Short/raw snippet of FL7

“Are you part of the crew?” the young man sitting on the landing pad asked.

“That I am,” Gordon confessed. “Didn’t your boss give you our pix to let you identify us? Werner is usually more thorough than that.”

“I’d appreciate it if you give me a chance to call Werner and verify you have access,” the young fellow said. “Not that I have any illusions I could stop you but I had orders to keep it secure and he probably expects me to do that or die trying. I’m hoping to stay in this job after things get halfway normal so I want to keep him happy.”

He was wearing a Taser and never showed any inclination to reach for it to reassure himself. Maybe he was smart enough to survive in this job.

“No need,” Gordon told him. “There’s nothing in the Silk Road I need until we board again to leave. I’ll just sit here on the other side of this landing pad until my people get bored with the displays and come out. I’m got a big long alien name you’d never remember anyhow, but I’m Gordon. Gordon of Red Tree if you want to remember that,”

Gordon offered a true hand which actually made the poor fellow jerk in surprise. He blushed at his reaction and shook hands with the monster.

“I’m Guy Cooper,” the deputy said.

Gordon smiled really big. To Guy’s credit he didn’t flinch at that.

“When I was younger my clan wanted me to be a cooper and furniture maker. I ran away from home to escape that. I know how to make a barrel but since leaving nobody has asked me to make one. All that training was wasted. Sad…”

“What do you do on the, uh, Silk Road?” Guy asked, glancing over his shoulder. “I’m not surprised they have a very limited need for barrels.”

“It’s a brand-new ship and I’m not familiar with it enough to fly it, though I do know command. I sat the weapons board this trip. It has some new things I haven’t seen before and it’s kind of interesting. The software is crap though. It would be fine for ordering carryout at a taco joint but to manage actions in the heat of battle it would eventually kill you. I’ve made a start on multi-layered subroutines but I’m still thinking on it. I don’t want my daughter’s ship to be hampered by software slower than your thinking ability.”
Gordon paused and looked embarrassed.

“I’m sorry. You triggered something in which I’m interested and I could go on about it until you fall over from boredom.”

“No, that was rather interesting,” Guy said. “A couple of the local news dogs showed video of you guys running to your ship to rush off and intercept an intruder. They weren’t very clear on all the details of who was who but I’m glad we have some people with muscle in case the Earthies come back.”

“Werner knows all the details if you can get him to stand still long enough to tell you,” Gordon told him and smiled.

“Yeah, I see you know the chances of that already,” Guy said amused.

“To tell you the bare bones. There isn’t much of North America left to threaten anybody. Their power in the heavens is broken and their ability to recover ended. There are still ships of theirs that may be a danger but what Central on the Moon hasn’t hunted down there are privateers with a Central mandate hunting them down because they’ll never be paid what the Earthies owe them. Their solely owned worlds and station are fair game too with little left to protect them. My daughter and I discovered this world and the Earthies cut us off our payments too. That’s why she is here to repossess it and see it doesn’t collapse from being cut off. There are plenty of other worlds and stations abandoned to their own devices with nobody having a clear interest or the means to rescue them.”

“But I thought the owner, Ms. Anderson, was a human,” Guy said confused.

“She is but we discovered Providence together. Her folks died here when we screwed up and had a camp that the local Velociraptor analogs overran like the electric fence wasn’t there. That left her owning two shares and me the remaining third. I was the only family left she’d ever known.”

“Oh, torpid lizards. Yeah, we don’t let them get too close to town,” Guy said. “OK, so you are her adoptive father,” Guy deduced.

“Bless you, my son. I had to kill a few thousand Earthies and destroy trillions of dollars of ships before they would agree that was possible. You just arrived at that conclusion without needing it explained in little words.”

“I know we can be asses but don’t make me feel bad for being Human.”

“I’m really fond of quite a few Humans. At least the sort who fled Earth.”

“I didn’t get here by accident,” Guy said. “I get where you are coming from.”

Guy was leaning forward with his pad in both hands thumbing it.

“What ya searching?” Gordon asked. “They don’t make veracity software for Derf.”

“Privateer,” Guy said.

Gordon let him read awhile without interruption.

“Sailing ships,” Guy muttered and continued reading. He looked up Gordon amazed. “I never hear of any of this stuff.”

“There’s a whole bunch of really old video that will amuse you,” Gordon said. “Look up Buccaneers, pirates, treasure ships, and the Jolly Roger in the new web fraction we
brought this trip.”

Thanks, I’ll do that. I like videos, new or old, even flatties,” Guy said.

“What sort do you like?” Gordon wondered.

“Oh, the bodice rippers, romances,” Guy said grinning.

“No kidding?” Gordon said keeping a straight face. “I think I see my people coming out,” he said and excused himself.

Family Law 7 – raw snippet

Lee woke up with Trish in front of her instead of behind. How she moved across without waking Lee was a mystery. Then she remembered she’d been up in the night for a couple of hours. Trish’s muzzle was buried in Lee’s armpit. It was a wonder she didn’t smother.

“Trish… ” Lee said gently. “Goy Trish,” had no impact said normally.

Lee sighed. It took shaking her by her arm delicately and then with increased vigor before her eyes finally popped open.

“If you say you were just resting your eyes I’m going to smack you,” Lee warned.

Trish looked around at the strange room amazed.

“I missed dessert, didn’t I?”

“You were going to miss breakfast if I didn’t wake you up.”

“I read that human teenagers need a lot of sleep too,” Trish said defensively.

“You read more trivia than I’ll ever manage,” Lee said.

“Well of course. You have businesses, and ships, and planets to manage,” Trish said.

It was infuriatingly reasonable.

“Watch out. I have to get up and use the bathroom.” Lee said.

“Me too,” Trish said. “But I’ll run and use the one off the kitchen.”

Lee tossed her clothes in the quick cleaner and took a shower while she was at it. When she finally came out Trish was sitting on a high stool. On the counter beside her was a package of bacon, a bowl of eggs and a bag of shredded potatoes. She was reading a fancy coffee table book with the title: The Complete Home Cook.

“You start the potatoes first because they take longest to cook,” Lee told her. “But all that won’t make a dent if you intend to feed Gandhi and Gordon.”

“Oh. That’s why there were six packages of bacon in the chiller,” Trish said.

“Refrigerator, but I knew what you meant.”

“Do we have truffle oil?” Trish asked frowning at the book.

“You’ve never cooked a meal in your life, have you?” Lee asked.

“They chase you out of the kitchen at home if you actually want to do anything,” Trish complained. “They make you sit across the table from them working.”

“Put the book away,” Lee said. “Those books with lots of pictures on shiny paper are expensive and useless. It would be a shame to get it dirty. I’ll show you what to do.”
Lee got three huge fry pans that barely fit on the huge commercial stove, a cutting board, and a two-hundred-millimeter chef’s knife from the rack.

“I’ll crack eggs and you can slice the bacon open and separate the slices,” Lee said.

Trish held the plastic package on the cutting board with her thumb hanging over the edge, reached across with the knife so close to her knuckles it made Lee’s heart skip a beat. She prepared to draw it back through plastic film and thumb.

Lee reached over and grabbed her wrist, averting certain disaster.

“You’ve never used a sharp knife before, have you?”

“My knife at dinner has some little serrations near the end,” Trish said.

“You were going to hurt yourself,” Lee said. “My fault. I might as well have handed you a loaded gun without asking if you’d been trained to use it.”

“Yes, please,” Trish said. “I’d like you to do that too.”