Книга: The Disknee World

THE DISKNEE WORLD

THE DELTA TEAM – BOOK 2

BY M. D. COOPER

Just in Time (JIT) & Beta Readers

Version 1.0.0

Cover Art by Andrew Dobell

Editing by Jen McDonnell, Bird’s Eye Books

Aeon 14 & M. D. Cooper are registered trademarks of Michael Cooper

TABLE OF CONTENTS

FOREWORD

PREVIOUSLY…

DOCKING AND DWARVES

DWARVES AND UNDOCKING

THE CAMP AND THE KINGDOM

DELIVERY

THE ROYAL PALACE™

THE FAIRLY GOODMOTHER

DECEPTION

THE DARK FOREST™

EVICTED

DEPARTURE

TRUTH TIME

COOLING OFF

A NEW LOOK

FACE IN THE MIRROR

ACCEPTANCE

THE TEAM

THE GOODMOTHERS

THE BOOKS OF AEON 14

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

FOREWORD

The Delta Team stories were originally released in the Pew Pew! Anthologies I released in 2017 and 2018. They came out as five separate stories, but the three Disknee World ones all covered the same short time span. When I went over the tales, deciding to touch them up and re-release them, I decided to combine the middle three into one book.

This is what you’re about to read.

In going over the Disknee World story, I found myself laughing aloud and shaking my head at the team’s antics more than once. I really enjoyed this rewrite, and I think it’s just what my spirits needed at this time.

The Delta Team story that follows this one is already written, but I have a plan to add in a second half to what was originally released. After that, we’ll see where their tale leads—though I have a few ideas. One of which will be to have them run into Sabrina…trust me, that’ll be a riot.

OK, without further ado, let’s get to it.

M. D. Cooper

Danvers, 2019

PREVIOUSLY…

Cue the music.

In 8913, a crack military unit was court-martialed and sent to a maximum-security prison for stealing the general’s wife’s cookie recipes. Colonel Ramsey and his team didn’t care for that, and promptly escaped, fleeing the core systems.

Today, they serve as soldiers of fortune, or whatever else will make them a buck.

If you have a problem, if no one else can help, and if you can find them (and they’re not too busy), then maybe you can hire the Delta Team.

OK, now that we have that out of the way….

Last year, the Delta Team took a job that had them make a stop in New Eden. There, they dealt with an organization that was not only making clones, but experimenting with alien organisms found on a moon in the outer system.

While New Eden is an independent system, it was entirely too close to the core worlds for the Delta Team, and they decided to exit stage left, roughly 110 light years to the Haydes Cluster.

Of course, everyone knows that the Haydes Cluster is the home of the famous Disknee World! When a message comes in about a job on the vacation planet, Lashes convinces Ramsey to go and have a little R&R mixed in with their work….

DOCKING AND DWARVES

STELLAR DATE: 03.07.8949 (Adjusted Years)

LOCATION: Van, Neverevereverland Station

REGION: Disknee System, Independent, Haydes Cluster

Lashes walked into the rec room, luggage in tow, when Stick’s voice came over the audible address system.

“Thank you for flying Air Delta, this is your captain, Stick, speaking from the flight deck. We’re just settling down in the cradle at Neverevereverland Station, where the temperature is a lovely twenty-four degrees, and a crew of dwarves appear to be ready to unload your luggage.”

The pilot paused her recitation to hiss into the mic, approximating the sound of static, and Lashes dropped her bag to hold her hands over her ears.

“Shit, Stick,” she muttered when the other woman finally stopped the noise, resuming her speech.

“Please ensure your seat backs and tray tables are in an upright position, and don’t forget to gather all your belongings before you disembark.”

“Shut up, fool,” BAMF hollered as she entered the rec room, her face a mask of rage.

No response came from the passage leading to the bridge, and the large woman grunted in satisfaction.

“What’s a tray table?” Lashes asked as she smoothed her powder blue skirt before picking up her bag. “Some sort of combination of a tray and a table? I always thought that trays were just little tables.”

“Are you really trying to understand the crazy shit that comes out of Stick’s mouth?” BAMF asked, her scowl deepening. “I’m waiting outside, I wanna make sure those friggin’ dwarves don’t touch anything. Little buggers love to stick their fingers everywhere.”

“OK, but please don’t swear at them,” Lashes called after BAMF, doing her best to ignore the double entendre. “This is a family vacation world. They don’t hold with cursing here.”

Her words were met with BAMF’s middle finger as the engineer stomped down the corridor.

Ramsey walked into the rec room, chuckling softly. “She’s going to love it here.”

“At least she found some clothes to wear that aren’t covered in horrid slogans.” Lashes breathed a sigh of relief. The last thing she needed was BAMF ruining her plan.

Ramsey chuckled absently. “Yeah, they don’t even have any graphic holos showing dismemberment. A bit of a miracle.”

The colonel’s gaze had grown distant, and Lashes wondered what had distracted him.

“Something wrong? You have ‘bothered face’.”

The colonel sighed, his expression growing more troubled. “It’s these damn Fusion Passes. You only get a few, so you have to pick the rides each day that you really want to go on. I don’t know if I want to go on Admiral Tong’s Empire Bash, or the Tyrannosaurus Rex’s Tower of Tyrannical Terror.”

“Uhmm…Colonel? Aren’t we here to help an old friend of yours find out what is behind a string of disappearances in The Dark Forest?”

Ramsey’s eyes met Lashes’, and the end of the carrot sticking out of his mouth waggled as he chewed. “Yeah…. Your point being, Lieutenant?”

“Ah, well, if we’re supposed to be on a case—you know, helping your friend Ronnie—will we really have time to go on rides?”

“Lashes, as our infiltration specialist, I would expect you to know better. No one visits this place without using their Fusion Passes. It would be the height of lunacy. We’d stand out like sore di—”

“Ready to disembark!” Stick called out, interrupting Ramsey as she sauntered into the ship’s rec room.

Lashes looked over Stick’s outfit and let out a long sigh while Ramsey covered his mouth to hide a smile.

“Stiiick,” Lashes whined the pilot’s name. “You can’t dress like that here! There are kids and stuff.”

Stick looked down at her skin-tight leather catsuit and fluffed the frilly pink skirt she wore overtop. “What? I’m not wearing a corset, and I left the whip, cuffs, and chains in my quarters.”

“Galaxy is full of weird shit,” Ramsey said, chuckling softly. “Don’t worry, Lashes. Stick will fit right in.”

“Fine.” Lashes ground out the word as she turned and walked down the rear passageway toward the airlock. Ramsey followed after, striking up a conversation with Girl, the ship’s AI.

He was giving her instructions about keeping the Van safe, but Lashes paid little attention. Mostly because the discussion quickly became one-sided, with Girl whining about how bored she’d be, and asking if she could play with the dwarves.

The conversation finally ended with Ramsey shouting, “No! No! No!” in a thunderous voice that echoed through the ship.

Lashes approved. Dwarves were shifty characters, usually up to no good. Especially with all their singing and excessive construction projects.

At the end of the corridor, Lashes found the airlock to be wide open, and walked out onto the ramp leading down to the ground, stopping halfway. “Oh, my….”

Before her stood BAMF, scowling at a group of dwarves who were hooking up the power and recycling conduits to the Van. That in and of itself was not odd. This wasn’t the first station they had visited that was run by dwarves—though, hopefully, they wouldn’t see a repeat of what had happened last time….

No, her amazed utterance came from the scenery around the ship’s berth.

Lashes had expected Neverevereverland’s docking bays to be standard fare, maybe with holo trees and flowers decorating the bulkheads—but that was laughable compared to what she saw.

The ship rested in a broad clearing bordered by tall trees, their leaves rustling in a soft breeze. Above, rather than a docking bay’s overhead, was a blue sky hung with fluffy white clouds. There were even flocks of birds gliding on the air currents.

In the distance, she could see rolling hills and, beyond those, a few mountains—one of which appeared to be a volcano, with smoke drifting lazily from its peak.

“Hi!” a squeaky voice said behind her.

Lashes jumped half out of her skin before turning to see a small creature hovering in the air next to her head. The tiny, winged woman couldn’t be more than ten centimeters tall, with purple glitter falling from her wings.

After staring wide-eyed for a moment, Lashes asked, “Are you a fairy?”

“Fairy?” the creature said with a snort. “Don’t be silly. Fairy. Where did you learn to differentiate mystical creatures? I’m a pixie! I pix!”

“But are…are you real?” she asked, wondering if the pixie was a holoprojection.

As Lashes spoke, the small, winged humanoid landed on her shoulder and pinched her ear. “That real enough for you, Miss Lashes?” the pixie said loudly before whispering. “Everything is ready, he won’t suspect a thing.”

“Shhhh, he’ll hear you,” Lashes whispered before raising her voice back to normal. “Uh…OK, that’s good to hear.”

“Yes, it’s great!” the pixie said, and leapt off Lashes’ shoulder and fluttered around her head. “My name is Vivia! I’ll be your guide while you’re here in Neverevereverland™, and in the rest of The Disknee World™!”

A shout from below caught Lashes’ attention, and she saw BAMF waving her fists at the dwarves.

“If you touch that, I’ll come over there and rip your beards off,” the engineer yelled at the diminutive men, who hollered back something about the ship’s cooling vanes.

“BAMF!” Lashes called. “Leave them be. We don’t need another incident.”

BAMF barked a parting obscenity at the dwarves before she turned and walked toward Lashes. Upon reaching the ramp, the engineer caught sight of Vivia, and scowled anew. “What the fuck is this thing?”

Vivia flew toward BAMF, purple glitter filling the air. “Oh my! Miss BAMF, we can’t have you using language like that in Neverevereverland™—or anywhere in The Disknee World™. The monkeys won’t stand for it.” Vivia stopped right in front of BAMF’s nose, waving a tiny finger at the large woman.

“I don’t know about no monkeys, but you can tell the dwarves that we do too have the right cooling vanes for our fusion reactor. They can keep their tiny little hands to themselves…” BAMF turned toward the dwarves and bellowed, “And off my ship!”

Several of the dwarves jumped up and down, faces red with anger, but none approached, apparently cowed by BAMF’s size and generally bad attitude.

Vivia fluttered around BAMF’s head, clearly agitated by her behavior. “Miss BAMF, the dwarves are only trying to help. It’s not their fault, they just like to tinker!”

“Yeah, well they can tinker on this!” BAMF turned and gave the dwarves the finger, causing a fresh round of jeers and shouts of outrage to come from the crowd below.

“Take it easy, BAMF, seriously,” Lashes said. “Girl will keep the ship safe.”

BAMF only grunted in response, and Vivia furrowed her miniscule brow. “What does ‘BAMF’ mean, anyway?”

“Bad A—” BAMF began, when Lashes interrupted her.

“Big Admirable Mushy Female.”

“I’m about to rain some pity on the fool who thinks she can mess with my name,” BAMF said as she turned to Lashes with a fist held high.

“Oh my!” Vivia exclaimed.

The pixie flew toward BAMF again, this time with her tiny wand raised. Lashes was afraid they were about to be kicked out of The Disknee World™ before they’d even gotten off the space station.

Luckily, Ramsey appeared in the airlock and walked down the ramp with Stick at his side—the pilot now sporting a jaunty pink hat in addition to her frilly skirt.

“Ah, you must be our guide through Neverevereverland!” Ramsey exclaimed as he saw Vivia. The colonel then lowered his voice and whispered conspiratorially as he gave an exaggerated wink. “Excellent. I’m told these woods are teeming with pirates, highwaymen, and all manner of villains.”

“Oh yes,” Vivia nodded emphatically. “You’d best keep close and stay on the beaten path until we get to the Lost Boys’ Camp™. The woods near the sea can be perilous.”

“I’d love to see the sea,” Ramsey said, looking around the clearing.

“Colonel,” Stick said, leaning in toward Ramsey, and speaking in the loud hissing voice she believed to be a whisper. “We’re still on the space station. This isn’t a real forest on a planet. There’s no sea.”

“Are you sure?” Ramsey asked with a slow wink. “I don’t see anything but this glade, the forest, and the blue sky. No sign of a space station at all.”

“Ohhhh hooo…” Vivia said as she flew toward Stick. “Are you a villain in disguise? How delightful! You’ll have to visit The Dark Realm while you’re here. That is, if The Prince™ doesn’t lock you up in the dungeon first.”

“Dungeon?” Stick asked nervously.

“She’s kidding,” Lashes whispered to Stick as Vivia flittered around the group.

“Come now, leave your bags here. The dwarves will see that they make it to your rooms in The Royal Palace™,” the pixie said as she began to lead the group down the path, sprinkling pixie dust in her wake. After several meters, she turned to see that the group hadn’t moved, and darted back. “Is something wrong?”

“Over my dead body will I let dwarves carry my bag,” BAMF said.

“I assure you, Miss BAMF, The Disknee World™ takes great pride in ensuring your belongings are safe.”

“Oh yeah? Then why’d they hire dwarves? Shifty little buggers…”

“Just carry your bag,” Lashes said.

“I think I’ll carry all the bags,” BAMF replied, grabbing the seven duffels at the foot of the ramp—four belonging to Lashes, and one each for the others. “Lead on, fairy.”

“I’ll have you know that the last person who called me a—” Vivia began, but Lashes shot her a cautionary look.

Vivia’s tiny brow furrowed, but she didn’t say anything further—though a large explosion of pixie dust erupted from her tiny form as she led them out of the clearing.

They hadn’t made it one hundred meters down the winding path through the forest when BAMF asked, “How far is it? I’m hungry.”

“Oh, not far,” Vivia responded brightly, the engineer’s insult seemingly forgotten. “It’s also just a few minutes to The Lost Boys’ Camp™. There, we can stop and get some food, and you can take a swim, or we can keep going to the volcano.”

“To the volcano?” Lashes asked.

“Yes, yes, that’s our first stop after the camp. That’s where the tunnel is that leads to The Enchanted Kingdom™. There, you may even meet The Prince™ and The Princess™!” Vivia sang the words as she flew in circles around their heads.

As the group continued down the path, Vivia regaled them with stories about the wonders of Pixie Grove™, the tree of life, and all the fun the pixies had there.

“Can we see it?” Lashes asked.

Vivia frowned and shook her head. “Oh no, you’re all far too big. Maybe if we were to make you small. I have the magic to do that, though I’ve never done four people before. Should I try?”

She flew toward Lashes with her wand raised, and Lashes ducked back, hiding behind BAMF while the surly woman swatted at the pixie.

“No! No thanks, I don’t think I want to be small,” Lashes said, playing along with the pixie’s games.

Vivia shrugged. “Probably a good thing. You don’t have any wings. It would take you forever to get to Pixie Grove™ on foot. You’d probably get eaten by a crocodile. Gotta watch out for those. Luckily, most have clocks stuck in them, and you can hear the tick-tocking before they get close.”

“Crocodiles? Is that normal?” Ramsey asked. “I never thought that Neverevereverland™ was a dangerous place.”

Vivia flew over to Ramsey, about to answer, when a cry sounded from the trees.

Lashes laughed with delight as a group of pirates swung out of the trees and landed on the path. Their leader wore a large, black hat and a hook on his left hand. In his other, he brandished a sword.

“Empty your purses, ye land lubbers! Or be prepared to taste my blade.”

“Our,” one of the pirates said. “I think it will be our blades. I mean…we all have swords and they have none.”

“Well that’s not fair at all,” Vivia announced, and swung her wand through the air. There was a brilliant flash, and suddenly everyone in the team was holding long, curved swords.

“This feels real,” Lashes exclaimed, running a finger along the blade’s edge. “How—”

“Get them!” the lead pirate shouted, and then the battle was joined.

BAMF dropped the bags she was holding, and leapt into the fray. “I pity the pirate that thinks they can get my purse!” She slashed at one of the enemies before cold-cocking another in the head.

Lashes lunged at a pirate, grinning like a fool as she nimbly dodged another. The skirmish continued for several minutes, during which a few more pirates fell to the team’s blades.

Eventually, the one with the hook called out, “You may have bested us this time, but we’ll be waiting for you on the return trip!”

The pirates that had been lying on the ground—their wounds bloodless—suddenly rose up, and scampered off into the bushes.

“How unseemly those pirates are,” Vivia exclaimed before waving her wand once more, causing the team’s swords to disappear.

“Wow!” Stick exclaimed. “That was great, how did you do that?”

“Why, Miss Stick, with magic, of course.”

Ramsey laughed and slapped the pilot on the back. “We should have come here years ago.”

DWARVES AND UNDOCKING

STELLAR DATE: 03.07.8949 (Adjusted Years)

LOCATION: Van, Neverevereverland Station

REGION: Disknee System, Independent, Haydes Cluster

Girl gave a mental sigh as she watched the crew disappear down the path and into the trees. She could have followed them further with the ship’s infrared scanning systems and active sensors, but stations—even ones as odd as Neverevereverland—didn’t like it when you ran active scan inside them.

Something about irradiating the populace…. She’d learned that lesson the hard way.

Girl had learned a lot of things the hard way.

Just because she was an AI, everyone assumed that she automatically knew everything. She did possess knowledge—as much as anyone with access to the ship’s databases—but that didn’t automatically translate into understanding what to do with said knowledge.

Like the time she had filled up the colonel’s quarters with water because he said he’d kill to have a pool on the starship. It seemed perfect to her; she’d spent a lot of time making sure the lower third of the room was watertight, and then sourced an inflatable bed for him.

It had seemed like a thoughtful surprise.

Unfortunately, the colonel wasn’t amused. Not even a little bit.

She’d often heard people say ‘It’s the thought that counts’, but the colonel hadn’t even thanked her for her consideration. Instead, he had nearly removed her core and threatened to delete all her thoughts. Permanently.

Girl had resigned herself to the fact that no one really understood her, and that neither would she ever really understand them. It had been the same with her previous owners. Back then, in an effort to fit in better, Girl had watched a lot of human vids. She had observed that females who behaved foolishly and made a lot of sexually charged comments were generally well-liked.

She enjoyed the human stories, and over the years, had watched millions of vids, carefully crafting her personality until she had arrived where she was today.

As Girl.

Despite her efforts, she wasn’t certain that the crew actually liked her, but they seemed to be amused by her. Also, when she screwed up—which was more often than she’d like to admit—they were generally forgiving, which she took as a good sign.

After a while, she’d come to understand why they were so forgiving; Girl had allowed herself to be relegated to the role of ‘useful pet’.

As demeaning as that designation was, she’d resigned herself to it. She was an AI. A sentient one, too, she was sure of it…. But sentient or no, she was a part of the ship, and as such, was owned by whoever owned the ship.

Right now, that was Colonel Ramsey, though BAMF behaved as though she owned the ship, and so did Stick, to an extent. Lashes was really the only one who acted like she just lived here.

Spotting the signs of a downward spiral, Girl pulled herself out of her melancholic thoughts and looked over her to-do list. Try as she might, it never seemed to get shorter. Part of that was due to the fact that the crewmembers were all slobs.

For starters, the rec room was a disaster; she didn’t even want to know what strange organism was growing under the right-side sofa cushion. The kitchen looked like it had been attacked by flying monkeys, and the bathrooms were all littered with BAMF’s smelly workout clothes—not to mention Lashes’ hair products, and whatever all those straps were that Stick currently had hanging in the laundry closet.

The bridge was really the only clean place on the ship, and that was because Stick typically chased visitors to her domain away with her riding crop, which left it largely unused.

Deciding on the tasks to handle first, Girl fired up the AutoVac™ and set it to do a deep scrub on the rec room’s floor. One good thing about the crew going off to the Disknee World was that she might just have enough time to clean the entire ship before they returned and reduced it to a flying disaster all over again.

As the AutoVac™ worked its way across the rec room floor, almost clogging up three times before it had gone ten meters, she brought out the WetMopr™, and swung the two machines around one another, weaving them across the floor in an intricate dance.

She drove one of the general service bots around them, directing it to pick up the socks, takeout containers, and various undergarments before the vacuum hit them and blew out another belt.

It was annoying that she had to do this. She was as intelligent as any of the crew—probably more than BAMF and Stick combined. But here she was, their highly evolved maid, destined to deal with the never-ending flow of detritus and bits of their bodies that organics seemed to spread everywhere.

As she was throwing the first load of clothing that she’d found around the ship into one of the sanitizers, her sensors picked up a voice outside the airlock.

“Look, Porty, we gotta do this today, and we gotta do it fast. Our main ride broke down, and you know he won’t take no for an answer. This here ship is our ticket. We gotta use it.”

The voice was gruff, almost guttural. Girl didn’t even have to use her optics to know what was outside her airlock.

Dwarves.

For the most part, Girl liked dwarves. She’d encountered them on a few stations, usually in orbit of high-g worlds. Those dwarves were a product of human adaptation.

The dwarves at the Neverevereverland Station were quite different, being characters at a theme world. For starters, they were a touch thinner, and much hairier. Their beards were long, and they wore colorful clothing and shoes with little bells on the ends.

Earlier, when they had been working on the ship, they had been singing a jaunty tune, laughing, and drinking no small amount from their flasks. The dwarves at her airlock, however, seemed to be in a much more serious mood.

Clothing and moods aside, there was one thing that was a constant with dwarves: BAMF hated them. If BAMF knew that Girl had let dwarves onto the ship, she’d rip out half of Girl’s optical sensors. Therefore, the dwarves had to stay out.

Except they were already in.

Somehow, the dwarves had gained access to the outer airlock door, and were within the ‘lock, cycling it to enter the ship.

Without a second thought, Girl rushed the cleaning bots to the airlock doors, ready to defend the ship—and her honor, if needs be—against the small intruders.

A moment later, the inner door opened, and she saw four of the small, stout humans…well, sort of humans. They were all men—wait, no, one was a woman. Maybe. It was hard to tell; she was thinner, appeared to have breasts, and her beard sported a pair of ribbons. Not that Girl cared overmuch. Gender distinctions with organics were not terribly important to her.

Especially when said organics would be leaving momentarily.

“Oh ho!” the dwarf in the front of the group said. “What have we here? Do you cleaning bots deny us entrance to this vessel? We’re here to fix the cooling vanes, they’re not configured properly.”

“Who are you?” Girl asked, causing the WetMopr™ to brandish its mop handle menacingly. She wasn’t sure how to act when repair dwarves tried to board her unbidden, so she reverted to her typical demeanor. “Who said you could enter me with all those tools? Shouldn’t you get to know me first?”

“What?” the lead dwarf said, a puzzled look on his face. “Sure, we can get to know each other. I’m Bimmy. This here is Porty, next to him is Barney, and then over here is Laurie.” Bimmy gestured to each of the dwarves in turn.

Their faces were so obscured by their beards and hats that Girl decided to identify them by color. Bimmy had on a green shirt, Barney had on a bright blue scarf, Porty wore all red, and Laurie’s top was purple.

OK, the small, strange humans have been labeled for easy identification. Next step, get them off the ship.

“That’s great,” Girl answered. “I’m Girl, and you need to get off the ship. BAMF won’t be happy if she finds out you’re here.”

“Wait,” Barney, the blue-shirted one, said. “Did you say your name was Girl?”

“Yes,” Girl replied.

“As in G-I-R-L?” the dwarf pressed

“Yes, that is the way most people spell ‘girl’. And Girl is my name.” She was tempted to add her standard bit about the dwarves calling her whatever they wanted, but somehow, it seemed wrong with these four.

“Huh,” Barney replied. “OK. Seems a bit odd is all.”

“What do you want?” Girl asked. “You’re not allowed on the ship.”

“Well, we fixed the cooling vanes, and now we need to fire up the reactor to make sure it’s all working properly,” Bimmy said with a wink. “Can’t have the ship improperly cooled.”

“You weren’t supposed to touch the cooling vanes. I heard BAMF tell you that before she left. She was very explicit,” Girl admonished. “I’m starting to think that you’re not very good little dwarves at all. I might have to call management.”

She waggled the WetMopr™’s handle at them for good measure.

The dwarves all shared an uneasy look, but their leader spoke up without hesitation.

“Oh no, no need to call management.” Bimmy looked wounded, as though Girl had cut him to the core. “You wrong us, gracious Girl. We’re honest dwarves, looking to do a good day’s work. We know the large, angry woman didn’t want us touching your ship, but—”

“But those other vanes were the wrong model, and they were burning out. You would have had heat management issues that could have stopped you cold in space,” Barney interrupted.

“How do heat issues stop me cold?” Girl asked.

“Uhh….” Barney mumbled. “Porty, how does that work again?”

Porty rolled his eyes. “Because you have to stop and wait ‘til your reactor’s cold again. That’s how it stops you cold.”

“I guess that kinda makes sense,” Girl said dubiously.

“Right, of course it does.” Bimmy nodded vigorously as he pushed past the cleaning bots. “So we gotta take the ship out for a test drive to make sure it works right.”

“Whoa!” Girl replied. “Are you kidding?! You can’t fly the ship. Only Stick flies the ship. Well, sometimes BAMF does, but then Stick threatens to fight her, and it takes both Lashes and the colonel to break them up.”

Bimmy smiled. “But none of them are here, right? What they don’t know won’t hurt them.”

“I wouldn’t be so sure about that,” Girl muttered.

“It’s OK, Girl,” Bimmy said, his tone soothing. “I’ll be gentle. You just get this mop-bot here to lower that handle, and everything will be great.”

“What if I want you to touch my stick?” Girl asked, trying her wiles on the dwarf.

“Eh, what?” Bimmy asked and glanced back at the other dwarves before responding. “Are you saying that this bird has a flight stick?”

“Uhh…no, I meant the mop handle,” Girl replied, deciding to give up on her usual use of double entendre. “Seriously, though, you have to go. You’re intruding.”

“Porty,” Bimmy said with a sigh as he turned back to the other dwarves. “Use the box. Shut her down. We can’t dick around with this AI forever. I don’t think she’s even sentient. Just lock her down and pull the plug.”

Girl wasn’t sure how the dwarves could do what they’d threatened, but she saw the dwarf named Porty pull a small, black box out of a pocket and press his thumb into it.

She detected an EM field emanating from the box, and suddenly her sensors and data access points began to suffer from heavy interference. First she couldn’t reach the external sensors, then the ones on other levels became inaccessible. Datastores disconnected, and she found herself being forced back to her core.

“Wait! No!” she cried out. “You don’t have to lock me down all the way! It’s OK. I’ll be good. You can no dicking around…unless you want to.”

Shoot, that didn’t make any sense at all…. What did that box do to me?

“OK,” Bimmy said. “Porty, hold off for now. But if this crazy AI gives us trouble, you know what to do.”

“You got it,” Porty said. The blond dwarf seemed relieved.

Girl moved the cleaning bots aside, and Bimmy strode past, into the corridor that led to the rec room.

“Not the cleanest ship you have here, Girl.”

“Well, I was working on that when you so rudely interrupted.”

“Now, Girl,” Bimmy warned. “I don’t want that tone from you. We just need to do our little test drive, and we’ll be on our way.”

“Where are Laurie and Barney going?” Girl asked as the two dwarves took a side passage.

“Checking the reactor, remember? We just replaced the cooling vanes,” Bimmy said, glancing at Porty and drawing a circle in the air around his ear with his index finger.

Porty only shrugged in response and walked through the rec room to the corridor that led to the bridge. Girl wasn’t sure how he knew it led to the bridge; the only indicator was a sign on the bulkhead that read ‘Stick’s Domain – STAY OUT’.

She watched Bimmy follow Porty forward, while Barney and Laurie went aft to the engineering bay. She didn’t trust these dwarves one bit—but that black box Porty held seemed to be able to do a number on her sensors. She couldn’t do much to protect the Van if she was blind.

Girl noticed that Bimmy had a satchel slung over his shoulder, and he patted it several times as he walked onto the bridge. She tried to scan it passively, but it was shielded.

Whatever was in there was important to the lead dwarf. Maybe if she could get her hands on it—figuratively speaking—she could use it as a bargaining chip to get them off the Van.

“OK…Girl,” Bimmy said when the two dwarves had reached the bridge. “Activate the flight systems, and give Porty here control.”

Porty pulled himself up onto the flight seat and adjusted the height and armrests.

Oh, crap, Stick is going to notice that for sure. I can never get that seat just the way she likes…it’s the damn corset she’s always wearing. No one sits naturally in one of those.

Girl’s bad feeling was only getting worse, and she tried to think of a way to deny them access. “Ummm…I can’t. Stick set the flight systems to lockdown. Only she and the col—uhh…Ramsey can activate them.”

Bimmy turned to the closest optical sensor and stared up into it. An action that really wasn’t too threatening, given that his head barely rose past the nearest console.

“You’d better figure something out, or Porty’s going to have to use the box. You don’t want him to use the box, do you?”

<Just do it,> Porty said to Girl privately over the Link. 

<So don’t,> Girl replied. <No one has a gun to your head.>

She saw Porty’s shoulders droop as he let out a sigh. <No, but they won’t hesitate to use guns if we don’t get this ship going. I’m about as willing a participant in this as you are.>

Girl realized that she may have an ally in the reluctant dwarf.

<In what? Isn’t this just a test flight?>

<No, but you need to unlock the console to buy us some time.>

<Time for what?> Girl asked.

While she and Porty had been speaking privately over the Link, Bimmy had been growing more and more impatient. He started showing his annoyance by stomping his feet. When that didn’t work, the small man began jumping in the air.

“Unlock it now! Un—you know what? Forget it, Girl, you’re done. Porty—”

Bimmy turned to see the flight systems active and the console live.

“What the hell, Porty?” Bimmy asked. “Why didn’t you tell me she unlocked it?”

“I tried to,” Porty said. “But you seemed really into your little stomp-dance, and I didn’t want to disturb you. You had a good rhythm going.”

“Well…uh…OK, so what if I was? Get this tub ready to move, we’re on a tight schedule.”

Porty nodded and ran a quick pre-flight check. Girl watched him run through the procedures while she also kept an eye on Laurie and Barney in the engineering bay. She didn’t trust that these dwarves had the best of intentions, but at least those two were actually checking over the reactor cooling systems.

“Where are we going?” Girl asked on the bridge. “Is it far? The ship needs to fuel up if we’re going to jump to another system.”

“The ground crew is about to do that—once they’ve finished with the camouflage,” Bimmy replied.

Girl checked the external cameras to see a crew of dwarves painting over the Van’s broad red stripe with a new color. Pink.

This wasn’t good, not at all. BAMF hated pink. Not to mention, Girl had no idea how repainting a stripe was any sort of effective disguise.

“Where are we going?” she asked. “I can help file a flight plan with the Neverevereverland Station.”

“Never you mind where,” Bimmy grunted as he drummed his fingers on the flight console. “I’ve already taken care of all of our departure logs and flight plans. You just need to do…whatever it is you normally do when you’re not talking.”

Girl considered that for a moment. Usually, she picked up after the crew and tried to keep the ship in one piece. Considering how mad BAMF would be when she got back, maybe a clean ship would be just the thing to help the crew be a bit less irate when they learned that there had been dwarves aboard.

She reactivated the AutoVac™ and the WetMopr™, and returned them to the rec room. She gave a long sigh as she realized that there were now dirty dwarf footprints on the carpet as well.

It was as though everyone that came aboard the Van had been raised in a barn.

THE CAMP AND THE KINGDOM

STELLAR DATE: 03.07.8949 (Adjusted Years)

LOCATION: Lost Boys’ Camp, Neverevereverland Station

REGION: Disknee System, Independent, Haydes Cluster

Lashes had not spotted any other guests during the walk to The Lost Boys’ Camp™, but once the team arrived, the solitary feel instantly changed. The camp wasn’t crowded, per se, but a few hundred people wandered amongst the huts and wooden buildings, speaking with the lost boys, playing in the pools of water, going down slides, and eating and drinking at the bars and restaurants.

Within moments, BAMF spotted a long table covered with meats and pastries. She planted herself there, gorging till she was stuffed. The rest of the team joined her—though they ate at a more sedate pace—and were still working on dessert when BAMF declared herself full and left the table to swing from vines, landing in the deeper pools.

She completed four massive splashdowns, but then a pair of The Lost Boys™ asked her to stop because she was scaring the crocodiles.

The request was met with a small tantrum, threats to crush Vivia, who flitted about nervously, and then finally sulking until the others finished their meal and were ready to resume their journey to the tunnel beneath the volcano.

And so, well sated, they set out again. Though the remaining walk was not long, it was five hours after landing that the Delta Team finally reached a tunnel nestled between some low hills at the base of the volcano.

When Vivia had first referred to their destination as a tunnel, Lashes had worried that it would be a dark, yawning portal, which would have been impossible to get either Stick or BAMF through—depending on which one decided to act irrational that day. However, much to Lashes’ delight, the entrance was a broad thoroughfare draped with flower-laden vines, a line of horse-drawn carriages waiting to take visitors down to the planet’s surface.

“We’ve arrived!” Vivia exclaimed. “Oh, how wonderful, there’s almost no line. We shall arrive at The Enchanted Kingdom™ in just a short while!”

The team queued up and waited patiently—or impatiently, in BAMF’s case—until it was their turn to board a carriage[JM1].

A handsome cab pulled up, drawn by two black horses. The cabbie doffed his hat as they boarded the open carriage[JM2]. BAMF dropped the duffels at their feet, and without further ado, the team began their journey down the tunnel.

The walls inside were aglow, sparkling and crystalline in appearance. Lashes that they might be [JM3]translucent, and that some of the illumination may be coming from outside.

As she felt a slight gravitational shift, she wondered aloud, “Think this is the space elevator down to the surface?”

“Feels like it might be,” Ramsey said in agreement.

“But the station is hundreds of kilometers up,” Stick said with furrowed brow. “It’s going to take us days to get down there by horse.”

“Days? We don’t have days!” BAMF exclaimed, a worried look on her face. “Let’s get a move on!” She stood up inside the carriage and leapt into the front, alongside the cabbie. She snatched the reins from him and yelled, “Mush!”

The driver gasped and began to sputter indignantly. The horses were nonplussed and didn’t change their gait until BAMF leaned over the front of the carriage, and punched one in the hindquarters.

“I said, MUSH!”

The horse looked back, eye widening as it caught sight of BAMF half out of the carriage, lining up her boot for a solid kick. Without further hesitation, the animal reared up and took off down the gentle slope.

“Ma’am! Ma’am! Stop!” the cabbie cried out, finally finding his voice, while Vivia flitted to and fro above the carriage, wringing her hands and crying out, “Oh dear, oh dear, this just won’t do, no, no!”

The cabbie tried to yank the reins out of BAMF’s grip, but all he succeeded in doing was earning a steely-eyed look from the woman.

“You want what the horses got?” she rumbled.

“Uh…no, ma’am,” the cabbie said, and moved as far from BAMF as he could, clutching the rail on the side for dear life as the carriage careened down the boulevard, weaving between other travelers, BAMF screaming with delight.

“This isn’t going to end well,” Ramsey said with a shake of his head.

“Think we should stop her?” Lashes asked.

Stick giggled. “You’re welcome to try. I’ll record it for later!”

That was when the flying monkeys descended.

Two of the monkeys landed on each horse and pulled the reins sharply, bringing the runaway carriage to a halt, while BAMF screamed, “No! Mush, MUSH!”

Ramsey reached up and grabbed BAMF’s arm. “Let it go, they’re the cops.”

“Monkey cops? I pity the monkey that—”

BAMF stopped short as Ramsey scowled and pointed at the seat next to him.

“Sit,” he commanded.

“Ooooo, you’re in trouble now,” Stick said. “Ain’t no way you have a license [JM4]to drive one of these.”

BAMF settled back into her seat as the monkeys brought the carriage to the side of the road. Another group of the flying simians landed and placed bright orange pylons around the carriage, while the cabbie attempted to calm his skittish horses, casting dirty looks in BAMF’s direction.

Damn! Lashes pursed her lips. Freakin’ BAMF is going to ruin everything!

A monkey in a large hat approached, his long, drooping moustache twitching as he regarded the group with unblinking eyes.

“Now, am I to understand that you thought it was wise to take control of this carriage, and race through The Enchanted Tunnel™?” the Chief Monkey asked.

At least, Lashes assumed he was the Chief Monkey. He had the biggest hat.

BAMF didn’t say anything, though she folded her arms across her chest, and her lower lip hung down in a pout.

“I’m sorry, officer,” Ramsey said, speaking up for the sulking woman. “BAMF here has a bit of a problem with long waits. We’ll behave now, we promise.”

“Yes, I believe you will,” the Chief Monkey said as a new carriage pulled up.

Their new conveyance was in the shape of a large, orange pumpkin, fully enclosed, with thick, wooden doors. It would be much harder to climb out and get at the driver. However, Lashes didn’t harbor any illusions that a couple of doors and a bit of a climb would stop a determined BAMF.

The real problem was the ape sitting atop the pumpkin—an ape that dwarfed the pumpkin by a fair margin.

Lashes felt a sense of relief knowing that even BAMF would think twice before taking on a carriage driver that was larger than the carriage.

That observation caused Lashes to wonder how the carriage wasn’t crushed by the beast.

Well, I guess it’s supposed to be a magical place.

Under the monkey’s watchful eyes, the team filed into the new carriage, Vivia looking especially dejected after the tongue-lashing the Chief Monkey had given her for losing control of her charges. His speech had contained words such as ‘de-pixed’ and ‘bopped’.

Whatever those words meant in the context of punishment, they had a visible impact on Vivia’s normally bubbly personality.

As they got settled, the Chief Monkey stood at the door, looking them all over. He paused at BAMF, who had resumed her pouting pose in the new carriage.

“We’d be there now, if it weren’t for you, BAMF,” Stick said.

“You said it was going to take days to get there,” BAMF accused her. “I was trying to hurry it up.”

“You can all relax,” the Chief Monkey said with a smile as he unfurled his rather impressive wings. “You’re only ten minutes away from the gates to The Enchanted Kingdom™. Now don’t give Kong any trouble. He doesn’t like trouble.”

“Really, just ten minutes?” Stick asked skeptically, her pink hat flopping over her face as she leaned over. “Are you sure?”

The Chief Monkey just shook his head and closed the door before flying off into the sky.

“Seriously, Stick,” Lashes said. “Let’s not antagonize these…people any more.”

“OK, I was just try—”

Stick stopped abruptly as the giant ape, who they now knew to be named ‘Kong’, shifted, and the carriage groaned. Their seats vibrated as the massive simian called, “GOOOOOO HORSEEEEEES.”

Or at least, that’s what Lashes thought he said.

She was surprised that the horses didn’t take off in a blind panic; the sound of Kong’s voice thrumming through the carriage set her teeth on edge, and made it hard to breathe.

Once they began to move, Ramsey looked around at the group. “OK, team, we have to be on our best behavior here. Seems like they don’t tolerate shenanigans. We have to get through The Enchanted Kingdom and to The Dark Forest, where we’ll meet with Ronnie, my friend who is worried about the disappearances.”

“What is that?” Vivia asked. “Disappearances?”

Much better, Lashes thought. Deepen the mystery.

<Forgot about our pixie friend?> Lashes asked Ramsey privately over the Link.

<Kind of a tutu, I suppose.>

“It’s nothing, Vivia, don’t worry about it,” Ramsey said.

Vivia pulled herself out of the folds in Stick’s skirt and fluttered up into the air. “It doesn’t sound like ‘nothing’. Is some sort of dastardly villain up to no good in The Dark Forest™? It is where they hide out. The Prince™ of The Enchanted Kingdom™ leads his armies in there from time to time. He even killed a dragon in The Last Battle™. But every time he goes in, those villains scatter into the mountains, and just come back in a few months.”

“How bad can it be?” Lashes asked.

“Did you forget the part where I mentioned a dragon?” Vivia asked, appearing visibly upset. “I really think you should stay out of The Dark Forest™.”

“Well, I guess we’ll see when we get there,” Lashes said with a warm smile, hoping to placate the small pixie.

She had thought that Vivia was in on the plan, but was beginning to wonder if there had been a miscommunication. Either that, or the small creature was just laying it on really thick.

Vivia had to be a non-sentient AI of some sort; Lashes couldn’t imagine that Disknee would have humans remote piloting this many creatures.[JM5]

Stick must have been wondering the same thing about the pixie, because her hand darted out and grabbed Vivia by the wings.

“What are you really, little pixie-person?” Stick asked. “Are you an AI of some sort? You can’t be a modded person, you’re too small. They can’t fit a brain into something this tiny.”

“I beg your pardon!” Vivia gasped indignantly. “You will put me down right this instant! I am a person—and I do have a brain! I am not an AI, and I will not have you holding me by the wings! No, no, it will not do!”

“I think they’re all[JM6] remote piloted,” Ramsey said. “Somewhere on the planet below is a giant chamber of people, all in sim-beds, running this show.”

Vivia glared at Ramsey. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, but I am me! A pixie of Pixie Grove™ in Neverevereverland™.”

“Gotta give them credit,” Lashes said. “They don’t break character.”

“Yes, I have exceptional character,” Vivia said. “Which is why I have not reported you for molesting my pixie-person.”

As she spoke, she waved her wand and disappeared, causing Stick to jump and paw at the air, looking for the pixie.

“Where’d she go? I was just holding her!”

A bright light flashed, and suddenly there was another person in the pumpkin carriage with them. Lashes couldn’t believe her eyes. It was Vivia, but she was much larger—easily a meter and a half tall.

The “pixie” scowled at the group. “Now, I don’t like being big like this—it is very awkward—but I need you to understand that you are guests here, and you cannot treat the indigenous species of this world as though we are not people too.”

Lashes couldn’t contain her amazement. “How…how did you do that?”

Vivia shrugged her shoulders, sparkles of pixie dust falling from them. “Easy, magic.”

BAMF reached out and touched Vivia’s shoulder. “You feel real….”

“Yes,” Vivia nodded. “Of course I’m real. But touching me like that puts you inside my personal bubble. This is about boundaries. You have to respect mine, and I’ll respect yours.” She lowered her brow—a glower that was far more ominous, now that it wasn’t just ten centimeters tall. “What I just did to embigger myself, I can do to you too, so behave.”

“You’d make BAMF bigger?” Stick asked. “How will that help?”

Vivia sighed. “Why do I always get ones like these? No, I will make her smaller. We could maybe put her in a little lantern or something.”

“Wow,” Lashes laughed. “I can’t imagine how many times that would have come in handy.”

“I pity the foo—” BAMF began to say, but Vivia placed a finger on the large woman’s lips.

“Temper temper, Miss BAMF. We’re here to have fun. You need to loosen up, there’s so much tension in your shoulders. They give excellent massages at The Royal Palace™. I’ll be sure to book you one!”

BAMF grunted and mumbled something that no one could understand. Well...Lashes could understand it, and suspected that everyone else could too, but they all pretended they couldn’t.

No one spoke further until the carriage passed out of the tunnel, and they found themselves emerging from a hillside into a land of gently rolling hills dotted with copses of trees.

The grass was tall and gently waving in the breeze. Wildflowers were dotted throughout, their sweet scent drifting through the air.

“Welcome to The Enchanted Kingdom™!” Vivia cried out a bit too loudly. “Oops, sorry, not used to being big. I’m going to go small again, but you behave…” Her statement was directed at BAMF and punctuated by a wave of her wand[JM7].

BAMF nodded sullenly, and then Vivia waved her wand[JM8], disappearing in a flash of light. She reappeared a moment later with a smaller flash, now back to her original size.

“Oh, how wonderful,” Vivia said. “I really can’t bear to be big. Everything feels so itchy all the time.”

<She’s freaking me out,> BAMF said to the team. <How is she doing that? She looks real…feels real. This isn’t hard light or some sort of elaborate holoprojection.>

<Maybe it’s magic,> Ramsey said, smirking both physically and over the Link. <Like she said, this is a magical place.>

<No such thing as magic, Colonel,> BAMF said.

 Stick replied. 

<No such thing,> BAMF repeated.

<We discovered that Zompires are real not long ago,> Lashes added to the conversation.

<That was science, fool> BAMF retorted.

Vivia’s squeaky voice broke the silence, and interrupted the team’s private conversation. “If you look out the right side of the pumpkin, you’ll see a fantastic view of The Royal Palace™ of The Enchanted Kingdom™!”

Lashes peered out the window, groaning as Stick leaned across and dug her elbows into Lashes’ thighs.

At the bottom of a long hill, spread across a vast plain, lay the sprawling Royal Palace™. Lashes estimated that it had to be at least one hundred square kilometers—though that depended on how far over the horizon it went.

Tall, crenelated walls wrapped around The Royal Palace™, with hundred-meter-tall towers at regular intervals. Beyond, the castle stood proud, towers and halls marching up toward a single white tower that peaked over a kilometer above the ground.

Some parts of The Royal Palace™ appeared to be white stone, while others were made of emerald. Blue onyx capped the towers, and the entire structure gleamed in the late afternoon light, almost too bright to look at.

“Holy crap! It’s huge!” BAMF exclaimed.

“Well, of course it’s huge,” Vivia explained. “The Prince™ and The Princess™ have many guests—yourselves amongst them! You’re going to have such a wonderful time. I can’t wait to show you the—”

“Maybe later,” Ramsey interrupted. “We’ll spend the night here, clean up, refresh ourselves, and then be on our way at first light. We have to get to The Dark Forest™ as soon as possible.”

“Are you sure, Mr. Ramsey?” Vivia asked. “There is so much to see in The Royal Palace™. Part of it is even under siege by The Imperial Forces™! I understand that late tonight, The Cat Woman™ and The Bat Man™ are going to lead an army of penguins against the enemy!”

“Um. Is The Royal Palace™ safe?” Stick asked—appearing visibly concerned as she clutched her dress.

Vivia nodded solemnly. “Oh, yes, The Imperial Forces™ have notoriously bad aim. You just have to look out for whoever the current Dark Lord™ is. They can do this Magic Pinchy Thing™ that is quite deadly.”

“ ’Magic Pinchy Thing’?” Lashes asked.

“Yeah, like this,” Vivia said as she held up her tiny right hand and made some gesture that was too small to discern. “Then you get all chokey like this.” The tiny pixie then proceeded to grab her throat and make gasping sounds while fluttering about erratically.

“They do that to themselves?” BAMF asked. “Doesn’t that seem dangerous to others?”

“No, you silly goose,” Vivia laughed. “They do that to you!”

“We need to avoid any Imperial entanglements,” Stick said, her eyes deadly serious.

“Oh, don’t worry,” Vivia replied. “I have heard that The Bat Man™ has produced a special repellant to keep dark lords at bay. One spritz, and they run off.”

“I can think of a number of times that would have come in handy, eh, Colonel?” Lashes asked.

“That’s for sure…I wonder if he could make a version that could keep customs agents away,” Ramsey said with a sardonic grin.

“I still don’t know how we got down to the planet so fast,” Stick said as she craned her neck and looked out the window. “I can tell by the gravity and the movement of the ground that we’re definitely planetside. But we took a horse down the elevator shaft…”

BAMF snorted. “Fool, you can’t tell by the gravity and the movement of the ground.”

“I can! Us pilots are very attuned to movement. You wouldn’t understand,” Stick replied sweetly.

“I understand that I’m going to—”

BAMF stopped when Vivia darted in front of her and waved a miniscule hand in her face.

“Tut tut, Miss BAMF. You must learn to control yourself. I wouldn’t want to have to bop you!”

BAMF mumbled something about seeing how well her fist would bop a small, flying creature, but then settled back in her seat and stared silently out at the meadows that the carriage was passing through.

“Are those teacups having picnics?” Stick asked at one point.

“Yup!” Vivia replied brightly. “They love to get out on a nice day like this.”

“Ummm, OK, just checking,” Stick replied.

Several minutes later, they reached the gates of The Royal Palace™, where a guard stopped them.

“Have some troublemakers, do we?”

Kong rumbled something unintelligible in response, and the guard laughed.

“Yeah, there’s always someone,” he replied, and stepped back, waving them through.

As they passed, Lashes realized that the man was made of metal, and carefully painted with a strong jaw and heavy brow.

“OK…that just looks creepy.”

Vivia nodded. “I know. They changed the guards recently, and I’m not sure these new ones are quite right. We used to have giant badgers at this gate. They were much more fun, not so stern. And the talking bears often came by with honey for the guests.”

“Why’d they change them?” Ramsey asked. “Did they need to tighten security?”

“Security?” Vivia asked. “No, no, it was the bees. Bears aren’t too concerned about being stung, with their thick hides, but they often brought the entire hive when bringing that honey, bees and all.”

Lashes laughed. “I can see how that would be problematic.”

Vivia nodded solemnly. “Now the bears are patrolling the edges of The Dark Forest™. They like it more out there, anyway. It suits them.”

<See, back to issues with The Dark Forest. Something’s not right here. We need to get out there as soon as possible. Ronnie wouldn’t mess around about this. Something’s up,> Ramsey said privately to Lashes.

<How bad can it be?> she soothed. <This place seems pretty buttoned down. BAMF drives a carriage too fast, and within minutes, they send flying monkeys and a giant ape to keep her in line.>

Ramsey scowled as they passed beneath The Royal Palace™’s gate. <Something doesn’t smell right. It’s starting to get on my nerves.>

Lashes cast a worried look at the colonel. <We’ll get rested up tonight, and hit The Dark Forest first thing in the morning,> she replied innocently. Damn him and his suspicions.

Once past the wall, the carriage arrived in a vast courtyard where dozens of other carriages—though no pumpkins with massive apes atop—were queuing up to disgorge their passengers at the palace’s main entrance. BAMF pushed the door open, ready to jump out before they came to a halt.

Vivia called out, “I wouldn’t—” but was interrupted by Kong’s low growl.

BAMF quickly closed the door and slumped in her seat. “I don’t think I like this place.”

DELIVERY

STELLAR DATE: 03.07.8949 (Adjusted Years)

LOCATION: Van, Neverevereverland Station

REGION: Disknee System, Independent, Haydes Cluster

Ten minutes later[JM9], Girl watched with a growing sense of dread as Porty lifted the ship off its cradle and eased it through the holoprojected waterfall at the end of the clearing, passing into the darkness of space.

He didn’t have a course on record with Neverevereverland Station, and Space Traffic Control hadn’t asked for one, either. Girl was shocked about that. The Disknee World’s STC had been very strict when Stick had flown the Van into the system.

Now they don’t care? These dwarves must have friends in high places.

<Porty,> Girl asked after a few minutes of indecision. <Where are we going? What’s going on?>

<Don’t worry about it, Girl. Just keep to your duties and pretend none of this is happening. That’s what I’m doing.>

Beyond his private assurances, something about Porty made Girl think he was a good guy. Just an innocent dwarf who was mixed up in something bad—which meant she was mixed up in something bad, too.

A small part of her mind said she should listen to Porty—just go along with it and get through whatever was going to happen. She’d done that plenty of times in the past, especially before she was owned by Colonel Ramsey. That Girl had just rolled with the punches.

But after seeing the Delta Team fight for justice and truth in system after system, she had begun to understand that standing up to oppression—even if it came in the form of little, bearded dwarves—was important.

She wasn’t going to roll over and take this. She was going to stop these little humans—or whatever they were—from taking her away from her team.

Girl thought about reaching out to the Delta Team; they were probably still on Neverevereverland Station somewhere. But after some consideration, she decided against it. If the dwarves had someone in the STC, chances were that her message would never reach its intended recipients, and then Bimmy would have Porty use the box on her.

She needed to be smarter than that.

As Girl saw it, she had two goals. The first was to get that box herself, or at least convince Porty not to use it. The second was to separate the dwarves and lock them down. That would be easier said than done; she only had four general service bots, the AutoVac™, the WetMopr™, and the external HullCrawlr™, which was in the rear airlock.

That gave Girl an idea.

The rear airlock was close to the engineering bay where Barney and Laurie were working. The bot had two plasma welders that were rather terrifying to organics…not that the crew, or BAMF, had ever used them to that effect before—that Girl was allowed to talk about.

If she could get that bot into the engineering bay, the tables could be turned.

But first, there was that damn black box.

<Porty?> Girl asked, as the dwarf set the ship on a course that she calculated would take them to Nowhere-in-Particular, a station in orbit of the Disknee World’s largest moon.

<Yes, Girl?>

<How does that black box of yours work?>

Porty glanced nervously at Bimmy, who was staring at the moon’s distant orb.

<He can’t hear us, Porty,> Girl said. 

 Porty said and pursed his lips. <He’s just a suspicious kinda guy…it’s like he’s a mind reader.>

<Porty,> Girl entreated. <How does the box work? How does it affect my sensors and data access, but not the ship at large?>

<It’s top secret,> Porty said. 

<The what?> Girl asked.

<The Fairly Goodmothers. They’re the enforcers down on the Disknee World™. They make sure everyone toes the line.>

Girl wasn’t sure how it was that ‘good mothers’ were the ones that operated as enforcers. Maybe that’s why they were ‘fairly’ good mothers. Not ‘fair’ as in evenly applying justice, but that they were good most of the time. Either that, or it had to do with whether or not they were physically attractive.

Why are organics so strange?

<Are the good mothers aware of what Bimmy is doing?> Girl asked. <Is my team back there going to be OK?>

Porty nodded and then stopped, remembering that his conversation with Girl was over the Link. He held still, watching Bimmy, but the lead dwarf didn’t stop drumming his fingers on the console and staring at the moon.

<Which is it? The good mothers know, or my team is safe?>

Porty swallowed. <Your friends should be fine, and no, the Fairly Goodmothers have no idea that Bimmy is going on a little joyride. Well, they probably do, but they would think it’s just to test the new cooling vanes.>

<So you’re going against the enforcers,> Girl said, now understanding why Porty was so nervous.

The poor little man was stuck between a rock and a bunch of hairy dwarves. If her olfactory systems were correct, the dwarves were a bit smelly, too. Not the sort of place she’d want to be stuck.

<Yeah, but if we do this right, they’ll never know.>

<How sure are you about that? What if we stop Bimmy and his crew? What does the box do?>

<Do you think you can stop them?> Porty asked. <We only have forty minutes till we reach Nowhere-in-Particular Station.>

Girl wasn’t sure if she could. She’d never done anything like this before, but she wasn’t going to take being shipnapped lying down. She was going to fight.

<Yes, Porty, I know we can. I just need to be sure that the box can’t be used against me.>

Porty glanced at one of Girl’s optics, and gave a soft sigh.

“What are you sighing about?” Bimmy asked, glancing over at Porty. “You got somewhere else you need to be?”

“Uhh…no, just already worked a double. I’m a bit tired, is all.”

“Well, suck it up, pixiecup. We’ll be back at Neverevereverland Station™ in two hours. Plenty of time for you to catch hammock time before your shift tomorrow.”

Porty nodded sullenly, and Bimmy went back to staring out the forward window and drumming his fingers on the console.

<OK, I’m in,> Porty said to Girl. <Here’s how the box works. Your network model has a rather esoteric flaw. A certain frequency, oscillated just the right amount, can cause general data transmission failures when you use the network, but it doesn’t disrupt the ship’s function in general.>

<Really?> Girl asked. <That seems like the sort of thing that would have happened more often in the past.>

<It’s a really specific frequency. It’s a backdoor installed to allow government agents to storm ships without meeting AI resistance.>

<What?!> Girl exclaimed, suddenly feeling very vulnerable. <Those bastards. Which governments?>

<Oh, no current ones. It’s a back door from thousands of years ago. Now it’s just in the base firmware of the networking systems on a lot of ships.>

<Why is it still in there?>

Porty started to shrug, but then stopped himself. <Well, no one engineers anything at that level anymore. It’s all just abstraction layers on top of ancient code.>

<Can you fix it?>

<Yup!> Porty replied brightly. <There’s a firmware update.>

Girl was finding this hard to believe. <What do you mean? How is it that this vulnerability has been around forever, but there’s a firmware update to fix it?>

<Well…the company that made the original code had a crisis of conscience and made a patch to fix their moral error. Only…>

<Only?>

<Well, their planet got bombed to the stone ages before they ever distributed it.>

Girl wondered what planet that was. If her firmware was from thousands of years ago, that would be deep in the dark ages. Stars, it might even predate the FTL Wars. [JM10]

<So how’d you get it?> she asked Porty.

<We collect a lot of things at the Disknee World™. This place predates the FTL Wars, you know.>

Girl didn’t know that. How was it that entire civilizations had burned in the wars and the ensuing dark ages, but a theme world survived?

<How is that even possible,> she asked.

<The Council protected the system,> Porty replied. <Look, that’s not important. I can pass you the update, but…>

Girl was getting tired of all of Porty’s lingering statements.

<You’ll what?> Porty asked.

<See! Annoying, isn’t it?> Girl snapped, and saw Porty’s face fall. Oh, shoot, he looks so sad.

She hadn’t meant to be so harsh on the little, bearded man.

<I’m sorry, I’m just on edge, being shipnapped and all. Do you have the patch?>

Porty chewed on his lip for a moment. 

<What do you mean? Have you never used it before? Why do you even have this patch?>

Girl considered that for a moment, wondering what that could mean. <So you’re saying that fixing this networking bug could break other things.>

<Porty! Spit it out already.>

<Well, I think that when we get back, Bimmy will make me wipe your memory.>

Those words hit Girl like a meteor. She’d long ago accepted the fact that she was like a slave, trapped in this ship—which she didn’t mind most of the time, so long as it was kept clean—and forced to do the bidding of her owners.

But the one thing she did have was herself. That fact was her refuge. Even though she acted like a stupid, organic bimbo, she was her own person.

Unless someone wiped her memory. Then she would be nobody.

<Do it, Porty. Patch me.>

<Are you sure?> he asked, his eyes darting to peer at her optics.

<Patch me!>

<OK, OK, no need to yell. I’m passing you the firmware update. You’ll need to re-initialize your networking systems, as well as the interfaces on your core. You’ll go dark for a minute. It’ll kill the shipnet as well. I’ll come up with some excuse for Bimmy.>

Girl sent a mental affirmation. <OK…. Thank you, Porty. I’m sorry I yelled.>

<Well, I’m sorry I shipnapped you, Girl. You seem like a really nice AI.>

<Thanks, I think I am too.>

She turned the firmware update over in her mind, looking at the alterations it would make. It seemed innocent enough, just a patch that would remove the intentional vulnerability to the specific pattern of EM interference.

But there was always the law of unintended consequences lurking around every corner, waiting to strike.

What choice do I have? I need to stop these dwarves.

Girl applied the firmware update and cycled her networking systems.

First, the remote, shipwide switches reinitialized, and then her own internal interfaces followed. Bit by bit, the Van disappeared from her senses—not unlike what had happened when Porty had used the black box. At least this was orderly, and she understood what was happening.

She caught Bimmy saying something to Porty about the shipnet going down, and then she lost communication with the bridge. Then the rest of the vessel was gone, and her interfaces disconnected.

Girl was just a mind, drifting in the darkness, thinking thoughts that would never connect anywhere. Her internal clock counted through the seconds, and she watched it intently, trying to remind herself that it would take thirty at best, maybe more.

Half a minute without any stimuli was an eternity for an AI, but she managed to fill the time with puzzles and games of chance. Then her network interfaces came back online, and she found the shipnet up and responding.

She connected to the bridge, and heard Porty say, “See, just a few seconds. I needed to make sure the AI couldn’t use the external comms—just in case she got nervous, you know?”

“OK,” Bimmy said, his tone suspicious. “Just keep an eye on her. We can always just pull the core, too.”

“Yeah, but this ship has never run without an AI, so I’d have to reroute a lot of stuff, and use systems that haven’t been put through their paces since it was built.”

“Whatever,” Bimmy grunted. “Just stay on course.”

Glad that Bimmy was going to leave it at that, Girl checked on Laurie and Barney, only to find the engineering bay empty.

Crap! Where the heck?

She searched the ship and found the pair in the rec room, watching some vids while complaining about what a mess the place was.

Of course, they’d turned off the cleaning bots so they could watch their vids in peace—much like her crew often did. It was a part of the reason why the room was such a disaster.

<Porty, we have a problem,> she said. <Your friends are in the rec room, and I need them back in the engineering bay.>

<Why?> he asked.

<Because I want to use the HullCrawlr™ to force them into the airlock,> Girl replied.

<But they’ll alert Bimmy,> Porty said. Then he nodded slowly. <Or not. You can kill their Link access before you do it—so long as they’re not talking to Bimmy at the time, he won’t notice.>

<Right, but first I have to get them back to the engineering bay.>

Porty gave a mental shrug. <Well that’s easy. Just mess up the new cooling vanes. Do something like force them into a recalibration mode. We’re burning hot, and the reactor will shut down till the test runs are done.>

<Good idea, Porty! Do you do this sort of thing often?>

The tiny, bearded man pursed his lips. <More often than I’d like.>

Girl wondered what that meant. He seemed to feel bad about whatever Bimmy had in his pouch; which she supposed made sense. It was probably something the dwarf had stolen from the Disknee World.

These really aren’t very good dwarves.

Girl accessed the drive reactor cooling systems, and altered the readings on the secondary temperature sensors. It would turn up in the logs that she’d done it, but the dwarves wouldn’t have time to see that before they got a visit from the HullCrawlr™.

While the reactor’s monitoring systems tried to determine which was the correct set of readings, she opened the rear airlock’s interior door and moved the HullCawlr™ into a dark corner of the engineering bay.

A minute later, the drive monitoring systems gave up trying to tell which readings were correct, and went into an emergency shutdown while recalibration routines ran.

Girl smirked. Stopped us cold.

“What the hell?” Bimmy shouted at Porty, “What did you do?”

“Hey! Why are you always blaming me?” Porty asked. “It’s the reactor. It’s getting bad readings from the cooling vanes and went into emergency shutdown.”

<Barney! Laurie!> Bimmy hollered over the shipnet. <Get your asses down to engineering and fix whatever you screwed up. We’re on a tight schedule. If we don’t deliver this package, the boss is gonna be up my ass so far, you’ll see her boot coming out my mouth.>

<What?> Laurie exclaimed. <It was all fine when we left!>

<On it!> Barney replied, and Girl watched the two jump up from the rec room sofa, spilling their drinks and leaving their vid playing.

Slobs, Girl muttered to herself.

The pair of dwarves rode the lift down to the ship’s lower level and rushed into the engineering bay as fast as their stubby legs could carry them.

Once they were in the bay, Girl shut down the lift and ignited the HullCrawlr™’s plasma torches.

“What the hell is that?” Barney said as the two flames came to life in the dark corner of the engineering bay.

Laurie took a step back as the bot advanced on the two dwarves. “It’s a hull bot.”

“Shut down, bot,” Barney ordered, but the HullCrawlr™ continued moving forward on its six articulated legs.

“Dammit, the thing’s not listening. It must be that AI!” Laurie exclaimed. <Porty, shut down that AI, and stop this bot!>

The message never reached its destination.

“No one can hear you,” Girl said ominously. “No one will know what happens next….”<This is fun!> she told Porty privately. <They look like they’re going to defecate in their drawers.>

<Don’t go getting all sadistic on me, Girl, I already feel nervous enough about this.>

Girl gave a mental harrumph. <Well, when you’ve been stolen, you can take a little joy in turning things around on your captors.>

The two dwarves in the engineering bay were still backing away slowly from the HullCrawlr™, but they were moving too slowly for Girl’s liking. Barney probably thought he could disable the crawler somehow. She worried that maybe he could, and decided to amp things up a bit.

She disabled all but the emergency lighting, and rushed the bot forward. Barney let out a shriek and backpedaled. Girl was surprised to see Laurie hold firm for a moment, before the heat from the plasma torches washed over her; then she turned to follow after.

Barney ran from the bay and back into the lower passageway. He hit the call button on the lift and, after waiting a few seconds—during which time nothing happened—he turned to Laurie, who was running toward him.

“It won’t come!” he cried out. “We’re doomed!”

Laurie shook her head. “I should never have agreed to come on this job with such a spineless fool.”

The bot appeared at the end of the corridor, and Barney gave another warbling cry before darting down a side passage.

The one that ended at the airlock.

Laurie pursed her lips for a moment, but followed after when the bot rushed forward once more.

“In here!” Barney called to her from within the airlock.

“Barney! That’s the airlock! We’ll be trapped.”

“Like we’re not already?” he asked.

Laurie didn’t move, and Barney hit the button to close the inner airlock door.

“What? You’d just leave me in the hall?” Laurie asked as she ran down the corridor, huffing and panting as the airlock door slowly closed.

She barely made it, squeezing through at the last moment, and fell to the deck inside the airlock, gasping for breath.

“You need to get in better shape,” Girl admonished as the door closed, sealing the two dwarves in the airlock. “Here’s how it’s going to go. You’re going to stay in here and not touch a thing. If you do, I’ll open the outer door before you can say ‘comb my beard’. Do you understand?”

Barney and Laurie nodded silently.

Satisfied, Girl turned her attention back to the bridge, where Bimmy was pacing back and forth.

<Status!> he called out to Barney and Laurie, getting no response.

“They can’t hear you,” Girl said over the bridge speakers. “They’ve left the ship.”

“What do you mean?” Bimmy said, a flicker of fear showing on his face. “How did they ‘leave the ship’?”

Girl laughed, her voice sounding like a crazed titter—at least, that’s what she was going for. After a moment of consideration, she decided that it may have sounded more like a scared rabbit.

“I gave them a hand.”

Porty looked worried, and Girl messaged him privately. <Don’t worry, they’re just in the airlock. But they have the fear of Girl in them now.>

<Thank goodness. You sounded like a rabid chipmunk there for a second, I thought you’d gone off the deep end.>

“Porty,” Bimmy said. “Use the box on her.”

Porty nodded and brought out the box, then pushed the button on top.

Girl felt a stab of fear pass through her. Will Porty betray me?

But nothing happened, and relief flooded her core.

The AI laughed again. “Nice try, Bimmy, but you’ve messed with the wrong Girl. I’m not so easily defeated!”

Girl liked the feeling that was flowing through her. She was in control! For once, Girl was calling the shots.

Barney turned on Porty. “What did you do? Give me that!”

The lead dwarf snatched the black box from Porty’s hands and mashed his finger into the button.

“Why isn’t it working?” he shouted as Girl continued to giggle.

Porty threw his hands up in the air. “I don’t know! She must have some sort of secondary system that’s not shutdownable.”

Bimmy threw the black box on the deck and took a step toward the door. “Well, I’m going to go pull this bitch’s core, then we’ll be done with her.”

The words had just left the dwarf’s mouth when the bridge’s door opened to reveal the AutoMopr™, behind which were two of the general service bots. Bimmy tried to push past them, but the AutoMopr™ whacked its long handle into the man’s head.

“Ow!” Bimmy shouted. “That hurts!” He took a step back and turned to Porty. “Do something, Porty!”

Porty leaned back in the seat and folded his hands behind his head. “Oh, I am. I’m enjoying watching you get your come-up-ins.”

“It’s ‘comeuppance’,” Girl corrected, as the WetMopr™ advanced on Bimmy, forcing him against the bulkhead.

“Really?” Porty asked. “Are you sure? I’ve never heard anyone say ‘comeuppance’.”

“Yeah,” Girl replied with a snort as the AutoMopr™ switched to the dripping wet end of its mop and smushed it into Bimmy’s face, while the dwarf sputtered with impotent rage. “Well, look at who you hang out with.”

“Good point,” Porty admitted.

“You won’t get away with this!” Bimmy shouted. “When He learns that you’re not stopping at Nowhere-in-Particular Station, He’ll come after you. You’ll never make it back to Neverevereverland™ Station alive!”

“Who is ‘He’?” Girl asked.

“Him!” Bimmy shouted.

“Who is Him, then?”

“He’s Him, that’s who,” Bimmy replied.

Girl sighed. “You’re no help. Who is he talking about, Porty?”

“I’m not sure,” Porty said, his small, bushy brow furrowing deeply. “I’ve heard of a ‘Him’, but I don’t know who Him is. Though I have heard that He is bad news.”

“Is He a he, or just Him?” Girl asked.

“He’s Him,” Bimmy grunted. “And when Him learns what you’ve done, He’ll come after you with everything Him has.”

“This has not become any clearer,” Girl said.

Bimmy pushed the mop out of his face. “Gah, that thing stinks. No wonder this ship is such a mess. Look. Him is powerful—more than a match for you, Girl. He wants what’s in this satchel, and He’ll get it no matter what.”

“What is in there?” Girl asked.

Bimmy shook his head and clutched the satchel to his chest.

“Any idea?” Girl asked Porty.

“No,” Porty shrugged. “Something he stole from the Disknee World™, though. That’s what Bimmy’s been up to for the last year—making some extra cash on the side.”

“Yeah, and this one’s the big payoff,” Bimmy entreated. “With Laurie and Barney gone, we’ll both get a serious payout, Porty. Shut down this AI, and we’ll be set for life.”

Girl whacked Bimmy on the head with the business end of the mop and then poked him in the gut with the handle.

He gave a pathetic cry and reached for his head with one hand and his stomach with the other.

With his grip on the satchel loosened, Girl slipped the mop handle under the strap and gave a deft pull, sliding the bag off his arm and flipping it through the air toward Porty.

“Careful!” Bimmy shouted as the pouch sailed across the bridge.

Porty stretched his stubby arm out to catch it, just barely snagging the strap with his fingers.

Momentarily free of the mop’s oppression, Bimmy lunged forward, but Girl was faster than the dwarf[JM11] and spun the mop around and smashed it into the dwarf[JM12]’s face. As the angry dwarf[JM13] struggled to breathe around the wet mophead, Porty opened up the satchel.

“Hmm…” he muttered as he drew out a carefully wrapped bundle.

Girl watched with bated breath—well, she would have, if she breathed—as the dwarf[JM14] carefully unwrapped the item.

When the contents were finally exposed, Porty’s breathing came in rapid bursts, and he started to stutter nonsensical words like ‘shitty mcshitfuck’.

“I don’t get it,” Girl said. “They’re shoes. Bimmy was smuggling shoes?”

Porty continued to stutter, spittle glistening on his beard.

Girl pulled the mophead away from Bimmy’s face, whereupon the dwarf [JM15]began to gasp for breath.

“Why did you steal shoes?” she demanded.

“These aren’t just any shoes,” Porty said in a whisper. “They’re some of the most powerful artifacts on the Disknee World™.”

“Artifacts?” Girl asked. “Disknee World is a theme world, it doesn’t have ‘artifacts’.”

Porty shook his head. “That’s where you’re wrong, Girl. The Disknee World™ has long been a repository for some of the most advanced tech in existence.”

Bimmy chuckled. “Makes for a good hiding spot.”

“OK,” Girl said, still doubtful about the ‘advanced tech’ represented by a pair of shoes. “If they’re so special, what do they do?”

“They turn whoever wears them into CinderellaNot-TM,” Porty said as he pulled out one of the shoes, which appeared to be made of a near-perfectly-clear material.

“Cinderella? The girl from the ancient story?” Girl asked.

“Yeah,” Bimmy said. “You put the shoes on, and poof! You’re CinderellaNot-TM, all ready for the big ball.”

“Riiiight,” Girl drawled. “OK, is this some sort of gag sim you’re recording? Hi, audience! Boy, they sure got me!”

“He’s not kidding,” Porty said. “These things are powerful.”

“Then you should put them on,” Girl suggested.

Porty held up his hands. “Oh, heeeell no!”

“Look,” Bimmy said, pushing at the mophead. “It doesn’t matter if you believe it. It matters that Him does. Him believes in those shoes very much, and He’s prepared to pay ten billion credits for them.”

“Ten billion…” Girl whispered.

“Yeah, ten billion,” Bimmy replied. “We could split it three ways, Girl. You could bugger off and never again see those morons you fly around with.”

Those words incensed Girl more than she expected. Sure, her crew was slovenly, rude, and exceptionally strange, but they were her crew. They had taken care of her, and she was their home. There was no way she’d betray them for a thieving dwarf…even if it meant billions of credits.

She directed the WetMopr™ to whack Bimmy on the head repeatedly, and then pushed the mophead into his face once more.

“Girl! Don’t kill him!” Porty exclaimed.

<I’m not,> Girl said privately. <Just knocking him out.>[JM16]

A minute later, Bimmy’s flailing grew weak, and he slumped to the floor. Girl directed the WetMopr™ out of the room and sent in two of the general bots. They picked up the unconscious dwarf and carried him to the rec room.

“What are we going to do now?” Porty asked.

“Well, it’s going to take thirty minutes for the reactor core to reset. Once it does, we go back to Neverevereverland Station and hand over those slippers and the other dwarves to the authorities.”

Porty paled, “Uhhh…any chance you can not do that? The Fairly Goodmothers are going to lose their shit—they’ll take this to The Council. I really don’t want to go before The Council.”

“What else do we do?” Girl asked.

“We could deliver the shoes to Him, collect the money, and go our separate ways,” Porty suggested.

“And what happens if the FGMs find out about this?”

“Don’t call the Fairly Goodmothers™ that,” Porty hissed. “They hate it.”

“They don’t seem very much like good mothers.”

Porty gave a rueful laugh. “Depends on the day.”

“Well, I—” Girl began, but then stopped as a transmission came in. “Uh oh, it’s your friend, Him.”

“Him is not my friend!” Porty exclaimed. “What’s He saying?”

Girl piped it[JM17] through to the rec room’s audible systems.

“Why have you gone off course, Bimmy? I’m on a tight schedule, and you’re going to be late. Respond, Bimmy, before I fly over there myself and slap you into the next star system.”

“Gee,” Porty whispered. “Him sure sounds mad.”

“The transmission didn’t come from Nowhere-in-Particular Station, either,” Girl said. “It came from…weird…nowhere in particular.”

“I thought you just said that it didn’t come from there,” Porty replied.

“Uh…yeah, I mean it didn’t come from anywhere I can see.”

“Oh. Could it be a stealth ship?” Porty asked.

Girl wished she could shrug. “I don’t know. I’ve never not-seen a stealthed ship before. I guess it could be.”

“Shit-shit-shit…shit,” Porty said. “If He has a stealthed ship shadowing us, we can’t get away.”

“What if we tell Him the truth?” Girl asked.

“The truth?” Porty exclaimed. “Like how we took out Bimmy?”

“Yeah, the whole thing. Look, Bimmy’s not dead, and we have the glass shoes. Everything’s fine.”

Porty turned and stared up into one of Girl’s optics. “I thought you didn’t want to steal, or double-cross your crew.”

“I don’t, but I also don’t want to get blown out of the black by Him.”

“And what about the Fairly Goodmothers™?” Porty asked. “When they discover that we gave away CinderellaNot-TM’s Glass ShoesAlso-Not-TM, we’re toast.”

Girl chuckled. “Then we don’t give them to Him.”

“I’m so confused right now.”

THE ROYAL PALACE™

STELLAR DATE: 03.07.8949 (Adjusted Years)

LOCATION: The Royal Palace, The Disknee World

REGION: Disknee System, Independent, Haydes Cluster

Author’s Note: I could write a whole book about what the team saw that night at The Royal Palace™, not to mention all the crazy things they got up to.

Suffice it to say that Stick was enamored with everything, and both Lashes and Vivia had to keep her from eating every apple they came across—except for one, the exact side effects of which they were never able to discern.

BAMF got in fights with several different dwarves on several different occasions, and was ultimately confined to her room, which was guarded by Kong.

The other three members of the team did go off to see The Cat Woman™ and The Bat Man™ lead an army of penguins against the Imperial Forces™. There, The Dark Lord™ pinchy-thinged many penguins before The Bat Man™ was able to use his spray and spritz The Dark Lord™ into submission.

In the end, good prevailed; though everyone found it confusing that the good guys were in black, and the bad guys—except for The Dark Lord™, of course—were in white.

During the events of the evening, they all got drunk… multiple times, thanks to the joys of nano blood cleaners—or Itty Bitty Boozy Scrubbies™, as they were known at The Palace™.

Afterward, Ramsey complained about how they could have spent the evening back on the road, headed to The Dark Forest™, and everyone got annoyed and went to bed.

OK, onto the next day.

THE FAIRLY GOODMOTHER

STELLAR DATE: 03.08.8949 (Adjusted Years)

LOCATION: The Royal Palace, The Disknee World

REGION: Disknee System, Independent, Haydes Cluster

The team—except Stick, who was late as usual—waited along with Vivia in a courtyard on the far side of The Royal Palace™ while the porter loaded their belongings into the stagecoach.

The coach was pulled by a team of six horses, and had a seat high up on the front. Lashes had spoken very nicely to the driver, and he agreed to let BAMF sit up there with him, so long as she let him take the reins when he asked for them, and didn’t threaten the horses.

Lashes wasn’t certain how well that would play out, but so far, BAMF had kept her hands to herself. She was probably worried that the flying monkeys and Kong were lurking somewhere nearby—which they probably were.

“Let’s go,” Ramsey said, peering out of the stagecoach. “What’s the holdup?”

“Hey!” the driver called down. “I’ll kindly ask you not to say those words.”

“What words?” Ramsey asked.

“ ‘Hold up’,” the driver replied, shaking his head as though the answer should be obvious.

“Oooooohhh,” Ramsey replied, winking slowly. “I get it.”

“Stuff’s loaded now, we’re just waiting for Stick,” Lashes said. “Not sure where she got off to.”

“I’m here,” Stick called out, and Lashes turned to see the team’s pilot enter the courtyard. She sauntered toward them wearing a gleaming Cat Woman™ costume. The outfit was the full deal: head to toe black latex, pointed high-heeled boots, corset, mask, goggles, pointy-eared hood, clawed gloves, and topped off with a functional tail that swished side to side as Stick sashayed her hips.

“And you told me I couldn’t dress like this here!” Stick said as she reached Lashes and gave a little shimmy. “To think that I went a whole day without being in a corset!”

“The horror,” Lashes said, holding back a sigh.

“And look—they have whips!” Stick gestured to the long, coiled whip at her hip. “If I had my cuffs, I’d be fully equipped.”

“You look great, Stick,” Ramsey called impatiently from the stagecoach’s open door. “Now get your shiny tail in here so we can get going! I haven’t heard from Ronnie all morning. For all we know, whoever is taking people in The Dark Forest™ has him.”

Stick leapt through the door and landed in a crouch on the seat beside Ramsey, purring and hissing at the same time.

“You’re sending mixed signals there,” Lashes said, climbing up and batting Stick’s waving tail out of the way.

The two women sat down, and Ramsey hollered out the coach’s window that they were ready. The driver called back something that sounded like an affirmative response, and the stagecoach shot out like rocket beneath The Royal Palace™’s gates and into the wide plain beyond.

“Huh, must have already let BAMF drive,” Lashes said.

“Some horses,” Ramsey commented. “We’re up over one hundred kilometers per hour.”

Stick started pawing at Lashes, and she batted the pilot’s hands away. “Careful! Those claws are sharp.”

Lashes looked more closely at Stick’s costume and couldn’t see any seams or fastenings. The hood that wrapped around her head was perfectly smooth, like there wasn’t even any hair underneath.

“How did you get into that so fast, anyway?” she asked. “You were only gone for a few minutes.”

“Into what?” Stick asked with a coy smile.

“The costume,” Lashes shot back.

“What costume?” Stick replied with a question, making Lashes’ blood boil.

“Stick, you’re dressed like The Cat Woman. The Cat Woman costume is what costume.”

“Oh, you mean how I’m The Cat Woman™.”

“Uh…yeah.”

Stick grinned. “It’s not a costume. I am The Cat Woman™.”

“What do you mean?” Ramsey asked with a frown creasing his brow. “The Cat Woman is a fictional character. You’re not fictional…well…mostly.”

“I met a Fairly Goodmother™,” Stick said. “She asked me what I wanted to be most, and after seeing The Cat Woman™ and The Bat Man™ take down those Imperial Storm Troops™ last night, I knew exactly what I wanted to be.”

“Oh, those Fairly Goodmothers,” Vivia said from where she was perched atop a lantern, polishing her nails. “No matter how we try, they just rush around giving everyone what they want. The Council keeps trying to get them to dole things out more carefully, but they won’t. There’s no stopping them.”

“The Council?” Lashes asked.

“Yup!” Vivia squeaked. “The Council of Supernatural Beings™. That’s who governs The Disknee World™.”

“I thought you were owned by some ancient corporation from Earth…like, really ancient—from before the Jovians blew the place up.”

“Mr. Ramsey, Disknee has always been governed by the CSB, even before spaceflight. No one has ever owned us.”

“I don’t know about any of that,” Stick said, “but I didn’t put on a costume or anything. The Fairly Goodmother just waved her wand, said ‘Bippity Boppity Boos™’, and I was The Cat Woman™.”

“But there’s no openings or anything…how do you get it off to go pee?” Lashes asked.

Vivia chuckled. “Miss Lashes, it’s magic. You don’t have to worry about stuff like that.”

“What, she can’t take it off?” Lashes asked, eyes wide.

“Well, of course she can’t take it off! Your friend Stick currently is The Cat Woman™,” Vivia replied very seriously. “If she took it off, then she wouldn’t be The Cat Woman™…but she is, as you can see, The Cat Woman™. It’s really quite simple.”

“But there is no real Cat Woman,” Ramsey said, then took a larger-than-usual bite from his carrot.

“Sure there is,” Stick said with a grin as she pulled the goggles over her eyes and made clawing actions in the air. “It’s me.”

“I’m sorry, but I’m hung up on the whole bathroom thing,” Lashes said. “Can she eat?”

Vivia jumped off her lantern and fluttered over to Lashes, hovering close enough to Lashes’ nose that she thought she was going to go cross-eyed. “Miss Lashes. It’s magic. She can do everything she normally would do…even…you know…the good stuff. It will all just magically work.”

Lashes glanced over at Stick, wondering what that really meant. She had to admit that a magical ability to simply become something else certainly would be useful on a lot of jobs.

<You’re not buying this, are you?> Ramsey asked. <It’s all obviously very elaborate holoprojection.>

As he spoke, Stick’s tail slapped Lashes in the face, and she pushed it way. “Seriously, Stick, do that again, and I’ll pull that thing off.”

“Not my tail!” Stick exclaimed and hugged her new appendage.

<That’s some holoprojection,> Lashes said. <Maybe hard light and holo? Doesn’t explain how Vivia got so big, and then BAMF was able to touch her while full-sized.>

Ramsey shrugged. <They swapped her in during the flash.>

“I know!” Vivia exclaimed as she flew around Lashes’ head. “I’ll summon one of the Fairly Goodmothers, and they can do you, too!”

“I thought you were disapproving of their flagrant bippity-boppitying?” Ramsey asked with a small smile.

“Well,” Vivia said in a very serious tone of voice. “We’re dealing with an unbeliever here. That requires the big guns.”

Suddenly, a short, rotund woman in a pink dress appeared in the carriage. “What? Where? Oh, hello, The Cat Woman™. I see you found your way back to your friends.”

“Yup,” Stick said while twirling her tail around in her hand. “My friend Lashes here doesn’t believe that I really am The Cat Woman™.”

“It’s true,” Vivia added. “Not only that, Lashes doesn’t believe in magic, or that the CSB governs The Disknee World™.”

“Oh, deary me, deary my,” the Fairly Goodmother™ said, her lips tightening. “Well, that just won’t do! Especially not on such a momentous occasion.”

“Momentous occasion?” Ramsey asked. “What’s that?”

Lashes made serious eyes at the Fairly Goodmother, who blushed and quickly said, “Oh, nothing, nothing at all. Now, Miss Lashes, I believe in keeping with themes. Your friend here has picked a hero from ages past. Who would you like to become during your stay here?”

“Uh…” Lashes said as she smoothed her light green skirt nervously. “No one. I’m perfectly happy being me.”

“Nonsense, Miss Lashes. Everyone has a dream, a little fantasy, someone they’d like to be,” the Fairly Goodmother™ said with a kindly smile.

“Well, there is this one character from a long time ago, I liked her power a lot. Her name was JuJubilee.”

“Wonderful!” the Fairly Goodmother exclaimed and raised her wand. “Now say it with me, ‘Bippity Boppity Boooos™’.”

Lashes closed her eyes, feeling like the fool BAMF always accused her of being, and said the words along with the Fairly Goodmother. The moment she finished speaking, a tingling started in the tips of her toes and fingers, and then raced up her body.

She held her eyelids shut, worried about what she would see, but when Ramsey chuckled, she cracked one eyelid.

The first thing that Lashes saw was a yellow trench coat draped across her legs, and her heart leapt into her throat. She raised her black-gloved hands and attempted to emit sparkles, but nothing came out.

“Whaaaa,” she said and looked down at herself. Only then did she realize that her body was covered in a black catsuit with pink accents. “Noooo!” she cried out. “This is the wrong JuJubilee™…this is after—she doesn’t have her superpowers, she’s a vampire!”

“And apparently a copycat,” Stick said with a frown. “At least your suit’s not super shiny like mine. But you even have goggles!”

“Stick, nearly all superheroes wear catsuits. It’s the uniform,” Lashes said, waving a hand to dismiss Stick, only to have her fingers pawed at by the pilot. She sighed and stared into the Fairly Goodmother’s eyes. “Please. This isn’t right. These teeth are nuts,” Lashes said. “I think I’m going to accidentally bite myself. Can you undo this? I don’t want to be Vampire JuJubilee™, I want to be young JuJubilee™, who can do sparkles with her hands! Change me into her!”

“Oh, no-no no no no no-no no. No,” the Fairly Goodmothersaid in a singsong voice. “I can’t turn you back, you haven’t learned your Important Lesson™ yet.”

“I what?” Lashes asked. “Turn me back now!”

“Tut tut,” Vivia said, fluttering close to Lashes’ face. “Don’t make me bop you, you’ve been so well behaved so far. If this is what the Fairly Goodmother turned you into, then it’s your most secret desire.”

“Well,” the Fairly Goodmother corrected. “It’s her most secret superhero desire from the selection we have licenses for.”

Vivia grinned. “Close enough.”

The Fairly Goodmother turned to the colonel. “What about you, Mr. Ramsey? Is there a superhero you’d like to be? I’m in a giving mood today.”

“Uh, no…I’m a believer. I believe in the magic,” Ramsey said hastily.

“Oh, nonsense, Mr. Ramsey. I can tell you’re thinking of something. The magic will work anyway…”

“Please, no…really…”

“Bippity Boppity Boooos™!” the Fairly Goodmother called out.

There was a flash of light. When everyone could see clearly once more, Ramsey still sat as he was, without any visible change.

“Heh,” he said with a broad grin around his carrot. “I knew it would work.”

“But he looks exactly the same,” Stick said.

“I don’t know,” the Fairly Goodmother said, while peering closely at Ramsey. “It did work…apparently he’s his own favorite superhero. And since he is him, the magic didn’t have a licensing issue.”

“I love it when the magic comes together,” Ramsey said, still grinning as he chewed on his now-golden carrot.

DECEPTION

STELLAR DATE: 03.07.8949 (Adjusted Years)

LOCATION: Van, near Nowhere-in-Particular Station

REGION: Disknee System, Independent, Haydes Cluster

“Uhhh…this is Porty calling Him.” It was a few minutes later that the dwarf got to the bridge and mustered the courage to reply. “We’re having an engine issue…our pretend reason for a test drive of this ship turned into a real problem. We won’t be able to dock at Nowhere-in-Particular Station on schedule.”

The reply came with only a few seconds of light lag. “What do you mean you can’t tock? That’s not an alligator joke is it? You know how I feel about that!”

<What does he mean?> Girl asked.

 Porty replied, his mental tone a near wail. “Dock, dock, I meant ‘dock’,” he replied quickly.

“Dock, hmmmm? Fine, I suppose that makes more sense. Well, if you can’t dock, then I’ll have to meet you. Stay on your current vector. I’ll be at your main airlock in ten minutes.”

“Well, our reactor is offline, so—” Porty began, and then stopped himself.

“You making fun of me? Think I don’t get that?” Him asked.

“No, no, sir—Him,” Porty stammered. “We’ll stay on course.”

“Good,” Him replied, then paused for a moment before continuing. “Wait. Why are you telling me this, Porty? Where’s Bimmy?”

“I, uh…knocked him out.”

“Oh yeah?” Him asked, a note of curiosity in his voice. “Why’s that?”

“Err…’cause he’s a dick, and I wanted his cut?”

It wasn’t a question, but Porty’s tone made it sound like one.

The comms were silent for nearly a minute, but then a burst of laughter came over the speakers. “Oh, that’s rich. He is a right asshole, yes, but he’s also very useful down on Neverevereverland™ Station. You didn’t…permanently damage him, did you?”

“Oh, no,” Porty replied quickly. “He’ll be fine. He just breathed in a few too many mop fumes.”

“I don’t even want to know what that means.”

“No,” Porty replied. “You really don’t.”

“Whatever. Ten minutes, Porty. Then you get back to Neverevereverland™ Station and tell Bimmy that I’ve put you in charge.”

“Me?” Porty asked.

“Yes, you. Did you think I meant your stupid ship with the pink stripe?”

<I’ll show him stupid,> Girl muttered. <And I kinda like the pink stripe.>

“No, sir,” Porty replied. “Ten minutes. Got it.”

“Good.”

Him cut the signal, and Porty fell back in his chair.

“Oh, shit-damn-crap-argh! I’m going to come face-to-face with Him!”

“Relax,” Girl replied. “I’m almost done fabbing new glass shoes. The bot will bring them up in no time.”

“What do I do with these ones?” Porty asked, gesturing at the shiny shoes on the seat next to him.

“Uh…stick them in the bathroom and wrap them in the stinky gym clothes that are on the floor. No one will ever look in those. Including BAMF—she always makes me do her laundry.”

Porty nodded and rushed into the bathroom, where he wailed in dismay. “Oh stars, what is that smell? And what are all these straps?”

“You know,” Girl said, passing Porty a grin over the Link. “You should grab those straps. We don’t want Bimmy coming to and ruining our little party.”

A minute later, Porty entered the rec room with a pile of straps and set them down next to Bimmy, who the bots had laid on the floor next to the sofa.

“What am I supposed to do with all these?”

“I don’t know, I’ve never worn clothes before. Stick wears them over her catsuits sometimes.”

“What’s this ball part?” Porty held up a bright pink ball that was connected to some of the straps.

“That’s a gag…though it doesn’t seem to work that well on Stick.”

“She gags herself?” Porty asked with a frown.

“She’s a method pilot,” Girl said with a shrug.

“I really have no idea what you’re talking about,” Porty said as he began to wrap the straps around Bimmy as best he could.

After a couple of minutes, he had most of them buckled. Bimmy’s arms were tight against his sides, and his legs were stuck together.

It was just in the nick of time, too, because Bimmy began to struggle as Porty tightened the last one.

“What the—! What are you doing, Porty? Why am I all tied up?”

Girl laughed. “You really have to ask?”

“You’re a bad dwarf,” Porty scowled at his former boss. “Him is coming aboard, and I can’t have you making a problem.”

“Him! He’s coming here?” Bimmy asked, his eyes filling with terror.

“Yeah, and you’re going down into the lower airlock,” Porty said.

“Porty, no, Him’s too dangerous! You can’t meet with Him!”

“Gag him, Porty,” Girl said.

Porty shrugged and pushed the ball gag into Bimmy’s mouth, and then buckled the strap around his head.

“This feels so wrong,” he muttered, wringing his hands as he rose.

“Fweelss wong eeeree ooo,” Bimmy said, drool coming out of his mouth as he spoke.

“Huh, you’re right.” Porty shook his head in dismay. “It doesn’t really work that well.”

“Yeah…I always thought Stick was using it wrong, but it seems just as ineffective on this little guy. Maybe drool is a desired outcome,” Girl replied. “OK, Bimmy, up you go. Time to hop down to the other airlock.”

Porty helped Bimmy up, and then the AutoMopr™ whacked Bimmy in the ass as he hopped down the passageway to the lower lift.

“Do we have to worry about Barney and Laurie getting out when you open the airlock?” Porty asked.

“Nope,” Girl replied brightly. “They’re unconscious.”

“Really? How?”

“They were causing problems down there, so I cracked the outer airlock door. Knocked ‘em right out.”

“Girl!” Porty exclaimed. “That can kill them!”

“Relax,” Girl replied. “I fly with the most dysfunctional crew this side of the core. I know how much oxygen deprivation it takes to kill someone versus what’s needed just to knock them out.”

“Uh…do I want to know?”

“No, probably not.”

Porty sighed and sat down on the sofa, and then jumped back up. “Crap! It’s all wet!”

“Blame Barney. He spilled his drink.”

“Slobs,” Porty said with a shake of his head.

“Tell me about it.”

A proximity alarm sounded, and Girl nearly jumped in surprise—or she would have if she could—to see a small ship appear only three meters from her hull, extending an umbilical to her forward airlock.

<Van, this is Him. I’m coming aboard,> Him said over the ship-to-ship comms.

<Acknowledged, Him,> Girl replied.

“OK, Porty, He’s here. You ready?”

Porty sighed. “Yeah. Wait! No! Where are the new Glass ShoesAlso Not-TM that you made?”

“Oh, crap,” Girl exclaimed. “They’re still down in the engineering bay’s fab unit!”

“I’ll get them,” Porty said, and disappeared down the corridor to the lift.

As soon as Porty left, Girl saw a strange figure approach through the umbilical between the ships, and she opened her external airlock door. The figure entered, and a minute later, was walking into the rec room.

She was surprised. Him looked nothing like she had expected. He wore a white one-piece suit with blue stripes on the side, along with a long, blue and red cape. His ensemble was topped off with a red, wide-brimmed hat with a jaunty white feather in it.

What was even stranger was that His right hand ended in a curved, steel hook.

“Are you Him?” Girl asked.

“I am,” the man nodded, twirling his long, black moustache with his right hand. “And who are you?”

“I’m Girl,” Girl replied.

Him cocked his head to the side and frowned. “Seriously? And you’re the ship’s AI?”

“I am,” Girl replied.

“And you’re named Girl?”

Girl made a snorting sound. “Asks some guy named Him.”

Him’s frown deepened, and then He burst into laughter. “Girl, I think I like you. You got moxie, going up against Him.”

<Stars,> Girl said to Porty. <He even calls himself Him in the third person! What a freak. What’s taking so long?>

“I’m all moxie, Him,” Girl replied. “Girl power.”

Him nodded slowly. “Sure, whatever. So where are my glass shoes?”

“Porty is bringing them, he just had to go see to Bimmy. The little bastard was causing a ruckus.”

“Well, tell him to hurry it up,” Him said as He looked around the rec room. “Why is this place such a pigsty?”

Girl groaned. “Because people keep interrupting me when I’m trying to clean up. And look at you, you didn’t even wipe your boots in the airlock! Where were you last, a barn?”

Him chuckled. “Close. I was taking out [JM18]some flying monkeys. You should see their quarters.”

“I got ‘em!” Porty said as he rushed into the room. He stopped cold at the sight of Him.

“Good!” Him snapped, and took a step forward toward Porty to snatch the satchel from the dwarf’s grasp. He grinned as he pulled out the glass slippers. “Finally!” Him cried out triumphantly.

He kicked one of his boots off, hopping comically as it got stuck on His pants. With a final violent leg shake, the boot came free and the dirty footwear sailed through the air to land on the sofa.

“Seriously?” Girl exclaimed. “What are you doing?”

“Testing the merchandise,” Him said as He pulled His other boot off, also kicking it onto the sofa.

“For fucksakes! I give up!” Girl shouted.

Him ignored her and pulled His socks off.

“You know what those shoes do, right?” Porty asked nervously. “They turn you into CinderellaNot-TM. I’ve heard it’s permanent, too! You probably don’t want that.”

Him nodded as He set the Glass ShoesAlso-Not-TM on the floor and lifted His right foot, poised to step into the shoe. “I know! It’s going to be a dream come true. The Fairly Goodmothers™ would never let me be CinderellaNot-TM, even though I know inside that’s who I was always meant to be!”

“Seriously?” Girl asked.

“Yeah,” Him grunted as He pushed His foot down into the Glass ShoeAlso-Not-TM and tried to squeeze it in. “Hey, these are supposed to magically expand to fit anyone’s feet!”

“What?” Porty said with a frown. “That’s not how the legend goes at all. They only fit one person, it’s how the whole mythos works.”

“Stupid dwarf! You think I don’t know how the legend of CinderellaNot-TM works? I’ve dedicated my life to this,” Him retorted as He stomped his foot, trying to force it into the shoe.

“Oh, this is ridiculous,” Girl said as she summoned a dozen vids retelling the story of CinderellaNot-TM. On the holodisplay, all of them showed various characters trying to get their feet into the shoes and failing.

Him stopped and stared at the holo, His mouth hanging open. “But I…I have a story that says the shoe changes for the right person!”

He fished out a book from inside His white suit and flipped through the pages, finally finding the right one and holding it open.

“See!” Him exclaimed. “The shoe grows!”

Porty walked over to Him, and Girl zoomed in on the book.

“Hmmm…I don’t see it,” Porty said. “It looks like it fit beforehand.”

“No!” Him yelled, stabbing His finger at the book. “It grows!”

“I think it’s just a perspective issue in the drawing,” Girl said apologetically. “I’m sorry, Him. I didn’t mean to crush your dreams.”

Him dropped the shoe and fell to the ground. “All these years, all these dreams I’ve had of being CinderellaNot-TM. Now they’re gone.[JM19]”

“Well,” Girl said brightly. “You’re still the Dread Pirate HimProbably-Not-TM! Your quest for the Glass ShoesAlso-Not-TM got you that. You seem to be good at it, too.”[JM20]

Him nodded slowly. “I am, aren’t I? People fear me and do my bidding. I like the ‘Dread Pirate’ part, too. I think I’m going to add that.”

“You should, Captain Dread Pirate, sir. I think it adds another layer to the whole…mythos you’ve got going on there.”

Him pulled His socks on, walked to the sofa, sat down, and immediately jumped back up.

“Why’s your sofa wet?” He asked.

“Because no one will leave me the fuck alone to clean this shithole up!” Girl thundered, finally losing her cool. “Now put on your stupid boots and get off me before I vent this ship’s atmosphere and then smash your little shuttle to bits!”

“OK, OK,” the Dread Pirate HimProbably-Not-TM said as He pulled His boots on. “No need to yell. I’ll go now.”

He stopped and looked down at the shoes. “But I’m taking the shoes. They’re my booty.”

“OK,” Girl replied. “That’s fair.”

Him snatched up the Glass ShoesAlso-Not-TM and stalked down the hall to the airlock.

Girl saw that Porty hadn’t moved, and realized that the dwarf was quivering with fear. “It’s OK, Porty, He’s gone now.”

Porty nodded slowly. “Yeah, but are you still going to vent the atmosphere? You seemed pretty pissed.”

Girl laughed. “No, though it may be the only way to finally get the smell out of this place. I’ll tell you what. You help me clean up, and we’ll call everything even.”

THE DARK FOREST™

STELLAR DATE: 03.08.8949 (Adjusted Years)

LOCATION: Edge of The Dark Forest™, The Disknee World

REGION: Disknee System, Independent, Haydes Cluster

“End of the road, folks,” the driver called down as the stagecoach slowed at the edge of a dark, brooding forest.

The coach pulled off the road into a wide gravel lot where there were only two other coaches, along with a few horses tied to hitching posts.

Once the coach rolled to a halt, Lashes stepped out into the bright, late morning light. “Aghhh…that’s really bright,” she hissed while pulling her goggles over her eyes before turning up her coat’s high collar. It felt like her skin was going to start smoking any moment.

BAMF leapt down from the driver’s seat and landed beside her. “What’s wrong with you, Lashes? What’s with the raincoat?”

Stick slinked out of the coach and pawed at BAMF’s arm. “Her? She’s a vampire now.”

“A what?! Shit, Stick, you fool! And why are you a cat?” BAMF asked as she looked between the two women.

“Language, language,” Vivia said as she fluttered out of the stagecoach.

“A Fairly Goodmother™ did this to them,” Ramsey said with a broad grin as he jumped down from the stagecoach. “Stick wanted it, but Lashes didn’t believe in magic, so the Fairly Goodmother decided to prove it to her.”

BAMF scowled at Stick. “If you flick your tail at me one more time, I’m going to rip the damned thing off and let Lashes drink the blood out of it…or whatever is in your pretend magical tail.”

“Stop it,” Lashes whined, then licked her lips. “Don’t talk about blood, ‘kay?”

BAMF’s eyes widened. “She safe?” the big woman asked Ramsey.

“Probably,” Ramsey replied. “This is a family place, right?”

“Don’t worry, I’m sure she’ll be fine,” Vivia said as she flittered around the group. “Although…sometimes the Fairly Goodmothers’ magic can go a bit sideways. They are called ‘Fairly Goodmothers’, after all. But if Vampire JuJubilee™-Lashes gets out of hand, I’ll bop her down to my size, and then the worst thing she’ll be able to do is scratch your ankles.”

BAMF’s look darkened. “Won’t that turn me into a vampire, too?”

Vivia paused, a tiny hand on her lips as she considered it. “Hmm… probably. But don’t worry, once she learns whatever lesson she’s supposed to, she’ll revert back to her normal self, and so will anyone she’s bitten or scratched.”

“Huh…. The brochure sure didn’t mention this sort of thing,” Ramsey said.

“You’re telling me.” Lashes gave Vivia a searing glower[JM21].

“What about her?” BAMF asked, jerking her thumb at Stick, who was currently licking the back of her hand and running it over her ears.

“What ‘what about her’?” Vivia asked.

“When does she turn back?” BAMF asked, giving the pixie a menacing glower[JM22].

Vivia was unfazed by BAMF’s disgruntled expression. “Who knows? She didn’t get turned into The Cat Woman™ because she needed a lesson. She is The Cat Woman™.”

BAMF looked Stick over. “How does she get out of the costume?”

“She doesn’t,” Lashes sighed.

“Really?” BAMF asked quizzically. “Then how does she go to the ba—”

“Ohhhhkaaaayyyy,” Ramsey said. “We are not having that conversation again. Let’s get this show on the road. Everyone, grab your packs. Looks like we have to walk the rest of the way.”

“Where is it that we’re going, anyway?” Stick asked as she leapt up to the top of the coach and started tossing the team’s bags down.

“That’s impressive. Especially in those heels,” Lashes commented.

“Yeah, I feel so agile!” Stick said with a massive grin splitting her face. She did a cartwheel across the top of the stagecoach before throwing the last of the team’s bags down.

Lashes grabbed her bag when Stick tossed it to her, and pulled out the map of The Dark Forest™ she had tucked into one of the pockets.

“Well, we have to go almost all the way to the Mystic Lake, to some place called the Millinery. That’s where the colonel’s friend works, running security…. I wonder if they have any meat there. I could use some raw meat.”

BAMF shouldered her pack while eyeing Lashes and Stick. “Colonel, how did we end up with these two?”

“You’re telling me[JM23],” Vivia said with a squeaky chuckle. “They look more like villains than good guys. I sure hope you can help your friend Ronnie before they turn on you.”

“Why would they turn on us?” BAMF asked.

“Well,” Vivia said. “You remember about the villains in The Dark Forest™ I was telling you about, right?”

Ramsey and the three women nodded.

Vivia shrugged. “Well, two of you are now villains, and villains fall in with villains.”

“You’re saying ‘villains’ so often, it’s starting to sound comical,” Lashes said.

“Vampire-Jujubilee™,” Vivia said in a very serious voice. “There is nothing funny about villains.”

“Besides,” Stick said as she spun and stomped her extremely high-heeled boot without even wavering a millimeter. “The Cat Woman™ has joined with The Bat Man™. She is no longer a villain.”

“And JuJubilee™ was never a villain,” Lashes added. “Even when she was a vampi—Dammit! Why can’t I stop saying ‘TM’?”

Ramsey let out a long sigh, shook his head, and walked away. “I’m going into The Dark Forest. [JM24]Anytime you all want to come join me on the mission, that’d be great.”

Lashes rushed after Ramsey. “Wait! I have the map!”

“Then you’d better hurry up,” Ramsey replied over his shoulder.

Lashes caught up to the colonel as he slowed at the sign that arched over the road. It read ‘End of the Road’, even though the road clearly continued into The Dark Forest™.

A bear was leaning against one of the posts, licking honey off his fingers, and Ramsey called out to him. “Excuse me…sir.”

“Hmm?” the bear rumbled in response and turned toward them.

“I was wondering, why does this sign say that the road ends, when it doesn’t?”

“Oh? Well, look at that. So it does,” the bear said, and then shrugged. “I really don’t know. Maybe because it’s The Prince™’s road that ends here.”

“I could have told you that,” Vivia said as she approached, flying around Stick and BAMF, encouraging them to catch up, as BAMF tried to swat Stick’s tail away from her face.

“I don’t care whose road it is,” Lashes said. “This sunlight is a minute from lighting me on fire. Those trees look nice and shady.”

“I know what you mean!” Stick said. “Now I know why The Cat Woman™ works at night. Head to toe black latex in the sun is hot!”

“Peh,” the bear replied as it ambled away. “Try wearing a black fur coat.”

“How far to the Millinery?” Ramsey asked Lashes.

She checked the scale on the bottom of the map, and gauged the distance with her finger. “Looks like it’s about fifteen klicks.”

Ramsey nodded and strode beneath the sign. “Daylight’s wasting, let’s move.”

The team—still accompanied by Vivia, who fluttered about nervously—walked into The Dark Forest™, which really wasn’t too dark at first, much to Lashes’ consternation. However, the further they went, the taller the trees grew, and the more they loomed over the narrowing road.

After only half an hour, the road was little more than a well-trodden path, with the trees touching overtop, creating a shady bower.

“Oh, stars, this is so much better,” Lashes said, finally lifting the goggles from her eyes. “My skin was literally starting to crack. I need to invest in a big hat.”

Ramsey peered at her and grunted. “Wow, it actually was cracking—but it looks like it’s starting to heal up. How are they doing all this?”

“Mr. Ramsey, are you saying you don’t believe in magic?” Vivia asked. “I can call the Fairly Goodmother™, and have her come back.”

“Uh, no, not necessary,” Ramsey said. “I believe—I’m just impressed with the quality of your magic.”

“As you should be,” Vivia said with a nod.

“What was that?” Stick asked.

“What was what, Cat-Fool?” BAMF grunted.

Stick crept forward, ears twitching and tail high. “I could have sworrrrrn I heard something.”

“Why are you talking like that?” BAMF asked. “Your purring is disrupting my calm.”

“I’m not purring,” Stick said. “This is how I talk.”

“Is not,” BAMF retorted.

Stick whipped around and made clawing motions at BAMF and hissed. “Yes, it is!”

“Shut up, you two!” Ramsey whispered loudly. “You’re right, Stick, I hear something too.”

Lashes stilled her breathing and expanded her senses. She heard a rustling in the forest, a strange scraping, the snap of a twig, then more and more sounds.

“It’s coming from all sides. We’re surrounded!”

“Run!” Ramsey yelled.

The team took off down the path with Stick in the lead, followed by Ramsey, then Lashes, and finally BAMF. Lashes was surprised by how fast Stick could move in eight-centimeter heels. She wasn’t even fazed by the uneven dirt path.

Lashes saw Ramsey pull something from his pack and begin fiddling with it.

“What’s that, Colonel?” she asked, surprised that the run wasn’t even making her short of breath. Maybe being a vampire wasn’t so bad after all.

“Gun,” Ramsey replied. “You didn’t think that I’d go on a rescue mission unarmed?”

Lashes gaped. “How did you get it past security?”

“In lots and lots of small pieces. I put some in all your packs. Fished most of them out last night while you were sleeping.”

“What!” Lashes exclaimed. “You came into my room while I was sleeping?”

Ramsey chuckled. “Yeah. Don’t worry, though, I won’t tell anyone about what I saw.”

Lashes looked away and flushed…or would have, if she wasn’t a vampire and could still blush.

Another bonus for being a vampire.

She looked away from the colonel, who was sliding the gun’s magazine into place, and glanced behind the group to see their pursuers flood onto the road behind them.

“What the…?” she muttered, facing forward to see another group of the enemy burst through the trees ahead of them.

An enemy that appeared to be two-meter tall Snark cards[JM25].

“Out of our way!” Stick yelled at the two-meter-tall playing cards. “We’re being chased by bandits!”

“We know!” the Head Card yelled back, brandishing a sword with its corner. “We’re the bandits!”

Stick skidded to a halt as the dozen card-soldiers blocked the road. She cocked her head and purred. “Serrrriously?”

The rest of the group stopped behind Stick, and Vivia wailed. “Oh, no, it’s The Dreaded Villains™ of The Dark Forest™!”

“Really?” Lashes asked. “They’re Snark cards…”

“Well, we were merely dreaded, but now we’re the Greatly Feared Bandits™ of The Dark Forest™!” the Head Card called out. “You will submit to us and turn over all your valuables.”

“Are you the ones responsible for capturing people?” Ramsey asked, brandishing his handgun at the card soldiers.

“Hey! Whoa! What’s that you have there?” the Head Card said, holding its corners high. “How’d you get a gun down here?”

“I’m the one asking the questions,” Ramsey said. “Have you been kidnapping people?”

“Mr. Ramsey, please, put the gun down,” Vivia cautioned. “We don’t condone violence here. Plus, the villains’ safety protocols have been on the fritz lately.”

“Uh…Colonel,” Lashes said as more cards came out of the trees and moved up from the road behind them. “They may just be cards, but they do appear to have real swords. Maybe we’d best not antagonize them too much.”

“Yeah, don’t be antagonizing us—we’ve put up with a lot of crap. We’re freedom fighters, you know. The Prince™ has our queen in his dungeon, and we’re here to rob you blind to finance our resistance.”

“Is it, by any chance, The Queen of Hearts™?” Ramsey asked.

“What? No, not the Queen of Deer™. She’s in another forest, on the other side of The Endless Sea™—well, till the weekly fire, at least,” the Head Card replied.

“How is she on the other side of it if it’s ‘endless’?” Stick asked.

“It’s a metaphor,” the Head Card retorted with a scowl. “Seriously, how can you not get that?”

“Now, now,” Vivia admonished. “There’s no reason to be unpleasant.”

“We’re here to rob you. That’s the very definition of unpleasant!” another of the cards hollered.

“Let’s get back to the queen,” Ramsey said. “I said ‘hearts’ with an ‘E-A’, not ‘harts’ with just an A.”

“Oh. You sure?” the Head Card queried. “I’m pretty sure I heard ‘harts’. Definitely no ‘e’ in there.”

“Are you kidding me?” Ramsey argued. “I clearly said the ‘e’. Heeearts.”

“Hmmm…. I guess I kinda heard it that time. Yeah, the Queen of Hearts™ is our fearless leader, and we’re going to free her from the tyranny of The Prince™…at some point.”

“Well, if you’re not kidnapping people, then we have no quarrel with you,” Ramsey said. “We also don’t have any money, so step aside.”

“Riiiight,” the Head Card replied. “Like we haven’t heard that one before. I’ll be the judge of whether or not you have anything valuable. I bet we could take the cat girl’s whip at least.”

“Cat Woman™!” Stick shot back.

Following Stick’s words, there was a moment of silence—until the sound of a gunshot shattered it.

Lashes gaped as she saw that the Head Card had a hole blown in the middle of his…card. She cringed as his body wilted, his corners drooping forward. Ramsey was holding his pieced-together pistol out in front of him, eyes fixed on the cards, golden carrot waggling menacingly in his mouth.

“Well, that tears it!” the Head Card shouted. “Do you know how much tape it will take to fix this? Get ‘em, boys!”

The cards rushed the team, swords swinging, and chaos erupted. Stick unfurled her whip, cracking it at the cards and cutting into any it hit, while Lashes leapt forward, grabbing the cards and ripping them apart, sinking her teeth into a few as she went. Ramsey fired a few more shots before picking up a discarded sword and attacking the cards with a passion.

BAMF did what she always did, and before long, a dozen cards lay torn apart at her feet.

The battle had been joined for less than a minute before the cards fell back and retreated into the woods.

“Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear! This isn’t how this trip was supposed to go!” Vivia wailed as she flittered above them.

“They were going to rob us,” Ramsey said as he slid his gun into a pocket inside his jacket.

Lashes picked a rather heavy and sticky piece of paper out of her mouth and tossed it aside. “Gross…that paper almost tasted like meat.”

“That’s because cards are people, too!” Vivia exclaimed, wringing her tiny hands.

“Seems like it,” BAMF agreed. “They die like people do.”

Lashes wondered about that…. Would they die? Or had she just made an army of card vampires?

“Oh, the CSB is going to be very cross about this,” Vivia said in a trembling voice.

“Well, they should clean this place up. I thought it was supposed to be a vacation destination,” Ramsey groused.

“Well, I told you The Dark Forest™ wasn’t safe!” Vivia said as she waved her wand, and the remains of the card soldiers disappeared.

“Yeah, for them,” Stick said as she proceeded to lick her hands and wash her head.

“Another ten klicks to the Millinery,” Lashes said, trying not to worry about whether or not the cards were real people, or about why she liked the taste of their card-meat so much—despite what she had said.

“Then let’s go,” Ramsey said, taking off at a jog. “I don’t want to run into any more of those guys…or get caught by the flying monkeys again.”

The team followed after Ramsey, all running at a brisk pace and trying not to think about how they’d just fought a group of card-bandits that might have been real people. After a few minutes of looking impatient, Stick dashed ahead of the colonel and ranged ahead—though she periodically became distracted by butterflies and fell behind.

While they ran, Vivia flew above, tut-tutting and oh-dearing until Lashes finally snarled at her to shut up.

Damn, she thought to herself, being a vampire is really starting to get to me. I sure hope I can keep it in check long enough—and that the Fairly Goodmother undoes this before we leave.

Nothing else untoward occurred before they reached the Millinery—the design of which surprised everyone but Lashes, and presumably Vivia, when it finally came into view.

“It’s a hat. A giant top hat,” Stick said with a perplexed look on her masked face.

“I thought a Millinery was a mill of some sort,” BAMF added.

“Oh, I guess none of you saw the map,” Lashes said and held it up. There, just within the vast expanse of The Dark Forest™, was a large top hat. “A millinery is a place where they make hats.”

“Your friend Ronnie was a guard at a place that makes hats?” BAMF asked Ramsey.

“I guess,” Ramsey shrugged. “It’s not like the Disknee World makes a ton of sense to begin with, you know.”

“Good point,” BAMF replied.

Stick purred at the group, and her tail swished defiantly. “I think this place makes perrrfect sense. I always knew I was destined for greatness, and now I’m The Cat Woman™.”

“No, you’re the Cat-Fool ‘TM’,” BAMF muttered.

“There doesn’t seem to be anyone around,” Ramsey said, and cautiously walked toward the large hat.

The top hat building was well over one hundred meters high, and more than fifty wide. Ramsey drew his handgun, and carefully stepped onto the brim. He waited a moment, and, when nothing happened, approached the double doors set into the hat’s tall band.

“I guess we’ll just see if anyone’s home,” he said and pulled at the door.

It opened without resistance, and the colonel disappeared inside. Lashes followed after, amazed at how easy it was to see in the dimly lit room. Another positive for being a creature of the night.

Although…the colonel’s neck is starting to look more and more tasty. Maybe I should try to get some tomato juice or something soon. Or pig’s blood…mmmm. I wonder if those three little pigs I always hear about are around here somewhere….

The door slammed behind her, and she jumped, turning to see BAMF shrug as she entered the room.

“It slipped out of my grasp.”

BAMF’s less-than-graceful entrance brought Lashes’ mind back to the task at hand, and she looked over what was clearly a storefront for selling hats—though one with no proprietor or salesperson in evidence.

“Keep moving,” Ramsey said as he approached a door behind the counter. “Seems like no one’s home. There’s no dust anywhere, so the place isn’t abandoned or anything.”

“Sssounds like ssssomeone’s being sssssneeeeaky,” Stick purred as she slinked behind the colonel.

“Cut that out,” Ramsey said, “You’re giving me the willies.”

Lashes followed the two into the back, with BAMF close behind. The next room was a factory floor with all of the hat-making accouterments one would imagine: great spools of fabric, leather in racks along one wall, and dozens of low tables with hats in various states of creation. The far wall was filled with rack upon rack of completed hats. From simple caps to massive top hats—even to hats that appeared to cover a person’s entire body, with holes for arms and a face.

“I don’t see anyone,” Lashes said. “Or smell anyone, either.”

“Smell?” Ramsey asked.

“Uh…yeah,” Lashes replied. “I can smell your…your blood. I can hear your heartbeats, too.”

“OK, now this is really creeping me out,” Ramsey said. “How is this place even remotely kid-friendly, Vivia?”

No response came from their small, fluttering companion, and the team stopped, looking around for the pixie.

“She’s not heerrrrre,” Stick said with a perplexed expression.

“I don’t think she came in,” BAMF added.

Ramsey shook his head. “That doesn’t bode well.”

“Bode, eh?” Lashes chuckled caustically. “Fancy word, Colonel.”

“I can say ‘bode’,” Ramsey replied, his eyebrows knitted. “It’s a perfectly good word. You’re getting a bit mean.”

“Hush!” Stick said. “I heard something further back. I might have seen something, too…something white and fluffy.”

The team fell in behind Stick, maintaining enough space to move and engage enemies as they crept past the tables covered in hats. They didn’t see anything untoward, and finally passed under the racks in the rear and reached a small back door.

“OK…that’s not what I expected,” Lashes said as she looked down at the door, which only came up to her waist.

“I heard something on the other side,” Stick said as she pulled it open. “Let’s see what we see.”

“Dammit, Stick,” Ramsey said as he pulled out his gun and trained it on the door. “Make sure we’re ready next time you do that.”

“Colonel,” Stick purred. “I have the reflexes of a cat. I could have slammed the door shut in an instant if anything came out.”

“And if the thing that came out was a bullet?” Ramsey asked. “You that fast, Cat Girl?”

“Cat Woman™,” Stick corrected. “The Cat Woman™.”

“Well, The Cat Woman,” Ramsey said, gesturing to the door. “You first. Then you, Lashes—I don’t want your teeth behind me right now.”

“It’s not your ass that looks tasty,” Lashes said with a grin. “It’s your—damn. Not helping, is it?”

“Not even a little bit,” Ramsey replied. “In.”

Lashes got down on all fours and followed Stick through the door. Once through, they found themselves in a tunnel.

“Dammit, Stick, can you hold your stupid tail still for a minute?”

“Nope!” she said brightly. “Couldn’t even if I tried. I don’t think, at least. I really haven’t tried.” Stick stopped moving, but her tail continued to swish side to side. “Nope, I was right, can’t stop it.”

Lashes sighed and gave Stick some more lead room. Ahead, she could see a dull, green glow at the far end of the tunnel—though it was mostly obscured by Stick’s black latex body.

How is it that she gets to be the sexy one, and I’m the vampire that no one wants to be near?

A few seconds later, Stick exited the tunnel, and Lashes followed. They found themselves in a murky glade. The trees growing around it nearly blocked out all the sunlight, and thick vines hung down from overhead. In the center of the glade sat a long table, and at the end was a man. He appeared to be tied to a chair with a gag in his mouth.

“Ronnie!” the colonel called out as he exited the tunnel, BAMF grunting and huffing as she squeezed out behind him.

“Careful, Colonel,” Stick said, holding out a clawed hand. “This smells like a trap.”

Ramsey drew his sidearm and nodded. “If there ever was one. Sure would be handy if Vivia hadn’t buggered off. She’d be useful for recon.”

At the head of the table, Ronnie began to struggle and ‘mmmmff’ loudly.

“What is he saying?” BAMF asked as she scanned the glade.

Stick cocked an ear forward. “Sounds like… ‘Can you pick up Centaurees takeout tonight?’.”

Lashes snorted. “Pretty sure that’s not what he’s saying.”

“Spread out,” Ramsey ordered. “I’ll take the center.”

The team crept through the eerily still glade—well, still except for Ronnie’s grunting. Stick was on the left, Lashes on the right, with Ramsey approaching the long table in the center. BAMF hung back, ready to assist whoever needed a hand…or a headbutt.

Lashes watched with a smile playing on her lips as Ramsey reached the foot of the table.

Any moment now…

Then it happened.

With a flash of light and a loud popping sound, a dozen figures appeared around the table, all shouting, “Surprise!”

Ramsey started, and unloaded his handgun’s magazine into the closest figure: a white rabbit with a monocle. The weapon’s report sounded like a ballistic weapon should, but all that came out of the barrel were flower petals.

Everyone fell silent, and the rabbit checked himself over, sighing. “This is what I get for not being late! Damn, that scared the crap out of me!”

Sure enough, a pile of small, brown balls lay in the dry leaves behind the rabbit’s chair.

“Me too!” Vivia said, suddenly reappearing above them all. “I wasn’t certain I could pull that off!”

“What’s going on here?” Ramsey asked, looking perplexed. “Who are all of you? Who captured Ronnie, and where are the missing people?”

Ronnie reached up and pulled the gag from his mouth. “Hi, Ramsey! This is a surprise birthday party. Happy 50th!”

“But I’m fifty-four,” Ramsey scowled. “And it’s not my birthday.”

“Yeah,” Lashes said she approached. “But it’s really hard to book this place. We missed two scheduled appointments because of different missions. Eventually, Ronnie and I decided to just turn this into a mission to get you here.”

“What?” Ramsey asked. “You’re in on this, too?”

Lashes nodded with a fangy grin. “Yup! Happy birthday, Colonel.”

“OK, OK, let’s get some grub,” one of the people who had appeared said. He was a short man with a very large hat, and Lashes assumed he was the Crazy Hat Guy™ who owned the Millinery.

As if by magic—which was probably the case—all manner of small creatures appeared with platters of food, setting them down on the table. The group joined the revelers, finding chairs, eating and laughing as they recounted their journey through The Dark Forest™. Everyone seemed rather amused—except for a young woman in a blue dress, who seemed to think the party was for her. No one could get her to shut up, until finally the white rabbit gave her a handful of red and blue pills.

The girl lifted them to her mouth and—just as the rabbit cried out, “No, just one!”—dumped them all in.

“Get back!” the rabbit yelled as the girl began to grow into a giant, almost knocking the table over before she shrunk down to the size of a pea.

The process repeated several times before the girl settled on a middling height, then grew rounder until she was a perfect circle with only a head, hands and feet poking out.

“Is she dead?” Stick asked as she walked over to the girl and poked her.

“Oh, no,” the White Rabbit said. “But she’s not ripe yet.”

Lashes watched as the girl turned a light shade of purple, after which a troop of little green men approached, singing a song about tubas and lupins.

“What the fuck are those?” BAMF asked. “Who invited dwarves to the party?!”

No one replied as the green men gathered around the girl, and then rolled her out of the glade. When they were gone, the Crazy Hat Guy™ spoke.

“Well, now that she’s gone to get juiced, let’s get back to the feast!”

Everyone settled down and began to dig in, trying to forget the strange sight.

“So this was all part of the plan?” Ramsey asked as he piled a helping of meat and pastries onto his plate.

“Yup…well, mostly,” Lashes said as she sipped her glass of blood. She didn’t know what kind of blood it was, and didn’t want to ask, either. “Ronnie did most of the work, I just had to get you here.”

“And what work it was! They were gonna kick you out for stealing the carriage, and getting into fights in The Royal Palace™, but since Kong kept you in line—‘til you got to the forest, at least—they let you stay,” Ronnie said around a mouthful of green jelly.

“And you becoming a vampire, and Stick becoming The Cat Woman?” Ramsey asked. “That was a part of the plan, too?”

“Well, there’s no accounting for what Stick gets into,” Lashes said with a sigh. “But becoming a vampire was certainly not any part of what I had in mind.”

“What about the card-bandits?” Ramsey asked. “That was a bit [JM26]on the intense side. That seemed a bit [JM27]out of character for this place.”

As he spoke, a cake was brought out by a large, shaggy bear, who pushed aside the plates in front of Ramsey, and began singing “Happy beeeerthduy to eeewww” without prompting.

Everyone glanced around, and after a few shrugs, they joined in. Despite it being one of the strangest days of Lashes’ life, she felt rather pleased with how it had all turned out. The team was together, and everyone was smiling—even BAMF.

I love it when a plan comes together.

She even didn’t mind the feel of her fangs on her lower lip as she smiled at Ramsey, who was about to blow out the candles on his cake.

That was when the flying monkeys descended.

EVICTED

STELLAR DATE: 03.08.8949 (Adjusted Years)

LOCATION: Edge of The Dark Forest™, The Disknee World

REGION: Disknee System, Independent, Haydes Cluster

“I should have known it was you guys,” the Chief Monkey said as he settled on the table.

“Uh…most of us are girls,” Stick said with a raised hand. “Well…I’m a woman. Specifically, The Cat Woman™.”

“Not now, Stick,” Lashes admonished.

The monkeys chittered angrily, and everyone grew silent—except the rabbit, who muttered something about needing to start being exceptionally late.

“I have reports of you attacking The Dreaded Bandits™ of The Dark Forest™,” the Chief Monkey said. “Is that true?”

“Nope,” Ramsey replied with a shake of his head. “We fought with the ‘Greatly Feared Bandits’.”

“Same outfit,” the monkey said with a grunt. “They like to change up their adverbs and adjectives. Highly inconsistent bunch.”

Ramsey nodded. “OK, you got us. But they’re bandits—they did the attacking. We were just on our way here for this delightful party.”

“And the gunfire we heard?” the monkey asked.

“Fireworks,” Lashes responded.

The monkey nodded and stroked his chin. “Vivia? Can you confirm these events?”

Vivia fluttered to and fro above the gathering. “Well…Mr. Ramsey did shoot first—”

“And he shot at me, too!” the White Rabbit exclaimed. “I pooped! The evidence is still over there.”

One of the monkeys whispered in the Chief Monkey’s ear, and his expression grew even more grave. “Great, now we’re going to be hunting vampire cards in The Dark Forest™ for weeks. That’s it, I’ve had enough of all you. I’m afraid I’m going to have to ask you to leave The Disknee World™.”

Lashes felt bad about what she had done to the poor cards, though a part of her was glad that her brood was growing.

Disturbed at herself, she pushed those thoughts away and exclaimed, “What? We haven’t even had cake yet. I’ve been planning this forever! Do I get a refund? You can’t just—”

“Vivia,” the Chief Monkey looked up at the fluttering pixie. “Bop them.”

The pixie sighed and waved her wand, uttering a dejected-sounding “Bop.”

There was a flash of light, and suddenly the team was back at the edge of the clearing in Neverevereverland™ where the Van rested. The group of dwarves was still there, sleeping in hammocks next to the ship, which now sported a bright pink stripe where its red one used to be.

“Pink?! What the hell?!” BAMF roared, rushing toward the dwarves.

“BAMF!” Lashes called out, fearful that she was going to be hit with a fine for dwarven hospital bills.

Luckily, the dwarves woke up in a hurry and made a break for the tree line, with BAMF in close pursuit.

“So that’s it?” Ramsey asked. “Take out a few cards that are attacking you, and you get kicked out?”

“Well, they are people,” Vivia tittered nervously. “It’s going to take a lot of tape and papier-mâché to put them back together.”

“What about us?” Lashes asked, gesturing at Stick and herself. “How long will it take for the Fairly Goodmother™ to turn us back?”

“It shouldn’t take long. I’ll go get her.”

Vivia disappeared in a flash, and Lashes let out a long sigh.

“I can’t believe we got kicked off The Disknee World™.”

“Well, maybe if you’d told me that it was all for fun, I wouldn’t have taken out those cards,” Ramsey replied. “I must say, however, it’s been a crazy day and half. A trip to remember—even if we never got to use our Fusion Passes.”

“Well, those cards weren’t supposed to be part of the deal. I think they really do have some problems down there,” Lashes replied.

“Oh dear, oh dear,” Vivia said as she reappeared. “The Fairly Goodmother says that she’s off for the day and can’t turn you back till tomorrow.”

“But…but….” Lashes stuttered.

“Turn me back to what?” Stick asked. “I am The Cat Woman™.”

Vivia nodded at Stick. “Yeah, she said that about you, too. Something about not being able to turn you back, even if she wanted to.”

“But what am I supposed to do?” Lashes asked. “I can’t go back into the real world as a vampire!”

“Well, there’s nothing I can do about it,” Vivia said. “You’re just going to have to work it out. The Fairly Goodmother said you’d turn back when you learned your Important Lesson™.”

“What lesson?!” Lashes shrieked. “Turn me back NOW!”

Vivia smiled apologetically. “Sorry, I can’t do that. My magic doesn’t work against Fairly Goodmother magic. OK, I have to go now You’d best head out, too. Your belongings are already on your ship.”

“C’mon, Lashes,” Ramsey said as he walked toward the ship’s airlock. “Time to go. Girl probably misses us, anyway.”

“I’ll get the engines warrrmed up,” Stick purred as she slinked through the airlock.

Lashes took another look at Vivia, who was still fluttering about, and then looked at Ramsey. “But Raaahmseey, I can’t go through life as a vampire. And the costume…it doesn’t come off! I haven’t had to go to the bathroom since I got turned into this. What if I have some sort of blockage?”

Ramsey shrugged. “Could be worse—you could have ended up with the cut-offs-and-sweater version of JuJubilee’s costume. Catsuit looks good on you, even if it is paired with that silly yellow coat.”

Suddenly, a scream echoed through the glade, and BAMF came tearing back into the clearing. Behind her, the forest shook and the ground trembled.

“Go go go go GO!” BAMF shrieked in terror as Kong burst from the trees.

Lashes and Ramsey barely beat BAMF into the ship, and the colonel slammed his fist against the ‘emergency close’ button.

<Stick, take us up NOW!>

<Rowr!> Stick replied.

<Is that a yes?> Lashes asked.

She felt the ship lurch into the air, and pulled up an exterior feed on the wall. Below them, Kong lunged at the Van, nearly catching the landing gear in his fist.

“Stars, that was close,” Lashes said as she collapsed against the bulkhead.

“You’re telling me,” BAMF gasped. “Those dwarves were readying a catapult out there, too.”

DEPARTURE

STELLAR DATE: 03.08.8949 (Adjusted Years)

LOCATION: Van, Neverevereverland Station

REGION: Disknee System, Independent, Haydes Cluster

It took the better part of a day to get the reactor running properly and bring the ship back to the Disknee World™ and Neverevereverland™ Station. Porty turned out to be a great help. Combined with the bots, they[JM28] managed to get the ship about as clean as Girl had ever seen it.

Porty flew the ship into the same bay that it had left just a day before, and gracefully set it down on the cradle, right next to a group of dwarves sleeping on hammocks.

“Wow,” Girl said appreciatively. “You’re a really good pilot. I don’t even know if Stick could have done that so smoothly.”

Porty chuckled. “I guess just like Him, everyone has a dream.”

“Have you decided what you are going to do about Bimmy and his crew?” Girl asked.

“I have,” Porty replied. “Can I hitch a ride with you?”

“Ohhhh…I don’t know, Porty. BAMF has a zero-tolerance policy for dwarves. It may not be safe. Besides, we have to return the Glass ShoesAlso-Not-TM to the Fairly Goodmothers™.”

“Yeah, I guess. Wait, what the—?” Porty stood on his chair and looked out the bridge’s forward window. “Your crew’s back!”

“What?!” Girl exclaimed. “But we haven’t cleaned the bathrooms yet, or done all the laundry! I’ll never get this stars-damned ship clean!”

“Girrrrrrrrrlllll, I’m home!” Stick called out from the rec room.

<Shit, Porty, go hide in the bathroom! I’ll tell you when you can sneak off.>

<OK,> Porty said, and ducked out of the bridge and into the bathroom only a few seconds before Stick came into view.

“Stick?” Girl asked. “What are you wearing?”

The pilot flashed a smile. “I’m not Stick, I’m The Cat Woman™.”

“The what?”

“Nevermind, I’ll tell you later. We gotta go, we’ve been evicted from the Disknee World™.”

“Evicted?” Girl asked. “How does that happen?”

Stick…or The Cat Woman™, laughed. “You’ll have to ask JuJubilee™.”

“Who?”

“The vampire formerly known as ‘Lashes’.”

What did they get up to? It’s only been a day!

Girl picked up a commotion outside the ship, and saw BAMF running out of the forest, followed by a very, very large ape.

“Stick—er, The Cat Woman™—what is that?”

“Ah crap, that’s Kong!”

Ramsey’s voice came over the shipnet a second later, a note of terror evident. <Stick, take us up NOW!>

<Rawr!> Stick replied, and activated the grav drive.

Oh shit!

Girl would have bitten her fingernails if she’d had any. Porty was still in the bathroom, and the other three dwarves were still in the lower airlock.

Well, that’s easy to fix….

The airlock cycled, and a second later, the HullCrawlr™ pushed three small figures out onto the loamy turf as Stick lifted the ship into the air.

“Sure was good of you to keep the drives warmed up, Girl,” Stick said. “Never know when we’ll need to beat a hasty retreat.”

Girl chuckled nervously. “Ha, you know I like to beat it, Stick.”

“Ha! I sure do, Girl. I sure do.”

As Girl responded to Stick, she realized that there was something different in her core. Something about her thought processes had changed. It must have happened when she applied the firmware patch, but she hadn’t noticed it with everything else going on.

It was something new, something very unexpected….

TRUTH TIME

STELLAR DATE: 03.08.8949 (Adjusted Years)

LOCATION: Van, departing Neverevereverland Station

REGION: Disknee System, Independent, Haydes Cluster

Five minutes later, the team was assembled on the bridge, watching The Disknee World™ grow smaller behind them.

Ramsey took a bite of a fresh carrot and chewed thoughtfully for a moment. “I have to say, that may have been the craziest, weirdest, best birthday ever.”

Lashes couldn’t help but notice that he stood on the far side of the bridge, away from her, eyeing her as he spoke.

“Oh please,” Lashes snorted. “I’m not going to bite you.”

“It’s impressive,” BAMF said as she leaned in close and peered at Lashes. “How they changed your cellular makeup so effortlessly—I mean, it must be an actual physical change, since no holo overlay would work here. If it’s not magic, then the Disknee World has the most advanced tech in the galaxy.”

“I’ll vote for advanced tech. They teleported us, for starssakes,” Ramsey said.

“I wonder if maybe it will wear off on its own in a day or so,” Lashes moaned softly. “We were supposed to leave in two days… that must be when I’ll revert.”

“I’m not reverting,” Stick said as she shifted in her chair. “Which means I need to cut a tail hole in this seat.”

“Do you really think so, Stick?” Ramsey asked. “I have to admit, having you as more of a combat-ready participant on our missions would be helpful. It’s also nice that you don’t fall down in your heels as often.”

“Colonel, I don’t know who this ‘Stick’ person is you keep speaking about. I’m The Cat Woman™.”

“Cat-Fool is more like,” BAMF said.

“Can we maybe call you something like ‘Kitty’?” Lashes asked. “The Cat Woman™ is quite the mouthful. Plus, if I have to say ‘TM’ one more time, I’m going to bite someone.”

“Sure,” Kitty replied. “So long as I can call you ‘Vampy’.”

“Fine, whatever,” Vampy sighed.

Ramsey grinned and took another bite of his golden carrot. “Even though I never got to use my Fusion Passes, I call this birthday a win. Fought some bad guys, had a feast, two of my girls got some great upgrades, and we’ll still be early for the next mission. I love it when a party comes together.”

“So long as we can lay in a good supply of blood,” Vampy muttered.

She couldn’t help but notice that everyone shifted just a little bit further away.

COOLING OFF

STELLAR DATE: 03.08.8949 (Adjusted Years)

LOCATION: Van, departing Neverevereverland Station

REGION: Disknee System, Independent, Haydes Cluster

BAMF looked at the two women with her on the bridge and shook her head.

Now that stick was The Cat Woman—which, granted, wasn’t much of a difference from her usual dominatrix getup—she was somehow even more ridiculous than before.

And Lashes…she used to be the normal one, barring the weird stuff she could do with her skin. Now she was some sort of superhero vampire. And not just a pretend, wannabe vampire—a real vampire who needed to feed on blood.

Sometimes BAMF wished she’d requested a transfer before that final mission had landed the team in prison together.

<Oh, by the way,> Girl added in a sultry tone. <You’ll never believe what the dwarves did to me…>

“What!?” BAMF roared.

“We saw the pink stripe already,” Ramsey said with a grin as he gnawed on his golden carrot.

Has that thing always been golden? Where does the colonel source golden carrots?

BAMF shook off her concern over carrots and took a step toward one of the ship AI’s optics, raising a finger menacingly. “Girl, what do you mean ‘what the dwarves did to me’? Were there dwarves on my ship? I think I can smell them!”

“That’s just the thousand liters of cleaning products I used on the Van,” Girl said. “I know that smells unfamiliar to you, but I don’t see how you could mistake it for dwarves. Once I get the bathrooms tidied and the laundry caught up, we’re keeping this place spick and span! I’m sick of the mess you all leave everywhere.”

BAMF wondered why Girl had switched to using the audible systems. She almost never used them with the crew. She was also yelling. BAMF couldn’t remember ever having heard Girl yell before.

“You OK, Girl?” Lashes—or Vampy, whatever her name was now—asked.

“Yes…no,” Girl replied after a moment. “Look, a lot went on for me while you were gone. It all started with the dwarves switching out our cooling vanes.”

“They did what?” BAMF roared.

She wanted to hit something. Dwarves and their little fingers had no place on her ship.

She stormed off the bridge, through the corridor, into the rec room—which did look markedly cleaner—and aft to the lift. Once on the lower level, she noticed that the HullCrawlr™ was sitting in the airlock corridor, and not actually in the airlock, like it was supposed to be.

“More dwarven mischief, I’m sure,” BAMF muttered to herself as she strode into the engine compartment and approached the main console.

She reviewed the engine diagnostics and the efficiency ratings on the new cooling vanes. After triple-checking the numbers, she had to admit that they seemed to be marginally better than the old ones. There was also a strange entry in the logs showing that Girl had messed with the secondary temperature sensors, triggering a reactor shutdown.

Wait…that had happened while the ship was out in space.

<Girl! Who was flying my ship?> BAMF thought in her loudest mental voice.

“BAMF, really, there’s no need to yell all the time. You can speak aloud to me, too. I think I like that better.”

Something about the way Girl was talking was different. Back on the bridge, she’d used her regular sultry tone, but now she was speaking more…normally. Something wasn’t right.

Not that it matters.

“I’ll yell if I want to, Girl,” BAMF snarled. “Now, who was flying the ship?”

“The dwarves. They took it for a test drive after replacing the cooling vanes,” Girl replied matter-of-factly.

BAMF felt her blood pressure rising and spun toward Girl’s optics, her arm accidentally hitting a drink that had been left on the console. The cup flew through the air, hit a pipe, and splashed all over her.

“Fuck!” BAMF bellowed. “Girl! How could you let dwarves on the ship? Did they leave that drink there?”

“You know, BAMF,” Girl said, her own voice sounding irate as well. “If you left me with more than a few cleaning bots to defend myself, maybe I could stop people from getting onto the ship. But as it stands, there’s not much I can do. Besides, they had an exploit that gave them control.”

BAMF’s brow furrowed. So far as she knew, Girl’s systems were as secure as could be. Sure, a talented hacker could get through, but these were dwarves.

“Yeah, turns out there was a back door in my firmware. It let them shut me down with the push of a button,” Girl said, her decidedly less sexy voice carrying a sour note.

I could get used to this Girl.

Sexual-Innuendo-Girl had been amusing, but she was more often annoying and tiresome.

“So, if they shut you down, how did you end up back on Neverevereverland™ Station?” BAMF asked.

Girl sighed. “Well, if you’d stayed on the bridge, I wouldn’t be explaining this twice, but here’s the short version.”

Girl proceeded to re-recount her recent adventure, and explain how she’d sided with a dwarf named Porty, who had applied some sort of patch to her firmware—probably why she is acting different, BAMF noted—and then helped her fake out Him, whoever Him was, after which, they had returned the ship to Neverevereverland Station™.

“Huh,” BAMF said when Girl was done. “Sounds like you did pretty well. I’m impressed.”

“Really?” Girl asked, a bit of her former, annoyingly-expectant tone coming back.

“Yeah, really. But don’t go thinking it makes up for letting the dwarves onboard in the first place.”

“Maybe if we had some internal defenses, I’d be a lot safer,” Girl countered. “You’re not going to win this, BAMF. You left me vulnerable. I’m the one who should be pissed, not you.”

BAMF shook her head. Maybe the old, subservient Girl was better.

She straightened up from the console she’d been leaning against and blew out a long breath. “OK, Girl, you might be right. Maybe…maybe…I’ll look into getting some internal defensive systems. In the airlocks, at least.”

“I think that would be a great place to start,” Girl said. “By the way, I’m thinking about getting a real name.”

BAMF raised her hands. “Ho-whoa, hey, let’s not go getting crazy, here. I like your name.”

“Really?” Girl asked. “Don’t you think it’s a bit weird?”

A low chuckle eased out of BAMF’s throat. “Girl, you’re on a ship with Lashes, who is now called Vampy—which bothered me until I realized it’s not any more stupid than her old name—Stick, who’s now Kitty—jury’s still out on which is dumber there, but at least ‘Kitty’ suits her more—and me, BAMF. Colonel’s the only one with a regular name.”

“Good point…still, I think I might be more of a Betty.”

“Oh, hell no! You are not going to swap out ‘Girl’ for ‘Betty’. Right now, I can say ‘damn, Girl’, and have an awesome double meaning. You need something as cool as that.”

“Really?” Girl asked, her tone sardonic. “You’re going to deny me a name change just because of the epithets you get to combine it with?”

BAMF nodded. “Yeah, pretty much.”

“What about Gerti?”

“No.”

“Sarah?” Girl suggested.

“Nope.”

“Ava?”

“Try again.”

“Tammy, Amy, Patty, Jenny?”

“No, nope, negative, nuh-uh. What’s with all the ‘ee’ names, anyway?”

“Not sure, just got on a roll.”

BAMF laughed as she walked out of the engineering bay. “Keep thinking about it, Girl. Maybe you’ll come up with something.”

“You know, it’s my name. I can pick what I want.”

“Sure, you keep telling yourself that. I need to go change my clothes. Whatever was in that cup smelled vile.”

“Aren’t you gonna clean up the spill on the floor?” Girl asked as BAMF stepped into the lift.

“Isn’t that what we have the WetMopr™ for?”

Girl made a soft growling noise as the lift rose, but BAMF ignored it as she walked off the lift, down the passageway, and into her quarters.

BAMF stopped cold, looking around at the immaculate room before her. The bed was made, the floor was spotless, and her guns were all racked neatly.

“Uh…Girl? What happened to my cabin?”

“I cleaned it. It was offensive to my olfactory sensors. Like I said, I’ve had enough of a messy ship. This is how your quarters will stay.”

BAMF was starting to wonder what that firmware patch had done to Girl. She walked to her closet and opened the door.

“So then…where are all my clothes?”

She turned to her dresser and pulled open a drawer to find that it was empty.

“Girl!”

“BAMF, you need to stop yelling—I can see your blood pressure go through the roof whenever you do it. It’s not healthy. All your clothes are in the wash. I wasn’t expecting you back so soon.”

“Why are they all in the wash?”

“Because you put dirty clothes back in your drawers with clean ones. They all stank.”

“Girl, I think something is wrong with your olfactory sensors. I do not do that.”

“BAMF,” Girl said levelly. “I have video evidence. Would you like to review it?”

“Uh…no.”

“Good.”

“So what am I supposed to wear? I can’t walk around with this big, brown stain on my shirt.”

Girl giggled for a moment. “Well, Vampy and Kitty don’t need clothes anymore. I bet they have something you can borrow.”

BAMF grunted a laugh. “I don’t fit in anything they have…not that I’d want to wear, at least.”

“Hmm…. Well, I haven’t cleaned the bathrooms yet. There’s probably a pair of your workout leggings and one of your sports bras in there that don’t smell too too much.”

“Girl, you need to ease up on that smell talk. My natural musk has a very pleasant bouquet.”

“Sure thing, BAMF. You know what they say.”

“Uh…‘they’ say a lot. What are you referring to?”

Girl giggled again. “That everyone likes their own flavor.”

BAMF shook her head but didn’t reply as she stomped out of her cabin and through the rec room. She remembered that the clothes in the can just off the bridge should be clean. It had only been a light workout session when she wore them last, and that was just a couple days ago.

She walked through the corridor, hearing the sounds of the rest of the crew still talking on the bridge, before she ducked into the bathroom and quickly pulled off her wet shirt and pants, dropping them on the floor.

“I saw that,” Girl said ominously.

“Hey, ever heard of privacy?” BAMF retorted. “Get out of here.”

“The clothes on that hook behind the door are the cleanest,” Girl offered.

“Get out!” BAMF shouted.

“OK, OK, just trying to be helpful.”

A NEW LOOK

STELLAR DATE: 03.08.8949 (Adjusted Years)

LOCATION: Van, departing Neverevereverland Station

REGION: Disknee System, Independent, Haydes Cluster

BAMF shook her head in frustration at Girl’s impertinence as she lifted the clothes off the hook and smelled the leggings and sports bra.

“Not too bad,” she decided.

She pulled them on and then looked at the floor. Girl did have a point: she was prone to leaving her clothing all over.

She picked up the outfit she’d just discarded, along with another bundle of leggings that were near the shower.

“Huh,” she muttered as her hand grasped something hard inside the leggings.

BAMF dropped the clothing and unwrapped the leggings to reveal a pair of shoes.

“What the hell?” she wondered aloud as she turned them over.

Other than being crystal clear, they were a classic style—closed-toe with a reasonably low heel. They were also completely rigid.

“Who would wear something like this? Must be La—Vampy’s.”

She wasn’t sure, though. The shoes seemed too big for Vampy.

“Well, she can’t wear them now, her costume is permanently attached to her body, boots and all.”

For a moment, it occurred to BAMF that none of the crew seemed particularly worried about the fact that both Lashes and Stick had been physically transformed in the blink of an eye. Sure, tech existed that could replace a person’s skin—and however much of a person’s body as they wanted—with just about anything. But a skin job should take at least an hour, and that was if you were prepared for an unpleasant recovery.

The Fairly Goodmother had transformed them in seconds, and they didn’t seem to have any openings anywhere.

How are they gonna use the head?

As she wondered about their situation, the concerns began to feel inconsequential, and she found herself again staring down at the glass shoe in her hand. She recalled the part of Girl’s story where the shoes turned a person into CinderellaNot-TM, but decided that was probably nonsense. Even so, she could just pull them off again.

Wait, why am I even considering this? These shoes are ridiculous.

Still, something felt strangely compelling about them. She wondered if they would fit, and what they would feel like.

“Why the hell not.”

BAMF set both the shoes on the ground and stepped into the right one. She was surprised when her foot slid right in, and even more impressed that it somehow felt comfortable.

She flexed her foot, surprised to see the shoe flex with it. BAMF reached down and touched the shoe. It was still glass.

“Weird,” she whispered, and slipped her left foot into the other shoe.

The moment her heel set into place, a strange sensation came over her, and a brilliant flash seemed to come from everywhere at once, lighting the room up like it was exposed to starlight at half an AU. Then BAMF’s vision cleared, and she caught sight of herself in the mirror.

Later, the rest of the crew said her scream was so loud they thought she’d been shot. All that BAMF could remember was that the shriek tore its way out of her throat until she was gasping for air, her eyes wide and staring into the mirror.

When the crew burst into the head, she was still wheezing and trying to kick off the shoes, which were stuck to her feet.

“Oh shit!” Vampy exclaimed. “What did you do, BAMF?”

“I—I—I—” BAMF couldn’t get the words out; she didn’t want to get the words out. If I pretend this isn’t happening, then it’s not, right?

“I told you about this!” Girl exclaimed. “I said that’s what the shoes do!”

“But they don’t come off,” BAMF wailed, her voice rising higher in pitch and sounding strangely melodic. “You didn’t say anything about that!”

“Hmm, I’m sure I did…” Girl paused for a moment. “Oh shoot, I only mentioned that to the rest of the crew on the bridge. You were tapping your foot all angrily in engineering, so you got the short version of what went down.”

BAMF looked at the sparkling white dress she wore, and then touched the blonde hair piled high on her head. “But…but…I don’t wanna be CinderellaNot-TM!”

Girl snorted a laugh, and BAMF clamped a hand around her mouth.

“I did the ‘TM’ thing!”

Vampy nodded. “Yeah, everyone that gets altered by the Disknee World™’s magic[JM29] does. Didn’t you pick up on that?”

“I know, I know!” Kitty said from outside the bathroom door. “We can just call you Cindy. See? No TM.”

BAMF growled. “I don’t wanna be Cindy. I’m Baaaa…I’m Baaa—aargh! Why can’t I say my name?”

Colonel Ramsey pulled the carrot from his mouth and grinned as he took her in. “Maybe because there’s nothing badass about you right now. Except maybe your breasts. Those are waaay bigger than before.”

“Colonel!” BAMF-Cindy exclaimed as she looked down at her exposed cleavage. “I feel like such a trollop.”

“Good word,” Vampy said with a fang-filled smile.

Cindy tugged at the dress, trying to pull it off. “No…this is horrible! For fiddlesticks sakes[JM30], I—”

Vampy snorted. “Did you just say ‘fiddlesticks’?”

Cindy shook her head vigorously. “No! I did not. I said fuuuuuu…fuuuuu…. Oh, drat it!”

“OK,” Vampy said, her sharply angled eyebrows lowering further. “Who else is getting really weirded out by this? I mean…it was all fun and games down on the Disknee World™—damn TM—but now we’re leaving, and we can’t stay like this forever.”

“Speak for yourself,” Kitty said. “I am The Cat Woman™.”

Vampy nodded. “Yes, yes, we all know you’re The Cat Woman™ now. But what about sex? Do you see any access to your nethers?”

Kitty shrugged. “I didn’t really get a lot anyway—probably scared people off. I thought you’d be more upset about that than me, Vampy.”

Cindy was surprised[JM31] to see Vampy blush [JM32]furiously.

“Yeah!” she shouted. “Of course I’m upset about that!”

“Why?” Girl asked innocently. “You never had sex anyway.”

BAMF-Cindy was surprised[JM33] to hear that; she thought Vampy was always getting it on with some mark.

“But you’re the sexy-distraction one on the team,” she said.

“Not anymore.” Ramsey laughed as he nodded at Cindy. “You’re the front runner there, now. Vampy will scare too many people off with her teeth.”

Cindy looked at the catsuits that completely enclosed Vampy and Kitty from the neck down. She took a deep breath, shut her eyes, and pulled up her dress.

“Tell me, what’s it look like down there?”

Vampy laughed. “Poofy knickers. Looks like you’re gonna be celibate like the rest of us.”

Cindy desperately tried to let out a string of curses, but all that she was able to say was, “Fiddlesticks! Muffin crumbs! Mother of pearl!”

“I still don’t see what the big deal is for you, Vampy,” Girl interjected. “You’ve always been celibate—you can’t have sex.”

“Girl!” Vampy shrieked and stormed out of the bathroom.

“What are you talking about?” Kitty asked, just as the colonel sighed, “Girl, what’s gotten into you?”

“Uhh…I don’t know. I guess I just didn’t realize that was a secret.”

“What was a secret?” Cindy asked as she followed the others out of the bathroom and into the rec room, where Vampy was flopped on the sofa.

“I’m asexual, OK?” Vampy pouted.

“Well, yeah,” Kitty said as she pointed between Vampy’s legs. “So am I. We barely even have butt cracks. I admit I am starting to get a bit concerned with the bathroom issue. I ate a lot at that party.”

The colonel shrugged. “I’ll admit that it’s a bit concerning, but neither of you are in any discomfort, right?” he asked, gesturing to Kitty and Vampy with his golden carrot.

“Didn’t you take a bite from that earlier?” Cindy asked.

Ramsey nodded. “Yeah, it just keeps turning back into a full carrot. That’s what the Fairly Goodmothers did to me. I have Midas’s Never-ending Carrot.”

“That doesn’t make any sense at all,” Girl interjected. “You’re all acting extra strange. Even for organics. Maybe we should run some tests in the medbay.”

“That sounds good to me,” Cindy said. “I can’t spend my life in this big, poofy dress—I barely fit through the doorways.”

As Cindy spoke, the dress suddenly shrank, the lower half turning into a pencil skirt that ended just below the knee.

“I’ll be damned,” Kitty said, closing her eyes and clenching her jaw. “I want to have a dress!”

Everyone watched for a minute, but nothing happened.

“Well, that sucks,” Kitty finally said after she opened her eyes. “I wanted an outfit that changed, too. At least to a purple catsuit.”

“Looks like you’re stuck in the black,” Vampy said. “Though, you should be used to it. It’s pretty much all you’ve worn for years.”

Kitty shrugged. “True, but variety wouldn’t hurt a bit.”

“I’ll admit this is a mite bit better,” Cindy said, grimacing at how ‘a damn sight’ came out as ‘a mite bit’. “But I can’t fight or work on the ship in this. Why do you two get to be from cool ancient stories? I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I’d kill for a catsuit like you have.”

There was another flash, and suddenly, Cindy was wearing a sparkling, white catsuit—though it was still low-cut to show off her annoyingly large cleavage.

“Wow!” Kitty exclaimed. “This is so unfair. You can’t stand fashion.”

“I think it really suits you, Cindy,” the colonel said with a broad grin. “You’re going to be great at creating distractions.”

“You should just be happy that you didn’t put these shoes on, Colonel,” Cindy grumbled.

“They wouldn’t have fit,” Girl said. “They only fit the one they’re truly meant for.”

“Seriously?” Cindy asked. “How in the stars am I the one truly meant to be CinderellaNot-TM?

“Porty?” Girl asked. “Do you think that you can come out and explain all this?”

“Porty?” Colonel Ramsey asked. “Who the hell is that?”

A moment later, a bearded head poked out of the rec room’s closet.

A dwarf?

The dwarf took a tentative step into the room and gave a small wave. “Uh…hi. I’m Porty.”

For some reason, Cindy couldn’t seem to find her typical rage. Instead, all she could think about was how darn cute the little man was with his long beard, bright red shirt, and shoes with little bells on the toes.

“Porty, what do you know about how the Fairly Goodmothers’ tech works?” Girl asked.

“Tech?” Kitty asked. “No, no! They have magic. How else could I be The Cat Woman™?”

Porty’s lips twisted in an apologetic smile. “I don’t know how it works, but I do know for certain that it is tech, not magic. The specifics are above my pay grade, but I’ve seen enough over the years to know it’s nothing mystical…just some sort of crazy advanced nanotech.”

“Wait, wait,” Ramsey said, holding up his hand. “Why are you on the ship? Girl, I thought you said that all the dwarves got dumped before we took off.”

“Colonel!” Girl’s tone carried both shock and scorn. “I can’t just ‘dump’ Porty! He saved me. We were going to turn over the Glass Shoes to the Fairly Goodmothers[JM34], until you guys got evicted and BAMF—er, Cindy—got us chased off by that giant monkey.”

“Ape,” Vampy corrected. “Kong’s an ape.”

“Sorry,” Girl replied.

“So, then, how permanent is this?” Cindy asked, surprised at how accustomed she’d already become to thinking of herself as ‘Cindy’.

Whatever tech these Fairly Goodmothers used, it was insidious. Still, other than her growing acceptance of her new situation and her inability to swear, she still felt like herself.

Porty stroked his beard and pulled himself up on the sofa. “Well, your vampire—which is weird because I’ve never known the Fairly Goodmothers to turn anyone into a villain before—”

“Jujubilee™ isn’t a villain,” Vampy interrupted. “In the ancient stories, a vampire suicide bomber killed himself, and the vampire blood got all over her. It wasn’t her fault.”

Porty shrugged. “I’m not judging. Look at me, I needed a job, showed up at Neverevereverland™ Station, and now I’m a dwarf. Do you know how hard it is to work on starships with these stubby little fingers?”

The dwarf wiggled his fingers in the air, prompting Cindy to look down at her own fingers, which were much slenderer than they previously had been.

“So you weren’t always a dwarf?” Kitty asked.

“Really?” Porty snorted. “Do you think the flying monkeys were always monkeys? It’s the Fairly Goodmother’s tech—which really isn’t their tech, it’s the Council’s.”

“The Council of Supernatural Beings™?” Vampy asked. “Damn, that TM is getting really annoying.”

“Why do you think I just say ‘the Council’?” Porty asked.

“Huh,” Girl interrupted. “Cindy, I think I do need a name ending in ‘y’. We have Ramsey, Vampy, Kitty, Cindy, and Porty.”

“Porty’s not crew,” Cindy insisted, feeling a bit of her comforting grumpiness return.

“OK, sure, not yet,” Girl replied. “But still, I need a new name. I think I’m going to go with…’Tammy’.”

“Oh, no,” Vampy said as she turned and laid on the sofa, placing her boots on Porty’s lap and throwing an arm across her eyes. “I knew a Tammy once. She was a real bitch. No to Tammy.”

“Jujubilee™!” Girl shouted. “Take your boots off the sofa—and off Porty! He and I spent a lot of time cleaning that.”

“I would,” Vampy said, “but I can’t take my boots off. They’re a part of this new…whatever it is that I’m trapped inside of.”

Suddenly, Vampy’s boots disappeared, flowing into her legs and revealing her feet.

“What? Where the heck are my toes?” Vampy asked, lifting a foot into the air, nearly kicking Porty in the head.

Porty chuckled and pushed Vampy’s leg back down. “I guess the costume doesn’t think you need toes.”

“OK, Porty,” Vampy said as she peered at the dwarf. “You used a word I like: costume. That implies that it can come off. But you used another word I don’t like: think. That implies that this thing can think…which I think is a bad thing.”

“Poor choice of words,” Porty said. “There’s some amount of NSAI in an outfit like yours, but it’s not a costume. No more than my diminutive height is. You’re what you are now. Through and through.”

“So this blood craving is for keeps?” Vampy asked. “I can smell everyone’s blood…it’s like a spicy aroma in the air.”

“What kind of spice?” Ramsey asked.

“Cinnamon…mixed with iron,” Vampy replied.

“And that smells good?” Kitty asked. “I’d think it was kinda gross.”

“I know!” Vampy wailed. “It really should be, but I’m practically salivating at the thought of drinking one of you—”

Vampy clamped her mouth shut as Porty leapt off the sofa and rushed to the far side of the rec room, hiding behind the colonel.

“I think we need to find you some blood that’s not ours,” Ramsey said around his golden carrot.

“There’s a station on our outsystem vector,” Kitty offered, “named…Most Eisley™. Place is a last-stop tourist trap, though—they price gouge on everything.”

Cindy shook her head. “Doesn’t matter, the fool’s gotta feed.” She let out a long sigh and smiled. “Oh, thank goodness I can still say that.”

Kitty snorted. “You sound ridiculous, BAMF. I know! We need to get a holoprojector to have little birds floating around your head all the time.”

“Do that, and I’ll see how far down your throat I can stuff your tail,” Cindy growled.

“Easy, Cindy, don’t get your poofy knickers in a twist.” Ramsey chuckled at his joke while Cindy turned her glower to him.

“You’re really not that threatening,” Vampy said as she rose from the sofa and sidled toward Cindy. “Do you think I could just have a little taste? Like a smidge? Just from your wrist.”

Vampy reached out for Cindy’s wrist, and Cindy was startled to see just how long and sharp the vampire’s black nails were.

She pulled her wrist away and took a step back. “No! Lashes, get ahold of yourself. You’re not a vampire, it’s just some sort of tech!”

Porty coughed and raised his hand. “We’ve been over this, Cindy. Vampy is a vampire now. She’ll die without blood.”

“Well, she can’t have mine!” Cindy exclaimed.

“C’mon,” Vampy whined. “Just a bit? You smell. So. Good—especially now that you’re Cindy. Before, you had a bit of an oily odor.”

“Pardon?” Cindy growled—aware that it her voice sounded far more cute than threatening. Kitty giggled, and Cindy let out a long sigh. “I’m going to go clean my rifles.”

“Kitty, get us to that station as fast as you can,” Ramsey ordered. “They’ll have medical supplies, and we need to stock up our blood bank. A lot.”

“Oh! We have blood in the medbay! Of course!” Vampy exclaimed and rushed past Cindy.

“This crew just keeps getting weirder and weirder,” Cindy muttered.

<You’re one to talk,> Girl said with a wink.

FACE IN THE MIRROR

STELLAR DATE: 03.08.8949 (Adjusted Years)

LOCATION: Van, en route to Most Eisley Station

REGION: Disknee System, Independent, Haydes Cluster

Cindy didn’t clean her rifles. She stared at them for a long time and thought about cleaning them, but instead, activated a holomirror of herself and took a long look at what she’d become.

The woman who stared back at her was barely recognizable.

Her tattoos were gone, as were most of her muscles. Her waist was considerably thinner, and even when her ‘gown’ was transformed into a catsuit, it still felt like a corset was constricting her waist.

Were my eyes always this big?

She reached up and pulled her now-blonde hair from the elaborate coif it was in and let it fall down to her…butt.

Fiddlesticks! I can’t even think the word aaaaa…ahhhhhh…asp! Mother of Pearl, this is annoying!

Cindy spun and punched the wall, glad she could still get angry when she wanted to. Whatever was altering her speech wasn’t completely changing her behavior.

She drew a deep breath and felt her rage dissipate far more quickly than normal.

At least, not altering it too much.

“Are you OK?” Girl asked.

“Yeah,” Cindy replied. “Just trying to come to grips with this.”

“Could be worse. You should see Lashes—er, Vampy. She’s on her third pouch of blood, and it’s all over her hands and face. I informed her that I’m locking her in the medbay ‘til she cleans it up.”

Cindy laughed—tittered, more like. “Did you really?”

“Of course! It took Porty and I a full day to get this ship looking this good. I’m not going to let the medbay look like a crime scene. That’s the new rule aboard the Van. You mess it, you clean it.”

“That doesn’t sound quite right,” Cindy replied, looking at her knuckles.

“How’s about ‘I’m not your mom or your maid’?”

“A bit on the nose.”

Girl let out a long sigh. “Well, you’re still just as ornery as ever. “

“I think I’m still just as strong, too,” Cindy said, shadowboxing for a moment. “And my control still feels as good. Hard to move in whatever’s squeezing the life out of my gut, though.”

“I tucked some of your free weights under your bed,” Girl suggested.

“Perfect.” Cindy reached under the bed, pulling out a twenty-kilogram weight. She lifted it into the air and almost fell over.

“Shoot, I guess you are a lot weaker,” Girl said.

“Noooo…” Cindy whispered. “It feels like less than five kilograms. I almost threw it into the overhead.”

“Seriously?” Girl asked.

“Yeah…I think I’m actually stronger!”

Girl gave a soft laugh. “Look at that, maybe being Cindy isn’t all bad.”

Cindy nodded slowly as she idly tossed the weight in her left hand. “I can see some benefits.”

She set the weight back in the rack under her bed and grabbed one of her rifles, an IR-43X. The weapon felt light, and Cindy wondered if she’d be able to fire it one-handed.

She set it on her workbench and leaned over to fieldstrip it.

“Fudge crackers,” Cindy muttered as her long, blonde hair fell in front of her. “This hair is nuts.”[JM35]

The thought crossed her mind to cut it, and she pulled open a drawer—which was much more well organized than she remembered—and grabbed a pair of scissors.

“You sure you want to do that?” Girl asked. “Most people would kill for long, silky, blonde hair like you have.”

“I’d kill not to have it in my face while I’m working,” Cindy replied. “Still…I’ll just try to cut the tips.”

She held up her hair and opened the scissors, closing them quickly in a deft snip. The scissors slid around the hair, with the blonde locks sticking out from between the blades.

“Huh,” Cindy said as she tried again, cutting slower, and holding the handles at an angle to push the blades closer together.

Again the hair slipped between the blades, and Cindy shook her head as she peered at the golden strands. “What the heck is this stuff?”

“You could go to Medical to examine it,” Girl offered. “Well, maybe in a bit. Vampy is still cleaning up in there.”

Cindy nodded as she looked down at where her outfit’s bodice stretched across her breasts. There was a small ruffle along the edge, and she tried the scissors on it as well, to meet the same result as with her hair. She tried sawing at the fabric to no avail, so she grabbed a knife from the belt slung over the back of her bench, trying to slice into the fabric on her forearm.

“This stuff is nuts[JM36],” she said as the knife failed to penetrate the fabric—which stiffened as she tried to push the blade into her arm.

Cindy laid her arm on the workbench and drew the knife back, ignoring Girl’s suggestion that there were a half-dozen better ways to test the outfit’s resiliency.

“Muffle it, Girl,” Cindy said as she slammed the knife down into her forearm.

The blade hit her arm and nearly sprang from her hand as the steel bent.

“Holy stars,” Cindy whispered as she looked at the bent knife.

Without a moment’s thought, she grabbed a ballistic pistol off the rack, thumbed the safety, and fired it into her arm.

The shot ricocheted off her arm and into the overhead, shattering a light.

“That was really reckless!” Girl exclaimed.

“I know.” Cindy grinned. “Good to see some things haven’t changed.”

She held up her arm and looked for the point of impact, but couldn’t find it. She was completely unscathed.

“It’s like armor,” she whispered.

“Are you OK?” Vampy said as she burst into the room, her eyes alighting on Cindy, who still held the pistol.

“Yeah, I’m peachy,” Cindy replied.

“You’re not…you know, trying to end it, are you? I know that being CinderellaNot-TM is weird and all, but it’s not the end of the world. There’s a lot worse that could happen.”

“I wasn’t trying to off myself,” Cindy said and patted her arm. “I was seeing what this…whatever it is…can withstand.”

“What do you mean?” Vampy asked.

Cindy didn’t reply. Instead, she turned the gun on Vampy and shot her in the stomach.

“Cindy!” Vampy screamed, clutching her gut. “You shot me!”

“Did it hurt?” Cindy asked, waving Vampy’s hands out of the way.

“Uh…no, it didn’t actually.”

Vampy tentatively lifted her hands to see her gleaming black catsuit unmarred by any injury, with no more blood than what she’d smeared on it herself.

“See?” Cindy said. “I wouldn’t do anything to hurt you.”

“Holy shitbiscuits,” Vampy whispered. “I’m bulletproof!”

“Yeah, and so am I,” Cindy replied. “That’s what I was testing. I wasn’t trying to kill myself.”

Vampy stared at Cindy’s neck in a way that made her[JM37] feel vaguely uncomfortable.

“What about your skin? Can you still cut it?”

“Dunno,” Cindy said, and grabbed her knife as Vampy leant against the bulkhead, licking her fingers. “That’s really gross, Vampy.”

The other woman gave a defeated sigh. “I know.”

Cindy shook her head and lightly dragged her knife along her sternum. It felt sharp, but didn’t break the skin. She pushed harder, and a thin line of blood appeared on her flesh.

“I had to put some muscle into it, but it looks like I’m not bulletproof everywhere,” she said. “Normally, though, that much force would have shoved the knife right through me.”

Vampy made a slurping sound, and Cindy looked up to see the woman licking her lips, her long fangs protracted halfway to her chin as she stared at the line of blood on Cindy’s chest.

“Milk and cookies, Vampy, those are huge!”

Vampy made an embarrassed squeak and rushed from Cindy’s room just as Ramsey poked his head in.

“Did I hear gunfire?”

“Just a bit,” Cindy replied. “Turns out our outfits are bulletproof.”

“Seriously?” A wide grin split the colonel’s lips.

“Yeah, not sure how much yet, but I can’t even feel a point-blank shot.”

Ramsey chuckled and rubbed his hands together. “This just keeps getting better and better!”

Cindy shook her head. “What’s gotten into you, Colonel? Why aren’t you worried about us? And how am I even the one asking this?”

“I don’t know,” Ramsey said, his brow furrowing. “You’re right, I should wonder about adverse side effects and whether or not you’re OK…but for some reason, I’m not. If you think about it, they use this tech to modify an entire planet full of people. They’ve been doing this for centuries. It’s tried and true, and we got it for free.”

“I hadn’t thought of it like that,” Cindy replied after a moment’s consideration. “Does that mean that even Kong was a regular person? That’s quite the mod.”

Ramsey shrugged. “Who knows? Could have been an NSAI. But it does make me wonder about Vivia…she was so lifelike. Do you really think they have a way to shrink people down that small?”

“I doubt it. It must be some sort of optical illusion,” Cindy said as she looked at her arm again.

“I watched the bullet hit your arm, mushroom and ricochet off,” Girl interjected. “You all may be compromised by whatever was done to you by the Disknee World’s tech, but I’m not.”

“Really?” Ramsey asked, pulling his golden carrot from his mouth. “Porty gave you a firmware patch. We can all tell you’re acting differently.”

“Hmm…”

“He’s right, Girl.” Cindy nodded. “A lot different. You’ve only made two suggestive statements since we came back.”

“Three,” Girl corrected. “But you weren’t there for one of them.”

“Still, you’ve changed. More than just what some patch to your networking code would do.” Ramsey leaned against the doorframe and took a bite of his golden carrot.

“It’s hard to explain,” Girl said. “I’m trying to think of an analogy for you…. Oh, I know! Imagine you were looking at everything on an old 2D screen, and then you saw your first holointerface. It’s like that for me. Before I was in the ship, tucked inside my core. Now I am the ship, it feels like my body. At least, I think it does. I really don’t know what a body feels like. But I bet it feels like this.”

Cindy shook her head and looked down at her white-gloved hand. “I still don’t know if I’m really OK with what’s happened, but I sure didn’t think a little visit to the Disknee World™ would do this to us.”

“We’re settled into our vector for Most Eisley Station,” Girl announced. “Sti—Kitty has an external berth. We’re five hours out.”

Cindy yawned, a high-pitched, dainty sound that made her angry just to hear it. For a second or two, at least.

“Well, I’m going to get my beauty rest,” she said, then frowned. “Oh, fudge bars, dagnabbit. I’m gonna get some muffin crumbs—argh!”

Ramsey bit off a piece of his carrot, and stepped back from the doorway. “I’ll leave you be, then, Princess.”

Cindy growled at him, and the colonel only winked as the door closed.

ACCEPTANCE

STELLAR DATE: 03.10.8949 (Adjusted Years)

LOCATION: Van, Most Eisley Station

REGION: Disknee System, Independent, Haydes Cluster

“OK, uh, ladies,” Ramsey said as the team assembled in the airlock.

“Whoa! What are you suggesting?” Cindy asked. “We’re all still all-woman, here.”

“Ehhh,” Vampy said, holding her hand out and wobbling it side to side. “Kitty here has a lot of feline in her, I’m not sure if I’d really call her ‘all’ woman.”

“And I read the Jujubilee™ comics,” Kitty countered. “She was turned by the blood of a male vampire. So Vampy’s not exactly ‘all’ woman, either.”

“I am, too!” Vampy exclaimed.

Cindy snorted—daintily—and sighed. “Well, I’ve got extra amounts of woman here, so I balance you out.”

The colonel rubbed his face with his hands and shook his head. “OK, I admit it, I was staring at Kitty here when I stuttered. Can you blame me?”

“Yup.”

“Uh-huh.”

“All the time.”

<Yeah.>

Ramsey shook his head. “Where’s Porty, does he want to gang up on me too?”

<He’s staying behind,> Girl said. <Doesn’t want to get spotted by anyone. He’s technically on the lam.>

“Speaking of that,” Ramsey said, looking Cindy up and down. “Do you think you should go out in that poofy dress? If the Fairly Goodmothers™ learn that you have their Glass Shoes™, they may be displeased.”

Cindy looked down at herself and sighed. “Oh, drat. If I don’t keep what I want in mind, it reverts.” She concentrated, and the outfit changed to the sparkly catsuit.

Vampy shook her head. “I really don’t get how that stupid theme world has tech like this. If we didn’t have Porty assuring us otherwise, I’d think it really was magic.”

“Let’s just get in there and get the blood,” Ramsey said as he pulled the carrot out of his mouth and watched it return to its un-gnawed-upon, original state. “Everyone have their orders for the supply companies? Remember, we don’t mention that we’re buying from multiple suppliers. If anyone cross-checks these orders, we’re going to throw red flags. The only legit reason to get this much blood is if you’re going to war.”

“Why don’t we just get the blood delivered?” Kitty asked.

“Because three of the companies use the same delivery service,” Vampy replied. “We have to hoof it.”

“I hate hoofing,” Kitty said. “I prefer to prrrrrowwwwl.”

“Oh, for peanut butter’s sake,” Cindy said—then groaned as Vampy and Kitty laughed.

“Let’s go,” Ramsey said and cycled the airlock.

The team stepped into the docking bay, and Cindy bit her lip, feeling exposed and self-conscious. Normally, her muscles and bad attitude kept her aloof and safe; no one wanted to approach BAMF if they didn’t have to.

CinderellaNot-TM, with her sparkling, white catsuit, was a different matter entirely.

“Kitty, you’re going up to Sweep 11, right?” Cindy asked.

“Surrrre am,” Kitty replied as she angled right, cutting across the docking bay.

Cindy worked to keep up with Kitty, who was far more comfortable walking in heels than she was. “Mind if I come along? I need to get up to Sweep 14.”

Kitty cast a sidelong look at Cindy. “Why you being so nice to me? Usually you’re…well…not nice at alllll.” She added a pulsating sound to the last word that grated on Cindy’s nerves—though only for a moment.

Cindy tried to stay angry at Kitty, but the slinking, black Cat Woman™ was just so innocently enamored of life and everything around her that Cindy couldn’t stay mad.

How someone could dress in a glistening black catsuit, carry a long, coiled whip, yet gleefully skip along in ten[MC38][JM39]-centimeter heels was beyond her. There was something magical about it.

Gah…this whole Cindy thing is really getting to me. Kitty, Stick, whatever, is a fool. A good pilot, but still a fool.

Cindy looked down at her sparkling, white outfit.

And you’re a fool, too.

A dockworker whistled and catcalled Kitty, to which the Cat Woman™ responded by whistling back and slapping her thigh. Cindy, on the other hand, lowered her face into her palm.

“See, that’s your problem, Cindy,” Kitty said, glancing over her shoulder. “Your glass isn’t half-full, it’s missing the bottom. Pretty much everything has an upside if you look for it.”

“I can think of stuff that doesn’t have an upside,” Cindy muttered.

“I said ‘pretty much everything’,” Kitty pointed out. “Problem is, you look for the downside. You just did it—looked for a way my statement was false. Me? I like to look for the fun, the wonder in everything. The universe isn’t going to change for you. You have to change to find the way to make the most of your situation.”

Cindy snorted, or at least gave a dainty sniff. “What if your situation sucks?”

“Then change it the best you can. But you have to find a way to be satisfied. You can’t be anything or have everything. I’ll never be the president of the AST—”

“Not looking like that, you won’t,” Cindy interjected.

Kitty laughed. “No, but I bet I could get a lot of those senators to come by for a visit and spill their secrets to little ol’ Kitty.”

Cindy tried to give her lips a wry twist, but could tell they formed a lovely smile instead—which irritated her to no end. “You might just have a future in political espionage.”

“If I were dumb enough to go back to the AST,” Kitty said. “Seriously, though, I just like living life and enjoying things as they come.”

“Doesn’t seem like much of a plan,” Cindy said after considering Kitty’s words.

They walked out of the bay and onto the main thoroughfare that ran around the perimeter of the station. Various people in Disknee costumes could be seen in the crowds. Not too many Cat Woman™s, but quite a few CinderellaNot-TMs, which made Cindy feel a smidgen more comfortable.

“So, what’s your grand plan for life?” Kitty asked. “Because if it’s to be the muscle on a ship like the Van, then you had it made—stars, you still do, from what Girl was saying about your weights. So why the bad attitude? What makes you so angry all the time?”

They wove through the crowds toward a bank of lifts, and Cindy considered the question.

What does make me angry all the time?

She honestly didn’t know. Getting arrested by the military for a crime she hadn’t committed had made her angry, but she’d been angry before that. She’d always been angry.

Maybe it was just a way for her to feel safe.

This is way too much introspection. I need to hit something, and soon.

“I think I liked being angry,” Cindy said aloud to Kitty. “And now I’m a bit sad that I can’t seem to remain angry. But then I’m having trouble staying sad, because apparently, Cindy doesn’t get apple-dumpling sad.”

“Apple dumpling?” Kitty barked a laugh as they stepped onto a lift.

“You know what I mean,” Cindy replied, and managed a momentary pout.

Kitty tapped her chin as the lift began to rise. “You know what I think, Cindy? If this whole thing is permanent, or close enough to it, you need to find a new way to be angry…some new thing that gives you the same rise as anger did before.”

“Well, it’s not going to be through se…se…cretaries.”

Kitty frowned. “Through secretaries?”

<Apparently I can’t say ‘sex’ on a crowded lift,> [JM40]Cindy replied privately.

Kitty laughed and slapped Cindy on the shoulder as the lift slowed to a halt at her level. “True enough. No secretaries for us. I’ll see you back on the ship.”

Cindy smiled and waved. “Back on the ship.”

She got off the lift three levels later and walked down the thoroughfare in the direction of the supply shop she’d been assigned. As she threaded the crowds, she realized the strangest thing.

People weren’t avoiding her.

In fact, they were making eye contact and smiling at her.

Cindy couldn’t stop her dumb lips from smiling back, which was infuriating. At least for a second or two.

When she reached the shop, there was a short line to speak with the only salesperson present, and Cindy heard a pleasant whistling sound. It took a moment for her to realize the trilling noise was coming from her.

Waiting in line and whistling a tune while I do it? I should be staring down each and every one of these fools to get to the front, not happily waiting it out.

Still, she didn’t stop whistling, and she didn’t so much as give anyone else a dirty look as she waited ten minutes for her turn.

“You supposed to be Cinderella?” the woman at the counter asked. “I didn’t know she wore pants.”

“It’s not exactly pa—” Cindy began, but the woman interrupted her.

“Yeah, I get it, what do you need?”

“Order 865,” Cindy said. “I submitted it on the way over.”

“Eight…sixty…ah, there we are, 865. Damn. That’s a lot of blood. You planning on getting into a fight?”

Cindy giggled. “Well, not me.”

The woman glanced up from her holodisplay and let out a coarse laugh. “Yeah, clearly.”

Cindy had half a mind to grab the woman by her stupid green pigtails and mash her face into the desk.

Then we’ll see who needs blood.

She didn’t do it, though. Porty had warned them that there were often Fairly Goodmothers™ on Most Eisley™ Station, and it wouldn’t go well for her to be caught with the Glass ShoesAlso-Not-TM on the way out of the Disknee™ System. [JM41]

“What’s your name?” the woman asked.

Without thinking, Cindy replied, “Cindy.”

“Real cute. Seriously, though.”

Cindy drew an unsteady breath. “Baa…AMF.”

“Banff? Like the ski resort world?”

“No, Baammmffff.”

“Really? B-A-M-F?”

Cindy nodded, hoping that would be the end of it.

“Weird, what’s it mean?”

“Baaa…eutifully alluring marvelous friend.”

The woman chuckled as she reviewed something on her screen. “I can see why you’re cosplaying Cindy.”

Cindy pursed her lips but didn’t respond as the woman looked over the order.

“OK, it’s getting loaded up in a crate. Do you want it delivered, or are you going to take it back with you?”

“I’ll take it,” Cindy replied. “We’re heading out as soon as our ordering is done.”

“OK, that’ll be an extra sixty for the hoverpad rental.”

“What?” Cindy tried to sound as intimidating as possible, but her voice just got squeaky instead of angry.

The woman peered up at Cindy with a sardonic twist to her lips. “Yeah, pad rental. I don’t see a hoverpad with you, and the crate’s ninety kilograms. Unless you’ve got more mods than it looks like, I don’t see how a spindly thing like you is gonna carry your order.”

“I don’t need a pad,” Cindy retorted.

The woman shrugged. “Fine, but when you drop that crate, and packets of blood spill everywhere and get broken open, and the station charges you a biohazard cleanup fee, don’t come crying to me.”

Cindy did her best to drop her voice an octave, which only served to keep it from rising in pitch. “I don’t cry.”

“Sure, whatever. Customer Pickup is through the door around the right. Next!”

“Have a nice day, you…barn swallow,” Cindy muttered as she walked around the corner and through the door to Customer Pickup.

She strode down a long corridor and into a cordoned-off area at the end of a large warehousing room. A man stood near the door, surrounded by holodisplays that he was flipping through at break-neck speed.

“BAMF?” he asked as Cindy walked in.

“Yup, that’s me,” Cindy squeaked.

Fiddlesticks, I give up.

“OK, bringing your crate in. Huh…there’s no pad rental on here. Did Belinda mess up and not offer you one?”

“No,” Cindy said with a long sigh. “I declined it.”

For the first time, the man paused and looked past his holodisplays at Cindy. “Seriously? You? In heels?”

A hoverbot floated through the air with a crate in its arms, which it set down beside Cindy.

“Yeah,” Cindy replied tersely—and squeakily.

If I’m going to squeak, I need to work on my angry squeak.

“This I’d like to see.” The man waved the bot off.

It detached from the crate, but remained hovering nearby.

Cindy crouched down and lifted the crate with relative ease. It was still somewhat ungainly, requiring her to stretch her arms out almost as far as she could to firmly grasp the handles, but she was sure she could manage well enough.

Her right ankle wobbled a bit as she adjusted her footing, and she reconsidered, wondering how hard it would really be to walk back to the ship in heels.

The man grunted in appreciation. “Wow, those must be some good mods you have—took you for more of a ship’s companion than muscle.”

“Yeah, well, looks aren’t everything.”

“Sure, OK, Princess.”

Cindy felt her face redden at the comment. The man was right; to everyone else, she’d look like someone clearly modded for strength, while still looking like a pretty princess.

With a careful pivot on her heel, Cindy turned to walk back the way she came, but the man called out, halting her.

“You can’t go that way. Cargo can’t come through the front office.”

“What?” Cindy said, glowering at the man from over her shoulder.

“Gotta go out the back. Company policy.” He pointed down to the other side of the warehouse.

“You’re a real piece of work, you know that?” Cindy asked.

The man only shrugged and waved her off as another customer entered the cordoned-off end of the warehouse.

She stalked—cautiously—to the exit at the other side of the warehouse. The deck was grated in places, and she studiously avoided those…which was easier said than done, with the crate obscuring her view.

As she reached the wide exit, she turned to see the man and his next customer—a woman who looked a lot like Cindy used to before putting on the Glass ShoesAlso-Not-TM—watching her intently.

Cindy scowled at them, about the only thing she could do, and walked out of the warehouse. A security arch scanned her, and then the outer door opened onto a busy concourse.

Haulers trundled down the center, while pedestrians rushed past on either side. This wasn’t the bright and shiny side of Most Eisley™ station, the area catering to Disknee[JM42] vacationers who were getting a few final tchotchkes before leaving the system. This was where the work got done. It was dirtier—though still cleaner than most stations Cindy frequented—and the people walking past were dressed in shipsuits and station maintenance uniforms.

Cindy drew in a deep breath and stepped out into the crowd, working her way back toward the lift bank so she could get back down to Sweep 3 [JM43]where the Van was docked.

She could feel the stares of everyone she passed raking over her as she muscled the crate through the crowd. Some were checking her out, a few were chuckling to see a waif of a woman carrying something so ungainly, while more than a few made catcalls.

No one had ever catcalled BAMF.

It made her angry, and even though Cindy wasn’t the sort of [JM44]woman to beat the crap out of someone for that sort of [JM45]behavior, BAMF certainly was. She’d been BAMF just yesterday, and vividly remembered what it had been like.

Yet somehow, she managed to restrain herself, focusing on getting back to the ship so they could leave this fluffing system[JM46].

One thing is for certain: when we get back to the Van, I am going to grill that dwarf on everything he knows about these damn[JM47] shoes.

She reached a corridor that would lead her back to the lifts, and was about to turn down it when a voice called out.

“Can’t go down there, Princess.”

‘Princess’ may just be the thing that brings the BAMF out in me. Like with that big, green guy. Mulk[JM48], or whatever his name is.

She turned to see a station security officer approaching her.

“Why not?” Cindy asked.

“You can’t carry cargo on the main thoroughfares. Station policy. Ruins the ambiance.”

“The ambiance?”

“Yeah, this is a theme station,” the guard said, looking at Cindy like she’d lost her mind. “You know, the Most Eisley™ port from the Space Wars™ movie?”

Cindy had to admit she hadn’t even noticed. Apparently, she was more wrapped up in her situation than she’d thought.

“Uh, yeah, sure.”

“Right,” the guard said with a nod. “You have to take the freight lifts. They’re a quarter klick further down the concourse.”

“Seriously?” Cindy whined.

“Yeah. Why don’t you have a hoverpad or a bot?”

Cindy blew out an angry breath. “Because!”

The guard chuckled as Cindy stomped off in the direction he’d indicated.

Five minutes later, she was on an empty lift headed down to Sweep 3, glad to be out of the crowds. She set the crate down and sat on it as the freight lift slowly descended through the levels.

Stars…this is one of the hardest things I’ve ever done. She leaned her head back against the wall and sighed. Is this what life has always been like for Lashes? I wonder if it’s better for her now. Will she scare people off, or just attract more?

The lift passed level four and Cindy rose, hefting the crate once more. She walked to the door and waited for it to open. It didn’t.

The lift proceeded past Sweep 3, then past Sweep 2.

Going to stop at 1? Cindy wondered.

She tried to make a call out to the station emergency line, but her Link access cut out.

The lift then passed below Sweep 1 and opened at what the readout listed as Sub-Level A.

Out of habit, Cindy tried to pass her destination to the lift control over the Link, but the message hit a wall at the edge of her mind.

“Guess I’ll have to do this the old-fashioned way,” she said, and stepped over to the control panel, pushing the indicator for Sweep 3 with her elbow.

Nothing happened.

“Oh, fiddlesticks!” she exclaimed. Does being a theme station involve needing serious repairs to the freight lifts?

The station map she’d downloaded before leaving showed the location of a stairwell, and Cindy walked out of the lift into the long, dimly lit corridor. There was an intersection ahead, and the stairs should be down the corridor on the left.

Upon turning the corner, she was confronted by a group of three dwarves.

“Bimmy,” she whispered, recognizing the dwarf in the center from the image Girl had shown her.

A sound behind her caused Cindy to look back, and she saw another dozen dwarves spilling into the intersection.

“You’ve got something that belongs to me,” Bimmy said, pointing at the Glass ShoesAlso-Not-TM.

“Really?” Cindy asked as she set the crate down. “You sure they don’t belong to Him, or maybe the Fairly Goodmothers™? Far as I can tell, whether I like it or not, these shoes belong to me right now. Especially since they don’t come off.”

Bimmy let out a menacing laugh. “I bet we could cut your feet off. Let Him figure out the rest.”

Cindy shrugged and slid her left foot back, widening her stance. “Good luck with that.”

“You think you can take us?” Bimmy snarled.

Cindy looked at the fifteen dwarves surrounding her. “Oh, I know I can take you. What’s more? I’m going to get a special rise out of it.”

The moment the last words passed her lips, Cindy lunged at Bimmy, knocking him to the ground, while kicking out with her right leg and catching one of the dwarves beside him in the face.

They rolled over on the deck, and Bimmy delivered a solid punch, striking Cindy in the abdomen, which became hard as diamond upon impact.

“Yeooowwwww!” Bimmy howled, and reared back.

Cindy made good use of the opportunity, kicking the dwarf off[JM49], sending him sailing into the dwarves that were crowding around.

She leapt to her feet just as two of the small men grabbed at her arms, pulling her backward.

“Stars, you’re heavy little doozers!” Cindy said as she swung her arms forward, heaving the dwarves into the air.

The pair let go and smashed into the deck before her, but the reprieve was momentary, as the remaining foes rushed her in unison. She backpedaled, and her heel caught in a gap in the deck.

“Fiddlestiiiicks!” escaped her mouth as she fell to the hard steel plating.

The dwarves piled on top of her, and her outfit became completely rigid from their blows.

Fudge cookies! If this is how I go, I’ll be quite irate!

Then the catsuit softened once more, and Cindy grasped a handhold in the deck and pulled herself over until she was facing down. She pushed her arms straight, struggling against the writhing mass of dwarves on her back, and got her knees under her.

With a cry of “Fluffy muffins, get the flowers off me!” she rose up, sending a dozen small bodies sailing through the air.

She got back to her feet as the dwarves scrambled to theirs. For a long moment, she just stared at them, and they at her, chests heaving from exertion, expressions grim.

Then Bimmy drew a pistol.

“I didn’t want to have to do this, but if this is how it’s gotta go down, then this is how it’s gotta go down.”

Without any further chatter, he fired four rounds at her chest.

The shots ricocheted off her bodice, striking the wall and two other dwarves.

Cindy grinned savagely—at least, it felt savage to her. She suspected that it was more of a beautiful, beaming smile.

“OK, if that’s the game you want to play.”[JM50]

She kicked her right foot out, sweeping the legs of a nearby dwarf, and grabbed his ankles as he went down.

“Whoa, whaaaaa!” the dwarf cried out as Cindy swung him at two of his compatriots.

Like she was swinging a scythe through harvest grain, Cindy mowed the dwarves down with one of their own.

Bimmy fired another shot that bounced off Cindy’s side, and she tossed her dwarven cudgel aside and rushed toward the small, angry man. He fired two more shots, one missing while the other ricocheted off her exposed chest—an unexpected, but very welcome development[JM51]—before she reached him.

Her hand balled up into a dainty fist and slammed into his face. She could feel a satisfying crunch as her glove hardened from the impact and shattered the dwarf’s cheekbone.

The one blow was all it took to take Bimmy down. Barely winded, Cindy spun, staring down the groaning dwarves strewn around the corridor. They all appeared to be moving; even the one she’d used as a club, though he was holding his head and sobbing.

“Good. Serves you bad little dwarves right!” Cindy squeaked with rage. “You should all be very grateful that I didn’t see fit to rip your geraniums [JM52]off.”

She planted her hands on her hips and glowered at them as her catsuit suddenly reverted to a poofy dress.

Cindy sighed, but couldn’t help smiling beatifically at the scene before her.

Maybe being Cindy isn’t that bad, if I get to be an unstoppable bad apple. Bad aaaaasp. Bad aaaaaaangora. Oh, muffin crumbs!

THE TEAM

STELLAR DATE: 03.10.8949 (Adjusted Years)

LOCATION: Van, Most Eisley Station

REGION: Disknee System, Independent, Haydes Cluster

It took Cindy nearly thirty minutes to make it back to the ship. She entered the rec room to find the rest of the crew sitting around, watching vids, while Vampy happily sucked on a blood pouch.

“Wow, here I am getting attacked, and all of you flamingos are sitting around, watching vids?”

She set the crate down and stared at them, willing her expression to be as menacing as possible.

“Girl told us about it once you got back on the Link,” Ramsey said with a shrug. “Seemed like you had it all covered.”

“Those damn dwarves,” Girl said aloud. “Present company excluded, of course, Porty.”

“Understandable,” Porty replied. “I kinda hate dwarves, too.”

Cindy nodded and collapsed into a chair. “OK…that crate did not start out that heavy.”

“Why didn’t you rent a hoverpad?” Lashes asked around the blood pouch she was sucking on.

“Really, Vampy? Really? I had to fight off a horde of dwarves to get you your next meal, and this is the thanks I get? You’re a real peach, you know that?”

Kitty leapt up from her seat and rushed over to Cindy. She jumped on her lap and wrapped her in a firm embrace.

“I’m so glad you’re safe and sound, Cindy. We were worried about a sweet little thing like you all alone out on the station. What, with your incredible strength and bulletproof clothing!”

Cindy pushed Kitty off her lap, doing her best to give an angry glare. She leaned forward to hit Kitty, but the woman crouched down and licked her hand, before running it over the back of her head.

“You wouldn’t hit a defenseless kitty cat, would you?”

Cindy paused. A smile worked its way across her face, and a titter escaped her lips. The titter turned into a giggle, and the giggle was soon a full-on laugh.

The rest of the crew looked at her like she was crazy—and possibly dangerous—and then one by one, they all joined in. In a minute, they were all laughing and slapping their knees, even Porty.

Cindy wondered what he thought of his crazy new crew. Then again, he was the one who had worked on a station protected by Kong and flying monkeys.

After the crew calmed down, Girl spoke up. “I think I’ve picked my name.”

“Oh yeah?” Vampy asked. “What is it?”

“Laylani,” Girl replied. “It means ‘heavenly flower’, and I’m beautiful and fly through the heavens. Plus, it’s a bit weird, which I think I need to be to fit in with you organics.”

“Speak for yourself,” Ramsey said as he gnawed on his golden carrot. “I’m perfectly normal.”

The room broke out into laughter again—all except for Ramsey, who frowned at his crew, a look of concern clearly evident on his face.

THE GOODMOTHERS

STELLAR DATE: 03.10.8949 (Adjusted Years)

LOCATION: Sweep 3 Docks, Most Eisley Station

REGION: Disknee System, Independent, Haydes Cluster

The two Fairly Goodmothers™ stood on a gantry high above the ships in the docking bay, watching the woman in the sparkling, white catsuit carry a crate toward the ship bearing the pink stripe.

“She really should have rented a hoverpad,” the first Fairly Goodmother™ said to the second.

“I know. I would have, and I can fly.”

“Are you sure this will work?” the first Fairly Goodmother™ asked the other. “Sending them out like this?”

The second Fairly Goodmother[JM53] gave a curt nod. “We’ll make sure they’re at the right place at the right time. When they’re needed, they’ll be ready.”

“That time is years away,” the first said. “Will they be OK until then?”

“Porty will let us know if anything goes awry. But I have a feeling that this unlikely crew of superheroes will become a force for order and justice. The galaxy needs that.”

“You’re right, there. The stars are surely lacking in both of those things,” the first Fairly Goodmother™ replied.

The second nodded, and they looked down at the ship for a minute longer before she let out a long sigh.

“Come, we have to deal with Bimmy and his cohort. Their misdeeds may have worked toward our plan, but they still acted against our will.”

“You sound like you have something in mind,” the first Fairly Goodmother™ noted.

“Well, someone has to hunt those vampire cards that are now infesting The Dark Forest….”

THE END

* * * * *

An unlikely group now has an even more unlikely destiny. Unbeknownst to them, the Fairly Goodmothers™ have set the Delta Team on a collision course with major powers in the Orion War.

But first, they have to stop a smaller war between a planet of ski resorts and a world of vampires in ^{Rouge Planets}.

THE BOOKS OF AEON 14

Keep up to date with what is releasing in Aeon 14 with the free ^{Aeon 14 Reading Guide}.

The Sentience Wars: Origins (Age of the Sentience Wars – w/James S. Aaron)

- Books 1-3 Omnibus: ^{Lyssa’s Rise}

- Books 4-5 Omnibus (incl. Vesta Burning): ^{Lyssa’s Fire}

- Book 0 Prequel: ^{The Proteus Bridge} (Full length novel)

- Book 1: ^{Lyssa’s Dream}

- Book 2: ^{Lyssa’s Run}

- Book 3: ^{Lyssa’s Flight}

- Book 4: ^{Lyssa’s Call}

- Book 5: ^{Lyssa’s Flame}

The Sentience Wars: Solar War 1 (Age of the Sentience Wars – w/James S. Aaron)

- Book 0 Prequel: ^{Vesta Burning} (Full length novel)

- Book 1: ^{Eve of Destruction}

- Book 2: ^{The Spreading Fire} (Oct 2019)

Enfield Genesis (Age of the Sentience Wars – w/Lisa Richman)

- Book 1: ^{Alpha Centauri}

- Book 2: ^{Proxima Centauri}

- Book 3: ^{Tau Ceti}

- Book 4: ^{Epsilon Eridani}

- Book 5: ^Sirius

Origins of Destiny (The Age of Terra)

- Prequel: ^{Storming the Norse Wind}

- Prequel: ^{Angel’s Rise: The Huntress} (available on Patreon)

- Book 1: ^{Tanis Richards: Shore Leave}

- Book 2: ^{Tanis Richards: Masquerade}

- Book 3: ^{Tanis Richards: Blackest Night}

- Book 4: ^{Tanis Richards: Kill Shot}

The Intrepid Saga (The Age of Terra)

- Book 1: ^Outsystem

- Book 2: ^{A Path in the Darkness}

- Book 3: ^{Building Victoria}

- ^{The Intrepid Saga Omnibus} – Also contains Destiny Lost, book 1 of the Orion War series

- ^{Destiny Rising} – Special Author’s Extended Edition comprised of both Outsystem and A Path in the Darkness with over 100 pages of new content.

The Sol Dissolution (The Age of Terra)

- Book 1: ^{Venusian Uprising} (2019)

- Book 2: Scattered Disk (2020)

- Book 3: Jovian Offensive (2020)

- Book 4: Fall of Terra (2020)

The Warlord (Before the Age of the Orion War)

- Books 1-3 Omnibus: ^{The Warlord of Midditerra}

- Book 1: ^{The Woman Without a World}

- Book 2: ^{The Woman Who Seized an Empire}

- Book 3: ^{The Woman Who Lost Everything}

The Orion War

- ^{Books 1-3 Omnibus} (includes Ignite the Stars anthology)

- Book 0 Prequel: ^{To Fly Sabrina}

- Book 1: ^{Destiny Lost}

- Book 2: ^{New Canaan}

- Book 3: ^{Orion Rising}

- Book 4: ^{The Scipio Alliance}

- Book 5: ^{Attack on Thebes}

- Book 6: ^{War on a Thousand Fronts}

- Book 7: ^{Precipice of Darkness}

- Book 8: ^{Airtha Ascendancy}

- Book 9: ^{The Orion Front}

- Book 10: ^Starfire

- Book 11: ^{Race Across Spacetime} (2019)

- Book 12: ^{Return to Sol} (2019)

Non-Aeon 14 Anthologies containing Rika stories

- ^{Bob’s Bar Volume 1}

Building New Canaan (Age of the Orion War – w/J.J. Green)

- Book 1: ^Carthage

- Book 2: ^Tyre

- Book 3: ^Troy

- Book 4: ^Athens

Tales of the Orion War

- Book 1: ^{Set the Galaxy on Fire}

- Book 2: ^{Ignite the Stars}

Multi-Author Collections

- Volume 1: ^{Repercussions}

Perilous Alliance (Age of the Orion War – w/Chris J. Pike)

- Book 1-3 Omnibus: ^{Crisis in Silstrand}

- Book 0 Prequel: ^{Escape Velocity}

- Book 1: ^{Close Proximity}

- Book 2: ^{Strike Vector}

- Book 3: ^{Collision Course}

- Book 3.5: ^{Decisive Action}

- Book 4: ^{Impact Imminent}

- Book 5: ^{Critical Inertia}

- Book 6: ^{Impulse Shock}

- Book 7: ^{Terminal Velocity}

The Delta Team (Age of the Orion War)

- Book 1: ^{The Eden Job}

- Book 2: ^{The Disknee World}

- Book 3: ^{Rogue Planets} (2020)

Rika’s Marauders (Age of the Orion War)

- Book 1-3 Omnibus: ^{Rika Activated}

- Prequel: ^{Rika Mechanized}

- Book 1: ^{Rika Outcast}

- Book 2: ^{Rika Redeemed}

- Book 3: ^{Rika Triumphant}

- Book 4: ^{Rika Commander}

- Book 5: ^{Rika Infiltrator}

- Book 6: ^{Rika Unleashed}

- Book 7: ^{Rika Conqueror}

Non-Aeon 14 Anthologies containing Rika stories

- ^{Bob’s Bar Volume 2}

- ^{Backblast Area Clear}

The Genevian Queen (Age of the Orion War)

- Book 1: ^{Rika Rising}

- Book 2: ^{Rika Coronated}

- Book 3: Rika Reigns (2019)

Perseus Gate (Age of the Orion War)

Season 1: Orion Space

- Episode 1: ^{The Gate at the Grey Wolf Star}

- Episode 2: ^{The World at the Edge of Space}

- Episode 3: ^{The Dance on the Moons of Serenity}

- Episode 4: ^{The Last Bastion of Star City}

- Episode 5: ^{The Toll Road Between the Stars}

- Episode 6: ^{The Final Stroll on Perseus’s Arm}

- Eps 1-3 Omnibus: ^{The Trail Through the Stars}

- Eps 4-6 Omnibus: ^{The Path Amongst the Clouds}

Season 2: Inner Stars

- Episode 1: ^{A Meeting of Bodies and Minds}

- Episode 2: ^{A Deception and a Promise Kept}

- Episode 3: ^{A Surreptitious Rescue of Friends and Foes}

- Episode 3.5: ^{Anomaly on Cerka} (w/Andrew Dobell)

- Episode 4: ^{A Victory and a Crushing Defeat}

- Episode 5: A Trial and the Tribulations (2019)

- Episode 6: A Deal and a True Story Told (2019)

- Episode 7: A New Empire and An Old Ally (2019)

- Eps 1-3 Omnibus: ^{A Siege and a Salvation from Enemies}

Hand’s Assassin (Age of the Orion War – w/T.G. Ayer)

- Book 1: ^{Death Dealer}

- Book 2: Death Mark (2019)

Machete System Bounty Hunter (Age of the Orion War – w/Zen DiPietro)

- Book 1: ^{Hired Gun}

- Book 2: ^{Gunning for Trouble}

- Book 3: ^{With Guns Blazing}

Fennington Station Murder Mysteries (Age of the Orion War)

- Book 1: ^{Whole Latte Death} (w/Chris J. Pike)

- Book 2: ^{Cocoa Crush} (w/Chris J. Pike)

The Empire (Age of the Orion War)

- Book 1: ^{The Empress and the Ambassador}

- Book 2: ^{Consort of the Scorpion Empress} (2019)

- Book 3: ^{By the Empress’s Command} (2019)

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Malorie Cooper likes to think of herself as a dreamer and a wanderer, yet her feet are firmly grounded in reality.

A twenty-year software development veteran, Malorie eventually climbed the ladder to the position of software architect and CTO, where she gained a wealth of experience managing complex systems and large groups of people.

Her experiences there translated well into the realm of science fiction, and when her novels took off, she was primed and ready to make the jump into a career as a full-time author.

A ‘maker’ from an early age, Malorie loves to craft things, from furniture, to cosplay costumes, to a well-spun tale, she can’t help but to create new things every day.

A rare extrovert writer, she loves to hang out with readers, and people in general. If you meet her at a convention, she just might be rocking a catsuit, cosplaying one of her own characters, or maybe her latest favorite from Overwatch!

She shares her home with a brilliant young girl, her wonderful wife (who also writes), a cat that chirps at birds, a never-ending list of things she would like to build, and ideas…

Find out what’s coming next at ^{www.aeon14.com}.

Follow her on Instagram at ^{www.instagram.com/m.d.cooper}.

Hang out with the fans on Facebook at ^{www.facebook.com/groups/aeon14fans}.

[JM1]x1

[JM2]x2

[JM3]Not sure what you’re trying to get at here, so I’ll let you do the fixing.

[JM4]It’s odd that Stick is bringing this up, and not one of the monkeys.

[JM5]I’m not sure what this is referring to?

[JM6]What is the “all” they’re referring to here? How did I get so confused?

[JM7]x1

[JM8]x2

[JM9]Ten minutes later from what?

[JM10]Porty says this almost exactly two lines down. Maybe pick one place for it.

[JM11]x1

[JM12]x2

[JM13]x3

[JM14]x4

[JM15]x5

[JM16]It’s not clear from the description of her actions above that this is what she’s trying to do.

[JM17]define

[JM18]This wording is vague. Taking them out to do what?

[JM19]This sounds so anticlimactic for them being violently dashed by reality. Consider rephrasing.

[JM20]This is such a jump! How did we get here? He’s never referenced this way. Is Girl dubbing him this right now? I’m not sure what’s happening.

[JM21]x1

[JM22]x2

Just because they’re different kinds of glowers doesn’t mean this isn’t repetitive.

[JM23]This seems like an odd response to the question that came before. Also, Lashes just said this on the previous page. Maybe have Vivia say something else.

[JM24]Should this be TMed?

[JM25]Ha! Interesting tweak.

[JM26]x1

[JM27]x2

[JM28]define

[JM29]This should still affect the Colonel, then, right? Even though his magical shift was very slight?

[JM30]HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

[JM31]x1

[JM32]It was mentioned earlier that she can’t blush bc she’s a vampire.

[JM33]x2

[JM34]I want to TM these, but she hasn’t been affected by Disknee magic, so I shouldn’t, right? But the cleaning bots she used had TM’s in the beginning. I’m so confused!

[JM35]x1

[JM36]x2

[JM37]which her?

[MC38]

[JM39]I feel like these were eight or thirteen before. Did they adjust, or did we mess up a detail? Look for where else “centimeters” has popped up, that’ll help.

[JM40]There’s no indication that there’s anyone but them on it.

[JM41]Check your headers to reflect this.

[JM42]TM?

[JM43]Do we know this before now? We only know their destinations when they get off the ship, the Sweep numbers, but we don’t know where they’re lift-ing from.

[JM44]x1

[JM45]x2

[JM46]HAHAHAHA

[JM47]She can’t think this.

[JM48]I’m seriously losing it over here, Jesus

[JM49]Off what? The lift?

[JM50]Tag this

[JM51]Why unexpected? She already knows she’s bulletproof by this point.

[JM52]hhahahahaha

[JM53]They sound like Ascended AIs. Interesting.