Authors' Note: Chapter Three, comin' at yer face! It's a little short so hey, wanna see the art that was created for this lovely fic? Check it here: . (Warning: it is a little spoilery, but not overly so. Your viewing will not give away much, trust me. Especially at this point in the fic. And Dean on the tractor is SO CUTE! One of these days, ff will support images ...) Enjoy!
Ellen Harvelle sighed heavily as she looked down at her sonar readout. It was blipping peacefully, just as it had been for the last four solid days. A whole lot of nothing. That's what space was, really, but the Beta quadrant wasn't usually quite this…well, dead. The Leviathans had been through recently, rumor had it. They'd taken down at least fifteen ships by her count, though she'd only recognized the fragments of two. The candy-apple red hull of a Nautilus-6K, one of the more common freight transport ships, and a wing from a Woodpecker — one of the older style scavengers. She'd piloted a Woodpecker back in the day and still had dreams about it every once in a while. Nothing quite like flipping your whole ship around to latch onto your target.
Nowadays she commanded a Charon: small, but roomy for its size and equipped with enough generators to power up to ten bio-cargo containers at once. Ellen's eyes passed over her monitors and froze when she looked at the third screen to the left.
Footsteps approached from behind her, and without turning around, Ellen said, "Joanna Beth, what did I tell you about leaving the engine room door open?"
Jo folded her arms across her chest and blew a stray strand of blond hair away from her eyes. "Not to do it under penalty of whoop-ass."
"Mm-hmm. So why'd you do it?"
"Because I was gonna get a replacement cylinder and pop it in. Just thought I'd check in first." She rolled her eyes and slumped down in the seat next to Ellen. "That door is a pain in the ass to close. And open."
"It's a pain in the ass for our protection, sweetie." Ellen smiled. "You gonna go back and close it, or do I have to drag you there?"
Jo stood up and stomped back out of the bridge heading down the main body of their cargo ship to the engine room.
Ellen watched her the whole way via the security camera monitors. She could see nearly every corner of the ship, having rigged the cameras with tracks so they ran up and down the long hallway in regular sweeps. The monitors themselves blipped green when new motion was detected, which was usually only Jo or the occasional mote of dust.
Jo made it to the engine room and pulled the door shut, her slim shoulders tensing with the effort. She was strong for her size, a real Harvelle, Ellen thought. Bill hadn't been a large man, just four inches taller than Ellen herself, but he'd held his own in fights with people a foot bigger and fifty pounds heavier than him.
A flash of emotion made Ellen's throat tighten, as she thought of her late husband's smile and his moss-green eyes. With every passing year, it was getting harder for her to remember his face. She still knew exactly how his mouth curved when he smiled or frowned, and she remembered the warm rumble of his laugh, but she couldn't remember what he sounded like when he sneezed. Stupid thing to get upset about, and yet.
"Momma!" Jo's voice came over the intercom. "Where'd you put the X39 replacement cylinders?"
"Same place I always put 'em," Ellen said, pushing down on the talk button. "Look further back, maybe they rolled."
"Nothing further back but dust-bunnies."
"And whose fault is that?"
"Well I know it's not mine, 'cause I'm not allowed to reorganize the sacred order of the shelves."
"Cleaning is not reorganizing," Ellen smirked at her daughter's tone. She was starting to sound like Bill, too, especially when she got snippy.
The vid-phone beeped, indicating an incoming call, and Ellen slid her command chair over to take a look at the transmission ID.
"Son of a gun," she muttered, before hitting accept.
The screen flickered to life and a smug face smiled at her. "Mrs. Harvelle, you look ravishing, as always."
"Cram it, Fergus," Ellen said, rolling her eyes. "Whatcha got?"
Fergus Crowley cleared his throat and reached for a stack of info-sheets to his left. He was annoying, and sleazy, but he was also one of the best target-sniffers in the quadrant. She'd almost cut off ties with him completely after the Phobos fiasco, but working with him always proved lucrative and that was what she and Jo needed right now. Funds were dwindling and the other hunter-channels had been quiet for months.
"Pyrokinetic on Europa. Well, orbiting Europa, at any rate. He touched down a few times but his stabilizers are toast. Easy pickings," Crowley tapped the info-sheet and the surface flickered from text to an image: the face of an older man, eyes dark with exhaustion.
"Europa? You're joking." Ellen scoffed. "They tripled their patrols last month. Too risky. What else you got."
"Empath on Rigel Nine. Low on supplies, nice and isolated. Wanted by both sides."
"What's the going rate?"
"Thirty."
"Thirty?" Ellen hissed through her teeth. "That ain't much, Fergus. You up your cut?"
"Ellen!" Crowley brought his hand to his chest in mock horror. "I would never change the terms of our arrangement. My word is my honor."
"You have no honor. What's your cut?"
"Same as always, love. Thirty's before the cut."
"Then it ain't worth our time. I'm hanging up." Ellen reached her hand forward, finger extended towards the red 'end call,' button.
"Wait!" Crowley said holding up his hand. "You're tight for funds, that it? Need something worth the effort?"
"When has that ever not been the case?"
"Point taken." Crowley reached to his left and picked up another data sheet. "I do have one more, but it's a red stripe."
"Is it now?" Ellen cocked an eyebrow, curious. Red striped hunts were dangerous but well worth the effort. They usually brought in six figures easy. "Out with it."
"Two targets, not one, for 750."
Well, hot damn, Ellen thought. "750? What are they…hiding in the middle of a Leviathan mothership or somethin'?"
"No, that's the best part." Fergus leaned closer to his camera and smiled. "They're on Earth."
Ellen swallowed. Earth wasn't safe by any means—Leviathan and Firmament patrols orbited the planet in equal parts. But as a human, born on Earth soil, she had a permanent right to land. She'd pass the DNA-check and be allowed to land, no questions asked. She and Jo wouldn't even have to hide their landing. That'd make getting on the planet a cinch. "So tell me about 'em: illegals? artificials? criminals?"
Crowley tilted his head to the side. "You got warmer at the end there. They've got a track record nine miles long, everything from petty theft and grand larceny to grave desecration—"
Grave desecration was an immediate death sentence on Earth. When the Firmament saw fit to lodge charges of grave desecration, it was serious business. They coveted human souls like diamonds and 'grave desecration' was the layman's term for the destruction of those souls. That explained why the targets were such a hot commodity. "What'd they steal?"
"A ship … amongst other things." Fergus shrugged. "The Leviathans are convinced they have a ship with cloaking technology as advanced as their own. How they know this, I have no idea." He tapped his fingertips against the data-sheet and then flipped it around as the images of the targets in question flickered into view.
Two young men, and damn handsome. (She was getting near-sighted, not blind). "Sounds risky."
"The Singer brothers. Data about their whereabouts is sketchy at best; these pictures are three years old. My sources, however, are positive that they are in fact still on Earth and that they never leave the continental United States."
"Well that narrows it down …" Ellen muttered.
"Look, Mrs. Harvelle, if you're not interested—"
"We're interested. Send me the files. And send the file on the empath too. What the hell." She bit the inside of her cheek before she could grit out, "Thanks for calling." She reached her finger towards the red 'call cancel' button.
"Anytime, my dear," Crowley said, right before the screen shut off.