Grinde Galaxy Chapter 3

 

Chapter 3

“The hell happened here?” Draw approached the gathered cleaning staff with an air of superiority. “Who killed this poor sod?”

One of the other cleaning staff stepped forward. “He was a heretic. Espousing heresy.”

“Sure. That’s all I need to know.” Draw pulled on a pair of rubber gloves. She tossed me a mop. “Come on, runt. Do your job.”

“My name is Mythe.” I shouldered the broom.

“Fine, then. Mick. Do your job.”

“Mythe.”

Draw made a crude gesture and started picking up the corpse. “Hey, are you guys going to make me do all the work, or are you going to help?”

The half dozen or so cabin boys got to work cleaning up the mess of the dead sailor.

“I wonder what his heresy was.” The cabin boy next to me was a skinny fellow with lots of acne and buck teeth. He was wearing eye augments—glasses.

“Shh.” I shook my head. “We don’t want to know.”

The boy extended his hand. “My name is Gregory.”

“Mythe.” I looked over my shoulder before shaking his hand.

“Look.” Gregory looked over his own shoulder. “We have to be there for each other. It’s not every man for himself. The Empire is built on us trusting authority and each other.”

“Softie.” Draw knocked Gregory on the head with a broom handle. “Go cry to your mamma.”

“Ow.” Gregory rubbed his head. “My mamma’s dead. Killed by the synths.”

“So be it.” Ranger walked up to us, crossing his arms. “We have work to do.”

We cleaned up the body, which took us about half an hour, mostly to get the residual caked blood from between the cracks on the mess table. I stood aside and wiped my brow. The mess hall was surprisingly humid. The whole ship’s climate control system seemed to be out of whack, I had noticed. That had to be costing energy that could be used somewhere else. Though I was sure I would be killed for heresy just like that poor sailor if I mentioned it to anyone. Only the tech priests could handle technology. Us plebians were not supposed to even touch it.

Draw suddenly grabbed me by the shoulder, pressing me against the wall. “Salute.” She saluted herself.

A number of space marines entered the mess hall. They were silent. They got their food trays and sat down without speaking.

One of the space marines held up his arm.

Draw punched me in the back. “Go. He wants something.”

I approached the space marine who had raised his arm. “Um, can I help you, sir?”

“Yeah. Get me a new spoon. This one is stained.”

“Yes sir. Right away sir.” I hadn’t lived in a hive without learning how to treat people of higher rank. Anger a noble and you’d be dead in a heartbeat.

I turned around. “Spoons …” It struck me that I did not know where the silverware was kept.

“Hey, runt.” The space marine looked me in the eye for the first time. “I told you. A spoon. Are you stupid?”

Draw came up to me, chuckling. “Yes, sir, he’s new here. I’ll get you your spoon.” She pinched me by the ear and dragged me away.

“You’re going to get yourself killed!” She grabbed a spoon from a small outlet in the wall. “Here. Hand this to Captain Christon.”

“Is that—”

“Yes that’s his name. Don’t refer to him as anything other than captain or sir.”

I walked up to the space marine. “Here you are.”

Captain Christon looked at me, his head tilted. “You, boy. You feel different. I don’t recognize you. And I know everyone on this ship.”

Isac, who was with the other marines, held up his hand. “I brought him aboard, sir.”

Captain Christon looked me over with an incredibly critical gaze. “Hm. Make sure he doesn’t make another mistake.”

Isac lowered his hand. “Sir.”

I bobbed my head and backed away to where the rest of the cabin boys were standing. It looked like even Isac was underneath someone in the pile.

The space marines ate their meal and left one by one, until it was just us cabin boys again. Draw stepped forward. “All right. Let’s get this place squeaky clean.” She twirled her mop. When working in action like this, she seemed to have a different aura than when she was playing cards. Now she actually appeared dependable.

We had the place cleaned in half an hour. When we were done, the cafeteria lady leaned out of the kitchen window.

“Hey, y’all. I have a treat for you.” She gestured with her soup ladle.

“Let’s go.” Draw approached the window. “You don’t have to keep doing this, Lira. If you get caught they’ll throw you to the inquisition.”

“Well, honey.” Lira scooped Draw a large spoonful of soup. “They were going to throw this to the rogs anyways.”

“Sad lot, that.” Ranger got his pile of soup. The rest of the cabin boys lined up for their turns.

I ate the first thing I had eaten since Jones tossed me that nutrition bar. And, by hive standards, the food was pretty good. Sure, it was colorless and goopy, but it tasted better than some of the fare I was forced to eat during the lean times for my family.

My family. What were they doing? Had they survived the synth? That thought ran through my head. I had been aboard the Atlas for more than a day now, according to my internal clock. We had to be nearing our destination in the Warp. We were probably headed to an imperial fortress world, or maybe a forge world. I didn’t know. But I was stuck here and there was no way I would be escaping life aboard this ship.

I returned to our small bunk space with Draw and Ranger. We entered the room and Draw closed the door. She sat down on a skimpy chair and crossed her arms.

“Are you in with a space marine?”

“What do you mean by that?” I scratched the back of my neck.

“Lieutenant Core. He said he brought you aboard.”

“I, ah, I think I jumped a synth scather with, ah, a plasma knife.”

“A scather?” Draw whistled. “Dude. Totally metal.” She put her arm over my shoulder. “It’s good to be in the graces of a space marine. That means you’ll get better treatment. Do you think you could get us on his good side as well?”

“I—I don’t know.”

“Man you’re a wimp.” She slapped my back. “But a metal wimp. Dude, jumping a scather with a plasma knife and surviving?”

Ranger shuffled a deck of cards. “Sure, he did it. But is he a good fighter?”

“What does that matter?” Draw pushed me onto an old, broken chair. “Come on. Play katar with us. For real.”

In the ensuing games I managed to win every hand.

“Katar,” I said, spilling my hand onto the small metal table. “Come on. I don’t want to take the clothes off your back.” I took the pile of credits and pushed it back to them. “We aren’t even playing on an even field. I’ve been katar hustling since I could speak.”

“Sheesh.” Draw took half the pile of money and shoved the other half back to me. “Yeah, I get the point.” She grinned. “Hey, do you want to try something?”

“Um, sure?”

Draw’s grin widened. “You’re good at this game, right?”

“I thought that was clear.”

Draw’s grin became comical. “Okay. We’re going to use your skills to play in the big leagues.”

“The big leagues?”

“Yeah.” Draw put her hand on my shoulder. “Dude. You have potential. You also have guts. I mean, you jumped a scather. We can get rich if we play our cards right.” She chuckled. “Come on. I have to take you somewhere.”

I followed Draw out of the tiny bunk room and into the hallway. We walked past several ordinary sailors, who paid us no notice. Soon we arrived in the bowels of the ship, near the engine room. Pipes extended all around us. I almost tripped over a spot of spilled engine oil.

We came to a small door hidden in a crevice. Draw knocked on it twice.

“Password?” A voice came from behind it.

“Tolk.”

“You may enter.”

Draw opened the door and the three of us entered the room beyond. It was a speak-easy, built into the cavity where an old gravitic reactor once was. At least a dozen other sailors and cabin boys were spread around the room, drinking alcohol, and playing Katar.

Draw went up to the group that looked the nastiest and plopped down a wad of credits.

The nastiest-looking sailor looked up at Draw and laughed out loud. “Yo, Draw! Here to bet the clothes off your back?”

“Not me, Dereck.” Draw pointed to me. “That boy over there.”

“Ha! He looks like he was sucking his mom’s milk last week.” Dereck waved a finger at me. “Come on. I’ll show you what a real player plays like.”

An hour later I was sitting in front of more credits than I had seen in my entire life.

Draw leaned into Dereck. “Hey, big guy. You want to keep mouthing off and losing everything? Or do you want to accept the new boss in town?”

Dereck tossed down his hand. “Okay. You got me. Wherever you found this boy, you got lucky. He’s cheating. I know it.”

“No he ain’t.” Ranger stood behind me, his arms crossed. I was sure the only reason I hadn’t been shanked yet was because he was there. I stood up. “Ahaha …” I was about to return the money that I had won.

Draw instead took it out of my hands and started counting. “All right, Mythe. You get sixty percent, I get thirty, Ranger gets ten. We good?” Draw handed me my cut.

“Hey, you guys.” Dereck stood up, cracking his knuckles. “You want to get up—”

The intercom crackled. “All cleaning staff, to deck ten.”

Everyone burst into action. It took less than two minutes for the speakeasy to be cleared.

I ran, following Draw and Ranger through the ship’s corridors.

We arrived to a horrific scene. The whole hallway was covered in blood.

“What the hell happened here?”

The ship’s inquisitor came forth from the darkness. “It is heresy to ask.” He folded his robes and then skulked back into the darkness.

“Well, if it’s heresy to ask, I ain’t asking.” Draw opened a nearby janitor’s closet and started distributing equipment.

Dereck appeared behind me, surprising me. “Don’t think I’ve forgotten, cheater.”

“I’m not a cheater.”

“We’ll see.” Dereck grabbed a mop and started cleaning.

We cleaned up the mess in about an hour and then Draw dragged me back to the bunk room.

She sat me down and crossed her arms. “We got on Dereck’s bad side.”

“I would bet.” Ranger shook his head. “We did win over a thousand credits off him.”

“It’s more money than I’ve ever seen in my entire life.”

“I think it’s time Dereck’s empire fell.”

“Empire?” I tilted my head.

“Yeah. Dereck’s the boss of pretty much every cabin boy on this ship. He’s the one who gets to make the calls when we don’t have orders.”

“Dereck’s been uppity recently.” Ranger leaned against a bunk. “I think his power’s going to his head.”

“That does tend to happen.” I did my best to smile.

“Yeah? What do you know about power, being a hive dweller?”

“I’ve dealt with, ah, guilds of the underworld before. People tend to get like this when there’s no one in charge. I think we can just bring this before an officer and—”

“No.”

“Yeah, I thought so.” I scratched my neck. “Well, here’s my plan.” I took out a short pencil and started outlining my plan.