Chapter 37: Crossing Paths
Lithia quickly made her way back to the sleep chamber and pulled on a long dark blue skirt and matching blouse, before heading to the galley.
When she stepped into the galley, she found Cade sitting stiffly on a short sofa, while the Giant and Aurelius were rummaging around the cupboards for food, like they hadn’t eaten in days.
“I believe you had some questions,” Cade stated without bothering to look up at Lithia.
“Again… Who are you and how did you get on my ship?”
Aurelius turned away from the cupboard, and the rapidly growing pile of snacks he and the giant were building “My name’s Aurelius… Aurelius Blaze.” He lifted his hand out as if to shake, “I’m sorry for the hullabaloo, but me and my buddy Jerula here were in a tight bind when your buddy over here picked us up.”
“Hullabaloo?” Lithia asked.
There was a certain kind of charm in Aurelius’s’ eyes, something that made Lithia want to like him, even though he was on her ship, without her permission, and eating her caramel puffs.;
“Yeah. Hullabaloo. You know. We were in trouble.”
Lithia turned away from Aurelius, not bothering to respond, and for a moment she thought Aurelius looked a little disappointed.
“Cade, how did you get out of hypersleep?” Lithia asked, turning her ire on the person who was really responsible for the situation.
“There’s a series of optronic relays that run along my spine and interface with my central nervous system…”
“You may wanna skip the technobabble,” Aurelius said, “she’s still got the wrench.”
“I connect wirelessly with the Amaranth. Its sensors were feeding me data the whole trip. They woke me up when their hopper sent out a distress call.”
A wash of anger flooded Lithia, one born out of betrayal and distrust as much as just the utter feeling of not being in control of the situation, “How can you… That might have been something you should have mentioned you could do before I agreed to take you on this trip!”
“It wasn’t relevant at the time.”
“The hell it wasn’t! Son-of-a-bitch.”
She must have said the second half of that sentence in Tarranese, as Aurelius and the Giant looked at each other, with matching looks of incomprehension.
“Okay. Fine… Moving past that.” Lithia looked at Aurelius, “What kind of
“Hella-blue’ are you in?”
“Hey you used that right.” Aurelius said.
“What kind?”
“Well…” he murmured hesitantly...
“Might as well tell her the truth,” The giant said.
“We may have been… running from a UPE battleship.”
“Of course… Of fucking course! Why are you running from the UPE?”
“You didn’t mention the UPE in your hail,” Cade interjected expressing the only emotion Lithia had ever seen on him.
“There’s a lot of things you didn’t mention either. I’m on a ship full of liars!” Lithia yelled.
“Why didn’t you say anything about the UPE before?” Cade inquired.
“Didn’t think you’da been so hospitable had I.”
“He’s got trouble with the U.P.E. of his own. If we get pulled over and you guys are a couple of fugitives, we could all be punished,” Lithia said.
“It’s not like that. We were on a diplomatic mission back from Earth when some ship…”
“The Enigma.” the giant said causing everyone in the room to look at him, surprised he knew the vessels name, “What? I was on the bridge when they attacked.”
“Yeah… When the Enigma attacked us, they said they were looking for someone. Then they boarded us and started shooting. Jerula and I hopped in the Storm Chaser and booked it.”
Lithia was confused. All these ship names and stories being flung at her in a language she hadn’t spoken in years was difficult to digest all at once, “What’s a Storm Chaser, or a Jerula?”
“My ship,” Aurelius boasted.
“which?” Lithia asked.
“the storm chaser. The Jerula is the guy eating all the dried plumbs.”
“You two need to leave…. Now...” Cade commanded.
Saying nothing else, Cade stood up and quickly walked back to the cockpit.
“Was it something I said?” Aurelius asked.
“I agree. You two need to get off my ship now. Sooner, if possible.” Lithia said, following him.
Cade punched away at the ship’s controls as Lithia and the others re-entered the bridge.
“Something wrong? Jerula asked, stepping in and taking a seat beside him.
“You don’t understand… You guys need to get out of here. Now!”
Jerula had his eyes fixed on the cockpit’s overlay, “It may be a little too late for that.
“Why?” Lithia asked, trying to look past jerula and resenting that he and Cade had taken over her cockpit.
“Enigma.” Cade said flatly, and a moment later the massive hull of the U.P.E. Enigma filled the viewscreen. angular
“How did we not pick them up on long-range sensors!?” Aurelius yelled.
“Unless you want to look out a window with a pair of binoculars, her ship doesn’t have long-range sensors.” Jerula said.
“They’re deploying grapplers!” Cade shouted.
The Amaranth trembled as grappling clamps fired from the Enigma latched onto the hull, digging their way into the vessels thick armored skin. There was a terrible, metallic, groaning noise that yawned out from seemingly everywhere that was so deep it made Lithia’s teeth vibrate. She knew what this horrible noise meant, they were being boarded and these were the agonising cries of her little ship being harpooned, like a fish, by the U.P.E.
“Why the… ? Who the… ! They didn’t even hail us! What the hell is going on here?” Jerula said.
“Not even a demand to surrender.” Aurelius added.
“They don’t need to. There’s nothing we can do,” Cade added.
“We can run.” Aurelius barked back but Cade shook his head, “We’re already moving at top sub-speed and we can’t engage the sprint drive with those hooks in us.”
“Return fire!” Aurelius yelled back, it sounding more like a question than an order. Cade looked resigned, “We don’t have anything to return fire with.”
The Enigma completely blocked out the starscape outside the cockpit of The Amaranth. It was reeling Lithia’s little cargo hauler in toward a large opening, like a tongue wrapped around its prey, drawing it into the mouth of a great beast.
“That guy they were looking for on your ship,” Cade said, “That guy they were willing to kill to find… I’m him... Take the girl and see if there’s anything in the hold we can use to get those grapplers off us.”
Aurelius nodded before turning to Lithia, “I need your help to try and figure out a way to break free.”
Aurelius grabbed her by the shoulder and began to lead her out of the bridge and into the halls of the ship but she hesitated for a moment before following. Under the top deck of the ship, beneath the galley, main hallway, engine room and sleep pod room was a large hangar, the belly of the craft. As Lithia entered the room, behind Aurelius, she was completely shocked to see his little two seater planet hopper just sitting there in the middle of her ship’s cargo area. It was a terribly violating feeling, like coming home and finding someone else’s car in your garage. This craft, with its four rotating engines and its long wings fitted to the front, didn’t look like a modern hopper but the sort of junkpiles repair shops kept around as loaners and to cannibalize parts from.
At least the scorch marks, reaching up from under the craft from hundreds of atmospheric entries, and the hopper’s overall boxy design gave her that impression. Written on the side of the craft, behind the cockpit were the words; StormChaser. Other than the hopper, the Amarnath’s cargo area was filled with supplies and equipment the Magdalenes had loaded for her to trade on the other side of the gate.
“Help me find something we can use to break us free!” Aurelius shouted.
A series of long metal rods with soft amber lights on the side were fastened to the wall, and lithia pointed to them, not having the word in his language.
“Soap rods.” She attempted.
“Soap? How the hell is soap going to help us!” He exclaimed, hunting around for something.
“S-o-a-p rods!”
Aurelius finally turned his attention to where Lithia was pointing. They were extra fusion rods for the drive core nestled in a wall mounted container, “Oh! Fusion rods!”
Aurelius ran over to them, “I think I can use these!”
He slid one of the two meter long, metallic rods out of its cradle. It was heavy, too heavy for him to carry. “Help me here!” Aurelius shouted.
Lithia ran over and helped Aurelius carry the fusion rod to the back of the Storm Chaser. Aurelius opened a compartment on the back, then slid the rod in.
The Amaranth began to tremble and quake. The noise of metal on metal screeched, as something new started cutting into the hull somewhere above them.
“What is that!?” Lithia asked.
“I know that sound.” Aurelius said, “Means they’re coming in.”
“I need to go get my brother.” Lithia said.
“you need to stay here.” Aurelius said, checking a few things on the storm chacer.
“But my brother is up there. Up there with Cade and whoever is after him.”
“Right now, there is nothing you can do to help. if Jerula and Cade can’t handle it, we’re not going to be all that much help.” Aurelius said.
“Don’t you care? My brother, your friend?” Lithia almost shouted at Aurelius.
“This morning I had three people in this universe who really cared about me, after the attack on my ship, that number fell to one. I want to help Jerula, if i thought there was even a slight chance I could, I wouldn’t still be talking to you.”
“Then why don’t you!?”
“Because I’ve seen what they send out when they think Cade is on a ship. You don’t fight it. When you fight it, you die, all you can do is run. Maybe Cade is dangerous enough to stand up to it, maybe Jerula can help him with that. but I don’t want to be the person who gets in their way.”
On the deck above them, Lithia heard a clang, and knew whatever was coming was finally there. Part of her knew Aurelius was right, part of her knew that cade wouldn’t be worried over the kind of threats a normal person could handle, but all the other parts knew Bobby was up there and she was down here.
Lithia wasn’t really aware she was moving, until she was coming out of the stairwell and heading into the galley , Aurelius close behind her.
“You don’t understand…” he was saying, but when they saw the scene in the galley, he went silent.