* * *
Thinking of Sal sleeping in his room, Ali in Matt’s, and the children in Sal’s, Jess felt things were getting more than a little crowded, and that was before Matt was well enough to leave the sick bay.
He wasn’t happy with the main living area, either. Having the captives in the corner, even safely contained, meant his skin crawled each time he had to pass through.
Reaching out to the ship he sent a query about changing the layout. Forming requests for information was becoming easier, feeling more natural, as was interpreting the information he received. The answer seemed to be that within most areas of the ship the structure could be formed into whatever arrangement he wanted. The main exceptions were the flight deck and the engines. The flight deck could have superficial changes but the main layout needed to stay. The engine room could be changed but the restrictions were great and he didn’t fully understand the implications and interactions.
For the rest of the ship light and air would be supplied to every room he created without his needing to specifically plan them in. Water too, where needed.
He dealt with the prisoners first – erecting walls surrounding the shields holding them in. He added a small toilet and sink in a tiny sub-room, and a small slot in the main wall to allow food to be passed in. There were no doors which solved two problems in one go. Firstly, shutting the prisoners off from the main living area. Secondly, greatly increasing security by creating a physical barrier they couldn’t pass.
With that problem sorted out he turned to the issue of living space and bedrooms. He expected to have to cut down on the living area to make more rooms but was surprised to see the space he had to work with was much larger than he’d thought it would be. Larger than the size of the ship, he was sure.
He pulsed a query to the ship and received confirmation that the space could be made available, along with a sense of the ship stretching to provide the space. Other suggestions came back with the image… changing the overall size of the ship whilst keeping its general shape, creating additional shield generators and weapon mounts, increasing the number of manoeuvring thrusters to maintain performance, growing the engine room and increasing the number of engines to increase the power available.
He queried the ship to find out how such changes were possible. The answer showed the ship harvesting materials from the destroyed corvette and storing them ready for use. Initially Jess was tempted to perform a major overhaul, but then he considered how the others would feel to find the ship changing itself around them. He settled on adding an additional floor accessed from the living area by a small spiral staircase.
He created four bedrooms, larger than the existing ones, each with a small shower area, toilet and basin. Two rooms on each side of the corridor. He decided Ali’s should be next to his, but thinking of her sent his emotions into turmoil. He realised having her so close could be a major temptation, it would be too easy to create a door between their rooms if he wanted. He changed the design to have Matt’s room next to his, Sal’s opposite and Ali’s safely diagonally across the hallway.
In Sal’s room he added a cot for the baby and a small bed for the boy, both in a semi-partitioned section. Sal had taken a shine to the children and he was sure she’d want to keep them with her until they could be returned to their family.
He then turned his attention to the ship itself. It would need to grow to allow for the new rooms, but he increased the size a little more to provide some space for future expansion. Then he focused on the shields, weapons and engines. With the ship’s help he added enough shield generators to double the level of protection, and ramped up the ship’s speed and agility by roughly thirty percent.
He really went to town on the weapons. Some of the existing lasers were bulked up, their power increased and their cycle time between shots reduced while also improving their heat diffusion. The ship provided him with several other weapon patterns. He added a plasma weapon to each side. They were much slower to reach a target than the lasers, but devastating at close range.
Two missile launchers were mounted either side of the ship, between them loaded out with a dozen fast attack missiles and six heavy torpedoes carrying a much larger warhead at the expense of speed and agility.
Ion cannons provided the option of disabling rather than destroying an opponent, something Jess was more than happy to add. He’d fight if he had to, kill if forced to, but he wanted to avoid it where possible. Now the heat of the moment was long past, and the problems with their prisoners resolved, he regretted destroying the corvette even though he knew he’d had no choice. The captain and officers on the ship might have deserved to die for attacking the Wanderer, but what of the others on the ship? In particular he regretted killing the prisoners, slaves like he had been, who were certain to have been on such a large ship.
He confirmed the changes to the ship then sat back and watched through the ship’s sensors as they began to unfold. He spent the next hour following the transformation, fascinated by it. The internal changes to the prisoner’s area only took a few minutes. The rest of the internal changes, and those to the weaponry, shields and engines, had to wait for the ship to grow. He’d wondered if they would need to drop out of jump space while it happened, but the ship told him no. In fact the changes were easier to make in jump space.
* * *
Ali was the first to wake. The Wanderer informed Jess when she tried to exit Sal’s room. He quickly approved the request, then headed back to the living area to meet her. The new bedrooms were almost completed and he was looking forward to showing them off.
He entered the lounge as she emerged from the original sleeping area’s corridor. The look on her face when she saw him stopped him dead. She looked furious and crossed to where he stood, shaking a finger in his face.
“You don’t trust me!” she shouted. “The room was locked. Don’t think I didn’t notice just because you unlocked it quickly. Do you really still think I might be with them?”
She gestured towards the prisoner’s area, seeming to notice the changes to the room for the first time. She paused for a moment, then turned to renew her attack, shouting into his face. Jess realised with a start that she had tears in her eyes.
“Really? You still think I might be like them? Do you think that badly of me? Do you have any idea how much that hurts? Do you?”
Her tears were starting to flow now, she brushed them away angrily, staring at Jess from only inches away. Despite her anger she looked beautiful to him. He opened his mouth, tried to answer.
“I’m sorry. It’s not that… it’s… well, Sal set it in place and she felt it was best for now. I didn’t want to argue…”
“Pathetic!” She cut him off. “Not even taking responsibility for your own actions.”
She started to turn away.
“But I can’t trust my judgement. I can’t think clearly when you’re near.”
The words were out of his mouth before he could stop them. Ali turned back, shock on her face. Staring into his eyes. He felt his cheeks burning but couldn’t tear his eyes away from hers. After a few seconds she grabbed his head and dragged him down into a passionate kiss. Jess froze for a moment, completely caught off balance, before doing his best to return the kiss. There hadn’t been any girls near his age in his cell for several years. He’d never kissed like this before he met Ali. He had very vague memories of kissing her while they were both under the influence of the drugs, but this was completely different. He felt an electric thrill coursing through his body and was acutely aware of Ali’s hands in his hair, her body pressed against him. Her scent filled his senses.
He felt so overwhelmed that he reached out for the ship, guiltily, checking if he was being drugged again. The ship’s reply was almost instant; no external substances had been detected, however his own body was releasing a cocktail of chemicals all within normal bounds for a heightened state of arousal.
Reassured, he relaxed into the kiss. He felt he was starting to get
the hang of it when Ali suddenly pulled back from him, fear in her eyes.
“You didn’t… you haven’t… have you drugged me? Done what they did to me?”
Jess stood stunned for a moment, then shook his head fiercely.
“No! Never! That’s a horrible idea. They did that to me, too. I’d never do it to you!”
Her eyes narrowed. “There’s something else. What aren’t you telling me?”
“Well… I worried the same thing. I got the ship to check you hadn’t drugged me. When you kissed me it felt so wonderful, so overwhelming, I was worried.”
She was still so close he didn’t even see the slap coming, her hand seemed to materialise against his cheek. She’d put everything into it and his head rang from the blow.
“That’s for thinking I would ever do that to you!” she shouted in his face. Then she grabbed his head again and kissed him fiercely, if briefly.
“And that is for telling me how good the kiss felt.”
With a mischievous smile she whirled and walked back into the corridor towards Sal’s room. Jess was left standing, staring after her. His cheek stinging, lips tingling, pulse pounding and breathing rapid. His mouth hung open and his head whirled. Shaking his head he decided he needed advice. Why had it been fine for her to worry about being drugged, but so wrong for him to do the same? Somehow he couldn’t imagine asking Sal about what had just happened, so he decided to see Matt again. The ship indicated Matt was stirring anyway.
* * *
Matt scowled as Jess entered. He was propped up by the bed to a half sitting position. Jess’s confusion over Ali had completely driven the circumstances of his earlier conversation with Matt from his mind. Now the look on Matt’s face made his stomach lurch.
“Come to talk to me again have you?” Matt grumbled. “At least till I say something you don’t like. Then you’ll shoot me full of sedatives again, I suppose.”
“It wasn’t like that. You were so worked up the ship thought you were in danger. It said you had to be sedated to avoid doing yourself serious damage. I decided it was right and told it to go ahead. I was really worried about you and I hated doing it. I felt really guilty.”
Matt stared at him for a long time, then sighed.
“OK, kid. At least you admitted it. You could have claimed the ship acted on its own, and I can see how it might have been necessary, though I’m still not happy about it. More importantly, my point still stands. We aren’t safe while those bastards are still on the ship.”
Jess pulsed a command to the ship, causing a screen to appear on the wall showing the captives’ new holding area, complete with shields and wall.
“I’ve taken some steps on that. I created this room around them. They can’t get out. There’s no door and the slot for food is much too small. Changing the ship’s design is something only I can do, or the ship itself when a pilot first starts to bond. There’s no way they can get out.”
Matt studied the images for a while before turning to Jess.
“OK,” he said grudgingly. “It’s a lot better than before. I still don’t trust them, though, and if there’s a way to cause us problems they will.” His lips quirked into a smile. “So if something happens to you they’ll be stuck in there forever? Better make sure it doesn’t. I can’t guarantee to remember things like feeding them.”
Jess frowned. Something else he hadn’t considered. Then he shrugged his shoulders.
“If it happens, it happens. I’ve got too much to worry about as it is.”
“I take it one of those worries is what to do with our prisoners? You realise you effectively have two choices. Let them go or kill them.”
Jess opened his mouth to protest but Matt held his hand up and carried on speaking.
“Their crimes are pretty horrific. If you take them anywhere they’ve operated their scams then they’ll be killed. Maybe after going through the courts, more likely spaced out the airlock by a mob, especially anywhere they’ve taken kids from.
“If we took them somewhere with an Imperial court then they’d be executed, almost certainly without a trial. You saw what the Imperial ships were doing to them before we arrived on the scene. Some places they’d be freed in hours, if not sooner. Pirate bases, independent stations. I’m sure you don’t want that. You don’t want them out there going back to their old ways, or even teaching others their tricks.
“So that leaves you trying to find a station where their actions mean they’ll be locked up, hopefully for the rest of their lives. If you turn them over and they only have to serve a few years then every action they take once they are out is your responsibility. If you turn them over and they unexpectedly get the death penalty then you’ll feel guilty because you chose to let them live yet directly led them to their deaths.
“It’s a tough universe kid. Dirty. Vicious. What the Empire doesn’t screw up directly the rest of us screw up in fear of, or anger at, the Empire. You’re going to have to make the decision, and sometime soon. We can’t keep them on this ship forever. The quickest, kindest solution may be to just space them. Sedate them first, if you like, so they don’t know a thing about it.”
Jess turned away, staring at the image of the prisoners on the wall. They still slept. He imagined himself handing them over to be executed, flushing them out of the airlock himself, seeing a mob beating them to death before the authorities could intervene. Far worse though was the thought of them going back to their old ways. Getting free and ripping families apart, selling children into slavery.
With a heavy heart he turned towards the door. As he reached it Matt called out, more softly this time.
“I’m sorry, kid. It’s not fair to dump this on your shoulders, but the ship has done just that. You’re in charge, you have the power to decide what happens to them. You can come to Sal or I for advice, the girl too most probably, but in the end it’s your decision.”
The mention of Ali reminded Jess why he had visited. It no longer seemed nearly so important, not after pondering whether or not to kill several people, but he was still completely confused by her behaviour, uncertain whether he couldn’t wait to speak with her again or would rather she disappeared for a thousand years.
“Matt… there was something else. Not the ship or the prisoners. Something I wanted to ask you for some advice on. It’s about Ali…”
For the first time since the operation Jess saw Matt smile. He felt himself flushing.
“Sal said you’d taken quite a shine to the girl,” Matt said.
“She’s… well… I think she… that is…”
“Oh, you’ve got it bad all right,” Matt chuckled. Then he turned sober. “You were born a prisoner, weren’t you? I can tell. There’s something different about most who are. They seem more resigned to their fate. Conditioned to it, I guess. Anyway, did you ever get involved with any girls? Get close to any?”
“No. There weren’t any. Not anywhere near my age. Not for the last few years.”
“Oh boy. Then you’re in for a rough ride, I’d say. Learning everything from scratch. It might be for the best, though. Relationships back in prison were… not twisted but… I don’t know… distorted, I guess. People had so little time they grabbed the comfort they could when they could, never knowing if the person would still be in their group the next week, not knowing if they’d even be alive. Relationships were about comfort, physical and emotional. They were about hanging onto someone else, meaning something special to someone else, even if just for a short while. Yet all the time they were tinged with the knowledge it couldn’t last, that sometime soon you’d be split apart and never see each other again.
“I’m hardly the best person to advise you. I’ve been married once, which was a disaster from start to finish, and I’ve got a trail of broken relationships behind me that you wouldn’t believe. I can give you some advice, though. First off, you’re both pretty messed up by what happened to you, by being drugged into falling for each other. Both of you are going to be terrified of
that happening again, suspicious of any feelings for another person in case it’s been forced on you.”
“Yeah, we’ve managed to prove that.” Jess told him about his encounter with Ali. The long kiss followed by the slap and then a short kiss. Matt nodded, face mostly serious though with the hint of a smile on his face.
“Right. I’m not surprised. First thing to realise is that you two aren’t special here. She seems to have feelings for you, and you clearly have for her, but if either of you were falling for someone else after the experience of being drugged there would be just the same worries. It’s natural – it happened once so you expect it to happen again. In some ways it will probably be easier going through it together as you’re both worrying about the same thing, both know something of how the other feels.
“Second thing is that she’s a girl. No end of books and films will tell you that means she knows all about feelings, about love, and that you as a poor boy will always be confused and off balance. Load of tripe! If there’s one thing I’ve learnt it’s that women, and girls too I guess, get just as messed up by those feelings as we do.
“Next thing… don’t be someone you’re not. Don’t try to impress her. Relax and be yourself. If any girl only likes you when you’re pretending to be something different then she’s not worth your time. You won’t listen to that one, I’m sure, but maybe it’ll sink in and come back to you one day.
“Lastly… even if things work out between you, it won’t last. Probably. Both of you will do and say things that hurt the other, probably things you can’t believe you said but you won’t back down from. Both of you will take offence at things. You’ll argue over stupid stuff and end up breaking up. Don’t beat yourself up about it. Relationships are no different to anything else. Learning the skills to make them successful takes time, takes making mistakes. If you’re smart, if you learn from them, then one day you’ll meet someone and it will work out. I’ve seen a few that did.”
Wanderer's Odyssey - Books 1 to 3: The Epic Space Opera Series Begins Page 7