Kraken Orbital (25 page)

‘I’ll be alright in just a minute.’ I can
hear the decibels in my voice lower as I cringe through the
pain.

‘Honey,
what’s wrong?’ That sweet voice. It almost fills me with energy
just on it’s own. It
’s nice to be called
by a pet name. Even though that might just be in her nature. She
might call everyone “honey”.
How would I know?
I still, to be
perfectly honest, know very little about her. I could lie to her. I
want to. But I don’t.

‘It’s my back.’ I admit. I didn’t know that I
had it in me. I wanted to just lie so much. I trust her a lot and I
don’t know why. It’s just not like me to fall for someone head over
heels. Not that I had the chance deep down in all the God-forsaken
mines that company had us drill in.

She, without
asking or checking if it was ok with me, start
s rubbing her hands all over around my spine. It seems to
do the trick. Either that or I’m so besotted with her that I just
feel better to have her touch me.

‘What happened to it?’ She asks as I suck it
up all over again and stand to my feet. There are more important
things for us to be seeing to than my silly little back ache.

‘I’ve been
slapped around so much I can’t even remember.’ She sees the humor
behind my thinly veiled brave face. She stops rubbing my back and
takes hold of me by both hands.

‘Seriously.
What happened?’ She smiles so sweetly to me. I can at least look at
her now. I still feel funny when I do but at least I can hold her
stare.

‘First I
crashed a damn space ship, then I swam an ocean, fell down a gorge
or something. Got chased by a dinosaur. Then I ripped my head open
on a sharp bit of ice.’ I tried to hard to make it sound like a
joke. Even though both of us knew it wasn’t and far from
it.

I manage to
part from her
tantalizing glare and take
a look around at the lab we were stuck in. There are all kinds of
machines littered around the place but it’s unkempt and disturbed.
The fire hadn’t spread this far through the ship. I know that by
the volume of papers strewn across the floor. I don’t need to bend
down to take a look at any of them because I can see they’re all in
Russian. No point looking unless it was a picture book. I don’t
know what any of the machines are so there is no point in examining
any of those either. It hits me that I selfishly hadn’t asked Lucy
if she was ok.

‘Everything okay with you?’ I was nervous to
ask but it seemed only polite.

‘Shut up.’
She playfully shoved me and took a tight hold of my hands again. I
press her further.

‘Any memory
coming back yet?’ As soon as the first word left my mind I could
tell that I shouldn’t have asked. She started to sob with tears
forming in both eyes straight away. Whatever has come back to her
is clearly nothing good.

‘What is it?’
I soften my tone as much as I can and look her right in the
eye.

‘A memory
that can’t be a memory.’ She’s talking in riddles. I don’t like it.
It makes me shiver in fear. I just want to get to the bottom of
this place.

‘
What do you
mean?’ Back to my usual, and unforgiving aggressive tone.
I
t clearly shook her but she says nothing
about it.

‘Imagine… a
nightmare.’ She starts opening up to me. ‘But not during it, after
it.’ More damn riddles.

‘Yeah.’ I
spi
t impatiently.

‘
Well, think
about remembering a day or something that happened to you in just a
regular day.’ My malicious old mind imagines a beating from one of
the guards. My unforgiving imagination casts her in my mind’s eye
as the guard. ‘And then think about remembering a nightmare?’ I
don’t dream much. But I get what she’s saying.

‘Okay.’
I
humor her one last time.

‘Now swap them.’

What the Hell i
s she
talking about
? She’s just like Kolt.
Doesn’t know if she is coming or going. She is just so confused. I
don’t want to think what my mind demands me to think. That she is
the same as he was. That will kill me. I just need to change the
conversation or something. I hope so much that she just has memory
loss or amnesia or something. Instinct tells me not to press her
for more details about her nightmare memory. Even though I want to
so much. It must be some kind of denial.

I’m just
about to say something to her about the others that I have
encountered on my journey around the ship but she gives me no time.
She pulls me close and
kisses. But more
passionately than she had done before. I don’t fight it. I don’t
want to. She’s playful and more cheerful. She parts with a smile
and lets go of my hands.

I don’t know
what
drives me to ask. I guess I like her
too much not to. I have to tell her the truth and see what memories
it might reignite in her.

‘Don’t you
remember what you used to be?’ I hated myself the second I started
speaking.

‘No… I told
you.’ I know she doesn’t like my tone and I know I have
her on the back foot too. I’m going to tell her
if she likes it or not.

‘Well you
were a guard at the mine we both used to work at.’ I glare at her.
Accusingly and unforgiving.

‘So we used
to work together?’ I think she’s just trying to calm me down and
lower the intensity of the conversation.

‘No. I was a
miner.’ She still looks just as confused so that tells me she
obviously doesn’t remember how the miners like me were treat by the
guards like her.

‘
We were like
prisoners. Like slaves. And the guards like you were the ones
holding the keys
and the whips.’ I know
she doesn’t get how serious it was. I know she has no
idea.

‘I’m sorry… I’m sorry you felt like that.’
Another retraction. Hollow. Just like the lack of memories bouncing
around in her mind.

‘No. It isn’t
like that!’ I start to shout at her but I don’t mean to. ‘You beat
us. Savagely and to within an inch of our lives at times! I saw
guys get dragged off by the likes of you and never come back!’ I
hadn’t noticed my raised hand and pointed finger. But she starts to
cry and shiver. Maybe I had hit a nerve or a buried memory.
Hopefully
.
Time to dig deeper. See what makes her tick.

‘
And as soon
as you remember what hole you fell down and what rock you hit your
head on, you’re going to remember why you came here! Because I
killed those guards, friends of yours no do
ubt, because I stole from the company and you want me to
pay for it!’ I thrash my arms around and can no longer contain my
rage.

‘
No… I don’t
want that.’ Sh
e cries and sobs in front
of me. And like any guy, it made me feel like Hell. I hate he fact
I have made her cry but I want it over. I don’t want to follow her
through this maze of a ship to see her turn on me or worse turn
into Kolt. I want it over. I care for her. I think I even love her.
That’s why I shout at her. That’s why I confront her. Because I’m
hurting for her.

‘
And what
makes it worse is a whole bunch of your buddies are
aboard this ship looking everywhere for me!’
That’s it. That’s all I have. Time to let it sink in. Let the dirt
settle and see what she had to say for herself. See what I might
have unearthed.

‘
I…I
remember. The mine. Coming after you. Being sent here to kill you.
With a small squad of the tougher guards. And yeah, they were my
friends.
Were.
’ She slowly paces back over
to me. I hadn’t realized that my animated rage had taken me to
virtually the opposite side of the upturned lab. She’s calm. The
direct counter to my flaring nostrils and persistent
rage.

‘
They, the
company, had us on a short
leash too you
know.’ Right now is as defensive as I have ever seen her. But I
haven’t seen that level to the story before. I had been naïve.
Childish and had not thought about it. I just saw them as the
enemy. And her too.

‘For every
beating we gave to you, we got twice the same back from them.’
She’s still crying. And I’m starting to feel worse. What a jerk I
had been to her. And for what?

‘I was sent
here to kill you. I remember that in detail. Vivid. But everything
else is hazy and I can’t grasp at anything. Just floating,
meaningless memory with no order… But that’s not why I
came
here.’
I start pacing back to her. I wrap my arms tight around her so she
can cry into my chest. I hug her tight to tell her I was
sorry.

‘I
came
here
to leave
there
.’ Just like I had. ‘So I
separated from my group and that’s when…’ She trails off and I
don’t push her for more.

‘
Shhhh.’ I
start stroking the back of
her hair and
she slowly stops crying.

‘That’s when
something went wrong. I can’t see in my mind what happened. I must
have fallen or hit my head. I don’t know.’ She pulls away and dries
her arms with her fingers. ‘That’s when I found you. I’m sorry. I’m
sorry for everything that we did at the mine. I hope you don’t hate
me?’ I manage a smile and kiss her on the forehead.

‘No. Of
course not.’ No point in holding a grudge after all. And it didn’t
matter a whole lot any more. Those days are over and that me is
dead. I’ve moved on. I’m sure of it. And it’s comforting to know
that she came her to get away from her boss, the same way I came
here to get away from mine.

We just stand
there a while in a soft embrace. I was hard on her. I hate myself
for it but I guess I’m also a little relieved that I finally got a
little of the truth from her. And I also feel better knowing there
is depth to her mind. Not like Kolt. He was a lost soul. I’m just
glad she isn’t the same. Or at least I’m pretty sure she
isn’t.
And that makes me feel a little
better. But none of it explains what the drowning girl had said. Or
the falling man. And the burning man too. I didn’t want to burden
her with it. I’d deal with it on my own. It was all in my head. It
must have been.

‘
Any closer
to finding a way off this planet?’ I whisper in her ear. ‘Is the
ship
you came in serviceable?’ I can feel
her shaking her head against my chest.

‘Crashed.’
Time to keep moving through the Kraken then.

Chapter 18

S
econd Disc

‘I think I found a way out of the sector.’
Lucy whispers to me, with her eyes still closed and her head still
pressed firmly against my chest.

‘How?’

‘I only slipped in here to take a look. I
pressed something and released that gas. Sorry by the way.’ I
chuckle at her. Even though it had been traumatic at the time, it
was okay now and I appreciate her little joke to lift our
moods.

‘It’s alright.’

‘But back out
the way we came I’m sure there’s some kind of shuttle, maybe like a
train I guess, to the other side of the ship.’ I lift her head off
me. I don’t want to and she didn’t want to go either but we need to
go.

‘
Let’s go
check it out then?’ She responds to my gesture and we move out of
the lab. Hand in hand.

I know
there
’s something wrong. I don’t consider
myself very emotionally intelligent, and I never have done. But I
can tell there is something the matter with her. I can feel it. In
the air, through her hand, in her eyes. I don’t know what it is. I
don’t want to ask either. I just have to hope that she’s going to
be ok. I just have to make sure she is. She wipes a final tear away
as we leave the lab behind.

‘Do you have any weapons on you?’ I ask her a
bit sheepishly. I’m worried about how many of her people are hiding
in the shadows around the broken shell of the ship. And I’m more
than a little bit worried about what they’re capable of. But I
don’t even want to think about them. And the ways that I found
them.

‘
Yeah.’ She
reaches under her jacket and pulls out two handguns. ‘Take one.’
They are laser based weapons.
Like the
ones I had briefly used back at the mine to make my escape. I
almost hoped they were older. I disguise my disappointment and just
say thanks. I had hoped they were like Kolt’s ancient projectile
antique. I don’t know why. Maybe it’s the ship. That feeling that
I’m in a different time.

Lucy
le
ads us through another parting door and
out into a more open space. The largest we have been in since the
engine room. It’s some kind of transport hub. At least it used to
be. It looks and feels like a railway station for want of a better
description. It’s the size of a large warehouse. Untouched and
preserved, away from the flames and trauma that brought the ship
down and killed all aboard.

Shipping
containers line the walls, stacked atop one another. They’re blue
and green in color, all still locked and stowed away. There could
have been anything inside of them. Shame there’s no time to look. I
let my mind carry away with a nice thought that it would be awesome
to come back here. Once we were rescued of course and in far
greater numbers for the sake of safety, to study the place and dig
up some fanciful relics of the past.