Three weeks had gone by since the crew of Shays Rebellion, using luck and skill and desperate stratagems, had narrowly escaped from the chaos aboard the Fickle Finger—now utterly bankrupt and under major quarantine for reasons that were only partly their fault—and if those eighteen days had been somewhat less than pleasant for anyone, they had been a major source of pain for Lilliana.
Or to say the same thing more directly: anyone who’d had a somewhat less than pleasant time had been a major source of pain for Lilliana.
It came from being in a position of responsibility. Those who remained on the crew tended to see her as being in charge more than the man whose name was stenciled on the side of the ship, in letters that had a tendency to start immediately flaking off in little bits every time time they were re-applied. It was as though even an old, outmoded tramp freighter couldn’t stand the thought of being owned by such a man. Or as though what remained of the colony of repair nanintes that lived inside the ship’s skin identified the lettering as being a graver threat to the structural integrity of the hull than actual holes in it were. Either way, the crew thought about as much of Mr. Daniel Shays as the ship did, which was either not much or nothing at all.
When they did come to Mr. Shays with their complaints, it was only because they were dissatisfied with what Lilliana had told them. In these cases, he listened to each complaint with an attentive ear just long enough to confirm that someone was, in fact, talking to him, and then directed the speaker back to Lilliana. The system worked, in the same manner that all things worked on board the Rebellion: for him.
“Yes, I know you’re being worked hard,” Lilliana said in answer to Leo’s latest complaint, which was the same as his previous one, and all its ancestors going back a dozen generations. “We all are. We’re broke, we’ve lost a lot of good cargo, and we’ve got to make up for it by running shag for whatever fringe worlds and ships need a quick, short-range transport job along our way.”
“Right, and running shag means I have to bust my tail off loading and unloading while everybody else does the same amount of work they always do,” the catman said.
“First of all, I have to work much harder than usual to keep lining jobs up as fast as we can take them,” Lilliana said. “Second, your job usually doesn’t involve much except at the beginning or end of a very long journey…”
“Yes, exactly why I’m finding this glorified taxi service crap to be… crap,” Leo said. “Let’s go back to the long journeys.”
“Believe me, we will,” Lilliana said. “But we’ve got to get some cash flow going, we’ve got to hire some more people… I’ve already got everybody who can work a lift assigned rotations in the cargo bay for receiving and unloading, but you know we’re working on a skeleton crew right now.”
A spiky-blonde-haired head with the space where one eye had been covered by a black plasticine patch popped down out of an access hatch above them.
“Wait, we’re on a skeleton crew now?” Regan Bard said. “Did we lose the fight with the necromancer?”
“No, Bard,” Lilliana said, fighting the urge to smile.
Regan was the only one who hadn’t grumbled to her about the current working conditions. Part of that was because the job of keeping the ship’s ancient mechanical and electrical systems running was no more of a constant or thankless task if they were doing shag instead of making a cannonball run halfway across the galaxy.
The rest of it was because Regan always had other, more entertaining things to complain about.
“Good,” Regan said. “Though us bein’ some sort o’ unspeakable undead horrors would go a long way towards explainin’ the rats in the walls. Bulkheads, I mean.”
“What rats?”
“The ones with the relentless chitterin’ and scratchin’ and portendin’ madness an’ all,” Regan said. “I’ve seen this loads o’ times in other ships… the way I have it figured, they’re buildin’ towards some sort o’ dramatic personal revelation or other shockin’ twist that leaves someone completely and utterly twitched. That’s the way it goes, mostly.”
“Well, keep me posted,” Lilliana said.
“Will do, the Gypsy,” Regan said. “Less, o’ course, I’m the one who gets twitched.”
She pulled her head back up out of sight.
“If she is the one to go mad, how will we ever know?” Leo asked.
“Oh, that’s easy,” Regan said, dropping down out of the shaft, tumbling over in the air and landing lightly on her feet. She was dressed in a skin tight black suit. Less than a second after she landed an immense sword fell from above, right into her hand.
“How the hell do you do that?” Leo asked.
“The sword of the king always finds its way to the rightful king’s hand,” Regan said.
“Especially when Handy drops it there,” Lilliana said.
“Sometimes destiny needs a helping hand,” Regan said. “Or four. Anyway, as I was sayin’, I expect it’ll be easy to spot if I go twitched from the portents… ya’ll find me crouched over the dismembered an’ cannibalized form o’ my best friend. Which’ll probably be the cyborg. I’ve been feelin’ extra-friendly towards her lately. Plus, cyborg. Saves time on the dismemberin’.”
“Uh huh,” Leo said. “You have fun with that.”
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