Chapter 19

Oh, but here came sunshine to tear up his good mood. Ravenna padded onto the bridge, her tail and head high. "Good morning, Fionn. Pit." She dipped her head to Pit, who nodded back tightly, not ready to believe the Koolie's apparent good mood. "I couldn't help but overhear your brief history lesson. Well done, though I have a few points to add."

Fionn rolled his eyes as he put his toenail clippers away and swung, surly, to his full upright position. "Of course you do."

"I choose to ignore that," Ravenna said serenely. She cast Pit a smile that was surprisingly free of scorn. "I merely wish to ensure you have the complete picture. Well, as complete as I've managed to assemble thus far. I'll walk you through it." She bounded up onto her chair and pawed at the controls to bring up the image of Chir from the night before, but this time the planet rapidly shrank to reveal its nearby neighbors.

From his now exclusive position on the floor, Pit grumbled, "I've won awards for how fast I read. You could just tell me what to look into."

The Koolie's shoulders slumped, and she didn't turn around. "That would have involved an extended and voluntary conversation with you this morning before you were fully awake, and while you were still quite grouchy," she said, "which wasn't on today's itinerary. Now. Chir, here, as you can see, is a far cry from central to any major point in known space. However..." A flick of her paw, and the display shifted so that Chir was in the center. "Look at this. If Chir itself is considered as the center of activity, the wheel-and-spoke pattern is suddenly obvious. Here, here, here...and possibly here."

Pit read the names of the planets and moons Ravenna pointed to: Nef II, Chir, Annatar, Makops. Each of them boasting a recent HAG outpost, some so quickly erected the buildings were still temporary, pilfered from an ample stock built up in wartime.

He'd stared at this map many times before, but somehow he'd missed this pattern, hadn't thought to put humble Chir at the center of it. His lip curled with disgust at himself. A sheepdog was schooling him on intelligence gathering. Maybe old age really was getting to him.

"Just over a decade ago, the Human Authority Government dispatched a group of scientists to Chir," Ravenna continued, and Pit found himself leaning forward to take in what she was saying. "Supposedly that group met with the mayor and some of the other top people in the capitol, Qual Cove, but I couldn't find anything explicitly confirming that. Qual Cove's top people had disappeared by the time the scientists went off-world again, presumably to give their reports."

Ravenna guided the display to flip through a series of im-logs, illustrating her account. "The city was renamed Chirtown without ceremony, the HAG put a new-and they said improved-desalination system in place, and many more of the platforms the farmers use as floating homes were air-dropped in and lashed to the outer edges until the city was five times its original size. The HAG quietly overhauled a small capitol city and turned it into a pleasure planet destination."

It happened before Pit's eyes: the surface of a peaceful but wild ocean world, cluttered by human debris and intent until it choked and surrendered. He had passed through Chirtown once, under the cover of night and only for a brief conversation with an informant. And that was years ago now, and he'd known nothing of its history. He shuddered, wondering how it would feel now to set foot on that planet.

Paw. How it would feel to set paw.

An impotent rage roiled in his chest for Chir and its legacy lost, and for his own lost humanity too.

His blood boiling, he tuned back in to hear Ravenna say, "Obviously..." and whatever else she would have followed that with was lost to his loud, affronted bark.

"Really?" he snapped. "You can't just say it, you have to qualify it with 'obviously'? You must have quite the education to be so oblivious."

Ravenna's teeth flashed at him as she whirled in her chair.

"Alright, alright, alright already." Fionn flung up his arms, twin pillars of muscle. "You two don't quit this petulant bickering, I'm ready to send at least one of you out the airlock. In a suit, of course. And no offense, Rave, you're not paying me, I'm paying you."

Ravenna turned fully to Fionn, her expression one of horror. "Seriously? After everything I've done for you?"

"Sorry, darling," Fionn said, looking truly apologetic, "I'd come back for you after the paying passenger got to where he's going. So-"

"You don't even know where that is," Ravenna interrupted.

Fionn glared at her. "So stop fighting. We're stuck together for who knows how long."

"And you expect me to put up with him? He's called me a bitch, he's called me arrogant and oblivious... Am I supposed to just let him waltz into my home and walk all over me? What the hell happened to all that self-respect you insisted I needed, you lout?"

The man and the Koolie were inches from each other's faces, both looking ready to snap. Pit leaned forward, his whole body tense with anticipation. Every fiber in his borrowed body wanted a fight.

Then, unexpectedly and with a nearly audible whoosh of relieved tension, they both broke away looking ashamed. "Sorry, love," Fionn said, his words intended only for Ravenna, so that Pit had to strain to catch them. "Was out of bounds there. It's been stressful. 'Course I'd pick you over him."

The Koolie put her paw on the dash between them. "I know. And I was out of bounds as well. Your ship, your rules. I respect that and I wasn't acting like it."

"Awwww," Pit said, "that was the lamest fight I've ever seen."

"It's called grace, flopears," Ravenna said, and she hiccupped as if trying to contain a chuckle. "Sometimes it actually stops conflicts before they get to the point where you get called in."

Pit swung his heavy head to see if Fionn would jump to his defense. Instead, the big man reached his hand over towards Ravenna's head and hesitated shy of touching her. She straightened slightly so her eartips brushed his fingers and he took it as permission, ruffling her between the ears.

The gesture made a deep, unquenchable sadness well up in Pit's throat. He tossed back his head for a mournful howl that brought both heads around.

"What was that for?" Ravenna said. Her tail swept across the seat and her ears pricked forward.

Pit's ears drooped. He stared at the floor between his paws.

He couldn't believe it, but he missed Jace.

"Nothing," he said out loud. "A little tension reliever. That's all. I'm not sulking," he added as he turned and slunk towards the bridge entrance. "Really. Just feel like some alone time."

Ravenna waited until he was nearly out of the room before she said, "You can have the hold for a while. I wasn't planning on heading back until later."

Pit almost thanked her, but his HUD told him he needed to find the waste room again. Fast. He heeded the call.