Drifting Dark

Chapter 9: Whispers

Cassie's foot dangled off the side of the crate, almost a foot off the ground. She was sitting on a shipment of spare plastic piping, that hadn't been unpacked and stored, but had been dumped in the small space between two of the huge engines responsible for accelerating the ship to interplanetary speeds. A few feet to her left, there was a terminal for monitoring and controlling the propulsion systems.

It wasn't a room, not technically, but the engines' shielding, huge curved sections of metal, almost enclosed the space on either side. There was only a few feet of flat flooring in between, and in the center of that, was a sizable round hole.

It was a hole from which a variety of sounds were emanating. It hadn't been hard for her to find Aqeel. She'd easily heard his banging and cursing from the maintenance hub. Now that the ship was in dark mode, the engineering decks were a hell of a lot quieter. And all sounds echoed through the place.

Making Aqeel very easy to find, since he seemed incapable of working quietly. Whatever he was currently working on below, it appeared to require a large amount of banging, swearing and incomprehensible muttering. She still couldn't see what he was doing, down the access ladder in the crawlspace below the floor. It didn't seem like a smart idea to disturb him at the moment. So Cassie waited, patiently.

Eventually, the noises stopped. Aqeel began to climb up, out of the maintenance access, but stopped before his shoulders passed the threshold. He spotted Cassie immediately, but didn't look surprised to see her sitting there, watching him.

"Pass me that." Aqeel pointed at a tool, sitting about a foot away from the edge of the access hatch.

Cassie spotted the handheld laser saw after a second. It really did resemble a can opener, but was a hundred times more deadly. It was also not something that should be left on the floor, and definitely should not have the guard removed.

Before Cassie could get up, Aqeel was already reaching out towards the miniature saw. "Forget it," he added quickly, stretching out a hand to catch the edge of the handle. A moment later, the mop of white hair had vanished back down the hole in the floor.

"Um..." Cassie began hesitantly, clearing her throat softly. "By the way, what are we supposed to be doing during those alerts?"

"What?" Aqeel asked loudly, as he continued whatever he was doing down there.

"The emergency alerts," Cassie clarified.

There was a short buzzing noise, the saw. Then another loud, heavy bang. "There was one?" Aqeel asked.

"Yes?" Cassie answered hesitantly. "There was a shipwide message from the captain."

"Oh. I didn't notice," Aqeel answered, in between buzzes.

"You didn't notice?" Cassie repeated slowly, still processing the idea that one of the ship's key personal hadn't been aware of such a major event.

"Must have dropped my radio somewhere around here." There was more rustling, more movement below. "Here it is," Aqeel said triumphantly. "So is that where you were?"

Cassie nodded, even though he couldn't see her. "I was in the cockpit."

"And?" Aqeel prompted. "Anything interesting going on up there?"

"The rebels blew up a smuggler ship," Cassie said grimly.

"And?" Aqeel repeated.

Cassie blinked once. "Uh... that was it."

"So... nothing then," Aqeel replied quickly. "Right, well I have work to do." There was muttered swearing from the hole. "Pass me the damn hypertape."