Sid: Installment 2

I have it on good authority that Dillon is not going to hate me for writing/posting this, which is really very happy-making.
For anybody who's interested in reading non-serenity writing, I'll try to post something else later tonight.
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“Qiang bao hou-zi freeloader.”
Some muttered cursing, the smell of somebody else’s feet, and then I’m curled up clutching my gut because it all of a sudden hurts like hell.
There sure are softer ways ‘n this for a man to wake up.
I could be down on Ariel, listening to that blushing intern snore like a freighter engine. I could watch her wake up, see that flustered little smile that was worth getting the gou shi kicked out of me for.
I could be dosed up on pain meds for the knife-slash on my arm, ‘stead of taking a kick to the ribs after a night sleeping in a cargo hold.
“Wake up so I can throw you off my ship!”
I open my eyes and roll, looking up to see that wang ba dan of a captain winding up for another kick.
Bastard.
The guy who let me on last night – the mechanic, I figured – ain’t nowhere to be seen, and I know better than to think anybody’s raring to rescue the battered mercenary from yet another beating.
Which don’t mean I’m fixing to sit here and take it. I always was better at giving a beating than taking one.
But I’m stiffer than I thought, and I never finished that physio, so my knees give out when I try to get up, and I take a boot to the chin.
Wang ba dan has steel-toed boots.
Through a mouthful of blood for the second time this week, I spit out a string of curses and struggle to my feet.
“This how you usually treat paying passengers?” I ask.
No way is this asshole getting anything other than a broken nose from me, but as he’s currently holding a steel bar the size of my forearm, it don’t hurt none to start off polite.
“Paying passenger?” He looks me up and down with a sneer. “Riffraff like you couldn’t pay passage from here to those cargo doors.”
I look at the cargo doors. Depending on how far from planet-side we are, those doors are either escape or a death sentence. Not a risk I’m planning on taking just now. But the engines are going double-time, a sure sign that we’re coming in for a landing somewheres.
“How much?” I ask. There’s a credit disk on a chain round my neck, and I pull it out, show it to him with a smirk to match his own.
He taps the steel against his free hand. “That Tong Meng credit crap won’t work around here, cowboy.”
He’s a gorram liar, and we both know it. A ship like this should be flying back towards Osiris by the end of the week, and it’s only the outer planets that won’t take credit.
Which makes me wonder if he ain’t leading up to something unpleasant.
“Cash?” I ask. I lean down for my seabag and he cracks me with that bar, right at the base of my back, hard enough that it lays me out flat.
I bite back a scream. This ain’t my month. Son of a bitch’ll kill me with that thing.
“And have you take out that sawed-off shotgun in there?” He laughs, and I know he’s been through my bag, pawed through my stuff and taken, at very least, what money I had there. “I don’t think so.”
It’s been a while since I was laid low like this. Surprised out of sleep by some asshole with a weapon. I must be slipping. But now there’s a cold ball of hate curling up in my stomach and I don’t care what shape I’m in – I’m walking away from this better off than he is.
So I wait till he winds up for another swing, listen for the sound of that metal bar sweeping down towards me, and then I roll.
It hits the ground where my head was, and he hits the ground a heartbeat later, groaning from a kick to the back of the knees.
I follow it up with few strategic blows, mostly to the soft places on his body, and then while he’s wheezing, kick that bar out of the way and hobble to my feet.
Shen sheng de gao wan does it ever hurt.
I can feel the ship settling, lurching a bit, as we go through some planet’s atmosphere. If the mechanic told the truth, we ought to be on Persephone in about five minutes.
I take a look at the captain, who’s still having trouble getting a breath. Ginger hair, a bit sunburnt. He’s younger than me, softer around the middle but harder around the head I’ll bet. The kind likes to tell women he owns his own ship, never mentioning it’s just his older brother’s and all he does is supervise the cargo and beat up stowaways.
I spit a mouthful of blood to the deck by his head.
“You were planning on letting me off before we hit atmo, weren’t you?” I ask. It’s a death sentence to shove a man out into the black, but I’ve got not a doubt that’s what he planned. You don’t rob a man who looks like me and then let him walk away.
My eye – the one that ain’t bruised as all hell from the last fight, because you’d have to be one dumb chun zhu to try and punch a thing made mostly of metal – reads his blood pressure as 200/110. Might be the fact that he’s eaten more than a few pot-pies too many over the years, but a little hunch tells me it’s not.
“No,” he gasps. “Just rough you up a bit, I swear.”
230/125. Lying ass thinks I’m twenty-three types of stupid.
I kick aside the blanket I slept under, and pull out what is currently the love of my mercenary life. Turn it over in my hands.
260/140.
“Black matte finishes,” I tell him. “Ebony handle, .55 rounds. Those are hard to make these days.”
He scrambles up to his knees but stops moving when I flick off the safety.
“This here is Miranda,” I say, “and she don’t take kindly to some zhu bajie thinks he has more right to her than I do.”
He licks his lips, red-eyed and holding back tears.
“Your bag’s by the door,” he says. “I hadn’t had time to take anything out…it’s all there. Please…you can go…just please take the gun off me.”
Instead of answering, I roll my digital eye, which makes him flinch, and lean forward so that Miranda’s kissing his forehead.
“How much do I owe you?” I ask. “How much do you charge for passage normally, you worthless wang ba dan?”
A tear rolls down his cheek. “Thirty-five credits,” he whispers.
“Thought you didn’t deal in credits?” I ask lightly.
Another tear. He makes a little choking sound in the back of his throat, like he’s about to wail.
“Please,” he tells me. “Please you don’t need to pay. Please don’t…”
It’s irresistible.
“Thirty-five credits, eh?” I grin, no doubt treating him to the sight of my poor bleeding gums. “Incidentally, that’s what it takes to make seven rounds for this gun, my friend. And seven rounds is exactly what this chamber holds. Since you won’t take my credit, what say I pay you in something a bit more…metallic?”
The ship shakes a little and the engines whine. We’re touching down.
He licks his lips again, crying hard now. All he can do is shake his head.
This man has not endeared himself to me. He woke me up with a kick and some foul language, pawed through my seabag, and damn near broke some more of my bones. Not to mention wanting to toss me out into the vacuum of space. Most of me heartily wishes I had stayed in Ayla’s bed, and that makes me a mite more cantankerous than I’d otherwise be.
I feel a bump under my feet, and the engines cut out. Landed.
I wink at him, even though it hurts through the bruises, and he drops his gaze to the floor.
“Nice doing business with you,” I say.
Then I pop the chamber. Seven rounds of expensive ammunition clatter like dice onto the floor.
When he looks up at me in astonishment, I pull back Miranda and slam her ebony handle into his face, hard. There is a crunch of bone, a gush of blood, and he is wailing again.
“Have a nice trip back to Osiris,” I tell him, and limp away.
With a start like this, today can only get better.