by Nate Johnson
A man in a white hard hat was reading his tablet as he hurried up the steps to an office.
No one was looking for them. They’d probably left when the Blackthorn had left.
“Where are we going?” Kaylee asked.
Logan turned to her and smiled widely. “We’re going to take their ship,” he said.
The shocked look on her face was priceless. It would be one of those things he remembered about her for the rest of his life.
“What?” she asked as if she hadn’t heard him clearly.
He smiled. “I said, we are going to take their ship. It is the best way to get you out of here and to Taurus. We’d never make a passenger ship. Besides. We’d have to rob a bank to afford a ticket.”
“But ... we can’t do that. They are pirates. We can’t just walk onboard and take their ship.”
“Why not? They probably stole it from someone. We are just borrowing it for a while.”
Her forehead creased up into a deep frown. “But ... do you even know how to fly a starship?”
“No,” he replied. “Do you?” he asked hopefully.
“Of course not,” she said.
“Oh, that’s a shame,” he said with disappointment. “Oh, well. We will just have to do our best.”
“Logan,” she said as she put out a hand to stop him from going any farther. “If you can’t fly a starship. How do you expect to get us to Taurus? Let alone, actually steal the ship in the first place.”
He stopped and turned to look down at her. “Kaylee, the Artificial Intelligence, the AI, flies the ship. All I’ve got to do is convince it to follow my instructions.”
She looked at him as if he’d lost what few brains he had.
“Come on, this is the best time to do this,” he said as he started once again for the ship.
“Logan,” she pleaded once again.
He stopped and said, “Trust me, Kaylee, this is going to work.”
She looked up at him for a long moment then silently nodded. “If you say so,” she said as she fell in behind him.
He smiled to himself. This was going to work. It was audacious, unthinkable, and besides, it was their only chance.
Adjusting the pistol in his belt, he stopped in front of the gangway that led up into an open hatch.
He couldn’t hear anything. He doubted it was empty. They would have left at least one person behind. This was a starship after all.
Taking a deep breath, he started up the gangway. It was now or never.
Chapter Nine
As Logan reached the open hatch, he turned and held a finger to his lips. Reminding Kaylee to be quiet.
She looked back at him as if he were the craziest fool to ever life.
Smiling to himself, he stepped into the ship.
The place was a dump. It made his skin crawl. Chief Bowen would have boiled Blackthorn’s crew alive if he had ever seen the ship like this.
A glossy sheen of oil covered every surface as if no one had cleaned it since it came off the launching ways a generation ago. Someone had left a wrench on the floor, and two of the overhead lights had burned out, and no one had taken the time to replace them.
The place had that familiar spaceship smell, but about twenty times worse, with a heavy undercurrent of boiled cabbage and tobacco.
Unbelievable, he thought to himself. But perhaps, pirates were naturally dirty. If you thought about it, the personality types seemed to match.
Turning left, he pulled the pistol from his belt and headed for the bridge. The heavyweight in his hands felt reassuring.
As he moved, he was careful with each footstep. Making sure not to kick something. The last thing he wanted to do was announce their presence.
Kaylee’s fingers were wrapped around the back of his jacket. Keeping close. Putting her feet in his footsteps. He smiled to himself. The girl was a natural. And she hadn’t really balked. Steal a pirate ship? Sure, why not. The girl was amazing.
As they drew nearer to the bridge, they picked up the sound of a constant drone. The sound puzzled him for a few minutes until they reached their destination.
He halted at the bridge door then turned to Kaylee and lifted an eyebrow.
She bent around him to get a view, then choked as she tried to hold back a laugh.
“I told you it would be easy,” he whispered.
She slowly shook her head with disbelief. The crewman was stretched out on one of the bridge chairs, his hands folded over his fat stomach, fast asleep, snoring enough to drown out a Higgs engine providing full thrust.
Logan indicated that she should stay where she was then slowly made his way to the crewman. Grinning from ear to ear, he held the pistol to the man’s forehead and slowly pulled back the hammer.
“Don’t move,” Logan said, “or your brains will be added to the mess around here.”
The thug’s eyes shot open and were instantly filled with fear as he froze in place.
“Yes,” Logan said. “You are not as dumb as you look.”
The man swallowed hard as his eyes frantically looked for some way out of the trouble he was in.
“Not going to happen,” Logan said. “If you are smart, and if you don’t give me an excuse, I will not blow your brains out. But only because I don’t want to have to clean up the mess. Do you understand?”
Although his head was trapped between the seat and a rather large pistol, the pirate was able to nod enough to show that he understood.
“Kaylee, find something we can use to tie this guy up. And try not to get hepatitis while you’re looking.”
Logan never took his eyes off the man in the chair. One move, that was all it would take.
“Okay, anyone else on board?” Logan asked as he watched closely for any lies.
The terrified man didn’t have the guts to lie. He slowly shook his head, his eyes never leaving the finger on the trigger.
“Here,” Kaylee said as she held out a large role of electrical tape.
Logan smiled and nodded, he knew for a fact that tape like that was impossible to break.
“Wrap his hands together. Behind his back. And be careful. Don’t get between the gun and his head.”
Kaylee looked at Logan with a frown. The gun barrel hadn’t left the man’s head since they’d taken him.
Out of the corner of his eye, Logan watched her wrap the tape around the man’s hands a dozen times, then she stepped back and admired her work for a second.
Once he was sure the man was secure, he slowly uncocked the pistol and removed it from the man’s head.
Smiling down at him, Logan whispered, just enough to be heard.
“You have one chance to live, shut up, don’t move, and pray I don’t change my mind.”
The man swallowed hard and nodded. His eyes continued to bug out as he stared at the gun in Logan’s hand.
“Here,” Logan said as he handed the pistol to Kaylee. “If he moves, shoot him in the groin. We don’t need him, so killing him is okay.”
What little color remained in the man’s face drained away.
He had to give Kaylee credit. She didn’t freak out, didn’t argue or protests. Instead, she took the pistol in her hand. Her brow narrowed as she studied their prisoner.
“You killed the men on the Voltaire. They were friends of mine. They died protecting me. Logan might let you live. I’m not so sure though.”
The man stammered as he tried to find some way to convince her that he wasn’t guilty.
“I... I... we.”
“Shut up,” Logan said, “I told you no talking.”
The man looked frantically back and forth between them as he desperately searched for the right thing to do. At last, he seemed to accept that he couldn’t change things. He slumped back into his chair and kept his mouth shut.
“Here, maybe this will help,” Logan said as he placed a piece of tape across the man’s mouth.
“Now then,” Logan said to himself as he rubbed his hands together and looked arou
nd the bridge. “Where are you?”
.o0o.
The weapon in Kaylee’s hands felt like it weighed a hundred pounds. Her palms were sweating, and it was getting difficult to keep the weapon pointed at the man sitting in the chair.
She was pointing a pistol at a man! The idea was crazy. What would her father think?
Could she shoot this man? she wondered. Could she end his life? What would it feel like?
Looking inside herself she examined her feeling and realized that she could. If it meant protecting Logan. If it meant getting away. Yes, she could.
The realization that she was capable of doing it settled some of her nerves. Not completely, but enough to where the gun stopped shaking so much.
A slight bang in the corner drew her attention for just a moment before she re-focused on their prisoner.
“What are you doing?” she asked Logan without taking her eyes off the man seated before her.
“Looking for something,” he said absently. “Ah, here you are.”
She glanced over quickly. He had that little boy grin he got when he was working on something. So different than that silent, deadly stare he got when he was facing danger.
Shaking her head, she moved to the side so she could keep an eye on the prisoner while watching Logan. He was down on his knees, his head buried in an equipment rack positioned under one of the bridge consoles.
“Ah, like I thought,” he muttered to himself.
“What are you doing,” she asked. Her curiosity was killing her.
“Hotwiring it,” he said as if he were discussing changing a channel.
“It’s possible to hotwire a starship?” she asked. The idea seemed preposterous to her.
“No, of course not. That would be ridiculous,” he answered. His voice echoing from inside the equipment compartment.
“So?” she asked again, unwilling to be put aside while he played with his toys.
“So,” he said as he pulled his head out of the void and looked at her. She could tell he was a little exasperated at being interrupted. But her heart was racing so fast, she didn’t care. She was holding a pistol on a pirate. The least Logan could do was tell her what was going on.
“Of course a starship can’t be hotwired. But the AI can be,” he said with that silly grin.
“What, how?” Kaylee asked.
His grin grew even bigger. “By breaking it,” he said as he put his hand into the void and pulled two wires. Sparks erupted from the dark space, making Kaylee jump. The prisoner winced as he saw her finger tighten on the trigger of the pistol still pointed at his groin.
A pungent tang of burnt ozone and fried rubber filled the bridge.
“Of course,” Logan continued as he got up and walked over to another equipment rack in the corner. “It is not in the breaking, but in how you repair it.”
Kaylee shook her head. He was having fun being obtuse. Why wouldn’t he just tell her how he planned on stealing the ship?
Seeing her frustration, he stopped and smiled.
“The AI is programmed to only respond to certain people. Correct?”
Kaylee nodded.
“There is no way we could ever convince it to take us to Taurus. Correct?”
“Yes, of course,” Kaylee said with a frown.
“So,” he said, “I have to reprogram the AI.”
“How?” Kaylee asked. “If it won’t accept your commands.”
He smiled. “This is the sweet thing,” he said as he pulled two more wires, resulting in more sparks and more stink. “An AI, stores copies of its program at several different points. For redundancy. Kill one, and it just falls back to option two, then three, and so on.”
“Yes, that makes sense,” Kaylee said.
“Well,” Logan said as he pulled more wires. “What happens when all of them are dead?”
Kaylee shrugged her shoulders. Logan was getting a little pedantic. Why didn’t he just tell her?
He smiled and pulled the fourth set of wires.
“What happens is that the AI dies. Deader than a corpse. Everything erased.”
“If we don’t have an AI, how do we get to Taurus?” she asked.
“By bringing it back to life,” he said as he dipped down under the original equipment rack. “But there is only one way.”
She sighed heavily. He pulled out of his hole and looked at her. She gave him her best exasperated face. If he didn’t tell her soon, she was seriously thinking of shooting him instead of the prisoner.
Seeing her frustration. He smiled as he removed a small blue sphere. Then, reaching inside another square box, he removed a second sphere and used it to replace the original.
“What is that?” Kaylee asked.
“The galley’s AI,” he said.
“Will that work?”
“It should, same hardware, same software, just a different mission statement. Of course, it means you’ll be cooking everything manually. But hey, beggars can’t be choosy.”
Kaylee shook her head. If he thought she was playing the role of housekeeper and cook while he got to do all the macho stuff, he was crazy.
Logan reseated the sphere, then looked at her and wiggled his eyebrows. The man was having too much fun. He rejoined the two wires to the equipment and then held down a button for a long ten seconds.
“By resetting it to the factory defaults,” he said as he stopped holding the button down and focused on the small screen on the piece of equipment.
“Ahhh,” he said with a big smile as he jumped up. “Success.”
“Computer, A6127, online,” a mechanical voice said from the speakers in the corner.
Kaylee felt her shoulders relax. She had absolutely no idea what he had done. But it seemed to have worked.
“Computer A6127,” Logan said, his voice commanding the entire room. “This is Petty Officer Logan Miller, of the Imperial Navy. You are the AI for a Leslie class passenger ship temporarily commissioned in the Imperial Navy. The I.S.S. ... Princess. Please acknowledge.”
A long silence descended over the bridge. Kaylee’s felt her cheeks grow warm for some reason.
“Acknowledged,” the mechanical voice replied. Both Kaylee and Logan let out a heavy breath.
“A6127, I am primary control. Miss Kaylee Williams is alternate.” He said into thin air then turned to her and said, “Say your name Kaylee. It needs a voice print.”
Kaylee’s head buzzed with a dozen questions, but she nodded and stated her name, “Kaylee Rene’ Williams,”
“Rene’? I never would have guessed,” Logan said. “It suits you.”
She felt her cheeks grow warm again. It seemed to happen a lot around this man. She had always liked her middle name, but the fact that Logan liked it made her feel warm inside.
Logan smiled at her, then said, “A6127, please run a full diagnostics. You will find that your backup points are unavailable. I will fix them later. But for now, bring yourself up to full speed, obtain all factory updates. Once complete, please let me know.”
“Acknowledge,” the voice said.
Kaylee shuddered, would she ever get used to that dead, soulless voice talking to them. The voice of a computer that, by its actions, would determine whether they lived or died.
“What the hell is going on here?” a deep, gravelly voice yelled from the bridge doorway. Kaylee turned to see a burly man dressed in nothing more than a T-shirt and boxers, rubbing his eyes as if he had just woken up.
As she watched, the man’s face turned from sleepy unawareness to fierce anger. His eyes rested on the prisoner triced up like a rabbit on market day. Then his cold eyes swept over her and Logan. Taking in the situation, his eyes slowly grew as he finally came to understanding.
“Get off my ship,” he yelled as he started towards Logan.
Kaylee didn’t really think, she didn’t know why, or how. All she knew was that the gun exploded, and sparks erupted on the bulkhead next to the man’s head.
The man’s eyes about jumped
out of his skull as he looked at her. Unable to believe this stupid girl had tried to kill him.
She had fired the gun, she realized. She had tried to kill a man. The fact that she had missed was beside the point. The thought sent a cold chill through her as she froze in place. Unable to move.
Logan had no such restraint. He was up and launching himself into the man instantly. His shoulder caught the man in the chest, knocking him back into the passageway.
Both men grunted as they landed on top of each other. Kaylee winced when she saw Logan’s injured arm take the brunt of the fall.
Her entire focus was on the two men in the passageway as they wrestled.
Logan twisted out from underneath the man and threw a punch that connected with the man’s jaw. He followed it up with two more to the gut.
But still, the man fought back. Logan’s injured arm was severely limiting. Kaylee’s heart jumped as she realized that he might lose.
Fighting to regain her breath, she brought the gun up. She had to save Logan. If she ...
A movement to the left drew her attention. It was their prisoner, trying to escape. Either that, or make his way to help his friend. A burst of anger erupted inside her guts. How dare he?
This time she knew what she was doing, and why. She pulled the trigger and the chair back erupted as metal fragments filled the air.
Raising an eyebrow, she used the gun to motion the man back into his seat. He sank back down onto the chair as a bead of sweat formed at his hairline.
Seeing that her charge was secure, she turned back to the two men fighting. Could she shoot the man without killing Logan?
She needn’t have worried, she saw with an immense sense of relief. Logan had the man pinned down. Somehow, even with just one usable arm, he had brought the man under control. He sat on his chest, his knees pinning down the man’s arms.
He smiled and looked back at her. “The tape, if you will, Kaylee.”
Her heart relaxed just a little.
Scurrying, she took the tape to Logan.
“That was smart,” he said as he taped up the man’s hands. “Firing the gun the second time, he thought you were firing at him. It distracted him just enough.”