I watched the seemingly endless Ice Plains pass beneath me as the mountains of the Northern Outback disappeared behind us. The airship’s engines and a slight tailwind were keeping us at a comfortable hundred and ten kilometres an hour, which, if my calculations were correct, we should clear the plains in around ten hours. It may not have been the safest course but it was the most direct route to Kacke.

  Behind me in the module, I could hear Zia bustling around Vanessa in a reassuringly competent way. For a spy, she appeared to have some surprisingly sophisticated medical equipment that she knew how to use. Vanessa was not looking well, but considering she was close to one hundred and seventy years old, I was surprised she was even alive.

  I was glad she was alive, she was my soulmate after all, but she had betrayed me and that still hurt like a fresh wound. I brooded for a while until Zia came up to me and handed me a large mug of soup.

  “How is she?” I asked as Zia perched on the seat arm sipping her soup.

  “Badly malnourished. I’ve managed to neutralise the drugs they gave her and I’m feeding her through her pod tube. She’s been in a full immersion pod that wasn’t maintained properly. That would explain why she was in the Ice Plains too, there’s probably nowhere better to hide a hacking farm.”

  “Are you giving her stuff suitable for Nekos?” I checked.

  “Of course. That drink machine you bought doesn’t just make drinks, it makes loads of stuff,” Zia said, then leant towards me… “Is she really the Vanessa Von Dack?” she asked in a whisper.

  “Yes.”

  “Wow. Cool. And she’s your wife?”

  “Unless she’s divorced me. You seem to have gotten over your anti-Neko prejudices,” I said. Zia had the grace to look ashamed.

  “I’m sorry, and before you ask I’ve apologised to Vanessa too. I’ve also reported that someone’s spreading anti-Neko propaganda in Crystal Springs. I should have done it when I first heard what was being said… But what was being said sounded so… convincing.”

  “The best rumours do. As you saw in Inkloo, people are always prepared to believe the worst. You know, for an Agent you seem quite happy carrying out medical procedures.” Zia sighed.

  “I’m not really a proper spy.” Zia admitted, “I was a sleeper agent. Before this I was actually a doctor working on a geriatric ward,” Zia grinned and poked me with her finger. “We were expecting to have to deal with a ninety-year-old man with serious health issues, not a freshly rejuved man of action. The last few weeks have been… eye-opening.”

  “Thanks. I think. For someone who claims they’re not really a spy you’re rather good at spy stuff.”

  “I did the basic tradecraft courses of course, and I’ve had a good teacher. I’ve had fun too. I couldn’t go back to my old job now. It would be too boring.”

  “Well you have a geriatric to beat all geriatrics to look after, Vanessa’s about a hundred and seventy. I suppose ageing must affect some Nekos differently.”

  “Maybe, but not that much. She’s had serious rejuv and possibly some kind of age stabilisation. Physically she’s in her twenties. She’s just had a rough time… Is it really true that you two have history?” Zia asked. I looked at Zia and grinned.

  “Zia, we don’t just have history, we have a mythology. We've been together for nearly fifty years and they weren’t boring years,” I said, smiling despite myself. Zia sighed.

  “I keep forgetting you’re so old, you go around acting like a young man, then you say something, or do something, and suddenly I remember you were alive during the White Rock rebellion.”

  “Yeah, I’m probably the last one left who was there,” I said, thinking of my former comrades, many of whom hadn’t survived the rebellion.

  “Oh, I’m sure there’s a few Corporate Executives who have been around a lot longer than you have. But, anyway, I’m going to have a couple of hours rest, if that’s okay with you Commander.”

  I waved her away without correcting her assumption. It was probably for the best that she didn’t find out what I’d done at White Rock. People tended to recoil away from me when they found out.

  The next five hours were spent in that half trance you fall into when there’s nothing to do but watch the world pass by. I spent it remembering long-forgotten comrades as the featureless plains passed below until Zia woke up and replaced me at the helm. I used the toilet and went to check on Vanessa.

  She was still curled up in the rugs and cushions in the middle of the module, covered by a brightly coloured fluffy blanket, a packet of something red hung from a drip stand and a tube disappeared somewhere under the blanket. Despite her matted fur, she looked a lot healthier than she’d been just a few hours ago. I made a milky coffee, just how she used to like it and sat down next to her.

  Her eyes opened, she looked at me and gave a satisfied little smile, stretched, then a hand shot out of the rug and snagged the coffee.

  “How are you feeling?” I asked as she sipped the coffee.

  “Itchy and dirty. I need a shower. I haven’t had one for… umm… about two years.”

  “That’s pushing it, even by outback standards.”

  “I was in a full immersion pod.”

  “So you’re a hacker now? You must have pissed off someone important for an actual Special Agent to come planetside after you.”

  “Oh, believe me, I have. I’ve been trying to free my people. I’m actually the notorious system warrior known as The Nekomancer.” Vanessa said grandly.

  “That’s a fucking terrible name, and why hide on Jeckon, it’s a bit out the way,” I asked. Vanessa stretched and yawned, showing her long incisors.

  “Maybe a hundred years ago Jeckon was out of the way, Bran. Now it’s at the centre of everything. Courier vessels are going from here to almost everywhere. I can post something one day and in ten days it’s on every major system in human space. Things are changing, Bran, they’re finally changing.”

  “You said that about Centauri. And your operation is compromised if your pod was sabotaged,” I pointed out.

  “Don’t rub it in. If those Corporate goons hadn’t dragged me out of there I'd have starved to death. Do you know how humiliating it is to have to be grateful to a Corporate Special Agent for saving your life?” Vanessa asked angrily.

  “Would you say it was more or less humiliating than having the love of your life betray you?” I asked.

  Vanessa sat up, threw the blanket off and ripped the feeding tube out of the ugly pod augmentation in her lightly furred belly. She was wearing just the crop top and shorts she’d no doubt been wearing in the pod which showed off her sleek black fur and I was reminded of the first time I’d met her, which must have been a good century and a half ago now. She’d been wearing even less then.

  “If you’re so upset with me, why are you looking at me like you’ve never seen a half-naked catgirl before?” she asked with a knowing smile.

  “I had a flashback to the first time we met. Just because I find you physically attractive doesn’t mean I’m not still angry with you.”

  “Well, hurrah for you for remembering two things. Next thing you’ll be telling me you haven’t gone completely senile. After I have my shower I’m going to tell you stuff and you will be angry for completely different reasons. I bet this ship doesn’t contain anything suitable for getting me clean?”

  “Try the drinks maker, it can synthesise some weird and wonderful stuff,” I said as Vanessa got up a little unsteadily and examined the machine, her fluffy tail twitching. I resisted the urge to give it a little tug as it flicked past me. Vanessa looked back at me.

  “I know what you’re thinking. Don’t. Get me a towel. I’m sure Miss Sexy Tight White Shipsuit doesn’t want a wet Neko dripping over her soft furnishings and ruining her Outback aesthetic.” Vanessa ordered. I got her a towel and she disappeared into the shower with her coffee mug half full of mysterious green gunk, discarding her clothing as she went, well aware that I was watching her every move. I ran her clothes through the cleanser, then made Zia a coffee and joined her in the front of the module in the navigator’s seat.

  “Why is she so angry?” Zia asked.

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  “Many reasons, mostly because a Special Agent of our mutual acquaintance saved her life.”

  “Oh yeah, that would piss me off too.”

  “Not as much as it pisses her off. What she looks like, the way she feels, what makes her feel good, all that was programmed in by her species slave masters so every emotion that she feels, she has to wonder if that is how she was programmed to feel.”

  “I thought she said Nekos broke their programming centuries ago.”

  “They did… But if you’re brought up on a Corporate station, housed by that Corporation, fed by that Corporation, educated by that Corporation and only fed Corporate propaganda with no outside influences, whether you’re human or Neko, you are going to believe what that Corp wants you to believe. Look at how easily you were turned against Nekos.”

  “Okay, don’t rub it in. Why are you so angry with her? You obviously care for her.”

  “She’s the reason I got frozen,” I replied, flatly.

  “Yeah, but you’re unfrozen now. And you both got rejuvenated. You need to kiss and make up.” I didn’t need to hear this sort of reasonable talk so retired to my bunk.

  I was woken only a few minutes later by Vanessa. She’d wrapped herself in her towel and smelt enticingly of some spicy scent. She looked far more herself, or rather, the herself she’d been when I’d first met her, only much skinnier.

  “Did you want some clothes?” I asked, looking her up and down. She ran her hand through her long mane of black hair and flicked water at me.

  “Not really, dear. I think it’s time we had a serious chat about our relationship,” she said and with no warning and a surprising amount of strength, pulled me one handed out my bunk, then waited for me to pick myself off the floor as she stood by the left-hand module exit.

  “Vanessa, wait,” I yelled, but it was too late, she swung open the door and a blast of icy air swept in. The container beyond was dark, the only light coming from the gap around the lift where you could just see the ice plains passing below. I slammed the door shut as Vanessa disappeared under her blanket.

  I looked over to the front of the module to where Zia was looking back at us with a concerned look on her face.

  “I assumed she knew. Bloody hell, it’s freezing in here now.” I went over to the pile of soft furnishings and pulled the blanket off Vanessa’s head.

  “What in the name of holy fucking furballs are we flying in?” Vanessa growled at me.

  “An airship. Don’t you remember your escape?”

  “You mean you really jumped into an endless blue and white void full of airships with me on your shoulder? I thought I was hallucinating.”

  “That was Inkloo. I’m pretty sure some serious drugs were consumed during its construction. We’re currently travelling across the Ice Plains, and if all goes well we should be in Kacke in the next day or so.”

  “Bran, when has ‘all’ ever gone ‘well’ when you’re involved? This is a ship module though, isn’t it?”

  “Not just any ship module, I think this is a Flint Battleship module. Maybe The Flint Battleship Module.” Vanessa looked around and looked at me, her eyes wide.

  “You may just be right. And somehow it miraculously resurfaced at exactly the right time and in your possession. Jeckon Intelligence is sometimes too good,” she said, rolling over to face me.

  “Are you working with Jeckon Intelligence?” I asked in surprise.

  “Darling, I’ve been running this operation for nearly a decade, Jeckon Intelligence is working for me. What I'm doing is much, much bigger than scoring points against the Corps on Jeckon.” She propped herself up on an elbow and patted the cushion next to her. “If you sit down I’ll tell you what’s actually going on.”

  “Does this include how you betrayed me to the Corps,” I asked, throwing myself onto the pile of cushions next to Vanessa. She sighed.

  “I never betrayed you to the Corps. If you cast your ancient, cold-storage withered mind back to what was merely last year for you, you weren’t in a good place. What remained of your great rebel fleet was split across the Galaxy and after that last battle, that hulk you’d named your flagship was falling apart, oh, and you were dying.”

  “Okay, I admit I had suffered a few minor strategic setbacks and my health wasn’t the best,” I admitted.

  “When I found you, you were trying to command what remained of your ship from a malfunctioning medical pod. You were barely coherent.”

  “You still slept with me.”

  “And you died while we were doing it. Having to resuscitate you was a big turn-off..”

  “That doesn’t excuse you for locking me in a medical pod, dumping me on an abandoned space station and telling the bounty hunters where to find me.”

  “At least it was a fully functioning medical pod. And I made sure the bounty hunters were employed by the Galactic Court, not the Corps.”

  “I was locked in that pod for ten days before they found me.”

  “I was extremely upset. And frustrated. And traumatised.”

  “Leaving me like that was probably a crime against humanity.”

  “You’d know all about crimes against humanity, wouldn’t you?”

  “Well, no, actually. It’s been proved by the Galactic Court that I never did any. I was actually found innocent on most of the charges the Corps laid against me.”

  “Oh, really, what did they find you guilty of in the end? I was still on the run when your trial ended,” Vanessa asked, suddenly curious.

  “Oh, lots of stuff… Ummm… let’s see, Taking a Space Vessel Without Consent, Distribution of Stolen Goods, Incitement to Commit Terrorism, Impersonation of a Galactic Court Judge, Jumping an Unspaceworthy Vessel, Conducting an Inappropriate Relationship with a Non-Human, that’s you by the way, Escaping Legal Incarceration, Mail Tampering… Oh, and a few orbital and airspace violations, some parking fines…”

  “So no genocide? No crimes against humanity? No war crimes?”

  “The Corps would have had to admit they were at war if they wanted me charged for war crimes. And wiping out the entire upper management of the White Rock Corporation was deemed not to have been genocide.”

  “That should have been classed as a public service. You should have got a medal.”

  “I did get a medal. And a promotion. That was before I met you.”

  “Oh, yes, I remember, you were the great hero of White Rock. However could I forget? But you should have been found guilty of rather more than traffic offences?”

  “I had good lawyers.”

  “I know you did. I paid for them… well bribed them. I didn’t realise they were that good.”

  “So I should be grateful that you hired me a decent legal team after you got me captured in the first place?”

  “And your medical treatment, I arranged for that too.”

  “I suppose you are responsible for my rejuve too.”

  “Now you’re getting it.”

  “How did you manage all that? The courts are meant to be, well, maybe not incorruptible, but horrifically expensive to bribe, and rejuve serum is unbelievably tightly controlled by the Corps, even when you can afford it.”

  “Well, you know that rejuv serum lab that disappeared and all the corps were accusing each other of stealing it.”

  “I was a bit distracted fighting a war at that point, but yes, I remember capturing some upper management types who were complaining that serum had suddenly become rare and unaffordable for everyone but the super-rich. That was you?” Vanessa grinned at me, showing her canines.

  “That was me. I stashed it for my retirement and for when I needed to bribe my way out of sticky situations. Then you and your rebel friends went and made their rebellion successful and your government was so anti-rejuve no one would openly rejuvenate.”

  “It wasn’t my government. I was merely the Emperor God King for Life, at least until the elections happened. I thought you were happy settling down with me.”

  “I was. Those ten years were the best of my life. Until it all fell apart on Centauri,” Vanessa said sadly.

  “Until it all fell apart on Centauri,” I agreed bitterly.

  “So, then you go and single-handedly start your anti-corporation crusade thing and I get drawn into the Neko freedom movement… stuff just kept… happening. I finally realised I wasn’t going to get everything done in one normal lifetime so I made plans. Unfortunately, they caught me before everything was ready and they stitched me up with every crime that had ever happened somewhere in my vicinity.”

  “What happened to your shit-hot lawyers?”

  “I’m a Neko. We don’t get fair trails. Not even at the Galactic Court. If it’s any consolation, your glorious return wasn’t meant to take an entire century, I just happened to get myself frozen for nearly ninety years.”

  “But how did I get rejuved in my pod? I distinctly remember being very old and extremely ill when they put me in.”

  “Cold storage pod, medical pod, rejuve pod, they're pretty much all the same thing if you know the right people.”

  “And you know the right people?” Vanessa brought up her stick-thin arm and looked at it ruefully.

  “I knew the right people. They're all dead now.”

  “So you set up everything… Including my escape…”

  “Umm... I had help from an old friend. Did you like the FYT suit? You wouldn’t believe where we found it,” Vanessa said, smiling.

  “I like the suit now, but it had some seriously restrictive updates loaded. It flew me straight into a storm and I was forced to crashland in the middle of the outback. I’ve fixed the issues but I still don’t completely trust it.” Vanessa’s face fell as if she were genuinely surprised.

  “That shouldn’t have happened. I was wondering why you were in the Outback flying something out of a Steampunk nightmare.”

  “You still haven’t explained why you dragged me out of my nice comfortable pod into a cold, uncaring world.”

  “Umm, well, the Neko needs a home world and I thought you could help me steal one. Just one last big job and we can retire,” Vanessa said as if she were just asking me for a cheeseburger. I stared at her in shocked amazement, trying to gather my thoughts. Before I could come up with a coherent reply Zia called back to us.

  “Err… guys, I hate to interrupt your kiss and make-up session but the sensors say we have Incoming.”

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  , , and with a less adult theme