Chapter 12 - What Was Left In the Hall

For the Moment, it feels good just to lay next to Zoraida. You pull her close and feel her flesh against yours. You're surprised you were able to do that, given how exhausted you should have been from being on ice, and then IVORI's attempts at murder. You close your eyes, not in sleep, and wonder just what sort of guy you were. Judging by your First Officer's note, and the comments; you might have been quite the lady's man. 

Still, with your own crew?

"Come on, Captain! Take the shot, already." It was voice that carried the easy going nature of a tumbleweed, yet was accented by crashing waves and clear skies.
"Private, sass me one more time, and I'm taking us all for a survival run on Turthok." That's you, the you in the past: The military you, the Imperial you.
"Aw come on, Turthok's a boogey base, it's can't be that bad." The tumbleweed voice chuckles, but sounds unsure.
"Don't talk about what you don't know, Redder." A voice, older than the tumbleweed, speaks. She has the weight of command in her voice, along with those same waves and skies.
"Really, Sarge? What's so bad about it?" So that was the Sergeant? It must be.
"It's got the worst of the worst," You speak again, "Faulty Drakes, Mad Behemoths, Untamed Leviathans."
"It's a dumping ground." A fourth voice, from the same place as the the other two women. "For everything the Empire makes that doesn't bend to the collar and crop."
"That is," you speak, "One way to describe it, Treads, yes."
"So," The tumbleweed -Redder- sounds even more unsure, "If we mess up, or don't follow your orders-"
"What?" Your voice interrupts her before she goes too far, "Sam, I would never-"

You open your eyes and sit up. Zoraida's hand was cradling your head against her chest. "How long was I out?" You read the worry on her face.

"You were in a trance for a while. I couldn't feel or read where your head was at." After a prodding gaze, "Ten minutes." She shrugs. 

"I heard voices. The Sergeant, Someone I called Treads, and Sam Redder?" 

"Some of the Troopers in our Crew." Zoraida explains how what you remember fits. "Sam was with the group that caught the agent I was following. Treads was keeping Doctor Tomoe safe while she followed her leads." 

You notice the lights on in the room and look around to see a rather clean but crowded room. Hanging beside the door way is a silver medal, and just next to it, a coat rack with a number of heavy looking jackets for rain, snow, dust, or acidic weather. Cool, you remembered the yellow one was for acid all on your own.  In the corner are a couple of standing mirrors that have post cards and other letters stuffed into the edges. 

Then there's a door to a bathroom, and your face twitches as you run your hand over it. The flight suit had sucked off the slime but there was still a slight layer of the stuff. Nasty. You saw that, sitting on a dresser, was a bell jar with what looked like a metal bolt, floating in place. Magnets? Neat. Though you blink as hanging from the top of the Dresser are a large, almost massive pair of black silk panties. 

"What the hell?" You cock your head, and point at the undergarments as you look at Zoraida questioningly. She just pouts and crosses her arms. You look back at the panties. You'd have to be almost three meters tall to wear those comfortably. How'd you fit a woman that tall into this room? How'd she fit on the bed? How was there still a bed afterwards?

"I'm gonna go clean up a bit," You slide off the bed as Zoraida nods and flops down to watch you walk. You pad into the bathroom and the lights ease on. You look into the mirror and see yourself. You expect another flashback, but instead you see you, as you are. But it's not as you expect. There's color in your skin now, not the same tanned glow you had before, but something more akin to a normal human than a cave worm. Your hair, despite being matted, has a darker red to its strands, and you generally look healthier, more alive.

You flex your arms and see actual muscles moving, instead of the skin and bones you woke up with. You've got definition to your pecs, and even the start of a six pack. That brings you to the next observation, the scars are barely there. You can still see the odd rectangular patches across your skin, but instead of thick rough skin dominating your chest, it's more subtle now.

You look back to Zoraida as she lays on her stomach, propped up on her elbows, content to stare at you while you stretch and pose naked in front of her. You blush and close the door, odd that you'd feel that way with the woman you just fucked into the mattress after just remembering her. Still, good hustle, and it gives you privacy for both hygiene and nature.

After you're lighter and clean, you walk out to find that Zoraida is pulling clothes out for you. She tosses you a tight pair of black boxer briefs and she waggles her eyebrows as she watches you pull them on.

"So," You start, not sure where to go with the conversation. "I guess I'm something off a player?" You take a vague stab at that line of conversation.

"Player?" Zoraida laughs.

"Keep it in your pants; Captain, that means you?" You repeat the line from the First Officer's order. Zoraida laughs.

"Well, we're guilty as much as anyone; You just fail, like so many men, in saying no to a pretty face, and a big pair of tits." She grabs her breasts and squeezes them tight. Her face flushes, as her fingers dig into the thick metal tinged meat of her mammaries. You swallow, but don't look away. Zoraida laughs again and her clothes form over her skin. "See?" She sighs, "Oh we are going to have to toughen you up again."

"We? Toughen up?"

"Not every pair of tits in the galaxy is attached to a sweetheart, Captain. Lots of mean cunts sailing the Black," She nods, "and you've punched a few." She deadpans.

"Literally?" You winch, and she nods. "Damn."

"Hey, 'If a girl can kick a guy in the nuts, why can't the reverse be true?' That's what you told the Sarge after your second sparring match with her." Zoraida gets up as you pull on a pair of comfy pants, and an orange tee that with prints of fish skeletons. You'll wear something more space worthy later. Right now you feel like Golden Dancer is in no danger.

"What'd I say after my first spar with her?" You ask.

"Oh fuck, my nuts." Zoraida makes air quotes with her fingers as she walks past you and out the door. "Come on, let's get something to eat."

"Actually," You follow after her and stand beside her as her strides come up short. "I wanted to ask you about where we're headed." You notice her gaze isn't on you, and follow it. 

Sitting on the floor of the hall, is Your Ring.

You'd dropped it when Zoraida leaped into your arms, but you hadn't given it a second thought after that. "Can't just leave that here," You shrug and walk over to it, but pause as your toe almost brushes against it. You look down at the ring, then crouch to pick it up.

Such a strange little thing. You turn it over in your hand. You pocket it and stand up, seeing Zoraida standing next to you. "Briefing room?" You suggest, and offer her your arm. She smiles, nods and you lead the way this time.

The briefing room is exactly as you left it, but this time Zoraida walks up to a podium where she begins to type, rather than just wave her hands to give commands.

"Currently we're on course for Aulus." She brings up a star map of a region of space, most of the stars were dulled out, but a few had names next to them. Wrisi, Astir, Shoka, and Kesta. The image also showed a blinking golden icon, moving steadily toward Aulus. "These are some of the systems that will be in FTL range once we're in Aulus. She zoomed in on the system and you saw a red dwarf surrounded by a Jovian gas giant, three dead rocky planets, three ice planets, and in the green zone, a frosty looking world.

"Aulus Prime's original colonizing government collapsed twenty years ago." Screens pop up that show protests, riots, arguing politicians and what looked like formal duels to the death. "At the moment, three major factions control various parts of the planet, and they all have claims to portions of the worlds and moons of the star system.

"Sounds like a powder keg, and we're going there, because?"

"All three sides hate the Empire, whom they blame for the failure of the original government."

"But what, they can't agree one what should replace it?"

"Yup. Oligarchy versus Socialist Bureaucracy versus Military Republic. All in a cold war to edge out the others in production, population, or outright firepower."

"Who's winning?" You watch as different lines spring out from the planet and connect to the inner and outer planets like a caffeinated spider web.

"Traders." She brings up a few more screens. "All three sides are greedy for any edge they can bring from outside the system. Tech, resources, labor."

"Slaves?" You cock your head, not sure if your angry or just curious. 

"They call them 'indentured' laborers." Zoraida corrects you, wagging her finger.

"Funny." You cross your arms. "So nobody official is going to blow the whistle on us."

"Exactly. Plus this world was on the route for Doctor Tomoe, something about the world having great preservation facilities, and one of the sides renting out a glacier to an 'undisclosed' science venture."

"Hiding frozen people on a glacier makes a certain amount of sense." You nod. "How are we supposed to find them though," You point at all the planets in the system. "Plenty of these worlds have bases or stations on them, if that's what these icons are." You point at rings hanging in orbit, and triangles on the surface of worlds. Zoraida nods. "How are we supposed to know where they are, if they're here at all?"

"We see if they left a tag."

"Tag." You repeat the word, and not hearing any bells ring.

"Navigation buoys float all over modern systems. They're loud, obnoxious, and they broadcast their position so clearly there's no way you accidentally just jump too close to a station."

"And if you jump too close on purpose?" You press a few keys and the image zooms in on Aulus Prime. Three Massive space stations orbit the planet, presumably geosynchronous to each faction's planetary territory.

"Boom." Zoraida makes a popping gesture with her hands. You bob your head, that's to be expected.

"So these buoys," You start up, "Do they receive, not just transmit?"

"Yup!" Zoraida nods and points to a number of bright orange icons scattered around each faction's station. "We get a look at enough of them, we should have an idea if any of our crew went through recently."

"How's that? We have the ship." You tap the podium with your knuckle.

"But they have the shuttles." Zoraida holds up three fingers.

"Our ship fits shuttles?" You look around to just wonder how many tricks are in this ship. As many as your ring, and your silver scales, maybe.

"Well," Zoraida waggles her hand, "They're more like modified strike craft. The troopers cram into them, four a pop. Then there's piloting, nav, and gunner seats. We also have one that's more roomy but less armored. That's Doc's private little 'field tripper'.

"All that can fit in this ship?" You wonder, and Zoraida brings up the ship's schematic. Just behind the heavy guns on the underside of the gunship, a pair of bomb bay style doors are fit, and the image opens to reveal several stubby looking drop ships lower and launch. Two are dune colored and have turrets on them. The third is white and painted with clear medical markings.

You do the math, seven in each craft, at most. Could it be simple as finding three not-shuttles and meeting up with whose riding in them? Someone was bound to be missing.
"Whose not accounted for, in terms of these?"

"The First officer and three of the troopers went looking for our friend, the one who got caught up in all the craziness of you being captured."

"Doctor Tomoe, 'Treads', and I suppose whomever was piloting her craft?" You try and glean some answers out of her, but she shakes her head. "Okay, but Sam was on this ship until you had to use it as a decoy, right?" She shakes her head.

"She was with one of the strike craft groups tailing us. They've got a ride, wherever they are. Some of the other crew did have resources outside the ship though, they might have picked up spares to get them from A-to-B. We won't know their signals, but they'll know ours."

"That's a bit concerning, since if some ship we don't immediately identify starts tailing us, I'm gonna be a little concerned." You shake your head.

"We didn't have time to make a perfect plan-" Zoraida speaks up.

"I'm not criticizing my crew with how they chose to save my life. I'm just bitching cause space is big and I don't want to lose anyone out there."

"You can barely remember any of us." Zoraida wonders at your sentiment.

"That's my problem." You shrug, "I'm the Captain, You're all my Crew, and right now, getting everyone back to their posts is a mighty big priority, don't you think?"

"Aye, Captain!" Zoraida salutes again, with her hand on her chest. Then there's a gurgle and growl as your stomach speaks up.

"But first," You hold up a hand, "Let's continue our tour with the mess hall." You make the suggestion, and Zoraida turns off the screen and leads you back into the hallway. As you reach a section of the ship that has double sealed doors and when you step into it, you feel a warm familiar rush. This was the room where you had your vision of Zoraida dancing, this was where your crew came to relax, break bread, and unwind.

Even with all the club lighting off and the air clear of 'ambiance', you felt energized walking through the place. There was a table in the corner where a pole lead up to the ceiling, and a game table where various holograms could be displayed and interacted with, but other than that, it might has well been a large dinning hall. Booths were fit into the edges of the room, and one wall was dominated by both a bar, which was stripped of all its bottles, and a kitchen. The kitchen showed the same signs of attempted access some of the other doors had.

"You locked them out of the food."

"We only have so many premade meals in there. They did scavange a lot of our more basic supplies."

"Okay, that's a thing we have to worry about, how broke are we?" You look Zoraida in the eye and she worries her lip. "Oh Zora, you shorten her name and her eyes glow in a thrill, "Tell me we have something to work with."

"We all split up the main account to make sure we'd have credits to work with if we had to bribe people or get out of dodge without blowing something up, first. There's SOME money left, we have a voucher that we can use to fill the tank up from bottom to brim, but only twice more. That also includes water and air with that, so we're covered there, but, we've got maybe fifty thousand credits to our name. It's expensive to dock a ship at any space port, and we don't really have money for installing new armor or restocking our armory." She blanched as she turned away.

"Our armory?" You blink, "You just mean our missiles and guns, right? It's not like you had to sell off armor and guns for the troops to find me, right?"

"Well, not all of it. The Troopers kept most of their custom kit, and that's a lot, but some of the heavier hardware, and the spares, had to go. We needed every cred, Captain. These weren't idiots who stole you. They covered their tracks. We-" You hold up a hand to stop her pleading.

"Again, Zoraida, I'm just bitching." You wrap your arms around her. "I really appreciate how far you all went for me, especially knowing how hard we'd have to dig ourselves out once you found me." You add, and Zoraida laughs.

"Well, Io-" She clamps her mouth ship "Well, the First Officer said, 'Once he's awake, it's the Captain's job.' The Bosun made some crack about you dine and dashing so damn often, this was probably karma for it."

You sigh and laugh. "That's just perfect. Well, here's hoping there's work to do, I don't fancy drifting or begging for help."  You walk over to the kitchen and Zoriada holds her hand over the locks, the gold strips of her covering slipping into the fridge and unlocking it with a heavy thud.

She pulls it open and you feel the cool wash over you. You shudder, but its not much. Zoraida looks at you, concerned, "I'm not triggered, if you're worried about that. What's left?"

"Lots of frozen bird, vegetable broth," She lists off a number of sealed and preserved food that can be thawed and heated, and you frown.

"We have a cook, right?" You ask, as you cut open some thawed and heated meals. They aren't bad, but something is lacking in the appeal of it.

"The Bosun is also our ship's chef, yes." Zoraida answers. She eats too, and you realize that both of you are eating ravenously. Food might fast be an issue too. Damn.

"Good." You reply to her answer, more than your own line of thoughts. So Aulus was a world divided, but no friend of the Empire, Doctor Tomoe might be going there with 'Treads' to find a 'research group' that is using a rented glacier base. It was also withing springing distance of a number of worlds. 

As you eat, you look around the mess room. It's lived in, and you wonder if any of the crew of that grey market ship had used this place to relax. If they had, they'd either cleaned up after themselves, or Zoraida had.

"They were respectful." She answers quietly. "Cleaned up after they were done with the games, never saved over any of our crew's high scores." She points at a few standing game booths. There was also an entertainment system set in the wall. 

Once you finished eating, you had the ship to explore. You could always turn in and set your alarm for a 'normal' time. Zoraida's probably still up for some more questions, and there's plans to be made, maybe. But it's up to you. 

What do you want to do?