LotS/The Story/Tales of The Void/Intro

"Sabotage, ma'am."

"You're sure?"

Frank Toyotomi got out from under the complex mass of metal. He stood up, snorted, and wiped his hands on his bare torso -- leaving greasy black streaks across thick muscle.

"I know this engine better than I know my own pecker," he said, "and I've handled it twice as much. This wasn't a fault. Someone's been tampering."

Astrid Jaeger, captain of the Dark Delight, swore. Her fingers curled into fists then extended into talons. The ship's engineer was six inches taller and a foot wider than his employer, but he shrank away from her. He'd seen those slender digits tear an eye from a man's head and the testicles from another's trousers. At the same time.

"Who did it?" she asked.

"I don't know! The cameras, remember?"

He nodded at the room's far corner. Astrid turned, met the dark blue eye's sightless gaze, and swore again.

"It was your order, ma'am."

She whirled back to him, eyes glinting. Frank stumbled away until his brawny shoulders thudded against the wall.

"Shut up!"

Astrid took a deep breath, and let the anger drain from her face. The last of it twitched in her fingers -- yearning to seize, rip, mutilate. Toyotomi was right. She'd told them all to deactivate the cameras. To blind those watchful eyes...

"Can you fix it?" she asked.

"Yeah. But it'll take-"

"Do it. Now."

"Yes, ma'am."

Frank dropped down and rolled back under the engine. Astrid tapped her communicator.

"Casp," she said. "We-"

"Just a wee minute..." Casper MacAlister's voice sounded in her ear, against a backdrop of incomprehensible babble. "The passengers want to ken why the ship's nae moving."

"Because one of the bastards screwed with the engine."

"She says it's because one of ye bast... Oh!"

Astrid rolled her eyes. At the other end of the connection, a door hissed open and then closed. The cacophony fell silent.

"Dae ye ken who did it?" Casper asked.

"If I did, they'd be swimming in space with their brains coming out of their ears."

"Can we fix it?"

"Your husband says he can. But if we start running low on power before that, we'll have to use the distress signal."

"With our cargo?"

"Listen, get all the passengers into the mess hall and keep them there. I'll have Susie and Remmler search their rooms. One of them did this. I want to know who and why."

"What dae we tell them, captain?"

"Say there's-"

"...a problem with the engine," Astrid said. "There's a small chance it's emitting radiation into parts of the ship."

One of the passengers gasped. Another swore. A third cast a suspicious glance at the mess hall's sealed doors, as though expecting radioactive particles to storm the room like a barbarian horde sacking ancient Rome.

"This is outrageous!" a gaunt, sharp-featured woman said. She hugged her boy to her chest despite his struggles. "I was promised safe passage! You've exposed my son to... to... radiation!"

The boy pulled his head away, blinked at his mother, and looked at Astrid.

"Does that mean we'll get superpowers?" he asked.

Captain Jaeger smiled for an instant, before remembering to adopt a more appropriate look of solemnity.

"There's really no danger, Mrs. Bassingthwaighte," she said. "Those doors are safety sealed, and Mr. MacAlister's scans showed that everyone and everything in this room is clean."

"Aye, nae even a wee dram of green goo to turn us all into superheroes!"

He winked at Josh Bassingthwaighte, who giggled and smiled. His mother glared at Casper until the crewman coughed and looked away.

"As soon as we've scanned and purified the entire ship," Astrid continued, "there'll be no further danger to any of you."

"It can't be helped, I'm sure," said the handsome gentleman in the dapper suit. His suave accent was British, or Novocastrian. Astrid could never tell the two apart. She tried to grope for the passenger's name, yet couldn't recall it. "But perhaps I could retire to my quarters instead? I'm near the end of the mystery novel I'm reading, and I really must know who murdered the poor fellow."

"I'm sorry, but there are safety protocols. I really couldn't allow that."

He sighed.

"Turn the TV on," said a voice from the corner. "Screaming B's playing a gig on Plerna."

Astrid stared at a mop of bushy green hair, an impressive assortment of nose rings, and the face that fought for visibility amongst them. Ayesha. The name had been all but spat at her when she'd tried to introduce herself to a young passenger who looked to be on her first space voyage. The tone and unwelcoming glare had quelled Astrid Jaeger's materteral instincts on the spot, and almost made her slap the girl.

"The ship's entertainment systems will nae work without the engine running, lassie," Casper said. "Emergency power's for the essentials. Ye may have heard of a wee thing called life support. It's all the rage on the best ships."

Ayesha snorted. Her nasal jewelry clattered like unmelodious wind chimes.

"Then how about a game to pass the time?" Salim Khan asked.

A deck of playing cards slipped into his left hand. With a flick of his wrist and a blurred twitching of his digits he launched the blue-backed rectangles into the air. Each card spun past his face, making three or four complete rotations as it described a perfect parabola. An instant later the full deck rested in his right hand.

"That was awesome!" Josh stared at the dusky man in the same manner an adult might gaze upon his messiah.

Salim smirked, while his cards fanned and shifted around his fingers.

"Poker, blackjack, quisrat... I'll play anything." His eyes flicked to Astrid, Casper, and the other passengers in turn. "Small stakes, just for fun."

"Mr. Khan," Captain Jaeger said, "a long time ago I heard a rumor that a man on my ship was playing with marked cards, cheating people out of their creds. I took his deck and told him I'd shoot him once for every marked card I found."

"Oh..." Salim's deck disappeared into the recesses of his garish red jacket.

A sound which might have been either a snore or a quiet guffaw emerged from beneath the tilted cowboy hat that concealed the last passenger's face. He sat at a small round table, slumped in an armchair. Six drained glasses stood before him. An empty bottle watched over them like a proud mother, a single brown tear trickling down her smooth cold side.

Astrid glanced at Casper, who shrugged his shoulders.

"The man asked for bourbon, so I gave him a wee drop."

"Got any more?" Ayesha asked.

"Not for ye, lassie. Maybe in a few years when you're older."

"Probably still be stuck on this heap of junk by then..."

Her nose rings chimed once more, and she returned her attention to whatever interesting specimens she could extract from under her black-painted fingernails. A long moment elapsed -- punctuated by sighs, grunts, and exasperated glares. Captain Jaeger cast an appealing look at Casper MacAlister. Had enemies been boarding the ship, she'd have pushed him behind her and handled things. But shooting, swearing, and gouging were less practical when it came to dealing with passengers.

"Dae any of ye ken a good story?" he asked.