A loud clang rang out through the engine control room. Charles jerked his head up towards the sound. Someone was trying to get into the engine control room from the door he had jury-rigged locked closed. He hoped that it held at least a little longer. He jerked his head back down and around as he heard the frantic footsteps and harried gasps of the engineer as he ran down the grated walkway back towards the ladder well.
That answered one question at least, and Charles quickly got back to the ladder well and grabbing the engineer’s feet, yanking the man off the ladder, sending him sprawling onto the deck at Charles’ feet. Charles leveled the AK at the engineer’s face only inches away from the man’s nose, “Your favorite blacky is here for his shift.”
The engineer wailed in pain as he grabbed his head and bent forward wailing and blubbering in Chinese and broken English, “Never meant to treat badly, you my favorite blacky worker. Please no kill, no kill I be good boss to you.”
Charles resisted the urge to kick the pathetic man. Instead, he wrenched him to his feet, burying the barrel of his AK under the man’s ribs, “Now if you don’t do exactly what I say, when I say, I pull this trigger and your spleen will be part of your lungs, on that bulkhead over there. Understand?”
The man, drenched in his own sweat, managed to nod his head frantically. Charles had always suspected that the engineer understood, and could probably speak English better than he let on. As long as he did what Charles wanted, the racist asshole could keep up his ‘I no speak English good routine.
Charles led the man up the ladder well step by step. Keeping the AK buried in the man’s side. The clanging from the hatchway had gotten louder and more incessant. Charles wondered just what he would do if the crew members got through the door and shot the engineer. That would be unfortunate. But he hadn’t been idle in his time on his shifts. He had a pretty decent grasp on the basic idea behind the various pieces of equipment that filled the room. He wouldn’t be able to fix anything, aside from the basic maintenance he had been carrying out for the last two weeks. But he was pretty sure he could keep this hulk running on his own, at least till they made it back to the states.
He walked the engineer over to the main part of the room. “Now, my good boss, I want you to turn off all the lights, and the engines on this ship. Keep the lights in here on using batteries. You can do that, can’t you?” The man nodded his head. “Good, you keep following my orders and you may see your family again one day.” It was a threat that he hoped he wouldn’t have to carry out, but he was prepared to do what needed to be done to rescue his friends.
The engineer walked slowly toward the main power control board. He moved slowly and Charles watched every lever the man’s hands got near. He couldn’t read Chinese but he had watched the engineer and his assistants work often enough. There wasn’t much the engineer could do from here anyway, except maybe send the generators into overload and burn them out. The man couldn’t cause any kind of explosion or distraction. Still, Charles kept the barrel of the AK pressed deeply in the man’s side. In a few minutes the dull roar of the engines died out and lights went out momentarily before switching back to batteries.
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Charles nodded to his onetime boss, “Good job. Now move.” Charles pushed the man forward with the barrel of the AK.
The Engineer didn’t even really protest. All the man did was sob and ramble to himself in Chinese. The clanging on the door had ceased, at least for the moment.
Charles got an idea and moved the engineer to the intercom system, “Now, I want you to tell everyone that I have control of the engines. Tell them that the lights stay off till I say so. Do it.”
The engineer nodded and pinged the ships intercom. Charles wasn’t sure if the snake said what he had told him to say or not, and he didn’t care. Charles was just stalling for a little more time. The engineer shut off the intercom and nodded wearily.
Charles put his rifle down on the grating and grabbed the engineer, wrenching his arm behind the man’s back. The man screamed in pain and protest, “I did what you ask. I do good. I no tell lies *gasp* did what you ask!”
Charles ignored the man and pushed him back into a corner in the room. Charles grabbed a pair of hollow aluminum pole sections. Laying the engineer on his stomach along the grating he placed his knee in between the man’s shoulder blades. “If you move, I’ll break your neck.” The engineer nodded.
Charles shifted in place. His senses were flooded with all the smells of the place, only a muted image before, like looking through the fog through a dirty window. Now his senses were fully awakened and he could smell every sensation and emotion flowing through the man on the ground. Fear, obviously, but there was also guilt and regret. Probably because he got caught. And Charles wouldn’t have spent a second thought on the man except there was also remorse. That emotion was something he hadn’t expected to sense from him. He nodded his head slowly, just because someone was racist, didn’t mean they were beyond redemption, or the ability to change. Maybe this man was capable of change.
Charles couldn’t worry about that right now. Gripping the man’s arms behind his back he wrapped and folded the aluminum pole around the man’s arms above his elbows yanking the man’s elbows almost together, wrenching the pole tight. The engineer gasped in pain. Charles shrugged; a little pain might do him some good. Picking up the second aluminum pole he wrapped it around the man’s legs and wrenched it tightly closed, earning another satisfying gasp of pain from the engineer. He checked to make sure the poles were tight and that the man wouldn’t be able to get out of them. When he was satisfied the man couldn’t get free, he shifted back into his human form.
He stood up and grabbed his AK from the floor and checked the magazine, it was full, just like he had left it. He then crept to the hatch entrance that he had locked. He hadn’t heard anything since the clanging had stopped. He silently slid the pole out from the door. He took a quick breath and yanked the door open.
