Naero drew random duty to perform a weapons check on the ship’s armory.
Drudge work.
She sat alone in the maintenance area late that night, several racks of pistols and assault weapons lined up in neat rows on their cart racks with their magnetic wheels locked.
One by one she placed a weapon down on the padded workbench before her.
Despite feeling a little overwhelmed by everything, she methodically checked each weapon’s function, broke it down, cleaned it with solvent, lubricated it if need be, and put it back together.
She checked its action a second time before setting it back on its rack as finished.
Standard khotguns, needleguns, and delta class blasters. She could service such weapons in her sleep.
But after the fifth sidearm she yawned and blinked.
Gallan showed up with two big frosty borbbles of Jett, her favorite rich, black, fruity lix, imported from Arnett Corps space.
Her best friend knew her and her weakness for Jett very well.
“Need some help? It’s been a long day.”
“Haisha, it’s been a long month.”
“Thought you could use a little something.”
She rubbed her eyes and half-smiled up at him. He set one of the borbbles down in front of her.
“Where in the hell did you find Jett in Triaxian space?” she asked.
“It’s a treat. I asked Baeven to procure us some back on Egano-4. The man has his sources.”
“Yes indeed.” She gulped down half of her borbble in one long, luxurious cold draught.
She sighed for a long contented moment and then rolled her eyes in appreciation. “That is so good. Thanks, my friend.”
Gallan picked up the next pistol to be checked. “No damage. I couldn’t sleep, so I thought I’d hunt you out. Baeven’s on the bridge.”
They cleaned weapons and drank for a while, with no further reason to say much of anything. They finished the sidearms and moved on to the assault weapons.
Gallan worked on a tri-barrel khotgun that had some old corrosion in the barrels. “I’m sorry we never got a chance to talk more about your parents, Naero. I was there for you; I just didn’t know what to say.”
She nodded. “I know you were, abani. What was there to say? No one had any control over it. Now they’re gone, and Jan, me, and you are all over our heads in deep shit.”
Gallan laughed. “What clued you in on that?”
“Shut up, skuthead. I’m serious. The Corps are all after us hard, and we’re running with an outcast. I’d say we’re in pretty deep.”
He finished a long drink of Jett. “I’m still not convinced we can trust anyone yet.”
“Me either. Baeven has his own mysterious agenda and says so outright, but he’s the best ticket we have right now. Ellis is a Matayan, of course.”
Gallan’s face darkened somewhat.
“You stare at that one a little too much, Naero. It shows, and that’s not good.”
“I’m working on it.”
“I wouldn’t if I were you.”
Naero avoided the issue. “Tarim’s just a kid. I think he’s pretty harmless.”
“He’s older than you by almost a year; he’s just malnourished.”
“He’s survived in his world, that counts for something. But there’s a lot he doesn’t know.”
“He’s eager to learn. He needs to find something he’s good at. What he really needs is to stop acting like a beaten down slave.”
“That might take some time,” Naero said. “You and I can’t relate. That’s all he knows. It might be a hard cage to escape, even with the door open.” She picked up the next blaster rifle.
“Well, he’s a survivor. There’s hope for him, at least. But who knows how long any of us are going to last, or what it’s going to take at this rate.”
They went quiet again for a while.
Then Naero reached out suddenly and put her hand on Gallan’s forearm. “I’m going to say this now while we have the chance, abani. I never got to say anything to my folks before I lost them, and I regret that. We might make this run, and then again, we might not. There’s a lot stacked against us. But if I’m on a hot run, then I’m glad you’re with me. You’ve always been a good friend to me, and I honor and cherish that. I know that I can trust you, and count on you no matter what, my brother. I hope you feel the same about me.”
“You don’t even need to ask,” Gallan said. “All we can do is give it our best juice, N. If they take us down, we won’t make it easy for them if it comes to that. We’ll go down fighting. Let’s just be smart about it.”
“I’m trying.” Naero raised her borbble with its last swallow of Jett. “Max it,” she told him.
Gallan drained his borbble with her.
With the mild boost from the Jett reviving them, they made more small talk, and short work of cleaning the rest of the weapons before turning in.
For the first time in many days, Naero felt better. At least with Gallan around she had one person she could count on completely.
That meant more than she could say.
When she slept that night, she had yet another one of her strange dreams.
Living snakes of dark and light energy gnawed their way out of her flesh and fought with each other, crisscrossing and entwining, while she convulsed violently.
A demonic, red glowing head layered in roving eyes glared at her and spoke harshly.
You are indeed a serious threat. We will find you. You may very well need to be destroyed.
Her mouth open, unable to scream. Her eyes rolled back white.
They glowed suddenly with blue white energy, so bright it blotted out all else. Her third eye flared back up briefly.
And then they all went black.
Blacker than the Abyss itself.
Naero woke with a start.
She’d been having these hyper-vivid nightmares almost every night since she went nuts. They continued to get worse, and crazier by the day. Who were the entities in her dreams? Fragments of her own personality, imagination, and fears given form?
Om, can’t you do anything about these dreams, these crazy visions?
Impossible. I cannot access certain parts of your mind. They are blocked. Just like my defensive protocols. I continue to try.