by M. D. Cooper
“I have to say, I sure like this idea,” Stick beamed. “BAMF always makes me clean up and do her laundry when we knock her out like this. This would save me from mopping shit stains in the cargo hold.”
“OK, Petra, we’ll do that after we chat here,” Colonel Ramsey said. “Now, why don’t you tell us what brought you to Delta Team?”
Petra nodded and slipped off Lashes’ lap, settling into the rec room’s worn, and only moderately stained, sofa.
“Well, it all started last week when I got a message from my brother. He was working over on Pega Station and sent me a letter saying he was in trouble. I tried to contact him, but the station authority said he was gone.”
“Do you have the letter?” Lashes asked, and Petra pulled it out of a satchel at her side.
“Wow…a printed letter,” Stick said, her eyebrows raised in surprise. “Don’t see a lot of those…ever. How do you even get a letter? I thought that was just from the old vids.”
“It smells like shit,” Lashes said with a scowl as she pulled the paper out of the envelope.
“That’s part of what makes me think he’s in trouble,” Petra said.
“What’s the other part?” Stick asked.
Lashes held up the letter. In large, bold print, it read: ‘I’m in trouble.’
“There’s lipstick on it, too,” Lashes said.
“Well…can’t argue with that. It sure does look like trouble,” Stick nodded.
“So, why aren’t we going to Pega, then?” Lashes asked. “Why are we off to New Eden?”
“When I contacted Pega, the station authority said my brother boarded a ship headed to New Eden. They said the ship was suspected of smuggling, but no charges had been filed and they left. I can’t imagine why he would do that—he was just studying a new form of bacteria found in sea vents in some moon or another…nothing that would get him mixed up with criminals.”
“I gave it a look, too,” Ramsey added. “Had a good, long chat with one of their surveillance AIs. He’s checked with seven other AI, who then interrogated an old monitoring comp that is apparently the only thing on Pega station that actually watches the security feeds. The comp was ninety-four percent positive that the feed is good and no one tampered with it. Petra’s brother got on a ship bound for New Eden.”
“Why only ninety-four percent?” Stick asked.
“I guess someone thought that anything more than ninety-four would make the comp seem cocky, so they capped its certainty level at that,” Ramsey replied with a shrug.
“Makes sense, I guess. Who would want a cocky computer?” Lashes asked.
Girl said over the Link.
“Anyway, does this, ahh…brother of yours have a name?” Stick asked.
“What was with the pregnant pause there?” Lashes fowned.
Stick glanced from Lashes to Petra, then to Ramsey. “Oh, so like it’s actually your brother we’re looking for? I thought it was your brother, if you know what I mean.”
“Stick, seriously, it’s her real brother,” Ramsey scowled.
“Really, he is my brother—his name’s Ben,” Petra replied. “Well, Benjartamew, really, but no one calls him that.”
“I can’t imagine why not,” Lashes chuckled.
“I better get back up there before she goes chasing after it,” Stick said before disappearing back down the corridor.
“Are you sure you’re up to this?” Petra asked after Stick left. “I don’t mean to sound unkind, but your girls all seem a bit…unprofessional.”
“You know, I’m sitting right here,” Lashes said.
“We know how to get things done,” Ramsey replied. “We’ve done hundreds of jobs, most tougher than this. I gotta say though, the New Eden Space Force has the tightest-assed assholes this side of Sol. I wonder why the smugglers are going there with someone they kidnapped.”
Petra sighed and put her arm over her eyes. “I just hope he’s OK.”
“Lashes,” Ramsey said. “Go get a med pack from the infirmary. I’ll grab BAMF’s pillow and blanket. Maybe it’ll cheer her up when she wakes. Who knows—maybe deck-plate marks on her face are why she’s always so grumpy.”
“Grab her stuffed bunny, too,” Lashes added. “She loves that thing to pieces.”
“Really?” Petra asked. “That seems unlike her.”
“Well, it is actually in pieces,” Lashes replied.
“Oh, that makes a lot more sense,” Petra said with a worried look and sank a bit deeper into the sofa.
BACKSTORY
“What’s your story, anyway?” Petra asked Lashes as they relaxed in the rec room, playing a game of cards to get Petra’s mind off her missing brother. “Everyone says you guys are the ones to go to if you’re in trouble, and if no one else can help, and if they can find you, and all that.”
“We’re just a bunch of concerned citizens that like to lend a hand,” Lashes replied with a smile.
“Then why do you all call Ramsey ‘colonel’?” Petra’s right eyebrow arched as she spoke, and Lashes knew she would have to tell the tale. Not that she minded, her reticence just added to the mystery surrounding Delta Team.
“We don’t, I’m sure you misheard it,” Lashes said with a smile and a wink.
Petra responded with a stern scowl. “No, even Girl calls him ‘colonel’. What gives? Was he in the military?”
Lashes let out a long, overly dramatic sigh. “Yes…yes we were, but that was another lifetime ago.”
Around them, at a volume so low it was barely noticeable, gentle, but stirring music began to play.
“Oh yeah? How long ago?” Petra asked.
“Gee…at least fifteen years ago,” Lashes replied. “Time outside of stasis, that is. We’ve spent a bit of time in the tube getting away from folks that want us dead.”
“Why would anyone want you dead?” Petra asked. “Wait…no…I can think of a few reasons—and what’s with the music?”
Lashes chuckled. “Oh, that’s just Girl—something she does whenever one of us starts telling our tale. However, regarding our past, anything you’ve heard about us came later, after what set us down this path. We used to be part of an elite unit in the Hegemony’s military. There were a few more of us—you’d never have just three soldiers under a colonel—but we were the core team.”
“In the Hegemony of Worlds?” Petra asked.
Lashes nodded sagely. “One and the same.”
“And you did something wrong?”
“Not so much,” Lashes replied. “We did something a bit too right. We were sent on a mission to uncover some nefarious dealings at a small manufacturing outpost on a planet in the ass-crack of nowhere. We infiltrated the base, got the intel, and took out the bad guys. Problem was, the bad guys were all in the employ of a certain general’s wife. We weren’t supposed to survive the mission.”
Petra whistled. “How did you manage to survive?”
“Through our cunning wit and superb combat skills,” Lashes replied with a smile. “We mopped the floor with the renta-crooks they had. We got the evidence, but when we returned, we were arrested and court martialed.”
Lashes took a drink of her prune juice before continuing. “They stuck us on a prison transport, to work in Tim-Buck-Too, but we escaped, and here we are today, helping the little folks against corporations, evil governments, and whoever else needs a smackdown.”
“That’s it,” Petra asked. “That’s the whole story? You did a mission, you got court martialed on some trumped up charges, and then you escaped?”
“Yup,” Lashes nodded. “That about sums it up.”
“Seems a bit thin…”
“What do you mean?” Lashes asked.
“I mean…what were the charges? How did you get sent on this mission in the first place? Why did the general want you to get killed on the mission? How did you get free? Why did you leave the Hegemon
y to help people like me? Where’d you get the Van?” Petra said, ticking off items on her fingers.
“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” Lashes raised her hands. “You can’t just get the whole story all at once! We’re going to have to dole it out over multiple missions.”
“But I’m only here for this one mission!” Petra exclaimed. “You’re just going to tell the next bit to the next person without the backstory you just gave me?”
“Well…” Lashes paused. “We could redo this bit and record it, and then play it for them like a bit of a flashback and then tell them a bit more.”
“What about me?” Petra asked. “How will I learn the whole story?”
“Hmm…” Lashes ran a hand through her hair. “I know! At some point in the future, we’ll need your help, and then we can let you watch the recorded bits so you know the updated backstory!”
“This is the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard…”
Lashes shrugged. “It works in the vids.”
TOAST POINTS
“Do you have a death wish?” BAMF asked before her eyes opened. “You went FTL; you took me into the dark.”
“Now, BAMF,” Ramsey took the carrot from his mouth so he could use his best soothing voice, “we had to do it. A young man’s life is at stake.”
BAMF cracked an eyelid and the baleful orb glared at him as though assessing his worth. Her hand whipped out and gripped Ramsey’s throat. “And now a fool of an old man’s life is at stake.”
“So…you don’t want this tray of toast points, eggs, and sausage.” Ramsey gasped as he pointed to the platter of hot food by BAMF’s side.
The big woman’s eye rotated toward the offering and appeared to consider it for some time.
“I suppose I do,” she said and let go of Ramsey’s neck. “Thanks for the pillow and blanket, nice touch—especially bringing Bunny. You better not have lost any of its pieces.”
Ramsey sat back on his heels and rubbed his neck while BAMF tucked into her food, her chains rattling angrily. Once she stopped visibly fuming, he explained the situation and where they were.
“New Eden?” BAMF scowled. “Too damn close to the core.”
Ramsey nodded. “Yeah, it is, I know, but its NE; those guys have more ships than God. The Hegemony doesn’t mess with them.”
“Except ten years ago,” BAMF said around a mouthful of food.
Ramsey shrugged. “Yeah, but those were unusual circumstances, what with that ancient colony ship at Bollam’s World.”
“Fucked that place up,” BAMF commented.
“Sure did,” Ramsey nodded. Wherever the Intrepid had run off to, he hoped it was far from wherever he was. That ship was nothing but trouble.
Ramsey left BAMF to finish her food and clean up.
The walk through the ship was short; the Van wasn’t a cargo hauler, but rather a get in, blow shit up, and get out fast sort of ship. It was only a hundred meters long from bow to stern, and over half of that was engines and fuel. The ship wasn’t heavily armed—most of their work required them not to arouse suspicion—though it could put up a fight when needed.
The ship was a Vancruiser 450 model built out in the Hesca System, he forgot what the previous owners had called it. Vancrestualtacular or some other bullshit. The Van worked much better—sounded like they were at the forefront of a fighting force—like back in his glory days before they were railroaded and court martialed over the unpleasantness with the general and his wife.
Fighting in the van with his regiment.
He stepped into the small bridge…more like a cockpit, really. It sported two consoles, one for weapons and the other for scan, with the pilot’s seat in the middle. Stick was strapped in with her five-point harness—totally unnecessary on a ship with artificial gravity and inertial dampeners, but Stick believed it was important to be prepared.
Through the hardened plas window lay the New Eden system, one of the jewels of the early colonial years. It had weathered the great FTL Wars better than most. Though it was an FGT terraformed system, and rife with advanced tech, it was still just far enough off the beaten path that getting a war fleet there had been problematic.
The Edeners also had a wealth of natural resources, which they had spent on building a mighty fleet that patrolled their region of space with a zealous ferocity that few dared cross.
It made the system a strange destination for the smugglers that had taken Petra’s brother, Ben.
New Eden was especially picky about FTL jump points, and the closest to the star was 65 AU out. It meant that—depending on where Ben’s abductors had taken him—it could take a week or two to get insystem.
“What’s the word, Stick?” Ramsey asked. “Stripped the beacon yet?”
Girl said.
“That one’s getting really old,” Stick replied to Girl. “You need a new one.”
Ignoring their AI, Stick turned to the colonel, “Yeah, nothing much there—just the usual advisories, limits, regulations. Eden bullshit. They do seem to be on high alert about something. Maybe it’s ’cause of the AST tightening their grip on Bollam’s. A few more systems and Eden will be an island surrounded by the Hegemony.”
“Serves them right for never expanding and letting themselves get encircled like this,” Ramsey grunted.
Stick pivoted in her seat and cast an appraising look at him. “It’s their fault for not being a bunch of expansionist douchebags?”
Ramsey nodded. “Yup, wanna be the doucher, or the douchee? They know the Hegemony is always expanding. They let this happen.”
“That’s a shit metaphor, Colonel. I don’t think I want to be the doucher or the douchee,” Lashes said from the cockpit’s entrance behind them.
“I’ll look through the station registries as we get them,” Lashes said as she sat at one of the consoles. “Ship that left Pega with Petra’s bro was named the Ludicrus Star.”
“Riiiight, her brother,” Stick winked. “We still going with that? Wait…ludicrous?”
“No,” Lashes sighed, Lud-i-cruss.”
“Sounds just like Ludicrous. That’s a dumb name.”
“Says the pilot of the Van,” Lashes chuckled.
“Don’t mock the name!” Stick whispered. “If BAMF hears you badmouthing her baby, she’ll recall who it was that knocked her out before we left Yesdi.”
Lashes eyes widened and she nodded. “Good point.”
A few minutes later, BAMF showed up and stood scowling over Lashes.
“You’re in my seat.”
Lashes looked up. “BAMF, this is scan, you always sit at weapons.”
“That’s my seat, too.”
“Then where should I sit?” Lashes asked.
“You don’t. Go stand there,” BAMF pointed to a console mounted to the bulkhead.
“Baaaamf,” Lashes whined. “That console has the weird delay, and it randomly shows images of you flexing, and vids of you making your tits dance.”
“I know,” BAMF grinned.
Lashes looked at Ramsey, who shrugged. “I’m standing, you can, too. You can always do these searches on your HUD and not use that console.”
“She’s using the console,” BAMF said.
Lashes sighed and stood in the corner, while BAMF sat at the weapons station with a smug grin on her face. She brought up her diagnostics routines and began checking over the ship’s systems.
“You fuck up my ship in the dark layer?” she growled at Stick, her chains clinking angrily.
“Now BAMF, you know the dark layer is as safe as houses,” Stick replied. “Nothing bad happens there. You pop in, you pop out, bam, you’re across the void.”
“Not safe,” BAMF replied, as she ran her diagnostics. “Stuff lives in there. Bad Stuff. Ship killers.”
“BAMF,” Lashes’ tone was dismissive. �
�Nothing lives in the dark layer. No one has ever seen any monsters in there.”
“Stuff it, pretty girl,” BAMF said. “I know what I know. Monsters in the dark.”
“Shut up, Girl,” the three women yelled at once.
Ramsey chewed on his carrot and grinned. “I love it when a crew comes together.”
PEGASUS STATION
“You sure this is the place?” Stick asked as they eased into their assigned docking slot at Pegasus Station.
“Their ship is here. Can’t be a lot of ships with that name, it would be ludicrous,” Lashes replied with a chuckle.
“Yeah…but they go from Pega to Pegasus? What are the chances.”
Lashes shrugged. “Maybe they have a flying horse fetish.”
“Any station rules we need to be aware of?” Ramsey asked from around a fresh carrot.
“Yeah, these guys don’t like a lot of stuff, let me read off the highlights,” Lashes said before taking a deep breath. “No running on the dock, no driving deck-cars over five kilometers per-hour, no antimatter bottles on ships, no alcohol from any AST world, no drugs from any AST world, no people from any AST world…nevermind, I’ll skip those, you get the drift. Let’s see…no green or blue people unless they have matching hair—that’s a weird one—no ship’s named Pete, no use of family names, no wanking in public, no…oh fuck, read it yourselves, this’ll take all day.”
“They’re all tight-asses,” BAMF grunted and gave a baleful glare at an optic. “Do it, Girl, say something. I dare you.”
Girl replied.
“Fucking right you don’t,” BAMF grunted.
“OK, Petra, you stay on the ship with Stick,” Ramsey said. “BAMF, Lashes, and I will head out and see if we can drum up any leads on what the Ludicrus Star is up to here.”
“I need to come, Colonel,” Petra said, her voice almost pleading. “He’s my brother, I have to make sure he’s OK.”
“Seems a bit unhealthy for a sibling relationship,” Stick mumbled behind her hand.