Special Notes: This story will be inserted between chapter 24 and 25. [The Gunslingers, Book II, Thor and the Mouse] [Thor and the Mouse] The boy pushed off with his feet and sailed up the access tube in the zero gravity. His shoulders had a bit more than four inches clearance on both sides of the tube, and being that the tube was only twenty-four inches wide, gave a good indicator of how small the boy was. He really should be bigger, for his age, but he wasn’t allowed to spend as much time in the weight room as he should, and anyway, he needed to be able to fit through the narrow maintenance tubes that ran for miles through the space station. The maintenance drones could do the repairs, but they were slow and often got stuck which required a second drone to help the first one, and sometimes the second one got stuck. He got his job when there had been a pile up of nine drones in the water access tubes. Mouse had gone in and brought the drones out one at a time. Mouse, that was his name, or so everyone called him Mouse, he couldn't remember a time that people hadn't called him Mouse. He didn't know what his real name was, nobody did. A trader, or Cargo crew, or Exploration ship, or maybe Pirates, had docked and left Mouse in a basket at the main airlock and left. Mouse liked to think it was Pirates that had left him, that maybe he was a great Prince stolen from a Palace and left at the Space Station. He wasn't abused or mistreated, not exactly—well, not often usually. The grown-ups were all kind enough and ensured he was fed, most of the time, and had clothing, though it was always hand-me-downs and a mix of many different species styles, which gave Mouse an odd and often brightly colored patch-scarecrow appearance. The original Station Commander that had allowed an orphan to stay and be taken care of had retired and the new Commander hadn't liked inheriting the Mouse problem, he could be very demanding on Mouse at times. So, Mouse tried to avoid him. The other children could also be a problem, they often picked on Mouse and if they caught him alone in a passageway they would hold him down and punch him in the stomach so not to leave marks. Mouse didn't know why they picked on him, they all had everything he didn't have; families, a table to sit at with their mothers and fathers, toys, mostly new clothing, books, and Vid-games and the one thing Mouse craved, companionship with the other children. "Mouse, are you there yet?" called Leme over the Com-link. Leme wasn’t exactly his friend, but Leme did try to watch out for Mouse. "I'm at Junction 32, Deck D," replied Mouse. The Junctions were marked on the inside of the access tubes, not that Mouse needed them; he knew every tube in the station. "Here it is, I see the leak, looks strange." The tube was unusually cold, and Mouse could hear the air leak, something had clipped the station and tore open a three millimeter gash in the side of the station. The station itself really wasn't in any danger, but Mouse was. He was sealed outside the inner hull of the station, if anything went wrong and the tubes lost air, Mouse would die—but that was the job and he accepted it. Mouse placed a metal patch over the hole and sprayed liquid metal around it to seal the patch in place. The hissing air should have stopped but it didn't, and the tube wasn't warming up. "There's another hole," reported Mouse. "I'm looking for it." Mouse moved along the tube searching carefully and found another gash in the outer-hull; it was lucky he had brought spare patches with him. He quickly patched the hole and was confused when still he heard air leaking. "I patched it but I can hear more leaks," said Mouse. "I think we might have been hit by a meteorite shower." "Sensors would have picked it up," said Leme. "I think you better deploy the Walker," said Mouse. The Walker was a spider drone that 'walked' the outer-hull and search for leaks, it was also very expensive to use. If Mouse was wrong and there was only one or two more holes that he could easily patch, the Station Commander would skin his hide. "Commander says to find the holes first, Mouse," said Leme. Mouse's fingers were getting cold and his teeth were chattering—something wasn't right. Mouse pushed himself back down the tube towards the Junction where he could seal an inner door and close off the tube. "No, something's really wrong, I'm moving back to Junction 32 and closing the emergency doors," said Mouse. Mouse heard a door close below. What were they doing? They just remote closed Junction 32 and sealed him inside the damaged tube. "Leme, someone shut the door, I'm trapped," said Mouse. "Mouse, you have to seal those leaks," said Leme. "Commanders orders." Mouse could feel it, his head was getting dizzy, the air was almost gone, he couldn't stay in here. Mouse pushed harder and landed on the closed door, he could over-ride the controls if he could reach them, but even he couldn’t twist around or bend down to the control box in such a narrow space. "Leme, please," said Mouse. "Open the door, there's no air." "I'm sorry, Mouse," said Leme. "The Commander says you're being lazy and to get those patches on." Mouse pushed down with his feet hard and propelled himself upwards, if he could get past... Mouse heard another door close... Junction 33 emergency door was closed. Are they trying to kill me? The only way out now was to try and find the hole and patch it. Mouse pulled himself along the tube—it was so cold now—he found the tear in the hull. "Leme, I found it," Mouse's voice barely worked he was chattering so hard. "It's a two-meter tear in the outer-hull." Mouse heard the door above him open and he pulled himself towards it, he couldn't breathe, there was no more air left in the tube. He lost consciousness and only his forward momentum carried him past the emergency door and into the next section of access tubes. The emergency door closed behind him and he floated in the weightlessness until he regained consciousness. Mouse woke and slowly pulled himself to an exit and weakly made his way along the corridors to the Station Control Center. Leme was at his console and his eyes tried to tell Mouse he was sorry, but the Station Commander was there and descended on Mouse with a fury. "When I order you to do something, you do it," shouted the Commander. "You're only here because I allow it, and I will not have dead weight on my Station." "Commander," interrupted Leme. "The Walker found the gash Mouse reported, it's actually two and a half meters long, he couldn't have patched it." The Commander turned and inspected the incoming data from the Walker. Mouse waited, he didn't feel very good and wanted to go see the doctor, but he hadn't been dismissed yet so he waited. An hour later the Commander turned his attention back to Mouse. "Don't you have work to do?" asked the Commander. "I won't have a lazy boy standing around in my Command Center, get out of here." And this was Mouse's life. "You shouldn't make the Commander angry, Mouse," the Doctor told him after treating the frostbite on Mouse's fingers. "There was a huge tear in the hull," said Mouse. "I couldn't fix that, nobody could without the Walker." "You should have found a way instead of disobeying orders," explained the Doctor. Mouse nodded his head and just kept his thoughts to himself; grown-ups just didn't think and could be so blind sometimes. Mouse hoped he wouldn't become like that when he grew-up. Mouse kept to himself and out of sight for the next several days to let the Commander calm down. He was sitting in one of the larger maintenance access tubes staring out a maintenance view port at the vast emptiness, dreaming about other worlds and wondered what it would be like living on one of those planets. Several Cargo ships led by a ship he and never seen before and surrounded by Battle Darts dropped out of light speed right in front of Mouse's view port and startled him. Battle Darts - wow! Mouse pressed himself against the view port trying to see better. Ships didn't come out this way very often; they were the very last Space Station on the edge of Imperial Space. There was the occasional Salt Crawler from a mining world in the next solar system that stopped on it's way to or from a small desert planet, but it changed names so often Mouse had no idea what it was currently being called. Beyond the desert planet, several weeks at light speed, was Cepheus Major, an uninhabited world with a science outpost. And then several months past that and the last known world in the galaxy was the mysterious alien world of the Eridians. "Prepare for incoming Diplomatic Envoy," announced the mechanical voice of the Station A.I. Diplomatic Envoy? That's why they had Battle Darts. The Battle Darts spread out and surrounded the Station in defensive position. Mouse tried to identify the World Flag on the side of the Darts but he didn't know which World it was, this was awesome, something to break up the boring monotony of daily life on the Station - nothing interesting ever happened on the Station. If he hurried he could watch the ships coming into the docking bay. Mouse pushed himself off and sailed through the access tubes to the docking bay. He made it just in time to see people getting off the strange ship that had been leading the others. Mouse recognized the first person off the ship, anyone would - that was a Gunslinger. The Gunslingers were legendary, almost like a myth or something and possessed powers far beyond normal humans and even the Kitsune Over-Lords were afraid of them. The Gunslinger walked, or more accurately, glided off the ship like one of the great predator tigers Mouse had seen in movie-Vids. The Gunslinger had mag-boots on, those were expensive and very few people had those. He must have had the boots on their lowest setting to move so gracefully. The Gunslinger stopped in the center of the docking bay and glanced around like he was looking for something to pounce on and devour. Mouse thought the Gunslinger looked almost disappointed that there was nothing to attack and motioned back at the ship. The next person off the ship was an old woman, Mouse recognized her as well, she was from Mouse's species. Mouse didn't know much about his own species other than the few things he picked up from the Daraian engineers that came to the station once a year to perform maintenance on the Station, and he almost never got to talk to them, Leme always found something for Mouse to do somewhere on the Station the Daraians weren't. Mouse gasped at the next person, he didn't know what species that was, maybe one of the Amphibians, he was followed by some normal looking human teenagers - and then... ...a giant carrying a large shiny egg came next. How could anyone be that big? Mouse watched the giant, he must be the most important one of the entire group because he was carrying the big shiny egg and he was so big and Mouse realized, the Gunslinger kept looking back at the giant and then scanning around the giant for danger. The Gunslinger wasn't protecting the other people; he was protecting the giant with the shiny egg. "Mouse, toilets on F Deck are backed-up," Leme called on the Com-link. "Need to get up there and snake them out." "Aw, come on Leme, I want to see the new people," replied Mouse. "Mouse, don't make the Commander mad again, okay?" said Leme. "I'm going," said Mouse reluctantly. Mouse spent the rest of the day trying to get back to see the visitors but Leme always seemed to have something else for him to do. Mouse fixed the plumbing on F Deck, the coolant leak on G Deck, the broken hatch on C Deck, replaced several lights in the corridor on A Deck, and then dashed around the access tubes patching more micro-punctures in the hull. Late in the afternoon on E Deck while fixing a garbage shoot Mouse got a strange feeling someone was watching him and turned quickly and thought he saw something in a shadow. He had been having an odd feeling for the last several hours that someone was watching him. Mouse was exhausted by dinner time, but the Commander met him on the way to the Mess Hall on D Deck and said he was too filthy to eat with proper folks and sent him back into the access tubes to eat a cold dinner of freeze-dried miner’s rations. Mouse had just finished his meal when Leme called again and sent him to the cargo bay to help move boxes. Mouse realized they were keeping him from seeing the visitors and decided to just give up and reported to the Maintenance Chief's office. The Chief wasn't there, but a group of the Station Children was there, playing a game of Bone Dice. Mouse tried to turn and run, it was never a good idea to get caught, but it was too late. The older boys dragged Mouse over to a corner and held him against the bulk head; the boys were wearing mag-boots and had the advantage. "You'll be in trouble when Chief finds out you're wearing the mag-boots." Mouse knew he shouldn't taunt them; it would only make his punishment for getting caught worse. "Oh you're going to pay for that you worthless Mouse," said Reni, the oldest of the boys and then punched Mouse in the stomach. The air rushed out of Mouse's lungs with an 'umph' and he gasped for breath. "More like a filthy rat, scampering through the tubes," said another boy. "It's creepy the way he crawls around the station like a rat." Reni punched Mouse again and was about to take another punch when a voice stopped him. "What's going on here?" Mouse looked past the boys tormenting him and saw the giant from the visitors standing there looking at them. The giant was... well... a giant! He wasn't wearing a shirt and his muscles rippled as he moved subtly trying to see what was going on. The giant was wearing mag-boots also. Mouse figured he must have been using the visitors exercise room that was located right off the cargo bay, which was probably why he didn't have a shirt on. Visitors often liked to use the exercise room after being cramped up in a small ship for weeks. "This is Station business, visitor," said Reni. "Just go on back to the exercise room, everything’s fine." "My name is Thor, and I don't think that little one against the wall you are wailing on thinks everything is fine, I think this is my business now." "You're big, but that doesn't mean anything, there's a lot more of us than you," Reni sneered at Thor hatefully. "You want a little sample of what Mouse is getting?" Mouse watched the giant walk over to the wall and pick up a large mallet used to change landing gear from a maintenance cart. The giant turned back to Reni and hefted the large mallet a few times and motioned for Reni to come at him. Mouse thought the way the giant stood there holding the mallet made him look like a super hero. Mouse had never seen anyone so brave before. The boys had second thoughts about taking on the giant and Reni's crew quickly left him standing there alone. Mouse had to give Reni credit for being brave and not backing down. The giant walked up to Reni and poked him hard enough in the chest with the mallet to knock him back against the same wall he had used to hold Mouse while he beat up the small boy. "If you ever touch that boy again, I will find out," said the giant. "Go on kid, get out of here." Mouse didn't hesitate, he shot off from the wall and left the cargo bay, he needed to find a place to hide and fast. The Station children would tell the Commander and then Mouse was going to be in big trouble. "Leme, I'm in trouble," Mouse explained the situation to Leme and asked him what he should do now. "Get in the tubes, Mouse," said Leme. "Maybe the Commander will forget it in a couple days." Mouse knew that wasn't likely to happen, he was in trouble and the Commander would make him suffer for it. Mouse headed into the tubes to hide out. He made his way through the tubes to the guest quarters and quietly climbed into the air vents and found the room the giant was staying in. Mouse turned off his Com-link and waited in the air vent for the giant to return, he didn't really have a plan, but maybe the giant could tell him what to do. Mouse fell asleep before the giant returned and dreamed of a day when he could walk on a real planet and people wouldn't beat him up for being an orphan. It wasn't his fault he was an orphan, why did they take it out on him? Mouse woke several hours later to the sound of someone speaking. Was it the giant? Mouse peeked through the vent and saw the giant sitting next to the big silver egg, but now the silver egg was open and there was another egg inside the big egg. The giant was reading something to the little egg. Mouse listened for a long time; the giant was reading a story about someone called Thor... ...wait? Hadn't the giant said his name was Thor? Mouse listened to the stories and decided they must be all the adventures the giant had. The stories were awesome and if Mouse was correct, Thor was some kind of God—The God of Thunder, and he had so many wonderful adventures and saved people—just like the giant had saved Mouse. The giant put down the brightly colored book he was reading and stroked the egg and then looked right at Mouse on the other side of the vent. "Do you always spy on people from inside those vents?" asked Thor the giant. Mouse gasped, he was caught. "Are you going to tell on me?" "What's your name?" asked the giant. "Mouse." "Come on around to the door, Mother Raven has been waiting to meet you," said the giant. "The guards will stop me, or the Commander will find me," said Mouse. "You will be safe," said the giant. Mouse crawled back out of the tubes and pushed himself through the corridors back to the giant’s room. Luck wasn't on Mouse's side and the Commander rounded a corner and Mouse ran right into him. The Commander grabbed Mouse and shook him and yelled. "That is the last time you cause trouble on my Station, you filthy urchin," screamed the Commander. The Commander slapped Mouse hard across the face and Mouse's head rocked to the side violently. Mouse looked at the Commander's face, why was he so mad? "Please, I'm sorry, I won't do it again," cried Mouse. The Commander lifted his hand to strike Mouse again and then a hand was around the Commander's neck and he released Mouse - it was the giant. The giant pulled the Commander around in an arc and slammed him into the side of the corridor and the life drained out of the Commander's eyes and his body became still. Mouse was frozen with fear. Then the old woman from Mouse's species was there, and she had a terrifying knife in her hand, and the Gunslinger was right behind her with his gun out, and others were coming too. "He hit the boy and I lost my temper," the giant told the old woman. "I know, dear," said the woman. "If you had not done it, I would have." "Or I would have," said the Gunslinger. "Come here child, I won't hurt you," said the old woman to Mouse. "I've been watching you all day; they have been using you as a slave." Mouse didn't hesitate; he ran to the giant and threw himself in the giant’s arms. "What do we do with him?" asked the Gunslinger. The old woman walked over to Mouse and looked at him closely; Mouse thought these people must be very rich for them all to own mag-boots. "Brown hair, angled jaw, small build, grey eyes," said the old woman. "I would say he is most likely a Grackle." "Can we take him with us?" asked the giant. "Nick, did you find a ship?" the old woman asked another boy that had come running up with the others. "Yes, Mother Raven," said the boy. "There is a ship getting ready to leave for Cormon right now, it's the only other ship here." "That will work perfectly, there is a Grackle couple living on Cormon that owe me a favor, they maintain the Cormon News Satellites," said the old woman. "They can't have an egg of their own and will gladly take the boy; I will contact them that he is on the way." "What's happening?" Mouse whispered to the giant. "Mother Raven is putting you on a ship to a new family," said the giant. "Your nightmare here is over." "I get a family?" asked Mouse. The giant looked at one of his friends, "Nick, would you go get all my comic books—all of them—and Tani, could you watch the egg for me." The giant carried Mouse to the ship leaving for Cormon and handed him over to the Ship's Senior Chief. The giant’s friend ran up with a suitcase and handed it to the giant. "These are for you," said the giant. Mouse saw tears in the giant’s eyes and didn't understand why; nobody had ever cared about what happened to him before. The ship for Cormon launched and Thor walked back silently to the guest quarters with the others, but he could hear Mother Raven talking with Wes and knew it was about him, but didn't really understand what they were planning. "Wes, I suspected before, the way he cares for the egg, and now what happened with that boy," said Mother Raven. "I am contacting the Hatching Mother on Demonia and having a Tarlock Priest sent to Pyra to begin Thor's training." "Will he have to leave my team?" asked Wes. "There will be trips to Demonia for ceremonies, and as a Tarlock accolade he will be absent for a month here and there, but in the end you will benefit greatly having a Tarlock Priest on your team." "But a Priest? - is he allowed to fight?" asked Wes. "Make no mistake, The Tarlock Priesthood makes the Ravens, Gunslingers, and Black Guard look like children at play," explained Mother Raven. "The only difference is they are truly neutral and have a patience that makes watching grass grow seem like an aggressive sport." "Well anyway, I hope Mouse will be okay now," said Wes. Mouse enjoyed the trip to Cormon, he found the hundreds of 'The Adventures of Thor' comic books in the suitcase and told and retold his tale about the giant that saved him over and over again, and though there were skeptics, the rumors spread. By the end of the year the rumor had caught and the Cormon's were whispering that the God of Thunder had returned after being absent from Cormon for over five-thousand years.