by Kal Spriggs
“And got captured by the Chxor, along with Rastar.” Simon finished her story. “Bad luck for you, but good luck for the rest of us, I suppose,” He gave her a nod, “Especially for those of us whose lives you saved today. I have to admit a certain level of… discomfort with psychics. But I appreciate the risk you took and that you saved us.”
“Thanks,” Ariadne said.
“This is the Captain’s quarters,” Simon pointed. “I believe that Anubus and Rastar have claimed portions of the floor. Crowe took one of the bottom bunks, but the other should be open.” She noted a change in his tone when he spoke next, “Let me know if you need anything.”
“Well, thanks,” Ariadne said and gave him a smile. She fought the urge to give him a kiss on the cheek. “Maybe after I get some rest I can give you a hand with the inventory.” She received a polite smile in return. He seemed very reserved and that bothered her for some reason. She almost reached out with her mind, to either sense his emotions or to read his thoughts to find the source of his discomfort. She quashed that urge, it felt wrong to violate his privacy, for one thing, and for another, she didn’t know if she had enough mental capacity to read a book much less someone’s mind right then.
She watched Simon walk away and then stepped into the cramped cabin. She flopped down on the lower bunk, grateful for the foam pad. As she closed her eyes, she made note that she should talk with him, find out what bothered him. Later, Ariadne thought, as her mind dropped into an exhausted sleep, much later.
* * *
Ariadne awoke sometime later. She felt better, though her stomach reminded her that some time had passed since she last ate. “Well, at least the ration bars will probably taste better with how hungry I am,” she said out loud.
She sat up from the bunk, and noticed that some helpful soul had put a ration bar to soak next to her bunk, along with a glass of water. She chewed on the ration bar for a long moment. It took a lot of chewing before it seemed ready to go down. “Well, maybe not,” she sighed.
The water tasted delicious, however.
Her stomach reminded of its place, Ariadne stood and stretched. She noticed the still form of Rastar, curled up into a ball of limbs near the far corner. She looked over at a snore, and saw that Crowe lay sprawled across the other lower bunk, his head tossed back, mouth agape. She wrinkled her nose at the smell of body odor, and then sniffed at herself. Time to see if they have a shower, and maybe some soap, she thought. She really wanted a bath, with a long soak in scalding water and lots of bubbles.
She noticed a door at the back of the cabin. She shot a suspicious glance at Crowe, then moved over and opened the door. A narrow head lay beyond, and she breathed a sigh of relief to see what could only be a shower, though she thought it unlikely that someone much bigger than her would manage to fit inside. The other facilities looked rather rudimentary, but Ariadne had used pit latrines on rugged frontier worlds before. She made sure to lock the door behind her before she made quick use of the facilities and then hopped into the shower.
Not that she expected anyone to barge in, but she wanted to relax a bit, and the privacy gave her that opportunity.
She found that the Chxor shower had a thirty second timer, which if she read the indicator correctly, would issue only two sets of water: one to lather and one last to rinse. She made use of the shower, and then reluctantly pulled her old clothes back on. She made a note to try and find a laundry machine or something. Most human ships had something, so hopefully the Chxor vessel would as well.
Her skin itched from the Chxor soap, and she noticed a strange, almost chemical smell on her skin afterward. Still, she felt far less grimy, and that made her feel better.
She slipped out of the head and then across the cabin and out the hatch.
Ariadne turned and headed towards the bow of the ship, where she’d seen Simon head to the bridge. She stepped through a hatchway at the end of the corridor and found a cramped bridge. It seemed quiet and the lighting had dimmed. She looked around, and then saw Mike seated in the captain’s chair, his feet up on the console in front of him. He had a metal mug in one hand, and he gave her a wave with the other. “Feeling better?”
“Yes, much,” Ariadne said. She worked her fingers through her damp hair. She wondered if the Chxor used combs or brushes. She would have to look. “What’s happening?”
“Not much. It’s ‘night’ shift right now, most everyone is asleep or finding some way to keep busy. The orbit for this ship will take us to Logan Two in three days, so we’ve got some time.” He looked over at a screen, “Say… remember that course I wanted you to plot? I’ve got the data here, if you could take a look at it.”
“Sure,” Ariadne said. She pulled up the coordinates and checked the date and time stamp. Some helpful soul had worked a translation program into the ship’s computer, and Ariadne wondered if it was Pixel or Crowe. Either way, she felt grateful that she could actually read the information rather than working through Run. “You want our old ship to go through these coordinates at that time,” she frowned. “But you don’t care about velocity? I could have it brake there, though that might be difficult to manage…”
“Nope, I want it to go through there pretty fast,” Mike said. “We’ve had time to look at the sensor logs… and well, look at this,” he brought up a set of video imagery on the main screen. Ariadne gave a gasp after her brain realized what she saw.
The screen showed a brown and green planet. It would have seemed unremarkable, except for the silver metal ring that encircled it and the metal spokes that ran from the surface to the inner face of the ring. “That’s some kind of ring habitat… isn’t it?”
“Got it in one,” Mike said. “And each of those cables has attached elevators. The scale is hard to pick out, exactly, but I’ve seen some of their dreadnoughts dock with that thing. It’s massive, a bigger construct than anything humans have built, including Earth’s old space elevators.”
Ariadne counted the spokes she could see, she stopped at fifteen, “Yeah, this is incredible.” She frowned, “What do you want me to plot a course to it for?”
Mike gave her a slight smile, “Not a course to it… a collision course. I want our old little boat to plow right through the junction of a spoke and the ring.”
“What?” Ariadne stared at him. “But that could kill thousands, tens of thousands of civilians!”
“Yeah…” Mike nodded, “It could also give us the chance to escape in the confusion. Also, don’t forget: this is the race that tried to kill us, sentenced us to death as slave labor, and plots the extermination of the human race.”
Ariadne looked away, “You’re asking me to participate in what amounts to terrorism.”
Mike sighed, “Look, don’t do it if you don’t want to. But I’ll tell you this: I picked that spot because the records show military ships docking and undocking from there, and almost no civilian traffic. More important, if you don’t do this… I’ll have to give it a try, and I’ll have to use this clunky Chxor piece of crap computer and a lot of guesswork.”
“You’re saying you might kill a bunch of civilians if I don’t help?” Ariadne hated the whine that she heard in her voice, yet Mike’s option made her stomach roil.
“No, I’ll probably miss the ring entirely,” Mike answered. “But there’s a significant chance that I could hit some other part of the station, or worse, hit the planet. Think of that kind of mess,” he said.
“You promise this is a military target?” Ariadne asked.
“As far as I can tell, yeah,” Mike said. He shrugged, then, “Honestly, the way their society is, they make no distinction between military and civilian. For that matter, we’ve translated some of their news articles they had for the crew.” He pulled up a set of articles on his screen, “The one about their new ‘riot prevention’ nerve gas Pacifix Three scares the crap out of me, personally.”
“What?” Ariadne looked at the article. Some remained untranslated, but the pictures of bodies scatte
red in piles told her enough. She looked away, “They tested that on people?”
“Doesn’t say where,” Mike said. “But there’s also an article in there about the recent conquest of a Nova Roma system, Danar, I think.”
“Jesus,” Ariadne said. She forced herself to look at the pictures, to see the scattered bodies as those of people. She looked up and suddenly she didn’t care too much about any Chxor who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. “Okay, give me a few minutes. Someone will have to input the course, by the way.”
“Pixel already created a program,” Mike said. “It will load whatever course corrections you give it at the appropriate time.”
“Great,” Ariadne sat down at the navigation console. It took her only a few minutes to come up with the course. “I made some modifications to your plan,” she said.
“Oh?”
“If they’re anything like us, they probably have the area around the planet seeded with sensors. They also probably have defenses to stop this sort of thing, right?”
Mike gave her a nod.
“Well, I set it up so that it looks like it will coast well clear of the planet, but if Pixel can get it to do one last pulse burn, it will alter course from only a few minutes out, and I also set up as much of a dodging course as I could. Honestly, I don’t know how likely it will be to get in there.”
“Well, even if it just draws their attention and they destroy it, that means they won’t be looking at us,” Mike said. “And even a little bit of confusion could be a big help.”
Ariadne nodded, even as she transmitted her course to his console. “I’m going to go walk around a bit. Want me to get you anything?”
“A nice red steak would be good right about now,” Mike said.
“I’ll see if I can find one,” Ariadne said with a laugh.
She heard Mike mutter, “Good luck with that.” as she stepped off the bridge.
* * *
Ariadne walked into the galley and did a double-take.
The galley table lay strewn with boxes, bottles, wires, and what looked like pieces of plumbing. More junk lay strewn across the floor, some bags of powders torn open, and some bottles and vials tipped so they dribbled their contents into the mix. Eric Striker stood over it, and as she watched, he sprinkled a white powder into a bowl and stirred it into the sludge within. Pixel stood nearby with a box of what looked like mothballs, he also had his ship’s suit sealed up and his helmet on..
“What’s up?” she asked. Whatever Eric and Pixel were up to, it looked interesting at least.
Eric looked up. “Making something for any Chxor we run across,” he looked down at her feet. His face went pale, “Ariadne, don’t move.”
“What?” She asked.
“By your left foot, there’s a small black object, it looks sort of like a cigar,” Eric said. Ariadne noticed sweat beaded his brow, “I need you to very carefully pick it up and hand it to Pixel.”
“Sure thing,” Ariadne reached down and picked it up. It felt heavy for such a small object. She wondered what might be in it. She walked across the galley and handed it to Pixel. “Here you are. What was that about?”
Pixel glanced at Eric, his voice sounded muffled from the closed helmet, “Uh, nothing to worry about… say, could you do me a favor?”
“Sure,” Ariadne said.
“Well, I’d really appreciate it if you don’t do any of the fire thing in this room. Well, on the ship at all with some of the fumes he’s probably making. Also, well it might be best if you leave the room, just in case,” Pixel almost sounded worried, but Ariadne found it difficult to tell what with the helmet and all.
Ariadne looked over at Eric, who didn’t meet her eyes, “Uh, and if you see Simon, I’d appreciate it if you didn’t mention this.”
“Mention what?” Ariadne asked. “What are you guys doing?”
Eric gave her a nod and a smile, “Exactly, just like that.”
Ariadne looked back and forth between the two of them, Eric with his bowl of mysterious sludge and Pixel who had very carefully set the strange object down in a foam-lined box. “You guys are weird. So where’s everyone else?”
“Simon started an inventory of some of the ship’s engineering equipment,” Eric said. “That’s why we have time to do this. He’s pretty thorough, so I think we’ll finish up before he gets back.” He gave a shrug, “Anubus is camped out on top of the crates of gold. I’m not sure where Run went.”
“Well…” Ariadne looked around at the mess. “Be sure you guys clean up after yourselves.”
“Yeah, whatever,” Eric said, even as he lifted up the bowl. She saw Pixel pick up a metal pipe with one end sealed off and the other open. “Oh, and please shut the hatch on your way out.”
Ariadne shook her head as she left the galley. She slipped through the hatch and then nearly ran into another woman. “Oh, excuse me!” Ariadne said. She looked the other woman over. She was blonde and tall, with a lean build and a sharply angular face.
“My fault,” the other woman gave her a smile. Something about her cold dark eyes set Ariadne on edge though. “I should have watched where I was going.” She had a thick eastern European accent, one that clicked in Ariadne’s memory.
“Hey, aren’t you Elena?” Ariadne asked, “You were talking with Crowe on the other boat, right? I meant to ask what about…”
“My name is Elena Ludmilla Lakar,” the woman nodded. Her eyes narrowed a bit, “Not that it’s any of your business, but I had an arrangement with Crowe. He let me know of your escape attempt so that I could tag along.”
“Oh, well, I’m glad you made it out with us,” Ariadne said with a slight smile. “You’re going to talk with him now?” She did her best to keep any negative feelings she had for Crowe from bleeding over to the other woman.
“No, actually.” Elena said. “I wanted to speak with your leader. Mike is his name, correct?”
“Oh, yeah, we don’t actually have a leader, we’re a team, but we just make the decisions as a group for now,” Ariadne said. “But Mike acts as our spokesperson a lot, and he’s come up with a lot of plans, so if you’ve any useful skills, he’s the one to talk with.”
“Right,” Elena said. “Where do I find him?”
“He’s on the bridge,” Ariadne said. “If you want, I could walk you up there?”
“No, I will find my way,” Elena said sharply. She gave Ariadne a single nod and stepped past her and into the galley. Ariadne glanced back at her, then shook her head. Something bothered her about the other woman. She just seemed dangerous, for some reason. Ariadne fought a sudden urge to follow after the woman and make certain she didn’t cause trouble with Mike.
Ariadne shook her head again. Mike could handle himself. Ariadne felt pretty certain she had just imagined the other woman’s attitude. And who was Ariadne to judge Elena for her deal with Crowe? Ariadne would bet she would have taken any way off the labor station, and Crowe’s deal, whatever it involved, must have seemed a godsend.
Ariadne continued down the corridor. She passed an open hatch, from which she heard snoring. She shook her head at that. Most of their passengers seemed to want to catch up on their sleep, not that Ariadne could blame them for that.
She found a hatch at the end of the corridor labeled with the Chxor marking for engineering. She thought it was engineering, at least, either that or possibly a kennel. Since the latter seemed unlikely, she undogged the hatch and stepped inside.
She found a similar scene to that of the galley. Simon and Run had tools spread out over the work bench and across much of the free deck space. The scene differed, however, in the precisely straight rows, each tool and item lay evenly spaced across the bench. The scene looked eerily well ordered. Even more so as Run read off an item, and Simon added it to his list on his datapad.
“Uh, what’s up?” Ariadne asked. She felt like an intruder at the sight of their perfectly organized world.
“We have begun to inventory the ship,
” Run said. “This human has a very logical approach to this process. We have already inventoried all medical equipment.”
“I see,” Ariadne looked at Simon and raised an eyebrow, “I hadn’t realized the ship had medical equipment.”
Simon looked down at Run, “Neither did I. All we inventoried before this are some ratchet straps and a set of drills and power tools.”
“Yes, essential medical equipment,” Run said. “I will need those for operation procedures, especially the straps. This will prevent patients from escape.”
“You could use painkillers,” Ariadne said. “Then they would not experience pain and try to escape.”
“I’m a little hung up on the idea of him using a metal-cutting saw on a person,” Simon said. “Especially if I’m that person. What kind of certification do you have as a medical professional?” He asked Run. “I mean, Chxor have some kind of licensing system, right?”
Run stared at him for a long moment, “All Chxor receive qualification training for their assigned professions. I am certified for my profession. Next question?”
“Why’d you get thrown in jail?” Ariadne asked.
“A simple misunderstanding,” Run said. “One that I have addressed and insured will not happen again. I have even added it to my notes.”
“Misunderstanding?” Simon asked. He glanced at Ariadne, “They sent you to what amounts to a death camp. The Chxor don’t seem to value life much, but if you are a trained doctor, I would imagine that they would not waste such a resource without what seemed like a good reason.”
Run looked up at Simon for a moment, and Ariadne resisted a sudden urge to poke inside the Chxor’s mind and see why he took such care in his words. The Chxor had shown no such caution with regards to any other conversation before. Finally, the little Chxor spoke, and Ariadne realized that he actually sounded miserable, his high pitched voice almost hoarse, “I made a mistake with an experiment. A minor mistake, one that I should not have received my punishment. I did not take into account signal interference with relation to a mechanical implant in a biological.”
