Know what time it is, Mere?
Roughly half past six in the evening by the ship’s clock.
That was not a literal question, for fuck’s sake. I mean it’s time for me to let Molly know that I did what I told her I was going to.
An empty message popped up on her HUD, the cursor blinking at her. It was seemingly expecting something from her, and her eyes narrowed as she tried to glare it into submission.
The cursor didn’t seem particularly cowed, and with a sigh, Nickie got to work.
Nickie was not the best at sending meaningful messages to people. She could fill out incident reports like a champion since, as boring as they were, they could be boiled down to a template. But that was routine clinical work, and it didn’t actually take any brainpower to just regurgitate a series of events. She couldn’t do that for an actual message to someone.
She was well aware of this, and thus tended to avoid the task. But she wasn’t just going to leave Molly in suspense, forever wondering if Nickie had done as she said she would or blown the matter off entirely. She also didn’t want to just say “Job’s done, there you go.”
She erased the message for a second time before finally deciding it was best to avoid any sort of formality. It had never suited her particularly well.
Job’s done, just like I promised. If you want proof, you can probably look up an incident at Ablapus Space Station. You owe me one now. I take payment in the form of half-decent booze. Beer and red wine are borderline. Boxed wine is right out.
Stay in one piece, and don’t be a stranger.
Ranger Two
Satisfied, Nickie nodded once and leaned back, giving the note one last glance before she hit Send.
She spared a moment to let the events of the afternoon play through her mind again. She wasn’t sure if she felt any different, but no one had looked at her like she was going to turn into a honey badger. That was at least an improvement.
And really, she was pretty sure she had run through her entire capacity for self-awareness for the time being. She was making an executive decision; she could work on self-improvement again later. Probably after insulting Grim again, if the trend kept up.
Instead, she rolled onto her stomach, folding her arms on the bed and resting her chin on them.
Pretty sure I’ve still got some catching up to do in Aunt Tabitha’s diary.
Meredith pulled the most recent entry up, the words filling Nickie’s HUD.
Chapter 19 Tabitha
City of Karkat, Flex
Ryu punched Walce in the face and sent the Torcellan staggering back in the muck. He recovered his footing, wavered, and then slipped and went under.
Tabitha pressed a hand over her mouth, pushing on her lips. “I think I’m gonna be sick.”
“Yeah, alien shit smells worse than human shit.” Ryu shook his head. “I would not have called that. Humans produce some vile stuff. Aliens are worse, apparently.”
She put a hand up in his direction. “Do you mind, Ryu? I’m trying not to think about it.”
Based on Torcellan lung capacity, you should probably try to find Walce, Achronyx interjected.
“Oh. Right.” Ryu headed forward, kicking his legs out in front of him in large arcs. “I am not doing this with my hands. Where the hell did he— Oh, he was trying to make a break for it. Gotcha.” He pressed his foot down on Walce’s back. “Give it a second, and he’ll come right up.”
Sure enough, when he released his foot, the Torcellan came up for air with a panicked expression, brushing his face free of muck and taking a heaving breath.
“Thought you’d run away, did you?” Ryu asked.
Walce gave him a furious look. “What do you two even want with me?”
“We’re here because you’re violating our Empress’ Law,” Tabitha said. She crossed her arms and jutted her hip to the side. “You know, the one that says, ‘be nice to each other…or else?’ There’s only one, and you still managed to break it.”
He was wiping muck away from his eyes when he spat out. “What did I ever do to you?”
“You stole food and supplies from settlers who needed them,” Tabitha told him. “They’re starving. You’ve pulled this shit on a bunch of worlds, Empire worlds included. You don’t get to do that.”
Walce started laughing, then he saw that she was serious and his laugh died. “Are you serious?” He looked to Ryu, then back. “You can’t be serious.”
“Do I look like I’m joking?” Tabitha gestured around her. “I chased you into a sewer for this, man. That’s going to come up at the trial.”
“Trial?” Walce looked totally bewildered now.
“Lord, you people are savages. Okay, in a civilized society, criminals are apprehended, charged with a crime, and brought in to stand trial. They present their evidence, we present our evidence… Well, that’s not how it works when we can read minds, but that’s the general idea.”
“You can read minds?”
“I can’t, but… You know what, let’s just say you’re being brought back to stand trial now.”
Walce looked less disturbed by that than Tabitha expected.
In reality, he was thinking furiously. They were going to haul him back to stand trial. No one he’d ever heard of bothered with things like that. He didn’t know exactly what they were up to.
But now he realized that they were weak. No strong leader would put up with something like this. Strong leaders identified their enemies and had them taken out. They knew that there was only one law: those with the might rule.
And weak people could be manipulated.
“How much?” Walce asked. He gave them his most winning smile.
“I beg your pardon?” Tabitha asked him.
“I would tread carefully,” Ryu told Walce.
“I’m not going to suggest anything obvious.” Walce scoffed. He wished he wasn’t covered in muck, but since they all were, he really wasn’t at much of a disadvantage, here. “There won’t be any large transfers your employer can trace. We do things very elegantly here on Karkat. A mansion, some encrypted accounts under a shell corporation, a few favors from BSG.”
“They tried to kill us,” Tabitha replied dryly. “Like kill us dead. Deader than dead, and then shot me in the back…”
“Twice,” Ryu added.
“Thank you for that reminder.” She retorted.
“Things change.” Walce spread his hands. “I am valuable to them. They will reward you handsomely for looking the other way and telling your employer you could not find me.”
“Oh,” Tabitha exclaimed as if she were just beginning to understand. “I see! So you’re trying to give us money so we won’t bring you in.”
“Yes.” Walce wondered if he had missed some fact about humans. They really seemed to be incredibly dense.
Then again, that would fit with all the “trial” nonsense.
Tabitha gave him a huge grin. “Let me make one thing absolutely clear,” she explained. She strode over much faster than Walce would have thought possible and slammed him against the wall of the tunnel a moment later. “We’re Rangers, and Rangers can’t be bought.” Her fingers squeezed around his throat. “Come on, Ryu.”
With Achronyx to find them an exit from the sewers, it was very quick to haul Walce out. He complained all the way, throwing out increasingly high numbers. By the end, he had offered a full set of guards, two mansions, a share in the city’s food recycling program—which Ryu nearly threw up at—and three no-questions-asked favors from Kenet.
“See, here’s the thing.” Tabitha panted as she hauled the struggling Torcellan onto the ship and held him down for the decontamination shower. “All you’re doing is convincing me that you’re very valuable to people with really shitty morals. That just makes it more necessary to bring you in.” She shoved him into the brig and slammed the door. “I need eight showers. Right now. And I’m going to burn this armor.”
“Seconded,” Ryu agreed. “Meet you here in an hour
for a drink?”
“Done.”
They went to their rooms as Achronyx lifted off and set a course for the Meredith Reynolds, and Tabitha was still on her second shower when Achronyx came over the speakers.
“Ranger Tabitha, there is a Skaine pirate ship far off on our radar. It is somewhat out of the way, but its signature matches one that has been spotted on Karkat. Perhaps it is the friend Kenet spoke of.”
“It must be my lucky day,” Tabitha murmured. She hopped out of the shower and toweled off. “Chase it down, Achronyx, and tell Ryu to bring the drinks to the bridge. I’m going to have a nice caipirinha while I hunt me some Skaines.”
“I thought you were from Argentina. Based on my knowledge, you don’t look very Hispanic.”
“European lineage,” she replied. “I’ve got it where it counts, and you can’t get that music out of my soul. As for the caipirinha, Brazil has occasionally had good ideas. Caipirinhas were one of them. I’ll be right there.”
QBS Achronyx
Tabitha called Hirotoshi as they sped toward the Skaine ship.
“Kemosabe,” he greeted her with a smile from the video. “How is the mission?”
“Well, Ryu danced in a fancy suit, I messed up Karkat’s internal trade systems, we wound up in a sewer, and oh yeah, we got our guy.” Tabitha gave him a cocky grin. “Right now, we’re just making a quick stop to chase down a Skaine ship. Do you have any information on the Gul’rak?”
“Let me check.” Hirotoshi frowned. “I take it Achronyx has none.”
“No. And I’ve learned my lesson. I’m asking all of you for things before just running off blindly.”
“I am pleased to hear it, Kemosabe.”
“She really means it, too.” Ryu sipped his caipirinha with a grin. “It’s how we found Walce in the sewers. Also, how we scandalized a ballroom full of Torcellans. Don’t worry, that was our goal.” He gave a wicked smile at Hirotoshi’s look. “I upended centuries of tradition by freestyling during a circle dance.”
Hirotoshi’s look said he thought he should have been there so as not to let any of this occur.
“Achronyx suggested it,” Tabitha chimed in. She was also grinning at Hirotoshi’s expression. “Didn’t you, Achronyx?”
“I did, Ranger Tabitha.”
Hirotoshi ignored this. “The Gul’rak is captained by Jin’set Keltad. It’s definitely a pirate ship, but it looks like it’s heading for dry-dock. It may have been damaged recently. There is a record of a battle between a Torcellan cargo ship and a Skaine pirate, and they report that its guns were disabled.”
“Oh, hell, yeah. Anything we can bring him in for?”
“Actually, yes.” Hirotoshi smiled. “It appears that he has accompanied Etoy Walce on several occasions. I see Walce’s ship named on incident reports.”
“Shedding more light on why he wanted us killed,” Ryu pointed out.
“Yes.” Tabitha leaned forward in our seat. “Achronyx, are we in hailing range?”
“Yes, Ranger Tabitha.”
“Good. Hail them.” Tabitha waited for the signal to connect, tapping her fingers on the armrest. When the screen cleared and she saw the Skaine captain, she smiled and took a sip of her Caipirinha. “Hello, Captain Keltad. Fine day to have your guns disabled, isn’t it?”
The Skaine captain hissed angrily at her, “You should turn around and leave, Ranger. We are not afraid of you.”
“You really should be,” Tabitha pointed out. “After all, I am Ranger Two. I am known to be one of the people Skaines least want to fuck with. Also, I have one of your friends on board: Etoy Walce. Perhaps the name is familiar?”
“Never heard of him,” Captain Keltad grunted. Off the video feed, he was making gestures to get his ship to accelerate away from the Achronyx.
“We’ll just see about that.” Tabitha gave a command mentally. Achronyx, pull up next to the ship. We’re going to tow it in…after we knock its guns to hell with pucks and you take over its systems.
Achronyx pulled the ship close to the Gul’rak and launched pucks. They struck the guns, bending turrets and snapping a few pieces off entirely.
“What are you doing?” Captain Keltad yelled.
“Telling you a joke.” Tabitha took another sip of her drink. “Are you ready? It goes like this. Humans have a system where we charge people with crimes and bring them in to stand trial. We only punish them if they’re guilty. Now, are you ready for the punchline?”
Captain Keltad was staring at her. So was Ryu.
Tabitha leaned forward. “The punchline is that it’s not a joke, motherfucker. And you’re about to find that out.” She switched off the holo and smiled at Ryu and Hirotoshi. “I was getting real pissed off with everyone laughing at that. I can’t wait for them to find out what they’re in for.” She stretched. “Achronyx, make for home.”
“Yes, Ranger Tabitha.”
QBBS Meredith Reynolds, Rangers’ Area
Tabitha was curled up in her rooms on the Meredith Reynolds when Hirotoshi came in with a smile.
“It is good to see you back, Kemosabe.”
“Good to see you, too, Number One.” She kicked off her shoes and wiggled her toes. “Come sit down and have a drink. We were just talking about the mission.”
“We’ve decided, jointly with a unanimous vote, never to end up in an alien sewer again,” Ryu informed his teammate solemnly.
“Also,” Tabitha added, “I’ve decided I’m not going to go running off with only one of you anymore. And I am going to listen to my team more while I am on the ground. You know, plan things out, listen to your suggestions—”
“Read Achronyx’s reports?” Hirotoshi suggested, continuing the list.
Tabitha raised an eyebrow, “Baby steps, Number One. Baby steps.”
“I work hard on those reports,” Achronyx mentioned, sounding annoyed.
“I very much enjoy them,” Hirotoshi told the EI.
“Yes, yes, you two go have a boring party together. Full of boringness.” Tabitha waved her hand. “The rest of us are going to do fun things.”
“Preparing for missions can be fun,” Hirotoshi offered.
“You know, I channeled you at that ball, but remind me to stop before I ever get that far with things.” Tabitha shuddered. “So, when are the trials?”
“Later today. Both of them are currently trying to buy off the guards.” Hirotoshi snickered. “We have a bet going on whether or not they’ll try it with Bethany Anne or one of the Bitches.”
Tabitha shuddered again. She could only imagine the carnage that would ensue if someone suggested to Bethany Anne’s face that they were going to buy her off. “We should make sure no one else is in the room when they do that.”
“Already done.” Hirotoshi smiled. “Imagine the carnage.”
Ryu handed him a drink, and they all clinked glasses.
“To the team,” Tabitha toasted. “I love you guys, even if you pulled some weird mind-meld trick and can’t quite appreciate my awesomeness.”
“What is this about a mind meld?” Hirotoshi inquired courteously.
“Yes,” Ryu added. “You have to be out of your damned mind with that one.”
Tabitha pointed at both of them, trying hard to stop the smile that was itching to show on her lips. “Stop it! Stop doing that!” She waved her finger up in the air. “A thousand push-ups for both of you!”
Hirotoshi and Ryu chuckled. “Totally worth it,” Ryu stated.
Hirotoshi nodded slowly. “Agreed.”
“That’s better.” Tabitha looked to both of them. “However, I was serious about those push-ups.” She set her drink down and reached over, pulling the glasses out of their hands and set them down in front of her, a smile and a wink for them as she continued. “I’ll drink your caipirinhas while you’re at it.”
Chapter 20 Nickie
Rebus Quadrant, Themis Colony
Adelaide stood at the mouth of a hallway. The blood had long since been cleaned up and a mem
orial had been held, but there were still some parts of the outpost that were harder to venture through than others.
“You coming?” Raynard called from halfway down the corridor. He had stopped walking to peer over his shoulder at her. Balanced in his hands were three crates of medical supplies to be carried to the infirmary’s storage area. His chin rested atop the pile to keep it steady.
Adelaide gave her head a brief shake as she pulled her thoughts back to the present, and she flexed her fingers. She had a similar stack of crates in her hands, and she shifted her grip on them to ease the bottom edge from biting into her palms.
When she caught up with Raynard, he faced forward and kept walking.
Harry was standing at the desk in the infirmary when they got there, silently taking stock of the supply cabinets. He gestured Raynard and Adelaide through to the rearmost storage closet as they stepped into the room.
Raynard groaned as he set his load down in the closet, and with a cheeky little laugh, Adelaide wondered, “Bad back, old man?” She had to sidestep to avoid his hand as he reached out to tweak a strand of her hair in retaliation.
She hip-checked him cheerfully and pantomimed trying to bite his finger. Their scuffle came to an end, though, when Harry called, “Can the two of you not defile my closet?” in a bland, disinterested voice. “I just cleaned it.”
Adelaide peeked from the closet to stick her tongue out and blow a raspberry at him. Harry didn’t bother to look up from the datapad in his hands.
Leaning back into the closet, Adelaide set her stack of boxes down and rolled her shoulders. Her spine popped, and she clapped a hand over Raynard’s mouth before he could say anything about it.
“Anything else you need us to do?” she called to Henry, yanking her hand away from Raynard when he licked her palm. She scrubbed her hand off on his shirt.
“I know you’re still being cheeky in there,” Harry informed her rather than answering the question. After a second, he added, “There are a couple boxes of backup files out here that need to go down to main storage. It’d be appreciated if you two handled those.”
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