#there is so much unused writing in this chapter its actually driving me nuts

[asleepinawell]

Neon and Dust: Chapter 2

The continuation that no one asked for of the Shoot Space Western that no on asked for.

I have a chapter 3 written but I decided I need to trash it and completely rewrite it, which is why I’ve been stalled on writing this for so long. 

I did some minor updates to Chapter 1. Mostly world-building stuff. I’m still not completely committed to writing the full fic yet…would be a lot of time and effort and I don’t know how much interest there’d be. I feel like this chapter isn’t quite as fun as the last one due to world-building info dump, but eh.

Still rated pg-13 at this point though I’m strongly leaning towards the rating going up at some point.

(Chapter 1 |Chapter 2)

Shaw had taken one look at the unnecessarily large feline that Bear had attempted to corner in one of the storage compartments and decided that Reese could deal with the damn thing. She did wait around long enough to encourage Bear to stick up for himself, but the big dog was only interested in following the cat around with a sad look in his eyes, hurt that his new friend wanted nothing to do with him.

It figured that Root’s cat would be a jerk to her dog.

Mortimer, as Root had called him, was the size of a small dog himself, and while nowhere near as large as Bear, the regal long-haired black and white menace carried himself like a king.

“What the hell is that thing?” Reese asked, standing behind her as if afraid the cat would attack without warning.

“Looks an awful lot like your problem,” Shaw said and ducked past him into the narrow hallway, ignoring his indignant grumbling. Neither of them was really in command per se; they were equal partners in the transport business. Most differences of opinion were settled by coin flips, squabbling, or someone getting ‘accidentally’ locked in their room for a few hours (Shaw had never been the someone). Reese didn’t follow her down the hall, so she claimed that as a victory.

And besides, her task was equally unpleasant.

Despite her claims to the contrary, Root had been nowhere in the vicinity of her monstrous pet, and Shaw needed to know where they were supposed to be hauling her to. And, more importantly, sorting out the question of payment.

None of the unused crew cabins had any sign of her presence and the galley, engine room, cargo bay, infirmary, and bridge were all empty.

There was only one thing on the Indigo Five (besides Mortimer) that belonged to Root, and Shaw headed up to the tiny hanger at the top of the ship.

While a small ship could attach itself to the outside dock of the Indigo Five, the entire dock could also lower into the hanger and be sealed inside to protect the smaller vessel from the stress of blinking. Root had found the control panel on her own and lowered Paradox down into the hanger. The heavy doors in the ceiling were shut and sealed now and Root was lying on top of her ship on her stomach, dangling most of her upper body into the cockpit as she rummaged around.

“What the hell type of animal did you bring on my ship?” Shaw asked by way of greeting. “If he scratches Bear he’s getting airlocked.”

Root looked up. “Mortimer is a sweetheart,” she protested. “A total softie. He wouldn’t harm a soul.”

Mortimer’s paws had been enormous, way too large for any domestic cat Shaw had ever seen. He looked like a predator.

“Well,” Root amended, “he might have ripped a man’s throat out once. But he was only trying to protect me. He’s very loyal.”

Shaw gave Reese even odds against the hell beast.

“He’s going to cost you extra. Excessive shedding. Speaking of which, how do you plan to pay for this little trip? Double our rates, remember?”

Root hopped down from the side of Paradox, using Shaw’s shoulders to steady herself. When she didn’t immediately remove her hands, Shaw brushed them away and retreated to a safe distance. She wouldn’t put it past Root to try and knock her and Reese out and attempt to fly the Indigo Five herself. Probably right into a mountain.

Root pulled a small credit chip drive out of her pocket and held it out. “No tricks this time, Shaw. All of this is on the level.”

“With you I’m going to assume that’s bullshit until proven otherwise.”

She stalked over to the computer terminal set in the wall and inserted the credit drive. Most people used their implant chips for things like money transfers, but larger amounts and shady deals still relied heavily on the little credit drives. Also she wasn’t sure if Root could use an implant chip what with being on Samaritan’s most wanted list and all.

The amount on the drive was absurdly high, but the transfer account appeared legitimate. Shaw pocketed the drive and turned around to find Root hovering in her personal space.

“These funds clean? They better not come back to bite me in the ass.”

“The credits definitely won’t be the thing to bite you in the ass, Shaw.”

She never let up, did she?

“Fine. Let’s say I believe that this isn’t going to get Galactic Enforcement on my tail. Where are we taking you? Amount in the drive is enough to get you all the way to the Hub Planets and then some.”

Which was a bit ridiculous. Melior, the so-called capital planet of the Interplanetary Republic was five terminals away. Part of the reason they were on this godforsaken planet was because of its distance from anywhere developed.

And now that she thought about it, Root obviously wanted to go to Melior. She’d probably wanted a ride with the Indigo Five specifically because they were just as eager to stay off the radar as she was, but could also dock at Genesis, the capital city, without attracting attention and with Paradox safely hidden.

“Melior? Really, Root? Your boss put you up to this? Or is this your own dumbass idea?”

“I wouldn’t be going if it wasn’t important.” The slight edge in Root’s voice told Shaw she wasn’t lying through her teeth for once.

“It’s a bit of a long haul. Take a few days and we’ll have to stop and refuel at least once.”

The Ore Colonies were just far enough away from the Central Systems to be fairly lax in security, but close enough that most inhabitants were Interplanetary Republic citizens and things considered civilized amenities (like fuel stations that took credits) were readily available. Any of the Central Systems would be dangerous for a wanted fugitive like Root, but the Hub Planets, the six most developed planets right in the middle that made up the beating heart of the Republic, were by far the most heavily surveilled.

“That’s fine.”

It didn’t sound like it was fine, but Root wasn’t going to find a better ship out this far.

The Indigo Five was built to be fast and maneuverable, but she couldn’t hold up to extensive terminal travel the way larger, more armored vessels did, so Shaw always paused between blinks to run a basic diagnostic, make sure she hadn’t been damaged. It drove Reese nuts because he’d rather blow right through multiple terminals and worry about the consequences later, but she was Shaw’s ship now and Shaw was very firm on this rule.

“I’ll get us off this rock and headed to the terminal then,” Shaw said, turning away. Root’s smile wasn’t quite as confident as Shaw was used to seeing and it was setting off alarm bells in her head. This whole situation reeked of trouble. “You know where the bunks are at?”

“Why? Are you inviting me back to yours?” Root trailed along behind her.

“No. In fact, you get the one furthest away from me.” She paused by Paradox again, annoyed as always that Root hadn’t named it ‘the Paradox’. Not having an article in front of the name made it sound like she thought of it as a pet or something, which maybe she did. She was a bit weird like that.

“I get a bunk?”

Shaw looked back to catch a confused expression on Root’s face that quickly vanished.

“You’re a paying passenger even if I’m not crazy about it. Where did you think you’d sleep? In that heap?” She gestured at Root’s ship with her thumb.

Root shrugged. “Guess I didn’t really think about that.”

Shaw could hear the lie. Root had actually expected she’d be sleeping in her tiny ship. Shaw might not have been a gracious host, but they had to maintain the ship’s reputation.

Did Root live in that thing?

“Well, I won’t stop you, but the bunks are probably more comfortable.”

Root hesitated and then brushed past her to climb back up on Paradox. She vanished into the cockpit and there were some muffled thumping noises before a small, battered bag came sailing out of the ship. Shaw caught it out of instinct, surprised by how light it was.

“Wanna go for a ride?” Root had reappeared from within the cockpit and was sitting on the side of Paradox, her feet kicking in space, and one eyebrow raised suggestively.

The thing was, Root was really damn hot, and the sex had been great (even if she’d been tasered and robbed after the first time but whatever these things happened sometimes), but that was one thing at some cheap hostel; this was Shaw’s ship. Banging Root on her ship sounded like it could get complicated, and Shaw was very much against complications.

“This all you got?” Shaw asked, hefting the small bag and ignoring the question. Come to think of it, even though Root’s itemized list had been fairly long it had all been small items or stuff that shouldn’t have been counted anyway.

Root slid down to the floor. “I travel light.” She took the bag back immediately as if to cut off any more questions.

Well, it was her business, Shaw figured, and it wasn’t like she had a lot of material possessions herself anyway.

“Let’s go then.”

She showed Root into the first empty crew cabin they came to (conveniently all the way at the other end of the hall from hers) and left her sitting on her bunk, staring around her temporary room like it was an alien planet.

“Melior? Is that a good idea?”

Shaw didn’t bother to roll her eyes at what had to have been the dumbest question Reese had asked all day.

“Of course it isn’t. When has anything involving Root ever been a good idea?” She reached under the console to unlock the controls and flipped on the main engine power. The Indigo Five woke up under her feet, humming to life.

“She say why she wanted to go to the one place in the universe it’d be easiest for Galactic Enforcement to hunt her down?”

“No. Probably more worried about the ISA hunting her down than Enforcement, but really what we’re talking about here is Samaritan. And that thing has eyes and ears all over Melior.”

As the private armed force of the Interplanetary Council, the Interplanetary Security Activity were supposed to be in charge of Samaritan, but Shaw was fairly certain the AI was the one actually pulling the strings these days. Back when she’d worked for the ISA, they’d had a different AI feeding them the dirty little secrets of the galaxy, a supposedly less megalomaniacal one. The Machine was hiding as much as the rest of them were these days, though, maybe more. Shaw wasn’t sure why it’d want to send its little pet hacker into certain danger, but then she’d never been completely sure why it did half the things it did.

“What about us?” Reese asked, playing with a switch on the console. “Thought we were trying to avoid trouble.”

Shaw leaned over and smacked his hand away. Reese could fly pretty well (even if he did have a tendency to smash into other ships), but she was the pilot here and there were rules on her bridge. The most important rule was no touching the damn controls.

“Eh, I mean Samaritan doesn’t know who we are, so as long as we don’t do anything spectacularly dumb we should be fine for a short trip.” And she really could use a night in a luxury hotel. Maybe order in some gourmet food, have a long, hot bath, find a quick hook-up from a nearby bar, sleep in a real bed. It’d be like a vacation.

“Her credit check out?” Reese asked as Shaw took the Indigo Five up off the dock, slow and easy. The landing gear retracted with a few dull thuds as they gained some height.

“Seems to. Guess robbing a bank will do that.”

“Doesn’t it strike you as weird that the Machine would have her pull some stunt that brings all this attention on her and then send her right into enemy territory while everyone’s on high alert?”

“Is there anything about Root and the Machine that isn’t weird?” There was no baseline for normal in this scenario.

“Just wondering what it’s thinking.” Reese looked up at the monitor near the top of the wall. The screen showed nothing but static.

“No way we’re finding out. Even before all this mess it was never exactly chatty.”

They were high above the planet’s surface now, headed up on a path to break through the atmosphere and out into space. They hadn’t ventured out from the main planet in this system so they were only about an hour away from the terminal. Shaw dialed in a blink request and waited for authorization.

“Not too bad. Only a twenty minute wait from when we get to the terminal.” Back in the Central Systems a wait time of several hours wasn’t unusual unless you could pay an exorbitant fee to upgrade your priority.

“What’d you end up doing with that monster cat?” Shaw asked, sitting back in the pilot chair and enjoying the rumbling of the ship around her. She’d punched in a pretty direct route for them and, while she couldn’t just leave the bridge, she didn’t need her hands on the controls at all times.

“Oh. About that.” Reese winced. “It, uh, sort of vanished.”

“Maybe we’ll get lucky and it escaped onto the planet.” Root would no doubt insist they go back for it if that were the case. Damn thing was probably the only companion she had other than the Machine’s voice in her head.

“Where’s its owner wandered off to?” Reese looked back over his shoulder as if expecting Root to appear from the shadows with a stun gun at any second.

“Gave her a cabin, though she’s probably up to no good somewhere else by now.” She’d like to think that the Machine would keep Root in check on their ship since they technically worked for it, too, but she wasn’t betting on it. “You volunteering to go keep an eye on her?”

“It’s my turn to make dinner,” Reese said, hurriedly. “I think that takes priority.”

“Wuss.”

“Hey, you’re the one who let her on board.”

“Let? I’m not sure let is the right word here. And you were all ‘oh no we can’t throw her out an airlock because money’.”

The Indigo Five pulled clear of the planet’s atmosphere and sailed out into open space. Shaw momentarily forgot her annoyance as the quiet of the universe wrapped around their little ship. Even with all the internal whirrings and hums of the ship she could feel the silence outside pressing in on them. She’d never get tired of being out here.

“Fine, go make food. I’ll hunt her down after we hit the terminal.”

Reese escaped gratefully and left Shaw alone to enjoy the view out the front window as the ship headed towards the terminal. A few minutes later, Bear wandered in and flopped down on the floor next to her with a heavy doggy sigh. Apparently he wasn’t comfortable with their new guests either.

“Know how you feel, buddy.” She scratched him behind the ears. “At least we’re off that garbage heap of a planet.”

She folded her arms behind her head and leaned back to enjoy the ride.

“What the hell are you doing in here?”

Root turned around at the sound of Shaw’s voice, almost dropping the roll of medical tape she’d been holding. The medical bay was dark around her, lit only by emergency lights since she hadn’t been able to figure out where the light controls were.

“I thought you were a medic, Shaw. Should be pretty obvious what I’m doing.” She turned back to taping the gauze over the gash on her arm. She’d cut it on a sharp rock when the Local Enforcement agents had slammed her into the ground during her arrest, and even though it’d stopped bleeding ages ago her shirt kept rubbing against it.

At least the cut had been on her right arm and therefore hadn’t interfered with the black circuits tattooed up and down her left. The tattoo had started out as a fairly small design, a solid band around her forearm just below the elbow with a few circuits branching off. She’d added to it over the years until the circuits stretched down to her wrist and up to her shoulder.

“You disinfect that?” Shaw’s voice was closer now and Root glanced up to see her peering at the mostly-covered cut.

She smiled a little. “Worried about me, Shaw?” If she’d known Shaw was going to drop in on her she’d have taken her shirt off rather than rolled up the sleeve.

Regrettably, Shaw was also still wearing a shirt, but she’d taken off her heavy duster jacket and was only wearing a tank top now. Root took a moment to appreciate the extra bare skin of Shaw’s shoulders and neck. She could vividly remember what it felt like to bite down on Shaw’s neck, scrape her teeth along her throat. Was it the right time to try and pick up where they’d left off in the jail cell?

Shaw ignored her and opened a drawer in one of the cabinets near the sink. She tossed a metal tube of some type of medical gel down on the table next to Root. “Should clean the whole area, too, but suit yourself. Don’t blame me if your arm rots off.”

Root peeled away the mess she’d been making of the bandages and went over to the sink to wash the dirt off her arm. A lot of it had gotten into the cut, so maybe Shaw had a point.

“Then I’d get a cool arm like yours. We could match.”

Shaw scowled. “Didn’t have my arm cut off for fun like all these rich kids do these days.”

It was more than Root had ever heard her say about the matter. She knew, due to being nosy and reading Shaw’s files from her time working for the ISA, that Shaw’s arm had gotten crushed during a military operation–an operation that had claimed the lives of everyone else on her team–and that she’d finished the mission by herself despite her mangled limb. The ISA had paid for her first biometal arm replacement, and then she’d gotten a significant upgrade from her new employer.

It hadn’t occurred to her that Shaw would have a strong opinion on how bionic prostheses were being sold as status symbols and amusements now, their prices ratcheted up high above what most people who actually needed them could afford. It didn’t sound like something Shaw would care about one way or the other, but then she had trained to be a medic at one time. Perhaps that was why.

Root didn’t comment, and instead concentrated on cleaning her arm, making a face at how dirty the water was that ran off. It’d been too long since she’d been able to take care of any cleaning beyond basic hygiene.

When she went back to get the tube of antibiotic gel, Shaw picked it up before she could.

“Sit.” Shaw gestured at a chair.

“What’d I do to merit special treatment?”

“Paid me a small fortune. If you die from an infection it’ll give me a bad rep.”

Shaw uncapped the tube and pulled a box of cotton swabs from a drawer. She tsked a little when she examined the cut and then dabbed at it with a gel-covered swab.

“Maybe I should get myself a personal field medic,” Root said, trying to cover her wince. The damn gel was cold and stung like hell. “Looking for a new gig, Sameen? The pay is crap, but the benefits….”

She smirked and Shaw rolled her eyes like she’d known she would

“What do you usually do when you get all banged up out in the field?” Shaw asked as she sorted through the bandage material Root had left strewn across the table.

“Sometimes there’s not much I can do.” The Machine had found her help in a few more critical situations. It wasn’t that she didn’t know any basic first aid, but there often wasn’t time for it and unless it was life-threatening she’d forget to take care of it without the Machine reminding her. And that hadn’t been an option lately.

“Should look into getting a med kit to carry around. Might save your life one day.” Shaw finished taping the bandage in place and started tidying away the supplies.

Root chose to remain silent, watching as Shaw cleaned up and washed her hands. She’d like to think Shaw would spare a thought for her if she turned up dead. After all, Shaw had taken care of her that night she’d shown up at her hostel door, but there was a lot about that incident that she couldn’t remember.

“Reese is making dinner. Should be ready soon, but, uh, we’re docked at the terminal and scheduled to blink in about an hour. You get blink sick?”

“Not exactly.” She hated blinking.

“Well, try to not exactly throw up on my ship, okay?”

Root had scoped out the ship’s layout already but hadn’t had time for more than a passing glance at anything yet. It wasn’t the first time she’d been on the Indigo Five, but last time she hadn’t exactly been in a position to explore the ship.

But now she had time to take in her surroundings while she followed Shaw through the corridors. The halls themselves were all roughly hexagonal with metal grated walkways for floors under which ran wires and pipes. There were small lights near the top and bottom of the halls that illuminated the walkways just enough to prevent tripping but not much more. Most rooms off the halls had heavy doors which could be used to seal off sections of the ship in case of a fire or breach or other disaster.

They could also be used to seal a person in somewhere against their will, as Root well knew. She’d once spent a day locked in a small storage bay while Reese and Shaw had renovated the little cell in the stern of the ship. She wondered if the cell was still functional these days.

She tried to get a sense of where everything was as she walked. The medical bay was at the top of the ship near the back, not too far from the hanger where Paradox was currently staying, and the crew cabins were down a metal flight of stairs and all the way down the corridor to the front of the ship. About halfway to the cabins, Shaw took a left through a door that led to the galley.

John Reese eyed her with the pained expression of someone who’d been on the wrong end of her taser and was wondering when they were going to end up there again. He was hovering over some sort of pot on the electric stove panel that was billowing steam up into a vent.

“I thought you were making dinner.” Shaw grabbed the long-handled spoon John had been stirring the pot with and poked at the contents with distaste. “This is hot water, not dinner.”

“Well, gee, Shaw, maybe if we actually had anything in the way of food supplies left I could make something more substantial. Unless you’d rather cook tonight?”

“Ugh. We can restock a bit on the way to Melior. Then get the good stuff once we’re back on the Hub.” She stopped tormenting John and took a seat at the table. “You gonna stand there all day?”

Root had been hovering in the doorway, debating if she should sneak out to explore the ship more or stay and watch the weirdly sibling-like squabble unfolding before her, but now that Shaw’s attention was back on her it’d be hard to vanish. She settled herself on a chair across the table from Shaw, making sure to bump her leg a few times in the process.

“So, Root,” John started, unaware of the death glares Shaw was directing at her. “What’s back on Melior that’s so important you’d risk having the ISA find you?”

That was a great question, one that Root wished she knew the answer to. She trusted the Machine, of course, without question, but the idea of falling into the ISA’s hands again was…unsettling. Especially since Samaritan guided their movements now. She didn’t think she’d be able to escape a second time and she knew she couldn’t survive that kind of damage again.

“She has some errands for me to run.”

“What sort of errands?” Shaw was holding a spoon delicately between the fingers of her left hand, which Root found a bit odd since she knew Shaw was right-handed. She ran her eyes over the length of Shaw’s biometal arm, wondering how often Shaw forced herself to do things like this with it as practice. The cheap spoons in the galley would easily bend if she applied even a fraction of the force she was capable of and yet she twirled it between her fingers with ease.

“Oh, nothing worth worrying about.”

Shaw bristled, but her grip on the spoon didn’t tighten even a fraction. “Really wasn’t worried.”

The contents of the pot John had been hovering over turned out to be some type of broth that had just enough flavor to disqualify it as water, but not much more than that. It was hot, though, and no one was trying to kill her while she ate it which made it one of the better meals she’d had in awhile.

Shaw may have complained loudly about the quality of the food, but she still put away several helpings of it, while John ate much more slowly and did a poor job attempting to be subtle about keeping an eye on her.

If the two of them stayed this suspicious, it was going to be a long week.

“What do you kids do for fun around here?” she asked to break the slightly awkward silence.

John opened his mouth to answer but Shaw cut him off. “We don’t.”

Root made sure Shaw was looking at her before she batted her eyelashes. “What? No fun at all? Not even a little?” She ran her foot up the inside of Shaw’s calf, making her twitch in her seat. “Well, I’m sure we can find something…fun to pass the time.”

John choked on his soup a bit and had to turn to the side to have a coughing fit. Shaw fumed visibly and Root’s eyes travelled back to the spoon she still held loosely in her left hand. Even with Root riling her up she hadn’t tightened her grip even a tiny bit. Bionics were damn hard to adjust to and the fact Shaw had that degree of control was impressive…and a bit hot.

Shaw followed her gaze to the spoon and set it down on the table with a frown before turning back to her food.

Root let the meal lapse back into silence after that, unsure how much she could push them without running the risk of getting dumped on the next planet they came across. She was content to wait for a more opportune moment to try and get Shaw to pick up where they’d left off on the jail cell. She still got a little thrill every time she remembered how Shaw’s left hand had felt on her skin, digging into her ribcage only just short of doing real damage. The bruise she’d left there earlier ached pleasantly whenever Root brushed it.

She’d been serious when she’d told Shaw she didn’t have a bionics kink. It wasn’t Shaw’s arm that she found so damn enticing (well, not only her arm), it was the fact that Sameen Shaw could break her in half with only the slightest of efforts but chose not to. There was something intoxicating about putting herself at Shaw’s mercy, knowing that she could kill her, and then, later, walking away with the knowledge that she hadn’t.

Root had just reached the bottom of her bowl when a loud beeping sounded over the ship’s intercom.

“That’s us,” Shaw said, getting up. “We’re next through the terminal.” She hurried out of the room, no doubt headed back to the bridge.

“Where does this go?” Root motioned at her empty dish. She was still starving and definitely could have gone for a second helping, but if they were about to blink she needed to leave.

“Just leave it,” Reese said absentmindedly. He had a network tablet next to his bowl and was scrolling idly through some news channel on it.

Root took him at his word and left as quickly as she could without being too obvious in her haste. She thought about going back to the tiny cabin that Shaw had insisted she take, but being on Paradox sounded more appealing right now.

When she dropped into the cockpit, she found that Mortimer had returned on his own and was curled up in the small crawlspace behind the seats in the nest of blankets she slept in. The little monitor on the wall next to him was playing a video of some birds hopping around chirping at each other and Mortimer was watching in rapt fascination.

The whole scene made Root feel a little better. The Machine might not be able to talk much lately, but She still looked out for all of them in tiny ways. Even if that was just putting on a video for her cat.

Mortimer glared indignantly when she rearranged the blankets so she could lie down, and then let out a resigned sigh and curled up back next to her.

“Back to civilization at last,” Shaw said when Reese joined her on the bridge. She was beyond ready to get out of this corner of the galaxy.

“How long do you think we can risk staying this time?” He took the co-pilot seat and looked at the small display on the console that was running through all the pre-blink checks.

“Long enough for a night on the town at least.” Hopefully the Machine didn’t send them a damn number on Melior this time. That never ended well. “I’ve got a feeling we’re going to have to give Root a lift off that place when she’s done with…whatever it is.”

“What? Why?”

“We’ve got her ship parked in our hanger. I mean I guess she could be planning to fly it in herself after we clear the terminal, but that would defeat the purpose of using our ship as camouflage.”

The Indigo Five was hovering in front of the terminal now: three enormous metal anchors connected by wispy energy beams to form a triangular opening. It looked like if they just flew forward through the terminal they’d come right out the other side, but of course that wasn’t how it worked.

“You knew we’d have to wait for her and you didn’t pitch a fit?” Reese grimaced. “You’re getting soft.”

Shaw couldn’t find anything unimportant enough to throw at him so she fixed him with a cold stare instead. “The Machine would rope us into it somehow.”

“Guess so.”

The Indigo Five was almost in the terminal now and Shaw flipped the switch on the console to do the last minute preps. The front window of the ship became noticeably more opaque and the humming from below grew louder as the x-ray shielding came online.

“Time to get out of here.” Shaw punched the button to release control of the ship to the terminal.

She wasn’t sure how to describe what blinking felt like. There was definitely the weird distortion of the bridge around them for a second, as if everything was getting larger but simultaneously moving away, and the swoop in her stomach, and then everything felt…different. She didn’t have words for it.

Out the front window the vastness of space had transformed into a soft white glow

in front of them. They couldn’t see stars or anything else while travelling between terminals and other than the stressed rumblings of the ship suddenly having to put up with an incredible amount of pressure there was no way to tell they were actually moving. A lot of people refused to look outside while ships were in blink because the illusion of standing still while actually moving unbelievably fast was disconcerting. Shaw rather enjoyed it.

“Suppose we should get some shut eye while we can,” Reese said after a few minutes of silently contemplating the soft glow.

“Better lock your door tonight,” Shaw warned as they got up and stretched. “Wouldn’t put it past her to try and smother us in our sleep.”

“Don’t think I’m the one whose door she’ll be knocking on tonight.”

Shaw did hit him then, but it was only with her right arm.

More possibly coming? Who knows? Not me.