Episode X Dark Hunter

No Rest For the Weary

"You look like a Dewback that's been ridden too hard!" Cam exclaimed as Videsse removed her helmet. She closed Slave-1's caudal ramp.

Her hair was wet with sweat, strands falling out of her tight braids, and sticking to her face. Beads of perspiration formed on her forehead and nose. Her bloodshot eyes drooped weakly, yet still, they darted to the corner of the cargo bay as if she had seen an eskrat scurry for cover.

"Are you sick?" Cam inquired.

"Do you ever stop?" Videsse snapped. She climbed to the pilot seat and slumped back as if she could sleep for forty years. She took four deep breaths and might have passed out if it was not for Cam who had climbed to the cockpit and was looking at her from the steps.

"Maybe you need to take it easy for a while. Take a nap or something."

"Yeah," she shot a sarcastic glare at him that had all of the heat of a laser blast with none of its effect. Then, leaning forward she switched on Slave-1 and linked her wrist console to the display.

Nolan's location lit with a blinking blue dot in the middle of the map of Adascopolis. "He's still at the diamond guild," Videsse uttered with a tired exhale. "We'll need to watch him for a bit."

She replaced her helmet under her seat, and quite accidentally her fingers tapped on the glass of the whiskey bottle. Without thinking, her hand was around it and it was in her lap. She looked down as if surprised to see it there. Her shaking hands held it up so that the amber liquid refracted the natural light from the canopy window. Icteric lines of light undulated over her face as she looked to the sky through the whiskey bottle. Videsse was underwater. She just began to realize what was happening to her.

"If I just take a sip of you I'll probably be fine." She swirled the liquid into a whirlpool, watching it climb the sides in its vortex, then gently sink back to the bottom. "Just a capful, and I'll be better . . . almost immediately, I think. Just in a minute or two . . . maybe."

Cam was still watching her. "Did that make you sick or something?" He was confused.

Videsse's face transformed from imploring to hard as if a shadow from a cloud above her had passed over the canopy. Her grip tightened around the bottle. "Yes," she said with gritted teeth. "Yes, it did." She threw the bottle back under her seat, but it did not break.

"Shut up, Cam!"

Cam straightened up and cocked his head like a furry ysalmir. "I didn't say anything."

Videsse shot a glance at him, then eased and put her head back on the seat.

"My ship is here," she returned to the subject of her goal. "I saw the hilt of that man's saber under his vest. He's the one that stole my ship."

"He's the same one that captured me too," Cam added.

"We just need to watch where he goes."

Cam put his hand on Videsse's shoulder. She winced as if it had been a knife.

"Dess, I can do that," he offered. "You need to take a nap."

Videsse could not argue with that, but she wanted to. "You watch the schematics? We'll be tracking one of those biting midges if I let you do that."

"How do you think I know that Nolan was the one that captured me?"

"I don't know and don't care," Videsse snapped.

"Right," Cam rebutted. "I'm better at bounty hunting than you know. I can watch the tracker."

Videsse shook her head. "Fine," she pretended to be upset. "I'm just gonna lie flat in the cargo bay for a few minutes. If you lose my ship, I'll make you regret it."