by

Yanick Champoux (38%)

Lee Watts (18%)

Josip Nað (17%)

Michel Lacombe (16%)

Dorian (4%)

goldkngt55 (3%)

Andrew Avila (2%)

Marten (1%)

Oliver (1%)

Part 33

Josip Nað (15/2/2002)

“Why not?” insisted Demuel. “After all, we’ll be on this barge for weeks. She’d come in handy for keeping the boredom away.”

“Look at her, Dem!” Maddie replied. “She’s a cold bi...”

“Excuse me, Miss.” Gwen’s voice interrupted the heated debate. “I said: Do you have anything to claim at this time?”

“One more try, OK?” snapped Demuel.

“I have nothing to claim at this time.” spoke Demuel, without waiting for Maddie’s answer, twisting her lips in a seductive smile as he did so.

“But...” he continued “...maybe later...”

Gwen’s smile was still pasted to her lips, but now her eyes were looking at Maddie as if she were some particularly repulsive animal that had just defecated on the floor.

“If you have something to claim at a later time...” and here her voice became as soothing as liquid nitrogen “please report it to the claims office, Level 3, Room 125.” Still reeling from the unexpected rebuttal, Demuel hardly noticed the stewardess’ next words.

“Please move along Miss, you’re holding up the line.”

“Told you she’s a cold bitch.” Maddie snickered as she moved them aside, waiting for Byran and Ben to hand over their tickets. A minute later they joined them.

“Crash and burn, eh Dem?” Byran said, rubbing it in. After all, misery loves company.

“Oh, shut up.”

Jacked into the ship’s security systems, lounging in bed, Skull watched the odd duo that held his nephew prisoner. He could have watched them using the various scanning devices implanted in his body, but that was becoming too much of a strain. There was a time when he could have used all the machine do-jiggies at the same time, running them all at full power without breaking a proverbial sweat. These days, he had to be more careful. First that job at Vera Cruz, then blowing up the Baboon, followed by the fight at spaceport and the trip. Not to mention that he had had to hack into the ship’s think machines to assign himself the room next door to his nephew. In and of themselves, none of these jobs were particularly difficult. Taken on one after the other, with almost no time to rest in between, they were taxing even for him. His body was full of weird, wacky and wonderful machines, and what was left organic was heavily modified with gengineered bacteria, stuffed with steroids and enhanced by tissue grafts. But, the structure that held all those enhancements and modifications together was still the one he was issued at his birth. Without it and its organic enhancements, the machine parts were so much scrap metal. And, to his chagrin, that structure was beginning to show signs of wear and tear. He was not young anymore, and the enhancement therapies were having less and less effect. Sooner or later, Skull knew, he’d have to make up his mind. Retire, or commit what the Church would describe as the ultimate sin; transfer his mind in a completely mechanical body. In the meantime, he had to conserve his strength. He was still more than capable of short bursts of superhuman power, but now those bursts had to be separated by periods of rest. Without rest, he might very well find himself in the thoroughly embarrassing situation of needing all his powers and not being able to lift a finger.

SMACK!

The cuff that echoed through Skull’s head had not been directed at him. But the savant think machine embedded in his head had executed its instructions a bit too literally. Monitoring the security feed while Skull was brooding over his old age, the idiot computer had been instructed to give him an exact representation of any significant event that happened to his nephew. So, when that drunkard pilot decided to cuff his nephew over the back of the head, the thrice-damned think machine matched the pilot’s performance with a flurry of neural impulses designed to match the neural inputs that a cuff over the back of Skull’s head would cause. In short, Skull had just been boxed around the ears by his own computer. Which did nothing to improve his already sour temper.

His face twisted in a snarl of rage, Skull leaped from his bed, sending his think machine the shutdown code as he did so. Glaring balefully at the bulkhead that separated him from his nephew, Skull started towards the exit, determined to rip that asshole of a pilot to pieces. He was buck-naked; his hard, muscular body dotted with datajacks, firing ports, artificial tendons, access panels... He knew that if anyone saw him like that they would instantly see him for what he was. He didn’t care. He could and he would kill anyone who dared to stand in his way.

Then he stopped. Took a deep breath. Turned on the think machine again, changing its orders and mentally berating himself for giving them in the first place. And then he replayed the last few seconds of the security feed which had flashed before his eyes just as he was shutting down the computer.

There it was, in all its glory. The pilot cuffing his nephew, shoving him away from the viewport he himself wanted to look at. And then the woman, who had just exited the bathroom, telling him to leave the boy alone!

The pilot made some angry noises after that, but the woman just looked at him and said: “Byran, don’t make me whoop your ass.” His proverbial tail between his legs, the pilot retreated into a corner and took yet another swig from his flask, muttering about “unfairness of it all”, but that didn’t concern Skull in the least. The pilot was a nobody. A drunkard, a loser, no wonder the woman could stare him down so easily. But that woman. There was more to her than meets the eye, Skull was sure of it. She looked harmless enough. A beautiful thing, to be sure, but of no importance. Half the time she even behaved like it. But at other times, her behavior was very different. The way she talked, walked, held her head. The cautious glances she darted around. The constant tension of a coiled spring, ready to explode into a flurry of action. Not to mention the way she manhandled that priest. That was a lethal move if Skull had ever seen one, only changed into a mostly harmless one at the very last moment. Who was she? And why did that drunk of a pilot insist on calling her Maddie at one moment, and Dem or Demuel at the other? Skull didn’t know, but he intended to find out. At any other time he would have killed her out of hand. But now that she had showed compassion to his nephew, well, that might just have saved her life. Extended it at the very least.

“What’s the matter with Byran?” Maddie thought. “He didn’t have to be so rude. The poor kid was just looking through the viewport.”

“He’s drunk, Maddie.” replied Demuel. “He’s drunk because he has lost his ship. That old crate was all he had. No pilot...”

The doorbell interrupted Demuel’s train of thought. He turned them toward the door. Before they could take a single stride towards them, the bell rang again. And again. And again.

“Looks like somebody’s impatient.” Demuel sneered just before they opened.

The door revealed a young man, of Ben’s age, dressed in a glittery uniform of a ship’s officer. Beside his Ensign’s insignias, the most prominent thing on the uniform was the Hazat Claw. His eyes stuck to Maddie’s body like glued.

“Uh...ahm...Madam..I...” he stammered, blushing to the roots of his hair.

“Yes, Ensign?” replied Maddie.

“Uh...I was informed that Ben... a friend of mine was in this cabin.” the Hazat replied, this time less confusedly.

Before Maddie or Demuel could say anything, Byran shouted from the back of the room.

“Ben!? We do’t have no Ben! But we have Toast! Wanna see ‘im?”

Startled from his confusion by Byran’s voice, the young noble finally tore his eyes from Maddie and focused them at the back of the room, where he saw Byran and Ben. Both were grinning inanely.

Maddie forgotten for the moment, the young noble shoved past her and rushed to embrace Ben.

“Ben! Mi amigo! You haven’t changed a bit!”

The young Hazat was a credit to his house. It didn’t take long for him to realize that something was wrong with his friend.

“Ben? What’s the matter? Don’t you recognize me? It’s me, Pedro! Say something!”

“Aaaaaaggggaaaa?” was the none-too-intelligent reply.

The young Hazat whirled around to face Maddie, who had moved to stand behind him.

“What is going on here?” the Hazat snapped. “Why doesn’t my friend recognize me?”

“Who’s asking?” Demuel replied, putting just a hint of threat in Maddie’s voice.

Wrong move. Say what you will about Hazat intelligence, you can’t deny that they’re brave bastards, raised from the crib onwards to show no fear, to face any challenge. The transformation was immediate, and very obvious. The clumsy, slightly befuddled young ensign was gone within seconds. In his place stood a proud, tall, arrogant young noble, his shield engaged, his hand already reaching for the rapier that swayed from his hip.

“I am Don Pedro Diego Linares.” the noble snarled “Knight de Hazat, Ensign of the Hazat Fleet. Who are you, and what have you done to Ben!?”