The Realm of Ahunna

Unnamed Island, Ass-end of Nowhere, Deran Province

Bobo Toreebo slapped a hand to her thick neck, hard, squashing the bug that had been trying, and failing, to bite through her tough hide.

“I fucking hate this place,” she muttered, wiping off the creature’s slimy remains on her black trousers.

Bobo was a small woman by rhinoroid standards, barely seven feet tall and weighing under half a tonne, and any rhinoroid would tell you, provided she was sufficiently out of earshot anyway, that she was ugly as sin, even though the members of most other species considered her to be one of the better looking rhinoroids they’d met.

Of all the noteworthy things about Bobo Toreebo though, there were three that were most important: namely that she was the founder and captain of the Naked Tusk pirates; that she had a five million credits bounty on her head; Dead or Alive; and that she was four and a half million in debt.

To Firenze.

So here she was, hiding in the middle of nowhere; from the Deran government, who she knew only added the alive part to her bounty so they could enjoy the privilege of executing her themselves, but mostly from Firenze, who, if he got his hands on her (and he would, it was simply a matter of time), would turn her in for her bounty in a heartbeat, their ten years long business relationship be damned.

How had she wound up in this situation again?

Oh, right, a gambling addiction.

Bobo sighed. “Fuck you, dad,” she muttered.

The bastard had been right; she was a screw-up.

Bobo swatted another bug.

The sounds of approaching footsteps broke her from her brooding but she did not turn; it could only be her first mate, Mazd, coming to make some report or other. Bless her heart, for it was her work that kept the crew functioning, but damn if Mazd wasn’t a workaholic.

The slim, younger woman came to stand by the log Bobo sat on barely ten feet from the island’s edge, and for a minute they both just stared off into space, all four of Mazd’s hands clasped behind her back.

“The crew’zz getting rezlezz, B,” Mazd said in her buzzing voice. “Zzey zuzzpect zzomething might be going on.”

“Took them long enough,” Bobo said, spying a bug skittering around on her tusk, she flicked it off in disgust.

Mazd turned her multifaceted eyes on Bobo, the hard, blue-green skin of her face almost iridescent in the light. “I feel like you’re not taking ziz zeriouzzly.”

Bobo didn’t respond for some time, then she said, “why not just put a bullet in my head? Take the ship. Maybe drop my body off with Firenze. Save yourself all this trouble.”

It was obvious that if Mazd had an eyebrow to lift in perplexity, she would have done so. Since she didn’t, she settled for cocking her head. “Izzat zef-loazzing I hear? What happened to ze woman who wanted wealzz and fame?”

Bobo scoffed. “No one becomes wealthy from piracy, Mazd. And I think I’m plenty famous as is.”

“True,” Mazd conceded. “But you zill didn’t zay. What about zze crew?”

“What about them?” Bobo shrugged. “If Fisk can’t come through for me then I can’t leave this island, and if I’m not leaving then I sure as hell am not letting any of them do. In that case I might as well just send Firenze my coordinates myself.”

“You really zink Fizzk will lend you four and a half million credizz?” Mazd asked.

“Not on my life,” was Bobo’s simple reply.

“Zo what exactly iz zze plan?”

Bobo’s gaze was steady as she locked eyes with her first mate, the woman who’d been with her from the start of everything. “Did you know that if you add up the bounties of every member of the crew with one, it ends up 350,000 short of five million?”

Mazd hesitated. “Zzere are zizteen of zzem, B.”

“The more the merrier.”

Mazd sighed. “I’ll prep ze bazookazz,” she said as Bobo rose.

“Come on,” the rhinoroid woman said. “Let’s go see if we can catch any more of those tasty chameleons. I’m hungry.”

“You’re alwayzz hungry,” Mazd buzzed.

“I’m a rhinoroid,” Bobo fired back, heart lighter with the knowledge that Mazd was still with her, even in this.