We found my ship. Thank Neptune.
On our way there the radio had said something about a lowly street food vendor taking his cuisine intergalactic. An anonymous patron left a hefty gratuity of five billion credits. With it the proprietor was venturing to create a nonprofit organization to bring quality food to those in need across the universe. During the interview he stated he owed a debt of gratitude to the generous tipper and vowed to provide the same generosity to those less fortunate.
Good for him. I hope it does well. I wish someone would cut me a break like that just once.
My ship was more or less how I left, and where I left it. Still stuck to a pile of statically charged shit. But. With the help of my freightliner we were able to free it without turning myself into a convection oven again.
You’re probably thinking, you could have kept the big ship. Sail away with your army. Take down Zalud’s empire and replace it with your own. This is not far off from what was going to happen. Jalad had proved himself to be as much a warrior as a leader. I have no doubt he will become a great liberator. He would cover that end, while the elusive, enigmatic mastermind behind the movement – who was also wanted for murdering the Emperor – would remain in the shadows, nowhere to be known. Not to mention, they would be a much bigger target then me scooting around in my jalopy.
“I hope you find your Corsica,” Jalad said in his farewell.
“Corsica is where you make it,” I said with a wink.
“Perhaps one day I will make it to Tanagra.”
Trying not to smirk too much I replied, “May the wall not fall.”
“Good luck to you too, my friend.”
And with that I disembarked for my ship.
It felt like Groundhog Day. Wasn’t it just yesterday I did this? Finding my ship in some desolate place to flee yet again. Flee isn’t a good word for it. Maneuver from the clutches of my enemy with a middle finger in the air. Yeah, that’s about right.
Since I was only sailing along before, I hadn’t used any of my fuel. The electric cells were depleted and would take a while to recharge. From the other ship, I took a couple handfuls of spheres. I heard somewhere that you’re supposed wear special protective gear and have an eighty hour training course for properly handling and administering the material into a reaction chamber. California can choke on it, so I threw my two handfuls of spheres into the chamber and shut the door.
After all that time there I hadn’t put much thought into what I was going to do afterwards. I was a little preoccupied with getting off that asteroid. Oh yeah, it turned out to be not quite a full planet. Maybe it was before they started farming it. But by the time I got there, it was only half the mass of what intergalactic scholars classified as a planet.
Bureaucrats.
My ship was set to the same path as my original journey. Where the hell else was I suppose to go? It’s not like I had to worry about that operation sending another search team. Ha. If there were to be any mercy for me, I would have a few days of coasting through space to relax while working on a longer term plan.
If only I had my pistol with me before, I thought, lounging in my captain’s chair. I should probably go get that. Where did I leave it?
Oh.
There it is.
The barrel of my pistol was pressed shakily at the back of my head.
Deep sigh. Deep sigh indeed. I need a vacation.
“Okay,” I said, slowly raising my hands.
The thought of turning and taking my pistol back crossed my mind. Could have been done easily. A shaky hand holding the gun made it more like for a laser beam to cross my mind though.
“How can I help you?”
An equally shaky soft voice grunted. The barrel wiggled against my skull.
I tried to slowly turn towards the sorry creature that did not have long to exist is this unforgiving, cruel universe that I would be less inclined to make a mess of if it would just cut me a little slack. Like, holy shit, is that too much to ask for?
“Don’t,” she shouted.
Unexpected.
I could have been mistaken, but I was certain it was woman. How she ended up on my ship out here, I’d have to find out. By the sounds of it, her world was nearly in as tight of a vise as mine.
“Where-”
“Shut up!”
This was becoming unproductive. So I drove. I drove along through space without changing the heading. Every time I tried to ask or suggest something, it was met with short barks. Note to self: remember this moment if I ever decide to get married.
New plan. We sailed in silence for a couple hours. Long enough for the tremble of her hand and breathing to ease. I was not permitted to turn an look, she was just that loudly nervous and scared. She was getting tired, though, I could tell. The adrenaline crashing, metabolizing through the system. You can only stand, holding a gun to someone’s head for so long. I could sense that she was trying to look around the cabin. Yet another rodeo I was not novice to.
“There’s a drop down behind you,” I said softly.
“Huh?”
“On the wall.” I slowly pointed the right, behind where she was standing. “Switch hands on the gun. Turn the lever and have a seat.”
Several shaky movements of the gun later, the dropdown seat clicked into place. The barrel left the back of my head. She was silent.
For a long time after that, I could feel where the barrel had been sitting. Quite annoying, really. Like taking off a pair of sunglasses you had been wearing all day. That phantom feeling, you know?
“Where to?”
“Just keep driving.”
“Bad idea.”
Silence. I just let it linger there. No further explanation. Let her roll that around in her mind for a few moments. Far less effort on my part and more convincing to leave it out there with utmost certainty.
“Why?” she finally asked. I swear I have the patience of a saint.
“They’ll find us eventually.”
“Who?”
“All the king’s horses.”
I heard the gun rise up again.
“You’re one of them,” she snarled.
“Hardly. I can’t even get behind a single sports team.”
“I saw you get off of one of their ships.”
Things were starting to make sense now. I would have to be very delicate in my choice of words. She had me dead to rights there. I did in fact just step off of one of their ships.
“What if I told you I liberated that ship?”
“Liar,” was shouted quickly.
I don’t like being called a liar. Many thing I may be, but a liar is not one of them. And the shouting in my ear after spending a week in a silent retreat was starting to hurt.
“What are you doing?” Panic grew in her voice as I changed our heading.
“Showing you proof.”
The gun was at the back of my head again.
This was going to be a long day.
We waited. We waited a good long time. The ship that dropped me off already had a head start. It would be another ways still back to the mines.
Seeing the explosions and turmoil on the planetoid from low orbit, she gasped.
I turned to give her the “do you believe me now” look.
What I saw, I only caught a glimpse before she blurred into a distortion that resembled what was directly behind her. That explained a bit more.
I flipped the switch to receive transmissions. They were yelling things like “Freedom” and “Death to Zalud.” I let the sounds fill the air for a minute before turning off the radio.
She rippled into existence behind me. I wasn’t sure what she was but she was certainly fascinating. Two toned, pale and gray, smooth horns lined the backs of her arms and head, from what I could see. And I could see everything. She was naked. Her cloaking ability obviously didn’t work on garb. She was still shaking.
Gingerly, I walked around her to my bunk. She stepped out of the way, keeping the weapon trained on my, only less enthusiastically.
From my closet, I pulled a thick warm robe. Her eyes flickered frantically between me and it. I tossed her the robe.
She made a bunch of noises, trying to juggle the robe and gun. In the mean time, I found some rations. By the time she managed to get the robe in hand, gun back on me, I tossed her the rations.
There were a number of frustrated sounds as I walked back to my chair.
“You freed them?” she asked from the dropdown chair.
“I helped them free themselves, really. Once things got rolling, it took on a life of its own.”
“Why?”
“Why?” I asked of her why. “I don’t do well in a cage.”
Then I told her what happened. It’s too long of a story to tell here, so I won’t bore you with all the details. Read the previous chapter if you really want to know.
I turned to look at her. Staring silently out the windshield, sadness and awe was in her eyes. Glossy, gray, beautiful. Then they met mine.
The effect was dizzying.
“I’m Dzira,” her voice sang softly.
“That’s a pretty name,” I heard myself say. Shaking off the cobwebs, I returned to the console, setting a course away from the planet.
“I thought I was going to freeze to death out here.”
“How did you end up on my ship?”
“We were rounded up from my home planet,” she said, slumping in the chair. “The women, mostly. They put us on a similar ship to the one you pulled up on. I managed to slip away and hide myself. Then the ship stopped by this. Your ship.”
“You were on the ship they picked me up on?”
“All I know is we stopped and I had a chance to slip off onto another ship. It was small but there was no one on it. I figured I would be able to fly off.”
“Yeah. I ran into some technical difficulties. Next thing I know I was in the mines. How did you survive in here so long? There was no power.”
“We’re able to survive in cold, airless environments. There are holes in the atmosphere on our planet. They come through in cycles, taking the air and warmth with it. We have evolved to live in either. My systems slow down until they become dormant. I thought I was going to die. Our dormancy periods only have to last a couple months until the atmosphere returns.”
“And then I get off of the same ship under my own free will and you had my blaster.”
She nodded.
“Hmph. I didn’t see anyone like you down there. No woman that I could tell at all.”
“They don’t use us in the mines.”
“Oh.”
I didn’t need any further explanation to know where that was going. The men are sent off to work while the woman are put “to work.” Dreadful times we live in.
“I don’t know what to do.” She fought through a sob. “I can’t just let them…”
“Hmph.”
She looked at me expectantly.
Damn my principles. Damn them to hell. But if I am capable of escaping hell, so are my principles. Damn it.
I looked at Dzira and the gravity felt to be less of a thing. I was starting to think something was wrong with my ship.
Light bulb.
I just took out one of Zalud’s production factories. Check.
What bigger money is there than raw materials? Sex trafficking. I mean “hospitality” as I am sure it is labeled on his tax filings.
I saved one pirate’s booty. It was time to save all the booties.
“Looks like I have another planet to liberate,” I said to no one in particular.
Her eyes widened into something of awe. Enchanting. Relaxing. I could float off into the abyss of those eyes, never to care again for anything else but those eyes.
She took to pacing across the room. All three steps up it up and three steps back. Her head was kept down, but her life force was back up. Color was returning to her skin, what little of it I could see now. The grays deepened into seas of blue and green. Like a peacock. If a peacock could fly.
What the hell was wrong with me? I tore my gaze from her and sneezed like it was the pollinating of spring on Earth.
I scratched the stubble on my chin. It sounded like a frog in heat. I needed to shave.
“Don’t do that,” she said suddenly. A quiver washed over her.
“Sorry. Definitely need to shave. They didn’t allow razors down there.”
“What do we do now?” She returned to pacing.
Sigh. I grabbed the mic for the radio.
“Tanagra to Jalad, over.”
Squelch.
“Anyone home? Pick up. Pick up. Pick up.”
Crunchy squelch.
“Decided to join the vanguard after all?” came Jalad’s voice.
“There was a stowaway on my ship.”
“Do you require assistance?”
“No, no. We worked through our differences. Fellow escapee. There is another ship carrying people for trafficking.”
“I’m on it.”
The biggest advantage to my disposal, I didn’t know I had until now. I just freed a planet full of technicians slash professional sailors. They would know how to crack into their boats systems, check logs, maps, et cetera et cetera. If there was something to find in the ship’s systems, they find would it and send it my way.
Waiting, I sat in silence, planning my next suicidal move. Eyes closed. Rubbing my temples. I needed a bath. A shave. And some other things.
“Sending coordinates your way.”
“Good.”
“Give us some more time and we will have the rest of the crews ready at attack.”
“Ehh. I don’t want to wait. Time may be of the essence. Plus, they’d probably need more training to not become a liability. I’d feel terrible if they ended up right back in chains.”
I was starting to feel light. A jittery kind of hollow.
“I will discuss it with the others,” he said. “When we are ready – and if they are willing – we will be behind.”
“Thanks. See you on the other side.”
I hung up and set our course.
Damn, I felt good. Like a little bit of a sugar low, but adrenalized.
“Okay,” I said to the still quiet room. This was exciting. So much so I was having a hard time thinking straight. “We’ll try to sneak up on wherever the ship went. From there-”
I turned to look at Dzira to make sure she was paying attention.
She was looking at me funny. Coming closer with her lips parted.
The woozy hit. Narcosis. Floating into a dream.
I promised Dzira I wouldn’t tell anyone about the crazy things we did after that. But have you ever coupled with a creature that can change colors while clinging to the ceiling with you between her and said ceiling?
The moments after the event that shall not be discussed were even more telling. Dzira’s kind are not just attractive in the physical sense. They emit a powerful pheromone, intense enough to drive nearly anything to rip its dick off with desire. In the heat of the moment, the great liberator drove the glands on her wrists and ankles to go into overdrive. That desire can be complementary to the one emitting the, uh, perfume. I even managed to make an attractive mating call while scratching my stubble, like a cricket.
I have no regrets.
And I didn’t hear any complaints.
But if you can do simple math, it’s not hard to put together that such a fine specimen would be a gold mine for a pimp. One night could fetch a small fortune, if the stories she’s heard are true. The price to “purchase” one was astronomical. Literally. There are stars out there more affordable.
If I hadn’t been so spent of energy after the marathon of events that shall not be discussed, I would have been in a rage. My morals may be as flexible as Dzira is, but I’d kill on a simple matter of principle. And at the top of that list was being anything but chivalrous towards the ladies.
Add to to-do list: shove Zalud’s genitals down his own throat until the lights fade from his eyes. Assuming he has genitals. All kidding aside, I really have no idea what he was or otherwise put much thought into his junk.
At some point we did make it back to the bed. The chemicals in my system wore off without much of an aftereffect. Some pleasant feelings lingered though as her head rested on my chest. I wondered what the rate of metabolism was for that stuff. Whatever the case may be, I just hope this sweet little chameleon didn’t love me too much like a reptile.
Cold blooded.
“I just realized something,” she murmured.
“What’s that?”
“I don’t think I got your name.”
“It happens.”
“Huh?”
“I happen to be,” I said with great flair, “Geralt. Of Rivendale.”
She chuckled and smiled up at me.
“What?”
“That is a terrible alias.”
She laughed into a sigh then closed her eyes.
I think I like this one.