Dwarves in Space

by S E Zbasnik

  "It means he likes you," Variel said, patting her old friend's rock hand and lifting the IV bags off his neck. "Gene, prep that shuttle for launch once Taliesin is finished loading the bodies on it."

  "You mean we can't keep it?" Orn pouted, "Ferra'd already had some big plans for what to do with the drive core."

  "It's an instant trace mark, it goes out into space. Maybe the Drake will think the orcs blew up our ship and their illustrious Knight failed to survive the impact wave of the explosion."

  "What did the crazy bitch want with a djinn anyway?" Orn asked the question hanging over everyone's mind.

  Variel shook her head, leaning onto the dwarf's shoulders as she tried to raise the IV bag higher. Taliesin dropped the last of the discarded bodies against the still sealed shuttle. Gene lumbered over and began to manually open the craft from the outside. Sin turned to his captain, standing and alive, and smiled wide. She in turn smiled kindly at him, causing his orange cheek to flare a bright red.

  "Sovann, whatever she wanted, that's the ten million dollar question isn't it? I, for one, don't plan to wait around to find the answer." She nudged Orn to lead her out of the prepping bay and back into her ship.

  The dwarf put a guiding arm around her side, catching one of her stab wounds, but she didn't say anything. Healing would take time, but sometimes pain was a good sign; she was still alive to feel it. She leaned into him and limped beside.

  "'Get the hell off my ship?'" Orn asked her.

  "Heard that, did you?"

  "The entire ship did. You screamed it into your hand. I have to say, I thought better of you Cap."

  "Oh?" She was surprised, he seemed to be one for the theatrical.

  "It's so cliché. Why not say something cool like, 'Let's get spaced!' or 'Taste the milky way!'"

  Variel chuckled, then groaned as her chest burned, "Tell you what Orn, the next time we get boarded by a rogue Knight trying to abduct one of our crew I'll let you come up with the witty one-liners."

  Orn grinned at that, trying a few out for himself below his breath.

  "Of course, that also means you'll be the one getting stabbed."

  "There's always a catch."

  Station Eclipse 5 rotated silently in the background as the Elation-Cru came to a final dock with it. Variel, still bundled in thick bandages and wearing the plastic healing smock Monde insisted would help, stood alone beside the disembarking room, waiting for the airlock seal to break.

  An hour earlier she informed the crew that they'd be docking and if -- given the revelation of her past or the immense danger she put them under -- anyone felt they needed to leave, now would be the best opportunity to do so. After their legal troubles, Samudra was no longer a stopping point for the cruise ship. Clicking off the line, she'd walked silently off the bridge, leaving Orn to pretend to handle the docking procedures. Brena and Taliesin were both curled up around the table, sharing some elven soup and trying to talk Monde into trying it. He kept insisting it was poisonous to orcs, but they weren't buying it. All fell silent as Variel passed; she didn't look into anyone's eyes afraid of what she'd find.

  Only WEST kept her company through the long wait, asking her if she'd like to play a game, then informing her it only knew one; Elven Shakto, which required five players, an arena, and the logs from a recently hewed panto tree. She tried to get it to sing the tea pot song again but WEST fell silent at her insistence, though a small rabbit hopped onto his screen.

  The room shook as the last lock slipped into place. Slowly the airlock opened, breathing the sterilized scent of the station into the well lived air of the ship. She closed her eyes, trying to ignore the burning pain in her sides from the sword orbiting above an orc colony. If anyone ever found either blade it'd be a tale built for myths and legends.

  "A hem."

  The cough broke her meditations and she turned guiltily to the only soul standing beside her. He'd have bounced his luggage in a "so this is it" way, but he didn't have any. Instead, Segundo shrugged his shoulders. "I was going to say it was fun, but..."

  Variel barked a solitary laugh, then eyed the kid up and down, "You've grown a bit since you last crossed that threshold."

  "I have?" He tried to run his hand across the top of his head to the doorframe as if that helped.

  "Facing down orc guards, insane Knights, and a captain threatening to toss you out the airlock? Oh, certainly you've grown," she complimented the Second kid. Given the first chance he had outside his monastic life and he didn't completely screw it up. "You know, you could make quite a name for yourself out here holding the comet by the tail."

  Segundo smiled, "I'm grateful that you risked your own self for me, and don't take offense, but you people lead the most gargoyleshit insane life I've ever seen."

  Variel laughed, unable to argue with that. It wasn't something for anyone who had another choice.

  "So, I think I'll be going back where I don't need to worry about getting stabbed, or my dinner trying to chew through my sheets, or going on a date with an orc." The technician held out his hand which Variel held.

  She smiled as he returned the hand grip much firmer than the first time and shook it. He held his breath as he placed a foot off the ship he'd been kidnapped onto, and then another. Turning back, he said to the captain, "For what it's worth, your secret is safe with me. Not that anyone would believe me, anyway."

  "Segundo, stay in touch," Variel said. "You never know when a second could come in handy."

  The kid smiled at that. Giving one last wave, he walked down the airlock corridor, searching through his PALM to see if his absence had even been noticed. Variel watched him go, feeling almost wistful, but something in the pit of her stomach told her she'd be seeing him again. Bad pennies were funny like that.

  Orn's voice crackled over the comm, "Cap, if you got the excess cargo off the ship, you best be getting to the bridge. I don't want to wear out our frosty welcome anymore."

  She stepped back from the airlock, pushing the close button. Gene greeted her, nodding with his rocky head and winking. Variel smiled, and bounced lightly through the ship, past the sight of Brena trying to politely ask a bound but determined Ferra just where she got such a familiar corset. Her engineer was feigning deafness and humming loudly, but, as the captain passed, both elves stopped their half bickering and nodded to her.

  In the mess, Monde asked Taliesin if he'd been taking the medication he prescribed. The elf muttered something intangible, then turned to watch Variel crossing their paths. Monde threw up his hands and muttered loudly, "Elves!"

  Taliesin blushed that adorable red-orange and Variel smiled coyly at him, grateful only the unobservant orc was there to watch the moment. Before she embarrassed herself further, she dashed for the bridge to find her favorite dwarf poking at the partially glued controls. Leaning over Orn's shoulder, she said, "Segundo's off to his new-old life, time we be getting to ours."

  "Aye aye...Sir," Orn said, saluting her with a wrapper dangling off his fingers.

  He started the undocking procedure when a light blared up from the console. "It's an outside comm line. Someone's calling us," the dwarf said cautiously, his fingers hovering over the button.

  Variel cursed under her breath, trying to plan about twenty different escape paths out of Samudra space as she waved to the dwarf, "Go ahead, flip it on."

  The broken screen twitched but didn't display any images. Only a harried voice asked, "Is this the Elation-Cru?"

  The captain rose, her fingers digging lightly into Orn's chair, "It is. What is this call in reference to?"

  "Thank the stars, I've got a shipment here for you."

  "A shipment?" Variel asked, turning towards Orn. He shrugged his massive shoulders, far as he knew they didn't have any outstanding work. "What's in the shipment?"

  The sound of paper flipping up and down crackled across the line, then the voice answered back, "Seven inertia injectors."

  "Seven..." Variel started before taking in the cracking dwarf
face as he tried and failed to bury an escaping laugh. "At least we won't need a new one for a long, long time. I'll send someone to collect them. Orn, you up for one more adventure?"

  "Always," the dwarf grinned.

  Thank you for taking the time to read Dwarves in Space: There Is No Colon Clause. If you enjoyed it, please consider sharing it with friends, family, that alien that inhabits a chicken down on 34th street or posting a review. Word of mouth is how authors get out there and find new friends to bother.

  PREVIEW

  DWARVES IN SPACE 2: Family Matters

  October 2015

  Rubber soles, better equipped for stumbling across the metal grating favored by a class-b starline, splintered as a sharp branch drove straight through into flesh. Orn yelped, his grip slipping as he tried to stagger against the forest attacking him. His cargo tumbled from his fingers and clattered onto the crunchy ground.

  Variel paused, turning to her beleaguered pilot so far out of his element he was into lanthanide territory. “Pick it up.”

  Orn huffed, stumbling to gather what breath he once held, and pouted. The thick lip of the dwarves was a difficult one to cross. “Why should I?”

  A blast shattered through a trunk a foot above the wheezing dwarf’s head, answering for him. His captain only raised her eyebrow as she fired back into the woodland maze, her tiny pistol little more than a carnival prize in this terrain. They hadn’t seen their attackers for over half a mile, but they traded the occasional scream and bit of weapon’s fire to keep the relationship from falling stale. Red leaves broke from the last round of gunplay and tumbled across the harsh woman poised upon the fallen log. The fronds mimicked bloody handprints, clawing across her head. She brushed it away without a thought.

  Orn gritted his teeth, accepting his fate, and lifted a small tree off the ground. As his fingers connected with young bark, a pair of eyes materialized a few inches before him; the rest of the body was only a dark space in the dense wood. Jumping out of his broken shoes, the Dwarf shook the sapling and shouted, “Don’t do that!”

  The eyes blinked softly then scattered, appearing a few inches beside Variel, shifting nervously from the dwarf back to the human. She paid the child no mind, all her focus on the hunting party behind them. “We’re close to the compound.”

  “You said that three clacks ago,” Orn whined as the sapling’s fingers dug into his hair and knotted around his sleeves. He was gonna be digging purple leaves out of his underthings for weeks.

  “It’s klicks and…” another shot fired across the pair, scorching a larger burn across the ancient forest. “They’re closing, run!”

  “I thought I was running.”

  “Run faster,” Variel chided, and — shoving into Orn’s shoulder — pushed him onward.

  Bubble, find that stupid bubble. Orn chanted inside his brain as the small eyes darted before then behind him. It would pause, processing the passing clouds or the swaying leaves filtering through the high branches as senescence claimed the forest, as unaware of the turmoil before them as a god; then, after Orn passed a certain threshold, appear in front of him again to renew the cycle. It would unnerve the dwarf if he had time to think about it.

  His captain’s voice drifted away from him, she was either planning something clever or fell down into a mud pit again. But Orn had one job to accomplish - getting this sapling kid to that bubble, whatever insane stunt she wanted to pull off was all on her. Doubling his grip, he tried to inch up on his screaming toes to see the forest around the trees. Unfortunately, all he got was more forest and a face full of moss. The sapling slipped from his struggling fingers again as Orn wiped at his face, trying to clear a colony of very confused tree ants out of his gigantic nostrils.

  Sod whoever made all this nature crap, and double that for the woman insisting we help the arsechabs living in it. Orn was not noble by nature, he didn’t have the head for a crown and robes gave him a rash, but as he looked once more into the knotted eyes of the child, he sighed and wiped his gloves across the rare mudless patch on his trousers. “Fine,” he agreed with himself and hoisted the clingy sapling up.

  Just as he was about to take another step, a shriek pierced the whispering woods powerful enough to curdle milk. Boots smashed through the undergrowth, snapping past twigs and low hanging branches until Variel’s brown shape shot past Orn. A dangerous mix of joy and terror painted her face and she didn’t slow for the dwarf, only chanted, “Run, run, run.”

  He didn’t need to be told twice, and lifting up his burning legs, he trailed with what scraps of energy remained, “What did you do?”

  “Led them on a little trip through the forest that ended below the waterfall.”

  Orn laughed, “Bet the cat people loved it.”

  “You could say that,” Variel grinned just as a howl, feral and alien to this world, burst through the trees. “And it may have pissed them off more. Ahead of me Orn, I can see the compound!”

  “Good for you, all I see is muddy, human ass.”

  The muddy human ass paused, letting the Dwarf catch up. Sure enough, beyond these ignoble trees lay another set of super special trees all encompassed by a nearly invisible shield. It flickered like dusty sunbeams, securing an entire hundred acres of forest from anyone foolish enough to traipse around on this planet.

  Variel turned to the eyes of the child; it could not thank them or even plead for help. Only those flickering eyes betrayed the solid wood of its hide. “We’ll get you home. Orn…”

  “Going, going, got it,” and before she had to say another word he pumped those little legs, shredding what remained of his shoes and face across the dead fingers of the trees. He had a date with their orc doctor and the iodine bottle when this was over.

  Variel turned towards the howl as a second answered across the woods, raining more of the bloody hand leaves upon their heads. The hunters split up, trying to flank their prey. She had two choices, either stand to face them and be obliterated by enough firepower to put down an olhino, or retreat. Firing twice into the stands of trees, she threatened the circling hyenas once and then burst after Orn.

  The shimmer glistened before him, only a few dozen more marches of his soleless boots. “Oh gods, oh gods, oh gods,” Orn shouted to the nonchalant universe, “I hope this still works.” He shut his eyes tight as he dived across the barrier. It lifted every hair on his body and stank like a bad cup of coffee but the nearly invisible curtain moved aside, allowing him passage. Orn’s body sagged from the pressure shift and he began to tumble. In a rare moment of quick thinking, the dwarf rolled to his back, keeping the baby sapling from smashing into the ground. The three leaves still clinging to the sapling’s branches shuddered, but stilled as breath tried to force through Orn’s beleaguered lungs.

  As he closed his eyes and counted to ten, a familiar string of ancient troll curses sundered the silent winds. His captain saved those for surprise toll passages and customers paying in buttons. Sitting up with his tree friend, Orn watched as Variel, firing wildly behind her, galloped across the remaining gap. Her shirt ripped as a branch impaled upon the loose fabric but failed to slow her down. She was an avatar of momentum at this point.

  One of their pursuers stepped into their miniature clearing. Its orange fur was stained in muddy water, looking more like a half drowned rat than a mighty Macka Warrior; but still the hefty hunting rifle was poised across its shoulder trying to find the target. Black eyes narrowed, nothing but pupils in the thick shadows of the forest, as it tracked Variel’s form as she jumped up and dived for the bubble. Squeezing off the trigger, the heavy shot tossed the seven-foot tall hunter back on its feet as the energy blast flew through the forest inconveniently in the way and struck bubble, bouncing back towards the poacher.

  The Macka shrieked as if someone stepped on its tail at this change in fortunes. It ducked, only singing its fur from the boomeranging bullet while the captain rose from her very dignified “Oh shit!” roll. Deliberately wiping her palms off on her unsalva
geable pants, she turned to stare into the unshielded forest, and flipped the Macka off. The roar of rage could be heard nearly three compounds over.

  “Very dignified there, Cap’n,” Orn mocked as he rose to his own muddy haunches, “Really role modeling for the children.”

  Variel laughed, savoring the cocktail of chemicals from a momentary miss of death and the sight of her hunter stalking back into the woods, his own prey snatched beyond his grasp. The knotted eyes appeared beside Orn’s shoulder, its form almost fully solid in close proximity to the tree. Yet the concern bordering on terror was not replaced within the twiggy depths. As far as the child knew, it was no more safer with them than the Macka.

  “We got the kid here, now what?” Orn asked, trying to wave off the feeling he was surrounded by very cautious and very xenophobic eyes.

  A branch rustled in the dead wind, high off one of the trees spotted in setting sun orange, before crumbling to the ground. It bounced, or appeared to as it rose high into the air, a hand forming fingers first where it touched and gaining an opaque form as the branch moved to the center of its being. It was like the branch was one of those UV lights, sending out energy to show a hidden message in the form of a dryad.

  The arms stretched out straight across from the shoulders, creaking from the reach, yet the stick remained perfectly balanced across the thin chest. Cords of bark wound across the thin frame, the alternating shades of dying crimson and shoe stealing brown mimicked the tree from which the branch fell. There was no mouth, no nose, only the eyes gave away the face; a pair of deep knots from which a flickering yellow light glowed.

  It moved slowly, propelled across the ground by an undulation of roots at the end of its feet. There was much speculation about why Dryads evolved legs despite relying upon the propeller motion. The theories ranged from a universal constant for all sentient life mages had yet to uncover, a very uncreative god placed in charge of body design, or life’s weird, drink your beer. The latter is the far more popular of philosophies.