Wild Space Pt. 01

Pash was yelling at them, jabbing a finger out into the crowd as he groped behind his back. The pirate holding Arela's chain, Bekki, was also going for her weapon.

"DEKKER!" Arela screamed in a voice that pierced through the noise like a stone breaking. She gathered her chain up in her hands, looped it around Bekki's neck, and pulled.

"Goddamnit!" Yarona roared. She was unhooking her carbine from her back as the first shot lit out over the crowd.

Sweat erupted on his face as he Dekker threw Lulu bodily to the ground. Whether it was from stress or the heat from the weapons fire he didn't know. Screams rang in his ears, and it took him a handful of seconds before he realized one was his own.

**************************

"Nearly did us all in, didn't she?"" Yarona asked as she sifted through the debris.

"Worth it," Dekker said back shortly.

"For you, maybe," The commander replied, but wasn't heard. Arela was running towards her husband.

For a long moment he was too afraid to move. To do so would be to tear this woman from his arms, where she belonged. The moment felt fragile, as if it had any moment it would be gone. When the panic faded Dekker felt only the comfort of her, her familiar smell, the press of her flesh against his. And it was all that mattered.

"I didn't think..." She said softly.

"Me either, but that's over now."

"I'm sorry, but it's not over. Not yet." Yarona said, followed by a low, digitized, triple hum of a weapon powering up.

"Wha-"

"Let go of one another. Now, don't move." The commander had the carbine. "Take a step back. And face the entrance. Good."

"You don't have to do this." Arela said, teeth chattering.

"Spare me. You're both criminals, and your husband is a lousy fuck, bitch. Now move. Hands up."

The freezing air blasted the three of them as they slowly marched over the now deserted slave market. Here and there was a bloodstain, rapidly freezing. The trample to the outdoors had been sudden but without casualties. Both husband and wife shivered with a chill that had nothing to do with the cold.

Dekker felt a twinge between his shoulder blades as he was lead out. What awaited him and his wife? Imprisonment, or death? Yarona was a backwoods Capital officer. She would get no medal for turning them in. Much easier and quicker to simply kill them and be done with it, go back to ruling her own little fiefdom.

"That's far enough. Might as well make things legal. We'll have to imagine I am raising the scourge." All Capital commanding officers could pass summary judgement on their own ships or if they were the leading Capital official on a minor planet or a mission of small importance. Yarona was being as facetious and exacting as possible.

"Captain Dekker, First Officer Adela, I, Commander Yarona, do sentence you both to death for the crimes of smuggling, et al." There was a vibrant hum in the air as she snicked off the safety of her carbine. The cold lashed at them all.

"Go on," Yarona said when she saw their hands reaching for one another. "I'm not so cruel as to deny you one last touch. You've lived hand in hand, haven't you? Good. All ready?"

The blast of energy was accompanied by a woman's scream. A body hit the landing pad hard enough to crack a thin layer of ice. And Lulu stepped around the prone, sizzling, twitching form of Yarona and dropped her jumpstarter onto it.

"She didn't...don't worry, mistress, master..." The fuckbot was saying in a voice wracked with emotion. "It was me."

Both women hugged and enfolded Dekker in one of their arms. Despite all the death around them, the freezing cold, the hollowness of their all not being together for so long, right now there was more perfect place for them to be.

*******************