#the dance scene and the kissing scene sent me into orbit

[wildsaltair]

guys I just watched Rough Magic. I’m about to make it everyone’s problem

[shegatsby]

Love Thy Enemy

Summary; Y/N Atreides had always been a stranger to the entire galaxy, her bed wasn’t her bed, her home wasn’t her home due to the fact that she was sent to accompany and be sisters with Irulan. She had limited access to her actual family and over the years they grew distant. She thought she would be like Reverend Mother, alone, yet powerful, and soon she would realize that there was no need of being alone when a wild creature had his eyes on her for a long time.

A/N; Couldn't wait, I had to post it lol. I hope you'll like it. Sorry for any typos. TAG LIST IS OPEN!!!!!! (Reader has a lover and Feyd's going to find out lol 😉😉😉) Don't forget to leave a comment.

Warnings; None. Female Bene Gesserit Reader x Feyd-Rautha, enemies to lovers! reader is reffered to as she/her.

Words; 2.417K

Chapter 3

Chapter Two ‘’Forcibles’’

The boy with pure eyes had grown into a tall muscular man with menace in his orbits. ‘’May I?’’ he asked not leaving his gaze from Pyramus, it wasn’t a request, it was an order and Pyramus who was coming from a small house couldn’t say no. Without a word he let go of Y/N, she felt empty. She was about to object, maybe excuse herself to rest but Feyd-Rautha Harkonnen acted quickly, like a snake he placed his hand on the small of her back and held her hand, she had no choice but to place her hand on his tense shoulder. His eyes so blue, ‘’How long has it been?’’ he asked, his boy voice was gone and classical Harkonnen tone made its home. Manly. ‘’I truly don’t remember.’’ She replied with a flat tone, couldn’t do anything but let him lead the dance. It had been only a minute and Y/N had every information she needed;

Predator

Dominant

Show off

His grip was strong, maybe he was sending a clear message to other houses. Y/N didn’t want to care but her Bene Gesserit training made it impossible not to care. ‘’You wound me.’’ He mocked. He was much taller than Pyramus. She had to look up to meet his icy blue gaze. Y/N noticed the looks they got, a Harkonnen is dancing with an Atreides…. Outrageous.

‘’I see you become a witch like your mother.’’ His tongue was a whip, was he trying to get a reaction out of her?

‘’I’ve heard you become a beast.’’ She was quick to answer, she felt the grip on her back tightened. Did she stroke a nerve? Good.

‘’If we were in Giedi Prime I would have your tongue.’’ He was amused and it made her more angry, ‘’Proves my point.’’

She noticed Irulan and Paul’s questioning look, they seemed shocked and concerned for Y/N. She gave them a small smile.

She felt like a black cobra snake swallowing her whole, Feyd-Rautha made sure to press her close to him, he wasn’t gentle like Pyramus, she looked but couldn’t see him, ‘’Looking for someone?’’ he sounded annoyed, Y/N heard how his mood changes quickly and she didn’t have time for an ugly scene. ‘’My friends. I assume you’re not familiar with the concept.’’ She thought maybe detesting Harkonnens were genetic. Feyd laughed hard which attracted stares around them, they were mostly concerned for Y/N Atreides. Up close, for a split second she saw that innocent boy but he disappeared.

The music ended and she excused herself, before she left Na-Baron grabbed her wrist, she turned in shock, what was he doing? He leaned and pressed a kiss on the back of her hand, the kiss felt so soft she couldn’t believe it was coming from Feyd-Rautha Harkonnen. She bowed in courtesy and got away from his grip, she could feel his icy blue orbits on her back, stabbing her.

Irulan came to chat with her, ‘’What was that about?’’ Irulan didn’t want to attract any unwanted attention but she wasn’t the only one who witnessed that. ‘’What do you mean?’’ Y/N asked drinking her champagne, cold liquid made her more relaxed, ‘’Feyd-Rautha ate you with his eyes.’’ Irulan signed with her hands, didn’t want pointy ears to hear. ‘’He is an intense man. That’s all.’’ She signed back.

The night was too long for Y/N’s liking. Since she was a lady she had to stand by her family and talk to other houses about spice, politics, etc. She needed some air.

Y/N chose a balcony at the back, front ones were occupied, she inhaled deeply, her hands on the stone railings, ‘’Here you are.’’ Pyramus’s soft voice made her calm. They hugged, he immediately tried to kiss her but Y/N had to be careful, she moved her head and Pyramus’s thin lips landed on her cheek. He huffed in annoyance, ‘’How long we have to hide in the shadows?’’ he loved to whine. ‘’Soon I shall tell my family.’’ Y/N kept mustering up her courage and loosing it the last minute. It wasn’t going to be easy. Pyramus held her hands, ‘’Be mine, they can’t say anything then.’’

‘’I’m already yours.’’ She was confused,

‘’Be mine… fully.’’ His dark eyes looking for answers. ‘’Oh,’’ Y/N understood. ‘’I don’t know. We should head back.’’ She changed the topic. Before she could leave Pyramus didn’t let go of her hands, ‘’Think about it, please.’’

Y/N Atreides could hear the whispers; ‘’Did you see?’’

‘’Poor girl.’’

‘’They seemed a perfect match, how odd.’’

‘’Na-Baron seems interested…’’

She only held her head high, pretended like she was deaf. Long night came to an end, she felt so tired running from unwanted company, the Harkonnen boy. Her father had to talk to them, Y/N managed to ignore them.

Tossing and turning in her bed with questions in her busy mind she bolted to her feet. The palace was quiet, guests were fast asleep. Y/N wanted to talk to someone, someone who would understand.. she wore her white satin robe and left her bed chamber. Her family were staying at the guest wing, she knew Paul would be awake. Her footsteps echoed in the empty halls, glowglobes were on the walls, giving a dim light to the corridors, her Bene Gesserit training made her stop, someone was following her, she calmed her mind.

‘’Why so hasty?’’ a rough voice echoed behind her back. She turned to face the owner of the voice. Feyd-Rautha.

‘’I could ask you the same thing, my Na-Baron.’’ Her heart beat got faster as he approached hands in his back. His manner was predatory, observing his prey. His tunic was thin and loose, ‘’Why are you wandering so late at night, little dove?’’ pet name made her blood rise but she had to keep her calm. ‘’I don’t see why it is-‘’ he was circling her now, ‘’your business.’’ Feyd came to stop in front of her which made her look up to meet his eyes. He liked having the height advantage, he could sense her fear, so delicious. ‘’Witches and their secrets…’’ he leaned and whispered to her face, his breath hot. Y/N wanted to run away and hide from him but something in her told her that no matter what he would find her.

‘’I’m good at revealing secrets.’’ His left hand rose, his forefinger tracing her arm covered in satin, both of them felt the electricity. His eyes travelled on her chest and find their place on her eyes again. ‘’How is Pyramus?’’

Y/N had to be extremely careful, or her house’s honor could be at stake. ‘’I don’t know what you’re talking about Na-baron.’’ Her tone flat yet Feyd noticed her posture change. As if she was going into a trial by combat. Deep down he wondered how would it feel to be loved like this, he could feel the rise of jealousy… a member of an insignificant house could achieve her love so easily? No. he would not allow it. A sinister plan ran in his dark mind.

She wanted to wipe that arrogant smile on his face, ‘’I shall bid you good night.’’ With that she headed back to her room. Whenever she wanted to open up about Pyramus something would stop her…

When the morning came with its shiny sun and fresh smell of flowers she was having breakfast with her family. Padishah Emperor Shaddam made majority of the house leave and announced that after breakfast he would announce his decision.

‘’You seem upset my love, is everything all right?’’ Duke Leto asked gently, she hadn’t touched the food on her golden plate, she looked around, no one but her family. ‘’I’m in love with someone.’’ She unraveled, feeling the years of burden leaving her delicate shoulders. Leto and Paul were smiling but her mother’s face didn’t move a muscle. ‘’Who is the lucky gentleman?’’ Leto asked, ‘’Pyramus, from house-‘’

Jessica cut her short, ‘’That house?! Have you lost your mind?’’ Jessica knew that Reverend Mother had something else planned for Y/N. Bene Gesserit has been working for this union for years. ‘’Let’s not lose our temper.’’ Leto warned Jessica with a calm tone. ‘’They are a small house, it is true. If he is good enough for my daughter he is good enough for us.’’ He finished. ‘’Excuse me.’’ Everyone thought Jessica was leaving in anger but she was about to send a message to Reverend Mother an change the whole course of Y/N’s future.

Harkonnens were having breakfast together, Feyd-Rautha was so fed up with his obese uncle’s eating that he lost his appetite. Rabban was in his normal self, quiet and tense. ‘’I wonder who will be the princess’s husband.’’ Rabban said curiously, was he hoping? Feyd-Rautha was seated away from them, watching them like a hawk. He knew well that Shaddam would never take that risk, to send his one and only daughter to the hellhole called Giedi Prime? Not in a million years. ‘’One way or another he has to satisfy us.’’ Their uncle spoke with full mouth, Feyd had to look away, he could feel his bile coming up to his throat. He drank his wine to suppress. ‘’What do you think uncle?’’ Rabban asked, he kept trying to impress their uncle and failed miserably. Baron’s fat fingers were shiny with the bacon’s juice he was eating, ‘’I believe we won’t leave until we get something.’’

Their Mentat Piter de Vrives knocked on the door and walked in, ‘’My Baron, Emperor is expecting you and your nephews to the throne room.’’

Baron laughed, ‘’We shall be there.’’

The throne room was packed with lords and ladies that remained, including Reverend Mother Helen. Y/N didn’t remember seeing her last night’s ball. Strange. Y/N Atreides and her family arrived early, Padishah Emperor Shaddam spoke with her father Duke Leto in private. Behind the golden throne there was a door which opened to a small room where Shaddam’s office took place. When Duke Leto came back his face held grim, he refused to look at anyone but the Emperor, was that resentment? Emperor was seated on his golden throne which had colorful ornaments, on his right much smaller and silver throne was placed and Irulan was sitting on it. Looking like a statue, she was a strong woman. Reverend Mother was at Shaddam’s left, whispering into his ear. She was covered in black, just like Harkonnens.

Y/N noticed how old Shaddam got, every child at one point in their lives come to the realization of their parents’ old age. Emperor was a second father to her, a sudden whip to her heart she focused her eyes on the floor to prevent herself from crying. In order to keep her racing mind busy she looked around to see the remained houses. Pyramus was right there, she waved at her and Y/N waved back. He had a colorful suit, just like his personality. Pyramus and other low class houses were on the left side of the room, other old and powerful houses were on the right. Everyone watched the way Harkonnens entered, they were the last one to arrive. Baron Vladimir was a man of show off, he loved to show his power given any chance. Baron was at the front, Rabban and Feyd following behind, when Y/N saw Feyd-Rautha, her mind immediately went to last night’s events.

‘’Does he know me and Pyramus?’’ to be the first one to reveal the secret she had to tell it to her family this morning but she wasn’t sure anymore. All day Pyramus was after her asking how they reacted, she felt overwhelmed.

She wanted to be brave so Y/N watched them stand close to Atreides, Feyd-Rautha wasn’t shy of eye contact, as usual he was wearing his black suit, with his boots he looked much taller. Y/N watched him eye her up and down, she was wearing a dark blue dress, her arms and neck covered in dark blue laces, her head was tightly rounded like a ball on her head, a thin silver tiara was placed. She kept her posture high, she wasn’t going to shrink because of a Harkonnen, even though Feyd looked as if he could disintegrate her with his shiny blue eyes.

Shaddam rose to his feet, his regal robe sweeping the floor, ‘’Thank you for waiting so patiently,’’ everyone were focused, eager to hear his decision. ‘’I have decided that it was due time to choose a life partner for my one and only daughter. After last night I have consulted my daughter Irulan and the young gentleman that I choose is,’’ Y/N could feel the tension in the room, she slightly observed the room and Shaddam’s subjects were focused on him but one person. Feyd-Rautha, his snake eyes kept finding Y/N. Why did he look like he knew something that Y/N didn’t?

‘’Paul Atreides, from house Atreides.’’ Applauses could be heard, Y/N got positive energy from them last night so she wasn’t wrong. Irulan was her sister and Paul her brother, she knew that they would make each other happy. Paul walked to princes Irulan to kiss her hand. ‘’The wedding shall happen tomorrow.’’ The applauses died down, ‘’If you have no objections or requests you may be dismissed.’’ Shaddam announced, Y/N couldn’t wait to be left alone with Irulan and listen every detail.

‘’Emperor!’’ a man’s strong voice echoed in the throne room, ‘’I have a request.’’ Y/N turned to see Feyd-Rautha leaving his spot and slowly approaching to stand in the middle of the room, ‘’Come forth young Harkonnen.’’

Y/N had a bad feeling, this whole thing look staged, she turned to see her family’s reaction. Duke Leto, again, trying so hard to avoid her, Lady Jessica smiled at her. Y/N was puzzled, ‘’This is for the best.’’ She signed to her daughter.

Feyd-Rautha did what Shaddam said, before he knelt in front of the Emperor he gave a last look to her.

‘’What is it that you request?’’ Shaddam’s calmness irritated Y/N.

‘’Since you raised her as one of your own it is best to ask your permission,’’ Feyd paused to get more reaction from his spectators, his head was down but after that pause he tilted his head and look into Shaddam’s eyes. Shaddam had never seen such power in a young boy before. Baron did a great job.

‘’I demand Lady Y/N Atreides’s hand in marriage.’’

TAG LIST;

@superchatnoir07

@mamawiggers1980

@landlockedmermaid77

@moonsoulk

@crystalskiesandcherrywine

Thank you for reading. :)

[jobean12-blog]

Cosmic Question

Pairing: Chris Beck x reader

Word Count: 708

Summary: Chris asks you a really important question while he’s orbiting the Earth. 

Author’s Note: This is for the HBC’s continuation of drunk drabbles and the super sweet prompt below sent in by @prunes-said-bucky​ I love writing Beck! Hope you enjoy and thank you all for reading! Much love❤❤❤

Warnings: sweet fluffy fluff, teeny bit of angst (super teeny), LOVE FILLED FLUFF :) 

Staring at your screen you watch as the small circle goes around and around, frustrated that technology these days still manages to prove difficult. A loud huff echoes in the silence of your empty bedroom, the reality that Chris is over 200 miles out in space hitting you hard. Just as your lips turn down a pair of sparking blue eyes light up your computer screen. “Hi baby!” Chris says with a smile that lights up his whole face.

“CHRIS!” you shout at your screen, the sudden weight of his absence sitting heavily upon your shoulders, “I miss you so much.” Your last sentence comes out much quieter and Chris’ eyes visibly soften. “I miss you more, baby. Only 22 more days!” He starts making kissy faces and you can’t help but smile, grabbing the stuffed NASA bear he got your before he left.

“How is Wicket?” he asks, as he watches you squeeze him tight. Making him dance across your keyboard, you reply in a silly voice, “just fine, thank you.” Chris makes a disgruntled face, “what? You don’t even miss me?” With a giggle you get comfortable, asking Chris how his research is going. He starts talking animatedly as you listen and ask questions, showing true interest in his studies.

“Ok, enough boring Science, I want to show you something.�� He winks before moving his camera over to the window of the ISS, “look.” You gasp, the image appearing on his screen simply breathtaking. “Wow, Chris, it’s so beautiful!” “It sure is some view, but nothing compares to when I get to wake up next to you.”

Your eyes well with tears and you try desperately to keep your voice steady as you reply, “I have to agree, even the blue of the ocean is no match for your eyes.” You hear him chuckle on the other side of the camera. “Thanks baby. And I’m sure you can’t really tell but I’m floating over our place right now. I know it’s hard and you can’t see me from down there but I’m here. I’m with you always.”

The first tear rolls down your cheek, landing on the keyboard as you try to keep your sniffles quiet. “I’m waving to you and blowing you kisses!” you manage to get out, doing just that. You’re still staring out into the expanse of space and the beautiful sight of Earth as Chris begins to turn the computer back around to face him.

At first, you’re focused on his slightly red rimmed eyes, but slowly something else floats into view. The lights from above catch the many facets of the diamond as it hovers in front of the screen and you’re rendered speechless. Chris catches it between his fingers and kneels, tilting the camera so you can see him.

“If you’ll be my star, I’ll be your sky, will you marry me?” No sooner do the words leave his lips that you’re bouncing on the bed, crying, and smiling and saying “yes!” repeatedly. Chris pumps his fists and cheers, leaning forward to kiss the screen. “Hold out your hand baby.” You put your left hand in front of the camera and Chris pretends to slide the ring over your finger. “I can’t wait to put it on you in person,” he chuckles, wiping away a tear.

“I love you so much, y/n. I couldn’t even wait until I got home.” Grabbing a tissue, you wipe your nose, smiling into the camera and whispering, “I love you too.” “I’m so happy! I can’t wait to tell everyone! But I can wait until you get home!” you assure him.

With a sly smirk he says, “actually, why don’t you unplug the computer and go out to the front yard.” Furrowing your brows, you do as he says, slowly walking toward your front door and opening it. “OMG!” you yell as you take in the scene before you. Your closest friends and family are all outside your door with balloons, flowers, and the biggest smiles. Turning back to the camera you give him a pointed look, “you were so sure I was gonna say yes, huh?” Chris laughs, his face smug when he replies, “as sure as there are stars in the sky.”

@aesthetical-bucky​ @buckys-broody-muffin​ @book-dragon-13​ @devynsdiary​ @eurynome827​ @hiddles-rose​ @hailmary-yramliah​ @ikaris-whore​ @itsunclebucky​ @jhangelface0523​ @jewels2876​ @loricameback​ @littledarlinhavefaithinme​ @littleredstarfish​ @metal-armed-cuddly-dork​ @mushyjellybeans​ @marvelgirl7​ @marvelandotherfandomimagines​ @nano--raptor​ @randomfandompenguin​ @scarletsoldierrr​ @sallycanwait68​ @softpeachbarnes​ @the-wayward-robot​ @when-the-hell-is-bucky​

[jennifersylvesters]

not so subtle - part eleven

Pairing: Harrison Osterfield x reader Word Count: 4 k~ Warning: swearing A/N: surprise, bitch. i bet you’d thought you’d seen the last of me. happy osterfield october! cheers to that and cheers to it apparently being a mcfrickin’ year since i posted the bullet points for “not so subtle” and conned y’all into reading. feedback is always appreciated ~

You should’ve gone after him. You should’ve flung yourself into his arms. You should’ve kissed him the way he kissed you. You should’ve told him something, anything. 

You should’ve gone to the Bahamas and told him how you felt. You should’ve laid it all on the line, telling him how no one could hold a candle to the light he ignited. How could they when Harrison orbited your thoughts?

You should’ve done a grand romantic gesture. You should’ve serenaded him in front of thousands of people. Okay, maybe bring the number to double digits. No way you’d perform with that many people around. You should’ve set up a room with an exorbitant amount of candles before confessing your feelings. You should’ve shown him how much you cared, how much he meant. 

But you didn’t. And maybe that was the problem.

Instead you stood drenched in the rain wondering what all of it meant. You replayed the scene over and over, so caught up in your thoughts that you hadn’t noticed hours pass by. 

It shouldn’t have come as a surprise that you found yourself sick, completely congested and downright miserable. The mountain of used tissues seemed to grow along with your headache. No way in hell you could fly when you could barely make it to the bathroom without a dizzy spell. 

“I can’t do it, Ems” you whimpered on the phone before letting coughing violently. Goodbye lung one. “I’m literally dying here.”

“You’re seriously not going to come with us?” You knew how much Emma had been looking forward to this trip, and your sickness had thrown a wrench in her plans. Despite trying to suppress her irritation, you heard it laced in her tone. You would’ve done anything for your best friend, but there was no way in hell you were going to the Bahamas.

“Emma, I can’t” you groaned as you blew your nose loudly. 

“We were looking forward to this-” 

Someone cut Emma off, filling your ear with muffled noise. In the background you heard her toss around the words “sick”, “cancel” and “true love”. You weren’t sure what to make of that.

Emma returned to the line, clearing her throat before stating briskly “Fine. Tom said he hopes you feel better.” You mumbled a thanks, grateful he managed to convince your best friend to drop the matter. “I still think you should go, but he says this might make it worse.” 

“I’m really sorry, Ems” you apologized. “You know I wanna go. I just don’t wanna throw up on the plane and ruin everyone’s vacation.” 

“Hey. I know you do” her voice softened slightly. “Get better soon, okay?” 

With a final cough and a “have fun”, you hung up and collapsed back to bed.

Rather than enjoying sunny island fun, Kimberly insisted you road trip with her and Sarah down to her cabin. You could recover better with people watching over you instead of cooped up in the apartment. Off to grandmother’s house Kimberly’s cabin we go. 

The drive consisted of you in the back seat attempting to sweat out your fever while the other two sang along to the radio. Let the girlfriends have their fun while you died in the back seat. 

When you arrived at Kimberly’s cabin, her mother smothered you with love and medicine. She doted on you as if you were her own, making sure that you immediately went to bed and only called you when it was time to eat. 

By the time you recovered, only a couple days of spring break were left. You wanted to make the most of it though you weren’t much for outdoor activities. It didn’t help that this vacation was clearly meant to be alone time for Sarah and Kimberly. There they were, enjoying one another’s company while you third wheeled. They insisted they didn’t mind but you knew better. 

Thank god for Kimberly’s brother, Ryan. He was a good, friendly distraction from the couple. The two of you could hang out separately without imposing on your friends. You enjoyed how he marveled over you knowing actual celebrities. No need to include details of you fainting from merely being in the presence of some. 

Still, you couldn’t help but wonder what would’ve happened if you went to the Bahamas. Would you be soaking up the sun? Running around the beach? Maybe even posting cheesy tourist photos? Perhaps you’d be kissing someone special under the starry sky, interlacing your fingers together as you agreed this was your sacred place - the place where you admitted your love. 

Haha. Huge sike. 

That, of course, was purely imagination. Instead your reality consisted of getting over colds and exploring nature. The only evidence of your fun was a singular photo posted on Instagram. Kimberly snapped a picture of you groaning next to a laughing Ryan whose arm slung tightly around your waist. You didn’t bother adding a caption; no way you wanted to explain how moments prior he caught you before you nearly plunged off the side of a trail. 

You wondered if Harrison would comment. He never did.

In fact, he never messaged you at all. He went completely silent on social media. No Instagram stories. No Twitter updates. No Snapchat stories. Nothing. 

“You know you could text him, right? It might make you feel better” Kimberly advised. 

Easier said than done. Every day you contemplated sending a text. Every day you made up an excuse. It was simple to chalk it up to being too busy than finding the guts to message him. 

Still you knew your roommate was right. She always was. Stupidly smart Kimberly. 

On your last day of spring break, you paced the floor before clicking through your contacts. You stared at the contact name “Lil Shit 💩”. Why was a poop emoji making you so nervous? Why couldn’t you just suck it up and say something? Why the hell was this so difficult? 

Just fucking text him already. 

Slowly you typed out a message. It wasn’t much but you assumed it would at least get a response. 

Y/N: Hey - how’s the Bahamas?

Your finger shakily hovered over the send icon. Send it. Just press the damn button. 

What was the worst that could happen? He could hit you up with that “new number who’s this”. He could tell you to fuck off. He could call you the wrong name. 

Finally you clicked send, heart pounding. 

You watched the message change from “message sent” to “message delivered”. It was nice to know he got phone coverage in the Bahamas.

Sarah called your name, distracting you from this mild obsession.You grabbed your belongings, heading downstairs. As the three of you loaded into the car, you noticed that the status had changed. He read the message. Well, that’s good. At least he got your text. 

A couple days passed and still no response. 

“Maybe he was busy?” Kimberly suggested. “Just send him another text.” 

Taking her advice, you shot off another text. 

Y/N: So are you back in the UK? 

And then there it was.

He left you on read. Again. 

Oh. So this was the worst option. 

Being ridiculed by Harrison was annoying but being ignored by Harrison was pure torture. 

It didn’t matter how many premieres Emma invited you to. You could attend all the after parties or party at every kick back. He wasn’t there. You wouldn’t have cared if you knew he was preoccupied with work, but he was actively avoiding you. And that fucking sucked.

When had things changed? When had arguing with Harrison become one of your favorite pastimes? When did you realize just how important he had become to you?

Spring classes resumed. Exams followed. You went through the motions, wondering what you two would be doing if he actually visited. Probably arguing. Potentially kissing. Of course he wasn’t there to prove any of your theories so you were left speculating the ‘what-ifs’. 

For months he ignored you. He had to break eventually, right? With summer vacation approaching, you assumed he’d finally talk. Say something damn it. 

You expected him at the Fourth of July party. Emma threw it every year at her parents’ house, gussying up the place with sparklers and birthday decorations. She insisted they could celebrate America’s independence as well as Harrison’s birthday. No one noted the irony of celebrating a Brit’s birthday on this specific holiday. 

Harrison always came, laughing about how his birthday should’ve been the national holiday. Your typical retort was telling him to stop being salty about America’s freedom. The two of you bantered about everything, from the consistency of the fireworks to what present you got him. (“I got you the gift of not kicking your ass.” “Lovely.”)

He never showed that day. 

All the Holland boys showed up, greeting you with hugs and huge smiles. No Harrison. 

Who was celebrating Harrison’s birthday with him? Was he alone or partying with other friends? Was there anyone there to make him a cake and wish him a happy birthday? You wanted to know but couldn’t find the courage to ask. 

Instead you pretended to have fun. You stuffed your mouth with food and sipped alcohol freely. You laughed at jokes and danced energetically. No way you missed Harrison’s painfully terrible hot dog jokes. Of course you didn’t mind that he wasn’t there to make dumb bets about how long the fireworks would last. 

It was just another party without him. Maybe that’s why this party wasn’t as fun as it should’ve been. 

With a nice buzz from drinking, you scrolled to his name in your contacts. “Just message him. Tell him how much he’s missing out” your brain encouraged. None of your friends were around to consult your poor decisions. The inebriation gave you an excuse to shoot off a text. 

Y/N: Enjoying the taste of freedom here in the good ol’ USA. 

That sounded like a good text. Right? 

“Send him a photo to prove you’re having a good time” the alcohol spurred your judgment. It sounded so good, so right. Of course he needed photographic proof you were having fun. 

Grabbing one of the small display flags, you rushed over to Harry Holland reclining in one of the plastic lawn chairs. He yelped as you yanked him back by his shirt slurring “Let’s take a photo to send to Harrison.” 

“Send it to Haz?” he asked incredulously before a sly smirk appeared on his face. “You finally ready to admit that you caught fe-”

“Shut up, Harry. Just take a photo with me” you snapped, refusing to let him finish that sentence. Even drunk you didn’t like where that sentence was going. 

Harry simply laughed, grabbing your phone to take the selfie. You flashed your teeth to the camera waving the small flag madly. You were so caught up in your actions that you didn’t notice Harry leaning in, catching you off guard as he planted a kiss on your cheek. 

The alcohol delayed your reaction, shoving him only once the flash went off. “What the hell was that?” Seriously, though. What the hell was that?

Harry snickered, tossing the phone in your lap. There in your messages, the photo had been sent to Harrison. What in the star spangled fuckery? 

“You’re welcome” he smirked, patting your shoulder. 

“I didn’t say thank you!” you shouted after him.

You sat in the chair, staring at the screen. The message changed to ‘read’ and you groaned throwing your head back. Of course he saw. He just never replied.

Except three moving dots appeared on the screen. You scrambled, sitting up straight. This was different. For a minute they just moved around before disappearing. Only a second later did they reappear. “Just say something already” you grumbled, the anticipation killing you.

Finally the dots disappeared for good. You groaned again, burying your face in your hands. You got your hopes up for nothing. 

“Piss off, Haz.” Your head swiveled to see Harry chuckling on the phone. Play it cool. Play it casual. Tipping backwards in the chair, you tried to eavesdrop on the conversation.

“Just talk to her. Or go back to bed. Oh, and happy birthday, div” Harry hung up. As he looked up from his phone, the two of you made eye contact. 

“You’re welcome, Y/N.”

“I didn’t say thank you” you mumbled. Minutes passed before you realized he wasn’t going to text back. Still, you couldn’t resist one more try. 

Y/N: happy birthday, harrison. 

The moving dots appeared again and your heart lurched. Say something. Say something, Harrison. Even if he just told you to shut up, you wanted a response. Any response. 

The dots disappeared and never resurfaced. 

Just like that, you spent the holiday mulling over your thoughts as fireworks burst brightly into the night sky. 

As summer dwindled to an end, you spent the rest of your break in the UK. Emma guided you around, visiting both the touristy destinations and her favorite secluded places. Still, you couldn’t ignore the elephant in the room. 

Tom had been actively avoiding you as well. He made excuses why he couldn’t tag along when he loved playing third wheel to your friendship. 

Something was definitely amiss. It wasn’t something you could easily discuss seeing as every time you approached him, he made up excuses to leave. “I gotta take this call.” Alright? “Forgot I have an appointment.” Sure? “Tessa’s pooping.” Fuck off with that nonsense. 

You loved Tom like an annoying brother which was why his odd nature pissed you off. 

“What’s your deal, Holland?” you finally snapped. A small group of you hung out in his flat where he avoided being closer than four feet from you. Pretty impressive even if his apartment was fairly spacious. 

“Deal? What deal?” he asked feigning innocence. Yeah, right. Try your acting chops on another sucker, buddy.

“Tom, what’s going on?” 

His eyes shifted around, focusing on anything that wasn’t you. 

“No idea what you mean. Oh, you hear that? Think Tessa’s calling for me.” He stood as you crossed your arms over your chest. 

“Tessa’s fine, Tom. Sit down.” He immediately sat down. “You’re avoiding me. Well, you and Harrison. But we’re focusing on you right now.” 

“I’m not avoiding you. I’m right here.” Still no eye contact. 

“Tom, you’re not even looking at me” you griped. “You’re totally avoiding me.”

“No, I’m not.”

“Yes, you are.”

“No, I’m not.” 

You were on the cusp of strangling your best friend’s boyfriend when Harry piped up from the kitchen. 

“Tom’s just being sour” he stated nonchalantly, fixing him and his twin brother a cup of tea.

“About what? I haven’t even done anything!” Sure, you could be an idiot but you hadn’t antagonized Tom in a while. Well, not that you could think of. This whole situation was an exasperating mess.

“I’m not being sour!” Tom interjected. 

“It’s ‘bout that new man you’ve got.” Harry hummed, ignoring his brother. Sam snickered, grabbing tea from one of the cabinets.

“What man?” you and Emma both questioned in unison. While you were utterly confused - since when did you have game for a man? - Emma looked stunned. 

“You have a man?” she mouthed to which you shook your head vigorously. 

“That man on your Instagram” Sam answered as Harry shuffled around the kitchen. 

You might’ve been impressed how both of them simply ignored their older brother’s glare if you weren’t so preoccupied trying to figure out what Sam meant. 

You pulled out your phone, scanning your Instagram profile. Looking at the first photo, you let out a snort. “Definitely not dating Sebastian Stan.”

“Oh, did you post that photo for a throwback?” Emma clapped her hands together excitedly. “You look so good! You’d never believe you’d been sobbing a couple minutes before that was taken.”

“Nah. Not that one. The guy from the woodsy photo” Harry steered the conversation back on course much to Tom’s dismay. 

“Who? Ryan?” 

“Oh, is that his name? I didn’t know” Tom remarked, acting completely surprised.

Harry choked on his tea before sputtering out a laugh. “Like you and Haz haven’t been trying to dig up dirt on the bloke” he wiped his mouth, grinning at an embarrassed Tom.

“You’ve been digging up dirt on Ryan?” you inquired, baffled that they would do that. 

“Ryan is Kimberly’s brother” Emma explained. 

“You’re dating Kimberly’s brother?” Tom’s eyebrows lifted in shock. 

“Wait, Kimberly has a brother?” 

“Which one is Kimberly again?” 

“Her flat mate.” 

“She the one who dressed up as a vagina on Halloween?” 

“Think so.”

Ignoring the younger brothers, you answered Tom’s question. “I’m not dating Ryan. Who told you that?” 

Tom went quiet, only sheepishly looking at the ground. Suddenly everything clicked. 

This fucking div. 

“Tom” you started slowly. “Is this why you’ve been avoiding me?” Silence. “Is it because you thought I was dating Ryan?” 

“No!” he shook his head like a scolded child. “It’s just…” he trailed off, still avoiding eye contact. 

“Spit it out, Holland.” 

“Okay...So maybe I thought you were dating Ryan. I just...I didn’t wanna make Harrison feel bad if I talked to you after all you guys have been through. But I didn’t know how to talk to you either. It’s not like I could talk to you about your new boyfriend.”

He corrected himself as he saw your glare. “I mean, your not your new boyfriend. I just didn’t want to take sides or anything.” 

Harry shared a wry smile with you before you both shook your heads in disbelief. 

“Oh, babe.” Emma placed her hand on Tom’s knee. The two of them exchanged soft smiles before she said “That’s the dumbest thing you’ve probably ever done. And you’ve broken your nose multiple times.”

His face turned red as Harry and Sam roared with laughter. 

“It’s not even about taking sides. We all know you’d choose Harrison; he’s your best friend. But you could’ve just asked what was going on instead of assuming things” she explained. “Now I’m gonna get a cup of tea while you sort this out with Y/N.” She kissed him on his forehead before joining the twins in the kitchen. 

Tom finally looked at you properly cracking a weak smile. “I’m really sorry, Y/N. I shouldn’t have...I should’ve just asked.” 

You laughed, accepting his apology. How could you not? It was Tom. The two of you exchanged a brief hug before you stood up and announced you were heading out. 

“No! Stay!” Tom insisted. “Let me fix things properly.” 

You weren’t sure what that meant, but you explained you needed to pack. Eventually with Emma’s help Tom relented.You gave him another hug before leaving his place.

Humming to yourself, you felt better knowing that you cleared up that miscommunication. If only things could be that simple. You pushed open the apartment door to a crisp breeze and turned before stopping in your tracks. 

Almost four months later and there he was. 

He blinked, clear recognition in those beautiful eyes. It was clear neither of you expected to run into one another. As you cautiously approached, he tensed up though stood firmly in place. 

Now only a couple feet away, you took a proper look at him. Had he gotten more handsome? Was that even possible? His hair was longer, messier but suited him well. His hands jammed into his pockets as he kept his eyes on you. Even with the tight expression, it was comforting finally seeing him. Finally being around him. It had been so long, and you missed this. Missed him. 

“I miss you.” Of all that was holy- Did you really just say that out loud? The words slipped out of your mouth carelessly. 

His eyes widened at your confession. Those were the first words since that rainy day. It felt strong, maybe too much. But those words rang true to how you felt. You couldn’t keep it in any longer. 

“I…” you paused, wishing you could’ve composed your thoughts better. But the moment was here, and the time was now. “I just...haven’t seen you around. I didn’t realize how much I missed you till you weren’t there. It was like all I could think about was if I was ever gonna see you again, y’know?” 

Seeing him take the slightest step forward, you summoned up a bit more courage to continue. 

“I like being around you, Harrison. I like arguing even though you drive me crazy. And Jesus Christ do you drive me fucking insane. And it’s crazy to think that you’re one of my favorite people even though you’re a pain in my ass.” 

The corner of his lips twitched, fighting the urge to smile. “But I like that you’re there for me. And that you don’t make fun of my crying. And that you’re so sweet.” 

You began choking up. Oh, God! Why the hell were you doing that? 

You wanted to stop - let him process all of this - but kept going. “And I get why girls like you because your flirting is just so...It’s you and it’s charming. It’s so damn charming that all I want is your attention.” His gaze shifted downwards, staring at the pavement. No, you didn’t want that. You wanted his focus on you. Please look up. Look up.

“And I love it when you call me love.” He glanced up at as your eyes swelled up with tears. Keep looking at me. No one else but me. 

Harrison stared as you dry swallowed, rubbing the tears away. “I really do. I don’t think you even realize what that does to me. And I wish...I just wish you said it in more than a friends way.

“You’re the only person I’ve ever thought about like that.” HIs eyes darkened at that, the softness quickly disappearing as he completely stiffened up.  

“Sorry I’m late!” A pretty brunette bounced up to Harrison’s side smiling widely. 

Neither of you spoke as she continued smiling, now with a quizzical expression. “Hello, I’m Jessica” she introduced herself as she held out her hand. You shook it, muttering a polite greeting before pulling away. 

That was when Harrison’s arm went around her protectively. He pulled her closer as she wrapped her arm around his back. He kissed her cheek causing her to let out a bright laugh. 

Oh. 

A weight crushed in your chest as you forced a smile. Of course Harrison would have someone. He hadn’t waited around for you to get your shit together. You missed out on the only chance he’d given. You’d been foolish to forget that others wanted him who wouldn’t hesitate for their opportunity. The weight sunk deeper the longer you looked at the couple. 

Noting the discomforting silence, Jessica eyed you both. “Should I just meet you up there, Haz?” she asked politely. Of course she called him by that nickname. Of course she had that privilege. 

“No, we’ve basically wrapped up.” 

“Guess up to Tommy’s place then” she nudged him in the ribs playfully. 

“‘Course, love.” Oh. 

So that was Harrison��s answer to your feelings. So this was how heartbreak felt. You nearly shattered into a million pieces as he smiled at her and squeezed her shoulder softly. Tears pricked the back of your eyes once again. Hold it in. Just for a little longer hold it in. You couldn’t bear the thought of crying in front of Harrison. 

“It was nice meeting you” Jessica smiled before taking your hand and squeezing it gently. 

“Y’too” you croaked out, reminding yourself to breath. In, out. In, out. In, get the fuck out. 

You pushed past them, rushing away from Tom’s apartment. A couple blocks later you stopped and took a deep breath. Leaning forward, you placed your hands on your thighs as the mental picture of the happy couple flashed in your mind. They looked good together. Of course they did. 

So there was the truth. Harrison Osterfield was completely and utterly over you. And you weren’t sure you would ever get over the ocean eyed boy who completely owned your heart.

tags list: @sleepybesson, @sophiatomlinson23, @supernatural-girl97, @tomhaz | @alt-ernativewonderland, @bbk8lin (not sure if you wanted to me to tag you?), @blackstarryroses, @bringmethehorizonandpizza, @butithasntkilledyouyet, @chims-kookies, @choke-me-sweet-pea, @deleteidentity, @divosterfields, @highladyjel, @hollandhearts, @jessiq31, @kateelyse96, @kayla-m1996, @lovelytrashure, @otheenglishsetters, @sarcasticvodka, @soccerstud004, @spider-mendes, @thefallenbibliophilequote, @valkyriesqueen101, @wolvesofthewinter

[northern-angel]

Cooke Household round 1

Julien Cooke

Aspiration: Popularity/Knowledge

LTW: Become Celebrity Chef

Job: Fast Food Shift manager (Culinary Level 3)

OTH: Cuisine

ACR Preference: Bisexual

We start with Julien cooking himself some breakfast.

Then, presumably after he ate the food he cooked, he moves on the daily crossword puzzle in the paper.

And then does some skill-related reading.

After all that I was thoroughly bored so I sent him out to the Veronaville Market, hoping something interesting might happen. Apparently he doesn’t like the flowers I used to decorate around the beautiful pond I built. Screw you Julien!

Now if George McCarthy thinking “who is this dapper gentleman?” or is he thinking “Dude it’s the 21st century, not the 19th!”

Julien is very happy with his aesthetic though, so who cares what forever teen over there thinks.

Maybe someone will come play with him?

These two are immediate Double Bolters, even if Nina is a bit of a sore loser.

Is Edwin Sharpe doing the kitten startle reflex or is he mocking the Human Statue NPC’s artistry?

Nina heads off to grab a bite, and I notice Florence Delarosa is walking by. I had somewaht hoped these two might be a match, but alas zero chemistry (I had also thought Julien might make a good match for Kent Capp, but again no lightning bolts)

Still despite their lack of sexual sparkage, the two hit it off and Florence thinks about kissing.

Silly Dormie and Host NPC, I do not care enough about you for you to get to marrying into a Playable family. But I will flail if Julien’s only good matches are the Sims equivalent of Red Shirts.

Oh great, just what the lot needed.

Should I be worried about Julien? Or is if perfectly normal to discuss trains with an empty seat...

Nothing sinister happening behind you at all there Julien.

Nina comes over to discuss their respective meals, whilst Romeo wonders if anyone would notice him eating those leftovers. The answer is yes, Hermia will totally notice and judge you and tell her sister.

I feel that Nina might be making a bit of a low blow here, I mean hate the Unsavoury Charlatan because he’s a conman and thief, not because you find him repellant sexually.

That waitress is totally pissed off that they are conversing in the worst possible place.

Back at home Julien has a nap in his new recliner (I really wish Sims could nap on their beds like they can in Sims 3)

And then off to work.

Whilst at work this chance card comes up. I mean who chooses the first option? It’s a burger place, people will be pissed off if there are no burgers.

Fortunately this choice goes well for me, but I know I’ve had a bad outcome choosing that way before.

Not only did he get a skill point and a bonus, but also a promotion to Host.

I think he’s talking to Florence there, but it could be Nina or someone else. I don’t know ok.

Off to work in his snazzy new uniform the next day.

And this time it’s a hobby chance card.

It’s a good thing I’d already had this one whilst playing the Pleasants.

Julien invites Florence over after work.

He really likes her milkshake, he’s just concerned he might be lactose intolerant.

For a supposedly skilled chef, Julien doesn’t actually have that many cooking skill points.

They end the night deciding that they make great friends but nothing else.

This must be the next day after work, and I assume he’s chatting to someone on that doorstep of a laptop.

And then I sent him out to the makeover of the Old Silo Farm. The next few pictures are just me showing off how pretty this lot is. I apologise!

Oh look here’s Julien cooking some burgers. That’s the sort of thing you’re all actually reading for right?

Julien likes the look of Lola, so I send him over to meet her. I think Ana Patel recognises Julien from work.

Another scenery pic, but have you ever seen such pretty toilets in your life?

Julien and Lola hit it off very quickly, possibly because Lola is under the false impression that Julien has money.

Thinks start to take a more romantic turn, and this is the point that I remember that Lola is already dating Ajay Loner. Oops.

Everyone loves being tickled in the Sims world, what kind of freakish world is that?

And now some kickey bag in the pouring rain.

Lola subtly feels Julien out over the size of his bank balance, and a lightning bolt nicely lights the scene. I need to go put more lights on this lot.

Some cute flirting going on here.

And now Julien is crushing on this beautiful green-skinned goddess.

Dancing in the rain.

And Julien goes in for his first kiss.

I had never noticed how pointy Julien’s ears where before this, and now I have this whole headcanon about how he’s adopted and he came to live in Veronaville to ask the Fae Royal Couple to help him track down his Fae parent.

This first kiss is so much better than the one Lola and Ajay had.

Awwww!!!! Also is there no view on this lot that isn’t pretty?

Another kiss, this time overlooking the pond.

Even the rain puddles don’t ruin the romantic atmosphere. Mental note, must send more Veronaville folk on dates to this lot.

Is it her alien genes that make her so strong or does she just hit the gym a lot?

I am incredibly proud of this picture, I just wish it wasn’t quite so dark.

At least in the dark it’s a little harder to see that lovely bright blue accessory mesh fail that is orbiting Lola.

The date ends as a Dream Date. I believe Ajay only managed a Great Date. How do I decide which paramour she stays with? Just lock the first engagement want? Or could they work out as a Thruple? Maybe Ajay isn’t entirely straight...

I have no idea what is going on with their body language here, they almost look like they are about to do a celebratory chest bump or something.

Back at home Lola pops by to leave a bouquet. That is quite the round trip to Strangetown just to leave flowers.

And that’s it for Julien. Hope you’ve enjoyed my silliness.

[chocolatequeennk]

I just reread the wedding scene in TISAF and it’s one of my favorite scenes ever. It’s so happy and romantic and perfect. And it just got me thinking. What have been some of your favorite romantic scenes to write in the series?

Oh, what a fun question!! Like I said on Thursday night when you sent me this, I’m going to cheat a bit. I’ll do the top five romantic scenes in this post, then later today and tomorrow, I’ll do two separate lists of the top moments the Doctor and Rose said or did something to show they love the other. Romance is one thing... the long-term commitment to keep love going is another.

The Top Five Romantic Moments in Being to Timelessness

To Make Much of Time, chapter 28 (In which the Doctor and Rose bond)

[The Doctor] shifted so they were standing side by side holding hands again, clasped palm to palm with their fingers laced together. The Medusa Cascade was invisible, but Rose could still see the possibilities swirling in the air.

His fingers tightened in hers, and she glanced up at his face. How long are you going to stay with me?

Rose’s heart sped up. This was him, asking. She felt her own timeline and saw only one path forward. There was no universe in which she wouldn’t want the Doctor. Forever, she told him, never more sure of anything in her life.

The word carried the weight of authority, and they both shivered as it settled into their timelines, forming the provisional bond that would begin to tie their minds together.

To Make Much of Time, chapter 40 (In which the Doctor proposes)

“Right now, we’re in a geosynchronous orbit. And that—” [the Doctor] pointed to the cloud-obscured planet—“is London. Specifically, London on the fourth of March, 2005. In about two hours, a weary old Time Lord will take the hand of an extraordinary shopgirl who will remind him that there is still some good left in the universe.”

Rose looked up at him. “And a London shopgirl who’s convinced she’s never gonna do anything else will be rescued by an alien who shows her that the universe is so much bigger than she’d imagined.”

...

The Doctor ... had the box open and the ring out before Rose could fully form her protest. Her mouth fell open, and she took the ring from him.

“You’ve already promised yourself to me according to Gallifreyan customs. I want to make the same promise to you in the way you grew up expecting.” Rose’s gaze flitted up to meet his. “Marry me?”

Time is Still A-Flying, chapter 6 (The Doctor and Rose’s wedding)

[The Doctor] placed his hands on her temples, and Rose mirrored him. This is the last time we’ll need to be touching to go into each other’s minds, he told her. Last chance to change your mind—there’s no going back after this.

Don’t want to go back. I just want to go forward, with you, forever.

The Doctor’s hands trembled on her temples. I love you, he told her fervently.

...

The words came easily to Rose. I take you as my bond mate, sharing my life, my mind, and all I am with you. I promise never to lie to you, and to be true to our bond through regeneration after regeneration, until we are finally parted by death.

She could feel his deep joy and a pleasure that went far beyond happiness, and then he said, Now, Rose.

With the TARDIS’ help, she pressed into the telepathic centre of his mind, feeling him do the same thing in hers. The awareness of him that their bond had given her flared and deepened. She knew more than how he was feeling or what he was thinking; she knew him.

Yes. Oh, Rose. You are my forever.

Taking Time, chapter 4 (Their third anniversary, following a year of healing after the Master)

They dropped over the edge of the cliff, and Rose’s giggle turned into a gasp. The sun was low on the horizon over the azure waters of the Barcelonian sea. Wispy clouds had moved in during the late afternoon and now caught the pink and purple rays of the setting sun.

But the Doctor was more interested in how the shifting colours danced over Rose’s features. Her blonde hair caught the pink light of the sun, making it look like rose gold. He reached out and brushed a strand out of her face, and she turned to look up at him.

My pink and yellow Rose, he said as he leaned down to kiss her. Happy anniversary.

Rose sighed when he caught her lower lip between his. Happy anniversary, Doctor.

Forever and Never Apart, chapter 22 (Just. Very romantic.)

“You said you weren’t ready for me to regenerate yet. And I thought… You loved the old me; you’ve told me that before. So… would it really be so bad if I regenerated?”

Oh. She hadn’t really been thinking when she’d said that—she certainly hadn’t been thinking about how the words would sound to the Doctor.

...

That’s not what I meant, Doctor, she told him. I loved you then and I love you now. I’ve even loved the younger versions of you we’ve met. I’ll love every you in the future, I promise.

Then why…

She reached out and took his hand, keeping her touch delicate as she stroked his fingers. These are the hands that touched me the first time we made love. She ran her finger over his eyebrow. These are the eyes that looked into mine when we said our wedding vows.

“Rose…”

His raspy whisper brought tears to her eyes. “And that’s the voice that told me you loved me for the first time,” she concluded. “I’ll love every you, Doctor, because every Doctor is you. But there have been so many of those first moments shared with this you, and I’m not ready to let go of that yet.”

Thanks again for the ask! I had a lot of fun with this post, and I’m looking forward to the next two.

[theolddarkmachine]

Sheith + witches

+

We Are the Weirdos, Mister

A thrum of something a lot like adrenaline cascaded through his veins, screaming at him to turn back now, but all he could think about was how fluidly Keith’s hand had moved as it had arced through the air, and the crystal gem cut of his face.

Really, if Shiro was smart, he would run now.

He would get out before something bad could happen. Something that would get him caught. Something like—

The sharp staccato sound of his text tone shattered the almost unnatural quiet around him and the shack, shaking him loose of whatever spell it had cast on him as his eyes widened. With a small, strangled sound, Shiro thrust his hand into his jacket pocket and pulled the offending piece of technology from where it sat nestled against his hip.

Its light nearly blinded him as he looked down at the screen to see a single message from one ‘Lancey Lance’ stretched across it.

hey dude wut r u up to

Something told him his friend wouldn’t really like the answer to that question. Shaking his head slowly as he flicked his phone to silent, Shiro pushed it deep into his pocket and looked up only to choke on the sudden crash of his heart against his tonsils.

Keith was no longer in the shack.

AO3

A/N: @ movie studios, hire me to write your thinly plotted witch movie that’s just an excuse to make two guys kiss. kudos to you if you know where the title is from

***********************

Black, more black, and a hint of red leather.

Those were the three things Shiro first noticed about the lithe student on the other side of the cafeteria as he walked towards the courtyard with his tray clutched in his hands. Black draping cardigan over a black tank, paired with torn black jeans and red leather Docs. It was a look very unfitting for the small desert town.

Hell, it didn’t fit in the city that he’d just moved in from.

In fact, it looked like something picked for an alternative fashion line during fashion week.

And with a face like that, Shiro wouldn’t have been shocked if he had been meant for a runway too.

“Who is that?” He breathed as his fingers twitched around the soggy burger the school system had deemed safe for the youths of the future to consume. Tracking each step as the other high schooler pushed the door open with his hip and stepped outside, he barely noticed the annoyed sound his companion made in the back of his throat.

“That?” Lance— or as he had gracefully called himself The Best Welcoming Committee This Side of Paradise— said with something that sounded a lot like vehemency. He turned to Shiro with his own hamburger poised halfway to his mouth, bite aborted in favor of answering.

“The mullet wearing wannabe bad boy?” He quirked a brow over a dark blue eye as he carefully put the wilting patty down on his tray. “That who?”

It wasn’t a description he would have used. He was thinking more along the lines of striking force, but that might have been too much to admit on his first day.

Nodding instead, Shiro continued to watch as the mysterious who in question made his way to an empty seat in the courtyard. His onyx hair caught the light of the sun as he looked around as if checking the area before he planted himself at the table directly across from where they sat.

“That,” he emphasized as he wrinkled his nose, “is Keith. And we don’t talk to that.”

The we he stressed with extra weight and a shifting hand between the both of them.

“Why?” Shiro asked, still unable to pull his silvered gaze away as Keith looked around once more before he slowly waved a hand over the top of his tray. Looking now, he could see the rings that circled his fingers and caught the light, blinding him momentarily with a quick flash.

Beside him, Lance shook his head.

“Because that,” he said, turning the word into something made entirely of hard edges and points, “is trouble.”

Then, as if he could hear them, Keith looked up.

Catching Shiro’s stare through the glass that separated them, he held it with an intensity that made his bones soften before he cocked his head in silent question. An electric sting ran across his chest, searing his skin and turning his cheeks bright with heat as he found himself unable to look away.

Trouble, his mind screamed.

Slow like spilling honey and just as sweet, a smile worked itself across Keith’s mouth as he tilted his chin upwards quickly in all knowing acknowledgement.

Yeah, Shiro thought as he finally averted his eyes, swallowing a breath he hadn’t been aware he’d been holding.

He could see that.

***

He lives in some little shack in the desert, if you can believe that, Lance had said shortly after Shiro had finally gotten his heart rate under control again.

Seriously, Shiro, buddy. He keeps to himself, so don’t even try. Trust me.

He’s a prick.

Everything Lance had said about the stranger was a riptide in his mind, grabbing all Shiro’s other thoughts and drowning them so that all that was left in their place was that smile and the self assured nod.

Something about the way Lance had described Keith hadn’t quite lined up with what Shiro had seen that first day, or any of the following days for the rest of the week. Every description he gave was mired in insult that, as far as he could tell, was undeserving and altogether false.

The only thing that seemed to be accurate was the title of trouble, but he hadn’t quite yet figured out if that was because of how deadly the sharp lines of his face were, or because of the way Shiro’s heart would forget how to beat whenever their eyes would meet.

An annoying little voice at the back of him mind reminded him of the likelihood of both.

Sighing loudly, Shiro thrust his hands further into the pockets of his jacket as he hunched his shoulders up towards his ears in a vain attempt to protect them from the cold night air.

He hadn’t been planning on looking for the shack, but curiosity for things unknown had always been his downfall.

After all, that very curiosity had been why he’d moved to the middle of the desert in the first place.

Shiro was in love with space, and all the things that were still left to be discovered of its unending stretch of dark sky and blinding stars, and Garrison High was the highest ranking STEM school in the nation. Almost all students that attended the school in some capacity ended up at Garrison University, which boasted the highest number of graduates accepted into NASA.

His curiosity was why he jumped at the chance to attend the Garrison for his senior year.

And now that curiosity was why he was lost in the middle of the night looking for Keith’s shack.

You can’t miss it. It’s right at the base of the plateau and the literal only thing out there, man.

Lance’s voice taunted him with the simple instructions that wrapped themselves around his brain stem as he stepped over the sun baked earth and dried vegetation.

“Can’t miss it, my ass,” he drawled under his breath as he continued forward, his path lit by nothing else but the moon above. Bathing the otherwise colorful desert with its cool light, the scene before him was turned monochromatic and otherworldly. The cold bite that edged everything before him in silver sent a hush of goosebumps running along his skin.

Normally, he would find the moonlight beautiful, but tonight it glowed with something sinister. Something that felt all to ready to eat him alive.

Of course, maybe that was just him being on edge.

Being lost in the desert could do that to a person after all.

“Dammit!” He hissed in frustration as he stopped, throwing his head back to look upwards towards the night sky, pinpointing Pegasus as he breathed. The stars at least, were there to offer him some kind of solace.

Dragging his gaze between the stars that made up the constellation, he repeated the pattern until he felt his breathing calm and his heartbeat slow.

He really should give up.

It had been an embarrassing amount of time since he’d left his hover bike on the main road and defeat was tainting his mood with a roiling darkness much like the shadows stretched across the desert before him.

Even if he found the shack at this point, what would he even do? Keith would inevitably want to know what he was doing there, and something told him that I was drawn to you was only acceptable in young adult supernatural romances.

Shiro wasn’t even entirely sure what caused the pull festering deep within his gut that fought to drag him to Keith like he was the sun and he as nothing more than a planet caught in his orbit. Worst still that it was an unavoidable thing. He had no more say in the matter than anything else that was inevitable.

He was caught in Keith’s orbit, and after a week of watching him at school, he’d learned that any and all attempts to exit the continuous spin was met with nothing but failure.

Worst still, was the fact that he didn’t even want to be free of it, because while he pushed against the distinct pull, he also knew that he still needed to know more.

More, more, more.

Of course, he probably could have stood to wait until the following Monday during actual school.

But hey, he never said he was perfect.

Setting his jaw with new resolve, Shiro gave Pegasus one last pass before he turned his gaze back towards the ground just as a breeze shuffled the brush around his feet and set his hair dancing across his vision.

There, just in the distance, enveloped in a soft golden glow emanating from within, was the shack.

How? He thought as he stared openly at the old wood of the exterior, mouth slightly agape at the obvious nature of the dilapidated structure straight ahead from where he stood. A ripple of unease flashed down his spine as he blinked against the vision of the shack.

It hadn’t been there moments ago, that he knew for a fact.

Even with the cover of night, the moon had lit the barren landscape enough that even if the light had previously been off, he would have been able to make out its silhouette at the base of the plateau.

Just where Lance had said it would be.

Stumbling across the expanse that stood between him and the small home, he picked through a particularly large bush, cringing at the loud snaps of brittle twigs that punctuated the otherwise silent night but still unable to stop.

There it was again, that unavoidable pull as if his limbs were tied to strings and he wasn’t the one in control of them. Biting at the inside of his cheek, he moved until he stood just at the foot of the barely there patio connected to the front of the shack.

Why do you even care so much? That damned small voice asked, sounding more and more like Lance with each question of his intentions.

The easiest answer would be that he just wanted to form his own opinions on Keith. He’d never been one for rumors or obvious biases, having found himself on the receiving end the high school microscope before. It was easy when you were the new kid with a flashy metal arm to end up the focus point of bathroom gossip, and he hated it. He was more than his accident and more than his cybernetic arm in the same way he was certain Keith was more than a troublesome teen with “greasy” hair.

Shiro had seen his hair, and it was far from greasy.

It looked feather soft and exactly like the kind of hair he would love to run his fingers through.

Or, something like that.

Which, led him to the real, more complicated answer. An answer that was nestled deep within his chest with a beat of its own. An answer that seemed to flair up with an unknown heat whenever he saw Keith sit in the same spot each day during lunch, alone and with that secret smile he flashed his way whenever he caught him staring.

For the sake of his own sanity though, he’d stick with the easy one.

Dragging a steadying breath through his front teeth, Shiro took the two small steps in one, careful to distribute his weight across the balls of his feet as he slowly eased himself across the rickety patio and settled in a crouch at the windowsill.

Peeking over the top of the cracking wood, his gaze fell on the interior of the shack. Spanning the space of a single room, it was filled by a sparse table and even sparser bed tucked in the corner, and standing between the two, was Keith.

Dressed in his usual black, the darkness was offset by the bright red leather strap that hung loosely from within the collar of his worn v-neck. Head turned down to the table and something he couldn’t quite see from where he was perched, Keith dragged his bottom lip between his teeth as he quickly raised a hand. Silver caught the light of the fire illuminating the space as he drove a dagger down with a loud thudding noise.

Shit, Shiro thought as he watched Keith shake the hair out of his eyes as his arm moved, pushing and pulling the blade through whatever was on the table.

A thrum of something a lot like adrenaline cascaded through his veins, screaming at him to turn back now, but all he could think about was how fluidly Keith’s hand had moved as it had arced through the air, and the crystal gem cut of his face.

Really, if Shiro was smart, he would run now.

He would get out before something bad could happen. Something that would get him caught. Something like—

The sharp staccato sound of his text tone shattered the almost unnatural quiet around him and the shack, shaking him loose of whatever spell it had cast on him as his eyes widened. With a small, strangled sound, Shiro thrust his hand into his jacket pocket and pulled the offending piece of technology from where it sat nestled against his hip.

Its light nearly blinded him as he looked down at the screen to see a single message from one ‘Lancey Lance’ stretched across it.

hey dude wut r u up to

Something told him his friend wouldn’t really like the answer to that question. Shaking his head slowly as he flicked his phone to silent, Shiro pushed it deep into his pocket and looked up only to choke on the sudden crash of his heart against his tonsils.

Keith was no longer in the shack.

“Didn’t anyone teach you that it isn’t polite to show up unannounced?” A voice like thick smoke growled at his ear as he felt the soft bite of metal at his throat. It was somehow exactly how he would imagine Keith’s voice, and yet nothing like it at all as his brain heaved itself into overtime in an attempt to catalogue the exact timbre of it.

The rational part of his brain told him to be afraid.

The less rational, and much larger part, tried to pinpoint where exactly Keith’s voice landed between smoldering embers and ash.

“So what trick were you planning?” Keith continued, exasperation quelling the growl in his words. Something about the way he said it made it sound like this wasn’t the first time he’d had uninvited visitors. It was a thought that soured all the words he’d heard from his classmate further.

Loner.

Greasy.

Hothead.

Shiro’s throat rubbed against the edge of the blade as he carefully swallowed the bitter taste that had coated his tongue.

“Trick?” He finally said, raising his arms slowly in a sign of surrender. After a momentary pause, he felt the dagger pull away. Waiting just a beat longer, Shiro turned over his shoulder to face Keith, maintaining his crouched position.

Looking up at him, he saw the way the light from inside danced across his eyes, turning them an almost unnatural shade of purple that sent a fluttering rush through his gut.

“I wasn’t planning any tricks,” Shiro continued, arms still raised as he let his gaze wander down the slim, neat trim of his waist and over the long line of his legs before snapping back up in time to see his eyes widen.

“You,” Keith said, the word a single hush of barely there breath as he looked down at him with something that looked a lot like recognition mixing in the mauve of his gaze.

Under different circumstances, Shiro might have even felt a pang of elation roll out across his chest and muting the solid beat of his heart.

Raising his brows in silent question, he drew his arms back down as he slowly shifted his weight and began to rise. Unsticking his tongue from the roof of his mouth, he began to speak once more, turning his tone soft.

“Look, I’m sorry, I didn’t me—”

The sharp crack of splintering wood cut off his words as the porch buckled beneath Shiro’s foot, sending pricks of biting pain up his shin as his leg crashed through it. Eyes widening as everything around him tilted with the loss of balance, his fingers closed around air as he descended backwards in near slow motion.

He watched as Keith’s mouth moved around a silent word as he thrust his hand out. A single flash of something warm danced along his sternum as his fingers brushed across his chest, not quite catching his shirt before Shiro hit the ground.

There was a sting at the base of his skull that rattled his teeth, and then everything went black.

***

Consciousness came back to Shiro in soft ebbing waves of warmth that washed out across his skin and turned the backs of his eyelids the same soft shade of Lake Hillier. It was slow and graceful and unlike he’d imagined from years of media and action movies.

Where was the sudden crash that jolted him upright in bed with a heaving gasp?

Instead, he was met with a soft waking that settled him atop a feathery bed, and surrounded by the scent of heated spices and drying earth.

Breathing in deeply, Shiro carefully opened his eyes to a dark wood ceiling lined by even darker timber. Thick twine wrapped around the beams above him, carefully suspending various plants that were unlike anything he’d seen out in the desert.

Or in any terrain he’d been in for that matter.

Purple and yellow and red, they created a kaleidoscope of color against his vision as it focused itself to a point of clarity.

Where am I? He thought carefully, wincing slightly at the spasm of pain that rocked through his skull, reverberating outward from a single point at its base. The last thing he’d remembered was the desert, and a text message, and a pair of eyes that captured the depth of the universe itself.

Oh, right.

“How are you feeling?” Keith’s voice was tight, pulling Shiro’s attention from the items above and to the side where he stood once more at the table he’d been at before the intrusion. Scattered across the scarred and stained table top, were decimated plants and several small glass vials, each filled with what looked a lot like ground petals. He watched for a moment, filing away the quick flash of Keith’s rings as he roughly chopped at the plants on the table.

Each movement of the blade was a graceful slice across the vegetation, and even though he knew he should be frightened with the knowledge of that same blade against his throat, Shiro couldn’t help but think Keith’s finesse was something of a mastered skill.

It was beautiful.

“I’m feeling like,” Shiro started as he pushed himself upright and slung his legs over the edge of the bed, biting down the woozy feeling that tilted the room before him on its axis as he rubbed at the back of his neck with a wince.

“Feeling like I just fell through a porch.”

His laugh sounded more like a wheeze as he tried to turn the statement into the joke. It was met with a glint of fire filled amethyst as Keith’s eyes snapped up to look at him, his mouth turned into a harsh line as he flipped the knife in his palm and succinctly thrust its tip into the wood of his table.

A fierce edge filled his presence with all the force of a tempest, supplying Shiro with one, single word.

Trouble.

“Look, I can pay for the repair—” He began, stumbling over his words as he dragged his arms up once more in surrender, only to be cut off.

“I don’t care about the porch,” Keith’s tone was clipped as he placed the palms of his hands on the table before him, leaning over slightly as he eyed his unwelcome guest. “That’s fixed already.”

“Fixed?” Shiro’s brows drew together in question as he felt his chest tug forward. Setting his forearms across his knees, he cocked his head to the side. “How?”

A small scoff parted Keith’s lips as he rolled his eyes, removing one of his hands and waving it to and fro as if that was some answer. After a moment of silence because no, it wasn’t, he spoke.

“Magic.”

The syllables were hard and blunt, filled with an obviousness that teetered dangerously close to sarcasm, but never quite tipped over the apex. It was a joke, Shiro knew, yet he still felt a featherlight touch trace the shape of his spine.

“What—”

“Why are you here?” Keith cut off, tone defensive as the line of his shoulders hardened beneath the weight of something Shiro couldn’t know. Beneath the burr of it, he could hear small fractures that threatened to snap beneath it. His gaze was cold, tightened at the edges in a momentary lapse that left him reeling.

Then, almost as soon as the mask had fit itself across Keith’s face, it was gone, replaced by a look of blatant curiosity.

“You shouldn’t be able to see me,” he said softly, the thought laced with the thrum of information he wasn’t privy to as Keith spoke the words to himself.

It was an impossible statement that didn’t make sense to Shiro in any capacity. Of course he could see Keith.

How could he not?

With his dark hair like charred ember and his fierce eyes that captured the magnitude of the Northern Lights, he was a presence that demanded to be seen.

After all, wasn’t that really why Shiro was there? Because he had seen Keith?

He had seen him, and now he couldn’t find it in himself to look away.

“What?” He repeated, not entirely sure the amount of air behind the word would push it across the space between them as he watched Keith move forward slowly. Each step was a fluid motion, something like smoke across water that entranced him.

Reaching out carefully, he brushed at the strands of his bangs with a quick flick of his fingertips, careful not to actual touch Shiro’s skin as he bit down on the meat of his full bottom lip.

“My spells don’t seem to work on you, Takashi Shirogane,” Keith mused, rolling his name of his tongue with care. It was wrapped in the plush of something sweet, as if it anything else might shatter it.

Butterflies danced along the ribs that caged them, tickling his insides as his mind emptied of all thought but the sound of his name on the other student’s tongue.

“You know my name?” Shiro asked dumbly as a clever smirk edged its way across Keith’s face.

“Just like you know mine,” he said matter-of-factly, shrugging the statement to the side as pink bloomed across Shiro’s cheeks. A moment’s hesitation stood between them as Keith’s hand remained suspended like a bridge between their being. It was in that pause that Shiro’s mind caught up with everything Keith had actually said.

Spells?

Trouble, his mind replied.

“What do you mean by spells?” The question crumpled the edges of Keith’s grin as he stepped back. Eyeing Shiro thoughtfully, a silence fell across the small shack that was marred by the small pops and cracks of the fire lighting the room.

Contemplation turned Keith’s gaze dark as he searched for something only he would know. Moments passed in a slow, aching crawl before Keith sighed lowly, shoulders deflating slightly before pulling back in set determination.

Flicking a wrist out towards the fire, Shiro started when it flared and engulfed the edges of the barely there fireplace. His eyes widened when he realized that though the flames licked across the wood there, it didn’t catch to burn.

“I’m a witch,” Keith said, voice growing huskier with truth.

Only, truth couldn’t have been what it was. Could it?

The heat of something entirely separate of the fire burned against his skin as Shiro’s eyes darted around the shack, looking for an anchor point before his mind ran away from him.

Images flashed across his mind’s eye, splashing scenes of Keith at lunch, the shack and the fire against his vision in a quick flush of color and light.

Then, they were gone, leaving a single word in their wake.

Trouble.

“Shit,” he managed, head snapping away from the bright point of the fire to Keith as he leant back against the table and crossed his arms over his chest. It was a hardened pose made all the more obvious by his feigned nonchalance as he returned the stare.

At the back of his mind, the small voice reminded him that he should be scared. That magic and witches were an impossible thing. Yet all Shiro could seem to focus on was the way the light danced across Keith’s features, turning them almost alien in their beauty.

He was nothing but sharp lines and edges befitting that of a hard cut diamond.

“Nothing major, mind you,” Keith hummed, keeping his voice light though the thrum of adrenaline coursing through hims was all too apparent by the way his arms twitched around him.

“I dabble in some minor spells only. Stuff like charms to keep people away,” he said it with a pointed look accompanied with a sharper smile before he continued his list.

“Some healing medicine for some of the older folks in town who used to visit my mom. A couple things to make the cafeteria food edible.”

Rolling his shoulder into a shrug, Keith shifted his weight further back onto the table until he was sitting on it. There was a pause as he dragged another thoughtful look down Shiro’s frame, leaving behind the static feel of electricity that danced along its tracks as the air grew heavy with anticipation.

Suspending itself over them, the pause finally snapped beneath the weight of the sharp sound of air being dragged through Shiro’s teeth.

Before him, he watched as Keith’s limbs relaxed as his eyes burned with decision as his mouth parted around a husking laugh.

“Maybe even a love spell or two,” he soothed as his mirth turned wicked and sharp.

That look radiated a heat that melted Shiro’s insides, turning him pliant to the surreal nature of the situation. Somewhere deep within him, he recognized the teasing that colored the statement something bright. Keith was making a joke at his expense, only it fell flat if only because at this rate, Shiro didn’t think he’d even need to use magic to ensnare him.

The power of his lightning storm eyes was honestly enough.

“Yeah?” Shiro asked, ignoring how breathless he sounded as he tried to swallow around the bursting heat radiating through his chest. It blistered the back of his skin, threatening to peel it from the bone with the gaze that was carving him up alive.

It was a heat that he wouldn’t mind burning in, whether it was magic or otherwise. Pressing forward slightly, his forearms protested against the bite of his kneecaps into the meat of his arm.

“And how do you cast one of those?”

Eyes growing wide at the question, Keith’s lips parted with silent words as Shiro stood from the bed, led by the tug of gravity radiating from his core.

Trouble, his voice screamed as he stepped forward.

Trouble, it screamed with another.

Trouble.

Their chests heaved as he entered Keith’s space, his amethyst eyes watching him warily as he closed the distance that had separated them.

Somewhere buried deep within himself, he knew he should run.

Magic wasn’t real, neither were witches and spells, but in that moment, he just really couldn’t bring himself to care.

Because this close, Keith was so much more stunning than he’d even gathered from passing glances and lunchtime stares. This close, he could see the freckled constellations that marked the sun-kissed bridge of his nose, and the dark flecks that punctuated the otherwise fathomless depths of his eyes.

This close, he could feel the heat of the wildfire that was trapped beneath the Keith’s skin.

“You really want to know?” He breathed, eyes catching light as they flickered down to his lips and hovering there for just a moment too long before returning to capture Shiro’s silvered gaze.

“Yes.” Fingers twitching slightly, Shiro reached his hand up, pausing for a barely there moment before he swept a soft, dark wave behind the curl of his ear. The soft brush of the pads of his fingers on the tip of Keith’s ear sent a quake thrumming through his veins.

“Show me some magic.”

So he did.

Curling his fingers into the fabric of Shiro’s jacket, he pulled him forward with a jerk. Teeth clicking together with the sudden motion, he shuffled forward between Keith’s legs, settling his palms on either side of the table as he pushed into it.

Light sparkled around all Keith’s hard edges, turning them into something sweet and tangible as he licked a teasing line across Shiro’s bottom lip. Lightning sizzled and cracked down his veins, curling his fingers into the wood of the table as he opened into the kiss with a breathy sound. The heat of it weighed down on him, pressing down against his core and against his lungs, quelling the air that had once been there until pricks of stars colored the backs of his eyelids like monochromatic fireworks.

Magic. The word was quiet, a mere suggestion of a thought as Keith stole all else from him with the press of his lips and heated palm over his heart.

Maybe it wasn’t the same kind that Keith was talking about, but it was magic all the same in how the gravity between them hung tight to his limbs, pulling him in and refusing to let him go.

With a soft moan, Shiro pulled back, a small grin hooking his lips upward as Keith followed. Eyes half lidded and mouth parted around a breath, he couldn’t help the faint thought that told him he was the most beautiful person he’d ever seen.

“Wow,” he said inelegantly, as if that could properly convey the way his heart was heaving itself wildly against his chest or the way his skin prickled with the sharp sting of want. Keith drew his gaze upwards, swallowing thickly as his hand twitched where it was still wrapped tightly in the front of his shirt.

“Magical enough for you?” It would have had all the bite of teasing if it had had enough air to back it up.

“Does this mean I’m under your spell now?” Shiro smiled, sliding a palm from the table and up the line of Keith’s arm, tracking it over the bone of his shoulder and neck until it lay against the strong flat of his jaw. In one sweeping motion, he brushed his thumb across his cheekbone, earning a low chuckle as Keith shook his head.

“No,” he said lowly. “The spell isn’t completed yet.”

There was an underlying roughness to his voice that made his stomach twist with something like molten expectation.

“What’s left?”

Shiro watched helplessly as the starlit smile returned, turning Keith’s features mischievous as he looked up through his lashes. A coolness spread over his chest as he finally let go of his shirt, turning his hand over so he could crook his forefinger in a slowed motion.

His breath was warm against Shiro’s ear as he leant down, his lips barely brushing against his skin as he spoke, each word sending popping sparks of something altogether enchanting down his spine.

“To complete the spell, you’ll have to buy me dinner.”

Then, he laughed. It was loud and smoky, filled with joy as he pressed his palm to Shiro’s chest once more as he pushed back and rolled his head back with glee. It was a sight that kicked something loose beneath Keith’s fingers and Shiro wasn’t entirely sure he was being truthful about it not being completed because in that moment, he was sure that laugh was a sound he would gladly listen to forever.

Because that, is trouble.

Lance’s voice reminded him, completely unbidden as Shiro leant down to capture the last dregs of Keith’s laugh between his lips.

No, he thought as he smiled into the pressure, curling his fingers into the soft hair at the base of Keith’s skull.

Keith wasn’t trouble.

He was magic.

And Shiro was in for one hell of a school year.

******************************

[mixtapekings]

Listen Review of Westside Gunn’s ‘Pray For Paris’ Album by dj.booth.net

“In the age of streaming and playlists, ‘Pray For Paris’ further solidifies Westside Gunn as an album artist.”

Griselda’s ascension to hip-hop royalty over the past four years has been astounding. By embracing a reliable formula mixing grit and grace, the trio of Buffalo rappers made up of Westside Gunn, Conway The Machine, and Benny The Butcher has flipped grassroots fandom into major-label success. While each member has made gains in his own right, Westside Gunn remains the group’s nominal figurehead, the sun around which every brick and pair of Off-White sneakers orbits.

Gunn’s ever-growing discography is giving prolific stalwart Curren$y a run for his money. He fits comfortably into the roles of the rapper, the executive producer, the curator, and the art/wrestling fan, sometimes on the same album.

In Gunn’s world, wrestling acts like The Steiner Brothers and Randy Savage describe tag-team street efforts and memories of uzi shells and street corners long past. Gunn’s imagination knows no bounds. Pray For Paris, his latest self-released project, out today, is shaping up to be his most ambitious work yet. Will Gunn reach his next level of opulence? Let’s find out.

In usual 1-Listen fashion, the rules are the same: no rewinds, pauses, or skips. A straight shot through followed by my gut reactions. DOOT DOOT DOOT DOOT DOOT DOOT DOOOOOOO.

1. “400 Million Plus Tax”

We begin with a sample from an auction. A piece of art just sold for $400 million. I respect how highly Gunn thinks of himself.

2. “No Vacancy” [prod. DJ Muggs]

Some pretty keys. Gunn saying “I’ll blow your brains out in broad daylight” over fancy foyer music is a wild moment to experience. “No Vacancy” is the most beautiful DJ Muggs beat I’ve ever heard in my life. “My shooters shot five niggas in a row / BINGO.” Westside Gunn has entered the chat. These are the raps I’d expect of a man who faced coronavirus and lived to tell the tale. Hell of an intro.

3. “George Bondo” feat. Benny The Butcher & Conway The Machine [prod. Daringer]

We’ve gone from beautiful to grimy. Word to Daringer, man. I heard a Benny grunt. “Just shot a nigga on an anklet.” House arrest don’t stop shit in a Gunn song. These piano keys are dripping with cavity juice. God, this shit nasty. And there goes Conway! “George Bondo” sounds like it would’ve fit perfectly on WWCD, and I mean that as a compliment. “Get nigga clipped while I’m with celebrities hanging.” Conway deserves a Netflix documentary. Benny came in swinging. “When you ain’t leave the house unless your gat match your sneakers.” Black Air Force 1 activity. “George Bondo” is a heater. Smoking gun left at the scene. Strong start.

4. “327” feat. Billie Esco, Joey Bada$$, & Tyler, The Creator [prod. Camoflague Monk]

Fuzzy and elegant, this beat is my kinda vibe. Gunn is skating across this joint. A steady groove so far. Joey Bada$$, I haven’t heard that name in a while. “Niggas don’t want smoke, they want marijuana.” He’s back in his 1999 bag right now. Perfect rainy day music. Joey’s verse was better than his entire last album. OH, IT’S TYLER! There’s something incredible about hearing Tyler say, “Glitter on my neck match the glitter on my fingernails” on an album like this. “This car came with a driver / I’m in the back playin’ ‘Frontin’.” Gunn got loosie Tyler rapping rapping on this one. “327” is my favorite song so far.

5. “French Toast” feat. Joyce Wrice & Wale [prod. Camouflage Monk]

This is the second time Gunn has started a song with “Bonjour.” Where’s the “doot doot doot dooo?” Is “French Toast” Gunn’s attempt at a love song? “V on your chest, that’s for Valentino.” Paris is giving us a different side of Gunn. I wonder what happened on the catwalk? Wale found an excellent pocket in this beat. Camouflage Monk has styled on these last two beats, by the way. “My SBs is old, your SBs is wack.” Always here for sneaker shit talk. “French Toast” is an interesting atmosphere for a Gunn song. Some of these beats are cleaner than we’ve come to expect from Griselda. I appreciate the risk-taking. I’ll be back. But it wouldn’t be a Westside Gunn album without some wrestling interludes…

6. “Euro Step” [prod. Conductor Williams]

I love this beat. Gunn is switching flows more than he switches trenchcoats. “Euro Step” is right; this makes me wanna skip down the street. I wish this were longer.

7. “Allah Sent Me” feat. Benny The Butcher & Conway The Machine [prod. Daringer]

We’re back in the mud with Daringer, Machine, and The Butcher. “I need 100 right now.” I’d also love $100 right now. Where’s my stimulus check at? Conway and Gunn are on their Hall & Nash call-and-response shit. Oh, shit, Benny’s tapping in, too. Nice wind chimes to counteract these damp drums. “Feds ain’t find the work but found a bag full of soft rappers.” They didn’t come to play. These three were born to rap together. They sound like they could rap forever. “Allah sent me here to be a king” is right. The sequencing on Pray For Paris is crazy. Sliding between the gritty and the graceful has never felt as punchy as it does right now. I don’t know what to expect next, and I’m not mad. Bro, you’d better give that man his fuckin belt with all the diamonds. Okay, this clip could’ve been cut by like 20 seconds.

8. “$500 Ounces” feat. Freddie Gibbs & Roc Marciano [prod. Alchemist]

Alchemist with a bopper. Freddie Gibbs starting things off strong. He’s spinning a story here. “Got skeletons in my closet next to my Balenciagas.” A deadly pocket. Gunn is ceding the beginning of the song to his guests like he did on Supreme Blientele. Here comes Roc Marciano! He’s sliding. “Living comfortably off of gut instinct.” Gunn came right in to cap this song off nicely. I like “$500 Ounces,” but the beat is stealing the show for me.

9. “Versace” [prod. Jay Versace]

A Jay Versace beat, huh? He picked a beautiful vocal loop. Okay, here are the “doot doot dooo”’s I’ve been waiting for. I guess he saved them all for this song, holy shit. Gunn sounds great without drums. One of the most delightful surprises on the album so far. They need a whole project together.

10. “Caliborne Kick” feat. Boldy James [prod. Alchemist]

More Alchemist work incoming. Gunn’s voice is chopped and screwed, another big surprise. It matches the ghostly aura of the beat nicely. A wild Boldy James appears through the fog. Boldy James is a natural fit for Griselda. I’m glad they signed him. Boldy’s language is beautiful. “Russian cut my bezel / Caesar salad with the Russian dressing.” I love “Caliborne Kick.” Another highlight.

11. “Shawn vs. Flair” [prod. DJ Premier]

Coming in with a Prodigy sample. Bless the dead. A breakbeat and some synths? Interesting. Oh, of course, this is a DJ Premier song. It sounds crisp and clean with just a touch of grit. I can’t exactly call “Shawn vs. Flair” a favorite; it feels like this song is missing a verse. The beat is cool, though.

12. “Party Wit Pop Smoke” feat. Keisha Plum [prod. Tyler, The Creator]

Bless Pop Smoke and his family. Man. The beat is a reminder that Tyler knows his way around a MEAN sample flip. Why does Gunn say “mannequin” like that? I laugh every time. Keisha Plum outros are so soothing and vicious. “I kissed his cheek while I drove the ice pick in his eye.” Step on my neck. Unlike “Shawn vs. Flair,” “Party Wit Pop Smoke” sounds finished, but I want more. I was hoping we’d hear from Pootie. Talk your shit, queen! “And y’all still broke!”

13. “LE Djoliba” feat. Cartier Williams

Gunn’s trip to Paris has been an eclectic one. This Stevie Wonder sample is giving me life. “The way my neck look, they think I sold my soul.” Is this tap-dancing from the Paris Fashion Week show clip that was meme’d to hell and back? I’m laughing, and I shouldn’t be right now. “LE Djoliba” wasn’t necessary. I wish Pray For Paris ended with “Party with Pop Smoke” instead. Not exactly a sour note to end on, but Gunn could have cut this one.

Final (First Listen) Thoughts on Westside Gunn’s Pray For Paris

In the age of streaming and playlists, Pray For Paris further solidifies Westside Gunn as an album artist. He knows how to craft experiences from start to finish, what beats sound best next to each other, which features will yield the wildest results. Paris features some of his biggest gets yet: Tyler, The Creator has both a feature (“327”) and a production credit (“Party wit Pop Smoke”) while Wale makes his Griselda Records debut on “French Toast.” Names like theirs give Paris a lofty air even by Griselda standards.

Paris is also the most experimental Gunn project to date. Many of the beats—particularly “No Vacancy” and “French Toast”—are clean and expansive breaks in between the usual muddiness. Gunn tries on new flows (“Euro Step”) and even takes a stab at a love song. His ear has always been eclectic, but there’s newfound adventurousness to Paris you won’t find on the Hitler Wears Hermes tapes.

Unfortunately, some of the album’s surest bets don’t pan out. Gunn, Freddie Gibbs, and Roc Marciano’s solid but unremarkable work on “$500 Ounces” is overshadowed by Alchemist’s mesmerizing beat. “Shawn vs. Flair,” a jumpy DJ Premier production, feels unfinished, and “LE Djoliba” undermines the strong ending of “Pary Wit Pop Smoke,” giving the album a tacked-on post-credits ending sequence. 

These rare lapses in Gunn’s sharp sequential judgment keep Pray For Paris from ascending to Supreme Blientele levels, but they aren’t dealbreakers. Westside Gunn’s world is still one of excitement and redemption. Pray For Paris is another reason to always bet on the FlyGod.

Stream Pray For Paris, the new album from Westside Gunn, on Audiomack

from Listen Review of Westside Gunn’s ‘Pray For Paris’ Album by dj.booth.net

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via RSI Comm-Link

Writer’s Note: Brothers In Arms: Part Four was published originally in Jump Point 3.8. Read Part One here, Part Two here, and Part Three here.

A recorded hymn played as they sent Arun “Boomer” Ains­ley into whatever great adventure awaits in the everafter. Gavin set the service in the Rhedd Alert hangar, and the recording sounded terrible. The last somber note rebounded off the room’s hard surfaces and harsh angles.

He wished they could have had a live band. He would have paid for an orchestra, if one were to be had on the orbit­al station. Even a bugle would have been a better tribute for the man who had brought Dell into his life. For the man who taught him and Walt so much about living a free life.

Dell’s arm felt small around his waist and Gavin pulled her in close to him, unsure if that was the right thing to do. He turned to kiss her hair and saw Walt’s lean form looming beside them. Walt’s face was fixed in a grim mask.

Gavin knew his brother well enough to know that Walt was berating himself inside. He didn’t deal well with guilt or re­sponsibility, and Gavin suspected that was a big part of why Walt always ran.

The gathering started to break up. Pilots and the hangar crew busied themselves with tasks around Rhedd Alert’s battered fleet of fighters. Dell didn’t move, so he stayed there with her. Walt rested a hand on his shoulder.

“Gavin. Oh gods, Dell. I can’t tell you how sorry I am.”

Jazza leaned in and spoke in a low tone, almost a whisper. “Landing gear up in ten, boss. Your rig is on the buggy.” She motioned with her chin to where his ship waited.

Dell turned into him and squeezed. “Be careful.”

“I will, babe.”

“You come home to me, Gavin Rhedd. I’ll kill you myself if you make me run this outfit on my own.”

He pressed his lips to the top of her head. Held them there.

“Wait. What?” Walt’s jaw was slack, his eyes wide. “Tell me you aren’t going back out there.”

Jazza bumped Walt with her shoulder, not so much walking past him as through him. “Damn right we are, Quitter.”

“You know what? Screw you, Jazz. All right? You used to quit this outfit, like . . . twice a month.”

“Not like you. Not like some chicken sh—”

“Jazz,” Gavin said, “go make sure the team is ready to roll, would ya?” With a nod to Gavin and a parting glare at Walt, she moved away into the hangar.

“Let it be, Walt. We really do need to go. After last time, we can’t risk being late for the pickup.”

“Screw late!” Walt’s eyes were wide and red-rimmed around the edges. “Why the happy hells are you going at all?”

“Walt —”

“Don’t ‘Walt’ me, Gavin. There is a pack of psychopaths out there trying to kill you!”

“Walt, would you shut up and listen for two seconds? We don’t have a choice, okay? We’ve got everything riding on this job. We’re months behind on this place and extended up to our necks on credit for fuel, parts, and ammo.”

“They can damn well bill me!”

“No,” Gavin said, “they can’t. Your shares reverted back to the company when you quit. But I’m legit now. You think we lived life on the run before? Just you watch if I try to run from this.”

Walt turned to Dell for assistance, “Dell, come on. You gotta make him listen to reason.”

“Boomer’s shares transferred to me when he died,” Dell said. “We’re in this together.”

“Okay, boss,” Jazza called. The three of them looked to where she stood with a line of determined crew. “It’s time.”

Walt watched the big bay doors close as the last of Gavin’s team left the hangar. His fighter and the few remaining ships looked small and awkwardly out of place in the big room. Standing alone next to Dell gave him a great appreci­ation for that awkwardness.

“I’m so sorry, Dell. If I’d been there —”

“Don’t,” she stopped him with a word, and then contin­ued with a shake of her blue-tipped hair. “Don’t do that to yourself. I’ve been over the tactical logs. He got beat one-on-one, and then they OK’d him. There was nothing you could have done.”

“I still feel rotten,” he said. “Like, maybe if I hadn’t left . . . I don’t know.”

“Gavin blames himself, too. That’s just the way you two are built. But believe me, there was never a soul alive able to keep my dad out of the cockpit. He was flying long before you Rhedd boys tumbled into our lives.”

That gave him a smile. A genuine smile. It seemed to bright­en Dell’s mood, so he did his best to hang onto it.

“Come on,” she said. “It’s been a long couple of weeks. Join me for some coffee?”

He did, and for a time they spoke softly at the tall tables in the hangar’s kitchenette. Dell caught him up on life aboard Vista Landing since he had left. She was clearly exhausted and not simply from a sleepless night and her father’s funeral. Her shoulders sagged, and dark circles under her eyes were the product of weeks of labor and worry. The constant apprehension of the Hornets’ vi­cious attacks had apparently exhausted more than just the pilots. It seemed odd that the attacks felt strangely personal.

“You know what I can’t figure out?” he mused aloud. Dell looked at him, tired eyes politely expectant. “What the hell are these guys after?”

She nodded, “Yeah. There’s been a lot of speculating on that question.”

“And?”

“Hard to say, isn’t it? Could be political wackos opposed to the research in Haven. Or maybe it’s one of the old gangs that don’t like us going legit. Could be it’s a group of Tevarin lashing out against UEE targets. Who knows?”

“Naw. If they were Tevarin, we could tell by how they fly.”

“Then you tell me, if you’re so smart. I mean, you were out there. You fought them.”

Walt shrugged and took a sip of cooling coffee. Something she said nagged at him. “Hey, you said you had navsat tac­tical logs from the fight, right?”

“Yeah.” What remained of her energy seemed to drain away with that one word. Walt cursed himself for the insensitive ass that he was. He’d just asked her about re­corded replays of her father’s murder.

“Dell. Ah, hell . . . I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have asked.”

“It’s okay,” she said. “I’ve been over and over them already. Really, I don’t mind.”

They moved to a console and the lights dimmed automat­ically when she pulled up the hangar projection. She se­lected a ship, and oriented the view so that the hologram of Boomer’s Avenger filled the display. No, Walt reminded himself, it wasn’t Boomer’s ship any more. Dell was his heir and — along with his debt — Boomer’s assets now belonged to her.

Dell bypassed the default display of the structural hard­points and dove into the ship’s systems. Something caught his eye and he stopped her. “Wait, back up.” She did, and Walt stopped the rotating display to look along the under­carriage of the ship. He let out a low whistle.

“That, Walter Rhedd, is a Tarantula GT-870 Mk3.”

“I know what it is. But where did you get it?”

“Remember those pirates that gave us so much trouble in Oberon? I pulled it before we sold the salvage.”

He certainly did remember, and the bastards had kicked the crap out of two of their ships with their Tarantulas. “How’d you get it mounted on an Avenger?”

“Hammer therapy,” she said. He gave her a confused look, and she held up one arm, curling it to make a muscle. “I beat the hell out of it until it did what I wanted.”

“Damn, girl.”

“Did you want to see the flight recorder?”

They watched the navsat replays together in silence. It looked like one hell of a fight. Chaotic. Frantic. The Rhedd Alert fighters were hard pressed.

Jazza had moments of tactical brilliance. As much as she rubbed him the wrong way, Walt had to admit that she made her Cutlass dance steps for which it wasn’t de­signed. Gavin orchestrated a coherent strategy and had committed extra fighters to drive off the attack. Some­thing was wrong, though. Something about the fight didn’t make sense.

Walt had Dell replay the scene so he could focus on the marauders. It didn’t look like much of a fight at all from that perspective. It looked more like a game and only one team understood how all the pieces moved. The Hornets flew to disrupt, to confuse. They knew Gavin would send a force forward to protect the transport. He’d done it every time they had met.

“See that?” he said. “They break apart there and get called immediately back into formation. They never leave a flank exposed. Our guys never get a real opening.” He pointed out one of the attacking Hornets. “That one calls the shots.”

“That’s the one that OK’d Boomer.”

Reds and greens from the navsat display sparkled in Dell’s eyes. Her voice was emotionless and flat. Walt didn’t want to see her like that, so he focused again on the display.

The marauder he’d identified as the leader broke from the melee. Gavin gave chase, but from too far behind. Boomer intercepted, was disabled, and his PRB flashed red on the display. The Hornet took a pass at the transport before turning to rejoin its squad. Then it decelerated, pausing before the overkill on Boomer.

“Why take only one pass at the transport? They’ve hit us, what? Six times? Seven? And once they finally get a shot at the target, they bug out?”

“You said, ‘us’,” Dell teased. “You back to stay?”

Walt huffed a small laugh. “We’ll see.”

“We’ve been lucky,” Dell offered in answer to his question. “So far, we’ve chased them off.”

“You really believe that? They had this fight won if they wanted it. And how do they keep finding us? It’s like they’ve taken up permanent residence in our damned flight path.”

That was it. He had it. The revelation must have shown on his face.

“What?” Dell asked. “What is it?”

“Back it up to the strafe on the Aquila.”

Dell did, and they watched it again. He felt like an ass for making her watch the murder of her father over again, but he had to be sure of what he saw.

And there it was. Strafe. Turn. Pause. A decision to com­mit. An escalating act of brutality. And then they were gone.

“She’s not after the transport at all. We were her target this whole time.”

“Wait,” Dell said, “what she? Her who?”

“Please tell me your ex hasn’t drunk himself out of a job with the Navy.”

“Barry? Of course not, why?”

“Because I just figured out who killed your father.”

Morgan Brock called the meeting to a close and dismissed her admin team. Riebeld caught her eye and lifted one hand off the table — a request for her to stay while the others shuffled out of the conference room.

Riebeld kept her waiting until they were alone, and then stood to close the door.

“I take it,” Brock said, “that our Tyrol problem persists despite the escalation?”

“I got word during the meeting” — he took a seat beside her at the table, voice pitched low — “that they should be making the jump to Nexus soon.”

“Our discreet pilots? Are they deployed or here at the sta­tion?”

His answer was slow in coming, his nod reluctant. “They are here.”

Brock checked the time. Did some mental math. “Disguise the ships. We will leave at 1700 and meet them in Nexus just inside the gate from Min.”

“Morgan,” Riebeld’s eyes roamed the room, “these guys aren’t taking the hint. I don’t know what losses we have to hand them before they back down, but . . . I don’t know. Part of doing business is losing bids, am I right?” She didn’t disagree and he continued. “Maybe . . . Maybe we ought to write this one off?”

“A comfortable position to hold in your seat, Riebeld. Your commission is based on the contract value. I barely turned a profit on that job for years. I did it willingly, with the expected reward of windfall profits when traffic to Haven surges.”

“I get that,” he said. “I really do. But at some point we have to call it a loss and focus on the next thing, right?”

“Then suppose that we let the Tyrol job go, and Greely and Navy SysCom see what they want to see from bou­tique contractors. I can already imagine anti-establishment politicians pushing for more outsourced work. Hell, they will probably promise contracts to buy votes in their home systems.”

She watched him squirm. It wasn’t like him to wrestle with his conscience. Frankly, she was disappointed to learn that he’d found one.

“If Rhedd Alert won’t withdraw willingly,” she said, “then they will have to fail the hard way. Prep the ships, Rie­beld. We have done very well together, you and I. You should know that I won’t back away from what is mine.” He seemed to appreciate her sincerity, but Brock wanted to hear the cocksure salesman say it. “Are we clear?”

“Yes, ma’am,” Riebeld swallowed and stood. “Perfectly clear.”

“Any luck?” Walt pulled up Barry’s record in his mobiGlas and hit connect.

Dell sat at the hangar console trying to reach Gavin and the team. Her brow furrowed in a grimace and she shook her head.

“Damn. Okay, keep trying.”

Barry connected. The accountant wore his uniform. He was on duty, wherever he was, and his projected face looked genuinely mournful. “Hey,” he said, “long time no see, man. Listen, I can’t tell you how sad I am about Boomer.”

“Thanks.” Barry had known Dell and Boomer for most his life. He’d probably been torn between attending the service and allowing the family to grieve in privacy. Regardless, commiseration would have to wait. “We need your help, Barry. Please tell me that you have access to the propos­als for the Tyrol contract.”

“Of course I do. And who’s we? Are you back with Dell and Gavin?”

“I am,” he felt Dell’s eyes on him when he said it. “Anyway, we need a favor. I need to know the ship models and con­figurations proposed by the incumbent.”

“Morgan Brock’s outfit, sure. No can do on the ship data, though. That information is all confidential. Only the price proposals are available for public review, and those only during the protest period.”

“Come on, Barry. We’re not talking trade secrets here. I could figure this out with a fly-by of their hangar in Kilian. I just don’t have time for that. I need to know what ships those guys fly.”

Barry breathed out a heavy sigh, “Hold on. But I can’t send you the proposals, okay? You guys are already on thin ice with this contract as is.”

“Tell me about it. And thanks, I owe you huge for this.”

Walt waited, throat dry. He scratched at a chipped edge on his worn mobiGlas with a fingernail.

“All right,” Barry read from something off-screen, “it looks like they’re flying a variety of Hornets. Specifically, F7As. I can send you a list of the proposed hardpoints, and I hap­pen to know that Brock herself flies a Super Hornet.”

The mobiGlas shook on Walt’s wrist. His face felt hot, and he forced his jaw to relax. “Barry, if you have any pull with the Navy, get some ships to Tyrol. It’s been Brock this whole time. She’s been setting us up to fail. And she’s the bitch that OK’d Boomer.”

“I’m going, Walt. That’s final.”

Walt rubbed at his eyes with the flat part of his fingers. How did Gavin ever win an argument her? Forbidding her involvement was a lost cause. Maybe he could reason with her. “Listen. When’s the last time you were even in a cockpit?”

“I know this ship. I was practically born in these things.”

“Dell —”

She threw his helmet at him. He caught it awkwardly, and she had shed her coveralls and was wriggling into her flight suit before he could finish his thought. She stared at him with hard eyes and said, “Suit up if you don’t want to get left behind.”

Dell was as implacable as gravity. Fine. It was her funeral, and he realized there was no way his brother had ever won an argument with her.

They finished prepping in silence. Walt pulled the chocks on her Avenger when she climbed up into the cockpit. He gave the hulking muzzle of the Tarantula an appreciative pat. “You have ammo for this bad boy?”

“I have a little.”

“Good,” he smiled. “Let’s hope Brock isn’t ready to handle reinforcements.”

Walt mulled that thought over. It was true that Gavin had split their team in each fight, but Rhedd Alert had never sent in reserves. Each engagement had been a fair and straightforward fight. Brock wasn’t likely to know anything about their resources, however limited, beyond the escort team. That could work to their advantage.

In fact, “Hey, Dell. Hop out for a tick, will you?”

“Like hell I will.” The look she shot down at him was pure challenge. “I said I’m going and that’s that.”

“Oh, no. I’ve already lost that fight. But you and your cannon here got me thinking about those pirates in Oberon. Tell me, did we ever find a buyer for that old Idris hull?”

“No. It’s buoyed in storage outside the station, why?”

Dell looked at him skeptically and he grinned. “We’re going to introduce these military-types to some ol’ smugglers’ tricks.”

Gavin held the team at the edge of the jump gate between Min and Nexus. “All right gang, listen up. You know the drill and what might be waiting for us on the other side. Jazza, I want you and Rahul up on point for this jump. I’ll bring Cassiopeia over after you and the rest of the team are in. Anyone not ready to jump?”

His team was silent as they arranged themselves into position with professional precision. The pilot aboard Cassiopeia sounded the ready and Gavin sent Jazza through. The others were hard on her heels, and Gavin felt the always-peculiar drop through the mouth of the jump gate.

Light and sound stretched, dragging him across the inter­space. Another drop, a moment’s disorientation, and then Nexus resolved around him.

Without warning, Mei’s fighter flashed past his forward screen. Incandescent laser fire slashed along the ghost grey and fire-alarm red ship, crippling Mei’s shields and shearing away sections of armored hull. Mei fired back at a trio of maddeningly familiar Hornets in a tight triangular formation.

Jazza barked orders. “Mei. Rahul. Flank Gavin and get Cassiopeia out of here. Gavin, you copy that? You have the package.”

He shook his head, willing the post-jump disorientation away. He didn’t remember bringing up his shields, but they flashed on his HUD and his weapon systems were armed.

“Copy that.” Gavin switched to the transport channel, “Cassiopeia. Let’s get you folks out of here.”

The crew onboard the UEE transport didn’t need any more encouragement. Gavin accelerated to keep pace with the larger ship as two Rhedd Alert fighters dropped into posi­tion above and below him. Together, they raced toward the jump gate to Tyrol.

The Hornets wheeled and dropped toward them from one side. Gavin’s HUD lit up with alerts as Jazza sent a pair of rockets dangerously close over his head to blast into one of the attacking ships. Her ship screamed by overhead, but the Hornets stayed in pursuit of the fleeing transport.

Alarms sounded. They needed more firepower on the Hornets to give Cassiopeia time to get clear. He yelled a course heading, and Cassiopeia dove with Mei and Rahul on either flank.

Gavin pulled up, turned and fired to pull the attention of the attackers. He spun, taking the brunt of their return fire on his stronger starboard shields.

The impact shook the Cutlass violently, and his shield integ­rity bar sagged into the red. Gavin turned, took another wild shot with his lasers, and accelerated away from Cassiopeia with the Hornets in close pursuit.

Navsat data for the jump into Nexus crept onto the edge of Walt’s HUD. Several seconds and thousands of kilometers later, the first of the embattled starships winked onto the display. His brother and the Rhedd Alert team were hard-pressed.

Walt watched Brock and her crew circle and strike, corralling the Rhedd Alert ships. Gavin tried to lead the attackers away, but Brock wouldn’t bite. By keeping the fight centered on the UEE transport, she essentially held the transport hostage.

Time to even the odds.

Jazza tore into one of the Hornets. Walt saw the enemy fighter’s superior shields absorb the impact. He marked that Hornet as his target, preparing to strike before its defenses recharged.

He killed his primary drive and spun end to end, slash­ing backward through the melee like a blazing comet. His targeting system locked onto the enemy Hornet, and his heavy Broadsword blasted bullets into it.

Mei’s battered fighter dove through the streaming wreck­age, but the Super Hornet, presumably Brock, waited for her on the other side. A blast from her neutron cannon tore through the Rhedd Alert ship. Mei ejected safely, but their team was down a ship.

“Gods,” Gavin’s voice was frantic. “Get the hell out of here, Walt. Form up with the transport and get them away from the fight.”

Walt ignored him. He came around for another pass and triggered his mic to an open-area channel. “The game’s up, Brock.”

His words cut across the thrust and wheel of close com­bat, and for a moment the fighters on all sides flew in quiet patterns above the fleeing Cassiopeia.

“You know,” Walt said, “if you wanted us to believe you were after the transport, you should have saved your big guns for Cassiopeia instead of overkilling our friend.”

“I suppose I should be disappointed that you have found me out,” Brock’s voice was a pinched sneer, and every bit as cold and hard as Gavin had described. “On the other hand, I’m glad you’ve shared this with me. I might have been content disabling the majority of your so-called fleet. Now, it seems that I will have to be more thorough.”

She fired, he dodged, and the fight was on again in earnest. Walt switched his comms to Rhedd Alert’s squad channel. “Brock was never after Cassiopeia, Gav. She’s been after us.”

“Maybe I’m a little distracted by all the missiles and the neutron cannon, but I’m failing to see how that is at all relevant right now.”

“We’re no match for the tech in her ships. If she goes after the transport, they’re toast.” He rolled into position next to Gavin. Together, they nosed down to strafe at a Hornet from above.

“Great,” Gavin said, “then why did you tip her off?”

Walt suppressed a wicked grin. “Because,” he said, “she can’t afford to let any of us get away, either.”

“If you have any brilliant ideas, spit ’em out. I’m all ears.”

“Run with me.” For all Walt knew, Brock could hear every word they were saying. She would tear them apart if they stayed. He had to get Gavin to follow him. “Run with me, Gavin.”

“Damn it, Walt! If you came to help, then help. I’ve got a pilot down, and I’m not leaving her here to get OK’d like Boom­er.”

“This ain’t about doing the easy thing, Gav. Someone I truly admire once told me that this game is all about trust. So ask yourself . . . do you trust me?”

Gavin growled his name then, dragging out the word in a bitter, internal struggle. The weight of it made Walt’s throat constrict. Despite all of their arguments, Boomer’s death and his own desertion when things got hard — in spite of all of that — his brother still wanted to trust him.

“Trust me, Gavin.”

Brock and her wingman swept low, diving to corral Cassiopeia and its escorts. Jazza redirected them with a blazing torrent of laser fire and got rocked by the neutron cannon in return. The shields around her battered Cutlass flashed, dimmed and then failed.

Walt gritted his teeth. It was now or never.

“Jazz,” Gavin’s voice sounded hard and sharp, “rally with Cassiopeia and make a break for it.”

Walt pumped his fist and accelerated back the way he’d come in.

“Walt,” Gavin sounded angry enough to eat nails, but he followed, “I’m on your six. Let’s go, people! Move like you’ve got a purpose.”

Walt pulled up a set of coordinate presets and streaked away with Gavin close behind him. The two remaining Hor­nets split, with Brock falling in behind Gavin to give pursuit. Even together he and Gavin didn’t have much chance of getting past her superior shields. Instead, he set a straight course for the waypoint marked at the edge of his display. When incoming fire from Brock drove them off course, he corrected to put them directly back in line with the mark.

Brock was gaining. Gavin’s icon flashed on his display. She was close enough to hit reliably with her repeaters. As they approached the preset coordinates, Walt spotted a rippling distortion of winking starlight. Correcting his course slightly, he headed straight for it. Gavin and Brock were hard behind him.

“Come on,” Walt whispered, “stay close.”

On the squad display, he saw Gavin’s shield integrity dropped yet again. Brock was scoring more frequent hits.

“A little farther.”

Walt focused on the rippling of starlight ahead, a dark patch of space that swallowed Nexus’ star. He made a slight course correction and Gavin matched it. Together, they continued their breakneck flight from Brock’s deadly onslaught.

The small patch of dark space grew as the three ships streaked forward. Walt opened the squad channel on his mic and shouted, “Now!”

On his HUD, a new ship flared onto the display. It appeared to materialize nearly on top of them as Dell’s Avenger dropped from her hiding place inside the blackened hull of the derelict Idris.

Walt punched his thrusters. The lift pressed him into his seat as he pushed up and over their trap. He heard Dell shouting over the squad channel, and he turned, straining to see behind him. Bright flashes from Brock’s muzzles accompanied a horrible pounding thunder. Dell had left her mic open and it sounded like the massive gun was threat­ening to tear her ship apart.

“Heads up, Gav!”

Dell’s voice hit Gavin like a physical blow.

He saw his brother climb and suddenly disappear behind an empty, starless expanse. Then Boomer’s Avenger materi­alized from within that blackness, and Gavin knew that his wife was inside the cockpit. She was with him, out in the black where veteran pilots outgunned them.

His body reacted where his mind could not. He shoved down, hard. Thrusters strained as he instinctively tried to avoid colliding with her. A brilliant pulse like flashes of light­ning accompanied a jarring thunder of sound.

Gavin forced his battered ship to turn. The Cutlass shud­dered from the stress, and Gavin was pressed into the side of the cockpit as the nose of his ship came around.

He saw the first heavy round strike Brock. The combined force of the shell and her momentum shredded her for­ward shields. Then round after round tore through the nose of Brock’s ship until the air ignited inside.

“Dell” — the flaming Hornet tumbled toward his wife like an enormous hatchet — “look out!”

Brock ejected.

Dell thrust to one side, but the Hornet chopped into the hull where she had hidden. The explosion sent ships and debris spinning apart in all directions.

“Dell!”

He swept around to intercept her spinning ship. Walt beat him there. Thrusters firing in tightly controlled move­ments, Walt caught her Avenger, slowed it and stopped the spin.

Gavin rolled to put himself cockpit to cockpit with his wife.

“Dell?”

She sat in stillness at the controls, her head down and turned to one side.

“Come on, baby. Talk to me.”

She moved.

With the slow deliberateness of depressurized space, she rolled her head on her shoulders. When she looked up, their eyes met. Dell gave him a slow smile and a thumbs-up. He swallowed hard, and with one hand pressed to his heart, he shut his eyes silently in thanks.

Gavin spun his Cutlass and thrust over to where Brock floated nearby, his weapons systems still hot. He paused then, looming above her as she had hesitated over Boomer.

Her comms were still active. “What now, Rhedd?”

He remembered her from the meeting with Greely. Tall, lean, and crisp. She seemed small now, drifting not more than a meter away from the battle-scarred nose of his Cutlass.

“Gavin?” Dell’s voice sounded small after the ruckus of the fight.

Walt eased into view alongside him. His voice was low and calm, “Easy, buddy. We weren’t raised to OK pilots.”

“She’s not worth it,” Dell said.

Brock snarled, “Do it already.”

He had studied Brock’s reports for months. She had more ships and more pilots than he could ever imagine employing. What drove her to harass them and kill one of his crew for this job?

“I just want to know why,” he asked. “You’ve got other contracts. You’ve probably made more money than any of us will see in our lives. Why come after us?”

He held Brock’s eye, the lights from the Cutlass reflecting from her visor.

“Why?” she repeated. “Look around you, Rhedd. There’s no law in these systems. All that matters here is courage to take what you want, and a willingness to sacrifice to keep it.”

“You want to talk sacrifice?” he said. “That pilot you killed was family.”

“You put him in harm’s way,” she said, “not me. What little order exists in these systems is what I brought with me. I carved my success from nothing. You independents are thieves. You’re like rodents, nibbling at the edges of others’ success.”

“I was a thief,” he said, “and a smuggler. But we’re building our own success, and next time you and I meet with the Navy,” Gavin fired his thrusters just enough to punch Brock with the nose of his ship, “it’ll be in a court­room.”

She spun and tumbled as she flew, growing smaller and smaller until the PRB on his HUD was all he could see.

A pair of Retaliators with naval designations were moored outside the Rhedd Alert hangar when Gavin and the crew finally limped back to Vista Landing.

Crew aboard Cassiopeia had insisted on helping with medical care and recovery after the fight. The team scheduled for pick-up at Haven was similarly adamant that Rhedd Alert take care of their own before continuing. Technically, no one had checked with Navy SysCom.

Did the Navy fire contractors face to face? For all he knew, they did.

Gavin saw to the staging of their damaged ships while the others hurried the wounded deeper into Vista Landing. When he’d finished, he exchanged a quick nod with Barry Lidst who stood at ease behind Major Greely.

“Major,” Gavin held out his hand, “I assume someone would have told me already if I was fired.”

His hand disappeared in the major’s massive paw. “I sup­pose they would have, at that.”

“Then to what do we owe the honor?” Dell and Walt joined them, and Gavin made introductions.

“‘I’ first, then ‘we,’ ” Greely repeated, “I like that, Rhedd. I appreciate a man who accepts consequence personally but insists on sharing accolades with his team. Tell me, son. How’d you get Brock?”

Gavin nudged his wife. With a roguish grin, Dell pulled her arm from around Gavin’s waist and stepped over to pat the Tarantula on her battered Avenger.

“Nice shooting, miss.”

Dell shrugged, “Walt pulled my tags, nav beacon and flight recorder before we left. I was sitting dark inside a decoy when the boys flew her right down the barrel.”

Barry leaned toward Greely and in a completely audible whisper said, “It might be best if we ignore the illegal parts of that.”

Greely waved him off. “This is what the ’verse needs. Men and women with the courage to slap their name up on the side of a hangar. A chance for responsible civilians to create good, honest jobs with real pay for locals. That an ex-military contractor tried to muck that up . . .”

Gavin and the team got a good, close look at what angry looked like on a Navy officer. It was the kind of scowl that left an impression.

“Anyway,” Greely composed himself, “not a soul in the ’verse would blame you for writing us off as a bit of bad business. I’m here to ask that you stick with it.”

Gavin was reluctant to bring their financial situation up in front of their one paying client, but they were tapped out. Rhedd Alert didn’t have the cred to buy ammo, much less repair their downed fighters. “Actually, sir. I think we may need to find something a little more lucrative than getting shot up by disgruntled incumbents.”

“About that,” Greely rested his hand on Gavin’s shoulder. He led him to look out one of the large hangar windows at the Retaliators buoyed outside. “My accountant tells me there may be some room to renegotiate certain parts of the Tyrol contract. But that job won’t be enough to keep your team busy now that Brock’s out of the way.”

Gavin laughed. “On that point, I most certainly hope you are right.”

“Well . . . I’ve got more work for an outfit like yours. I hope you’ll accept, because you folks have surely earned it. Tell me, Rhedd, are you familiar with the Oberon system?”

Behind them, Walt dropped his helmet.

The End

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[inexcon]

RSI Comm-Link: Brothers In Arms: Part Four

Writer’s Note: Brothers In Arms: Part Four was published originally in Jump Point 3.8. Read Part One here, Part Two here, and Part Three here.

A recorded hymn played as they sent Arun “Boomer” Ains­ley into whatever great adventure awaits in the everafter. Gavin set the service in the Rhedd Alert hangar, and the recording sounded terrible. The last somber note rebounded off the room’s hard surfaces and harsh angles.

He wished they could have had a live band. He would have paid for an orchestra, if one were to be had on the orbit­al station. Even a bugle would have been a better tribute for the man who had brought Dell into his life. For the man who taught him and Walt so much about living a free life.

Dell’s arm felt small around his waist and Gavin pulled her in close to him, unsure if that was the right thing to do. He turned to kiss her hair and saw Walt’s lean form looming beside them. Walt’s face was fixed in a grim mask.

Gavin knew his brother well enough to know that Walt was berating himself inside. He didn’t deal well with guilt or re­sponsibility, and Gavin suspected that was a big part of why Walt always ran.

The gathering started to break up. Pilots and the hangar crew busied themselves with tasks around Rhedd Alert’s battered fleet of fighters. Dell didn’t move, so he stayed there with her. Walt rested a hand on his shoulder.

“Gavin. Oh gods, Dell. I can’t tell you how sorry I am.”

Jazza leaned in and spoke in a low tone, almost a whisper. “Landing gear up in ten, boss. Your rig is on the buggy.” She motioned with her chin to where his ship waited.

Dell turned into him and squeezed. “Be careful.”

“I will, babe.”

“You come home to me, Gavin Rhedd. I’ll kill you myself if you make me run this outfit on my own.”

He pressed his lips to the top of her head. Held them there.

“Wait. What?” Walt’s jaw was slack, his eyes wide. “Tell me you aren’t going back out there.”

Jazza bumped Walt with her shoulder, not so much walking past him as through him. “Damn right we are, Quitter.”

“You know what? Screw you, Jazz. All right? You used to quit this outfit, like . . . twice a month.”

“Not like you. Not like some chicken sh—”

“Jazz,” Gavin said, “go make sure the team is ready to roll, would ya?” With a nod to Gavin and a parting glare at Walt, she moved away into the hangar.

“Let it be, Walt. We really do need to go. After last time, we can’t risk being late for the pickup.”

“Screw late!” Walt’s eyes were wide and red-rimmed around the edges. “Why the happy hells are you going at all?”

“Walt —”

“Don’t ‘Walt’ me, Gavin. There is a pack of psychopaths out there trying to kill you!”

“Walt, would you shut up and listen for two seconds? We don’t have a choice, okay? We’ve got everything riding on this job. We’re months behind on this place and extended up to our necks on credit for fuel, parts, and ammo.”

“They can damn well bill me!”

“No,” Gavin said, “they can’t. Your shares reverted back to the company when you quit. But I’m legit now. You think we lived life on the run before? Just you watch if I try to run from this.”

Walt turned to Dell for assistance, “Dell, come on. You gotta make him listen to reason.”

“Boomer’s shares transferred to me when he died,” Dell said. “We’re in this together.”

“Okay, boss,” Jazza called. The three of them looked to where she stood with a line of determined crew. “It’s time.”

Walt watched the big bay doors close as the last of Gavin’s team left the hangar. His fighter and the few remaining ships looked small and awkwardly out of place in the big room. Standing alone next to Dell gave him a great appreci­ation for that awkwardness.

“I’m so sorry, Dell. If I’d been there —”

“Don’t,” she stopped him with a word, and then contin­ued with a shake of her blue-tipped hair. “Don’t do that to yourself. I’ve been over the tactical logs. He got beat one-on-one, and then they OK’d him. There was nothing you could have done.”

“I still feel rotten,” he said. “Like, maybe if I hadn’t left . . . I don’t know.”

“Gavin blames himself, too. That’s just the way you two are built. But believe me, there was never a soul alive able to keep my dad out of the cockpit. He was flying long before you Rhedd boys tumbled into our lives.”

That gave him a smile. A genuine smile. It seemed to bright­en Dell’s mood, so he did his best to hang onto it.

“Come on,” she said. “It’s been a long couple of weeks. Join me for some coffee?”

He did, and for a time they spoke softly at the tall tables in the hangar’s kitchenette. Dell caught him up on life aboard Vista Landing since he had left. She was clearly exhausted and not simply from a sleepless night and her father’s funeral. Her shoulders sagged, and dark circles under her eyes were the product of weeks of labor and worry. The constant apprehension of the Hornets’ vi­cious attacks had apparently exhausted more than just the pilots. It seemed odd that the attacks felt strangely personal.

“You know what I can’t figure out?” he mused aloud. Dell looked at him, tired eyes politely expectant. “What the hell are these guys after?”

She nodded, “Yeah. There’s been a lot of speculating on that question.”

“And?”

“Hard to say, isn’t it? Could be political wackos opposed to the research in Haven. Or maybe it’s one of the old gangs that don’t like us going legit. Could be it’s a group of Tevarin lashing out against UEE targets. Who knows?”

“Naw. If they were Tevarin, we could tell by how they fly.”

“Then you tell me, if you’re so smart. I mean, you were out there. You fought them.”

Walt shrugged and took a sip of cooling coffee. Something she said nagged at him. “Hey, you said you had navsat tac­tical logs from the fight, right?”

“Yeah.” What remained of her energy seemed to drain away with that one word. Walt cursed himself for the insensitive ass that he was. He’d just asked her about re­corded replays of her father’s murder.

“Dell. Ah, hell . . . I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have asked.”

“It’s okay,” she said. “I’ve been over and over them already. Really, I don’t mind.”

They moved to a console and the lights dimmed automat­ically when she pulled up the hangar projection. She se­lected a ship, and oriented the view so that the hologram of Boomer’s Avenger filled the display. No, Walt reminded himself, it wasn’t Boomer’s ship any more. Dell was his heir and — along with his debt — Boomer’s assets now belonged to her.

Dell bypassed the default display of the structural hard­points and dove into the ship’s systems. Something caught his eye and he stopped her. “Wait, back up.” She did, and Walt stopped the rotating display to look along the under­carriage of the ship. He let out a low whistle.

“That, Walter Rhedd, is a Tarantula GT-870 Mk3.”

“I know what it is. But where did you get it?”

“Remember those pirates that gave us so much trouble in Oberon? I pulled it before we sold the salvage.”

He certainly did remember, and the bastards had kicked the crap out of two of their ships with their Tarantulas. “How’d you get it mounted on an Avenger?”

“Hammer therapy,” she said. He gave her a confused look, and she held up one arm, curling it to make a muscle. “I beat the hell out of it until it did what I wanted.”

“Damn, girl.”

“Did you want to see the flight recorder?”

They watched the navsat replays together in silence. It looked like one hell of a fight. Chaotic. Frantic. The Rhedd Alert fighters were hard pressed.

Jazza had moments of tactical brilliance. As much as she rubbed him the wrong way, Walt had to admit that she made her Cutlass dance steps for which it wasn’t de­signed. Gavin orchestrated a coherent strategy and had committed extra fighters to drive off the attack. Some­thing was wrong, though. Something about the fight didn’t make sense.

Walt had Dell replay the scene so he could focus on the marauders. It didn’t look like much of a fight at all from that perspective. It looked more like a game and only one team understood how all the pieces moved. The Hornets flew to disrupt, to confuse. They knew Gavin would send a force forward to protect the transport. He’d done it every time they had met.

“See that?” he said. “They break apart there and get called immediately back into formation. They never leave a flank exposed. Our guys never get a real opening.” He pointed out one of the attacking Hornets. “That one calls the shots.”

“That’s the one that OK’d Boomer.”

Reds and greens from the navsat display sparkled in Dell’s eyes. Her voice was emotionless and flat. Walt didn’t want to see her like that, so he focused again on the display.

The marauder he’d identified as the leader broke from the melee. Gavin gave chase, but from too far behind. Boomer intercepted, was disabled, and his PRB flashed red on the display. The Hornet took a pass at the transport before turning to rejoin its squad. Then it decelerated, pausing before the overkill on Boomer.

“Why take only one pass at the transport? They’ve hit us, what? Six times? Seven? And once they finally get a shot at the target, they bug out?”

“You said, ‘us’,” Dell teased. “You back to stay?”

Walt huffed a small laugh. “We’ll see.”

“We’ve been lucky,” Dell offered in answer to his question. “So far, we’ve chased them off.”

“You really believe that? They had this fight won if they wanted it. And how do they keep finding us? It’s like they’ve taken up permanent residence in our damned flight path.”

That was it. He had it. The revelation must have shown on his face.

“What?” Dell asked. “What is it?”

“Back it up to the strafe on the Aquila.”

Dell did, and they watched it again. He felt like an ass for making her watch the murder of her father over again, but he had to be sure of what he saw.

And there it was. Strafe. Turn. Pause. A decision to com­mit. An escalating act of brutality. And then they were gone.

“She’s not after the transport at all. We were her target this whole time.”

“Wait,” Dell said, “what she? Her who?”

“Please tell me your ex hasn’t drunk himself out of a job with the Navy.”

“Barry? Of course not, why?”

“Because I just figured out who killed your father.”

Morgan Brock called the meeting to a close and dismissed her admin team. Riebeld caught her eye and lifted one hand off the table — a request for her to stay while the others shuffled out of the conference room.

Riebeld kept her waiting until they were alone, and then stood to close the door.

“I take it,” Brock said, “that our Tyrol problem persists despite the escalation?”

“I got word during the meeting” — he took a seat beside her at the table, voice pitched low — “that they should be making the jump to Nexus soon.”

“Our discreet pilots? Are they deployed or here at the sta­tion?”

His answer was slow in coming, his nod reluctant. “They are here.”

Brock checked the time. Did some mental math. “Disguise the ships. We will leave at 1700 and meet them in Nexus just inside the gate from Min.”

“Morgan,” Riebeld’s eyes roamed the room, “these guys aren’t taking the hint. I don’t know what losses we have to hand them before they back down, but . . . I don’t know. Part of doing business is losing bids, am I right?” She didn’t disagree and he continued. “Maybe . . . Maybe we ought to write this one off?”

“A comfortable position to hold in your seat, Riebeld. Your commission is based on the contract value. I barely turned a profit on that job for years. I did it willingly, with the expected reward of windfall profits when traffic to Haven surges.”

“I get that,” he said. “I really do. But at some point we have to call it a loss and focus on the next thing, right?”

“Then suppose that we let the Tyrol job go, and Greely and Navy SysCom see what they want to see from bou­tique contractors. I can already imagine anti-establishment politicians pushing for more outsourced work. Hell, they will probably promise contracts to buy votes in their home systems.”

She watched him squirm. It wasn’t like him to wrestle with his conscience. Frankly, she was disappointed to learn that he’d found one.

“If Rhedd Alert won’t withdraw willingly,” she said, “then they will have to fail the hard way. Prep the ships, Rie­beld. We have done very well together, you and I. You should know that I won’t back away from what is mine.” He seemed to appreciate her sincerity, but Brock wanted to hear the cocksure salesman say it. “Are we clear?”

“Yes, ma’am,” Riebeld swallowed and stood. “Perfectly clear.”

“Any luck?” Walt pulled up Barry’s record in his mobiGlas and hit connect.

Dell sat at the hangar console trying to reach Gavin and the team. Her brow furrowed in a grimace and she shook her head.

“Damn. Okay, keep trying.”

Barry connected. The accountant wore his uniform. He was on duty, wherever he was, and his projected face looked genuinely mournful. “Hey,” he said, “long time no see, man. Listen, I can’t tell you how sad I am about Boomer.”

“Thanks.” Barry had known Dell and Boomer for most his life. He’d probably been torn between attending the service and allowing the family to grieve in privacy. Regardless, commiseration would have to wait. “We need your help, Barry. Please tell me that you have access to the propos­als for the Tyrol contract.”

“Of course I do. And who’s we? Are you back with Dell and Gavin?”

“I am,” he felt Dell’s eyes on him when he said it. “Anyway, we need a favor. I need to know the ship models and con­figurations proposed by the incumbent.”

“Morgan Brock’s outfit, sure. No can do on the ship data, though. That information is all confidential. Only the price proposals are available for public review, and those only during the protest period.”

“Come on, Barry. We’re not talking trade secrets here. I could figure this out with a fly-by of their hangar in Kilian. I just don’t have time for that. I need to know what ships those guys fly.”

Barry breathed out a heavy sigh, “Hold on. But I can’t send you the proposals, okay? You guys are already on thin ice with this contract as is.”

“Tell me about it. And thanks, I owe you huge for this.”

Walt waited, throat dry. He scratched at a chipped edge on his worn mobiGlas with a fingernail.

“All right,” Barry read from something off-screen, “it looks like they’re flying a variety of Hornets. Specifically, F7As. I can send you a list of the proposed hardpoints, and I hap­pen to know that Brock herself flies a Super Hornet.”

The mobiGlas shook on Walt’s wrist. His face felt hot, and he forced his jaw to relax. “Barry, if you have any pull with the Navy, get some ships to Tyrol. It’s been Brock this whole time. She’s been setting us up to fail. And she’s the bitch that OK’d Boomer.”

“I’m going, Walt. That’s final.”

Walt rubbed at his eyes with the flat part of his fingers. How did Gavin ever win an argument her? Forbidding her involvement was a lost cause. Maybe he could reason with her. “Listen. When’s the last time you were even in a cockpit?”

“I know this ship. I was practically born in these things.”

“Dell —”

She threw his helmet at him. He caught it awkwardly, and she had shed her coveralls and was wriggling into her flight suit before he could finish his thought. She stared at him with hard eyes and said, “Suit up if you don’t want to get left behind.”

Dell was as implacable as gravity. Fine. It was her funeral, and he realized there was no way his brother had ever won an argument with her.

They finished prepping in silence. Walt pulled the chocks on her Avenger when she climbed up into the cockpit. He gave the hulking muzzle of the Tarantula an appreciative pat. “You have ammo for this bad boy?”

“I have a little.”

“Good,” he smiled. “Let’s hope Brock isn’t ready to handle reinforcements.”

Walt mulled that thought over. It was true that Gavin had split their team in each fight, but Rhedd Alert had never sent in reserves. Each engagement had been a fair and straightforward fight. Brock wasn’t likely to know anything about their resources, however limited, beyond the escort team. That could work to their advantage.

In fact, “Hey, Dell. Hop out for a tick, will you?”

“Like hell I will.” The look she shot down at him was pure challenge. “I said I’m going and that’s that.”

“Oh, no. I’ve already lost that fight. But you and your cannon here got me thinking about those pirates in Oberon. Tell me, did we ever find a buyer for that old Idris hull?”

“No. It’s buoyed in storage outside the station, why?”

Dell looked at him skeptically and he grinned. “We’re going to introduce these military-types to some ol’ smugglers’ tricks.”

Gavin held the team at the edge of the jump gate between Min and Nexus. “All right gang, listen up. You know the drill and what might be waiting for us on the other side. Jazza, I want you and Rahul up on point for this jump. I’ll bring Cassiopeia over after you and the rest of the team are in. Anyone not ready to jump?”

His team was silent as they arranged themselves into position with professional precision. The pilot aboard Cassiopeia sounded the ready and Gavin sent Jazza through. The others were hard on her heels, and Gavin felt the always-peculiar drop through the mouth of the jump gate.

Light and sound stretched, dragging him across the inter­space. Another drop, a moment’s disorientation, and then Nexus resolved around him.

Without warning, Mei’s fighter flashed past his forward screen. Incandescent laser fire slashed along the ghost grey and fire-alarm red ship, crippling Mei’s shields and shearing away sections of armored hull. Mei fired back at a trio of maddeningly familiar Hornets in a tight triangular formation.

Jazza barked orders. “Mei. Rahul. Flank Gavin and get Cassiopeia out of here. Gavin, you copy that? You have the package.”

He shook his head, willing the post-jump disorientation away. He didn’t remember bringing up his shields, but they flashed on his HUD and his weapon systems were armed.

“Copy that.” Gavin switched to the transport channel, “Cassiopeia. Let’s get you folks out of here.”

The crew onboard the UEE transport didn’t need any more encouragement. Gavin accelerated to keep pace with the larger ship as two Rhedd Alert fighters dropped into posi­tion above and below him. Together, they raced toward the jump gate to Tyrol.

The Hornets wheeled and dropped toward them from one side. Gavin’s HUD lit up with alerts as Jazza sent a pair of rockets dangerously close over his head to blast into one of the attacking ships. Her ship screamed by overhead, but the Hornets stayed in pursuit of the fleeing transport.

Alarms sounded. They needed more firepower on the Hornets to give Cassiopeia time to get clear. He yelled a course heading, and Cassiopeia dove with Mei and Rahul on either flank.

Gavin pulled up, turned and fired to pull the attention of the attackers. He spun, taking the brunt of their return fire on his stronger starboard shields.

The impact shook the Cutlass violently, and his shield integ­rity bar sagged into the red. Gavin turned, took another wild shot with his lasers, and accelerated away from Cassiopeia with the Hornets in close pursuit.

Navsat data for the jump into Nexus crept onto the edge of Walt’s HUD. Several seconds and thousands of kilometers later, the first of the embattled starships winked onto the display. His brother and the Rhedd Alert team were hard-pressed.

Walt watched Brock and her crew circle and strike, corralling the Rhedd Alert ships. Gavin tried to lead the attackers away, but Brock wouldn’t bite. By keeping the fight centered on the UEE transport, she essentially held the transport hostage.

Time to even the odds.

Jazza tore into one of the Hornets. Walt saw the enemy fighter’s superior shields absorb the impact. He marked that Hornet as his target, preparing to strike before its defenses recharged.

He killed his primary drive and spun end to end, slash­ing backward through the melee like a blazing comet. His targeting system locked onto the enemy Hornet, and his heavy Broadsword blasted bullets into it.

Mei’s battered fighter dove through the streaming wreck­age, but the Super Hornet, presumably Brock, waited for her on the other side. A blast from her neutron cannon tore through the Rhedd Alert ship. Mei ejected safely, but their team was down a ship.

“Gods,” Gavin’s voice was frantic. “Get the hell out of here, Walt. Form up with the transport and get them away from the fight.”

Walt ignored him. He came around for another pass and triggered his mic to an open-area channel. “The game’s up, Brock.”

His words cut across the thrust and wheel of close com­bat, and for a moment the fighters on all sides flew in quiet patterns above the fleeing Cassiopeia.

“You know,” Walt said, “if you wanted us to believe you were after the transport, you should have saved your big guns for Cassiopeia instead of overkilling our friend.”

“I suppose I should be disappointed that you have found me out,” Brock’s voice was a pinched sneer, and every bit as cold and hard as Gavin had described. “On the other hand, I’m glad you’ve shared this with me. I might have been content disabling the majority of your so-called fleet. Now, it seems that I will have to be more thorough.”

She fired, he dodged, and the fight was on again in earnest. Walt switched his comms to Rhedd Alert’s squad channel. “Brock was never after Cassiopeia, Gav. She’s been after us.”

“Maybe I’m a little distracted by all the missiles and the neutron cannon, but I’m failing to see how that is at all relevant right now.”

“We’re no match for the tech in her ships. If she goes after the transport, they’re toast.” He rolled into position next to Gavin. Together, they nosed down to strafe at a Hornet from above.

“Great,” Gavin said, “then why did you tip her off?”

Walt suppressed a wicked grin. “Because,” he said, “she can’t afford to let any of us get away, either.”

“If you have any brilliant ideas, spit ’em out. I’m all ears.”

“Run with me.” For all Walt knew, Brock could hear every word they were saying. She would tear them apart if they stayed. He had to get Gavin to follow him. “Run with me, Gavin.”

“Damn it, Walt! If you came to help, then help. I’ve got a pilot down, and I’m not leaving her here to get OK’d like Boom­er.”

“This ain’t about doing the easy thing, Gav. Someone I truly admire once told me that this game is all about trust. So ask yourself . . . do you trust me?”

Gavin growled his name then, dragging out the word in a bitter, internal struggle. The weight of it made Walt’s throat constrict. Despite all of their arguments, Boomer’s death and his own desertion when things got hard — in spite of all of that — his brother still wanted to trust him.

“Trust me, Gavin.”

Brock and her wingman swept low, diving to corral Cassiopeia and its escorts. Jazza redirected them with a blazing torrent of laser fire and got rocked by the neutron cannon in return. The shields around her battered Cutlass flashed, dimmed and then failed.

Walt gritted his teeth. It was now or never.

“Jazz,” Gavin’s voice sounded hard and sharp, “rally with Cassiopeia and make a break for it.”

Walt pumped his fist and accelerated back the way he’d come in.

“Walt,” Gavin sounded angry enough to eat nails, but he followed, “I’m on your six. Let’s go, people! Move like you’ve got a purpose.”

Walt pulled up a set of coordinate presets and streaked away with Gavin close behind him. The two remaining Hor­nets split, with Brock falling in behind Gavin to give pursuit. Even together he and Gavin didn’t have much chance of getting past her superior shields. Instead, he set a straight course for the waypoint marked at the edge of his display. When incoming fire from Brock drove them off course, he corrected to put them directly back in line with the mark.

Brock was gaining. Gavin’s icon flashed on his display. She was close enough to hit reliably with her repeaters. As they approached the preset coordinates, Walt spotted a rippling distortion of winking starlight. Correcting his course slightly, he headed straight for it. Gavin and Brock were hard behind him.

“Come on,” Walt whispered, “stay close.”

On the squad display, he saw Gavin’s shield integrity dropped yet again. Brock was scoring more frequent hits.

“A little farther.”

Walt focused on the rippling of starlight ahead, a dark patch of space that swallowed Nexus’ star. He made a slight course correction and Gavin matched it. Together, they continued their breakneck flight from Brock’s deadly onslaught.

The small patch of dark space grew as the three ships streaked forward. Walt opened the squad channel on his mic and shouted, “Now!”

On his HUD, a new ship flared onto the display. It appeared to materialize nearly on top of them as Dell’s Avenger dropped from her hiding place inside the blackened hull of the derelict Idris.

Walt punched his thrusters. The lift pressed him into his seat as he pushed up and over their trap. He heard Dell shouting over the squad channel, and he turned, straining to see behind him. Bright flashes from Brock’s muzzles accompanied a horrible pounding thunder. Dell had left her mic open and it sounded like the massive gun was threat­ening to tear her ship apart.

“Heads up, Gav!”

Dell’s voice hit Gavin like a physical blow.

He saw his brother climb and suddenly disappear behind an empty, starless expanse. Then Boomer’s Avenger materi­alized from within that blackness, and Gavin knew that his wife was inside the cockpit. She was with him, out in the black where veteran pilots outgunned them.

His body reacted where his mind could not. He shoved down, hard. Thrusters strained as he instinctively tried to avoid colliding with her. A brilliant pulse like flashes of light­ning accompanied a jarring thunder of sound.

Gavin forced his battered ship to turn. The Cutlass shud­dered from the stress, and Gavin was pressed into the side of the cockpit as the nose of his ship came around.

He saw the first heavy round strike Brock. The combined force of the shell and her momentum shredded her for­ward shields. Then round after round tore through the nose of Brock’s ship until the air ignited inside.

“Dell” — the flaming Hornet tumbled toward his wife like an enormous hatchet — “look out!”

Brock ejected.

Dell thrust to one side, but the Hornet chopped into the hull where she had hidden. The explosion sent ships and debris spinning apart in all directions.

“Dell!”

He swept around to intercept her spinning ship. Walt beat him there. Thrusters firing in tightly controlled move­ments, Walt caught her Avenger, slowed it and stopped the spin.

Gavin rolled to put himself cockpit to cockpit with his wife.

“Dell?”

She sat in stillness at the controls, her head down and turned to one side.

“Come on, baby. Talk to me.”

She moved.

With the slow deliberateness of depressurized space, she rolled her head on her shoulders. When she looked up, their eyes met. Dell gave him a slow smile and a thumbs-up. He swallowed hard, and with one hand pressed to his heart, he shut his eyes silently in thanks.

Gavin spun his Cutlass and thrust over to where Brock floated nearby, his weapons systems still hot. He paused then, looming above her as she had hesitated over Boomer.

Her comms were still active. “What now, Rhedd?”

He remembered her from the meeting with Greely. Tall, lean, and crisp. She seemed small now, drifting not more than a meter away from the battle-scarred nose of his Cutlass.

“Gavin?” Dell’s voice sounded small after the ruckus of the fight.

Walt eased into view alongside him. His voice was low and calm, “Easy, buddy. We weren’t raised to OK pilots.”

“She’s not worth it,” Dell said.

Brock snarled, “Do it already.”

He had studied Brock’s reports for months. She had more ships and more pilots than he could ever imagine employing. What drove her to harass them and kill one of his crew for this job?

“I just want to know why,” he asked. “You’ve got other contracts. You’ve probably made more money than any of us will see in our lives. Why come after us?”

He held Brock’s eye, the lights from the Cutlass reflecting from her visor.

“Why?” she repeated. “Look around you, Rhedd. There’s no law in these systems. All that matters here is courage to take what you want, and a willingness to sacrifice to keep it.”

“You want to talk sacrifice?” he said. “That pilot you killed was family.”

“You put him in harm’s way,” she said, “not me. What little order exists in these systems is what I brought with me. I carved my success from nothing. You independents are thieves. You’re like rodents, nibbling at the edges of others’ success.”

“I was a thief,” he said, “and a smuggler. But we’re building our own success, and next time you and I meet with the Navy,” Gavin fired his thrusters just enough to punch Brock with the nose of his ship, “it’ll be in a court­room.”

She spun and tumbled as she flew, growing smaller and smaller until the PRB on his HUD was all he could see.

A pair of Retaliators with naval designations were moored outside the Rhedd Alert hangar when Gavin and the crew finally limped back to Vista Landing.

Crew aboard Cassiopeia had insisted on helping with medical care and recovery after the fight. The team scheduled for pick-up at Haven was similarly adamant that Rhedd Alert take care of their own before continuing. Technically, no one had checked with Navy SysCom.

Did the Navy fire contractors face to face? For all he knew, they did.

Gavin saw to the staging of their damaged ships while the others hurried the wounded deeper into Vista Landing. When he’d finished, he exchanged a quick nod with Barry Lidst who stood at ease behind Major Greely.

“Major,” Gavin held out his hand, “I assume someone would have told me already if I was fired.”

His hand disappeared in the major’s massive paw. “I sup­pose they would have, at that.”

“Then to what do we owe the honor?” Dell and Walt joined them, and Gavin made introductions.

“‘I’ first, then ‘we,’ ” Greely repeated, “I like that, Rhedd. I appreciate a man who accepts consequence personally but insists on sharing accolades with his team. Tell me, son. How’d you get Brock?”

Gavin nudged his wife. With a roguish grin, Dell pulled her arm from around Gavin’s waist and stepped over to pat the Tarantula on her battered Avenger.

“Nice shooting, miss.”

Dell shrugged, “Walt pulled my tags, nav beacon and flight recorder before we left. I was sitting dark inside a decoy when the boys flew her right down the barrel.”

Barry leaned toward Greely and in a completely audible whisper said, “It might be best if we ignore the illegal parts of that.”

Greely waved him off. “This is what the ’verse needs. Men and women with the courage to slap their name up on the side of a hangar. A chance for responsible civilians to create good, honest jobs with real pay for locals. That an ex-military contractor tried to muck that up . . .”

Gavin and the team got a good, close look at what angry looked like on a Navy officer. It was the kind of scowl that left an impression.

“Anyway,” Greely composed himself, “not a soul in the ’verse would blame you for writing us off as a bit of bad business. I’m here to ask that you stick with it.”

Gavin was reluctant to bring their financial situation up in front of their one paying client, but they were tapped out. Rhedd Alert didn’t have the cred to buy ammo, much less repair their downed fighters. “Actually, sir. I think we may need to find something a little more lucrative than getting shot up by disgruntled incumbents.”

“About that,” Greely rested his hand on Gavin’s shoulder. He led him to look out one of the large hangar windows at the Retaliators buoyed outside. “My accountant tells me there may be some room to renegotiate certain parts of the Tyrol contract. But that job won’t be enough to keep your team busy now that Brock’s out of the way.”

Gavin laughed. “On that point, I most certainly hope you are right.”

“Well . . . I’ve got more work for an outfit like yours. I hope you’ll accept, because you folks have surely earned it. Tell me, Rhedd, are you familiar with the Oberon system?”

Behind them, Walt dropped his helmet.

The End

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[starcitizenprivateer]

Brothers In Arms: Part Four

Writer’s Note: Brothers In Arms: Part Four was published originally in Jump Point 3.8. Read Part One here, Part Two here, and Part Three here.

A recorded hymn played as they sent Arun “Boomer” Ains­ley into whatever great adventure awaits in the everafter. Gavin set the service in the Rhedd Alert hangar, and the recording sounded terrible. The last somber note rebounded off the room’s hard surfaces and harsh angles.

He wished they could have had a live band. He would have paid for an orchestra, if one were to be had on the orbit­al station. Even a bugle would have been a better tribute for the man who had brought Dell into his life. For the man who taught him and Walt so much about living a free life.

Dell’s arm felt small around his waist and Gavin pulled her in close to him, unsure if that was the right thing to do. He turned to kiss her hair and saw Walt’s lean form looming beside them. Walt’s face was fixed in a grim mask.

Gavin knew his brother well enough to know that Walt was berating himself inside. He didn’t deal well with guilt or re­sponsibility, and Gavin suspected that was a big part of why Walt always ran.

The gathering started to break up. Pilots and the hangar crew busied themselves with tasks around Rhedd Alert’s battered fleet of fighters. Dell didn’t move, so he stayed there with her. Walt rested a hand on his shoulder.

“Gavin. Oh gods, Dell. I can’t tell you how sorry I am.”

Jazza leaned in and spoke in a low tone, almost a whisper. “Landing gear up in ten, boss. Your rig is on the buggy.” She motioned with her chin to where his ship waited.

Dell turned into him and squeezed. “Be careful.”

“I will, babe.”

“You come home to me, Gavin Rhedd. I’ll kill you myself if you make me run this outfit on my own.”

He pressed his lips to the top of her head. Held them there.

“Wait. What?” Walt’s jaw was slack, his eyes wide. “Tell me you aren’t going back out there.”

Jazza bumped Walt with her shoulder, not so much walking past him as through him. “Damn right we are, Quitter.”

“You know what? Screw you, Jazz. All right? You used to quit this outfit, like . . . twice a month.”

“Not like you. Not like some chicken sh—”

“Jazz,” Gavin said, “go make sure the team is ready to roll, would ya?” With a nod to Gavin and a parting glare at Walt, she moved away into the hangar.

“Let it be, Walt. We really do need to go. After last time, we can’t risk being late for the pickup.”

“Screw late!” Walt’s eyes were wide and red-rimmed around the edges. “Why the happy hells are you going at all?”

“Walt —”

“Don’t ‘Walt’ me, Gavin. There is a pack of psychopaths out there trying to kill you!”

“Walt, would you shut up and listen for two seconds? We don’t have a choice, okay? We’ve got everything riding on this job. We’re months behind on this place and extended up to our necks on credit for fuel, parts, and ammo.”

“They can damn well bill me!”

“No,” Gavin said, “they can’t. Your shares reverted back to the company when you quit. But I’m legit now. You think we lived life on the run before? Just you watch if I try to run from this.”

Walt turned to Dell for assistance, “Dell, come on. You gotta make him listen to reason.”

“Boomer’s shares transferred to me when he died,” Dell said. “We’re in this together.”

“Okay, boss,” Jazza called. The three of them looked to where she stood with a line of determined crew. “It’s time.”

Walt watched the big bay doors close as the last of Gavin’s team left the hangar. His fighter and the few remaining ships looked small and awkwardly out of place in the big room. Standing alone next to Dell gave him a great appreci­ation for that awkwardness.

“I’m so sorry, Dell. If I’d been there —”

“Don’t,” she stopped him with a word, and then contin­ued with a shake of her blue-tipped hair. “Don’t do that to yourself. I’ve been over the tactical logs. He got beat one-on-one, and then they OK’d him. There was nothing you could have done.”

“I still feel rotten,” he said. “Like, maybe if I hadn’t left . . . I don’t know.”

“Gavin blames himself, too. That’s just the way you two are built. But believe me, there was never a soul alive able to keep my dad out of the cockpit. He was flying long before you Rhedd boys tumbled into our lives.”

That gave him a smile. A genuine smile. It seemed to bright­en Dell’s mood, so he did his best to hang onto it.

“Come on,” she said. “It’s been a long couple of weeks. Join me for some coffee?”

He did, and for a time they spoke softly at the tall tables in the hangar’s kitchenette. Dell caught him up on life aboard Vista Landing since he had left. She was clearly exhausted and not simply from a sleepless night and her father’s funeral. Her shoulders sagged, and dark circles under her eyes were the product of weeks of labor and worry. The constant apprehension of the Hornets’ vi­cious attacks had apparently exhausted more than just the pilots. It seemed odd that the attacks felt strangely personal.

“You know what I can’t figure out?” he mused aloud. Dell looked at him, tired eyes politely expectant. “What the hell are these guys after?”

She nodded, “Yeah. There’s been a lot of speculating on that question.”

“And?”

“Hard to say, isn’t it? Could be political wackos opposed to the research in Haven. Or maybe it’s one of the old gangs that don’t like us going legit. Could be it’s a group of Tevarin lashing out against UEE targets. Who knows?”

“Naw. If they were Tevarin, we could tell by how they fly.”

“Then you tell me, if you’re so smart. I mean, you were out there. You fought them.”

Walt shrugged and took a sip of cooling coffee. Something she said nagged at him. “Hey, you said you had navsat tac­tical logs from the fight, right?”

“Yeah.” What remained of her energy seemed to drain away with that one word. Walt cursed himself for the insensitive ass that he was. He’d just asked her about re­corded replays of her father’s murder.

“Dell. Ah, hell . . . I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have asked.”

“It’s okay,” she said. “I’ve been over and over them already. Really, I don’t mind.”

They moved to a console and the lights dimmed automat­ically when she pulled up the hangar projection. She se­lected a ship, and oriented the view so that the hologram of Boomer’s Avenger filled the display. No, Walt reminded himself, it wasn’t Boomer’s ship any more. Dell was his heir and — along with his debt — Boomer’s assets now belonged to her.

Dell bypassed the default display of the structural hard­points and dove into the ship’s systems. Something caught his eye and he stopped her. “Wait, back up.” She did, and Walt stopped the rotating display to look along the under­carriage of the ship. He let out a low whistle.

“That, Walter Rhedd, is a Tarantula GT-870 Mk3.”

“I know what it is. But where did you get it?”

“Remember those pirates that gave us so much trouble in Oberon? I pulled it before we sold the salvage.”

He certainly did remember, and the bastards had kicked the crap out of two of their ships with their Tarantulas. “How’d you get it mounted on an Avenger?”

“Hammer therapy,” she said. He gave her a confused look, and she held up one arm, curling it to make a muscle. “I beat the hell out of it until it did what I wanted.”

“Damn, girl.”

“Did you want to see the flight recorder?”

They watched the navsat replays together in silence. It looked like one hell of a fight. Chaotic. Frantic. The Rhedd Alert fighters were hard pressed.

Jazza had moments of tactical brilliance. As much as she rubbed him the wrong way, Walt had to admit that she made her Cutlass dance steps for which it wasn’t de­signed. Gavin orchestrated a coherent strategy and had committed extra fighters to drive off the attack. Some­thing was wrong, though. Something about the fight didn’t make sense.

Walt had Dell replay the scene so he could focus on the marauders. It didn’t look like much of a fight at all from that perspective. It looked more like a game and only one team understood how all the pieces moved. The Hornets flew to disrupt, to confuse. They knew Gavin would send a force forward to protect the transport. He’d done it every time they had met.

“See that?” he said. “They break apart there and get called immediately back into formation. They never leave a flank exposed. Our guys never get a real opening.” He pointed out one of the attacking Hornets. “That one calls the shots.”

“That’s the one that OK’d Boomer.”

Reds and greens from the navsat display sparkled in Dell’s eyes. Her voice was emotionless and flat. Walt didn’t want to see her like that, so he focused again on the display.

The marauder he’d identified as the leader broke from the melee. Gavin gave chase, but from too far behind. Boomer intercepted, was disabled, and his PRB flashed red on the display. The Hornet took a pass at the transport before turning to rejoin its squad. Then it decelerated, pausing before the overkill on Boomer.

“Why take only one pass at the transport? They’ve hit us, what? Six times? Seven? And once they finally get a shot at the target, they bug out?”

“You said, ‘us’,” Dell teased. “You back to stay?”

Walt huffed a small laugh. “We’ll see.”

“We’ve been lucky,” Dell offered in answer to his question. “So far, we’ve chased them off.”

“You really believe that? They had this fight won if they wanted it. And how do they keep finding us? It’s like they’ve taken up permanent residence in our damned flight path.”

That was it. He had it. The revelation must have shown on his face.

“What?” Dell asked. “What is it?”

“Back it up to the strafe on the Aquila.”

Dell did, and they watched it again. He felt like an ass for making her watch the murder of her father over again, but he had to be sure of what he saw.

And there it was. Strafe. Turn. Pause. A decision to com­mit. An escalating act of brutality. And then they were gone.

“She’s not after the transport at all. We were her target this whole time.”

“Wait,” Dell said, “what she? Her who?”

“Please tell me your ex hasn’t drunk himself out of a job with the Navy.”

“Barry? Of course not, why?”

“Because I just figured out who killed your father.”

Morgan Brock called the meeting to a close and dismissed her admin team. Riebeld caught her eye and lifted one hand off the table — a request for her to stay while the others shuffled out of the conference room.

Riebeld kept her waiting until they were alone, and then stood to close the door.

“I take it,” Brock said, “that our Tyrol problem persists despite the escalation?”

“I got word during the meeting” — he took a seat beside her at the table, voice pitched low — “that they should be making the jump to Nexus soon.”

“Our discreet pilots? Are they deployed or here at the sta­tion?”

His answer was slow in coming, his nod reluctant. “They are here.”

Brock checked the time. Did some mental math. “Disguise the ships. We will leave at 1700 and meet them in Nexus just inside the gate from Min.”

“Morgan,” Riebeld’s eyes roamed the room, “these guys aren’t taking the hint. I don’t know what losses we have to hand them before they back down, but . . . I don’t know. Part of doing business is losing bids, am I right?” She didn’t disagree and he continued. “Maybe . . . Maybe we ought to write this one off?”

“A comfortable position to hold in your seat, Riebeld. Your commission is based on the contract value. I barely turned a profit on that job for years. I did it willingly, with the expected reward of windfall profits when traffic to Haven surges.”

“I get that,” he said. “I really do. But at some point we have to call it a loss and focus on the next thing, right?”

“Then suppose that we let the Tyrol job go, and Greely and Navy SysCom see what they want to see from bou­tique contractors. I can already imagine anti-establishment politicians pushing for more outsourced work. Hell, they will probably promise contracts to buy votes in their home systems.”

She watched him squirm. It wasn’t like him to wrestle with his conscience. Frankly, she was disappointed to learn that he’d found one.

“If Rhedd Alert won’t withdraw willingly,” she said, “then they will have to fail the hard way. Prep the ships, Rie­beld. We have done very well together, you and I. You should know that I won’t back away from what is mine.” He seemed to appreciate her sincerity, but Brock wanted to hear the cocksure salesman say it. “Are we clear?”

“Yes, ma’am,” Riebeld swallowed and stood. “Perfectly clear.”

“Any luck?” Walt pulled up Barry’s record in his mobiGlas and hit connect.

Dell sat at the hangar console trying to reach Gavin and the team. Her brow furrowed in a grimace and she shook her head.

“Damn. Okay, keep trying.”

Barry connected. The accountant wore his uniform. He was on duty, wherever he was, and his projected face looked genuinely mournful. “Hey,” he said, “long time no see, man. Listen, I can’t tell you how sad I am about Boomer.”

“Thanks.” Barry had known Dell and Boomer for most his life. He’d probably been torn between attending the service and allowing the family to grieve in privacy. Regardless, commiseration would have to wait. “We need your help, Barry. Please tell me that you have access to the propos­als for the Tyrol contract.”

“Of course I do. And who’s we? Are you back with Dell and Gavin?”

“I am,” he felt Dell’s eyes on him when he said it. “Anyway, we need a favor. I need to know the ship models and con­figurations proposed by the incumbent.”

“Morgan Brock’s outfit, sure. No can do on the ship data, though. That information is all confidential. Only the price proposals are available for public review, and those only during the protest period.”

“Come on, Barry. We’re not talking trade secrets here. I could figure this out with a fly-by of their hangar in Kilian. I just don’t have time for that. I need to know what ships those guys fly.”

Barry breathed out a heavy sigh, “Hold on. But I can’t send you the proposals, okay? You guys are already on thin ice with this contract as is.”

“Tell me about it. And thanks, I owe you huge for this.”

Walt waited, throat dry. He scratched at a chipped edge on his worn mobiGlas with a fingernail.

“All right,” Barry read from something off-screen, “it looks like they’re flying a variety of Hornets. Specifically, F7As. I can send you a list of the proposed hardpoints, and I hap­pen to know that Brock herself flies a Super Hornet.”

The mobiGlas shook on Walt’s wrist. His face felt hot, and he forced his jaw to relax. “Barry, if you have any pull with the Navy, get some ships to Tyrol. It’s been Brock this whole time. She’s been setting us up to fail. And she’s the bitch that OK’d Boomer.”

“I’m going, Walt. That’s final.”

Walt rubbed at his eyes with the flat part of his fingers. How did Gavin ever win an argument her? Forbidding her involvement was a lost cause. Maybe he could reason with her. “Listen. When’s the last time you were even in a cockpit?”

“I know this ship. I was practically born in these things.”

“Dell —”

She threw his helmet at him. He caught it awkwardly, and she had shed her coveralls and was wriggling into her flight suit before he could finish his thought. She stared at him with hard eyes and said, “Suit up if you don’t want to get left behind.”

Dell was as implacable as gravity. Fine. It was her funeral, and he realized there was no way his brother had ever won an argument with her.

They finished prepping in silence. Walt pulled the chocks on her Avenger when she climbed up into the cockpit. He gave the hulking muzzle of the Tarantula an appreciative pat. “You have ammo for this bad boy?”

“I have a little.”

“Good,” he smiled. “Let’s hope Brock isn’t ready to handle reinforcements.”

Walt mulled that thought over. It was true that Gavin had split their team in each fight, but Rhedd Alert had never sent in reserves. Each engagement had been a fair and straightforward fight. Brock wasn’t likely to know anything about their resources, however limited, beyond the escort team. That could work to their advantage.

In fact, “Hey, Dell. Hop out for a tick, will you?”

“Like hell I will.” The look she shot down at him was pure challenge. “I said I’m going and that’s that.”

“Oh, no. I’ve already lost that fight. But you and your cannon here got me thinking about those pirates in Oberon. Tell me, did we ever find a buyer for that old Idris hull?”

“No. It’s buoyed in storage outside the station, why?”

Dell looked at him skeptically and he grinned. “We’re going to introduce these military-types to some ol’ smugglers’ tricks.”

Gavin held the team at the edge of the jump gate between Min and Nexus. “All right gang, listen up. You know the drill and what might be waiting for us on the other side. Jazza, I want you and Rahul up on point for this jump. I’ll bring Cassiopeia over after you and the rest of the team are in. Anyone not ready to jump?”

His team was silent as they arranged themselves into position with professional precision. The pilot aboard Cassiopeia sounded the ready and Gavin sent Jazza through. The others were hard on her heels, and Gavin felt the always-peculiar drop through the mouth of the jump gate.

Light and sound stretched, dragging him across the inter­space. Another drop, a moment’s disorientation, and then Nexus resolved around him.

Without warning, Mei’s fighter flashed past his forward screen. Incandescent laser fire slashed along the ghost grey and fire-alarm red ship, crippling Mei’s shields and shearing away sections of armored hull. Mei fired back at a trio of maddeningly familiar Hornets in a tight triangular formation.

Jazza barked orders. “Mei. Rahul. Flank Gavin and get Cassiopeia out of here. Gavin, you copy that? You have the package.”

He shook his head, willing the post-jump disorientation away. He didn’t remember bringing up his shields, but they flashed on his HUD and his weapon systems were armed.

“Copy that.” Gavin switched to the transport channel, “Cassiopeia. Let’s get you folks out of here.”

The crew onboard the UEE transport didn’t need any more encouragement. Gavin accelerated to keep pace with the larger ship as two Rhedd Alert fighters dropped into posi­tion above and below him. Together, they raced toward the jump gate to Tyrol.

The Hornets wheeled and dropped toward them from one side. Gavin’s HUD lit up with alerts as Jazza sent a pair of rockets dangerously close over his head to blast into one of the attacking ships. Her ship screamed by overhead, but the Hornets stayed in pursuit of the fleeing transport.

Alarms sounded. They needed more firepower on the Hornets to give Cassiopeia time to get clear. He yelled a course heading, and Cassiopeia dove with Mei and Rahul on either flank.

Gavin pulled up, turned and fired to pull the attention of the attackers. He spun, taking the brunt of their return fire on his stronger starboard shields.

The impact shook the Cutlass violently, and his shield integ­rity bar sagged into the red. Gavin turned, took another wild shot with his lasers, and accelerated away from Cassiopeia with the Hornets in close pursuit.

Navsat data for the jump into Nexus crept onto the edge of Walt’s HUD. Several seconds and thousands of kilometers later, the first of the embattled starships winked onto the display. His brother and the Rhedd Alert team were hard-pressed.

Walt watched Brock and her crew circle and strike, corralling the Rhedd Alert ships. Gavin tried to lead the attackers away, but Brock wouldn’t bite. By keeping the fight centered on the UEE transport, she essentially held the transport hostage.

Time to even the odds.

Jazza tore into one of the Hornets. Walt saw the enemy fighter’s superior shields absorb the impact. He marked that Hornet as his target, preparing to strike before its defenses recharged.

He killed his primary drive and spun end to end, slash­ing backward through the melee like a blazing comet. His targeting system locked onto the enemy Hornet, and his heavy Broadsword blasted bullets into it.

Mei’s battered fighter dove through the streaming wreck­age, but the Super Hornet, presumably Brock, waited for her on the other side. A blast from her neutron cannon tore through the Rhedd Alert ship. Mei ejected safely, but their team was down a ship.

“Gods,” Gavin’s voice was frantic. “Get the hell out of here, Walt. Form up with the transport and get them away from the fight.”

Walt ignored him. He came around for another pass and triggered his mic to an open-area channel. “The game’s up, Brock.”

His words cut across the thrust and wheel of close com­bat, and for a moment the fighters on all sides flew in quiet patterns above the fleeing Cassiopeia.

“You know,” Walt said, “if you wanted us to believe you were after the transport, you should have saved your big guns for Cassiopeia instead of overkilling our friend.”

“I suppose I should be disappointed that you have found me out,” Brock’s voice was a pinched sneer, and every bit as cold and hard as Gavin had described. “On the other hand, I’m glad you’ve shared this with me. I might have been content disabling the majority of your so-called fleet. Now, it seems that I will have to be more thorough.”

She fired, he dodged, and the fight was on again in earnest. Walt switched his comms to Rhedd Alert’s squad channel. “Brock was never after Cassiopeia, Gav. She’s been after us.”

“Maybe I’m a little distracted by all the missiles and the neutron cannon, but I’m failing to see how that is at all relevant right now.”

“We’re no match for the tech in her ships. If she goes after the transport, they’re toast.” He rolled into position next to Gavin. Together, they nosed down to strafe at a Hornet from above.

“Great,” Gavin said, “then why did you tip her off?”

Walt suppressed a wicked grin. “Because,” he said, “she can’t afford to let any of us get away, either.”

“If you have any brilliant ideas, spit ’em out. I’m all ears.”

“Run with me.” For all Walt knew, Brock could hear every word they were saying. She would tear them apart if they stayed. He had to get Gavin to follow him. “Run with me, Gavin.”

“Damn it, Walt! If you came to help, then help. I’ve got a pilot down, and I’m not leaving her here to get OK’d like Boom­er.”

“This ain’t about doing the easy thing, Gav. Someone I truly admire once told me that this game is all about trust. So ask yourself . . . do you trust me?”

Gavin growled his name then, dragging out the word in a bitter, internal struggle. The weight of it made Walt’s throat constrict. Despite all of their arguments, Boomer’s death and his own desertion when things got hard — in spite of all of that — his brother still wanted to trust him.

“Trust me, Gavin.”

Brock and her wingman swept low, diving to corral Cassiopeia and its escorts. Jazza redirected them with a blazing torrent of laser fire and got rocked by the neutron cannon in return. The shields around her battered Cutlass flashed, dimmed and then failed.

Walt gritted his teeth. It was now or never.

“Jazz,” Gavin’s voice sounded hard and sharp, “rally with Cassiopeia and make a break for it.”

Walt pumped his fist and accelerated back the way he’d come in.

“Walt,” Gavin sounded angry enough to eat nails, but he followed, “I’m on your six. Let’s go, people! Move like you’ve got a purpose.”

Walt pulled up a set of coordinate presets and streaked away with Gavin close behind him. The two remaining Hor­nets split, with Brock falling in behind Gavin to give pursuit. Even together he and Gavin didn’t have much chance of getting past her superior shields. Instead, he set a straight course for the waypoint marked at the edge of his display. When incoming fire from Brock drove them off course, he corrected to put them directly back in line with the mark.

Brock was gaining. Gavin’s icon flashed on his display. She was close enough to hit reliably with her repeaters. As they approached the preset coordinates, Walt spotted a rippling distortion of winking starlight. Correcting his course slightly, he headed straight for it. Gavin and Brock were hard behind him.

“Come on,” Walt whispered, “stay close.”

On the squad display, he saw Gavin’s shield integrity dropped yet again. Brock was scoring more frequent hits.

“A little farther.”

Walt focused on the rippling of starlight ahead, a dark patch of space that swallowed Nexus’ star. He made a slight course correction and Gavin matched it. Together, they continued their breakneck flight from Brock’s deadly onslaught.

The small patch of dark space grew as the three ships streaked forward. Walt opened the squad channel on his mic and shouted, “Now!”

On his HUD, a new ship flared onto the display. It appeared to materialize nearly on top of them as Dell’s Avenger dropped from her hiding place inside the blackened hull of the derelict Idris.

Walt punched his thrusters. The lift pressed him into his seat as he pushed up and over their trap. He heard Dell shouting over the squad channel, and he turned, straining to see behind him. Bright flashes from Brock’s muzzles accompanied a horrible pounding thunder. Dell had left her mic open and it sounded like the massive gun was threat­ening to tear her ship apart.

“Heads up, Gav!”

Dell’s voice hit Gavin like a physical blow.

He saw his brother climb and suddenly disappear behind an empty, starless expanse. Then Boomer’s Avenger materi­alized from within that blackness, and Gavin knew that his wife was inside the cockpit. She was with him, out in the black where veteran pilots outgunned them.

His body reacted where his mind could not. He shoved down, hard. Thrusters strained as he instinctively tried to avoid colliding with her. A brilliant pulse like flashes of light­ning accompanied a jarring thunder of sound.

Gavin forced his battered ship to turn. The Cutlass shud­dered from the stress, and Gavin was pressed into the side of the cockpit as the nose of his ship came around.

He saw the first heavy round strike Brock. The combined force of the shell and her momentum shredded her for­ward shields. Then round after round tore through the nose of Brock’s ship until the air ignited inside.

“Dell” — the flaming Hornet tumbled toward his wife like an enormous hatchet — “look out!”

Brock ejected.

Dell thrust to one side, but the Hornet chopped into the hull where she had hidden. The explosion sent ships and debris spinning apart in all directions.

“Dell!”

He swept around to intercept her spinning ship. Walt beat him there. Thrusters firing in tightly controlled move­ments, Walt caught her Avenger, slowed it and stopped the spin.

Gavin rolled to put himself cockpit to cockpit with his wife.

“Dell?”

She sat in stillness at the controls, her head down and turned to one side.

“Come on, baby. Talk to me.”

She moved.

With the slow deliberateness of depressurized space, she rolled her head on her shoulders. When she looked up, their eyes met. Dell gave him a slow smile and a thumbs-up. He swallowed hard, and with one hand pressed to his heart, he shut his eyes silently in thanks.

Gavin spun his Cutlass and thrust over to where Brock floated nearby, his weapons systems still hot. He paused then, looming above her as she had hesitated over Boomer.

Her comms were still active. “What now, Rhedd?”

He remembered her from the meeting with Greely. Tall, lean, and crisp. She seemed small now, drifting not more than a meter away from the battle-scarred nose of his Cutlass.

“Gavin?” Dell’s voice sounded small after the ruckus of the fight.

Walt eased into view alongside him. His voice was low and calm, “Easy, buddy. We weren’t raised to OK pilots.”

“She’s not worth it,” Dell said.

Brock snarled, “Do it already.”

He had studied Brock’s reports for months. She had more ships and more pilots than he could ever imagine employing. What drove her to harass them and kill one of his crew for this job?

“I just want to know why,” he asked. “You’ve got other contracts. You’ve probably made more money than any of us will see in our lives. Why come after us?”

He held Brock’s eye, the lights from the Cutlass reflecting from her visor.

“Why?” she repeated. “Look around you, Rhedd. There’s no law in these systems. All that matters here is courage to take what you want, and a willingness to sacrifice to keep it.”

“You want to talk sacrifice?” he said. “That pilot you killed was family.”

“You put him in harm’s way,” she said, “not me. What little order exists in these systems is what I brought with me. I carved my success from nothing. You independents are thieves. You’re like rodents, nibbling at the edges of others’ success.”

“I was a thief,” he said, “and a smuggler. But we’re building our own success, and next time you and I meet with the Navy,” Gavin fired his thrusters just enough to punch Brock with the nose of his ship, “it’ll be in a court­room.”

She spun and tumbled as she flew, growing smaller and smaller until the PRB on his HUD was all he could see.

A pair of Retaliators with naval designations were moored outside the Rhedd Alert hangar when Gavin and the crew finally limped back to Vista Landing.

Crew aboard Cassiopeia had insisted on helping with medical care and recovery after the fight. The team scheduled for pick-up at Haven was similarly adamant that Rhedd Alert take care of their own before continuing. Technically, no one had checked with Navy SysCom.

Did the Navy fire contractors face to face? For all he knew, they did.

Gavin saw to the staging of their damaged ships while the others hurried the wounded deeper into Vista Landing. When he’d finished, he exchanged a quick nod with Barry Lidst who stood at ease behind Major Greely.

“Major,” Gavin held out his hand, “I assume someone would have told me already if I was fired.”

His hand disappeared in the major’s massive paw. “I sup­pose they would have, at that.”

“Then to what do we owe the honor?” Dell and Walt joined them, and Gavin made introductions.

“‘I’ first, then ‘we,’ ” Greely repeated, “I like that, Rhedd. I appreciate a man who accepts consequence personally but insists on sharing accolades with his team. Tell me, son. How’d you get Brock?”

Gavin nudged his wife. With a roguish grin, Dell pulled her arm from around Gavin’s waist and stepped over to pat the Tarantula on her battered Avenger.

“Nice shooting, miss.”

Dell shrugged, “Walt pulled my tags, nav beacon and flight recorder before we left. I was sitting dark inside a decoy when the boys flew her right down the barrel.”

Barry leaned toward Greely and in a completely audible whisper said, “It might be best if we ignore the illegal parts of that.”

Greely waved him off. “This is what the ’verse needs. Men and women with the courage to slap their name up on the side of a hangar. A chance for responsible civilians to create good, honest jobs with real pay for locals. That an ex-military contractor tried to muck that up . . .”

Gavin and the team got a good, close look at what angry looked like on a Navy officer. It was the kind of scowl that left an impression.

“Anyway,” Greely composed himself, “not a soul in the ’verse would blame you for writing us off as a bit of bad business. I’m here to ask that you stick with it.”

Gavin was reluctant to bring their financial situation up in front of their one paying client, but they were tapped out. Rhedd Alert didn’t have the cred to buy ammo, much less repair their downed fighters. “Actually, sir. I think we may need to find something a little more lucrative than getting shot up by disgruntled incumbents.”

“About that,” Greely rested his hand on Gavin’s shoulder. He led him to look out one of the large hangar windows at the Retaliators buoyed outside. “My accountant tells me there may be some room to renegotiate certain parts of the Tyrol contract. But that job won’t be enough to keep your team busy now that Brock’s out of the way.”

Gavin laughed. “On that point, I most certainly hope you are right.”

“Well . . . I’ve got more work for an outfit like yours. I hope you’ll accept, because you folks have surely earned it. Tell me, Rhedd, are you familiar with the Oberon system?”

Behind them, Walt dropped his helmet.

The End

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