Fic: Scratch (7/11)
Title: Scratch Part 7
Characters: John Hart, Blowfish, Woman from KKBB, numerous OCs
Rating: Series is hard NC-17; this chapter is in the R range
Summary: A retelling of the Faust myth using TW characters.
Disclaimer: All canon characters are property of the BBC, all OCs are my own, and Faust is the property of Mephistopheles.
As always, kind thanks to
used_songs and
invisible_lift for the beta reading.
Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6
As soon as Commander Kong ended the conversation, Coyote Walker slammed his hands down on the console. “Hell.”
Fjoaan Tsuhn shrank back against the wall, trying to blend in to the bland beige panels as best he could. He flicked a glance at Oriax, and saw that it was having no better luck at hiding than he was.
“Don't bother.” Coyote Walker's bitter, cynical voice surprised both of them. “There's nowhere to go.”
“You're staying here? You're staying here?” Fjoaan Tsuhn's gill covers flared open in shock. “Are you out of your mind?”
Coyote Walker looked up at him with tired, red-rimmed eyes. “Why, you got any better ideas?”
“Yeah, we get the hell out of here!”
“And leave John to die? Leave Botis to die? Have nowhere to go, so you wind up a guest of the Colonial Commission? Yeah, genius. Let's get the hell out.” He ran his hands up and down over his face, deepening the wrinkles and care-lines. “We're not going anywhere.”
Fjoaan Tsuhn made for the door, mumbling and cursing under his breath. “I should have left when John Hart went down. Can't believe I stuck around. Oh, wait, you didn't give me a choice to leave or not. Sorry, never mind.”
“Just shut up, will you?” Coyote Walker fiddled with his wristband. The three doors around the room closed with a resounding click. “Hope you don't have to take a piss.” He went back to the console and brought up the viewscreen. It blinked twice, flashing, before displaying the flight bridge of the Light-bearer. “Botis, Botis, Botis, come in, Botis.”
“Botis, Botis, Botis, come in, Botis.”
Still nothing.
“Light-bearer, Light-bearer, Light-bearer, this is the timeship Lux Aeterna, Lux Aeterna, Lux Aeterna. Calling on Timechannel Network Delta.”
Botis zoomed into view, stopping just short of colliding with the console. It shrieked something in its native language, a noise that sounded like gears grinding and flint sparking on steel.
Oriax made a grinding noise in return, and Coyote Walker said something that was probably intended to be soothing. Botis stopped its crazed hover and came to rest on the captain's chair.
“We're alive here, but still no word of John. I've tried to talk some old friends into helping, but I don't know if they'll help or not. So stay in the Light-bearer, okay? Don't leave, don't let anybody on board without me, don't try to find John, nothing. Okay?”
“Do not like this.”
“I know. Nobody does. But stay put. You're safe where you are, and I need you to stay on the Light-bearer in case something happens. Lux Aeterna out.” The viewscreen went black.
Coyote Walker turned around. “Right. Oriax, you know where the galley is, right?” It nodded. “Go in there and fetch us some bread and cheese and stuff, will you?”
Oriax drifted over to the door. Fjoaan Tsuhn thought about making a run for it, poised himself to flee, and shrieked loud and long as Coyote Walker's firewhip wrapped around his legs and feet.
“The cheese in the red wax, please, not the white. The white crumbles too easily.”
Once Oriax was gone and the door closed again, Coyote Walker released the firewhip. Fjoaan Tsuhn sat on the floor, holding his battered legs close to his body.
“If you promise to stay, I'll take you to the healing unit.”
Fjoaan Tsuhn spat at him. “Drown yourself.”
Coyote Walker shrugged. “I'd rather not. And in case you still don't get it, I'm not the bad guy here.”
Fjoaan Tsuhn snorted and turned away.
It didn't seem to bother Coyote Walker in the slightest. He sat down again, leaning back against the console and staring at the ceiling. “I first came to this planet a long time ago. It's changed a lot since then. It was a real galactic wilderness, the kind of colonial outpost that you read about in stories. Lots of scary, crazy people back then.
“There's still a little bit of the rowdy colony thing going on, although it's settled down a lot in the last ten years. But still, there's pockets of the bad stuff if you know where to look. There's a little shop in a seedy alley in the old town where illegal time-jumping happens. The Army's known about it for years, but they've never caught a jump in progress, and unless they catch a jump, they can't prosecute. There's another little group here that's been smuggling antiquities and works of art through the colony for the better part of a decade-they're very, very good at it, too. And another group that's been smuggling fluorescee and irgaut and snow crystal. It's a great place to be rich and corrupt, because anything money can buy, you can find here.”
“Why are you telling me this?” Fjoaan Tsuhn still didn't want to look at him even though he couldn't tune out the words. “It's not like I care.”
“You should.” His voice cracked under its load of anger. “Because until you showed up, you and John and your goddamn load of teeth and the Safri set up shop waiting for you, the one thing that we'd managed to keep off this planet was smuggling people to be slaves.”
The door swung open and in flew Oriax with a tray of foodstuffs. Coyote Walker made a half-hearted gesture with his hand, and the door closed again. Oriax deposited the tray next to Coyote Walker, as far from Fjoaan Tsuhn as he could get.
A screech, a whistle, and the viewscreen flicked on. “COYOTE!”
Coyote Walker stood up and turned around. “Kong? Hasn't been two hours yet.”
“Lieutenant Milou wants to interrogate both of you, here. Seems to think you know things you're not telling us.”
“Well, no shit there, Kong. Absolutely I know things I'm not telling you. That's why I came to you in the first place, as soon as I realized what was going on, and told you everything I knew as soon as I could get you on the screen.”
Commander Kong cut him off with a curt gesture. “Save the sarcasm for later, eh?”
If looks could have killed, Coyote Walker would have had Kong's throat torn out. From his vantage point on the floor, Fjoaan Tsuhn wondered if Coyote Walker really would crush Commander Kong's neck with his teeth and decided he was glad he was on the floor.
“You still have the coordinates, Coyote?”
“Yeah.”
“Good. I want you and that fish teleported here. Now. You don't, we find you and blow a hole in the Lux so big you'll have a skylight of the whole damn sky.” Commander Kong smiled and knocked the desk with his knuckles. “Get moving.”
The viewscreen went dark.
“Fuck.” Coyote Walker kicked the console. He spun around and pointed at Fjoaan Tsuhn. “You. Up. Hands on your head, spines in. If I see a hint of spine, you're down.”
Fjoaan Tsuhn rolled an eye at him.
Coyote Walker didn't even blink before striking out again with the firewhip. “I said up.” The lash landed on his dorsal side again, right between the spine-nubs. Fjoaan Tsuhn dropped into the defensive posture, broken spines inefficient and unwieldy against the attack, and readied himself to shoot poison.
“Do it and you'll have the lash on your gills. Up. And stop acting like a child, will you? We've got enough trouble without you throwing temper tantrums here.”
Fjoaan Tsuhn stood up on one leg, holding his burned ankle off the deck. Coyote Walker wrapped his arm around him, and the two teleported away from the Lux.
*****
“Cuff them.” Commander Kong's brusque voice rang out across the cramped, dingy office. “Both of them.” A pair of Earth-humans, including the sleepy cadet and a dark-skinned female with a strange tattoo marking on her lips and chin, strode forward. Fjoaan Tsuhn's foreflippers were seized and mauled by the male. He flicked a glance over to Coyote Walker, who had simply held his hands forward.
“Good. Conference room. Let's go.” Commander Kong left without a backward glance.
“You heard him. Move it.” The cadet poked him in the back. “Ow. Son of a bitch!”
Fjoaan Tsuhn snickered. Fool had impaled himself on the tip of a spine. “Watch where you're poking next time.”
“What did you do? Bastard, what did you do?” The cadet was holding his hand, waving it frantically. It was swelling and turning an interesting shade of purple-oh poor thing, must have been some venom on the spine-tip. Fjoaan Tsuhn rolled his eyes.
“I didn't do anything. You're the one who pushed me.”
The female with the tattoo looked at his hand. “Calcasieu, sick bay. Now. That'll kill you if you leave it long enough.” When he stood there staring at his hand, she put both her hands on his shoulders and gave him a rough shove. “Hey. Idiot. Go. Milou!”
The white-furred Caynnyd popped up from behind a low partition. “Ma'am?”
“Calcasieu's an idiot and I need a hand. Get over here.”
The Caynnyd wandered over, breaking into a toothy smile at the sight of Fjoaan Tsuhn. “Wow, a Waterworlder. I haven't seen one of them in a while.”
Fjoaan Tsuhn growled under his breath, “Don't get any ideas, dog breath.” Burning lava, he might as well be back in prison.
The conference room had seats for Kong, the female, the Caynnyd, two other Earth-humans, a strange creature of a species he had never before seen (and the only one in their group not in uniform), and himself and Coyote Walker. There was a large map of some sort in the middle of the table, a viewscreen on the wall, and a control console off to one side of the room. Fjoaan Tsuhn started in surprise to see that he was to sit on a stool designed for his species and wondered where they'd found it.
Four shining silver circlets slid across the table. Kong grumbled, “Put them on.” His cuffs were removed, and under the baleful stare of Milou, he grudgingly slid them onto his wrists. Hyperfields flared into life around himself and Coyote Walker.
“Lieutenant.” Coyote Walker opened a pouch at his waist and pulled out the rough yellow-brown container given them by the Safri. “You'll want this.”
She reached out, slow, wary. When she finally picked it up, she held it as if she expected it to bite her.
“It's harmless. I promise.”
“Gifts, Coyote?” Commander Kong had that vein jumping in his forehead again. Earth-human bodies had the strangest little things about them.
“Evidence.”
Commander Kong snorted. “Any reason you didn't mention this before, oh ye of not withholding information?”
Oddly, Coyote Walker didn't snipe back. “What do you know about Jiqualitza?”
The Army officers looked at one another. Commander Kong answered, “I know the official story.”
“So you know you know that a Time Agency ship was hijacked by the Safri and used to run a slaving base on and off this planet?”
All of the officers nodded.
“That was my ship. I spent a year chained up on Jiqual Island, in the northern hemisphere of this planet. That was before they retrofitted the Light class so that only an Agent could use them. While I was being persuaded to tell them everything I knew, they were using my ship to run slaves to and from the planet. I don't know how many went for an involuntary ride, but at least a million humans and fire only knows how many other species were run through here. That wasn't in the report, because they never got counted and nobody ever found them.”
Commander Kong turned bright scarlet again, and the odd being, iridescent and transparent, dematerialized into shimmering green-blue mist. Kong growled, “And why wasn't this in the report?”
“Because that was while I was still working for the Agency, and they deemed it classified. I didn't write it because I spent six months in a convalescent facility after. The Agency is gone, so nobody's going to kill any of us for me telling you.”
“And what's to stop them from coming and killing us now?”
Coyote Walker grinned. “Causality. I've already told you. They can't come in and change things now, not without breaking all their own rules. Not that rules really mattered to them anyway.”
“The Algirs Colonial Commission thanks you for your sacrifice and the timeliness of your information.”
Coyote Walker snorted. “Now, now, Kong. Who was it that was telling me that sarcasm was ugly? Anyway, the Safri really screwed up, caused a paradox, which is how I got found. The person who is responsible for this weapons trafficking-for reasons I cannot understand-is the navigator of the vessel that came to fix the paradox. He and his partner, who has since gone missing, saved my ass, nearly died in the process. Once they sprung me out, they got trapped in the time loop the Safri made mucking around with time. You know the rest.”
The female with the tattoo interrupted. “And this is relevant how?”
Coyote Walker's head whipped around, and he...stared at her. Like he'd stared down the Trade Ambassador. She fidgeted in her chair before turning ghostly pale and looking away.
Coyote Walker smiled, and all of Fjoaan Tsuhn's amusement at the female's discomfort vanished. It wasn't so much a smile as a baring of teeth. Fjoaan Tsuhn found himself instinctively backing away from the threat. “It's relevant, child, because that's how I got mixed up into this mess. He saved my life, I want to return the favour. I had no idea what kind of shit that stupid bastard was pulling, or I'd have chained him to Colonial Building.”
“Coyote, enough.” Commander Kong's face had returned to its normal colour. “What's this thing you gave Lieutenant Ruakiwa?”
“Open it.”
Holding it as if she expected it to explode, Lieutenant Ruakiwa opened the container. “Is this...is this a turtle shell?”
Coyote Walker shrugged. “Could be. I don't know what a turtle is.”
Fjoaan Tsuhn was very frustrated and bored by this point, and he began fiddling with the hyperfield bracelets. The Caynnyd turned his head to him, ears flat back against his skull, and growled.
“Where does it come from?” The tattooed female emptied its contents into her hand, turning the pearl back and forth in her fingers.
Coyote Walker looked pointedly at Fjoaan Tsuhn, who did nothing. First rule of prison: never, ever speak.
Commander Kong swung his gaze to Fjoaan Tsuhn. “Let's try this again. What planet does this come from?”
Fjoaan Tsuhn stared Commander Kong in the face, trying to face him down like Coyote Walker had stared down Lieutenant Ruakiwa. Commander Kong was having none of it; he snorted and waved a hand at Milou, who laughed and flipped a switch on a panel in front of him.
“Aaaugh!” Fjoaan Tsuhn fell of the stool, writhing in pain at the huge electric shock.
“Get back in your chair and answer him.” The Caynnyd's ears were still pinned back to his skull and his short-cropped fur was bristling. “And be polite or I'll shock you again.”
Fjoaan Tsuhn shook his head to clear it. “It was a waterworld.” He climbed back onto the stool, holding his head with a foreflipper. “Waterworld with giant telepathic things. Huge, had psychic teeth, big black spots on their sides when they got upset over something.”
Commander Kong frowned. “I remember reading about something like that when I was getting my commission, but I can't remember who exactly they were.”
Lieutenant Ruakiwa screwed up her face in thought. “Tukka...tukka something. Tukka roho? Took a rowboat?” Beside her, the shimmering creature began to tremble in its chair.
With a cry, the iridescent being dematerialized into mist, mist which rocketed up from the chair and began swirling around the room. It snatched the container and blue pearl up from Ruakiwa, bombarding all of them with a roaring noise reminiscent of hurricane winds. Fjoaan Tsuhn leaned back away from it, falling off his stool and inadvertently triggering the hyperfield. Fierce shocks racked his body, making him howl in pain.
“Enough!” Commander Kong jumped to his feet. “For crying out loud, can't we ever get anything done in here without turning into a fucking comedy show? Sioliolea, put yourself back together and sit the fuck down. Milou, get that fish back on his stool before what's left of his pea brain fries itself.”
The Sioliolea creature settled into its chair, holding the blue pearl in a shimmering extension of its body. Or whatever it had in place of a body. Fjoaan Tsuhn couldn't be bothered to care at the moment.
Commander Kong sat back down. “Alright. What is this blue pearl, and what is so important about it that Sioliolea here can't hold herself together? Fish? Now.”
“That pearl is a token, so we knew we were making the delivery to the right ones.”
Sioliolea's voice was something between bells and the backing wind that precedes a storm. “Was this the only pearl?”
Fjoaan Tsuhn shook his head. “The pearls were payment for taking the shipment. One pearl for every fifty of the psychic blockers.” He looked over at Sioliolea, who was shaking in place, looking for all the world as if she were about to explode.
Commander Kong asked, “Those teeth things? How many of them are there?”
Fjoaan Tsuhn wavered, not wanting to answer, but then he saw Lieutenant Milou's paw over the switch and blurted out, “Thousands.”
Sioliolea rose from her chair, partially dematerialized, barely keeping herself from engulfing the room once more in hurricane wind. “Payment? Payment? They gave these away?” She lost control once again and roared around the room with a violence that threatened to knock them all to the floor.
Fjoaan Tsuhn ducked his head in instinctive defense from the storm, but then, oddly, remembered the last hurricane he'd ridden out on his homeworld, a few short tide-cycles before John Hart had dragged him into this madness. He sat up, flared his gill-covers wide open, closed his eyes, and just for a moment, just for a short moment, allowed himself to pretend that he was back on his homeworld.
It didn't last long.
“This is an abomination against all that is sacred in the universe!” Sioliolea's thunderous voice shook everything in the room, sucking all the papers on the table into an irregular white vortex. “That the Tuca'Aroba should give the greatest treasure of their civilization to a petty criminal like yourself!” It condensed its vortex from the whole room to the immediate air around Fjoaan Tsuhn, like an iridescent, deadly waterspout, and sucked the breath clean out of his body.
Fjoaan Tsuhn fell off the stool again, shaking, gasping for breath, convulsing under the electric shocks of the hyperfield. Couldn't breathe...couldn't breathe...
Coyote Walker shook his head again and said, “I really hate doing this.” He stood up, pushing his way through the electric shocks that brought him to his knees, and shoved a hand into the glittering tornado. Using his nose, he pushed a button on the wrist strap and teleported both himself and Sioliolea back to his chair. Sioliolea rematerialized on his lap, flaring and throwing off glimmering sparks in surprise.
Lieutenant Milou ran over to Fjoaan Tsuhn, picked him up, and sat him in the chair he'd just vacated. Once he was satisfied that Fjoaan Tsuhn was settled, he stood behind the chair and dug his claws into the upholstery. Fjoaan Tsuhn was gulping for air, great gasping breaths, trying to pour as much oxygen through his gills as he could.
Kong looked over at Coyote Walker and Sioliolea. “Sioliolea, back to your seat, and if you do that again, you're on lockdown.” He turned to Fjoaan Tsuhn, and said, “Can you talk yet?”
Fjoaan Tsuhn shook his head.
“Right. Coyote, what else do you know?”
“Fjoaan told me that the pilot was given evidence from this time when he made the bargain that the delivery was made. Told me if the pilot said no, he'd cause a paradox.”
“Aw, hell.” Kong looked at Fjoaan. “Is this true?”
Fjoaan Tsuhn nodded. “Yeah...” Fire and lava, that glittery thing was dangerous. “Water...”
Commander Kong pointed at the door, and one of the anonymous Earth-humans left. It came back a few moments later with a pitcher of water. Fjoaan Tsuhn took it, flared his gill covers open, and poured the entire pitcher over his gills. It soaked through his clothing and made a huge mess on the chair, but he could breathe properly again.
“The creatures...big, long, black spots on the side...said if he didn't take the teeth, the Safri were going to kill them all.”
Lieutenant Milou said, “By kill them all, you mean...”
Fjoaan Tsuhn answered, “The words those creatures used was genocide.”
A long, shocked silence followed that comment.
Commander Kong drummed his fingers against the table. Ba-da-da-dum. Ba-da-da-dum. “Sioliolea, what are those pearls?”
She shot a furious glare at Fjoaan Tsuhn. “They aren't pearls. That is how the Tuca'Aroba record information, in mind-meld granules. They gave him the entire written history of their people as payment!” Her speech was short, clipped, and barely able to contain her disgust. “You've studied ancient Earth, Kong. They gave him the Library of Alexandria to save their species from extinction.”
Fjoaan Tsuhn felt his jaw drop. The whole recorded history of their species...that would be worth a fortune...
Lieutenant Ruakiwa was the first to speak. “Holy shit...” She had turned pale, making the tattoo stand out in stark relief against her skin, and said, “Commander, permission to raise Galactic Command?”
Kong's mouth opened and closed several times; he looked as if he were one of the tiny baitfish on Fjoaan Tsuhn's homeworld. “Do it. Use the hotline.” He bowed his head into his hands. “Gods. Gods of Arcturus. Please, please let them not have their heads up their asses today.”
Ruakiwa ran to the control console, frantically trying to raise the hotline, whatever that was, while simultaneously paging through a species dossier of some sort. The viewscreen came on, and a massive reptilian creature with enormous black eyes in a jowly face, scimitar-like claws, and a collar of some sort looked back at them.
“Galactic Command, Admiral Bessingekeriaxolus here. Who are you, and what do you want? You're on the hotline, so this had best be an emergency.” Its speech had the mechanical sound of a translator.
The Earth-human drew a sharp breath. “This is Lieutenant Ruakiwa of the planet Algirs, in the red sector of Andromeda Four, sir. I speak as a representative of the government of the planet Algirs, joint Earth-human and Ouragan Colony World, and I invoke the protections of the Shadow Proclamation on behalf of the planet No'o'lopato, in the Silklands C sector of the Baihatsu Galaxy. We have credible evidence that its indigenous population, the Tuca'Aroba, have been threatened with genocide by the Safri.”
Admiral Bessingekeriaxolus raised itself up, and Fjoaan Tsuhn ducked away from its massive form. “On what grounds?”
Lieutenant Ruakiwa pointed at Fjoaan Tsuhn. “Sir, this Waterworlder is being questioned for weapons trafficking by the Algirs Colonial Army. He claims the Safri ordered the Tuca'Aroba to build weapons on pain of genocide.” She held up the tooth and pearl. “The weapons,” she said, emphasizing the tooth, “and an artifact from their planet.”
She turned to Fjoaan Tsuhn. “When was the delivery supposed to take place?”
Coyote Walker answered instead. “This morning at dawn. Nine hours ago now.”
Lieutenant Ruakiwa turned back to the screen. “The Safri sent a Trade Ambassador to pick it up, and it and its guards are now imprisoned on this planet. Request that at least a reconnaissance squadron be sent to No'o'lopato-the Safri will make good on that threat if they don't get what they want, and the Tuca'Aroba are not warlike.”
Admiral Bessingekeriaxolus gave her a grave look. “We need to initiate the correct protocols. Contact us again in 20 standard minutes. Galactic out.” The viewscreen went dark.
Commander Kong barked, “Ruakiwa, in the main room. You have permission to do whatever you need to do. Go.” She scurried out, grabbing a sheaf of paper from where she had sat.
“Right, Coyote.” He turned to Coyote Walker, who suddenly looked very, very old and very, very tired. “And you're convinced there are Safri on Algirs?”
Coyote Walker turned to Fjoaan Tsuhn. “Tell 'im what you saw right before I found you.”
Fjoaan Tsuhn sighed. “The Earth-human who hired me was wrapped up in a thing with lots of red tentacles. And four eyes. They teleported off somewhere, and then I was knocked out.”
Coyote Walker continued, “He's like me, former Time Agent. He hit the distress call on his Vortex Manipulator, which is how I got sucked into this stinking mess, and I traced it to somewhere near Haven-of-Silence, in the Bidlah Mountains. That's when I called you, and the rest you should know.”
Milou piped up, “Sir, Haven-of-Silence used to be a monastery for the Children of the Twin Suns, maybe two, three hundred Algirs years ago. The monks are long gone but the ruins of the monastery are still there. The alphas in my family took our cubs there a few summers back. Small pocket valley, you don't even know you're in it until you're right on top of it.”
Commander Kong raised an eyebrow. “Does that mean we can't get satellite imagery of it?”
“I'll get on it as soon as I can, sir.”
One of the nameless Earth-humans in the corner looked up. “Sir? The birds can do that.”
*****
Lieutenants Milou and Ruakiwa were in the control room, sorting out remote sensing imagery and Shadow Proclamation calls, respectively. The remainder of the group, including a still-incensed Sioliolea and the other two Earth-humans (named Midwingman Asigawa and Sergeant Davies), had repaired to a soaring-roofed aviary at the back of the Army compound. Both Coyote Walker and Fjoaan Tsuhn wore chains as well as hyperfield prisons.
Fjoaan Tsuhn cursed John Hart in his head, cursed him as violently and vehemently as he could.
At the back of the aviary, a small, dark six-legged creature stood huddled over a table of some sort, singing softly to itself in a low, rumbling voice. It jumped and squeaked when Commander Kong put a hand on its dorsal side. “Sir!”
“At ease, Corporal. I need three of your beauties for some work. Soon as possible.”
“What type of mission, sir?” As soon as Commander Kong had mentioned needing birds, it began digging in a drawer.
“Video camera, undetectable. Audio recorder, life-signs scanner, none of it visible.”
“Solos, or a flight of them, sir?”
Commander Kong scratched his head. “All three together. We need them to look like a wild flock, the homing ones, and the flight-leader needs to be trained to scent-lures.”
“I'll need an hour, sir.”
“Excellent. We'll be back with the cages and transport.” Commander Kong gestured that they should leave.
Fjoaan Tsuhn leaned over to Coyote Walker and said, “What's going on?” He turned around, walking backwards so that he could see what was happening.
Coyote Walker whispered back, “They'll fly over the valley with cameras on, so that none of us have to get inside the valley in case the Safri are in there.”
A beautiful creature, deep golden bronze with brilliant gold bands on its wings, soared down at the Corporal's beckoning. It had two long necks, each with a head bearing a graceful ivory bill, a frill of golden feathers at the crown of each head, and elegant, flowing plumes trailing out behind. It landed on the Corporal's table, graceful on its thin ivory legs. From its equally beautiful ivory beaks came an awful, raucous squawk.
Fjoaan Tsuhn hadn't realized he had stopped moving until the shock from the hyperfield brought him to his knees. “Fire on water...” He turned around and trundled after Sergeant Davies.
In front of him, Sergeant Davies and Midwingman Asigawa were talking. “...and we can't use anything with active scanning, in case the Safri have sensors out. Passive observation they can't sense, and nobody has ever managed to detect anything we've put on the birds, not even the Judoon the one time they turned up here looking for that drug smuggler.”
Fjoaan Tsuhn walked a little bit closer, straining to hear. He'd heard stories of the Judoon in that spaceport bar. By and large, they weren't nice.
Midwingman Asigawa snorted. “Well, yeah, nobody'd bother to look where we put them.”
Fjoaan Tsuhn shot a look at Coyote Walker, who smirked at him. Midwingman Asigawa and Sergeant Davies were chuckling amongst themselves. Turning back to Coyote Walker, he asked, “How do these...cameras...work?”
Coyote Walker gave him a wicked grin. “What, being undetectable? Nobody's going to look for a spy camera in a bird's ass.”
Fjoaan Tsuhn rolled his eyes and groaned. Not only did Earth-humans have sex with anything, they were the craziest species in the galaxy.
*****
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Author's Notes: It's been cold and blustery down here, and the majority of this section and the next were written from the floating oil rig Ocean Patriot in the middle of the Bass Strait. We had a spectacular gale the first day I was out there, which was the inspiration for Sioliolea's species, the Ouragan.
Characters: John Hart, Blowfish, Woman from KKBB, numerous OCs
Rating: Series is hard NC-17; this chapter is in the R range
Summary: A retelling of the Faust myth using TW characters.
Disclaimer: All canon characters are property of the BBC, all OCs are my own, and Faust is the property of Mephistopheles.
As always, kind thanks to
used_songs and
invisible_lift for the beta reading.
Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6
As soon as Commander Kong ended the conversation, Coyote Walker slammed his hands down on the console. “Hell.”
Fjoaan Tsuhn shrank back against the wall, trying to blend in to the bland beige panels as best he could. He flicked a glance at Oriax, and saw that it was having no better luck at hiding than he was.
“Don't bother.” Coyote Walker's bitter, cynical voice surprised both of them. “There's nowhere to go.”
“You're staying here? You're staying here?” Fjoaan Tsuhn's gill covers flared open in shock. “Are you out of your mind?”
Coyote Walker looked up at him with tired, red-rimmed eyes. “Why, you got any better ideas?”
“Yeah, we get the hell out of here!”
“And leave John to die? Leave Botis to die? Have nowhere to go, so you wind up a guest of the Colonial Commission? Yeah, genius. Let's get the hell out.” He ran his hands up and down over his face, deepening the wrinkles and care-lines. “We're not going anywhere.”
Fjoaan Tsuhn made for the door, mumbling and cursing under his breath. “I should have left when John Hart went down. Can't believe I stuck around. Oh, wait, you didn't give me a choice to leave or not. Sorry, never mind.”
“Just shut up, will you?” Coyote Walker fiddled with his wristband. The three doors around the room closed with a resounding click. “Hope you don't have to take a piss.” He went back to the console and brought up the viewscreen. It blinked twice, flashing, before displaying the flight bridge of the Light-bearer. “Botis, Botis, Botis, come in, Botis.”
“Botis, Botis, Botis, come in, Botis.”
Still nothing.
“Light-bearer, Light-bearer, Light-bearer, this is the timeship Lux Aeterna, Lux Aeterna, Lux Aeterna. Calling on Timechannel Network Delta.”
Botis zoomed into view, stopping just short of colliding with the console. It shrieked something in its native language, a noise that sounded like gears grinding and flint sparking on steel.
Oriax made a grinding noise in return, and Coyote Walker said something that was probably intended to be soothing. Botis stopped its crazed hover and came to rest on the captain's chair.
“We're alive here, but still no word of John. I've tried to talk some old friends into helping, but I don't know if they'll help or not. So stay in the Light-bearer, okay? Don't leave, don't let anybody on board without me, don't try to find John, nothing. Okay?”
“Do not like this.”
“I know. Nobody does. But stay put. You're safe where you are, and I need you to stay on the Light-bearer in case something happens. Lux Aeterna out.” The viewscreen went black.
Coyote Walker turned around. “Right. Oriax, you know where the galley is, right?” It nodded. “Go in there and fetch us some bread and cheese and stuff, will you?”
Oriax drifted over to the door. Fjoaan Tsuhn thought about making a run for it, poised himself to flee, and shrieked loud and long as Coyote Walker's firewhip wrapped around his legs and feet.
“The cheese in the red wax, please, not the white. The white crumbles too easily.”
Once Oriax was gone and the door closed again, Coyote Walker released the firewhip. Fjoaan Tsuhn sat on the floor, holding his battered legs close to his body.
“If you promise to stay, I'll take you to the healing unit.”
Fjoaan Tsuhn spat at him. “Drown yourself.”
Coyote Walker shrugged. “I'd rather not. And in case you still don't get it, I'm not the bad guy here.”
Fjoaan Tsuhn snorted and turned away.
It didn't seem to bother Coyote Walker in the slightest. He sat down again, leaning back against the console and staring at the ceiling. “I first came to this planet a long time ago. It's changed a lot since then. It was a real galactic wilderness, the kind of colonial outpost that you read about in stories. Lots of scary, crazy people back then.
“There's still a little bit of the rowdy colony thing going on, although it's settled down a lot in the last ten years. But still, there's pockets of the bad stuff if you know where to look. There's a little shop in a seedy alley in the old town where illegal time-jumping happens. The Army's known about it for years, but they've never caught a jump in progress, and unless they catch a jump, they can't prosecute. There's another little group here that's been smuggling antiquities and works of art through the colony for the better part of a decade-they're very, very good at it, too. And another group that's been smuggling fluorescee and irgaut and snow crystal. It's a great place to be rich and corrupt, because anything money can buy, you can find here.”
“Why are you telling me this?” Fjoaan Tsuhn still didn't want to look at him even though he couldn't tune out the words. “It's not like I care.”
“You should.” His voice cracked under its load of anger. “Because until you showed up, you and John and your goddamn load of teeth and the Safri set up shop waiting for you, the one thing that we'd managed to keep off this planet was smuggling people to be slaves.”
The door swung open and in flew Oriax with a tray of foodstuffs. Coyote Walker made a half-hearted gesture with his hand, and the door closed again. Oriax deposited the tray next to Coyote Walker, as far from Fjoaan Tsuhn as he could get.
A screech, a whistle, and the viewscreen flicked on. “COYOTE!”
Coyote Walker stood up and turned around. “Kong? Hasn't been two hours yet.”
“Lieutenant Milou wants to interrogate both of you, here. Seems to think you know things you're not telling us.”
“Well, no shit there, Kong. Absolutely I know things I'm not telling you. That's why I came to you in the first place, as soon as I realized what was going on, and told you everything I knew as soon as I could get you on the screen.”
Commander Kong cut him off with a curt gesture. “Save the sarcasm for later, eh?”
If looks could have killed, Coyote Walker would have had Kong's throat torn out. From his vantage point on the floor, Fjoaan Tsuhn wondered if Coyote Walker really would crush Commander Kong's neck with his teeth and decided he was glad he was on the floor.
“You still have the coordinates, Coyote?”
“Yeah.”
“Good. I want you and that fish teleported here. Now. You don't, we find you and blow a hole in the Lux so big you'll have a skylight of the whole damn sky.” Commander Kong smiled and knocked the desk with his knuckles. “Get moving.”
The viewscreen went dark.
“Fuck.” Coyote Walker kicked the console. He spun around and pointed at Fjoaan Tsuhn. “You. Up. Hands on your head, spines in. If I see a hint of spine, you're down.”
Fjoaan Tsuhn rolled an eye at him.
Coyote Walker didn't even blink before striking out again with the firewhip. “I said up.” The lash landed on his dorsal side again, right between the spine-nubs. Fjoaan Tsuhn dropped into the defensive posture, broken spines inefficient and unwieldy against the attack, and readied himself to shoot poison.
“Do it and you'll have the lash on your gills. Up. And stop acting like a child, will you? We've got enough trouble without you throwing temper tantrums here.”
Fjoaan Tsuhn stood up on one leg, holding his burned ankle off the deck. Coyote Walker wrapped his arm around him, and the two teleported away from the Lux.
*****
“Cuff them.” Commander Kong's brusque voice rang out across the cramped, dingy office. “Both of them.” A pair of Earth-humans, including the sleepy cadet and a dark-skinned female with a strange tattoo marking on her lips and chin, strode forward. Fjoaan Tsuhn's foreflippers were seized and mauled by the male. He flicked a glance over to Coyote Walker, who had simply held his hands forward.
“Good. Conference room. Let's go.” Commander Kong left without a backward glance.
“You heard him. Move it.” The cadet poked him in the back. “Ow. Son of a bitch!”
Fjoaan Tsuhn snickered. Fool had impaled himself on the tip of a spine. “Watch where you're poking next time.”
“What did you do? Bastard, what did you do?” The cadet was holding his hand, waving it frantically. It was swelling and turning an interesting shade of purple-oh poor thing, must have been some venom on the spine-tip. Fjoaan Tsuhn rolled his eyes.
“I didn't do anything. You're the one who pushed me.”
The female with the tattoo looked at his hand. “Calcasieu, sick bay. Now. That'll kill you if you leave it long enough.” When he stood there staring at his hand, she put both her hands on his shoulders and gave him a rough shove. “Hey. Idiot. Go. Milou!”
The white-furred Caynnyd popped up from behind a low partition. “Ma'am?”
“Calcasieu's an idiot and I need a hand. Get over here.”
The Caynnyd wandered over, breaking into a toothy smile at the sight of Fjoaan Tsuhn. “Wow, a Waterworlder. I haven't seen one of them in a while.”
Fjoaan Tsuhn growled under his breath, “Don't get any ideas, dog breath.” Burning lava, he might as well be back in prison.
The conference room had seats for Kong, the female, the Caynnyd, two other Earth-humans, a strange creature of a species he had never before seen (and the only one in their group not in uniform), and himself and Coyote Walker. There was a large map of some sort in the middle of the table, a viewscreen on the wall, and a control console off to one side of the room. Fjoaan Tsuhn started in surprise to see that he was to sit on a stool designed for his species and wondered where they'd found it.
Four shining silver circlets slid across the table. Kong grumbled, “Put them on.” His cuffs were removed, and under the baleful stare of Milou, he grudgingly slid them onto his wrists. Hyperfields flared into life around himself and Coyote Walker.
“Lieutenant.” Coyote Walker opened a pouch at his waist and pulled out the rough yellow-brown container given them by the Safri. “You'll want this.”
She reached out, slow, wary. When she finally picked it up, she held it as if she expected it to bite her.
“It's harmless. I promise.”
“Gifts, Coyote?” Commander Kong had that vein jumping in his forehead again. Earth-human bodies had the strangest little things about them.
“Evidence.”
Commander Kong snorted. “Any reason you didn't mention this before, oh ye of not withholding information?”
Oddly, Coyote Walker didn't snipe back. “What do you know about Jiqualitza?”
The Army officers looked at one another. Commander Kong answered, “I know the official story.”
“So you know you know that a Time Agency ship was hijacked by the Safri and used to run a slaving base on and off this planet?”
All of the officers nodded.
“That was my ship. I spent a year chained up on Jiqual Island, in the northern hemisphere of this planet. That was before they retrofitted the Light class so that only an Agent could use them. While I was being persuaded to tell them everything I knew, they were using my ship to run slaves to and from the planet. I don't know how many went for an involuntary ride, but at least a million humans and fire only knows how many other species were run through here. That wasn't in the report, because they never got counted and nobody ever found them.”
Commander Kong turned bright scarlet again, and the odd being, iridescent and transparent, dematerialized into shimmering green-blue mist. Kong growled, “And why wasn't this in the report?”
“Because that was while I was still working for the Agency, and they deemed it classified. I didn't write it because I spent six months in a convalescent facility after. The Agency is gone, so nobody's going to kill any of us for me telling you.”
“And what's to stop them from coming and killing us now?”
Coyote Walker grinned. “Causality. I've already told you. They can't come in and change things now, not without breaking all their own rules. Not that rules really mattered to them anyway.”
“The Algirs Colonial Commission thanks you for your sacrifice and the timeliness of your information.”
Coyote Walker snorted. “Now, now, Kong. Who was it that was telling me that sarcasm was ugly? Anyway, the Safri really screwed up, caused a paradox, which is how I got found. The person who is responsible for this weapons trafficking-for reasons I cannot understand-is the navigator of the vessel that came to fix the paradox. He and his partner, who has since gone missing, saved my ass, nearly died in the process. Once they sprung me out, they got trapped in the time loop the Safri made mucking around with time. You know the rest.”
The female with the tattoo interrupted. “And this is relevant how?”
Coyote Walker's head whipped around, and he...stared at her. Like he'd stared down the Trade Ambassador. She fidgeted in her chair before turning ghostly pale and looking away.
Coyote Walker smiled, and all of Fjoaan Tsuhn's amusement at the female's discomfort vanished. It wasn't so much a smile as a baring of teeth. Fjoaan Tsuhn found himself instinctively backing away from the threat. “It's relevant, child, because that's how I got mixed up into this mess. He saved my life, I want to return the favour. I had no idea what kind of shit that stupid bastard was pulling, or I'd have chained him to Colonial Building.”
“Coyote, enough.” Commander Kong's face had returned to its normal colour. “What's this thing you gave Lieutenant Ruakiwa?”
“Open it.”
Holding it as if she expected it to explode, Lieutenant Ruakiwa opened the container. “Is this...is this a turtle shell?”
Coyote Walker shrugged. “Could be. I don't know what a turtle is.”
Fjoaan Tsuhn was very frustrated and bored by this point, and he began fiddling with the hyperfield bracelets. The Caynnyd turned his head to him, ears flat back against his skull, and growled.
“Where does it come from?” The tattooed female emptied its contents into her hand, turning the pearl back and forth in her fingers.
Coyote Walker looked pointedly at Fjoaan Tsuhn, who did nothing. First rule of prison: never, ever speak.
Commander Kong swung his gaze to Fjoaan Tsuhn. “Let's try this again. What planet does this come from?”
Fjoaan Tsuhn stared Commander Kong in the face, trying to face him down like Coyote Walker had stared down Lieutenant Ruakiwa. Commander Kong was having none of it; he snorted and waved a hand at Milou, who laughed and flipped a switch on a panel in front of him.
“Aaaugh!” Fjoaan Tsuhn fell of the stool, writhing in pain at the huge electric shock.
“Get back in your chair and answer him.” The Caynnyd's ears were still pinned back to his skull and his short-cropped fur was bristling. “And be polite or I'll shock you again.”
Fjoaan Tsuhn shook his head to clear it. “It was a waterworld.” He climbed back onto the stool, holding his head with a foreflipper. “Waterworld with giant telepathic things. Huge, had psychic teeth, big black spots on their sides when they got upset over something.”
Commander Kong frowned. “I remember reading about something like that when I was getting my commission, but I can't remember who exactly they were.”
Lieutenant Ruakiwa screwed up her face in thought. “Tukka...tukka something. Tukka roho? Took a rowboat?” Beside her, the shimmering creature began to tremble in its chair.
With a cry, the iridescent being dematerialized into mist, mist which rocketed up from the chair and began swirling around the room. It snatched the container and blue pearl up from Ruakiwa, bombarding all of them with a roaring noise reminiscent of hurricane winds. Fjoaan Tsuhn leaned back away from it, falling off his stool and inadvertently triggering the hyperfield. Fierce shocks racked his body, making him howl in pain.
“Enough!” Commander Kong jumped to his feet. “For crying out loud, can't we ever get anything done in here without turning into a fucking comedy show? Sioliolea, put yourself back together and sit the fuck down. Milou, get that fish back on his stool before what's left of his pea brain fries itself.”
The Sioliolea creature settled into its chair, holding the blue pearl in a shimmering extension of its body. Or whatever it had in place of a body. Fjoaan Tsuhn couldn't be bothered to care at the moment.
Commander Kong sat back down. “Alright. What is this blue pearl, and what is so important about it that Sioliolea here can't hold herself together? Fish? Now.”
“That pearl is a token, so we knew we were making the delivery to the right ones.”
Sioliolea's voice was something between bells and the backing wind that precedes a storm. “Was this the only pearl?”
Fjoaan Tsuhn shook his head. “The pearls were payment for taking the shipment. One pearl for every fifty of the psychic blockers.” He looked over at Sioliolea, who was shaking in place, looking for all the world as if she were about to explode.
Commander Kong asked, “Those teeth things? How many of them are there?”
Fjoaan Tsuhn wavered, not wanting to answer, but then he saw Lieutenant Milou's paw over the switch and blurted out, “Thousands.”
Sioliolea rose from her chair, partially dematerialized, barely keeping herself from engulfing the room once more in hurricane wind. “Payment? Payment? They gave these away?” She lost control once again and roared around the room with a violence that threatened to knock them all to the floor.
Fjoaan Tsuhn ducked his head in instinctive defense from the storm, but then, oddly, remembered the last hurricane he'd ridden out on his homeworld, a few short tide-cycles before John Hart had dragged him into this madness. He sat up, flared his gill-covers wide open, closed his eyes, and just for a moment, just for a short moment, allowed himself to pretend that he was back on his homeworld.
It didn't last long.
“This is an abomination against all that is sacred in the universe!” Sioliolea's thunderous voice shook everything in the room, sucking all the papers on the table into an irregular white vortex. “That the Tuca'Aroba should give the greatest treasure of their civilization to a petty criminal like yourself!” It condensed its vortex from the whole room to the immediate air around Fjoaan Tsuhn, like an iridescent, deadly waterspout, and sucked the breath clean out of his body.
Fjoaan Tsuhn fell off the stool again, shaking, gasping for breath, convulsing under the electric shocks of the hyperfield. Couldn't breathe...couldn't breathe...
Coyote Walker shook his head again and said, “I really hate doing this.” He stood up, pushing his way through the electric shocks that brought him to his knees, and shoved a hand into the glittering tornado. Using his nose, he pushed a button on the wrist strap and teleported both himself and Sioliolea back to his chair. Sioliolea rematerialized on his lap, flaring and throwing off glimmering sparks in surprise.
Lieutenant Milou ran over to Fjoaan Tsuhn, picked him up, and sat him in the chair he'd just vacated. Once he was satisfied that Fjoaan Tsuhn was settled, he stood behind the chair and dug his claws into the upholstery. Fjoaan Tsuhn was gulping for air, great gasping breaths, trying to pour as much oxygen through his gills as he could.
Kong looked over at Coyote Walker and Sioliolea. “Sioliolea, back to your seat, and if you do that again, you're on lockdown.” He turned to Fjoaan Tsuhn, and said, “Can you talk yet?”
Fjoaan Tsuhn shook his head.
“Right. Coyote, what else do you know?”
“Fjoaan told me that the pilot was given evidence from this time when he made the bargain that the delivery was made. Told me if the pilot said no, he'd cause a paradox.”
“Aw, hell.” Kong looked at Fjoaan. “Is this true?”
Fjoaan Tsuhn nodded. “Yeah...” Fire and lava, that glittery thing was dangerous. “Water...”
Commander Kong pointed at the door, and one of the anonymous Earth-humans left. It came back a few moments later with a pitcher of water. Fjoaan Tsuhn took it, flared his gill covers open, and poured the entire pitcher over his gills. It soaked through his clothing and made a huge mess on the chair, but he could breathe properly again.
“The creatures...big, long, black spots on the side...said if he didn't take the teeth, the Safri were going to kill them all.”
Lieutenant Milou said, “By kill them all, you mean...”
Fjoaan Tsuhn answered, “The words those creatures used was genocide.”
A long, shocked silence followed that comment.
Commander Kong drummed his fingers against the table. Ba-da-da-dum. Ba-da-da-dum. “Sioliolea, what are those pearls?”
She shot a furious glare at Fjoaan Tsuhn. “They aren't pearls. That is how the Tuca'Aroba record information, in mind-meld granules. They gave him the entire written history of their people as payment!” Her speech was short, clipped, and barely able to contain her disgust. “You've studied ancient Earth, Kong. They gave him the Library of Alexandria to save their species from extinction.”
Fjoaan Tsuhn felt his jaw drop. The whole recorded history of their species...that would be worth a fortune...
Lieutenant Ruakiwa was the first to speak. “Holy shit...” She had turned pale, making the tattoo stand out in stark relief against her skin, and said, “Commander, permission to raise Galactic Command?”
Kong's mouth opened and closed several times; he looked as if he were one of the tiny baitfish on Fjoaan Tsuhn's homeworld. “Do it. Use the hotline.” He bowed his head into his hands. “Gods. Gods of Arcturus. Please, please let them not have their heads up their asses today.”
Ruakiwa ran to the control console, frantically trying to raise the hotline, whatever that was, while simultaneously paging through a species dossier of some sort. The viewscreen came on, and a massive reptilian creature with enormous black eyes in a jowly face, scimitar-like claws, and a collar of some sort looked back at them.
“Galactic Command, Admiral Bessingekeriaxolus here. Who are you, and what do you want? You're on the hotline, so this had best be an emergency.” Its speech had the mechanical sound of a translator.
The Earth-human drew a sharp breath. “This is Lieutenant Ruakiwa of the planet Algirs, in the red sector of Andromeda Four, sir. I speak as a representative of the government of the planet Algirs, joint Earth-human and Ouragan Colony World, and I invoke the protections of the Shadow Proclamation on behalf of the planet No'o'lopato, in the Silklands C sector of the Baihatsu Galaxy. We have credible evidence that its indigenous population, the Tuca'Aroba, have been threatened with genocide by the Safri.”
Admiral Bessingekeriaxolus raised itself up, and Fjoaan Tsuhn ducked away from its massive form. “On what grounds?”
Lieutenant Ruakiwa pointed at Fjoaan Tsuhn. “Sir, this Waterworlder is being questioned for weapons trafficking by the Algirs Colonial Army. He claims the Safri ordered the Tuca'Aroba to build weapons on pain of genocide.” She held up the tooth and pearl. “The weapons,” she said, emphasizing the tooth, “and an artifact from their planet.”
She turned to Fjoaan Tsuhn. “When was the delivery supposed to take place?”
Coyote Walker answered instead. “This morning at dawn. Nine hours ago now.”
Lieutenant Ruakiwa turned back to the screen. “The Safri sent a Trade Ambassador to pick it up, and it and its guards are now imprisoned on this planet. Request that at least a reconnaissance squadron be sent to No'o'lopato-the Safri will make good on that threat if they don't get what they want, and the Tuca'Aroba are not warlike.”
Admiral Bessingekeriaxolus gave her a grave look. “We need to initiate the correct protocols. Contact us again in 20 standard minutes. Galactic out.” The viewscreen went dark.
Commander Kong barked, “Ruakiwa, in the main room. You have permission to do whatever you need to do. Go.” She scurried out, grabbing a sheaf of paper from where she had sat.
“Right, Coyote.” He turned to Coyote Walker, who suddenly looked very, very old and very, very tired. “And you're convinced there are Safri on Algirs?”
Coyote Walker turned to Fjoaan Tsuhn. “Tell 'im what you saw right before I found you.”
Fjoaan Tsuhn sighed. “The Earth-human who hired me was wrapped up in a thing with lots of red tentacles. And four eyes. They teleported off somewhere, and then I was knocked out.”
Coyote Walker continued, “He's like me, former Time Agent. He hit the distress call on his Vortex Manipulator, which is how I got sucked into this stinking mess, and I traced it to somewhere near Haven-of-Silence, in the Bidlah Mountains. That's when I called you, and the rest you should know.”
Milou piped up, “Sir, Haven-of-Silence used to be a monastery for the Children of the Twin Suns, maybe two, three hundred Algirs years ago. The monks are long gone but the ruins of the monastery are still there. The alphas in my family took our cubs there a few summers back. Small pocket valley, you don't even know you're in it until you're right on top of it.”
Commander Kong raised an eyebrow. “Does that mean we can't get satellite imagery of it?”
“I'll get on it as soon as I can, sir.”
One of the nameless Earth-humans in the corner looked up. “Sir? The birds can do that.”
*****
Lieutenants Milou and Ruakiwa were in the control room, sorting out remote sensing imagery and Shadow Proclamation calls, respectively. The remainder of the group, including a still-incensed Sioliolea and the other two Earth-humans (named Midwingman Asigawa and Sergeant Davies), had repaired to a soaring-roofed aviary at the back of the Army compound. Both Coyote Walker and Fjoaan Tsuhn wore chains as well as hyperfield prisons.
Fjoaan Tsuhn cursed John Hart in his head, cursed him as violently and vehemently as he could.
At the back of the aviary, a small, dark six-legged creature stood huddled over a table of some sort, singing softly to itself in a low, rumbling voice. It jumped and squeaked when Commander Kong put a hand on its dorsal side. “Sir!”
“At ease, Corporal. I need three of your beauties for some work. Soon as possible.”
“What type of mission, sir?” As soon as Commander Kong had mentioned needing birds, it began digging in a drawer.
“Video camera, undetectable. Audio recorder, life-signs scanner, none of it visible.”
“Solos, or a flight of them, sir?”
Commander Kong scratched his head. “All three together. We need them to look like a wild flock, the homing ones, and the flight-leader needs to be trained to scent-lures.”
“I'll need an hour, sir.”
“Excellent. We'll be back with the cages and transport.” Commander Kong gestured that they should leave.
Fjoaan Tsuhn leaned over to Coyote Walker and said, “What's going on?” He turned around, walking backwards so that he could see what was happening.
Coyote Walker whispered back, “They'll fly over the valley with cameras on, so that none of us have to get inside the valley in case the Safri are in there.”
A beautiful creature, deep golden bronze with brilliant gold bands on its wings, soared down at the Corporal's beckoning. It had two long necks, each with a head bearing a graceful ivory bill, a frill of golden feathers at the crown of each head, and elegant, flowing plumes trailing out behind. It landed on the Corporal's table, graceful on its thin ivory legs. From its equally beautiful ivory beaks came an awful, raucous squawk.
Fjoaan Tsuhn hadn't realized he had stopped moving until the shock from the hyperfield brought him to his knees. “Fire on water...” He turned around and trundled after Sergeant Davies.
In front of him, Sergeant Davies and Midwingman Asigawa were talking. “...and we can't use anything with active scanning, in case the Safri have sensors out. Passive observation they can't sense, and nobody has ever managed to detect anything we've put on the birds, not even the Judoon the one time they turned up here looking for that drug smuggler.”
Fjoaan Tsuhn walked a little bit closer, straining to hear. He'd heard stories of the Judoon in that spaceport bar. By and large, they weren't nice.
Midwingman Asigawa snorted. “Well, yeah, nobody'd bother to look where we put them.”
Fjoaan Tsuhn shot a look at Coyote Walker, who smirked at him. Midwingman Asigawa and Sergeant Davies were chuckling amongst themselves. Turning back to Coyote Walker, he asked, “How do these...cameras...work?”
Coyote Walker gave him a wicked grin. “What, being undetectable? Nobody's going to look for a spy camera in a bird's ass.”
Fjoaan Tsuhn rolled his eyes and groaned. Not only did Earth-humans have sex with anything, they were the craziest species in the galaxy.
*****
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Author's Notes: It's been cold and blustery down here, and the majority of this section and the next were written from the floating oil rig Ocean Patriot in the middle of the Bass Strait. We had a spectacular gale the first day I was out there, which was the inspiration for Sioliolea's species, the Ouragan.