Journey Through the Marches IV
By Rango Mirshari

We were all a little edgy when we went into jump. Even though we know the Zhos wouldn't be able to follow us - their engines were shot -- we had no idea what to expect.

Tara wants to turn one of the labs into an exercise room, but caught some flak from the captain. Finally she managed to persuade him, but after eliciting promises that she'd be able to convert it back, I heard him muttering, "What next, a brothel out of sick bay?"

When Dr. Betz did a final check of our unexpected "passengers" (the 20 individuals in cold sleep) he found something startling: one of the women (you knew he was going to check them out first, right?) looked exactly like Erzuli. Could have been her twin sister -- and when he did a DNA test, discovered that they were. Well...if not twins, then one was a clone. Further tests showed that of the two, Erzuli -- our Erzuli, the one that's awake and usually not happy to see me -- is the elder.

Erzuli was understandably spooked by this discovery. I tried to make a joke, to cheer her up (I suggested that maybe her clone will be nicer than she -- probably not the best thing to say given the circumstances, but I was a little spooked, too) but no success.

We decided to leave the faux-Erzuli in cold sleep until the ship had fewer passengers. I think I saw Dr. Betz poking around the cold-sleep berths of two other women (I noted they were both very attractive) but I didn't stick around to see what he was planning to do. Some things I don't want to know.

That night, I was awakened by something I'd never yet heard on the Lady Leroy: the sound of general quarters.

From what I learned after the fact, the captain was awakened by the sound of a gunshot (a slugthrower on a ship!) and sounded the alarm before running onto the bridge. There he found Gram, half his head blown off, and two strange men on the bridge. The first fired the firearm at the captain, while the other was working quickly at the environmental station -- as we learned later, to vacc the ship.

The captain fired his laser at the first and hit the first man in the head -- and killed him, instantly. Erzuli, whose berth is maddeningly close to the bridge (you'd think they'd give me a berth in the crew area, after so many jumps together, but no…), arrived in time to incapacitate the other.

The doctor pumped him full of drugs and they got him to talk: he and his pal were mercenaries after their captain - remember Captain Krimm, of the Antigone? - who had snuck aboard while we were emptying the Zho ship of its unauthorized passengers.

Gram will pull through, the doctor says, though he has a pretty fearsome scar on the right side of his head now. The alert was explained to our regular passengers as a "false alarm." The captain was not pleased to discover the mercenaries' base is at Shinothy 2306. Apparently that's our final destination.

Our regular passengers are more - shall we say - entertaining. Fred found a welcome audience in Edmord - the ambassador's historian - and when I passed them in the p-way, he was giving the guy a very thorough explanation about how the drives worked. If anyone can make that topic interesting (to someone besides an engineer), it's Fred.

Some strange things going on aboard the ship, though. I caught Tara sneaking out of Al's quarters several times. Al! Who would have thought the boy had it in him to entertain Tara? More interesting was the doctor sneaking into our "mysterious passenger's" cabin. He brought her dinner several times during the course of our time in jump space.

When we jumped into Vlaven we were greeted with the news that Lucan is emperor. Lucan. It'll take me a while to get used to that idea.

Fred oversaw the maintenance on the ship while Gram and Druett went in search of fun…Was it me, or did they come back looking a little worse for wear? Gram's right ear looked a bit chewed.

Erzuli is definitely not her normal self. I leered at her and she didn't even glare at me. Tara says she's seen her meditating a lot. I suppose finding out that someone's cloned you would certainly put a damper on your mood.

The debate on what to do with the people in cold sleep continues. Fred wants to auction them off to the highest bidder, but so far has been stymied. Finally the captain decided to go to Cleon Choorsi and ask her opinion. She listened politely and said she'd think it over - but though we're about to come out of jump, she hasn't commented yet.

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