There was someone in the ship with him.
The indicator, with its tiny white hands, pointed to a higher number than it should have been on. There was too much weight for just one Irkan on board. He leaned back in the seat and took a deep breath. He was an Invader; the thought of death did not faze him. Not receiving it, and certainly not giving it to others.
He had been called off Earth for a temporary mission by his Tallest. A planet nearby, with a small, fragile colony of Irkans and Dalzorians, the first attempt at peace between the two Empires. The settlements had been crippled by a wave of plague, brought on by a bacterium in one of the colonist ships. It had thrived in the new ecosystem, and now the settlers were dying by the day. Over seventy Irkans and fifty Dalzorians depended on the serum he carried to survive.
He stood up and stretched. It would only take a moment; find the stowaway, shove them into the airlock, and push the button. It was the law, the law of Irkans and the law of physics. "Any stowaway discovered in any Voot shall be jettisoned immediately following discovery."
It was the law; there could be no appeal.
Larger ships than Voot Cruisers had exceeded the need for fossil fuels. The Massive was equipped with a cumbersome nuclear converter, but the diminutive size of the average Voot forced them to carry fuel-burning engines.
Pilots were trained to ration their fuel carefully, a mantra drilled into their heads since their first lessons as smeets. Use only enough fuel to reach you destination. A stowaway had to be jettisoned, or the added mass upon planetary entry would burn the last drops of fuel too fast, and pilot, ship and serum would blend with the stowaway in a crater in the surface.
He focused his eyes on the gray door in the back of the cockpit, nothing more than a broom closet. Enough room for a man to hide in, for a little while.
He cleared his throat and banged on the door.
"Come out!" The command was harsh and abrupt above the murmur of the drive. He visualized a man, perhaps one of the PIs always sneaking around his base, huddling in the corner of the closet. "I said out!"
He heard the stowaway move, and opened his pod for a blaster, just in case they tried to fight out of it.
"Alright, you found me. Now what?"
The blaster clattered to the floor. He stared in terrifying silence at the person standing there. The stowaway was not a man; it was a boy in his mid teens, standing before him in the dusty black boots and perturbed smiley shirt, with the ebony shock of hair falling over his head, and the faint smell of clover clinging to him like a wounded memory. The sweet amber eyes were unafraid as they stared back into the pilot's shocked ruby ones. Had this been a man, or any child but this one, they would have been out the airlock fast enough to make the Tallest proud.
He sunk back into the pilot's chair and gestured wearily for the boy to have a seat on the box-like bulk of the drive-control units that were set against the wall beside him. He obeyed, looking less like the triumphant hide-and-seek champion than a smeet that had broken its first rule, and knew punishment to be coming.
"Now what?" said the boy again. "Aren't you going to spout something about my impending doom now?"
The pilot rubbed his eyes. "You have no idea....What the hell were you thinking?! Why did you even consider stowing away on this Voot!?"
"I just wanted to see space." The boy shrugged. "You know me...and then I saw you were loading your Voot for something, and I thought, Hey! Perfect timing! So I climbed on board. I figured you'd be upset, of course, but I decided to deal with that when we got to it. I knew I was breaking some sort of alien regulation..."
He knew he was breaking a regulation...he could not be blamed for his ignorance of the laws of space travel.
He was only human.
Okay, yes, I'm sorry, but I'm going to stop it at that right now. Please don't flame me for my treatment of Dib. They were just too perfect for these parts! This story is kind of long, and I don't want to put it all up at once. Please read and review, and let me know what you think!! Thanks a lot!
The indicator, with its tiny white hands, pointed to a higher number than it should have been on. There was too much weight for just one Irkan on board. He leaned back in the seat and took a deep breath. He was an Invader; the thought of death did not faze him. Not receiving it, and certainly not giving it to others.
He had been called off Earth for a temporary mission by his Tallest. A planet nearby, with a small, fragile colony of Irkans and Dalzorians, the first attempt at peace between the two Empires. The settlements had been crippled by a wave of plague, brought on by a bacterium in one of the colonist ships. It had thrived in the new ecosystem, and now the settlers were dying by the day. Over seventy Irkans and fifty Dalzorians depended on the serum he carried to survive.
He stood up and stretched. It would only take a moment; find the stowaway, shove them into the airlock, and push the button. It was the law, the law of Irkans and the law of physics. "Any stowaway discovered in any Voot shall be jettisoned immediately following discovery."
It was the law; there could be no appeal.
Larger ships than Voot Cruisers had exceeded the need for fossil fuels. The Massive was equipped with a cumbersome nuclear converter, but the diminutive size of the average Voot forced them to carry fuel-burning engines.
Pilots were trained to ration their fuel carefully, a mantra drilled into their heads since their first lessons as smeets. Use only enough fuel to reach you destination. A stowaway had to be jettisoned, or the added mass upon planetary entry would burn the last drops of fuel too fast, and pilot, ship and serum would blend with the stowaway in a crater in the surface.
He focused his eyes on the gray door in the back of the cockpit, nothing more than a broom closet. Enough room for a man to hide in, for a little while.
He cleared his throat and banged on the door.
"Come out!" The command was harsh and abrupt above the murmur of the drive. He visualized a man, perhaps one of the PIs always sneaking around his base, huddling in the corner of the closet. "I said out!"
He heard the stowaway move, and opened his pod for a blaster, just in case they tried to fight out of it.
"Alright, you found me. Now what?"
The blaster clattered to the floor. He stared in terrifying silence at the person standing there. The stowaway was not a man; it was a boy in his mid teens, standing before him in the dusty black boots and perturbed smiley shirt, with the ebony shock of hair falling over his head, and the faint smell of clover clinging to him like a wounded memory. The sweet amber eyes were unafraid as they stared back into the pilot's shocked ruby ones. Had this been a man, or any child but this one, they would have been out the airlock fast enough to make the Tallest proud.
He sunk back into the pilot's chair and gestured wearily for the boy to have a seat on the box-like bulk of the drive-control units that were set against the wall beside him. He obeyed, looking less like the triumphant hide-and-seek champion than a smeet that had broken its first rule, and knew punishment to be coming.
"Now what?" said the boy again. "Aren't you going to spout something about my impending doom now?"
The pilot rubbed his eyes. "You have no idea....What the hell were you thinking?! Why did you even consider stowing away on this Voot!?"
"I just wanted to see space." The boy shrugged. "You know me...and then I saw you were loading your Voot for something, and I thought, Hey! Perfect timing! So I climbed on board. I figured you'd be upset, of course, but I decided to deal with that when we got to it. I knew I was breaking some sort of alien regulation..."
He knew he was breaking a regulation...he could not be blamed for his ignorance of the laws of space travel.
He was only human.
Okay, yes, I'm sorry, but I'm going to stop it at that right now. Please don't flame me for my treatment of Dib. They were just too perfect for these parts! This story is kind of long, and I don't want to put it all up at once. Please read and review, and let me know what you think!! Thanks a lot!