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> In [America] satire never had more than a sickly and uncertain existence, for the soul of it is wit, wherein we are dolefully deficient, the humor that we mistake for it, like all humor, being tolerant and sympathetic. Moreover, although Americans are 'endowed by their Creator' with abundant vice and folly, it is not generally known that these are reprehensible qualities, wherefore the satirist is popularly regarded as a soul-spirited knave, and his [continual] victim's outcry for codefendants evokes a national assent.
>
> —Ambrose Bierce
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Arc 4: "Shooting the Rodeo"
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The gray door slid out of Luci's way. She stepped through the bulkhead and entered the cramped cockpit. Two bucket seats faced the black of space visible through the narrow, curved windshield. Uncle Ramon sat in the lefthand seat, staring at the bulky, analog instruments panels. Their dinged metal covers were studded with worn switches and knobs. Lines of pixelated text swept across a curved monitor coated with phosphor.
The ship was old. Very old. It'd been in her family for generations. When it was made, Asilo was so poor in minerals — and so far away from the rest of the galaxy — they couldn't build anything more complicated than 8-bit microprocessors and CRT monitors. They didn't have the resources lying around. So, they made do with what that had … and kept doing it.
Thanks to her family's hard work, the ship was still flying after all these years.
"What's up, mija?" her uncle said, staring at the text spilling across the monitor.
"Uncle Ramon," she said firmly.
He tore his eyes from the screen and twisted around to look at her. His bushy eyebrows rose up and pushed the skin on his forehead into ridges. He waited for her to speak, his mouth parted slightly.
Gulping, she pulled her hands out from behind her back and held a metal, sun-shaped disc on a stand out to him. The statue hovered in front of the stars through the windshield, taking its place among the universe.
"I, um, made this for you," she mumbled.
A touch of embarrassment crawled through her body. It shook her hands, which began to struggle with the metal statue's weight in a way they hadn't before. They almost threatened to drop it, but her uncle gingerly lifted the statue off her palms and examined it. She rocked on her heels, her stomach clenched, wringing her wriggly hands behind her back.
"Um, it's el Diablo," she said. "I thought that, um, it'll remind you of home while we're away. Also, it's got arrows going in a circle inside it. You know, because … scrap trading."
He turned to her, a twinkle lighting up his eye.
"School's giving me vo-tech credits for being out here," she said, raising her voice. "S-So I need to practice my metalworking. So … that's the only— That's the reason I made it."
What's that word they call people in anime? A 'tsundere'? I'm totally one of those, aren't I? A gulp swelled down her throat. She chewed her lip. I hope he doesn't start teasing me like he always does …!
His eyes went to the statue again. He held it up and admired it by the light of the cockpit and the big brown planet floating past the ship's port side.
"Pretty good craftsmanship, mija. You're definitely a Ramirex."
She chuckled a bit, and the smile it brought to her face stayed there and pushed up her cheeks.
"You taught me."
"Haha, yes I did! That must be why you're so good at it."
Suddenly, the flight computer chirped. Its rapid-fire mechanical pitter-patter filled the cockpit. Frowning, her uncle spun around, bent over the instrument panels, and absently put the statue aside. Luci stepped forward, right between the bucket seats, and stared at the CRT monitor.
"Distress signal," he said.
She looked at the brown orb to their left. They were headed for a station in this system to meet up with her brother and cousin, and using the planet outside as a slingshot to save on fuel. Although they'd retrofitted the family starship with modern engines, it just wasn't built to fly like newer ships. It didn't have the power. It was old and clunky, and it'd stay that way unless they replaced so much stuff that it wasn't even the same ship anymore.
We learned about that in school. What do they call it?
Ship of Thesaurus?
Uncle Ramon punched a command into the instrument panel. The CRT monitor pulled up a pixelated grid of local space. Aliased vector lines showed the planet's curve and bracketed the chunky dots that stood in for their ship and the one in distress.
"I don't like this," he said. After studying the screen, he shook his head and adjusted the controls. "Nah, we're leaving. Get in the seat, Luce, and strap yourself in."
She did what he told her, but as she buckled the harness around her chest she imagined herself being trapped in the ship. Running out of air, freezing to death … And rescue was just sailing past, not lifting a finger to save their lives.
"But … they're in trouble. They need our help."
"They are trouble," her uncle said. "They're pirates, Luci. If we stop, they'll help themselves … to our cargo." Under his breath, he added, "And something much more precious, I'll bet."
"What's that?"
He sucked air through his nostrils and then snorted it out like he was about to rip a bandage off.
"You, mija."
Under her well-worn work clothes, her skin crawled from head to toe. The straps dug into her chest and stomach like they wanted to slice her to pieces.
"Wh-What do you mean?" she asked.
Not looking at her, he continued to adjust the knobs and switches.
"Don't worry about it," he said gruffly.
"What if you're wrong, though? What if they're really in trouble?"
He tilted his head back and groaned. His hands gripped the control yoke tightly, locking it in place. Then, shaking his head, he fiddled with the controls again, reversing some of them.
"Alright, but if I smell something fishy, we're hightailing it outta here, pronto."
As her uncle set the autopilot to intercept with the signal, he got out of his seat and walked behind her chair. She twisted around to look at him, but the seat back was in the way. She knew what he was doing, though. The computer systems were so old they couldn't use the Wireless Interface & Transponder Standard, which allowed spaceships to talk to each other, so they had to hook a portable WITS deck up to the comms panel.
"Ident code … Name, Icarus … Registered in Sanhelios … Maldita sea."
"What's wrong?"
Her uncle barked laughter. "Not very original. It's like they pulled it outta sus culos in five seconds. Checksum matches, but memory allocation doesn't."
"Huh?"
"When you initialize a starship's WITS system, it allocates memory to store its data. If you tamper with it to overwrite that data without doing a full system reboot, and the new data takes up less space, you'll see gaps between the pieces of data."
Uncle Ramon walked between the seats and sat down again. As he clipped his harness on, he stared through the windshield like the tiny dot in front of the curving planet was a bomb ticking down to detonation.
"The only reason somebody would overwrite their WITS signal like that … is if they need to quickly spoof a transponder while on the move."
"D-Does that mean they're pirates?"
"They could be smugglers … or they could just love their privacy. But we can't let our guard down. Make sure you're buckled in tight. I'll keep the tachyon generator running … just in case."
As she double-checked her harness, he disabled the autopilot. He took the control yoke in one hand. His other hand went to the thruster controls and inched them closer to the ship in distress. It hung lifelessly in front of the massive brown rock filling the windshield's port half. Luci's hands gripped the sides of her padded seat. The other ship had a sharp, arcing body, like a short, thick boomerang. It had two long, thin engines on its wings, beside its main fuselage. Like a very pointy W.
"It's armed," her uncle said. "Blaster cannons."
Luci's grip on the padded seat tightened.
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He opened a comms channel and said, in Galactic Standard, "Hola, Icarus. Anybody there?"
The line remained silent, until a gruff voice spoke up. "Damn, are we glad to see you!"
"What's the problem out there, amigo?"
"Chambers coil overloaded. Caused a backfire that fried our Jarkmun rotor and took out our engines."
Luci stared at the side of her uncle's face. Deep in thought, he kept his eyes on the ship hanging in the middle of outer space. His tensed fists stiffly drummed their fingers on the control yoke's prongs. When he spoke, his voice was a lot friendlier than his face.
"That so? Sounds like a real big problem."
"What are you guys hauling? We'd be willing to make a trade …"
"Sorry, amigo. Just organic waste."
"Organic waste … ?"
"That's right. Somebody on Vorgelthorbe station is running one of those bioenergy places, you know? Supposed to generate electricity from recycled biomass."
"I see …"
"Say, uh, what model Chambers coil you have?"
The longer the line stayed silent, the more Luci's hair stood on end and her muscles tightened up. Then the voice came back, reciting something in a slow, halting voice.
"Eupidde Engineering, model … DQ-104N."
Her uncle's lips rose up to reveal his gritted teeth, like a cornered dog.
Frowning, Luci leaned across the gap between the bucket seats and whispered, "Can the DQ-series overload so bad it takes out a Jarkmun rotor?"
Rolling his eyes to her, he shook his head. His neck was so stiff it barely turned. At the sight of sweat beading on his face, Luci started to shake. She slumped down in her seat, clawing at the fabric. Digging in so deep in the hopes it'd keep her fingers from twitching.
What did I do? Oh, what did I do?!
"Give me a second," her uncle said. "I'll talk to my engineer."
The line was silent, before the voice said, "Sure thing."
Uncle Ramon muted the comms. She watched him flip switches, but to her shock, her vision was blurred by tears. They sprang out of her eyes and rolled down her cheeks. The shaking got so much worse. It built up inside her, tore her chest, and she couldn't control it. It came out of her quavering throat as an ugly, gasping sob.
"I'm sorry," she blubbered. "I'm sorry."
"Hey, hey." He smiled at her. "Don't worry about a thing, mija. You've got a big heart. They're the ones who should be sorry, for preying on your kindness like that. Now, just hang on, okay? Your uncle's gonna get us out of this."
He hit the button to open the comms channel.
Luci clasped her hands over her mouth to stifle her sobbing so they couldn't hear it over the radio.
"Icarus, come in," her uncle said.
"We're here," the voice said.
"Sorry, amigo. Don't have any parts to spare. And we're really not cut out for a rescue mission. It's a small ship, we got a full hold—"
"Hey, man. Give us a break here."
"We're on our way to Vorgelthorbe station. Soon as we get there, we'll tell traffic control—"
The stern voice declared, "We might be dead by the time they get here."
The accusation stabbed out of the speaker grille and dug itself into Luci's heart. What if … What if we're wrong … ?
Uncle Ramon said, "From a blown Jarkmun rotor? Your orbit looks stable from here."
His words were met by silence. They hung in the air, unable to cross the space between their ship and the other one floating weightless in the light of the brown planet. The silence dragged on … and nothing moved. Except the tense atmosphere getting heavier on pushing her down into her seat. She gripped its edges and waited …
Plumes of exhaust jetted from the other ship's engines.
Huh? I thought their Jarkmun rotor was damaged?
Then it twisted savagely to aim its nose at them. Bolts of light erupted from its cannons.
We're going to die, Luci thought, oddly calm despite the air getting caught in her throat.
"Hold on!" Uncle Ramon shouted.
Her uncle shoved the control yoke forward and ramped the throttle up. The engines kicked in and made the ship dive down. She yelled as the acceleration shoved her against the back of her bucket seat.
The pirate ship had started firing its cannons before it had zeroed in on them completely. The bolts sailed over the cockpit, filling it with the same hellish light as el Diablo. As the 'Icarus' turned, the beams of light cut closer to the cockpit, sliced through space, bore down on her …
"I'm sorry!" she sobbed. "I'm sorry!"
As their ship dove, the pirate ship slid up their windshield. It was nearly finished rotating. Firing its engines, it shot towards them to close the distance as quick as possible. Its cannons kept pumping out hot blasts of energy that narrowly sailed past their heads.
"They're aiming for our engines," her uncle said.
They couldn't jump to FTL with a big planet in the way, and they couldn't turn to starboard fast enough to get away without giving them a clear shot at the engines …
What are we going to do?! Luci thought.
They continued to dive.
The big brown planet swiveled next to them, throwing Luci's sense of balance for a loop. A headache pounded in her skull. Every nerve in her body shook like it was being electrocuted.
The sleek shape rapidly grew bigger in the windshield …
Her uncle pulled the yoke back and leveled the ship. The 'Icarus' soared down at them from up high, but Uncle Ramon yanked the throttle forward to scrape by under their keel.
Luci threw her arms out, groped for something to grab hold of. Some magical lever she could throw that would end this nightmare as easy as snapping her fingers. But there was nothing, her clumsy fingers found nothing. She was trapped in this cramped cockpit, there was no way out except flinging herself into the void.
Helpless … totally helpless …
Her throat was raw, but the screams wouldn't stop coming. Panic shredded its way out of her as a desperate howl, and there was so much more trapped inside her. Her head thumped, she couldn't deal with the pressure anymore, it crushed her like she was falling into a black hole…
"Mija, listen to me. It's going to be alright. Soon as we make FTL, we'll lose them."
The other ship shot down at them, its bolts streaking past the cockpit like crimson lightning. Sneering, her uncle stabbed his hand out and grabbed the knob that controlled the thrusters. Counting silently to himself, he tensed his arm. Luci stared at him with eyes that felt as big as moons.
They're coming right at us … !
Uncle Ramon twisted the knob and fired the thrusters at full blast. They kicked the ship upward right as the other ship moved to intercept them. It veered to the side to avoid a collision. Its keel slipped past the windshield. The space ahead of them was clear.
Her eyes darted to the scanner. On the pixelated grid showing their local space, right before her horrified, itchy eyes, the chunky dot of the pirate ship looped around and skipped across the rows of pixels.
They're coming … and they have a clear shot at our engines now!
"Uncle Ramon!" she squealed, tears flowing down her cheeks.
He put his whole back into twisting the control yoke as hard as he could. Aiming the ship away from the planet so the safety system wouldn't register a collision and cut the FTL drive.
"Almost got it, mija."
Blaster bolts shot past them from behind, bathing the cockpit in intense blood-red light. Her hands clawed into the cushion, their knuckles throbbing from the stress of being so stiffly bent.
… nothing I can do, nothing I can do, nothing I can do …
"Uncle Ramon, I'm sorry! I'm so, so sorry!"
"Hah!" he shouted.
With agonizing slowness, the ship's nose inched past the rim of the planet and pointed at empty space. Her uncle's large, capable hand thrust out and slammed the switch to inject the tachyon stream into the engines. The thrumming traveled through the hull and built up into a whine.
"Hold on, mija!"
As she clung to the seat for dear life, goosebumps crawled all over her skin. Just waiting for a last-second shot to rip the cockpit open. Blast her out into space. End her life, when they were about to get free. Any second now, it'd all tear apart around her. Any second …
Why didn't you listen to Uncle Ramon?!
Stupid!
Then the thrumming exploded into a zap, and the glow of the planet was yanked out of sight. The system's star streaked past the cockpit, leaving a white-hot afterimage in its wake. The stars in front of the nose turned blue and slowly drifted past them.
The statue she'd made slipped off the control panel, clipped the edge of Uncle Ramon's chair, and bent badly. One piece broke off, and all of it clattered to the cockpit deck in a twisted wreck. She hadn't built it as well as she thought she did.
"We're alright, mija," her uncle said. "We're alright."
But the panicked screams wouldn't stop coming out of her wide-open mouth …
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A tremendous yawn stretched Luci's lips out and pushed her cheeks up. Her eyelids were pushed together, blurring her view. As steamy post-shower air rushed through her wide-open mouth and filled her cheeks, she tilted from side to side, searching for balance while the yawn knocked her askew. She stretched her hand out until her palm landed on the mirror with a wet thump. Moving it from side to side in clumsy arcs, she wiped the mist away. In her hazed view, a dark shape making a funny face stared back at her.
Her mouth stopped stretching and closed with a snap. She blinked until the haze vanished and stared at her damp face. It was framed by jagged arcs of condensation, a haphazard patch of clarity in the middle of a big blur. Her damp hair clung to her scalp in a scraggly mess, twice as dark as it usually was.
That's me, she thought. That's my face.
It looked so pathetic and lonely, staring back at her with a meek, haunted look in its dull brown eyes.
I'm not horrible-looking, right? Earthy skin tones, slight build, extremely short, a little androgynous. Not the showiest, sure. But there's gotta be some women in this giant universe who are into that, right?
Right … ?
So where are they?
And why can't Philomena be one of them?
Heh, maybe they stay away because I still look like I'm twelve. Well, I think I'm done growing. All I can change now is my attitude. She screwed her face up into a stern glower and mugged for the mirror, but no matter how hard she tried, she just looked goofy. I'm turning into Blaze Corvo, she thought. She dropped the facade with a sigh and gave her dull brown face another long, hard look.
All I gotta do is stop acting so helpless and show how tough I am. Become a real tachi. Confident, capable, mature for my little neko-chans. Give off a real butch vibe. If I do that, everything else will fall into place …
Somehow.
The intrapanel chimed. She leaned over and pushed the button to accept the comms channel from the flight deck.
"Luci," Blaze said. "You almost done? We're about to land."
"Yeah, I'll be there in a minute."
Luci cut off the channel, and then gave herself one last look in the mirror. She scowled at herself.
It's time to get tough, Luci!
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