Captive Galaxy 1: The Bellerophon: Ambush

by J. W. Kurtz

  Wray continued his trek through the ship, across steel deck grates clattering beneath his boots, and up the ladders from deck to deck as he inspected everything he could during his journey forward. Dead lights that needed replacement went on the list but flickering ones did not. Flicking still meant they worked...well enough any way to allow guidance in the poorly lit corridors. It was a matter of triage more than it was a matter of preventative maintenance. Exposed conduit lines, pipes, and temporary, but really not so temporary, coils of cable ran to and fro and were inspected with the keen eye of the Belle's captain in an expeditious manner. Those conduits and cables were the circulatory system of the ship. They carried coolant, fuel, electricity, water, and waste to where they were needed. Wray managed to stave off the discouragement he felt as the list of needed repairs grew and grew. Finally he found himself at the end of the intermittently painted white line. He had arrived at his destination.

  Finally, he reached the command deck buried several levels deep in the bow section of the 700-meter leviathan. Wray turned to cast a glance the way he had come, ran a tired hand through his hair, and then looked to his datapad to inspect the lengthy work list he'd complied. Such a long, long list. It was then that he also noticed the chrono readout on the top right of the display. The 20-minute hike back to the command deck had actually taken more than an hour. His progress greatly slowed of course by all the needed repairs and maintenance needing to be notes. Also, walking just about anywhere on the Bellerophon was a chore because nary a direct route was often possible.

  Newer ships in the CDF fleet were built in straight lines internally and externally. It was a faster, cheaper, and far more efficient way to build and operate a warship. The designers of the latest ships definitely learned a thing or two from the older classes of hulls that were thrown together in a mishmash of designs for expediency required while under the hammer of warfare.

  Truth be told, Wray liked the twists and turns of the internal corridors. It added to the character of the ship and made it easy for him when he felt like he needed to just get lost with some solitary time.

  A nearby bulkhead with gray paint flecking away bore his weight as he leaned against it. He took pause as he considered the health of the ship and operation he was leading. A heavy sigh again escaped his lungs. Wray continued to scan the list on his datapad and quickly transferred the less critical items to a previously complied list that would now be slated for later repair and service due to their lower level of importance. He called this list, that forever seemed to be put off, the "dream list." And like the critical repair list, it was a very long dream list.

  Chapter 6:

  Time: 15:56 (Zulu)

  With the work list from his walking inspection, begun in the main hangar and ended on the command deck, now completed and uploaded to the ships network for the next work shift, Wray walked the final few meters to his quarters. The heavy steel hatch parted to reveal an unexpected guest sitting in his chair behind his desk. Sitting in his well worn chair at the desk, a desk that was the only personal possession he coveted, was the pale form of Simon Totts. As this unexpected sight processed, Wray stopped in his tracks. Wray quickly managed to control the fury within that was manifesting. Totts looked up from the datapad he was reading, took a sip from the silver flask in hand, and met the eyes of the Captain.

  "Ah...Mr. Wray. I've been waiting for you so we can discuss---" Totts began.

  "Captain," Wray interrupted.

  "Beg pardon?" asked Totts.

  Wray, still standing at the cabin entrance continued, "'Captain.' Or 'Boss.' You may call me either. Don't sit there, uninvited to my cabin, drinking at my desk, and then address me as if we're equals. Move. NOW." Wray said in a calm and even voice which nearly succeeded in masking the rage boiling beneath his usually cool facade.

  Totts sat frozen for a moment as he realized the immensity of his transgression. It was one level of insult to enter the cabin of Wray without permission. A level of insult Totts was quite comfortable with, for he had done such a thing on purpose. On several occasions in fact. However this time he had gone too far by also luxuriating in spirits at the personal seat behind the desk.

  He took an additional sip from the small flask, not out of insult, but in an effort to boost his own fortitude. His hand shaking with a slight tremor of nervousness, Totts placed the half-empty container of spirits in the breast pocket of his spotlessly clean and crisply starched white dress shirt. He rose to his feet on his skeletally thin legs, and in an overly slow and casual manner, in an effort to make clear that he was moving because he wanted to, and not because he had to, Totts languidly made his way around the desk to take a seat in one of the two chairs facing the antique. He was now sitting with his back to Wray who was still standing in the hatch staring down the impudent man.

  It was obvious to Wray that Totts was putting on a show to appear as if he wasn't scared. Either Totts believed himself a good actor, which he most certainly wasn't, or he was stupid, a quantity known to be abundantly true. He was despised on this ship from the newest crew, who have only been a part of the operation for less than a month, to the most senior hands serving in the operation since the beginning. Wray himself especially loathed the Simon Totts. How he'd managed to not suffer an "accident" in this aged ship, with all her systems that seemed to fail at random, was beyond comprehension. Wray would never openly sanction such a mishap, but knowing the temperament of some of the more hard-cases working on the Bellerophon...

  The hatch was secured to the cabin as the Captain Wray finally entered his violated quarters. He then made an admittedly petty, but inwardly enjoyable gesture of brushing off the recently vacated seat of Totts, before he sat behind his desk.

  The two stared at each other quietly. Wray thought, as did nearly all the crew whose thoughts were known on the subject, that Totts was a disgusting tick buried deep in the operations of the Bellerophon. By contract, his presence was necessary. When Wray signed on the dotted line to secure a massive no-interest loan, quite the deal he initially thought, that allowed him to save the Ridley from the scrappers and to go into business for himself, he failed to read some of the fine print in haste fuelled by enthusiasm. One of those small and well concealed clauses stated that a company appointed executive would be assigned to the ship until the note was paid in full. This "company man" would be more than simply the eyes and ears of the home office simply responsible for filing reports. The representative would act autonomously as an agent for the company while responsible for such duties as accounting and brokerage of prizes taken.

  In effect, company agent Simon Totts would tell Wray what the company would award them for the plunder the Belle' and her crew took from rival companies. This relationship allowed the subsidiary, which the Belle' was considered while the loan remained, of Interstellar Industries to make sure Wray didn't act in any fast and loose manner that was not in the best interests of the company. Under the watchful eye of an imbedded agent there would be no way for Wray and his crew to skim off the top. Even on personal assurance and word of honor by Wray, he could not dissuade the company from placing Totts, or any agent for that matter, on the Belle'. In business, a personal assurance and word of honor was worth next to nothing. "No honor amongst thieves" was very much the mantra of big business.

  Totts eventually broke the silence as it made him grow more and more nervous as the moments passed with glacial speed.

  "Mr. Wray, and I feel as though I have repeated myself regarding this subject numerous times previous, you are neither my 'captain,'" and with a slight grin scrunching his ridiculous pencil thin mustache atop his upper lip, "or my 'boss.' In fact...if one were to look at this objectively, impartially, one would most likely declare that quite the opposite is true. But, I'll not push the point, as I have more pressing matters to attend. Perhaps we can continue this oh-so-well discussed philosophical topic of yours at a later time, yes?"

  "I don't think there's much to discuss on the topic. If you feel you
need further clarification I will furnish you with such at a time when I invite you. Now what do you want, Totts?" Wray asked.

  "What do I want? What do you think I want?" Totts asked. His eyes narrowed eyes in a look that perhaps he thought made him look serious but instead only succeeded in making him look like comical rodent. "I want to know what's in that Minervan box you took off that Corp shuttle. I want to know what's on that datapad you found since there was no data core about. I want to know the identities of the four individuals sleeping in those coffins on that courier shuttle sitting in that filthy hangar."

  Wray looked at the scratched wood desktop. The desk was made from real wood that had, in another life, in another century, on a world light-years away, been the door to the captain's cabin on a sailing ship that plied the salty and life-filled oceans of Earth. The desk should be in a museum. Deep scratches and furrows adorned the ancient wood. Wray followed one of those long scratches with his thumb nail. How had Totts known about the three specific mysteries presented by the shuttle parked in the Belle's hangar so soon? It was of course the open access to comms and data pipelines on the ship enjoyed by the company man due to his station. Totts has as much access to information systems and the communication network on the ship as Wray himself had. Thus far, in the year that Totts had been imbedded on the Belle' he had not directly interfered with an active operation or engagement, but the odds were against this perfect record continuing. It was almost a certainty that sooner or later Totts would stick his nose in at the most unfortunate of times and fuck something up. Wray prayed that it would not cost lives or the ship itself when that eventuality occurs.

  "I can answer that for you. Sure," Wray said but then immediately lapsed into silence to purposefully annoy the man. The Captain enjoyed watching him squirm. He admitted to himself that this was in fact quite the guilty pleasure.

  "Well?!" Totts demanded.

  "First. I don't know exactly what's in that Minervan container and I'm not opening it here and now. Second, I've not reviewed the datapad so I don't know what's on it. It is being unlocked, the portion that can be anyway, and only then will I know what the story is with the datapad. And right now I simply don't know anything about it. Third, your guess is as good as mine regarding the four-sleepers." Wray stopped following the scratch in the wood atop the desktop and again met the eyes of Totts. "We've only had the shuttle in our possession for less than two-hours, and we still have a week until we're back at the Cove. We'll have answers. Be patient," Wray instructed knowing full well that being patient was far from a virtue possessed by Totts.

  Before Totts could respond in protest, with that all too familiar grating whine of his, there were two bangs on the steel hatch just secured by Wray.

  "Enter!" Wray bellowed so he could be heard through the thick steel. The intercom was malfunctioning , and like many other systems of the ship, desperately needing repair. It had long been on the "wish list" of fixes for the Belle'.

  An annoyed Totts turned to spy the offending crewmember interrupting them. The hatch slid open to reveal Ayad Ibn Sula. In the hour plus since Wray had last seen Ayad, the short, dark complexioned, fast talking New Persian, had changed out of the light armor bulk of his battlesuit. He now wore the standard dark gray coverall worn by the crew during day-to-day operations. He also wore a tremendous smile that stretched ear-to-ear, that is until he took half-a-step and the computer specialists face caught up with his brain. Ayad had not thought that Totts would be in private conference with the Captain at that moment. The specialist swore at himself internally at his miscalculation. Totts was well known to be around at the most inopportune of moments from the perspective of just about the entire crew. Ayad's smile vanished and he froze in place. Now instead of carrying two things, an excited smile and a strange looking datapad, he just carried the datapad. Wray could tell that Ayad was considering retreat and he could hardly blame the man.

  The eyes of Simon Totts zeroed in on the datapad in the custody of the Bellerophon crewman. Totts stretched out an open palm signaling Ayad to deliver the datapad. Still frozen in place, Ayad cast a disapproving glance at the expectant Totts. The uncomfortable standstill lasted only seconds but within those seconds of silence a great deal was said by the inaction.

  Ayad finally continued into the cabin, past the impatiently waiting Totts, to stop alongside the antique desk where Wray sat. The hatch remained open, not out of forgetfulness but out of necessity. It was obvious Ayad planned to make a hasty retreat as crew often did around the I2 administrator. Wray laughed inwardly. The crew really hated the slimy Totts, with Ayad perhaps disliking him the most. It was well known by all, all except Totts that is, that Ayad had cracked the personal encryption of Totts communicator and datapad. For the entertainment of the crew, Ayad had forwarded some of the more interesting conversations between a senior female administrator, 25-years Totts senior, that Totts was boffing. It was very clear to all just how the young Totts had been assigned a position with millions of credits worth of responsibility. A responsibility that was seemingly well above his capability. Totts had earned his promotions the old fashioned way. If Totts ever gets wind that his personal communications are being passed around by the crew, as fodder for their entertainment, he would be pissed. Wray had given Ayad strict direction to erase all fingerprints of this invasion of privacy. In the CDF, Ayad would easily face a courts martial...but this was not the CDF. Wray himself read the sadly entertaining communiqués from time to time. He knew he shouldn't for no other reason than it almost made him feel sorry for Totts. Almost.

  Standing alongside the desk, Ayad reached over and placed the datapad taken from the Osprey before the Captain. Wray glanced down at the datapad before him. The once locked and blank screen was now active with numerous green file folders displayed, their labels and headings clearly visible. Beckoning to be investigated. Wray looked back up at Ayad who was once again beaming.

  "I said one hour and I'd have that 10 percent I promised, Boss," Ayad said. "Sorry it took a little longer. By my chrono it took an hour and 15-minutes. I wanted to be very careful. That encryption was a little heavier than I suspected. The good news is I don't think the security features enabled on this datapad include deletion protocols."

  "No deletion protocols? So just what does that do for us?" Wray asked.

  "It means, sir, that I think I can experiment with unlocking the other files without fear that the datapad bricks. I still can't copy files to another source and work on them there. I would need to experiment with the datapad itself," Ayad stood back from the desk and crossed his arms. "I could do it now but I couldn't furnish a proper timeline as to when it would be complete. I can't promise at all really that I can unlock the rest of the files. What do you want to do, Boss? Start now or after you've gone through what is already unlocked?"

  Totts, fuming quietly up to this point, finally interjected.

  "I fail to see why you're even risking an attempt to unlock those files. I am glad you feel confident in your determination that no damage will occur if you attempt to unlock the rest of the datapad, but I speak for the company here, you know, the company that owns this obsolete and ill maintained scow, and I must inform you that if any of that data is lost or corrupted," Totts then pointed to emphasize, "you Captain, you Ibn Sula, and the whole crew will forfeit all shares even if that Minervan box contains the technological riches that we suspect that it does. It's all or nothing. Worth the risk?"

  Ayad stood silently waiting for Wray to make his decision. He would do what his Boss told him to do, and as far as Ayad and the rest of the crew were concerned, the parasite Totts was most assuredly not their superior. It was Wray that approved their credit deposits after taking a prize and settling the spoils. That an arrogant pig like Totts was part of the equation pissed all 32-crewman of the Belle' off to no end.

  Wray quickly completed his silent deliberation.

  "Thanks Ayad. Fine work. Great work, yes," Wray said looking up at the specialist. "You can sta
rt on the rest of the files later. Hopefully they'll shed some light on the strange radiation emitting from the artifact. I want to know what exactly we have on this ship. I'm betting those files will also help identifying our captives in stasis on the Osprey. I'm going to have a look at those unlocked files first though. I'll drop it off with you when I'm done. You've done well as always. Go get some rack time."

  "Thanks, Boss," Ayad responded with a smile. The smile disappeared however as he turned toward Totts and headed for the hatch. Ayad could be heard muttering lowly in Farsi as he departed, the muttering cut off when the heavy hatch secured behind him.

  Wray did not speak Farsi, so he never understood what Ayad was saying when he slipped into his native tongue, but there's something universal in the languages of humanity. You can just tell when someone references the intimate relationship between someone's mother and a goat. Ayad really did not like Totts. At all. Wray stifled a chuckle before again turning his attention back to the company man sitting before him.

  "Scow?" Wray asked.

  "What?" a perplexed Totts responded.

  "You called the Belle' an 'ill maintained scow,' I believe. Yes. That's it exactly, you see, I remember because that very adjective was spoken by you just a short moment ago. Do you understand how lucky you are?"

  "Excuse me, Mr. Wray?" Totts asked with a confused voice tinged with curiosity.

  "Lucky that this crew, this crew of freelancers sprinkled with men and women barely kept out of penal colonies by luck, bribe, and the thankfully consistent incompetence of justice councils, this crew could space you just like that," Wray stated and emphasized with the snap of his fingers, "and that there's very little I could do to impede it. I've never told you this before, as I hoped you were smart enough to see it for yourself, but the crew is not fond of you Simon...and nor am I for that matter."