Chapter Four
I sat still as from a dead stop the ship began to pick up speed. I glanced back to Sam and gave her a thumbs up for successfully impairing the ship’s life sign detector sensors.
The panels before me were dark and devoid of any clues as to where the probable destination might be. We really were flying blind.
The ship entered hyper travel smoothly and began to accelerate. Briandy and I shared a glance. This ship was far quicker than any ship in our fleet could boast of being.
Getting up I went back to sit down beside Edgar at the rear of the control room. He glanced at me and feeling talkative I asked, “So tell me Edgar how did you come to be so far from Earth?”
He smiled, “An overly obsessive desire to experience adventure and see new sights, which I certainly have done so!”
Smiling I nodded. The man’s command of our language grew stronger and stronger with each passing conversation I had with him.
“You are not of our blood. Why did you risk your life so to journey to an uncertain end on behalf of those who are not your people?”
Edgar shrugged, “Consider me a stranger that’s been grafted into the family so to speak. Your homeworld has become my home and I’m fully willing to die to preserve the lives of those who now call it home along with me. It was an easy decision to come. However the journey here and then the quite hostile reception at first had me wondering about my decision, now however I see it was the right thing to do.”
I nodded, “That took a lot of courage on your part, faith as well. Welcome to the family Edgar.” I said, as I extended my hand to him.
He shook it and I got back up to head back to my seat at the nose of the craft. Scarcely had I sat down then the seat across from me occupied by Briandy was vacated.
With a quick backward glance I confirmed that Edgar looked as pleased to see Briandy sitting down beside him, as she seemed to be just to be in the presence of this stranger from Earth. Perhaps they would have a future together. Time would tell.
Propping my feet up I idly watched our progress through the galaxy as it swiftly passed by. Strangely enough we weren’t headed toward the interior of the galaxy. That much I could discern. From all appearances our automated journey was taking us deeper into the Far Quarter.
I leaned my head back and closed my eyes. I wasn’t sleeping though. Praying is all I did for hours on end.
*****
Briandy stirred in the opposing console chair. Grumpily she sat up and stretched her back before then coming to full alertness, “We aren’t in hyper travel anymore!”
“No.” I commented reservedly from my seat.
It had been two days since we had started out from the mothership. We were deep in a sector of the Far Quarter that I had avoided whenever possible and of which I had only skirted along its edges a half dozen times in my entire life.
The reticence to return here was in part because of the first time I had encountered this stretch of desolate space. Sam came to stand beside me as asteroids in ever-increasing size drifted by the outside hull of the ship.
She turned her head to regard me worriedly, “Captain isn’t this the sector of space where your father broke away from the fleet to slow down some reptilian cruisers?”
“One and the same.” I responded with grimly, as my mind transferred back in time to that fateful day, when I had found myself thrust into the position of leadership. It had not been a good time.
How fitting to be headed back here of all places to find an answer that I hoped would help and not kill my people. Briandy was breathing hard and finally not able to take it any longer she said, “Shouldn’t we switch on the navigation and steer clear of these asteroids dead ahead?”
“Don’t touch anything!” I said firmly.
She swallowed her objections away with a rare show of self-restraint and sat still as three enormous mountains of rock loomed closer and closer.
It was like a game of dare. Who would blink first though?
In the last few moments before impact the ship heeled over and sped upward unexpectedly. Even more unexpected was the sight of the three giant mountains of rock that had begun to abruptly spin and move toward each other, along with a host of smaller ones.
“Incredible!” Edgar breathed out.
Incredible it truly was I silently acknowledged, as I watched the asteroid rocks form together into one mass with pinpoint precision. Why hadn’t I come up with an idea like this?
The angular pieces of asteroid rock coalesced into one giant rocky looking ball. There were several deep channels left exposed in the surface crust and into one such channel the ship steered its way into.
Briandy kept glancing at me, as if begging me to tell her to resume control of the ship, but I remained silent.
It was dark as very little reflected starlight made its way into this interior cavern, which had been created but moments before. There in the darkness ahead a bright glow of color illuminated the cavern suddenly as a rocky portal opened with a shimmering haze in the cavern wall just ahead.
Moving very slowly the ship entered through the portal. I got up and made my way to the primary hatch.
The skeleton crew I had brought along with me hung about me in expectation of not sure what. This was going to be no raid into another ship as one of our rehearsed snatch and grabs. This mission would depend entirely upon diplomacy and faith.
The ship settled and I nodded to Sam. She engaged the hatch release and with a hiss of expressed air the ramp lowered.
I walked down it and out into the expansive hanger bay that existed entirely hidden within the confines of this asteroid. Such an ingenious and superlative creation of manmade ingenuity.
Steam hissed from a canopy of overhanging pipes and I walked out into the expansive theater of another people’s best response to the need to survive at all costs. It appeared to all the world that we were alone, but I knew that wasn’t the case.
I could feel watching eyes upon me. Motioning my small party to a stop I stepped forward several more steps to then stand motionless in expectation of whatever the hidden watchers intended for us. We were entirely at their mercy.
Out of a cloud of steam off to my left came a voice rich with both hostility and the unmistakableness of a female confident in her ability to dominate, “Tell me why we shouldn’t kill you right here and now?”
Turning my head toward the voice resonating from the steam off to my left I shrugged and said, “No reason really. Unless that is if you’d like to exchange your cozy home here for someone else with a sky overhead and the feel of grass beneath your feet. Now if that is the case then you have every reason not to pull the trigger.”
I waited saying nothing more.
“What could you Melungeon’s possess knowledge of that we could possibly want to know about? Your homeworld has gone the way of ours long since our own was taken from us.”
“A correction if I may. Our homeworld is surprisingly resurgent, while if I don’t miss my guess, yours is but made of the leftover pieces of this cracked shell that you’ve managed to cobble together and create a place where life can thrive where there should be none. Whether you gun us down now or not may I first say how deeply impressed I am with your people’s will to survive.”
Movement issued forth from the steam and out walked the form of a woman that was a match to the voice that had commanded my attention as few women ever had. My eyes drifted admiringly over the form of a woman every bit the survivor that I myself was.
My eyes lingered on her face framed by curly blonde hair and the single eye that gazed at me commandingly. The leather eyepatch that blocked her other eye off from view only accentuated the levels that this woman was willing to go to in order to survive.
I placed her age as to being somewhere in her mid-30s and I found myself increasingly hopeful not to be gunned down by her. Her head shifted to the one side as she studied me with the same confidence that her voice had reflected earlier.
Her face shifted into a smile as white teeth flashed in a mercurial gesture that was hard to read even as it was beautiful to behold, “Well well well if it isn’t Captain Siringo himself. The intrepid leader of a lost squadron of souls without a home to call their own. In answer to your last question, you may. Now however if you’re thinking of taking our home from us then you’d better do some thinking on that, because we aren’t planning on going anywhere.”
Smiling myself I said, “A pity. I’d rather hoped that you’d share my world with me. All are welcome.”
Her gaze turned calculating and her one blue eye bore into me with ice chipping intensity. She gestured with one hand toward the steamy corridor she’d come through and obediently I stepped forward toward it.
My small group made to follow, but she raising a hand in their direction said, “You stay.”
They stayed and I walked on alone into the steam. I felt her draw close to me and then the feel of both of my guns being lifted away from me. I made no move to resist. In fact I would’ve handed them to her if she had but asked.
I stepped clear of the steam to find myself in a corridor that led upwards on a slight grade. Her voice echoed of curiosity from just behind me, “This gun still works?”
“It’s an off and on relationship. I’ve found the need to give it a good bash from time to time.”
She chuckled and looking back to her I said, “Keep it if you like.”
“How generous of you. Pray tell how do you then intend to protect yourself if you give your weapons away so easily?” She asked somewhat coquettishly.
“Those?” I asked self-deprecatingly before adding, “They only make killing expedient. I need nothing more than these two hands to do my killing with if need be.”
“Yes, your people are very adept at killing I’ve come to find. So nice of you to return to us what is ours, but pray tell where is our ship’s crew? Have you kept them prisoner back at fleet headquarters as an added insurance that we let you go?”
“I didn’t come here to play with words and I have very little doubt that you don’t already know what happened to your crew. The guns you now hold did their part to bring justice for the fate of your lost crew. As to the ship as you said it is yours. I make no claims to it, if I had I wouldn’t have come.”
“Which indeed begs the question of exactly why you did come? I hope you’re not going to repeat your story about a resurgent world free from the dangers of our shared enemies.”
“I came in hopes of forming an alliance. An alliance based on something we both desperately need.”
“And what is that?” She asked sounding openly sarcastic.
“Hope.” I replied with simply.
She remained silent. Our journey was at an end as the hallway we were in gave way to an expansive gallery below us. It was rather like being back on my own mothership. In fact it was eerily similar in more than one way.
I glanced to her and she gestured to the left. I made my way along the railing as I became the intense subject of hundreds of pairs of eyes from those watching below.
“Stop and enter the door to your left.”
I did so and found myself within a cabin which matched my own almost perfectly. Turning about I regarded her piercingly as she closed the door behind her.
Watching me speculatively she asked, “Putting it all together are we?”
“This is a Melungeon mother class ship!” I exclaimed.
“Partly yes. In approximation it’s only half of one. We cut away what we didn’t need and made use of the extra parts elsewhere.”
“How do you hold all the outer rocks together in order to form this shell of ambiguity?”
“The asteroids are highly magnetized. With the proper use of electromagnets we can get them to do pretty much anything we want them to. We can even use their inherent magnetity to propel them at high speed should we need to. Please have a seat.” She said gesturing to one of two chairs.
I sat down and once more my back was to her. Needing to know I asked, “What happened to the previous owners of this ship?”
There was a telling pause before she spoke softly from surprisingly close behind me, “They lost all hope.”
My one gun slid down my front to land in my lap. She then made her way around my chair to sit down in the chair across from my own.
She still held my older relic of a gun and by a way of explanation she cattily said, “I think I’ll hold onto this. I like old things.”
I nodded and looked down to the gun in my lap. I was finding the moment rather difficult to navigate.
Here I was in a ship such as the one I had called home all my life. Once a captain had ruled over a band of my people from this very room, until at some point things had gone wrong.
Looking up I tried to retain some measure of composure in my faceoff with this confident woman, who seemed to be the leader of her people even as I was the leader of mine. Meeting her gaze I found no way of restoring the moment by putting forth an illusion of confident strength so looking back down to my lap I found myself asking before I could think better of it, “Do you ever find it hard as a leader to inspire others to keep going on in a fight that never stops?”
“Every day.” Came her softly spoken reply.
Looking up I witnessed some of the hardened persona that this woman manifested seemingly absent if but for only a moment. Nodding I looked back down and said, “Well I’ve reached a point of no return. I’m committing everything toward one end all action. The will to go on and continue surviving out here doesn’t work for me anymore. It just so happens however that there are factors at play which cause me to believe my actions could prove successful in the long run. That said however my success is dependent on, among other things, what you decide to do right now. My offer to you and your people is real. My world does exist, but it is under threat of soon being nothing more than these spare rocks you have cobbled together in order to build a sanctuary hidden from view.”
I stopped talking as the enormity of what I was asking a complete stranger to undertake doing simply became too great for me to bear expressing my extreme need for help any further.
“So what would an alliance with you entail that we do for you?” She inquired leadingly.
Meeting her one eyed gaze I said, “Become one with my people and share in our fate whether it is to extinction or to the future that we’ve all hoped for. I can promise nothing more other than the chance at something better for both our peoples.”
“Wow! You don’t mince your words do you?” She exclaimed before it was her turn to look away.
A long moment passed. The intense radiance of her one blue eye came back to mine, “My people would never go for it. We have managed to cobble together as you put it an existence, while not very glamorous, it has at least served us well. I can certainly understand why you have at long last chosen to abandon your fight for survival, but please do not think we are possessed of the same insanity that has befallen you. Consider your offer rejected.” She finished with harshly.
I gazed steadily into her one eye and said, “That means you need to kill me doesn’t it.”
“Yes it does. I’m truly sorry that it has to come to this.”
Without another word she lifted my gun and centered it on me and pulled the trigger. The gun didn’t fire.
In alarm she glanced down to it and I saw the defective red glow of its power indicator showing it had short-circuited its power supply yet again. All the criticism I’d received for holding on to that old relic was gone in a heartbeat even as my own heart was still beating within my chest.
I lifted the gun in my lap and brought it to bear upon her. She breathed in deeply, but remained still as her features remained tightly controlled. She still had a side arm, but seated as she was there was no way she could ever get to it in time and she knew it. The girl had guts that much I would give her.
“Stand up.” I said softly.
Obediently she did so. I didn’t miss the way her right hand twitched to go for her weapon strapped to her hip. Her problem however though was that her weapon was located on her left hip on the side that she still held my useless gun with. To drop my gun to the floor was to initiate the blast of my weapon ending her life.
“Turn around.” I commanded just as conversationally as I had when I’d told her to stand up.
Her eye flashed brilliantly with alarm. Slowly she did as I asked, but not before I saw her stiff composure begin to crack up.
“Toss my gun into the chair followed along by your own.”
My gun plopped onto the cushions of the chair and slowly she drew her own out of its holster. She held her gun down low along her side as I sat locked in stillness waiting out the long moment patiently waiting to see what her next move to kill me would be.
She tossed her weapon forward and it clinked off my old relic of a weapon. She was breathing hard now and I very much doubted it that this woman had ever found herself in such a powerless state as she was in now.
“Back up towards me, until I tell you to stop.” I said keeping my voice cool and detached sounding.
She was slow to respond, but her legs began to move to accomplish my order after a long moment of indecision.
“Stop.”
She stopped.
I stood up and at the sound of my rising she visibly flinched and for a moment seemed about to turn around. She caught herself though and remained facing forward although now that she was close I could see that she was shaking.
Coldly I said, “Kneel.”
She remained standing as if locked in place. Putting one hand on her shoulder I pressed down even as I pushed my foot into the back of her one knee. Her leg crumpled and her other leg was overwhelmed by my down pressure and she crashed down onto her knees.
She was ready to fight for survival then, but the cold steel of my gun muzzle pressed hard against the back of her neck quelled all resistive movement on her part. Her breathing was hard and emotional and I could still feel her shaking beneath my hand.
Glancing around to the side I didn’t miss the track of a tear making its way down her porcelain cheek.
“You think I’m a real bastard right now don’t you?” I asked leadingly.
“Yes!” She hissed back in response.
I pressed cruelly with the barrel of my gun and under the force of my pressure she was leaned forward until she had to brace herself with her hands to the floor to keep from falling flat on her face.
Coldly I asked, “What’s your name?”
“Why?”
“Name!” I repeated harshly, as I pressed the gun hard against the back of her neck.
With an emotional cry she broke out with, “Lathartha!”
I nodded my head and backed off on the pressure I was exerting somewhat. Kneeling down myself I switched my gun from the back of her neck to being pressed under her chin even as with my free hand I gripped a hold of her blonde hair done up in a bun on the back of her head by which I pulled her head back.
The intensity of her eye was no longer a match for mine as I point blankly said into her face, “I very well may be a bastard, but at least I haven’t lost the decency of my humanity as you have! Is your continued quest to go on surviving really worth all that you’ve given up?” I stated brutally, as I gave her a hard shake that probably hurt more than I had intended, but the desperation of my situation had rather unglued me from my normal ability to be self-controlled with my emotions.
The look on her face was one of starkness and loss and letting her hair go I rose up and stepping to the chair she had occupied I picked up my old gun, which I then banged off the chair arm savagely. The power level switched back to green and turning back to her still kneeling on the floor I tossed it at her.
The gun clattered up against her knees and dumbly she looked down at it as I stated harshly, “There it will work now! Well what are you waiting for? Pick it up and shoot!!!”
Her hands didn’t move. Tossing my own gun into the chair beside me I stepped forward to crash down to my own knees before her so hard that the room shook slightly.
Picking my gun up I savagely pressed it into her hands. Making her resisting fingers form around the handle I pressed the barrel of the gun into my stomach even as I saw her head begin to shake no.
“Well go on! You’re the one who wants to survive so much so pull the trigger! Finish it!!!” I screamed into her face that was full of raw emotion now.
“No!!!” She screamed out trying to pull her hands free of the gun that I held them clamped to.
“Why not?” I screamed into her face.
“Because I don’t want to be who I’ve become!!!” She screamed out in a sob that sounded as if it had been wrenched from the farthest depths of her soul.
Finally I let my insanity of wrath abate, even as I lost all my anger toward the woman who had so casually only a few moments before gone about trying to end my life. I knew the force that drove this woman. I’d been as driven as she to survive all my life, no matter what the cost may be.
It simply wasn’t worth it anymore. Nothing ever could be if it involved the loss of one’s soul.
In a calm voice, as I relaxed my grip on her hands I said, “Welcome back to reality Lathartha.”
The gun fell from her hands, as she leaned forward with a keening wail to sob with her face pressed to the floor. I patted the back of her head consolingly even as I slid my gun out from underneath her for fear she’d accidentally discharge it.
Getting up off the floor was a painful experience and when I’d managed it I rubbed at my sore knees for a moment. I tossed my gun to land back in her seat with the other two.
Glancing down at her I said, “I forgive you Lathartha.”
She only continued to wail. Looking around the room in search of an answer to the situation I could only come up with one.
Approaching her I stooped down and awkwardly brought her up to her feet. I pretty well had to half carry her to my chair.
Sitting down I pulled her into my lap. She was becoming resistant as emotion left and personality began to appear once more. With an arm I pulled her head toward me to nestle beneath my chin and before she could speak the words I sensed that were building up within her I said, “Shut up.”
She remained silent and seated in my lap. My hand left her head to trace down to the back of her neck, which I began to massage.
“It’s all right to be human. To be emotional. Maybe it’s best for those beyond that door not to see you like this, but I understand and I don’t think any the less of you. It’s hard to always be seeing to the demands and needs of others with seemingly nothing left over for yourself and with no one to confide in. Such a life makes us hard and privately hopeless of anything good happening. I can’t live like that any longer. I crave space. Space away from people always demanding more of me. It’s funny really. We’re surrounded by the vastness of space, but have none for ourselves within the clustered little communities that we strive so hard to hold together. Such an existence can’t go on indefinitely can it?”
Her head nodded against my chest.
“Is that a yes or a no?” I asked with curiosity.
“No.” She confirmed softly.
Time stretched on until I asked, “Still want to shoot me?”
“No.”
“Glad to hear it.”
She wiped at her face and then she slid free of my lap. She walked away to stand facing away from me. I stood up and she turned around. Her face said it all. She was at a complete loss as to what to do or say or even what the situation might remotely call for.
Stepping closer I made the decision for her. Leaning forward I kissed her on the lips.
Her lips were full and parted against mine, but that’s as far as I took the kiss. She pulled away slightly and as her eye searched mine she breathed out, “What do you think you’re doing?”
With complete honesty I said, “Forming an alliance.”
Her eyebrow rose sharply and drawing in a breath to speak I stopped her by placing a finger against her lips. I shook my head no and obediently she remained silent.
Her eye searched mine in startled wonder. She gazed at me in silence as my hands settled on her shoulders and pressed her backward.
Her eye widened as she felt herself pressed up against the wall of her room. Her hands came up between us, but I smoothly claimed her wrists and kissing her again I pressed both of her hands to the wall to either side of her head.
Breathing heavy she huffed out as she turned her face away from my drawn out kiss, “Is this how you form all your alliances?”
Shaking my head I said, “Never.”
My head began dipping back towards her and in a rush she asked, “Is this all just about diplomacy?”
Completely serious I said, “No.” Then feeling the need for more words I said, “Lathartha…… I…… I have the feeling that I can be completely myself with you. You lead your people and I lead mine, but aren’t you tired of being alone?”
She nodded and I kissed her deeply even as I fought within myself to hold back from the living temptation that this woman had suddenly become in my life. I’d come seeking an alliance and found so much more.
Breaking off the kiss I watched her eye blink for a moment as she seemed to come back from somewhere else. It happened then, she smiled.
Her smile demanded one by me in return. There was a coy reasoning to be glimpsed at in her gaze and curiously I asked, “What are you thinking?”
She wet her lips before responding with, “If we’re brokering an alliance here why does it feel like I’m being forced to surrender?”
I grinned and let go of her wrists. I sobered quickly then as I felt the need to make something clear that perhaps our words were not.
“I’m not kissing you just because I need your help.”
She arched that eyebrow at me again and said, “Sure.” With a sharply sarcastic note to it.
Forming my hands into fists I put them to the wall to either side of her head as I passionately said, “I’m not!”
She blinked and taking my one hand away I gestured to the door, “What goes on out there is to itself. Right here and now it’s just you and I, with diplomacy being completely aside from the matter. I want that to be clear.”
She nodded before she cheekily responded with, “But you still want me to help you with whatever you need help with don’t you?”
“Yes.” I said honestly.
I searched her eye and face for a sign of what she was thinking and then I watched her lips move, “I applaud your honesty Captain, but how do I know you’re honest in your attentions toward me and not out for just what I can do to help you?”
It was a fair question.
“You’re going to just have to trust me and take my word for it.”
“I tried to kill you and would have if your gun hadn’t jammed, what makes you think you can trust me?”
“It’s a risk I’m willing to take.” I responded, as in truth I really didn’t have a sense of her ever be the type to double-cross me and she seemed to be sensing the same with me.
She looked away and shaking her head she said, “I don’t know. This is all changing rather quickly.”
I stepped back, “If you need some space you have only to say so.”
Her hand curled over the top of my shirt and tugged me forward toward her, “I didn’t say I needed space. I’ve waited all my life for a man like you!” Her lips found mine, as she apparently chose to side with trusting the sincerity of my desire for her apart from any diplomatic goal I might have in mind for our two peoples.
Her arms came around my neck as she suddenly turned aggressive. Her leg rose along my side and sensing her desire I slid my hands down and lifted her legs, which she quickly clasped about my waist while I had the joy of filling my hands with her well-shaped rear as I continued to press her to the wall.
Loud knocking at the door startled us both. I half dropped her and as it was we both almost fell.
I had the urge to laugh as I watched her face turn beet red as she called out in the best modulated voice that she could muster in the moment, “Yes what is it?”
“Are you all right?” Came the answering response from the other side of the door.
Glancing to me Lathartha said, “Perfectly.”
“What?”
“I’m fine! Now go away while I conclude this diplomatic meeting.”
We both listened to the retreating footsteps until we couldn’t hear them. Glancing at each other we met each other’s gaze before we both fell into a fit of laughter.
Still laughing softly Lathartha asked, “Is it the same way on your ship? The general lack of privacy I mean.”
“Worse. They don’t even knock on the door they just open it and barge in.”
Her eyebrow arched, “Well that’s going to stop!”
Slightly choked sounding as my mind ran wild with the understanding of that definitive statement I said, “It shouldn’t be a problem anymore. My counterpart ship to this one is in so