“I don’t think those work anymore,” Maya said skeptically. “If they did, wouldn’t the pirates have taken them?”
“Not exactly. The equipment is old and probably needs some work to get them going.” He found a vehicle that matched one of the key cards, and of course, when he inserted the key card nothing happened. “These have been sitting in the shade for decades. They will need a quick charge.”
Sure enough, at the back of the warehouse was a charging station. Ranek unlatched a spare battery from the wall.
“What’s that?” Maya asked.
“A battery. And that’s the charging station against the wall.”
“I would never have guessed. It didn’t even look like it could be removed. And it doesn’t look like any charging station I’ve ever seen before. Human or Tallean.”
Ranek grinned as he carried the fully charged battery over to the vehicle. “The pirates didn’t recognize it either. Or else they would’ve taken it. This technology is old. No one uses it anymore.”
“Then how did you know?”
Ranek looked pensive. “I just do. I don’t know how. But it still might need some work before we can get it going.”
His eyes fell on a big storage chest pushed up against the wall. “Luckily, I think we have all the supplies we need right here to get it working.”
Then, with a sureness like he’d done it a million times before, he got to work.
Ranek didn’t understand why everything felt so familiar, like he had worked on these machines before. Had this been his job? But these warehouse helpers were old, very old, and it had been decades since they’d been in use.
The belt connecting the motor to the tracks had been brittle and broken, and every vehicle here likely had that problem. It was a simple fix, but enough to have kept the pirates from making use of them.
That was, if they even recognized the battery packs. The Dominion hadn’t used removable batteries for a long time, not since they started moving away from solar power. And even before then, they had moved over to two different types of batteries.
As he worked, Maya and Commander Chaos stepped back into the trailer to search for anything that might be useful on the trip. By the time he got the drive belt off, she had returned with a bag full of the foodstuffs they hadn’t eaten.
She held up a pouch of water that looked older than the rest of them.
“How safe do you think this is?”
“Probably safer than whatever we find on the planet.”
“Right, microplastics are better than parasites. Gotcha.”
He didn't know what these microplastics were, but he did agree about the parasites. She opened the water pouch and then took a tentative sip. Then she took a long drink. “Tastes like water. Want some?”
“Good enough for me. And yes.”
Instead of handing him his own pouch, she held the pouch up to his lips, urging him to drink.
“Did you want one of the MREs?”
He looked up from his work, not understanding her words, and saw the packaged meal rations they hadn’t eaten yesterday.
“Yes. I am hungry.”
“I hope they’re better than the food bars.” She got to work, setting up the auto heating element like she’d done it before, which was strange. He thought that colonists at Reka 5 would have access to food replicators and not need meal rations unless it was an emergency. Food bars and meal rations were the mainstay of travelers and miners.
To keep a certain curious four-legged dragus away from the heating food, she placed it high on a shelf and then took him for a walk around the empty warehouse. But her eyes kept straying back to Ranek, and he could feel them on his skin as he worked.
They were full of curiosity. She hadn’t seen him work before. The more time they spent together, the more he realized just how new the relationship was. She hadn't been kidding when she said they didn’t know each other well. But that would change, because he planned on spending as much time with her as possible.
As the portable meals heated up, his stomach let out a loud rumble.
She opened one of the packages and stirred the food with the horribly designed disposable tongs provided. “I think it’s ready.”
