Hain nodded. "You're right. Do you have the override code?"
I bit my lip. "No..." I admitted. “L never told me hers.”
"Maybe L has it written down somewhere. We should search her bunk before Cedar burns it all."
I nodded, feeling silly for not thinking about that. I should really start strategising and thinking two, five, ten steps ahead.
"If I recall correctly, when we reboot CC, we should be able to change admin access. I'll make you an administrator so if anything happens to me, you won't be locked out like we are now," I proposed, hoping this wouldn't come back to bite me in the ass.
Hain nodded. "What else do you want me to do?"
His questions took me aback. Yes, I was the captain now, but when I was second in command, they never asked what I wanted. Now I wondered if L told them to make my life difficult. She had always been the jealous type.
I could think of a few things I'd like him to do for me, not all of them work-related, but I should really try and stay professional.
"Run a full scan on all the computer systems to find any easter eggs CC might have left for us. I'll search L's rooms for any codes or instructions that could come in handy."
Trusting him to do as I asked, I entered the green elevator connecting the bridge with the crew quarters on the deck below. Whoever did the interior design of this spaceship was either colour blind or liked to torture people. My room was bright red, and I was one of the lucky ones.
L's suite was pink, the most garish pink you could imagine. Pink curtains framed the small portholes offering a view of the darkness of space. I didn’t like looking out of the windows, it made me feel lonely. And very, very lost.
The suite consisted of a bedroom, a living area with a big holotable in the middle, and a munch-o-mat in the corner. I stared at it in jealousy. The rest of the crew had to share one, which meant a long queue at meal times. Deciding that it was essential to test if it was unaffected by CC's madness, I pressed the touchscreen and ordered a cookie dough ice cream. Seconds later, deliciousness was served and I moaned at the explosion of flavours in my mouth. The normal munch-o-mat in the mess hall was programmed to only give out desserts at weekends. I was definitely going to move into the captain's quarters now. Unlimited ice cream made up for the terrible colour of the walls.
Slowly chewing on a piece of cookie dough, I looked around the apartment. The bedroom was nothing special, except for the worn teddy bear wearing an old-fashioned spacesuit. I imagined L cuddling with it and shuddered. That thing was definitely going in the incinerator.
Back in the living room, I switched on the holotable and asked it to show me what L looked at last. It was a map of our current star system, nothing I hadn’t seen a hundred times before. Our captain left the navigation mostly to me. In fact, I had been more or less running this ship for weeks.
I flicked through the table's files. A folder called 'diary' made me stop. Should I? Yes, I definitely should.
Inside, I found hundreds of video recordings. I opened a random one, about two months old. Just before L contracted her STD.
Her ghostly figure appeared on the holotable. "Mission Spacemen is continuing to be successful. Cedar smiled at me today, and I'm sure there was a sultry look in his eyes. Rowan continues to evade my advances, but my progress with Hain is more promising. I asked him to my quarters last night for an update on the system overhaul he's working on. Well, that was my excuse. Of course, I was only wearing my nightie. He didn't comment on it, so I'm sure he found it just as exciting as I did."
I held back a gag, the image of L in a nightie burning my corneas. This was worse, so much worse than the pink walls. I glanced over the back of my shoulder, making sure the airlock seal was still on my new quarters, and clicked on the next video.
L’s ghastly voice filled the room once more with a continuation of her log. “Mission Spacemen is proving harder than expected. Sadly, not in the “hard” kind of way I had hoped. Rowan seems even more apprehensive than before and Birch only has eyes for that little bitch. If I had known Partridge would get in my way, I would have kicked her into one of the propellers during launch.”
A bitter taste filled my mouth. So that was where all the animosity had come from. I hadn’t imagined it after all. I clicked open another video, immediately regretting it as grunts echoed through the room and an untasteful scene played out in front of me. Apart from Hain’s bare chest, the whole picture was vomit-worthy. Especially L’s cellulitis riddled buttocks as she was giving him a...
Yuck. I shuddered, trying to erase the scene from my mind. Not that it was working. This was the stuff nightmares were made out of. Well, served me right for snooping. Why I expected to find something valuable or noteworthy in her daily log, was beyond me. I should’ve realised that L liked the space hanky-panky, especially after catching that STD.
I made a mental note to ask Hain to comb through the log later, on the off chance there was actually something important in it. If he was okay with L handling his....manhood, he’d have to be okay with handling this. I was glad I’d had everyone checked for the STD after L died. They were all clean, which meant that it had likely never gone beyond her molesting them.
With their signature hiss, the doors behind me slid open. I quickly waved L’s diary away and turned to find the real Hain, not just a holographic version of him. He definitely looked much better in person, but the visual image of L servicing him definitely put a dent in my admiration for him.
"Captain, I've done all the scans you asked for. What- oh...."
I looked behind me and found L's ghostly figure doing you-know-what to Hain's translucent doppelganger. Damn, I thought I'd switched it off.
Hain was turning a rather attractive shade of pink. "I... ehm... I don't know what to say... what will you think of me... she..."
He was wringing his hands and I decided to take pity on him. I needed him on my side, after all.
"Did she make you?"
He nodded, looking on the floor which I now noticed had a pink tint as well. "I sneaked into her quarters to use her vidcall line. You know how she didn't let any of us use the main one for a while?"
I nodded, remembering how annoyed I got at L when I couldn't call my little sister.
"My gran was sick and I needed to know if she was getting better. L caught me... and told me that if I wanted to keep my job, I'd have to let her 'make me feel good'." He laughed bitterly. "It was the opposite of that. I hated her so much. And she made us be nasty to you as well... I'm sorry, Captain, for anything I might have said in the past. She had stuff on all of us and played us against you."
The wheels inside my head were turning furiously, but I kept a calm exterior. This was my moment to show what a good and just Captain I was. "I understand. She was a manipulative person and you shouldn't feel guilty for what she made you do. This is going to be a fresh start, right?"
I could see the relief as the tension in his body lessened. His beautiful face became even more attractive without the creases on his forehead.
"Hain, gather the others. I think we have some talking to do."
BOTH HAIN AND ROWAN stood quietly and broodingly in front of me, waiting for their fellow crewmates. As expected, Cedar came scrambling from outside the corridor. His ruffled hair in stark contrast with his crisp and ironed suit.
I checked the radial and wondered where Birch was. He was never late, unlike another blond guy. “Where is Birch?”
The three men glanced at each other, confusion painted on their faces. Hain shrugged, pointing at the back of the ship.
“Maybe still checking the ports?” he suggested, avoiding any eye contact. Guess he was still embarrassed about the earlier situation.
“Still?” I asked, counting the ports in my head. There were only five. It shouldn’t have taken him this long. An ominous feeling wrapped itself around me. With the transmittal space mumbo jumbo from L, our ship might not have been as under the radar as we all hoped.
“
I better check on what’s taking so long.” I glanced at the three men in front of me, wondering if I should take one of them with me. Not that that thought made sense. This ship should be safe and CC would alarm us if there were any intruders. But then again... There was no knowing what L did to the board computer. Maybe CC turning homicidal wasn’t the programmer’s fault after all.
“Cedar, we’re checking the ports. I’ve got a bad feeling about this. Rowan and Hain, check CC’s log again. I want you to focus on access codes and L’s signature. I want to know who opened which door and when.”
The men threw me a confused look, not sure why I seemed to be making pairs. But somehow, that felt like a good idea.
Our footsteps echoed in the narrow corridors. Why were they so damn small? I felt Cedar’s breath tickle the back of my neck and briefly wondered why he was standing so close. He really was a strange one.
“The navigator shows there’s no form of life detectable at Loading Dock 1,” he broke the silence, showing me the stats on his scanner.
I pointed at another bay. “What about this dock?”
Cedar shook his head. “Nothing there either. That leaves either the Central Port or the Back Door, but we’re not in reach yet.”
I muffled a snort, still not sure who decided to name the loading dock at the base of the ship the Back Door. You just couldn’t use it in a serious conversation without breaking out into a giggle.
“Wait.” The blonde held up a hand, halting me in my pace. “Am I seeing this right?”
Confused, I glanced at the scanner in his hand. Had he found Birch?
“I’m counting two shapes, but aren’t Rowan and Hain supposed to be in the cockpit?” Cedar inquired.
The ominous feeling I had since I found L’s diary stirred up in my stomach. There was certainly something fishy going on here and I was determined to figure out what.
“Blasters! Three more shapes just appeared!” Cedar cursed, flashing me the image on the screen.
He was right. Five sources of heat were showing up on the navigator. That didn’t add up. There were only supposed to be five of us in total on the ship. And Cedar and I were standing right here. I needed to warn Rowan and Hain.
Before I could speak into the comm on my bracelet, Cedar halted me.
“The intruders might hear you. We can’t risk letting them know we’re aware they’re here.”
He was right. Again. How did I not think of that? At this rate, I might turn out to be an even worse captain than L.
“Shoot them a warning in morse,” Cedar instructed, an urgency and clarity in his voice that I wasn’t used to from him. Gone was his kind attitude and relaxed vibe. It was finally becoming clear why he was the emergency first responder. The seriousness suited him.
Glad I was fluent in morse, I shot a message to both Hain and Rowan’s individual receptors.
-... .. .-. -.. .. . .-.-.- / ..-. -—..- .-. / .. -. - .-. ..- -.. . .-. ... .-.-.- / -... / -.. .-.-.- / .-. . -.. .-.-.-
With a soft vibration, two replies found me at the same time. With a confirmation that they were both located in the cockpit, I nudged Cedar.
“We have at least four intruders. Five if one of the shapes isn’t Birch. We should prepare for the worst.”
"Deadlock Protocol?" Cedar whispered and I nodded.
"We can't let them escape if they have Birch. Why oh why did L lock away the weapons? Did she actually anticipate a mutiny?"
"Yes she did," Cedar deadpanned. "She knew that she was in the minority."
"As much as I like to gossip about L, we should do this later. Let's get to the nearest computer terminal so we can initiate the protocol and lock them in. Then we can decide what to do with them."
We sneaked back through the corridor until we reached one of the main computer nodes. We had access to most of the ship's functions with our handheld devices, but the Deadlock Protocol was one of the things we could only initiate at one of the terminals.
Cedar stood guard while my retina was scanned and my fingerprints were matched with the records.
"Captain Partridge confirmed," CC boomed.
"Quiet, you silly computer," I hissed. "Initiate Deadlock Protocol. Immediately. We've got intruders at the Back Door."
"Intruders, how lovely," CC chimed and I wanted to hit her. "Would you like me to warn them before they're locked in?"
"Don't you dare."
"I'll take that as a no."
"You better or I will make sure your motherboard is destroyed once and for all. And your fatherboard. And whatever else you have inside you."
There was a moment of silence as CC's electronic brain processed my threat. Then, her monotonous voice came out of the speakers again, but this time a little quieter. "You will be pleased to know all entrances around the Back Door have been locked. You will not be pleased to know the intruders have escaped."
While I let out a string of colourful curses - most of them threatening death to all AIs in this universe - Cedar was typing furiously on his scanner.
"She's right. There are no life signs left on this deck besides ours. So unless Birch is hiding in the crew quarters, he's gone. They've taken him."
Chapter 2
BIRCH WAS GONE. I COULDN’T believe it. Blasters. You know how they say that you don’t realise how much you like something until it’s gone? Well, it was true for Birch. In my mind, I could see him leaning lazily against the wall of the common room, showing off his broad chest and cheesy smile. A temptation that I had always resisted, even though it was hard as hell. They were all off limits, and L had made sure it stayed that way. Now he was gone, and I may have lost my only chance of getting to know him better.
The three remaining men were all waiting for me to say something, but I kept putting it off. Instead, I looked out of the large window in the command room which gave me an excellent view of the meteor belt we were just passing through. We were flying on autopilot, so unless CC was having any strange ideas, we were free to enjoy the spectacle. Well, we would be, if some mysterious space pirates hadn’t just kidnapped one of my crew.
Rowan quietly cleared his throat and I sighed inwardly. It was time to do my first big Captain gig.
“Okay, there’s no time to lose. Birch is gone and we don’t know who’s taken him. He could be anywhere. So far, our sensors haven’t picked up any other ships in our vicinity, but that means nothing. We’re not a combat vessel after all. We need to be ready in case the kidnappers get in touch. It's strange that they only took him and nothing else. They could have taken supplies for the colony, but no, they only took one of the crew."
"Aye, if I was a pirate, I'd kidnap the captain," Rowan rumbled in his deep voice. "No offence, Ma'am."
"None taken, I've been thinking the same. And stop the Ma'am-ing, just call me Captain. Or Lucy. Right now, we don't need formality, we need solutions."
Rowan looked a little uncomfortable, but then Hain nodded at the other two. "She knows," he whispered loud enough for me to hear it. The other two men looked both relieved and horrified. I was curious, but at the same time I probably didn't want to know what dirt L had collected on them.
I sighed. "This is a new start. We will leave the past behind us, and that included anything L may have told you to say to me or about me. Same with what I might have said to you. I’m proud to be your Captain and I'm sure we're going to be a great team. Now, can we get started on our rescue plan?"
They looked a little downtrodden, but all nodded and turned to the screens in front of them.
Luckily, this room had almost the same equipment as the bridge, but was a lot more comfortable. And right now, we didn’t need to fly the ship, we just needed access to the sensors.
“Cedar, have you been able to get a read on his vital signs?” Suddenly I was glad that the latest Fleet policy involved getting a tiny implant into your arm that continuously monitored your heartbeat and blood pressure. Even though it wouldn’t be able to tell us where he was (why the effing stars didn�
�t they include a GPS), we’d at least know whether he was alright.
“I’m working on it. I think I’m close.”
“Good. Hain, have you managed to figure out how they got onto the ship without us knowing?”
“Easy. L put some loopholes into the shield code. I assume it’s so she could smuggle in her nightly visitors. Any good hacker would have been able to disarm our shields long enough to use one of the ports.”
I cursed L once more. Because of her horniness and selfishness, I was now one crew member short. A very pretty, attractive crew member.
“But why’d they only take Birch? The individual space pods and gear are all in that loading dock as well.”
Hesitantly, Rowan raised his hand. His expression a strange mix of fear and doubt. “I think I might know why.”
“Lay it on me,” I sighed, rubbing my fists in my eyes. This was not how I imagined my first day of Captaining to go.
With a short click, Rowan opened a file that had previously been locked. I glanced sideways at Hain and him, wondering how they managed to break through L’s seal. Maybe they were even more skilled than they let on?
An official-looking document appeared on the holotable. A quick glance was enough to make my blood boil.
“Slavery?!” I scowled, slamming my hand hard on the table. “Slavery?! I can’t even! How dare she!”
Cedar gently touched my shoulder, probably in an attempt to calm me down. “Captain...”
I swatted his hand away. “Don’t Captain me. This is unacceptable!”
“I can’t believe this... She actually sold him to a group of merchants?” Hain whispered in disbelief, a saddened look gracing his beautiful face. From the three guys, I had seen him talk most to Birch. They must’ve become rather good friends, even under the circumstances.
“The contract is waterproof,” Rowan muttered appalled, staring at the unruly signature of the previous Captain. “I guess there’s nothing we can do...”
“We’ll see about that,” I scoffed, wiping the contract from the table to make room for a map. “Colony Twelve will have to wait. Rowan, reroute us to Slaver’s Bay.”
Partridge in the P.E.A.R. Page 2