13 Chapter 13: Zel Frin: Origin

Zel did not ask for this life. In fact, not many people born in the wild space did.

This is supposed to be an age of unprecedented peace, prosperity and unification. We are not alone and we have known it for a little while now.

Humans, Aquarians and Rockies each with their own sciences that allows them to escape the bounds of their home planet's gravity, bridge the great distances in between stars and become part of a greater Galaxy.

This is what the history books said, and this is what it's supposed to happen.

Space is a strange place.

It attracts a certain type of character, and sure as hell builds it.

Not long after the full on commercialization of the space travel, the ones going up stopped being highly trained astronauts and the best of the humans or the loaded billionaire who just wants to see the world from above, literally.

People with agendas, ambitions, wonders, questions, wills are also up there. The radical, the extreme found their home too.

Space is a beautiful place. In the infinite space, direction doesn't matter. There are always room for more.

Soon, groups of miners with the purpose of securing as much resources as possible formed up and headed into the 'Wild Space', the areas outside of commercial acceleration gate routes, in between the major home systems of each of the races, or simply anywhere that's not charted.

Despite roughly a century of space exploration and colonization by all three species, there is still much more to be found. When the governments and institutions are satisfied with what they have found and are too busy establishing settlements and setting up acceleration gates, the rest simply pointed their ship in whatever direction and pressed full throttle as they accelerated towards the unknown.

The first many years were simply a lonely voyage in the ocean that's unfathomably large, then resource shortages, stress and dangers of space become a frequent companion for those lone departing ships.

Within this new form of society, new kinds of mankind were born.

The ruthless, militaristic, efficient and ironically less human kind.In order for societies in wild space to survive, everything needs to be managed to the smallest of units with utmost precision.

They soon ran into other groups of humans, some Aquarians, quite a few Rockies.

Some came because of curiosity, the others came because of the freedom.

The wild space is somewhere law and regulations cannot reach.

The governments have no influence here and they know it. The wild space is the neutral territory, the land of chaos and the sea of mystery.

After some time, an unique ecosystem was formed, and some sense of an equilibrium is reached. As long as what happens here in the wild space is contained there, the galactic government has no qualms with who is really running the show there.

The space was divided in seven different quadrants, each dominated by seven powerhouse factions that survived the first few hundred years of conquer and bloodshed. The unnatural selected for the fiercest and rawest the three races can offer.

This is where Zel was born. He was born on a ship without a belonging.

It's a pirate ship called the Ghostly Shadow. It is one of the many free roaming ships out in the wild space going in between spaces trying to either scavange parts after some minor skirmishes, or do some quick bit of mining or dirty work for the bigger factions.

Zel doesn't know who his mother or father is, and no one around seemed to care enough to talk about it.

Theory is that they were blown up after a job went bad. But what's scary to him is that he doesn't even care to remember, nor to find out. His earliest memories on the ship were that of cleaning away the space dusts off parts and constantly coughing as a result.

The metallic and dust particles were his worst enemy, and he just got good at holding it in and continuous swallowing to prevent further noises.

'Come here, Z.'

One day, one of the pirates on the ship went pass Zel working in silence and squatted down to his height, 'put this on.'

It was a dust mask, one stripped away from one of the astronaut's filtering systems.

'What do you think?' She gently put her arm around Zel's shoulders. Zel initially tried to shake it off violently as an act of self defense, but soon calmed down to the warmth. He gently shifted his weight into her warm palm, and let her guide him to a polished surface near a gas tank. He sees himself, with the mask on.

Zel made a face, and bursted into a small smile. She smiled too, though her face is stretched out and long thanks to the curvature of the tank.

Over the next few days, she kept on bringing him different things from the missions. One day, there was a small metal sphere that's the most beautiful thing Zel has ever seen. It's really cold to touch, but warms up shortly after being held for some moment.

Zel looked at the sphere, only to see the world turned upside down.

'What do you do here?' Zel asked one day when she is sitting next to him and working on some parts also.

'Me?' She put down the inverter and raised her hand to the side. There was nothing there, and suddenly, a wrench appeared from her palm. With another slide of hand, the wrench became a torch.

'Are you a magician?' Zel's eyes lit up as he stares at her in awe.

'No. I am a thief.' She clapped her hand gently, and Zel's favorite toy appeared in between her palms, 'one of the best around.'

'How do you do that?' Zel kept on blinking as if his eyes are lying to him and reached out to touch the ball. It's as smooth as he always remembered. His other hand reached into the back pocket where he always keeps the ball, and it's empty.

'You are not mad I stole your favorite thing?' She dangled the ball right in front of his eyes and teased.

'You are my favorite.'

Zel didn't move. She didn't move either, then she wiped her eyes with her sleeves and some grease sneaked onto her face, leaving two vivid stripes. Zel laughed at her while she continued cleaning the parts. The sphere is simply placed on the table in between the two and not going anywhere.

The metal sphere now has a name. It's Jackie.

The ship shook violently, and Jackie rolled out of Zel's palm. Zel opened his eyes immediately and woke up to absolute chaos. Alarms were beeping all around and the stinging high pitch sound echoed throughout the ship. He is alone in his quarters and his tool box with all of his carefully arranged tools was tipped over and all over the ground. The door was slammed open, and she rushed in. Blood was streaming down her forehead off an open wound.

'Zel! Listen to me! We need to go!' She ordered and came picked him up.

'Jackie!' Zel pointed at the sphere wedge at the corner of the room.

She understood immediately and reached to grab the ball, slapping it firmly against his hands.

The ship's gravity generator was all over the place, and she had to deal with the constant shifting of gravity while holding onto Zel. She did extremely well, quickly going through areas of abnormally high gravity, floating through those where the generator has failed all together and hopped all the way to the exit area where an escape shuttle is parking at.

Many of the ships crew were there, but also quite a few were missing. He was there though.

'What are you doing with the kid?' He questioned, and she didn't reply. So he asked another question:'Where is the cargo?'

She paused, still holding onto Zel, but ever tighter now.

'Go.'

She signed, and slowly knelt down. She brought Zel to the ground and make sure he has a good footing.

'Take care of Jackie, OK? I am going to steal some stuff now.'

Zel nodded slightly.

She turned around and wobbled away. A few minutes later, the shaking become more violent, and more and more people started to show up at the shuttle, but not her.

'Captain! The ship's engine core is losing stability! We have to leave now!'

'...'

'Captain, there is no time for the cargo!'

'Go.'

The shuttle door started closing slowly, but she is not back yet. Zel opened his eyes up wide, and started pushing through the people towards the exit.

Maybe she would show up now.

Zel has finally reached the edge and looked onto the aisle where she would show up. A few fully armed fighters showed up instead. They spotted the jump ship and opened fire. And then everything went white.

The shuttle shock violently before turning on the shields and busting out of the stomach of the pirate ship. Jackie rolled along the floor and dropped out of the shuttle right before the physical shield was also turned on.

The main ship exploded with a spectacular display of sparks and lights. But all Zel saw was black and red.

Zel now found himself sitting at the pilot seat.

He has finally mastered how to best use his robotic right arm to pilot a scout ship of his own.

He made the mechanical linkages out of steel members of scavenged ships, control systems using the stripped electrical parts and the power source from a micro-battery he stole off someone else.

She must felt proud of me, for what I am now.

Zel is the best pilot in the fleet, which is also why he is always the one to perform the hardest missions ever since he became a teen.

Scouting, sabotage, and then his absolute favorite: stealing.

'I have told you many times! This is a raid!' Someone shouted across the communication channel, 'Stay in formation!'

'I will steal it.' Zel replied simply, 'Follow my plan.'

'Nobody actually agreed to that plan!'

With a single movement from his shoulder, multiple smaller arms that branches out of his mechanical arm started working independently to control the projectile of his scout ship.

He is now in the middle of a raiding mission, where they are aiming to strip the cargo off a transport from one of the seven factions.

It's a small job that will typically be counted towards acceptable losses, and no one is better at this than Zel. He gave his ship one last thrust, adjusted for the projectiles and then turned on the cloaking mechanism.

According to his calculation, his ship will drift directly over the route of transport. A timer has been set to ensure his scout ship comes back to pick him up, and all he needs to do is to get in and out of the cargo ship in ten minutes.

Zel retracted all the smaller arms of his right hand, and returned the augmentation to it's basic setting. The smaller arms joined together to become fingers, and it looked just like a normal augmentation.

He put on the space suit, did a final weapons check and then went into the depressurization chamber.

Space is dark and quiet and he can just about make out the lights coming off the cargo ships a kilometer below him. His space suit can easily get him down there, but he needs to reach the right one.

With slight adjustments in the manuvering system, he made himself face the direction of the fleet, and started the approach. His visors started scanning for the cargo ship according to the intelligence given. It's the third ship from the front.

The escort fleet is way bigger than what he imagined to be though. Twenty is a lot bigger than five. Zel wondered whether his squadron will follow along with the plan now that their enemy is four times more than they expected. Perhaps they would call for back up, or go into a frenzy to try to take as many down as possible.

It doesn't matter.

As the best thief for the Ghostly Shadow, he made sure that the success of his mission is independent of what everyone else does. It's just a matter of how easy it would be.

Suddenly, some lights started flashing from the side as a few of the ships emerged out of their hiding and started engaging with the cargo escort ships. Shots of energy beams and projectiles were exchanged and smaller fighters are released from one of the carrier ships.

As the swarm of fighters started circling around the attacking fighters, reinforcements arrived.

Reinforcements from both sides. Miscellaneous ships from the Ghostly Shadows and some of their handful ofallies arrived on the scene, gliding through the space and attacking the flanks of the escorts. Their aim is to obliterate all the escorting ships before the reinforcements from the enemy reached firing range.

The local space suddenly seemed rather crowded. Zel started to control his breathing and slowly approaches the cargo ship and decelerates gradually until he gently touches down on the surface. With a flick of a button, his magnetic boots were activated and he is stuck on the body of the ship like glue.

'Usually the welding starts here...' Zel adjusted for brightness and contrast in his visors and started going through the outer layers of the ship. Most of the ships in the wild space were assembled rather hastily many times, hence the patch job may not always be the best.

It will not be a problem for normal functionality, but it's much easier to pop open than the standard parts.

'Vibration mode: on.' Zel commanded and touched his mechanical right arm onto the surface of the ship. The exposed hand has all the fingers each squashing down and becoming stubby and flat. He puts all the digits on the surface of the weld, lining up the flat surface at his finger tips with the edges, and lets it fly.

The fingers on either sides of the welding started at different frequencies and gradually increases in amplitude as well as frequency. It didn't take long for him to figure out the natural frequency of the structure as the outer layer of the ship started going in and out in response to the vibration.

Soon, the connection were weakened, and all Zel had to do is to lay a thin layer of explosive on it.

He didn't even try to install an explosive device in his arm as that would be completely and utterly insane. But he did have enough explosive paste from the last job he did. He gently applied the paste onto the weld, waits for it to quickly dry up and stepped back. With a flash of light, the ship was blown open.

There was a rapid drop in pressure as parts and pieces starting flooding out of the haul, after the initial adjustment of pressure, Zel strided towards the edge of the opening, grabbed onto the edges with his metallic arm and swung himself into the depressurised aisle.

The inside of the cargo ship was almost completely torn apart by the rapid change in pressure and whoever that was unfortunate enough to be in that section at that moment was killed almost instantly due to the change as their lungs give out and the freezing temperature of space snatches life away from them. Zel ducked around snapped wires and deformed pieces of metal before reaching the pressure seal.

With a single twitch of his right arm to change it from grappling mode to work mode and some slight gear selection, he is plugged into the ships control system.

The ship is of standard human design with the pressure seals being closed off on either end automatically in response to the pressure change. All Zel had to do is fool the system for a long enough time to allow him to get into its main haul but not too long that the next section of the ship is automatically sealed.

Zel applies a bit of pressure to turn on the power to his right hand, which detects the type of system it's interacting with and switches over to the corresponding source code and operating system.

'Select, pressure gauge, input.' Zel whispers the command and the operation pathway opened and is shown on his visor.

'Input. Atmospheric, standard.'

A new set of numbers is put into the blanked space where the pressure reading can be. That space is previously occupied by the number 00 and a red warning sign is shown next to it.

'Pressure seals. Override. Release.'

Zel quickly put together a timing circuit with with left hand and swapped it for his right arm which was connected with the system. The last command he gave was directly linked to the timing circuit so that it would only fire after a few second, giving Zel just enough time to get ready. Then the first command will be performed and the seals will be released.

Zel swapped his right arm to grappling mode and awaits the timer.

Without any warning, the pressure seals swung open and air started flushing out like river water through the flood gate. The brute force of the wavefront hit Zel right in the face, but he didn't move even an inch and calmly grappled onto a wall at the end and pulled himself into the relatively pressurized chamber. The timing circuit kicked in and the pressure seals slammed shut again.

Zel looked at the readings on his visor. It's well above the sealing pressure.

'In.' Zel sent off the message to his group and let them know of his progress, then he took off the space suit, folded it and packed it away in his backpack. Now it's the time for action.

'Ship layout.'

With a single command, a detailed map of the whole ship is shown in front of him. Zel activated the auto-aligning function and started walking forward. The auto-alignment will take visual inputs from Zel's movements through the corridors and compare it to the parts of the map. With each turn he makes, many areas of the map is eliminated and soon the correct section of the map overlaps with where he is now. He is on the outer corridor of the ship right near some storage rooms.

At the end of the current corridor is where the major storage spaces should be.

It seemed he found the exact right location to get in. To the people guarding the cargo, the breach in the ship body is simply a result of the battle. As there is usually only a handful of people in that area where Zel broke in, they wouldn't think too much about it. Add on the fact that Zel has already plugged in the pre-programemd package that overrides the security cameras, there is little to no chance that anyone is going to notice his entrance.

'What the heck are you doing here?'

Right before Zel reaches for the door, someone behind him spoke up and prompted him to rapidly turn around as it caught him completely offguard. But he wasn't unprepared. After fixing the collars of the stolen shirt he snatched off the walls, Zel slowly turned around.

'Captains orders. Everyone needs to get to the main storage haul. We are isolating the vessel and breaking away from all these shananigans.' The person looked at Zel suspiciously, but couldn't really tell what's wrong. He could simply be a new face on the ship and it's basically impossible to know everybody at any one time anyway. He waved his hand and gestures for Zel to hurry up.

Zel had no idea what the cargo is before this mission started. The pieces of information given was simply it's something mysterious, dangerous and strange. It's an object out of the ordinary to the point that it's almost incomprehensible.

It's certainly not helpful when such vague non-information are given, but that's why the captain wanted the cargo that bad. Partially out of curiosity, partially out of a need to stir up the situations.

'Have you spotted the cargo?' Speaking of the devil, the captain's message appeared on the top right corner of his visor with his own unique font. So it seems like he is here himself. This is quite unusual as the boss never shows up to such a side job. But he suppose a side job has its own importance when most of the Ghostly Shadow's forces is in it for this.

This cargo seemed a lot more valuable than people realized.