Between the Devil and the Dark by Brandon Hill

Author:Brandon Hill
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: 4 Horsemen Publications, Inc.
Published: 2022-06-10T03:13:45+00:00

Ten

Shadow Star: Dorado System: 21 Light-Years from Rickman’s Pulsar

“Why do I keep on running into you naked?” Kairen asked.

He had long accepted that with the crew always on the go, the Shadow Star seemed a much smaller vessel than he’d originally thought. It took somewhat longer, however, to accept the crew’s various eccentricities, especially those of Pip. Pip, the diminutive woman that lay on the table before Kairen, reached to adjust the edge of her compression suit that had been rolled down to her hips. She moved slowly so as not to interrupt Ike’s meticulous engraving with the tattoo needle. The older man paused his painting to wave Kairen’s way, Pip’s paper-white skin, indicative of the Imperium’s genetically-engineered “tanks,” making the intricate line art from a prior session more brilliant than the cornucopia of tribal tattoos on his sinewy arm.

“I dunno,” Pip said. “You’re the one who walked in here. And as you can see, I’m not naked.”

“Naked enough,” Kairen muttered.

Pip rolled her eyes. “Anyway… in answer to your question before you left, if you used a TTSV filing system and linked it to a HR7 manager account with the new PPS-D6R firmware update, you’ll be able to access records in a fraction of the time.”

“And thus continues the nerd talk,” Ike said, punctuating his quip with a soft chuckle.

“I’m already running HR8-PS with the new PPS-D4B 2.6.1,” Kairen retorted. He ran his hand through the long fall of blonde hair on the unshaved portion of his head. “I’m telling you it’s a hardware issue—” He blinked and then frowned, turning slightly away, a look of discomfort crossing his face. “Look, I’m sorry, but how the hell can you stand that?”

“So says the guy who works in sickbay spending his time patching up the crew?” Pip flashed Kairen a sideways grin.

“Being poked repeatedly with needles is a different thing,” Kairen replied.

Pip raised her arms, both covered in depictions of a kind of multi-eyed fish resembling koi from a fancy pond.

“And you had a lot of ties with Yakuza, if I’m not mistaken,” Pip said, raising an eyebrow. “You must’ve seen them do this before.”

“Couldn’t stand watching that either.”

“Wuss.”

“Not that I care, but I’m curious,” Ike chimed in. “Just what were you two talking about before all this?”

“Medical equipment,” the two said in unison, after which Pip continued. “He thinks that a—”

Her eyes suddenly went wide. “Wait a minute,” she said, indicating for Ike to stop. He put away the tattooing needle and wiped away the excess ink with a linen cloth as Pip reached for the cranial jack above her ear. There was a lengthy, wordless pause before she suddenly slipped off the table. Kairen and Ike watched expectantly as Pip, no taller than a twelve-year-old, maneuvered her arms into the top part of her compression suit, heading toward the door at the room’s opposite end.

“Hey, Captain, I’m getting a ping from the hyperspace beacon near grid 439 by 217,” Pip announced, her fingers returning to her jack. There was another pause, followed by a roll of her eyes.

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