Project Charon 2 by Patty Jansen

Author:Patty Jansen [Jansen, Patty]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Capricornica Publications

Chapter Seventeen

They filled up the trolley for the last time. Still more people streamed into the galley. The crates with rations had long been emptied, and people were now scavenging parcels from the sections that couldn’t be removed.

Others were opening whichever cupboards along the sides of the galley walls they could reach, climbing on each other’s shoulders if necessary, and handing down storage boxes and drawers. They collected plates, and cups and cutlery. They argued with each other over which side of the kitchen was theirs.

“Are we all done?” Tina asked. She didn’t like how the atmosphere was turning aggressive in the galley. By now, most of the ship crew was gone, and the people rummaging through the cupboards were pirates. Arguments broke out over certain items. Most of them spoke various dialects that Tina didn’t understand. Men and women in different dress codes worked together. A group in dark red appeared to be a family, a grandfather, a father, a mother and two teenage daughters. All of them pirates, but unarmed, and interested only in pots and pans. The grandfather was guarding a hoard of them, shooing away a young boy in blue clothing who tried to sneak off with one of the pans.

Those groups were the real Freerangers, from the tight-knit, highly independent shipworlds, and they appeared to be different from the other ship crews in that they looked for items to sell.

A mutant pirate with grey skin and a toad-like appearance came to the door and looked in. The grandfather clamped his jaw and glared at the man.

That was an interesting exchange. Artan, Jackson Hirsch, wasn’t born a pirate. Tina didn’t know how he came to be a pirate, but she hadn’t given much thought to the possibility that the “real” Freeranger pirates didn’t like him at all.

The toad-pirate remained at the door, returning the grandfather’s angry stare.

The Freeranger mother in dark red called both her daughters, and the group sidled out the door, leaving behind a number of pots they couldn’t carry.

The boy in blue ran to grab them, but another boy had noticed them, and a fight broke out. The blue mother yelled at the other boy, and his family yelled back. In particular a young man got very angry, and came at the blue mother. He grabbed her by the arm, and for one moment looked like he was going to attack her.

“Oy. Stop that,” Tina called out.

It was a reaction that bubbled up out of her memory, where she used to tell off younger workers at Project Charon to keep them from getting into worse problems and facing disciplinary action if they were caught in a fistfight.

She might be much older now, but her voice had lost none of its authority.

The boy let go of the mother’s arm and went back to his family. The blue family eyed Tina. A man who looked like the father of the family gave a tiny nod.

“Let’s get out of here,” Tina said. She had no intention of getting involved in pirate politics.

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