Chapter Two: Loyalties

Of the boundless mysteries in the enigmatic universe there was one above all that perplexed Tala Agbayani; why was every onboard toolbox missing the ten millimeter socket? The Autumn’s Rest was touted as the cutting edge science cruiser paving a path for humanity’s future among the stars but not one of the six maintenance bays had a complete ratchet set. Even the piece that she had machined for herself the week prior due to the shortage was gone, lost to the void of a shared workspace. The easiest identifier of a ten millimeter nut or bolt on the Autumn at that point was that the sharp hexagonal shape of its head had been transformed into a wrench-gnarled image of its former self. The fastener that Tala was stripping of its intended shape with a Farrasonic Auto-Wrench at that moment would be no different.

With a conduit filled compartment barely big enough for one of her envirosuit-gloved hands before her and the infinite void of space behind her, Tala found herself struck with an unholy amalgamation of feeling claustrophobic and insignificant in one fell swoop. People assured her she’d get used to it the more walks she did on the exterior of the ship, but she wasn’t sure how to grasp, or ignore, something quite so existential.

“Holy hell,” said a nasally voice over Tala’s comms, “Why didn’t you just grab the ten millimeter socket like I told you to?” Tala had learned early on in her tenure aboard the Autumn to ignore the ever unrequested and often unnecessary commentary of her maintenance team leader Tennen Snow. Unfortunately he liked the sound of his own voice so much that ignoring him seldom made him shut up. “Well?”

“Couldn’t find one,” said Tala, as if she hadn’t been complaining to Snow for the last month about the ship’s severe lack of the tool. She turned to face him, hoping an exaggerated shrug of her shoulders accompanied by a flare of her eyebrows would remind him that her inability was a product of his ineptitude. If he connected those dots, however, he showed nothing for it. The sandy hue of Saturn’s sun bathed atmosphere reflected off of the bald man’s helmeted head. His rotund stomach cascaded over the edge of the panel he leaned against, having offered to hold it for Tala as she did the actual work. Snow was like all middling men in middle management that Tala had met; eager to seem important but never willing to do the work to actually be important.

“By the way, you know why the tickets on the support system aren’t being closed out at the end of shift?” asked Snow. As it so happened, Tala did know. She knew that it was technically Snow’s job to finish the tickets every night. However, he was always eager to get to the lounge to lose his next paycheck to the reactor engineers that were considerably better than him at cards or to make advances towards the waitress in the mess despite having been turned down hundreds of times. So, in an effort to maintain his shitty work-life balance he hoisted his responsibilities upon his subordinates, just as any self-respecting manager should.

“Sorry. It must have slipped my mind.” said Tala, and It had ‘slipped Tala’s mind’ for over two weeks. There was no amount of good nature in her that would let her stay past her scheduled work time. Not for Snow. Who else was going to eat snacks, draw, and generally rot into the late hours of the night if not her?

“Well… I’ve got an important meeting I have to get to.” said Snow. An important meeting with some reactor engineers and a deck of cards, no doubt. Snow turned away and left the hinged panel he was holding standing freely in the zero gravity and began his walk back to the Autumn’s access hatch. One final piece of unwanted commentary slipped over Tala’s comms as Snow disappeared into the hatch like a balding mole into a garden. “Remember to close the ticket when you’re done this time, please.”

As soon as she saw the bulkhead seal behind him, Tala responded with an outstretched arm that crested in a proudly extended middle finger.

The overpowering chemical stench of hydro-carbon was replaced with a bearable  warm-plastic smell of hydro-carbon as Tala removed her environsuit and was greeted with the recycled air of the Autumn’s interior. The stale air masquerading as fresh matched the ship’s overly lit, achromatic corridors. The Autumn was a labyrinth of impracticalities and illusions; aesthetics far over functionality in the hierarchy of her builder’s intentions. She missed the functionality of the short-line freighter she began her career on. A ship built with parts that were made to be repaired instead of replaced. A ship with leadership that was willing to work alongside you instead of scolding every misstep. Like most non-corp jobs during the war, however, it disappeared into the past.

“Well, there’s a lot of people in the galaxy that have it worse,” her mom had reminded her the last time Tala called her home on Mars seeking counsel.

“At least you’re not on the front line,” chipped in her father, “Some of your old classmates went out with the latest recruits.” 

“Yeah,” was all Tala could bring herself to say before her mother changed the topic to her kids that had provided her with grandchildren. It wasn’t that Tala wasn’t grateful for her job. She actually found pleasure in working with her hands and relished in the sense of accomplishment that came with a finished job. She just needed to bitch about it every now and then. She shook the memory from her mind and reached for the communications panel that was mounted next to the bulkhead door that led further into the ship.

“Security Control, this is M-76,” said Tala, her voice cracking, “Requesting activation of bulkhead three aught eight.” A light on the panel illuminated as she finished her sentence.

“Request received, M-76,” replied the artificial intelligence that orchestrated ship security, “What is your purpose in the main laboratory?”

“Just passing through. Completed repairs on the surface and just looking to head home for the night.”

“Please wait while we direct a security officer to your position. Thank you for your patience.”

“Thank you.” The communication indicator dimmed and the door groaned to life. The same young security officer that helped her through the lab that morning greeted her with a curt nod.

“This way, miss,” he said. He was colder than he had been that morning, all traces of humanity having evaporated after Tala told him she wasn’t interested in joining him for drinks after work. Tala didn’t mind, however. She would rather be met with an honest rigidity than feigned kindness any day. In the place of small talk, she took in the visual of scientists in Torbeck branded lab coats buzzing about their work. A chance to walk through the main laboratory was an opportunity not afforded to a majority of the personnel aboard the Autumn. Especially after their journey to the outer colony of Tanis. Whatever they had collected from the wartorn moon was something Torbeck wished to keep to themselves. The security officer’s voice droned from behind her, “Eyes forward, please.”

“Sorry,” said Tala. Before she could look away on her own volition, the entire room was veiled in black.

“Shit. Please stay where you are, miss.” The amber of emergency lights flickered before the onslaught of the sterile overhead fixtures flooded the lab again. “Why the hell does that keep happening?”

“How am I supposed to know?”

“You’re maintenance, aren’t you?” Tala just shrugged in reply. Reactor problems were the responsibility of the engineering team, but she didn’t care to explain that to the young man. Despite her faults, the Autumn hadn’t been prone to power surges until they completed their voyage to Tanis. Their intensity seemed to be building as time went on; larger portions of the ship were being affected and lasting damage was beginning to show on more sensitive electronics. Word in the mess hall was that the surges were what shorted the Rift drive and forced the Autumn into normal space at Saturn instead of back home at Mars. “Keep moving, all right?”

Tala took another step and the lights went out again.

*****

“The price of a cat’s loyalty, my dear Argos, lies somewhere between cautious petting and a chunk of vacuum-dehydrated cheese.” said Barger Abbott as he waved a yellow piece of the food in his first mate’s artificial face. Barger wasn’t sure if Argos' true form actually had a face and he thought it rude to ask. The being inside the blue, metallic suit was amorphis and the size of a playground ball. At some point before meeting Barger, Argos had retrofitted an old robot’s chassis to house him. It had thus far proven a successful bid to interact with humanity. “Watch and learn, my friend.”

The duo sat in the two pilot seats of their light freighter, The Anjin, as the extradimensional wonders that came with skirting the Rift danced outside the ship's expansive cockpit viewports. The miracles of faster than light travel had nothing new to offer them, but the stray cat they had coaxed into their ship at Tanis station was another story. It grumbled and set its ears back, unwilling to leave the safe haven beneath the Anjin’s main control console.

“Come now, kitty,” said Barger, thrusting the cheese under the console. The low rumbles cascaded into a bellow that sounded like a revving racecrafts engine before peaking in a formidable hiss. The cat’s claws lashed out at a much faster pace than Barger could withdraw his hand. A band of thin red scratches marked the back of his hand and the accompanying sting radiated milliseconds later. “Ow! Goddammit!”

“It appears we should have started with cautious petting,” said Argos, extending his metallic hand down toward the creature. It shied back once more, its battlecries receding. The bluish gray cat tapped its wet nose against Argos’ fingertip once. Twice. On the third nudge it rolled its head and body down the length of his arm before dramatically writhing on the floor.

“Yes. So it would seem,” said Barger as he rubbed the back of his hand. “I must admit I was being rather forward, though he may have overreacted a bit.”

“Do cats act with the same mindfulness as humans, or do they act on animalistic tendencies alone?”

“An inquiry for the ages, my dear friend.” Barger slowly lowered his hand back down to the creature as it rolled about. An alarm blared from the control console, startling all three of the lifeforms. The cat popped upright, sprinted out of the cockpit, and into the belly of the freighter. “I suppose I’ll test my luck later, then.”

“The computer is bringing us out of subspace,” said Argos. The fanciful coloration of the rift gave way to the majesty of the stars. The mute tone of Saturn and its skirt of rings crowded their viewport. “The tracking device indicates the Autumn’s Rest is no further than two hundred kilometers from our current position.”

“Either Mars is a lot less red than I remember, or they’ve had a change of plans.” Barger turned a knob and waited for a blip indicating the Autumn's Rest to appear on his terminal screen. Two blips resonated on the green display not far from the circle that represented Saturn. “Their privateer escort is still with them. Must have their Rift drives synced.”

“That is less than ideal.”

“Yes, but I believe this situation will prove most fortuitous for us,” said Barger. The middle aged man’s back popped as he sat up suddenly. “The nearest Torbeck, or Haide, installation is the water harvesting operation above the moon of Enceladus. If they are having a problem as critical as their Rift drives, I assume they will have to dock there for proper assessment.”

“The computers estimate with Enceladus and the Autumn’s opposite orbits we will have a three day window before they intersect. I must ask once more…”

“Yes, Argos. It must be done. I owe it to Lillian.” A second alert sounded from the console, snapping Barger out of the numb nothingness he was unknowingly slipping into. An emergency signal, too close and faint to be the science cruiser or its frigate escort, streamed across the Anjin’s displays.

“It’s an auto-beacon on an envirosuit. We can help them.” Argos turned in his seat to face Barger.

“No. We can’t risk being detected.” Barger looked down at a picture of Lillian he had tucked into his side of the control console. It was his favorite picture of his sister. She wore her dark hair how their mother used to but the comforting smile was all her own. He wasn’t there for her when she needed him most; he would die before failing her again.

“It isn’t right to leave someone in need when you have the means to help them.”

“Which human taught you that?” Barger knew he had taught that ideal to Argos.

“You did, Barger.”

“Yes. I suppose I did.” And Lillian had taught it to him. He nodded his head, as if his sister herself were beside him reminding him of what was right. “Okay. Yes. But with swiftness. Head to the keel access hatch and be ready to haul them in. I’ll fly us close.”

Flyby snatch and grabs were commonplace in the world of smugglers that Barger called home, but he could never recall doing it on a human. Be as it may, he sent the Anjin into action on little more than muscle memory. He failed to see his relatively miniscule target on his approach amidst the vastness of space, but he had wagered his own life on the calculations of his freighter’s computers enough times that he trusted them to save a stranger just the same.

“He’s in,” said Argos, his voice coming through the communication system on the control console. “We’re in the cargo hold.” Barger’s fingers flew over the panel, setting the Anjin back onto her automated course behind the Autumn’s Rest and jumped from his seat and headed down to join his first mate. By the time he made the brief trek to the hold, Argos had already hoisted the man onto a crate and cut him free of his envirosuit. The unconscious man was nearly as large as Argos. His body was replete with overused muscles, sweat, and thick black hair. The most apparent feature, however, was that one of his legs and one of his arms were completely cybernetic.

“He’s still alive, but is struggling to breathe,” said Argos. He turned from the man and ran out of the cargo hold, yelling as he went, “I will retrieve some emergency oxygen.” As Barger walked over to the man, the cat jumped from the shadows onto a crate nearby.

“He looks kind of dangerous, doesn’t he?” asked Barger. The cat responded with a chirp. “Perhaps we should have left him to his fate. After all, maybe he was out there for a reason.” Barger looked over the man’s scarred body; it was easy to see their passenger wasn’t shy about combat. The cat bellowed an echoing yowl and Barger responded with a glare, “Oh really? What is worth making that big of a fuss over?”

Barger looked back down at the face of the man. His teeth were grit in a predatorial snarl and his shadowed eyes were shrouded by furled brows.

“Oh…” Barger squeaked. The man’s coarse hand latched onto Barger’s throat pushing the remainder of the air from his mouth and with it the end of his sentence, “Fuck.”

Copyright © 2025 by W.R. Bailey

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