[IC] Grim Galaxy: Shots and Chances

[Penny]

It had taken Sayeeda considerable time to get used to being aboard a starship as a standard part of her life. She had seen plenty of star travel during her mercenary career of course, but the hum of enginens and air cycling pumps made her mind think of impending landings, usually heading into action. The extractions normally had a smell of antiseptic and stressed and burned metal that was absent from the Highlander most of the time. Fortunately in the time she had owned the Highlander she had begun to suppress the instincts associated with an imminent drop into lethal danger. Which was not to say they vanished completely. Taya appeared unexpectedly from a side corridor, her approach muffled by a particularly loud fluid pump. The girl was clearly excited and grabbed for Junebug without thinking. Junebug caught her by the arm yanked her off balance and slammed her against a bulkhead, a knife appearing in her hand and pressing to the younger womans throat, her dark eyes blank and focused well beyond the horizon.

"Junebug its me!" Taya squeaked spreading her hand wide. Sayeeda stared wide eyed for a moment before her grip relaxed and she dropped the blonde to the deck. Junebug stepped back, lowering the knife.

"Hey Taya... look I'm sorry... it's just..." she tucked the knife back into her belt, lowering her eyes in embarassment that made her skin flush and prickle with adrenaline.

"Hey, I get it, combat reflexes and all that," Taya said reassuringly. Combat fatigue more like but Taya was trying to be delicate which Junebug appreciated. Unfortunately once a soldier reached the level Junebug had there were few options but to keep riding the high. Veteran's had a saying, either you stayed hard or you got soft, but what they didn't mention was that most people that went soft didn't cheerfully re-enter civilian life. Mostly they burned out on booze or drugs, or fell into other lives of violence with predictable ends. Junebug didn't think she was special in that respect, she had to stay on the edge, but that meant one day and probably not a very distant one, you got sloppy, you made a mistake, like maybe pulling a knife on your friend when she surprised you in a dark corridor.

"Look I wanted to talk to you and Neil, and I guess Saxon? Does he get a vote?" Taya asked uncertainly.

"He does not," Sayeeda said emphatically. Taya nodded clearly reassured.

"What did you want to talk about?" Sayeeda asked, feeling her skin return to its normal temperature as her body finished processing the adrenaline she had generated. That was faster than it should have been, damn Terran bioengineering. One of these days she really needed to see a doctor about that. One of these days.

"I'll tell you in the in the galley," Taya said with a nervous grin.

Taya had clearly gone through considerable trouble to prepare food and coffee. Her culinary repertoire was small and ran heavily in the direction of spicy noodle dishes, one of which steamed in a disposable cardboard cooking box. Neil had already arrived, either directed by Taya or by Lonney at Taya's direction. He slid a mug of coffee across the smooth tabletop to her, which she stopped with a grin and raised in a toast.

"I've found us a job," Taya said, seeming nervous but determined. Junebug arched an eyebrow. Had the girl somehow negotiated a deal on planet? That seemed unlikely given she had been involved in the action herself.

"Who?" Junebug asked, helping herself to a bowl of noodles.

"Me," Taya replied her back straightening. Junebug froze genuinely stunned.

"You?" Neil asked, every bit as perplexed as she.

"Me," Taya confirmed. Junebug and Neil shared a perplexed look.

"I want you to find out what happened to my father."

------------------

"Let me get this straight, you want us to sail six months across the arm to reach a system that is probably overun with the most hostile xenos known to man, to locate your father who, at the time we left, looked like he was about to be liquidated by a millitary coup?" Junebug asked, staring at the projection of the RIP map Taya had produced.

"Yup," Taya agreed as she spooned noodles into her mouth.

"I know its a haul, and I'm not saying drop everything and go for it, but since we don't seem to have a goal in mind right now, its as good a one as any," Taya pointed out.

"We can take other work along the way, to defer costs," she pointed out.

"Defer costs," Junebug repeated not quite believing what she was hearing.

"If my father is alive, he will reward you handsomely for bringing me home, if not, then I am the rightful air to the Cho-Lan clan and I will reward you," Taya coaxed.

"And if your father is dead and a junta of hostile generals in power? Assuming that the lot of them haven't been eaten by bugs of course?"

Taya folded her arms, her posture becoming rigid and her eyes uncharacteristically hard.

"Then I want you to rectify the situation Captain Cykali, by whatever means seem good to you."

Junebug was silent for a moment and then cut a questioning glance towards Neil.

[POOHEAD189]

Neil side eyed her, bits of noodles half sucked into his mouth. He hadn't been expecting Taya to ask this of them, though he guessed it was going to happen eventually. Had she been holding it in the entire time they were fucking with the Scorpions and the Spiders? Taya did seem resolute, even staring Sayeeda down. Neil could just barely do that and he'd fucked her, and he could only do that because he was crazy.

"Taya, I know we're not ones to shy from throwing caution into the wind and endangering ourselves. But usually there's something to gain from it." He reasoned, swallowing and promptly shoveling more into his mouth. His cheeks were stuffed like a squirrels, as if he was afraid food would grow scarce and he'd have store it.

"You'll be rewarded!" She exclaimed as she threw her hands out.

"You don't know that!" He laughed, pointing at her.

Taya rolled her eyes and mocked. "YoU dOnT kNoW tHaT."

"Oh you're trying to out-child me!? That is adorable." Neil slammed his hand on the table, prepared to be as immature as possible and winding out before Junebug gave him a look. He gave her a look back but rather than say anything he sank back into the chair, gingerly lifting his hands up and exhaling as he continued. "I guess we can go take a look. The Terrans might have a reward for some info or some solid evidence of what happened if nothing else."

"That could be a good point," Junebug remarked, unconvinced but tired of the debate. Truth be told, Neil and Junebug weren't against going other than the lack of assured profit. It was just hard seeing Taya with such surety when, in all likelihood, everything and everyone she has ever known was likely dead.

[Penny]

Two Weeks Later

"I cannot believe..." Neil huffed as he pitched one of the sacks of coffee onto the waiting cart. "That you actually sold this." The cart, a simple wooden affair that wouldn't have been out of place on Old Terra, was even drawn by two honest to god horses. They both whickered nervously as Saxon marched passed and tossed four sacks onto the back of the creaking wagon. It probably wasn't a real concern that Saxon would eat the beasts, but they were clearly not in a mood to take chances. Junebug pitched her own sack onto the growing pile with a puff of coffee dust. She wasn't sweating yet, enhanced biology and all, but she could feel the strain.

"Technically," she said, blowing a lock of hair out of her face. "I only traded it." The freeze dried instant coffee had been old when Sayeeda had purchased it and had sat in the back of the hold for well over a year as they tripped from crisis to crisis before Ateran, finally, provided a market.

Ateran was a backwater at the backend of a backwater. Far from the trade lanes and the commerce of the galaxy, isolated by notoriously unfavorable and unreliable RIP currents. If past navigational patterns held, never a certainty, it would only be a functional shortcut for a few weeks before the currents shifted and left it isolated. While it held though, it provided the perfect way to cut across the Sigma Arm and back towards Taya's home. On average Ateran was a cold world. Large icecaps covered nearly a quarter of the planet, with only a narrow band of temperate land around the equator. The upside was that due to minimal axial tilt, there wasn't much of a winter, with a gentle alternation between balmy summer and fall without much of a winter. It boasted little accessible mineral wealth, although orbital scans suggested considerable deposits deep beneath the polar ice, to expensive to be easily accessed in a world where asteroid mining was the norm. Atrean was the kind of place that attracted a particular kind of settler. The colonists on Ateran were a religious community who were interested in living a simple life. The Fellowship of Man, as they styled themselves had come from civilized planets deeper into the core of human space. They had scraped together their credits and purchased a clapped out bulk freighter for a one way trip to the holy land. It wasn't such an uncommon tale, though it more frequently ended in capture by pirates or simply vanishing into the RIP on a ship that should have been scrapped years ago. Even those that made it were rarely successful, religious communes were usually short on construction experience, agricultural expertise, medical training and just about everything else needed to make a colony thrive. The Fellowship of Man had beaten those odds however. Partly that was because Ateran, though unpromising by conventional standards, was ideal for the kind of pastoral life the colonists pined for. The second factor was that the Fellowship had been willing to keep their luddite tendencies in check for a few decades, making use of construction equipment, sophisticated agritech and gene modding to lay the foundations of their new Eden. Once established they had let the skills fade. Now only a few of the original colonists remained, retired to rural life surrounded by their pious progeny.

"What do these cretins trade," Saxon hissed, pitching another two hundred pounds of coffee into the back of the wagon.

"Cotton they grow here produces a biolumincent pigment," Sayeeda explained, holding up a hand to stop the loading. THe cart, sturdy as it was, couldn't take much more.

"They weave it into a textile they call shimmercloth, which they are happy to trade for coffee, and which we can turn around back in the civilized galaxy for a big pay out."

"I guess they aren't taking the drugs we..." Neil began but cut off as Junebug signaled furiously. It was unlikely that a religious community was going to react favorably to an offer of hundreds of kilos of high grade narcotics.

“Peace be upon you,” Brother Gerome said with a smile as he walked around the cart leading a dozen young men each carrying a bolt of cloth over a shoulder. The faintly glowing cloth clashed oddly with the simple homespun woolens that seemed to be the local garb. Gerome seemed to be the leader of the community here at Keshner’s Hollow. He was a boney man with a broad smile and face beaten bronze by long exposure to Ateran’s slightly whitish star. The laborers could have all been related to him for the resemblance they bore. Their smiles were less broad perhaps, having never been off world, they were less comfortable with outsiders or perhaps, like the horses, they weren't sure Saxon wasn’t about to eat them. Nervous they might be, but that didn’t stop them from surreptitiously eyeing the newcomers, particularly Sayeeda and Taya. Junebug was dressed in a white tank top which bared the tattoo on her shoulder. The tan on cream fabric of her combat pants and black assault boots were probably beyond their experience. Women’s clothing on Ateran was conservative and it was likely they were in breach of any number of local taboos.

“An exchange well made is a glory to the Lord,” Brother Gerome declared, eying the coffee approvingly. It was probable that even bad coffee would be a welcome reminder of old times to the original colonists, no matter how devout they might be.

“Saxon was just saying that,” Sayeeda replied blithely. Taya covered a snicker with her hand but Neil snorted less delicately. Gerome chuckled but several of the younger men stiffened indignantly. Nervousness transmuted to belligerence easily enough especially for men.

“Heresy aside, perhaps you would care to join us. It is Rejuvenation Day tomorrow and we have prepared a feast. Seems fortuitous that you and your crew should arrive on such a day Captain Cyckali. We would be honored if you would join us.” Junebug cast a quick look around the others gauging their opinions. After nearly eleven straight days in the RIP they were all a little frayed. A free meal that didn’t come out of a ration tin might do them all some good.

“Sounds good,” she admitted, brushing at the fine sheen of coffee dust on her tank top.

[POOHEAD189]

Neil threw the last sack of coffee onto the cart, slapping his hands together and exhaling into the crisp, cool air. The last few weeks hadn't necessarily been what he would call exciting, but it wasn't so bad every now and then. Semi-honest work and some good R&R were probably best for the crew, considering they were on the way to what was likely a suicide mission for Taya.

Their initial contact with the theologically inclined locals had been touch and go at first. The galaxy wasn't short of religious thought. The fact the universe existed on set principals of science when all could be chaos, or the fact existence at all was happening made many think there had to be a creator or catalyst beyond what current understanding could comprehend. Neil had heard many theories on his travels, particularly working at the space station with Sven. But he had never been on a planet of people who were so universally dogmatic.

It was really hard not to fuck with them, even if only a little bit.

"Brother Gerome," Neil started. The clergyman (if he even was a true one) halted in his tracks and turned to the group again. All the younger men watched intently. "I have a question about the faith."

"I'm always ready to help enlighten those who are curious," he said with a smile. He was wilier than his groupies, Neil could tell just by looking at him, so he wouldn't go too hard. "What is the question, friend?"

Neil gestured toward the Hexanagallion. "I was wondering about the fate of my good friend Saxon here. Where do Xenos fit in the Fellowship of Man?" Neil hid his smile like a champ. "He seems very interested in what he's been hearing but he was a bit shy to say."

"Neil!" Taya whispered as loud as she dared even while Sayeeda put a hand over her mouth to keep from laughing. Neil didn't bother looking at Saxon, imagining the hulking brute's mandibles curling in anger. Brother Gerome's followers looked to one another and some even appeared threatening, thinking Neil was mocking them. They weren't far from the truth, but Brother Gerome took it in stride as Neil thought he would. The white sun gave a pale gleam to his shirt as he raised his hands.

"It depends on the sect, of course. Some believe man was made in God's image..." he remarked. It was a problem with many human religions. Or to say, not the religion itself, but how men viewed them throughout history. 'Man' was still so commonly used despite an extremely biodiverse galaxy. "However, all who follow the divine creator are welcomed here as brother's and sisters on Ateran. You, your Captain, the young woman, and even your big friend here are all welcome if you wish to stay."

"Hear that Saxon? There's hope yet."

Sayeeda had to place a hand on the Hexa's chest to keep him from walking over and throttling the pilot.

[Penny]

To the confusion of the colonists, and the amusement of his shipmates, Saxon elected to remain aboard the Highlander as the group set off down the shallow cut roadway into the valley below. Sanctity was one of three villages the colonists had constructed along the length of the valley. The valley itself had once been an allevial flood plain, but a clever system of dykes and berms had tamed the river that cut through the center of it so that the fields could be flooded in the spring to replenish the soil with silt from upstream, without washing away the dwellings. The tradeoff was that a starship as heavy as the Highlander couldn't land on the soft, loamy soil of the village without sinking its struts to the hull. The rocky shoulder of the valley was a better landing, and probably helped to keep curious villagers far from the corrupting influence of their infrequent interstellar visitors. The system of ditches and banks reminded Sayeeda of the native hillforts on Kashkeesh in a way that made her skin crawl. Sanctity itself was a small place two dozen small stone and timber houses with sod covered roofs which doubled as additional gardens. Its dominant feature was a great cathedral in the center of town. At first it boggled Sayeeda's mind that so few people could have constructed the fifty meter long four story structure, but as she pulled down her googles to get a closer look she realized the truth. The cathedral wasn't something the colonists had built. It was the original colony ship itself grounded forever where it had touched down and then lovingly facaded to look like a church.

"The Light of Hope," Gerome said proudly as he feel into step beside her, frowning with slight disapproval at her goggles. Sayeeda ignored the look.

"The original colony ship I assume," Sayeeda said, more for something to say than because she had any real doubt. Gerome nodded.

"We felt it might deter pirates if she were obviously non-flyable," Gerome expounded with a wave to the ship/cathedral. Sayeeda had no doubt that the ship would never lift again, half sunk into the soil and burdened with stone besides. She was less certain that the fact the ship couldn't lift would deter those set on loot and the joy of indiscriminate destruction. Sayeeda was not a religious person. On Celandine it was conventional to pray to The God and Goddess at seasonal festivals, but it was tacitly understood to be symbolic by most. That early faith was kept alive only in occasional curses. Sayeeda had seen the random hand of death too often to believe the universe had a plan, though some part of her mind stubbornly clung to the notion that things would work out for her personally, even though she had nothing to base such an absurd notion upon.

"You have seen much violence in your life I think," Gerome said in a quiet voice he probably meant to be compassionate. Sayeeda glanced at him sidelong and arched an eyebrow. The skin on her arms and hands was speckled with the slight mismatch of synthetic skin sealant which had been used to treat a variety of burn and cuts over the course of her career. Did this man recognize that, or place her tattoos. She shook her head. A lamb could probably recognize a wolf when it saw one, even if that wolf were currently selling coffee. Or maybe it was simpler than that, the captain of a heavily armed freighter out in the back of beyond could be expected to have stomped a head or two in her time.

"Sure," Sayeeda responded noncommittally.

"There is peace to be found here, even if only for a little while," he said gently.

"I'll try to keep my insatiable bloodlust in check," Junebug replied as they reached the outskirts of the village. A few of the colonists stood watching. Some open mouthed and hiding the eyes of their children. So many children. Every matronly mother seemed to have a brood of five or more of the brats running around, with older siblings obviously helping with the work of their large tracts of farm land. Sayeeda was no agriculturalist, but she could recognise corn, potatoes, zaphroot and half a dozen other galactic staples growing in neat rows. Cows and horses were also much in evidence, walled away behind fences of woven mono crystal wire wrapped around posts of local wood.

"The act of killing damages..."

"Gerry, lets just take it as a given that I know more about the 'act of killing' than the whole population of this planet combined right?" she snapped, her irritation sharper than it might have been if she hadn't spent the past 11 days in the RIP.

"You're right, occupational hazard I'm afraid," he said with a good natured laugh.

"Yeah well some occupations are more hazardous than others," Junebug responded. As predicted women's clothing on Ateran was of a conservative cut, high collars and long skirts of greyish homespun. There was something of an irony that they produced beautiful shimmercloth textiles and insisted on clothing themselves in bland monotonous grey. That wasn't to say that shimmer cloth wasn't in evidence. Whatever Rejuvenation Day was it obviously involved alot of decoration. Ribbons of glittering fabric seemed to hang from every house, netting the roofs together in a complex spiderwebs that gave the streets a kind of canopy. The effect grew more pronounced nearer the cathedral where spiral designs and been created by wrapping the shimmercloth around frames of wire and some kind of native bamboo. Long tables were laid out and pilled with food that had been covered with gauzy cloth to keep insects away from it, and fires were prepared if not yet lit at every intersection. Mothers gave Sayeeda and Taya reproachful glances, obviously disapproving of the baring of so much skin. Taya more diplomatic than Junebug uncoiled the scarf from her hair and draped it over her shoulders. A number of young men, dressed in bleached tunics and brown homespun pants gave them looks that weren't quite so reproachful, but liable to be more trouble. A number of the younger women cast similar looks at Neil, whispering behind their hands to one and other and giggling.

"Well be at peace among us, perhaps the Light will reveal to you that you have found a home," Gerome said with an avuncular grin.

[POOHEAD189]

The township, if one could call it that, was quaint and rustic in flavor and population. But he didn't know how far the settlement spanned around the colony ship. Judging by the treeline before they entered the streets, there was likely farmland or some area for extracurricular activities close by. Neil was always fascinated by how even low-tech worlds fashioned their tools and items from various equipment they couldn't hope to manufacture themselves. The group passed by men carrying shovels fashioned out of lasrifles, and a turbine had been reutilized and cut down as a wind sifter above one of the outerlying buildings. Even some of the clothes looked to be remnants of old jackets worn by the spacers who landed here however long ago, though that was only one one or two of the colonists.

The people here had fair hair of brown, blonde, and a few redheads, though Neil and his other crew members seemed to be the only ones with black hair in eyesight. The men were relatively tall and round faced, though strong of arm. The women had feminine features but many had the callused hands of a worker. Had Neil crash landed here a few years ago he would have had his fun with a few of the girls, but at the moment he was more wary of the men eyeing Sayeeda, and to a lesser extent Taya (though the former could certainly handle themselves more than the latter). For Taya's sake, she seemed to enjoy the attention quite a bit, waving to a few of the wide-eyed lads and giving respectful nods to some of the curious onlooking women.

"Are you a pilot?" a voice asked from the crowd, drawing Neil's attention.

It was a boy, about a dozen years younger than Neil. With a moptop of brown hair, he had a bold look to his eyes, but he was overriden with curiosity.

"Yeah how-" Neil began, but he realized the boy made a lucky guess in his ignorance. Anyone was likely a pilot to him and he just happened to pick the one who made it their job. "Yeah, I pilot the ship we flew in. The freighter?" He waited, but the word didn't seem to have registered with the boy. "We call it the Highlander."

"Do you shoot space lasers out of it?"

Neil felt himself cracking up at the on-point question, even as a young women who could either be his older sister or his young mother walked up. She had the same colored hair, long and tied at its end in a ribbon. Her eyes were blue compared to his brown. She placed her hands on the boy's shoulders and looked down at him with a stern look. "Tomas, you don't just bother outlanders. They're busy people..."

"Oh it's ok," Neil said with a smile. "I love answering questions."

She looked up at him, an odd catch in her eyes. "Well that's very kind of you, sir." She said, trying to hide a smile even as her eyes locked onto his. "Maybe later you could answer a few I have?"

"Mmmmmaaaybeeee?" He said, not intending to follow up on that at all. Instead he bounded off, even as the boy began to complain to the woman that she scared Neil away. He seemed to be right on the money today. Neil caught up with the group just as Gerome welcomed them. Before them was a central square, cordoned off with a cleverly designed wooden fence, obviously made to be portable in an event such as this one. Neil imagined the crowd was now far larger because of their presence. Neil stuck close to Sayeeda, grabbing her hand. "I hope they have something strong to drink...but not too strong."

[Penny]

The selection of drinks was not much to Sayeeda's liking. She sipped at an earthen mug of apple juice without enthusiasm. Apparently the local definition of cider did not include alcohol. Gerome smiled somewhat sheepishly at her obvious disappointment.

"We consider the consumption of alcohol to be sinful," he admitted. A number of the younger men scowled disapprovingly at the very suggestion. There was clearly something of a disconnect between the younger generation who had been raised in pious seclusion and the oldsters who had direct experience of the galaxy beyond.

"I guess I can keep my sinning in check until I get back to my ship," Sayeeda replied, before winking at Neil.

"Mostly at any rate," she amended, earning herself even darker glares from the fresh faced zealots. Gerome cleared his throat nervously but was spared from comment by the shimmering ring of an electronic chime. He stood and clapped his hands together.

"Brethren!" he called in a clear carrying voice which spoke to a background as an orator of some kind.

"Let us give thanks for the rejuvenation of our world and of our faith! Let us celebrate what God has given us and the blessing he has bestowed upon us. Remember what we have sacrificed, and what we must continue to sacrifice to attain the Grace our Creator has stored up for us. In his blessed name, Amen!"

"Amen," the congregation echoed and then devolved into cheers and shouts. Dancing broke out seemingly simultaneously and young men and women in white linens began to circulate among the crowds, uncovering foods and pouring drinks. Sayeeda smiled and stood up, taking Neil by the hand and leading him towards an open green where couples were beginning to dance. By chance her eyes fell on Gerome, who alone of the celebrants appeared to look troubled.

[POOHEAD189]

Neil wasn't too perturbed. They had plenty of alcohol on the ship, and the cider was sweet. As much as it would likely kill him to stay here, there was a homemade quality to the food and drink. Unprocessed and fresh off the stove. A small vacation here wouldn't kill him, though the twinkle in Sayeeda's eyes did make him want to drink some hard liquor with her, preferably alone and naked. If their God was watching, Neil hoped he understood the pilot had an active imagination.

"Amen!" Neil cried with them, all too eager to get some of the delectable smelling food into his mouth, but he was yanked up by Junebug onto the dance floor.

He flushed, but laughed with her as they made it to the green and began to move with the music, hands and fingers intertwined, hips and feet moving in practiced step. Neil could dance to a few tunes, but he never did ask if Junebug could. It was a pleasant surprise, and soon the two of them stepped closer than even the married couples. It wasn't provocative to most dances at bars like the Hammered Cock, but to some of the more conservative onlookers, they were practically fucking in broad daylight.

At the aghast watchers, Junebug smirked. "Think they're jealous?"

"I'd be jealous too. Not every guy has a hot commando girlfriend."

Junebug gave him a look that was practically an order to kiss her, but if he did he wouldn't be able to stop. Glancing to the right, Neil saw Gerome watching them. Not only the two spacers, but everyone. Brother Gerome did not look pleased either, but it was hard to tell if it was due to Neil and Junebug or something else. A fat colonist sitting at a table raised a pie in salute, causing Neil to chortle and nearly break up their rhythm. Close by, Taya was being chatted up by a few of the younger men, and one was even gesturing to the green to dance, like as not.

"Let's grab a bite. Tonight we can continue this..."

[Penny]

The feasting and dancing continued until the sun began to sink towards the horizon. The rift valley cut of direct view to the sun so that only a diffuse illumination remained. As it did so they party seemed to break up and couples who had paired off for the dance took seats together on the grassy green beneath streamers of shimmer cloth. Junebug had been dancing for several hours at this point and she could feel the genetic enhancements that had been forced on her amping up to keep her at full effectiveness. It wasn't a good feeling in the middle of a crowd of well meaning dancers and smiling farmers. Battle fatigue was an occupational hazard for a mercenary, a couple of weeks rest in the RIP had been some balm but it never entirely went away. The banality of civilian life wasn't a good fit for her, it was hard truth that she wasn't going to be able to return to it. That likely wouldn't be a problem for her of course, catching a stray bullet was as much of an occupational hazard as battle fatigue.

After a few minutes a hush fell and Gerome emerged from the cathedral ship. He was dressed in priestly vestments instead of the utilitarian garments he had worn earlier in the day. Behind him trailed a dozen acolytes in similar if slightly less ostentatious vestments. Each man was pushing a small black sphere that hovered three feet of the ground. Each of them crackled with the soft incandecents of an induced levitation field. It wasn't high tech but it was still higher tech than Sayeeda was used to seeing. Judging from the ohhhs and ahhs from the crowd it was obviously not something the saw everyday either.

"Are those stasis pods?" Taya asked, leaning over from her own seat beside a handsome young man she had been dancing with. He looked troubled that she had spoken but made no mood to prevent her. That was good because Sayeeda was keyed up enough that she might have made an issue of it.

"Brethren!" Gerome called out before she could respond. The little procession came to a stop at the center of the green, spreading out into a phalanx around the elder man.

"Brethren, on this, our most scared day, we celebrate the Lord's bounty and the renewal of our faith..." the speech continued for perhaps ten minutes, invoking their God, giving thanks for the harvest and that sort of things. It seemed to Sayeeda that the stasis pods were the real draw. Couples gazed at them longingly, some squeezing their hands together in anticipation. The old preacher knew his crowd, he grew more extravagant in his gestures with more and more frequent references to bounty and rejuvenation.

"Let us now give thanks as we celebrate the rejuvenation of our community and our faith. Come forward!" The couple closest to him stood eagerly and walked forward. One of the acolytes brought forward a simple pottery urn. The woman reached in with a trembling hand and withdrew something. Sayeeda squinted her eyes, it seemed like a simple black stone. The woman sagged visibly, hugging her partner clearly holding back tears. One of the acolytes laid a hand on her shoulder consolingly and led her away to the side. The next couple approached and the process repeated itself. When the third couple approached the woman pulled a white stone from the urn. The reaction was immediate and opposite. Her face transfigured into jubilation, it was mirrored in her partner who threw his arms around her and swept her up into his arms. One of the acolytes approached with one of the black maybe stasis pods. He touched a control on the front of the pod. It irised open with a hiss. Inside was a baby, apparently sleeping though perhaps drugged. Its chest rose and fell indicating it was alive. The woman reached in and lifted the child carefully then turned to face the community. There was a great cheer and a raising of cups.

Over the next hour the process continued, with couples going forward to take part in the lottery. There were perhaps thirty couples but only a dozen children. Those that drew black stones were dissapointed and those that drew the white jubliant. When the ceremony finished there was a general blessing before general revelry resumed.

"Well that was fucking weird," Junebug commented, forgetting to be circumspect among strangers. Did they practice some for of adoption rather than raising their own children. It was bizzare but stranger things happened in the isolated corners of the galaxy. Further discussion was interupted as Gerome hurried across to them.

"Blessed night," Gerome called wiping sweat from his brow. He looked elated and a little exhausted.

"What did you think?" he asked.

"It was the best baby lottery I have ever seen," Junebug said dryly. Gerome chuckled and drew a flask from beneath his robe.

"Its sinful," he admitted before taking a slug of the liquor, "but this is a special night, will you join me in a toast?" He handed the flask to Junebug who took a drink and passed it on to Neil and Taya.

"We had reproductive problems when we first settled here," Gerome explained, "fertility rates were way down, only a select few could have children. We have found a solution but..." Gerome's voice was becoming a drone and Junebug's eyes felt incredibly heavy. A fog seemed to be closing in around her. She tried to turn her head towards Neil but her muscles weren't responding. Strong hands held her as she sank towards the ground and blackness enfolded her.

[POOHEAD189]

It was strange, realizing you were being drugged. Dragged into an unfitful sleep, seeing your girlfriend power through it for just a moment before she too hit the ground. It wasn't restful to Neil, his mind moving even while he was limp and unconscious. He didn't know if he could dream during that time, but he felt like he had been thinking of something. Vaguely he began to feel a pain in his wrists and the weight of gravity, before a cold bucket of water was thrown onto him, shocking his senses and flinging him back into reality. Neil snorted, some of the water having shot up his nose.

"Blghah!" He coughed, hacking out some phleghm before he could speak.

"Wake up, heathen. Time for your confession." A voice said. Neil blinked, blearily recognizing the speaker as one of the younger men that had been accompanying Brother Gerome. He looked left and right and saw Junebug nor Taya were anywhere to be seen. The room could accommodate them due to its size. They were in a large but fairly run down and dank chamber. Neil recognized it as some sort of area in the colony ship, likely underground due to the lack of light. Other than a few sconces alight with flickering flames, the expanse of the room was shrouded in darkness.

"Where are we?"

"I'm asking the questions, pagan." The cultist assured him. "Now, w-"

"You're not going to turn me into a baby, are you?"

The fellow's face twisted in confusion. He began to speak, but uneasily through what was obviously a scripted speech. "If we deem you worthy, you may perform for us as a slave for a time of seven years. After your penitence is done and you are trustworthy, you may take a wife and own a piece of land..."

"I have a wife, or very near to one." Neil explained. He didn't like this dude, but he felt sorry for him. Some brainwashed child at the edge of the galaxy. Even if their take on whatever deity was real, he doubted they were doing whatever he, she, or it wanted by imprisoning him and doing what-the-fuck-ever to his friends. "She's cooler than everyone here. Now, are you going to let me go or is this something you're going to commit to? Think carefully..."

"Interrupt me one more time, and you will receive the lash." The jailor threatened, stepping forward and indicating the notched whip at his belt.

Neil was already halfway done with his shackles, unbeknownst to his captor. He'd let him talk for another half a minute before he strode out of there. But finding Sayeeda would be another matter.

[Penny]

Junebug came too all at once. Her body uncoiled like a spring driving a fist upwards towards where her subconscious told her she would find a target. Woven canvas straps snapped tight around her wrists and ankles. Bright light stung her eyes and her stomach turned as the drug in her system burned off on the tide of adrenaline. A shadow crossed the light for a moment and then it was pulled away.

"Her vitals are spiking well beyond norms," a worried voice commented.

"Stop your stalling, she is simply another heretic who is called to serve in renewing our faith," a stern voice responded. Sayeed blinked her eyes into focus. A middle aged man and a younger woman stood above her in scrubs. A third man in vestments, partially discarded after the ceremony stood in a corner, fingering a shock baton.

"She is not, there is something wrong with her, her hormones are out of whack, her neurotransmitters are way off the charts..."

"Is she a Xeno? If she cant carry children..."

"No she is human its just... not normal she isn't responding to the induction process."

"Induction process..." Sayeeda murmured.

"She is awake," the woman said accusingly. The baton wielder took a step towards her menacingly.

"Will everyone settle down," the older male snapped, "we woke her on purpose." Sayeeda's vision cleared, she was strapped to a surgical table in a white walled medical bay of some sort. The contrast of a modern medbay with the cathedral trappings outside was jarring. Monitors on the wall blinked with unintelligible medical information including several scans.

"We have some questions for you young lady," the older man said with counterfeit kindness.

"Go fuck yourself," Sayeeda snarled pulling at her restraints. The acolyte stepped closer and raised his baton. The older man lifted a hand in bar.

"If we don't know what is wrong with you, the procedure may kill you."

"Nothing is wrong with me," Sayeeda said after a moment.

"We have dosed you with nearly twice the normal load of skirtamanol and we haven't shown any of the normal responses," the old man said.

"Yeah well I don't know fuck about that, I do know..." she paused and worked her tongue, "that im being held hostage in the basement of an old colony ship by a bunch of religious crazies and it'd be super great if a big pissed of Hex stomped in here and started snapping spines."

"Silence heretic, you think God hears the prayers of your kind?!" the acolyte sneered. Something beeped on the wall and the young woman turned with an alarmed look.

"Something..." the technician murmured.

"Do you think God hears filth like you?! Your only worth is that you can be used like a breeding sow to produce children who will serve the One God!" The acolyte roared.

"I don't know about that..." Sayeeda grinned.

"She sent a radio transmission!" The tech exclaimed, "it scattered the scans!"

"I have a mastoid implant," Sayeeda admitted, grinning up at the alarmed trio.

"I also have a military grade IUD implant that's guaranteed effective for twenty years by Kadian biotech on Celandine. Probably more than you hicks can handle in this crappy med bay."

"Put her under, now!" the old man snapped, making a gesture to the tech with a bony hand.

"And I have one more thing, an unfortunate amount of experience with Terran's." She ripped her right hand free of its restraints, the canvas parting like a gun shot as her arm muscles bulged and responded well beyond human norms. She felt her tendons strain and rip at the bones, promising painful repercussions later. But if she was alive later she would be luckier than she had any right to be. Her hand lashed out and ripped the stun baton from the acolytes' shocked hand. She tumbed it live and jabbed it into his gut, sending him flying into a bank of monitors with a crash and a shower of sparks. Without breaking the ark she slashed it across the face of the tech. The powerful electrical current snapped the woman’s jaws shut so hard that Junebug heard her teeth crack as the blast sent her crashing to the floor, the fine hair around her face burning. The old man made the best choice, lunging towards the medical controls rather than trying to get out of the way. Unfortunately his years slowed him for the extra half second it took for Junebug to drive the point of the baton into his neck. The muscles spasmed and he dropped with a crack of breaking vertebrae as his neck muscles wrenched in opposite directions. Junebug sagged back against the bed, still held by three point restraints and weak from the physical effort and the surge of adrenaline.

“Well, I suppose that is problem number one…”

[POOHEAD189]

Neil only had a cudgel, partially matted with blood from breaking the acolyte's nose. The two had tumbled onto the floor, giving Neil a nasty bump on the head but otherwise causing no real problems. He had a thick skull, anyway. His opponent did not, so he lay unconscious in the room the pilot had just walked out of. As he stepped out into the corridor, lights automatically flitted on. He glanced up at the potential, visual alarm of his progress.

"That'll cause some problems." He deadpanned, but decided he couldn't do anything about it, anyway. His vision was still a bit swimmy and his head light, the lithe scoundrel stretching his neck and rubbing it as he began to walk. He wasn't getting old, but all that time in R.I.P. space before wrestling within a normal atmosphere had weird effects on even a young human physique. Rivets of overlapping plate on the walls whistled with air as the ventilation suddenly turned on. That was surprising, considering it meant someone here could at least access some of the power, or else they had found a generator somewhere and hotwired it.

Flipping the cudgel to ascertain its weight, he felt confident it was a good enough implement to throw if someone showed up with a gun and he needed to make a quick getaway or dive. The hall was ominous in quality, every shadow holding a cultist or some xenos subterranean species to Neil's mind. The flickering lights and the fact some did not cut on as he walked by also seemed to indicate that not all the power was evenly distributed. He could fix up the place if he had the mind to, which was more than he could say about whoever was maintaining the sleeper ship.

Instead of running into a cultist again, however, one of the doors he passed by slid open when Neil's passage set off its sensors. A light suddenly poured into the gloom of the corridor, causing Neil to blink and shield his eyes.

Once his eyes adjusted, he found something he truly did not expect. It was a large, relatively well cleaned chamber, Strange mutants, half man, half machine grumbled and moved about in slow gaits. Every left eye was a grafted visor and every right hand was mechanical, with their bodies a mix and matched jumble of limbs, steel, and flesh. There were only five that he could see, and none looked his way when he peered through. Upon closer inspection, they weren't maintaining power nodes like he assumed they had been. No, they were pods. Pods with infants inside of them.

Neil squinted as he began to think, whispering to himself.

"Am I above holding a baby hostage?"

[Penny]

Pain throbbed in Junebug's shoulder as she tried to sit up. Unfortunately even with one hand free she wasn't able to loose the straps that bound her ankles and remaining hand. Pursing her lips she thought for a moment and then thumbed the stun batton live in a long arc that heated the teeth almost red hot. Without waiting for it to cool she thrust it down into the strap around her wrist. The plastic warped and melted and Junebug yanked it to snap the last few fibers. From there it was an easy matter to unlock her feet.

"Surrender heretic... Terran filth," the acolyte muttered weakly. He was clutching his stomach still unable to completely regain control of the spasming muscle groups. Junebug stepped over to him and punched him in the face, hard enough that his head bounced off the wall with a crack.

"Welcome to Earth," she muttered.

The bowels of the colony ship were huge, designed as they were to ferry thousands of people, live stock, supplies, and equipment to distant worlds. Junebug slipped through the mase of passages, looking for some kind of central accessway that would take her upwards.

"Saxon," she muttered into her comm, "we could really use your scaly ass right now." There was no answer. The mastoid implant was designed to be linked to a more powerful unit in a vehicle and its unaided range wasn't unlimited. Hopefully that was a factor of range, and Saxon wasn't dead on a bunch of pitchforks. She grinned at the image. If these hicks thought they could take Saxon down like a monster in a holo, they were going to be in for a surprise. Fairly briefly.

Sayeeda ducked into a doorway when a pair of acolytes came around the corner. They didn't seem alarmed, merely strolling along. By their conversation they were trying to debating whether lust or greed was a more damning sin. The hum of machinery caused her to turn. Behind her were a set of air tight doors, likely originally to section off a large life boat or ships launch. Glancing down she saw that the layer of dust that coated the rarely used decks was disturbed. Intrigued she moved to the door and opened it with a touch to the control panel. Inside the air smelled of antiseptic and electronics.

"Fuck," Sayeeda muttered. The walls were lined with life support pods, not dissimilar to the ones that had kept Taya, Neil and Junebug alive for three years following their escape from Taya's homeworld. Inside were women, their bodies all showing signs of recent pregnancy. Banks of monitors showed vital signs. Each one had a name printed above their pod. Rachel, Ruth, Ester, Sarah and so on. The pod furthest from the door held a slim blonde that carried no baby weight. Taya was dressed in a white shift that floated in the nutrient fluid like a drowning victim.

"Well this is fucked up."

"It is the only way," a voice came from behind her.

"I have a gun, please don't do anything rash Captain Cyckali," Gerome said apologetically. Sayeeda turned to see the elderly cleric holding an electromotive shotgun at waist level. He was liable to break his wrists if he fired it like that, but Junebug would still be torn appart by the spreading aerofoiled shot. She gauged the distances and didn't like her chances.

"You don't have a though shalt not kidnap a bunch of people and trap them in stasis pods in that book of yours?" she asked, raising both hands. Gerome clucked regretfully.

"When we first got here we were full of hope and faith," the old man explained, guesturing with the muzzle of the gun for Junebug to move down towards where Taya lay in stasis. Junebug moved, slowly, following the guesture.

"But then you opened up a sideline in kidnaping and rape? All kinky after you got dissiulioned," she pressed. Gerome made a disgusted sound.

"There are microorganisms here, nothing that will kill you and nothing we picked up on our initial survey. It results in infertility for anyone who spends more than a few months on the surface. We tried hiring microbiologists to create vaccines but nothing worked. We couldn't let the Light of God go out on this world."

"So now we get to the kidnapping part?" Junebug prodded as she passed Taya's pod.

"There are always a few traders, drifters, sometimes women would choose to stay with us, they don't suffer," Gerome said pleadingly. Sayeeda stopped disgusted beyond her fear of the gun.

"So you keep them as breeding stock?! What the fuck is wrong with you people?!"

"Please don't make this any harder than it needs to be Captain," Gerome begged. She could envision the colonists debating the ethics of such a monstrous plan. It always seemed like sufficiently motivated religious folk could justify any horror in the name of a higher power. Half of the wars she had fought in her time with the Armored had religious motivators even if it was normally civil authority that did the hiring.

"So you kidnap people and impregnate them over and over," she asked.

"It's a sterile proccedure, there is no actual intercourse," Gerome appologised.

"Yeah well that makes it much better," Sayeeda responded dryly. She reached the empty pod beyond Tayas. The writing above it said 'Deborah'.

"If you will climb in please captain, I promise it will be over quickly, you will age slowly but eventually you wont be fertile any more and we will let you go," he assured her.

"I'm already infertile, that's why you had you doctor looking me over remember," she restored putting one hand on either side of the access portal.

"It will just be until we can review your results, please I don't want to kill you," Gerome all but wept. Sayeeda sighed and let her shoulders sag slightly.

"Not really a Deborah though," she commented, "more of a Lilith." Junebug tensed her shoulders and leaped upwards. The gun boomed behind her but she was already kicking off the stais pod, flipping up and over Gerome's head narrowly avoiding the ricoheting pellets. An experienced gunman might have got off a second shot but Gerome was barely managing to hold the weapon, a look of horror on his face. He began to turn but Sayeeda was behind him. She caught the barrel of the gun in one hand and drove a palm into his shoulder, ripping the weapon free. She kicked him in the hip slamming him into the pod. It wasn't a fight. He was an old man and a noncombatant.

"Lord! Deliver me from evil!" he shrieked. Damn it was pathetic. She stepped forward, gripped him by the back of the tunic and heaved him into the pod, slapping the closure. It wasn't the approved way to put someone in stasis, but she pulled the activator switch anyway. There were already shouts of alarm so she rushed over to the Taya's pod and began looking for the decanting sequence.

[POOHEAD189]

Neil did not stay for long.

Taking a heavy wrench, he decided to leave the room untouched except for the one servitor whom he broke apart with a few heavy swings, mostly to see how well built they were and what made them tick with a cursory glance of the fallen corpse. It only took him one or two minutes of bludgeoning and examination before he ran off, leaving the children in the other servitor's care. As much as he wanted to liberate everyone here, the Highlander was not a nursery, and while he was pro-choice, this seemed to be a bit late in the pregnancy. The real injustice was to the women, particularly two he wanted to find pretty badly.

Neil went off, searching high and low. Every twenty meters there was an archway; some had nothing but voids behind them, others had similar birthing chambers, and some were essentially armories or storage rooms. No matter where he went, he couldn't find where they held the women, at least until he found an archaic stairway, the railings emblazoned with silver lines and stars in constellations he vaguely recognized. He didn't dally and wait around. Instead he sprinted up the stairs, wondering if he would ever find his fucking girlfriend and Taya.

The first door on floor two, he saw Sayeeda breaking Taya out of stasis. Neil saw Gerome in one of the pods in the midst of the women and he shook his head. The old priest really should have known better than to fuck with his junebug. He couldn't help but admire the sheer audacity. For Neil's part, he lazily leaned against the archway as she unlocked and shut down the stasis chamber, the air depressurizing and opening up for Taya to wobbly fall out of her limp constraints and into Junebug's arms.

"God, you're terrible at this." Neil said, and Sayeeda's combat enhanced reflexes moved with the speed of a hunting cat, her gun barrel pointed at Neil, her recognition of him just a second quicker than her decision to kill whatever made an unexpected noise within her presence. She lowered her gun in relief and smiled. Neil just shook his head. "You're the damsel in distress. You couldn't wait for three minutes before I rescued you. God!"

A 'spring' and a small crater chipping into the steel above his head made him jump, and more gunfire followed as Neil leaped into the room as weapons cracked from the stairway. Neil hugged the wall by the door, and Sayeeda laughed and tossed the 10 mm pistol she had procured from Gerome's companion. "Now's your chance, cowboy." She teased, dragging Taya behind some of the pods while she woke her up.

Shouts were heard down the hall, followed by more gunfire. Neil looked around, looked at his gun, then decided on a course of action. Seconds later, the four colonists, three with handguns and one with a double barreled shotgun entered the room, the first two immediately firing to the left and right. They were the first two to get shot in the head, but from above. The bullets ripping into them sent them into spasms. Swinging his upper body upside down to gaze into the hallway, lower body on the roof of the arch, Neil shot three times, killing the last two colonists. The shotgun went off, cracking apart of the wall and ricocheting pellets across the hall. No one screamed out, so everyone pursing must be dead.

"Clear!" he called.

[Penny]

It probably said something about the last couple of years that rather than reacting to the sudden flurry of gunfire she merely peered around in confusions.

"What do they want from us," she asked, color slowly returning to her face as the effects of the cryosleep drugs continued to burn off. Junebug peered out into the corridor, finding it clear.

"Worry later, get out of here now," Junebug told her, not wanting to open the can of worms right now. Taya leaned down and scooped up a shotgun from one of the corpses, stepping awkwardly around the spreading pool of blood.

"Right," she murmured, shaking her head to clear it. Despite the fact that she had been training Taya for several months, Sayeeda would have been happier if she hadn't picked up the weapon. A blast from that in these tight quarters might accidentally clip her, or Neil, or both. It was an uncomfortably familiar feeling, local allies were usually not to the standard of the mercs they hired, but you had to live with it. Or not of course, but you couldn't think that way.

"Let's move," Junebug declared, leading the way out into the hallway. While the interior of the ship was a warren, it was a simple fact of finding a companionway and heading upwards towards the surface. The ship was big enough that if there were other colonists aboard they couldn't form a clear picture of what was going on. Unfortunately by the the ship only had two exit ports that were easily accessible. One of them had been welded shut, the other had been dressed in the fake stone of the cathedral. A group of confused and nervous looking men, a dozen or so, stood infront of it. They were armed but clearly unsure of what to do. Sayeeda looked speculatively at her pistol and then across at Neil, who screwed up his face in an expression that read: Maybe but Maybe not.

"We can wait for them to try to come in," Junebug suggested, at close range there was a chance that the three of them could take a bunch untrained rustics. Given the shotguns though, there was a fair chance one or all of them would wind up dead.

"Maybe we should go back and try to use the old man as a hostage," Taya suggested. Junebug shook her head.

"Religious types are always willing to die for the cause," she explained. She tapped a finger to her temple.

"Saxon, are you reading me?" she asked through her mastoid implant. There was no response. Stars above where was the lizard? She couldn't imagine these rubes storming the Highlander and taking down the Hex. Perhaps some kind of jamming equipment was at play.

"We need a distraction," she said, eyes flicking to Neil for inspiration.

[POOHEAD189]

Neil looked at his girlfriend with raised brows, then looked at Taya and shrugged, nodding. "Sure, yeah."

Junebug cocked the hammer on her semi-auto and held it up at the ready while Taya wiggled behind her, still half drugged and confused at what exactly was happening. Neil took the moment to look around at their surroundings, up, to the side, and then at the ground. He found a few rocks to the left of the door, likely made of the rockcrete they used to make the archway. One was roughly the size of his fist. He shoot his hand out and grabbed it quickly, and only one man cried out at his exposed flesh, firing at where his hand had been, far too slowly. The others followed suit, firing at the empty entryway, causing the three to pull back as bullets ricocheted off the false granite and steel of the ship's hull. Neil started whistling, idly tossing the rock up and catching it while the fail of gunfire rained around them.

Soon the gunfire abated, loud clicking accompanying uneasy claims of needing to reload. Neil almost felt bad for them, but the fun he was having usually outstripped his guilt, particularly when they were trying to kill him. He cleared his throat, puffing his chest out.

"Grenade!"

The plain rock was openly tossed out of the entryway, sailing through the air. Before it even hit the ground, the brainwashed zealots scattered like mice, devoid of dignity and any hopes of ever getting laid. Neil shook his head, clearly enjoying the spectacle. Junebug didn't hesitate, raising her gun and stepping out like a maiden of war, her 10mm bloodied and pierced any men that looked like there was any hope of resistance. Villagers near where the party was being taken down became utterly scattered, screeching and clutching babies and small children.

Past some of the structures, something lurked. One of the transit vehicles was suddenly pushed on its side by something with immeasurable strength, and suddenly one of the fleeing men was lifted off the ground, impaled by a spike that sent his body in shudders. A saurian thing stepped out into view, and Neil sighed when he realized it was Saxon. A few slugs struck him, most bouncing off his ridged plates, one or two striking flesh but only doing superficial damage. He ignored them and began to devour the man he had on a spit, swallowing him whole. Even as the man's form was washed down his gullet, Saxon was on the move again. He snatched up one of the fleeing children next, his mandibles flexing as he marveled at the morsel.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa!" Neil called, holding his hand out and pointing his gun Saxon's way. The xeno's predatory head switched to Neil, growling at the interruption. Neil glared at him like a dog, and judging by the looks of the crew behind him, he felt like he was vindicated when Saxon gave another growl and idly tossed the child away, causing the boy to roll across the ground relatively unharmed. "You humans are so picky! Adult, babe, they'll all be foes soon."

[Penny]

Taya looked sick at Saxon’s brutal dispatch of the villager. Junebug could remember a time when such a thing would have shocked her, but that was many years and many plasma bolts ago now. She felt a kind of hollowness inside of her as her mind ran through the possibilities of taking children hostage to guarantee safe passage to the ship. It hardly seemed necessary. These people were beaten and broken. There was a grim calculus to it all, the lives they had taken would be very difficult to replace.

“I can’t believe you slept with him,” Taya muttered, eyes locked on Saxon.

“Watch your sector,” Junebug snapped, it was merc slang for mind your own business, but it was practical advice in this context also. The villagers were running but it only took one sniper to ruin your whole life. Junebug didn’t glance at Neil but she hoped he hadn’t heard that. The last thing she needed was for him to get all mopy about something that was long over and done with.

“Move out,” Junebug ordered and the trio broke into a jog heading back west towards where the Highlander lay waiting.





The cathedral tower smoked sullenly, a quarter of its height sheared away by three precisely placed plasma bolts from the Highlander’s main battery, the mass of plasteel and masonry had crushed several more houses. Smoke drifted up from several smaller fires where flying debris had set fire to houses but Sayeeda had permitted the locals to form bucket brigades to extinguish them. Even if she decided to ice the lot of them afterwards, it kept them occupied for the moment. The Highlander itself had been shifted to a ridge with a line of sight on the village, its heavy guns able to bear on the whole area. Runners had been sent to the other villages along the valley, warning them that any attempt to intervene would result in complete obliteration. Sayeeda hoped that they would take the warning seriously. She wouldn’t take any pleasure in slaughtering a bunch of hapless peasants if they were stupid, but she had done worse, and more than once.

“You must understand our perspective,” Brother Gerome bleated. The priest looked pale, waxy and unhealthy, eyes sunken and with the slight tremble common to poorly preformed cryostasis proccedures. Junebug was kitted out in her full battle dress, battered breastplate and combat helmet with visor down. The boxy brutal form of her disruptor rifle hung from a patrol sling, pointed forward but not aimed anywhere in particular. If the villagers had rushed her all at once, it was possible they might have overwhelmed her, but Junebug didn’t think there was much chance of that. Several of the young men were in the process of heaving they cryopods out of the cathedral on hover dollies, sweating and muttering from fighting with the inertia of the things.



“For gods sake at least leave the ones who are with child, those children have fathers here and…” Gerome’s entreaty ended in a grunt as Junebug swung the butt of her rifle into his face, sending him reeling back in a spray of blood from a broken nose. She followed him, kicked his legs out from under him and gave him another blow across the back of his head, dropping him senseless to the dirt. Cries of alarms went up and she drew her pistol from her belt and turned so that her rifle covered the villagers while the side arm pointed at the unconscious priests head.



“Keep moving,” she said in a tone that was so without inflection it seemed to come from a robot rather than a woman. The pods resumed moving, heading down the road towards the distant highlander.



“That is the last of them,” Taya reported, glaring down at Gerome with hatred as hot as Sayeeda’s was cold. That was understandable given how close she had come to joining his little breeding program. Junebug lifted the pistol and offered to to Taya, nodding her chin towards Gerome. The blonde woman shook her head.

“Your loss,” Junebug said, tucking the weapon back into her belt.



“My father said that revenge is rarely good business,” she said quietly, eyes following a cart loaded with bolts of shimmer cloth as it rumbled down the road following the pods. None of them saw any sense in leaving the villagers with any valuables, though they hadn’t bothered to search individual houses. Junebug grinned and though the expression was vicious it at least had a hint of humanity to it.

“I suppose that rather depends on the business you are in,” she replied philosophically.

“Lets get out of here, I think I have all the bucolic pastoral scenery I need for the moment,” she told Taya. As she turned and began walking down the track, her mind turned to Neil and their next destination, thoughts of burning villages dwindling away in her mind.

[POOHEAD189]

2 months later...

Neil lounged against the pilot's chair, Lonney taking up the duties of traversing the R.I.P. while the crew was fast asleep. Even with an AI as sophisticated as the Highlander's, someone still needed to be up most of the time to keep an eye on things. Lonney couldn't exactly warn the crew of a malfunction or an impending disaster if no one was awake. Neil also had to be doubly aware, as their last stop on Langor VII had brought them face to face with the bounty hunter's guild, and Saxon had been brought back into the fold, given a major hunt that would last for some months. Neil had come to appreciate the big Xeno's presence, but he was still sort of glad the brute was gone.

Even so, that meant one of the human crew had to remain awake, and Neil had drawn the short straw this time. He felt his eyes sinking, though they halted halfway there. Back in high school on Fortus he had learned a technique that let him rest his eyes while keeping them merely lidded, and it had tricked more than one teacher into thinking he was at least paying some attention.

He let his mind wander a bit, comfortable in the heated cockpit. He had jerry-rigged the chairs to lean backwards like a recliner, and he lay snuggled on the central one, feet kicked up on the dashboard. Junebug wasn't a fan of him doing that, but she didn't openly forbid it either. He had taken the liberty and his thoughts drifted to their next job. The crew had heard a planetary governer in Gliese 876 was hiring on mercenaries for an expedition into conquered space. One of those high risk/high reward jobs in retaking old systems that had gone dark in the Imperium's past. There might even be a few neo-crusaders, if the governer knew what he was doing and played his cards right. Hopefully they played nice. Supposed to be a big payday.

While Neil thought of the coming campaign, there was a sudden, flashing red indicator above him. It was small, but he noticed it nonetheless. Neil cocked an eyebrow, understanding it was the stability alarm. Sometimes the R.I.P. could be unpredictable, but as long as Taya had refilled the coaxium in the R.I.P. drive they should be fine unless there was a void beast of some kind or some rare celestial event. Neil stretched and yawned and snuggled back down into his chair again.

The next thing he knew, Neil was yanked out of his seat from the centrifugal force, and suddenly alarms did not just idly flash, but they blared in his ears. Neil raised his hands and caught himself before his head smashed against the dashboard, and Lonney's voice came over the intercomms.

"Emergency! Emergency! R.I.P. tide unstable! 87% chance of losing the integrity of the shields, and 99.847% chance of losing the integrity of the vessel once that occurs. Maneuvering is required, first mate!"

Neil was already on it, punching in the swift algorithm for manual override and taking the wheel, flipping three levers on the right. He blinked, trying to get his thoughts together as sweat began to bead on his forehead. "Lonney, prepare the ship for an emergency R.I.P. detachment! All auxiliary power to the shields, and keep us in line until I can get us out of here!"

"As you say, first mate!" Lonney replied. Already he heard the Highlanders hatches and hydraulic systems doing their work, and the shield's power increased to 142% on the display monitor. The vessel began to shudder incessantly, an endless drumming that had his teeth clattering. He saw lights on a spectrum on the display monitor, flashing to showcase how close they were getting to an exit portal in R.I.P. space. It was far too sudden to predict, but the very next second a green light flashed and Neil banked the Highlander hard, powering down the drive and sending the Highlander flying into realspace.

Neil felt his stomach twist and a wave of intense nausea flooded into him, a sensation of his very soul being yanked overcoming him for a brief few moments. It was agonizing, but as he regained control of his faculties, he realized not only had he not soiled himself, but the ship was very much intact. The alarms were now silent, and one by one save for a few minor systems, they were shut off.

"Thank you Gideon sweet merciful lord," he breathed, and then he began to laugh. First softly, and then hard. Neil had a big appreciation for life, especially with how chaotic it often was. He ended the chortle in a giggle, before he turned back to the display. "Lonney, ship status. And where are we?"

"Power is low, but ship is stable. Unable to return to R.I.P. In need of power cells and 4 gallons of coaxium. We are currently in the Hydronikas system." The AI responded. Neil pursed his lips, stroking his chin.

"Isn't that the system where Sayeeda is from?" He asked himself. Lonney answered regardless.

"Correct."

[Penny]

It would happen soon.

The shuddering increased in Junebug’s mind. Number three engine had cooked its bearings in the long, full tilt, run across the ocean. Within fifteen minutes it would shake itself to scrap. That was fine. They only had three minutes and twenty seven seconds left. Light Attack Vehicle Hotel 3-1- Hello Hellfire, jounced on her uneven thrust as she bounced up the front of the beach and across a carpet of thick lantana. The intakes made a grinding sound as a storm of dissected plant matter bounced from their particle shields to be spewed outwards as a jet of sap and salad. They came over the low strand nose up, dangerously high, exposing the open plenum chamber to the enemy troops for a critical second before gravity slammed them back down. Fortunately the inhabitants of the fire base were too panicked to take advantage. Rifle shots bloomed out in the night, the stars of muzzle flash lobbing the deceptively slow moving tracer rounds that snapped overhead. High, too high. The front of Hello Hellfire crashed to the ground as she lost pressure in the chamber, spraying gravel and clods of turf as her skirts bit. The LAV bunny hopped on momentum, rattling Sayeeda’s teeth before thrust balanced and they rushed down into the rear of the firebase. The enemy defenses were on the landward side, they had never anticipated an attack from the sea.

The shuddering was worse. It wouldn’t matter. Three minutes, twelve seconds.

Sayeeda peered through the sight of the light plasma cannon that was her vehicle's primary armament. The holographic stabilizer compensated for the shuddering. The left half of her visor projected a plot position indicator in a twenty percent mask. Blue phosphor dots marked the other LAVs of her platoon. 3-2 Hot Stuff, 3-3 Hocus Pocus, 3-5 How the Fuck and 3-7 Hacksaw were all crossing the strand in a neat echelon. That was luck rather than parade ground precision, as they should have been crossing line abreast, but it wouldn’t matter, it hadn’t mattered.

The shuddering. How was number three holding together?

The firebase blazed with hostile fire. Infantry weapons the computer said, no threat, unless you were unlucky. The real enemy was the armored company picketed on the far side, guns pointed towards the land approach they expected to have to defend. The night screamed with the buzz saw rip of the LAVs rotary mounts. The twin pods fired seven hundred caseless rounds per second in a ruinous stream. There were no tracers, but the holographic overlay reported the radar tracks of the projectiles as wavy lines reaching out to snuff out the disorganized enemy. It was neat in the dark. You couldn’t see men torn to blood and gristle, or disemboweled by the sweep of a sleet of hyper velocity hard rounds. She couldn’t even smell the death yet, only the sweetly poisonous chemical residues being sucked behind her by her wake. The night air quivered as the remaining cars opened up, their gunners taking full advantage of their enemies confusion and questionable cover. Sayeeda filled her sight picture with a barracks and fired the plasma cannon twice with a world ending CRACK CRACK which dimmed the rotary mounts to insignificance. The barracks, a two story construction of wood and mud brick, exploded, the sun hot lance of plasma of the main gun converting the residual moisture to superheated steam which literally blew the building apart from within. No fantasy of darkness could mask her handiwork. A thirty foot tall column of flame blazed skywards, the ruins of the building serving as a directional chimney for the funeral pyre of its inhabitants. A flaming body tumbled lazily away to crash into the roof of a neighboring supply shed, a half second before a pair of bolts from Hocus Pocus obliterated that building too. Fire slacked under the combined shock of the onrushing LAVs. Padma, Sayeeda’ driver, jinked them sideways so they slalomed between a guard tower and a shed of corrugated iron, kicking up a storm of gravel which rattled off the metal like a storm of shrapnel. Sayeeda caught a glimpse of a shirtless enemy soldier clutching pistol in abject terror as armored death crashed past. They were in the open field in the center of the base now, a parade ground, a training field? Sayeeda had slewed her turrent at a thirty degree angle to their line of advance based on Imagery from a satellite over flight three days before. You learned not to trust satellite when it came to enemy units, but buildings could generally be relied upon not to move. The headquarters building was made of brick with a roof of fired clay tiles, great, vaulted brick archways formed its base. It was built to last a statement of intent of the government that they were in this thing for the long haul. Sayeeda let the LAVs motion drag her gunsight along the front of the building. Her mind didn’t register her pulling the trigger but she must have because each of the successive brick arches blew apart in gorgeous white flames. At the temperature of plasma everything burned. The calcium in the bricks sparkled incandescent white as sun hot bolts completed their combustion in a fraction of a second. One section of the building was a communications station, probably the only real target that mattered given the quality of enemy officers. It mushroomed skyward as it was spitted by converging fire from Hello Hellfire and Hocus Pocus as the formed a base of a triangle with the burning building at its apex. The masts and antennae burned brilliant blue and green against the night sky.

Gunfire rattled off the hull of the LAV as Padma began to turn. One of the threat carrots in Sayeeda’s display lit red as a shoulder mounted launcher turned on its active radar a second before she caught the puff of its rocket igniter. An alarm icon flashed and there was a whirring sound as one of the three laser projection heads of the point defense system aligned itself and dumped its capacitor through a weapons grade ruby that cost more than Sayeeda made in a month. The ultra high yield laser discharge shattered the ruby and cooked the lens as it pulsed outward. The incoming warhead exploded in a dirty orange fireball that contrasted hideously with the beautiful bursts of the plasma flames. Pieces of warhead and rocket casing rattled off the turret facing, no more dangerous than a handful of confetti. Rotary pods from three different LAVs pureed the man into mist before he could duck back into cover, leaving his loader coated in gore and screaming as he threw himself flat. A plasma bolt from How the Fuck ended any lingering threat in a white hot fireball.

“No.” Sayeeda thought/said but her mouth didn’t form the words. Instead she heard herself saying, as though from an impossible distance: ‘All units advance, hit’em girls or they will chop us.”

“Roger that moving…” Daisy Bell, commander of Hacksaw began to respond but was cut off as her vehicle was suddenly slammed sideways by a concussive detonation. A second rocketeer had gotten lucky, his missile smashing low into the vehicle's hull. Something, perhaps a piece of airborne debris had deflected the PDS. The rocket blast shredded the skirts and dropped Hacksaw to the ground. The two ton vehicle carrened across the parade ground like a plowshare, throwing up a bow wave of dirt as her momentum died. Someone was screaming over the comm, probably Sanchez, Daisy’s driver as she was peppered with shrapnel inside the driving compartment.

I regret to inform you that your daughter Carmen Sanchez was killed in action. She died instantly when…

Carmen’s screams continued to echo for a moment before the communications AI mercifully cut the transmission. There was a sudden whump of exploding gasses as the crowd control gas and smoke grenade canisters in the ruined LAV detonated, blasting out in a donut shaped screen of toxic mist. Enemy infantry rushing towards the downed vehicles dropped their rifles and screamed as the gas burned their eyes and throats. In theory the gas dump would give any survivors, immunized against the gas, a chance to escape before the enemy could close in. If there were any survivors, and if they were in any condition to escape.

One minute thirty seconds.

The four surviving LAVs roared past the burning headquarters building, their fans swirling the flames into great curving blades of fire. The real target lay ahead. A score of armored vehicles, local tanks and gun carriers lay in position behind a slotted berm of bull dozed earth, designed for the tanks to be able to roll up and fire when necessary. Support vehicles of all kinds, light trucks, ambulances, fuel carriers were all drawn up in neat rows. The formation was in chaos. Men running from their billets were leaping into their vehicles, the air was thick with diesel smoke as the tanks came online, multi-ton tanks maneuvering in cramped spaces. The local vehicles were light tanks, wheeled instead of tracked to give them speed and maneuverability on the coastal plains. They were slabbed with green and khaki sheets of ablative armor over a steel core. Sayeeda saw a rotating turret bat a truck away like a top. She could smell the cooked meat on the air even before she opened fire.

One minute two seconds. The shuddering was so bad the world seemed to fuzz around her.
The first shot hit the rear deck of a gun carrier, the ravening bolt of white hot plasma spurting in through an open crew hatch, blowing the tank apart from the inside out. The turret blasted upwards on a column of flame only lightly coloured by the fuel air explosion of its vaporized tanks. Sayeeda was already slewing the main gun right, snapping off two shots at a second tank. The glancing hits smashed the ablative armor in a spray of ceramics which cut down crewmen still scrambling aboard.
The berm lit up like a fireworks display as dug in infantry in bunkers and fox holes opened fire with personal weapons. Threat icons blossomed as anti-armor weapons came online. Two plasma bolts hit a bunker opening within a fraction of a second, pumping megajoules of hellfire into the confined space. Something, stores of munitions maybe, detonated blasting out a forty foot section of the wall in a spray of dirt which rained down on friend and foe alike. Hello Hellfire slewed sideways as Padma adjusted course to run down the curve of the wall. The hull rattled with bullet strikes and the point defense system fired twice more, the bolts visible in the dust and smoke in a way they were not in clear air. The red ‘lenses exhausted’ warning light lit. No further countermeasures available.

“Pod out!” Cassel, Sayeeda’s gunner, shouted. She popped from an open hatch and ripped the ammunition drum free, throwing it over the side and swinging a fresh one into its place. There was an autoloader, but it would have taken thirty seconds to bring up a drum from the internal storage. Cassel dropped back into the shelter of her gunnery station. The buzzing roar of the rotary pods resumed.

Forty Seconds.

There was fire everywhere. Tanks and support vehicles blazed. A fuel bowser went off in a low order explosion that shook the night. Flames reflected off the berm in a flickering rendition of hell. The sudden crack, crack, crack of hyper velocity rounds rent the night as one of the enemy vehicles finally cleared for action. The locals used 20mm tungsten penetrators in three round clips. Hocus Pocus flipped like a flicked coin, turning a half revolution in the air before smashing down onto the ground, exposed fans howling and sucking ribbons of flames towards its intakes like the fingers of a demon.
I regret to inform you that your daughter Cassie Bix was killed instantly when…
Twenty one seconds. The shudder was so bad Sayeeda could feel her teeth chattering.

They were nearly clear. They just had to run back to the sea. Padma was pouring the juice to the engines as the survivors sped away. Sayeeda fired constantly in time with the shimmer, the barrel of the plasma cannon glowing white hot as it overheated. If the barrel warped it could easily destroy the LAV when a fresh charge burst on the deformed barrel. Hello Hellfire climbed the low rise to the lantana. She was trailing razor wire like the tendrils of a jellyfish, it ripped and tore at the ground cover like a flail.

Three… two…

An enemy tank emerged from a maintenance bay a hundred meters behind her. Sayeeda watched it happen with her mind's eye. She desperately tried to wrench the controls aside but her hands remained steady and inert. Her eyes saw the glittering sea beyond the rise, it was very beautiful, as dark and mysterious as space.

One… zero…

The tank fired. The first shot glanced upwards off Hello Hellfire’s armor like a comet. The LAV rang like a giant bell for the fraction of a second before the second round hit, punching into the vehicles fusion bottle breaching the magnetic containment. The reactor went off like a miniature fusion bomb.

I regret to inform you that your daughters Padma Singh and Johanna Cassel were killed instantly when…

The blast gutted the hull of the LAV from the inside. Sayeeda felt herself lift as the turret housing rose on the concussion, slamming her into her restraints a moment before the canvas parted and she flew outwards and upwards away from the death of her crew. She turned a slow summersault in the air, watching alternate views of glittering sea and burning base whirl through her mind.

I regret to inform you that your daughter Sayeeda Cyckali survived a hasty and ill conceived operation in which elven other troopers were killed..

Weird, she could still feel the shuddering of number three engine as the black waters of the ocean rushed up to meet her.

Sayeeda started awake, out of bed and into her boots before she was fully conscious. She was shivering , clammy and soaked in sweat as she ran for the cockpit, taking the ladder in three quick steps. She burst in naked except for her boots, eyes locked on the sensor readouts. Neil turned in his couch, hands coming away from the controls as alarm claxons began to quiet. He arched an eyebrow.

“Good morning to you too.”

[POOHEAD189]

Neil stared at her for a second. Not because she was naked, or not only because of that, but he was also concerned. If one was sleeping while R.I.P. tides were uneven, and particularly if they were entering or exiting the lanes, it was a common occurence to cause dreams, particularly vivid nightmares. There was something about the phenomenon that effected the brain and triggered such things, particularly when one was offguard and asleep. He wasn't going to ask her if his theory was right, but it was clear he could make an educated guess as to what happened. "Lonney, take the wheel." He said absently, before getting up.

"Hey Captain, it's all good. We had a bit of trouble but we're safe now," He temporized. Junebug's eyes were set forward, almost as if she was still dreaming, or at least thinking about something far away. "Babe? Why don't you get some clothes on before Taya wakes up? You know how I jealous I get." It was a joke, but he did think her heartbeat needed to slow down a notch or two. "Get a shower too, you're kinda sweating-"

"Just give me the report, Neil." She said, finally looking at him. He scratched his head, glancing back at the display monitor.

"Ok, at around 300 hours standard terran time, there was an anomaly in the R.I.P. tides and we all almost died. Bad news is we need more power and coaxium to get back into R.I.P. space and make our payday. Good news is, we're not dead thanks to my piloting skills, and we're also not in the middle of deep space. We actually ended up in a known system. One you know better than most, probably." He ended the explanation with a shrug, thinking it was good luck they stopped here. Sayeeda might have a contact or two that would help them get the supplies they needed without denting their funds too much.

"What do you mean?" She asked curiously, eyes narrowing.

"We ended up in Hydronikas, and judging from the sensors here-" He walked to the cockpit chair and pointed at a smaller display where data was still beading across the screen as Lonney continued to scan their surroundings. "We're just a few hundred thousand miles away from your home planet. We can dock there and get the shit we need and then head out after a small holiday. If you got family there you can introduce me."

He looked back at her, and her face was unreadable for a brief moment. "Babe?"