Xena's Arc

Chapter 4 of 13

Three days out from the forest moon, Xena woke in her bunk with a cold thought. Seven of Nine was in the Vega mining belt, but the belt was wide and the camps moved with the ore. Xena had left the spaceport without sending word. She could arrive at the belt in a month and find the camp stripped, the miners gone to another rock. She sat up and wrapped the sword and set her feet on the deck. She needed a message to run ahead of her, and she needed it before the freighter left the cedar lodge on the forest moon. She found Tom Paris in the cargo bay, checking straps on the feed crates. The raccoon in the blue-green shirt watched from its bin, chewing a strip of pork rind she had slipped it that morning. Xena asked if the lodge on the forest moon had a comm relay. Tom Paris said it did. Traders paid coin to bounce messages out to the belt and back. He said the innkeeper was honest about the sending but charged double for a name and a camp. Xena had no coin. She had the sword, and she would not sell the sword. She looked at the raccoon. She asked Tom Paris what a trained cargo animal was worth at a forest moon lodge. He laughed once, then stopped when he saw her face. He said a good ratter that scared off inspectors was worth a short message and a mug of beer. She said she would take the message. They made the forest moon at dusk. The lodge stood at the end of a plank walk, cedar walls glowing from lantern posts, a framed picture of an old starship nailed above the door. Tom Paris walked her in past two men with knives on their belts and set his hand on her shoulder until they looked away. The innkeeper took the raccoon in its bin and counted its teeth and nodded. Xena wrote the message on a slip of pulp paper. Seven of Nine. Vega belt. Xena is coming. Wait for me. The innkeeper fed the slip into the relay and the light on the box turned green and then went dark. He said the bounce would reach the belt in nine days. He could not promise it would find her. He could only promise it would go. Xena walked back onto the porch and stood under a lantern and felt the sword against her ribs. The word was out ahead of her now. Whether Seven of Nine would still be there to catch it, she would not know until she stood on the rock herself.