Bebop Blues
Chapter 23: Clutch
The flight back to the Mezzo would be a long one.
And silence only did Faye so well for so long.
She dialed out.
"Wasn't expecting you to call." Roy's voice was smoother than she remembered.
"You know Laughing Bull?" Faye asked. She didn't call for a conversation; she called for answers.
"I do."
"What's the deal with guardian stars?"
He suddenly looked worried. "What did he say?"
It bothered Faye to see this enigma so mundanely. He had been some strange satellite in the lives of the crew for so long and now he seemed so accessible.
It unnerved her.
"He told me something about my guardian star, but he didn't get a chance to finish. Mai cut him off."
He grew solemn. "She's a lot more protective of you than I thought."
"What does it mean?"
He sighed. "When a creature's guardian star dies, that creature dies."
"In other words, if that star that protects me dies, I'm done for?"
"Yeah."
Faye looked thoughtful a moment. "Then what's a polar star?"
Roy blinked at her. "A polar star? As in a soul mate?"
Her eyes went wide. "That's what that is?"
"You have both?" he asked. "That's very rare and very lucky."
"Is Mai my guardian?"
He grew silently thoughftul. "I would say yes."
"I see."
Mai cutting off Laughing Bull was an omen, then, and the feeling in Faye's gut may not have been unwarranted. "So, I'm supposed to die, then?" she asked matter-of-factly.
"Suppose so."
She mulled the idea over. "Well, I just can't agree to that."
Roy chuckled a bit. "That's what she said when he gave her his prediction."
Faye grew silent at that. "So that's what he meant about the great spirit."
"Yeah."
"She has a guardian star?"
"She doesn't. She just has a polar star, but Laughing Bull sees other things in her life."
"I see."
"You want the truth?"
Faye raised an eyebrow. "Is that a trick question."
He laughed and proceeded with his statement. "She was supposed to die on Mars two years ago. She changed her fate."
More pieces falling into place, more questions birthed from new answers.
"I was there," Faye answered. "I was bait for Spike."
"I know. He was still hung up on Julia."
Faye twitched. "He still is."
"Is he? He doesn't talk like it." Roy's eyes twinkled mischievously.
"Well, I was roped in for no-"
"-other reason than the fact you were in Dad's opera box as an advocate for Spike."
"You call him dad?" She was dodging the implication.
"He was my father-in-law, and I respected him a great deal."
They shared a brief moment of silence.
"What were you and Mai doing there?" she finally asked.
He chuckled melancholically. "I told you. We were changing her fate."
"I don't get it."
"That trap was meant for Mai. Spike's appearance was random happenstance." His eyes glimmered as though he were proud.
Faye wasn't stupid; the man was a better hacker than Ed. "You put the bounty on Mao to lure Spike out of the woodwork." She leaned back and crossed her arms. "You sneaky bastard."
"You caught me."
Faye was suddenly irate. "You could have gotten us killed!"
"It wasn't his time to die, or yours, for that matter."
"How do you know that? He's so willing to just toss his life away that he could have-"
"He couldn't have died without killing Vicious."
"Don't you mean without finding Julia?"
"Don't you mean you're jealous?"
She would have slapped him. It was apparent that the Lunkhead gene ran in the family, and she suddenly wished she had called Mai instead of Roy for answers.
But calling Mai would have meant emotions bubbling and confusing her, and answers would have been riddled with enigmatic reasoning.
"Why did you really call me, Faye?" Roy asked sensing her discomfort.
She thought of her words carefully. In the end, her thinking meant nothing as her questions erupted. "Why did you abandon her? Leave her at some hospital with a different name? Leave her bedside while she healed? Force her to spend years hanging on to you without ever finding you? You say you have motives, but you're just as bad as Spike: no reasons behind your actions. It's all so fucked up."
"It's pretty parallel to you, isn't it?" he asked.
"Answer the damn question. If I wanted an answer like that, I would have called Mai."
"And who's to say I don't answer in riddles?"
"The woman who's been sleeping with your wife."
Low blow.
But Faye never played fair.
He seemed unaffected. "I have my reasons, or you can damn well bet I would have been by her side every second of those years. Us Spiegels have a reason behind everything, even if that reason is just impulse."
"I've yet to hear them, so I'll assume you're lying."
"Would Mai love me if I was a liar?"
"She'd love you no matter what."
That answer came out too quick, as though the words spilling forth brought realization and pain. The words felt like needles, picking at Faye in ways she couldn't feel.
She had caught up to the group now, and she felt a need to stop the conversation.
It left a sour taste in her mouth.
"Faye, I love her more than can ever be said."
"Well, you have a fine way of proving it."
She wanted to tell him off some more, but out of the black abyss that surrounded them, a plasma beam hit the edge of the Red Tail.
"The hell?" Faye screamed.
It nicked the top of the cockpit, but it was strong enough to slam her ship off-course.
"We've got company!" Mai's face on the vidcom was lit with excitement.
The woman lived for battle.
A true Syndicate daughter.
Faye spun to face the onslaught.
The Mezzo was still too far.
Faye wasn't sure she had the gas for this excursion.
She didn't have time to think this over, though, as several zip-crafts, silver snakes emblazoned, zoomed towards them, plasma shots and gunshots firing haphazardly.
"Jet! Bring the Mezzo to us!" Mai yelled.
"I'm working on it!" His voice was agitated; he seemed distracted by some other dilemma.
As the Spiegels and Faye turned and twisted to shoot and dodge, the Mezzo came into view.
They realized the source of Jet's dismay instantly; a large crack was running along the dome.
It could give at anytime.
"My ship!" Mai screamed.
"Our ship," Roy corrected.
"Children," Spike smirked.
Faye rolled her eyes.
"Had a bit of a run-in with Victor," Jet clarified. "If Rose hadn't been tailing him in the Hammerhead, he would have broken the whole thing."
"You saw Rose?" Mai asked. She was twirling through space with ease as she took down zip crafts one by one.
Spike and Roy were competing for alpha male, it seemed, each outdoing the other in class and number.
"She said she still had to avenge Jacobs."
"Who's Old Man Jacobs?" Faye finally asked. She was having less luck with her group. The Red Tail would be in need of repair when all was said and done.
"Her father: Jacob Santiago." Mai answered, pulling the Blues in front of the Red Tail to assist Faye.
"Jacob Santiago?" Spike questioned.
Every Red Dragon knew him; he was Mao's most trusted guard.
"You think a Spanish lovely like Rose was enlisted into the Syndicate on her own? She was bred to be a killer," Mai answered, zip crafts stopping in front of her as she riddled them with ammunition.
"Where does Victor keep finding these people?" Faye asked in exasperation. The zip crafts kept appearing; the numbers weren't dwindling.
"These ones aren't people," Roy answered, his EMP shot disabling the group of seven before him.
"Drones," Spike finished, rounding of his eight with a plasma cannon. "That's fifteen."
"Seventeen," Roy quipped.
"Twenty-two, boys. Keep your pants on," Mai finished.
Faye wasn't even keeping track; she was just scraping to survive.
Jet had fired shots from the Mezzo, but the ricochet was enough to worsen the crack in the dome.
Titan was within sight.
"Jet, head to Titan! The Mezzo won't last much longer if you keep that up, and the back-up seal will only hold long enough to evacuate the ship!" Mai instructed.
"Already on it," Jet replied.
There were thirty drones left.
Faye was out of fuel.
"Jet! Get me first!" she commanded. "I'm out of-!"
But a plasma beam cut off her next sentence. Her ship rocked back and forth, her video feed curling in and out of static.
"Faye!" Mai screamed.
Her ship was a dead fish in water. The plasma beam blew out the controls. Only her com was available. "I'm fine, but what the hell?" she finally confirmed. The shock had given her whiplash, and she knew she'd be feeling it in the morning.
"I see you're better bait than the Dragon," a voice snarled over their coms.
"'Bout time you show up, you snake," Mai hissed.
His face appeared over the video feed. "Roy, it's time you stop running, you bastard."
Roy smirked. "I'm not running, Vickie."
Victor frowned. "Petty name calling..." He took another blast from his hidden location.
Faye's ship was already out of commission, and he was trying to bring her out of it, too.
A shield shot from the Rhythm to expand around the Red Tail and the plasma beam ricocheted into nothing.
"Your damn tricks, Spiegel," Victor commented.
"This doesn't involve her," he answered.
"Edward to the rescue!" came the voice from their coms.
From the edge of Titan's horizon, the crew could see the old fishing lunker flying towards them. The Bebop was on its way.
"Edward is in Mezzo, but the Bebop will help!" She zoomed it towards Faye. "Faye-Faye! It will be okay!"
"Ed! Wait!" Mai yelled.
The Bebop halted.
Victor laughed. "Ah. So you know that trick, do you?"
"How else would you be able to get so many drones to us this far from Titan so quickly?" Mai huffed. "Roy, eleven o'clock!"
Bang.
The EMP blast shot towards the Bebop.
"Nooooooo!" Ed screamed dramatically.
It seemed to pause in mid-air as a ship the same size as the Mezzo, riddled with static and sparks, slowly came into view.
The silver snake on the side glared at them.
It was unmistakable.
"Blood money buy you that, too?" Mai snarled.
Red was bleeding into her vision.
"Watch it, Mai. That tank's no joke," Roy cooed.
Of course he would know; it was obvious he had been trailing Victor in some regard for a very long time.
The red kept trickling.
The Bebop veered around Victor's ship to scoop the Red Tail, and Victor chanced a shot at Faye again.
The Blues disappeared.
"Mai!" Roy screamed.
Victor's face fell as he realized the wrath he had invoked.
The crew watched in shock as something heavy hit the docking bay of Victor's ship. The invisible weight landed with enough force to rock the vessel.
The hatch to the bay flew open as drones poured out, seemingly on an automated sensor; the weight shifted forward through the door, and the rest of the team scrambled.
The Rhythm and Swordfish landed next, followed by the Bebop.
"Faye-Faye! Go save the day!" Ed yelled from the com as the Bebop halted within Victor's ship; the door of the bay slid shut behind it.
Faye, glock in hand, dashed from the hangar of the Bebop.
"Faye! I can't find Mai!" Roy yelled.
efore she could respond, a scream from somewhere ahead of them sounded, and they sprinted towards the source.
Spike was the first one there.
Various gunmen were already incapacitated as they watched Mai lift one from the floor. "You'll tell me where he is, or you'll meet a deserved ending," she huffed almost inaudibly.
Roy's expression went from concerned to disbelieving instantly. Mai had lost it on more than one occasion due to Faye, but this time was different.
Even Spike and Faye could sense it.
She was out for Victor's blood.
For some reason, he boiled her veins, electrified her nerves, blinded her vision: pushed her to some edge she hadn't yet crossed.
"Mai, you need to calm down..." Roy reasoned.
The tenseness in his shoulders and the ease of his steps made Faye believe he knew Mai's motivations.
"Mai, I'm fine," Faye tried. Her voice gave her away.
Spike took three quick strides to her and leaned to her ear. He told her something that couldn't be heard by Faye or Roy.
Whatever he whispered snapped her back, and she turned to the group almost ashamedly.
Roy was shooting Spike the dirtiest look Faye had ever seen, but Spike seemed oblivious.
"D-d-down the hall..." a man on the floor managed to stutter.
He had pissed himself.
"Good," Faye finished.
None of the Spiegels were moving, and Faye was anxious to get the job done.
She needed a drink.
Screw that.
She needed a bottle.
Or maybe three.
She started down the hall, and Mai followed almost trance-like.
Spike and Roy were not too far behind them.
They reached the door, and each cocked their respective firearms, unsure of the scene that would lay before them.
The door slid, and Mai, followed by the remainder of the crew, ran in.
"Ah. We haven't been in this predicament in a while, Miss Dragon. Tell me, how's that wound healing? I bet the scar is a nasty one."
Mai's grip on her glock tightened.
Victor was standing at the edge of the console room, his sword firmly at the ready. His blue eyes pierced Mai's brown ones as he focused on her solely.
Roy grit his teeth in response to Victor's words.
Faye's grip tightened around her gun.
Spike stood placid.
"It is, you bastard," she answered.
He threw his head back and let out a deep cackle. "Perhaps it will teach you a lesson about choosing your enemies wisely."
She took a shot.
He was running towards them.
Both Roy and Spike managed to stop his arm from swinging.
"You're going to let them fight your battles?" he grinned; his teeth glinted ominously.
Mai's eyes went wide, but Faye saw it first.
"Get the hell out! It's going to self-destruct!" Faye screamed.
Roy and Spike attempted shots at Victor, but he had slipped out of jacket and down the opposite hall.
"That bastard!" Mai screamed.
Faye grabbed her wrist. "No time."
They dashed back to the hangar, the women leading the way as the men ran behind them.
And that's when Spike saw it. As they crossed the threshold to the hangar, he knew they wouldn't make it out in time.
Victor's men had placed proximity charges throughout the ship.
Faye and Mai were directly in the line of fire.
He dove to them.
Darkness.
