Chapter 12

Ketch sat up in his bed slowly he lowered the mental blocks he had set up. They taught them how to partition their minds at the academy, it allowed them to make the best decisions without fear distracting them in combat. K2tec was chagrining quietly in the corner of the tiny room. He had downloaded as much of the wookie language as he could before they had exited the range of the moon base. Now Ketch wouldn’t need Joran there whenever the Captain talked to him. He took a deep breath and really thought about what he had learned.

“011.04.11.01” Blazed in the corner of his vision.

Ketch braced himself for the onslaught, “Come on y9ou bastards. Men have dealt with worse things!” He screamed silently as he thought of all the pain and horror he was part of. He struggled against the flood of pain, he called to mind the exploits of other men who had lived with worse acts. Luke Skywalker had killed 500,000 imperial troops in the defeat of the first Deathstar. A few thousand deaths, a drop in the bucket compared to that. Every ship that had been lost in the clone wars held hundreds of thousands of troops obliterated in a second by a well-placed proton torpedo. Anger welled up to hold him above the despair that he felt for the poor beings that had lost their lives at the hand of cruel fate. Prepared he calmly faced his feelings all the pain inside amplified by the injustice he had been party to.

In front of him, his hands flew over the stack of spare parts he had snuck into his room. His eyes were unfocused as he struggled inside with himself. Mindlessly he assembled the machine in front of him, it grew slowly but steadily under his hands as he fell deeper into what Joran would have called a trance. Ketch hit himself with the image of all those people dying for him, to bring him to this exact moment in the universe in exactly this way. Thousands had lost their lives so he would be prepared as he was now. He gave himself over to a power greater than himself and his awareness of the force blazed to life in front of his eyes. In that instant of perfect clarity, he was connected to everything. Everything sparkled with a touch of the force in it. The bulkhead, faint sparks of its presence in the universe fixed only by the will of its pilot. Tiny imperfections instilled in it from its builders, symmetry imposed there by its designer all wrapped up together. Entranced Ketch lost himself in this new awareness. Through the haze of the objects around him, he saw the clear bright pulse of another in the force. Tied in a web more intricate even then the one knotted around him, she slept at peace. He could tell it was a woman somehow. With a start, he realized it was Joran that he was seeing as she truly was for the first time.

He had gotten to his feet at some point. He stood with his arm extended towards her. His fingers blocked by the cool Durasteel of the hull he yearned to touch her. Disturbed, she tossed in her sleep trying to awaken to see what called too her. Quickly he withdrew, his body shook at what he called on it to do as if he stretched a muscle he had never used before. As his awareness shrunk back he caught a glimpse of a strange boiling cloud of darkness in one of the rooms on the ship. Before he could wonder much too about it, his wondering mind returned with a snap to his body, enclosing him again. Shutting him off from the greater universe.

Ketch sagged exhausted against the bulkhead wall. He struggled his way over to his bunk and collapsed, his eyes struggled to focus. Before the familiar feel of darkness swallowed him again, he saw the device he had built in his meditations glowing cheerily green on his workbench. Ready for use, whatever that use might be. He had no idea what it was for. His thoughts fuzzed away into blankness as he struggled to figure out what he had built this time.

Bruekal stomped through the crew quarters until he found the room Ketch had claimed. He banged on the door with a closed fist.

“Bang, Bang, Bang” Ketch’s dreams where interrupted by his pounding hangover. Daken was going to catch hell for waking him up before his head had cleared all the way. Ketch struggled to his feet and stumbled over to the door with his eyes pressed shut tight against the dim green glare coming from his desk. He rubbed his eyes trying to focus over the burning glare in the corner of his vision. He held his head in both hands trying to remember what he had drunk last night that had kicked his ass so thoroughly.

“010.22.55.24G”

“010.22.55.23G”

The timer countdown steadily. Ketch froze, his mind clearing her remembered everything from the last few days and braced for blackness to claim him again. It didn’t come, but his headache flared painfully at the continued banging coming from his door.

“WHAT?” he demanded yanking the door open roughly. Bruekal regarded him steadily for a second then jerked his thumb towards the cargo hold. And growled something in Shyrwook. Ketch blinked at him, it was too freaking early for this crap, he thought.

“K2, what’s he saying?” Ketch asked pulling on his flight jacket.

“He says “Rise and shine, its first thing in the morning ships time, time to get to work.” at least that’s as close as I can translate sir,” K2tec said helpfully.

“Cargo bay?” Ketch asked skeptically, Bruekal nodded.

“Navi computer installation?” He inquired mumbling as he followed behind Bruekal’s massive frame. Bruekal’s only answer was quick glance back with a tight-lipped smile and a glint of mischief in his eyes. Ketch studied the wreckage in the cargo bay with a grim sort of resignation, it figured nothing ever went smoothly these days. He sighed and Bruekal started to growl something at him Ketch held up a hand.

“Yeah, yeah, I know. Get to work or you’ll kill me and beat me to death with my corpse.” Ketch said he took off his jacket and rolled up his sleeves. Bruekal waited for him to turn to the tool wrack before he coughed out a quiet chuckle.

“Kids got some spine to him after all. I can use that.” Bruekal thought as he left ketch to work on installing the parts he needed. Ketch grabbed tools with ease as he worked steadily putting the banks of computer circuits in their proper places. The family of (rat alien name) came to watch him. The smallest member of the group a pure black cub? Kit? Baby? Ketch didn’t know the proper name for their young, followed K2tec around as he zipped back and forth to the tool chest.

“Do you have a name little guy?” Ketch asked the young black furred an alien. He stopped his quick hopping around and cocked his tiny head to the side studying Ketch intently. Finally, he straightened up to his full height and nodded seriously at ketch.

“Can you tell me what it is?” Ketch asked stopping to study his progress, he didn’t stare at the small nervous alien directly, so he didn’t scare it away. Again the tiny alien nodded and looked at him expectantly.

“Are you going to tell me what it is?” Ketch asked chuckling, amazed at the amount of sarcasm silence could convey. The tiny black furred alien chirped sharing Ketch’s humor. He hopped over to the toolbox and pulled a tool out with his nimble little hands, ketch saw that he had three tiny fingers and a thumb. He pointed at the tool and then at himself. Ketch glanced down at the proffered tool it was a precision caliber for measuring the headspace on bolts down to micrometers.

“You’re named after a tool?” Ketch asked picking up the Caliber, again a quick nod was his only answer.

“Let’s see… is your name Caliber?” he asked. A negative nod this time.

“Cal?” he guessed next, this time he got an excited hop, followed by an upraised hand waffling back and forth.

“Closer?” a positive nod this time.

“Hmmmmmmmm… what about Cali?” an excited chirp and she pointed at the tip of her nose.

“Right on the nose,” Ketch said grinning. “Cali is it? Well, I’m Ketch, That’s K2Tec that you’ve been following around. you want to give us a hand?” At her excited nod, some of the tension he had been feeling seemed to ease for some reason.

“You have to ask you… parents?” she nodded and pointed at the largest of the pack and his dark-colored mate. Quickly she zipped off and held a squeaky conversation with her parents. The larger of the pair dug around in a small pack he had fashioned to fit his small body and pulled out a translation device and hung it around his neck.

“We would be honored if you would show our youngest a few things around the circuitry of our new home. She will do exactly as you instruct her, I can guarantee that.” His voice projected out was startlingly deep. He glanced sternly at his offspring who didn’t shrink from his gaze in the least.

“Alright sir, and we will try to make sure she learns something while we keep her out of your hair, ah fur, um way.” Ketch finished sheepishly. K2tec bowed gracefully with his hands together in front of him, and Cali’s father mirrored his gesture. Cali followed Ketch back to his project and literally dove into the wires.

“Whoa there speedy, hang on a second,” Ketch said fishing her out of the nest of wiring. He explained the diagram of where the wires ran to and from. Cali listened raptly and followed his instructions carefully. As the day wore on she proved invaluable in digging out the smaller connecting wires and helping connect all of the circuitry. After he dropped a small connecting bolt down the bulkhead and she gladly climbed down after it Ketch realized that her size might not be a bad thing when working on a starship. Her parents called her away after a few hours to go eat and clean up as the ship day was ending.

Joran crept up silently on him as he closed up the access hatch to the Navi computer.

“I saw how you handled that youngling today. That was very well done.” Joran said softly to Ketch’s hunched over figure. K2tec flitted away towards the cockpit to check the system control from the bridge leaving them alone.

“She’s a good kid, species doesn’t matter at that age, we only learn to distrust outsiders when you’re older. You can always tell which ones are the good ones.” Ketch said smiling, it was nice to find a little joy in the darkness that was closing in around them.

“She reminds me of myself when I was younger. Always squeezing into anyplace I could fit to check out how things worked. If she pays attention she’ll learn more in a week on this ship then she would learn in a year at the academy.” Ketch said as he scrubbed the grease and dried circuit glue off his hands.

“We need to talk,” Joran said her smile fading as she grew more somber. Ketch nodded and followed her towards their cabins. Bruekal intercepted them in the mess hall and stopped them. He nodded for K2 to come over and translate. Then rattled off a long speech at Ketch, he could tell a reprimand no matter the language.

“He says, your work was barely adequate and if it holds up for the journey it will be a miracle. Also, your now on the ships log as Cali’s instructor and anything she gets into your responsible for fixing,” K2tec said, Ketch winced, the ship's log was law and the only legally admissible record of the events that happened on the ship.

“Meeting for all crew in the galley in ten minutes.” A metallic voice said from the speaker system. It was a female voice but it lacked any of the personality Ketch liked to program into his own Droids, he enjoyed an AI that had a little snark to it. Cali sprang out of an access port for the ships ventilation system as he walked past, she followed after him; a few smudges of grease still marred her hastily washed fur. He hesitated to point out that he had left her to fix up the last of the navigation wiring, not the rust smelling ships air handler.

“Great more good news I bet,” Ketch said under his breath as he finished putting away his tools and dusted off his pants. Cali followed his example and busily cleaned the grease off her fur. The sight of the tiny rodent-like alien mirroring him made him smile for the first time in days. Thinking of the time he looked down at his new apprentice. “Can you keep up or do you want a ride?” he asked her. In response, she took off down the corridor leading to the galley. Ketch tried to keep up, but after a few meters he gave up; grinning as Cali bound around the corner, ricocheting off the wall so she didn’t lose speed in the turn. He decided to walk at a dignified pace, more suited to his advanced age. He chuckled to himself for his internal rationalizations, he came into the mess hall as the rest of Cali’s family arrived in a flurry of bouncing bodies they occupied one of the table tops to be able to see everyone.

Bruekal began briskly, “we have to resupply, we have enough consumables for a week but after that, we will be on half rations, then 30% rations for the remainder of our supplies until in a little over 15 days, ship time we will be entirely out of food.