Short Story I
#1 of Short stories
Got an idea from a twitter conversation I had with Crimson & another friend of mine from twitter: ReagentTroika. This takes place in the same universe that I had in 'The Loner', but this is more of a tongue-in-cheek way to worldbuild. Lemme know what y'all think.
*Glue in the eyes, bleach in the guts, and a moist copper tang at the back of the throat. *
The fox couldn't find any other way to describe how he felt at three in the morning with nothing for breakfast except two shots of gin and someone else's fist. He sucked on his teeth a little, passing his tongue over his muzzle and tasting the dried blood under his nose. He sat on the roadside curb, occasionally dry-heaving as he spat out the blood that kept pooling at the back of his tongue, leaving stringy red spatters on the asphalt. He kept blinking, with his eyelids uncomfortably sliding over bloodshot eyes, and his stomach still roiling from the mix of liquor and adrenaline that overwhelmed him only moments before. Dried blood flecked the front of his shirt, and his black leather jacket was torn at the seam of his shoulder. Brown and orange bile stained the back of his jeans, leaving cold, wet spots that clung to the fur of his legs. As a breeze rolled through the street, he shivered, teeth chattering.
He looked like a bum. He felt like a bum. He ate, drank, and fought like a bum.
But overarching every bone-deep ache, every clinging wet spot, and every single bit of nausea that soaked him to the core was a small, very small, sense of pride.
At his side, in a leather briefcase held shut by an ancient pair of brass combination locks, sat the reason why he'd forego a full night's sleep in favor of a night spent on a street curb and what he was pretty sure was a chipped tooth. Pulling it over his knees, the fox pressed his pads into the numbered brass wheels that made up the locks, and pushed them into the '1111' position on both. Pushing the buttons by each lock with his thumbs, he heard a satisfying metal pop as the latches unhooked, and the weary springs of the briefcase unbunched themselves to reveal the contents:
Among the scattered, wallet-sized cards, a mirror, loose briefcase netting, and manila folders, the fox reached in for one object in particular: a plastic bag. Inside that, a clutter of different metal keys of varying shapes and sizes.
Licking his lips, the fox counted through the keys to make sure they were all there: one, two, three, four...twelve, thirteen, fourteen! Once hitting the number, his face cracked into a broad smile reflected back at him from the little mirror in the briefcase, teeth still stained pink from his blood. He saw the reflection, and only smiled bigger. If he could get the job done looking and feeling like that, he'd be all set to deal with anything else coming his way.
Shutting the briefcase the fox stood, staggering a little as he got to his feet. Looking down the street, past the shuttered storefronts and the occasional glaring light from an overhead apartment, he took a deep breath. With one foot in front of the other, he made his way to his next goal.
For now, he just had to clean up.
Standing without his shirt in a bathroom the size of a small closet, and with the faucet still running, the fox leaned in towards the mirror. His old shirt lay wadded up at his feet and he already swapped out his stained jeans for another clean, though worn, set. Pulling back one of his lips with a furred digit, he gingerly pushed one of his teeth. It shifted a little, and he winced.
Not broken. Small blessings, a_t least. _The fox thought this to himself as he splashed water on his muzzle. Looking back in the mirror, he picked up a small towel and started wiping the blood off his face and the scruff under his chin & chest. His eyes still looked bloodshot but the stickiness subsided, if only a bit. When he was satisfied with how he looked he stepped back and picked up a wadded button-down shirt from a small bag at his feet. After buttoning it on he reached for his leather jacket that hung on the doorknob. The fox saw the torn seam of the sleeve and exhaled a forlorn sigh. He folded the jacket and put it in the bag at his feet. Reaching deeper into the bag he pulled out a toothbrush, a small tube of toothpaste, a stick of deodorant, and a little card. Squeezing the toothpaste onto the brush, he stuck it into his mouth and began to work it with one paw as he read the card:
** Rep. Lang Stanniko**
** M.O. 431, Building B, Office 203**
The fox flipped the card over as he kept brushing, sucking a small dribble of toothpaste froth back into the corner of his muzzle as he squinted to read the back. On the other side of the card he read a very messy scrawl, a kind of chicken-scratch-looking series of loops and arcs that he only became familiar with years after working with government officials:
_2nd floor. Get in at 6. Let him know which kiosk you registered at after you're in. _
Toothbrush still in his muzzle, the fox pulled up his watch and noted the time. 4:47 am. Spitting into the sink he rinsed the toothbrush, flicking his ears as they grazed the bare lighbulb above the mirror. Putting the toothbrush away the fox unbuttoned one of the shirt buttons and stuck the deodorant stick into the shirt opening. He applied it generously, dabbing the stick at his armpits and the underside of his muzzle. Re-buttoning his shirt, he looked at himself one more time, turning his head to different angles. With a resigned nod, he muttered,
'Good enough.'
Putting everything else back in his bag, he shouldered it and picked up the briefcase. Opening the door and ducking a little to avoid the frame, the fox surveyed his surroundings. He stood, leaning into the waiting room of a starship port: a broad, empty stretch of tiled floors and rows of seats, all turned to face the massive windows that formed its walls. Television screens hung from pillars at every thirty steps, filled with departure and arrival times that glowed dully in contrast to the mauve-colored morning light outside.
A lonely janitor, a bleary-eyed quoll nursing a thermos in one paw and leaning by the wall with a maintenance cart beside him, stood as the only other living thing in the building. A squat, yellow machine trundled across the floor in front of the janitor leading a pair of spinning brushes behind it. As the fox stepped out of the bathroom, he slipped a little on the machine's slick trail. The fox staggered, gave the quoll an apologetic look, and took long strides to get out of the way. The quoll's only response was a nasty look and a reach towards a brick-sized remote bolted onto the maintenance cart. Flicking a switch, the waxing robot chirped once and changed its course to cover up the fox's footprints. The quoll growled and the fox got the message, jogging towards the exit.
The fox's frown deepened as he headed back out the door.
Briefcase in paw, the fox walked briskly across the street, his breath forming small clouds in the cool air. Looking up, he saw the government building: a tall granite block pockmarked with windows at every level. The speckled surface of the building glared with sunlight as he walked his way past the front gates. Across the grounds of the building wandered other visitors: a jogging kangaroo in nothing but shorts; a security guard tasmanian devil scratching at a black stain on the ground with her foot; and a ragged ash and grey bobcat stretched out over a bench by the entrance with his face covered by a ratty jacket.
As the fox approached the front door, he swerved to dodge the kangaroo, who shot him a scowl before running out the gate. The security guard looked up at him, narrowed her eyes, then went back to kicking dirt. The bobcat held still.
The moment the fox walked into the building there was a short silence. Slowly, the bobcat pulled down his jacket and looked up to check the entrance. He twitched his tufted ears and squinted as he looked at the automatic door slowly close with a weak hiss. The moment it shut behind the fox, the bobcat stood. Pulling his jacket down, he discreetly adjusted the pistol tucked into the inside pocket as he watched the security guard intently. If she noticed, she didn't show it.
Standing up, the bobcat dusted off his jacket and stepped forwards towards the entrance. As he stepped in, walking past rows of indoor potted plants and framed paintings, he saw the fox walking past the front desk and entering the elevator. Looking past the elevator doors, the bobcat sprinted towards the stairs beside.
He smiled as he ran.
The fox growled as he walked down the hallway. He scanned the walls, retracing his steps as he moved from one end of a dead-end hallway to another. At one point, he opened a door marked '203', only to find out that it held nothing but brooms, sections of rusted pipe, and another floor-waxing robot. He exhaled sharply and as he turned back to find the stairs, he slipped, hard. His head knocked against the wall with a smack and the briefcase thumped on the floor before sliding a short ways away. The fox lay sprawled on the freshly-waxed floor for a solid few seconds, stunned, then he quietly began to wonder why the hell he decided on a line of work that demanded him up at 3 in the morning to fistfight someone and retrieve government property. As he stood back up, leaning against the wall with one paw to his head and grimacing, a door creaked open behind him.
As the door opened, the fox stood, picking up the briefcase and walking down another side of the hallway. Rounding the corner, he ran almost muzzle-first into a dead end, punctuated by a series of red pipes and gauges sticking from the wall. The fox heard the door shut behind him, but he paid no attention or thought to the sound.
At least, not until he stood face-to-face with the bobcat and his drawn pistol.
The bobcat stood with a staid expression, finger just by the trigger, staying silent for a solid few seconds as the fox's surprised expression faded away. For a while, not a single sound was made but the low, dull rumbling of the pipes behind the fox. The bobcat motioned towards the briefcase with his free paw, and spoke softly: "Y'all better hand that over."
The fox's grip on the briefcase tightened. He narrowed his eyes, but said nothing. Handing over the briefcase meant failing the job, and failing the job meant not getting to eat. A slow shudder of panic rose in his chest, but his gaze settled on the bobcat's feet: they stood spaced apart, at shoulder length. At that moment, he also remembered how he slipped on the floor earlier. The corner of his mouth curled upward slightly as he put the two facts together.
The bobcat saw the new look on the fox's face, and began to smile smugly in return. He spoke, "I'll admit, I'd laugh too if I found myself caught in a corner this easy-"
"Oh, I'm not laughing at that," the fox replied, suppressing an even bigger smile, "I'm laughing at this:"
In a single quick motion, he swung the briefcase in an arc, letting it go as it sailed across the floor, between the bobcat's feet and down the hallway. The bobcat took his eyes off the fox for a split second with a bewildered look to watch the briefcase, and in the next second found himself with the fox's fist in his gut. The bobcat fell backwards, winded, and his gun clattered to the floor as the fox bolted past, snatched up the briefcase and disappeared down the hall. Gasping for breath, he cursed and staggered up. He gritted his teeth and snarled as he turned to chase, running with the occasional slip, down the hall after the fox.
Cursing a slow stream of profanity the bobcat passed by a window, and he felt his stomach drop as he saw the red fox bolting across the grounds.
"Damned foxes. Too damned fast. Cut his legs off...that'll teach him-"
The bobcat's swearing got faster and louder when he reached the stairs. Striding down four steps at a time and using the railings to slingshot himself down each corner, the bobcat re-holstered his pistol inside his jacket. Once he reached the ground floor, he broke into a sprint, knocking over a hapless she-dingo and the cup of coffee she sipped from. He shouted an apology as he ran past, quietly taking it back when she started yelling slurs after him.
Once the bobcat reached the grounds he looked around frantically, panting from all the running, with clouds forming from his breath in the crisp air. At that moment the fox disappeared from sight, far from view, down the street in the middle of the crowd. He swore, kicking the dirt and pressing both paws to the back of his head, behind his flattened ears. As he screwed his eyes shut, cursing himself at how quickly he let his target get away, something clicked in his mind. The bubbling anger gave way to a slowly spreading, knowing grin. He didn't know where the fox hid at the moment, true.
On the other hand, he knew where the fox would end up.
With that thought, the bobcat bolted off in a separate direction.
Several more ships approached by the time the fox reached the starport again. Fat, delta-shaped shuttle-craft with their wings tapered to a point began their swoop onto the port's many runways, and with them came all kinds of smaller craft. The smaller ships slowed down with retro-rockets, boosting themselves in reverse to gently nose their way onto any spare space on the tarmac. Little ships, with little wingtip lights flashing, alighting on the pad like so many birds carefully settling on a telephone wire. Marshallers scurried among the many craft, waving their glowing wands and running to avoid the descending fusion torch engines.
Racing across and through the descending flock of ships, a lone fox ran towards a row of small hangars by the edge of the tarmac. With the occasional look behind himself, the fox ran towards the nearest hangar. The moment he reached the hangar door, he dropped the briefcase and jammed his paw into his rear pocket. Pulling out a card, he swiped it across a small detector piece bolted to the front of the doors. With a chirp, the detector's light changed from red to green, and the doors groaned, dragging their bulk backwards and into the hangar to reveal the contents inside.
A lone, single-seat craft sat in the middle of the hangar. Barely more than a single fusion torch engine, with delta wings protruding from each side and a cockpit bolted near its trailing edge, stood the only reason the fox could get on or off planet. He ran to the ship's side, and pushed in a metal key to unlock its cargo compartment. As he stuffed in all his possessions, his mind frantically ran through the all options that he knew he still had.
First, his initial plan blew up in his face: he originally wanted to get the briefcase and the contents to the representative who hired him to retrieve them, and more importantly, to keep quiet about the fact that they were lost in the first place. The bobcat ruined this, and he couldn't risk a scene in a government building by staying and fighting him there for it. Second: he didn't have a weapon, the bobcat did, and by all means that meant that any real fight with the bobcat would be very, very loud and very one-sided. The only reason he made it this far was a streak of luck that would've left a craps player breathless. Third, and most importantly: the bobcat was still alive.
A thought flickered through his mind as he remembered the cameras in the building, then pushed it away as he recalled that the representative promised to wipe them on the day he arrived. The fox slammed the cargo compartment of his ship shut and jumped up onto the delta wing. As the cockpit opened, he frowned and wondered how determined the mercenary cat could be, if he was willing to draw a weapon and point it at him. The fox remembered the sinking feeling that crept into his heart when he saw the barrel of the gun leveled at his chest, and the slow premonition of what he'd look like with a hole punched through his sternum. He swallowed and pushed the nauseous feeling away, tucking it into a corner of his mind where he could more easily forget it. He did odd jobs for government officials, he ran security at times, even, but he never experienced a gun being pointed at him in malice until today.
The resulting experience flooded him again as he remembered the event vividly: the cold horror of seeing his end spelled out with the period-shaped hole of a gun barrel; the slow dawning of seeing a way out; the elation of getting away without a scratch. He shivered. The mix of emotions shook him up, and he couldn't tell how long it would stay with him. For now, he only needed to think about one thing: getting off planet and finding another way to get the briefcase to the representative without being caught by the bobcat. So far, no one else chased him, so maybe the bobcat also had an interest in keeping the briefcase retrieval quiet. That, or his luck still held.
Vaulting into the cockpit, he tabbed a switch by the console and the cockpit shut around him. Pulling out a small, palm-sized metal key and pressing it into the cockpit console, he sat back as the cockpit lit up. The console moved towards him, with cushioned parts pressing onto his chest and shoulders to lock him in place. A secondary cockpit slid over the transparent canopy and soon, the only light inside the cockpit came from the console. With his face illuminated with nothing but pale green wireframes and a ghostly, blue image of the tarmac in front of him.
The craft gently moved forward, nudged along by its deuterium-tritium torch engine, rolling onto the tarmac. Underneath the wings, more engines rumbled to life. The fox scanned his console again. On one panel he saw a clutter of green, triangular wireframes that stuttered across the screen. Some took off, some landed, others hovered in place. The nose of the ship tilted into the air, and dust billowed around the wings. Watching the screens intently, the fox piloted the craft upwards, correcting the yaw of the ship as it shifted in midair. With a deep rumble the ship's bulk hovered into the air, and it rocketed away. Inside the cockpit the fox relaxed and for a moment, the stress of rethinking his plans melted away.
As he took off, one more wireframe joined the swarm on screen: a larger one. His eyes narrowed. It made no effort to alter course towards the runways, and as it closed in, it began to alter its course to taper towards his ship-
_Oh, shit. _
Far above the city; above glittering skyscrapers, towering refineries, bubble-shaped holding tanks, and a massive river canal snaking through them all, the fox's craft flashed across the sky with a single larger ship in pursuit. On the horizon two enormous pillars stood abreast of the canal's mouth, with a glimmering veil of light between them. Starships passed in and out of the veil, winking into and out of sight. Crowding the pillars at the edges of the veil stood older buildings made of concrete, glass, and steel. Attached to those like metal barnacles stood more modern ones: police and military checkpoints, microapartment complexes; and at the tops of the buildings some missile batteries crouched like spear-toting hunchbacks, draped in cloaks of wires and twisting pipes.
The bobcat narrowed his eyes as he saw the missiles appear on-screen from his cramped cockpit. The screen stood barely a pawsbreadth from his muzzle, and turning his head, he could see other screens denoting maps, nearby ship transponders, and a diagram of his corvette. He grit his teeth and flattened his ears as he saw the multitude of ships nearby. He tabbed one of his screens over and smiled as he brought up his laser-communications array. If the fox wouldn't surrender once through the portal veil, he could always swap to his other plan: the twin mass-accelerators hiding on his ship's top hatch.
Shooting the fox down risked destroying the briefcase when he crashed, but if he hit the fox with glancing shots, he might have a chance at negotiating with him. The bobcat's ship held more fuel and could fly more quickly, but the moment the fox passed through the veil the chase would become much, much harder. The only reason either ship kept their transponders active was because of the nearby police checkpoint and missiles that busily ID'd every little moving thing nearby.
This chase would stay polite and slow as long as there were police and crowds around. Once they crossed the gate and reached space, everything would change. Transponders would turn off, fusion torch engines would kick open, and the only things left to track each other by would be their LIDAR, and whatever scattered signatures their systems could pick up. The corvette's guns were good enough to track the fox's ship and shoot it down, but killing wasn't the aim. Not now, at least.
Piloting his wedge-shaped corvette, he closed in on the fox's craft directly beneath him, casting a shadow on the little ship as it got closer to the veil. He opened a channel with his laser-comms, firing a beam the width of a fly at the small ship's receiver. He needed to do it now, before the transponders switched off. As the speakers crackled, the bobcat spoke aloud:
"C'mon, man, you could make this much, much easier for both of us."
No response. He kept speaking:
"Neither of us wants the law on us. I don't wanna shoot you."
Still no response. The bobcat glanced at the status of the communications uplink. It blinked a friendly green. He went on:
"You can land and hand the stuff over, there's a spot right-"
The communications uplink chirped with an incoming message. The fox apparently opted to send the reply in text via his own laser-comms. The words appeared in real-time, letter-by-letter, right in front of the bobcat's face:
>> I N C O M I N G M E S S A G E :
K I S S T H E B A L D E S T P A R T O F M Y F U Z Z Y F O X T A I N T
The bobcat paused, sighed, then checked to make sure the corvette's guns had their coolant cycled.
The fox watched the portal veil come closer and braced himself for the loss of gravity. Once through, the gate would send him to its sister portal in orbit above the planet. He licked his lips and kept one finger on the switch for the retrorocket correction system. Once he broke through and hit the vacuum of space, the forces of drag and gravity would disappear and he'd need to maneuver using the multiple smaller thrusters on his ship. Plus, he'd have to brace himself for the bursts of acceleration that came with high-speed maneuvers in space.
Most pilots, himself included, bought and maintained implants built into their nervous systems that would let them survive these maneuvers. They released a cocktail of drugs, among other fluids, that mitigated the unpleasant physical effects of high-speed accelerations. Plus they helped with the feeling of having a garbage truck instantly park on every inch of your body. Swallowing, he reached up to the back of his neck and stuck a claw into a tiny hole at its base. The claw pushed deep, hitting a small button at the bottom and activating the implant. He was already familiar with the feeling that followed, but the sensation still unsettled him: an icy pinch at the nape of his neck, a trickling of cold down his spine and into his limbs, the sudden feeling of pressure behind his eyes. The stuff kept him awake and in one piece during the worst changes in speed, and while the fox didn't expect to need it, he chose to use it anyway. He reminded himself of all the pilots that went blind because they neglected to activate their implants, and thought better.
The image of the portal gate closed in on his screen and the fox took a deep breath, never taking his eyes off the console. While he couldn't clearly see it, he could feel the rumble of the bobcat's ship above him. The fox's lips twisted into a small, grim smile. literally every odd squarely pointed at the bobcat either cornering him, or blowing him up, and yet...
The ship lurched forward and upwards as he passed through into the vacuum of space. The screen filled with stars. His fur rippled, waving at the loss of gravity. His guts briefly felt like they'd decided to jump into his throat. For a split second, the fox saw a strand of his own fur hover above the console.
A split second after that his paw tabbed off two switches and settled on the throttle, the LED for his transponder turned a dead crimson, and the ship bucked as the retrorockets fired, leveling out his flight. He glanced at the map of other ships and saw the bobcat's transponder signature blip once, then vanish.
The smile grew bigger. He whooped once, then slammed the throttle forward.
The bobcat blinked as he saw the fox's craft race away on his LIDAR: a small triangular silhouette jumping across his screen. He shook his head, then spoke wryly: "Fine. You wanna play that game? I'll play, tough guy."
The bobcat pushed his own throttle forwards, feeling the drugs from his own implant flood his system. In that second, he felt crushed into his seat. His vision blurred, his insides slammed into the back of his body, and the entirety of his ship leapt forwards to chase the fox.
Outside, the missile batteries guarding the gates registered two transponders shutting off and two engines kicking into high-speeds, but didn't fire. Somewhere, an outpost received a bulletin to add one ship to a watchlist.
The fox got a head start, but it only delayed the pursuit. The larger corvette got closer, kilometer by kilometer, and the silhouette of the fox's ship became clearer on the bobcat's screen. The fox made no effort to change direction or alter course, and the bobcat's corvette grew closer and closer with every minute. Once he'd felt like they were far enough from the planet to avoid garnering attention, the bobcat pushed a finger into the side of his joystick. A brief message flashed across his monitor, and on the surface of his ship a panel pulled back to reveal two turret-mounted cannons.
The ship rattled as two slugs fired from the twin barrels, clipping a wing off the fox's ship. Shearing & pulverized metals and ceramics exploded off the ship's frame, clouding the LIDAR image on his screen. The fox's ship spun forwards, thrusters off, nose tilting towards the corvette. The bobcat smiled.
At least, he smiled until he saw the ship's thrusters kick on again, aiming towards him.
As he flew forwards at hundreds of thousands of meters per second.
In a big, fat, barely maneuverable corvette with almost no time to get out of the way.
There was about two seconds of panic as the bobcat realigned his cannons, this time to hit the other ship's center of mass. He felt a cold sinking in his stomach. Was the fox this desperate? Was he playing chicken? Would he actually ram himself into the corvette? He needed money, but keeping the briefcase intact came absolutely second to not being turned into a pulp of meat, ceramics, and tears. The large chunks alone would obliterate him--anything big hitting literally anything else at hundreds of kilometers a second tended to result less in debris and more in very, very fine powder. As the ship's LIDAR signature closed in on his position and as the computer designated targets, he closed his finger on the gun trigger.
The fox's ship broke apart.
The bobcat didn't even pull the trigger.
On his screen, the bobcat saw multiple ship pieces spreading apart in his way. The screen blared multiple collision warnings in bright red flashes, and registered multiple incoming targets. The cold, icy feeling crawled up from his heart and into his throat. There were too many parts to hit in time...
He snapped out of the shock. He pulled the trigger. One by one, some of the larger chunks of the fox's ship exploded, hit by mass accelerator slugs. A few larger parts flew away from the main cloud of debris, out of the corvette's way. The bobcat ignored those, focusing on the parts that posed an immediate threat. As the cloud of debris closed in on him, he braced himself for the end.
For a moment, the bobcat wondered if he died, or if it was just natural to feel as though his entire world got shoved into a pitch-colored blender. The room instantly went dark, and sparks flooded the cockpit. Embers burned his muzzle as his eyes screwed shut. A monitor melted away at the corner. Far off, he heard the wailing of steel pulling apart, and the smell of burnt circuits singed his throat and nose. An incredible, white hot pain bit into his ear, and he yelled.
Seconds passed, then the lights flickered on as the ship rumbled to life again. In front of his muzzle, he saw the monitor flashing some messages:
** >> M U L T I P L E M I C R O - C O L L I S I O N S D E T E C T E D**
** >> E M E R G E N C Y S E L F - R E P A I R S A C T I V E**
** >> A C C E L E R A T I O N H A L T E D**
A scrolling list of highlighted ship parts rolled down the screen, with indications for loss of pressurization, power, or significant mass. Scanning the list, the bobcat let out a relieved sigh. He didn't die. Sure, he lost some starship in the process, but he lived. He pulled up one arm to gingerly touch an ear. Instead, he felt burnt upholstery. Pulling down his paw, he pushed it to feel the affected ear.
At least, what should've been the affected ear.
When his fingers wrapped around the base of the ear, he gingerly felt upwards. He found where it began to char when the stinging became unbearable: the fur singed away to leave behind a layer of leathery skin and burnt flesh, with nothing left where the tuft should've been. He growled.
With a deep breath, he turned his gaze to look at his remaining monitors. Of the debris that remained, all of it was either out of his way, or behind him. The fox's ship got turned into a dust and metal cloud as wide and broad as a city block.
On one monitor, a small transponder signature appeared, and began to flash green on one of the chunks. The bobcat's eyes widened and his jaw dropped. He silently mouthed the word 'motherfucker' as he altered the course of his own ship to fly towards it.
Inside his cockpit, for a good while, the fox felt as though he'd done the impossible: beat an armed corvette with nothing but a cheap skimmer craft and an emergency break-apart system that let him eject his cockpit from the body of his ship as it blew itself apart. The system's aim was to make sure that if anyone tried a close, high-speed chase with a weapon, they'd end up shredded by the ship debris as his cockpit wheeled away, looking like any other piece of starship junk. He felt so smart when he first built it into the ship.
He remembered the feeling as his cockpit jerked, and he felt pressed downwards into his seat by the gentle force of a ship's acceleration. He heard steps, the muffled clanking of metal, then silence. For a solid few hours, nothing else happened. He ran through all the possibilities of what could happen next, ranging from being arrested to having his teeth plucked out with pliers. The bobcat's ship got a hold of his cockpit, that much he knew. Whether or not he'd survive what came after, he was less sure. As he uneasily thought about the question, he heard a knock on the side of his cockpit.
It became less of a knock and more of a repetitive slamming, followed by a voice:
"Open the cockpit, smart guy."
The words got muffled through the twin layers of metal and transparent cockpit canopy, but the fox knew it was the bobcat's voice. He kept quiet, busily trying to come up with something to say. More of the bobcat's words followed:
"Y'know, when you chase someone, you expect lots of stuff to happen. Sure, I mean, you usually expect them to dodge, to turn and fight, to surrender,"
The bobcat stressed the last word. The fox didn't respond.
"But I've never in my life seen anyone so breathtakingly, stunningly, head-up-the-ass-ingly, blow himself up."
The fox kept quiet.
"And y'know, if I were you, I'd be at least a little bit grateful that the guy I insulted, whose ship I wrecked, who I tried to kill, isn't trying to roast me slowly by burning his engines over my cockpit at just the right temperature to cook me, but not finish the job."
The fox swallowed.
"So, one more time, because I'm a nice guy," the bobcat sounded deathly serious:
"Open. The cockpit."
The bobcat stood on the floor of his corvette's cargo bay, standing in front of the fox's armored cockpit. The cockpit itself was barely more than a metal & ceramic block, shorn from the body of the original craft, with the metal cover of the cockpit canopy forming the bulk of what remained. Restraints and heavy-duty cords held the cockpit in place, their ends tethered to metal hooks in the floor. For a short while there was silence, then the metal canopy slid back with a slow electric hum to reveal the transparent one, with the fox sitting inside it. The fox held his paws above his head, his expression a mix of exhaustion and defiance, but he made no other moves.
The bobcat gave a thoughtful hum as he put his boot on the edge of the cockpit, and leaned in to look at the fox. He frowned, then spoke,
"Who are you?"
The fox said nothing.
"Guy, this is literally the worst possible time to act like you're a tough customer. I have you, your dinky-ass cockpit, and-"
He pulled a blowtorch up off the cargo bay floor, and shook it outside the cockpit canopy where the fox could see it.
"I got this pretty little number."
The fox looked at the blowtorch, but still said nothing. The bobcat stepped back and tossed it from one paw to the other as he kept going:
"Now, I'm sure you know all the horrible things I could do with this," he went on,
"I could melt the seals of your cockpit shut, and make sure that you suffocate the way a chickenshit ship-wrecking gutterpunk like you deserves. Or,"
He tapped its nozzle against the bandaged stump halfway up his ear "I could pay you back for this."
The fox kept silent. The bobcat started pacing around the cockpit, nodding and scratching his neck thoughtfully, "I'd be a bit more generous with it, though, I'll admit. You've pissed me off."
He swung the blowtorch in an circle, holding it from its leather strap, then caught it with his paw, speaking: "Welp, time's up."
He stepped forward and leaned in towards the glass to talk, every ounce of smarm gone from his voice replaced by a dark, level tone:
"Who. Are. You?"
The bobcat stared at the fox, his grey-and-charcoal face reflected on the canopy. For a brief moment, the fox pursed his lips and looked as though he was giving his answer some serious thought. Suddenly, as though he'd surmised one of the greatest secrets of the universe, he broke out into a broad, shit-eating grin. Turning to face the bobcat, he spoke, never changing his expression:
"I am the fox who can fix your brand new problem."
The bobcat flattened his ears, and a brief expression of confusion flickered across his face. The fox gave a meaningful nod towards a screen panel on the wall, and spoke: "Go look up the local ship watchlist, from the city we just left. Look for new ones."
The bobcat narrowed his eyes, "Why would-"
At that moment a bulletin flashed across the screen--another incoming message. The bobcat stared at it, bewildered. The fox spoke, drily, "You should probably answer that. Looks important."
The bobcat glared at him, slung the blowtorch over his shoulder, and stepped towards the screen. Typing into the keyboard below it, he pulled up the message. In bold-faced heading, the text read:
TERMINATION OF CONTRACT -- PERMIT INVALIDATED
The bobcat's jaw fell, and for a few seconds he made a series of confused half-words as he scrolled down the notification. The fox's muffled laughter rang in his ears. The bobcat whirled around, leapt onto the cockpit, and slammed the blowtorch onto the canopy as he yelled at the fox:
"HOW DID YOU KNOW THAT'D HAPPEN?! HOW?!"
The fox responded with a singsong voice, stretching out the last vowel as he saw the bobcat only get angrier: "Go check your watchliiiiis~t."
He clicked his teeth at the 't'. It pissed the bobcat off. It pissed him off badly enough to make him throw the blowtorch across the floor as he stormed back to the screen. As the bobcat typed furiously, face twisted into a scowl sharp enough to punch holes through steel, he pulled up the list of recent watchlisted ships. As he scrolled down his eyes settled on one description in particular:
Amelia-Class Corvette; CV-52; ID#15111; named 'Cockatoo': Grey and Steel-colored freight hauler. Placed on watchlist for high-acceleration burn exit near portal gate. Permit suspended. Investigation pending.
He stared at the line of text for a solid minute as the fox kept cackling from inside the canopy. He felt a cold rush of fear flood his stomach as he thought about the fact that he couldn't finish his mission because this meant that every portal gate on the planet got an alert for his ship. The fox's laughing already settled into a broad-smiled giggling, and the bobcat felt his ears burn from the embarrassment. With the laughter ringing in his ears, the bobcat snarled back at the fox, "Well, why isn't your ship on the list, smart guy?"
The fox cleared his throat as he tried to stop laughing and he responded with the same grin, "Well, one, I've got a permit, because I know all about them and, uh,"
He swept his arms around the canopy, "I don't have a ship anymore."
The fox shook with another barely-suppressed round of laughter as the bobcat only glared, scowling and wide-eyed. The bobcat buried his paws in his jacket pockets, and then stalked over to the corner of the room, opening a locker. The fox's gleeful look all but vanished when he saw the bobcat come back with the blowtorch and a set of goggles. The laughter died and turned into a series of stuttering, uncertain, and alarmed half-words as the bobcat went to welding the cockpit shut.
The bobcat lay in a hammock strung across two strapped-down cargo containers, rubbing his temples. He read his phone warily as it received messages from his employer, relayed through his ship's laser-comms. By the time he got to the second sentence of the first one, he knew he'd been fired, but he kept reading. By the time he finished, he let the phone drop onto his chest as he stared at the ceiling.
With a deep breath, he closed his eyes, ignoring the fox's muffled pleas and slamming fists as he stayed locked inside his cockpit. He thought about what his next plan would be now that everything hit the fan. He needed a new permit. That much became clear. Problem was that he needed to get it on the planet.
The same planet that put him on a watchlist.
The same one with a police force that would search his ship and find the unlicensed mass accelerators built into its hull.
He exhaled sharply. In spite of everything the fox did somehow manage to avoid getting on a watchlist, even though he pretty much did the same thing the bobcat did by the portal gate. If the fox told the truth, and he knew at least something about getting permits, maybe he could-
No.
The bobcat interrupted his own thought. The fox deserved to burn. He lost an ear, a small fortune's worth of ship parts, his job, and almost his life, all to a fluffy red gutterpunk who deserved to be dropped into a lit fusion torch engine.
The bobcat spun his phone in his paws, humming thoughtfully as he thought about all the effort he needed to go through to make sure the cockpit got reduced to its constituent particles via one million kelvin engine exhaust.
_ Although, _
The bobcat rested the phone under his chin as he thought about the fact the fox couldn't escape and if what he said was true, he knew how to help him get off the ship watchlist. While he was on it, it meant he'd be barred from the bulk of the mercenary jobs he needed to survive. With that thought, he glanced down the cargo bay at the cockpit strapped in the middle of it. The fox sat at the edge of his canopy, panting from all the time spent slamming the glass with his fists.
_ Sure, he's a pain in the ass, but if he can help me..._
Stepping out of the hammock, he stretched luxuriously and yawned. When he finished, he sauntered over to the cockpit and leapt onto it. He rapped on the canopy with a knuckle and admonished the fox with a half-smile: "Hey, buddy. How're you doing? Ready to negotiate, yet?"
The fox didn't move his head from where it rested against the canopy as he panted, but his gazed looked up at the bobcat leaning over the canopy. The fox narrowed his eyes, but his ears perked. The bobcat smiled. He got his attention.
Leaning in and resting his shoulder on the canopy, the bobcat went on: "From what you said, I'm guessing that you know at least something about getting me off the watchlist and registered with a permit again, right?"
The fox glared at him, "I might, yeah."
"Well, then," the bobcat nodded patronizingly, then looked dead into the fox's eyes,
"Tell me how."