by S E Zbasnik
"We have a problem," she said eyeing up the captain still sipping down the brown water.
Variel cast her eyes back to the orc slowly closing the biscuit tin and replacing it in the cupboard. Ferra followed but folded her hands across her chest. For the past twelve hours, the engineer needed to talk to whoever claimed to be in charge. With Variel, her husband, and that killer dulcen down on the planet that technically left the insane onboard computer in charge. Every time she demanded it make an official decision, WEST would cry, "You're one of THEM aren't you?!" and switch its face off.
"Monde," Variel said, trying to rise into official captaining position. She tugged down on her hospital smock subconsciously, "could you give us a few moments?"
The orc eyed up the engineer, her belt stuffed with the same tools he'd used earlier only scaled up for a much larger patient, then back to the woman who brushed off death as if it were a stray hair. "If this is one of your plans to get out of the med-bay, it will not work."
"It isn't, I swear," Variel said, waving her hands up. "It's just private, personal, boring -- yeah, boring -- ship business. You won't want to be bogged down in it."
"I see," Monde said, tenting his hands up.
"I'll drag her ass back when we're done," Ferra said, wanting to move this on.
"Really?"
"I swear by the water cooler of destiny," she said raising her right arm.
The doc knew when he'd been beat. Gathering up his data sheets, he shuffled out of the galley, slowly shutting the door behind him. Variel counted to three and motioned Ferra near, but the elf wasn't much into the subterfuge game. She yanked out a chair and crumbled into it, remaining shouting distance from the ill one.
"We're cordially invited to screw ourselves," Ferra said poking into her fist.
Variel placed her aching head into her hands. She'd been fearing as such after Orn beat around the rocks. He may not have a grasp of spacial mechanics but he knew when he wife moved into "we could die at any moment" agitation.
"I ran the numbers, three times before you ask, and at the rate of decay and judging by the rising levels of incoherency from WEST, we won't make it another three maybe four hours before total shut down."
"WEST can't help save its own brain?"
"It's spent the past half hour shouting at me in ancient, ancient dwarven translated to binary, then switched over to pictographs. It took every diagnostic tool I had to figure out what it wanted."
"Really? What was it asking for?"
"Sugar for its tea."
Variel massaged her temples, trying to find the lone un-sore spot on her body, "Flat out, how bad is this?"
"You know how falling into the gravitational field of a black hole and spending the rest of the galaxy's life being compacted to the size of an atom is bad?"
"Yeah."
"This is bad bad. At least with the black hole you can be a tourist attraction in your death throes."
"Okay," Variel shook her head and slugged back the last of the protein mixture as if it were something with a far more elevated proof. "I'll make the call. WEST?"
"You will find happiness...in death!" the computer shouted before flicking the sink on and off.
Variel sighed and pushed on her PALM, "Marek, get to the mess. We need to talk."
Her husband was surprisingly quick to answer the summons, his hair even partially slicked back from a vast amount of oil. She was glad she was passed out for his introduction to the showers aboard a starship. Any heavy grime had to be scraped away before the sterilizers could get to it, and it took a little adjusting to the oil blotters. Judging by the bright tan lines radiating off the gap between Marek's cuffs and the slippers, he just left the UV on until he started to smell cooking flesh.
"What do you want?" he said, leaning onto the counter. He missed the set of orc eyes poking up through the side door.
"I'm sorry, am I interrupting some great business deal? Were you just about to sell off Arda's fifth moon to the highest bidder?"
"Ha." Under his breath he whispered, "Guess they can't bleed the bitch out of someone."
"Do you have something to say to the whole class?"
Ferra banged the end of her wrench against the table, "Captain, tick tock and all."
"Right," Variel turned in her chair to look fully into her husband's eyes hoping somehow she'd reach that microscopic glimmer of common sense. "I need your assistance to..." she watched his eyes fog over with unconcern and she switched tactics, "To make a long, technical story short you need to unlock the ship, now."
"Oh, do I now? Um, well, how about no. I'm not one of your little ants dancing whenever the 'captain' comes a'calling."
Ferra whacked her wrench harder, "Listen, you little moss scrounger. We don't have days to debate this. There aren't even hours. Three, four hours at best here, and if you don't stick your little dong into the key slot we're all dead."
Variel snickered as for a moment Marek paled then turned beet red. She waved Ferra over and whispered in her ear.
"What?! I thought it meant 'finger' in human. I've been accusing humans of putting their dongs in too many pies. Oh, Orn's gonna get it!"
"Point being," Variel continued, "we won't get out of passage space for another twenty three hours. It is feasibly impossible for us to contact the woman who can kill off Terrwyn before then, and we're sitting on a ticking time bomb. That little lawyer bug is eating through every system on the ship. Given enough time everything on the ship dies, including us."
Marek licked the top of his teeth as he contemplated his next words carefully, "You must think I'm professionally stupid."
"If the pegasus slipper fits..." Ferra said.
"I don't care if in twenty minutes time fire rains from the stars as the end of days begins and I'm the only one that can stop it with my 'little dong.' I'm not lifting a single key, dotting an I, or putting in a password until my wife lies dead at my feet."
"This isn't a game. You'll die, too," Variel tried to plead with whatever scraps of decency remained.
"Fuck. Off."
Ferra sprung up, her wrench swinging for his skull. Marek froze in the coming onslaught, perhaps in utter shock that such a tiny thing would beat the tar out of him, but Variel intervened, "Ferra."
The elf skidded, her arm raised high to swat down anything that threatened her ship, "I got this captain. I'll crack the answer out of his skull."
"No, it's time for plan B."
"Really?" Ferra asked. Her wrench dropped down and Marek slowly looked around, then lowered his hands thrown around his head for protection. "Are you sure?"
"Break the locks off, take whoever you need to complete it as quickly as possible," Variel glared at her husband even as she ordered Ferra, her eyes as impenetrable as a diamond soul.
Ferra scratched her back with the wrench, all the ways this half wrought plan could blow up in her face becoming a stark reality. "I'm gonna need some time to get the equipment in place..."
"You have, well, until we all die, I guess," Variel said, not as reassuring as she'd have preferred.
"We better pull the ship over in case an engine pops off or something," Ferra said, lightly pushing aside Marek as if he were a door as she reached for the hatch. She left most of the good stuff up in her room. Maybe that dulcen could help her.
"Right, I'll call Orn," Variel said, and walked over towards the sink panel.
A hand grabbed onto her weak wrist and she turned slowly to the panicking eyes of her husband, "You can't do this. It's insane."
"You've left me little choice. Whatever happens is on your head," she cursed him and yanked her hand away from his clammy fingers.
"I hate you."
"The feeling is mutual," she said as she pushed on the button for the bridge. "Orn. Orn, turn down that blasted music; sounds like you're chainsawing up a goat. I need you to pull the ship to the side."
"Funny thing about that captain," Orn's normally chipper voice trembled a bit over the comm line. "I can't
quite do that at the moment."
"Why?"
"A ship's locked on and is towing us with it."
"What? Is it Crest? Corps? Mafia?"
"I didn't really have time to ask for its credentials as it slammed a tether into the hull and began to crank," Orn's voice dipped and swerved as if he was yanking hard upon an unrelenting driving stick.
"I'm coming."
"Good, I was afraid I'd have to ask nice."
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Variel threw open the bridge door to find her pilot half laying across his chair. One foot pressed against the console, thumping against the "stately washroom" door button, while his arms pulled with dwarven might against the immobile driving stick. Various rainbow pieces of candy tumbled from his pockets as Orn leaned his head back, trying one last time to break free.
Running forward, she pushed buttons for whatever tiny bit of data the sensors would relay. What she got back was a recipe for troll gravy. It turned out you could get blood from a stone, and it went well with a bit of flour and rosemary. "The damn virus has eaten all the sensor data!" she shouted, turning back to the shining lump that followed her. Marek only shrugged his shoulders -- attacks by enemy ships were her area of expertise, not his.
"Cap, why don't you try the comm line?" Orn suggested, abandoning his immobilized stick and then giving it a good kick in frustration.
"You didn't try calling them?" Variel's mouth fell agape as she hunted for the switch buried under a pile of wrappers.
"They seemed to be more in the stab first, ask questions later business. You two should fit right in, actually."
"Orn..." she warned as she raised the comm line. "Who is this and what do you think you're doing?"
Only static answered back as Orn raised one untamed eyebrow at his captain and shrugged. Then a small chuckle overlapped the static and a familiar voice answered back, "I believe you know who this is and I think I am making a house call."
"Is that...?" Marek started.
"The tea pot, our hacker's come for us," Variel finished for him.
"Yeah, fancy that. Right here in our faces, and everything," Orn muttered, twisting around his bad hand until it locked and unlocked.
"What do you require of us?" Variel asked to the ether.
"Righting your vessel would be a good first step."
"'Righting our...'" Variel looked out the windows, straining to try and see any signs dotting the passageway. "Orn, is our ship upside down?"
"It's space. Who cares if it's upside down?"
"Orn..."
"It's not like there's a lot of traffic on the passageway. Not many planets with 'This Side Up' signs to direct you."
"Orn..."
"Fine, fine." He plopped down in his chair muttering, "Maybe she's the one who's upside down." This was going to take a bit of time, adjusting for gravity changes and the slow crawl across each new surface wasn't easy when your computer currently believed itself to be an epicurean genius despite having no intestines or taste buds.
"And when we're right side up, what then?" Variel asked the hacker on the other line.
"You come to my ship and we finish our business."
"Simple as that?" Her captain senses were tingling. After everything that could and did go horribly wrong, it couldn't be that easy.
"Seems you don't have a lot of time left on the clock, Lady Yates. So yes, it is as simple as that."
"Orn, you know what to do."
"I do?" he asked as he shifted the gravity bubble down another ten degrees.
"Docking procedures. Shouldn't be too hard with the other end trying to assist for once."
"Right, okay, no problem," he nodded his shaggy head. "Uh, Captain..."
"What?"
"I was just thinking that, what with the ship being over here and not over there, it would probably be best if I stayed over here with the ship and not over there with the not-a-ship."
"I thought you knew her," Variel said, for the first time tempted to delve into the past of her normally talkative, wore everything on his sleeve dwarf. Now he crashed into a jittery mess every time the Vida woman was mentioned, even in passing, his normally free falling words jammed up inside his sugar-coated throat. Strange.
"Know is a relative term when you think about it," Orn said, his eyes darting back and forth from the controls to his Captain. "You and the shredded piece of duct tape are married, but do you know each other?"
"Fine, fine, stay. I'll do anything to get out of another metaphysical debate. When you're done parking, contact me. Come on, Marek," she said, nodding to her piece of duct tape. "We have a space walk to prepare for."
Space walks were, on the whole, something better left for mech droid bots -- or whatever WEST was calling them that day -- and tourists. It was an hour of struggling into a tent turned space suit for five minutes of "walking among the stars" while fans buzzed in your ears, your feet froze, and your nose refused to stop itching. Only the wide eyed and bushy tailed jammed down a pants leg grew excited when the matte greys were unpacked.
Marek prodded the strip Variel threw at him to clog any leaks he found. His suit was ancient, with strange red flares on the shoulder lines and "Johnson" embroidered on the back. No Johnson was ever recorded in the entirety of the Elation's crew manifest. It was theorized that the suit predated the ship in some accident of the time fashion police.
"What?" Variel asked as she sat down on the bench, rolling up the pants like tin foil tights. This was the worst part. Marek dangled the strip of tape and raised an eyebrow. She waved it away, "We're not actually heading outside-outside. This is like dressing in your magma coat while you pass through a dwarven walkway."
"Yeah, because I've clearly done that before."
"Shut up and put the damn suit on," Variel glared at her husband as he lifted one of the gloves and slotted it onto his hand. He wasn't going to be able to get anything snapped shut with that gauntlet on. Oh well, his problem now.
She reached down into the chest cavity and tried to boot up the mini computer. The gaping panel teetered away from her fingers, but finally she nabbed onto the slippery thing and it bonged, sending suit updates through the helmet that wasn't connected. The visor flared red and scrolled every emergency alarm available. "Bloody thing."
"Captain..."
Variel wiggled a few loose wires and watched the red vanish from the helmet. Not the improvement she'd hoped for, but at least it wasn't screeching. She turned to the elf crowding up the embarkation room's door. Despite everyone at some point in their lives needing to use the airlock, occasionally more than once, the room was as lifeless as a comet's tail. A single computer panel nestled in the waiting entrance with some homey banisters keeping it away from sticky fingers. WEST's one original job was taken over by a small sign with a piece of paper taped to it: "Bridge Right, Shuttle Bay Left." Benches lined along the sides, most covered in dust from lack of use, and unmarked lockers filled in the decor-less walls.
"I am ready to assist," Taliesin said, his hands behind his back as he fell into assassin stance.
Variel's gauntleted hand landed on his shoulder as she tried to touch any of his body through the padding, "It's all right, I've got this."
His eyes fell over to her husband, who had his helmet on, one glove and half a boot. The rest of the space suit was scattered about his shoulders like a cape. "Are you certain?"
"Marek!" Variel shouted over her shoulder.
"What?" he paused in his attempt to flip the suit inside out.
"Don't be a dumbass."
"Fine," her husband grumbled as he pulled off the boots and began to properly slide his feet inside.
Variel shrugged as she returned to the elf. "It's under control."
"For how long?" Taliesin wondered aloud.
She gripped her fingers into his bicep and pulled him to the side, trying to escape the cloud of idiocy emanating from her husband. "I need you here."
"What you need is the liberal application of a poiso
n. I have numerous options. One paralyzes the victim and then liquifies the brain."
Variel didn't laugh, but she did squeeze his arm lightly trying to assure him that she was in the peak of health and not in danger of passing out from remaining vertical for too long. A total lie, of course, but it seemed unlikely Taliesin asked Monde about her state or he'd be far less cordial right now. "This shouldn't take too long. An hour hopefully, but if it takes longer I need you to assist Ferra. She'll explain. I'm surprised she hasn't recruited you, actually."
Taliesin was so focused on his own problems, Variel's words washed past, "He nearly got you killed."
"And then he helped to save me."
"He saved his own ass."
She bobbed her head, "Yeah, but as long as his ass is tied to mine I should be safe."
"I do not trust him," the assassin flexed his fingers, the heavy claws of the elves cutting through the air.
Variel shook her head, grateful that her life could return to a semblance of normalcy once she was done traipsing through some high tech hacking ship. She put one hand on Taliesin's cheek and pulled his gaze away from her husband. The elf refused at first, not wanting to break from his prey, but his forehead bumped softly into her.
"Trust me, okay?"
Those tiny elven lips wadded up as he weighed his options, the yellow eyes dropping down in thought. "Must you make it so difficult?" he asked, and half smiled for his half serious thought.
"I'd be dull otherwise," she said, and broke away from him to shout at her husband, "Are you done?"
"I think so. Is it supposed to be flashing 'Error Error' on this stomach panel?" Marek asked as he stared down at the section flaring red in anger at its mistreatment.
"That's supposed to go on your back. You have it all turned around," Variel said. Sighing as he pulled his arms into his stomach and tried to move the suit around, she motioned to Taliesin, "Could you hand me my helmet, please?"