Warhawk's Amnesty - Ch. 6 - The Crew of the Andalusian - Final

Seb pulled up his map on the comm device and checked for the location of the docks. He had to backtrack down the street before venturing perpendicular toward his right. The docks were on the outskirts of the small town, likely to minimize the disturbance of its local inhabitants. However, the constant gusts of Inoi 3’s atmosphere were more of a disturbance than any small ship could cause.

He didn’t know what to expect from Erminea’s docks, but this left a lot to be desired. The docks were composed of four landing pads built into the ice and stationed next to a single hut with a freight storage container. It’s no wonder they’ve been stuck here for so long, Seb thought.

The only ship on a platform was what Seb assumed to be an Orion WH-class light freighter. Typically used for hauling goods, the twin-engine ship had a huge transportation bay with small living quarters on the top floor. It reminded him of a fish he read about that would eat prey larger than itself, floating around with a bloated stomach as it slowly digested its meal. Seb twisted his lips when he realized the running lights weren’t on. I hope they’re still home.

Seb walked up to the back of the rear ramp, looking for the intercom, only to find frayed wires where it looked like someone had ripped it off. He started slamming his fist on the back of the ramp, hoping someone would be close enough to hear it. They’re probably not going to hear anything in this storm, though, he thought. After waiting for a few minutes, Seb walked to the front of the ship, now hoping someone in the cockpit would see him. But when he reached the front of the ship, the blizzard was too thick for him to see anyone inside.

Running out of options, Seb headed toward the hut near the docks. Surprisingly, the door didn’t open when he approached. The fact that the hut’s light bar wasn’t illuminated planted a seed in Seb’s mind that the power was out. Seb pulled out his multi-tool and got to work.

Every electronically powered door had a mechanical backup lock that would open the manual override in the event of a total electrical failure. One of the nice things about cheap, electronic doors was the metal covering the manual override was thin enough to be cut with a standard multi-tool’s laser cutter. After a few seconds of cutting, the metal was off, and Seb pulled on the mechanical lever inside it. The door howled in the wind as it slowly opened.

When Seb stepped inside, it was clear to him no one had been in here in some time. A thin layer of frost covered everything from the monitors and electronics to the furniture. Seb turned on his comm’s flashlight, filling up the room. As he walked near the back, he found the reason why Lenny hadn’t been heard from. He crouched near the frozen body surrounded in blankets. The ice completely preserved the town’s mechanic in a mummified shell.

“Poor bastard froze to death,” Seb said. “At least it was a peaceful way to go.”

Seb stood and made his way over to the nearby console. With no power in the building, Seb had to extend his suit’s power cable and plug it in, swapping the direction of the power. His suit’s battery readout dropped from 20–15 percent as the console flickered to life. The dock’s systems lit up with dozens of messages originating from the docked ship named Andalusian. It was registered to a Captain Francisca Ortiz.

Pressing a button on the center console, Seb hailed the ship. “Andalusian, this is Erminea docks, please respond.” After a few minutes of no response, Seb attempted again. “Andalusian, this is Erminea docks, please respond.”

It wasn’t until his third attempt that Seb received a response from a harsh, feminine voice. “Where the fuck have you been, Erminea? We’ve been waiting for days for you to show up. We thought we were going to have to abandon our ship. We’re running low on supplies being cooped up in here.”

“Yeah, there’s a bit of a situation over here.”

“Fuck your situation, didn’t you hear what I just said? And what kind of dock are you running, anyway? No clean water, gray water, sewage or fuel hookups around the docks? What kind of place is this?”

“Look, to be honest with you, I don’t even work here. The dock hand is frozen solid over here.”

“Then who the fuck are you?”

“Well, one of the guys in town said there was a ship full of mercs that were having engine troubles. I happen to know my way around engines. Me and an associate of mine need some help. I figured you scratch my back and I can scratch yours.”

The call went silent for a few seconds before the brash female came back on the intercom. “All right, climb aboard, but you’ll have to climb the side ladder to the docking port. I’m not opening the loading ramp; it will let all the warm air out.”

“I’ll be over in a minute.” When the feed cut off, Seb pulled the wire from his wrist and checked his battery again. It was down to 10 percent. I’ll need to sell this, otherwise, I’m likely to end up like the dock hand. Seb exited the building without caring to close the door. He could see the descended ladder from the bottom of the docking door, shining like a stairway to the heavens. However, once he reached it, he realized how unsteady it was in the strong winds.

Not to be deterred, Seb climbed slowly. He paused several times when a gust nearly sent him falling back to the ice below. While the fall probably wouldn’t kill him, he had no intention of testing the theory. Once he reached the top stair, Seb looked up to see the door still closed.

“You’ve gotta be kidding me!” he shouted. With one arm wrapped around the ladder, Seb repeatedly slammed his fist as hard as he could into the door. Seb heard the pressurized release of the door shunting open and then felt himself floating. Something pulled him up into the air before slamming him down, face-first, onto the ship’s metal floor. When he rolled to his back and looked up, he froze. There were six weapons pointed down at him. Two were in the hands of a woman with long, brown hair and brown eyes. The other four were in the hands of a four-armed, blue-skinned beast of a man.

“You’ve got about thirty seconds to give me your offer,” the woman said. “And you better make it good, otherwise, Toros and I will be filling you full of holes.”

“While I don’t appreciate being thrown around, I’ve got the skills you need, and you’ve got the ship I need,” Seb said. “I’m offering to repair your ship if you help my associate and me with a job.”

“What’s the job?”

“I’d love to tell you once you stop pointing those guns of yours at me.”

The woman and man looked at each other, nodded, and holstered their weapons. The woman extended her arm, pulling Seb to his feet. For her small size, he could tell she was strong. The scars across her lip were a clear-enough indicator that she wasn’t afraid to get her hands dirty. That, paired with the warm welcome he’d just received, made him reflect on the position he was in.

“The name’s Seb, by the way. I am assuming you’re Captain Francisca, and you said this is Toros?”

“Captain Francisca Ortiz and yeah this big lug is Toros.”

“Captain Francisca it is then,” Seb said with a smirk. “Like I said over the comm, I don’t work for the docks. I was on a ship that crashed down earlier today. My associate and I are looking for a ship to help with the rescue efforts of anyone still alive. The good news is that this isn’t just a one-for-one trade. There should be a job posted any minute now with the details.”

Captain Francisca’s and Toros’s eyes lit up. “How much does it pay?”

“I have no idea, you’ll have to check. But my guess is that it’s substantial given the urgency.”

“Well, we’re running on emergency power for now, so we can’t check the boards.”

“Tell me what’s going on with your ship, then. If I can’t help you, I’ll be honest, and we can part ways. If I can, then you agree to the job. Sound fair?”

Captain Francisca let out a sigh before nodding. “Guess I don’t really have a choice. I’m not spending another fucking day on this cold-ass rock if I don’t have to.”

“We’re of similar minds, then,” Seb said, smiling. “Mind telling me what’s going on with the ship?”

“Right now our batteries are nearly drained, and our solar panels aren’t working in this storm.”

“Okay, but those are all caused by you running the electricity for too long without the engines going, right?”

“Yeah, I guess so. I’m not really the expert here. Toros knows more about the ship than I do.”

“Don’t look at me,” the deep-voiced brute said. “I know just as much as you do.”

“Don’t give me that. I fly the ship, and you take care of the navigation and maintenance. That’s what we agreed.”

“I don’t remember agreeing to that.”

The disagreement quickly grew into an argument. As the two continued to shout, Seb got a feeling that he was being watched. He turned to see a pair of glowing, pink eyes retreat around a nearby corner. His curiosity got the better of him, compelling Seb to turn and walk down the hallway.

“Hey!” Captain Francisca said. “Where do you think you’re going?”

“I . . . uh . . . I’m just going to run some diagnostics on the ship.”

“Well, the cockpit is to the left.”

Seb furrowed his brow and leaned back. “The diagnostics from the cockpit are just a general readout. The full diagnostics have to be run from a diag-tool connected directly to these old Wilkinson Type-2’s like I’m pretty sure you have.”

“If that’s the case, don’t you need to go outside for that?”

“No,” Seb said, chuckling. “I’ll just access them from your maintenance room.”

“Our what?”

Seb rolled his lips under his teeth and glanced away. He was certain his eyes were going to jump out of their sockets. He took a deep breath before looking up and smiling.

“Every ship has a maintenance room where you can access the ship’s engines and FTL core.”

“We don’t have a room like that. Do we, Toros?”

“Not that I know of,” the black-haired man said.

Seb grabbed the bridge of his nose. “All right, excluding the downstairs level, which I am assuming is just one giant transport bay, what is the room closest to the engines from the inside?”

Captain Francisca and Toros both looked up in the air as they thought about the question. “Should be . . . the storage closet,” Toros said.

“Mind taking me there?”

Captain Francisca passed Seb while Toros held back behind him. Something about the giant, blue man walking in his flank made him very uneasy. He considered whether or not he would be fast enough on the draw to swing around and pull his trigger before he became a fried piece of meat.

His thought process was interrupted as he passed a room with a see-through wall on his right. He saw the medical table, worn surgery tools, and scattered boxes that made the room look as if it had been raided. But as the full room came into view, his heart stopped when he locked eyes with the creature sitting in the corner.

She was unlike anything he had ever seen. Her pink skin clashed against her white medical jacket. She kept the same physical characteristics of a human but with the long tail and scales of a sepix. Seb was so enamored by her beauty that he didn’t realize he’d stopped moving. However, he was quickly reminded thanks to a firm shove from Toros.

“Keep moving. The room is just up ahead,” he said.

The room was just as they said. The farthest point in the ship opened up into a small storage closet that was filled with boxes. It was wide enough for a single person to walk through, but not with all the junk that was stashed in there. Seb turned on his flashlight and stepped into the room. He was certain he knew why they didn’t realize they were missing a room on the ship, but he wouldn’t be able to confirm it until he reached the far-back wall in the makeshift closet.

“This isn’t a storage closet,” Seb said, stepping over a crate. “This is actually a hallway that leads into your maintenance room. That’s why there’s no door here.”

“Then where’s the room?” Toros asked, his tone giving away his frustration.

“Just give me a moment, and I’ll show you.” Seb unshouldered his pack and threw it to Toros, who caught it and set it on the ground. Then Seb started picking up crates and stacking them away from the back wall. When it was clear, he ran his hand along the panels on the backside of the wall until he felt the small divot that was shaped like a hole. He pulled his multi-tool out of his side pocket, flipped out his mechanic’s key, and slid it into the hole. When it was all the way in, the hidden door slid open.

Captain Francisca backhanded Toros at the sudden revelation. “How did you not know about this?”

“Don’t blame him,” Seb said. “These aren’t too common in newer ships. This hatch is known as a mechanic’s door and opened with a mechanic’s key, which is just a repurposed driver on a multi-tool. They were more common in older ships as a way for mechanics to have their own privacy and to prevent people who shouldn’t be back here from coming and messing with things they shouldn’t be.”

“So, do you think you can fix it?”

“Well, I haven’t even had a chance to look at it yet,” Seb said, chuckling. “Do y’all have a diag-tool?” The way Francisca and Toros looked at each other gave Seb his answer. “What about any repair tools?” They both shook their heads. Seb clenched his jaw as he put on his best smile. He was going to have to go back outside. “All right, I’m gonna leave my bag in here. I’m going to go check out that shed by the hut outside. If it doesn’t have what I need, then this might be a lost cause. If you both wouldn’t mind clearing out the hallway, it would help me do my job a bit easier.”

Captain Francisca slapped Toros on the ass before walking down the hallway. “You heard him, Toros. Put those muscles of yours to use.”

“And where are you going?”

“I’m going out for a smoke.”

Seb wasn’t looking forward to venturing outside, but he was willing to suffer through it if it meant seeing the muse behind the crystal wall on his way out. However, when he approached the room, he frowned when he saw she was no longer there. All the rooms he passed had their doors sealed shut, making the trek even more of a letdown. The impression of desolation and survival stood out as he passed the kitchen. All the drawers were opened, with scattered food packaging littering the floors. It made Seb wonder just how little they had left on supplies. Judging by the condition they kept their ship, he assumed they didn’t have a lot of money, either. Captain Francisca grabbed a coat, hat, and gloves on their way out.

When they reached the docking airlock doors, she pulled on the manual lever, bringing a blast of wind inside. With the sun completely down, Seb was walking into total darkness. He turned on his flashlight before turning around.

“Try to hurry if you can,” Captain Francisca said. “Once I’m done smoking, I’m shutting the doors.”

“Thanks for the heads-up,” Seb said sarcastically.

He grabbed on to the side handrails until he got his footing on the swaying ladder. The way down the ladder ate up a solid minute of his time, as the thought of falling kept his grip firm. Once he reached the landing pad, Seb sprinted over to the shed. He groaned to find a lock securing the doors, which he wasted no time cutting through with his multi-tool. The door swung open, nearly knocking him over as soon as he unlatched it.

The hanging bodies of mechanical robots gave Seb pause that he’d found another hidden horror. Once his heart didn’t feel like it was going to jump out of his chest, Seb ran into the room. Much like Samael’s shop, there left a lot to be desired in the way of organization. Not knowing what could be the problem with the engines, Seb started by putting on a belt and a mechanic’s vest that was laden with carabiners. He grabbed as many tools as he could find that weren’t duplicated with his multi-tool. He mounted them on his vest and belt and grabbed a plastic carrying case that included a three-hundred-piece mechanic’s tool set. However, he didn’t find the one thing he absolutely needed.

“Where the fuck is that diag-tool?” Seb yelled. A thought popped into his head that caused him to run out of the storage container and into the nearby hut. A wide smile crept along Seb’s face as he looked at the central console. The diag-tool was sitting on top of the station. When he picked up the tool, he heard a beeping noise and saw a red flash coming from his wrist. His suit’s battery was down to the final percent. “Oh, fuck.”

The thought hadn’t crossed his mind that with the sun down the surface temperature was even more extreme during the night, putting a strain on the skinsleeve’s ability to regulate his temperature. “Gotta haul ass!” Seb sprinted as fast as he could back to the ladder. He looked up to see Francisca still waiting at the entrance.

“Hurry your ass up!” she shouted. Seb frantically climbed, worried about the cold. He could feel the cold creeping through his clothes as he made his way higher. However, with the mechanic’s toolbox, the difficulty of his climb was doubled, as he attempted to climb with only one arm. He made it up halfway, and that’s when his battery died.

The shock of the extreme temperatures caused him to freeze up, losing his grip. He felt his hand slide, and he felt himself fall. Before he dropped any distance, he felt something reach down and grab him around the waist. A thick, pink tail pulled him up through the airlock within a second as the door closed behind him. Seb sat up, shivering, looking up at his rescuer’s black-and-pink eyes. She sprinted down the hallway before returning with several blankets. She then started rubbing his arms and legs, trying to keep him warm.

“T-thank you,” Seb said.

“We need to get you up and move to the center of the ship where it’s warmer,” the pink-haired woman said.

“He can get up and move toward the engine room or whatever it is. Getting that up and running will keep all of us warm.”

“He needs a moment.”

“We don’t have a moment, Nalla,” Captain Francisca said, pulling Seb up to his feet. “If our batteries fail, we’ll all freeze to death.” Francisca turned to look down at Seb. “What happened to your suit, anyway? I saw the shield fade as you were climbing.”

“Batteries . . . dead.”

Captain Francisca burst into laughter. “I’m sorry, but that’s just too funny. Don’t let anyone ever tell you that the universe doesn’t have a sense of humor.”

The group shuffled to the back of the ship to find Toros finishing moving all the boxes into the kitchen.

“What happened to him?”

“Batteries in his suit died,” Francisca said. The two shared in Seb’s misfortune as they continued to the back of the ship.

Seb dropped the plastic mechanic’s tool set when he reached for the bag. His shaking hands fumbled with the zipper until Nalla grabbed it and pulled it open for him. He nodded and smiled at her before pulling out his pack of stims. He grabbed the one he remembered as ‘temp’ and administered it. A flush of warmth flooded his body before turning it numb, allowing him to be mobile again.

“You shouldn’t use these,” Nalla said. “They’re not good for you and highly addictive.”

“So I’ve been told, but I don’t have a lot of options,” Seb said. “I’ve got a lot of people counting on me.”

He picked up the tool set and made his way into the engine room. Grabbing the diag-tool and plugging it into the engine’s onboard diagnostics port, Seb held down the power button. A sinking feeling entered his mind when nothing happened. He wondered if the cold had somehow destroyed the electronics inside the device. But he wasn’t about to go down without a fight.

“Come on, you bitch,” Seb said, smacking the device. With two successful smacks, the device lit up with a blue, pixilated smiley face. Seb smiled in relief as he cycled through the menus, reading through the various diagnostic messages. As he pored over them, he wanted to shove his head through the engine. Seb looked over his shoulder, in between the engines, and stared at the FTL drive. Sure enough, the FTL’s floridium rod was completely depleted and ejected from the core.

Seb placed the diag-tool on top of the engine, took a deep breath, and tried his best not to sound condescending. “Have any of you owned a ship before?”

“Of course I have,” Captain Francisca said. Her forced laughter indicated to Seb that she was lying.

“Okay, then I am sure you’re aware of the proper maintenance procedures that come with one?”

“No! That’s Toros’s job!”

“Hey, don’t you put that evil on me. I told you I could navigate, not run a damn ship.”

Seb shouted as the two’s bickering started up again. “All right, all right, all right, that’s enough. No one is at fault here, and I am not blaming anyone. I just need simple questions answered so I know what I am dealing with and how much detail I need to go in, okay?” Captain Francisca and Toros quieted down and turned to look at Seb.

“Thank you,” he continued. “Now, when’s the last time you had this ship serviced? Because based on these logs, that’s part of the trouble.”

“Not since we’ve had it.”

“And how long ago was that?”

Seb raised his eyebrows as Francisca and Toros gave two totally different answers. The look the captain gave Toros was another piece of the puzzle.

“A few months,” Francisca responded.

“Okay, I think I am piecing everything together. I’m going to take a wild guess and say that you all were doing a lot of travel based on these logs. I mean long FTL jumps, and you were not sticking to normal starlanes, yeah?”

“What are you getting at?” Captain Francisca asked, crossing her arms.

“I’m getting at that you were in the middle of FTL when your ship jerked out of it, and that’s when you started having engine trouble?”

“Yeah, that’s exactly what happened.”

“Okay, so the engine issues are for a few reasons. You haven’t been keeping up on your maintenance. These engines are older and need routine maintenance every ten jumps or so, depending on the length of the jump. Based on these calculations, you’re hovering around the equivalent of forty. The second part is that your FTL core has been completely exhausted.”

“What’s that?”

“Every ship has two types of fuel, one of which is the floridium rod used in FTL flight. It’s what your ship is running off of when it makes the FTL jumps. The reason why you were shunted out of FTL was because you exhausted your core, and it ejected it as a safety precaution. The stress from the sudden FTL drop put a bunch of strain on the engine, which is why it was misfiring on its way down.”

“Stop with all of this technical talk,” Captain Francisca said, waving her hands. “I don’t give a swamp rat’s ass. Can you fix it or not?”

“I’m getting to that. The second engine is not stable. I can get it running, but we need to prioritize the closest system in UHC territory. So, I’m going to reset them both, turn one on so we can get things up and running, and do a second reboot when we’re ready for flight. But here’s the bad news . . .”

Seb turned and pointed to the FTL core. “Without a replacement floridium core, we’re not making any FTL jumps anytime soon. We’re effectively stuck on this planet until we could get a shipment in. Samael might have one, but I’m sure he would charge an arm and a leg for it.”

“Do they look like giant glow sticks?” Toros asked, scratching the side of his face.

“Yeah, but if you tried to snap one of those, it would shatter in your hands.”

“Ah, that makes sense. There’s a box downstairs in the cargo bay.”

“Please don’t tell me you snapped one of those?” Seb said, shaking his head.

“If it’s what I think it is, after we landed, I tried to snap one and use it to light around the landing pod during the night, but the goop inside just ate through the ice.”

“Are you feeling all right? That stuff is highly radioactive outside of the containment rod.”

“Ah, he’s fine, ain’t that right, Toros?” Captain Francisca said, punching the man in the arm. “These printaghasts are so juiced up on their own genetic cocktails, they probably drink that stuff for breakfast.”

“All I’m saying is that if you start to feel sick, you should probably tell the doc,” Seb said.

“Now that you mention it, my tongue has been rather itchy lately,” Toros said, scratching his tongue with one of his claws.

Nalla’s face scrunched, and she immediately grabbed him by the arm. “Let’s take you into the medical room and run a few tests, okay, big guy?”

As the other two walked away, Seb turned and entered a few commands into the diag-tool, resetting the system. Once rebooted, he started the good engine, sending a thunderous roar from it before settling out. When the engine stabilized, the lights came back on, putting a smile on Captain Francisca’s face.

“We should be good for now,” Seb said, unplugging the diag-tool. “I’ll go downstairs and confirm if you do have rods down there. If you do, I’ll swap them out, and that will be one fewer thing we have to worry about.”

When Seb looked over at Captain Francisca, her demeanor had completely shifted. She was leaning against the open door, swaying as she looked intently at Seb. He’d seen that look before, just like Zara before she’d played her trump card. She pushed herself away from the door and stood within inches of Seb.

“It’s good to have a capable man around,” she said, sliding her hands alongside his hips. “When you’re finished, if you still need to warm up, I’ll be in the cockpit.”

Seb turned his head slightly and smirked. “Is that what I think it implies?”

“It can be whatever you think it means,” she said, grabbing Seb’s ass before walking down the hallway. “Don’t think too hard, though. You might miss your chance.”

Seb took off the tool harness and set it on the ground. He leaned against the wall as he thought about what just happened. On one hand, the feeling of her touch and directness put him from six to midnight faster than he realized. On the other hand, getting mingled in a preexisting crew without familiarity was just asking for trouble. Captain Francisca also came with a lot of red flags. It was the battle of the heads.

Seb slammed his fist into the sidewall when he realized which decision was the right one, but that didn’t leave him any less frustrated. He still had plenty of work to do to get the ship ready, and he was already being distracted. It was going to be one long night.