Renegade Atlas

by J. N. Chaney

“What is it, kid?” I threw some pants on, grabbing my shirt.

  “Open up!”

  I groaned as I got my shoes on, then hit the control by the door.

  She was standing there was a grin on her face, twisting left and right, with a foot off the floor. “Um, what are you doing?”

  “Nothing. What do you want?” I asked.

  “Um.”

  “Spit it out,” I told her.

  “Can I have a, um,” she looked at the floor. “Can I have a piece of candy?”

  “Candy? Is that why you’re here?” I pulled open my desk drawer and retrieved a few pieces of hard sweets. “Sure thing.”

  Her eyes lit up when she saw them. “You mean it?!”

  I tossed one of them to her, bubblegum flavor. “Enjoy.”

  “Wow, thanks!” she unwrapped it as quickly as her little hands would allow.

  I grabbed my holster and pistol, strapped them around my chest and waist, and made sure they were secure.

  “Hey, Mr. Hughes,” said Lex, the hard candy clicking against her teeth. “What’s that smell?”

  I glanced at the bed, which was soaked in whiskey. “Oh, uh, that’s nothing. Don’t worry about it.”

  She wrinkled her nose. “It smells bad. Did something break? What is it?”

  “Nothing, kid. Hey, look here.” I placed a second piece of candy on the table. “Here’s another. Save it for later, or don’t. Just take it and get out of here.”

  She snatched it up with a grin, burying it in her pocket. “Wow, thanks Mr. Hughes!”

  I nudged her to move. “Time to go.”

  We both left the room and I made sure it was secured. “Where’s everyone else?” I asked when we were in the lounge.

  She bit on the candy. Clack clack clack. “Abby and Freddie are playing in the bay. They said I couldn’t stay.”

  “What about Hitchens and Octavia?”

  “They’re in their room with the door locked,” she said.

  Oh boy, I thought. “Who’s supposed to be watching you, then?”

  “Abby said to sit in the lounge but it’s boring here.”

  “So you thought you’d bug me, huh?”

  “Yup!” She grinned.

  I started walking to the cockpit, away from the couches and tables.

  “Are you leaving?” she asked.

  “I told you, I got work—”

  “Me too!” she exclaimed, running after me, coming up to my side.

  I glanced down at her, only to see a smile with a piece of red candy between her teeth. “Whatever. Do what you want,” I said, not caring enough to stop her. “Siggy, what’s the status of the ship? Are we almost out?”

  “Arriving at the next slip gap point in less than two minutes, sir.”

  “As soon as we’re out, activate the cloak,” I ordered.

  “Understood, sir.”

  “What’s a cloak?” asked Lex, curiously.

  I took my seat behind the dash. She did the same, sitting in the copilot chair to my right. “It protects the ship. Keeps us invisible.”

  “Is that so the bad guys don’t find us?”

  I chuckled. “Sure, kid. The bad guys.” I almost told her the truth, that some folks considered me a bad guy. I thieved, killed, and smuggled my way across the galaxy, breaking every law I could in the process. Did that make me bad? Or did it make me a survivor?

  Was there a difference?

  “Are the people in the dark room bad?” she asked, after a moment.

  It took me a second to realize who she was talking about. “Oh, you mean the soldiers, is that it?”

  She nodded.

  “They’re bad,” I said, and kept it at that.

  Truth was, each of those guys might be all right. Maybe deep down, they had a solid moral compass. Who the hell really knew? But they’d come here with an aim to take this girl from us, to steal her away and deliver her to scientists. She had to see them as evil, for her own sake. Maybe then, she’d stay far away.

  The tunnel began to open, a tear forming before us like a nail through cloth.

  But instead of darkness on the other side, I was surprised to find a blinding light, forcing me to shield my eyes.

  “What is that?” asked the little girl beside me.

  “Siggy, analysis,” I said, ignoring the question.

  “It seems this tunnel ends near the inner orbit of a yellow star, classification number 392—”

  “Decrease brightness on the screen by fifty percent.”

  “Acknowledged.”

  The screen dimmed immediately, allowing me to put my hand down, away from my eyes. “How close are we to that thing?”

  “65 million kilometers, approximately,” answered Sigmond.

  I nearly cursed. The closest safe distance a ship like The Renegade Star could get to a star this size was 60 million kilometers. A little more and we might have taken some serious damage to the hull…or worse.

  This was one terrible location for a tunnel to drop out.

  “Give me the next location,” I ordered. Coordinates appeared on my screen. It wasn’t far. Good.

  Another set lit up, surprising me. This one was on the opposite side of the star from our current position.

  “Siggy, what is this?” I asked.

  “I have sent the coordinates for each tunnel appropriate to our two destinations.”

  Two? Oh, right. I’d almost forgotten about the side trip Hitchens wanted to take. “Which one has us following the atlas?”

  “The first coordinates,” answered Sigmond.

  I almost ordered the ship to continue on its present course, to follow the atlas, but in doing so, we’d be stuck with those three hostages, possibly indefinitely. I couldn’t have that. Hitchens, for all his absurdity, had raised a good point.

  “What are we doing?” asked Lex, now on her second piece of candy. Purple, by the look of it.

  “I’m trying to decide where to go,” I said.

  “Which is the right way?” she asked.

  “I don’t know. That’s the whole problem.”

  “Did you ask Abby? She always knows what to tell me when I don’t know.”

  “No offense, kid, but that’s the last thing I want to do right now.” I could still feel the hangover weighing on me.

  “Well, then you gotta decide,” said Lex, cheerily.

  “Kid, it isn’t that simple—”

  “Captain!” screamed a voice from the other side of cockpit door.

  I turned in my seat the second I heard it.

  “Captain Hughes!” It sounded like Freddie.

  I scrambled to my feet and ran out into the lounge, leaving Lex in the cockpit. “What the hell are you screaming about?”

  Freddie nearly collided with me as I entered the lounge. “Captain! We have a serious problem!”

  “Spit it out, then,” I snapped.

  “The prisoners, the Union soldiers, they’re out of their cell and they have Doctor Hitchens!”

  “Stop!” called Octavia from down the hall.

  “Fuck,” I muttered, reaching for my pistol, unholstering it. I looked at Freddie. “Follow!”

  We raced through the corridor toward the cargo bay. I came to a stop near the door, creeping up to the wall. I grabbed Freddie by his shirt and kept him back. “Wait!” I said in a loud whisper.

  He nodded, but I could see the panic in his eyes. Beads of sweat streamed down his cheeks and forehead. The panic was beginning to set in.

  I leaned closer to the edge of the door, trying to eye whatever the hell was going on in there.

  I spotted Abigail first, standing a few meters in front of two of the men. One had Hitchens in a headlock. Docker, by the look of him. The other guy, the same one Abigail had knocked out on the other ship, had a broken piece of pipe in his hand. Part of me wondered where he could have gotten it, but I buried the thought, focusing on the situation.

  Two men, one hostage, no sign of the third, I thought. Abigail’s close enough to s
trike, if I need it. Octavia has to be close, too, but the angle’s no good. She might be under the overhang, beneath the stairs.

  Fuck, there wasn’t enough information. I needed a better vantage point.

  Fast, heavy breathing half-a-meter behind me. Oh, and there’s Freddie, I guess.

  “Let him go and I promise, we won’t kill you,” Abigail told the two Union soldiers.

  “We just want off this ship!” said Docker, trying to keep Hitchens’ head in front of his own. “We don’t want to hurt anyone, but we will if we have to!”

  “If you do,” began Octavia. Her voice seemed to come from beside them, in a place I couldn’t see. “You’ll have given up your only hostage. Is that what you want?”

  “We’ll still have the two of you!” snapped the one whose name I didn’t know.

  “Wrong,” corrected Abigail. “I’d kill you both before you could touch us.”

  He laughed. “You only got the drop on me the first time because I thought you were asleep. You won’t get lucky again!”

  “It wasn’t luck,” she said. “And I really was asleep. If I can do that, half-disorientated and with a beating headache, just imagine how I am now.”

  “Bullshit!” He raised the pipe. “You try anything, I’ll go for the cripple first!”

  I eased my way into the cargo bay’s upper floor, putting my hand out to keep Freddie back. Slowly, I made my way to the back of the railing, overlooking the entire area.

  Abigail noticed me right away, but only gave me a single glance. “Your friend in there had the right idea. You should stay in the cell like he did.”

  “He’s just scared,” said Docker.

  “I’d call it smart,” she answered. “The two of you…not so much.”

  She looked at me again, but only for a second. Long enough to get the message across. Long enough for a signal.

  I aimed my barrel at the one with the pipe, and I pulled the trigger tight.

  The bullet whizzed through the air, sniping him through the jaw, scattering blood and bone against the wall behind him.

  He spun around like a doll, blinking rapidly, and then collapsed, releasing the pipe.

  “Bennett!” screamed Docker.

  “Was that his name?” I asked, stepping down the stairs.

  “How did…where did you…!?”

  “Let him go, Docker,” I cautioned. “Or else.”

  “I…I…”

  “We’ll forget about this if you do what we ask,” said Abigail.

  “Do what they say, you idiot!” called the young ensign, who was still in the cell.

  Octavia was close to his position, behind a few crates, like she’d been trapped there. “Listen to your friend!” she said.

  “If I do, you won’t kill me?” he asked.

  “We might, if you try this again,” I said.

  Abigail looked at me with an expression that told me I should probably stop talking.

  “We won’t hurt you, Docker,” said Abigail.

  He nodded, and began to loosen his grip, but when Abigail started to move, he tightened it again. “Stop!”

  She sighed. “Docker, what are you doing?”

  “I bandaged your side, and this is how you repay me?” asked Octavia.

  “Th-The situation is complicated!”

  Just then, I spotted Freddie on the upper deck, climbing over the railing, three and a half meters from the bottom.

  I turned my head, watching him. “What the f—”

  Before I could finish, he was in the air, falling straight towards Docker. He landed on the man’s shoulders, sending both of them, as well as Hitchens, onto the deck floor.

  Abigail lunged forward, after Hitchens, while I went for Docker. Freddie managed to roll, surprisingly, and got to his feet in seconds.

  As Docker started to rise, I slammed the butt of my pistol into his nose, and he fell again. “Stay the fuck down, you idiot!”

  Fourteen

  I sat beside the open cell with the two men inside. Docker was on his knees with steel cuffs on his wrists and a gag on his mouth, while the ensign stood beside the entrance. “Smart move, not trying to escape. Smarter than your stupid friend back there.”

  “Nnfph,” said Docker.

  “Right,” I agreed. “Very stupid.”

  The ensign nodded. “I knew there was nowhere to go.”

  “See? Smart. Now, stay that way and you’ll get out of this in one piece.”

  “When?” he asked.

  I was surprised by his calm, almost like he wasn’t terrified, like he didn’t really view me as the enemy. “Whenever I say. Just keep quiet and don’t cause me any problems. Do that, and I’ll drop you both off first chance I get.”

  “Do you have any idea where that will be?”

  “Not yet, but the guy Docker had his arm around, Hitchens, he knows a place. Some habitable planet a short slip away.”

  “I understand,” said the ensign. “And I’ll make sure Docker doesn’t try anything again.”

  “Good,” I said. “You’re smarter than you look, kid.”

  “Alphonse,” he corrected.

  “What?”

  “That’s my name. Ensign Alphonse Malloy.”

  His tone was different than before, back when we’d captured him. He was calmer, less frantic, like all the fear in him had drained. Did he think he was safer now, since he’d refused to join his crewmates’ escape attempt, or was there more to it? I had assumed he’d stayed back out of fear, but looking at him now, I wondered if there was more to it.

  “Okay, Alphonse,” I said, giving him a dismissive wave. “Whatever. Just stay put and don’t piss me off.”

  “I won’t cause you any trouble.”

  “It’s no trouble for me,” I said, stepping back from the cell. “You’re the one who’ll end up dead.”

  * * *

  I returned to the lounge, walking straight to the fridge. I was thirsty and still hung over, so the only solution was a piece of kessil. If I was right, I’d find four in the fridge.

  I pulled the door open and bent down, looking on the third shelf. There was a bottle of mustard, two refrigerated dinners, and absolutely no kessil fruit.

  “The hell?” I asked. “Hey!” I raised and turned my head. “Who took my fruit!”

  I heard a slurping sound coming from the sofa. “Sowwy,” said Lex, chewing on one of the kessil. She swallowed, then took another bite.

  I glared at her. “Lex, what is that in your hand?”

  “I dunno,” she said, smiling, trying to play innocent.

  I shut the fridge, burying the fury in my throat as it slowly rose to a killing rage. “Are you sure about that?”

  She scrunched her chin into her shirt, soaking the rim with liquid from the fruit. “I dunno,” she giggled.

  I let out a long sigh, accepting my defeat at the hands of this child. “I’ll be on the bridge.”

  “Can I come?” she asked, leaping off the sofa, the mostly eaten kessil still in her hand.

  Without answering, I walked into the cockpit and shut the door behind me, locking it.

  I collapsed into my seat and tried to get comfortable. I was exhausted and hungover, tired of dealing with all this bullshit. Maybe a nap in here would do me good, but only if everyone left me—

  “Sir, I hate to intrude, but…”

  Goddammit. “What is it now, Siggy? Have you come to betray me, too?”

  “Heavens no, sir. I would never dream of such a thing. I simply wanted to inform you that you have yet to provide our next destination.”

  “Destination?” I asked.

  “We need to choose a route. Do you not recall our last conversation? It was just before the interruption involving Mr. Frederick Shiggorath.”

  Oh, right, I thought. With all the insanity in the cargo bay, not to mention the catastrophic loss of my kessil, I’d completely forgotten about the two slip tunnels.

  “Shall I continue forward, per our original path?” asked Si
gmond.

  “No, we’re taking the other one. The one Hitchens gave us. The detour.”

  “Understood. Proceeding with new destination. Star system X1-20-5519.”

  “Sounds like a wonderful place with amazing people,” I said.

  “I wouldn’t know, sir, but I should hope that it is.”

  “Me too, Siggy.” I leaned back, propping my feet on the console and closing my eyes. “Me too.”

  * * *

  The tunnel took six hours to cross. I slept through most of it. When I finally opened my eyes, I felt better than I had in days.

  “Siggy,” I muttered, licking my lips and wishing I had some water.

  “Yes, sir?”

  “The next time I’m drinking straight whiskey in the middle of the night, remind me how awful the last time was, would you?”

  “Of course, sir.”

  I leaned forward, rubbing the grime from my eyes, and blinked, trying to focus. We’d just entered normal space again, having left the tunnel behind. According to the map, we were in the X1-20-5519 system. There was one planet, waiting in the goldilocks zone, three smaller planetoids in deep orbit, and a few hundred asteroids. Hardly the kind of place you’d want to visit, but it would do fine for unloading prisoners.

  I entered a command to bring us closer to the planet, then set us in a stable orbit. “Cloak the ship,” I ordered. “Hopefully, this doesn’t take us long.”

  “Shall I begin landing procedures, sir?”

  “Go ahead,” I said, getting up from my chair. I tapped the Foxy Stardust bobblehead as I did, letting it bounce chaotically while I left the cockpit.

  “Captain,” said Freddie, who was sitting with Abigail. “Have you been on the bridge this whole time?”

  “I had work that needed tending,” I lied. “Are those two soldiers playing nice?”

  “We fed them and left them in their cell,” said Abigail. “They should still be alive in there.”

  “Either way, we’re at the system Hitchens gave me, so we can finally get rid of them. You two think you can help me get them on the shuttle?”

  “With pleasure,” said Abigail.

  “I’ll be happy to help,” said Freddie.

  “I bet you would,” I smirked. “Just don’t jump on anyone this time, if you can help it.”

  He gave us an embarrassed smile. “I was only trying to help.”

  “And you did,” said Abigail. “We’ll have to work on your form, though. You could have broken something.”