TUELLER: “You put money on me?”
ALEJO: He nods. “’Course.” Smiles.
TUELLER: “What’re you using for money?”
ALEJO: “I did a little pickpocketing of my own and a few shell game, Titan-street-rat tricks to put together a few funds. If you lose, though, I’m gonna be leveraged in some real bad ways. So . . . please don’t lose.”
TUELLER: “I’ll need to ransom my armor if we lose, too.”
TUELLER: “So I’ll try not to.”
Chapter 42
STORY: “Dragon.”
ALEJO: His eyebrows raise.
TUELLER: “That’s a new one.”
STORY: “They’re real, apparently. And they live here. So. I’m gonna lie down.”
STORY: “Jenny?”
STORY: She nods hurriedly. They both go have a seat and try to chill out just inside the treeline.
ALEJO: “Huh.”
MILLICENT: “No!” Millie punches Kahn on the shoulder
MILLICENT: “No way!”
TUELLER: “I wish we didn’t lose all of our alcohol.”
STORY: Figgan looks up at you. “What’s a dragon?”
TUELLER: “Flying lizard that shoots fire.”
STORY: She nods. “Huh. All right.”
STORY: Akilah just stands there, with her arms dangling at her sides, and drops her briefcase, walking silently into the woods.
ALEJO: “Was that our only tent?”
MILLICENT: “Dragon!” Millie’s almost dancing
Chapter 41
STORY: Loll looks around. “Where is the test master?”
ALEJO: “Incapacitated.”
ALEJO: He looks sidelong at Tueller. “This is gonna get real interesting, real fast.”
TUELLER: “Well, hopefully a steadily increasing amount of interesting.”
TUELLER: “Exponential, not logarithmic.”
TUELLER: “Or maybe the other way around.”
ALEJO: “You’re the smart guy.” Alejo glances back towards Millie. “ETA, Doc?”
Chapter 34
STORY: Wen looks at the group of you, gesturing to Alejo. “You gave me your blessing, man.”
ALEJO: Alejo goes back to get Aki, who is still looking up to Wen. “We gotta go.” He says this softly.
STORY: Alejo, Akilah takes your hand, without looking away from Wen. She shakes her head sadly.
STORY: “Tueller, you were my best man!”
STORY: He’s just sputtering at this point.
TUELLER: “You’re better off not being part of this family, man. I’m sorry.”
TUELLER: Tueller looks mildly sorry.
ALEJO: Alejo closes his eyes for a moment. “Jesus.” He looks up to Wen again. “I’m sorry, Wen. I truly am.” He squeezes Aki’s hand and heads, with her, to the shuttle.
STORY: Wen just looks pathetically at the scene. Akilah turns away and hustles to the shuttle.
MILLICENT: Millie waves at Wen. “Sorry! Good luck with the in-laws!”
Chapter 32
STORY: The guard gives you a narrowed eyelids look, Alejo.
STORY: “He security?” he asks Tueller.
TUELLER: “_My_ security, yes.”
ALEJO: Alejo plays the role, stiff and somber.
STORY: He nods, letting you both pass.
ALEJO: “You know I’m getting very drunk, right,” Alejo mutters, once they are past the guards.
Chapter 31
MILLICENT: “Good evening, Mr. ’Ndrangheta. It’s polite to wait for an invitation to sit.”
STORY: He looks down at the menu, scanning it in a sort of general way. “I wonder if Tueller explained to you why he’s my nemesis and not just another man that I’ve killed.”
STORY: He reviews the wine list on the back, scoffing. “If I were to publicly confront him, that would make things complicated for my family. And if I were to kill him, well, that would make things complicated for his family, which, in turn, makes things complicated for my family. So we circle each other, swatting now and then, both daring the other to finally cross the line.”
STORY: He puts the menu down, making clean eye contact with you. “You, however, my dear, are not afforded the same protection.”
Chapter 30
MILLICENT: “The next time we lose a member of this crew you will put aside your personal feelings and make an announcement. The same goes, but less so, for significant assets like ships and technology.”
STORY: Kahn laughs. “Next time.”
STORY: “Because there’ll always be a next time.”
TUELLER: “We’re a crew. Not slaves. Free to come and go.”
ALEJO: He spins to Millie. “She just left!” Then he turns to Kahn. “Yeah, okay. Enough of your shit. You know it’s a lot more complicated than that I strung her along.”
STORY: “Pretty simple from here.”
TUELLER: “Gotta shit or get off the pot, man.”
ALEJO: “That from the man who clearly understands romance and love.”
STORY: “Go fuck yourself, captain.”
MILLICENT: Millie blows a whistle that she’s wearing. “Stop this childish backbiting immediately. This is a crew meeting. You may discuss your relationship problems in private.
TUELLER: “I can’t see, was that aimed at me?”
MILLICENT: Millie blows the whistle again.
TUELLER: “Seems like it could have been aimed at me.”
Chapter 29
MILLICENT: “I think friends talk about these sorts of things and I would very much like to think we were friends.”
TUELLER: Tueller is silent. Not dismissive. But silently thinking.
TUELLER: “We are friends. Millie. I don’t want you to think what we’re not.”
TUELLER: Another pause.
TUELLER: “But I don’t know who I am or what I can say right now even to myself, much less to my friends.”
ALEJO: “And I’m sorry, Jac. I’m probably just being a fool, as always.”
STORY: “And this is what you always do.”
ALEJO: “Jinx.”
STORY: “Jump to the new thing. Ignore the old one.”
STORY: “What are you running from? We’re free. We got free. You can stop running.”
ALEJO: He looks at her for a long moment. “When’d you get so damned wise?”
STORY: “I do a lot of listening.”
ALEJO: “Maybe I should be listening more to you.” He leans forward. “You’re not wrong.”
STORY: “Not right enough, though.” She leans back and looks away, frustrated.
Chapter 28
MILLICENT: “So, on the one hand the grell have the capacity to turn a large part of the galaxy into the third act of a horror movie. On the other hand the nahar have imprisoned an entire sentient race, used them to develop their technology, and literally eat them.”
STORY: Zura and Vorlou look at each other, the first time this has happened since you entered the room. They both nod. Vorlou: “More or less, yes.”
MILLICENT: Millie looks to Tueller. “I just want to be clear that solving a moral dilemma of two entire races isn’t what I had in mind when I proposed this job.”
MILLICENT: “This is outside of the scope of our original task and I intend to invoice accordingly.”
Chapter 26, Part I
TUELLER: “Can you guys…not tell Loll? This is…going to complicate things.”
STORY: Kahn mimes turning a key in front of his mouth.
TUELLER: “I really do like cows, though. That you can talk about.”
MILLICENT: Millie nods, “Is it the number of stomachs?”
MILLICENT: “I’ve always found the number of stomachs to be remarkable.”
STORY: Kahn shakes his head and starts walking.
TUELLER: “Yes. It’s the number of stomachs. That’s definitely it.”
STORY: He may be laughing at his captain.
MILLICENT: “Four.”