Beka awoke to the by-now familiar sensation of a strong arm resting lightly on her waist. She loved waking up like this—before the day truly began, with a few moments to luxuriate in this sense of warmth and safety. All she wanted to do was lay there and ponder the contrast of his coffee-colored skin against her own fair complexion, his dangerous bone blades mere inches from her vulnerable body.
Then she remember the specifics of /this/ day and slumped prostate against Tyr's still form. Now that she'd thought of it, she couldn't avoid the morning any loner, so she quietly eased her way out of bed. Logically, she knew Tyr could feel and hear her movements, but it was like a game they placed—she got up early, careful not to disturb him, and he let her pretend that she could slip past a sleeping Nietzschean mercenary. Usually, she smiled at this silent interplay, but today, it was all she could do to keep a tear from sliding down her face.
She took a couple of her rock discs with her and padded silently from her room. The ship's illumination was low, but Beka could've traversed it half-asleep, backward, and in complete darkness—she had before. When she entered the Mess Hall, the captain brewed a pot of coffee and scavenged around for a muffin or roll, simultaneously telling herself she should eat and accepting the knowledge that she would not.
Beka sipped the stale-tasting beverage and hummed along with one of the discs, bobbing her head in time with the music as she stared blankly at the wall. A slightly more fresh pastry sat at her elbow, untouched. Her and her crew had been practicing the extraction constantly over the past week, stopping to sleep and sweep the sensors for any other ships in the area, but it wasn't exhaustion that caused her feet to drag and drained her of the will to move.
If she got up, if she went to the cockpit and called the crew to gather, the day would begin. If the day began, eventually the hours would wile away, and the day would end. And then Tyr would leave.
The disc started over, Beka took another sip of lukewarm coffee, and Trance slipped into the room, so quietly that Beka didn't notice her presence until the girl sat down across from her. "Good morning, Beka."
Beka summoned a smile and replied in kind.
"Do we get to practice everything again today?"
This time, Beka's smile was genuine. Only Trance would ask if they "got" to do it all over again. "That's the plan. But later we gotta slip to Seneschal Drift. Aricia's super spy left a ship there in Tyr's name, so he's gonna take off Merriam-Webster tonight." Her voice was as bland as her coffee.
Trance looked curiously at Beka's mug. "Is that stuff really good?"
Captain Valentine blinked at the sudden change of subject. "Uh, no. In fact, I was thinking that we should pick up some more supplies at Seneschal. Why?"
Trance shrugged nonchalantly. "Oh, I just saw you come in here like an hour ago, and it doesn't look like you've been… doing anything."
"Ahh, then it's a counseling session, Dr. Gemini? All right then, I'll just get straight to the point." As she spoke flatly, Beka didn't register the slightly hurt and confused look that passed over Trance's face, which soon became replaced by one of sympathy as Beka continued. "I'm in… I'm involved with a Nietzschean mercenary." Divine help her, she still couldn't say it out loud. "True, he's not your average shoot first, screw the questions kinda Nietzschean, but he's just as bladed as any of 'em. So, not only am I in a relationship with a Nietzschean mercenary, but he's leaving tonight. And it's funny… I believe him /completely/ when he tells me that he doesn't want to go. But it doesn't matter what we want cos we have a job to do. We have a job, and if we 'forgot' to show up, we'd not /only/ be defaulting on a contract, but also letting down that priestess of hell who's counting on us. And let us not forget, we'd be black-balled from here to Infinity." She swallowed coffee to wet her throat a little.
"So he's leaving, and I also believe him when says that he wants some kind of future with me, but I can't help hearing this note of… uncertainty in his voice. It's probably not even /there/, Trance, but I still hear it, and I wonder what right he has to doubt himself, and why he would doubt /anything/. What could go so wrong that Tyr would question its outcome if he had anything to do with it, this highly-reputed mercenary at whose name mere mortals tremble…
"What's going to go wrong, Trance?" Beka had mostly been speaking to herself, but now her wide, blue eyes met Trance's.
And in return, Beka saw the most helpless expression she'd ever seen on her mysterious crewmate's face. "I don't know, Beka. And usually I can… guess pretty well at it, but now I just don't know." Her big brown eyes looked lost. "Beka, since you could trust me enough to tell me a secret, I'm going to tell you one of mine. Don't try to understand it, and don't worry about it."
She reached across he table and grasped one of Beka's hands. "Just please, listen." Beka nodded wordlessly. "Things aren't going like I had… guessed they would. Like the T'dalimar? If I had a million guesses, I would never have thought that we would run into them. I thought we'd be somewhere much different right now, on a job that you couldn't imagine in your wildest dreams." She smiled, but it was a whimsical smile and sad. "And Rev is supposed to be here and Dyl-" the flow of words stopped abruptly. "But then Tyr came, and I thought 'okay, maybe we're just doing things a little out of order.' But it's worse than that, Beka. We still /might/ get that job, and if everything works out with the Duchess, it could happen very soon. I just…" Beka thought incredulously that she had heard Trance's voice crack, but it was so brief that she dismissed the notion. "I get this really terrible feeling sometimes." The girl's voice was almost inaudible.
"Ladies," a deep voice hailed from the entrance to the Mess Hall. The two women jumped, and a subconscious part of Beka's brain noted that this was the first time she'd ever seen Trance startled. "The Maru's computer informs me that a new day has dawned, figuratively speaking." He walked over to stand in front of their little table and bowed in turn to both of them. "Shall we to greet the morning?" When they rose, he gallantly offered an arm to each, and so they made their way to the cockpit. At first, Beka wished with every step that they lights would suddenly fail, merely to give her a reason to delay this upcoming moment, but after a while, she found a growing sense of determination and assurance that she could do this after all. Worrying all day about an hour yet to come could neither hasten nor delay the inevitable.
Beka vaulted into the pilot's seat and switched on the comm. "Harper! Moveth thine ass to the cockpit or faceth the wrath of thine captain who was up way too late last night." She turned around at the sound of quick footsteps. "Just barely missed a smiting, Seamus."
Harper waggled his eyebrows. "Don't tease, boss."
Beka rolled her eyes good-naturedly and turned back to face forward. With a few efficient movements, she took over the ship's navigation. "All right, kids, we're going over disaster scenario #83B, mechanical failure due to sabotage. Now, we all know that if anyone touched my baby with a even a suspicion of a /thought/ of hurting her, I would break his thumbs, and then tear /off/ his arms and beat him to death with them. But as I'll be posing as Queen of the Bitch people, Harper and Trance will have to be in charge of the bludgeoning, as well as fixing my ship. So once we land, I'll get off the ship, sneak back on, mess around with my baby's innards, and sneak back off. Then Tyr and I will come back… as, you know, ourselves… and you guys'll have to be ready to go within three minutes of our arrival. Got it?"
Trance clapped her hands. "It's like hide-and-seek and fix the can!"
Beka bit back a giggle. "Sorta, Trance."
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Harper stared at his console, jabbed it viciously, and stared some more. "Trance, what the /hell/ did Beka do this time?" He stared, jabbed, and stared.
Trance smiled. "That's your job, Captain Harper. By the way, what does this mean? It says the engines are going to turn red."
The engineer glanced at Trance's console. "Turning… aw man, they're redlining! Uh, Trance, do you know if Beka set any safety limits to out little game?"
All he received in reply was a shrug and "You're the Captain." Harper swore and dashed to the engine room.
Outside, Beka whistled cheerfully and checked her wrist computer. "Hey Tyr, Captain Super Genius has a minute before the Maru explodes and strews bits of mudfoot DNA around the place. Whaddya say we go aboard and add just a little /more/ stress to his life?"
Tyr looked to the Maru. "I would be delighted, Captain Valentine."
Back inside the Maru, Trance informed Harper over the comm. That Beka and Tyr had just entered the cockpit. "Hey Harper!" Beka added. "Crazy rebels out there trying to break in, engines are about to combust, and Aricia here woke upon the wrong side of Satan's altar this morning."
Beka raised an eyebrow at the stream of invectives that crackled over the comm system and shot Trance a smile. "How're you holding up?"
The girl returned the gesture as her fingers danced over a console. "Environmental systems are good."
A chuckle escaped Tyr's lips. "As they have been on every practice run today. I believe Miss Gemini has the… run of things quite well."
Klaxons died, and a grubby human sped around a corner. "Hey, boss," he panted. "The su… the super genius love god… triumphs again," he bragged between breaths.
Beka ruffled her engineer's hair and slung an arm around his shoulders. "All right, guys, we only died once today. I think this earns us dinner at Cavanaugh's."
Harper's eyes popped. "Cavanaugh's? I know I'm good… no, great, but you're gonna have to sell the Maru just to bribe the maître d' to give us a table!"
Tyr stirred from his deceptively casual pose, leaning lazily on the wall. "It might get you that far, but not beyond the wine list. Luckily, you have in your midst a highly-renowned soldier-of-fortune with a number of very fortunate bank accounts scattered around the Known Worlds. Think of it as a… parting gift." His eyes slid to Beka and rested on her for a moment.
Trance bounded over from her post to wrap Tyr in a warm, purple embrace. "That's so nice of you, to take all that money you earned and spend it on us!" She backed away, smiling from ear to ear. "I can't wait! I'll go put on my new outfit!"
"How much you wanna bet it's purple?" Harper remarked after Trance had left.
Beka laughed. "You'd better follow her lead, then. They're definitely not gonna let you through the doors like you just climbed out of my engines." She assumed piloting control and glanced back at Tyr. "Have I told you how much this means to me? Harper and Trance and I are all used to those places were a week without a fatal case of food poisoning is cause for celebration."
He chuckled quietly. "Money is not an end in itself, Rebecca, but rather, man's happiness is. I'm glad that I can make you and friends happy with the money I've earned."
"Someone's been reading Ayn Rand again," Beka said in a sing-song tone.
She could well picture Tyr's astonished expression. Well, astonished as in a slight widening of his eyes. "I thought you told me you knew nothing of philosophy."
Beka shrugged innocently. "What is it you say? Unpredictability is the mark of a thoughtful soldier?" She activated the ship's exotic matter lens. "Brace for slipstream!" Without breaking her concentration, she flipped a switch to play whatever music disc she'd left at the pilot's station.
An electronic guitar punctuated a stream of fast, staccato lyrics. "Alien Ant Farm!" she cried out and began singing along. "…you've been hit by, you've been struck by the smooth criminal. Do do di di do do…" The quick, aggressive music suited the slipstream navigation perfectly.
Then she remember the specifics of /this/ day and slumped prostate against Tyr's still form. Now that she'd thought of it, she couldn't avoid the morning any loner, so she quietly eased her way out of bed. Logically, she knew Tyr could feel and hear her movements, but it was like a game they placed—she got up early, careful not to disturb him, and he let her pretend that she could slip past a sleeping Nietzschean mercenary. Usually, she smiled at this silent interplay, but today, it was all she could do to keep a tear from sliding down her face.
She took a couple of her rock discs with her and padded silently from her room. The ship's illumination was low, but Beka could've traversed it half-asleep, backward, and in complete darkness—she had before. When she entered the Mess Hall, the captain brewed a pot of coffee and scavenged around for a muffin or roll, simultaneously telling herself she should eat and accepting the knowledge that she would not.
Beka sipped the stale-tasting beverage and hummed along with one of the discs, bobbing her head in time with the music as she stared blankly at the wall. A slightly more fresh pastry sat at her elbow, untouched. Her and her crew had been practicing the extraction constantly over the past week, stopping to sleep and sweep the sensors for any other ships in the area, but it wasn't exhaustion that caused her feet to drag and drained her of the will to move.
If she got up, if she went to the cockpit and called the crew to gather, the day would begin. If the day began, eventually the hours would wile away, and the day would end. And then Tyr would leave.
The disc started over, Beka took another sip of lukewarm coffee, and Trance slipped into the room, so quietly that Beka didn't notice her presence until the girl sat down across from her. "Good morning, Beka."
Beka summoned a smile and replied in kind.
"Do we get to practice everything again today?"
This time, Beka's smile was genuine. Only Trance would ask if they "got" to do it all over again. "That's the plan. But later we gotta slip to Seneschal Drift. Aricia's super spy left a ship there in Tyr's name, so he's gonna take off Merriam-Webster tonight." Her voice was as bland as her coffee.
Trance looked curiously at Beka's mug. "Is that stuff really good?"
Captain Valentine blinked at the sudden change of subject. "Uh, no. In fact, I was thinking that we should pick up some more supplies at Seneschal. Why?"
Trance shrugged nonchalantly. "Oh, I just saw you come in here like an hour ago, and it doesn't look like you've been… doing anything."
"Ahh, then it's a counseling session, Dr. Gemini? All right then, I'll just get straight to the point." As she spoke flatly, Beka didn't register the slightly hurt and confused look that passed over Trance's face, which soon became replaced by one of sympathy as Beka continued. "I'm in… I'm involved with a Nietzschean mercenary." Divine help her, she still couldn't say it out loud. "True, he's not your average shoot first, screw the questions kinda Nietzschean, but he's just as bladed as any of 'em. So, not only am I in a relationship with a Nietzschean mercenary, but he's leaving tonight. And it's funny… I believe him /completely/ when he tells me that he doesn't want to go. But it doesn't matter what we want cos we have a job to do. We have a job, and if we 'forgot' to show up, we'd not /only/ be defaulting on a contract, but also letting down that priestess of hell who's counting on us. And let us not forget, we'd be black-balled from here to Infinity." She swallowed coffee to wet her throat a little.
"So he's leaving, and I also believe him when says that he wants some kind of future with me, but I can't help hearing this note of… uncertainty in his voice. It's probably not even /there/, Trance, but I still hear it, and I wonder what right he has to doubt himself, and why he would doubt /anything/. What could go so wrong that Tyr would question its outcome if he had anything to do with it, this highly-reputed mercenary at whose name mere mortals tremble…
"What's going to go wrong, Trance?" Beka had mostly been speaking to herself, but now her wide, blue eyes met Trance's.
And in return, Beka saw the most helpless expression she'd ever seen on her mysterious crewmate's face. "I don't know, Beka. And usually I can… guess pretty well at it, but now I just don't know." Her big brown eyes looked lost. "Beka, since you could trust me enough to tell me a secret, I'm going to tell you one of mine. Don't try to understand it, and don't worry about it."
She reached across he table and grasped one of Beka's hands. "Just please, listen." Beka nodded wordlessly. "Things aren't going like I had… guessed they would. Like the T'dalimar? If I had a million guesses, I would never have thought that we would run into them. I thought we'd be somewhere much different right now, on a job that you couldn't imagine in your wildest dreams." She smiled, but it was a whimsical smile and sad. "And Rev is supposed to be here and Dyl-" the flow of words stopped abruptly. "But then Tyr came, and I thought 'okay, maybe we're just doing things a little out of order.' But it's worse than that, Beka. We still /might/ get that job, and if everything works out with the Duchess, it could happen very soon. I just…" Beka thought incredulously that she had heard Trance's voice crack, but it was so brief that she dismissed the notion. "I get this really terrible feeling sometimes." The girl's voice was almost inaudible.
"Ladies," a deep voice hailed from the entrance to the Mess Hall. The two women jumped, and a subconscious part of Beka's brain noted that this was the first time she'd ever seen Trance startled. "The Maru's computer informs me that a new day has dawned, figuratively speaking." He walked over to stand in front of their little table and bowed in turn to both of them. "Shall we to greet the morning?" When they rose, he gallantly offered an arm to each, and so they made their way to the cockpit. At first, Beka wished with every step that they lights would suddenly fail, merely to give her a reason to delay this upcoming moment, but after a while, she found a growing sense of determination and assurance that she could do this after all. Worrying all day about an hour yet to come could neither hasten nor delay the inevitable.
Beka vaulted into the pilot's seat and switched on the comm. "Harper! Moveth thine ass to the cockpit or faceth the wrath of thine captain who was up way too late last night." She turned around at the sound of quick footsteps. "Just barely missed a smiting, Seamus."
Harper waggled his eyebrows. "Don't tease, boss."
Beka rolled her eyes good-naturedly and turned back to face forward. With a few efficient movements, she took over the ship's navigation. "All right, kids, we're going over disaster scenario #83B, mechanical failure due to sabotage. Now, we all know that if anyone touched my baby with a even a suspicion of a /thought/ of hurting her, I would break his thumbs, and then tear /off/ his arms and beat him to death with them. But as I'll be posing as Queen of the Bitch people, Harper and Trance will have to be in charge of the bludgeoning, as well as fixing my ship. So once we land, I'll get off the ship, sneak back on, mess around with my baby's innards, and sneak back off. Then Tyr and I will come back… as, you know, ourselves… and you guys'll have to be ready to go within three minutes of our arrival. Got it?"
Trance clapped her hands. "It's like hide-and-seek and fix the can!"
Beka bit back a giggle. "Sorta, Trance."
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Harper stared at his console, jabbed it viciously, and stared some more. "Trance, what the /hell/ did Beka do this time?" He stared, jabbed, and stared.
Trance smiled. "That's your job, Captain Harper. By the way, what does this mean? It says the engines are going to turn red."
The engineer glanced at Trance's console. "Turning… aw man, they're redlining! Uh, Trance, do you know if Beka set any safety limits to out little game?"
All he received in reply was a shrug and "You're the Captain." Harper swore and dashed to the engine room.
Outside, Beka whistled cheerfully and checked her wrist computer. "Hey Tyr, Captain Super Genius has a minute before the Maru explodes and strews bits of mudfoot DNA around the place. Whaddya say we go aboard and add just a little /more/ stress to his life?"
Tyr looked to the Maru. "I would be delighted, Captain Valentine."
Back inside the Maru, Trance informed Harper over the comm. That Beka and Tyr had just entered the cockpit. "Hey Harper!" Beka added. "Crazy rebels out there trying to break in, engines are about to combust, and Aricia here woke upon the wrong side of Satan's altar this morning."
Beka raised an eyebrow at the stream of invectives that crackled over the comm system and shot Trance a smile. "How're you holding up?"
The girl returned the gesture as her fingers danced over a console. "Environmental systems are good."
A chuckle escaped Tyr's lips. "As they have been on every practice run today. I believe Miss Gemini has the… run of things quite well."
Klaxons died, and a grubby human sped around a corner. "Hey, boss," he panted. "The su… the super genius love god… triumphs again," he bragged between breaths.
Beka ruffled her engineer's hair and slung an arm around his shoulders. "All right, guys, we only died once today. I think this earns us dinner at Cavanaugh's."
Harper's eyes popped. "Cavanaugh's? I know I'm good… no, great, but you're gonna have to sell the Maru just to bribe the maître d' to give us a table!"
Tyr stirred from his deceptively casual pose, leaning lazily on the wall. "It might get you that far, but not beyond the wine list. Luckily, you have in your midst a highly-renowned soldier-of-fortune with a number of very fortunate bank accounts scattered around the Known Worlds. Think of it as a… parting gift." His eyes slid to Beka and rested on her for a moment.
Trance bounded over from her post to wrap Tyr in a warm, purple embrace. "That's so nice of you, to take all that money you earned and spend it on us!" She backed away, smiling from ear to ear. "I can't wait! I'll go put on my new outfit!"
"How much you wanna bet it's purple?" Harper remarked after Trance had left.
Beka laughed. "You'd better follow her lead, then. They're definitely not gonna let you through the doors like you just climbed out of my engines." She assumed piloting control and glanced back at Tyr. "Have I told you how much this means to me? Harper and Trance and I are all used to those places were a week without a fatal case of food poisoning is cause for celebration."
He chuckled quietly. "Money is not an end in itself, Rebecca, but rather, man's happiness is. I'm glad that I can make you and friends happy with the money I've earned."
"Someone's been reading Ayn Rand again," Beka said in a sing-song tone.
She could well picture Tyr's astonished expression. Well, astonished as in a slight widening of his eyes. "I thought you told me you knew nothing of philosophy."
Beka shrugged innocently. "What is it you say? Unpredictability is the mark of a thoughtful soldier?" She activated the ship's exotic matter lens. "Brace for slipstream!" Without breaking her concentration, she flipped a switch to play whatever music disc she'd left at the pilot's station.
An electronic guitar punctuated a stream of fast, staccato lyrics. "Alien Ant Farm!" she cried out and began singing along. "…you've been hit by, you've been struck by the smooth criminal. Do do di di do do…" The quick, aggressive music suited the slipstream navigation perfectly.