Garden of Peace

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After a short night spent on an old slipover sofa smelling like manure fertilizer, Miles wandered to the kitchen and main room of Ballou’s ranch. Somnolent, he passed Tatyana on the brightly painted but uneven stairs.

An organic strudel jammed between her teeth and a Hair Bear Bunch tumbler balanced on her head, the young nurse appeared busy fiddling with Beau’s circuits. The poor robot tried to remain motionless notwithstanding the sparks coming from his belly’s motherboard.

“What are you furreting—is it coffee on your scalp?” Miles asked as he strolled over the opened toolbox.

“Focused. No talking, buddy,” automatically snapped the short-pantsed techie.

“Who gave you coffee? You’re a kid!”

She didn’t answer, but instead rambled after a new short circuit causing Beau to squeal.

Miles shrugged, then climbed the last few steps. The door slid upward, revealing the enameled kitchen with its electric fireplace and large oval Formica table welded to the ground. On a stool, Fate was dozing. Her forehead tucked into her elbow, she held a small plastic flower pot in her other hand laid on a newspaper from the week before. She has spent the night downstairs, alongside Pierre. Her fingers were still covered with dried blood and iodine.

“Good morning,” he tried.

She grunted as she lifted her head. “Ohayō…” Etched on her cheeks were the folds of her scrubs.

“Where’s Kat? But, more importantly. Why were you drinking out of a flower pot?”

Fate’s gaze shifted to her hand. “What on… Kuso! The little tearaway stole my coffee again.”

Miles smiled, turning on the coffee machine embedded in a wall. “Tatyana’s an interesting girl.”

She heaved. “You do not know her. She seems chaotic, but there is always some kind of twisted logic. Well… except when she tries to stab you only because you munched your military ration too close to her silly pointy ears.”

“What’s the story behind her scare?”

The percolator gurgled. Something grated behind the flaky wallpaper.

“She has been traveling alone across the system for a while. She experienced a lot—a lot of bad things. I do not know the details. We did not discuss much.”

“Is that true that she can talk to ships and AIs?”

“She is very good with languages and computers. A capable techie. But an awful medical assistant.” Miles passed her a new hot cup. “Thanks.”

“Speaking of that… How’s Pierre?”

Fate sipped her steaming coffee. Miles tried too, but burnt his upper lips.

“Still alive,” the woman went on, drinking in one go without blinking. “Need some rest. Lucky for him, I am—”

“A good surgeon,” Miles completed, turning on the radio but keeping it at the lowest volume, but enough to muffle the conversation. John Lee Hooker started singing on a bootleg frequency.

“That is a long story.”

“Then, I’ll tell you mine first.” The pilot sat down on a padded stool. He grabbed the local newspaper. “A cyber-hit squad adorning rebel uniforms were looking for you in Mimas. Lucky me, they found my butt instead. At the Monteleone. Slaughtered a friend and mine—and tortured me.” His eyes wandered on the front page counting a League victory on Frozen Harbor, around Uranus.

Fate looked down. “I am sorry, Miles.”

The pilot went on, slowly turning the black and white pages to the sports results: “My old implants absorbed the shocks before the Maiden intervened. She fried all the thugs on the spot. Nasty woman she was.”

“Who?”

“A data-criminal. Never heard of her? She’s pretty infamous.”

“No. Sorry.”

“Still ended up in prison. But no time to get hung, wanna know why? I was conscripted the week after. Into the rebel military.” From the Martian newspaper flew a recruitment pamphlet for the Techno-Marine. Miles threw it away, before cautiously dipping one of his remaining organic fingers into his beverage. The latter still appeared way too hot. He continued: “Drafted in the cavalry. I met this guy upstairs on my first day at Fort McCausland.”

“Pierre Ballou?”

“Shrimp. A tough Cajun redneck who—apparently—cannot die. Birds of a feather flock together, I reckon. Fought a war with him. Wrestled strange MKs with him. Survived a moon fucking exploding with him.”

“A moon exploding?”

“Ymir won’t show up on any map now. Gotta update them Navstar GPS.”

Fate snarked. “No starship could blow up a moon like Ymir.”

Miles scoffed. “I’ve seen my share of absurdities on that same moon… almost died in its orbit. But when I thought I’d finally give up the ghost… I found out that you—the chrome lady from Enceladus—just performed heart surgery on me on a Techno-frigate… helped by a cross-dressing teenager who talks to bloodsucking AIs. Ain’t life full of surprises, uh?”

Fate smiled shyly. She picked up the journal from his hands. “You should write a book about all that…”

“Missing your chapters.”

Fate stood up. “Your friend from Mimas, the… pimp.”

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“Ayrelle?”

“Yes. Her flying cabaret, the Gandahar, got boarded before we could reach any Jovian moon.” She threw the newspaper and the pot in the recycling bin.

“Fuck. Blockaders?”

“Worse. Routed rebels from Jupiter. Followed by revengeful Technos, fresh from the Core. And coming from Saturn to complete the pincer attack, my dearest admirer—”

“Mr. Turban.”

“Correct,” Fate said. “I had to flee. Again. But I got stapled by moonshiners on the Space Highway… Hurt, I found refuge on an abandoned shuttle from the Eurydome Asylum somewhere past Laramie Post.”

“Know the place. Been there once or twice for some Alliance business.”

After pouring herself another cup of coffee while Mile could finally sip his, she resumed: “I drifted for a while. For only food, rotted raw nutrigel—and for only clothes… lab coats. Or bloodstained straightjackets. Felt like the end of everything… almost hoping for the WarTech agent to show up.” She paused, thinking and losing herself staring at the rows of brown figures lining the outdated orange wallpaper.

“What happened next?” Miles woke her up.

“The wholeheartedly Techno-fleet of Admiral Sherman rescued me a month later. Because of the clothing and ship, the fools thought I was a civilian doctor.”

“You could have been a lunatic patient.”

Fate smiled. “They trusted me somehow. And drafted me—like you.”

“That’s how you ended up on the T.M.S Congo…”

“Where I met this strange and silly dressed teenager—and became a surgeon for the Marine.”

“A surgeon.”

“Yes.”

“They said in the newspapers we were living in a new Depression. Yet, it seems the Rings are full of entry-level job opportunities. The new Silicon Cluster.”

“Baka!” Fate reacted. “Believe it or not, I was not a yakuza all my life. Whatever you told Miss Ballou.”

“You were a doc around Kuiper?”

“I know my way around Gray’s Anatomy. I have been to… college. Elizabeth Cady Stanton Medical School. Class of—”

“Sorry.” Miles realized anger tampered with his last words, and apologized. “You just never told me that,” he said after finishing his coffee.

“You never told me you were a Jovian star pilot either. I’m not the only one concealing the truth from strangers, Red Swan.”

“Touché.”

“Besides…” she went on as an ironic I Put My Trust in You ended on the radio. With a bloody finger, she scratched a chrome spot growing under her left ear. “I think I showed you enough of me, Mr. Wandering Hands…”

“Well…”

“Bonjour!” Kat exclaimed as she climbed down from a hole in the ceiling. She seemed embarrassed. “Am I interrupting?”

“We’re through…” Fate said.

“Alright. Sorry I was fixing a shaft…” Kat acknowledged. “Doc? I set up a new IV earlier.” She then whirled to the fridge, the huge green gelatin square on the ceiling from which she pulled a glass bottle filled with homemade soup.

“Doc…” Miles whispered, squinting at his old friend.

The latter looked at him as if he was an idiot.

“How did you sleep, Mr. Miles?” Kat asked. “Are you hungry? I can make you breakfast, or even better. You seemed to like tomatoes a lot. But did Pierre talk to you about my secret weapon?”

The pilot welcomed a thermo-Tupperware Miss Candide tossed him across the room. He opened it after thanking her, and discovered a large piece of potato pie.

“I ought to make an outing today,” Kate announced, throwing his guest a fork. “The poly-wall has been damaged all over the equator since a comet brushed the Norse a month back. New reinforcements have to be sutured.”

“Sounds like a gig for both a surgeon and a space engineer,” Miles joked, looking at Fate.

She rolled her eyes. “Hard job for just one person. I would gladly support you. But, Miss Ballou, I would rather stay here to watch your brother. The next 48 hours are crucial.”

“Of course!”

Standing up, Miles offered his help: “Curious to see how this strange shield functions. I’m definitely coming. A slice of sweet potato pie is even enjoyable after some hard work. I don’t want to ruin it with a burnt tongue intoxicated with coffee.”

“Is my coffee bad?” Kat snapped.

“Best coffee which ever burnt my tongue.”

She smiled. “Your company is welcomed then.”

“Great. Can’t we recruit Tatyana too? She’s skillful.”

Behind the door leading to the staircase, the group heard the girl burst out laughing along with the little robot.

“I’d prefer to let her do something more age-appropriate…” Kat said. Taking her momentum, she rushed to the upper floor and vanished through the same hole she came from. Her head appeared again a few seconds later. She addressed Miles: “Waiting for you outside, Monsieur Miles.”

The T.M.S. Congo’s medi-shuttle had no spacewalking equipment and Kat had to lend Miles a suit. He put it on as best he could because he was not used to the old gear from the Hard Reset. With Fate’s help, he finally managed to hang his oxygen tanks and position his mechanic kit correctly on his chest. For Kat was already on her way to the exit hatch near the ships.

“How long do you think it will take Pierre to recover?” Miles asked, testing his radio. He then turned it off to let Fate answer without Kat hearing.

The woman sighed. “Already told you. He is in really bad shape. He lost both legs and one arm. Half his skin is necrosed beyond repair. His chances of survival would be less than 15% on the Congo. Here? I would say 1%.”

“Same odds as you on the Forlorn.”

“Pierre Ballou and I do not have the same… constitution, Miles.”

“That man’ll wake up. Even dead, it’d wake up. And the minute after he does, you and I will fly back to Mimas. If the Forlorn is still there waiting, I’ll take you to Jupiter myself.”

“Free of charge?” she quoted him from their past adventures.

Miles grinned, tapping his heart slowly beating under Tatyana’s duct tape armor. “Eh. I might could use a painkiller subscription, Doc.”

But as he headed towards the exit, Fate stopped him. “She is into you, you know,” she said, more serious than ever.

“Uh?”

“The sister. She likes you.”

“How can you tell?” Miles nervously chuckled.

Fate heaved, opening him the hatch. “I also saved her dying brother,” she started, “and I did not get any sweet potato pie.”