The man woke up with a splitting pain in the back of his head. As he realized where he was, he began wondering how he got into the medical ward. The last thing he remembered was floating around the bridge, about to pass out.
He carefully sat up, rubbing a hand up and down his back as pain shot up his spine. It was confusing to not be able to remember anything. He knew how to run his ship, he knew how to nail a target at five hundred meters, he was even mentally practicing how to hack a computer out of an apparent habit. Training that seemed to be ingrained into his very being.
But he was just now remembering his name, and having flashbacks of the events preceding the moment he when he had awoken on his ship's bridge, the vehicle dead in the water at the time. He was apparently fleeing from something when a seemingly familiar ship jumped in on him and attacked his own with a new weapon, knocking most of the equipment offline. He only managed to escape because he had already been plotting a jump at the time of the attack. With the last little bit of energy left in it, the ship somehow had gone through with the commands and jumped away, though it returned to normal speed only a few seconds later, leaving him floating in the middle of nowhere, with most of his systems overloaded. Of course, he hadn't know this when he had woken up. He now assumed that since he was floating when he regained consciousness, and not strapped into the pilot's chair, that he had suffered a significant concussion.
And now, it seemed, someone had found him, as there was no other way he had somehow moved halfway through the ship.
After his blood pressure leveled, and the pain subsided a little, the man swung his feet off the bed and stepped through the medical bay's door, which was centimeters from him, due to the small size of the room.
As he left the medical bay, he heard a slight yell, and looked over to see who it was. Rummaging through his food supplies in the tiny, open galley was a redhead girl in her mid or late teens. And she had just noticed him.
Suddenly, he remembered that dream he had last night. It was mostly a blur, but he remembered the hair and the body shape. This was definitely that girl.
Or maybe it wasn't a dream. He had actually done that? Some part of him was extremely disgusted with himself, at his temporary moment of weakness, and lack of perception.
But, deciding that since things were probably already bad that he had nothing to lose, he moved towards the galley casually and confidently, opening the small cooler built into one wall. He felt like he had just run a forty kilometer marathon in the middle of a desert. And, for some reason, he had a feeling he had, at one point or another.
After literally breaking the top off of a plastic bottle and guzzling the entirety of the water within, he removed a towel from above the sink and neatly unfolded it, then carefully and precisely wiped the excess water away from his lips. He refolded the towel and placed it on the counter, then pulled open one of the pantries and sought out any food that he could find. After pulling out a large brown package, he noticed that the girl was still in the galley, watching him intently with piercing blue eyes, her back to the wall.
"Thank you for saving me," the man courtesied as he tore a well proportioned strip off the top of the package.
The girl continued to watch him in silence. She didn't seem threatening, so he decided to try something. He rummaged around inside the MRE, pulling out its contents one by one. Eventually, he found what he was searching for.
"Here," he said, holding a square, plastic wrapped package to her. "It's chocolate."
She continued to watch him, never responding.
"They don't have chocolate where you're from?" he asked, tossing the package towards her.
She caught it clumsily, then returned to staring at him. The look on her face implied that he had just called her an idiot.
He sighed as he popped the heating pack on the main dish of the MRE. A few seconds later, he opened the container with practiced care and ease. The smell nearly overwhelmed him, but he restrained himself from tearing into the meal, this one apparently consisting of noodles and some sort of seafood sauce. He was probably going to be eating a lot more of these for the next week or so.
"I apologize for my inappropriate actions from earlier," he told the girl sincerely as he grudgingly set the meal on the counter. "They were completely out of line."
He closed the small distance between them and fell down onto one of his knees. It was now that he realized how the girl was dressed. She was clothed in a short, black undershirt that was complimented by some sort of half robe that draped lightly around her shoulders. She wore nothing else except some sort of nearly knee length skirt, though the design was completely foreign to him. He now understood why some part of him was attracted to her, earlier, as he had to admit, the clothing complimented her body well. But he was above such things, and quickly put the thoughts out of his mind.
"I hope that this will not have strained relations between us," he told her as he took one of his savior's hands in both of his.
He didn't think he was hitting on her, or doing anything particularly threatening. He was simply asking forgiveness in the best way he knew how. Whatever planet this young women was from was probably the first place he should go. He had to start his mission somewhere, one who's objectives he was barely starting to remember.
"Um, thank you," she said.
He noticed the girl was blushing, so he decided to back off a little. He didn't want anyone, including her, to get the wrong idea.
Apparently, it was a bit late, as he felt a blade of some sort poke into the side of his head.
"Hold it right there, asshole," he heard a woman's voice say. Apparently, she had heard about his little incident earlier.
He looked over with his eyes at his apparent captor. There stood erect a women in a black dress of an extremely revealing style, with blond hair falling around her shoulders. He noticed the bottom half of a scabbard poking out of the open side of her dress along her legs. The shape indicated a saber of some sort.
Do all of the women from this world dress like this? he thought. It was pointless, slightly ridiculous, and could cause problems of many sorts, depending on what planet you were at.
"It's not what it looks like," the man told her as he turned his body slowly, raising his hands. "Now I would appreciate it if you would get that nice saber of yours out of my face."
"Name," the woman ordered.
"Put that sword down, and I might tell you," he said. "But if you don't mind, I would like to eat my meal in the mean time."
He started to turn towards the counter, and the woman poked the saber closer to his face in an attempt to look threatening. Her mistake.
The man reflexively jerked his head slightly to the side as he grabbed the sides of the sword with the palms of his hands. He gripped the blade slightly and pulled, yanking the weapon away from her. As he guided the weapon over his shoulder with one hand, he grabbed underneath his arm with the other, grasping the weapon's handle. A second later, he was holding the blade to the woman's throat with a small stream of blood dripping onto the floor from his hand.
"I asked you nicely," he told her as he moved his face closer to hers. "When someone asks you to do something, it might not be a bad idea to do it."
And with that, he pulled the weapon from her throat and dropped it to the floor. His stomach was beginning to cramp, so he walked over to the counter and grabbed up his meal.
"Now, please forgive my lack of manners for a moment," he courtesied.
And he began shoveling the pasta into his mouth with his hands like a starving animal. Less than ten seconds later, he had the entire container of food chewed and swallowed.
"Much better," he remarked as he pulled the cooler open and grabbed another bottle of water, though taking the time to twist the cap off properly this time. After taking a small sip, he replaced the cap on the bottle, then picked up a napkin from the MRE's contents and cleaned his face.
After he placed the napkin in a waste bin, he picked up another of the contents from the MRE, a green-colored bread roll of some sort wrapped in clear packaging. He carefully tore the packaging open at the seams, causing it to break into two, nearly perfect halves. He pinched a piece of the bread off and placed it in his mouth. It tasted like a water plant grown in human sewage. He grimaced as he forced himself to swallow.
It was then that he noticed both women were staring at him, though in shock or amazement, he didn't know.
"What, never seen a man eat before?" he asked casually as he broke off another piece of the roll.
"Do you think after what you pulled last night, you can just act like nothing ever happened?!" the blond yelled.
The man finished chewing the bread, then casually pinched off another piece.
"I already attempted to apologize to the insulted party," he replied calmly. "Though in my own defense, I was not myself. I HAD just come out of hibernation."
* * *
Meia walked sluggishly out of the small room, plagued by a headache and an incessant itching sensation all over her skin. However, she was only able to relieve herself at the neck, as her flight suit covered most of her body.
When her senses had somewhat returned to her, she realized that a short distance away, Jura was yelling at a Man, with Dita standing silently nearby. Meia concentrated for a moment, and realized this was the man that she and Gascogne had been moving.
"And that justifies what you did last night?!" Jura yelled, obviously hyped up about something.
"He really didn't do anything," Dita said in the Man's defense.
"That's not what I heard," Jura replied, her voice rising in pitch with each word.
"Look, once more, I'm sorry!" the Man said, putting a lot of emphasis on the sorry. "Perhaps YOU would like to go through the entire process of hibernation? It can be arranged."
"Can't you all just shut up?" Meia croaked, bracing herself against the wall outside of her door.
Everyone looked in her direction, noticing her for the first time.
"Is she all right?" the Man asked, walking towards her.
Meia balled her right hand into a fist and pointed it at the stranger, holding her thumb down on her laser ring's trigger. As it began to glow a bright purple, the man stopped and raised his hands in submission.
"There's no need for hostility," the Man told her in a calming and soothing voice, at least to Meia. "But you look like you got into something you weren't supposed to. I can help"
"What did he do?" Meia asked gloomily as she grabbed her head with her left hand. The light and sound was really getting to her. And she just couldn't stop itching.
"He was hitting on Dita last night," Jura told her as she picked her saber up and re-sheathed it. "Thankfully, Hibiki knocked him out before anything could become of it."
"And I will thank him personally the next time I see him," the Man responded spitefully. "He kept me from doing something that I may have regretted for a long time."
"People like you don't regret for long," Meia remarked. "They get themselves killed off before they have a chance. Now turn around, and walk. Slowly."
"Look, I know what's wrong with you," the man told her as he complied. "And I have something that might help."
"Get moving," Meia ordered him. He began walking forward, slowly.
"So where exactly are we headed?" he asked as he walked along.
"The brig," Meia told him.
"I don't have a brig on this ship," he responded, turning his head just enough to make eye contact. "But I do have a medical ward stuffed full of supplies, including pain killers designed specifically for what you're going through."
"What the hell are you talking about?" she asked as they continued forward, towards the aft of the ship.
"Headache, drowsiness, disorientation, sensitivity to light, and from the looks of it, chronic itching, right?" he asked. "You got into something called heroin, and your body is reacting badly to your first exposure. I have a solution to that."
"And what would that be?" Meia asked him.
"Methadone," he told her. "Made from the same stuff as heroin, but counters most of the reactions you're experiencing."
"And where is this 'Methadone'?" she asked. For some odd reason, she felt like he was pulling her chain.
"In the medical ward," he told her. Again.
Meia sighed.
"Let's go," she said, lowering her hand. Soon after, she was using it to scratch at her throat and face. The itching was driving her insane.
"Just like that?" the Man questioned.
"Only if you find me that pain killer," Meia replied irritably.
"My pleasure," the Man courtesied in a sincere tone. "This way."
As he motioned his hands, Meia smirked slightly, then took the invitation.
A few minutes later, the Man had rummaged through most of his medical kits, coming up empty.
"Hurry up," Meia said impatiently, scratching at her neck. "This is killing me."
The Man sighed.
"We'll just have to use something else," he remarked as he pulled several containers from the mess on the medical ward's bed. After gathering the items in his arms, he left the medical ward, walking back to the galley and dropping everything on the counter.
"Now," he mumbled as he picked up a clear bottle. He twisted the lid off, pulled out a single capsule-shaped object, then resealed the container.
"Take this," he ordered Meia, forcing the object into her hand as he opened the cooler and pulled out a bottle of water.
"What is it?" she asked, holding the object up for her to see.
"Never taken a pill before?" the Man asked.
Meia stared at it for a moment more. She noticed that some of it had broken off into a fine powder on her glove.
"It's morphine," he told her. "Not the best thing to take in your condition, but since it's only your first time on heroin, you should be fine with just a small dose."
He handed her the bottle.
"All you have to do is swallow it, and you'll start feeling better really fast," he informed her.
Meia stared suspiciously at the Man. There didn't seem to be anything threatening about him, except that he was being far too helpful, and she didn't even know his name.
"It would be stupid to try and poison you," he remarked. "You have at least three friends aboard, so I'm a dead man if I try anything."
So he didn't know about Gascogne yet. Good.
Meia twisted the cap off of the water container and swallowed her pill, the entire bottle of water not far behind.
"Now that that's settled," the Man said as he turned back to the counter and grabbed up another object. "This should help with the itching."
He held a tube of some sort up to her, though it was closed off at both ends.
"Primitive, I know, but it works," he assured her, opening one end of the tube, revealing some sort of hole in it. It appeared it was some pressure-based release mechanism.
Meia snatched the tube from the Man and held it up to her mouth, about to squirt some of the fluid into it, when the Man grabbed it away from her.
"You rub it on your skin," he told her softly.
"And how would you suggest I do that?" Meia asked.
"Go somewhere private, have one of your female companions help out with the hard-to-reach places," he replied in a serious tone.
Meia sighed, then walked off towards the room she was previously sleeping in.
"I can do it myself," she huffed. "Keep an eye on him, Jura."
"My pleasure," the blond replied.
* * *
"I probably should have mentioned how to engage the lock," the man remarked in a slightly sheepish tone.
"It won't matter if there aren't any lechers walking in on her," Jura replied accusingly.
"Hey, I'm not that kind of guy," the man replied as he opened up the pantry and pulled out the closest package he could find. A long tube of crackers. And they were past the expiration date.
Oh well, he conceded as he ripped the package open and began cramming the square crisps into his mouth.
"What are you doing?" Jura asked, disgusted.
"Have you ever gone two weeks without food before?" he asked her after he swallowed a mouthful. "It's horrible."
"I can cook you something," the girl apparently named Dita offered.
"Thank you, young lady," he courtesied. "But I'm afraid there is nothing aboard with which to cook with."
"Young lady?" Jura asked, confused. "You can't be much older than her. It's considered rude here to put people down like that."
He grimaced internally. He didn't exactly understand why he had remarked as such, just that it seemed completely appropriate, for some reason.
"My mistake," he apologized. "Where I'm from, generally referring to a female as a lady is considered a compliment, no matter the circumstances. I simply assumed she was younger than I."
"Not by much," Jura said under her breath.
The man simply shrugged, then resumed consuming his crackers. After he finished the package, he properly disposed of wrapper and went about cleaning himself once more with his hand towel. It was then that he realized he had forgotten another of his manners.
"I am so sorry," he said apologetically. "Would you like something to eat?"
Jura simply raised an eyebrow at him, not even bothering to waste breath on him anymore.
"I'm sure there's something in here that's not too awfully foreign," he remarked quietly as he began rummaging through the pantry. He was less concerned about what type of meal the various containers held, and more about how old they were. He began to realize how long he must have been away from civilization for all of his food to be this old.
Eventually, though, he found some rations that were only a couple months old, according to the dates stamped on them. He pulled out all of the mostly unmarked brown packages that he could find and set them on the counter in front of him.
He noticed the girl named Dita had moved closer to him during his rummaging, and was examining the plain, brown packages intently.
"What is it?" she asked.
"Meals Ready to Eat," the man replied. "You open them up, pop the heating pack, and a few seconds later, you have a hot meal. It's like magic."
He handed her one of the packages, hoping it was something acceptable to her tastes.
After she tore into the MRE and began removing its contents, he turned himself around, holding out another mystery meal towards the blond.
"I would would truly appreciate it if we didn't get started off on the wrong foot," he told her.
"I don't take candy from strangers," Jura replied, quoting a statement he would expect to hear from a young child.
"My name is Malik Browning," the man introduced himself, having just recalled the name a few minutes ago. "And yours?"
The blond kept a straight face as she snatched the package from his fingers.
"Jura," the woman replied plainly, not by any means amused.
* * *
Hibiki woke up abruptly, smacking his head into the wall. During the night, he had had the most disturbing dream. He was just glad it wasn't reality, and hoped it wasn't a premonition of something to be.
He sat up straight when he realized where he was. He had been conversing with Dita for a good portion of the night, and apparently, they had both dozed off in the small quarters. That much he was sure of.
And now, she was gone. He looked at the watch he had picked up on his last visit to Taraak and almost freaked. It was nearly evening. He had slept for nearly fourteen hours straight.
Hibiki jumped out of the bed and rushed out of the small quarters. He nearly fainted from the sight before him. Sitting in a circle in front of the galley, eating some sort of unidentifiable food, were Dita, Jura, and the Man he had knocked unconscious the previous night.
"What the hell are you doing, you bastard?!" Hibiki yelled as he rushed towards him.
"That is no way to speak in front of women," the Man remarked as he casually took another bite of some sort of strange food off of some strange form of dinnerware.
"Keep out of my business!" Hibiki ordered as he walked up and kicked the man's meal out from in front of him.
"That wasn't very nice," Dita told Hibiki.
"You really could take a few pointers from him," Jura remarked in a giggly tone. "He's quite informed in the art of courtesy."
Hibiki's mouth dropped open. He was expectant of Jura to fall for the next person to flatter her, but Dita too?
"What the hell is going on here?!" Hibiki yelled aloud.
"We're simply having a meal together," the Man informed as he began cleaning up the mess Hibiki had made of his meal.
Hibiki looked around, and noticed several large packages had been torn open and emptied of their contents. Some sort of space rations, he assumed.
"That's mostly me," the Man told Hibiki as he disposed of the wasted meal. "My body will require excess nutrients in order to make up for the weeks of hibernation I was in."
Hibiki simply stared at him with a confused look on his face. This couldn't be the man he knocked out last night. Just no way.
"Mentioning that," the Man said as he extended a hand. "Thank you for preventing me from having done something utterly stupid and regretful last night."
That confirmed it. Definitely not the same man.
Hibiki took note of the hand extended to him and remembered the hand signs Dita had done when they first met. He began repeating them.
"What are you doing?" the man asked with a raised eyebrow.
"Nothing," Hibiki quickly as he completed the handshake.
"Now, would you care to have anything to eat?" the Man asked Hibiki.
Hibiki stared at the taller man. He was just too nice. To the level of creepiness. He wondered if any of the girls had noticed this.
"I'll take that as a yes," the Man remarked, forcing one of the meals into his hands.
A few minutes later, Hibiki sat on the floor with some sort of brown lump surrounded by a creamy white substance before him.
"What the hell is it?" he asked, an eye twitching. It didn't look all that appetizing.
Malik, as the Man called himself, looked up from the meal he was gorging and glanced at the food before Hibiki.
"I didn't realize they made that anymore," he remarked quietly. "That, my friend, would be the classic Earth meal of meatloaf and mashed potatoes."
Hibiki backed away from the food ever so slightly. It didn't look great, didn't smell great, and it certainly didn't sound consumable by human beings.
"I think I'll pass," Hibiki said.
"Aw, now come one, Mister Alien," Dita pleaded as she set down her dessert container, which held some sort of red, roughly cone-shaped fruit in a bright red jelly. "You should at least give it a try."
"I'll be fine," Hibiki told her.
Dita sighed and picked up the dish of food that Hibiki refused to eat. She cut off a piece of the brown mass and placed it in her mouth.
"See?" she said with her mouth still full. "It's fine."
She cut off another piece and put it up to Hibiki's face, but he refused to eat it.
"Now, come one," Dita cooed as she moved closer.
"No," Hibiki told her.
"Don't be like that," Dita said softly as she put her other hand to Hibiki's face.
"No!" Hibiki yelled. "Leave me alone!"
Dita forced him to the ground as he put a hand up to push her away, trying to get the food into his mouth.
"No!!!" Hibiki yelled one last time as she finally got the block of food into his mouth.
Hibiki chewed and swallowed it reluctantly.
"See, it wasn't that bad," Dita remarked, still on top of Hibiki.
"I guess not," he agreed gloomily.
Malik let out a little chuckle.
"What's so funny?" Hibiki demanded to know as he sat up, Dita still close to him.
"You two are intimate, right?" he asked bluntly.
"Huh?" Hibiki asked, a confused look on his face.
"Together?" Malik questioned.
Hibiki noticed that Dita was staring at him with those big blue eyes of hers. Like she was expectant of something.
"I...guess," Hibiki replied.
"So you're not sure?" Malik inquired in an amused tone.
"No?" Hibiki said, still not completely sure about what he was asking.
"Than I guess you won't mind if I get to know your friend a little better..." the man said in an obviously joking tone as he reached over towards Dita.
"Keep your hands to yourself!" Hibiki yelled as he shoved past Dita and lunged at Malik.
But Malik, still sitting, grabbed both of Hibiki's arms and restrained him, ending his advance.
"So that would be a yes?" Malik asked. "It won't do you any good to be indecisive, nor will it do you any good to lie. The truth will come out, sooner or later."
Malik released Hibiki and lightly pushed him away.
"And don't worry," Malik assured him. "I have no interest in what is someone else's."
Both Hibiki and Dita glared at the older Man for a moment more as Hibiki sat down next to Dita and finished his meal.
"That came out wrong," Malik remarked.
* * *
"I won't!" Pyoro yelled, trying to struggle free of Gascogne's grasp.
"You have, you are, and you will!" she yelled. "Otherwise we'll never get the ship moving. And I DO NOT plan on staying here for the rest of my life."
"NO!!!" Pyoro cried as he grasped the edge of the resupply ship's hatch. He was not going to hook up with that computer again.
"There is absolutely NO rational reason why you shouldn't!" Gascogne grunted as she yanked the egg-shaped robot free. "Quit acting like a child."
"He said he would kill me if I went back!" Pyoro yelled. "And what would Pyoro Two do without me? Pyoro..."
Last night, when Gascogne had linked him up to the ship's main computer, some sort of weird construct had attacked him digitally. It was big, red, had horns and a tail, it's skin was covered in some sort of letters, and it had told him it would take his code apart string by string if he ever came back, all before he was rudely, and somehow, painfully, ejected from the system.
"Look, if we don't get this ship going, you'll never see that baby again," Gascogne told him softly. "So, you help me out, and you'll get back within a couple of days."
Pyoro thought about. It did make sense. If he could somehow find a way around the construct, he should be safe.
"Then we must use another way," Pyoro told her. "Then he can't kill me."
Gascogne sighed.
"You are probably the first and only machine that cares about dying," she sighed as she released him.
Pyoro's eye displays changed, the representative iris's becoming extremely dilated.
"And why shouldn't I?!" he yelled.
"You're a machine," Gascogne remarked as she began walking into the hangar. "Most machines do what they're told without argument or back-talking their operators."
"Pyoro..." the robot sighed. This was going to be hopeless.
As they traveled deeper into the ship, Pyoro detected some sort of commotion ahead. He detected the voice patterns of Hibiki, Dita, and Jura, along with one other. One that belonged to that stranger. It was unmistakable, as he had very clearly heard the yell from his position in the engineering bay the night before.
"Warning, the strange man is loose!" Pyoro informed Gascogne.
"So the boy finally woke up," she remarked. "Might as well see what he's up to."
A moment later, they walked, or in Pyoro's case, floated up, on a mess of un-disposed wrappers, empty bottles, and containers half-filled with uneaten food. And with everyone else but Meia in the center of it all, along with their new associate.
"So you started without me?" Gascogne asked as she walked closer to the group.
"Miss Gasko, you have to try this!" Dita yelled as she jumped up. "It's so different than what we eat!"
"Like that Men's food?" Gascogne asked with a raised eyebrow.
"Negative," Pyoro responded. "This food is not nearly as healthy, with over thirty-five hundred carbohydrates per complete meal."
Jura looked down in horror at the mess before her, which consisted of at least two of those meals.
"Oh, now I'm just disgusted," she remarked snobbishly, pushing her current dish away from her.
"I promise you, it won't kill you to gorge every once in a while," the stranger told her. "You tend to work it off during deep space missions."
"So what the hell is this about?" Gascogne asked.
"I am simply sharing my bounty with my new associates as a gesture of good will," the man replied as he stood and held out a hand. "Malik Browning."
Gascogne took his hand and shook.
"Gascogne Rheingau," she introduced. "And don't forget it."
"Of course, Miss Rheingau," Malik assured politely. "Now, would you care to join us for a meal?"
"Thanks, but no thanks," she replied. "I need your help getting this guy hooked up to the main computer."
"Who, the 'Pyoro', as you call it?" Malik asked.
"Just Pyoro," Pyoro growled.
"I apologize," Malik courtesied. "I didn't realize that you had artificial intelligence facilities installed."
"So you can help us?" Gascogne asked after staring at him for a short moment in amusement.
"Yes, and no," Malik replied. "Enos doesn't like any other sentient programs in the main frame."
"Enos?" Gascogne asked.
"The ship's AI," Malik replied. "Takes on the form of a demon, usually red or blue in skin color, sometimes has flames of differing colors floating nearby depending on his mood?"
"I have no idea what you're talking about," Gascogne told him. "I just know Pyoro here swears up and down that he'll die if he hooks up again."
Pyoro remained silent, his eyes showing themselves to be unnaturally wide, and looking off into empty space.
"Looks like Enos is just scared," Malik replied. "I would be, too, if I were blind and deaf to the world. We need to get the internal sensors back online before we can do anything else with the ship. Once the mainframe is back up with Enos in control, we'll be able to figure out what's salvageable and what's not."
"Another sleepless night, I assume," Gascogne stated.
"I'm afraid so," Malik replied. "And I'll need everyone's help."
He looked over at Dita.
"Including your's," he told her. "You're just the right size."
Hibiki started trembling in anger.
"Don't get any funny ideas!" he yelled at Malik.
"I told you once before, I'm not that kind of guy," Malik said in his defense.
"So where's Meia?" Gascogne asked, breaking away from the awkward conversation.
"I would assume laying naked and asleep under the covers in that room over there," Malik replied, pointing in the direction of one of the quarters. "She got into some heroin. You wouldn't happen to know about that, would you?"
"She sniffed some sort of powder when we were cleaning up your mess on the bridge," Gascogne replied.
"Yep, that's the stuff," Malik informed her. "At least she didn't try the LSD."
"Wha'?" Gascogne asked, the term going right over her head.
"It's a recreational drug," Malik told her. "Your friend would be in a lot worse shape if she tried that one out for size."
"And I assume you know this from experience?" she questioned, the revelation lowering her trust in this stranger.
"Of course not," he replied. "But where I come from, people used to die from accidental overdoses all the time. Especially first timers."
"Great," Gascogne remarked. "Let's get this ship fixed before I learn anything else about you."
* * *
She was going to kill him when she could move again. He had swindled her. He didn't want to help. He just wanted her out of the way.
As of this moment, Meia was lying naked underneath the sheets on the bed, as Malik had predicted. However, unlike he had predicted, she was anything BUT asleep. Hives covered her skin, and every one of her joints had locked up. Those that she could move would send agonizing jolts of pain throughout her entire body when she even twitched the tiniest centimeter.
Oh, she was going to kill him, all right. And it was going to be a nice, long death, too.