Always Down, but Never Out

It was a good thing Jacy was unarmed or she may have smacked the consciousness right out of Aello’s pretty blonde head. After sitting in the chair squirming and waiting for something for the pain she’d been booted out to make room for the boy stowaway who was actually bleeding. Jacy didn’t hold it against the boy, he obviously needed immediate attention. But the heartless bitch of a doctor was sitting on pain meds, then dispensing them like candy to the children and still withheld them from Jacy. And then she had the nerve to attempt to continue prepping Jacy for surgery? No, that wouldn’t do at all.

Jacy shoved Aello’s hands away and walked over to the cabinet, easily enough finding the same jar Aello had been handling. She gave it a shake and tried to say something rude to Aello, but winced in pain for the attempt. So she popped the cap and counted out into her hand four pills. She sat the small canister down and snapped her fingers at their reluctant doctor. “Ooh doannn tousss meee evva uh gin.” She tossed back two of the pills then thought better of it and tossed back the remaining two. She glared holes in Aello, who didn’t seem to care one way or the other, and filled a cup from the fawcett. She managed to get enough of it into her mouth and down her throat to swallow the pills, but *Jien tah-duh guay* it hurt!

Jacy took a moment to compose herself and brushed water droplets from the front of her pullover which was an entirely unsuitable piece of clothing for a deckhand. She ruffled up Gill’s hair as she left the medbay and headed for her quarters, remembering at the last moment that her stuff had been transferred to one of the shuttles to make room for Aello. That did nothing to calm Jacy’s mood and she stomped the stomp of a waif of a woman as she made her way into the port shuttle. Its access hatch was not secured with a lock, but it only had auxiliary power ran to it so there was no threat of much happening from within. It wasn’t like she could accidentally launch the shuttle or fire non-existent weapons or….

One of the monitors lit up as she stepped inside the shuttle, it looked like it was displaying an image of the cargo ramp if she wasn’t mistaken. She glanced around the shuttle and gave a shaky nod of approval. It was larger than either of the crew quarters she’d been assigned so far. That it was her third lodgings in so many days wasn’t all that comforting, but each had been an upgrade over the last. She looked back at the monitor depicting the scene outside and groaned. Four unknown men were fanning out in some sort of siege maneuver. Gorram trouble was what it was. Whoever it was, they weren’t likely to let the Dashing Dorian Dentist approach unmolested and Jacy would be damned if she let Aello put a single finger in her mouth.

Jacy sat down heavily on the edge of the bed, wishing those pills would kick in soon. The heel of her boot banged against something solid and when she looked under the bunk she saw her trunk, unlatched. She hopped up and spun around to kneel by the bed and drag the trunk out into the open. Shit that was a heavy trunk. She flipped the latch back and forth a few times, clearly someone had been rifling through her stuff. Or maybe it just popped open on its own. Yeah right, Jacy. She hoisted the lid and stared down at the contents, someone had definitely been through her belongings. Believe it or not, Jacy was actually a meticulous individual, when she wasn’t having the worst days of her life. She packed like a gorram pro, always careful to arrange her clothing just so with folds and pleats aligned and squared to the corners. That wasn’t the condition she found her stuff in and her silks and lace in particular were disturbed. (And possibly disturbing #MEOW) She could hazzard a few guesses who it had been what went through her things, but that would have to wait. She moved a few things aside and from the bottom pulled out a shiny sidearm; from the looks of it, it was either well cared for or never fired. She checked the cartridge and chambered a round then slapped it back in its holster. Yeah, that probably wasn’t going to work. The holster was designed to be worn strapped to her right thigh, her inner right thigh and not over a pair of pants. She was not dressed for this shit. Screw it. She slipped it from the holster, tossed the sheath back in the trunk and moved over to take another quick look at the video feed before leaving the shuttle and navigating the narrow hallways to the main cargo bay. She couldn’t be sure, but she thought the pills might be …..oh yeah they were starting to kick in. She didn’t exactly smile, but the reduction in pain was enough to make her feel like luck might be on her side after all.

She smacked her palm against a crate as she entered the bay to grab their attention and saw the Captain and Devron were taking up position on either side of the ramp. Ah nice, they’d brought their guns too. Well at least she hadn’t shown up empty handed. She waited until the others were watching then waved the gun around carelessly. “It’s okay, Captain; I’m on the pills. Pretty soon I won’t feel shit.” Her speech was still hindered, but at least she could talk without most of the pain. She’d probably pay for it before this was all over, but if that dentist didn’t make it on board soon she’d probably resort to shooting herself in the head so everything short of that was worth it.

“Is this the part where we kill the bad guys?”