by Isaac Hooke
“Who me?” Manic said. “Or Snakeoil?”
“Both of you!” Bender said, rubbing Snakeoil’s hair like he would a child’s.
Fret joined the hug, as did the others, so that soon only Shaw was left standing beside Rade.
“They sure are cute when they cuddle aren’t they?” Shaw commented.
They stayed like that for a few moments, just holding each other, saying nothing. Maybe composing themselves. Rade certainly was.
When they finally pulled away a few of the Argonauts rubbed their eyes, but for the most part they’d managed to keep it together. Good. Rade didn’t need to have an emotional breakdown in front of his crew.
Shaw gave Snakeoil the final hug. “It’s good to see you.”
“And you, Mademoiselle.” Snakeoil bowed slightly. “Hope you’re taking good care of the chief.”
“Treat him like a king,” Shaw said.
Snakeoil nodded. “As suits a queen.”
Beaming, Shaw stepped back to stand beside Rade.
“Damn, you’re looking good,” Rade told Snakeoil. “Obviously you have a gym on board.”
“Fully stocked,” Snakeoil said. “I got free weights. Barbells. Benches. Squat racks. You name it.”
“Yeehaw!” Bender said.
“I thought you’d appreciate that,” Snakeoil said, patting his old friend on the back.
“We all do!” Tahoe said.
“I’m moving to Snakeoil’s ship and becoming a trader!” Bender said.
“You would,” Manic said.
“You’re more muscular than TJ and Bender combined,” Fret told Snakeoil. “I always said they starved us when we were on the Teams.”
“Only on missions, skinny fool,” Bender said. “When all you gots to eat is liquid meal replacements in your suit, and you lie down for days to snipe a target, of course you’re going to lose some muscle mass. But you never did learn to pack it back on between missions, pussy that you are. Why do you think your arms are pipe cleaners?”
“My arms are hooge,” Fret said. He flexed both biceps. For some reason the tiny lumps of muscle that swelled from his upper arms reminded Rade of frog legs.
“Don’t you ever do that again,” Bender said. “That’s the most pathetic sight I’ve seen. Put that on your dating profile, and you’ll be sure to attract a lot of interest. From men.”
“Ah, I missed you guys,” Snakeoil said. “The wars I could do without. But the camaraderie, ah, sometimes I just want to go back.” He hooked his thumbs through the loops in his pants. “So what brings you to this part of the galaxy, Chief?”
“Just Rade, now,” Rade said. “Or Boss, to my crew. We’re hunting aliens. In this case, a certain Phant we first met way back in the Alien Wars.”
“Ah yes,” Snakeoil said. “As I mentioned in my transmission, I picked up one of your team members near Ceres V. Or your client, rather. She filled me in on a few details.”
A figure stepped forward from where she had been lingering near the far side of the hangar bay, beside two combat robots. The figure was an Artificial in the image of Ms. Bounty. Perhaps it even was her.
“Rade,” she said, nodding.
“Surus?” Rade asked.
“You’re all right!” Bender started toward her, his expression one of pure and utter joy. When he realized everyone was looking at him, he quickly stopped, and masked his expression. “I mean: you’re all right. Cool.”
“How do we know you’re not possessed by Zhidao?” Rade said.
The Artificial turned around, lifted her ponytail, and lowered her collar to reveal the glowing green droplets on her neck. If Zhidao had possessed her, those drops would be purple.
“Freaky, huh?” Snakeoil said.
Surus replaced her collar and faced the Argonauts again.
Rade gave Snakeoil an angry look. “Why didn’t you tell us you had her with you?”
Snakeoil cringed slightly, as if he thought he was going to be on the receiving end of an epic chewing out like in their military days.
Surus stepped forward. “I told him not to. I thought it would be better to reveal myself to you in person so that I would have a chance to properly prove my identity. Video communications can be faked, as you know.”
Rade eyed her skeptically, and then nodded. “So. You recovered Ms. Bounty from the Argonaut?”
Surus shook her head. “I had this one 3D printed, based on my design specs. I filled the AI core with Ms. Bounty’s latest backup. Or rather, the last backup I dispatched to my base. It’s a couple of months old.”
“It sounds like you’re not very hopeful we’ll recover her,” Rade said.
“Not hopeful is an euphemism for what I’m thinking,” Surus said. “If we do recover her, my current host will join the others manning my base, and I will resume control of the original Ms. Bounty. Assuming of course her AI core hasn’t been completely overwritten by Zhidao.”
“What happened to you?” Rade asked.
“Before the rest of you arrived, when it was just Bender and me on the surface of Ceres V, Zhidao captured me,” Surus said. “He did it when I went alone to meet someone who supposedly had knowledge of his whereabouts. After capturing me with one of my own stun rifles, he drew me out of Ms. Bounty and launched me toward the system’s star. I barely escaped when power cut out to the containment device.”
That confirmed the theory Lui had come up with regarding her fate. Surus hadn’t been inside her host the whole time the rest of the Argonauts had been on Ceres V with Ms. Bounty, who had obviously been reprogrammed.
“After I escaped, I received a pleasant message from Snakeoil here, telling me he was in the area,” Surus continued. “When I told him what happened, he readily agreed to drop everything he was doing to help, and he sped my way to pick me up.”
“Oh, and I’m sure you didn’t offer him any money…” TJ said.
“Of course she did,” Snakeoil said. “I have mouths to feed, you know.”
“He sounds like the boss now,” Bender said. “Remind me never to purchase a starship. It does bad things to your morals. I’d never accept money to help friends.”
“Hey.” Snakeoil raised his palms. “Of course I was going to help either way. But at least I can do so now with a full crew, and without worrying about going into debt along the way. If I had to sell off all the equipment in the gym to pay for this job, y’all wouldn’t be very happy now, would you?”
“Yeah you’re right,” Manic said. “We’d be tearing apart pieces of your ship to do bicep curls.”
“There you go,” Snakeoil said.
Fret stepped forward. “You know, what bugs me is: why didn’t you get in touch all these years?”
“Hey, leave him alone,” Lui said. “I’m sure he was a busy man, being a trader and all that.”
“Yes, I was definitely busy,” Snakeoil said. “But you’ll notice the combat robots I have guarding the entrance to the hangar. Equipped with military-grade lasers. The rest of my crew is just as rough. I hire for a particular skill set, you see. Which is good, because I do take on the odd security job outside of trading. You know, protecting BlueTube stars on tour, that sort of thing.”
“No way,” Lui said. “I kinda figured you’d be a BlueTube star yourself by now. What with your diminutive stature, muscular arms, and charming personality.”
“Oh yeah,” Snakeoil said. “I definitely bring on the charm, don’t I?” He flexed his bicep, swelling the arm to the size of a typical man’s thigh.
“See, he’s allowed to flex his muscles,” Bender told Fret. “Because he actually has some!”
Snakeoil promptly kissed his swollen bicep.
“That’s what Bender does!” Fret said.
“Hey,” Bender said. “We’re proud of our build and ain’t afraid to show it. Unlike you.”
“Kiss your bicep now, then,” Manic urged Bender. “Come on. You and Snakeoil kiss your biceps together.”
“Shut up, turd,” Bender said.
“Do you have mechs aboard, too?” TJ asked.
“Ha,” Snakeoil said. “I wish. Can’t afford ‘em. Though I do have a simulator fully stocked with mech war games.”
“That’ll do,” Tahoe said.
“So please tell me you have a way to track down the Argonaut,” Rade said. “Zhidao took our kids.”
Surus studied him. “I thought it odd that they hadn’t yet come down the shuttle ramp. I was expecting to see them in Shaw’s arms.”
Shaw pressed her lips together, and her chin quivered. She looked away.
Rade reached out to her but she shoved his hand away.
Angry, he looked back at Surus, but he saw only compassion in the Artificial’s eyes.
“I’ve been in touch with my contact at CENTCOM,” Surus said. “As you may or may not know, the military has a way to track every ship that passes in and out of the systems in human-occupied space, as well as their locations in said systems, via the pings to the InterGalNet nodes. Records indicated the Argonaut took two Gates from the original system, dropping you off here in Glieus 82.”
“So that’s how you found us!” Manic said. “I was wondering about that. The boss mumbled some explanation earlier, but it wasn’t all that clear.”
“Yes,” Surus said. “After that, the Argonaut took a Gate from here to the Metare system, stopped at a space station, then took the next Gate to the Raltarus system. The signal stopped transmitting at that point. I’ve instructed Snakeoil to take the same route to Raltarus.”
“What if Zhidao left the kids in stasis pods at the space station in Metare?” Shaw said.
“That’s certainly possible,” Rade told Shaw. “After we retrieve the Argonaut, if the kids aren’t there, we might have to return to the space station in Metare and search it from top to bottom. Storage facilities, storage closets, you name it.”
“Searching a privately-owned storage facility might be tricky…” Fret said.
“I should be able to get a warrant from the station commander,” Surus said.
“It might be better to search the station first, rather than proceeding to Raltarus,” Shaw said.
“I’m not sure we’ll have time,” Rade said. “But we can talk about that when we’re closer to the system in question.”
Snakeoil showed them to their quarters. Because of the lack of space, most of the crew had to squeeze into the two guest rooms. TJ, Fret, Manic, and Bender got one stateroom. Surus, Tahoe, and Lui got another.
“Hey Fret, why don’t you swap out with Surus,” Bender said before parting with his group. “That way she can stay with us?”
“That’s all right,” Surus said.
“Yeah, that’s all right,” Fret said. “Hear that? She doesn’t like you. And I don’t owe you any favors.”
“As you wish,” Bender said. “Not only am I going to kick your ass later, I’m going to make sure I don’t wash my feet and nuts. Every night, all night, you’ll get a mighty fine odor drifting your way.”
“Oh great,” Manic said. “We get to smell Bender’s nuts all night. Nothing I enjoy more.”
“I knew you’d approve!” Bender said.
After leading the second group to their quarters, Snakeoil offered Rade and Shaw his own room, but Rade opted to throw a bunk into a cramped storeroom instead.
“It’ll be just like the old days,” he told Shaw with a grin.
“Sneaking away from our assigned quarters to make love in the storage closets of the Royal Fortune?” Shaw said. “Those were certainly the days.” Her eyes became sad. “Though it won’t be the same.”
Rade knew she was thinking about the kids, but he wasn’t going to bring it up in front of Snakeoil.
Snakeoil dropped them off at the storeroom. A maintenance robot had already delivered a bunk.
His friend offered to allow Rade onto the bridge in VR mode, which involved linking to the lightfield camera in the center of the bridge console, but Rade declined.
“It’s your ship,” Rade said. “I don’t want to interfere in how you run it. Last thing you need is a backseat driver.”
“All right,” Snakeoil said. “I still think of you as my chief. It’s hard to get out of that mindset, you know. Even after all our years apart.”
Rade patted his friend on the shoulder. “You’re the chief of your own men now, just as I’m chief of mine.”
Snakeoil nodded. “You know, when I got your message all those years back, offering a job aboard your new team, pulling security, I almost accepted. But I’d already bought my own ship. Already had a taste of entrepreneurship, and being my own boss, and I had to turn it down. I—”
“No need to explain,” Rade said. “I’m happy you stayed with your ship.”
When Snakeoil was gone, Rade lay down with Shaw on the bunk and cuddled against her. It had been so long since they had sex. Yet he wasn’t even aroused. He wanted to be. But…
“I want to feel you inside me,” Shaw said, giving voice to his own thoughts. “Yet I can’t do it. I feel too guilty. What with the twins still out there.”
Rade nodded against her shoulder. “I feel the same guilt. It’s like I can’t enjoy myself, not while I know our kids might be suffering.” He paused. “Whatever happens, we’ll find them.”
“I want vengeance after,” Shaw said. She turned toward him. “We have to agree on this. We hunt down Zhidao for the rest of our lives. He’ll never leave us alone, otherwise.”
Rade nodded slowly. “We’ll hunt him down for as long as it’s feasible.”
“The rest of our lives,” Shaw insisted. “No one kidnaps our kids.”
Rade bit his lower lip. He knew she wasn’t going to back down from this. And she was probably right. His kids, and Shaw, would never be safe, not while Zhidao was somewhere out there.
With that thought, Rade relented. “The rest of our lives.”
“Good.” She rested her head against his chest. “Because when it comes to my children, I’m ready to kill, I swear I am.”
Rade nodded somberly. “We both are.”
She squeezed his hand tightly and wept into his shirt.
ten
When they reached Metare, Rade had Snakeoil plot a course for the next Gate immediately. He didn’t want to waste precious time diverting to N’Yarranth—the space station where the Argonaut had made a stop, which was located above one of the inner planets in the system—so he dispatched a shuttle to the station in the chance Zhidao had hidden the kids somewhere there. Shaw volunteered to lead the exploratory mission aboard that craft, and Rade assigned Tahoe and Lui to join her. The slower shuttle would arrive at the station two days after Snakeoil’s vessel passed through the Gate, and Rade would probably hear from her a day later when any status update she sent finally reached the next system via the InterGalNet.
Rade didn’t really want to separate from Shaw, but they’d had a big argument the night before. Shaw was absolutely convinced that the twins were aboard N’Yarranth, while Rade wasn’t so sure. After some yelling, they finally agreed that she would depart for the space station in the shuttle, while he would continue on to the next system.
As Rade watched the shuttle depart on the external video feed, Surus joined him outside the hangar bay.
“You know it’s likely that Zhidao switched ships at N’Yarranth,” Surus said.
“I agree,” Rade said. “But we don’t know whether he took the kids with him in the new ship, or dropped them off at the space station, or left them aboard the Argonaut. Which is why we have to explore all three avenues. Plus I want my own ship back.”
“You’re assuming Zhidao hasn’t totally ruined the vessel,” Surus said.
“I have a hunch about Zhidao,” Rade said.
“And what’s that?” Surus said.
“He doesn’t want to piss me off too badly,” Rade told her. “Because he knows I’m not the type who takes damage to my property lightly. Let alone harm to my children. He also knows that damaging my ship wouldn’t sto
p me. So why risk pissing me off any further than necessary?”
“That makes no sense,” Surus said. “If he was so afraid of pissing you off, he’d either leave you alone or kill you outright.”
“That’s a good point,” Rade said. “I guess he just wants his sport.”
“Yes,” Surus said. “So he will damage your ship, in some way or another. At least I believe so. Because he wants you to come, and yet he also wants time to set in motion whatever nefarious plans he has in mind. Plans he apparently wants you to watch.”
“I guess so,” Rade said.
Three days later Snakeoil’s Cutlass ship, the Motley Brown, took the Gate to Raltarus.
“So, what do we have?” Rade said. He had only just materialized in the bridge area, in the center of the round table manned by specialists with Implants and aReals: he had finally taken up Snakeoil on his offer to join the bridge crew via VR.
“We’re doing a passive scan of the system,” Snakeoil said. “Searching the thermal signatures system-wide for signs of any Marauder class vessels.”
“Anything yet?” Rade said.
“Patience, my old friend,” Snakeoil told him.
Rade nodded. “It’s hard for me to be patient at the moment…”
“I hear you,” Snakeoil said.
“There are no thermal signatures matching a Marauder class vessel,” the specialist manning the ops station said. “But we are detecting an uncatalogued celestial body. The shape is too symmetrical to be an asteroid. And metallicity is too high.”
“The Argonaut?” Snakeoil asked.
“Possibly,” the specialist said. “But if it is, it’s adrift, with no power to the engines or any other critical systems.”
“Can you hail its AI?” Rade asked.
The comm specialist glanced at Snakeoil, as if asking for the captain’s permission to obey, or perhaps his permission to even answer the question. Snakeoil nodded.
“Negative”, the comm specialist said. “I’m not even receiving a comm ping. Their comm node is definitely offline.”
“Set a course,” Snakeoil said.
It took three days to get close enough to visually confirm that the celestial body was indeed the Argonaut. Rade recognized the design readily enough, as well as the telltale scars inflicted on the hull from previous space battles.