Sin and Grace - 32. Grace (Patreon)

I came to as someone dropped me onto the deck. They'd been dragging me by one arm. I could hear the quiet electronic noises of the shipbots moving around me and I recognized the floor underneath my face. It was the epoxy-sealed floor of the crew's head.

Someone kicked me in the side, forcing me onto my back. I groaned as I rolled over and blinked up, blearily, at my attacker. The incident in the hold was coming back to me now. There was an intruder aboard the ship and xe had attacked me when I went to go talk to Brando.

Fuck, where was Brando?

“Well, I’ll be damned. I thought I recognized that baby face."

Something deep inside me froze. I knew that voice. I looked up at the man standing over me. He'd aged, of course. We all had. It was inevitable, but Wasp still had the same pointy weasel face he'd had as a boy. The rest of him had aged a little more than I had and I suspected that regular longevity treatments hadn't been in the cards for him. His hair had gone gray in streaks and his hairline had started to move backwards. There were deep lines in his face, around the eyes and mouth. He'd also grown a scrubby little goatee at some point that was also graying. I suspected it was to cover the strange tattoo along his jaw, but it didn't work.

Wait, no. I knew what that was. We'd had a whole conversation about it when I was checking my crew's temperature about cursemarks. That was the one Brando and Coro said they couldn't tolerate: the Witch mark. They'd said they were fine so long as 'a witch hadn't laid their hand on her.'

In Wasp's case, it looked like the Witch had been holding his head down or pushing it away.

I tried to get up or kick. Something. My body felt like lead and I remembered the cold metal thing he'd jammed into my neck. It must have been a Neural Shockstick. I could move my head, flex my fingers, and roll my shoulders a little, but that was it. It might be an hour before I got any control over my body back

Wasp crouched down and let out a low, cruel chuckle. He grabbed me by the chin and turned my face towards him. “Bubbles. The galaxy is such a small place. Imagine the odds?”

“Not good enough.” I jerked my head to get his filthy hand off me. It just made him laugh more.

“No love for your crechemate, Bubi?” Wasp sat back on his heels, still grinning. “I wondered why anyone would willingly keep Ananke on their payroll. Guess I’ve got my answer now. You never could manage without her around to hold your hand.”

Something twisted hard in my gut. The crew head was on the Works level. There was no way that Wasp could have snuck past my people while dragging me behind him. I also realized that I recognized the shipbots surrounding me. These were my bots; the Cassandra's shipbots. Yet, Wasp somehow had control of them.

Where was my crew? What had he done to my people?

Where was Taj? Where was Sin?

“I can read your mind like a pamphlet," Wasp jeered. "Don't get excited. Ananke's not saving you a second time. I already dealt with her. The bots on board this ship answer to me now."

"What did you do?" I croaked.

"Don't worry about that. You've got bigger problems to focus on," Wasp advised me. He reached up to rub the hand mark on his face. "Let's just say I've been looking to settle a debt with her for a while. I thought I'd got her earlier, but I made the mistake of not watching to make sure the job got done. I don't make the same mistakes twice. Tell me, how's my face look?"

"The same," I gritted out, wondering where this was going.

Wasp frowned and checked himself in the long mirror over the sinks. He touched the Witchmark and scowled. "Whatever."

"Where's my crew?" I kept trying to make my limbs work. I wanted to grab him by the throat. I wanted to bash his face in. I wanted to avenge my child self, but my head was attached to a sandbag insofar as my nervous system was concerned.

"They're contained," Wasp replied with a shrug. "There's a slave broker in the Fringe who pays good credits for skilled laborers. I think we'll take them over that way, once my ship comes to scoop us up. You won't be joining them, obviously."

He reached down and grabbed me by the front of my jumpsuit and started dragging me again.

"What a treat," he said in a conversational tone as he pulled me towards the crew toilets. "I came here to end things with that bitch for good, but now I get a bonus. Originally, I was just going to shoot and space the Captain of this vessel, but I always that I didn't finish drowning you like the ugly puppy you are before she interrupted us. Now I get a second chance!"

He grinned as he switched his grip on me to the back of my collar.

"Even better, I'll get to take my time."

Note: Another short chapter again due to the switching perspectives.