![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jeriendhalThis is probably the third or fourth variation of this scene I've written since coming up with Ali's character. I think this one is going to be canon though.
* * *
Melanie sat back in the captain's quarters, on the ridiculously elaborate throne made of woven reeds, wearing her ridiculous blood red bikini top and harem pants, and tried to control the shuddering that threatened to overwhelm her.
They were shooting at us, she thought. They were shooting at me.
She considered the virtues of opening the cabin's well stocked liquor cabinet, and thought better of it. Getting drunk, however tempting, was not going to solve anything. Though the attack was over, a followup could come at any time. She wouldn't feel safe until they had put several tens of light years and a few jinks in their course between the Scarlet Claw and the refueling station they had just abandoned.
The door chime sounded, and Melanie called out, “Who is it?”
“Zan, Captain,” came the rumbling reply.
She was tempted by the idea of telling him to go away. Or better, promote him to ship's captain and take her leave of this whole mess. Shocking idea, for a vixen of the Foxen Noble Caste to consider abandoning her charges. Screw propriety. Keeping up appearances won't save me from the next shot in my direction.
“Come in, Zan,” Melanie said instead. Lt. Zan, her wazagan first officer, stepped through the hatch, all two meters of him. Blue skin, violet hair, and a uniform in the Scarlet Claw's signature red made for a garish combination to Foxen sensibilities. But the middle-aged lizard was a reliable lancer to her command, willing to follow orders, but willing to question when he thought there was some fact that she had missed. She loved him dearly, and the look of deep concern on his face was painful for her to see.
“Report, please”
Zan touched his forehead in greeting, and said, “Doc says all our casualties are stable now, Captain. The one's which'll live at least.”
Melanie closed her eyes and nodded. “Give me the list.”
“Seven dead total, six wounded. Most of the survivors will be up and about in a week or so. Affred lost her arm though. She's not real happy. Talkin' about taking her cut and leaving ship at our next docking.”
She nodded again, and opened her eyes. “Give her a day to calm down. And point out to her that she has to at least stay long enough for us to locate a cyberneticist to replace her arm. We owe her.”
“Will do, Captain.”
Melanie took in a deep breath. “And the prisoner?”
“Stable,” Zan said neutrally. “Doc says she'll be good for the next few hours, but she'll need more work if she's gonna live longer than that. What do you want done with her?”
Melanie tried to avoid gnawing on her lip with a fang. An old nervous habit, and definitely not fitting her assumed persona of the Red Vixen, Scourge of the Spaceways ™. “Do you think she's worth questioning?” she asked.
“She's a grunt, not an officer. Doubt she knows much that'd be useful,” Zan said.
She felt her stomach turn in her belly. “And what do you think we should do with her?”
Zan's voice remained neutral. “I'm not the captain. Ain't my decision to make.”
“I'm asking your honest opinion.”
He snorted. “She's from Bloody Margo's crew. They're the worst of the worst. If she was part of Margo's boarding teams, then there's enough blood on her to make her own mother throw her out of the airlock.”
Melanie sat silent for a time. “You know, Zan. This scam of mine would have never have worked unless you'd agreed to go along with it.”
“Ain't no scam, Captain,” Zan pointed out. “It's the real thing. Real ship, real crew, real command.”
“It could be yours, if you really wanted it,” she pointed out.
“If I'd wanted it, I would have taken it when you first came aboard and bought out the old captain's share,” he said, his voice affable. “Command ain't my calling, God forgive me. Besides, with you we've made more profit in the past two years than old Captain Ben brought us in ten.”
“Thank you, Zan.” She rubbed her nose briefly. “So is she conscious?”
“Doc's keeping her under for now,” Zan said. He shrugged. “She could stay that way. If you want to make it easy.”
“No.” Melanie stood up, straightening her shoulders and tail. Grabbing her gun belt, she began buckling her stunner pistol around her waist. She did not want to be the Red Vixen right now. She certainly didn't feel the part. Fake it until you make it, the old adage went.
Make it. Make it real.
* * *
Her ship's surgeon, a sardonic Gliten male who had come along with the Scarlet Claw's original crew, met her at the entrance to the sick bay. “Can I help you, Captain?” He looked exhausted. The strain was evident in his red eyes and the dislodged vestigial feathers along his arms.
“Is the prisoner still alive?” Melanie asked.
He shrugged. “For now. Probably won't survive to ship's morning in her condition.”
She nodded. “What did your scans tell you about her?”
“Nothing out of the ordinary, at least for one of Margo's crew. Female foxen. Evidence of broken ribs, and a broken wrist sometime in the past. Blood tests showed she was hyped up on crap combat drugs during the fight. Adrenaline and a couple of nasty methamphetamine variants to make her ignore pain and common sense. Probably why she survived long enough for me to get to her once I finished with our casualties. Age sixteen T Standard years, going by a basic telomere scan.”
That stopped Melanie short. “Sixteen?” she exclaimed.
“Young and stupid. Maybe young, desperate and stupid, which would explain why she joined Margo's crew,” the surgeon noted with little sympathy. “What do you want me to do with her? All she's doing is wasting my plasma stores right now.”
“Can you wake her up?”
“Sure. I'll get the antagonist.”
Melanie followed the surgeon into the sick bay ER. The prisoner lay on a scanner table, strapped down tight, tubes running into her arms and the wound in her stomach where she'd been shot.
The vixen was short, and looked barely older than an adolescent cub, certainly younger than the surgeon's assessment of sixteen years. She was naked save for a black and white pattern of fur covering her body, giving her the appearance of a Terran house cat. Her right shoulder was shaved, to show off a spiral tattoo imprinted there, the allegiance mark of Lady Margo, perhaps the bloodiest pirate of modern times.
I don't have to wake her up. I don't have to talk to her. I don't have to do anything, Melanie reminded herself. If the surgeon didn't act, she'd be safely dead in a few hours, and no one on the Scarlet Claw would mourn her passing.
The surgeon pressed the needle of a syringe into the feed line leading to the younger vixen's arm, then withdrew from the room. In a few moments the prisoner's eyes opened. They were a startlingly bright gold, enhancing her cat-like appearance. She blinked twice, pulled weakly at the nylon straps pinning her to the table, and turned her head slightly to look at Melanie. Her gaze was unfocused, confused, and Melanie wondered briefly if she'd suffered brain damage along with her other injuries.
“I am the Red Vixen,” Melanie stated briskly, “and you are my prisoner. What's your name, child?”
“Where...?” the prisoner croaked. She swallowed, then coughed once, a brief wracking sound that was followed by a spasm of pain as she arched against her restraints. She lay back down, shivering.
“You're on board the Scarlet Claw, my flagship.” Well, Melanie's only ship, but no need to let the other vixen know that. “Now what's your name?”
“Ali-kat,” the prisoner answered, her voice barely a whisper.
Well that fit with the vixen's weird fur pattern. “And why did you attack my refueling station?” Melanie demanded.
“Didn't know... anyone was there. Sergeant said... it was old Captain Ben's. No one seen him.... for a year. Thought it was abandoned. So we were sent to scout it.”
Ali-Kat's unexpectedly voluble answer eased at least some of Melanie's worries at least. It hadn't been a planned attack against her ship when it was docked and helpless, just a moment of random chance. So Bloody Margo would have no idea who had slaughtered her scout team and destroyed their cutter, and Melanie neatly side-stepped having a major enemy.
“Where's my squad?” Ali-Kat asked. Her eyes closed in pain again, and she bit her lip, her fangs actually piercing it. A line of blood began to run down over her chin, staining her fur.
“They're all dead. You're the sole survivor,” Melanie told her, stiffening her back to maintain her authoritative stance. “And unless you get some major surgery very soon, you'll be dead as well.”
Ali-Kat's gaze became unfocused, staring in the general direction of the ceiling. “Okay,” she said. There was no hint of deception or demand in her voice. No attempt to plead her case and try to survive. Just passive acceptance of her fate.
Turn away, Melanie told herself. Turn away and let her die. She killed Gaz. She was going to kill me before Zan shot her. She deserves no mercy, unless the Mother Goddess wants to give it Herself. But Melanie's traitorous feet refused to move, and she head herself ask, “How long have you been with Bloody Margo's crew?”
“Six,” Ali-Kat replied.
“Six months?” Melanie asked.
“No... since I was... six.”
Melanie felt her ears flick back and her blood run cold. “How could that be?” she demanded.
“Margo took... my family's freighter. Killed them. Took me as a... pet, I guess. Until I could... earn my keep,” Ali-Kat answered. Then her voice went suddenly high, as a frightening half-giggle, half-sob went through her, wracking her body with pain. “I was a good... good kitty.... good.... Ali... Kat...” The table's readout's began beeping in alarm as she laughed and wept, yanking at her restraints, and the surgeon appeared at the doorway suddenly.
“Put her back under,” Melanie ordered. The gliten moved quickly forward, administering a sedative that swiftly sent Ali-Kat back to unconsciousness. Shivering, Melanie sat down on a stool beside the scanner table, wishing this damned persona she'd taken on could wear more clothing in public.
“You get anything useful out of her?” the surgeon asked.
“Yes,” Melanie said, after a moment. “It seems Bloody Margo had been wondering if old Captain Ben had abandoned the refueling outpost, and sent in Ali... that squad to scout it. Pure random chance we were docked there at the time. There's no way Margo could know who eliminated her team.”
“Lucky for us then,” the surgeon noted.
“Yes.” Melanie drew in a breath and stood up. “Prep the prisoner for surgery. I want her to live.”
The surgeon's eyebrows went up. “Why bother? Going to try and ransom her? I doubt Margo will pay.”
“No, I just want her to live.” Melanie put a smile on her face that she didn't feel. “She's to be my pet.”
The gliten looked disturbed. “Crew's not going to be happy about that. She killed Gaz, remember? She was going to kill you, I heard.”
“Quite right,” Melanie answered, still smiling coolly. “So her life is in my hands. We'll see how much she values it.”
* * *
Melanie sat back in the captain's quarters, on the ridiculously elaborate throne made of woven reeds, wearing her ridiculous blood red bikini top and harem pants, and tried to control the shuddering that threatened to overwhelm her.
They were shooting at us, she thought. They were shooting at me.
She considered the virtues of opening the cabin's well stocked liquor cabinet, and thought better of it. Getting drunk, however tempting, was not going to solve anything. Though the attack was over, a followup could come at any time. She wouldn't feel safe until they had put several tens of light years and a few jinks in their course between the Scarlet Claw and the refueling station they had just abandoned.
The door chime sounded, and Melanie called out, “Who is it?”
“Zan, Captain,” came the rumbling reply.
She was tempted by the idea of telling him to go away. Or better, promote him to ship's captain and take her leave of this whole mess. Shocking idea, for a vixen of the Foxen Noble Caste to consider abandoning her charges. Screw propriety. Keeping up appearances won't save me from the next shot in my direction.
“Come in, Zan,” Melanie said instead. Lt. Zan, her wazagan first officer, stepped through the hatch, all two meters of him. Blue skin, violet hair, and a uniform in the Scarlet Claw's signature red made for a garish combination to Foxen sensibilities. But the middle-aged lizard was a reliable lancer to her command, willing to follow orders, but willing to question when he thought there was some fact that she had missed. She loved him dearly, and the look of deep concern on his face was painful for her to see.
“Report, please”
Zan touched his forehead in greeting, and said, “Doc says all our casualties are stable now, Captain. The one's which'll live at least.”
Melanie closed her eyes and nodded. “Give me the list.”
“Seven dead total, six wounded. Most of the survivors will be up and about in a week or so. Affred lost her arm though. She's not real happy. Talkin' about taking her cut and leaving ship at our next docking.”
She nodded again, and opened her eyes. “Give her a day to calm down. And point out to her that she has to at least stay long enough for us to locate a cyberneticist to replace her arm. We owe her.”
“Will do, Captain.”
Melanie took in a deep breath. “And the prisoner?”
“Stable,” Zan said neutrally. “Doc says she'll be good for the next few hours, but she'll need more work if she's gonna live longer than that. What do you want done with her?”
Melanie tried to avoid gnawing on her lip with a fang. An old nervous habit, and definitely not fitting her assumed persona of the Red Vixen, Scourge of the Spaceways ™. “Do you think she's worth questioning?” she asked.
“She's a grunt, not an officer. Doubt she knows much that'd be useful,” Zan said.
She felt her stomach turn in her belly. “And what do you think we should do with her?”
Zan's voice remained neutral. “I'm not the captain. Ain't my decision to make.”
“I'm asking your honest opinion.”
He snorted. “She's from Bloody Margo's crew. They're the worst of the worst. If she was part of Margo's boarding teams, then there's enough blood on her to make her own mother throw her out of the airlock.”
Melanie sat silent for a time. “You know, Zan. This scam of mine would have never have worked unless you'd agreed to go along with it.”
“Ain't no scam, Captain,” Zan pointed out. “It's the real thing. Real ship, real crew, real command.”
“It could be yours, if you really wanted it,” she pointed out.
“If I'd wanted it, I would have taken it when you first came aboard and bought out the old captain's share,” he said, his voice affable. “Command ain't my calling, God forgive me. Besides, with you we've made more profit in the past two years than old Captain Ben brought us in ten.”
“Thank you, Zan.” She rubbed her nose briefly. “So is she conscious?”
“Doc's keeping her under for now,” Zan said. He shrugged. “She could stay that way. If you want to make it easy.”
“No.” Melanie stood up, straightening her shoulders and tail. Grabbing her gun belt, she began buckling her stunner pistol around her waist. She did not want to be the Red Vixen right now. She certainly didn't feel the part. Fake it until you make it, the old adage went.
Make it. Make it real.
* * *
Her ship's surgeon, a sardonic Gliten male who had come along with the Scarlet Claw's original crew, met her at the entrance to the sick bay. “Can I help you, Captain?” He looked exhausted. The strain was evident in his red eyes and the dislodged vestigial feathers along his arms.
“Is the prisoner still alive?” Melanie asked.
He shrugged. “For now. Probably won't survive to ship's morning in her condition.”
She nodded. “What did your scans tell you about her?”
“Nothing out of the ordinary, at least for one of Margo's crew. Female foxen. Evidence of broken ribs, and a broken wrist sometime in the past. Blood tests showed she was hyped up on crap combat drugs during the fight. Adrenaline and a couple of nasty methamphetamine variants to make her ignore pain and common sense. Probably why she survived long enough for me to get to her once I finished with our casualties. Age sixteen T Standard years, going by a basic telomere scan.”
That stopped Melanie short. “Sixteen?” she exclaimed.
“Young and stupid. Maybe young, desperate and stupid, which would explain why she joined Margo's crew,” the surgeon noted with little sympathy. “What do you want me to do with her? All she's doing is wasting my plasma stores right now.”
“Can you wake her up?”
“Sure. I'll get the antagonist.”
Melanie followed the surgeon into the sick bay ER. The prisoner lay on a scanner table, strapped down tight, tubes running into her arms and the wound in her stomach where she'd been shot.
The vixen was short, and looked barely older than an adolescent cub, certainly younger than the surgeon's assessment of sixteen years. She was naked save for a black and white pattern of fur covering her body, giving her the appearance of a Terran house cat. Her right shoulder was shaved, to show off a spiral tattoo imprinted there, the allegiance mark of Lady Margo, perhaps the bloodiest pirate of modern times.
I don't have to wake her up. I don't have to talk to her. I don't have to do anything, Melanie reminded herself. If the surgeon didn't act, she'd be safely dead in a few hours, and no one on the Scarlet Claw would mourn her passing.
The surgeon pressed the needle of a syringe into the feed line leading to the younger vixen's arm, then withdrew from the room. In a few moments the prisoner's eyes opened. They were a startlingly bright gold, enhancing her cat-like appearance. She blinked twice, pulled weakly at the nylon straps pinning her to the table, and turned her head slightly to look at Melanie. Her gaze was unfocused, confused, and Melanie wondered briefly if she'd suffered brain damage along with her other injuries.
“I am the Red Vixen,” Melanie stated briskly, “and you are my prisoner. What's your name, child?”
“Where...?” the prisoner croaked. She swallowed, then coughed once, a brief wracking sound that was followed by a spasm of pain as she arched against her restraints. She lay back down, shivering.
“You're on board the Scarlet Claw, my flagship.” Well, Melanie's only ship, but no need to let the other vixen know that. “Now what's your name?”
“Ali-kat,” the prisoner answered, her voice barely a whisper.
Well that fit with the vixen's weird fur pattern. “And why did you attack my refueling station?” Melanie demanded.
“Didn't know... anyone was there. Sergeant said... it was old Captain Ben's. No one seen him.... for a year. Thought it was abandoned. So we were sent to scout it.”
Ali-Kat's unexpectedly voluble answer eased at least some of Melanie's worries at least. It hadn't been a planned attack against her ship when it was docked and helpless, just a moment of random chance. So Bloody Margo would have no idea who had slaughtered her scout team and destroyed their cutter, and Melanie neatly side-stepped having a major enemy.
“Where's my squad?” Ali-Kat asked. Her eyes closed in pain again, and she bit her lip, her fangs actually piercing it. A line of blood began to run down over her chin, staining her fur.
“They're all dead. You're the sole survivor,” Melanie told her, stiffening her back to maintain her authoritative stance. “And unless you get some major surgery very soon, you'll be dead as well.”
Ali-Kat's gaze became unfocused, staring in the general direction of the ceiling. “Okay,” she said. There was no hint of deception or demand in her voice. No attempt to plead her case and try to survive. Just passive acceptance of her fate.
Turn away, Melanie told herself. Turn away and let her die. She killed Gaz. She was going to kill me before Zan shot her. She deserves no mercy, unless the Mother Goddess wants to give it Herself. But Melanie's traitorous feet refused to move, and she head herself ask, “How long have you been with Bloody Margo's crew?”
“Six,” Ali-Kat replied.
“Six months?” Melanie asked.
“No... since I was... six.”
Melanie felt her ears flick back and her blood run cold. “How could that be?” she demanded.
“Margo took... my family's freighter. Killed them. Took me as a... pet, I guess. Until I could... earn my keep,” Ali-Kat answered. Then her voice went suddenly high, as a frightening half-giggle, half-sob went through her, wracking her body with pain. “I was a good... good kitty.... good.... Ali... Kat...” The table's readout's began beeping in alarm as she laughed and wept, yanking at her restraints, and the surgeon appeared at the doorway suddenly.
“Put her back under,” Melanie ordered. The gliten moved quickly forward, administering a sedative that swiftly sent Ali-Kat back to unconsciousness. Shivering, Melanie sat down on a stool beside the scanner table, wishing this damned persona she'd taken on could wear more clothing in public.
“You get anything useful out of her?” the surgeon asked.
“Yes,” Melanie said, after a moment. “It seems Bloody Margo had been wondering if old Captain Ben had abandoned the refueling outpost, and sent in Ali... that squad to scout it. Pure random chance we were docked there at the time. There's no way Margo could know who eliminated her team.”
“Lucky for us then,” the surgeon noted.
“Yes.” Melanie drew in a breath and stood up. “Prep the prisoner for surgery. I want her to live.”
The surgeon's eyebrows went up. “Why bother? Going to try and ransom her? I doubt Margo will pay.”
“No, I just want her to live.” Melanie put a smile on her face that she didn't feel. “She's to be my pet.”
The gliten looked disturbed. “Crew's not going to be happy about that. She killed Gaz, remember? She was going to kill you, I heard.”
“Quite right,” Melanie answered, still smiling coolly. “So her life is in my hands. We'll see how much she values it.”
