Clarion West Write-a-thon Progress: How Deep Is Red

Tabita interrupted. She was a classic old crone of Tabat, her skin darkened from exposure to the salt wind, her hair cut short in the manner of sailors, which older women affected due to its easiness, if they had retained enough hair to make the style dignified.

Tabita had. She was a severe but elegant woman of perhaps sixty, with turquoise eyes and a string of amber around her neck. “They say ghosts linger because of unfinished business,” she said to the Doctor. “Is that true?”

He stroked his whiskers, eying the squid pudding that trembled like a fever patient in the center of the table. “On occasion, ma’am, aye.”

“Is that why our twins linger then? Some unfinished business?”

“It is more likely that one or the other of them does not realize she is dead,” he said, parceling out a fragment of the pudding, which smelled better than it looked. An oily sheen rainbowed its surface.

“How could they not know that?” a waitress squeaked, he wasn’t sure which one.

Doctor Fantastik fixed her with a portentous eye. No particular amount of ghost energy clung to her, other than the growth that covered them all, the ectoplasmic snail ooze that ghosts could not help but exude and which grew throughout this building, shaggy and slimy as rotting moss.

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This is going to be a longer, 8-10k word space opera piece that I got asked to do.

Most people called her Phoenix. Her former crew used “Captain” before that and “Sir” afterward. Her hair was silver – not white, but genuine, metallic silver, a long fall against her pale blue skin, the color of a shadow on a piece of willow ware, that made her seems ageless despite the century that lay upon her, and all those decades of pirating.

They said she had been the best slideboard rider of her time, and perhaps the best battleship pilot of all time, back before her parents and lover were killed and she turned rogue.

They said she had done terrible things in her pirate days.

They said she’d been ruthless in her rise to power, moving up the chain from god knows where, an origin she’d never, ever spoken of to anyone, not even her own daughter. She’d killed some captains, slept with others, called in favors and maneuvered and betrayed and seized power with a brutal efficiency that still underlay what now seemed a calm and orderly, rules-bound government.

They said she had killed hundreds, perhaps thousands, or people — sometimes at a distance, sometimes up close, with knife or fist. They said she’d killed a crew member when the shuttle she was in needed its mass reduced and the man hadn’t even argued, just nodded and stepped into the airlock, never said a word as the door closed and the lock cycled, just stared in at his captain as she stared back.

They said time had mellowed her.

They said working with Mukopadhyay, even though he was crazy as a spiral comet, had mellowed her.

They said helping colonize a whole planet, setting up its government, the rich and intricate system that now encompassed the whole solar system called Shiva, had mellowed her.

Not to mention motherhood, they said, a change which no woman escapes going through during pregnancy. It alters the hormones in your system. Softens you. Makes you less rash, less harsh. Takes away even the sharpest edge, not to mention the hormonal craziness, which some women never recover from, after all.

Sure, changes you in a good way, they were quick to say.

But softer, definitely softer.

She’d never do those sorts of things now.

Enjoy this sample of Cat’s writing and want more of it on a weekly basis, along with insights into process, recipes, photos of Taco Cat, chances to ask Cat (or Taco) questions, discounts on and news of new classes, and more? Support her on Patreon.