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Language:
English
Series:
Part 44 of Borderlines: Missing Scenes and Preludes
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Weekly Writing Challenges
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Published:
2024-09-02
Words:
451
Chapters:
1/1
Comments:
6
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2
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11

Timing Is Everything, Or Nothing

Summary:

It’s off to the (bug) races.

I leave it to you, gentle reader, if any of our heroes or our villain have any sense of comedic timing. Whether twisted or not.

Notes:

A missing scene from a bit into the future.

Chapter 1

Chapter Text

Decker looks up from where she had been watching two bugs race back and forth along the cell. She had already established from the engine vibration that they were on a ship, but she couldn’t tell anything else about where it was headed, or even if it was headed anywhere.

Or how soon they would both be tossed out of an airlock. The fact that she was watching two bugs run back and forth doesn’t tell her that she was on a ship where the crew take a great deal of care in hygiene.

“I’m hoping that we’re not going to have to eventually eat your two pets,” Vilaah observes.

“What’s this ‘we’ shit? They’re mine. I’ve named them ‘Brunch’ and ‘Dinner.’ You’ll have to find your own.”

“Well, seeing how I saved your ass from getting your head cut off by a ushaan-tor, you could share. Maybe ‘Dinner 1’and ‘Dinner 2’?”

“What are you two blathering about?” This from their head captor, Jankhana Fischer. The Andorian-German woman stares at them from the entrance to the brig.

“Food,” Decker replies.

A smile quirks their captor’s lips. “I won’t kill your two meals, dears,” she says. Instead, she turns from the cell door.

She soon returns, one hand clenched. She opens the field and drops to her knees.

Two sluglike creatures crawl out from her hand. Fischer seems to find great amusement as they stare at an additional bit of food in the form of Andorian ice grubs.

Decker judges her timing; she wonders if she can seize the Andorian Steg and Wastot blaster in Fischer’s shoulder holster now that their hands are no longer handcuffed behind their backs, while Jankhana is distracted by her own twisted humor.

The other guards outside the cell seem to be taken in by the hilarity.

“I can be funny as well, darlings,” Jankhana says, her laughter finally fading.

“Yeah, Toots,” Decker says, voicing the nickname she had given Fischer heretofore only in her head. “Your timing is impeccable. Hi-larious. You should be on the stage. In fact there’s one leaving for Hell in an hour.”

Vilaah stares at her as from where they stand, their hands now bound above their heads. All four of their ‘meals’ seem to have been cleaned from the cell.

Decker looks away, unable to meet her stare. Vilaah starts to say something, stops, then continues.

“Yeah, babe,” Vilaah says dryly, her black eyes hard. “Impeccable timing on revealing your secret insulting nickname for the person who holds our lives in her grubby hands.”

Decker looks back. She stares at Vilaah. Her lips quiver, trying to suppress her laughter.

“What?” Vilaah asks.

“Grubby?”

Vilaah closes her eyes, as if in pain.