Alastair (Ghosts of Ophidian Book 2)

by Scott McElhaney

  He opened the silver door to a medical lab of some sort. Theo only took one step in before he gasped and tried to turn back. Mutt blocked the door behind them. Jill screamed, then tucked her face into Theo’s shoulder.

  “This was my co-pilot. He went by ‘Stinger’ though in the last few days, he’d been insisting we call him Plea. Didn’t think much of it, really,” he said, ambling over to the bloody corpse lying on the surgery table.

  “I don’t have a strong stomach, Mutt,” Theo said, “Do we have to stay in here with this dead body?”

  “I’m sorry. That was very inconsiderate of me,” he said, drawing a blanket over the body, “Please, Miss Jill. I only meant to show you his head anyway.”

  She peered out and saw that the body was now covered. Mutt smiled at her apologetically.

  “Take a look at this,” he said, reaching over to the corpse’s head and twisting it, “What do you see at the back of the head?”

  Theo immediately saw something shiny beneath the hair. Mutt drew the hair away and revealed a copper-colored object imbedded into the man’s head, right about where the spine would meet the skull.

  “It’s a metal plug drilled into his skull with a neat little removable computer right here,” he said, pressing the center of the circular plug.

  A white and silver tube no more than an inch long dropped into Mutt’s hand. Jill shuddered as she did the calculations in her own head, realizing how far into the skull that white thing must have been.

  “My friend Stinger never had this plug in his head before. I know it for a fact because we used to go swimming together after a good workout,” he said, reinserting the unit back into the copper plug, “Do you know where we discovered similar plugs in people’s heads?”

  “That Ophidian ship a long time ago,” Theo muttered, hoping the captain would disagree.

  Mutt nodded.

  “Those heroes, Steele and Crossway, gave us the whole story several years later after they settled on the planet we now call Ophidian. That race was once enslaved by a dangerous species of alien called what?” he said, drawing the blanket over the corpse’s head.

  “The Gods of Pli,” Jill said.

  “And all of a sudden, Stinger was telling us he wanted to be called Pli,” Mutt said, drawing a folded sheet of paper out of his pocket.

  He unfolded the paper and handed it to Theo.

  “Would you mind reading for me the name of the person who recommended you two for duty aboard my ship?” he asked.

  Theo scanned the paper and found the name.

  “Pli? No, I typed Blee,” Theo replied, “The bum who dealt the drugs on twenty-six.”

  “Did anyone ask you who ‘Blee’ was?” Mutt asked.

  “Yes, the Earth Relations guy,” Jill replied, “He called me the next day to ask. I literally replied ‘the bum on twenty-six’.”

  Mutt nodded and patted Theo on the shoulder.

  “Someone corrected your request form,” Mutt said, “I hope this explains our precautions a bit and earns us some forgiveness from the both of you.”

  “The sheol weed is coming from the Gods of Pli,” Jill thought aloud, “His hair would have covered up a plug like Stinger’s.”

  “Listen, I’m just glad to know we picked up a couple of humans and if it’s all the same to you, I’d prefer we just carry on like we all intended,” Mutt said, leading the way out of the lab, “I offer you two a temporary but manageable berthing with two comfortable mattresses, three meals a day, and three credits a week to spend however you like. It’s not much considering the work we need done in the kitchen, but it’s the price we charge for taking you to Pli with us.”

  “W-we’re going to the enemy?” Jill gasped.

  “Isn’t that where you intended to go? You said you wanted to chase down some answers and find what happened to your brother,” Mutt said, “I mean, where did you think we were going?”

  “But, we’re going to them? To their front door?” Jill asked.

  “No, not to their front door,” he chuckled, “I plan on finding another entrance if I can.”

  Twelve

  The ship turned out to be nothing of the freighter for which it was classified. While it may have been designed as a freighter and used for that purpose for two decades, it was now flying under a false flag. The cargo hold, which should have taken up three quarters of the ship’s interior, was cut down to half its size, as it needed to be converted to support a crew of three hundred instead of thirty. The extra crew was needed in order to fly or offer support to the fifty heavily armed attack craft hidden in the cargo bay.

  Mutt led them across the catwalks of the false cargo hold, which now resembled something of a hangar bay, bragging proudly about the adjustments that had been made to the freighter. He was like a child showing off his new toy.

  “Did they deliver our bags to our rooms?” Jill asked as they were led back into the main portion of the ship.

  “Space is limited as I’m sure you can appreciate,” he said, “And until we can manage with a smaller crew, we need the two of you reside in the dry goods storage. Before you get upset, this is something that happens often in the merchant fleet. I’ve got a half dozen currently bunking in the aft laundry. If you carry too large a crew, cots are either set up in the quietest rooms or mattresses are tossed on empty shelves in the storage rooms. Most will agree that the shelves make a much better bed than the foldable cots. Besides, storage rooms are quieter at night.

  “Now, I know that brothers and sisters don’t always get along and I know they definitely don’t want to share a room with each other. And privacy is a coveted thing in space, but for now, it’s all we have to offer. And to answer your question from earlier, yes, your bags are in your room.”

  Theo and Jill shared a look, but neither of them spoke. Theo realized in that moment that the leadership had probably accepted them onto their crew believing that they were brother and sister. To reveal the truth now could pose a problem. He could see in Jill’s eyes that she realized the same thing.

  Mutt brought them to the room labeled “Dry Storage” and handed them each a map as he began leading them through the tightly packed storeroom. He explained how to navigate the maze of passageways throughout the ship and how to locate the back entrance to the kitchen. Although lunch would be served in a half hour, they would not be required to report for duty until the dinner shift. Then starting tomorrow, their shifts would go from 6am to 7:30pm everyday with plenty of spare time between meals to do whatever they wished. On average, Mutt said, the job titled “Cleanup” could expect about two hours of free time between breakfast and lunch, and two hours of free time between lunch and dinner, so the schedule wasn’t as bad as it appeared at first glance.

  He led them around a labyrinth of crates and boxes and then finally to the back of the dimly lit storeroom where there indeed were two very sturdy shelves that supported mattresses. The floor-level shelf displayed some industrial-size jars of mustard and mayonnaise. The shelf above the condiments held a thick mattress with a set of folded sheets, a pillow, and two blankets. There would not be enough space to sit up on the bed without hitting one’s head on the shelf above it. The next shelf, nearly five or six feet above the floor, held the other unmade bed. They were faced with a set of bunk beds carved into a wall of canned and jarred foods.

  Mutt pointed out their duffel bags on the floor and offered them a plastic pail to use as a chamber pot through the night. There was a bathroom conveniently located across the hall from the storage room, but like the rest of the ship, there would be no distinguishing between “men’s” and “women’s”. Bathroom privacy on a merchant liner came in the form of private stalls and private showers all located within a shared bathroom.

  “I’m guessing you’re a little concerned over the blurred border between the sexes on this ship. The merchant fleet is known for issuing… shall I say, a somewhat more brutal form of justice than what you may be accustomed to. There is a mutual respect for one
another that you’ll quickly notice aboard any merchant vessel,” he grinned, “We do not discourage relationships and as a matter of fact, we celebrate them. But when it comes to those unwanted advances, lewd comments, or… worse… well, let me just say that the merchant fleet has been known to castrate rapists while they are awake and alert. The merchant fleet has a reputation for permitting the criminal to live in order to fully experience the future they are left with. I’ll leave the details to your imagination.”

  “Ouch,” Theo flinched.

  Mutt nodded with a knowing grin, then reminded them to report to the kitchen at 4:30. He gave a mock salute, then left them to their new quarters. Theo looked down at the map and then placed it on the upper bunk.

  “It looks like we won’t be staying in the first class suite,” Theo said, gently kicking the pail

  “I wish we could contact our families already and tell them that we will definitely be returning with bad news,” she said, already beginning to unpack some of her clothing, “Why make them wait?”

  “I’m afraid to ask if we’d be allowed to send out a communiqué, especially since I probably know the answer already.”

  He started past her to begin unpacking his own stuff, but she slipped an arm around his waist and pulled him to her. He kissed her, then held her to him.

  “It was me that stated we were siblings,” she said, “I was afraid of the off chance that they would put us on separate ships.”

  “Well, this worked out a lot better than you probably expected,” he chuckled, kissing the side of her head, “It might not be the best living arrangements, but I could imagine worse.”

  “Me too,” she leaned her head on his chest.

  Thirteen

  There were two types of kitchen jobs on a ship that were categorized as “Cleanup.” One referred to the job of cleaning up after the cooks and the other referred to the job of cleaning up after the crew. The slang title for the one who had to clean up after the cooks was “Pots and Pans” whereas the one who cleaned up after the crew got the obscure and mysterious title of “Scullery.”

  Theo was given the duty “Pots and Pans” which required a lot more manual labor than that of “Scullery”. His job would require he manually scrub everything that made its way from the kitchen, while Jill would work in the scullery with an assembly line automatic dishwasher. She merely needed to load the trays with plates, cups, and silverware, then place the tray on a conveyor that would take them through the monstrous cleaning machine.

  Beyond that, their duties also required the cleaning of the sinks and the counters they used in the process of performing their jobs. They each received about fifteen minutes of training, then were left to their stations. The scullery was also the name for the room where Jill worked. Theo’s station was in an offshoot of the scullery that had a direct attachment to the kitchen. He could see into the scullery through the open doorway and he could see into the kitchen through the three-foot opening in the wall that led directly to his countertop. The kitchen workers only needed to toss their pans and utensils into the hole in the wall that led right to Theo’s sink.

  “Well, it beats working in Waste Treatment,” Jill said from the doorway.

  Theo was busy scrubbing something black off the sides of a giant baking pan. He turned to her just as three more pots were placed on his counter.

  “Hey, shouldn’t you be working?” he joked.

  “People are just now coming in to the mess hall to eat. I don’t have any dirty dishes yet,” she said.

  “Enjoy it while you can,” he said, “I’ll be poking fun at you when I’m done later and you’re still cleaning up after the stragglers.”

  He grabbed one of the wire brushes hanging in front of him and tried that on the baking pan.

  “Mrs. Strong seemed nice,” Jill said, “Don’t you agree?”

  “What you’re really asking is, did I notice those high cheekbones, those full lips, and her six-foot tall model-like appearance?”

  “Theo!” Jill laughed.

  “I know you were watching me the whole time she led us around the kitchen and the mess hall,” he chuckled, rinsing the pan he’d been working on, “Not to worry, Jill. That overlay of cosmetics didn’t fully conceal the crow’s feet at her eyes and the creases around her mouth. I’d say that supermodel of a chef is in firm denial of her fortieth birthday. I’d guess that she’s been thirty-nine for a few years now.”

  “Wow, you really did spend some time on the chief cook,” Jill teased.

  “She’s an anomaly, Jill. Of course I had to investigate. In what universe does a cook look like a tall, thin supermodel?” he asked, “And no, she’s got nothing on you. Your hair is longer and shimmers when the light hits it. Your eyes are angled in such a way that I can’t put words to why I find myself having to stare at them. Your blue eyes are like liquid pools of Neptunium water if such a thing existed. And I really don’t know why, but your lips remind me of the sweet cherries I used to-”

  He suddenly felt Jill’s arms wrapped around his stomach as she hugged him from behind. He smiled, then patted her hands with his rubber-gloved hand.

  “Thank you,” she whispered against him, “You’ve said enough.”

  “I had a lot more to list,” he said.

  “Well, I heard there’s an arcade just down the passageway from here and it’s open late. How about we both share some things we like about each other while we spend some time killing the other’s avatar at ‘Combat Zone 4’. And yes, I already verified they have it,” she said, “To think that we’ve been asking for that game for almost a year now and this ugly freighter has had three units for several months now!”

  “I’ll definitely take you up on that. I don’t think I’ve killed you since last week. I wonder if they have ‘Defender Vessel 2’. I heard it has smarter enemies and the ships maneuver much better than DV-one,” he said.

  The clanging sound of plates and silverware rang from the direction of the scullery. She punched him lightly in the back.

  “You won’t be killing me tonight, Noob,” she said as another clash of dinnerware called from the scullery, “Sounds like I’m being beckoned to my workstation.”

  Fourteen

  It was almost eight by the time they finished up and were free to go. They left together even though Theo was done with his duties a half hour earlier than Jill. Mutt had issued two warnings over the intercom in the past hour, reminding everyone that the ship was rapidly accelerating and something called “G-force buffers” were now online and working properly.

  They found the arcade, which indeed was located in the same passageway as the mess hall. For a ship of at least three hundred, the arcade appeared somewhat less popular than they’d expected. Just inside the doorway, they saw a middle-age man seated in the cockpit of a B94 Orbital Bomber well on his way to obliterating an unknown island. Two teenage girls played some unknown face-to-face table game that lit their faces in flashing purple light. On the far side of the arcade, a shadowy figure sat at another unknown game system.

  The arcade probably offered upwards of sixty or seventy gaming units, yet they could only count four patrons at first glance.

  “Keep your eyes peeled for Combat Zone 4,” Theo said as they slowly made their way through the dark room.

  “Over there,” Jill replied.

  A child-like excitement caused them both to run to the black and yellow machine with the two facing seats.

  “They do have it!” Theo said, sitting at one of the seats, “And they have the generation-ten controllers we like!”

  Jill laughed, then sat down at the seat opposite him. While they could readily see each other through the transparent gaming screen that separated them, neither could see the other’s view panel. This was one of the newer gaming screens introduced in Combat Zone 3, which permitted the players to be able to gauge each other’s expressions while not seeing what your enemy was planning to do to you.

  Jill offered an evil grin through the scre
en. Theo replied with a questioning gaze.

  “They have Extrema,” she said, “My favorite avatar and probably the quickest woman in all the galaxy. How many AIs will we have on our teams?”

  “Let’s have five, but we each only get one Commando AI and one Sniper AI,” he said, “I hate it when people go out with a full team of Commandos. That takes all the fun out of it because those guys are unrealistic in their combat skills.”

  “Okay – one of each. Give me a moment to create my squad,” she replied.

  Theo spent a few minutes creating his own squad and arming them as best as he could. The whole time, he was thinking how nice it was to be free of the real deadly mission they were currently on. It was nice to be free of the worries of the Oort Station. It was nice to be free of the drugs that contained backward DNA.

  “I was talking to one of the cooks today and he said that we’ll be travelling at almost 99.9% light speed by this time tomorrow,” Jill said, still focusing on a screen that Theo couldn’t see, “He said that at those speeds, we will bypass a full light year in about three weeks. He said we will progressively increase in those fractions of light speed and that by breakfast of the next day, we will be traveling at 99.999% light speed. And if he’s telling the truth, by then, we will traverse a light year in three days!”

  “Well, how far are we going?” Theo asked, loading a backpack onto his AI Infantryman, “And since when can Earth ships go this fast?”

  “I didn’t ask, but I know we are headed toward the galactic center which he said is about 27,000 light years away. But this isn’t all that far considering that we’ll be going… now let me see if I got this… 99.999999% the speed of light by the weekend. At that rate of speed, and with the continued increase, we will reach our destination in only about a month,” she said.

  “27,000…” Theo repeated.