Chapter 4: Family Affairs
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4.1
El Guapo punches through the hull and keeps going, flying forward into the open void of space.
Ozzy's four wings still spin around the van like a drill, and Ozzy himself rides the roof like it's a roller coaster.
Then the alien beehive ship begins to balloon.
Cracks spread across its hull. White light bleeds through the fractures.
Juan and Alice brace for impact. Ozzy swings his wings around to shield the van's aft.
They brace.
Waiting.
Waiting for an explosion.
...
Still waiting for that self-destruction.
Any minute now.
Still waiting.
Waiting.
...
"What the fuck?" Alice says. "Where's the explosion?"
Ozzy stares up at the beehive ship. Juan and Alice peek out through the side mirrors.
The massive ship is bending.
Twisting.
It begins to squeeze itself inward, warping, shrinking, condensing, folding in on its own geometry until it has compressed itself into something that looks like a large metallic asteroid, drifting quietly among the rocks of the belt.
Juan stares at it. "Implosion. Wasn't expecting that." He thinks about it. "I guess it makes sense. I don't know."
"That was a little anticlimactic," Alice says.
On the roof, Ozzy sits staring at the crushed remains of the ship.
His screen shows a crying emoji. [ :’c ]
He really wanted to see a big explosion.
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4.2
The remnants drift, blending into the surrounding debris until they are indistinguishable from any other floating rock in the asteroid belt.
Juan scans the view through El Guapo's windshield.
Streaks of light move through the black, all heading in the same direction.
He leans forward. "Mija, let's get out of here. Let's do that warp hyperdrive thingy they do in the movies."
"We can't," Alice says.
"What do you mean, we can't?"
"I'll let Wilbur explain."
"Who?" Juan asks.
A large screen rises from the center console and flickers to life. In the middle of it sits a cute animated buck-toothed bat with glasses. He waves at the camera with one small wing.
"Hi! I'm Wilbur, your ship and navigational AI!"
Juan blinks. Then slowly nods. "This day is full of surprises."
Alice is barely containing herself. "Tell Juan about jump drives."
Wilbur folds his little wings and begins. "Jump drives create artificial jump gates on demand via the jump breach for quick interstellar transportation. However, they are highly dangerous and energy-consuming. If they aren't carefully controlled, the backblast from a jump drive can easily destroy a planet, hence why only certain military vessels carry them. They are even rarer on civilian ships."
Juan nods along, glancing sideways at Alice. Alice watches Juan. Proud.
"Then how do people travel around space?" Juan asks.
"Most vessels use jump gates, which transport you to predetermined locations," Wilbur says, "or they navigate a slipstream if one is available."
Juan points at the streaks of light outside. "What are those? Did they come from that ship that just imploded?"
"I'm assuming you're referring to the escape pods from the Red Moon Escobar," Wilbur says. "They are moving to a predetermined rendezvous point for pickup."
Juan looks at Alice. "You did good. I like this murciélaguito."
Alice beams. "I know, he's so kawaii!"
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4.3
"Wilbur, let's follow those escape pods."
"Aye aye, Captain!"
El Guapo fires its thrusters and takes off in pursuit.
Juan watches the streak lights ahead. "Is there a jump gate at the rendezvous?"
"Negative," Wilbur says. "A Red Moon rescue support craft will jump to that location to retrieve the pods."
"They have jump drives? How powerful is this Red Moon?"
"The Red Moon Trading Company is one of the largest corporations in the United Galactic Alliance. They specialize in defense, security, resources, and research in the Grey Zones, the regions outside the Sovereign Systems of the UGA."
"Wilbur," Alice says, "are we in a Grey Zone right now?"
"Negative. We are in a Dark Zone. Unknown regions."
Juan leans back in his seat and sighs. "More thugs in suits." He drums his fingers on the armrest. "Wilbur, is there a way to tag along with that rescue craft?"
"Once a jump drive opens a gate, the jump gate will remain open for approximately thirty seconds before the space-time continuum repairs itself."
Juan points at the screen. "That's it. That's our ticket."
He settles back and looks at Alice. She looks like a kid failing to hold back a secret. He gives her a moment, then asks, "What's on your mind, mija?"
"Okay, but you promise not to get mad at me?"
Juan narrows his eyes. "Mad? It's all good, mija. Better to have honest conflict than to live in dishonest harmony."
"Okay." She takes a breath. "You know when you made the Wilbur bat from your hair?"
His eyes narrow further. "Yeah."
"Can you, like, do that with all your hair? Turn it all to bats? Like, make yourself bald?"
Juan stays very still.
He thinks about it.
He sighs. "Yes."
Alice's eyes light up. "Can you show me? Juan, please?"
"No."
"Please!"
Ozzy's nodding, grinning emoji screen appears on the outside of the windshield as he leans down, pressing up against the glass like a child at a shop window.
He wants to see it too.
Alice and Ozzy continue to beg.
Juan weathers it.
"No. Besides, I have a pointy head. I look ridiculous bald. I'm not doing it."
Wilbur's voice cuts through. "I would also like to see it, Captain."
Juan closes his eyes. "Wilbur. Not you too."
"It's the least you could do," Wilbur says. "You did drain away all my life force."
Silence.
Dead silence.
Alice stares at Juan. "Damn. He got you."
On the windshield, Ozzy's expression shifts to a nervous smiling emoji, with a sweat bead.
Juan sits motionless, processing what has just happened to him.
He leans toward Alice and lowers his voice. "You couldn't wipe that part from his memory?"
Alice leans back. "So now you want to live in dishonest harmony?"
Juan collapses into the seat.
Defeated.
He stares at the ceiling. One last attempt to find a solution that won't embarrass him or make him look like a hypocrite.
He finds nothing.
Then he sits back up, draws a long breath, and stands.
"Fine."
Alice turns to Wilbur's screen and whispers, "Good job."
The little animated bat raises one wing. She taps a finger on the screen and Wilbur high-fives it.
Ozzy repositions himself on the roof, watching through the windshield with anticipation.
Juan spreads his arms wide. "Okay. Okay. But let it be known: I may be many things, but Juan Santana is always a man of his word."
He grabs the brim of his hat and takes it off.
His hair explodes into a dozen little bats, dispersing in every direction, revealing a bald and very slightly pointy head beneath.
Alice, Ozzy, and Wilbur erupt into laughter.
Juan laughs in defeat, arms still open. "There! Are y'all happy? Entertained?"
The four continue to laugh together at Juan's expense. Juan lets them have their fill, then returns his hair before he dons his hat.
Alice smiles at Juan and wipes her tears. "Thank you, it's been a long day."
Juan smiles and nods. "Hurry up and get it out of your systems. We need to get back on task."
Crack. Crack.
Two shots crack through the glass, like spider webs, and everyone inside El Guapo hits the deck.
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4.4
"Ozzy!" Juan yells from the floor. "You okay up there?"
Two missiles streak toward the roof.
Ozzy extends his wingtips and swats them aside, watching them detonate safely in the distance. Then he clocks the fighter ship that fired them.
He recognizes the pilot immediately and relays it to the crew.
Auger. The one Ozzy calls the mosquito that Juan made piss himself.
Auger is flying a compact version of the black wedge reconnaissance ship from the hangar.
Wilbur is already pulling data. "I recognize that ship. That's Captain Auger's personal fighter."
"Auger?" Juan says. "Call him Piss Mosquito."
"Aye aye, Captain. The Piss Mosquito's fighter is significantly faster than ours, but we have a considerable advantage in handling and armor."
Juan and Alice exchange a quick look.
"Why did you make him so literal?" Juan asks.
"That wasn't me," Alice says.
Auger's fighter sweeps over the top of El Guapo. Ozzy takes a swipe at it, just out of range.
"Wilbur," Juan says, "keep flying straight. We turn the opposite direction once Ozzy confirms it."
He looks at Alice. "Find that thirty-second window and work with Wilbur. We can't lose sight of the escape pods."
"Understood." Alice is already scanning. She locates the rendezvous zone and marks it on the windshield's HUD display.
"Queen Alice," Wilbur adds, "make sure we don't go past the escape pods. We risk entering the breach zone."
Juan side-eyes Alice. "You have him call you that?"
Alice shrugs, not quite hiding her smile. "You told me to pick a path, when you made that big speech."
Juan smiles. "Don't grow up too fast, mija."
Ozzy reports that Auger is breaking portside.
"Wilbur, hard turn starboard!"
El Guapo leans hard right, cutting the opposite direction. Juan presses up against the unshattered side of the windshield and scans the view. Asteroids dot the space to port, clustered and dense.
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"Turn wide to port. We bound from asteroid to asteroid, for cover."
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"Aye aye, Captain."
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On the port side, the streaking lights from the escape pods have stopped moving. They are flashing now, stationary at the rendezvous. Auger completes his turn and comes back in hard, firing, while Ozzy angles his wings to shield the van.
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"Alice, do we have any weapons?"
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"Sadly no. But I know something we can use as chaff."
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Juan already knows what she means. "Ozzy will be upset."
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"I know. But he'll understand."
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Auger bears down on them in full pursuit.
El Guapo swings toward a nearby asteroid, car-sized, loose in the belt, and Ozzy hooks a wingtip beneath it and launches it back at Auger's nose, forcing him to react and buy them a few seconds.
Alice's attention pulls toward something near the escape pods.
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The space around the rendezvous is changing, distorting, like a bubble rising up from water.
Circular ripples move outward from the center. A vibration follows, felt before it is heard, deep and resonant, building in the cabin walls, in the floor.
A low hum.
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An ohmmmmm, building in everyone's chest. The van's interior shakes with the vibrations.
"They're starting the breach," Wilbur announces.
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The ripples widen. Space itself begins to warp, bowing and bending like a trampoline. And then, like the tip of a blade pushing through cloth, a point appears in the center of the distortion and pushes through.
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Space tears open.
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A colossal flame erupts through the breach. Every color imaginable fighting for dominance.
A swirling rainbow Bunsen burner puncturing reality and space.
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The flame jets out for hundreds of miles, a diameter as tall as a skyscraper, burning the void open. Then it dies back, and what remains is a circular aperture, a swirling, breathing ring of kaleidoscopic color, hanging in space.
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A porthole into infinite possibilities.
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The sea of flashing red lights from the escape pods waits patiently near the breach point. Then hundreds of black shapes erupt outward from the portal, scattering in every direction.
"Security drones," Wilbur announces.
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4.5
The drones are matte black, nearly invisible against the deep voids between stars. Each one has four long mechanical limbs extending from a central sphere, moving like mechanical daddy longlegs through space.
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Blue magnetic thrusters blur at the base of each limb. A large propulsion jet with a red-orange afterburn sits at the rear of the sphere. At the front, a diamond-shaped red eye swivels and focuses, capable of firing a precise cutting laser.
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"I've finished scanning the jump breach protocol from the files Queen Alice transferred," Wilbur reports. "The security drones will clear and cordon the breach zone and perform triage."
He pauses. "I'm not entirely sure what triage means."
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At the breach point, a massive glowing ring emerges from the edges of the circular tear in space, the breach ring, enormous and luminous. The ring stays in place, sending vibrations out through space that give Juan goosebumps and trigger Alice's sensors.
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"Wilbur," Alice says, watching it expand, "can you explain the jump breach to me?"
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"Aye aye, Queen Alice." His little wings fold together. "What you're seeing pass through the breach point is the breach ring. It uses special cosmic vibrations to prepare space for the breach, maintain the breach point, and navigate by adjusting frequencies."
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Through the vivid dancing colors of the breach point, a tip emerges, a massive rotating drill bit, its rotary pieces glowing in the same kaleidoscopic spectrum as the breach point itself.
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"Based on the profile of the Spectrum Bit," Wilbur says, "that ship appears to be the Red Moon Leopold."
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Alice leans forward, watching the machine push through. "What is the Spectrum Bit? Is that what sent that massive flame out?"
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"Correct. The Spectrum Bit generates a near supernova quantity of energy to tear open the space the Breach Ring has prepared."
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Juan whispers to Alice, "He likes explaining things, doesn't he?"
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"Shhh. I'm listening!"
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Wilbur continues, "Behind it is an equally massive sphere housing the nova reactor that powers everything."
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The machine continues to push through, Spectrum Bit first, then the globe of the nova reactor, enormous and slow.
Behind the reactor, the silhouette of a massive cube can be seen in the portal.
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"It must take a massive computer to run these calculations," Alice says.
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"Yes. The cube that follows the nova reactor is a quantum supercomputer, the Navigation CPU."
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Alice is speechless as she takes it all in.
Juan leans forward. "Alice, I need you to start working on our calculations to keep us on track."
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"Already on it."
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The drones have fanned out across the rendezvous zone and are moving toward the escape pods. Alice watches them work, methodical, scanning each pod in turn.
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Most of the flashing pods have gone dark. A small number are being tethered and drawn toward the Leopold.
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"I decoded a triage document earlier," Alice says slowly. "It only had twenty names on it."
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"The Escobar had a personnel-on-board count of two hundred and five," Wilbur replies.
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A drone locks its four mechanical arms onto one of the escape pods. Its red diamond eye sweeps the glass and finds two goblin nurses inside.
The same two nurses Juan spared in the tube room.
The drone finishes its scan. Then it flips its body around, aims its tail propulsion jet at the pod, and fires.
The pod disintegrates, along with the nurses. The drone rotates and moves on.
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It reaches the next pod. Inside, three passengers lounge in comparative comfort: a large orc-like alien sitting between two elegantly dressed goblin women. He is bald with a white beard, green skin, and piercing blue eyes with a scar cutting across one of them. He is dressed in a grey pinstriped suit, busy reviewing something on a tablet.
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A quick peek reveals that he is looking at security footage of Juan and Ozzy slaying Kryoc.
The woman to his left has grey skin, white hair, and cold blue eyes. She watches the chaos outside while vaping, entirely unbothered.
The one on his right has dark green skin, blonde hair, and sad silver eyes. She scrolls through something on her phone without looking up.
The drone scans them. Then it repositions itself, grabs the pod, and begins dragging it toward the Leopold.
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Alice sits very still. "Wilbur, was your name on that triage list?"
Wilbur replies, "No."
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4.6
Alice stares at the destruction near the breach point. She watches the drones moving from pod to pod, running their scans, making their determinations.
She watches the majority of the flashing red lights extinguish in a flash of flame.
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She finally speaks, an edge in her voice. "Heartless cowards. Hiding murder behind paperwork and euphemisms. Making machines do all the dirty work."
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Auger swings back around on their tail. Ozzy angles his wings to shield the van while Wilbur steers them toward another asteroid for cover. Alice notices, almost as an aside, that a large swarm of drones has changed course, heading their way.
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"Wilbur," Juan says, "where's that thirty-second window you talked about?"
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"Once the entire ship clears the breach ring, its tethers will pull the ring free from the breach point. After that, space will repair itself completely in approximately thirty seconds."
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Juan and Alice look at the breach point together. The globe-like nova reactor has already passed through. The cube is halfway through.
Wilbur's voice continues, "The tethers are anchored in the center of the ship, directly behind the cube. They run two-thirds the length of the ship."
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"Alice," Juan says, "you got this?"
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"I got it." She turns toward the breach point, and something stops her.
Halfway between El Guapo and the breach, a streak of bright golden light has paused. Just sitting there. Glowing like a small, stationary star.
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The van swings toward another asteroid. Ozzy reaches for it, and a missile from Auger blows it apart before he can grip it.
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Ozzy stares at Auger's ship. [ >:-( ]
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Ozzy senses that stationary golden light. His expression changes. [ =O ]
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Ozzy relays the massive complication that has just arrived.
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Juan and Alice both snap to attention at the same moment.
"Shit," Juan says.
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Alice's voice is very careful. "Hold on, Ozzy has a sister? Another being just like him?"
She looks at Juan. "Is she going to help us?"
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"I wouldn't count on her having the same restraint around ants like us."
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A swarm of matte black engulfs El Guapo.
The security drones continue to converge from every direction, clustering around the van like flies.
Their diamond eyes press against the windshield glass, scanning methodically. The scans bathe the interior in cold, ominous red light.
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Juan and Alice stare back with silent defiance.
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Ozzy shakes them loose from the hull, but they recover instantly, their magnetic feet finding purchase again, holding them in place.
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Auger keeps firing from behind. The drones hovering over El Guapo begin heating up their tail jets.
Ozzy activates his drill shield, all four wings spinning tight around the van, but he can't hold it indefinitely. Extended use burns through him fast.
Inside the cabin, Alice has zoomed in on the stationary star with the van's optics.
She goes quiet.
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"Oh my god," she says softly. "That must be her."
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Juan squints against the brightness even through the screen. "What does she look like?"
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Alice watches Helios floating in the void. Arms folded. Patient. Unbothered.
The violent burning solar plasma of her body contradicts her cool demeanor.
Her burning afro is a halo of living flame. A seraph of hellfire.
She is mesmerizing the way a flame is to a moth.
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All Alice can say is, "She's beautiful."
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4.7
The drones shift tactics.
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Ozzy's drill shield keeps them off the hull, so they back out beyond his range and switch to their cutting eye lasers instead. Weaker individually, but with enough time and enough of them, they will burn through El Guapo's exterior all the same.
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But Ozzy has a plan. He relays it.
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"Amigo," Juan says, "you're serious?"
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"Ozzy," Alice says, "that's your sister."
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Ozzy doubles down.
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Alice turns to the breach point. The Leopold is more than halfway through now. The tether anchors are visible, halfway along its length, the cables still slack. Once they pull taut, the clock starts.
Juan points toward where Helios floats. "Wilbur, floor the ship right through her."
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"Aye aye, Captain."
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El Guapo turns, lines up and begins accelerating straight at the burning figure in the black.
Helios watches the van coming. She watches her brother on the roof, covered in drones, lasers cutting at the van beneath him.
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Helios lets out a long sigh.
"So that's how you've been hiding for so long. In that stupid sword."
She does not move. She looks mildly annoyed.
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Ozzy gathers himself and releases a concentrated burst of energy, strengthening his drill shield as much as he has left, pouring everything into it for what is about to happen.
Inside the cabin, the heat is already unbearable. Juan takes cover on the floor, leaving it to Alice. She activates El Guapo's heat shields and holds her course.
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The drones closest to Helios begin to melt. Then explode, one after another, combusting in a ripple of dancing fireworks as the van bores forward through her legs.
Ozzy's drill shield throws plasma in every direction, catching more of the drones as they try to hold on and incinerating them where they cling.
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They melt into metallic teardrops that float away into the void of space.
Helios is completely unfazed. Her lower body passes through the van and her upper body remains perfectly intact above it. She looks down through the roof at her little brother.
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"Ozzy," she says. "You need to grow up."
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Ozzy sticks his tongue out at her as he passes. [ ;p ]
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Inside the cabin, every surface is burning. Alarms scream from every panel. Juan is flat on the floor with a puddle of sweat beneath him, one arm shielding his face.
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"Captain," Wilbur says, with genuine curiosity, "did you run us through a sun?"
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Alice is tracking her calculations and does not answer.
Helios watches Ozzy clear her body, making faces at her.
Her patience thins. "Ozzy," she says, "don't make me break your toys."
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Ozzy's emoji screen stops.
An angry red emoji appears.
He won't let her hurt his friends.
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El Guapo clears the far side of Helios. Her body reforms behind them as if nothing has passed through it.
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"Ozzy, drop your shields!" Alice screams, opening the rear cargo ramp.
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Ozzy releases his shields without question.
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From the open ramp, the gold and the drugs pour out in every direction, bars and bricks and wrapped packages tumbling backward in a wide spray toward Helios.
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Ozzy sees his hard-earned loot being jettisoned as chaff.
His emoji screen reads: [ :”> ]
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4.8
El Guapo swings hard toward the breach point.
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The Leopold is nearly through, only the propulsion section remaining, sliding steadily out through the aperture.
Alice drops the heat shields to free her sensors and watches the tether cables. Slack. Still slack.
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Juan briefs them quickly.
"We can't outrun her. She moves at light speed. But with angles and timing, we can counter her."
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Behind them, Helios stares into the expanding cloud of chaff. Gold bars tumble apart. Drug bricks rupture and bloom into powder, thickening the screen in front of her, cutting off her sightlines. She moves through it slowly, scanning.
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"Ozzy," she says to herself, "why are you always running?" She continues through the chaff like it's a curtain she barely notices. "Why do you fear your destiny?"
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She doesn't see Auger's fighter until it is nearly on her. Not that it really bothers her.
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Auger has no time to adjust. Helios's invisible heat field catches the nose of his ship first, the hull softening, warping back.
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He punches the eject mechanism. The escape pod blows clear, tumbling into the debris cloud, where the still-molten gold finds it immediately.
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Burning pieces of the chaff puncture the pod's glass door. Golden shrapnel sprays the interior of Auger's escape pod and blisters him. He covers his body with his arms in a desperate attempt to shield himself.
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It's too late as the gold peppers him. The pieces continue to burn as they embed themselves into his flesh. His body, his face, covered in smoldering golden leprosy caused by the discarded blood money.
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The pressure drops and Auger scrambles for an air mask, pressing it against his already destroyed face while the gold continues to burn.
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Back in El Guapo, Juan finishes laying out the plan.
"Mija, it all really comes down to you. The timing and trajectory need to be locked in."
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"I'm locked in, Juan." Her voice is steady and sure. "We're going to get out of here."
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She looks at the Leopold. It has cleared the breach point.
The tethers pull taut.
She sees it happen, and the breach ring lurches free of the breach point. The kaleidoscopic swirl begins to close in at the edges, its diameter shrinking slowly.
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The chaff finally clears from Helios.
She scans the dark void. She finds the van and blazes toward it.
It will take her only moments.
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Ozzy sees her move. He and Alice work the timing together, quietly, counting.
One one-thousand.
Two one-thousand.
Three one-thousand.
Four one-thousand.
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"Now."
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El Guapo drops. Helios clears the van by inches, overshooting, her momentum carrying her past.
She slows, recalculating. Decides to cut them off instead of chasing. She lines up ahead of their trajectory, and disappears in a flash.
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Ozzy reads her the moment she commits.
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He gives the signal.
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Alice waits.
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One one-thousand. Two one-thousand.
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"Now."
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Wilbur throws El Guapo into a loop, rolling hard away from Helios's lead point, inverting, coming out of the arc aimed directly at the Leopold.
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The breach point is half its original size.
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Security drones have clustered so thick around the Leopold that the ship has nearly disappeared behind their swarming black shells.
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Helios misses for the second time.
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She laughs, light and unbothered.
"Ozzy," she says to the stars, "why do you waste all your talent on these stupid games?"
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She looks up and fires toward them. She's decided to sacrifice some speed so she can maneuver to catch them.
Even at reduced speed she will intercept them in no time.
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El Guapo hits the drone swarm head-on. Ozzy activates his drill shield and the van begins boring through the layers, but the swarm is dense enough to push back, slowing him down by pure mass.
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Helios burns a clean hole through the same swarm, closing fast on El Guapo. The van continues its trajectory toward the belly of the Red Moon Leopold.
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4.9
Alice feels the weight of it settle on her.
One miscalculation, wrong angle, wrong timing, a fraction of a second off, and the crew will end here. Instantaneously, without even knowing it has happened.
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The tangled swarm of security drones forces them to fly blind.
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She keeps her focus narrow and lets the math run. She can only navigate in her calculations now.
Ozzy can feel his sister's heat behind him, building.
"Turn!"
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Wilbur begins the turn toward the aft of the Leopold, but the physics won't cooperate. El Guapo is moving too fast, the arc too tight.
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The van can't make it.
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The van is set to collide with the enemy vessel.
Ozzy and Alice know this turn is impossible for a normal ship.
But this is not a normal ship. And this is not a normal crew.
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Ozzy stabs all four wings into the Leopold's hull.
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The sudden anchor yanks El Guapo around the corner, a violent, impossible ninety-degree turn that hits the cabin like a wall.
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Juan and Alice are pressed toward the roof, the G-forces dragging everything that isn't bolted down. Juan grabs Alice's orb to protect it. They stay pinned to the roof for a moment, before gravity normalizes and drops them. Juan spins to land on his back, while he secures Alice's orb.
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"Juan! Are you okay?"
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"Focus, mija!"
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The turn brings them clear of both the Leopold and Helios's approach vector. She comes in on a straight line and finds the drone swarm blocking her view of the ship.
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Too late. She can't adjust and she drives straight through the Leopold's hull.
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Cut to the interior of the Leopold.
Inside, in a large ship hangar, a company of Red Moon soldiers has assembled for a briefing: the familiar faces of goblins, trolls, orcs, gremlins, ogres, and some new additions, minotaurs, dark elves, and werewolves.
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Briefing them is a cyclops who would dwarf Kryoc.
While the cyclops commander delivers his war rally, he kicks a nearby gremlin soldier hard enough to send him airborne.
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The cyclops commander strides back to the center of the hangar.
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The hangar erupts into a blast of golden light and solar radiation.
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Helios passes through the hull like a hot knife through butter. In a second, she incinerates the cyclops commander, leaving only the heavy smell of burnt metal and the faint scent of singed flesh.
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She leaves gaping holes in every floor and ceiling she passes through. The ship's emergency sealing foam systems activate.
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The soldiers stare at the holes.
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Stare at each other.
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Trying to understand what has just happened to their commander, who, from their perspective, vanished into thin air.
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Then the alarms start. The overhead sprinklers open up and drench the entire hangar in a downpour, and the assembled company of Red Moon soldiers stands in it, still processing.
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Return to the Leopold's exterior.
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Outside, Helios has changed everything the security drones are doing.
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They abandon El Guapo the moment she breaches the hull, pulling away from the van and converging on the gaping holes in the Leopold's exterior, wedging themselves in tight, bodies packed together to seal the gap.
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Once locked in, they go still, deactivating. Other drones latch onto them from outside and begin welding, using their cutting lasers to fuse the emergency patch, to restore hull integrity.
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El Guapo clears the end of the Leopold.
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"Get in, Ozzy!"
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Alice opens the cargo bay roof. Ozzy pulls his wings free and crawls through. He collapses in the center of the cargo bay.
Exhausted.
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His emoji screen shows his exhausted emoticon [ (x_x) ]
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He needs a nap. He has definitely earned it.
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Helios punches through the top of the Leopold and clears it. She looks up and finds El Guapo, and sees the breach point, now a little larger than the van, closing.
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Juan, Alice, and Wilbur are all screaming as El Guapo punches through the breach point.
Helios launches toward the portal at full speed.
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She whiffs.
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Helios flies through the empty void that has replaced the vanishing breach point.
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She comes to a stop and floats there, the Leopold behind her, the asteroid belt all around. She double-checks where the breach was. Still nothing.
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Space has sealed itself smooth, as if the opening never existed.
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She erupts into a brief burning solar flare in a flashing attempt to burn off some rage.
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"Damn it, Ozzy. You know I don't like going outside."
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She looks around at the quiet of the belt. Then slowly, she settles, lowering herself into a reclined float, arms behind her head, letting the drift take her.
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"This game of hide and seek," she says to herself, watching the stars, "is far from over."
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4.10
A security drone finds Auger's escape pod.
It latches on with all four arms and runs its scan.
Auger's golden blotches glisten in the red light. Then the drone spins around and begins warming up its tail rocket.
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Auger presses himself into the back of the pod and braces.
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The glowing light of the rocket starts to dim.
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The rocket tail doesn't fire.
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The drone pauses.
A call comes in on the pod's battered comm window, and the face that appears on it is the orc in the grey pinstriped suit, reclining comfortably on the other side of the glass.
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He looks Auger up and down. Analyzing. Judging.
He speaks at length. The cold, calm way a disappointed father scolds a child.
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Auger winces through his burns and his missing eye and nods. Reluctantly. Repeatedly.
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The Company Man raises one finger. Draws it slowly across his throat.
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The call ends.
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Auger sits alone in the ruined pod, in the dark, with all his new problems arranged in front of him. The drone starts dragging his escape pod toward the Leopold.
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El Guapo soars through a cosmic wonderland.
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Color is everywhere, vivid, fractal, dancing, alive, forming a tunnel that surrounds the van on every side. Swirling patterns of light and frequency that shift and fold through each other in a cross-dimensional dance.
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Juan and Alice sit in the cabin and let it wash over them.
"Wilbur," Alice says, "where are we?"
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Wilbur's voice is quieter than usual. "Queen Alice, we are in the Spectrum Nexus. It is theorized to be the home of every frequency, every vibration ever created, past, present, and future, across all universes. Time behaves differently here. It may take us a minute or ten to fully traverse it, and where we exit..." He pauses. "That I cannot tell you."
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Juan puts his boots up on the dash. Finally, a chance to relax.
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"Mija," he says, "you were fantastic back there. You're not just learning, you're adapting. At an extraordinary rate."
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Alice watches the colors move for a moment before she answers. "We all did this together. I couldn't have done it without you, Ozzy, or Wilbur."
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"Thank you, Queen Alice," Wilbur says softly.
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Juan looks at the swirling light ahead. "I'll tell you this: people are like bags of tea. You only find out what they're worth when you put them in boiling water." He glances over at her. "I'm proud of you."
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Alice lets that sit. She thinks about everything that has happened since they entered that ship: the zero-gravity cavalry battle, the room full of tubes, building El Guapo in under eight minutes, Wilbur, Ozzy's true form, Ozzy’s sister.
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All of it, in sequence, playing back like she's studying film.
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But one image starts to overtake everything.
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The image of Juan's chest, and what lives inside it, and her processing stutters slightly at the edges.
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"I learned a lot," she says. "About myself. About you and Ozzy." She hesitates, then decides to ask. "That thing in your chest, what was it? It had so much darkness, so much sadness in it."
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Juan takes a slow breath and lets it out.
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"All I know," he says, "is that some people call it the Black Amrit, others call it a Voidling, to me it's El Coco. And it's what killed me five hundred years ago, and keeps forcing me back to life."
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Alice does her best to process all that. She realizes that she won't get any easy answers from him.
"I'll tell you that story another time," Juan says. "It's just a little too heavy for right now. Let's enjoy a hard-earned victory."
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There's something else. Something Alice has always noticed in the background of her consciousness.
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A faint orchestra of voices. Sad voices. Angry voices.
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Even now, somewhere beneath the ambient hum of the Spectrum Nexus, she can hear it, faint voices, layered, speaking in muffled, unintelligible murmurs.
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Something that has been there all along, beneath everything.
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"I can hear them," she says. "Those voices. It's faint, but I can hear them if I focus. Is that where they come from? From El Coco?"
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Juan looks down. He carries a burden that is difficult to share.
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"I’m sorry, but yes. Those voices have been with me for the last five hundred years.” Juan returns his gaze to Alice. “I hear them all the time, Nowadays it's more like background noise. Like a big city at night."
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"Is there a way to quiet it down?"
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Juan smiles, slow, tired, genuine. "Yes. Music."
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"Music."
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Alice looks at him. She thinks about his very first request, back on the stolen Illuminati shuttle, barely a week into their strange new life, insisting she upload his entire media library before she'd done anything else. Before she'd even hacked the ship's systems.
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It makes a different kind of sense now.
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"You know," she says, "that makes a lot of sense. I can see how it soothes the savage beast."
She starts playing music. An upbeat rock song, about someone with a sweet tooth holding hands with cosmic entities, flows out of El Guapo's surround system.
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Juan relaxes and closes his eyes. "You know, mija, you did a really good job with this ship."
El Guapo drifts deeper into the swirling void of the Spectrum Nexus, color on every side, sound filling the cabin.
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Juan and Alice continue listening to the song as the dancing colored light fills the cabin.
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Wilbur pops up on the screen. His little bat foot is tapping to the rhythm.
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The music fills the cargo bay, where Ozzy is resting. His emoji screen awakens with a [ (^_~) ]
Then his screen starts nodding to the music.
His emoji screen ends on [ ( ^.^ ) ]
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All four of them relax into the vibe of the music. All of them think the same thought at the same time: This is a good song.
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A five-hundred-year-old vampire, a beautiful AI construct, a star child trapped in a sword, and a kawaii bat computer, riding in a ruggedly handsome space van, continue onward through their galactic odyssey.
The hands of Fortune, slowly shaping their journey ahead.
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End Chapter 4. End Act 1.
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and then Add to home screen.