Welcome back to our StarFang serial. We have our first bit of fan art, a picture of Francesca, drawn by Rhiannon Rasmussen-Silverstein. 😉 (http://rhiannonrs.tumblr.com.) Wonderful job Rhiannon, thank you! – Aunty Fox
Chapter Five
Help me.
I mulled over the words during my shift, while the data and scans chirped and blinked around me. Nothing else happened after we had captured the cargo box. The space in Sector 41B was so serene, so tranquil. The purge on Neo-Samarkand was still ongoing, according to Governor Seeto’s updates. It had also become a small scale civil war on-planet, each gang family acting out their petty differences by shedding their enemies’ blood.
The little girl slept, watched over by the medical staff.
A little girl didn’t belong on a warship.
Help me.
Should I place her somewhere, on a neutral planet, safe from harm? No. The moment I retrieved the cargo box, she was my responsibility. A Black Talon would not abandon a child, even if she was not blood kin. Starfang’s crew was all related – my Pack-crew consisted of my cousins, first or second. April was the daughter of my mother’s younger sister. Ju Fan and Mariette were my second cousins. The little girl wasn’t blood; I was aware of the tensions she triggered when she came on board.
Help me.
Was the message written by her mother? Her father?
Later, when I was off-shift, I worked out my frustrations in the ship’s gym with Nangun drills. In the confines of the ship, I suddenly ached for the forests, the green trees, and the blessedly openness of the open sky.
“Can I join you?” April said at the doorway. “I sure needed some exercise.”
“Go ahead,” I grinned. “Grab your weapon of choice.”
“You know about ship rules: no sparring, except with a referee,” she said, grappling another pole from the rack. She hefted it in her hand, testing its weight.
“Of course, I do. I was the one who came up with the rule.”
April went through her favorite wushu form: beigun, Northern Staff. Her movements were dazzling, she beautiful and wonderfully alive. I slipped in, joining her. Our dance became a dance of opposites, of two different styles and schools. Halfway through, April began laughing.
“You know,” she said as we passed each other, “I qualified for inter-clan competitions. I was that ready. Sifu said no, and that made me so mad with him.”
“He said that? How come you didn’t tell me that?”
“You were always too busy with something else. As far as I could remember, you were extremely active at the academy.”
We passed again, our bodies close, almost touching.
“Sifu’s standards are always too demanding,” I said, knowing that April could hear.
“That’s why he’s Sifu,” her slim form danced in. We were face to face, our lips almost touching. April pulled back, chuckling nervously, her face sad.
“Clan rules,” she stated simply, erecting that invisible, tangible wall.
“I know,” I said.
We were washing up when the comm-screen on the side-panel chimed. It was Sick Bay.
“I will be down in about a few minutes,” I rubbed my wet hair with a dry towel.
~*~
Continue reading “Chapter 5: StarFang”