Postby Straylight0 » Sat Jun 13, 2015 11:01 am
9.
The rest of the... whatever it was, wasn’t much cleaner than the cell had been. Where was he? Karlon made his way through a passage, pulling himself along the wall with his hands. If it was a station, it wasn’t rotating to simulate gravity. If it was a ship, it was an astonishingly quiet one; even an idle craft generally had a multitude of hums, throbs and the occasional whir going on. He thought he could hear some wheezing, which could either be whatever life support was still working, or people exposed to the long-term effects of it working badly.
If this was a virtual reality game, Karlon was sure he would find a convenient weapon to hand very shortly, be able to use it, and in a few goes would be able to overpower the first guard. Not being a game, he could not even find a spanner, had not had a fight in real-g let alone zero-g for years, and there would certainly be no second chances at overpowering any guards. His plan was to surrender immediately on meeting anyone.
He rubbed at his forehead, which was still aching. The passage was short, and opened at another which was also short running crossways. There was something familiar about it... yes! He was on a spaceship. An ordinarily sized one as well, not the giant he fuzzily remembered from before. If only he was more eperienced, he’d be able to recognise the type immediately from the general size and layout. It didn’t help that the main corridor aft was sealed off with welded plates marked “VAKYOOM DONT TUCH” in red paint, and a couple of other doors were fixed shut as well.
He poked about a few rooms. The place was cluttered; there were hammocks hung in corridors and compartments that hadn’t been meant as crew quarters. The washroom should have been cordoned off as a biohazard; the galley needed the germ warfare squad to be called in. So far, everything was deserted. The upper comanionway...
Ooops.
Karlon had wandered onto the bridge. A ship this size didn’t have its cockpit in the nose but a bridge at the top instead, only it was a little late to back out now. The place was mostly dark, but some things still worked; his two captors were talking to the hologram of a tall man in a combination of security armour and leathers. He had a long face accentuated by the enormously long sideburns that extended down in front of his ears and flared out from his jaw; his chin, however, was clean-shaven.
The stubble-headed man and the spidery woman had their backs to him, but the holographic figure spotted him immediately. ‘Who is that?’ he demanded, pointed a bony finger.
The flesh-and-blood crew spun around.
‘That’s the prisoner the miner sold us,’ said the man. ‘He must have escaped!’
‘Well we can’t have break-outs!’ said the hologram. ‘Kill him.’
The man produced a wide-barreled gun from under his layers. ‘But... erm...’
‘He’s going to fix the air filters for us! Says he doesn’t need parts!’ put in the woman.
‘Really?’ The man’s expression relaxed. ‘In that case, getting out of his cell shows commendable initiative and ingenuity, I’d say. Welcome him to the crew and get him a beer. Now you’re sure the jammer is working alright?’
‘Perfectly, boss!’ said the woman.
‘Then how am I speaking to you now again?’
‘Special frequency it doesn’t affect only we know about.’
‘Well that’s good then. Carry on.’ The hologram flickered and vanished.
The man relaxed and put his gun away. ‘Nice one, mate. I’m Billhook and this is Lixxie.’
‘Two x’s, no living ex’s,’ said the woman.
‘Here.’ Billhook reached into a compartment and threw a bottle across the room. Karlon clumsily caught it; there was no label, but he knew this type of container. It was cheap import beer, marked as any one of a number of brands before sale irrespective of the contents.
‘Thanks, but my head is still aching like anything!’ he said. ‘Have you got any water?’
‘You don’t want to go there,’ said Lixxie. ‘Our recyclers don’t get rid of the taste. Or much else.’
Karlon gulped. ‘They’d better go on the list after the air. Any soft drinks?’
‘Eh?’ Billhook pulled a face. ‘We’re pirates, matey boyyo!’
‘Oh... yeah.’ Karlon boosted himself further onto the bridge, looking around himself. The smart-glass of the bridge seemed to be working, brightening the view enough for him to make out a number of large rocky shapes that were quite familiar. There were also a number of long metal booms radiating from the ship he was on, other objects tethered to the sides; there were cargo cannisters, pods of machinery, chunks of wreckage, several smaller ships. None of them looked to be in working order.
At least he could see the prow of the ship; its shape and size could only be one thing. ‘I’m on a python!’ he called.
‘What’s left of it.’ Lixxie jumped up and seized the ceiling next to him. ‘Hasn’t flown for years. Blackburns found it and made it our base of operations.’
Karlon managed to bite the top of the bottle (thin cheap metal) and took a swig. The alchohol content was barely worthy of notice, anyway. ‘Now I’m not a hostage, any chance you could tell me what’s going on? Who is Blackburns?’
‘The boss we were just talking to,’ said Billhook. He was helping himself to another beer. ‘Pirate lord of out-system. Not a bad guy to work for.’
‘The other facial hair was taken,’ said Lixxie. She grabbed Karlon’s arm and flipped herself back towards the floor, only spilling a little beer as she did so.
‘So what am I doing here? Did you say he... sold you to me?’
‘ ’Course. We don’t shoot up ships for nothing, you know!’ Billhook reached out to catch Lixxie, but she slapped his hand away and grabbed his forearm herself.
‘I’m payment for shooting someone? Who!?’
‘We shot his own ship up,’ said Lixie, fitting her magnetic shoes to the floor and standing still for a moment. ‘He wanted it to look good.’
‘So you know him?’
‘Thurden?’ Billhook took a swig. ‘He drops us supplies from time to time in return for us letting him mine out here.’
Karlon took a swig as well, feeling that he needed it. ‘I thought we were leaving emmergency drops for other miners!’
‘Not terribly bright, is he?’ sneered Lixxie. ‘Saves it for technical stuff I suppose.’
‘So... waters of Earth!’ Karlon slapped himself. ‘I remember now. The generation ship! But why would Thurden clunk me, dump me here and have you shoot his ship up?’
‘Does it matter?’ asked Billhook. ‘He told us it was a huge score as well. Humungous great ship he said, hardly any guns, collectors would pay top credit even for just a piece of hull. Enough for every pirate in this system and more besides, ’cording to him. Very keen Blackburns got the word out so that every freebooter in the system would get in on it.’
‘Except fragging us!’ said Lixxe. She was now folding herself into a space where it looked as if a console had been removed. ‘We got our rides shot up and spare parts borrowed, so we have to wait for the hunters getting home.’
‘It would be magnificent out there!’ said Billhook, waving his bottle. ‘We worked out a pincer movement with the others. Half in from the other front, us and the other half in from the back a minute later. The ship and any pigs that have shown up...’ He let the bottle float and smacked his hands together. ‘Bam!’
*