Medical reports shown to Sirrah indicated signs of various unknown operations and possibly injections, most likely originating from when she was young, but their full cause or effect also remained a mystery. Sirrah could vouch for the fact that the woman seemed to have bouts of random discomfort, such as migraines or trembling that seemed to outstrip those typically suffered by very powerful Kinetics. Psychiatric evaluations catalogued a laundry list of issues that could be triggers for 286’s violent behavior, running the gamut from being authoritarian, demanding, rude, or aggressive toward her to being passive, placating, or overly kind and therefore seeming “weak,” “mocking,” or “deceptive.”
So, with the situation such as it was, Sirrah felt she’d done pretty well so far. But it also meant that when 286 asked her something with one of her “warning tones,” or started pushing her boundaries, Sirrah had to sit up and pay attention.
“Perhaps,” she replied after a moment’s consideration. She kept any of the doubt she felt about it out of her tone. Uncertainty certainly wasn’t something she needed to show here.
“I don’t see you coming up with any ideas. Besides, I’m hungry.” The Kinetic was still leaning intently forward in the chair.
“Well, I suppose that you could do that.” She considered her words and what she could read off of 286 carefully for a brief moment before she spoke them aloud. “But remember: if you end up doing something that gets us kicked off of this ship, we’ll have to find another one. Which means a layover, and a slower ship, and all of this will take even longer and be an even more boring trip.”
A loud yawn sounded from near the door to their quarters. “Yeah, whatever, I’ll keep it in mind.” The closing doors nearly clipped off the end of Prisoner 286’s words, barely leaving them intact as the woman exited the room. Realizing her problematic companion was already gone, Sirrah exhaled a sigh and dropped her shoulders for just a moment, since she was alone and there was no one that would see.
In the glimpses Sirrah had seen into 286’s world, she knew the woman lacked the ability to understand others’ feelings, and the only thing she really seemed to grasp about other people’s worth was whether or not they were useful; anything else seemed to be a nebulous concept to her. Getting in her way was a good way to get hurt.
So Sirrah hoped to whatever spirits might be listening that she’d just done the right thing by unleashing the notorious Prisoner 286 upon the hallways and common areas of the Destiny Abounds.
10.1- Prisoner 286
“More mayo. No, no, that’s too much. Little bit less. Scrape some back off. Eh, it’s like you’re not even trying, you know?” To be honest, 286 was barely paying attention to the freaked out slip of a girl making her a sandwich. Hel, she didn’t even know her name or what she did here. Probably the engineer or something.
“More meat…. there we go. That’ll do.” 286 looked back over and saw a tasty enough looking sandwich, bursting with meaty goodness, and promptly snatched it out of the girl’s hands. She flinched away a bit, and 286 supposed she was scared, or something. Whatever. It was pretty funny, anyways. She flopped down in one of the chairs gathered around the long dining table, seating herself at the head, and kicked her combat boots up onto its clean, covered surface.
She chomped down into what was some delicious, simple food. Even if it wasn’t the same quality of fare she’d enjoyed during a few weeks of following a Kala around, it was still tons better than the crap rations on Urebai, or all the stupid fungus-related stuff commonly had on Urzra. Sighing fondly at the sandwich as she devoured it, she completely forgot about the girl sharing the kitchen with her, and only remembered again when she saw the slender teen slip out of the door and bolt off down the hall.
286 shrugged. She didn’t mind if the girl got away, she wasn’t really that interested in her. What she was interested in was finding something to do here to alleviate her boredom. She needed a change in pace. She’d hoped she could get into something fun on this ship, in the week or so they’d be on it, since it was such a stand-out vessel. A captain from Fade, for instance. Who had ever heard of that? Who had even heard of someone from Fade in space at all? How the Hel could she captain a ship if the highest form of technology on her homeworld were houses, barrels and horses?
Not to mention the pilot. Sirrah had gone for this ship, called the Destiny Abounds or some such poetic nonsense, because the consumer records she’d accessed had listed it as having made a trip from Pireida to The Bazaar in under six days. Six days! That was barely even possible. Some of it had to be the ship, of course, which meant it was one of the fastest ships she’d heard of, which included military, pirate, and racing vessels. Interesting by itself.
Even more interestingly, two and a half standard days was the minimum possible time to travel from a world in the habitable zone to one of the system’s apex points, where the conflux of gravitational and magnetic forces aligned so as to allow a slipjump. Which left about a half day, just a handful of hours, for the pilot to reign in whatever random vector the gods of chaos decided to stick the ship with when it exited the slipstream. 286’s first thought was that they got lucky; that the ship had been randomly bestowed with that one-in-a-million straight, fast shot aimed directly at their destination of choice.
So she’d waited until Sirrah was asleep and checked the consumer records and recommendations herself, out of curiosity. What she’d found was that it wasn’t a fluke. A good day, maybe, but not a fluke. The records were littered with more than a few compliments and timestamps, giving them a history full of week-long trips or fifteen day round trips, and sometimes even less.
Naturally, 286 was somewhat interested to learn more, at least from lack of anything better to do. She’d intended to harass the Captain or that cute pilot and see what she could find out, or maybe just menace them for a bit. But since she hadn’t seen either of them around as of yet, she just sat and considered for the moment as she ate.
Those considerations fled a moment later, suddenly unnecessary, when one of the targets of her interest wandered into the kitchen area. It was the pilot; a short girl with a compact frame, below jaw-length, silver-blue feathery hair, and eyes of an almost metallic steely color. 286 noted with no small degree of satisfaction that she was still wearing that delicious, skin tight black and blue bodysuit. With an idle grin to herself, she wondered how one would get into—or out of—something that tight.
At first, the young woman pulled up short, looking into the room and hesitating momentarily at the sight of Prisoner 286. 286 just dropped her eyes to her food, aggressively finishing off the bulk of the minor meal and luring the subject of her curiosity into the room and past her initial misgivings. 286 grinned to herself, watching her from behind while the pilot went over and laid the ground work for a sandwich of her own. At one point, she straightened and made to turn, as if sensing the eyes on her, or perhaps just nervous of 28, but the Prisoner just quickly diverted her attention down to brushing off crumbs and licking mayonnaise off of her fingers. Once the silver-haired woman turned her attention back to continuing food preparation, the Prisoner resumed her scrutiny.
“So, whatcha making?” 286 had stepped up close to her, and was looming over her from behind. To her credit, the other woman didn’t jump, though she tensed. 286 grinned.
“A, um, sandwich. Bacon.” She shifted, lathering the bread with mayonnaise, then settling it together, sidewardly eying 286 meanwhile.
“Good choice.” She made sure to do her looming uncomfortably close to the small woman, just to see what she did. “So what’s your name?”
“Merlo.” Merlo sidestepped her, edging away from 286’s personal space and seeming to think better of sitting at the table.
286 followed her. “Merlo, huh. Weird name. Neat, though.” Her grin started to edge up one side of her face. She couldn’t help it.
Merlo eyed her for a minute, what 286 privately referred to as a “moment of truth,” when people’s reactions showed what they were made of
. “Glad you like it?” She didn’t back down, at least, but she did turn to leave.
Then she did jump slightly as 286’s arm slammed into the wall in front of her, blocking her path. “So where you headed, Merlo?” She drawled out the name in her full, low-pitched tones, making it sound more like a deep, rumbling “Merr-low.”
“Well, I’m the pilot… So, um, I think I’ll head to the bridge. You know, for pilot… stuff.” She didn’t run, but she did continue to tilt away from 286, putting her back to the wall as the much taller woman leaned over her. 286 kept her intense hazel gaze locked onto the silvery eyes in front of her, grinning wildly as she did so. She saw Merlo look her over and wet her lips unconsciously, as if nervous or whatever.
286 held that position for a long moment, as Merlo eyed her then ducked and shifted easily under her arm, taking her plate and vacating the dining area. After another moment, 286 stepped to the open door, leaning against the frame. She watched Merlo go, exiting but not fleeing, pausing to look back over her shoulder once at 286 before disappearing into the bridge and closing the door behind her.
Prisoner 286 snorted with an amusement that kept the smile on her face. She’d wanted something to do, something to distract her for the voyage, and that cute young pilot had certainly caught her attention. 286 raised a bacon sandwich to her face and bit into it, munching on it as she stared absently down the hall, grinning around the food.
The game was on.
10.2- Merlo
Merlo looked down again at the Altairan transmission glowing from the darkened background of her datapad. Sixty thousand credits. That’s what the Altairans had put into her account for the destruction of the Defiance, with forty thousand more to be held in trust and paid out incrementally over the next two years.
Altogether, that was just shy of eight times the payment for their Panacea delivery, which had been no small amount itself, able to pay for starship fuel, a full round of maintenance, and a month’s salary for the whole crew with some left over. Her payoff from Altair wasn’t a fortune, by any means, but more than substantial enough for someone to live rather well for several years without having to worry overmuch.
Or so Mr. Leonard said. He understood the value of credits and what one could do with them far better than either herself or the Captain, though everyone on board understood it better than Merlo did. Mostly because she didn’t much care. Similarly, she couldn’t bring herself to care much about this money, either. It didn’t do anything for her, except remind her of what it was for and why she had it in the first place.
She’d shown Branwen, of course, and the Captain had seemed pretty impressed. “Enough to perhaps buy a small house or a starship, methinks,” she’d said. Merlo, however, didn’t need, or even want, any of those things, even if the Captain’s assessment was right. Merlo wanted to help her people, which she couldn’t anymore, and barring that, she wanted to stay here and fly. She didn’t need money for that, or at least not very much of it. She had even tried to give the money to Branwen, but the Captain had refused, though Merlo had gotten her to accept that she would donate to keep the Destiny flying if it was ever needed.
Branwen had once told her and Zimi a story where an aging warrior travelled round and paid a “blood debt” to the families of those she had killed when she was younger. This is what the money felt like to her. Even if the whole mess wasn’t really the Altairans’ fault, exactly, she still wished she didn’t have this line of credits sitting there, adding to the decent amount sitting in the bank from previous jobs, staring back at her and making her remember. It wasn’t enough to pay for her ship, or her mission, or the life of her former Captain. It was only enough to make her unable to forget.
Maybe she could give the whole thing to Mr. Leonard instead. Merlo rolled around on her bed, flopping onto her back and dangling the datapad off of the side while staring up at the blank metal roof of her quarters. She doubted he’d take it, either; he was too polite, and she had the impression that, wherever he was from, he was already pretty well off.
Merlo felt bad that she hadn’t seen him much the last couple of days; she kind of missed talking to him in person instead of just over the com system. He’d even been absent at dinner, and she was pretty sure she knew why. That line of thought brought her mind back around to the other thing that kept weighing on her mind, which was the new girl on board. Ever since meeting her in the kitchens that second day of their trip, when she’d gotten really… intensely close and somehow stolen her sandwich, she kept running into the woman.
Merlo didn’t know what to make of her. In fact, she didn’t even know her name. She’d asked once, but the woman had just ignored it and asked her if she always wore the same clothes. Merlo supposed she did always wear her suit, but then again she always had. Was that something she should change now? And to what end?
Anyway, that was beside the point. The woman was intense and strange, unlike anyone she’d met up until now. At first she’d thought to try and avoid her, but had noticed herself not really sticking with it, and winding up in places where they crossed paths anyway. She kind of creeped Merlo out, but also intrigued her further the more they ended up associating. She also kept stealing Merlo’s food.
It wasn’t that she intimidated Merlo, exactly; well, maybe a little. Merlo had a pretty long history of military training, after all; she could take care of herself and she could tell when someone was dangerous. This woman carried herself with a confident ease that was almost arrogant, and seemed very sure of herself. Actually, no one had made her feel quite like she felt when around the newcomer, and she kind of wanted to explore that feeling a little more. Merlo was also beginning to think that the woman might be making advances on her, and she wasn’t completely sure what to think about that, either.
Their other passenger was a bit more enigmatic, or so she supposed. Merlo had gotten some pretty good looks at her as the Kala floated about the Destiny, and she was pretty, extremely pretty, the kind of beautiful that you remembered well after she had made an exit. But Merlo somehow found herself not impressed otherwise. Sure her clothes were fancy, but a lot of them were really weird, too.
Supposedly, being a Kala meant that she was a member of some really important group, but no one had been able to satisfactorily explain what exactly they did or why they were so important. She had kind of gotten the impression that they were a group of people that slept with “clients” for money, and she didn’t see how a group like that could have become that influential, or respected. But there was a lot of crazy stuff in this cluster, so, whatever. Who knew?
To top it all off, Merlo was bored. Her room was kind of empty, over all; Branwen kept trying to get her to buy stuff for it, especially now that she had all of this money. But she didn’t have the first clue where to start, or even what she’d like to have around. She didn’t have a ton of mementos like the Captain did, or a set of various little plants to care for like Zimi, or a… well, whatever Mr. Leonard might have in the engine room to occupy his time.
Holovids had seemed like a pretty good idea at first, but there were literally thousands upon thousands of them, and she just got lost in the extensive library. None of her companions could give her an idea of where to start, since Branwen was new to them too, Mr. Leonard didn’t seem to watch them, and Zimi said she’d been too poor to watch them most of her life. Books were similar, not that Merlo had the patience for those. So even her one or two decent ideas ran into roadblocks.
So mostly, when there was no one to talk to, and no piloting to do or cargo to tend, she just sat around. She’d do some exercise, but the gravity commonly used in this cluster and on the ship still felt too light to her, and it was still too hard to work up a good sweat easily. Sometimes, she read on the Exonet, but that was when she could think of something good to look up, but otherwise that just fell prey to a combination of her problems with books and Holos. Otherwise she’d just eat or lay around wishing there was more piloting to do, like now. Speaking of which, sh
e supposed she might as well go get something to eat.
Tossing aside the datapad, Merlo rolled lithely but lazily off the bed and to her feet. Stretching and yawning, she made her way over to the door to her quarters, which slid quietly open on its own once its sensors realized she was leaving.
That woman was standing there. Merlo froze mid stretch, arms clasped awkwardly. How long had she been standing there? What did she want? She knew Merlo’s quarters, so obviously she’d been—
The tall figure brushed past Merlo and into her room, bumping Merlo’s shoulder and nudging her out of the way with surprising ease. “Hey, what’s going on.” She sat herself with a heavy thud on the edge of Merlo’s bed, plopping down and starting to unwrap an object she’d been holding. The doors slid shut as Merlo turned around, staring at her.
Merlo felt utterly dumbfounded. “What the—? This is my room, you know.” She realized that she must have looked kind of idiotic and put her arms down, taking a couple of steps toward her bed and the stranger occupying its edge.
“Uh, yeah? Why do you think I came in? Where else would you be? You sure as Hel weren’t in the kitchen or the bridge; I checked.” The invader finished unwrapping a sandwich and a couple of large, icing-covered, deep fried snacks.
Merlo just stared at her for a moment. She didn’t honestly know what to say to that. “Um…”
“Why don’t you sit down, or something? You’re weirding me out, just standing there. We’re almost the same height this way.” She patted the bed next to her and slid over a bit to make room, just not a lot of it. After a moment, Merlo complied and sat, crossing her arms across her knees and leaning forward.
“I was actually about to go get something to eat, so I don’t really know—”
“No problem. Here.” Merlo leaned back as the unwrapped sandwich landed in her lap. Bacon. “Brought an extra.” She chomped down on one of the dessert pastries, stuffing a large portion of it into her mouth as Merlo continued to stare.
Destiny Abounds (Starlight Saga Book 1) Page 19
