Page 53 of Under His Heel

He saw Parsons working at one of the other ends of the cargo bay. One of the crew was operating the magnetic lift to shift some of the pallets around—something about needing to shift the weight of the ship to adjust the core balance. Apparently this wasn’t uncommon, because everybody knew the routine.

A sudden rumble caught all of them off guard. The ship shook hard, knocking a few people off their feet. Alex caught himself on a nearby container; he watched with a kind of sick satisfaction when Tracht slammed hard into the container he’d been standing near.

Then a creak.

Alex looked up. Saw the pallet teetering on the edge of the magnetic forklift.

It would hit Tracht. Alex could imagine it vividly. Tracht’s body squashed between the pallet and the container, just a large, bloody stain.

He didn’t even think. He grabbed Tracht’s arm and pulled hard, making Tracht stumble against him. They fell to the floor together, Tracht yelping loudly, but that was drowned out by the sound of the pallet hitting the floor and sliding hard into the container.

Nobody said anything. Nobody even moved. Tracht was frozen in Alex’s arms, and his usual calm was replaced with clear distress.

Finally Parsons rushed up to them. “Captain! Are you all right?”

Tracht breathed in deeply and slowly extricated himself from Alex. “Yes. Yes, I’m fine.” He carefully stood and held a hand out to Alex, which Alex took without much hesitation.

“I… thank you,” Tracht said to Alex. “Very, very sincerely.”

Oh god. Alex’s face started heating up. “Yeah. No prob.” He averted his gaze to hide his reaction.

Tracht breathed deeply, and once he’d collected himself, he sounded much more like himself. “Mr. Parsons, Mr. Ackerman! Find out what happened with the forklift. It should not have failed.” He tapped on his wrist comm. “Ms. Espinosa! What was that turbulence?”

“Captain! A larger ship approached too close and we were caught in her grav drift. The navigators are working to stabilize us.”

However shaken Tracht had been, he was good at covering it up. He motioned for Alex to follow him, all the while barking out orders and demanding answers.

The cargo bay got fixed up, the defective forklift marked for repairs. Tracht started calling the dock managers and berating them loudly for their failure to direct ships properly.

Finally Tracht sent Alex back to his chambers. “The couch and bed both have straps to hook yourself in while we dock. I need to be on the bridge to oversee things.” Just as Alex turned to leave, Tracht grabbed his arm.

Alex waited.

“I—” Tracht rubbed his brow. “Thank you again.”

Then he walked off towards the bridge, leaving Alex confused. He jogged back to Tracht’s room and found the straps Tracht had mentioned on the couch, hidden between the cushions. He strapped himself in and waited for the familiar rumble of a ship getting pulled into the station’s gravity.

Alex could have let Tracht die. He fiddled with his tablet and tried to imagine it. He wasn’t entirely sure what would happen to him if Tracht died, if his debt got paid anyway or if he’d have to start over from scratch.

Out of sheer boredom, and to distract himself, Alex went to his inbox and opened the message from Nick.

Hey bro! hope ur doin good! Im fien I went to Cassiopeia statn its gr8.

Alex cringed at the writing. Nick did know how to write better, but he never put the effort into it. Tracht would have ripped Nick a new one for it.

got a good deal going on hear found a rich gf its so awesome. Her mom hates me tho Wish u were here.

And that was it. The time stamp said Nick had sent it maybe a month ago. Cassiopeia was a minor station in the opposite direction of Atalanta, where Alex and Nick had planned on going together before the Nilsens had caught them.

He typed out fuck you and hit send, then started browsing random vids to pass the time. He found some rock music from China—the lyrics completely incomprehensible to him—and let the music fill the void while he waited for the ship to dock.

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They must have docked at least two hours ago, Alex thought. Boredom and a sudden heaviness in his bones had him nodding off, and it wasn’t until Tracht stormed in that he remembered to undo the straps keeping him snugly in place.

“I swear, Atalanta dock managers get stupider every time I interact with them,” Tracht complained, throwing his clothes off. He didn’t even wait for Alex to help him with his boots, which annoyed Alex on some level. “Oh, so sorry sir, we didn’t realize we had booked two ships to dock next to each other at the same time! Oh, no sir, we didn’t take the gravity of the larger ship into account! Yes, sir, we did fail to consider the effect of competing magnetic hooks extending at the same time.”

Tracht flopped down on the couch next to Alex, naked save his boxer-briefs, and closed his eyes. “Run me a bath, Alex. With real water, since those incompetent imbeciles did at least manage to hook up the water systems.”

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