Gaia-14

Chapter 2

      Gavin woke in a cold sweat, breathing heavily. He got up and walked over to the counter looking for a glass of water, finding none he started walking over to the door with clumsy steps. With eyes half closed Gavin opened and walked out the door looking for a kitchen.

He walked down the long cold corridor. His bare feet slapped against the ground as he walked. A light flickered as he passed.

"Need to repair that later." He said to himself as he passed.

Gavin after a couple of minutes managed to get himself over to the main room that he first got introduced to the rest of the people aboard. He looked around and found a hall that had a hamburger sign next to it.

"How convenient." He noticed. As he went down the hall looking for some food Gavin saw that no one else was awake. The halls were just empty.

Gavin shook his head to get those fearful thoughts out of his mind. He really needed to not get so suspicious of everyone. He needed to trust again. He had to, or else he would die alone. Again he shook his head.

After awhile Gavin found what he sought. He had reached a room that, in the center had large rectangular tables set in rows of six and columns of eight. At the back of the room He saw a long counter that was filled with flash frozen food. Gavin went over to the food and picked up one of the meal packages that were there. 'Ribs with mash and beans' it read. He strolled over to a 'Flash Fire' burner. Basically it unfreeze the food in a way that it would be edible afterwards. Once the process was done he walked over to a table and sat down, opened up the package and started eating the contents.

The food didn't taste bad but it wasn't the best thing he had had either.

He was about halfway through the last of his ribs when a man with short straight black hair came into the room wide awake. He walked over to the counter and picked up a meal, heated it up and, walked over to Gavin.

"So. You're the new guy?" He asked.

"Well it seems so. Names Gavin. Who're you?" Questioned Gavin.

"The names Mac. Or Mr. Ready if you want but that just sounds weird so everyone calls me Mac. How's your first time sleeping on the ship?"

"Cold. I woke up freezing." Gavin sighed. He looked at his food. Just moving it around with the little plastic fork that came with.

Gavin looked up to meet the bright blue eyes of Mac.

"Do you ever feel alone or miss your family?" Asked Gavin with a solemn look.

"Son, if you don't miss you kin then you have no heart. So where'er you from? If I don't get to know you better we can't understand each other and if we can't understand each other than we can't work as a team when this piece of shit goes haywire. Can we?" Mac said in a proud almost parent like tone. He smiled as he looked at Gavin.

"No. We can't. Before I start be sure you know that I want the same from you."

"Deal brother." Mac reached his hand out. Gavin shook with a smile on his face. It was nice to talk to other people.

"Well to start I'm from a small town on Earth called Lawrence. Imagine every type of weather and that is your average week there. So you may be below-zero one day and the next it could be 70˚ and sunny. And as for family I have one sister and two brothers. My brothers' names are Richard and Michael. My sister's name was Samantha. I never knew my mother or father." Gavin ended with a choke. A single tear fell down his face.

"Sorry. I did. I didn't know."

"No, I-it's fine. You couldn't have known." Gavin sighed. He never enjoyed talking about his past. That was the exact reason he had moved to Lawrence. He had no connections there. When Gavin looked up again he saw two glasses of brandy in front of him.