Carmen Swiftblade

[Skeleton Horse]

Here, as promised, is my sci-fi rewrite of the novella "Carmen" by Prosper Merimee, with a bit of Bizet's opera thrown in there as well.

Disclaimer, since this is technically a fanfic: "Carmen" belongs to Bizet or Merimee, or whoever owns the rights to it now. The remodeled and new characters and settings belong to me. I trust all y'all, of course, but to any lurkers out there: Keep yer paws off!

Obviously, spoiler warning for the book and opera.

Carmen Swiftblade, Part 1

Cerberus Prison Compound, Earth year 3029

Ah, you’re here. My end must truly be near if they’ve sent you. I thought maybe they’d given up on getting a full confession out of me. They have all the information they need to execute me for my crimes, don’t they? Ah, never mind, I might as well tell you everything. That’s what they’re paying you for, I suppose. And, after all, they’ll just scan my memories after I’m cold and stiff, eh? Hah. Yes, I’ll tell you all of it—how I lost control of my life, and, yes, I will tell you about Carmen Swiftblade…

You’ve surely read my file, so you already know that my name is Jonas and that I grew up on Earth, and that I first arrived at Phoenix Orbiter Colony about a year ago. I joined the colony’s security force—I didn’t have any particular interest in it, but it paid well and it would give me some level of respectability. At the time I joined, they were tracking down a group of renegades who were suspected of running their operation through sources on the colony.

On the day I met Carmen, I was on duty in a human-run tavern at the northern end of the marketplace. It was pretty standard for that kind of business—small, dimly lit, and just clean enough to stay open. Those sorts of places always seem to be popular with the lowlifes—I guess that’s what comes of humans being considered scum by the rest of the known universe. There was one bunch in particular that I had my eye on, thanks to a supposedly reliable tip-off. They’d been sitting there for a while, and they seemed to be waiting for someone. I was starting to think that my informer had been wrong about them and that I was wasting my time, when the lot of them sent up a commotion, calling to someone behind me. But it wasn’t just them; others in the tavern took up the cry, too, shouting, “Carmen! Carmen!” I turned in my seat to face the tavern entrance and there she was, strutting in like an Amazon queen returning in triumph to her subjects. (Ah, you must excuse my Earth references—force of habit, you know.)

She was tall, almost as tall as myself, and quite shapely. She had long, curly hair dyed a vibrant shade of crimson red, framing a face with features that, while not exceedingly gorgeous, were still very striking. I thought that she looked a bit Spanish (but you wouldn’t know what that means, would you? Again, excuse me.) Her clothes were a typical orbiter colony mishmash of styles: a tan leather breastplate that left her arms and midriff bare; a full, dark red skirt, which swirled dramatically around her lower legs as she walked; scuffed black boots adorned with straps and buckles; and dozens of bracelets rattling on her arms. Any other woman might have looked ridiculous in such a getup, but she pulled it off spectacularly by virtue of her boundless audacity.

“Ah, my friends!” she exclaimed, grinning and walking towards them with her arms held wide. She exchanged greetings and embraces with them as they stood and gathered around her. She perched on the edge of their table as they all settled back down, then turned to the bartender and announced, “A round of drinks for everyone—I got paid today!” This prompted another chorus of rowdy cheers from the tavern’s patrons. My ears pricked up a bit at this. The tavern itself might have been small, but the crowd certainly wasn’t; there were a lot of glasses to fill. Perhaps my source had been right, after all.
It was then that Carmen noticed me watching her and her friends. Her pale grey eyes met mine, and she winked at me. I glared and glanced down at my now-empty glass. There was something about her that irritated me, though I couldn’t put my finger on what it was.

“Haven’t seen you here before. What’ll you be drinkin’, newcomer?” she asked genially.

“Water,” I muttered, not looking at her. I had no intention of letting this girl get to me, you understand. That’s the ironic part of it all—at that time, I had no interest in females.

“Ah, you’re no fun,” she said, waving her slender hand dismissively. I glanced up at her, and she grabbed a flower from the cheap vase on the table and threw it at me; it bounced off of my forehead, making me jump. Carmen laughed softly and tapped her heels against the table leg. A female Drakorian sitting next to her leaned forward.

“Carmen, that young officer lad was asking after you yesterday,” she said.

“What, again?” Carmen snorted derisively. “He oughta know by now that he won’t get nowhere by pestering me. I’ve always had a soft spot for the ones that play hard to get.” I could feel her mocking gaze on me as they all laughed raucously.

It was three days before I saw her again. We’d gotten another tip-off, this time regarding an actual smuggling run. One of the lieutenants, a short, stocky Drakorian male called Karrin, assembled a team and went to the spot where the deal was set to take place—an abandoned landing bay. (Not too subtle, eh?) We set up a surveillance feed from the bay and retreated to a disused medical room just down the corridor to watch and wait. Five cloak-shrouded humans showed up an hour later, carrying some large, wooden crates; they searched the bay, of course, but they didn’t find our camera. It wasn’t much longer before their contacts, a trio of nervous-looking Shades , joined them.

“You’d best have the money this time, Ilano. We won’t take no more of your trickery,” said a terribly familiar feminine voice. One of the five humans walked out towards the center of the bay and put her hood back. It was Carmen.

“No need to get hostile, Swiftblade, we’ve got your money. We don’t want a repeat of last time any more’n you and yours do,” growled Ilano, the lead Shade. Carmen narrowed her eyes and studied him for a moment, then turned her head to whistle over her shoulder. Her companions emerged with the crates, setting them down between the two groups. Karrin nodded to our team, and we charged down the corridor and into the bay with our plasma guns held at the ready, fanning out to surround the smugglers.

“Hold it right there,” he commanded. They all stopped and stared, frozen, until Ilano broke the silence.

“You set us up!” he snarled, whirling around to face Carmen.

“The hell I did!” she scoffed. She looked over at me, and her eyes lit up in recognition. “Well I’ll be damned, it’s the boring fellow!” she said teasingly. “Tell me, how was your water? Not too dirty, I hope? Haven’t got sick yet, have you? You can never be too careful in establishments like those.”

“Shut it,” Karrin snapped. He gestured to the crates with his gun. “Open them.”

“What, you think I’m selling something I shouldn’t be? Why, sir, I am hurt!” she cried, clasping her hand to her chest in mock pain. “Why would a sweet, harmless female like meself be risking her pretty neck with illegal things, hm?”

“Why would a sweet, harmless female like yourself be conducting business in an abandoned landing bay?” he shot back.

“You’ve got me there,” she replied, chuckling.

“Open the crates,” he repeated, lifting the gun higher. Carmen smiled disarmingly and started to step backwards towards the crates. I noticed one of the Shades reaching for the gun holstered at his hip, and immediately raised my own weapon.

“Don’t even think about it,” I warned. Karrin knelt and reached into one of the opened crates, all while keeping his gun trained on Carmen.

“Narhai ,” he announced grimly, holding up a small glass bottle. I subtly craned my neck for a better look; I’d never seen the stuff in person before. Karrin stood and reached for his communicator. “Let’s haul them out of here. Jonas! Come here and take care of this one while I make my report.” I took a pair of wire restraints from him and approached Carmen.

“Come on, sir, you’re not really goin’ to arrest me, are ya?” she asked as I bound her hands. Her tone was light and joking, but I thought I could hear an undercurrent of desperation there as well.

“Don’t have a choice,” I said curtly. She was quiet for a moment, though she glanced about frantically, as though searching for a way to escape.

“All right, let’s move out!” shouted the lieutenant. We fell into line with our prisoners and the confiscated crates. Carmen and I ended up walking near the middle. She spoke again as we marched down the corridor.

“Were you raised on Earth, friend?” she asked, using English instead of the orbiter colony hybrid language. I glanced up at her, surprised.

“Yes, I was—I’m from California,” I replied.

“Ah, so am I!” she exclaimed. “I can always spot a home-planet human—the ones who’ve been away longer get this accent, like me.” She sighed wistfully. “I do miss that lovely planet. We home-grown humans gotta stick together, ya’ know? All humans gotta stick together. It’s hard sometimes, bein’ one of our kind out here, ain’t it?”

“That’s true,” I admitted guardedly.

“So,” she prompted, “Why not help out an Earth girl? Just this once. Maybe you simply didn’t bind my hands as tight as you thought; and maybe I’ve had some lessons in hand-to-hand combat… Come on, if you get into any real trouble with them otherworlders, I’ll help you out—Carmen’s got lots of generous friends.” She laughed, and I made the fatal mistake of allowing my gaze to meet hers. Let me tell you, I’ve never believed in mind-control or any of that nonsense. But when I looked into those bright gray eyes, I lost all common sense and all self-control, just as surely as if she’d seized control of me.

“Fine, but you’d better make good use of it!” I told her as I surreptitiously loosened her restraints. Our convoy had entered the marketplace and was working its way around the perimeter. When we were halfway across, Carmen stopped suddenly, elbowed me sharply in the stomach, and punched me in the face. I was anticipating her attack, but I’d been expecting to fake it; there was certainly nothing fake about the way I fell to the ground, stunned both physically and mentally. Ah, she had a fearsome punch! She ran headlong into the swarming masses of the market, threading her way between stalls as swiftly as a bird. And just like that, she’d vanished.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Orbiter colony: A community established on an artificially-made satellite or on the host planet’s primary moon
Narhai: a dangerous and very popular recreational drug
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"Knowing my brother-in-law, he probably deserves whatever you're about to do to him; but this is MY house, and I have certain rules about snakes and dismemberment!"
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