Rork hung horizontally from the open hatch, the wind pushing him away. Lala hung below him, her left hand slipping from his grasp, his fingers on hers. Rork arched his fingers up and his arm back to regain his grip on her. She loved him for who he was. He wouldn’t lose her now. They’d made it too far.
The pressure of the wind eased. His body sagged. He pulled Lala past him and guided her towards the open hatch. He opened his mouth to breathe but precious little air came. He exhaled and pulled himself inside the mining station. He closed the hatch behind him and turned the inside wheel.
A dark circle closed in around him and his chest ached. He held his mouth open and ran his hand across the control panel next to the hatch. The inner bulkhead behind them slid open and air rushed in again.
Rork took a deep breath and coughed. He walked on his knees over to Lala and smacked her face. She screamed in a breath and sat straight up, her emerald eyes wide. She coughed, tried to stand up and sat back down.
“What happened?”
“Glagnon almost killed us.” He felt the station pitch under them and looked out the window. Shreds of the white accordion floated against the black of space. The rear fusion motors of his MORF-9 burned bright in the distance. The other end of the corridor hung from the rear hatch between the dual engines. “Idiots. Joyriding popheads! They’re going to damage my baby!”
Lala knee-walked to the hatch window and pushed Rork out of the way. She stared without saying anything. She looked at him, her eyes wide and her face slack. “I thought I was your baby.”
Rork bit down hard on the knuckle of his index finger. “They’ll retreat to a reasonable distance and party. Or they might have a job. And get killed and someone will seize or blow up my baby.”
Lala turned and slumped down next to the hatch. “I’m your baby!”
Rork edged his eyes in her direction and grinned. “Come over here.” He held his arms out to her and the pain came again. His lungs clenched and his lips pulled back to expose tightly gritted teeth. Bones popped and cracked. Every muscle seized up.
Lala threw herself next to him and massaged his chest and shoulders. “Hold on, baby, just hold on.”
A low, guttural moan escaped his throat. The tension eased. He collapsed forward. “Never should have run those supplies to Isotania. Never should’ve done it. Always try Port Vantage first! Your master is an idiot.”
She rubbed her smooth palm against his cheek and silenced him.
The gentle warmth of her hand relaxed him. He closed his eyes. “And now you have to die.”
She retracted her hand.
“They planned this. They scouted this place out. I know where we are,” Rork said. “Ceres 476 Mining Colony, Franklin Realm. Abandoned. I smashed the radios myself three weeks ago. There’s not much around here anyway.”
Lala pushed air onto her face. “But it’s warm, fresh, wet.”
“Always off in your head, girl. I told you about this place. I fixed life support and just left it running.”
“What do you mean, I have to die?” She stood up and glared at him.
“I have days, maybe a week, then—”
“Shut up! You’re not going to die! Stop feeling sorry for yourself!” A look of disgust crossed her face. She walked toward the bulkhead door. Beyond it a circular hallway curved away from them. “What’s down there?”
“They’ll come back for you. After I’m dead.”
“Which way’s the mess?” She pointed right, then left and looked back at him. “Well?”
“Left.” He pulled himself up and ambled after her.
The hallway was finished in a creamy white matte. Thin light panels ran the length of the corridor three-quarters of the way up the wall. The space was otherwise without ornament. The lights flickered as if they might fail at any moment.
“This is old.” She reached a door and moved her hand to the black switch next to it.
“No!” he said.
She retracted her hand and moved along. “Are we just going in a circle?”
“Of course not. Well, sort of. Three more doors on the right is the mess.”
She stopped and waited for him to catch up. As he passed her, she reached for his hand and interlocked her fingers with his.
Rork studied her face. Her eyes probed his. Her cheeks tensed and twitched. She exuded a nervous fear. She was so precious. He pulled her closer and put his arm around her. “I don’t want them to take you.”
She pushed him away and he bumped into the wall. She continued walking, then stopped, turned around and fixed him with sharp, flat eyes. “You still treat me like a little girl. We’re going to make it through—”
“You take nothing seriously. You think nothing matters. But it all matters! And it’s all very serious, Lala! They will use you and sell you off to even worse people!” He lowered his voice to a rasping whisper. “I will kill you myself, right now, to make sure that doesn’t happen.”
Lala strode toward him and smacked her master hard across the face. “You don’t get to decide that.” She exhaled, adjusted her blouse and looked around. “Which one of these has a bed? I want you now. We’ve waited long enough.” Her face glowed hot pink and she fanned herself.
He smirked. “You know it’s not proper.”
She frowned and hugged her arms to her chest. “I know everything that’s going to happen.”
“An algae farm seastead and ten kids next to a forest?”
She grinned. “With you. Don’t forget that part!”
“Can I get a few more details?”
She waved his question away. “You’ll get your revenge on Barbary, for your father. I can see it.”
“Details. I need details.”
“I’m still looking for that bed.” She turned and put a hand to her temple. “I predict that we will find food in the mess.” She guffawed loudly, not unlike his obese drunk of an uncle. She walked to the door of the mess and opened it.
He pushed himself away from the wall. He was overheated and his ankles ached.
She stepped back from the mess door and clapped her hands together. She looked at him, her eyes wide and bright, like a child receiving the present she actually wanted. She yelped and kneeled down.
He struggled to take another step forward. His head swam and his vision twisted. He needed to eat and take his meds. He took two more steps and stopped short. She stood in front of him, her slender pink-clad legs dancing forwards and backwards in place.
“Look what I found!” Her right hand cupped a tiny beast. The animal sported a yellow duck-like bill with two airholes on top and set back near the skull. The eyes were perceptive and hinted at intelligence. This platyfet wasn’t more than a year old judging by its coarse brown fur.
It emitted a shrill squeak. Lala shrieked, then open-mouth guffawed. “Isn’t it gorgeous? It plorked! Was it here before?”
He shook his head. “Food?”
The platyfet plorked again.
“That’s two sandwiches we need.”
“Alright, alright…” Lala stepped lightly into the undersized mess hall. Only one table remained. She sat the beast down on it and walked over to the dispensers.
“Make it a ham sandwich.” Rork struggled to fix himself on the bench seat next to the animal. “Must I eat with this thing here?” He looked down at it. It looked up at him, its eyes wide, its bottom eyelids taut. It plorked once more.
“Empty!” She hit something. It sounded hollow.
He lay his head down on the table. The furry thing trundled over to him, its shiny black claws clacking on the pristine table surface. It nuzzled its bill against his tricep.
Lala walked over and sat down across from him. She plopped two drink bags on the table. “That’s all there is.”
Rork’s stomach rumbled. “I’ll split him with you.” He grinned.
The platyfet geeped.
Lala rolled her eyes. “There’s to be no more talk of death, anyone’s death, especially not Faxmir’s. We’re going to make it out of here, as a family. Are we in agreement on this point?” She arched an eyebrow.
Rork laughed. “Faxmir? You can’t name him that! It’s cruel — and unusual!”
“I
F
ONLY
we could reach it.” Lala stood at the far left of the galley window and looked up and into the gloom of space.
“What?” Rork picked his head up from the table, the bug-infested beast perched unsteadily on his shoulder. “Since when is there a window there?” The urge to run hit him, but to where? How?
Faxmir geeped and resettled itself in the crook of Rork’s neck. Its body vibrated. The moving fibers of its coat tickled his neck. He shuddered and gently relocated it to the table, where it geeped up at him.
“I just hit a button and it popped up. The trainship is up there. There must be a line that passes near us. We’re not as remote as you thought.” She turned and stuck the tip of her tongue out at him.
He laughed. “This is not like Earth. There’s no horizon, really. So just because you see it doesn’t mean it’s close by.”
“Yet somehow, the superior space pirate finds himself in need of a green Earth-girl to take care of him. Oh, the irony.” She giggled.
Rork frowned. The platyfet geeped at him and he pushed it away.
Lala strode over to them and bundled the animal into her arms. “There, there. Pay no attention to him. He’s just not cut out for fatherhood, that’s all.”
Rork felt hollow inside and drained but that couldn’t pass. “I would make a great father!”
She turned her face up at him and walked away. “You have good genes, Rork, so you’d be a good biological father. But a real father?” She laughed. “You can’t even bond with this cute little guy.”
“It’s a dirty beast and a carrier of disease. Not a human child!”
“And monogamy? Do you even know what the word commitment means?”
“Wait, let me look it up.” He pretended to look it up on the wrist computer he left behind on the MORF-9. He frowned.
“Because I’ll be gone otherwise, bound servant or not.”
He sighed and rolled his eyes.
“Let’s see, what shall we name you, cutie pie?” she said to herself.
He stood up and walked over to her. “There has to be more food around here. Did you find anything?”
“What was the name of my last boyfriend again?” She held a finger to her temple.
Rork stopped short. “You’ve never had—”
“Buff! Right!” She turned around to Rork. “His name is Buff. It’s final.”
“Who’s this Buff?” he asked of the universe.
The station rumbled underneath them.
“Earthquake?” She gripped the table and Buff tensed.
Rork ran out of the galley, turned right and felt himself thrown against the corridor wall to his left. A light panel above him popped out of the wall and crashed to the floor with a sound like distant thunder.
“Where are you going?”
“Bring your new boyfriend, let’s go!” He picked himself up, ran and found the door. He hit the gray button next to it and it opened.
The bridge was claustrophobic. There were only three seats: one high white chair at the back and two black chairs lower down in front of a wide black control console.
Rork threw himself into a seat at the front on the right. He hit the button to open the forward viewscreen. A wide picture window blinked into existence ahead of him. The scene was empty. A few distant stars glinted in the darkness of space.
The station rumbled again and a red bar flashed at the top of his panel.
Lala burst into the room behind him. “Buff is really scared!”
“Buff can go jump into a black hole.” He tapped the red bar.
“Hull breach in compartment nine,” a deep male voice said.
“Now that is a manly voice!” She took a seat in the captain’s chair behind him, Buff cowering in her lap.
Another rumble, then an explosion. He rocked back and forth in his chair and grabbed the console to steady himself.
He tapped feverishly and a heavy click sounded at the door.
“What was that!”
“I think—” he started.
A shrill male voice screeched from the radio. “What was it you called me, Rork? An underfed boob who couldn’t find my brain with three scanners? Was that it?”
“Who is that?” Lala whispered.
He sighed. “Barbary — junior.”
“His son?”
He nodded. “Look around for some way off this thing.” He pressed the button to transmit.
“What do you mean?”
Rork turned around, his eyes wide. “Get up now and find some way off this thing because he’s going to blow it up!”
“What a brilliant idea!” said Barbary, Jr.
Rork took his finger off the transmit button and groaned. “Hurry up!”
Lala stood up, Buff in her arms. She walked to her left, then to her right. “But I don’t—”
Rork stood up and walked back at her. He wrapped his arms around her. He felt her tremble. Buff crawled up his shirt and perched on his shoulder. The furry varmint nuzzled his cold bill against Rork’s stubble and sneezed with a quiet whoosh.
“Look,” Rork whispered. “I just want you to look. I’m dead anyway, but—”
“Don’t say that!” She punched him lightly on the shoulder, then rubbed Buff’s head.
The beast purred.
She smiled, her eyes bright and wide. “I didn’t know they could do that! Hey, why can’t we just fly this thing out of here?”
Rork firmed his jaw. “No fuel, remember? Just see if you can find something, anything.” He walked over to the viewscreen and massaged his greasy stubble. He’d think of something. He always did, especially when it involved a Barbary.
“Look Barbary—” He groaned and smacked the transmit button on the control panel. “Barbary, I surrender. Take me aboard and—”
“No, no, I liked your first idea better.”
Rork fell into his seat. He cut the transmission and whipped around. “Don’t open the door!”
She stood next to the door, her hand poised over the open button, her eyes questioning but afraid to ask why.
“It’s vacuum on the other side. I think. I’m not sure.” He swiveled around to face the viewscreen again. He hit the transmit button. “He wouldn’t like you killing me. He wants reparations, doesn’t he? He’ll set an example with me. A very public one. I promise to cry a lot and beg for mercy. It will be really good for you guys. Honest!”
“You’re right,” Barbary, Jr. replied, “but Barbary and Sons is safer with you dead, right now, right here. And so is the Cartel.”