Fic: I Fought the Claw (and the Claw Won)
Jun. 14th, 2013 04:08 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jeriendhalBeen a while since I updated this. Progress has slowed to a crawl while we've dealt with various family stuff and automotive difficulties.
* * *
Part One
Part Two
Part Three
Part Four
Part Five
Part Six
Part Seven
Part Eight
I followed, still not having much choice in the matter. After an interminable number of meters she headed up a gangway and turned down a side corridor, opening a door and leading me back out into the public section of the corridors. To my surprise, she unhooked my silver leash, slipping into a pocket on the inside of her robe.
“Letting me go?” I asked.
“Hardly, but we’re conspicuous enough in these robes without me leading around like a slave,” Snarli replied. “Don’t try to wander off though. I’ve still got the control ring for your restraints.”
“Wouldn’t dream of it,” I lied.
We were on the Accommodations Deck now, which was mostly low-rent, long term transient apartments for spacers waiting, sometimes for months at a time, for a berth to ship out on after losing their old one. Or more likely to run through their accumulated savings as they waited for a break that would never come. Most foxen spacers don’t have that worry, if they stick with a House shipping line. Unsurprisingly then, there were a lot of humans and wazagans, many with that faint look of desperation in their eyes, as they grifted and begged spacers wearing valid ship idents for a word with their captain to try and get out of this black hole.
We past one less run down than usual establishment, that featured a blinking vacancy sign in real neon, not LEDs or holograms. Standing on either side of the door were a pair of humans, trying to look like just a couple of guys leaning back to hold up the bulkheads, but who basically screamed to everyone in the vicinity “INCOGNITO GUARDS, PLEASE IGNORE.”
“Please tell me you’ve got a better plan than ‘rush in, guns a’blazing,’” I said, as Snarli paused in front of a shop window displaying cheap looking spacer coveralls.
“Yes,” she replied unhelpfully.
“And it is?” I prompted.
“None of your business.” She pulled out a secure comlink from under her robes, handing it over to me. It was a peer-to-peer model, the channels locked to a few other mated coms. No calling for help, alas. “Keep this on,” she said. “You see Compton or anyone else with a spiral on their shoulder walk in, call me.”
“What’s to keep me from getting shocked once you step inside?” I asked pointedly.
“I turned off the stunner on your collar,” she said.
“How nice of you,” I said. “And what’s to stop me from running off now?”
By way of an answer, I felt a faint tug on my right ankle, pulling me a couple of centimeters towards the bulkhead.
“You can’t move more than two meters away from this spot now,” Snarli told me. “I’m likely going to leaving in a hurry once I get Milady out of here, so I’ll be sure to send someone back to let you loose once things calm down in a few hours.”
“How about I give those beefy fellows by the door over there a yell once you go inside? I realize things didn’t go very well between Compton and myself the last time, but he might be willing to listen if I told him you were sneaking up on him.”
Snarli gave me a stare that burned me even through her hood. “You do that, and I survive, you know what I’ll do to you? I will hang you up by your thumbs, pull out my blaster, and roast you from your toes to your neck, keeping the heat just low enough so you’ll survive, right up to the point the blood in your brains comes boiling out through your ears.”
“You’re not serious,” I said, glad the enveloping robes hid how my tail had fuzzed out.
“Try me,” she warned, then turned away, heading towards the hostel.
Which left me outside, cooling my footpads. Snarli Ali didn’t, obviously, go through the front door. What she did do in mingle in the crowds for a bit, before quite deliberately sauntering away, leaving me by my lonesome. As a guess, she was probably heading towards the service entrance to the hostel, to do a bit of sneaking about and coshing the occasional guard on the noggin’.
Now, you’re likely wondering at this point why I didn’t start screaming bloody murder the moment my captor was out of earshot. Despite her very graphic threat towards me, if I warned Compton and his crew what was coming, there was a fair chance she’d never get the chance to enact her revenge upon me. Or for the that matter, even if I didn’t want to warn Compton, all I had to do was chuck off my robes and ask the nearest passerby for assistance. After all, half-naked foxen lads couldn’t be that common on the station, and if I raised enough of a fuss I’m sure someone would have come along to release me from my tractor hobble, if only to shut me up.
So why didn’t I? Honestly? For must the same reason I had taken up the wandering life in the first place. I was too damned curious for my own good.
I spent the first fifteen minutes leaning against the wall and watching the passersby. Through the comlink I could hear Snarli’s breathing, and the occasional scrape of a door opening. Then I heard her whisper, “Anything happening?”
“Nothing,” I replied, just as softly. All right, maybe I was enjoying playing spy just a little. “The boys at the front door haven’t moved, and I haven’t seen anyone else coming in or out. How are things at your end?”
“None of your business,” she replied. “You’ll find out what’s happening when they do.”
“Love you too, dear,” I said sweetly. She didn’t even bothering replying to that one, and I left her to her work.
About five minutes later I heard the whine of a stunner over the comlink, then the sound of Snarli grunting as she caught something heavy and started dragging it. The first of the bully boys I had to assume. With any luck, maybe the last as well.
I turned my head a bit as I saw someone coming down the corridor, heading towards the entrance of the hostel. It was Compton again, one of his lad’s keeping pace beside him.
“Bad news,” I said over the comlink. “You’ve got Compton and one other pirate coming towards the front door. You might want to consider a rapid evac of the premises.”
“Can’t,” Snarli whispered urgently. “I haven’t found Milady yet.”
“She might not even be there,” I told her.
“You don’t know that.”
Don’t ask me what drew Compton’s attention towards my position. I was standing near the bulkhead, with a crowd of people streaming between me and the hostel entrance, and I certainly wasn’t talking loud enough for him to hear me. But my run of recent bad luck just kept going, as he turned towards me and approached, that nasty little smirk of his appearing again.
“Hello there, little girlie. What are you doing out here all by yerself?” he said, looming over me with a leer. Given my height and the all-enveloping wazagan robes, he must have mistaken me for a wazzie child. How charming. Now I have no love of pirates in general, but this fellow I was genuinely starting to loathe.
I let out what I hoped sounded like a girlish giggle, and backed up against the wall, trying to stay as far from his noxious breath as possible. Over my comlink, I heard another buzz of stunner fire.
“Keep him busy, I think I’ve found the room where they’re keeping her,” Snarli called.
“Nothing to say, girlie? Maybe a little tickle will warm you up.” Compton leaned closer, reaching into the darkness my hood’s holographic shadows. I flinched as his fingers stroked underneath my chin, though it was worth it for the look of surprise that came over his face when he felt foxen fur instead of wazagan scales. “Eh, what’s this?”
Okay, perhaps the sensible thing would have been to toss my hood back and say a hello. But I have to admit it was a little more personally satisfying to hear his scream of pain as I snared his fingers between my fangs and bit down hard.
* * *
Part One
Part Two
Part Three
Part Four
Part Five
Part Six
Part Seven
Part Eight
I followed, still not having much choice in the matter. After an interminable number of meters she headed up a gangway and turned down a side corridor, opening a door and leading me back out into the public section of the corridors. To my surprise, she unhooked my silver leash, slipping into a pocket on the inside of her robe.
“Letting me go?” I asked.
“Hardly, but we’re conspicuous enough in these robes without me leading around like a slave,” Snarli replied. “Don’t try to wander off though. I’ve still got the control ring for your restraints.”
“Wouldn’t dream of it,” I lied.
We were on the Accommodations Deck now, which was mostly low-rent, long term transient apartments for spacers waiting, sometimes for months at a time, for a berth to ship out on after losing their old one. Or more likely to run through their accumulated savings as they waited for a break that would never come. Most foxen spacers don’t have that worry, if they stick with a House shipping line. Unsurprisingly then, there were a lot of humans and wazagans, many with that faint look of desperation in their eyes, as they grifted and begged spacers wearing valid ship idents for a word with their captain to try and get out of this black hole.
We past one less run down than usual establishment, that featured a blinking vacancy sign in real neon, not LEDs or holograms. Standing on either side of the door were a pair of humans, trying to look like just a couple of guys leaning back to hold up the bulkheads, but who basically screamed to everyone in the vicinity “INCOGNITO GUARDS, PLEASE IGNORE.”
“Please tell me you’ve got a better plan than ‘rush in, guns a’blazing,’” I said, as Snarli paused in front of a shop window displaying cheap looking spacer coveralls.
“Yes,” she replied unhelpfully.
“And it is?” I prompted.
“None of your business.” She pulled out a secure comlink from under her robes, handing it over to me. It was a peer-to-peer model, the channels locked to a few other mated coms. No calling for help, alas. “Keep this on,” she said. “You see Compton or anyone else with a spiral on their shoulder walk in, call me.”
“What’s to keep me from getting shocked once you step inside?” I asked pointedly.
“I turned off the stunner on your collar,” she said.
“How nice of you,” I said. “And what’s to stop me from running off now?”
By way of an answer, I felt a faint tug on my right ankle, pulling me a couple of centimeters towards the bulkhead.
“You can’t move more than two meters away from this spot now,” Snarli told me. “I’m likely going to leaving in a hurry once I get Milady out of here, so I’ll be sure to send someone back to let you loose once things calm down in a few hours.”
“How about I give those beefy fellows by the door over there a yell once you go inside? I realize things didn’t go very well between Compton and myself the last time, but he might be willing to listen if I told him you were sneaking up on him.”
Snarli gave me a stare that burned me even through her hood. “You do that, and I survive, you know what I’ll do to you? I will hang you up by your thumbs, pull out my blaster, and roast you from your toes to your neck, keeping the heat just low enough so you’ll survive, right up to the point the blood in your brains comes boiling out through your ears.”
“You’re not serious,” I said, glad the enveloping robes hid how my tail had fuzzed out.
“Try me,” she warned, then turned away, heading towards the hostel.
Which left me outside, cooling my footpads. Snarli Ali didn’t, obviously, go through the front door. What she did do in mingle in the crowds for a bit, before quite deliberately sauntering away, leaving me by my lonesome. As a guess, she was probably heading towards the service entrance to the hostel, to do a bit of sneaking about and coshing the occasional guard on the noggin’.
Now, you’re likely wondering at this point why I didn’t start screaming bloody murder the moment my captor was out of earshot. Despite her very graphic threat towards me, if I warned Compton and his crew what was coming, there was a fair chance she’d never get the chance to enact her revenge upon me. Or for the that matter, even if I didn’t want to warn Compton, all I had to do was chuck off my robes and ask the nearest passerby for assistance. After all, half-naked foxen lads couldn’t be that common on the station, and if I raised enough of a fuss I’m sure someone would have come along to release me from my tractor hobble, if only to shut me up.
So why didn’t I? Honestly? For must the same reason I had taken up the wandering life in the first place. I was too damned curious for my own good.
I spent the first fifteen minutes leaning against the wall and watching the passersby. Through the comlink I could hear Snarli’s breathing, and the occasional scrape of a door opening. Then I heard her whisper, “Anything happening?”
“Nothing,” I replied, just as softly. All right, maybe I was enjoying playing spy just a little. “The boys at the front door haven’t moved, and I haven’t seen anyone else coming in or out. How are things at your end?”
“None of your business,” she replied. “You’ll find out what’s happening when they do.”
“Love you too, dear,” I said sweetly. She didn’t even bothering replying to that one, and I left her to her work.
About five minutes later I heard the whine of a stunner over the comlink, then the sound of Snarli grunting as she caught something heavy and started dragging it. The first of the bully boys I had to assume. With any luck, maybe the last as well.
I turned my head a bit as I saw someone coming down the corridor, heading towards the entrance of the hostel. It was Compton again, one of his lad’s keeping pace beside him.
“Bad news,” I said over the comlink. “You’ve got Compton and one other pirate coming towards the front door. You might want to consider a rapid evac of the premises.”
“Can’t,” Snarli whispered urgently. “I haven’t found Milady yet.”
“She might not even be there,” I told her.
“You don’t know that.”
Don’t ask me what drew Compton’s attention towards my position. I was standing near the bulkhead, with a crowd of people streaming between me and the hostel entrance, and I certainly wasn’t talking loud enough for him to hear me. But my run of recent bad luck just kept going, as he turned towards me and approached, that nasty little smirk of his appearing again.
“Hello there, little girlie. What are you doing out here all by yerself?” he said, looming over me with a leer. Given my height and the all-enveloping wazagan robes, he must have mistaken me for a wazzie child. How charming. Now I have no love of pirates in general, but this fellow I was genuinely starting to loathe.
I let out what I hoped sounded like a girlish giggle, and backed up against the wall, trying to stay as far from his noxious breath as possible. Over my comlink, I heard another buzz of stunner fire.
“Keep him busy, I think I’ve found the room where they’re keeping her,” Snarli called.
“Nothing to say, girlie? Maybe a little tickle will warm you up.” Compton leaned closer, reaching into the darkness my hood’s holographic shadows. I flinched as his fingers stroked underneath my chin, though it was worth it for the look of surprise that came over his face when he felt foxen fur instead of wazagan scales. “Eh, what’s this?”
Okay, perhaps the sensible thing would have been to toss my hood back and say a hello. But I have to admit it was a little more personally satisfying to hear his scream of pain as I snared his fingers between my fangs and bit down hard.
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Date: 2013-06-15 03:26 am (UTC)