Pirate Stars

by Andrew van Aardvark

The Pirate Chief in question and the "Doctor" were currently present in Jeannie's admittedly pleasant quarters. She'd had the last few days to settle in. Despite the lack of her weapons and a sparring gym, and being forbidden to leave them they were proving quite comfortable. The fact that Sheena had a room just off hers and they were free to visit each other was a nice bonus.

  Sheena was currently grinning at the Pirate Chief. "Just call me Karl" he'd said. Jeannie had to imagine she wasn't the only one enjoying the benefit of some excellent drugs courtesy of their hosts.

  The Doctor was off to one side perched on a large arm chair. He too, despite not contributing much to the conversation, seemed to be in his happy place. A smug happy little smile played around on his intensely intelligent face.

  "So we got off to a bad start, I'm afraid," the Pirate Chief was saying. "Inherent to the situation I created so my fault I guess. Still you do understand even pirates need to live, don't you?"

  "You steal, enslave, and murder," Sheena said good naturedly. "Makes you bad people."

  "In every society property rights are conditional and subject to revocation for the greater whole," the Pirate Chief replied. "People's freedoms are also subject to all sorts of restrictions. They're conscripted into military service, they're imprisoned for crimes without victims, and most off all they're killed or imprisoned if they object to a society's rules. Executed, allowed to die for lack of food or medical care, how does that differ from murder. No the main difference in pirate society is that we're honest about it."

  "You think you're Robin Hood?" Jeannie asked.

  "Robin Hood was less isolated from the poorer oppressed strata of wider society than I am," the Pirate Chief replied. "But yes, I think there are parallels."

  "So this base is your Sherwood Forest?" Jeannie said. "When do we get to see your Sherwood Forest?"

  "Ah, there's an issue," the Pirate Chief said. "I'm afraid the last time you got loose you whittled my merry band down a touch. My poor collaborators in redistribution are concerned if allowed the opportunity you might repeat the exercise. Not to be indelicate, my lady, but when it comes to murder you've proven yourself a dab hand at the expense of my colleagues."

  Jeannie beamed at the Pirate Chief who didn't seem such a bad fellow and rather sexy too. "It's nice to be appreciated by a master," she said. "I do try not to hurt people if I can avoid it myself."

  "My lady I hope you'll take it as a sincere compliment," the Pirate Chief said, "if I admit I think you would make a superb pirate yourself. I too try to avoid waste. My executions of your Captain and First Officer were necessary and I would have been derelict in my responsibilities if I'd performed them in any fashion other than that designed to make the maximum impact on the minds of your former crew. It will forestall the need of harsh penalties in the future."

  Jeannie felt herself warm at the Pirate Chief's compliment, if she hadn't been aware that her emotions had been chemically manipulated she might have wondered at that. As it was she just wondered what his game was. If he was refraining from less unpleasant methods because of her value as a hostage and he wanted to return her semi-intact what was the point of the brain washing? However so mild as it might be.

  In the event she did have her own agenda. "So if I was to agree to not kill any more of your merry band," she asked, "would you agree to show me more of them and your unearthly Sherwood Forest." She beseeched him with a set of the best dimples she could manage.

  "Since you ask so nicely, my lady," the Pirate Chief, "I will try to see my way free to it, but you must convince my colleagues as well as myself."

  Harrah. Goal achieved. Jeannie smiled widely at the Pirate Chief. He wasn't so bad the handsome devil.

  * * *

  The Pirate Chief was feeling pretty pleased with himself. He was sharing his good mood with his people. He was walking about his base stopping and talking with anyone not too busy. It was a combination ongoing election campaign and inspection tour.

  Ultimately pirate bands were populist if not strictly democratic. The members of his band had to believe he didn't think he was better than them, that he understood and cared about their needs. They had to see him. They had to think of him as dangerous and capable but also friendly and on their side.

  "So Caroline," he said to one scantily dressed shopper, "how's business?"

  "Good, good, Captain," she replied. "Business is always good after the boys have had a near death experience. Gets the juices flowing."

  "And you Ho?" he asked the vegetable seller she was buying from.

  "Business is good," that worthy answered. "I'm looking forward to getting some help in gardens. It takes constant care to produce quality product."

  "I'll try and see you get that," the Pirate Chief promised. He would too, false promises would catch up to you in the relatively small world of the pirate band. It was work, but it was work he enjoyed. The Doctor had helped see to that. Just like he'd taught the Pirate Chief how to remember thousands of names, and cured him of the introversion he'd been born with.

  He moved on down the base's main market concourse stopping behind a pair of large heavy men clothed in black leather and festooned with a variety of weapons. They were holding hands while assessing a variety of vicious looking knives.

  "Jack and Jim, two of my favorite warriors," he exclaimed clapping them each on the back. "Looking for a couple more gut openers, are you?"

  The two turned. "After those stunts your pet ninja pulled," one of them, Jack, said, "we'd really like to gut something."

  "Well you know you've got to be careful with dangerous pets," the Pirate Chief said. "I'll see what I can arrange, but that one's valuable. A real collectible, but only if we can return it without it being obvious the packaging's been opened. You know what I mean boys?"

  "Sure, Chief," Jim said. "You know so far you've always been one step ahead of the competition. We've all done well off of that. Still don't you think you're going to outsmart yourself one of these days? I swear you like your schemes complicated just for the hell of it."

  "I must confess I do like my intricacies," the Pirate Chief said. "Like you say those schemes do work out. I make sure they're solid."

  "Guess that's so, boss," Jack said. "Next time you've got a good fight planned don't forget us."

  "No boys, I won't leave you out of any fun. Don't worry," the Pirate Chief said slapping Jack on the arm before moving off again.

  He wasn't just out to meet and greet he had a goal in mind.

  Despite his reassurances to Jack and Jim he had concerns about the second escape attempt he was sure Jeannie Chang was going to make. In return for relaxing his restrictions on her movement he had gotten a promise from her that she'd not hurt more of his pirates or anyone else resident on his base. He was not so foolish as to believe that meant she wouldn't make another escape attempt.

  He did believe that he'd managed to get into her head enough that she'd try not to hurt anyone. Likely try not to do huge amounts of damage. Hard to do that without hurting anyone. He wasn't willing to bet too much he was right about that.

  He thought he knew what she'd try. He had plans to make sure she didn't succeed. This current expedition's main goal was to further those plans.

  In the end she was a smart girl and if he could prove he couldn't be beaten she'd decide to join him. If he could induce her to do so before returning her to her father that be the ideal outcome.

  It was one to be greatly desired. The very fact that he was having to make such efforts to contain a young girl captive on a pirate base full of hardened fighters light years from anywhere safe for her was proof of what a valuable asset that young woman could potentially be. He'd dearly love to have her as his.

  That didn't mean letting her slip through his fingers.

  There was no where she could hide from him on the base, that meant any escape required seizing an FTL capable ship. An insanely over ambitious goal and just what he expected her to try.

  His mission was to conver
t insanely over ambitious to utterly impossible.

  The route he was slowly following through the main concourse to the hanger with his scout and courier ships was the one he thought young Miss Chang most likely to take. He wasn't looking for anything in particular. He was looking for something he might have forgotten. He was checking out the board his game with Miss Chang was going to be carried out on. Good reconnaissance was important even when you thought you knew the terrain well. Especially when you thought you knew the terrain well. That's when you were most prone to overlooking things.

  The hanger that was his goal was separate from that his hunter ships used. It was the one he used in maintaining his intelligence network. His contacts within legitimate organizations liked to keep their comings and goings private. Their lives were forfeit if their treachery should be discovered.

  Among other features the hanger had accesses that allowed people using it to blend into the station's population without it being obvious where they'd arrived from.

  It was a feature useful to the Pirate Chief and his agents, and it would also be useful to young Miss Chang. That and the comparative lack of large numbers of heavily armed and now alert pirates meant it was a likely station on any escape route the young woman might plan to take.

  The Pirate Chief stopped at a seafood stall.

  "Sam, could I check out some of your stock in the back room?" he asked. Sam kept a number of poker and other games going in some of those rooms. There were no illegal games on the pirate base, but that didn't always mean an individual's significant other approved of their pastimes. Sam provided a certain comfortable deniability.

  A useful deniability for the Pirate Chief if anyone noticed him disappearing into Sam's back rooms. In the Pirate Chief's case it wasn't poker he was hiding it was a back door into his semi-private small ship hanger.

  Sam just nodded and the Pirate Chief slipped past him.

  Sam's back rooms were dark, dusty and smelt of tobacco smoke. Tobacco's health effects were well known however old fashioned but popular mid-20th century vids managed to give its use a recurring romantic aura.

  The Pirate Chief would have been inclined to lament the susceptibility of the populace's to the effects of entertainment if his control of it on the base wasn't such a useful lever. Besides modern medicine worked to contain the ill effects and pirates didn't have a such a long life expectancy that it really mattered much.

  Ignoring the various quiet games going in other rooms the Pirate Chief walked into a cleaning supplies closet and closed the door. He placed his hand on the nondescript pad next to the light switch and turned the lights off. Another door at the "back" of the closet opened up.

  It was a mechanism that never failed to delight the Pirate Chief. He did so like playing at being a secret agent of some sort. Only a sound track could have made it better.

  The corridor the door opened into was suitably institutional, cold concrete and cold light. It had a functionally wide flat and hard floor. If need be dead loads could be moved through it on carts, in wheelchairs, or on gurneys.

  The Pirate Chief's footsteps were louder than he would have he liked as he marched down the corridor. Reaching the halfway point he spoke to the air. "Captain Hook likes to have a back entrance and to live to fight another day," he said enunciating as clearly as he could.

  "Security pass phrase acknowledged," came a disembodied voice. "Captain Karl Student is single subject in security area. Subject is authorized. Security system is fully operational. Munitions are fully stocked. Welcome Captain, you may continue."

  The Pirate Chief nodded to himself and did so.

  After an additional security number entered into the door at the corridor's end and passing through an airlock he emerged in a small cozy hanger.

  Small and cozy for all that it could hold multiple FTL capable ships however small. Even small and cozy hangers tended to have echoes and their own weather.

  A guard a couple of meters away, just out of easy reach, was holding a weapon pointed at him. The Pirate Chief smiled but was careful not to move any further forward.

  "Password?" the guard demanded.

  "Wendy," the Pirate Chief replied.

  "You may pass, sir."

  "Good. What would you have done if I'd approached you without giving the password or given the wrong one?"

  "Sir, I would have shot you as instructed. Just a heavy stunner."

  "Excellent. I'm sure it would have hurt, but that was the correct answer."

  "Sir, you don't really think she'll get this far do you?"

  "I don't expect her to, Gerold, but the young lady regularly exceeds expectations. Stay alert."

  "Yes, sir."

  The Pirate Chief moved on to inspecting the ships in the hanger. The closest was a small fast courier, FTL capable but a tight fit for two people let alone her standard complement of four or the six people she was rated to carry.

  He boarded the small ship and looked around. Clean and ready to go. As it should be. He proceeded aft and knocked on the door of one of the two large closets that served as crew cabins. The door slide aside showing him a uniformed individual. Again a heavy stunner was pointed at him.

  "Stand down, Kyle," the Pirate Chief said.

  "Yes, sir."

  "Good to see you're alert. Anything to report? The external guards remain ignorant of your presence here?"

  "Thank you, sir. Nothing to report. I've given no sign to the external guards of my presence. Do you need me to help in activating the ship, sir?"

  "No that won't be necessary," the Pirate Chief said. As a final security precaution the Pirate Chief didn't have both the codes necessary to operate the ship. Kyle and each of the guards in the other ships had one of the codes and they wouldn't use them for anyone except the Pirate Chief and only him if he wasn't being coerced.

  "I'm just checking the security here is working as it should. I expect her to attempt another escape within a week," the Pirate Chief continued.

  "Yes, sir," Kyle replied. The Pirate Chief hadn't relied on natural loyalty in Kyle's case or that of his other last ditch guards, they'd been conditioned within an inch of their lives. It made them rather boring and unimaginative but utterly dependable. They weren't capable of thinking of doing anything another other than what they'd been told to do anymore. They were never bored.

  The Pirate Chief smiled to himself once more as Kyle watched with a passive lack of curiosity. Kyle and his brethren were very dependable and likely overkill and they weren't even the main ace up his sleeve.

  8: A Shopping Expedition

  Can you keep the deep water still and clear,

  So it reflects without blurring?

  Jeannie was feeling pretty good. Happy, very happy, not at all naturally happy. It was great. She was in the Pirate Chief's bed naked as was he. Just a week ago she realized these facts could not all have been true.

  The Pirate Chief was asleep. Knocked right out. She rolled over onto her knees and reached out her hand to ruffle his chest hair affectionately. She couldn't bring herself to feel any of the dislike or disgust for the man that she had felt just days ago.

  It was the drugs she knew that.

  She'd begun to suspect the Pirate Chief of using something of the sort while watching his performance with McKittrick during the "welcoming ceremony". MacKittrick's world might have been shattered by the pirate attack and he may not have been the strongest willed man, but just the same his behavior had not been typical of him.

  No, he'd been quite literally not in his right mind. The Pirate Chief and his creepy Doctor had seen to that.

  McKittrick, however, had also not known what was happening to him. Like most people his beliefs and motivations were heavily intertwined with his feelings. Emotions and values set while he was young and little changed since.

  The Pirate Chief had bragged about it to Jeannie.

  Jeannie had been bouncing off the walls. She'd been happy and she'd enjoyed the exercise. When there wasn't a surfa
ce she could run up and push off of, she'd been doing pirouettes and bouncing up and down. She'd been possessed of an incredible and uncontainable energy.

  "Wow," she'd said "I'm never this chipper and bouncy outside of the sparring gym."

  "It's the drugs," the Pirate Chief had said. It was no surprise to Jeannie to hear that, and maybe the Pirate Chief had some sense that'd be so, still she was surprised to hear him admit it so blatantly.

  "The drugs?" Jeannie had replied with a cheerful screech. "The wonderful, wonderful, happy making drugs!" She hugged him enthusiastically in appreciation for making her so so happy.

  Thus encouraged the Pirate Chief had gone on to show Jeannie his selection of mind altering chemicals and to expound on how they could be used to mold peoples emotions in the short term and thereby who they were in the longer term. It'd been the break Jeannie had been waiting for.

  She'd always thought the monologues given by the villains in thriller entertainments were some sort of literary device. It was educational to come across a real life villain who longed to have some one to appreciate his long nurtured and elaborate plans. Immensely useful too.

  She hadn't had to feign her enthusiastic interest in what he had to say. The content wasn't the source of interest the Pirate Chief optimistically thought it to be. Despite his creepy Doctor supposedly being some sort of expert in restricted psychological science Jeannie thought it was a load of stinky mulch destined for the vegetable gardens.

  A mixture of obvious insights with elaborate nonsense she was inclined to think. Men getting young girls drunk, putting a little extra in those drinks maybe, in order to take advantage of them. Men taking young women captive and keeping them until the Stockholm Syndrome or sheer despair mixed with grim practicality kicked in. She was no social historian by specialization, but those things were as old as recorded history if classical entertainment was to be believed. Jeannie suspected the behavior was much older than that in truth.

  That young men and even older men could also be coerced and mislead with methods similar in spirit was also no news flash. Jeannie didn't think the Pirate Chief and his creepy pet Doctor were quite the towering geniuses of innovative evil criminality they thought themselves to be.