you know, an interpretation of ct that I don't see that I personally really love is that she's a fuck up. like yes she's cool and she has some good fight scenes, but a huge part of her character is that she makes mistakes. the mistakes that she makes are ones that on their own aren't the end of the world, but she keeps making these little mistakes, and they eventually add up until she's out of room to make any more.
a really good example of this phenomenon in action is the actions she took leading up to her final confrontation with carolina and tex.
strike one, she thought she saw something in the water, but when asked by the leader what it was, she brushed it off as nothing when even if it had been nothing, it would've been smart to tell him what she thought she saw.
strike two, she didn't sense or notice florida's presence when the leader did, and she looks at the leader twice, once as she pulled out her magnums, and again after she did a scan of the room, almost like she was looking at him for guidance before he finds florida and takes him out with one good axe throw.
strike three, she couldn't convince the leader to leave when they had the chance to get away, and her cheap tricks were not enough to hold off either tex or carolina in a fight. they were only good for incapacitating her opponents enough for her to get away, which doesn't work when she has no escape.
ct is not tex, or carolina, or south. she is not a one woman army who can get herself out of trouble when she's stuck in tough situations. she needs people who can watch her back, she need a team who can cover her when she does mess up, and the leader and his team were not those people. she couldn't bring herself to trust them, and they couldn't bring themselves to trust her, and that cost all of them their lives.
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Human Magic
You would think that a life gallivanting through space would be an endless string of exciting locations, and mostly you would be right. But sometimes my job on the courier ship is just a job, and occasionally that job sucks.
Like most jobs, it sucks when the people do. Today would have been unpleasant enough because of the location: a jungle area thick with plants, fog, and heat. I dislike sweating. I got to do a lot of it today. I also got my hair caught on umpteen different twigs and branches, completely messing up the braid. But all of that could have been fine if the clients were nice.
Nope! Snooty little buttheads of the same species as the captain, completely uninterested in acknowledging the rest of us, and ready to argue about the price of the delivery.
I stood there beside all the crates we’d just unloaded, wanting to take a nap on the hoversled but knowing that it would probably just make Captain Sunlight look bad. So I just sweated and waited, next to the Frillian twins and Mur, all of whom seemed to enjoy the sauna temperatures. The lizardy Heatseekers did too. Lucky me, the only one not either coldblooded or from a semi-aquatic background. They could have gotten someone else to help with this delivery, but the rest of the crew was busy loading up our next shipment. And I hadn’t realized how distasteful this would be.
“The items clearly smell rank,” argued the lead client. “Especially that crate; I can barely stand to be near it.”
“Once again,” said Captain Sunlight with more patience than these people deserved, “They smelled like that when we accepted them, as I have noted right here, and we traveled with exceptional speed.”
“I just can’t justify paying the full price for a spoiled product.”
“You are paying for the delivery, not the product.”
The argument went in circles while I sighed and undid my braid. Might as well fix that while I waited; there wasn’t anything else to do. When one of the underlings gave me a glare, I rolled my eyes and stepped behind the Frillians. Blip squared her shoulders and blocked me from sight.
How dare I catch their attention with my unsightly mammal fur? I thought, finger-combing the leaves out. No appreciation for — hm. I’d found a loose hair and also an idea.
I tucked the strand into my mouth while I redid the braid, then tied one end of that stray hair to the pen from my pocket, and the other end to my finger.
This was a trick that had gone over well in elementary school. With the fog and the way hair was exotic here, I was curious to see how it did.
“Captain,” I said politely, stepping forward. “Perhaps they would like to pay the full price if we throw in the secret of how I can move small things with my mind?”
Captain Sunlight quirked a browridge but played along. “Valuable information,” she said. “What do you say?”
The clients whispered to each other and argued for a moment, then demanded a demonstration. I happily obliged.
With the fog blocking out any traitorous rays of light that could give the game away, I held the pen out on my left palm, making dramatic flourishes above it with my right. I affected a look of deep concentration. Wiggling the fingers of both hands, I lifted my right, and lo! The pen rose into the air!
They bought it. Such goggle-eyed expressions; I had to work not to snort in laughter. Instead I stood up straight and caught the pen with my left hand, bowing while the clients all talked at once.
Captain Sunlight may or may not have known how I’d done that, but she was no fool. She took their payment as quickly as they offered it, then managed to usher everyone else back toward the ship without making it look like they were preparing to run.
“Go ahead,” she said to me. “Share your secret.”
“It’s quite simple,” I told them, snapping the hair from my finger. “All you need is a single strand of human hair.” I tossed them the pen and stepped behind a bush while they caught it in surprise.
Now, they could have chosen to laugh and offer to buy some of my hair. They could have pulled the same trick on their friends, and maybe won some bar bets or whatever. They didn’t. I’d made the right call by ducking out of sight.
They were yelling some extremely rude things when Captain Sunlight sped past and leapt onto the hoversled. “Back to the ship!” she said. Blop pushed the sled through the undergrowth at a run, with Blip jumping forward to clear a path and Mur scrambling up beside the captain. I wasn’t small enough to get away with that, so I followed behind Blop and kept an eye out for pursuit.
Luckily for us, they decided to stay there and be grumpy instead chasing after us. They’d gotten what they paid for, after all. Even if I’d used slightly more than my mind to move the pen.
“That was a great trick!” Mur shouted from the sled. “I didn’t realize your head-tentacle was useful.”
“So useful,” I called back, ducking a branch. “Sometimes that even works on other humans, though they usually figure it out pretty fast.”
“I appreciate the quick thinking,” said Captain Sunlight. “I’ll keep it in mind for future negotiations.”
“As long as they aren’t the type to end in violence,” I said. “I was pretty sure these guys wouldn’t fight us about it, but I couldn’t be sure.”
“Oh, these were former crewmates of someone I know!” the captain said. “They’ve always been eggholes.”
“Great!” I said. “I hope they enjoy the pen. It’s almost out of ink.”
~~~
The ongoing backstory of the main character from this book. More to come!
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