by C. T. Phipps
Clever.
“I bet you find it galling we’ve got three crappy pilots flying those instead of you, Mister Navigator,” Clarice said, taking me by the arm and starting to walk me down the catwalk past the other crew quarters’ doors. There were one hundred and fifty-three people who lived and worked on the Melampus, and that didn’t include the occasional odd hanger-on, stowaway, or passenger Ida had a tendency to pick up.
“Not at all,” I responded before starting to walk alongside her to the captain’s quarters. “I find Crosshairs to be only slightly more dignified to fly in than a plastisteel box.”
Clarice snorted. “Don’t tell Munin that.”
Munin was our mechanic who I had some brotherly affection for. A young woman who had literally grown up on the Melampus during its forty years of service. I was surprised at how many people I was going to miss.
“I’ll try not to,” I said, chuckling. “They are, after all, her babies.”
“You know, you don’t look like Cassius Mass. Cassius Mass was good-looking.”
“Well, I wouldn’t be very good at hiding if I didn’t have my face changed.”
“But you didn’t have your DNA clouded except in the most cursory manner, enough to fool casual scans and computer comparison but not any reputable forensic scientist.”
I paused. “No.”
“Why?”
I took a deep breath, looking down at the various crew members cataloging our latest shipment of cargo for Shogun. “It’s difficult to explain to someone born outside of Crius. Crius and Shogun may both be in Sector 7, but they might as well be on different sides of the universe. DNA has a holy significance to us. To alter it, even to protect one’s identity, is to defile something sacred.”
“Ah, so you’re a bigot.”
I sighed. “Sure, let’s go with that.”
“You know, I should hate you, Cassius.”
“Oh, should you?”
“You are a terrorist.”
“I’d repeat the age-old aphorism about one man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter, but I agree I am. What I did helped no one.”
“Then why do it?”
“I wasn’t exactly thinking clearly when I lost everyone I cared about in the universe.”
Clarice didn’t have a response for that. At least, until she unexpectedly said, “Yeah, I know what that’s like.”
“How did you end up here on the Melampus?”
“Oh, are we friends now?”
“I didn’t think we weren’t. Why stop now just because I’m a mass-murderer and you’re a person so committed to justice you try to enforce the law on this ship.” Which was akin to trying to keep dry while swimming.
“Point taken.” Clarice snorted. “Not much of a story. I was a cop, then I wasn’t.”
“There has to be more to it than that.”
“Not much I’m willing to share. Just because you blew your chance at keeping your past secret doesn’t mean I’m about to give up on mine.”
I chuckled. “Point taken.”
“I’ll tell you what. You pay for the drinks and I’ll tell you if the captain doesn’t turn you in for a reward or shove you out of an airlock. I’ve never fucked a count.”
“We’ve fucked before.”
“Yeah, but you were the navigator then.”
“Ah.”
“Assuming you and Isla aren’t exclusive.”
“She’s fucking you, isn’t she?”
“Along with the good-looking half of the crew.” Clarice gave an enigmatic smile. “She has her reasons for needing to do that. Not just looking after their mental health.”
“Yeah, I just found out.”
Clarice gave me a sideways stare. “That sucks. That means she likes you. Now I have to hope the crew doesn’t kill you.”
“The crew knows?”
“Ida gave an order to keep it a secret between the bridge crew an hour ago.”
“Well, shit. I’ll be surprised if they don’t know on Albion.”
As if on cue, three of the crew moved in front of us. There was Holtz, a large, beefy, brown-skinned man with moving tattoos of dragons across his bare chest; Arcade, a small, thin man with a leopard-spot-covered light fur across his skin; and Marvin, who had bad reconstructive surgery on the left side of his face. I knew two of them had fought in the war on the Commonwealth’s side; I made a point to check up on that sort of thing, while Holtz had just never liked me. It made sense the three of them would want to pick a fight.
Or just kill me.
“Step aside, Chief, this doesn’t concern you,” Holtz said, holding a long steel pipe.
“If you’re going to step in the way of my escorting the navigator then it is my business,” Clarice said.
“My brother died thanks to him,” Holtz said, a sneer on his face.
“I severely doubt I was responsible for your brother’s death,” I said, not intending to take any flack for what I’d done during the war.
“He was a mechanic on Kolthas station,” Holtz said.
I blinked. “Then yes, I am directly responsible for your brother’s death.”
I’d destroyed Kolthas station with my team under the belief it would derail the Commonwealth’s invasion plans of our sector. A pre-emptive strike, I’d justified the heavy collateral damage by the fact it would prevent further loss of life. Instead, it had just provided casus belli for the Commonwealth to attack.
That was when Holtz swung his pipe directly at my head.
Only for Clarice to catch it. Pulling it from him in one easy motion, she slammed it against his chest while Arcade moved to claw at her throat with his elongated black nails. Clarice elbowed him in the face before hurling him over her back. Marvin, meanwhile, pulled a micro-fusion pistol from his pants, little bigger than a pocket communicator.
I had no idea if he was going to use it on me or Clarice, but I kneed him in the chest then slammed his face into the catwalk railing beside us. He dropped the gun on the ground and it fell to the third story below.
Clarice frowned. “Great, now I have to write you up for assault.”
“Please don’t dock my pay,” I said, stepping away from the grunting workers before me. “I have an alcohol and drug habit.”
Clarice tried not to smile at that. “That’s one of the more original defenses I’ve heard. Where did you get your sense of humor, Crius?”
“Humor is a reaction of the mind to the incomprehensible horrors and travesties of life. So, everywhere.”
Clarice, meanwhile, forced Holtz to the ground with an arm bar as she looked at the other two workers on the ground. “Well, that pistol just upped things to attempted murder. Shall we dump these two out into space or just lock ’em up until we reach Shogun and send ’em to a work camp?”
I sighed. “As much as I would love to see them laboring away to repair the damage of the war, I understand their pain. Why don’t we just let them go?”
Marvin, at least, looked surprisingly touched.
Holtz just looked pissed.
Arcade, meanwhile, grunted an agreement.
“All right then,” Clarice said, letting them up. “By the way, I want that gun back. Also, if anything happens to Cassius over the next trip, I’ll shoot rather than knock the crap out of you.”
“He’s wanted.” Holtz growled. “A price on his head.”
“No, he’s not,” Clarice said. “Double check. The bounty was removed months ago.”
“Wait, what?” I asked.
“What?” Holtz said, looking more surprised than me. “Fuck.”
“Sorry,” Clarice said.
That seemed to take any wind out of my assailants’ sails and was relieving, as well as confusing. The three of them promptly scampered off and I was left alone with Clarice on the catwalk.
“Did you make that up?” I asked.
“Nope,” Clarice said. “Otherwise, I probably would have turned you in as my civic duty. No offense.”
“None taken.” I tried to parse what she was saying. “Do you know why?”
“Nope. Not a clue. The public arrest warrants and reward for information or capture were all removed, though, with a Watcher-1 seal placed on the information.”
I stared at her. “Suddenly, all of my relief vanishes.”
“As it probably should. The Commonwealth’s secret police never does anything without a very good reason.”
I understood that. The Commonwealth had gone to war with Crius and its holdings despite strict warnings from the Watchers that we had military hardware and enhancements far in excess of anything they had available. It had led to numerous massacres masquerading as battles, which only the sheer manpower and wealth the Commonwealth possessed had been able to turn into victories. The Watchers had managed to turn things around, though, by stealing technological data, converting the disenfranchised, and sabotaging sensitive projects. In the end, the size of the Commonwealth would have won the war on its own, but the Watchers had cut sharply into our advantages and saved many of their soldiers’ lives.
I hated them for it.
“Oh, by the way,” I said, looking at Holtz’s group as it reached the first floor below us. “Thank you for giving me the opportunity to show mercy to them. That should go a long way toward easing the crew’s unease.”
That and they wouldn’t get paid for turning me in.
“What do you mean?” Clarice said, stretching her back.
“That bit with the execution and turning them over to labor camps?”
“Oh, I was dead serious. They tried to kill you. I think it was incredibly stupid of you not to get rid of them.”
“I see.”
Clarice snorted. “You remind me of my partner, Darren. He was always stupidly idealistic about people and what they’d do if given a chance.”
This was not the first time I’d ever been called idealistic, but it remained as inexplicable to me as ever. I certainly didn’t see any idealism. “What happened to him?”
Clarice frowned. “It got him killed. Drinks first, though, sexy-time, then drunken ramblings about the past.”
I nodded, unconcerned about how this would affect my relationship with Isla. After all, we were both sleeping with her. “Assuming the captain doesn’t shoot me into space or take me to work in a labor camp, that sounds lovely.”
“She might,” Clarice said. “She’ll pour you some ice tea and give you a cookie first, though.”
“That she will.”
The two of us proceeded out of the cargo bay toward the captain’s quarters where Ida Claire, obviously not her real name, the grandmotherly leader of the Melampus’ ragtag bunch of misfits, lived.
I gave myself roughly fifty-fifty odds of walking out of that room alive.
Less if I tried to resist.
Chapter Five
Captain Ida Claire was over two hundred years old and a grandmother several times over. I didn’t know where she was from, star system-wise, but suspected she’d been in space longer than most families could trace their descent.
Her cabin certainly looked like it belonged to an old spacer matriarch. Several times larger than the next largest set of quarters, the place was decorated in a mixture of wooden and steel furniture from around when the Melampus was first commissioned plus various knick-knacks from Sectors 1, 2, 3, and 7.
I saw an Albion living painting on the wall, which showed its beautiful oceans as well as a sailing ship traveling to the tune of the ocean’s waves. I saw a little china bull-cat with the flag of Crius on its back. There was an unsettlingly large number of kitten-themed statuettes on every shelf, and the entire place smelled of wilted flowers. Quilts, furs, and plush blankets of various types covered just about everything with the floor having several dozen pressed-together rugs over the cold metal surface.
The right side of the wall from the entrance had a large transparent steel window displaying a sensor reconstruction of jumpspace with blues, blacks, and golden colors forming a somewhat pleasing view of the universe. It wasn’t what jumpspace actually looked like, but it was an approximation, which wouldn’t make you violently ill. The place, oddly, reminded me of the stories we used to tell of Jumpspace Yaga, the old witch who rewarded good little boys and girls with treats while eating the bad.
The captain sat on a patched-over silver couch in front of a cracked glass table with numerous holo-magazines and a tea set. Sitting across from her in a big comfy chair was Ensign Thompson in his well-cleaned crew uniform, having a cup of mint tea.
The brown-skinned woman had a leathery set of features, which seemed a mixture of just about every race of humanity out in the Spiral. She was wearing an old-fashioned Commonwealth Merchant Guildmaster’s great coat over a floral dress, which was a strange fashion choice to say the least. She was also wearing a wide-brimmed hat with a pair of goggles affixed around the top. I would be lying if I said I believed she dressed in an eccentric manner deliberately.
No one could fake that much oddity.
Ensign Hiro Thompson, by contrast, was a pale-skinned twenty-two-year-old with shoulder-length black hair and features that pointed to his parents spending a great deal on his genetic profile. It was quite the contrast to the rest of the crew who came from much less privileged backgrounds. He wasn’t from Sector 7, and I suspected he might actually be from one of the Commonwealth’s Inner Planets. Wherever he came from, he’d tried and failed to do something important with his life but was refusing to go home.
“Knock, knock,” Clarice said, rapping on the side of the door.
“Come in,” Ida said.
“Holy hells!” Hiro Thompson said, looking over at me. “I mean, I can’t believe it’s actually him. I mean, I know who you are Marcus, I mean, Cassius but I never knew it was you-you. I mean, you’re like a hero or a revolutionary or…”
I stared at him. “Hello, Hiro.”
Hiro looked away. “I mean, if you totally want to lead the squadron from now on that’d be amazing.”
Hiro fancied himself the squadron leader of the three starfighters kept for defense.
“No,” I said, looking to Ida. “You called for me, Captain?”
“I was just having a spot of tea with the ensign,” Ida said, smiling. “Would you and Clarice join us?”
“Certainly,” I said, walking into the room without hesitation. If she was going to dump me out of an airlock, then there wasn’t much I could do about it. She was more shooting me in the face, man-to-woman, though. Air-locking prisoners was reserved for those who had really pissed her off.
“Dismissed, Hiro,” Ida said.
“But—” Hiro started to say.
“Dismissed,” Ida said, simply.
Hiro sighed, got up, and headed out the door.
Clarice watched him depart. “If you don’t mind, Captain, I’ve got a bunch of asses to kick and names to take. I imagine this latest revelation about one of our crew is going to make headlines. I want to get ahead of it by saying no one is baying to have him killed and he’s not rich anymore so don’t bother hitting him up for money.”
“I hadn’t even thought about that part,” I said, remembering all the off-world bank accounts I’d been encouraged to invest in by my fellow nobles.
That took on a sinister turn.
Clarice smirked. “Don’t worry, by the time I’m done, the worst anyone will do is ask you to make them a knight.”
“That’s actually horrible,” I said, walking over to where Hiro had been sitting and plopping myself down. “As well as grossly dishonoring a noble institution.”
“See? You’re already acting like the kind of guy they’ll want to punch in the face.”
“They wanted to do that before.”
Clarice laughed as she walked down the hall, the door shutting behind her.
“What a peculiar woman,” I said. “Fascinating but peculiar.”
“She’s probably the closest person to your past on here, despite half the crew being from Crius or
their territories,” Ida said, pouring me some tea. “Her family isn’t just the O’Harras. They’re the Rin-O’Harras.”
“The rulers of Shogun?”
“Unofficial rulers. I’m pretty sure crime families don’t qualify as nobility under most planets’ rules, but the sentiment is there.”
“You’d be surprised at what people legalize.”
“Very little surprises me in this universe, son. I’ve been from one spiral to another in this galaxy and can tell you more about planets than most encyclopedias.”
Ida handed me a plate full of biscuits.
I took one.
Then I noticed a micro-fusion pistol attached to her wrist, aimed right at my chest. Taking the plate with her other hand, she leaned back in her sofa and kept the gun trained on me.
“Son, we’re going to have to have a talk. I have questions.”
I dipped my biscuit in the tea in front of me and took a bite. “If you’re going to get answers we’re going to need something stronger than this.” Chewing, I added, “Good biscuits. Almost tastes like real flour.”
“I like your spunk, kid. Hunk-A-Junk, get us some bourbon.”
A small black floating ball with several metal arms proceeded to float out from the kitchenette built into Ida’s quarters. Speaking in a thick Albion accent, it said, “Of course, mistress! I am happy to comply!”
Hunk-A-Junk was a J-7 as old as Ida but somehow still functioning, which made me think the company must have gone bankrupt since every other synthetic manufacturer made sure their mechs burnt out after a decade or less.
Not caring at all about the gun, I leaned back in the chair. “So, what do you want to know?”
“So, are you Cassius Mass?”