Author's Note: Yes, that is a Pokemon. And yes, I do enjoy the music of Heart. I've been listening to a couple of their CD's I bought recently. Late 70's/early 80's rock is kind of my thing lately, mostly with female singers. Pat Benetar is another old favorite.
Anyway, as I said last chapter, I am going to be having surgery tomorrow so you may or may not see updates for a while. It's possible I'll be in bed so much all I'll want to do is write, but I mostly plan on sleeping and watching movies while I recover. Figured I'd get one last chapter up before that though. So here's chapter 10.
Chapter 10: Dreamboat Annie
Smugglers' ships had never been known for their ambiance, and this one, the Dreamboat Annie, was no exception. A simple gray vessel, it was large enough to house the crew, the cargo, the engines, and maybe one or two passengers who might be looking for a cheap place to hold up for a while. It was old and kind of dingy looking from the outside, but the inside was fair enough, mostly dark steel plated walls with attempts here and there to make it look homey. The most noticeable touch was the red carpet and Christmas lights that someone had installed in the main hallway leading up to the Captain's quarters.
Samus figured that the crew had been on this ship for a while given that they had attempted to spruce it up a little inside even if they wanted to keep the outside as unremarkable as possible. She thought the light strings were tacky, but she was no interior decorator herself. After all, her bedroom on her last ship had been a gun closet with a bed in it. She had encountered ships like this before, older model cargo ships. The name of the ship class escaped her, but she thought it was "lightning bug" or something like that.
Lieutenant Elouisa Thibodaux led the way to the Captain's quarters, and Samus followed her silently with the etecoons and dachoras right behind her. Taking up the rear were the lion-headed aliens, Azrael and Rocco, and Samus knew they were keeping an eye on her from behind to make sure she wasn't trying anything shady. They had already patted her down for weapons outside the ship, and fortunately, it was the one time she was not carrying anything. Of course, she could activate the powersuit whenever she pleased, but they did not have to know that.
The fever was getting worse, and Samus thought everyone looked like they had hazy auras around them now. When Thibodaux knocked on the Captain's door, sharp pains shot through Samus's head. She tried not to show her discomfort, ignoring the inquiring stares of the dachora. She still felt confident in her ability to take on the whole crew in the event a fight broke out, but she had to admit she wished she had a place to lay down and rest for a little while.
When the Captain came to the door, Samus gave him her full attention, noting the way everyone stood up straighter in his presence. Captain Charbonnet was a tall human man. His skin was very dark, and his hair was in long dreads. The way he wore his black leathery uniform with the Captain's insignia over the left breast made him look very regal. He was a very muscular man with sharp eyes that acknowledged everyone in the corridor before fixing themselves firmly upon the mercenary. Samus estimated that he and Thibodaux were about the same age she was if not a couple of years younger.
"Qui est-elle?" he asked, his eyes still on Samus.
"This is Stevie Mack," Thibodaux said and then gestured to the animals. "She is a fugitive of the Federation, some kind of eco-terrorist or something. She apparently stole a bunch of animals from one of their labs, and they're looking for somewhere to lay low for a while. She's got cash."
Eco-terrorist? Samus thought to herself. She had been called a lot of things in her life, but that had never been one of them.
"She's sick," Captain Charbonnet stated matter-of-factly, looking over to Thibodaux. "Have you thought that perhaps whatever she's carrying could infect the crew?"
"It's an infection," the lieutenant replied. "She was injured on her journey and is also seeking medical aid."
The Captain nodded, looking Samus up and down once more. He was trying to get a read on her, but her face remained stoic. "Very well. If she can pay, she can stay. Any enemy of the Federation is a potential friend of ours."
"Wait," Samus called as Captain Charbonnet began to turn away and head back into his quarters, "what about the antibiotics?"
He looked at her and raised his eyebrows as though surprised she had interrupted and addressed him directly. "As to your medical issues, we will leave those up to Chance."
Up to chance? Samus thought, suddenly furious and nervous as he disappeared back into his chambers. I need that medicine! I can't just leave this up to chance!
She was so distracted by her anger as she glared at the door that she missed Thibodaux turning away and walking back the way they had come.
"Stevie Mack," the lieutenant called after a few minutes. "Are you coming or not?"
Samus looked at her, not sure what her next move would be. Her vision was blurring and she was feeling light-headed. "Where are we going?"
"Where do you think? To show you to your quarters and get someone to take a look at you."
"I thought the captain said we were just leaving it up to chance?"
Thibodaux snickered as she looked back at Samus, and the bounty hunter got the acute feeling there was some joke she didn't understand. It didn't sit right with her, but she did not say anything as the lieutenant led her through a plain steel corridor and knocked on a metal hatch.
After a few moments, the hatch opened to reveal a strange humanoid creature. He looked like a pale, young human man, but he had big, round, golden eyes and pointed ears like an elf. He had mostly white hair with a tuft of silvery-gray on top, but the most remarkable thing about him was that he had the gray and white striped tail of a lemur. Dressed in a white lab coat, his slight form looked almost comical with his tail and bright eyes. He looked between Samus, the etecoons, and the dachoras before turning his attention to Lieutenant Thibodaux and grinning.
"New passengers, Tibs?" he asked, sounding genuinely excited at the prospect.
The lieutenant nodded. "Yeah, and one of them's sick so I figured coming to see you would be the first stop." She gestured to Samus and the animals. "This is Stevie Mack and some animals she stole. Stevie, this is Chance. He's our onboard medic amongst other things."
"Oh," Samus said, immediately feeling silly about her reaction to the captain's statement. "Things make a lot more sense now."
"Nice to meet you, Stevie!" Chance beamed as he reached out a hand toward Samus. She shook it tentatively, not sure what to make of the enthusiastic young man. "Hey, I bet you're a semi-human, aren't you? That's awesome! I am too! It's great to finally get another one on board here!"
Samus raised her eyebrows in surprise. She had met other semi-humans over the years but never one that resembled a lemur-species. With her new claws and fangs, she was surprised that Chance had recognized her as part human at all, and she wondered if maybe she did not look quite as inhuman as she thought she did.
"Nice to meet you as well, Chance," she said, trying to get a look into the room behind him, but the sudden eye movement made her head hurt and her vision blur.
Then, surprisingly, Chance turned to the etecoons and dachoras and began making similar sounds to the etecoons' language. As though they understood him, the little blue etecoons began to jabber excitedly and bounce up and down.
"Well," Lieutenant Thibodaux said with an amused smile, "I guess you guys will get along just fine without me."
Chance grinned at her. "Oh we definitely will!"
"Good," she said as she and the lion-headed aliens turned and walked away. "But don't get so caught up playing with those little alien things that you forget about Mack."
The medic looked suddenly from the etecoons to Samus as though realizing for the first time how pale she looked and the way sweat was beading on her forehead. "Oh, Stevie, I'm sorry…"
The mercenary shrugged. "I'll be fine. I just need some antibiotics, and I can take care of myself."
"That's no problem," the semi-human said, stepping out of the way to let Samus and the animals through the hatch. "Come inside, and I'll see what I can do."
Samus hesitated at the thought of stepping into the enclosed room, but she didn't have much of a choice. The room was much larger than she had initially thought, half of it looking like a simple bedroom and the other half looking like a makeshift infirmary. There was a glass cabinet with various types of medicine bottles and a big gray chair she assumed she was supposed to sit down in. There were other medical kits and equipment, and it made her think of her medical bay back on her own ship before it had crashed.
"How did you know how to speak to the etecoons?" Samus asked as she sat down in the patient chair.
Chance laughed as he walked over to a countertop and put on a pair of gloves. "That's easy. We're from the same planet."
The mercenary looked to the dachora, who nodded. "It's true," she said in Chozo.
"What happened?" Samus asked, realizing she didn't know what planet the etecoons and dachoras had even come from.
"Oh, you know," Chance replied, shifting uncomfortably. "There was a human colony there years ago but then the Pirates attacked and took over. Some of us got away. After the war, some of the indigenous species went back, but then the Federation wanted to reclaim its human colony so a lot of us got booted out again. The ones that didn't… a lot of those species ended up getting treated like animals and taken away for research. I was half human so they left me alone."
"The Federation did that?" For the first time, it hit her why the etecoons and dachoras had been in captivity on the B.S.L. and how close they had come to being X hosts. She was so angry thinking about it that she almost didn't notice Chance was about to draw her blood. "Hey, wait!"
"What's wrong?" he asked, looking confused as he held the phlebotomy equipment. "I just want to check your blood so I know what kind of medicine to give you."
"It's just…" Samus bit her tongue, not sure what to say. She didn't want anyone on board the ship to know her blood was acidic, lest they begin to consider her a threat. Instead, she unzipped her jumpsuit and showed him the wound on her abdomen. It had gotten very painful, red, and inflamed by this point, and it was warm to the touch. "Look, you can see it's clearly infected. Just give me some pills and let me be on my way."
He stared at her body, his normally big, golden eyes now looking like they were bulging as he looked over her wounds and the plethora of scars and old burn marks that covered the mercenary's body. Samus felt suddenly self-conscious and zipped her jumpsuit closed, annoyed that her injuries were still visible through the tatters.
"How did that happen?" he asked after a moment. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to stare but… how did you even survive that? How are you up and walking around right now?"
"It's not that bad." Samus always felt embarrassed when these sorts of conversations came up. "Really, I've been in much worse shape."
He looked at her with concern. "Tibs didn't see any of this, did she?"
Samus assumed he was referring to Lieutenant Thibodaux and shook her head. "And I would appreciate you keeping the extent of my injuries a secret."
Chance nodded, still looking worried. "Did the Federation do that to you?"
"What?" The question surprised Samus. She had not thought about it like that before. "Well… sort of. I guess. Some of them are from trying to escape with the animals. Others are from… someone they were paying to hunt us down. So I guess, yeah."
Chance growled softly in his throat. "Figures. You and Calline will probably have a lot to talk about."
Samus wanted to ask who Calline was but decided to put that on the back burner for now. "Chance, when I met him, Captain Charbonnet said 'any enemy of the Federation is a potential friend of ours.' What did he mean by that?"
The semi-human placed his phlebotomy equipment on the counter and took off his gloves. "We may be a weird-looking bunch, but one thing everyone on this ship has in common is that we've all had bad run-ins with the Federation, especially its recent imperialism spree. We're not fans. So you're a fugitive for stealing animals or something, and normally people would want nothing to do with you, but we like having the opportunity to kind of stick to the Feds. Tibs and Char won't mind giving you guys a berth for a while until you get back on your feet."
"You're not afraid of bounty hunters?" Samus asked, wondering if she was pushing the envelope a bit too far.
"Nah, they don't bother much with cargo ships unless they have a reason to. Even then, they aren't hard to buy off. This deep in space, everyone generally needs something, and odds are, we have it."
Samus was curious as to exactly what type of cargo they were carrying, but she didn't say anything.
"So," Chance began, looking back at her, "you don't want me to draw your blood. I'm guessing there's something you don't want me to know, and I get it. I don't like the idea of people mapping my genome either. Most hybrid species don't. I'll assume you usually just take human meds? I can just give you some of those in pill form. They won't work as fast as if I gave them to you in IV form, but they'll probably get the job done."
"That would be ideal." Samus thought she felt the room shift suddenly and gripped the arms of the chair. The fever was probably getting worse, and given her genetic make-up now, she had no idea what it would do to her.
Chance counted out a couple dozen pills and placed them in a bottle that he labeled "Stevie Mack" and was about to hand them to Samus when a strange animal appeared suddenly, springing from beneath the bed covers in the other half of the room. Samus jumped up as a small, red fox creature ran up to her. It had large brown eyes and a very fluffy tail that seemed to branch off into six loose curls. It was only about two feet tall and probably weighed as much as a small mid-sized dog. A tuft of hair similar to its tail adorned its head, and its belly was white.
The fox creature stared up at Samus as the etecoons and dachoras looked on in confusion.
"Vul-pix!" it said in a high-pitched tone as it looked her up and down. "Vulpix!"
"Excuse me?" the mercenary asked, wishing she had not stood up so quickly.
"Oh hey, Vulpix," Chance said as he brought the medicine bottle over and handed it to Samus. "I was wondering if you would come out and say hello to our new guests!"
Samus looked between the medic and the fox.
"Vulpix!" it said again, its ears perking up.
"Um… hello, Vulpix," Samus said, crouching down to get a better look at the creature. "Is your name all you can say?"
"Vulpix!"
"All right then… I'm Stevie. Nice to meet you."
"Vulpix!"
Chance laughed as he listened to the awkward exchange. "Vulpix says 'nice to meet you too.' She's not always social with new people, but she must have liked something about you to come out and introduce herself."
Samus smiled. "I'm kind of an animal person. Never seen one like this before though."
"Yeah, Vulpix is from out in the Kanto Sector. Not a lot of traffic out that way, but her home planet was where I stayed for a while after the Federation took over Clio."
Samus was intrigued. She had never heard of that planet before, and it was rare to find a planet she had never heard of. "Clio? Is that where you lived with the etecoons and dachoras?"
"Yep." Chance smiled sadly. "It's a nice place. At least, it was before the Feds put a colony there. Now they call the place K-4B, and it barely resembles the lush forests that were once there."
The mercenary paused for a moment, wondering what her own home planet, the one that had been destroyed in a Space Pirate raid, had been like before the Federation had put a colony there. "Clio… I'll remember that name."
She pet Vulpix on the head for a while before standing up again. The movement was painful given the damage to her abdomen, but she waved off the concern of Chance and the dachora.
"We should probably get you to your room," Chance said as he walked toward the hatch. "If you'd like, I can give you something for the pain too."
Samus shook her head as she followed him back out into the corridor. "That won't be necessary. I have a high tolerance to pain."
He just nodded as he and the little Vulpix walked with her to another hatch a little ways away. Someone had lined the floor of the corridor in this section with forest green carpet, and it seemed like a strange contrast to the steel walls.
Scanning a card key, Chance opened the hatch to another room as the rest of the group followed him inside.
"It's not much," he said as he turned on the lights and gestured to a simple twin bed, a wooden dresser, and a barren chrome desk with a mismatched chair, "but this is the passenger's quarter."
Samus nodded as he handed her the card key, and she walked over to the bed. It was made with what appeared to be army-issued bed coverings, and it reminded her of her old room on her ship before Elisa had come in and fixed it up.
"It'll do just fine," the bounty hunter said, noting a small bathroom. "How much do I owe you for the medical care?" She still had nearly three thousand credits left after paying for their meal at the restaurant and paying Thibodaux for the room.
Chance waved off the question and shook his head. "Just get better, and then we'll talk about that. I don't want to charge you if the pills don't work."
Samus nodded. "Thank you."
He then looked like he had an idea, went into a drawer in the dresser, pulled out a cup and filled it with water from the bathroom sink. "So you can take your meds," he said, handing it to Samus.
The bounty hunter smiled as she took it, popped a couple of the pills into her mouth and washed them down with the water. "Thank you again."
"It's no problem. We hybrids gotta look out for each other, right?"
It was not a concept Samus was familiar with, but she nodded anyway and set the empty glass on the dresser. "I should be getting some rest now."
"Of course," Chance agreed. "If you need anything, let me know. Dinner is at 18:00, and I have plenty of women's clothes if you need any."
"The clothes of former passengers?"
Chance shifted uncomfortably, his tail curling around his body. "Some are. Most are mine. Dresses just look better on me, and they're easier to wear when you have a tail." He looked up at Samus sheepishly as though waiting for her reaction.
She just chuckled and smiled. "I've never been one for dresses myself, but clothes that are loose around the middle sound good right about now, and I can't wear this torn up, bloody thing forever."
"So you don't think… I'm weird?"
Samus shrugged. "I've been mistaken for a man more times than I can count. Didn't even realize humans were a species that experienced sexual dimorphism until I was a teenager, and I've never understood the amount of emphasis society puts on that."
Chance grinned, his tail uncurling. "You're really cool, Stevie. And for the record, I have no idea how anyone could confuse you for a man."
"Heh." Samus mentally chastised herself for forgetting who she was supposed to be. "Depends on what I'm wearing."
"Understandable. Well, I'll leave you guys alone to get some rest. You must be exhausted." He and Vulpix turned to leave as he said something to the etecoons and dachoras and then looked at Samus. "Goodnight, Stevie!"
"Goodnight, Chancey."
He smiled as he disappeared through the door, and Samus breathed a sigh of relief that she and the animals were alone at last. Tiredly, she looked over to the bed and peeled off her bloody flight suit. She was just in her panties and sports bra as she let down her hair and crawled under the covers. Normally, she would not relax so easily in a strange environment, but given the circumstances, her body was begging her to rest in a way she could not refuse.
She was just about to close her eyes when she felt her companions all staring at her. Looking over to the etecoons and dachoras, she smiled. "All right, you guys can get in too."
The little blue aliens bounced excitedly as the dachora laid down beside her as she had done the night before. Two of the etecoons snuggled up to her warm body as they had on the other ship, and the final one snuggled back into her arms as she hugged it. Samus drifted off to sleep feeling oddly peaceful and secure surrounded by the animals as she thought of her dogs back on Earth.