by Trevor Gregg
The pain distracted him momentarily, then Jon tugged him to his feet and dragged him down the passageway. “I don’t know how the hell you got here, kid. But you better follow my lead or you’re gonna be a helluva a lot worse off than you already are.”
Reaching the entrance to the bay, Jon slowed his pace and said, “Shit, they’re already assembling. Quick, don’t be the last one or you’ll be fucked like a drikalian prostitute,” he said, shoving Kyren forward, following closely behind.
Kyren reached the end of the yellow line and stepped through into the cavernous cargo bay. The ceiling stood at least three or four stories tall, the opposite end far distant. He estimated it would take a minute to reach the far wall if he were to walk.
Most impressive, though, were the great bay doors to the right. They ran the length of the wall, floor to distant ceiling. And they were open to space. The debris field was visible just beyond, masked by the golden sheen of the force field holding the vacuum of space at bay.
“Quick, get in line,” Jon advised under his breath.
As Kyren made for the line, a guard in riot gear and bearing a stun baton stepped in front of him.
“Fresh meat, eh?” the grizzled, bearded guard said in a cruel tone. “Get in line,” he barked, jabbing the end of the stun baton into Kyren’s chest. An arc of pain shot through his whole body, and he almost dropped to the floor, but was caught by Jon, who eased him down.
“Good samaritan, eh? Looks like you get double punishment today,” the guard said. He wound up and swung the baton two-handed, into the back of Jon’s head. Electricity crackled and a dull thump echoed as the baton connected.
Jon hit the floor and began twitching uncontrollably, then lay still.
“Get in line, maggot!” the guard said, delivering a vicious kick to Kyren’s back. Pain flared as he felt ribs crack.
Gritting his teeth against the pain, he willed his body to stand. It mostly obeyed his command. A glance at Jon and he knew there wasn’t anything he could do for the man, so he made for the line.
A truly massive doss, probably eight feet tall, strode into the hangar, making for the line of debtors. A black leather vest covered his barrel chest, and strapped to his belt was a huge revolver.
“I… am Captain Bulgren. Listen well, you scum. Your asses belong to me. I paid for your debt. Until you work off your bill, you’ll stay aboard the Searcher,” Bulgren began in a basso voice edged with malice, walking up and down the line.
The doss stopped in front of the man next to Kyren, so close he could smell the creature’s musty fur. Reaching out with a massive furred hand, Bulgren seized the tough looking dark haired man by the front of his gray jumpsuit, lifting him off his feet. His other hand balled into a fist and slammed into the man’s face. Two more blows and he went limp, blood dripping from his shattered nose.
Bulgren dropped the guy to the deck and motioned to the guards. As the guards dragged his limp form out of the cargo bay, Bulgren returned his meaty paw to the butt of his gun. “Don’t look me in the eye, either,” he snarled at them, baring his vicious looking teeth while striding up and down the line one more time, as if daring anyone to look at him. With a final snarl, Bulgren strode from the bay, lumbering away down the corridor.
The guards began barking orders. The one who had been hassling Kyren gave him a shove and pointed toward the wall. “You’re on loader duty,” the man said harshly.
Kyren spotted more than a dozen bays lining the wall, each containing a bulky exo-suit, painted bright yellow and with great clamps instead of hands. Approaching the suit, he noted the exposed pistons and servos, and was reminded of Punchy. He was wracked by guilt as he thought of the bot fight and his brother. Struggling to keep his emotions in check, he climbed into the exo-suit, punching the large button labeled engage.
The suit sealed around him, but the helmet remained open, still retracted into the collar. He took a tentative step out of the bay, and staggered forward, landing on his knees. Climbing back to his feet he tried again, this time allowing the machine’s internal stabilization gyros to do the work. He managed to stay upright, though he still swayed slightly as he walked.
Looking around, Kyren could see the guards had backed off, and half the debtors were climbing into the loaders, the other half had donned spacesuits with large jet packs. A dark blue skinned saurian in a loader the same as his approached him.
“Wot ye doin’ standin’ aroun’?” he asked in a strange accent. “Do ye have squots in yer terpuckin?”
“I’m sorry, I don’t understand,” he replied, confused.
“Get ter work! Do yer unnerstan’ dat? Pick up there,” he said, pointing to the piles of junk stacked near the open bay doors. “An’ move it there,” he finished, pointing to the opposite wall where great stacks of scrap already sat.
Kyren approached the open bay doors as the other debtors in spacesuits and jet packs ferried pieces of junk gathered from the field beyond and deposited them just inside. Using his giant clamp-hands, he hoisted a huge piece of what must have been a ship hull. He was impressed by the suit’s strength, the servos not even straining against the heavy load.
The suit’s gyros kept him balanced as he walked toward the far wall with the scrap. He knew his situation was dire, grief and helplessness still gripped him, but somehow he managed to feel a measure of excitement piloting the exo-suit. He came to a steep ramp that led up to a platform where another worker was depositing a large piece of wreckage on top of the pile.
As the piece landed, the stack shifted. In an instant Kyren realized it was going to fall. And right in the path was Jon, in a loader, helmet open like Kyren’s. Surprising himself, he dropped the junk he was carrying and broke into a lumbering run, even before he realized what he was doing. He pushed the cumbersome suit as fast as it could manage. With a leap he hit Jon in a flying tackle, knocking him backward and sending them both tumbling to the deckplates.
Kyren closed his eyes, expecting to be crushed by falling scrap. The pile crashed to the floor with a magnificent cacophony, but to his relief he felt no impact. He opened his eyes and saw it had crashed down mere inches from him.
12
Alis
Kyren had made it into space. But instead of the joy he had imagined back on Junoval, there was only misery. He was alone and effectively a slave to the monstrous Captain Bulgren and his vicious crew. His life had been reduced to an endless cycle of lift, carry, drop. Rinse and repeat.
The work left his body as numb as his mind, somewhere between apathy and self pity. So he worked, and lost himself in the labor. As the days wore on, his despair began to turn into anger, slowly building into a seething resentment.
His shift ended and, just like he had for many days, he went to the mess hall. Proffering his tray to the man behind the counter, the man dropped a hunk of bread on his plate and spooned on a ladle-full of brown goop.
Trying to remain inconspicuous in the cramped mess hall, he sat down with his tray full of glop and ripped a chunk of bread off. Before he could take a bite, he felt a meaty three fingered hand clamp down on his shoulder.
“I’ll take your puddin’ now,” a gruff voice said behind him.
Kyren craned his neck to see a burly gray-skinned being with a single short horn protruding from his forehead. His pointed chin jutted out half as far as the horn. He wore a scowl and it was obvious his nose had been broken multiple times. Even a small grendle like this was still bigger and far stronger than Kyren.
“How about you go fuck yourself,” Kyren replied stoically.
He knew there was no way out of this situation without getting hurt but he was damn sick of being trodden on.
“How about I break your face and take your puddin’?” he retorted angrily, heaving Kyren out of his seat, sending him crashing to the floor, his tray flying off the other side and splattering on the deck.
Kyren stood just as the grendle lashed out, gleeful malice in his eyes. He began to dodge but was too late. The
fist connected with his face and for a third time he was knocked out cold.
He came to gradually, his hearing returning first. There was a low conversation somewhere nearby. He kept his eyes shut and listened.
“…yes, he’s still out. Hopefully he won’t be comatose like the other, the one you worked over…” he heard a man saying, a gruff reply came over a communicator.
The conversation faded as a door was closed. Kyren’s eyes snapped open and he quickly looked around. The walls were lined with cabinets and there were several small beds. As he surveyed the beds, he spotted a man’s unconscious form, a monitor on a stand reading out vital signs. It was the man Bulgren had pulped, he was still comatose.
Kyren stood quietly and gingerly touched his nose. Very nearly shrieking in pain, he stifled a cry at the last moment. Yep, his nose was broken.
Creeping to the door, careful not to make a sound, he peered out. Seeing no one, he slipped into the Searcher’s dingy, dimly lit rusted corridors. If he was going to escape, he needed to know more about his prison. Kyren wandered the halls, the dimmed lights indicating it was second cycle. Hopefully that meant the guards would be sleeping.
Treading lightly at first, expecting guards around every turn, he became more confident as the passages remained empty. Peeling paint and rusting bulkheads were accompanied by stale air and poor lighting. The ship felt old and tired, badly in need of maintenance. Wandering the halls, he noticed two things. First, the ship was expansive, and two, there were few, if any guards patrolling the halls.
Problem was, he couldn’t roam forever. He needed a destination. Turning and scanning the wall, he located the direction lines and found what seemed the most interesting choice. Engineering.
Several minutes later, he turned a corner into a long passage that must run the width of the ship. There was a large door halfway down the hallway, spilling light through the open portal. He froze as he heard faint cursing and several large bangs. Creeping slowly toward the door, the voice went quiet. He peered around the corner apprehensively, his fight or flight instinct primed and ready.
Kyren quickly scanned the room: piles of equipment on tables, stacks of junk on the floor, random parts lying around. It was a hardware junky’s heaven. With a painful twinge of sadness he knew his brother would have been at home with all this tech.
Several bangs emitted from an open service hatch on the far wall and the cursing resumed. A young woman backed out of the hatch and dropped lightly to the ground. A beautiful woman, Kyren noted. She was shapely and petite, with delicate facial features and a mane of luxurious sky-blue hair.
Then Kyren saw the cat-like ears topping her head, poking through her hair. She was a rillian. The blue-haired rillian in a gray jumpsuit turned toward Kyren, her cat ears laying flat at the sight of him. He tried to duck back behind the corner but was too late, she had already seen him, so he stepped awkwardly into the room.
“Yes?” she queried.
“Is this the engine room?” he asked, trying to disarm her, praying she wasn’t going to call the guards.
“Are you daft? Of course it’s the engine room,” she replied, ears twitching while motioning to the wall of access panels she had emerged from. “What are you doing here, how’d you get out of the restricted sector?”
He hesitated, distracted by the sparkle of mirth in her blue eyes. “I had a little run in with a big grendle,” he finally admitted.
She gave a musical little laugh and nodded. “Sneak out of the infirmary, did you?”
“Yeah, I did. I’m Kyren, one of the prisoners,” he extended his hand, she took it tentatively. Her skin was soft, and he felt himself blush slightly at the touch.
“Prisoner is certainly a more apt name than debtor for us,” she said, her ears perking up. “I’m Alis.”
“Wait, you’re a prisoner too? Are you escaping? I’ll help, just tell me what I can do.” Kyren said excitedly.
Alis gave a derisive little snort. “No, I’m not going anywhere, there’s nowhere to go, unless you like the vacuum of space.”
“Then what are you doing in here? Why aren’t you locked up?” he asked.
“Because they’d be in trouble if I weren’t here. I’m the ship’s engineer,” she said proudly.
Kyren was still puzzled.
“I was here for six weeks before the engineer, Old Kronus died. We were in the debris fields of Tanis Seven when he croaked, far from any civilization. The life support systems went on the fritz, and when they found out I was an engineer, I was recruited to fix them,” she explained, making air quotes around the word recruited.
“How long ago was that?” Kyren asked, dreading the answer.
“One year, seven months,” she replied in a whisper.
“What?! But how… why…?” he sputtered.
“It could be worse, I suppose. I mean, I do get to work on pre-millennial tech sometimes,” she pointed to a foot-long L shaped device on a workbench.
It was mostly white, with engraved green circuitry and silver receptacles on either end. There was a mass of wires spilling out of an open access panel.
“Yeah but can’t you sabotage the ship or escape when in port or something?”
“No, they either lock me up or keep me under guard when we’re not in the depths of space. Sometimes I even get to go aboard stations when we need parts for the ship, but always under guard. So I’ve never managed an opportunity to get away. Besides, I don’t think even Captain Bulgren’s fondness for me would keep him from putting the hurt to me if I tried to escape.”
“Yeah, I’ve seen how he treats people,” Kyren said, grimacing as he remembered his first lineup and the still-unconscious man. “So how’d you end up here?”
“You’d better get back to the dorm before one of the guards finds you,” she said, obviously deflecting his question. “I’m guessing you don’t know the way, though.”
She sighed and motioned for him to follow, ears falling slightly.
13
The Grind
The next morning at lineup Kyren was pulled out of line by the angry, bearded guard, whose name he discovered was Geribos. He had continued to harangue Kyren daily, so he was careful not to cross the man, at least intentionally.
“You’re on harvesting duty now, punk,” Geribos sneered, pointing toward the rack on the wall containing spacesuits with built-in jetpacks.
He stifled his anger and trotted over to the suits. Following the example of the other prisoners, he donned a suit. With great trepidation he followed the others to the open bay door. They began to step through, one by one, and then jet off under the power of their jet packs. Several of the workers bore huge industrial laser cutters.
Kyren’s turn came and he hesitated, looking past the glowing golden force field at the empty space beyond. And then he leapt, leaving the ship’s artificial gravity field and entering open space. He felt the feeling of water, of swimming again, but this time there was an openness that dwarfed him. A vastness he almost couldn’t comprehend. His breathing heavy with near panic, he almost didn’t hear his radio crackle to life.
Jon’s voice came over the com, reassuring him, “Hey Kyren, here’s a quick lesson so pay attention. First thing, keep your damn breathing even, you’ll overpower the air purification if you’re panting the whole time.”
He concentrated on slowing his breathing before responding, “Okay, got it. What’s next?”
“Second, use your jetpack in short, easy bursts. Over burn and you’ll go rocketing the fuck away,” Jon warned.
He looked around out of the clear dome that was the helmet, attempting to spot Jon.
“Oh yeah, and thanks a ton for getting me kicked off of loader duty asshole. Looks like your little walkabout really pissed off the guards, I think they’re trying to make me hate you,” Jon continued jovially.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t intend for any of this to trouble you,” he said apologetically.
“Hey, the inside of this suit smells like a jova
lian butt-crack, so yeah, I have a right to hate you,” punctuating his ire with a gruff but genuine laugh.
Kyren remained quiet, unsure of what to say. Then he spotted Jon, waving from within the debris field. He goosed his thrusters gently, as instructed, and drifted toward a huge piece of ship hull.
“It’s alright, kid, we are where we are, right?”
“So do you know the engineer?” Kyren asked as Jon used an industrial laser torch to slice through a large piece of hull.
“Oh, the rillian girl, eh? Did’ya meet her or somethin’?” Jon questioned.
“Uh,” Kyren began to stutter.
“Yep, ya met ‘er, I see. She’s easy on the eyes, isn’t she?” Jon nudged him with his elbow.
“Her name is Alis, she’s the engineer,” Kyren explained.
“Shit I know that, kid. I was here her first day aboard. You’ve seen Bulgren? Well he’s got a soft spot for your new girlfriend. Not that he was nice to her, by any stretch, still damn mean. But none of the guards so much as looked at her sideways. “
“Enough chatter, shit-buckets! Get back to work!” Geribos growled over the comm.
Kyren and Jon returned to the work of dismantling scrap and hauling it back to the Searcher’s bay.
The days began to blend into each other, and Kyren lost track. No matter how hard they worked, it seemed like the cargo bay was still barely full. He was getting quite good maneuvering with his jetpack though, and didn’t always hate going out. At least the work took his mind off of his situation. For awhile anyway. Jon had been relocated back to the loaders soon after Kyren’s little escape, but Kyren had been stuck on harvesting duty.
His shift had just nearly begun but he was feeling no desire to work. He waited for an opportunity when he thought no one was looking, and nudged himself into motion. He jetted to the side and drifted behind a large hunk of debris. Spinning, he grasped the edge and peered around. It seemed no one had seen him depart.
