Looking for A Knight of Goodness Part 6
22 Aug 2020Creamy Goodness III
The officer guarding the hanger looked around to see what had just made the electronic ding. He didn’t expect to see the criminal he had been told to shoot on sight. Creamy wasn’t watching the man’s face; he was observing the man hands and hips. He hoped the guy would just walk away as if he hadn’t seen anything; it wasn’t to be. The officers’ right hand dropped as he begun to swing the savage looking rifle to bear on Creamy. In a much practiced motion, Creamy stepped forward while turning his back to the officer grabbing the barrel of the weapon pushing the dangerous end away from himself. Normally, he would have pulled the weapon and kicked the man’s arm hard enough to force him to let go but with his injury, Creamy elbowed side of the guy’s head with his free arm.
The force of the blow put the guard off balance and Creamy pulled the guy over the banister by yanking on the rifle. The Weapons strap meant the weapon stayed with its wielder. Creamy stepped over the man’s legs, took hold of the rifles butt and lifted. Once the gun was under the guards chin, Creamy pulled it hard into his neck and leaned back. The man’s feet weren’t touching the floor as Creamy quietly chocked him into unconsciousness. Once he had stopped moving, Creamy gently put him down and checked for a pulse. There was a moment of panic but then he felt the blood pumping good and strong. Creamy was many things, but he wasn’t a killer.
He couldn’t rely on his hearing, and he didn’t want to risk looking over the stairs to see if anyone was coming, so Creamy started picking up the guard to hide him in the airlock when he remembered the hatch that had given him away by reacting to the proximity tags in the borrowed jeans. It was closer than the air lock and already open, so Creamy pushed on it to see how much space was inside. Thick bundles of cables attached to pipes interrupted periodically by technical looking junction boxes curved off into the distance to his left and right within a low but walkable access way.
The dim red light from inside the tunnel did a perfect job of turning Creamys’ face red enough to match his embarrassment. He realised he could have just got popped through the door at the first maglev station and walked most the way to his ship without any trouble at all. Instead he had stood there thrusting his hips at the door while some guy filmed him missing an easy escape route. Well, Creamy just wouldn’t tell Nerys and her friends about that part when they met up. He tucked the guard safely away and hid all the ammo he could find in the cable bundles along with the proximity tags. Creamy didn’t want any more surprise beeps.
He waited for a little while, but no one came up so, perhaps the missing guard hadn't been noticedyet. Creamy closed the hatch behind him and peered over the balcony. There were plenty of guards around A Knight of Goodness. As one, all the guard seemed to pause for a moment and then they scattered, running towards their nearest exits. He even saw a couple of guards using the low gravity to jump down from rear access of his ship. Something had made them spring into action, but Creamy didn’t think it was his fault. He prayed it wasn’t Nerys and the others the officers where running to intercept.
Creamy glanced at the airlock close by, there was a good chance some of the guards would be heading his way so creamy had to act fast. He was starting to get a bit of a buzz off the painkillers the reporter had given him. He discarded the berating mask he had taken from the maglev and put his back against the far wall. Once more Creamy took a running jump into a wide open space. He aimed high and pulled himself along the ceiling until he was right above the centre on his ship. He planted his feet on the ceiling and pushed himself down to A Knight of Goodness. On the way down he could see that only a hand full of guards had stayed behind.
The top hatch was already open so Creamy dropped in and closed it quietly behind him.
“Ninette, are you operational?” asked Creamy with trepidation.
Without his customised COVAS, he’d be trapped.
“Oui monsieur. Tous les COVAS et le système de protocole personnel sont opérationnels” answered Ninette.
“That bloody Capital old girl. Anyone else aboard Ninette?”
“Non”
“Jolly Hockey Sticks! Now, start the manual landing gear removal process for me please, heat some water for a mug of tea and close all external doors, there’s a good girl” said Creamy as he made his way to his bedroom.
Everything had been turned out, his lavish lounge, gym and personal quarters were a mess. They had even tipped all the towels out of the steam room and Jacuzzi. One small consolation was they hadn’t found the retracting drinks bar. There was no time to sort that out now. Ninette could only open the locks on the landing gear and disconnect the electronics; Creamy had to unbolt the damn things manually. If he didn’t remove the gears, there was no way his ship could even attempt to take off. Creamy found all the parts of his flight suit and got changed as quickly as he could.
In the galley, he found a simmer mess. Out of spite it seemed the officers had left the fridge and freezer open. Fortunately, as Creamy couldn’t cook, everything had been prepared by a chef and frozen in well-sealed containers for heating later. Creamy picked up everything and rammed the containers back in their respective cold storage; that would be another mess for later. Creamy sifted through the debris on the floor and found his tea bags. He picked one that was still inside the jar, plopped it in his cup, added the hot water, a splash of milk and put the lid on.
Quickly, with a cup of tea in hand, he made his way down the rear left landing gear to get to work.
“Nerys.. I mean Ninette, we are in a lock-down situation and dock control will not let me take off. How can I get A Knight of Goodness to the surface” asked Creamy.
The COVAS didn’t answer so Creamy asked again but he was interrupted.
“Un moment s'il vous plaît. J'évalue les options”
“Oh, sorry old girl, I’ll get to work on the first gear while you think about it”
It seemed everyone was having a go at him today. Creamy remembered the little wire Cobra Nubs had given him. It was that silly gift from a silly, but fun little woman. Everything good that had happed to him, including meeting Nerys, had happened after Nubs had placed the cobra in his hand and told him to get off this station. Creamy had to admit that some nasty things had happened as well, but nothing that had caused this much trouble. Now the lucky charm was on Nerys ship, his problems seemed to be never ending not unlike his bad luck. He only hoped the wier cobra would bring Nerys good luck if he never saw her agian.
Creamy was stabilising the landing strut to take the weight off the hinge bolt when Ninette finely came up with an answer to Creamys’ question.
“Pour faire remonter A Knight of Goodness à la surface, le navire dans la troisième baie à notre gauche doit être déplacé vers le quai de chargement express. Ce navire sera bientôt déplacé si le propriétaire commande le chargement de produits frais”
Creamy stopped mid crank of the large spanner he was using to loosen the main bolt contemplating what the advice Ninette had given him.
“How is someone ordering a tone of Peaches going to get us to the surface?” he asked incredulously.
After Ninette explained how the pads are shuffled under the surface before a ship is brought up to launch, Creamy gave his COVAS another task.
“Oh right, in that case send a message to the owner of that ship offering them a stack of creds to fill the hold with.. Ohh..Fish! That stuff has to be moved quickly of it will reek something rotten. Oh, and send the message with a false name and what not ay? Thank you Ninette”
“A Knight of Goodness n'est pas équipé d'une combinaison de communication secrète ou d'un logiciel de fausse identité. Un simple contrôle pour découvrir votre tromperie immédiatement.”
Creamy had forgotten this new ship was less than two days old and pretty much stand issue. He’d not had time to install any useful, and less then legal systems the pilots back at Robigo had told him were so good to have, they considered them standard issue. Maybe he would have been better off getting that seen to rather than customising his first class cabin. Still, he didn’t regret it. The ship couldn’t take a luxury cabin, and standards had to be maintained, so the sacrifice was to Creamy, very much worthwhile.
“Oh bugger! In that case up the reward for expedient loading of the piscis onus, and maybe the recipient won’t dig too deep into who is offering a pile of credits just to load up a mighty stack of unprepared sushi”
“Très bien monsieur. Quel faux nom dois-je utiliser?”
Creamy smiled to hism self as he worked. There was one name he always liked to use on official documents if he felt he could get away with it.
“Seymour Clee'vargh” he said to himself quietly while he had a good think about what name to put on request to the commander.
Unfortunately for Creamy, Ninette had been programed to look after its owner by someone that knew him very well indeed. No matter how much Ninette appeared to think for its self, it was still just a program that followed its commands. Ninette sent a request to the commander of DE-31K, Red-Lotus from Seymour Clee'vargh with the speed an efficiency of an excellent personal assistant.