Pirates Bane by Chris Hechtl

Author:Chris Hechtl [Hechtl, Chris]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Literature & Fiction, Science Fiction & Fantasy, Science Fiction, Adventure, High Tech, Military, Hard Science Fiction
Amazon: B00HKO356A
Publisher: self
Published: 2013-01-01T05:00:00+00:00

Chapter 15

Irons woke refreshed. He had a shower, his first cup of coffee, then an energy bar as he scanned the morning report. He grabbed a coffee to go and exited his compartment to shrieks from a chimp a dozen meters away. He paused with a frown. “Can you keep it down? Some people may still be sleeping,” he asked.

The chimp stared at him, wide eyed and teeth bared. Irons sipped cup of coffee, noting the man down in a fetal position at the feet of the simian. His still sleepy mind ticked over as he realized he had walked into a possible physical altercation. From her look she didn't seem to be tracking to well either. “Coffee ma'am?” he asked holding out his cup.

She was still bristling but stopped shrieking. She looked at him quizzically, holding a metal bar in her hand. She looked down at it for a long moment. “It’s good. Not real coffee, but close enough given the circumstances,” Irons said. He noted the approaching medics and other personnel.

The chimp's fingers slacked as she let go of the bar. Holly came up behind her, murmuring reassurances that she was safe. The chimp hooted a few times, slowly relaxing as Holly talked soothingly too her. Irons noted the chimp was half bald, from the look of it, shaved or worse.

She turned back to him, studying him with her brown eyes. After a moment she hooted a few times, this time less hysterically. Her big expressive lips moved and then her eyes fell. She turned and slunk off, walking in a shifting gait. Irons saw it from behind; Holly followed her, urging people who had come to look to make a hole. It took him a moment to realize the chimp was knuckle walking, a sure sign of regression. “Not good.”

“I'll say,” a crewmember said, sighing in relief. “That freaked me out! I thought she was going to kill me,” she said.

“She nearly did him,” another said, pointing to a crewman who was being treated by Rajesh. He was battered and bruised, cut up a bit.

“He sure took a pounding,” another crewman said in sympathy. “What set her off?”

“No idea,” another said coming up. “I was going to ask you.”

“What happened?” the Admiral asked after Holly escorted the chimp away. He noted a crewmember had been injured from the look of it seriously. Simians were incredibly strong. Most people thought gene enhanced humans evened the difference out, but that wasn't the case sometimes. Some apes were just as proportionally gifted.

“Apparently he touched her in passing and she went off on him.”

“Really? Inappropriate touch or...”

“No, nothing like that,” the crewman groaned. “I must have surprised her. She's still having trouble coping.” He winced. “I think Charlene was in a bad place. I must have surprised her, set her off.”

“Oh.”

“She lost it.”

“That's going to happen. We'll need to set up something. A therapy for people to talk about what happened. Get it out. If it lingers it festers.”

“Yeah well, some of us don't want to talk about it, we just want to move on.

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