Date Point: 4y 9m 3w AV
Starship Sanctuary, Planet Aru, Elder Space
Zane
Zane had been knocked out in bar fights in his time, but returning to consciousness this time wasn’t like those other occasions had been. It was just like…waking up.
“What…?”
“You were drugged, and treated. You’re actually in pretty good shape, Zane.“
It was Xiù’s voice, sounding oddly tinny, and that suddenly made Zane aware of his surroundings—he was curled up on the floor of one of Sanctuary’s airlocks. Big enough for a Guvnurag to use, it was a large room by human standards.
Xiù’s face was at one of the windows. So pretty. So…cold. That same look that had made him angry at her. Didn’t she know who she was dealing with?
The stump where his arm ended just below the elbow felt cold, and beyond that was a strange numbness. That should have bothered him more, but his ego ratcheted into gear, redirecting all the grief and insecurity that somebody without his personality disorder would have felt into pure grim anger. There would be a reckoning.
“Ya gonna let me out?” he asked.
“One way or the other.” Xiù replied, speaking through a microphone. “Look behind you.“
Zane blinked, and did so.
There were stars beyond the opposite window. It took him a second or two to make the connection between that fact, his being in an airlock, and what she had said.
Please. Who did she think she was bluffing?
“Ya wouldn’t.” he declared. “Me know I, Xiù. Ya don’ do that kind of badness.”
“To be rid of you?” She declared. “What happens when we get back to Earth, huh? You come after me again? You hurt more people? You hurt me again?”
He laughed. “Gwan, then.”
Bluff called, he congratulated himself. There’d be a showdown with Kirk, he’d have vengeance for his arm. And the others would fall in line. They’d see what kind of a man he was.
The howl of the alarm and the sound of the doors whining into gear when Xiù pressed the button drove all of his confidence out of him in a rush of cool air threatening to escape.
“Xiù! Xiù, no! Ya can’ do this!” he rushed the door she was behind, knocking and shouting. “Xiù no! I’m sorry! I hurt ya, that was wrong o’ me, me leave ya ‘lone! Just let me go back to Earth!“
The alarms didn’t stop, and her hand on the release didn’t fidget.
“You want to go home too, huh?” She asked.
Those eyes were so cold. He’d hurt her. He’d hurt her, and now she was going to murder him. He couldn’t believe that she would. He couldn’t believe that the others would let her.
But there were the hungry stars, waiting for him.
“Yes!” he screamed “PLEASE, Xiù! I’m beggin’ you, PLEASE!“
She paused, her eye contact drifted away. Her hand moved away from the final release. She softened, and the relief trembled down him. He meant every word, she’d be left alone if only she-
“Walk home, asshole.“
She hit the button.
The overpressure in the lock flung him shrieking out of the ship…and into the river Uatun, a mere four meters below.
Date Point: 4y 9m 3w AV
Folctha Colony, Cimbrean, The Far Reaches
“Legsy” Jones
“Alright…”
Legsy Jones took a minute or so to check he was in absolutely pristine military trim before knocking. He knew the captain had actually gone to counselling, but after the last meeting with Powell, he was damned if he was going to be on anything but his most perfect behaviour.
“Come in.”
Moment of truth. He poked his head into the captain’s office.
Powell looked rested. The darkness around his eyes was gone, he’d tidied up the drifts of paperwork into a more organised system, and his camp bed was made. The captain himself was standing at the washbasin, rinsing shaving foam off his face.
“Latest from Intelligence, sir.” Legsy said.
“Cheers. On the desk, please.”
So far so good. But he wasn’t about to relax just yet. The dossier joined some of its fellows on Powell’s desk.
“Do you need anything, sir?”
“No thanks, I’m good. Carry on.”
“Sir.”
He was halfway through turning and leaving when Powell suddenly threw his towel onto the bed. “Sergeant.”
“Sir.” Legsy turned around. The captain blinked at him, expression unreadable, then crossed the room and stood in front of him.
He wasn’t a large man, Legsy realised. He just seemed that way.
“I, uh…” Powell began, then fell silent. His clock ticked out six seconds before he shook his head. “Ah, never fookin’ mind, Legs. Keep up the good work, mate.”
“Yessir.” Inside his head, Legsy wanted to punch the air and grin.
Powell snorted “Well go on, carry on then!” he said.
Instead, Legsy grabbed him in a bear hug.
”-‘Ere, what’re you- fookin’—let go!” Powell protested, and Legsy did so. Powell straightened his jumper and frowned at him. “The fook was that about?” he demanded.
“Sorry, sir.” Legsy straightened to attention. “It’s just…good to have you back.”
Powell hung his head and shook it, smiling. “Get out, you big fookin’ softy.” he ordered, kindly.
“Yessir.”
Once Legsy had gone, Powell retrieved the towel and hung it neatly to dry, checked the room for any other signs of things out of place, and allowed himself a satisfied nod.
“It’s good to be back.” he agreed.
Date Point: 4y 9m 3w AV
UmOraEw-Uatun, Planet Aru, Elder Space
Knadna
Knadna squinted at the figure staggering towards them out of the dark. It had been only a few minutes since the Sanctuary had taken off, vanishing over the horizon with all the power that its gargantuan power core could produce, and she had watched the evicted psychotic Deathworlder struggle ashore with some interest.
Not to mention satisfaction.
“You have to admit, they are extremely tough.” she observed. An amputation, a concussion and a four-meter fall into the water only seemed to have annoyed the dark-skinned human, really. He was, if anything, probably as dangerous now as he had been a few hours ago. More so, possibly.
“Are we taking him with us, ma’am?”
“I think not.” Knadna replied, not even bothering to show her contempt for the moronic inquiry. “Get the last of the equipment stowed, I want the ship locked up and ready before that human gets here.”
The Kwmbwrw crewman rushed to obey. Knadna herself enjoyed the leisurely stroll back to the ship, arriving just in time to turn in the airlock, check everybody and everything was on board, and then activate the ship’s primary shields right in the approaching Deathworlder’s face.
This move did not seem to please Zane, who sprinted the remaining distance in an eyeblink, and Knadna had to clamp down hard on an instinctive reflex to flinch, cower, or run.
“Let me in.” He demanded, his tone of voice promising all of the impressive capacity for violence that his species was capable of unleashing, should she fail to comply.
“Now, why would I do that?” Knadna asked him. “You rather badly injured somebody I quite like. You seem to have an alarming inclination to use viol-”
Zane interrupted her and proved her point by slapping the forcefield, which rang and flashed alarmingly, but Knadna kept calm.
“Not even a human can punch through starship-grade weapons shielding, you barbarian idiot.” she told him, keeping a tired inflection in her tone.
“LET ME IN!” He roared.
Knadna mentally sent a few commands over the ship’s control circuit, telling the pilot to begin the launch sequence.
“Frankly, the only thing stopping me from using one of this ship’s plasma guns to vaporise you where you stand is because I think leaving you all alone here with a dying species seems more…poetic.” she said.
“I can be useful.” he said, changing tack. “You want a nice strong human on your ship, I can do the heavy lifting, fight off pirates.”
“You already rejected that offer.” Knadna pointed out, but she made a show of mulling the suggestion over. “Besides, you would be a lot more useful if you still had both arms…”
She let him rant for a few seconds, ignoring the content, and interrupted him after a careful internal countdown.
“I tell you what.” she offered. “You can come aboard if you help me expand the limits of Corti scientific knowledge.”
”…What?”
“Well, I have this hypothesis that what happens to a Deathworlder when he’s standing directly beneath the primary kinetic engine of a starship at takeoff-” she made a meaningful upwards glance. The engine in question was beginning to whine, barely audible to Corti hearing but presumably quite clear to a human’s more acute senses. “-Is much the same thing as what happens to everything else in the galaxy.”
Zane stared upwards, swallowing and breathing heavily. There was an alarming blue glow beginning to manifest somewhere inside the device.
“If you’re not willing to test my idea,” Knadna told him. “Then you can always run away. You have…oh, eight seconds.”
He looked back down at her, plainly afraid now.
“I’d start running.” she said, sweetly.
Once they were airborne, she dusted off her hands, shrugged out of and hung up her sand robes, and visited the ship’s medical bay. Lesry was sitting up, expression taut as he endured the procedure of having regenerative medicines injected directly into the extensive damage at his shoulder by the surgical robot.
“I saw how you got rid of him.” He said, waving his undamaged hand at a floating projected monitor. “Nicely done.”
“I took the liberty.” She agreed. “I assume you don’t disapprove?”
“Oh, no.” he said. “If he was too ignorant to know that absolutely nothing happens to a being standing beneath a kinetic thruster when the ship takes off, then he would have been of no real use anyway.”
“Besides.” he added, grimacing as a fresh needle delivered a shot of Cruezzir deep into his flesh. “I believe your own words were something like ‘Never underestimate a Human’.”
“Absolutely never.” she replied. “Predictable though his attempt to take over the ship and chase after them would have been, it would also have been alarmingly plausible that he might succeed.”
“Best to leave him behind.” Lesry agreed. The surgical robot finished its work, leaving his arm bound up and immobilized, but the pain had clearly faded. “You continue to impress me with your competence, Knadna.” he said, easing himself down off the medical bed.
“I think we work well together.” She replied, internally glowing at the compliment.
“I think we do.” He agreed. “Shall we continue our association?”
“Make it more formal?”
“Indeed.” Lesry said. “A DNA exchange, perhaps?”
“I’m agreeable to that.”
They widened their pupils at each other, a rare Corti expression of genuine warmth and affection not dissimilar to a human shy smile, and Knadna congratulated herself.
Today had been a good day.