A couple of days passed, with John awakening each morning to a rock hard surprise. Each day it was getting more difficult to maintain his self control, but he went through his meditation rituals and gradually calmed himself. He had been travelling for four days now, having left Karron far behind and he decided to check on his precious cargo.


    The door to the cargo bay opened with a self satisfied nk. Down in the cargo hold everything seemed ok, but John felt on edge. Standing on the gantry overlooking the ship’s hold, he felt alert, focused, pensive, wary; he had great instincts and they were all telling him that something was wrong. He backed out of the cargo bay and hurried to his cabin to collect some weaponry. John grabbed his broad muzzled auto shotgun, perfect for up close work in the confined quarters of a spacecraft and mmed in a clip. The autoshot hummed to itself happily for a few seconds as he flipped the power button on the grip and a holographic targeting grid appeared above the weapon. John turned back into the corridor and jogged briskly back to the hold.


    Inside the cargo bay, John flicked on Infrared on the scope and did a quick sweep of the hold with his shotgun. He could see nothing untoward in the targeting grid, looking for any telltale signs of red, signifying heat, and seeing only cool shades of blue. He turned to the adjacent wall mounted panel and cranked the illumination of the hold up to maximum. Careful not to look up at the blinding overhead lights, John searched the room thoroughly. It was not until he returned to the doorway panel that he noticed a faint dusty scuffmark on the other side of the door. Having meticulously scrubbed that section of floor in an OCD fury beforending, he knew that someone or something hade aboard with the cargo at Karron.


    John resealed the cargo bay and began to sweep the ship. The Fool’s Gold was not huge, having only the cockpit, his cabin, the hold, a secondary cabin, his recreation room and the ships storage. He found no signs of life in the cabins or cockpit and there wasn’t anywhere to hide in the recreation room, consisting as it did of a dining table, afy sofa and a small but functional kitchen. That meant his interloper was in the storage room. John took a deep breath and readied himself for action before stepping into the doorway of the final room. Raising his auto shotgun, he looked through the scope and the targeting grid depicted the room in expected blues, with the asional red glow from the overhead lights. He turned slowly, carefully checking any potential hiding ces through the scope, until he finally faced a storagepartment near the back of the room. A telltale red glow was edging the door to this particrpartment, signifying a warm presence inside.


    “I know you’re in there,e on out!” John barked at the storagepartment, keeping a wary distance. He waited pensively to the count of ten, but there was no movement from thepartment.


    “Either youe out in 5 seconds, or I unload this shotgun and space your corpse!” John shouted at thepartment door.


    He heard some kind of squeak from thepartment and the storage door swung open slowly. A dirty unkempt figure stepped timidly out of thepartment and into the bright lights of the storage room. It was obviously a miner’s kid. Some mid-teen boy he would guess by the look of him, scrawny and malnourished, wearing shabby grey overalls, a bulky tattered jacket and a cap pulled down low. Frightened eyes peered out at him from a dirt smeared face beneath that dog eared cap, watching John warily and awaiting his next move.


    John sighed and lowered the shotgun. “Oh for fuck’s sake!” he groaned. “Now I’m going to have to turn right around to drop your ass back at Karron and we’re days out system by now” he muttered, thoroughly pissed off.


    This dumbass kid’s desire for adventure was going to cost John over a week on a pointless detour.


    “Please don’t take me back to Karron!” the boy replied in an oddly high pitched voice. Perhaps this kid was younger than he initially thought John mused.Belongs to (N)?vel/Drama.Org.


    “Why not?” John demanded. “There’s no chance in hell I’m going to risk being done on a ‘kidnapping a minor’ charge and I don’t for a minute think you have any money to pay me for the trouble. What’s your name anyway boy?”


    The frightened stowaway looked down, momentarily breaking eye contact with John. “My name’s Al.”


    “Well ‘Al’, my name’s John. It’s lovely to meet you.” John snarled sarcastically. “Now we’ve made introductions, you still haven’t answered my question. Why shouldn’t I just take you straight back to Karron?”


    “Maybe I could work for you as crew on the ship?” The grubby figure suggested hopefully.


    “Sorry boy, I work alone. Besides, what skills could you have that would be useful on a starship? No, I’m going to have to take you back.” John turned and made to walk out of the storage room.


    “No wait!” his unwanted passenger pleaded.


    John turned back to look at the urchin, as the kid drew a big sigh and seemed to make some kind of decision. Al reached up to the tatty cap and pulled it off, revealing dirty blonde hair that with a few quickly removed clips, tumbled down revealing shoulder length tresses.


    “I’m not a boy, I’m a girl and I’m not a minor, I’m 18. Maybe there’s something else I could do to earn my passage?” Al asked cautiously, but with a clearly suggestive undertone.