The albatross was relatively straight forward. Nearly half of the three decks were taken up by the hanger or engines. With engineering, the bridge and medical taking up most of what remained; not much room was left for the galley and personal cabins, but at least they had gravity. Medical, the galley and 6 crew cabins rotated on a ring set horizontally into the uppermost deck.

"Hungry?" Briggs asked me as we entered the Galley.

"Starving". I said. "I honestly can't remember the last time I ate."

"Well you're in luck, now that we're in warp, it's dinner time." He said with a smile sitting at the head of a long table in the middle of the room.

I made to sit in a chair on the side when something caught me by the hips and roughly shoved me aside. I flailed wildly, attempting to catch my balance. Thankfully I was able to grab the wall without falling. If this had been normal earth gravity I probably would have hit my head pretty hard but the ring on the ship was only producing about half that.

I looked down. Standing between me and the chair I was about to sit in was a Qin. He was only two to three feet tall and stared at me with his eyeless crest. "Red one, mine," he said in a guttural scratchy voice while pointing to the chair.

Just then, a second Qin entered the galley and said "No, Red one mine."

"No, Mine". The 1st said as the two Qin squared off against each other, reptilian snouts quivering.

I made my way around the table and sat in a blue colored chair and glanced at Briggs inquisitively. "That's Pog and Kun. Our engineers. They tend to bicker over stuff like this from time to time. Not to worry though, they'll figure it out." He finished with a chuckle, watching the exchange.

The two were just standing there, four feet apart, staring at each other, neither one making a move or a sound. I was focused so intently on the scene before me I nearly lept out of my skin when a feminin voice behind me said "whos this?"

Briggs laughed and said "Jonathan Kaine meet Kasey Avalon, ship's pilot."

"Nice to meet you." I greeted and held a hand out to her.

She looked at my hand for a moment, somewhat puzzled, then took it and shook lightly. "What's up with them?" She asked with a flick of her finger towards the Qin before sitting down next to me. She was wearing a thin brown coat and under it was a skin tight bodysuit that showed off every beautiful curve and when she sat down I could swear I heard it creaking."

"Same old, same old." Briggs Replied.

Just then, the stalemate broke. The Qin on the left reached into his bandolier of tools and raised a large wrench as high into the air as he could. The other looked at it and cocked his head sideways for a moment like a dog then said, “twenty credits”. The first nodded, the wrench was exchanged for the money and the new owner of the wrench took the red chair, the other sitting next to him.

“Because the wrench handle is red.” Kasey whispered to me out of the side of her mouth. It took me a moment to work it out before I realized I was over thinking. The one with the red handled wrench got to sit in the red chair. When I got it I put my face in my hands and groaned. “When you work with them for a couple years, you pick up their ways a little.” she said.

“Pog and Kun. Meet Jon Kaine, our new crew member.” Captain Briggs said, addressing the Qin.

“What you do?” Kun asked me

“I was training to be a pilot.” I told them

“Unfortunately kid, that jobs taken; but, I know just the thing. Pog, after dinner why don’t you take him to engineering and show him the ropes.” he turned back to me.'' Understanding how engines work will make you a better pilot. Once you’ve got a bit of experience under you, maybe Kasey can give you some piloting lessons.”

Kasey shrugged, "Whatever" but she made a pointed hard stare at Briggs and I could tell something was up.

As I was considering how to proceed the door on my right opened and in walked a tall Arahnka dressed in white and wearing a human chefs hat atop his birdlike head. The red and violet colors of his wings stood out from the white chef's apron. He ducked low through the door and carried a large tray with six covered bowls.

"Greetings." He said to me as he began placing the bowls in front of everyone. His voice had an odd musical note to it. "As we have a guest I decided to play it safe with some traditional earth cuisine."

"Jon Kaine, this is Zig'Ridath. Don't call him Ziggy, turns out, butchering an Arahnka's name is one of the few ways you can piss them off." Captain Briggs said and from the glance the two exchanged I could tell he was speaking from personal experience. Zig'Ridath sat down and took off the chef's hat.

"It's nice to meet you." I uncovered the bowl to find it contained Spaghetti and Meatballs with a red sauce. I smiled and dug in. It was delicious, but tasted different than I was used to. "These meatballs don't taste like beef."

"That's because they're not. Beef is hard to get out here. They are actually…"

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"Zig'Ridath," Kasey interrupted, "I'd rather not know thank you." Then she looked at me and said "meat in general is extremely hard to find and store in quantity. Trust me, you don't want to question what you're eating most of the time. It tastes good, and it doesn't make us sick, and that's all you need to know to enjoy it." She finished before returning to her meal.

She was right, probably best not to know. The meal was quiet after that and this group felt like they were family to each other. I'd expected the Qin to be sloppy eaters but they seemed more dainty than anything else.

"So why did you guys rescue me?" I asked the room. It was like I'd just dropped a stun grenade. Everyone froze, hands halfway between plate and mouth.

Captain Briggs put his fork down and looked at me. "It was providence kid. We weren't trying to rescue you. It was the other guy." And he snapped his fingers like he was trying to think of something.

"Peterson?" I asked

"Yeah that's him. That shuttle was supposed to have him in it. We were planning to save him, but after saving you, we couldn't just throw you out an airlock now could we. Besides, we could use another crew member." He shrugged and went back to eating.

He was lying. I had made up the name Peterson, it had been Graves that was supposed to be on the shuttle with me. But the clencher was the glare he was receiving and ignoring from Kasey. I really need to watch my step here. Whatever the reason they rescued me, they definitely didn't have my wellbeing in mind when they did it.

****

After dinner Pog gave me a tour of the engine room. I helped him fix the harpoon they'd use to spear the shuttle. It had bent and wouldn't reset into the launcher so he was holding it in a large vice while I hammered it straight. I paused when I saw a patch of dried blood and got yelled at for not working.

It took a couple hours of work to placate Pog and he let me go. I wandered around the ship, musing to myself about the circumstances. How I had gotten here and what my next moves should be when I entered the access to the hallway to the bridge and heard voices. One great thing about zero G, no footsteps. I floated closer and tried to hear what was being said.

"...its just downright cruel. Aaron is being such a dick and he doesn't deserve the runaround." Kasey said.

"Captain has plan." Came Kun's low, almost growling voice.

"There won't be another shuttle for at least a week, and if there was, it would probably be guarded. We can’t get anymore and our rendezvous with the Fajani is tomorrow. If we fail to deliver they'll destroy us and they aren't going to give us another extension."

"What do you think we should do?" Zig'Ridath asked.

Kasey sighed audibly and said "I don't know. This is a huge payday and we can't let Aaron get in the way. Just follow my lead when the time's right."

I pushed gently off the wall and considered what they were saying as I put space between us. Best not to be found snooping. It was clear, the crew of this ship is less family than I had originally considered and seemed more cutthroat pirate by the moment. From what Kasey was saying I'm thinking there was something else on that shuttle with me that they were after. Something that was probably illegal and I just happened to be excess baggage.

As I sat in a dark corner of the cabin ring I saw Kun and then Zig'Ridath float up and retire to their cabins and I decided to go see Kasey. When I floated onto the bridge she was sitting at a nav console and looked up. "Hey" I said with a half wave.

"What's up?" She asked, leaning back in the chair and stretching both arms far above her head and then out to the side. I tried, and failed, not staring at her chest as she did it. And after, I could see by the smirk on her face, she was fully aware.

I blushed red in the face and tried to remember why I was there on the bridge. "I wanted to send my sister a message."

"Your sister?"

"Yeah. She is all the family I have left. She was incredibly worried about me joining the Starforce because our father died in the war with the V'Tori. No doubt she's caught wind that something is wrong by now. I was supposed to message her when I got to the Pilot's academy on Luna. I just want to explain, before she hears it from the wrong side."

Kasey's face went dark and she turned away for a moment. "Yeah sure. Use that console over there. You should mention that we're going to be in a comms blackout for awhile. She doesn't need to know the reason why. Just tell her it's going to be a long time before you have another chance to message her."

I sat in the chair and hooked my feet into the bar to hold myself in place. I pulled up the communication menu and began recording.

"Hi Jenny. Things never seem to go as planned. I never made it to the Pilot Training Academy and I'm fairly sure you've figured that out by now. It really makes me sad because not twenty-four hours after you tell me you're accepting of my choice to join the Starforce, everything went to shit."

"I don't think it's safe for me to tell you what happened. If I told you, it might put you and Sam and the kids in danger. But you need to believe me, that I didn't do what they said I did. You know I'm not that kind of person. I admired Captain Mcgillicuddy." My cheeks turned red with anger and I took a deep breath before continuing.

"Jenny, I want you to know that I'm safe. I got rescued by a group with a ship. Seems like a group of good people and they've taken me in. I'm working on the ship now as an assistant engineer. They even mentioned giving me piloting lessons. So I am working in space just like I always wanted. Just maybe not the way I originally imagined it. Stay safe and give the kids my love. It'll be some time before I can message you again."

I stopped the recording and sent it off. As I rose Kasey asked "What are they saying you did?"

"Admiral Wilks killed Captain Mcgillicuddy because the Captain kicked The admiral's son out of the Starforce and couldn't be persuaded to allow him back in. He did it right in front of me and framed me for it. I was being sent to life in prison without a trial when you guys saved me. So thanks for that."

Kasey still had her back to me. "You should get some sleep kid. Tomorrow we're meeting with a client and it's going to be a crazy day. One way or another." The last was said to herself under her breath. But I still heard.

As I left the bridge and headed back to my cabin I considered everything. I could probably get her to tell me what was going on. The cabin I was given was small. It had a cott and small chest in the corner and nothing else. At least in the half gravity it was slightly comfortable. With the lights off it was very dark. While we were at warp there would be no starlight to shine through the small window.

My thoughts kept drifting back to the conversation I'd overheard on the bridge. I was still missing too many pieces of the puzzle to get a clear picture of what was going on. But a deep sense of foreboding came over me at the thought that maybe I was wrong with my original idea. We'll just have to see what tomorrow holds.