I’m a pretty decent actor, in my opinion. I eye the cuffs again, letting my mouth gape open and my brows come together as I pretend to hesitate.

“A—alright. I’ll do it. Just let my friends go, ok? Don’t hurt them.” Kneeling slowly, I reach for the cuffs as though they’re a venomous snake, doing my best to tremble just the right amount.

“Less talk, more putting on the damn hyberuffs,” barks a jerk with jackal genes and a laser sword.

“Alright, alright.” I push my hands through the cuffs and they lock tight around my wrists.

Behind me, the blue glow of Kirron’s shield sputters out.

“Atta girl,” thunders orca-man, lowering his gun arm a few centimeters and grinning wide enough to display each and every one of his exceptionally pointy teeth. “Now come ‘ere.” I start forward, feigning reluctance—giving myself time to imagine exactly what badass move I’m going to whip out the instant he tries to power on hybermode. To savor the look of shock I’m picturing on his face as the cuffs fail.

Thwip. Something shoots over my shoulder, grazing my hair in passage. I get a glimpse of what looks like a pale dart driving itself into the meat of orca-man’s neck. Then the hyborg is falling forward, landing with a reverberating crash flat on his face. No more heartbeat. Chest unrising.

Dead.

Threat (1) neutralized.

I glance over my shoulder in time to see Tiberia lowering her remaining arm. There’s movement to my right as something glowing and yellow slices through my projectile shield. I tumble sideways just in time to avoid a laser-slash to the arm, whipping around to face my attacker—Jackal Jerk.

I wish for the extra tails and they appear so quickly that I realize a moment later it’s probably the AR system’s doing again, and not my own. One of them stabs through jackal-man’s neck, withdrawing a heartbeat later to send blood spurting all over my face. My heart sputters.

That’s the third person I’ve killed today.

Fuck.

Threat (3) neutralized.

Sai Gain: 11

What the—? How? He didn’t even have Sai!

Before I can make sense of this latest anomaly, a spray of bullets glances off my shield, distracting me. One of the metal tails makes contact with a body, whipping against the chest of the scaly guy and knocking him back just before he can slash me with one of his two nasty kamsa short swords. No flesh-rotting venom for me today, thanks.

The other two articulated tails knock away the viper man’s blades before twisting around his arms and neck. But he manages to slip one hand loose, and, activating the laser blades on his knuckles, slashes through the appendage wrapped around his neck. I shriek as a searing, electric pain jolts through my body. The tail that snares his other hand whips away compulsively, and this time I’m sure it’s responding to my thoughts.

Sai Pool 0/90

Shield Disengaged

As the viper man stumbles away, a blue biobolt takes him in the chest, leaving a sizzling hole where his sternum used to be.

Threat (2) neutralized

A one-horned shadow looms over me, and another of Kirron’s bolts slices through the air, aiming for the rhino man as he bears down on me. But the brute turns just in time and it glances off his shoulder replacement. We really need to get horseboy a different gun. A Bonaparte’ll vaporize or stun anything organic, depending on the setting—but they’re specifically designed not to damage cybernetic parts or stormjade.

My tails move to defend me. No, I move them—focusing my all on the asshole’s thick-ass neck. But he catches them both in one enormous fist, using them first to yank me off my feet and then to drag me up into his arms. The stupid hat topples off my head, falling into a puddle of something sticky.

There’s a shout from down the street as he hefts me over his shoulder, a blur of something pine-green coming towards us. But not very quickly from my perspective, because the rhino man’s hauling ass in the opposite direction. Oh, now the damn Claws decide to show up.

The others bounce in and out of sight while I struggle in vain to free myself. As Kirron fights the lizard guy, Tiberia hangs back behind Mr. Brisby—who stands with his arms outstretched and his head thrown back, glowing faintly. There’s a choked shriek followed by a growling curse as something happens between Kirron and his combatant.

Threat (5) neutralized

The teal light building around Mr. Brisby flares and erupts into something long and twisting that rushes for the rhino in a luminous blur. There’s a wet, meaty wrenching sound from just to my side where the rhino’s head presses into my hip. Then the head’s toppling away, the body following a heartbeat later. Oh fuck oh fuck oh fuck. I scramble to get over his shoulder before he hits the ground.

I don’t make it.

The rhino and I fall as one, and if my bones weren’t reinforced I’m absolutely sure my legs would break under the bastard’s crushing weight. The glowing thing twists in a great loop in the air, and I get a better look a it. It’s a dragon-shaped Sai summoning, one of the most complex I’ve ever seen. A moment later, it vanishes.

Threat (4) neutralized.

AR System entering Sleep Mode in three…two…one. Goodnight.

The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

Panic sets in as I try to draw my next breath and fail. Footsteps beat at the walkway, and then—slowly, oh gods, way too slowly—Mr. Brisby and Kirron drag the corpse off of me. The moment its weight is lifted, I suck in a gasping breath, moving instinctively to hop to my feet. But my lower body simply doesn’t respond. There’s a feeling like when my leg falls asleep, but it’s the whole lower half of my body, and it hurts.

It’ll fix itself. It’s just a little crushing. Nothing your basic kit can’t get you through.

But my rationalizations are nothing in the face of my rising panic. I can’t move I can’t move I can’t—

There’s a clopping of metal hooves and a smell of blood, and then another set of arms is lifting me up, and the scent of new car and pricey incense swallows me up.

“Ugh, no,” I groan blearily. “I don’t need—“

“Yes, idiot, you do.”

But you’re hurt, too.

“At least let the hot butler carry me.”

“Shut up,” says Kirron. My head lolls to the side, and I catch a glimpse of Mr. Brisby, gaunt and half-hunched over. A few paces away, Tiberia examines her fingernails as a pair of nearby Claws search the corpses and drag them out of the way of general foot traffic.

The world goes all bleary and dark. My senses swim. I could fortify myself if I wanted to, hold the darkness at bay. But I’m tired. So, so tired. I don’t want to deal with this shit anymore.

So I let the nothingness take me.

~*~

The first thing to breach the silent darkness is a thrumming sound. A meaty thumping like the beating of a giant heart. A ship’s heart. The cuffs are gone, my ribs are sore, and there’s a weird, salty sort of flesh scent to the air. Tentatively, I attempt to twitch a toe, and it twitches. Oh, thank the gods. Now if only my damned tail could just fix itself. I pry my eyes open.

The light is multi-colored and dim. The walls pulse, colors and patterns ever-changing so that it looks like I’m on the inside of an inside-out cuttlefish. It reminds me of that horrible pilot, too, and at the thought I bolt upright. Kirron’s leaning against the wall opposite me. His shirt is off—not that I care—and there’s a translucent pink goop that smells of Tiberia layered over a wound on his side. Every time he moves, the biolume glow glints across the network of feint silvery scars that decorate his torso. I tear my attention away from him before he can notice me looking.

On my side of the space is a row of three bunks that grow directly from the walls, one of which is occupied by me. The bunk above sounds and smells as though it contains a snoozing Tiberia, and Mr. Brisby sits at the foot of another, facing me.

“How are you feeling, Miss?” he inquires, voice hushed.

I groan, bringing up a hand to rub the back of my head.

“Like a giant fucking robo-rhino fell on me.”

The butler grimaces. “Please accept my apologies, Miss. I—“

I wave a hand at him. “Forget it. Thanks for saving me. And call me Six.”

Just when I thought he’d finally learned better, Kirron pipes up.

“It’s her Estimated Cu—“

“Shut it, Mister Ed.”

“That’s Brick to you.”

I raise an eyebrow, a retort already forming on my lips, but a gesture from Mr. Brisby stops me.

“Quietly, please,” hushes the butler. “Miss needs her sleep.”

“Ok. Um, where the hells are we?” I whisper, though I’m pretty sure I already know the answer.

“Where do you think?” answers Kirron. “On The Arowana.”

I groan even harder.

“Your master must have guessed where you’d go and put out the word to watch for you, and my mistress likely did, too. We couldn’t exactly hang around all night.”

“The Thirteenth Lord doesn’t look kindly on free hybrids or Thirteens who serve outsiders,” says Mr. Brisby in a hush.

Kirron, being Kirron, scoffs.

“Clearly those types don’t much care what the Thirteenth does and doesn’t look kindly on.”

“They will if any survive,” says Mr. Brisby, tapping his cheekbone just beneath his right eye.

I kind of want to cry. “But…but…everything we have—“

“Relax,” scathes Kirron. “After the pilot saw what we can do, she amended her offer. Said if we helped her with a job on Lotus Moon, she’d cut the price to sixty percent of everything we have.”

I narrow my eyes, rubbing small circles on my forehead with a thumb and forefinger.

“A job? What kind of job?”

“Picking someone up.”

I glance from Kirron to Mr. Brisby.

“Why do they need help with that?”

The centaur-man shrugs.

“It’s a rescue mission. Someone’s being kept in some manor against their will, and someone else wants them out enough to pay for it.”

“Great. I’m in need of repairs, you know. Gods only knows how long that’ll take. And Miss Tibs here was just totally alright with us diverting ourselves from The Purpose for this?”

“I know the next step on the path when I see it.” says the rabbit-girl from her bunk, though she lays perfectly still on her side, facing the wall. “It glows.”

“Care to translate?” Kirron looks to Mr. Brisby.

“It means that something about the job itself will bring us closer to achieving the goal the mycelium has set out for you.”

Fuck. Well, at least I get to keep some of my goods.

“Guess I’d better get my rest in, then,” I sigh, dropping back into the silky-coolness of the bunk bedding.

“I’d focus on food at this point if I were you,” says Kirron. “We’ll be there in less than an hour.”

“Fuuuuuuck!” I roll against the wall, hands clenching up in my hair as my entire being groans to its core.“Gods fucking damnit. Alright. Where’s the galley?”

“We’re not supposed to leave the passenger’s quarters,” Kirron informs me.

“Then why the hells did you mention food? Damnit, now that I’m thinking about it, I’m starving. Thanks a lot.”

“We have access to food and drink right here,” whispers Mr. Brisby, standing and indicating the far end of the room. “Shall I—“

“I’ve got it,” I grate, swinging my legs off the bed and wincing. “Relax, you’re not my butler.” I only wish you were. I trot my sore ass past the bunks to the part of the room designed as a tiny sitting area. Seams in the wall indicate a door that probably—hopefully—leads to a bathroom. But there are small cabinet-sized ones, too. I quirk my head and point at them.

“These?”

The butler nods.

I flip one of the cabinets open to find three spigots and a recess containing a flowery-smelling, fibrous cup. I pull it free. A white bud beneath it bursts open, and another cup grows from it to replace the one I’d just taken. I sniff a bit. From the smell of them, the spigots dispense water, something fruity, and something herbal that almost definitely has caffeine in it. I go for that.

My cup filled, I open the next cabinet. Behind it is a wall of glistening white flesh growing through a cartilaginous grid. Wrinkling my nose, I poke one of the meat-diamonds and it quivers slightly before pushing itself forward so that I can pluck it out with a thumb and forefinger. More meat grows in its place even as I click the hatch closed over it.

I take a tentative nibble. Then pop the whole thing in my mouth, chew, swallow, and wrench the cabinet open again to grab some more.

Kirron snorts. “Never seen a feng locker before, fox? Let me guess…Boar Borough?”

“Shut up, dickhead,” I say around a mouthful of the most delicious meat I’ve ever tasted. Perfectly tender, slightly sweet, light but with just an edge of fattiness and salt. It tastes neither cooked nor necessarily raw, but as if the flesh were a fruit and I’ve picked it at its peak.

“Oh, it’s dickhead now? Did you finally run out of horse jokes?”

“Please, sir,” whispers Mr. Brisby. “Quietly”

I’m about to insult Kirron again—but quietly—when the slit of the main door contracts into an oblong opening and a bulky figure with a weird head squeezes through. Tiberia sits up, rubbing her eyes with minuscule fists, and Mr. Brisby is on his feet a heartbeat later.

“Right,” Says the newcomer, his voice like rocks tumbling over sandpaper. “Briefing time.” He turns one eye of his gray, hammer-shaped face on me. “Guess we haven’t exactly been introduced. I’m Captain Horn. You’re Mrs. J the foxlady. はじめまして and all that. Now,” he slaps his hands together. “Moonfall’s in thirty minutes. That means wakey-wakey juice for everyone.” He claps my back and I tip forward, almost choking on my last bite of feng meat.

“I see you’re already ahead of the game on that one. Good lass. Good lass. Now, we’ll be touching down in Greenveil. Take it none of you’ve been there? Right. Well. It’s gonna take some adjusting to.”

The hammerhead man pushes past Kirron, and Mr. Brisby edges back to make way for him as he lumbers over to the drink locker. Flicking it open, he fills two cups full of the same sweet, herbal-smelling drink I chose. Shoving one first into Tiberia’s hands and then into Brisby’s, he turns to fill two more.

Kirron takes a step back as the captain tries to hand him his cup.“I don’t take stimulants,” he protests.

Horn laughs. “You do now.”

When the centaur maintains his refusal, something changes in the captain’s manner. A souring of his scent as his body chemistry shifts, a slight gaping of his jaw, displaying double-rows of teeth that we could only see in brief flashes when he spoke.

“You agreed to the terms. That means doing what’s got to be done to finish the job. And that means the juice. Now drink.” He shoves the cup against the centaur’s chest, and some of the liquid sloshes out onto his bare skin. Scowling, Kirron brings up a hand to take it from him.

“Cheers,” grunts the shark-man, downing his own drink.

With one eye facing the rebellious centaur and another watching the rest of us, Captain Horn waits as we all follow suit.

“Wasn’t so bad now, was it?” he rumbles. “Now here’s the plan.”