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| >> Campfire Creative >> Fiction >> Sci-fi >> ID #1660723 |   |
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[Introduction]
  To find yourself just look inside the wreckage of your past To lose it all you have to do is lie The policy is set and we are never turning back It's time for execution; time to execute. 30 Seconds to Mars 2054 AD: World Firm’s first attempts at terraforming end successfully with the colonization of Venus. Project MEA (Massive Earth Alteration) is extended to include Mars. They plan to initiate MEA Projects on Uranus and Neptune within the next ten years. 2063 AD: Mars is successfully terraformed, and the government sponsors programs offering colonists financial bonuses for settling there. The first Martian city of Pantheon is founded. World Firm begins terraforming Neptune and Uranus, creating the subsidiary company of Cityscape to research establishing a human hold on Saturn and Jupiter. 2066 AD: The first one hundred bioengineered children are produced in laboratories owned by Terra Corp. under Project R-Evolve. One hundred families receive perfect babies, free of genetic defects. The project is considered a success. They plan to extend the project to five hundred the next year and one thousand after that. 2070 AD: Terra Corp. starts up the Heinlein project. Ten bioengineered children are grown and altered throughout their development to try and open pathways in their minds not readily available to most human beings. The project is kept a secret to what’s left of Earth’s governments. 2075 AD: Terra Corp. starts a small research project under the codename Superman. Electric stimulation was intended to connect the test subject with every part of their brain. Initial attempts ended in disaster when a superhuman was created. The havoc it caused when it escaped caused ten billion in repairs. What became of the subject is unknown. 2093 AD: World Firm attempts a massive corporate takeover of Terra Corp. that ends in most of Earth’s standing military demolished and four of Terra Corp.’s facilities in Russia and Japan decimated. They respond by destroying six of World Firm’s research facilities in America and Canada, thus ending World Firm’s presence in North America. 2099 AD: World Firm and Terra Corp. continue to fight over control of Earth. Terra Corp.’s Project R-Evolve is the primary choice of reproduction for most families. World Firm has since launched its own Human Modification project, using cyborg technology to create a better human. Humans have become a thing of the past, and Earth is the cesspool from which all of this has generated. Welcome to the Universe. R A C E S BioHumans – Slowly becoming the majority in society, BioHumans are grown in labs to be the perfect person. They look exactly how their parents imagine them, have skills ingrained into their minds from a young age, and have no genetic diseases. They do not become sick easily and they learn much faster than the average human. Humans – Slowly becoming a thing of the past, these are normal, free range human beings who were born and produced the normal, natural way. They learn slower than BioHumans and have no special learning advantages. They still suffer from genetic diseases, but are likely too poor to afford a child from project R-Evolution. Cyborgs – Either humans or Biohumans who have had Human Modifications at some point. They live longer since major organs can be replaced with new, fresher or electronic ones. Thermal sensitive eyes, bladed implants, or microchips containing information can be installed in the person, making them extraordinary hackers and fighters. Psions – As far as most people are concerned, they are an urban legend. They are particularly uncommon as most of them are still owned under contract by Terra Corp. and therefore not permitted to leave Earth unless sent on special assignment. Only a few have managed to escape their hold. They have the unique abilities of telepathy, telekinesis, and astral projection, which allow them to escape detection by authorities. Pulse – The Pulse do not exist. Supposedly they are what resulted from Terra Corp.’s project Superman, but this has never been proven. If they did exist, there is only one who would potentially be out of their control, and therefore would be an unstoppable force in the universe. The Pulse, presumably, would be able to become an electrical storm, able to pass through wires or electronics. They could hack any system, use telekinesis, telepathy, and morph into any human form. It is possible that if they exist, they were once human, but they have since become a species unto themselves. the S T A R D U S T A bounty hunting ship with a most unusual crew. They are outcasts, misfits, convicts, runaways, and desperate. They take what jobs they can and try to stay under the radar of the biggest Syndicates in the universe, Terra Corp. and World Firm. Should either of them catch up to the Stardust, they would probably find more than enough to keep the entire crew incarcerated for multiple lifetimes. This is the Stardust. This is home. the C H A R A C T E R S Captain Jesse "Jack" Rackham - .Wolfie.  - Psion - Stands about six foot with brown hair and pale blue eyes. Captain of the Stardust ever since his escape from Earth six years ago. May or may not have had something to do with World Firm's attempted corporate takeover of Terra Corp. Extremely loyal and protective of his crew, despite all signs pointing towards him being an asshole. Reese Hadley - Wenston  - Pulse - She's taken on the form of a petite woman with blonde hair and green eyes. She keeps what she is a secret, but Jack saw her in her raw energy state once so he knows what she is. She's quiet and secretive, and serves as the ships hacker/computer expert. She can "talk" to computers, and has an unusual love affair with the ship.Endymion - cyril - Biohuman - Pale white skin, ethereal green eyes, and natural white hair. Endy is the ship’s mechanic. He spent his short life studying sword fighting as per his parents specifications. He is only ten years old. Doesn’t act like much of a child, but at heart he still is. Claims he doesn’t remember where he came from. Hayden O'Riley - Quaddy - Cyborg - Appears completely human, with fiery hair and coal black eyes, but for a series of small scars along her body. Fitted with thermal sensing technology and an implant containing knowledge of combat and weaponry, Hayden is (literally) a killing machine. She is the ship's gunner and resident strong-arm, possessing a temper she desperately tries to keep under control lest she brings undue attention to the crew.Lucia Vargas - LdyPhoenix - Human - Keeps her black hair cut short in a mop of curls and her gray eyes are slightly clouded by early onset cataracts. She grew up in the slums of the Philippines, earning her some skill in fighting and thinking on her feet in order to survive. She acts as a runaround for whoever may need an extra hand. Lucia is a bit socially awkward, having a tendency to speak before she thinks, and can become combative when she’s touched unexpectedly. Jakil Salan - Matt - Nomad  - Human - He's not especially tall at 5'10 but he's got broad, rower's build shoulders and a lean body from the years of hard work he put into creating his biohuman facade. Beneath his short, shaggy brown hair he has a striking, warm appearence and whilst not a typically goodlooking guy, his crooked grin and dark blue eyes lend him a charm and appeal that make him much more than just another bloke rambling through space. He dresses fairly casually but with style. A genius who has forged papers so that he appears to be a biohuman. He is a competent and charismatic crew member, a jack-of-all trades, and an astute MENSA type. He is an okay fighter who is under Hayden's tutelage.Lucas Criostoir - Lonewolf - Catching up  - Psion/Cyborg - Stands six foot two with a caramel colored athletic build. His eyes are a startling blue, with not a hair on his head. Lucas serves as the ships mechanic being able to communicate easily with any electronics not to mention telepathy and telekinesis. He does not speak unless he absolutely must, and even then, it comes out as a growl. Lucas is a quiet soul and loyal to the crew of the Stardust. He also helps with anything dealing with enforcer work when not doing his repair duties.Eris Arnold - Cherita - Human - Is of average height and has a slight build. Suffers from hetero-chromia: left eye brown, right eye brown and green. Has thin auburn hair that falls in a shapeless cut around her shoulders. Eris is naturally charming, with a quick wit and a silly sense of humor. She considers herself a con-woman and is extremely good at her craft, being able to fool even some of the sharpest of biohumans, along with only an average skill for firearms and the like. She tends to be clumsy, yet makes up for it in speed and stealth.the R U L E S
 All characters must be a member of the Stardust's crew Normally this is the part where I write "No perfect characters!" Only in this case, they are actually acceptable. BioHumans are the closest to perfect as people can get, and they are quickly becoming the majority. That being said, please keep in mind that everyone is part of the Stardust's crew, and that means that as person they are somehow deeply flawed.Please send a short description of your character upon acceptance.The rating is GC. That means you can write pretty much anything except extremely graphic sex scenes. Mild sex, nudity, drug use, excessive cursing, and obscene amounts of violence are acceptable. This also means if you are easily offended, please do not read or accept.Please try not to take longer than Seven days to add. If you need more time, feel free to email me and we'll work something out.A request to join does not equal acceptance. |
 .Wolfie.  So I run, hide and tear myself up Start again with a brand new name and eyes that see into infinity I will disappear 30 Seconds to Mars “This is how this is going to work,” he said. He leaned back in his chair, nonchalantly lighting up a cigarette. The man across from him waited patiently, his hands held loosely in front of him on the table. He had a manila folder next to his left hand, a gun in his holster, and he was thinking about his boss’s eighteen year old daughter while he waited for Jesse to speak. He smiled to himself and then breathed in the smoke, leaning back towards the man in the suit. “I’m not going to sign any contracts,” he said. The man’s lips tightened but he still didn’t speak. He was annoyed, because he had spent the last two days drawing up carefully constructed documents that would bind Jesse to them when this was all over. “As far as you are all concerned, I don’t exist.” “But…” the man started to say, and Jesse cut him off with a wave of his hand. “I’m not done yet. No contracts, no tracking chips, no nothing. You don’t know me, and I don’t know you. You’ve never heard my name and you’ve never seen my face.” He smiled, leaning on the table as his voice dropped to a whisper. “This is how it’s going to work. I get you security codes and patrol times. You give me one, single ship that’s fully stocked enough to get to Mars, and pretend you never see me leaving the atmosphere. I disappear.” “What about the EPF?” he asked. The man wasn’t thinking about the eighteen year old anymore. He was thinking about what his superiors would say if he let Jesse leave the building without signing his contracts. He was thinking about what they would say if he let the opportunity slip him by as well, and he was realizing in slow degrees that his job was completely fucked unless this worked. “Don’t worry about them,” Jesse said, shooting him his trademark grin. “I’ve got it covered.” The man in the suit sighed and leaned back and he could see the wheels in his head turning, almost literally. He finally asked what he’d wanted to since Jesse first opened his mouth. “How do we know we can trust you?” Jesse smiled at him. “I have a lot more to lose here than you. Besides, I’m giving you the one thing you want more than anything.” “What’s that?” He flicked ash out into the small ceramic tray and the smile fell into something sad. “I’m giving you Terra Corp.” ××× “…is it that makes us human?” Pale blue eyes slid open at the sound of the radio crackling to life. His hand was already halfway under the pillow and wrapped around his gun before he realized what it was, and when he did, he still almost shot the thing. He took a breath, letting his body relax in slow degrees, and pulled his hand out from under the pillow. By habit, he was already letting his eyes close and his mind slip out of his body to make sure everything on his ship was where it was supposed to be. It wasn’t quite astral projection. He usually didn’t go that far because it was draining and he always felt a little dizzy and a little high when he came back into his skin. It was just the slow extending of his mind, searching out the corners of his ship to make sure that nothing had gone terribly wrong while he was asleep. It had been known to happen, from time to time. “We asked this question last week on our show, and well, the response was bigger than we expected.” He sighed, pulling his senses back and sitting up his bed. He reached for the nightstand where his pack of cigarettes waited and placed one between his lips. “So this week we’re allowing our listeners to sound off. Our first caller is from Pantheon, go ahead, you’re on the air.” He glanced at the radio, then down at his arm. Scars on his wrist glared back at him. They used to be a tattoo, branded on him by Terra Corp. He’d used a knife to carve them off the best he could, but he could still see bits of the number shining back at him. He would have to go over it again. Maybe people would realize the scars made him a biohuman, but as long as the soldiers from Terra Corp couldn’t see the number they couldn’t know he was a Psion, and that was all he cared about. He was the 4600th biohuman baby, the first one harvested in 2070 AD, part of the first round of Psion experiments, and the first one to escape. He smiled wryly because that was just all kinds of firsts attached to a name he couldn’t even use anymore. He went by Jack to everyone these days, because no one was looking for a bounty hunter named Jack. Alright, well almost no one. “Hi, my name is Andrew.” A new voice came over the radio and he sounded like he was just out of puberty. “I just wanted to say that I am sick and tired of listening to you spread all the conservative bullshit every week. If I wanted to listen to hatemongering pricks I’d start going back to church. Listen, biohumans aren’t bad. It’s the natural progression of evolution. It’s the next step in making life better for all of us.” He snorted, lighting up the cigarette. Where had he heard that argument before? First time he’d heard that bit, a representative of Terra Corporation was offering him a promotion. All he had to do was sign on the dotted line, and he’d be bumped up in the ranks faster than he could blink. The trick of it was that they weren’t really asking. He could say no, but then he’d be tossed to the bottom of the heap to be taken out with the rest of the trash. So he’d signed it. He’d done it with a smile on his face. The next day he’d sold them out to World Firm. There was only one person left in the universe who knew his part in the whole mess, and he was the current Chief of Police in Pantheon. The man he’d cut the deal with had died under mysterious circumstances some six months later, and the soldiers that World Firm had sent after him had died within the year. He was fairly sure only some of the bigwigs in Terra Corp still knew he existed, and the number runners in their accounting office. They’d gotten close to him before, but as quick as they were, he was quicker. He had to be, or he’d be dead. He rubbed a hand over his face, feeling the stubble rasp against his skin. He needed a shave, and probably a haircut. Zelda had hated it when his hair got too long. She’d said he looked like a bum. Not that it mattered. She was dead now. “Well, some people would disagree with you Drew. How many advancements have we made medically since the biohumans first started production? Besides World Firm’s cyborg program, most people seem to have forgotten that there are still human beings out there with medical problems and no medical coverage. They’re not getting any better because the rest of the universe seems to have forgotten that not everyone is a biohuman yet. Future generations may be protected, but that doesn’t help the current one.” “I’m not saying it does,” the kid said. “I’m saying that in a hundred years, those people won’t matter anymore.” He kicked the radio with his foot, knocking it over onto the ground. It crackled and sparked once before dying out, and he sighed, reaching down to pull his boots on. He hated talk radio. They were all a bunch of children arguing over which one of them was more righteous than the other. One side paraded God around on their shoulders like they had his blessing to be goddamn terrorists as they set biohuman facilities on fire, while the other side acted like they were God, ushering in the second coming. He stayed out of it. He didn’t have the luxury of having opinions. He just wanted to live his life, free of warring corporations and warring religions and moral gray areas that would just complicate things. He had sacrificed everything to get free and he was going to enjoy his freedom now, floating on the fringes of the galaxy on the Stardust. He was just pulling the shirt over his head when he heard the soft knock at the door. A glance over showed him a tiny hand reaching around the corner and a pair of brilliant green eyes staring at him. He smirked but hid it behind his hand as he took a drag from his cigarette, because everyone knew he didn’t like kids. Then he sighed, snuffing the cigarette out in his ashtray. “The fuck do you want?” he asked sharply. “I had a nightmare,” the kid said from the doorway. He edged a little farther into the room, his hands twisted behind his back and his teeth chewing on his lip. “I was scared.” “So what do you want me to do about it?” He leaned forward, bracing his elbows on his knees. Endymion smiled hopefully. “Make it better?” He rolled his eyes, patting the bed next to him. “Alright, get over here.” The kid hurried across the room, climbing up on the bed next to him and settling in next to Jack. The Captain flinched when the kid leaned his head against his arm, and put a hesitant hand around his shoulders. He managed to pat him awkwardly on the head and he fought the urge to reach for another cigarette. He’d never been good around kids, even when he was one. They made him nervous and he didn’t understand them. Endymion was no exception. For all intents and purposes, he had come with the ship six years ago. He had been living in the cargo hold off freeze dried food and at first they hadn’t even know he was there because he was so small he could fit through most of the air ducts as well as the mechanic’s passageways that most ships. They had finally realized he was there when his curiosity had broken the damn ship, and left them stranded in space for a week. The kid snuggled closer to him, putting his arms around his waist. He sat there uncomfortably and kept himself from pushing the kid away because that would just make him cry, and he really hated it when the kid cried. “I had a nightmare there was a monster on the ship, papa.” “Don’t call me that,” he grumbled. As usual, the kid ignored him. “I dreamed he was living under my bunk and that he wanted to eat me, so I ran and hid.” He looked up at the Captain with big, watery, puppy dog eyes and sniffled once for effect. “He couldn’t find me, so he started going after the crew. I was so scared, because I could hear everyone calling for help but I was too afraid to move. I hid in the ship so that he couldn’t find me but he was laughing anyway because he got you instead.” His arms tightened and he buried his face in Jack’s chest. “I don’t want you to die, papa.” He laughed, mussing the kid’s hair. “I’m not going to die, kiddo. You forget that I’m the baddest mother fucker on this ship. If there’s a monster under your bed then he’s going down.” He didn’t know if that was what he was supposed to say to a kid who’d just had a nightmare, but it seemed to do the trick. Endy smiled up at him, his eyes still huge and bright even if he didn’t look like he was going to cry anymore. A small sigh of relief escaped Jack’s throat, because he really hated it when kid’s cried, particularly when Endy cried because other than yelling at him, he didn’t know how to make it stop. He wasn’t exactly the cuddly, snuggly sort. “Come on,” he said, nudging the kid with his arm. “I want some breakfast.” There were those green eyes again, looking up at him with a hopeful expression. “Can we have pancakes?” “I’m not making you pancakes. I’m making coffee. You can eat that.” He rolled his eyes, grabbing the pack of cigarettes off the nightstand and shoving them in his back pocket. His guns were next, two going in his shoulder holsters followed by the knife he slid into his boot. It didn’t matter that they were on his ship and should be safe. He never went anywhere without his weapons because he didn’t trust anyone. Not even his crew. He knew he would die for them if he had to. They were his family and he would take care of them, whatever it took. He would take a bullet for any one of them, even the ones he wasn’t sure he liked because they were on his ship and they were his responsibility. But at the end of the day, he didn’t trust anyone to have his back because he’d learned a long time ago that it was much easier to slide a knife into someone when they weren’t looking. When he turned around, the bright green puppy dog eyes were on him. “But I love pancakes.” He sighed, scrubbing a hand through his hair. It was really unfair how big and sad those things were. They should be qualified as a weapon, the cheating little shit. “Fine,” he said, holding his hands up in surrender. How was it that Endymion was always getting his way on Jack’s ship? “I’ll make you your damn pancakes.” He smiled and slid his hand into Jack’s, pulling him towards the kitchen. “Thanks, papa,” he said. “Don’t call me that,” he snapped, and as usual the kid ignored him. ××× “This is how this is going to work,” he said. His finger rested casually on the trigger of his gun. The man it was pointed at tried to turn his head and look behind him, but the barrel pressing into his cheek deterred him. Jesse could see the bead of sweat trickling down the back of his neck, and he could hear the rapid thoughts that blew through the man’s head. He was thinking he was going to die now. He was thinking that he could try and shoot whoever was behind him, but he would probably have his brains splattered all over the wall before he even turned around. “You are going to put your gun on the floor,” he said. “Then you are going to open this door. When you are done doing that, you are going to put your hands over your head, and I am going to knock you out. It’s going to hurt, but you’ll be alive. If at any point you try to turn around, I’m going to have to shoot you. That sound fair?” The man nodded slowly. He licked his dry lips. “Yes,” he whispered. Jesse nodded. “Good. Go to it.” The man put his gun slowly on the floor, kicking it to his right. He didn’t see the blonde woman bend and pick it up, but Jesse did. He smirked to himself but didn’t turn around. The kid thought for a second about trying to make a break for it and then he thought about the girl waiting for him at home. No job was worth losing her, the kid was thinking, and then his fingers were punching the code into the door. It opened with a hiss and air filled with smog and smoke flowed into the hallway. “Thanks kid,” he said, and then the butt of his gun struck him on the back of the head. He went down in a heap, blood already trickling from the wound. It didn’t matter. He would live to see another day, and Jesse had a transport waiting for him. He turned to the woman behind him, holding out his hand. “We’re free,” he told her, smiling brightly. She returned it, stepping over the kid’s crumpled form. “No,” she told him, and his eyes widened as the gun went off. He felt something pierce his lung and he was falling backwards into the hallway, leaving a red trail behind him as he slumped to the ground. His eyes were wide and disbelieving as he looked up at her, lips mouthing her name but unable to make them leave his lips. His hands fell slackly to the side, the gun a dead weight in his hand. She shook her head, crouching in front of him, fingers coming out to brush his face. “We’re not,” she told him. “We’ll never be free.” Wenston “And as you can see, Sir, our facilities are state of the art and our security is top notch, just as you ordered. We have infrared, full spectrum, and motion sensor cameras monitoring every square inch of this facility. We also have heat signature readers and retinal scanning instruments on every door required to get in or out. Voice activation is a possibility as well, along with DNA sequencing testers. We take security and precaution very seriously here, sir.” The red headed doctor giving the tour paused briefly to point out the cameras following their movements in the upper corner of the room. The man she was escorting didn’t bother to look. He knew the equipment, he knew the facility, he’d been the one to design it. Unlike the white clad lady doctor beside him, he was dressed in a black uniform. An officer’s hat adorned his head and the medals that splayed across his chest proved he was someone worthwhile. A thick scar ran down the right side of his face and had caused his eye to go a glossy, milky white. He’d never gotten the eye replaced. He’d never needed to. “Commander Greer, we are just thrilled to have you in our facility. It is truly an honor, sir.” He tolerated the scientist’s babbling, and even overlooked the fact that he was often in the facility. A good leader kept a close eye on their subordinates. Which meant he came and went as he pleased. The fact that this scientist wasn’t privy to that information told him that she was new, or uninformed, or in need of a new assignment. Probably the latter. But she was taking him to the pods, and that was what he wanted. He wanted to see their creations. His creations. A salt and pepper haired doctor can quickly around the corner and nearly ran into the both of them. Greer glared with his one good eye at the doctor, who looked at him wide eyed. “Oh, Commander Greer, forgive me!” he exclaimed. The red headed lady doctor greeted the other. “Dr. Vorn! Oh you’re just in time, I was about to take Commander Greer to see Subject Delta Nine. It was showing remarkable capabilities and sustainability last week. I think the good Commander will be most impressed. Would you join us, please? The Subject responded so well to you.” “O…oh,” Dr. Vorn nodded his head and looked behind him. “Of course. Lead the way.” The lady doctor grinned and waved her hand cheerfully at them, leading the way down the hallway to the pods. “Dr. Vorn here has been working on the electroshock therapy for the Subjects. He’s been getting outstanding results from most of them. Delta Nine is the most promising. It withstood 100,000 volts of a charge for over three hours just the other day. The readings from all the Subjects have been showing abnormal electric frequencies. It’s absolutely fascinating. Dr. Vorn gets remarkable results out of the Subjects.” Commander Greer turned to look at the aging doctor, who gave him a quirky smile in return. They reached the pod room and the lady doctor bent to show the retinal scan machine her eye. It blipped and a read beam came out of the wall to scan her body. The door to the pod popped open and they stepped inside, but froze instantly. The lady doctor gasped and Commander Greer whirled, withdrawing his charge pistol. The Dr. Vorn they’d come in with was gone. The Dr. Vorn who was real, was strapped to a experimentation chair, with 100,000 volts of electricity being pumped through his body. Commander Greer roared and ran out into the hall. He saw a flash of light and the lady doctor hit a large red button on the wall. Alarms sounded immediately. “No!” Commander Greer screamed as he rounded the corner and saw the Dr. Vorn look-a-like disappear into a fit of lightning and static, traveling down an electric conduit in the corner of the wall. “Don’t let that Pulse escape!” He screamed. *** Reese Hadley didn’t sleep. She didn’t dream or have nightmares. She never got tired or fatigued. She didn’t sleep, she just recharged. So when she had waking dreams, it often came as a surprise to her. She didn’t know what triggered them, or why she had them. It was probably the years she’d spent in a laboratory being poked and prodded and zapped beneath a microscope. Maybe they’d poked something loose in her head. But she somehow doubted that. Because when she had waking dreams, she dreamed in code. In 1’s and 0’s. And it was beautiful. It was like a song that could make her cry, or a painting that she could escape to when the world got too ugly. The code ran through her head and commanded her brain and the things she saw, she felt, she heard – and they were beautiful. So she didn’t sleep, and she didn’t complain. The others called her spacey when it happened. A glitch in her bio-engineering or a mental road block in her psionic powers. She didn’t discuss what she was, with any of them. Not even Jack. But he knew. She knew he knew. They just never spoke about it. But the others, they didn’t. Some guessed Psion, even though she’d never used psionic powers on any of them. The rest guessed Biohuman with a fault gene or two. They were probably the closest. Pulse. The word never came up. She wouldn’t allow it. Sitting in the Bridge of the ship, she ran her hands over the computer terminal. She closed her eyes and leaned her head back. Her blonde ponytail fell over her shoulder. “Hello, Stardust,” she whispered out loud. The computer pulsed beneath her and a wave of electricity came up through her hands and crackled over her body. She laughed. Her body responding to the ship’s computer as it processed and “spoke” to her. She closed her eyes. The code came then. Stardust painted her a beautiful picture. A star, far away, the gasses and matter floating around it. The black emptiness of space in the background. Space, light, empty sounds. It was solitude and she felt peaceful in the picture the ship gave her. Then the code changed and the picture faded. She withdrew her hands and held them to her chest, feeling the tingling in her fingers as she came down off of the high of reading the ship’s thoughts. She thought maybe she was the only person in the galaxy who could hear and understand that a ship, that any piece of equipment, was more than just a tool, more than just a hunk of metal. It was living. It was pulsing with currents and electricity. And if that’s what classified her as living, then so would it be for anything like her. Including the Stardust. Standing up, she closed her eyes again and reached out with her senses. The others were waking. They were hungry. The little one’s belly was rumbling. She reigned her senses in again and smiled. She enjoyed the child. He was amusing and innocent all in one he reminded her of those she left behind. They were the only family she’d ever had. Until now. Until being a part of this crew. And she didn’t know if she could even count them as family. Aside from the child, who it was an innate habit to protect, the only other person she trusted wholly was Jack. And only because he knew what she was and yet she was still free, still on the ship. She would do whatever he asked to keep her secret safe between the two of them. He was the only person in the galaxy who knew what she was. The only person in the galaxy who knew the Pulse that escaped was still alive. She bent down to kiss the computer, a spark emitting between her lips and the metal. She laughed and then headed off towards the rec bay. She could smell pancakes. Quaddy Hayden opened her eyes and immediately wished that she hadn’t.Around her, Stardust came to life, its biological inhabitants pulling themselves from the last vestiges of sleep, stretching the rust from muscles tightened by eight hours of restful slumber. No doubt even the ship itself welcomed the beginning of another day on its haphazard flight through the vastness of space. It probably had something to do with finally feeling the captain awake once more. The only person on this hunk of metal who actually knew what he was doing. Hayden could practically feel it trilling with excitement at the prospect of new adventure. For herself, however, she wanted nothing more than to go back to sleep. It had been like this for nearly ten years. Every morning she rose, every afternoon she counted down the minutes until it was time to sleep again. Every moment of every day spent loathing herself and the decision she’d made. Every second wishing that she’d been allowed to stay human. Not that she was precisely human, of course. Her parents had been more than wealthy enough to have her genetically altered to their exacting standards, right down to the cute little Irish freckles and the charming little accent to boot. A fairy tale Irish lass from County Cork, where the emerald gave way to gold and everyone had the gift of Blarney. If only her father had remembered what Corkians prided themselves on. He might not have chosen such a daughter for himself. A rebel and a runaway, a defector from the cause. But the fucker had stolen something from her, so Hayden had only felt it was right to steal something right back from him. It was just ironic that it happened to be the same thing for the both of them. Blinking, Hayden stared around her room. A series of blues and greens flashed back at her. Only when she reached herself, long legs tangled within the sheets, did the reds and oranges of heat make their way into her field of vision. She moved, swinging her legs off the side of the bed and onto the cold floor, and her bed still radiated warmth. But aside from that, Hayden could see little else. Her eyesight wouldn’t kick in for another hour. She’d lost her human vision ten years ago, after all. Colonel O’Riley worked for Terra Corp. and had worked for them as long as Hayden could remember. His military title was little more than an honorary one, given for long-standing loyalty and ‘dedication to the cause’. In reality, Eomann O’Riley was little more than a tinker, a developer of ideas, a dreamer of 007 proportions. He and his wife had had three children already, all three of them big and strapping lads, heads full of red hair and eyes emerald green. They could have graced the mythical fields of Eire, traipsing with Cuchulainn and Conall Cernacht. Exactly what Eomann and Colleen had wanted from their offspring, dutifully logged and paid for by Terra Corp. as yet another reward for outstanding service. But Eomann was a scientist and who better to tinker with than the perfect human being? And so he’d created Hayden, his little girl, and given her over to the machinations of scientific endeavor. By the time she was sixteen, Hayden O’Riley had ceased to be anything even remotely resembling human. And by the time she was twenty-four, she couldn’t even remember a time when she hadn’t been half man made. Daddy’s Little Girl, daddy’s favorite toy. Hayden hated being awake. ***** “Alright now, Hayden, jump up for me.” Eomann patted the table, forgetting as usual to cover it with something, anything, to dull the icy chill of the metal. Hayden sighed and braced herself for the shock against her bare legs before jumping onto the contraption. “What are we doing today, daddy?” She was six, all ringlets and toothless grin, spindly little girl legs swinging through the air in anticipation. Already, her father had given her a special heart, capable of going extra, extra fast. Daddy said that it made her super strong, that her heart could take a whole lot of something called adrenaline and not stop. Hayden wasn’t sure what that meant. But she was the best striker on her team because she could run much faster than anyone else. And that, she supposed, was a good thing. “We’re going to work on your muscle strength, Denny. You can run really fast because of your heart, but you still get tired just like everyone else on the team, right?” Dr. O’Riley ruffled his beloved daughter’s hair. She was his Irish Rose, after all, the perfect daughter from the moment of her conception. And now she would be better than perfect. A warrior, unstoppable, unbeatable. The perfect fighting machine. Hayden nodded, smiling. “Yeah. Everyone laughs because I get so tired. And sometimes my leg really hurts and I can’t run at all.” Eomann chuckled and turned to a table of syringes. “That’s called a cramp, honey. But, with any luck, you’ll never have any more of those. You’re going to have extra strong muscles now, so as long as you take care of them, you should be able to run very fast for a very long time.” Hayden brightened, sitting up straight as her father swabbed her arm, an inoculation prepped and ready on the table next to him. “I’ll make state for sure!” “You’ll be starting at the championships, my dove.” Hayden closed her eyes and scrunched her face as Eomann stuck the needle into her arm. “You’ll be perfect at everything you do.” ***** The benefit to being awake was that Hayden had amazing senses. And the smell of pancakes wafting its way through the corridors and into her room was tantalizing. She could feel her mouth watering in anticipation, practically tasting the syrupy goodness along the edges of her tongue. Hayden enjoyed eating very much. Admittedly, her body—with all of its enhanced energy burning capabilities courtesy of Terra Corp.—needed the energy, but Hayden truly enjoyed eating. It was one of few truly human pleasures she could still enjoy. Her father had never seen a reason to give her a mechanical tongue, at least. Or anything much, if push came to shove. Aside from the eyes and the chip, and she only noticed one of those on a daily basis, all of her ‘embellishments’ were organic in nature. Eomann had only given his daughter the best. His Irish Rose. Hayden felt a stab of guilt. Wincing at her own, quite human weakness, Hayden slipped quietly through the ship, delicately walking as only a dancer or a fighter could, following the delicious aroma. “Good morning, captain,” Hayden half-sung as she slipped into the mess. “I’m guessing Endy convinced you to make pancakes this morning.” The Captain grunted, but flipped the pan, sending his confirmation flipping through the air. At the table, Endymion hid a grin, staring down at the table as he ate. He very rarely met Hayden’s eye, but she assumed it was probably because he more than anyone could sense the mechanization behind Hayden’s black gaze. Eomann’s work had been rather advanced for its time, but it was still obvious that the woman had been tinkered with. Hayden plopped down in a seat and sighed in relief when her eyes finally kicked in. She could activate her thermal vision as needed, but for an hour after she awoke every morning, Hayden saw the world only as a pattern of colors, vague shapes and movement. And once activated, her vision was similarly hampered for sixty minutes. Needless to say, it rarely proved useful on a ship in the middle of space. But it was that reason she’d begun contemplating running away. A few years later, her father had removed all doubt from her mind, and his beloved daughter had upped and ran, taking a great many secrets with her. Hayden stared down at her arms, amazed as usual that she could once again see the reddish freckles along their length. Some part of her still feared that her father’s work would malfunction and she’d be stuck seeing in heat for the rest of her life. Which, if she had to admit, wouldn’t last long after that. She wasn’t a coward, or anything, but there were some things that no one could put up with. For Hayden, losing her sight was one of those. “Eyes kick in finally?” the Captain asked, sliding more pancakes onto the table. Once Endy had convinced Jack to make breakfast, the Captain had no qualms with feeding everyone. Hayden never questioned the man’s motives or reasoning, but simply enjoyed the benefits. Especially when they were as tasty as these. “Yup. Another day stuck with me, Cap’n!” Hayden replied, unnecessarily brightly. She was prone to needling the man, knowing very well that there wasn’t much he could do to her—at least physically. Still, she was remarkably loyal to the Captain and the crew; another of those Irish traits, no doubt. And Jack knew it, of course, though he typically refused to acknowledge it. Hayden knew, though, that he wasn’t as much of a righteous asshole as he pretended to be. But if pretending that he was made him feel better, Hayden would reap the benefits of his generosity. She had a home, after all, and a job. And Jack had been the one to give her both. So, at the risk of sounding cliché, even in her own thoughts, Jack and the crew were family, and a much closer family than the one she’d abandoned. Hayden loved being awake. Matt - Nomad Jakil had dreamt about poetry.TWELVE o'clock. Along the reaches of the street Held in a lunar synthesis, Whispering lunar incantations Dissolve the floors of memory And all its clear relations, Waking up to the whirring of the engine fans, he’d had words just lingering like tantalising dream-memories in the front of his mind. Drifting with his consciousness into a vague clarity then fading again. It was a good day. There was no routine, no fumbling today, he was still clinging to the bleary words and trying to remember what came next. Sleep was his intoxicant, it was the one time that his brain fully switched off or at least, the time that he forced it to switch off. It meant he rarely dreamt and when he did it was usually because something was bothering him. “Early.” He mumbled. Too early for this shit. Sleep was his weakness. It made him sluggish for a minimum of twenty minutes unless he got food or an incentive. Dressing he recalled the rest of the verse: Its divisions and precisions, Every street lamp that I pass Beats like a fatalistic drum, And through the spaces of the dark Midnight shakes the memory As a madman shakes a dead geranium. He tried to ignore it. “Morning. Hungry. Food.” Jakil sagged through the corridors mumbling to himself and wondering if the ship would mock him if it could. He was his most human in the mornings and he figured that the only thing that could possibly have guessed would be the Stardust, since it was the only things that surrounded him even when he wasn’t fronting any necessary façade. He trusted the ship not to tell anyone. “Must sleep more, thinking about talking spaceships.” He slowed down, building himself subconsciously as he began to stand straighter and walk with more of a gait, more of the cocky, jack-handed creature he was to them. In many ways he was as fake as Hayden or Lucas or any of the Cyborgs since he had created himself using anything and everything available to him. He used his natural photographic memory and his ability to connect ideas to create complex webs of knowledge in his mind that worked as well as any chip that could be implanted into his skull, even if he did have to find the information and read it first. He used his brother’s passport and papers to forge his own, new, fake one. He used his determination, as twee as it sounded even in his sleep addled mind, to force his body to do things it shouldn’t – such as spar with the cyborgs and biohumans. He lifted his head, these were normal thoughts that clouded his mind every morning more or less, the analysis of himself as he prepared for the day’s activities. Today was a good day, he smelt cooked food which meant... he wasn’t on kitchen duty. He grinned. Everyday was a good day in Jakil’s eyes though. As long as he ignored the fact that he wasn’t the person he said he was, he was leading a perfect life: soaring through space with no strings to tie him down, with people who would be in more trouble because of who they were than because they had a fake in their midst. “MORNING.” He swung through the door to the galley with a grin and in his head he imagined a round of applause as if he were a tv-star from the olden times. There was a current of humour in Jack’s voice as he greeted him with a deep, “Morning Salan.” Almost everyone else was there by this point and he could see Endy sitting on the counter and licking his sticky fingers. “Pancake day?” He queried, sniffing the air, “Bloody hell, I would have gotten up earlier if I’d known.” That was a lie. He’d never have woken up at all if he hadn’t set his alarm to go off nice and early. He’d been up for hours before he went to sleep, reading a manual that he’d pilfered off the ten year old. He was almost jealous of Endy. But then he figured, they found him in the ship like a toy that had been tossed aside, why would he be jealous of that. At least his parents had loved him, despite their belief that he’d never amount to anything. His brother was the star to them. Grinning to the world, he imagined what they’d think if they were alive still. “No you wouldn’t, you’d just have asked us to save you some whilst you faffed about.” Reese teased him as he squeezed passed her to stand by the pancake-making captain. “Oh shush, you know you’d be lost without my faffing.” “Debateable, Salan, debateable.” Hayden added, blinking her black eyes in his direction – he often wondered what it was like with those eyes... They’d taken to calling him Salan whenever he and Jack were in the same room. Jack and Jakil, a tad too similar in conversations. Hayden called him something different when he was trying to learn things off her, often derogatory quips about his inability to really land a strike on her. Endy called him Sally, which he wasn’t so fond of. Lucia called him by his full name, the whole time, he didn’t mind because she almost made it sounds like one word and he thought that was a skill in itself. So he had a lot of names but the most frequent was now Salan and that suited him fine. So the banter that was both achingly familial and completely strange took over their conversation. It was a rickety, obscure collection of people that no one would likely have put together if it wasn’t for their mutual dissent over various occurrences in the modern world. No, they were oddities and even Jakil felt that it was an impossible group sometimes. Some might say that there was a family-type bond with them though he wasn’t so sure if that could be extended to him. He respected every single crew member, cared about what happened to them and would probably fight and or die for some of them at least. Yet at the same time he would watch the comfortable companionship between the others and know that he wasn’t truly part of it, not as long as he maintained his silence on his background and his genetics. He kept far too many things to himself and showed many more fictional aspects of himself to be part of it. Then again, maybe the fact that he knew it... that he was conscious of the falsifications that he could see the way they had slowly wiggled their way into his life, between the cracks of his walls and the deeply-rooted method that he had adopted in becoming Jakil Salan that reflected his relationship with them. This was far too much self-reflection for so early in the morning. Shaking his head to himself, he plastered a wide grin on his face that mirrored his contentment as he was passed a pancake and decorated it with sweet, sticky suger stuff. He wasn’t sure exactly what it was, he presumed Endy had made it whilst Jack had been making pancakes, but the gooey substance was perfect for what he wanted – which was shot of hyperness to make him stop thinking so hard. It didn’t suit him. Characteristics were like clothes after all and it didn’t look good on. “So any plans for this starry morning?” He said through a mouthful of food so it came out more like ‘S’aniplaahs fadissta nin?’. Looking at him strangely for a moment, the whole galley snickered and then Jack shook his head, “Need to check her over before tonight as it looks like we’ll be going through a meteor shower sometime in the next twenty-four hours,” he paused and fixed his gaze on Endy, “You’ll have to be on alert with Lucas in case we take any hits that effect the power and,” he turned to Reese, “I suspect you’ll need to be in the control room with me when we hit it, I’ll be too distracted to watch the computers.” Meteor showers were a bit like turbulence on planes... or hail when you were sailing... only it was usually much more violent if things went wrong. Other than that it was fairly normal. “You’ll be sending me outside again if things need fixing won’t you.” He pretended to grumble as he pulled a comical puppy face, “Don’t you know I’m scared of the dark.” “Take a torch. You’ll be fine.” Jakil rolled his eyes, “Yeah yeah.” He was kind of excited. He had gone out there with Hayden last time and he’d loved it, despite having to teach himself a whole pile of books on how to solder metal and patch the finely crafted ship, including aspects such as force-projectors and defence-shields. Not that he hadn’t had an unpinning knowledge from the library of books he had consumed on physics, astrophysics, space technology and kinetics. It was just that he had needed to specify and that was tricky when he was meant to know most of it already. Anyway, all he could hope for was a less bumpy ride then last time. Nausea was a sure symptom of humanity and he was certainly not keen on revealing his weaknesses in such a manner. "Regard the moon, La lune ne garde aucune rancune, She winks a feeble eye, She smiles into corners. She smoothes the hair of the grass. The moon has lost her memory. A washed-out smallpox cracks her face, Her hand twists a paper rose, That smells of dust and old Cologne, She is alone With all the old nocturnal smells That cross and cross across her brain." He smiled to himself. TS Eliot had consolidated itself in his mind. He was probably just restless. There wasn’t always so much to do when careening through space and the last three days had been relaxed and leisurely. None of the crew seemed to be used to that. Anyway, he thought, at least it’s an adventure. Mynt Endymion knew there were no such things as monsters. He knew there was no plausible way for them to hide in his closet or under his bed without being seen by someone even just once. And science would have a plethora of hard evidence to prove monsters were real. So Endymion knew monsters weren’t real and therefore were incapable of getting him. So logically his fear of monsters was irrational. And he understood its irrationality as no child should, but that didn’t keep him from tucking his tiny body between a stack of crates once the metal beast began to groan and belch in an otherworldly manner. The unit he was programmed to know as “parents” had dumped him. This was a fact he understood with a frightening clarity but he couldn’t figure out why. They had designed him and he had been created to their exact specifications, they had bought him, which he understood to be a fairly expensive commodity. Yet they threw him away as if he were nothing more than a broken toy. The metal beast had offered him shelter from the cold and he had accepted its warmth. Inside he hadn’t expected an unearthly whirring or the shadows dancing and twisting eerily, he didn’t know what he had thought would await him but nothing so scary as monsters. So he hid. He was good at hiding. So whenever the monsters stopped their strange macabre dance to look for children to eat, when he heard their footsteps growing nearer and nearer, they wouldn’t find him. He wasn’t going to get eaten. His tummy grumbled noisily and he stared in abject horror, frozen and listening and waiting for the monsters to come charging to his little corner. But nothing happened. The whirring continued in a tuneless song and the shadows didn’t pause in their ceremonious steps. Carefully, he peeked around the crate, his pale face illuminated by a faint pulsing red light. Nothing. Maybe if he was quiet he could find something to eat. He remembered it had been nearly a full twenty-four hours since he had last eaten and he knew this because a monster had almost caught him. With more grace than a normal child, he pulled his lithe body on top of his crate, and reached for the vent face. Only two of the screws were bolted in, a fact he knew he could exploit well to get around without drawing attention to himself. He turned it quietly, the sound of metal scraping metal grating heavily on his eardrums. And then into the vent he went, relishing in the warm air flowing wantonly through. Maybe this time he could get something that wasn’t so flavorless. “Aren’t you supposed to be in the engine room?” Endymion blinked and lifted his head from his breakfast. It was back to just him and Jack; everyone else must’ve wandered off after receiving their orders. Endy had settled into a place he didn’t like going much but frequented when he was lonely. He watched as Jack stuffed an entire pancake in his mouth. “No,” he replied and swirled his finger around in the sticky goop he’d made. “The giant keeps moving everything around messing it up. He thinks I’m useless, Papa.” “Don’t call me that.” Endy liked Jack. He liked him in a way he could never like his own dna donors. Jack never treated him as if he couldn’t understand and he never ever left him behind. He might threaten until he was blue in the face but he didn’t. And Jack didn’t even like him (this was also something he understood as a child should not) but for some reason it didn’t bother Endymion one lick. Maybe it should have and maybe it was supposed to but it didn’t, not at all. “So I’m gonna help you and big sister today.” Jack took a long drag of his cigarette before putting it out and following it with a swig of something Endymion suspected wasn’t really coffee. He always noticed that Jack put out his cigarettes when he realized that he was around. It was curious but Papa did a lot of things that Endy didn’t understand. “I told you to help Lucas.” Endymion frowned and pouted his bottom lip with a sniff. “But I don’t like him, Papa.” Jack stared long and hard at his face. Endymion widened his big green eyes a little in return. Finally Jack sighed. “Fine, just for today.” With a broad smile, Endy stuck his goop covered finger in his mouth and sucked it off. .Wolfie. Jack always thought meteor showers were beautiful.He wouldn’t admit it out loud, for a couple of reasons. Jack Rackham never said anything was beautiful unless it was a gun or a ship or a woman, and he was pretty particular about those things. He wasn’t the type to stop and smell the roses or admire the universe because it just wasn’t his style. The second part of it was that it wasn’t the kind of thing anyone was supposed to find beautiful. They were dangerous and broke parts of his ship and he hated it when his ship got banged up. She was a pain in the ass to fix and it cost money that he didn’t have because they hadn’t had a real job in a week. But the truth was that he thought meteor showers were beautiful. He liked sitting on the bridge when they hit so that he could watch out the window. He said it was because he needed to be here to make sure everything was stable and that they weren’t taking damage, but he knew Reese alone could have handled that. She knew the Stardust maybe better than he did, and he wasn’t sure how he felt about that. The ship was his baby, and maybe he was a little jealous that she liked someone better than him. He glanced over at her when he thought it and studied her for a moment. She looked human enough. She looked more human than some of the real humans on this boat, like Hayden for example. Those black eyes of hers were haunting, because she was forced to see the world differently than everyone around her. Useful for him, maybe just a source of irritation for her. He didn’t know. But Reese, he didn’t even know if she thought in human terms anymore. He didn’t call her on it and he didn’t question it, but he wondered sometimes. He knew what she was and if he hadn’t been a part of Terra Corp’s operations for so long he would have thought it just an urban legend. She could probably kill everyone on this ship in a heartbeat if she chose to, but for some reason she didn’t. Maybe she was like him. Maybe she just wanted to be left alone. She had her eyes open and she was watching the computers for him while he slacked off and stared out the window. Temperature readings for the engine and life support systems and navigation systems… they were all her playthings. “What’s this button do?” Endy asked. The words sounded like the kind of thing a child would ask but the tone of his voice was serious and honestly curious. Jack quirked his mouth to the side and stopped his fingers from pulling out his cigarettes. He wanted the kid in the engine room. He knew what was going on down there better than anyone but he’d brought out the damned puppy eyes on him. Jack told himself that he never told the kid no because he hated dealing with crying children. He told himself it was because he didn’t want to upset him and have him hide in the ship for the next week and a half and maybe break something that then he would have to fix. Maybe those things were true. Maybe it was also true that he was a sucker for orphans and castoffs and Endy was both of them in one package. He’d been ditched and unwanted and maybe that appealed to the part of Jack that was still human. He wondered why someone would spend all that money or trouble to get a child like him and then abandon him on a ship like the Stardust. It wasn’t exactly a state of the art piece of machinery. It flew right and it was home, but it wasn’t like the new vessels he passed floating out here. It was a little rusty and a little damaged and the engine made noises sometimes that he didn’t think were healthy. His hand moved to the steel next to him and he could hear the engine thrumming in the walls. She wasn’t perfect. She was broken and battered like all the people living inside her, but it was home and it was family. He understood why all those sea captains went down with their ships, because he would do the same for his baby. “Emergency life support system,” Reese told Endy, glancing over her shoulder. “So if all else fails you can keep breathing.” “Have you ever had to use it?” Endy asked, standing up on his tiptoes to try and see what Reese was doing. She moved back a little so he could get a better view. Jack snorted and shook his head. “If we need to hit that we’re fucked already.” “Always the optimist,” she said sweetly, head tilting back over her shoulder to smile at him. He rolled his eyes and leaned back in his chair, kicking his boots up on the control panel. Outside he could see the stars and if he looked close enough he could see smaller ones moving as they converged with the meteor shower. “Just a realist, sugar,” he told her, shooting her a cocky smirk. She laughed quietly at it and nothing he said ever seemed to make her mad. He sighed and stretched his hand out to the wall, pressing on a button that controlled the intercom. He tilted his head to the side so that he could speak into it. “How you kids doing out there?” he asked. His gaze lingered out the window at the starry sky they sailed through and he felt a weird sort of contentment when he was here. Sometimes he missed earth, but mostly he was glad not to be chained down anymore. There was too much baggage left on earth. Too many memories, too much pain. “Kids?” Hayden’s voice shot back. “You must have been a very active child, Captain.” He snorted in response. “You don’t know that. For all you know I could be old enough to be your grandfather.” Hayden liked to give him a hard time, maybe just to prove to him and herself that she was the stronger out of the two of them. He wondered if he could still take her in a fair fight, because the skills that used to make him one of the most dangerous men in the universe were ones he didn’t use anymore. It was easier to forget a man just holding a gun than it was to forget someone that could throw people across the room with the force of his mind. He was a freak of nature, or more precisely a freak of science. He’d been the strongest telekinetic out of his group, a battering ram of thought and will. It was what kept him alive this long and what had gotten Zelda killed. As much as he hated it, that thought still stung, even after six years. He’d sold out the world for her, and she’d shot him in the back. Well, in the chest. It was close enough to his back. Was he supposed to be grateful that she’d waited for him to turn around before she put a bullet in him? “I highly doubt that, Captain,” Salan responded, wry humor in his voice. “And if you are, should we start calling you gramps?” “Only if you want to lose a limb,” Jack snapped back. Reese laughed quietly at him from the computer console, but she didn’t turn around. Her fingers lingered on the keys and if he watched her long enough he might see a small spark of electricity from where her skin caressed his ship. “And since you’re both being pains in my asses today should I go ahead and assume that everything looks fine out there? You get everything bolted down and ready for the storm?” “Yes sir,” Hayden said brightly. “Just giving it a once over and then we’ll be back inside.” The intercom crackled a little and he wondered if there were going to be any electrical issues with this one. The last meteor shower they’d passed through had knocked out their satellite for a week and they weren’t exactly swimming in cash right now to try and replace another one. Maybe if it died then he could get Endy and Lucas to rig him something up, whether the kid wanted to work with him or not. They were both skilled mechanics, but Endy could get into places that Lucas was too big to fit into and Lucas could manhandle parts that didn’t want to cooperate with the kid’s little hands. They would have made a good team if the kid didn’t dislike the bigger man so much. To be fair, he was a little intimidating, but the ship was family and they needed to look out for each other. “Good,” Jack snapped, lacing his fingers under his head. He stared out at the stars and the approaching storm and then he sighed once, grumbling the words out. “Watch your step out there. Don’t want you floating off into space on me.” He heard quiet laughter in response. “Why, Captain, it almost sounds like you care.” “Nope,” he snapped. “Just lazy.” He punched the button on the wall and cut off communication for the moment. He sat there with his hands behind his head, looking out into the vastness of space and he wondered what was out beyond the edges of their galaxy. As long as he was in this solar system there would always be that dull fear that one of these days Terra Corp was going to catch up for him and he was going to pay for his crimes. He was going to pay for destroying the world. “How far out you been, Reese?” he asked quietly. She shook her head, hand resting on Endy’s back as he studied the screens in front of them. She reached a hand up and pressed something. It looked like the engine was getting a little warm already and he would have to see if they could do anything about cooling his baby down. He didn’t need her overheating on him. “As far out as the Stardust’s been, Captain,” she answered calmly, and maybe she was lying but he didn’t push. He didn’t push anyone about their pasts, because no one pushed him. If they did, they’d probably get a quick trip to the nearest rock, whether there was civilization on it or not. He’d done it once, to a bastard named Lars Stone because he’d figured out what the number on his wrist meant. He even got a call through to the closest PF base before Jack had caught him and dumped him planet side. It was one of Jupiter’s moons and he had put a bullet in him before he’d taken off. Maybe it was murder. Maybe it had been in cold blood, but Jack was a survivor and the last thing he needed was someone tracking him down and taking him back. If Terra Corp ever got him back, he would never see the light of day again. He would never see space or the stars again. He’d never see his ship. He would get stuck in a lab, if he was lucky, and maybe even shoved into the Superman project. Weird how he dreaded it and that was all Zelda had wanted. She’d wanted to be superhuman. She’d wanted to be a goddess. He nodded his head and stilled his fingers again before he pulled out his cigarettes. Didn’t want to fry the electrical system, not when they were heading into a storm already. He rested a hand on the metal wall next to him and kept his eyes out the window. Just another day and another storm to pass through. Quaddy By the time the meteor shower hit, Stardust was as close to safe as she would ever get. Between the lot of them, every panel had been reinforced, every electrical circuit checked and stabilized, and certain extraneous systems had been shut down, their power rerouted to the shields. No one would be able to work out or send out any communication (the emergency communiqué system remained, of course, on-line), but neither were they likely to be torn apart by an errant meteor. Then, when all the dull work was done, the important business began.Hayden made drinks. The entire crew loved watching meteor showers. And everyone except Lucas did it from the main deck. Endy didn’t much care for his elder counterpart, and for his part, Lucas didn’t seem to enjoy the presence of other people. He always thanked Hayden for his drink—whiskey, straight, neat—but inevitably disappeared to the solace of his bunk. “I knew there was a reason I promoted you,” Jack muttered, knocking back a shot of Irish moonshine (called Mountain Dew, actually, but not to be confused with the old soda of the same name) that Hayden brewed specifically for him. The dark recesses of the ship provided the perfect environment for cultures to grow and ferment, and Jack preferred something that would knock out an average human with a single gulp. In fact, everything of the alcoholic persuasion aboard ship owed its genesis to Hayden and her genetic incapability to be without Ireland at all times. Hayden grinned. “Of course, it has nothing to do with my skills as a crewmember, Captain. I knew you only gave me the job because I make your drink.” Jack shrugged. “If you don’t want the job…” “Then you’d be getting something for nothing and that wouldn’t be very enterprising of me, would it, Cap’n?” “Harpies. The lot of you. And you’re the worst of them.” Now it was Hayden’s turn to shrug. Before answering, she dropped a single ice cube into a glass of Irish whiskey (her being the bartender did lead to the majority of the alcohol aboard to be of the Irish variety) and sipped, savoring the taste. “I might have to take exception to that, sir. Harpies are decidedly not Irish. They’re Greek.” “Bean sidhe, then. You’re all bloody bean sidhe and you’re the worst of them!” “Better, sir. If you’re going to be going on about the difficulties of having me as your First Mate, at least make sure you use insults of the appropriate cultural persuasion. Otherwise, you’re just being mean. Right, sir? And to be perfectly fair, I am the only Irishman on this ship…” Jack poured himself another glass of moonshine. “You’re not suggesting that I go down the list of my own crewmen and create culturally sensitive complaints?” “It would show you cared, sir,” Hayden replied, smiling wryly. “Well that settles it, everyone here is a bean sidhe!” Jack grinned. He always got this way with a few glasses of Hayden’s brew in his stomach. Anyone would be hard put to remain strong and stoic under the influence of Irish moonshine, even the Captain. “I can’t be seen to be too loving or the lot of you will do something stupid.” “With all due respect, sir, we typically do something stupid anyway. Need I remind you of that time in Sector Six?” Hayden raised her eyebrow. “I’m sure I don’t know what you mean, Hayden.” Pouring himself one last glass, Jack turned and headed back to the group, sitting himself front and center for the coming show. Endy plopped himself down on the Captain’s lap and, child that he was, began chattering away about whatever had captured his attention. Probably something to do with the ships inner workings; the way that boy just seemed to know everything about the ship was amazing. “We’re all bean sidhe, hmm?” Jakil leaned against the bar, popping a handful of popcorn into his mouth and chewing carefully. Food was a necessity for when Hayden decided to supply drinks and, between the various crewmembers, a series of comfort foods had found its way up from the kitchens. A meteor shower meant that not much could get done until it passed, so the crew turned it into something of a party. “Accordin’ to the Cap’n, we are,” Hayden replied. Jakil was, for all intents and purposes, her other half. There were absolutely no romantic notions between the two of them—Hayden wasn’t even sure she was capable of feeling anything like love, or if her father had removed that particular piece of humanity—but they acted more like a married couple than was reasonably to be expected. “Not very culturally sensitive, is it?” Hayden laughed. “That’s what I told him, but he doesn’t seem to be particularly concerned. But it’s better than calling us harpies. None of us are Greek and half of us aren’t even women. Bean sidhe is a slight improvement.” “It certainly seems so.” Jakil accepted pint full of stout, and stared over at the group. “It’s funny how the potential destruction of the ship brings the entire crew together. Everyone—well, mostly everyone—is drinking and eating. Speaking of, you ever notice that Reese hardly eats anything?” Staring over at the woman, Hayden shrugged. “Maybe she doesn’t need to. You’re on a ship full of cyborgs and biohumans; surely a few of them don’t need to eat.” “Or sleep? Hell, she barely even blinks. Even biohumans need to sleep and blink.” Jakil gulped down half of his stout before realizing that Hayden was glaring daggers at him. It was well understood amongst the crew that to drink Hayden’s brew, one must savor Hayden’s brew, and not quaff it like the horse piss to be had at most weigh stations around the galaxy. “And she’s yet to try your beer!” “Nice save, you stud. But enough about Reese. The Captain don’t ask questions and I don’t, either, so keep quiet before you end up getting abandoned on a dry planet.” Jakil laughed. “Heaven forefend! Please don’t tell me that you’re getting big headed with all that power you’ve had in the last few weeks.” “Completely.” Hayden crossed her arms and raised an eyebrow, knowing she looked sufficiently intimidating with only the slightest of efforts. Holding his hands up in surrender, Jakil nodded. “Captain’s right. You are a bean sidhe. So, shall I accompany our most illustrious first mate to the party, or will she scream me to death?” “You’re gonna get it in the salle later, you know that, right?” Hayden punched Jakil in the arm. “I always seem to. I don’t think your becoming first mate is going to change that.” Hayden shrugged. “Won’t change much else, either. Captain’s going to keep making stupid decisions; I’ll make sure I keep following him. The only thing this means is that I get the satisfaction of saying ‘I told you so’ when things go all to Hell.” © Copyright 2010 .Wolfie., Wenston, Quaddy, Matt - Nomad, Mynt, (known as GROUP). All rights reserved. GROUP has granted Writing.Com, its affiliates and its syndicates non-exclusive rights to display this work. |
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