7
Toshiko runs in to see how everyone is. She goes to Owen. "Are you okay?"
"Is he okay?" Jax asks as he looks over at Ianto, not Owen.
A bloodied Muncher appears from under the skiff-top.
He lunges for Jax, baring sharpened teeth -Jax spins and draws, fires into his belly as Rhys and Martha both fire at the same time. The freak takes too long to go down, but down he goes. Dies sitting against a box.
Everybody takes a moment to look at each other.
"all here? What's going on?" Mickey is still up on the flight deck, unaware of the commotion below, "Hello?"
"No casualties. Anybody following?" Martha replies as if there was never a problem.
"Nice flying, baby, and that's a negative. Clean getaway - Out of atmo in six minutes." Mickey grins as he flops on the chair.
"Set course for Beaumonde." Jax yells over Martha's shoulder down the coms and then turned to grin at the others, "First thing, I want these bod –"
Owen suddenly punches him in the face, causing Jax to stumble back, and Owen to shake his hand in pain. "You stupid, selfish, son of a whore"
"I'm a hair's breadth from riddling you with holes, Doctor" Jax warns as he feels his chin for damage.
"One simple job! he'll be fine!" Owen says in a drawl like Jax and he grins like it was amusing.
"He IS fine! Except for bein' still crazy, he's the picture of health!" Jax snorts.
"Wasn't for Ianto, we'd probably be left there. He felt 'em coming." Martha tells Owen.
"Never again. You understand me?" Owen demands as he shakily runs a hand through his hair.
"Seems I remember a talk about you giving orders on my boat." Jax warns half heartedly.
"Well sleep easy 'cause we're off your boat. Just as soon as Ianto gets his share of the "bounty"." Owen snarls as he pulls Ianto from his seat, the young man now inspecting a spent bullet casing with interest.
"Well let's not do anything hasty..." Toshiko says as she sees Owen means it this time.
"No, shiny! I'm sick a' carrying tourists anyhow. We'll be on Beaumonde in ten hours time, you can pick up your earnings and be on your merry. Meantime you do your job. Patch up my crew." Jax agrees.
A beat.
"He didn't lie down. They never lie down." Ianto is looking at the Muncher. Everyone does, for a moment.
.
.
.
.
Jax and Martha are walking a long corridor as they speak.
"No, I think things'll glide a deal smoother for us without Ianto and Owen on board... but how long do you think they'll last?" Martha asks as she slides a knife into her thigh pocket.
"Doc made his call. They's as babes in a basket when we took 'em in; we sheltered 'em plenty. Man has to cut loose, learn to stand on his own." Jax sniffs as he slaps an open door closed.
"Like that man back in town?" Martha asks as they stop by Jax's room.
"I had to shoot him. What the Munchers woulda done to him before they killed him..." Jax argues as he stops in front of his door.
"I know. That was a piece a' mercy. But before that, him begging us to bring him along..." Martha sighs.
"We couldn't take the weight." Jax slumps against the door, "Woulda slowed us down."
"You know that for certain" she challenges.
"Mule won't run with five. I shoulda dumped the boy? Or you? Or Rhys?" he asks, hen pauses, "Well, Rhys..."
"Coulda tossed the payload."Martha folds her arms and he resists the urge to grin at her.
"And go to Andy and Pandy with air in our mitts, tell 'em "here's your share"? They'd set the dogs on us in the space of a twitch, and there we are back in mortal peril. We get a job, we gotta vo make good."
Mickey enters from the bridge.
"Sir, I don't disagree on any particular point, it's just... in the time of war, we woulda never left a man stranded." Martha dinally says and Jax grimaces.
"Maybe that's why we lost."
She's not happy with the reply. Jax climbs down to his room as Mickey reaches Martha, slides his arms around her.
Once alone, Jax lets his own disappointment show. He pulls off his holster and drops it over a chair. Kicks the toilet closed and sits on his bunk.
The place resembles a submarine cabin, with charts and clutter, ancient maps on the walls.
Jax moves a bunch of papers off his bunk and a picture slides out. Hits the floor.
Jax stares at it and sighs as he remembers the day it was handed to him.
.
.
.
He holds it in his hand as a beautiful woman who looks at him with amused exasperation. Behind her is an opulently dressed little shuttle.
"Toshiko, are you ever gonna put that capture down?" Rose laughs as she watches Toshiko pull it from Jax's hand to place back up on the board.
"We gotta have records of everything. A bona fide Companion entertained clients on this very ship! In this very bed!" Toshiko gushed.
Rose wanders over to the bed - which Ianto is bending over and sniffing curiously. Rose is packing things up.
"For one sweet second, we was almost classy." Toshiko sighs as she watched her friend pack to leave.
"You promised to help me pack." Rose laughs as she wrestles a bottle of perfume away from Ianto's clever fingers.
"Honest, Rose, why do you have to leave?" Toshiko whines.
Rose shoots an uncertain look at Jax - and the picture freezes, once more the one in his hand.
During all this, Jax has picked it up. He looks at it a moment, tosses it aside. Looks around at nothing much.
.
.
.
.
"I do not get it. How's a guy get so wrong?" Rhys asks.
The doors in the floor slide open, a second set below.
Toshiko is opening the doors with a keypad on a cable. Rhys drags the corpse closer to the doors as he continues "Ain't logical. Cuttin' on his own face, rapin' and murdering – I mean, I'll kill a man in a fair fight... or if I think he's gonna start a fair fight, or if he bothers me, or if there's a woman, or I'm gettin' paid - mostly only when I'm gettin' paid. But these Munchers... last ten years they just show up like the boageyman from stories. Eating people alive? Where does that get fun?"
He dumps the body in, she starts the doors closing.
"Doctor said they was men that reached the edge of space. Saw a vasty nothingness and just went bibbledy over it." She says.
"Hell, I been to the edge. Just looked like more space." Rhys frowns.
"I don't know. People get awful lonely in the black. Like to get addled ourselves, we stay on this boat much longer. Captain'll drive us all off, one by one." Toshiko says softly.
"You're just in a whinge cuz that prissy doc is finally disembarking. Me I says good riddance. He never belonged here, and his brother's no saner than one of them Munchers." Rhys scoffs.
"That ain't even so! Ianto's a dear heart and a boon to this crew! You just don't like him 'cause he can read your mind and everything you think is mean." Toshiko mutters as she turns away to hide her upset from him.
"Well, there is that." Rhys frowns as he agrees.
"Him and Owen could have a place here. Now they're leaving us." Toshiko throws the wrench she is carrying down making it clang loudly, "Just like Doctor."
She looks up toward one of the shuttles. "Just like Rose..."