by Tammy Walsh
Stryder raised his hands in surrender.
I sighed and put the blade away, relieved to finally be freed from the torture my unconscious waged on me each night.
“What is it?” I said.
“We need you on deck, sir,” Stryder said.
“Now?” I said.
Something struck the ship and my quarters shook from the blow. “Are we under attack?”
“Not in so many words,” Stryder said.
The deck was busy with activity when I arrived. The ship shuddered as it took another strike on the starboard bow. My crew manned their battle stations. On the screen, I saw the cause of the alarm.
“We ran into an asteroid field,” Stryder said.
Damn. I’d hoped to shave a few cycles off our journey time by cutting through a sliver of disputed space. Two customers were late in picking up their merchandise and it’d put us behind.
Asteroids assailed us on multiple fronts. Rattigan, my pilot, navigated as best he could through the natural minefield but it was impossible to avoid them all.
How had we managed to get ourselves buried so deep inside it? I wanted to berate someone and assign blame but that wouldn’t exactly help. I needed to solve the problem. Fast.
“Damage report,” I said.
“Minor damage to the hull,” Horn Tusk said with a snort. “Nothing serious.”
But even a single shard could spell disaster for a ship if it pierced the engine’s fuel cells. I’d seen it happen many times over the years.
“Shall we plot a course out of here, Captain?” Rattigan said.
“Negative,” I said. “Put a map of our location onscreen. I want to make sure we’re not treading on anybody’s toes.”
When you were a smuggler, you were never the fastest or the strongest. Our strength lay in our skill to avoid confrontation in the first place. We carted items of a… delicate nature across the galaxy. The only thing worse than being late for a delivery was getting caught.
We were already criminals, so we might as well break a few minor laws while we were at it… like passing through contested territory to save time, for example.
The map on the screen showed we were in a band of contested space between the Trongrox and Vestroil. They’d been at each other’s throats since before they even had a word for ‘war.’
“Take us out on the Vestroil side,” I said.
“But that’s further away, sir,” Rattigan said. “It’s much easier to traverse a course to the Trongrox side.”
“The Trongrox are far more aggressive,” I said. “If they find us, we’re as good as dead. At least the Vestroil will listen to us before they blow us up.”
“But—”
“Since when did this become a democracy?” I barked. “Do as I say. Now!”
Rattigan glanced at Stryder, who nodded, before turning to his terminal and plotting the course.
I didn’t like my authority being questioned. Once this was over, I was going to have to have a quiet word with Rattigan about whose orders he followed. I’d let him get us out of here first.
The image on the screen shifted back into the asteroid field. The ship took another blow and knocked us off course before Rattigan righted us again and weaved between the larger asteroids. A narrow gap opened up between two large asteroids.
“Go through it!” I ordered. “Now!”
A huge asteroid that might once have been a chunk of moon sailed forward to fill the gap.
Rattigan took us forward.
A third asteroid as large as a space dragon flew into view. Rattigan ducked the entire ship before pulling up and squeezing through the gap on the other side.
The crew whooped for joy, relieved we’d made it. They clapped the pilot on the back for a job well done.
I got up from my chair and approached Rattigan. The fool grinned at me before I belted him across his furry face, knocking him to the floor.
“Don’t you ever question me again!” I bellowed, standing over him. “When I give you an order, you follow it, do you understand?”
Rattigan glared at me and wiped the blood from his split lip. He nodded. Barely visible, but it was there.
I straightened up and glared at the others. They respected strength. It was about the only thing they did respect. I stepped back and felt that squirming gut-wrenching sensation in the pit of my stomach.
The sickness was upon me and delivered a gut punch that made me stagger to one side. I gripped a console before I fell sprawling to the floor. A high pitched whine rang in my ears as Stryder approached, reaching to take me by the arm. He spoke but his voice was distant.
I shrugged him off. “I don’t need your help!” I glared at my crew. “The next time you idiots steer us into an asteroid field, I’ll do you the favor of slamming head-first into the first meteor I see.”
I marched toward the door. “Stryder, you have the deck.”
I held my head high, my strides long and powerful. The only thing worse than being destroyed by an asteroid field was being killed by your own crew.
And I feared the chances of that happening increased day by day.
I marched off the deck and returned to my room. The instant the door slid shut behind me, I fell to my knees and emptied my stomach across the floor. My arms shook and I could barely keep myself from falling in it.
It’s getting worse, I thought. The sickness was overtaking me. It first struck almost three weeks ago when I visited Earth to find a set of six sexy human females for customers willing to pay my prices.
I shoved the bathroom door open and fell to my knees, throwing up in the toilet bowl. My stomach heaved, bring up lumps of—
Ugh. I didn’t even want to think about it.
The sickness gripped me the day I entered that Earth bar and began my scout. It was the sight of that girl on the dancefloor putting a hand to her mouth as she rushed toward the nearest exit that pushed me over the edge.
I ran into the backrooms and barely managed to find the male toilets before falling to my knees and praying to the god of ceramics.
I must have caught something. Easy to do when you traveled as much as I did. I was a transporter, which meant I was a glorified mailman. I ferried cargo from one place to another. Anything, really. So long as the price was right.
But there were other services I offered too, such as scouting for merchandise. I charged a premium but it was always worth the extra effort. I always liked to deliver the highest standard when it came to service.
I was getting on with the human female too, the one who approached me. What was her name again?
Alice.
That’s right. A tasty little number. I knew right away she was exactly what I was looking for.
Sometimes I got lucky and the fish swam directly to me. A shame I got sick. I wouldn’t have minded a little taste myself…
I emptied my stomach in the human toilet and spat the final few lumps out. I wiped my mouth and pressed the little lever on the side to flush. I moved to the sink and washed my hands.
“Had too much to drink, huh?” a stringy guy with an abysmal haircut said, relieving himself at a urinal.
“Too much of something,” I said.
“There’s one thing that you can never get too much of,” the guy said. “And that’s hot pussy. And boy, I ain’t never seen so much hot pussy in one location in all my life.”
He got so excited, he missed the urinal and it puddled around his feet.
“Not that it’s such a big deal for someone like you,” the man said with a wink. “I’m sure a handsome guy like you can have the cream of the crop wherever you go. Not like me. It’s always been an uphill struggle. Oh, and have you noticed? There are hardly any guys out there! No competition! A bunch of drunk pussy desperate for a fuck! This is heaven. For me, it’s prime hunting season.”
He shook himself off, zipped himself up, and slapped a hand on the flush. He clapped me on the back and then got to work washing his hands.
I imagine
d a dirty big handprint in urine on the back of my jacket and it made me seethe.
“What do you do?” he said.
“I’m in the transportation game,” I said.
The man whistled. “You don’t say. What sort of things do you move?”
“Pretty much anything, so long as the price is right.”
The man splashed water over his face as I wiped my hands dry. “And how did you hear about this place? I didn’t know other guys knew about it.”
I gave him a smile I hoped look sly. “You know about it, don’t you?”
The man held up his hands and chuckled. “I can’t betray my sources. But the fewer of us there are around, the less competition there is. I hope you don’t intend on ruining the whole thing for us just because you’re handsome.”
There was the unmistakable look of anger in his face. This guy was dangerous, I thought. He had no place around drunk women.
“None of you or your buddies are at risk with me being here,” I said.
The man smiled his toothless grin. “Well, then. I’m glad we understand each other.”
He slapped me on the back again and my anger seethed even deeper.
The man moved for the towel.
“Want to know what my latest shipment is?” I said.
The man buried his face in the soft fabric. “Nope.”
“Women.”
The man froze and slowly raised his head. “Excuse me?”
“Women. There’s no more valuable commodity in the galaxy. I’ll be carting a shipment out of here tonight and taking them to their new owners across the sky.”
“Owners?” The man looked at me, unsure whether or not I was being serious. He gulped, his bulbous Adam’s apple protruding like a knot in a length of wood. “Look, dude. I don’t want any trouble—”
“It’s no trouble,” I said. “Usually, it takes me a little time to find my targets but tonight, I struck gold. A gorgeous lady—one of these hot pussies, as you call them—came right up to me. She’s traveling with some friends in a hen party.”
The guy’s eyes moved from me to the door and back again. Humans might not be technologically developed but their instincts were as sharp as any creature’s.
He sensed I was dangerous. He was right to do so.
The guy lowered his eyes and shuffled toward the door. He glanced at me when he reached it.
“Hey,” I said. “Wait a second.”
I aimed a pistol at his face and pulled the trigger. A beam of white light shot into his eye. It would travel to his brain and shut down key functions. His chin fell to his chest and arms flopped to his sides. He’d effectively fallen asleep on his feet.
He would be open to everything I said.
“Your motor functions have been switched off,” I said. “These are the kinds of tools we have developed in my corner of the galaxy. You will forget I was here. I don’t exist. Come to think of it, this place no longer exists to you either. You will not come here again. Oh, and get a new haircut. And shave that mustache off your face. It makes you look like a pedophile. Oh, and something else…”
I lifted his chin and looked into his eyes. “Treat women with a little more respect, huh? You might have an easier time of finding a good one that way. Now get out of here.”
The guy nodded and shuffled down the hall. He’d come back to himself within the next couple of hours.
I took the communicator from my pocket. “I’ve got them. Pick me up around back.”
I hung up and pressed my hand to my stomach. It growled and I felt sick again.
What is it? I’d wondered.
And I was still asking the same question as I vomited into the toilet on my ship. As the days leeched into weeks, the sickness only grew worse.
I was a Titan. A warrior species on the brink of extinction. We were strong, hardy people. This virus, this sickness, could not last forever. Eventually, I would pull out of it.
But my body sure was taking its time.
I had no choice but to shake the sickness. If I didn’t, my crew would remove me as their captain.
And I knew without a shadow of a doubt the moment I was at my weakest, that was when one of the crew would Challenge me to a leadership duel. A smuggler worked for money, not duty. They would turn on me the moment they knew I couldn’t defend myself.
With the way I was feeling, I had little chance of coming out ahead. I was as weak as a newborn babe, just as I was all those years ago when my mother clutched me to her dying breast…
My eyes rolled back into my head as my chin struck the floor. Out for the count.
My mother was strong, powerful… and I’d never seen so much fear in her eyes before.
I’m a child again, clutched tightly in her arms. Outside, the battle has been raging for hours. Fire erupted some time ago, shortly followed by horrified screams. Not Titan screams. We didn’t scream like that, not when death came to claim us. We welcomed him like an old friend.
My mother pulled the blanket off our bed and moved to the corner. She sat down and hurled it over us. To someone passing by, it might look like a pile of laundry like the others on the floor.
Fire blossomed and bled yellow puddles across the sheet. I pointed at the shadows that danced across the blanket’s surface. My mother held my finger and lowered it, shaking her head gently.
She froze when a large shadow paused in the rectangle of the entrance to our hut. My mother kept her eyes on it and placed her thick hand over my mouth. I watched, transfixed, as the shadow swelled across the sheet’s surface, growing larger.
Closer.
The shadow’s head turned one way and then the other. He lurched forward and slammed his blade into a pile of laundry. It rasped against the hard stone floor as his blade tore into it. He pulled it free and began that slow head movement once again.
My mother pressed a finger to her lips, signaling for me to keep quiet. I copied the movement. She raised the blade she kept at her waist to chop vegetables.
That shadow growled low and grunted as he edged closer still.
Mom coiled her legs under herself to spring up and attack the shadow at a moment’s notice.
And that’s when the other shadow turned up.
Bigger, more powerful. I recognized him through the blanket even without seeing his features.
My father roared as he broke into the tiny space of our hut. The creature, taken by surprise, screeched like rusty iron across an anvil before turning silent and still. He crumpled to the floor as my mother dropped the blanket and embraced my father.
He raised me to his face, already cut and bleeding. He cupped my mother’s face in his hand and kissed her. Normally, I would have groaned and turned away in disgust but this time I sensed something was different.
He led us out the door and into the darkness of the jungle. Perched on my mother’s shoulder, I saw the village I’d once called my home burned like the deepest fires of the forge, and the people I loved screamed and cried among them in blood-tinted soil.
We hustled through the village, shrill screams, and pained cries chasing us into the night. A large shadow burst from behind a hut and swung his huge sword at me and my mother.
It was a Titan.
My father was there, blocked his attack with his sword, and cut the figure down. The Titan clutched his chest, his eyes flashed yellow. His body morphed into my father before shifting again to a creature with a long face and a dozen black eyes.
I stared in wonder. I wished I could change shape like that. It must be a lot of fun.
Father grabbed my mother and led us out of the village and down a slight incline. I didn’t recognize where we were. Everything looked so different in the dark.
“Get in!” my father said.
My mother climbed into a canoe as my father shoved it forward.
Arrows thudded into the side of the boat, but my father took no notice. Shadows high up on an embankment backlit by a bonfire rained arrows down on us.
“Com
e with us!” my mother said.
“I cannot,” my father said. “I love you.”
And without time even to kiss her, my father waded back to shore and waved his huge arms as he drew his sword. “Hey! Here I am! Shoot me!”
“No!” Mother cried. “No!”
The arrows slowed and then stopped thudding into the boat and turned instead on my father, who ran up the embankment, sword held high.
We disappeared around a corner, wiping him from view.
I never saw my father again.
I awoke to the comforting sensation of cold cloth pressing against my blazing skin. It relaxed me. And when the cloth was taken away to dampen again in freshwater, I missed its icy kiss.
A powerful headache pulsed at my temples and shook me to my core. My eyes were clenched tightly shut and I could barely open them. When I did, a searing pain bolted from my eyeballs and down to my racing heart.
I cracked my eyes open and peered at my nurse. The female human maid called Maisie. She’d been taken prisoner aboard the Silent Shadow when I’d been little more than a deckhand. A customer ordered a human beauty, but by the time she arrived, he was all but destitute. With no intention of returning her to Earth, she was tasked with maintaining the ship and cooking our meals.
I laid prostrate on the bathroom floor. I pushed myself up and wiped the saliva from my lips. I took a moment before stumbling into my bed.
Maisie wore a frown that made her once-youthful appearance crinkle with age.
“The fever’s getting worse,” she said.
My eyes moved toward the door. I didn’t like talking about my weakness, especially when the crew could be listening.
I said, “I am a Titan. We don’t—”
“—get sick,” she completed. “I know, I know. And yet, you are sick. Very sick. If you don’t see a doctor soon, I don’t think you’ll live much longer.”
“I won’t live much longer if I don’t get some of your delicious soup in me soon,” I said, sitting up.
She moved to my desk and carried the tray over. Her skinny arms shook with the weight. She placed it on my lap. With this sickness, it was just about the only thing I could keep down. The only thing more demanding than my headache was my intense hunger.
