by K Alexis
"The second one," Jetta said, her head covered by the top. "When it glows bright, get ready."
"Ready for what? I thought you were going to bring Steh up here once you'd found him."
"I wasn't planning on it." She plopped onto the bed and then yanked on a pair of well-used boots that had suddenly appeared. "I wasn't planning on giving you the linker either, but I'm not sure what I want to do. It's a weird feeling. I think I might like you … or I might like your morality. I can't be certain."
"Like me?" Agra made a face. "Perhaps if lying was a sign of affection—"
Elia pounded on the door. "I know ya being in there, ya rotten peach. I warned ya not to be playing with him."
Jetta flicked a ring in the air and caught it. It was the same color as Agra's pebble. She put it on her right hand's middle finger. "How do you know lying isn't a sign of romantic interest?" she queried. "The universe is infinitely strange. However, I'd rather talk about movies on our first date than philosophy, if that's okay with you." Before Agra could respond, Jetta put a finger on his lips. "Pay close attention," she said. "This is the fun part."
With a sharp wrist movement, she conjured a silver circle. "I got your imaginations, Turiean," Jetta hollered at Elia. She jumped into the portal and disappeared. The glowing circle dissipated as she left, leaving Agra sitting naked on the bed with only the towel as cover.
"She be gone?" Elia screamed. Her fists banged so loudly on the door that Agra involuntarily covered his ears.
"Yes, yes, she's gone," Agra hollered. "Give me a minute." He did not get one. The door crashed down, and Elia stormed in with her hand on her cutlass. She slumped when she saw only Agra.
"I be doing ya favor beyond favor, and yar bloody group be pushing me and pushing me. Now, I don't be caring if ya be leaking all over me cabin, ya be hearing me words and then memorizing them till they be haunting ya every morn'."
4:32pm: Azra [P. Watcher 18034568X]
I guess we can talk about it when I see you.
Anyway, Steh might be alive. So, could you send me the Corsair apocrypha entry on Starfires? I'm not asking for the whole book, just the Starfire entry.
9:00pm: Junko [Channel 37A4R]
No, I won't because the Assembly won't allow it and because you didn't tell me Steh was Stehlan Ehrans. I had to find out from some encourager hack that's been talking with my advocate.
Recovering him is a top priority for any Corsair. How did you fuck that up? (–_–)
Make you sure you do your job right this time. I need him to help me with a golem we have to fight.
Twenty-three: The Lecture
"… I KNOW WHAT ya be thinking," Elia opined. "I don't be knowing yar pain. I lecture ya for yar constant moral failings, dragging yar worthless carcass across the coals of ridicule 'cause I be living above it all. I be sitting in me big ship and hiding from the juvenile pleasures of this here Earth. Ain't being true." Elia tightly gripped Agra's chin and pulled him toward her, again.
He noticed the crowd outside of Jetta's cabin had grown from five or so at the start of the sermon to a full ten now. They were clothed in a mish-mash of bathrobes, boxers and pajamas that ranged from the cute to the needing-their-parent's-help.
"Don't be looking over yonder," Elia said, her nose tip to tip with Agra's. "Ya may been a leech that been sucking good deed after good deed from those who been caring for ya, but that not meaning ya be irredeemable." She shoved him away from her, his head smacking into the wall behind him.
"Why, when I been a young lass, I ain't been owning this here vessel. I been in those sea-shanty-singing boats as well as any other pauper. Well, they been rickety and the seas been dangerous. Many of me crew been losing their lover or soulmate whilst out there searching for gold or them desperate billionaires in need of being saved. Of course, when those calamities been befalling me crew, they been turning to the most stalwart and steadfast, me. Now, when they been coming to me for comfort, all their emotions been in a tizzy. They not been knowing if they been wanting a listener, a comforter, a companion or a paramour. They not been knowing because they ain't been themselves. They been as confused as any pirate yearning for pacifism.
"And, I ain't about to lie to ya on this here day, many of them been young little things with voluptuous lips, asses as tight as wooden planks, and thighs shaped akin to that marble in them museums. Ya think I not been wanting a piece or two of them delicacies? Me loins not been burning with passions more than yar own as they been coming to me cabin in all stages of undress? That I not been wanting to throw down Angelique on the deck and been having me way when she been taking off her kit and begging me to show her how to feel anew?" Elia slapped her thigh. "I been like you. I cannot be denying it. Me bosom been hungering for them like the Songs of Solomon be elucidating."
Elia swiveled toward the crowd and pointed at them. "Yet, been I weakening? Been I falling prey to me base animalism in their time of confusion? No. I been strong for them. They been like a drunken man clutching toward a feeling that been real yesterday but gone in the moment."
Agra noticed Tath join the group at the side. She stood there for a while listening to Elia's sermonizing but then shook her head and moved away. He wished he could have explained how everything was not as duplicitous as it seemed. However, he had committed to and trusted Jetta—for good or ill—and this was the price he had to pay for it. As he refocused on Elia, she was still yammering on about her philosophies of love.
"… and that be why we be paying attention to decorum. Not be for yarself, lad. It being for the others around ya. Others that be looking at us even when we not be knowing it. Why, ya be …"
Out the corner of his vision, Agra noticed the green pebble had started to glow brighter. He clutched it tightly, waiting for whatever Jetta had planned. Elia's voice faded into the background and then disappeared completely. He found himself sitting on the floor of the captain's cabin and staring at a vast collection of records. Jetta held one of them in her hands.
"I actually missed you," she said. "Well, I missed your knee-jerk morality. I'm curious to see how it'll fare in the next few minutes."
As Agra stood up, Jetta summoned a pair of bush pants, boxers and a T-shirt. She kicked them over. "Put something on. You're too distracting like that."
He did as he was told. "She's going to come find us," he commented, discovering the garments fitted better than anything he had bought himself.
"That's the point," Jetta said. "She's going to stomp in here, and I'm going to get access to her rare imagination collection." The self-proclaimed pirate queen took the record out of its case and juggled it between her hands. "A bomb is a helluva bargaining chip."
"I thought we were saving Steh so you could clear your name."
Jetta chuckled as Elia's footsteps could be heard pounding down the corridor. "No, I was searching for his murderer so the Grinners wouldn't bother me. Didn't you pay attention when I first outlined my problems to you? He's a Starfire. You want another Sacramento … or worse? That's not friendship; that's joint genocide."
The door flew across the room before Agra could reply. "This here be the dumbest thing anyone ever been doing, lass," Elia said, her sword drawn and pointed at the floor.
"I want the Grendel imaginations," Jetta demanded. "If you don't give them to me, I'll release Stehlan. I'm sure he'll be delighted to discover you were going to allow Mea another crack at murdering him because of a few bits of paper."
"Ya foolish girl," Elia thundered. "Them treaties ain't be keeping me in line. I be ripping that document up if I be able, but them Navigators be having a larger army than this here trifling orb. Only those who ain't been through the torching of Gestaros be running their mouths about us who be toeing the line."
Jetta rolled the disc back and forward across her palms. "I saw the burning, but I'm no coward. I didn't sign away my freedoms for peace of mind." She spun the record around on her index finger.
"Ya be too young to been seeing those flames,
lass," Elia objected. "Yar flimflam be wasted on this here audience. I be knowing a deceiver the moment they be stepping aboard me vessel."
"I guess that's it then," Jetta said. "You've called my bluff. I only have one move left to play." Jetta began to bend the disc. Tension lines started showing on the vinyl as it neared its cracking point.
Agra dived for it, but Jetta was quicker and he came up empty—thudding onto the ground. "It doesn't matter what Steh is," Agra said. "We all made a promise to keep him safe. Everything else is bullshit."
Jetta and Elia ignored his outburst and commenced circling each other.
Agra forced himself up and into a fighting stance. He had no knives, weapons or powers of any kind. He was useless. And even if he had been armed with his entire arsenal, he was not sure it would have made a difference against a Turiean. However, he was damned if he was not going to try and save his friend from a life of eternal incarceration.
"Lad, it be time to be putting the courage away," Elia said, still moving. "Yar own group not been wanting him. There being no need to be binding two souls to the darkness when one be sufficient."
"I don't care what Mea did," Agra spat, glad he finally had a target for his anger. "We make mistakes. We get scared. We run away. We're not perfect people. Steh isn't one. Nor Junko. So what? We don't deserve a second chance? We don't deserve to aim high unless we hit righteousness the first time? That's bullshit and you know it."
"Aye, that be true and all," Elia agreed. "But it don't be changing that Stehlan not be a 'who' anymore; he be a 'what.' He been built to go off and blow us into stardust. Ain't no-one being able to save him cause there ain't being no treatment to reverse what he be having. He been born an inventor; he be dying a tool. Now, ya be running along back to yar folk, and I be sorting out this halfwit right quick."
Agra weaved left and swung a right-hook at Elia's chest. His arm only made it halfway before he was lifted off the ground, smacked into the roof and slammed onto the floor. Every rib and muscle in his body howled in agony. Spots and stars flickered in the middle of his vision.
"I been killing plenty of men I be liking," Elia informed Agra. "Ya just be another lost adventurer, unique as them hats they be selling at sports games. Wouldn't even be shedding a single drop over ya if I be yanking yar heart out while the blood be pumping."
Agra could not tell if Elia was bluffing. Despite all their shared journeys and conversations, the captain's current tone seemed to imply those bonds mattered little to her. He was a mildly interesting distraction, nothing more and nothing less. Unfortunately, for both of them, he had been too close to death too many times to be afraid of any bluster of threat. The specter of terror Elia had wished to conjure was not going to make Agra give up on his friends; they were the main reason he persisted with living.
The room swayed as Agra stood up, and the two women appeared like muddy shapes in front of a fuzzy backdrop. He struggled to form a technically competent defensive stance and teetered on falling over when he attempted to bounce on the heels of his feet. "If you don't care that much about your passengers, you shouldn't be a captain," Agra baited Elia to grab her attention. He lunged at her and was mentally prepared to be smashed against the ceiling once more when Jetta maneuvered him behind her and away from the fight.
"There's not a Corsair bone in his body," Jetta said with her arms outstretched to protect Agra from the captain. "I can't help but be impressed. Hell, I might even fall in love with him one day."
"I be dealing with ya in a—" Elia said.
"Dealing with me?" Jetta juggled the spinning disc between her two index fingers. "Captain, I'm the mother-fucking Queen of the Ocean. If there's going to be a disciplining, I'll be the one administering it."
Twenty-four: The Turiean
ELIA SWIPED HER cutlass at Jetta. The attack covered the entire width of the room, but the self-declared pirate queen dodged it by cartwheeling onto Elia's weapon and prancing along the blade as if she was a gymnast on the beam.
"Never underestimate height-challenged people," Jetta said. "We're nimble on our feet … and with our hips." She winked at the captain.
Elia slashed horizontally at her antagonist several more times, attempting to dislodge her. Each swipe became more frantic than the previous. None of them removed Jetta from the weapon; rather, the pirate queen rode out the attacks by using the weapon as a makeshift surfboard.
The captain modified her tactics and sliced vertically. As Elia lunged upward, Jetta performed a spinning, overhead dismount and curtsied after landing on the floor. The ferocity of the swipe, combined with the ease at which Jetta had avoided it, proved too powerful for the cabin's size-adjusting enchantment—and with a mighty thwack—the tip of the sword became lodged in the ceiling. Elia yanked at her cutlass, trying to extract it from the wooden roof.
"And now for my greatest trick," Jetta announced as if they were in a filled-to-capacity auditorium. "Where is Stehlan Ehrans?" She slammed the record onto the captain's player and turned it on.
Elia abandoned her weapon and pounced at the device, bringing both her fists down on top of it. A crack and crash followed, indicating the player had been damaged beyond repair. At the same moment, Jetta grabbed a re-appearing Steh and yanked him away from the blows.
"Did you finish that pocket?" she asked the shivering inventor.
"N … n … no," he replied. "I'm having problems with the heat field."
"Well, believe in yourself and keep working on it." Jetta smacked him on the back. "I'll take a dozen once it's safe."
"Ya being daft, lass?" Elia said, interrupting them. "How many hints ya be needing? He be connecting right to the core of this here 'verse, not a paltry star like the others of his ilk. When he be burning, the whole Milky Way be transforming to ash and specks of dust floating in the Void. That be the reason them meddling Navigators be gunning hard for his burial but none of them other walking tickers."
"Well then, we better not make him nervous," Jetta replied, extending her fingers. They lit up in different colors: blue for the indexes, green for the middles, black for the fourth digits and silver for her pinkies. "And what better way is there to calm him down than by stripping away all the lies about who we are?"
* * *
AGRA STAGGERED AS he stood, unsure how much to trust his natural senses. He could not follow the battle between Jetta and Elia because they were too rapid with their barrages. One moment they were summoning hailstones and electrical shields, and then they were swinging punches that sent shockwaves through the air.
The magical energies around him popped and crackled as the fighters dashed across the floor and walls. Agra could feel the cabin's enchantment was stretched to its limit, like a bow-string about to snap. A sensation he felt as well due to his connection with the tides of power. His soul seemed less inside of him and more akin to a taut rope that was being tugged toward both ends of infinity. He struggled to maintain his focus on the cabin's entrance ten paces away.
Agra took a step toward the door. An ice wall shot up in front of him and was then sliced to shreds by a piercing wind. He took another stride. Flesh crunched against bone and someone spat on the floor. Again, he advanced. Elia's cutlass began to vibrate, and its twanging created a frequency that made him reach for his ears. It suddenly stopped, and Jetta flew over his head holding Steh. Agra managed to get another foot closer to the door.
The pirate queen crashed in front of him with a "thwomp"—taking the full force of the landing. "Get him out," she ordered Agra, shoving Steh toward him. She bounced up and walked past them, patting Agra on the shoulder. "I'm counting on you."
The tap from Jetta made Agra wince, but he kept lurching forward. "Let's go, Steh," he said, holding out his hand. "Just like usual, we've got orders to follow from a pretty woman."
Even with Agra's aid, Steh wobbled as he stood. "It appears I was not gone long enough for you to break your bad habits with women," the inventor said.
"That's not fair," Agra rep
lied. "I've had to re-evaluate a few things since your almost-murder. You might be surprised to discover how much I've grown spiritually, physically and sarcastically." Agra put his shoulder under Steh's arm to steady his friend but ended up using the inventor as a support for himself. "Only five more steps to go," he said.
The ground underneath them rippled, and they fell to their knees.
"Where ya be going, Azra?" Elia yelled.
Something that felt like an invisible cord yanked Agra to his feet. He glanced backward to see who had done it, and observed Jetta hovering above the ground. She made three furtive gestures with her fingers—conjuring a wall of flame behind them. It separated him and Steh from the main combat while providing protection from Elia.
Taking the hint, Agra gritted his teeth and forced Steh toward the door. They made it three more steps before Elia's cutlass—five times larger than he had ever seen it—dropped from a portal and barred their path.
Agra banged one fist feebly against the blade … but found it impenetrable. He rested his head on the metal and chuckled. "I found one god for you, Tath," he said. "Maybe if we'd kept looking, we'd have found another who could've brought Lara back from the dead."
Steh slid off Agra's shoulder. "I know this weapon," he said. "I think I can remove it." He started casting a spell.
"Not on me bloody life," Elia hollered. The blade mutated into a metallic humanoid and restrained Steh's hands. "Do ya be having a genocidal obsession, lad?"
"I'm not going back in a cage," Steh replied, his pitch monotone despite the defiance in his statement. "I'm done with jails and schedules and isolation. Do you think you're better than Mea? Do you believe condemning me to a life of eternal loneliness is more righteous than bloodshed?"
"You don't want the answer to that question," Jetta said, emerging between Agra and Steh. "What everyone in this room needs is a massage and some therapy, except for me. I'm a picture of mental health."