by Garion Swann
"These prices are a bit on the high side," he said to Grey.
"Tell me about it! I have never seen anything this expensive," Grey snarled.
"Are you alright, Grey?" Alex was concerned, Grey's anger has been very prominent the past few days.
"I'm fine! I just get annoyed at places like this ripping ships off, the quality is not even that good! Any engineer could see that. There's nothing we want here let's go." Grey had raised his voice and caught the attention of pair who had begun walking over to them, they didn't look pleased.
"Yeah let's get out of here," Alex said, he eyed the two approaching from deeper within the store. One man who had no hair, tattoos on his face and neck, he looked strong and very intimidating. The other was a woman who didn't have as many tattoos, was also bald and seemed as intimidating as the man.
"Gentleman," the women said. She stopped about six metres from them and folded her arms. The man stopped behind her also folding his arms.
"You have an issue with our wares?" She asked. It seemed like she was looking for a bite.
"No, we just haven't found what we're looking for. Good day." Alex said politely turning to leave.
"He has a problem," The man said, gesturing to Grey. Grey looked up, the anger was still there, Alex was concerned, and worried Grey could get himself into trouble here.
"No, no problems here," Alex said, "Let's go," he directed the last part at Grey.
Grey turned to walk out, visibly trying to keep a lid on his anger, you could see in his face the rage building up. Grey stopped and turned, dread-filled Alex knowing what was about to happen.
"Actually I do have an issue," Grey said staring both the intimidating figures down. "You're charging stupid prices for wares that are so low quality they'd degrade after a month, and oh it's easy for you isn't it. Sell someone some shitty wares take their money and know you'll never have to see them again, usually because their ship would be stranded after something they paid good money for breaks or degrades because it was of such terrible quality stops working after a few days! I mean look at this flow regulator, it looks new and sturdy, but I bet it's far from it. You can tidy things up making things look pretty and trick an uneducated eye into buying it, but the truth is this has been on a ship for decades and probably got replaced as it had got to end of life. You're despicable!" Grey was raging, he'd shouted most of his rant clearly angering the two owners of this shop. Without warning the women pulled out her weapon and fired at Grey, Alex immediately pulled out his weapon keeping it aimed at her he glanced over to Grey who was unharmed, it was a warning shot. With one hand aiming his sidearm with the other covertly triggered his emergency beacon on his communications device. This would send an alert through the crew tracking system. The security team would be here soon. Alex and Grey just had to avoid killing or being killed.
"What did you call me?" The women said moving closer to Grey her weapon aimed at his head.
"Okay, let's calm down here," Alex said. "He's just in a bad mood he didn't mean what he said, it's been a long week,"
"And that gives you the right to insult us?" The women said not taking her eyes off of Grey. Alex only just noticed that the man had drawn his weapon and had it aimed at him.
"Is this your guilty conscious," Grey said. Alex sighed. "Is this you trying to defend your lies?" Grey shouted.
"What the hell, Grey! C'mon! She has a gun to your head are you really going to stand there and shout at them?" Alex shouted, why was Grey doing this? What possible advantage was he giving himself? His anger had been unacceptable recently, and now he's putting his own, and Alex's, life at risk.
"I don't care, they're despic…" Grey was cut off by a flash of light, he dropped instantly. The women had fired, she'd been kind enough to aim a little down and Grey took the blast on his abdomen. His whole right side from his chest to the top of his leg was blackened and singed. He lay motionless, Alex assumed he was dead.
Alex immediately ducked down and got into cover behind one of the store's product displays, he checked his sidearm and got ready to fire, before he could return fire he heard voices, more people had entered the room.
"Hey!" The women said. Alex guessed she was getting his attention, "There are five of us now, all with weapons aimed at you. I wouldn't try anything stupid." She walked closer to his position. "We're not going to shoot you, you haven't insulted us." she finished.
"Can I check him?" Alex asked.
"Sure, but your weapon goes on the floor," The man said, "Stand up slowly hands in the air." Alex put his weapon on the ground and kicked it where they could see, he raised his hands and stood up slowly as they requested.
"Go on." She said.
Alex raced over to Grey and knelt down next to him, checked his pulse, it was faint, but he could feel it.
"You idiot, why did you provoke someone aiming a gun at you!" He said knowing his words went unheard.
"He alive?" The women asked. Alex turned his head and glared for a moment.
"Yes." He answered emotionless.
"Unlucky him, he gets to die slowly and no doubt painfully." She said coldly. Alex realised they were not going to just walk out of here. As he was about to plead with them, the door was kicked open, and the figure he recognised was Nuisance followed by three Michelangelo security personnel, all carrying the ships assault weapons.
"Stay way you are, weapons down" Nuisance shouted to the five people, some had the weapons aimed at Alex, some at the security team.
"Well, I do like a shootout, but I think we're beaten." The women knelt down to put her weapon on the floor but quickly aimed and fired it, she caught one of the security people in the head, there was no way he would have survived that. The others bolted to cover getting a few shots off, all of them had targeted the women, she went down. Not much burn marks, so Alex presumed the weapons had been set to stun only. He looked over to Nuisance who was firing every so often but keeping her head down as much as she could. Alex moved but flinched when he felt a blast go past him, he could feel the heat of the energy blast that landed too close for comfort. He pulled Grey back into cover behind another product display in the corner of the ship. He watched while both sides traded fire.
"Nuisance!" he shouted. She checked her cover and looked over to him, he pointed at his weapon, he nodded and managed to kick it over to him. He picked it up, set it to stun and looked for targets, he waited a few seconds and fire, he looked like he got someone but wasn't sure. He had looked for too long, and several shots narrowly missed him. He checked Grey's pulse and decided they needed to get him out of there as soon as possible.
"Cover me!" he shouted. Nuisance nodded and issued orders to the two remaining security personnel. They made a change to their weapon settings and began laying down covering fire. They set the weapons to low power but rapid fire, it would keep an enemy from popping their head without using too much of the power cell. He took the opportunity and grabbed Grey by the legs and pulled him across the shop, he didn't let himself be distracted by the five people ready to kill him but focused on getting Grey out of there. He managed to get behind Nuisance and through the door.
"Fall back!" Nuisance shouted. One of the security team dropped and slung his rifle on his back, he grabbed the dead security officer and dragged them out of the door. The last officer inside fell back leaving Nuisance, she unclipped a stun grenade from her belt and threw it into the room, she covered herself and as soon as it went off ran out the shop following the others making a beeline for the ship.
"Thanks for the save," Alex said to Nuisance.
Chapter Eight
Alex watched through the aft optics as Dijon got smaller, he was happy to be leaving that place. He sighed and turned to walk back towards the bridge. The ship had felt different since he, Grey and the security team returned from a firefight. He was impressed with how fast the response of security was, he guessed that was Nuisance's doing. Grey had been taken straight into surgery and had been there for the last eight hou
rs. Doctor Tamber was working tirelessly to keep Grey alive. Apparently, he was lucky to be alive, not many people would have survived the shot that he took.
Alex had been into the infirmary several times each time met with the same answer that Doctor Tamber would update him as soon as she could. She had now banned him out of sickbay, purely because he was distracting her. He had already transmitted a letter of condolence to the family of Jeremy Tillerson, the security officer who was killed during the firefight. It was always a risk when you work on a ship. It was very common for spacers to die, be it on a ship that is destroyed, or by a firefight on a ship or station, it was an accepted risk for all who ventured into space. That didn't however, make it any easier, especially when someone died in an easily avoidable scenario. Alex had been upset, angry and frustrated with Grey. If he had kept his mouth shut he wouldn't have been shot. This mixed with the anger he showed Commander Young in engineering meant something was wrong, and Alex was going to find out, once Grey woke up. This frustrated him even more though because he wanted answers right now. He had become fed up with pacing and headed to the canteen he'd not eaten for at least eight hours. He entered the canteen, and it was about half full, several people turned their heads and noticed it was the Captain that walked in, he could feel the mood of the room, they did not often lose a crewmember. This death was avoidable, that's what makes it worse, the crew didn't know that, but Alex did, and it toyed with him. He could feel the anger over what had happened building inside of him. The crew in the mess hall had turned back to their food, Alex opened the cupboard that contained his food, he stored some in his quarters but didn't want to separate himself from the crew so stored food in the communal as well. He looked at the ingredients in front of him and decided he wasn't in the mood to cook something. Alex enjoyed cooking, every so often he will cook a meal for the whole crew, they'd not be on a job and usually docked so the entire crew could join in. He looked at the various instant meals he had, they were the ship's stock, they didn't taste the best, but they were at least palatable, some of the other crew complained about previous ships that only had field rations. Apparently, Alex was quite generous for providing proper food. He quickly prepared a meal and sat to eat it. He'd just got through a couple of mouthfuls when he saw one of the medical staff walk in, she looked at him and motioned for him to come, he immediately left his food and followed.
Jenny sat in the pilot's seat, guiding the ship away from the Jump beacon, Trulen station was dead ahead, and they'd arrive in a few hours, she was supposed to be in the command chair but found she could fly and command fine. Alex had mentioned that he had issues with it but never forced the point. The jump beacon was always patrolled by several Trulen military ships. They had scanned the Michelangelo and allowed it to continue its journey to Trulen. The bridge was deadly quiet, it had been all through this shift, the effect on morale that death had is profound.
She checked the distance to Trulen, there was just under four hours to go. One thing Jenny rarely ever did was hand the ship over to autopilot, she liked to remain in control even if they were just cruising, but she decided to put the ship on autopilot and have a walk around the bridge.
"Mr Chequers, how're you doing?" She asked the person sitting next to her on ops.
"Everything is green, Sir" He reported, there was a sombreness in his voice.
"My name is Jenny, not Sir," she said with a slight chuckle.
"Everything is green," he paused, "Jenny." He said.
"What about you Tina?" she asked. Tina was at the engineering station, it monitors all the engineering status readouts so the bridge could see what was going on.
"All seems okay, Jen," Tina said without even looking at the screen, or at her. Jenny couldn't put up with this not for four hours. She thought to herself, everyone here was from Europa, which meant they should all know a particular song. An old Earth song was one of the most famous in Europa, people wanted it to be a national anthem, but Europa was not really a nation and didn't have an anthem. She stood in front of the command chair and started to sing.
"Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound,
That save a wretch like me."
She paused as she saw people look up, a couple smiled.
"I once was lost, but now I'm found,
T'was blind but now I see."
Everyone was looking up now. When she began singing again a few more people joined in.
"T'was Grace that taught my heart to fear
And Grace, my fears relieved
How precious did that grace appear
The hour I first believed"
By the end everyone was singing, most had a slight smile. Within a few minutes people had started talking, some were talking about the crewmen that had died, and how Grey was in critical care. They talked about how the Captain had only been seen for brief moments, didn't speak to many people, ever since he came back. But it wasn't silence, which was perfect. Jenny may have seemed like a loner at times, but she did enjoy socialising, or in this case listening to it. She wondered about Captain Harper, He had been out of sight, she knew he'd been kicked out of the infirmary by Doctor Tamber and that he had briefly been spotted getting food from the mess hall. Since becoming XO she had made more of an effort to get to know the crew more, she was well aware of her reputation as the helms women who does not take any grief from anyone. She decided it would be best if she could be approachable; usually, any crew problems would be fed to the XO, but she knew that the previous XO had not been very welcoming. Dylan was one of the grumpiest people she had ever met, how he got to the command level in any fleet was anyone's guess. He was always snapping at the crew, but he did keep them in line, he increased efficiency by a lot, he had used his military experience to get the crew in line. A few resisted but eventually, a good compromise was reached, the crew didn't follow military protocol, but the ship ran as efficient as if it did. Now that the healthy buzz of the bridge was back, Jenny sat down in the command chair and waited for the ship to arrive at Trulen, she hoped that Alex's deal with Trulen had paid off.
Alex had run through the ship, he had narrowly missed running into two of his crew, he'd also managed to knock over the cleaning cart which he profusely apologised for, he had eventually made it to the infirmary. On his orders, Doctor Tamber had called him, when she had an update on Grey. He burst into the infirmary, and Doctor Tamber jumped at the noise of him pretty much running into the door to open it.
"Captain," she said simply.
"How is he?" Alex dispensed with any pleasantries.
"Stable, but will need more attention on Trulen," It sounded as though she had more to say.
"Anything else?" he asked.
"I found traces of something called R387 in his system, there is only one known use for R387, and it's to create a drug known as Elixia." She told him.
Alex was in shock, Grey was taking drugs, he was silent for a moment while recent events had started to make sense, it explained so much. He would have had to destroy the stash when the Yventi search team came on board. He has probably been limiting his usage. Which is known to cause increased irritability, it explains his recent outbreaks, the latest one nearly getting him killed, and did get another crewman killed.
"Can I see him?" Alex asked.
"He's very weak and may not be up to saying much or even staying awake, but I see no issue with it." Doctor Tamber replied, she moved way to her desk, Alex could see that she had started packing. In all the commotion he had forgotten that she was leaving them.
He moved over to the bed which Grey was in, Doctor Tamber had pulled the curtains round to give Grey some privacy. Alex parted the curtains and saw Grey lying there, he looked frail and weak, his face was ashen. He was attached to numerous machines, some for monitoring, some keeping him alive. Doctor Tamber could do no more than stabilise him, he needed the facilities of Trulen. Grey's eyes were closed, Alex assumed he was asleep, he pulled himself a chair and sat down next to the bed, he put his head in his hands
and just sighed. A lot had happened, they'd managed to pull off a dangerous mission, they got very close to being caught smuggling covert surveillance equipment into Yventi space, and they'd got into a firefight where a crew member had died. Alex was tired, he'd only just realised how tired he actually was. He hadn't managed to get any sleep for at least twenty-four hours. He leant back and very quickly drifted off to sleep.
Sitting at his small desk, if you could call it that, Grant stared at the screen of his console. The console had the access page for the Yeventi comm net, he had registered as a foreign guest and paid the small subscription fee, it was the only comm net in inhabited space you had to pay for, the Yventi valued their privacy, so the fee discouraged people from using the net unless they really needed it. They rarely held talks with other governments, the only event they go to is anything to do with the Earth Memorial Agreement, the resigning ceremony that takes place every five years and any emergency talks about a change in the agreement. As the crew had recently found out, they were very protective of their borders and didn't tolerate people just flying through their space. Although they were a reclusive government Grant had seen the complete opposite in Janie, she seemed outgoing and welcoming, she was not hostile like Commander Young was. He had debated about calling her for a few days, it was unlikely they would meet very often even if they did start talking, Alex would probably avoid Yventi space now that the Michelangelo works for the Trulen's.
