by Tammy Walsh
I spooned it into my mouth and let it slide down my throat. “One of these days, you’re going to have to teach me the recipe for this soup.”
Maisie grunted. “I’d like to see you in a kitchen first.”
“I told you,” I said. “I can’t. Having the captain in the kitchen doesn’t have the kind of image I’m trying to cultivate.”
Maisie folded her arms. “But it does when you’re stuffing your face with my cakes, I notice.”
“It’s the crew. I can only be what they expect me to be. And after this soup, they’d expect me to have some treacle pudding.”
“You couldn’t keep it down.”
“Then I’ll have the pleasure of eating over and over again.”
She curled up her face in disgust. I loved teasing her. “I would find that funny if I didn’t think it was the truth.”
“It is the truth.”
“That’s why it’s disgusting.”
Not for the first time, I wondered how I could trust Maisie—this human female—with my life when I could never do the same with my crew.
I laughed and immediately wished I hadn’t. It sent shockwaves through my brain like it had its own private storm.
“You need to go to hospital,” Maisie said, pressing a hand to my forehead. “Sooner rather than later.”
I shook my head. “A Titan doesn’t visit hospitals.”
She braced her hands on her hips. “Then you’ll be visiting the morgue.”
It was my foolish pride that prevented me from having a secret supply of medicines. I assumed I would never get sick enough to need it.
“I need a new translator strip,” Maisie said, pointing to the one across her throat. “My old one’s damaged.”
I waved a hand at my desk. “Take one from the drawer.”
Maisie pulled it open, took one of the translator strips, and tucked it in her front pocket.
It was unusual for Maisie to ask for anything. She always tended to muddle along with whatever faulty item she had until it finally broke completely and there was no other option but to replace it.
We had advanced equipment she could use for cleaning but refused to replace her long stick with floppy cloth at the end. I think she called it a mop. Old habits died hard, I guess.
I wiped the bread around the inside of the bowl and sucked on it. I couldn’t swallow anything solid. Humans might be a backward species but they sure knew how to cook delicious food.
The headache dissipated but a deep lethargy came over me. I leaned back, my eyes already beginning to shut.
“Get some rest, Captain,” Maisie said, collecting the tray before it slipped off the bed.
As if I had any choice. By the time she shut the door, I was asleep once more.
I ran the words Stryder said to me just ten seconds ago through my mind: “Captain, we’ve had an escape.”
“An escape?” I said. “Who?”
“The last human female in the cargo hold.”
I couldn’t believe my ears. In all the years I’d been a smuggler, I’d never heard of anyone escaping the pods before. It was meant to be impossible.
It was a long walk down to the cargo hold but I needed to see this for myself. When we got there, I stood staring at the pod, empty, just as Stryder had said it was. I marched along the other pods, already empty from having been delivered.
“She was spotted coming out of the shuttle bay,” Stryder said.
I drew to a stop. “Coming out of the shuttle bay?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Why was she coming out? She could have jumped in a shuttlecraft and taken off.”
“I don’t know, sir. Maybe she didn’t have access to a translator strip. Or else she didn’t know how to pilot a shuttle. Humans have yet to colonize their own solar system.”
I continued walking down the hall. “So, where did she go?”
Stryder twisted his neck and swallowed hard. “I’m… not sure, sir.”
“You’re not sure?” I said. “We saw her come out of the shuttle bay and we don’t know where she went?”
“No, sir.”
Stryder looked embarrassed. Of course, it wasn’t his fault. But someone had to take responsibility for this mistake.
“How did she even manage to escape in the first place?” I said. “We put her in the pod three weeks ago. We’ve been delivering merchandise every few days… and you’re telling me no one knows where the female human is?”
“That’s correct, Captain.”
I couldn’t believe this. “We’re supposed to deliver her in three days. Are you suggesting we should hand over an empty pod?”
“No, sir.”
A bolt of pain stung the front of my brain. I massaged my temples. “Who was the last person to see her?”
“Rattigan and Xerxan,” Stryder said. “When we delivered the previous human.”
“And they report seeing her in the pod?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Then she must have gotten out recently. No one has reported seeing anything suspicious?”
“No, sir.”
It still didn’t make any sense. There was only one way for her to get out, and that was if someone let her out. But that would have informed Computer…
“Computer,” I said. “Was there any notification of a human pod being opened within the past few days?”
“Negative,” Computer said. “No human pods have been opened.”
I shook my head and returned to the original pod. I paused, noticing something off with the security module. It was responsible for keeping the merchandise alive and functioning.
There was a black hole where something had burned into it. I fingered it, the tip of my finger disappearing inside.
Had someone burnt the security settings to get at the human inside? If so, what had they used to form the hole? What made them think they would get away with it? And how did they think they could keep the human from being discovered? I needed to have the crew’s quarters searched.
As I stood up, I glanced at the front wall that fed into the main hallway. A light blinked at me. I approached the wall and the light momentarily disappeared from view. I ran my hands over it until…
I felt it.
A hole. I slipped my finger through it. It was marginally larger than the one in the security module on the pod. It too was charred around the edges.
Stryder had a confused look on his face. “Sir?”
I stepped through the door and drew an imaginary line from the security module, through the hole in the wall, and then continued it out to the other side and…
Bingo!
There it was—a third hole. A little larger than the previous one.
I waved Stryder over. “Come look at this. There’s a hole here, and in that wall, and finally in the security system on the side of the pod. The other day, we ran into the meteor field. I think a tiny piece of meteor poked a hole in our hull and passed through multiple walls until it stopped… Lodging itself in the security module on the human female’s pod. It must have shorted the security system and shut it down.”
Stryder followed the trail of holes and shook his head. “Well, I’ll be damned. What are the chances?”
I shrugged. “About the same as it striking anywhere else on the ship. It could have just as easily have blown a hole through our heads. Did no one notice a hole in the hull?”
“I believe they were patched up, Captain,” Stryder said.
“And no one thought to check for other damage deeper inside the ship?”
Stryder had no answer for me. “I’ll have to look into that, sir.”
“Do it, and make sure they patch up the other holes too,” I said. “I don’t want a repeat of this in future.”
“No, sir.”
“Station someone outside the shuttle bay and have them replaced every few hours,” I said. “We don’t want her making another escape attempt.”
“Yes, sir.”
“And have the shuttle ba
y searched. She might have sabotaged a shuttlecraft or planted explosives or…”
I shook my head. I had to remember this was a human I was thinking about. The girl would have woken up and found herself on an alien spaceship. She wouldn’t have understood what or why this was happening.
Unless…
I stored the idea away for later.
“We’ve set up sentries at key intersections and drones patrolling the hallways,” Stryder said. “It won’t be long before we find her.”
“We shouldn’t have to find her at all!” I bellowed in Stryder’s face. “She should be in her pod! And if there was a malfunction, we should have discovered it within minutes of it happening!”
Stryder stood there taking my shit. He’d taken a lot of it over the years. “We’ll find her, sir,” he said calmly.
I ground my teeth and regained control of my temper. “We have three days before we meet her master. We must find her by then. If we don’t…”
Stryder nodded, understanding the implications. Our credibility would suffer. Bad reviews traveled faster than light. It would be difficult to get further contracts. We were suffering from getting work as it was. I wasn’t sure our credibility could suffer this one too.
“Once you find her, report to me,” I said.
Stryder saluted. He was the only former soldier among the crew. At least, the one who admitted it. Some of the others handled themselves so well with their weapons they had to be former Special Forces. We were all former fighters. Dishonorably discharged, a lack of discipline, or with nowhere else to go, we were all outcasts in one form or another, or else none of us would be smugglers in the first place.
The moment the doors slid shut, they opened again. A tiny figure entered in Stryder’s wake. She was so small, we had to alter the direction of the motion sensors to let her in. Before, she had to jump in place, waving her arms to get the motion sensors to notice her. But she was getting too old for that now, and lacked her youthful vigor.
Her tiny feet shuffled forward, and she clasped her hands in front of herself. Maisie was a human female that’d been abducted long before I arrived on the ship. She was quiet, solemn, and the best cook this side of the Quazar solar system.
“You wanted to see me, Captain?” Maisie said.
“Yes, I did,” I said, massaging the bridge of my nose, feeling the sickness sweeping over me again. Sometimes it was so painful I could barely breathe.
“Take a seat, Maisie,” I said.
When she sat down, her feet couldn’t even reach the floor. The seats were built for the much larger and bulkier members of the crew. Maisie looked even more fragile than usual.
I spoke softly. “We’ve had an escape. Have you heard?”
She nodded. “I did hear something about it, Captain.”
She wouldn’t look at me. She kept her head down, eyes on her hands in her lap. But that was nothing new.
“It must be difficult, seeing our most recently acquired cargo in the pods,” I said. “Young human females.”
“They are from my home planet, sir,” Maisie said with a nod. “But I haven’t been young for a while now.”
I smiled. “How do you feel about us abducting other human females?”
“I… don’t feel anything, sir,” she said.
Her eyes looked everywhere but at me.
It did bother her—the same way it bothered me every time we were tasked with shipping one of my species. Sometimes I came down to the cargo hold to look at them, wondering if they felt the same way about our species I did. I always felt conflicted, what with there being so few of us left.
“We think a small shard of meteorite pierced our hull when we entered the meteorite field and it sliced through the walls until it met the security panel on the side,” I said. “It’s your job to clean in here. Make sure everything’s running smoothly. Did you notice the pod was empty?”
Maisie’s hands wrestled each other. “I haven’t been in here since the last human was delivered, sir. That was three days ago now.”
The guilt was written plainly on her face, in her body language. She helped the girl. Perhaps not to escape, but she helped her after that.
The fire that burned in the pit of my gut was a mix of anger and the sickness. They twisted my stomach, making me feel like I was riding too close to a black hole. I could have crushed Maisie like a bug between my hands, but I didn’t.
I was incapable of hurting her. She was just about the only person I could trust aboard this infernal ship. But if she helped a human female that’d escaped… Perhaps I shouldn’t put so much faith in her after all.
The anger seeped from me like water from a sponge left out in the sun.
“Don’t do it again,” I said coldly. “Go.”
I feared if she stayed in my presence any longer, I might harm her. Anger management wasn’t exactly a strength of my species.
She nodded her head and shuffled out of the cargo bay.
If even Maisie defied my orders, what chance did I have the rest of the crew would follow them? Did I even deserve them as a crew?
I coughed. It sent shockwaves through my skull.
The crew must have sensed my weakness. Eventually one would take it upon himself to take action and Challenge my leadership. I didn’t blame them. A crew needed a strong leader. That was how I’d become leader, after all.
I Challenged our former captain after he’d lost his mind and ordered us to steer the ship into a blazing sun. I beat him in single combat and stripped him of his mantel. I would have kept him on my crew, except he had clearly lost his mind. I stabbed my blade deep in his chest in a sign of mercy rather than anger. He’d been like a father to us.
And his final words as he took his last gasp? “Destroy us for we destroy worlds.”
Maybe he wasn’t so crazy after all.
I made it to my quarters and immediately stumbled onto my bed. I’d marched with my chest out, my chin raised the entire way, concealing the sickness consuming me from the inside.
It was exhausting. I was lucky no one stopped me in the hallways.
I let the bed absorb my weight as I sank into it. My entire body ached and the drumming in my skull was louder than ever before. I needed sleep—real, genuine rest rather than the fitful bursts of nightmare-filled dreams I endured.
I got comfortable and felt myself slipping off the edge of consciousness. The gray mist of dreams wrapped around me, not as a comforting blanket, but a torture device designed to keep me in place. I frowned, preparing myself for the impending onslaught.
That’s when something straight and, I thought, very sharp slid beneath my chin. It remained there and didn’t move.
The fact it hadn’t moved, hadn’t instantly opened my throat meant it couldn’t possibly be one of my crewmates. Not all of them had honor. Some attacked from the shadows.
Through the misty haze of the sickness, I opened up my senses. I sniffed through my nostrils and caught the scent of her. She smelled exquisitely feminine. She was bold to have come here. Clever too. It was the one place the drones wouldn’t venture. All she had to do was wait for me to turn up and make myself comfortable before sliding into position.
Despite myself, a smile curled my lips.
“Don’t move,” she said.
She had no idea the strength and speed a Titan could move. How could she? Her species hadn’t met any other forms of intelligent life.
I reached for one of the knives I kept tucked in my bed’s frame for such emergencies as this. I fingered the handle, getting a good grip on it. I remained alert but did not act.
“What’s your name?” I said.
She snorted. “You don’t even know the names of the innocent women you kidnap?”
“I could check my files if you let me get up…” I said. Of course, there were no files.
She stiffened with that blade to my throat.
“What do you want?” I said.
“I want my freedom,” she said.
&n
bsp; “If you wanted that, you should’ve taken the shuttlecraft earlier,” I said.
“I couldn’t.”
“Why not?”
“Because there’s something else I need to do first.”
“To kill me?”
“To make you an offer.”
That gave me pause for thought. “What sort of offer?”
“You’ve been feeling sick lately, haven’t you?” she said.
Had Maisie told her? Damn that fool woman! Didn’t she know that particular whisper heard by overly inquisitive ears could wind up getting both of us killed? I’d have to have a word with her later.
“A Titan doesn’t get sick,” I said, hedging.
“What’s a Titan? Is that what your species is called?”
“Yes. We don’t get sick and recover fast from wounds. So, even if you cut me, you’ll never manage to kill me.”
“I don’t want to kill you,” she said.
“You’ve got a funny way of showing it,” I said.
She sighed but didn’t remove the blade from my neck. “I’m not a killer. I’m a regular girl. I don’t want you dead because that won’t help me. I’ve seen what your men are like. I overheard them talking earlier. About your sickness.”
She couldn’t have seen my reaction, crouched to one side the way she was, but my eyes boggled almost out of their sockets.
“You’re lying,” I said. “They don’t know about my sickness.”
“That’s funny,” she said. “I thought Titans don’t get sick? So maybe this knife could hurt you after all.”
I heard the smile on her lips and it made me feel sick to my stomach—for once having nothing to do with my illness.
“What did you hear them say?” I said.
“The reason you’re not getting better—even though you are one of these Titan things—is because your crew is the reason you’re sick.”
A red mist descended over my eyes. At this human female? At my crew? I couldn’t decide. “You’re lying.”
“They have some kind of black creature. It’s shaped like a ball with long gangly legs. It’s slimy, with something that looks like oil all over it.”
Of course! Why hadn’t I thought of this before?
The creature she was describing was called an Absor. They were used for assassinations. Creep close enough and slip it in their food or drink. It took on the shape, color, and most importantly, flavor of whatever they were put in. They produced common symptoms like stomach cramps, headaches, and nightmares.