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FIVE MULES FOR MADAME CALYPSO

THEA HUTCHESON


The Queen of the Stars, the #1-rated bordello in colonized space, would arrive in four weeks at the prime viewing position to see a string of icy rocks—gleaming like diamonds in the light of the local sun—smack into HC-4280-6, a gas giant in the Hellat-Crisat system.

Three thousand people would party nonstop until then.

One thousand five hundred jades and jigs, both human and synthetic, would see to their pleasure.

One thousand crew members would make the party memorable and clean up the mess afterward.

And one monster planned to wreak havoc amongst them.

Thalia Jaltner didn’t know about the monster as she moved down the concourse against what felt like a palpable wall of sound: the hum of people talking and laughing, dinging bells and whooping sirens of the games, and the bass thump of the music from the dance bar at the far end.

But she would. Very soon.

A mélange of food, booze, and perfume smells piggybacked the musk of the pheromones Madame Calypso insisted on pumping into the air system to encourage the customers to utilize the bordello’s services.

Thalia was on a double shift that night, covering for the swing-shift maintenance lead who’d come up ill that morning. As she looked out over the crowd, assessing the room’s needs, she worried whether the staff would survive until they reached their destination.

She tapped her ear bob. “NovaThirty, please pull down the maintenance schedule.”

“Done,” her assistant, a tiny sliver of the ship’s AI, murmured. Thalia’s tablet chimed.

As she walked through the concourse, the crew, jades, and jigs greeted her. She rarely saw these particular people because of opposite shifts and greeted them back enthusiastically.

Marella, a svelte jade with jet-black hair, touched her arm. “Thank you for suggesting I audition for that audio serial. I got the part!”

“You’re welcome,” Thalia said. “You have such a fine voice, and you’re so clever creating storylines for your clients to role-play. It’ll be a nice gig between ports.”

Thalia’s shoulders straightened, and her heart swelled at the news. She was always glad to help out her fellow crew members. The bordello had given her a home and a path to regaining her confidence after her dream job blew up, leaving her homeless, friendless, and jobless.

As Thalia made her inspection, she looked up to see several people leaning out over the eleven decks’ worth of balconies that encircled the concourse, laughing and waving at her, their drinks in hand.

They didn’t actually know her; it was a combination of inebriated gaiety, the pheromones, and the bordello’s convivial atmosphere, which fell on her to maintain.

Thalia worked through the crowds of well-dressed guests, then jumped a little when a woman stumbled against her as she moved past. Thalia watched her leap at a man and throw her arms around him drunkenly. He looked harried, disentangled himself, and nodded his apologies. Thalia grinned at him in sympathy.

She inspected the floors, walls, and furniture, making notes about wear or deep cleaning needs. The staff’s efforts had been Herculean: despite the huge number of guests, the chrome surfaces gleamed, the blue-and-cream-patterned laminate flooring shone, and the trees had been well-dusted and freshly watered.

Tumbull, one of the jigs for this section—who hailed from Dener 12, a Russian-descent mining planet in the Selter System—waved at her. Gay as a tulip in April, he always cracked her up with his descriptions of his johns. When she first came aboard two years ago, he’d asked her to sit with him in the staff commissary. “Just for company, dorogoy,” he’d said in a drawling Russian accent, then winked. “You haven’t got the right equipment for anything else.”

Coming up to him, Thalia said, “Long time no see, my friend. Any action?”

“Steady stream of lookie-loos, but no real meat tonight,” Tumbull lamented, flipping a hand dismissively. “It gets better each night we come closer to the main attraction.”

Thalia laughed and mock punched him.

“Not that arm, dahlink. I might need it if no customer appears,” he said, making a loose fist and pretending to jerk off.

She made a crybaby look and walked on.

“Jalty, baby,” someone said to her left.

Thalia froze, her heart suddenly pounding. She hadn’t heard that voice or that wretched nickname in three years. She fumbled for her tablet now slipping in hands turned suddenly sweaty, the churning starting in her belly all over again.

Marcus Salfier—the monster who had destroyed what had been her dream job. Here. She wanted to sound the alarm, but instead struggled for calm so as not to frighten the guests.

A cloud of musky cologne overwhelmed the ambient smells as a hand grabbed her upper arm from behind and pulled her into a tight embrace, arms just under her breasts. Not affectionate, glad-to-see-you tight, but tight so she couldn’t get away. Tight so she knew her situation.

Familiar futile anger and helplessness washed over her like her last two years meant nothing.

“What are you doing here, Jalty?” Marcus said in her ear before twisting her around to look at her.

She froze as his familiar minty breath swirled across her cheek. His words sent a shiver down her back, and her belly clenched as she walked away, her legs quivering.

This would be just like Hastings-Pfifer. He would steal whatever credit he could from his department, ride them all into the ground, blacken their names with the powers that be, and leave a path of death and destruction in his wake.

She couldn’t let that happen to the Queen.


Thalia left a note with HR, citing the incident, her past work experience under him, and a link to the deaths on the station, but nothing happened. She talked to fellow crew members over the next week. The entire section was bitching about the extra hours he assigned, sabotaged work, insults, and public humiliation.

It sounded like she’d never left Hastings-Pfifer.

As she and her team came out of a briefing, he was in the corridor and made that stupid two-finger V from his eyes to hers. “Hey, Jalty baby, I’m watching you.”

He looked her team over. “She’s a shitty manager,” he said. “She’ll sell your ass for a good word from the folks upstairs. If you have problems with her, just come see me.”

Thalia flushed and grasped for something to say in the dead silence.

But Bern, the hardware tech, spoke up. “Wayull, Mr. Salfier,” Bern drawled. Thalia glared at him, but he ignored her. “Last time I looked, concourse staff cayn’t do nuttin’ fur maintenance. And…” the tech continued, “Thalia works hard and makes sure we got whut we need.” He eyed Marcus like a spec of dirt. “And callin’ her out, that’s just rude. We dun do rude on the Queen.”

Marcus smiled at the man, then took in everyone else, his perfect white teeth glinting in the corridor lights.

“Well, then pardon me for wanting to help. But the offer stands.” He bowed and headed on his way.

“Thanks, Bern,” Thalia said. “But you embarrassed him. You’ll be in his sights now.”

“Dun you worry ’bout me, Thalia. Bastards layk him see us all as sheep, and never see the mule mixed into the herd.” When she looked confused, he said, “Mules’re like hosses, but badass. There’s a story in mah family about mah great-grandaddy watchin’ one stomp shit outta a cougar once.” He ambled off to schedule bot maintenance.

Two days later, she found an anonymous video in her inbox of Bern sleeping in the maintenance bay during his shift. With time stamps.

“I’m sorry, Bern,” Thalia told him. “I’m looking into this, but I may have to put you on report.”

“’S all right,” the man said placidly. “A lotta fur is gettin’ ruffled. Some mule’ll be looking to stomp on Marcus Sal-Fi-Ay soon enough.”

Thalia hoped so. The Queen was different from Hastings-Pfifer. There, everyone had been trapped in their own nightmares, and no one had talked about Marcus’s reign of terror. Here, gossip ran like water through the corridors and staff commissary.

But Marcus strutted through it all, never getting swept up.


Nervous energy had propelled Thalia through her run, but it didn’t do anything for the stress of constantly covering her backside. She might as well have never left Hastings-Pfifer, except that here she could commiserate. No one had any idea what to do about Marcus. Complaints went nowhere or were excused on the grounds of inexperience with the protocols, but people paid for their efforts in petty ways.

She headed to the showers. NovaThirty pinged her. “Alskar wants to see you when you clock on.”

Thalia’s nerves ratcheted up until even her fingertips tingled. And now her supervisor wanted to see her. She tried to breathe smoothly, but she trembled so hard her breath wavered.

As she entered the maintenance section, a wave of depression washed over her. Damn. She had always liked coming to work on the Queen, even when she was just an environment tech, washing filters.

She growled at the way it took Marcus just a few weeks to destroy the life she had so meticulously rebuilt.

Alskar caught her eye and waved her through to his office. The walls were covered with monitors so he could see any area. One showed a false-color image of the cometary string against star-studded space with a countdown showing six days left.

“Afternoon, sir,” Thalia said. He gestured her to sit, and she laid her tablet on her lap. She bet this was about Marcus. Well, she’d tell him about Marcus’s history, point him to all the staff complaints over the last month. Then maybe HR would have a little come-to-Madame meeting with him, and he’d be gone.

Gone to wreak his havoc elsewhere.

That’s what he did. He moved in, destroyed people’s lives, sucked everything down to the marrow, and moved on. She’d heard Hastings-Pfifer went bankrupt from the wrongful-death suit Sloan Station filed.

Alskar sat in his chair instead of on the desk’s front edge.

Her heart sank a bit more.

“Tell me what’s going on between you and Marcus Salfier,” he said. “You used to work together.”

“Yes. He stole credit for my work at my previous job.”

Alskar lifted one eyebrow. “Funny. He never mentioned that. He said you were a sour grape looking for revenge. Then there’s your inappropriate interaction with him on the floor when you did the double shift.”

Thalia reared back, blinking as disbelief, then anger washed over her. “I would never behave inappropriately on the floor or off. He’s the one who’s been making rude and inappropriate comments.”

“I don’t know about that, but there’s video that supports his accusation.”

For a moment, Thalia couldn’t get enough air and thought she’d pass out. Then she choked out, “Let’s see the video.”

Alskar’s eyes flicked back and forth as he sought the file, then flipped his hand out and away. A video opened on a wall monitor.

The time stamp said 18:40 hours. The camera showed her walking her section, looking at her tablet and then the floor. She stopped and stared at the tile floor.

Thalia remembered. She’d seen a gouge in a tile near the server station.

The video showed her fiddling with her tablet, which went as she remembered.

But then, Marcus walked up behind her and she turned, throwing herself into his arms with a sappy expression. The look on his face was a mixture of embarrassment and irritation. He pushed her back, and Thalia saw him look right at the camera and clearly mouth, “Let me go or I’ll call security.”

Thalia seethed through her confusion. Had he gaslighted her again?

“No. That never happened,” she said as much to herself as Alskar. “The video is doctored. He grabbed me the first night I saw him. He made rude comments about me. I told him to let go of me or I would call security.”

“That’s a breach of protocol,” Alskar said. “Why didn’t you report it?”

She clenched her teeth. Marcus was going to ruin her.

“I did. Nothing came of it.”

“There’s no record of any complaint by you.”

“What about all the others?”

“I can only speak to this incident.”

Of course.

“This never happened,” she said flatly, staring at the video, frozen with Marcus’s face outraged and hers a mess.

Alskar drummed his fingers on the workstation. “He suggested you had been drinking, but NovaThirty’s vital checks don’t agree. I interviewed all the staff on the floor; no one saw anything. This footage is the only record of what went on.”

His mouth worked and he frowned. “Thalia, you’ve been a good employee on the Queen. You’re prompt, efficient, creative, and kind to all your coworkers. But this is totally unlike you. He told us that he was your supervisor when you two worked together. He said his management records noted that you were surly and uncooperative, that you put off work on critical timelines until the last minute and then turned in shoddy work.”

Thalia thought she might throw up. Or quit. “They did, but he lied. He was responsible for over a hundred deaths on Sloan Station. And if I hated him so much, why would I fall into his arms like this? He’s disgusting.”

“Thalia,” Alskar said sharply. “That’s enough.”

She sat back, shocked that he would raise his voice to her. This was just like Hastings-Pfifer. No matter what the grunts who worked with Marcus said, it never made a difference because he’d already buttered the management side of the bread.

I quit was on the tip of her tongue when Alskar flicked the video closed and said, “My mentor always told me that in situations like these, the truth lies somewhere in the middle.”

“But it doesn’t, Alskar,” Thalia said, trying to keep the whine out of her voice. “He lies up and down, backward and forward, and straight down the middle; whatever he needs to, and even when he doesn’t.”

“Enough,” Alskar said. “Clearly there is tension between you. You’re a good worker now, whatever you might have been before. We’ve all had issues in the past, or we wouldn’t be on the Queen. He came very highly recommended, and he’s been a model employee so far.” He made placating motions with his hands when she rolled her eyes. “That said, I have limited choices: reprimand you and send you back to work, transfer you, or let you go.”

“I’ll take the transfer,” Thalia said, opening up the jobs board and flicking through it. “Yes, the air plant. The tech five position.”

“Thalia, that’s a demotion. I was going to move you up to deck fifteen. Jase Willers is retiring.”

Thalia stared at him, willing the stinging in her eyes to subside. “No. Clearly you’re willing to believe Marcus over me, even with my work record. So, I’ll take the transfer to a different department. Really, anything to get away from him. But I’m telling you, he’s a monster. And I’m just the first of the people he’s going to ruin.”

Alskar blew out his breath. “Okay, then. I’ll make the notations and get you new credentials.”

She stood, trembling. Marcus had done it to her again, and all she’d ever done was be in the wrong spot at the wrong time. She clenched her fists, nails biting into her palms.

Something had to be done.

“I want a copy of that footage,” Thalia said. “It’s my right.”

He shrugged and waved the file to her. Her tablet chimed as the file hit.

“Report to Environmental, Thalia, and stay away from the concourse.”

She left, her ass tight with anger and humiliation, and headed for the service elevator. Marcus had doctored the file. Or gotten someone to do it. He’d never much cared for real work. He liked schmoozing with management and those whom he considered important to his well-being. Everyone else was fair game for his entertainment or his image.

Thalia’s boots thumped through the pale sage passageway, and she consciously walked lighter. She jabbed the lift button and tried to not huff as she waited. Her chest felt tight and her head light and buzzy.

He’d clearly felt she was a danger to him. Except she hadn’t been fired. Just moved. She raked the back of her index finger under her chin and flicked it outward. Take that.

She really needed a plan.

But Thalia couldn’t do anything against him. She was no mule, just a sheep set up for slaughter, the way she had been before. She kicked at the elevator doorframe.

She needed help.

Space was big, but colonized space wasn’t so big, evidently, that you could escape your past. What if Marcus had learned she was on the Queen and got the job just so he could pick up where he left off?

“That’s crazy,” she muttered as the elevator door opened, then whispered shut.

The elevator asked, “Thalia, are you heading for service level one?”

“Yes, please,” she said, trying not to growl as the car hummed. The deck floor notices ticked softly as she dropped to the lowest level of the ship.

The elevator chimed and opened the door. “Have a good day, Thalia,” it said brightly.

If only.

The air plant smelled moist, rotty, and full of growing things. Like coming home. What was she thinking choosing the air plant, the same kind of job Marcus had destroyed? A bit of masochisism, then, she imagined Tumbull saying.

Directional signs covered the unadorned ceramic corridors. She headed toward the supervisor’s office. Diagrams, broken hydroponic parts, tools, and chemical packets clotted the cramped room. A single monitor on the desk showed the diamond necklace of icy rocks headed for the gas planet.

She tapped at the doorframe.

Woller Senson looked old and rail thin, and wore a buzz cut that left his silver hair a simple gleam on his skull.

“Hey, Thalia. Color me totally surprised.” He stood, and offered his hand. Her hand trembled as she took it. “By your history, you’re totally overqualified for this job. I’m not going to ask why you changed from a lead in maintenance to a lowly air tech, but I’m very pleased to have you.”

She shrugged.

“Well, there’re tables in the lab, I’m sure you know what to do.”

“Thanks.” The bench felt like a bittersweet homecoming. She’d loved her work at Hastings-Pfifer, loved the living puzzle of designing the best plant combinations for carbon dioxide and oxygen balance in different environments.

She’d been drifting for a year after she’d left Hastings-Pfifer when she’d run into a line manager Marcus had fired. Until they talked, she’d never known he’d been abusing others during his tenure. The man told her stories from three other people, but said there were more.

Discovering that others had been suffering in isolation, ostracized, or ignored by their fellow workers had made her angry.

And Marcus enjoyed every minute, like the director of his own personal entertainment series.

“If you’re looking for a job,” the manager said when she said goodbye, “the Queen of the Stars has postings.” He flicked a link to her tablet. “It’s a bordello ship, but the people are good. I added a reference.”

She’d applied, gotten an entry-level maintenance job, and been happy.

Until now.

Thalia sat down at the bench and threw herself into the work, finding she enjoyed reclaiming her half-forgotten skills. At shift end, she headed up to the staff commissary. In the practically empty room, the conversation remained a low hum punctuated with cutlery and glasses clinking.

The monitor on the far wall showed five days and roughly twelve hours to go for the comet fragments’ rendezvous with the gas planet.

Tumbull waved her over to his table and took her hand in his. “Dahlink, what happened? You didn’t show for your shift, and King Dick said you got fired.”

“King Dick got some doctored footage that showed me throwing myself at him.”

Tumbull gaped incredulously. “Throw yourself at that grease sphincter? You had to have tripped, and he was the only thing you could find to grab.” His mouth twisted in disgust.

His words sparked a memory but it was gone before she could grab it.

“I took a transfer.”

“Hmmm, better than fired,” Tumbull said. “Coincidence that someone had footage of Bern sleeping on the job? I smell some very fine deep-fake work, and I bet Tralley’s fingers are all over it.”

Tralley, a junior purser, had been a cameraman for some PR outfit before he’d come aboard the Queen. Clients often asked for video of their hijinx without releases, and he produced really fine footage that didn’t impinge on image restrictions.

“Let me have it. I can get answers,” Tumbull said, drumming his steepled fingertips together under a leering grin.

Thalia flicked the file to him and ordered a meal. Tumbull watched the footage, his mouth puckering like he’d tasted something bad.

A bot delivered her plate to the table. As she dug in, Tumbull said, “You said you worked with King Dick before, where he berated you, stole work, and took credit for it.”

“Yeah. It’s what he does.”

“Of course it is. When did you first see Marcus Salfier here?”

“About three weeks ago. Why?”

“Why didn’t you tell someone then?”

“I did. The complaint disappeared.”

“Trishy said the same thing. He dressed her down at the staff meeting three days ago because she didn’t smile enough. She transferred out of his section. That’s the fourth person in six weeks.” Tumbull looked at her over his fingers. “What happened when you first saw him?”

“He grabbed me as I was looking at my tablet. He insulted me. I threatened to call security if he didn’t let go. It should be on the security video.”

Tumbull murmured to his AI assistant and stared at Thalia thoughtfully. “So he knows you. Or at least he did.”

“What?”

“Oh, dorogoy, you’ve changed since you came on board.”

She had? “How?”

“You stand up straight, for one. You used to act like you were trying to disappear into the scenery. Now, you take care of everyone around you. If he’s the one who made you like that, he’s a bastard, and I’m all for kicking his ass.”

Warmth flushed her. She had friends; people who cared what happened to her.


Two days later, Tumbull caught her at breakfast in the commissary.

He grinned wickedly and flicked a file at her tablet. Thalia almost felt sorry for his clients.

“Look at it.”

She clicked the video and saw the concourse floor. The date was three weeks ago, at the beginning of her shift. By the angle, the view was from the aft-side bow camera. Beyond Thalia, a woman wove through the crowded room, grabbing on to people, tables, and android servers. She bumped into Thalia, and she watched herself wipe the spatters of drink off her arm and tablet.

The woman continued on, oblivious, toward a man a few feet away from Thalia. The clip ended as the woman threw herself at the man, who looked back at Thalia, embarrassed and apologetic.

“I remember this happening!” This explained why Marcus’s complaint footage had looked familiar. And why Tumbull’s comment about tripping sparked a memory.

“Yes, dorogoy.”

The bot brought her order.

“Now, watch this.” He flicked another file at her tablet. Thalia opened that video, saw it was the same night and about the same time. She saw herself standing on the concourse, bent over her tablet typing, the concourse in full swing around her. A few feet away, Marcus noticed her, did a double take, and, grinning like a kid offered a cookie, approached her. A few minutes later, she saw herself glance at the camera, saying, “Let me go, or I’ll call security.”

A rush of anger made Thalia grit her teeth. Her mouth was dry. She lifted her cup and sipped the bitter, smooth coffee. It wet her mouth but had lost all its savor.

“Where did you get this?”

Tumbull looked at her sideways, the hint of a smirk on his lips. “The Queen of the Stars hosts a number of public and very private figures who trust us to protect them and their reputations during their visits. We take that trust very seriously across all aspects of the ship.”

“It’s from a separate archive.”

“Yes, dorogoy. And because Tralley produced the original footage, he’ll only be nursing his fingers, not mourning their loss.”

“Oh, please don’t hurt anyone. That’s what Marcus does.”

Dahlink,” he said, looking at her from under his eyebrows, “I never hurt anyone without their permission.”

This time, she did feel sorry for his clients, even as a tendril of hope pushed its way up out of the cauldron of futile rage.

“We can’t let him do what he did to Hastings-Pfifer,” Thalia said. “He’s a monster,” she growled, shocking herself at the depth of emotion in her voice.

“So, King Dick is a power-grabber,” Tumbull mused. “He intimidated Kandy, one of the jades up on the twelfth floor, into sleeping with him. But since he manipulated her into agreeing, there’s nothing to be done. About that time.”

Marcus hit on every woman at Hastings-Pfifer. At first, Thalia had been flattered. But then she realized it wasn’t about her, or even the others. It was all about him getting his nut. When she tried to break it off, he threatened to share what they had done, what he had coerced her into doing. She doubted that management would have cared. No, it was the humiliation of the acts, and the knowledge that he had tricked her that kept her silent.

“He has it in for Bern, but so far it’s only been reprimands. He’s even tried to make me a pariah.” Tumbull snorted at the thought. “Everyone loves me, though. This time he has chosen the wrong place to make his grab.”

“How did he get hired?” Thalia barely kept herself from wailing in frustration.

“No one’s perfect,” Tumbull said. “Not even AIs, Thalia. Marcus slipped through the cracks. But, with Tralley’s confession and the other complaints I’ve gathered, we have enough to get him fired.”

“Fire him and let him just move on to the next unwitting employer?”

“Another choice is to keep him, and let the ship’s HR department manage his behaviors. I found there’s a lot of management psychology data focused on dealing with workplace psychopaths. They would have to develop a plan that uses his own self-interest to limit his negative behavior. We would have to be trained to protect ourselves from those behaviors.”

Psychopath. That’s what he was. A monster with a clinical name.

“There are reasons that HR would do this,” Tumbull said.

“Like what?” Thalia asked incredulously.

Tumbull waved his hand idly. “He’s smooth and engaging. Clients like him. He’s also very effective at deducing people’s desires and manipulating them in the direction of the most profit for the bordello. Sales in his section have gone up since he came on board.”

Thalia ground her teeth. Yes, that sounded right.

“Of course, there have been a few instances where he embarrassed several jades and jigs when he offered services that were not actually available. We complained to Madame Calypso when he tried to coerce us into acquiescing.”

A dry chuckle slipped out before Thalia could stop it. “And he pled ignorance because of his short tenure.”

“Why, yes, he did.”

Thalia sipped her coffee and twirled the cup on the table. “The effort to protect everyone from his predation feels exhausting.” She lifted her lip in a half sneer, half growl. “And what’s the point? He’s a pox on humanity and not worth the effort or the income.” Saying that out loud made her feel good.

“I could arrange an accident.”

The idea of action felt better, but the notion of murder left her sick.

“So, it has to be subtler,” Tumbull said, watching her. “Let him walk right to his doom, eyes open, greedy hands clutching for his heart’s desire. Yes. That would be more satisfying.”

“It’s not a matter of satisfaction. It’s necessity to protect everyone from him.” Thalia added, “I wouldn’t know what to do.”

“Me either, dorogoy, I’m not so cunning.”

“We need help.”

Tumbull winked at her. “Leave it to me.”


A few days later, Tumbull sent an invite to his suite. When she arrived, he took her ear bob.

“Why take the earpiece?” she asked.

“To be private from the ship’s AI,” Tumbull said.

“And taking earpieces will make us private?”

He shrugged and gave her a drink. “I have privacy mode engaged.”

Bern, Kandy—the twelfth-floor jade Marcus had hit on—and Marella, the jade she’d helped get the audio gig, sat in the decadently orange seating area. Tumbull took a burnt orange chair that resembled a throne, and looked at everyone. “We’re here to solve the King Dick problem.” He sipped from his drink and looked around at everyone.

“Space him,” Bern said. “Problem solved.”

“No,” Thalia said. “That’s cold-blooded murder. But we can’t just put him off this ship, either. He’ll just go somewhere else and do the same thing.”

“He humiliated me in front of a client and lost me my quarterly bonus. But killing him seems a little much,” Kandy said.

“He killed more than a hundred people and destroyed many other lives and companies,” Thalia countered. “He’ll never stop on his own.”

“Well, none of us have enough credit to get a lawyer to build a good enough case against him to send him to prison,” Tumbull said.

“Yeah, and in the meantime, he’s still mucking about with people’s lives,” Kandy said.

“I agree wit’ Thalia,” Bern said finally. “This is our jobs, our home. If we dun stop him, who weeyul?”

“So we are judge, jury, and executioner,” Marella said.

Everyone nodded soberly.

Tumbull lifted his glass. “For the Queen and all aboard her.”

They all clinked theirs with his and repeated his words.

“He likes power,” Marella said after a moment.

“Yes, so we offer him what he wants,” Kandy said.

Tumbull nodded. “It would have to be credible.”

Kandy tapped one well-manicured finger against her chin. “He’s always going on about how he could run the Queen better than Madame Calypso and the AI. He could get a recruitment offer. They could say they’ve been watching him, that he’s wasted in his current position.”

“I could do that part,” Marella said. “He’s never met me.”

“Okay. Then what?” Tumbull said. “He’d still have to get off the ship.”

Everyone fell silent.

“I got a ship in storage,” Bern said. “I won it gamblin’. It ain’t much, doesn’t e’en run well. And it’s costin’ me a fortune in storage fees. I’d give it up for this.”

“But you can’t just get him off the ship and hope he runs out of air or goes into the deep,” Thalia said. “He could be rescued or picked up for salvage. We have to be certain.”

Kandy smiled wickedly. “Leave that to me. And Bern, of course.”


Two days later, Thalia’s tablet chimed at shift end. PRIVATE MESSAGE FROM TUMBULL, the screen read. A video link that said WATCH ME sat below the header.

She went out to the empty hydroponics lab. Once settled on a stool, she clicked the link.

The time stamp on the video was for 1200 hours today. A split screen showed Marcus and Marella, with carefully styled hair, wearing a navy business suit and white blouse, talking.

“We’ve noticed your work, Marcus,” Marella said.

Marcus played it to the hilt, looking briefly appreciative before turning to full-on brash cockiness. “I’m pleased you’ve noticed. The Queen is a marvelous place. I think I can add a lot of value to the bottom line.”

“I think you have already. Sales numbers are up in your section. You’ve gotten a lot of personalized compliments from guests.”

He smiled, his bright, straight teeth flashing in the light.

“We think you could be better utilized, though.” Marella leaned forward to create some intimacy—and show some cleavage.

“Yeah? How?” Marcus clearly envisioned a promotion and maybe a roll in her bed.

She lowered her voice. “There’s a deal on a new bordello. How does general manager sound?”

Thalia marveled at the way Marella never actually offered the job. Marcus did a double take.

“General manager?” His eyes narrowed in suspicion. “That’s a big jump.”

“I was thinking you need something new to challenge you. Or did I misread your aspirations?”

He lifted his palms in a pushing movement. “No, you aren’t mistaken. I just figured it would take longer to work up to that kind of position.”

“Well, time is of the essence and a decision had to be made.”

Marcus licked his lips. “And the pay?”

Marella flicked her hand dismissively. “How does seven hundred and fifty thousand for a base, and a bonus based on profits sound?”

“Plus stock options,” Marcus said.

“I think that’s reasonable.”

Marcus grinned.

“Then we’re agreed?”

“Yes.”

Thalia watched his eyes flick back and forth as he thought, then he nodded sharply. “Count me in.”

“Be at dock twenty-three-A at oh-four hundred tomorrow morning.”

“That’s really fast.”

“As I said, time is of the essence, as is circumspection. Does that change your mind?”

“No, no, that’s fine. And you can count on my discretion.”

“Very good.” Marella signed off.

A smirk curled on Marcus’s cupid lips. “It was worth taking this shit job to climb that golden ladder,” he crowed to the blank screen. “That bordello will be mine before that Calypso bitch knows what hit her. Salfier’s. Yeah,” he murmured.

The video ended.

The clock was ticking. They were doing it! Thalia’s heart raced, fear dancing with trepidation in a beat that left her jittery.

A half hour later, Bern pinged her on their private group channel. “We got problems. Air handler’s dead.”

Trepidation changed the dance to a cha-cha of fear and disappointment.

“Get me video,” she sent.

A moment later, she had a jerky shot of the shuttle’s air module. It was old and a glance told her it had been poorly maintained.

“Press the master start controller.”

She walked him through troubleshooting, her belly falling faster with every failure code.

“You’re right. It’s hosed. It’s a private system, so we don’t have parts for it on the Queen.”

Her mouth squinched up so hard her lips hurt.

“Tumbull, that means we gotta scuttle the plan,” Bern said.

“No.” Thalia couldn’t let go so easily. “If we quit now, Marcus will take Marella’s offer as a joke on him and punish people in his frustration.”

“I agree,” Tumbull said and the other murmured agreement. “Work on the other issues.”

“I got a shift in four hours,” Bern said.

“I’ll do the best I can,” Thalia groaned. “Send the schematics over.”

He signed off and a file notice chimed on her tablet.

She opened it and took a breath. The system was simple, just a big tank of air with nodules to manage pressure and flow based on consumption. Whomever had owned the shuttle before had been constantly wearing an EVA suit for awhile.

Frustration and the added stress of this problem made her feel lightheaded. She rested her head on her elbows and breathed.

Then she got to work.

Two hours later, her supervisor, Woller, put his head in the door. He glanced at the tank and control board spread out on the bench. “Hey, I didn’t think that assembly on the ninth floor was that dated.”

Thalia looked up and blinked at him. Shit. She was supposed to be rebuilding a control assembly for a service module.

“Just stuff I found in a bin.”

He frowned. “It’s probably recycling.”

“Uh, yeah.” She turned to the cabinet behind her, rummaged around, her heart pounding. She slammed that drawer and opened another, pulling out a board with wires hanging off it.

“Here’s the assembly.”

Woller took it. “Thanks. Recycle that stuff once you’ve finished, will ya?”

“Sure thing, boss.”

He left and she sat there, her heart doing a two-step as sudden sweat trickled down her ribs.

Her hands shook as she reached out for the control board and hooked the tester to it. An hour later, she had a very primitive air system jiggered.

“Bern,” she said when he answered her ping. “I have a very simple working system ready.”

“Wayull, yer gonna have ta install it. The ignition up an’ died. Plus, I still got a shift in a hour.”

“No one would cover for you? I’ll throw in some Istban drip coffee and some fudge from Calos Station to sweeten the offer.”

He whistled. “Now that’s incentive. I appreciate that. I’ll ask Jer again.”

“Good. I’ll be there in an hour to install it.”

Off shift, the board tucked safely in her carryall and a five-gallon tank bumping against her thigh, she headed toward the dock.

Marcus stepped through a service door and saw her, a sneer growing on his full lips.

Thalia took a breath of air that seemed sharp and suddenly too thin. She actually checked her atmosphere sampler, then realized it was nerves. Would he know what she was doing?

No, he couldn’t. He knew so little at Hastings-Pfifer, she bet he barely recognized the parts.

“See, Jalty baby, I told you not to push me.” He looked over the tank and her dirty coveralls, and nodded. “Yeah, you got shown.”

She screwed up her resolve, met his gaze, pasted a smiled on her lips, and nodded as she pushed past him, his chuckle following after. Her back felt exposed, and the tank banged against her leg painfully. She took a shaky breath and let it out when she got into the elevator, her heart banging double time against her ribs.

Bern opened the shuttle hatch for her, letting out a puff of stale, sweat-laden air. She squeezed past him and the components scattered over the shuttle’s table.

“I got it,” the engineer said, waving a wrench over the pieces strewn around. “There’s enough fuel ta start the engine an’ get it goin’ in the right direction. Planet’ll do the rest.”

Thalia clapped him on the shoulder and made her way to the air supply cabinet. She muscled out the old parts and stowed them. The new board and tank went in smoothly, and checked out. “Pressurize the cabin before you leave,” she told Bern on her way out. “And flick the big green switch on the control board. That’ll be an adequate air supply.”

“Got it,” Bern said, never looking up from the switch he was building.

At 1950 hours, the private group channel pinged. “Got another problem,” Bern said. “Mah license is expired. Dock master won’t approve leavin’.”

“Crap,” Kandy said. “What now?”

“I take it you’ve already run through the possibilities, Bern,” Tumbull said.

“Yeah. But they’ll allow a auto pilot.”

“Then file it that way and put a disable switch with a timer on the auto pilot,” Thalia said.

“That’ll work. I’m on it,” Bern said, and clicked off.

After that, it was all bitten nails and tapping fingers until Thalia’s tablet chimed. A cheerfully blinking lilac link said WATCH THIS.

She saw the empty dock. A moment later, Marcus stepped in, carrying his duffel bag. An android greeted him, checked his badge, and led him to a port access. The video shifted to show Marcus strapped into his seat in a small shuttle watching a countdown.

At zero, the screen blinked and switched to an exterior dock camera. Thalia watched the shuttle fall away from the bordello, the engines flare, and turn into a tiny pinpoint of flame lost against the swirling clouds of the gas giant.

The screen blanked, then brightened to show Marcus punching buttons on the bridge station. “Hey, anybody. What’s going on with this ship? It’s going around the planet.”

“Marcus Salfier,” Marella’s voice said from the comm panel. “The ship is on course to the last icy rock in the string that is about to impact HC-246.”

Marcus blanched. “What? You told me I was going to be the general manager of your new bordello.”

“I never did.” Marella sounded affronted. “I only talked about a new venture, and your hopes and dreams. You just obeyed my instructions, went to the dock, and boarded this ship.”

Thalia felt her heart ping in sympathy as she watched Marcus work through Marella’s words, and the conversation they’d had.

Sweat broke out on his forehead. “Turn the ship around. Right now.”

“I’m afraid that’s not possible, Marcus. The route is programmed and locked. No one can do anything, and the only thing that works on the ship are incoming transmissions and nominal life support. But don’t fret. There are forty-five hundred people watching the show, and you’ll be part of the final act, providing many people a great deal of pleasure. Especially some of the ones that you used and abused.

“But not Thalia Jaltner,” Marella said. “Even though she knows that you’re too dangerous to just fire and be allowed to move on to the next unwitting victim, she refused to allow you to be simply put out an airlock. You should take comfort in that.”

Thalia could barely hear Marella for all Marcus’s screaming. Foam flecked his lips and his face turned a brilliant shade of red as he pounded his fists on the workstation. He cursed, shouting out foul phrases against the Queen, and the “bitch” who tricked him. He ran down, then revved back up to call Thalia weak and idiotic, stupid, and useless.

Thalia’s heart felt heavy. Justice was not always pretty and the right thing was often hard. But lots of people, here on the Queen and everywhere else, were now safe from him.

That made her happy. She caught the irony that she now had friends who knew her and cared about her, because Marcus had ruined her life. She decided to be grateful for that and leave the rest behind.

A chime sounded. “This is your ten-minute warning,” a feminine voice said over the common loudspeaker. “Ten minutes to showtime!”

Thalia deleted the link and scrubbed the files before heading to the commissary.


HC-246, the gas giant in the Hellat-Crisat system, filled the wallscreen at the far end of the commissary, and likely also filled every screen on the ship. The countdown, laid over one corner of the ruby-red and desert-orange swirling clouds, indicated a bit less than five minutes when she arrived.

Conversational murmuring, laughter, and the clink of glasses and dishes filled the room pleasantly. She nodded, wending her way through the tables, her heart beating with guilt and satisfaction at Marcus’s sentence.

Tumbull gestured melodramatically for her to join Bern, Kandy, and him at a four-top table. “Did you hear, dorogoy? There’s a huge sex party across the entirety of deck fourteen, and all the attendees aim to get off as the string starts punching the planet. Marella’s conducting one of the scenes and sends her regrets.”

He poured her a beer out of the pitcher on the table. “No one can find Marcus. He failed to show for his shift. They’re taking bets on how long it takes to find him and where he’s hiding.”

Thalia frowned at him. He shrugged and sipped his beer. Bern’s and Kandy’s faces were somber.

“I was the last to see him,” Kandy said. “Security interviewed me. I stopped saying no and played sweet on him because I knew you needed the extra time, Bern. What a douche. He shut the door and told me to get naked and on the bed.” She tched at the memory. “Then he kept asking me if I liked it.” Pressing a hand to her chest, she drawled, “I should get an acting award for how much I showed him I liked his pathetic, boring efforts.”

“Well, you took one for the team, and we appreciate it.” Tumbull said.

She bowed graciously.

“The ship has been paging him all morning,” Tumbull said.

“She’s had bots searchin’, too,” Bern said. “I heard there was a camera failure in a bunch’a sections an’ on one’a the dock bays.”

Thalia couldn’t bring herself to be pleased. But then she remembered Marcus was a monster, and that he had preyed on her friends. He’d had to be stopped. Permanently. She drank her beer. But she wasn’t happy.

A chime sounded and everyone looked to the screen on one end of the room. The line of seven diamonds approached the planet, pulled in by its gravity. One side of the screen showed the various bets. The most general was how large the impacts would be, but the one that cracked Thalia up was how many people on deck fourteen would pop in synch with the impacts.

The first one hit, creating a blue-black bruise amongst the ruby-and-orange clouds.

Several people pointed at the screen suddenly, murmuring or sucking in breath as they watched a tiny black speck on an intercept course with the last diamond. It disappeared behind the rock and never reappeared. Thalia killed her beer and poured another one as the rocks continued to rain down, wounding the planet.

She lifted her glass as the last one disappeared into the ruby-rust clouds and turned into a star-shaped bruise a moment later.

“To the sheep’a the Queen’a the Stars an’ the mules what watch out for ’em!” Bern said, lifting his glass. Tumbull and Kandy joined him. Thalia frowned, but clinked her glass to theirs and drank.

It seemed the least she could do.


The next day, the ship’s AI announced to the staff that the black spot, circled in white on an accompanying video, had been identified as an unauthorized shuttle stolen from one of the staff members by Marcus Salfier. “Madame Calypso and I regret that we were unable to help him through whatever emotional difficulties Marcus suffered from,” the ship’s AI said. “A memorial has been scheduled for fourteen hundred in the ship’s Galactic Ballroom.”

Only a handful of people showed up.

The staff buzzed with speculation that someone had drugged him and put him on board, to repay him for injuries he had perpetrated on them. The ship’s AI instituted an investigation into the rumor.

Kandy, his last victim, had been released from consideration as a person of interest, and several people bought her drinks or sent her bottles of wine and bouquets of flowers for a week.

A full diagnostic was performed on the ship’s security camera system.

The ship’s AI pinged Thalia a week later just as her shift ended. “Woller Senson has recommended you be promoted to a second-level technician and take the lead on the new air plant design project,” she said.

“But I don’t want it.” In truth, she was afraid to, still plagued by doubts about her abilities.

“Thalia, you saw fit to render rough justice aboard my ship. Consider this tit for tat.”

All the blood rushed out of her face and her belly flip-flopped.

“You all covered your tracks well,” the AI said, “but you forget, I am the ship. It takes more than Tralley tweaking my systems, or you all dumping your earpieces in a box, to conceal things from me. I know what you four did, and I know why.”

The ship knew, which meant Madame Calypso knew. Thalia felt ashamed, but defiant. She had not done it out of revenge, but necessity.

Maybe that wasn’t a real distinction, but she’d do it again to protect her friends.

“I’m sorry that Marcus slipped through the cracks,” the AI said. “HR has undergone a thorough review of hiring and complaint processes as a result. I’m sorry that your complaint did not make it to my attention, and you felt forced to take matters into your own hands. Madame and I are sorry that we were unable to protect you and the others. That is a top priority, and we failed you.”

“But even if my complaint had been heard, what would you have done?”

“Taken him off the ship.”

“He would have just moved on the same way he did before.”

“You must trust us, Thalia. We’re all in this together. Which is why you succeeded.”

“Why didn’t you just tell us?”

“I wanted to see if you would go through with it, how well you would plan it.”

“So you watched.”

“Humans are interesting. They talk a lot, but often don’t follow through. You and the others were truly concerned, not doing it for spite or to see a man die. You felt it was necessary, so you did it. So Madame and I decided there would be no repercussions.”

“But you just told me I had to accept this job. How is making me accept the job not a repercussion or a reason to trust you?”

The AI didn’t answer for a long moment, then it said, “Because you’re good at it. Or you were. I would imagine you’re a little rusty, and you need to catch up on current technology. But isn’t reclaiming what he took from you the best way to honor what you’ve done?”

“Oh.” Thalia thought about that, looking around the hydroponics lab.

She did love it. And the chance to design a completely new system made her heart lift and feel lighter than it had for years.

Yes. She wanted this.

“Besides, Madame cannot afford to lose out on talent. Bordello ships are very competitive, and we need to use every edge we can hone.”

“Thank you. I accept.”

“Then you had best get to studying. I have downloaded texts and papers on the latest in air plant design. On your own time.”

Thalia’s tablet chimed.

“Yes, ma’am.”

“I expect you will do your best as you always have.” The AI paused. “And Thalia? It is good to have a few mules on the Queen.”

Thalia grinned as she opened her tablet to scan the files.


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Framed