by Berg,Alex P.
Rhees stared him down with ice in her eyes. “What did you expect? That we’d roll over and die?”
“Die?” Horatio’s eyes widened. “Ney, please don’t. That’d cause untold difficulties. Suffer through waves o’ internal turmoil? ’Tis fine. Even external suffering. ’Tis fine. But let’s all keep our heads, ney?”
Rhees ground her teeth. She was small, but spunky.
“Don’na gimme that look,” said Horatio. “I didn’a even like the skraggers ye’s spaced. Fortunata and DeNavarre. Sloppy, they’s was. Sloppiness gets ye’s killed.”
The man with the wide jaw and the flattop spoke. “So how the hell are you alive? You’re sloppy as shit.”
Horatio took that as an affront, either to his manner or his fashion. He planted a boot in the man’s face, sending the poor woman zip tied at his back tumbling to the floor as well. Flattop grunted. To her credit, Pixie didn’t even squeal.
Horatio snapped at his subordinates, two of which stood against the wall with pulse pistols in hand. “Where’s that skraggin’ engineer? I thought ye’s said he’s on his way.”
He kept using that word, skragging. I’d figured out it was an insult, but had he made it up? I’d never heard it before. Perhaps it was popular in pirate communities.
The pirate stammered. “I…Uh…”
Fate saved him. Another pirate entered with a handsome gentleman in tow, one with styled hair and a tightly trimmed auburn beard.
“’Tis ‘im?” asked Horatio.
The new pirate nodded. “He’s the one who locked down the corridor outside the cargo bay and o’errode the safeties. Matched the logs to ’is Brain.”
Horatio approached the man, who stood about a half a head taller than him. “What’s ye’ss name?”
“Watkins.” His face said he wasn’t inclined to elaborate. Of course, I’d already watched the vid, so I knew he wouldn’t.
Horatio nodded as he absorbed the information. “Watkins. ’Ats a good name. I likes it. And I like ye’s. Gutsy. Decisive. Creative. Kinda person I like in my crews.”
Horatio slammed a fist into Watkins’ stomach without warning. A pained groan left the man’s lips as he doubled over. Horatio slammed him to the floor with another pair of punches to the head, then went to work on his midsection with his boot. Rhees bellowed for him to stop, and whether by her appeal or his own choice, he did. All told he only hit the man a half-dozen times.
Horatio ignored Rhees and the uncertain looks of the rest of the Agapetes’ crew. “’Jes ’cause I like ye’s, Watkins, don’a mean I can let ye’ss defiance go unpunished. ’Jes be glad I’m the merciful sort.”
He slammed one last boot into the man’s groin, causing a sharp gasp of pain.
One of the pirates eyed his captain with uncertainty. “Uh, Capin…I thought them’s jewels was off limits?”
“One kick won’ hurt,” said Horatio. “E’ll be fine. Now get this skraggin’ sack of scat outta my sight afore I do somethin’ I and all the rest o’ us might regret. I’m gonna check on the transport.”
I paused the holovid again. I walked over to the captain and studied his visage. What was his game? He seemed like a violent man but oddly restrained. Did he fear capture and the resulting punishment he might receive if he were? Was that why he avoided killing anyone, even the man responsible for the death of three of his own men? And where was that accent from? I couldn’t place it, but the universe was a big place.
I pursed my lips. The quality of the holovid security footage was top notch, but could it really reveal to me the measure of the man? The subtleties in his eyes?
“Rich,” said Carl.
“Yes?”
“Ducic’s here.”
“Thanks.”
The holovid faded, replaced with the purple and white of the Samus Aran’s interior. Ducic ambled over from the direction of his quarters. I wanted to say he looked annoyed, but again, I knew nothing of Tak facial expression and body language.
“Making yourself comfortable?” I asked.
He tilted his head as he approached me. “First you question my translucency, now this. I assure you, my form is quite rigid. Are you under illusions regarding my physiology? If so, there are texts I can refer you to.”
“I simply wondered how you were adapting to your quarters,” I said. “I know they’re meant for a human.”
“Oh,” said Ducic. “In that case, your concern is appreciated but unwarranted. My species is used to lazing in confined spaces, and we do not lay prone on our spinal cords as you do. During bouts of rest, we simply fold our legs underneath us and relax our crest muscles. Although, to be most honest, a good mat upon which to rest my barrel would not be unwelcome.”
Paige flashed an image of a horse in the corner of my vision, one with an arrow pointing to its belly and the word ‘Barrel’ underneath it. I gave her my silent thanks.
“So, Ducic,” I said. “I’ve got a question for you.”
“By all means, expel it over me.”
“I’ve gone through the holovids from the various attacks and I was wondering about external surveillance.”
“What of it?” asked Ducic.
“Do you have any?” I asked. “I’d like to know what the pirates’ ship looked like. Even if it doesn’t have a visible serial number on its hull, we might be able to track it by its manufacture.”
“Apologies, Rich,” said Ducic. “But the ships’ external holovids would not help you in this regard.”
“Why not?” I asked.
“You recall our discussion of the warp bubble?” he said. “It is a severe compression of space time. Light cannot escape it, and therefore external cameras are not able to see past edge of bubble.”
I glanced at Carl to see if he followed. “I thought you said the pirates warped into the freighters’ bubbles.”
Ducic’s muzzle wrinkled. “I think I understand your confusion. You overestimate size of the warp bubble. Its creation is exceptionally energy intensive, and said energy requirement is size dependent. Therefore bubble is created as small as feasible. It is akin to a film over the surface of ship.”
“So how did the pirates get into—or onto—the bubble?” I asked. “How did they get on the ships?”
“It is uncertain,” said Ducic. “Possibly their bubble melded with those of attacked freighters at the interlocks. That, at least, would explain said lack of visual display from external cameras. It would create a highly energy inefficient configuration, but less so than expanding bubble to encompass both ships.”
“How would such a task be achieved?” asked Carl.
Ducic’s ears flattened. “I have no idea.”
“You’re a physicist, aren’t you?” I said. “Surely you must have some guess.”
“Hypersurfaces are not my area of expertise.”
“So what is?” I asked.
“Relativistic quantum field theory,” he said. “Pseudogravitation, specifically.”
I blinked. I hadn’t expected that answer. I stored it for future reference. “So, going back to my original question, we don’t have any idea what sort of ship the pirates captained?”
“Negative,” said Ducic.
“What about the crew of the attacked freighters?” I said. “I don’t suppose any of them boarded the pirate ship at any point in time?”
“To best of my knowledge, no,” said Ducic. “If so, it should be obvious from holovids. Can I ask what prompts this query?”
As good as the holovids were, they contained a few gaps. For one, there weren’t holorecorders in the ships’ airlocks, merely right outside them in the adjoining hallways. Similarly, the holorecorders in the cargo bay were all pointed at the cargo itself. When I’d inserted myself into the vids to look around, the cargo doors themselves had remained grayed out. I could see the pirates and their transport droids shuffling in and out, but the recording lost them at the doors.
“Don’t worry about
it,” I said. “I’m just trying to gather all the evidence I can. Expand my knowledge base.”
Ducic’s ears perked. “If that is your goal, I can assist. I enjoy spirited debates over physical nature and principles, and I find the solitude of my assigned quarters has become wearisome.”
“I, ah…would love to,” I said as I stood. “But I’ve got to take a rain check. I’ve been meaning to talk to Tarja. Carl, on the other hand, would love to chat.”
“What?” said Carl. “I—”
Take one for the team, buddy, I sent him via Brain. You’ll get more out of it than I would.
He didn’t even fight back with a snarky reply. What a guy.
9
I found Tarja in the ship’s cockpit, her legs propped up on the dash and her eyes trained on the vast expanse of stars outside the Pseudaglas windows. She did a double take when she spotted me. Subtle, but I noticed it.
“Surprised to see me?” I asked.
“You finish the holovids?” she asked.
I nodded. “You?”
“Of course I did.”
I sighed. “It’s not a race. I feel rather silly reminding you, mostly because Carl, Ducic, and I are all aboard your ship, but we’re a team now. We’ll be more effective if we work together.”
Tarja rolled her eyes. “Yeah, well I work better alone.”
“Have you ever tried otherwise?”
Tarja leveled me with a withering glance. Clearly there was more to the narrative than I’d suspected.
My bounty hunter host occupied the cockpit’s only chair, so I leaned against the console, hoping I wouldn’t activate anything with my meaty bottom. I was curious about the source of her glare, but I was smart enough not to ask.
“So…” I said. “You catch many thieves? Or brigands or escapees or whoever else people pay you to go after?”
Tarja looked down her sharp, slender nose at me. “You’ve seen my ship, right?”
“That doesn’t mean anything,” I said. “I’m independently wealthy. For all I know, you’re also a legacy marijuana farmer’s grandchild with too much cash on her hands and without a sense of purpose in her life.”
“You lack a sense of purpose?”
“We were talking about you.”
Tarja sighed. “What do you want?”
“I’m extending an olive branch, which is a metaphor I definitely won’t be using on Ducic. Basically, I’m trying to get to know you.”
“Oh, that’s so sweet,” said Tarja, clasping her hands and widening her eyes. “You want to be buddies? Let me ping all my girlfriends to share the good news. They’ll be positively ecstatic.”
“You really do work alone all the time, don’t you?” I said.
She dropped the act. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Look, I work in a partnership, just me and Carl, but even I know when you assemble a team as, let’s say, diverse as this one, it’s beneficial to understand each other’s strengths and weaknesses. What if we get in a jam? We’ll need to know who takes point and who brings up the rear. Who do we defer to on technical matters? Who’s in charge? That sort of thing.”
Tarja shifted her feet to the floor and leaned forward. “Let’s be clear then. I’m in charge. And as far as my strengths, I excel at two things: kicking ass and taking names.”
“What about your weaknesses?”
“What weaknesses?”
I tried not to roll my eyes. I mostly succeeded. “As reassuring as your braggadocio is, it’s not particularly telling.”
“You think I’m lying about my accomplishments?” said Tarja. “I’m telling you, I earned this ship. I didn’t inherit it from some doped up grandfather without any worthwhile heirs to pass his fortune to. And if you have a problem with my success I can introduce to my top of the line airlock system. Pro tip: I know how to bypass the fail safes.”
By this point I knew it was all an act, but I still had to force myself to say calm. Letting myself be goaded would only egg her on. “As I said, I’m trying to get to know you. That includes learning about your accomplishments.”
“So you want me to regale you with stories of my perilous adventures and cunning victories?” she said. “Like my defeat of the pirate Tellerman Bundy during our dogfight in the tail of Marshall’s Comet? Or the time I captured the Tryzeki broodmates outside the Pleasuredome orbiting Gleise five eighty-one c? Or how I tricked Paul ‘The Cross’ Richardson and Korvik Durulaque into letting me onto their ship, whereupon I hacked their mainframe and spaced the pair?”
“Well…yes,” I said.
“Hah.” Tarja rolled her eyes again. “You would.”
“What is it about taunting others you take such pleasure in?”
“It’s not everybody,” said Tarja. “Just you. And maybe your droid partner. And possibly Ducic, depending on my mood. Let’s say none of the personalities in this batch I was assigned are my type.”
“You have a type?”
She gave me another of those cold glares. “Are you ever going to leave me alone?”
“Depends,” I said. “Are you ever going to tell me one of those stories?”
“Fine. Which one?”
“I love a good ruse,” I said. “Tell me how you tricked Paul ‘The Cross’ Whatshisname and that other doofus into letting you onto their ship.”
Tarja shifted her eyes to the windows. “In retrospect, maybe that’s not the best one. Why don’t I tell you about the Pleasuredome?”
As enticing as hearing about a place called the Pleasuredome was, my curiosity had been piqued. “What’s wrong with the other story?”
“I don’t know,” said Tarja. “Look, I hadn’t planned on mentioning that one. It just…popped to mind. It doesn’t paint me in a good light.”
“Because you spaced the dudes?”
Tarja’s head turned, and she drilled me with an icy gaze that made her previous attempts seem toasty. “I don’t regret that. Those bastards got what they deserved.” She dropped her eyes and looked away. “Besides, the bounty on the pair said dead or alive. I got my SEUs all the same.”
I scratched my chin. “So—”
“Look, I don’t want to be a dick,” said Tarja, which I knew was a lie. “But we’re almost at the halfway point of this trip, and I need to prepare for the turn. Why don’t you sod off for a while and bug someone else? Grab a snack or take a nap or something. I don’t really care what so long as you get your ass off my control panel.”
I stood, liberating my rear from the ship’s delicate instruments. “Yeah, sure. I’ll warn Ducic. I don’t think he cares much for zero grav.”
I headed down the hatch to the main cabin, wondering to myself what the real story behind Tarja and the two spaced pirates was.
10
I awoke to a thump, notably that of my head making contact with the bulkhead above my cot. I blinked and tried to turn over, only to find myself spinning in place near the ceiling. Apparently, the Samus Aran had finished her deceleration while I’d slept, as evidenced by my weightlessness.
Carl thought about engaging the bed’s straps while you slept, said Paige. Ultimately he didn’t, as you can clearly tell.
I felt my forehead. No bump, no blood. Probably wouldn’t even leave a mark. “And why didn’t he?”
He thought it would teach you a lesson. Guess he was wrong. He’s in the main cabin if you need him. We should be docking with the Agapetes soon.
I shoved myself off the ceiling and used a sideways push when I reached the floor to get me to the windows. I latched onto a handhold and steadied myself without banging a single one of my body parts against the wall. Amazingly enough, my stomach felt fine, and I didn’t feel the least bit disoriented.
“You know, I think I’m starting to get the hang of this,” I told Paige.
Well, of course, she said. You’ve experienced a whopping thirty-five minutes of microgravity over the past sixteen hours. You’re a regu
lar space marine.
I pressed my nose to the window and gazed into the landscape outside. Thousands of points of light glittered as far as the eye could see, as if I were looking at the densest portion of the Milky Way, but I knew they weren’t stars. They flickered haphazardly, some of them winking out of existence, either from their irregular albedo or due to occlusion effects, as others sprang to life under the steady illumination of Tau Ceti.
We’d arrived in the asteroid field, and below us, increasing in size as we approached, was Varuna, the second largest body in the belt. With a radius of a few hundred kilometers, it dominated the lower half of my field of vision, but only because we were so close. On a celestial scale, it was a gnat’s fart. It barely pulled a fortieth of a g, which was why I’d impacted the ceiling. Compared to the ship’s deceleration, Varuna’s tug was like that of an anemic baby.
Below us, I spotted what at first appeared to be an enormous crater, at least twenty kilometers in diameter, but as we drew nearer, it became obvious the gaping hole was man made. A strip mine.
A wide path rotated around the interior of the hole, delving ever deeper as it circled toward the center. Metallic flashes gleamed here and there, massive cranes and transport crawlers and freighters, many of them in motion, as well as the static bundle of structures to the right of the excavation site—housing for the colony of a hundred or so that lived on the asteroid at the base of the mine. It didn’t seem like many given the sheer size of the dig, but the vast majority of the work was performed by bots and droids of various sizes, shapes, and forms. The human and alien contingents were primarily in place for engineering, maintenance, and security purposes.
The door to my chamber puffed and I heard Carl’s voice. “Ah. You’re up.” He floated over next to me.
“It’s beautiful, in a sense,” I said.
Carl shrugged. “I know my aesthetic sensibilities don’t match your own, but even accounting for that, I’m struggling to see what’s appealing about a strip mine.”