Starlight

A story by David R. 'Nutzoide' King

Chapter 00: The Faint Flicker

    It could easily be said that Jei Tazenten was a fighter. She'd 
fought against most of what life had decided to give her, ever since 
her rather premature birth. It wasn't that she was a brawler, in fact 
at first sight someone might have considered her meagre despite her 
slightly stock frame if they didn't know better, it was that she 
didn't agree with what most people laughingly called a life.

    Grow up in school, make friends, get angry with them, make up, get 
a job, find a guy, settle down and raise a family, grow old together, 
die. It didn't make any sense to her, and nor did life ever go that 
smoothly. A fantasy they created to keep themselves content. Not that 
she had made anything better for herself. She was just living by 
numbers, doing what she wanted when something came up and going with 
it because it seemed like a good idea at the time. Most of the time it 
never really felt like she had any other choice.

    And now it seemed that life was fighting back. She stared out of 
the main window of her ship, the Moonlight, at the slowly vanishing 
vessel that had brought her to her knees. Five pirate attacks in the 
last two deliveries. One of them had been bound to get her.

    The Moonlight was only a small cargo ship, barely room for four 
crewmembers, although Jei had never taken on another person in her 
life. She just transported small stuff from one place to another, day 
in, day out, filling her spare travel time with pulp space station 
novels she was too cynical to really enjoy.

    To her 'adventure' was just another word for stupidly dangerous 
missions. Only the brave or idiotic craved those. She didn't know what 
love was. As far as she knew, that was just something arbitrary that 
seemed to happen to other people. She couldn't understand what the 
characters saw in their need for constant companionship. She was happy 
alone. Other people just got in the way and complicated things, just 
like that stupid teenager she had agreed to ferry across half her 
route. That girl had been nothing but trouble, even if she had paid 
well.

    She gave a retching cough as more blood trickled its way down her 
throat, forcing her attention back to the retreating ship. She may 
have been beaten, but she was not finished yet. She focused her energy 
and forced herself onto her front, giving a cry of pain as her mangled 
stomach made contact with the metal lattice that made up the floor. 
She lay there panting, listening to the slow drip of her own blood 
falling down onto the piping and electrical casings underneath the 
floor, gathering below her in a massive pool of red.

    She stretched her arm out to grab the lattice, curling her fingers 
around the metal and slowly crawling forwards, her right leg trailing 
uselessly behind her. She assumed she must be in shock by now as she 
slowly inched her way across the floor. Most of the pain had faded 
into a background ache, and only the bullet in her gut still let her 
know she really was dying.

    With a final burst of strength she managed to pull herself up into 
the pilot's chair of the cockpit, but this was the last thing she knew 
she could do. She was totally spent. However, she had always been 
cautious about the safety of her cargo and she allowed herself a small 
smile as she painfully reached forwards from the seat and unhooked the 
small plastic case over the switch she was aiming for. It wouldn't 
exactly teach them a lesson, but it would ensure they could never to 
this again. 

    She flicked the switch, and out in space the small red speck that 
was the ship that had crippled the Moonlight erupted in a flash of 
brilliant white. Jei thought very lowly indeed of pirates, whatever 
they called themselves.

    She closed her eyes. <See Jei, I told you this is how you'd end 
up, but did you listen to me?> Her mind was playing tricks on her 
again. Her rational side sounded far more real now she couldn't think 
clearly.

    <Heh, looks like I can finally get out of this though,> she 
thought back. Having conversations with herself was nothing new to 
her. She didn't have anyone else to talk to, so it made perfect sense 
really. In fact, it was strange that she wasn't speaking this one out 
loud.

    <Cop out. That's why you're like this. You never cared. Never gave 
anything your best shot.>

    <But I don't want to be here any more. I never did. That's why I 
didn't care.>

    It was almost a poetic irony that it was her rational side that 
was the most cynical, and the one she was always having to justify 
herself to. <So you just waited to die. Great way to live your life 
Jei. Real productive that. Wasting your time away wishing you were 
somebody else in a different life. Do you think you would have done 
any better if you had been?>

    <No. But if I was somebody else I wouldn't be me. Maybe I'd be 
somebody who can actually be with other people.>

    <Damned hypocrite! I've never needed anyone else, and never given 
anyone the chance! That's why! If you're going to die do it with some 
damned backbone! You never wanted to be sentimental.>

    Jei smiled at herself, <You're getting you're perspectives mixed 
again Jei-chan. You're just you no matter how many people you pretend 
are in here with you.>

    And for once it was the dreamer inside her that won. There was 
nothing to stop it. No need to pretend her life was worth living. Now, 
in her final moments, she could let herself wish she had been one of 
those characters and imagine herself in that life she privately 
envied. This time there was no need for internal hatred for gratifying 
fantasies that would, or perhaps could, never come to pass. She didn't 
have to go back to the real world.

    Some people might have pitied her, but Jei would have had none of 
it. As self-deprecating as she was, this was her life and she wouldn't 
have accepted pity for it. This was how she liked it. Now she was 
actually getting to die, she didn't really want to just yet. At least 
not like this, bleeding to death in a hallucinogenic cocktail of 
sentimentality and wishful thinking. That was nothing like the Jei she 
knew.

    Jei was the cold loner who just passed through, doing her job and 
moving on to the next, invisible to all but her clients. Why say 
anything if there wasn't anything worth saying? She could say she 
hated her life because there was so much she seemed incapable of 
feeling, but did she really want anything more? She never had before. 
And even if she did, would she actually know what to do with it? 

    She began to feel herself fall asleep, slipping sideways in the 
chair, and she tried to open her eyes again for a brief moment. Still 
just the blackness of space, dotted with the pinpoints of stars hung 
in the void. Was that star moving? She never really got to think about 
it as her eyes fell closed again. Losing consciousness had never felt 
so good. She didn't hurt any more.

***

To Be Continued...