My head throbbed and I felt like steaming shit. Which, coincidentally, is what it tasted like I’d swallowed. It felt like I’d been on a six-day bender, up to and including my inability to remember where I was and how I’d gotten there. “Paige,” I said through numb lips, “what day is it?”
It is April the 3rd, 2567 EHT, came the polite reply in my mind. When Paige was being polite, it sorta had the opposite meaning. Also, she gave me the date in Earth Historical Time, which she only did when she was forcing me to think. I did the mathematical equivalent of morning coffee and converted the date to 406.113 P.D.—that’s Post Diaspora. The Free City-Ship Nebula had been flying though space for over 406 annums.
If I could interrupt your laying around and perhaps prompt you with more information, you might be interested to know that you’re currently in a fight and have taken a blow to the head. While I’m working to mitigate the concussion, if you insist on continuing to take hits, there’s only so much I will be able to do.
Well, that explained a lot. I managed to pry open my eyes and focus my vision. Now I remembered—I’d insulted the ogre. He was a particularly ugly one, after all. Sure, ogres, orcs, trolls, they were all fuck-ugly, but this guy took the prize. He was covered in tufts of knotted, nappy brown hair. He’d braided the hair on his head, though it was no cleaner. That broad, flat head sat on less neck than usual for his kind, his bulging shoulders looking like a heavy-armor exosuit, and likely just as strong. In his big, bear-clawed mitt of a fist was a homemade maul, a big chunk of steel—ripped from who-knew-where—attached to an almost-five-foot-long shaft of lightweight carbon nanocomposite. It looked rather effective as he lifted it over his head and sent it rocketing down for another chance at my melon.