Chapter 4: Oanus

Helen had happened to the armory. Adult magazines were scattered all over the cabin and most of his posters were wedged between the mattress and bulkhead. He hadn’t checked the room after he left Helen alone to check the engines and ship status. She’d left the locker open or hadn’t secured it and everything he’d stuffed in there had been thrown around during the short fight. Shaking his head, he spotted Helen sitting on the deck, reading a magazine and breathing hard.

“I forgot to mention to secure everything before we exit FTL,” he said with a sigh as he looked around the cabin.

“You have vintage, special print, magazines!” Helen exclaimed to him and pointed to the page she was looking at. “This shot of Candy Starsuxx was taken twenty times and printed twice! You have an original!” she gushed and got to her feet. “How did you get all these?!”

Rolling his eyes and glad she couldn’t see his reaction, he tried to smile. “Dealers and collectors let them go for decent prices out on the Rim. Most are probably stolen or knockoffs but I don’t collect them to sell,” he replied, feeling a blush come to his cheeks.

“Without a 3D model and projector I can imagine the magazines would be better than the sanitized stuff you can find on the net,” Helen said with a smirk. The Alliance had put a “tax” on any hardcore adult images and films over the net. Unless you paid the Alliance a flat fee per month you couldn’t access the good stuff.

“Something like that,” he answered with a frown. He wanted her to drop the topic but his companion didn’t seem to want to let it go.

“I collect them and love the feel of the pages as I play with myself,” Helen confided, letting her hand run up and down her voluptuous body.

Ethan found it hard not to look and managed to yank his eyes away. “I’m, uh, glad you do. Let’s get this cleaned up or better yet I can clean it up and you can work on yours and Viv’s cabin. It looks like a disaster zone,” he started to offer and was nearly knocked over as Helen rushed past him, magazine in hand.

“Oh no! I didn’t think about that,” she exclaimed and disappeared into her cabin.

Trying not to laugh, he stepped further into the armory and began the process of cleaning up. Twenty minutes later, he’d picked up all the loose items and secured them again. After a moment’s thought, he opened the ammunition locker and checked nothing was missing. He was happy to see no weapons, ammo, or munitions had disappeared when Helen was in the room alone. Knowing you could trust someone and having it verified were two different things.

While the women cleaned their cabin, he performed a few maintenance checks. The force he’d put on his ship during the hard maneuvers could have caused some stress to the hull, but he was pleased to note nothing had been damaged. After his inspection, he dropped into the pilot’s chair in the cockpit and began to go over the information he gathered at the trade beacon. In all the screenshots, the trade beacon hadn’t had a warrant for either of the women. He made a mental note to check every beacon they passed to make sure it stayed that way.

While he worked, both of the women took quick showers. Again, he was pleased they’d remembered to reduce the amount of water they used. A lot of the used water would be cleaned and recycled back into the system for use again, but excessive use could cause problems. The multiple still images of everything the ship captured took a lot of time to sort through. He had a detailed report of exactly what had happened during the short time they’d spent in normal space. The last image he took before they’d jumped out, revealed the Alliance had acknowledged his S.O.S. call. He didn’t see an attached order but he could triangulate where the Alliance ship had responded from, the gate ahead of them.

While he followed the law most of the time, he didn’t want the law anywhere near his ship until he dropped the women off. Helen’s reaction to the Alliance’s possible involvement had him hoping he wouldn’t see those sleek white ships for the remainder of the journey. He would have to answer questions as to why he had an improvised bomb attached to the bottom of his ship, but he had a weapons permit and wasn’t too worried about the fallout from his attack run. What he hoped the Alliance wouldn’t pick up on was the fact he had laser distorters hidden on the back of his ship. They weren’t legal on any planet in the Alliance because most of the Alliance Cruisers used lasers as their main weapons. A laser distorter projected a shielded heat signature that a targeting system would lock onto. Most lasers would miss unless the ship was in visible range and the attacking ship was using manual firing predictions.

The increase in piracy in the area had forced him to install the distorters. He could run without them but the first place a pirate would target was his engines. Knowing his ship was at risk from a smart Alliance investigator, he made a note to try and remove them before they got to Oanus.

The hours passed quickly as he worked on various projects. Viv and Helen had emerged from the cabin a few times, but both expressed a desire to get a nap after the heart-stopping fight. After Helen’s suggestions about how to program the application better, Ethan decided to try out her suggestions. He wasn’t surprised when it turned out she had been correct. The application launched quicker, not having to keep the entire program in memory, and the rudimentary queries he’d programmed in ran faster as well. After his eyes began to hurt from looking at lines of code, he retreated to the engine room to go over the ship’s systems again.

Everyone he’d ever worked with expressed exasperation at the near-manic level of attention he paid to the ship’s systems. To him, it was a no-brainer to make sure the hunk of metal that flew through space wouldn’t just fall apart or break down. It was a way for him to relax and be productive at the same time. After he’d finished the check, he took out his tools one at the time and cleaned them.

Viv found him sitting on the couch, oiling down a socket wrench. “Hey Mr. Mercury, what are you up to?” she asked and plopped down beside him.

“Ethan,” he muttered in response and carefully wiped off the wrench.

“What?” she asked and frowned at him.

“Call me, Ethan. It seems fair since I call you Viv. As to your question, I’m cleaning the tools I use to make sure the ship flies. If you don’t take care of your tools then how can you rely on them if something goes wrong?”

Viv nodded and pointed to the pile of tools. “What is each of the tools and what do you use them for?” she asked, running a finger over the metal of a welder.

Ethan smiled at his passenger and put down the wrench. “After we pass through the gate I’ll teach you the basics. If you want to continue learning, we have a couple of days to try and knock the information between those pretty eyes of yours and hope it will stick,” he joked and winked at her.

The alarm went off, signaling the approaching end of the FTL jump. “About time,” he muttered and picked up his tools before securing them again. “Viv, have you and your mom secured your room in case we have to run again?” he called over his shoulder.

“Yeah, we did. Mom was pissed all her carefully arranged clothes were scattered through the room, but my stuff was mostly safe. Except for the stuff in the bathroom, I had been cleaning my face when we had to suit up.”

Nodding, he closed up the engine room and eyed the living space to see if anything hadn’t been stowed away. When he was satisfied, he walked up to the cockpit, Viv in tow. The alarm had woken Helen as he’d heard muttered curses coming from the cabin and tried not to laugh. Sitting in the pilot’s chair, he began the process again of checking over the ship’s status. Viv took the co-pilot’s seat and leaned over to look at what he was doing.

“Alright, I suppose I can explain what I’m doing now. We have a little bit of time before we reach our destination. Some call me crazy but the more experienced mechanics know the only thing between you and the void is a bit of metal. One miss-assembled or faulty part could spell death for all aboard a ship. That might be a little dramatic but still true. When you’re out in the void, with no one around, too many things can go wrong and you only have a fixed amount of spare parts. I say this because I check the ship’s status and readouts religiously. My ship is my religion and I worship her with unfailing loyalty.

Starting from the left and ending at the right, I’ll go over my pilot’s console then your navigation one. I don’t expect you to know them for a test but the more you retain the more help you could be in the future. So, pay attention,” Ethan lectured and began to slowly explain everything on the two consoles. Helen entered the cabin during his lesson but didn’t say a word, taking the jumpseat. She leaned in and watched him go over the communications system.

The ten minute alarm went off, making him break off the lesson. “Alright, I won’t be able to explain what I’m doing when we drop out of FTL because I need to keep an eye on a lot of different things at once. We still might have a ship on our tail that I missed so please grab your helmets and oxygen tanks just in case,” he ordered and reached behind him to unstrap his helmet. A hand covered his glove for a moment. He glanced back to see Helen unlatching his helmet for him. “Thanks,” he said and smiled at the beautiful woman.

She winked at him and disappeared with her daughter into the cabin a moment later. When they reemerged a few minutes later, Viv took the co-pilot’s chair again and Helen took the jumpseat. They both buckled in and secured their oxygen tanks. When the timer went off, Ethan slowly brought them out of FTL and focused on his job. Following his routine, he first checked the visuals and then turned on the radar and collision systems. Glancing at the navigation console, he was pleased to see no one was at the gate. The Alliance ship had left the area to go investigate his call of S.O.S for Captain Greentar’s ship. The massive ring floated between two metal blocks. Weapon platforms could be seen on the top and bottom of the two structures.

He turned on the open frequency and spoke aloud, “Gate DS-225, this is trader ship Twisted Bolt requesting a jump to Wymeron Sector.”

A minute later a robotic voice replied, “Twisted Bolt, this is Designator Eleven. Alliance Captain Tillus requires you to resend your logs of travel times, destination, and situation report. Failure to do so will brand you a pirate and I will be forced to destroy you.”

Ethan blinked at his screen, at a loss for words. He’d been flying solo for a long time and he’d never heard a request like that from an Alliance captain. It smelled like an uncleaned scrubber. He glared at the console. “Designator Eleven, the captain’s request is against the law and you know it. I will send you the contract and logs I took of the piracy action by Captain Greentar but ordering the transmission of travel times and situation reports of my ship are illegal. Respond now,” he grated out and clenched his fist.

“Designator Eleven is relaying the message from Alliance Captain Tillus. Legality is not this designator’s primary operation,” the robotic voice replied but Ethan quickly cut it off.

“Primary function or not, you know the Alliance laws you hunk of junk. Sending the logs now but I will be filing a complaint about the captain and move to have you disassembled for being a compromised designator.”

“Processing information,” the designator replied and a moment later continued, “processing complete. Alliance Captain Tillus’ order is illegal. Please send your contract and log of the pirate attack.”

He nodded, satisfied the designator had seen reason. After keying in the information, he sat back in his chair. Viv and Helen were both looking at him with wide eyes, but they remained silent. A few minutes after he’d sent the information to the gate’s net the robotic voice came back over the radio, “logs received and verified. Opening gate to Wymeron Sector. Have a nice flight, Twisted Bolt.”

A high pitched buzzing came in over the open radio and Ethan turned it off before looking at his companions. “Here’s the rub. Captain Panties-In-A-Bunch just gave an AI an illegal order. The AI tried to pass the illegal order on, knowing it was illegal. The Alliance AI’s first law is to obey the Alliance law to the letter,” he explained.

“What does that mean?” Viv asked, looking between Ethan and Helen.

“It means someone wants you two badly and has connections. An Alliance captain, a private company, and a gate AI are all implicated in this. I’m not going to lie, I’m getting a little worried about exactly what’s going on. I was under the impression you two were on the run but I’ve got to ask. What did you two do?” he asked, looking directly at Helen.

“You weren’t wrong. We are running, but not because we did anything wrong. I maintain that you need to know as little as possible, but,” she trailed off, eyes fixated on the main screen.

The massive circle was gathering energy at each of its corners. Energy arched from one pylon to another. In the middle of the circle, a beam of light grew wider, slowly expanding towards the pylons pointed at it. Blue beams of light jumped from the pylons and latched onto the wide circle of light that had formed in the middle of the gate.

“Gate jump in three, two, one,” Ethan said and pointed the nose of the ship at the circle of light. When he said to one, he throttled the FTL drive and pressed the button. The monitors were bathed in bright light for a moment before everything went black. “Alright, this gate jump will take ten minutes to go through. We’ll be using the wormhole to jump over several sectors. After we exit, we’ll spool up the FTL again and be on our merry way,” he said and continued to watch the ship’s power and status.

The jump was made in silence. He didn’t bother counting down to when they jumped out of the wormhole and simply lowered the FTL throttle. After visuals came online, he flicked the radar and collision warning systems on. Everything on the ship showed nominal so he unlocked the flight stick and flew a little ways away from the spot they’d jumped into. Gates connected to allow direct travel between them. Sometimes a ship had to wait days before the two gates aligned and Alliance ships always got priority on gate jumps.

“Will you continue teaching me?” Viv asked into the silence.

Smiling, Ethan nodded and again began instructing the young woman. Helen asked a few questions as well while they waited for the FTL to recharge. Once it had, everyone went quiet by unspoken agreement and the women smiled wide, waiting for the ship’s vibrations to start. As the power charged the FTL Drive, he looked over at Helen and tried not to laugh when he’d spotted her with her hands stuffed between her thighs. Finishing the jump sequence, he flipped the glass up and pushed the red button. The jerk in the pit of his stomach told him everything went perfectly. After glancing at the power levels, he was pleased to see the ship was running smoothly. He took off his helmet and bit his lip to not laugh when he saw Helen’s flushed face.

“Hush, it has been a long few days,” Helen muttered, rolling her eyes at him.

“Mom just wanted to get off for you,” Viv confided and got tapped on the back of the head by Helen for her comment.

“You hush, too. I’ll have you know I would have done it in front of anyone if the opportunity came up,” she said, lifting her nose in the air and sniffing imperiously.

Everyone burst out laughing at Helen’s antics but Ethan couldn’t help think Viv might have been right. He wasn’t sure how he felt about Viv’s observation. The last thing he needed was a distraction but he couldn’t help feeling his body reacting to the idea. “Helen’s lovely lips wrapped,” he started to think but shook off the image. “Focus,” he chanted in his head and turned back to the console.

After he’d composed himself by looking over the ship’s readouts, he looked over at Viv. “Alright, are you ready to continue learning?” he asked, pointing to the navigation console where they’d left off.

Smiling wide, Viv nodded her head, “oh yeah, I want to learn!”

Ethan was surprised at how much Viv retained and her strong desire to learn as much as he would teach her. The days slipped by as they sped towards Oanus. His “blonde-headed troublemaker” as he began to call Viv

stuck to his side asking question after question. He had to threaten to stop teaching her because she kept knocking on his door to ask more questions when he was trying to sleep. On one hand, he was glad she was enthusiastic but on the other, he began to become annoyed at the young woman. He was a solitary creature and she’d taken any sense of solitude and thrown it out an airlock. Helen seemed content with staying out of the way of her daughter’s impromptu education but stepped in when Viv became too much for Ethan to deal with.

He’d been relieved when Helen stepped in the first time, dragging Viv off to help her with cleaning their cabin, and thanked her when they had a spare moment alone. She had smiled and winked at him before telling him it was obvious he was getting frayed around the edges from being with Viv for so long. Helen turned out to be a bigger distraction than Viv had in the long run. While Ethan and Viv were sitting in the cockpit going over the checklists they heard Helen’s screams of passion through the closed cabin door. Amused, Ethan tried to continue going over the checklists, but he became more and more distracted.

Viv broke down in a fit of laughter at his discomfort before suddenly stopping, face twisted in a scowl. “You wouldn’t happen to have a washer and dryer would you?” she questioned, looking back towards the cabin again.

“I’ve got the standard scrub and a washbasin. Why do you ask?” he’d replied, confused by her sudden question.

“She squirts at both ends,” Viv muttered and gestured with her hands, one at her breast and the other between her legs.

His eyes had gone wide and his jumpsuit became extremely tight around his crotch, something Viv had pointed out to him, but she dropped the subject after his glare. Once Helen had appeared, Viv simply dropped the scrubber and basin in front of her and walked off without a word.