"Refueling"

“Salut, sorry for the wait, I had to contact my men near the shuttle bay to begin supplying your vessel. Come with me to gather your supplies and you will be on your way shortly,” the merchant greeted Samuel and Jebediah. On your way to my coffers that is! The merchant added in the triumphant solace of his mind.

“Took long enough, c’mon Samuel, let’s get a move on,” Jebediah grumbled, as he stretched from waiting so long on the floor.

The merchant waited for them to get up, then guided them to the supply room where they picked their supplies from his inventory. After they made their selections, the merchant’s employees rushed the supplies away from them, into the cargo bay, and up into their transport vessel.

The merchant knew these fugitives wouldn’t need the supplies, but he needed to draw out the farce long enough for these blasted fugitives’ pursuers to arrive and capture them. This meant he had to actually fuel and supply their ship to not draw suspicion.

As they drew closer to cargo bay 11, Jebediah suddenly stopped. “You hear that Samuel, I’ve got a bad feeling ‘bout this,” Jebediah said. He slowly wrapped his hand around his CLLB and unslung it from his back. Samuel nodded in agreement and began to unsling his LB50 as well. The people in the market backed away from them in fear of their fierce weapons. Silence settled over the crowded hall.

Clunk. Clunk. Clunk. Strange footsteps emanated clearly from the silent crowd. A group of looming figures were making their way through the crowd when suddenly one of the figure’s cloak slipped off. As the crowd began to understand what was happening, a man in the crowd screamed, “Holy cannoli, the cyborgs are here, run for your lives!”

The crowd erupted into panic and began scrambling away from the cloaked figures who cast away their cloaks, revealing their cyborg identities. “Soat . . . kill . . . destroy! Shoot . . . kill . . . destroaieeeeeee!” the cyborg at the front yelled, with a strange gleam in the “eyes” of his metallic helm, as the cyborgs began to fire into the crowd between them and their targets.

The merchant dove into a market stall and hid from the laser bursts as Jebediah and Samuel began running down the market hallway towards docking bay 11.

Luckily, the scrambling confusion of the crowd blocked many of the laser bursts, and the bodies strewn upon the floor obstructed the path of the cyborgs. This enabled Jebediah and Samuel to have a slight head start. Their lead began to extend and the sign that heralded docking bay 11 soon came into view.

As they turned the corner heading into docking bay 11, Jebediah crouched for cover and laid suppressing fire upon the cyborgs chasing them. “Go Samuel, tell Isaiah to start up the ship. We need to get out of here.”

Samuel ran into the docking bay and up the ramp of the vessel, shouted, “Isaiah fire up the ship, we need to get outta here, now!”

Isaiah scrambled out of his relaxed position and flicked the switches, levers, and buttons of the control panel. “Woooooooooooooooosh,” the transport vessel shrieked as its engines warmed up.

“Jebediah, we have to move, come on!” Samuel shouted over the roaring engines.

Jebediah slung his blaster back over his back and started to run back to the transport vessel. “Stop . . . right there . . . surrender or die!” A cyborg screamed as it rounded the corner into the docking bay.

“Oh, come on, gimme a break already,” Jebediah sighed. Whipping around, he unslung his blaster and began firing away at the cyborgs rounding the corner. As he blasted away at the cyborgs, he began to inch his way backwards towards the transport vessel.

When he was just at the beginning of the ramp, he turned his head and shouted at Isaiah, who was in the cockpit, “Hurry it up! We need to move!”

As Isaiah was fanoogulling with the switches and levers of the control panel, he became very confused. “So, I press this one to do this, and that one to do that, but which flick do I switch to unlock the button that slides open the door to access the keyboard that lets me type in the destination? Now how bout this one? Ahh, there we go, we are making great progress.” Isaiah muttered to himself as he steadily began to figure out the ship’s controls.

Finally, after many minutes of confusion, Isaiah finally figured out how to access the keyboard. But there was one problem, he didn’t know what destination to put in. “Uhh… Jebediahh, what destination should I put in,” he called down to Jebediah as he was blasting apart the cold steel of the cyborg bodies.

“BLAST IT THESE MAGGOTS JUST KEEP COMING! SERIOUSLY WHAT IN THE WORLD! WHAD’YA SAY!!!?” Jebediah yelled as the cyborgs swarmed over heaps of cyborg bodies, which were blocking the entrance to the cargo bay, and simultaneously were blown to bits by his blaster.

“I SAID WHICH CONFOUNDED PLANET DO I PUNCH IN TO THIS BLASTED CONFUSING MUDDLED MESS OF A MACHINE!” Isaiah screamed back.

“PUT IN J-52! IT’S A SAFE HAVEN!” Jebediah shouted his response over the deafening blasts of his blaster.

“K? J? Which did he say? Something with a two… ah I know. K-92! He is always talking about that place! It must be a pretty darn good safe haven if he is always talking bout it.” Isaiah figured as he typed in K-92 into the navigation system.

“COME ON BROTHER GET YUR BUTT IN THIS HUNK ‘O JUNK, WE’RE LEAVING THIS FORSAKEN OUTPOST!” Isaiah shouted down to Jebediah.

Jebediah slowly backed onto the ramp of the ship as he continued blasting away at the cyborgs. As Jebediah was backing onto the ramp, Isaiah pushed the button that activated the lever which enabled him to start raising the ramp. Isaiah then stepped back, buckled into the seat of the cockpit, and let the ship’s auto flight mode do the rest.

After the merchant from the eloquent market stall dove into the cover of an adjacent market stall, he waited until the screams of the humans and cyborgs alike quit, and the blasts of the laser bursts quieted. Peeking his head over the counter of the market stall, his eyes met with the carnage of the scene. Bodies, or what was left of them, were scattered across the floor. Blood and oil were spattered against the once shimmering white walls, coalescing into a myriad of death which oozed from every precipice of the abysmal walkway.

As the merchant creeped out into the hall, the stench stopped him in his tracks. The smell of burnt flesh, hair, circuitry, and oil wafted from the disembodied chunks of the humans and the cyborgs, smothering him in their rank atrocity.

As the merchant dragged his feet through the sludge, and side-stepped over corpses, he glanced at a map of the floor of the station. He rubbed the blood spattered surface and located docking bay 11, then began making his way to it. The closer he got to the docking bay, the louder the screams and the laser bursts became.

He eventually came within sight of the doors, where he was blinded by the light of the constant laser bursts. As his eyes adjusted to the scene, he began to see the outline of many cyborgs blasting away into the docking bay, standing on a heap of scrap metal, which the merchant assumed were their fallen comrades.

Through all the commotion and cries of the contorting cyborgs and booming of the laser bursts, the merchant heard a faint whooshing sound. He strained his ears. The realization hit him, they were starting the ship from inside the docking bay. “Non, c’est impossible, this can’t be happening. If they really launch from inside the cargo bay, then… then…” the merchant stuttered.

The merchant stumbled backwards in shock, slipped on the slick blood and oil covered floor, tumbled down. As he dazedly hoisted himself up from his position on the floor, he spotted a door that had a sign on it which read Cargo Bay 11 emergency controls. His delirious mind connected a few dots and soon enough he was stumbling towards the door.

As the merchant barged through the door, the whooshing of the engines in the cargo bay reached a crescendo; the transport vessel was just starting to lift from the floor. The merchant scarcely had enough time to view this spectacle from the tiny window looking out from the control room. He scanned the control panels and dove for the emergency protocol lever which he wrenched down.

The spectacle that ensued would remain embedded within the merchant’s mind forever, never to be erased. The emergency protocol lever began to close the door leading into Cargo Bay 11 from Outpost 039, whilst simultaneously opening the door that led into Outpost 039, causing rapid depressurization, sucking all and everything that was not fastened securely out into space. The resulting vacuum sent cyborgs flailing out into space past the transport vessel, although some managed to grab onto the beams and ladders built into the walls of the cargo bay.

The merchant was immediately sucked towards the doorway, but luckily, he was able to maneuver his flying body, such that it collided with an open locker next to the door where he became preemptively stuck. The merchant, huddled in his not so safe, safe haven, watched as the transport vessel floated into the air and blasted off into space, clipping the top of its vertical stabilizer on the way out.

The transport vessel, unbeknownst to Jebediah, was headed to K-92.