Ripples in Space (Part 4)

After his discovery was made, Ed ordered Dave back onboard Molon Labe and commandeered his spacesuit.

"And why must I do that?" asked Dave.

"If there's someone alive in there, I want to get them out. Especially if they're Feds. If they are, we make sure they can't report back to their higher-ups."

"How do you propose to do that?"

"Either recruitin' 'em, maroonin' 'em, or shootin' 'em."

"Piracy has changed you Ed," said Dave. "Be careful you don't lose yourself in its wiles." He wiggled his fingers ominously, his - now iconic - grin across his face.

In a trice, Dave was out of the suit and Ed was back in the airlock. The door to the black void of space opened before him and he drifted out. He secured his tether to Molon Labe and pushed off towards the pod.

"Dave?" he asked into his comm set.

"This is Molon Labe HQ. Molon Labe actual, do you copy?" came the answer.

"You're not gonna stop doing that, are you?"

"Molon Labe actual, we're gonna need a legitimate response here. Repeat, do you copy?" Ed sighed long and hard before responding.

"I copy."

"Molon Labe actual we hear you loud and clear. What's your 20?"

"I'm on their windscreen."

"Copy Molon Labe actual, what seems to be the issue?"

"I can't see a damn thing, could you turn on the floodlights?" asked Ed. Silence came from the other end. 

"We went through all that for you to ask me to turn on the lights?"

"It was your idea!"

"Turning on floodlights, Molon Labe actual." 

The lights blazed, on revealing the interior of the escape pod. Ed looked around for a moment before his eyes settled on a crumpled form on the inside of the pod.

"Dave, there's something in there. This is gonna take some fancy piloting, but I need you to maneuver the airlocks together after I get back in."

"Roger that, Molon Labe actual, over and out."

*****

Ed made it back into Molon Labe without event and the maneuvering went almost as well. Dave dinged one of Molon Labe's wings into the side of the pod and sent it rolling over. But, he quickly righted it by doing the same thing again in the opposite direction. The airlocks were connected and Ed gathered his crew in front of the door.

"Everybody got a gun?" he asked. The three behind him held up their weapons. "Know how to use 'em?" Two of them quickly went back down. "Oh, good," said Ed. He tentatively reached up and pressed the airlock release. "We're armed and dangerous! Anyone in there put your goddamn hands in the air!" No sound came from the pod. "Right. We're coming in." Ed advanced into the pod, his F-6 pistol leveled before him. His crewmates advanced as well, though much more hesitantly.

What greeted them was a space about the size of a stripped camper van. Benches ran alongside the walls and panels of glass were set into the nose and walls of the craft. A command console was set in the center of the room. Slumped against this console was a human form. In his left hand there was a gleaming silver-plated pistol. The other rested gently across its stomach.

"Is he dead?" asked Dave, peering over Ed's shoulder. Ed glared at him before moving up the figure. He nudged it with the barrel of his pistol. It emitted a faint groan.

"No. No he is not." He stood up and holstered his pistol. "Dave, you and Kizzvell get to work stripping this thing for all she's worth. Parsee and I will see to our new buddy." He motioned Parsee to pick up the man by his ankles and picked him up under his armpits. The two of them awkwardly moved him from the pod onto a table in the common area. His hand fell away from his stomach, revealing a burned hole in his clothes.

"Hey, Ed, look at this," said Parsee. "What do you suppose caused that?" Ed looked at it for a moment, then brushed his fingers across it.

"It's a laser wound. Someone shot him in the stomach. Odd."

"Why's it odd?" asked Parsee.

"It's really hard to kill someone by shooting them in the gut anymore. The laser immediately cauterizes the wound. Whoever shot him was either stupid, angry, or a sadist. Or some combination of all three."

"What do we do?"

"You a surgeon? If not, the best we can do is bandage him and wait for him to wake up. Help me get his shirt off so we can put something on this wound."

As they pulled his shirt off, Parsee ran her hand over his back.

"He's been shot here too."

"Really?" Ed asked. "Someone really wanted to kill this guy. That's so weird too, 'cause he's gotta be a Fed."

"If he's a Fed why are we bothering to do this?" Ed looked up from the man's injuries.

"You got bloodlusty. What happened?"

She met his eyes. While her eyes were just purple spheres, Ed immediately regretted the question from the look she gave him.

"Right. Sorry."

"It's fine. But I did ask a question."

"Oh right!" said Ed as he began applying disinfectant to the wounds. The man groaned faintly again at the sting. "Hold him in place, would you? I'm saving his life because of the opportunity he poses. Think of all the information we could pump him for. Especially since he comes from a prison hulk." He began winding medical tape around a cloth patch over the stomach wound. "Plus, not all Feds are bad. Pass me those scissors. A lot of them are pressed into service or brainwashed at a young age. Lift him up, please."

Parsee tilted the man up and Ed began wrapping a bandage over the wound on his shoulder. 

"In fact, one of my spotters was former Fed. Poor guy was killed at the Battle of Tooloh M'Bahck on Desuul."

"This is unrelated, but one of? I thought snipers only had one spotter."

"Regular snipers do, yeah, but I had the proud distinction of being a Target Sniper. Close to nobody I was ordered to shoot ranked less than Captain. And a lot of the time I would shoot ammo and fuel dumps. So, the F.P.U. decided that special people like myself denoted extra protection. Now go see if you can find any Dabrazil and morphine in the cargo hold."

"What's Dabrazil?" Parsee asked.

"Remember how I said we'd have to wait for him to wake up? I lied. Dabrazil is a really powerful smelling salt. You could be in a nine year long coma and that stuff'd snap you out of it."

"Alright." And she turned and ran off to the cargo hold. He returned a few moments later with three syringes in one hand and a green tube about six inches in length. Ed took the tube from her and held it under the man's nose.

"You might want to back up. It's gonna be a touch violent." Parsee followed his suggestion and he broke the tube. Nothing happened for a few moments. 

"Weird," said Ed. "That usually gets 'em within a couple--SONOFABITCH!" In leaning over to inspect his patient, Ed had unwittingly put himself in danger of being headbutted if the man woke up suddenly. Naturally, this happened. Ed fell back from the table clutching his forehead. Ironically, the man on the table was doing the same thing. Ed stood back up, still holding his head, and looked at Parsee.

"I seem to suffer an inordinate amount of head trauma while running this ship." 

Parsee giggled. "Maybe you should get a helmet. Great big letters on it in neon blue 'Head Trauma Discourager.'"

"Excuse me, but where am I?" That last remark had come from the wounded man. Ed jerked his head up and looked at the man. 

"Why, sir, you are aboard my pirate corvette Molon Labe." He executed a rather flamboyant bow.

"Pirates?" the man said, skeptically.

"Yeah," said Ed. "Why's that so hard to believe?"

"Well, you fixed me up and you seem kind of...bumbling...for pirates."

At that remark, Ed's hand hovered over his pistol.

"You know, I might be more polite if I were a Fed who seemed to have been captured by pirates."

"A Fed? What's a Fed?"

Ed turned to Parsee. "And he says we're bumbling." He looked back at the man. "A Fed," Ed said, "Is someone who takes orders from the so called 'Interplanetary Federation of Nonaggression.'" His words dripped with venom at the name.

"Well, I'm certainly not that."

"We found you aboard a Federation escape pod. How in God's name could you not be a Fed?"

"Oh. I guess I should've said I'm not one anymore. I've gone AWOL."

"Really?" Ed asked, moving his hand away from his gun. "Why's that?"

"My CO thought I was an F.P.U. spy, which I'm not. He went to put The Syringe in me, I panicked, decked him, stole his gun, and ran away."

"You punched your CO? That's amazing."

"Yeah, to you maybe," said the man, gesturing wildly. "Look where I am: shot up in the depths of space captured by pirates who will, in all likelihood, kill me."

"I'm not gonna kill you now!" said Ed, spreading his arms as though he was going to hug the man "You've rebelled. You've stuck it to the Federation! I'll give you a ride to wherever you want to go for that!"

"Really? Thanks, I guess. But, I don't really know where I'd go."

"That's a fair point. Tell you what--what's your name?"

"Richard Stavers."

"Tell you what, Richard Stavers. Most probably, even if I did take you somewhere, the Federation would still find and kill you. So, since I'm trying to kill a member of the Federation anyway and I need info, how 'bout you sign on with me for a little bit?

 "We're really lowering standards there, aren't we captain?" said Parsee, glaring at Ed.

"You go check on Dave and Kizzvell." For the past several minutes, loud bangs and streams of profanity had been issuing form the attached escape pod. Parsee huffed, but gave in and went to the hatch. Ed turned his attention back to Stavers. 

"What do you say?" Stavers opened his mouth to reply, but he seemed dumbfounded. After a couple moments, his brain seemed to catch up.

"I guess that's really my only good option. You're right, the Federation would find and kill me. I just have two questions."

"Fire away."

"You guys planet and station hop, right?"

"We dabble in it, yes."

"I've never been anywhere but Hellhole, Tesved, and a couple Federation orbital stations. Is there like...I don't know...a...hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy...or something I could get and read?"

Ed stared at him.

"A hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy? Who would ever buy that? Next thing you know, you'll be saying Terran-Firma is a supercomputer. If you're gonna run with us, you can't say stupid things like that, Stavers."

*****

After a couple more days, Dave reported that they would arrive at ZNC-4 within two hours. Because of that, Ed had called his crew into the common area.

"How much money we got?" he asked the second everyone showed up. Dave looked sideways at him.

"Aren't we supposed to get married before you ask me that?" Ed gave Dave a smile that looked exactly like his own signature, manic one.

"Why Dave, I figured we were already that close." Dave backed away from him slightly, his brow furrowed.

"Don't smile like that. People are liable to think you're crazy." Except for Stavers, the whole crew looked crosswise at Dave.

"What?" he asked. Ed decided to stop the confusion before it got too far out of hand.

"Doesn't matter. We need to buy Kizzvell a holographic navi-board and I have some other stuff in mind. So, I estimate we need about 5000 Federation credits." He looked around the room. "Do we have that?"

After no small amount of rummaging, they had amassed 5249 Federation credits.

"Wow," said Dave, "We're that new breed of entrepreneurial pirates that don't need nobody's help, aren't we?"

"Shut up, Dave," said Ed as he began to divide the credits. "Kizzvell, there's 3500 for the board, I'll take another thousand for supplies, everyone else gets a hundred, but I need a volunteer to stay on the ship."

Stavers' hand immediately went up.

"I'm probably pretty wanted by the Feds right now, so I'd like to avoid them as much as possible." Ed nodded.

"Fair enough." He turned to Dave. "ETA?" 

Dave looked at his wrist, which had no time measuring device on it.

"'Bout fifteen minutes now." Ed looked to Stavers.

"You've got a gun, right?" Stavers held up the pistol he had stolen from Ranforth.

"Keep that at the ready. Anyone comes through that door who isn't us, light 'em up." Stavers nodded.

*****

Molon Labe approached station ZNC-4. The station looked like an odd wheel. One thin ring surrounded a cylindrical area. The two were connected via several spokes in between.

A loud beeping sound issued from the cockpit.

"Ah." said Dave. "That'll be the station forcing us to ask for landing clearance." He ran off to the cockpit, Ed close behind.

A voice issued from a speaker on the dashboard.

"Condor class transport ship, you do not have clearance to land. Please maintain a safe distance from the landing zones."

"How do we get clearance?" Dave asked into his comms set.

"Actually, we have a merchant vessel departing now. Please wait and you'll be issued clearance to land."

"That was easy," said Ed. After another five minute wait Molon Labe drifted down into a landing chamber and set down. A soft clunk sounded outside the hatch.

"What was that?" asked Stavers. Kizzvell looked up from the fuel regulator he had been tinkering with.

"It is tramway. ZNC-4 send tram up to hatch of craft, crew steps in, then tram take you to Axle in center of station. Except you stay here."

"And you're gonna let the refugees out about a half hour after we leave," said Ed.

 Kizzvell set the fuel regulator down and got up to stand next to the hatch. "Tram is waiting, hurry up pokeslows!"

"That's slowpokes, Kizz," said Dave as he passed through the hatch and onto the tram.

"Comlang is stupid language anyway. All weird and round." He stepped through as well, quickly followed by Ed and Parsee. The tramway was a small cart magnetically suspended in a rather large tube that looked more like a maintenance tunnel.

"What do you mean?" asked Ed.

"Well, take for example, word 'gorgeous.' Is weird word in Comlang. Too round; too many 'o' sound, you know? In Retrix, is..." Kizzvell proceeded to emit an insect-like combination of chirps and clicks that went on for some time.

"That, is most definitely not better," said Dave, vigorously rubbing his ear.

"Well, if you not Retrix, it can hurt brain little bit. Retrix is partially telepathic, you know."

"If you scholars are finished debating the finer points of launguage, we're here." Despite his words, Ed was grinning as the tram pulled up into the Axle.

The Axle soared hundreds of feet up and down, the middle of it completely clear save the holographic advertisements. Tube-like elevators carried people between different levels at high speed and the whole thing seemed to be almost nothing but shops. Ed spun around and faced his crew.

"Alright, the Feds are on us, so I propose we conclude business here as quickly as possible. I'd say we have about two hours till the Feds catch wise, so be back here before then. Everybody got that?" The group nodded assent. "Right. Dave, come with me."

"What're we doin?"

"We're gonna buy some supplies and maybe try to find a little dishonest work," said Ed.

"Sounds fun. By the way, I'm running out of cigarettes, so if we could get some of those...?" He let the sentence trail off.

"You're the only one who smokes 'em, you buy 'em." The two climbed into an elevator and rode it to the very bottom of the Axle.

"What're we goin' down here for, cappy?" asked Dave.

"We need ammo for the guns, small and large, some programming stuff and cheap food. All that is cheaper on a black market, which thrives in the bowels of a station."

"Ah, we're trying to extend the old rap sheet, are we?"

"You just shut up and look intimidating." The tube slowed and stopped, letting them out onto the lowest level of the Axle.

The place gave back alleys a bad name. The ceiling was no higher than six and a half feet in any given location. Smoke and vapors of unknown origin drifted at head height. What little light there was was dim and flickering, garbage and refuse was piled high and everything seemed to have taken on the color of rust. 

"Forgive me, Ed, if I cower behind you on this particular venture," Dave said. 

"Ah, you worry too much. I've still got ol' Faithful with me," responded Ed, gently tapping the F-6 pistol holstered at his hip.

"I thought the goal here was to be smart and stay under the Fed's radar?"

"Yeah, well, sometimes violence is unavoidable. Take a left. I have an idea of where we need to go."

"Where?" asked Dave.

"Mechanic. Back in the war, those guys thrived on the black market 'cause they could hide goods in repaired vehicles. So, we need to find one."

Despite the rather derelict appearance of the area, the lowest section of the Axle seemed to be the most heavily populated. People and beings of all kinds bustled and jostled around each other. A small girl with a shock of pink hair bumped into Ed and nearly sent him tumbling to the ground. After about fifteen minutes of this, Ed and Dave arrived at what seemed like a garage for small vehicle repair.

A large, retractable door was pulled up in front of the garage and inside there was indeed a small vehicle that looked something like a motorcycle. Sounds of repair issued from within though there seemed to be nobody inside. Ed cautiously stepped forward.

"'Scuse me? Anyone here?" Almost immediately, a small head with an impressive orangeish-red beard popped up from behind the vehicle.

"Yeah-Whatcha-need?" said the figure.

"I'm here to acquire some...stuff." In a flash, the figure had bolted to the sliding door, slapped a button to close it, and jumped up on a stool in front of Ed. Ed took in the small man before him. He couldn't've be more than two feet tall and red hair covered most of his face and head. A fat cigar stub stuck out of his mouth. He had small, pointed ears and held out his hand to Ed.

"Hey-there-Barney-Bazzadoon-how-ya-doin?" The creature spoke amazingly fast and shook hands with Ed equally rapidly.

"Uh, I need to buy some things that are less than reputable. You know where I can get that?"

"Not-a-Fed-are-ya?" Barney asked.

"No."

"Then-yeah-I-can-set-you-up-whaddya-need?"

"Um, these things." Ed handed a list to Barney.

"Oh-this-is-gonna-be-tricky-but-I-can-do-it-say-you-got-a-ship-I-can-send-this-to?

"Sure. The Condor class ship in Dock 7E."

"Perfect-perfect-by-the-way-I'm-gonna-need-half-the-money-up-front-dangerous-business-don't-ya-know?"

"Well, how much is it?"

"For-this-nine-hundred-fifty-credits."

"Oh nice." Ed turned to Dave. "That's better than I thought it was gonna be." He reached into his pocket for the money...but found nothing. "That's weird," he said, reaching for the other pocket and again finding nothing. He looked at Dave. "You take my money as a joke?"

"For once, no," said Dave.

"You-don't-have-any-money?" asked Barney. 

"No, I do. Just not on-" he broke off and snapped his fingers. "That girl with the pink hair. I bet you anything she nabbed it when she bumped into me. Dave, you stay here on good faith, I'm going to go get my money back." And with that, he set out to track the girl with pink hair.

*****

It just so happened that Ed was right. The girl with the pink hair had pickpocketed him when she ran into him. In fact, she was rapidly making her way back to the alley she called home. She arrived and immediately began to look through the purse she had stolen from Ed. Her eyes lit up and her jaw dropped to the floor when she counted out one thousand credits. 

"Oh, hell yeah," she muttered. She went to hide the credits in her pile of blankets but was stopped by a voice from behind her.

"Oi, you there. Girl." She turned slowly, worry slowly rising in her chest. Two uniformed Federation soldiers stood before her, blocking the alley exit. Her heart sank.

"Me?" she squeaked, desperately trying and failing to appear calm.

"Yeah, you. What've you got there?" The one on the left gestured to the purse in her hand.

"Oh, th-th-this?" she stammered. "It was a gift from my boyfriend. He likes to give me the finer things."

"And yet you're skulking in an alley?"

"Um...I...uh, like to explore the station. We only got here a few weeks ago." She tried for a chipper smile.

"We saw you take it off that man in the coat." The smile was immediately replaced by a look of fear. 

"Oh God. Oh God. Take it. Just leave me alone." She tried to hand the purse to him but, he threw her off.

"No. We want something different." Her faced scrunched up in confusion.

"What? Information? I don't know anything about anyone." The man grinned lifelessly and looked her up and down.

"You're real pretty, you know that? How old are you?" Her fear returned en-masse.

"S-s-seventeen." The man turned to his friend.

"She's real pretty, ain't she?" His friend nodded.

"Sure is." 

"It's awful lonely out here on the station." He stepped forward and caressed her face. "How bout you keep us company?"

"What? No. Get the hell off me!" she yelled, anger and indignation replacing the fear. The man grabbed her by the wrists.

"Come on! Give us a kiss." 

"Piss off!" She planted a foot in his stomach and kicked him away.

"Oh-ho," he laughed. "We got a fighter."

Suddenly, a new voice rang out in the alley.

"Two, Fed bastards!" And three laser blasts slammed into the back of the kicked man. He fell to the ground, lifeless. His friend whirled around, gun in hand, but the shooter cracked a pistol across his face. He staggered back, blood dripping from his nose. The man who hit him holstered his pistol and grabbed the Fed by the neck. With a primal roar, he lifted the man off his feet and held him to the wall. The man scrabbled at his neck and his feet kicked below him. His efforts grew weaker and weaker until, eventually, he stopped moving.

The girl's savior let go, and the man crumpled to the ground, dead. The girl scrambled back into the alley, away from the man standing above the corpses. He held his hands up at his sides.

"I know you have no reason to trust me, considering you robbed me and I just killed these two guys. But you gotta believe me, I'm your only chance for survival now." He held a hand out to her.

"Why's that?" she asked.

"I'm not sticking around for the repercussions of the murder I just committed and people will have seen them follow you in here. The cameras definitely will have. They'll pin the killing on you and execute you." She grabbed his hand and rose to her feet.

"Who are you?"

"Captain Edward Buck Molon Labe. And yourself?

"Call me Pixie. What does your ship do?"

"We ferry goods. And acquire them from other people." Her eyes widened.

"Do you planet-hop?"

"We do. We're planning on heading out to...somewhere...within the next hour." She smiled mischievously.

"Perfect."

*****

Ed swiftly returned to Barney Bazzadoon's garage to secure his supplies and found that they had already been transported to Molon Labe on the promise of an extra twenty-five credits when the bill was paid. Ed threw his entire sack of credits into the garage, told Barney to keep the change, and sprinted full tilt back to Molon Labe. 

When he arrived, he found Kizzvell waiting to tell him that the supplies had been loaded into the cargo hold and that they could leave at a moment's notice.

"That's great, Kizzvell. 'Cause we need to leave. NOW."

They set off back down the tramway and scrambled through Molon Labe's hatch. Ed immediately went to find Dave. Parsee told him he had gone to sleep, expecting a relaxing two more hours at the station.

Ed threw open the door to Dave's bunk.

"Get us in the air, we're leaving!" he yelled. Dave and one other person rose out of his bed.

"Who's she?" asked Ed.

"She's leaving. Who's she?" asked Dave, gesturing to Pixie.

"She's staying. Get us in the air." The girl in Dave's bed hastily dressed herself and ran out the hatch, blowing a kiss at Dave as she went. Kizzvell slammed shut and sealed the hatch behind her. Dave more or less fell into some pants and hurried to the cockpit. Ed followed suit to man the guns in the copilot's seat.

"So, where'd you find her, Dave?" He looked away from the gun controls over at Dave. Dave appeared to be frantically adjusting random controls on the dashboard.

"She may or may not've been Barney Bazzadoon's sales associate."

"What about Curwa?" asked Ed, pulling the guns' VR targeting system down from the roof.

"Nice girl, but fuzzy and bewhiskered isn't really my type. No offense," Dave said, glancing at Ed's beard.

"She hit me, you know," Ed responded. Dave laughed.

"Points in her favor, mate." A crackle of static came over the comms.

"Condor class transport ship, you are not cleared for takeoff, please return to your docking platform." The same voice from before issued from the speaker. Dave picked up the hand responder.

"Station ZNC-4 Landing Administrator, kindly shove it up your ass."

"Condor, if you continue your present course, we will be forced to open fire." Dave sighed.

"My dog just died and the wife left me. Take your best shot." He turned to Ed. "If you could start shooting things, that would be greatly appreciated." Ed nodded and turned the guns towards the large, sealed door above them. Only the two mounted on Molon Labe's wings could reach. The two on her nose couldn't make the angle. All the same, Ed opened fire.

The large blasts tore through the door like it was nothing and the resulting vacuum ripped the rest of the door off the station and sent it hurtling into space. Dave fired up the ground thrusters and Molon Labe began to lift out of the station dock. As she rose, her windscreen came face to face with the muzzle of a reasonably heavy defense gun. A telltale glow began in the back of its barrel.

"Oh, son of bi-" Ed began.