Warnings: None

Queen of This Backwater Moon

Chapter 03:

"No Way, No How"

Spike's spindly legs carried him as fast as they could from the smoldering wreckage of the Bebop, two cruisers bearing down on him from behind and above like buzzards too hungry to play the role of carrion—but his legs didn't carry him nearly fast enough. He could've run a hell of a lot faster if he didn't have a kid tucked under one arm and a dog tucked under the other. That was two bad luck charms in tow, he lamented. No idea where the third bad luck charm—the Bebop's resident woman with attitude—had gotten off to, nor had he seen where Jet had gone, but he was just a bit too busy to care about either of them. Jet and Faye could take care of themselves, and as for Spike?

A barrage of bullets struck the desert at his heels, kicking up sand with metallic zips and pops.

Spike put on another burst of speed with a muttered curse. Nope, no time to worry about the rest of the crew just then. No way, no how.

Even though the crash had set a ringing in his ears and a spin in his head, Spike had enough savvy left in him to run in a zigzag pattern across the desert floor, flowing along the curve of the dunes like water along the base of a carved bowl, fluid and unpredictable. Guys piloting the cruisers on his tail circled overhead, trying to shoot him down, but he dodged and glided and spun and the bullets struck nothing but empty sand and as the cruisers zoomed past with roars of angry engines. To the buzzards circling above it must look like Spike had no destination proper, but in truth he'd spotted a low ridge of rock to the south; he made his indirect way towards it without giving away his intended destination. Spike knew better than to do so, spin in his head regardless. He had a plan. He knew what to do.

The kid under his arm, however?

Useless.

Said kid thrust her arms forward, legs stuck out straight behind them like a flying hero from an old comic book. "Whee!" she squealed, Spike's ears ringing all the louder. "Faster, mister, faster!"

Ein, snug beneath Spike's other arm, barked once.

"Edward is a birdie, cheep cheep cheep!"

Ein barked twice.

"Aw, pipe down, the both of you!" Spike bellowed. Ed flailed, giggling and gleeful, and Spike's steps faltered under her shifting weight. "And stop moving or you'll get us both kille—"

Shots came close, then, sand spattering the back of Spike's jacket hard enough to sting his covered skin. He stumbled, Ed's shrieks turning manic, but Spike regained his feet and pelted all the harder toward the rocky ridge. There would be a crevice under it, probably. A place to take cover, hopefully. Not that he liked placing so many bets on hope and probability, but still. If his luck bore out he'd find a place to hide out and make a plan that didn't involve so much running, one that didn't involve Spike babysitting this brat and this dog and playing chauffer for them both all the way to damn Europa—

Somehow, despite the jagged blur and jounce of running, Spike saw Ein's ears prick up. The mutt's head swung off to their left, and then his stubby legs kicked and his long back bucked against Spike's ribs. Spike wasn't about to argue with his emergency rations. Hell if he cared about the damn dog. If Ein wanted to run off, so be it. He let the dog go and kept running—although he did a double-take when Ein hit the ground at a dead sprint and veered left, sure as shit heading straight to the southeast.

"What the—? And just where the hell do you think you're going?" Spike called after him.

"After him, Spikey, after our Einy-boy!" came Ed's very helpful suggestion, accompanied by a feat of acrobatics that resulted in a foot pressing to the back of Spike's head.

Ein barked once over his shoulder.

"You gotta be kidding me!" Spike said.

A toe lodged itself in Spike's ear. "Edward might be a kid, but Edward never kids!"

"Errrrggh—fine, but you owe me big time!" Spike adjusted course. "You get back here right now you mangy little—!"

He swung to his left and followed the dog's prints across the sand, still heading for the rock ridge only now at an angle that would take much longer to reach, meaning they would be exposed for longer, meaning why had Spike listened to the damn dog and the damn kid instead of his own damn self?! With a bellow of rage and exertion he maintained his flowing zigzag, narrowly avoiding yet another spray of bullets just as Ein reached the ridge ahead of them. The dog took a flying leap over the rocks, squat legs extended comically ahead of his long body as he fell from sight—

Just as he disappeared, Spike saw movement beyond the ridgeline. Five shapes, five shapes that turned to silhouettes rose from behind the rocks and stood, and off of something in their hands sunlight glinted oily and dark.

Guns.

Spike recognized the high caliber rifles in a moment of white-hot recognition. Each of the five men gripped guns, enormous guns built for long-range combat held at ready, and on instinct alone Spike dug in his heels and skidded to a stop, gut asking the question his conscious brain could not.

Was he about to get shot in the fucking face?

Apparently not. Despite the bad luck charm kicking under his arm, it seemed today was his lucky day.

Just as he came to a stop, one of the men bellowed, "Duck!"

Didn't have to tell Spike twice. He threw down the kid and hit his belly on the sand just as they opened fire, Ed's indignant cry barely audible over the roar and pop of rapid gunfire—and then came twin booms, heat washing over his neck and back in a scorching wave, and he couldn't hear Ed anymore at all. Spike peered up at the lilac sky just in time to see the two cruisers that had been chasing him streak through the sky trailing smoke, flying past through the sky to crash beyond the ridge with two huge plumes of billowing fire. Heat hit his face even at this distance, a gust of acrid smoke filling his mouth with the scent of oil and ash.

He spared only a glance at the downed ships, however, eyeing instead the five men scrambling over the ridge.

They saved him.

But why, and just who the hell were they?

A rapid-fire barrage of facts cycled through his head as the men ran in his direction. As far as he knew, only colonists lived on this barren moon—no military or police to speak of. The asteroid had been terraformed so long ago and by tech so old it didn't even have a terraforming ring around it, forcing said colonists to live right on the asteroid's surface instead on of the comparative comfort of a ring. Sources on the Net had said the moon's only village was a little speck on the map, barely inhabited, and he hadn't spotted it during their descent to the desert floor—but then again, the Bebop had been on fire at the time…

Beside him, Ed sat up with a whoop of joy and turned a backflip with a spray of sand. "Yay! We won! Ed and Spikey won!"

But Spike wasn't so sure about that. "Don't celebrate yet, kid," he grumbled, sneaking a crumpled cigarette from his jacket pocket.

She looked at him with head tilted at an extreme angle, but before she could ask questions their saviors had them surrounded. Spike didn't bother running; had had nowhere to go, and absolutely nowhere to be. He sat up and crossed his legs and stuck his hands in the air with a grunt and a sigh as they shoved the ends of their rifles into his face (and into Ed's, but she didn't seem bothered by it and just rubbed her check against one of the men's leather boots).

Spike waggled the cigarette dangling from his lip and asked, "Anybody got a light?"

The men looked at each other, knocked off balance as Spike had hoped, though why they even bothered exchanging glances Spike wasn't sure. It's not like they could see each other, after all. Each wore scarves over their faces and thick goggles over their eyes. That and the helmets atop their heads providing coverage from sun and sand alike. Desert combat gear, by the look of it, and the five of them moved in tight formation so swift it had to be practiced—but although Spike kept his lids at lazy half-mast, affecting an air of bored detachment, he noticed something off. Their uniform clothes weren't actually uniforms, jackets and coats and scarves and pants and boots culled from different styles of dress, tailored to look similar and yet not quite the same. They carried a variety of firearms with what looked like aftermarket sights and stock adjustments, too, similar but not standard issue.

So: Nothing Syndicate. Too irregular, too homegrown, not sleek enough. And certainly not military or police, in that case. Hell, probably not even mercenary. Local militia? That had to be Spike's bet. But the guns were expensive, the clothing well made. So where—?

He didn't have time to ponder. One of the men tapped the underside of his chin with the barrel of a weapon, tilting up his face until Spike had no choice but to look the man in the—well, not the eye. In the goggle lens, reflective and green and utterly inscrutable.

"You Cygma?" the man asked—only he had a light voice. Too light. A woman, then, but that hardly mattered.

"Am I what?" Spike said.

Ed released a bright laugh, flopping into a backbend. She upside-down-crab-walked to the woman with the gun on her hands and wagged one finger at her, grinning. "No, no, no, we are not swans. Silly desert-people, asking if we're swans." Bright blue eyes swung toward Spike. "And she pronounced it wrong, too, Spike-wikey! It's cyg-NAH, not cyn-MAH!"

The woman stepped back, unnerved as Ed flopped onto the ground and began rolling in a circle, now muttering a rhyme about swans. "Er. No. They're definitely not Cygma," she said.

"Stealth agents?" said one of the other desert-people (actually a man, this time).

The suggestion made the woman snort. "This lot?"

Spike thought about being offended. Decided against it. Not worth the effort. He yawned and stretched as Ed performed a handstand, watching with a suppressed smile as Ein popped back up over the nearby ridge and ran over to his best buddy. Ed tossed Ein in the air and rolled with him in the dirt as he barked; the desert people stared, probably slack-jawed behind their scarves. And a good thing, too, Spike thought. The more incompetent Spike and company looked, the less likely these people were to mistake him for Cygma—and no, he hadn't missed the symbols etched into the sides of the cruisers that had tried to gun them down, nor had he missed the tension in the woman's voice when she voiced the word that Ed claimed did not quite mean "swan."

The enemy of Spike's enemy was his friend, as one of Jet's antiquated philosophers would say.

He would stick with these people until it was no longer convenient. Let them do the heavy lifting until it was time to make a move.

"I don't know who Cygma is," he said, and when the woman looked at him he winked (hoping in the back of his mind she wasn't hideous under that getup). "But if they're the people who just tried to kill us, I'll be happy to help take down their next ships." He pointed a lazy finger at her weapon with an even lazier smile. "Just give me one of those fancy guns. I promise I'm a good shot."

"Huh. Fat chance," said one of the men.

"Why did you come here?" said the woman.

"Sightseeing, that's all."

"Likely story." She hefted her rifle higher. "Well, whoever you are, you had best come with us."

He eyed the gun in her hand with exaggerated dispassion. "I'll pass, thanks."

"You'll prefer the guns over that when it hits, I promise."

This time she didn't point a gun at him—she pointed a finger, and she pointed it over his shoulder, and when Spike turned his head he realized at what. On the distant (but not distant enough) horizon loomed a black wall of undulating dust, higher even than the strange rock formations rising up around them. A dust storm. His eyes narrowed at memories of tales he'd been told, tales from the war on Titan of storms that could shred a man's skin in minutes, days when Vicious had had to hide under the bellies of tanks just to keep from—

He shoved the memory away. Made his face look lazy and unconcerned before turning back to the woman in her desert gear.

"You make a good point, stranger," he drawled around his cigarette. "So where we headed?"

"Nowhere." The woman lifted her glove to her mouth, thumb pressed tight to forefinger with a burst of radio static. Embedded transceiver, Spike reckoned. She muttered, "Todo claro."

Spike didn't recognize the words, though he thought maybe they'd been spoken in Spanish, and nothing much happened once she said them. One of the commandos drew out a cord and bound his hands (they tried to do the same to Ed's hands and quickly gave up when she started walking on them) and hauled Spike to his feet, but a minute passed of simply standing there before anything of note transpired. Soon, though, Spike's sharp ears detected the hum of an engine not too far away; he didn't turn to look, however, letting Ed spin on her heel toward the sound first before reacting. No sense letting them know what he was capable of just yet. From the shadow of a rock formation came a land cruiser, long and low to the ground, metal plating painted the same matte hue as the desert sands themselves. Spike didn't recognize the particular model, but he'd seen the like before—and he knew it wasn't military despite the retrofitted all-terrain treads, radio antenna and plasma cannon sitting pretty on top of the enormous beast.

A fortified mobile command center if Spike had ever seen one. These people weren't military, but they sure did a good job pretending they were.

Pity his informant hadn't said a damn word about them—pity for the informant, that is. When Spike was through with him…

The vehicle trundled past them in a cloud of disturbed grit, Spike and Ed and Ein sneezing at the onslaught. The wagon pulled to a stop just past the knot of troopers and captives with a groan of metal and twisted gears. The back end creaked and dropped down into a long gangplank, onto which Spike was shoved. Soon he found himself in a dark cavern of a vehicle, blinking to adjust to the low light and the hum of the idling engine vibrating through his ears and the soles of his feet. A space shaped like the chamber of a bullet, benches lining the sides, racks for guns and cargo above, and up toward the front a door leading to the cockpit—

His eyes stopped not on any of that, however, but rather on the woman sitting to his right on one of the benches. She looked up when he entered, and for just a second her face lit from within with hope—but then her eyes went dark. Her head thumped against the hull of the car. She slumped back into her seat. Bound hands lay limp across her bare knees in the very portrait of defeat.

"Hello to you too, Faye," Spike said. "Fancy meeting you here."

Faye sighed. Dramatically.

"Well, now. Why the long face?"

"Oh, it's nothing." She inspected her nails, crossing one leg neatly atop the other. "I'd just hoped the crash had killed you, that's all."

Spike scowled. "I should've known better than to worry over you."

At his side, Ed sniffled. "Faye-faye wanted Ed dead?" she said, voice a warble of barely restrained emotion.

Faye growled, teeth on full display. "Oh, for the love of—not you, kid. Him!"

And like a flipping switch, Ed's tears dried. She leaped into the air and skipped forward, walking with legs akimbo and arms waving like an elated starfish. "Yay! Ed's not dead, Ed's not dead, Ed's not dead!"

Ed cavorted and Ein ran around her in circles, barking. The desert commandos shoved Spike forward toward Faye, pushing him none too gently into the seat at her side. She made a show of scooting away from him with a sneer of revulsion, especially when he waggled his cigarette at her. He knew she kept a spare lighter hidden somewhere in those horrible hotpants of hers, but Faye wasn't in the mood to share, it seemed. She thrust up her nose and harrumphed, turning away with another dramatic sigh.

But Faye wasn't foolin' nobody. "So you are together," said the woman with the rifle as she walked up.

Faye started to protest, but before she could get the words out, the woman tugged off her helmet. The scarf came with it with a rustle of cloth. She had deep umber skin and a scar over the corner of her mouth, features angular and thin, dark hair worn in skinny braids that framed her dark eyes—eyes staring at Spike like she could see straight through him. The leader of the pack, for sure.

"I'm Moriah." She gave a nod to Faye. "We found her not far from your ship. Gave herself up before we even trained a gun on her."

Spike grinned, nudging Faye with an elbow. "Is that so?"

"Hey!" Faye was on her feet in seconds, glaring at the unmoved Moriah. "You could at least do a girl a favor and pretend like I put up a fight!"

"Fight-might-tight-light! Night! Sight!" Ed sang. She gripped one of the luggage racks suspended from the ceiling and pulled herself onto it, dangling upside down from her hooked knees. "Blight! Am I right?"

Ein sat on his haunches and looked up at the kid, head askew. Ed reached for him and giggled, ruffling his enormous ears. Moriah watched without a word, one eyebrow lifted nearly to her hairline. Eventually she turned to Spike and Faye again.

"This everyone on board your ship?" she asked. "You three and the dog?"

Spike and Faye didn't even have to look at each other. "Yes," they lied in unison—because no matter how much they fought, Spike knew he could trust Faye not to give the game away just yet.

They both had realized Jet was still out there.

If Spike and the others had been captured by people they shouldn't have been, Jet would set things straight—because Jet wasn't stupid enough to get himself caught like this. No way, no how.

Not that Moriah believed their lie, smooth though they'd delivered it. She looked them up and down before twisting her lips and tossing her myriad braids. "Hmmph. We'll see about that," she said.

She walked off, then, leaving them in the care of two of the desert commands who likewise removed their helmets, revealing two youngish men who looked utterly average, not worth remembering so far as Spike was concerned. The rest of them, Moriah included, went up front to the cockpit and shut the door behind them, sound of their voices and a ribbon of platinum sunlight leaking through the small square hatch in the middle of the door—and yeah, that was definitely Spanish coming loud and clear from Moriah and the others, unintelligible and muffled. Though even if it had been clear, it's not like Spike could've understood it. His Spanish was only limping on the best of days.

"You see Jet?"

Spike cast his eyes to the side, toward Faye, who'd slouched closer to him even if she hadn't quite turned to face him yet. Pretending she hadn't just asked him that under her breath, then. Mums the word. Spike slouched, too, head hanging low as he watched the two guards from beneath the curtain of his bangs. Luckily Ed chose that moment to turn an admittedly impressive flip as she dismounted from the cargo rack on the ceiling, screaming out a nursery rhyme as she landed and gave a merry bow. The commandos applauded on reflex, charmed into distraction.

OK. So maybe the kid wasn't entirely useless, after all.

Faye, eyes on Ed and the guards, repeated herself. "So have you seen Jet or not?" she hissed from between clenched teeth.

"No."

"Shit." She shook her head. "Well. At least they aren't hostile."

"Not to us, maybe. They shot down two of the cruisers who followed us."

Faye's eyes widened. "But why?"

Spike shrugged. "Guess they don't like having an entire fleet of ships parked off their atmosphere."

"What were those ships even doing there in the first place?"

"Dunno."

"Your informant didn't say a damn word."

"Right."

"This moon was out on the edge of inhabited space, not some sightseeing destination." Faye looked worried, not that Spike blamed her. She abandoned some of the 'play it cool' act when she angled toward him, voice urgent but still pitched low. "What do you think is going on?"

Another shrug. "Your guess is as good as mine."

"I don't like this, Spike."

"Neither do I."

Faye looked at him like she expected him to say more, but she should have known better. Spike tucked his chin to his chest and shut his eyes, only opening them again when the vehicle shuddered as the engines kicked back into gear. A jolt and a sway and the ship moved, treads pulling them across the desert toward… well. Spike had no idea. He closed his eyes again.

Time to go with the flow, he thought.

Faye, though… she had other ideas, as she was so often wont. Spike's eyes snapped opened when he felt her move, saw her march right up to the cockpit door and aim a kick at its metal breadth. The heel of her shoe made the door ring like a struck gong before the two guards dragged her back to her seat, but even over their shouts for her to cooperate and the engine noise and the ringing door, Spike heard her words loud and clear.

"Hey, lady with the gun!" Faye and bellowed. "Just where the hell do you think you're taking us, anyway?!"

The sunlit patch in the door went dark as a face obscured it, but then the face moved and sunlight poured through again. The guards muttered to each other in Spanish, ignoring Faye completely—but Ed frog-hopped over to Faye and raised one hand into the air.

"Oh, oh, Ed knows, Ed knows!" Ed said. "Ed heard them talking."

"Really, Ed?" Faye leaned forward, eager. "You speak Portuguese?"

"They're speaking Spanish," Spike muttered.

A heel dug into Spike's foot. "Shut up!" Faye ignored his indignant yodel completely as she asked, "So what'd they say, Ed? Tell me!"

Another giggle, cheek rubbing against Faye's stocking-clad knee. "Ed heard them talking about the king!" Ed said.

Spike sat up straight. "The what?"

"The king, the king!" Ed said. She rocked backward on her heels, momentum sending her into a backward roll. "They're taking us to the king!"

In unison Spike and Faye repeated, "The king?!"

"OK, that's it." Spike turned his irate glare onto the two guards. "You two. Fess up. She's not serious, is she?"

The guards exchanged a long look. Hesitant. Like they weren't really sure if they were allowed to speak or not, maybe—but before Spike could let loose the growl building in his thin chest, the shaft of light coming through the cockpit door went dark.

"That's right," came Moriah's husky voice. "We're taking you to the king—but before that, we're taking you to Paradiso."

More Spanish, though hell if Spike knew what it meant. "Para what now?" he said.

"Paradiso—Paradise, son." He could all but hear the grin in her voice, loud even above the grind and moan of the thrumming engines. "We're taking you three to Paradise."

Faye stared at the door with her mouth open, blinking in owlish confusion as Ed made up a song about Paradise and potatoes. Spike tcched between his teeth and sunk into his seat, one ankle propped on the opposite knee, and closed his eyes.

It was time, he decided, for a nap—because he got the feeling he'd need his rest.

In spite of its pretty name, wherever they were headed couldn't be anywhere good. Not knowing Spike's luck.

No way, no how.

NOTES

Can you tell I like writing women with guns? :P Moriah isn't my main OC but I like populating my secondary characters with women. Gotta keep the genders balanced, not make every single background soldier a dude.

Also there will be bits of Spanish in this fic and if I EVER fuck it up, TELL ME and I'll fix it. Any and all feedback appreciated.

I read somewhere that Ein will bark once for yes, twice for no in the anime, so keep an eye out for his barks in this fic. I plan on making them count. I tend to imagine him with snark-ass, R2-D2-esque commentary running through his head most of the time…

MANY BOUNDLESS THANKS to this fic's reviewers! I posted the first two chapters at the same time and I'm so grateful to all of you who chimed in with feedback. You're the best and absolutely made my day(s): Luck Kazajian, smith pepper , and a guest (whom I do believe is deamachi-mochi on Tumblr)!

Also yes I have a tumblr and we should be buds. Connect with me at "luckystarchild" dot Tumblr dot com.