Chapter 6: On The Run

Helen informed him that the projectile tore through some muscle had and ripped a large patch from his jumpsuit in the process. The round hadn’t hit his bone and his muscle would heal naturally after she applied the hypo-spray. He didn’t feel a lot of pain from the injury until Helen applied the first aid kit.

“Viv, lock up the place. The code is 5501014562 for all the hatches and be careful if you go outside the ship,” Ethan ordered as Helen tugged on his arm, producing a wince from him.

“You got it, boss,” Viv giggled and ran off to do as he bid.

“She’s a good kid,” he muttered and got slapped lightly on the top of his head.

“She’s not a child, Ethan. She may act like it sometimes, but don’t let that cloud your judgment of her. We’ll explain more later, once we’re safe,” Helen scolded him and rubbed disinfectant around his wound.

The foul-smelling spray helped seal his injury until the flesh could heal. He felt that he was lucky that he didn’t need to see a medical professional. “Yeah, well nowhere is going to be completely safe,” he muttered and looked over his shoulder at the timer he’d made for their departure.

“Are you just going to leave that Rhodaron’s body out there?” Viv asked a few minutes later as she strode down the corridor towards the cockpit.

“Yes,” Ethan responded, not wanting to go into any details just yet.

“Why?” the young woman responded in an exasperated tone.

“Because,” he answered, trying not to smile.

“You will tell me, but I understand if you don’t want to right now,” Viv conceded and crossed her arms under her breasts. She still wore the tight red jumpsuit. He couldn’t help eyeing her curves.

“I will ... in time. Right now we need a plan. You two will sign on as an assistant pilot and,” he broke off trying to figure out what he could put down for Helen.

“Cook,” Helen replied with confidence.

“A cook it is,” he muttered and broke out laughing when he realized how easy it was to be a cook on his ship.

“I’ll have you know if your ship had even an adequate kitchen, I could make food that would be served in the highest quality restaurants,” Helen boasted, looking hurt at his laughter.

“Fine, sorry. But, you have to admit, if someone got a good look at the ship and saw the title “Cook” they would laugh too. Let me get two standard contracts ready for you. You’ll have to use your real names since the fake ones are compromised,” he said, pulling out his tablet.

“About that, how did you know to look for a warrant?” Helen asked, looking him square in the face.

“I didn’t think to look until a woman was stunned by what looked like a high-powered shock baton. I had just finished eating and noticed an electronic store across the street. Just as I stepped off the walk and onto the street, someone screamed behind me. I don’t know if you noticed but this place is a boiling pot of violence. I looked back and a man in a dark jumpsuit with a black mask,” he stopped, thinking of the Rhodaron woman. He hadn’t seen the black helmet anywhere.

“Void,” he cursed and checked the time again. “The black mask the Rhodaron woman must have been wearing is still somewhere on the deck outside the ship.”

“I can go look,” Viv started but was vetoed by Ethan and Helen immediately.

“Like void you will, Princess,” Ethan muttered and got up. “I’ll grab a light or better yet,” he said and flicked a switch on the overhead console above his chair. The dark hangar was bathed in light as the ship’s hull lights came on at once. “I’ll be quick, but come get me if anyone calls or you see something that shouldn’t be here; like an Alliance shuttle outside the hangar door. Check the navigation console and station’s visuals,” he ordered and fast-walked down the corridor before stopping in the living area. He struck a metal panel under the couch with his closed fist. Several items spilled out of the compartment as the cover popped loose. Grabbing up a torch, he opened the cargo hatch and waited by the ramp as it descended.

The ship’s lights illuminated the hangar, but there were plenty of dark shadows the dark helmet could be hiding in. Shining his torch around, he spotted a black box laying on the deck near his ship’s landing gear. Frowning, he walked over and flicked open the closed metal box with his boot. Inside was a wide range of sophisticated hacking tools. Next to the box lay the missing helmet; face down on the deck. Picking it up, he saw a long line of text going down one side of the faceplate. He spotted a blinking dot on a small map at the top right-hand corner of the mask. It took him a moment to realize what he was looking at.

“You bugged my ship,” he complained and put the helmet down next to the box. Shining the torch around under his ship, he tried to find anything that might look like a tracking device. He couldn’t find anything that stood out to him. Time was running out and he had to act fast. Picking up the mask again, he tried to look through the face shield to see if it would illuminate the tracking device; he didn’t have any luck. A glimmer of hope flashed across his mind as he looked at the mask. Running across the deck, towards the station airlock, he watched the map to see if the dot moved. Halfway to the airlock, he saw the blip hadn’t moved with him. A new idea came to him and he ran back to the ramp’s control panel and carefully pried it open. On the back of the panel, wedged in between the wiring, sat a little black chip that looked out of place.

“Ethan! A lady from Dock Control is trying to reach you,” Helen called and he cursed.

Closing up the panel, he reached down and picked up the metal box and the helmet. He sealed the ramp behind him as he headed for the cockpit. Dropping the box and the mask between the pilot and co-pilot’s seat, he sank into his chair and strapped in. “What did she say?” he asked, looking over the console.

“That you’d been bumped up in the queue. We’re to respond and be ready to depart in six minutes,” Viv answered and poked a booted foot at the metal box.

“Dock Control, this is Twisted Bolt. We’ll be ready,” he answered the controller and canceled the call once he’d gotten an affirmative response. He started the engine sequence and prepped his counter-measures in case they ran into trouble during their escape. Remembering the contracts, he pulled his tablet back out and passed it to Helen. “Alright, the contracts are straight forward. You sign on for four runs, your release date is at the discretion of the Captain, me. Put in your information, one that can’t be tied to a criminal record and sign on as a cook. After that, pass it to Viv and do the same. I’m not sure adding your title would be a good idea,” he warned, looking at the younger woman.

“I’m not dumb, you know,” Viv snorted and rolled her eyes.

“The ship has been bugged, but I didn’t have time to remove it safely. Once we’re away from here, I can EVA and take a closer inspection. The tools in the box are top-of-the-line. Added with the gear all the Green Light Shipping people had, it shows they are a well-funded organization,” he stated and throttled more power to the ship. The engines hummed throughout the vessel.

“Oh,” Helen replied in a quiet voice. “I’m almost done,” she said and typed on his tablet.

Helen finished her contract and passed it over to Viv just as they took off from the hangar. The marker clearly showed Ethan the way and his fingers itched to full-burn out of the station. He knew it would be a bad idea, as people would get suspicious, but he wanted to get as far ahead of his pursuers as possible. If they got out of the sector without any problems, they could be ahead of the Alliance once he’d disabled the tracking beacon. If they couldn’t get out of the sector, it would be a matter of time before they were stopped and caught.

Flying through the designated path, he pressed the red button to capture the information from the station net and watched the progress bar climb, showing the percentage of downloaded data. A massive station like Oanus could have a week’s worth of raw data to sort through. It was something he wasn’t looking forward to but knew he needed as much information as possible. After a tense fifteen minutes, they passed the first marker boundary and increased their speed to get away from the station faster. For large stations, there were two boundary lines. One for the markers signaling the lanes and one for FTL Drive usage. After a horrific collision between a passenger ship and a large cargo ship, the Alliance passed laws to help prevent collisions by creating two boundary lines around all large stations. The passenger ship had engaged their FTL Drive shortly after exiting the marker lane at the same time the cargo ship had jumped into the sector, near the boundary line. The resulting collision was catastrophic when the two objects tried to occupy the same space at the same time.

Everyone breathed a sigh of relief once they’d passed the FTL Drive boundary and Ethan had started the FTL sequence. “As sad as our situation is, I missed this feeling,” Viv giggled out as the ship vibrated.

“You’ll get bored of it before too long,” Ethan said with a shrug. He had thrown himself in with the women, something he hoped had been a correct decision. A discomforting sensation nagged at the back of his mind. He tried to figure out what it was, but it slipped away.

“It’s a whole-body intense vibrator and you think I’ll get bored of it?!” Viv question, disbelief written on her face.

“So, storytime,” he said, turning towards his companions. “I’m about as in deep as you two are now. Do I get to know what’s going on?” he asked, looking between the two women. A feeling of uneasiness brushed across the back of his neck again.

“How long until we reach the closest gate?” Helen asked, looking at Viv.

The younger woman looked down at her console and bit her lip. “Five hours and twenty-six minutes?” she asked and looked towards Ethan who nodded to her. “Five hours and twenty-six minutes,” she replied again with a wide smile.

“That should be enough time but are you sure you want to hear it?” Helen asked.

“Yes, I think if I know what’s going on, I might be able to help. At the moment, I’ve got us flying to the closest gate to get out of the sector. Time is more important than location. We’ve got a beacon on us, so we need to get somewhere relatively safe and disable it.”

“Please remember, when we tell you the story, that you were an unknown variable at the time,” Viv said abruptly and looked at him with a grim expression. “You won’t like some of it and will probably have questions, but please wait until we’re done. Can we get comfortable before we have this conversation though?” she asked, looking down at her tight jumpsuit and Helen’s large yellow jumpsuit.

Ethan nodded as an uncomfortable weight dropped into the pit of his stomach. He tried to smile and said, “take your time. I’ve got to double-check everything is alright with the ship before we have the conversation anyway. We can’t miss anything that might go wrong until we reach a Gray Port,” he sighed and started down the hallway.

“A Gray Port?” Helen asked, unbuckling and getting to her feet.

“A neutral area or Gray Port. It could be a planet, station, colony, mining outpost, ship, or whatever that runs the neutral flag. People think it is a haven for criminals, but their idea of a penal system is a long walk out an airlock. If you break a law on a Gray Port more often than not you’ll find yourself dead or sold into slavery,” he answered over his shoulder.

Checking the engine for any problems took a little longer than he’d anticipated. He kept seeing a power spike in the engine at exactly thirty second intervals. The spike was so small he wouldn’t have seen it unless he kept notes and records of the nominal power levels. He hoped it was just the tracking beacon sending out its signal, but he wouldn’t know until he’d removed the device. Putting his worries aside for the moment, he closed up the engine room and heard his stomach growl. Not feeling like going into the cargo container to pull out a packaged meal, he clicked the button on the dispenser. Sitting on the couch, he waited for the women to get freshened up while eating the unappetizing bar.

Viv appeared out of the cabin first, dressed in a gray jumpsuit, and sat down on the couch beside him. “Didn’t you eat a few hours ago?” she asked, looking at the unfinished bar in his hand.

“Stress eating,” he muttered and ignored the young woman’s giggle.

Helen appeared a few minutes later, dressed in her tight-fitting gray jumpsuit. She scowled at them. “I have one bra and two pairs of panties now,” she complained as she dropped onto the couch beside Viv. “One of the panties needs to be washed and the bra I’m wearing is too small,” she continued with a glance toward Ethan.

“Maybe we can make something that will work,” Ethan replied with little enthusiasm. His skills as a knitter or tailor were nonexistent and he didn’t have a fabricator designed for clothes. Helen’s eye roll told him how she felt about his attempt to help.

Viv took a deep breath and released it before looking at the small table. Ethan watched her, waiting to see what she had to say. She looked up at him and gave him a half-smile, “My name is Alissa. My title is Princess Alissa von Seahall of the Eihiri Kingdom. Eihiri, if you don’t know, is my home planet. I’m not sure where the kingdom part comes in, but it doesn’t matter. This entire problem starts sixty-three years ago or so. I know you think I’m young, but I’m actually forty-three.”

Feeling his eyebrows climb up his forehead, he reexamined Viv’s face and hands. “Alissa,” he mentally corrected himself. She acted young a lot of the time and he had trouble not scolding her like a father, but at other times, she showed a maturity that far belied her physical appearance. After he realized his mouth was hanging open, he snapped it shut and nodded to her.

Alissa gave him a shrug before continuing, “I know I don’t look that old and part of that is the cosmetics I’m using. The other part is that my family’s genetic treatments have been the best available since before I was born, which helps too. The fugitive geneticist Dr. Jorhiem Schultz, also known as “Loopa Lover”, was given asylum by my family. After he’d was stupid enough to try and sleep with the queen at the time. She was my great, great, great grandmother. My family traded him to the Alliance who rewarded our family with special trade access to their Core Planets. We eventually cultivated a small sphere of influence with the power the Alliance granted us. Dr. Schultz, however insane, was a gifted geneticist and we used his knowledge to become one of the foremost experts on genetic enhancements. Skip ahead a few generations while my family continued to expand within the Alliance sphere and we come to sixty-three years ago. The reason I know the date is because it is the same day we allied with Duval Exports. The sitting senator, Ronald Duval, on Privos Prime was the figurehead of Duval Exports.

My father was blackmailed to make an unfair trade deal with Senator Ronald and by extension, the Duval Family. They hold exclusive rights to ship all of our exports at a flat rate ... among other things. Our reputation plummeted when we defaulted on the other shipping contracts. In days, our generations of hard work came crumbling down. The media and regulations campaign to discredit our products stopped a month later.”

Alissa took a deep breath and clenched her fists in her lap. Looking at him through tear-filled eyes she continued with a hard voice, “my father was murdered ten years ago and I had no idea. Helen came to me less than a month ago with evidence that I couldn’t refute. My father had a body double, one that had been brought up from birth in the family and had a loyalty chip implanted in him. Don’t look surprised, everyone does it these days with the threat of pirates and assassins that lurk in the backroom politics.”

“The evidence, however, is clear. She gathered the information from his small personality changes in his everyday routines and major governmental policies over the last few years. Oh, Timothy, who is the body double, is an amazing impersonator, but he doesn’t have the same presence of power as my father had. I thought my father was just getting old, even with our age-lengthening drugs and genetic augmentations. We made our escape after Helen bought new identities for each of us.” She laughed as tears streaked down her pretty face. “Viv was my doll that my father gave me for my sixth birthday,” she choked out and tried to regain her composure.

Helen put a hand on Alissa’s back and gently rubbed it. “My name is Helen la Seahall. The la stands for “subject to” or “slave” depending on who you ask. I was bought from my parents when I was six and given to Alissa to be her friend and confidant. She was two at the time. Alissa is my friend, daughter, and sometimes lover. I was given a much higher level of gene modification and augmentations than was legal at the time. So much so, I died on the operating table. They saved me by putting artificial organs and veins in my body. Over the years, I’ve gone from being human to becoming a bio-android of sorts. This next part is a little hard to swallow Ethan so please forgive me,” Helen said with trepidation in her voice.

“I release pheromones in the air around me, much like the Fentrion. It distracts and seduces almost all known species; it affects males, females, and non-gender species. The secret is so guarded within the family that even the Alliance doesn’t know about it. You’ve probably been wondering why you came back and saved us and been telling yourself it has been your idea. Sadly, only most of it is true. We didn’t know if you were trustworthy and you didn’t want to sleep with me, so I had to force the issue. While you slept, I entered your room and implanted you with one of our loyalty chips.”

He blinked and felt betrayed and violated. Even as he stared at the two women, anger pulsing through his veins, he couldn’t blame them. He gritted his teeth and tried to reign in his anger so he wouldn’t attack them. While he paced back and forth, the two women watched him with uncomfortable expressions on their faces. “These implants, what do they do?” he grated out, looking between Alissa and Helen.