“How many times do I have to tell you? Don’t. Ask. You keep askin’ and you’re gonna get shot. Or eaten. You remember Gret?”
They jostled me around stepping off the lift platform and I had to brace my arms on either side of the walls to keep myself from thumping around and alerting them to my presence.
“Yeah, the slender male with the tentacles for hair? What about him?”
One of the males grunted when he smacked into something and the box dipped sharply to the right.
“Hold it!”
More grunting and the box righted itself.
“Sorry. It's heavier than I thought it was going to be. The manifest said it was only supposed to be—”
“Don’t. Ask. It ain’t our business. Gret asked and he got ate up. Eaten, Roz, eaten. You want to be someone’s dinner?”
My box was plopped down none to gently on to the hover cart and someone, I wasn’t sure which, slapped the lid.
“Alright, alright. I get it. No more questions. Come on, let's get the rest of the crates loaded and then what say you and I take abreak. I’ve worked double shifts back to back and I’m tired down into my bones.”
“Yeah. Let’s do that.”
They loaded the rest of the boxes that had been on the lift with me, chattering the whole time about shifts and short staffing problems and a few useful tidbits about the upcoming Assembly.
“You think the night dwellers are going to win the vote again? I’m sick of the extended Dark. It’s driving the wife crazy and what makes her crazy makes me crazy.”
The hover cart jolted forward and I could sense that the two males were walking to either side of it.
“Hmm, that depends if the Assembly is held in the middle of Dark again, those assholes. They know that the Ostus hold the majority vote for the Lighting and that they abhor the Dark and won’t come out of their fucking dens unless it’s full Light.”
The lift tilted at an angle like we were going up a ramp. My heart kicked into gear once I realized we were inside the cargo hull of one of the shuttles by the sound of the two complaining loading dock employees' boots on the metal shuttle’s flooring now that we were inside and away from the hum of work.
“Rathal is too distracted chasing that female all around the station to push for a Dark Assembly. Plus, you know how mad Anze was last time. Two hundred credits say the Assembly will be during the Lighting.” One of them laughed while they lifted the box I was in and set it back down, pushing it against the wall of the shuttle. Metal clicked as the magnetic locks on the bottom of the crate sealed, securing the box in place.
“Deal! Maybe Anze can get the vote for twenty hours of lighting this time instead of that measly fourteen they negotiated last rotation.”
They were still chattering about the Assembly as the shuttle cargo doors whined shut and enclosed me inside the ship. I waited, holding my breath for several seconds to hear better,but the shuttle was silent except for the slight whine of its atmospheric generator running at its standby levels. The flight crew wouldn’t have turned them off if they were planning on leaving soon. It took forever to generate an artificial gravity on these long haul shuttles, so if they were just stopping by to pick up a load and leave again, they left the generator on. Which meant I didn’t have long.
I cautiously opened the lid of the box a fraction of an inch and peeked out. There was nothing but stacks of boxes in here. Pushing the lid the rest of the way open, I climbed out and crouched. The shuttle’s cargo bay was small, probably about twelve by twelve which meant this likely was just a two pilot ship and there wouldn’t be any other crew on board. My guess proved correct when I moved out of the hold and passed through the pressure door and saw two cramped bunks built into the wall of the short hallway just outside the cargo bay. A lavatory was on the right past the bunks and directly across from that was the crew mini kitchenette that looked like it wouldn’t fit more than half a person in there at a time.
This was a very small shuttle, as there was no flight deck. Instead it was a nearly human looking cockpit with the captain and co-pilot seats worn down to the bare metal. It worked for me. I didn’t need anything fancy that would draw attention. This little shuttle was going to be the perfect getaway vehicle. Well, almost perfect. It smelled like unwashed ass in here. I could tell by the built up grime over literally every surface that it was two males that ran this ship. I was going to have to bust into the boxes and pilfer some of that white cloth to cover the nasty brown mattresses of those bunk beds if I was going to be getting any sleep inside this thing.
Focusing on the disgust at touching the sticky controls to get this poor filthy thing started was keeping my tattered nerves from frothing my stomach contents up and out past mychattering teeth. I got the shakes sometimes when I was nervous and my fingers were trembling so bad that I had to push the engine primer down twice before the light turned blue for go.
The navigational system clicked on and I was greeted by an artificial windshield that flickered into existence in front of me. Obviously deep spacecraft couldn’t have actual windows in them, so a series of cameras on the bow of the ships allowed you to run feedback to screens inside the cockpit.
I’d learned all this in the dozens and dozens of sims I’d run back on theSolus. A sort of crash course on how to use various spacecraft. Most of the ships I’d flown so far had neural links that allowed you to fly the ship on something akin to instinct while still providing you with a stick and throttle for tactile assistance. The instructor had said that the full neural link controlled fighters had been a disaster, as the brain had a hard time functioning without a physical aspect to connect the command with. It also provided more of a sense of control for the pilot. There was something deeply unsettling about just sitting in a seat on a fighter craft and trying to direct it with only your mind. So even though the hands-on controls were more of a placebo, it made everything easier.
This shuttle had actual working controls. A yoke in a bottom heavy half moon shape in front of me and a throttle to my right. There were about a hundred different buttons and flip switches, but the big blue switch that was currently blinking at me was the ignition. I flipped it up, and the shuttle's engines spooled up slowly. I willed my armor up again to protect me from the germs that were no doubt all over the seat and yoke, but kept my head free of the helmet so I could keep my full field of vision. The helmet had a wide screen to see through, but it still restricted your peripheral and I would need it if I met any resistance.
The thought of resistance stopped me as I was reaching for the throttle. I’d been here before, almost free and then Rathal wouldpop up at the last second like he’d only been allowing me the illusion of escape.
“Well not this time,” I muttered to myself as I shifted out of the seat and back into the cargo bay. I put my hands on my hips and looked around. “This time I’ll be ready for you, asshole.”
I slapped my hands together, rubbing my palms like a cartoon villain, and got to work.
fourteen
Rathal
