by J.S. Clark
Retinbour had not ordered her ship to be cannibalized yet. Why wait? Robots didn’t need a break and they didn’t mind that they didn’t get to keep any of the spoils. She was also surprised that there were no guards. She supposed the ship had been searched, and since its only crew was supposed to be in the brig there was no need to post a guard, but this was getting awfully easy.
Too easy, said the voice of Charlotte Emil in her head. Lonely pirate—he must be bored since his ship runs so well unless he reads more than I do—finally has a captive and he spends his time brooding in his quarters? She liked to think of herself as a bit of a spitfire, but she had to be better company than nothing, right?
Aiyela hesitated as she opened the outer doors, protected from the vacuum of space by the energy field. She knew she should leave. Get on board, drop the field, and drain her tank making a get away that made a shooting star look like a galactic revolution. But it sure seemed like he was trying to be absent . . . letting her get away.
There is more to this pirate than his scoundrelly persona.
Yeah, like his Frankensteinian ship and the crew of robots that replaced the ones he probably murdered. Get your rear end back to the ship!
As convincing an argument as her self-preservation made, Aiyela just felt there was something else she needed to know. Something she was missing. Again at Retinbour’s vent, she spied on the Captain. He was asleep in his chair, head propped atop his forearm in the left nook of the high-back.
Quiet as ever, Aiyela removed the vent cover and leaned in. Though upside down to her, the room looked even better than before. At least, it had the potential to be. The lush cloth adorned the middle portion, but there was a small kitchen with counter tops of dark, white mottled stone that looked like the Galaxy Edition candy-coated chocolates they put out on the Interstellar Day anniversary. The cabinets were wooden, not a metal or composite. Beside the kitchen was a short wooden dining table with silver squiggles on the top.
Next to it, a plush bed had the covers pulled back on one side. Dirty socks and assorted clothes piled at the foot on the outside of a wicker basket—multiple editions of what the pirate was already wearing.
Forgetting those few blemishes, it was a beautiful room that Aiyela would have loved for her own. Any girl would.
Any girl. Like Marsell.
Aiyela lowered herself into the room. She couldn’t say she had a plan. If she did, it probably wasn’t a good one. It was just that somehow she didn’t believe Retinbour was too dangerous. Maybe he just needed to be shown that he was more than a pirate, just like she was more than a dirty wrench-turner.
In the kitchen, Aiyela started peeking in the cupboards. By the look of it, Retinbour didn’t actually eat from this kitchen. There had to be a galley somewhere else. As a result the kitchen was fairly clean, but that meant it was mostly empty too. There was a rack of spices with as much dust on the caps as ingredient in the bottles. The dishes were present in the cabinets, but any food was vacuum sealed, dried, canned, and possibly expired. She was afraid to look in the refrigeration unit, but she did and was relieved to find that it was merely empty.
Alright, this is what I have to work with. She stared at the sacrifices assembled on the counter. Tomato sauce, that was the same as soup, she could manage that. Cream of Mushroom soup . . . uh . . . she knew what mushrooms were. They were leathery, and when you put them in boiling water they improved to rubbery. She was having difficulty translating either condition into "cream." Next was a can of corned beef and hash. Well, she loved Reubens, and they had corned beef, but she wasn’t sure what "hash" was and the label must have been glued on by an archeologist because all of the useful descriptors were history.
She looked at the assorted spices next to the three cans—she figured canned items were upscale from the dried food she was used to, and she wanted to impress. Aiyela sighed. Who was she kidding? She was a mechanic; boiling water made her salivate.
Now listen here, Aiyela! You are a mechanic, and a pretty darn good one. If you can fix a trio interlocking spatial shifter, I forbid you from defeat at the hands of a few spices! Determinedly, she rolled up her sleeves and set to work.
It was really quite simple when she thought it through. Put the three cans together in the pot and turn on the heat, it’s all going to the same place so that much was first-year mechanics—as if she’d learned mechanics from school. Next, she’d simply smell each spice and, if it was good, in it went. No problem!
Using her ramen expertise for comparison, after three minutes of boiling she figured the soup was done. Finally she tasted the end product. It was different than she expected. Rather salty. And there was an unexpected bite to it like she’d eaten a dozen sour apples. She was nonplussed. Oh well, they're his ingredients so he must like it that way.
Aiyela put two bowls on a tray with a plate of crackers she’d found at the last second, tip-toed to where captain Retinbour was sleeping, and set the tray on the table. He’s going to be so surprised! She was all giggles inside. She tugged on his sleeve, "Captain Retin—"
Fortunately, she was still wearing her borrowed armor when he kicked her in the chest. Twice as fortunate that it was his human leg.
Aiyela flew back across the hearth into the opposite chair and toppled it. Just as she did, a chunk exploded out of the frame at the front of the seat cushion right between her legs. She wasn’t sure if there was a hail of bullets passing over head or just her heart making a run for it.
She was still on her back thinking herself dead when a face came into view, Retinbour’s, one-eyed and half in shadow. The door burst in, and robot pirates entered.
"Captain, we heard—"
"Get out." Aiyela wasn’t sure if it was the order or fear that made them leave so quickly. Retinbour grabbed her chair and pulled her back up. "Never catch Retinbour sleepin'."
"Well you shouldn’t catch young girls’ ships and then shoot at them!" Aiyela hadn’t meant to scream, but her trembling hand was on her mouth a second too late.
He might have been deciding if he should shoot again, but all he said was, "Fair enough. Why di'n’t ya put to space when ya had the chance?"
"H-how’d you know I had the chance?"
Retinbour put his hand on his eye-patch and Aiyela flinched as he pealed it up. Under the patch was a perfectly normal looking twin to his other eye, perfect for looking at the other side of the patch which was a tiny three dimensional viewer. "Scarce little happens on this ship that I don’t see. And, I be knowin' your real question." He paused. "Tis better for a man in my position to let ya be clever enough to escape, than for mes to show a kindness by lettin' you go. Now I have meself the difficult quandary of whether to space you to save meself the tarnishing of reputation . . . "
Aiyela smiled till her eyes were so squinted she could barely see and her cheeks as rosy as an atmospheric sunset. She tilted her head to one side and playfully tucked some of her brown hair behind an ear. She was aiming credible and cute. "I won’t tell."
"Aye, ya won’t? And what’s for me to know that, once yer bein' a couple lightyars out, and some skippy-doo comes sailin' along like he means to waltz over me? I might have to gut 'im just to be safe when he ain’t even worth the fuel to run 'im down?"
"I don’t think you’ll do that."
"Yer bein' the expert on me now?"
"You used to have a real crew." Retinbour put his patch back down. "You liked having someone else around so I don’t think you’d kill someone without a . . . good reason."
"Maybe I killed my crew."
Aiyela looked at the floor, her hands slipping into her pockets. The compass was still in her right. "I don’t have a lot of things that I didn’t get myself. Almost nothing that isn’t a tool I use all the time. I can’t afford the space, and every bit of drag is fuel wasted." She pulled out the shiny compass. "So if I keep something that I don’t use, then the person who gave it to me was very special."
She opened the lid so that it faced Retinbour. He resisted
looking at it, but eventually his eye dipped. "I had a crew once. But they abandoned their Captain."
"This room was for her, wasn’t it?"
Retinbour looked around, "What’s that smell?" He eyed the soup. "You make this?" Aiyela nodded as he took a bowl. "Marsell could cook. Haven’t had me a mess that wasn’t from one tin hand to another since . . . " He trailed off as he took a spoonful.
The spoon stayed in his mouth, his eye taking a far off stare to it. She wanted to think that he was savoring, but the longer he didn’t swallow the less she thought it. "Was there something special she made for you?"
He swallowed. "Food."
"I see." She understood. She’d tried though! She plunged a spoon into her bowl, trying to decide if she had enough spite to finish her own soup.
"This a'right. A real sailor’s mess." He was lying of course. "Yer might be thinkin' me, a pirate, but I’m not. I’m a privateer. Kind of a licensed pirate. I’s get me a mission from a government, one that seems to me liking, but hows I see it done is me own choice."
Wow, a real life, respectable pirate—minus the part where he waylaid my ship!
"When I’s put to port the naval service of Mauliston, where I started from. I took with me two brothers, and a sister-in-arms, to make an honorable livelihood of privateering. I wanted Marsell most of all, but her, Janus, and Roberr were thick as