Void and Voices

Chapter 6: Redshift

"Hey." a soft voice came from behind him, he turned his head to the figure that just opened the door. It was Widja, and she brought a plastic packet of biscuits.

The orange-skinned man was just nodding in response of Widja's question.

"Nagal, you haven't eaten yet right? I put your food in the kitchen, but it seems like you haven't touched it yet." 

Nagal kept it silent, but he slowly shook his head, giving Widja message that he hadn't eaten yet, or maybe, he didn't want to.

Widja walked slowly approaching Nagal on the seat, he didn't look busy. He looked like he's contemplating, although Widja never understood what or how deep he was thinking. Despite his habit of taking a small amount of calorie intake, his body was pretty fit and muscular. He was calm and always kept his composure, but a face of hatred was always carved on his face. The last one could only be noticed by Widja. Sometimes, it made Widja hesitate talking with him, with his charisma and eeriness combined. 

Despite that, she still approached him and put the biscuits package on top of Nagal's desk. She tapped Nagal's right shoulder before leaving. A slight hum from Nagal could be heard, a sign of approval and thanks, or at least that's what Widja thought. When Widja touch the door to go to the whole way, she looked back again to see Nagal and say," C'mon out, everyone's waiting."

******

Nagal came out from the control room to meet the other members of the crew. He could see Widja, Barry, and Glen was already there. Nagal only put a small smirk when he meet the other two, but both Barry and Glen know that it was actually Nagal's effort to smile politely. "You finished your job?" Nagal finally spoke, to Barry and Glen with a deep and low voice. Seems like he's actually not fully developed in speaking Earthian, he practiced it a lot actually. 

"Yeah, easy, I already put a tracker on his system." Barry answered, and Glen just nodded. Barry then continued," It works right? My special small drill, I put a lot of time in creating that device so that it can be used like that, you know." Barry continued.

"How does it work actually?" Widja asked Barry out of curiosity.

"There are two ways a leak could be detected. One is if that there was a drop on fuel level on a short amount of time. Or the second one was if there another unknown substance that went in through the tank. I created the diameter of drills in those size and only put five of them to maintain the deceleration of the fuel level, so that it couldn't be detected by the ship's system. I also already made sure that with those diameters, the pressure inside the tank was still high, which lets out the fuel instead of sucking in other substance.", Barry explained in detail but somehow still understandable for Widja.

Widja didn't reply, but from her eyes, it's obvious that she was impressed, or at least pretending to be impressed.

"Or you could also put a device that you could stick in the walls of the spaceship, and interrupt the signal that was sent from the fuel tank sensor to the control room?", Nagal asked and tried to challenge Barry.

"Well, that's..." honestly speaking, Barry was not sure whether Nagal's solution will work or not. Barry hated it, the fact that Nagal might be right. But he was in the middle of deciding, whether he need to to respond positively or negatively. If he said no, and turns out in the future it actually works, he would be ashamed. If he said yes, but it was actually not working, then he would be ashamed as well. This is the dilemma that engineer like Barry has. Able to answer these things while maintaining pride but still speaking with accurate facts, and for this, Barry didn't have enough data to say for this solution, so he continued,"We never know until we try, but at least my device works." 

Nagal didn't respond, he just looked at Barry with his usual look, emotionless And Barry knew that people like Nagal won't respond much for a yes or a no, it was rooted deep in his heart and mind. Nagal was a talk less do more kind of guy. He was the one who actually noticed an Earthian ship going to the unknown planet with four moons. Once the Sartore's already landing. Nagal launched a small drone to monitor the activity. He noticed that it was not only one man, his whole family was tagging along with him. The profile for the man was Franco Sartore, a man with a high bounty known in the intergalactic underworld. However, since it's underworld, only certain people know about this, including Nagal. But Nagal never knew about the reason why many people hate Franco.

The drone keep tracking the Sartore's movement. Once Nagal sure that the family walked away from the spaceship, Nagal, Barry, and Glen jumped to Barry's Redshift and the three of them went to the planet with the big wave, which the crew have codenamed "Cetus". Nagal was dropped in the planet, from a safe distance that the Sartore's couldn't see, while Barry and Glen went to Xenotyl to prepare for the next phase. Through Nagal's drone, he could pinpoint the family's location. Nagal could easily took them out and kill Franco for the bounty. However, in his mind, it was still wrong to take the life of a father in front of his family. Plus, Barry and Glen might able to salvage Franco's ship if it turns out that he had some good parts. 

Nagal went to the spaceship door and see if he could pry it open. He was not able to, it's a shame that he couldn't hack it, but he already expected that. Military grade spaceship like this won't make it easy for him. So he did it according to Barry's plan, by putting the drills on Franco's ship's fuel tank, Carina. He checked his drone once again to see the family, they're setting up the outpost for New Earth. Nagal irked a bit, disgusted with the New Earth's flag, he never likes them. They're bunch of arrogant people thinking they're the most capable ones to manage the whole universe. But of course, there was no way that they would do that free, they did to gain control, like religious groups who promised that there will be heaven, but they're the ones who ended up delivering hell. 

Once he was finished, he checked the drone for one last time, he saw that the family was already going back to the ship. Then he should stay away from that place now. Nagal looked back to see the tsunami that looks like that it was created by a giant whale underneath. "Cetus, huh, that's fitting indeed." Nagal walked towards the tsunami, he already sent the point for the pick-up location to Cosmos, Nagal's main ship. But the ship couldn't land yet, it was too big and the Sartore's would've definitely noticed. So they've to wait for Carina to leave. Nagal enjoyed the walk, getting closer to the tsunami was dangerous, but it gave him a better view. It was mesmerizing for him, he was so focused that he didn't realize that Carina already left the planet in the background. 

******

Now here he was, back in the Cosmos, discussing the next plan. As the four people chatting, a huge steel was door opened. One side was sliding to the left and the other sliding to the left. Vapor coming out from that side of the room, and a person came out. Barry looked at the person, and he greeted, "Boss?"