Mortanian Rhapsody: Mission 12: Black Ocean: Mercy for Hire, #12

By J.S. Morin

It's time to fight dark with dark.

 

Tiffany knows what happened. Esper has fallen to the darkness within her. Rather than fleeing to safety, she escapes the presence of Dark Esper to find a way to bring back the woman she thinks of as a mother. But before she can drag Esper down the road to redemption, she'll first have to wade into hell to find her.

 

Meanwhile, Esper is being hunted by the latest in a long string of bounty hunters and assassins looking to collect the astronomical price on her head. What makes this one think she's got any better chance than all the rest that have tried and failed?

 

This one looks like an old friend.

 

Mortanian Rhapsody is the twelfth mission of Black Ocean: Mercy for Hire. Set in the Black Ocean Universe, it continues the saga of the galaxy's sweetest bounty hunter and her loyal sidekick (who is NOT a dog!) and introduces a colorful cast for new and returning readers alike.

 

Fans of vigilante justice and heroes who exemplify the word will love this series.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Magical Scrivener Press
• Release date: Apr 28, 2020
• ISBN: 9781643550961

J.S. Morin

I am a creator of worlds and a destroyer of words. As a fantasy writer, my works range from traditional epics to futuristic fantasy with starships. I have worked as an unpaid Little League pitcher, a cashier, a student library aide, a factory grunt, a cubicle drone, and an engineer--there is some overlap in the last two. Through it all, though, I was always a storyteller. Eventually I started writing books based on the stray stories in my head, and people kept telling me to write more of them. Now, that's all I do for a living. I enjoy strategy, worldbuilding, and the fantasy author's privilege to make up words. I am a gamer, a joker, and a thinker of sideways thoughts. But I don't dance, can't sing, and my best artistic efforts fall short of your average notebook doodle. When you read my books, you are seeing me at my best. My ultimate goal is to be both clever and right at the same time. I have it on good authority that I have yet to achieve it. Visit me at jsmorin.com

Book preview

Mortanian Rhapsody

MORTANIAN RHAPSODY

MISSION 12

BLACK OCEAN: MERCY FOR HIRE

J.S. MORIN

MAGICAL SCRIVENER PRESS

Copyright © 2020 J.S. Morin

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, write to the publisher, addressed Attention: Permissions Coordinator, at the address below.

Magical Scrivener Press

www.magicalscrivener.com

Publisher’s Note: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are a product of the author’s imagination. Locales and public names are sometimes used for atmospheric purposes. Any resemblance to actual people, living or dead, or to businesses, companies, events, institutions, or locales is completely coincidental.

Ordering Information: Special discounts are available on quantity purchases by corporations, associations, and others. For details, contact the publisher at the address above.

J.S. Morin — First Edition

ISBN: 978-1-64355-096-1

Printed in the United States of America

MORTANIAN RHAPSODY

MISSION 12

The door to Tiffany’s bedroom slid open with a grating of protesting metal. Knocking had yielded no result. The door panel hadn’t complied with the press of either a finger or a fist. Magic, however, overcame most obstacles.

Tiff, c’mon! Esper shouted as a preamble to barging right in. Time to start the morning—well, the early afternoon anyway. At the sound of a shower running, she ventured to the washroom door. Finish up in there.

She waited.

You scared her.

Esper pinched the bridge of her nose. No shit, she’d scared Tiffany. Normal people weren’t dulled to the point where discovering a room full of charred bodies rolled right off them. She’d scared Kubu, too, but the lovable lug had consoled himself with gorging on the ship’s provisions seemingly at random.

This isn’t going to blow over quickly. It’s going to take time and work and—

I know that! Esper snapped at a carefully restrained volume intended to be drowned out safely by the shower. Tiffany was a beeping, flashing grenade about to explode. Esper’s hand was the only thing keeping her from going off. But keeping her—and everyone around her—safe and winning back the girl’s trust were two issues well divorced from one another.

Esper waited.

She fumed silently, knowing that composing herself prior to Tiffany exiting the shower might be a key point in her favor. After all, it was hard to win someone over with a shouting match.

Idly, Esper meandered Tiffany’s quarters.

What teenager needed a place so big? It had taken the better part of an hour to search it for the remaining drugs she’d stashed. Starlight. What had she been thinking? Nothing good ever came of such dangerous shortcuts—not even in the short term. She’d be lucky if she hadn’t left lasting damage on her psyche.

Esper waited.

What the hell was taking so long? While Esper hadn’t expected a just a quick rinse type of shower, she also hadn’t anticipated this being a I just need someplace quiet to think and the running water feels nice kind either.

She’s probably avoiding the very conversation you came here for.

Esper huffed. She leaned against the washroom door. The do-gooder was probably right. When it came to understanding people, she usually was. Tiff, come on. Get out of the shower. The sooner we talk this out, the better.

The shower kept on running.

A tiny furrow developed at Esper’s brow.

Tiffany wasn’t the bottle it up sort. Nor did Esper imagine she had a silent treatment in her. She was long overdue for a snarky comeback.

Privacy be damned, Esper keyed the door panel. When she stormed inside, she found exactly not what she was looking for.

There was no Tiffany.

Careful, the do-gooder warned just as her temper boiled over into a scream of frustration.

Better to let it all out here where there was clearly no Tiffany to hear it.

Heaving to catch her breath after nearly inverting her lungs, Esper set off to search the ship.

Oh, there was going to be hell to pay.

Wesley enjoyed working without gravity. Sometimes, being a gorgeous slab of muscle with chiseled good looks weighed on a man—literally. His 150 kilos were more than most folks carried around on their puny frames. And while slabs of muscle did a bang-up job of hauling that meaty mass around in gravity up to 1.8 or so, it also felt pretty good to just let it all float loose and free once in a while.

Since Wesley would never be accused of slacking off, he spent his zero-G time working on repairs to the hull.

Esper’s magic could range from sharp scalpel to blunt cudgel, but it rarely seemed much good at putting things back together. Sure, once in a while, she melted a few metal bits into a semblance of a weld, but nothing that any licensed pipe-fitter or enviro-tech would sign off on.

Earth Marine Corps was nothing if not indulgent of productive hobbies. He’d served with marines who’d become full-blown medics, wilderness tour guides, and even an award-winning pastry chef; good lord, he missed Corporal Antonopoulos’s baklava. There had never been a CO who objected when a marine wanted to spend off-duty hours down at the star pool working on welding ship hulls.

The work was tedious, gloriously tedious. When a guy wanted to get away from it all—directors, agents, media, gravity—he could hardly do better than flattening ten square meters of twisted polymer steel and welding it into a single, vacuum-rated surface.

"Wesley… Kubu called over the comm. Come in, Wesley."

Yo, fuzz-man, I’m all ears. I hear you loud and clear. He flipped a mallet, letting it spin a few rotations in zero-G before catching it by the handle. What can I do you for?

"No, I mean ‘come in.’ Get back inside the ship. Esper wants to talk to you. Tiffany is missing."

Wesley clipped the carabiner of the mallet to his belt. "Missing what? Missing fresh air? Missing Diary of a High School Has-Been? Missing her—?"

"No, just the regular missing missing. We can’t find her. Come in and help us look."

Copy that, Fuzzerino. Just gimme a few more minutes to—

Esper’s voice blurted over the comm, "NOW! Drop everything. This is priority one."

Yes, ma’am. Despite no one being there to see him, Wesley saluted; you never knew when someone might be filming.

Esper met Wesley at the airlock. There was no time to lose. The amateur starship repairman barely had his helmet off before she barraged him.

We need to find her!

Wesley shook out his hair, damp with sweat. I gathered that. What’s the issue? She late for cribbage or something? We don’t have a mission—or do we?

Yes, we have a mission, Esper snapped. Find Tiffany. God knows how much trouble she can get into the way she’s been lately. If I didn’t find all her drugs and she’s shining on Starlight right now…

The way she’s been lately? There are mirrors on this ship you might try consulting.

Wesley ruffled Kubu’s scruff. Hey, buddy. How about we put that snoofer of yours to some snoofing use?

Kubu accepted the affection before drooping both his ears and his head. I tried. Magic made the smells all funny.

There were only three things Kubu truly did well: eating, being bigger than any thinking creature had a right to be, and using that nose of his. If that wasn’t even working anymore, maybe it was time to—

Don’t even think that. Kubu is family!

We just need to scour the ship, Esper said with all the patience she could muster. I don’t want anyone confronting her but me. Just locate and report. If she’s fried again…

Wesley gave a curt nod as he jammed his EV helm into the nearest wall locker. Say no more. I’m on it.

Kubu wagged. I’ll go superfast! She won’t see me coming—or going! He bounded off down the nearest corridor.

Wesley headed the opposite way.

Esper was alone again. Well, at least as alone as she was ever able to get.

Maybe you should give her space if she needs it this badly.

Not on our life.

Marching off in the first direction that struck her fancy, Esper tried to immerse herself in the task. It was an Earth Navy frigate with all the amenities and room for some 400 sailors, their equipment, prisoners, passengers, VIPs, and anything else a mission might require. Four sentient creatures disappeared inside it all too easily.

For hours, she wandered, sketching a roughly spiral multi-level search pattern in her head. Not only did she not catch the slightest hint of Tiffany’s presence, she also never encountered Wesley or Kubu along the way.

"Where the hell is she?"

Maybe you need to stop trying to win a game of hide-and-seek and start trying to get inside her head. Wait. That came out wrong. Absolutely don’t try—

I get it. I get it, Esper replied, patting the air with a hand to forestall any more prevaricating yammering. I know what you meant. She tapped a fingernail to her lips. If I were a seventeen-year-old throwing a temper tantrum, where would I hide?

There was little doubt that Kubu’s first instincts would be to check the food stores, so if this had been an ice cream binge, Tiff would have turned up already. The alcohol had long since been locked up and accounted for—this latest incident wasn’t the first that might have resulted in 100-proof escapism. If she’d wanted some real privacy, Tiff could have hunkered down in any of the crew quarters scattered across the ship.

Cynically, Esper was tempted to search Tiffany’s room for her various self-pleasure implements. If one of those were missing—one that Esper knew about, she corrected—maybe it was best to leave well enough alone until she turned up.

Then it occurred to her.

"I never really searched her quarters."

Oh, Esper had scoured the place rooting around for caches of Starlight, but since discovering the shower running with no one inside, she’d barely checked the bedroom suite itself.

Doubling back, Esper stormed into Tiffany’s room, fully convinced she was going to discover the girl beneath the bed or crouching at the back of a closet.

The door slid open at a magical command, steel protesting as it scraped along its carefully manufactured track. "Tiff! If you’re in here, come out!"

That also didn’t sound the way you intended, I can only assume.

If the do-gooder was attempting to defuse the situation with humor… well, OK. Maybe that was at least mildly amusing. But Esper gripped the handle of her anger and refused to let it go so easily.

She dropped to her stomach and peered under the bed.

No one there. Slippers peeked back from the floor on the far side.

She wrenched the closet open, heedless of the groaning metal.

No one there. A few unloved outfits dangled there amid a scattering of empty hangers.

Esper scowled.

Tiff wasn’t big on laundry, but there hadn’t been a backup on the floor that would indicate a pending load for the clothes processor.

She scowled harder.

Then, the shipwide PA boomed with Wesley’s voice. "Hey, Esper."

Swiveling her head this way and that, she located the wall panel to activate the intraship comm to reply. You find her?

"Do you happen to own a modified 2560 Squall racer with a pinkish-red paint job?"

Yes… Esper replied, drawing the word out in an attempt to convey her strained patience. What about it? Was Tiff hiding in the cockpit?

"Not that I can see. We don’t have one at the moment."

WHAT!

"Not joking. Come see for—"

I’m on my way! Esper snapped. She couldn’t even be sure Wesley heard her since the panel burst into a shower of sparks. Tiffany’s room went black.

Don’t do anything rash!

Rash? I’ll show you rash.

Despite the foreboding promise, Esper didn’t know what she planned to do. Her initial storming march through the ship slowed. Who would bear the brunt of her anger? Wesley for discovering Tiffany’s escape? Kubu for failing to?

No. She knew the true cause.

This is all your fault, she said as she approached the main hangar, addressing her reflection in a glossy black information panel, currently blinking an error prompt in one corner.

I hope you mean you and not me.

"If not for you, I could have taught her in Esperville. She’d have learned self-control. She’d have—"

Seen you for what you really are.

Esper didn’t have a comeback for that.

Before she could argue further, she opened the personnel access door and marched into the hangar with a conviction of purpose she had to fake.

Kubu bounded toward her. What do we do?

How did this happen? Esper demanded, ignoring the megalodog and addressing the bloated mass of muscle standing with his back to her in front of the spot where the Squall would normally be parked.

Without turning, he shrugged. Dunno. We never locked her out of anything. It’s a medium-range racer without a star-drive.

She can manage manual drops. But… not from this far down.

Wesley drew a long sigh. We can search for her on long-range scanners. Maybe she’s wandering the deep astral.

Do it, Esper ordered. But I don’t expect we’re going to find her there.

Why’s that? Kubu asked.

Esper set her jaw. Time for a bitter swallow of honesty. Because it seems I underestimated her.

Kubu leaned with his belly against the counter as he painstakingly sliced bread. Knives weren’t meant for megalodog paws. That didn’t stop Kubu. Not today. Today, everyone was counting on him.

As he scooped tuna from the can with a fork, he accidentally dropped a few pieces on the floor. Cuddles wasn’t supposed to know that he was getting treats on purpose, so Kubu said oops every time a morsel tumbled down. Normally, Cuddles wasn’t allowed free run of the ship, but given all that had happened lately, Kubu found himself craving the company.

At long last, the platter was full. Twelve sandwiches ranging from ham and cheese to tuna with peanut butter. He didn’t care if anyone else liked the latter; he’d happily eat them all himself.

Checking that no one was looking, he used his mouth to clamp onto the platter and set it down on the cart. Then he wiped the saliva from the edge.

Pushing through the door to the rec room, he announced, Lunch is served!

Wesley looked up from the game of holographic Ping-Pong he was playing against the computer, still batting the pretend ball back across the net without watching. No sign of the boss. Should I hail her on the comm?

Kubu nodded.

Still playing competent