by Logan Jacobs
“Bullshit,” the man’s voice sounded from around the corner.
I grinned. The idiot had given away his position, or he might as well have. He had to be in one of the halls that led off from the main hold, and he was probably just on the other side of the doorway from how clear his voice had sounded. Now all I had to do was figure out which one.
“Try looking up,” Honey Bee offered.
I glanced up at the polished chrome beam straight overhead. It acted as a mirror, and in the reflection, I saw my target and the princess. They were in the hall leading to the galley. That asshole still had Orla’s arms pinned behind her back, but now he had one grimy hand over her mouth too.
I held my hunting knife at the ready and hoped the brunette would read my mind.
“Well, princess,” I called again. “I know you’re good with your tongue, but what else can you do with that mouth?”
I watched in the reflection as the disgust on the princess’s face turned to realization. Her green eyes narrowed, and in the next second, she bit down hard on the man’s hand.
“Owww!” He yelled as he ripped his hand back. “Fucking bitch!”
That was all the opening I needed. I sprung forward around the corner and hurled my hunting knife straight at the man’s outflung hand. He yelled again. This time, he let Orla go completely and reeled backward with my knife stuck squarely in the middle of his palm.
I dove forward and grabbed the princess by the waist to move her out of the way. The redcoat stumbled toward the brunette with a string of curses, so I shoved him down on to the metal grates and wrapped my hands around his throat. He tried to grip my throat with his one good hand, but his face just started to turn a splotchy red instead.
I felt the brunette’s hand reach into my right holster to pull out my gun, but I didn’t mind. This asshole deserved what he had coming to him. I pushed his good hand away from my throat, then I ducked back out of the way. The redcoat roared to his feet, ripped my knife out of his hand, and flailed at me with my own weapon.
Orla shot him dead between the eyes.
“Nice shot,” I observed.
The man thudded to the floor.
“I know,” she huffed.
“If you wanted to get in a little target practice, all you had to do was say the word,” I joked.
Orla wrapped both her arms around my waist and leaned into my chest. I pried my gun loose from her hand and slipped it back into its holster, but she still didn’t let go.
I just patted her shoulder and breathed in the smell of crushed oranges that clung to her hair.
She was delicious. Maybe she was worth all this work.
“We gotta move, princess,” I murmured. “We didn’t make a lot of friends here today, so I’d just as soon get the fuck off this hellscape of a planet.”
She pulled back and nodded.
“You weren’t really going to make me go with them, were you?” the brunette murmured.
“Not if you didn’t want to,” I sighed. “They seemed like assholes from the get-go. Besides, how else was I supposed to get the stabilizer coil?”
“I’m sorry, what?” Orla asked.
“The coil we need for the stabilizer,” I explained. “They have one in the shuttle, and I’m gonna take it for the Skyhawk.”
“But… but you acted like you were just gonna give me to them, and then how would you have--”
“Acted like,” I emphasized.
“Oh,” she said.
She didn’t need to know exactly how long I had thought about changing my plans. I hadn’t, and that was what mattered. The brunette looked up at me with her big green eyes and blinked slowly.
“You can help me fuel up, princess,” I said with a smile.
I stepped around her and damn near heard the pout on her face behind me, but I just picked up the redcoat’s body and headed off the ship. Orla followed right along after me, and I tossed the rebel’s body close to the others.
There were three fuel barrels safely by the edge of the clearing. I had used one more in my fight against the ULA, and that left two still on board the shuttle, so I reached into the bottom of the craft and tugged at one of the barrels.
It damn near knocked me off my feet with how unexpectedly light it was. I pitched it out of the shuttle and reached for the last barrel, but it was just as light.
“Those goddamn cheats,” I swore.
“What is it?” Orla asked.
I kicked one of the barrels toward her. She stopped it with her foot, and then her green eyes went wide as she realized why she had been able to stop it.
The two fuel barrels in the bottom of the shuttle were completely empty. They had put four full ones on top to fool us when I checked them, but that meant I had been right. Jax had never intended for his men to hand over the fuel and money for the murisia. He’d planned to rob me all along.
I felt a little less bad about killing him and I hadn’t really felt that badly about doing it in the first place.
He should have known better than to go up against a man who never took off his shades. Now he was down a dozen fighters in desperate times, when I guessed he needed every rebel he had. He was also down a whole cargo hold full of Mother’s Mercy, plus the fuel he had been so kind as to send along as part of his scheme.
“We didn’t already… you didn’t already pay him for it, did you?” Orla asked.
“Of course not,” I sighed. “That part of the exchange was supposed to happen here, before pilot boy went all off-script on us.”
“I’m sorry,” the princess said quietly.
“For what?” I demanded.
“They wouldn’t have done any of this if it wasn’t for me,” the brunette said. “You would’ve just gotten your money, and that would have been the end of it.”
“Aren’t you forgetting the stabilizer coil?” I teased.
“Yes, but they wouldn’t have--”
“They never intended to make the sale,” I explained. “Their resources are too tight to just give away shit, so they were always gonna try to steal from us so they wouldn’t have to pay. The shit with you just got tied up in all that.”
She nodded, and it was hard to tell if she felt reassured, or if the princess was a little disappointed that it hadn’t been all about her. I imagined it was probably both.
I connected the fuel tank of the Skyhawk to the first fuel barrel and instructed Orla to watch it and let me know when the barrel needed to be changed to the next one. I set to work on the ULA shuttle, and it only took me a few minutes of work to disassemble the craft’s insides and find the coil we needed.
The stabilizer coil was small, of course. It was meant only for a shuttle-sized craft, not for an actual spacefaring vessel like the Skyhawk. But it would have to do for now. We needed to get the fuck off Orpheus as fast as we could. Between the Dominion and the ULA forces, we had managed to piss off just about every person on the planet.
I took the coil back to the Skyhawk. After I helped Orla switch over to the second fuel barrel, I implanted the coil into the Skyhawk’s stabilizer. I had to use the splicer to lengthen it by about two inches, and even then, it was still a little short of what we needed.
It was a bang-up job, if I thought so myself. It might not work, but it was still damned impressive. The good thing was that there wouldn’t be any gray area. It would either work or it wouldn’t, and if it didn’t, we wouldn’t even make out of the atmosphere. The Skyhawk would just shudder apart over Orpheus and rain down like meteors.
The ULA fighters didn’t have any cash hidden in their pockets or on the shuttle, and there was nothing else to salvage from their on-world craft. When we finished refueling, I disconnected the fuel tank and sealed it up again.
“Ready to leave this dump?” I asked Orla.
“What about the bodies?” the princess sighed.
“What about them? Law of the jungle, princess,” I told her. “If it’s dead, something will eat it.”
“That’s
morbid,” the brunette gasped.
“That’s the law.” I shrugged. “Just think of all the animals we’ve just provided a free meal for.”
That seemed to make her feel a little better. As soon as I powered on the ship from the bridge, we shut the boarding ramp and strapped into the pilot and copilot’s chairs. There was a faint smell of smoke when I started the Skyhawk’s engines, but there was a decent chance it was just from the general wear and tear of our near-crash landing. The Skyhawk just needed to shake it off.
I hoped not literally.
I scanned the radar to make sure we weren’t about to run into any Dominion or ULA assholes who wanted to keep us grounded, and then I guided our ship up out of the trees. When I confirmed visually what the radar had shown and made sure the coast was clear, I angled the Skyhawk sharply up.
“What about the fuel?” Orla asked.
“Does she not know how much concentration take-off requires?” Honey Bee scolded.
I wanted to tell my chip that she could scold as much as she wanted to, but the princess still wouldn’t hear her. Instead, I just focused on the throttle and let the engines take us up. The ship shook a little more than usual as we burned through the atmosphere, but she held together even better than I expected.
“A bang-up job,” Honey Bee repeated my words.
I thought I detected a little sarcasm there, so I just rolled my eyes and guided us out of the atmosphere. I knew the barrier of Dominion ships would still be just on the other side of the atmosphere, so I held one hand on the barely-functional hyperdrive. As soon as we were safely past the outer ring of the planet’s atmosphere, I would try to blast us to safety before the Dominion even knew we were there.
“They are closing the gap,” Honey Bee observed. “They detect your approach.”
“Lucky for me, they won’t be able to leave their posts,” I answered. “At least, not far enough to follow me into hyperdrive.”
We burned through the remaining atmosphere and almost straight into the sides of a whole ring of Dominion cruisers. I immediately rolled the Skyhawk up on her side to pass through the closest two fleet ships, but they poured out fighters anyway.
“Haven’t we already done this song and dance?” I sighed.
I dove our ship under the next Dominion vessel, and I looped and rolled so that the fighters couldn’t lock on to me. I fired on two of the smaller crafts that had managed to keep up with me. They spun away with the force of the impact and slammed into each other. The moment I was past the next craft, I hoped for the best and slammed into hyperdrive.
The Skyhawk screamed as she shifted, but she held together and seconds later, we were surrounded by the streams of light that signaled hyperspace. I kicked back in my pilot’s chair and let the ship fly straight ahead.
“So… are you just not going to answer my question about the fuel?” Orla pouted.
“Are you serious, woman?” I laughed. “All that, and you’re still asking about fuel?”
“Yes?” the brunette answered. “Don’t you think it’s kind of important?”
“Well, sure,” I exhaled. “And now that I have a minute to spare, maybe I’ll answer it. In case you didn’t notice, I was a little busy just now trying to save our asses yet again today.”
“I know that, but I just meant-- do we need to be worried?” the princess demanded.
“It’s like you haven’t even met me,” I sighed. “Do you honestly think I would have taken off from a planet if we didn’t have enough fuel to get somewhere else?”
“Well… no,” Orla murmured.
“Fueling station located in Beta District,” my chip chimed in my ear. “Small space station, mostly fuel and supplies. Name, the Antioch.”
“Perfect,” I muttered. “It’d be good to know our ETA.”
“Our ETA for what?” the princess groaned. “I swear, sometimes it’s like you’re perfectly happy just talking to yourself and I might as well not be here.”
“Calculating ETA without hyperdrive,” Honey Bee answered. “Estimated 36 hours, if we shift out now. Fuel levels will last, but it will be close.”
“You know I love a good challenge,” I sighed. “And princess, you just never mind when I talk to myself. I can’t help it if I’m the best damn company I know.”
“Well, thanks a lot,” the brunette sniffed. “You know, I never…”
“Never what?” I asked.
“When you were fighting,” Orla continued, “I’ve never seen anybody move that fast. Or that… well… smoothly. It’s like you knew what they were going to do before they did it.”
“Glad you were impressed,” I answered.
“I’m not saying I was impressed,” the princess defended. “I just meant… I’ve just never seen anybody move or fight like that. It was like you were superhuman or something.”
“Eh,” I said with a shrug. “The more you fight, the easier it gets.”
“But I’ve seen a lot of people fight,” Orla said again. “I’ve watched my father and his men train for years and years, and none of them have ever moved like you did.”
“She should join us. Then she can be one with you. All of us. Together. Forever.” Honey Bee gave an uncomfortable chime inside my skull, and I swallowed as her words started to echo in my mind.
“Let’s just say that I have a knack for it,” I told her. “But thanks for being such an appreciative audience.”
She huffed but didn’t say anything else, so I grinned and shifted back out of hyperdrive once Honey Bee suggested it was safe. We came out a little closer to a star than I would have liked, but there were no other ships around us when we reentered space. I took that as a win.
“We’re headed to Antioch to refuel now,” I finally answered her. “It’s a space station a couple of days from here, so we should be good until then, just as long as we don’t run into any more trouble.”
“A couple of days?” Orla sounded panicked.
“In case you didn’t notice, space is kinda big,” I laughed. “Don’t worry, we’ve got food and everything.”
“What about water?”
“Yeah, I grabbed some of that from that old redcoat bastard too,” I said. “Not a lot, so we’ll have to ration, but enough to get us to the Antioch.”
“Does rationing mean--”
“No showers,” I answered, since I already knew what she would ask. I grinned. “But we might have enough for a sponge bath.”
“Foul!” Orla exclaimed, but I was pretty sure that the princess was trying very hard not to smile.
When the Skyhawk continued to hold together, I knew it was time for the next part of my plan. There had been half a chance that it would shake apart when we entered or exited hyperdrive, but so far, so good. I ought to win a fucking medal for keeping this piece of garbage afloat.
“Want to take a field trip?” I grinned.
“Where to?” Orla raised an eyebrow.
“You’ll see,” I said. “Come on.”
I led her down into the cargo hold with the crates filled with murisia. I pushed one to the far wall of the Skyhawk, checked to make sure the switch for the airlock was where I expected, and then started to push another one.
“Do you want to help, or do you just want to watch?” I asked the princess.
“What are you doing?” she responded.
“Oh, just rearranging some things,” I said carelessly. “I don’t like a sloppy ship. It makes it harder to find what you need when you need it, and besides, it makes it awful easy to trip on shit in the dark.”
“I didn’t realize you liked things so neat,” the princess said.
She tucked one loose strand of hair behind her ear, and I grinned.
“Only when it comes to some things,” I answered. “Now come here and give me a hand.”
We finished pushing the rest of the murisia to the far wall, and I pressed the button to close the airlock doors. They slid shut at the far end of the cargo hold, so all the murisia we just moved dis
appeared behind them. A second button clicked them firmly into place, and then I glanced at Orla.
“Might want to hold on to something,” I said with a grin. “Just in case.”
But I didn’t grab hold of anything, and instead, I just flipped the switch for the airlock. The doors that separated us from the airlock compartment groaned but held together as the far wall of the cargo hold just fell away as the airlock itself opened. The crates of murisia dropped into space and drifted away like they were on an ocean wave.
When all the Mother’s Mercy disappeared into the blackness of space, I closed the airlock again, and then I reopened the doors into the airlock chamber. The cargo hold looked exactly as it had before, only now it was completely empty of drugs. Orla looked up at me with her full lips parted.
“I cannot believe you just did that,” the princess breathed.
“Oh, I’m sorry,” I muttered. “Was I supposed to save you some? I didn’t know you partook.”
“I don’t,” the brunette fired back. “I just meant-- that was worth so much money. I mean, that could have been so much money, and I thought... well, I thought all you cared about was money.”
“True,” I answered, “but I’m not a smuggler.”
“What does that mean?” Orla pressed.
“It means trying to sell these drugs is more trouble than they’re worth,” I explained. “I do a lot of things to get by, but I only take jobs that I’m gonna enjoy. And trying to smuggle all that shit and sell it to the highest bidder-- well, princess, that ain’t my idea of a good time.”
“So if you’re not a smuggler, then what are you?” the long-legged brunette asked.
“I’m Trevor Onyx,” I said with a smile. “Didn’t we go over this already?”
“I mean, what do you do?” the princess huffed.
“I’m what you would call an entrepreneur,” I said grandly.
“You mean a criminal,” Orla corrected. “A con man.”
“Oh, you’re an expert on all things business now, are you?” I laughed. “Let me give you a bit of insider advice, princess. Most… entrepreneurs... do not enjoy being called criminals to their faces.”
“Most?” the princess repeated.
