Original Stories Fan Fiction ❯ The Flight of Icarus ❯ 1.1 The Flight of Icarus ( Chapter 1 )

[ T - Teen: Not suitable for readers under 13 ]

Don't go off mag, Tinian had been warned. But it's so fun! Soaring over the deck. Of course, rules and procedures exist for a reason. And what of Icarus herself? And the Spaceguard cutter asking to board? What could they want?

Earth exclusion Zone?

Miscellaneous: Original Stories Fan Fiction | Genre(s): Sci-fi | Type: Other | Uploaded On: 01.11.2009 | Pages: 18 | Words: 19.9K | Visits: 1.5K | Status: Work In Progress

Tinian sighed, a few stray strands of burnt hair dropping across her brow.

“I hate cleaning,”

A quick blast from a can of spray cleaner covered the glass in a dull fog of liquid foam. It bubbled for a few moments, dissolved gases popping and boiling away. The foam crawled it's way across the three square feet of porthole, lapping and curling over the riveted steel frame. Only a few seconds later and it had dried to form a solid crust.

With the awkwardness of an unpractised hand, Tinian chipped at the crust with a blunt knife. It skipped against the foam, glancing off and gouging a short scratch in the grey hull paint. The exposed steel beneath shined up, a slash of angry silver reflected in her headlights.

“Dammit,” she grunted, rubbing at it with her gloved hands. As if she actually expected it could be rubbed out like simple dirt. All the girl succeeded in doing was liberating a few more small chips of loosened paint.

“I hate spacesuits.”

The sun was hot and glowering low over the deck, casting hard black shadows from the wings and superstructure. Inside her suit, Tinian felt as if she was about die of heatstroke, her body already heavy and damp from the heat. She wanted so desperately to wipe the sweat from her brow, but a few millimetres of plastic fishbowl helmet separated glove from forehead. Instead, it only squeaked against the perspex. Maybe the refrigeration circuit had fried itself?

A quick glance at the gauges on her suit's wrist showed all-green; nothing wrong...well...nothing as far as she could see herself. Tinian didn't really have the experience to tell, she was just the ships greenhorn after all, the newest crew member.

Tinian groaned, before hitting on the bright idea of levering the blunt blade under the edge of the still solid foam. She was rewarded for her ingenuity by the sight pale crust fracturing and flaking away into a hundred little shards. Each one twinkled and twirled like a little ballerina as it spun off into the black of space. Tinian followed one, her eyes tracking it as it moved out along the hull, slowly forwards towards the trailing edge of the wing, maybe a hundred yards ahead of herself.

Some way beyond that, the conning tower with it's flickering navigation lights marked the bridge. Abaft of her, roughly an equal distance, stretched the distinctive twin tail-booms of a Colony-class cruiser.

Such a big looking ship for just five people, Tinian thought for a moment. With so many windows to clean as well.

Another sigh,

Well, Six down, seventy-seven to go.

The next port was a few yards ahead, past a short radiator grill. Switching the mag-boots off, she jumped. That sounded fun, a way to pass a few seconds anyway, even though Tinian had been specifically told not to. But sure, what would the harm be as long as the ship didn't move?

And there was no chance of that, given that they were locked to course.

With an electronic chirp, she felt herself drift free from the hull. There was a moment of ecstatic freedom, followed by a sudden wrench of fear that she may have been drifting too far away, that she might drift off out into space and never be heard from again.

It didn't take too long for that to pass, Tinian flying straight and true along the hull. She noticed that a red rash of dust had embedded itself in a pair of small vent grilles beneath her, a legacy of the ship's last port of call on her home planet, Mars. All she heard as she drifted was the hiss of static from her radio, and the hollow rhythmic rush of her own breath.

It was peaceful, and a rather pleasant thing to do.

I...I

Chapter 1: The Flight of Icarus/

No prizes for guessing my favourite band.

I...I

Max Gravette had been sleeping right up until his head struck an overhead panel. It wasn't so much the shock of skull striking sharp switch that woke him, but the beeping of an alert somewhere on the bridge.

The bridge lights were dimmed, to save fuel burnup, and most of the stations were darkened in standby mode. Max floated slowly free of the Pilot's seat, rubbing the growing lump on the back of his head. Compared to the rest of the ship, the bridge was small, more like the cockpit of a decent sized orbital shuttlecraft than a full blown space cruiser. There were only three forward windows, one for pilot, one for the navigator, and another in between above the centre console. Hot sunlight shone through, three columns of golden light merging into one hazy, shadowed field towards the back of the bridge. The bridge widened somewhat back towards the engineer's, communications and general ships operation's stations a row behind.

It wasn't just small, it was positively cramped, especially when you were over six feet tall. And still, the alert sounded.

Max drifted for a moment, groggy and a little stunned, brushing his hand through short black hair before the realisation dawned that the alert was coming from the general direction of the communications panel. It didn't escape the navigator's notice that the alert sounded suspiciously like the one normally generated by the standard hail.

One short tone, followed by one long tone, a pause, and then repeating until answered. A red light on the Comm panel blinked in time with it. It was highlighted by another slanted ray of sunlight beaming through a window to the left of the panel.

Max didn't feel like answering...too tired to deal with whoever it was...probably just some liner asking for a weather report. Unfortunately, it was his watch, everyone else was either sleeping, working at the other end of the boat, or cleaning windows. He floated to the panel, a few feet behind and slightly to the right of the Pilot's station, before allowing his boots to drop, sucked toward the deck by a magnetic field they came down with a sharp metallic clank.

Sleepily, he opened the channel with a push of the blinking read light. The alert was interrupted abruptly, and two speakers mounted beside a multi-function display hissed to life.

“N.S.V. Icarus, this is Spaceguard Nathan Jones , respond channel fifteen, over.”

“Shit,” Gravette muttered under his breath.

Well, good luck getting any more sleep tonight then. Unless they were just calling to say a friendly 'hi'. There were only two chances of that; slim and none. Punching the new channel into a keypad, he searched for the headset in the dim light. Hung off the chair? Success! They were set too small, Tiny must've been using it last.

Max fidgeted with the stubborn headphones and mic set for a moment, before deciding it would just have to do. Damn thing was hurting his head right where he'd banged it.

“Nathan Jones, N.S.V. Icarus responding, over.” he said

Seconds of hissing static answered.

“Acknowledged Icarus,” the masculine voice of the Spaceguard cutter answered in what could have been an artificial monotone. “Our own projections show your vessel on a crossing course with the Earth Exclusion Zone. “

“Shit”, Max swore again.

“Nathan Jones requests you furnish data as to your point of origin, your destination and current cargo in accordance with Union statute seven-four slash niner dealing with privately licensed inter-planetary haulage, over”

Definitely a robot, that couldn't be a human being...

“Wilco, standby Nathan Jones,” Max answered lazily.

What where they carrying again?... Oh right.

“Icarus currently six weeks out of Utopia Planetia bound for Laputa station, then on to Jiha. We're transporting assorted heavy machinery, no current passengers.”

Nothing special, same as always.

“AcknowledgedIcarus,” The Jones answered, with almost mechanical impassiveness. “ Nathan Jones requests that you prepare to be boarded for inspection. Please prepare your landing bay, and have your documentation in order... Nathan Jones out,”

The channel cut to static. Max swore again. Oh how he hoped that brainless servoid had heard him. Even though it probably didn't, it still made the navigator-pilot feel better.

I...I

Kerry Swains was asleep in her cabin, loosely strapped to a steel framed foldaway bedrack. Her orange overalls drifted loosely from her body as she slept. A cooling soldering iron and circuit board were glue-tacked to veneered workstation against the corner, beside a pair of small lockers, some cheap cosmetics and a mirror that had slowly swung free on it's string until it was floating at some strange angle.

The cabin was dark and small, barely large enough to fit the rack, lockers and desk at once. Two overhead light strips, and a single lamp on the workstation were highlighted only by pale starlight drifting in through the porthole.

There came a flash of light from a helmet lamp through the port, which was snuffed immediately by a spray of opaque grey mist across the window. A few moments later, there was a gentle, but still sharp tap against the hardened mist. Bright blue cracks spread across, single slashes of high intensity light finding their way through. A few more quick taps, and flakes peeled off, the burning arc-light flooding the room, glinting off polished steel and worn metal.

Swains groaned in her bed, the light stabbing through her eyelids, burning through her sleep.

“Go away,” she slurred in a cracked, groggy voice. “It's too early for that.”

The taps grew louder, each one like a jackhammer punching into her dreams. A few slivers of foam remained stuck fast to the port.

“I'm tryin' to sleep!” she bellowed, her voice tired and hoarse. Not as if whoever that was could hear her, of course. She tossed in her bed, straining against the elastic straps as she bounced herself onto her side.

The tapping continued, the light strobing in. Swains blinked a few times, trying to focus on the blurred, bulbous figure on the other side of glass. The last flack of grey peeled off and the tapping stopped. The light flickered once more, shadows swinging across the cabin. They grew long, darkness quickly swallowing the room whole.

Swains saw a pair of grey spacesuit boots swing up past the window for a second, before disappearing over the top of the cabin.

Stupid girl. And after herself telling her not to go off-mag? Well, if Tiny wanted to drift off away out into space, well, that was her own prerogative. And if she didn't, Kerry would make sure to remind her....in a polite and forceful manner.... to turn down her headlights in the future.

I...I

Tinian drifted, her chest passing about a foot over the back of Icarus. The top of the hull passed beneath her at what felt like great speed. In reality, it couldn'tve been more than half a meter or so per second, but with perspective distorted by the black of space beyond, it felt to Tinian as if she was some bird swooping fast and low over a steel plain.

It was an exhilerating thrill that raced through her body as she skimmed over the top of the hull. A warped patch of dull matte paint passing beneath marked a decade old repair that hadn't been quite been done right. Seeing the edge approach, Tinian switched her boots back on, angling her feet down towards the deck.

One boot, then the other bit onto the steel, anchoring Tinian's feet to the metal. The girls own momentum carried her chest forward, her body tipping forward, pulling at her ankles. The contents of her stomach lurched up onto the back of her throat as she struggled to balance herself. Her ears were spinning themselves in dizzying loops.

She shook her head to clear it, but that just made it worse, a nauseating lump rising up the back of her throat. Don't get sick in a spacesuit! The mere thought of stomach acid burning her lungs out of her chest made her queezy. Okay, just focus on the hull, on the solid steel at my feet. Take deep deliberate breaths and let my head get itself under control.

Swains told her how to do it. Just focus on the hull. The hull is down...the hull is down..the hull is down. Deep breath. Swallow it. Hold. And exhale. Much better.

But not by much.

Tinian swallowed again, and look up out to space. Her headlights were washing the stars out...all she could see were a few bright points against the black curtain, one of them with a distinct blueish twinge to it.

Earth? she wondered.

Didn't seem so remarkable really. Just another bright point of light in the starfield That point of light may have been a million miles away or more, but it looked to be no more than a little point of light, an LED a few yards beyond the edge of the hull.

Almost close enough to be touched... if she would just launch herself off...

Hmm, funny thought.

Tinian shrugged, and decided it would be best if she got on with her job before anybody got angry with her. Or before her oxygen ran out. The gauge on her wrist read only;>1hr current use, which was the same as it had been for the last hour or so. It wasn't very helpful.

Again, all she could do was shrug. She wasn't going to suffocate in the next ten minutes, that was the important thing. A flash of movement caught the corner of her eye and she looked up, out and away behind the twin tail-fins. Trailing theIcarus, was another ship, a clean, sleek and brightly lit arrowhead.

It seemed small at first, but it didn't take more than a moment for Tinian to realise that whatever it was, was no mere shuttlecraft. It was another cruiser, painted bright white with a distinctive orange flash.

“Spaceguard, Tarzion Class!” she announced to herself. Damn, why didn't she bring her camera out with her? This could have been such a cool photograph. It was still in her cabin, probably drifting around in a small balled micro-planet of tangled underwear and her spare harness.

“Hey, Max” she broke in over her personal radio. “There's a Spaceguard cruiser behind us. Think we'll get a chance for a picture?”

The channel hissed static for a second.

“Yes, I know.,” Gravette answered, his voice stained with tired irritation. “I've been talking to them on the radio. They're coming over for a friendly chat,”

“Well, can...”

“You're still busy cleaning aren't you?” Max chided. “You work on this boat, remember? You have a job to do. You wanted to be a space pilot and do all that cool 'spacer' stuff, well fine when you get your full share. Until then, you're the greenhorn, you clean stuff and learn how stuff works and do other stuff we couldn't be bothered doing so we tell you to do it.”

“Yes,” Tinian groaned, her shoulders dropping. “I know,”

“You're lucky Kerry wasn't up here when you called in, you know how she would've answered.”

“Yes, I know,”

“Good, just get your job done. You've got to earn your share, remember that. Now get those ports cleaned...and done right.”

“Yes,”

“And keep the air clear, unless it's an emergency. They're sending a shuttle to dock and we need free radio to coordinate, understand?”

“Yes,” Tinian said again.

“Bridge out...”

The channel cut abruptly, leaving Tinian sitting in the near silence of her spacesuit. Well, best get back to work, right? Space really wasn't like it looked on TV was it? No running-silent battles with pirates in the atmosphere of Venus, no secret organisations with sinister plots to finish what the pulse started and no Big Damn Hero Space Cowboys... just cleaning stuff, fetching other stuff, eating cheap stuff that might once have been other even more unpleasant stuff, some floating, three days of nothing but sick when in Mars orbit, and the stars.

Not exactly thrill a minute. Just work. And when something did happen that might've seemed interesting, she had to work through it, doing menial jobs instead of taking pictures, or even getting the chance at meeting somebody a little different.

Tinian cleaned another port, blasting it with foam, then chipping the crust off before she went off-mag again, and drifted to the next one.

Only 57 more to go.

I...I

Deckhand Andrei Kuril was in the cargo bay. The air was chilled, and a draft seemed to blow between the blanket covered machinery. Just the size of the bay, unless somebody had turned the ventilation on. So big, it had to be cold and his mind would accept nothing else.

It was still enough to send a shiver up the twenty year old's spine, even if he was wearing a heavy orange jumpsuit and harness. The harness itself wasn't actually a harness as such, it was a tight, elastic body suit that was worn under normal workaday clothes. It was a force for the human body to push against, mimicking gravity, and was supposed to maintain muscle strength in zero-G...or so the advertising bumpf claimed.

In reality, Andrei was sure it was going to turn him into a hunchback. He strained to stand up straight and focus on the ceiling, at the network of ventilation ducts running through white painted steel truss-beams. No, the vents were closed. It must be a trick of the mind, a side effect of the cavernous volume of the bay, or the looming drilling machines either side of them. They filled the room with a unique moist and oily machine scent.

He checked his clipboard.

“Imaishi Heavy Industries, TTGL 'Spiral 4' Heavy mining drill assembly,” he read aloud, as was his habit when he was alone. “One-twenty metric tonnes. Tie to structural frames with ten heavy-cargo straps and cargo sheeting, hardmount to deckrails underneath buffer plate.”

His voice rang off the steel walls of the cavern for a second or so before being swallowed by the giant machines. He ambled between the pair of them, kicking each red strap in turn to check the tension.

They twanged in return, and he pencilled in the 'all-right' on his clipboard in a column beside ten other pencilled in all-right's in a row. The next one, twang; all-right. Twang; all-right. Twang; all-right. Twang; all-right. Same as three days ago. And three days before that.

Twang; all-right. Twang; all-right. Thuff...slap.

Kuril blinked for a moment, then looked at his notepad. Same one..

“Why can't you stay tight?” he asked the strap. “Is it not too hard to ask?”

The red strap sagged lazily against the white cargo sheet. The brass ratchet dragged against the floor, Kuril's own reflection looking back at him with mild disappointment.

“Why is it always this one?” he asked himself with a gentle smile. “Why can't you behave yourself like the other straps?”

The strap didn't answer. He unlocked the ratchet, and tightened it. It wasn't really too much of an effort to do, just cranking the handle a few times in his hand. It clicked and locked tight. The strap pulled taught across the top of the machinery. Kuril twanged it just to be sure, then marked it All-right, with a rather scrathcy frowny-face beside it to remind which one needed to be tightened.

“Now, next time I check, if you're loose again, I'll show you Khuzkha's mother, allright?” he warned with a playful smile. He carried on down the row, finding the other straps to be a little better behaved.

At the back of the bay, he checked the door locks were secure, noting the values on a few green-lit electric dials on a status panel. He armed the emergency circuit, watched the terminal panel light up all-red. Again, he noted a few values from the display. He shrugged, nothing out of the ordinary. Kuril locked the panel off, switching it back to a standby green.

“At least you can behave yourself,” he remarked.

Another chill slithered up his back, another draft tugging at his clothes. Gentle, but it was there. Kuril was sure of it.

“Probably another leaky seal,” Kuril told himself. “No problem,”

Another thing to fix. At least this would be quick enough to fix, twenty minutes in a spacesuit quick. He flicked a lighter out from his pocket and lit it, the flame curling into a hot blue ball around the wick. The draft licked at the flame, dragging orange flecks towards the leak. Kuril ran his fingers along the seal between the cargo door and bulkhead, right to the point where the flame was pointing to.

He felt a tickle of air seeping through, little more than a litre or two an hour.

“Definitely an easy fix,” he reassured himself. “Some Gaztite will do you until Laputa.”

I...I

Captain Alain Rennel was still half asleep when he left his cabin, rubbing his tired eyes with one hand, before replacing his brass-framed eyeglasses with the other. He drifted through the gangway, not bothering too much with his mag-boots or harness at this time of night.

He slipped into his jacket, a captain's one with an embroidered picture of the Icarus herself on the back. Under his arm was a leather pouch, and a sheaf of papers and charts; cargo licensing and crew information.

Why did they always call at night? he asked himself.

He yawned, pulling himself up a staircase, before pushing left through the open hatch and up onto the bridge. He placed the book he'd been reading against the engineer's panel, on a darkened screen, from where it promptly drifted away.

“When are they coming Max?” he asked, his voice having a slight edge to it, brought on by the late hour.

“On their way already Captain,” Max answered, setting the headset drifting for a moment beside his head. “They launched a jumper about five minutes ago. The starboard bay is nearly ready, we just need to wait for the recuperators to draw the air out is all,”

“Wait until it's at about fifty hec-Pa, then vent the last. Running them any longer wouldn't bring us much benefit beyond that anyway.”

“Aye,” Max sighed, before biting his lip. “These inspections always make me nervous,”

Alain simply nodded “I understand alright, but we won't have any problems. Everything's up to scratch, we meet code. There is no reason for us to have problems,”

... except for the bank, he noted privately to himself.

Max just kept sucking his lips, shifting his mass between his boots. It broiled in the pit of his stomach, a bilious...distrust....of the men with red pressure suits, sniffers, scanners, chirpers and zip-tight handcuffs.

“Icarus, Shuttlecraft Jones-2. Are inbound on you now. Prepare for rendez-vous in approximately fifteen minutes and thirty-seven seconds... Over..”

If anybody doubted they were dealing with military minds, that one transmission proved it. Max stared down at the headset for a moment, before the Captain picked it up.

“Icarus Acknowledges, Jones-2.” he said. “Will pull around one-eighty, that'll give you a straight run in to our starboard bay. Save you going around the wing, and save us both some time....over,”

“Wilco... Jones-2 en-route. Will standby for docking clearance at five-thousand meters. Out"

There were a few moments silence, both men drifting on the bridge. They were coming.

"Oh well, what the hell," Max sighed, "I'll turn the boat around"

I...I

Tinian could see the cutter, taking up station a few kilometres behind. The jumper now on its way was nothing more than a bright blue dot, flickering as it's thrusters fired. Turning away from it, she gave a soft groan. Space on TV was cool. Deadliest Vacuum was cool. Working in space sucked. Oh well... there was still work to be done. She pushed off the deck again, launching herself forward to the next porthole. Freedom... an island in herself amidst an infinite sea of...

Ahead of her, just under the port tailfin, a sudden flash of white caught Tinian's eye. Pulsing, blasting white out into space. What was that? Looked like gas... A failed panel in the hull somewhere? A dread chill ran down her spine.

Why was the tail beginning to turn away from her?

"Shite!" she shrieked. She looked down where the deck should've been, and saw only darkness.

"Why," she gasped... "What the?".... "Why is the ship turning!?" she screamed.

Desperately, she pitched herself boots forward, angling herself towards the deck, a metre to her left and getting further away. Mag-on... but she wasn't getting closer... the hull was moving away... two.. metres...three....four...five and faster. Newtons Second Law took hold of Tinian, and carried her forward free from Icarus. There was no force to push her towards the hull, no nudge to change her momentum.

"Oh crap.."

A hanging terror rose in her throat, a bilious surge of adrenaline rushing through her body as she came to understand exactly what this would mean.

She would be marooned in space.

Alone.

Just waiting to die whenever her air finally gave out.

Her breath came rapid... panicked, broken. Her suit's system's struggled to keep up, breath-mist fogging her visor, some warning alarm buzzing in her ear. Not running out of air too! Shit, what do I do? Panic burned in her veins.

No, not this? Anything but this!

Ten metres away already, the Icarus was slowly pirhouetting around to port. Tinian squirmed, thrusted, kicked, anything to try and catch up. Unfortunately for her, reactionless motion was nothing but a thing of fiction.

"I don't wanna die out here!" she screamed. "I wanna get back. Come back!"

Twenty metres, and still accelerating. Inexorably moving away from her.

Oh my God..

Why didn't she listen? She'd just gone and doomed herself to be a lonely corpse desiccating in a spacesuit, drifting in isolation between the planets. One of...how many...hundreds? Another story, another tale of warning to be told next years Greenhorn. Another tale that probably wouldn't be believed until it actually happened.

A sudden clear thought announced itself from the panicked jumble.

What about your radio?

Yes! The suits radio!

Elation. No, relief. Rescue was a call away

What was the emergency channel? How did she do this again? To send a distress call, to cut through the other traffic. She fumbled with the wrist control pad, trying to catch her breath... trying to remember the emergency procedure. The screen flashed Red... ERROR...

"Why won't you work?!" Tinian yelled at it, between ragged breaths, walloping it with her gloved fist with panicked frustration.

ERROR, it answered stubbornly.

Even the emergency beacon? Set the beacon off and somebody would pick her up. Sure she'd get a earful back onboard, but it'd certainly be prefereable to becoming a drifting piece of space debris. Look down... focus on the screen... on the right button.

Another idea, more desperate this time.

Hey, a half-full can of cleaner! It was hanging off of her belt. It sounded like a stupid idea at first, but the more Tinian's mind repeated it, the more it seemed to make perfect sense. Use the can as a thruster! It was a revelation of Eureka proportions.

Gripping it tightly against her chest with both hands, she pressed on the nozzle with her spare thumb. A silent mist pushed out in front of her, expanding away into space. Tinian tried to turn herself towards the ship. Tinian tried to power back towards it.

Tinian succeeded in nothing more sending herself into a slow, nausiating spin. The ship the sun and the stars slowly spiralling around her, her lunch drilling up the back of her throat.

"I want to go back!" she screamed, near defeaning herself in the claustrophobic confines of the helmet. It was hot, it was sweaty, it was nauseous, it was misting up with each panicked breath. Tinian was sealing herself up in a sickening, spinning, whiteout. All it would take would be one breath of vomit, for the acid of her stomach to burn the lungs out of her chest.

What a disgusting way to die. The thoughts of it made her sick. It lumped its way up the back of her throat, burning from the pit of her belly. Dont puke! Dont hurl! Dont spew! Don't get bloody sick!Dont watch the ship, dont watch the stars, just focus on keeping food in your belly where it belongs.

The stars, the sun, the ship, the stars again, the sun, the ship, the wing, the stars, the sun, the ship, the wing....

Icarus' wing was getting closer! As the cruiser turned around its own axis, the tail moved away from herwhile the wing came closer. Safety was drifting towards her... a few meters every second. Just need to time it right...

Don't bounce off!

Tinian quivered in her spacesuit, still spinning, still trying to focus, still trying to control her breathing. One chance to avoid becoming a piece of space debris, or avoid a bollicking for forcing those on board to come out and rescue her. Gently... easy...

Big lump of steel.

Closer... closer... Dont panic. Dont hold your breath. Time it right. Point your feet towards the metal wing. Mag-on and don't fall off! Don't panic. Don't get sick. Just concentrate.

Concentrate.

Calm your breathing. Closer now... only about five meters. I wish I wasn't spinning, that was such a stupid idea..... Concentrate! Last few seconds. Put your feet out ahead of you... Hey that slowed the spin slightly... Okay here goes...

Thunk!.. Her left boot stomped onto the wing, Tinan's momentum still holding her body in it's grip, she was pulled around by her waist, dragged forward face first into the deck. Her left boot slipped in place.

"No!" Shrieked Tinian, another thrill of abject terror clenching her heart. She stamped her right foot down...hard... scratching across the steel, and buckling the panel slightly. Still travelling forward, momentum made her headbutt the wing, her helmet bouncing off the metal with a solid crack. Hands out defensively, Tinian stunned her inertia dead, bouncing back to a near standing position.

Her stomach lurched up the back of her throat.

Catch it!

Tinians head spun for a few moments, the stars and the ships navigation lights doing a drunken dance for a few moment as her brain tried to reorientate itself.

"The deck is down" she said, repeating the mantra "The deck is down. The deck is down.The deck is down," Deep breath, hold it, then swallow.

And offer up thanks to God, the fates and peanut butter.

Tinian looked around, her eyes following a pathway marked onto the wing with dayglo tape back to the hull... nearly one-hundred yards away. She was sweating in her suit, panting to catch her breath, and desperate for a nice chair to sit on, and some gravity to pull her down into it. Weight instead of mass...

"Well," she told herself, "I'll have to walk back eventually." The still-drifting can of spray cleaner carried on for eternity, twinkling as it tumbled end over end. "And I need a new one"

The thought that she could so easily have gone with it, was more than her mind could handle. Part of her wanted to scream with joy, part of her wanted to sit down and cry and just give thanks

At least the lost can gave her a legimate excuse to go back aboard. All she had to do was radio ahead is all and let them know.

And she still felt sick.

I...I

“Shuttlecraft Jones-2 holding station at five-thousand meters. Standing by for permission to dock,” the radio said.

The were just coming into the view ahead through the windows as a small grey dot, lit by a pair of red and green navigation lights, and a strobe somehwere on its back. Icarus juddered, reaction control thrusters firing with a report like distant cannon.

“That's the turn,” Max said, graveley staring ahead through the window. “And there they are,”

The jumper flickered back at him. Behind, trailed the long, dagger-shaped cutter Nathan-Jones. It had a strange malevolance to it, a reflective white with a distinct orange slash to it. In nature, bright colours were always a warning.... something to be avoided.

“Is the bay ready yet?,” Captain Rennel asked.

“Another minute or so, it's still at two-hundred hec-Pa'.” answered Max, tapping the digital guage. “Andrei is on his way down there now, the remote system's on the chop again,”

Rennel sighed... he wasnt looking forward to tomorrows redlist.

“It's nothing critical, just another little expense to pay at Laputa,”

“One-fifty hec-Pa...” Max read, “ but it's levelling off,”

“It is?” the captain leant over him, to see for himself. A green dial, projected onto a flat-panel display, holding steady just below one-fifty. “Recouperator seals must be leaking.” Another thing to fix at Laputa... “Tell Andrei to vent the lot then,”

“Yes Captain,”

The radio headset crackled to life, buzzing as it drifted.

“Hey, this is Tinian calling the bridge,”

“Shite... I told her not to radio in while we were docking,” Max reached for the headset. Captain Rennel grabbed it for himself.

“This is the Captain,” he said tersely to the mic “Come back aboard, Spaceguard are coming, and they might want to put us through some crew drills,”

“Yes Captain..” she answered, stuttering as she wanted to say something else.“But....em... Oh right, I see,”

“Airlock Four, that's Portside-aft. Kerry will meet you there to help you out of your suit,”

“Okay...eh... Roger,” answered Tinian. There was something...odd... about her voice. She was breathing heavy, sounding as if something had... startled her maybe? It almost sounded like she was hiding something? He found himself not wanting to know what that something was. It may be expensive.

“Kerry... I think she's still asleep, Ever hear the old saying about sleeping dogs?” Max remarked, smirking to himself.

The Captain just sucked slightly on his bristled bottom lip, as if contemplating whether he should find that funny or not.

I...I

Tinian was glad to be back in the airlock. She could feel the pressure building, her suit compressing onto her body. She could hear things again... well, things from outside her suit anyway. Not just her own breathing and a small circulator pump. She could hear the air rushing in, like a small jet engine blasting from three small circular vents above a heavy pressure hatch. A red light warned against opening either the hatch, or her helmet.

Through a small window in the door, she could see the face of Kerry Swains, a few streaks of hair dropping across her brow that seemed to match the colour of her overalls. She looked tired... and annoyed. Though, Tinian noted to herself, Kerry usually looked tired and annoyed.

Kerry glanced away for a moment, raising her hand and five fingers to the porthole. Five...four...three... she began to count down. Two... One.... a slight pause. A klaxon sounded one single blast, and the red light flickered to a safe green.

“Thank God,” she leant against some pipework for a second. Safe, back on the ship.

Her legs were somehow heavy beneath her, which was a strange sensation considering there was no gravity in space. They were stiff from the slog back along the wing... then over across the hull. Tinian hadn't dared go off-mag again... if anything, she'd turned the traction up just incase.

Her body was shaking, she was still sweating, and the girl still felt like she was about to throw up, but she was safe. The hatch door creaked slighltly, lock-bolts sticking as they came loose. A slight hiss of gas as it cracked open was followed by a squeak of stiff hinges as it swung wide. Tinian fumbled with the catch on her helmet... gloved fingers werent exactly that dextrous. The helmet popped up with a plastic clack, a rush of sweaty air boiling up through the gap.

Never had the air aboard Icarus tasted so sweet. The unique mixture of purifiers, antiseptic, mechanical oils, steel and body odour. Kerry was there, glaring. Tinian suddenly wanted to be as far as possible from that chamber... space... Mars.. anywhere but there.

“Well, are you going to just stand there or not?” the engineer asked, in gruff tones. “Captain wants you on the bridge in five minutes, and you cant very well be there in a soiled diaper now, can you?”

Diaper?... nappy? Ew...

“Stop gawping and hurry up will you? I've got to get engineering in order before they get down there myself,”

“Right!” Tinian nodded, stepping forward.

The heavy mag-boots rang off the steel deckplate. Each step was dragged hard into the deck, pulled down like her entire bodyweight was dragging on each foot. The boot clamped down hard, before releasing at some sudden point. Tinian walk forward with an awkward, heavy stomping gait, struggly againts the magnets,”

“This is heavy,”

“Why dont you turn them off, then,” Kerry quipped.

Tinian suddenly felt very small, the middle-aged engineer seeming to tower over her. Fear.. Fear that she knew, fear that Tinian herself would be punished. Or left at Laputa. Or be blackmailed into more work. Those grey eyes stared at her, focused by the gentlest hint of crows-feet. She knew alright. Tinian shrunk back, head dropping through the neck of her suit.

“Stupid people go up into space, but they dont come back. Proceedures and rules exist for a reason. Follow them and stay alive. Break them and bad things happen very fast.”

“em...” Tinian started shyly.

“If you're told not to do something by someone who knows better than you, you do it... “ the womand cringed at her own miced words. That was a boot in it alright. “Frack!... You don't do it,”

Tinian stiffled a giggle.

“Those rules and procedures are ten times older than you are. They were good enough when this ship was built, they are good enough now. I can't very well go doing what I want with the reactors now, can I?”

Well... Tinian thought for a moment. Before remembering the correct answer.

“No,” In a suitably chastened tone.

“Startup procedures, shutdown procedures, cooldown procedure, core-trip procedures, overload procedures, refuel proceedures, defuel procedures, LOCA procedures, turbine-trip procedures, gen-trip procedures, procedures to write procedures. Everything is procedures, and you know why? Procedures prevent accidents in dangerous environments. If I...”

Tinians attention had drifted away sometime around the word 'defuel'. A lot of it was just meaningless technobabble to her, disheartening meaningless technobabble. She was meant to understand all of that? She stipped out of her spacesuit, fumbling with the heavyweight outer layer. It split at the waist, another locking ring.

“Yes,” Tinian hummed, her attention focused on uncoupling her boots. Too heavy to walk with. Sticky too, the joint could do with some oil or something.Smack it with the palm of your hand. Thwack! Ouch!. Hurts a little bit. It's moving!. A little looser. It squeaked and protesting, twisting her ankle. Then pop!.. it was free. The boot could slip off.

“...Lord knows I hate it out here too. But I dont want to become a radioactive piece of debris either, so I follow proceedures. And most of all, I do what more experienced crewmembers tell me..”

Part of Tinians mind had hoped she'd drifted off. But as a fraction of the whole, it was a small part. The rest of her was just glad to be on solid ground again.. or at least somewhere that had something resembling a genuine up and down. She was glad for the hum of the flourescent lights, even if they were a tad too harsh. She was glad for the same worn white paint... with a few bits flaking off some overhead pipework. The words CAUTION! HIGH PRESSURE were stenciled in red above her head. Hands and feet free, Tinian could wiggle out the back-zip of her suit. A little bit more effort and Freedom!

On the ship.

Quiet. Safe. Unlikely to leave her drifting through space. And chilly, thanks to pressurised air expanding into an empty airlock. Especially now that she was practically naked... save for a single boot, a bulky white nappy that preserved half of her modesty, and a tight chest hugging brassiere which saved the other half.

“If you make a mistake, you can die out there very quickly. Fifteen seconds exposure to hard vacuum and you're unconscious. Two minutes and you're beyond help....”

“Yes..” Tinian mumbled automatically, rifling through a small locker where she'd left her overalls, a red t-shirt she liked, some tools and her gravity harness.

“So you're listening to me then?”

“Yes,”

“And you can tell me exactly what I told you?”

Space....

“Yes,” said Tinian.

“Which was”

“Proceedures exist for a reason. That reason is to keep us alive. Not following proceedure will get me killed,”

She tried to sound sincere when she was saying it, but it was hard. The way that woman talked down to her, like she was nothing but a child. Tinian was fifteen years old... old enough to apply for a deckhands license, old enough to train, old enough to go to space on her own.

“Yes,” Swains affirmed. “And one more thing..”

Tinian groaned. What now?

“...Turn down your damned headlights. You're wasting battery with them that high, and waking people up sleeping in their cabins; people who will make you climb into crawlspace between the bilgetank and RBS to set the compressor valve relief manually,”

Eh? Tinian blinked, the idea slowly taking it's time to disseminate through her mind.

“Do I have to?” she whined.

“If you want to get paid when we get back to Mars, then yes...you do,”

Tch.... oh well. It's not like they would ever trust her as another crewmember. She would always be the kid... always be the greenhorn. Of course, doing stupid things and nearly killing herself on solo EVA wasnt going to do her any favours in that regard.... but if she did what Kerry asked, and did it well... chances are Kerry wouldnt mention a thing about it.

Or so Tinian hoped.

Could be worse... could be dead....be floating on an orbit between Mars and Venus and onward for a few hundred thousand years... or until she hit something. No matter what, doing crappy jobs and dealing with disrespect, was better than being dead. And who knows, maybe she'd get her own crew jacket soon enough.

I...I

“Guess who's coming to dinner,” Max remarked.

He was alone on the bridge again, and thankful for it. It was his watch still...thank Christ. Andrei and the Captain had gone down to meet them. Max just busied himself checking the radar, trying to put it out of his mind that the guards were coming aboard. No good, it was closing. Through the cockpit windows he could see the blunt-nosed jumper, strobing nav-lights casting lightning shadows off the windowframe and deck furniture. A dull green glow radiated from a pair of triangular windows at the very front.

“Two-hundred meters by dradar. Ten metres Zed-plus,” Kuril's voice stated from the landing bay.

A few small flashes of white nudged the sharp-orange shuttle down slightly, almost as if she was being pushed down by a hidden, black-gloved hand. It was incongruous, the way it seemed to hang suspended in space, like a plastic model hung from string on the other side of the window. Odd, how the vacuum of space can really distort viewpoints, how a eight meter space jumper could seem like a childs toy

“Manipulator trace lock,” a womans voice on the shuttle said. “Dead straight and on target. Preparing for docking roll,”. Crystal clear.

“One-fifty and good for docking roll.” Kuril stated, “In the lane. Icarus is holding steady,”

Max could remember his father's voice for a moment. He had always been on the bridge during docking with him, watching, listening

“....Icarus bridge. Thrusters locked to manual station keeping only,” he blurted out over the radio, mind suddenly snapping back to the present day. “INS control disengaged,”

He reached across, stretching over the Captain's chair to the far side of the panel. The sun glinted off a bare piece of metal, flashing in his vision for a moment, as he pushed a small and otherwise anonymous button on the panel. It clunked an answer, flashing yellow three times before going dark.

“Acknowledged,” the shuttle answered, “All green on our end. Call it.”

“All green ours,” Kuril stated, “Go for docking maneuvre.”

Max suddenly felt violently sick, a thrill of fear running through his body as an unpleasent memory stuck. The shuttle rolled slowly over, baring it's back to the Icarus, a raised cupola with a black cross marking the docking collar. Jones-02 was stenciled across the bulging passenger compartment, running from the cupola almost to the cockpit windows. He caught his fear on his tongue and swallowed it, forcing it down his gullet in one solid lump. He gave the jumper one last gruff stare as it began to disappear beneath the gunnal, then fought to focus himself,

“Fifty meters” Kuril said calmly. “Docking arm stable. Closing speed; one meter per second. Thirty seconds to capture”

Just pick a checklist and do your job, Max told himself. Just get a checklist and do your job. Make sure nothing starts moving and the house up here is in order. Double check the navigation logs. How in the hell could they have strayed into the zone anyway? Radio soundings from ten seperate timing buoys placed Icarus four thirty thousand kilometres from the zone at closest approach.

A mistake? Computer error?

If they were that far off course, getting searched and fined for grazing the zone would be the least of Icarus' problems. If they weren't, and the spaceguard were being deceptive for some reason? Being over thirty-odd-thousand kilometres off course suddenly seemed like the lesser of two evils.

“Twenty meters,”

Just get it over with already...

“Braking thrusters firing. Extending seal for soft capture,” the jumper stated.

“Ten meters, capture in five seconds,”answered Kuril,

Inspections happen. There wea no reason to be afraid. Things had moved on these last twenty years. The guards were a professional force now not a bunch of target-chasing cowboys. And yet, the Nathan Jones lingered about five kilometres behind, hanging back in an unambiguous attack posture. They may be professional, but they were also on edge. Not only that, but they we're being blindingly obvious about it too. Max didn't like where this train of thought was going. It stirred up some uncomfortable memories. He desperately hoped his mind would get off a station early, but this seemed to be an express right to a unsettling terminus

Work was a great way to fill your mind, less space for bad experiences to make themselves known. Check those soundings again...by hand... show the work to the guards, that's all he could do. And if he was wrong, then at least it would be blindingly obvious it wouldn't be on purpose.

“three.... two... one...”

Max shivered.

And nearly launched himself through an overhead portal when the hatch slammed shut behind him.

“Soft Capture” Kuril announced, about the time Max's head made a hard impact on the transulcent Tektite. Another lump to join the one that had been forming on the other side of his head.

“Dammit!”

“Sorry,” said Tinian, “But it was stiff earlier today,”

“I put some oil on it,” the pilot-navigator stated flatly. “And didn't anyone ever tell you a red t-shirt was bad luck in space?”

Tinian frowned sourly, “It was the only thing I had left. Anyway, are they onboard yet?”

“No, they're only after docking. Still need to seal the airlock, match pressures, check for leaks and generally make sure we don't blow them out into space,”

A small part of his mind, that malicious part from which sprouted his worst ideas silently wished for just such an accident. It was an idea the better part of Max tried to ignore, tried to pretend wasn't really coming from him, to squash it down, but it was impossible. There was still that voice there, that would do anything to get them Guards as far away as possible. Just keep drowning it with work, that was the best solution.

Tinian watched Max as she dropped herself down at her station, beside the radio panel. She watched with mild curiousity as he buried himself face-first into a monochrome-green display of the navigators console. His fingers were a blur on the keypad, his hands guided by habit and experience through the calculations. Just fill the numbers into known formula's.

Tinian wished she had that sort of experience, instead of taking ten minutes to work out the time delay on radio signals. It'd be faster with a 'net ping, a stopwatch and a quick division by two.

She watched him curse and swear under his breath, muttering about how the numbers didnt lie, or that something was very, very wrong somewhere. Tinian wondered what that might be, twirling it over in her mind, as she twirled a drifting strand of her in her fingers.

Kuril's voice continued to read of pressurisation values over the intercom, announcing itself

“Eighty percent. Recouperator pressure dropping.”

“Recouperator; system for recovering air that would otherwise be vented to space,” Tinian told herself, a reminder of something she had been asked to learn, as she adjusted the headphones down to her size. Repeat and relay information, and note down anything important with pencil and paper for the logs. It was a simple task for a greenhorn, but a good way to get to know procedure and technique nonetheless.

Max was still busy running calculations when she slipped the headset over her ears. What's got him so bothered? She had time to ask herself as she slipped into silence once more. Pen to paper

“PRESSURE EQUALISATION ACROSS MAIN SEAL. RECOUPERATOR WASTE DISCHARGED, HARD DOCK”

With a shriek of shock as her eardrums were stabbed by sonic daggers, Tinian flung the headset against the panel in front of her. It bounced of with a sharp plastic crack, spiralling slowly up towards the ceiling. Rubbing her wounded ears, she didnt quite hear Max chuckle to himself.

“Sorry about that, I'd been using them as speakers,”

Tinian could tell by his smile, that he was anything but sorry. A pair of LED's on the panel beside her flickered mockingly for a moment, before going dark.

“Operation commencing,” the headset spoke again, this time with a womans voice.

Operation? Tinian wondered.

An why had Max's face suddenly gone a ghostly white?

It was...unsettling, but he seemed to know what he was doing. It was probably just something the guards wanted dug out of the records. It seemed normal that way. She pressed herself down onto her own hands, resting against the console as best was possible in microgravity. The drifitng headphones began to pick up their own momentum from Icarus' own slight gravitational attraction, drifting softly along before Tinian snatched them from the air, made damn sure the volume was set back to a sane level, and settled the headset as even as she could on her head.

I...I

“They're here,” Kuril told the panel in front of him. It was a statement of fact. The green wire diagrams weren't exactly the clearest in the known universe, but they told everything that needed to be told, and did it much more reliably than the latest type and drool touch-interfaces. The man typed a few commands into the keypad, took a quick mental note of the answers the panel gave him....noticed they werent' lining in up some important ways.... gave the panel a smack with the heel of his hand... watched the readings magically come into line, and curled his lips up in a privately satisfied smile. Percussive maintenance, sometimes there was nothing more effective. “Still no leaks. Pressure is holding. Something's being good today,”

Captain Rennel stared at the man-sized circular hatch in front of him, the status light above it blinking a safe green. He started sucking on his bottom lip, as was his habit when he was thinking over a complicated problem. His problem was staring back at him through a two-foot square tektite porthole. The left window of the shuttlecraft, like a watching shark, jet black and dagger like. It was a most unsettling thing. Standing there, waiting, he was reminded of the times when he was a schoolchild, standing outside the principals office waiting to be punished. The waiting was always worse than the punishment, because you had just enough time to convince yourself the absolute worst was going to happen this time, no matter how often it hadn't.

The odd memories the mind drags up, he mused, forcing his attention to the six steel truss-beams overhead, tracing some white pipework with his eyes for a moment, to the point where it punched through a bulkhead about three meters to his right, just above where Kuril was standing with his back to him. To his left, about the same distance, were some gas cylinders tied down with cargo-netting at the foot of a row of four lockers, each jammed with even more assorted...stuff... for want of a better word. Tools for EVA and jumper repair mostly. They weren't often used though.

Not really necessary if you didn't have any form of jumper.

Some piping overhead creaked to itself, two-century old plumbing having a wonderful sense of ominous timing. There were a few sharp taps from inside the hatch, and the whispered his of air escaping frome somewhere.

“They're batteries are misbehaving,” Kuril stated, maybe to himself. “Doesn't seem to like our grid voltage, not reacting too well to all the reactive power it seems,”

“It can't be helped,” said Alain.

The door creaked again, and swung wide open. The words that came from the Captains lips were simple ones of courtesy, “Welcome aboard,”

They were answered by the black steel chasm of a gun barrel.

“ON THE DECK, HANDS ON HEAD!”

Stunned, with a look on his face like he'd sat on a live sparkplug, the Captain could only gawp, goldfish like for a second at the redcoated costguard and his rifle. There came a clatter of mag-boots on steel deck as more redcotes pilled in, a cacophany of shouting, of voices resonating and ringing off cold steel, and the same single hammerblow imperative.

“ON THE DECK, HANDS ON HEAD!”

Dumbly, the Captain complied. There's no arguing with the barrel of a gun, an old proverb said, and Alain didn't feel up to testing it just yet.

“Ah, fixed it... I think,” he heard Kuril say above the noise, calm as a millpond.

Finding his mental feet, Alain was finally able to get a few words out and tap the well of righteous idignity that was building in his belly.

“What is the meaning of this?” he demanded.

No answer.

“Acka, bridge!, Bravo, engineering!”

“Sir Yes Sir!”

“I am the Captain of this ship!” Alain roared.

Still ignored.

What the hell was going on here?

I...I

If the bridge of the Icarus was the brain of the cruiser, Engineering was her beating heart. A single control room from where each and every technical system could be monitored, interrogated and controlled. Surrounded on all but one side by reactor biological shield, it was also one of the most isolated parts of the ship. Only the one hatch in the starboard bulkhead allowed access.

All other wall space was taken by a myriad of terminal consoles, readout dials, systems displays. One entire wall was given over the the ship's electric grid. Power cabling and electric flow traced out in red-lit rivers over a simple line drawing of the entire cruiser. Her engines, generators, breakers, trafo's and cap-banks were higlighted green, yellow or orange depending on status and power.

Another was dedicated to the reactor systems management. A hundred individual dials and gauges, electronic and analogue, backups and backups of backups read out more parameters than one single human mind could probably comprehend. Set within the dials, a representation of Icarus' reactors and steam circuits. Pressure, temperature and flowrate through every significant part was monitored and reported without fail..... for the last fw days anyway..

Another bulkhead was filled with more, announcing dutifully everything from hydraulic pressure to computer core temperature.

The gauges, dials bells and whistles illuminated the room with a low, diffuse light that never failed to remind it's single occupant of Christmas lights. Kerry wondered why exactly that was for a moment , as she sat in her chair sipping cawfee from a g-flask. Aside from the twinkling lights, she meant. There was something about the dull ruddy glow that felt somehow seasonal, and definitely peaceful.

At least, when there were no alarms demanding her attention.

With Icarus' age, those moments were few and far between.

Now though, the reactors were steady and the generators were turning. The hydraulics stood ready and the core wasn't burning. God was in his heaven, and all was right with the boat.

Kerry didnt hear the boots thundering down the gangway outside.

The engineer didn't realise that there was a problem until the hatch burst open with a squeal... then a clang as it hit slammed back against the bulkhead, ringing like a steel bell. Kerry Swains saw the man first. His hair blonde and crew cut, barely showing beneath a titanium-white half-globe of a helmet, his eyes a pale brown through a tintless visor, his complexion fixed into a forced military snarl. His red uniform was that of the Spaceguard, a single piece, baggy pressure suit with an emergency breather built in, snaking around to a bulky backpack.

She noticed his rank and name stencilled on a breast pouch.... AS: Kierkan

Then she noticed the black iron bullpup rifle pointed right at her.

“Oh hell,” she muttered, her flask slipping free of her hand.

Her cawfee fled the confines of it's flask, steaming brown globules drifting in ecstatic freedom wherever the air currents would take them.

I...I

Tinian was too busy watching Max work. There was something utterly fascinating about the navigator. Tinian had thought he seemed on edge, but that wasn't the half of it. He seemed to be charging like a battery, a current of fear flowing through his body and filling him up. He was rigid, electric and busy.

And Tinian wondered why.

The ships papers were placeg against the Captains console, sitting there happily for the time being. The radio had gone strangely quiet, she guessed because there was no need for anyone to use it anymore, what with the guard's now aboard and all. She didn't hear the hatch behind her open, the headset deadened the sound.

Max jumped up like he'd been shot, spinning in the air in a way Tinian didn't think was possible in a vacuum. His face was a picture of fear, eyes wide and mouth agape. That was the first inkling Tinian had that something was very wrong,

“ON THE DECK, HANDS ON HEAD!”

That was the second, She thought she heard Max say something, it might've been 'not again', she couldnt be sure. She spun her chair around, to come face to face with the hungry mouth of a gun. She stared at it, and it's redcoat owner the same way a deer would stare at the headlights. His face was hidden by the lights reflecting from his visor.

“ON THE DECK, HANDS ON HEAD!” the guns faceless owner barked.

“Dog of the military! We've done nothing,” Max roared back.

Another guard entered, a man Tinian easily recognised as an officer of some sort, the sleeves of his pressure suit bearing what seemed to be Commander's braids.

“SIT DOWN, SHUT UP, DO WHAT YOUR TOLD!”

“But we've done...”

“Not yet,” the new Commander stared Icarus' navigator into the deckplates.

Tinian pulled off her headset and crouched down, staring up at the rifle. A thrill of fear began to creep up her spine, tingling along her backbone, raising the hairs on the back of her neck.

“I'm Commander Decker of the Federal Spaceguard. Sit tight, don't fight, we're just going to be searching your boat a little,” his voice was warm, and horribly familiar, like a dentists before he drilled a tooth out of your head.

Max Gravette was staring at him like a frightened dog on a leash. It wasn't the first time he'd heard words to that effect, no not the first time at all.

I....I