by J. S. Morin
“Affirmative. Archie’s got him in his sights. No hint of a response. Aaaaand it looks like Mr. Brewster is diverting auxiliary power to engines.”
Carl drew himself upright and tugged the hem of his jacket. “Miss Charlton, bring us about. Full sail, match course and raise the Jolly Roger. It’s time for a bit of piracy.”
# # #
Rai Kub paced the common room floor, which creaked a little with every step. He’d long since given up worrying that his weight would send him crashing down into the engine room below. But everything else to worry about was still fair game.
The sky in the domed ceiling above was blank gray. Astral space was like that. But through the rear quarter of the dome, Rai Kub watched the ship’s turret swivel to track the vessel they were chasing.
This wasn’t how it was supposed to go.
“It’s going to be fine,” Esper reassured him from the couch. There wasn’t any rule against watching holovids during chases, but the ship’s wizard ignored the holo-projector.
“Can we watch cartoons?” Rai Kub asked. “Something small and fluffy, with no violence, maybe?”
Carl bounded into the common room and headed for the spot where the turret chair descended from the ceiling. “Hey,” he called up to the robot manning the guns. “Break time. My turn to scare the bad guys.”
The chair descended, and Archie was unbuckled from the harness before it reached the bottom. “I choose to believe you. If you start shooting, none of that is my fault.”
“Shooting?” Rai Kub asked. “Why would there be shooting? No one said there would be shooting. We were supposed to convince Mr. Jonus Brewster to give back the relic he stole.”
Carl finished buckling in. “Convincing takes different shapes sometimes.” Then with the push of a button, their captain ascended into the gunnery turret.
“Esper, make him stop,” Rai Kub pleaded.
“Relax,” Esper told him. “You can’t make eggs without cracking a few shells.” She paused. “Unless you hard-boil them, but you still have to crack them afterward. That would be more like what we did with Howie Carter.”
“Why didn’t we turn him over at Agos VI?” Rai Kub asked. “We could have. They’d have gladly taken him.”
“We are balancing a tightrope between law, justice, and profit. I suppose the tightrope analogy would have worked better with just two things, but our methods would probably work better if we picked two and stuck with them. Law and justice, we would have handed over the info on Carter instead of raiding his place ourselves. Law and profit, we might have tried to collect a bounty. Justice and profit… well, that’s about the closest we’re getting right now. That’s what’ll happen if neither of these fine, upstanding citizens survives to get handed over to the authorities.”
The pieces made sense. The words were clear enough. But the big picture eluded Rai Kub. “How are we any better than they? I’ve heard the stories of your old missions.”
Esper smiled placidly. “It’s a sound philosophical question. At some point, you have to decide whether we aspire to better ourselves or merely justify our actions. Are we penitents on the trail to redemption or hypocrites on the slow road to damnation?”
“I need a walk,” Rai Kub replied, hanging his head. He couldn’t watch as blasts of plasma flashed overhead. One of those blasts might result in a murder in which Rai Kub wanted no part.
Esper watched through the domed ceiling as Rai Kub exited, heading for the cargo bay.
There was one person on board who had probably the same view as Rai Kub on the conflict in progress, and the stuunji needed to speak to him. There was no sneaking through the cargo bay—he realized that his bulk and the ship’s flimsy construction conspired to report his location as a series of creaks and groans wherever he went. Instead, Rai Kub relied on the preoccupation of the crew to reach the airlock unnoticed.
Rapping lightly on the airlock door, Rai Kub called through the steel to the chamber’s occupant. “Hello? Am I bothering you?”
“You’d be the first to care,” came the terse reply from inside.
“I’m very sorry about your treatment,” Rai Kub said.
Carter’s muffled voice came through the door lacking quite the ire that he’d displayed at every turn. “Listen, pal. You got a guilty conscience there. I get that. Your friends are hardened criminals, but I can tell you’re different from them. You’ve got morals. You’ve got standards. You don’t belong on a ship with the likes of them.”
“Hmm,” Rai Kub rumbled.
“Yeah,” Carter pressed on, making his case. “Think about it. What’s to keep them from doing the same to you if you cross Ramsey?”
“I don’t fit in the airlock,” Rai Kub pointed out.
Carter chuckled. Even to Rai Kub’s stuunji-trained ears, the human sounded like he was forcing it. “Smart guy. I like that. Yeah, they wouldn’t put you in the airlock. But maybe they stuff you in an EV suit and lash you outside the hull. Ever think of that?”
“I hadn’t,” Rai Kub admitted.
“Well, Ramsey’s a crafty devil. That’s why I tried to hire him in the first place. Mind like Lucifer himself. He’s done stuff tons worse than the job I offered. He’s off his orbit if he thinks I was crossing a line suggesting it to him.”
The stuunji scratched his head. “What sort of jobs?”
“Oh, he raped a whole village full of orphans once on a bet. He murdered women and children on Plouph. He got his ex addicted to stim so he could keep her in line. I even hear he used to run slaves to unsanctioned xeno zoos.”
Rai Kub’s left hand balled into a fist. “I was rescued from one of those zoos.” The main finger of his right hand hovered over the door control.
“Then you can understand the sort of horrible guy Ramsey is underneath that sprayed-on smile. Why don’t you open that door, and we can figure out a way both of us can get off this outlaw ship.”
The stuunji considered for a moment then pulled his right hand into a fist as well. “Mr. Carter, if I open this door, I fear I’ll hurt you quite badly. Savior Carl rescued my sister and me from that zoo, along with every other captive. He even gave one of the young sentients a home on his ship for many months. Carl Ramsey has his flaws, but he is my friend, and I owe him more than to stand here listening to your lies. I hope you enjoyed the companionship of this brief conversation. I will not visit you again socially.”
# # #
The Mobius handled like an overweight ballerina. It knew all the moves. It had the flexibility and the grace. There was just something sluggish about a freighter that would never match the deadly agility of a Typhoon.
Amy caught up to the Harpoon Gale by taking minimal evasive action against its return fire. Meanwhile, Jonus Brewster had to veer to avoid the continuous volleys from Carl in the Mobius turret. Every time Brewster took a wider angle to his turn than the Mobius, Amy ate up the gap and closed in.
An impact shook the ship.
“Mind not getting hit?” Roddy called over the comm from the engine room. “I just put that shield generator back in alignment last week.”
“Kinda busy,” Amy replied during the comm’s auto-open delay. “All complaints not related to our immediate safety should be deferred until the post-battle briefing.”
“You’re no fun,” Roddy groused. Amy heard the pop of the comm closing abruptly.
She was cutting things too close. There was no rush.
Amy and Carl had plotted out a desolate stretch between systems where a ship cruising at 7.5 astral units wouldn’t find any allies, authorities, or realspace obstacles to flee from.
They had the Harpoon Gale outgunned, out-shielded, and—if Amy had to say so herself—out-piloted. Slow, steady gains were enough. Eventually, they’d close the ground to the point where Brewster’s evasive piloting couldn’t stay ahead of Carl’s gunnery, and they’d have him.
“Hey, what gives?” Carl came over the comm from the turret. “I’m no fisherman, but I always thought when you had a fish hooke
d, you reeled it in.”
“If I don’t cut it so close, we won’t get clipped like last time. I’ve already had Roddy complaining from the engine room that—”
“Roddy will complain if you maneuver too hard or overtax the waste reclaim after Taco Night. Let’s catch up to this fucker and end this chase. I need to piss.”
For a second there, Amy had been on board. Yes, Roddy had a habit of complaining about anything that was going to produce extra work for him. But how was Carl any better when he was more concerned about hitting the head than he was about the ship’s shields?
Fortunately, the two of them had worked out the boundaries of their professional and private relationship. Carl was in charge on the professional side. He was the captain and the on-file owner of the Mobius. Amy was going to content herself with being in charge the rest of the time.
For now, that meant a change in tactics.
All battle, the throttle on the engines had been wide open. Now, Amy just angled for the Harpoon Gale and kept it open, only maneuvering to close distance.
She cringed as shot after shot rebounded from the Mobius’s shields.
But while the return fire they took was considerable, Jonus Brewster wasn’t as well armed, and he wasn’t as good a shot as Carl. With a steady ship to fire from, the Mobius’s main guns took out the engines of the Harpoon Gale. First the main thrusters, then as the Mobius closed in, several follow-up shots disabled even the maneuvering thrusters.
A few quick blasts to render the guns of the smuggler ship non-functional, and it was ripe for plucking.
“Nice shooting,” Amy congratulated over the comm. She let her voice turn gravelly. “I am so turned on by a guy who can handle a pair of big guns like that. Just you wait until this is all over…”
“Thanks for the offer,” Roddy replied. “But I’m spoken for. Plus, you’ve got the wrong comm channel.”
“Actually,” Carl cut in smoothly. “That was the shipwide. On the upside, I’ve got witnesses. But business before pleasure. Time to crack the egg and return some holy omelets to their planet of origin. Oh, and to grab the money.”
Amy could feel her pulse in the warmth of her cheeks. Carefully reaching over to shut down the comm, she sat back in her chair to collect herself before beginning the docking maneuvers.
But to her surprise, Amy found herself grinning.
# # #
Esper stood in the cargo bay alone, facing the ramp. Her hands were tucked in the front pocket of her pink sweatshirt as she waited.
The whole idea of a boarding party signified more than one person. Wasn’t that part of the definition of the word “party”? No one had a party with just one person. That was pathetic. That was called being lonely and friendless.
Esper supposed that she should have been flattered. They trusted her on her own.
The klaxon blared, quacking at the top of its lungs like a boastful goose. None of the geese of Esperville were half so loud or so rude.
“I know. I know,” she muttered. “You’re pumping away the air. I got it after the first dozen honks.”
The red strobe light flashed, jarringly off beat from the klaxon like two dancers stepping on each other’s toes. But as the klaxon quieted, the strobe continued on. Light traveled through nothingness, whereas sound gave up and sulked in the loudspeaker.
The Kilimanjaro necklace of Mort’s was working just fine. It provided breathable stinky air scented with the sweat and dung of the African savanna. Esper had to imagine that there were other smells as well, nice ones that carried Earthy aromas of clay and tall grasses. Mort had probably pissed off a gift shop employee and gotten stuck with the one that smelled of grimy wildlife.
They hadn’t given her a comm. In a way, Esper was being given a moment’s freedom from the modern din of technology.
Without any sound to warn her, the cargo bay door opened. It was mildly disconcerting that the noisy gizmo opened in utter silence, though Esper felt the rumble of the machine guts through the floor beneath her feet.
When the door was opened, Esper saw a starship adrift against the backdrop of the gray astral. Everyone else said they saw it as blank, flat, featureless. Esper didn’t correct them. After all, how would she describe the shimmer of the ocean to a blind woman?
Let Carl and Amy and Roddy think the astral was a void like realspace. She could perceive the texture, the currents and ripples, the thick and thin parts and the spots where real objects lay just on the other side. She needed Amy’s numeric guidance to this craft’s astral depth as much as a painter needed a chronograph to choose his watercolors.
“Here goes,” Esper said for her own benefit.
With a running start, she leapt from the end of the cargo ramp. The gravity stone of the Mobius lost its grip on Esper as she tumbled through the astral expanse between vessels.
Everyone said the void was colder than a wizard’s glare. Esper simply chose not to notice. And besides, this wasn’t a void.
In under a minute, she landed feet-first on the outside of the hull.
Walking around the outside, she was reminded of a children’s story her mother read to her as a little girl. It was about a prince who lived on an asteroid the size of a house. Esper made a full circuit of the vessel’s exterior before settling on a hatch that looked like it probably led inside.
If they’d meant for it to stay shut, they wouldn’t have put a handle on the outside, Esper argued. And when she pulled, the handle gave way easily.
Instantly, Esper leaped back as a waste rod ejected. She instinctively brought up a hand to cover her mouth. But of course, there was no smell. Smell wafted in the air, and unless the rod came within the halo of air that surrounded her, Esper wouldn’t smell a thing.
Of course, since the necklace already churned out air with more than a faint whiff of poop to begin with, how much worse could it have been?
Ignoring the ejected waste rod sticking out of the side of the Harpoon Gale like a slice of freshly toasted bread, she continued her search.
“Aha! Thought you could hide from me,” she scolded a personnel door. It was clearly meant for planetside use, but Esper convinced the universe that if there was someone waiting outside a door, it ought to be amenable to opening.
With a heave, the young wizardess ripped the door free of its latch.
A gust of air burst forth, throwing Esper outstretched like a windsock. If not for her grip on the door handle, she’d have been blown clear off the ship.
“Get back inside this instant!” Esper snapped.
Reluctantly, with its freedom spread before it, the runaway air sulked and slithered back into the Harpoon Gale.
Once inside, local gravity took over, and a wave of dizziness crashed on the rocky shores of Esper’s inner ear.
A blaster fired.
Blinking away the effects of the momentary disorientation, Esper watched the bolt of plasma sizzle and spatter against the hull.
Aiming a weapon in her direction was the man from the holo picture Amy had shown at the briefing. Jonus Brewster was a scruffy little man, unkempt compared to the clean image in the holo. His hair was plastered to his head with sweat. A week’s worth of stubble shaded his face. Under his eyes, the puffy dark smudges suggested a lack of sleep.
“I have a cream that would help cover up those bags under your eyes,” Esper said cheerily.
“You need to work on your threats,” Mort snarled.
Esper whirled. “What are you doing here?”
“Mentoring,” the dead wizard replied. “This was, after all, sort of my forte.”
“I don’t need any help,” Esper snapped. “I was trying to lull him into a sense of security.”
Another blast of plasma splattered the floor near Esper’s feet.
“It’s supposed to be a false sense of security, not a real one,” Mort countered. “Boil that thermometer in this techster’s hand and threaten to do the same to his family jewels if he doesn’t tell you where he’s keeping his carg
o and his payment.”
“I have this under control,” Esper snapped.
“You’ve got a coupler misaligned in that head of yours, lady,” Brewster taunted, taking careful aim at Esper’s midsection only to watch in frustrated disbelief as the shot swerved mid-flight to miss her entirely.
“Your blaster isn’t broken,” Esper warned him. “I’m a wizard. If you’d like, I can make a painful demonstration that you’ll regret long after I’m gone from your life. As an alternative, you could put that thing down and give me what I’m here for.”
“You think I’m gonna trust you?” Brewster said, ducking behind a stack of crates in his own cargo bay.
“Let me put this another way. I’ve got a voice in my head trying really hard to convince me to melt that blaster of yours, then burn your boy-bits beyond recognition if you don’t help me recover what I’m after. I’m personally inclined to argue against it, but you’re helping him make a convincing argument.”
With a wave of Esper’s hand, the crates shielding Brewster from view rose three meters to bump against the cargo bay ceiling.
Brewster stared at them, and then her, in disbelief.
“You’re just doing a job,” Esper said, trying to be the understanding voice of reason in Brewster’s life. “I get that. But you’re hurting a lot of very pious and family-loving people back on Agos VI. We’re going to take back the Tal Geru and return it to its rightful place in the Temple of the Half-Year Sun.”
“You’re… you’re Samaritans?” Brewster scoffed.
Esper crossed her arms. “I am instructed to tell you that we will be taking your cut for the job, too. Not all of my shipmates are altruists.”
With a quick shake of his head, Brewster brought the blaster to bear once again. But his hand was shaking. “No. I give up my cargo, I got nothing left to keep you from killing me.”
Esper closed her eyes and sighed. “Fine. Hard way it is.”
The blaster turned to molten goo in a flash. Jonus Brewster yelped and snatched his hand away. Luckily for him, he was wearing gloves, and he tore off the smoldering garment.
“Please! Please! Don’t,” Brewster pleaded, cupping both hands over his genitals.