Excerpt - Frankie Finds a Dot , chapter 1

from Frankie Finds a Dot

Chapter One

Frankie Styles opened her dream-heavy eyes to see an oversized, shaggy cat-eared monster on her bed. Looming right over her face. Blocking out the soft amber glow of the little round-ball lamp she used as a nightlight. The monster’s amber eyes swirled hypnotically in near-dark.

So it was going to be one of those days.

“What?” she croaked.

The short word covered so many possibilities: Why didn’t you ping me on the wristcom, Spike? Why is it you waking me up and not the ship’s AI—or a shrieking emergency alert? How did you manage to teleport silently into my bedroom again?

That last one was easy. Spike—a creature built for infiltration—could burrow calmly into top-secret underwater lairs or boldly stroll right into the captain’s quarters aboard their snowman-shaped interstellar cargo hauler. The cyvlossic—outer part oversized feline, inner part half-cyborg—made security a theoretical concept more than an actuality.

Also, Frankie didn’t lock her doors.

Behind Frankie’s sleepy confusion floated the comforting, faint hum of the Spear’s air recyclers, soft as a whisper, mixing with the distant metallic creaks of deck plates flexing gently under maintenance bots. She hoped.

Her cabin’s mostly bare interior smelled faintly of tea tree cleanser from yesterday’s bot visit, blended with the ghostly echo of Old Peters’ herbal cologne: peppery, nostalgic, oddly comforting.

Spike just bumped Frankie on the shoulder. More a shove than a bump, the force of it pushed Frankie almost to sitting. When she sat straight, Spike shifted shuffled behind her and her pillow, crowding Frankie to ensure there would be no retreat back into cozy oblivion.

Bed hog.

“Don’t be putting your big old mitten paws on my pillow.” Frankie rubbed the sleep-grit out of the corners of her eyes. Her fluffy yellow-as-the-midday-sun duvet slid down past her hips, exposing her shoulders and belly to chill air with only a nearly worn-through “Stellar Bells” T-shirt to protect her.

Cold. So they were still in the night part of the cycle.

“What time is it?” She squinted at Spike.

“Trouble,” Spike rasped in her gravel-rough voice, a sandpapered rumble that no matter what she said always managed to sound sinister.

Great.

Frankie swung her feet onto the rubber-pebbled flooring, her bare toes curling slightly as icy ship-floor reality chased off any remaining warmth. Grabbing her wristcom off its magnetic charging cradle on the wall just beside the bed, Frankie snapped it onto her wrist and shook it awake. The wristcom lit up obligingly, and unfolding a blue-tinted floating data screen showing ship status.

Three in the morning, Frankie time.

Hull and cargo—check. Well, no cargo, so that wasn’t a problem. Air and engines—fine. Still smoothly on course to reach Smithson Station by late afternoon station-time, just as planned.

Nothing out of the ordinary.

Spike put a front paw on Frankie’s shoulder—kinda heavy—and reached her other paw toward the screen. The beans on the bottom of the paw extended like nubs of mini-fingers. Frankie pretended not to notice, so weird.

Spike swiped the display’s view to outside the ship. The ship was coasting, steadily decelerating along the usual inter-system transit lane through a field of sparse, glimmering ice asteroids. An empty stretch of peaceful space lay around them like black velvet studded with diamonds.

Except for that blinking, angry-red pinpoint at the very edge of detection, sliding swiftly closer on the long-range scanner display.

Coming in fast.

“Ship,” Frankie called, lifting her eyes toward the ceiling panels, strips of softly luminescent blue set against the darker metal above, as if Ship herself weren’t always around her. “Can you identify that incoming vessel yet?”

Spike shifted, now fully behind Frankie as she sat stiffly, deepening the indentations in the mattress. Effectively trapping Frankie between thick bands of warmth and worry.

Spike set her second front paw on Frankie’s other shoulder. The weight pressed her butt deeper into the kinda thin mattress. When they sat this way, their heads were the same height, not counting Spike’s wild froth of fur or Frankie’s now-smoothed-out curls. She needed a new bed.

“Skolls,” Spike growled.

“Not even funny,” Frankie said, pulse skittering into a higher gear. No way it was the Skolls. They’d been avoiding her—and she’d been avoiding them—since that time a Skoll ship fired on the Spear. Hadn’t worked out for the Skolls, who lost that ship when the Galactic Patrol confiscated it for fomenting mayhem too close to a transit jump-tunnel.

Frankie flung the so-soft, so cozy, duvet away from her and stood, dumping her furry colleague untidily off her shoulder. If trouble was knocking this fine morning—or whatever this was—she wanted to answer fully clothed.

And fully caffeinated.

Yesterday’s black cargo pants lay rumpled at her feet, only one day dirty. Frankie sadly skipped past her soft slippers with fluffy insides, and padded the three steps to her wardrobe. Next to the tall, narrow plasticene double cupboard where she kept her no-days-dirty clothes sat the sturdy boots, the ones with reliable grav-magnets built into their chunky soles. Good in emergencies, especially when the gravity went wonky.

What this emergency boot territory?

As Frankie wrestled her hands into the long sleeves of a clean, soft cornflower-blue tunic hanging neatly in the cupboard—thanks, bots—the ship’s mellow female voice floated into the cabin.

“Captain,” Ship said, “the vessel is shaped like a Galactic Patrol cruiser, but has engine signatures and utilizes communications channels common to Skoll Shipping.”

Frankie twisted free of the tunic neck snug around her throat, gaze flicking back to Spike.

Her fuzzy colleague was still manipulating the floating screen, paws delicately moving the data, eyes narrowed and intense, fur subtly bristling. Spike looked to be frowning.

If oversized cat monsters could frown.

“They’re not going to just pass on by, are they?” Frankie said, grim.

Spike spared her the briefest sidelong glance—a perfect picture of feline disdain—and went back to pushing data around on Frankie’s screen.

Frankie slammed her feet into the grav-boots and clicked the magnets to standby. The hug of her heels snuggling into the synthetic padding eased her heart a little.

One of the Spear’s little service bots marched in the open bedroom door, one of the spidery ones with electromagnetized legs that didn’t reach her knee. It scuttled forward, carrying a steaming mug smelling richly of coffee in two of its legs. Frankie accepted it gratefully, letting the bitter-sweet steam soothe the tightness in her face.

Blessings, little bot.

She sat back on her extra-firm mattress edge to check the seals on her boots. The glowing sun of a duvet still radiated comforting residual warmth beside her.

No time for that, now.

There was no reason for the Skolls to be interested in her right now.

Or ever.

There was no one else out here. No trading outposts nearby. Nobody at all.

They had to be here for her.

Wonderful.

“Ship, please contact SystA and start streaming a running secure-data feed now.” If she got blasted into atoms, her boss would at least know why.

“I hate waiting,” she said to Spike. “Let’s call them first.”

Spike flicked her paw, shoving the floating screen through the air toward Frankie. She’d already prepped the comm system, the Skoll ship’s ping blinking expectantly.

Frankie opened a direct comm along their preferred band.

“Hey, Skoll ship,” Frankie said, pushing false calm into her voice. “Nice to see you!”

Silence stretched just long enough to tighten Frankie’s spine. Then a low, flat voice returned: “Spear. Prepare to be boarded.”

Better and better.

from Frankie Finds a Dot