by M. D. Cooper
“Clones?” Jessica asked.
Finaeus let out a sigh of relief as he looked at this second Lisa’s face. “Must be. Stars in heaven, what have you been up to, Lisa?”
“Lisa?” Nance asked as she led Cheeky past them toward the medbay. “You know her? Them?”
“This is a lot of random questions,” Jessica said. “Can someone explain what’s going on?”
Finaeus stared at the Lisa Jessica held, still trying to process what was happening. “She sure acted like it.”
Cheeky giggled and looked back at Finaeus. “Talk about having a psycho ex!”
“No ki—” Finaeus began when a shuttle set down in the spot just vacated by the Sexy.
“Now what?” he muttered, then spotted the name Laren III on the shuttle’s tail fin.
As she spoke, the Laren III’s airlock opened up and Trevor walked out, a woman slung over his shoulder. Cargo came through a moment after, and then the shuttle lifted off again before settling down the next row over.
The two men walked up the ramp, Cargo looking sour, and Trevor grinning like a cheshire cat.
“Miss us?” Trevor asked as he walked past Finaeus.
“Yeah, sure. We were all tears and tissues without you.” Finaeus rolled his eyes. “Who’s the sack of potatoes?”
Cargo spat on the ramp before stepping onto the ship. “Captain of the Laren. We brought her as insurance, but seems like Jessica and Nance already managed to find Cheeky and her abductor.”
“And Sabs and I defended the ship against infiltration,” Finaeus added with a grin. “What’d you two do?”
“Beat the stuffing out of some pissant freighter dickheads who thought they were hot shit,” Trevor said and then patted the ass of the woman held over his shoulder. “Gonna mount this one’s head on my wall.”
“Trevor!” Jessica cried out with a gagging sound. “That’s…just disturbing.”
Trevor chuckled. “Yeah, I guess that’s kinda gross when you say it aloud. It was funnier in my head.”
“Seriously,” Finaeus said. “Why’d you bring her?”
“Well, until two minutes ago, we thought she was going to lead us to whoever hired her, and then to Cheeky.”
Cargo held a hand up in frustration. “What in the stars are these Lisas everyone keeps talking about?”
“I booked our departure on the way over,” Jessica said as she walked across the bay and wrapped her arms around Trevor. “You look like shit, hon. Your trophy has a nice ass, though. Is that the part you want to mount?”
“Whoa, too much double entendre for me there,” Trevor said with a laugh.
“Put her in Hold 3,” Cargo said. “Everyone, meet on the bridge in ten. I need to clean up first.”
* * * * *
Jessica was the last one to walk onto the bridge, freshly showered and back in her favorite purple shipsuit.
“Took your time,” Cargo grunted.
“You said we had ten minutes,” Jessica said as she sat at her console.
“It’s been almost fifteen,” Cargo replied.
Jessica sighed. “Cargo. Nance and I had to get to the armory to pull our armor off, and then shower. It’s a miracle I made it this fast.”
“I made it in ten,” Nance replied. “I don’t need to shower, though—wait, neither do you, Jessica, what are you talking about?”
“When I do a big discharge in armor like that, my skin gets a weird smell. It’s hard to describe, like ozone sweat. It’s really unpleasant.”
“OK, well, now that Jessica’s fresh as a daisy—” Cargo began, only to be interrupted by Trevor who leant over and buried his nose in Jessica’s hair, taking a long breath. “Trevor…seriously.”
“Sorry, it does smell really good.”
Cargo sighed. “Sometimes I think I’m the father and you’re my unruly brood.”
Cheeky was leaning against the back of her pilot’s seat and flashed a mischievous smile. “So, if you’re the dad. Who’s the mom? I kinda feel like it would be Jessica. But then she’s cheating on you with Trevor.”
“I’m definitely not the ship’s mom,” Jessica said with a snort. “Ship’s mom is definitely Nance.”
“Me!” Nance squeaked. “Why is everyone always calling me mom?”
“Because you do the most scolding,” Finaeus said with a wink as he leant over and pinched her arm.
“Fin! Stop that! I’ll make you scrub—” Nance stopped as half the crew burst out laughing. She sighed. “OK, maybe you have a point. But dad and I have a purely platonic relationship. Don’t go getting any ideas, Cheeky.”
Cheeky raised her hands and grinned. “I don’t play match maker anymore. I’m monogamous now.”
“I don’t really see how those two things are related,” Jessica said.
“I’d like to think that we have a more symbiotic relationship,” Cheeky said with a wink.
“Great, now that we’ve got this out of our systems, can we all get up to speed on what the hell is going on?” Cargo asked.
Over the next ten minutes, each group related their experiences and what they’d learned from the Lisas and Captain Hunter.
“You know what this means, right?” Jessica asked, looking around at the crew.
“Yeah,” Misha nodded. “We’re made. Not only does the Orion Freedom Alliance know we’re here, they know what ship this is, and they know that good ol’ Finaeus is aboard.”
“We’re close to the inner edge of Orion space,” Cheeky said. “We could skip around inhabited systems, not make any more stops ‘til we get to the Inner Stars.”
Cheeky brought up a display of the path they’d planned to take to the Inner Stars. “There are a few red dwarfs that don’t appear to have any settlements. We could stop at those, scoop fuel off the star or gas giants.”
Erin replied and a few other routes lit up on the star chart.
Jessica nodded. “I know I would.”
Cheeky threw her hands into the air. “Well, what are we going to do, then? Just drift home at sublight? See you in ten-thousand years, guys.”
“We work out the best route, and take calculated risks,” Cargo said. “It’s no different than what we’ve been doing all along.”
“We’re going to need to get a lot more supplies if we’re in the black for a year,” Misha said. “Can we postpone our dust-off?”
Cargo shook his head. “No. Like Sabrina said, there could be more of those Lisas around. We need to get gone.”
“We need to find out if there are more, and what their plan is…was,” Jessica added.
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“I could talk to her…hers…one of her,” Finaeus offered.
Finaeus blew out a long breath. “I’m really not sure. Now that I think of it…she’d probably get more out of me than the other way around.”
“Mature of you to realize that,” Jessica said.
“Look at me, all growed up.”
Nance laughed. “And it only took six thousand years.”
“How’s it feel to know that the enemy has a whole secret task force made up of your ex-wife?” Misha grinned and gave Finaeus a light punch on the shoulder.
“Shit, Misha, like shit. Those aren’t my ex-wife, those are clones. And they know they’re clones. Which means that they’re fucking nuts.”
“Why’s that?” Misha asked.
“Because,” Jessica said as she ran a hand through her hair. “Clones are made for one reason: they’re expendable. You can’t take a useful human subject, clone them to duplicate that usefulness and let them know they’re clones. At best, they’re reckless. At worst they kill themselves. En masse. It’s happened before.”
“What if the source subject was just so good at her job that they could only achieve her skill level with clones?” Cheeky asked. “Then they’re not made that way because they’re expendable, it’s because they’re prized.”
“Is that why they made her so gross?” Cheeky asked. “All disfigured?”
“It’s a form of psychological manipulation. The Lisas’s—the Widows,” Finaeus said and stopped for a moment. “I’d rather think of her that way. It’s more fitting.”
Everyone nodded and waited for him to continue.
“The Widows aren’t people. They’re things. They were created for a specific task. They were made to do a thing and to it well. But their creators wouldn’t allow them to have personal attachments. No family, no friends. Nothing. They’re hunters and killers.”
Finaeus nodded slowly, his lips pressed into a thin line.
“Seeing you must have triggered something,” Jessica said. “That would explain why she was so reckless.”
“Yeah,” Finaeus said in agreement. “That’s why you don’t use clones. You can condition them all you want, but it’s fragile. The wrong stimuli, the wrong thought process and boom. It all falls apart.
“Plus it’s slavery,” Cheeky added.
Finaeus grunted and shook his head. “That too.”
Cargo slowly stroked his chin. “I wonder if there’s a chance that these Li—these Widows went rogue. Maybe they didn’t report us to their superiors.”
“It’s possible.” Finaeus shrugged.
“Well, then,” Jessica said, looking to Cheeky. “Looks like our first stop is the Widow’s ship on Ur. We’ll see if we can pull anything from their logs. We’ll also need to see if we can get anything out of them.”
“That’s all you,” Cargo said to Jessica. “You’re our resident cop. You know all about the bright lights and the sharp sharp knives.”
“I don’t see how you’ll get anything out of them,” Nance said. “Torture doesn’t work—not with people like these.”
Jessica snorted. “Not if you do it wrong. It’s not about what people say, it’s about what they don’t say. You talk and talk and watch the things they dance around, or the things they give up too easily.”
“Surely a good operative knows that too,” Nance said. “It’s all misdirection.”
“Hints and clues,” Jessica replied. “We’re not looking for a roadmap. We need hints and clues. We can then correlate that against other stuff, like what we learn from their ship.”
“What about Captain Hunter?” Trevor asked.
“We’ll keep her in the hold for now and dump her when we leave Ur,” Cargo replied. “I’ve left a message for her officers—when they wake up—that their good behavior will ensure her health and wellness.”
Jessica pushed off from the console. “I guess I’d best get to work on our guests.”
WIDOWSPEAK
STELLAR DATE: 03.11.8948 (Adjusted Years)
LOCATION: Parda City Spaceport, Ferra, Sullus System
REGION: Midway Cluster, Orion Freedom Alliance Space
Sabrina was lifting off from the Parda City Spaceport as Jessica sat down across from the two Widows. The three of them were in a hidden compartment off Hold 7 that possessed strong nano and physical defenses.
Grav fields held the two women suspended in the air, their bodies locked in place by the graviton’s tight grip. The grav field was just the first line of defense. Should it fail, stasis would snap into place around the prisoners.
If that didn’t hold them, the ten autoturrets in the room would do the trick.
Or Jessica could just fry them herself.
The two Widows didn’t speak, their eyes calm and emotionless, long nostril slits flaring slightly as they drew in deep breaths.
“Look at the two of you,” Jessica said after they stared at one another for a minute. “You’re like a monument to Orion’s failings. Their best operatives, unable to take out the crew of one little freighter.”
Neither of the Widows spoke, but Two—the one Jessica had fought on the Peerless Transport shuttle—glanced at One for a moment. Perhaps One had jumped the gun boarding Sabrina.
“We matched up your ship with one we spotted four systems back. Is that how long you’ve been following us? That was just about three months ago.”
Again, neither of the Widows replied.
“Finaeus thinks that you found us around then, not earlier. He think’s you’re too impetuous to hold off for that long. Me? I think you’re more patient than he gives you credit for. I mean, you have this whole gleaming black female killing machine thing going on, that implies a lot of skulk-in-the-shadows-and-wait attitude.”
Of course, the two Widows were not in their black stealth-suits anymore. Those were safe and secure in a stasis pod—just in case they contained any surprises. The Widows’ only clothing now was a simple grey shift for each.
“I guess we shouldn’t be surprised,” Jessica said with a slow nod. “I mean, you’re not idiots, right? Eventually someone had to investigate RHY’s screwup at the Naga System. And then eventually someone would have realized the ship that hit Marsalla and destroyed the planet was the same ship that had been in Bollam’s World—though Sabrina looks quite a bit different now, so maybe that wasn’t such a certainty.”
Neither of the Widows so much as blinked, and Jessica rose from her chair to pace in front of them. “To think of the logistics that would have to be in place to take us down. You’d need a system where you knew we’d be, a way to manage a clean snatch of our ship and Finaeus. Probably me too.”
Jessica stopped her pacing and turned to look at the two women. “Oh! That’s it! You were never after Cheeky. You wanted to hit me, but I went outside at the last minute to do my impression of a sunflower.
“Plan seems weak, though. You had to know that the two of you weren’t enough to take this ship and crew. At least not with any real certainty. Which means…”
Jessica stopped to tap her chin before glancing at the two Widows once more. “You ladies are great sounding boards. I should come bounce ideas off you more often. I can’t help but think that maybe you jumped the gun. That you were supposed to wait for reinforcements. Either that or you overestimate yourselves. Fina
eus said you do that a lot. He said you’re prone to rash decisions and poor choices. It was one of the reasons he left you.”
“He didn’t—” one of the Widows—the one who had boarded Sabrina—began, but the other barked, “A93. Stop!”
“A93?” Jessica asked. “What a lovely alphanumeric designation they gave you. I guess you can’t all go around calling each other ‘Lisa’ all the time. That would get confusing.”
She walked around the two Widows, watching their muscles tense, their breathing, heartrate, assessing all their reactions.
“Not that it matters. A93 and…” Jessica said, then waited for the other Widow to speak. “No? Not going to offer up your digits? Oh well, you’ll still be Number Two in my records then. Unfortunate. You seem to be the one who was less…crazy.”
A93’s lips curled into a sneer. “Let me out of this field and I’ll show you crazy.”
Jessica held up a hand and splayed her fingers wide. Tendrils of energy arced between her fingers, running along the superconductor lines within her skin. “You didn’t see this, what with our resident ancient man kicking your ass, A93, but your friend Number Two did. If you were to ‘show me crazy’, I think it would just end up with me cooking that pasty white skin of yours.”
A93 pursed her lips, and Jessica suspected she would have ground her teeth—had she any to grind.
“I suppose I’ll just go, then,” Jessica said after a minute. “You’re not really that interesting, and given that you jumped the gun, we have more than enough time to get out of here. We’re so deep in the retro-zone anyway, that I doubt we need to worry about any help coming your way.”
The moment she said those words, Jessica activated the stasis field and froze the two Widows in place.
A93’s mouth was open, and the other, likely more stable of the two, was glaring at her.
“Something about how we’re going to get it,” Jessica replied as she stepped up to the other Widow and looked in her eyes.
