Giana Coastrunner knelt in the dirt next to a tomato plant, pulling weeds from the soil. Gardening was the latest pastime she’d tried to take up, and it was terrible–she’d rather have oil under her fingernails than dirt any day–but at least Rell made nice things with the vegetables she grew, and it helped stretch out their monthly retirement rations.
She heard a sound in the driveway behind her.
“Welcome home, darling,” she called. “Find anything good at the library?”
Rell didn’t answer, but she could hear his dirigible cooling in the driveway.
“Tomatos are almost ripe. Question is, do I make tomato sauce or do you make BLTs?”
But no, that wasn’t his dirigible. It was bigger. Giana turned around, her trowel gripped in her hand, ready to be a weapon. There was a crawler parked in her drive. One she didn’t recognize. She scanned it for maroon paint, or silver falcons, or any of the other symbols the old smuggler crews she used to work alongside used. It was clean. Just a normal license plate on a little crawler not so different from the one she’d passed down to Vincent.
“Hello?” She called. She lowered the trowel. No need to run at every salesman who rang the bell with gardening implements. Still, she kept it handy. There still wasn’t an answer, and she couldn’t make out the driver through the window from this angle.
“Hello!” she called again, moving in to use the machine as cover for anyone who might want to take a shot at her from a window. “This is private property, you know.”
There was still no sign of captain or crew. She’d almost made it to her front door before the ship made any move at all, and once it did, it was too late. Its left claw shot out and seized her around the middle in a wave of green light. When she felt the metal clamp down around her, she was sure she was dead. A machine like this could have crushed her easily if it wanted to. She was so shocked to realize she was still alive that she took a moment too long to react and it had time to swing her around, toss her in its suddenly open side door, and power off madly into the void. Quickly, metal bars slid out of the floor boards and clamped themselves around her wrists and ankles, holding her back to the floor.
“Who sent you?” Giana snapped.
“I SENT MYSELF,” boomed the ship’s com system.
“For what purpose?” Giana struggled against her bonds, but it was no use. The cuffs were perfectly fitted to her.
“I AM DESPERATE.” Giana could have sworn the ship began to laugh, the sort of laugh that didn’t fill one with ease.
“For what? Speak now, because the amount of time I’m willing to work out some deal with you is swiftly dwindling.”
“I ALREADY HAVE WHAT I WANT.”
“A prisoner?”
“A POWER SOURCE,” said the ship. “DO YOU KNOW HOW HARD IT IS TO FIND AEO MAGES WHEN YOU CANNOT APPROACH A CITY UNDER FEAR OF DEATH?”
“Then how did you find me?”
“A TIP FROM A FRIEND.”
“Look, if all you need is a power source, I can cast some spells on you and we can both be on our way,” said Giana. “Way more effective than siphoning off my residual energy. All you have to do is let me up.”
“I CANNOT TAKE THAT CHANCE.” The ship sped up, swinging in a near free-fall deep into the void below her island. “BESIDES, I KNOW YOU DESERVE THIS.”
“So you just plan to keep me prisoner here for, what, perpetuity?” said Giana.
“MORE OR LESS.”
“Then I’m afraid you leave me little choice.” Giana pressed her palms against the deck and began to channel energy through her palms, the same energy she’d used to end the suffering of her son’s little toy train so long ago, the same energy she’d used to protect him from his own mistakes. She didn’t like to cast this spell, but sometimes death was necessary.
Suddenly, the words she whispered under her breath became a scream. It was a sound it took her a moment to realise was coming from her chest. Where her fingertips had glowed with power only moments before, there was only white-hot pain. All she knew was that her wrists were resting in something warm and wet. She lifted her head to look at her hands, but at first couldn’t tell where she was injured. Then, with another jarring swing that sent the cockpit tilting, they slid away from her wrists leaving a wake of blood against the steel. The razor sharp metal that had suddenly edged her handcuffs smoothed back into itself, the green light turning the fresh blood into a muddy shade of brown.
Giana screamed again, then tried to get ahold of herself. She was glad her crew wasn’t here to see her like this. Though to be fair, she wished they were there to do something about it.
“If you kill me, I’m nothing but a spent battery.”
“YOU LEFT ME LITTLE CHOICE,” said the ship. “I KNOW WHAT YOU DID TO THAT CRAWLER. TO HIS BOY.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” said Giana.
“YES YOU DO.” The crawler tightened its grip on Giana’s wrists. She thought it was hostility, at first, then she realized the ship was using its living metal as a tourniquet. “I DO NOT PLAN TO LET YOU DIE, THOUGH.”
Of course, that didn’t rule out hostility. Two birds one stone. What she wouldn’t give for even one bird right now. But she’d left that legacy in her past when she’d sold her shares instead of her ship.
She closed her eyes, and as the medical bay lights played over her eyelids, she briefly imagined Vincent at the helm of The Bird flying in against the black of the void with guns drawn, her old jacket flapping in the wind as he stood on deck giving the orders that would save her life. But of course that was just some dream born of shock and pain. Vincent was in hiding somewhere at best, dead at worst. In the end, she hadn’t been able to save him from himself any more than he would be able to save her.
Crawling the Edge: The Coastrunner Chronicles 