Looking for a Knight of Goodness Part 5
19 Aug 2020Creamy Goodness III
This guy was going to be easy meat. Alison could see his breathing was heavy although he was doing his best not to let it show. His eyes were red-rimmed and watering slightly, probably from that stuff that was all over his hand and he was obviously tired enough to give up. He’d not be fighting his way off the platform at the next stop that was for sure. “Alison Aims” said Creamy with the best smile he could muster “Of Gateway to the Citi fame, a pleasure to meet you. I do like your delivery and head-on style of reporting”
Creamy had been given some very good advice about dealing with reporters by his mother. Don’t. It was simple and usually for the beast. After giving him the golden rule, she expanded on it slightly.
“Be polite, remember what you represent my boy, and decline to answer any questions at all”
Creamy was about to offer Alison his hand, but he remembered it was still covered in whatever it was the nice little officer had sprayed at him.
“Look, I’m far too much of a mess to be anywhere near a camera, so if you would…”
He stopped because the reporter had rummaged in her shoulder bag and produced a pack of wet wipes and a hairbrush. Creamy gazed at the hairbrush as if it was the greatest object in the galaxy.
“Ar well” he continued still looking at the brush on Alison’s lap. “It’s not just that. I’ve this throbbing ache in my knee and a headache powerful enou…”
Her bag was like Aladdin’s cave of wonders. Alison put a strip of tablets beside her on the seat. Creamy didn’t know the brand, but he read Fast Acting Pain Relief and almost gave in to temptation.
“Now see here” he said trying to sound firm, more for his benefit then Alison’s “That’s.. I’m far too tired to be talking with someone like you who…”
She had reached into her amazing bag of wish fulfilment and produced a drinks carton. She held it so Creamy could see what it was. It was a self-heating carton of coffee. Alison twisted the bottom to break the seal and Creamy watched the carton slowly swell as the drink inside warmed. He was following the carton the way a cobra follows the end of the snake charmers' flute.
“You may as well talk to me Lord Goodness. When we get to the next station, the only person that’s going to listen to your story is the judge. That’s after you’ve been stunned, arrested and beaten for assaulting Station security and left in a cell for a month”
Alison held the coffee carton by the cap letting it swing gently side to side. She decided to try and learn hypnotism after this. It seemed like it would be easy if this dolt was anything to go by. For Creamy it was far too tempting to resist and he reached for the painkillers. Alison slapped her hand down on them.
“Exclusive and I want everything” she said with the smile of someone that knew she was going to get her own way.
Creamy resigned himself to making yet another mistake trading good sense for wiping his hands, sorting out his hair and painkillers washed down with prepacked coffee.
“You are like a siren, no a, succubus and I am seduced by your temptations. Yes Ms Aims, I’ll tell you the chain of events that led me to this very carriage”
The train entered the tube that overlooked the landing pads and Creamy peered out the window looking for the pad his ship had used. He saw it quite far off to his left.
“Get ready Ms Aims, I’ll be talking very quickly indeed”
Creamy took three of the tablets and washed them down with a mouthful of the coffee. He started his recounting from when he boarded Nerys’ Sidewinder as he cleaned his hands. Alison listened to him and she found herself enjoying the way he told a story. He was animated and enthusiastic, especially when he was talking about the girl or woman he kept referring to as *My friend*. It was then she finally noticed Creamy hadn’t given a single name or more than the most general of locations.
Some of the other passengers had leaned in to listen as Creamy was talking about the first ambush after he left the Inner Ring night club with *his friend* on Hauser's Reach. Alison meant what she had said about an exclusive and upped the power on her jammer. No recordings but her own would have a clear image and usable audio. Creamy was telling Alison what happened to him after he had stayed behind in Robigo alone.
He was definitely exaggerating to make his story more engaging, but Alison couldn’t tell if he was outright lying to her. He had the ability to strut like a peacock while sitting relatively still in his seat, but that didn’t mean he was capable of weaving a convincing web of lies. His references to locations on Citi Gateway got even more vague the closer he got to current events. Alison put that down to him still being on the run and gave him the benefit of the doubt. A lot of the events after he was jumped on his friend’s ship just didn’t add up. Creamy had strolled over to the doors of the carriage while he finished his story and started taking some long paces backward.
“But that doesn’t add up. If they wanted half a billion off you, why would they suddenly go after your friend that couldn’t even afford her own ship?” asked Alison.
“I know” answered Creamy in the tone of someone finally happy to be talking to someone that seemed to get it “I mean she may have shot one of them in the leg, but surely they would just add that to my bill and maybe fleece me for more credits so they didn’t beat her up”
Creamy wasn’t happy with the result of his test. He went back to the doors and started striding backward again, this time leading with his other foot.
Alison was busy replaying pats of Creamy story to inform her questions.
“So wait, you were separated from your friends friends for about an hour. Now, that gives them enough time to target a couple of guys that security has arrested… but they would have had to have planned that well in advance”
Alison huffed in frustration. There was a link here but she couldn’t see it. Talking about it out loud was helping so she continued.
“That still tracks a lot better than the people from Hauser's Reach catching up with you two, paying off security and god knows how many station officials to get away with all this craziness. I mean, why would they spend that much money to get some credits off a high born hobo.. .no offense”
Alison finally paid attention to Creamy in time to see him dragging a line in the greasy carpet of the carriage floor.
“Goodness, what the hell are you doing”
Creamy was looking out the window counting under his breath with a look of intense concentration on his face. A look that was very much out of place on Creamy.
“Honestly Alison, I didn’t have a clue about who we were supposed to have killed until you said security had arrested them. I imagine it’s the two men that attacked my friend and I. What’s more, I don’t believe individuals that would come to the aid of two people in peril would then set off to kill a pair of bounty hunters. I don’t know them beyond a few sentences, but they didn’t sound like killers”
He had clearly made a choice, Alison watched him pull the window braking hammer from its cradle above him. She looked back at the line in the carpet and remembered watching Creamy pace back from the door. While an alarm sounded a high pitched squeak, Alison put it all together.
“Goodness that's fuckin mental. You’ll kill yourself the moment you hit the station”
He looked at her over his shoulder and winked before swinging the little hammer at the glass hitting it on the marked shatter point. The panel fractured and was blown in momentarily before all the glass was sucked out. Everyone on the carriage felt a pull on their lungs and ears for the briefest of moments before the pressure normalised. The air was hot and tasted of ship exhaust, something Creamy had not expected so he happily availed himself of a breathing mask that had dropped down from above. The noise of the ships and heavy equipment was unexpected, and Creamy had to shout to make himself heard.
“No no Ms Aims. I’d be dead if I arrive at the next station” He yelled once he was back behind his line. “This is just high jinks”
He smiled a friendly smile and gave Alison a wave before concentrating on counting the gaps in the impact barrier guarding the maglev line. Alison was shouting something at him, but he had no chance of hearing it. His pad was coming to the right angle, he’d have to go at the next gap so he ran.
Alison watched him in pure disbelief. The man ran to the window and took off as if he had a jump pack on his back. His body slipped between a gap in the ram guards and he sailed off into Citi Getaway’s landing dock. Alison leaned out of the train to keep him in frame as long as possible and sent her mini-drones after him. They wouldn’t be able to follow him for long, but she wanted all the footage of this she could capture.
She lost him after her last drone went out of range of its controller. Creamy blew her a kiss when he noticed he was being followed, she couldn’t decide if he was stupid or his self-confidence was deserved. Either way, she was the one in front of the doors when the train pulled up to the platform. There were too many guns to count, so she stood aside to let station security file into the carriage while she uploaded the footage to her personal server and deleted the local copy. Someone would grass her up, and she felt like giving Creamy and his friends plenty of time to get off the station before she broadcast that interview.
-------------------------
It was noisy and it smelled really bad. Even the stink of stale tobacco on Oó’s big blue coat was better than this and Creamy hated tobacco. The feeling of flying to a landing pad without a ship was amazing and he really wanted to share this feeling with the Doctor. Well, that was until he was getting close to the surface. Suddenly he appreciated just how fast a station rotated. It hardly seemed to be moving at all when he was sat in a ship with its own thrust. Right now Creamy was coasting completely unable to make even the most minor adjustment.
He was approaching the pad fast and Creamy knew he’d have a hard time making a good landing without an injured leg. He was very grateful he’d leapt from a maglev matching the station rotation. There was no time to think about it and nothing Creamy could do to change the fall anyway. He took the magnets he’d removed from the heels of his work boots out his pockets and gripped one in each hand. He swung his arms back and pushed his legs forward ready to hit the pad.
The impact wasn’t that hard on his good leg, but the second step didn’t go so well. As soon as his knee felt the weight, it buckled and Creamy tumbled on uncontrolled. The magnets did nothing at all even in the very low gravity of the landing docks. Now Creamy understood the difference between weight and mass a little better. All he could do was tuck into a ball and hope he stopped before he hit something really hard.
When he did stop, Creamy stayed on his back looking up at the pad above him, way across the other side of the station. A Type-7 was coming into land. If the air was about forty percent more breathable, and thirty degrees cooler, he’d think he was ok considering and, may have enjoyed the grace of the block like ship drifting slowly to a halt. Now wasn’t the time for contemplations, everything hurt, and Creamy still had a ship to free. He picked himself up and stumbled to the subsurface hatch.
Below the surface, Creamy made good time until he reached the dock that contained A Knight of Goodness. Creamy peered through the airlock and didn’t see any security. Fortunately, he’d come in from the surface where no one would have expected an intrusion, so Creamy crept inside. From the balcony above his ship, Creamy could see a lot of officers covering the doors and loading bay. Creamy crept close to the wall and slowly scuttled sideways trying to stay out of the light. He was close to the stairs down when an officer came up them less than two feet away from Creamy.
The officer leaned on the guard rail and lit a cigarette. Creamy stopped breathing and stood as still as a statue. If the man turned his head a few degrees, he’d spot a target and Creamy doubted this officer would need to call control for permeation to use the non-standard rifle he was holding. Just two more steps to his right and Creamy felt he would be in some nice dark shadows. Creamy picked up his boot and silently took a step. He had lifted his foot for the second stealthy movement when the maintenance panel behind him went..
Br-Ding!