by Kal Spriggs
* * *
“Alright, everyone,” Mike said. “I think we should move this downstairs. I hear that this ship has a lounge, let’s meet there.”
Anubus gave a deep throated growl, “I agreed to help interrogate the prisoner. Now I’m going to go back and see how much gold people stole from me while my back was turned.”
“I’m sure your gold is fine,” Ariadne said. “And really, remember, it’s all our gold-”
“If you hear screaming, I will have found the thieves,” Anubus growled as he stalked out.
Mike sighed, “Everyone needs a hobby, I suppose. Anyone else?”
Rastar shook his head, “I think I will go lie down. Let me know if you need me.”
Pixel patted him on the shoulder. “You do that, big guy. I’ll see you later.”
Pixel followed the others off of the bridge. He saw Ariadne and Mike hesitate at the next deck down. “I know the way,” Pixel said. He led the way down the corridor and then into the lounge. A strong smell of something spicy brought his attention towards a platter of food. Hopefully that’s a result of Simon and Eric working something out, he thought.
He turned back to face Mike just as the other man swept his gaze around the room. The pilot froze then, and Pixel saw sweat bead his forehead.
“Mike, you okay?” Pixel asked.
Mike swallowed convulsively, “What is that?” He pointed at the floor to ceiling aquarium that took up the forward bulkhead. Pixel had a sudden thought that he should check out how the crew had secured it to the wall and to check the tensile rating of the cystoplast
“Oh, cool, there’s a fish tank,” Ariadne said cheerfully. “I had a pet fish once.” She walked up to the tank. “Doesn’t look like there’s anything in it though.”
“Yeah, I wouldn’t get too close—” Pixel started to say.
Ariadne tapped on the glass.
The Arcavian Fighting Eel exploded into motion. Its jaws snapped shut on the other side of the tank, and it flashed through a hundred colors as it tried to get at her through the glass. “Ooh, what a pretty fish,” Ariadne said.
Pixel started to tell her it was an Arcavian Fighting Eel, but he froze though at a distinctive click behind him. He looked back to see that Mike had drawn his pistol and had it aimed roughly in the direction of the tank. Pixel considered it only roughly because Mike’s hand shook too much to really consider it aimed at anything besides the entire compartment. “Uh, Mike?” Pixel asked.
Mike didn’t answer, his eyes remained fixed on the eel.
Pixel walked slowly out of the line of fire and then moved to stand next to the Asian pilot. “Mike, can you hear me? Mike?”
“What?” Mike snapped.
“Yeah… Mike, you realize you have your gun aimed at an aquarium, right?” Pixel asked.
Mike looked down at his hand. “Shit.” It seemed to take him a big effort to bring his arm down. Then Pixel saw his hands tremble as he tried to find his pistol holster while he kept his gaze on the eel. “What is that, and why is it in the lounge?” Mike said. A sheen of sweat covered his face and his voice sounded rough to Pixel.
“It’s an Arcavian Fighting Eel,” Pixel said helpfully.
“Ooh, sounds fierce for such a pretty thing. I think I’ll call her Rainbow,” Ariadne said. She still hadn’t taken her gaze off of the eel. Pixel wondered if she knew how close she’d come to having bullet’s fill the air around her.
Probably not, he thought.
“Why is it still on the ship?” Mike snapped. “I want that thing vented out an airlock, the damned aquarium too.”
“Uh, it’s really valuable, I think,” Pixel said.
“It’s a fish,” Mike said. “Unless its made out of gold, I doubt its worth that much.”
“You are not killing Rainbow,” Ariadne said. The psychic turned around and Pixel saw a determined look on her face.
“You did not just name the fish,” Mike said.
“Eel,” Pixel corrected helpfully.
“Whatever,” Mike growled. “That thing is dangerous and I don’t want it on-board.”
“Good thing you’re not in charge then, right?” Ariadne asked. “If you don’t like it, leave the lounge.”
“I didn’t say I was afraid of it!” Mike said.
“Uh, neither did she, actually,” Pixel said.
Mike looked at the two of them. Pixel saw him clench his jaw. “Fine. Leave the stupid fish.”
“Eel,” Ariadne corrected. “And she has a name: Rainbow.”
“Well, Rainbow better behave or her name will be sushi,” Mike growled. He resolutely turned his back on the tank and walked over to the food. “Who the hell cooked? This actually smells pretty good.” Despite his light words, Pixel thought the other man still looked jumpy.
“Oh, tonight it’s oriental pepper steak, white rice, and a salad,” Eric said from the doorway.
Pixel turned and saw the former soldier had two platters in his hands. Pixel hurried over to take one. Eric gave him a sharp nod and then walked over to set the tray down on the table. “We only have flash frozen vegetables for the salad, so I made a vinegar sauce to season it a bit.”
“You can cook?” Ariadne asked. “I thought you were alpha male, hear me grunt, cave man style?” The psychic lifted the lid off a tray and stared at the food.
“I picked it up in the military, actually,” Eric said with a shrug. “Military food quality leaves something to be desired. If I wanted something that tasted good, I had to cook it myself.”
Ariadne stared at him, “You can cook?”
“Eat up,” Eric said. “Simon let the others know that food’s available. Also, he had Crowe modify the galley control panels to limit access. But Run and Simon both volunteered to take the first week of kitchen clean up. We have to eat up a lot of this stuff because those idiots tore some stuff open. But I’ll do meals while we’ve got stuff for it. After this though… well, some of the stored rations I can work with, but then we’re down to ration bars again.”
“You can cook?” Ariadne still stared at Eric.
“Evidently something besides violence busts through your cheerful shield,” Eric said. “Yes, I cook. Well enough that at one time I wanted to start up a restaurant.” His smile faded, “That didn’t work out so well.”
“Well,” Mike said, as he loaded up a plate, “You’re now the official chef of the Gebnar now.”
“The what?” Pixel asked.
“The ship is the Gebnar,” Ariadne said. “Rastar told me it means Fierce Toad.”
“Clearly it loses something in translation,” Mike said.
“Are you sure that he wasn’t joking?”” Pixel frowned. “Which reminds me, I really need to get Rastar to translate some of the ship’s manuals.” He pulled out his datapad and grimaced as it flashed purple Chxor glyphs at him. “And I need a datapad I can read.”
“I think Crowe found one,” Eric said. “He used it to reprogram the controls on the galley, anyway.” The man had taken a seat on one of the couches and he stared at the aquarium for a long moment. “Hey, where’d that fish come from?”
“It’s an eel,” Mike, Ariadne, and Pixel all said at the same time.
“Oh,” Eric said. “It’s pretty cool looking.”
Mike grunted and turned to face Pixel. He managed to do it without bringing the tank into his line of view, Pixel noted. “You mentioned earlier you wanted to tell me something about the ship’s power? Is there some kind of problem?”
Pixel nodded, “Right, thanks for the reminder. The reactor took some damage when the Chxor captured it, or possibly before that, I’m not real certain.”
“Crowe’s trying to salvage something from the main computer, the Ghornath crew wiped it pretty thoroughly before the Chxor boarded,” Mike said.
“Oh, well, that might tell me how it happened, but it doesn’t change what happened,” Pixel said. “It looks like some sort of power surge fried some of the conductive filaments in the reactor coils. It’s something I could
probably fix in a week or so, less time with some helping hands. But we’d need to shut down the reactor. And I’d need around…” Pixel glanced at his datapad, “Two hundred meters of thin conductive wire.”
“Do you want to scavenge that from elsewhere on the ship?” Mike frowned. He seemed calmer as he thought about the problem, Pixel thought. He didn’t know why the eel and the aquarium bothered Mike, but he doubted he’d get a real answer if he just asked.
“No, I can make the wire out of any conductive metal with the ship’s tools, though it will take some time. The problem is that I’ll need more material for a less conductive metal like iron and less for something like copper,” Pixel said.
“Alright, well, I’d suggest you work on what you can for now. After we choose a captain, you can probably make your case to whoever it is and we can go from there.”
“Right, I just thought you should know,” Pixel said. “By the way, are you really sure about this whole captain thing? I mean, things have worked well so far…”
Mike nodded, “Totally certain. We did well before because we had one goal to work towards. Now… well now we will have nine individuals who want to do their own thing. That kind of chaos can get us all killed.”
Pixel sighed. He understood Mike’s argument, yet he disagreed on principle. Pixel wondered how he could convince the others, how he could make them see that their strength lay in their different talents, and that one person in charge of them would limit their abilities.
But he didn’t want to start an argument, and with how tense Mike seemed around the aquarium, Pixel figured the wrong word might trigger that. “Well, thanks for the talk. I’m going to head down to finish up some work.” He looked over at Eric, “Thanks for the food.”
Eric gave him a nod.
As Pixel walked out of the ship’s lounge, his mind struggled more with the philosophical problem than any of the matters with the ship, though. How could he change the others opinions, how could he show them that they didn’t need a captain?
And why did he feel so uneasy about his own position?
* * *
Pixel woke up early the next morning and slipped out of the officers cabin he shared with the others. The Ghornath ‘beds’ were what amounted to super-sized beanbag chairs or nests. Pixel found it remarkably comfortable, but his mind had remained abuzz with thoughts that prevented much sleep.
When he got to the engine room, he decided to see what he could do about the bank of charred capacitors that ran along the central column of the ship. Each of the capacitors weighed around twenty kilograms, but some had fused together and others had shattered. Worse, either end of the capacitor bank had direct ties into the ship’s power, so the damage meant a number of direct shorts to the hull.
Pixel had cut the two connections to the main power bus and had just started to pull out the first of the damaged capacitors when Eric spoke from behind him. “Pixel, I wanted to get your help on something.”
Pixel grunted as he pulled the twenty kilo capacitor out and dropped it on the portable work bench he’d already positioned. “What?” He couldn’t help but snap. The lack of sleep had affected him more than he thought or maybe it was just the work.
“Uh, remember I wanted to do some more explosives? Well, Simon and I worked out a deal, that he’d help me out if I’d do some cooking. Which works out, really, but I wanted to know if you could make me some casings for grenades.”
“I’m kind of busy here,” Pixel said, and gestured at the bank of capacitors.
“You’ve got to pull all of those?” Eric asked. “Wow… that looks like a major job.”
“It is,” Pixel said.
“Wow, I hadn’t realized the ship took this much damage from before,” Eric said.
“It didn’t,” Pixel said. “Remember when you bypassed the lockouts and tried to power up the main gun? This is the capacitor bank you blew out.”
“Oh,” Eric looked at the twenty kilo capacitor, “So I take it you probably won’t get to the grenade casings today?”
Pixel shook his head. He reminded himself that Eric meant well, “No, probably not today.”
“Well, I’ll let the others know you need help down here if none of them are busy,” Eric said as he turned around and walked out.
“Right,” Pixel moved to the next capacitor. He thought about the situation a bit as he worked. His anger at Eric faded a bit as he went into problem solution mode. He didn’t think Eric even realized that Pixel might be angry with him for his creation of more work. For that matter, he felt certain that Eric thought his request for grenade casings just as important as any other job Pixel might have to do.
Anger with Eric over that attitude would do him no good, Pixel knew. Just as anger with Mike and Simon for their desire for a ship’s captain would do no good. Pixel needed to think through the issue and find a solution. Really, he wished the others would spend more time with that. He felt certain that if he could only convince them to think for themselves, rather than to react, they would see his point.
But they all seemed stubbornly set on the need for a captain, as if someone to tell them what to do would absolve them of the requirement to think for themselves.
Pixel slammed a melted capacitor down on the work bench harder than he needed to and it shattered into several chunks. Pixel waved a hand in front of his face and coughed at the cloud of dust.
“Hey Pixel,” Ariadne said cheerfully behind him.
Pixel sighed, “Hi, Ariadne, what can I do for you?” He didn’t bother to turn around.
“I’m here to help, actually,” Ariadne said. “And I brought more help.”
“Really?” Pixel turned. He saw Mandy and Miranda behind her, as well as three men he vaguely remembered amongst the other escaped prisoners.
“Yep!” Ariadne said cheerfully, “Mandy and I are unskilled labor. But Miranda has some mechanical skills, and Feofil, Anastasiy, and Matvei all worked aboard a Centauri freighter before.”
Pixel stared at them for a long moment. Finally he shrugged, “That works, I guess. Well, I’m pulling the damaged capacitors out of the bank. I already marked them, so any of them with an orange or red mark pull out and then stack them. Damaged ones on this bench and the destroyed ones over there,” Pixel waved at a pile of capacitors.
They went into motion and Pixel stood back and let them work for a moment. It felt strange, almost like an invasion of his privacy, at first. Pixel realized that he had grown too solitary. He really needed to get out more. He joined them as they worked and after a moment, he found he enjoyed working with a group again.
“So, I take it you had a chance to talk with Mandy and Miranda?” Pixel asked quietly.
“Oh, yeah, they’re both pretty helpful,” Ariadne said with a smile. Yet for a moment, she almost looked guilty, as if she had some kind of secret. “I figure we need more girls on the team anyway, too much testosterone and… well whatever it is that Wrethe, Chxor and Ghornath males produce.”
Pixel frowned at that, though he couldn’t disagree. Then again, Wrethe didn’t have a sex, so her statement seemed somewhat inaccurate. “Same deal as with Elena?” Pixel asked, “Sort of provisional members until the group signs off of them?”
“Yeah. But I’m not sure how long they’ll stay with us,” Ariadne said softly. “Mandy seems kind of flighty sometimes.”
Pixel stopped his work and stared at her. She seemed serious enough. “How’s Rainbow?”
“Oh, she’s good. I fed her the scraps from dinner.”
Pixel thought this the best chance to try his idea, “You know, depending on who they elect tyrant, I mean captain, they might want to get rid of your new pet, or even just sell it.”
“Yeah,” Ariadne nodded. “Truthfully, I’m not big on the whole idea of electing a captain. But the others seem pretty set on it. Though it would make decisions quicker. And someone with some authority to tell some of the other escapees what to do would be nice.”
Pixel chewed on his li
p in thought. He wasn’t sure whether to consider her admission a victory or defeat. “So what will you do during the election?”
She shot him a look, “I’ve already chosen who I’ll vote for. I picked the person least likely to micromanage, I think.”
“Huh,” Pixel frowned at that. The only person he could think of in that regard might be Rastar. “Well that works I guess.” He decided he’d have to change tactics come the meeting later in the day. He would need to think up a new tactic first, though.
“Hey, Pixel, what’s this thing?” Ariadne asked. She pointed at a panel of glowing indicator lights next to the capacitor bank.
I really need to get Rastar down here to translate those manuals, Pixel thought yet again. “I’m not entirely certain, I haven’t traced that one out yet.”
“Oh,” Ariadne said. “Well, I’m sure you’ll have time.”
Pixel snorted, “Maybe not. Everyone keeps bringing more work for me. Eric just came by, and I’m sure that others will have stuff for me to do soon enough.”
“At least you haven’t had to spend the past day interviewing people. Some of them were very unpleasant,” Ariadne said, “Present company excepted of course.”
“Oh?” Pixel asked.
“She’s got to be talking about the Nova Roman Ambassador, she’s such a bitch,” Mandy said.
Miranda spoke up from further away, “Lady Alara Vibius. Some rich-bitch daughter of some noble. Very full of herself. The marines with her seem pretty decent though. I feel sorry for them, stuck waiting on that ambassador, I bet they want to kill her. I know I would if I had to protect her sorry ass all day.”
“They support the Nova Roma expansionist tendencies,” Mandy snapped. “They’re just as culpable as she is for pushing that crap. I’m glad the Chxor are fighting them, it takes some pressure off the rest of the colonies.”
“Well, what happens when Nova Roma falls?” Pixel asked. “I mean, I don’t know much about the strategy of war, but they’ve got the most solid military I’ve heard about, the biggest shipyards, all of that. If the Chxor beat them and no one else steps in, won’t the Chxor just move on and capture the rest of human space?”
