7: The Tryouts
Anybody who tells you that spaceball tryouts are little more than circus events, that people watch them because it’s the next best thing to televised murder sprees – well, they aren’t far off the mark. Chippers would’ve wanted us on the vid regardless of the venue. Doing this in Freehaven with the pirate clans as the prospective players, makes for quite the spectacle. I got an actual thank-you card from the Inter-Galactic Shipping Conglomerate for contributing to the two safest days in transit history. The vidtime we got during tryouts all but guaranteed that for thirty-six hours we were the center of the goddamn universe. I didn’t get any sleep over the duration. My memory of the experience is hazy. It’s as if someone hung a veil over my face and only lifted it to show me the most fucked up images.
***
This is how a tryout normally works: players spend half their time in simulators, and the other half playing scrimmages in an enclosed zero-g arena in full suits. The simulators make sure they can actually fly a suit and stay focused under pressure. Then the player gets to the scrimmages, where they’re tested on how well they play with others. Like I said, that’s how it normally is. The schedule gets shredded when potential players try to kill each other right from the beginning. Jager must have passed the word that my team was the one to play for, at least if you were a pirate. They came out of the fucking woodwork like I was shitting stardust and they all wanted a taste.
I hear the horror show before I even get there. I hear them through the damn walls. Screaming. Yelling. Sharp bangs and clanks against metal flooring that I hope is some sort of cultural musical expression. I know the mobile field comes with its own security contingent, androids of the same model as Mall Security. I’ve seen them around. But I don’t think anyone programmed them for a room full of criminals whom they cannot arrest.
I get to the lobby door and stop. The floor is several steps down from the door, which means that I have a great view of absolute chaos.
It’s a mosh pit timed to the percussion of fists.
I count seven - no, wait - eight brawls. My enhanced vision lets me zoom right in and see each blow land on each face, the skin buckle and split and ooze and splatter blood. Okay, too close. Back out a bit, swing left, hey that guy’s getting gangbanged by a bunch of women armed with strapons. Barbed. Who makes shit like that? That’s nasty and now I can’t un-see it. Awesome. Past them is a small-scale orgy, must be twenty people fucking each other in the corner. I’d like to see Bucky stay faithful under that kind of encouragement. Standing around the perimeter of this unlove-fest is a wall of men and women, looking solemn with arms crossed, like they’re the priests of some unholy ascension ritual. Every few seconds, one of them peels off and descends into the mess, only to be replaced by someone from the floor. Often bloodied and breathing hard, but they still assume the same stoic stance of their predecessor. Is this how the clans spend their get-togethers?
There was going to be a speech. I spent several minutes in my room preparing it. Now I don’t need it. Nobody will listen to me anyway. I need something dramatic to get their attention. Something loud.
I step back out of the room and turn to a slack-jawed member of the crew who’s staring into the lobby. “Hey, can you close this door?”
“Wha –”, he can’t even finish a thought. I don’t blame him. The scene beyond us defies belief.
I stand in front of him to break his line of sight. “Do you work here?”
“Uh, yes.” Rapid blinking. “Yeah, I’m Brad.”
“Great. Brad, can you close the door and seal it?”
“Seal it?”
“Yeah. Can you do that?”
Brad steps over to the door controls and does as I ask. The door slides shut and seals with an audible hiss.
“Okay, Brad, now I want you to open the emergency airlock on the other end of the room. Just a crack.”
“I can’t do that! It will suck all the air out!”
“Not all of it. I just want to spook ‘em.”
“I could get fired.”
“I promise that you’ll be fired if you don’t. I’m Rick Stern. I’m the coach.”
“I thought you got banned.”
“Turns out it isn’t permanent. Open that door.”
Brad fiddles with the panel. Swears at it. Then alarms go off in the lobby. Lights flash. Then the outer door opens a wee bit, debris goes flying and everyone stops fighting and fucking. I nod to Brad and the door closes. Bits of paper and smoke and what might be clumps of hair float around the room.
“Hi,” I say over the intercom. I wave at the two hundred-odd clansmen through the door’s window. “I’m Coach Stern. I’m the ringleader in this joint. Let’s do some actual spaceball tryouts, yeah? We’re going to do this by clan. Murder Gods, you’re up first. Hit the simulators!”
***
For the record, blood feuds are usually declared against another team. Not by teammates on each other. The wide receivers I select happen to be mortal enemies. They happen to be from rival clans. They happen to have the same father. I happen to select them from a sea of applicants who are better, faster, and smarter, because I happen to like my balls where they are. Jager happens to give me thumbs up as I yell at the security bots to pull the two fuckheads apart without ripping their arms off.
“Enough!” I scream at them. “Stop right now or I’ll have you thrown into space without suits and we’ll see if you cling together for warmth!”
They actually stop struggling against robot arms that have already taken away their knives, guns, clubs, and an object that looks like a knitting needle but zapped a security bot with enough juice to fry it, and a second one standing three meters away.
I point at the one on the left. I think her name is Sarah. She has one of those scars across one eyebrow that extends down past her eye. The kind of brand that every adolescent thinks is cool, until they live through receiving it at the end of a rusty knife that’s carrying untold numbers of blood-borne diseases. Sarah also has a limp, and a nervous twitch that might have something to do with the metal plate in the back of her head. Three fingers on her left hand are spikes with articulating joints. She looks like somebody’s been trying to kill her in stages.
Her buddy on the other side doesn’t seem to have the same incremental death issues. I’ll call her Slick. She’s mostly intact. I point at Sarah. “You. Your name is Fuckhead #1. And you over there, your name is Fuckhead #2. Fuckhead #1, if Fuckhead #2 dies, I’m going to kill you in the same manner that Fuckhead #2 died. And vice versa, just in case you thought I was playing favorites. If Fuckhead #2 cuts her fucking finger, I’m going to cut yours, Fuckhead #1! Get the picture?”
Fuckhead #1 glares at me, but she nods. Fuckhead #2 is nodding before I even turn to her.
“I’m glad we understand each other,” I tell them. “Welcome to the team. Congratulations, assholes.”
***
Around mid-morning I come out of the bathroom while tucking my shirt back into my pants. I’m reading the latest numbers from the simulators off a vidpad and I accidentally tuck it in with my shirt. I realize there’s a person standing nearby, quite possibly watching me do all of this stuff.
It’s a man in a uniform. He’s a short, wiry guy with red hair sticking out from under his little black hat. His name tag says Captain Bartholomew. He’s dancing from one foot to the other, like he has to use the head, too. Maybe that’s what he wants. Maybe he doesn’t want anything from me. Please, don’t let him want anything from me.
“You have to do something!” he shrieks at me.
Oh, for fuck’s sake. “What’s the problem?” Please be normal, please be normal.
“They’ve littered the field with mines! MINES!”
I’ll be honest, that doesn’t compute. “Mines?”
He points at a nearby observation deck. I walk over to the small platform jutting out into the middle of the field. Bucky’s standing there. The deck is enclosed with shielded transparent aluminum. The shields keep out flying suits and other debris, but not a SPIDER mine.
The proximity mine gets its name from the eight pylons extending from its side, but that’s where the similarity with the insect ends. Contained within the mine is 200 kilograms of high explosive. It’s a rotating shaped charge, allowing it to deliver maximum damage to its target. I watch one float past the window, little red lights blinking at the end of each pylon. I’d never seen one this close before. Or the several hundred others wandering around in a constant search for something to blow up.
I turn to Bucky, who is concentrating on something far away. Or he’s constipated. Sometimes it’s hard to tell. “Where the fuck did these come from? And why did you let them in here? I go to take a piss, and they, they, do all this? How do you bring in an entire minefield in two minutes, anyway?”
“Do you see ‘em?” Bucky asks.
“Yes, I see them! I whole shitload of them! They aren’t duds, are they? These are real fucking mines in here! Who did this shit?”
“Them,” Bucky says, pointing at something out the window. “Said they wanted to show you how serious they were.”
“I can see that they’re serious! Serious about sabotaging this team! Serious about ruining my day! Serious about fucking with my program!”
“Here they come!”
I see now what Bucky’s pointing at. Two suits flying in-between mines. Around them, up and over, coming so close to the pylons that I realize I’m holding my breath. I exhale, then gasp again as they buzz the observation deck at speeds I’d never seen before in the rusty Series X suits they're wearing.
“Those suits! Those aren’t even armored! If they hit a mine they’re toast! Fuck! If they hit a mine, I’m toast! Holy shit, they’re good!”
The pair whips back around and come to a stop just outside the deck. One of them raises a hand in salute.
I flipped them off. “Both of you!” I shout over the ASC. “Running backs! Welcome to the team! Now get these fucking things out of here!”
***
I don’t need to watch them clear the mines off the field, so I go down to visit Laura and our spaceball suits. I’ll be honest and admit that all I wanted was to be as far away as possible in the shielded underbelly of the ship. That meant the armory.
It’s the most valuable part of the ship. The Hercules isn’t worth what the thirty suits down here cost to build and maintain. Actually, I’m not sure if you can put a price tag to them, now that Laura’s been rooting around inside their guts. I take that back. People would pay a fortune for them, I’m sure, but all of those people are gunrunners. Not exactly legal, these suits.
When I get there, Laura’s ass is hanging out of a suit. I can tell from the position of her palm on the helmet’s window that she’s twisted around in a way that qualifies her for the more exotic pornos. I raise my hand to slap her butt. The little voice in the back of my head – the quiet one that whispers reason when the rest of my brain is intent on doing something idiotic –that quiet voice whips out a bullhorn and screams in my mind, DON’T DO IT, FUCKHEAD #3!
I put my hand down.
“I know you’re there,” her muffled voice echoes out of the suit.
“I could be anybody. How’d you know it was me?”
“A wife’s intuition.” She slithers out of the suit. A lock of hair drops in front of her eyes and she pushes it away with the back of her hand. It drops back like it always does. “Now get out of here, I’m busy.”
“No.”
“I’m serious, fuck off.”
“Maybe later.”
The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.
She sniffs. “What are you doing down here, anyway? Aren’t you needed to run the mayhem upstairs?”
“They’ll manage ten minutes without me,” I lie. I walk around a suit that looks suspiciously like it has missiles on its back. Might be booster rockets. We’ll call them booster rockets. “I want to check out my investment.”
“Which investment?”
I grin at her but don’t answer. She’s fishing. Let her wonder what she’s caught. Maybe she’ll be so busy that she won’t notice that her boat has a hole in the bottom of it. With all the bullshit going on upstairs, I really need these suits to save my ass.
“Are they fast?” I ask.
“Faster than anything you’ve ever worked with,” she says. “Stronger, too. We’ve made upgrades in armor weight in the past couple of years, so we don’t sacrifice speed.”
“What sort of upgrades?”
“If you’d been wearing one of these suits, you’d have two real arms instead of just one. I bet you’d like that.”
I shrug. “Eh, it’s not so bad. I can finger pussy like nobody’s business.” She snorted and rolled her eyes at me. “What else have you been up to down here?”
“Well, I haven’t had time to do a full retrofit,” she says. “But when I’m done, we’re going to have some very fast, very durable, very dangerous gladiators on the field.”
“Details, Laura. I love details.”
Laura disappears behind a suit and starts up a power tool, a loud one. The sound of tearing metal blasts around the room and the suit between us starts vibrating on its stand. “I’ve managed to get my hands on a new biomechanical alloy,” she says when she pauses drilling, or sanding, or whatever it is she’s doing.
“How’d you manage that?”
“Don’t ask.”
“I just did.”
Laura pokes her head around the suit and gives me a hard look. “Deniability, Rick. A shipment is going to arrive sometime later, I’ll let you know when. Today, maybe tomorrow. I want the docking bay cleared of personnel.”
“Now I’m really sorry I asked. What’s so important about this alloy?”
“It’s stronger and lighter than any available. Best of all, it heals itself.”
“Say what?”
“When you iron out the roster, give me a list of the ones without cybernetic implants. They’ll get suits with the alloy.”
“What’s the problem with implants? And how does it heal itself?”
She vanishes behind the suit again. More power tool mayhem. A bit later, she stops and says, “If the suit takes damage and the alloy starts its repairing process, it’s possible that the alloy will attempt to repair exposed implants. Even if you don’t need fixing. You could get fused to the armor.”
She starts up the metal grinding before I can respond. On purpose, I’m sure. I wait her out. “Fused to the suit?” I ask when she finally stops. I rotate my shoulder. “But I’m good, right?”
“I said exposed implants, Rick. You’ll be fine. Your running backs are going to get an upgrade that’ll make them near impossible to grapple. And one other thing that you’re better off not knowing about, which is coming in on the same shipment.”
“That deniability thing again?”
“You’re learning!” she says. “I never thought that was possible.”
“I forgot how extremely not-funny you are.”
“It may not even work,” she says, “so I don’t want to get your hopes up. I’m not even really sure where they’ll end up when I turn it on, either, so it’s sort of an ace in the hole at this point.”
“From the sounds of it, it’s an ace that might blow up in your face.”
“I’ll get the bugs worked out.”
“That’s what you said during the Sandstorms game. Everyone within the blast radius remembers how that turned out.”
Her face turns white then red. “You promised you’d never mention that again!” she screams. She chucks a wrench at me. It misses my face by millimeters. “You promised, Rick!”
“Whoa, it’s not like there’s anyone around to hear it.”
Laura grabs a drill with a half-meter bit sticking out the end of it. I turn tail and run.
***
We all discover around mid-day that Kissy no longer considers herself a sex robot, and that “no fucking way” doesn’t mean “maybe.” We also discover that she got some recent and substantial upgrades to her, um, chassis. I suppose it would’ve been easier to simply electrify the entire surface of her body to make simple touching a regrettable act, but she takes “no unwelcome groping” to a whole other level.
The douchebag in question puts his hands on Kissy after a scrimmage and whispers something in her ear. She smiles, retracts all of her clothing and gives everyone a free show of her too-perfect body in all its glory. She presses back against the front of the man’s body, grinding her ass into guy’s crotch.
Then she turns into a porcupine.
Long metal quills snap out and impale the man over fifty times. Three of them through his mouth and out the back of his head. Blood sprays the crowd behind him maneuvering in for a show. The man hangs there, impaled on Kissy’s back, his eyes bugging out of his head. A low keening sound warbles from his perforated throat. Then the quills snap apart as if on springs into three prongs each. The man explodes in a shower of red mist and fleshy gobbets. People trying to wipe blood from their clothes are suddenly confronted with a whole new mess.
Kissy retracts her quills and shivers as her skin ripples and shimmers across the surface of her frame. Blood and guts splatter the floor around her feet. Her clothing then flicks out into place, and she glances around at the men around her.
Everyone gets the point.
Pun intended.
***
An hour later I’m standing on the deck and half-listening to Bucky wax eloquent about Kissy’s “amazing display.” He’s lucky his fiancée isn’t around to hear his descriptive talents; she might have gotten the wrong idea. Janine seems nice enough, I suppose, but she’s a little pushy for my tastes. Lucky for her, Bucky isn’t the kind of guy who strays. He’ll put down roots on an escalator.
I’m listening to Bucky go on and on about Kissy’s tits. They're nice in a fake robot sort of way, which make me appreciate the real things even more, so I guess they do serve some sort of purpose. The scrimmage is doing what scrimmages do. It's showing who’s actually playing and who’s preening. You’d be surprised how many players don’t know their asses from a fucking hole in the fabric of the universe, but somehow still manage to make it look like they know what they’re doing. Until you hand them the ball, that is. It’s easy to mill around or let your suit do all the work and tell you where to go, who to tackle, and when to kiss your ass goodbye because somebody’s cutting through your suit when the refs aren’t looking. But give somebody the ball, tell them to score, and most of the fuckers just go to pieces.
Take the scrimmage quarterback I’m watching. I don’t need a quarterback, so I don’t give a shit about this idiot, which is good because he isn’t a real quarterback. Not a spaceball one, anyway. No self-respecting spaceball QB will step out of the pocket like that and expect to survive to the next snap. But what draws my attention is the fact that the meandering nimrod is, in fact, still alive long enough to wander out of the pocket. And survive out there. That’s impossible. There should be a slew of offensive linebackers trampling all over him like a herd of angry Epherian rhinos. They’re the same as Earth rhinos in that they’re big and bad-tempered. They’re different in that they have sharp teeth, claws, and can not only fly but actually teleport short distances. Epherian safaris give the phrase “running with the wild” a whole new meaning.
I realize the QB is still in one piece instead of several. I look for the opposing team’s offensive line and find them floating around in the middle of the field like somebody has cut their strings. I’ve never seen anything like it. I decide right then and there to hire the whole defensive line. I’m so blown away that I step up and plant my nose on the glass, as if that extra meter will give me a better view. I’m sure whatever they’ve done is illegal, but the mobile field’s referee AI hadn’t caught it. That’s good enough for me.
That step to the glass saves my life. A cloaked Veeni, who’s somehow managed to sneak onboard, avoid getting within range of any of the security bots designed to see through that invisibility shit, walks up and takes a swipe at me with a mifi knife. It misses my flesh by the thickness of my shirt. I know this because I later found a nice long slit in my jacket where the mono-filament blade passed through.
All I feel is a localized breeze across my lower back. Then there’s a loud whirring sound. A muffled gurgle. Something wet and heavy splatters the back of my shoulders and head. It feels like a warm milkshake. I turn around and find a Veeni standing behind me with his chest puffed out like he’s proud of something. But his expression doesn’t match that image. Veeni are humanoids with twice as many facial muscles as humans. Let’s just say they’re not any good at poker. Come to think of it, I’m not sure what this one’s expression means. It’s hard to tell with that power drill sticking out of his eye socket.
Laura gives the drill a good yank and the Veeni drops to the floor like a cast-off puppet. I realize that I haven’t been sprayed with milkshake.
“Jesus!” I reach up and pull blood and gore out of my hair. “Was there nothing else you could use to kill him? What are you doing up here, anyway?” I hear my voice rising octaves as I go, panic chasing it higher and higher. “That drill. What the fuck are you doing up here with that fucking drill?”
“You’re welcome, you asshole,” Laura shouts. “I’ll let the next guy disembowel you. I’ll even tell him to start at your anus and save your tiny balls for last.”
“Hey! You threw a wrench at my head not fifteen minutes ago. For all I know, you went through this fucker to get to me.”
“You are the most inconsiderate, ungrateful, selfish wretch I have ever known.” Laura revs the drill. “I’d really like to shove this up your nose.”
“Maybe that’s what you were trying to do all along. The Veeni just got in your way. All I do is bring up one little thing, I mean, it’s not THAT big of a deal, but all I gotta say is you–“
Laura’s face goes blank. “Don’t you fucking say it.”
I stand there with my mouth open and my finger in the air mid-shake. I want to. I want to say it SO BAD.
“I sure love to watch a fight as much as the next guy,” Bucky says, “but since keeping this party going means that my coach and our suit tech will kill each other, I’d appreciate it you two could declare a truce for a while, you know?” He chuckles. “At least until we win the Cup. Then you can go to town with that drill. Or another type of drill? I’d watch that, too. Love a good porno as much as a bloodbath.”
Laura squints her eyes shut. “Bucky, I don’t ever want you to think of me naked. Don’t do it.”
“Too late, missy,” he says with a wide grin. “Too late by at least, I dunno, how long have I known you? About that too late.” He laughs at her. “Don’t you know anything about men? We picture every woman naked almost as soon as we sees you.” He looks her up and down. “Sometimes more than once, if you catch my drift.”
I marvel at the man’s bravery. Or stupidity, take your pick.
“You’re lucky I like Janine,” Laura says, “or else I’d castrate you as a service to the universe.” She hefts the drill over her shoulder. “Rick, I was up here because the ship I mentioned earlier is docking in ten minutes. Keep everyone out of the hanger bay for the next hour. I’ll shoot anyone trying to catch a peek, too.”
She hip checks the door controls and glances down at the Veeni. “This asshole’s all yours. You’re welcome. Again.”
After she leaves, I say, “Bucky, how’d you like it if I told you that I’ve pictured Janine naked?”
He shrugs. “Depends. How’d she look?”
***
I hurry to the showers to get all this blood off me. I get some weird looks when I get there. I act as if nothing is amiss and even attempt on a couple of occasions to convey the idea that I’ve done this to another living organism with my bare hands. I’m hurrying not because I’ve got blood all over me, which is gross in its own right, but because I need to get down to the cargo deck without leaving a trail of evidence.
By the way, I’m one of those guys who peeks at Christmas presents. I flip through movies to watch the good parts. I read the last page to see if the hero gets the girl. What I’m getting at is sometimes life is better when I know what’s going to happen. When it does happen just like I knew it would, I’m all aboard the happy train and I’ve already got a good window seat. So, when Laura tells me not to let anyone peek, my brain’s natural response is we gotta have a look at that.
Besides, as if I’d pass up an opportunity to see what nifty little secret and probably highly illegal thing she’s sneaking into the tournament. You know that saying, ignorance is bliss? It’s bullshit. Ignorance is not bliss. It’s a word to describe a lack of imagination around every terrible thing that might happen to you. Ignorance is putting your head in the proverbial sand with full knowledge something is coming up behind you to fuck you in the ass.
I know, you’re thinking that it’s not possible to be cognizant of everything the universe is doing to fuck you over. Stars blow up, black holes devour whole systems, and planets eventually die. How can you be on top of that, too? Easy. Those big-time events, the ones that are spectacular no matter the distance of your spectator seat, those events always have some sort of warning. The signs are evident. You can’t ignore them. You’d have to override all sorts of safety protocols to fly into a black hole on purpose – so the idea that you don’t know it’s there is ridiculous. That’s the nice thing about the universe – it doesn’t suffer fools. In fact, the universe is so intent on not suffering fools that it will not only destroy the fool, but everyone next to the fool, just to be sure.
I not only want to find out what Laura’s bringing in, I need to find out. It’s my duty as coach to be aware of everything that’s going on. I wouldn’t be a responsible member of the spaceball sporting community if I let her do anything she wants without first ensuring people can’t get injured, or, heaven forbid, sued. By the way, if you believe that, I’ve got some timeshares in the Garden of Eden I’d like to sell you.
The supply bays are aft, huddled in a lower section as far away from regular people as you can get without sitting right on top of the engine room. That hasn’t changed since humans forayed out into space. Maintenance people still get the short end of the stick, the oldest looking equipment, and the dirtiest uniforms. It’s good that I dress like shit, because otherwise I’d really stand out down here.
I still stick out. As I pass an atmospheric processing room, someone shouts, “Oi, what are you doing down here?”
I stop and see a human technician holding a nest of semitransparent tubes. Liquid pulses through them at regular intervals. I get the sense that they should be inside the wall panel open at the guy’s feet.
“Just taking a walk,” I tell him. “It’s pretty crazy upstairs and we’re between scrimmages, anyway.”
“Wait, you’re Coach Stern,” the technician says. He drops the important-looking tubes on the floor and grabs a tool with a wrench on one end and some sort of grabber on the other. He hefts in his hand, as if testing its weight for a use it’s not designed for, and then he starts my way. His expression is not happy.
“Can I help you?” I ask.
“Yeah, you can help,” the guy says. “You can pay me back the money I lost on that playoff game you threw away. When you shot that bee. You can gimme back my retirement money. You gimme back the starship I was supposed to own by now!”
I can’t understand people like this. Okay, sure, I can’t understand anybody, but these numbskulls twist my brain. The gamblers who don’t understand gambling. The fucktards who think that when they put money into the pot, that it’s still theirs somehow. It’s not their money. It’s the pot’s. That’s the pot’s money. These idiots never get it. They keep putting money into the pot without understanding the idea that they may never see it again. Pain is experiencing a reality you never saw coming. Gamblers who don’t understand gambling get a lot of self-inflicted pain.
“I’m just a coach,” I tell him. “I’m sorry about your troubles, but I got problems of my own. So why don’t you put down that wrench? Before something happens that you might regret?”
“Oh, you’re going to regret this,” he says. He swings the wrench at me.
This is another instance where having a cybernetic implant helps out. The wrench whistles toward my face. I catch it. One handed. The guy is stronger than he looks. The wrench, too. Motors and synthetic sinew absorb most of it, but the impact thuds through the flesh of my neck and chest.
The guy doesn’t see that, though. All he sees is a man who weighs less than 80 kilograms catch a hurtling bludgeoning weapon as if it were a paper airplane. I watch confusion flash across his face, followed by alarm that he’d picked a fight with the wrong guy.
I smile at him and yank the wrench out of his grip.
The tech steps back.
“Jesus,” I say, hefting the wrench. “Can’t they make this thing out of something lighter?”
“What?” he asks.
“Maybe aluminum? We found it a long time ago. I think your wrench would easier to carry around if it were aluminum. Don’t you think so?”
“Um, sure. Are you going to hit me with that?”
“What? Oh, no.” I hold out the wrench for him to take.
“Thanks,” he says, wrapping his hand around the handle.
“No problem,” I say. I don’t let go. I wait for him to meet my eyes, and add, “If I wanted to hit you, I’d just use my fist and crush all the bones in your face.”
I let go of the wrench.
He takes it back, ducks his head, and then turns away. I hurry off before he decides to trade up his wrench to something else. I’ve already been shot once this month.
***
The nice thing about clearing all personnel from the loading bays is there isn’t anybody around to ask why I’m sneaking in. Nobody inquires why I'm hiding behind a bunch of shipping canisters and watching my wife take possession of some large crates. Whatever’s inside them must be cool, because the crates are the self-levitating kind. Everybody knows those carry the cool stuff.
I might have wondered what neat treats were waiting inside, and I might have even plotted how to get near them to find out what, but I’m distracted by the transport shuttle. It’s not a human vessel. It isn’t Nokkran, Veeni, or even Andosian. It’s got peculiar biomechanical nodes protruding from the ship’s skin, its smooth, reptile-like surface shimmering under the bay lights.
It’s Edochian. That’s just fucking great.