Pirate Stars

by Andrew van Aardvark

  Still it'd been to her huge advantage that the Pirate Chief thought by bludgeoning her emotions into a shape he wanted he could manipulate her to do what he needed. Wrong, it been a problem in the past that Jeannie did what she thought was logical not what she felt like. Right now it was a blessing. Jeannie knew the Pirate Chief had only his own best interests in mind and she knew she wanted to pick her own motivations. She intended to escape the man's clutches.

  His hubris had been of immense advantage. He'd proudly displayed trays full of easily concealed injector devices all touch coded as to what they did and their dosage levels. Jeannie bouncing all around and being very feely touchy had palmed a number of the more interesting ones. Ones that increased suggestibility, knocked a person out, and which erased their memories of the last few hours.

  They'd worked splendidly on their former owner. Not only had they got him to reveal his security plans, they'd allowed her to extract all his passwords and pass phrases, then to put him asleep. When he woke he'd have no clear memory of the evening other than the vague ones of a wildly good time she'd implanted in his head.

  Enough wool gathering she needed to proceed to the second phase of her plan while it was still the early hours of the morning. Also she would have to get some sleep. Tomorrow was going to be a big day.

  She bounced out of the Pirate Chief's bed and padded, still naked, over to the wall storage containing the drugs. She was going to need a lot of them for her plan. It'd be simpler to just shoot the opposition she was likely to encounter but she had promised not to hurt them hadn't she?

  How was she going to carry it all? Right. Bundle it up in her shipsuit? Hey, a closet full of frilly things. Very interesting. Here's one. Put that on. Calculated more to reveal and accentuate than to provide any sort of protection let alone decency. Just what was needed at this point. Good in an admittedly naughty way.

  Showtime. She bounced out into the corridor. There was a guard there looking at her with a leering quizzical curiosity. What a strange expression. She had to laugh.

  "Going shopping tomorrow," she said. "Well later this morning really I guess. Got to get my beauty sleep."

  "Yes, ma'am," the guard said now looking a bit concerned. "How is the Captain?"

  "Sleeping like a baby," she said rubbing herself up against him like some sort of horny kitten. "All tired out. Left me alone with no one to play with."

  "Aah, yes, ma'am," the guard said now looking a bit more amused than worried. She almost felt sorry for him. After all she had killed a bunch of his mates, and she was supposedly valuable and would likely would be ransomed, plus she might be his Captain's girl, so however tempted her teasing left him he had reason for some caution. "Big day tomorrow ma'am?" he asked. "Beauty Sleep?"

  "Oh, yes," she answered. "Going to shop for new clothing. Got blood all over my old stuff." She pouted to show how unhappy she was with the last point. "Me and my friend Sheena we're going to get some nice food to eat out too. Rations are so boring. Look around your station. Say hi to people."

  "A good time, ma'am."

  "It will be," she said before bouncing off. Run up the left wall, back flip and run up the right, forward all the time. Wow, those were some good drugs.

  She stopped and bowed towards the guard, waved bye, and continued on.

  Life was good, and tomorrow was escape day.

  * * *

  Jeannie was feeling somewhat lost at sea. An unusual feeling for her. She was used to leveraging her superior abilities to learn and think. She was used to knowing all about any situation she was in, and certainly far more than anyone else present.

  Right now the main thing she was feeling was a sharp headache nicely underlaid by a serious degree of depression. She did her best to ignore both thinking they were a hangover from the drugs she'd been ever so very high on earlier that morning.

  Unfortunately one thing she did not know much about was pharmacology. Wasn't any of her areas of study, and she was pretty sure most of the toolkit of drugs the creepy Doctor had given the Pirate Chief belonged to the realm of proscribed science.

  Of the drugs Jeannie did recognize many were highly illegal. Most of the little Jeannie knew about the drugs she'd lifted from the Pirate Chief's stash was what he'd told her. He might be evil but he wasn't stupid or blind, he must have noticed the chemical names he'd initially given her resulted in no flash of recognition because he'd stopped doing so early on.

  Jeannie knew certain injectors were used to certain ends and little to nothing more. Not the drug names, how they worked, what the right dosages were, or what the side effects were. None of that. It'd just have to do.

  The other big misfortune was that she had to get up and get moving. She hadn't had enough sleep and she wasn't going to get it.

  Her window was narrow. She couldn't go shopping before the shops actually opened. She wanted as little exposure to the general base population as possible so a long breakfast was out, and it'd be best to avoid the morning rush as the main shift went to their stations. The end of the window was uncertain. She didn't know for sure when the Pirate Chief would finally drag himself out of bed or when his underlings would finally feel forced to roust him.

  She'd primed him with the suggestion that he wanted to sleep in and should say so to any one who tried wake him but she could not be certain how it'd work. She dared not delay any longer than necessary.

  Otherwise there'd be many mornings after like this, and nights before like last night, and she did not want that. It motivated to open her eyes and roll out of bed. Looking at the computer screen displaying the time she realized she'd been luckier than she deserved. She was running a little but not too drastically late.

  She allowed herself just five minutes of a very hot shower. She pulled on a clean set of orange utility coveralls she'd been given. She'd liked to have worn or taken her original shipsuit with its embedded light armor, but it was dirty and stank and would look out of place regardless. To preserve her story she didn't even dare take it with her.

  She was going out to buy a new shipsuit and other new clothing, why would she bring her old one with her? No reason, she wouldn't, so she couldn't.

  The Pirate Chief had talked up his marketplace. Jeannie hoped it was half as good as he had bragged about. She wanted to be able to fake plausible excitement. Also it would be at best a long trip home so she wanted to be fully supplied.

  She had a card with unlimited station credits on it. It should be good for something. It'd be hard to spend the full value of the Chang's Venture and her crew but she could try.

  She took a quick glance in her full length mirror. She knocked on the door to Sheena's room.

  "Ready?" she asked.

  "Always," Sheena replied absentmindedly. "Ah, never ask a marine or ex-marine that question you'll get the same answer every time," she added sheepishly.

  "Sophisticated marine humor, will wonders never cease," Jeannie said with a grin. "Follow," she added striding to their suite's exit and letting them both out.

  "Shopping," she sang as she danced past the guard at their door. He seemed uncertain as to whether he was amused or annoyed and was struggling to look neutral. Sheena gave him a blank look as she passed him.

  And they were off. The Pirate Chief had given Jeannie the directions to the main shopping concourse and in truth they weren't difficult. A right turn followed by a left and down two decks and that was it.

  They gathered a few quick glances but no long stares or glares from the people they encountered on the way. It was clear most of the station population recognized Jeannie but were determined to act as if her presence was normal.

  Jeannie and Sheena had some slack but they were going to have to be careful about how they used it. They needed to get to the other side of the shopping concourse but do so looking like they were there to shop not to get anywhere in particular. Fortunately they did need many items having lost all their personal possessions when their ship was taken. Unfortunately one of the things Jeanni
e couldn't be seen to be replacing were weapons of any sort.

  Sheena, much less likely to be recognized, would need to take care of that. It helped that Jeannie was determined not to break her word not to hurt anyone further. Smoke grenades, gas grenades, bludgeons, brass knuckles, and light protective gear were less likely than blasters, rifles, or pistols to raise eyebrows. Jeannie had decided not to even attempt to get stunners.

  It'd been very interesting trying to communicate that decision to Sheena through a rather serious game of two way charades. In the end Jeannie had resorted to pointing at words on a variety of reading material.

  Jeannie gave Sheena a grin, one she hoped was reassuring. Sheena just nodded neutrally, she was in full guard persona.

  They reached the way down to the market without incident. It turned out to be an open stair well, made sense for a base on a body with roughly Earth gravity and an atmosphere that was fairly thick and non-toxic if not perfect for Earth origin life.

  It also made for a spectacular entrance to the main shopping concourse.

  The concourse was like nothing Jeannie had seen before. She'd expected some variation on the normal station shopping sections she'd seen on a dozen different stations. She'd expected maybe at most something like one of the huge enclosed shopping malls like those her father had shown her on a number of planets.

  The pirate base shopping concourse was nothing like any of those.

  It was like no one thing she'd ever seen before. It was like a huge mash up of cathedral, bazaar, and renaissance fair. All things Jeannie had only ever seen in entertainment vids, though she understood they were still preserved for the benefit of tourists back on mother Earth.

  It occurred to her that such a space made no sense on a purpose built pirate base.

  "There's a story behind this," she said turning to Sheena.

  "Is it a story you want to take time for now?" Sheena replied.

  "No, sadly not," Jeannie admitted. It might be a practical problem. She had no maps of the marketplace's layout. She'd had no doubt of her ability to find her way around the typical station shopping concourse, but this was different. She studied the sprawl of ramshackle but not entirely temporary stalls before her. There were banners with pictures of various sorts of items, weapons, shipsuits, food, dresses, jewelry, etc, hanging from the ceiling. She knew the general direction she needed to go. "Come'on," she said to Sheena.

  Descending to the concourse floor they were soon lost in the crowd there. "See the banners? They tell you where to find what you're looking for," she explained to Sheena as she dragged her towards one with a dress painted on it. She wanted out of the orange coveralls.

  There turned out to be not one large stall or large boutique under the banner but over a half dozen. Dresses and other women's finery were spread out in a set of dazzling displays. Even Sheena, unusually for her, could not contain a grin.

  She stopped in front of a stall and was immediately importuned by the merchant there. "Such a lovely young woman," the merchant said a wide ingratiating smile splitting her face. "I have some garments almost as lovely in a deep brilliant green that will suit her perfectly."

  Jeannie couldn't help laugh at the blatantly fawning pitch.

  "Go ahead dazzle me," she replied.

  In the end she walked off dressed in a practical top and split skirt combination having bought more than she'd intended and less than she'd have liked. She'd arranged for some deliveries back to her rooms, that she almost regretted she'd not be there to unpack.

  She could only carry so much on an escape. Sheena had also changed what she was wearing. A dark very red colored set of garments, practical but undeniably sexy in a way Jeannie just wasn't accustomed to associating with Sheena.

  In any case she did not look at all like her older self, or a recently captured prisoner. She fit in with the crowd around them. That was what counted.

  As they picked their way through the crowd, taking in the sights, but generally drifting in the direction they needed to Jeannie kept an eye on the street entertainers, the buskers and their acts. Also she was looking for a particular banner overhead.

  Luck was was on her side. Not too far from a banner with a set of manacles on it there was a full four man band performing. Keyboard, drums, a horn, and a fiddle who was also a vocalist were all doing their parts to contribute to what could be considered a rollicking fun set of ditties about the life of a buccaneer of the space lanes.

  Jeannie couldn't help but think sourly of how much better the songs sounded than the reality, still the group provided what she needed. They produced loud variable noise in a range of frequencies including those used by the human voice.

  She drew Sheena into the crowd surrounding the group. During a loud passage she pulled Sheena's head down to hers and glanced in the direction of the stalls underneath the banner with manacles.

  "Smoke, non-lethal gas," she mouthed to her one time guard giving her a slight push and a handful of "cash" tokens she'd picked up as change from their earlier purchases. Sheena nodded and moved off towards the shops indicated.

  Jeannie wasn't happy to be doing business with them even indirectly. The manacles symbol indicated businesses that sold wears useful for managing captives. Not to put a fine point on it gear to use in enslaving people. Manacles, shock collars, cattle prods, other torture devices, drugs to make people addicted or submissive or both, and, crucially non-lethal weapons such as stunners, bludgeons, batons, and non-lethal grenades. Tear gas, knock-out gas, and smoke grenades.

  Jeannie had extracted every last detail of the Pirate Chief's security precautions from him. In some cases that knowledge itself was enough to allow her to overcome them, in some it wasn't. On entry to their destination hangar she was going to face guards that would not let her close in on them and who had orders to not let any pass but the Pirate Chief himself.

  Just knowing the route there and the password they expected wasn't going to be enough. She needed those smoke grenades and any other edge Sheena managed to purchase in the shops selling slaveholder's gear.

  It was a risk sending her to do that. Jeannie herself couldn't do it. Jeannie would have been instantly recognized and held while a query was sent to the Pirate Chief's henchmen. Sheena likely wouldn't be recognized. She was also not entirely aware of what Jeannie needed. Gestures, facial expressions, and the odd oblique sentence in circumstances that might be difficult for listening devices just weren't the best way to clearly communicate a plan.

  Jeannie kept her worry off her face. She smiled and hummed along with the pirate tunes, dancing and swaying a little in one place, pretending to be entranced by the little band's performance. Technically it was a great performance if only the subject matter hadn't been so grimly objectionable.

  Several sets and a small donation to a passed hat later Sheena bumped her from behind and they set off again. Sheena was carrying a big cloth satchel bag slung over one shoulder now. Jeannie resisted the impulse to root through it and see what they had.

  "We're looking for 'Sam's Seafood'," she told Sheena over one shoulder. "The Captain says it's quite special." Sheena just nodded with a vague smile as she looked around.

  It was maybe ten minutes of a slow directional loitering and sauntering until Sam's Seafood shop came into sight. Jeannie immediately turned to the side and bought herself and a pair of fish flatbread sandwiches overflowing with onion, lettuce and sauce at a nearby fast food stand.

  This was one of two most problematic places in their pilgrimage to freedom. The Pirate Chief hadn't had much to say about Sam and his backrooms and Jeannie even with the aid of powerful drugs hadn't really been in a position to force him to volunteer information or help. To answer direct questions in a dazed vague accommodating way, yes, to actively volunteer help, no.

  Jeannie was unclear as whether Sam was just a body that stood out front and ignored whoever knew about and wished to use his backrooms, or if he was an active gatekeeper intelligently screening his prospective clie
nts. The latter could be a problem.

  Half hidden by Sheena, and half hidden by a support pillar she was casually propping up Jeannie eyed Sam from a distance. She needed to see without being seen. Not so easy.

  Sam had little affect. He was quiet, and moved with a deft economy. He served his plentiful customers with quick efficiency and small polite smiles.

  It wasn't easy to see Sam's eyes. What she could see suggested they were active and alert, mobile and attentive. She all but jerked herself into hiding behind her pillar when they moved to look her and Sheena's way. It was odd to be alarmed by such a quiet little man.

  "Sheena," Jeannie said. "We're going to need to snag one of the fish shop's satisfied customers and convince them to go back less than satisfied. We need to get past that man and we can't knock him out or even dull him down much."

  Sheena looked at Jeannie in a slightly quizzical manner. It was beginning to worry Jeannie, Sheena had always been dour and self-contained but she'd always had an edge too. That hint of a sharp observant intelligence held in check had been lacking recently. "You want a distraction?" Sheena said.

  "Yes," Jeannie said. No doubt the strain of their captivity was weighing both of them down. "The fishmonger looks like a guard of some sort, a sharp one."

  "Right," Sheena said and went into action.

  Despite Jeannie's worries it went smoothly. A painfully erect older lady with a freshly purchased package from Sam's was gathered up by Sheena and herded into a space between stalls where Jeannie slapped her with one of the Pirate Chief's injectors. It rendered the bewildered woman docile before she had a chance to react.

  Shadowed by their position, and Sheena's girth Jeannie did her best to give the impression of a conspiratorial private conversation between friends. Desperately hoping the old woman's heart was healthy Jeannie injected her with a concoction intended to create extreme suggestibility. The same one she'd used on the Pirate Chief the night before, and the same one he'd used on McKittrick.