Mettle: Pt. 2

Ch.4_HangOn

Nick skidded across the angled nose of a sporty, red personal transport just large enough to carry a single passenger as he closed the distance to his giant, grey brick of a cargo-hauler. He launched himself off the other end with a thrust of his hips and resumed sprinting across the empty metal of the station’s tarmac.

Glowing blue spikes of ignited C12 were already reaching down from the engines affixed to the top four corners as Leru threw the man-door open and smiled at him. Wind fought against him with increasing force as the thrusters displaced the station’s artificial atmosphere, larger spikes shooting from the engines in an overlapping, crescendoing rhythm.

Nick threaded his wiry frame through the gusts, angular jaw, eyes, and nose the front of his own sporty transport with a caramel paint job. His ship was already beginning to lift off the tarmac, but he was less than five meters away-

And then it was gone, replaced by spots and darkness. He blinked as the tarmac quickly came up to meet him, oddly disassociated from his own extremities as something heavy and roughly the size of a fist ricocheted off the back of his skull. He came-to lying face-down with the wind rushing over him.

He’d barely been able to get his bearings when someone grabbed his hand and began dragging him into the rushing wind. The direction he was moving combined with the worn but well cared-for combat boots pounding the tarmac in front of his face told him Leru had come to his rescue.

She placed his fingers on the slowly rising grating of Perseverace’s floor and jumped over him, boots barely missing his hands as he pulled himself up over the edge, the engine’s roar a deafening tear violently shredding any sound they made. She knelt by him with his right hand in hers as his feet left the ground, pulling his dangling form the rest of the way when a pair of thin arms wrapped around his waist. They were both nearly pulled down to the tarmac, but Leru slammed a palm on the door frame as the jagged grating tore at the skin on Nick’s other hand.

Teeth gritted and biceps swelling, blue skin paling with white ohma blood, Leru pulled Nick’s hand up to her chest, tendons taut against the skin of her neck as she transitioned onto her back. Pressing her boots against the doorframe, she dragged him over the grating with his hanger-on still stuck to his waist, his torso saved from the grating’s teeth by his thick, industrial jacket.

She placed his hand back on the grating, checked that he had secured himself, then returned to her feet. Jarret shouted over the intercom to shut the damn door as she stepped over him to the open portal, lifted the interloper off his waist, and deposited them on the grating next to him. Nick pulled himself over the edge into the safety of Perseverance’s maintenance hall, and Leru slammed the door behind him, cutting the engines’ roar down to a mild hum.

He rolled up into a sitting position, leaning against the wall between the two doors as he examined his hand. “You…” He stared past his fingers at the panting form of a child on the grating before him. She was rail thin and so pale he’d thought her an ohma at first, despite her nearly black hair. She wore a pair of sporty running shoes that were utterly free of scuffs, but still at odds with her skirt and sweat-soaked, button-up shirt.

She swallowed air with her face pressed to the grated floor, shivering and wheezing with each inhale. She placed a palm flat next to her as if to push herself up, linking her fingers into the grating but otherwise remaining where she was. She remained like this for a number of minutes.

“Should we… Do something?” Nick looked up at Leru, who knelt by the child’s side.

“Breathe in through your nose, out through your mouth. Try and take full breaths, it’ll-” She frowned as the child’s hand folded into a familiar gesture that informed her the advice was unwanted.

Nick coughed a laugh, “Yeah, she’s fine.”

Leru returned to her feet, addressing Nick over the child’s continued wheezing. “Did you get it?”

Nick grinned as he pulled the datachit from his pocket and tossed it to her. “Think you can wire a reader into the pilot’s seat?”

“I think there’s one already installed.” She cocked her head. “It’s an interfaced mechanism.”

“Makes sense. Could you ask Jarett to check it out for me?”

Leru nodded as she exhaled through her nose. “You’re going to have to explain what we’re going to do with whatever he finds, though.” She stepped over the child and him to reach the cargo bay door. “It’d better be good, you’re halfway to a mutiny as it stands.”

“We’re halfway to a mutiny.” He called after her as she left him and the child in the hall.

“Oof.” The kid managed to work her way into a sitting position perpendicular to Nick’s, legs extended as far as they could across the hall. Her heart-shaped face practically glowed in the shadows from all the red splotches and sweat.

“Yeah,” Nick narrowed his eyes beneath a lowering brow. “Good choice of ship to stow away on.”

She closed her eyes, head tilted upwards as she breathed in through her nose and out through her mouth.

“Why?” Nick nudged her with his foot.

Her brow twitched. “Why what?”

“Why me, why this ship. Why run away at all?” Nick crossed his legs, dragging them across the grating. “You seemed pretty adamant about not leaving when I pretended-… When I met you earlier.”

She frowned, nostrils twitching as she squeezed her eyes shut. Ten long, calming breaths later, she spoke, “I don’t want to be handed off from owner to owner.” She opened her eyes and rolled her head towards him. “And I knew you couldn’t just turn around and put me back, ‘Captain Hacron’.”

CH.5_Misplaced

Nick’s face was wide eyed and slack jawed as he patted down his pockets, staring into the distance. “You sneaky…”

“That fake ID must have been pretty convincing to get as far as it did.” Jacq smiled to herself, “good thing nobody thought to actually look at the chip’s case — the original owner’s name was carved into the design. Easy to overlook, but a keen enough eye…” She let herself trail off as a wave of exhaustion washed over her.

“Tell me that’s not what hit me.”

Jacq’s cheeks burned with the force of her grin. “Your pockets are so wide, you were practically offering out their contents. My hand kind of just… fell into it when you bumped into me.”

He stood slowly, casting a flickering shadow over her from a light in the room beside him. “Tell me you picked it up before grabbing me. Tell me it’s here, on this ship.”

“I wouldn’t have thrown it if I’d had that kind of time…” Something about his expression drained her will to speak, as if every muscle in his face was no longer being controlled but rather lay dormant.

He leaned back against the wall with a thump, recoiling with a wince as his head touched the metal. He then slowly pressed it to the wall with visible force, eyes squeezed tight. “We needed that ID chit.”

Jacq stood, legs still shaking from the sprint. “For what? It’s probably what got you flagged in the first place, you weren’t going to be able to use it again.”

“The case.” He opened his eyes, piercing her with green irises that shone the same whether the light flickered on or off. “It was a designer brand — Intelligent Designs. We were going to sell it. We needed to sell it.” He stepped through the door into the flickering light, slamming it closed behind him.

Jacq stumbled through the sudden darkness to where he’d stood, finding the portal with her hands as her eyes adjusted — the small lights beneath the grated floor did little besides declare their own presence. She found the latch and tried working it a couple times before realizing it had been locked, and resorted to slamming her fist against the door.

“I can’t tell you how bad we needed that case.” Nick’s voice chirped over an intercom behind her. “Food isn’t free, you know.”

She found the button under the speaker — it slid around loosely in its frame as she pressed it. “You wouldn’t have been able to sell it.”

“We can barely feed ourselves as it is, let alone an extra crewmember.”

She punched the button, jaw clenched over straining vocal chords. “I’m telling you, that case was worthless before you even brought it to Estermere!”

“Regardless, I think it’s best you went through the airlock.”

Her heart stopped, arms going cold as her throat closed. Her finger hovered over the intercom button, but she quickly let it fall. She looked around the dim corridor, but found only darkness further in — darkness that, perhaps, led to another door?

“Go, please.”

She turned back to the speaker. “What?”

“It’s not an automatic door, you need to turn the latch and force it open. It’ll take some effort since it’s pressurized, but once you get it started the escaping air should do the rest.”

She punched the button, glancing at the locked door. “I’m… not going to do that.”

The door’s inner mechanisms clunked, then it opened with a roar of rolling gears. “I guess we probably need the oxygen anyway,” Nick sighed. “Looks like you get to starve to death with us, then.” He stepped aside, motioning for her to enter into the flickering light.

She squinted against the brightness, happy to put more walls between herself and the void.

“Welcome about Perseverance. This,” Nick swept his arms in a broad arc as she entered, “is our modern art exhibit.” A single struggling LED spotlighting hanging from the ceiling flickered over two stories of empty space roughly ten meters cubical. Note as your eyes adjust, how the edges of the room appear to connect seamlessly with the void outside, symbolizing the infinite illusion of free will.” Nick’s hands went through a series of broad and apparently meaningless gestures as he spoke, ending up in his pockets. “Artist unknown, mediums used: Ancient spaceships and sadness.”

Jacq squinted into the darkness, barely making out a large, segmented door from floor to ceiling to the left of where they’d entered. “It’s the cargo bay.”

“Theoretically yes, but it’s seen more use as modern art under my captainship.” Nick followed her gaze to the doors. “they don’t open anymore, so we couldn’t carry cargo if we had any. At least, I don’t think they do.”

Jacq’s brow twisted as she turned to him. “You haven’t tried?”

Nick nodded slowly. “I was going to, but Hep — our mechanic — kind of advised against it.”

“Kind of?”

He tilted his head to one side. “I asked if he thought the doors still worked.” He tilted his head to the other. “He said ‘don’t’ which I took to mean ‘no’.” He shrugged. “If Hep can’t fix them with what’s already here, then they might as well just be another wall — and in that way, they work splendidly.”

“Why didn’t you just ask him what he meant?”

The side of his mouth strained in a not-quite-smile. “you’ll see.” He continued the tour, pointing out the crew quarters before leading her up a rattling ladder to an equally sound catwalk. They entered a room directly above the crew quarters, in it’s center was a multifaceted pillar that connected floor to ceiling, branching out into the window frames above and containing the glistening, bare torso of the pilot at the bottom, his face hidden behind a metal sheet.

Jacq slowly took in the room from the floor up, lingering on the void beyond the numerous, jagged windows above. She swayed as her eyes tried to adjust between the infinite depth of glowing pinpoints and the relative closeness of the numerous window frames. The stars beyond moved to her left, which directly contradicted the information her brain was receiving from her inner ear.

Nick caught her by the shoulders as she tilted dangerously far towards her heels. “Yeah, I don’t know why they put the window up there — especially when the ship was designed to move laterally from where we’re standing. It messes with your inner-ear at first but you’ll get used to it; we call it ‘getting your space-legs.’”

“Structural integrity,” The pilot interjected. “It was either put a window there, or don’t have any windows. And no, we do not call it that.”

Nick frowned at the torso. “Just like we don’t sit in the pilot’s seat without covering ourselves, right Jarett?”

“If you don’t want me to sweat, you’re gonna have to get Hep the parts to fix the AC in here. Extra clothes aren’t going to cool me off.”

“But they will keep your bare ass from touching the seat.” Nick’s eyes narrowed at the helmeted body. “You know, for when someone else sits there. When you aren’t my pilot anymore.”

Jarett’s only response was the deep, slapping gurgle of air being pushed through cheeks submerged in a shallow puddle, amplified by the metal enclosure he sat in.

Nick rubbed at his brow. “You could at least sit on a towel…”

“Captain,” Jarett chided. “I only have one towel, and I prefer to use it when I’m clean. Hold on-..” another deep gurgle-slap, much shorter than the first. “I think of it as job security, and an incentive for you to provide higher-quality sustenance.”

Nick’s eyes were shut so tight they seemed to be trying to cave in on themselves as his thumb and forefinger moved to assist, jaw muscles pressing the caramel color from his skin. “Jacq, Jarett.” He gestured with the hand that wasn’t currently moulding his face into putty. “Jarett, Jacq.”

“Oh, right.” The helmet slid up, revealing Jarett’s stubbled, equally-doughy visage. “The new kid.” He smiled at Jacq. “Hi, I’m Jarett.”

“Jacq.” She waved awkwardly at the sweaty nudist.

Nick blinked a couple times, dropping his hand to his side where it slapped loosely against his Jacket. “Leru gave you the rundown?”

Jarett nodded. “She told me the basics — that we had a new crew member, that she was a child, and that you had manipulated her into joining us for unknown reasons.”

“She didn’t say that last part.”

Jarett shrugged. “I inferred it. She also said we’re going to discuss the future over thirds.”

Nick was already walking around the pillar towards the far side of the room. “Sounds like you’ve got it, I’ll see you there.”

“Yup, but thanks for stopping by anyway, Cap!” Jarett called over his shoulder before turning back to where Jacq still stood with a roll of his eyes. He smiled, “It was nice to meet you.”

Jacq smiled weakly, glancing between Jarett and the floor as she followed Nick out the door on the opposite side of the room. She found him in the hallway beyond, staring at a closed door opposite the one they’d just exited. She grunted as she tried to roll the door closed behind her, unsure whether it had actually latched by the time she was done with it but she was done with it all the same.

She turned back to Nick to find him unmoved. His face was centimeters from the surface of the door, arms by his sides with his fingertips arched upwards, barely touching the metal. His shoulders rose and fell in a deep slow rhythm as she watched, frozen between steps in the middle of the hall.

Ch.6_Rut

Nick couldn’t blame Jarett for hating him — after all, Nick was responsible for the whole crew’s well-being, the standard of which had been low for the last two years. He’d flown the ship before hiring Jarett, and though he never went so far as to fly naked, he could understand why Jarett would want to.

Being able to sympathize with Jarett didn’t assuage Nick’s desire to step into the void, or at least collapse where he was, and remain in place until he was no more. Even assuming Estermere had been a success, he was nowhere near providing a better quality of life for his crew.

Footsteps, quick and heavy, drew him back into the hallway. Hep approached from the maintenance hall to his right, moving with purpose. He stopped near Nick, and a moment later Nick realized it was because Jacq stood in his path.

Nick introduced the two of them, to which Hep responded with a grunt, never taking his eyes off the grated floor. “Thirds,” Nick added, “we need to talk about our next move.”

Hep nodded, shuffling from foot to foot until Jacq stepped aside, pressing against the wall to let him pass.

Jacq; yet one more weight on his conscience, as if Leru wasn’t enough. He had no idea why Lerru stayed with him any more than he knew why Jacq had put so much effort into running away with him. Leru had saved his life, she owed him nothing, and Jacq had lived in luxury.

Nick didn’t know if he believed in karma, but there were times his life seemed like a sick joke told by a psychopathic god: He’d wanted equality for the workers on his home world, and he’d been framed and enslaved in retaliation. The woman he’d loved had been at the center of this betrayal, and now innocent women seemed drawn into the swirling vortex his life had become. Jacq barely qualified as a woman, he guessed, but somehow that didn’t make him feel any better.

He blinked hard at the kitchen door, remembering Jacq was right behind him, and he’d been standing there for what must have been at least a couple minutes. He took a deep breath of Perseverance’s stale, muggy air, and forced the door open.

CH.7_Dysfunction

After an uncomfortably long period of staring at the wall, Nick opened the door in front of them to find the ohma who’d lifted Jacq into the ship waiting for them. Jacq watched her with a level brow as the ohma removed a tray and cutlery from a cabinet on the wall, then set about placing ingredients onto it from a series of adjacent drawers.

They followed her in, standing near a large, round table in the center of the room while waiting their turn at the cabinets. Jarett walked in wearing a loose-fitting, unzipped jumpsuit with the top half tied around his waist, and made his way to the cabinets while Jacq ignored Nick’s explanation of how they worked. Jarett was not something she particularly enjoyed looking at, but something about the way his hairy pudge shone in the ship’s LED’s caught her attention. He followed Leru as he fixed himself a tray, unscrewing the attached cup to fill it from a spout in one of the cabinets. Hep entered as well, and finished loading his tray after Jarett while Leru sat at the end of the table nearest the door, waiting politely without eating.

Finally Jacq took her turn, removing colorless, freeze-dried shapes from one drawer and steaming them along with the tray in the next, then seating herself opposite Jarett — the table had six rail-bound chairs set equidistant around it, and everybody had put at least one empty seat between themselves and their neighbor.

What passed for food on the ship had actually seemed more appetizing before being “cooked”: What was once a handful of thin, frozen strands was now a loose pile of soggy, opaque orange noodles. There had been a formless clump that had melted down into a watery glop of mashed… something that she could only assume was starch-based, and finally a small light brown protein bar that had maintained its shape, but now glimmered a pearlescent green when the light hit it just right.

“Eat it quickly,” Nick suggested as he rolled out the seat next to her. “It tastes better the less you have to taste it.” He began digging in with purpose before his butt touched his chair.

She weighed her options — the protein would be the most substantial and would keep her full the longest, but the mushy glop would be easier to swallow since it wouldn’t require chewing.

She decided the orange noodles seemed a good compromise between nutrition and a new term she was dubbing “stomachability”. Most of them broke under their own weight as she scooped them from the pile, flop-splatting back onto the tray. It took a concentrated, tactical approach, but she finally managed to get a sporkful into her mouth.

She grimaced, swallowing without chewing as the noodles turned to mildly sweet mush, leaving an oily film on her tongue that her metallic-tasting water couldn’t wash away. She decided to try the protein bar, reasoning that the more substantial foodstuff might be able to scour the oil from her tongue.

The prongs of her steelware reluctantly sank into the thick rectangle — it had the consistency of clay despite being fibrous like redsteak. She managed to fork off one of the corners and lifted it to her mouth: it smelled musky through her interface, a concerning choice for a program designed to make things more appetizing .

Biting into it released a taste of copper and mud that quickly filled her mouth and permeated her nostrils from inside with a thick stench she did her best not to identify. She tried to chew the thing into a swallowable consistency but her tastebuds revolted, demanding to taste anything else. In an act of pure desperation, she spooned a small puddle of the glop into her mouth.

She coughed throatily around her “food”, barely keeping it in her mouth as her stomach threatened to join her tongue’s revolution, then forced the mouthful down with the remainder of her water as tears welled in the corners of her eyes. She panted, bringing the cup back down to the table with a bang as she realized the rest of the crew were by this point either finished eating or nearly there — and staring at her.

Jarett finished chewing the last of his protein with a look of practiced determination. “I feel you, sister.” He gulped down the last of it and reached for his own water cup, quickly standing and walking back to the spout with wide eyes. He downed an entire cup and let out a long breath. “Better,” He growled. “Not good, but better.” He nodded at Jacq, “refill?”

“Uh, yeah.” Jacq handed him her cup. “Thanks.”

He filled both their cups, returned Jacq’s, and took his seat.

Nick screwed his own cup into its slot on the tray and rose, dropping it into a heretofore unused drawer with a muted rattle and sliding it closed with his hip. “So,” He took a breath as he returned to his seat. “It’s time to commence part two of ‘operation rob the orphanage.’”

“Why is there a part 2 to ‘operation rob the orphanage’?” Jarett leaned back in his chair and stretched. “We’ve already robbed the orphanage — of an orphan, if I’m not mistaken. And technically, she was burgled. Or is it kidnapped?”

“You are indeed mistaken.” Nick folded his hands. “Part two involves figuring out how to make money off of what we’ve stolen from the orphanage.”

Jarett froze, looking at the captain with wide eyes under a furrowed brow, mouth agape.

Nick Blinked hard. “It’s not the orphan.”

His expression softened as he glanced around. “Then…How are we supposed to profit from this again?”

Jacq’s mouth fell open as she glared at Jarett.

He winked.

Leru frowned, “this should not be so difficult.”

“I don’t think it will be.” Nick raised his hand in a placating gesture. ”Depending on what Jarett’s found on the datachit I retrieved.”

“Yeah, that’s a no-go, Cap.” His armpit hair splayed as he folded his arms behind his head.

Nick placed his hands flat on the table. “Jarett, do you like eating?”

“First of all,” he slid his tray a few centimeters away from himself, “that depends on what I’m eating. Second of all, I’m saying I’ve checked the datachit and found nothing — coordinates, but coordinates that lead to empty space on the galaxy map, and we just updated it on Sherrit station.”

“It’s not going to be as simple as finding a file marked ‘blackmail.’” Nick pursed his lips. “Keep looking.”

“Fine.” Jarett folded his arms on the table and leaned forward. “But only because I have no faith in you to support this crew, and someone’s got to keep us fed.”

Leru stood, interrupting their bickering with the rolling of her chair. She dropped her tray in the same drawer as Nick and left without a word, pointedly looking at none of them.

Nick watched her go, then stood with his knuckles on the table, staring at Jarett. “Your honesty is appreciated. Get to work.” He followed Leru out the door.

Jacq finished the comparatively tasteless noodles and glop out of hunger, shifting and poking the protein bar between bites until it was all that remained. She took a swig of her water, catching Jarett eyeing the remainder of her meal while she put off the inevitable.

She weighed her options, stomach rumbling quietly. “Do you want my…” She skewered her protein and gestured with it across the table.

“You’re too kind,” Jarett laughed, but he kept his eyes on her offering. He glanced from her food to her face, “What would you have been eating if you…” He chewed his lip. “if you hadn’t been dining with us?”

Jacq’s stomach grumbled audibly, “it’s different most nights.” She dropped the protein back on her tray, spork sticking straight up out of the dense hunk, “I think I smelled darkwhite when I was on my way out of the building.”

Jarett closed his eyes and leaned back in his chair, “Good, greasy darkwhite. Never thought I’d miss it quite so much.”

Jacq quirked an eyebrow., “It’s not exactly expensive. Or rare.”

“The raw cell-matter and printing process don’t cost many units, sure.” Jarett wagged his finger, “but the stuff is heavy, and doesn’t store long unless you, well…” He shrugged, gesturing at her tray. “it ends up costing more than plain brown. A lot more.”

“Huh.” How did owning something cost money? Buying something, sure, but it’s not like an object could charge rent. Wasn’t that the point of owning things? “So when was the last time you had darkwhite?”

“Oh, I pick some up everytime we stop.” He had gone back to staring at her bar of brown. “But it’s usually only one meal, maybe two, and we don’t stop often.” He grimaced as his stomach rumbled.

Jacq eyed the remains of her brown bar, it’s corners beginning to crust over. With an effort that left her wrists burning, she forked it in half, tossing one to Jarett — it left a grainy brown residue on her fingertips.

Jarett caught the lump on his tray with a slap that resonated through the metal surface. He took a breath and plopped the whole thing in his mouth, chewing quickly and taking large swallows from his cup. “Anyway.” He slid his chair back and stood, stretching side to side then down to his toes as he finished chewing. “I’ve got a ship to pilot and a cube to peruse.” He headed for the door. “I don’t know what you plan on doing after this, but I’d appreciate at least ten minutes of solitude in the cockpit.” He said over his shoulder.

“So you can take off your clothes, I know.”

Jarett laughed, undoing the knotted arms of his jumpsuit beneath his muffin top. “So I can look over the datachit without any distractions.” He called over his shoulder. “You seriously think it takes me ten minutes to get undressed?”