by Kal Spriggs
Pixel shrugged. “He does like to talk.”
“Yes, he mentioned you graduated from university there,” the bounty hunter said, and she had a faint smile on her face. “This reminded me of something I read once, about the terrorist attack there, you know of this?”
“Yeah,” Pixel said. He wiped his sweaty palms on his coveralls again. “I know of it. I was there, at the university when it happened.” He met her eyes, “I still have nightmares about it,” he said truthfully.
She shrugged, “People die, I do not let this bother me.” She licked her lips, and her smile became something that sent a shiver of fear up Pixel’s spine. “But what I remembered, then, was a wanted poster I saw once. I did not pay much attention, as the poster just noted persons of interest, no rewards for their return, da?”
“Oh?” Pixel asked. He wondered if she might shoot him in the back if he broke into a run.
“Da. No reward, so I did not care, though I think that someone suspected of carrying out the attack might want to alter his appearance some… Though he looked much fiercer in that photo, more fanatical.”
“Yeah…” Pixel said. He had no idea what to say. Either she really didn’t care or she just waited to drop the hammer. Either way, no reason to deny it further. “Well, they used my university ID photo for that… I had just finished a four hour presentation where my professors dragged me over the coals, I was pretty ticked at the time.”
“Ah,” she smiled, and her smile seemed much more natural. “That is understandable. I must tell you sometime about how I had to pass my licensing exams on Centauri Prime. You would find the story amusing, I am sure.”
Pixel couldn’t manage a smile back at her, his stomach felt twisted into a knot, “Well-”
“Hey guys, food looks good,” Eric said as he came out of the corridor. “And no sign of another burst pipe like yesterday, thank goodness.” He looked between Elena and Pixel. “I miss something?”
“No,” Elena gave Pixel a broad smile, “Pixel told me some about his time as a student, and some of why he left Lithia.” She looked over at Eric, “He is quite talented, no? Very accomplished, even infamous, I might say.”
“Really?” Eric looked over at Pixel, “That’s cool, I hadn’t realized engineers got famous.”
“Yeah…” Pixel managed a nod, though he felt like his face had frozen.
“I have finished with these weapons,” Elena said. “I will take break. I will return tomorrow, Eric, to finish. I hope you will make it to our weapons instruction class, Pixel. You would not wish to disappoint me, no?”
“No…” Pixel tried not to think how she could ruin his life with the others if she told what she knew. He tried not to think of how easily she could insinuate to the appropriate authorities how his actions in the escape might signify his involvement in what happened on Origin.
She gave him a predatory smile and walked out.
Eric gave a low whistle, “I hate to see her go, but I love watching her walk away.” He slapped Pixel on the shoulder, “You dog you, she was coming on to you, I think.”
“What?” Pixel asked, shocked out of his frantic thoughts.
“I know, I’m surprised too, especially with me here,” Eric said. “But some girls go for that nerd look, I guess. Might have something to do with nerds getting paid better than grunts like me, of course.” He gave a sigh, “And here I hoped my cooking might swing some ladies my way.”
“Uh, we don’t get paid,” Pixel said. “The only thing we have close to currency is the gold that Anubus claimed.”
“You know? You’re absolutely right, she must not be interested in you, then,” Eric nodded. “She’s trying to make me jealous, play hard to get. Well… two can play at that game.” Eric rubbed his hands together in anticipation. “Oh, this will be great.”
“What?” Pixel said.
Eric shot him a look, “Now don’t go telling her, but I’ll have a talk with Ariadne, I’m sure she’ll help me out. It’s for a good cause.” The former soldier gave a decisive nod.
Pixel felt so wrung out that he forgot to be diplomatic. “Eric… you treat Ariadne like crap, why would she help you get laid?”
“Well, I treat her that way so that she learns to look out for herself,” Eric said reasonably. “I’m sure she won’t hold it against me. And this is more than just sex…” Eric waved his hand after the departed Elena, “This is a challenge, she’s thrown the gauntlet, my friend, and I have to accept.”
Pixel felt bereft of words. He wondered if perhaps Run were right, about him or if Eric might just be a bad example to compare himself against as far as critical reasoning skills. He brought up his datapad and made a note to have Run compare his own hormone levels against those of Eric. Maybe there would be some correlation…
“You alright, Pixel?” Eric asked. “I hope I didn’t hurt your feelings with the whole nerd thing.”
“Nope,” Pixel said. “Not a problem. Truthfully, I haven’t had a girlfriend in a while.. and that ended messily.”
“Oh?” Eric asked. “I heard about that terrorist attack on Lithia, it happened around the same time as I moved from the Centauri Commandos to… well never mind.” He shrugged, “You lose your girl in that?”
“No,” Pixel said. “We’d broken up by then. This was before that. Christyne… well, she was a little immature, and rather emotional… we had a misunderstanding, it was very public.” He remembered the argument they’d had about the flash bulb prototype, how she had insisted he bring it to impress her family, and then demanded a demonstration with her and her mother.
“Oh,” Eric stripped down a pistol, “Sounds like fun.”
“She got flashed, she overreacted,” Pixel shrugged.
“What?” Eric dropped a spring. “You flashed her?”
“Yeah…” Pixel said. “She asked for it, though I’m not sure why she wanted me to do it in the restaurant. I think she just wanted the attention, but she got more than she expected.”
Eric dropped the other pieces of the pistol to the bench. Pixel heard several bounce to the floor. “Wait. Just so I’m straight here, you gave your girlfriend public nudity after she asked for it, and she got upset?”
“What are you talking about?” Pixel asked. “I designed a prototype flash bulb for instant tanning. I designed it to work through clothing, one quick flash and you get a nice golden tan. It was based on some of my undergrad work, actually.”
“Oh, so no public nudity then,” Eric sighed. “This story just got way more lame.”
“Well, I didn’t say that…” Pixel hedged.
“What? But you said that you hit her with this tanning death ray… where’s the nudity? Did she loose her mind and tear off her clothes, because that would totally make the story much better,” Eric said.
“No!” Pixel said. “God, you’re pretty juvenile sometimes.” He sighed, “But yes, she did end up naked.”
“YES!” Eric did a fist pump. Parts of the pistol bounced off the ceiling.
“It wasn’t my fault.” Pixel said.
“Of course not,” Eric said. “Women take their clothes off all the time, and then they blame it on alcohol or the heat of the moment or hormones or drugs you might have slipped them, these things happen,” Eric said with a leer.
“It was a prototype. I’d tested it with some clothing, and it had no effect on my coveralls. Not on the clothing of some of the women who volunteered at the lab, either. But Christyne wore some kind of long chain woven carbon material for her dress and her bra and panties used the same stuff.”
“So your tanning death ray did what, make it hot so she had to pull it all off?”
Pixel raised an eyebrow, Eric seemed very interested in the story, “…No. They hit the perfect wavelength that they broke the carbon to carbon bonds and caused her clothing to disintegrate. And gave her a perfect tan all over.” Pixel shrugged. “Oh, and she had some weird shampoo or something because it reacted too and turned her hair platinum blonde.”<
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“YES!” Eric did another fist pump. “You have to make me one of those.”
“The odds against it working like that again…”
“Don’t tell me the odds!” Eric said. “You can’t tell me that story and then say it won’t work.” He shook his head, “So your girlfriend was suddenly a naked blonde in a restaurant, what’s the problem? Some girls like that kind of attention.”
“Well… she asked me to do that to impress her parents. She had just graduated business school,” Pixel admitted. “It was also the first time I met them.”
“Oh,” Eric said. “Well, could be worse, I mean, her mother could have been wearing that same stuff, right?”
Pixel kept his mouth shut. Though, come to think of it, the other restaurant patrons had seemed very impressed and appreciative. Very appreciative, he received a standing applause, even.
“Well, anyway, that’s a pretty interesting story,” Eric said. “I hadn’t realized you had crazy stories like that.”
“Oh, I should tell you about the time my friend Jack and I…” Pixel trailed off. “Never mind.”
“Yeah, save it for another time,” Eric said. He glanced around, “Did you happen to see where that spring pin went?”
* * *
On his way back down to the engine room he ran into Mike.
“Pixel, just the man I wanted to see,” Mike said.
“Oh?” Pixel asked.
“Yeah, I worked out this charter, for team, plus anyone else who wants to join up,” Mike said. “I wondered if you could look it over.”
“Me?” Pixel asked. “I mean, sure, but I’m an engineer, not a lawyer.”
“Right, but you’re a thinker, which is more important right now,” Mike said. “Plus, most of the crew listens to you, so if you think it makes sense, they’ll accept it with less argument.”
Pixel stared at him for a long moment, “You really want this captain thing to go through, don’t you?” Up until now, he had genuinely thought that the others wanted a leader to remove their need to think for themselves. Now he wondered at his own assumption.
“Yeah,” Mike nodded. “It’s important, especially in a crisis, to have one person in charge. I know you’re against it, but this isn’t a lab or design firm somewhere. We’re on the knife edge of survival, you know?” Mike pulled a datachip out of his pocket, “But anyway, even if you don’t want a captain, I’d like your opinion on the fairness, on how you think the shares break down, that sort of thing.”
Pixel took the chip, “I’ll look at it. I suppose you want feedback before the meeting tomorrow night?”
Mike nodded, “Sooner the better so I can make changes and get it to everyone else.”
“I’ll get it to you by tomorrow morning,” Pixel said. Whatever his personal feelings about the idea, Mike had laid out a pretty good reason for him to at least look it over and give his opinion.
“Thanks, I appreciate it.” Mike said. “Hopefully, even if this one ends up with another deadlock, we’ll at least accomplish this much, you know?” Mike glanced over his shoulder. “And to tell you the truth, I’m just worried that when we’re in a life and death situation we’ll have something similar happen. Or worse, everyone will run off in their own direction and someone will get killed.”
“I can understand that,” Pixel said. “Oh, Eric is making steak for lunch tomorrow, I thought you’d be interested in that.”
“Excellent,” Mike grinned, “I’ll be there.” His grin faded, “Wait, food in the lounge, right?”
Pixel managed to keep his face solemn, “Yeah, is that a problem?”
“I’m not so hungry any more…” Mike said.
* * *
”So this Vlarblir acts as a conduit for the Kra,” Rastar said.
“The same Kra that the gravity field maintains in a state of flux?” Pixel asked.
“No that is the Kro,” Rastar said.
“Oh, right,” Pixel made a note on his datapad. “I think I’ve got it, now.”
“I hope so,” Rastar said. “As I am very confused.”
“You’ve done fine,” Pixel said. “And the important part is that I understand. You’re translating, not trying to learn the systems yourself.” He frowned then, “Though I wish you knew a bit more of the technical terminology. I think that the Kro are exotic matter particles the ships drive uses. But I’m not sure of the polarity… It’s all very fascinating, especially since this is totally at odds with a lot of the theory I received.”
“That is good?” Rastar asked. “I would think you would find that aggravating? Does not the Confederation have similar drives?”
“Oh, they do, except they run off of human tech, and the data I’ve seen on that suggests they use an entirely different method to generate forward momentum,” Pixel said. “I’m trying to learn the theory of how your drives work at the same time as I learn the basics of how to conduct maintenance on them. Which feels like I tried to drink from a fire-hose nozzle on full blast.”
“Oh,” Rastar nodded, “That sounds difficult.”
“But I like difficult,” Pixel said. “So it’s actually kind of fun.” He paused, “What do you do for fun, Rastar?”
“Oh, various things,” Rastar said. “I have found a number of human holovid recordings as well as some Ghornath ones. I watch those, sometimes. I drink a coke now and then to relax. I talk about weapons and tactics with Eric, though he seems inordinately fascinated with long range combat. And at times I set and remember my childhood, and make note of the honor I must regain for my family name.”
“Well, that’s an interesting set of hobbies,” Pixel said. “Though I think I’ll stick with taking things apart to see how they work.” He watched as Rastar translated the manuals on the consoles. Now that he saw a Ghornath at work, the oddly-shaped, dual keyboards made sense, as did the multiple monitors at each work station. Rastar seemed to read and work at both screens and an upper and lower arm typed as a pair on each set of keyboards. “You multitask very well,” Pixel noted.
Rastar answered without a pause in his work, “I can do this all day, man. Though thinking about some of these words forces me to pause. I have very good coordination between my limbs, something which has proven useful before, though most often in combat.”
“Were you a member of the Ghornath resistance?” Pixel asked.
“No,” Rastar’s hide shifted blue. “You know, man, I really considered it. Then I figured that kind of anger would just bring me down, you know, man?”
“How did you get your military training?”
“I worked as a bouncer on Narobi, that got me bodyguard gig, and then for a while I got work as a registered mercenary out of Tanis,” Rastar paused in his typing. “Some pretty good dudes in that work, but one job went bad right from the start, and then I had to split. Dropped the contract and caught a ship headed away from the Confederation. Things got pretty hectic there for a while, and even Chxor space seemed like a safer spot than where I was.”
“Sorry to hear that,” Pixel said. “But it all worked out for the best, right?”
Rastar looked down, “You know, man, I hope it does, but somehow I worry that my past will catch up to me when I get back to human space.”
“Well, I don’t know much about mercenary work or the people that hire them,” Pixel said. “But you’ve got to figure that they assume that something like that comes with the business, right?”
Rastar gave him a nod, “I hope so, man. But they seemed pretty unhappy with me at the time.” He looked back at the console, “I’ve finished the next section on the engines, do you want to look it over?”
“Definitely,” Pixel nodded. “Though if you slipped another line in there about the flux capacitor requiring cheeseburgers as fuel, I might try to strangle you.”
“Man, I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Rastar held up his four hands to show his innocence. The green color of his hide belied his words. “I’m telling you, that’s what it said in t
he manual.”
“Right, along with the reference to Hawaiian shirts being required safety equipment,” Pixel said. He shook his head at the big alien, “You do realize I need to try to train other people how to help me down there with these translated manuals?”
“Yeah, man,” Rastar nodded. “And this way you can make sure they’re paying attention, right?”
Pixel opened his mouth, and then paused. He could think of a few classes where he might have paid more attention if the professors had put a bit of random humor into their textbooks. For that matter, it made a good way to check to see if someone had actually read the manual, they would have questions about the things that just didn’t make sense. “Actually, Rastar, you might be on to something.”
“I know,” Rastar said. “I am pretty awesome. Hey, before we start this next part, let’s get some lunch. Eric mentioned steaks for lunch.”
“You like steaks?” Pixel asked. He’d seen the big alien eat a variety of odd foods, some of which included a bizarre mix of human and Ghornath rations.
“Oh, yeah,” Rastar gave him a nod. “Especially with the right condiments. Let’s go.”
Pixel looked down at his datapad. He felt reluctant to leave off his work, but he’d skipped breakfast to give Mike his notes on the charter. His stomach rumbled at the reminder. Not like these files will go anywhere, he thought, besides I could probably use a break before I get Kra and Kro mixed up again. He tried not to think how disastrous that could be. But he had to admit, the explosion would look extremely impressive.
Pixel tucked his datapad into his hip pocket and followed Rastar off the bridge. As he walked the corridors behind the big alien, he brought out his datapad again and made a note to ask Run about the Ghornath’s eyes. Ghornath seemed to have a mirrored surface to their eyes but they seemed able to focus on multiple things at once. That made some of their display screens a headache for Pixel, but it also seemed an impressive feat. Pixel wondered if he could design a set of smart glasses to mimic their eyes. Pixel didn’t know how the display would function, but it might well enable similar multitasking for him.