October 2060 ~ Vicious

Even in climate-controlled Tharsis City, the wind on the roof of a 120-story building brushed Vicious' hair into his eyes and pressed his coat to his legs. Hands in his pockets, he stared at the spaceship looming above them and said, "It's mine?"

"Officially, it belongs to a front, but it's for your exclusive use," Kito said. "What do you think?"

Since he knew almost nothing about spaceships, what he thought was that it looked like an extremely large stack of chrome. But there was a tech shifting from foot to foot in front of them, obviously eager to brag about the thing, so he said what he hoped would end up enlightening him. "It looks fast."

Kito glanced at the tech, who at once burst into description. "She's the S40, the newest monoracer out of the Blackhawk line, and she's so fast, she'll make your nose bleed." When Vicious gave him an encouraging lift of an eyebrow, he went on eagerly, "She's got more than just speed, sir. They've added the twin shift power drive so that she'll accelerate from a landing pad as powerfully as from flight, and the reverse thrusters can achieve a full stop in 2.2 seconds at anything but all-out orbital speed. The controls, both voice and manual, are so smooth you can almost just think what you want her to do, and she'll do it, and the navigation is by Harley, so she's nimble as a monkey. That's helped by the wing set, which is the optimum monoracer angle. The monosystem is the BHMS IV, with Marquad security and system redundancies. Universal connector on the pod, of course. She's got the cloaking surface, so in flight, she's almost invisible, and the  ultraglide coating, so you'll never even get so much as a bump going from atmosphere to space."

Space?

The tech was pointing under the wings. "Two swivel-mounted machine guns, and another under the tail, but of course that's retracted now. Full 360 targeting when extended. Here you can see the MML. There's another on the other side. These babies are adapted to fire almost anything you want to load, but she comes equipped with three different missile types, all instantly available. Eyescan targeting as well as the usual, and with this monosystem, there's no jiggle when you make an evasive maneuver. The skin is the new titanium alloy, and the shields are top-of-the-line and auto-self-repairable to 88%. The pod is triple shielded and..."

"Enough," Kito said. "You're not selling it, you're just servicing it." To Vicious, he said, "Think you can fly her?"

"I'll learn."

The tech cleared his throat. "Sir? This isn't a monoracer for an amateur. Seriously."

"That's not your problem." He gestured Vicious back toward the elevator. Once the doors closed, he said, "Can you be fit to fly in a week?"

"I don't know. If it's possible, yes."

"Good. Get space-ready as soon as you can, as well." When Vicious looked at him curiously, he smiled. "We're not putting out the woolongs for that thing just to move you around Mars in a hurry. There's going to be a meeting of some of our trade associates on Tigris Asteroid on the 30^th. We're expecting trouble. I want you to handle it."

Vicious nodded. He'd had no dealings with smugglers before, but their reputation was well-known to every syndicate man. "Who will be in charge?"

"You will. In fact, you'll be all by yourself. Representing the Dragons and keeping the peace. There will be a fight. Expect it. Conditions are tense, and we have reliable information that the White Tigers are trying to make a push in that sector, making undercover deals. I want you to teach them a little lesson about poaching." The elevator doors opened and Kito strode out. Vicious followed him out of instinct, listening, keeping his face calm while his heart exulted. This was exactly the kind of thing he knew he could do well, if only given the chance. Kito was saying, "You'll get a full briefing from me when it's time, naturally, and all the resources you think you need. Except men – you'll be on your own. We don't want any awkward questions asked later. Don't get a swelled head about this," he added with a wry smile as his driver opened the limo door for them. "I'm sending you not only because I know you can handle it, but also because you're the only expendable man who can. And incidentally, before you go getting all grateful on me, I should tell you – I requested a monoracer, but it was Mao who said you should get the best. So if you fuck up, you're letting him down, too."

"I won't."

Two hours later, with a note in his pocket extorted from Leo Thermopolis, he was winding his way through the confusion of hangars and alleys that made up the populated area of Tharsis Spaceport. He was lost in a place that Spike had once known well, and he couldn't help thinking of Spike. Wishing for him, too; he had to ask directions four times before he finally found the person he wanted.

Garcia was a short, stout, dark man in the innocuous jumpsuit uniform of the spaceport, a man no one would have noticed in the crowd. Vicious found him in a warehouse at the edge of the spaceport grounds, sitting on a chair in the back, some kind of engine casing open in his lap, parts scattered all around him, intently concentrating on working with a laser tool. When he finally noticed Vicious standing patiently nearby, he switched off the tool, pushed his safety goggles up, and stared at him coldly. "You again. What do you want? We haven't seen him."

"I'm not here for Spike. I'm here to see you."

Fear flickered in the dark eyes. "Me? Why?"

Vicious smiled. "You're a good combat flight instructor."

Garcia relaxed and shook his head. "Me? I'm just a mechanic."

"That's not what I've heard. They say you're the best."

"And who the hell told you that? I haven't taught anyone for almost twenty years."

"Not officially. Not since one of your students died in a training accident. I've done my homework."

Garcia's face hardened. "That was a long time ago. So what the hell do you want from me?"

"I want you to teach me to fly."

"I can't. I'm not one of the spaceport's flight instructors. Even if I still had my license, I'm out of practice and don't know shit about the new monosystems."

"That's not what I've heard."

"Who told you any differently?"

"Spike did."

That changed his attitude. He put the engine casing aside, off his lap. "Spike did?" he said suspiciously.

"Don't worry, he knew the secret was safe with me. Before he disappeared, we were almost like brothers. That's why I tried to find him. I don't expect you to believe that, but it's true."

Garcia shook his head. "Leave it to Spike to make buddies with someone like you. Well, even if I do have the skills," he conceded, "I still can't teach you. I'm not authorized, I have a job to do, and there are no facilities."

"I can get you facilities. Not here, somewhere else. And your time has been cleared with the spaceport authorities. I have no reason to want you to lose your job. Nor do I expect you to teach me in your spare time. I know you have a family."

"Is that a threat?"

"Not at all. Read this."

Garcia took Thermopolis' letter and read it through, then read it through again. "I'm on some kind of loan to this company? How did you get Mr. Thermopolis to agree to that?"

"Do you really want me to answer that?"

"No." He handed back the letter, scratching his head. "You really just want to learn how to fly a monoracer?"

"I want to learn how to fly it expertly, in atmosphere and space. I want to be able to do combat against long odds and live through it. And I want to learn it all as fast as possible."

"What ship have you got?"

"A Blackhawk S40."

Garcia whistled soundlessly. "How much experience do you have?"

"None."

That got a snort of laughter. "You're joking."

"I never joke."

"Yeah, I can see that. Look, the level you're talking about will take months to learn. The theoretical knowledge alone will take some time."

"I've already begun on that. That, I'll learn when you aren't available to me."

"You also can't do the practical work in the sims for a whole day at a time. You'll get tired, become less sharp, lose your edge and your concentration and learn nothing."

"I can deal with that. My concentration won't be lacking."

"You are sure one stubborn bastard. All right, I'll teach you, under one condition."

"Which is?"

"While I'm your teacher, I'm the boss. You do what I say, and don't tell me how to do my job."

"I'm accustomed to that. It's a deal." His lips curved. "I expected you to bargain for a safe return back here."

"I figure your word is about as good as a crayon-drawn woolong, but there's not a damned thing I can do about it. I'd love to know my family will be OK and I'll get to come back here to my life again, but I wouldn't believe you if you promised me, so it doesn't matter what you say."

"You can believe me. If you don't betray me, you'll be perfectly safe. You were Spike's friend. I wouldn't harm a friend of Spike's."

Garcia grunted, bent to pick up a rag, and wiped his hands. "Let's get started, then."

~ : ~ : ~ : ~ : ~ : ~ : ~ : ~

October 2060 ~ Spike

Spike yawned and rolled onto his side, muttering. He didn't know what had wakened him, but whatever it was, Doohan better cut it out. He'd won three races in four days, and partied after each one, and he was tired. He needed his sleep.

He felt the next vibration and instinctively tensed even before he knew what it was. Then he heard the roar and the ship tilted, throwing him out of the bunk. "What the...?"

He was alert, on his feet and racing into the cabin before Doohan had stabilized the carrier's pitch. "What's going on?"

Doohan, calmly grim, nodded to the viewscreen. "Pirates."

"Pirates? What do pirates want with us? We aren't traders!"

"Why don't you ask them?" Doohan drawled.

"I will." He would just out of spite. The pirate's ship was an overhauled Army destroyer, repainted a virulent shade of green. Ugly, but too fast for them to out-run, and far too heavily armed for them to fight. It was repositioning for another hit, trying to lock onto them despite Doohan's evasive flying, and trying to come at the front of the ship to avoid hitting the cargo area, which was probably why he and Doohan were still alive. Spike poked the comlink on. "Hey, quit wasting your ammo, boys. There's nothing valuable on this ship."

The voice that replied was oily, with a Martian accent. "You have a real nice monoracer and a couple of million woolongs in prize money. Send it all out, and we'll let you go on your way."

Spike thought fast. "OK, OK. Don't blast us. Just give me a few minutes to get the woolongs into the pod, and I'll send the ship out the rear hatch."

"You have two minutes, FlyBoy."

Spike raced for the cargo bay. Behind him, Doohan abandoned the comm and followed, yelling. "What the hell do you think you're doing? You think they'll let us live? Even you aren't that stupid!"

"Nope." Spike climbed up the side of the Swordfish and dropped into the pod. He tucked a cigarette behind his ear, feeling no apprehension, no fear, nothing but a thrill of anticipation.

From the ground, Doohan was watching him with a sober expression. "You've never fought in this ship before."

"Actually, I have," he confessed. "I've been practicing on the days I've flown into town."

"I don't mean that," Doohan snarled. "I knew about that!"

"You did?"

"I was a teenager once myself."

"No, never."

"Shut up. Shooting at targets is a lot different than shooting at men, Spike."

"Then I'll pretend they're just targets on a screen."

"You might get your damned self killed."

Spike smiled. "Whatever happens, happens. Get out of the way, old man, so I can launch."

"Spike..."

"What?"

"If you get yourself killed, make sure you get all of them first."

"Hey, for you, that was almost sentimental."

He dropped the pod cover, and at once, just as in a race, the world narrowed down to just him, the Swordfish, and the competition. He let her drop from the hatch as if cut loose, allowing her to drift away from the carrier, keeping his head down. In the targeting screen, he saw two blips separate from the mass of the destroyer. Only two guys? You underestimate me, boys. The destroyer matched speed with Doohan, but didn't close the gap. They were playing it safe, planning to check their loot before they blasted the carrier. Spike waited until the two smaller ships were close, but still just out of grappling range. Then he sat up and fired the Swordfish's engines.

The two were both Furneaux-class monopods, so slow that he'd gone between them and past them, raking the flank of the one on the left with the Swordfish's machine gun, before they even reacted. He got a lucky hit and heard the pilot scream as the ship bloomed in flame. The resulting shock wave sent Spike toward the second ship, and he rolled the Swordfish, flipping over the other guy and  then plunging abruptly to avoid the Furneaux's guns as they turned on him. The Furneaux released a missile, but he didn't target well and Spike easily swept out of its path. Then he doubled back and released one of his own at close range, seeing the flash of the explosion at the edge of his vision as he zoomed on by.

Doohan's voice barked at him from the link. "Spike. Four at three o'clock."

Spike glanced right. The destroyer had released four more fighters, not the sluggish Furneauxs this time, but, by their wing profile, Blackhawk Demons. The Demon was essentially a pile of weapons with a pod and a pair of wings attached, and while effective against larger ships, they were no match for the Swordfish.

Spike's mouth curved. "Bring it on," he said, and leaned into his ship, putting her right at them.

As soon as he was close enough, he fired missiles from both launchers. One hit. The problem with taking out a Demon was that, when it went, it went big, and he twisted the Swordfish through the resulting cloud of smoke and debris, invisible for several seconds to the other three. On the opposite side, he emerged behind two of them and opened up with his machine guns. One veered off to try to circle behind him, but he got the other. "Right up the tailpipe," he muttered with satisfaction as a series of small explosions rocked the ship and the pod ejected.

He was following the one who'd tried to get behind him, spiraling the Swordfish in a tight turn and coming up almost under its belly, when a series of loud spangs went off in his left ear. He'd never heard that sound before, but he knew what it was, machine gun bullets hitting the Swordfish. He saw the sparks on the wing and realized that the Demon was above him, so he set the retros and braked hard. The Demon shot by him, and he nosed up the Swordfish and returned the favor. His bullets ripped through the side of the other ship, and he'd turned for the kill when he got the target alert. The other one had fired two missiles at him.

They were so close, he couldn't outfly them. Instead, he waited until they were almost on him, then swooped behind the wounded Demon, letting it take the hit. The resulting explosion was so bright, he was blinded for several seconds. "Shit! Doohan, I can't see! Where is he?"

"Your six, and closing."

Still blind, he rolled the Swordfish up vertically, as fast as she would fly, feeling her shuddering under his hands. His vision began to come back even as the target alert went off again, and he flew back into the cloud of debris from his last victim. While the missiles sought him, he targeted them, then zipped out and fired, hitting and disabling both. Now he could see the fourth Demon, even as it fired four more missiles. They were pulse missiles, tightly target-specific. He wouldn't be able to fool them or shoot them down. He could outfly them, but if he turned and ran, Doohan was doomed.

Instead, he flew right at them, and when they were less than half a kilometer away, he banked hard and made a tight circle. The Swordfish was faster and more agile than the missiles, so the maneuver bought him a few seconds. He used them to charge the last Demon. The pilot opened up with his machine guns at once, but Spike easily dodged them. At point-blank range, he fired a pair of missiles directly at the pod. This close, even a shielded pod would take damage, and disruption to the monosystem would negate the targeting of the pulse missiles. He got lucky, and saw the missiles hesitate and then begin to drift. He backed off, deployed the plasma cannon, and finished the ship.

"Spike, stop playing around out there!"

Spike turned and saw the destroyer had opened fire on Doohan. By the light show, the shields weren't going to hold up much longer. But how could he fight a ship that big?

If anyone knew how, it would be Doohan. "Relax, old man, I'm coming. But give me a clue. Where do I hit her?"

"Aft. Have you got any missiles left?"

"A few."

"Go under her shields. Look for a port about six meters across. Give it everything you have. Then get the hell out of there as fast as you can."

The carrier turned as if fleeing. Well, he was. Spike grimaced. Doohan, what are you getting me into? But the destroyer turned to follow Doohan, presenting her flank to him, and in the zoom screen, he could see the port Doohan had described. On the way there, he hastily computed the speed he needed to get through the shields. If they saw him coming and changed the frequency, he would die like a bug on a windshield. And they would see him, unless they were stupid.

If he couldn't sneak, he'd misdirect. With one eye on the numbers flashing on the read-out, he opened a public channel and hailed Doohan. "Hang on, I'll be right there!"

Doohan started to answer, but the voice of the destroyer captain cut him off. "Don't worry, we'll get back to you, friend."

"I'm not your friend," Spike muttered, cutting the link. The computer spit out its figure. Spike accelerated hard, and when he was beside the destroyer, he hit the retros and turned toward it. His window was small, and for a moment, watching the glowing numbers of his speed gauge flicker rapidly down, he thought he wouldn't decelerate enough. "Come on, baby," he said. Then he hit the gravitational field, slowing him even more suddenly, slamming him back in his seat. And he was through. Grinning, he targeted the port and poured everything he had into it. As he broke through the shield again, he saw two more Demons emerge. "I have a feeling you're too late, boys," he said, and punched the Swordfish to her maximum speed. A second later, she bucked under him, flipped, and rolled, and he had to use all his skill to keep her heading in the right direction. For a second, backward, he faced the awesome sight of the destroyer turning into a series of fireballs, one of which consumed both Demons as if they were gnats. Then his back was to it again, and he was flying straight, at top speed, until the tumult of the explosion no longer rocked the Swordfish.

"Wow," he said as he turned back again in the free-floating conditions of normal space. Then, seeing what was left of the destroyer, he said, "Wow," again. "How did you know about that, Doohan?"

"Used to work on the things. You coming in, or are you going to float around out there admiring your handiwork all day?"

"Aw, c'mon, Doohan, I saved your life. The least you could do is thank me." He took the cigarette from behind his ear, lit it, and exhaled luxuriously.

"You act like you had fun," Doohan grouched.

"I did."

Doohan grunted disapprovingly. "Well, get back here. We've got a lot of repairs to make before we try getting into Earth's atmosphere."

"Yes, sir." Spike remained where he was, leaning back and savoring the cigarette, and grinned.

~ : ~ : ~ : ~ : ~ : ~ : ~ : ~

Christmas 2060

Kito's bodyguards came alert at the stir by the restaurant door. Vicious eased his Colt out of his belt and placed it on his thigh without so much as pausing in his meal. He was just getting the hang of chopsticks and was pleased that there was no break in his concentration.

But Kito only smiled. "One of Ferro's boys," he said. "Name of Curt, and I have a feeling he isn't here to pat your head. I wonder what pissed Ferro off more, losing his two fighters, or that big hole you punched in his mother ship?"

Vicious slid his gun back into his belt and put his hand back on the table. "Probably losing the Tigris area free trade, more than anything else." As Rafe had said, the syndicates were all about the money.

Curt was searched for weapons before he was allowed within 50 feet of Kito's table, and although Kito waved the bodyguards away, they didn't go far. Curt glanced at Vicious, and Kito smiled like a wolf. "I think you'll find that Vicious belongs in this conversation, Curt. You are here to deliver a message, aren't you?"

Curt's gaze returned to Vicious for a long moment. "So this is him?"

"Stick to business," Kito said pleasantly.

"He is business. Our business."

"He's my man. You let Ferro know that. You're in my place, and you're spoiling my lunch. Say your piece."

"Ferro says to tell you he isn't forgetting what happened out there on Tigris. He says you'll be hearing from him, and you won't like it."

"So you're delivering a threat, not a message, is that it?" Kito's smile never wavered, but his eyes and voice had gone hard. "You can tell Ferro that affair was just business, and he shouldn't go making anything more of it. He was muscling in on Dragons territory, and we gave him a little hint to back off. Tell him I said as far as I'm concerned, it's over, and he shouldn't make it personal. But if he does, then he won't like it."

Vicious went on eating, unconcerned. This Curt person was a nobody.

When Curt was gone, Kito began to chuckle. "Welcome to the turf wars, kid. You did good, all the way around. Even here tonight. But keep your eyes open. If Ferro sends anyone after you, make an example of them."

Vicious nodded. He knew he'd been set up as a target, to stand between Ferro's men and Kito, but far from being troubled by it, he was pleased. Nothing like being hunted to hone one's street skills, and his had been getting dull.

He was dropped off home by Kito's limo, getting out a few blocks from his new apartment by his own request. He hadn't come up in the world so far that a limo wouldn't draw attention, and he didn't want any attention, especially from his neighbors. He moved through the Christmas Eve revelry in the street with his hands in his pockets and his head bent, vigilantly observant by habit, yet managing to meet no one's eyes. He had never understood the whole Christmas thing. To him, it was a season of false cheer and painted-on hope, all of which faded once the presents were opened and the parties done. The only thing good about this night was that he would be seeing Crys.

She'd laughed when he'd called her, and asked him if he was starting a tradition, asking her out on Christmas Eve. This time, however, he'd called her much earlier and didn't have to bargain with an evening of boredom listening to some jazz band. He never repeated a mistake. Instead, he'd talked her into cooking him dinner.

The building was syndicate-owned, and as he passed the unobtrusive guard in the lobby, who was pretending to be a loiterer reading a newspaper, he discreetly dropped an envelope of cash into the man's lap, behind the paper. This was something he would never have thought of doing on his own, but had learned from Kito. "I wouldn't insult you by offering it to you," Kito had said, "but with the average employee, loyalty can be better bought with one correct gesture than with a hundred bribes. Remember the guys at Christmas – even better, on their birthdays, that really gets to them – and whenever they do something that's really beyond the call of duty. For almost all of them, that'll get you their heart. There's always exceptions, men who don't care, but you'll learn to spot them pretty quick, and in the meantime it's a cheap investment." Watching his envelope disappear into the guard's jacket pocket, Vicious knew that Crys would be passed through without trouble and that he wouldn't be interrupted all night except for an emergency.

Crys described his apartment as "Spartan," but he had three computers now, on a console, one of which was dedicated to analyzing data from the Tigris sector. He was still in charge of keeping the lanes open there. A quick check showed nothing happening, and he sat down to put in a few hours' work before Crys arrived. Where once research had been his chief reason for having a computer, now it was communication. By the time he heard Crys' footsteps and her knock at his door, he'd contacted more than two dozen people for almost as many different reasons.

He expected the unusual from Crys, but even so, her appearance when he opened the door made him blink. She'd split her hair along a center part and dyed the right half red and the left half green. Sections at the sides were pulled back and braided with tinsel, and silver bells in her earlobes tinkled when she moved her head. He rather liked the bells, but the rest... "Green and red?"

"It's Christmas!"

"It's revolting."

"Isn't it?" Beside her was a tall narrow box with a domed top, covered with a cloth, a thin handle sticking out of the top. She laughed as she bent to pick it up. "I couldn't resist. If you can love me like this, you'll love me when I'm old and grey," she quipped, moving past him toward the kitchen.

She set the box down as she went by, and something rustled inside it. He studied it with narrowed eyes. "I'm more likely to cut off your head and let someone use you for a mantle decoration. What's in the box, Crys?"

She turned back. "Don't get nervous, it won't bite you. I don't think, anyway. It's a gift for you."

"I told you not to get me a gift." He'd given her a gift, naturally, but he'd only done it because he knew she expected it, and he neither expected nor even wanted any observation of this ridiculous holiday.

"It's not really a Christmas gift. It just happened to come into my hands yesterday, is all. Open it!"

He heard another rustle. "Is it alive?"

"Last time I looked," she said cheerfully. "Don't be such a coward."

"I'm not a coward. I don't need a pet."

"Yes, you do. You're barely human anyway, and living in this place all by yourself is making you worse. You need companionship. Oh, stop scowling at me and open it."

"You're taking it back to wherever it came from," he said, but squatted in front of the box and pulled off the cloth covering.

It wasn't a box, it was a cage. Inside was a very large, ugly bird, densely black in color except for yellow feet and beak, red eyes, and a white spot on the top of its head. The head was crowned by a long swoop of feathers and dipped at the end of a long kinked neck. The two of them, man and bird, eyed each other with an identical lack of expression, which made Crys crack up.

"I know this bird," he muttered. "I've seen it somewhere before."

"Last year at this time. The Blackbird Club. He was the official mascot there. But the club's under new management, and they changed the name. They were just going to kill this guy, but I thought that would be mean, so I saved him. For you."

Still squatting there, staring at the thing, he said, "I don't want it."

"He's incredibly smart, you know. They say he came out of an experimental genetics laboratory, and I think that may be true, because I've never seen anything like him before. Let him out."

"No. He'll make a mess."

"He will not. I'm telling you, he's smart. I had him out all day yesterday, and he didn't make one mess. Come on, let him out."

He grimaced, rose, set the cage on an end table, and opened the door. "All right, but he goes back home with you. He doesn't stay here."

Clipped next to the cage door was a wire ramp. The bird pecked it to release it, stepped out onto it, and at once launched itself into the air. Vicious' vision was filled with the span of black wings, and he started backward. The bird made one turn around the room, then glided to land lightly on his shoulder. It flexed its feet in his shirt, and soft feathers brushed his ear as it settled itself.

Crys was delighted. "He likes you! I told you he was smart. He knows he belongs to you."

"Get it off."

"Come on, he's not hurting you. Here, give him some food. He eats this stuff, corn and seeds mostly."

Oddly enough, the stupid bird felt comfortable on his shoulder. He took a palmful of seed from Crys and held it up. The bird lowered its head with immense dignity and deigned to peck at it. "What kind of bird is this?"

Crys was heading for the kitchen again. "I told you, no one knows. Nobody at the Club could figure it out, and nobody remembers where he came from. I guess that's why all the rumors about him being some kind of mutant genetic experiment. What do you think? Some kind of vulture? No, crow."

"Maybe a crow." He was beginning to like the bird, but he couldn't admit it to her, or she wouldn't take the thing away. "You know the old legend about crows, don't you?" She shook her head, and he said, "They're supposed to be the creatures that come to escort damned souls to Hell."

That stopped her. She frowned and said, "Maybe I will take him back."

"Why don't you just make dinner? I'm hungry, and I don't eat seeds." As she laughed and dashed for the kitchen, he said to the bird, "And you, get back in your cage."

The wings lifted, one over his head, and the bird launched itself. It landed on the platform, stalked into the cage, and turned to regard Vicious emotionlessly with its yellow eyes. Curious now, Vicious said, "All right. You can come back out if you behave."

The bird came back out, this time spreading its wings as soon as it was free of the cage and landing without fuss back on his shoulder. "You think you're smart, don't you?" Vicious said. The bird made no response of any kind. Smiling, Vicious gave it the last of the seeds in his hand. "Maybe I will keep you," he muttered, and with the bird riding easily on his shoulder, he went to the kitchen to help Crys cook.

~ : ~ : ~ : ~ : ~ : ~ : ~ : ~

July 2061 ~ Spike

Holding his bundled shirt to his nose, Spike rummaged in the freezer. He found ice, but it was all in cubes. He'd have to find something to wrap it in. A clean rag or handkerchief. He remembered Doohan kept handkerchiefs, the old-fashioned kind, in his desk somewhere, and he went there and started pulling open drawers.

He'd never gone into Doohan's desk before, not because he respected the old man's privacy, but because he'd never had the need. It was a mess, and he dug around, seeing something white in the deep drawer at the bottom right, under some old flight manuals. But when he pulled it out, it wasn't a handkerchief, but a picture frame.

The picture made him forget about his bloody nose. He slowly sank into the chair, staring at it. It was a wedding picture, done in the usual style, nothing particularly special about it, except that the man was Doohan. A much younger Doohan, almost unrecognizable in a suit, without his deep tan and wrinkles, and with his hair long and bright gold in color. He almost looked handsome, and the woman was a stunner in an exotic way, with straight black hair to her hips and long, almond-shaped dark eyes that tilted in an elfin manner. Spike glanced up at the wall, which was covered with photos, all of them familiar to him, a record of Doohan's life, all centering around airplanes and spaceships. In none of them did he recall seeing a woman, and looking now, he still didn't find one.

"What the hell are you doing?" Doohan asked from behind him.

He turned in the chair and held up the picture. "Where id dhe now?" he asked.

"Is that blood all over you?"

"Yed. Ids from my node. I dink ids broken."

"Hurts, huh?"

"Yeah." That was a huge understatement. "I wanted to put some ide on it."

"I'll get some." Doohan turned and left, and came back a few minutes later with a handkerchief tied around a pile of ice cubes. "Here. No, slide over this way, I don't want you getting blood all over my desk."

Carefully, Spike positioned the shirt to catch the still-flowing blood, then placed the ice on the bridge of his nose. The relief, after the first second of shock, was enormous, and he closed his eyes.

Doohan took the framed picture from his lax fingers. "How did you do that? Fighting?"

Spike shrugged one shoulder.

"Not over a girl again?"

"No, nod dis time. Bragging rightds. Erlin Dpinner didn'd dink I beat him fair in our ladt game. I tode him whad I doughd aboud his playing, and he dried do beat me up."

"Stupid thing to fight over. But none of those Spinners ever had any brains. I take it he looks worse?"

"Hid buddied had to carry him home."

"What'd he hit you with?"

Spike's lips twitched. "Pool cue."

Doohan snorted with disgust. Probably, Spike guessed, because a pool cue was the wrong tool for the job of bashing someone's face. But the old man was gruffly sympathetic when he said, "You want to go to the hospital and get that fixed?"

"Why?"

"It's broken good, Spike. It's gonna spoil your pretty profile."

Spike rolled his eyes.

"You're also going to have a beaut of a shiner. Two of them, in fact."

"You're dodding de idsue, Doohan."

"Yeah. Well, I'll wait until I can understand what you're saying before we talk about her," Doohan said, and replaced the picture where Spike had found it.

The swelling had gone down enough for Spike to breathe through his nose after about two hours, although it was still so sensitive to the touch that even the wind outside hurt it. He checked in a mirror and almost didn't recognize himself. As Doohan had predicted, both his eyes were blackening, and his nose was a shapeless bruised blob. For the first time in months he thought about his mother. She'd told him that, if he trained well, he could be good enough to fight without his enemy ever laying a hand on him. He was grateful to Doohan for taking him in, and he always would be, but why the heck couldn't Doohan live near civilization? The best martial arts person in a six-hour radius was Spike himself.

He put a freeze patch on his nose and shot it with painkiller. Feeling better, he went in search of Doohan and found him under a 250THT, doing something to the landing gear. He leaned against the side of the little ship and lit a cigarette. "So, Doohan. Where is she? Did she figure out you were a loser and leave you?"

"Nope."

Spike waited a moment, but the only sound was the purr of the laser drill. "She die?" he said at last.

The only answer was an affirmative grunt.

Damn. He gave it another couple of drags, then said, "When?"

Doohan dragged himself out from under the ship and propped his back against the strut, carefully cleaning his tools in his lap and putting them away. "Probably right around the time you were in diapers."

"What happened?"

"You sure are nosy."

"Come on, Doohan. She was a pretty woman. You know how I am about pretty women."

"If you were as big a sucker about women as you talk, I'd have left you out in space somewhere, long ago." After the last tool was in its place, he finally said, "She went to visit her sister on Venus. There was a shuttle accident. No survivors."

Spike lit another cigarette and handed it down to Doohan. He didn't know what to say. "Sorry. I just never figured you for the marrying kind."

"Yeah, me either. Not until I met Linna." Doohan glanced up at him, rose, stretched, picked up his toolbox, and walked away. When Spike followed, he said, "When I was young, I was a lot like you. Drifting, doing what I pleased from one minute to the next. I thought my life was just fine, too. Then I saw her, and all of a sudden it seemed to me that something was missing, something big, something only having her could fix."

"And did marrying her fix it?"

"It did. Changed me, really. That's why I ended up here."

He'd stopped to put the toolbox away, and Spike glanced around at the lube-spattered hangar and the stark, dry, flat, over-bright landscape he could see through the partly opened doors. "You can't tell me she wanted to live in this godforsaken place."

"She didn't care. She just wanted a home. Some roots. Her parents died when she was young, and she went through a lot of foster homes."

"But why here? Why didn't you take her someplace nice to live?"

"We went to New Vegas for our honeymoon. I brought her out here and explained about this place, and she liked it. She was the romantic type."

"What's romantic about this place?"

Doohan gave him a disgusted look. "You don't know anything, do you, kid? Come on, I'll show you something." He led Spike out of the hangar and through the landing strip, between the planes that ranged in age from ancient to new. He stopped beside a low, sleek, bullet-shaped ship, definitely one of the antiques, barely more than two-thirds the size of the Swordfish. Laying a hand on the blunt, rounded nose, he said fondly, "This is a Bell X-1. A long time ago, when it was still just an experiment, a man got into this ship – not this exact one, but one just like it – to try something that had never been done before. He had busted ribs, but he got in anyway. Something like you, more guts than sense. Anyway, he flew her, and he broke the sound barrier for the very first time."

The sound barrier? That was ages ago. "I didn't know this ship was that old." Doohan gave him an annoyed look, and he said, "I don't get it. I mean, I get the ship, but what's that got to do with why this place is romantic?"

"Breaking the sound barrier was the first step to putting men into space."

Spike looked heavenward. "Now I'm getting a history lesson."

"You can use one. You're ignorant about most things, even for a sixteen year old kid."

"I'm seventeen."

"Aw. I missed your birthday."

"What else is new? OK, I'm listening. Tell me why this all this ancient history makes this dump romantic."

"It's only romantic if you appreciate history. That flight happened right here. Or not far from here. Look up, like you just did, and you're looking up into the same sky where that man flew, and where space history began."

"Yeah?" He was impressed despite himself.

Doohan nodded. "For a long time, this area was a kind of Mecca for aviation enthusiasts. That died off as we began terraforming, and now hardly anyone remembers. But I do. Because I did, and because Linna liked the desert, we settled here." Spike glanced back at the hangars and their living quarters and then back at Doohan with a dubious expression, and Doohan growled, "No, not here. We had a house near town."

"So you weren't a total jerk of a husband."

"Nobody could have been, with that woman."

Spike dropped his cigarette and ground it out, thinking. He simply couldn't picture Doohan in any kind of domestic tranquility, no matter how hard he tried. "So why do you keep that picture hidden? She was special, so why don't you have her picture on your wall?"

"Something else you're going to learn, Spike. Some things, it's better to forget. To put behind you. While I was living with her memory in front of me all the time, I wasn't living, I was only surviving. That's not what she would have wanted."

"And you call this living?" He spoke jokingly, but he wasn't surprised when Doohan said he did. The man lived and breathed aircraft. "You must've driven her crazy. But then I figure she had to be half crazy to marry you in the first place."

"Some day that mouth of yours is going to get you into more trouble than even your skill can fly you out of," Doohan snarled, but as he stalked off, he was fighting a smile.

Spike stared after him, then shook his head. His mother had once told him that everyone had secrets. It seemed that was true even of a cranky old coot like Doohan.