Unwelcome Space

Matt was startled out of a feverish, nonsensical dream. He expected to be in his bed back home, but his burning eyes beheld something quite different. Rather than a bed at all, he was on a silver, cushioned table. It was one of five that were lined up along the back wall of the rectangular, long room, which looked clean, neat, and belonging to a higher tech than any he was familiar with from other spaceships. The white ceramic floor gave way to metallic silver walls, which were broken up every few meters by crimson beams. The place hummed with gentle vibration, and a few friendly blips came from a computer desk off to his left.

            Matt shifted himself off the table. He looked down at his body, realizing that while his pants were still on, his shirt was missing. A collection of bruises and scrapes colored his exposed chest and arms. Huh… I don’t feel all that sore. From the looks of things, shouldn’t I?

            He moved his way toward the door ahead of him. To his surprise, it wasn’t locked and swished open when he approached. Motion detectors? That’s a fancy thing to have in a hospital. He was so thoroughly used to the rough and tumble clinics out in the Crops, with their bevy of manually operated equipment and usually locked doors, that this seemingly benign and open environment was anomalous.

            With trepidation, Matt peeked his head through the open door. He looked from side to side and beheld nothing but empty, gray corridor. The lighting outside the room was dim, coming only from small panels along the ceiling. He observed a holographic diagram once he stepped out, written in multiple languages. In the two that he could recognize, he noted that the bow was indicated to his left, and the stern to his right. Hmm… guess I’ll go right.

            He expected to find someone, or at least a notion that someone lived or worked here. Nothing, save the steadier now hum through the floor that was unmistakably coming from an engine. Okay… okay. So I’m on a ship now. But, where is the crew? Everything looks so clean and new. Where is everyone? As he came to an intersection, the lights in the corridor went pitch black. “Oh cra—” Matt was interrupted as he was tripped to the floor. Then he felt a kick in the ribs, which sent him rolling toward the nearest wall. He felt along it to regain his footing. He’d managed to stand halfway when he felt something grab his neck and pin him against the wall.

            Obed had provoked Jessie’s ire when he knocked on her door in the middle of the night cycle. He heard a torrent of profane language, then a loud crash, followed by more foul utterances. Switching to English, he dared follow this with, “um, Jes? There’s something goin’ on in the junction nearby. I think our visitor is up and causing trouble!”

            The little shit is hearing spooks, Jes thought as she slid some pants and her pistol belt on, chagrinned. And he’s too scared to check it out himself. If this turns out to be nothing I’m going to shoot him. Or kick him in the balls.   

            Obed nearly jumped back as Jes’s door opened. Much like her, he was only half-dressed for the occasion. His jacket was off, and his vest was only partially closed around his slim abdomen. One of his pant legs was rumpled over the calf. Vids were still playing on his wrist devices. Obed gave her a quick once-over; she knew that he never passed up an opportunity to ogle her. He gestured to the rifle she’d picked up on the way out. “Which one is that, Olga? Or was it Fredrik? I can’t keep up with the names of your children.”

            “It’s Fredrik, duh. Olga was on board the Akkad when it was… you know.”

            “Ah, shit. Yeah, I’m sorry… so were you, um, you know? Taking care of yourself? Just now?”

            Jes glared at him. “I really could just about kill you. I was so close to cumming, you stupid bastard, then you bother me with… you know, just shut up. Let’s get this over with.” The quips Gunther had been making recently, about Ob and Jes bringing out the snarkiest immaturities in each other, gnawed at her brain.

            Still, Obed persisted, now with an all-too interested smirk. “But weren’t your, um, accessories, also on the Akkad? What were you using to—”

            “I said: Shut. Up. Move it.”

            Ob nodded, secured his mouth, and led her to the junction he mentioned. They approached the door separating it from the mess. It swished open to reveal nothing initially but total darkness. Once Ob crossed into the junction, the ship’s computer system recognized the presence of his devices, and brought the lights online to his desired specification.

            Jes snapped her rifle to attention, fixing its sights upon two figures, one of which was pressed against the wall to her left. There was a woman who had the rescued cropper pinned to the wall, her left hand around his throat, her right hand pressing the pinpoint of a dagger to his chest. Her hair was long, black as space; her face, a pale, Europan ice tone. Her body was covered in a slinky mesh of matte gray synth-leather and metallic plating.

            Without a sound, she let go of the cropper, her dagger cutting into the slightest portion of his skin. Jessie opened fire on the strange woman, but despite her controlled, expert aim, she only succeeded in hitting bulkheads. The woman was fast and dodged every attack with apparent ease, then disappeared under cloak. A few seconds later a door opened up in the hallway adjacent to the one from which they entered.

            “Shit, shit, shit! Another Shadow. Bitch must’ve stowed away without us seein’.”

            Obed stayed well clear. He had a schematic of the entire ship displayed by hologram on one device, and a computer systems menu running on the other. “Hey, hey, not to worry. The ship’s internal sensors are at my command. I am tracking her heat signature… she’s moving toward engineering!”

            “Well don’t just sit there sputtering. Cut her off!” After taking a few steps toward the door the Shadow had gone through, Jes cocked her head back toward Obed. “Hey, talk to me. I don’t know the layout of this tub yet.”

            Obed beeped Jessie a map of the ship, which she immediately opened on holo. “Okay, okay.” The heat signature they followed on the map stopped in the corridor that fed into main engineering. With a few taps, Obed activated some emergency bulkheads and blast doors. “Let’s see, you just need to go past the sickbay, turn right at the next junction, go down the stairs on the next right, then straight through the cross-section. Can’t miss it. I have the stairs cut off, you can trap her there, just make with the quickness.”

            Jes stormed down the corridors according to Obed’s instructions. She let out a triumphant “ah-ha” when she made it down the stairs, only to be let down when there was nothing to aim her gun toward but empty walls.

            Ob, who had stayed well behind, chimed in on unit-to-unit coms. “Um, Jes? Our friend’s heat signature and yours are overlapping, what’s going on?”

            Jes looked around, kicked at every deckplate, looked between all of the pipes, and shoved her gun into each alcove she could see. There was nothing to see or feel but the ship itself. Her heat signature by this time had coalesced with the intruder’s on the map. “Come out, you bitch! Fight me like a woman already.” She felt something move the air behind her and smiled.

            With a quick turn, Jessie swung her rifle around, the end of it catching the Shadow in the abdomen. The sheen of a dagger crossed Jes’s vision, and in a fluid motion she dropped her rifle and caught the Shadow’s wrist. She squeezed with all her might and forced her to drop her blade. Finally, with a sweep to the back of her enemy’s knees, Jes knocked the Shadow down and proceeded to pin their arms using her legs. Jes’s hips rested on her foe’s chest and neck, almost enough to keep her from breathing.

            Jes heard footfalls from behind. She looked back long enough to see Ob and the cropper amble down the stairs. Ob had a taser dart at the ready on his left wrist and had a vid capture program running on his right. “Okay then,” he said with a salacious enthusiasm, “can you hold her there for a few more seconds, Jes? Maybe move your hips a little closer to her face?”

            Jes drew both of her pistols, jamming one into the Shadow’s temple, aiming the other at Ob. “How ’bout you make yourself useful Ob, and go get some knockout juice for this bitch?” She paused to have a brief think, flipped some hair out of her eyes, then decided on a new plan. “Nope, no, wait, this’ll be better.” She dropped one pistol, then used that free hand to punch the intruder. The blow sent her head back into the deck, and she seemed to blackout.

            “Yep, definitely more fun,” Jes said with a grin.

            The emergency bulkhead that had cut off engineering recessed, releasing a little puff of steam. Gunther stood in the restored opening. Similar to Jes, he was only wearing a tanktop and cargo pants, which went far in accentuating his cybernetic nature. His metallic right arm glistened in the soft light and humid atmo, the wires connecting it to his torso and neck looking not unlike part of the ship around them.

            Gun lowered his eyes toward Jessie, glanced over toward Obed, who looked like he was still filming the ordeal, and then finally gazed in the direction of the half-naked cropper, who was clutching the scrape on his chest and looking bewildered, beyond out of his depth. He shook his head. “I did not realize that we were making those kinds of vids now.”

            A short while later, Matt was in the ship’s mess hall, seated at a long dining table a few meters away from the dark-haired woman, who as far as he knew had intended to kill him. Though he was not bound to his chair as she was, he felt hardly less incapacitated. He was nervous to see that his apparent host was the same woman he’d pissed off on the bridge back at the Base, and his apprehension was enhanced each time she flicked a thumb across the hammers of her pistols.

            “So,” she started, leaning against a pillar next to the bar. “Cropper, why don’t you tell me how you’re connected to the Baron? I promise not to hurt you too much if you spill it quickly.”

            Matt fidgeted. “I, uh, I don’t know any, um, any Baron. I don’t even know your name.”

            Her eyes boggled for a split second. “What, have you been living under a moon your whole life? Wait, you probably have. So, that’d mean you’ve never seen the Spacepage for Jessie the Destroyer, have you?”

            Matt snickered, and a split second later he regretted it.

            “What’s so funny?” Jes stepped toward him, getting into his personal space enough so that he had to look up to meet her eyes. In a flash, she produced her knife and aimed it precariously close to his rod and bolts. His bruises seared now as he let out a nervous chuckle.

            “Okay, ‘Destroyer.’ I’ve had my ass kicked since I left home. Might as well add to it. Come on, hit me.”

            Jes’s lips squirmed, as her expression gained some confusion. “Hmm. Maybe you are tougher than I thought. Or maybe just stupid. Stupid people don’t end up on the Baron’s employ. Unless… hmm… unless you’re just playin’ stupid.” She feigned stepping away, then slapped him across the cheek backhanded. Then she put a blade underneath his right ear. “How ’bout I take an ear off?”

            “Hey, Jes, take it easy will ya,” Obed interjected, as he strode up to the side of the table opposite Matt. He held a sloppy, half-eaten sandwich, taking another bite as he sat. “Oh, these sprouts suck. Anyway, check this out.”

            Jessie’s device received a beep. “The fuck’s this? I didn’t know we could get on the net this far out.”

            He grinned. “Yeah, you already thought this ship was badass? It has the most sophisticated com system I’ve ever seen. She’s already picking up broadcast from Logos, and—”

            “I don’t care about the tech stuff. You’re telling me that I can still get on the net, even out here?”

            “Well. Yeah. But before you go updating your page, check out the burst.”

            “Huh. A wanted list. They were pretty quick to get this out. Aw, and look at who is at the top.” Jes flashed a mocking smile in Matt’s direction, and she brought the list up onto a holo for him to see:

            Matthew Andrew Garrison

            Height: 1.87 Meters

            Weight: 85 Kilos

            Wanted on Gravin’s Base for accessory to theft, accessory to murder, and trespassing on High Commander Gravin’s property.

            Reward for capture: 1000 credits

            Reward for confirmed death: 200 credits

            Matt’s picture accompanied the wanted ad; it was quaint, making him look like some manner of an innocent teenager.

            “Nice picture, dork,” Jes said, “I guess you’re just an ordinary, back-orbit nobody after all. The Consorties don’t let their employees into the spotlight like this. They just kill you, quietly, if you fuck up.” She rubbed her chin. “Just one thing though. What the fuck’s with the three names?”

            “Huh,” Matt said with meekness. “What do you mean?”

            “Who has three names? Kinda stupid, if you ask me.”

            Matt shrugged. “I figured that some folk just get a middle name. What’s so weird about it?”

            “Sounds like whoever squeezed you out couldn’t make their soddin’ mind up. And then you decided to keep it when you passed your gover—the test thing that you take.”

            “Anyway, it ge’s be’er,” Obed added, his speech distorted by his full mouth. “Keep readin’.”

            Jes scrolled on. Matt could see pictures and dossiers for his new hosts. In the same data burst from Neptune, there were other bounties for them, attached in the file with Matt’s:

            Gunther Derstag

            Height & weight unknown

            Wanted for willful destruction of High Commander Gravin’s property, theft, accessory to murder, sabotage, trespassing.

            Reward for capture: 1000 credits

            Reward for confirmed death: 200 credits

            Obed Samarah

            Height: 1.70 meters

            Weight: 75 kilos

            Wanted for theft, accessory to murder, sabotage, and trespassing.

            Reward for capture: 1000 credits

            Reward for confirmed death: 200 credits

            Jessie (surname unknown; given nickname in Moto circuitry is “The Destroyer”)

            Height: 1.72 meters

            Weight: 71 kilos

            Wanted for murder, theft, accessory to sabotage, and littering.         

            Reward for capture: 2000 credits

            Reward for confirmed death: 500 credits

            Jes’s face contorted with all manner of annoyance. “Are you shitting me? Littering? Really!? That’s what it takes to be worth more of a reward?” She closed the list. “Blow up a door, steal a spaceship… you all run up a regular ol’ bounty. But oh no, litter the streets, and now you’re most wanted. Fucking unbelievable.”

            Obed sloshed out an unintelligible sentence.

            “How about you swallow that shit first?” Jes groaned out.

            Ob complied, then continued, “you know what I meant. But check this out. I hacked into her device after you tied her up. Really outdated security on the thing. Get this: she doesn’t have a public profile. I’m talking, nothing. Sounds like one of their employees, right? No accessible past, no publicly available identity, blah blee you get the point.” He ran a finger across his left sideburn. “But, I did a trace on all of the programs this thing has run recently, and I was able to look through every picture and video file on it. Unless she’s spinnin’ the biggest tall tale, um, ever, then she is an ex-employee. An ex-Shadow, to be exact. Notice how she didn’t even bother to cover her face? They never do that. Point is, all signs tell me that she escaped her old company by force.”

            Jes chuckled. “Yeah right. As if that could happen. Nobody quits any of the Companies and gets away with it. They always get caught in the end. Haven’t we brought a few runaways in for a big fat reward before?”

            “Sort of. Anyway, you probably didn’t notice in all of the excitement, I am the one with the eye for details, you know. Check the back of her neck. You’ll probably have to brush that thick, lustrous hair of hers aside…” Ob trailed off, his face taking on a ravenous expression.

            “Hey.” Matt chimed in while he had a moment. “You’re speaking English. You weren’t before.”

            Excitement flushed Ob’s face. “Oh hey. Yes, you’re right. You don’t even have a device on you, you poor sod. So I figured I’d better speak your language if we were gonna, I don’t know, interrogate you. It’s a harsh word. Plus I like to speak other languages when I’m bored. So there you go.”

            “So,” Matt said, “you guys are wanted, and she’s a runaway. From what?”

            “Correction, crop boy,” Jes said as she inspected the back of the Shadow’s neck. “We are wanted. You’re on the list too. And they didn’t throw kidnappin’ charges into the lot for us. So, you’re not as all innocent-like as you want us to think.” She paused as she saw the tattoo on the Shadow’s neck. “Son of a bitch. She really was with them. Should be worth a lot of money to someone on Logos, at least.”

            Dismissive, Matt waved his hand in front of his face. “Hey, hey. I didn’t do anything to piss anyone off. All of my credits were stolen, handed over to some weirdos in black hoods. I couldn’t see their faces, but they wore outfits kind of like hers.” His head drooped as he recalled what happened back at Little Neptune’s.

            While shoving the Shadow’s head aside, Jes swung back toward Matt. “Oh yeah. Credits. You’d muttered somethin’ before about having ten big blues stolen.”

            He nodded. “Yes. One thousand… gone. My whole life savings.”

            “Now, hold on a sec. Shadows don’t make deals with anyone, ‘less a bullet is what’s being exchanged. You must’ve had someone brokerin’ whatever deal you had goin’ down. That’s how the companies all work.”

            “At least out here,” Ob added.

            With some renewed vigor in his voice, Matt offered up the name he’d never forget: “Geoff. Geoff Masterson. He set up the whole thing. He arranged to get me a transport out to Neptune. Said he could keep everything secret so that my family wouldn’t even know I had ever left. No chance of that now.”

            “Don’t much care about that part. But Geoff?” Jes laughed. “You got caught up with that sheister? Heh. That guy is about good for only one thing, that’s target practice.”

            “You know him?”

            “I’ve run across the name a few times. He used to be one of the worst used shuttle salesmen in the System. Now I hear he calls himself some kind of big ent—enter—shit, what was that word?”

            “Entrepreneur,” Obed offered.

            “Yes, that thing. You must be one gullible little bastard to fall for one of his scams.”

            “Thanks. A lot. That really helps.” Matt held a palm to his forehead.

            Jes paced about. “Did he say which of the companies he worked for?”

            “He said he worked for Rostov Supply Corp. But, what does that have to do with anything? The Solar Consortium, it’s not some kind of secret. I’ve seen ’em on the vids, it’s a business partnership, right?”

            She laughed. “Wow, you’re dumb as an asteroid. They call the shots out here. You don’t cross the companies if you wanna live long. The Baron runs the whole show out on the fringe, cropper.” She put her dagger away. “Shit. This got us just about nowhere, and in a hurry. If Geoff’s workin’ for the Consorties now, then he and those creds are long gone by now. This boy’s been a waste of time.”

            “Not neceshesharily,” Obed chimed in again, with the last bite of his sandwich occupying one side of his mouth. He swallowed before continuing. “Ahem. At least the waste of time part. There is the little matter of our cargo, no?”

            Her eyes lit up. “Oh yeah.” She turned to face Matt again, this time with a devious smirk. “You’re still of some use to us. Now, I’d just as soon drop you at the nearest port and never see you again, but you’re goin’ to help us finish our job.”

            Matt dropped his hand from his head and shot an incredulous look toward her. “Even if I wanted to, how could I possibly help you? I have nothing left to my name, and up ’til now you’ve not exactly been quiet about how useless I apparently am.”

            “Pains me to admit it, but there’s one thing we need you for. It’s complicated, techy stuff—”

            “That’s her way of saying she doesn’t get how it works,” Obed interjected.

            “Shut up, you. Anyway. You do what we say, keep your mouth shut, you help us finish this job, and we might be nice enough to take you back home. Might even get a few creds back to your name.”             The notion of going home struck Matt right in the heart. With renewed confidence he said, “tell me what I need to do.”

<—Chapter Four

—>Chapter Six

This story was not created by or with the assistance of any AI.