Persephone Astrid's YarrJournal

Momentarily left to her own devices while still seated at the bar, Persephone looked at the two glasses of alcohol in front of her and steeled her resolve. Guys drink stuff like this, she told herself. So let’s learn how it’s done. Taking a deep breath, she reached for the first drink, a shot of pure grain alcohol flavored with only a splash of grenadine.

“Oi! Persephone, you’re out of hospital!” Bellowed a familiar voice from the pub’s doorway. Persephone stopped what she was doing and looked to the doorway, where she saw RoninData, the CEO of The Bastards. Easily two heads taller than Persephone and solidly-built, the pirate boss strode through the pub with the self-assured swagger of a man who leads a feared corporation of bloodthirsty pirates. (Because that’s what he does.) The combat vest he wore over his tight-fitting black tee supported a dizzying array of pouches and pockets, and it was easy for an onlooker to assume that each concealed a unique weapon or implement of destruction, or perhaps numerous small bottles of alcohol.

“Ronin!” Persephone shouted in return, waving cheerfully without rising. She refrained from inviting him to sit beside her, because it was quite apparent to her that he already intended to do just that.

“Well look at you,” RoninData said as he plopped into the bar stool to Persephone’s left. He spoke in a rapid stream of words, and Persephone did her best to follow along. “All in once piece again, a’ight? Of course you are. Oh, what’s that you’re having? Smart bomb is it? Way to go.” He casually picked up the shot of grain alcohol and held it aloft. “To your health!”

Persephone took that as a cue, and she took the other shot glass, the whiskey chaser, and returned the gesture. “Thank you very mu–”

“Pah! That’s strong stuff,” RoninData interrupted. He’d downed the shot in the brief span of time that Persephone had been speaking, and resumed his monologue, seemingly unfazed by the strong drink. “Good stuff this, it’ll put hair on your chest, am I right? Not that you’d want that, of course.”

“Actually,” Persephone began, seeing the opportunity to broach the very subject which had been weighing on her mind.

“Nah of course not; you’re a right nutter you are, you know that a’ight?” He asked rhetorically. “The way you put your head in there and tackle all the time, absolute nutter, fearless, and we love you for it. Absolutely terrific having you in the Hellcats like that.”

“Um, yes, about that–” Persephone tried to interject.

“We should have another round, what do you say?” RoninData continued, undeterred. “Barman!”

Rayford looked toward RoninData and Persephone from the other end of the bar, where he’d been busy tending to the pub’s other patrons.

“Another smart bomb if you please!”

Rayford nodded and finished what he had been doing before retrieving the volatile ingredients from the fireproof vault underneath the bar.

“So how are you feeling?” RoninData asked Persephone, confident that his drink order would be tended to promptly. He took note of Persephone’s outfit. “You’re looking pretty rough and ready for action there, not your usual eh?”

“Yeah, that’s because–” Persephone said, hoping that if she tried to speak her mind often enough, she might eventually get lucky and break through RoninData’s seemingly impervious word-tank.

“Ah thank you mister,” Ronin said to Rayford, who had set the two shot glasses on the bar. He turned his attention back to Persephone and hoisted the second shot of red-tinted grain alcohol. The toast sounded more like a command when he said it: “Bottoms up!”

Blinking, Persephone hoisted her own glass and slugged back the shot of whiskey. The first one had burned her throat on the way down. This one went down more smoothly and then seemed to light a cozy campfire upon arriving  in her stomach. She wondered how many more rounds she could endure.

“You’re awfully quiet,” RoninData said, setting his glass down with a firm thud on the bar.

“I’ve been trying–” Persephone began.

“That’s something else I like about you,” RoninData said, running away with the conversation again. “In the Bastards, we’re all pretty proud and loud, and everyone’s got a lot to say, but you’re always right there just saying ‘roger that’ and ‘got the point’ and so on, all business, no chatter. Don’t you ever have anything to say? Tell me something about yourself that I don’t know, a’ight?”

Aha! Persephone thought. This is my opportunity! “Well, it’s funny you should ask–”

“I mean, girl like you, probably got lots of secrets, you know?” RoninData resumed. “Who are you, where do you come from, what do you like to do in your time away? Probably got a lot to say about everyone in the corp and the things we do, and–”

“I’M TURNING INTO A GUY!” Persephone shouted, no longer willing to wait patiently.

RoninData stopped cold. He stared, stock still, his mouth a thin line, with his eyebrows arched only slightly. Persephone had caused him to stop speaking– for a moment she wondered if he was even breathing. She glanced at her wristwatch and noted the time, for posterity. At this time on this date, Persephone Astrid got a word in edgewise, she noted. Nearby conversations also ceased momentarily, and Persephone could feel the weight of a dozen pair of eyes settle upon her, even without looking around the pub.

“Sorry?” RoninData replied, cocking his head inquisitively.

“I’m turning into a guy,” Persephone said more quietly. She noticed that most of the pub patrons were returning to their own conversations again. ”Part of my brain got misaligned or something when I was podded last week and it’s only a matter of time before I get the urge to just be a man all the time. At least, that’s what the doctor has told me. She showed me some before and after images of my brain scan, and there is a small difference, and I’ve been feeling a lot different since I woke up, too, with crazy mood swings and so on. It’s a lot to sort through all at once, you know?”

“Okay then,” RoninData said, taking a breath and pausing to think for a moment. “You’re not having me on are you?”

“Not a bit,” Persephone replied, shaking her head. “I couldn’t make up something this weird.”

“Fair play,” RoninData said, mulling over the possibilities. “So how’s that work, then? You’re going to get some kind of surgery or the like, I’ll bet?”

“Whoa,” Persephone said, her eyes wide. “I– I think that’s really premature. Besides, how would that even work? I mean, who would be the donor?”

RoninData chuckled at the absurdity of Persephone’s question. “Maybe we can talk Kamoonga into it,” he said with a chuckle. “You know he’s got three of what most guys have two of, right? That’s what the word ’Kamoonga’ means.”

Persephone laughed into her hand, covering her mouth. “I did not know that,” she said after she’d recovered.

“I’ve only heard this third-hand, of course,” RoninData backpedaled, realizing he’d possibly created the wrong impression. “I have certainly not verified this myself.”

“Of course,” Persephone said with a nod and a smile.

“Of course?” RoninData arched his eyebrows and cocked his head questioningly.

“I believe you!” Persephone reassured RoninData, raising her hand as if swearing an oath. “You have definitely not personally set eyes upon Kamoonga’s three testicles.”

“That’s right,” RoninData nodded with certainty. He changed the subject away from that topic. “You know, turning into a man, you would be disqualified from membership in the Hellcats.”

“I know,” Persephone frowned. “I’ve been thinking about that.”

“Tell ya what, have the best of both worlds,” RoninData suggested, seizing upon an idea. “We’ll transfer you to the Bastards, what do you say? We fly together with the Hellcats all the time anyway, and you know all of us, so it wouldn’t be all that much of a change.” He paused a moment to consider the implied meaning of what he’d just said. “Well, not much of a change compared to that other big change, I mean.”

Persephone considered that, and nodded slowly. “That makes sense, I guess. Yeah, the only thing I’d be missing out on are the Hellcats-only operations. Everything else would be just as usual,” she said, thinking out loud.

“Outstanding,” RoninData smiled wide and offered a handshake. “Just file an application for the sake of formality, and you’re in.”

Persephone returned the handshake, and then winced in pain as RoninData crushed her hand in his grip. “It’s a deal,” she gasped.

“We’ll teach you a proper strong handshake, too,” he replied with a wink. “A’ight, look, I’ve got to run– we’re going to go remind Nato’s Indies to stay on their toes. You coming with?”

“I’m still on a medical hold,” Persephone frowned, regretfully. “Grounded for another 48 hours.”

RoninData jumped to his feet, and left the bar stool where it stood instead of pushing it beneath the bar. He took Persephone’s hand and pumped it once more, vigorously. “You get better, and get that app submitted, and we’ll sort out the rest. We’ll be damed glad to have you.”

“Thank you,” Persephone smiled, pushing aside the worrisome thought that this was all happening too quickly. “It’ll be good to be on board.”

“You’re a good troop!” RoninData called over his shoulder as he left.

Persephone sank back into her bar stool, exhausted from the exchange. She blew out her breath in a puff and looked at her reflection in the mirror over the bar back. Could this be the face of a Bastard? she wondered. Oh, why not? Persephone retrieved her PDA from a cargo pocket on her pants and began tapping on its screen, pulling up the appropriate forms to submit her application to RoninData’s pirate corporation.

To be continued.

Persephone Astrid tapped the wall-mounted panel which activated the sliding doorway into The Fighting and Drinking Pub. She recognized many of the regulars in the mid-afternoon crowd as she crossed the floor to her favorite bar stool and pulled it back from beneath the bar. It had been a week since her last visit; she had spent the preceding week sedated in the space station’s medical center.

“Well welcome back, Persephone! I’m glad you pulled through,” Hap greeted her from behind the bar. He started to reach for an acrylic mug, then stopped short. He looked her up and down with one eyebrow raised. “That’s a new look for you.” Persephone wore a white tee-shirt tucked into baggy combat trousers, which were in turn tucked into laced-up combat boots. Her bobbed black hair was pulled back to the nape of her neck and bound into a stubby ponytail which pointed down her neck.

“Glad to be back, thank you,” Persephone replied, plopping into the bar stool. “I’m trying something different with this style. I’ll tell you all about it. But first, can I try something other than the usual?”

“Of course,” Hap replied. “What’ll it be?”

“I want to try a smart bomb,” Persephone replied decisively.

Hap almost choked. “A smart bomb? Seriously?”

“F’real,” Persephone nodded.

“Well, okay,” Hap replied, opening a red steel cabinet beneath the bar with a bold white FLAMMABLE placard on its face. He poured grain alcohol from a bottle which sported a flame arrestor into a small glass and added a dash of grenadine, and set it on the bar in front of Persephone, next to a shot of whiskey. (A smart bomb is served with a whiskey chaser to soothe the palate.)

Persephone reached for the shot of flavored grain alcohol, but then paused as Hap gestured for her attention.

“Too soon?” she asked.

“I just want to ask before you incapacitate yourself,” Hap chuckled. “What’s with the outfit and the sudden interest in explosive beverages?”

“Oh, you’re not going to believe it,” Persephone began matter-of-factly. “I’m not sure I believe it myself. I’ve been out for a week, right? I was in the medical center the whole time, well parts of me anyway.”

“I knew some of that,” Hap replied, nodding. “You had a pretty nasty brush with perma-death I heard. They barely got you put back together. So you’ve decided to change your life as a result, is that it?”

“Hm? Oh, no, not like that,” Persephone replied, gesturing as if to shoo that idea away. “When they were putting my brain back into my– well, my mind back into my brain, it turned out that there was a bit of damage from the near miss with death, so the only way they could make it fit properly was to make a few alterations.”

“What kind of alterations?” Hap asked with curiosity. He looked Persephone over once more. She didn’t look brain-damaged to him.

“Apparently,” Persephone said, then paused. She frowned briefly. How should I tell him? Just say it I guess. “So I have a guy’s brain now. I mean, I’m the same old me, but there’s some gland in my brain that’s going to make me want to be a guy. How weird is that?”

“That’s especially weird all right,” Hap said, glancing up and down the bar and hoping nobody had overheard. He spoke quietly: “You’re not playing a joke on me, are you?”

“Cross my heart,” Persephone replied, leaning forward. “Since I came to, I’ve had all kinds of weird urges, and I’m not gonna lie: I don’t think I’ve ever been so horny in my entire life, it’s like it never ends. How do you guys stand it?”

“Why do you think men fight all the time?” Hap asked, smirking. “It gets better around forty or so, anyway.” He glanced around the bar, verifying that he was still in reality and not in some kind of phantasmal dream world. “Okay, so let’s assume you’re stuck with a male brain. What’s your plan from here?”

“I guess I’ll follow my instincts,” Persephone replied. “You can’t fight that, can you?”

“I suppose not,” Hap replied. He considered a potential problem that might arise. “You’ve talked to Mynxee, right?”

“Not yet,” Persephone replied with a long sigh as she looked down at her hands. “I came straight here from the medical center. I guess I won’t fit in well in an all-female corporation anymore, will I?” When she looked up again, Hap was not where she expected. Instead, he was angrily striding the length of his bar toward the entryway.

“Hey you, you’re not welcome here,” Hap said firmly to the newcomer who stood framed in the open doorway wearing a baggy capsuleer’s jumpsuit. Persephone looked to the newcomer and recognized him from his pilot’s license photo as Icer Xx, the would-be suitor who had stalked her in Evati for nearly a month.

“Hap,” she called out. “Hang on a second, please?”

Hap looked over his shoulder at Persephone for a long moment, then relented with a nod. “All right.” He pointed at Icer. “You, come in, sit there.” He pointed at the stool next to Persephone’s. Icer approached the designated bar stool warily, aware that every eye in the pub was following his progress. Once he sat, the murmur of a dozen conversations resumed.

“Some welcome,” He said to Persephone, laying eyes on her in person for the first time. He looked her over, comparing the woman seated next to him to her license photo. “Hey, you look a lot different on your license.”

“Yeah, I’m trying something new,” she replied vaguely, evaluating Icer in person as well. He smelled faintly of a popular body spray, and his jumpsuit’s collar was popped jauntily.

Icer looked toward Hap, who glowered down at him with his permanently-bloodshot eyes like a hawk. “Bourbon and Quafe?” Icer asked, his eyebrows arched as if to say what’s your fucking problem?

“Say please.” Hap said flatly, his arms crossed.

“Please,” Icer said, bobbing his head in frustration. “Look, I’m not here for trouble.”

“You don’t need to tell me that,” Hap said matter-of-factly as he poured the mixed drink. He set the drink on the bar in front of Icer, but kept his hand on the glass. Hap resumed glaring at Icer and he waited with elaborate patience. After a pause, Icer realized what Hap wanted and fished in the pocket of his coveralls for a bank card, which he placed flat on the mahogany and then slid across the bar. Hap picked up the card, swiped it in a plastic reader mounted to the bar, then slid it back, leaving it in front of Icer again. He released his grip on the drink and turned away to tend to his other patrons.

“What’s up with that?” Icer asked, eyeing Hap’s back. He took a sip from his drink and tried not to think about what Hap had probably just charged him for it.

“You’re not popular around here,” Persephone replied with a shrug. “I’m not sure why I spoke up for you.”

“Oh come on,” Icer smiled, turning to face Persephone. Seemingly from nowhere he turned on the charm, and smiled confidently. “You know why you did that.”

Oh dear God, Persephone thought. He’s still in love with me. Persephone raised her hand, palm toward Icer. “Before you start,” she said. “There’s something I need to ask you.” She watched his eyes closely.

“Oh? What’s that?” he replied, intrigued. His eyes glimmered.

“Could you love a man?”

Icer stared, motionless. The glimmer vanished.

“What?” he asked, the WH- sound whistled as he said it.

“Could you love a man?” Persephone repeated, spacing the words out for emphasis, gesturing with both hands as she tried to explain the peculiar situation. “I’m, uh, going through some changes.”

Icer stared at Persephone, then looked down at his drink. He took a long pull on it, halfway draining the glass. “You could have just said ‘no’ or something,” he said sullenly. “God, you’re weird.”

“It’s not a dodge,” Persephone tried to explain. “I’m just as confused about this as you are.”

Icer stood from his bar stool and picked up his glass. He gestured at Persephone with it, accusingly. “No, no. You’re confused. I’m fine,” he said. He pointed at an empty booth on the other side of the pub. “I’m going to sit over there now.”

Persephone sighed and watched him go.

“That could have gone better,” she mumbled.

“Is he gone yet?” Hap asked archly as he returned from the other end of the bar. He sighed. “Look, I have an errand to run just as soon as Rayford gets here. I called him in early tonight.” Rayford usually handled the evening and overnight shift in the pub.

“Oh okay,” Persephone replied. “What’s up?”

“Just business matters, nothing important,” Hap lied. Mentally he was already sorting though a long list of possible questions he would ask the doctors at the medical center, such as ‘What kind of quack bullshit is this?’ or ‘How could you bungle your job up so badly that you’ve turned Persephone into a man?’ or even ‘How would you like it if I shoved this blaster rifle up your arse and gave you an antimatter enema, you twisted fucks?’

To Hap, the last entry on the list seemed the most satisfying, but would probably be the least productive.

“Just need to talk to some people about some things,” Hap said dismissively. “Totally routine.”

To be continued.

“Euuugh!” Persephone Astrid gargled as she regained consciousness. Unable to speak because of the plastic ventilation tube in her throat, she thrashed helplessly against the restraints which held her hands at her sides. She kicked, and found that her ankles were similarly bound. Panic gripped her, and her body heaved in the white tub filled with pink medical goop. Half-blinded by the goop in her eyes, she continued to gasp and thrash for nearly a minute, before she surrendered to the situation and slumped.

Okay Persephone, let’s think this through, she thought. The last time she’d been killed in her ship’s capsule, she had awaken in a similar state, except that the time before she was not held fast with medical restraints. She’d been able to sit up right away, clear her airway, and move freely in the clone room. Why would they do this? Her thoughts returned to the circumstances of her most recent death, and she felt her heart race anew as she remembered her brush with death–the screech of the capsule breach alarm, the pain of her ears popping as the capsule explosively decompressed, and the nearly instantaneous loss of consciousness that had followed as she wordlessly implored her capsule’s neuroscanner to activate.

Oh my God, that was close, she thought. I guess the scanner did fire after all, but still, why the restraints? That doesn’t make sense.

Persephone swiveled her head to the left at the sound of the small clone chamber’s door opening, but she could only see a blur through the goop in her eyes. Two silhouettes dressed in white entered. One of them spoke with a woman’s voice.

“Well well,” One of the figures said in a pleased tone of voice. “You’re awake. Congratulations for that. We didn’t know if you’d pull through or not. You’re probably wondering about the restraints. They’re for your own good. Let me explain. Oh, Leyton, be a dear and clear her eyes, would you?”

Persephone heard the sound of a cabinet opening and closing, and then the taller of the two silhouettes moved closer and wiped her eyes with a towel. Persephone blinked at the light, then her vision focused and she recognized Leyton St. Genevieve. Persephone remembered him from the last time she’d awakened in a brand new body. He’d been there to greet her upon her return to life, and had done his job in a rather bored fashion. She looked to the other figure, and guessed that she was Leyton’s superior, probably a doctor. She wore her hair in a neat bun, and her ID badge read: Dr. Cassandra Heywood.

Thought so, Persephone thought, reading the doctor’s badge.

Doctor Heywood leaned over Persephone and shone a brilliant white light into one eye, then the other, and she nodded. “Pupil response is normal, and she’s tracking us. I think she’s conscious.” She addressed Persephone: “Okay hon, let’s get this ventilator tube out. If you are ready for us to do that, nod yes.”

Persephone nodded vigorously. She was certainly ready for that.

“Terrific,” Doctor Heywood said as she grasped the tube. “Get ready, on three: one, two, three.” She slid the tube out of Persephone’s mouth with a firm continuous pull, and Persephone coughed and gagged briefly, then spat a prodigious gob of phlegm. Her first breath of fresh air felt good as it filled her lungs.

“Thank you,” Persephone croaked. “Now why am I tied up?” She flexed against the restraints again, to illustrate her plight.

Doctor Heywood sat on the stool which faced the tub and crossed her legs. Leyton continued to dab at Persephone’s face, wiping a bit of dried clone goop and saliva from her face with a small towel. The doctor took a deep breath and decided how best to proceed.

“Well,” she said. “It’s for your safety and to lessen the shock. You see, your neuroscanner malfunctioned and fired later than we thought possible, well outside of the margin for a safe recovery of the capsuleer’s brain. In short: we weren’t sure how much of you made the trip back here to the medical center. How do you feel?”

Persephone considered that. “I feel fine, I suppose, all things considered. I mean, something feels a bit off, but I can’t put my finger on it, but I remember everything that I should, you know? I know who I am, I know what I do for a living, I know my friends and my allies, and I remember everything that happened right up to, well, right up to before this moment.”

“That’s good, that’s very good,” Doctor Heywood said, obviously pleased. After allowing herself a moment of satisfaction, she turned businesslike and professional again. “What I’m going to tell you might be hard to accept, so I need you to listen with an open mind, okay?”

Persephone nodded. What in the world could this mean, she wondered, noticing how Doctor Heywood had fluidly shifted from ‘good news mode’ to ‘bad news mode.’ “Okay,” she agreed, readying herself for the bad news.

“When your data downloaded into your clone body, it didn’t take. Some part of your previous brain’s pattern had been damaged or mis-scanned, and was not compatible with the brain that waited in your clone body. There was an immediate rejection, and your clone died in the vat,” Doctor Heywood explained, describing the complicated situation in what she hoped was simple language. “We ran a comparison of the two images, the stored brain pattern in the clone buffer, and the one that resulted after the download, and there was a part of your brain that had changed, been damaged really, so we had to fast-grow another body for you with a custom alteration to the empty brain to accomodate the incoming image file.”

“So I’m brain damaged?” Persephone asked. “I don’t feel brain damaged. I feel about as smart as always.”

“Not that kind of brain damage,” the doctor explained, tapping her clipboard idly. “There’s a lot to your brain that has nothing to do with intelligence or sapience. The damage was in a regulatory part of the brain, deep in the center, in the central region of the bed nucleus of the stria terininalis.”

“I must have missed that day in anatomy class,” Persephone joked.

“Everyone does,” the doctor continued. “I would have been very impressed if you had recognized it. It is abbreviated the BSTc, and it’s the gland that determines gender identity.”

“It does what?” Persephone asked, wide-eyed. With a sinking feeling, she started to understand why she felt odd. She tried to look down at her body, but her field of view was limited by her position in the tub.

“The BSTc is usually one size in men, and another size in women,” Doctor Heywood said. “And your first clone rejected and died because of the size mismatch. We had to grow you a new clone body with an appropriately-sized BSTc, and hope that your brain pattern would work properly. It did, but there may be some adjustments to make later.”

“Just lay it out Doctor,” Persephone said, exasperated. “What does all this mean to me?”

“Your body is female in every way except for one tiny part of your brain, the BSTc. Your BSTc is male. It won’t happen right away, but sooner or later you’re probably going to want to become male. Like it or not, a large part of your identity as a human is determined by tiny glands inside your brain, and you’ve got one that’s going to tell you that you want to be a man.”

Persephone blinked slowly. They had definitely not warned her of this possibility in the Federal Navy Academy.

“That’s really weird,” Persephone said numbly. “All right, can you untie me now please? I’m too stunned to do anything stupid or dangerous, I promise.”

Doctor Heywood nodded, and Leyton removed the padded vinyl cuffs and dropped them into a plastic bag for cleaning.

“Just take your time getting cleaned up,” Doctor Heywood said gently. “I know it’s a lot to take in all at once. Look at it this way: you’re still alive, okay? You’re already doing a lot better than anyone had hoped. Once you’re ready, meet me in my office and we’ll talk some more.”

Persephone looked down at herself, and wondered how she would look if she were muscular and hairy and had. . . she shook her head, interrupting that train of thought.

“Okay,” Persephone said quietly. “I’ll meet you there in a few minutes. Is the shower still in the usual place?”

To be continued.

Persephone Astrid’s Atron, the Pants on Head, made a blur of space as it crossed the Eszur solar system. Persephone flew as the lead scout for a mixed fleet of nearly a dozen Hellcats and Bastards, and she couldn’t be more delighted to be back in her favorite fleet role. For this patrol she had chosen the tiny and speedy frigate with tissue-paper defenses in a superstitious attempt to break her recent bad luck. In two days’ time she had lost a cruiser and two interceptors. Today she recklessly dared to fly with nothing but her skill to protect her body from the vacuum of deep space.

Her Atron glided out of short-range warp and soundlessly passed near a Minmatar control bunker. There was no sign of the battlecruiser she’d spied on the ships’ scanners from a few million kilometers away.

“He’s not here,” she radioed to Nova Blackadder, the fleet commander. Persephone glanced at the system chart and evaluated the best place to resume her scan of the system for potential targets.

“Copy,” Nova replied in clipped verbal shorthand, ever the professional. Persephone loved to scout for Nova, and hoped to become as skilled at fleet command some day.

“I’m going to–” Persephone advised, then stopped abruptly. Five Hobgoblin Mk. II drones had suddenly appeared within five kilometers of her position, and five aggression warnings sounded as one in her ears. Immediately the speedy and agile drones began to circle her ship, firing at it in rapid succession, overwhelming the tiny frigate’s defenses. Impossible! Persephone thought. She scanned wildly in all directions, but could see no enemy ship. Where did those come from?

Persephone firewalled the throttle on her Atron’s drive engines and afterburner, but the drones were easily four times faster and kept up effortlessly. Dual klaxons sounded less than a second apart. The first low-pitched tone indicated that her ship’s shields had been completely shredded. The second tone, a high-pitched warble which Persephone knew well, indicated that the ship’s armor was similarly wrecked and that her frigate’s structure was being pounded. From the corner of her eye, Persephone saw a Pilgrim force recon cruiser release its cloak and become visible.

“I’m under attack,” Persephone reported hastily on the fleet channel, setting aside her own survival. A scout’s duty, she had learned, was to report everything she could see. “Taking fire from five drones and a Pilgrim, uncloaked out of nowhere–” Her broadcast abruptly cut off as her capsule ejected from the Atron and fired its escape thrusters.

“Warp to Persephone!” Nova commanded the fleet, unaware that her scout’s ship had already exploded. A chorus of acknowledgements flooded the channel as the Hellcats and Bastards raced to the rescue.

Now thinking only of her own survival, Persephone quickly selected the nearest planet and activated her capsule’s warp drive. To her horror, it failed to respond to the command, and the capsule drifted slowly at the center of the swarm of drones and the still-glowing wreckage of her own ship.

Why aren’t they shooting me? Persephone wondered as she continued in vain to implore the warp drive to respond to her will. “I can’t get away in my pod,” she said on the fleet channel, forcing herself not to panic. “I could really use some help here.” On her capsule’s scanners, she could see no sign that the Pilgrim was disrupting her capsule’s warp engine, but it stubbornly refused to acknowledge her commands. Without warning, the drones resumed their attack, and the capsule shuddered under the barrage and quickly cracked open.

“Hang in there Persephone!” someone responded, but Persephone could scarcely identify the voice over the shriek of the capsule’s hull breach alarm, the last sound a capsuleer ever hears. Persephone’s ears popped painfully as the capsule’s viscose amniotic slime vented into the vacuum of space, and to her horror she realized that the neural scanner had failed to detect the hull breach. Normally at this moment the scanner would automatically activate, injecting a lethal nanotoxin into the pilot’s body and disassembling her brain at the molecular level so that it could be transmitted into a new clone body. This time, however, it had failed to activate.

Persephone felt her consciousness quickly fade as the capsule vented to space, and the oxygen boiled from her bloodstream with the abrupt drop in pressure. Her thoughts became dream-like, and she understood that she had only fleeting seconds of life remaining. Scan, God-dammit! she thought fiercely, directly commanding the neural scanner to kill her. Had the scanner even survived the destruction of her pod, she wondered in black despair. If it had not, she would die in the next moment. Her pulse roared in her ears like dual waterfalls, drowning out all other sensation as her life ended. Neural scan: fire! Scan! Scan! Scaaaaaaaaaaa–

To be continued.

It was late at night in The Fighting and Drinking Pub. Aside from a drunk sleeping in a corner booth, Persephone had the establishment to herself. She slumped atop a bar stool, resting her chin on her elbow and lazily twirling a stir stick in a glass of Quafe. Hap, the ex-pirate proprietor had stayed up later than usual and was seated behind the bar in a low chair. He’d propped his feet up on a crate of liquor bottles and was half-interestedly watching a news program on the video.

“Can’t sleep?” Hap asked Persephone.

“Too much on my mind,” she replied without looking up. She brushed the plastic stirrer against the inside of the glass and watched the fizzy bubbles.

Hap knew that tone of voice well. “Shot down again?”

Persephone shook her head once without removing it from its perch on her palm. “No, I got a pretty decent kill tonight.”

“So why so glum?” Hap asked.

“We’ve got a new pilot in the Hellcats, Maeveria,” Persephone explained. “I’ve told you about her, right?”

“Oh yeah,” Hap replied. “Enthusiastic, cheerful, hell on wheels in a fight, and desperately eager to please and to learn the ways of piracy. I seem to recall that you like her rather a lot.”

“That’s true,” Persephone admitted. “I do. She’s fantastic.”

“Know who she reminds me of?” Hap asked.

“Yeah,” Persephone said slowly, drawing out the word. “That’s the problem. You talk to a lot of Hellcats and Bastards every day. You’ve heard the buzz, right?”

“You’re jealous.” Hap said flatly.

“I shouldn’t be,” Persephone admitted. “I’ve moved on to interceptors and cruisers, and I do enjoy not getting shot down as often as I used to, but dammit Hap, I miss being scout-tackler. I miss the adrenaline buzz and the little ball of ice I get in my gut every time I grab a tiger by the tail.”

“You miss being the adorable new girl.” Hap corrected her.

Persephone frowned and did not reply. Yeah, that too, she thought. She took another sip of her drink.

“You have to move on,” Hap continued. “It’s the order of things. The new pilots get the kamikaze role. That’s how they learn fleet ops and that’s how they learn not to poke hornets’ nests with a stick. Hell, until they learn to fly something else, it’s all they can do anyway.”

“That’s just the thing,” Persephone explained. “She’s not a kamikaze. You know how many times she’s been shot down? Four.”

“Four.”

“Four. Four times. In the same span of time I’d been shot down at least twenty five.” Persephone sighed in frustration. “I don’t mind moving up to a position of greater responsibility, training the new members, and flying interceptors on more complicated missions. It feels good to move up, absolutely. But-”

“But?” Hap asked.

“But dammit, part of the learning process is getting your nose bloodied, your knees scraped, and maybe even waking up in a clone vat once or twice.” Persephone said quickly and with increasing passion. “I learned a lot of valuable lessons the hard way, and I’m a bit perturbed at how gracefully she’s managed to avoid doing that.”

“Maybe she’s a natural,” Hap offered soothingly. “It happens you know. All you can do with a natural is encourage them and try not to get in their way.”

“She’s no natural,” Persephone said with quiet certainty. Her eyes narrowed.

“Oh? How do you know that?” Hap asked, arching his eyebrow and watching Persephone’s body language.

“Because I took her out to Todifrauen and I kicked her ass,” Persephone said joylessly. “I invited her to a one-on-one in frigates, and I pounded her Punisher into scrap. I didn’t even bother activating my three cannons until we’d both reached half shields. Until then, I’d just been plinking her with a rocket launcher. There she was, blasting away for all she was worth, thinking it was a close fight, and then I just cut loose and slagged her.”

“You feel like a heel for doing that, is that it?” Hap asked.

“A little bit,” Persephone replied quickly and quietly.

“Do you still feel threatened by her?” He asked.

“No, not really,” Persephone admitted.

“So let her have the glory for now,” Hap said. He smiled. “Hon, your reputation is made. Get out of the way and let her make hers, too.” He shot her a wink. “Besides, someday soon she’ll sitting in some pub, crying about some new pilot who she took out to the woodshed.”

“Yeah,” Persephone chuckled softly. “Okay. That’s fair. This is just the way of things, isn’t it?”

Hap brushed his hand through his hair, which was shot through with grey streaks. “If it’s ever been any different, I sure don’t remember it.”