Path of Reluctance

Chapter 1 - Awakening

Tal-nön's own sleepy murmuring brought him back to consciousness. He stretched, and blinked his eyes open before he realized why the stretch was so satisfying. He was weightless, floating through the common room in a tumble, and the sudden realization of this was not quite enough to stave off the vertigo.

Almost immediately, he found himself struggling to hold his gag reflex. Awakening to see the dimly lit room spinning about you can mess you up, but add to this a severe headache and the acrid smell of smoke, and you'd be ready to revisit lunch.

When was lunch? Tal-nön's sense of time was about as bad as his sense of direction at this point, but he had other things to worry about. After some flailing and a painful bump to the elbow, Tal-nön managed a calculated bounce off the deckplates and righted himself. He waited a few moments to calm his urge to vomit. After all, there were enough things floating about the room already, and vomit in zero gravity can be an incredibly bad thing.

Tal-nön's headache was sharp and deep, and he soon found a lump as hard as his elbow on the back of his head. Still, he composed himself and carefully maneuvered across the room and on out to the corridor.

He groaned as he rounded the corner, seeing the scorched wall panels and loose masses of cables swaying slowly like anemones in the seas. The air stunk of fried circuitry and melted insulation. The emergency lighting cast strange shadows, exaggerating just how treacherous the path to the bridge actually was. How the hell were they still alive?

The steps up to the bridge were the easy part, but they led to a disconcerting sight. The door was hard-sealed, and the panel showed a dreadful warning:
*Negative Atmosphere - Mag-Lock Engaged*

"Son of a..."

Peering through the door's small window, Tal-nön could see the cockpit. The shock of the view caused him to lose his grip and float away, gawking. "I should be dead." A burnt and scarred chair at the console slowly spun in silence, while the few undamaged screens flickered and flashed static.

Tal-nön again found himself pushing against his gullet's urge to hurl. By all rights, he should have been vaporized by the hit, or at least blown out into the blackness of space. His mind refused to ponder the thought of his almost demise. He blamed his head injury.

Turning now, Tal-nön pulled himself along, eyeballing the damage as he went. As he progressed down to the cabins, he noticed through the dark that at least the walls remained intact, with only a few scorch marks where power conduits had arced during a surge. Easy fixes, usually. Scrape some carbon off the leads, replace a capacitor... maybe re-line some fried cab-

"How's the head?"

"SHIT!" Tal-nön started, his head throbbing with the rush of blood and adrenaline. Up above, Lei'Zayar floated as if laying on the ceiling, blocking the light from one emergency lamp. In his hands, he turned the pages of an ancient book.

"Don't do that!" Tal-nön protested. "You and... man, my head feels like it's split wide open."

"Almost was. You should lie down," Lei'Zayar responded, laughing at his own joke.

"You've been reading?"

"Only a little while."

"Where'd you find a book?"

"The Kashorn Magistrate's cabin. Or what's left of it. I think we lost the contract. Lost the magistrate, too."

"Damn," Tal-nön replied. The death of their charge didn't make the situation any easier. Not that he'd have reached his destination on time, either way. "So, you're reading the Sson'noth Chronicle?"

"Yep."

"WHY?" Tal-nön asked, incredulous.

"Oh, it's not a bad story after you make it past the first 200 pages or so. Of course, every other line is about who got begat by who."

Tal-nön stared at him with his jaw slack and a strong stare, obviously appalled.

"Ok, ok... begat by whom. Happy?"

"No. No, no. Not happy! We're adrift, Lei! And you're just floating there?"

"You weren't awake yet. And I haven't read a book in quite a while."

"How long have you been up there?"

"Dunno..." Lei'zayar replied, checking the thickness of the book. "Can't be too long. I'm only halfway through." Tal-nön gritted his teeth.

"That book's in Yinchorri!" he snarled. "You're translating it?"

"Doesn't take all that long. Don't forget, I used to study linguistics in academy."

"Must have been the only classes you ever attended."

"Pretty much..."

"You could have at least powered the g-field back on!"

"Eh... I figured why waste the juice? Might have drawn attention, anyway. We'll get to Cellemed eventually, but we're definitely under the radar now. We're as space junk on the screens."

"Oh, no you don't. Don't even play like this were some plan of yours."

"Well, you looked so peaceful floating there, I just didn't want to disturb you," Lei'Zayar said, closing the book and descending to the deck. "But you're awake now, not much worse for wear than you woulda' been. So, where do you want to start? There's a lot to repair..."

Tal-nön winced at the thought of work in his condition. He pondered a moment, as laborsome a task as he was willing to offer. "Containment in place?"

"Tight."

"And our course?"

"Dunno. Haven't spotted anything out the windows."

"Good enough for now," Tal-nön grumbled, with a fatalistic tone. "First, I'm getting a drink, maybe something in my stomach, and then I'm going back to sleep. Do me a favor, and tape my feet down, at least..."

Lei'Zayar nodded, then pushed himself back up to the lamp to continue his reading. Tal-nön drifted back to the common room, as Lei called out to him.

"You made me lose my page, you ass."

_________________
Timing is Everything

They say war never changes. But what really doesn't change is dry rations. Tal-nön's head throbbed with every bite and each grind as he chewed the hard tack from the back of the pantry locker. This is what I get for settling for a Meister-Meal 8500, he thought to himself. At least the Autochefs have some battery back-up. A swig of water from a field bottle washed the crumbs down.

Floating aft through the corridor, Tal-nön pushed his mind to remember in spite of his injury. They were traveling to Cellemed, a good distance from the space lanes, out of the range of most commerce or patrols. All quiet, then all hell loosed with the flash of cannon fire and the boom of damage too expensive to warrant the trip. There was the wail of a fighter's engine reverberating through the ship's structure. And then there was a boom and crack, followed by Lei's shouting, plus the rain-like tapping of debris against the hull. Then more flashes... more flashes...?

Tal-nön's mind went blank as he realized what he was facing. The diagnostic panel was all black but for the flashing power indicator. Flipping it on, his heart sank and his jaw dropped. "Oh, no." Nothing but the temperature control was drawing power. How many hours had it been? All without life support? They should be dead! That's twice now!

He gritted his teeth and launched across the aft section, headed for environmental control. Rounding the corner, there it was - lit and functioning properly. Tal-nön began to shake his head no, and stopped as soon as he began as a wash of pain shot down his spine. As he cringed, his gaze fell upon the answer to his confusion. There at his feet lay a large weapon, a laser rifle of some sort, its frame opened up and cables twisted into it. Its battery was powering the atmospheric controller.

"I can't think of this crap now," Tal-nön moaned. "I really need to sleep..."

"Yeah, you do," came Lei'Zayar's response, bouncing down the hall from his spot atop the staircase. "But give yourself some Aspirithol first. Pain killer and blood thinner... ought to help your head. Hope you're not clotting back there."

"What the -" Tal-nön began, then quieted a bit. "What the hell did you do back here?"

"Did what I could. Got the thing working." Lei's voice was growing louder as he approached.

"Where the hell did you find this... artillery?"

"Well, had to put a patch to the portside interior hull. Got the emergency fields in place," he said, coming into view, upside down in the hall. "But couldn't keep them up. Something was overloading. Don't know what... that's your job."

"What did you patch?"

"Our friends managed to punch through into the Magistrate's quarters. There's some nice jagged holes through the plating. Now, that interior door isn't vacuum-tight, and I couldn't find the quick-seals, if we have any, so I used the fire foam."

"Lei... that, uh," Tal-nön began with a cautious mumble. "That foam hardens, but it doesn't vac-seal."

"Yeah, I figured as much, so I capped each rupture with whatever I could find. Waste pail, drinking glass. Anyway, our guest happened to have a little arsenal in his luggage. DXR6, I think. Strange grips. Good thing, though. Power cell is big enough to work the scrubbers."

"Well, aren't you resourceful?" Tal-nön quipped. "That had to hurt, didn't it? Using a perfectly good and pricey assault weapon as a battery?"

"I'm over it now," Lei smirked, spinning the book in the air. "The tenets of Sson'noth say to reject material things. Of course, they also tell me not to eat of the flesh of my lizard brethren and to consume my sheddings in some kind of dumpling stew. Either way, I'm enlightened."

"Enlightened?" Tal-nön's lip curled as he thought for a moment. "I'll respond to that when my skull isn't so... um... loud."

"Speaking of which, you should sleep."

"Lei," Tal-nön persisted. "I don't even know how our little battle ended, and I'm already freaking about how dead we seem not to be. I don't think I can sleep. I figure I'll try to restore the auxiliary nav-comp."

"No," Lei'Zayar said. "Water, then drugs, then sleep."

"And if I die in my sleep? What do you do then?"

"Oh, come on, Tal!" Lei tilted his head in a condescending gesture, and his whole body began to spin from the force of it, ungoverned by gravity. It was comical, to say the least. "Be glad you can still feel your head. Don't be such a Wom'sska."

"A what?"

"You've got to read this book..."

_________________
Timing is Everything

Tal-nön fiddled with the scorched circuit boards and cracked panels, assessing the damage as best he could. It wasn't long before he abandoned the idea, given that his vision blurred and his cranium ached if he tried too hard to work the tiny components. A wander through the ship led to more frustration as he found more and more damage, most of which either too extensive to jury-rig, or maybe too costly to warrant the effort on a wreck this old.

The Hesitant Bride had seen better days, long long ago. Tal-nön spun slowly in the null gravity, pondering his broken ship. The hull was decent. No, the hull was damn good, actually. One of the old builds. He wasn't certain exactly when the hull was laid down, but the design was no less than 80 years old. It had performed well, and held up even in some harsh environs like the rings of Kelsaii and the storms of Haverton's poles. But she hadn't really taken damage like this. They had seen action a few times, but between the deflectors and Lei's quick work with the guns, they had never had to worry about major problems. Not so, this time around.

From the looks of the damage, the Bride was now two steps from scrap. Conduits and capacitors needed replaced, which probably meant the main transformer was hit. For that matter, the plating all along the ships dorsal could be blown off. He wasn't about to check and risk compromising the hull integrity. But just from what he could see, the cost to repair his little transport would be more than she'd bring on any market, and probably more than it would take to buy a newer ship.

"Poor girl..." he sighed. "I don't know what to do with you, now. You did good! Any other ship would have let us burn. Not my girl, though."

"She's a tough gal," Lei spoke from somewhere down the corridor. "But she's still got some work to do."

"That's right," Tal-nön agreed. "We're not un-screwed yet."

"So," Lei pressed, entering view. "Where to next?"

"Now that's a question."

"They might be looking for us on Cellemed."

"Who?"

"Who do you think? It was either pirates or a hit squad, right?"

"Yeah, I suppose. I guess it had to be assassins gunning for the Magistrate. And they'd probably have employers or patrons somewhere."

"That's what I'm thinking. Pirates tend to hide closer to the lanes. They only watch space with traffic, not so much the alleys like this."

"And they weren't military," Tal-nön added.

"No," Lei said, then explaining further, "if they were, we'd be gone. Backup would have been on us yesterday."

"Yesterday?! Wha- have I lost a day somewhere?"

"Better to lose one day than lose all of them."

"Stay out of my fortune cookies."

"Come on," Lei protested. "I thought that's where we'd get our new course heading!"

"Not the worst idea I've heard. Can we take a bearing?"

"No, but we can guess it for now, right? Just eyeball it."

"Yeah, I'm really looking forward to eyeballing astrogation coordinates."

"Do we have much choice?"

"Well, let me take a look at my cha..." Tal-nön trailed off. "The charts were up front."

"Yep."

"There might be some old ones. But I can't look at them very long, or my skull will rip in half."

"So, I get to guesstimate, then."

"Heavens help us..."

"Get your charts. I'll check out the attitude control."

Tal-nön floated down to and around the corner, crossing paths with Lei. Around the next bend was the door to his room. Now, his cabin was a mess even without the chaos of battle and zero gravity stirring it up. But now, of course, it was a disaster area all its own. Tools, clothing, and scattered kitsch from his shelves drifted about the room, complicating his task. He was certain to check his cabinet carefully to prevent more chaotic releases. In short order, Tal-nön had found the old charts, and even the markers and bearing calculators to go along with them. They were well out of date, and would need extensive calculations to determine actual current positions of planets and the lanes connecting them, but it was better than nothing.

Leaving his mess to spin in the dark, Tal-nön closed the door behind him and headed aft to where Lei'Zayar was waiting. He winced as Lei bellowed.

"I think we're in business," he yelled. "All but the aft starboard quarter are responding on the diag, and I can deal with that. Just need to spike the reactor, power the drive, and persuade the Bride to make a strong burn for us."

"Piece of cake," Tal-nön whispered, closing his eyes and imagining the tasks ahead. "Right baby?"

_________________
Timing is Everything