She drew herself close to him, until she smothered his loins with her warmth. “Are you ready for the next phase,” she said again, blowing her breath into his mouth.
“Oing,” Redfire answered.
Winter – Habi Zod
In Lord Tyronius’s Conservatory, Gotobed faced her two suitors across a very low-slung table. Atop the table was a board, two mugs of hot chocolate liqueur, a brightly-colored board, some small disks, and three datapads.
Brigand rolled the dice, and dropped them from his leathery palm. They came up eleven. He moved his piece across the board, landing on a blue square. “Your category is ‘Geography,’ for one-thousand points and a wedge.” said Gotobed. She picked up her data pad. “The river that forms the boundary of Graceland and Oz provinces. Oooh, that’s an easy one.”
“It is if you’re from your planet,” Brigand growled. “Which I am not!”
“Don’t be cranky,” she said. “I’m letting you use The Writ of Common Wisdom. ”
“Yes, but you don’t directly allow us to ask the question of the machine.”
“What challenge would that be?”
“Am I allowed to look at a map of this… Grease-land Province?”
She nodded.
“Show me a map of Grease-land Province,” Brigand ordered the machine. He scowled at it. “The answer is, the River of Ducks.”
She shook her head. “No, I’m sorry. The correct question, what is the ‘Old Man River,’ the ‘Old Man River.’”
Brigand waved the datapad at her. “It says the River of Ducks! What manner of insanity is this?
Insanity, I tell you, insanity!”
“Stop with the insanity, the River of Ducks is the boundary between Oz and Panrovia. Lord Tyronius, it is your turn.”
“Why do we have to play this ridiculous game?” Tyronius demanded as he took up the dice. “Surely one of us is the favored rival for your affections, woman, if you have any to give us.”
“Isn’t this more genteel?” Gotobed purred. “On my planet is a continent called Carpentaria. The northernmost peninsula of that continent is sparsely populated and endures long winters. The people, as a result, do two things better than any other people on the planet. They drink alcohol, and they play this game. I am doing them honor by bringing that custom to this planet.”
“It’s ridiculous for you to choose a paramour based on who wins a trivial game!” Tyronius thundered.
“Insanity!” Brigand repeated.
Gotobed stirred her hot liqueur. “I never said I would stay with whoever won. I said this game would determine whom I stayed with. Have you ever heard that expression, ‘it matters less whether you win or lose, but it matters more how you play the game?’ Well, that is the case here.” Tyronius rolled a four and moved his disk to an orange square. Gotobed lifted her datapad. “Your category is entertainment, for four hundred points. The answer is, it won the Rory Award for Most Ironic Song in 7287.”
Tyronius hunded over his copy of The Writ. “Let’s see… Rory Awards … 7287… It must be ‘The Irony Song.’”
“That’s the right song,” Gotobed cooed. “Unfortunately, you did not phrase it in the form of a question, so it’s my turn.”
“What!” Tyronius raged, then slapped his forehead. He knew the rules. “Son of a one-legged whore!!”
“Ha. Ha,” said Brigand.
“The really ironic part is nothing in the song was ironic. It was just a string of idiotic situations connected by a catchy melody.” Just as she picked up the dice, Gotobed’s communicator chirped. “Hold that thought.”
She rose and crossed to the dressing table where she had laid down her uniform jacket. She received the message in privacy mode, so she would be the only to hear it. “Got it,” she said at the end of the message, and returned to the game.
“What was that?” Tyronius demanded. “Did they find the escaped prisoner?” She picked up the dice. “No such luck. That was just Prime Commander Keeler’s pilot telling me he was headed to some place called ‘Shipwreck.’”
Brigand and Tyronius spoke in startled unison. “Shipwreck!”
“Something wrong?” Gotobed asked, knowing something must have been.
“We must go,” said Brigand. “Your captain is in the most extreme mortal danger you could possibly imagine.”
“That’s putting it mildly,” said Tyronius, reaching for his long robe and sword. “We must leave at once.”
“Why, what’s so bad about Shipwreck?”
“If your captain makes to Shipwreck,” Tyronius said gravely, “It is very unlikely he will get off the planet alive.”
Pegasus – Pieta’s Suite
David Alkema approache Pieta’s small inhabitation suite, adjacent to the Jordan family’s, and asked himself why he felt so nervous. The hatch slid up into the ceiling and Pieta appeared before him, freshly showered, dressed in a loose robe. “Hey, beautiful,” she said.
“Hoy, yourself. May I come in?”
She tossed barely dried hair over her shoulders, gesturing inside. She kept a small space, large enough for a bed, a small couch and chairs around a table. She needed little. “Where’s the rest of the band?”
“Max is still crashing out. Trajan’s on a combat drill with Flt. Captain Driver. Have you noticed how he completely changes when he’s around Driver? He’s like a little puppy-beast. I brought you something.” Pieta clapped her hands together. “Oooh, give it to me.”
He shook his head. “Neg, wait, I was supposed to tell you something first, to set it up. Do you know what day this is?”
She blinked at him. “Windsday, I think.”
“Za, Windsday, although, we never even tried to keep a calendar since we left the system. On Sapphire, so I am told, its Octember 14. Remembrance Day.”
“What’s that?”
“On Octember 14, in the year 5244 A.S., the outpost on Hyperion, one of the moons of my planet, was attacked by what we believed to be, a fleet of Tarmigan ships. They blasted the surface with intense gamma radiation, killing everyone. Fourteen thousand people, wiped out in an instant. Remembrance Day is when we are supposed to think about the people we love, and how they have enriched our lives.
We honor them by producing handmade gifts and exchanging them.” He reached into his pack and produced a silvery disk. “This is my gift to you, Pieta.”
She held it in her hand. As she did so, figures seemed to rise from the surface, like liquid mercury.
They took the form of skaters and glided across the silvery surface of the disk. Just two of them, they described beautiful pirouettes, leaps, and spins, like ice dancers. Very, very quietly, music played.
Pieta was enchanted. “It’s beautiful. How does it work?”
“Nano-bots. I programmed them myself. I realize it pushes the definition of handmade, but…” he blushed. His heart was weightless.
“Thank you,” she whispered. Her lips curled preciously downward. “I don’t have anything for you.”
“I didn’t expect you to. After all, I don’t guess that they have Remembrance Day on Bodicéa. I just…
just…” He had to stop, close his eyes, smile, shake his head. “I love you, Pieta.” She tousled her hair, and curled onto the couch. “Are you going to ask me to marry you?”
“I want to do that, too… and soon…, but I know you’ve got certain customs on your world…”
“On my world, I’d live in a commune with twenty other women and only have a man when I felt like breeding… not too mention, my world no long exists. I’m ready to move on. At first, the idea of committing to one man seemed… kinky. But now, I really want to have your babies… lots and lots of your babies.”
It took Alkema a second or two to process this. Should he go ahead and propose, or had she already done it? “I want to marry you,” he said, thinking this could be either an answer, or a question, depending on how Pieta wanted to hear it.
“Doesn’t this usually involve me getting a costly piece of jewe
lry?” she asked.
“I’ll take care of that. Ummmm,” he licked his lips and steeled himself. He looked deep into her brown eyes. “There is … something… you should know before you agree to be my wife.”
“What could you tell me at this point that would change my mind?”
“My name isn’t David Alkema, and I really shouldn’t be on this ship.” C h a p t e r E i g h t e e n
Pegasus – The UnderDecks
Constantine, Hunter, and Ghost were aboard the transport pod again. Hunter was not relaxing this time. “Must go faster,” he urged the Centurion, Constantine.
Constantine did not seem overtly concerned. “The Isolationists have tried to sabotage our offensive defensive weaponry before. We have always stopped them.”
“Put it together, Constantine,” Hunter snapped. “These are not Isolationists. This is an outsider, and far more dangerous than you give him credit for.”
Constantine replied with a grunt. “You haven’t proven that this is an outsider. I still think we’re dealing with an Isolationist.”
“Don’t be stupid, Constantine. The Isolationists are gone.”
“Not all of them,” Constantine countered. “What of the Tall Man?”
“The Tall Man abandoned ship when we were about to crash onto Fiddler’s Green. Hasn’t been seen since.”
“What about the Moonwalker?”
“Moonwalker’s been dead for a hundred and sixty-five mission days. Tried to sabotage a power relay on Deck Minus 135. Flash-fried.”
“What of the OverShot Brothers?”
“Defected on Independence.”
“The Woman Who Sings?”
“Sang… sorry, Constantine. There are very few of us left down here, thanks to you.” Constantine’s perpetual frown only deepened. “The Missile Hatcheries are inaccessible, if they are even the target.”
Hunter did not bother to argue. “You’ll want to stop at the next dock.”
“That won’t take us to the Hatcheries.”
“You brought me along because you wanted to know the shortcuts. I know them. The shortest path from the transport pathway to the Hatcheries is straight up, and over. You can cut through the water balances on Deck Minus Three.”
Constantine did not have to check a schematic to know Hunter was right. He overshot the next dock by a few meters, but quickly backed up to it. Constantine punched a command into his Datapad. “Until we round-up the intruder, I’m ordering the Missile Hatcheries double-sealed.”
“Which will be great unless our man is already in the Hatcheries,” Hunter said.
“If he had gotten in, the security systems would have detected him. We always go to enhanced security in planetary orbit.”
Hunter snorted. “Do I have to say it?”
“Say what?”
“The obvious… if you’re security systems are so great, why am I still here?” Constantine ignored it. “The Missile Hatcheries are above Deck Zero, I don’t think you’ll be able to be of any further assistance.”
Redfire pointed to the Data Pad. “You can over-ride me.”
“I could if I wanted to,” said Constantine, “but I don’t want to. In any case, I will thank you for your assistance, Hunter. The Notorium will take it from here. And one more thing,” he grabbed a paralyzer cuff from an outer pocket and slapped it on Hunter’s wrist. “You’re going to Winter.” Hunter every muscle frozen, refusing to respond to any neural impulse, stood like a statue in mid-step. Ghost screamed. “You bastard!”
“You can keep him company,” Constantine countered. “I’ll be happy to arrange it.”
“Oh, John, John, …” Ghost cried, wrapping her arms around his frozen form.
“He knew I couldn’t let him get to the Hatcheries. They’re above Deck Zero. He also knew I couldn’t be trusted, but he went along.”
“You sick bastard,” Ghost called him again. “He only wanted to save this ship.”
“Maybe he did save this ship. If so, he’s a hero. But he’s also a criminal, and he’s going to help us find Redfire or he’s going to be flash frozen and sent back to Republic. When I’ve secured both of you, I’ll alert Tactical Core, and they will lock down the Hatcheries.”
“You betrayed him!” Ghost would have lunged at him, but his hand weapon stayed her. “You’re a bastard.”
“You know, I never get tired of hearing that. Now, there’s something I’ve been dying to do all this time,” Constantine continued. “I wanted to take that stupid mask off.” He reached for the mask.
“Get away from him!” Ghost tried to hold him back. He pushed against her. Hunter remained frozen, like a statue of a zombie, indifferent to the struggle. Constantine pushed Ghost down and pulled off the mask.
When he saw Hunter’s face, he was dumbfounded. “By the Holy Twins!” Ghost lunged. “Get away from him you stinking bastard.”
She didn’t make it because at that moment, two bolts of crinkling blue electricity shot through the darkness, striking Ghost in the back and dropping Constantine where he stood. The two of them crumpled to a heap on the deck.
Winter – On the Southern Sea
The weather started getting rough on the second night after the tiny ship left the harbor at Collinsport. They had set out from the southernmost point of one island continent toward the northernmost point of the island-continent to the south. They had caught a swift-moving current of water. Then, Gilligan had announced that the current had carried them four degrees off course, and he corrected course head-on into the spot where two storm fronts were converging.
Twenty minutes into the tumult, Commander Keeler lay face down on the cabin deck, sick and frightened beyond the ability to do anything other than cling to the floor and moan, “Me no likee. Me no likee!!!!”
Ziang, who was sitting calmly on one of the cots. “Don’t be such a coward. This is nothing. Do you know the Commonwealth included several planets that were nothing but ocean. There were waves sixteen kilometers high on some of them.”
“Perhaps you didn’t hear me,” Keeler replied. “I said, ‘Me no likee!’”
“You think it is a great burden that this raging storm assails us from all sides, invades us to the core.
The truth is, the only time the body is troubled is when the mind is at rest.”
“Meaning what?”
“You would forget this storm in a second if you were properly distressed.” With that, he rose, crossed the deck apparently unaffected by the ship’s violent rolls and falls, and kicked Keeler sharply in the ribs.
“Ow, why did you do that? Me no likee! Me no likee!”
“I just explained why I did that, now stand up.”
He extended an arm to Keeler, which Keeler jerkily and reluctantly grabbed, like a suicide pulled in from the ledge of a high building. “What possessed me to get on a ship in Winter, skippered by man named Gilligan, with a mad three-thousand year old general, to go to a place called ‘Shipwreck?’ What was I really expecting?”
At that moment, the deck pitched almost straight up as the Peckwad ran up the trough of a huge wave and almost capsized. Then, the water dropped out from under the boat and it came crashing straight down.
Keeler was slammed to the deck again, but restrained himself from crying out. He crawled, half-dragging himself to a place where he could gain a grip and pull himself up. As he clung desperately to the wall, trying to remain upright as the ship, the cabin door blew open with a blast of wind and sleet.
Shipmaster Gilligan blew in with it, wrapped in a yellow rain-slicker. He tried to close the hatch behind him, but could scarcely make progress against the blasting wind. Ziang heaved himself into the effort and they almost managed to close the hatch before a fresh blast blew it open again, driving Gilligan’s rain hat into his face. His eyes covered, Gilligan tried to brace the door with a pole, but only succeeded in mashing Ziang’s thumb. Ziang grabbed Gilligan’s rain hat and hit him over the head with it. Finally, they counted to three together and wedged the
door shut between them.
“Some storm, huh?” Gilligan said.
“We know,” Ziang said. “How long before we make landfall at Shipwreck?”
“Maybe today… or tomorrow… or the next day.”
“You don’t know?”
“We’re kind of lost right now. I won’t be able to figure out until after the storm.”
“How long will that be?”
“Um, basically we’ll be lost until the storm ends and we spot land and I see a landmark I recognize.”
“Where is your compass?” Ziang asked.
Gilligan grinned sheepishly. “I sort of … lost it.”
“You sort of lost it.”
“I was throwing stuff into the sea to balance the ship, and I accidentally threw it overboard. Sorry.” Ziang looked quite calm. Keeler wanted to grab the rain hat and hit him again, but the ship lurched hard, and he instead vomited. He had thrown up several times already, and there was nothing but bile in his stomach, which made his violent retching raw and painful in his throat.
“It’s a good thing it’s too rough to feed you,” Gilligan said.
At which point, the boat seemed to catch some kind of whirlpool, that swung it 270 degrees. Gilligan was thrown into Keeler, and Keeler was compelled to turn him around and send him back toward Ziang, who gingerly dodged aside, opened the hatch, and returned Gilligan to the storm.
“A shipmaster belongs on deck at a time like this,” the General explained, securing the door behind.
Pounding came from the outside, but it stopped after a while.
“I think I am ready for some distraction,” said Keeler, sloshing through the water that had built up on the deck.
Ziang took his seat again, which was soaking wet, but he managed to convey both dignity and gravitas in the simple gesture.
“Would you like to hear about another Crusade?” Ziang asked.
“Maybe later,” Keeler answered. Once they reached the library, the point might be moot anyway.
“Then I will ask a question of you. When your ship leaves, how long before more from your world will return?”
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