Chương 4: Meet and Greet

"Are you kidding? No…." The man, a long-haired solid slab of muscle adorned in a stained grey jumpsuit that seemed only to barely contain him, stared at Doc with a mixture of despair and annoyance.

"Why do I have to have a new Jumper helping me? They're always bad at everything!"

"So, you should be evenly matched," Kyra smirked, leaning against the crew mess bulkhead, mug in hand.

"Besides, Jumpers aren't bad at everything, it's just they're average at almost everything."

"I'm right here, you know." Felix rubbed his face, elbows propped on the table, long enough to accommodate up to eight people. Once Heigel had left, Doc had given him the opportunity to finally escape from the bright orange pressure suit and the skin-tight cooling layer beneath. Realizing he'd been dressed in nothing else, a quick request to Doc had led to Kyra delivering bag two from where he'd left it, hanging off the interior wall of the capsule.

The jumpsuit inside was bright blue, adorned with several patches held on with hook-and-loop tape. At the left shoulder, a flag with alternating red and white stripes and a blue starfield in the corner. The left breast sported a rectangular patch breast featuring a set of wings and another piece of his identity: Commander Conway. On the right breast, a round starfield was orbited by a white oval, and a red arc cut across and behind the white-lettered NASA in the center.

Finally, the right shoulder featured a fourth patch, another circle, this one adorned with the silhouette of his space capsule pointing up, toward a four-pointed star. Around the top perimeter of the patch arced the words 'HORIZON'S EDGE,' and at the bottom, 'PATHFINDER – M03'. Felix stared hard at the patches, but the ache in his head only intensified. The pieces were there, but refusing to fit into their places, each one slipping out of his grasp like a wet bar of soap.

He donned the blue jumpsuit that marked him as an outsider but was immediately presented with another issue. The pressure suit's boots had been integrated, and somehow, he knew there wouldn't be any proper shoes inside the capsule. A ship like Magpie, which seemed to look and operate much like one would expect of something in an ocean rather than space, was no place for stocking feet and he made the concern known immediately to Doc.

In turn, Doc took a look at Felix's feet, made a few noises while staring into the empty space Felix had begun to associate with System windows, and disappeared into a storage closet. It took several minutes, but Doc eventually emerged victorious, a pair of running shoes in near-enough size in hand—his own seldom-used pair.

The issue of footwear settled and after a final test to make sure Felix wasn't just going to pass out again, Doc led him into the crew mess and had him sit at the table, where he was now having to listen to a grown man whine. Something deep inside twitched at a shadow of a memory that drifted away like smoke.

"Listen, I'm not exactly thrilled myself. Might be something to do with being ripped out of an existence I can't remember, or it might be the grown man acting like a toddler, I'm not sure." Felix glared at the man, who seemed to recoil at the direct salvo. From her bulkhead perch, Kyra stifled a laugh.

"He's got you there, Bates." She drew a sip from the mug, eyes glinting. Mitchell Bates threw a glance over at Doc, behind Felix.

"You've got me, right Doc?" His shoulders slumped as the dark man shook his head.

"Oh, come on! I can't believe you guys are on his side, he's not even part of the crew!" Doc shrugged.

"He is for now, at least until we're done here and head to York." Bates slumped into a chair at the far end of the table from Felix, glowering at him.

"You guys suck, you know that?" His chest heaved with an enormous, melodramatic sigh.

"Fine, I'll keep him from stumbling out the bay door when we're moving freight." He crossed his arms and laid his head on the table.

"I'm on break now." Both Kyra and Doc laughed, then Kyra swung her mug toward Felix.

"So that's Mitch. He's a bit of a baby sometimes, but he's got a good heart." A middle finger rose into the air from the other end of the table, accompanied by a groan.

"Anyway, if you want to grab yourself something to sip on, I can give you the credit-tour of the rest of the place you'll call home until we can get you sorted out." Hope sparked in Felix, his tastebuds and instinct warning him there was something his body craved.

"Do you have any more coffee?" Kyra lifted an eyebrow and Felix made a motion toward her mug.

"Smells a bit like that."

"Ohhh, caf-paste." Felix involuntarily wrinkled his nose.

"Paste?"

"Yeah, they grind these fruits into a paste, seed and all, cook it, then throw it in some boiled water. We have a tube or two we could share, maybe." Doc rolled his eyes.

"More like a few cases." He turned to Felix.

"Don't listen to her, we've got plenty if that's what you're after." Now it was Kyra's turn to look wounded, and he shook his head.

"And don't you give me eyes like that. He's wearing my shoes and Mitch's patience, might as well let him into your stash." Immediately her expression changed back to a mirthful disinterest and she took another sip.

"Just remember you'll owe me, Jumper, if you drink it all." Felix snorted, then rose to follow Doc to what seemed to be a dedicated dispenser. It wasn't the sort of thing you'd have for one or two stray tubes, but intended for regular, heavy use, as if at least one member of the crew functioned on the brownish-black liquid Doc was pouring into a cup. Black letters were stenciled around the side of the white and tan-stained mug: Captain. Felix eyed the lettering, then looked at Doc, who chuckled.

"Don't worry about it. He's not allowed to have it right now, anyway. Doctor's orders." Felix accepted the mug, the warm, nutty aroma wafting upward into his nose. While he preferred to have a little bit of sugar and cream, he took the first sip of this new universe's coffee-analog, allowing the flavor to roll over his tongue. Tart, sweet, slightly caramel flavors pushed against darker, almost but not quite chocolate bitterness.

In the corner of his eye, the System notification alert began to blink and he gave it his attention, allowing it to expand into a message. [CAFFEINATED: 1: 10: 47] [USER MENTAL ACUITY, REACTION TIME INCREASED] Love this novel? Read it on Royal Road to ensure the author gets credit. Did I just get buffed? He stared at the cup, took a second sip, rolling the liquid around his mouth before swallowing. The System message retreated to the corner, leaving only the timer visible.

"You said they use the whole fruit?" Kyra nodded, watching him close, like a cat eyeing prey. Felix took a third sip.

"Where I'm from, we only use the seed inside." Kyra's eyes stayed locked on him.

"Waste not, want not. Out here, the fruit can be used, so we do." He pulled the powdered creamer from the holder on the side of the dispenser, shaking in enough to turn the almost black drink into something closer to a dark mud in color. A spoon next to it served to stir the mug, and then he took another sip, finally giving it a slight nod.

"That's a bit better." Kyra was still watching him.

"Tell you what, there's some in my ration bag aboard the capsule. I'll share; you can see what I'm talking about." Her eyes lit up.

"Fair trade, Jumper." After a moment something about Felix seemed to meet with her approval and she stood straighter, nodding toward the door.

"Let's get this tour started." The ICV 601 Magpie, a modified multipurpose freighter, was the six-hundred and first of her class, Kyra explained as she led Felix through the corridor that ran along the ship's upper spine, above the enormous cargo bay in the center of the hull. On the far side, she pointed out two rooms, one belonging to Mitch and the other to herself before leading him through a set of reinforced doors.

The pipes and conduits lining the cargo bay all seemed to lead here, joining with various boxes and machines of unknowable purpose spread throughout the space. Every few meters a deep ridge reaching down from the ceiling indicated another heavy automatic door, made to seal the various spaces in the wide engineering bay. Spaced evenly along the aft bulkhead edge of the ship, three power generators hummed, running off some fuel Kyra didn't explain and Felix didn't bother to ask.

Lights were dim and the space was clean and organized—even the work bench, complete with a disassembled part, appeared to have each component carefully laid out in a crude, unseen, grid. Without any frame of reference in memory, he was utterly overwhelmed, scanning the space in awe.

"This is my domain, and if I catch you in here without me, I'm breaking your hands." She finally said, turning in a circle and sweeping her arms around the space. The smile never left her face, nor did a single drop of the reconstituted caf-paste near the lip of her mug as she moved. Her dance complete, she winked at him.

"Any questions?"

"How do we have gravity? Especially if the engines are back here, we should be walking on the wall and climbing ladders, not walking along like we're parked somewhere." Felix looked around the chamber, nothing leaping out as the obvious source. Kyra shrugged.

"Quantum space magic." When Felix's expression changed to annoyance at her flippancy, she shook her head.

"No, I'm kind of serious. I couldn't even start to tell you the physics behind it, just that I know how to fix the machines that make it. I can say, it's tied into the System." His disappointment must have been evident, because she gave him a sympathetic smile.

"I know, it's a bit weird, but how the world works here. You get used to it. Anything else?" Felix shook his head and she him back out of her engineering bay and up across the spine.

"You've seen the mess and you've seen Doc's bay. His room's attached to that, so if you need him just go in and give him a holler," she said as they climbed back down the stairs to the main hall. Felix glanced at the medbay door.

"I thought it was only a closet, it was absolutely packed from what I could see." Kyra laughed.

"That's because Doc's a bit of a packrat. Says you never know what might come in handy." The next two rooms were empty, and Kyra pointed out one would be his for the duration of his stay, though the plan was originally to fill them both with salvage as they continued to work the debris field.

"What's this debris field from, anyway?" Felix asked. Kyra paused, looking up at the glowing strip of light running down the center of the corridor.

"A long time back, Frieland and Aquitaine had a big dust-up out here. Don't remember what it was about, never cared to learn. A lot has been picked over, but there's enough still to fill a ship like ours and make a solid credit." Felix took another swig of the coffee—he had decided to refuse to call it caf-paste—and his brow furrowed as he thought.

"You seemed surprised to find me, why aren't there more people out here if the salvage is so good?" She grimaced.

"It gets a little dicey out here sometimes. Though there hasn't been any issues for awhile, this far on the edge of everything you sometimes run into troublemakers." She gave the bulkhead an affectionate pat.

"Luckly, Magpie has some sharp talons, if you know what I mean. The run of the mill scavver pirate knows better than to bother us." Kyra waved to follow, and she pointed at another room.

"That's Misty and Gavin's room on the left, and to the right is the Captain's suite. It adjoins directly to the command deck." The door at the very end of the hall opened as Kyra approached and she waved Felix through. A head turned from a workstation to the left, a middle-aged man with salt and pepper hair and a lighter complexion, giving Felix a curious look.

"So, this is the Jumper you found sleeping in that pod? I thought it seemed awfully hot for somewhere that was supposed to be dead."

"And that," Kyra said pointing toward the man, "is Gavin Taggart on the sensors and navigation." She gave Gavin a look.

"And he wasn't sleeping, he was ready to put an axe through my head as if I were some alien!" Heat crawled up Felix's cheeks involuntarily, but he pushed the feeling of embarrassment back down, instead focusing on the command deck. It wasn't as if he didn't have justification; it isn't every day you're picked up by a strange spaceship, after all. The command deck itself wasn't incredibly large, broad enough to host three workstations with an extra jumpseat attached to each.

The entire command deck appeared to be a crescent, with the pilot's station at the center most point of the curve; Gavin's station sat to the left, and a woman, presumably Misty, sat at the station to the right. A viewport dominated the forward bulkhead, looking out into empty space, where in the distance light flashed as slowly rotating debris caught the system primary star.

The center of the command deck was slightly raised, the captain's own station replicating all three specialist stations, in which Heigel sat, a sour expression on his face as he stared at Felix's mug.

"Just helping yourself to everything of mine, I see?" Felix looked at the mug and flinched. As much as he was growing to dislike Heigel's abrasive attitude, in this case he understood the man's irritation.

"Oh, lay off," Kyra said.

"Doc let him use it, since you're not anyway." The ship's captain inhaled a sharp breath.

"Next time give him a bowl. Not my mug." Kyra rolled her eyes.

"You've met the captain, and over there is Misty. She's the Face here, since apparently, I'm not 'gentle enough' with some clients." She made air quotes with her empty hand. The woman at the other station raised her eyebrow at Kyra, then gave her blonde, almost silver hair a swish.

"It's my elegant charm versus your barely contained ire, darling. Something about your wrench and their ancestors, the last time you tried to broker a deal?" Her straight-faced mask broke into a grin, as Kyra stuttered in protest, then turned to Felix.

"Yes, they still deserved it. But don't let her convince you she was entirely innocent." Heigel cleared his throat.

"Enough talking, more working." He glared at Kyra, then Felix.

"If you're quite done playing tour guide, you could do something useful." He swept his hand toward the forward window.

"We're almost to the next wreck." Sighing, Kyra turned to the door.

"Oh, of—""Sir, contacts! Five points at three-four-eight neg twelve. Closing fast... looks like they were hiding in the debris field." Gavin's hands danced across the console and a display lit up, highlighting five points of light coming around the derelict they were approaching. The image grew, each point an individual ship resolving into an arrowhead, exhaust plume stretching out behind. The image flashed, and then a red aura appeared around each ship, along with a bar accompanied by a skull.

Something deep inside Felix tensed up, gripping his stomach as the temperature in the command deck plummeted. [WARNING: LEVEL SEVEN HOSTILES APPROACHING] Gavin turned to look at Heigel.

"Pirates." if you're reading this and not on Royal Road, this work has been stolen. It is a work by the user ZeeWulfeh, under his penname of ZeeWulf. This has not been released for sale by the author on any book selling platform.