The Mirrorverse

Syrhahn

Apparently travelling baggage class didn’t mean you had to actually ride with the baggage, Syrhahn was pleasantly surprised to find. As pleasantly surprised as any man on what could be a suicide mission could be. In reality, it would probably have been easier in the hold, less questions from crew members.

Everyone seemed a little unsettled by Syrhahn’s presence, and he could understand why. He had paid a lot of gold for a ride in a ship that had seen better days a hundred years previous.

Perhaps I should have haggled, beat him down, it would have saved the accusatory stares and hushed whispers, thought Syrhahn, as he stretched his legs out in front of him, trying to dislodge a knot in his back from the uncomfortable metal seat he was sat in.

The crew knew he was running from something, but they didn’t know from what, or whether they would get caught in the crossfire. In reality they were in no danger as the military would not be interested in them, they were only concerned with Syrhahn’s whereabouts.

Syrhahn said little on the journey to the planet in the next galaxy that he had once called home, the planet where he was born. Ignoring the rattled crew, he used a switch knife to clean the dirt out his fingernails, a warning should anyone try anything.

It had been a long time since Syrhahn had been aboard a ship. The last time, he had brought Viskra to Cxielo as a tiny baby, to save him from a life neither he nor Angel wanted for him. His days of stowing away, or fixing engines for rides were long over.

The ship was as dirty and battered on the inside as on the outside. The crew didn’t look any better, a wild bunch, ready to kill a man without a moments notice.

“Could you put that blade away please, you’re scaring my crew,” the skipper was standing across from me, his arms folded across his chest.

Syrhahn put the knife away in his trouser pocket before moving it to his bag, following a stern look from the skipper.

“I’m not here to hurt anyone, I just need to get to earth,” Syrhahn tried not to let the desperation come through in his voice, but it might have made him sound psychotic.

His insides had turned to jelly, and no matter how hard he tried to pull himself together, he couldn’t fight the part of his brain that said he would never see Viskra again. When he looked in the toilet mirror, he realised that it wasn’t just the overpayment that made the crew wary of him. Instead of his face in the mirror, a mad man was staring back at him.

Unshaven, Syrhahn’s face looked haggard and old, the stubble dashed through with white he hadn’t noticed before. His eyes sat within big dark rings and his hair was wild, sticking up in all directions.

He went to ask the skipper if he could borrow a razor and a hair comb, as he hadn’t thought to bring them with him. He had remembered the guns. That was the important thing.