The silence. The worst part of stowing away on a military vessel was the silence, I decided as I rummaged around in the near-total darkness of my «camp» for my makeshift lantern. It had been a toss-up between sudden or unkown noises and silence, but I had finally concluded that the silence was the part that made the noises so hard to deal with in the first place. It slowly built suspense in my mind, which had been primed to listen for sounds that meant danger or discovery. What's more, when you're locked in a cramped, dark place, with not a single sound to fill it, your body supplies its own. You begin hearing even those sounds that your mind normally filter out. Such as your own heartbeat. The noises, whenever they came, did at least do you the favor of erasing those other sounds.
As if on cue, the creak of settling metal reverberated through the maintenance tunnels I had made into a makeshift camp for the night. I winced, then laughed softly to myself and tried to ignore the discomfort that seeped into my gut. I also shooed away the intrusive thought of just how close the total vacuum of space was. Less than one meter away, if I wasn't much mistaken.
At least this ship was a newer model. Some older vessels used an airlock system to eject debris that maintenance drones had picked up along their predetermined paths. Debris would be deposited by the airlock entrance, then the maintenance hatches would be sealed. Immediately after, the breathable atmosphere would be drained out from the maintenance compartments. Finally, a team of drones would simply push the debris out of the tunnels and into the maintenance airlocks, which would compress the debris and eject it into the void.
I had learned all this the hard way during my second failed attempt at stowing away. I had woken up struggling to breathe. A sharp hissing sound had filled my ears. Being busy with trying to survive, I hadn't noticed at the time, but the distinct 'inverseness' of the sound of air being sucked out of the room has been making regular visits in some of my worse nightmares ever since.
If I had been a normal human being, I would have died back then. For once, however, I was glad that I was not normal. Most of my childhood had been spent reminding me of that fact. To quote my foster mother, I was an abomination and an insult to nature, due to my being able to do things I wasn't supposed to. When I had awoken to the rapid evacuation of air from my lungs, I had been able to use my unnatural abilities to gather the air around me in a bubble, allowing me to continue breathing for a short while longer than normal people. Next, I had scrabbled to my feet and to the nearest maintenance access hatch, where I then began struggling with the access panel. This is where my abnormality came into play again. I had no access codes, being a stow-away. Instead, I had manipulated the electrical currents to direct power to the locking mechanism. It took effort and concentration, but in the end, I had barely made it out of the maintenance tunnel before passing out from lack of air, the grating sound of the security alarm filling my head.
Back in my current attempt at getting away from my past, I wound up having to turn out my bag before I finally found the small homemade lantern: a metal canister filled with scavenged oil, improvised cotton wick, a glass tube I managed to fit over the canister lid and a homemade metal plug that stuck the wick to the canister opening. I held up two fingers at the lantern’s mouth and let out a small electric arc to light the wick that had once been part of a uniform. Use what you have, as they say.
As I sat there in the orange lanternlight, I was jolted by another loud noise filling the cramped corridors. My stomach was growling. The rumbling sound bounced off the bare metal walls of the what passed for my living quarters. Scratching absentmindedly at a scar on my temple, I rummaged through my bag with my free hand, searching for the final bit of ration bar that I had been able to swipe from the ship’s canteen about a week ago. I would have to try another raid as soon as the canteen personnel went off-shift. There ought to be a two hour window then, where I could get more. Then I would need some sleep. I yawned at the thought and patted the grey dockworker uniform I had 'borrowed', making sure I had all I would need for my trip. It was all there. Yawning a second time, I created a tiny airburst to put out the lantern, and began to crawl.
I half crawled, half scuttled along the cramped, narrow tunnels, avoiding the drones that roamed the passages every now and then. Color-coded pipes ran along the ceiling overhead and on many of the walls. Halfway to the canteen access I ran across one that was of particular interest. The pipe was blue and, more importantly, uninsulated. Cold water. Beside a small spigot made to connect to the drones was an override panel for manual use. shadows danced and wavered along the corridors walls in the lantern's ruddy light as I set my lantern down behind me to work on the water spigot.
Though I had neither the necessary codes nor the appropriate key fob, I had no trouble getting the faucet to open. Once again, being an insult to nature had its perks. I generated a small electric current inside the panel and passed it through the small electric motor operating the release. A moment later, a powerful jet of cold water sprayed out, hitting the opposite wall. I caught some in cupped hands and began drinking. The cool liquid ran down my dry throat, chilling me. Droplets hit the top of my knee as I knelt there in the dark. Though the water had a metallic aftertaste, need had made me accustomed to the unpleasant flavor to the point that I hardly noticed it any longer.
After getting my fill, I turned the water off with another nudge of the electric current. I held my hands to the panel a little while longer. My arms tingled a little by the time I picked up my lantern and carried on along the ship's bowels, new strength in my legs.
I had made my latest nest in an intersection in one of the areas that were only patrolled once every ten days. That was one of the first tricks to stowing away I had learned. Over time, and after a whole lot of frantic drone evasion, I had learned that which exact areas were patrolled often could vary quite a lot. Not only from ship model to ship model, but even the individual ships. Of course, some areas always got more attention. You wouldn't want the life support systems to develop glitches after all. Nor would it be a good sign if the ship's computer systems began playing nursery rhymes over the comms, instead of more relevant alerts. Likewise, weapon systems and systems relevant to keeping the ship's power plants up and running were frequently visited by not only maintenance drones, but even living maintenance personnel. On the other hand, systems related to less important systems like storage, artificial gravity and even internal security and plumbing were often subject to less scrutiny. Their priorities didn't always make sense to me, but I guess they thought they could hold it in or something like that.
All that's to say, if you learned which systems were considered more important on your ship of choice, you could camp out in relative peace for a good while. Another upside to camping near to less important maintenance areas was that you didn't have to spend too much time evading the drones that were patrolling, scanning local systems for damage or other problems. Such as me. The downside of this camping strategy was that these kinds of areas were typically pretty far away from where the food was stored, meaning I would have to spend more time evading those same drones now that I was passing through the more important parts of the ship. And this particular ship was a fairly large, nuclear powered patrol vessel, with quite a lot of maintenance activity going on.
Hearing the low hum of another drone closing in, I looked around for somewhere to hide. There were no access hatches behind me, and the route I had chosen had few intersections. The drone was approaching from one of those intersections ahead of me, ruling out the option of simply turning a corner or two. I stifled a curse and crawled into a tight space between two water pipes. The drone was unlikely to check there. I created a small pillow of air between myself and the hot water pipe to keep myself from getting scalded.
As the humming approached, I closed my eyes and made another pillow of air, this time between myself and the approaching drone. The drone floated past my hiding spot, thin blue beams of light zipping up and down from a small glass bulb on each side, scanning the walls. The beams struck my air pocket and bounced off, same as if it had been a solid wall. I didn't know the particulars of how that scanner worked, but I knew this technique to have worked before. Hopefully, that would be true this time too.
The humming diminished into the darkness as the drone continued down where I had come from. My bag of stuff that I had gathered over the last two or so years was hidden behind a loose wall panel near where I had camped out. It should be fine there. I hoped.
As the hum disappeared around a corner I shimmied back out of my hiding hole and continued along my path toward the ship canteen and the food storage that was my goal. My stomach rumbled in anticipation of imminent feeding, even if most of the food I could easily get away with would be in the shape of dry rations.
Soon after, I came upon the access hatch leading into the canteen. I directed the electric systems in the access panel to unlock the hatch, but didn't open it all the way. Instead, I carefully lifted the hatch just enough that I could use a metal drinking straw, which I had previously nicked from a another ship's canteen, to keep the hatch ajar and break the airtight seal. Now for my next trick...
With access to the air beyond the hatch, I 'listened' to the air currents. They moved around stationary objects and got disturbed by anything moving. An air circulation fan was doing its thing, providing me with a nice and steady flow, making my job easier and less strenuous. There were thirty-four stationary objects in the room: an assortment of tables and attached benches, as well as a magnetic trolley for collecting used dishes and trays. At the far end of the room near the fan there was some movement, roughly fifteen steps away from the hatch in the area around what I knew to be the kitchen. I would have to wait until whoever it was had left. I grimaced to myself at the inconvenience. Then I touched a finger to the hatch sensors and disengaged the alarm that would have otherwise sounded if the hatch was open for too long. There was no telling how long I would have to wait.
During the next twenty-odd minutes, I felt at that other person rummaging around through the tiny disturbances in the open door as they tidied up after the previous shift's meal. I felt as they passed through the door separating the kitchen - my goal - and the canteen, then they began walking along the edges of the canteen floor. Probably to check they hadn't missed anything. As the unseen crewman neared where I was hiding, I slowly retracted the straw and pulled the hatch tighter, careful not to make any sound. I could feel the change of turbulence in the air as the crewman slowed slightly on nearing the access hatch. My breath caught. Had they noticed something?
As the crewman passed by the hatch, my heart began to beat harder.
Please keep walking. Just move. Along.
The crewman was almost to the hatch now. I closed my eyes and tried to weigh my options. I wasn't strong enough to fight. My freakish abilities, useful as they could be, would probably be far less than I needed in my current, reduced state. Even if they weren't, I would probably just make things worse. If I was discovered, there was nothing to be done. I'd be thrown off on some other planet and be put to work in a prison colony again. Fighting would just make things worse. I might even be killed. They continued walking past the hatch however, and, after what felt like half an eternity, the crewman finally opened the access door to the hallway, leaving the canteen ripe for a little bit of plundering. I grabbed the straw, pocketed it, and opened the hatch all the way. Clambering out, I finished by reactivating the sensors as I closed the hatch. Next, I felt for the electric currents within the security camera on the far wall. Right now, its image would be showing what appeared to be an empty canteen. I would like for it to stay that way. Honing in on the electronics within and the way they moved, I began to perform one of my more advanced tricks for freezing the camera image. I held my concentration on the way the electrical signals moved within the camera, and forcefully kept them running in those paths even as I stood up, before walking quickly towards the camera. My head began giving throbs of pain with the effort. The precision and distance needed made this the hardest power to use. Once I was directly under the camera, I touched its base and started to mess with the currents and circuitry inside to freeze the image in place. The effect was temporary, but would last long enough for me to do what I needed to. It was time to fill my stomach.
I hurried on silent, shoeless feet from the camera corner to the kitchen door and opened it with a wave of my hand over the small motion sensor beside it. The door opened with a muted hiss and I immediately headed toward the back, where I knew the food would be stored. A dizzy spell washed over me, and I lurched to one side before kneeling by a meter-tall refrigerator. The effort I had spent on the camera had taken more out of me than I had expected. I took a few moments to let my senses settle as my vision swam before me. I would have to eat something before continuing. I opened the fridge I had collapsed beside and looked inside. The fridge was filled with boxes of various beverages. I took a carton of juice from the back of one of the rows and fumbled with the straw glued to its back. Taking a few quick gulps, I moved on to another fridge further down the counter. Various condiments. No good. I checked the drawers next to the fridge. I was greeted by the sight of rows of boxes of ration bars, three of which were already opened. Score. I took one of each flavor of unopened box and a bar from each of the three opened boxes. I needed something to eat now. Faint with hunger, I opened the first wrapper. I sighed in relish as the chocolate flavor crashed into my tastebuds. I sat back against the opposing counter and chewed gratefully.
After I had wolfed down the first bar, I picked up the crumbs and began opening the next wrapper. It turned out to be strawberry and yoghurt. Ugh. Well, any port in a storm, wasn't that the old saying? I bit the ration bar lengthwise to avoid the yoghurt part. I could not understand why people would purposedly ruin a ration bar like that. Still, I was getting dangerously underfed these days. I took a long look at the unappealing strip of yoghurt-invaded grains and pieces of dried berry before I forced it down. I chewed at a frantic pace, trying my hardest to avoid inflicting the horror that was dehydrated yoghurt on my tastebuds. The dry, half-chewed lumps threw me into a coughing fit, and I gulped down the last of the juice box to wash away the remnants of ruined dairy product. On to the final bar. Dark chocolate and blueberries. Now that was a good combination.
Just as I was about to tear open the seal, I heard a muffled hiss from the canteen entrance, followed by footsteps and voices coming closer. I froze mid-motion.
Shit.
I quickly gathered up my loot, stuffed the loose bar of chocolate-blueberry goodness into my inner shirt pocket and closed the fridge door as silently and quickly as I could. I scooted out of sight from the kitchen door. Huddling behind the one of the kitchen counters, loot cradled in my left arm, I balanced myself with the right and felt at the air currents. Judging by the way the currents shaped themselves around them, they were four men and one woman. The woman and two of the men were armed with batons. One of the men also had a holstered sidearm. The fourth, unarmed, man was speaking.
"-might not be ajar anymore, but I'm telling you, someone's been in here! This is the second time the maintenance hatch was ajar like that, and last time, some of my inventory disappeared."
Well shit, apparently this ship canteen was staffed by some sort of anal retentive, detail-obsessed savant. Just my luck.
"That's a fine excuse, Tom. There's no shame in eating a little extra you know, so long as you don't eat it all," the armed man said. Tom gave an annoyed grunt and marched through the kitchen door. This was bad.
I ducked down the line and inbetween the rows, keeping an "eye" on their movements through the airflows and trying to stay out of their line of sight. I ducked under a bench and waited for one of the armed men to pass before ducking back out and making my way toward the kitchen door. I made a small, dense pocket of air in front of the sensor to keep the door from closing, then ducked into another small hiding spot. The crewmen walked through the kitchen. Tom was stooped, searching energetically from counter to counter, while the others simply walked around, clearly just humoring their colleague. Due to how many they were though, I would need something to divert their attention, or there was no way I was getting out. I gritted my teeth and took a chance.
I focused on the air in front of the storage room sensor, packing it more densely than the air around it. The air triggered the sensor and the door hissed open. The crewmen in the room with me all turned sharply at the sound. Two of them put a hand on the batons hanging at their sides and moved into the storage room. That left Tom and the man with the sidearm in the kitchen. Tom's attention was firmly locked on the door, and from where he stood, he wouldn't notice me slipping out. The armed man was another thing, however. Standing closer to the dividing glass by the canteen wall, he would have no trouble spotting me at all if I simply tried to run for the door. I hesitated.
Now what?
The man standing between me and the safety of the tunnels made to move down the line next to mine, and I ducked out, crouched as low as I could get and made for the door. As I turned the corner, my right shoe scuffed the counter. Though the sound was barely noticeable, I sensed the turbulence of the armed man turning around, towards me.
Shit.
Unthinkingly, I densified a small air bubble behind his right knee, then drove it into the back of his knee joint. The knee buckled and the man stumbled into the counter top with a surprised yelp. I could only hope that he hadn't noticed that his fall had been provoked. My head gave a throb, warning me. I was running out of energy. I wasted no time, but ran at a crouch through the still open kitchen door, toward the hatch and sent a tiny electric arc toward the access panel, guiding the electricity inside along the paths I was getting to be very familiar with by now. By the time I launched myself into the hatch, my head was throbbing with the strain and my field of vision was narrowing, but I did not dare stop reading the air currents. Behind me, the armed man had caught himself, and was talking with the others. They seemed calm enough. None of their faces were turned my way. Letting out a breath I hadn't realized I had been holding in, I shut the hatch behind me and collapsed to the floor. Chest heaving, sweat pearling on my forehead, I took out the blueberry bar and scarfed it down. It didn't feel right, but I needed more food now.
