[Baylor]

  He did his best to make his way down the straight corridor as if he belonged there. He wasn’t sure what would happen if he were caught, but he preferred his actions to remain unknown.

  ‘Another security door. What kind of ship needs so many security doors.’

  He moved to check the panel. It was titled something concerning an aqua-habitat thing. Far too scientific for him to understand. The important part was that he was denied access once again.

  ‘Every time. Why not just have one security door to deny access to everything. That would be far more efficient.’

  His movements had been hampered the first several days of the journey by the absence of light in the hallways. The girl had been required to escort them to the mess hall and sanitary facilities. Thankfully, Christy had thought to bring tools like a light and data-pads in their supplies, but finding those supplies in the dark had been an impossibility. The girl had certainly not wanted to bring them there. That changed when the girl had shown up and informed them that the lights worked again.

  She promptly squinted and left in a hurry once they tested that.

  After the lights had come back, he and Christy had unfettered access to everywhere. Except behind these security doors. Christy had been right about this being a deep space vessel. The entire floor oozed science. Numerous labs and precision workshops were spread out all over the place. With them currently unused he couldn’t tell what they had been studying, but it was clear they could study pretty much anything.

  It was all well beyond his own understanding of science, so after finding the first couple of labs he simply stopped looking. No, the thing that truly interested him was behind those security doors. He knew one of them led to the bridge, he had seen it when he was first brought onto the ship. His unfortunate incapacitation made finding it again far more of a chore than he first thought.

  ‘I should have just asked Christy. It would be so rude to not answer her own questions in return though.’

  That was a conversation he was avoiding for several reasons.

  ‘Far better to find a solution to a different problem.’

  He had yet to check the heavy tools that Christy had brought. He knew there were some, but he left them undisturbed, just in case anyone got curious and wanted to know what they had planned. If no one touched them, it was just a part of a bulk purchase. No real reason to have them, just a coincidence. He could ask Christy, but that just looped around to the original problem he was out here avoiding.

  ‘If only I could find some remote way to figure out what system we are traveling near.’

  He still planned to flee the ship as soon as possible. He wasn’t sure which was more dangerous, his pursuers or the nightmare scenario on this ship, but this ship was far more present than his pursuers. Better to find a solution to the problem at hand first. He could just jump in the shuttle and go, but that approach was more likely to lead to significantly worse problems. Like being dead. He needed more information first.

  Something he was increasingly sure he wouldn’t be able to obtain.

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  This was a Christy problem. He couldn’t fight, the War-beast had shown him utterly lacking in that arena. He shuddered even trying to imagine what the larger nightmare could do to him. He couldn’t sneak away, the shuttle wouldn’t get them very far in the galactic sense. If they weren’t close enough to something, it was basically worthless. He couldn’t sabotage the ship. Obviously. That left words as the only way out.

  Something he was a complete amateur at.

  The only real option left was to go through the supplies they had brought onboard and hope he got hit with inspiration. That and hope he didn’t get hit with something physical.

  “There you are. I thought you actually tried to ride that drive wake.”

  Having made it back to the ‘occupied’ area, his problems got shuffled around a little. Avoiding difficult conversations was rising to the top of the pile.

  “I’m trying to get a layout of the ship. We have so little intel it stops us from even planning a next move”

  He grimaced when she held up her data-pad. How had she managed to get what seemed like a full map?

  “I told you they don’t question things. If you just asked, we could probably just get dropped off at a station.”

  He….. didn’t think of that.

  “That’s good to have and useful, I guess. It doesn’t let you get a feel for the ship though. Real things have more… weight, to them.

  “How confident are you that you could get us to a station undetected?”

  She sighed. That wasn’t a good sign. It seemed he would need to go on planning.

  “I honestly don’t know. Some of the information is just freely available on the ships internal network. Almost like they don’t care if we know. But getting them to do what I ask? I’m not even sure my requests are getting past the young girl.

  “I honestly thought she was going to bite me earlier. Neither her nor the creature are happy to let me see whoever is in charge.”

  “Hmm, she’s brainwashed. That’s not surprising.”

  His mind was trying to come up with strategies and other possible plans, so he barely paid much attention to his response. Christy really had turned up a lot of useful information.

  “Wha--, brainwashed!? Can we help her? Deprogram her and get her somewhere safe?”

  His brain stuttered for a bit, trying to interpret her response and concerns.

  “Ah, maybe brainwashed isn’t right. Everyone is convinced that agility is the Canirean racial trait. The Canirean government even encourages that. That’s not entirely true though. For you, your ability to see more of the light spectrum is something you’re born with. If you’re comparing to the Canirean agility, the Crova penchant for reading emotion and expression that comes from that in-born trait is the closer comparison.

  “For Canireans, our in-born trait is adapting to our environment. By subjecting ourselves to near constant battle, real or staged, our bodies submit to that and adapt to express agility, along with a few other things most overlook. The reasons were over my head, but it had something to do with hormones and environmental stressors, whatever that means. Because most other races have such obvious traits, the underlying ‘reasons’ are generally overlooked. Something most governments encourage. The only other real exception being the humans. They say they are highly adaptable, but they just aren’t, so a straight lie rather than misdirection. They are simply so crazy they make the environment submit, rather than change themselves. Not that anyone has been able to convince them of that.”

  He had always wondered why each race fit so nicely into a slot. The data disk proved it wasn’t nature, even if it didn’t give any explanations.

  “That girl has been here for so long that her body adapted for low light vision. That would take months. As with most things concerning our race, an Alpha might speed up that process, but they aren’t required for it to happen in the first place. Even with an Alpha present and the shortest time to adapt, it is generally considered torture to force our bodies to change. I have even seen intelligent and competent soldiers turn into battle junkies due to an Alpha causing change.

  “The chances that girl is normal or can be easily fixed are close to zero. I can ask about a re-programing facility if we ever make it to Canirean space, but no other race would be able to treat her. If we even manage to get her off this ship.”

  Christy looked a bit troubled and sighed. She always had been a bit too empathic.

  “I guess that explains why she is naked. I didn’t think ‘because someone else is’ to be such a culturally loaded answer.”

  His brain ran into a wall.

  That…. wasn’t generally a symptom.