Three Days from Daraxes
“How can a turtle be a ninja? Aren’t they slow?” Scarlett asked as she watched one of my favorite cartoons with me. “And how does a glowing green liquid turn them humanoid?”
“I don’t know. How does a human turn into an anthropomorphic fox?” I asked back. She gasped and looked at me with betrayal written on her face. “I’m sorry I struck a nerve.” Her face relaxed as it changed to a slight frown.
“It’s a long story. I’ll tell it to you someday, but not right now,” she said before looking at the TV screen again. A smile graced her face as she watched the action scene unfold. “Awesome! I can’t believe I missed this show as a child!” she shouted as she was entranced by the action.
Once the episode concluded, we were going to watch the next one, but the ship suddenly rocked, causing the TV to automatically shut down and retract into the ceiling. Sirens blared in the ship, causing us to flinch as they almost deafened us, especially Scarlett. “Emergency! Ship is under attack!” the ship announced. “Prepare your spacesuits and get to the cockpit!” We needed no further warning to run to our rooms.
I was the first to walk out with my blue armored spacesuit. My helmet was retracted into my suit as I strapped the laser rifle to my back and a laser pistol to a holster against my waist. I walked into the cockpit and sat at the pilot’s seat. I strapped myself in and asked, “What’s the situation?”
“It seems that someone is trying to shoot us down. There also seems to be another ship they are after since some shots are fired at that ship,” the ship said as it rocked again. I was lucky to be strapped in, but the women weren’t. I could hear them falling to the ground as the ship rocked. I looked back and waited for the door to open.
Soon enough, the door opened to reveal Gruma and Scarlett walking in. Gruma wore the red armored spacesuit with her poleaxe strapped to her back. Scarlett wore the green armored spacesuit with her two pistols strapped to holsters. Scarlett looked at the copilot seat and shouted, “Shotgun!” She then ran to the seat and buckled herself in before Gruma could. The ship rocked again, sending Gruma to the ground. With a growl, Gruma walked to one of the back seats and strapped herself in.
“Captain, the attacker is hailing us. Will you answer the call?” the ship said as I watched a missile hitting a small ship ahead of us. It looked similar to the one Zalex stole, but it was too far to tell. Remembering what was currently happening, I answered, “I’ll answer the call.” Immediately, a projection appeared on the windshield. Windshield? There’s no wind in space. But I don’t know what to call it, so that’s what it is.
“Greetings, thieves! The Bassun hired me to retrieve what you stole. Now if you are willing to surrender yourselves, I may consider sparing you,” the hooded stranger on the other side said. The surprising thing was that the stranger had a British accent. A low-class one, but undeniably from the UK. Whatever he was, and it was a male voice, he was from Earth. I knew I had to take his threat seriously, but I forgot to tell my crewmates to keep quiet.
“There’s a little problem with that,” Scarlett said as she scratched the back of her neck. “We kind of sold them to get this spaceship. Do you accept IOUs?” She nervously chuckled as the stranger stared at her.
“What are you?” the stranger asked before shaking his head. “No matter. I’ll just have to extract some credits from your lifeless corpses!” The communication cut out, followed by the ship rocking from a missile strike.
“Seriously! Scarlett, you should’ve let me do the talking!” I shouted as I stared at her. I could see her cowering, which made me feel guilty. I shook my head and said, “Never mind. I doubt we would’ve been able to negotiate with him anyways. I was planning on letting him board before sending Gruma to beat him up. I don’t know if it would’ve worked, but now we’ll never know.” Scarlett relaxed and straightened herself in her seat. Which wouldn’t last long since the ship was rocked by another missile. Alarms blared as a terrifying message appeared on the screen.
“Warning! Severe hull damage! Charting landing!” the ship announced as it suddenly swung in a new direction, coincidentally dodging another missile aimed at the ship. Once it finished its wide turn, it shot off towards a barren planet’s surface. On closer inspection, I noticed that it was a small moon that circled a gas giant. It was obvious that the planet could not support life, meaning we needed our spacesuits.
Another missile rocked the ship. Unlike the previous ones, I could hear air leaking out of the ship. “Warning! Life support compromised! Oxygen running low!” the ship announced. All of us quickly activated our helmets, giving us a supply of oxygen as the ship shut it off. More missiles rocked the ship, making the air leak faster. I could see the small spaceship from earlier hurtling down towards the moon. Whoever attacked us must’ve shot the ship down, meaning he only had to shoot our ship down.
Our spaceship got close to the surface before leveling out and landing on its landers. As it stopped, I let out a sigh of relief. I quickly unstrapped myself and pushed the button to open the door. The door refused to open. When I pressed it again, the lights in the ship went off, leaving us in darkness. Of course the ship’s power would be out before we could exit. “Gruma, can you open this door?” I asked as I tried to pry the door open to no avail.
“Yes,” Gruma answered as she pried the door just enough to squeeze her hands in. Once she had a good grip, she shoved the door open enough to fit us through. Scarlett quickly unbuckled and hopped through the door, followed by me. Finally, Gruma walked through, letting go of the door as she walked up to the next door. Curiously, the cockpit door never closed, perhaps due to a lack of power. The hallway was pitch-black, but fortunately it was a straight line to the living room.
Gruma pried the hallway door open to reveal the living room bathed in the nearby star’s light. Scarlett and I quickly ran through the door and towards the airlock. Unlike the other rooms, the airlock opened immediately as the hatch to the outside opened. As I saw the ramp descend, all I could think was that Scarlett was right to dispute the price. Imagine if this incident happened in space and no one was ready. All the air would’ve left the room, and everyone would’ve suffocated.
The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
I was the first to leave the ship. I looked around and could see a fire in the distance. And then before my eyes, the fire disappeared. I didn’t need any confirmation to know that it was from the other spaceship that was shot down and that the ship there ran out of oxygen. I knew that our own ship was on a limited supply of oxygen. The only oxygen we had was in our spacesuits, which would probably only last for a few days. The power was out on our ship, meaning we had no way to communicate with any nearby planet. And that’s assuming we could even send a signal they wouldn’t immediately ignore. As it stood, we were stranded on a barren moon with no hope of escape.
“Quentin, this is Scarlett. Do you hear me?” I heard Scarlet’s voice ask through the radio. I looked back and saw her walking towards me.
“Loud and clear, over,” I said into the radio as she approached. I noticed how her footsteps made no sound. It made sense that the lack of an atmosphere meant there was no sound. This was going to be an issue. I just hoped Gruma knew how to use the radio. Speaking of her. “Scarlett, does Gruma know how to use the radio? I don’t see her on the list,” I asked. The display on my SAD showed a list of other linked SADs. Scarlett must’ve linked hers up with mines, which allowed us this radio communication. Gruma should’ve had it as well considering the conversation we had on Qasan Station. Yet her SAD seemed to be off.
“She has to know because she talked to you on that station. The only explanation I have is that she turned her SAD off,” Scarlet replied as she reached me. She looked back and said, “I don’t see her back there. She already left the ship by the time I exited. I don’t know where she could’ve run off to.”
“She’s probably close to the ship. She can take care of herself. The person in that ship, however, may be in trouble,” I said as I pointed at the crash site of the small spaceship. Scarlett nodded as we started running there. I say running, but it was more like skipping due to the airtime we got when we kicked off the ground.
After ten minutes of skipping through the rocky landscape, we reached the crash site. Now that I was close to it, I examined all the details of the wrecked ship. “Hey! This is the ship that Zalex stole!” I shouted.
“Can you tone it down, Quentin? You know I’m the only one who hears you!” Scarlett shouted back as her ears pinned against her head within her helmet. I looked at her and nodded before looking inside the ship, made easy by the fact the hatch flew off. I was not prepared for what happened next.
A small reptilian creature leaped out of the ship and collided with me. I stumbled back as the reptilian slowly fell to the ground. When I looked at him, I could see that it was Zalex. He was wearing an unarmored spacesuit that had built-in reptile claws. His spacesuit was dark gray and had room for his tail.
“Zalex?” I asked him before realizing that the only person that could hear me was Scarlett. She walked up to the lizard and knelt down to get a better view of him.
“That’s Zalex? I expected someone taller,” Scarlett said with disappointment as she poked the Sorlok. Whatever reaction Zalex had, we couldn’t hear it. “Since we found the thief, what do we do now? We’re now stranded here with no means of escape.”
“Never underestimate Zalex, canine,” Zalex’s voice said to both of us. He got up and pointed a finger at her. “I was able to locate your radio signal and connected my radio to yours and the human’s.”
“That’s nice, but can you tell us why you stole our ship?” I asked, trying to get to the point. This wasn’t what I had in mind, but having the conversation here would have to do.
“It was an easy way to escape pursuit. I gave you the stolen gems while I was able to slip away back to Daraxes. That way, the Bassun would track down and kill you instead of me,” he said nonchalantly. I couldn’t believe he just admitted to setting us up. And from the soft gasp I heard, neither could Scarlett.
“You openly admit to theft and framing? I’m honestly shocked,” I replied as my rage disappeared in my confusion. I expected him to make himself sound better.
“We Sorloks believe in success through any means necessary. Criminals are only punished on Daraxes if they can’t get away from the police. Any respectable Sorlok wouldn’t attempt something risky that they knew they couldn’t do. My only regret is that I was sighted by Qasan Station authorities. But I haven’t been caught, so I’m not a failure,” Zalex explained as he got up and leaned against the crashed spaceship. I could only stare as I discovered yet another alien species with bizarre morality. Why was the galaxy this messed up?
“Listen here, Zalex. The only way off this planet is to work together. Our new spaceship is busted and there’s no way to call for help. This spaceship may have the parts needed to fix ours. We’ll take you to Daraxes, but you must cooperate with us,” I offered as I extended my hand.
“What is that gesture? Are you implying something?” Zalex asked.
“It’s a symbol of trust. If you shake his hand, you agree to help us so we can help you. It’s considered a breach of integrity to renege on your deal after a handshake,” Scarlett explained. She then shook my hand and said, “That’s how you do it.” She then walked away to allow Zalex to grab my hand.
“Repeat after me. ‘I, Zalex, swear upon my honor,’” I started.
“I, Zalex, swear upon my honor,” he repeated.
“To turn my back on my thieving ways.”
“To turn my back on my thieving ways.”
“To be honest in all my dealings.”
“To be honest in all my dealings.”
“To work as a team with Quentin, Gruma, and Scarlett.”
“To work as a team with Quentin, Gruma, and Scarlett.”
“And to be helpful however I can.”
“And to be helpful however I can.”
“May, insert whatever deity name here, help me.”
“May, insert whatever deity name here, help me.”
I facepalmed as I noticed he took it a little too literally in the repeating. I completed the handshake and let go. “Now that we’re on the same page, we need to salvage that spaceship for whatever components can help ours,” I said as I examined the wreckage. “Though perhaps we should have you examine our ship while Scarlett looks for Gruma.”
“I’m not looking for Gruma! She almost killed me!” Scarlett shouted back as she pointed at her throat.
“You can watch Zalex to make sure he doesn’t run off with the ship,” I ordered as I walked back to our spaceship.
“I’m afraid you’re going nowhere, outlaws!” a modulated male voice said from above, managing to make a sound despite the lack of air. We looked up and tensed as we saw a terrifying sight.
Descending in front of us was a being that was part-machine, part-human. A cyborg. He wore no clothes, but it revealed nothing since everything besides his face was completely robotic. Even then, flesh only covered the left side of his face, excluding his mouth and eyes. His lack of protection didn’t seem to matter since he was showing no signs of depressurization or suffocation. He was completely bald, not even having eyebrows. As for his robotic body, it followed the outline of an extremely muscular and tall man. He had a jetpack built into his back with his right arm replaced with a gatling gun.
“What are you?” Scarlett asked as she pointed at him. She pulled out her laser pistols and aimed them at the cyborg. I readied my laser rifle as well. There was a slight chance we would win this fight, but it looked like we were outmatched.
“I am Harry, bounty hunter extraordinaire. You three are coming with me, dead or alive!” the cyborg shouted as he prepared his gatling gun. Time seemed to stand still as a chill blew through the airless environment.