Theseus

The wait was quickly becoming unpleasant. Shaw was wearing on everyone's nerves, the Skulls' responses were slow and unhelpful, and I was becoming increasingly unnerved by the fleet of our collective greatest enemy orbiting the same world that I was.

I tried to keep myself occupied playing Horizon, but it was hard to concentrate on such a shallow approximation of being a starship when you simultaneously actually were one. I think I didn't enjoy playing while I was in the core module.

I shut down the game and adjusted my course for the hundredth time that evening. Briefly checking in on Shaw, I saw Ray, Joel, and Doc hovering over him, arguing about something. I'd turned off the audio sensor hours ago, tired of hearing his bullshit, and wished that I could offer to extend the courtesy to the others.

Aisling was still on the bridge. She'd opened communications with the Skulls, but they kept trying to get her to land at the colony, no matter how much Aisling explained why that was a bad idea for us, them, and the colony. And the fact that there was a delay on the signal just made their responses that much more irritating.

I heard the captain let out a frustrated growl. She was at her breaking point hearing them give her the same reassurances over and over that they had Foundation under control, and that we could easily slip in unnoticed. That her bounty wasn't 'that bad' and the corpos wouldn't dare make a move on someone in their territory.

I watched her type back her next response, practically slamming the keys 'If you're not gonna work with me and send a ship to pick this fucker up in orbit, maybe he actually does have this better offer he keeps talking about.' She sent the message and stood up to start pacing.

"That's gotta be a bluff, right?" I asked over the intercom. I wouldn’t trust Shaw as far as I could throw him.

She kept pacing and ignored my question, instead commanding "Been too long since we last scanned their fleet, gimme an update.”

I set the long range scanners to ping orbital movement again, and quickly saw that they hadn’t moved an inch from the last time “They’re just sitting there. I’m not gonna lie, captain, I felt a little paranoid about it myself when I saw them, but wouldn’t they have made a move on us by now if they were here for us?”

“What if the only reason they haven’t is cause they don’t know we’re here?” Aisling muttered “It’s already real weird that they’re here in that kind of force in the first place. I’m gonna be honest, Meryll, I’m afraid they’re here looking for you.”

I let out a deep breath. I’d already gone through the steps to convince myself that that wasn’t the case, so it was time to reassure the captain, I supposed. “Look, as far as they’ll be able to tell, I died in that accident on the way to Titan. If they were looking for me, why would they come to Luna? It’s not like we left a trail for them to follow. And even if they were after me, why send a fleet? I’m not exactly the most dangerous person.”

Aisling clicked her tongue “We did though. Gerald is a loose end.”

I had considered the ripper as well. “And if Gerald sold me out, it still takes a good week to get here from Mars, remember? They would’ve had to be clairvoyant to have gotten here this fast.”

“No, they’d just need to be faster than Theseus with two broken engines.” She stepped quickly to her terminal again, sitting down and opening up a new comms panel, ignoring the message she’d received from the Skulls for now. She typed in an address and I briefly saw the contact page for the ripper. She wrote only ‘Rats don’t last long on Luna. Remember our deal.’ And sent it his way before closing it out and going back to the Skulls’ panel.

‘Fine. If you must insist, we’ll send a transport. Send us your positional data and we’ll send one of ours your way.’ I saw the Captain stare at the screen unblinking for several minutes before she folded her hands in front of her face and spoke quietly “Meryll, pull us out of orbit. Set course for Venus.”

I hesitated for a long moment. Was she serious? “What about the bounty?” I asked.

“Forget the bounty.” She said flatly, seething anger in her voice “It’s not public knowledge, but Skulls have a comprehensive array of satellites around this moon. They watch everything coming and going to Luna. I wouldn’t need to send them our location. Network’s compromised.” She closed the communication window “Get us out of orbit. Right now.”

Perhaps Aisling was being paranoid, but with that detail revealed, a shiver shot up my own spine. I pulled up the panel with my piloting controls on it and immediately followed orders, prepping escape velocity to head further into the system.

Aisling, on the other hand, seemed to be in thought. Likely, she was planning our next move. If she was right about all of this, we needed to get somewhere safe. But where? Venus had a satellite colony, but I’d heard that it was abandoned after corporate interest in the inner colonies fell apart. Of course, what did I know? It could be a thriving metropolis with how reliable my memory was.

“What about Shaw?” I asked, not wanting to bring up another unpleasant subject, but he was a pretty crucial part of the contract that we’d just committed to abandoning.

“Need a word with him.” She said as she brandished her pistol and stood up again.

—

As the captain opened the cell door, I turned my hearing back on and heard Joel quip “Shift change already?”

“Nope. Emergency strategy meeting.” She said, standing over Shaw and pointing her pistol at his head.

The room went quiet “What went wrong this time?” Ray sighed.

Shaw frowned, trying to look back and see why it was that he was being threatened again for this meeting.

“Skulls are compromised. We’re bailing.” Aisling explained in short “So Shaw, you have about ten seconds to give me a really good reason not to dome you and throw you out the airlock as soon as possible.”

“My charm and good looks?” Shaw smiled hopefully.

“Seven seconds.” Aisling said, cutting him off flatly.

“Okay, okay, maybe it’s time that we calmed down and took this-“

“Four.”

Shaw’s eyes went wide as the gravity of his situation finally seemed to catch up to him all at once, fear showing in his eyes for the first time since I’d first laid eyes on him “I’m cooperating! My resources are yours, alright? Whatever you need. Do you need information? Contacts? Passports? I-I don’t know what kind of situation we’re talking about here!”

Aisling continued to hold her gun against him in silence for a long moment before she said “Foundation. You inside any of their networks?” I’d never seen her act this cold before, even when she’d threatened Gerald the other day. She was quite the actress. Or maybe I’d just never had the opportunity to see her this pissed off before. I unfortunately had to agree with Shaw in that moment, though: The captain’s intensity was strangely attractive.

“I know people that are in their networks.” He said, closing his eyes “Look, just drop me off back on Earth, I’ll get you whatever info you-“

“We’re not going to Earth. Too close to the fleet.” She declared.

Shaw’s forehead creased “… Fleet?” he echoed.

“I’m going to make something perfectly clear, Shaw. You’re not leaving this ship. You know too much. The only reason I’m keeping you alive is because your potential usefulness only very marginally outweighs your annoyance.” Aisling reluctantly pulled her gun back “You don’t get to leave. You don’t get to make demands. You are not part of my crew. You do what you’re told, and I might keep you alive another day, got it?”

“Wait, seriously, what was that about a fleet?” he began. I heard the click of Aisling’s pistol as she leveled it toward him again and with a loud bang, it went off. Everyone in the room flinched except for Aisling herself. Shaw cried out and lunged out on the floor, grasping at the newly opened hole in his leg and writhing in pain “Frigid bitch! What was that for!?” he cried out.

“I just wanted to do that since you first opened your fucking mouth.” She said, putting the gun in her holster “Promise I won’t ‘miss’ next time. Doc, patch him up while he tells us who we can talk to on Venus.”