StarFlight Six - Part 2

Seven months before the attack…

“Come on out,” yelled Captain Wilks, “We know you’re in there.” There was no answer from the crawlspace where the stowaway was hiding, he was getting impatient. “You got the count of three, and then we seal the cargo deck and pump out the air. We’ll just haul your dead carcass outta that hidey hold of yours and dump it out the airlock. No one back home knows you’re here and none of us will miss your sorry ass.” There was still no sound from the crawlspace. “One … two … th…”

“Wait!” A voice yelled from within the depths of the crawlspace. It was followed by the sounds of someone moving towards the hatch. The head of a young boy appeared at the opening, streaks of dirt on his face, his clothes filthy from the grime of the crawlspace. Fear already on his face, Kyle froze when he saw six guns pointed at his head.

Beck reached down and grabbed Kyle by the scruff of his neck, dragging him out of the opening. “Looks like we picked up a colony rat boss,” the man said as he pinned the boy to his chest with one of his arms and jammed a pistol in the boy’s back. “What you think should we do with him?”

“What do you think we do with vermin?” Wilks said as he reached over, grabbed a handful of Kyle’s hair, and pulled the boy out of Beck’s grip, “we flush ‘em.” He started dragging the terrified boy towards the airlock who struggled as he realised in horror what the captain intended to do.

“No wait, you can’t do this!” The boy looked around as he tried to twist out of the man’s grip, desperately trying to get away. If he was looking for help, the faces of the other five crew members told him he wouldn’t get any from them. Beck looked like he was enjoying this, taking not a small amount of pleasure from the terror that the captain was inflicting. Tara, and a young man whose name on his ID badge and been scribbled out and replaced with “Ace”, seemed unmoved by what was going on. Only the engineer Casey and the pilot Yolanda seemed concerned, but they didn’t make any moves to interfere.

The airlock opened with a hiss and he was thrown inside, the airlock slamming shut behind him. Kyle threw himself against the door, eyes tearing up. “Don’t do this,” he begged, face pressed up against the small window, “Please, I don’t wanna die.” Wilks just glared at him through glass, his hand hovering over the airlock controls.

Casey came up behind Wilks, out of direct view of the window. “Captain,” he said quietly enough so that only the captain could hear him, “he’s just a kid. Don’t you think that’s enough?”

The captain shrugged and punched the controls, opening the inner airlock dock. He reached in and grabbed Kyle, pulling him out and shoving him back into the middle of the cargo bay, surrounded by the rest of the crew. “All right boy, what’s your name?”

“Kyle sir, Kyle Mitchell,” he managed between gulping breaths, his heart still racing. Kyle glanced at the rest of the crew. Though they had put their guns away he was still intimidated by them; especially the two big guys, Casey and Beck.

“Look at me when I’m talking at you!” The captain barked and Kyle’s head snapped back around to face him. “How old are you?”

“Umm, sixteen.”

Wilks grunted in disbelief. Unless the kid was severely malnourished, which wasn’t out of the question, there was no way he was sixteen. “Try again.”

“Fourteen, and a half,” Kyle admitted.

“Wait up cap,” Beck said, snapping his fingers, “isn’t he that runt from the bar. The one that kept asking all those questions back on Progeon?"

“Yeah,” Tara said, “I think yer right. Didn’t he, like, ask cap for a job or something?”

The captain looked at Kyle with an appraising eye. Now that he actually thought about it, he did recognise the kid. He could remember the boy pestering them with questions as they relaxed in the spaceport bar. Eventually he had asked to join the crew, claiming to be “good with machines” and a hard worker. Before the captain had been able to answer him, the barmen had come over to the table and cuffed his son around the ear, telling him to get back to work and apologised for the interruption.

An idea popped into his head and he smiled inwardly. “Listen up kid, apparently its ‘illegal’ to throw stowaways out of the airlock. However, according to Yolanda here, in about an hour we’ll be far enough away from that backwater colony of yours, and we’ll have enough outward velocity, that your body will never be found.” He took a step forward and jabbed the boy in the chest. “You got that long to convince me that I shouldn’t kick you off my ship until after we get to our destination.”

The captain took hold of Kyle’s arm and half-dragged him across the cargo bay over towards a cargo loader sitting in the corner. The loader resembled a forklift truck except instead of the metal loading fork, the front was dominated by three robotic arms, articulated like industrial assemble robots. The arms were supposed to grab cargo on either side on the bottom; however, from the way wires were dangling out of various access panels, it was clear that the loader was out of action.

“You say you’re good with machines?” The captain said to Kyle as he pressed a tool harness into the boy’s hands. “Prove it, fix this loader within the hour, and I won’t make you suck vacuum.”

Kyle looked at the wreck in front of him; work out what was wrong with the loader and fix it within an hour? They were asking the impossible. However, it wasn’t as if he was being given a choice.

The captain turned to his engineer and pointed at Kyle, “Watch the boy; if he tries anything funny, shoot him. The rest of you get back to work.” Giving Kyle one last amused smirk, Captain Wilks strode out of the cargo bay followed by the rest of his crew. Casey remained behind, leaning against the bulkhead with a hand on his pistol holstered at his side.

“See you in an hour colony rat,” Beck called out over his shoulder, “I’ll make sure to bring some popcorn for your execution.”

Captain Wilks followed Yolanda back to the bridge as the rest of the crew went back to their duties or to their cabins. The pilot sat at the controls with her back to Wilks, silently monitoring their course and flight, making minute adjustment. As the silence stretched on, Wilks could no longer take it. “Okay,” he said, “out with it.”

“I don’t like seeing that side of you,” she said turning around in her seat, “I know you hate stowaways but that was cruel.”

“Oh come on, you didn’t think I was really going to throw the kid out the airlock?” Wilks asked laughing softly. “Fuel, food, air and water all cost money and a non-paying passenger consumes all four. If he wants to stay on board, then he’s going to have to earn his passage to New Yosemite.”

“And terrifying the child by threatening to kill him?”

The captain smiled, “Now he knows that running away to space isn’t some grand adventure out of a vid. He’s just damn lucky that he chose to stow away on this ship rather than on one whose crew would really have tortured or killed him.”

Back in the cargo bay, Kyle sat on the floor in front of the loader. It had been ten minutes since everyone but the big guy with a gun had left the cargo bay. He could feel the man watching him, his eyes boring a hole in the back of his head. “Let’s get to work,” he said to himself, cracking his knuckles. Donning the tool harness, Kyle stood up and moved over to the loader.

Casey watched the boy climb on to the loader, eyes completely focused on the task of repairing the machine. The boy took out a diagnostic tool and began methodically testing the loader’s circuits, looking for any faults. Watching him work, it was clear to the engineer that he boy knew what he was doing; that what he had said in the bar wasn’t just talk. He might actually be able to do this.

When the boy’s hour was up, Wilks and the rest of the crew returned to the cargo bay. True to his word, Beck had brought along a bag of microwave popcorn. Casey was still leaning against the bulkhead where they had left him. Although he was now drinking a cup of coffee instead of covering the boy with his gun. The cargo loader had been raised up on maintenance jacks and Kyle’s legs stuck out from underneath. Various tools and spare parts were scattered around the floor, as well as a half-finished bottle of soda. “Casey,” the captain said as he saw the drink, “I asked you to watch him, not get him a drink.”

The engineer shrugged. “We were thirsty,” he said by way of explanation.

Wilks walked over to where Kyle was lying under the loader and tapped the boy lightly on the side of the leg with his foot. “Alright, times up.”

Kyle pulled himself out from under the loader. Engine grease was streaked on his clothes, hands and face; making him even filthier than he was before. The boy wiped his hands on the back of his pants and finished off the last of the soda in one gulp. “Actually, I fixed it twenty minutes ago. I decided to fine tune the control systems, increase the tactile feedback from the grabbers and degunk the hydraulic systems.”

The captain looked down at the young boy. “Show me.”

The boy smiled and hopped into the driver’s seat. He quickly punched in the start code and the loader sprung into life, purring like a well-oiled machine. “I told you I was good with machines,” he said with a hint of pride in his voice, “one of the chips in the computer that coordinates the arms had got zapped somehow.” Kyle picked up the remains of a small electronic device, its plastic surface battered and scuffed; it’s back unscrewed to reveal the circuitry inside. Even the captain could tell that it wasn’t part of the loader. “Didn’t have any spares so I used the CPU from my music player to run a temporary bypass. You owe me a new player.”

For several seconds the captain said nothing. He hadn’t expected the boy to be able to fix the machine; he just wanted to give him a good scare. Wilks had to admit, he was actually little impressed. However, it wouldn’t do to let that show. “Okay, so you managed to fix a broken-down loader, you want a medal for it?” The boy shrank back a little in his seat, his confidence shaken. “But, since you did fix it, I can’t very well throw you out the airlock.” Beck groaned. “However this doesn’t mean that you get a free ride to our next port of call. You’re going to have to work to earn your passage.”

“I’ll do anything,” Kyle said eagerly.

“Really? It’ll be hard work, dirty work,” Wilks said, raising an eyebrow and taking in the state of Kyle’s clothes, “although given the state you’re in dirt is something you’re used to.”

“I’m a hard worker, you won’t be disappointed.”

The captain didn’t look convinced. “Hmph, we’ll see. Clean up this mess, get yourself a wash and report to the bridge when you’re done.” With that, he turned and left.

Casey came over to Kyle and clapped him on the back, putting an arm around his shoulders. “Well done kid, I think he likes you. Welcome aboard.”