Looking for A Knight of Goodness Part 4
17 Aug 2020Creamy Goodness III
To Creamy, moving in low gravity was like swimming in water that ignored him. People born, or that had lived on a space stations for a long time were used to it. Creamy could almost tell at once if someone was a spacer just by the way they moved. It was fluid and graceful. They looked like they paid no attention to where they were going to end up if they left a firm surface and just drifted to a point to push from without having to judge carefully what their next move should be. Things like walls floors and ceilings were just handy navigation aids that let them know which way up they were, or provided them with something to change direction. Creamy on the other hand moved like a swimmer all too eager to hang on to the side of the pool or feel the reassuring firmness of a floor that wanted him to stay with it beneath his feet.He had been trained how to move in low to zero gravity and spacers could tell. He was mechanical and forceful in his motions. It was something to do with weight changing but mass remaining.. Consistent? Whatever it was, the theory had been dull but he passed the practical with flying colours. Right now he was pushing himself off the ceiling of the walk-way back to the retail district of Citi Getaway trying to re-join the commuters without landing on anyone. The people he jostled had plenty to say to a man that behaved like that.
Midway through apologising to about five people, Creamy saw two officers swing into view at the subway entrance. He planted his feet and pushed off his good leg to leap cat-like on to the wall, then he ricochet himself and clotheslined the both of them. Another difference he noticed with station dwellers, they were soft. Their muscles didn’t toughen up properly, well not by the stands he was used too, and their bones felt flexible; easy to bend and break. Consequently, Creamy didn’t hit the officers too hard. Instead, he aimed a firm blow at each of their legs once they were down, and continued on without looking back.
If he was fast, and Creamy knew he was really fast, he’d catch that same train two stops on. He had to now or he’d be caught either by security or by anyone with a gun that fancied themself a bounty hunter. One this space station, a person with a gun itching to use it was far more numerous than security. Creamy pulled his shirt off his head, tucked it inside the jacket and ran as fast at his bad leg would let him. In point five gee, his sprint was more like a series of leaps than strides, and more than once Creamy just jumped over a throng of people instead of slowing to navigate through them. He was drawing attention, but that didn’t matter now. Security were doubtless already coordinating a dragnet after his scuffles at the last platform, and the stations cameras were defiantly going to be trained on him.
He glanced between the shops and saw maglev carriages arriving at the stop he was skipping. If the driver waited the one minuet thirty as he should, Creamy was confident he’d get to the next station on time. A camera drone caught his attention sweeping in over the shoppers from the subway entrance where a knot of station security was waiting to intercept him. Creamy thanked Yaz for the limp. If he hadn’t had a bad leg to consider Creamy would have headed straight for the next stop and hit a wall of armed officers he couldn’t hope to escape. He decided to stay low and redouble his effort to get to the platform before security blocked off that too.
The welcoming committee at the platform in question was not yet ready. The two officers on duty were not expecting any targets at their location, so a high-speed Imperial Nobleman was a nasty shock. Creamy hit one of them like a Zer0-Gee-Ball player ramming his shoulder into the man’s sternum, wrapped his arm around him, and continued on down the ramp using the guy as a battering ram. Fortunately, the maglev had not long ago arrived, so the access ramp was practically clear and the people coming up had a second to get out the way of the pair of men that had just bounced off the ceiling.
There was an officer already raising his weapon when Creamy saw the thankfully open doors of the maglev carriages. Creamy stuck his arm out to grab a support and let go of the officer he was carrying. The man continued along his trajectory while Creamy swung round with his fingers barely keeping a grip on the post. As the officer hurtled towards his colleague, Creamy relaxed his grip and sailed straight into a carriage. There were two heavy impacts; one was the officers getting acquainted and another where Creamy tested just how strong the moulded seats of the carriage were.
Creamy stood up and saw a camera drone bump off the closed doors of the carriage as the train started pulling off. He gratefully sat down stretching out his aching leg, took off the jacket, folded it and left it on the seat next to him. He was about to salvage his shirt and trousers from their crumpled state when a woman he vaguely recognised from the local holo-screens sat down right beside him.
“Lord Goodness, what drives an Imperial playboy” asked Alison in a voice that would plough on regardless of denials’ “to suddenly become a murderer?”
Creamy glanced at three tiny drones hovering around him and then at Alison’s narrowed determined eyes, one of which was not as natural as it appeared on the Holos’. His jaw dropped a little and a small confused noise escaped his lips.