The Great Galactic Score!

29

29

War Garbler Tonbush stared at Demi. Demi tried, and failed, to look as though she were only examining the workmanship of the deck plating. Tonbush squinted. Demi took to examining the low ceiling. After a second or so of awkward silence, Tonbush opening and closing his mouth several times, his freckles making him look only a little adorable, he scowled and turned his entire body away from Demi.

"Dad? Dad! You got the wrong one!" A muted shouting came from elsewhere in the ship built for an eleven year old and Tonbush turned back to Demi, waving a hand in her direction. "No, Dad, it's the wrong one. I'm looking at her, right now! Don't blame the targeting scanners! Wait there, you, woman, I'm just going to find a gun to shoot you with."

Demi had no intention of waiting anywhere for someone to find a gun to shoot her with. As Tonbush opened a nearby door, popping his helmeted head inside, Demi reached for a pouch on her belt, hoping that someone had slipped another Meep there while she wasn't looking. They hadn't and, right now, her compassion and empathy would have taken a back seat to her need to get out of this situation.

Here, outside of the atmosphere of the planet, Demi hoped the little communications creature, lodged in her ear canal, could connect with Lodka. Except she didn't know how to activate it. With a flash of brilliance, or desperation, or panic, or some combination of all of them, she activated her implant, tried to connect to the communications creature and found it sound asleep. Snoring. She gave it a mental push and it returned to wakefulness, grumbling.

"Friss. Friss! Get me out of here!" The silence from the other end of the communications channel could have been called deafening, but she could still hear Tonbush complaining that someone had moved his favourite disintegrator pistol. "Friss! Lap! Lodka! Anybody? Somebody, please get me off this ship!"

"Hey? Demo? Where've you been?" Demi groaned as Briyun answered her call. "You can't go running off, mate? Friss is having a bit of a fit? Something about Lodka refusing to jump? He says that she says that something's missing? Dunno what?"

"Me, you idiot! You're missing me!" The sound of Tonbush throwing things reached Demi's ears and she felt marginally thankful that the pre-pubescent warlord hadn't found a gun. Yet. "Tell Lodka I'm on War Garbler Tonbush's ship. Tell her to get me out of here. Tell her that right now!"

"Right-o, Demo?" Silence fell over the communications channel and Demi prepared for transport back to Lodka. "Sorry, I had to find a Repli-pencil and Repli-paper? What was that address again?"

"Just tell Lodka to get me!" As Demi shouted, the banging and crashing from elsewhere in Tonbush's ship stopped. The child warlord poked his head out of a door, frowning. "Sorry. Just arguing with myself. You go on and find that gun. I can wait."

After a fashion, Demi wished she hadn't said that. Especially as she heard a triumphant 'aha' come from the room where Tonbush was and the little warlord emerged with something in his hand that looked very much like how someone who had never seen a disintegrator pistol would describe it. All spikes and glowing power cells, flashing lights and a pointy end that almost looked as though it licked its lips at the anticipation of turning something, or someone, into their constituent molecules.

Demi cursed Briyun. That didn't seem anywhere near enough to cover just how angry she felt at that moment, so she added Friss to the curse. Lap followed, but she silently apologised for that curse. Bognrd got a look in and the curse she issued for him included a bitter word or two about how he should choose his employers better. She cursed Lodka, but not out loud, because she needed the shop. Zapasnoy got it, too, though that ship hadn't done anything. She left her last, most brutal, biting and, frankly, nasty curse for herself. For being an idiot and listening to Friss.