Christmas eve, 2059 ~ Spike

"Doohan! You promised."

Doohan's response was a wordless growl.

"You did. Here's the list you gave me. It's all finished, right down to the last bolt and speck of dust. You said if I finished it, I could take the Swordfish. Well, it's finished."

Doohan took the list, studied it as if he'd never seen it before, then balled it up and tossed it in the trash. "All right. You can take her. But be careful with her."

"I will."

"Kid, how can you stand there and lie to me with such a straight face? You'll get her out there and fly like a two-fisted maniac. I know you." He glared and pointed a finger. "If you wreck her and you don't get killed in the wreck, I'll make you wish you had."

"Come on, Doohan. Quit bitching and give me the key."

"Here. You got the shopping list?"

"I got it."

"Don't get into town and act like a fool."

Spike rolled his eyes. "I won't."

"Don't go drinking. Stay away from that pool hall. And stay away from the women there, they're all no good."

"OK, OK, Daddy, I'll be a good boy."

"And here." Doohan reached into his pocket and came up with a handful of 1,000w bills, which he pushed into Spike's hand. "Stay overnight. Have some fun."

Spike was so shocked, all he could say was, "Thanks."

"Don't thank me. You'll just blow it all on those things I told you to stay away from, and come back tomorrow with a hangover. Or worse. Go on, get out."

Already at the door, Spike retorted, "Well, you did say I should have fun." He dodged the wrench that came flying toward him and got out while he still could, grinning when he heard Doohan behind him saying, to no one in particular, that young kids today were worthless and he didn't know why he thought one would be any use.

He powered up the Swordfish with a rush of pleasure. In the six months he'd been here, although he'd piloted most of the aircraft and spacecraft, antique and modern, that belonged to Doohan or were brought to him to be fixed, he'd only been allowed to fly the Swordfish four times, and all four times under Doohan's strict supervision. But his pilot's license had come through a few weeks ago, and Doohan had run out of excuses for keeping him from flying alone into town. The list had been a last-ditch effort, and Spike had busted his butt to finish it. This was worth every minute of the work. As he took off and pointed the swift monoracer's nose toward the stars, he felt free, really free, for the first time in his life.

Grinning, he did exactly what Doohan didn't want him to do. He left the atmosphere and played dodge-'em amongst the asteroids and space trash that had formed a belt around the Earth since the Gate accident in '21. Past the belt and in deep space, he did a series of rolls and twists out of sheer exuberance. Then he began what he considered work. He had a training schedule in his mind, culled from his mother's martial arts discipline and applied to what he needed and wanted to learn about flying a fighting monoracer. He began with tests meant to show him the limits and teach him the "feel" of the Swordfish, did some basic combat maneuvers against an imaginary enemy and some target practice with some space trash, and finished up by zigzagging back down through the asteroid belt at top speed.

He landed outside of Deadwood with an hour to go before sunset. Even in space, the three hours he'd spent had used up some fuel, so his first task was to refuel so Doohan wouldn't notice. Then he shrugged into his jacket and walked to the top of Main Street.

Deadwood was aptly named, a small dusty collection of aged wooden buildings leaning on each other as if for support, possessing only one real road. A town that slept all day in the blast of the desert sun, it did show a little life after dark, when the bars opened and people from the surrounding settlements flew in for a night's relaxation. He got a room in one of the little hotels at the edge of town, where it was cheaper and quieter. Then, with Doohan's list in hand, he went to Zorda's General Store and loaded up on supplies on Doohan's credit, adding out of his own pocket a bottle of single-malt Scotch as a surprise Christmas present for the old man. By the time he'd finished the shopping and arranged for delivery, night had fallen in the abrupt way a desert night had, and he was ready to have some fun. Naturally, despite the assurances he'd made to Doohan, he headed straight for The Rack, Deadwood's best pool hall. He intended to obey one of Doohan's strictures. He didn't plan to drink. His money would be better spent, in his mind, on some good games of pool. One out of three wasn't bad, and as for the third, the no-good women... well, he'd worry about that if it happened. He had great hopes for one, a pretty little package named Ann Ripley who hung around The Rack with her brothers and with whom he'd been getting very friendly lately. Without Doohan around, maybe he could sneak her away from her brothers and get lucky. If he did, it would be his first time ever, but that didn't worry him much. Back in Alba City, he'd been a lot more popular with girls than with other guys, and by now he had enough experience to figure the whole thing came natural, once you actually got there. It was the getting there that was hard.

When he pushed through the door of The Rack, a harried-looking waitress came bustling up to him. "Hey, Spike. A beer?"

"Sure. Thanks, Brin, and no rush, I'm not thirsty. Is there a free table?"

"They'll be quitting #4 in a few minutes," she told him, and whisked off.

He'd played a lot of pool in the District, but when he'd first come here, he'd been away from it for months and was worried he might have lost his touch. Much to his delight, he discovered he was even better. He was taller, for one thing, and the awkwardness that normally accompanied growth spurts was negated by his mother's training. Since he always lost with the same cheerfulness as he won, he had no trouble finding opponents. Table 4 cleared, and he settled in for a good night.

Midnight came and went, but The Rack didn't close until the last customer staggered out, so Spike kept playing, pretty much breaking even, and as contented as he could possibly be, achieving the height of his ambition for the night when he was pointed out to a late arrival as a guy who would give him a decent game.

At 2:00 AM he was yawning and beginning to think of calling it quits. The crowd had thinned, and he didn't have an opponent at the moment. He racked up the balls to practice a few breaks before he went back to the hotel, and was carefully sighting down the cue when someone spoiled his concentration by sitting on the edge of the pool table just by his left elbow. He looked over, ready to snarl, until he saw that the butt parked there was small, well-shaped, and female. His eyes moved up to a blouse which was tied to reveal a bare midriff and had enough buttons undone to make it abundantly clear that there was nothing but female under the cloth, then up further to full lips painted red, a short-cropped cap of artlessly tumbled dark curls, and a pair of big blue eyes twinkling at him from a pixieish face. The cute butt was clad in a short skirt which revealed most of a pair of long, slim, silky-looking bare thighs. The rest of her legs were good, too, and she wore sandals that showed off a pair of exquisitely-shaped ankles, but his gaze wandered from those right back up to her thighs, which he stared at past any polite amount of time. "Hey, Ann. Aren't you cold, dressed like that?"

She laughed and crossed her legs, which put his body and mind into a pleasant confusion. "Not in this place. It's always too hot in here, even in December. You want another beer?" she asked, handing him one of the two bottles in her small hands. Her voice was light, pretty, musical. He'd always liked it. "After all, I bought this one for you. Mind if I watch you break while I finish drinking mine?"

He'd recovered enough presence of mind to shrug coolly and say, "Whatever you want," while mentally he was on his knees begging her not to go away. He broke badly, his concentration totally skewed because of the way she licked the beer foam from her lips after drinking. While she finished her drink, however, he somehow managed to sink all the balls in sequence, and by the time he was done, he was so focused that he'd actually forgotten her. Her applause as the last ball dropped into the pocket startled him.

"Not bad," she smiled. "You know, you keep promising me a game, but we haven't gotten around to it yet. What about now?"

He slipped an arm around her waist. Under his hand, her skin was smooth and cool, and he said truthfully, "The way you're dressed? You'd have a handicap I could never beat."

She giggled, pleased, and didn't move away from him. "Where's your dad?" she asked.

"Doohan's not my dad."

"Well, he acts like it. So where is he?"

"He didn't come in with me tonight."

She looked up at him speculatively. "Then you're all by yourself?"

"I was until you got here." He glanced around. "Where are your brothers?" He'd already had to beat up the two of them on his last trip to town, when they'd caught him kissing Ann. Well, kissing her and a few other things they'd taken exception to.

Her smile brought out the dimples in her cheeks. "They're in New Vegas for the week, working."

"So you're all by yourself, too."

"I was until a little while ago. But," she slid out from his arm and hopped down from the pool table, "I just dropped in for a friendly game. If you don't want to play, I think I'll just go home."

"I'll walk you home, then."

Her lips curved upward again, slowly. "That would be really nice," she said.

He'd never have a better chance, so he risked saying, "Or if you want, I've got a room in the hotel just up the road. We can go there for a while. It's still early."

"Spike, it's 2:30."

"I'm not tired." He had been until she'd sat on the pool table. "Are you?"

She shrugged into a pink jacket, picked up her purse, then stood on her toes to kiss him. She took her time and used a lot of tongue. "No, not a bit tired," she said blithely when she finally broke away.

He'd heated up like a piece of sheet metal left out in the sun, but he didn't let her see that. He just casually draped an arm around her shoulders and steered her out the door, grinning at Brin when she gave him a thumbs-up as they left.

As far as Doohan's strictures went, that night he ended up settling for one out of three without a single regret. Doohan got Scotch for Christmas, but Spike got to unwrap something much better.

~ : ~ : ~ : ~ : ~ : ~ : ~ : ~

Christmas eve, 2059 ~ Vicious

Crys' message light was flashing when she got home from her last-minute shopping that morning. Hoping it didn't mean the Christmas party was canceled, she put off checking it and took her groceries into the kitchen to put them away instead. The cupboard where she kept her wine was full, so to make room for her New Year's champagne, she pulled out a bottle of whiskey. With a grimace, she opened the bottle and poured the stuff down the drain. Whiskey had been Vicious' drink, not hers. He hadn't lived here in two months, so it was time to start ditching the mementos.

She missed him. She supposed she always would. But she had known from the beginning that, with their differences, eventually he would grow away from her. In a way, she had also grown away from him, more and more with every bit of evidence she saw of his increasing power in the Red Dragons, but beginning, she knew, on the day Barbara Spiegel had died.

Her love for him hadn't diminished. She sometimes wondered if she would ever be able sit on her couch or sleep in her bed without feeling his presence. However, she had consolations. Their parting had been mutual and friendly, and they were still friends. Nor had he replaced her. He lived alone now, and every time she saw him, if he was with a woman at all, it was with some syndicate slut. And never the same one twice.

Still, although they occasionally spoke, she was surprised to hear his voice on her machine when she finally collected her message. "It's me. Call me when you get home," he said, typically taciturn. Frowning a little, wondering what he wanted, she punched in his number.

What he wanted was to take her out to dinner that evening. "Vicious! It's Christmas eve!" she protested.

"I never heard that there's a law against going out on Christmas eve."

"I have plans already. I made them last month."

"Oh. Of course." There was a brief silence, and since she knew what he was thinking, she started to grin. She wondered if he would even ask. He did. "You have a date, then?"

"No," she said, still grinning. "Just a party. All my friends. You don't want to come. You wouldn't like it."

He chuckled. "Neither would your friends. Sorry. I didn't think ahead."

"You called me on impulse? You?"

"It's been known to happen."

"What about tomorrow, then? Nobody should be alone on Christmas day."

The short pause warned her. "I won't be. Mao Yenrai always throws a Christmas party."

"And you're invited. My my, your social life sure has picked up."

"It's business, Crys. You're my only real social life."

"That's pathetic."

He was amused. "Isn't it?"

Sparring with him was always so much fun. She began to think that she would probably not be missed in the large party her friends had planned, and that she really wanted to see him again. "I'll make you a deal."

"I'll think on it. What deal?"

"The Sultans are in town tonight, at the Blackbird Club. It's been a sell-out since October. They're my favorite band. If you can get two tickets for that, I'll go out with you."

"I don't like jazz."

"You don't like music. But I do. That's the deal. Take it or leave it."

"I'll take it."

"If you can get the tickets. Even big bad syndicate guys might have trouble with that!"

"Give me a few hours."

"Sure," she drawled.

Still, she wasn't surprised when, two hours later, she answered her door chime to a kid about 12 years old, with a chipped front tooth and a cocky attitude. "Hey, are you Crys Mara... Ma..." He dug a piece of paper out of his pocket. "Maranovya? Jeez, lady, what kind of name is that?"

"A hard-to-pronounce one. Yes, that's me."

"Here." He handed her an envelope. When she reached for her purse, he shook his head. "Naw, that's already took care of."

She pressed the woolongs into his hand anyway. "I won't tell him," she promised.

"Thanks, lady!" He winked at her and was gone.

She shook her head ruefully as she shut the door. Vicious had more hangers-on now than she could count, but the ones he liked best were always the cocky ones. She opened the envelope, looked inside, and whooped with glee. Not only had he gotten tickets to the concert, he'd gotten a front row table and backstage passes. Spreading the tickets on her coffee table to gloat over them, she mused, I should have known better. Sweetheart, I swear, there is nothing you can't do if you put your mind to it.

~ : ~ : ~ : ~ : ~ : ~ : ~ : ~

Summer 2060 ~ Spike

According to Doohan, unlike most planets Ganymede had two seasons: the rainy season, and the monsoon season. However, as far as Spike had seen, it didn't rain there any more than on Mars. The Ganymede 4X Monorace was always held in the summer, a hangover from the Earth tradition, and so far it had never been rained out, despite all Doohan's gloomy predictions.

The race was still two weeks away, but it was only Spike's fourth race, by far the biggest, and he wanted to remain undefeated. The Swordfish had made the other races nothing more than surmountable challenges, but this one, Doohan promised him, "will knock you down to size." He insisted on daily practice, which suited Spike just fine. He still hadn't outgrown his joy of flying the Swordfish. He and Doohan had modified her, and he was sure she was the fastest monoracer ever. All he had to do was fly her and not screw up.

Doohan had brought him all the way out here to the edge of civilized Ganymede and placed beacons in a pattern, similar to the ones used in the race. Spike was flying from one to the other as fast as he could, exactly as if he had opponents chasing his tail. Doohan had given up trying to make him more cautious during practice long ago, before their first race, in New Toronto on Earth. During practice then, he'd yelled to Spike not to wreck the ship and Spike had yelled back, "Caution never won a race, Doohan! And you want me to win, right?" Doohan had growled that he didn't give a damn if Spike won but he did want the Swordfish to win, and since she had, he had never again tried to tell Spike how to fly practice runs.

The 4X was a dual level race, so after tagging the beacons in space, Spike was back in the atmosphere and skimming over the ocean. This far out, there was almost no traffic, so he was able to practice surfing without being held up by having to avoid some lumbering fishing craft cutting across his path. The next beacon was in a half-circle of islands, and he had to slow to weave through them. When he'd tagged the beacon and come out again, he realized he was no longer alone. About 10 km behind him, another ship was coming, moving very fast and right off the surface of the water, so close that he was striking up flume with his jets.

Spike's first thought was that the guy was another racer, and it pissed him off that he was trying to horn in on Doohan's work, so he dipped a wing and swooped down to cut the guy off. By the time he leveled, however, he'd realized this was no racer. The guy was coming too straight and way too fast, and he bypassed the islands completely. Spike waggled his wings, an invitation to race, and although the other guy didn't slow down at all, over the communications link crackled a cheery, "Lets see what you've got, Red."

Grinning, Spike swung the Swordfish into the guy's flight path, let him catch up, and as he shot past, fired his jets and took off after him. Doohan's voice snarled, "What the hell are you doing?"

"Just a little racing," Spike said happily.

The other guy was flying a Leontine 4-alpha, a good ship, small and very agile, and fast enough, but without the speed of the Swordfish. Even with a handicap, Spike caught up with him in less than two minutes. The Leontine's pilot, a dark-haired young man scarcely older than Spike, glanced at him as he pulled alongside, laughed, and said, "What else you got?" Then he whipped right toward a power island, going vertical to cut narrowly between the two solar plates. Whistling appreciatively, Spike did the same, and when Doohan started to cuss, he turned off his link and, in silent concentration, began to race in earnest.

The other guy was good, and he apparently knew his way around this area. He got the most out of the little Leontine, and whenever Spike caught up with him, he'd find some other place to dodge into. They were approaching the more populated areas now, so there was plenty of challenge, and Spike stayed with him, grinning. He'd never had so much fun.

That there was more to the game than fun never occurred to him, not until the Leontine suddenly made a tight one-eighty and headed directly at him. With a yelp he pulled the Swordfish's nose up, then up more sharply as it became obvious that the maniac was going right under him. For a second he was soaring skyward, and then for the first time he saw that a third monoracer had joined them, and he was flying directly into its path. He banked fast as the other craft put on its reverse thrusters full, but they still clipped. He spun, leveled out, then hit the water hard.

For a few seconds after the Swordfish stopped moving, he just sat there, counting his bruises. The Leontine was nowhere in sight, but the racer he'd clipped was in the water and coming up behind him. It was a cop cruiser. That figures. Just my luck. And it wasn't one of the local boys, either, but one of the big white ISSP cruisers. Even as he realized it, he felt the gentle nudge of a magnetic grapple catching the Swordfish.

He was in big trouble.

The pod still worked, so he opened it and stood up, trying a smile on the ISSP cop who was already leaping from his own ship onto the wing of the Swordfish. He was a big, burly guy, but he moved nimbly and had no difficulty with the shifting of the Swordfish on the water. His expression was grim edging toward angry, and Spike tried a friendly smile and an equally friendly, "Hey, Officer."

That was as far as he got before a big hand closed on his collar and yanked him straight out of the pod. "You're under arrest."

"Arrest? Why? What'd I do?"

His bewilderment didn’t seem to faze the cop, who spun him around and quickly grabbed his wrists and snapped on a set of handcuffs.  "Interference with an officer of the law in pursuit of a fugitive."

"Interference with …what?" He twisted his head around to tell the guy, "Look, you got this whole thing all wrong."

The cop gave him an icy stare. "If you’d like to add resisting arrest, I'll be happy to oblige.  And since you were flying with Dozanti, I might find anything from XXXX to Sea Rat eggs with a vehicle search.  You have the right to remain silent…."

Spike listened incredulously as the cop droned out his rights.  If I end up in jail for the race, Doohan is going to kill me. But he wasn't going to get any sympathy from this guy. He made the decision that being a polite citizen was his best bet, and waited for the cop to finish before looking back again and saying, "I understand all that. You're welcome to look, but you won't find anything illegal in my ship. And I don’t know anybody named Dozanti. If you mean the guy in the Leontine, I was just racing him, that's all."

His nice-guy act wasn't getting through too well. The cop had an "I've-heard-this-all-before" expression. "If you were 'just racing', why didn't you respond to my order to get out of my way?"

Oh. "Uh... I had my link turned off?"

The cop wasn't the careless, trusting type. He spun Spike around, slamming him back into the side of the Swordfish to pin his arms, and then glanced into the pod to check the link. "You know, you're either the biggest smartass of a smuggler I've come across, or you're even stupider than you look. Why is your link off?"

"You know how bosses are. Mine was yelling at me, and I was trying to fly. Hey, I'm a race pilot. I'm entered in the 4X. How about you let go of me, and I can show you the entry disk and papers? They're in the pod."

The cop's grip switched, and Spike was facing the Swordfish again. "How about you just stand there and shut up, and I'll check for myself?"

"Sure. Be my guest." He could have freed himself at any point – nothing the cop had done had been outside what his mother had taught him, and he'd been able to get out of cuffs since his days in the District. But freeing himself would do him no good, whereas being friendly and cooperative might. Despite his gruffness and his hard-ass attitude, this cop didn't seem like the brainless bully that most of them were.

The cop flipped on the link, and Doohan's voice blistered the air. He turned it off again without speaking, then checked the race disk and papers thoroughly. Satisfied, he returned everything to its proper place, stepped up out of the pod and grabbed Spike's collar, turning him toward the cruiser. "Lets go."

"Hey, wait a minute," Spike protested. "Those papers are real!"

"Yes, they are. But just because you're entered in some race doesn't mean you're not a friend of Dozanti and that you didn't deliberately interfere with a police pursuit."

"Come on, you know I didn't do it on purpose."

"Save it for the judge. I don't need to waste my time explaining things to some punk who just screwed up nine months of detective work with his reckless flying – on purpose or not."  He jerked Spike roughly around to face a large, red-scraped dent in the ISSP cruiser's side. "Do you have any idea how long it takes to requisition repairs?  Well, you can spend a little of that time to think about how to choose your playmates more carefully." He thrust a finger towards the Swordfish's link controls. "You're allowed one call.  You can make it here, or back at the station. Makes no difference to me. But you might want to let the owner know that he's going to have to make bail if he wants Junior Birdman out in time for the race."

Spike slumped, resigned. "I don't think they'll delay the race for that many years."

"My heart bleeds."

Spike was trying to come up with another idea when the cop's phone beeped. Growling irritably, he released Spike again, stepped away, out of reach, and flipped up the screen. "What!"

"Where the hell are you? I need back-up!"

"For what?" he snapped. "Lunch?"

"Dozanti. He came tearing my way like the devil was right behind him, and I figured you were. But you never showed. He didn't see me, and I put him on the deck. He's shipping a little water and I've got the cannon on him, but he won't come out of the pod, and when I hailed him, he shot at me. So I could use some back-up from my partner."

The cop gave Spike a murderous look, then spoke into the link. "I've got a little baggage to deal with here, but I'm on my way."

"Baggage? What baggage?"

"Some idiot who got in my way and clipped my cruiser. Otherwise, I'd be calling you for back-up. Or rather, I'd be calling you to go buy lunch while I took Dozanti in."

Spike stretched his neck to see what was going on between the cop and his partner.  He caught sight of a face in the comlink screen that stared back at him for a moment, then stretched into a startled grin.  "Son of a bitch!"

The big cop looked down at his partner's face in alarm, apparently thinking that Dozanti had made a break for it. But the partner said, "That's Spiegel!"

"What?"

"Spiegel.  Spike Spiegel.  He's piloting the Swordfish on Saturday."

"Yeah, I know."  He didn't sound particularly interested.

But now the face in the screen was addressing Spike. "You're Spiegel, aren't you kid?"

Spike grinned and said, "That's me, Officer."

"Damn! I've got money on you and that ship! Hey, Black Dog. Let go for once, and get your ass over here. Back up, remember?"

For a moment, cop's face wore a mixture of indecision and annoyance.

"Remember last Friday night," the partner said. "You owe me."

Spike heard the big cop utter an oath under his breath. "Have it your way!" he snapped, but somehow he seemed relieved at being given an out.

Spike heard the dim report of firearms over the phone, then the other man's voice. "Damn, our little friend is getting restless.  Ditch the kid and get over here!"

"All right, all right! Keep your shirt on. Dozanti's not going anywhere. I'll be there in a couple of minutes," he said, and snapped the phone shut. He said to Spike, "Kid, this is your lucky day."

Spike's hands had been busy behind his back while they were talking, and now he smiled and handed him the cuffs. "I know. Here you go. Thanks, it's been a real pleasure."

The cop took the cuffs with a grudgingly wry twist of his mouth. "You don't live on Ganymede, do you?" he asked.

"Nope. I live on Earth. Why?"

"Earth. That figures. As for why, it's because I don't want to run into you again. If I do, I'm likely to take you in just for being a general nuisance and a hazard to the public. Got it?"

"Got it," Spike said cheerfully, dropping into the Swordfish's cockpit. "It's been fun."

The cop thrust a finger at him. "Don't push your luck." The Swordfish rocked slightly when the grapple was released.

Spike grinned. "Tell your buddy his money is safe, because I'm going to win that race."

"Not only a smart-ass but a cocky smart-ass. Push off before I change my mind. You're starting to annoy me even more than Dozanti does."

Laughing, Spike closed the pod and gentled the Swordfish away from the cruiser. He lowered the water foils as the cop blasted past him, but didn't take off immediately. Instead, he turned on his link and let Doohan's familiar voice fill the cockpit while he drifted for a few minutes with the current, trying to calm down, reminding himself that he was of age now and had nothing to fear from cops. Not even big grouchy ones.

Then Doohan demanded to know if he was listening, and he slowly smiled. He had one thing to fear from cops still. If he'd been arrested, Doohan would have taken his hide off in strips. He sat back, stretched, put his hands behind his head, and said, "Yeah, yeah, Doohan, I'm listening."

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