by Martin HC
Another surprise for him was the amount of empty drinks glasses in front of Jill, along with the amused and smiling expression on her face as she sat, giggling to herself.
Jill seen Damon approach first, she tried to straighten herself, to return an element of seriousness to her persona that had been allowed to slip away, and failed miserably.
“Who's this?”
“That's Bob, he's alright.”
“Is he, Bob this is now a private party.”
The man didn't answer at first, his polite appearance never faltered and he smiled, put down his drink and stood up.
“Of course, I was only interested in a chat and had no intent to intrude, thank you all for the fantastic conversation and Jill, please say goodbye to Haydn for me.”
Jill just nodded and watched him leave the bar, she didn't feel bad at all, usually it would've been her giving him the marching orders.
“So I guess we're all enjoying ourselves today then,” Damon spoke in a mocking tone, “why is it I've never seen you enjoy yourself like this, am I not fun enough?”
“Pretty much,” she answered, trying to maintain the seriousness of her look, while still failing. “And don't be having no worries Cap, I have it all under control,” she said as Haydn was returning.
It was always Brenn's trick to get blind drunk, he even managed to sleep through his own ship exploding when they met Haydn, Jill on the other hand was the one who always knew her limits, who was always suspicious and always cautious.
“Hey Damon finally got here, there's another round coming,” Haydn shouted out. “Jill's been great, why didn't you tell me she was so funny? And where's bob?”
“I honestly didn't know, I've never heard her tell a joke, and Bob had to leave,” he replied. “Nice to see she's doing a good job of watching you though.”
“I've been watching him all day, he's fine, see.”
Haydn began laughing, “your hair's still pink and purple,” he told her.
She looked at him and laughed back.
“Did you know she can change her hair colour? I mean it's amazing right, I wish I could do that.”
“Yes, I know about the hair,” he answered as another round of drinks came in.
“I don't see what's so amazing about it, you two have been laughing like children for the last hour while drinking yourselves stupid,” to Damon's surprise it was Tiralyn who spoke up. “I'll still never understand why you voluntarily drink that stuff.”
“Oh lighten up Tira,” Haydn replied to the girl, “it's nice of you to join us by the way.”
Damon noticed she'd changed somehow, she was sitting differently and her facial expression was more of annoyance and irritation, the eyes went from a passive acceptance of everything around, to having a depth of life. The shortening of her name from Tiralyn to Tira hadn't slipped his attention either, there was more going on here but he couldn't figure out what.
Picking up his drink Damon raised it to his lips but Tira snapped her attention to him, despite his size he could feel himself mentally sink into his chair, his glass seemed to lower itself to the table as he withered under the glare of the girl who stared up at him from across the table.
“You've been gone this entire time, what did you find out and where is the other?”
He looked to Haydn, who shrugged and nodded towards the newly renamed Tira, gesturing for him to answer.
“Brenn's staying somewhere else for the night, somewhere where the men and women are more accommodating... and there's good and bad news for you,” he started uncertainly. “The person we need to speak to will meet with us, the bad news is she's off station so won't be here till tomorrow afternoon, until then we're her guests, and all of our expenditure will be covered, by her.”
“That's nice of her, I thought you said she was bad news,” Haydn said.
“Why would she be so generous?” Tira asked suspiciously.
“Well, she works directly for one of the cartel families who control large parts of this station, so anyone with a need to see or speak to her must be important, otherwise they wouldn't dare waste her time,” he answered flatly.
“Ah, I get it now,” Haydn said.
“If there is something on this station Haydn, and I can feel there is, then we should just take it and leave,” Tira told him.
This kind of talk began to make Damon nervous, the walls had ears in a place like this and stealing from the cartels only tended to get things broken, things like bones... if you were lucky.
“We can't just take it, we'll have the cartel on our backs for life,” Damon told her.
“I do not fear the cartel, they couldn't possibly hurt us,” she snapped back.
“And what about me and my crew, they could most certainly hurt us.”
She stopped at this and settled back down for a bit in thought, Haydn took advantage of the silence.
“He's right Tira, we have to think about everyone, not just that but if there's someone willing to talk to us, we should at least listen, I mean when was the last time we could just sit somewhere without being chased out.”
Tira softened slightly at this, “what would you know, you're drunk.”
“Doesn't make me wrong though.”
“Fine, but anything happens that I don't like, I'm pulling us out.”
“Deal,” he simply stated.
The change in Tira was less subtle this time because Damon knew to look for it, she sat up straight and her eyes once again adopted the same passive look they always had.
“What happened there?” Damon asked.
“That, was her,” Haydn answered.
“Her?”
“Yes the she her, when we were on my ship you asked about the second her, well that was her.”
“Is there something wrong with her,” Jill asked
“A lot, but she's getting better.”
“She's intense.”
“We're just used to always running, we haven't really met anyone else we could trust until you tried to blow us up... Jill,” he said, putting the bold emphasis on her name. “But she's always there for me and she's the one who saved all your lives, not me.”
“I thought you were going to crash into us, you were so close, or attack us or something bad anyway,” she shot back defensively.
“She's the one that saved us?” Damon said, pausing slightly. “She seemed upset at you though,” he told Haydn.
“Nah, she's cool, she called me drunk, normally she'd accuse me of being poisoned, incapable of rational decision making etcetera etcetera, but this time she just called me drunk.”
“Why is there two of her? In the same body, does she have mental problems?” Jill asked.
“Sort of, not like you think but it's best if we change the subject, she doesn't like to hear people talking about it, she's actually quite sensitive.”
“She can still hear us, even when she's not here?” she spoke the last word in an almost strained whisper.
“Yes, and you don't need to whisper, she can hear that too,” Haydn whispered loudly back.
The three sat in an awkward silence for a short amount of time before Haydn spoke up, breaking the silence.
“Do you know what I couldn't get out my head during that entire conversation?”
“No, what?” Damon asked.
“Jill's hair is still pink and purple.”
A second passed before she burst out a laugh once more, and then giggled again the way she had before. Damon's expression never changed. The three picked up their drinks and continued their evening, drowning out the voice of reason screaming in the background of their minds.
Unfortunate Delays and a New Pet
Babaidou's impatience was becoming frightening for the crew, so close to his target now he could almost taste the victory of the capture.
They'd dropped out of the firestorm prematurely, one of their battleships experienced an issue with its star drive, causing the AI to shut it down but not before irreparable damage was done.
It wouldn't serve to leave a Ferren hunter battleship deep in Mergence space, what crew could be useful were transferred to other ships, where there was space to take them.
The battleship was stripped of her resources and scuttled along with those who remained, they would keep their honour and their families would benefit from the loss at the least.
The engineering crew though were executed on the flagship before their craft had been scuttled, there was no time for a trial but it was necessary to make an example of negligence. The execution was broadcast fleet-wide and their honour revoked publicly by the fleet commander himself.
Reports came back from his cartel contacts telling him the target was in the infamous Grinder space station, not only that but the target sought out one of their own, unaware of his bounty.
His fist smashed down on the arm of his chair and he called out across his flag deck, causing some around him to flinch.
“Where are we at? I want this fleet moving. Now!”
“We're at seventy four percent readiness sir, the battleships are still spooling up their star drives, but we will be ready to re-enter the firsestorm within the next seven minutes,” one of his lieutenants answered.
“Do we have any further updates on the target?” He demanded to know.
“Our contact within the station told us the target is currently waiting, they have him under watch for the time being, but a meeting has been arranged to take place several hours from now,” the same lieutenant answered.
He leaned over to his communications aid and spoke quietly.
“Contact our fleet captains, inform them if we lose this target as a result of any further negligence, I will have more blood.”
She nodded and moved to her seat at the communications control bank, the limp in her left leg was less noticeable today, she was doing well to hide it but it was still there. His frustration got the better of him, a by-product of the waiting but he was in truth thankful for his evening releases.
Infuriatingly, a contact from within the Mergence had also been in touch, they too knew where the target was and an entire fleet was dispatched to bring him in, they were much closer and he was not strong enough to take on a full Mergence fleet.
“We do not have several hours, the Mergence will arrive on site before we do, instruct our contacts to pick him up and get him out of the station, if they get him out in time and I hope for their sakes they do, we will arrange a hand over.”
His anger was returning, fortunately though his favourite was back on duty following her release from the medical bay. She seemed weaker now, breaking more easily and giving him less of a release but he would need it all the same later he knew. Looking at her, he caught her eye.
“You will be in my suite later when we are finished here.”
She winced visibly but lowered her sad eyes to her console, and responded appropriately, “yes sir.”
The new one had indeed proven more robust than initially thought, the more he pushed the more she took, and there was the inclinations of a new favourite taking form. Something he'd never done before was to learn the name of his pets but for some reason, Kaelo's name stuck in his head.
Babaidou decided not to push too hard, it would take time to train her, his old favourite would serve to vent his frustrations for the time being while at the same time, conditioning Kaelo for the long term.
A Sad Morning for a Meeting
“Wake up,” Damon said, shaking Haydn.
The pain in his head was searing, and was the cost of the long night.
“What time is it, did we sleep in?” he forced out while sitting up, slowly, painfully.
“No, the meeting has been called forward, she arrived early, we have about an hour.”
“Where's Tira and Jill?”
“Jill's getting ready in the next room and looks just as bad as you,” he laughed.
“And I'm sat in the corner,” Tiralyn answered.
Damon jumped slightly, he hadn't even seen her in the corner of the dimmed room and wondered if she'd been sitting there all night.
“How long have you been sitting there?”
“From just after he fell asleep,” she answered.
“She doesn't sleep, ever, and please Damon, tell me you have pain killers.”
“Sorry not here, and I wouldn't trust anyone to sell you reliable meds, I have some back on the ship, the kid likes to stockpile the stuff for some reason.”
“Well, I'm going to just love this day, eh,” Haydn ground out. “Why do you always call her, the kid?”
“We don't know her name.”
“Seriously, you have a child in your crew who's name you don't know, you didn't kidnap her did you?”
“No, we found her years back on a fringe world, it was conflict ridden and the cities were in ruins, her mother was killed and she'd been alone for years, it took us hours to catch and drag her back to the ship.”
“I'm going to be honest Damon, that still sounds like a kidnapping.”
“You don't understand, they were going to gas the entire area, kill everyone, we were saving people. After we got them to a safe zone she hid and stayed on board, we didn't realise for weeks until Arlan found her in a maintenance port beside the reactor room, reading one of his old fusion physics books with a real cosy little nest set up.”
“So you kept her? Like a pet.”
“Couldn't get her to leave, she would go missing on the ship every time we docked, eventually we just stopped trying, she's tough, only ever speaks to Arlan but hasn't ever told him her name.”
“Wow, at least she has a home now, a family even and a real bed.”
“Still has her nest, won't sleep in a bed,” he answered. “Get ready, we need to leave.”
Damon wasn't lying, Jill wasn't looking too good, her hair was now back to its original black, but more a stormy black and her eyes sung of the pain in her head. Damon however looked fine and there was no hint that he'd even had a drink.
They all made their way to the roof of the building where Brenn was already waiting, he stood straight, as if ready for anything. Brenn's jacket hung down to his calves with the front open, hardened and custom fitted armour clung itself to his muscled and powerful frame.
He nodded to everyone as they approached, and a vehicle began touching down beside him. His jacket and wavy brown hair whipped around under the force of the shuttles down draft, but he refused to move. If there was a landing safety perimeter, he was so far inside it that little men with yellow vests, hard hats and health and safety clipboards would be having minor strokes while writing up their tickets.
To land, the shuttle was forced to swing around where Brenn stood, as if the man himself was an immovable object. The rear door dropped down becoming a ramp, hitting the floor neatly just a few inches from Brenn's toes, and three heavy set men with aggressive looking carbines walked out onto it. Brenn himself had his own hand around the grip on his still holstered weapon, and observed them like prey. Haydn hadn't notice Jill step off to the side, giving her a clear and flanking line of sight.
The men looked at them all, then back to Brenn and nodded, Brenn nodded in return and everyone relaxed, the guards then lowered their weapons to a less imposing level and ushered them all inside.
Haydn at this point really hoped Brenn wasn't a contender for Jill's attentions, the man was good looking, radiated composure and raw herculean ruggedness. Haydn didn't need that kind of competition, he'd become somewhat fond of Jill.
They'd all managed to eat some food before leaving their suite, but it done little to mask the hung-over mess of the pair, Haydn barely held down his stomach as they lifted off, and his headache was made all the worse by the sudden acceleration of the shuttle.
“So, nice guns you guys have there, a little overkill sending three heavies with guns for a meeting though, how long until we get there?”
All three of the heavyset men looked at Haydn as he spoke, but none answered.
“OK, not the talkative ty
pe then,” he summarised.
The journey only lasted five or six minutes, taking them through a series of twists and turns and now even Jill was fighting to keep her breakfast down, much to the amusement of Brenn, who'd seen her like this only one other time.
Jill and Brenn grew up together, raised by a mercenary organisation they were more like brother and sister, after finally breaking free from their family ties. They travelled a little before meeting Damon, who agreed to take them on as ship hands, thinking the extra muscle may come in handy at times, on days like today.
