by DC Bastien
[Sianor: You're not that old, you're mature. Like... wine or cheese.]
[Ashroe: Hah, good save. But yes, when I was growing up, there was one computer in the school and it was locked in a cage. You had an encyclopaedia on a CD, not online. And that was a luxury. You mostly used the books at home or in the library.]
[Sianor: My dad wasn't keen on me having a cellphone until I was in high school.]
[Ashroe: They didn't exist til I was in high school, lol.]
[Sianor: Do you miss it?]
[Ashroe: The days before computers and phones?]
[Sianor: Yeah.]
[Ashroe: Not really. As you can see, I've embraced them. I like being able to ask a friend where they're at when they're late for a dinner date, instead of try to predict what direction they will come from to meet them a few moments sooner. I like being able to write whenever, wherever. I like half-remembering a song, looking it up, and being able to download it. I like needing to know the answers to things and it being fingertips away.]
[Sianor: If you know how to weed through the false answers.]
[Ashroe: Yes, but critical reading has always been essential. There was plenty of scientific backing for the use of trepanning and leeches... bit before my time but you get my meaning.]
[Sianor: Hah, yes, you were just there for the asbestos?]
[Ashroe: Burn!!! Young lady, you are looking for a spanking today!]
[Sianor: Promises, promises!]
[Ashroe: Be careful what you wish for ;)]
[Sianor: You know, without all the technology we'd never have even met.]
[Ashroe: Very true. Before the internet, all the weird geeks had little interaction. You think rarepairs are difficult to support now, or tiny shows are hard to find fans of, imagine what it was like when the best you could do was use the postal system.]
[Sianor: Ugh, yes. I wouldn't ever have written anything but crummy, childish poetry then.]
[Ashroe: Don't remind me of that phase of my life. It is one best forgotten.]
[Sianor: You think we'll ever meet up?]
[Ashroe: Maybe. If this show picks up enough, and the economy stays okay, maybe there will be a convention.]
[Sianor: Over here?]
[Ashroe: Unless you're privately wealthy, I would imagine a student like you would struggle to make it here. I've got more of a disposable income.]
[Sianor: That would be pretty cool.]
[Ashroe: It would. Well. Unless you got fed up of me in person.]
[Sianor: Wouldn't happen. You're too cool... for an old dude.]
[Ashroe: I take it back. I'm not coming.]
[Sianor: Pffffth.]
[Ashroe: See how season two holds out first. I know the ratings were reasonable, but nothing stellar. If they don't get cancelled after season two, they should be okay.]
[Sianor: If you ever do come over, I promise I will bake cookies.]
[Ashroe: Which is the nearest airport, again?]
***
Chapter Eight - Mission: Rejection
"Punch it," Vadim said, as soon as the cargo bay doors shut behind them.
"Right away, Cap'n," Saidhe's voice came over the comms.
"Are you waiting for us to break orbit and into deep space before you brief me?" Peters asked.
"Plausible--"
"--deniability," the Judge concluded. "Yes. Right."
"Good man. You go to your quarters, and be ready to handcuff yourself to the wall if we get boarded. I'll come get you when we're far enough from Lineon."
"Understood."
Vadim went next to the bridge, where everyone was already waiting.
"Whoa. Nice welcoming party."
"We thought we might need to make a violent get-away," Biann explained, wringing her hands. "Kre said she could man the short-range mining lasers, you know, the ones you bought to be illegal weapons in an emergency? And Loap is looking for ways out of the system, and Saidhe is going to follow Loap's suggestions and that just left me, and--"
Vadim put a hand on Biann's shoulder. "And you didn't want to be alone. It's okay, Twinkle, I understand. Why don't you sit in the seat of power and hold that rabid beast of yours."
"He's Saidhe's pet," she said, but she did sit in the Captain's chair.
Vadim wondered why the little shit would move for Biann and Saidhe but not him. Xenophobic little shit.
"How many people did you wound on your way out, Captain?" Loap asked, as the ship started hard evasive manoeuvres.
"How injured do they have to be to count?"
"I will take that as an average number."
"We'll compare how many I shot to how many you send careening into buildings through your navigational prowess, shall we? I'm going to go wash all this muck off. Hail me if you need me to hold you at gunpoint for the alibi."
"I guess that leaves me in control?" Biann joked, scratching Xaix under his chin, making him whirr with pleasure.
"You would probably make a better commander in a time of stress," Loap muttered.
"I should pretend I'm the Cap'n," she said, stifling a nervous giggle. "Do better! Fly more well! Stop hitting things you're not supposed to hit!"
Saidhe grit her teeth together. "...you know, we hit more things when he - you - whoever - distract us."
"Fly more fast! Go up!"
"Saidhe, do I have your permission to--?" Kre started.
"Do what you want to my sister. So long as it doesn't lead to permanent disfigurement, or even more permanent cessation of life."
"Fine!" Biann said, and dropped Xaix onto her shoulder. "I'll go see if the Judge needs company."
"Best idea you've had all night," the other Hleen replied, cheerily.
***
Xaix's tail was wrapped loosely around Biann's neck, his paws braced as she walked away from the bridge, back towards the crew quarters. As it was a small ship, each of the quarters was identically sized, but the decoration and furnishing made each one feel very different. Biann's quarters were jammed with bits of half-completed gadgets and gizmos, big fluffy rugs and various, low-lit lamps and arrays for when she wanted to relax. She stuck her head in to grab a few treats for Xaix, tossing them up in the air for him to catch with his tongue.
"Who's a good little runt? Yes, yes you are," she cooed, feeling better by that act of normalcy. "Let's go see the Judge - you like the Judge. He lets you sit on his warm books. Yes he does..."
"Would you like me to alert him?" Messenger asked.
"Please, Mes!"
Biann lounged against the curved support strut in the corridor, tapping her thumb to each finger in turn, then back, as she hummed a little tune to herself.
"He says you are welcome to join him," Messenger said, and opened the door for her.
"Biann," the Judge greeted.
The Hleen yelped in pain as sharp claws pressed into her shoulder, Xaix arching in fury and hissing, showing teeth. "Hey!"
"He doesn't look happy to see me," Peters said, retreating a little further into his room.
"Stop it, Xaix. It's the Captain who calls you Bitey, not the Judge. You're hurting me!"
Another hiss, and then the little Ru launched himself from her shoulder, barrelling down the corridor at pace and away from them.
"Are you injured?" the Judge asked.
She slipped a hand under her thick shirt, pulling it out to examine her fingertips. "No. Looks like it was just a scratch, not broken the skin at all. But that's so not like him!" She stared at the empty corridor, wondering. He'd only really taken offence once before, and that was when he'd acquired the pet name of 'Mr. Bitey'. There had been extenuating circumstances, though, because it had been the Captain. And that said all you needed to know.
"Must be the smell of the Ur-court, or something I've been around, that called up a bad memory."
"Must be." Biann shook her head. "Here I am, complaining about that runt, when I came to see if you were okay!"
"Well, I am," Peters said, with a slow smile. "Thank you."
"Y
ou sure? I mean, it got the Cap'n pretty worked up. I've never seen him prepared to be so openly... uh..."
"Illegal?"
"...yeah. I mean, he normally just bends rules, not flat out breaks 'em."
"I don't know why he thought it was necessary, but I must bow to his judgement when aboard his vessel. It is, after all, his purview when we are in deep space."
"Well, other than universal law."
"Yes, other than that."
Biann squinted. It was not like the Judge to openly bow to the Captain's authority, even if in some circumstances it was true he did have the final word. Neither of them pulled rank on the other, or openly deferred. Then again, Vadim had never pulled such an outrageous stunt before, either.
"You got no idea why he sprung you?"
"None whatsoever. I was simply discussing my recent pronouncements. There was a break in my debriefing - I assume because of the alarm - and then the Captain appeared."
"Weird as. Okay. Well... can I get you anything? Drink?"
"A glass of lemon tea would be perfect, thank you."
"Sure thing... you just sit yourself down. Saidhe and Loap will get us on a Whale before you can say 'Sorry, Enforcer, it was like that when I got here'..."
***
"Look," Saidhe said, arms folded across her chest. "You ask for an escape plan at short notice, you get an escape plan at short notice."
"And this was seriously the best you could do?"
"Captain, if you would be so kind as to not break laws that could see us all sentenced to consecutive life-terms in heavy penal agriculture, then you could pick and choose where we go. But if you're going to be so brazen about it, then you'll be living on emergency rations for a month in a nursery."
Vadim sighed, looking up at the view screen. He could see the dark, void-black hide of the Whale they'd hitched to, pitted and old. A matriarch, and an old one at that. Her insides were swollen with the young she was preparing to birth, which meant she would go way, way out into the black, far away from civilisation and others of her species. Pregnant matriarchs were the slowest-moving Whales, and when they were this close to birthing they invariably were out for the long-haul.
No one in their right mind would hitch to one, not unless they were prepared for a very long time alone, or had the engines and the craft capable of escaping back to the big, bad world when the Whale got too far from the normal migration lines.
"Fine."
"I think you meant to say: 'thank you'," Saidhe corrected him.
"Yes. Thank you."
That would do. Now he was here and in a (reasonably) pliant mood, she decided it was about time he was debriefed himse.f "Now are you going to explain why you suddenly decided to up and turn pirate on us? We were respectable. At least... superficially so."
"It just didn't sit right with me. I know there's always gonna be racial tension, especially when the majority of the Judges are all one species, but I ain't never seen a Hleen warned off. And that High Judge... she gave me the creeps."
"And this is a good source of decision-making information?" Loap asked, not raising his tone, even though the fine knife-edge of sarcasm was there.
"Yes, it is. You don't get by as long as I have without any black on your record and not have a good sense of right and wrong."
"You were wrong about those Roq." Loap's voice was careful, now.
"...I was. I had a gut instinct, but... the money blinded me, okay? And I kick myself every day over it. I should have trusted my instincts, which is why I wouldn't make the same mistake twice."
"...Captain... speaking of repeated mistakes?"
"What is it, Loap?"
"I believe there is another... unhappy Whale. It is too distant to distinguish yet, but there is most definitely a large object travelling in our direction, very rapidly."
"I thought when they had a bun in the oven that they steered clear of one another?" Vadim asked, walking over to the console to look at the readouts.
"They do," Saidhe answered. "But we also never saw one ram into a ship before, so I'd say there's more about them than we know."
The Captain rolled his eyes heavenward. "Are they on a collision course?"
"Yes. With the Whale. I believe it will strike the other side of the matriarch, and she is changing course to try to evade the second Whale."
"Messenger, get Kre up here. There's science happening."
"Right away, Captain."
***
The old cow-Whale was clearly straining, going as fast as she could. It was close to the maximum known speed that had been recorded prior to the last rogue Whale collision, and the external sensors were flaring up with activity as she cried out with electronic pulse after electronic pulse. So close to term as she was, it had to be risking her offspring, putting such effort into evading the other Whale.
"It is... unlike any call I have ever seen before," Kre said, her eyes flickering over line after line of input. "I would assume it is a distress call, a plea, or a threat."
"Well, which?" Vadim asked.
"Although I cannot be certain, I would assume it is the first two. This matriarch is very advanced in age, from her size and the marks upon her hide. It must be her last brood. We know they are intensely private when they are with calf, because they do not even permit the company of other Whales."
"You gotta wonder what is going on with a species that hides its babies from others of the same kind," Vadim mused.
"Maybe the children are really very annoying?" Saidhe suggested.
"Actually, that makes a lot of sense. Kids always drive me crazy. If I got someone pregnant, I'd like them to fly off into deep space to give birth."
"And that is why you are single, Captain."
"Yep. Happily so."
"The other Whale is not the same one that hit us previously," Kre said, in an attempt to bring the topic back around. "The markings are distinct. I did check the registration on the previous encounter, and it was known from a brood just thirty years ago. It has just reached maturity."
"What about this one?" Loap asked. "Can you see if there is a connection?"
"Yes, it... it is a similar age, but from another sector. Interesting."
"There must be some link we're not getting, some reason for all this crazy."
Kre smoothed the fur of her hip, above her belt, with nervous distraction. "Captain, we simply do not know enough about this species. We are unable to communicate with them, and they seem to be oblivious or uncaring of our existence. With their long life-spans, we have yet to study one from birth to death. It could be that there is a larger pattern to this behaviour, and that the cycle is simply so long as to predate our spaceflight civilisations."
"Maybe they finally got sick of us hitching lifts all over the place?" Saidhe asked. "Maybe they think we're lazy, and they want us to stop?"
"If that is the case, then interstellar trade, travel, plus political and legal government as we know it would cease," Loap said. A pause, and he shuddered. "Imagine the consequences if the Whales simply... left."
"I don't want to," Vadim said. "Unless I'm already on a nice planet, in which case sure. Somewhere with some decent beaches, snowy slopes, good food..."
"...not stuck in the black, battered to bits by an angry space-cow?"
"Precisely."
"The other Whale is approaching fast," Kre warned them.
"All hands, brace for impact!"
There was a pause, and then everything jumped harder than the inertial dampening and artificial gravity could handle, sending anything not tied down flying sideways, up, or both. Vadim grabbed hold of the back of Kre's chair, and then Kre's shoulder.
"Tell me what's happening, people!" he barked out.
"There is no damage, Captain," came Messenger's soothing voice.
"Not to us," Kre added. "But our ride is... well."
On the display screen, there was a sudden flare of baby-pink debris. It looked like large chunks of meat, floating in the airless void
between swirls of liquid.
Saidhe gasped. "Is that...?"
"I believe the wild Whale has injured the matriarch," Kre said, sounding similarly shocked. "That is... that is a sizeable amount of... of..."
"It bit her?" Vadim asked.
"...yes. And..."
Kre stopped then, because as their vessel shook violently, the screens lit up with the Whale's screams of protest. She bucked and turned, and they could see straight-on the other Whale, which was pulling tiny, wriggling calves from her side, and throwing them into the void.
"Shut off the screen," Vadim said.
"Captain, what if we need to--?" Loap started.
