Aiyela finds the Derelict Read online

his eyes like slivers of lime. “No good. Mesha?” Same. “Melvin? Marlo? Fred?” she rattled off random names looking for one to stick. “Tumbleweed? That kind of makes sense?”

  Claws, some how, made it through the towel and into her arm.

  “Ow! Hey!” She smacked his forehead. “That hurt! Fine. No Tumbleweed. It's no wonder you got left behind with this attitude. For all I know, they might have tossed you off the ship that rescued your crew. That's right. I bet you were tossed out like a piece of jetsam.”

  Claws.

  “Ow! I mean it. It's not too late for me to turn around. You'll get a second try at being jet —”

  Claws.

  “That's it, back you go!”

  Aiyela leaned over the console, but the cat wiggled free enough to put out a paw right over her heart. She looked down at the little animal, its eyes were wide, no more slits. Its paw was placed lightly, claws sheathed. There was intelligence in his face. Was he trying to say something? What had she been talking about? “Jetsam.” He dug at her suit, but not through it. “Is that what you want to be called?” The cat looked away as if suddenly bored, or just surveying the room.

  “Well, fine. Jetsam it is, but you're going to have to come up with a better way to communicate. A simple 'meow' would have been good enough.

  Pandan’amere was a beautiful, mostly-undeveloped port of call not far from Aiyela's original course. It was also the closest fuel depot so she could top off her tank one more time, and trade her waste tank's contents for a little bit of water and food because even human manure could find a buyer going to the dustbowl worlds along the outer rim. All in all, it was an easy stop, but Aiyela felt a seed of worry growing inside her.

  Jetsam had stayed out of trouble for the flight, mostly. His curiosity must have lead to a surprise or two, because she found him in the engine room making a mess. She guessed the lid of one of her tool boxes had “attacked” him, because he made a ruckus getting out of there. Not to mention—judging by the mortal wounds to the box—his claws had to be sharp as razors and titanium edged. Later, she had to investigate a minor power failure. He must have gotten tangled in the wiring of a maintenance alcove which she must have forgotten to close —an odd lapse in memory for her.

  Between such bouts —and torturous attempts to latrine train him —Jetsam had hopped into her lap for attention. He became an entirely other and adorable creature the moment her hand reached his belly. All four paws would retract like landing gear and his head would roll of to look at the floor, through the floor, and on to kitty-Eden. He would sigh and his tail would curl from side to side like a slow, rolling pendulum.

  It was this adorable new persona that she was worried about. Sure Jetsam had been jettisoned by his former family, but what if they wanted him back along with the recorder? She hoped by all that was holy and shiny that he was as much a stowaway left behind as he was a stowaway on the Mi-kalat.

  But there was only one way to find out.

  “Sure, Miss Aiyela, go ahead and land on pad, one —we've got it all cleared for you. You can log in the recorder with the attending officer and be on your way. We can refuel your tank if you like. We'll just take it out of the redemption money, if it's all the same to you?” Pandan’amere's port authority was all smiles and “morning ma'ams”, a welcome surprise. As was this talk of money.

  “Redemption money?”

  “Oh, well, it's rare collected but when a ship goes missing, most insurance carriers offer a reward for the return of the recorder. It's not much, but it is an incentive, to compensate good Samaritans like yourself for the trouble of returning the item. It helps our local port finances to offer the fuel so some of that finders fee stays here for our own economy.”

  “Well sure, it never hurts to help . . . someone said that anyway,” she recalled, though she often found that helping was quiet painful.

  She docked on the pad, feeling lucky that it was so close to the office. “Oh, look at the nice men!” Already, a maintenance crew was approaching to service the ship. Aiyela would have to see if there was some way she could make a part-time job out of this kind of work. Jetsam began to get a bit squirmy. “You'd better stay here, Jetsam.” She put him on her bunk. “Promise, I won't leave you. I just don't want to get them too interested in you.”

  Jetsam jumped down and tried to squeeze past her in the hatchway but she kept him back with a boot, and closed the hatch. No, they wouldn't care about him. They didn't even know he was aboard, she told herself as she started to feel really good about the whole adventure. She was already forgetting the mortal battle with the stench of evil and was beginning to be thankful for the inconvenience that brought her a new friend.

  “Iiii gotta blitzen, new jetpack. It’s titanium and yellow, Jack,” she began to sing to herself as she skipped down her cargo bay and out the hatch. She waved at the crew, who smiled and waved back, “Don a helmet for my head. Drop the dareless boots of lead . . . ”

  Into the office she went, swinging the recorder like a schoolgirl's lunchbox. Across the swept, polished linoleum, she strode, not minding the perma-grease that she may have been leaving in her tracks. She didn't feel bad about the dinge beginning to collect on her newer jumpsuit as she passed by the pristinely dressed officers of the port authority. And she didn't even feel childish with barely-contained sunshine coming from between her cheeks while she took in their neutral-grim expressions and judgmental eyes. She just knew she was gonna walk away with her new best bud, Jetsam!

  “Hiya,” she put the recorder upon the counter and propped her elbows to hold her smiling face. “I found this here recorder on a derelict, uh, MKD1810?”

  “We're glad to return it.” The officer said, judging by voice he was not the same as the one on the radio. “No trouble with the retrieval?”

  “Simple enough for a gal like me. I'm something of a mechanic. Keep my ship running all by myself.”

  “What was the condition of the MKD1810?”

  “Nothing wrong with it outside. It was just abandoned.” Her eyes shifted and she picked at the counter with her fingernail. “The inside was a bit messed up, some of the cargo had been gotten at, and they have got some waste management issues aboard there —let me tell you. I wouldn't go aboard without a hazmat suit.”

  “I see. So you were aboard?”

  That was an odd question. “Well, yeah. I have the recorder.” She hesitated. “Speaking of cargo . . . do you, you know, have a manifest for what was supposed to be aboard?”

  “Well, yes, Miss. A port ship or the insurance carrier's retrieval unit will have to take an inventory.” He turned an electronic pad toward her. “Sign here.”

  “Oh.” I guess, there's no way out of it, she thought. It would be stealing if she didn't check and see if Jetsam was part of their manifest . . . “What's this part mean, 'The statement I have provided, may be used in legal proceedings'?” The two uniformed men were coming off the wall towards her.

  “Well. It seems that ship has been flagged as stolen by a person or persons matching your description. The theft of which was coordinated with a ship matching yours.”

  “What?”

  “You are hereby served with a warrant for your arrest, pending extradition to an agent of the Thrakzoz government whom you may expect within one standard day.”

  “Who?”

  “You will find our cells are quite comfortable, even for a ship-thief.”

  “But I —”

  “Your vessel will be impounded and the contents inventoried for future disposition towards expenses related to your case. Welcome to Pandan’amere.”

  One of the two men, who seemed to have grown to twelve feet tall, grabbed her by the arms while the other clapped a pair shackles over her wrists.

  “Oh darn.”

  ###

  About J.S. Clark

  I (J.S. Clark) hope you are enjoying your time with Aiyela’s continuing adventures—don’t worry, I’m sure she’ll get out of this mess and be back before you kno
w it.

  I began writing this series after New Arbor Day as a refreshing change of pace, inspired by my wife Alisa who had had her share of tough days along with me. But the first episode was so much fun to write, that I've made it my break of choice between my other, more “serious”, projects. I say that with quotes because revisiting more childlike times and stories is good for the soul, and despite what someone might think it is very serious work.

  J.S. Clark lives in southern Ohio with his wife, Alisa, their second son and their assorted, adopted cats, dogs, and other living paraphernalia. Most of the time, he's operating a small oasis of good, quick food (not fast food) called the Happy Turtle, located in West Union, Ohio; while he and his wife endeavor to live as disciples of Yeshua (Jesus) the Messiah. With the time God gives him outside and in the cracks of that daily work, he writes.

  He always has another work on the burner. At the time of this publishing, he has one published novel New Arbor Day and is finishing up a sci-fi epic novel, Evangeline, cultivating the continuing adventures of Aiyela, and a