Chapter I - Act I - The Great Storm

Chapter 1

Dale - Hardle’s Hand

The low hum of space-flight was quiet before the doors boomed open. Dale and Gritta’s heads both snap up in tandem as Captain Hardle loomed in, his bulk almost bearlike, his forehead a frown, set dead ahead, cutting through the gloom like angry steel edges.

Dale’s breath hitched as the captain entered, watching, until he caught a glint of an eye.

Dale turned away, fast, before Hardle could catch him gawking. Hundreds of days in space. Five different ships between them. Both knew well enough not to get caught looking. But Gritta looked away slower than Dale.

'Something to say, you two?'

Both sat rock-steady. All hands planted to the cold, weathered table. Staring into their food bowls in silence as their captain stopped, stood in place, almost daring the two to respond.

Dale breathed cool blue smoke in the icy air. It filled his bowl in slow, unfolding ribbons as he felt his pounding pulse; the heat of Hardle's glare.

‘All crew, in the mess-hall, NOW!’ Roared the captain, his voice thundering like the echoes of lightning. He stormed off again and blasted through more reedy doors across the hall. Dale's gaze flicked over, they were swinging in shudders to an unsettled close.

His shoulders popped as they loosened. And he looked to Gritta, who stared back in awe.

'What was that about?' Dale whispered.

Gritta just shook her head. She didn’t know.

Dale wasn't surprised. There was never any way of knowing.

Gritta’s thumb rubbed her anxious finger knuckle. Dale's heart pounded tingle-white blood through his veins. Little rustles of movement could be heard throughout the ship. The thunderous order was being answered. Fast.

In all Dale’s years he’d never met a man like Hardle. Those hard eyes of his lingered in Dale’s mind, staying like a brand. Even through the dim shade of the mess-hall, they shined... it was never a kind shine.

‘I think he enjoys this.’ Dale speculated aloud. Meaning to be funny, instead sounding sad.

‘He’s going to the engines.’ Gritta said, not hearing him. Clear in her thinking, Dale could hear it like radio waves as she sat fretting beside him, frightened for her young crew.

She turned on her seat towards Dale, as if to leave, but without standing. Just straddling ready, ready for something fierce.

Dale met her eyes; wide, full of fear.

‘What did your crew do?’

'Nothing.' She said, eyes to the floor.

'Are you sure?'

‘Nothing.’ She hissed again, scolding him with a look before glancing back to the doors; uncertain. She knew it didn't matter if they were guilty or not. Hardle was the type. He'd blame without a trial.

Her head stayed fixed, neck as tight as bones. Dale saw stringy bands of muscle under sheet-thin skin. None of the crew were eating well. Hardle was. But he was captain, not the crew. Dale didn't let the others know it, but Hardle had more rations. He was just keeping them hungry. Weaker is less mutiny to worry about; that's the mantra this captain lived by.

'I'm sure it'll be okay.' Dale tried to tell her. 'He'll just scare everyone, shout a little. Probably just keeping the crew in line.'

She didn't say anything back. She just took a breath - her nostrils whistled high on the in and rattled slow on the out - trying to calm herself.

Her thumb still rubbed her knuckle. The tips of her hair were trembling.

His communicator vibrated against his chest. He fished it out of his overalls, squinting into the beaten device’s screen through a shattered nest of scratches. The message made his skin crawl and his stomach fall. It was from Hardle. They were always from Hardle.

Top-grill on FULL. Now.

‘God.’ Dale whispered. It was worse than he thought.

‘What?’ Gritta asked, grabbing for a look at the device as the doors of the mess-hall all began wafting open. Dale snatched it back. Terrified Hardle would walk back in and catch one more rule being broken.

‘You can’t look.’ He said, pocketing it.

She sighed. ‘Tell me, then.’

Children were filling in with Hub, Copper and Felix all herding them. Every one of them went waddling by with the same hard look; clones upon clones of terror in their eyes.

‘Don’t make me say it.’ Dale urged her. Not wanting to do it either. Unable to look at her. Unable to deny Hardle. He could only look ahead, up the stair, right at the steel sheet of Hub’s top-grill.

Hub'll cook on it, later. His mind told him for nothing.

It could hurt the skin from inches away, even on a low heat. He didn’t want to think what Hardle had planned for it.

‘Is this everyone?’ Dale asked.

‘All of my lot.’ Felix the life support technician replied with a shrug, itching his stubbly head in a way that made Dale think of lice. His neck itched, too. Dale scratched it, trying to count them all as the doors stopped moving.

'Better not have bugs again, Felix.'

'Clam it, Hub.'

‘Dale.’

‘Stop asking, Gritta.’ Dale snapped at her. Standing up and away from her. Dale felt a scattered thump in his chest. Copper was counting with him. Almost twenty youngsters. Dale’s job (one of many) was to know everyone on board. He didn’t want to think of what Hardle would do to him if he found out he didn’t.

Gritta was closer to him than anyone, and he just scolded her for the crime of caring. He had never snapped at her. He supposed it meant Hardle’s tactics were working. On everyone. All the crew stood both near and away, hung from the neck on tender-hooks. Nobody talking, apart from the odd utterance from the few elders in the crew. Most of which hated one another.

‘I count one missing.’ Copper sighed. Giving Dale a look of concern. ‘Gritta, one of yours?’

Gritta's eyes went flicking from head to head. Her mouth as tight as her neck.

‘Dinna, where’s Frieda?’ She asked one of her girls. ‘Tell me he isn’t hiding. Now isn’t the time to look guilty.’

A shout (something like, "COME OUT,") from the engine room. A clatter like something thrown. Nobody dared to look. Gritta just nodded for her to continue, pretending with the rest like she didn't hear it.

‘He was doing the rewire you told him to do.’ The little girl in the overalls whined. Her eyes midnight blue in the low light, already welling with tears. Chin quivering. Gritta nodded and let her go to stand somewhere far out of sight.

Dale felt for Gritta in downwards tugging waves, somewhere under his belly, pulling on his gut. He knew all too well the desperate need to protect. He knew Gritta well enough to know she'd blame herself for whatever came next, just because she told him to do something, no matter what. Because it put him in the wrong place in the worst of times imaginable.

This was the kind of feeling Hardle (and all the other ship owners) took time to foster. Dale and Gritta were the oldest out of all of the kids here. Dale was Hardle’s bitch. He looked after no one directly. Hub had some and Copper even more, but nobody had more in their care than Gritta. The engines of any ship were a death trap. Engineers were always young, as a result. Most don’t live past the age of eight.

Gritta was a living miracle. She’d been kicking ship engines back to life for near-on a decade. But even through all these years of servitude, she still fretted like a mother over her crew. She'd keep her crew in line, after this, just to keep them protected.

The order weighed heavy in Dale's breast pocket. He was running out of time. He could hear scrambling coming from the doors; an ill advised exit from some duct or another.

‘Hope Hardle doesn’t think he’s hiding.’ Said Hub right to Gritta, sneering out of that nasal whine of his.

Gritta ignored him. Copper rolled his eyes, shaking his head, shepherding his own crew away from him. Dale felt like cracking the grin right off that greasy face of his. But the action in the engine room made those thoughts evaporate. He didn't have anymore time.

‘What were you two arguing about?’ Felix asked Grit and Dale, who, respectively, looked grim and appeared pale.

Gritta looked at him. But Dale couldn't say anything. It would be a waste of breath, anyway. So he walked, nearly tripped up the step up to the grill, turning the dial on full so fast he hoped it’d break the circuit. But the lights above only dimmed for a moment before glowing brighter - Gritta's kid probably fixed the wires, he thought grimly Fixed his own fate. - as the sheet of blackened metal began humming under his nose, radiating, stinging his eyes to look at within seconds.

He turned back around. The tight room of children gawked, mortified, back at him. All faces thin, all expressions ashen. Gritta's gaze was locked upon the grill, horrified.

She knew what the message was. She got it loud and clear. They all got it loud and clear:

Someone was about to be made an example of. Some poor kid was about to be punished.

It was going to be one of Gritta’s.

There was a hard slam, so violent the ship shook underfoot. All heads looked over. Dale made out the faint sound of sobbing. A shout and a cry. A growled warning and a begging sort of moan. The whistling whirr of the engines rumbled over all of it, every ear strained, listening, until the engine note became punctuated by the familiar heavy footfalls of Hardle, returning.

He walked back where he came. He sat beside Gritta. Hub leaned in, his long hair unfolding in slow, greasy tendrils.

‘What did your kid do?’ He hissed.

‘Nothing.’ Gritta said again.

Hardle's footsteps came nearer, louder.

‘You better hope you can prove it.’ Hub said, raising himself back up. His hair draped his face in curdled black curtains before he slipped it back. ‘Captain Hard-ass... he’s out for blood today.’

‘Shut it, Hub.’ Dale said. Cutting him a glance Hub sneered back at. 'I mean it, Hub. Shut your damn mouth.'

'Both of you can shut it.' Felix uttered. Taller than usual, standing above Dale in his seat. Meeting both of their eyes with pupils like black stone. 'Hardle's almost back. So unless you both want to get burned, shut it.'

Dale could have pulled rank. But he didn't need to. Or want to. Hub's mouth was shut, and that was fine by him.

Something in the room fell. Nothing seen, but merely felt. One of the younger kids coughed. The hall was growing smoky, and Dale's own throat began tickling. Slowly, they all started staring in the same place, and the grill glowered back at them like a menace, growing hotter, brighter, redder with every passing moment.

The doors cracked open again. In walked Hardle with a small tornado of a child clamped in his fist; writhing against the trap like an animal.

'We got a live one.' Hardle whooped.

‘Ferida.’ Gritta moaned, clapping her hands across her mouth as Hardle's hard gaze whipped upon her.

‘Grill is on high.’ Noticed the captain, glancing to Dale with a backwards nod and a cruel sideways grin. ‘Thank you, Dale.’

Hardle threw Freida, who cracked off the hull. Hardle didn't waste a moment.

'Tell me, Gritta, if you wouldn't mind; what do the citystates do to thieves?'

'NO!' Frieda screeched. 'I didn't! I SWEAR! I di-'

Hardle snapped the kid's head back with a kick so hard it made Dale's teeth feel brittle, Gritta cried out as her subordinate flopped back, unconscious, even Hub hissed a curse as the kid's head thrashed off the cold steel floor.

'Shut up.' Hardle growled.

His thin arms rested, one bent, one straight, just like a baby sleeping. A raking snore, more like a wheeze, belted between tight clenched teeth. Both eyes were crossed between glazed, faded eyelids.

Out for the count. Dale thought, hoping he killed him. That'd be a better way to go.

'Much better.' Hardle sighed, relieved, as casual as if he took a comfy seat and kicked his feet up he took the stair like a stage. 'Now, without any further interruption, could you answer the question please, Gritta?'

Gritta couldn't. Or wouldn't. Dale's heart thudded, hard. The captain's nostrils were hard in flaring.

'Don't make me repeat myself.' Hardle warned.

'Han...' Gritta sobbed. Looking down to the little boy in filthy overalls. She shook her head, no...

'Speak you little witch!'

'They take your hand!' She cried.

The tight crowd of small children began chattering anxiously. Many might have known of this punishment. Many more did not. He saw little fists backing into sleeves. Fingers clawing the cuffs into textile pouts.

Hardle leaped down from the small duo of steps, Dale swore he felt the ship lurch as he crashed beside the boy, whose eyes were just starting to tie back together in some simple form of focus.

'You hear that, boy? Do you know what your overseer just told you?' Hardle slapped at a cheek with the back of his fingers. His hand was bigger than the boy's head. 'They take a hand or two for what you did. You hear me?'

'Please.' Gritta begged.

Dale elbowed her hard in the ribs, his eyes wide in shock. But it didn't stop her. 'Please, captain, don't do this.'

'Don't do what? Protect my cargo? Ensure the harmony of my crew? Or would you like to take his place, Gritta? You are getting old. Perhaps you'd like to save me the trouble of dropping you off at the next port and take the punishment of this little thieving shit.'

Hardle booted the Frieda's ribs. There was more life in those arms, they went from reaching around aimlessly to cloying around the part Hardle just kicked.

Hardle (shockingly) waited. But Gritta's chin merely quivered, her mouth silent. Dale knew how she felt, they were both near the age where they'd finally be free of their service to Hardle. The last thing any elder ships hand would do would be to jeopardise their own freedom. No matter what.

'Momma.' The little boy whined. Crying already as he looked up from the massive set of legs to see Hardle's pitiless eyes baring down upon him.

'Your momma died a cum-bucket whore on some rock in the scrapes of the galaxy.' Hardle told the boy, nodding with wide, deliberate eyes. Squatting down so close his thighs bulged and the lights were eclipsed; Frieda was swallowed by Hardle's shadow. Dale swore he saw him shrink within it.

'That's why you're here. In my care. And you had the gall to steal from one of my fucking crew.'

'Shouldn't have done that.' Said Hub to the room. Hardle’s brow raised, cocked like a lopsided shelf in the shade.

‘Right you are, Hub. I like the initiative.’

She didn’t look at him. She didn't move. But if Dale could feel it, he was certain Hub would be drifting in it; Gritta was radiating hate.

‘Go on, Hub. Tell us what happens to thieves, now our little friend has his ears back.’

Hub jutted out his jaw, puffed his chest. Dale tore his sight away from him, feeling hot, dizzy and sick.

‘I’d ask Gritta.’ Hub said. His voice curved, as though spoken through a grin. ‘I never set foot on hard ground. Don’t know the first thing about law.’

The little boy was crying again. His fear was back, along with his consciousness. He was sweating a black puddle onto the dark metallic floor. He wasn’t even up for fighting anymore. Hardle kicked that out of him with little more than a grunt and a flick of the hip. Instead, he was just looking at Gritta. And Gritta was looking at him.

‘Well, Gritta.’ Hardle said. Standing feet higher than everyone. ‘Please do tell us all. Hub and I are in need of education.’

‘They chop off your hand.’ She said without a pause. Her voice as flat as her expressionless face. No fight left in an ounce of her. ‘If you’re lucky, they’ll just take one. Most lose both, because the guards want to be sure.’

The metal holding the top-grill was thronging now, twanging with the effort of holding the swelling, hot metal. Gritta looked at it, red shine sliced in the orb of her eye, and looked back to the boy.

‘But this isn’t a citystate, is it Gritta?’ Hardle said.

She didn’t respond. She just stared into the eyes of the boy who would soon be handless, in the worst way.

Dale felt bile bubbling in his throat as he spotted a rack of knives on the shelf, and his mind filled in the rest; Hub would get the privilege of holding the poor rat down and Hardle would tell Gritta to get the knife on the red hot grill. Hardle would cut. The hand would cringe free of its owner.

‘Answer him.’ Hub warned. Kicking the stool Gritta sat upon.

Dale promised himself he'd him. In a private place, in a quiet way, he would find the day to make Hub pay.

‘No.’ Gritta croaked. ‘It’s not.’

‘Where are we?’ Hardle growled.

‘Your ship.’

Hardle’s lips pursed to a stubbly point. He nodded. And looked down.

‘We don’t follow the citystate laws.’ He told the boy.

What a wild moment... Dale truly believed he was about to let him go.

'We're not in a citystate.' He told him, smiling his vein feathered head right into Frieda's face.

The boy screeched like a tiny drill. One made to cut teeth.

Hardle snatched his wrist so swift Dale barely saw it. Smoke strangled everything, now. He couldn't make out one single movement from the thrashing mess of limbs the boy thief became. And the scream, it pierced Dale's heart and shook the eardrums. It was instant and eternal; the screaming; the very moment; it was as though a limitless tube of breath were being fed into him from elsewhere.

The scream never broke, throughout.

'Confess.'

'But I didn't do-'

Hardle backhanded a jaw shattering clap across his face.

'Confess!'

'Just don't put my hand on the fire.' The little boy sobbed. Coughing in the smoke-sour air of the room. Dale was sweating. He couldn't tell if it was from the heat or from watching this.

'Your hand will be spared.' Hardle promised. Dale didn't believe it for a moment. 'If you confess to your crime.'

'I did it.' The little boy hanging limp from his wrist moaned. Folding into tears. 'I did it. I stole. I'm sorry I stole, just... please, don't do that to me.'

Dale felt like the floor was swallowing him. He felt defeated. Utterly and completely defeated.

'Good.' Hardle said. Looking away from the flooded eyes of the child and glancing at all the rest.

Dale swore he saw Hardle grin at Gritta.

'This is not the citystate.' Hardle repeated, showing teeth.

'NO!' Gritta screamed.

The boy's hair was clamped in a scalp tearing fist.

'We punish thieves like THIS.'

Hardle tossed his fist and pounded the top-grill with the boy's shrieking head in the way of it. The blow alone would have concussed him. The shrieking alone nearly drove Dale insane; arms; legs; every inch of the torso began thrashing skin-smoke around as Hardle ground his face into the glowing red iron. He changed the angle. Dale caught a flash of bubbling black blistering flesh as the crazed orb of agonised screaming blasted out of what used to be a mouth. Dale heard a moist whine somewhere in there as an eye met with the flat inferno, he smelled sizzling fat, burning hair, and Hardle grunted with a toss, throwing him right there, at the trembling feet of the crew.

'That's what we do to thieves on my FUCKING SHIP.'

The engines wheezed, cutting off the deadly theatre. Dale thought he died. But he still saw the smoking glow of the grill, and Hardle's rippling silhouette in the wash of it. Death didn’t come for him, and Dale didn’t know how he felt about hoping for it, in that dark moment.

Silence shrouded everything in the darkness, for a moment, everything was calm and still. It was like a dream, was it a nightmare? Dale hoped for that, and again reality left him disappointed.

The ship scraped out of sub-light speed with a groan and a shudder and the red-alert siren screeched. Something bad must have hit the ship, even the grill began to die down.

‘Get your crew in the engine room and figure out why my ship stalled. Keep life support going. And Hub, clean this filth up.’

He said it all to everyone. Everyone scattered.

‘Dale, with me. Let’s see what we can see.’

Hardle strolled out towards the cockpit, through the first doors, from before. Dale found he was following, without a thought. Without hesitation.

Dale gagged as he left the mess-hall. His clothes all stank of burned hair.