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Spaced - A teaser

Chapter 1

Jas was having a sucktacular few days, and only a teeny-tiny bit of it was his fault.His commander had said it was a simple assignment, off the books, in and out.

“It’s a little backwater planet called Earth, simple inhabitants, mostly harmless. Your mission, which you have no choice but to accept, is to find this woman.”

Shwooommb.

“To do tha—”

“Wait, wait,” Jas interrupted. “What woman? I don’t see a woman. I mean, I heard the shwooommb, but—”

“Jas, where The Inferno are you?” the commander interrupted tersely. “You were supposed to be in my office half a dial ago! Never mind, do you have your ITCH?”

“Ah, yes, it’s a bit better now, thank you. I got a cream, really burns—”

“Your InTra Cranium Hologrammer, your I-T-C-H. Doyou have it? If so, put it on. NOW! Otherwise, I swear to Good Greatness—”

“No, I do! I’ve got it, I’ve got it, it’s here, I’m putting it on. There, it’s- Ooh! Hellooo sexy mama!”

An animated three-dimensional image of a woman appeared as if standing on Jas’s bedroom floor, projected there by the ITCH.

“I’d shwooommb right on that for sure!”

“No! Not a sexy mama, your assignment! This is who we are looking for. Her name is Laura Bennet. All you have to do is find out where she is and send me the coordinates. That’s it, two things. Do you think you can manage it, Jas, or is it too complicated?”

“That’s quite rude, Dad; it hurts my feelings when you speak to me like I’m an idiot.”

“I know, Jas, but I’m not speaking to you as your father, I’m speaking to you as your commander. And your commander thinks you’re an idiot. Now, put a little plaster on your feelings and let’s get on with the briefing, okay?”

“Sure, Dadmander.”

“Commander. So, we don’t know where Laura is, but we have found her mother, Nora. Hopefully, we can use her to find out Laura’s whereabouts. This is her.” 

Shwooommb. The image of an older woman with grey hair appeared before Jas.

“Now, this is where things get a bit fuzzy,” the commander continued. “We think that this boy,” shwooommb - a young man appeared - “is Nora’s grandson, and that Nora raised him after his mother died. His mother was Nora’s other daughter, Laura’s twin.”

Shweeemmb, shweeemmb. Dadmander returned to the first image, either trying to confuse Jas or expecting him to already have forgotten her. “Are you following?”

“What’d she die of?”

“What?”

“What did the kid’s mother die of?”

“I... I don’t know, it doesn’t matter. Anyway—”

“Well, it probably mattered to her. And why didn’t Laura look after him instead of the old lady?”

“That’s a good question, I don’t know, maybe because Laura already had a child and didn’t want another one. I get that. Right, so—”

“What’s his name?”

“Who, Jas? What’s who’s name? May I continue?”

“No, I mean, yes, of course,Bossmander, it’s just—”

“Commander—”

“This guy,” shwooommb shwooommb - Jas swiped back to the boy - “Nora’s grandson. You didn’t say what his name was?”

“Did I say you could stroke the ITCH?”

“Soz, Da—”

“His name is Travis. Are you good now? Can we—”

“Yes, cool, Travis, I like it. Sorry, continue.”

Shwooommb. Jas swiped right.

“Jas! This isn’t Flinder! Okay, it seems like you actually kept up, so here’s the plan. We’re going to use Nora and the boy—”

“Travis.”

“Yes, Travis, to find out where his aunt Laura is. Nora and Travis seem to have a good relationship, so if you reskin as the boy, you shouldn’t have any trouble getting what you need out of the old woman.”

“Jas! You got that?” the commander prompted, having received no response.

“Yes, Commander.”

“Commander- oh. Okay, say it back to me.”

“No... wait. What do I need to get out of Nora again?”

“Jas, I swear...one one hundred, two one hundred, three one hundred...deep breaths. You need to get her to tell you where Laura is, the person we are trying to find, remember?”

“Oh, thank His Greatness! When you said get it out of her, I thought you meant like with a knife or something.”

“Jesuias, Jas, no! No knife, no implements of any kind; all you need to do is talk to the woman. We need information, not internal organs. Fhuk!”

The commander drew a breath and held it. Jas could hear his controlled exhalation.

“I really, really need you to get this right, Jas. If you don’t think you can do it, I need to know. There is no try with this assignment, it’s either do, or I reskin you as a froog. So, tell me now.”

“No, I’ve got it, fo’shizzm; reskin as Travis, interrogate his gramma without implements to find out where her daughter Laura is and then tell you what she told me. Easy.”

“Okay, close enough. Remember, the whole point of reskinning is that you won’t need to interrogate her, just talk to her, discuss, just Travis and Gran, sipping the air. You mustn’t draw attention to yourself, be discreet. And most importantly, this is a secret mission, understand? Nobody must know, esp—not even your mother.”

“Top secret,” Jas confirmed, trying to keep the excitement out of his voice. It was a fine line; if he showed too little enthusiasm, Dadmander would pull him off the job, too much, and he would worry about him doing something stupid.

“Right. Now, I can’t give you a company cruiser a, because its absence would be noticed and b, because your flying is a hazard to the budget, yourself and others. I can’t afford questions about damage to SKYN vehicles.”

Jas pouted, but nodded. It was a fair assessment; his flying skills were a work in progress. He waited to hear what the solution was - hopefully, a chauffeur-driven escort in his father’s luxury ship.

“You’ll take your mother’s A55 Bumble. I’ll say it’s gone in for a service or something, but, Jas, if you scratch it, I will tell her you took it for a joyride, and it will be your skin, not mine.”

Jas’s excitement flat-lined. “But... but the Bumble’s not designed for interplanetary travel, it’s a runabout! Is it even allowed on the interstellar bypass? It’s top speed—”

“You’ll be fine, Jas, just take something to amuse yourself on the trip. I’ve programmed the destination, so the only thing you need to worry about is where to land when you arrive. The Bumble is a bit slow, granted, but it’ll get you there without drawing any attention.”

“A bit slow?” Jas failed to hide his frustration. “It’s going to take twice as long as a cruiser from the fleet!”

“Remind me again, Jas, what was the repair bill on the cruiser you landed upside down last week?”

Hic!

Finding no reasonable vent for his conflicting emotions, his body expressed his frustration in the form of hiccups. He was irritated at Dadmander for not giving him a real cruiser while at the same time understanding that this reaction was childish; the circumstances in which he found himself were entirely of his own making. He didn’t know who to be angry at, but that hic! didn’t stop the angry feelings.

Hic!

“Where is hic! it parked?” Jas asked, the hiccups masking his irritable tone.

“In the decommissioned service dock behind the employee parking.”

“Whe-hic!-n do I l-hic!-eave?”

“Now. Are you okay, Jas?”

***

Jas removed the ITCH from his head and threw it on the table beside his bed. It didn’t help that Dadmander had woken him up and launched straight into the briefing before he even had time for a coffee.

He rectified the coffee situation and then sat on the edge of his bed, looking out the window at the black void of space. Nothing outside changed. Like ever. No sunrise, no sunset, no seasons, just the same black smugness of the universe leering at him. He tossed a pillow at the viewing portal. “I hate you, depressing fhuking nothing.”

He walked to the calendar hanging on the wall and paged back wistfully through the moonths to when he had first arrived on the spacecraft. Each page had a picture of O’en, his home planet, depicting green sunsets over rolling blue mountains. When he had boarded the ship six moonths earlier, he had marked the calendar with a smiley face followed by several enthusiastic exclamation marks. The moonths passed, and he continued to mark each day, the smileys becoming less smiley, then frowny, and then angry. This moonth, there were no smileys on the page, just a line scratched through each day like he was trying to obliterate it from existence.

He picked up his pen and drew a large circle around today. Next to it, he wrote, finally getting off this Greatness-forsaken hunk of metal! He smiled and flicked the pen back at the table.

Will Earth have beautiful sunsets and soft, orange grass?

He was eager to find out. He chucked his dirty coffee mug under the bed, where it clinked against other dirty coffee mugs, and got dressed. He left his room and went in search of the disused service dock his father had mentioned, apparently off the main docking area, although he had never noticed it. Then again, he seldom had cause to visit this part of the ship.

He entered and looked around the voluminous space filled with row upon row of neatly parked cruisers. The vehicles closest to the door belonged to senior SKYN employees, cruisers of such magnificence that not touching them was akin to not pressing a large, red button labelled Do Not Press.

He hugged the wall as he made his way to the far end of the parking chamber, trying to avert his eyes - Oh my Greatness, that’s a new edition volcanic red Tossla SpaceEX! - afraid that he might somehow damage one of them just by breathing. Stuff broke when he was around.

He turned his face to the wall to avoid temptation and walked on, coming to a dark passageway. Next to it, a faded sign with dim red lettering on a dusty white background confirmed: Service Dock.

He entered, expecting the automatic lighting to activate. It didn’t.

Odd.

He continued, the light at his back casting a distorted shadow as he progressed. At the end was a door framed by light from the room beyond. He placed a hand on it, but the sound of voices stopped him from pushing it open.

Why would anybody be in a decommissioned service area?

If pressed to describe the voices, he might have gone with furtive, but his natural tendency to trust people would at once have caused him to reject the description. They were just talking quietly. In a manner that suggested they didn’t want to be overheard.

Maybe they were planning someone’s surprise birthday party.

Curious and eager to overhear a secret or some interesting gossip above his paygrade, he pressed an ear to the door and held his breath.

Damn. The door was too thick to make out most of the words, but he did pick up one that was repeated a few times.

Gaelan.

They were talking about his father. But why? It’s not his birthday.

Dadmander was the head of the company, so perhaps they were just talking business. But why here, and so secretly? He continued to listen, trying to identify the voices.

If it was gossip about his father, he definitely wanted to know what they were saying.

***

“How did it go?” Colt asked. “Do you think he believed you?”

“Good, I think he bought it.”

“He didn’t seem suspicious?”

“Of course he did, I’d have been worried if he hadn’t. Gaelan doesn’t trust anyone, but I put on a convincing show. I purposely made some of the ‘facts’ a bit blurry for authenticity. But I think the broad outline is good enough for right now, he won’t dig too deep. We’ve steered him clear of Laura.”

“And Travis? He doesn’t know who he really is?” Colt pressed.

“I think we’re okay, but if you’re uncertain, just wait a while. If I turn up dead, he didn’t believe me.”

Colt responded with a wry smile. “That would be funny if it weren’t true. Well, at least that’s something, about the boy. If we can keep him out of it, that’s one less thing for me to manage. There are already too many moving parts. Any suggestion that Gaelan is taking action?”

“He hasn’t asked me to do anything, and he hasn’t scheduled any visits to The Farm, so who knows? You know he’s not going to just leave it be, though. We need to move fast. So, what are our next moves?”

“Things are closing in; the race between Gaelan and Tagon is on, and this time, it’s not going to end until one of them is dead. We have to get to her first.”

“So, you’re—”

The door opened, and the two men masked their guilt beneath poker faces forged from years of deceit and poker. Colt tipped his hat in greeting and spoke to his companion. “I’ll head off then. Let me know if there are any developments.”

He nodded at Jas and left the room.

“Um, sorry to... I just... I’ve come to get my mom’s Bumble?” Jas said.

“Oh? I was wondering why it was here. Why is it here?”

“My dad, you know, Gaelan, left it for me. To pick up.”

“To pick up? What for?”

“Why do you want to know?” Jas asked.

“Oh, it’s just a little unorthodox, leaving a personal craft here in the old dock. I thought perhaps there was something I could help with?”

“Dad’s the boss, I just do what he says. He probably doesn’t trust my flying enough to let me use the real bay. I’ll tell him you offered to help.”

“No, no, no need. Just doing my job!”

The man clapped Jas on the shoulder. “Well, try not to wreck this one!”

Dickhead.