by M. D. Cooper
Jessica struggled to her feet and held a hand up to Cargo. “Nice to see you, Captain.”
Cargo frowned in response and gestured for Jonathan to open the cage door.
“You’ll pay for this,” Jonathan muttered. “I have friends in high places here. I run this pit how I see fit.”
“I really don’t give a flying fuck about your pit,” Cargo responded. “Jessica there is our crew, and we watch out for our crew.”
Jessica took a step forward and lost her balance, only to find herself caught gently in Trevor’s massive hands.
“Careful, buddy,” Cargo said.
“S’OK,” Jessica muttered. “He’s cool.”
Trevor lifted her into his arms and turned to Cargo. “I’ve got her. You lead the way.”
“Bring him,” Cargo nodded to Jonathan, and Jessica saw that Thompson had the muzzle of a chemical slug thrower at the base of the arena operator’s skull. His finger was resting lightly against the trigger, ready to make good on the weapon’s threat at a moment’s provocation.
She hoped that he knew what he was doing. One misstep, or twitch, and he’d blow Jonathan’s head clear off, losing their leverage.
Cheeky and Nance backed away from the guards. Together, the crew of Sabrina, accompanied by Trevor and Jonathan, moved slowly and carefully toward a corridor. A minute later, they were out of the arena’s sub-level and back in the storage area that Jessica had first passed through with Trevor and Camilla.
Cargo closed the door, and it sealed behind them.
Jessica replied.
Jessica appreciated the gesture, but she wasn’t too excited by the thought of a newly freed AI playing judge, jury, and executioner for a human. She considered saying something, but she looked at Jonathan and decided he really wasn’t worth risking her rescue over.
While they had been talking, Jonathan had been growing increasingly agitated, hollering for help, and demanding to know where they were taking him. Thompson laughed when the door opened and the automatons moved forward.
“You’re wondering where you’re going? Welcome to your new quarters.”
He shoved the man forward and the two robots seized his arms. The door closed on his screams of terror.
“OK,” Trevor began as they started walking again. “I know I’m not exactly on the friends list right now, but what the hell is going on here?”
“We’re rescuing our crewmate,” Cheeky replied. “From you—which makes it weird that Jess said you were OK and that you’re coming along.”
“Was against his will,” Jessica said from Trevor’s arms. “He was just going to knock me out…right?”
“Of course!” Trevor exclaimed. “I’ve only ever killed someone in the ring once—and that was an accident. Dead fighters don’t make any money the next fight night.”
“How heartening,” Nance said.
“But why aren’t we being chased?” Trevor asked. “Jonathan has half of station security in his pocket. They should be all over us.”
Cheeky sighed, and Thompson swore.
“We’ve hacked the station. We have it on lockdown and we’ll be out of here in twenty minutes,” Cargo said. Jessica didn’t blame him for leaving out the AI uprising they had fomented. That was the sort of information that could never be shared—at least not with anyone in the Inner Stars.
“Hacked the station…” Trevor repeated. “You realize how ridiculous that sounds.”
“Yet, look around you,” Cheeky grinned.
Jessica cracked an eye to see Trevor taking in the sights.
“OK,” he replied. “I admit, this is pretty nuts. I just have one question. Can I catch a lift to wherever you’re going?”
OUT OF DODGE
STELLAR DATE: 06.13.8928 (Adjusted Years)
LOCATION: Sabrina
REGION: Virginis System
The entire Virginis system was abuzz with speculation over the mysterious malfunction at the Chittering Hawk station. A systems failure of that magnitude was very uncommon—to have it last sixteen hours was unheard of.
Most of the system was treating the news as a mere curiosity. It figured, of course, that station would suffer such a failure. Everyone knew that half of what went on at the Hawk was shady and the other half was downright illegal. In the end, there had only been one fatality; a local businessman named Jonathan had been in an area that suffered decompression.
“Really, quite lucky for the rest of the station, I’d say,” Jessica replied with a smile.
“Certainly was considerate of him,” Jessica said with a nod. “I’m really sorry I created such a mess.”
“But where’s an honest freighter like you going to dock, to do a bit of your dishonest work?” Jessica asked with a smirk.
“And we’ll help out in any way we can,” Jessica replied. Having a pack of AIs on a crusade would certainly make things harder, but she didn’t blame them in the least. If they docked at a station filled with human slaves, she would be scheming how to free them, as well.
A sound in the hall alerted her to the presence of another crewmate, and she turned to see Trevor entering the galley.
“Couldn’t sleep?” Jessica asked.
“Nah, too much going on up here,” he said and tapped the side of his head. “And you?”
“Too much re-knitting going on in here,” she said while tapping her chest. “It makes everything feel itchy…like inside, in my organs. It’s maddening.”
She had tapped her sternum, and when Trevor’s eyes moved to where she touched, she saw them linger on her breasts for a moment and smiled. Her tight shirt left little to the imagination and she didn’t blame him for appreciating the view.
Still, she found that it diminished her opinion of him ever so slightly. It was a normal reaction for a man to drink in the sight of a beautiful woman, but she had hoped that Trevor could be more than a regular man; he could be someone she could really relate to.
Jessica flushed as she spoke with Iris, hoping Trevor wouldn’t notice.
“What are you thinking about?” Trevor asked quietly.
Jessica reddened further—though her artificial skin would barely show it. She covered up her discomfort with a coy smile. “Not a lot of men ask that question unprompted.”
Trevor spread his hands. “What can I say, I’m not most men. I’m a shitty little crystal carver, if I recall.”
Jessica grimaced at the memory. “I’m really sorry about that, I was trying to get you angry. It was the first thing that came to mind.”
Trevor chuckled. “I realize that—though it’s still not the most pleasant memory. If you’d really wanted me to hit you, you should have said something like ‘pretend I’m Camilla’.”
It was Jessica’s turn to laugh, and winced as pain shot through her chest, but ignored it. It felt good to be ease. “I didn’t want you to kill me, just rough me up!”
Trevor’s eyes widened, and he burst into laughter, and Jessica joined in—though carefully—both adding small comments about Camilla and the fight until they were laughing so hard tears were streaming down their faces.
“What in the fucking stars is going on in here?” Cheeky said, poking her head into the galley. “People are trying to sleep, you know.”
Jessica brushed her hair out of her face and looked up at Cheeky through tear-blurred eyes.
“Sorry Cheeks, we were just getting a bit of stress out of our systems,” she replied.
“Yeah, well, keep it down a notch,” the pilot replied and slid the galley door shut.
Neither spoke for a minute before Trevor asked. “Soooo…do you think she knew she was buck naked?”
Jessica felt a chuckle build in her chest and only managed to shrug before they both erupted in laughter once more.
MOVING ON
STELLAR DATE: 06.21.8928 (Adjusted Years)
LOCATION: Sabrina, Senzee Station
REGION: Sarneeve, Virginis System
“What? Why not?” Trevor asked from his seat at a spare console, throwing a perplexed look Jessica’s way.
Jessica responded with a shrug and waited for Sabrina to fill in the details.
“Camilla,” Trevor said his former partner’s name like a curse. “She probably lifted something from Trish and pinned it on me. Convenient.”
Trevor sighed. “Edgar’s probably right. She’s well connected, not like Jonathan was, but she has her ways.”
“Shit,” Jessica swore. “If I’d just have stayed in that night.”
Trevor shook his head. “No, I was the one who took you there, if you recall.” He paused and took a deep breath. “So, Aldebaran, eh? Care to haul my sorry ass out there? I hear there’s good work up that way at least.”
Jessica looked to Cargo, who nodded slowly. “Yeah, I don’t see why not, though you’ll need to pull some shifts. It’s not a free ride.”
Cargo scowled.
Jessica said.
Cargo barked a laugh aloud, causing Trevor and Cheeky to cast him puzzled looks.
* * * * *
The stop at Senzee station was much less dramatic than their visit to Chittering Hawk. Jessica spent most of the time on the ship with Trevor, who taught her a few new card games, while she taught him some old ones.
He was particularly fascinated with her use of physical cards and sent Cheeky onto the station in search of decks for some of the games he liked. At the end of the two-day stop, the entire crew was playing his favorite game, a rather strange blend of poker and chess called Snark.
“I hate to interrupt your fun,” Thompson said from the entrance to Port-Side Hold #2, where Jessica and Trevor were in the midst of an epic game against Cheeky and Nance, “but I’m going to need this room for the final shipment. I’m also going to need your backs to get everything loaded and balanced.”
“Crap,” Jes
sica sighed. “Just when it was getting really good.”
“Sabrina, can you save the game state for us?” Cheeky asked.
“We can just set them back in the case, in the order they’re in now, and Sabrina can ensure that no one touches anything.”
“Seriously?” Thompson asked. “I like a good game of Snark, but this seems excessive.”
“Stop using such big words,” Cheeky said and patted Thompson on the cheek.
Jessica saw Thompson redden and wondered again about his future with the crew. He seemed to be growing more and more isolated. Granted, from what she understood, he previously spent most of his time with Flaherty and Cargo. One of whom was gone, and the other was now preoccupied with his position as captain.
“When we get back to it, we’re gonna kick your asses,” Nance said as she placed her cards in the case. “We have it locked down. There’s no way you can come back.”
Jessica shook her head. Nance was normally the most mild-mannered member of the crew, but put her into a competitive scenario and a whole different woman emerged. She was full of smack-talk and knew insults that even Cheeky had never heard.
When asked about her colorful vocabulary, she simply shrugged and smiled. “Engineers and bios have to deal with a lot of stuff that can go wrong. We have a large store of expletives to help maintain our mental health.”
The final shipment of wares for their journey to Aldebaran ending up taking over three hours to load. They would have finished after thirty minutes, but Nance discovered that one of the cooling units in the hold was damaged—apparently during the fight with the Mark’s pirates back in Silstrand.
It hadn’t come up faulty in tests, and that bothered Nance more than it being damaged in the first place. Fabricating a replacement part, or finding one on station, would have moved them out of their current departure window, so the whole crew joined in reshuffling cargo to get it all stowed elsewhere and balance the ship as well as they could manage.