Star Cowboy’s Lament

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“Are you going to pull a stunt like this on every mission?”

Pierre “Shrimp” Candide leaned against the sickbay’s round door frame. Fumbling noisily within his Pizzarias bag, he started watching his partner turn over in his poorly equipped medical bed.

Miles breathed; almost unrecognizable with his short hair and new second-hand chrome around his neck and cheeks. “Warned Stuart about this little detail. Warned you too…” He then brought a shaky hand to his painful chest.

Shrimp dragged his feet to his pilot’s bedside, and passed him his salty snack. Someone grunted on the next bed, and a hunched shadow appeared on the nylon divider. “Who’s that?” the wizzo asked, taking back the bag Miles had refused. Pizza crisps over his chin, he flaked his mustache and his friend’s pillow with paprika powder.

“Apache,” Miles said.

A tortilla fell onto Shrimp’s patchy jacket. A chunk bounced off the ground, surrendered to the dust. Picking it up, Pierre quickly lost interest in the other muttering patient. “Shame. Anyway—did some sexy babe nurse already come by for your evening VapoRub?”

“Not today.”

“Lucky rascal. Are you up and running?”

“No.”

“Up.”

Setting his snack on the bedside table, between a used medi-shot and a pile of SASCAR Illustrated held to the upright by a clip, Pierre grabbed his pilot by the shoulder; and lifted him against his will, before tearing down the white blanket as thick as a sheet of paper.

Beneath, Miles appeared naked as a protein worm; except for the new metal and ceramic biosensors a robot-surgeon of the 18th had grafted along his scarred ribs, arms and thighs. Meanwhile, his chest box had simply been concealed under an entire roll of green tape. The sadistic technology used to keep Miles alive in the past appeared to be beyond the capabilities of the Cause’s medical corps.

Munching, Shrimp turned to fetch Miles’ uniform from the clean laundry bag. Unfolding it, he threw it over his head on a rocky chair, then pulled from the bottom of the basket a real-leather jacket with a wool collar. “They almost crumpled it, those animals…” he grumbled.

“What’s this?” the shaken-up patient asked, sliding into his pouch briefs.

“Your place.”

The wizzo tossed Miles his pilot jacket earned on Paaliaq. With a moistened finger, he showed him the Dead Bunch patch near the heart, just above his friend’s nickname sewn in red letters. “Joli, uh? Even better than the Balls and Bayonets Brigade—we got a cowboy skull and all.”

Miles gave the dark patch a long look, then slipped inside the jacket without putting on his crumpled shirt. He found the caress of the leather pleasant, he who had been used to the convulsion of his suit’s shape-shifting polymers. His rough combat clothes had to fit as tightly as possible, leaving no folds in the fabric at the risk of hindering his movements while flying.

Finally done buttoning his pants, Miles asked Pierre, caught looking at his quartz watch: “Do we have an appointment?”

“Yes. You’re my sexy +1.”

“You’re much more sociable than my old copilot. Miss him—sort of.”

“Was he a dick?”

“A duck.”

Shrimp laughed, and invited Miles to follow him. Leaving the sickroom and Apache, the two men strolled through the mess hall deserted because of the late hour. Only a group of NCOs remained, playing cards by the old coffee machine, using empty cartridges as chips.

“How far away is your party?” the inpatient pilot wondered. “Where is it?”

“In the Meca-18th’s barracks,” Shrimp replied, pushing open the door to an airlock leading to a walkway.

The latter overlooked the main hangar. Down below, removed from the jump locks, the proud yet aging F-XIVs had been lined up by the androids of the maintenance, and Blue pumps were purring in their corner, behind the long-legged Walkers and the Armadillos tanks still coated in Skymir’s dust.

Miles and Shrimp passed a group of silent infantrymen on their way to the communal showers, then turned into a corridor cluttered with desperately empty ration boxes. Slipping through the crates, they came to a dark staircase from which pulsed guitar notes barely covered by the humming of the engines pushing the F.L.S. Chickamauga beyond the ice fields.

“Where are you taking me, Pierre?” asked Miles as he descended the first creaking steps behind his wizzo.

“In the Underworld…” smiled the latter as he nudged the narrow door open. He surprised Miles by shouting and raising his arms in the air at the sight of a tall black man with long gray hair wearing a dirty tank top: “Forrest! You old son of a bitch!”

A cloud of tobacco and weed blinded the ex-Alliance man as his copilot disappeared within. Once he, too, had passed through, he discovered the inside of a barracks featuring tall bunk beds swathed with colorful draperies and flickering Christmas lights. On the rusty walls—crudely insulated with faded newspapers and rock singers posters, lined up shelves covered with booze bottles, church candles and a life-size bust of Babylon Babe—Cyber Macho’s arch-nemesis—made of slimy bubble gum.

The black man was back with Pierre by his side. He gave Miles a vigorous pat on the shoulder. “How you doing, homeboy?”

“Forrest,” Pierre started, “this is Miles Villanueva. Miles lost his lovely little bird heart. Poor soul needs to find another pumping one again. Miles? Here’s Her Royal Majesty Forrest Mississippi. He’s also from Mimas. And a rockstar with a wired wrench.”

“Well, shit…” Forrest went on, pulling from behind his ear a joint twice the size of the jerky sticks Miles usually stuck between his lips. The host puffed, making the shack disappear in a thick blue smoke studded with sparkling stars. The brazing fireflies pulsed to Joan Baez’s starting voice.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

“Enchanté,” Miles said.

When the fume cleared a couple of seconds later, Forrest had his arm around the shoulder of a short woman with a buzz cut. Miles knew her. She was Ameera “Shujaa” Faris, of the first reconnaissance unit. One of the best aces of the Rings.

“Y’all no liars after all…” Forrest resumed, looking at her. “That’s the goddamn Red Swan in person.”

“Leave him some air…” Pierre said. “I carried his Philipino ass from the sick bay to enjoy the fiesta—not sign spaz autographs to groupies like you, old fart.”

“Bite me, ginger boy! I’m a true fan.”

Shrimp grabbed a brick of bourbon on a bed behind the mechanic. “Fine. I’ll leave you between rednecks…” he proclaimed, uncorking the plastic container with his teeth. He abandoned them, to start singing the last chorus of Diamonds and Rust with a cheering topless mutant.

“Here, Red,” Shujaa said, catching Miles’ attention by handing him a joint. “Hit this.”

Miles grabbed it, but hesitated.

“Come on,” she insisted. Smiling, she poked his buzzing chest-box. “It’s herbal. It can’t be bad for your health.”

Remembering Edith’s penchant for alternative medicine, Miles took a deep breath from the magic cigarette. At first satisfied by the whiff, he grinned. Savoring his serendipitous bliss, he let himself fall backwards. In reality, his body remained stoic, still facing his host, Forrest, and the merry woman.

Miles’ mind flew beyond the rings of Saturn for a long time, drifting along the planet’s southern lights. When he regained consciousness, his weak body was sitting on a tough mattress, around a makeshift table with Forrest and Dr. Adder, the 18th Infantry surgeon—the same talented ripperdock who had chromed him with new military-grade gear against General Bragg’s will.

“It’s such a tawdry story, Red…” Shaking his square-shaped head, Adder twisted his plastic lips. “What a mess...”

“Wh—what?” Miles stuttered, gathering his fuzzy wits. He finally noticed the armless android sitting in front of him. “Doc? Doc, you have no arms...”

“Eh?” this one perked up. His photodiodes slowly looked at his shoulders, from which magnetic connections were protruding. “Oh. Probably crawling around.” He then pointed with his pointy chin to a metal appendage clambering next to a rifle between their feet. “Do you mind?”

Miles grabbed the gesticulating arm and placed it back along the doctor’s chest. The robot then swung it so that his long surgeon’s dactyls reached his bounced torso. “You see, hombre? This core,” the android went on, his fingers carefully opening a flap at the same place where Miles had his artificial heart. Inside glowed old bulbs circling a Russian hard drive and its armored shell. “Assembled in Eros the second the Red Uprising began.”

“You were made in the belt?” Shujaa asked. Back from a bathroom break, she sat next to the robot.

“I was made for the belt—like Minsk in your unit, Shujaa. I fought the Technos alongside the Soviets. Started as a simple stretcher bearer, you know? Watched a lot of Reds perish—flatlined some Technos too.”

“What’s the best? The agonizing Commies or the dead Technos?” Forrest inquired.

The robot laughed, finding his other wandering arm on the bed behind them. “The part where I survived—unlike all my organic friends. At least their parts earned me a shitload of cash on the black market after the armistice. Bless both Darwin and the Matrix.”

“You’re a fucking freak, Adder…” Shujaa said. She switched bedsides to crash next to Miles.

“Shrimp got a similar story,” Forrest continued, ignoring the surgeon attempting to excuse his old shady business.

“About selling human body parts?” Shuuja asked.

“Nah. He’s also the only one left, except for one cousin. His family—they all died in the early days of the rebellion. Some on the front—some when the Technos blew up their refugee convoy heading for Titan.”

“Classic Technos…” Shujaa huffed.

Forrest went on: “Yeah… Within six months, seven body bags were shipped to Balou—his home.”

“What a waste…” Doc Adder added, context aside.

Forrest hit his glowing reefer before passing it to Miles, almost fully conscious. “You know what this lowlife Cajun scumbag told me the day after he learned about it? After he spent the night punching holes in the cell we were in, with his weak-ass meat-fists.”

“You gotta tell us…” Adder spoke, screwing his second limb back.

“He said—looking me in the eyes… like this.” He stared at Miles like he was a cyberpsycho in the middle of a mental breakdown. “He said: ‘I’m dead too’…”

“Baudelaire moment!” the robot acknowledged.

Her chin on Miles’ shoulder, Shujaa held back a laugh. “What the fuck does that mean?”

“He wants to go home,” Miles interjected.

“Oh…” the woman sighed.

All went silent, as echoed a muffled folk song in the back.

“And the kid’s going home, damn it!” Forrest went on, raising his glass of rum. “There’s no Freedom penitentiary—no effing Cause that can stop him. He got shit to do—a cousin to take care of in Balou.” He paused. “The strange thing is, he didn’t give a crap about her or her family before this.”

“A new man. Resurrected from spare parts,” Adder declared.

Shujaa tossed the passing joint. “Compared to Shrimp—and the other poor fucks in the Deeps, our problems aren’t a hill of beans.”

“Yeah, but we gotta get a goal. Something for our mind to chew on. And all be as strong as buffaloes,” Forrest said, downing his glass. “ My advice—since I lost a part of my soul too in this damned war.”

“Your car again?”

The mechanic wiped his lips. “Don’t talk shit on my Stingray, little minx.”

Provoked, the ace added another layer on the blasphemy: “Or what, old man? You gonna cry?”

“Star cowboys don’t cry,” Forrest sobbed. “Crying’s a Martian thing.”

Adder tribalistically drummed his chest. Hearing Pierre arrive, Shuuja welcomed him onto her lap.

“Good evening, mes amis,” the drunk Cajun said. “Have you seen Ameera? She ain’t tall—but you can’t really miss her bouncy little butt.”

As Ameera punched him in the gut, Miles’ unsubtle WSO turned to their makeshift table made with a Corn Hole board. With his arm around the woman’s neck, he wanted to drop his brick of bourbon on it, but the bottle fell into a hole just big enough to welcome it.

“What’s up, ginger boy?” Forrest asked.

“Not much. The darn MP showed up again.”

Adder laughed. “Huger’s daughter? The wannabe GA?”

“Yep. Now, high as a sounding balloon between Holly’s natural airbags,” Shrimp answered, pointing to the newly formed couple sharing more than a kiss in the bed below the broken AC unit.

“There’s hope in this world after all…” Forrest joked as the two lovebirds moaned.

Grabbing the rifle lying between Adder’s feet and self-sentient arms back to their floor-level peregrinations, Shrimp then turned to his silent pilot: “Feel good, Miles?”

Fully back from Darwin’s doors, the latter thumbed up. “Yeah…,” he replied, despite worryingly witnessing Forrest loading the gun’s muzzle with hashish. “It feels good.”

His wizzo used the barrel of the weapon as a pipe after their host lit up the drug balls. “Feeling good’s good enough…” Pierre breathed as a thick yellow cloud formed around the table.