by J. S. Morin
Frowning, and wondering why no one was answering when she really needed them to, she keyed the speaker override for the shipwide comm. Anyone on board would hear her now. “Hey, someone answer. It’s Esper.” She hissed out a frustrated breath. “Mort, if you’re there, just push the red button below the speaker. Red. Speaker. Right below. Just push it and talk.”
Mort could be dense about technology at times, but she knew he could work the comm panels. She was drawing a deep breath to shout through the ship’s speakers when a voice came through the datapad.
“Kubu push button.”
Esper nearly dropped the datapad. Her eyes went wide, her hand limp.
“Kubu good? Hello?”
“Kubu, find Mommy… Mo-mmy. Get Mommy.” She could only hope he would go find Tanny for her.
“Mommy’s not here,” Kubu replied, his voice coming through admirably clear over the excellent speakers in the OmniWalker Tudor. “Everybody went out. Kubu can’t go. Kubu is guarding the flying house.”
Esper blinked. He understood her. That was a reasoned, direct reply to her command. She had to be sure. “Kubu, you can understand me?”
“Yes. Who is this?” Kubu asked.
“Esper. Mommy’s friend. You know me.”
“The one who puts flower smells in her hair?”
That would have been her lilac shampoo. Good gracious, he did understand her. “Kubu, do you remember the new person? The one with short hair who sleeps in the front room?”
“Yes. He hides from Kubu.”
“Kubu, you need to tell Mommy that he’s a bad man. He works for…” She knew Kubu could understand her, but she doubted he was quite up to relaying ‘Earth Interstellar Enhanced Investigative Org’ in any cogent manner. “He works for the people who want to put Mommy and everyone else in a cage. He plays tricks on them, and he’s not nice. You need to tell Mommy. Do you understand?”
“New man in front room plays tricks on Mommy and wants to put her in a cage,” Kubu replied.
This was too bizarre. She was talking to a dog, and entrusting him with a mission. “Can you remember that until Mommy gets back?”
“Yes. Did you know Mommy has two names? Mommy’s other name is Tanny.” Kubu sounded so proud.
Esper swallowed past a lump in her throat. “You’re a good boy, Kubu.” She hit ‘end call.’ Quickly deleting the call record, she locked the datapad and slipped it back into Paul’s pocket.
There was still a limp body on the floor beside her. It was time for the unpleasant part of the plan.
It took all her strength to drag Paul across the floor. If not for the polished floor, she might not have been able to manage at all. Admiral Chisholm’s suite was equipped with a hot tub, and she left him at the edge of it. She turned away as best she was able and began removing Paul’s clothes. But there were buckles and snaps, laces, and parts where she had to wiggle him around to get garments out from under his dead weight. There was just no ignoring him completely. She scattered his clothes around the bed as if they’d been discarded amid passion.
Paul’s naked form was distracting. He was warm and a tad sweaty, not sliding along the tile floor around the hot tub nearly so well as he had across the hardwood. It took her nearly half an hour to wrestle him into a seated position in the hot tub. Turning on the water, she took a long breath and prepared for the embarrassing part. As the tub filled, she stripped off her own clothes and likewise discarded them by the bed.
Not looking at Paul was nearly as good as him not looking at her, and she covered herself with her hands despite being, for all practical purposes, alone. Admiral Chisholm was not the sort to deny herself girlish pleasures, and there was a selection of bubble additives. With a wince, she found one labeled in pink with claims of aphrodisiac properties. That was the right one; she had to play it up as best she could. As the bubbles filled the hot tub and the breeze from environmental controls chill on her bare skin, Esper crossed herself and climbed in opposite Paul.
It was a small hot tub, just large enough to be intimate with two or for one to relax and sprawl. Esper did neither. Even below the water level and bubbled, she covered herself with her hands, just on the off chance Paul woke. There was no getting away from touching him, either. Her legs ended up tangled with his, and there wasn’t much to be done about that. Except wait.
An hour passed, then another. Esper had to reheat the water several times and refresh the bubbles once. The little jets of water were the only consolation—they felt wonderful on her back and legs. At long last, a few notes from an unfamiliar song blared muffled from Paul’s pocket. It repeated, over and over, for a minute or more, then ceased. Paul hadn’t answered; it was only a matter of time until someone came to find out why.
The door warning chimed. Esper was already touching Paul—she’d had quite enough of touching him, actually—so it was a simple matter to heal the wound she had inflicted. He began to stir just as another of the guards barged in.
“Paul, what the fuck you doing in there?” the guard demanded. A pillar-necked thug, he was the sort that most seedy organizations in holovids kept around to rough people up. The guard held a datapad up to his mouth. “Yeah, he’s in here. He’s been sticking it to the admiral’s girl. … Yeah, no, he’s right here in front of me. … No, you’d never know she was a priestess. Just get a couple guys down here, I’ll take a picture and show you later.” He took his datapad and angled it toward Esper.
Esper ducked as far down into the water as she was able, but Paul was taking up much of the free space.
“What’s going on?” Paul demanded.
“I’m sorry,” Esper said, loud enough that the guard with the datapad was sure to hear. “I didn’t mean for us to get caught. You fell asleep. You got a comm on your datapad. I didn’t want to wake you.”
“How did I… did we… we didn’t just …?”
Esper nodded. It was easier lying without saying the words.
“Come on, lover-boy,” the guard said, striding over to the hot tub. Esper hadn’t planned this far ahead. She scrunched into a ball as the guard loomed over them, but all he did was grab Paul by the upper arms and haul him out of the tub.
“I… I…” Paul didn’t seem to know how to put his evening back into a shape that made sense.
“Put yer clothes on,” the guard said. “I don’t give a shit if you’re wet, I don’t wanna drag your naked ass through the ship.”
“Please,” Esper said. “You don’t need to tell Admiral Emily—I mean Chisholm. I… I don’t want her to take this the wrong way.”
The guard shrugged. “The admiral’s a fine piece of lady. If that ain’t your taste, that’s your business. But really… this sorry scab was your back-up plan?” He looked to the floor shook his head. “’Who ever loved that loved not at first sight?’ I get, but Paul?”
Esper kept her eyes averted as Paul dressed and the new guard escorted him away. Sleep couldn’t come soon enough to put the day behind her.
# # #
Bryce Brisson strutted into the common room of the Mobius like he had just won the ship in a poker game. Fresh haircut. Clean shave. He carried a small footlocker by one handle, slung over his shoulder. There was a grin on his face as he shook Carl’s hand, and he clapped Mriy on the shoulder as he walked by. He had a nod for Roddy and a wink for Tanny. He seemed about to pat Mort on the back as he passed, but a stern look from the wizard made him abort the attempt. Tanny tried to envision him undressed and was pleasantly surprised to find she liked the prospect.
She was feeling more like herself—her old self. Days spent in planning sessions with Janice’s crew brought back memories of her time in the marines. Sure, her cousin’s little splinter syndicate was nowhere near as hard-nosed and gruff as the 804th Planetary Insertion Division. But she felt a familiar rush of anticipation, like the hunger before a holiday feast.
“Quarantine looks like it treated you well,” Tanny remarked. None of them had seen Bryce since Janice took custody of
him, but with the mission launch coming up, he was entrusted to the Mobius once more.
“I’ve drunk more beer and watched more holovid sports than I did in college,” Bryce replied. “How’s it feel to be law-abiding citizens again?”
Carl chuckled. “You mean how’s it feel having everyone else think we are?” he asked. “I’ll let you know once we’ve had a chance to land someplace where they care.”
“Fair enough,” Bryce replied. “I assume I’m good for the same bunk? Can’t wait to see what you’ve done with the place.”
Tanny set aside the installation instructions for their new holo-projector, and shadowed Bryce as he sauntered off down the corridor to the front of the ship. She wanted to be there when he saw.
He opened the door and stopped short. “You gotta be shitting me.”
Tanny slouched against the wall beside him and crossed her arms. “Just the way you left it.” Despite ample time, the Mobius was still on a ramen-dinner budget when it came to luxury purchases, and that included upgrades to the guest accommodations. Their remaining funds had gone into restocking the fridge and pantry, patching up the Mobius to Roddy’s satisfaction, and picking up a stolen holo-projector at a steep discount.
Bryce let the footlocker dangle from his limp arm, dragging it on the floor as he trudged into his quarters. It must have been a shock going from the Rucker Resort’s classy three-star decor with wall-to-wall holovids and all the gambling you could stomach, to the bare walls and cot of the Mobius.
# # #
The controls of the Mobius felt good in Tanny’s hands. The grips on the flight yoke were worn where her hands always rested, the seat cushion padding crushed into the shape of her buttocks and lower back. The subtle hum that vibrated throughout every surface when the engines were running was back, and that was a comfort all its own. The worst of the waiting was over. It was mission time.
How Carl had gotten Janice to go along with the plan, she didn’t know. Mort probably knew. Roddy would have wheedled the details out of him. But when Carl had returned from the Rucker Resort grinning like a bandit, she had given him such a glare that he had kept his methods to himself. He had managed to keep his mouth shut about it even from the co-pilot’s seat, where he monitored the comm and sensors.
Formation flying wasn’t something Tanny had done much in recent years. It was like being back in the marines, in the cockpit of a drop ship. The controls were different. There were fewer crude comments from grunts racked up in the drop bay. But the low-intensity thinking of just following the other ships and waiting for updated orders was the same as ever.
“If this thing goes sideways, Mort’s ready to drop us out of the convoy’s astral depth,” Carl mentioned. He just couldn’t sit there keeping his mouth shut. It was downright psychiatric. Mort was always ready to try something stupid and dangerous to flex his magical muscle. She ignored him and hoped he would take the hint.
They were still in Poet-controlled space, using the fleet’s astral gate out to the edge of the Freeride System. Twelve mining ships, including the large, clumsy colony ship, drifted along amid their escort. Janice’s Alley Cat, a Shadow class blockade running, led the way. The Mobius took the port side of the formation, with the Atlantis Dream—a militia patrol craft under Bill’s command—on the starboard. Taking up the rear was a temporary escort from the Poet Fleet, a pair of light cruisers that could dust the lot of them, the Do Rhetorical Questions Require Punctuation and the It Tolls For Thee.
It was only minutes to the astral gate that would take them back to real space at the outskirts of Freeride. Once they dropped out of the public astral space, the convoy would engage their own star-drives and head out of system. Tanny keyed the comm to the engine room. “Roddy, all systems check out?”
“No, that new holo-projector is a piece of junk,” Roddy came back through the cockpit speakers.
Carl leaned across to Tanny’s side of the cockpit. “Hey, it was the best we were getting in Carousel. You rather be stuck watching me and Mort play Battle Minions?”
“The ship’s system, Roddy,” Tanny said. “Engines, shields … the stuff that matter now.”
“Engines are 4 percent under ideal efficiency, probably due to fuel impurities, but it could be a misalignment in the ignition subsystem. Shields are iffy; the dissipation coefficient is only 29 percent, but it’s not like we can power them up any higher than 30 or 35 with the engines and guns on line. Life support reports a pressure increase over nominal in the waste reclaim, and I’m pretty sure with Kubu around, that’s going to need regular maintenance. Internal power distribution—”
“She just wants the military version,” Carl said.
Roddy’s snort carried clearly through the comm. “Okie dokie, cap’n. We’re good as gum for a gunfight.”
Tanny gave Carl a withering look, but he just smirked back with a silent laugh in his eyes. How could he keep the jester act when they were about to engage in a mission? Even with the Recitol telling her that worrying was for weaklings, she could feel her palms sweating.
“Roy, Barnum & Toyoda Mining Expedition fleet, you are cleared for astral exit,” Captain Jan Toivonen, commander of the It Tolls For Thee, said.
“Roger that,” came the reply from Commander Bilkken of the mining convoy. “Thanks for the escort.”
Carl shook his head. “They actually sound grateful.”
“They’re Sol based,” Tanny said. “They’re probably pissing themselves being this far from an ARGO battle group. There’s no Vendetta class interceptor cruisers to bail them out if they get in trouble. Those pirates probably looked like real protection to them.”
“You’re not getting cold feet, are you?” Carl asked.
“No,” Tanny lied. This was all worked out and finalized. If they wanted their records to stay cleared, Esper back, and no one sentenced to decades of prison time, they had to follow through. “I just… they’re like lambs to the slaughter.”
“No slaughter,” Carl replied. “I got Janice to buy off on that. We fuck this up in a ‘prosecutor and judge’ sorta way, it’ll be simple piracy, not murder.”
“What’s that?”
“In years?” Carl asked. Tanny nodded. Carl was the one who normally worried about that end of things. “Fifteen for you guys, twenty for me as the ship’s owner. That’s if the big boys get us. If we got rounded up by local militias or someone besides an ARGO species, they’d probably dust us without hailing.”
“I swore we’d never stoop to this,” Tanny muttered. They’d done a lot of low jobs: theft, smuggling, illegal salvage. But this was the first time they’d ever attacked another ship preemptively.
Carl turned a shrug into an elaborate stretch, then laced his fingers behind his neck. “We’ve sworn lots of things, you and me. I’ve sworn to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but. You’ve sworn to love, honor, and cherish. This shit slides. You want, I can have Roddy draw up some fake divorce papers to get you out of swearing never to become a pirate.”
“Give it a rest.” It was different, and Carl had to have known it was different. The fact that he could make one thing sound like another was part of the way he helped them on jobs. But Tanny was going to be damned if she was going to let him sit there and twist her around until she agreed with him. He was taking advantage of her tenuous mental state.
“I’m just saying, if it’s the promise that’s bothering you, we can—”
Her fist acted on reflex. She was already feeling the sting in her knuckles before she realized she’d done it. Carl fell across the console on the far side of the co-pilot’s chair. He stumbled out of his seat, clutching a hand to his mouth. The sounds coming out were undoubtedly vulgar, but they were equally incomprehensible.
“I’m sorry, I—”
Carl ignored her and staggered down the corridor to the rest of the ship.
Tanny hadn’t intended to hit him. She had just wanted him to shut up, or at least change the subject. He had been asking for it. She
had warned him. It was his fault, really. Hadn’t he known her long enough to realize that she was liable to haul off and hit him if he pushed her too far? Too far was just closer than usual these days. She had mellowed herself out by experimenting with mood-levelers over the years. But she’d had a quick trigger when they first met. He ought to have remembered.
“Oh God,” Tanny muttered, alone in the cockpit. “Am I going back to what I was like when I mustered out?” Back in those days, she had no friends. Her marine buddies had stayed in the service or taken the free detox. Old acquaintances shunned her, afraid of how much she’d changed, and she didn’t let new people close. Carl had put up with her out of an odd mixture of thrill seeking, a shared interest in drinking, and—if she was honest with herself—the fact that she was raging with suppressed hormonal needs that he positioned himself to benefit from.
“This is Alley Cat, check in prior to astral drop,” Janice’s voice from the comm startled Tanny.
“Alley Cat, this is Atlantis Dream. Ready to dive,” Bill replied.
Tanny fumbled for the button to open the comm. “This is Mobius. We’ll follow you in.”
Switching to ship-wide comm, she continued. “Mort, when you feel the convoy drop, bring us with them.”
# # #
Kubu watched Mort. When Mommy talked from the wall, she told him to drop them. Kubu wasn’t sure he liked that, but it being dropped was probably better than being locked up in Mommy’s room. Mommy’s room was small and boring, and she didn’t listen to him when he told her so. But he was only a good boy if he stayed and didn’t chew on anything, so he stayed, and didn’t chew on anything. Mort had said it was OK to come out, and had opened the door.
Mort danced and sang, but his words were silly and didn’t make any sense. The words didn’t hurt, but they made Kubu’s ears feel funny. When Mort was finished his dancing song, he sat down on the couch. Kubu jumped up beside him.
“That was funny,” Kubu said, opening his mouth in a wide smile with his tongue hanging loose.
Mort frowned. “Funny, eh? The flarngmoot ziffod of the gipgop is funny to you?” Mort used more silly words than anyone.