Chapter IX: Bulls By Their Horns

AN:

Hey there, Fan-fic-folks!

Part Two of the Sunday the First update. Enjoy. Pun names, galore!

Thanks for reading and, as always, please review.

"Ugh. Why didn't they just wait and let us take the sled?" Chloe groaned as she dragged her feet along the floor.

David rolled his eyes and answered, for the thirty-seventh time. "Because they needed to unload it first."

Chloe let out another agonised groan. She contorted her still-dragged feet in a way that let some metal doodad on her boots make contact with the ground. It scraped like nails on a

I leant over and elbowed her in the side. "Come on, Chloe. We're nearly there!"

"How nearly is nearly?"

"About a mile."

Chloe just groaned again.

The docks were ridiculously easy to find. Aside from the fact that they were stationed at equal intervals along the entire circumference of every ring, they were also signposted in the most eye-catching example of our EarthGov tax credits at work. The sign was around fifteen feet tall, and the usual glowing bright neon was dulled by the covering of a fleshy, skin-like substance over most of the sign.

"Huh. They actually found a way to make those things even more gross." Copse blinked, almost impressed.

The dockside entry office - where arrivals and departures in this dock were logged for the official record - was barely half the size of the sign marking its location. It was also mostly untouched by the destruction around it, like a little oasis of mostly-normality. I caught a flash of movement in the windows and felt my heart seize. I called out as quietly as I could to alert the gun-wielding people to it. "There's something in there."

Copse and David both raised their weapons and split off almost immediately, each taking one flank as we crept down the middle toward the door. I guess we're the bait in this plan?

It felt like minutes, walking across that empty, open space, and I'm sure we all felt the same confused cocktail of relief and fear when we reached the door. I looked to both David and Copse and mouthed "Ready?"

They nodded and settled to aim. Right then. I took a deep breath and opened the door.

"Hi!" A chirpy, yet surprisingly low pitched voice said.

We all relaxed. No Unitologist would say hello before trying to kill us, and the monsters couldn't speak. We hoped.

The figure in the Engineering Suit stepping into view also helped. It was a man, and a big one - both in height and circumference. His beard, traditional and well-maintained, bobbed as he talked. "It's so very nice to see you! When the old lady said you'd be coming, me and a couple of the guys took bets on whether you'd make it." He ambled over and clapped Copse over the shoulder, the man actually jolting under the apparently unintentional force of the blow. "Thanks for winning me twenty credits. If we make it off this station, I'll split it with you in the first bar we find."

Huh.

Even Copse seemed slightly lost for words. He shook his head and beamed at the insensitive, enthusiastic engineer. "You're welcome?"

The man laughed, rollicking and booming, clapped Copse on the shoulder again and tried to start guiding him calmly through the office. "And charming, too! I've a feeling I'll enjoy drinking with you lot! Now, we're all right through here - though, I suppose you know that, right David?" David grunted affirmatively as we all tried not to laugh at Copse's slightly pole-axed expression as he was bodily dragged off the floor and carried along like one of those classroom anatomy skeletons, his feet dangling full inches off the floor.

He took us through the empty office and out into the open dock landing-pad. Several ships were docked here and every last one of them was little more than a pile of scrap. This, apparently, was the EarthGov dumping ground, where only the most needing-of-serious-rehab vessels get to go. Engineers were crawling over them like ants, pulling parts and identifying needs and letting out a wave of chatter that flowed over us as we passed by.

About a third of the way along the furthest wall from the door, David's ship sat. It really was the best repaired one here. Even the paint looked relatively neat. From the size, it would probably hold a few dozen people. They'd have to sleep in ridiculously short (grr) shifts, but they'd be able to fit aboard the ship. Two engineers were stood by it, one of whom was smoking. The other was gesturing wildly to the ship. Our engineer strode over to them and boomed a greeting. "Hello Gentlemen. I brought our lovely assistants."

Chloe flashed a disbelieving look between the bearded engineer and a wincing David and Copse, then mouthed to me, utterly aghast. "Lovely?"

They both looked us over and immediately focused on David. "We could use a full rundown on what you did to this thing. A couple of the systems read as non-regulation standard for this model."

David nodded. "Yeah, I couldn't find the right parts and had to adapt some hardware." He strode over to the ship and began pointing to various bits, to which the engineers nodded and muttered and gesticulated wildly (in the Bearded Engineer's case).

Another engineer, his suit marking him as some kind of supervisor, began directing others as they dragged over parts and computers to work on this ship. We offered to help, but were politely told to 'stay the hell out off the fucking way'.

They... were probably right about most of us, but Chloe looked almost violently offended. She'd stare at the engineer who told us that, and I barely caught her raising the rifle in time to put my hand over it and gently push it down. "No, Chloe."

"But-"

"No."

She glared at me.

I glared right the heck back.

She sighed. "Fine."

I didn't move my hand. She didn't move the gun, either. "Chloe." I said again.

The gun disappeared back into her holster. She sighed. "You're no fun."

"That's not what you told me back in the shower." I grinned impishly as Chloe whirled to stare at me, flushing red from her ears to her neck.

She grinned suddenly back at me in utter delighted disbelief. "Maxine Tiberius Caulfield! All these years and I never knew you had it in you!"

Copse blinked, leant in so he was right between us and coughed awkwardly. "Is... is your middle name really Tiberius?"

I glared at him. He smirked. "Right. Of course not. My bad, sorry. Carry on!"

That was when the dockside bulkhead exploded. My ears rang at the violent noise of the boom and for a moment, it felt like everything was moving in slow-motion. Ships and ship parts flew everywhere - probably a few engineer parts in there too, my analysing brain chirped - and a huge, four-legged thing rose out of the settling smoke.

Dog, I wished I had my camera right then, that would've made an incredible picture.

It really was massive - maybe ten feet long and eight feet tall. Four horns extended up from what I'm going to call its head solely out of process of elimination - it was too broken and mutated and deeply set into the thing's thick neck to really be recognisable as a head. The four solid legs looked like someone had blended a cow and... what were those things on that sea planet called? Jellyfish? No, Octopi. They were almost like Octopi tentacles, but tipped with cloven hooves.

Wowzers, it was ugly. At least it wasn't a sword-spider, I guess. Not that a giant Nemean Bull was any better, but I like to find the silver linings where I can.

The thing roared, sending frantic engineers screaming for the doors. Chloe and I took the opportunity to help the rest of the group to their feet and to hiss an order for us all to split off and fucking hide already. David and Copse both nodded, the former glancing to his wife in concern before accepting her urging along with our own and disappearing into the wreckage.

I'd started to help Joyce up into one of the overturned wrecks when Chloe gasped. "Max, watch ou-"

I barely managed to get Joyce and I out of the way before the horns gouged inch-deep lines into the wreck above us and the bull's charge sent it screeching along the floor until it hit the wall. We could feel the bull's warm breath above us before it roared again. Before it could make any move on us, Chloe pulled up her rifle and emptied a clip into it's side, causing it to roar again. It ignored us - we weren't threats to it - and turned to my now mildly panicked wife, who was trying to reload and run at the same time.

I grabbed Joyce and bodily dragged her into cover. I let her sit there, catching her breath and staring off into the middle distance. Poking my head over the metal plate we were hiding behind, I caught a glance of Chloe firing at the bull again before disappearing into another wreck. The bull's horns gored violently at the metal, but Chloe was nowhere to be seen.

Ships were wrecked, engineers were lying dead all over the room, and I had no idea where any of the armed members of our group were.

"Shit."

Joyce and I stayed in cover for a few minutes, watching the bull stab and swipe away at the wreck in front of it. I tried to get her to move sooner, but Joyce just hurriedly shook her head. So, we waited. I assumed she had a good reason - Joyce always did have good hearing, so maybe she was just waiting for some engineer to make a noise so we'd know where to go?

As the bull gored another line through the ship, Joyce apparently saw her opportunity. She grabbed my hand and we ran. Ahead was the wreck of a smaller vessel - some kind of patrol gunboat, I think? We ran for it and crawled underneath the jammed door. Once inside, Joyce's confidence seemed to vanish. "Where is it?" She yelled.

I blinked. "Where's what?"

"The damn guns!"

Guns? There aren't any- Oh. Gunboat. Of course. "You take that side, I'll take this one?"

Joyce nodded and we got to searching.

"Here!" I grinned as Joyce appeared at my shoulder and, after glaring in frustration at the screen for barely a second, kicked it. The gunnery station whirred into life and a simple command popped up onto the screen - 'Fire Y/N?'

Joyce hit Yes. Obviously.

The guns on the tiny patrol ship cracked as they fired, slugs colliding into the big bull thing. It shrieked in pain and whirled with terrifying freaking speed to charge into the ship we were hiding in.

The little gunboat that could suddenly couldn't, as horns gouged into its side and tore the guns clean off. Joyce tried to fire again, but the screen blarped and flashed red. She slammed a fist into it just as the bull flipped the entire ship.

Joyce and I both went flying. For a brief second, it was... nice. Everything was in slow-motion, the lights of the apparently now-busted consoles flickered nicely. Then everything got rib-breakingly bad. I may not have bounced off every surface in that ship, but my ribs felt like I might as well have.

As the ship rolled to a stop, I did the same, wheezing in pain like my old office fan. My ears were ringing, my vision was blurry, and the last time I'd felt this woozy was after Chloe and I drank an entire bottle of wine when we were tweens. I tried to stand, but my legs wouldn't work. I just lay there. I breathed in and out, trying to stay calm. It wasn't working. I couldn't step back like I usually did, view the world through a lens, I couldn't concentrate enough. The image was... blurry.

The roars of the bull outside felt like they were miles away. There were no monsters, no noises, no reasons. Just a need to sleep.

Suddenly, a frantic arm shook my body. Everything hurt more. "Max! Come on, we have to-" Joyce's face appeared upside down above me. She looked into my eyes and groaned, then disappeared for a few seconds before returning and jabbing a needle into my suit.

The pain vanished as the suit routed the gel to, well, everywhere. My head still spun though.

I stumbled to my feet, my legs buckling and shaky and wobbling all over the dogdarn place. I stumbled like a drunkard in the vague direction of the door. When I hit halfway along that wall, I blinked confusedly. "Huh? Why'm'I..? Hrugh!" Joyce's hand clamped down on my shoulder and dragged me to the door. We got out just in time to see another wrecked transport blast away at the bull, blowing chunks off of it.

The bull didn't seem to care and charged at that ship too. Seeing it get tossed from the outside was kind of cool, and when a familiar bluenette rolled out of the door and came up already shooting, it only got cooler. Terrifying as all heck, too, but still cool.

Joyce pulled me away from the sight and off into the cover of a pile of upturned ships. She sat me down against one of the metal bulkheads and knelt. I swatted her away when she tried to do that eye-opening check thing. "I'm fine, Joyce."

She snorted. "You'n Chloe both say the same damn things and I'll say the same damn thing to you." She reached up and poked me with each word. "You're not okay, so let me get on with it!"

Something exploded and the bull howled again.

Joyce and I stared at each other, seconds going by before I rolled my eyes and gave in. "Fine."

Joyce nodded. "Good." She began the eye-peering thing again, muttering under her breath. "Darned kids. Max was supposed to be a good influence on Chloe, not pickin' up her bad habits."

I grinned. "Chloe's just so persuasive."

She rolled her eyes again. Ignoring my cheek, and mild unintentional euphemism, she reached up and yanked me to my feet. My arms ached like a bitch, but I managed to stay steady. "You're okay enough to move. Come on. We need to find another medpack."

Joyce left me leaning against a ship while she searched inside. I still felt weak. The metal was basically the only thing holding me upright. It was cold, it was uncomfortable, but dog I had a great view.

The bull was still standing, but it was bleeding waterfalls and huge pieces were missing from its flanks. I watched as Chloe appeared out of the shadow of a ship and blasted away at the bull with her rifle. Little staccato bursts hit the thing and got it angry. She vanished as it tried to swipe at her, just in time for another ship's gun to fire at it.

As the bull whirled to charge for the ship, Chloe reappeared and shot it again. I smiled dopily over at her. She couldn't see me, but that didn't stop my tired little mind stutteringly proclaiming that the badass over there was my wife and did you know that I married her?

She kept the thing distracted for long enough that a lucky shot from a ship-gun hit its head, taking off two of the horns. They snapped off, flew through the air like throwing knives, and embedded themselves several inches into one of the walls.

Wowzers, we were so lucky that wasn't the outer doors. Everyone here had a suit, but I did not want to see my wife blue-danubing her way through some space monsters again.

Okay, so I kind of did, but can you blame me? Just look at her, she's so ho- "Oh, hi Joyce."

Chloe's mom eyed me with amusement. I realised I may have been saying all of that out loud, not just the greeting. There were two engineers nearby gawping at me, too. Yep. Definitely said all that out loud. Wowzers, I really need that medpack.

Joyce chuckled and injected another load of gel into my suit. The readouts quickly levelled off as the pain and dizziness vanished.

I blinked as everything cleared and straightened up. "Thanks, Joyce."

She smiled at me. "Anytime, Kid."

Over her shoulder, I watched Chloe toss a ball of flowing blue energy at the bull, grinning as its charge slowed to a crawl. She dashed forward, blasting a couple of shots into its side before leaping off an errant bit of metal bulkhead until she was at its head. She reached out with her left hand and a beam of crackling white energy struck the creature's other horns. She wrenched back and a brain-curdling, slowed screech of pain sounded as the horns were ripped from the creature's head, sending gouts of blood and gore out the other side to match the first. It was like the Pippi Longstockings hair, only if it were made of blood and flesh instead of whatever hair is made of. Weirdly though, it was exactly the same colour.

Chloe ended her jump with a roundhouse kick to the thing's now presumably very badly hurting face, landing in a roll beneath it and vanishing into another wreck.

It flailed about for a few moments, seemingly unsure of what to do now its main weapon had been 'disarmed'. Eventually, it remembered that it was freaking massive and simply shoulder-checked the wreck Chloe had disappeared into. The metal buckled instantly.

Suddenly, its head exploded as a horn spiralled out the top of it. The bull wobbled and, for a few agonising seconds, we all thought it was going to somehow survive that, but eventually it staggered forward a couple of steps before dropping to reveal Chloe, arm extended, gaping at the fact she'd managed to kill the thing.

I wooped, and she whirled to look at me clapping and cheering. She gave an embarrassed little bow as more engineers started popping out of the metalwork to congratulate her on meting out the final blow. They got it over quickly though, going back to attending to the various broken bits of ship that were blocking their way to David's vessel.

Chloe and I dashed across the room, wrapping one another in tight hugs. The enthusiastic, bearded engineer wooped at that. We ignored him. "I'm glad you're okay."

"Yeah. Me too." I pulled back and gave her a Whittaker glare. Chloe just grinned. "Fine. I'm glad you're okay too. You're no fuckin' fun."

I coughed awkwardly, and- "That's, um, not what you said last night."

She stared at me for a few seconds in shock, then burst out in delighted laughter again. "Man, I am such a bad influence on you."

"That's what your mom told me just five minutes ago." I muttered before I could stop myself.

She laughed again. "Yo momma jokes! Maxie! The Apprentice is truly becoming The Master." She started to bow to me, hopefully jokingly, but an engineer politely coughed an interruption. She rolled her eyes at me before turning back to look at him. "Yeah?"

"We've gotten your step-father's ship unburied. It's a little damaged, but weathered the bull well. We'll need to add a few parts to the list." He pointed over at one of the bigger wrecks that a swarm of engineers was attending to. "Most of what we can salvage is coming from other ships in here and next door, but some things we require need to be manufactured new."

Chloe nodded. "We're heading out to the 3M manufacturies anyway. Pass me the list and we'll get whatever you need."

The engineer tapped a few keys on his RIG and Chloe's bleeped a received-mail signal a moment later. "There."

She thanked him, and the engineer skittered off. She turned back to me. "Well," She started, and I could see her face crease up in regret. "I guess we gotta go."

I raised an eyebrow. "We should probably talk to the others, first."

"Oh. Yeah. Right. That."

I chuckled, and we walked over to where Copse, David, and Joyce were chatting with another little cohort of engineers.

"So, you guys are good, right? Got all those turrets set up?"

The engineer rolled his eyes as Chloe asked that for the fourth time. He answered her as indulgently as before. "Yes, Miss Price. We have everything we need here."

She nodded. "Great. Awesome. Cool cool cool. Uh, so yeah. We'll go now."

The engineer gestured vaguely in the direction of the door. "Great." He mimicked Chloe's accent almost exactly. It was kind of impressive. "Have fun with that."

He ambled off back into the main bay, leaving us stood in the entry office alone. We stood quietly for a few seconds after he disappeared. Copse broke the silence with a sigh, letting his hand fall back down to the gun by his hip. "Well, guess we'd better get going. Don't wanna keep the old lady waiting."

He almost sheparded us all into walking, waving his arms about like a utter maniac the whole freaking time. Chloe stared at him for a second, then joined Joyce in a hilariously synchronised facepalm. Like mother like daughter. Heh. And she used to claim they had nothing in common. As we started walking, I heard Chloe mutter with wry amusement "Fucking lunatic."

We head out from the gross neon sign and back into the badlands. If we were on a planet, I'd say we were heading northwest, but since space stations don't have magnetic poles, we were basically just heading 'sort of left'. That just sounds... awkward, though.

'Sort of left'. There was a photographer at the station who worked like that. All vague and annoying. Ugh. He had no appreciation for the craft. Just a talentless hack that flunked out of the prestigious places and got stuck with us in this backwater! No idea how to get the best out of a model, and no bloody clue on how to take a landscape picture.

Ahem. That's what Victoria said, anyway. She, uh, may have said that a lot.

She eventually fired him for 'gross negligence' (actually, wearing crocs and socks, which seemed a bit much, but she claimed it was the last straw). That was the day I became the senior photographer of the station. Chloe said it was a totally awesome fuck-you to Jeffershit and his fucked up plots. I just thought it was nice to earn a living doing something I enjoy.

I shook my head to clear the thoughts as we walked across a pavilion square. I really should be keeping a better eye on our surroundings. Though, those things aren't exactly subtle, I suppose. Dog, they certainly shriek enough to deafen everyone in earshot whenever they spot.., ulp. Food.

So, right. Uh. Where we are. Yes.

The square was pretty big, dominated mostly by a few score chairs and benches scattered about in clump. Each clump had signs linking its chairs to the various restaurants in the buildings around the square's edge. There were some residential buildings between them, but it seemed like this was where this neighbourhood got their takeout. We had a similar area near our place that did the best falafel wraps I'd ever had. Dog, I'd eat them all the time if Joyce wouldn't kill me for screwing up Chloe's diet more than my beloved unhealthy-as-heck wife did on her own already.

Apparently this place was mostly Oriental, from the signs. A half-dozen of the circular, neon-lit signs had that kind of lettering across the middle, with the English translations around the edge of the circle. Plus, one window had a series of noodle-pics along the top.

Joyce and I were walking alongside Copse in the middle, while David took the lead and Chloe took the rear. It seemed sensible to let the guy with the limp keep the pace rather than leaving him behind. Each of the three gun-wielders were pointing their guns suspiciously at various pieces of architecture in the square. Copse seemed mostly to be focusing on the restaurant windows. I raised my eyebrow at him as he glared particularly vociferously at one pane to the right of our exit from the square. "Did that window do something to you in a past life?"

Copse's face took on a despondent, melancholy look. He stared off into the middle distance. "It all started on my sixteenth birthday..." He trailed off, still staring. "My dad was a glazier, worked on EarthGov ships. We got the message that one of his windows had broken and he'd died in vacuum." He paused. "Also, I found out my girlfriend cheated on me with a velux."

Joyce and I exchanged mildly concerned looks. For his past or his sanity, we weren't sure. He grinned suddenly. We rolled our eyes.

"Idiot." Chloe muttered from behind us.

Copse grinned wider, opened his mouth to reply, but the ping from Chloe's RIG was quite derailing to all our trains of thought. David stopped, but kept his eyes circling around the square.

"You should probably get that. It might be the window Mafia, coming to hunt me down." Copse joked.

"Idiot." Chloe said again, then opened the comm.

Temba's voice was brusque, her message straight to the point. "The team I sent to the Tether has missed their report-in time. You're closest, so I need you to go check it out."

"Okay..?" Temba hung up immediately after acknowledgement. Chloe seemed slightly at a loss. She turned to us. "Uh. Guess we're going to the Tether?"

David shrugged, said simply "Let's get moving then."

We collectively took two steps before a shattering window caused everyone with a gun to whirl and loose off a round. They pinged off the slowly rolling sign, shattering the lights and knocking it over where it spun like a manic puppy before slowing to a stop on the ground.

We stared at it for a second before Copse solemnly intoned. "We should probably go."

We ran just as the howls started.