by S E Zbasnik
Marek gurgled, "Please, put me down."
The dead woman with the scar, her scar, twisted her head and said, "Yeah, you should probably put him down."
Taliesin turned to the white cowl slipping off the man turning blue in his hands, then back to the woman, "Who are you?"
"What? Oh crap, how do you turn this thing off? Vida!"
"Try the off switch," came a voice from the darkness.
"Right, why didn't I think of that?" and, after the woman poked at a box attached to her hip, the air around her face shimmered and faded until his captain appeared.
Marek dropped from his hands, the body hitting the floor hard. He coughed and rolled onto his side, fighting to get air into his lungs while he made rude gestures at the only assassin in the room. Taliesin walked towards Variel, afraid to touch her lest she suddenly collapse from a late case of the deads, "I...you were," he looked to his hand and opened it, watching the very real entry upon her. As he opened it to her, he said, "There was a bounty upon your head."
"Ah," she said, reading over some of the details but not dropping in shock the way he'd expected, "I should have expected that." She lightly touched his cheek, her fingers far too warm to belong to a corpse, and then she walked over to her husband curled upon the floor.
"Did it work?" he coughed.
"I have no idea," Variel said, offering him her hand. "What's the story, Vida. Am I dead?"
"I'm still splicing it into surveillance footage. This shit takes time," a woman called from the dark. Her bellow suggested dwarf, troll, or some kind of demon infested foghorn.
"I do not understand," Taliesin said. He reached down and picked up the gun he smashed away from the assassin.
"No kidding," Marek muttered, massaging his throat and then gingerly prodding the eye Taliesin bashed in.
Variel pulled his hand down, "Don't touch it. It'll just make it worse." To Sin, she said, "This will take a bit of explaining."
"Yes, I believe it will."
"Turns out, despite being the best 'hacker in the galaxy,' Vida couldn't mark my MIA file as Deceased, Gone, Never Coming Back."
"Oh sure, it's all my fault and not some crazy knight who must have pissed off an Emperor, or King, or whatever it is you humans have."
"So you dressed up and shot each other?" Taliesin asked, noticing the glimmer in the fake blood as it dried to a very unconvincing pink.
Variel smirked and turned her head, "More or less. She may not have been able to break into Crest databases."
"I got in just fine," the dwarf grumbled, her pride bleeding across the floor.
"But," Variel continued, "she could manipulate the assassin's guild and put out a hit on Terrwyn's head."
Realization crested across Taliesin's face as he nodded slowly, but it was Vida who took over, happy to show off to make up for all her shortcomings, "Back date the list of the kill, get one of the best men on it, film a little scene with my handy piece of shit surveillance camera and boom! Terrwyn Yates is dead and the assassin guild automatically updates the Crest's databases."
"Your husband has been in service as an assassin for this dwarf?" Taliesin asked.
Marek barked at that, his fingers still poking the eye Variel told him to leave alone, "You sure do love the dumb ones, don't you?" She shook her head and glowered at her husband. For a brief moment she almost felt a trace of pity from the beating Sin levied upon Marek out of him in a misplaced sense of chivalry, but it evaporated as she remembered what lurked underneath that tender, easily bruised exterior.
"Snow's not real," Variel said. "A fake persona Vida uses when she needs to fake kill someone."
"Get it?" Vida said, nudging her chair into the hot lights of her makeshift studio, "Snow. A Dwarven Snow. Impossible. Oh, never mind," and she wheeled back, watching her screens. "Should be going live now."
Sure enough, Taliesin's hand fluttered and the red screen of Terrwyn Yates turned a completed green. A small addition of her death date and time were added. The guild had eyes and ears everywhere they could cram a fresh pair. It never took more than an hour after a kill before they'd be forwarding coin. In general, you didn't want to wait over long to pay a platoon of highly trained killers.
"Kaching!" Marek said, pulling down his arm as if he'd done anything more than stand with a hood and pull a trigger.
"We already made the deal, the bounty goes three ways," Variel said, interrupting her husband celebrating a bit of coin to his rattling coffers.
"Sure, fine, whatever," he said, rolling his eyes up and staring at something very interesting at the ceiling.
"Well, Terrwyn Yates, it appears you have been terminated," Vida announced over her shoulder. "The order's gone through to the Crests. I'm sure they'll take a good six to eight weeks to acknowledge it, but then your precious pension checks should start popping back up."
Marek removed the white hood wrapped about his head, the cape staining under his greasy fingers and he tossed it upon a panel. Taliesin turned the gun over in his hands before handing it to Variel, "You put a lot of trust down that your husband would not actually shoot you."
Variel put her hand upon his and whispered, "Trust nothing. Dampening field."
"Oh, of course." He'd been so wrapped up in his own mind he hadn't tasted the mix of rancid shrimp upon a plate of copper in the air. She touched his cheek again and wrapped her fingers around his.
"Get a room before I begin projectile vomiting all over this hood," Marek said. Variel removed the gun out of her lover's hand and slotted it in her pocket.
"There's still the matter of the lockdown about twenty minutes from ripping the ship apart. Sin, think you can assist Marek in unlocking her before that happens?"
"And here I thought the day was finally starting to look up," Marek moaned, his fingers digging through his pockets to make sure that they key was still there. If not, he knew the elf wouldn't hesitate to bludgeon him to death with a soup spoon or something.
"If I must," Taliesin said, his mouth wrinkling in disgust. He stepped out of the light of the studio, walking crisply towards the door, "Human. Are you coming or not?"
Marek shook his head, but toddled off after the assassin like a lost gosling. Their footsteps danced across the echoing floor when Taliesin's voice cut across the void, "Human, are you not forgetting something?"
"What?"
"The ability to breathe?"
"Ah, shit," Marek ran back and scooped his suit up into his arms. He pinched his lips together in uselessness before turning towards the open door, "Hey, wait up!" and he dashed after the retreating elf.
Vida shook her head, "I'd take death over being married to that too."
"There's one thing that's been bothering me," Variel asked, leaning behind the dwarf's chair, "You and Orn."
"Oh?"
"Any mention of you and he's twitcher than when we run out of sugar frosted sugar flakes."
Vida laughed a bit to herself, "Sounds about right."
"And I can't help but wonder how someone like Orn would have anything to do with a pro like you," Variel continued.
The dwarf smiled, her face reflecting in the data stream calming back down to her background levels of messing with the universe. She asked, "Do you want to know a secret?"
"Depends on what that secret is."
Vida spun her chair about, and tilted her head. Variel stood back and watched as the dwarf reached to her knee and twisted the entire calf. It cracked and came loose in her arms. "Both of 'em," she said, cradling the false leg as if it were her salvation. In many ways, it was. Dwarves had a very fatalistic view of injuries. It was thought that any reflection of infirmaries were amplified from short comings in the soul. The prosthetics were nowhere near the most technologically advanced, but were handcrafted to appear to all but the most discerning eye as a real limb. It was why Orn always wore gloves, they hid the micro slices and rubbery skin of the only knock-off model he could afford.
"I see," Variel said as Vida replaced her le
g.
"We met in a therapy group. 'Growing the limb torn from your soul.' He used to sneak popping caps inside the instructor's false limbs. I'd laugh every time one went off as he talked about 'The beauty and power of being born with loss,' and then jammed a false knee into a fake thigh."
"He's quite the character," Variel said, wondering how many of those popping caps had almost shown up in places she'd never thought to look.
"And so are you," Vida said. "I didn't have to take on this job, but you intrigued me. A captain willing to give a job to a one handed pilot, that's rare even in this day and age."
"Could be worse," she said, feeling awkward from the unearned praise. Orn was Orn, there was no higher calling, no chivalry choice that put him in her life. "Could be a no brained pilot, and then I'd be stuck with my husband." Vida laughed at that and nodded her head, the scant hour they'd spent together had been enough to last three lifetimes.
"If you two are such good friends," Variel asked, curiosity getting the better of her, "then why's he gnawing off his foot when you come up?"
"Well, the relationship didn't end perfectly. A few things might have been thrown and then composted."
"You and...Orn? In a relationship-relationship? How in the hell does he keep scoring so far out of his league?" Variel asked the ether.
"Women love a man that makes them laugh, I suppose. He's always been a bit nervous that I'll destroy his credit or order all the pizzas in the galaxy in his name. Childish stuff, long forgotten water under the bridge," Vida waved her hand as if she'd forgiven and forgotten a long time ago. Years of solitude could place a new perspective upon the past.
"I should probably get back to my ship, and look for any hidden popping caps," Variel added to herself. "Thank you once again for all you've done."
Vida bowed her head and turned her chair back to her screen. As Variel scooped up her own suit, fitting her fingers into the glove, she contemplated how nice it would be to have a hacker she could call upon if the need were to arise. Her five years digging through the back dregs of the galaxy hadn't ever been so encouraging as this turn of events.
She walked towards the door, the light flickering beyond as one of the gear golems pushed a cart overloaded with spare gears and other parts down it to be repaired. "Oh," Vida's voice called out from the darkness, "And say hello to Ferra for me."
Variel couldn't miss the bitter twist to her engineer's name. Grabbing onto her gear, she two-stepped it out the door, shutting it tight. Better get out of here fast before a love triangle blasted apart her ship.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
The Elation dropped out of a wyrm pinch, the cracking blue of non-space elegantly slipping to black. It was the best pinch they'd ever had. Orn pulled back on the stick, letting go as the orbiting drop off took control.
He leaned back and yanked a candy stick out of his pocket. As it dangled from his lips he searched for his caramel dipping sauce. "It's all a go," the dwarf muttered to the fully automated screen. "Even ol' East got it right."
"I am here to serve," WEST said, then dropped its pitch, "you rock sucking, anemone licker."
Orn didn't pause as he returned the caramel to his mouth, "Well, it was nice while it lasted." He looked over his shoulder to the woman standing behind, "You know we could still toss him overboard. Make a few swords out of old scrap metal and have Gene throw up a gangplank."
Variel chuckled, "Next time, Orn."
"Next time?! How many husbands you have flapping about?"
"After today, none," she said, opening up the door. "Oh, and about Vida..."
"Yeah?"
"She says 'Hi.'"
The dwarf gulped, the candy stick scattering from his fingers and cracking in half on the console. His fingers twitched as he grappled with controls that ran themselves. "Right. Good ol' Vida. Real ol' Vida. So no longer sexually attractive, Vida. Nope, not in anyway."
"You know, we still haven't found the tap she put on our comm equipment."
Orn paused in his movements and said to the universe, "I'd like my body to be donated to a wax museum as a warning against pissing off women."
Variel shook her head and walked away. She found Marek squatting at the table, a bag of frozen narns pressed to his face. They were a lot like peas except they were red, square shaped, and tasted like oranges. Actually, nothing like peas. "Walk with me," she said and continued to pull him out of the galley.
He rose slowly off his feet, trailing behind the captain as she moved purposefully through her ship. She caught Ferra cracking into another of WEST's infected panels. In a fit of panic as its brain began to disintegrate, the computer released what it thought was coolant all over the systems hoping to preserve itself. Unfortunately, in its state, it confused coolant with "spray cheese," a godawful concoction Orn discovered on a goblin colony where everyone had disturbingly orange skin.
Ferra scraped the radioactive goo off her hair and then shook her fist at the computer screen. There'd been few words exchanged once Variel got back onboard, only a "job well done" as Ferra dragged Marek through every system, checking twice to be certain his password worked. The engineer hadn't said anything as his trembling fingers entered "Password" into the prompt, but she did point and laugh whenever she saw him after.
Marek would glower, then poke at his eye, inflaming the area more. The female high elf would smile graciously at him and then cover her mouth when Ferra would walk past. Even now Brena sat near the engineer, her notebook open but the pages blank as she dug through the toolbox searching for a green handle. The peace wouldn't last. Variel knew the only certainty in the universe was uncertainty, but for now she could relax in the calm sweeping through her ship's ducts.
Marek increased his step a bit and asked, "Where are we going?"
"You'll see," she answered.
"Great. That's what they tell the guy just before a race of cannibalistic aliens pop out and carve out his heart."
"If they're aliens, they can't be cannibals," Variel said, not a smile crossing her face as she led him into the airlock room. His ripped spacesuit, taped up with a bit of spackle from a very bored djinn, clung to the door. Marek paused, his fingers running down the thin metal. To think it was only this scrap of shiny fabric that kept him from the slow death of oxygen starvation. It was the cherry on top of the insane shit sundae this trip had been.
"It's time."
"For what?" Marek winced, expecting the elf to come bursting from some hidden panel and finish the job. The pointy ear hadn't said a word as he forced him back to the ship at nail clipper point, but Marek got the gist. If he was expecting an apology for the black eye, he came to the wrong assassin.
"For you to leave," Variel said, tilting her head to the door. "Do you know what's on the other side of that door?"
"Decompression and cold?"
Variel snorted. "After all this, and this," she pointed to the wad of bandages filling up her midsection, "you really think I'd kill you now?"
Marek swallowed. He didn't want to admit why he thought she'd been dragging him to his death. She'd avoided him ever since Terrwyn was offed, only offering cursory glances as if he were a piece of furniture, and he feared he knew why.
"It's Lameron, your drop off point, yes?" Variel said tilting her head.
Marek tried to keep his jaw from falling to the floor, but like so many things in his life, he failed miserably at it, "How do you know?"
"That a Cartel Lord from the Tiger Crest approached you with an easy get out of debt deal? Kill the woman who stopped his son and wipe away the staggering amounts you owed them."
"I...I didn't plan on..." Marek muttered, trying to get words to magically fill in for a gaping hole that could soon be filled with his spilled guts.
"Honestly, a Tiger?" Variel sighed as she leaned back. "I thought you knew better. They're all full of shit."
"How was I supposed to know you were still alive? Of course I'd take the deal, kill my dead wife. Uh, yeah, I think I can do that. Bam, she's d
ead. Now what? But then along comes that letter and I have to find you and make you extra dead or he'd chop up my kidneys and serve them to his pet emu."
Variel didn't say a word, her face as stoic as the commemorative coin a company minted to try and scam the Knights into buying up a ton for their friends and family. He felt the grates slipping under his feet as he swallowed, quickly running out of hope and having to settle for slime.
"How did you find out about that?"
A flare of a smile crossed her lips and she folded her arms, "You really think I didn't know when he approached you all those years back? That a contingent of Crest surveillance didn't follow you? I imagine for quite a few years you were under scrutiny for my death and didn't even know it. They probably learned all your little secrets for years before closing the case."
Marek ground his jaw as he tried to replay every idiotic decision he made the weeks and months after her death. Let off the lead, he drank deeper of the dirty well than normal. "You bitch!"
She tipped her head and bowed lightly, "Yes I am. And yet I give you your life."
"Like I'm supposed to think you did this all out of some charity? Goodness of your heart? Taking care of the little man one last time? After the shit I've seen, vaporizing me on the spot might have been preferable."
Variel rose from her lean and crossed towards her husband, "Your wife is dead, move on with your life. Gods know I intend to."
He could rail against her, threaten to turn her in to the Crests or anyone else interested in a hiding Knight. Marek blinked, his eyes drifting down away from her mile long stare. He knew and she knew that he'd choose life, whatever meager lot is left for him, over death every time. Backing his body up, he moved towards the door. Variel called out to her insane computer, "WEST, open the airlock."
"Only if you say the secret password."
"Fire," she threatened, drumming her fingers.
"Opening airlock!" WEST shouted, and the door began to rise.
Marek looked towards the conduit -- he had no way to get back to Earth, no idea what to do with the life left to him, and only enough coin to keep scraping on by. Variel's eyes dropped to the floor and she shouted, "Hey, don't forget that bag!"