“I need to use that gravskiff.” Mal struggled to keep his tone even despite the way he wanted to snap like a bear trap. Rationally, he knew that Caleb was trying to look out for Brittany and himself as best he could. They also had a young child that was reliant on them and the choices they made. Unfortunately for everyone involved, Malik had left rationality behind when he’d bolted from his lifepod over an hour ago. He was trying to be patient and understanding. He truly was.
He was just failing at it.
“You can’t be serious.” Caleb’s voice was pitched low so that they didn’t disturb Brittany and her young son Devin while the two built castles in the white sand. The young boy seemed enthralled with his task, though the formless pile of sand beside him didn’t speak well of his architectural skills. His mother was more apprehensive, but she was careful not to show it when her son could see.
“Nothing is more serious to me than finding my crew.” Malik managed to squeeze the words past his clenched jaw. When Caleb’s only reply was a silent frown, Mal took a long, slow breath to try to calm himself. It would be so easy to just commandeer the skiff. As the XO of Starlight Journey, it wouldn’t even be a stretch of his authority.
But he knew these people were scared. He could see it in the way Caleb’s eyes kept flickering to the pistol at Mal’s waist. They’d already fled one bad situation, so Malik had every reason to believe that if he spooked them badly enough, they’d flee again. He could probably coax Oscar into dragging his pod to a new island, but he didn’t want to leave his crew mate at the mercy of a ‘probably.’
“Look,” Malik said, forcing himself to relax as he spoke, “I can try to open some of these crates. That was the plan, to begin with, right? I’ve got no idea what we’ll find in there but even if there aren’t any weapons, there could be enough raw materials to fabricate a shelter. If that isn’t an option, I can lead you back to my pod and you can stay there for a day or two. It’s the safest place on the island.”
“You mean the lifepod with the prehistoric alligator? Or was it a crocodile?” Caleb took a step closer, his voice lowering into an angry growl that would have made a rottweiler proud. “I’m sure it’s plenty safe over there until your pet monster decides he wants a snack. Do you honestly think that I’m going to drag Britt and Devin into that?”
“What other options do we have?” Mal tried to keep his voice calm but there was no containing the frustration that made his deep blue eyes resemble chips of jagged ice. At the edge of his vision, Malik could see Brittany regarding the two men with a pensive expression scrawled. A part of him felt guilty for making the woman uncomfortable.
A larger part of him felt completely justified in his frustration.
“Leave us your weapons.” Caleb’s response was a short snap like the crack of a whip. “I’ll take the rifle and give Brittany the pistol. Between the two of us, we should be able to keep ourselves safe.”
“Are you out of your mind?” Malik’s voice rose like a drill sergeant barking at a recruit. Caleb didn’t back down, but the sharp sound drew Brittany and Devin’s full attention. Their sandcastles now forgotten, the two watched the exchange between the men in rapt attention. Mindful, but unapologetic, of his tone, Mal tried to smother his mounting rage as he continued, “Do you have any idea how many times I’d have died without my gear?”
“No, I don’t.” Caleb folded his arms across his chest as he scowled at the XO. “The bandages you’ve got wrapped around give me a pretty good idea though. Why isn’t that an argument in favor of leaving the weapons with us? You’d leave us undefended with no means of escape. We have a kid here, Mister Executive Officer. Did you forget that? What about your duty to keep us safe? Did that slip your mind as well?”
Malik scrubbed his hand through his dark hair as his lips pressed into a grim line. Fearing that he’d lose his temper, Mal let his gaze flicker across the tree line a few dozen yards away while he reorganized his thoughts. As his deep blue eyes passed across the undergrowth, he almost missed seeing Fred crouched beside the trunk of a massive Gloam tree. The carbuncle was staring at Caleb the way a starving man would look at a rasher of bacon.
A sigh slipped from Mal’s lips as he turned his gaze back toward the glowering Caleb. “We’ll start by seeing if I can open any of the cases. If we find any ammunition, we can talk about leaving one of the weapons behind with you. One.”
Caleb started to speak only to have Malik cut him off by lifting one of his hands into the air. “This is no longer a negotiation. I have a crew member that sent out an S.O.S. I don’t have time to stand here on the beach talking about this. Take the only deal you’re going to get, Caleb, or I’ll take the craft and you’ll get nothing.”
The blond man recoiled as if Malik had struck him. “You’d take our gravskiff and just leave us here?”
Malik’s clear blue eyes were as cold as a winter’s midnight. “You mean the skiff you stole?” Caleb flinched as Mal’s flat, authoritative voice gave no more room for discussion. “Yes, Caleb. If that’s what you make me do, then I will. I’ll come back for you all, but I am not going to abandon my people. Not now. Not ever.”
The other man looked the XO up and down as the tension grew like a whistling wind heralding an approaching storm. Malik was prepared for violence. His entire time here on Ryujin had been battle after another. It shouldn’t have come as a surprise that he’d be forced into a conflict with his own people.
That didn’t make it any less disappointing.
After a long, pregnant pause, Caleb turned his head and spat into the white sand. The stocky man turned toward Brittany and Devin then, not bothering to look back as he said, “You better hope there’s some ammo in those crates, Mister Soldier.”
This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.
Malik’s half-formed retort died on his lips when he saw the way Devin’s pale green eyes watched him. The child might not have heard the conversation the two men shared. He might not have understood the parts of their talk that he did overhear. But, like many children, the young boy was good at sensing the adults’ mood. It broke Malik’s heart to see the worried look the child sent his way as he subconsciously drifted closer to his mother.
So, instead of a sharp retort lashing into Caleb’s retreating back, Mal’s lips gave birth to a tired sigh.
With nothing left to say, Malik silently got to work examining the crates. There were eleven steel boxes in total. Each one was built to the exact same dimensions, giving the containers the impression of solid metal blocks. Only a closer inspection would find the hinges and the biometric lock that kept the crates sealed shut.
During his examination, Mal found scuffs around one of the bioscanners, likely caused by a large stone laying in the sand nearby. He couldn’t blame the colonists for trying to force their way in. He only hoped that they hadn’t managed to break the locking mechanism in their impatience.
“You said these were all crates that hadn’t been opened?” Mal swiped the ridge of his hand across the top of one of the crates to brush the sand away from the bioscanner built into the box’s lid.
“Some of the crates were unlocked. Most of them, actually.” To Malik’s surprise, it was Brittany that answered him. After passing off Devin into Caleb’s reluctant care, the woman rose to her feet. “There were some, like these, that were biometrically sealed. No one could open them. If anyone managed, they kept it very hush-hush.” The blond woman adjusted her ponytail before she moved to stand at Malik’s side. “These were already loaded into the skiff when we took it. I think someone else, someone higher up, had the same idea we did. They probably felt like anything in the locked crates would be valuable.”
“It’s possible,” Malik said, his head tilting in a nod of consideration. “There should have been a manifest that detailed each crate by ID number. Here.” As he spoke, the XO turned to swipe a bit of sand away from one side of the steel crate. Etched into the gleaming metal was a twelve-digit alphanumeric code. “Most of the equipment would have been accessible to anyone. There is a list of items that would have required higher-level authorization. Things like battery packs, vibroblades, and raw tritanium ingots.”
“Guns?” Brittany’s voice held a tremble of hope that was at odds with the woman’s no-nonsense demeanor.
“Guns.” Mal replied with a nod of agreement. “I don’t want to get our hopes up, but yes, weaponry would certainly be on the list of things locked behind command-level access.”
Mal didn’t miss the way Caleb’s attention snapped in his direction. He self-consciously adjusted the EM rifle slung over his shoulder. It wouldn’t be fair of him to deny the colonists the tools they’d need to protect themselves. The argument could be made that it was his duty to provide them with that kind of equipment. Nevertheless, he couldn’t help thinking back to some of the disagreements they’d had in the short time they’d known each other. How different would those talks have gone if Caleb had a bolt caster hanging from his hip? How different would his introduction to Brittany have been if the woman had leveled an EM rifle at him when Devin noticed him walking in their direction?
“Well,” Brittany said, tapping the nearest crate pointedly with one slender finger, “are you going to keep us in suspense all day?” Her words were casual, almost playful, but there was no mistaking the undertone of impatience that sparkled in the depths of the woman’s emerald eyes.
“No time like the present,” Mal replied, mentally shaking off his misgivings. Arming the colonists could prove to be an issue, but he owed it to them to give them the chance to prove themselves. Before he could talk himself out of it, he reached forward and placed his palm on the biometric scanner built into the crate’s lid.
Nothing happened.
Dark brows knit in consternation, Malik swiped at the scanner again before placing his palm on the device.
Still nothing.
Caleb barked a laugh from where he sat with Devin a few yards away. “Thank you for your service, Mister Executive Officer. I don’t know how we ever managed to get by without your help.”
Malik ignored the other man, instead moving to the next crate. “Some of the crates were keyed to certain members of the bridge crew. I can’t open all of them any more than Doctor Lisell could. Or Engineer Mullins. The only two people who had access to any crate would be the captains of first and second crew.”
“What about your vibroblade?” Brittany asked, making Malik start as he turned away from the crate to address the woman. “That is a vibroblade, isn’t it? It should cut through steel like butter.”
“Hab4 should have had access to vibroblades as well. At least a few. I’m guessing you already know why I’m reluctant to try to open them that way.” Malik’s tone was a far cry from the friendly voice he’d used only a few heartbeats ago.
Brittany bit her lip and turned away, one of her hands balling itself into a fist. Caleb came to her defense, his words no longer tinged with ridicule. “At least twice a day somebody decided they could open up the locked crates with a vibroblade. Or something. As far as I know, every time someone tries to force them open, some security feature turns whatever was inside into slag.”
“I thought you would know a way to bypass the security.” Brittany’s voice was a far cry from apologetic. There was a challenging gleam in her green eyes as if she were daring Malik to argue with her. “This whole system is a mess. Why would they set things up this way? This would have been a disaster even if we’d found a planet that didn’t have some kind of hostile species already inhabiting it.”
“First,” Malik said, lifting a hand to extend a single index finger toward the sky, “we don’t know enough about Ryujin to say anything about the planet with certainty. Second,” the XO continued, pointing a second finger toward the sky, “we were never meant to be separated. The colonists were supposed to have active-duty personnel on hand to help distribute supplies and create initial infrastructure. It isn’t the system’s fault that 1st crew blatantly ignored protocol.”
“Isn’t that the hallmark of a bad system?” Caleb said, leaning back to sprawl out across the pristine white sand. “One point of failure and everything just collapsed.”
“It wasn’t a single point of failure,” Malik said, feeling an irrational need to defend himself, his crew, and the mission that took them across the stars. The moment of defensiveness passed, and he found himself reluctantly admitting, “I do think there should have been some allowances made for imperfect mission execution. Expecting everything to go perfectly once we reached our target planet was wishful thinking.”
“But we’re here now and nothing can change that.” Mal moved away from the inert crate as he spoke. A short step brought him to the next container. “The best we can do is adjust and adapt to the challenges in front of us.”
He absently brushed the grit from the crate’s lid and then placed his palm flat against the scanner.
Mal felt a faint vibration hum through the steel beneath his hand a split second before a dull clack filled the air.
With a quiet hiss, the lid slid aside, revealing what lay inside the crate.