Head Space

by Andrew Vaillencourt

  He supposed the overall effect was made worse when he committed the near-fatal error of sniffing the drink, first. All the information a rational man would ever need to make an educated decision about the concoction’s general comestibility was present in the olfactory blitzkrieg he suffered from a single tiny inhalation. An observing crew member, witnessing his folly, commented to Jean, “Aw shit, man, don’t fucking smell it first! Are you crazy? The vapors will melt your sinuses!”

  That, Jean mused, was information I could have used a moment ago. Nevertheless, he was committed and down his throat went a measured swallow. Just enough to look manly, not so much as to kill him if the liquid turned out to be as poisonous as its aroma implied. All the sundry and sordid experiences that made up the life of Jean Marceau failed to prepare the poor fool for what happened next. He knew with absolute clarity within a microsecond of the liquid touching his tongue that he had never consumed anything so loathsome as this fiery liquid. It was not merely the ludicrous alcohol content, nor was it the questionable provenance of source ingredients that sent him coughing and retching to the head after his first swallow. Rather it was a combination of these, when coupled with the unvarnished horror of the flavor, that brought the wannabe pirate low. The actual taste of the drink was a strange and unnatural mélange of sensations that simply had to have been selected for their offensiveness and pure noxious wretchedness.

  Jean’s eyes watered and his throat spasmed closed at the same moment his stomach tried to empty its meager contents into the steel bowl of the ship’s lone toilet. The result was a choking sob that spewed pale yellow slime from his lips and nostrils. The crew roared with laughter at his predicament, and Jean contemplated jumping out of an airlock and ending it all. After a few moments, he had recovered enough to rise from the deck and sway to his feet. He went to the sink and washed his face, splashing liberal quantities of icy water onto it in an attempt to regain his composure.

  He emerged from the head to a sea of grinning faces. Men hard and broken, their faces grizzled and worn, beamed like children at the sight of the staggering man and his obvious discomfiture. A few snickers and a couple chuckles rumbled from the crowd and Jean steadied himself before speaking.

  “That stuff is absolute shit.”

  The crew erupted into laughter at the banal statement. They cackled, pounding on backs and pointing at the flask still in Jean’s right hand. Comprehension came slowly to Jean, and when he realized what had been done, he wanted to be angry. He could not muster the emotional intensity for it though. Plus, any man on this crew could kill him in a heartbeat, making anger an unprofitable indulgence. Instead, he let the ghost of a smile creep across his features and pointed a shaky finger back at the man who had sold him the flask. “You asshole,” he coughed. “What the fuck is in this?”

  The gap-toothed pirate held his hands out to his sides, feigning ignorance. “How the hell should I know, Frenchy? Most of it leaked out of a jump coil coolant jacket. Do I look like an engineer?”

  Jean rolled his eyes and looked over to the man’s right, where the engineer was trying manfully to suppress his guffaws. “Just tell me if I’m going to die, Stumpy.”

  “Nah,” the appropriately named ‘Stumpy’ said with a dismissive wave of his bionic right hand. “You only took a baby sip. You’ll live. It’s got a lot of propylene glycol in it, though.”

  “And...?” Jean was finding the joke less and less funny.

  “Yer gonna be shittin’ yer brains out for a couple of hours.”

  The ship’s medic chose this moment to be helpful. “Day or two, actually. Get plenty of water.”

  Jean turned and looked at the one sad little toilet behind him. He thought about his duty schedule and how much he hated space travel. Then he looked to the able crewman who had sold him the doctored hooch. “I’m going to shit all over your bunk if I don’t get that ration chit back, Slick.”

  The still-grinning man tossed the plastic coin over to Jean. “Odin’s balls, Frenchy, anything but that!”

  With the practical joke winding down, the crew settled in for evening watches and sleep schedules. Jean had pulled the early fire watch, so he was going to be up for a while, anyway. “If you want the shitter, better get in there now. Sounds like I’ll be holding it for a while.” This drew some chuckles from the crewmen, but no one rushed to the head. The medic walked over and handed Jean two pills. “This won’t save your ass from what’s coming, but it will make it survivable.”

  “Gee. Thanks, doc,” said Jean without inflection.

  “Look on the bright side, Frenchy. If they didn’t like you, it would have been something lethal instead of a case of the shits.”

  “So I have been accepted by the tribe huh?” The first gurgles of an impending catastrophe swirled in Jean’s guts and a face flushed red with distress suddenly drained of all color.

  The medic saw this and raised an eyebrow. “Once you’ve had a little action and not crapped your pants with fear, yeah.” He clapped Jean on the shoulder. “Sorry, poor choice of words there, mate.”

  “I thought you were a bunch of scary pirates,” Jean mumbled through gritted teeth. “Sounds like the comedian’s lounge on a cruise ship to me.” His stomach lurched, and the gasping man bolted for the head to the sounds of the medic’s laughter.

  Jean ended up taking most of his watch from the toilet. He routed the duty panel to an old DataPad and made his rounds between noisy bouts of intense gastrointestinal distress. Once relieved of that duty, he tried to return to his berth for what sleep he could get between his all-too-frequent bathroom breaks. By the next duty cycle, his anxious flights to the toilet had slowed to an elevated yet bearable frequency. Jean noticed during the next few days that the men on the knorr grew friendlier. More assistance was offered when he found himself at a task he did not understand, and everyone seemed more inclined to treat him less like an unwanted passenger and more like a crewmate. Jean assumed that he had successfully navigated some sort of ritual hazing probably commonplace on these small ships. He was alive and halfway to Galapagos, so the goodwill of the crew had to count for something.

  On day seven, Jean saw his first action. In retrospect, he felt that ‘action’ was far too strong a word for what happened. The general quarters alarm sounded in the middle of Jean’s duty cycle in the engine room. Since unwashed pirates were not particularly big on training, the fledgling pirate had no clue what he was supposed to do when the keening two-tone howl blared from the ship’s public address system. He was certain that staying hunkered down at the engine diagnostic panel was not his role. Given what he had heard about Galapagos boat crews from the mercenaries and bounty hunters he had met in his life, Jean had a strong idea of what happened to crew members who did not at least pretend to rush toward danger. Since he felt ill-equipped to float the remainder of the way to Galapagos wearing nothing but his coveralls, Jean stood up with a gasp and ran for the main deck.

  He encountered the rest of the crew as they were moving toward the cargo bay, and he noted they had all grabbed weapons and armor from their lockers. This put Jean in a quandary. He had no weapons or armor, and a great lump of fear knotted his innards into an uncomfortable ball. Stumpy found him in the hall by the cargo bay and asked, “What the fuck are you about, Frenchy? Grab your kit and get ready to board!”

  “I don’t have any kit!” Jean heard the childish panic in his own voice and hated himself for it.

  Stumpy growled through his thick red mustache and grabbed one of several guns at home in his belt. He tossed it to Jean.

  “There. Now ya got some kit.”

  Jean looked stupidly at the weapon in his hand. It was the largest handgun he had ever held. His eyes darted back up to Stumpy, and the questions swirling behind them must have been apparent.

  “It’s a Dragoon, Frenchy. Don’t worry that it’s just a pistol. It’ll punch a hole through any armor a corporate security rat might be wearin’. We don’t like using the more powerful shit cuz we a
re trying to spare the ship and cargo damage. Come on.” Stumpy waved for Jean to follow him. “This yer first boarding?”

  Jean just nodded.

  “No problem. This is a bitch run, anyway. When the door opens, Little John is going to sweep the deck with a couple of screamers, then we bust in and blast anything in a uniform. That usually gets the civvies good and docile. Word is that we are hitting a medium gas hauler, so security should be light. Nobody gettin’ rich off this run, but it looks like nobody gettin’ killed, either.”

  Jean nodded again. That seemed to be working.

  “Just stick with me and we’ll go get us some money, Frenchy.” Stumpy winked as he said it and suddenly Jean realized that they were in the cargo bay and among the assembled crew. Somebody noticed the large pistol in Jean’s hand.

  “You loaning out weapons now, Stumpy?”

  “Can’t board with every swinging dick if there ain’t enough dicks to swing, right?”

  The captain heard the banter and bared his teeth in a crooked grin. “You wanted to pull an oar.” He pointed to the gun in Jean’s hand. “There’s your fucking oar, Frenchy.” They all had a good laugh at that. All except Jean, of course. A thin smile and weak salute were the best he could do. The captain turned back to the dozen or so assembled pirates. “Okay dipshits. We got a quarter of a million tons of rare gas resources and maybe seven armed bastards between us and the prize. Corporate shit, so I expect they’ll drop their pants and run at the mere sight of all you badass pirate motherfuckers.”

  “Don’t let them see Frenchy!” A voice chimed in, “Don’t want to encourage them!” A murmur of laughter washed through the crew and Stumpy clapped Jean on the back.

  “Just for that, Matchstick, you get to lead the charge,” the captain barked back.

  More laughter, and this time Jean joined in as Matchstick was shoved to the front of the group. The lanky pirate looked abashed, though he seemed perfectly comfortable to be the first one through the door. Stumpy explained. “First one to step onto a prize ship gets a bonus, Frenchy. Something to think about...”

  The captain interrupted Stumpy’s lesson. “Flight Deck says we will grapple in forty seconds. Get your shit together, boys. It’s time to make money.”

  The next forty seconds passed far too quickly for Jean’s comfort. The knorr lurched once when the boarding hatch collided with the side of a vessel Jean could not see, then a series of loud bangs and hisses followed as the pirate vessel secured itself to the hull of the freighter. A burly pirate named ‘Little John’ slapped the control panel next to the door frame and with a screech and a whoosh Jean Marceau was officially engaged in his first pirate raid.

  Little John started things off with a barrage of grenades from his drum-fed launcher. The ‘screamers’ emitted a high-pitched whine and broadcast solid walls of electromagnetic static. Any automated defense systems or drones were immediately disabled, and any biological defenders found their imaging and scanning tech to be useless. Matchstick was into the dim passageway with a whoop of joy even as the last screamer clanged off a bulkhead and clattered down a twisting hallway.

  He was met by a smattering of gunfire that missed him by a wide berth. He returned the favor with a barrage of his own from a bullpup bead rifle. His fusillade was far more enthusiastic and voluminous than the defender’s meager offering, though his accuracy proved no better. Then Jean was swept up by the surge of pirates clambering through the hatch and scrambling into the halls of the freighter. Fearing his crewmates more than what lay before him, Jean leapt into the fray without hesitation. He stayed close to Stumpy, resolving to follow the old engineer’s lead. The pirates’ charge was utterly without form or plan. It became apparent to Jean that each pirate had a preferred partner for raiding, as pairs and trios broke off to explore hallways and hatches as the mass moved along further into the freighter.

  Stumpy moved through the maze as if he knew exactly where he wanted to go. After a breathless thirty seconds of scampering, the pair arrived at a wide hallway and were nearly decapitated by screaming ropes of burning bead fire. Jean was thrown to the deck by Stumpy’s metal right hand and they each posted up against the bulkhead on either side of the deadly opening. The older pirate wore an expression of calm concentration as he fiddled with a satchel at his waist. His hand emerged with a grenade and he winked to Jean. “Ready, Frenchy?”

  Jean was not ready, but Stumpy was not really asking. The grenade sailed out and down the hallway. Jean chose not to stick his head out and watch because he did not want to get shot. He heard a distant voice shout, “Grenade!” and the sounds of men diving for cover could be heard. An enormous bang came next, a report so loud and ear-shattering that Jean found himself quite deaf for a few seconds. The engineer shouted something at him but Jean did not get to hear it. Stumpy was already running down the hall and firing his pistols like a madman. Jean followed, pistol outstretched in a quivering grip. The former drug dealer struggled to focus as the crushing pressure of terror drove his vision to a tiny tunnel. The blood roared in his ears and his eyes darted left and right looking for danger or cover with equal intensity.

  He found precious little of either. He did see several men in uniforms fleeing before the singular ferocity of one bow-legged engineer and his brace of pistols. Stumpy had not shot any of them yet, but ricochets and orange explosions of shattered ceramic beat the defenders back with a fiery percussive tattoo. Jean had no idea what he was supposed to do, but he dived for the scant cover of a shallow alcove and raised the enormous gun to add his fire to Stumpy’s. That is when he saw the engineer stumble. Something must have tangled his boots because Stumpy pitched forward with arms outstretched and face gaping in confused horror. When he struck the deck, both his guns clattered out of his hands to slide many feet away. In an instant, the two men he had been chasing turned. Jean could not see the expressions in their helmeted faces, but both rifles rose and the eagerness to take advantage of their good fortune was easily seen in their body language.

  Time seemed to slow down for Jean Marceau. Stumpy’s frantic scramble to regain his feet looked like an overweight child trying to do a push-up. The two uniformed guards appeared to be gloating as they moved forward like blue-clad mimes to ensure an easy kill shot. Jean felt as if his whole body was encased in amber. He could see everything happening but he could not make himself move. His arms became unyielding wood, the pistol in his hand a dead lead weight, his feet melting into the coldest and softest clay.

  Time stopped.

  Jean’s muscles were weak, unthinking, unmoving. All his body trembled, held prisoner by his distorted perceptions. Nothing would move except his index finger. And move it did, as if by its own accord.

  When the Colt Dragoon went off, it belched a blast of flame and heat that seared purple and orange starbursts onto Jean’s eyes. The eight-millimeter slug, a blunt cylinder of aluminum with a depleted uranium core, emerged from the muzzle at fifteen times the speed of sound. Three-hundred-and-sixty grains of metal, glowing white-hot from friction, entered the first guard where his hip met his crotch and blew most of his leg clear of the body. This meager obstruction sapped only a small portion of the projectile’s kinetic energy and the slug continued onward to shatter the armored chest plate of the other guard. Like the previous obstacle, passing through the armor cost only a portion of the energy available. Now tumbling, the two-inch slug spun and spalled into and through the chest of that hapless man before erupting out his back in a gory geyser of blood, bone, and pulped organ matter.

  Jean watched both men fall to the floor in a fugue state of combined horror and fascination. He soon realized that his hand was in a lot of pain, and that he was gripping his gun so tightly his wrist ached. The weapon had burned his fingers as it went off, and the dull ache in his palm told him that the recoil had to have been enormous. He did not recall feeling it.

  Then a noise, tinny and distant, could be heard scratching at the edge of his precarious consciousness. Stumpy had a hold
of his shoulder and was hauling him upright. The pirate’s ruddy cheeks seemed a touch paler than usual, and his voice was hoarse.

  “Nice fucking shot, man!”

  Jean supposed that it was.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  It took Lucia and Sam Parker a full day to get all the permits in order for their trip to Enterprise Station. Manny needed better armor and a shotgun, and his past as a Venusian terrorist presented a real obstacle to securing one legally. Technically, Manuel Richardson had no criminal record. He had never been caught or prosecuted for any of the things his former masters had made him do. Even without a record, Manny was still a known person of interest in several crimes and his name came up on multiple government watch lists. Sam Parker was a good detective and his code of ethics was only so flexible. Any application Manny filed for a weapons permit was likely to bring a kind of scrutiny to their mission that it did not need. Maddeningly to all involved, the actual procuring of the weapon was simplicity itself. Dockside was home to a multitude of gun runners and smugglers and the youth was spoiled for choice when it came time to make a selection. Getting the thing onto a shuttle on the other hand was looking to be quite problematic.