by Sara King
Rabbit scowled at Pete, then pushed the back door open. “Come on.”
After a moment’s hesitation, Pete fell in behind Rabbit, still holding his side. Stuart followed, shutting the door behind them.
A Fairy’s Busted Wings
Athenais was in the middle of nodding off when a garbled crackle filled the control room. At first, she thought Dune was ineptly trying to use Squirrel’s fancy new intercom system again and she moved to push the send button to guide him through it, only to realize that the intercom was down, the console dark. Confused, she stared at the panel, wondering why the control lights were off. She’d have to get Squirrel to check the wiring. She started to get up when the garble came again, clearer this time.
Longship Beetle, this is Aurora. You’ve drifted out of your last known coordinates. Do you copy?
Aurora was Rabbit’s ship. Athenais sat up and fumbled again for the intercom. She took the remote and held it to her ear and said, “Rabbit, I’m thinking about painting Beetle blue so it blends in with Penoi. What do you think?”
No answer.
Athenais pulled the dark intercom remote away from her ear and stared at it. The LED flashlight would burn for another month before she needed to buy new batteries. Still, she was having trouble seeing the block of metal in her hand. Why was everything so dark? She felt like rolling over and using her chair leg as a pillow.
The garbled call came again, but it was not from the intercom. Athenais frowned at the control console for long minutes, staring at the square of blackness that had emitted the sound. Why was Rabbit in the controls? Shouldn’t he be back at The Shop, making sure his whores didn’t cheat him out of his money?
Longship Beetle, this is Aurora. Last call. You’ve drifted out of your LKC’s and we can’t pinpoint your location. Your power-cell is not on the ship, so we have no way to trace you… There was a brief pause before someone said, They’ve run out of air already.
Run out of air!
Athenais jerked and scuttled over to the controls, dropping the intercom remote. She snatched up the communications handset and depressed the SEND button with numb fingers. “Rabbit, I don’t know where the hell I am, but I can hear you, so you’re close.” She released the button and waited.
Gasping for air, Athenais collapsed back onto the floor, exhausted.
The silence hung in the air like a death knell. Athenais watched furry little space-rats crawl across the ceiling of her cockpit.
Athenais, we’re pinpointing your location. Give us another send.
Athenais brought the handset to her face and pressed the button. “I think I’m gonna need to invest in some rat poison.”
Seconds ticked by as her message radiated outward through space. It took over a minute for Rabbit to relay his response.
Negative. The Utopis killed Smallfoot after he turned over the shifters.
Athenais shook her head violently. “No, the rats. They’re everywhere.”
There was another long pause.
How many are still alive, Athenais?
“All of them,” she replied, glancing up at the hundreds of rats crawling across her ceiling. “Damn it, I’m gonna need an exterminator. Can’t find my damn gun.”
Just hold on. We found you. Gonna feel a bump as we connect, so hold tight. Then, in the background, she heard, She’s hallucinating.
Athenais scoffed at that. She didn’t do tanga-weed. She hated that stuff. Made her eyes water. Like rubbing her nose in a damn onion.
Athenais’s world suddenly jolted and the rats overhead lost their grip on the ceiling and fell on her, hissing their displeasure. She cried out and threw them off, gasping as she backed against the control panel, her eyes wide. She grasped the flashlight in a white-knucked fist and held it up to ward off the rats, which were closing on her angrily, snarling.
Another bump jarred her head against the console and the rats fled. Somewhere nearby, she heard running feet. She closed her eyes as the warmth of sleep returned to her.
Suddenly, everything was too bright. The air was filled with a soft whooshing sound and she felt a breeze against her cheek. How nice.
“Attie.” The soft, calming voice was followed by a hard slap to the face.
Athenais screeched and stood up, ready to crush the rat responsible. Then her eyes focused and she realized it was a rabbit, not a rat. She lost her footing, her head swimming.
“Easy, Attie, it’s me. Rabbit.”
Athenais peered into his thin, mustached face. “What the hell are you doing on my ship? I told you you weren’t allowed onboard without warning me first.”
“Where are the others, Attie? If you’re still conscious, they might be alive.”
“Others?” And then she remembered. “That son of a bitch! I’ll kill him!” She pushed Rabbit aside and reached for her gun. Then she realized her gun was what Smallfoot had used to blow her head apart.
“Calm down,” Rabbit growled, grabbing her by the arm. “Smallfoot’s already dead.”
Athenais’s heart caught in her throat. “And Ragnar?”
“Utopis took him. Under command of a Colonel Howlen.”
Athenais peered up at the stranger who had spoken. “Who the hell are you?”
“Stuart,” the man replied.
Athenais narrowed her eyes at the shifter, then grunted and waved Rabbit away from her. “Get off me. I need to check the engine room.”
“I brought a spare. Good for a few months, at least. You can buy a new one when we get to Terra-9. Where are the others, Attie?”
Athenais frowned at him, then said, “The mess hall. The four of them were playing cards.”
The stranger trotted off, leaving Athenais with Rabbit.
“Excuse me.”
Athenais’s head snapped up.
The redhead who had spoken blushed. “I know this isn’t exactly the right time, but I really need to use your regen chamber.”
Indeed, he looked as pale as a dead fish. Athenais told him so.
“Probably some internal bleeding,” the guy agreed. “Mind if I just saunter on in there, then? I know how to use it.”
“Who the hell are you?” Athenais growled. “A shifter wouldn’t have to use a regen room.”
The redhead gave her a pained smile. He opened his mouth, but Rabbit gave him a sharp glance and said, “He’s a friend of mine. Got a couple ribs broken helping Stuart out. Isn’t exactly on the right side of the law, so I told him he could use your facilities.”
“Generous of you,” Athenais muttered, wondering what Rabbit had stopped the kid from saying.
The shifter came running back, panting.
“How are they?”
“Alive. The whole room smelled like tanga-weed. Even though they’re awake, they’re prolly gonna be hallucinating for a few more hours.”
“Goddamn Goat,” Athenais said. She got to her feet. “Were you the only one to get free?”
Stuart nodded.
“What do you know about the Potion, shifter? Can you get us into Marceau’s compound?”
Stuart frowned. “I thought you’d want to go after the other three…”
“I didn’t ask you what you thought,” Athenais barked. “Utopis’ve got them. When they interrogate them, it’s all gonna come out. If we’re going to make this work, we need to get to Millennium ahead of the information. So can you get us inside or not?”
“Ragnar’s the only one who’s been on the inside. Paul and Morgan know all the codes.”
“Then what damn good are you?!” Athenais demanded.
Stuart shrugged. “I’m just along for the ride.”
“Goddamn it.” She glanced at the redhead. “Can either of you navigate a ship? Looks like we’ve got to get those shifters back. Fast.”
“Attie, I’ve got the clamps in place,” Rabbit began awkwardly. “Aurora can tow her—”
“We’re not towing her anywhere.” She swiveled on the redhead. “You. You can read? Well, good. That qualifies you to
be my navigator. Sit down. No, you’ll get the regen chamber later, after my goddamn nav guy wakes up. Rabbit, get off my ship. Go fill me in over secure com. I want to get moving now.”
“I should probably go replace your core first, then, eh?”
“Well, obviously,” Athenais growled.
Rabbit sighed, then gathered up his flashlight and left.
Minutes later, Beetle was slinging through space, Athenais fuming at the controls. “Species Operations. Of all the meddling government agencies, why did we have the bad luck to get Species Operations?!” She scowled down at the debris grid. “Those bastards are thirty percent paranoid, eighty percent asshole, and a hundred percent scumbag.”
“Stuart’s a suzait, you know.”
Athenais’s head snapped up and she scowled at her navigator. “What did you say?”
The redhead shrugged. “I don’t know why they didn’t want to tell you, but seemed to me like you should know. The reason I’m here and not back on Havoc was that I had the bad luck of trying to help him to his feet.” He tapped the side of his skull. “Little bastard brained me.”
Athenais’s brows furrowed. “A suzait? Are you sure?”
He looked at her like she’d asked if turds were brown. “Uh, yeah. Pretty sure.”
Athenais couldn’t believe it. “He took you as a host? And you’re still walking?”
“Seems he’s a humane little parasite.” Pete laughed. “Spent a good portion of the time apologizing for taking me. Coulda squished him, but I didn’t.”
Athenais’s jaw clenched so hard it began to ache. Through teeth that hurt from the pressure she was putting on her jaws, she gritted, “They told me. He was. A. Shifter.”
Pete shrugged. “Just thought you should know what you’re dealing with.”
“And Rabbit just foisted him off on me, knowing the little bastard would just loooove to get his hands on one of the originals. Hell, that was probably their plan from the beginning—”
“Asteroid,” Pete said.
“Huh?”
“Asteroid,” he repeated, poking a finger at her debris grid. Athenais screeched and pulled the nose of the ship up ninety degrees in a maneuver that threw Pete out of his chair. With forward momentum, they still came only a kilometer from smacking into the gigantic space rock.
Once they were clear, Athenais resumed her course hunched over the debris grid. Pete climbed back into his seat and chuckled nervously. “I think you broke another rib.”
“That’s what the harness is for.”
He gave the confusing jumble of straps at the back of his chair a dubious look. “Yeah. I guess so.”
The room was silent for several minutes.
“So you been to the Academy?”
Pete looked up. “Nah. N.C.O. Corporal. Just watched the pilot on Havoc. I’m not really even a navigator, but I’ve read enough books to know how to do it.”
Athenais raised a brow at him. “Books?”
“Yeah, I like to read. Sounds pretty easy. Just look up the numbers, dial it in, and away you go. Right?”
Athenais scoffed, unable to even begin to explain the soul involved in navigation—the gut instincts, the uncanny knowing when the numbers in the book were wrong, the power of a good prayer.
“Why,” he asked carefully, “you lookin’ to replace your navigator?”
Athenais scoffed. “Goat’s a weeder and he’s got a permanent place in history under B.O., but he’s the best navigator I’ve ever seen. No. I’m not.”
“Oh.” Pete looked disappointed.
“I’m looking for a new pilot.”
He frowned. “Thought you had a pilot. She almost outmaneuvered Admiral Boyle. Had us all holdin’ onto our asses, that one. Talked to a guy who was in the cockpit when it all went down. I’ll be damned if the Admiral wanted to hire her, pirate and everything.”
Now there’s a kid who’s got soul, Athenais thought. Too bad she’s got as much brainpower as a chimpanzee. Sighing, “She got me into this mess by spilling my secrets. I don’t take people on Beetle that can’t keep secrets.”
Pete flushed. “Guess that marks me off the list, then.”
The thought that the no-name kid with the droopy face and hand tremor could replace Fairy was laughable, but Athenais owed him for telling her about the suzait. For that, she resisted the urge to laugh in his face. “No,” she said, “I’m talking about people keeping my secrets. The little twit went and overheard my conversation with Ragnar, so she ran off to tell Smallfoot. She’s lucky I don’t dump her in space.”
Pete glanced at Athenais. “She stayed with you, didn’t she?”
“She was stupid.”
“She’s loyal. You can’t buy something like that.”
“Yes you can,” Athenais snorted.
He raised an eyebrow. “Until someone with a bigger wad comes along.”
“I’ve got the biggest wad.”
“For now.”
“Listen, kid, I’m one of the five oldest critters in the known galaxy. I’ve got my stashes, okay?”
“What about that Rabbit fellah?” the redhead asked. “The way he just went onto the first ship at dock and bought the power core from its captain, no questions asked, kinda made me feel like the guy is made of money.”
Irritated, Athenais said, “So she had a brief episode of guilt. She still almost got us all killed.”
“But you can bet she won’t make the same mistake twice.” He grinned and tapped his ear. “Learning’s a bitch.”
Athenais narrowed her eyes at him. “Who the hell are you to take her side? You don’t even know her, and you’re already acting like you’re part of my crew!”
Pete shrugged and went back to his screen.
“Rabbit hired you, didn’t he?” She cursed and slammed her fist into the console. “I knew that romantic little twit was up to something. Never has had the heart to kill what needs killing.”
Pete snorted. “They brought me along ‘cause Stuart wouldn’t let Rabbit kill me like he wanted.”
The room fell silent again.
“So you really had a suzait in your head?”
Pete shrugged. “Only for a day. Kind of like watching a vid.”
Athenais shuddered. “It’s horrible.”
Pete gave her a surprised look. “You, too?”
“Prolly why the meddling little twerp didn’t tell me about the worm.”
“Oh?”
“Long time ago,” Athenais winced, remembering. “Before S.O. really got in gear and started wiping them out. One of my buyers turned on me. Sold me to a suzait colony. Lived with that bastard for nineteen years before a head injury shocked him long enough for me to blow him away.”
Pete raised an eyebrow and she watched his gaze trail over her skull, obviously trying to locate the exit wound. “Uh… Sounds painful.”
“It was.”
Clearing his throat, Pete said, “Suzait colony? Sounds a little…disturbing.”
Athenais snorted. “Tell me about it.” She sighed, making a slight course adjustment. “There were a bunch, long time ago. Right after Marceau signed the One Species charter and the S.O. killed off the harra. Turns out, humans are just as good a host as a goddamn spidery lookin’ thing.”
“Harra?” Pete said, his slurry tongue stumbling around the foreign word.
Athenais shrugged. “Critters the suzait used before humans. Almost exclusively, I might add. Then when the S.O. started wiping ‘em all out, the worms decided humans looked tasty, after all, and then we had a war on our hands. Almost lost it, too. Hell, haven’t really won it yet, either. There were colonies all over the four quadrants, and even more in the Black. No way they coulda gotten them all.” She glanced at Pete, then at the doorway where she had last seen the parasite. “As evidenced.”
Pete gave her an odd look. “Just how old are you?”
“A little over seven.”
He blinked. “Hundred?”
“Thousand.”
P
ete stared at her. He opened his mouth, but no sound came out.
“Cap’in, you just about bashed my head in on that last run. What’s chasin’ us?”
Goat was standing in the doorway, holding his matted scalp. The smell was already filling the control room, making Pete flinch. Athenais was used to it by now, so she ignored it.
“Just avoiding debris. The rest of them awake yet?”
Goat groaned. “The other three ain’t got any tolerance for the green. Who’s that?” He frowned at Pete and dragged a hand across his face.
“Came in with Rabbit,” Athenais said, grateful to see her navigator. “Come take his spot. He’s been needing to use the regen room.”
Goat stumbled over to the controls and Pete released them reluctantly, giving Goat an apprehensive glance as he sat down.
Pete hovered behind Goat’s seat for several minutes before the weeder turned on him and said, “Git. Go do your business and leave me to mine.”
Pete gave them a confused look. “You’ll just let me go? By myself? Who’s gonna make sure I don’t steal a gun and take over the ship?”
“Speaking of that,” Athenais said, twisting to gesture at the hall, “I got another pistol in my room, under my bed. First door on the right. If you could grab it for me on the way back, that’d be great.”
As the baffled-looking corporal turned to go, Goat added, “And if you see Squirrel, tell her to get in here and fix the wiring. It’s as cold as a witch’s tit in here.”
“That’s the tanga-weed,” Athenais said.
Goat shrugged.
“Which one’s Squirrel?” Pete asked.
“The one wearing half a set of overalls,” Goat said.
“Okay,” Pete said. Hesitating at the door, he stepped into the hall and disappeared.
“Overalls?” Athenais demanded, glancing at her friend.
“You think that’s funny, she and Dune swapped some stuff, somewhere along the line. He ended up wearing a boa.”
Athenais groaned. “The pink one.”
Goat swiveled to look at her, surprise in his face. “How’d you know?”
Athenais resisted the urge to imprint the front of her face into her console. Before she could help herself, she said, “Just hope Fairy doesn’t have access to a camera, or those two’ll never hear the end of it.” Then, realizing what she’d said, Athenais went silent.
