Nebula

A Goodcat Gone Bad - Part 2

Just as Goodcat had told me, the cargo had already been loaded on the Presley. Lift off was initiated and then I was orbiting Kyspaia. I was sent a transmission of co-ordinates to go to with the package.

The cargo was... unexpected. I thought that it would be a shipment of medicine or luxuries like perfume and Kyspaia vodka. Goodcat seemed like the rich sort of guy to have something like that to trade around. Yet when I looked into the cargo bay, it wasn't anything like that at all. In fact, it was a small canister with white-blue liquid inside. I recognised the company name on the side - a cryogenic chamber.

Too small for a human. Too big for an organ.

Weird.

I could've tried to contact Goodcat to figure out what the hell he'd put on my ship. But a few more thoughts crossed my mind and I didn't even try in the end for a few reasons:

First off, I didn't know how to contact him because I didn't have a number or any sort of coding for a ship. Second, I didn't have the equipment to find out if he had anything that I could contact him with. Third, I didn't want to seem like a weakling because I couldn't handle a trip that was only a few systems away. Although the most profound reason was because I couldn't be professional while around him. He was too... intoxicating.

Intoxicating... Understatement of the century.

The co-ordinates weren't anything suspicious, either. It was just a random moon a few systems over. Abandoned with a bad atmosphere. Not a big deal. The idea was that if I used hyperspeed for most of my journey then I could get the credits I was owed in a matter of hours. A day max.

It was a good plan. And because of it being such a great plan, autopilot was on for most of the journey. It was an autopilot system that I had to update a few times as the years went by, but I hadn't done so recently. So needless to say, it was a bit shoddy for my liking. More than once I had to make a few adjustments to the pitch and speed to make sure I wouldn't crash into the moon I was heading to.

As the Presley continued to fly through galaxy after galaxy, I managed to keep myself entertained.

Of course I checked everything on the ship first. That killed about three hours as I made sure I had food, water and oxygen levels at a good standard. Gravity was working as well, which was always good. Didn't want to be flying around with that 'sensitive' cargo that could set me on fire for all I knew. Wiring for the autopilot computer was all to my acceptable standards and wasn't frying up yet. Hull integrity, good. Plasma drive, check.

After that I had around six more hours to kill. Most of them being spent adjusting the autopilot, but there were those frequent moments where I could read a bit. Watched some crappy intergalactic TV stations insisting that I should buy this, buy that; watched a movie. Just like any other normal teenager. Feeling the buzz of being an independent person on the ship that had always been home.

It took me four hours to see them.

Two ships. Tailing me.

I wondered if I was imagining things at first and being paranoid. But there was no denying the cameras which showed me that the two guys had been following me since I left the Kyspaian system. Small cruisers - just the right black to make them almost invisible to anybody who wasn't looking for them. Almost invisible.

For a moment, I panicked. And in that moment, I made a bad mistake. I put the plasma drive on full blast, hoping that I'd somehow outrun them.

It was an empty hope.

I swerved across empty space, heading towards the co-ordinates, full manual on. They followed close behind, turning quicker than I could ever hope to dream. In seconds they would be right on top of me and I couldn't do anything about it apart from keep going. I kept racing against them, against time, against the odds, wanting badly to open a communication channel just to laugh at them.