Patton rammed him from the side. Oush only cantered some and ignored the insult. Patton came again, and this time Oush tossed him to the ground. Patton was right back up, jacked with super strength from drugs. I was stronger too, but not enough to get the large, hemorrhaging pro wrestler off of me.

“You idiot! You need this to live!” he cried.

“It doesn’t–” wheezing, water-boarded with blood “–feel that way!”

Then his other hand was on my neck. Choking. My tongue flopped out. I could sense the inner walls of my throat touching.

Patton appeared again, this time from behind. He flung a loop of tubing around Oush’s neck, and pulled back as hard as he could. Oush barely seemed to notice, just gritted his teeth and pushed himself down heavier upon me, at once choking me out and trying to stab me with the very-obviously-bad-thing-that-was-not-medicine.

Patton rolled away, long end of the tube still in hand, and stretched it through the narrow gap in the food eel’s face, cinching it in place.

Oush slowly pulled away from me as the tube tightened. His hands went to his neck, dropping the ampoule to the floor. I skittered away and over to Patton, as the eel dragged Oush flopping along the circumference of the enclosure. “Help me,” he hissed, while trying to get his hands under the rubbery garrot. “Help.” His bronzed face went purple as an eggplant and soon he stopped flailing. His arms fell heavy to the floor. The eel continued stubbornly on, dragging the huge, dead, bemulleted assassin.

“I killed a guy with the poop tube!” exclaimed Patton.

I didn’t love the idea of someone dying, but: “He was trying to kill me, right?”

“Totally,” said Patton, yanking a comically huge gun from Oush’s belt and using the handle to smash the ampoule.

A hole opened in the membrane. Aptat had gotten their fingers through and was now tearing at it. Their mask appeared, opened, and Aptat looked inside. Their eyes flicked to Oush, still being dragged about, a smeared trail of his own face blood left behind. “Oh. That didn’t go at all like we’d thought.” Then to me: “Hi, Ben. Patton.”

“Did you come here to kill us?”

“That depends,” said the stringhunter, grunting as they peeled away more membrane.

A tiny Vortu appeared behind them. “Oush!” It was Naecia. Then she saw it. “You killed him?” she screamed, insisting her way through the hole and running to the wrestler’s side as his body languidly made the rounds.

“He fucked around and found out,” said Patton, with a shrug.

“Did you take the Amnesplid?”

“Was that the stuff Oush tried to stab me with?”

“It was the medicine you need to travel FTL.”

“Uh, no,” I said. “First of all, he didn’t have enough for both of us, and also, it didn’t seem like it was really anti-nausea medication. More like anti-life medication.”