Two days later, the Rusty Bolt was ready for departure. Twitch had spent most of the time on the Aegis Prime with his girlfriend. Grubs had split his time between his friend Micah and maintenance work.
Both of them were in a somber mood at the table in the small mess hall of the Rusty Bolt. The deal with the battleship had been that they can stay a few days but they would sleep on their own ship and eat their own food. The Aegis Prime was still out of commission and had to save its supplies.
„She’s not the same.“, Twitch said. He was looking down, not watching the table but almost looking through it. „She’s lovely as always.“, he continued, „But something has gone. Trust in the world, or the belief things will be alright in the end.“
He looked up. „What have we done? How many people died or suffered because we took that damn core? What have we done?“
Grubs nodded. „Micah is a tough guy. But he’ll be half a Cyberman in the end.“
He grabbed his cybernetic arm with the other one and said: „It’s not half as cool as it sounds in the ads.“
Red sat up a bit more straight. „Guys“, she began, „We were the opportunity, but not the cause. It was us who started this all, yes. We’ll have to live with that. But if it hadn’t been us, sooner or later it would have been someone else. There’s thirty pirate crews operating just out of the Junkstorm. How many from other human regions? It was bound to happen.“
Her words did nothing to cheer the other two up.
„Captain“, Twitch said, looking up, catching her gaze, „I’m done with this job. It’s been lucrative, and I really enjoyed working with you“, he looked over to Grubs, „both of you. But I can’t do this anymore. I’ll need to take care of Valarie, be around. Maybe I can work as an instructor or something. But me and space, we are no longer buddies.“
Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.
„Twitch“, Red replied, „I was planning to retire from piracy as well. I’ll keep this ship and use it as an explorer and trader. I’ve got a good deal set up. Needs the details sorted, but it’ll be a good thing.“
Twitch slowly shook his head: „Sorry captain. I’m done.“
Red leaned slightly forward, and looked at him: „You can bring your girlfriend. There is room for one more on the Rusty Bolt, and we’ll find a role for her.“
Twitch shook his head again: „Appreciate the offer. But I mean it. I’ll fly this ship one last time to any planet you choose, but that’s it.“
Grubs nodded and added his own take: „You’re right that it could’ve been any other crew. But it wasn’t. It was us. I’m with Twitch on this. More even. I don’t think I can look anyone in the Junkstorm in the eyes again given which danger our reckless greed put them into.“
Red looked shocked now. „Grubs too?“, she thought, but he continued before she could answer anything: „I’ve had two days to think. We did a lot of good to the people on Bloom and on the planets. How many ships there wouldn’t fly without the cores we stole? What other uses was the other tech we nicked put to? I’m sure in some way we saved lives as well. But if the universe wanted to tell us to stop, how could it possibly say it more clearly?“
Red and Twitch were silent after this unusually long monologue. Grubs really had thought about this. His face showed an unwavering conviction.
The low humming of the ship was the only sound for a while. Even docked, some systems had to run, so the auxiliary generator was on.
Red cleared her throat. „Right“, she said, „So. Right. Okay, I have an offer. How long until your friends can be moved? We’ll bring them to Dephyr, where the bank holding our crew savings account sits. We dissolve and split it and that’s that. Your friends can go into hospitals there for further rehab. And we’ll all be somewhere we can start again.“
They looked at each other and agreed. The crew of the Rusty Bolt would make one more journey.