3

After waiting a few minutes, it didn't appear that the captain, or Lap, were returning. It was the strangest captivity she had ever found herself in and she began to wonder whether she was a prisoner at all. She waited another few minutes, just to be certain, then, pushing her glasses back up her nose (surprisingly undamaged), she stepped out of the brig's door.

When the captain and Lap failed to jump out at her, accusing her of escaping, she made tentative steps along the corridor. Along the way, she saw a few open doors, one leading to a kitchen that she felt certain some kind of new and deadly life-form could have easily spawned into being. The kitchen, to put it mildly, was filthy. The crew quarters she passed looked almost as bad, as though people had lived there, filled it with junk and moved on to different, cleaner quarters rather than take care of the space they had once occupied.

Except for one, which had nothing in it, apart from a bed with no mattress. Or bedding of any kind. She poked her head inside and saw nothing. She had the vague idea that this was where the two-dimensional being, Lap, resided. The other rooms she didn't want to think about. At least the brig had looked relatively clean.

She recognised the stylings of the ship, though. Galactic Navy, if she had ever seen one, and she had seen her fair share of Galactic Navy ships in her time. After her capture, she had had to suffer long, interminable bouts of ferrying between her pre-trial prison and the court planet. For whatever reason, the two places were lightyears apart. Probably to make the lives of prisoners even more insufferable.

Up ahead, she heard voices. Well, one voice and the crinkling, crackling, tearing sounds that Lap used to communicate. The two appeared to be having a heated discussion. About her and, for some reason, Russian nesting dolls. Russia, of course, had gone the same way as the rest of the Earth-That-Was, in that it had boiled away into nothingness hundreds of years before. Or so the stories told.

"Well, I think it's a perfect analogy. You just have no imagination." The captain waved away Lap's concerns as Demi peeked around the open doorway, then made an adjustment on the console before him. "We sit tight, let it all blow over and then the real fun can begin. It'll be fine. Relax. Fold yourself into a crane or something."

Demi slid around the frame of the doorway, keeping her back to the wall, ready to raise her hands should the captain realise she had invaded his bridge. She could see that wicked looking blaster dangling in a holster from his hip and he hadn't seemed too afraid to use it, back in the bar. Thinking about the bar brought back memories of the carnage wrought there.

All those dead bodies. Customers that Demi had only moments before served with drinks, swatted away pawing hands, claws and tentacles, laughed and joked with them. People she knew. Regulars who had known about her past but didn't care. Her boss! Gone! Demi began to slide down the wall, clutching at her chest with one hand, covering her mouth with the other.

"They're all dead." The words tumbled from her mouth and the captain wheeled his seat around to face her. "All of them. Because of me. Because you came to that bar for me."

"In my defence, I ..." The captain stopped, thought about it for a second and glanced towards Lap. Lap rustled at him. "I'm always gentle! Look, Demi, I have no defence. Elbows got knocked, fists were raised, blasters blasted. These things happen. But what's important is that I'm not injured and you're now free to help me. Win-win."

Lap rustled and crackled in furious tones for a good few seconds. All the while, the captain nodded thoughtfully, shook his head in derision, rolled his eyes in petulance and then, finally, turned away from Lap, scowling. Lap moved towards Demi, bending in half and offering her their flat hand, making soft, comforting crinkling noises. Demi tried to connect her implant to the Gal-Net to translate the Planeian's words, but connected to nothing. The only 'network' she could sense was the fake one, back in the brig.

"There's no network. None. This is a Galactic Navy ship, they're all connected to Gal-Net as a matter of course, for navigation, communication, multi-player gaming, but there's nothing." She took the offered hand from Lap and rose to her feet, looking towards the bridge's consoles, noting the dangling wires and circuit boards decorating the floor. "You've ripped every network and AI out of this ship. Why? Are you even Gal-Navy? How can you possibly navigate?"

"With style, panache and a lot of brain work." The captain spun his seat back around to face the forward view-screen, leaning his elbow on the arm rest and posing, one eyebrow raised in a terrible impression of seriousness. "Just like the good old days. Flying by the seats of our pants. Being mavericks, or gooses (geese?), whatever. And, no, I'm not a Galactic flag jockey. I'm ... freelance."

"In a Gal-Navy corvette? How did you ever get on board one, let alone fly it?" She recognised the class of ship, now. She had once entertained the idea of serving, devoured everything she could read or watch about the Navy, but that was before. "I need to know, Captain, if you really are a captain, who are you and why have you kidnapped me?"

"First, I am a captain, but you can call me Frisson, or Friss, or 'Sir'. I prefer 'Sir'. As for this baby ..." Friss patted the armrest of the captain's chair as he spun it, once again, to face Demi, ignoring the crackling sounds from Lap. "I found it. In a Naval yard. And, yeah, it was, kind of, locked, but they clearly wanted someone to borrow it."

"Boulders." With Friss in full-flowing lie mode, Demi doubted he'd hear her warning, so she shouted it while pointing towards the view-screen. "Boulders!"

"No, it's true. Mostly." The captain, Friss, seemed completely unaware of anything that wasn't about him, even missing the insistent crunching sounds from Lap. "I'll give it back as soon as I get my own ride back, which is where you come in."

"No, I mean big boulders. Asteroids. Comets. Whatever they are. Look!" Demi jumped forward, gripping the armrest of the captain's seat and spinning it to face the view-screen. When Friss' head stayed looking at her, frowning, she gripped his jaw, turning his head to the oncoming threat. "The Auto-Nav should have kicked in, but you've ripped it all out, you idiot!"

With a sigh, Friss swatted away Demi's hand from his face. He stood, sauntered towards the navigation console and lowered himself into the seat with far more dignity than anyone ever needed to show. For anything. Then, his fingers began to dance across the console, flicking old, analogue switches, which were considered redundant centuries ago, twisting knobs and adjusting thumbsticks.

Demi was not one to be impressed easily, but she couldn't fail to drop her jaw in admiration at the piloting skills of the man who had kidnapped her after slaughtering everyone she considered a friend, or, at least, conversational acquaintances. The ship moved between several, huge pieces of rock that tumbled and rolled through the space outside, crashing into one another, altering their directions, giving ever-changing ways for the ship to become nothing more than a oil-stained patch of salvage on their surfaces.

It wasn't an asteroid field, that much Demi felt certain about. Most asteroid fields were basically empty space with a few million, or so, asteroids no closer than a few hundred thousand kilometres between them. These masses of planetary material were right on top of each other. Then, in the course of Friss' perfect, erratic piloting, Demi saw the surface of a planet slide across the view-screen, followed by a flash view of the remains of a moon, broken, falling apart. Friss had piloted them right in the middle of the debris of a dead moon.

"Almost got it. Little more ..." One, particularly large, chunk of debris started to come closer, or Friss piloted the shop closer. Either way, the debris now filled the view-screen. "Little more ... and, boom! We are now hidden from any prying eyes. See, this moon had a uniquely varied set of minerals that, when exploded, could provide cover from any kind of tracking, space-dar, laser tracing. Everything. No-one can see us here."

"Wait. So, this moon only provides that cover because it was blown up?" Demi didn't want to ask, but she couldn't help herself. Something made the words fall from her mouth. "Did you blow up a moon just so you could hide?"

"Well, yeah. Who wouldn't? It's not like the moon was actually doing anything. Maybe it wanted to be blown up? I don't know." Friss shrugged his shoulders, frowning, his mouth downturned as though it was all so simple and easy to understand. "But now we can discuss the job, your payment, possibility of future jobs and a mutually beneficial working arrangement. In peace. It's good, right?"

Demi felt woozy. Not only had this man caused the deaths and countless injuries, back at the bar, but he had put her freedom, her very existence on the line by dragging her into all this. She couldn't survive another lifetime of twenty-first century suburban banality. She simply couldn't. Then, to learn he had blown up an entire moon, only to use as a hiding place, it had caused her mind to fritz.

She stumbled through the doorway of the bridge, using the walls of the corridor for support. She passed the crew quarters, both the sparse, empty one of Lap's, and the filthy, mess-encrusted ones that she felt certain Friss had used, abused and abandoned. She retched at the smell coming from the kitchen and, finally, reached the brig.

A quick examination of the panel and she knew what she had to do. She pressed the appropriate switch and entered the cell where she had first found herself. After the set number of seconds, the force field buzzed into life and Demi sat upon the thin bench, lifting up her feet and hugging her knees to her chest. She hadn't asked for any of this madness and didn't want any part of it.

For the first time since the start of the fight at the bar, Demi allowed her emotions free rein, letting the tears run like rivers down her cheeks.