Light In The Darkness

Oil dripped from a large tank that was under slung to the bottom of a large salvaging spacecraft. Two men stood staring at the minor leak as it started to pool on the floor. Oli stood with his arms folded and with his mouth ajar as he stared at the man next to him.

“How?” He asked pointedly as he folded his arms in frustration.

“Well, I clipped the, the.” The man stuttered as he pointed down the way.

Oli turned to the mangled hand rail at the entrance of the hanger, then back to the man, his hands gesturing towards the ship.

“So let me guess this straight, you managed to pilot my ship, my, ship. Through this massive.” He said turning to the cavernous opening of the hanger, flailing his arms about to emphasis the size. “This, fucking huge hole. That is probably four times the size of my ship and hit, something that you shouldn’t be, anywhere near.”

“Oli, look, it was an accident, I just came in a little lower than usual.”

“A little?” Oli yelled. “You bloody took out a hand rail, designed for people, you know those small six-foot things that go squish when you hit them with a two thousand and something tonne spaceship. So please explain to me why you were flying so low as to hit a three-foot-high railing with my oil tank.”

The man stood sheepishly as Oli stared at him expectantly. The man gestured as he mumbled, before finally bringing himself to speak.

“It is only a small hole, I can patch it new.”

“Patch it? You can patch it, well that is good, how long should that take?”

“Well with the arc welder, probably five minutes. I can get it now.”

“Oh so you are going to introduce heat to my oil tank, while there is oil in it. This is great, that sounds great, because when you blow yourself up I won’t have to deal with you.”

Oli turned back to the dripping oil and pinched the bridge of his nose as he groaned.

“What do…”

“Leave, go. Don’t come back, you are no longer hired.” Oli turned over his shoulder and looked at the man with a grin and spoke calmly. “Fuck off.”

The man quickly ran off, bumping shoulders with another as he passed them.

“What the hell happened here?” A familiar voice rose up. “And what is up with you yelling and Oscar running off?”

“This Hailey, this!” Oli yelled, once again gesturing to the leaking oil tank.

“How the, wait. Where is the outer plating, did it get torn off?”

“No, the bottom right corner plating was removed after Oscar managed to slam it into a damn mountain of a boulder when touching down last week. This week, he managed to take out a whole handrail, with the same bottom right corner of my ship, puncturing the damn oil tank.”

“We should fire him.” Hailey said reactively.

“Fired? I should thump him. But yes of course he is fired, the dumb ass wanted to weld the tank shut, with the oil still in it. So now I need to drain this, fix the warping, get someone to clean the interior so it doesn’t explode, fix the hole, pressure test it, get new housing, re certify the mounts, and if they fail that is another lump of cash gone because of that idiot.” Oli scratched his head, smearing oil from his hands into his hair.

“Don’t pay him, just tear up the contract.”

“Of course not, why would I pay him now?”

“I don’t know, just saying.” Hailey said a little embarrassed.

“His wage won’t even cover this. I am going to, you are going to send him a bill for the difference. Fucking twat.” Oli paused for a moment and looked back to Hailey. “Him, not you.”

“Yeah I got that. Well you sort this out, I’ll go do the paper work.” Hailey said with a higher pitch to her voice.

Hailey headed up into the belly of the ship as Oli started to sift through the scattered tools that laid on the ground, groaning he got to work.

“I don’t understand how they can charge so much for a dirty patch job. I could have done it better if I wasn’t so damn busy.” Oli exclaimed as he tossed a receipt to the floor of his cockpit.

“Don’t do that, I need to file that.” Hailey complained as she pulled the receipt from the oil coated floor. “I swear if any of this oil has ruined the writing, I am going to thump you.” She added as she flicked at the paper, hoping to remove the muck from the writing.

Oli waved over his head as he played with controls of his ship, looking up to the stars that surrounded them. He locked in a course and reclined in his chair, throwing his feet up on the dash of his ship he shuffled in his seat until he found himself slowly nodding off. Hailey filed the paperwork then went to return to Oli, seeing him napping she decided to make her way to the bedroom and she too fell asleep. The ship hummed slightly as it made its way through space, small debris colliding with the hull caused Oli to stir in his sleep, keeping him from drifting into a deep sleep. Unbeknown to him a visage of light wandered by his cockpit window, pressing itself against the glass it stared in to Oli, who awoke to see the humanoid made of light as they were passing through the glass. Oli’s eyes widened as he was paralyzed with fear, watching as the humanoid woman passed into his cockpit without damaging the glass she passed through. She floated as if she was still in space, slowly touching down one foot at a time, toes pointed to the grimy floors. Her blinding light slowly faded until she was emanating a dull shimmer. Her face was round and soft, chubby cheeks, pale skin, white hair, and vibrant pink eyes. She smiled sweetly to Oli as she passed him, making her way down the ladder, into the body of the ship. Oli sat in his chair in disbelief as he stared at his window, un-blinking he groaned to himself as he tried to piece together words. The sound of an opening door shook him out of his stupor, his feet came crashing down on the grates below him as he ran after the woman.

“Wait what are you doing?”

“Silly question, from a silly man.” She smiled, her voice so sweet that Oli found himself calming down with each word.

She touched Oli’s face gently as she continued her aimless wandering. Oli stretched his neck to follow her hand as it withdrew from him.

“Wait, wait.” Oli said, still feeling at his own face. “Who are you?”

The woman giggled as she turned back to Oli.

“You were so close that time, close enough that I will answer you.” She stopped her wandering and turned to the yearning Oli. She stood with her feet together and her arms crossing over her chest. “I am Light, Light Violet crown. You can call me Light, or LVC. I don’t mind.”

“I don’t understand, why are you on my ship?”

“You are very stupid. I have been following you since we last met, well since we last sort of met.”

“What is that supposed to mean?”

“I was sort of the eye that you didn’t see, you are the one that killed my acolytes.”

Oli’s heart started to race as he thought about his time on the planet seed ship. The horrors that he saw flashed over his eyes as he stood staring at the beautiful woman that stood before him, her calming face breaking through the nightmares that stained his retina. His eyes started to tear up his body shook involuntarily, he fell to his knees and his hands clenched intently into the mess of his hair.

“Come my sweet child, I won’t do that to you. No, I want new acolytes from you, not to make you a monster. That was the other me, I want to make you feel good.” She sung out as she started to calm Oli down.

She pulled his arms down by his side, and laid him down on his back. Her beautiful visage calmed his racing heart as he let her do what she wanted. His muscles went limp as his eyes glazed over. With one hand on his face, and the other running down to his pants he watched, hypnotised by Light’s beauty. A hypnotism that was broken as a fire extinguisher collided with her perfect face.

“Get the fuck off my ship you bright bitch.” Hailey yelled as she swung the fire extinguisher a second time, this time she punctured the outer casing, causing a white cloud to fill the room.

Once Light was completely covered Oli snapped out of his stupor.

“What the, who am.” He vomited out as Hailey grabbed his hands in hers.

“Get up useless, we have to move.” she shouted as she watched the flailing arms or Light start to disperse the smoke.

As the two of them ran into the hall the souring voice of Light called out, once a sweet girl, now the booming decadence of a warrior male.

“If I can’t have Oli, I guess I will have to take Hailey.”

Stomping of heavy feet filled the halls of the ship as Light stormed out of the room filled with smoke. Her now hulking size stormed down the hall after them, his body rippled with muscles, an angular face, and vibrant green eyes imposed fear over the two as they ran for their life.

“What the hell is chasing us?” Hailey screamed as she tried to drag Oli left through the ship, but he reversed her grip and dragged her right.

“That is the thing on the world seed, the shit that I said I would never talk about again.”

“You mean that caused the fucked up shit that you saw?”

Oli slammed into a wall, just to look up to see the perfect body of Light blocking his way, the Green eyes stared daggers towards Hailey as he stepped over Oli outstretching a rigid arm towards her. From his back the image of the girl appeared once again and leant down towards Oli, just as before Oli was locked into a trance, Hailey struggled at first, but she too became entranced.

The two of them found themselves entangled in the shifting mass that is Light. By the end of approach both Hailey and Oli were spent. Hailey laid back watching as her stomach grew, while Oli watched the female form of Light’s stomach started to grow. Simultaneously they both gave birth. The children glowed with a dull light for moment before laying calmly on the ground. Oli and Hailey regain control of their bodies and sat dumbstruck; Hailey rolled on the ground in agony as Oli blinked blindly at the two new-borns on the ground before him. Both calm, and staring at him expectantly, their light faded they now look just like any new born babe. Oli looked for any signs of Light but the only thing he noticed was Hailey, and the two babies. Rushing to his feet he ran off to the cockpit, grabbing the first aid he ran back to Hailey and started to care for her.

Arriving at their destination they engaged the automatic docking procedures then turned to one another before looking down to the two children before them.

“They are growing fast.” Oli croaked

“Looks like we have kids now.” Hailey added as they both stared at the children.

The children looked up to Hailey and Oli, smiling as they stood silently, waiting.