Chapter Seven

A Journey Through . . . Shopping?

"Hey...Hey Mark...Wake up!" I woke up to the sound of Isel's voice. It was now two weeks into the voyage. Most days were boring and empty. Usually there was nothing going on inside the steel walls of the Mothership. But today I felt like doing something.

"How did you get in here?" I asked looking at my door. I was sure I locked it this time.

"An old trick I learned. And I'm not tellin' you!" She stuck her tongue out at me but I was still too asleep to do anything.

"So what do you want this early anyway?" I asked.

"What do you mean this early? It's past twelve! Anyway, I was thinking on taking you shopping since you apparently can't get around to it on your own. Hey maybe you can get yourself an alarm clock! Maybe then you won't need me to break in here every morning. Oh wait; you never lock your door! Most of the time it's open! So anyone curious enough can walk right in here while you're asleep and they could..." I stuffed my head into my pillow because I couldn't bear hearing her ramble on anymore. I'm telling you she's worse than my old girlfriend. Now I have to deal with her every morning. At least the old one let me sleep until I wanted to wake up.

"Wake up sleepy!" she pulled the pillow from me and wacked me over the head with it.

"Well I'm awake now! Anyway, what were you saying before you started rambling?" I asked.

"I'm taking you to buy stuff, like clothes, because you've been wearing the same thing for three days now. And shave before we go. You look like that old drunk guy over by Karu's."

'Yep, definitely worse than the last one.'

After I got out of bed and shaved, we headed to the commerce level. When we got there, she obviously had to check out the women's clothing department first. Well I guess the worst part was her constant asking me if it looked good on her. I mean honestly. Do women actually think we care? No seriously! I don't and most guys don't. The only answer I could honestly give her was a sure or whatever works for you. Never and I mean never say no or anything that would sound negative, because well...you'll find out.

"What about this?" she asked walking up to me.

"If you like it I'll like it" bad answer. Not in the actual words, but women tend to over analyze everything. Not being sexist or anything. It's just the way I figure it.

"What do you mean by that?" she asked in an angry tone. Yep, that's the worst answer possible. Like I said, she analyzed a hundred possibilities and found one tiny shred of negativity. "You don't like it! Well I do."

"I didn't say that." I said trying to keep peace. But you know when people say its better just to agree with them, well they're right. You might not like it, but I didn't know this.

"So you agree with me about agreeing that the dress is good but agreed that it wasn't the best and disagreed that it looks good on me?" well I can honestly say that I was lost about halfway through. She said something else after but I didn't catch it.

"Um...yes?" I would ask her how many negatives she had in that sentence but it wouldn't have mattered. Before I knew it, her fist was in my face. It hurt like having a wrestling champion hammer you in the face with one of those chairs that are always in the ring for some reason. I fell backwards hitting another customer. This poor guy must have been dragged here too. But my mind was more focused on the big fist imprint on my face. It singed when I touched it so I left it alone. "Hey what the hell was that for?" I yelled.

"For insulting me." She answered.

"Like I knew I was insulting you. I barely understood what you were saying!" but she didn't care.

It stayed silent between us for the rest of the time in this store. She bought a bunch of stuff and of course, made me hold everything. Well at least I was in shape. Every store we passed led to more bags for me to carry. And after about the third, I couldn't carry any more. So we went to my place and dropped it off only to come back. Her shopping was now done, thankfully.

"I really can't keep doing this." I said.

"Yes you can. Now come on! We're about a quarter ways done." I didn't like that response. I thought we would be halfway by now! Well I wasn't going to argue. What else was I supposed to do? Mope around the observatory all day? I did that too much lately. So I followed her out the door and to a nearby elevator that took us straight up to the shopping level. It was pretty convenient besides that it was constantly crowded.

But that was life on the Mothership. It was constantly crowded in the more convenient areas and the rest was basically empty, which is why I go to the central areas of the ship to be alone. It was quiet that way. Everyone needs some place to get away from their world and their jobs. It helps just to relax and do completely nothing sometimes. Just think about what direction your life was headed. I did that a lot. But I wasn't going to be able to do that today, because I had to go shopping.

Now that Isel's stuff was done, it was my turn. But the first stop was the men's clothing department. I didn't like shopping for clothes; okay I didn't like shopping in general; unless it involved cool stuff like engine parts or other fun toys. But in this case it didn't so I was bored. I just grabbed the first things I could see that were on the list of stuff I needed, and threw it all in a bag. I only needed two weeks' worth because the twenty five cent wash was right down the hall. The next stop was the furniture store. I found a great couch that would fit three people. I would want a couch for visitors if I ever get any. And I got a television to keep up to date with the news. But these objects were too heavy for me to carry. Well the couch anyway. The television was flat and light weight. But we placed an order on it that would make it be delivered in about one day.

It wasn't really an interesting day for me. I was done all my shopping, dropped everything off at my house, went to a couple other stores and then went home again. I finally managed to ditch Isel and run off someplace else. I didn't really know where to go until I ran past Jay walking towards he hangar bays.

"Hey what's up?" I asked.

"Where'd you come from? Well I'm glad to see you. I have stuff I want to show you on my corvette." I hadn't seen Jay since that day about a week ago when I ran into that Eric guy. In fact, I haven't seen him for a while either. But as usual, Jay was his old self. He long forgot of his uncle on the Khar-Selim and all the people of Kharak. He learned long ago to store away his deepest emotions to never be seen again. He wasn't repressing them; he was just forgetting they were there. And when he was reminded, they would only return in a fraction of the strength they were. This was a useful tool that he probably learned being an orphan. I was lucky enough to have been left at the doorstep of a family of farmers who were really good people. Actually, I just remembered that my foster family lives on the Mothership. They probably work on the vegetation level. I should visit them one of these days. But for now I was going to help Jay with whatever he needed done on his Porter. But it would be nice to see them again. The last time I saw them was after my famous accident in high orbit that won me the title of rank seven. I was given shelter once more by those people. They really were nice. They never expected any repayment when they did something for free. They always accepted whoever it was into their homes if they needed it. I can honestly say I missed them.

It didn't take long to reach the corvette hangars. They were at the far bottom of the hangar sleeves. It seemed to me that this journey was becoming a habit. I walked to the hangars at least once a day.

"So is Rob here? If he is I'm leaving." I said.

"What do you have against Rob anyway? He's just doing his job." He replied. I guess he didn't know.

"Rob is my um...well he's my uncle in a way. He's Markus's brother. But he hates him; and me to for some reason. He said I'm just one of my father's mistakes."

"Oh. Well that's a load of information I'll have to think over. But no he's gone to the command levels for something. He wouldn't tell me what for. But then again, he tells me nothing except orders." We climbed up the ramp that leads onto the ship. There was a large storage area in the back end. And behind that was the engine room. It's a pretty simple design, but an effective one. The ship had no weapons as it was designed to magnetically drag ships into the hangar not for full front combat. He guided me to the main control room. There were two seats down a few steps on a lower floor. Not much lower; maybe about a foot and a half. And on the floor we were on was one chair. My guess is it belonged to the captain. I then sat in it and said:

"You there! Insignificant fool! Work harder and faster. And you! Fly better we're being hit by bullets the way you fly. My grandmother could do a better job than you!"

"Ooh I love this game...um...let me guess...Rob!" we both started laughing. "Man. This reminds me when we made a funny impersonation of the western general not noticing he was behind us."

"Yeah. Those were the days. Hey didn't he make us sweep off the runways after that? Now that ticked me off; there were strong winds that month and the sand would just cover where we finished sweeping!" it was around three years ago. But it was pretty funny. Everyone was laughing; even when he was behind us. Actually I think that's when they were laughing harder.

"Yeah. We must have swept every runway along the west coast three times over. But we can do it again; this time there's no sand to sweep."

"He might just make us wash the hangar bays until he can see his reflection in it. Hell he might even eat off it." That was his two terms he used to make people clean things as good as they possibly could. "Hey didn't we use that in our impersonation? I think we did!"

Jay cleared his throat and started impersonating the general in the lowest voice he could do. "You there! I want these toilets scrubbed, washed, flushed and polished. I plan on eating off it later." We started laughing again. Yep, that was in it alright. But just then I heard someone walking up the ramp in heavy boots. Our minds were both worried it was him, as unlikely as it seemed. We were relieved to see when it was just the other crewmate of the ship.

"I remember that speech! That was you two! I swear I saw you on the news. You don't even look the same." Yeah. Puberty hit us pretty hard. I used to be the shortest one in the group. Now I was a little taller than Jay. "Like the boots? You shoulda' seen the looks on your faces." I was glad to see this guy had a sense of humour. He looked to be about nineteen. So when we pulled our famous prank, he would have been our age now. "Oh by the way, my name's Brad." He said to me. I mean it was obvious Jay knew who he was. So it was obviously me he was talking to.

"I'm Mark Soban. I mean you probably knew that from the meeting last week, but I thought I'd just tell you anyway." How lame could I be? Well it didn't matter now. "So what's your story?" I asked.

"Well, I'm a member of the Kiith LiirHra and I'm an aerospace engineer. And I'm here because I know how to fix the salvage field manually. So basically, it's my job to activate the salvage field and fix anything on the ship. I heard you're a fighter pilot. And Jay here Sais you're a really good one." He said smiling.

"Well I'm good all right! And I'm goin' to the top, all the way to rank ten!" I said confidently. It was my goal after all.

"I bet you will." He said. "Hey what happened to your hand?" he asked. I looked at it. The scar was showing. I usually kept my left fist closed because of it. But it was too late. He already saw it.

"It's my mark." Wow what a funny play with words. "It's my blood given as a sacrifice to allow my father a safe passage to Balcora." Well that is most of it. The other part was kind of unexplainable to a non-believer. They were those who did not believe in Sajuuk. They only believed in science and that witch can be explained. The clan LiirHra was a part of those people. But I didn't mind them. They just haven't yet realised the truth.

"Mark is gonna take down the Taiidan by himself if he needs to. I would help, but, well, Rob." Jay decided to join the conversation. I had told him that I would take revenge on the Taiidan that destroyed Kharak if it was the last thing I did. At least then I would die like a warrior. It as die fighting, or don't die until we reached Hiigara and all the Taiidan were wiped out.

"Well I hope he won't need to do it alone. I wouldn't want to." Brad sat in his chair.

"Yeah. Well if I do, I will. It's how I work. And besides, I'm not scared of them." The problem was, I hadn't met any of them yet. We had captured a couple hundred from the frigates back at Kharak, but I didn't exactly know how their mentality worked. All I knew is that they were almost identical to us; with much paler skin, lighter coloured hair, and blue eyes and were shorter. I had not learned a thing about what they were thinking. But that didn't matter. I would do it anyway. But that time was another month away. I had plenty of time.

"I respect that. I had friends and family to who lived on Kharak; I left to join the Mothership crew knowing that they would be safe. But after the Genocide, I was lost. I didn't want to continue. But then I had remembered my primary goal, the one most important reason for joining the Mothership. To reach Hiigara and see who was right. If the Siiddim were right, it won't be there. If the Gaalsien were right, then it will; and the Hersey Wars would have been a lost cause. I need to see it to believe it. It's the way we think. The LiirHra I mean."

"Well you can believe what you want. I'm not gonna stop you."

"Well, now I guess we can get started on what I was gonna show you."Jay said. That's right! It totally slipped my mind. We were only headed here because he wanted to show me something.

"Sure" I said not to look stupid. We walked to the back of the ship near the storage area. It was on the other side of the ship than the entrance room I thought was a storage area. No this one was filled with plastic bins of metal parts and wires. They were labelled with numbers and letters in orders I was not familiar with. I wanted to know what was going on so I asked him.

"What are we doing?" he turned to look at me and then back at the hall of bins. We walked almost to the end when he pulled out a bin from the racks. He opened and pulled out a huge um...thing made of metal. He gave it to me. But I had no idea what it was supposed to be. "What is it?" I asked.

"Remember when the general was talking about a new engine technology? Well here it is. I don't know exactly how it got here, but my guess is that none of this stuff was unloaded after it transferred from the Scaffold. This ship was built years ago to support the Mothership's final construction stages by magnetically pulling nearby asteroids nearer to the PDA's on the scaffold. The one built for the salvage testing was the second. That's why it didn't make any sense. This ship has no identification number. I thought because it was the first one, they didn't need to put one on. But then I went to the other one and noticed it had a number 1 on it. It's not really a big deal but..."

"This could be worth a fortune! Well to the research teams I mean. But this could be very useful." It was kind of like a fast booster engine. It released an incredibly high amount of energy but at the same time used more fuel than the fusion torch engines we use now. If the researchers used this technology, they could eventually discover fighter technologies that would not require to be refuelled. Doesn't seem like a big deal to the average person, but if we never needed refuelling for our fighters, it would allow us to send our ships in from far distances without giving off the position of the larger carrier ship. It would give us the ability to sneak up in small numbers and destroy the enemy fighters before the frigates and corvettes moved in for the kill. But this was still a couple years away. At the moment, the technology still only gives off a fast powerful boost using up less fuel than if you were going the same distance but moving slower. It only saves fuel but gives more speed. It needs more work. But that's not for me to do. I had to give it in. "We should give this to the research teams. They could use it." I said.

"Sure but it's perfectly functional as it is. And there are four of them. We could give them one or two and use the others." He was thinking the same thing I was. I needed to go faster on my ship if I wanted to do the things I was talking about to the Taiidan, I would need an advantage. I guess speed was the key. But even now, we were a week away from entering the asteroid field were we would resupply our resources and create a larger fleet. All we could do is hide it here and hope no one comes along and takes it all away. We ended our meeting in the storage area and headed out the ship.

"Well I'm gonna head out. I need to apologise to Isel for ditching her." He started laughing.

"She makes you angry already? I thought it took at least a month for that." He was referring to my past girlfriends. I was popular back home because of, well, again, my father. But now most of the people who worshiped my father are gone or in cryo-sleep on the trays. So I could start over as slightly less popular. Witch I liked because it gave me more alone time. I wasn't crowded by people who wanted to be my friend to get known.

I was out of the hangar and headed home. Again.