JO-JO RASTEROVICH

 

Jo-Jo lay on his bed, in his cabin, in a maudlin fug fuelled by some of Carnage Farr’s most brutal home-grown whisky. Some of his misery he could attribute to the strains and scrapes from his last-moment attempt to get on board the biozoon. Another portion of it was due to the chronic allergy reaction that seemed to have settled into his airways and the nagging worry that Carnage Farr had given him a dose of something lethal. The major part, however, fell squarely on the shoulders of Mira Fedor.

Where in all God’s hells had the Extros taken her? And why? Jo-Jo just couldn’t figure it out.

Underneath the maudlin, though, was a simmering soup of other emotions; the foremost of which revolved around Rast Randall. The mercenary had left Fedor alone when she should have been watching her. Jo-Jo wanted to split Randall from orifice to orifice for her neglect, yet he couldn’t. For a start, she knew Mira Fedor best. He needed her to help find the Baronessa. But also the mercenary had admitted something to him. Love’s a bitch, ain’t she? she’d said.

She hadn’t levelled that just at Jo-Jo.

Randall was in love with Fedor as well.

It should be amusing. Really it should.

But Jo-Jo was too wracked with misery and rage to find anything funny.

‘Rasterovich!’ Rast bellowed into the ship-cast. ‘Get your dismal carcass down here, we need to talk. This giant whale’s freakin’ out.’

Jo-Jo opened his eyes, rolled onto his side and drained the flask he held tightly. The white-haired bitch was right; the biozoon was stressed. He’d been listening for hours to the little noises that weren’t normally there. And there was something about the smell of the ‘zoon that had changed.

Jo-Jo got up, swaying as blood searched for brain, and tottered over to the wall. He pulled away the cabin wall drapes and swiped his fingers across the ridged flesh. It felt slimy and grainy.

Something dropped into his hair. He glanced up: thick goo had begun to seep through the ceiling covers. Fuck.

Jo-Jo pulled on his pants and went looking for the mercenaries.

 

* * *

 

They were in the cucina drinking beer and eating slices from a giant, stinking wheel of cheese.

‘Something die in here?’ Jo-Jo asked.

Randall stabbed cheese onto the end of her fork and offered him some. ‘Over-matured heartbreak. The food storage enviros are screwed. One minute they’re hot enough to broil pig-fat, the next they’re like a damn freezer. Some of the soft stuff’s complaining.’

Jo-Jo folded a chair down and sat on it. ‘You think the ‘zoon’s sick?’

‘Ailing,’ said Rast.

‘Gutted,’ volunteered Latourn.

Jo-Jo glowered at Latourn and grabbed a knife. He cut himself a large wedge of cheese and nibbled it. It tasted sour. ‘Shit.’

‘I suggest you eat up.’ Rast tossed him a beer; a clean skin tube, another one of Carnage’s finer brews.

Jo-Jo belched and guzzled half of it down. It tasted refreshing after the whisky. ‘Why the rush?’

Still seated, Rast slid her legs off the table to the floor, lifted up a box of beer tubes and dropped it where her feet had been. Then she put her legs across the top of the carton. ‘Other than the loony ‘zoon... just a small case of us heading, uninvited, into Extro space.’

Jo-Jo paused mid-guzzle. ‘You’re shittin’ me?’ He placed the tube back on the table in front of him. He thought he did well not to tremble. ‘How long we been doing that?’

The mercs broke into harmonised guffaws.

When they’d finished, Rast wiped her eyes. ‘How long? Three days. Right about the time you were puking up your third bottle of No Label malt.’

Jo-Jo felt the cheese lurch around in his stomach. ‘Three days. Anyone noticed us yet?’

‘Hard to say. The traffic’s insane out there. It’s a while since I’ve been to the Saiph system but I don’t recall seeing it like this before. Seems like everyone’s going somewhere in a real hurry. Being in a ‘zoon we should be OK. ‘Zoons trade with everyone. Even the Extros.’

‘Thought Saiph was off-limits—other than Rho Junction, I mean.’

‘‘Tis. For OLOSS craft. Not much there though, just a bunch of dry rocks and a skinny sun. The real Extro

worlds are somewhere else. Saiph works like an airlock for them. They let traders in from time to time if they come through Rho Junction, but the door stays shut to the real system.’

‘What’s the wave analysis show?’

Rast stabbed her knife into the centre of the cheese wheel and left it there. She pressed her thumb and forefinger to her forehead. ‘Can’t say. ‘Zoon’s not being very agreeable. Pings me every time I go near the buccal.’

‘What about going into Autonomy to get us out of here?’

Rast dropped her hand from her face and stared at him with a deadly serious expression. ‘No frickin’ way am I going to try and pilot a crazy, heartbroken ‘zoon.’

‘I can do it,’ said Jo-Jo. ‘I owned one.’

She stared hard at him.

‘It was a hybrid,’ he admitted. ‘AI-compatible.’

‘No frickin’ way am I trustin’ you to do anything of the kind.’ She gave the table a kick to emphasise her words.

Jo-Jo’s tube rolled onto his lap. Instinctively he grabbed it and the amber fluid squirted all over him.

The mercenaries fell into their synchronised laugh again.

Jo-Jo’s years of staying out of ‘situations’ flew right out of the egress scale. Maybe it was the booze. Or the fact that he was still pissed at Randall. He lunged out of his seat and flung himself at her. Surprise got him closer than he’d thought. That and the fact she had her legs up on the table.

They crashed to the floor together, Jo-Jo using his advantage to get astride her.

He got his hands to her neck and lifted her head, pounding it against the floor—a crack good enough to knock anyone out, if the floor had been concrete or wood or metal. But the floor was ‘zoon, spongy and resilient. Her head almost bounced back and hit him.

He half-expected to feel the hands of Catchut and Latourn on his shoulders but they stayed put.

What he didn’t expect was Randall’s boot in the back of his head. The blow, as she kicked up hard and fast from behind, knocked him over her shoulder. In a single, agile move their positions reversed. Suddenly she had him pinned to the floor, her knees weighing down on his elbows. She’d punched him twice before he even began to struggle. Her next punch, though, loosened all his teeth. Jo-Jo’s world disorientated, and haze spots appeared before his eyes.

He smelt the beer on Randall’s breath as she leant her face close to his. ‘You ever try and take me again and I’ll finish it.’

Jo-Jo wet his lips. ‘But then she won’t have to choose between us... and you’ll never really know,’ he whispered.

A moment passed; one of those unpredictable pauses where things could have gone either way.

Jo-Jo waited, not really caring one way or the other.

Then her weight lifted abruptly from his shoulders.

Jo-Jo raised his head off the floor but before he could sit up, Rast had gone.

Catchut and Latourn lurched out of their chairs.

‘What’d you say to the Capo?’ demanded Latourn.

Catchut crouched down like a compacted spring.

Jo-Jo ignored them both. He picked himself up, cupping his throbbing jaw with his hand, and fumbled in the carton for a couple of tubes of beer. Nursing them in the crook of his other arm, he left the cucina and headed to the viaduct.

No way in hell was he sailing like a sitting duck into Extro space.

He’d finished both tubes by the time he’d reached the buccal and the pain in his jaw was beginning to recede. Temporary, but he’d take it. He pushed his fist into the centre of the pucker and waited for it to retract.

Nothing.

Again. Harder this time, more like a soft punch. Zip.

This time he ground his fist around and pushed with all his strength. A mild shock crackled up his arm to his shoulder and jolted him backwards against the opposite wall.

He recovered his footing and glared helplessly. The ‘zoon had locked him out.

He stalked back along the central stratum to the cucina. Latourn and Catchut had gone, leaving their mess of tubes and the stink of overripe cheese behind them. Jo-Jo snatched up the half-empty carton and took it back to his room, where he drank it in a short space of time. They were in Extro space heading straight into the teeth of disaster and there wasn’t a frickin’ thing he could do about it.

Except get drunker.