The transition back into realspace was abrupt, Kik sitting up in his pilot seat as feeling returned. He calmed himself as he remembered where he was and the phantom sensations of a warp faded away.
“We’re back, safe and sound,” Kik said to his passengers and lay back in the swivelling chair again. Staring down on the sandy orb that was Lanos, he sighed. “Back here again.”
The occasional glint of light from an arriving or departing ship dotted the blackness of space. The sun shone from behind the Benefactor, streaming past to bathe the surface of the planet in daylight. Kik requested an approach path to Low Orbit 3.
As the ship’s ion thrusters propelled them towards the dock, Kik received a transmission from flight control.
“Contacting Benefactor, re docking on Low Orbit 3. Approach path denied. Te*z*r 3 undergoing repairs. Rerouted to Low Orbit 2.”
Acknowledging their new heading, Kik accepted the notification from the navigational computer. The others groaned when they learned of the delay required but accepted it in the end. The computer performed several complex manoeuvres, spinning the ship around at various times, slowing down and speeding up as they spun over the surface of the planet. Their elliptical orbit aligned with the station about two hours later.
Gliding up towards the gravity-defying tether, they approached the multileveled station just below geostationary orbit. They decelerated just before they reached, easing into their docking bay as electromagnets clamped to the ship.
An umbilical cord stretched across from the station, locking to the starboard airlock. The dull thrumming of the engine died away. Clanks rang from throughout the hull as the connection finished docking procedures. A message from the planet popped up on the computer terminal, Kik browsing it before leaving to join the others.
The party of four were waiting by the airlock as it opened. Stretching as they walked out into the more open docks of Low Orbit Two, the noise from outside hit them.
Beyond the immediate disembarkation zone and the gates to the exit were a crowd of people. All were wearing space suits and arguing with each other and security personnel. Apparently their group was not the only one to be struck by the delays.
Closing their helmets as soon as they had opened them, the noise died out somewhat as they changed back to ship comms.
“What do we want to do from here?” Lucas asked. “We’re going to have to find transport a quarter of the way around the planet.”
“Maybe we just contact them from here about our next job,” Ivan said.
Walking up behind, Kik interrupted their discussion. “It shouldn’t be hard to find a ride off-planet from here with all these pilots hanging around. Most of them will decide sooner or later that it’s not worth the time waiting and just leave their cargo to be delivered.”
“Alright, but what will you do?” Lucas asked. Edmon wandered off to try and find someone to arrange a lift for their group.
“I just got a message as we docked. My cargo will be arriving soon and I’ll be heading off once I’ve refueled.”
They exchanged a few brief goodbyes before the three scurried off to send their messages and find Edmon. Kik watched their departing backs and smiled, but his eyes were downcast. He had enjoyed poking fun at Edmon and speaking with their group, even if the subjects they had been discussing were rather serious. It was like being in a family again, a group that cared and looked out for each other.
As he waited by the exit of the docking bay, his introspection was interrupted by an announcement. This one was spoken by a human, a deep male voice. “For those travelling to Elaris-I, please be aware of recent events. In the wake of a series of fires caused by rioters, the council is imposing entry and exit conditions on the planet, details available on request. Police searches of personal property can be requested at any time and cannot be refused. A curfew after sundown for all unauthorised pedestrians and vehicles will be in effect across all cities. These measures will be retracted once they are deemed unnecessary. Thank you for your attention.”
Kik sighed and half-grinned. At least he wouldn’t be going back to Elaris for a while, or so he hoped. The good thing about owning, or in this case leasing, your own ship was the freedom it earned you.
Looking around, he sat against a wall and waited for his cargo to arrive.
The one who came with the delivery was normal. A person in a white spacesuit poked their head around the corner to the crowded main space and saw Kik sitting on the ground. Waving to him, he stepped around and opened up his helmet. Inside was a plain face with straight teeth, blond hair and a few too many freckles for a void-dweller. He moved well enough in the low gravity though, and his spacesuit was well-fitted, clean and maintained.
Kik opened his helmet too, standing up. The noise from around the corner droned as usual, but he managed to concentrate enough to hear what the other man was saying.
“You’re the delivery boy? I have a message for you, and the cargo should be loaded onto your ship as we speak. There’s a Fringe convoy about to head out, join them until you reach the Rymez system. Reem Tolcaz should be waiting for the cargo there. He’ll have your next orders too.”
Kik nodded. “Anything else I need to know?”
The man shrugged. “That’s all I was told to tell you. Anything more should be included in here.” He passed Kik a small plastic storage container.
“Who told you what to tell me?”
“That’s… I don’t think you’re supposed to know. Ah, all this tiered information is annoying. I wish I could get a job in the navy or something, I wouldn’t have to worry about all this. I’m James, by the way. James Deccard.”
Kik nodded. “I’m Kik. Um, I might forget your name.”
James waved the concern away. “Eh, no big deal. So how’d you get ahold of a ship at your age?”
“This and that, you know how it is. Connections help.” Kik managed a non-answer which didn’t dredge up horrible memories.
“Sure. Well, keep an eye out on your journey. It’s not that far but you’re travelling into pirated space.”
He turned to go. “Thanks for the warning,” Kik said. “I’ll see you around. James.”
James nodded as he closed his helmet and continued on his way.
Closing his own helmet, Kik opened the container he head been given. Inside was a data chip and a physical card marked with his name. Heading back into the ship, he loaded it up on the terminal, stretching as it was read.
The data chip contained one file, a message with Erstine’s signature at the bottom. Kik scanned through it.
Dearest Kik Nameless,
I write to you to commend you on your first mission completed with great success, as I hope it would be if you are reading this and not begging my forgiveness in person. From now on correspondence with me will be through Reem Tolcaz, the same agent that your parents worked with. It would perhaps be better if you mentioned to nobody that you have met me in person.
Now that our fates are tied together by the string of criminal deeds, I can say that as long as you follow your orders to the best of your ability and do not work against me, no harm shall come to your mother. I apologise for my earlier threats, they were meant to motivate you and there was no ill intent behind them.
Enclosed with this letter should be a card. If you scan this with a datapad it should register itself for your personal use as a payment and identification method. It carries two identities, your own and a false one by the name of Reed Hurst. You shouldn’t have to worry about your true name being discovered if you use the second as your identity, but beware too close scrutiny when using it, especially by those that know you personally.
When you depart, connect your communications with the Sudden Flight. They should be awaiting your call. Accompany them to Supply Station Alpha, in the Rymez system. Reem will be expecting your arrival there.
Warmest regards,
Erstine
P.S. Your parents’ suffering was not without purpose. I may explain myself should we meet again sometime. I doubt we will unless extraordinary circumstances occur.
P.P.S. Be careful who you take as friends.
Deleting the sickly sweet letter, Kik picked up the card and inspected it. It was plain metal with a crosshatched pattern of wavy white and dark lines on the back. Dropping it in a suit pocket, he considered where to get a datapad from.
He tossed aside the idea of going through his parents’ belongings for one. Going through the ship stores, he didn’t find any datapads but he did pick up a few exchange slips, emergency paper currency. These totalled almost two hundred credits.
Stepping out into the press, he squeezed his way through the packed crowd to a pair of security guards by the edge of the room. Popping his helmet open, he gasped for breath before he could speak.
“Do you know where I could buy a datapad?”
One of them looked at him. “There’s a shop down two floors. I don’t know how you’re going to get down there though. The elevator’s a bit full at the moment.”
Kik sighed and looked back at the press concentrated around the lift. Passing through sideways he had a chance of getting through, but there was no way he could move with the throng.
A man tapped him on the shoulder. “I’ve got datapads,” he said. “Want to buy one? I’m not selling my stock up here. It helps you out too, since you’d be paying at least two hundred credits at the store.”
“It beats trying to get down there. Sure. How much are you selling for?”
“A hundred and twenty.”
“I’ll give you a hundred.”
“Deal.” The man held out his hand with a datapad scanner in it.
Kik winced from the immediate acceptance and pulled out the exchange slips. “I don’t have a datapad to pay with yet. I’ll pay with these.”
“A hundred and forty then, if you’re paying physically.”
“Hey, you can’t do that.” Kik glanced around at the guards. “Isn’t all currency supposed to be the same value?” They turned their backs on the deal and whistled to themselves.
“Look, I’ll find it as hard to spend those credits as you are now. Be lucky I accept exchange slips at all.”
Kik sighed and handed over the money. “Fine. Where’s the datapad?”
The merchant pulled out a wrapped-up silver device from his bag and handed it over. “I assume you know how to use it?”
Kik glanced at him, hefting it in his hand. He could just wrap his fingers from one side to the other. “I’m a kid, not a barbarian.”
The man chuckled a bit. “Certainly. Enjoy the only product I’m going to sell today.”
Kik thanked him and returned to the ship.
Paying the refuelling fee with his new datapad, Kik was surprised to learn that there were already a hundred thousand credits, a year’s wages for many, stored under his name. He assumed it was a loan from Erstine.
Kik hurried his departure as much as he could, not wanting to stay on the overcrowded station much longer. He was fast tracked with the other departing ships, another arrival taking his place as he left the port. Groups of other ships held position around the station, annoyed by the delay as they waited for a chance to dock.
Scanning through the list of identifiers, Kik found the Sudden Flight on the list. Opening the communications channel, a loud voice rang out, startling him.
“So that’s how I got married the third time! She was a real pig though, so I dropped her for the fourth.” A bout of laughter rang from the comms before the voice returned. “Hello, who’s this calling?”
“This is the corvette class, Benefactor, requesting a position in the convoy,” Kik said.
“Ah, welcome to the Fringe Merchants’ Association’s lucky 13th convoy route. You’re the thirteenth ship to join too, so double the luck to you. We’re waiting for one more then we’ll be off. I’ll send our position to you. We’ll see you in an hour or so.”
When the coordinates arrived, Kik scowled. Their orbit was high, another three hundred kilometres above the usual unobstructed warp-out location. He’d have to hitch a lift or it would take him an hour, and a fair bit of fuel.
Contacting the station, he requested use of the upper elevator and provided payment details. Receiving an acknowledgement, he hooked his ship into an open-topped elevator platform. Unlike the elevators beneath the station, ferrying goods to and from the surface, this one was designed to raise smaller spaceships and other cargo into a higher orbit.
Clamping in, the elevator groaned upwards on its own power for a few minutes before the planet’s rotation kicked in and it started to accelerate on its own. The elevator would continue on for days, getting close to the counterweight at the top of the tether before stopping, but Kik only needed a short boost. He sent the signal to unlatch the ship, the elevator braking to a halt beneath. His engines fired and carried them towards their destination.
Reaching orbit at the level of the other twelve merchant ships, Kik contacted the Sudden Flight again.
“Alright, I’m up to your height. I’ll have reached your position in another twenty minutes.”
“Sure, sure. All at your own pace.”
Rolling his eyes behind his helmet at the merchant captain’s relaxed attitude, Kik guided the Benefactor the final tens of kilometres across orbits. He aligned the prow with the spine of the ship kilometres in front of him. After he compensated for the final overcorrection, he signed and relaxed. Along the orbit in front of him he picked up thirteen ships, and two coming into position behind him.
“Didn’t you say there were going to be fourteen of us?” he asked the Flight. “I count sixteen, assuming the frigates at either end are part of the convoy. They outclass all us corvettes just a bit.”
“Fourteen merchants. I didn’t count the escorts. Now quiet, we’re about to prepare for departure.”
An announcement came from the leading ship, this time to the entire convoy. A few voices were raised on the other ships but after the call from the convoy head they were soon silenced.
“Alright lads, listen up. Welcome to the 13th Fringe Convoy Route. Our first port of call is Rymez, then all stations to Rasant, then wherever we feel like going from there. For those of you who don’t know me, I’m your captain and veteran magician, Sal Par. I like to think it stands for Salazar, for the added rhyme and all, but every wife I’ve ever had tells me it means Salaryless.”
A few chuckles came over the comms, along with a snort of dismissal or two.
“We’ll be leaving on our first jump in six hours, another quarter of the way around or orbit. Once you’ve linked your nav computers, feel free to get back to eating, sex, or whatever else it is you do in your spare time. I only seem to get the first nowadays though, and I can’t say it’s helping with the second. This wife’s a real shrew.”
Kik raised his eyebrows and shut off the comms as a few laughs started to emerge. A notification popped up, and he accepted the request to share navigation control through the convoy. Stretching back on his chair and yawning, he realised how long it had been since he last slept. Void jumps always messed with your sleeping habits, but this time he had been awake for a long time beforehand. It would be around midday back on Elaris, taking into account the orbital manoeuvres and the distance of the jump. Time was always a little hard to calculate across jumps though. Clocks often turned at the wrong speed during a jump, even though hours passed.
Setting an alarm for five hours’ time, he jumped up into his space in the ventilation shaft. He didn’t even bother to check on his cargo before falling asleep.
Kik woke up four hours later, not a hundred per cent refreshed but much more awake. Opening his helmet to rub the sleep out of his eyes, he managed to wriggle out of the crawlspace. Dropping to the deck with a thud, he looked around. Perhaps he should get some food.
Making his way to the bridge while sucking up a meal pack, Kik thought about his next move. He finally had some time to himself, responsible to nobody. Or so it would seem. He had his ties to Erstine, of course - he couldn’t just abandon Hala. But he couldn’t trust Erstine completely, he knew that much for sure. He needed some way of freeing his mother without waiting until Erstine decided she wasn’t needed anymore. He couldn’t just wait for her to wake up and hope for the best.
Sinking into the now-familiar pilot seat once again, Kik checked the orbital calculations the ship was making. Finding the gravity well of a sun light-years away was hard, to say the least. Getting multiple ships to lock onto almost the same spot in the well was next to impossible. Yet with the combined power of sixteen shipboard computers and a few hours to process the information, it was possible. Even so, much of the fine-tuning was completed during the jump. That was the hard part, computing using the rules of a theorised other dimension.
Not sure what the computer was doing but satisfied that it seemed to be going well, Kik read through the mechanic checkup and other records, spotting no problems. Finally he checked his cargo manifest and stopped, his finger hovering over the ‘next item’ button.
Container of Amarest, 10.
Amarest, also known as “liquid life”, was an artificial deager. Those who drank it would return to youth, although they would still die even if they drank it forever. It only increased lifespan to around two hundred, but the quality of life enjoyed by its partakers was far greater.
The caveat was that it led to dependence. A drug which reversed aging would only have larger effects in the reverse direction if it was taken in too small quantities. Over time more and more was required just to survive. This was how most Amarest users died. They would consume more and more to keep themselves youthful, blowing fortunes large enough to buy planets. In the end they would perish amidst the ruin of their wealth from a simple overdose, their body unable to handle the changes wrought upon them.
And this was what Kik was carrying. Erstine never seemed to keep his cargoes simple. Kik was more worried that Erstine had the money to buy ten containers, and was willing to pass them off to someone like him for delivery.
Scrolling through the rest of the inventory, there were a few crates of weapons that were without doubt illegal on most planets. The list even included a set of shoulder mounted missiles. Most were projectile weapons. There was also a crate labelled “Assorted Cosmetics, Sealed”. That no doubt meant he wasn’t supposed to look inside.
Looking around, Kik realised he had about half an hour left until the jump. Looking at the blinking comms button, he signed and opened communications.
“Hey second-last captain! What are you up to back there, ignoring us in our merry banter?”
Kik sighed and rubbed his temples. “I was asleep. Hello to you too, Sal. So what have you been talking about?”
“Oh, so you want to hear about my eleventh wife too, do you? Be careful though, she’s a nasty one.”
Kik sighed. He felt like going back to sleep, but there wasn’t enough time before the jump. He settled down for a rather boring half an hour.
The jump half an hour later started with comms cutting off. The front ship fired its void cannon, starting the warp. As it fired, it accelerated, all the ships behind following behind. As they reached the same point, they fired their own void cannons, causing a series of wormholes to be opened and closed in the same position in space. The ships were dragged through, one at a time, jumping off to systems unknown.
As the Benefactor was dragged through its own wormhole in turn, the distasteful sensation of throwing up through his anus rushed through Kik’s body. It was soon replaced by wisps of cloud skirting across his vision and obscuring his helmet. He smelled red and tasted violet, although if asked to describe what that meant he would have no idea. Eventually this faded away into silence as the unfeeling, unmoving emptiness of the jump overcame all.
The convoy was dragged out into realspace in the vicinity of an unnamed, uninhabited star. An unspectacular young sun on its own, it was accompanied by a magnificent backdrop - the Maron Nebula. The star sat in the viewport to the left and the nebula filled the right, a hand of red tendrils pin pricked with stars. Wisps of it even covered above and below the sun. The sun most likely lay on the edge of the nebula, but the gas nearby was much thinner. Most would have been sucked into the sun during its initial formation. Any lingering gas acted the same as an atmospheric cloud, far too scarce to be visible from close distances.
Their navigational computers corrected the ten kilometres of displacement that had occurred over the jump. The craft drifted back into formation. A call came from Sal.
“Glad we all made it. Stay close and stay alert. All the initial sensor sweeps are clear but there could be ships hidden.”
A chorus of acknowledgement rang out from the other captains.
“We won’t be warping out for another day, so get your sleep, whatever you need. Our escorts will keep an eye out.”
Kik deployed the ship’s collection arrays. There was no sense in wasting an opportunity to gather some fuel, even if he wouldn’t need it straight away. This caused consternation aboard the ships behind and in front of him, who could see the four kilometre-long webs shaped like the wings of a dragonfly spreading out from his craft. Light glinted across their red surface and more faintly off the nets stretched between the support strands. He ignored the questions, shutting off comms.
Now that he had bought himself some quiet, Kik switched on his glasses and looked up the Rymez system. He had studied the more populated worlds during his month of rest on Lanos, but he had never heard of the Rymez system.
As it turned out, he hadn’t read about it for a reason. The only feature of note in this Rymez system was Supply Station Alpha - a small refuelling station built on the edge of an asteroid belt. With a population of perhaps twelve thousand, it was a mere blip in space. The only reason anything was built here was as a trade hub for any wishing to head further into fringe space, or for those refuelling on the way to the nearby Rasant or Borgeal.
Wondering why anyone would choose to live there, Kik shrugged to himself. Reem was an odd one, from the way his parents spoke about him, but at least he was trustworthy. Or so he had been led to believe.
A message popped up on the display from the Sudden Flight, this one text as he had turned off voice communications.
“You’ll need to lower your sails when we reach the asteroid. We’ll be slingshotting to get to our heading correct. Just stow them three hours before we jump and there should be no problems.”
With nothing in particular to do, Kik made his usual rounds, checking the onboard machinery was working without problems.
Sixteen hours into the trip, Kik was awoken from his doze on the pilot’s chair by an urgent communication. Tapping the panel and swiping away the flashing notification, the blinking stopped but the message remained. “Unknown ships spotted. One cruiser class, three destroyer class, two corvette class seen so far. Targets just warped into the system.”
Kik frowned and checked his ship’s scanners. The targets were there but they lay over two hundred million kilometres away, above where the planetary disc would be while their convoy lay below. They had warped in twelve minutes ago and the speed-of-light signal had only arrived now.
Kik opened the comms and listened to the conversation. Most of the conversation was speculation, but there was some fear. A cruiser could annihilate their escort frigates, assuming that it was a militarised vessel. The other ships would be more than capable of mopping up the merchants.
“I’m sure they’re just military craft,” Kik said. “They’d find it hard to reach us here either way.” Quite a few people calmed down at that.
“That’s true. There’s no way pirates could get a cruiser.” The tension dissolved and people returned to other matters, but Kik kept an eye on the scanners. He kept watching even after a burst of gravitational energy and otherwise empty scanners showed the ships had warped away four hours later.
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Their jump out was uneventful. The slingshot around the large asteroid, not quite a dwarf planet, went without problems. Their course was lined up and their ships proceeded to jump towards their destination in the Rymez system.
As feeling came back and the Benefactor emerged into realspace, shining red light flooded the cockpit from the right window. The cameras displaying information to the viewports lowered their light acceptance straight away. His helmet darkened too in an attempt to lower the light level. Bright spots still danced across Kik’s vision from the sudden exposure to sunlight.
Rymez was a red giant, a supermassive star which emitted red light many times brighter than most smaller stars. This emanating red shine bounced off the ships ahead, more tiny suns in the sky. With the light from the red dwarf, and his darkened helmet and viewports, he found it hard to make out other stars among the blackness. A line floated into his head.
“For behind them lies unending darkness,
And an end that comes for you.”
As his helmet visor lightened once more, the stars faded into view again, breaking up the dark sky.
Sal popped up over the comms with a disturbing message. “Where’s the Pride of Zalas? Has anyone picked up her location?”
Checking the scanners, Kik realised that only fourteen other ships had emerged from the jump. The ship behind him in the convoy was missing.
The escort captain at the back was apologetic, but he assured Sal that the jump had gone well. As the last ship in line, he was also the last to jump out. The Pride ahead of him hadn’t missed a single step of the warp, so he had started his own jump. When the scanner data had been pulled out and checked, the ship’s wormhole had without doubt been opened. The escort shared the data with the entire convoy, and they all agreed.
The eventual conclusion was that the Pride’s jump had been miscalculated. A one-in-a-billion chance had sent her off course, perhaps a surge in radiation. She would have ended up at a nearby star or other large object, or maybe in the same system as she had jumped from. There was nothing they could do from here. Either the ship would turn up again, or she wouldn’t. They could only hope the crew didn’t find themselves orbiting a black hole - less impossible than one might think, as warp drives locked onto gravitational wells.
The convoy continued on, more subdued, to Supply Station Alpha.
The station was little more than a collection of a few thousand hollowed-out asteroids, bound together by tens of thousands of flexible tethers and connecting bridges. Despite the barren surroundings there was activity covering the base. Asteroids spun in its vicinity. Small drones scurried over the surface of the main asteroid or bounced between rocks, collecting valuable materials from the surroundings. A comet was just visible, hanging out on the edge of space several hundred kilometres away. A slight gassy tail flared out behind it like the flame of a jet engine.
Most of the activity was centred around a large asteroid about three kilometres across. The sun fell into shadow behind it as their convoy closed in, dwarfed by its bulk. Built into the side of the rock was a series of hangar doors, varying in size. The smallest was a few metres and the largest was a central bay almost a kilometre wide. The side they approached with the hangars was kept free of floating debris.
Not every rock could be cleared away. As each ship was directed towards a hangar entrance, small defence weapons fired on each of the ships, redirecting small but high-velocity asteroids away from the ships with lasers, ions or other projectiles. A few rocks were bounced between the weapons of different ships before they were reduced to molten slag or sent spinning into space.
The convoy was separated, each ship heading to a different hangar. The Benefactor was directed towards a thirty metre by twelve metre slot in the rock. Squeezing the ship in with perhaps a metre of space above, the space widened on the inside to fifty by twenty metres. Magnets descended from the ceiling and hooked onto the craft as Kik countered the acceleration, grabbing the hull from above.
As the engines and onboard gravity turned off, Kik started to float, held back by the seat strap. It would seem that the station did not have any gravity generators.
Once the hangar doors were closed behind his craft, atmosphere flooded back in. Doors opened up around the edges and ten workers emerged. Kik unbuckled himself and floated towards the port airlock to greet them.
The approaching people slowed themselves with small bursts of air, landing on the deck and clamping their boots down. As he opened the airlock, Kik noticed they all carried sidearms. Their hands rested over the holsters, but when they saw that there was only a single child emerging they relaxed somewhat. Kik pushed himself down to ground level and opened his helmet, the leading woman doing the same.
“Welcome to Supply Station Alpha,” she said. She had a clear voice and fiery orange hair. “How many do you have aboard the ship and how long will you be staying? The same as the rest of your convoy?”
“It’s just me aboard,” Kik said. She raised an eyebrow at that, but he continued. “I’m not sure how long I’ll be staying, that depends on the person I’m meeting. Do you know if Reem Tolcaz lives here?”
“That Tolcaz guy? Yeah, he’s off on one of the outer asteroids. Well, rocks the same rest in a vein, huh?”
“I’m not sure what you mean.”
“Oh, it’s just a saying. So, you got any cargo here?”
“Yes, everything in the cargo hold is for Reem.”
“Alright. Payment for the stay?”
Kik handed the woman his new datapad. She scanned it and nodded to the people standing behind her. Two floated towards the ship and started checking over it, while the rest waited for Kik to open the cargo bay.
Tapping in the passcode to the door, the hold pressurised again and all the containers unlocked from their storage spaces against the walls and floor. They were still held in place by their inertia in the absence of gravity. The door opened and seven people flooded into the five by four by two space, hauling out crates and bumping into each other.
“Be careful with those,” called Kik. “I don’t want any of them broken.”
“They’ll be fine. But why so protective?” the woman asked him.
“That’s… it’s not my place to say. Ask Reem if you want to know what’s in them.”
She shrugged and the work continued.
Once the thirty odd packages were out of the hold and taken away to be retrieved later, Kik grabbed his usual possessions, sealed up the ship and spoke to the woman again.
“So where exactly am I going to find Reem?”
She pointed at a door in the roof. “Take that and head onwards. That should lead you in the general direction of Reem, and you should find a terminal somewhere for more detailed directions. Good luck, it’s quite a trek.”
Nodding his thanks, Kik pushed off towards the ceiling.
Travelling through the station, Kik’s main mental image was a pile of junk. A pile of junk in zero gravity. Mechanical parts, hull plating and repair tools floated across the passageway as he drifted upwards… forwards… along it. Surprisingly, the clutter cleared out when he passed an area with less people. It seemed that the station crew would just drop their equipment while working, knowing they could find it again if it floated off.
Finding a terminal in a wall, Kik loaded up a station map and searched for possessions under Reem’s name. He found a few entries, but only one was a living space. The rest were storage spaces and computer rooms. His target found, Kik headed to the living space as directly as possible.
The worst part of the journey was travelling through the connecting bridges between asteroids. Each was only a few metres long, but swayed, contracted and expanded as the asteroids moved. While moving across he was afraid that a collision would push the asteroids together and crush the bridge flat with him inside. The one or two sealed off bridges that he had to detour around did nothing to convince him that the others were safe.
In the end he reached what he thought was Reem’s room. He opened his helmet and called out.
“Hello?”
He received no reply, but the door opened at his tap.
Kik stepped inside the dark room and clamped his feet to the floor. Light flooded in from the bright corridor for a moment, cutting out as it detected no movement outside.
Kik stood there for a moment until his eyes adjusted to the darkness. It wasn’t all black, as the light strips in the room were set to low, not switched off. In the meantime the warm, moist air from the room played across his face.
Among the shadows he could make out some large blocky objects against the walls. He could also see other outlines scattered across the room. These had a main shaft with many small tendrils protruding off them. Brushing against one with his glove, Kik didn’t notice any resistance.
More importantly, there was no sign of a human around. Kik turned to go before he was interrupted by a loud snore from above. He jumped in surprise and his kick off the ground turned into a spin, head over heels. He managed to stop himself upside down with his hands against the floor, legs in the air. His momentum halted, he breathed out, relieved, but when he pushed off to stand against the roof his feet ran into something soft. There was a man who had been sleeping against the ceiling. With a pair of magnetic boots in his stomach, he wasn’t sleeping any more.
Reem relaxed once he had turned the lights on, shouted for a minute about doing somersaults in a crowded space, and lay against the wall. He was upright this time.
The tall and thin outlines turned out to be a type of fern, which was the reason the air was kept so damp. The boxes around the edges of the room were either storage for Reem’s personal effects or air conditioning units to maintain the temperature and humidity.
Kik got a look at the man as he lounged against the metal wall. Reem seemed like his growth outwards had stopped at about age eight, and that mass was stretched upwards over time. The helmet of his suit was off floating in the corner, giving Kik a view of his face. His hair was a dark gray but his wrinkles were sparse. Penetrating green eyes peeked out from under a low-lidded glare. His mouth was curved up at the edges, but there was no way of telling whether his amusement was sadistic or genuine.
Kik spotted an insignia of a red eagle head on his shoulder pad, but before he could get a good look he realised Reem was talking.
“So what can I do for you?” he repeated, seeing that Kik hadn’t heard. “You walked into my room uninvited and kicked me in the stomach. I hope you at least have something you want and aren’t just sneaking around.”
“No, I’m here for a reason,” Kik said, but Reem wasn’t done.
“Where did you even come from? You don’t live in any of the rooms around here. Are you from the other side of the station? Who sent you?”
“I’m not from this station at all. I just came in on a merchant convoy.”
“An outsider then. Who sent you?”
“I got a message.”
“From who?”
“A mutual friend.” Kik nodded his head towards the open door, and Reem took the hint. Once it was closed Kik continued. “Erstine.”
Reem rested his chin on his hand for a few moments. “I don’t believe you.”
“Then what will make you believe me? I can’t show you the letter, I deleted it already.”
“Good little watchdog, aren’t we. More importantly, I don’t believe someone of your age would be trusted.”
Kik played his final cards. “Decide that by yourself. I believe you knew my parents?”
Reem leaned away from the wall, bending towards Kik. He inspected his eyes and face and Kik did his best to look back, although he was forced to break eye contact after a few seconds. Reem’s intense gaze was even worse from up close.
Eventually he pulled away and nodded. “Hala and Garet’s son,” he said. “Kikiss, I believe?”
“It’s just Kik.”
“Sure. So now that’s out of the way, what do you mean, knew them? What happened”
Kik looked down. “Garet’s dead. Hala’s in a coma.”
Reem’s gaze softened and he frowned. “Sorry. I shouldn’t have asked”
Kik smiled in thanks, but he didn’t - couldn’t - speak.
After some time passed, Reem decided Kik needed a prod. “Want something to eat? I can tell you some stories of when I knew your mother. I can talk about your father a bit too, but I didn’t know him as well.”
Kik smiled. “Not right now, thanks. I’ll ask you again sometime before I leave.”
“As long as you’re sure. Shall we get down to business?’
Kik nodded.
“So, I am expecting a delivery and I’ve got your next orders, but since we know each other I want to try something first. You won’t be leaving for at least a week anyway so you have quite some time. The first task is to make yourself useful.”
“What do you mean?”
“Get out there and do some work. Get your hands dirty. See how it really is in space. Figure out zero gravity. That last one’s important. I’m sure you’ve trained to move in it, but you haven’t lived in it. There’s a difference.”
“And then?”
Reem frowned. “Why would I tell you what comes afterwards when you haven’t even finished the first task yet?”
Kik cursed his luck. He always got the teachers with an attitude.
Drifting around corridors without a purpose, Kik had no idea what Reem meant by living in zero g. He had spent time in it before. Whenever his parents were working on the external hull, they would cut the power to the gravity generators. He had practice from there. Why did he need more experience? While he wasn’t perfect at zero gravity movement, he wouldn’t improve much over a week, and this seemed to only be the first stage of the training.
Eventually he decided that if he was going to live in zero gravity, he needed someplace to live at least. He floated over to one of the station’s denizens. This one was absorbed in replacing a lightbulb, with a series of screws, screwdrivers and parts floating around him. Kik stood beneath him as he floated near the ceiling, just above head height.
The man noticed Kik and turned around, sweeping his floating tools up in one hand. His helmet was already open. “Am I in your way?”
“Nope. Just a question. I’ll be living here for about a week. What do I need to do to get a place to sleep?”
The man gestured around. “All of these outer rocks are new development. Most of the rooms in them are unoccupied. Check the panels beside doors. Purple means the room is unclaimed. Just fix one of those up and it’ll be yours until you leave.”
Kik thanked him and moved on.
Looking around, there was a single red, green and blue light dot besides each door. Most of the doors had only the red and blue turned on, merging together into purple light. Kik chose one of these at random and opened the door.
The inside was as dark as Reem’s room, although some light glinted off the back wall a few metres away. This time Kik remembered to pull out a torch, shining it around the room. It revealed that the shining objects at the back of the room were wet patches on the plain rock wall.
Straight away Kik could see what the man meant by fixing the room up. The corridors and the door were completed. Most of this room was not. There were a few panels laid over the bare rock, around the door and where more complex features were to be installed - notably the electricity and lights. The majority of the room, however, was pure asteroid and concrete. Three odd pipes stuck from some of the installed wall panels. A trickle of water floated from one such pipe on the ceiling, collecting in small bubbles throughout the room. These bubbles splashed and collected against the other walls, for the most part the floor.
The torchlight revealed a set of boxes set down beside the door. They contained the missing plating, extra piping, and the missing electronics for the room. Looking around, the first thing to fix was the leaking pipe. Kik sprang into work.
He soon understood why the workers kept their tools where they did. When fixing something on the ceiling, he could just float there, clamping down with his boots if he needed to. He couldn’t clamp his tools down with him, though. If he just let them float around him, though, he could reach out and grab one whenever he needed it. It required some spatial awareness but he picked up the trick soon enough. He left his torch floating behind him to illuminate his work.
Once he had tightened the seal on the leaking pipe, he floated around the room a few times collecting as much of the water as he could in a container. He sealed it up and left it to be processed. Water was a valuable resource. He hoped the rest would evaporate and get filtered back through the processing system. A few times he mixed up which way was up or down, but a glance towards the pipe on the ceiling would return his bearings.
The next order of business was to lay doon floor panels. This was a rather quick job, as each panel already had a spot on the floor to be laid down upon and holes drilled for the nails. All he needed to do was place each panel down, put the nails in place and press a button on them. The nails would branch out, drilling in like tree roots, and secure themselves in the rock.
The panelling took him a few minutes until he was left with the final two tasks. First were the pipes, containing wires for electricity and fresh water. The electricity needed a wall socket plugged into the ceiling. Pulling up the plans for a socket on his glasses, the model was different. It took less than a minute for him to figure out which wire went where, though. Plugging them in, he left the socket hanging wired but not sealed to the wall. He would get back to that later.
The water pipes were even more simple. He didn’t believe he’d have a need of flowing water while he was here, so Kik just left it blocked.
Finally he moved onto lights and the communications unit. Placing the light into position was an easy task. The internal structure was running without problems, so he plugged it into the ceiling and nailed it down like the panels. Contact points at the back supplied it with electricity, but it didn’t turn on yet. The comms units took a similar amount of time.
Both should be hooked up to an already installed control panel by the door. He strung wire between the control panel and the switches for both devices. Another wire connected the control panel to the main power supply. Switching the power on, the room lit up in a faint bluish glow. The comms unit started up, printing some unrecognisable text on its screen. He’d have to go through that later and see if there was anything wrong with it.
Kik took a moment to float, spinning backwards. He could finish off the wiring any time, but what would he do after that? He needed to live in zero gravity, but he didn’t know what that meant. Did he have to go out into space? He would rather not, given they were in the middle of an asteroid field. Going outside without an armoured suit could mean death.
Moving on, Kik sealed the power socket in. The few dangling wires were easy to tuck away. A set of sticky bands was all it took to press them against the edges of the room. Stepping back into the corridor to admire his handiwork, Kik smiled. The light outside was green, indicating it was occupied. “Another home.” His voice overcame the sound of his breath for a moment before fading away once more into the depth of his suit.
Kik yawned and realised he had gone through another jump. After that it had taken him several hours to get into the station. Once he added that to unloading, finding Reem and then fixing his room, he could use another nap. Moving back inside and looking around, he realised there was no bed. Remembering how Reem had slept, he locked his boots to the wall and floated there.
It wasn’t working. The position was comfortable enough, but Kik kept stretching and twisting. Every movement shifted him further and further off balance. The movement started to push his ankles to an angle they shouldn’t be at, so he pushed back. That push sent him in the other direction until he was bent backwards at the knees, lying against the wall.
Even worse, the asteroid wasn’t still either. Slight movements travelled through the structure as small rocks collided with the station, moving around the occupants. Small amounts of gravity also moved him around. Under normal conditions it wasn’t enough to notice, but as hours ticked by small movements added up.
Unsticking his boots, Kik looked around for something else to do. He considered wedging himself against a corner but that wouldn’t work. It might stop him from moving but he couldn’t get comfortable. He couldn’t go back to his ship and turn on the gravity either. That would bypass the point of the exercise.
He went through the boxes at the front, looking for something, anything, to help him sleep. He threw aside pipe, wiring, and other materials, before he struck gold. He picked up the case that the piping had been held in.
Made of soft canvas and sealed with a zipper, it wasn’t so much a case as a bag. Pulling at the ends, he peeled off the covers from a pair of sticky contact points. Kik stuck one to the wall and one to the ceiling at the back of the room.
The middle stretched out into a sleeping bag shape, hanging suspended like a cocoon. Sliding the zipper open from bottom to top, Kik floated in and tried to close it up again.
Once he had closed the zipper over his helmet, Kik realised he had put the sleeping bag in upside down. Not wanting to put the effort in to flip it around, and unsure if it would stick again if pulled away from the wall now, Kik turned himself around and got back in the proper way.
The inside wrapped him in like a mother’s embrace. Although he couldn’t feel the warmth through his suit, he could feel his entire body surrounded by an ambient pressure from the fabric. It bound him in place with care, protecting him from the empty space outside.
Kik darkened his visor as he slipped into unconsciousness.
Kik woke at his own pace, leaving the visor dark until he felt ready to move. Once he was prepared he unzipped the container in one go, spilling out into empty space. He stepped down onto the floor outside, the room lit up from beneath. Jumping over to the door, he took a look at the comms panel. He mumbled to himself, still half asleep. “I hadda to fix that, didn’t I?”
Peering at it now, he could see nothing wrong with it. It displayed its message without errors on the screen - “type in a channel to connect to”. The keypad next to the screen was lit from behind, awaiting attention.
“Thas funny, isn’t it...”
Realising he wasn’t ready to process anything in his state, Kik rapped his helmet with both sets of knuckles. The sound and flares of pain from his hand helped him focus and he shook his head, concentrating. “So it’s working now? What happened last time, then?”
Looking around the room, Kik saw the light beneath his feet, and realised. He had just emerged from the upside-down sleeping bag. He had been standing on the ceiling.
He moved to float down to the floor, but stopped. This may have been the key he was looking for. What, in the end, was the difference between the walls and the ceiling? It was all a question of orientation.
He rushed off to find Reem’s room.
Reem was sitting against a wall, tinkering with a piece of machinery the size of his head. He looked up as the door opened for Kik. “What do you want?”
“I think I figured out zero gravity.”
“And?”
“Up for you depends on where you are facing.”
Reem stood up. “Not the best way to put it. But that’ll have do for now. Follow me.”
Reem led him through dozens of passageways. Kik had no idea where they were going, but based on the distance they had travelled they had to be moving towards the core. The number of bridges between asteroids that they passed decreased over time, supporting this theory. The asteroids they were moving through would have grown larger and larger. Eventually they stopped reaching bridges through open space at all. Kik theorised they were inside the central asteroid at this point.
After seeing straight passages and curving passages, Kik ran into Reem’s back when he stopped. He pushed Reem forward, his slight figure pushed by Kik’s heavier frame. Kik was surprised, though, when Reem pushed back with surprising tenacity and shoved Kik away.
Granting Kik a glare, Reem opened the door they had stopped besides. Inside was a small hangar, less than half the size of the space Kik had landed his ship in. Inside were three small vehicles, too small to carry a human for any period of time. They each had the segmented body of a maggot, with eight legs positioned near the front and a ninth near the tail for balance. Kik inspected the closest.
Where the head would be was a manoeuvrable drill. Around the head was an array of small arms to collect scraps from the drilling. Seeing them reminded Kik of a certain creature, and he rubbed the back of his neck in recollection.
Covering the rear of the craft were a dozen thrusters, all pointing in different locations. These converged around a central engine, facing backwards from the main body.
Kik turned to Reem. “So what do I do this time?”
“The far drone is broken. Fix it.”
“So what happens if I do?”
“You move on to the next job and I give you a gift.”
Kik glanced at him sideways. “What kind of gift?”
“The greatest power in the universe. Knowledge. I’ll tell you some stories about your mother. There’s also one other matter in particular that I want to speak to you about.”
“And what would that be?”
“They’re known as the Order of Honesty. To put it bluntly, they’re terrorists.”