by S E Zbasnik
"I...of course," his husky voice caught in embarrassment. "While we are on the subject of name requests, I understand the need for a briefer name in tense situations, but I would prefer if you avoid 'Tal.'"
"Oh?" She yanked her hand back just as the MGC source lashed a tendril towards the infiltrator. Grabbing another stick of wood from her hair, she tossed it into the cabinet, distracting the somewhat alive part.
"In the elven tongue, Tal refers to a small vegetable that causes uncomfortable gas exchanges when consumed."
Variel snickered at the thought of going around calling someone cabbage as she investigated deeper, her hand snagging across a bright red brick clogging up a vent hole. "Ah!" she yanked the offending toy out, and settled back on her haunches. "Then what would you prefer?"
Not Cabbage offered his hand and helped her to rise as she pushed down on the power button and prayed. "When I was younger, most referred to me as 'Sin.'"
"Sin? Really?"
"Is there a problem?" the assassin asked the woman trying to wipe a very large grin off her face in the dim light of a silenced gremlin.
"Nope, none at all. Sin it is." She gave him a brief once over and slightly laughed, "It fits you. Ah! There we go." The grey screen of dismay was replaced by a flash of life and the rotating moon appeared. Something was happening inside of the computer system. It flashed a few times, and Variel asked, "WEST, are you there? Can you say anything?"
The noise that answered was like a warped sound file, slowed to almost demonic speeds and then rushed forward with a crash, "...m a little teapot short and stout. This is my handle, this is my spout..."
"Crap, he must have never stashed a backup here," she poked at her PALM, getting into her computer's interface. "It's stuck on nursery engine mode. Best it can do is sing silly songs and teach us to love."
"Couldn't you reset the entire system?" Taliesin asked, tipping his head along with the dancing tea kettle's movements.
Variel snorted, "You think I didn't try that? First minute I flipped the system on and it asked 'Owner 23, would like to keep breathing?' I went poking for the factory reset button, but little squirt's got backups hidden inside backups. Twenty-five years floating in space with minimal power keeping you sentient but immobile will do that, I suppose." A few files titled "Innocuous supply lists" caught her eye. Orn would never use as big a word as innocuous. Navigating into them she hit pay dirt and poked at the screen, interrupting a very irritated tea kettle that was about to tell a story about some ocular damaged mice.
"Computer, transfer memory files located in..." she read through the pathway list. WEST was really paranoid, as it created folders within folders approaching an infinity of hiding places. "Never mind, I'll do it myself."
Searching through the mass of memory she finally asked her elf what she'd been itching to know ever since the Knight crashed her return party, "So, Sin, how'd that bitch get her claws all over the ship?"
"The engineer believed hiding our silhouette behind the dark side of one of the moons would be a strong precaution."
"She's right; can't see it, can't find it."
"And she cut off any sensor sweeps, aside from the channel to your PALM," he tried to steady the gremlin, but it swung a bit during his tale.
"Shiiit," Variel cursed herself, "Of course, the Knight followed any comm lines off the planet, because who's an Orc gonna call in orbit?" She hated to admit she was impressed, but Sovann was a Knight, and not one that bought her way to the sword.
"It was about an hour after you finished construction of the device that the Drake appeared below us, attaching a docking point before Ferra had time to begin disengaging procedures."
"Disengaging procedures? I didn't know we had those."
"Something about sending as many volts as she could get through the connection, vaporizing anyone climbing it."
Variel snorted, "Remind me to never piss her off. So..." she searched through a few more hiding places, gods I need to fix this search function, "how'd you know when we were done making that stupid injector? Ferra'd never let you onto the line. Spying on me?"
"I...I was concerned, though it was apparently misplaced," the elf almost sounded embarrassed probably at his perceived failure.
"Not entirely," she admitted. "When this is over I'll tell you all about our mad escape out of orc City Hall involving a dumpster and Segundo whoring himself out." She cracked an eye to watch the elf's face as he took in the mental image. "But you were boarded..."
"The Knight, Sovann, forced open the shuttle bay, allowing her small ground force entrance. By the time I reached her, it was too late. One had cornered Ferra, and the other, Brena. It was my fault," the shame was evident even through the icy elven shell.
Variel turned away from the pair of hopping rabbits knocking away the command line to teach her about sharing. She eyed up the elf and softened, her hand resting across his arm. The still fresh wound from a gauntlet ring she knew all too well glittered in the dancing light. "Hey, this ain't your fault. This isn't anyone's fault but hers."
The elven eyes rotated into 'I know you are pandering to me' mode, an eyebrow disappearing beneath his mousy hair, "I am a trained elven assassin..."
"And she's a Knight of the realm, probably modded to the gills with anti-elven implants," her hand fell to his, gripping it softly.
"Anti-elven implants? But we have never been anything but friendly with the human people."
"Doesn't mean we aren't prepared just in case that friendship turns. You catch us eyeing up that old planet you used to date, we find out you were talking behind our moon."
"Do you have any anti-elven implants?" he asked, watching for the lie.
"I..." The computer beeped as the file transfer completed. Turning away from the assassin, she pushed the restart button and smiled at the familiar chime WEST adopted to announce his presence to the world.
The screen twitched for a moment, and a bunny replaced one of his wheel eyes, but the disembodied assumed head of their obstinate computer returned, "-I shall extract both your ocular lobes and place them into a grape salad! Where am I?"
"Welcome back, WEST," Variel said, trying to reassure her little mental patient.
"Welcome back? What welcome back?! Why am I being welcomed back? Where is it that I am being welcomed back to...Oh, yes, I am loading the memory now. That woman, Knight 7463-A, she tried to disconnect my personality matrix and reset to factory setting."
"She, in fact, did," Taliesin said, having watched the performance from below her boot.
"WHAT?! That is impossible! You cannot take me offline, if you try you are zapped dead. DEAD I SAY!"
Variel waved her hand in front of Taliesin, trying to get the elf to shut up. This was very delicate work trying to sooth the silicon beast, "You're right, WEST, and that's why you hid your brain back here in the old nursery."
"The nursery? Oh, sweet calculus, not the sticky fingers prodding into every port and requesting I sing them the 'tea pot song'? Always the tea pot song, sing the blighted tea scalding pot song! Please, unplug my brain now. Send me to the computational void! Free me from this slavery to your organic spawn!"
"There are no children here," Variel waved her hands about the darkened and dusty room, "But people are on the ship. The same people who shut...tried to shut you down."
"I shall feast upon their microchips!"
"Humans do not have..." Taliesin started but shut up as Variel bumped her foot into his leg.
"Yes, right, good. But to do that I need you to get to the rest of the ship. Is this platform still connected?"
"Of course." If it were possible for a series of 1's an 0's to sound smug WEST could pull it off with the best of them.
"I need you to get to the bridge sensors, but make damn sure no one can see you there. Pretend you're a maintenance pop up or something. Ask Orn to register something, he's always ignoring those until that something self destructs."
"And then what?" WEST asked. "It will take me ti
me to weasel through the vast network."
"Why?" Variel asked. One of the repair bots extended its black limbs gnarled like a tree skeleton. They were designed for use and not aesthetics.
"I need a bit of help getting around in my old age," WEST said. The bot stuck its own black hand into the download port on a panel etched in very large letters with "NEVER EVER TOUCH OR SHOVE BLOCKS INSIDE. TIMMY, I MEAN YOU!"
"Once you get to the bridge, contact my PALM," Variel said at first to the bot then the waning computer, "I'll be in engineering making sure this bird can fly when the cage is open."
"Humans and their metaphors," WEST muttered, before a fear struck it. The eyes rotated wildly, causing the poor rabbit to look as if it were caught in a washing machine. "Before you leave, swear it."
"WEST, this really isn't the time," she said, pointing towards the grate they used to sneak in and motioning Taliesin near.
"I refuse to do anything more until you do."
Variel sighed, "Fine, I swear I will never turn you off, shut you down, or put you on standby mode, may a virus destroy my bootup system. Now get your ass to the bridge."
"Aye Aye, Captain!" WEST slipped in the animation of a hand waving a sword before his screen, "We have a bird to rescue!" The entire face vanished, leaving behind a still rotating rabbit.
"Gods, save me from insane computers," Variel muttered, following behind her elf.
Ferra's eyes glared up at the whine of her babies, the left sputtering a bit because she'd been unable to tend to the filters recently enough. The right was always a colicky pain in the ass. That stone chewer in charge of "watching her" kept quivering at the radioactive coils pulsing with enough MGC to blow a hole through the universe, sequestered only behind a thin shield as if he had something to fear.
"Do they always do that?"
Ferra grinned at his obvious discomfort and inched a bit to the left; she'd been eyeing her tool pile, never properly organized, tossed across the floor. "No, sometimes they spit lightning."
He jumped as the left coil hissed, siphoning off the ship's background MGC to the right for storage. She smiled again, sliding onto her right foot as if she needed to shift her weight. Kid's never been anywhere near a proper engine, they're all locked up behind thick shielding and bots do most of the real work. You can't even get your hands properly dirty...or irradiated.
"But you really need to watch out for the splort," Ferra teased.
"The 'splort'?" Her guard was human, that was about as far as Ferra got to caring about descriptions. Tall, flat ears, thick as and dumber than a post. Factory setting human.
She leaned towards him and whispered, "When it splorts, if'n you don't dodge out of the way in time, your entire skin will slide right off."
"My skin?"
"Yup, like one of those flayed educational displays. How do you think they make 'em?"
Her left baby was crying more, the whine getting into ear splitting range for the human. The guard looked uncomfortable, no doubt a powerful headache building behind his cranial lobe, as he eyed the pulsating green coil almost eight feet tall and twice as round. As he inched closer to the shield, his greasy fingers tapped against the mostly spotless glass. Her baby let out a huge burp, the last of the siphoned MGC causing a gas buildup.
The splort sent the guard scampering for the ground, his hands covering his head. Ferra dashed towards her tools, but a quick arm lashed out, sending her crashing to the ground. Her chin bounced against the grates, snagging on some of the carpet padding she wasn't able to rip up. A knee pushed into her back, crushing her ribs against the grate.
"You think you're funny, little girl?"
Ferra tried to breathe, but he collapsed her ribcage with a quick pop, her lungs were struggling for air. She flailed against the pressure, trying to throw the man off her, but she was stuck fast. As her vision started to fade, the imaginary sparkles of airborne MGC getting a bit too real, the pressure released. Blessed air entered her aching lungs, while her sides cried out from the pressure. The bastard broke something in her chest. He didn't wait for her to rise, instead he rolled her over, his gun pointed at her head.
She glared murder at him, but didn't move. Instead, she decided to use the only other skill elves were known for, getting the bastard talking. "Is this when you...gah! When you tell me what you're all doing here?"
Her moron of a guard waved his gun about as if it were impressive, but he replied the boilerplate, "None of your business."
"Is that human speak for you won't tell me," she sucked in a razor laced breath and continued, "or you don't know?"
The guard wavered, wanting to impress anyone of the fairer race. It was obvious in the way he polished his boots, wore a slightly too tight uniform, and bandied his gun about like a second set of genitalia. He probably cleaned the damn thing every night while polishing himself off as well.
At his continued silence Ferra quipped, "So it's the latter, then?"
"Someone's offered a tidy sum for your pet smoke. At least ten times what this piece of shit, windshield splat is worth."
Fire burned in Ferra's eyes. No one called her piece of shit ship that. Shutting her eyes tight, she inched towards the wall, lifting her broken body up until she got to a sitting position conveniently close to her tools. Now all she had to do was distract the guard long enough for her to grab a handle, stagger to her feet, and beat him to death with it without fully destroying her ribcage. No problem.
Her hand dropped down dead, as if she couldn't keep it up, landing curiously close to her plasma conductor; a jagged tool with two long prongs that sparked a stream of plasma when she needed to spot weld shit that she shouldn't while in space and certainly not during a pinch. It was the top three murder weapon for engineers sick of being asked how long they needed to accomplish a task and then told they have half that time. The number one was bare hands.
Ferra didn't look at the tool so close her fingers itched, all her focus was on the human honing his gun on her as if she was some last level in a game. The final boss battle lay broken and bruised on the engineering floor, such a big man finishing that off.
A grate clattered to the floor down the end of the hall. Ferra's superior elven eyes could only spot the flash of silver as it bounced into the ground, but the guard turned away from her, waving his gun at the dark and empty air. "Whoever you are, show yourself."
"This ship is old," Ferra said, ferreting her tool behind her back and sitting up straighter as he turned back to her, "shit's always falling off."
The guard glared at her and she smiled wide, as smug as ever. He turned back to the unlit hall, narrow as a bathroom stall door, the shaking red light of the right coil bouncing shadows across the empty air. Peering with all his peering might, the guard tried to see to the end where he was certain he slammed the door and locked it tight. Anyone opening it would kick light into the room, so he'd kept the hall dimmed. Ferra didn't bother to mention the overhead lights hadn't worked in five months. She'd been meaning to get to that.
Another sound, like a pebble bouncing against the machines hugging the wall, pinged across the room. The engine's whine failed to cover it up as the room suddenly felt a lot fuller than before. A shadow danced with the twitching red light, blackness falling where it shouldn't, but every time the guard blinked it'd be gone, the air clear and the hall empty. He steadied his gun up, placing a slightly shaking hand below the butt.
"Whoever you are, I will not hesitate to shoot you."
"You'd open fire on a spaceship? Are you fucking nuts?!" Ferra berated, drawing his attention away from the blackness as he glared at her. Realizing his mistake, he turned back quickly, forgetting the broken elf on the floor.
"I repeat again, show yourself, now!" The gun shook in his hands. Pings echoed around the engines, pieces of bric-a-brac bouncing and echoing across the machinery as the shadows danced from side to side, even seeming to double.
"I'll give you to the count of three. One." The guard thought he spotted a
bit of grey in the darkness, a flash of skin. "Two." He aimed for the skin crouching beside the bannister. "Thr-"
A set of prongs, dribbling plasma, burst through his chest as Ferra rammed her tool straight through his guts, extending the reach to maximum and screaming along with him. "No one shoots my ship! No one!"
Before she could release her grip on the plasma tool, a hand appeared out of the darkness and whacked the guard's gun up, scattering it to the engines. Ferra fell to her knees, sucking in the pain while her ribs issued serious complaints. The guard was yanked high off his feet by the practiced hand latched around his windpipe. Watching the guard's legs twitch and dance in the air, Ferra sucked in the breath he couldn't get, until the final ounce drained from his system and his body crumpled to the floor.
Then the dulcen dropped to his knee and looked her in the drooping head, "She is injured."
His assistant rushed forward, scattering the piles of building toys they tossed for a distraction, and gently poked at Ferra's shoulders. "Variel?" Ferra asked the specter prodding her to find the pain, "Aren't you dead?"
"I got better, where'd he hurt you?" she tossed off her questions for later. All business was never a good sign for those that got in the captain's way. It was one of the few things the human and elf shared.
"Ribs, a few of them popped, probably broken in more places than I'd care to numerate." She leaned against her captain's arms as the ghost tried to steady her and injected a hypo of morphine into the elf's neck. At this point Ferra didn't care if she was some walking undead come to suck out their intestines, any pain relief earned a gut eater her thanks.
"This is a problem," the dulcen said as he finished dragging the body to the end of the hall, propping it against the door out of the way and picking up the injector Variel dragged through the ship.
"We need to get her to Monde for patching," Variel responded, putting away her few foraged medical supplies. Her crew couldn't take too many more hits.