Apparently, Harry noted, androids were pretty strong. Maybe that made up for his other deficiencies.
For several more minutes, the SS Bray darted in and around large asteroids at a breakneck pace. Finally, the ship began to slow, and down began to feel like down again.
On the viewscreen, the asteroid field thinned out. Black space slowly took on a pinkish hue. They were re-entering the nebula.
After a prolonged pause, Captain Cass said, “Is everyone okay?”
Buddy? You okay? Hang in there. He burrowed deep into a nerve bundle in the spine and began to assess his host’s condition.
Redbeard groaned, a noticeable sickly pallor beneath his ghostly white skin, and began to urgently tap on Kitt’s back. “Up, up, up.”
Kitt leapt off his lap just in time to narrowly dodge a stream of projectile vomit.
Captain Cass released her safety harness and lifted out of her chair, the joints of her mechanical armor whirring. “Computer?” she asked.
Node sighed. “Yes?”
“As your captain, I’d like to make a couple things clear to you.”
“Oh boy, here we go. Thanks a lot, Harry.”
“Huh?” Harry’s awareness was slowly returning to the exterior world. Buddy was going to be okay. A long, cool shower down in the cargo hold was sounding like a great option. Hopefully, the other animals were holding up okay. Harry shuddered … it was going to be messy down there.
“One,” continued Captain Cass, “don’t ever mislead your crew again about your condition.”
“Okay…”
Redbeard looked on the verge of contributing to the conversation, but then paused with a look of alarm before unleashing another stream of bile over the arm of his chair.
“And two, I don’t know how you did it, but impressive work keeping us alive. I’ve never seen a ship’s computer navigate with those kind of instincts before.”
“Oh.” Node sounded surprised. “Well … thanks.”
A strangled mewling noise escaped from Kitt, whose white fur coat had a decidedly bedraggled look to it.
Spiner released his grip on his console and reached down to hook an arm beneath Harry’s chest, helping to pull him to his feet.
“Are you okay?” he asked.
Harry tested his balance and strength. Buddy’s muscles felt like jello. Steady there, Buddy. It took a moment, but a delicate equilibrium settled over the donkey.
He finally replied, “I think so. You’re a good friend, Spiner.”
Spiner stared down at him with those impassive black orbs. “Thank you.”
“Ahem,” Node coughed. “What about me, Harry? I thought we were good friends, too, before you betrayed me in front of our companions.”
Harry’s tail swished as a rush of irritation washed over him. “You asked me to lie to our other friends, Node.”
Captain Cass shook her head. “We’re alive. And that’s the second rule of being a pirate: Stay alive.”
“What’s the first rule?” Harry asked. He really should be taking notes on this. There might be a quiz after his internship ended.
Redbeard had recovered enough to interject. “Arrr, always be listenin’ to yer Cap’n.”
Captain Cass nodded. “That’s right. Follow orders.” She paused to take in the disastrous state of the flooring. “And right now, Harold, I need you to get the floor of this bridge spotless.”
Harry glanced down at the embarrassing puddles of ickiness everywhere. At least he wasn’t the only one who’d made a mess now.
When Harry returned to the bridge with the composting cart re-attached to his harness, he found the crew had once more returned to their normal stations.
As expected, the holding pens had looked rather disastrous as well, but that was going to have to wait until he was done cleaning the bridge. On the plus side, the animals appeared to be uninjured.
An unfamiliar voice was speaking to the pirates over the comms. “This is Haven Technical Support, thanks for holding. Please state your name, ship identifier, and purpose.”
Redbeard grumbled, “Bout time.”
Captain Cass waved him off. “This is Captain Cass, currently operating a cargo hauler with the identifier SS Bray. We are being pursued by a Federation ship. Somehow, they’ve been able to follow us through several jumps. Requesting technical assistance.”
“Acknowledged,” the voice replied over the comms. “Do you have a safe rendezvous point established?”
“Safe?” asked Redbeard. “Did he not hear the part about tha Effin’ Feds?
Captain Cass ignored him. “We are currently inside a nebula. Their sensors won’t be able to detect us, as long as we sit tight. Our computer can transmit a set of coordinates where you can find us.”
Instead of cleaning the floor, Harry stood at the back of the bridge, eagerly listening in.
The voice returned after a pause. “Sorry, had to run that one by my supervisor. Go ahead and send the coordinates over. We have a ship out on a call a couple lightyears away. I’ll send them over. Shouldn’t be long.”
“Thank you,” the captain replied.
“Sure. Will that be everything?”
“Yes.”
“Great,” said the voice in a tone that suggested relief that the call was almost over. “I hope you’re satisfied with your support experience. You’ll receive a survey after assistance is rendered. Please consider rating me a five, I’d appreciate it.”
Captain Cass looked at Redbeard and rolled her eyes. “Sure,” she said. “Captain Cass, out.”
“What do we do now?” Harry asked.
The captain swiveled around and hefted an eyebrow. “We wait and maybe get a little shut eye. And you … you need to get going on this mess, intern.”
Harry straightened. “Oh! Yeah, of course. Right away, Captain!”
Okay, Buddy, time to get back to pirate business.
While Harry went to work cleaning up the floors, an exhausted looking pirate crew abandoned the bridge.
15
Admiral Hawke stood on the bridge of the destroyer, legs splayed wide, hands clasped behind his back, frowning at the viewscreen spread before him.
He watched as the zoomed image of the bulky cargo hauler, the SS Bray, darted around and through the asteroids as nimbly as a one-man fighter.
What the blazes?! That bulk shouldn’t be able to move like that … and is that a tube hanging off the side of the ship?
“Sir,” Commander Corvus spoke up from her place at his elbow, her voice strung tight as a violin, “they’ll be entering the nebula in seconds, and our sensors can’t penetrate that kind of radiation. We need to fire … now. We need to disable them before they can reach it!”
Admiral Hawke shook his head. “Weren’t you aiming to disable them with your last torpedo volley? The volley I did not approve?” He turned to face her with one lifted eyebrow, and she straightened beneath his disapproving gaze, pursing her lips.
“Sir, they’re pirates. The laws of the Federation clearly state—”
“That all criminals shall first be given the chance to peaceably surrender,” Admiral Hawke broke in.
“They did not answer our hails, sir,” the commander stated again, firmly. “Nor did they respond to our warning shots. The next step, as mandated by Federation law, is to disable and board the ship.”
“But, I do not think that is what your last torpedo volley would have done, Commander,” Hawke stated coolly. “Based on its trajectory.”
Anasua’s thin brows twitched. “A slight miscalculation. Not that it mattered, given that their ship is far more mobile than we anticipated.”
A slight miscalculation, my behind, Hawke thought, turning back to the viewscreen. The Bray was closing fast on the pink edges of the nebula. He sighed heavily. Commander Corvus didn’t understand the delicacy of this situation with Bambi.
“Sir,” she pressed. “If we’re going to catch them, now is the time to fire—”
“No,” he said
again. “They’re going into the cloud. And they can’t safely jump from within that soup. If they come out the other side, we’ll see them. They’re trapped either way. We wait.”
The commander could not restrain her huff of disappointment, but Hawke ignored her. She couldn’t be expected to understand. That’s why he was the Rear Admiral.
He turned to the comms officer to his right. “Tightbeam a message to the Bray, would you, please?”
“Of course, sir,” the young man answered, flipping a few switches. He couldn’t have been more than twenty years old, clean-shaven with close-cropped brown hair. His Federation uniform was perfectly pressed and looked sharp on his trim frame, his boots highly polished. The epitome of an ideal Federation officer.
And Hawke couldn’t remember his name. I’m really going to have to study the crew roster again. I can’t be forgetting people’s names! “Thank you,” he said, purposefully leaving out the man’s name and rank.
“Ready to broadcast, sir,” the young nameless man said. “Go ahead with your message.”
Hawke faced the viewscreen again and cleared his throat. “This is Rear Admiral Eilhard Hawke to the SS Bray,” he said. “Bambi, is that you? I told you, I just want to talk. I promise. Pinky swear. Please don’t run.”
He waited a long moment, and on the screen the Bray disappeared behind a veil of swirling pinks and blues. He glanced to the comms officer, who shook his head.
“No reply, sir.”
Hawke’s shoulders dropped. He let out a long breath. “Very well, then. So this is how it must be. Comms, open a channel to our informant and route it to my ready room.”
“Aye, aye, sir.” The young man flipped more switches.
Hawke turned to Commander Corvus, who was a study in impassivity. “Hold our position here for now, and keep an eye on the sensors. I want to know the second they come out of that cloud.”
“Aye, aye, sir.”
Satisfied as much as he could be given the situation, Hawke left the bridge for his ready room. He made sure the door was closed behind him before settling down into the plush chair at the desk.
He swiveled around to face the wall, where a picture-perfect large screen had been seamlessly inlaid, flush with the surface of the wall. He rather liked traveling on these destroyers; they had all the modern amenities.
“Secure channel with our informant has been established,” the young officer’s voice announced over the room’s internal speakers. “Shall I put him through, sir?”
“Yes,” Hawke replied, crossing his ankle over his knee and steepling his fingers. “Yes, put him through.”
“Aye, aye, sir.” Then, the officer clicked off the line, and the viewscreen on the wall shimmered to life.
The visage of another young man filled the screen, his dark eyes bright and gleaming, a cocky half-smile splitting his face. Stubble darkened his jaw—rather sloppy, Hawke thought—and a sweep of dark brown hair fell across his forehead. Still, his leather flight jacket was pretty cool. Hawke made a mental note to try and find one of those for himself—for his off-hours, of course.
“Admiral,” the man said, giving a slight nod of indifference in Hawke’s direction. “Whatcha got for me today?”
Hawke’s mouth pulled into an irritated half-smile of his own at the man’s poor grammar and casual manner of speech. But what more could you expect from a pirate?
“Djerke,” he said. “So glad to see you again.” That was a lie, but desperate times called for desperate measures. “I have another job for you…”
The bridge floor was spic and span, and smelled a whole lot better, too. The pirate crew—even Harry—had gotten some much-needed rest, and Harry had gotten his shower.
Refreshed, clean, and out of danger for the time being, Harry felt relaxed. The rest of the crew looked back to normal as well.
The captain had called a meeting in the commons, and the whole crew was squeezed in around the only table.
Harry picked a spot opposite Kitt, between Spiner and Redbeard, and rested his chin on the table to watch the others eat protein cubes.
Despite having emptied his bowels of anything he’d eaten during their evasive maneuvers, Harry’s host was very much lacking an appetite at the moment. In fact, his stomach was still churning away.
Ugh. I don’t think I should eat peets-za ever again. Or maybe it was the Slurzie.
At the head of the table, the captain cleared her throat, bringing everyone’s attention to her. “All right, crew,” she announced. “It’s time to have a discussion about how in the hell the Feds are tracking us so easily.”
Silence followed her words, with the rest of the crew eyeing each other uneasily.
Redbeard broke the quiet. “It ain’t us, Cap’n. You know tha’.”
She gave a deep nod. “I do. I trust you all with my life.”
Harry stood tall at that declaration. I’m part of the crew. The captain trusts me!
But then her dark gaze fell directly upon him, and he quailed beneath the intensity of it, shrinking back from the side of the table.
“Except for you, Harold,” she said pensively. “I’m still making up my mind about you.”
His ears drooped and he gulped. Okay, well … it could be worse. At least she’s undecided. She’s still giving me a chance, right?
“Arrr, tha’s right!” Redbeard spat, twisting his huge frame to glare down at Harry. “Those Effin’ Feds weren’t on us like flies on shite till after tha blasted intern came aboard!”
Harry’s mouth worked. “Me!? No way! Space pirates are awesome. You guys are awesome. I didn’t even know about the Feds till you guys started talking about them!”
“Red,” the captain said, rubbing at her temples. “We boarded this ship, remember? Harry was already aboard when we commandeered it. And anyway, he helped us escape Dillbilly’s station. He’s not a spy.”
Redbeard fell quiet, a frown creasing his brow. “Hrmm.”
“Maybe it’s the ship itself,” Spiner offered. “Perhaps the former crew had some sort of tracker installed, to constantly register its location with the Feds every time it exits a jump.”
“Why would they do that?” Kitt asked. “Who the hell wants the Feds on their ass all the time?”
“Law-abiding citizens,” Spiner answered simply. “Who fear being ambushed by pirates. It would be an effective way to ensure their stolen property is recovered quickly and returned to them, with the offenders just as quickly apprehended.”
Harry considered cheering on his impaired android friend, who was sounding unusually smart. Maybe he wasn’t dumb, as Node had suggested.
Captain Cass dropped her hands to the table, drumming her fingertips against it. “That’s possible…”
A red smiley face appeared on the table, rotating around so that it faced each crew member in turn. “Negative. I would have alerted you to such a thing when you became my crew, if such a thing existed.”
The captain crossed her arms. “Not sure I believe you, computer.”
Node’s smiley face drooped, rendering an animated tear sliding down his cheek. “Okay, well, I would have told you about it now, at least. Now that I know the rules of being a pirate. I mean, you can’t blame me for not knowing the pirate rules. I’ve never been a pirate before.”
The sad face phased into a cartoonish man, sporting an eyepatch, shrugging his shoulders and holding up his hands in a helpless gesture.
Node had a good point there. And Harry’s other friend, Spiner, was making some great points, too. Maybe the two of them would learn how to get along.
Captain Cass heaved a long sigh. “Fine, whatever. You’re saying that there’s no such thing installed on this ship?”
“Correct.” The cartoon pirate morphed back into a smiley face.
“Arrr, then how?” Redbeard demanded. “How are they followin’ us so close-like?”
“I don’t know,” the captain admitted. “But we need to find out. Hopefully the support from Haven will put
us in the clear, but just in case…” Her eyes went to everyone around the table, even Harry.
He gulped again when her eyes met his, heart jumping. She was just so badass.
“Just in case,” she reiterated, “we all need to keep our eyes and ears open for anything unusual aboard this ship. Spiner and Kitt, I want you two going through every system on this hunk of junk. Make sure there’s not a virus in the computer or something, or an external transponder somewhere.”
“Aye, aye, Captain,” the two answered in unison.
A virus? Harry thought, eyes widening. Oh no! That sounds bad. I hope Node’s not sick!
“Captain,” Node spoke up politely, “I assure you, if this ship had a virus, I would be the first to know about it.”
The captain’s hard gaze focused intently on the red smiley face in the middle of the table. “Unless the virus has already compromised you.”
The smiley face turned into a face with a straight mouth and closed eyes. “Ah.” There was a long silence, and then the reluctant admission, “That is a surprisingly logical point.”
“Red,” the captain said, ignoring the potential jab and turning her attention back to her second-in-command. “You’re with me. We’re going to make a battle plan for how to deal with those Effin’ Feds next time we seem ‘em.”
“Aye, arrrr, Cap’n!” Redbeard roared, thumping a fist on the tabletop. “Tha’s wha’ I like to hear!”
“What about me?” Harry blurted, caught up in Redbeard’s excitement. “What can I do, Captain? Huh, huh? What can I do?”
Her level gaze pinned him in place. “I need you to get down to the cargo hold and keep it clean, Harold. Keep the rest of those animals safe. After all, they are our payday ... if we can disentangle ourselves from our Federation shadow.”
Harry straightened and stamped a hoof in lieu of a salute. “Aye, aye, Captain! Can do!”
A spy … could there really be a spy on board?
Harry pondered the question as he went about his cleaning duties in the hold. Suddenly, every chicken, every cow seemed suspicious. He eyed them as he pulled the compost cart along the floor of their pens, searching for any abnormal behaviors.
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