Chapter 5: Absence, Hearts

Thanks to the good care of the girls, Alain recovered quickly and the only effects left of his ordeal were stiff muscles and scars on his shoulder from where the bullet had entered and exited. He stayed with them in their pod until he was fully healed, and felt some regret when he returned to his own but he still had a job to do.

‘Did you do anything with the guys we trapped?’ he had asked and the girls shook their heads. ‘I’ll go and take care of that first then.’

‘We’ll help.’ said Asitha.

Alain gave her a gentle smile. ‘No need, I can handle this on my own. You have dealt with enough already so I won’t burden you with this.’ Asitha opened her mouth but Alain stopped her before she could speak. ‘Don’t worry.’

She nodded a little and Alain set out for his pod and the Walkurea.

Even though there was no need, he still drew his gun before he opened the door to the secure room in the warship. The two suits hung motionlessly in the vacuum. With a line attached to each suit, Alain pulled them along to an exit and pushed them into space.

The view he got at the next group they had trapped wasn’t as serene as the first. Blood drifted through the corridor and stained the walls and the bullet-riddled suits. Alain suspected the men went over the edge when their air supply went out and turned on each other. Careful not to touch the floating blood, he used the line again and set the suits adrift into space.

Although he hadn’t mentioned it, he went to the Lady Wind and assessed the situation. He almost found satisfaction in the shredded faces of the men he found at the airlock and the one in a corridor towards the engine controls. He shut down his mind before it imagined the carnage and what the men must have gone through. Although there were plenty of practical reasons to keep the ship and most of its contents, he had no desire to keep mementos of those murderers. Restoring drive control was a simple task after he turned off the probing program running through the radio connection, and set an automated course towards the sun.

He went back to his pod, executed the command remotely, and watched the ship’s thrusters firing and manoeuvring the ship towards its final destination.

The girls come over later after their work shift and Asitha gestured at where Lady Wind used to be. ‘Did you?’

He nodded. ‘I got rid of it.’

She averted her eyes as tucked in her tail and flattened her ears. ‘You saw?’

‘Yeah.’

Tiness fiddled with her fingers but Alain took their hands in his. ‘How about some human junk food? It goes well with drinking.’

Asitha chuckled once. ‘Yeah, sounds good.’

Alain went to work with Asitha while Tiness set up the rest and went looking for something to watch, avoiding anything with violence this time. The comedy series and the joy of eating something bad but so very tasty helped relieve the stress and soon they were in stitches when the captain of an explorer vessel had another public row on the bridge with her ex-husband and first officer. Asitha giggled at a scene where she rewarded him by petting him like a dog. She nudged Tiness. ‘That reminds me of that time when Alain pet your head.’

Tiness’s eyes went wide and she blushed while Alain blushed as he glanced at her... ‘It was more or less an automatic reaction.’ he said.

‘It helped though.’ chuckled Asitha. ‘I bet she’d be skipping around if circumstances were better.’

Tiness hit her playfully on her arm. ‘I’ll bet you’d get jealous and demand the same treatment!’

‘Hey, I’d at least demand a treat for letting him pet me!’ said Asitha and smirked.

Alain laughed. ‘You sound just like what we expect from a cat. Us humans exist to serve them and as a reward we get to look at them and on occasion touch them, even worship them as royalty.’

Asitha grinned mischievously at him. ‘Really? That’s a great idea.’ she said and held out her glass. ‘Fill me up and maybe I will let you pet my head once.’

He laughed again and rubbed his cheek. ‘Hmmm ... I grew up with cats so I’m not easy. I demand at least an additional stroking of your tail.’

Asitha narrowed her eyes. ‘You are tough indeed.’ she said and looked at her glass. ‘Only if you throw in more of those, what were they called, bacon crisps?’

Alain folded his arms and looked gravely. ‘All right then. You have a deal this time.’ he said and hopped out to the storage closet to grab another bag of snacks. When he returned Asitha had scooted over to his seat at the side of the couch and pat on the middle seat between her and Tiness. ‘Just to give Tiness room for her own negotiations.’

He laughed, sat down, poured their drinks, and handed Asitha a bowl with her payment of bacon crisps. ‘There you are, your majesty.’

‘Very well, human, you may pet my head and tail once.’ she said and laid her tail across his lap.

‘Thank you so very much.’ he said and stroked her soft fur on her head once and ran his fingers through her fluffy tail. ‘Your fur is really nice.’

Asitha felt a nice shiver going through her and giggled. ‘You’ve done well, human.’

Alain bowed his head to her. ‘It was my honour.’ he said and noticed Tiness had laid her tail on his lap as well. She looked into her glass. ‘I want some of those crisps as well.’

Alain smiled and filled a bowl for her. ‘Your majesty.’ he said as he handed it to her.

Tiness giggled and blushed. ‘Thank you.’ she said and leaned her head towards him. He stroked it gently and ran his fingers through her thick tail. ‘I had been wondering but I never imagined your tail was this soft and bouncy.’

Tiness blushed. ‘Thank you.’

Asitha put up a pout. ‘Are you saying her tail is better than mine?’

Alain chuckled. ‘I’m saying you both have fur that is soothing to stroke.’

Asitha grinned. ‘All right, you may touch it more if you want to, just for today.’

‘Mine too.’ said Tiness.

Alain smiled. ‘How could I refuse such an offer?’ he said and stroked their tails while they continued watching the comedy series.

All three stood at the airlock lockers at the end of their break and Asitha turned around to Alain before she stepped into her suit. ‘I’m really glad you’re alive.’ she said and hugged him tight.

His heart skipped a beat at the sudden affection and he hugged her back. ‘I’m glad you two are alive.’

Tiness hugged him after a slight hesitation. ‘Tell us if you ever get hurt like that again. Don’t make us worry.’

He smiled softly. ‘I will.’

The girls stepped into their suits and Alain watched them until they were out of sight crossing the impact zone.

***

‘The fuckers!’ grumbled Alain when he read the latest message he received some time later.

‘Bad news?’ asked Asitha over their channel.

He sighed. ‘I just got word that an inspection drone is coming with the next cargo drone. As if sending me here to get me out of their hair wasn’t enough, now they want to keep a tab on what I do.’

‘You were in their hair?’ asked Tiness.

Alain chuckled. ‘It means I was a bother to them.’ He went over his current situation in his mind and what he should hide from the drone because he knew the higher ups would try to take away the few good things he had here.

‘Alain? Are you all right?’ asked Asitha.

He put his thoughts on hold for a moment. ‘Yeah, but I’ll need to do a few things before the drone gets here. I’ll tell you when I see you later.’

***

Tiness looked at the written lists on the table in Alain’s pod. ‘What’s all this?’

‘Things I need to do to hide how well I’m doing here.’ he said. ‘If my boss finds out he sent me to a better place than I worked at he’d make sure to ruin it for me.’

‘Is he that bad?’ asked Asitha.

Alain leaned back in the couch. ‘He’s rather vengeful. This whole thing started because things were a mess at work and I had a heated discussion about it with my incompetent manager. He tried to get rid of me, but I was too good at my work to easily replace and they couldn’t fire me just like that, so they ignored me as much as they could. But then they had word about negotiations for dismantling these warships and realised they needed to send someone who was both capable and expendable. The perfect choice was me.’

Asitha let out a tired chuckle. ‘Same story here. You probably know how strict our society is when it comes to how males and females behave.’ she said and slumped in the couch next to him. ‘I didn’t like what they expected of me. I don’t submit myself to any male, they’re not better than me. I was bullied while I grew up but I fought back and had them acknowledge me as one of the best engineers at school. Just in time for me to be assigned to this job.’

‘Same story everywhere.’ grumbled Alain.

Asitha looked at Tiness. ‘Want to share how you got here?’

Tiness sighed. ‘I don’t deal very well with males either, ever since I was little.’ she said and fiddled with the hem of her shirt. ‘I worked at a company with ties to the government and I knew there were many males who took interest in me because of my looks, and the director was one of them. One day when I worked late and alone at my desk, he made advances while he’d clearly been drinking too much, and I pushed him away. Unlucky for him he tripped over several cylinders lying on the floor and broke his ankle and I had to call for medics. Not much later I was assigned to this work, telling me they needed capable people, but I know the project leader is a close friend to the director.’

‘Sounds like he wanted to shut you up before everyone found out what he did to you.’ said Alain.

Tiness nodded.

He sighed and went to the drinks closet. ‘Let’s drink to the selfishness of people in power, after this I need to decouple this pod.’

‘Decouple? Why?’ asked Asitha.

‘If they find out how cushy I made it here, they’ll invent regulations to take it away. I’ll need to make them think I have it worse out here so they’ll feel smug and won’t bother me again.’

Asitha nodded and her ears drooped slightly. ‘Then we won’t talk for a while.’

‘Yeah. The drone will probably monitor all channels so we can’t use ours without them finding out.’ said Alain and slumped into the couch with a bottle and glasses. ‘Better enjoy what we have while we can. I’ll make an extra rich meal for us today.’

***

Alain was grateful for Asitha’s and Tiness’s help in decoupling the large emergency pod from the crew pod and storing it into a corner of a small cargo bay nearby, just in time before the inspection drone arrived. He cycled the airlock of the pod to let the fairly oblong and standing straight up drone moving on six spider legs inside. The main body of the drone came up to his hips but it had a swivelling cubical head on an extending pole housing the cameras, which reached up to his shoulders.

‘Greetings.’ it said in an emotionless synthetic female voice. ‘I am Cassandra and will monitor working circumstances to comply with regulations falling under sections 73-B and 112-F of working in space.’

“At least it’s not an annoyingly cheerful AI like some drones are equipped with.” thought Alain. He looked straight at the camera head. ‘I am Alain Moreno, 853-887-254-676.’

‘Identity confirmed. I will begin monitoring for the next ten standard days.’

“Ten days.” Alain thought and looked at the date clock on the wall. “The list I made with the worst jobs should help make time pass quickly.” He took the order list from the side table and held it up. ‘The day begins with making the list of parts and the place they might be recovered at.’ He spent some time going through the blueprints to confirm locations and put on his suit when he was done. ‘Time to get to work.’

The location of the circuit on the list was at one of the worst damaged sections and he needed to crawl through a crumpled corridor to get to the compartment. The drone barely managed to follow him and it watched as he forced panels open to find out the circuit was smashed. ‘This one’s a goner.’ he said as he held up a few burnt pieces for a good view. ‘This is the state of a lot of the systems in and around the impact zone.’

He led the drone around all day and at the end he leaned back into the corner seat of his pod while waiting for a random food container to warm up in the oven. He had recovered enough systems to match his usual recovery rate and below that of the expected rate as set by the company. He’d have to give up some sleep for the time being but it was necessary to complete the picture he wanted to portray. He ate quickly and the drone went into mandatory privacy mode when he went to sleep.

***

Tiness sighed while she stirred her food.

‘Not hungry?’ asked Asitha.

‘I feel sorry for Alain. While we have enough of the good stuff for a while, he’s stuck to eating the boring food.’

Asitha nodded. ‘Still, it’s better than what we used to eat so it won’t be as bad for him.’

‘It’s not just that, it’s also the fun to cook and eat together.’

Asitha smiled a little. ‘Yeah, I miss that as well.’ she said and chuckled. ‘It’s funny how quickly we got used to being around him. A human on top of that.’

Tiness giggled. ‘Maybe because he is human. I can’t imagine a Silth male like him.’

‘I’m sure there are but they’re very hard to find.’ said Asitha and took a bite and chewed. ‘You might have to go to remote places like in a forest to meet any.’

Tiness chuckled. ‘I think I can imagine him living in solitude in the wilderness.’

‘Oh, like that man in the movie where he rescued a woman who was chased by people trying to kill her?’

Tiness chuckled. ‘Complete with wild animals for friends.’

‘If it were us he wouldn’t need separate animal friends and women to rescue.’ Asitha said and the image stuck in her mind, as it did for Tiness. She cleared her throat. ‘But then we likely wouldn’t need rescuing.’

‘Yeah.’ said Tiness. ‘I hope the drone won’t pester him for long.’

Asitha nodded lightly. ‘We can only wait for it to leave.’

***

Alain trudged along the hull, Cassandra following him as it did since its arrival. He really felt the tiredness from the lack of sleep getting to him but he had to keep up the act of working most of the time to give the impression to his old manager that he was worse off, and thus ensure his leisurely life afterwards when they would no longer bother him. He made today interesting by seemingly getting lucky when all tasks were easy, that way he could show he used the leftover time to get extra rest. Asitha and Tiness stepped out of their pod in the distance and he wanted to greet them but he had to ignore them to hide his contact with them. The sight of them did make him feel a little better and the thought of being together with them later sent a shiver of excitement through him. He chuckled silently and glanced at the probe floating next to him while he wondered how much of a shock it would cause if both sides found out how well they got along.

‘He looks really tired.’ sighed Tiness.

‘Yeah.’ said Asitha, ‘He doesn’t move with his usual energy.’

‘I wish we could cheer him up somehow without that probe finding out.’

‘Not much we can do. We can’t even leave a good meal because the probe would record it.’

The girls moved on towards their scheduled jobs until Tiness grabbed Asitha’s arm. ‘But there is something we can give him without anyone finding out but him!’

***

Alain returned to the pod after another shift, did the administration in a roundabout way, ate, and called it an end before heading into his small crew quarters to sleep. He undressed, slipped under the bed covers, and yanked his foot back when he touched something hard and cool.

He pulled away the covers and stared at the bottle of tequila. ‘Did I put that there while I was drunk?’ he muttered. The nutty brown colour of the liquid inside didn’t match the label and it puzzled him even more. The cap seal was broken and he unscrewed it to take a sniff at what was inside.

He clamped his mouth to stifle his sudden laugh. ‘You girls.’ he chuckled and took a swig from the mushka. The burn went down his throat and filled it with warmth. “If you were here I’d kiss you.” he thought and sat down on the edge of his bed staring at the bottle. “I really do want to be with them, heh. How weird is that?”

He took another swig from the soothing liquid and crawled under the covers to sleep.

***

Alain slumped back into the seat of the Silth pod. ‘It’s gone. Finally.’

Asitha chuckled and put a full plate of the best food they had in front of him. ‘I have to admit I’m glad it’s gone as well, it’s just better when it’s the three of us.’

He chuckled. ‘Yeah, I missed you two.’ he said and sniffed the scent of the fried meat. ‘And after that, decent cooking, good liquor, and watching movies on a good media system.’

Tiness giggled. ‘At least we come first.’

He smiled. ‘There’s no way you wouldn’t come first. Besides, if I make you hate me I won’t get to use that fantastic shower of yours.’

‘Jerk!’ said Tiness and hissed playfully at him.

Asitha hit his shoulder. ‘Just so you know, we only tolerate you because we can use your kitchen.’

Alain sniggered. ‘Sounds like we’re already the best of roommates.’ he said and took another bite. ‘Might as well hook up my pod to yours so we don’t need to cross the ships each time.’

Tiness imagined the situation and excitement filled her stomach. She liked the idea of the three of them hanging around together in their free time without the hassle of going back and forth. She glanced at Asitha and knew she’d been thinking along the same lines. Asitha tapped one claw on the table. ‘Would that even be technically possible?’

‘Hmm?’ said Alain. ‘I saw hatch adapters on the Walkurea to link between our and your ship’s airlocks and hatches for boarding purposes, I’m sure there are some on the Amaroth as well.’ He gestured at the crew pod side and the opposite side. ‘Both of our pods have opposite hatches that can be linked with such an adapter. Power systems aren’t compatible but since they’re redundant there’s no reason to connect those. If needed we could always wire up a connection from one side to the other.’ He looked up in thought. ‘The whole thing is actually quite easy to set up now that I think about it. If there are cross sections on board as well it’s even possible to connect four pods together.’ He drew with his finger on the table. ‘Hook them up in a cross with an adapter if needed and two can be used as bedrooms to separate sleeping from the rest. One could create a whole community home by linking pods through these cross sections. The possibilities are nearly endless because they can also be stacked and you can go up and down along the ladders inside them.’