2. Conversation

En route to Locra. People talk.

The door to the bridge slid open and Owen strode in purposefully. The bridge was relatively small and the main navigation panel was in the center, a few feet from the captain's chair. There was a wide rectangular window at the front and a table covered in warrants and star-charts in the back corner. Tabitha was at the helm, entering coordinates into the system with a furrowed brow. She turned for a split second to acknowledge Owen's arrival.

Owen watched her for a moment. She was a fantastic pilot, he mused, thanking the random twist of fate that had thrown them in the same bar at the same time. She was a fairly new addition to the crew, having only been on Leto for a few months, but there was no doubt in anyone's mind that she belonged on the ship. Tabitha was secretive about her past, but whatever it was, it had hardened her enough for bounty hunting. There was a tribal star tattoo at the base of her neck where it met her collarbone and she refused to explain its meaning. Her hair was a deep amber that had been pulled into a braid that reached to the base of her back. She was a slender woman with much concealed strength that her soft features and blue-gray eyes helped to hide.

Owen's best friend and second in command, the ever-arrogant Leo, was seated comfortably in the captain's chair with his legs crossed. His entire body was angular, amplified by the fact that his limbs were currently spread in every direction. Most people thought he was immature and selfish, but to his credit he possessed a certain loyalty to his crew. He was arguing loudly with the ship's engineer, Jack Lennox.

Jack and Leo were polar opposites in almost every way. Jack had messy brown hair and deep green eyes. His face was kind, set atop an athletic body. He was hard-working and relatively quiet. Leo grated every nerve in his body.

"Captain," Jack said over Leo's straining voice, "I looked at the hyperdrive. Again. I still can't figure out what the hell's wrong with it. I've got a feeling one of the plasma coils is loose, but there's no way for me to check it while we're flying. And even if I could, we're out of extra coils anyway. We're going to have to stop in Locra."

"Well, if we've got to do it, we've got to do it. I'm sure Skylar's got a coil with our name on it. Now that I think about it, that will give me and Max a chance to talk to Victor. Tabby, change course for Locra."

Tabitha punched a few buttons, then set the autopilot so she wouldn't have to sit there bored out of her mind for eighteen hours. She pushed back from the helm and stretched her arms over her head. Turning to Jack, she asked, "Anybody know where Max is?"

Jack shook his head, "No idea. He should be in the armory, but after chasing that scientist all over Algar, you'll probably have better luck checking his bunk first."

Tabitha headed for the door. Crew quarters were on the upper deck with the bridge, so she didn't have all that far to go. Max's room was the last one on the main hall, wedged in between the bulkhead and the staircase. She banged on the door with a loose fist. No response.

She flipped the latch and pushed the door open, using her shoulder as leverage when it got caught. Max was sprawled across his bunk, effectively tangled in a dark blue blanket. His hair was spread across the pillow and his chest was bare, revealing a long, raised scar that traced along the olive skin of his abdomen. He was the only other member of the crew with a tattoo; elaborate Arithian script wound in spirals up both of his arms.

It took Tabitha a moment to notice there was another person in the room. Calin Packard, the youngest person on the ship, an extremely gangly fourteen year old, was asleep in a chair next to the closet with a hand of cards in his fist. Light brown hair shot in all directions. His bony legs were crossed and jutting out in front of him, blocking almost the entire center of the room.

Tabitha delicately stepped over Calin's legs and yanked the pillow out from under Max's head. He stirred, swatting at the air and then turned back over. When it looked like he wasn't going to move again, Tabitha raised the pillow menacingly and brought it down on his head, using it to punctuate her words, "Max. Kendis. Get. Your. Lazy. A*s. Up."

He growled and snatched the pillow from her, then tossed it at Calin, making him jump. "What do you want, Tabby?"

"We're stopping at Locra. Thought I'd warn you," she said innocently.

"Was it absolutely necessary to tell me now?"

Tabitha ignored him and turned to Calin, "You gambling in here again? What would your mother say?"

Calin bit his lip and tossed the cards on the floor. He stomped out of the room, sighing heavily as he brushed past Tabitha.

"You're just a barrel of fun today aren't you?" Max said after Calin left them staring awkwardly at eachother across the room. "And I know you haven't been here long, but don't bring up the kid's mom. Just like we don't bring up Owen and Datia. Just like you don't bring up your tattoo or how you can fly better than any pilot I've ever met.  There is no past on this ship. If there was, there would be no crew."

"Sorry. I didn't know. Can we just play cards?" Tabitha asked as she dropped herself into the chair and began collecting the scattered cards from the floor. Max shifted on the bed as he watched her organize the deck out of the corner of his eye.  She caught him sizing her up and placed the deck back on the table with a smirk.

"Never going to happen," Tabitha mumbled under her breath.

Max laughed as he reached for the cards, "You say that now, but we'll see."

::::::::::

The titanium wall behind his head shook as the hyperdrive sputtered and re-engaged. Once the energy field was stable, the shaking reduced itself to a constant, low hum. Ardeth leaned his head back against the wall, now that it no longer threatened to give him a migraine. The fluorescent lights on the ceiling, however, were an entirely different story. The room was cold, dull, bare. The bench that he was sitting on was the only piece of furniture. There was only one door, and the button could only be accessed outside of the gray room.

Tired of examining his surroundings, Ardeth closed his eyes in a futile search for sleep. Just as it began to seem possible to sleep on a rattling slab of metal, an obnoxious buzzer cut the silence and the door to the room slid open with a swish.

Ardeth examined Owen silently for s moment. He did not sense any evil in the man, yet he was in the brig with his hands bound.

"You know there's a price on your head?" Owen asked.

"I'd noticed," Ardeth replied simply.

"We're stopping in Locra, then dropping you off in Terrandus," Talus continued, "I just have to know. The Consul has asked that you be delivered to him directly. I've never seen that happen before. What could he possibly want from you? You take something?"

At first, Ardeth made no attempt to answer the captain's questions, but after his original hesitation, he replied, "Please. All I ask is that you don't take me back. Not if you care at all about this hellhole of a galaxy."

"I don't. Not particularly. Look, I don't care what you've done or why they want you. But they want you, so you've obviously done something. And for ten thousand carins, I'll march you right up to the Consul myself," Owen said, a sharp edge to his nonchalance.

The captain turned away to leave the brig, but Ardeth stood, drawing his attention back to the prisoner. Ardeth started forward, unsure of his next move. Something in the captain's eyes told him everything he needed too know.

"You're not loyal to the Syndicate. I can see it even in the way you move. Why help them?" he said, "Besides, I'm worth much more than ten thousand carins to them. Or to you."

Owen was a man of logic, of cause and effect. This entire situation seemed off kilter. He was in the brig chatting with a mark. But if Ardeth was telling the truth and there was more money to be had for him elsewhere, the crew would be easily swayed. None of them were very fond of the Syndicate either.

Clenching a fist around his copper pendant, Owen sighed heavily, " Sit," he instructed Ardeth, who immediately obeyed. "Who are you, really? It's obvious your arrogance doesn't become you."

"Neither does much else," Ardeth said, " Though, it's not arrogance so much as it is simple fact. You've seen the warrant, I assume. Ardeth Trier, scientist. To be delivered to the Prime Consul of the Interplanetary Syndicate. What the warrant doesn't say is that I am, or was rather, the senior scientist assigned to the Syndicate Bioengineering Program, and their work will be all but halted if they do not receive me back. But I will not go. I would sooner die."

There was a knock at the doorframe and Tabitha's head appeared around the corner. "Owen, we're coming up on Locra. We should be docking in ten or fifteen minutes."

Tabitha nodded and then was gone as suddenly as she had appeared. Owen turned back to Ardeth as soon as they were alone again and pulled a square, magnetic key from one of his many pockets. He unlocked the chain circling Ardeth's wrists and Artdeth flexed his muscles appreciatively. When the scientist made no move to attack him, Owen dropped the key back into his pocket.

"What does the Consul want with you? Why are you running?" he asked, now genuinely interested.

Ardeth sighed and placed his head in his hands before he began, "You know, at first I thought I was helping people. When they recruited me, my research was curing diseases, eradicating dangerous genetic flaws, strengthening resistance to problems I couldn't cure. Every time my team and I made a new breakthrough, the Consul wanted more. I never knew what a small step it was from there to the search for genetic perfection. There are a number of reasons eugenic research has been outlawed on the Entente planets, all of which I now understand. I have done unspeakable things for the Interplanetary Syndicate, the Consul and the military. I refuse to do them any longer. And that, Captain, is why I am forced to run. "

Owen shifted his weight awkwardly, unsure if Ardeth had finished speaking. Assuming he had, he said, " I'm not the most moral man you'll ever meet, scientist, but I've heard enough horror stories about Syndicate eugenics to know I probably don't want to hand their chief researcher back to them. At least, not for such a sorry price."

Sensing he was approaching a dangerous portion of this conversation, Owen winced and backed out of the room. Shaking his head, he hit the intercom button near the door and announced, "I'm on my way, Tabby."

The door swished closed and locked with a decisive snap. On the nearest staircase, Owen took the stairs two at a time. It was quiet on the bridge, save for Tabitha's humming as she guided the ship closer to the orange planet below. The surface of the planet shot up at them as Leto descended into its atmosphere. The spaceport was on one of the larger continents, and the whole complex gleamed bright and metallic as they approached. As Tabitha pulled the ship onto an open docking port, she smiled, "Welcome to Locra, the last outpost of hospitality before the Syndicate Central Cluster."

Reviews

[Robert Ulysses Wright]

I was right to guess Ardeth was forced to work for an undesireable group of people. I liked that you took more liberty with describing the ship and the people in it. You expanded the characters slowly so as not to lose the reader. The grammar still needs a little cleaning up but otherwise I enjoyed the chapter.