Voidhop - Chapter 2 - The Discovery (Patreon)

The spaceship XTC-3-246 slowed with all the grace of a roided up piljack hitting a building. It lurched, once, then sped up a touch before repeating the lurch. Branx keyed the line to engineering.

“We gonna live, or you socket monkeys all dead and we’re gonna die?” There was a moment of silence before a grunt sounded back at him.

“I’m assuming we’re going to live?” All he got was another grunt in reply.

Shirel weathered his look with only a shrug. “Who cares if Sugoth’s don’t talk much!? Ours is at least a good mechanic!” The ship shuddered slightly and Shirel pointedly looked away.

“One of these days I’ll get myself a good mechanic, preferably an apprenticed one rather than some schmuck that picked up a few ‘books’ somewhere,” Branx muttered to himself.

He turned to the helmsman, “Begin a sweep of the asteroid field in quadrants here. We’ll cast our nets and see what we can find.” He braced as the ship shuddered once more. “But I think I better go have a chat with our engineering crew. Make sure they’re not fighting space monkeys or some such in the engine room.”

“What should the scanners be looking for?” said the helmsman as he raised up his secondary set of hands.

“Cruiser from the Dawn war,” he said striding out of the room before Shirel’s protests could reach his ears. He made his way down the passage, his hand lightly tracing the mesh on the side. When he reached the engine room he thumped on his a few times before stepping to the side of the door. Only then did he tap the open button.

The door shot open. Branx eyed the open space before peeking his head around and shouting through, “Yo! We’re getting a lot of fluctuations in the drives! What gives? Shirel forget to pay you and you’re taking it out on me?”

A trio of heads turned in his direction and snorted. All three warbled at him. The cacophony caused Branx to grimace and grab at his ears before raising a hand to ward off the assault of sound.

“Woah!!! Slow down there! My furblite’s not so great!”

The central creature rolled its eyes. Which was rather impressive due to the bulbous nature of the furblite’s already big eyes. A feature that he couldn’t help but stare into due to their barely four-foot stature. At five feet three inches and change, Branx was by no means tall.

“We need parts!” barked the leader of the engineering team. “Flux gears! Capacitors! The defusion chambers no good!” The furblite leader totter on short legs before reaching up with the long, thin arms to tap a gauge. “Low on core-fuel.”

Branx stared at the gauge for a moment before sighing. “Course Shirel waited until I was captain to handle this instead of assigning it at the end of her… fraggin… Urgh. Right! I’ll see what we have when we get back into port.”

The Furblite ear wrapped up on itself before opening up again to flap about. Branx eyed it, his hand twitching. He pushed his hand down before he could succumb to the urge to rub the oddly soft-looking ear that reminded him of a swirl treat. No matter how soft the ear was, it was attached to a cantankerous, old mechanic. Whose species also happened to have very sharp teeth.

The chief mechanic eyed him suspiciously. Branx met the gaze without flinching, earning himself a nod from the little creature’s waist, sending its ears once more unravelling before it snapped up with the ears rolling up into the scroll-like shape where they rested atop the head.

Branx nodded, staring straight at the ears. A grunt broke him out of his spiralling—

He shook himself instead of thinking anything about ears that spiralled up on themselves. “Yeah! Well, I gotta get back to the bridge. You make sure we can get our prize and then get to port. Got that?”

Another full-body nod was his reply. Branx left the engine room and started to make his way to the bridge before he remembered how he’d left it. He pursed his lips for a second before his stomach rumbled.

“Well, I did skip breakfast,” he said aloud amiably before about facing to a supply room.

He made his way into the mess and was pleased to see that there was some slop still on the cooker. He scooped himself a bowl and eyed the crew members that were relaxing about the room. A single member caught his eye. Particularly because of how twitchy he was.

“Rookie!” Branx said as he ignored the groaning of the seat. Damn chairs weren’t built to handle Dulophant frames. Shoddy things!

“Branx! I mean! Captain Branx!” said the Rookie, his weird little neck thing bobbing up and down nervously as he swallowed.

Branx nodded, “So you’re new to being in space yeah? What do you think so far?”

“I thought we would have been floating around a bit?”

Branx snorted. “That’d mean we had lost gravitational power which is two steps removed from the inertia engines dying! Heh! Then we’d have a lot more people freaking out! Hah! No only old ancient space vessels had their crew floating around like fish in a pond.”

“Oh, that uhhhh makes sense sir!”

Branx slurped up his breakfast, not minding the taste or lack there of. “See you got a piece on you there kid,” he said nodding towards the hold out blaster the kid must have picked up before signing on. “Ever use it?”

“A little, the seller showed me how it worked.”

Branx rolled his eyes. “The Seller? Pah! Get down to the cargo hold and get some shooting practise in. Get familiar with it you hear me? Do that and I’ll see about getting ou on some fun jobs, like the boarding crew!”

“Oh! Wow! Thanks Captain!” said the Rookie, standing to do just that before turning and realising he should rush off. He turned and offered a half bow that almost made him trip somehow. Then he turned red like some humans did before he ran off.

Branx shared a look around with the other crew before laughing at the skittish newbie. Ah, polite little thing. Shame that wouldn’t last. Still, he had his heart in the right place it seemed. Branx eyed his bowl speculatively.

Now, the question became should he get a second helping?

[hr][/hr]

Branx emerged onto the bridge wiping his mouth, feeling much more ready to face the challenges of the day. When he wasn’t met with an instantaneous demand for her to take over. He glanced around, pausing on the empty bosun’s chair. “Helmsman? How’s our approach to the asteroid field going?”

The man turned, his beak making reading his face for expressions an idiots game. Branx looked to the man’s tail region and the back of the neck where some avians had plumage that displayed their emotions. The unruffled feathers gave Branx some hope.

“Captain, everything seems fine so far. We’re taking it slow so far allowing our systems, such as they are to thoroughly scan each asteroid.” The man gestured a feathered hand towards his terminal. “As you can see, there… are lots of scans needed.”

Branx nodded his head. “Yeah, that’s also not considering that some of the Dawn war vessels had scan resistant hulls.”

The Helmsman considered that.  “That is going to make this… extremely challenging. We might be at this for quite some time.”

“That’s alright, we got time. We’ve got an accurate quadrant area to look through.” The helmsman stared at Branx sceptically. “Trust me,” Branx said while swaggering back to his chair, throwing up his feet onto his handrest.

[hr][/hr]

“It’s been three days Branx,” Shirel said helpfully.

Branx grimaced and scratched his head as he eyed the dataset on his terminal. His fingers twitched and his tongue stuck out as numbers flicked across the screen. “Good things come to those who wait,” he eventually said back. He eyed a two suspiciously before erasing it and running the numbers again.

He tilted his head as the projection showed that the galaxy had shifted ‘coreward’. Branx stared at the image before tilting it. He pursed his lips and swiped the dataset clear to rerun the numbers. Shirel stared at him. “Branx did that just project our ship as being in the system’s star?!”

Branx didn’t comment, merely running through the numbers once more. Shirel snatched the datapad from Branx before stalking to a pair of beings that served as the navigators of the ship. Branx growled, sitting up from his slouch. “Hey! I was working on that!”

“Branx, I’m terrified of what will occur if we let you enter information like that into our system. Leave this to the people that are paid to work it out before you kill us all.”

Branx sat back at this and huffed, ignoring the looks from the others around the bridge. “Alright, good suggestion Shirel. Navigators, plot that data. Helmsman, continue scans though, perhaps we can eliminate incorrect calculations.” The pair of navigators began to squawk and jab aggressively at each other as they argued over what they had been given.

One snatched the datapad only for the other to snatch it. Branx leaned toward them. “If you can’t work together I will assign you a different job, perhaps as wrench carriers in the engine room?” He pointedly stared at the pair’s thin arms that showed them to be career intellectuals that likely never lifted more than a finger on a datapad. Their worth being in their large oversized brains for advanced calculations. They blinked their eyes together and grumbled before settling in to read over the information.

The helmsman ruffled his feathers for a moment before turning back to shaking his head. “Continue the scans! You heard Branx.”

Branx coughed.

“Captain Branx,” corrected the avian like alien. Branx nodded, pleased at this while noting the way the Bosun rolled his eyes only for Shirel to lean in towards him to whisper something.

Branx licked his lips and watched things settle into a new rhythm. Hopefully, they’d get a breakthrough soon.

[hr][/hr]

“Branx, it’s been two weeks…” said the helmsman tactfully.

“Captain Branx,” Branx said while working over the information that had been presented for him. The navigators had done their jobs and projected the most likely sites. Those had only taken four days to work through after the initial two to work through and double-check the data to their liking.

Shirel was practically preening from where she was sitting next to the Bosun. She hadn’t had to say anything but the way everyone watched let Branx know that the squid woman was merely waiting for their to be enough blood in the water. She didn’t have to always take the first bite. Bust she was surely going to take the biggest. Take the claim and take the captaincy in her tentacles tighter than a Shorax Banker’s claim on a single jingle coin.

Branx looked at the avian. He liked the avian. He licked his lips. “Jericho right? The crew’s annoyed cause we’re not getting the quick results. That’s what this is about? Again?”

Jericho nodded, “That would be my understanding on it yes.”

“This is what, your second trip with us?”

“Third actually, I signed on for the Hobs’ asteroid job.”

Branx nodded. “Yeah, I thought so. Sorry for not calling you by name… some of the jobs we run are tough on newbies. While some consider them milk runs they have a cost associated to them.”

“We know the cost sir.” Jericho said calmly. The rest of the bridge crew didn’t look at Jericho or the Bosun. Of the ten people that worked on the bridge. Typically only four of them joined the ‘boarding party for any action.

“Your predecessor was a good gal, like you Jericho. Only got two of those ‘milkruns’, one before her was even worse.” He gestured to the projection of the galaxy with the astral bodies shown. The asteroid field forming the majority of their perspective. “People hear about the ‘milkruns’ and assume they’re like the old-world version of running a simple delivery. Space ain't like that though. You gotta pay to get up here. You gotta pay to do jobs. You gotta pay to land. Always, always, you gotta pay. This slow and steady? I’ll admit it ain’t my style. But it’s how we’re going to pay this time. Trust me on that.”

Jericho shifted. “We need something more than trust right now… Branx,” said the young avian.

Branx stared at him before hardening his gaze. “Continue the scans.” He made sure to say it with the roughness of tone that he only used for serious command. He didn’t allow even a flicker of anything silly to show. He liked to be fair, but sometimes, as captain. You had to be a hard bastard. Jericho faltered before nodding and backing down.

Branx nodded and sat in his chair before turning an imperious stare to Shirel. He made sure to hold her gaze until she looked away first.

The scans continued but he knew he was running out of time. His mind turned over the information. All the historical facts that were known about the ships from the dawn war. Which was not a lot. They were known to be some of the best of a bygone era. Still highly valued, they were typically captained by some of the brightest of the Dawn Imperium. What did that mean though?

Branx let his mind work over the things he did know like an old geared machine. Slowly turning and churning at the issue until something, anything useable was spat out.

Captains of the imperium had to be smart. They’d find the toughest to find spot before holing up. That meant asteroid fields. Things that were tough to navigate, scan and fight in. any good captain would know to use that.

Branx paused at that. Good captain. What if that captain hadn’t been very good. What if they’d been dumb? Where would they try and make landfall? Where would they try and hide?

Branx worked over the issue for long hours as the crew continued to scan the asteroids. Branx only paused in his musing to dismiss them for dinner. They left quickly with only Shirel lingering to stare at Branx and raise a tentacle to tap at the clock on the wall. Branx had growled at her before turning back to the projection.

His eyes glared at it. He lowered his head and for half a second words formed on his lips before he threw his head back and laughed. “Ha! Can’t believe I was about to. Heh! Void take me what good would that do?” The room gave him no answer. He rubbed his chin and then rubbed his eyes. Casting about for inspiration.

“I need a dumb idea, like flying into the…” He paused and stared at the gas giant that they had been circling with the asteroid field. He pursed his lips. “Now there’s a dumb idea…”

He walked over to the Helmsman’s chair and flopped into it. He leaned over the terminals and began to labourously enter new scanning parameters. He held his hands to his lips and kept them closed, lest he do something ridiculous. He rocked for a moment and blew on his hands, hoping for his luck to turn.

He shut his eyes and waited. He listened as the scans came back. Blart! Failure. He didn’t need to read the terminal to know what the first scan had found. Or rather, not found.  The scans continued and Branx continued to listen.

Blart! He flinched. Blart! Blart! Blart! Went the terminal around him as Branx felt the slow, creeping grasp of dread began to settle around his heart. Stubbornness and inertia saw him continue. Branx stopped flinching after the eighth failure reading. By the tenth, he began running through his options.

He didn’t really have an idea for what to move on for. He grit his teeth. No! Not like this, what’s the next plan always keep moving. He turned towards the asteroid read outs. Maybe he could salvage this. Asteroids had minerals and metals right? That could fill up the cargo bay of the ship, something this blasted model had more than enough of—Ding!

He blinked at the twentieth scan. That hadn’t been like the others, right? He straightened and stared at the screen. “Oh, you dumb piece of piljack dung,” he said to himself. He stared at the reading, a grin stretching his face as he ran the scan again and got a clearer, once more successful result. “You glorious idiot. No one but me would have thought you’d do something that dumb!”

When Shirel reenetered after the crew’s shared meal with the bridge crew at her back Branx merely gestured to the successful scan. When her face fell he made sure to raise his datapad and capture it on camera. Sometimes the payday was cash in hand, or parts or something that would lead to a bigger payday. Sometimes, the payday was something small, that warmed the heart for years and years.

Branx grinned as he toggled the datapad to print off the image for later enjoyment in his quarters. He turned to the bridge crew, hands-on-hips. “Assemble the crew! We’ve found our missing ship!”



A.N. I am going to be writing up Red Riot this weekend as I'm hoping to get some free time for myself! hoping to have it out for next weekend's consumption! Until then please enjoy the next instalment of Voidhop that is Original content from me!