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Junebug nodded and downed the last of her coffee, wincing at the bitterness of the cheap brew she had collected on Fornax. Over the years she had performed hundreds of briefings, some informal around tables like these, other times crouched in a circle of watchful armored vehicles. This was a different beast though more akin to a planning group in which she had usually participated only as a junior partner.

"That is good news," she agreed, "but it still leaves us with the problem of actually lifting to orbit." She touched a control on a wall panel and a schematic of the Highlander flashed into view. Three of the eight reticulated thrusters were in green with an other in a dark yellow, the remaining for were in red.

"We need to repair the thrusters but we cant do that while they are submerged in water," she went on rolling a vernier control to draw back to a view of the small embayment in which the ship floated.

"Building a retaining dam around the ship is still the best bet and we can use the centrifugal pumps to drain it."

"The problem is that our native friends," - now that Zalli might understand she refrained from using 'indig' or 'yokels' or some other derogatory term - "Aren't likely to leave us alone long enough for us to finish the project."

"Wetumpkah, or whoever won that little fracas at the games yesterday, isn't likely to leave us alone." Zalli, who had been gazing dreamily at the projection screen, which to be fair must seem like magic, started at Wetumpkah's name. Taya lay a hand on the girls arm calmingly.

"So we either need to come up with a plan to neutralize them, or better yet convince them to help with the dam." Although it was true that the crew could complete the work themselves, it would take days, maybe weeks with just the four of them. A rain of spears from the forest would add to that time considerably of course. There were other options of course. In Junebugs minds eye rock flashed into white gouts of flame as she raked the ziggurat with cyan jets of plasma. Huts burst into flames as the locals fled in terror into the woodlands to escape the hell light firestorm. SHe blinked her eyes suddenly snapping back to the real world and aware that others had been speaking while she zoned out.

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"Well I mean, they're sa-" he began, before he saw Quetzalli looking at him curiously. His 'savages' veered course "-aaaaaaaadly without our weaponry. We have a small armory, right? We can plant mines, they'd probably run away in fear of..." He squinted, and then looked to Quetzalli. He pointed at her and nodded. "We can distract them. Not by sacrificing any of us, but what if we proved we were gods?"

Neil was thinking on his feet. "Quetzalli can show one of us the way back, and when we get back we rig one of the ziggurats with as much explosives as we have. Even if we can't topple one we can wreck it. We announce we're to be obeyed. If they don't listen, then we simply press the button and send on of their temples crumbling. I can do it." He nodded to himself as he spoke. "Taya, you might not be as familiar an engineer as I am, but you can at least handle thrusters. Junebug can guard the ship after she and I rig the charges, and I can head in with Quetzalli and play the part."

"I calculate that has a 21.948% chance of succeeding sir."

Neil blinked and looked up. "Lonney, what are you doing awake?"

"We wanted to see if he still worked." Taya said with a guilty smile. Neil continued with "Zalli can teach me at least a phrase in the language. Enough to shout I am to be obeyed or something."

"I teech, yes." Zalli said, her voice heavily accented yet still sultry enough to have him side eyeing her yet again.
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Junebug narrowed her eyes speculatively. It wasn't a completely crazy notion, their big advantage was their tech and the locals apparent supernatural awe of them. Even if Wetumpkah was willing to risk their 'wrath' for personal reasons, it was highly doubtful the rank and file would be so bold.

"Alright," she said, zooming the map display out and panning across to the area the village was located in. Despite the fairly significant size of the structures the thick jungle had obscured them completely from the Highlanders optics during the landing approach. Now that she knew what she was looking for though she could roughly place the native settlement on the map. She tapped a finger to her lips in thought.

"Taya think you can set up a repeating station to patch a signal through from here to the village?" she asked. The girl started clearly surpised to be included in the planning. The girl had technical skills, particularly with comms and data but it went deeper than that. As an officer Junebug knew that the morale of her team was important and Taya had been having a rough go of it and she needed a win.

"Uh sure, I could set up a laser link to any one of those hilltops if you have the equipment on board, and then use a radio transmitter from there, because their is too much foliage for laser or microwave."

"Good we can use radio detonators."

"Ok, lets split up Taya get what you need for the comm links, Ill leave you to love birds to discuss theology or whatever and I'll prep the pyrotechnics."

"We have about 9 hours to local nightfall, which will be our go time," she concluded. They all nodded agreement and stood up to attend their own portions of the task.

"Birds?" Zalli asked in confusion as Neil lead her from the room.

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Neil was surprised to say the least when Junebug accepted his plan. Back when he was fighting the Valk war for the Ordo Sanctus on Fortus, he was usually seen as the guy who made stuff up on the fly if he ever made any plans at all. The Ordo Sanctus quickly learned this crack pilot was better to be unleashed on the enemy rather than controlled, or at the least used as a convenient distraction as they attempted to enact their own plans.

"Birds?" Zalli asked in confusion as Neil lead her from the room. He escorted her through the main corridor, past the engineering bay. His hand on the small of her back until he gave her a demonstration. "Yeah, birds. Like..." He placed the bottom of his two palms together and flapped his fingers to simulate a bird gliding around. He saw the realization dawn on her, and she nodded before Zalli asked the next question.

"Love?"

"O-ohkay. Let's talk about that some other time." He said hurriedly, pulling her forward. She gave a squeal of surprise that turned him on instantly, but he shoved those notions aside. Junebug would utterly kill him if he spent this entire time having fun instead of preparing. Plus he had almost as big of an urge piloting the Highlander again. Reluctantly, there'd be plenty of time to 'doing it like they do on the discovery channel' (an old terran saying) once they were in space.

"I have never had to be this restrained around someone who wanted to sleep with me." He muttured, and escorted her into his comfortably large (relatively) chambers, pulling up a chair for her to sit on. She tilted her head, and he said "sit." She nodded and did so, showing she at least understood that word. He pulled up a chair too and sat across from her. Even in the jumpsuit she had a voluptuous figure, her hips and thighs even more pronounced as she crossed her legs.

"Ok so-" he began, taking on the deeper voice of a teacher. "Do you...understand me right now?"

"I..." she began, squinting. He continued, pointing at her when he said 'you' as he repeated the statement, then he pointed at himself when he said 'me.' Her lips parted, and she nodded her head enthusiastically. "Oh good." He said. "Ok so, can 'you' say 'obey' in your language?"

"O...bay?"

"Yes."

"I...like this word. Obay" she said slowly, and Neil had the distinct impression she did not know what it meant, and it only felt aesthetically pleasing to the tongue. He could understand. When others weren't around he'd repeat a word he liked saying until it lost all meaning.

"Gods" he said, gesturing to the sky, and then he hopped up on his chair and pointed downward at the Xarconian steel floor, as he if he was giving stern judgement. "Obey!"

"..."

Within 10 minutes, he knew this was getting nowhere, and he went to find the REM system because she had a nap to take.



While the common word armistace did not mean anything to the tribesman, those that had survived the chaos of the previous day had decided to halt hostilities at the moment for their well being. Wetumpkah had indeed lived (with the loss of his right eye), as had one other Shaman known as Torlati. He was a bit younger than Wetumpkah, previously a warrior who had received a vision from the stars ten years ago, becoming the Shaman of his tribe.

The two had absorbed what was left of the other two tribes into their ranks, having made a small alliance mid battle to preserve their survival, and even now Wetumpkah spread vicious secrets into Torlati's ears within the central Ziggurat, telling him great treasures and even salvation would be had if they could spill the secrets of the sky from one of the starmen, or even take their sky chariot. Torlati was not so keen at first, for he revered the Starmen as Gods. But slowly, he began to contemplate Wetumpkah's plan...
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“Junebug, do you have any family?” Taya’s voice sounded in her ear. Sweating profusely in the hot afternoon sun, Sayeeda lifted the rivet gun attached to her breastplate, pressed it against the rock face and pulled the trigger. The gun fired the rivet into the volcanic stone with a satisfying cha-chunk sound. Letting the gun hang from its attachment point Junebug fed the length of polymer rope she was belayed with and snapped the carabiner like closure shut.

“Not really mission critical Taya,” she responded, pausing to let the rope take her weight and drink from the canteen on her webbing belt. At the moment she was halfway up the side of the volcano that the locals apparently worshiped. A hundred meters or so below her, on the highest point reachable by gun jeep Taya was keeping a look out. Junebug had made the assent using the rivets as improvised pinions. In normal operation the tool would have been used to hard bolt electrical or fiberoptic cabling to the hull, but any tool which could fire a two inch rivet into the hull of a starship would work just fine for a little improvised mountain climbing.

“Humor me,” the girl radioed back. Climbing another four or five meters she attached the next rivet and belayed herself to it. With her magnified helmet view she could see that the girl was doing as she was supposed to, sitting in the back of the gun jeep watching the sensor box for movement. Their objective was to place a half dozen bundled charges as close to the mouth of the volcano as was practical. With Loney’s helpful if annoying input Sayeeda had been able to convert a number of emergency countermeasure flares into improvised explosives that should be really damn impressive when the went off. She had bought Taya along because she really did need a look out and the girl was an ace at setting up the communications system they would need for this particular gambit. Neil, ordinarily her first choice, she had opted to leave behind to work on his speech with Zalli. She had the impression that progress was slow and had instructed Lonny to hit Neil with a sleep learning packet of Zil, the closest language to the database had to what the natives used, the very next time he took a nap.

“Fine, my parents and my brother and sister are back on BLANK, my homeworld,” she said, ascending another three meters before driving another rivet. It had been over five -or seven now that she thought about it - years since she had spoken to any of them.

“What do they do?” Taya pressed. Junebug judged that another ten or fifteen meters would bring her to a sufficient height and she continued to climb the rockface, carefully seeking out hand holds as she went. The view from up here was spectacular, she could see far out over the see of greenish blue jungle, the horizons slightly shimmery in the hot afternoon air.

“My father is a human resource manager for one of the big conglomerates and my mother is an anthropologist. My sister is a doctor and my brother is a lawyer… an advocate maybe you would say,” she went on, cursing viciously as a rock gave way beneath her hand but able to distribute the weight to the other three points of contact. Her lithe muscles bunched as she levered herself higher.

“Oh,” Taya responded disappointment clear over the radio link.

“Not what you were expecting?” Junebug asked. The HUD in her helmet marked her as within three meters of the site they had chosen for the first charge, she added two more rivets and attached her line to both points before taking a second spool of rope from her webbing and tying the end of it around a metal weight.

“Uhh, I guess I was expecting space pirates or something,” Taya admitted. Junebug attached the spool to one of the free rivets and tossed the weight out and away from her.

“Line away!” she called as she swung slightly outward on her safety rope. The polymer cord paid out of the spool with a soft whirring sound as the weight bounced down the slope. Far below she saw Taya scramble out of the jeep watching the rope coming down the mountain side towards her.

“Do you ever talk to them?” the girl persisted. Junebug was about to snap a rebuke but then thought of the girl, far from everyone she knew, with no certaininty if her family were alive or dead. Junebugs credits were on the later, either eaten by alien bug creatures or executed in the millitary coup detat that her fathers foolish gambit had made inevitable.

“No not really,” she replied somberly. Below her she saw Taya climb the few meters up the steeply sloped ground to where the improvised weight had lodged in an irregularity in the rocks. Pulling it free and flashing Junebug a thumbs up that she could only see due to the image magnifcation in her helmet she started back down towards the jeep.

“Why don’t you talk to them?” Taya went on. Junebug rolled her eyes wondering if this was some teenage preoccupation with family drama.

“I went home about five years after I signed on with the Armored, five months leave,” she explained, watching as the younger woman lifted a heavy satchel, packed with explosives from the gun jeep and attached the pack to the line.

“Hooked up,” Taya reported.

“Stand clear,” Junebug replied and hit the retrieval switch on the spool. The thing had an internal power supply and began to turn on its improvised mount drawing the cord back into itself. After a few seconds of picking up slack the cord went taught and it began to haul the pack up the side of the mountain. Uncertain how much power the thing had Junebug grabbed handfuls of the rope every so often, lifting the weight, not inconsiderable but hardly unmanageable, to take the strain of the motor.

“As you pointed out my family are fairly conventional people, they didn’t really understand who I was anymore,” she expounded. It had been a tough time, the other veterans had warned her it would be. After five years in the field she couldn’t relax amidst the peaceful surrounds of her homeworld, constantly looking for threats that weren't there, enduring hours of conversation about people she didn’t and couldn’t care about any more. One night, when she had been really drunk, her brother had found her foot locker which had been stenciled ‘Junebug Cykali’ and asked her how she had come by the sobriquet. She had used her helmet cam to show some panoramic views of foreign worlds she had visited before, but drunk and depressed she had called up the footage. They had all seen it. Watched from Sayeeda’s point of view as she rushed through the vast star ships. Watched as she had gunned down a half dozen federals who maybe were surrendering, not that she had time to figure that out before she pulled the trigger and stars, even if she had, what other choice did she have? They had seen her gun drunk, weapon jammed with the sludge of melted empty as she beat another adversary to death with the butt of the rifle. Seen Raya, the plump corporal of second squad, take a shell through a bulkhead splattering the camera with blood and brains. Seen her soldiers sitting among the dead laughing and smoking cigarettes. It was the same story she had told Neil but Neil had been a soldier, he had some context for what he was seeing. To her family it had been a stomach churning exhibition of what war really was. They had never looked at her the same way again. Oh they were polite, but she could read the disgust and the horror in their eyes.

“Junebug?” Sayeeda blinked back into focus and realised that the satchel of charges was snug up against the spool.

“You ok?” asked an anxious Taya. She must have spaced again. For a moment she was disoriented and it took her a few seconds to collect herself. That wasn’t good.

“Got it Taya,” she radioed back seizing the bag and drawing the first charge from the bag.

“I’m going to start planting, give me a radio check on each charge.” It was going to be one hell of a night.
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Neil had decided to take a well needed nap, glad they had a file for Zil on the REM langauge doc. It was honestly a trip once he fell asleep. He'd not used the device before, though he'd often thought about it. Never had the means or the occasion to attempt it. Most people he dealt with spoke common galactic, and if they didn't he had partners who could translate. But this gave him weird dreams he hardly remembered. Dreams of life in the jungle with a cacophony of images and visions of him flying over the ziggurats to land in the volcano, somehow knowing and believing he would be perfectly safe.

He woke up, letting out a groaning "man," as if he'd been hit by a log. He somehow felt even more tired than he had when he'd fallen asleep. There'd been stories he'd heard that one needed to get used to their mind being fed information subconsciously. He lifted his head up and placed his hands on his face. Somehow he felt odd. He knew he had learned a fair amount from his nap, enough to get by but... He'd need to talk to Quetzalli about it.

"Hello!"

Neil jerked and spun, his eyes wide and his dark hair disheveled. Quetzalli sat on a chair, hands on her legs and a fairy-like smile on her pretty face. She'd changed clothes, wearing camo cargo pants and a snug tanktop, though her feet were still bare and callused. Her thick dark hair was in a loose bun, though a native stick was between the bun to keep it in place.

"Is...hello not correct?"

"It is correct." He replied after some hesitation, a smile blossoming on his face. "How are you feeling?"

"Good," she said simply, excitement suddenly growing. Quetzalli was giddy she was having a conversation in his language, almost bouncing up and down. Neil couldn't help but be a bit giddy too. Her accent was still heavy, but she spoke almost as well as he did. "Obey is Cortala." She revealed, and gave a wink.

He pointed at her. "Rika-ti" he said with a flair, giving her thanks.

She squealed in delight. "Good, good good!" She cried in delight, and hopped off her chair and onto the bed, showering him in kisses. His arms practically flailed. "Ok ok we gotta do this first though!"



Thankfully they still had hours left, and Neil rendezvoused with Junebug at the appointed place, near the aqueduct exit they'd left only a day before, with Quetzalli in tow. The sun was still down, but they still couldn't waste a minute. "Everything work out ok? Neil asked, somewhat worried on Taya.
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It was amazing the difference proper equipment made. The previous visit to the aqueduct had been a panicked flight in awkward native garb. Now, clad in her armor and helmet and with her gear sealed in a waterproof carry bag, Junebug was keyed up and ready for action. Quetzalli crouched close beside her, the native woman’s eyes wide and enthusiastic as always. Junebug was not convinced that it was wise to bring the girl but a translator might be essential in the hours ahead. Carefully she scanned, the green and blue pastel landscape of the forest on infrared. It was surprising how easy it was to get used to being able to see in the dark and how subtlety disconcerting it was to lose that ability.

“All set,” Junebug declared, “Taya you sill reading me?”

“Yes… I mean copy you loud and clear Junebug,” the girl responded. Zalli jumped a little, unused to the the radio earpiece they had given her. It was a risk but given the odds against them she wanted everyone on the net. Taya was sitting in the gun jeep on a ridge, the highest point between the Highlander and the Village, about three clicks to the east. The girl had understandable concerns about the wildlife but Junebug had assured her that the odds of the predators attacking a tonne of unfamiliar smelling metals and plastics was low. Even if they tried it the motion detectors would give the girl plenty of time to cut loose with the flechette gun Junebug had given her. Taya would act as a final piece of backup if things got completely desperate. If they had to call the jeep in it meant things had gone so badly wrong they were not likely to be survivable.

“Well,” Junebug began, checking her mission clock on her helmets HUD, “Lets get too it.”

They moved through the aqueduct without incident, the passage much easier on the downward journey and with proper gear for lighting. The trio carefully emerged from the well to find the building empty. There was a smell of death in the air from outside and Junebug carefully peered out onto the field at the base of the ziggurat. Torches blazed every few feet and perhaps twenty five bodies were laid out on beds of some sort of local timber. Their eyes had been covered with flowers and a symbol had been carved into each of their bare chests.

“Bury for war men,” Zalli commented in her broken galactic, surprising Junebug. It wasn’t the strangest funerary rite she had seen. There were places they ritually ate the dead afterall. Most of the activity seemed to be on the west end of the village where a crowd was assembled around a massive bonfire, chanting and swaying. It was hard to make out on thermal but Junebug thought she could see a figure in front of the fire haurranging the crowd.

“Zalli stay here and keep out of sight, Neil you take the east side,” she told him unzipping her watertight bag and handing him a satchel of charges.

It took about fifteen minutes to place enough explosives to get the job done. In shape as she was Junebug was sweating when she rendevouz with Neil and Zalli at the well. Carefully she unfolded her plasma rifle and checked the sights.

“Alright Neil,” ill circle to the north and cover you.

“Good luck you two.”
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Neil had gone around to the east as instructed, somewhat giddy and excited that he got to handle explosives. He hadn't had the opportunity to blow something up in ages, and judging by how he believed the crowd would react it was a foregone conclusion that he would have to pull the trigger. A part of him felt somewhat sad that he was literally about to decimate what he guessed was a structure of cultural and religious significance, but he saw no other way and primed all the charges, making it back in time.

Neil saluted Junebug. "You too Captain." He said, and then pulled Quetzalli along with him once he had the trigger in hand. The native woman guided him to the opposite ziggurat. A smaller one, but still tall enough to be seen and heard with plenty of torches around. Thankfully Neil was used to moving without being seen, and Zalli could move nearly as stealthily. He'd need to ask later if she had been anything else but a servant girl. She didn't seem combat capable, but she knew how to move through the woods and knew the city well enough.

Down below, Neil saw Wetumpkah standing next to a larger Shaman, crying to the heavens and chanting. He held a stick in his hand that jittered with hollow noise as he shook it. Neil glanced to Zalli, who translated. "He say that you and the other star people are false gods." She said, waiting a moment as he continued to speak before she translated further. "Demons in starman form sent to trick us and turn the people against one another."

"Kind of ironic we're neither." He mouthed low enough to not be heard. He didn't exactly know what Quetzalli believed as of yet and now was not the time to have her question her world view. He cleared his throat, and leaped up onto one of the taller carved seats. "Hey!" he screamed, his voice cutting through the small river valley like a knife. He repeated it again, louder this time. At first only a few looked his way, as well as the lazy guards at post. But his second cry grabbed everyone's attention, and he could see Wetumpkah frantically pointing at him and calling for his head.

"He said-"

"Yeah I understood that much" He whispered, before standing tall and holding up his arms, trying to appear powerful. "Your behavior has angered us!" Neil cried out in what he hoped was coherent Zil. Zalli stood by him, though a step down and behind so as not to draw too much attention to herself. His words brought cries of protest and awe, so he continued. "In punishment, you are to follow our words, or see your village destroyed!"

A few of the villagers shrank back, though Wetumpkah laughed acidly. The aged shaman replied. "You have no power here. Your head will be my drink cup! Quetzalli shall be mine once more."

"Seize him!" Neil called. "Seize him or be damned!" The word for damned was judged, but he believed it worked in this situation. When the villagers looked uneasy, Neil called for obedience again. Seconds passed, and the pilot picked up a torch and tossed it down the stairs, chanting with what Zil he knew 'judged!' And he pressed the button behind his back.

A sudden earth shattering crack shook the valley in a rumble as fire and force beyond any the villagers had ever seen ripped into the lower base section of the ziggurat. The ancient structure swayed, and then its top plummeted inward as the structure fell into itself, toppling as stone cracked and roared across the plaza. Women screamed and men cried for mercy as it fell, and even a few guards were killed from the debris. Even Quetzalli gasped and gripped Neil's pant leg for comfort.
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Even at three hundred meters the explosion was impressive. A great cloud of dust flew skyward as the charges, placed according to Loney celtic advice, crumbled the ancient monolith. Junebug wondered what her mother would think of destroying an ancient and possibly unique structure. A tight grin tugged at the corner of her mouth. Whatever Ria Cassani Cykali thought of the destruction of architecture, she would doubtlessly be more upset at the though of the wholesale slaughter of the villagers, which was Junebug's next option.

"Well you don't see that everyday," Taya said over the net. Junebug frowned for a moment, there was no way that Taya could see the destruction from... ah, a red telltale on her HUD indicated that the girl was importing the view from Junebug's scope to the monitor in the Jeep. Sayeeda hadn't told her how to do that but evidently the former aristocrat was putting her time to good use.

"Keep the net clear Taya," Junebug said in gentle reproach. Reaching up she touched a toggle on her helmet changing the display from thermal to millimeter radar. Both views could cut through the pall of dust but the radar return, properly interpreted but her helmet AI, gave better fine detail than the blurs of pastel heat did. Peering through the scope she waited for the right moment.

___________________________________

The crowd of natives screamed in fear, others tore at their hair and still others fled. Several took uneasy steps towards Wetumpkah their faces an agony of indecision. Those closet to the pair of Shaman's were clearly harder and more loyal than their cohorts, the raised their weapons in bar of their fellows and Wetumpkah began to recover his confidence.

"They desecrate our shrines, destroy our homes and defile our women!" he roared, raising his arms to harangue the crowd once more.

"They are false Starmen! Cursed by Rakeeri!" The Holy man screamed spittle flying from his mouth so great was his rage.

"Kill them and avenge the fallen they stole from us!" The Shaman raised his stone axe and pointed it at Neil. Quetzalli stepped before the pilot her own arms raised.

"He is the chosen of Rakeeri!" The girl shouted, her voice surprisingly clear and carrying in the commotion. She seized Neil's hand and lifted it high for all to see, showing the strange tattoo to the crowd. The distant mountain top light with sudden scarlet fire as Junebug, listening to the conversation through the commo net, detonated the bundled flares they had placed there. The top of the mountain flickered with pale red flame.

"Rakeeri!" the girl shouted, dark eyes pale and triumphant! A second flicker of fire rolled from the mountain top and then a third as she raised both arms to the heavens. One of the villagers sank to her knees in the dirt, eyes fearful. Then a second and a third.

"No! NO! NO!" screetched Wetumpkah in desperation but it did no good. Within a few seconds only the two Shaman remained standing. The volcano exploded in light as Junebug detonated the remaining store of explosives simultaneously. Crying out the larger shaman threw himself into the dirt.

"You will not take her from me!" Wetumpkah screamed and before anyone could react hurled his axe at Neil. Without thinking Quetzalli through herself in font of Neil, the heavy stone axe sinking into her body with a sickening crunch and a scream of pain. Wetumpkah's chest exploded in a cyan flash as Junebug's plasma bolt caught him at the base of the breastbone. The Shaman was pitched several feet backwards by the blast that filled the night with a mist of blood and cooking meat.

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Junebug would hear Taya gasp in terror from the other side of the mic even as she felt the recoil of the shot that killed Wetumpkah. A hush fell over the crowd as they bowed, and though a few of them gazed upwards, many were too horror stricken from the explosions and the 'godly' power to dare move their heads. Wetumpkah hit the ground with a hard, wet slap. Dead.

Time seemed to slow for Neil as he saw the jerk of Quetzalli's body and her scream as she fell, the axe stuck in her abdomen. He suddenly felt a pain he'd not felt for many years coursing through his body. His head burning, his chest following suit accompanied with a tightened feeling. His muscles felt too weak to move, and his triumphant face was stricken with a numb horror as he watched. It was only on instinct that he moved, leaping down to catch her before she hit any hard stone.

The pilot with the ever grinning face who'd laugh before leaping into danger had disappeared. His mind went far back to Fortus during that faithful evening when the love of his life had been killed. Flashes of her pretty face and her workman's cap appeared before his very eyes. Her boyish attitude coupled with her girlish charm. A wrench in her hand and a strength to her character, before she would stick her tongue out his way in a teasing manner. He remembered their first kiss, and when he had fallen in love. He wanted to relive those.

Not a death. Not again.

He'd been too busy to entertain and understand how fond he was of Quetzalli, but even if that were not the case she had stuck by him and believed in him. What's more, if it wasn't for the color of her skin and hair, she almost looked like...her.

"No," he breathed, letting her lie on his lip and brushing some of her hair out of her face. "No, no no, come on. Don't you fuckin..." His breathing was as shallow as his hopes, and a chill ran up his spine as he looked down at where the axe was. The haft and axe blade were heavy, and he wished he could have removed it but it wasn't safe to.

"Hi-lo." She said softly, shuddering from the pain and reaching up to touch Neil's cheek, her eyes half closed. He wanted to talk to her and comfort her, but he was too busy checking the axe wound. A small glimmer of hope began to appear after he looked. The blade was embedded in her stomach, but not in a vital way. Thank God she had been wearing some of Sayeeda's armored clothes. If she didn't lose too much blood he could save her. "Sssshhh don't talk alright?" he said, cupping her cheek. "You insane woman."

"You saved my life," she said slowly, finding the words. "I saved yours."

He opened his comm to Junebug. "She's bleeding out. If we don't get her back to the ship soon..." Neil began, but he couldn't quite finish the rest in front of her. Instead he turned to the only Shaman still alive. "You! New Shaman!" He yelled, before he realized he was speaking Imperial and then repeated it in Zil, causing the Shaman to look up in awe and reverence. "You have blessing if you save her life!"
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Junebug was already running when Neil's comm reached her. She raced through the night towards the village, leaping rocks and boulders, weaving between trees. Eight hundred meters didn't seem like a long distance with a stabalized rifle, but covering the same distance at night in thick jungle was another matter. Soldiers died in battle and Junebug could accept that, had given orders that got her people killed in many times in fact, but Quetzalli was different. The girl hadn't voulnteered for combat, hadn't trained to kill, all she had done was to try and help strangers in need.

"No no no no," Taya whimpered over the comms. Another untrained civilian and that alone prevented Junebug from tearing a strip of her hide, even so her voice was not gentle when she replied, her high rank allowing her transmission to step on the girls.

"Taya get the jeep airborne and bring it into the village ASAP!" Junebug snapped as she leaped a small stream, rifle across her armored chest at high porte. For a moment she had a curious flashback to an assault course back in her officer orientation.

"I... Captain I don't think I can fly..." Junebug cut her off with a snarl.

"Lonney, take control of the Jeep and bring it in to Neil's coordinates," she snapped. Something caught her leg and she went down, instinctively she turned her momentum into a roll and regained her feet in a moment. Still six hundred meters to cover. Neil was saying something over the channel but it didn't seem to be directed at her.

"Capt'm It be miles outsidea ma normal..."

"Lonney I swear by the stars if you don't get that Jeep moving in the next three seconds, I'll have you locked into a Trakalian Opera voice for the rest of your operational life!" The AI didn't respond but Taya screamed over the comm and she heard the sound of the fans in the jeep spinning up.

Thirty second later the sound of the jeep coming up behind her was audible and she vectored it too her, running for the clearest approach. Lonney was eveidently taking her at the spirit of her command and crashing through the underbrush with little regard for the jeep beyond survival. When it reached her it was covered with broken limbs and trailing vines like a brides wedding gown. It slowed as it approached her and Junebug dived across the hood before pulling herself up over the splinter-shield and into the drivers seat. Taya clung on for dear life in the rear compartment both arms wrapped around the gun pintle and shaking violently. There was no time now to worry about the young woman and Lonney was already accelerating in the second it took Sayeeda to grasp the controls. With a flick of her wrist she shoved the throttle through the gates, cranking the fans well beyond anything remotely like safe operating speed. At full power the jeep had enough lift for a few meters of true flight and it lurched out of the trees like a stumbling horse. Junebug expertly feathered the fans to prevent an out and out smash when gravity caught up to them and then they were on a straight approach through what must have been a water course in the wet season. Dirt and gravel kicked up in a wide tail as she raced for the village.

The locals, those that hadn't already fled broke and ran in pewling terror as the Jeep howled out of the darkness like some primordial demon. Junebug set it down hard at the edge of the sports field, dust billowing up in a vast donought as the little vehicle bounced twice, scrubbing off momentum as the skirts gouged an inch deep trench in the hard packed earth. Without hesitating Sayeeda leaped from the still moving vehicle and sprinted the last few meters towards Neil and the stricken Quetzalli. Another figure, the Shaman who had been with Wetumpkah was running into one of the older huts at the base of the destroyed pyramid but there was no time to worry now.

Quetzalli was very pale and her breathing was shallow and ragged. Neil had her hands pressed around the axe buried in her stomach and blood slicked both of them. The girl's eyes fluttered open as Junebug slid to a stop on her knees tearing of one of her web pouches and upending it in the dirt. The small first aid kit was hopelessly inadequate to the task.

"Bug," the girl said, lifting a trembling finger to point at a nearby phosphoresent insect, not unlike a terran firefly although several times larger.

"Bug," she said again somehow managing to sound proud of herself despite the pain in her voice.

"Yeah yeah, now you are a fucking linguist," Junebug retorted as she pulled her knife from her belt and powered it on. With a few quick strokes she cut away the girls shirt, the fibre weave was good against blunt trauma but provided little protection against a truely modern cutting implement. It was immediately clear that though the weave had saved her life the situation was still pretty bad. Blood welled up around the axe blade and the pressing hands in rythimic pulses and had already stained her the top of her pants completely. Worse was the slight stink that Junebug new came from perforated intestines.

"Goddess damn it," she muttered more to herself as she grabbed an air powered infuser from the pile and shoved a plastic vial into the loading port.

"The Shaman went to get a blessing," Neil said. He sounded disconnected, like he was going into shock. Stars that was all she needed.

"Neil stay with me, move your hands, move your hands curse you," she said. With infinite reluctance Neil lifted his hands from Zalli's torn stomach. Sayeeda jabbed the infuser against her skin and pulled the trigger with a soft hiss of compressed air. Zalli screamed and twisted as Junebug fired the infuser again.

"Hold her!" Junebug snapped triggering the infuser again and again in a clock wise circuit around the gaping wound. Zalli began to calm as a combination of vasoconstrictive drugs and powerful local analgesics kicked in. The blood flow slowed noticeable though the grayish loops of intestines pressed against the axe blade. Zalli moaned something in her native tongue that Junebug couldn't translate and her eyes began to flutter.

"No, no, no!" Sayeeda cursed pulling a long adrenaline needle from her kit and measuring the appropriate number of fingers with one hand as her other hand gently shook Zalli by the chin, trying to keep her awake.

"Stay with us here," Junebug instructed and then with casual violence drove the needle down into the girls heart. Zalli bucked as though hit with an electrical shock crying out in pain. She wailed and tried to grab her stomach but Neil dutifully kept her hands pinned. They were going to have to take the axe out. There was no way she was going to make it to the auto-doc over rough terrain with that thing jouncing around and tearing her guts to ribbons.

"Neil I need you to pull the axe free and ill hit it with a sealant," she explained, loading another vial into the infuser and pulling the trigger once to clear the residue of the old charge.

"But... she will die," Neil said sounding perplexed. Junebug grabbed him by the shoulder and shook him violently.

"She's dead for sure if you don't!" she yelled. Neil nodded mechanically and gripped the axe handle just behind the head. His movements were languid and distant, like he couldn't quite believe what he was seeing.

"Pull!" he heaved the axe free with a horrible sucking sound that released a gush of blood and a few more slithering centimeters of intestines. The infuser fired like a spray can coating the area in a seal of pale liquid that hardened in moments into a sterile bioplastic film that sealed the blood and organs where they were.

"We need a stretcher or something to move her, find some poles," she commanded.

"Junebug." It took a moment for her to recognize Taya's voice but she relegated it to the background, a problem for another time.

"Junebug." This time more insistent. With a snarl on her lips she whipped her head around to see Taya standing a few feet away staring down at Zalli. Reluctantly she followed the young woman's eyes. Quetzalli was still, her eyes glassy and empty.

"She's gone," Taya stated numbly. Junebug laid a blood stained hand on Quetzalli's throat, smearing crimson across her dark skin as she searched for a pulse. Nothing. God Damn it. Her heart sank inside of her. God damn it.

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Torlati moved with the grace of a hunting cat, sprinting with his long legs toward the greatest ziggurat of the village. This was Wetumpkah's people, but as a rule, all Shaman's kept their 'Rock of the Rakeeri' upon their greatest alter, to be used in the most dire of need. Saving a mere servant woman's life would not have prohibited such an action, but the Star man had told him to. The Star Man would not lie to Torlati.

Neil saw the light fade from Quetzalli's eyes, and he allowed a few tears to stream down his face as he fell onto his ass, her fate now sealed. Even though he knew he'd feel a loss for a few weeks, he merely looked resigned, and to Junebug's eyes she would see him shrug, his smile gone but his face neutral. He'd been torn up because he had been through this before, but now he felt as if this was a tragedy that was doomed to repeat itself. "Let's get the hell off this planet."

A few of the villagers wept as well. Some of them knew Quetzalli from her time in the village, and others wept simply because the male and female Star men were torn up, and so they should be. If your God cries, would you not cry as well? Junebug and Neil would hear Taya softly weeping in the background as one warrior strode up, giving a bow. In his language, he offered to help bury her. Neil understood only most of what he said, but it was enough for him to nod.

That was when an even taller man appeared, pushing aside the warrior and kneeling before Quetzalli's body. There was a square stone in his hands, the marking on it a perfect mirror of the marking upon Neil's palm. He humbly asked to see Neil's 'god' hand, and Neil looked up at him.

"Its over" He said in Zil.

"Please," Torlati said insistently, and Neil reluctantly reached out to give him his hand. The man placed the rock upon his hand, both hand and rock were over the body of Quetzalli, and Torlati began to chant. Neil began to feel a budding heat in his hand, and for a moment he felt some of his energy being sucked out of himself and into the stone. Moments later, Torlati rubbed the stone over the wound of Quetzalli, and it began to stitch up almost mechanically, him chanting all the while. To Neil and Junebug's amazement, the stone grew smaller as it healed her body, until it was but the size of a pea.

He then plucked the last of it into her mouth, and placed both of his hands upon her breast. With a word of power Neil couldn't understand, he pressed downward.

Needless to say, Neil's jaw dropped when Quetzalli's eyes fluttered, and she looked around, holding her head and groaning as the shapely and very much alive woman sat up. Neil fell back, eyes as wide as saucers while his mouth turned into the smallest 'o,' unable to fully speak.

"I am...I live?" She asked in broken imperial.

"What in the fuck..." Neil breathed, choking up.
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Cynical by nature and experience, Junebug could only watch in shocked amazement as Quetzalli came to her feet. She looked a mess, blood soaking her trousers and breasts naked and gory where Junebug had hastily cut away her clothing. Reaching down with a curious expression she peeled away the spray seal that a moment ago had been holding in blood and intestines. The wound, or rather the lack of a wound as the flesh was now smooth, was incongrously clean compared with the rest of her. The adhesive had peeled away most of the clotted blood in an irregular oval shape.

"Inusha Rakeeri!" a hoarse voice shouted. Junebug turned to see the shaman and a dozen or so of the villagers. It was the Shaman that had shouted, finger outstretched towards Quetzalli. Instinctively Junebug, still kneeling and sitting back on her calves, pulled her rifle into her lap. But the action was unecessary in any case, it wasn't the prelude to an attachk.

"Inusha Rakeeri!" other citizens were taking up the chant, and still more were spilling from the huts and buildings where they had taken shelter from the tumult of a few minutes earlier. Quetzalli herself looked shocked as she stood quavering but within a few minutes the entire population was enthusiastically shouting the words.

"What does Inusha mean?" Taya asked quietly. Junebug looked up at her before absent mindedly rubbing her blood tacky hands on her combat pants and pushing herself to her feet.

"I have no idea." She felt burned out, all the tension and energy of the night had purged her of any emotion other than a bone deep weariness. As Junebug watched Quetzalli raised her arms in the air in the same ritual invocation that Wetumpkah had used. As one the crowd shouted out a strange phrase and fell to the ground in obeisance.

_________________________

Things moved quickly after that. It turned out that Inusha meant something close to beloved child. Quetzalli explained in her increasingly proficient Imperial that their was an ancient prophecy claiming that Rakeeri would raise his chosen child from the Land of Shadows as a mark of his favor. Whatever the case it seemed like, given the cataclysmic events and the death of Wetumpkah, humble good natured Quetzalli was now something close to a queen. Her first decree was that the villagers would help the Starmen build a shrine for their chariot, and so, at dawn the next day, a score of strong young men appeared before the metallic bulk of the Highlander. Junebug set them to work and by noon large timbers, shorn of their branches with the diamond tipped cutting saws the Highlander carried for cutting hull plate, began to float down river.

In the evenings elaborate feasts were provided by the village women and Quetzalli kept court there, entertaining the high ranking member of not only her tribe but other tribes as men arrived to witness the purported miracle. When she wasn't attending to the affairs of state, if such a grand term could be applied, she spent time with Neil. There was little that Junebug needed from the pilot while the dam was being built and she didn't press for details.

In spite of her initially optimistic outlook, it took a week to build a damn tight enough that Junebug felt comfortable turning on the pumps. The walls of timber faced with plastic sheeting did the job well and six hours later the Highlander sat, slightly canted in a meter or so of water, its hull resting on the sandy bottom of the eastuary. It seemed that the more time wen't past the more somber the normally ebulliant Quetzalli became and it wasn't exactly a surprise when, on the evening the last engine was put into what Neil somewhat hopefully termed 'working order', the girl appeared before her.

"What can I do for you?" she asked as she pulled her head from one of the engine ducts, wiping grease on her coveralls and pulling away the welders mask she had been wearing.

"Everything ok?" The girl nodded. She was attired in a much grander style now in a cloak similar to the feathery one Junebug had been given but in red and gold rather than blue.

"I can can not come with you when you return to heaven," Quetzalli said, her large eyes filling with tears as she spoke. Her Imperial was improving by leaps and bounds though her accent remained extremely thick to Junebugs ears. The merceneary paused in shock.

"What? Why?" she asked in genuine chagrin.

"Rakeeri choose me, my people, without me big war for Chinapochzli," she explained, shuddering slightly at what the words cost her. It made a certain amount of sense. The death of so many of the nobles at the Games had doubtlessly thrown the political situation in Chaos, if not for Wetumpkah rallying the tribes against the Highlander's crew, they would almost certainly have fallen to immediate civil war. Suddenly Quetzalli's decaying mood made sense, she must have known days ago that she faced this decision. Sayeeda was not a person to whom physical contact was easy but she reached out and took the girl's hands in her own.

"Are you sure. We will take you..." the girl shook her head in violent denial before Junebug could complete the sentence.

"Be duty so many people, very heavy," she explained, her Imperial breaking down slightly at such a complex concept but the meaning was clear enough. Quetzalli looked up at her with her big eyes filled with tears. Damn it the girl looked attractive even when she was crying. There was no justice.

"Do you think Neil stay with me?" she asked fearfully. A heavy weight settled across Junebug along with an icy clarity that she had often felt in the field. Neil might well be fond of the girl, perhaps even love her, but it seemed vanishingly unlikely that he would give up the chance to ever fly again. Quetzalli clearly read the answer in her eyes before Sayeeda could speak it and her gaze fell. Junebug squeezed her shoulder.

"You can ask him," she said simply and the girl nodded and enfolded her in a hug that she wasn't quite prepared for and then hurried away. What if Neil did prefer exile in tropical paradise to likey death in a blind RIP jump? Well that would be a problem to deal with when it arose.

"Stars what a mess," Junebug said to herself before turning and closing the access plate. The telltales lit up green. The Highlander was ready to fly.

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"Neil?" Quetzalli asked, poking her head into his quarters to find it empty. Her face fell, and she was running out of time. Well, not entirely. She had the full day but, she needed to talk to him soon. The suspense was something she did not enjoy. Her maturity had bloomed once the people began to look to her for guidance, but she felt the pressure somewhat, and inside she was still the wide-eyed and impatient woman she was when they had first met her.

After another ten minutes of searching, she made it to the bottom of the ship near the cargo bay. It was as quiet as Neil's room, and she nearly walked back up the stairs when she heard a humming from below. Looking down, she saw...no one. Yet the humming occurred again. She shimmied down the steps and asked for him. "Neil?" The words fell with no response, and a moment later she called for Neil, holding her hands to her mouth as she did so and yelling loudly.

She heard a jerk and a clang, Neil suddenly wheeling himself out from below the jeep he was fixing, taking his earbuds out. He saw Quetzalli standing there, beautiful and resplendent in her Queenly garb, and he grinned. "Hey there good looking." He said, still glad to see her alive every time they saw one another.

"I was...I..." She began, her smile suddenly disappearing as she became unsure of herself. The shapely woman began to wiggle, and Neil got up and went to her. "What? What's up?" He asked, actual concern on his face. He placed a hand on her shoulder and another on her waist. They hadn't explored anything of a relationship as of yet but...they spent time enough together to be familiar enough. She took a breath.

She decided to just be out with it.

"I want you to stay..." she said, placing her hands on his cheeks. "Could you?"

Neil stiffened and tried to speak, finding it very hard to say no to her right now. He had to admit he had thought about it. "I want to, for you and...I just..." He shook his head. "I belong in...heaven." The word sounded weird but, it was the one she would understand. She tried to hold in the emotion. "I will miss you." She said slowly, even with less of an accent. Neil blinked away tears. "I'll be back." He said.

"You will?" She asked, her tone changing immediately, excitement mounting.

"Yeah, definitely." He said, grinning.

She squealed and kissed him thoroughly, throwing her arms around him. His eyes were wide, but then he closed them and kissed her back. This time, there was nothing keeping them from one another...


5 hours later

"Ready to fire it up?" Neil roared over the comm, placing in a lift off algorithm of the display and placing his hands on the thrusters and the lift off switch. Taya skampered around, trying to find her seat in the ship that was still somewhat unfamiliar to her, and Neil had no idea where Junebug was. Outside, the villagers stood in a large crowd, eyes as wide as their smiles as they heard the thrum of the planetary engines.
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Chapter

“Ext-ra-ra-ra-ra….”

The universe fractured like wafer thin glass. The syllable dragged out multiplying into endless infinities. Sayeeda had the crystalline impression of infinite variations of herself making the same vocalization. It swelled in her mind like a chorus, the disparate notes melding and merging together into something so profoundly beautiful and transportative that, had the frozen instant allowed it, she would have wept.

“...ction,” she choked as the Highlander crashed back into the real universe, the heavenly choir coming apart like stained glass tumbling from a bombed out cathedral. The effects of entering and exiting the RIP on the human mind were unpredictable and ranged from the bizarre to the agonizing. Gripping the arm of her flight couch, Junebug thought that she prefer the pain. Her head buzzed with migraine precursors as she fumbled for the controls for the sensors. Beside her at what would be the navigators console, Taya Cho'lan wretched noisily. Even experienced starfarers never got used to the psyche shattering effect of travelling between universes, but, with practice, they learned to work through it.

“Beckett’s Node, eight million kilometers sunward,” Neil commented, his voice sounded drained but he was clearly functional, more functional than her anyway. The run had been a rough one. Lacking proper astrogation data due to their blind jump away from Fornax and their extended vacation in cryosleep, working their way back to civilization had been a challenge. Lonney, the ships AI and Neil had come up with a plan that involved microsampling the star fields from three separate but calculated jumps. The strategy had allowed the computer to triangulate a rough position for them on the star charts and to estimate the RIP currents well enough to make a longer jump at least theoretically survivable. It was all fun and games for Lonney of course, his silicon brain didn’t suffer the same nerve destroying shock that the repeated insertions and extractions inflicted on the crew.

Beckett’s Node was massive space station, the size of a small city, which orbited one of the moons of the gas giant creatively named GSC-26. The moon, if it had a name it wasn’t, mentioned in the star charts was apparently uninhabited. Judging but the string of small craft heading down to the surface though, uninhabited wasn’t the same thing as unvisited. Still more craft boosted too and from the nearby asteroid belt, servicing various small scale minion operations if Sayeeda was any judge. She felt tension that she hadn’t realised was carrying ease from her shoulder blades. Beckett’s Node was a nowhere station, far from any stars she had visited, but given the last few weeks, part of her had began to wonder if they would ever make it back to what she thought of as civilization.

“Unknown Freighter, This is Beckett Control, identify yourself,” a voice sounded from the communications board. A glowing green diode indicated that the freighter was being targeted with a laser communicator, probably from a relay station on one of the nearby asteroids which GSC-26 had gathered into a belt. It struck Sayeeda as unusually good security for such a minor world, but perhaps they had experienced trouble with pirates in the past.

“Control, this is independent Freighter Highlander, inbound from… Fornax,” she responded, stumbling over their point of origin. The uncharted world they had stumbled on had no name that she had been able to discover and so she had to default to the last world they had visited before that. Of course it was vanishingly unlikely that anyone at Beckett’s Node had ever heard of Fornax, given it was located half a galaxy away on the other side of human occupied space.

“Roger that Highlander, state your business,” the voice responded. In the corner of her eye Junebug could see that Taya had recovered from her fuge and was tapping buttons on her console. A moment later a holographic update sprang to life on her plot position indicator, tagging the source of the transmission as an asteroid a few hundred thousand kilometers distant with the notation ‘rebroadcast station 21-A’ in small green writing. The girl must have figured a reciprocal to the laser and plotted out the position of the station, Junebug shook her head, the girl was proving to be an asset despite her privileged upbringing.

“We need to make repairs and are hoping to take on cargo,” Junebug responded. Although they had managed to get the Highlander airborne it still bore serious damage from both the crash landing on Quetzalli’s World and whatever had savaged it in the RIP during the previous jump. Large section of the hull were open to space except where thermoplastic sheeting had been hastily welded into place and the majority of her thrusters were only functioning on the most improvised of jury rigs. Worse than that one of the two reactor cores had been damaged badly enough that it had to be shut down until they reached serious repair facilities. The later had forced Neil to rewire the ship almost completely in order to power the most vital systems and had occasioned much swearing and rendered a number of random subsystem inoperable.

“Roger Highlander, we are patching you into the system net, keep your weapons powered down and obey all local ordinances, control out,” the voice, bored now that whoever had the communications duty realised that the Highlander was nothing out of the ordinary, concluded. A text message reading ‘System Net Available’ scrolled beneath Sayeeda’s display. Glancing back at Taya she touched the text with a finger and a computer interface sprang to life, listing available docking bays and their facilities.

“Highlander Out,” Junebug replied closing out the connection in proper but probably unnecessary fashion. With a few quick key strokes she sorted the available docking bays and selected one which was operated by one of the larger repair facilities on the Node. Having none of the local currency, some sector or corporate credit she hadn’t heard of, she was forced to agree to pay nearly twice the regular rate within forty standard hours of docking. The computer assigned them a birth without further human interaction.

“Alright people,” she said, pressing back into her seat as Neil began the burn which would carry them in to the station, “Welcome back to civilization.”

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His head felt like shit and his body was only marginally better, but Neil had been working on desperation and energy only experienced war pilots could muster, and it had paid off. Lonney was invaluable of course, but the young pilot felt very accomplished with the star charts and navigational work he had done, not to mention the piloting itself. Just a few thousand more meters and they would dock and he could maybe enjoy some civilized hospitality.

A female voice spoke through the comm, obviously an AI system to help new visitors dock.

"Welcome to Beckett's Node. I am D3LI1A, or Delilah. Please follow these instructions-" The next minute was simple docking techniques, turning the thrusters down to .04 KM.S and directing him to one of the areas to dock at on the massive station. It looked to be a small sliver in the side of the structure before they drifted closer to see just how massive of a hanger it was, with a shimmering void shield that ships could fade through, yet could block most forms of outer fire.

"-Your bay is 103FA, near the Commons at the center of the station. From there you can gain directions and access to all of the authorized areas of Beckett's node. Please follow the system laws and procedures you are receiving on your HUD display. Thank you, and have a pleasant stay."

Her voice was silenced, and Neil set the Highlander down just right. The ship's landing gear plunked against the hanger, and the shoddily repaired freighter slumped and rested. Neil took a breath, and patted the display as if he was comforting an old dog. "That'a girl. We'll get you fixed right up." He said softly, before ripping his seatbelt off and giving a triumphant smile to Sayeeda, strutting out of the cockpit.

"It feels like years..." Taya began, clutching one of the railings.

"It has been years." Neil replied nonchalantly, reloading his revolver and slinging it into its holster. He wondered if the galactic political scene had changed at all. At least the larger scheme of things. Every system changed every day, much less over the course of a few years. He'd never been on this side of the galaxy, though. "First thing's first, we need to resupply and find good supplies for ship repairs too. But before that, I plan on taking a nice hot tub bath and I plan on sleeping in something other than a cot, with a belly full of booze."
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The Strip was familiar enough to Sayeeda that she felt at home immediately. Like every major port in human history Beckett's Node was served by a plethora of places for spacers to dispose of their recently gotten gains. The long street was lined with taverns, gambling houses and brothels and every combination of the three. The Hard Drive, The Nebula and the Hammered Cock were a few of the highlights screamed in neon of a dozen eye watering shade. The street was set into a long corridor at least fifty meters wide and twenty high. Enterprising artisans had splashed the roof with ultra violet receptive paint and turned black lights on it, giving the celing the impression of twinkling stars to the casual glance. Music of a dozen different styles melded into a thrumbing cacophny that didn't quite provide a base line. At least most of the whoring was going on behind closed doors or outdoor partitions, though a few enterprising freelancers were making a go of it in public. Men, women and aliens stumbled around in general good fellowship, curses shouted and as quickly forgotten.

Junebug drew a tabacco stick from the pack she had purchased and placed it between her lips. With practiced ease she tapped a rythmic pattern against the cigarettes silvery endcap and the small charge of phospor-laced zirconium blazed for a moment while she drew back, sparking to life and filling her mouth with smooth smoke with a slightly sour cherry aftertaste. She let the smoke rush from her nostrils in a pleased sigh before lifting a bottle of liquor to her lips and drinking deep. The concoction differed only slightly from a xalop brandy she had been fond of before she joined the armored, although the alcohol content, judging by the bottle and the tingle it left in her mouth, was significantly higher.

It had been a frustrating morning, at least she imagined it as morning - the station did not appear to keep a day night cycle, but a productive one. With the help of the stations directory they had managed to liquidate most of the artifact that a grateful Quetzalli had lavished upon them. Gold and jewels were not in and off themselves tremendously valuable, space faring civilizations could extract ore from asteroids fairly easily, but the craftsman ship and the strange provenance gave them value. By agreement Junebug and Neil had refused to reveal the origin of the pieces, lest other, less well intentioned 'Starmen' return and exploit the place, but even so the pieces were of significant value to collectors. The total value of the cargo looked like it would cover the repairs they needed and the docking fees and go a ways towards re stocking the ship with rations but those expenses would leave the coffers pretty bare.

"Stars! you would think it was their last night of life!" Taya exclaimed, simultaneously looking everywhere and no where. Junebug thought she was trying to avoid gawking at two rough looking men hiking up the dress of a slightly frumpy looking whore in the beer garden of one of the taverns. The girl laughed a jaded professional laugh before burying one of the mens faces between her doubtlessly augment bosoms.

"It might be," Junebug said, feeling warm and expansive as she strolled along. With the careful precision of the slightly drunk she made a gesture with her bottle, careful not to spill any of the precious spirit, indicating the surrounding men and women. Pausing to take another draw on her ciggareete before continuing:

"Most of these men are spacers, scrounging a living on the little asteroid hoppers they have here, nothing between them and the great beyond except a space suit that hasn't been repaired in the Goddess alone knows how long," she explained.

"These others," she gestured at a knot of tough looking men, scarred and with slightly sallow saggy skin engaged in a very loud card game of some sort, "Gather fungus on the moons. The primary here kick of a ton of rads and the suits they get arent really up to it. Thats before you get to the geyzers of red hot gas and the spores the damn things kick off." The morning had at least been instructive as to what life was like on Beckett's node, even if it hadn't exactly been profitable. Fungus and ore for refining seemed to be the wealth of the station. The alien vegetation grew prolifically on several of the moons and was edible once properly processed. Some of the rarer types were valuable as raw material for certain drugs as well she had heard.

"When your in that kind of danger you live while you can, believe me. Besides I thought all you aristos were supposed to be hyper decadent, no pleasure forbidden types," she said, her lips curling into a smile of gentle mockery. Her eyes tracked unbidden to a sign above a brothel that was advertising services so exotic that even Junebug was intrigued.

"Pretty sure those wen't extinct..." she started before Taya called out Neil's name. Looking up she saw the pilot coming down the artificial street towards them. Junebug lifted the bottle in salute and took a long pull, feeling the burn in the back of her throat as she swallowed down.

"How did you make out?" she called jovially.

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"You can feel it..." the woman offered, her eyes glinting as she grabbed Neil's hand and guided it. The young pilot stared, unable to tear his gaze from the lush, beautiful sight as she gripped the hard rod and began working it over and over to Neil's delight, feeling the grind and the heat of her hands. "Should we be doing this publicly?" He asked breathlessly.

"Why? You shy?" She asked.

"I mean, if other people eye the merchandise they might want a go at it."

"Oh you're the jealous type." The woman replied, giving a throaty chuckle as she let go of Neil's hand. "I'll let you try it a bit yourself then. I like to watch..."

Neil put both hands on the new AF5 multi-tool and screwed in the last ingot on the practice hull, the weight and the grip were perfect in his callused hands. "GoddAMN this is a nice tool." He exclaimed with vigor, having not used such an impressive tool since Fortus when he worked on his old mech. The female engineer placed her hands on her hips and shook her head. "I knew you'd have an eye for quality, but I didn't know you'd be set on it immediately. It'll cost quite a lot, I won't lie to you." Behind her, sparks flew as another sales engineer displayed their new welder.

Neil bought it anyway. The prices here actually weren't that bad, considering. From the wages they just earned (which ironically were made on an unpaid job), and the backwater location of the Node, expensive around here was simply moderate to most other places Neil was used to. This new multi-tool would speed up repairs exponentially. Deftly he flipped it and stuck it within his tool belt, stepping out of the workshop to find a good drink.

He stepped into the Hammered Cock, a name he couldn't ignore, seeing a hardy bar manned by robust man with a prosthetic robotic arm and an impressive red beard. He joked and laughed with the patrons. Around the bar, men and women from all across the galaxy caroused and openly groped, giggling and laughing while other men simply swooped the women up and took them to back rooms. Neil might have partaken but Quetzalli was still fresh in his memory, even after all of the hard travel. He guessed he needed time, maybe.

Grabbing a heavy ale in a to-go cup, he drank greedily and stepped out into the artificial street, nimble hands lifting off a passing man's holo-disk they won't be needing anymore apparently, giving it a once-over look before sticking it in his pack. When his eyes drifted upwards he saw Junebug saluting him, and he lifted his bottle too. "Aint made out yet, but the night's young!" He called, half joking, and he took another swig.
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The night is young indeed, was Junebug’s first thought when she regained consciousness. Her second thought was that she was going to kill Neil. Painfully and assuming she managed to get up. Trying to ignore her pounding head she pushed herself to her feet, somewhat relieved to find herself in her bunk on the Highlander clad her undershirt and ... were those Taya’s panties! How in the Void had she ended up wearing them? Vainly she tried to pull together memories of the previous evening but could only muster disconnected snap shots. A bar somewhere with Neil with pounding techno music. Throwing her cards down on the table in delight to the groans of unknown companions at some different establishment. Moving down a row of shot glasses that smoked like the barrel of a slug thrower. She even had a vague memory of dancing on a table and…. Ugggh.

With another groan she pushed herself up out of bed. Ger face was tacky with something and she tasted it experimentally of the tip of finger relieved to find that it was sweet and someone hadn’t hit her with a bottle or some other such mishap. Reaching down she pulled a medical hydration bag from her arm and tossed it into the trash. The flexible silicone bag bounced and flicked out of the can flopping sullenly onto the floor. Yes she was definitely going to kill Neil. Right after she got this furry taste out of her mouth.

With a low keening moan she mustered her will and propelled herself across the room and into the tiny shower. Without bothering to remove her clothing she turned the unit to full bore and let the warm water wash down over her like a cleansing waterfall. With the Highlander tied into Beckett’s Node’s water system for the duration of its stay, there was no reason, beyond a few extra credit in surcharge, to save water so she let the hot jet sluice away the worst of the damage. She opened her mouth and let the water clean the hoppy, ashy aftertaste of too many drinks and too many cigarettes from it before finally mustering the energy to remove her sodden garments. With some chagrin she checked herself over, relieved to find that no new tattoos had appeared as a result of last nights revelry. Such things had happened before. Once her skin was almost red from the hot water she gritted her teeth and switched it to full cold. As veteran of one of the most fearsome mercenary units in the galaxy, she was pleased when only a small squeal escaped her as the ice jet jolted her fully awake.

“Lonney,” she called from the shower, facing the icy torrent with the resolution of the condemned before a firing squad.

“Are Neil and Taya aboard?”

“AYE AYE CAPT’N!” Lonney chirruped in a voice far too loud and far too chipper for her throbbing head. Junebug made a sound somewhere between a squeal and a curse. Neil had switched the bloody voice back at some point. After she got some coffee she was definitely heading for the arms locker. At least she knew they had all gotten back safely and she wouldn’t have to spend the day coming brothels and bars for her crew. Staggering out of the shower she half heartedly dabbed herself with a towel and took a couple of analgesics from her medical kit, chewing the bitter pills rather than swallowing them both to increase their speed and to avoid the metaphor it implied.

Pulling on her gym shorts and a bra she wrapped the towel around her hair and stepped out into main hold. Taya lay across an empty crate dressed in a single unlaced combat boot, a sarai of unknown provenance and a leather jacket Junebug vaguely remembered rolling some sort of prismatic dice for. Stars above she hadn’t been this hammered since after they got pulled off the line following the holding action at… the remembered taste of burned flesh rose in her throat and her gorge rose. Stars. Maybe not think about that.

After some effort she managed go get down the ladder to the galley and produce a cup of hot black coffee. For a moment she considered the ration packs that lay stacked on the shelf without enthusiasm. What was she thinking? They were back in civilization now right? With a surge of benevolence that momentarily washed away her desire to murder her pilot, she bought up a meal ordering service and order the biggest greasiest breakfast she could find and charged it to the ship. The machine beeped irritably and a large ‘Credit Declined’ flashed up on the screen.

“What the fucking fuck?” she snarled. Even if they had blown all the cash they had been carrying last night, and that was a real possibility, they should still have plenty of credit with the station. Most of the funds had been put in escrow for the repairs anyway. She tried again. Credit declined.

“Lonney pull up or accounts would you?” she asked taking a scalding hot mouthful of coffee.

“Aye aye!...” Sayeeda clutched at her still pounding head with her free hand.

“Gods and Demons turn it down a little will you!” she snarled. Was it her imagination or was Lonney getting back at her for threatening to voice him as an opera singer? The screen blanked and then a logo rotated on the screen for a moment. Eron Banking Corporation - Empowering Your Future. Junebug ground her teeth before a healthy balance appeared on the screen only to be covered by a yellow alert box. Account Temporarily Suspended, followed by a contact frequency.

“Lonney, without verbally responding, patch me through to this number,” Junebug tried. There was a loud ping of acknowledgement. Behind her she heard Taya groan and stumble toward the bathroom, one combat boot clanking noisily on the deck.

“Very fucking…” the connection went through and a blandly pleasant AI voice fielded the call.

“Eron Banking how may we help you?” Junebug leaned forward placing both hands on the countertop.

“You can unfreeze my account before I come down their and open fire,” she said in a pleasant fashion.

“Threats of violence do not increase customer service times,” the AI responded tartly.

“Your escrow account has been purchased by a third party, in compliance with our terms of service. You are required to sign the transfer documents in person before your account will be restored. Would you like directions to our location?” the AI concluded happily.

“Fuuuuck,” she groaned and stalked back to her room anger, or the pain killers, having taken the worst of the edge off her hangover. She rifled through the pockets of her discarded clothing, strewn randomly across the cabin at some point in the ethanol blurred evening and pulled out a handful of credit chips. With more groaning she pulled on a white t-shirt with ‘I’m a regular God Damn Princess’ scrawled across it in some swirly rainbow script and the background of a pink unicorn and then pulled on a pair of combat pants. Suitably armored, she stalked past the bathroom, in which a moaning Taya clutched the receptacle for dear life, and began pounding on Neils door with a balled fist.

“Neil! Wake up!” she yelled stuffing the credit chips into her hip pocket, “We need to get some breakfast. And then maybe shoot some people.”

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Neil slept like a brick, unresponsive and heavily. Lonney's loud comm system and Junebug tromping around the Highlander passed his door several times was pretty much white noise to him as he lay unmoving, hair disheveled with no shirt and a phlorescent 'Merc 4 Lyfe' tattoo on his shoulder. Only the fourth time of Junebug pounding on his door did he stir at all. Groaning and smelling sweat and many other odors he was familiar with, Neil sat up and rubbed his head.

She pounded on the door again.

"Hold on a sec!" He hoarsely called through the door, and with slow deliberation he swung his legs over the side of the small bed to touch the cold floor. He wasn't as hungover as Junebug, having been the one instigating more of the mischeif rather than being apart of it (though he certainly partook), but he was not crisp by any stretch of the imagination. He needed to eat, and drink some water for that matter because the pilot's throat felt as rough as the night he had last night.

On the floor, he felt something smooth and circular touching his feet. Blinking, he wondered if he'd bought that booze dispenser he vaguely remembering him and Junebug drinking out of as Taya danced on the holo-pool table. If he had, that was a wise investment. ...That last thought also made him realize he might also still have some booze in his system, which would explain his mellow state of mind despite the headache and the...body ache.

Moments later, he clicked the button for his door activation and it slid open with a 'shp.' Neil stood before Sayeeda with his shirtless and newly tattoo'ed self. Behind him, his room was disheveled and a new laser rifle was on the opposite cot, along with a part of the metal arm from the Hammered Cock barman. What was probably most surprising was the fact he wore her panties on his head like a hat (unbeknownst to him).

"Sup?" he said, scratching his chest lazily. His mind caught up with him, and he held a finger up. "Oh you said breakfast right? I could use some food."
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