusted off another round before we left. We spoke on more insubstantial topics. Shay had been convinced to try the local-brew; she thought it sour and unpleasant. I had not been convinced to drink any of the distillate she was enjoying though. We left and began wandering the streets, not with any true purpose though. We still had several hours to waste.

“This looks like fun place!” Shay slurred as she noticed a storefront. I looked over at the dilapidated bodega.

“To...Buy... Onionhead?” It looked closed, and I didn't think she even smoked it.

“No, to blow off some steam. Follow.” She sounded a little giddy. She whistled with the word 'steam' almost comically. I clearly, was not seeing what she saw.

Shay led me past the storefront into an alleyway beside it. A sliver of panic shot through me. Before the alcohol and the grip of Shay's hand stayed the feeling. She dragged me through the darkness of the alley, then behind the building sporting the ratty frontage. There was a small stairwell there, leading into shadows along the wall. I was pulled down it.

“Shay, no... We-” I wasn't quite too drunk to talk, clear thought was a distant memory though.

She shushed me, and pushed me lightly against the metal door at the bottom of the stairs. She leaned over me, slowly closed her eyes, then smiled.

Suddenly, the Massive Mercenary rapped her fist against the steel.

“Who're...! H-hold on.” A voice came through a tiny port in the door, past a pair of widening eyes.

After a moment's pause the door swung open to reveal an underground boxing club. My brain could not decide on being relieved, or panicked anyway by this. Instead I settled on being stunned and dragged along by an excited Trans-Human. Shay marched past the doorman and a woman wearing a black flightsuit with her surprised expression, to haul me directly to the arena. For a moment I thought she was just going to leap right into it and break-up the haphazard slap-fest it contained.

“There's a fee to fight.” The flightsuited woman had caught up with us.

Shay turned around and made a face. I was hit with a wave of competence, the combination of the alcohol and the obliteration of my comfort zone adding up to more than the sum of their parts.

“I represent one of this sectors foremost members of the Foxy-Ferocious Fighters.” I concentrated on my enunciation, and on not considering where the lie was originating. “I will pay your fee, should you insist, but usually we open negotiations with giving the arena time to advertise.” I said matter-of-factly.

“Advertise? You know what this is, right?” I rolled my eyes at the woman, to buy time to cover my tracks.

“Advertise... About the room... To drum up bets. You do allow... Betting here, don't you?” I scolded her for the implied folly to put her back up.

She looked at us sternly for a moment, her face not once betraying her thoughts. It had worked, we were in.

“An hour?” She asked eventually. I smiled and extended my hand to shake hers, she accepted the gesture.

As the Arena-Mistress left to make preparations I turned to Shay. She wore an odd expression, somewhere between being impressed and worried. My inexplicable confidence vanished when I caught sight of her face.

“W-was that alright? Should I-I not have...?” I stammered, Shay's face coalesced into a grin.

“No, no-no. You were... Perfect.” Shay beamed at me.

We found a ringside table for Shay to theatrically place her feet ontop of as we sat and waited. Nearly, but not quite an hour later, a tall skinny man wearing a pearly robe under an exoskeleton shuffled over to us.

“I have not been lied to... Excellent.” He said, giving Shay the kind of look a virgin gives a stripper. “I look forward to our battle... Miss?” He was polite for a ring-fighter.

“Shay, and you are?” The man displayed a half-smile for a half-second.

“Yasu. They call me Yasu.” He bowed. “We will meet again in the ring, Shay.” His meekness would have been a red-flag to a more sober Me.

The crowd that had gathered was large, but discordantly quiet. I wondered if this place usually showed such reverence before a fight. Yasu had been standing in his corner of the ring for nearly ten minutes, he was immobile. Shay was still sitting with me at the table on the opposite corner.

The voice of the woman who seemed in charge of the arena crackled from a tannoy affixed to the ceiling. Announcing all fighters were to meet in the ring, the address was specifically for Shay. My companion swung her legs off the table and stood up. She sauntered to the ring and grabbed the upper edge of the bordering fence with her hands. Shay took advantage of the low gravity, and threw herself onto the top of the corner pillar. Coming to a motionless point at the height of her arc through the air, before placing her feet onto the fence. She stood herself up to her full height. Even without the pillar under her, she would have been imposing. Her seemingly-weightless motion betrayed only by the light bowing of the fence. There was a murmur passing through the crowd, noting she verged on being accepted as the Heel in this bout; Shay owned it. She pointed, accusatory into the mob; swinging her finger about.

“No entrance music?! This is Fight, not reading club!” She held up her arms to fan the reaction.

“Fighters, please enter the ring.” Came a crackly call from the ceiling. Shay ignored it for the correct number of seconds to draw the crowd.

The Massive Mercenary dropped down into the ring to a short cheer from the stands. Her opponent bowed, Shay made a slight show of incompetence while she matched the gesture. I was close enough to see the smile on her face. Yasu snapped into a combat stance with augmented rapidity, his robes' slow twisting in the weak pull of gravity struck a discord with the intensity of the roar coming from the stands. Shay cracked her neck, then her knuckles.

“Fight!” The Arena-Mistress announced unimaginatively through the tannoy.

I was shocked with the speed Yasu moved. He had simply jumped from his position into the air, crossed the distance to Shay and placed a flurry of blows upon her guard with his feet. Shay was forced to take a step backwards while she kept her arms between her face and Yasu's kicks. His rebound from this attack was to backflip off Shay's forearm to a perfectly executed handstand, from which he attempted to launch back into the air. Shay caught him by his right shoulder and spun him around, throwing him back to his corner of the ring. He rolled and sprung upright, already trying to sprint back towards her, but she had been following him across the ring before he landed.

I lost count at nine, her punches kept being thrown. Yasu's advance was stymied before it could begin. Each blow looked capable of breaching a lightweight hull but Yasu sidestepped, ducked, and spun away from each of them. Shay backpedaled suddenly after another missed strike, and slung a roundhouse at her unprepared opponent. The crowd gasped, Yasu vaulted over her kick, just pulling his limbs tight midair. He was twisting to prepare another attack before he reached his apex. Shay crouched down as she landed her roundhouse facing me, only to spring away from the floor committing to a flying back-elbow at her foe.

Yasu was taken from the air to the ground by the unexpected attack, Shay's weight ended it there. The woman running the tannoy failed to keep up, but the fighters did not need to be told the round was over. Shay rolled off of Yasu revealing his folded, sparking form. The Massive Mercenary went to all fours, then immediately knelt. She put her hand lightly to Yasu's shoulder, which he gripped. Shay pulled him upright as she stood. The crowd erupted into loudly mixed emotions. At the ringside table, I was close enough to just hear them over the noise.

“You can take more?” The Massive Mercenary whispered to her opponent as she pulled him close.

“You have more? ...No.” Yasu gripped her hand as he supported the dead weight of his disabled exoskeleton. His whisper was sullen.

“Worry not. We will give them show.” She pulled him tight. And whispered a final command. “Pretend I have insulted you.”

Yasu's eyes lit up, then he made an angry face and ripped his hand from Shay's. He turned away and made a strange gesture at an arms length above his head. As Yasu reached the far side of the ring, the stands began to hiss.

Shay quickly made another attempt at a bow, her form was more practiced. The crowd's noise stalled, Shay's opponent turned on his heel to face her from across the ring. Yasu hesitated for a second, then carefully returned the bow.

“Five minutes.” Crackled the voice from the ceiling, to a spike in protest from the spectators.

I got up to rush to the ring, but my hip protested suddenly. I slapped my belt a few times until I found the cane, once it was extended I made my way up. Damn thing wasn't helping with the pain at all, but it got some weight off the leg. Shay was seated on the floor of the ring in her corner, she looked happy.

“Tell your 'manager' what ya need.” I said to her. She was catching her breath, or making a show of doing so for the crowd.

“Is 'Foxy' synonym for 'Beautiful'?” Gottdamnit Shay.

“Uh...” I tried to think of how to phrase an answer without insulting her, or implicating me. Shay cut off my stammering.

“Water please, Manager.” Shay said more loudly than we had been speaking, as she got up. “And a packet of that Local Strong Distillate!” Her addition was nearly yelled.

Her order was handed to me by a member of the waitstaff improbably promptly, and I held them through the gap under the fence around the ring.

“Thank you kindly.” Shay announced to no-one and everyone.

She bit into the pouch to tear it open then drain it of it's contents before pouring the cup of water into her mouth, and over her head. Then she stuffed the one into the other, and hurled the refuse-filled-polyware into the crowd. It drew a high, wide arc in half a Gee.

They booed, they hissed, they loved it. Someone caught the projectile, and instantaneously became a local hero. The Arena-Mistress had to use her speakers to try and tell them to calm down, until she gave up and tried to re-initiate the fight. A technician was still hurriedly making repairs to Yasu's exoskeleton, and sped up when he saw Shay standing ready in the opposite corner.

“Do your works correctly, I am in no hurry.” Shay told the man, but he in no way slowed his hands.

Yasu stood pensively motionless. The woman's voice from the ceiling barely let the technician leave the ring before declaring again that the fight was to continue. The crowd hushed and Yasu made no movement. A moment later Shay charged, throwing a wide right-hook punch that was easily ducked. A knee was brought up into her stomach. I winced, the crowd cheered. They were selling their show very well. Shay retreated and they circled each-other.

Shay threw a left hook, Yasu ducked it. He returned with a side-kick, Shay stepped out of the way of it. She very subtly gave him a short nod before stepping back and running at him, he caught her attempted Lariat-attack and shifted his weight. Shay was airborne, and flying towards the fence along the side of the ring. She caught it with both of her hands, and brought her feet clanging against the inside of the barrier. She paused before pulling one foot up and launching herself off of the bowing fence. She aimed an elbow-drop towards Yasu, who had approached from behind to meet her. He made a point of gasping as she came dawn onto him. Their collision made a booming sound that reverberated off the floor of the ring, unlike the first time. The mob exploded, some small items of refuse were thrown into the ring as the pair disentangled from each-other. Yasu got up first, Shay made of show of her size suddenly being encumbering. He gripped one of her boots and tried to pull, for a tiny moment she was immobile. Then Shay started to claw at the ground, giving every appearance of fighting against Yasu's grip. Her feigned flailing allowing her to push herself across the ring, following his direction.

The stands went from roaring in excitement, to completely silent for a fraction of a second, before erupting into joyous laughter; when Yasu dropped to the floor of the ring clumsily with Shay's boot in his hands. The ring-fighter looked towards his opponent with a desperate expression on his face. Shay looked down at her exposed digitigrade foot then at the man holding her footwear. Her expression almost as desperate as his. Their loose script had ended in a torn page.

“He'll never keep up with you without your Weighted Boots holding you back!” I yelled to my friend in a fleeting moment of inspiration, mustering all the showmanship, and volume I could. I ignored the ringing in my ears as I drew the attention to myself, I focused on Shay; her face lit up.

She reached down and tore her other boot off, the crowd's noise became a vibrant mix of tones. Shay stood up and faced Yasu, he did the same for her. They simultaneously threw the boots over their shoulders into the now frothing stands. Yasu sprung into his fighting stance again, but this time Shay sprung into one of her own. Gottdamn, I thought she was tall before. Unlike Yasu, Shay was evoking a mobile defense, shifting her weight and weaving slightly. Yasu raised his hand and made to attack.

“Wait!” Shay exclaimed, sounding surprised. Yasu all-but stumbled, then reverted to his pose and held his stance politely. The crowd held their breath.

Shay undid her belt and let some slack into the waistband of her pants, she kept her legs crossed in a demure stance as she did. The crowd split between stunned silence and a few excited cheers. She poked her long fingernail through the seam in the seat of her pants from the inside, then ripped the hole wider by pulling at the tear. She retrieved her hand from the waistline and put it back through the hole. She pulled out her tail, then did her belt back up. With each hand, she simultaneously brushed her fingers through her hair and tail a couple of times, before resuming her defensive dance. Her movements were more fluid now, seemed less like an act. There was a newfound hush in the arena punctuated by occasional flashes from cameras.

Yasu made an arcane gesture and bowed again, only this time instead of at his sides, he had his hands clasped together in front of his face. The crowds hush waned slightly in anticipation. He resumed his stance but very minutely rocked his head to his right, before he quickly directed his eyes down then up. Shay used her left hand to steadily point at him, her thumb held upwards. Then she gestured, mimicking a weapon's mechanism. Her feet never stopped weaving, but her hand was fixed in place above the ring. Yasu made a martial artists cry and changed his stance to present his right fist.

Shay charged again, throwing another wide right-hook punch. This time Yasu gripped her wrist with his right hand as he sidestepped. Shay leaped into his vertical throw, propelling herself into the air. She rolled her hands, switching to grip his wrist as they executed the maneuver. She twisted against gravity's grasp on her, and pulled Yasu into her place above the ring as she fell, he used his legs to help. They let go and he was suspended a few feet the air. Using the moment it took Shay to land, he made sure to be ready. Shay leaped at Yasu, they met once more above the ring.

They exchanged momentum again and Shay was propelled upwards, away from the light grasp of the hab-ring's gravity. Yasu sold the combativeness of the maneuver by meeting the floor and tumbling. He made a show of sliding along the ring on his hands and knees, a show of being out of breath. Shay spun loosely in the air, not wildly but uncontrolled. The crowd fell silent again as they watched her slowly shed vertical velocity. To further the anticipation Yasu pointed upwards with an expression of dread on his face. At her apex, Shay began to wave her arms. She was giving her descent a less controlled appearance, yet directing herself. She timed her haphazard spin to land her on her upper back, she rolled her legs over herself, then flopped them down onto the ground with a loud smack. The crowd was held at bay only by Yasu holding his expression and his gesture at the motionless Moreau.

Shay shot her hand perfectly vertical, her fingers a caricature of desperate grasping. The stands succumbed to a wave of dichotomous responses. Then she let her arm drop back to the floor perpendicular to her body, making a similar sound to her legs. The stands went mad. Many were cheering, but some of them lamented openly. Yasu dropped his arm and his head in a gesture of reverence, before he too fell to the floor. The sound of the press was becoming too much for me, but I couldn't leave ringside.

A gaggle of medical personnel rushed the ring. Two of them walked Yasu offstage by supporting his shoulders. Three men made to 'Check up' on Shay, but mostly stood around idly. They were unsure how to proceed.

“Carry me to table, sit me down.” She whispered to them. “More people” She added with a smirk.

I climbed up to join them, ignoring the pain in my hip. In a half a Gee, the three stage-medics could have easily carried her; but including me, we managed to do it with thirteen. Each of us made a point to dramatize the task, as Shay rolled around being the most animate insensate that suspension of disbelief would accept. We less carried her, and more crowd-surfed her out of the ring.

Shay and I basked at the table for a while, to imply Shay was recovering. We still had plenty of time to get back to the ship. Shay was purchased several drinks, some non-anonymously even. One fellow, jeered on by a gaggle of supposed friends, even jokingly asked Shay if she would be interested in a date. She feigned interest, to his apparent horror and her blatant bemusement. Shay strung him along by asking for details about the supposedly planned evening. She eventually let the nervous local off the hook by claiming to dislike a random feature of the 'date' he had stuttered into existence. Perhaps another small legend was born. The Arena-Mistress who wore the black flightsuit and was adequate at announcing a fight, eventually walked over to our table.

“This is the part where you tell me you're leaving in eight hours, right?” She asked gruffly, I looked at my P.A.D. to check the time.

“Three, an' it'll take an hour to get back to the docking ring, so two hours. Good guess though.” I slipped back into my faked mannerism after the third word, but it didn't matter anyway.

“All my most profitable nights end this way, not to say this one hasn't been more than a little special.” She sighed and shared a little nod with Shay. “So, the 'Foxy-Ferocious Fighters' was it?” She asked casually, looking from one of us to the other.

“Yes, I do hope the reputation of our fighting troupe has preceded us.” I joked referentially to myself

“Oh yes, it has. I prefer the direction they took the sequel in though...” The flightsuited woman spoke quietly, leaning in towards me. We needed to leave.

“I hope our abuse of the truth is easy to forgive.” Shay said to the woman. Her joining in was good, because I'd gone mute.

“Oh, I'm perfectly fine with how tonight has turned out, Love. We usually have to have someone die for an upset like this.” She stood back up and brushed her thighs, then sighed. “Oh well. 'Keep it kinky, the pair o' ya.'” She quoted as she left.

“Now my question is begging for answer.” Shay mused at me after a few minutes had passed. “Foxy-Ferocious?” her tone was playful but implicatory.

“It's from a holo-show.” I squeaked.

“You must share it with me, sometime.” I begged fate to never let that happen.

We only waited around the club long enough to drink the freebies before we decided to return to the ship. As we reached the tram station I asked Shay If she would be willing to let me borrow her music player sometime. She agreed, so long as she didn't need it. Her selection of music to be played on our return trip was less transcendent in my opinion, but Shay was miming instruments and enjoying herself nonetheless. Inside the orb but not yet at the docking ring, Verne got onto the train. He was carrying a filled shopping bag, and his upper lip was split. He noticed us immediately on the practically empty tram.

“Hey! Look who it is!” Yay, all three of us were drunk. “You two have fun?” Shay shushed him and held up her music player implicitly.

She was bobbing her head with the song. Verne's free hand was held up apologetically, but he silently laughed in my direction as he sat down. I handed Shay the second earbud, I heard the volume go up after she put it in place.

“Your face okay?” I noticed it was fresh and bruising.

“You should've seen the other guy.” Verne chuckled, and wiped blood onto the back of his glove. “What you two get up to?”

Verne made a thrusting gesture as he asked. Seeing him, Shay made a derisive sound by exhaling through her lips.

“Got dinner, hit a club.” I informed him. His face lit up.

“Fuck yeah! I didn't know you could dance! Show me what you got!” He stood up and made an attempt at what he considered some kind of move.

He gyrated without a rhythm, while inebriated, and with gravity shifting as the track undulated through the orb out towards the docking ring. The impressive part was that he was able to stand-free at all, oh yeah the boots.

“I can't.” I extended my cane outwards into the air between us. “Anymore.” I embellished. Verne sat back down. I retracted my cane and stowed it on my belt.

“What happened to you, after The War?” So, that's what he called it.

“Took my severance package and bought a ship, flew her.” I didn't stretch the truth, I just omitted most of it.

“Christ... If I was half as smart as you...” He rubbed his face.

“I ain't smart Verne, I'm just... Afflicted with outlier luck.” I'd been watching the windows but I guess I'd already missed the portholes.

“The fuck is 'outlier luck'?” Verne chuckled at me.

“Like... uhmm...” Without analogy I was only as useful for explanation as a non-language pictogram. “Okay... My favourite, nah. The only bourbon I like was Indi. But, at least I made a fortune while I could; keepin' myself swimmin' in it. You know wh'I mean Verne? Like both ends o' th' luck-stick at once.” I shook my head at myself a little.

I looked to Descartes hoping for a connection to what I'd said. Instead I was face to face with a bottle of it. I almost reached out for it, before I stopped myself.

“Wha...? How...? Can I...?” His grin spread wide as I stammered.

“You had no idea they'd put it back on the open market did you?” I shook my head side to side slowly. “You had no idea you could just get it in the odd liquor store, well nice ones obviously...” He was giggling.

“When?!” How long had I been in the dark.

“Oh lord... maybe a year ago, now. What have you been doing with yourself?” He returned the bottle to his bag. “For later.” He added as the trolley arrived at the docking ring, hangar level.

We all stood up. I noticed Shay giving Verne a slightly perturbed look. Then noticed that he was transfixed by something near the Massive Mercenary's waist. His expression openly stunned.

“Oh my god. Fluffy!” Descartes was in drunken awe of Shay's tail, she had been sitting on it during our ride.

“Do you enjoy tails, Mr Descartes?” Shay shifted what of her weight was available from one set of toes to her other, and twitched her tail as she asked. Verne made an attempt at comically-feigning fainting.

“May I?” He winked goofily. I rolled my eyes at his poor joke.

The ship was parked fairly close to the trolley station, if I remembered correctly. The bazaar was closed down, the local mercantile rush looked to have ended a few hours ago. We approached the vacant pad that the Assault-Ship was below, and I keyed into a console near it. The ship was brought into view with a rapidity that I still found startling, compared to how the large pads handled things. We boarded her and placed ourselves together in the cockpit. Shay beat Descartes to the co-pilot's chair. He gave her an inquisitive and stern look.

“I would like to sit for while.” She explained to him casually.

“I can let my boots hold my feet here while we fly; but my legs, torso... You get the idea, Shay.” He retorted.

“I fought two rounds with Samurai, who was sporting speed-enhancing exoskeleton. I deserve rest.” Shay named her opponent something I was unfamiliar with, and I noted via her Esses that she had already mostly sobered up. “You may sit in my lap, if you would like.” She added half-jokingly.

“What's your lap going to do for Supercruise forces?” Descartes scoffed.

Shay responded by flexing her arms in a caricaturish manner. To my surprise, Descartes shrugged and took her up on her offer. Verne produced the bottle of Indi and opened it, taking a long drink from it before offering one to Shay. She refused his attempt to hold the bottle for her while she did, but took a drink. Then I was handed the familiar looking container. I wiped the neck, swirled it, smelled it a little. It was near impossible to get a proper whiff like that, I took a slug and held it on my tongue. By Gott, Indi Bourbon was back, we had catching up to do. I took a longer draught from the bottle and handed it behind me swishing the sweet, spicy bourbon in my mouth.

“You not too drunk to fly this beast are ya?” Verne asked as I examined the dust and grime on the canopy.

“Never was, never will be. Gott-willing, I'll never be too anything ta fly.” I wish I remembered how I phrased that, I thought it was good at the time.

“Power down your engines. Your ship is to be inspected. Do Not Launch.” Someone said, catching me quite off guard.

“Wha' was... Who said that?” I looked expectantly at Verne and Shay who both gave me quizzical glances.

“Repeat: Power down your engines, prepare for boarding.” It was in my helmet; it was on the comms.

It was the cops! I slapped the button to lock myself into the chair.

“Fuck fuck fuck.” I was scrolling through the contacts panel, counting authority vessels, guessing at bounty hunters. Then I stopped. “Wait, we ain't smugglin'... O-okay, we're seein' what the cops want.” I pointed at my helmet as explanation.

“Oh no... We need to leave.” Verne announced suddenly. I gave him an accusatory look. “I said the Bourbon was for sale, I didn't say I bought it.” He explained rapidly.

“Gottdamnit Verne!” I heard Shay's agreement with my stance, when he yelped in shock as she flicked the side of his head with her finger.

“Hold on tight. You owe me one Descartes.” His debts were stacking up, old and new.

I hit the override and we unlocked from the pad. The unmistakably-pitiful sound of ordinary small arms fire being wasted on our shields rang in my ears. The voice on the comms changed tone. I pulled in our gear, and flung us around to face the mailslot. Nearly throwing Verne off Shay's lap in the process. The thrusters flared, the docking ring vanished behind us. The pair of Eagles deployed by the starport's scruffy security staff followed in tow. We had a head start, we should clear mass lock in a moment and...

Gottdamnit! A ship popped onto the scope ahead of us, a Python re-opened it's heat-vents and moved to intercept. The comms panel flashed a threat from the bounty hunter, I put all power to the engines and threw us past them.

The lasers flashed from the three ships in tow. I rolled us fast to dodge the shots. The Python pulled closer, past the Eagles. Fucker had 'rodded thrusters, we weren't losing him, mass-lock or no. I disabled the flight assist and deployed the hardpoints. The pair of Eagles spread out, but the Python held-fast. His shields shimmered green and flickered, as they came on line and were force-fed charge.

“Kill 'em!” Verne cried as the Assault-Ship slipped around, detached from its vector. I ignored Descartes' order, this time.

With a whir and a thud; I loosed a pair of hypervelocity rounds at one of the Eagles. The slugs grazed the shields of the Python, liquefied and peppered the smaller craft with white-hot droplets of tungsten. More spectacle than threat, but could have been serious damage to one or the other, perfect. That Eagle broke immediately, followed shortly by the other one. A hesitant moment later, so too did the bounty hunter. His shields had barely held, his resolve was even stronger. They were changing their attack vector to keep any further shots I might take away from the starport behind them. Without re-activating the assist I slammed the throttle to full and retracted the hardpoints. I jabbed the boost switch with all my thumbs might. Still spinning, we screamed to a momentary halt before beginning to accelerate opposite.

We slipped through their formation, and scattered it as we blasted in the last direction they had expected. They all looped wide to give chase again. We were headed back towards the docking ring. This time, they didn't have the gall to fire. The Eagles managed to almost keep up as we ducked between the support arms for the first hab-ring. The Python's pilot had decided suddenly that were were no longer worth the trouble when we darted around the second's. The Eagles were outran before we had cleared mass-lock. I put three jumps behind us before I loosened my grip on the controls. I unlocked from the chair and turned around to voice my distaste at Verne.

My former Cee-Oh was tightly gripped by Shay's right arm like a doll, he clung to her hand with both of his. Shay's hair was scattered. She had the left armrest gripped tightly and both her legs wrapped under her seat. Verne had an expression on his face that told me he did not need scolding. Shay was staring directly at me, her face either a portrait of horror or awe, I found myself unable to tell.

“Erry'body okay?” I managed after a moment. My question hung unmet for another one afterward.

“Oh Sweet-Jesus. I'm never stealing anything again, I swear.” Descartes' quiet voice was directed in general, or to himself.

“Goodness...” Shay seemed to be trying to catch her breath. “'Just for folks who deserve it'?” I shot a glance at Verne before nodding to agree.

We three sat together in the cockpit for the rest of the night. I just flew the ship, I think Shay and Verne took a nap in the seat. When I finally checked the nav panel, we were only five jumps away from meeting back up with Captain B. Wald and resuming our journey proper. It occurred to me that Descartes and his people were still a loose end, a problem for the subjective morning. I brought us out of  'Cruise in deep space and powered down the engines to get some sleep.

When I awoke Verne and Shay were both missing from the cockpit. I was hearing some kind of faint thumping sound. I yawned as I reached out for the controls. I figured five jumps was more than doable without coffee. I noticed something jabbing my collarbone. I felt at my throat and discovered Shay's music player had been stuffed down the neck of my flightsuit. I looked at it for a moment, pondering the rhythmic sound coming through the walls. A sudden dawning horror reached my mind as I figured out what I was hearing, one of them moaned. I stuffed the earpieces into place as best I could and played whatever song Shay had cued up last, to drown them out. The trick to getting the earbuds to stay was more force. I busied myself with the systems panel while they finished. Even with the prospect of an end to my own embarrassment, I felt it would be rude to bring the ship up to 'cruise while they were busy.

Before much longer Shay emerged from the aft hatchway, she had made herself presentable before her arrival. She tapped me on the shoulder to get my withheld attention. I pulled her earbuds out to hear what she had to say, interrupting a technically-unimpressive, though somewhat catchy piece. The song told the story of a love triangle between two reprobates with goofy aliases; and the sister of a detective named Jan.

“You were right to be hesitant about Descartes.” Shay's quiet announcement included my own pronunciation of his name, rather than the one she had been using.

“Pardon?” Her declaration was from nowhere, as far as I could tell.

“He is not trustworthy.” She clarified, somehow.

Just then Verne arrived in the cockpit.

“We gonna get moving?” His voice oozed fabricated normalcy. His hair was everywhere, his flightsuit wasn't done back up all the way.

“Yeah. Only five more jumps for us, not sure about you guys though, Verne.” He asked for the name of the target system, I gave it to him.

“That'll do just perfectly.” He said, even though the only port in the system we were going to was operated by a corporation whose CEO was a distant Duval cousin.

“Okay then.” I said, hopefully showing none of my derisiveness in my tone.

Verne sat in the co-pilot's chair as we made the jumps, Shay eventually retrieved her P.A.D. from me and retreated to her bunk. Verne and I sat in silence. Well no, he did try his hand at kiss-and-tell but I shut him down. There was a comparatively less awkward silence that lasted a long time. Then he'd tried a few questions about Shay and I's relationship, but I had no answers.

“Hey sorry I beat you to her. All's fair and all that, right?” Verne seemed honestly apologetic about it, I furrowed my brow while I tried to think how I was going to tell him he was wrong.

“Yer wrong about her and I, Verne.” I was concentrating on watching the ship fly.

“Oh, you two fucked already? Shit, that's weird...” He snorted. “I'm not having a threesome.” He added deadpan.

“No. We ain't...” I sighed. “We're co-workers, Descartes.” I was about ready to let Verne off my ship, right there.

“So?” I gave him a look over my shoulder, he was giving one back to me.

“So, it would be quite unprofessional of us to go around fuckin', wouldn't it?” This explanation of Shay and I's relationship was horribly truncated, but significantly simpler to explain.

“Are you calling Über-wench on the other side of that bulkhead, unprofessional at full volume?” Descartes whispered to me while sporting a grin. I was more than ready to let Verne off the ship.

“Look, I gotta concentrate on piloting. We oughta keep the chatter down, yeah?” I declared.

“Sure thing, Commander.” Descartes quipped, at least he shut up.

We finally made it to the system Waldo had been awaiting us in. The starport was orbiting a large gas-giant about eight hundred thousand light-seconds from where we dropped in. I aimed us at our destination and opened the throttle. Eee Tee Ay almost two hours. Once the acceleration calmed, nearing the halfway-point, I unlocked myself from the chair and stretched my stiffened back. As ready as I was to be rid of him, Descartes had yet to tell me where to do so.

“So, you think you can slip in, past customs on this 'port?” I casually asked Descartes as I turned to face him, I found myself looking down the barrel of a beat-up sawn-off Shard-Gun.

“No, I don't.” Verne was standing between the chairs, his right hand held the weapon steady. My blood ran cold. “You're gonna do me a favour now, Smarts. You're gonna take us to Lembava, Goldstien Port.” The bastard was trying to give me orders again.

“Gottdamnit Verne, You coulda' tried to hijack us before we flew in th' wrong direction.” I quipped, the internal comms button stealthily held down.

“Shut up Smarts. You-” Descartes' pissant-face was drawn aftwards when Shay erupted into the cockpit, her weapon drawn.

“Descartes!? You are less tacit than you purport!” Shay shot through her teeth as she cocked her hammer.

“Oh please, you and I both know that's a bluff. Even you aren't crazy enough to loose one of those rounds in here.” He cleared me of his barrel, I assume he pointed the Shard-Gun at Shay.

“Aren't I?” Shay's eyes glimmered, her voice was throaty.

“Okay then.” He thumped the barrel against my temple. “Drop it or I blow your buddy's head off.”

After a momentary eternity Shay lowered her firearm's hammer. She swore, then her weapon was thrown towards Verne, who caught it by its barrel with his left hand.

“Stupid.” He quipped as he swung his Shard-Gun to bear, and shot her in the face.

The barrel of his Shard-Gun put me back into my seat, but it couldn't stop me from crying out. The Massive Mercenary was thrown from the hatchway and aftwards into the darkness of the hallway beyond. Her blood smeared across the aft wall of the cockpit. I locked into the seat and wrenched the throttle back. I was hoping to break Descartes' fucking legs, but he shifted his stance and caught the back of the chair. His shoulder made an uncomfortable sound, but I didn't take the bastard down. The weapon's barrel pressed back against my temple was still hot.

“Nice try Smarts, but-” He was cut off mid sentence by Shay ripping through the cockpit into him, the shift in Gee forces had converted the Massive Mercenary into a ballistic projectile. The sound of their impact made me blink.

She had her toes pressed against the back of the display panel, the hologram was making a valiant effort, but failing to project around her legs. Verne was pinned against the canopy. The right side of Shay's face was torn, just a flap of wet flesh swaying in the lack of gravity. Verne's throat was held-fast between her teeth. One of her hands was pressed against the ceiling of the ship, the other had hold of Descartes left wrist. She had taken control of the one of his hands holding the larger gun. Momentarily Shay's eyes stopped glimmering, and I saw her jaw begin to loosen. Maybe she thought he wouldn't keep fighting. Verne pulled his trigger again, the shot was blown through Shay's back and spread her misted blood through the cockpit. Her jaw snapped shut, as did her eyes, and she recoiled in reflex. Verne's throat and cervical spine were violently torn.

Then there was only me, blood, and silence in the cockpit. Unwelcome companions, familiar though they may be. Shay had curled into the fetal position as she drifted away from Descartes. His body was twitching, and spurting blood across the canopy. Droplets of gore occupied the space around me like stars in the void. Shay whimpered a little, I snapped back to reality.

“Don't you die on me Gottdamnit!” I unlocked myself from the chair again and grabbed my friend.

I pulled her dead-weight through the aft hatchway and towards her room. She was lightly grasping at her own knees as she went into shock. I pushed her through the hatch into her bedroom.

I ripped the sheets off the bed and tied them as tightly as I could around Shay's torso, The bleeding wouldn't stop. She floated motionless as I tried to secure her to the bed. I tried to tighten the makeshift bandages again, then I looked up at her. Shay was a mess; blood was streaming out from the ragged side of her face. A monster's blood slipping into droplets from my friend's teeth and mixing with hers midair, matting to her fur.

As soon as I realized I could do nothing to help her injury, I flung myself back towards the cockpit; If nothing else, I could try to get her to someone who could. Verne's corpse was still blocking the view, I grabbed at one of his feet and threw him towards the co-pilot's chair. His limp body mostly magnetically-locked into it, and I throttled back up. I dragged my hands across the canopy to clear a patch to see. The blood on my gloves transferred to the controls as I shot us towards the closest excuse for civilization. It took me a few minutes to realize there was nothing left for me to do but wait. Then another few to notice the rasping, rattling breathing quietly coming from my side.

I looked over at the piece-of-shit held into the co-pilot's chair. His eyes were pleading, he couldn't speak anymore. The bastard was still alive though. I glared at him, his weapon was floating somewhere in the cockpit, probably pinned aftwards. Shay's oversized revolver was held between my knees, for safekeeping. I looked the fucker over again; he was paralyzed, his blood was leaking out of the ragged piercings in his contorted neck.

It took thirty eight minutes and nine seconds for that waste of meat to die. Each of those moments are mine to savour, until das souhund and I meet again in Hell.

It seems that a corpse would do as well as the living for keeping my co-pilot's seat free of poltergeists. We blasted through the mailslot, I forgot to request docking. The controller's concern was shut down when I called for a medical team. The blood about the cockpit splattered to the floor as gravity took hold. I ignored that I had been covered and instead rushed to Shay's side as the ship locked down. The shock of the mag-locks knocked me to my knees; but I fought the pain, got back up, and kept moving. She was cold, most of her blood was soaking the sheets I'd tried to tie around her. I vowed that I wouldn't let her die, but I had no clue what I could do about it. Wasn't even sure if I was already failing to keep that promise. The team of medics finally rushed into the room.

“Woah! What the hell?” The lead medic exclaimed when he caught sight of Shay's form. I turned to him.

“Help her!” I shouted.

“Her? What is this?! Do I look like a veterinarian?” I grabbed at his uniform and pulled him close. His toes made a skittering noise against the floor grating.

“She don't bite, you bigoted bastard! You fucking help her, or Gott help me I'll cut your fuckin' throat!” The flecks of my spittle on his face made an unusual accessory to his change of heart.

They managed to stabilize her and put her on a gurney. They rushed away towards the docking ring hospital. I had one foot off the Assault-Ship to follow, when I remembered Verne. It suddenly became imperative that I get that thing off my ship. I turned on my heel and stomped back towards the cockpit. The ficken-möse had the stones to bleed a trail through the corridor. I tossed the little-shit onto the docking pad. Suddenly inspired, I dragged out each of the cryopods, and his two tons of whatever the fuck he had me hauling for him, and I tossed all of it onto the deck next to him. My whole leg was screaming in pain, but I ignored it and leaped down to the docking pad; amongst the refuse.

“You bastard!” I shouted at the corpse, I kicked him but it was too much for my hip.

I fell to me knee, my bones burning. I grabbed at my cane, and extended it. Then I held it by it's base in both my hands and swung the handle down onto his body.

“Keine tötung mehr!” This time I screamed it at him, but he never heard me.

Then I swung my cane again, and again. This process I continued, until a station security officer worked up the courage to talk me down.

They put me in a holding cell, I was assured that it was just procedure to let me sober up. There was alcohol in my blood, but I wasn't inebriated anymore. Before too many hours I had a visitor. My old friend wandered into the cell.

“Yikes! What happened?” Waldo had bribed someone in the security office into letting him speak with me.

I didn't look up, I could hear his coat flowing through the air behind him. My old friend never took half steps, his stride was long and purposeful as he crossed the room. He sat on the bench next to me and patiently waited for me to collect my thoughts. Were I a better friend, Waldo wouldn't be so practiced with this sort of thing.

“My past caught up.” I told Wald the truth, minus the details. “How's Shay?”

He didn't judge, but a glimmer of disappointment crossed his eyes. There were things we accepted not to share, and things we accepted needed to be shared. I don't think either of us were sure which this was yet.

“She's recovering, I'm working on getting you bailed out of here, but it's going to be expensive.” Waldo's tone was stern. I'd sidestepped his question, but he wasn't ready to let it go.

“I'll have to pay you back.” I meant it.

“No you won't” So did he.

“The Iovianus'?” I asked as if that was a pressing concern.

Waldo sighed, then gave me a look he'd never given me before. I'd quite upset my old friend, his next words showed me his anger was fueled by concern for me.

“They're fine. Who was that, on your ship?” Waldo saw right through me, for all I knew he'd seen the body.

“No-one.” Once he was, but...

“Shit, not anymore... Have I told you I'm glad you're on my side?” I could only stare at my hands in reply. After a silent moment Captain B. Wald placed a hand on my shoulder and gave it a reassuring squeeze. Then he left me to my cell.

It took nine more hours for Waldo to convince the Cops to let me go, I never could work up the courage to ask what I'd cost him. My old friend never would have told me anyway. I marched to the hospital, and checked on Shay. Tubes, beeping, labcoats, stares. I marched back out as quickly as I'd arrived. I wanted to sit next to her as she woke up, but instead I allowed myself to succumb to my anxiety, and decided to wait for her in the ship. It was okay though, Waldo was keeping an eye on her.

I'd found that they'd cleared up Verne, I didn't inquire what was done with the cryopods. I was given a wide berth by the dockworkers. Oh Gott, but it was a mess inside the Assault-Ship. I made my way to the cockpit to sit down, but it was an abattoir in there. The whole cockpit was just a sea of blood, and mocking phantoms. I was caught in the hatchway with trembling hands, having trouble catching my breath. I stumbled backwards searching for somewhere familiar to put myself. There was a closet, someone else's bedroom, and a lavatory. I shuffled to the can.

I hadn't tracked too much blood into there when I'd retrieved the cargo. I staggered towards the shower booth and shut the divider behind me. Inside the tiny perspex box, I found a momentary calm. Then I finally noticed how much blood I was covered in. My horror was abated by the convenient fact I was standing in a shower, once that occurred to me. Sonic showers are great, they atomize the dirt and blow it away. You can do laundry with one in a pinch, and if you're in a hurry; you can get reasonably clean without stripping down. They're quick too, only takes maybe five minutes. I sat on the floor of the booth for more hours than I counted. Sonic showers don't wrinkle your fingers neither.

I waited out the night alternating between sitting on the floor and lying on the floor. There were benches in that room, but I couldn't convince myself to try. Once the local schedule declared it to be a new day, I payed a guy to come clean the ship for me. His contact information was on a sheet of plastic taped to a wall near the docking pad. He arrived promptly, carefully landing his Hauler less than half a meter away from my vessel on it's pad. He wore a bright orange flightsuit that matched his ship. 'Haz-Mat Harry's Hazardous Materials Haulage and Cleanup' was emblazoned across it's sides in black-outlined white letters. He stepped out of the Hauler with a large bucket overflowing with bottles and tools in one hand, and a coiled hose over his other shoulder.

“Hey there fella'! Th' name's Harry, 'Haz-Mat' Harry. Owner operator, at yer service.” He extended a thickly-gloved hand for me to shake. I did.

“Pleased ta meet ya Harry, I'm gonna tip ya big for this job. I'm sorry.” I warned him with all the humor I could muster.

“Wait a sec... Lemme guess.” He stuck out his tongue a little. “Biggs Colony?” He sounded pleased with himself.

“Not... For a long time...” I muttered, surprised.

“Hey-hey. No hard feelings pal, we all gotta come from somewhere. I'm Manarov's Claim born and raised, but ma poor ol' Pa's a Bhritzamenoian!” I hadn't heard that dumb-old joke in nearly thirty years. I had to wipe a tear from my eye, I was laughing so hard.

I let him onto the ship, I was expecting a reaction. He seemed not bothered by the mess. The worst was in the cockpit though, I hesitantly let him into there. He whistled a long wavering note.

“Shit MacFuck, pardon my Imperialis.” He dropped his bucket onto the floor and began unrolling the hose.

“Like I said, yer getting a helluva tip.” I muttered.

“Naww, ya ain't gotta do nothin' like that, pal. Now, I tell ya. Couple-o weeks back this Type-Nine came-a rollin' in 'ere, ya know they like ta' have a crew-o twenty? This puppy rolls in, some stone cold honey-bitch all-alone at the helm. 'Fuckers killed my crew' She tells me. Now that job, that deserved a tip.” He chuckled as he back-stepped, laying piping aftwards. “She didn't tip though, lemme tell ya what.”

The end of his diatribe was half-shouted from the airlock hatchway. He vanished for a moment and then the hose pressurized. He re-entered the vessel, still talking.

“So, you let someone board ya, in a beast like this?” He asked, casually curious, as he gestured at the vessel.

“No... Kinda-yeah. It's complicated.” Was what I managed. I was becoming fond of his willingness to take over the small talk.

“Ain't that Gottdamned right.” Harry shook his fist in a gesture of camaraderie as he walked through the corridor. “Well I should have him all ship-shaped in a jiffy, pal.” He leaned over the side of the pilot's chair for the console.

“Her.” I reflexively corrected him, vessels were female. He paused to give me a quizzical look.

“Oh.. Er, yeah pal, it's your ship.” He seemed unconvinced somehow, as he continued to work with practiced hands.

His method was ingenious, he did some trick with the ship's controls and halfway raised the aftmost landing gear, tilting the whole of it nose-up. Then he blocked all the hatchways open with an override, powered the vessel down, and hosed it out. A dose of anti-microbial spray later, and only the lavatory, and Shay's room remained. The footprints were easily scrubbed from the former. As for the latter, Harry convinced me to purchase a new bed-set, he knew a local guy. While making small talk and vacuum packing the mattress to remove it, he was stopped dead by the discovery of a pair of pink leather manacles.

“A-a bounty hunter... I'm carrying a-a-a... One o-of...” If Shay could have been there, she would have enjoyed watching me stammer.

“Oh, oh yeah, cool. Congratulations.” He had a sly smile on his face, but was keeping his eyes on his cleaning solution bottle while he spoke.

“No! No-no. She's not... Uhhm-” He glanced at me for a moment, it looked like recognition on his face.

“Hey, sorry if this is off-base, but yer bounty hunter girlfriend...” He looked around nervously. “Is she the Moreau, workin' with Captain B. Wald?” My eyebrows became unlevel. Whether local word-of-mouth or some Galnet wall-ear, Gottdamn News could spread like a pure Oh-Two wildfire.

“... She's... I'm...” I took a deep breath, and tried to crow-fly out of this conversation. “...Yes.” I didn't do so very effectively.

“Gottdamn, it's you! I weren't sure but... Shit! You are so cool!” The man had to be at least my age, but for a moment he spoke like an adolescent. He grabbed my hand and waved it around a bit, I was stunned.

“Wha-” Harry cut me off, lost in excitement.

“I've been a fan of yer pal Cap'n B. Wald since hearin' 'bout him bustin' Kumo-ass back in Ol' Sol. But you sir, you are an interestin' individual, Commander Sir.” He finally let go of my hand. He seemed to expect me to say something.

“I-I don't understan'.” My left ear was ringing, I was leaning heavily on my cane. Harry looked back at the bottle in his hands.

“Ya-see, we're both from Altair... Ya get the odd mention in Galnet bits 'bout Captain B. Wald, when they need filler. I-I try ta keep an eye out...” Oh good-Gott, not again.

Why did folks keep getting it into their damn heads that I was some kinda Gottdamned hero. I was trying to think of something not too rude to shut him down with, when he said something that pulled me back in.

“Ya don't get to see too many good role models in the News these days. Ma kid likes to hang little printouts, where I think I found ya by his bunk. It ain't easy, us livin' so far from people who... Ain't so different.” He sniffed at the air. “He calls ya 'The Man With No Name: Saves the Doomed, Shoots-down Pirate Battlecruisers, Accepts the Unwelcome'...”

For a fleeting moment, we were in awe of each-other. Then his eyes unglazed.

“Shit, I'm sorry pal, Sir. Kid's gotta helluva imagination. Look-it me, gettin' all sappy here, don't get to see 'em again for another few months, ya' see... I-I know it ain't all glamour out in the black, hell yer talking to a man who tried once...” He began spraying enthusiastically with the bottle he'd been speaking to.  “I-I's just sayin' this gonna be a great story for the Liten-kille.”

All I could manage was to shakily nod at him.

“Ain't ya gotta worry, Commander. I'll get yer ship all-clean, an' I'll keep the story  right-excitin'!” I wasn't talked out of my plan to generously tip him for his work. He'd done it in half the time I would have expected, even with the chatting.

I sat on the floor of the airlock for a few hours, where I'd collapsed after Harry left. I must have fallen asleep. When I woke up I had a fleeting moment of amnesia, it was nice. I'd had a dream though, it's memory flushed the peaceful void from my mind, it had been a new dream. It's novelty kept the imagery strong for just that short span.

I was walking on some pathway made of packed-together rocks. It was dark, there was no sound. I found it was cold as I walked from the light under the streetlamp, into the night. I did the zipper on my flight-jacket up.

Suddenly a holographic sign cut through the darkness into my eyes. I didn't look at the sign though, it had cast a light around itself, revealing... Everyone. Via dream-logic, all of Humanity was milling around in the light cast by the billboard. I couldn't hear them, but I saw that they were talking and making other noises, but to me they were silent.

I tried to call to them, to anyone, but my shouting was as silent to them as they were to me. I reached out to try and grasp at someone, but I recoiled when they all reacted. Every person who'd ever lived gave me a stark derisive glare, before turning their reverent attention upwards to the glowing billboard illuminating them all. I followed their gaze.

“Verba Prophetica - Ex Sonos-Silentium” Read the quickly moving scroll.

The words sent a chill down my spine, but their meaning was nothing to me. Soon thereafter, nothing was all of them I could remember.

I sat up after a while, I was hungry. I checked the storeroom and located a stale packet of coffee. I'd been on the floor for a long time, my bones ached. An unfamiliar chime eventually echoed through the hallway of the Assault-Ship. I had no idea what it meant until the person pushing the button outside switched to knocking against the airlock hatch. I'd told Waldo I'd meet him back at the hospital, and he would have warned me if I was to expect visitors.

“Commander, please! If the Inquisition meant you harm, We wouldn't bother with this formality!” A muffled voice came through into the ship, polite and bubbly.

“Inquisition?” I mumbled into the straw as I approached the door.

Bullshit, just a story Pops liked to scare me with. No more real than Thargoids, or Der Großmann. I shook my head a little and opened the airlock.

Standing with one foot on the step, just outside the hatch was a diminutive woman wearing a wide brimmed hat and the kind of powersuit the Federal Navy wishes they could afford. She had her headgear and her carapace both, in Imperial purple. The gleaming suit of armour reflected what little light there was from the off-hours docking ring. Her would-be unaugmented stature made the suit look enormous, but in reality they combined to only be slightly taller than me. She stepped into my ship, forcing me backwards through the airlock. She casually reached out and closed the hatch behind herself.

“I am Eloise Guy-Faustine, Inquisitor of Her Great Empire, Gloria-Eius. I hope We are not intruding.” She said quickly, wearing a smile. I looked behind her to see if anyone else was there, named Gloria or otherwise.

“We?” I asked as I sucked the last drops of coffee through the straw.

“The Empress and I. Though She tends to join me figuratively, Commander.” She gave a single dry laugh, discordant with her toothy grin. “Now to the matter at hand, you have fascinating luck. I am not sure if you know who the man you've murdered was, but The Inquisition owes you one.”

I wanted to tell her I didn't murder anyone, I wanted to tell her that I knew who that bastard was. Not as much as I wanted to stop talking to the smiling Inquisitor though.

“Why?” She arched an eyebrow at me. “D'ya owe me one?” I clarified. Her grin flashed ravenous for a fleeting moment, before she toned down her smile and replied.

“Verne Dez-kartess, your victim, was a war criminal. The Sirius corporation has been harboring him somewhere, but We have no proof. This is where you come in, Commander. You've done half of Our job for Us, the wrong half.” Her tone dropped off as she finished her last sentence. She put the backs of her hands onto her hips with a small metallic clang.

“You want me to tell ya where I found him?” I immediately doubted her.

“Smart-Space-Trucker.” She drew out the words, mocking me. I tried to not react, it wasn't easy.

“Yer bluffin'...” She was, she had the cryopods. If she didn't, then I couldn't help her anyway.

My train of thought was cut off by her shouting.

“You were his accomplice!” Her manner had changed instantly.

I was startled both by the accusation, and how she stepped forward with it to shatter my personal space. I dropped the empty coffee packet in shock.

“The hell I am!” I tried to push her away, but it was a futile gesture against her powersuit.

“It was a fight over a woman!” She jabbed my shoulder as she screamed the claim. It was only a light jab, she could have broken me with that finger if she'd wanted to.

“The hell is this?!” I stepped backwards, my pulse racing.

“Tell Us where he wanted to go!” She put her boot through my stride to upset my footing, and hooked a mechanical thumb under my arm as I fell. She swung me around and pinned me against the wall to my right with one hand.

“Fuck!” The expletive was forced out by the impact. “Sirius headquarters! Gottdamn Goldstien Port! Descartes was hijacking me you Catellus-Imperator!” I stopped squirming after the obsolete slur slipped out, I probably blushed.

“You knew him...” She gasped the words. For a moment, I thought she was loosening her grip. “How did you know Lieutenant-Colonel Descartes?” She asked me much too calmly, as she pressed a large pistol to my forehead.

“You ain't got that all, in some file 'bout me?” I was too amazed to discover I'd somehow gotten that much past the 'legendary' Inquisition, to feel fear from yet another weapon to my skull.

Her intense glare slowly shifted from me, to the weapon's muzzle against my brow. After a strangely calm moment Eloise required eye contact with me, she looked excited.

“Clearly not. But files can easily be added to; Investigative, Medical.” She was smiling again, differently, like the short glimpse from earlier.

She stowed her gun then placed her augmented palm against my forehead. Still holding me against the wall with her off-hand. My toes just scratching at the floor.

“Tell Us how you know the Lieutenant-Colonel. Or I will carefully fracture your skull.” She said with a terrifying serenity, as she pinned my head against the bulkhead.

“I can't tell you shit if you-” She cut me off by applying pressure. A split ran up my scalp along the back of my head, and another one opened up under her composite-clad palm.

“I. Did. Say. Carefully.” She punctuated each sing-song word, with a minute increase in pressure.

As my vision darkened and my ears started to ring, I decided that child-me had been wrong about which of my father's stories had the most frightening subject matter.

“He... My unit.” I was having trouble breathing, my arms and legs moving on their own. I'd gone blind.

Both of her hands were suddenly retracted and I was on the floor. I kicked without trying to and flipped myself onto my side, against the wall. I gripped my head and let out an animal-noise. She waited politely for me to compose myself, it took a while.

“Seventh Expeditionary Fleet? FNV Formidable?” She asked when I stopped clutching at my brow.

She had to repeat herself, I could see again but my ears were still ringing. I tried to nod, blood came streaming from my nostrils. She sighed and fished a handkerchief out from her gorget, throwing it onto my lap. I mopped my face with it, it smelled like blood. That was probably just the blood. I heard the sound of a sear, taking hold of a hammer; it pierced the tinnitus her voice had failed to.

“Give me one good reason why I shouldn't put you down sicut canis, for what you did in Thirty Two-Seventy Nine?” The Inquisitor's voice had gone deadpan, but her starved smile remained.

I noticed the gun in her hand looked a lot like Shay's. It's bore looked a little narrower from this side though. Smaller cylinder too. I had no doubt that either weapon could get a round to the outer hull from the central hallway though, regardless of my intervention.

“You should.” I smeared my blood around with the cloth she gave me, trying to catch the tears.

She held the muzzle over me for a few seconds, hesitating as her smile faded and she slowly pursed her lips. Then she let down the hammer, holstered her weapon, and held out a hand to me. I looked at the purple enamel and gold trim covering the alloy of her bloody gauntlet for some time before putting my hand into it. She gently helped me to my feet. Her toothy grin returned to her face, everywhere but her eyes.

“We had hoped you would have been more involved with Descartes' operation, you're lucky We were wrong. We are sorry for any inconvenience that has been caused. Hopefully Our investigation will become more fruitful once We thaw out a few more interrogatees.” Her apology sounded sincere, if slightly manic.

“Wh- Th-that's... it?” I quickly extended my cane to steady myself, I was quite dizzy.

“Yes, We are through with you, as per this investigation. You will want to get your head looked at by a professional, Commander.” If only this was the only context I'd been given that advice under.

“Then I'm gonna have ta politely ask you to get yah-self, and yer imaginary empress, the fuck off-a my ship. Please.” The newly nasal tone of my voice, and the red dribbles following it, probably cut down on the effectiveness of my implied threat. Eloise gave me the impression that threats didn't work on her anyway, implied or not.

“Vincent.” She said conversationally, for some reason.

“Who?” I looked around. She laughed at me, this time her laugh was rich and mirthful.

“No, vincent.” She grinned, almost giggled, and spoke more slowly. This time she gestured at me, then to herself, while she said it.

“I only know swears, an' drinks in yer stupid fairy-language.” I was being rude again, but she had fractured my skull.

“We will overcome.” She repeated the words and her gesture between us, her tone bubbly. “This.” She added as she pointed at me again, her voice dropping an octave and her face going stony.

“Please leave.” I more-or-less begged. I have the unique perspective to say with certainty, that Eloise Guy-Faustine was significantly more terrifying than being fired on with capital-class weaponry.

“We will be watching you, and your handsome ship.” She smiled and said, as she turned on her metal heel and marched away.

She stopped suddenly in the open airlock hatch, and slowly looked back at me, over her pauldron. Most of her face remained obscured by the rim of her hat.

“Proderat ad vos, Commander?” She said slowly, in a sultry tone. Shifting her weight from her left leg to her right, with a twisted smirk on her lips. I could only shrug, I didn't understand.

Once she was gone, I cleaned myself up in Vincent's shower before I stepped off of him to try the hospital again, Eloise had given me another reason to go there. That wasn't all she had given us, 'Vincent' the future plural counterpart to the dative singular 'Vici'. Conjugations of conquer, or overcome. I probably could have made it to the hospital quicker, but I was still a little shakey on my feet.

The staff were not enthusiastic about my attempts to visit Shay, before letting them examine me. One of their surgeons happened to be nearby, when I made a break for her room. His carefully placed slap to the back of my head turned out the lights. I came-to in a far corner of the waiting room, a bandage wrapped around my head. I had some anesthetic in my veins, making my stomach hurt.

“Hey! Good job, only a couple of hours down.” The slap-happy surgeon appeared and sat next to me, I noticed my shorter leg was cuffed to the bench.

“Lemme see Shay!” My voice was still nasal.

“I'm gonna lie to you, and say I have no idea who your companion is.” The surgeon said as he lit up a long thin smoke.

“Where is she?” I panicked as much as the medication would allow.

“Ugh, your famous friend checked her out an hour or two before you stormed in.” He rolled his eyes. “Trans-Humans heal quick, but damn did she Eye-Vee a lot of fluids.” He took a longer draw. “By the way, your head's looking okay, now. Whoever did that to you, at least they tried to make fixing it easy.” He sighed a cloud of smoke.

“I fell outta aft hatch” I'd lied more this week than I'd done since...

“Would you believe that I hear that an awful lot out here, on the Frontier.” His tone was resigned, but not completely dejected.

“This is dead centre o' th' Empire...?” I wondered if he was quoting something.

“It's all Frontier.” He said implicitly, taking another puff. “I've done everything I can for your skull, only you can work on what or who's inside of it.” He inhaled the last embers to death. “Just, keep an eye on your 'aft-hatch' in the future.”

He stood up, flicking the completely-smoked butt into a nearby receptacle.

“Maybe rethink your love life a little bit, while you're at it.” He added sarcastically as he walked away down a corridor. I stared at his back in disbelief.

I sat on, and was bound to the bench for the better part of an hour before I thought to question the triage nurse about the situation. As soon as she surmised I intended to leave the hospital, she had a security guard remove the manacle. I walked away from the institution with purpose, for about ten paces. Then I realized that I had no idea where Waldo was staying. We had also planned to meet here so our plans were moot, it seemed. I stood there, leaning on my cane for several minutes, trying to decide what to do. I was alone as the crowd around me swam. I eventually gave up and returned to Vincent, and was slightly relieved to find no-one around the docking pad.

A bed in a vacuum-sealed, cubic, polymer-bag was sitting outside the aft-hatch. I grabbed it and stepped inside. I placed it on the floor just inside Shay's room. I had almost turned to walk away when she announced herself. The room was dark, and I was mostly looking at my feet.

“There you are! You were not with your wessel.” I looked up at her, she was wearing a comically oversized pair of new exercise pants.

There was a large patch of spray-on gauze over her lower torso. I couldn't see it, but a matching patch of gauze was glued to her back too. She was dropping a rather large prescription bottle into her duffel-bag.

“You weren't at the hospital.” I muttered. “Waldo?”

“Captain Wald has returned to his hotel.” She slowly shuffled over to me and put her hand on the top of my head.

Shay noticed the wrapping around my skull. Her eyes widened.

“You've... Descartes?” Her tone dropped steeply in timbre as she said his name.

“Dealt with...” She gently turned my head to the side, examining it. “It's o'er.” I added.

She let go of my head and placed her hands on my shoulders. She knelt, emitting a slight grunt of discomfort as she did. There was a fresh cauterizing scar running along the right side of her nose. Beside her eye, which was swollen shut.

“But... How was he able to...” She broke eye contact. “After... I...” She let go of my shoulders and shuffled back a bit, then looked at me with worry on her face.

“He... I... There was...” Usually I have trouble with too few words. “It's... It was complicated.”

“I am sorry.” Her timid apology wouldn't do.

“Don't you go an' do that now, it weren't yer shit.” My anger was a little stronger on my voice than I'd meant. That wasn't her shit either. “I'm sorry, sorry I got ya dragged into this.”

Shay was glaring at me.

“No...” She hesitated with her hand, before giving up on gesturing. “No. You would have died.” I didn't follow her.

“I don't follow ya.” She shook her head, and placed her hand onto the gauze patch on her shaved midsection.

“The surgeon told me my liver was... 'On it's last-legs'. They would have had to grow me new one before long, regardless.” Her joke wasn't bad, but it fell flat. “Had Descartes found you alone, he would have killed you.”

I thought about how I'd have never met Descartes if Waldo hadn't dragged me out of The Flottvogn. The pair of us met Shay shortly thereafter. There was no way for me to have met her without crossing paths with Descartes too. Unless of course: I'd just ignored the Distress-Call.

“Thank you.” I said instead. For a curt moment she leaned in and embraced me, then she held me out at arm's length and patted one of my shoulders.

“Thank you, as well. I suppose that both of us have returned from death, now.” She let out a mirthful snort.

“Yeah, you could call us a right-ol' pack-o' Zombies.” I chuckled in return.

“We are, indeed. A Pack, of whatever we are.” Shay added in a more serious tone, her grip on my shoulders tightened slightly.

The hatch into Shay's room opened revealing Captain B. Wald, sporting his old red coat. He took one step into the room announcing something before he locked eyes on us, went silent for a moment, then apologetically backpedaled out of the room. Shay let go of my shoulders and pulled a shirt out of her duffel-bag. Once the hatch shut itself, Waldo lightly jabbed the button to make the door chime. Shay pulled her shirt on and called him in.

“Hoo-boy. Sorry about that. I gotta learn to knock.” Waldo was massaging the back of his head.

“Ya didn't interrupt nothin', we was just talkin'.” I told my old friend. His face showed the confusion he felt, for my words being true.

“Yes, Captain Wald. I am aware of what you thought you saw, but this is not the case.” Shay said in a businesslike tone.

“Oooh-Kay...” Waldo had accepted being convinced of this, but I could tell he had no clue why. I didn't blame him. “Whatever, I was just here to get you two, and bring you to my hotel.” B. changed the subject deftly.

He led us to a little electric cart parked on the docking pad. It was completely open topped, but looked as if that was a recent occurrence. I climbed into the front bench next to Waldo at the controls. Shay took up the rear seats. Ol' Captain Wald tore that little four-wheeler out of the docking ring like a cat-outta-hell. I had to hold on for dear-life. I think Shay was already acclimatized to his driving. We took shockingly little time to weave our way through the pathways of the starport to our destination. The hotel was nice, one of those ones they build sticking out the sides of starports, just a little one though. Only about fifty floors or so, but about all of them were windowed to the void. It looked like a classy, if small-time place. It was also closed for renovations, under new management.

“Hey Waldo, who'd you have ta' bribe to rent a room while they're closed?” I cooed.

“No-one, It's mine. Bought it when your message got here, and I knew we'd have to wait.” He said nonchalantly with a wave of his hand. Shay made a face like she'd won a bet.

We marched inside, straight past the front desk, and got into an elevator. We took it all the way down, to the penthouse. The pull of gravity grew slightly as we got closer. The penthouse consisted of the entire bottom floor of the hotel, like any good penthouse should. I hadn't seen such an extravagant space since... I'd never been allowed in such an extravagant space before. There was a table and chairs, that looked like they had been taken from a dining hall, in the middle of the foyer. Waldo called out, before very long Derek and Reggie came into the makeshift command-center eating sandwiches. The room they came from would later be revealed to be the dining room, it connected to the kitchen. Over the next couple of minutes, the rest of the group filtered in from further around the penthouse. Amanda, Quintina, and the man I assumed to be her brother Terrentius.

Once we were all seated, I looked across the table at the group. Derek was a mercenary pilot, and considering what he'd already been through; either he had no clue how to haggle, or his current boss didn't. Reggie was a techie who Waldo knew, this was unimportant. Waldo respected Reggie as a techie, that was important. Amanda was just a Salaryman, representing whoever called Captain Wald's buy-in on the operation.

The Iovianus siblings, I knew the least about. Though I was happy to see that Quintina was in much better spirits than the last time we'd met. I'd never seen Terrentius before, he'd been in a cryopod. I'd sort-of imagined someone more imposing, maybe. I definitely didn't imagine an Imperial ever opting for spectacles over getting his eyes fixed.

“Okay, here's the deal; we used to have a pretty decent plan, but we've been fucked-royal, and now we don't have shit.” Waldo had a wonderful way with words, when he wanted. “We lucked out, I got us diggs here, and a sympathetic ear nearby. But we can't just chill-out forever.”

He gestured at Amanda, who stood up and spoke.

“I have spoken with the siblings on the matter, for the benefit of everyone else: We have to consider the original dropoff compromised, if not the entire original plan.” Terrentius looked pissed, his sister looked sort-of sad.

“Where is safe, for them?” Shay asked the whole table.

“We don't know. Our connections in the Federation are ghosting on us, everyone's going into lockdown for something. Forecast reads heavy-political.” Amanda shook her head at the P.A.D. in her hand.

“I'm already stretching my contact-Imperialis' willingness to help. If there is a place for us to get them to out here, I think it may be out of our grasp.” Waldo lamented.

“Stercore. I'm not giving up on this, we can deal a true blow here.” Terrentius almost raised his voice, and awkwardly slapped the table.

“It's become too big of a risk, we've discussed this at length.” Amanda shot back.

“What was the old plan?” I had to ask, I'd never really been told. Amanda pinched the bridge of her nose.

“They were going to take me a powerful member of the Government-Foederati, and my sister to freedom.” Only the second part of Terentius' explanation wasn't news.

“And they bailed out when it got rough didn't they?” Slimy politicians. I was answered by many nods. “The Alliance then?” No nods, Amanda laughed though.

“Trust me, they can barely handle refugees, let alone this.” She explained.

“My brother runs a coffee-shop not far from where we were set up before, I could see if he's hiring.” Derek joked. Reggie, me, and Quintina all laughed; though I suspect we each had our our own reasons.

“Does anyone have any beneficia ab amicis, anything that could help?” Terrentius asked. We all sort-of looked towards Captain B.

“Like I'd let everyone sweat it out like this if I- OH! Oh wait!” He brought his chair back upright suddenly. Everyone at the table leaned in. “Wait-yeah-wait-no... Ugh never-mind. I think, I might have burned his bridge.” The table was awash in disappointed vocalizations.

“I think, I know someone.” I said before I realized what I'd done. Everyone was looking at me. “B-but we'd need to get to Jameson Memorial.” Waldo squinted at me.

“Who in the Pilots Federation are you in bed with, Mister Mysterious?” My old friend said slyly.

“No-one. They just, live there.” I half-lied.

“Quid enim exspectas? Let's move then!” Terrentius exclaimed.

Amanda looked intrigued as she fired off messages with her P.A.D. Quintina was lightly biting her knuckle and either grinning or grimacing. Derek and Reggie both quietly finished eating. Shay wore an expectant grin.

“Well? Let's go.” My old friend told me, just like old times.