FSE

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formerly SoFurry search engine

Chapter

Six

Only In Dreams

"You should try to get some rest, bro-bro," Gael Aech told Kiole as they lifted off from Morgomite City. In front of them the whole of the view port was filled by sickly yellow and green clouds of ammonia, which swirled in titanic storms in the upper atmosphere of Chrilon 5.

"How long until we can make hyperspace?" Kiole asked.

"It will be being a while," Gael Ewhele answered, after checking the navigational display. "First we must be leaving the planet's gravity well, then we need to be getting to the other side of the asteroid field," he explained.

"Yeah, I suppose that'll give me enough time to catch a short nap."

He ducked through the cockpit hatch and made his way aft to where the crew compartments were. Most beings felt no discomfort or motion sensitivity in hyperspace, due to the artificial gravity and inertial dampeners used aboard most modern spacecraft. Kiole, however, always felt a slight bit of temporal flux, which kept him from ever falling completely asleep. Back in his days spent with the Hegemonic Armed Forces, the military doctors told him it was likely due to some residual psychic sensitivity that he had inherited from his Niäsan father. The military would always give him medication that knocked him right out, but nowadays Kiole could seldom afford the drugs.

He walked slowly down the Sunhorse's main corridor, as his nearly photographic memory inundated his mind with images, sounds, and feelings from when he had crewed aboard the Sunhorse a few years ago. He paused at the access ladder to where the ship's dorsal turret had been, gripping one of the rungs loosely as he looked up at the hatch. It was still welded shut, the brothers had never bothered to replace it after she had been killed.

He moved on, towards the small crew quarters just beyond the secondary cargo holds. There were six crew compartments, three on either side of ship. The one theyhad shared was the last on the port side, just ahead of the ship's tiny medical bay. The closed hatch seemed to beckon him, but Kiole didn't go near it, instead opting for one of the vacant berths, sandwiched in the middle, between his old quarters and the two forward ones, which were each occupied by one of the Gael brothers.

He peeled off his trench coat and gun holsters, tossing them onto the small desk in the compartment before flopping down on the bed and prying off his boots. He eased himself back on the mattress and flicked off the light switch, trying to force the memories out of his consciousness so that he could sleep.

Her hand took hold of his, pulling his arm tighter around her. Kiole responded, bringing his other arm up underneath her and pulling her even closer, so that their bodies were almost fused together. Her soft hair brushed against his nose, and he inhaled the light, flowery scent of the perfume she always wore.

{"Mmmmm..."} she whispered, {"I could stay like this forever..."}

Kiole leaned in and kissed her softly on the shoulder. As his lips touched her skin though, he felt the cold. He opened his eyes and saw how pale her skin had become, all of the color having been drawn out.

{"You're freezing, sweetheart,"} he said worriedly, and turned her over to face him.

Her eyes were cloudy and vacant, bereft of life. Her arm dangled limply over her side and down her back.

Kiole awoke with a start, shooting strait up in his bunk. He banged his head on the low ceiling over the mattress, and then promptly fell out of the bed as he rolled over clutching his head.

"Fuck!!!" he screamed.

As he lay there on the floor, clutching his head, he started to sob uncontrollably. It was not from the pain of his bump on the head, which had already evaporated, that he cried. It had been more than two and a half years since she had been killed, and he still thought about her every second of every day, and saw her face every time he closed his eyes to sleep.

He lay on the floor, in the dark, for hours, wishing he could just forget.

"Invalid request, please restate," the ticket bot said in its annoyingly cheerful voice. The fist-shaped dents on the bot's metal casing evidenced that not everyone shared its sunny disposition.

"For the fifth time, you damned bucket of bolts, I want a friggin' ticket for the next friggin' flight, into the friggin' Hegemony!"

"I'm sorry," the bot replied happily, "but the syntax of your request is unknown to me. Please restate by destination and departure time."

"The Martian Hegemony, next available flight!" Kiole growled through clenched teeth.

"Invalid request, please restate."

"Arrrggghhh!!!" Kiole lost his temper and threw his fist into the aluminum chassis of the bot, adding another dent to its pock-marked surface. He wasn't the first being to take issue with this particular automaton. The blow triggered the bot's reset protocols, and it started its sales pitch all over again, "Klaknari Kahsh Dikak Chamakree va jiman du jibi di! Zubatan du vamkral gomi di?" The bot cheerfully asked in its default language, Klaknari.

"Bot, speak Martian!" Kiole angrily ordered it.

"Thank you for choosing Klaknari Galactic Conglomerate Spacelines! How may I be of service to you today?" the bot reiterated its previous statement, this time in the Human standard language.

"Alright," Kiole muttered to himself, "Let's try a different approach."

"I'm sorry, but I do not understand the syntax of your request, please restate," the bot replied to Kiole's statement.

He growled, but calmed himself before continuing. "Cancel request," he ordered.

"Request canceled. Awaiting next request."

"Bot, begin index search."

"Initializing index search, please wait..." the bot stared blankly ahead for a few moments as it processed Kiole's request. "Search mode ready, please define parameters."

"Bot, list all departing flights."

"Processing request, please wait..." Again, the bot stared blankly as it compiled a list of all of the day's departing flights. "Flight 0489, destination: Rworraarm, Rurr'Mro'Rular, departs 04:37 hours; Flight 0573, destination: Jeema Noonga Orbital Way Station, departs 06:35 hours; Flight 0585, destination: Nara, Hirratta City, departs 06:27 hours; Flight 0..."

"Bot, cease audio!"

The ticket bot ended its vocal recitation of the flight list, but continued to display the list on the video screen mounted in its chest.

"Bot, enter filter one; list only flights departing within the next 30 minutes."

The screen cleared and a considerably shorter list took its place. However, it was still too long for Kiole's liking.

"Bot, enter filter two; list only flights with destinations inside the Martian Hegemony."

The screen cleared again, this time only a single entry appeared.

"Hmmm..." Kiole muttered to himself, "I guess it'll have to do." He looked at the clock on the wall behind the bot. "Five minutes... I can just make it! Bot, new request!" he ordered with renewed enthusiasm.

"How may I be of service?" the bot cheerily asked. Unlike Kiole, it had a never ending supply of enthusiasm.

"Gimme one ticket for Flight... 4583," he said, reading the information off the bot's chest, "Destination: Kethelon City, Eechen. Departs 22:13 hours."

"Processing request..." The bot waited only a few seconds before adding, "What class passage would you like to book, sir?"

Kiole pulled out the wad of credits he had stuffed into his pocket back at the bar on Chrilon 5C. "It's gonna have to be fourth class," he announced. He could have afforded a higher class ticket, but the rest of his money was in Martian Dollars, and he didn't have time to get it exchanged. Fourth class would put him in mostly with non-Humans, but that never particularly bothered Kiole. He had grown up with non-Humans on a colony world at the edge of the Martian Hegemony, and therefore did not have the same prejudices towards non-Humans that most Martians did.

"Processing request..." the bot waited a few seconds before spitting the ticket out of a printer set beneath the video screen in its chest. "Thank you for flying Klaknari Galactic Conglomerate Spacelines! That will be..."

"Thanks, keep the change," Kiole cut the ticket bot off as he dropped the hole fistful of credits in front of it, grabbed the ticket, and then sprinted for the boarding area.

"Have a pleasant trip, sir!" the bot happily called after him as it began to sort the credits and load them into its internal safe.

Kiole crawled into his bunk and closed the sliding door, sealing himself up in the tube-shaped, coffin-like enclosure. He dimmed the lights, and tried to sleep, it would be several hours while the passenger liner's slow sub-light engines brought it to the edge of the Obantin star system, where it could engage its hyperdrive. It would then be another few hours in hyperspace before it reached the KGC's jump gate for this sector. There it could instantaneously pass through and transit to the Eechena sector. Fortunately, the gate for the Eechena sector was in the Fiai system, where Kiole's final destination, the planet of Eechen, was located.

"So, OK then, buddy, here is the ship," the Aeripan said proudly as they stepped into the sunlight pouring through the open roof of the docking pit. He was a nice enough person, but his Martian was fairly unintelligible.

I'll have to pick up Aeripan if I'm going to be working with these guys,Kiole thought.

"So you want job, Kiole Enkal?" the Aeripan asked.

"Yeah, I'll fly with you, see how it goes. And you can call me Kiole," he added, "and you're... Aech? And you're brother was Ewhele, right?"

"Gael_Aech,_ Gael Ewhele," he emphasized their preceding surname. "Always with Aeripans say both names. All the time, always, clan name and person's name. Mega-important, Kiole. Family is mega-important to Aeripans," he explained.

"Right. Sorry, it won't happen again," he apologized.

"Is alright, buddy. You learn about us, we learn about you, yes?. OK, so let's see inside ship..." he started to guide Kiole towards the sleek vessel, but was interrupted by a soft feminine voice calling from inside the open hatchway.

"Echu... Echu, koé na me ástae ara ven dae o?" the woman asked in Aeripan as she walked down the gangplank out of the ship. Kiole's jaw nearly dropped when he saw her. She had loose curls of chocolate brown hair dangling down past her shoulders. Two large, almond-shaped, crystal blue eyes were set perfectly in her soft, rounded face. She wore no cosmetics from what Kiole could see, and only the natural muted red hue of her full lips, and the creamy color of her skin graced her face. She stopped abruptly when she saw Kiole standing with Gael Aech, and leaned her tall, slender frame against one of the retracting struts of the gangplank.

"Who's that?" Kiole managed to blurt out as he locked his own gaze with hers, becoming entranced by her.

"That is sister, Gael Kersena."

As if echoing his thoughts, the woman asked, "Echu, umtrata na dandrae o?"

" Trata na 'Kiole Enkal' aego dandrae," Gael Aech replied to her.

She smiled, revealing a perfect set of gleaming white teeth. "Kaesoé, Kiole Enkal," she waved before heading back up the gangplank. She turned and smiled again just before her head disappeared inside the ship.

"She no speak good Martian, like me, buddy," Gael Aech said.

Definitely have to learn Aeripan, Kiole thought.

Kiole snapped awake as the starliner shifted into hyperspace. Fortunately the tiny bunk was equipped with a restraint field meant to prevent injury if the ship's inertial dampeners were to fail. This time, it prevented Kiole from banging his head again, as he had done aboard the Sunhorse. He slid open the door of his bunk and crawled out.

The one advantage to his sensitivity to hyperspace travel was that he was usually awake when everyone else was asleep, and therefore able to make use of the ship's facilities while he had them all to himself. The first thing Kiole did was head to the ship's purser and exchanged some of his Martian dollars into the galactic credits accepted by the KGC. He then headed to the communal shower facility that his fourth class ticket gave him access to. Not only would Kiole have the luxury of showering alone at this hour, but this early after a stop at a planetary body, there would still be fresh water for use. By the end of the voyage, those choosing to bathe would do so in the recycled waste water of Kiole and the other early-bird passengers. Kiole threw his clothes into a laundry bot along with a few credits while he cleaned the grit and grime off of himself. He hadn't had the time to bathe aboard the Sunhorse, and most of his stay on Chrilon 5C had been in a cheap hotel that didn't have grooming facilities.

With the funk washed off of him, and his clothes neatly cleaned and pressed by the laundry bot, Kiole felt like a new man. He decided to have a few pints to pass the time. His fourth class berth wouldn't let him into the starliner's upper lounge, so he headed for the secondary lounge, which was meant for lower class passengers and off-duty crew members of the ship.

There were only a few beings in the lounge at this hour, and Kiole slid into a booth in one of the back corners. A Bemoi, one of the ship's mechanics Kiole judged by his coveralls, was telling jokes to some of his fellow off-duty crew members from a small stage. There was only a single Klaknari bartender on duty. He was leaning over the bar counter, listening to the primate's stand-up routine. When the Bemoi finally got to the punch line, which earned only a few chuckles, the Klaknari bartender noticed Kiole, and came over to take his order.

"What can I get for ya?" the avian bartender asked.

"I'll take a beer, you got Stevemeister?" Kiole asked for the nearly universal Martian brew.

"Nah, just KGC brands," the Klaknari nodded his head, which in his culture indicated a negative.

"Hmmm... I guess I'll take a Comet Light then."

"Sure thing, most Humans find it palatable," the bartender reassured him, "Anything else?"

"Guess you don't have Mars Bros, huh?" Kiole asked about the Martian brand cigarettes.

"Sorry, just KGC products."

"Quasars just don't taste right," Kiole referred to the KGC's major brand. "I guess that'll be it then," Kiole smiled.

As the bartender walked back to get Kiole's drink, a seductive, familiar voice spoke from behind him, "You should really quit anyway, Enkal. It's a filthy habit."

Kiole looked up to see a lithe Dantrithan woman sliding into the opposite side of the booth. "Timora?" Kiole asked cautiously, "You ain't here after me are you?"

"I've been after you for years, Kiole," she cooed, "The problem is you never let me catch you." Her glowing, neon-green eyes, and hair dyed to match stood in stark contrast to her indigo skin. All Dantrithans had dark skin tones, mostly coal-black, from evolving in the intense radiation of a star system with three suns. Timora "Viper" Offen was from an ethnic sub group that had bluish tones instead. After her days in the Hegemonic Armed Forces where she had met Kiole, Viper had gone on to become quite a successful and well known bounty hunter, mercenary, and weapons designer. She had designed and sold the rights of her signature heavy-caliber machine pistol to the Martian weapons manufacturer, Olympus Mons, for quite a bit of money. Kiole was the only one who ever called her by her given name, owing to their days spent together in the military.

"So what's a high-class lady like you doing down here? Rich and famous gal like you should be able to afford better."

"Meh," Viper shrugged and leaned back laying her long legs up on the table, "I got a first class ticket, but the company's better down here," she winked at Kiole, "Besides, you never know, I may run across a bounty I can collect on my way back to the Hegemony."

"Anything for you, madame?" the Klaknari bartender interrupted as he brought Kiole his beer.

"Hmmm..." she thought for a moment, "I'll take a glass of yuta tree nectar."

"Seriously, are there any contracts out on me?" Kiole continued, "I haven't checked the boards on the net recently."

"Not that I saw, last time I looked. I don't think you've pissed off anyone that much since you were crewing with the Gael clan," Viper chuckled.

"Yeah," Kiole laughed in agreement. Back when he used to smuggle and engage in occasional piracy with the Gael brothers and their sister, they had a bad habit of incurring the ire of the wrong people.

"You seen them recently?" Viper asked.

"Yeah, they dropped me off back at Obantin Prime. You don't have a bounty to collect on them, do you?" He raised an eyebrow as he sipped his beer.

The bartender brought over Viper's drink and she took a sip before answering, "Nah, they're your friends, so they're mine too," Viper smiled, "Besides they've been keeping out of trouble since Gael Kersena..." she broke off when she saw Kiole look away at the mention of the Gael brother's late sister, who was also Kiole's late wife.

She slid over closer to him, and laid her hand over Kiole's fist, which was clenched tightly around his beer glass. "I'm sorry," she apologized softly, "I had forgotten you two had gotten married."

"S'alright" Kiole mumbled and took another swig of his beer.

"So...," Viper quickly changed the subject, "Looks like I'm stuck on this ship till we get to Eechen with no bounties to collect. Want me to do some maintenance on your equipment?"

Kiole shook his head, "My pistols are locked up in the ship's armory. I don't have a license to carry in the Corridor."

"Who said I was talking about your guns, Enkal?" she retorted with a coy grin, and stroked his arm.

Kiole chuckled, and sipped his beer to hide his embarrassment. "You're nothing, if not persistent, Timora, I'll give you that."

Kiole and Viper continued to talk and reminisce about old times as they watched and listened to the amateurs that performed on the lounge's tiny stage. After what seemed like an eternity, the ship finally exited hyperspace and queued up to pass through the sector's point-to-point jump gate at the Moril system.

Kiole and Viper staggered out of the lounge, Kiole feeling as if his sheer exhaustion didn't put him to sleep, the alcohol would. Kiole started to head for his bunk in the fourth class dormitory, when Viper drunkenly grabbed his arm.

"Ssshhhure I can't interessshht you in coming back to my cabin?" she asked with slurred speech and dim eyes.

Kiole took her hand and held it for a minute, "I can't, Timora... It just... It still hurts, ya know?" he said referring to his late wife.

"Hmmph," she pouted, but then cracked a drunken grin, "Gael Kerssshhhena wassshhh a lucky girl. But jussshhht remember, Enkal," she drunkenly jabbed her finger at his chest, "There'ssshh a reasshhhon I'm the bessshht bounty hunter..." she paused for a moment, as her alcohol-soaked neurons struggled to fire, "I alwaysshh get my man... and you're no diff'rent."

With that she stumbled off down the corridor, bracing herself against the bulkhead as she went. Kiole walked slowly in the opposite direction, fighting his own drunkenness, until he finally reached his bunk, and sealed himself inside just as the ship transited through the gate into the Fiai system. As the ship traveled at sub-light speed to Eechen, Kiole tried to get a few more hours of sleep, hoping the alcohol would keep his memories suppressed.