JO-JO RASTEROVICH

 

Falling in love was like being shot out into space wearing an EVA suit with five minutes’ air supply left. At least that was the analogy Jo-Jo Rasterovich applied to it—having experienced both. The love thing was new; catastrophically, mind-screwingly new. The floating-in-space thing was old but would be forever fresh in his mind, as were the long, long moments of visceral fear he’d felt as he’d struggled for breath.

It was the visceral fear and barely breathing that Jo-Jo grappled with now. Not in the exact moment that he realised Baronessa Mira Fedor had been abducted, but right afterwards, when he knew he was prepared to give up his reason for living to find her.

If Jo-Jo had had a second for reflection he might have laughed long and hard at himself. The quintessential bachelor, fallen for his nemesis—a woman. At the very least he’d have got seriously stoned. But the biozoon that he’d travelled to Rho Junction on was, to use an obscure phrase, about to leave the station, chasing after Mira Fedor.

Rast Randall should have been watching her. Instead, the mercenary had been pursuing her own ends while Jo-Jo’d been running distraction for the idiot scholar Thales Berniere so he could act as a bio-courier for the illustrious Commander Farr. Not a situation Jo-Jo had wanted to be in, but one he’d chosen, on account of the falling-in-love thing.

Now, Jo-Jo’s urge to strangle Randall was surpassed only by his desire to get back on board the biological ship... so that he could strangle Randall.

He clawed at the ‘zoon’s egress scale from where he balanced on the edge of the docking tube, with all the dignity of a drowning man grabbing for a life jacket. ‘Randall! Open up! Randall you prick-bender!’

The biozoon’s skin vibrated under his touch. In another moment it’d pull away from the docking tube and he’d be suctioned out in the wash of the two hundred tons of space-capable creature that was distressed and in a hurry.

‘Randall!’

The ‘zoon flexed; a ripple that ran through its huge body and sent the tube buckling.

Alarms squealed around him.

Jo-Jo hugged the barnacled outer flesh, scraping his face against it. ‘Please! Please!’

A sob escaped.

Jo-Jo Rasterovich didn’t sob! Or at least not unless he was floating in space with no air in his tank. Even then it was an angry sob. Not this pitiful, heartbroken whisper.

The emergency overrides on the docking tube kicked in and it began to retract. He stretched forward, refusing to let go of the ‘zoon, until he lost his footing altogether.

He hung, like a drop of water about to fall.

Then the scale sagged inward and rough hands reached around and hauled him inside.

He fell against the mercenary, Rast Randall, who expelled a long, sour breath in his face. A panting breath like she’d been running.

‘You—crazy—motherfucker,’ she said. ‘What—you—think—you’re doing?’

Jo-Jo reefed her hands from his jacket and sent an internal message to his trembling legs to perform and hold him up. ‘Changing my mind.’

Her scowl deepened to a point where he thought she might punch him, and then just as suddenly, a look of suspicion crossed her face. ‘You’ve been blubbing.’

He didn’t grace something so ridiculous with a reply.

A look of comprehension changed her expression entirely and she burst out laughing. ‘Love’s a bitch. Ain’t she?’

She turned around and walked away.