by Randoman
“Ripped Scar vessels you say?” The Warden asked aloud.
“Yes. They demanded that I surrender my cargo to them when they first emerged. When I refused, they began to attack.”
“I see. And what exactly was your cargo, miss Yvael? A ship like yours doesn’t erupt from a single torpedo.”
“Warheads sir.” She answered quickly. “I was transporting warheads to the Araxium Vos system for delivery for their shipyards.”
“Araxium Vos…hmmm. Normally cargo like that demands an escort.”
“Unfortunately Warden, life isn’t so simple as that.” She sighed, “All the crews I had asked turned me down instantly. Many laughed at the thought of working with a ‘Demon’. I couldn’t even hire a crew for my own ship.”
The old man nodded, “We are at war, and people are quick to judge others. Though it is curious you were unable to secure even a single extra crew member.”
“I…may have set my standards a bit high…” Yvael admitted.
“And you?” the warden stared my way, “What’s your version of events?”
“Just a hero coming to the damsel in distress’ rescue.” I leaned back in the chair. “No more, no less.”
“Oh so you’re a hero now?” Yvael stared at me with a smirk. “I guess you are in a way.” Oh lady, you have no idea.
“I see.” The warden began typing on his keyboard. “Well, you two are free to go. Thank you for your time and understanding. I’ll have some people look into this Ripped Scar group.”
We both thanked him for his hospitality and left the precinct.
‘We all good Aya?’
‘Affirmative. Mission accomplished.’ We were officially Gucci.
“Well, that was a complete waste of time.” I sighed.
“Mmmm.” Yvael replied as she followed alongside me.
“At least the weather’s nice.”
“Mmmm.”
“I once pissed myself in the third grade lunch line because I didn’t want to miss out on pizza day.”
“Mmmm.”
“Yo.” I punched her on the shoulder lightly. “You still there?”
“Huh? What? I’m sorry, I was thinking. I lose myself sometimes when I’ve got a lot on my mind.”
“I hear ya there. Lemme guess, you’re wondering about what to do now that your ship’s gone.”
“Yeah.” She nodded, “Well, thats just one part. I promised my friend and employer I’d be able to bring a load of warheads to the Araxium Vos shipyards.” A sad smile crossed her face, “But that’s not possible anymore. And without my ship I won’t be able to make any money on my own.” She sighed, “I’ll have to hire onto another ship I guess.” Her golden eyes bore into my own, “Think you could give a poor, shipwrecked gal a job on your old clunker?”
“Hah, I’d offer you one, but circumstances being what they are…well…lets just say you’d be better off finding another ship.”
“Hmmm…” Yvael studied me closely. “What kind of circumstances?”
“The kind where we’re going to have to leave in a few hours in a hurry.”
“Being followed eh?” She smiled, “How exciting. Are you secretly a pirate yourself on the run from the law?”
I didn’t reply as we walked back towards the hangar. It would be better for her if she didn’t get involved any more than she already had. She may be a Demon like Avon, but at least she wasn’t being actively hunted like we were.
“Not talking hmm? A bit close to the mark there?” She grinned impishly. “Well, I think I may have an idea that may help you out.”
“Oh? And just what can you offer me?” I decided to humor her. Chances are, she was just looking for a free ride.
“My friend may be able to help you out. If you join up with her, then those following you won’t ever mess with you again. I can promise you that. You’ll just have to bring me to the Araxium Vos system so I can speak with her on your behalf.” I knew it.
“Oh? You’re not just saying that just to get a free ride are you?”
“If you want, I could help clean up the ship while we’re on the way. Come on, what have you got to lose?”
“Nothing but time honestly.”
“So will you accept?”
“No.” I stated as the hangar door opened.
Without looking back, I strode forth towards my ship to get some cleaning done. Dust was starting to congregate on the ship’s control panels, and I didn’t like that one bit. The sound of footsteps followed me up the ramp into my ship’s cargo hold. I turned to tell Yvael to find another ride, only to be stunned by the look on her face. She was glaring at me, but said nothing. She merely motioned for us to continue into the ship and to keep quiet. Once safely within the cargo hold, she drew close and whispered into my ear.
“If you are running from the Kingdom, we can help. We need brave Captains of all races, like yourself, to help those in need. To stand against the injustices in this galaxy brought about by the Salyzan royal family. If you come to Araxium Vos, I can introduce you to the head of our organization. With my word, you’ll be safe, but even more…” She stared into my eyes, her own glowing with zeal in the dim light of the hold. “You’ll be able to fight back.”
“Not interested.”
“Huh? But-” confusion was clear across her face as she tried to process my words.
“But nothing Yvael. Fighting for an ideal is all well and good, but your ideals are not mine. I’ve got my own battles to fight.”
“And just what are your battles, Chet?” She asked angrily.
“Right now? Dust and scorch marks. A few hours from now? Trying to keep my ship intact as we make a getaway. Further than that? Keeping my crew safe until they can go back home and I can go back to pursuing my goal. You can stay if you want Yvael, we can make a quick trip to wherever you want to go. We’ll even drop you off free of charge. But once that’s done we’ll be taking our leave.”
She sighed sadly, “Very well Captain. I’ll take you up on your offer.”
“Very good. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got a ship to clean.”
The sound of Yvael cursing to herself stayed with me all the way to the bridge. She knew some good ones.
Chapter 12: Mental Health
“A little to the left!” Hortur called out as he clung to the top of our ship that was in desperate need of a new paint job. Aesthetics would come later, for now we had to get the last of our new plasma cannons installed in my little murder boat. With hands on the controls of the lifter currently holding the last of our new cannons, I inched to the left. Being able to disable gravity in a hangar made replacing heavy, expensive components a breeze.
“Too far! A little to the right!” The snake man called out.
‘Do you want me to drive?’ Aya huffed in my mind.
‘Aya, the last time I let you drive you almost killed me. No different than any other woman whose driven for me, but still.’
“Alright good! Bring it down steady!”
‘I’d like to remind you that without my superior driving you’d be dead right now.’
‘You can remind me all you like, still doesn’t change the fact that every time a woman takes the wheel I almost end up dead.’
“You can release it now!” The second I let the cannon go, the sound of welding echoed through the hangar. Wires would have to be run through, and the guns would have to be tested, but it felt so good having a fully armed ship. With the exception of the torpedo launcher of course. Apparently torpedoes were a big deal and needed military approval to receive, which made me wonder exactly how those pirates got their hands on one. And where there was one, there was sure to be more.
‘Data points towards them having a supporter with connections.’
‘Yeah that always seems to be the case with pirates.’ I watched Hortur weld the cannon onto the hull, sparks falling like tiny skydivers. ‘Hey, since we’ve got our ship all decked out now, how about we go find those pirates and blow them out of the sk
y?’
‘That would be inadvisable. We don’t even know where their base of operations would be. Not to mention that the ETA of our “friends” is another hour and a half away.’
I sighed, ‘Buncha bullshit Aya. It should have been just you and me out there in the stars, kicking ass and taking names. After we got Avon to come with us of course.’
‘From what I’ve seen of Aevalonis from your memories, the chances of that happening are microscopic.’
‘Wow, way to have faith in me Aya. You wait, someday we’ll find her and she’ll fall right into my arms like in the Disney movies.’
‘The vast majority of those films stem from novels that end in tragedy.’
‘Killjoy.’
The doors to the hangar opened, revealing Princess Egyle driving a small anti-grav cart filled with shopping bags. Once the doors to the hangar closed behind her, she began to float up into the air. Gravity was still disabled in our workspace, and she was driving something anti-grav. In total, that was like no-gravity squared…or something.
‘Idiot.’
‘Wow, harsh words Aya. Math is hard okay?’
“Wah! Help me!” Princess Egyle cried out.
“Gravity on.” I commanded, sending Egyle, and all her floating bags, falling back down to earth. Clothing gracefully wafted through the air while cleaning supplies clacked against the ground. With nothing better to do, I exited the lifter and began to help pick up the scattered clothes.
“Don’t touch those!” Egyle yelled at me with a beet-red face as I stuffed her selection of unmentionables into the shopping bag nearest me.
“Relax you prude. They aren’t even the good lacy kind.” I rolled my eyes and handed the bag of underwear back to her. “You remembered to buy me some this time, right?”
Pale skin burned a deep crimson as she slammed another bag into my hands and stormed off onto the ship, leaving the remaining bags of supplies on the ground. I took a look inside the bag and smiled. She did remember. Guess it was up to me to finish clean up duty.
“You have no idea how embarrassing it was buying those!” Princess Egyle yelled over our implants while Hortur and I watched the now installed turrets on the outside of the ship. Egyle was currently inside the ship at the gunnery station, controlling said turrets while we made sure they had a free range of motion.
“Yeah yeah, now you know how men feel going into the women’s products aisle. Aim to the left.” The turrets that could, followed my command promptly. Earlier, Aya had spoken to me all about firing arcs, range of motion, and other technical mumbo jumbo. In the end, all it meant that if we wanted to shoot all six cannons at once, we’d have to face our target with the nose of the ship pointed slightly downward. That way the two turrets on the aft, the two on starboard, and the two atop of the ship could all hit their target. Otherwise, only the few that could hit our target would fire when given the command.
“Looking good over here Captain.” Hortur called from his side of the ship.
“Alright, try rolling them around in a circle.” Without a word, the cannons moved in a circular pattern. “Nice, nice. We’re looking good. All right, try turning them around now.”
———————————————————————
Princess Egyle grumbled while sitting in at the gunnery station inside the bridge of the ship. The targeting interface helmet sat snug atop her head as she spun the cannons around to face the rear of the ship. In perfect sync, the felt the cannons turn towards wherever she aimed the reticule in her vision.
“Alright, good!” Chet called over the implant connection. “You can relax now, we’ll be heading out within the hour.”
“Affirmative.” She sighed and pulled the helmet off her head, sending golden hair tumbling down below her shoulders. A faint beep confirmed that their connection had ended. “Idiot.” She whispered, staring at her reflection on the helmet.
“My, what a thing to say about your Captain.” Yvael spoke as she leaned against the bridge doorway, sucking on a slice of lemon.
“How did you-” Princess Egyle cut off as Yvael pointed towards her elongated ears.
“Sensitive hearing dear. But don’t worry, I won’t tell him what you said.”
“I wasn’t saying that about him.” The Princess looked away in shame. “It was about myself.”
“Oh? And why do you consider yourself an idiot, hmmm?”
“None of your business Demon.” Egyle attempted to shoulder past the loitering woman, only to have her wrist grabbed by a strong hand. “Let go!” she growled.
“Thats a slave tiara, isn’t it?” Yvael smiled, her golden eyes burning into the Princess’. “Are you the Captain’s then? I didn’t think humans used those on one another.”
“Get your hand off of me, Demon.” Egyle smacked Yvael’s hand from her wrist. “I have nothing to say to you.” She then pushed her way past Yvael and walked towards her quarters.
“I can help you get that tiara off. You can be free again.” Yvael spoke as she followed behind. Egyle stopped in her tracks, her eyes closed in consideration.
‘Free? Free to go back home to my family?’ Princess Egyle clenched her teeth. ‘Free to be kept under lock and key by my Father again? To not even be able to go shopping for myself? I probably wouldn’t even be allowed to set foot in another starship after all this!’
In silence, the two stood alone in the hallway of the ship. With her mind set, Egyle turned to regard the smiling Yvael. And laughed.
“It doesn’t matter.”
“What? But-” Confusion was clearly written all over Yvael’s face.
“I’m wearing this thing because I’m an idiot.” Egyle admitted with a self-derisive laugh. Her thoughts going back to when she had followed Chet hoping to capture him, only to wind up captured herself. “If I weren’t an idiot, I could be home right now. If I weren’t an idiot, the Captain wouldn’t be forced into running away constantly. But if I weren’t an idiot, I wouldn’t be here doing something I actually enjoy! I like being on this ship! I love hearing the sounds of the engines as we blast off. I love the feeling of the metal clanking underfoot as I walk from room to room. I love going to far away systems I’d never even heard of before!”
Egyle laughed happily, “Even if I have to scrub this ship from top to bottom everyday, even if I’m asked to run simple errands like buying clothing, these past few days have made me realize that this-” she pointed to the tiara locked onto her head, “-is the best thing to ever happen to me. And so, it doesn’t matter to me if I have to wear it or not. Just so long as I don’t have to go back to being some sort of accessory instead of an actual person.”
Without another word, Princess Egyle entered her room and closed the door behind her.
For a moment, Yvael stood there before the door in a state of total surprise. Shaking her head, she walked away from Egyle’s room and sighed, “What kind of life must she have lived to feel that way?”
————————————————————————————
“Alrighty everybody, looks like we’ll be getting out of a system without any hiccups for once.” As soon as I said those words, metal shutters closed down over the exit to the hangar.
“As you were saying?” Egyle spoke with a smile while sitting at the gunnery station, rolling the helmet interface around in her hands.
“Attention crew members of the Boatsy. You are hereby under arrest by Salyzan law. You are to turn off your ship and surrender peacefully. Any further actions will be held against you in a court of law.” The person on the other side of the communicator spoke.
‘Captain, I’m reading multiple vessels leaving hyperspace.’
‘You know what to do Aya.’
‘Affirmative Captain. Raising shutters in a second.’
“Captain,” Yvael spoke from the tactical station, “multiple vessels approaching the station at massive speed.”
“Pretty late with the news there, Yvael.”
She stared directly at me with a curious expression, “Just what exactly did you do? These readings are from top of the line Kingdom ships!”
“Oh you know. A bit of this, a bit of that.” The shutters retracted, giving us an outing. “Attention passengers, please fasten your seat belts. We’re about to experience some minor turbulence.”
“What do you-wahh!” Yvael cried out as I blasted the engines to full power, sending us hurtling out of the station at break-your-entire-body speeds.
“Wooohooooo!” Princess Egyle whooped from her seat as ship shook from the force of our acceleration. Like a streak of light, we burned a trail into space. Aggravated snarls sounded over the global communication channel from ships that we had almost swapped paint with.
“You’re in a good mood Princess.” Hortur spoke. His eyes widened, “Oops.”
“Princess?” Yvael asked and looked towards Egyle then towards me curiously.
“It wasn’t much of a secret.” I shrugged, “I did call her a spoiled princess when we met. And her name is Egyle. Its your own fault for not connecting the dots.”
“You enslaved the Princess?!”
“Not by choice!” I held up my hands defensively. “Events beyond my control forced me to act!”
“Hero.” A familiar voice spoke over the comms. A view-screen appeared in the middle of the window. King Lavian in all his bulky glory, stood and regarded us with a critical eye.
“Hey Lavian. You’re looking good, you been working out?” I asked. “I see you’ve ditched the chair. Good on you.”
“Hero?” Yvael asked and then gasped, “I knew I recognized you! From the video!”
“Skip the pleasantries, Hero. Where is my daughter?”
“Here Father.” Princess Egyle spoke as she stood beside me.
“You will not escape me again, Hero.” King Lavian vowed with a clenched fist. “Make it easy on yourself and surrender.”
“I don’t need you to save me, Father!” Princess Egyle shouted. “I don’t want to go back to being some sort of porcelain doll you keep locked up in the palace!”
