Page 11 of The Last Hunt
“Looks like they have the goods!” TAI chirps. “I’ll order some for us!”
“Thanks, TAI,” Maeve replies.
While they wait, Maeve pulls out her tab and opens up her tracking app to check Daik Montrose’s location. He’s still hanging out in the Keidar Belt. But as she watches, his ship starts to move. She sits up, her shoulders and neck tight. Her left shoulder aches slightly from her still healing injury.
“Daik’s on the move,” Maeve mutters. “TAI - we’ve got to go.”
“But Maevey, the engines -”
“I know,” Maeve snaps. “It’ll take us longer than normal to get there, but we can’t afford to wait. If we have to, we’ll finish recharging at Omega while we wait for the plasma couplers.”
“What about the Menace?” TAI asks slowly, her voice a strange teasing tone that doesn’t at all fit with Maeve’s rising frustration.
“Keep the cloak up,” Maeve instructs. “And keep tabs on them. If they follow us - they follow us.” She hopes that Trell won’t follow. She doesn’t need yet another thing to worry about. But that man is too good at what he does.
“Alrighty, babe.”
Maeve plots their route to Omega and sets the auto-nav. They should arrive at the station in about an hour. She hops out of her chair and walks back to her room, pulling her tab out of her pocket again and checking Daik’s location. He’s definitely making his way out of the Keidar Belt. She scans the surrounding location, noting that he could be heading for a jump point not too far from where he is. Fuck. It obviously would have been easier if he just hung out in the Keidar Belt for the next week, but that was expecting too much. Hunts like this are never that simple. And Maeve knows that Daik is greedy, with a high opinion of himself. He’s not one to hide when there’s money to be made - regardless of the huge bounty on his head. Unfortunately, there’s nothing she can do about any of that right now.
Maeve sits down on her bed. Her room on the Archer is small and sparse, but it has a few personal touches, unlike her rooms in Two Roses headquarters. Her bed has several green and blue decorative pillows, and she has a simple woven tapestry on one wall. She has a red and gold scarf that used to be her mother’s draped over a chair in the corner.
Her mother used to wear the scarf to protect her from the hot desert sun on the rare days when she would take Maeve to the market on the outskirts of their town. They only went to market when there was a lull in the gang wars on Tellamar - which was rare. Since Tellamar was a gang-run world, there were always brutal fights between factions for control of the planet and its resources - scarce though they were.
But on those special days when it was relatively safe to go to market, Aoife Bladesbearer would wrap the scarf around her shoulder length red hair, take Maeve by hand, and tell her that they were going on an adventure. Maeve was her mother’s miniature. Red hair, light green eyes, pale freckled skin. But she had inherited her father’s sharp chin and fierce sense of justice.
Maeve loved the market. Tellamar didn’t have many natural resources, but they were known for a beautiful purple crystal called croi la fenya - or “heart of the desert”. It grew in the ancient rock formations that dotted the deserts of Tellamar. Croi crystals were prevalent in the jewelry and other goods at the market, and even though Maeve saw them all the time, she always wanted more to add to her collection.
Now, Maeve stares at the red and gold scarf on the chair. It’s worn and a little tattered, but she’s kept it safe for over fifteen years. She traces one finger down the delicate chain around her neck that holds the only croi crystal she still has - a small raw pendant strung onto the chain. It had been her mother’s as well, passed down to her when Maeve had turned sixteen.
The market on Tellamar was fairly quiet as no one wanted to draw the attention of local gang leaders, but the people were kind. Jamara, who ran a food cart, always gave Maeve a free fried stick of crispy bread to snack on as they went through the market. Leo and Pan, two men who sold scrap metal, liked to check in on Maeve while her mother looked through their goods.
“Tell me what you’ve learned in school this week,” Leo would ask, his brow furrowed seriously. Maeve always had her answer ready.
“We studied fractions!”
“If you studied fractions, you can tell me what fraction of the piece of this copper sheeting your mother wants to buy,” Pan added.
Maeve wonders now at the kindness of the people on her home planet. How could a cruel place like Tellamar create some of the kindest people she’s ever met? The crucible of Tellamar certainly hadn’t made her kind. She hasn’t set foot on the planet in fifteen years.
Though Maeve has small reminders of her mother, she has nothing of her father’s.
Rian Bladesbearer had been a scrapper, as so many people on Tellamar were. He came home every evening covered in desert dust. Maeve remembers that his back used to ache and he would sometimes limp after an especially long day.
“Darling,” Aoife would say, her voice tender. “Sit down.”
“I’m fine, chrissah,” Rian would say in that voice he only used to talk to her mother. Her father often called her mother chrissah - a Tellamari term of endearment. Maeve had grown up speaking Standard, but she also spoke Tellarmari. Chrissah means “little river”. Water was scarce on Tellamar, and so it was a precious commodity.
Her parents were unfailingly tender with each other, and displayed a kind of love that Maeve has rarely experienced. Aoife was always touching her husband. A hand on his shoulder, a finger looped in his belt, her forehead resting against his chest. And Rian used to make her mother laugh by throwing her over his shoulder and hauling her around the house. He brought her small presents - flowers or tiny croi crystals he found scrapping. Their kisses were deep and long, and though Maeve had been grossed out by their physicality as a child, she can recognize their love and connection in hindsight.
No matter how tired Rian was when he came home, he always made sure to spend time with Maeve. They would read together, or shoot darts outside. When she got older, her father would drill her with workouts he learned back when he was a grunt for one of the gangs. Rian taught her aim and accuracy, determination, and the importance of doing what is right.
Maeve supposes that though she doesn’t have any physical reminders of her father, she does still have the values he instilled in her.
Rian and Aoife had died in a targeted attack on their home during a gang war. Though Rian hadn’t been involved with the gangs in decades, the new leader decided to assassinate anyone associated with the old ruling gang. Maeve was eighteen. Though she doesn’t like to think about it, the memory of finding her parents dead is burned into a primal part of her brain. She walked into her house after school to find them on the floor of their small living room - a single bullet wound through each of their foreheads. They’d been on their backs, their hands an inch away from each other. Maeve’s heart aches at the memory, but rage rises in her in equal measure. She’d left the house and never gone back. Sometimes she wonders what happened to their bodies, but she knows her parents would have wanted her to leave as quickly as possible in case the assassins came back to finish the job. Their bodies were only shells. Her parents - living, breathing, laughing Aoife and Rian - were gone.
Maeve sighs and pushes herself up off the bed. Dwelling on the past is useless. She wonders why these memories are surfacing now. Thoughts of her family haven’t plagued her like this in years. Perhaps it’s because she’s close to leaving Two Roses. She wants to be out - gone - done - with hunting. But when she catches Daik and gets his bounty money, what will she do on Kespar-2? If she’s not careful she’ll spend her days sinking into the memories of her past. She’ll have to find some purpose - even if it’s a simple job. Perhaps she can teach basic self-defense. That would be a good use of her time.
Maeve sits down on the floor and lays on her back to start a round of sit-ups and push-ups. Might as well get moving while she waits to arrive at the starbase.