FIREBORNE: The Myth of Nepetha
By JoHannah P. Green
Begun 6/24/2010
CHAPTER ONE - WRAITHA
Wraitha kicked the drunk in the shoulder, flipping him expertly onto his back with the toe of her silver, wovenwire sandal. She loved the way the light caught on the tiny chain rings and how lovely they looked against her tanned legs. She loved how they left a nice little mesh pattern on the face of the fryin' stupid looper after she slap-kicked him upside his stupid, drunk looper head when he nearly ripped away her tunic in the alley behind the tank. Fryin' stupid space trash! She kicked his face again, grinding the heel against the cheekbone, just because she could. The sandals sparkled in the flat light cast by the "Tank-Girls! All Ages!" sign as it moved in its elliptical holo-orbit across the plascrete facade of the dingy beige building of Oberon's Tank. The flash distracted Wraitha enough to stop her anger-fueled impulse to further damage the looper lying in the garbage at her feet. The anger was the manifestation of nether-gas need pushing her into an uncharacteristic loss of emotional control. She stopped her foot just short of a fatal blow to the idiot's windpipe and took a deep breath. She was more of a professional than that. Besides, the penalty for severely damaging miners was the same as the penalty for murder. Any loss of productivity meant a loss of profit to the owner's of the world known to the Corporate Governors as Firborne Segundus. Once this kid's boots hit the sand he had become the property of Fireborne Mining Corporation, if only for the length of his contract, which was a minimum of a full solar cycle. She was smart enough not to come to the attention of the authorities of the Corporation. Their attention nearly always proved fatal.
Wraitha stooped over the kid's unconscious body for a moment longer, leaning on her hand against the smooth alley wall. With her emotions back in check, she turned to the business of draining the credit chip embedded in his left wrist. Her stripper wand came from a small inner pocket in a fold in her dress, and she passed it over the cred patch with expertise borne of long experience. She'd been plying her trade since her eighth lunar cycle, and could strip a credit patch faster than any seasoned Tank Girl in Fleshytown. Not that this guy's balance would be anything spectacular. A seaman-level miner's pay, on his first outbound expedition to the Fireborne Colony Mines would not be anything stellar. But Wraitha liked the inexperienced miner's. They were always clumsy and stupid, and more than ready to pass on some of the credits from their first pay chit. She had spotted him when he walked into the tank, and even before she bought him his first round of stoner juice, she knew he would be an easy roll. He was a typical "Fuzzy" - swaggering into the tank with his two mine-mates, looking for a head full of stoner juice and an easy lay. Not hard to tell an off-worlder on his first tour to the Fireborne Mines. His face was shaded with a kind of stain where his fuzzy beard-growth had been laz'ed repeatedly, and his eyes were filled with the pent up lust-hunger of a boy who'd been told too many stories of the wild Tank Girls waiting to please him in the ports of Angla Major. All she had needed to do was flashed her slender, tanned legs ending in those gorgeous silvery sandals at him, expose her very white thighs, and slide her pink tongue along his collarbone, and the dazzled looper had been hooked like a Minu-bird in a sand pit. A little puff of Aphro-dust and he couldn't wait to follow her outside to the alley behind the tank for his first taste of hot Tank Flesh. The rest, as the byte says, was seared into the disc. She was his first Tank Girl, and now he would have to make up a big lie to cover the fact he had his ass kicked by a skinny little tank girl on his very first leave. She would love to be a wraith on his shoulder when he told this story to his looper buddies back at the mine!
She stashed the wand back in the sash of her ruby tunic, planted one, thick, carbonite sandal heel on the drunk's shoulder, and finished methodically searching for looper loot in his uniform pockets. She lifted the stun-knife from his cargo pants pocket, and snorted with disgust at the cheap quality of the silver band on his decorative com-link. Like all loopers, the true link to the massive Corporate Nation Manager Complex was implanted under his scalp at age two cycles. And, like all loopers his age, he wore a decoratively inscribed silver band around his upper right arm, with the symbol of his family crest and the planetary corporate logo of the Governing Corporation by which he was owned. Wraitha deemed it a piece of ploot dung, not worth the cost of cutting it away from his arm. After a furtive glance up and down the alley, she flipped on the tiny static torch she wore as an ear-fob and seared the info off both the looper's silicon ID disk implanted high up on his bicep, and the silver arm band, effectively erasing the tracking program from the identification devices. His location blipped off the looper-'net, and since he would be unconscious for about eight octos, Wraitha would not have to worry about the authorities bagging her for rolling him. He would disappear into the world of the un-netted until some IT boobie at a 'NetLink could trace the erasure incident in the In-bound Personnel Tracking Center and match the miner's last movements with a log of the miscounts from the mine's security track of miner's on liberty that night.
She looked down at the fuzzy young face. At about 18 moon cycles he was still slightly older than she, but that didn't stop her from giving him a last vicious kick in the groin - payback for groping her and getting rough when she'd tried to push him away. He was a little prick. He deserved it. Then she shoved him the rest of the way into an empty nitro barrel and rolled him off the loading dock into the rotting trash heap behind Oberon's. Stupid, first-timer wank would probably wake up tomorrow with a nasty hangover, no memory, horrible breath from the knock-out gas he'd inhaled, and some pretty sore family jewels. Wraitha didn't care. He was no better than the other carrion-wraith who made up the imported labor of the mines. He was just lucky to have met her and not some of the really nasty tankers of Fleshytown.
She affected a casual stroll as she made her way out of the alley and back toward Dock 88. With a quick glance at the palm reader on her hand she checked the score from her little "transaction," and was happy to see the balance. Higher than she would have thought for a fuzzy-roll. Enough to get her through the next few days, even after she gave a cut to the Thiefmaster, who would scrub the cred bal of any connection to the young looper. It called for a celebration. Smiling, she popped the top from a nether-cap, inhaling deeply before torching the ampoule and flinging the burning debris into the shadows. Life was a shit sandwich, she thought, but some nights had moments of pure satisfaction.
The empty nether-gas ampule flamed out as it rolled into the deep shadow where two buildings formed a shallow alcove. It hit the soft, furred sandals of an occupant that stood in the deepest part of the shadow, watching Wraitha walk toward the lights of Dock 88. The pale white of the eyes glistened, reflecting silver light like moonlight on the wet street.
"What do you wish, B'Naah?" the creature mind-spoke to the one who watched through his eyes.
"Wait, Kaahsaah," came the reply. "We will know the right moment. Follow. Keep watch."
The silver eyes sparkled again, and then the alcove was empty.
Wraitha wriggled her ruby halter top back into place over her small breasts and patted her spiked hair into the metallic halo around her head as she stepped into the glare of the hydro lamps on 88th. The micro-palm-reader slipped into the lining pocket of her lacy red hipskirt, with the peek-a-patch crotch. A quick glance the length of the upper avenue, showed her the location of the other blowers. Everything looked good. The usuals were doing their usual. They would find no reason to spoil her lovely night with a turf war. Not tonight. She shook her shoulders and smiled as she felt the rush and stretch of time from the nether-gas hit. When she saw Craven working a looper near Oberon's, she changed her trajectory away from the tank. Things must be slow for Craven at The Alien Slut. Wraitha was glad the stolen credit balance would be plenty for her needs for the night. The Un-holy Wraiths knew Craven, who was getting a little soft in the ass, needed the credits. Wraitha wove a little as she turned down the avenue and sauntered toward Toofa's Kiosk near the docks. She was ready to suck down a huge bowl of Zero G soup with crusty froish bread and synth cheese. Cheap and filling, and yummy enough to curb the nether-gas cravings.
"MMMMMM-mmmmm-mmmm! Get me some soooouuuup! Toooooo Gooooood!" Under the pleasant initial blast of nether-gas she sang loudly, if not well. "Then I'm gonna roll me over to Cozette's. Get back to my room, take a shower and put my pretty asssss to beeeeeeed." Always lovely to crash, before the rest of the blowers get off for the night. She could grab a shower while the water was still warm. Her voice rolled up and down the middle range as she sang while flying on the nether-gas. "Hefty Ice!" She finished on high C over G, which was enough to crack, but not split the plas-glass street globe that illuminated the corner near The Slut. Wraitha laughed and bowed to acknowledge the jeers and clapping of her imagined audience. "I am the Supernova of Fleshytown!" she yelled in the full uninhibited thrall of 'gas. Bring it on. ALL of them! She could take on the worst MP in any of the Corporations! Frig! She would even take on the friggin' Weather Witches of the High Desert Pan.
Some of her crash-mates thought she was inviting bad luck keeping the distinctive footwear of a student of the Sect of Seer-Oracles of her world's desert tribes, much less wearing the highly distinctive sandals during her nightly "business" rounds. But she didn't believe all that superstitious crap about the bangin' Weather Witches. Let 'em come and try to grab back the shoes. She wasn't afraid of a bunch of Blue-robed bitches, even if the Indigenous believed the stories that their fraggin' high priestess could fry any betty or vergeman with a flip of the wrist!
"Let 'em try to take back my pretty silver shoes!" she caroled. "I'll show 'em some power! Let 'em show up right heeeeeeere! I'll split their sharp, white teeth with myyyyyy best head kick!" She threw her arms wide, trilling a range of disconnected notes, before re-focusing on her mission for food. She resumed her stumbling gait down the street toward Toofa's.
On the next corner she leaned across the half-door of Toofa's Gas Station and swiped the stripper wand across a nipper-reader, allowing the Thiefmaster to access the balance. He downloaded the contents into his system where it was quickly scrubbed of any connection to the looper or his guardian Corporation. The Thiefmaster looked slyly at Wraitha, guaging how nethed she was, decided she wasn't so far gone that he could take more than his contracted 40%, then dumped the remainder of the credits into her personal cred account, via an untraceable record path, indicating she'd earned it playing the Buzzard-wraith races at Scandiri Park.
"Another drunk looses his virtue to the beautiful Wraitha! What! You little Silky-Poot! Or did you leave another blue-balled bastard lying in the gutter?" Dankor Toofa said with a sloppy leer, the result of too many ampoules of Crash. Before Wraitha could respond, he looked intently into her green eyes and said, "It would behoove you to give up your virtue to your customers, Wraitha, my little roller queen. Rumor has it that the Corp Cops are cracking down on little skits like you who take their precious fuzzies for a roll in the alley, but not a roll in the sack." He knew Wraitha's game of rolling the fuzzies without giving them any action. It was a dangerous game that always ended badly for the tanker.
"You've been lucky, so far, Girl. But if the Corpies or some miner-crew gets wind of your little game, you'll find your pretty little ass rotting in the Big Swill with some of the really nasty looper boys...and girls!"
"Thanks for your helpful advice, Daddy Dear" said Wraitha, with a casual overtone of offhanded insult. Toofa always pontificated to the blowers, and she – as a veteran of the tanks - always completely ignored his warnings. She was paying more attention to the accuracy of the credit transfer than to the Thiefmaster, who came on to any Tank Girl. The younger the better. Then he pretended to be benevolent and kindly Uncle Toofa, who would proceed to rip them off for more credits than the standard contract allowed.
"You break my hearts," the pockmarked-faced alien sighed, smiling through the broken picket fence of his drug-rotted teeth. "You know I truly love you, Little Girl." He looked wounded at her tone, and Wraitha ignored him. He was filth, but not dangerous – except in matters of credit. Everyone in town knew not to cross the ugly alien. He was as dangerous as any Corporation.
"You fat old Crash-rat," she replied with their usual brotherhood-of-theives familiarity, "You have no hearts......except the two on ice in your freezer!" It was an old Fleshytown joke - the grim humor of the scum at the bottom of the food chain in the spaceport town. Wraitha flashed him a smile that was as false as his pique, and tapped twice on the counter, indicating she needed two more ampules of nether gas. He reached into the counter recesses between his legs and pulled out the two red tubes. He tapped the screen of his cred-nipper, and the cost of the drug was deducted from her balance.
Stashing the ampoules in the interior pocket of her tunic, Wraitha walked down to the other end of the gas shop and ordered her soup and bread. When it was delivered, packaged in a tidy, red plasbox, Wraitha tucked it into her stash bag and resumed her journey to the crash-pad at Cozette's. Soup and a shower. Life was so good.
CHAPTER TWO – NEPETHA
Wraitha was still sleeping deeply at the start of the next evening and still slightly high from the nether amp of the previous night. She stretched her thin young body on the padded hammock in the sleep closet of the crash pad and ran her hand through her fine, straight golden hair. The shower from the previous night had erased the dark-skinned, midnight-tressed Tank Girl from Oberon's, leaving the thin, but well-muscled, street-wise young woman with the golden skin and green eyes of her mixed ethnic heritage. Her mother had been a woman of the Pan – the High Desert of B'Rah SekMeehr– the indigenous people's name for Fireborne Secundus' upper desert region. L'Ahara had died in childbirth, and the baby, name L'Aheena by the neighbor who midwifed at the birth, had been sold to a slaver, who sold her to a woman in K'Deikah. The child had been used as house servant from the time of 3 cycles, underfed and subjected to regular beatings. It did not cowe the child's spirit, only made her tough and wily. One night, when she was eight cycles, she had escaped by slipping a drug into the nightly nether-gas laced wine she made for the old hag. L'Aheena had braved a midnight crossing of the open pan, guided only by intuition and the position of the first moon, risking certain, painful death at the claws of the horrid Night Terror Wraiths, to make her way to the last gate into the Fleshytown section of Angla Major. As the horrible heat of the unprotected suns cast their first flesh-devouring rays against the Gate, the filthy little girl had been found by Cileea, a laundrywoman on her way into the protected dome of the city, who had risked a beating from her master, to bring the child into the laundry where she cleaned the child, dressed her in modified work clothes, and fed her the froish cheese and soup lunch she had prepared for herself. L'Aheena - knowing the death-price a slave paid for running away – had not given the kind old woman her real name, or any other truthful information. L'Aheena of the Wraithrider Tribe had disappeared, and from that day onward, she became the feisty child, known as Wraitha, grand-niece of Cileea, the Laundrycrone of the S'Krah-Imhoot Mining Corporation.
(to be continued)
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