Warnings: None

Queen of this Backwater Moon

Chapter 05:

"1,131"

As the door fell shut behind her, Reina murmured, "Jet."

Odd name for a man—the name of a thing, a vehicle instead of a person. Mother made a quirking beep of question at Reina's vocalization, but when Reina didn't continue, the AI fell silent. Reina stood with her back to the door and listened, wondering if her slip of the tongue had roused the man from slumber—but she needn't have worried. She heard no movement from beyond the door.

"I might have overdone it with the painkillers," she murmured.

Mother burbled again. "Based on his approximate age and body mass, the dose I recommended was well within the limits of safety."

Of that assertion, Reina had few doubts. Mother's words, spoken in English, bore no uncertainty whatsoever—but then again, the AI wasn't accustomed to speaking in English. Could she express doubt in this language setting? Reina debated returning the settings to Spanish while Jet slept, but after a moment's debate, she refrained. Mother wasn't accustomed to speaking in English and Reina hadn't spoken in English in at least two weeks. Not since she'd last visited Paradise. Best be on top of her game, as the saying went, before Jet woke up again.

She had questions for him once he did. She would need to phrase those questions very carefully.

Reina pushed away from the door and turned, looking at it as though to read Jet's intentions in the smooth metal hatch. She was not sure to make of him, all truth told, mostly because he was nothing like she'd expected. He wore a ragged flight suit and he carried a gun, and his features were craggy and weathered above his muscular frame—but his smile had softened his sharp eyes, slight wrinkles deepening around them as he teased her.

She'd been expecting the predatory gaze of a Cygma operative, and instead he'd made her laugh.

Against all odds, Jet was nice. Far nicer than she'd expected to find the intruders when Mother blared an alarm and alerted her of ships in proximity to EDEN, Reina's heart turning a panicked somersault in her chest. She'd been in the middle of a bath at the time, had thrown on a robe and grabbed her shotgun with shaking hands, had run from the depths of EDEN with heart clutched tight between her grinding teeth. No ships had ever come this close, so close to the EDEN of this asteroid, to the hidden treasure sought by Cygma that she had guarded so fiercely and for so long.

Only one thought had crossed her mind as she left Mother to chase away the wolves: They'd found her. They'd found Mother, despite all she'd done to keep this place secret, to keep this place safe—and she would not let them in without a fight.

But then she'd found Jet, instead.

Friendly Jet, who had… what was the word, again? Flirted with her? No one had flirted with her since Killian—

No. Best not think about him just now.

It had been against her better judgement, bringing Jet down here, but if she hadn't he'd have been torn apart by the sandstorm raging on the moon's dry surface—and she had been the one to injure him, after all, knocking him into unconsciousness with a self-conscious blast of salt-packed shotgun. She wasn't a monster who would leave an innocent man to die. Cygma had tried to kill him, and he'd tried to kill them right back. Unless his firefight with the Cygma operatives was some carefully constructed ruse to lure her off her guard, he was an outsider in all this. And what was it her father had always said? Enemy of my enemy is my friend?

She just hoped Jet proved that old adage true.

But why was he even here?

Reina breathed deeply. The air in the underground EDEN tasted of plastic and metal, the flavor of filtration. "Mother?" she said, cocking her head at the ceiling. "What is the probability that this man is a member of Cygma?"

"Almost seventy percent," Mother replied in her precise tones. "Would you like the exact decimal?"

Reina winced. "That will not be necessary, thank you."

Jet had been too woozy to interrogate, even if he'd been lucid enough to make a few off-kilter jokes and intuit they were underground with only a few clues to give the game away. Smart man, Reina decided, and not an entirely unpleasant conversation partner, though perhaps it was just the meds talking. Hopefully he'd remain as pleasant when he woke up again.

… speaking of which. What exactly did she plan to do with him, once he did as such and reentered the land of the living?

Putting her back to Jet's door, Reina surveyed the crescent-shaped room that was the central hub of EDEN itself. White walls and floor, clean lines and sweeping angles, plastic and metal and ceramic blending harmoniously with the myriad screens decorating the middle of the crescent's shorter wall… yes, her father's austere handiwork remained as pleasing to the eye as ever, even if she'd left a few potted cactuses and photographs scattered about for ambiance. There were only seven doors in this place, one to the surface and the rest to living quarters or maintenance access areas, none of them marked to reveal their contents. Still, Reina wondered if she should disguise this place somehow. One wall of the crescent was covered in screens, after all, readouts and charts and fluctuating graphs glittering with colorful displays depicting—no, no need for disguises. Jet would have no idea what any of those graphs meant, anyway. She was one of three people who could understand the material on those screens. One of three people who had ever been inside EDEN at all, in fact.

Well. Four, if you count Jet as of today.

… mierda, what a mess.

She walked toward the blinking readouts and screens, toward the control panel covered in buttons and knobs sitting below them, to the chair tucked neatly below this blinking desk. The radio sat in its cradle over the chair's armrest right where Reina had left it. She took the large black handset and clipped it to her belt, turning on her heel toward the center door on the wall opposite the chair. Next to it, as with all the doors, sat a small keypad and scanner, into which she put the passcode and scanned the tip of her index finger. Mechanisms whirred and clicked behind the panel as it verified her identity and unlocked the hatch to the outside world.

Only Mother did not prefer this plan of action. "I wouldn't do that, mi vida," she said, voice adopting a tone of concern. "The storm—"

"I need to radio Moriah," Reina explained. "I will not leave the airlock, Mother, I promise."

"Ah." The AI's voice brightened, probably after running a series of lightning-fast calculations. "Best go quickly, then. Electromagnetic interference will make calling out impossible in a few minutes."

"Alert me if he wakes?" Reina asked, nodding her head toward Jet's door.

Mother did not have any eyebrows to speak of, but Reina swore they were raised when Mother said, "You mean you don't want him running amok through EDEN?"

"That would be less than ideal, though I trust you would take care of such a thing in my absence." She paused, watching as the door slid upward into the ceiling to reveal the empty vault of a bare metal elevator car. A second set of doors lay across from Reina on the car's opposite wall. "Also. Good use of sarcasm."

Mother laughed—and at the sound Reina's heart gave a little jump, the way it did every time Mother laughed. The feeling of elation died a little, however, when Mother said: "Your recent updates to my humor metric appear to have been effective, even after a language alteration."

"It appears they have." Reina suppressed a bitter smile and stepped over the threshold. "Be right back."

The elevator ride to the surface did not take long; EDEN did not lie deep, even if it lay too deep for radio interference thanks to layers of concrete, aluminum, and steel. The elevator's smooth ride came to a halt with a gentle bump, and then the other set of elevator doors opened onto a small room made all of metal with a creaking grate for a floor: the airlock, though its name was only a formality. It smelled of dust and rust here, stuffy and hot, a far cry from the cool and filtered climate of EDEN below. A foot-high lip separated the room from the elevator; Reina climbed over this and crossed the room, heading for the enormous circular hatch on the other side. A small window no bigger than her head had been placed in the upper middle of the door, but when she pressed her face to it, she saw nothing but the darkness of the sandstorm—darkness through which only the barest flecks of light intermittently passed, shooting stars streaking through the vast expanse of empty space before fizzling from sight.

Reina assumed it was a fitting metaphor, anyway. She had never seen the stars—but she had seen the most beautiful pictures in books.

Reina lifted the radio to her mouth and thumbed the receiver. "Moriah, come in," she said, this time reverting to Spanish. She waited a beat, then thumbed the receiver and repeated her query. "Moriah. Moriah?"

A rush of static. "That you, Reina?"

Relief flooded her chest, warm and tingly. "Yes. Where are you?"

"En route to Paradiso." More static. Mother had been right; this was sure to be a short conversation. "You hear the ruckus topside?" Moriah asked.

"I did." Reina swallowed. Secure though they thought this channel was, she'd best speak carefully. "The ruckus was hard to miss," she said, hoping Moriah would catch her drift.

Moriah did catch it, muttering a foul curse. "We chased 'em off in short order, at least—although we have three leftovers in custody."

Reina swallowed again, then quietly admitted: "I have one, too."

She could almost picture Moriah's stunned eyes, lips pulling back off her teeth in shock. "You have one?" she said.

"He isn't with Cygma, though," Reina said—she'd be getting interrogated later, herself, for taking an outsider to EDEN. She just hoped Moriah would understand. "Are yours?"

"Not by the look of 'em." Moriah almost laughed when she said it; Reina couldn't say why. "Think they're together?"

"I don't know. Mine's injured. Not talking yet."

"And mine say they're alone. Two separate groups?"

Reina shook her head, forgetting Moriah couldn't see. "Too coincidental. But I'll ask questions when mine wakes."

"And I'll interrogate mine in the meantime." Her voice dropped low, almost too low considering the static on the line. "Don't worry, Rei."

Reina snorted. "Who said I was worried?"

"You're always worried these days." But before Reina could try to deny it, shore up her dignity with assurances, Moriah said, "Oh. You should know. One of the offworlders speaks Spanish."

"Oh?"

"A little girl."

Reina blinked, taken aback. "There's a child with them?"

"I told you they didn't look Cygma. Anyway." And there was that odd laughter in her voice again. "She thinks we're taking them to see the King."

And Reina understood the humor, now. She laughed, too, rubbing her forehead with her fingertips. "Her Spanish isn't so great, it seems," she mused.

"I'll say it isn't. But we're playing along," Moriah said. "Emilio will give them a good show—come to Para—side cell—for—"

Static suffused her voice like a cloud of insects, buzzing and insistent. Reina thumbed the receiver a few times, adjusting the channel and antenna to regain connection.

"Moriah? Moriah?" she said, but no answer came, and the cry of the woman's name turned into a curse, instead.

Short though the conversation had been, it hadn't been entirely unhelpful. There were more offworlders on the asteroid, then, in custody of Moriah in Paradise. One of them was a child—and even that perezoso de mierda CEO of Cygma's wouldn't sink so low as to send a child to do his dirty work, would he? Reina didn't think so, low though her opinion of Reynolds most certainly was. Still, the only way to know for certain was to ask Jet when he woke up. He was her only option since she wouldn't be able to get any more information from Moriah until the storm abated.

That left her in a holding pattern.

A stalemate with time, if you will.

A waiting game—just like the one she'd been in for months now.

Waiting games, stalemates, holding patterns… the thing about them was that they relied on balance to stay intact. Neither side could give an inch or the other side would take a mile. Reina's equilibrium with Cygma had been holding for almost two years at this point. All it would take was a feather to tip the precariously balanced scales in either distinct direction.

Reina hadn't seen outsiders in a long time.

It was hard, therefore, not to wonder if their presence here—not to mention her act of kindness in saving Jet's life—would be that very feather.

She left the airlock and reentered the elevator, taking it back down to the hub where she could check on Jet. He hadn't moved while she'd been gone. He slept on his back, bio arm draped over his stomach while it rose and fell with sleep's deep breaths. She checked his pulse, noting its steady beat under her fingertips, and readjusted the sheet over his broad frame. When the man did not move she pulled a chair up to his mechanical left arm, noting that the wires she'd attached to its inner workings had gone dim. So the schematic scan had completed, then. Good. Gently she unclipped wire after wire, detaching them from metallic muscle fibers and popping skin plates back into place. She kept careful eye on Jet's face all the while, hoping the action didn't cause him any pain.

Jet only stirred once. His head fell to the side, brow knit and lips pursing in his sleep. Reina paused in her work, watching with breath bated. He had a heavy brow, this Jet, and a strong nose perhaps a touch crooked from past fights—and she did not feel bad assuming he'd been in fights before. The metal implant over his cheekbone, the severe cut running vertically over one eye spoke of a life of action, battles fought and mostly won, even if he'd come out of them scathed. The prosthetic under her fingertips certainly told a story of its own, too, not to mention she had had to peel his flight suit down to his waist to bandage the damage left by the shotgun. Scars from blades and guns alike crisscrossed his muscular chest and abdomen, a map of experience reflected in the calluses on his hard hands and the lines carved around his mouth. He was intimidating, this man, beard unkempt and wild, flight suit ragged and full of history, hands so large he could crush her if he chose.

Reina was no wilting flower, but she reminded herself to keep her shotgun close just the same—even if Jet's smile had softened his intimidating features, made him look almost handsome for a moment. Even if he'd called her pretty. Even if he'd made her laugh.

Reina reminded herself to keep her shotgun close just the same.

She finished her work on his arm and covered him with the sheet again, one final check of his vitals revealing nothing unusual. Reina left him in his room and went back to the main hub, where she sat in her chair at the control panel with a sigh. The screens before her whirled and danced, hundreds of readouts shuffling places and layering one atop the other in an unending loop. Geology readouts for this asteroid-turned-moon, atmospheric stability, fluctuations in electromagnetic frequency, maps of its system of underground aquifers—the moon's core, just below EDEN.

Her eyes lingered on that readout as it shuffled to the front of the throng.

Nothing about it looked unusual. The core held utterly stable, perfectly aligned, chemical and mineral composition exactly as intended. Her father would be proud of his handiwork—but to Reina, the sight of that perfect, stable core put a brick of heavy cold in the depths of her stomach, hard and weighty and oppressive

"Show me Paradise, Mother," she murmured, because she couldn't bear to look at the core any longer.

The readouts about the moon vanished, dissolving into dozens of flecks of light that swarmed back together to form a new image: a map of Paradise itself, thrumming with life and teeming with people—with her people. Tiny dots swarmed the map, heat signatures of each individual resident of Paradise a small blip of red within the green lines of Paradise's borders. She watched them move and flock like ants through a hill, leaning her cheek on her hand with a small, warm smile.

"1,131" read the counter below the map, but she needn't have looked to know just how many dots called Paradise their home. That number had burned itself into her brain. 1,131 souls. 1,131 residents of Paradise—and she was responsible for them all.

Her smile faded.

The cold brick in her stomach returned.

"And above?" she whispered.

Mother seemed to hesitate before responding, or perhaps Reina's perception of time merely slowed in response to her dread. She could not say for certain which. Once again the image on the screen dissolved and reformed, this time providing a view of the moon itself. An oblate spheroid like the Earth, forced into that shape by her father's terraforming techniques, techniques performed by EDEN when her father first purchased the asteroid when she was just a child. She had seen this image a hundred thousand times, had seen her father trace the edges of the moon with his fingertip as he explained what he had achieved.

"I built and world for you and your mother, my darling," he had said, mustache tickling her cheek as she stood upon his knee. He took her pudgy child hand and placed it on the image of the moon, the one she had seen as many times as she had seen her face reflected in a mirror. "I built a world for you, and someday, it will be yours."

That day was today. Had been that day for many hundred todays, in fact.

But the image she saw on the screen was anything but familiar.

The oblate spheroid of the moon did not hang alone in space, surrounded only by debris and galactic detritus. A network of ships, dozens of them, dotted the atmosphere like circling buzzards, barring both entry and escape, bearing down to take what was rightfully hers and to leave her people with nothing.

To leave 1,131 people with nothing, to be exact.

She repeated the number in her head. Compared it to the number of ships waiting on the digital horizon. Crunched figures and facts until her head spun, catching on the same old stalemate she'd been caught in for so long. All that swam through the clamor was that number, over and over again, the number as clear as her sense of duty to what that number represented.

1,131 people lived here, on the asteroid called Marius CT-174—the place her father had named Paradise—and it was her duty to keep them safe.

She only hoped the scales, when they inevitably fell, would fall in her people's favor.

NOTES:

Y'know, I wasn't planning on including Reina's POV for a while, but I realized it was probably a good idea to introduce it sooner rather than later. I was going to cut straight to Jet waking up but he sleeps for a while and it makes more sense to kill a little time while he sleeps. Mimics the actual flow of events, I guess. And I'm explaining this because this is the first 3rd person story I've written in years and I'm trying to justify my last-minute decisions to myself. Thanks for listening. I think I'll skip back to the Bebop crew for chapter 6 (although, who should narrate?) and then head back to Jet for chapter 7. Or maybe I'll skip back to Jet. UGH. Yay, plans!

I have a bad habit wanting to write in my notes "Did you notice details like X and Y that tie the chapters together?" And I want to do that now but I am refraining for the sake of suspense. There's just a lot of stuff she knows and takes for granted that she wouldn't re-explain to herself that you need to learn organically through Jet and the others, but I hope some stuff became clearer here. CURSE MY NEED TO OVER-EXPLAIN.

SUPER DUPER SPECIAL AWESOME THANKS to everybody who commented since last time! For real, though, you all sincerely made my day. This story is a lot of fun for me and it means the world that you're on board. Will be replying to reviews of chapter 4 here shortly and will reply to reviews of chapter 5 as they come in. Thanks so much, you ROCK: Luck Kazajian, ForeverinWonderland, smith pepper, deamachi-mochi, Kaiya Azure, Sweetfoxgirl13, read a rainbow, and Tamisin!