Splintered Reality part 12 and a half

“If you don’t want to get on the elevator with my friend, how about if I just pry the doors open and THROW you down the elevator shaft,” yelled Gunny at the dock hand that stood waiting for the “next” elevator down to the office level.

News of Brighde’s arrival had preceded her, and they obviously knew exactly who she was. In this case, that wasn’t a good thing – at least to everyone else. Whether it was a “half blood” thing or an anti-clone thing, gunny didn’t care. Bigotry was bigotry and she didn’t care what it was about or who was it’s source. If someone wanted to pull her string, and risk being hung with the same string, this was just the way to do it. The lift arrived and the doors hissed open. Just as Brighde was about to step through the door the dockhand came flying past her and slammed against the back wall of the elevator. He slumped down, and stared past Brighde in shock – unable to believe anyone would have reacted in such a violent manner.

“I wasn’t going down,” growled the dock hand as Gunny followed Brighde into the elevator.

Brighde smiled down at the dockhand and said simply, “It looks like you are now.” Then she followed up with, “and if I know my friend here, I’d say your best course of action would be to stay there on the floor.”

The elevator whisked them down to the office level. When the opened, the dockmaster, was there to greet them; in a manner of speaking.

“I’m Brighde Blackwolf and this is my friend Samantha McPhearson,” she said pointing at Gunny.

She extended her hand to the dock foreman, and said, “And you are…”

The dockmaster left her hand hanging in mid air and finished the sentence for her.

“…not happy to see you.” He said, then added, “But now that you are here, you may as well come in. Follow me.” Then he looked past Gunny to the dock hand still slumped on the floor of the elevator. “And do get up Jenkins. What is the matter with you?’

With that the dockmaster led them through a maze of twisting corridors, the layout of which was obviously meant to be confusing to any stranger trying to navigate to the heart of the floor. Once they found their way there, they found themselves in front a very large heavy oak door. It looked as if it could withstand the direct assault of at least a half a dozen men, trying to shoulder their way in to the office.

“Wait here,” the dockmaster shot back at Gunny and Brighde, and he stepped opened the door to the office, and disappeared. A moment later, he reappeared.

“Go on in,”

Brighde was about to step through the door that the dockmaster had left open when the dockmaster added from behind her….

“…and bring your gorilla in with you,” he said looking at Gunny, daring her to do anything in response.

Which was exactly what Gunny was about to do when she felt a restraining hand on her arm.

“Thank you,” she heard Brighde say a bit too politely off to her side.

They both stepped into the office of Richard Sirelli, owner of Sirelli Racing, who was a prominent figure in racing himself – a figure that was, in fact, so large, it was often thought to have it’s own gravitational pull. Despite the round figure, it was the undercurrent of ruthlessness for which he was known, that made her keep Gunny’s short temper in check. She hated dealing with someone like Sirelli but there it was. She had no other choice.

Splintered Reality - part twelve

The news his dock foreman brought Rick Sirelli preceded him. The second Jacque rounded the corner of Sirelli’s office, a well aimed beer stein came flying at the center of his forehead like a well aimed cruise missile. Jacque dodged to one side, and the mug impacted on the steel doorframe, large chunks of glass flying into the hallway, as yellow fluid, which had been well contained by the stein until a moment ago, began to flow down the wall in thin rivulets.

“I tell you to have someone killed, and instead you bring her to my doorstep!” Sirelli bellowed.

Jacque tensed, preparing to duck another makeshift missile, as his much loathed boss shifted his enormous girth in his office chair.

“I wanted her dead body and that garbage scow she calls a ship, not to have you bring her around for lunch. Now the ship is gone, and the woman is still intact – again. Doesn’t that bitch ever stay dead?’

“Apparently not” replied Jacque, barely hiding his contempt.

“What am I supposed to do now?” asked Sirelli rhetorically, shifting uncomfortably in the desk chair which barely contained him.

“I don’t know, snapped the foreman suddenly, shoot her out an airlock, stuff her in her a thruster, strap her to a missile. I don’t know. I don’t care. It’s not my fault if the mercs’ you told me to hire couldn’t get the job done.”

A silent moment passed as Jacque realized he had perhaps gone a bit too far this time. Unabashed he continued…

“If you could ever manage to pry that fat ass of yours out of your chair and do a little of your own legwork, maybe things would get done. As it is, I doubt the shop has enough grease to get your ass out of that chair you are stuffed in, and I doubt think those stubby legs of yours would hold all that weight if you could.”

Richard Sirelli’s glare held his foreman’s eyes for a moment. His enormous strength, which belied the foreman’s idea that his boss was some foul tempered oaf with too much money, showed no external signs. Instead he spoke quietly, which, for all that, was far more threatening than if he had reacted to his foreman’s outburst in kind.

In an even, calculated tone, Sirelli spoke to his foreman, “You are…”

“…what fired?” interjected the foreman nervously.

“…no, I was going to say dead,” replied Sirelli matter-of-factly, “But I think I have something even better in mind.

“Better?” asked Jacque nervously, the roles now reversed to where they usually were.

“Well,” replied his boss, “Better for me perhaps…”

Sirelli left off the rest, realizing that anything his foreman could imagine in the ensuing moments, while he met with the woman, would be far worse than any threat actually made.

“Bring her in,” he said firmly.

Splintered Reality - part Eleven

“And how do you know this?” exclaimed Gunny with a puzzled look, as she punched a series of numbers into her control panel.

“Look,” replied Brighde sheepishly, “I know how it sounds but…”

Gunny cut her off as if she hadn’t heard Brighde at all.

“How?” she interjected.

There was a long silent pause which filled the small Amarrian figate. Brighde hesitated, not sure how her long time friend and ship mate would respond.

Quietly, looking out at the starts that formed the outer rim of Amarri space, Brighde said, “you won’t believe me.”

Gunny, having finished setting the ship on autopilot, turned in her chari to face Brighde. She put one hand on Brighde’s shoulder.

“Brig, she began,” trying to summon up as reassuring tone as possible, “we’ve known each other a long time. You are the only family I have – at least the closest thing to it. Just tell me sister.

“Does it matter how I know? Don’t you think its about time? How many eons have our people been concurred by one race or another? How long? You know the ancient history of the tribes a well as I do. The elders make everyone learn it so we can carry on the tradition.”

There was another long pause filled only by the hum of the sub-light engines.

Brighde continued.

“Back on ancient Earth, when the pilgrims came to the ancestral homeland of your people, what happened? What did your grandfather tell you?”

“The pilgrims only survived with the help of my ancestors,” replied Gunny glumly – she knew where Brig was going with this.

Brighde’s tone was getting more heated now.

“And what happened within one generation to the ancestors of the same band of your people, she said. What happened to that same village? What did the Europeans do?”

Gunny turned to stare out the window, so Brighde would not see her tears. Looking out the window she answered.

“They killed everyone. The entire village.”

Gunny jumped as Brighde broke the quiet by slamming her fist into the control panel to emphasis her next point.

“And the ancestors of those same people built this ship, Brighde growled. They were killing and enslaving the tribes then and the Amarri are STILL going it. Doesn’t it matter to you that the grandparents of the same people who built this ship OWNED your grandparents?”

“Your wrong,” said Gunny quietly

“What?!” shot back Brig.

“Your wrong about who built this ship. The Amarri usually use Minmatar slave labor.”

“That’s the point, exclaimed Brighde. Don’t you think it is time the tribes where united? Don’t you think its time the slavery stopped?”

Gunny regained her composure and turned back to Brighde.

“But you said they WILL be united – now. How do you know that?”

“I just know,” replied Brighde more quietly.

“How?”

Brighde hesitated. Sighed. Then looked out the window at the void of space. Quietly she replied…

“I had a vision.”

Splintered Reality - part Ten

At 20,000 tons and 650 feet long it was one big ship. The body of the ship, meant to carry cargo, looked for all the world as if a giant hand had taken one big can and smashed two smaller cans on each end, then stuck a shuttle on the front for the pilots. Piloting the thing was like trying to push a greased, drunken pig in a direction it didn’t want to go. It was also slow. So slow that many is the time that the owner felt like she might have to get out and push, just to get it to move at all.

But…

It was also free.

Gilda had won it in a card game. That was just before she and Rosa had been permanently banned from the New Vegas solar system. Gilda, in her naiveté, has always assumed it was for the drunken brawls that were a nightly occurrence. The previous owner, who was now selling donuts in a New Vegas greasy spoon, didn’t see it that way. All he knew is that his “baby” that was once his livelihood was plying the highways and byways of the galaxy, and it was doing it without him. All of which made him madder than a wet Trilaxian Prairie Chicken, and there wasn’t a thing he could do about it. Or so he thought.

At the moment, his “baby” was now being rather incautiously guided into a docking bay on the outer rim of Amarian space. As the ship was nearly in the docking bay, the back end fishtailed, slamming against the space doors of the bay, setting off a dozen screaming alarms throughout station. None of which could be heard in space, and if Gilda could hear them, she probably wouldn’t have cared anyway.

Inside the station the foreman felt a sickening feeling in the pit of his stomach, and it was more than just the entire dock area rocking. He knew who it was who had set the station rocking and he hated dealing with her. He swore, and frequently, that she did it on purpose. She had a knack, or sheer dumb luck, for being able to cause the most upset with minimal damage to the space doors. He tried to take the cost for the damage, however small, out of her payment once, but she had threatened to reach down his throat, grab his lower intestine and turn him inside out. He threatened to stop trading with her and she just laughed – and that was the problem. There was no one else to buy ore from and she knew it.

He wouldn’t have to deal with her if that fat old fool he worked for, Richard Sirrelli, hadn’t burned every bridge both before and after himself. Here they sat on the edge of Amarii space. Sirrelli was Minmatarian, and the average self respecting Amarii wouldn’t give him the time of day. Those who had no respect for themselves, or anyone else for that matter – the Amarii underworld would, but ore is one thing you couldn’t steal. At least not in the massive quantities needed to run this pig of a station that the foreman was forced to call home. The Minmatar wouldn’t deal with Sirrelli either, none of the tribes would. He had long ago forgotten who he was and where he came from. Richard Sirrelli had spent most of his life standing on the shoulders of other Minmatarians to get ahead. When he got there, he kicked every Minmatarian to the curb that had ever helped him. The foreman didn’t consider his boss an apple, he thought of Sirrelli as the whole orchard. But like the miner he was about to go down to the loading dock to meet, Richard Sirrelli was the only game in town. He was the only one who would hire someone with the foreman’s background.

Splintered Reality - Part Nine

And so the “silence” continued like this for some time…

Several hours later, Gilda, having finished her coffee, turned to Rosa during one of the brief pauses in carpet bombing.

“Well?” she asked expectantly.

“Yes?’

Another explosion rocked the ship.

“It’s been going on for some time” yawned Gilda.

“Yes” said Rosa with a pause, “Yes it has.”

“It’s not likely to let up any time soon…”

“No,” replied Rosa with a sigh, “No, I guess it won’t”

The two sat together on the Bridge of the S.S.Hammered Steel and listened to the explosions intermingled with the hum of the mining lasers for awhile before either spoke.

“We really should do something” remarked Rosa offhandedly.

“Yes, we should”

“Yes…” replied Gilda with a nod.

“Yes…” replied Rosa, as she leaned back in the pilot’s chair.

Another long pause ensued, filled by the ceaseless sounds of explosions impacting against the ship.

“Shields?” asked Rosa expectantly.

Gilda calmly glanced over at her section of the control panel. Leaning back, she went back to staring out the cockpit window, into the star filled void of space. Without turning to Rosa she replied…

“50%”

Then the bombing stopped. The momentary calm, broken only by the hum from mining, stood out in contraposition to the tremendous din that, albeit briefly, had abated. Rosa took another long sip from her flask of Arcturian whiskey.

“Where do you think its coming from this time?” asked Rosa.

Once again Gilda leaned over her control panel. She flipped a switch. Three overhead screens, showing different views of the mining ship, blinked into life. Rosa leaned over toward Gilda slightly, taking another sip from her flask. She craned her neck a bit to get a clear view of the center screen which showed the view rearwards from the ship. A very large, very deadly looking Battle cruiser of the Ferox class came into view. As they watched a flare of light filled the center of the screen – the ship had launched another missile. Calmly Gilda flipped the same switch. The screens went dead. Both women leaned back in their chairs. They both sat staring out the cockpit window as they spoke, without turning to each other.

“Battle cruiser” said Gilda calmly.

The missile impacted the shields, and the ship rocked violently.

“Yep. A big one” said Rosa, and took another long pull from her flask.

“Military?” Rosa asked nonchalantly.

“Might be. Probably mercenary.”

“What do you think they want?” Rosa remarked.

“Don’t know…” started Gilda.

Her sentence was interrupted by three missiles which impacted the shields in rapid succession.

“…but” Gilda said.

“….they” she continued

“…seem hopping mad about something.” Gilda finished.

Both women sat thinking. That “did I leave the iron on” look crossed each one’s face before Rosa came up with what she thought was a reasonable suggestion.

“What about that waitress in the bar at Arcturis 5-3 station? You tipped her didn’t you.”

“No,” said Gilda, “I thought you did.”

“Not me, I thought you did. Rosa paused, then added, Oh my. I guess we stiffed her.”

“Still,” said Gilda, “most wait staff don’t posses the financial resources to hire mercenaries with major firepower.”

“In any case, interjected Rosa, we have to do something. The bombing isn’t likely to stop any time soon.”

“Oh all right,” replied Gilda with a huff.

With that Gilda reached over to a rocker switch on her control panel. Beside it were two slide switches. She moved the slide switch all the way up to the position marked simply ‘full’. Pressed a number into a keypad next to it, and hit the rocker switch.

She leaned back calmly as a voice filled the cockpit.

I can't get no. Oh, no, no, no. Hey, hey, hey
That's what I say
I can't get no satisfaction, I can't get no satisfaction
'Cause I try and I try and I try and I try
I can't get no, I can't get no

The music was deafening. The walls of the mining ship shook even louder then they had from the impact of the missiles. Still, above the classical music from ancient earth by The Rolling Stone, the explosions could be heard dimly in the background.

“ITS NO GOOD,” screamed Rosa, “I CAN STILL HEAR THE EXPLOSIONS!”

Gilda punched the rocker switch on her control panel again and the music stopped as suddenly as it had started.

“Oh all right,” said Gilda in exasperation.

With that Gilda reached over to a small junction box between the pilots control panel and the navigators control panel. There, sent into the panel, underneath a bright red cover, was a large red button. The panel itself was boarded with stripes diagonal stripes alternating yellow and black. Above the junction box was a sign, written in fifteen major languages. The sign said simply…

“…Do not press this button.”

Gilda pressed the button.

At the rear of the ship a large square panel slid open. Behind it was the remnants of what had once been missile tubes one and two. In stead, welded into place, and covered in grey primer, was one single tube meant for a light missile launcher normally carried be a frigate – a much smaller vessel than the mining ship that was a Caladari Navy military surplus cruiser. It had been squeezed in to what had once been a much larger missile bay, but now held the outsized machinery and fusion reactors that powered the ships shields – shields normally meant for a battleship. They machinery appeared to have been shoved into place by some giant hand wielding an enormous shoehorn and a fifty gallon drum of grease. In that missile launcher was a single, solitary light missile.

It launched.

The battle cruiser to the rear of the S.S.Hammered Steel fired a salvo of six defender anti-missile missiles. They roared through space at the single light missile that the mining ship had launched like a flock of enormous birds swooping down on a mouse.

And each defender missile missed.

Inside the cockpit of the mercenary battle cruiser, the captain laughed. He made a rather rude remark, that were it translated, would have understood to be a suggestion as to the parentage of the mining ships captain, and what said captain could do with her missile – both of which were anatomically impossible.

He laughed again.

It was the last thing he ever did.

A moment later, impossibly, his ship exploded in a blinding light as shards of metal careened through space.

Splintered Reality - part eight

Being the luckiest being in the universe, and being completely oblivious of the fact, are two very fortunate qualities that go hand in hand. Not fortunate for the person themselves certainly. Rather it is extremely fortunate for the lotteries, gambling establishments, economies, indeed entire planets which would topple if the lucky stiff were aware of the fact – which Gilda is not.

What is fortunate for Gilda is that her tremendous luck has saved her from inadvertent self destruction on many occasions. While she may not be the most lackadaisical person on the face of any given planet which she may inhabit at any given time – she is certainly close behind whoever comes in first place. All of which works together to create a person who has the capability of ruling the galaxy, but is simply to lazy to do it. But Gilda, being the languid sort of person she is, wouldn’t care about it even if she knew. This is, in fact, a quality that is about to have the chance not only to rear its ugly head, but go outside, and take itself for a brisk walk about the block as Gilda awakens to the sound of thumping. It is thumping which - unlike most mornings following an evening of imbibing drinks which would take the top three layers off an asteroid had they spilled – is actually, coming from outside her head.

On this particular morning the slow steady hum of the mining lasers, which Gilda found so comforting (in fact she had a hard time getting to sleep without it) was interrupted by a pounding which rocked the ship. Gilda groaned a bit. Turned over and covered her head with a pillow in a vain attempt to stifle the noise caused by impacts on the side of the ship. Several fruitless minutes passed. A very large impact nearly threw her out of her bunk. She stopped herself, grabbing the bedrail with one hand. Swinging her feet out, she sat on the edge of the bed, eyes shut.

“Lights” she called out, followed by a groan.

Obediently, the lights set into the walls snapped on. Gilda sat for a moment, gathering herself for the supreme effort necessary for her to actually pull herself to her feet, a task complicated by the incessant rocking of the ship. As she stood, yet another blast rocked the mining cruiser from side to side. She braced herself against the bulkhead, as much to steady herself from the rocking of ship as from the spinning of the room.

“Don’t these guys ever sleep?” she groaned, looking about her blearily.

Another blast threw her out into the corridor, and against the wall opposite. Ironically, had the blasts caused the ship to spin out of control, she could have easily negotiated the narrow corridor that ran down the central part of the ship – she was used to rooms spinning. She felt her way down the corridor, the ship rocking to and fro, and finally made her way to the galley.

The pounding stopped.

“Good” she said aloud, to no one in particular, “they are reloading.” She walked over to a small speaker set into the wall, below which was a small door.

“Coffee, hot, black” she shot at the dispenso-matic, then pausing she added, “very strong”

There was a slight buzzing sound from the walls and the small door slid open. There inside sat a large white mug, so big, one might think, that many of the galaxy’s smaller races could have easily swum laps in it. With a smile, Gilda reached in and gingerly raised the cup of steaming black liquid to her lips. She blew across the surface, and was about to take the first sip when the pounding and the rocking began again. The result was scalding hot coffee over nearly every surface of the galley, except, remarkably enough, Gilda herself.

“Bastards” she hissed looking into the empty mug.

It was not the mess that upset her, so much as the loss of the coffee. New Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee beans were incredibly difficult to come by.

“You bastards,” she hissed again, as she reached into a nearby cupboard and drew out a lid for the cup.

She waited for the next lull in the blasts, which eventually came. Thrusting the empty cup into the dispenso-matic, she repeated her morning ritual. A moment later the machine produced yet another cup of the rich dark fluid. Gilda reached in and snapped the lid on with a smile as the galley began to rock again. Cup in hand she turned slowly, stumbling her way down the central corridor toward the bridge of the ship.

The sound of the mining lasers still hummed along, filling the hold of the ship, which took up the bulk of what would be the “body” of the large kiwi like shape of the ship. Rosa sat calmly in the pilots chair, silver flask in hand. From behind and above her she heard feet on the ladder that lead down to the bridge, which formed the “head” of giant steel kiwi shape that was the S.S. Hammered Steel. As Guilda stepped onto the deck, Rosa held up the flask to Guilda.

“Hair of the dog?” she asked merrily.

“No,” Guilda answered sternly, and then added more calmly, “I’m all set here.”

Guilda heaved herself into the navigator’s chair with a pained look, the sort of which would frighten small children and cause their mothers to pull them in off the street.

The ship continued to rock, but neither of the ships two occupants, now firmly entrenched in there seats on the bridge, seemed to care. Rosa took another long pull on her silver flask, the yellow fluid burning its way down her throat. To her side Guilda shut her eyes and took that first delightful sip of coffee.

The silence continued this way for some time – that is if you could call the gulping, slurping, and hum of mining lasers, all accompanied by the sounds of explosions on the side of the mining cruiser silence.

Oddly enough, both halves of Cranz-Stern Mining, now present on the bridge, did. They were, in fact, quite used to it.

Splintered Reality - part seven

[story]
Splintered Reality By Julie WhiteFeather –

Guilda stretched in the morning sun. Well, it wasn’t the morning sun so much as it was a sun lamp, but it was morning all the same. Guilda actually wasn’t her name, it was simply a moniker that her sister had hung on her some time ago. Following in the tradition of a classical music composer from ancient earth, her real name was an unpronounceable symbol somewhat resembling an angry badger beating frog about the head and shoulders with a rather largish cricket bat. The obscure origin of the symbol itself was lost to her family’s history. The reason for the symbol, however, was not.

It was during the great “Lawyer Wars” - which preceded the committing of the entirety of the galaxies legal body to the asylum and straight jacket that the majority of the galaxy felt it collectively so richly deserved – that the family tradition originated. In the final days of the war, lawyers all over the galaxy entrenched themselves in court houses, city halls and bars (and hence origination of the term “passing the bar” which few lawyers in those days ever did, although through great effort of said legal body the true origin of the phrase has now been hidden). It was during this time that the lawyers began what they called “Tele-bombing” runs. The lawyers formed groups of solicitors from all over the galaxy into crack telemarketing squads which were genetically enhanced to go for weeks without sleep or nourishment, thus enabling them to telemarket for longer periods then was heretofore humanly possible.

It was the simple fact that the solicitors where unable to pronounce her name that saved Guilda from the fate of most of the rest of her kind – that is the brains of thousands of interspecied families suddenly imploding to escape from the unending telemarketing which stretched on ceaselessly for years. The average telephone call began simply, “Is…” followed by a long silence during which the solicitor’s tongue and brain ceased up as both tried to cope with the situation.

Having thus escaped the devastation of the lawyer wars, Guilda and her best friend Rosa emigrated to Minmatar space, there to settle in to what she thought would be a peaceful life of mining. She could not have been more wrong.

Weeks had passed since Guilda and Rosa had first departed Caladari space aboard the SS. Hammered Steel. Guilda watched them pass by, noting that if they minded their own business, she would mind hers. Guilda was, after all, as she commonly asserted, “one tough broad.” This was also something about which she was wrong. What she was, in fact, was egotistical. She had a ego so mountainous that it would have taken a climbing team and a dozen Sherpa guides a week to reach it’s summit. Rather than tough, what she was, was resilient. That, and, in a rather fortunate combination, lucky. She was incredibly lucky. If people are sometimes said to be born under lucky stars, lucky stars are the sort of thing that are commonly thought to be born in the proximity of Guilda. This, in fact, was the real reason she had survived the lawyer wars, but her egotism was so believable (again a sign of her incredible luck) that no one ever dared tell her different.

Guilda was, in short, the luckiest woman, indeed the luckiest being of any sort, in the entire universe.

Oddly enough, she had no idea. Each time her luck saved what would have normally been a disastrous situation, she put it off to her massive intellect, about which, she was also horribly wrong.

Splintered Reality - part six

The Osprey class cruiser perched like an awkward bird in the dim light of docking bay number 37. A squat figure stood silhouetted against the side of the ship, which was illuminated in a pool of glaring light from the tungsten inert gas welder. To eye any who might be peering over the subjects shoulder, which of course there weren’t any as the person was alone in the darkness of the docking bay – but had there been anyone the could have easily mistaken the work being done on the side of the ship for that of a poorly repaired ’57 Chevy from old earth. This pristine white paint had been ground down to bare metal, leaving deep gouges that were readily apparent. The metal itself was no covered with a grey primer normally meant for land craft, rather than a ship meant to travel the vast void which lay between solar systems. If you were to look rather carefully toward the bottom of the side of the ship – if you squinted you could see two bumper stickers. Bumper stickers in name only, of course, as the time had long passed, eons ago in fact, when any vehicle of any sort had anything even remotely resembling the shape or holding the purpose of bumpers.

There was no longer anything resembling the shape of bumpers for there had long ago stopped being a reasons for bumpers at all. This was due in a large part to the proliferation of lawyers, and the pursuant lawsuits, that filled the later have of the first century following man kind’s, or person kind’s as it is more properly known, first great leap into space – interstellar space travel. In fact it was not so much as a leap as a limp. For the entire affair was hampered by such an astoundingly large body of lawsuits that the legal “body” became too bloated to function at all. This of course resulted in near total anarchy in most of the newest colonies that mankind, or person kind, had since established.

As person kind reached into the vastness of space, it usually found it’s hand slapped like an unruly child, for most of the races didn’t want “their” kind (their kind being humans) if they brought their lawyers with them. To prevent the fall of humanity, into what it became an increasingly likely fall into the black hole that had become the lawyer spawned, black hole that was bureaucracy, lawyers were banned from public practice. Those that had not already been chained to the oars of tour ships, plying the seas of the many new colonies (that were now delighted to accept humanity sans attorneys) were allowed to live in large asylums on barren planets, far from anything even remotely resembling intelligent life, behind 300 foot high walls baring large signs in 50 high letters that read “Abandon all hope you who enter”

Signs like this, bore little resemblance to what mankind, in its tenacious desire to cling to anything that was symbolic of “good times” , had still come to call a “bumper sticker”

In fact both the bumper stickers, which read, respectively – “Minmatar space, love it, leave it, or get too drunk to notice” and “The only way they will get my 250mm autocannon away from me is by prying it out of my cold dead hands” – and the owner of said bumper stickers reflected the love of what they thought of as “the good life”. Namely, drinking and blowing things up, and in the best of times, both at the same time.

The bumper sticker, as is obvious, reflected the sentiment in its message which it plastered across the side of the owner’s newly purchased mining ship. The owner reflected the sentimentality due to the ease with which she managed to weld on the sign she now held in one hand, with the welder she held in the other hand, and drink the beer which she held in a prehensile tail.

The owner of the prehensile tail was a member of a growing race of individuals which considered themselves “inter-specied” - and then only be design, in particular, genetic design. For many eons since mankind was first able to walk erect and think clearly, there had been endless debate over whether humans had descended from apes, crawled out of a primordial sea, or made by God on a Saturday afternoon. Then, ironically, one lazy Sunday afternoon, a geneticist named Hubert Bupnik or “Huey” to his friends, of which he had very few for reasons which will soon become apparent, had an idea. Despite eons of mankind’s development, Huey was rarely capable of clear thinking, and only occasionally walking erect. This last incapacity Huey had was due to his regular habit of imbibing so much alcohol it would have killed the average yak.

Then, on a Sunday afternoon, in a rather depressed state of mind, caused by a particularly heavy round of drinking the Saturday before (which in Heuy’s case was considerable), he was mulling over something some had said to him the evening before. Here is what they said:

“Huey,” he was told, “you look like you are one of the first generations in your family down out of the trees.”

In one of his rare lucid moments, Huey Bupnik made what has become known in most scientific circles, as one of the worst decisions ever made, by creating for himself, and those that would follow him, a genetically enhanced, surgically attached prehensile tail. Thus allowing him, or so he claimed, to “rejoin his relatives in the trees” and finally, once and for all, “get away from it all.” As it turns out, getting away from it all was something that was incredibly easy, due to the initial reaction from his friends.

It was soon discovered, however, that no matter where humans came from, the apes had the right idea, as it turned out, a prehensile tail was an incredibly useful thing to have. In some remote sectors of the galaxy, where the primary unit of currency has become the beer bottle cap, tails became so popular as to necessitate a whole new body of law and ethics regarding tails, thereby necessitating the release of aforementioned lawyers.

And so, sign in hand, and beer in tail, one half of “Crantz-Stern” mining puts the finishing touches on the sign that graces the hull of their new flag ship. It is a flag ship which brings their fleet up to a grand total of one and a half…well…one and three quarters really if you where to count both the escape pod fashioned from a military surplus pilots pod (and now rather ungracefully attached to the underside of the cruiser) as well as the shuttle that lays limply on its side, at the far end of the docking bay.

The sign finished, Rosa sets down her welding torch to take a look at her new ship, on the side of which has been painted two beer mugs. Below this is a sign which reads,

S.S. Hammered Steel
Pilot: R. Crantz
Navigator: G. Stern

Splintered Reality - Part Five

“Sell the ship?” Will said, with a very poorly hidden look of consternation, somewhat reminiscent of a man who has just been told that he is not only about to be beaten, but shot as well, broken in to tiny little bits, burned and the ashes stomped on.

Finally…this news had taken the wind out of the sails of “Hurricane Littlefoot.”

“Sell the ship?” Will repeated again.

Not that the matter bared repeating, which it didn’t. Nor was it even that William Littlefoot was the sort of man that felt he needed to repeat himself, which he wasn’t. It was simply that William Littlefoot was the sort of man that needed to be right all the time, which he also wasn’t, despite his incessant insistence that he was.

The fact of the matter was that William Littlefoot was the sort of man that, if he couldn’t be right, he would bloody well be wrong at the top of his lungs. He was the sort of man would continue to assert his rectitude, oblivious to anything else – especially the truth. And the truth was that this was the first time in his long and rather lugubrious life that he had absolutely no recourse to anything else other than filling the cavernous hole space, where a moment before his life had been, with first thing that came to his mind – which was nothing.

So he simply repeated himself, not knowing what else to do in that moment in which his entire life suddenly went spinning out of control, careening madly as if it where diving straight into the heart of a super nova.

“Yes” came a soft, quiet voice from behind him, “I sold the ship.”

Will spun around and looked into the same eyes that he had seen through a major war and three years of the most brutal fighting Charlie 15-4, 5th armored division had ever seen. And in those eyes he did not see the shipmate with whom he had served; the person in whom he had once trusted his life. Instead he saw something – no – someone, very old, as if a thousand lifetimes stretched out before him. He also saw an immense sadness, he had never seen before.

Then the moment was over. He wasn’t even sure he had seen what he thought he saw. But what he knew he saw was his life slipping away from him, and he was desperate to stop it.

“You can’t sell the ship. It’s our life. It’s what we do. It’s who we ARE.” He shot at Brighde desperately.

“No,” Brighde said quietly, as she stared back at him with a look of pity – a look he absolutely despised., but dared not say anything about.

Brighde Paused. Then she continued, with a sigh.

“It’s not our life, Will. It’s yours.”

Will felt that things were slipping entirely out of his control at this point. He reached for something – anything.

“You can’t do this, he said angrily, I have worked too hard for that ship. I have a stake in it. Hell that ship should BE mine. I worked just as hard for it as you did.”

Then he stopped, realizing what he had said. Brighde smiled faintly, for she noticed it immediately. For the first time he had related to the “clone” Brighde like the real one without thinking about it. It was a mistake he would not make again, he told himself. Now he was mad. He railed against her, in a last desperate attempt to save what he saw as the ruins of his shattered life.

“Look. I have a contract. Whatever you sold that ship for I want my cut, and I mean to have it one way or another.” he said, leering at her.

The was a long pause. Brighde smiled at him again. Damn that woman is irritating when she does that, Will thought to himself.

Then Brighde began softly, “You have a contract?”

“Yes.” Will said sternly.

“You demand your share?”

“Yes.” He said, feeling as though he was gaining ground.

“Or…or what?” Brighde, ventured, “you’ll sue me for everything I have?”

“YES!” Will shouted angrily, thrilled that he had finally come out on top.

With that, Brighde turned around. Walked toward the side of the docking bay and picked up a small drab olive green duffle bag that he hadn’t noticed before. She picked it up slowly. Turned back to Will, and quietly placed it on the floor of the docking bay in front of him.

“There you go.”

“What?” he said, looking at her as if she had suddenly grown a second head.

“There you go, she said, with that same damn pitying look on her face. Everything I own. Take it. I don’t think the panties will fit you, I doubt they are your size, but you know how I like loose comfortable blouses. Those might fit. There. Take it.”

“Dingo Dung,” he spat at her, figuratively and, nearly literally, as he stared down at the duffel bag. “What did you do with all the money?”

“It’s gone.”

“Gone? What do you mean? Where? You lost it?”

“No. I gave it away.”

This William Littlefoot could not believe. He would not believe it. He refused to believe it. Who in their right mind would sell a Caladari Light Cruiser and just GIVE away all of the money.

“All of it?” he said, shocked.

“All of it,” Brighde said quietly.

“Why in God’s name would you do that?” Will shot back at her.

“Yes.” Brighde said quietly.

“What?”

“Yes”

“Yes, what?”

“Yes, Brighde said, that’s exactly why I gave it away.”

“What the devil are you talking about?” Will said, looking at Brighde, as if he were now sure she had grown the second head, and sure that at any moment they would both start spinning around in circles – for he was sure that only someone who was possessed would do such a thing. In fact, that is what he now asked her…

“What would possess you to do such a thing?”

With that Brighde walked over to Will and looked up at him. She patted him on the cheek, noticing him wince as she touched him. For a moment she thought he would understand. Maybe, Brighde thought to herself, there was once someone inside who cared about people more than money, but looking into those glaring eyes, and that hard stare, she doubted if that person was there any more.

“Dear sweet Will, she said as she patted him on the cheek.

Then she stood there staring at him a moment before she continued.

“Dear sweet deluded Will. That’s all you care about isn’t it. The money. Do you ever dream about anything? She asked him, I mean other than money, and the things that will bring it.”

Will said nothing and so she continued.

“Centuries ago, on ancient Earth there was a man who lived for a very special dream. In fact he even died for that dream, as had so many people before him. Do you know what that dream was?”

Again Will said nothing. Brighde paused, smiling at him, hopefully as she went on.

“He gave a speech once about that very special dream. In it he said, ‘I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: "We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal.’ He died for that dream. All these centuries later, we are still waiting for that dream to come true. And you know what? I have a dream too - That our people, who are still divided will rise up and be united. That we will stop being slaves, that we will be free, ALL of us, not just some of us. I don’t know how it is going to happen, all I know is that I am going to try and make it happen, and if I have to die trying, well then I will die for that same dream.”

For the first time in his life. William Littlefoot was speachless.

“Now unless you think my panties will fit you, I may as well take them with me.”
With that, she turned and followed Sam into the waiting frigate. As she was about to pull the door shut, she turned to Will who was still standing where she had left him.

“You know, you might want to at least go back in the station, otherwise you will end up being blown out that airlock Gunny threatened to shoot you out of earlier.”

Brighde smiled.

The hatch to the frigate clanged shut behind her.