Family Matters: Dwarves in Space, #3

By SE Zbasnik

Family, it's a kick in the teeth on every planet.

Five years have passed since Variel changed her name, her face, and her credit rating in order to leave the Knights. After kicking Sovann, the knight who came after her ship, out the airlock, she thought she was free of her past.  Unfortunately, she forgot to take care of that pesky husband problem. Thanks to legal finagling, he's tracked her down and has her ship and crew on lockdown unless she plays ball, but all Variel wants to do is knock his teeth up into his brain.

The Elation-Cru are on a mad dash across the galaxy to secure enough unicorn (the drug, not the horse - though consuming it will cause you to grow a horn and excrete rainbows) to pay off her husband and unlock the ship before it explodes. Drug dealing was the last thing Variel wanted to get pulled into, but Marek always brought the worst out in her. If he keeps pushing it, he's going to see why she was a feared Knight of the Crest Empire.

All the characters are back; Ferra the elven engineer, Orn the sarcastic dwarven pilot, Monde the orc doctor, Brena the loopy bard, Taliesin the not-brooding assassin, and WEST. Can't go anywhere without WEST, their not-quite-sane artificial intelligence, it would set the toaster on fire in protest.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Ellen Mint
• Release date: May 21, 2019
• ISBN: 9781393685203

SE Zbasnik

S. E. Zbasnik has a degree in genetics, which means there may or may not be a horde of monkeoctopi doing her bidding to take over the world. She recently won the Top Ten Handmaid's Challenge on Wattpad where hers was chosen by Margaret Atwood herself. Along with her husband and black lab, she spends a lot of time with her skeletons -- don't worry, they're only Halloween props.

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CHAPTER ONE

Rubber soles, better equipped for stumbling across the metal grating favored by a class-b starline, splintered as a branch drove deep into his flesh. Orn yelped, his grip slipping while he staggered against the forest's lackadaisical attack. His cargo tumbled from his fingers and clattered onto the crunchy ground.

Variel paused, turning to her beleaguered pilot so far out of his element he was into lanthanide territory. Pick it up.

Orn huffed, stumbling to gather what breath he once held, and pouted. The thick lip of the dwarves was a difficult one to cross. Why should I?

A blast shattered through a tree trunk a foot above the wheezing dwarf's head, answering for him. His captain only raised her eyebrow as she fired back into the woodland maze, her tiny pistol little more than a carnival prize in this terrain. They hadn't seen their attackers for over half a mile, but they traded the occasional scream and bit of weapon's fire to keep the relationship fresh. Red leaves broke from the last round of gunplay and tumbled across the woman poised upon the fallen log. The fronds mimicked bloody handprints clawing across her head. She brushed it away without a thought.

Accepting his fate, Orn gritted his teeth and lifted the small tree off the ground. As his fingers connected with young bark, a pair of eyes materialized a few inches before him. The rest of the body was only a reedy shadow hovering in the dense wood's darkness. Jumping out of his broken shoes, Orn shook the sapling and shouted, Don't do that!

The eyes blinked softly then scattered, appearing a few inches beside Variel, then shifting nervously from the dwarf back to the human. She paid the child no mind, all her focus on the hunting party behind them. We're close to the compound.

You said that three clacks ago, Orn whined as the sapling's branches dug into his hair and knotted around his sleeves. He was gonna be digging purple leaves out of his underthings for weeks.

It's klicks and... another shot fired across the pair, scorching a burn across the ancient forest. They're closing, run!

I thought I was running.

Run faster, Variel chided, and -- shoving into Orn's shoulder -- pushed him onward.

Bubble, find that stupid bubble. Orn chanted inside his brain as the small eyes darted before, then behind him. The kid's eyes would pause, processing the passing clouds or the crumbling leaves as senescence claimed the forest, as unaware of the turmoil before them as a god gazing down upon his ant-farm. Then, after Orn passed a certain threshold, they'd appear magically in front of him again to renew the cycle. It would unnerve the dwarf if he had time to think about it.

His captain's voice drifted away from him; she was either planning something clever or fell into a mud pit again. Didn't matter, Orn had one job to accomplish -- getting this sapling kid to that bubble -- whatever insane stunt she wanted to pull off was all on her. Redoubling his grip, he tried to inch up on his screaming toes to see the forest around the trees. Unfortunately, all he got was more forest and a face full of moss. Orn swiped at his face trying to clear a colony of very confused tree ants out of his gigantic nostrils and, again, the sapling slipped from his struggling fingers.

Sod whoever made all this nature crap, and double that for the woman insisting we help the arsechabs living in it! Orn was not noble by nature, he didn't have the head for a crown and robes gave him a rash, but as he looked into the knotted eyes of the child he sighed and wiped his gloves across the rare mudless patch on his trousers. Fine, he agreed with himself and hoisted the clingy sapling up.

Just as he was about to take another step, a shriek powerful enough to curdle milk pierced the whispering woods. Boots smashed through the undergrowth, snapping past twigs and low hanging branches until Variel's brown shape shot past Orn. A dangerous mix of joy and terror painted her face. She didn't slow for the dwarf, only chanted, Run, run, run.

He didn't need to be told twice. Lifting up his burning legs, he trailed with what scraps of energy remained, What did you do?

Led them on a little trip through the forest that ended below the waterfall.

Orn laughed, Bet the cat people loved it.

You could say that, Variel grinned just as a howl, feral and alien to this world, burst through the trees. And it may have pissed them off more. Ahead of me Orn, I can see the compound!

Good for you, all I see is muddy human-ass.

The muddy human-ass paused to let the dwarf catch up. Sure enough, beyond these ignoble trees lay another set of super special trees encompassed by a nearly invisible shield. The technology flickered like dusty sunbeams in a gigantic fishbowl shape securing an entire hundred acres of forest away from anyone foolish enough to traipse around on this planet.

Variel turned to the eyes of the child. It could not thank them, plead for help, or even ask what was happening. Only those flickering eyes betrayed the solid wood of its hide. We'll get you home. Orn...

Going, going, got it. Before she had to say another word, he pumped those little legs, shredding what remained of his shoes and face across the dead fingers of the trees. He had a date with their orc doctor and the iodine bottle when this was over.

Variel turned towards the howl as a second answered across the woods, raining more of the bloody leaves upon their heads. The hunters split up trying to flank their prey. She had two choices, either stand to face them and be obliterated by enough firepower to put down an olhino, or retreat. Firing twice into the stands of trees, she threatened the circling kitties once and then burst after Orn.

The shimmer glistened before him, only a dozen more marches of his soleless boots. Oh gods, oh gods, oh gods! Orn shouted to the nonchalant universe. I hope this still works! Screwing his eyes tight, he dived across the barrier the odds of him surviving playing in his head. 30:40 and falling fast, echoed through Orn's head. The shield lifted every hair on his body and stank like an ancient cup of coffee but the nearly invisible curtain moved aside allowing him passage through. Orn's body sagged from the pressure shift and he began to tumble. In a rare moment of quick thinking, the dwarf twisted around to roll onto his back, keeping the baby sapling from smashing into the ground. The three leaves still clinging to the sapling's branches shuddered but remained tethered as breath tried to force through Orn's beleaguered lungs.

As he closed his eyes and counted to ten, a familiar string of ancient troll curses sundered the silent winds. His captain saved those for surprise toll passages and customers paying in buttons. Sitting up with his tree friend, Orn watched as Variel, firing haphazardly behind her, galloped across the remaining gap. Her shirt ripped as a not special branch impaled upon the loose fabric but failed to slow her down. She was an avatar of momentum at this point.

One of their pursuers stepped into their miniature clearing. Its orange fur stained in muddy water, the creature looked more like a half drowned rat than a mighty Macka Warrior; but the hunting rifle nestled across its shoulder, trying to find the target, said otherwise. Black eyes narrowed, nothing but pupils in the thick shadows of the forest, as it tracked Variel's form. She jumped up and dived for the bubble like a crazed action star. Squeezing the trigger, the massive shot tossed the seven foot tall hunter back on its feet as the energy blast flew through the forest inconveniently in the way and struck bubble. It ricocheted off the shield right back towards the poacher.

The Macka shrieked as if someone stepped on its tail at the change in fortunes. It ducked, only singing fur from the boomeranging bullet while the captain rose from her very dignified Oh shit! roll. Deliberately wiping her palms off on her unsalvageable pants, she turned to glare into the unshielded forest and flipped the Macka off. The roar of rage could be heard nearly three compounds over.

Very dignified there, Cap'n, Orn mocked as he rose to his own muddy haunches. Really role modeling for the children.

Variel laughed, savoring the cocktail of chemicals from a momentary miss of death and the sight of her hunter stalking back into the woods, his own prey snatched beyond his grasp. The knotted eyes appeared beside Orn's shoulder, its form almost fully solid in close proximity to the tree. Yet the concern bordering on terror was not replaced within the twiggy depths. As far as the child knew, it was no more safer with them than the Macka hunters.

We got the kid here, now what? Orn asked, trying to wave off the feeling he was surrounded by very cautious and very xenophobic eyes.

A single branch atop a sunset orange tree rustled in the dead wind, succumbing to this planet's moderate gravity, and crumbling to the ground. It bounced, or appeared to as it rose high into the air, a hand forming fingers off the flying branch, an arm growing out of the wrist and the rest of the body. It gained an opaque form as the branch moved to the center of its chest revealing a no longer invisible dryad.

The arms stretched out towards the sky, creaking from the reach, yet the stick remained perfectly balanced across the thin chest. Cords of bark wound across the thin frame, the alternating shades of dying crimson and shoe stealing brown mimicked the tree from which the branch fell. There was no mouth, no nose, only the eyes gave away the face; a pair of deep knots from which a flickering yellow light glowed.

It moved slowly, propelled across the ground by an undulation of roots at the end of its feet. There was much speculation about why dryads evolved legs despite relying upon the propeller motion. The theories ranged from an assumed universal constant for all sentient life mages had yet to uncover, a very uncreative god placed in charge of body design, or life's weird - drink your beer. The latter is the most popular of philosophies.

Variel steadied herself, rising to what of her height she could, but easily being over shadowed by the seven to eight foot tall dryad. The knots gazed past her muddied head, You have brought us the child. A voice like creaking wood in a heavy storm rumbled from beneath its roots.

She followed to the sapling still in Orn's hands. Yes. Do you...need us to plant it somewhere?

It will be unnecessary, the dryad said while holding its hand out to the dwarf.

Orn stared at the partially ethereal vines and, shrugging his shoulders, passed the sapling over. The dryad's branches only lightly grazed the tree before the child's upper body/head turned to its elder, the universal fear in the young eyes fading. For the first time in their long rescue mission, something of a smile crinkled the yellow knots.

Yes, child. You are home.

Then the dryad turned away from the two interlopers back to its own people, the child trailing behind it. Murmurs, whispers, heavy winds no skin could feel shook the trees as the message relayed across their network.

Do we follow 'em, or what? Orn asked gesturing to the walking tree that, for being plant life, was rather quickly moving away.

I suppose so, Variel said. They trailed behind as all the bumps, bruises, and scrapes came screaming up at her. Endorphin crashed were the worst.

You 'suppose so'? I thought you were the expert on the dry dads.

Dryads, she corrected despite knowing Orn was just screwing with her, and I never said I was an expert.

"So all that, 'Don't worry Orn, I've worked with 'em before. It'll be an easy mission, just digging up a tree.' was amateur talk?"

Well, I did work with one before, Variel said noncommittally. And that work boiled down to her telling one where the waste disposal unit was, but at the time he'd seemed perfectly honorable and willing to keep his promises of having a good day.

What are they doing sending their children outside their forest spheres anyway? Got some really good mushrooms out there?

His was a birth of accident.  Despite being yards away, the lead dryad's voice carried across the ground and amplified below their feet. Orn jumped a foot into the air. Her young seed caught on the wind and blew beyond our embrace. We could not call to him before the defilers came.

Pronouns were a problem with translators, especially when bridges and smoke stacks could have a gender. When it came to the few non-gendered races most programmers threw up their hands and shouted use zimbldede for all we care! Zimbldede took too long to use in conversation, so they settled on a constant ping-pong between 'him' and 'her' to bridge the gap between the binary and unary genders. Tertiary genders were plum out of schell.

Thank you for returning our lost one to us, the dryad said turning to face the two outsiders. As it lifted its arms towards them, four more branches tumbled from the trees and lifted off the ground. Each new dryad swarmed around the child, picking off some errant moss or tucking her leaves behind his branch. Like a race of heavily involved aunts, they ushered the kid into their gnarled embrace.

Not to break up this tender moment, but the shuttles will be breaking off soon and I don't see much in the form of a hotel around here... Variel started not wanting to spend a night camping in the forest of whispers. Every branch could be another person watching you.

As agreed, the dryad motioned to a bin behind him, 10 gallons of pure dihydrogen monoxide.

Variel grinned as she walked towards her blue jugs brimming with one of the hardest to obtain chemicals in the galaxy -- water. Every planet boasted strict regulations to keep as much of its wet stuff confined within its own atmosphere. Once it left, it was never coming back. Occasionally, an ice planet or comet was mined for galactic ships; but that included fees, taxes, and import dues. What the dryads offered her for a little replanting could fill her ship for three months if they were careful.

The dryad's oaken fingers grazed across her shoulder and she turned into the knots. It was unnerving, but no worse than facing down a troll who got your PALM address. For risking so much for us, we offer to you this. It held a box out.

Variel lifted the wooden lid trying to not think if it was made of some dryad's remains, and stared at the blackest earth she'd ever seen. It smelled of promise, of a full belly, of no longer having to eat cricket crunch for a month. Thank you very much, she said quickly sealing the box away in her pocket.

It is a trifle compared to a life, the dryad said as if it gave her little more than a trinket. If we never meet again, I bid you find all you wish for in this life save one, so you never stop striving.

Uh, back at ya, Variel fumbled. There was a good reason she was never sent on diplomatic missions in her old days.

As the dryad ushered its fellows back to their trees, some climbing high into the branches, others sinking into the tree's roots, Orn stepped beside his captain. Ten gallons, not bad after all. We could get a hot bath, a heavy load of laundry, and have enough left over for soup.

I am not wasting a drop of this on your leathery hide. It goes into the coolant, Variel scoffed.

Come on, Cap! Orn whined. Look at me, I'm more swamp monster than dwarf.

Even as the sun slipped below the thick trees, the ancient mud they blundered into dried to a caked on mass across the entire bottom half of Orn sealing in his juices. He'd need a chisel to get it off -- the sanitizing showers weren't going to scratch that. Variel didn't want to think about how she looked in comparison; she was the one to go careening down that mud slope after all.

You're right, we deserve a well earned treat, she said getting a whoop from her dwarf. When we get back to the ship, set her straight for The Wash 'n' Scrub.

I ask for caviar and you give me tapioca pudding?

Would you prefer we skip it all together and rub the mud off with sandpaper?

Wash 'n' Scrub it is! By the by, Cap?

Variel sighed, the day had ended surprisingly well considering how it began with shots fired at her and a xenophobic society swearing the dab of red paint across her forehead would keep her body from sizzling to a crisp once she crossed their barrier. What is it?

How are we going to get the 10 gallons back to the shuttle depot?

Shit!

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CHAPTER TWO

Space: the gaping hole between land and other land. It was once the onyx mystery so many pointed their fingers or claws towards and whispered about one day conquering. Then their grandchildren got up there, farmed a few asteroids, strode across some comets, and -- when the luster wore off -- set up a fast food chain to corner the market on cosmos kebobs. Conquering the last frontier came not in the form of weapons, technology, or can-do spirit, but gentrification. It was hard to believe one was in the wild, lawless, final frontier when a family of five just barreled past you to get the last booth at Chuck's Chicken Shack.

At first, money was to be made in mining the stars, converting all that raw mineral into something useful for the denizens down on the planets below. Then, people with no intention of mining flocked towards the stars chasing adventure. Smart businesses realized that idiots with more gold than neurons would pay thrice what it was worth to travel the stars in luxury, followed by the middle class who wanted the particle board facade of upper class luxury. A line of hotels, the outside done entirely in gold, orbited around the most expensive moons in the galaxy. Gyms with the first controllable artificial gravity kept the elite in whatever shape they preferred, and even orbiting farms allowed life long spacers to get back to their roots without having to take a shuttle back to the surface.

But one constant was shared across all classes be they wearing solid gold jumpsuits or polishing them -- the need for clean clothes and the want of soaking in a tub. For the rich there's the complimentary pass to the spa where marble cherubs spew scented bubble bath over their patent leather hides. For the middle class, family bath houses sprung up so the little ones could play in the ball pit while Mom and Dad soaked away their worries in a tub fitted to their exact size to save on water.

And for those who couldn't scrape enough coins to travel back down to a planet even if they wanted to, there was the Wash 'n' Scrub.

Variel ran the pumice stone under her toes, digging out the vestiges of mud. Her soggy hair dribbled down her back as hungry vacuums below sucked at the liquid pouring off. It was less a tub than a bucket one could dip a sponge into and get a good going over. Not relaxing, but the water awakened her skin far better than the shower sanitizers ever did. Even in her old days she'd scrape up some time on leave to find a planetside tub and clean off the soldier grime.

Her fellow bather, an older siren, twisted her fingers around her hair and wrung, the teal strands like a water snake struggling beneath her pruned fingers. You were charged for every molecule of excess water you walked out with, but Variel'd rather cough up the extra coin than shove her head into the jet engine repurposed into a hair dryer. The siren appeared to feel the same as she let her glistening green hair slip back across the sea foam shoulders. Her voice lock hissed, indicating it was filtering her words into something that wouldn't intoxicate the listener. I despise those water vacuums, she said, her sagging face lifting as she half smiled.

Variel returned it herself, nodding in agreement as she picked up her towel. In her old days she'd have scurried under it, or even paid the extra to rent a robe. The difference a half dozen extra scars and years could make. Tossing the scrap of fabric across her shoulder she strode out of the tiny room, her raw feet prickling at the grate. One of the owners grinned at her from outside the room, her fingers poised over the cash register.

Wash 'n' Scrubs were operated all across the galaxy, from above a volcanic dwarf colony to a troll server farm, yet every single owner was the exact same. Regardless of species she would have a raisin countenance with a smile never reaching past the nose. Her voice would grate across every nerve as she surveyed her domain of floating water suppliers with the vigor of an Emperor over his vassals. This Empress smiled the painted smile at Variel and eyed up the woman's still soaking hair.

That'll be another three cats in hats pictures, please, she said.

Three? Variel tried to bargain.

Three.

Variel resigned herself to her fate and flicked on her PALM, grateful she kept her hair short. The cashier scanned Variel's embedded identity chip and passed the wet woman a paid pin. Have a nice day.

The captain nodded vaguely, pushing the stick pin into her towel so she wouldn't be arrested as a chemical smuggler. Not that she was going to be leaving anytime soon.

As her unshod feet cut deeper into the grates, she questioned the decision to toss her shoes into the laundry pile, even if they were encased in enough mud to excite future archeologists. The hallways leading from the Scrub side of the station to the Wash were as well buffed as a shark's mouth. Now to find the rest of my little ones, Variel thought as she pushed open the sealed doors of the laundromat.

Her ship came equipped with the latest in cloth sanitizing and stain removal technology from a century ago. Not that things had improved much since ruffs were in style. It did a jolly great job breaking up stains and eradicating growing bacteria and odors. It simply failed to soften clothes. When you could no longer fold your shirts to put them away, it was time to stop by the laundromat.

A cacophony of machines beating to their own drum thudded across her weary brain as she entered the room. The machines were lined up like a maze, allowing someone to enter into the labyrinth to claim their final prize only after they passed each test. The first was an ogre set up beside the automated drop off point. He didn't seem in any particular hurry, his thin eyes surveying the loads every person dumped into the bin for the machine to sort. She could tell by the way he inched away whenever someone got too close he didn't work there.

Variel stopped in her walk as the ogre's eyes landed upon her. His snack stick paused mid-bite while he looked over the still healing sword scars across her midsection. Slowly, deliberately he shifted the purple eyes up to her head. Her scowling face was marred by the deep scar of an orc wound from a war fresh enough no one talked about it. The ogre chewed on its thick lips, and -- despite the human being a few feet shorter and only in her underwear -- it stepped back, allowing her entrance. One did not mess with someone who not only fought both orc and knight, but lived to drip all over it.

A pair of gnomes scampered past her calves, a massive tool chest carted between them. Their fur was soaked through, revealing how minuscule of bodies they really owned. An unrecoverable line must be leaking somewhere for how quickly the two flew past, even dropping down onto all fours to push the box past. Variel turned another two corners before she heard a familiar din above the sounds of the laundromat.

I challenge him to a duel! Orn's voice could drown out a Dragon's fire.

She came upon the odd sight of most of her crew camped out at one of the few tables in the refreshment lounge of the laundromat. Orn, in the rattiest pair of shorts that could still cover what iota of shame he had, tipped back in a boosted chair. He had a pencil in one hand and a sucker in the other. Occasionally, he mixed them up and tried to lick the eraser.

You can't do that, Ferra responded curtly. Her elven nose was buried behind a thick piece of cardboard fraying at the ends.

Her husband laughed in between spurts of spitting out eraser, Why not?

Because this is an office. You solve your problems diplomatically.

I can diplomatically staple his head to his shoulder! Orn tipped back in his raised seat, threatening to topple over.

Ferra sighed and rolled her immense eyes skyward asking for strength or perhaps a stapler of her own. When people hear engineer on a spaceship they tend to imagine someone with a proud paunch, thick beard sprouting across the neck, and the ability to list all the elements of the universe alphabetically for fun. Ferra was none of these things, but if you had to choose which to run into at the end of a dark alley you should always pick the neck beard.

She breathed heavily, shifting in her laced medical corset as the final vestiges of her cracked ribs knitted together. You should have seen the other guy. Orn, so help me, if you turn this into another hour of you pretending you don't know how to play, I will...

Perhaps try rolling your dice to decide for you, Monde suggested, cutting off his patient lest she pop another stitch.

Orn dropped the pencil he'd mostly been waving around. The ancient tool entertained him and he wouldn't put it down even after Ferra explained it was nothing more than a relic tumbling about in her old box. Fine, I'll toss these around then, he rumbled his hand about before blowing upon it and chucking the thirty sided dice across the table.

Ferra counted up the pips, it was all elven to the dwarf and orc sharing the game, and read down her list. A twisted grin took over her face as she sat back. In a the following announcements voice, she informed her husband, You were caught looking at porn on your boss' computer, you have been fired.

WHAT?!

Please collect your things and exit the building.

I appeal! I demand HR do something! You can't do this to me, I got you the Aloidalg account! Orn flailed his arms about as if he were really being fired.

There is no appealing, it is a crit. Bye, bye, Ferra waved her fingers to shoo her husband on before turning to the orc, the only one of their party dressed in actual clothes. Monde tipped his head at the exasperated dwarf, but rolled his own dice.

Congratulations, Mr. Johnson. You have unlocked a new networking buddy, Ferra read, ignoring Orn's exasperated waves.

The dwarf kicked his foot into the table, rattling the pewter statues of a pair of elves in business suits and sending the troll boss skittering under a book. Plummeting from his chair, he stomped off, running stomach first into his captain.

Can you believe that?

I know, considering the shit you look up on my portals I should have thrown you out an airlock years ago, Variel chided.

Ha ha, Orn muttered as he glanced back once more at his wife, his better half, playing all chummy with the orc after kicking him out. A level 15 middle management hedge witch runner and this is what I get? Not even a severance package? A final huff snorted out of his nose to end the anger at the situation. Orneriness replaced rage and he turned to his captain, the one paying all those bills, and he grinned. Cap, is it smart for you to be walking about like that?

Variel folded her arms, suspecting she knew where this was going. Get it out of your system.

Just with all these chemicals and machinery around and you in nothing but those small clothes, people are liable to willfully blind themselves.

You're one to talk. Is that little griffins on your shorts? Your shorts so ragged the hems were last seen during the dwarf's fifth stone age.

Orn feigned shock at her daring to glance in his nearly nude direction, then burst into giggles. The