She checked her navigational computer for the so manieth time today. She didn't even register what it said. Nor was there a need to. She knew what it said because she had checked more than a hundred times by now. The realization shook her up though. It was a clear sign of the mindless boredom she was struggling with, one that had begun to put an unhealthy mental strain on her. It had been thirty days, twenty six hours, twenty three minutes and forty seconds since they had entered their second Lewen jump. Which meant two more days until they could make their final, seventeen day, jump that would bring them to their first target.
Voidfaring had never been a social endeavour. She knew this when she had signed up with the Fifth, and she had always been able to withstand the prolonged solitude without much problems. This mission was different though. She had never been on a mission that took this long and was this lonely. Usually a ship like this would be crewed by ten agents, but for this mission it was just her and Voss, and they mostly lived past each other. There always had to be one person awake and on duty. Which meant that they both got alternating thirteen-and-a-half hour shifts. Shifts that were long and mind numbing. She and Voss only really spoke when they had the changing of the guard and even then it was mostly just what needed to be said, and that wasn’t much either. Voss preferred spending the free time he had behind that darn computer of his, rather than interacting with her. She had made a few attempts at the beginning of their mission, but he had expertly made any conversation she started, bleed out within mere minutes. She'd try whenever the loneliness particularly got to her, but the palpable resentment still lingering in his eyes was an ever present reminder for her not to try and push it.
She got up from the pilot’s seat and made her way down to the living quarters. Her shift would be up in about five minutes and she was aching for a hot meal inside her stomach and a warm bed to crawl into. Voss was behind that stupid computer of his again. His hair looked unkempt and his beard was starting to fill out. He hadn’t shaved since they left port. She thought about it for a good thirty seconds, but it was hard to decide whether it made him look rugged, or like a hobo. Why was she even thinking about Voss' looks for so long? The void was really getting to her...
‘Time to shut down that computer of yours, Voss. Your shift is up in three minutes.’
He looked up at her with an annoyed face. Like she had disturbed him during something important. For a second she considered leaving it at that and walking away into the kitchen, but she was feeling particularly lonely today and could use some conversation, even if it was an unpleasant one with a grumpy hobo, so she decided to attempt a conversation with him again, even though she fully knew how it would go.
‘I don’t get why you’re still trying to get into that computer, Voss. It’s been over forty days now and you’re no closer than you were when we left the spaceport.’. The words came out more derisively than she had intended them to be. If anything, she was glad Voss kept himself occupied with that stupid computer of his. It helped divert his feelings of resentment away from her and had kept the often palpable tension between them to a maintainable level.
The only reply she got from him was a disinterested grunt. Seemed like he wasn’t even in the mood to be annoyed at her today. Part of her wanted to grab him by the chest. Shake him back and forth and demand he treat her like a human being, but she decided against it and went into the kitchen instead. There wasn’t much to choose. The rations they had been given had been ample, but not very diverse. She had been alternating the same three meals for thirty days now. At this point she couldn’t even be bothered choosing one and she instead just grabbed whatever was nearest to her.
It was a stark contrast to how she had imagined things would go when she first contacted Voss all those months ago. She had intended him to be part of what should have been her stepping stone towards a glorious career. The youngest captain the Fifth had ever seen. Instead it had become a desperate last straw that she was clinging onto. Still, things could have been worse. At least she was rid of that damned captain for now, even if he had bugged the ship and had set charges to detonate in case they didn’t return within their allotted four hundred days. At least Voss hadn’t been half as spiteful as she had expected him to be, and if he was, he wasn’t showing it, opting to mostly just ignore her instead. A truce existed between them within the confines of the ship, and that was all she could have realistically hoped for.
Voss still hadn’t gotten up from the computer. He was too immersed in his quest to hack the unhackable. He sat hunched over into a purple velvet chair, surrounded by a mish mash of cables and wires that ran between his own tools and the unscrewed control panel of the ship’s central computer.
The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.
The microwave hadn’t even finished heating her food when a loud yell startled her. When she looked around to face Voss, she saw a fanatic excitement on his face. She walked over to see what was happening. He was pumping his fists up in the air as the screen in front of him started to display a new set of symbols that she hadn’t seen before. Symbols that she didn’t understand. Voss on the other hand, maneuvered through the computer menu with great ease.
‘You can read this?’ She asked him. He ignored her still, too engrossed in the menus he was now scrolling through. This new development worried her. What if he had actually hacked the central computer? What kinds of access did that give him? What would he be able to manipulate from there?
‘Lecudetude…’ he murmured.
‘Lecuwhat?’ she asked him, desperate for contact. She didn’t like the state he was in for one bit. He had a frantic look in his eyes that spelled trouble.
‘The ship’s name. It’s Lecudetude.’
‘What weird kind of name is that? What does that even mean?’
Voss turned around and looked at her with a devilish grin. ‘What does Vanmire even mean?’ he retorted. He pressed a button as he said it. The ship’s alarm started blaring and the room switched to emergency lighting. An odd, female voice spoke in a language that was incomprehensible to her. Sparks and small explosions erupted in various places across the room. Similar crackling explosions could be heard coming from every room inside the ship. For a second, Voss hunched forward, but then he straightened himself again and jumped up from his chair.
‘Voss, what the hell are you doing?! Stop it!’. She screamed at him. The ship’s systems all seemed to malfunction. Machines hissed and beeped and the crackling spread through the ship in waves. ‘You’ll get us both killed, Voss! Please, stop it!’
Voss turned around and looked deeply inside her eyes with a malicious, deadpan stare. He chuckled. ‘Why should I? You daft cow!’.
Her mouth fell wide open. ‘Wh..wha..wh’
‘Wha wha wha?’ he mocked her as he began to slowly move towards her with a nefarious grin plastered all over his face.
This was bad. Something had gotten into him and he looked like he was about to strike at her. It had all happened so rapidly and so unexpectedly, that she didn't know how to react. Her mind raced, trying to come up with a way to deescalate the situation, but it came up with nothing. Instead, a blind panic strangled the air from her lungs. She grabbed the first thing she could find, an empty coffee mug, and threw it at him. He easily sidestepped it and continued moving forwards slowly, like a predator stalking its prey. She turned around and ran for the cockpit, hoping she could make it before he caught up with her. Was this it? She trembled. Was this the moment he'd take his revenge on her? The fear and adrenaline rebooted her brain's capacity to think straight. She realized her best bet would be to lock herself inside the cockpit. The ships' navigational computer was separate from the central computer and he'd have no control over it. If she'd retain control over the navigation of the ship, then at least he would have to reason with her, or they’d both die, stuck in the void.
Voss seemed to be in no rush to get her. Continuing after her at a calm, controlled pace. She dashed into the cockpit and tried to seal off the door behind her, but it was to no avail. Voss had somehow sabotaged the hatchway’s locking mechanism. She hadn't even known that it was linked up to the central computer. She closed it shut anyhow and tried to put her weight behind it, hoping that that would at least slow him down.
‘Stay back, Voss!’. She tried to sound self-assured, but her voice sounded weak and feeble.
‘Or else what?’ He mocked her. He knew she was unarmed and that she wouldn’t stand a chance against him.
‘Or else there will be severe repercussions.’ She tried ‘The whole ship is bugged and there’s an autosender that will transmit as soon as we get anywhere near an imperial planet. Sooner or later that message will make it back to Fosfat and the Fifth will know what you’ve done!’
He was approaching the cockpit now, walking tantalizingly slow as if to taunt her. It was as if he wanted to drag out her agony for as long as possible. Like a cat toying with the mouse caught in its paws, before killing and eating it.
‘So what?’ he said. ‘It will be months if not years before they receive any message. I could be anywhere by then. Besides, do you really think they’ll send anyone halfway across the galaxy to go looking for a dead, washed out lieutenant and some renegade slum dweller?’. He stuck his head against the window in the hatchway as he said it. Staring at her like some animal ready to pounce at her. He put his shoulder against the hatchway and began to repeatedly slam into it. She was able to withstand his first few charges, but eventually he managed to get a foot between the hatch. She tried one last time to close it again. Smashing into the hatchway with all her weight and strength, but it was to no avail. He roared out in pain from having his foot smashed, but it didn't seem to slow him down one bit. On the contrary, it only seemed to increase the anger and the resolve in his eyes. He was out for the kill and nothing would stop him.
She moved away from the door. Stumbling backwards as far as she could, but the cockpit was small and there was nowhere for her to run or hide. She desperately tried to come up with anything she could think of to stop him from whatever horrible fate he was about to bestow upon her. She looked around her, hoping to find anything that she could use as a weapon against him, but there was nothing. Her back felt something hard and cold hit her. She had stumbled into the wall on the far end of the hatchway. She was stuck, caught in his web. She pushed herself up against the wall. She desperately scanned the room one last time, but there was nothing. There were no weapons she could fight him with, and nowhere to go from here. She was at his mercy now. Her lip started to quiver as he entered the room. All she could hope for now, was that it would be over soon.