by Ethan Bibile
“Thank you,” Morgan said, smiling gratefully at Quinn. “It feels good to still have an overview of the Audion yet be in this body at the same time,” Quinn wasn’t sure if he was used to having Morgan being in a robotic body now and he wasn’t sure if Morgan was used to it, having had been an A.I for so long. Then again, it had only been a week since Morgan had been installed into the robot body.
“Everything is all good?” Quinn asked, hands in pockets as the two left the room and began walking down the hallway. “In the ship, I mean.”
“All systems are functioning to their fullest,” Morgan replied, smiling. The two made their way into the lounge room, before ascending the stairs up to the cockpit.
“I’m glad to hear that, I’ve been worried that my engineering skills aren’t the best and the engine will explode or something,” Quinn shrugged. “I didn’t really do the best job on the heat shield. I mean, it’s fine, obviously, but it wouldn’t surprise me if it, you know,” Quinn made an outwards gesture with his hands, creating a circle that got bigger and bigger, also making an explosion noise.
The Audion was simply floating through space, no direction of where to go. Laura was off somewhere on the ship, most likely in her room.
Quinn pressed a button and the cockpit window turned into the large screen. He closed the video game that had popped up upon startup as he had been playing it earlier that day.
“Well, how about another round of chess?” Quinn asked, clapping his hands together, turning around to look at Morgan. “Perhaps I can beat you,” Morgan laughed at this comment from Quinn.
“Quinn, I can analyse the game and apply your previous play strategies to figure out what move you shall make next,” Morgan boasted, despite Quinn already knowing the fact. This was the lecture he received every time he challenged Morgan to a game of chess.
“Ah, you might have that Morgan, but I have something you don’t,” Quinn smiled proudly as he launched the virtual game of chess.
“And what might that be?”
“Optimism!” Quinn said, raising an eyebrow to a disgruntled Morgan.
Suddenly Quinn was interrupted from beginning the game of chess as a virtual notification appeared at the top of the screen. Quinn looked up at it, his eyes scanning over the words. As he read through the notification, he widened his eyes and his mouth began to spread out into a grin.
“Quinn,” Morgan said suddenly, turning to look at his friend. “It’s the files, they’ve-”
“Yeah, I know,” Quinn said, his face full of disbelief now, not sure what to make of the situation. “The files have been decoded.”
Quinn began to quickly navigate his way throughout the computer system until he found the folder he had taken from the pirates. The file that contained all the precious information on Agross. He opened up the computer folder and he found himself staring at file after file after file of information on Agross.
“There’s so much,” Quinn said, he looked at the information on the folder, which said it contained fifteen files about Agross. Fifteen whole files. The number fifteen wasn’t exceptionally high. But when you’ve been searching for information on someone for months and come up with nothing, fifteen is a lot.
Quinn began opening files, his eyes scanning over everything. This information was enough for him, enough for what he wanted. There was nothing on the Time and Space Protection Agency, but he was fine with that.
The files contained things such as delivery dates for the prisoners Aboan had captured, something about how it was none of the pirate’s business as to what Agross needed these prisoners for. Something about what entrance of the ‘evil lair’ to deliver them to. Then Quinn struck gold.
“There’s coordinates!” Quinn cried out, clapping his hands together in delight. “Coordinates to a delivery point! Hang on, I’ll put them into the navigator…” Quinn did so, entering the numbers that created the space coordinates of the delivery point. A point at which Quinn hoped Agross would be at.
Despite feeling glad that Agross’s position was in his grasp, he could feel the hatred burning down inside his stomach. Hatred for the man who had killed his family destroyed his home and taken his whole universe away from him.
“It’s quite a bit away,” Quinn said, his face neutral as he looked at the distance between him and the delivery point. “Light years away, but we should be able to easily make it there in a few days,” Quinn said, but the unfolding of his plan was stopped by Morgan.
“Quinn, we cannot just go to Agross’ base,” Morgan reasoned, his metallic voice entering Quinn’s ears, filling them with information he didn’t want to hear. “We need to talk about this, as a group. I’ll go get Laura,” Morgan said.
Quinn covered his face in his hands as Morgan left the room, managing to exit rather quietly despite being a heavy assortment of metal.
Sure, he had been initially excited at finding so much information on Agross after months of nothing. Yet now, would it even amount to anything? Morgan, he was the rational one, he always had been, and he always would be. Of course, he was arguing about going to face Agross, he had never really fully been on board with searching for Agross and T.A.S.P.A. Then there was Laura. He knew her well enough, but she wasn’t the optimist that Quinn was or the realist that Morgan was. She could go either way, and Quinn dreaded the way he thought this vote might go.
“They’ve been decoded?” Laura asked, stunned as she and Morgan entered the cockpit. Laura came up next to Quinn who was still seated. Morgan stood behind her. Laura looked at the files, briefly going in and out of each one. “Quinn, this is great,” Laura said, standing up straight, a smile of disbelief on her face too. Quinn could feel his hopes raising with Laura’s promising expression.
“Yes, the files have been decoded,” Morgan said, his arms crossed, Quinn and Laura both turned to look at him. Morgan glared at the files. “And now that we have a potential location for Agross, Quinn wants to go there,” Morgan informed Laura, glaring straight at Quinn.
“You actually want to go there?” Laura asked, her voice full of disbelief.
“What?” Quinn asked, astounded as his hope shrunk. “Your siding with him?” Quinn looked at Laura, before turning to Morgan. “We’ve been searching for months and now out of nowhere is the information we have both been looking for, information that I nearly died getting!” Quinn’s voice had risen to a yell, and he had stood up from his seat.
“If the situation where you got the information from was treacherous, then how do you think storming Agross’ fortress will go about?” Morgan retorted back, his voice raised as well. Laura looked from Quinn to Morgan as each of them took their turn to speak.
“I’ll take my chances, Morgan, he killed them. I saw my Mum, my Dad and my little sister die in front of my eyes!” Quinn yelled. “He destroyed my home and threw the both of us into what is like a different universe!”
“He will kill you,” Morgan said sternly, emphasizing each word. “You saw what he could do on Nespritia, you’ve heard the stories in this time too! Quinn, if you fight him he will kill you,” Morgan’s voice was lowered, trying to reason with his best friend, but Quinn didn’t seem to calm down.
“I thought you were on board with helping me find T.A.S.P.A and Agross,” Quinn said, sounding broken as he shook his head at Morgan like he had betrayed him.
“I’m on board with finding T.A.S.P.A,” Morgan said sternly. “I’m not on board with the three of us committing suicide.”
“Suicide?” Quinn scoffed, furious. “What do you think we’ll be doing at T.A.S.P.A? We’ll be trying to defeat him; the situation will still be dangerous!”
“Yes, but if we join T.A.S.P.A there will be a serious difference,” Morgan said, his expression blank, yet Quinn could tell that among his coding he was mad at Quinn, just as he was in return.
“Oh yeah? And what will that be,” Quinn said, almost sarcastically.
“They’ll train us, and we’ll be working with experts. Right now, we’re ju
st a group of inexperienced people. The most we’ve done is compete in Nultagna and fight a bunch of pirates which I don’t think even can compare to fighting Agross!”
Quinn sometimes hated it when Morgan stated the explicit truth.
“Morgan, please,” Quinn begged, his voice died down as he said so. “We can fight him, we can beat him.”
“Why don’t we vote,” Morgan said, not changing his glare at Quinn. “All in favour of going to Agross.”
Quinn put his hand up straight away, staring directly at Morgan as he did so. He shifted his gaze over to Laura, who seemed to be having some sort of internal struggle. She looked at him, then turned her blue eyes away from his brown ones as she saw them pleading with her. Quinn’s hope dropped at she didn’t put her had up.
“Those in favour of not going,” Morgan said as he put his hand up. Slowly, Laura put her hand up too, ignoring the begging look Quinn was giving her.
“A vote is a vote,” Morgan said in his metallic voice. He dropped his arms so he wasn’t crossing them over his chest anymore. He went over to Quinn and patted him on the shoulder, before leaving the room. Quinn turned to Laura, who looked up at him, almost guilty. Quinn could see why she had voted against fighting Agross.
“You heard Morgan,” Laura said. “It’s what’s best,” She grabbed Quinn’s hand softly for a moment, before giving a reassuring squeeze, which seemed to convey that she was sorry, and she was only doing what she thought was best for him. She dropped his hand and without looking at him left the room.
Quinn stood still for several moments after Laura had left the room. He sighed to himself, running a hand through his hair. He flopped down into the Captain’s chair, staring almost lazily at the files. Quinn slowly closed them. That brought him to another screen, which had the directions to Agross’ lair upon it.
Quinn’s mind ticked furiously away. He realised that the hope wasn’t dead and that he really was the eternal optimist, even if it could be his downfall.
Quinn began his plan to defy the vote against him that very night. Agross’ place was only a few light years away. At the fastest time, if he flew there nonstop he would be there in three days. But because he could only fly at night, he calculated he would roughly be there in a week.
Luckily, Morgan slept as his body needed to recharge. If Quinn’s hadn’t installed him into the robotic body and he was still the ships A.I, this plan would certainly fail.
Once Laura and Morgan had gone to bed each night, Quinn would sneak up to the cockpit and turn on the engines. They sounded incredibly loud in the dead silence of the Audion, not him, Morgan or Laura to make a sound to cover it up this time. He would fly the Audion crossing his fingers that his two friends wouldn’t wake up. Luckily his wish was answered as the two never woke up at all.
Throughout the day, Quinn managed to sneak in some flying time, yet he was incredibly cautious. The three of them also hadn’t been able to visit any sort of planet at all. Whenever Laura or Morgan mentioned it Quinn would do his best to beat down the idea without raising any suspicion. If they went to a planet, Morgan would probably plot the course. If he did that then he would realize the ship had been moving through the night. Morgan was light years away from stupid, and he would quickly figure out where Quinn was secretly heading. Lucky for Quinn though, Morgan hadn’t realised where they were headed.
Quinn knew he was close as his eighth day of flying approached. Yes, his calculations were off, but Morgan was better at this stuff than he was.
Quinn tried to navigate his way through the day without raising suspicion from the pair, especially Morgan. He was so close to succeeding, and if he failed now it would be devastating.
The night was approaching, and Quinn could feel nerves running through his body. Eventually, he had bid Laura and Morgan a good night, before sneaking up to the cockpit. He seated himself down and turned on the engines, wincing as he did so. After waiting a couple of seconds to hear if there was any movement from the rooms on the first floor. When the only noise he heard was the hum of the engine, Quinn began flying the Audion through the final path of his journey.
Like everything else, Agross’ base started off as a small, black dot off in the distance. Quinn continued flying closer and closer, his heart beating faster and faster as he approached until the base was finally large enough for him to get a good view.
Agross’ space station was absolutely massive. The bottom of the base was a huge circle, probably able to fit hundreds of Audion sized ships inside and still have plenty of room. Where the top of the huge space station should have been flat, it curved up to form a spike as the roof. Mini platforms that Quinn could only just make out were everywhere. There were four hangar doors spread around on the sides of the base. There were small, dark tinted ladders and rungs surrounding the space station so that people could most likely provide work upon the space station. Satellites adorned the stop of the giant circle.
As Quinn flew forward, he could feel the anger building up inside his body, almost threatening to explode from within him. Here it was, the forsaken place of the man who took everything away from him. Quinn’s breathing became ragged. He was terrified yet wanted to move on at the same time.
As Quinn approached, he found it quite strange that he wasn’t attacked by any guns or missiles. He was sure the Audion could withstand a few hits before he managed to escape. But no attack came at him as he tried to find somewhere to non-suspiciously park his ship on the base so that he could sneak inside.
During his nights of flying, Quinn had managed to devise a plan to get into the evil lair. For the pirate ship he had managed to take down, the timetabled deliveries were at least once every few weeks. The timetable was only for the ship he had found, but he guessed that by the size of the place, Agross had hired other pirates to deliver prisoners to him for whatever reason as well. If he waited by one of the hangars until a pirate ship entered to deliver their cargo load of prisoners, he could gain access to the space station’s interior where he would be granted the opportunity he needed to find Agross.
Quinn flew around the space station for a good twenty minutes and in these twenty minutes, he only circled the place three times. His eyes scanned everywhere for some sort of hiding spot on the exterior of the thing for an entire spaceship. His previous hope of hiding the Audion on the outside of the base had been very low, but upon seeing the sheer size of the space station, Quinn’s hopes inflated.
After the twenty minutes of searching, Quinn noticed purposeful inbuilt dents on each side of the huge hangar doors. He navigated his ship into one of the dents and landed it there without any worry. He then quickly turned the engine off so that there was minimal chance of Laura and Morgan being woken.
Quinn went out into the cargo room and stood there for a second. What if there was no oxygen field around the space station? This would certainly lead to him suffocating and dying, alone and out in the cold universe. He couldn’t ask Morgan to do an atmospheric check. He’d put a stop to his plans straight away. Quinn was going to have to brave it.
Quinn pressed the button that opened the cargo room ramp, which began descending, but not before he had taken a huge breath in.
Quinn walked out onto the exterior of the space station and began to let the oxygen detract from his lungs. Quinn didn’t stray too far from the Audion, so if there was no oxygen field he could run back into the ship. Luckily for him, there was an oxygen field.
Quinn stepped out fully, withdrawing from hanging around the Audion. He slowly stepped forward onto the incredibly smooth, grey material that made up the outside of Agross’ base. It was a material Quinn had never come across before. Quinn walked around the Audion and across the length of the purposeful indent on the side of the space station. He made his way to the edge, and he could see the huge hangar doors, which were constructed of metal. Quinn looked around, hoping for some sort of staircase down to the bottom of the hangar door, but there was none. Quinn sighed to himself. He was going to have to ma
ke something up once a pirate ship came floating along.
Quinn sat down, gun in hand and ready for anything.
Nothing happened during Quinn’s first night of waiting. He simply sat there, waiting for a ship that didn’t end up coming at all. Once his watch told him it was four in the morning he returned to the warm, cosy interior of the Audion. He made sure to spend about an hour flying away from Agross’s base so that Laura and Morgan didn’t have to simply look out the window to find out where he had been.
Quinn returned to Agross’ base the next night, waiting again for a ship that never came. He repeated this on the third night as well, his waiting providing the same results. It wasn’t until the fourth night, however, that something happened.
Quinn was simply sitting in the dent, waiting in silence for a ship as he always seemed to do. He looked up, breaking his train of thought when he noticed a small moving object far off in the distance.
“Please be a ship,” Quinn begged, crossing his fingers in hope. He stood up, gun in one hand and ready for a fight if it came down to that. He waited whilst the dot moved closer, coming towards the base. Quinn could feel his heart pounding as he realised that it was a pirate ship.
This ship wasn’t as big as Aboan’s ship had been, but it was still bigger than the Audion. Its engine layout was the same, thrusters upon the bottom of the ship and a giant wind turbine that blew at the black sails. Instead of light and dark brown wood planks to make up the exterior body of the ship, it was made from a maroon wood and black sails.
Quinn crouched in the shadows, hoping that he wasn’t seen by the pirates who were aboard the deck. As the ship approached, Quinn noticed that they all seemed to be too busy pulling ropes, climbing the mast and what not to even notice him or the Audion.