Chapter 11

"Where are we going?" Qi asked his two escorts, Quiyo and her sister Riata.

"There is a bar on the mezzanine where Ferro likes to sit with the other geeks and drink. We thought we would introduce you to the geeks," Riata said. "They're normals but with a twist, though not as severe a twist as you."

Qi shook his head as he tried to figure out if she was giving him a compliment or a slight. Ree, as her family called her, was a confusing situation for him. First, she was a dead ringer for the Farendass woman, which she did explain as sharing the same father. Second, she was a bad-ass bodyguard to Benni. Qi had witnessed her nail a man to the wall with his feet dangling off of the ground and his tongue dangling out of his mouth as he was being strangled. The man had been fast, but Ree was remarkably swift. Only the need to interrogate the suspected marine assassin kept him alive for the moment. Qi had no doubt that the man was spaced later.

The final point about Riata was that she was an outsider's fuck bunny. Ferro had bought his way into the family by designing their new spacecraft but she liked him before he did any of that drawing. He had not known how to fight and still did not fight that well according to the rumor mill. Still, they were fuck bunnies.

All of which led to the point that he and Quiyo were fuck bunnies and the two women were sisters. He was an outsider to the family but he was no outsider to the claw and dagger of the worst shitholes in human space. Quiyo loved to fight. She was sinuous in her moves and treacherous with her combat strategy. God help him, she was the goddess of sex when she charged her opponent in the ring. She was fury and passion; she was life and death. She wanted him.

"Isn't there a lot to do still?" Qi asked.

"Time is no friend of ours these days," Quiyo said. "Ferro swore by a certain drink at the bar and the bar may not be there in a few cycles. We drink now or forever lose the opportunity."

"What is happening to the bar?" Qi said.

Ree shook her head. "Not the bar, the entire station is coming under attack. They tried to take Ferro but he was better. He took out their second-in-command. We spent two shifts, an entire cycle, killing or chasing the marines off of Callisto. They will return for revenge although it takes them forever to do anything. Eight weeks have passed and still they dither."

"What are we going to do?" Qi said with rising concern.

"WE – are going to drink, fuck bunny," Quiyo said. "Afterwards, we are going to fuck ourselves into oblivion. When we are called for the next shift, then we will worry."

They arrived in the bar and the place was almost empty. There were two tables pushed together and six men with scrubby beards and ill-fitting clothes were sitting there. Each of them had a clear mug in front of them filled with a mauve liquid with a white head on top.

"Why is everyone so blasé about the impending attack of the space marines?" Qi asked. "Shouldn't we be manning the barricades and stocking up on our ammunition?"

"We live today; maybe we will die tomorrow," Quiyo said as if that explained everything. "We don't stop living just because the knife is at our throats. Cowards do that and, as they say, cowards spend their lives dying."

"I think I've been gloocked," Qi said, taking a seat. "Either I drink like a man or die like a coward."

"As long as you can still perform," Quiyo said, taking the seat on his right.

"Who is the new kid?" the oldest man at the other tables asked Ree.

"Qi Shadowlands," Riata said. "He got the drop on another family at a Tagway-Shinar warehouse. He 'gloocks' for a living, Torrin."

"No shit?" Torrin said. "I always wanted to take a couple of lessons from a data digger. What's with his name though – it sounds like a bad Earther serial drama."