The Myths of Twisted Felix Katt (Book 2)

(2) Busted Myth

I have a new philosophy. I’m only going to dread one day at a time –Charles M Schulz

My blood slave lead a herd of rumbling, pissed off laborers out of my ship and onto the dirt to run them ragged and I was left getting the death glare from a High Blood. I could have stunned her with a haughty look that was the trademark of a First Daughter Prime, but I really didn’t want to go there. So instead I would cover myself with bumpkin glory and rattle this woman’s cage a little.

“I’m assuming you’re having trouble with the way I’m speaking to you?” I asked, sitting on the railing of the walkway, making sure my body looked lazy and at ease. Nothing pisses off a Prime so much as acting like they don’t matter, and with the way Temperance has been behaving, Mommy dearest had raised her ‘right’. Such a waste. Part of me felt like laughing when I saw Temperance draw her shoulders back, her chin lifting a little higher so it was more obvious that she was looking down her nose at me. Another part of me just felt like rolling my eyes as I realized that she was drawing in a breath to berate me. Time to jab a needle into that ego to help deflate it a bit before she burst and got attitude everywhere. “Save the speech Blooded. I don’t care to hear it.” I said before she could speak. I’d waited for just the moment she tried to start speaking and used an insulting term for a noble blooded lady. Interrupting someone was always a lot of fun, especially when they don’t expect it from someone ‘lower’ than them. “Like I said to the rest of your crew, you don’t like my ground rules, get off my ship. If you can’t obey my commands, get off my ship. I don’t care who your Mommy is, here I am the one in charge. If you don’t like how I run things..”

This time she interrupted me. “Get off your ship right? I think I get the hint. Now you listen to me…” Temperance started to try and reclaim control of the situation.

I started to laugh at her. It’s an effective way to take the wind out of someone’s sails and it really makes them irritated. She had spent her life learning how to be obeyed. I had taught myself how to harass and annoy and one of us was definitely a master in her field. It wasn’t her. She actually gaped at me, as if surprised a lowly Captain would have the audacity to laugh at her. She was really sheltered, which made me wonder what the fresh hell she was doing out here trying to cross an asteroid field. She was a scientist, they belonged safely in a lab, and preferably somewhere where they couldn’t screw up our Universe anymore than they already had. I cut my laughing off when her face started to mottle and switched on the serious Felix face real quick. “No. You listen. I thoroughly enjoy irritating you. You’re a brat. You’re spoiled, think that your heritage gives you more rights than the others around you and you don’t care for your people. It’s a bad combination and I will thoroughly enjoy making your life miserable. And there isn’t a sweet sucking Goddess  teat thing you can do to stop me. Other than leave. I am doing this Job because the Queen of this settlement gave it to me personally. For some reason she thinks I’m deserving of it. I think she’s lost her marbles. This job is painting a big ass target on me, my crew, my ship, and you damned fools. Think about it Blooded. You’re definitely ransom-able, we’re going into a place where there is NO authority to fall back on, and if we do make it through that asteroid field, we’re the only ones to do so. The resources we’re going to tap into out there are worth far more than any of us on this ship can pretend to be. Others will be more than willing to kill us, take our maps, claim our work and reap the profits.” I laid it out for her.

Temperance was a scientist, a brat but despite her attitude thus far, not a complete idiot. I could see her taking in the things I said and weighing them, turning the information over inside her head to see what points were important and what could be discarded. It was rather gratifying to see. I might have missed the bulk of this woman’s life, but when I’d left her behind she’d been a pretty smart kid for a six year old. It would have been a shame for our oh so rank obsessed mother to have broken that in her. I’d left because I refused to be fit into the mould of a perfect First Daughter Prime, and even though Temperance had been raised to try and fill that spot, it seemed that she had succeeded in at least keeping her brains. Even if her attitude was pure spoiled brat.