Naomi was taken aback by the very interesting interior design choice of the vessel. While the exterior was a scattered hodge-podge, the interior was a uniform and singular vision of garishness. Six-tiered chandeliers of loud, orange crystals hung every few feet down the corridor, close enough that they nearly hit the next one. Their light illuminated walls, ceilings and floors with the same eye-melting, reticulating pattern of brown and silver. And it was all furry, and definitely not faux-fur. A lot of people had been slaughtered to bedeck this space.

The visual onslaught combined with the incessant beeping of the ship’s fuel alarm to make a migraine an inevitability. Naomi wondered for a second whether it would be better if the ship was engulfed in a ball of plasma. She hadn’t seen taste this bad since she was on Petravin XI a few hundred years ago, though it was good having one planet to confine the most egregious ‘artists’ to play on.

A few taps and the exo-suit was programmed to take her to the nearest leak. She relaxed her muscles. It took over the ambulation for her and sped her through a blur of corridors and down stairways. She was able to look to the side and peer into some of the rooms: a huge basketball court with a floor like a bouncy castle, a fancy-ass dining room where the bowls were moulded like the mouths of wild animals and there was a conspicuous absence of cutlery, a closed door that someone has scrawled ‘Treasure, Plunder, Skulls, etc’ on to. So it was a pirate ship, but probably nothing worth stopping off for. Going by the decor, the treasure was bound to be cliched piles of gold and jewels rather than anything actually valuable.

Naomi was jerked from her thoughts to see that the exo-suit had already located the first leak and sealed it. Good job, she thought, and turned to the direction of the next leak only to find a dead body swimming in a sea of turquoise liquid which in turn was swimming in a sea of brown and silver fur. It was pretty ugly, visually.

There was a similar turquoise goop dripping from Naomi’s gloved hand. The exo-suit must have dispatched them while she wasn’t paying attention. In her defence, the interior was very distracting. This meant that there were surviving crew on board and with the beeping intensifying she needed to focus and move onto the next source of the leak before anything unexpected happened.

“Pretty sweet outfit.”

The voice rang from behind Naomi, piercing through the beeping. She turned to see who she would be killing next.

“Oh. My. God. Is that –”

“Lextrasahia the Dread?!” Naomi was genuinely surprised. “Lexie! It’s been… centuries. How the fuck are you doing?”

“Actually it’s the Dread and the Terrible now. Not to brag, well a new epithet begs for a little brag. Don’t begrudge me that.”

“Congrats. The Terrible huh? Must have been upto see pretty nasty shit.” Naomi smiled devilishly.

“Well I’ve been out here, killing, plundering, pirate things. It’s more a testament to my work ethic if I’m honest.”

The beeping intensified further and Naomi gestured at the speakers. “Do you need to sort that out?”

“Nah. My subordinates are on it. Well, not that one on the floor there, they look dead because you’ve killed them.”

Naomi was stone-faced, “I fixed this leak.”

“Bunch of useless little pricks they are. But I do love how their blood goes with the room, so I almost want them to fuck up you know? Anyway, I want to catch up and hear everything you’ve been up to. How are you Laidlyworm?”

“Call me Naomi.”

“Sure thing hun. Did you not fancy adding an epithet too? I’m insulted.”

“It’s meant to be inconspicuous.” She laboured this word, unsure if Lexie knew the meaning. “Just a regular Ascentor name, and I like to stay in character.”

“Naomi it is.” Lexie’s eyes narrowed, “So what brings you around here? Not trying to take over my patch are you? Because then I might have to – you know, do something capital T Terrible.”

The beeping intensified to a pretty annoying level. Naomi was ambivalent about reunions and less ambivalent about chatting on a ship while it self-destructed.

“Look I’m not going to tell you why I’m here and if I did I’d kill you and I sort of have to kill you anyway and that beeping is not okay because it has intensified several times now and it seems like your subordinates are indeed ill-equipped for the job and fucking it up.”

Lexie spoke icily, “The beeping is fine.”

Naomi responded equally cooly, “Did you hear what I said?”

“I heard Laidlyworm. See you on deck with your weapon of choice. Oh, and lose the exo-suit, it’s very gauche.”

Lexie rounded the corner and Naomi was left with the furry walls closing in and the beeping intensifying to a shrill tremolo.

She checked the monitors on her suit. The fuel leaks had indeed not been repaired and there were mere minutes before the place was engulfed in white-hot heat. That little catch-up had suddenly made her life a lot more difficult. She turned the opposite way from where Lexie disappeared, and headed back the way she came to the airlock. The explosion would take care of Lextrasahia the Dread and the Terrible.

When she pushed off and out the airlock into space the beeping was replaced with a ringing inside her head. It was now time to think creatively about a Plan B to hide the Dirtsucker. She approached her WASTE disposal ship counting down under her breath. As she got to zero, a bejewelled claw grasped at her ankle and then there was a bright, white light.

***

Ikaroa turned to Kaito in disbelief. There had only been around 40 seconds of mediocre meditation. Now a bright, white spot glowed in a previously bland patch of firmament.

Was this the star?