Chapter 44

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"What is that smell?"

Quix scrunched her nose up as she stepped over a sleeping human, daintily making her way through the refugees one by one as she followed Maya through the massive, empty cargo hold. Her frame ached from stress and lack of sleep, and the smells of the bloodied, soiled hold were turning her stomach over as she looked at the ragged mass of miserable Obsidian employees. Despite a variety of species and sizes, she could see that not one of them had escaped a little misery. Some leaned against the dented, scarred walls of the hold, staring blankly into space. Others were still curled up on the unpolished metal floor, clinging to the meager blankets that had been handed out.

The Rust, massive as it was, seemed too small to contain so many struggling souls. Its huge steel and titanium belly wasn't meant for passengers. It was meant for the huge cargo containers she'd seen at the space ports, and in the movies.

She sighed, and stretched as she followed Maya down the length of the steel chamber. She tried to offer consoling looks and brief greetings to the others she came to. The smells, the sights, and echoing sounds of coughs and occasional moans through the chamber...

Each weary face pricked her conscience. As she tried to rub the last sleep out of her eyes, her sleepy thoughts reached for solutions, and for compassion.

She'd woken not long ago after a late night, donned her least stained and freshest-smelling clothes, and said hello to Runt as he tried to pry himself out of bed. She'd grabbed a snack bar for breakfast about half an hour ago, and then mindlessly wandered the ship for a while, trying to strike up a conversation or find a task.

The boredom got to her fast. So did the guilt.

Everyone else was busily shuffling tasks around, doing this and that and making themselves useful. Juan was organizing things with the Ghost, Hasse was busy outside checking the hull for damage, and Maya had been cleaning up the hold.

Quix wasn't about to be the only useless one.

So she'd asked Maya if she could help.

The only problem was that she had no idea what she could do.

Quix glanced to her right.

She noticed a crust of dried vomit, and immediately kept herself from inhaling through her nose.

"Uh, looks like somebody lost their lunch."

Maya glanced, and sighed.

"I thought I got all that earlier." She said.

She shook her head, stepping over another sleeping human as she worked her way towards the back of the shuttle.

"You mopped?" Quix asked, raising her brow.

Maya chuckled.

"Nope. Couldn't find a mop on this whole ship. Used a bunch of grease rags from the engineering closet. This deck does need mopped though. And just... cleaned." She said, looking around.

Quix looked around too. She lifted her upper lip in disgust.

She really hadn't given the place a real, through looking-over. But now that she was, she understood the need for a mop. Even before the wounded and star-sick passengers had tarnished the floor, she had to guess that the ship needed cleaned. Now that they'd soiled it, it was a dire need.

And there was a strange, new stench in the air...

A curse rang through the hull.

Quix looked.

Juan was there, kneeling as he let out another string of curses next to an open door.

Quix nudged Maya.

"Maybe we should check that out?"

Maya cringed.

"Yeah... probably so."

A few steps and a wave of reeking odors later, they stood near Juan, too repulsed to come closer.

Juan let out a long, slow breath as he clenched his jaw.

"I... swear..." he hissed, am ambiguous, pungent fluid clinging to his gloves.

"Problems?" Maya asked.

Juan nodded, still grimacing.

"Yep." He said sharply, holding back his temper.

"With the crapper?"

"It's busted." He said. "The reservoir took gunfire. Hasse radioed me a minute ago. There's frozen and scorched crap all over the back of the ship, it's still leaking, and the whole pressure system is alarmed out."

He shuddered, and looked at his gloves with pure scorn.

"I want these off, now, and I want a mechanic in here." He growled.

"We can't fix it?" Quix asked.

Juan gave her an incredulous look.

"You know how to do vacuum mechanics?" He clipped. "Or work a pressure system when it's packed full of explosive shi-"

"She gets it." Maya said back sharply. "We're here to help. What do we need to do?"

"We gotta get that bathroom cleaned up. The whole floor's a wreck. So is the toilet. And the walls. And we need that done fast. There was a line fifteen minutes ago when I started." He said, gesturing to the passengers.

Quix hesitated.

She wanted to help.

But did she want to clean that up?

"Is there a second bathroom people can use?" Quix asked.

Juan started jerking each finger free on his gloves as he replied.

"No." he said through his teeth. "This is a dinky little tub."

Jerk

"It's got half a bathroom as it is."

Jerk

"And even if we get this all clean, it's not functioning."

Jerk

"We can't flush anymore."

Juan pulled both gloves off and slapped them unhappily into a bucket a few steps away.

"This is a wreck." He said. "We'll have to take groups of them to the bathroom. Ugh... I do not have time to babysit. The ghost is having comms issues, and we can't get through to Obsidian because of the radio mast!" He said, his voice rising as he continued. "I am sick of this ship!"

He slammed the door's shut button as he continued.

"I am sick of this crap not working!"

The door stayed open, and an electric motor whined.

Juan shouted and cursed a few times, kicking the wall and slamming his fist against the button again.

Quix took a step back.

She felt her nerves tense as Juan lost his cool, his plumes standing on end.

The door finally shut, and Maya pulled Juan aside, talking to him in quiet tones as he panted and tried to calm down.

That left Quixxa alone with the crowd behind her. She glanced over her shoulder quickly, noticing that most of the passengers were watching the exchange.

They'd overheard, she was sure. The bathroom was out of commission.

For good.

A pang hit her heart. Even in her worst hours, she'd at least had the privacy and comfort of a bathroom.

Quix looked back and forth at the crew. Bedraggled, bleary eyed, their clothes dirtied and their heads hung low. They'd done enough. They'd been through enough. And all of them had plenty on their hands as it was. She knew that there were bound to be a few females on their periods. Some were holding it. Others, as the floor had shown, simply needed to wash.

She made eye contact with one of the humans, a man with vomit still caked on his shirt and a stain on his pants. His skin was ghostly white, a red blot on his shoulder showing where he'd been grazed and lost enough blood to keep him from getting up to relieve himself. Had he even been to the medical bay?

Who'd care for him?

Her heart felt a pang again.

You. You can do it.

The thought hit her like a thunderclap.

She glanced upward.

God? You think I can do that? Is that a good second-chance kinda thing to do?

She didn't get a verbal reply... but something in her heart told her the answer nonetheless.

She had her mission. Runt had his. Now she simply needed to do.

Quix whirled back around, her mind jumping to what she could offer.

She really only had one well-developed skill...

Getting things from others.

Requisitions.

So that would have to do.

"Hey, guys?" Quix said, knocking on the steel beside her.

Juan turned his glare on her, and Maya looked back too.

"I'll handle it." Quix announced, waving her hand flippantly.

Juan and Maya looked at her.

"Huh?"

"I've got it. I've done loads of requisitions before. Remember? I'm a requisitions specialist. I can help them out with bathrooms and all that. You guys take care of yourselves."

"How does requisitions help us?" Juan asked. "We can't just 'requisition' a new reservoir and pressure system."

"No..." Quix said, her Pink Market survival instincts kicking in as he stared her down.

"But I can get a whole new bathroom. I'll get one on the other ship."

She had no idea if she could really do that. But she'd made a promise. And if the Market had taught her one thing, it was how to deliver.

Juan's brow softened.

"You... can do that?"

Maya's brow rose too.

"Freighters are picky about weight limits. They won't want extra waste."

She nodded, conjuring an excuse out of the air.

"They also don't want a biohazard. C'mon, I'll handle it."

"You think you can help out?" Juan asked.

Of course she wanted to help. It was building a skill, and perhaps nurturing a few friendships. It was the right thing to do. It was what she wanted and needed to do.

"Yeah. I got this."

Juan glanced at Maya, his face softening further.

"I mean... if you can help... what else you think you can get?"

Quix glanced behind her, taking quick stock of the passengers.

"Ok, so... we're gonna need rooms. Bunks at least." She said, starting to number things off on her fingers.

"Need new clothes too, and food."

She furrowed her brow.

"Who's gonna pay for all that stuff?" She asked, turning towards Juan.

Juan's lips parted, and he uncrossed his arms slowly.

"Uhhhh... Obsidian's responsibility. Here, let me get you a credit slip. You've worked with requisitions before, you said?"

She nodded.

"Yeah, for years."

Juan shrugged.

"Well, Runt vouches for you, and that's good enough for me. I'm hiring you as a contractor, flat fee. How does three-hundred credits for the week sound?"

Quix had to suppress the urge to let her jaw gape.

"I-uh, that's... perfect." She said, a bit dazzled. "Perfect."

Juan exhaled.

"Ok, good. We're in a f-" He paused, and censored himself as Maya gave him a look. "In a pinch. I'm glad we can count on you. I'll go get that credit slip, and write you up for three hundred. I might need a bit more information from you, you know, for the paperwork."

He gestured for her to follow.

"C'mon, I'll get you plugged into the system."

Quix glanced at Maya, trying to suppress her smile, her joy, as it sank in that she might just be getting her first real job. She wanted to tell everyone, to celebrate.

She just had to hold it in. Just for a little while. She could celebrate with Runt later.

About two minutes later, she stood next to Juan as he sat at one of the computer terminals in the ship while he tapped away at one of the screens, entering a little information as he chattered at her about the problems and the stench he'd endured. She just nodded and agreed mindlessly, thinking ahead to how, exactly, she'd fulfill her promises.

"So, I will need your papers." Juan said as he added the final keystrokes to a document. "Then we're all finished up."

Quix smiled and nodded.

Then her brain processed the request.

Her heart jolted.

Papers...

Her Identification. Her new life.

"Oh, uh, I've got those in my backpack. Hold on." She said, feeling her nerves rise as she turned and marched to another bulkhead, ducking into her room.

What if they look fake? What if they're too new?

Oh crap...

She swallowed.

What if they know?

She had to force her thoughts into silence.

Quixxa unzipped the backpack and dumped the contents on her bed, her eyes shooting across the contents as they tumbled out. A spare shirt, the wrinkled poster, a pair of decoy wallets...

The gleam of the little plastic box caught her eye, and she seized it.

Ok... ok... please be in here...

She popped open the little box, a burst of sterile smelling air hitting her in the nose as she sorted through the information.

Ok, I.D. Card, uh... paperwork... paperwork...

She found another little card, missing her picture, but littered with long, complex numbers.

Gotta be it. She thought.

She shoved her pardon, and the rest of the information, back into the box and snapped it shut while tucking the cards between her lips. Panic roared at the back of her mind, screeching that she was about to be discovered, about to be found out, mere moments away from being beaten to death by a vengeful mob that unearthed her history.

Yet, she stood up. She put her feet under her, pulled the cards from her lips and whispered a prayer. She clenched them flat against her palm, looking back at the open bulkhead and silently dreading Juan's scrutiny.

So what if the cards were real? So what if they'd been administered by Pathmos? What if she said the wrong thing, or answered improperly? She knew how to navigate the Pink Market.

She was entirely unfamiliar with civil society.

That, however, was not going to stop her.

Quix inhaled and pushed herself forward, clenching her teeth a little as she stepped over the bulkhead and turned right, laying her eyes on Juan as he hunched over a desk and pecked at the display.

He didn't bother to glance back.

"Got your papers?"

Quix drummed her fingers on the cards, not stopping as she marched towards him. Her confident façade hadn't broken. At least, not yet.

"Yeah, at least I got my cards." She said. "These be enough?"

She held out her hand, and Juan glanced back.

He reached behind him, and without a second thought, snapped them up and laid them crisply on the desktop beside him.

Quixxa's heart nearly stopped. Adrenaline trickled into her blood like paralyzing poison, making her heart beat harder while it locked her feet to the floor. Without a sound, without so much as a tic of her face, Quixxa watched with her arms crossed and her breath held. Quite literally. Her lungs burned as she watched Juan glance back and forth, tapping at the display as he shuffled her cards and turned one of them over.

"Huh..." Juan said, picking up her I.D. and lifting it into the air.

"Haven't seen this before."

Quixxa felt her whole body jolt like she'd been hit. A cold wave of terror ran across her skin. She hid the reaction.

Juan looked back at her, one eyebrow lifted.

"I heard the new holograms were cool, but I didn't know they were this detailed." He said, handing the card back. "Pathmos hasn't issued me a new one yet. Supposed to get it next month."

The weight of the world fell off Quixxa's shoulders, and her façade shattered as a very real, very relieved smile split her lips. She chuckled a little as well, probably too much, and took the card from Juan.

"I think that pretty much takes care of it." He said, picking up her other card.

Quix cocked her head.

"That's it?"

Juan nodded, extending the card.

"Yeah, out here it is. Normally, we'd need to do a bunch of tax related paperwork. But... this is space. Technically we're in New Medina's orbital range, but I don't think anybody will care since they just tried to kill us. So no taxes this time."

Quix took the card and managed a little more of a smile.

"So... that's it? I've got the job?"

Juan nodded.

"You've got the job."

The words rang in her ears as Juan thanked her, and left.

You've got the job.

Once Juan had walked out of the room, Quixxa let her jaw drop. She wasn't sure if she ought to jump for joy, or shed a few tears. She was torn between staring at the new life in her hands, and bolting off to find Runt and share the news. Her emotions, long underused aside from hate, were throbbing.

She simply stood there, tail limp, looking at the cards and then at the display on the desk, her name emblazoned on the screen alongside a new title, the sort she could get used to:

Quixxa V., Requisitions spec., subcontracted to Obsidian as quartermaster.

She just stared for what seemed like a few minutes.

The new information was dawning on her.

Huh...

She broke a little smirk.

I got a job.

~

The quiet groan of ion engines, the tug of slightly-too-weak artificial gravity, and the peaceful thrum of the background music he'd put on greeted Runt as he sat on his bunk, rubbing his eyes and glancing at his computer. Around him, bottle and wrappers still lay scattered from he and Quix's late night of gaming, and his datapad still played the ambient track he slept to.

He yawned.

Time to get to work. He thought, wishing he could have a few more minutes. He was ready to face the day, as much as he wished he could stay in bed.

He had analysis to do, and since he'd set up a program on a shipboard computer to do some work on it the night before, there would already be a few results to comb through. He'd received some encrypted data from Osterman shortly after their call the day before, and Runt had already carefully erased every trace of it before putting the data into his files.

Runt rubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands again. After the much-needed alcohol shower the day before, his skin was as soft as it had been in months.

After a moment of rummaging, he found his pants and slipped them on, accidentally slipping his tail through the leg hole once or twice as he rotated them and searched for his shirt.

He found it and picked it up for a sniff test.

Ugh...

He recoiled, holding it away from his nose.

Time to change.

A few minutes and a trip to the ship's general lockers later, and Runt was outfitted with a new shirt, grey, soft, and painted with the Obsidian logo. His pants had come off too, replaced with a standard pair of Springer shorts, Obsidian's logo on his thigh.

Runt plodded into the cockpit a minute or two after that with a cup of alcohol based coffee, chilled to freezing. Frost formed on the ceramic mug in his hand as he yawned again and stood underneath the air filter port, enjoying the chilly, fresh air while he waited for the computer systems to boot up.

"Morning Runt." Hasse said, ducking into the cockpit and grabbing a toolkit from the wall. He was wearing his EVA suit, and had a welding visor attached to the side of his helmet. "Got big plans for today?" he asked.

Runt shrugged and took a sip of his coffee.

"Just tinkering. I might wander around the freighter a bit."

The Kavera nodded his approval.

"Let me know if you find anything cool. I could go for some shore leave once I'm done with a few repairs."

Runt nodded also, and watched as his heavily-furred friend chugged out of the room like a soft-hearted freight train.

About then, the computer lit up.

There you are. He thought, almost affectionately. He took a few steps forward, and sat in the third seat, the navigator's chair, and connected his datapad. He keyed in a password, and brought up his hidden program from somewhere deep in the subsystems.

Data instantly poured over the screen.

He knew almost all of what he was looking at right away.

Lines of numbers, call signs, designations, flight paths, transponder numbers, and even unidentified object

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