No Regrets

"We’re running out of time, captain!” I yelled above the explosive impact. Across from us, a rogue pirate spaceship approached, medium-sized and decorated in painted skulls, and horseshoes. It was lighting up our ship with streaks of red ammunition. Pelting us it seemed from all angles.   

“Ready the fire blasters, Ava,” said the captain. He was hanging onto the back of the bolted-in chair, bracing himself. His long body hunkering down and away from the force of battle but ultimately unable to absorb the full shock. One saucer-shaped hand clung to a bar fixed behind the chair, and the rest of his body was on the floor.

The emergency red lighting kicked on wrapping the interior of the ship in an amber hue. I was beside the captain at the controls, buckled into the chair with my fingers flipping switches. Getting set up for the captain’s signal. “What do they want,” I said. My ears strained above the din of another explosion, suddenly my hearing was muffled, and I smelled heat.

He nodded his head and looked to the rear of the main part – the Deck – of our triangular ship. “I’d wager that’s why. But then again what do all space pirates want? To ravage, steal, rape, and kill. We can’t let them take us in.” his Adam's apple bobbed from what looked like a hard swallow.

I shuddered and my whole body contracted at the thought of what my last vision of life could look and feel like be if they took our ship.   

I turned in my chair and looked back to where the captain had gestured.

We were within walking distance of the glass case. Closed within was a transplanted tree we were bringing back to our home base. Our ship was small consisting of the Deck a few compartments for bunking and the back Cargo unit, separated from the Deck.

Why we’d kept the tree up front in the Deck with us hadn’t been my call. We’d found the tiny tree on a nearby planet with two suns. The planet was in ruins and defeated. Dried, and cracked, hotter than Hades, but life still found a way somehow. Fighting against the odds, changing to survive.

And this tree was different. There was something ancient, and otherworldly about it. I didn’t think the pitiful little sapling would even make the trip. But the fact that it had doubled in size in only a matter of hours was concerning. Its girth and height increased more so as we took on more fire and attack from the pirate ship like its food and water were violence. It dripped beautiful red apples. The red on the apples glistened thick as if the skin might drip off and melt to the floor, like acid.

And I’d swear it had moved. Did it walk; did it crawl up the glass? Its dollar bill-sized leaves rustled as if they were surrounded by the wind, flittering and mesmerizing. I was in a trance, and I couldn’t look away. The tree was drawing me in. Without realizing it I was up against the glass, head-to-head with it. The tree’s trunk twisted and turned, its top branches turning to the side and swaying, trying to see what I was worth. And there in the corner was a separate tree, a tiny baby tree. Where had that come from?

“Ava, what are you doing. We have no time for this. How many do I have to tell you to leave that tree alone? Don’t look at it, don’t touch it. Don’t let it out.” The captain was standing again looking at me with big, wide eyes, moving from me to the tree. He didn’t know what this thing was either.

“It’s not any tree I remember,” I said, rubbing my forehead and wondering how I’d walked over here. “Maybe we should let it go, take it back to its planet. You’ve seen it's doubled in size, right. And I’m quite sure it’s thinking and moving. And there’s another one, did you see that?” I made my way back to my seat and buckled in again, focusing on the controls, and the oncoming Pirate ship outside.  

In a voice unlike him, strained, he said, “We’re just hauling it back to home base. They can deal with it, kill it, whatever. We’re just the scavengers on our daily run.”

“Affirmative,” I heard myself say. An automatic response, no thought, no emotion. One I’d been taught to say. Yet, from inside the star explorer spaceship, claustrophobia filled me even with only the 2 of us on the Deck. The black space outside our ship seemed to seep into my senses, filling me with dread and thoughts of violent death. There was no wishing on a star tonight.

But I did it anyway grabbing onto any last-ditch effort to stay alive. I picked all the stars in the sky around us and wished to make it out of this spaceship and re-do life. If I made it out alive, my workaholic lifestyle would change. I was so hell-bent on the career life and eventually making captain. But no more, I’d make time for life. I’d screwed up enough relationships for this job, and now I was going to die from it. I wished as hard as my heart was beating.

“Where are we on those fire blasters?”

“At the ready, captain.”

“One, two three. NOW,” screamed the captain. He was struggling to get into his chair.

“Are you sure? You aren’t secure.” I yelled.  

“Do it now!” He was still holding onto the back of the chair.

“Yes, captain.” I slammed my hand on the red button to the right on the control board, and a whoosh of acceleration bolted the star explorer forward and slammed me back into the hard seat. We maneuvered around the pirate ship and the plan was to head away towards monitored and safe space travel skies in the far distance.  

“Something’s not right,” I said through chattering teeth, my body bouncing in the chair. The ship was skidding, and hiccupping, catching on something. “We’re losing momentum.”

No reply came from the captain. I looked to my right, and he was laying on the ground next to the chair, blood dripping down his head and pooling down on the silver floor. As fast as a cup of spilled milk – one that would surely be empty by now.

“Captain,” I screamed. My arms flew forward as the ship ground to a halt and started moving again but slowly, and the stars were moving in the wrong direction. The ship was in reverse.

Captain, what would the captain do? Give orders…find the problem.  

I clicked and clacked a few switches on the motherboard, and the screen in front of me showed a picture of our ship. Albeit a fuzzy picture of our triangular winged space explorer and what was left of the rear of the ship.

A great big claw was hooked into the ship pulling me backward towards the skulls and horseshoes. – the pirate ship. If I could turn us around, I’d have firepower, but as were, being dragged by our ass, I had few options. My skin crawled and I unbuckled myself, planting my shoes on the ground. I knelt beside the captain feeling for a pulse. He was warm, but nothing beat through his veins anymore. As I looked him over and closed his eyes, I wondered about all the things in his life he’d sacrificed. For what? For scavenging and exploring for our planet. Was that a good life?   

Balancing my weight evenly on both feet, I stood tall. I was the captain now. 

I had to unhook the ship somehow from the Pirate’s claws.

Heard pounding stopped me as I walked to the back of the Deck. The tree shook fiercely, and a few of its leaves fluttered to the ground. It looked at me and brought a branch up to the front of its trunk, like it was moving its arm up to its face, curling part of the branches down, with one branch sticking straight up against the trunk like it was giving me a signal to keep quiet. All the while it shielded the smaller tree. Was that its kid, its offspring?

As if being attacked by Pirates wasn’t enough, now a mutating tree was nonverbally talking to me. At least I had another being on my side. Or did it just want out of its box?

The pounding continued along with a loud metal plunk. Someone had entered the cargo unit. I readied my body into a fighting stance, even if my insides had turned to mush. Another loud boom. The pirates were inside. But how many?

I looked around for anything I could find in grabbing distance and locked eyes with the captain’s belt, his knife reflected red in the emergency lighting. I grabbed it off him like the scavenger I was and gripped it firmly.

The tree with the big ruby red apples moved freely in its prison, walking along using its roots as legs. It picked up the tiny sapling and cradled it in its arms, and looked over at me, its leaves curled down and in around the tiny one, and its grey-brown bark seeped, just like it was crying. This protective gesture at their bonded relationship sparked the lingering grief I still felt at not having that connection, because of this job, because of the choices I made. We were all running out of time. The trees. Me. The captain's time had already run out.

No more regrets, no more taking orders.

I made a quick decision and ran to the motherboard. If we got out of this, I was taking the tree and its kid back to its home. I set the course back to the planet with two suns.  

Next, I marched over to the glass casing and opened the door.

The tree stretched forward and glided out from its prison, still holding onto the smaller tree. It sprouted vines, that curled and grew out and away from its body, which it looked ready to use as weapons. And I had my fists and my knife. It nodded its head at me as if to say, ‘ready’.  

I nodded back, knowing I was ready to take back my ship.

The door that connected the cargo unit to the Deck exploded inwards and the Pirates emerged. Dripped out in leather, chains around their necks rings on every finger, and piercings in their ears. They were also half horse on top and half-human on the bottom.

The magical tree and I fought for our lives, more time, and no regrets.