Chpt. 2) Alternatives

Violet injected a stim into her neck and immediately felt the effects of the empirical drug working on her and repairing her nose. Skin stitched itself together and burned as it did so. Then it started to itch. ‘I'm going to be scratching my nose forever. I just know it,’ Violet thought as she examined herself in a mirror and scratched her nose. Then slipped out of her skin-tight black tee-shirt, revealing her scars from battles long past and the three Roman numeral VVV on her right collar bone. Then pulled a black tank top from a locker. She didn’t know who the shirt belonged to, nor did she care since they had died, just that the top fits nicely.

Once she finished changing, she made her way back to the bridge where Haru waited for her, stepping over bodies along the way. She turned the corner to the corridor and saw Haru dragging a dead body down the hall. Violet walked up to her and asked, “What cha doin’?”

Haru dropped the body unceremoniously, revealing her clean clothes. She wore a pair of baggy harem yoga pants and a cropped top with a lovely boob window showing off one of her two tattoos and accentuating her beautiful mounds and abs. The window showed the thorny rose she had tattooed on her sternum and the other one Violet had only seen a couple of times before on her back. It’s a cobra tattoo that bites down on her right collar bone, and the snake’s body crisscrosses her back and wraps around her right leg, stopping at her ankle.

Catching her breath, Haru answers quickly, “Removing the bodies before they decompose.”

“By dragging them?”

“Yes, by dragging them. How else are we going to remove them?”

“That’s easy. Come, my young apprentice, I shall show you the ways of the lazy fucker,” Violet said, sounding like an old person, then walking back to the bridge. Haru begrudgingly agreed and followed. Once back at the bridge, Violet moved the dead bodies outside the airlock door, and Haru helped. Once they finished, Violet closed the door and made her way to one of the computers. She began accessing the ship’s control systems, opening the rest of the airlocks within the vessel, and adding as much air pressure as possible to everywhere except the bridge. This, of course, set off safety protocols, which she had to bypass.

Once completed, she accessed all six exterior airlocks and opened them simultaneously. A loud whooshing sound emanated from behind the airlock to the bridge. Violet accessed the airlock security cameras and saw the thousands of dead bodies flying out of the ship’s airlocks. Once they stopped seeing bodies flying out of the airlocks, Violet closed them and set the air pressure to normal, which would take about an hour to hit normal levels.

“See, easy peasy,” Violet said happily.

Haru rolled her eyes and said, “Well, great. Now, we only have enough oxygen to last us a few days. That means we can’t make it to any port to repair the ship without suffocating ourselves.”

Violet looked less happy after hearing that and went to the navigational systems across the room to find their location. The computer spat out a collection of letters and numbers, which Violet didn’t recognize for a moment, then remembered what they meant. A sly smile spread across her face as she said, “Oh, you know there’s one place we can go.”

“I do?” Haru asked, then looked over Violet’s shoulder to see what she saw. Then she remembered their location and the location of the closest starport, “No. No, no, no, no, no. Absolutely not. No,” she said, backing away from Violet.

“It’s the only place close enough, and with our warp drives, we’ll get there in less than an hour,” Violet retorted.

“Yes, but you know what he’s like and how he acts. No,” Haru continued to complain.

“Which is why I would never consider it if you weren’t here. After all, you are his favorite.”

“And you owe him money!”

“Which, the weapons and armor on this ship can more than pay for when we meet with him.”

Haru’s face screwed itself into a frown, “Do we have to go there?” she whined.

“Yes. Also, the other three places within range all want our heads in ways that sex and money can’t buy. Plus, they’re the only place we can hide the ship for a little while.”

“Ahh, fine. But I’m not sleeping with him!”

“Alright, but you should at least wear the metal bikini.”

“I will not wear that thing for him!”

“I never said it was for him. I’m talking about me. Wear that thing for me!”

“No.”

“Aww, come on! Throw a bitch a bone here! I’m sexually starved, and my only companions have been battery-operated!” Haru rolled her eyes, pushed Violet out of the way, and sat in the nearest chair to begin setting the coordinates for the ship’s nav computer. Violet raised an eyebrow, “That wasn’t a no.”

“And it wasn’t a yes, now sit your ass down.”

“Sexually or-”

“Otherwise,” Haru finished Violet’s sentence and hit enter on the nav computer. The sound of the engine roared throughout the ship in a low hum as stars began to brighten and elongate before the Reaver sped off into space.

***