Chapter 13

Hunters Moon

Gaige woke in a familiar bed with the worst hangover of her life, not only was her head pounding but her mouth tasted like a Skag had drunk Slag, ate some small disgusting animals, threw them up in her mouth and then they'd died. Except that would have tasted better, but her head hurt so much that she couldn't focus on a better description.

'What did I do last night?' she thought as she tried to sit up. Thankfully the room was dark so she couldn't see it rocking and spinning. She fell back into the bed, resolving to try again when everything stopped revolving. Squeezing her eyes shut, she eventually managed to open them and slowly rolled to the edge of the bed, where she found a bucket and used it for what didn't appear to be the first time.

Her head started clearing and memories of the night before came back in fragments. Her getting told off by Artemis, drinking, Steve. And she felt a heat rise in her stomach completely unrelated to the bile that was trying to work its way up.

"Bitch" she managed to mutter through her dry lips.

Eventually the roiling in her stomach settled enough for her to look around and she spotted a row of glasses on the nightstand, each with a numbered card in front of them with pills on them. All that was missing was a card that said 'drink me', she thought bitterly. But she did recognize the first pill so she dropped it into the water and after the seltzer tab had dissolved drank it, before moving on to the next.

By the time she had finished she felt well enough to stagger into the shower, and after a nice long soak, some of the pains she hadn't even known about started to release.

She emerged from the bathroom wrapped in a towel, to find that Deathtrap had been floating in the room, probably had been watching over her as she slept. Had he brought her back? She couldn't remember, in fact everything from the time she met Steven was a bit blurry. He had offered a toast, though she couldn't remember what, and Artemis had shot him in the head, scratch that, she had killed him. There was something about her jamming her fingers in Gaige's mouth, then blank. Wait, if she focused, she could almost remember something else. Smug Steve? No that wasn't it. But it was something about Steve. Scum? Suave. That was what she had called him, but not like he was suave. Like it was his name. Suave Steve.

Gaige looked at Deathtrap "I picked a real winner this time eh bud?" She whispered as loud as her head would allow.

"Urur" He replied softly, used to her hangover volume limits.

"I mean she seemed so nice, a bit, I donno, naive? But man she is a cold bitch, I mean what she did to Steve like that, and for what? Talking to me?"

"Ururag" Deathtrap protested almost angrily.

"You're defending her? After what that bitch said? What she did to poor Steve. And he was so hot. And interested in me too."

"Ururugu"

"What do you mean by that?"

Deathtrap indicated to her ECHO device. Gaige puzzled looked at it before typing in a search for Steve. Predictably she found more results than she could sift through in years. Puzzled by Deathtrap's insistence she remembered what Artemis had called him and tried 'Suave Steve'. A much more manageable number came back. But the first one grabbed her attention and caused the warmth in her stomach to turn to ice. She clicked on it and started to read before her legs gave out and she sat heavily onto the bed. Numb, she put the ECHO down and stared into nothingness as her brain tried to make sense of what she'd just read.

It turned out that Steve, not his real name, had allegedly been born on Evis 3, into a bandit clan. By the time he was sixteen he had become their warchief, and led them to some prominence, but by the time he was twenty he had grown bored with all the bandits, so he reinvented himself. He left the planet and Steve the bounty hunter was born. He quickly gained a reputation as an extremely violent and nasty hunter. Rumors about him spread, though none of them had been proven, but they were compelling enough to have him banned in numerous systems, as well as having a number of bounties placed on him by families of his bounties. It was well documented that he only hunted young women, but if the rumors are true, he used his charm and innocuous demeanor to put them off their guard so he could slip something into their drinks, a trick he was believed to have learned back in his bandit days. Afterwords what he would do to them was beyond depraved, he would drug them and do things to them, sexually as well as torture, mutilation, murder, and if the rumors were to be believed, indulge in cannibalism, and not always in that order. He was also well known to only deliver the heads of his victims/bounties.

Gaige sat staring at the accompanying photo, which was of the same man she had been talking to the night before. She felt the bile rise in her throat again, but managed to keep it down as she numbly put her hand on her ECHO and read the next article, which was much the same as the previous. As she sat there it hit her, the look on Artemis's face the night before had been a mix of anger and fear, an expression she had never seen on Artemis's face before. 'She knew' she realized, she had recognized him and that's why she had been afraid. And he had recognized her. Suddenly Gaige remembered the first time she had met Steve, at the wedding. She had been alone then, Deathtrap had been patrolling and Artemis had been off to the side, and when she had come back, he had vanished. She hadn't even realized he was gone at the time. And then last night. He had shown up when she was alone again. She slowly turned to look to Deathtrap "I nearly screwed up really bad didn't I?"

"Urrua"

She felt conflicted, on one side she was still pissed off at Artemis for what she had said, but she also felt that she should at least thank her for saving her from her own mistake. As she sat mulling her thoughts around, she slowly realized that the drugs had kicked in and her head no longer hurt, at least not as bad. And upon realizing that, she realized that she was hungry. She glanced over at the clock and saw that it was past three in the afternoon.

"Well that explains it" she muttered to herself. She got up and headed for the door when she stopped, this was Artemis's ship, so obviously she would be somewhere on it. And Gaige was not ready to confront her.

She turned sheepishly to Deathtrap "Um, babe? Where's Artemis?"

"Urgr"

"On the bridge? OK we should be able to use the kitchen without running into her. I hope."

"Urara"

"Whatever." She replied and opened the door stealthily only to find a piece of paper stuck to it. Peeling it off, her first thought was 'This would make really nice wedding invitations, maybe a bit light for that, but it's really nice paper.' Her second was 'Aw man, I've started thinking of everything in terms of weddings, haven't I? I really need to find a new job.'

Opening it up she found a letter written in a strange cramped cursive of someone not used to writing.

It read.

Gaige

I am not good at this so I'll skip any pretenses.

You were right to hit me. I was wrong. I had overstepped my bounds, and for that
I am sorry.

I do not ask you to forgive or to try and put it behind you.

I do not make excuses, I will be spending the rest of the trip in the cockpit, the rest of the ship is yours, so you do not need to worry about running into me.

Deathtrap knows where the finished armor is. Feel free to use any tools you need in making the changes. You know where to find them.

Once more I am sorry.

Jinx / AR73M15

Oh and we will be arriving on Pandora tomorrow morning at about ten

Gaige looked at the note and thought 'damn right you were out of line' and considered crumpling the page, but instead tucked it into a pocket and headed to the kitchen to stop her stomach's complaining.

A short while later, having filled her belly with a hearty sandwich, she followed Deathtrap to where the crate was. Inside she found a small bundle for her, which when she opened it found the replacement outer plates for her arm. Looking at them she was amazed at the craftsmanship. At a glance she couldn't tell them apart from her existing ones, they had been replicated down to the scratches. Every detail was there, from her red spike on her knuckle to the paint chip missing from the bicep. Underneath she found similar pieces for Deathtrap, but these were designed to go under most of his decorative parts, but they were also of excellent quality.

After doing a few tests on them to try out how electric and magnetic proof they were, which turned out to be as advertised, completely, she spent the next few hours carefully replacing parts. When she was finished, she felt a little bad that she couldn't really tell the difference, but realized the genius of that. If Holloway and his agents saw that either her arm or Deathtrap was different, they would know that they had not just encountered the EMP grenade, but had found a work around for it. If they didn't suspect anything, they would undoubtedly use them with confidence and thereby give her a brief opening. And in a life or death fight, any opening was enough to turn the fight around.

After cleaning up and getting another meal, Gaige found herself in a surprising place. She was bored. Not that she couldn't do something with Deathtrap, nor was it that she couldn't find something to read, or an ECHO to watch, but as she looked around, she found that she didn't want to do any of those things. Eventually it hit her, she wasn't really bored, she was lonely. She wanted someone to talk to, to laugh with, share stories, or even sit in silence as they each read, a comfortable presence in the room. The knowledge hit her like a gut punch, why would she be lonely with Deathtrap there? But deep down she knew, it wasn't that she was tired of his presence, far from it, she loved him and nothing was better than having him around. No it was something else.

She missed Artemis.

The thought made her want to punch herself in the head. She wanted to smack herself and yell 'After what that bitch said? You still want to talk to her?' but it was the truth. Before that mess, she had really enjoyed talking with her, and talking to Wainwright had made it painfully clear that it wasn't just her needing a stimulating conversation. While she had enjoyed her talks with Wainwright, well except for his insistent prying, but she hadn't felt as at ease with him as with Artemis, and she didn't think that it was that they were both girls either.

Conflicted, she nearly went to the cockpit to talk to her, she also almost went around wrecking the place to punish her for last night. Since it was obvious that she would regret either of those things, she instead spent her time looking around the ship, examining the trophies. Both the ones that had been hunted and the ones she had collected. In the end she found herself staring at the carefully hung equines, feeling a mix of envy, sadness and loss.

Unable to take it anymore she turned in early, despite not being tired since she had slept away most of the day. But she soon found herself drifting off, especially after Deathtrap brought her a mug of hot cocoa. 'Hers' was better' she thought tiredly and drifted off.

Once she started snoring softly, Deathtrap tucked the blankets in around his mistress and then settled in to recharge. Looking at the bed, he did the best equivalent of a sigh he could and sincerely wished that this mess between the girls would be resolved soon.