by S E Zbasnik
He shifted on his feet, and rose to a professional height as the others turned to him, "She has the right of it. We are not afraid of our adversaries. Often we show them greater respect than those of our allies."
"No offense, Doc," Orn butted in, "but that makes no fucking sense."
"If she fought in the last glorious test of power, then she will be on file and possibly known. Or at least get a free pass," Monde explained.
"Even with a new face?" that bit of info seemed to bother Orn the most, as if it were so simple to just erase everything that made one who they were and start over. Monde turned that self satisfying orange eye on the dwarf and it dawned upon him. "Oh right, the scar. How could I forget?"
"I can't ask for your loyalty, blind or informed," Variel slipped into the old command lexicon without thinking, "but I do ask that you let me get us out of this perilous situation. A visit to the colony, a repaired ship, and a run to wherever you want to disembark." She accepted the likelihood she'd be facing the need for an entirely new crew after today. All except for Gene. The djinn's eyes puffed in smoke at a slow rate, always giving almost nothing away.
The rest of her about to mutiny crew glanced at each other. No one else had any idea how to get out of this mess, or even how deep this wyrm hole could get. Crests were never a good sign, most of the universe called them the coming plague, as they left vast swaths of destruction across the galaxy imposing their will upon whatever they could get away with. Of course that could also be true of dwarves, elves, trolls, ogres, some of the non-corporeals, and everyone went into full blown panic whenever the orcs came aknocking. But humans were so damn smug about it, it rubbed all the other conquerors wrong.
"We are listening," Taliesin said cooly, the one least surprised by her admissions aside from the djinn.
"We land the Elation, a small party of us head into the biggest city on the colony, find a copier, have him whip up a model of the part, head home, and get airborne before the Jaguar gets docking clearance from the elven home world," she ticked off each small detail of her plan across her fingers like a shopping list.
"Oh hell no, you are not landing my ship!" Ferra shrieked, not ready to turn over her stake in the Elation due to a bit of misdirection. "Without that inertia injector, we ain't ever getting back up. And if there's nothing them rock crunchers, no offense Monde, can do, we're stuck in grey central until the embargo's lifted in 475 years."
"Do you have any other ideas to get someone on the planet's surface?"
"Maybe, I need to check on something first," Ferra's mind turned over ideas. Ones that a humanoid could survive from, probably.
Variel nodded, "Get on it, who knows how long we'll have. Orn, get the ship into orbit in the meantime. The planet might mask us."
The dwarf rolled his eyes at her as if she were his mother insisting he finish all his rock slime, but he nodded, "Fine, whatever."
"Okay, then. Inquiry adjourned," Variel joked, rising to her feet. Everyone stepped back from the Crest, as if she were about to rip off her face and announce she was the Emperor of the Toasters next.
"Just," Orn started, before the captain could get much further, "tell me one thing. What's the highest medal you received for your 'feats of heroics?'"
She bit down the obvious answer, it was the last lie that would hopefully die with her, and admitted to her shocked audience, "The Silver Pentagon."
Orn's mouth fell open as she, a two-bit smuggler, occasional pirate, and a woman decorated with the medal bestowed from the intergalactic community for keeping entire planets from blowing themselves to smithereens (or blowing the right planet to smithereens), pushed past him to the bridge.
Demi Monde slipped another set of sutures into his traveling bag, and then tossed in a third. With this crowd it was better to be neurotic than sorry. He didn't turn from his makeshift prep table when the med-lab door gave a cheery swoosh sound. It was preferable to the bell system WEST originally had in place. He felt he needed to carry over a short stack and sunny eggs every time someone wandered in with an infected toenail.
"I need you on this."
Monde still didn't turn, instead he dropped a few more sealing bandages into the bag and said to the captain. "Our agreement..." he started.
"Was that you'd never set foot on any orc world, or elven, or human, troll, centaur and anywhere else your people thought it'd be fun to conquer. That doesn't leave much of the galaxy left to get your planet legs back on."
"Luckily I enjoy dwarven cuisine with the right dosage of acid blockers," Monde finally faced her. The pigment beneath her eyes was much darker than usual, as if she'd gotten into that bar fight with a pair of centaurs again. A fresh lifetime of lies could wear through the soul and right up to the skin.
"I wouldn't ask if it weren't important," Variel leaned against the pool table she'd bled out on so many damn times. He had repeatedly requested an actual operational surgical table over the years but was shot down with a "Maybe if we get the funds." Over time, he realized that it was less funds and more that a commercial star line ordering a sterile surgical table would draw undue attention.
"I've never been to...which colony is this?" Monde asked as if inquiring about the weather.
"Officially, New Dawn. I have no idea what the orcs actually call it. Most embargoed colonies are listed as N/A. I've never been to this one either, but I've heard a few whispers about it."
"I see." Monde was noncommittal, though that was the entire reason he was trapped in this lifestyle in the first place, a terrorizing fear of commitment.
He met the captain while she was browsing through another orc colony, one under less sanctions because it fell under a sect that officially had nothing to do with the war. Unofficially, it sent as many troops as wanted to go. Humans had a hard time understanding why the orcs waged their wars. They would rather hoist their own perspective upon those they didn't slow down killing long enough to understand.
She was picking over a stand of fruits, during one of the grower's markets, when the streets of a little city on the back end of a highly volatile planet teemed with every orc who could actually scavenge up a ship and go off world. He'd planned to spend his entire meager fortune on a disgruntled looking mercenary who offered up her ship. When she leaned into him, her breath full of intoxicants, he panicked and raced out into the streets.
And there was his salvation, gingerly poking at a pair of needle fruit and looking surprisingly not as out of a place as a barely 50 granite human in a black blanket of head fur should. He asked her as smoothly as a boy on his first courting if she had a ship available.
"Yes?"
And if there could be any way he could perhaps procure passage upon it.
"Yes?"
And just how much that passage would require? Then he patted his side and realized where his traveling bag lay. Back in that bar where the serious threat of bodily or society harm waited. He cursed himself for his own stupidity, for thinking he had any hope of escape, for failing to live up to his duty, and for finding himself begging a human on the street for a handout.
Between his crying and cursing, the human stepped back. "Well, if that'll be all," and she began to walk away, trying to blend in with other species far larger and greyer than herself.
"Wait," he chased after her, uncertain why but fearing this could be his only chance at survival. "Your ship, is it, does it have a full compliment of crew?"
"We got someone to fix her when she's broke, and break her when she's fixed. I think we're all full up," she said trying to brush off the clingy orc.
"What about a doctor?!"
The human paused, her lanky legs mid-stride as she turned back to face him. Technically he was still a low-level physician, barely above what the humans called a nurse but the truth could come later. It was enough of an opening.
"Someone of your..." Monde backtracked realizing accusing a smuggler of being a smuggler was no way to get onto said smugglers ship. "Space can be quite dangerous, debris
and decompression and ancient viruses springing to life causing you to devolve into a small rodent."
"We don't have any orcs onboard that an orcish doctor could patch up," the human said, but she didn't turn back to her hurried pace. She seemed intrigued.
"I've been trained in nearly all of the five races anatomy, basic first aid for thirty of the in-organics, and I can keep a gnome alive long enough to ask where it hid the watch it just stole."
She mulled it over, no doubt taking into account the latest round of bruises and scrapes the crew accumulated over the years treated by nothing more than a bandage kit, or worse, one of those medi-bots. "Okay, trial run, you can have free room and board in exchange for your medical prowess. It works out and we'll talk stipend."
Another set of tears threatened to dribble out of Monde's eyes and mouth as he dropped down his knees in a grateful bow, "Thank you, thank you. I, I have only one request."
His new Captain crossed her arms, "Let's hear it."
"I do not wish to ever set foot on any orc controlled world as long as I am under your service."
She shrugged her shoulders as if he asked her to never let him wear a cape. What did she care what he did with his spare time. Trapped on the ship was safer for all involved. "Sounds like we have a deal. The ship's docked at the landing port, Elation-Cru, can't miss it. There'll be a dwarf half coated in sugar pacing outside."
That was almost two years ago. She kept her word, taking only herself and occasionally the dwarf if he was being particularly foul when she was called upon to skirt around the embargo. But now the playbook changed.
Monde dropped his traveling bag overstuffed with all the medical supplies anyone about to raid a heavily fortified stronghold would need. It still wasn't enough for dealings in an orc open market, but it'd have to suffice.
Variel looked at the bag and then to the doctor. "I don't need any medical equipment, I need your expertise on finding a bleeding copier in the middle of an orc city."
"I know," Monde said. After slipping off his lab coat and folding it carefully across his examination chair, he picked up his bag, "But I am not leaving the ship unprepared."
Variel smiled, perhaps her first since the big reveal of her shady past. Truth be shared, he always suspected she must have had some part in the war, or been influential upon orc politics. A human to walk so freely and without constraint or concern was as rare as an elven bodybuilder.
"Thank you, doctor," she said, lifting her weary form off the pool table. Her fingers ran across the felt faded from years of bodies dragged across it, "Maybe, when this is over, we can finally put in for that real surgical table you wanted."
Monde paused, his own soft hands picking at the sheet, "Pity, I was beginning to grow attached."
The engineer's call, set on repeat, echoed across the ship, "Everyone, get your asses to the bay." Perhaps she should have thought of something slightly more diplomatic, but as the hordes appeared Ferra smiled. The direct approach served her best.
"Is everyone here?" she asked, pacing before her idea like a proud theses defendant. It took some retrofitting, all while done under the incredibly mournful glare of her husband sulking over spirits knew what.
"The way I see it, we need to get to the planet without actually landing on said planet." She put her hands behind her back and lifted to a greater height wishing she climbed atop the higher grate to lord over everyone. "A feat that could be possible if someone went off and invented magic teleportation."
"Is that what you did?" the spare human asked, his watery eyes growing in surprise. When Ferra asked for everyone she should have been more specific; everyone who is actually useful.
"Silence your bug hole, second," she muttered to the nuisance, "Either magical not real teleportation or...we skirt just close enough into atmo to release a terrain shuttle."
"Which we do not have a compliment of," Variel said slowly, knowing her engineer needed the buildup, but wanting to hurry her ass along.
"Except, we have the next best thing," Ferra smiled, and ripped off a sheet she swiped from her bed for the dramatic reveal.
"It's a pod," Orn said, poking his reattached hand into the surprisingly shiny vent. Most of anything not polished from footwear was left to the matte devices of time on the ship.
"A sight seeing pod, designed to skirt through the atmo and lower four people to the surface." Ferra was as ecstatic as she got when something was no longer on fire. A fresh set of circuits to kick into working shape was every holiday morning for her.
"You're shitting me," Orn shook his head, "an old cloud scraper? Those things were twice as likely to kill you as...no that was about it."
Ferra crossed her arms and glared at her moping husband, "Give me a little credit. The stabilizers are balanced and harmonized, the gears properly oiled. I changed the MGC vacuum bag..."
"What about the engines perfectly designed to suck a bird straight up into them and clog on falcon tartar?"
Ferra blinked slowly, "Don't run into any birds."
"Oh, well I feel snug and safe all ready," Orn shuddered. Not all dwarves had a fear of heights, but once you crossed the two miles up threshold it seemed less phobia and more common sense.
Variel squared her shoulders and eyed the old pod scrapped and supposedly stripped for parts years ago. She didn't know if she should be impressed or terrified that her engineer could so quickly slap it all back together "Monde and I will take the ship down, find a copier, climb into that thing, and come back."
The orc, who traded his lab coat and usual neat attire of simple green shirt and pants for a festive shirt with rings of color circling the midsection and tighter than usual, partially saluted. He kept bouncing on his heels, as if facing the possibility of death by pigeon was the least of his concerns. Variel nodded to him, and he grimaced back.
"I'm coming too."
"What?" the captain shifted on her pilot, who'd been giving her such a cold shoulder you could freeze comets on it.
"You..." Orn began, "You need someone to keep an eye out."
"On the orcs or on me?" Variel whispered to him.
"Take your pick," Orn turned up to her, but she was uncertain how to respond. He buried all his pain behind webs of lies thick enough to trap man sized flies. The fact it was someone else's deception picking him apart confused her.
"What if you're needed on the ship? To pilot it and what not?" Variel asked.
"Best it can handle is a slow limp, WEST can do it ASSUMING IT DOESN'T CHANGE ALL MY SETTINGS AGAIN," he shouted as if the computer wasn't within hearing distance at all times aboard the ship.
"If you're sure..." she tried to leave him a way out, but the dwarf was too stubborn to take it.
Orn turned back to the cloud scraper. He'd take the possible straight forward death of a stain across the orc dust over a friendly knife in the back. He nodded hard; he'd made up his mind.
Taliesin stepped forward, away from his sister finally cleared of the rouge, "I should accompany you as well."
Variel opened her mouth to call out a dismissive no, but had to admit, the assassin would be handy in case it all inevitably went pear shaped. "No, this is orc territory. The Crest embargo may be flexible, but I'd rather chew magma glass than cross the elven magistrates. You, Ferra and your sister all remain on the ship as far from orc land as possible. And if any magistrates ever ask, we got lost on our way to a lute stringing convention."
Taliesin blinked those eerie eyes of his slowly but bowed his head to her decision. His sister turned to glare a question at him but he rose as if he did nothing out of line.
"I'm coming too!" Segundo's wobbly voice burst through his pair of nubile lungs.
At this Variel snapped upon their accidental capture, "This isn't a bloody field trip! We're not going on a picnic to tip through the orc tulips."
But the Second didn't back down at his first real chance to get out, stretch his legs, see alien cultures, possibly get stabbed in the intestines for looking at someone
the wrong way. It was adventure! Excitement! Drama! All those things he wasn't supposed to have a damn thing to do with once the commune sent him packing. "I know what this is, and you can use my expertise."
Variel's eyebrow cocked high as her brow furrowed, "Expertise in what? Getting kidnapped? Asking impertinent and pointless questions? Being djinn strangled?"
Segundo withered a moment under her commanding glare; no wonder she was a Crest soldier. That turn of the eyes could scare the horns off a gargoyle. But then he rebounded, secure in the knowledge of one simple fact. "The way I see it, you'd rather not have anyone be made aware of my kidnapping."
"Your stowing away, you mean? There are far stricter interspacial laws than what I've put you through, boy-o."
Segundo faltered momentarily, afraid to accept his limited scope in the wide universe, "Or the fact this ship broke atmosphere over the planet that is covered by elven, dwarven, and human interests."
Variel smirked, "So we're bargaining, or is it to be black mail?"
"Let me visit the orc planet, see a few sights, try a few cuisines, and all I remember of this ship was a nice trip through space," Segundo was playing with very irate fire, but a very irate fire with a code.
Killing him now would make her life so much simpler, and ensure no need for his shush experience, but it wouldn't be right. If she didn't believe in doing what was right she wouldn't even be out here in this dying rust bucket about to plummet inside a tin can to an orc world. "Very well, Mr. Second," she held out her hand which he took limply, "We have a deal."
She stepped away from the kid about to collapse from her tight grip and called out, "I, Monde, Orn, and the boy apparently, will be descending to the planet in...how long will it take you to get this operational, Ferra?"
"Ten minutes. I'll just have Gene drag it over to the hatch," the engineer pointed to the normally sealed shuttle hatch at the end of the bay.
This news unnerved Variel. The tin can looked as if it couldn't be used for shipping freight much less four people. She'd hopped there was still important levels of something to be done before it was fall worthy. "Okay, everyone heading to the planet get armed and dressed. We're aiming for a small city, the weather looks about summerish so expect minor heat stroke."
