“And what if you can’t get the weapons?”
“Then get ready for hide and seek. Which will likely turn into a game of tag.”
“A lethal game of tag.”
A whistled tune faintly emanated through the halls, just before Nickle rounded the corner carrying a chipped, green toolbox. “Watcha lookin’ at?” Nickle asked chipperly, pointing at the door which had closed just in time.
“Oh, the, uh, keypad to open the door. It wasn’t lighting up.”
“They’re all broken,” Nickle admitted, then quickly threw his hand over his mouth.
“They’re all broken?” Sarah couldn’t help but hide her excited curiosity.
“No, sorry.” The doctor started shaking his head nervously and kept his eyes glued to his shoes. “I meant to say they used to be broken. But Wex fixed them, at least he said he did. Maybe he missed that one.” Nickle wiped some sweat from his hands and approached the keypad himself.
He tapped the screen and it lit up without hesitation. Turning back to Sarah, the two humans stood in a knowing silence. It was clear they had both just lied to one another, but what wasn’t clear was whether or not either lies were going to be addressed. Finally, the young woman broke the tense quiet with the blunt force of a direct admission of guilt.
“I lied. I wasn’t looking at the keypad.”
“Then what exactly were you looking at?”
“Why exactly did you say they were all broken?” Sarah countered.
After a brief pause, the doctor cleared his throat. “Well then, I guess we should be getting back to work on the intercom system. Wex said he wants his toolbox back within the hour.”
With that and an approving nod from Sarah, the two humans agreed to forget the last minute or so and carry on with their duties.
8
Secrets
Nickle offered to return the toolbox back to Wex after Sarah had finished with the intercom. Trying to calm himself, and practically running down the hallway, he came within inches of body slamming Jent, who was walking in the opposite direction.
The Selachi grabbed Nickle by the shoulders, halting him mid-step. “Where are you going in such a hurry, doc?”
“Oh, uh, hi Jent.” Nickle lifted the toolbox. “I have to return this to Wex. He’s got a lot of work to do today, wouldn't want to be the reason he falls behind. The captain has been on edge lately, as I’m sure you’ve noticed…”
Jent ignored Nickle’s ramblings, distracted by the scent he was picking up. Pulling the human in close to his face, the Selachi took in a deep whiff. “You smell like her.” He smiled greedily and let go of his tight grip on the doctor.
“I’m sorry, I don’t understand.”
“You’ve been hanging with the girl?”
“I’ve been helping her, yes. You see,” Nickle quickly remembered the convenient lie Sarah had laid for him earlier, “the ship’s manual, it’s in Latin, and I happen to speak Latin—”
“Shut up about the ship.” Jent released Nickle from his tight hold. “Where is she now?”
“She’s back where I left her, down near chamber fifteen, but I wouldn’t go bothering her if I were you.”
“Who said anything about bothering?” A grin spread across the Selachi’s pale gray face. “I’m just looking to have a little chat.”
“But the captain said—”
“I know what the captain said!” Jent pushed Nickle against the wall. “I wasn’t planning on telling the captain, were you?”
“Well, Jent—”
“That’s sir to you!” The Selachi bared his first row of teeth.
“Well, Jent, Sir, I wouldn’t want to have to tell the captain, but if I knew about a crewmember deliberately going against orders, it would be my duty to report—”
“Your duty? You’re a slave, your duty is to do whatever I tell you to!”
“Yes, sir.”
“God, what’s happened to this ship. It’s all her fault you know!” Jent began pacing the hallway. “The second the captain saw her, everything changed. He’s been distracted, manic, not to mention ungrateful. I mean, to think, I spent a month on that shit-show of a port Reeveral, carefully laying the groundwork for his grand shuttle pillage—”
“Which, if I’m not mistaken, you almost mucked up entirely.”
Jent’s fist made contact with the side of Nickle’s head before the unsuspecting doctor could even flinch. The Selachi hadn’t thrown with his full strength, but he put enough behind his punch to cause Nickle’s vision to fuzz. Leaning against the wall, the man felt a type of fear that hadn’t afflicted him since his first weeks on the ship.
“I’m sick of your overly-friendly attitude.” Jent pulled Nickle back onto his feet. “You’re not part of the crew, human. You’re a slave. And a weak slave at that. Now, you’re gonna shut up, stay in your place, and don’t go squealing to the captain. Or else, the next time I swing, I’ll go for the kill.”
Nickle nodded.
“There.” The alien affectionately tapped Nickle’s cheek. “That’s a good little doctor.”
Nickle still felt a bit dazed as he slipped through the door of Wex’s chambers. The maintenance man was laying on his cot, tinkering with a wristwatch.
“Where’d you get that?”
Wex’s body tensed with surprise. “Jeez, Nickle, don’t you knock?”
“Sorry. I’m in a hurry.”
The stout alien stood from his bed and took the toolbox from Nickle. “Reema took it off one of the prisoners. Asked if I could get it ticking again.” Nickle walked further into the room, coming into the light. “Damn, Nickle. You look as if you’ve seen a ghost. What’s wrong?” Wex walked closer towards his friend and noticed the slightly swollen, red patch of skin near his left eye. He reached to touch it. “What happened—”
“Never mind that.” Nickle waved him off and sat down on the cot. “We have a bigger problem.”
“A bigger problem?” Wex sat down as well. “I don’t like the sound of that.”
“The human girl,”
“Sarah.”
“Yes, you know her?”
“Know her? Hell, I better know her. She’s about this close to putting me out of a job.” Wex demonstrated the closeness with two of the eight chubby fingers on his right hand.
“Right, well…I made a mistake with her.”
“Don’t tell me you…” Wex stared at Nickle with shock and prevalent disapproval.
“What? No! Jesus, Wex! You’ve been on this ship too long. Seen too much.”
“You’re probably right. Maybe it wouldn’t be such a bad thing if Grom replaced me with that ugly little runt.”
“Ugly?”
“Well yeah, you’ve seen her haven’t you?” Wex sighed uncomfortably. “She’s a real eye sore.”
The doctor laughed softly. “I mean, not that I noticed until you said that, but by human standards she’s actually quite pretty.”
Wex shook his head. “If you think she’s a beauty, then I’d say humans don’t have any standards.”
Nickle went to argue, but stopped himself. “Look, this isn’t what I came here to talk to you about. I accidently told Sarah something I shouldn’t have.”
“Okay. Care to elaborate?
“I didn’t mean to. It just slipped out. She was talking about a keypad, outside chamber fifteen, and she said something about it possibly being broken and—”
“You told her the keypads don’t work!” Wex stood up and started pacing his small room.
“Yes, but don’t worry! I think I covered it up okay.”
“You think?”
“Well, I quickly regrouped. Told her that they used to be broken but that you fixed them. Which is half true.”
“Do you think she bought it?”
Nickle had no response.
“Oh god, oh god. This is a mess. If she figures out—if she tells Grom! I’ll be more than fired, I’ll be…I’ll be—”
“Fired into space?” Nickle sugg
ested.
“Exactly. And don’t think I won’t be taking you with me.”
“Now hang on a second.” Nickle stood up and paced alongside Wex, “Let’s not get carried away. Maybe she won’t figure it out.”
“All she’d have to do is try one of the keypads and she’d see the codes are meaningless. Anything you type in will work.”
“Or she might assume she guessed the right code on the first try!” Wex gave the doctor a look. “You’re right, okay, that was stupid. So what do you think we should do?”
“Well, the way I see it, we have two options.” The alien leaned against his desk and folded his arms. “We could tell Grom about the glitch, make it seem like it just happened. And hope he doesn’t catch on to our lie. Or…”
“Or what?”
“Or we could tell Sarah the truth. Tell her the glitch happened months ago, and I was never able to full fix it.”
“You mean tell the prisoner there’s literally nothing stopping her from getting into any room on the ship?”
“It sounds crazy. I realize this. But think about it. The worst that can happen if we tell Grom is that he kills us both for allowing such a dangerous security breach to occur. The worst that can happen if we tell Sarah is she releases the prisoners and maybe saves the lives of people you and I never wanted to hurt in the first place.”
“That’s only the case if we think we can trust her.”
“You don’t trust her?”
Nickle lowered his voice. “We don’t know the nature of her and the captain’s relationship. All we know is that he’s oddly protective over her. You should have heard his tone of voice last night when he told me to examine her. He was very adamant that I be careful, and that I don’t cause her any unnecessary pain.”
“So you’re saying they’re like…wait, what are you saying?”
“I’m just saying we need to tread lightly here. We have no idea what that human girl could be up to. Who she could be colluding with. Jent seems to have some sort of obsession with her as well. It’s possible those two could be…”
“Oh yuck!” The woman’s voice made both Wex and Nickle jump. The door was slightly ajar, and staring at them intently through the opening was none other than the subject of their heated debate. “Now that’s enough to make a girl’s lunch come up.”
The alien and the doctor spoke at the same time, beginning with questions such as, “how long,” and “how did you,” but were unable to fully verbalize any of their thoughts.
“I’ve heard pretty much everything. And I got in using the secret you were just arguing over whether or not to let me in on.”
“You followed me?” Nickle asked.
“Yes, and if you’re wondering whether or not I heard your little exchange with Jent, the answer is also yes.”
“What is she talking about?” Wex looked at Nickle, appearing anxious and slightly hurt. “You’ve been scheming with Jent?”
“No, not with him. He threatened me.” Nickle turned back to Sarah. “How’d you manage to shake him? I figured he was headed right towards you after we finished talking.”
“I just slipped into the air vent through the grate in the hallway. Which reminds me,” she looked at Wex, “something’s up with the AC. The air flow was really poor.”
“That’s just great.” Wex sighed. “Add it to the list.”
“I wasn’t going to listen to him, you know,” Nickle tried to reassure Sarah. “I don’t take orders from Jent. I was going to head straight to Grom after coming here and let him know what was going on.”
“That’s convenient.” Sarah stood with her hands on her hips, clearly quite angry with him.
“It’s true!”
“Look, it’s fine. I can handle Jent.”
“Ha!” Wex’s face broke out in a disbelieving smile. “You hear that, Nickle? This one hundred pound human girl is going to ‘handle’ a three hundred pound Selachi with anger management issues.”
“I would watch your attitude if I were you.” Sarah walked fully into the room and shut the door behind her. “I know about the keypads, and right now you’re giving me no reason not to run to Grom and tell him everything. It would really be in my best interest, you know, giving him this little tip, getting in his good graces.”
Nickle’s hands began to sweat. “Wait, no, you can’t. He’ll kill us.”
Wex seemed to understand the game being played here. “What do you want?”
“I want your help,” Sarah said.
“With what?” The sweat had now spread to Nickle’s forehead and face.
“With getting off this ship.”
Wex shook his head. “We can’t help you escape.”
“Not me.” Sarah smiled sweetly. “I’ll worry about myself later. For now, we’re going to help all the other prisoners escape.”
9
The Escape Plan
The ship was alive and buzzing as it pulled into dock 32 of Grendle Port 6. Aside from Jent, the crew had not stepped foot on land for over a month, and even though Grendle Port 6 was not technically “land” since it was one of the many orbiting ports of the planet Grendle made entirely out of metal and space grade plastics, everyone was relieved to be off the unstable and ever jerky Slipsteam. A deep, authoritative voice echoed throughout the ship as the gravity drive slowly turned off, and the weight of the port’s artificial gravity field took effect.
“Welcome to Grendle Port 6. Please note that your ship, your belongings, and your person will be searched upon both your arrival and departure. The distribution of any illegal items, a list of which can be found posted at each dock, will result in your arrest and ultimate execution. Thank you, and enjoy your visit to Grendle Port 6. Don’t forget to check out our trading markets. This week only human slaves are galactic tax free!”
The message was repeated in three other languages, none of which Sarah spoke, which was for the best seeing as how upset she felt hearing it the first time. The word “slave” had made her body cringe as she lay curled up in her bunk, the same position she had occupied since about eleven o'clock the night before. The skin on her cheeks were dry and red from all the crying, and she was shocked to discover that there were any tears left. But the announcement reminded her of previous night’s events, and she felt yet another wave of despair crash over her.
After hatching her plan with Wex and Nickle the night before, Sarah left feeling very confident. She was determined to help the other captors, and now that she knew the locks didn’t work, and had two crew members on her side, she thought the task would be easy. First, she sent Wex to collect any extra weapons that might be lying around the ship. The maintenance man had reminded Sarah that their ship was not necessarily the most organized, and the idea that this hodge-podge crew of criminals would have some sort of regulated and coordinated arsenal was laughable.
“But there are weapons on the ship?” Sarah asked.
“Well, yes. Of course. But if they aren’t kept on someone’s hip, they are kept hidden in their chambers. Nobody would willing give up his weapon to keep in some controlled room.”
“So you need to take them from the rooms.”
“Are you nuts?” Wex looked at Nickle for support, but the doctor simply referred back Sarah. “If these guys find me snooping around in their room, they’ll kill me for sure. And not quickly, I might add. We have two professional torturers on board!”
“Just tell them you are doing some sort of routine maintenance check.”
“On their guns?”
“Why not?”
Wex started to launch into a list of all the reasons why not, but when he looked up into Sarah’s freckled, stern face, he stopped short.
“Fine. I’ll do it. But if I get caught, don’t be surprised if I sell you out.”
Sarah nodded. “I understand.” She turned to Nickle. “While he’s collecting the weapons, I need you to figure out exactly what the plan is for removing the prisoners tomorrow.”
“And how do y
ou propose I do that?”
“Just get someone talking. I’m sure there’s at least one crew member itching to discuss the evil plan. And if you can’t seem to crack anyone,” Sarah pointed to the half empty bottle of what looked like Hexa-Juice sitting on the shelf above Wex’s bed, “give them a little liquid encouragement.”
“Hey! That’s mine.” Wex moved towards the bottle defensively. “That was a birthday gift. It comes straight from the Para distillery that invented Hexa-Juice.”
Sarah frowned. “Oh c’mon, that bottle looks exactly like the cheap stuff. Someone just ripped the label off.”
Wex grabbed the bottle and examined it. “Hmmm.” He looked up at Nickle. “Care to explain yourself?”
The doctor’s face flushed with embarrassment. “What can I say? Being a slave doesn’t pay well!”
“Will you two focus!” Sarah snatched the bottle from Wex. “Expensive or not, it’s alcoholic, right?”
“Well now I’m not so sure,” Wex said, looking accusingly at Nickle.
“Yes, it’s alcoholic.”
“Good.” Sarah passed the Hexa-Juice to the doctor. “Use it. And if we pull this off, I’ll buy you each a bottle.”
“The expensive kind?” Wex’s eyebrows raised with hope.
“Don’t push it.”
“So, while we’re getting weapons and info, what will you be doing?” Nickle asked.
“I’m going to get back to work on my general ship maintenance.” Wex went to say something, likely to argue with Sarah’s role, but she cut him off. “It will look suspicious if I’m found sneaking around or asking too many questions.”
“And you think it won’t look suspicious for us?” Wex retorted.
“Grom gave me open access to the ship under the guise that I would be fixing stuff all day! If he comes for a progress report, and I have nothing to show for my time, he’s going to start wondering what I’ve been up to, and then he’s going to start asking questions, and then we’re all going down. Now, if you’re done questioning my plan, it’s time to set it into motion.”
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