I can’t remember when I last had an hour completely to myself with nothing else to do. Maurice isn’t here telling me which meeting or interview I’m late for, and ever since Maurice banned the media bots from the ship, nobody’s trying to pester me about my game day preparations - which to be honest, are sort of up in the air at the moment. I don’t know how many people are coming back from Jager’s quest.
I spend twenty minutes trying to decide, ten minutes walking down to the end of the hallway only to turn back, sure that whatever I was about to do would take too long, and end up checking my messages for half an hour. I don’t have very many. I know, you’re thinking spaceball coach, I must get a lot of random pieces of junk from all corners of the known universe. Spam is that peculiar meat product that’s still sold in oddly-shaped containers. Nobody gets the mailbox variety anymore, not after the Disinformation War. After that little gem in our history, anybody sending unsolicited messages gets three warnings before they get a fine. After the fine, if you do it again you get disconnected from the ‘Net for a year. Most people go insane after getting kicked off the ‘Net. Or they join a monastery. Maybe both.
I’ve got twelve messages in my inbox. Three are saved. One saying that I’d been banned from the League after shooting that bee. Another I got right after my conversation with Chippers, saying my ban had been lifted. The other is from my Mom, talking about me coming home for my Dad’s 65th birthday as a surprise. It was the last communication I got from her before they died. I don’t listen to it much anymore; I’ve got it memorized. I just can’t delete it.
Three new messages from Bucky.
First: “Ricky, I understand you’re all pissy about the gambling, but tell me, man, what would’ve you of done in my place? Gone crawling? Gone begging? I don’t crawl, Rick, and I sure as hell don’t beg. Better things to be doing than beg, Ricky. But…now that I said that…you gotta let me come back. I don’t have nothing else and that fuckin’ Bookie is gonna come back and break my ankles every week I don’t pay. She’s a right cunt and likes it. Fuckin’ Bookies! Where am I supposed to get 3 million? Outta my ass? Ah…shit. Please, Ricky, I’m begging you, I down on my hands and knees begging like the fuckin’ loser I am, please let me come back. I won’t try to fuck ye over anymore, I promise.”
Right. I’ll get right on that. What kind of idiot does he think I am? Asshole.
Second: “Oi! So you’re ignoring my messages, I get it. Don’t wanna man up and listen to what I’ve got to say, don’t wanna talk to me like a real man. I get it, I get it. Fuck you, Rick. Fuck. You. I bet you couldn’t last ten minutes in the real world, you know that? Always gotta go crawling to that bitch Laura and get her to bail you out. We could’ve done it without her, you know, could’ve won the whole shebang, but you’re scared shitless of doing anything without that fuckin’ cunt. Fuck her, too! Go fuck yourselves, Rick, go fuck yourselves with a fuckin’ splintered wooden bat!”
Nice, Bucky. Nice.
Third: “You won’t hear from me again, Ricky, but lemme just say this: you’re going to get yours. You’re going to get yours, Ricky. You’re going to get fuckin’ yours. I got something in the works that’ll fuck you right good. I can’t wait to see your fuckin’ face when it happens, Ricky, I can’t fuckin’ wait. We could’ve had it all together, but you dropped me like a goddamn lead ball. You know what? I think we’d all have been better off if you’d been on Earth on The Day. Would’ve saved us all a whole lotta trouble. But you’re here, and I’m here, and you might think that by firing me I can’t fuck you over anymore. You’re wrong, Ricky. You’re wrong. I’m still going to fuck you over. And you’re not even going to see it coming.”
Uh-huh. Probably the only thing Bucky can do right now is try to go work for another team. Not in any official capacity, but as some advisor. Tell them all about how the Blood Suns play, the holes in the defense, where to attack and all that. Fat lot of good it’ll do him. Sysianti won’t pick up where he left off. She’ll rewrite the entire playbook.
I delete all three of his messages and fire off another one to Maurice to block Bucky from the entire team, and from everyone the team members know. When Maurice is done, Bucky won’t be even able to contact an ex-girlfriend of the last maintenance worker to service the Hercules.
Maurice immediately responds with I have. The three I allowed through to you gave you the gist of his thought progression. We will not receive any more from him.
How many were there?
Twelve. You also received twenty-three messages from Janine, but I assume that you do not want to listen to those.
You assume correctly.
A pause. Then, Are you coming on this little adventure?
Yes, we’re going for help. I picture how the team bus usually is, and then Maurice sitting all proper-like surrounded by that lot. I don’t worry about him, though. Terrance Boys are definitely not pussies.
Please hurry. Your schedule is falling into further disarray with each moment.
Oh, the horror.
Speaking of Maurice, the other six messages are from him, indeed reminding me of all the meetings I have today that I’m sure I won’t make now that we’re going to go get ourselves killed rescuing our kicker. I’ve just come to the conclusion that I’m probably going to die today, when the door at the end of the hallway opens and Laura comes through.
Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.
She’s got thirty technicians behind her with what looks like all of the teams’ spaceball suits on those levitating tables. She stops next to me and waves them by. They all troop past down the airlock.
The door opens at the other end and they bring them aboard a ship I had no idea was even there. I’m about to make a comment to that effect when I see that one of the suits has a bunch of bloody handprints on the faceplate.
“Hey, is that my suit?”
“Yes.”
“Why are we bringing it?”
“For you to wear, dummy. Did you think your team was going into battle without you?”
“Battle? What battle?”
“Did you see what happened this morning? There will be a battle. Nobody on the team will come back without battling somebody or something! A battle will happen. I’m just hoping I can get the suits to them before they actually find one.”
“Aw, fuck, I’m going to get killed, I know it.”
She sniffed. “Honey, you’ve done more dangerous things than this without wearing pants.”
I follow her down the corridor to the airlock. I’ve done a lot of dumb things in my life, it’s true. I’m trying to remember which of them were pant-less excursions when we walk onto the cleanest ship I’ve ever seen. The Hercules is a pile of greasy wires and old used condoms compared to the spotless silver and white walls of the place. I feel dirty just standing inside the threshold, like I’ve done something wrong and should go back and take a shower.
“Whoa, can you even have a ship this clean?” I ask. “I don’t want to touch anything. Isn’t this against some sort of spacefaring rule, or something?”
“Who is that?” a woman’s voice calls from the other side of the airlock.
“It’s him, Kiera,” Laura calls back. She’s got a weird lilt to her voice, like she’s going to be in trouble, or she’s already in trouble and she’s trying to lessen the impact of the trouble. I’ve used the same lilt whenever someone asked me if I was at a strip club before coming home for dinner, asking by the club name, like they thought they knew already and were trying to catch me in a lie? I never was at said club. Never!
The woman named Kiera walks into view. I’ve never seen her before because I’d remember. She’s got deep red-brown hair all tied up and knotted in one of those crazy braids that takes four people working all at once to manufacture. She’s wearing an empty battle harness over a gray t-shirt with black pants and dark red boots. I can’t tell from here but I’m certain she’s got at least one knife on her. She’s hot. She’s smokin’. The sort of beautiful where she knows it and uses it as a weapon. I don’t mind. She can fire away all day. I take all of this in and process it in the smallest slice of a second where thoughts still happen. Laura does bad things to me if she catches me staring at pretty women.
Kiera sees me and blurts, “Fuck! Laura, did you really have to bring him?”
“Who’re you?” I ask.
She doesn’t even look at me. “Laura! Why is he here?”
Laura doesn’t respond. I look at her. She’s stopped dead in the middle of the airlock. She’s staring at Kiera. Kiera sees her looking and nods. My wife squeals like a little girl and launches herself into Kiera’s arms.
“Are you serious?” Laura says. “Moo-Moo, when? And why didn’t you tell me?”
“I found out a few days ago and we’ve been really busy,” Kiera says, her voice completely different now. Warm. Happy. “Thomas is still in shock about it because he thought I couldn’t.”
“Is he happy?”
“He is. I just surprised him, that’s all.”
Laura waves me over. “Rick, come over here.”
I approach and get a chilly stare from Kiera.
“Rick, this is my oldest friend, Kiera Moon. She’s with Thomas Beane.” Laura’s face lights up. “Is Tom-Tom here?”
“No, he couldn’t come.”
My brain processes the nicknames. It’s difficult. I’ve just been told that this woman is shacked up with the bogeyman, and I realize now that I’m standing on one of their ships, the ones that go toe-to-toe with fucking Edochian destroyers, and it’s quite possible I might be killed later for things I’m not supposed to know about, but…but…Tom-Tom…and Moo-Moo…
Words come out of my mouth unbidden, “Tom-Tom and—”
“Don’t you fucking say it,” Moon says, pulling a curved knife from nowhere and waving it under my nose. “Only one person gets to call me that, and she’s got tits.”
“Moo-Moo!” Laura says. “Put that away. Think of the baby.”
***
It’s twenty minutes later and I’m sitting on the floor just outside the cockpit. There are only two chairs and the women are in them. I was told to “not wander off” and then they closed the door on me. I’m not exactly sulking, but I feel like this is a wasted opportunity because I very much want to explore. I want to experience the shiny. This ship is all about the shiny. The walls are smooth and silver and light blue with glossy instrument panels here and there. The lights are soft. Everything’s round, very few hard edges and I get the sense that whoever designed it wanted a space they could feel perpetually comfortable in. I’m also fairly certain that the three of us are the only people onboard. I want to see the ship that doesn’t need anything but a pilot, and could probably do without one of those in a pinch.
I heard in passing that this ship can travel through hyperspace. I’ve never seen a hyperspace drive, thought I never would, and even though I have no idea how it works I still want to see it. It’s got to be super shiny. I’m certain that I am not allowed to see it, not allowed to roll around in the shiny like catnip. I know this in my soul. Down deep. When Kiera deigns to look at me, she expresses in silence that whatever warmth and love she feels for Laura, it in no way radiates in my direction or in any direction that I might accidentally step, stumble, or otherwise fall through. And though I’m certain that my marital relationship with Laura has a reasonable chance of keeping me alive in the face of perceived wrongdoing, I’d rather just avoid as much unpleasantness as I can today. I’m going to get more than my fair share from the Blood Suns and I’m being uncharacteristically proactive about mitigating self-inflicted emergencies.
Fuckin’ pirates. They seemed like such a good idea. Don’t get me wrong, they’re amazing spaceball players. We’re undefeated! But for fuck sakes, look at what we’re doing right now. The entire team is on the bus, parked who knows where, waiting for this ship and our spaceball suits so we can have a proper invasion with a proper battle and a proper ass-kicking. This is the type of situation where I wish I were still in a sleeping tube on Pronos. Sure, I wouldn’t be back in the game, and I wouldn’t be back with my wife, but I sure wouldn’t be feeling like I’m reeling from one near-death to another.
The door to the cockpit whisks open and Laura calls, “Rick, we’re here.”
I stand up and go in. “Where’s here - oh, Jesus.”
Here is right in front of the Scorpion Clan’s stronghold. It’s a proper stronghold, a space station squeezed into the caves and tunnels of a mined-out asteroid. Ends stick out like mushroom caps on the rock’s surface. There are cannons all over the place. I count at least ten pairs of ships flying around on patrol. It’s a fortress and they know someone’s coming.