Cosmic Cabaret

by SFR Shooting Stars

  “Indeed. They shape moisture and heat from the raw materials of the world and alter the universal forces of gravity and magnetism.” His gaze slid left and right. “Can’t have those sorts running free, you know.”

  “Scary,” she repeated. But effective. Nothing could be more compelling for a puffed up old man than having an attractive young woman parroting all his prejudices. She forced her smile back up. “Well, no one would confuse me with anyone from a noble House, so you can rest easy on that one.” Kella leaned over, touching a stud at her waist as she pulled two champagne flutes from the holsters at her hips.

  A chilled sensation ran through the harness criss-crossing her torso. Preceded by a faint gurgle, sudden pressure on her bra turned into foamy, bubbly, golden liquid pouring out of the spouts affixed to her bra and connected to the harness. The pre-measured champagne filled the glasses three-quarters full and terminated the serve with a juicy zingberry popping out of each of the tubes positioned where her nipples would be.

  The berries splashed down into the glasses and her would-be suitor clapped his hands in delight. “Now that’s what I call a show!”

  Relief made Kella’s smile a little brighter than necessary. “Just wait until you catch the Cirque, Sir. The gravity dancers are delightful.” She winked. “When skirts go up in zero-gee, they stay up.” Of course, he was going to hate the eleven o’clock show, with the illusionists pretending to perform Shaping on volunteers from the crowd.

  “Zero-gee and upskirts, you say?” The old man perked up. He patted her arm. “Do steer clear of Shapers, dear. They’re a necessary menace for Landfall, but up here…” He glanced at the majestic appointments decorating the ballroom’s flying buttresses. “No one needs a Shaper to maintain water production or ensure gravitational stability.” He glanced back down to her. “That makes a Shaper simply a menace.”

  The twins flanking the old fellow shared a look. As Kella excused herself and passed the one on the left, the other girl murmured, “He goes on like that at every opportunity. But he’s got a grandson joining him who’s easy on the eyes. Sure you don’t want to trade?”

  “Not on your life,” Kella retorted. Out of earshot of the old man and his attendants, she finished the thought as she slipped into a side closet that served as an employee rest room. As she used towels to absorb the extra moisture her body had begun naturally producing from the air, she muttered, “More like, not on mine.”

  Three

  “The Queen used to be a star pilot from the independent mining stations. What if she hears the flux in the port stardrive?” Milady finished measuring her dispensation of the plasma and logged it into the info-slate. She’d spent an enjoyable half-shift spinning upside-down in the low-gravity environment of the forward portside drive trough, topping off the plasma in the secondary assemblies. She and Palma, and the rest of Team Three’s second-shifters, were just finishing up their mid-shift meal in the break area

  Palma frowned. “Nobody but you can sense that, girl. Certainly not some high-falutin’ noble. Only one of them Houses worth a warm bucket of spit in terms of stardrives is House Zalco, and we both know how you react to House Zalco.”

  “How, yes.” Even the name curled a little frisson of dread through her stomach. The House icon sent her into blinding migraines--which really limited her career opportunities as a stardrive mechanic. “But what I’d really like to know is why.”

  Palma shrugged. “Maybe you’re allergic to nobility.”

  Milady wondered the same thing. If House Zalco--or someone in it--had something to do with the old life she couldn’t remember, or how she ended up in the sublevels with no memory and a machine in her head. “I hope I’m not allergic to the money.”

  “That’s the spirit!” Palma slapped her on the back, sending her off-balance. “Who needs memories when you’ve got enough credits to eat, sleep, and have a little fun on the off-shifts.”

  Milady held out her fist and Palma bumped knuckles in solidarity. Palma had been at her side since the beginning--well, the beginning of her current life, anyway. The other one...Doesn’t matter anymore, she told herself firmly. Whoever that girl was, she’s dead, and unmourned.

  Their laughter died as Malcolm Zheng entered the prep room. "Listen up, people!” Every tech and engineer went silent as the Chief stepped up on one of the benches towards the center of the room. “In order to make the Lunar Spiral, these engines have to be tuned at a hundred and ten percent. Nothing can go wrong--I repeat, nothing."

  Milady and Palma straightened, sharing a look. A Lunar Spiral was a flashy, ridiculous maneuver usually only attempted by spacejocks in performance flyers. Not luxury cruise vessels large enough to head-butt asteroids in the N’Tar Cloud and win.

  Milady's second glove self-tightened while Malcolm was speaking and the thing in her head purred again. She wished she could make the noise stop, but she hadn't even told anyone about it, much less attempted to fix it. It was yet another mystery from her past, and after two years of chasing memories that weren't there, she was done with going backwards.

  “Blue Star Lines has received special permission from the Imperial space fleet to perform this maneuver as part of the Coronation festivities. Since we’ll be hosting the entire Imperial entourage, we do everything double-time--maintenance, diagnostics, and shifts.”

  Malcolm pronounced the last to a chorus of groans from the teams, and held up his hands. “Deal with it, people. If this tub crashes into a moon, none of us get our paychecks.”

  “We’ve already performed every maintenance task scheduled for the entire year in the past week.” Someone spoke up from the other side of the room. “Everything’s well within tolerance and has been for days.”

  His companion spoke up in agreement. “Within tolerances or no, ship’s mass is way too great to for the engines to handle the maneuvering required for a Lunar Spiral. I used to be a fleet pilot and--”

  “Blue Star knows this,” Malcolm said. “Perfect tuning is the groundwork for the second phase of the plan.”

  “There’s a plan?”

  Malcolm sent a glare to the smart-ass. “Thank the Torch it doesn’t revolve around you having read the dailies.”

  Milady opened her mouth, but a look from Palma silenced her. Nobody read the daily debriefings, because everyone knew their jobs already. Just like Milady knew the engines wouldn’t be able to handle the tight turns and drastic mass-shifts of a Lunar Spiral. As much as she babied the fusion assemblies--and knew the other shifts did, as well--they could only do so much. She let the older woman speak.

  Palma slipped headgear over her weathered brow. “The auxiliary engines have to be tuned to perfect resonance to handle the gravitational fluctuations. Out of resonance means everybody'll be spinning weightless and stuck in dead space, and you know they only let the grav-dancers do that for tips."

  Palma grinned from beneath the bulky headgear that augmented her vision. "So unless you flux-weasnits wanna take turns wearing one of them beaded little boob-holsters, hustling for crowns, ‘within tolerances’ ain’t gonna cut it."

  Malcolm’s lips thinned. “Neither will poaching on the dancers’ union’s territory, except for Milady over there. Let’s keep our, er--”

  "Cholis." Milady supplied helpfully. “They’re called cholis.” At some of the looks she received, she shrugged. “What? Doesn’t everybody know what a choli is?”

  One of the other techs just shook his head. “We don’t all fill in for the grav-dancers, Blossom.”

  “I’m not a blossom, I’m a flux-weasnit, same as you.” She lifted her chin. “A critter that belongs in the troughs and lives on grease. I just happen to be trained in zero-gee.”

  “And look better in a boob-holster.” Someone said from the back.

  Milady snorted with laughter. "Boob-holster," she muttered, shaking her head. "This--" she snapped at the stress-webbing harness criss-crossing her chest, "--is the only 'boob-holster' I care about. It's also something that keeps me from fal
ling down in gravity. The grav-dancers don't have to worry about that."

  Malcolm held his hands up again. “All right, you buncha boobs--and your holsters. Look sharp from here on in. Before we take on the Imperial entourage, we’re getting our own dignitary. Blue Star has contracted for an upgrade to the main stardrive reactors. Top of the line tech, and comes with its own company rep.”

  Just great, Milady thought. Some clueless face-man, getting underfoot, and never far away from barristers and accountants and unable to tell a fusion coil from a plasma feedline.

  “I’m sure every single one of you flux-weasnits will be on your best behavior for Lord Zalco.”

  “Oooh. I’ll go get my spangled coveralls.” One of the burly, gruff-voiced plas-chemists attempted a falsetto, sending laughter rippling through the room. “With a whaddyacallit--a choli.” He cupped his pecs, smooshing them together to the delight of his compatriots.

  But Milady heard and saw from down a long tunnel that suddenly opened up in front of her. Sudden dryness stuck her tongue to the roof of her mouth as her mind began to chase the elusive motes of memories closed to her. Her eyes stung, and every second she closed them, she felt the sensation of falling--that eternal fall that took her to the sublevels and stole her memories.

  Palma’s steadying hand on her bicep held her up. “Steady, girl,” her friend muttered. “I’ll put you on low-hour shift. Less likely to run into any troubling visuals.”

  Malcolm closed the meeting with a few more remarks about top-notch performances, doubling up on the maintenance checks, and extra hours for whomever wanted them, then dismissed the team to get to work. Palma all but dragged Milady out of the locker room and towards the aft end of the engineering deck until they found safe haven in the stardrive trough.

  Milady glanced at the smooth walls, throwing the pulsating lights from the stardrive’s shielding around in scintillating rainbows. The soothing hum of starship engines sent a thrum up through her feet and into her blood, all except that troubling, ever-so-slight out of time beat.

  She swayed on her feet and only Palma’s reassuring presence at her back kept her from tipping over. The machine in her head went from contented purr to a higher pitch of agitation at the mention of the House name. Zalco...House Zalco...Lord Zalco...coming here.

  Four

  Thann Zalco, of the noble House Zalco, strode down the ramp of his shuttle and into LS Quantum’s shuttle docking bay, where a cohort of uniformed crewmen were lined up to greet him as befit his status.

  His House’s status.

  His father’s status.

  Zalco Stardrives’ status.

  If it were him alone, he wouldn’t have sixteen midshipmen in two neat lines leading to the Chief Engineer and the Blue Star Lines Rep to personally greet him. So Thann put the weight of Zalco Stardrives, House Zalco, and the High Lord Zalco--his father--into the snap of his formal salute. “Permission to come aboard?”

  “Permission granted, Lord Zalco. Welcome to LS Quantum. “

  The stardrive itself floated in space outside the shuttle bay, too large to fit into any of Quantum's bays normally used for docking passenger shuttle. The ‘bot-piloted tug was programmed to move the stardrive assembly to where the ship's engines were located, then engage in a holding pattern until prompted from ship’s engineering, then fitted into place remotely.

  In the meantime, Thann was nominally in charge of ensuring the stardrive troughs were properly prepared and the engineering crews had been trained in the correct steps to swap out the old assembly with the new.

  Since much of that had been already delivered at the initial sale, Thann’s much more official task was simply to stick his head into engineering once or twice, give a once over to ensure that nothing was obviously out of place, then spend the rest of his time enjoying the delights of the cabaret, the Cirque, the burlesque, and whatever other opulent appointments of Quantum's delights offered.

  He knew that would be expected of him. In fact, an embarrassingly high bar tab was just about the only thing expected of him. Such was being the fourth son of a noble family — he was the heir’s spare’s spare’s spare. Or so said the only gossip-feed article ever written about him, back when he was still in school and locked eyes with a smart, beautiful goddess who let him into her heart. Before she was cut from him in the cruelest galactic joke ever.

  He been raised to carefully stunt any natural ambitions he might have had based on his position in the family and his usefulness to his house. When he was young, it was made clear that his best chance was to ally himself with another Noble house to increase his family’s prestige. Now, even that was no longer open to him. And I’m well rid of it, too.

  The Trust had shut down the only chance he truly cared about, amid scandal, embarrassment, and questions that to this day remained unanswered. When the alliance had fallen through, it had no longer been strategic for the family to seek an alliance on behalf of their fourth son, so his parents, as House leaders, withdrew their expectations for performance and encouraged him to simply follow his passions in the family business.

  Privately, he thought they might be hoping his passions would lead him to the bar. At least that sort of scandal might create some buzz. But his passions led him elsewhere. Namely, the starship garages and workshops of the drive yards riding the edge of the the N’tar Cloud. Out of the limelight and out of the speculation of the rumor mongers that dominated Landfall's social economy.

  After being trained for so long to seek out notoriety or distinction, hiding in a drive yard workshop proved to be a life-changing shock to Thann. Alone with devices that tended to warp time and space, he had plenty of time to blur the past and present together. He had done so, perhaps too closely and for too long.

  His brothers never ceased to remind him of this, and when his eldest brother insisted that he accompany the drive assembly to LS Quantum, it was with more than a little unspoken pressure to take advantage of the sensual delights, the beautiful showgirls, the risque burlesque entertainers, and the anything-goes nature of shipboard activities. How else was he to forget the woman who even now, two years after her disappearance, still haunted his dreams and tormented his waking thoughts?

  After greeting the Chief Engineer and the Director of Operations, Thann asked to see the stardrives.

  Ops eyed him curiously and Thann understood. They had been led to believe he wouldn’t be taking any sort of active part in the installation of the new fusion assembly. Instead, Ops set out to give him a tour of the "touristy" areas of the engine — the transparilum windows covering the portion of the star drives where the plasma was ignited and converted, which was a delight to view, certainly, but didn't tell him thing one about whether or not Quantum’s teams had prepped the fusion assembly trough properly.

  As he peered down into the trough from the observation window, he caught sight of a young female engineer in baggy coveralls, strapped to a harness. She had dark hair twisted up into a messy knot at the top of her head, and for an instant, he was remind reminded of another girl with dark hair, her lush curls falling down over his face as she bent down to kiss him.

  Thann blinked away the image. Of course it wasn't the same girl. His beloved had disappeared mere days after the Trust had forever forbidden their alliance. She’s dead. Some said she’d taken her own life amidst a terrible accident, while others said she’d been a victim caught up in the circumstances. Even her family believed she was dead.

  But that never felt right to him. He knew his beloved, loved her for her drive and ambition and her brilliance. That light wouldn’t so easily cease. He believed it with his whole being. He had to.

  The female engineer bent over the portion of the plasma drive she was working on. When she failed to reach the part she needed, she bent her knees and sprang upward and executed a graceful spiraling flip that put her body vertical to the floor, feet dangling in the air, and her head down. Belatedly, Thann realized she was working in a null-grav environment. She wore goggles wi
th diagnostic lenses obscuring the top pair of her face, and the coveralls ballooned out around her body, but even so, they couldn’t hide her lithe curves.

  "Ahem. Lord Zalco, we can continue this way."

  Fan spared one last glance towards the young woman in the drive trough. He knew Quantum had hundreds of engineers, techs, and mechanics working to keep its systems ship shape. Probably best to forget about what intrigued him about one engineer.

  He focused back on the ops director. "Lead on, Sir."

  After the tour, Thann made a split-second decision. When the ops director introduced him to his concierge, a lovely woman with a poised and elegant demeanor about her, the man made clear that he wanted Thann to remain in the entertainment sections of the ship, he knew he had to put a stop to it before more assumptions were made. Especially with the concierge’s assessing gaze over his body.

  Thann cleared his throat. "I'll be requiring meetings with all the engineering department heads first thing in the morning."

  "Oh but I'm sure the activities of the evening are going to make it far more difficult for you — we do go all night here, Lord." The concierge accompanied her statement with smooth gestures of her hands that deftly guided his body so that he focused on the doorway leading out into the public areas of the entertainment decks, rather than the considerably less opulent halls leading back down to Engineering.

  "I'm an active representative of my House's interests." Thann chilled his tone and addressed the Ops Director rather than the concierge. "My first priority is ensuring that Zalco Stardrives and Quantum dance well together, long before I go dancing with Quantum’s lovely ladies." This part of his comment, he directed to the concierge. Along with a smile he knew could devastate with its charm.