by S E Zbasnik
Orn's trademark impish grin returned, "I figure your husband's got him pinned in a corner and refuses to let him come out. We'll find his body, three months down the line, stinking up the place after he died in the walls."
"Very funny. You're a regular Braxl the Red, you know that," Variel responded, hoping the dwarf wasn't even a quarter accurate. "The last thing I need to deal with is wiping a 'Death of Technician' off my record. I'm only a few more months, half a solar year at the most from finally getting out of this lease."
"You know," Orn tapped his greasy chin, "if we took a few jobs from the Quest Log...."
"No," she interrupted him in what had been an ongoing and never ending argument. Orn was about to make his standard rebuttal when her PALM chirped. WEST's signature chaotic beeping promptly came over the line as he hacked the accept button. "Good, they're done," she lit her palm up against the wall as the computer interface on the other end appeared.
"Owner number 23, I have news," WEST's voice was more obstinate than usual. The technician must have been talking to it.
She bypassed the Owner 23 remark and asked, "Good or bad?"
"Let us settle on chaotic neutral. Your dimwitted friend asked our resident djinn a question."
WEST was clearly enjoying the show, hoping to drag this out for his amusement. "And," Variel prompted, "what was it?"
"If he could have any wishes."
The captain didn't bother to disconnect her PALM while her legs pounding through the busying corridors, a flustered dwarf hot on her trail. By the time she got to her ship, she'd shoved aside families dragging novelty air dragons, past a pair of gnomes collapsing down for a air break, and batted away a pair of lost virgins hunting for their bus mistaking the happy jellyfish for the disgruntled cuttlefish.
The airlock door hung wide open, WEST's doing, as she bolted through, and zipped past the embarkation room towards the sounds of her computer crying out, "Warmer. Warmer. Hot!"
She skidded to a very out of breath halt at the not-so-law abiding sight of her djinn dangling the whimpering technician by his suspenders. They were wadded up inside his raging fists while smoke poured from the cracks in the djinn suit, clogging up the technician's eyes. Murmuring sounds whimpered from the kid as his pathetic discount shoes bounced into the djinn's immoveable shins. On the plus side, no one was dead yet.
"Gene," she started calmly, holding her hand up to show she was unarmed and accidentally projected a smarmy WEST onto the standoff. The flicker of the computer pulled at the djinn's vision and the craggy head turned towards her, the fire raging so bright his eyes were nearly blue. Oh boy.
"Now, Gene, we don't want any unnecessary bloodshed," she said cautiously to her oldest friend. But the djinn was barely listening, all his rage burning for what amounted to the greatest racial insult anyone could make to his people short of "You look like you could use a glass of water."
The technician kicked valiantly against thin air, his soles providing little traction to the rising tide of an angry giant. "Help," he gurgled to anyone within hearing distance, unable to see thanks to the acrid smoke tearing up his sclera.
"Come on, we've been through a lot. Seen things someone like this flameless candle can only dream of," Variel soothed. "Pebble like this can't understand what lava he's jumped into."
The giant jerked a moment at her but still he stared the vertebrate child down, willing all his malice into a few flicks of the inner flame. Orn skidded to a halt behind his boss, trying to get in enough oxygen to fuel his very un-dwarflike sprint. He took in the vision before him and stuttered, "Right, well, I have some very un-murdering things to be doing on the bridge," and backed away as quickly as he came.
"Gene," Variel laid her hand across the rock suit, despite the scorching heat, "put him down."
Steam hissed through his shoulder cracks, but he lowered his arms until the technician's boots met deck. He unclenched the fists, snapping the suspenders into technician shoulder. Segundo plummeted, his legs losing most of his pounding blood after hanging suspended in the air for twenty minutes. The computer took its sweet time in calling for help.
"Thh...thank you," he muttered to the captain, rising unsteadily like that baby varg.
"It's not me you should be thanking," she looked at Gene still smoldering, but the blue was fading to a safe red-orange. "By his people's laws he could have ripped out your intestines and smashed your face through a wall for those remarks. It would be in everyone's best interest if you apologized, now."
Segundo shook his entire body, but looked from the woman who he thought saved him, back to the one that was trying to kill him, "Ss..sorry, Sir."
"Are you injured?" she asked, eyeing up some scuffed marks on his striped uniform.
"Nnnoo." Any thoughts of faking a minor injury for something major vanished in the face of aged experience in dealing intimately with the criminal scum he was supposed to stop but wouldn't recognize if they wore stripped uniforms and eye patches.
The proprietor and only person between Segundo and a crushed everything crossed her arms. She very slowly asked the still trembling technician, "And you're not going to make a universal case out of this, are you?"
Before the technician could respond, Variel uncrossed her arms and called out, "ORN!"
By all rights, the dwarf should have been long out of range, but his shaggy head poked around the corner, "Yes, Captain?"
She let the barb pass, not in the mood to rise to the dwarf, "You shall escort our guest through the last of his tour, making certain to answer any and all questions he has, then you shall escort him off my damn ship." Variel rose up on her toes, making her average height all the more imposing as she stared down the technician. "Do we have a problem with that?"
"No, Sir," Segundo saluted despite himself, his palm displaying the inventory checklist against Variel's face. She didn't blink in the blinding light, only leaned back from him as Orn scooped in, grabbing the shaking kid's hand.
"Come on, Squirt," he said to the human towering a good three feet above him, "Best be getting out of here fast like." He peered over the checklist on Segundo's hand, skipping past long swathes of ship he had no interest in.
"Boring, boring, who cares, lost that, sold that, ah! The Bridge, now she's a thing of beauty. Come with me," and hauled Segundo away from the gathered masses.
As the technician's head knocked into the low hanging ceiling of the hallway, a chirp called out from WEST, "A virus upon you. I had ten gigs on the djinn."
Variel glanced over at her mute friend, and said, "Try not to kill anyone else for the day."
Gene shuffled upon his feet, perhaps the only other one aware of the line the pair walked each day, but said nothing. His fingers fell towards his hips, silenced in shame. The captain touched him once on the cracking shoulder, despite the still raging heat, and smiled wanly. There wouldn't be any shoving someone out the airlock, unless the technician tried to get cute.
Before she could turn to walk away, the airlock door slammed open hard, the operator too impatient and overpowered to wait for the computer to finish its job. A flurry of color burst into the bereft storage room, empty of anything but a few of the cruise ship's accoutrements Orn convinced her to hang on to just in case.
The elf paused, trying to catch her breath as she eyed up the room. Her multi-hued skirts came to a dramatic flair, hovering like the wearer was caught in a perpetual wind. The pink stars sparkled with each triple beat of the elf's heart. This was the most panicked Variel'd ever seen Brena, her stage makeup smeared until the fuchsia patterns mushed to form the half eye mask of a super villain and the pre-programmed hair color slipping back to black.
"My commander," the elf called out, the closest the race could come to showing respect to something that didn't share their particular brand of ears. It wasn't a good sign.
"Yes?" Variel asked, strain in her voice.
"I request the aid of your hands."
"I'm not an enchanted fop with more money than brains. You can speak
like it's 500 DC," Variel shook out her words, more cutting with her local bard than usual. Usually, she'd let the wordsmith get a few purple sentences out before dragging the girl back to her preferred century.
Brena's tiny mouth turned further down, but she buried whatever curses floated through the devious brain, "My brother, he is in danger."
"Maybe he shouldn't have become an assassin, then," Variel waved her hands as if the elf told her Orn got into the stash of licorice again. The captain moved to WEST, who watched the exchange curiously, and punched in a few commands but mostly waited for the elf to bounce off.
"You do not understand. He could die."
"Oh no, I got that. Death and dying, they tend to follow assassin's around. Maybe you should take it up with his guild instead." To emphasize her "this discussion is over" she began to hum softly under her breath, horrified to realize it was the same damn tune playing across every single elevator on the station.
But Brena reacted with the most force Variel ever saw from a dulcen. The elf spat upon the floor, her drawn on eyebrows pulling into a sneer. "That cursed guild, may it burn within the darkness of the forgotten sun for a billion turns. It was their foolish and failed espionage that led him astray."
Despite every neuron in her brain telling her to keep ignoring the elf and wait for the latest crisis to pass, Variel turned back to the girl. This was enough of an invitation for the dulcen to launch into the mantra she'd probably been preparing on the entire shuttle ride back.
"The guild marked the intended as a grade two at most, but the moment the entertainment began it became evidently clear he was a grade seven!"
"Yeah, my translator doesn't speak murder," Variel said, "Could you try explaining that one again?"
If her fury wasn't burning for a distant bureaucracy of some of the highest security elves in the universe, she'd have turned on the captain. Instead, Brena flapped her arms in consternation, blowing off the air of calm centuries of training forced upon her, "A grade two is 'no combat skills, nearly null security.' Supposedly wanted for gambling debts. But Magalar Dacre is clearly a retired member of the Crest Knighthood. Any moment of espionage would have informed one of such."
"Dacre?" Variel asked as deadpan as possible, her past flaring up from behind a wall she erected, then armed. The djinn behind her hissed as well, sensing the shift in his old friend.
The captain rounded upon the bard, grabbing onto the bare skin of her shoulders and pulling the oversized eyes to her own, "How do you know he was a Crest Knight?"
"The arrogant cricket had the sword placed above his mantle," Brena answered, confused by the turn of events. It'd been a long shot trying to get the captain's help. She rarely spoke to either of the elves unless rent was due, but Brena was still grateful for the change in demeanor, even if it tugged on her fractured brain.
Variel searched through the elf's eyes, looking for something, an explanation, a revelation that this was all some elven joke and her brother was caught between a set of dumpsters, unable to finish his job, or sitting inside a Samudra prison, etching elaborate wood carvings into the walls with his homemade shiv. But even as she dreamed up the magical scenarios, she knew the truth. The assassin in her midst was good. Too good for the jobs he did take. That fact always bothered her.
"WEST," Variel called to her ornery computer, "search through the shuttle schedules. I'll need to break atmo over..."
"The northern hemisphere, in the Tau cluster of islands," Brena filled in for the captain.
"Find the earliest flight possible," Variel said, clicking off the interface before it could argue. Instead, she pushed open her PALM and called for a connection to Ferra.
"Aye, I can explain," her engineer's voice was frazzled, obviously not expecting to hear from Variel so quickly.
"Did you get the injector doohickey replaced?"
"Yes and no."
"Explain." Any joviality drained from the captain's demeanor. This was all business.
"Yes, I ordered it. No, they haven't delivered it. It'll be another 12 hours to whenever some lazy shit gets off its tiny furry legs and sends it," Ferra's measured tone echoed through the storage room, occasionally overridden by the heavy whirr of machinery on the elf's end.
"Are you onboard?"
"Course. I'm back in the engines, seeing to my gardening," she said as if Variel inquired if the elf ever visited the bathroom.
"Good. Tape up whatever you can on the injector and stick it back in until we get the replacement."
"Now it's gonna cost...what? You can't be serious, this thing's gonna crack in..."
"Do it." Variel cut the line before Ferra could complain, but she still got some prime cut cursing before the PALM flashed dark.
She shoved past the deadweight bard, her mind flicking through all the possible security systems a man with a Knight's pension, or more likely illegal pension, could pull off. Her feet thudded through the storage room forwards to the galley, Brena trailing behind. The elf said nothing but watched her captain try to scrape together a plan from half forgotten tactics and something she'd found on her shoe.
"WEST," Variel's voice cut across the narrow hallway as she stepped through the porthole into the kitchen, "any luck on the schedule."
"Yes, Owner 23. If you move your oversized flesh tube quickly enough you can take the shuttle at hanger G-75 in fifteen minutes."
"Thanks," she admitted, glad to be able to leave one bit of this madness to something else. Fifteen minutes to get there, another hour on the ride down. Brena better pray her brother's a better hider than assassin.
"Did you call Taliesin, warn him?" Variel asked, surprising Brena. She suspected the captain knew neither of their names.
"He slipped into silent mode the moment he breeched the perimeter. There is no way to contact him."
"This just keeps getting better and better."
"Youngling," the elf's voice started as her captain stuck a hand inside the dishwasher lock, a loud whirr reading all the data it could off her lifelines. "Captain, it is perhaps the wrong time to inquire this, but why are you extending yourself to assist?"
The dishwasher cracked open, ancient steam escaping as what were clearly not dishes shot out upon the white racks. Variel's fingers weighed the options before her, pocketing a shield generator and scanning the ammo charges. "Dacre," she said the name as one would an intestinal parasite, "whoever he is, is clearly hiding more than a Knighthood."
She extracted a pistol, slipping a few excess batteries into her pockets, and a small submachine gun from the dishwasher armory. It was the only thing on the entire ship that required DNA and a palm print to unlock. She altered it ages ago to hold her few weapons. People could wash their damn dishes by hand, anyway. Variel eyed down the sight, always leaned a bit to the left, but if shouldn't be a big problem with the mess she was about to jump into.
"What do you mean?" Brena asked, shirking momentarily from the arsenal before her. She'd never seen the options hidden in the dishwasher.
Variel cocked the pistol before slipping it into the hiding briefcase so no detector could find it. She paused and looked one last time into the elf's eyes, "Knights don't retire."
She dashed out of the galley, calling out to her computer "WEST, get me those damn tickets now," probably heading to her death for someone she'd traded only a few words with.
CHAPTER THREE
A shudder rocked the atmoshuttle, eliciting a squeal from the young child bundled up in a sea horse themed bathing suit to Variel's left. She spent the entire trip bragging about the rag she propped upon the window, a Mister Turtle who neither looked nor acted like a turtle. The greater problem was the hulking man to Variel's right squeezed into a too tight seat. As the ship began its takeoff, his countenance shifted to a disturbing shade of mossy green and hadn't slipped back to normal. Possible vomit was almost a nice distraction from the certain death awaiting her on the ocean below.
Samudra sparkled as the shade of night pulled across the ocean
planet, the waning light bouncing upon the handmade islands scraped together from piles of space junk. Most of the universe's derelict satellites, space stations, ships, fuel depots, and chip shops all wound up on the bottom of Samudra's seas. The beauty of the planet lay in the brains of its exterior designers, a set of very serious dwarves and elves who only smiled if it added to the ambience of a space. By piling together the garbage of the universe they were able to craft the islands that made living on the water planet possible.
The shuttle shook again and the automated pilot's voice cracked over the intercom, "We will be reaching your destination of TAU CLUSTER in five minutes. Please have all hands, legs, and tentacles properly secured."
Variel slipped her arms to the side as a set of cuffs slid over, locking her limbs in place. The girl bounced in her seat a few times, but dutifully plopped down when her mother glanced from across the way, strangling Mister Turtle in the restraints. Mr. Green glanced down for a moment and then his eyes rolled back up, as if he were about to pass out.
"Hey!" Variel called out to him, "Think of grass, trees, mud, the feel of wind on your face after a rainstorm."
Mr. Green gulped down what they were all grateful didn't join the cabin and nodded slowly, his rolled eyes shut tight. The other passengers, a few families and an elderly couple, gazed down at the sight below their sandaled feet.
Every atmoshuttle on the vacationing worlds was equipped with a solid "glass" bottom. The blue bauble grew beneath their feet as she expanded to solid land. Mostly solid land. Waves that could destroy entire cities looked little more than ripples from their height, but soon enough they'd be sloshing about in them as the shuttle made a crash landing. It would be breathtaking to anyone who hadn't survived an emergency sea dive a dozen or so times before.
Variel closed her own eyes, yanking her mind far from the ordinary of a piece of metal hurtling towards a planet's junked islands and back to her own troubles at hand. WEST was scrounging for the house plans, but basically told her unless the architect really loved to brag about his work on missive, he wasn't gonna find jack shit. It was unlikely the planet's security would get involved for a little breaking and entering, Dacre wouldn't want that kind of attention brought down on his squatting ass.