Chapter 65: Volume III: Chapter 2: The Hitchhiker

Chleo was halfway to the cafeteria rehearsing how she was going to convince Mic to make her one of his ridiculously amazing lattes when the ship’s klaxons blared. She stumbled through her next step reaching a hand out to find the wall. The ship was small enough to normally have someone’s glow within reach, but she’d stormed out and left Dai and her closest way to see behind the med bay’s air tight steel door.

The void swirled around her, noise blasting away her other senses. She used the wall as leverage trying to stay grounded.

“Mic,” she called over the alarm.

“Chleo?” Alarm— “What are you—“ Alarm— “doing alone?” Alarm— “Where’s Dai?” Mic’s voice bounced through the hallway speakers threading the klaxons.

He didn’t wait for her to answer. She felt a breeze fly by her shoulder. Something gripped the front of her shirt and pulled her forward, a bird. She imagined the ball floating in front of her, all pipes, gears, and steam as it guided her down the hall.

“What’s going on?”

“Nothing—“ Alarm— “don’t worry about it.” His voice rushed from the bird indicating that she should, most definitely, worry about it.

“Mic,” she said dragging his name out.

“Ugh.” The bird yanked her to the side. A door slid shut behind them. “Could you not be annoying for two minutes?”

She rolled her eyes on reflex. Lifting an arm, she tried to find something that would tell her where she was. It banged into a wall. Wincing, she dragged it along until she ran into a shelf. She lifted her other arm, taking more care than the first. It met another wall.

“Mic…” she hissed. “Did you just throw me into a closet?”

The bird didn’t answer.

~*~*~

“Where’s Chleo?”

Mic watched his dad jump to his feet, red emergency lights flashing off his hooded skin. The sirens blared.

“Safe,” he answered.

One thousand six hundred and fifty three readings scrolled through his head. He zeroed in on the most important. Hull breach in the cargo bay. Three life signs in the med bay, three on the bridge, one in the cafeteria, and one in the maintenance closet. Everyone was accounted for. Mic smirked before sealing the doors. Chleo was going to kill him.

Another life sign popped across the cargo bay sensor. What?

He recounted the life signs. Then, again. He zipped across the cameras checking the rooms in parallel. Dai, Lexy (she wasn’t his queen), and his mom paced in the med bay. Eelock, Merk, and Will were huddled around a monitor on the bridge. His dad was with him in the cafeteria, and he didn’t trip the sensors. He double checked with the bird in the maintenance closet. It would be just like Chleo to bust out during an emergency just to prove she could.

No, she was still there.

His checks took less than a millisecond. He loaded the cargo bay feed. If he were still paying attention to his expressions he would have dropped his jaw the way he’d seen Merk do when something caught him off-guard. It happened pretty often.

A figure stood in the middle of the bay. Boxes and spare parts they’d neglected to tie down—because how often does the hull breach in flight, I mean, come on—rushed by the… woman, down the open ramp, and were sucked out into the vacuum. Mic was almost relieved the breach was from an open door instead of a hole. The figure took a step. Clawed feet cut through the metal floor keeping her in place as the vacuum tried to pull her out. Slick, sharp hair whipped around a scaled face. Two skin sacks bulged from the side of her neck. He scanned them. Oxygen. At least, he knew why she didn’t need a mask.

The woman took another step, her clawed feet stabbing through the metal floor. Mic winced. It was going to be a pain to fix.

He deployed the nearest birds, shooting a command to the door. Seven demagnetized from the wall and circled the interloper. The door banged closed.

“You seem to be lost,” he said through the birds’ speakers once the room’s pressure stabilized. “Hitchhikers usually board in port.”

The figure studied the birds, her claws retracting from the floor. A dangerous smile slid across her face showing entirely too many teeth.

“You took something from my boss. He’d like her back.”

“Ah, one of Johnson’s hybrids, then. Straight to the point, I respect that. I’ll return the favor. No.” He extended the birds’ stunner barrels. It took five hits to bring down a hybrid. He liked his odds. “I’m going to have to ask you to leave.”

The figure hissed. Her hair hardened, jolting to stand straight off her scalp. Claws on her fingers extended.

“Whoa, have you heard of conditioner? I can give you a great brand. Only takes a minute and it’ll take care of… whatever that is.” Mic said jumping his birds back a meter, still spinning around the hybrid in lazy arcs.

“Where’s the girl?” she growled.

“Right, back to that. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

Mic fired. Bolts of energy shot from the ends of his barrels, two each, darting at the hybrid before she could move. Bullseye. He waited for her to fall. It usually took a second.

Two seconds later she was still standing. At three her smile grew. At four one of her claws ripped through two of the birds. Working through his shock, Mic scrambled the others.

“Um, Lexy?” he said switching to the med bay speaker. His mom, Dai, and Lexy spun from the locked door to look at his camera. “We have a situation.”

“Mic, what’s going on? Why are we locked in?” His mom asked.

“Hull breach. Lexy, any idea why a hybrid wouldn’t fall after five energy blasts?”

He winced as another bird fell to a lucky slash in the cargo bay. The last four zipped through the open space, shots falling from their barrels like water from a faucet. The hybrid didn’t bother to dodge as she jumped and climbed chasing them through the room.

“Hybrid?” Lexy repeated. Her mouth opened then closed when she changed her mind. She shook her head. “Is the skin covered in scales?”

“That’s a positive.” Mic said zipping one of the birds just out of reach in the other room. He set them all to Luna mode and the barrels switched. Shooting a bullet in a space ship was dangerous. He scanned the cargo bay viewing window calculating how much it could withstand. The hybrid hissed in frustration, eyes blazing, claws growing. Two bullets… maybe three. The hybrid launched off a disassembled mule almost clipping another bird. Worth it.

He angled away from the glass and triggered the shot. It ricocheted off her skin… and into the window. Seriously?

“Dr. Miller,” Lexy said sharing a look with his mom.

“You think?” she asked.

“Had to be. He was the only one with the skill, and he was leading the reptile splicing project.”

“Figures,” his mom grumbled crossing her arms.

“Mic, the skin is impenetrable.”

“I’m getting that,” he said recalculating the angles. Another bullet ricocheted off the hybrid’s arm, chipping her claw and embedding in the wall. At least the claws could break.

“Target the eyes, mouth, and up the nostrils anything that leads inside the body. You’ll need to use bullets if you have them. One should do. It’ll ricochet though the organs without an outlet through the skin.”

“Ok, ew. For future reference, I don’t need the details… but thanks. If you ladies will excuse me, I have a complication to clear up. Our regular scheduled flight should resume shortly.” He cut the com link before they could reply.

Eyes, mouth, or nostrils, right… easy. The hybrid cut down another bird. Mic held back a groan. The three remaining birds zipped into formation.

He finally found his family, finally met his little sister, and he refused to let some unmanicured, spiky haired intruder steal her away. The birds aimed, zeroing in on the three targets.

“You do realize opening a ship’s door in flight was more likely to kill everyone on board than get you Chleo, right?” he asked.

“Then Dr. Johnson would have a corpse to stu—“

Mic fired.

Bullseye. The first bullet slid through her parted lips. He hoped she choked on it. The second flew up her nostril ricocheting back out and embedding in the floor. Her body flinched, eyes squeezed shut against a pain he was sure she’d never felt before. The third bullet fired half a second after the others.

No. He ran the angles, confirmed the readings. No, no, no…

The bullet glanced off her eyelid. It flew across the room. Mic stared, too slow to do anything but will it back. The bullet hit the window.

If he had breath, he would have held it. He counted a second, two, three. The glass spidered, then stopped. It held. Letting out a mental breath, Mic turned his attention back to the hybrid. She stood, face scrunched, arms wrapped around her stomach

It’ll ricochet though the organs.

Mic’s memory banks shuddered. He really could have gone without knowing that. The hybrid collapsed, hair falling limp, skin sacks on the sides of her neck hissing empty. They shriveled with her last breath.

CRAAAC—

The vacuum swallowed the sound of glass breaking.

Crap.

Mic spun his birds back into formation. He watched the glass window tear off the wall as the new air he’d pumped into the room rushed out into space. The hybrid’s body ripped from the floor and followed it through the hole, a puppet with its strings cut.

The room shook. Items bolted down that skipped the first round rattled silently against their restraints. Mic zipped the birds in opposite directions looking for a spare panel he could use to seal the window.

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It was hopeless. He knew for a fact they weren’t bolted down. They must have flown out when the door was open. He flew over to an internal panel and began unscrewing it from the wall. They would have to deal with a gap between the hall and the cargo bay until they landed.

The birds held tight when it fell loose fighting against the pressure pulling it toward space. He eased it to the missing window and let it snap into place. The room settled.

The repurposed panel would hold while they were in space, the vacuum holding it in place, but he would need to seal it before they broke atmo or the ship would destabilize on reentry. He sent one of the birds for the sealant… and stared at the empty space that used to hold the tool box the safety restraints lying on the ground unclipped.

When this was all over he was going to have a long talk with everyone about following proper cargo protocols.

~*~*~

“So I have good news, and I have bad news,” Mic’s voice crackled over the room’s speaker.

“Mic,” Eelock acknowledged from his spot leaning against the control pane as Merk and Will jerked in surprise, “why have I been locked inside my bridge for the last ten minutes?”

“A small but serious hitchhiker problem. I took care of it. That’s the good news.”

“And the bad news?”

Will felt his stomach clench. Hitchhiker… in space?

"There may be a hole in the port side hull… and I’m picking up a pursuing vessel.”

“Of course, you are,” Merk grumbled.

“Initiate evasive procedures and give me options. What percentage is the hull integrity?” Eelock asked without skipping a beat.

Will wondered if the captain’s heart was thundering as loud as his own. His voice certainly didn’t sound like it.

“70%. Breaking atmo isn’t an option. We have three possible paths. We can use the pod and flee to the craters on Umbra or the Deadlands on Luna, but it’s likely we’ll lose the ship and end up stranded.”

“And the third option?”

Mic hesitated. “Amelia’s Revenge.”

“We have the fuel for a round trip?”

“Yes, but—“

“Do it.”

Mic fuzzed his uncertainty. “Right… setting the course now.”

“Won’t they just follow?” Will asked.

Merk scoffed. “Kid, it’s an astroid field. No one’s crazy enough to fly into Amelia’s Revenge.”

“Except us,” Mic added. He sounded resigned.

“Except us,” Merk agreed with a gleeful laugh. Will wasn’t sure he liked the reckless gleam in his eye.

~*~*~

Chleo heard the closet door slide open.

“It’s about time,” she muttered assuming Mic still wasn’t listening. When the bird crackled to life behind her to say she jumped was an understatement.

“Everyone’s meeting in the cafeteria.”

She spun on him, estimating where the bird was floating and sending it a glare.

“I was going to ask nicely. I was going to offer to re-machine your birds, but no. You locked me in a closet. You owe me.”

He groaned. Chleo almost smiled but didn’t want her glare to lose its affect. She had him.

“What do you want?”

“You’re making me a latte.”

~*~*~

By the time she entered the cafeteria, she was able to use Dai’s glow to watch Mic sprinkle shaved chocolate on top of the steamed milk. She slipped into a seat between her mom and Dai, and Mic slid the mug in front of her.

She sent him a triumphant smile.

He rolled his eyes. At least, she thought he did.

Eelock, Merk, and Will strode in. She watched Will’s shadow. Red bounced off of Merk shrouding the empty space until giving way to the purple darting from Eelock’s skin. Will’s outline searched the room, stopping when he found her. Chleo almost got up to meet him until she remembered the endless teasing she would get from Mic and Merk.

“Mic, I want a full debrief,” Eelock ordered. “What just happened?”

Will walked over to stand behind Chleo. She melted into the hand he rested on her shoulder.

“A hull breach sensor fired in the cargo bay,” Mic answered, voice clinical and detached. “I followed protocol and locked down the ship, located all personnel, and escorted all stranded life signs to designated safe areas.” His head turned slightly toward Chleo before looking straight again as he recounted the events. “I sensed an extra life sign in the cargo bay and investigated. It was one of Johnson’s hybrids.”

The room erupted.

“How did he find us?”

“How did it get on?”

“Is it still here?”

“Is there still a hole in the ship?”

Chleo tried to follow who asked what and what was being asked. She failed miserably. Mic seemed to track every word said. She wondered how he did it.

“Enough,” Eelock cut through the outbursts. “Mic?”

“During our time on Umbra, Johnson had more than enough time to fit us with a tracker. Before you ask, I won’t be able to analyze the whole ship until we land. I’m confident I’ll find the cause then.

“The hybrid hacked the outer door, lowered the ramp, and gained access to the cargo bay.”

“Does that mean we lost the mule?” Chleo’s dad asked. Eelock shot him a withering glare. He ignored it.

“Most of it,” Mic said letting an edge of sympathy enter his mechanical recital. “The hybrid is gone. I… well, I accidentally—“ his eyes shot to Eelock pleading for understanding— “shot out the port side window.”

Eelock’s eyes cut to slits. “Is it sealed?”

Chleo hoped to never have that tone directed at her. She waited for Mic to swallow or clear his throat. He did neither. Sometimes her brother really impressed her… not that she would ever tell him.

“Nip, Sen,” Mic answered. He stood frozen. Chleo wasn’t even sure he was breathing. “We lost the sealant in the breach.”

“I see…”

Mic waited for Eelock to finish. When he didn’t, he continued.

“After the expulsion of the intruder, my sensors read an advancing ship. I executed orders to evade and set course for… the location with the highest probability of success.”

Chleo felt the room take a collective breath. The silence stretched.

“Which was?” Mrs. Baker asked, her voice full of regal authority.

“Amelia’s Revenge… ma’am.”

Chleo’s brow furrowed. She’d never heard of it. Blank stares and disbelieving gasps echoed in the silence. No one moved.

“Well,” her dad said letting out a breath, “if that’s our highest probability of success, I’m not liking our odds.”

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