The Hunt for Red Fluffy Read online

  Inwardly, Shax sighed. For Ness, he trotted out a brilliant smile and leaned over the table to kiss those soft angel lips. "He's been assigned to us, and he's more stubborn than the rest of us put together. I'm afraid you're stuck with all of us, cupcake."

  Ness's answering smile didn't quite erase the sorrow in his eyes. "I suppose I'll just have to protect you all then, won't I?"

  Chapter Three

  He hadn't been worried. He hadn't.

  Yes, you were. You raced down that ladder, afraid you'd find squashed Julian.

  Ness shooed away the annoying voice in his head. Of course he'd been worried. He wasn't a monster. Usually. Not to mention the fact that he still had a lot of residual guilt regarding things that had never happened, and if he was truly honest with himself, he'd not always been exactly kind to Julian, so there was that added guilt. And yes, Julian could be annoying in an I-know-things-you-don't sort of way, but he wasn't any more annoying than Shax could be.

  He sent those thoughts packing as well, having determined that he was spending altogether too much time thinking in circles, and returned his attention to the navigation charts in front of Shax.

  "It's a good stopgap." Shax squirmed back in the copilot's chair, tipping his head to look up at where Ness leaned against the back. "But not a spot for an extended stay."

  "Shut up," Verin growled. "It's the perfect fucking spot for quick repairs and a refuel."

  As far as Ness could see, the perfect fucking spot where they would emerge from C-space was within spitting distance of an enormous asteroid field. The Brimstone's pilot and AI would have chosen it for its mineral and ore content… "Not enough in the way of water or organic materials for us to stay too long, is that it?"

  "Exactly so, cupcake." Shax's fingers flew over his boards. "So let's be prepared this time and find a nice nearby spot outside the normal avenues where we can procure the rest of the necessities."

  "There's a nice little Earth-normal approximate just here, Captain," Ivana offered as a point of red light pulsed on Shax's charts.

  "Habitation?"

  "Not even a peep of one, cutie."

  "Well done, Ms. Ivana." Shax settled into the chair in that satisfied, lordly way of his, hands on the armrests, one booted ankle up on the opposite knee. "Let's get that second course laid in. No more surprises." He froze, then his next words were soft and careful. "Ah, do we have any read on biodiversity on this planet? Say…carnivorous plants and such?"

  "Just stay inside the ship, hot stuff," Ms. Ivana crooned. "I'll keep you safe from all the big, bad plants."

  Verin spouted steam as he didn't try terribly hard to hide his snickering.

  "Hilarious."

  "Seriously, Captain, I can't get a reading on biologicals from Copernicus space. My sensors are fabulous, but not that fabulous."

  "Well, it doesn't hurt to ask, my dear. I'm constantly surprised at what you have socked away in your vast data storage." Shax visibly cringed at the offended gasp from the ship's speakers. "Your beautiful, perfectly-sized and proportioned data storage."

  "Hmph."

  "You take such good care of us, Ms. Ivana. Thank you," Ness added, which wasn't flattery. It was simple truth.

  Verin managed to stop snickering and hit the ship's comm. "Ten minutes to decel. Secure your shit or lose it." Off comm again, he pointed to the floor. "Put your damn cat somewhere, Shaxy. Don't have any fucking webbing for her in the pod."

  "I'll take her." Ness kissed the top of Shax's head. "I know you'd rather be here when we come out into regular space. Fluffy."

  To his amazement, the hellcat stood, stretched with a fangs-exposing yawn, and followed him without objection. She even let Ness ruffle the fur atop her head as they walked, though she snarled when he touched her ears.

  "You can have the webbing under the desk," Ness told her as they reached the cabin he and Shax shared. "And I'll take the bu—"

  The moment the door opened, Fluffy galloped to the bunk and flopped down on it.

  Ness pointed to the floor beneath the desk. "No, Fluffy. Over here."

  She curled up with her nose tucked under her tail.

  "Oh, fine. I suppose I might be able to squeeze under the desk. Let me just—"

  Meep.

  "Did you just meep at me, Miss?"

  She did a quick knead-pat on the blanket with both paws. Mrep?

  "I see. Since you rode out the last Copernicus event snuggling with Julian, you think that should be the normal way it's done?" Ness frowned at how uncomfortable the phrase snuggling with Julian made him.

  Meep.

  "I suppose this once. But keep those claws in, please."

  He'd certainly done stranger things than acquiescing to a huge cat who didn't want to be webbed in alone, and her fur was wonderfully soft, at any rate. All in all, an uneventful Copernicus deceleration until the shouting started.

  He hadn't even managed to untangle from the webbing when Shax yelled over the comm, "Ness! Ness! Get up here!"

  With his heart slamming against his breastbone and his feet tangling in the net, Ness half-leaped, half-fell out of the bunk. Barefoot, not even stopping to send an acknowledgment over comm, he tucked his wings in tight and pounded through the corridors to the pilot's pod while terrible visions of what might have gone wrong built leaning towers of anxiety in his head.

  "What's ha—" he began just as he caught sight of the viewscreen.

  Shax waved him closer. "Shh. Look."

  "I'm looking. Oh…my."

  A soft, shifting glow filled the pod as if several nightlights were having a quadrille outside the ship. Ness leaned closer, trying to make sense of what he was seeing. The glows, hundreds of them, floated between the Brimstone and the asteroid field, though floated, it soon became apparent, was a misnomer. The lights propelled themselves through space in careful, often-corrected trajectories. Figures resolved in the glow with a bulbous protrusion at one end and several—hoses, lines, tethers?—at the other.

  "They're coming back around," Shax murmured. "No movement, Ver. Not even a tiny course correction."

  Four of the lights approached the ship in a stately, zigzagging dance. Their movements appeared slow but with distances and relative velocities… Ness had yet to feel comfortable with the mathematics of space, but most things in the vacuum of space tended to travel at frightening speeds. Though it was all relative. And there he had to leave it.

  The lights soon resolved into somewhat less mystical beings in luminescent EVA suits. Helmets containing a viscous fluid covered the large heads, eyes regarding the Brimstone with what seemed gentle curiosity. The eight appendages below could, perhaps, have been robotic arms controlled from within the helmet, but to Ness they moved in a way that was too organic.

  "They remind me of the Tkld," Shax murmured. "You remember them coming to Earth sometimes, Ver?"

  Verin snorted a small cloud of steam. "Yeah, but these glowworms have got eight legs or whatever. Fucking space octopuses."

  The beings outside the ship did look like octopuses, or nearly so. Their heads were perhaps a bit larger in proportion to their…tentacles? Difficult to tell with helmets on, and their pupils were more of a cross shape than the classic octopus rectangle. One of them peered intently at the pod's viewscreen as if trying to see through the light filters and patted the ship with an appendage. The beings moved off to rejoin the luminous cloud of their companions clustered around a nearby ice asteroid.

  Even the Brimstone herself seemed quieter as they watched the dance of graceful glowing figures.

  "They're beautiful," Ness whispered.

  Shax laced their fingers together. "They are. But I wonder… I don't see a ship."

  "Maybe they're like Luna?"

  Ness blinked in shock at Verin's profanity free sentence but declined to say anything, since their pilot was obviously mesmerized.

  "Hmm. Luna's a vacuum-adapted space shark, though." Shax tapped a claw softly against the arm of his chair. "She doesn't requir
e a suit. These pretties must have a habitat or a ship somewhere close. Let's proceed with care, please. Harvest where we don't interfere with them."

  Ness stayed leaning against the copilot's chair as Verin eased them toward the points lit up on his navigation. A bump against his hip unbalanced him, and he glanced down to find Fluffy butting her head against him. She rubbed her face on his thigh, then squeezed past him to wrap herself around Shax's feet.

  Careful of the busy octopus spacers, Verin edged them around the sizeable ice asteroid and…

  "Oh," Ness whispered. "Oh my."

  It hove into view as they cleared the asteroid, since hove was the only word one could use. The ship, station, or habitat was nearly as large as the asteroid, the size of some systems' moons. So huge the mind rebelled, especially since its shape was reminiscent of a many-tiered wedding cake or a tower of fancy hatboxes, all decked out in thousands and thousands of glowing lights. Moving, glowing lights, Ness had to correct himself as he realized each tiny light was an octopus spacer working at various tasks.

  "There's a ship to make a girl feel positively frumpy," Ivana broke the awed silence.

  "We love you just the way you are, dear," Shax soothed. "Now let's harvest what we need and leave these lovely people in peace."

  "Scared of little fuckers with tentacles?" Verin put extra sarcasm into the sentence, but he still piloted the ship carefully through stray spacers.

  "No."

  "Why're you worried about them, then?"

  Shax's rapt stare hadn't left the viewscreen. "They're gloriously beautiful. I won't have us disturbing that."

  And if they had been ugly? Ness stopped the thought before it left his mouth. To be fair, Shax found beauty in the strangest things sometimes. Probably came from growing up in Hell. Even if he had found the octopus people ugly, careless destruction was always something that wrinkled Shax's perfect nose.

  Perfectly plotted destruction was another thing entirely.

  "I hope you're not thinking about acquiring an entire colony ship."

  Julian's voice, unexpectedly behind Ness, made him jump and flush in embarrassment. How did he move without any sound? He stepped away to get some distance, telling his traitor brain quite sternly how inappropriate it was to think about how good Julian smelled up close.

  "Oh, very droll," Shax grumbled. "You try to steal one house and no one lets you forget it. Terrible attempts at humor notwithstanding, Julian, you're on scans just in case, while I go down to help Ms. Ivana with the mining equipment."

  Ness tried for a steady voice. Bad enough that the banter between Shax and Julian sent irritated prickles along his arms, and he couldn't have voiced coherently why. But he was head of security. That was his job. "But I'm more than capa—"

  "I know, cupcake." Shax patted his chest as he squeezed by. "Indulge me on this. Julian has some frightening sixth sense for trouble on the horizon. Or maybe a seventh sense, who knows? Come with me and be an extra set of hands. Things will go that much faster."

  I'm going of my own accord, and I'm not angry about something so trivial, even though it's just another way to be supplanted, and I am NOT JEALOUS OF JULIAN—

  Oh, dear. That had nearly gotten away from him. Deep breaths. His eyes hadn't started glowing, had they? His wings were still folded? No one had noticed? As an angel, he would never have understood how many flavors jealousy had, and the last thing he wanted was for someone to think he still was jealous of Julian's past with Shax. He was. A little. But the anger that had nearly gotten away from him was all sharp edges and confusion rather than the towering, scarlet-soaked insanity from a few months ago. He was jealous of…what, exactly? Shax's respect for Julian? Shax's easy manner with Julian? Jealous over instead of jealous of? No, bright heavens, no. He couldn't think like that.

  Thoughts of cinnamon buns, that's what he needed, and less Julian on the brain. Helping with the loaders and conveyors in the cargo hold while Ms. Ivana used her external excavators and the little sonic blasters certainly refocused Ness. Fluffy assisted too, batting at the broken-up chunks of ore as they trundled up the conveyors. Maybe Shax had sensed a need for refocusing. Either way, Ness had nearly regained his calm when the ship's comm gave a shrill whistle.

  "Incoming!" Julian shouted over the comm. "Captain, Duomo's clipper on our three!"

  "Hell's pits!" Shax swore. "Ivana, are we ready?"

  "Just pulling in my little pails and shovels now, hot stuff."

  Shax hit the comm. "Have they spotted us?"

  "Not yet, Captain." Julian's voice came through from the pilot's pod clipped and sharp. "Still on decel. We have possibly three minutes before they'll be able to."

  Drumming his claws on the bulkhead, Shax shot Ness what he probably hoped was a reassuring smile before he got back on comm. "Ver, as soon as Ms. Ivana's secure, evasive maneuvers. We can't jump to Copernicus in this rock field. Crew, secure anything not fastened down. The flight's about to get a bit…choppy."

  "Dang it, Cap. Rosa's about to go spare on me with all this webbing and un-webbing," Corny called from across the hold.

  "Sincere apologies!" Shax called back before muttering under his breath. "How did they find us? My dearest angel, I want you and Heck armed in the eventuality of boarding."

  "Do you think that's likely?"

  Shax stood on tiptoe for a quick kiss. "Let's cover the possibilities, shall we?"

  The decking rang with the sound of running boots as Ness headed for the arms locker while Shax raced back toward the pilot's pod. Their lovely quiet time had officially ended.

  How in all sulfurous pits did they find us? Shax's brain stuck on that thought, looping it over and over. They'd found the tracker. Removed it. Disposed of it. He reached the pilot's pod and told his brain to shut up. It wasn't being at all helpful.

  "Julian, down to the airlock, please. Just in case."

  The Brimstone's private, on-government-loan assassin didn't ask why. Julian simply went with all possible speed. If their enemies did mean to board rather than simply blow the ship to dust, the airlock would be the most reasonable option and Julian their most effective defense.

  Shax threw himself into the copilot's seat and strapped in. "How are we doing?"

  "Keeping ahead of those piles of imp shit," Ver muttered through continuous curls of steam. "Should have a clear field in about five. Five fucking minutes. All I need."

  "Every confidence, Ver." Anything else would have just made Verin angry and ruined his concentration. Shax took in the scans, locating the approaching clipper on proximity scans and easing the readings over to show energy signatures. "Decel complete. Clipper's switched to normal space engines."

  "Yeah, yeah."

  The one thing Shax wanted more than anything in the universe at that moment was to allow his faithful bodyguard to concentrate on flying. Sometimes the universe had a nasty sense of humor. "Ver…weapons powering up."

  "Fuck sakes. I've got tons of rock between us!"

  "I think they're trying to clear a path. And I don't think they're aiming for the rock." Shax swallowed hard. "Ver…"

  "No. Oh fuck no. This isn't our problem, royal boy. The tentacle people can take care of their own shit."

  Shax turned his chair, staring at Verin until he snorted. "Ver. It's not our problem, but it's our fault. We led them here."

  "Hell's gates, Shaxy. They're not yours. Your royal ass isn't responsible."

  "Good thing, too, since my ass may be the least responsible part of me." Shax tapped at the control panel. "Turn us around. Now. I won't have that lovely colony slaughtered because of us. Let's show ourselves and draw them off."

  "Royal pain in my ass," Verin snarled even as he turned the ship around.

  "Fasten your seatbelts, darlings," Ivana crooned over comm. "It's going to be a bumpy ride."

  Shax had a few moments to wonder when Ivana had gotten hold of any Bette Davis movies before they rounded one of the larger ice asteroids and flew straight into chaos. Octopus spacers s
cattered at astounding rates of speed as the clipper attempted to fire through their midst and, for whatever mad reason, at the gigantic Christmas-light wedding cake of a colony ship. Either they feared it, or they were bent on destruction for the sake of thuggishness, though Shax didn't care much about the motives.

  "Straight for them, Mr. Hammer," Shax ordered softly. "Cut them off."

  "Are you out of your gravel-brained, tiny mind?"

  "Are you saying you can't outfly them?"

  "Shut up!" Verin jammed an unlit cigar between his teeth, eyes narrowing as he concentrated on vectors.

  Hard turns in space were never quite what they would have been in a gravity well, because of, well, gravity. Though Verin's slingshot around the ice asteroid did have a definite heave to the left, since huge asteroid compared to Brimstone equaled gravitational pull. Occupying his mind with physics was vital during this sort of maneuver for Shax. It prevented him from screaming.

  An angry glow around the clipper's port guns heralded its plasma cannons facing the colony ship powering up. Shax had just enough time to think, I can't die now, not before I can sort out this odd thing with my angel and my assassin before they fired. With Brimstone's engines screaming, Verin heeled her over and down just in time to catch the edge of the blast on her shields. The ship shuddered, but the shields held and the plasma dispersed wide.

  The cloud of octopus spacers fled toward their colony ship as if their luminescent suits lent them light speed, trickles of them from all directions becoming one enormous flood. They didn't even head for specific points on the colony ship—no queueing up for hatch entry or opening of giant hold doors. No, they simply reached the ship and winked out as if they'd boarded by osmosis.

  A harder shudder wracked the Brimstone, but again Verin shimmied and danced them to the edge of the field of fire. This was a far different game from being ambushed without time to raise shields.

  No more octopus pretties darted about in the interstellar sea. The colony ship pulsed from white to red to blue…and winked out. Just like that. No run-up of Copernicus engines, no increase of power signatures—she was simply gone.