“I shall return,” he said, and it carried the weight of a promise.
He left in the night while I slept, and I was glad for not having to see him leave.
AND so it went, for five years and more—sex and sometimes talking, followed by months alone while he and his crew took to the seas, my only knowledge of his whereabouts the occasional mention of a town taken by Captain Roberts.
Did I approve of his pirating? Of course not, not as a peacekeeper, and I would not have hesitated to bind him over had he ever tried similar in my own town, but he did not. He was only the pirate captain who swept into my life, turned my body inside out, and swept out again just as quickly, a blur of excitement and salt and black clothing that I could no more resist than the wind from the sea and that in time I came to miss and long for him as I would the wind off the sea should I ever lose it.
But nothing can stay the same forever, or at least that was what I assumed when I saw him sitting cross-legged at my door one evening, barely two months since I’d last seen him there.
“An unexpected guest, returned so soon.” His pistol lay to the side of him, where I had never seen it unless we were lying naked together. “Or has it finally come time for you to take this town also?”
His eyes lacked much of their familiar humor, so much that for a moment I feared I had spoken truth in what I had only meant as a jest. I knelt to sit beside him, then moved to sit in front of him, my posture matching his own, my hands open, palms up, on my knees for him to take should he choose.
“More toward the opposite,” he said, looking down at my hands instead of my face—another unfamiliarity when I was used to his gaze always catching at mine, tugging me to look at him should I not.
“And how would that be?” I asked when he seemed not to be continuing his thought.
He looked up then, his eyes dark on mine. “We are to leave. We have an offer of work on the Nether Shore that my crew have chosen for taking up.” He grimaced, a moment of humor lightening his face. “And the seas here are grown mighty perilous of late.”
He spoke nothing but truth with those words—the Mages’ Council term would end in a matter of cycles, and there was always increased presence of the law on the seas when that time drew near. “A long sail from here to there.”
“Nigh on a cycle or more,” he agreed. “Those as chose not to go will be put ashore here, but most will sail with me. Sad to say we’re not like to see this shore any time again.”
I had expected as much, but the loss that shuddered in my heart made me drop my head. “You plan not to return?”
“I’m more like not to plan as to do so,” he said. I saw him shrug, a lithe, dark movement against the plain wall of my dwelling. “But as things stand, I fear this will be a final goodbye.”
“And to me also?” I did not entirely mean for the words to come out a question, and yet they did so regardless. I kept my eyes lowered, waiting to hear the truth I chose not to see on his face.
His hand covering mine surprised me into looking up, and what I saw there was not a truth I had ever expected to see. “Some on the crew are bringing families—or lovers, in more accurate terms. By all that tell of it, the Nether Shore is a wild and strange place, and many feel the want for company they know at the end of a long journey.”
I found I had nothing to say in the face of this offer, so unexpected and yet so very desired, now that it came. Could I leave behind the place I had always known? And yet, could I be left behind, alone and aimless as I had been until he blew into my life on a sea breeze?
“They’re sure to have need for a peacekeeper in such a wild place,” he added, his hand loose around mine. “Or a man with a quick mind could learn a new trade. Aboard a ship, even.”
“I’m none for a pirate life,” I said, my voice choking at the truth of that.
He squeezed my hand a little, and I returned the gesture, more instinct than intention, but not an instinct I was eager to stop. “Many a chance for work at sea within the law, and outside it in the pursuit of it.”
That was surely a truth—how often did the law at sea come back wishing for only one chance to slip the bonds placed on them in service of the country? Were that allowed anywhere, it would surely be the Nether Shore, like to be as wild as Rob and the stories told it.
He squeezed my hand still harder, and I knew that he had read my decision in my face before I spoke it.
“Take me with you. I’ll go where you sail.”
EMILY MORETON has been writing since she was a child, when her stories mostly involved her and her sister saving the world (or at least the back garden). Since then, her writing has developed somewhat, and she’s published several short stories, only some of which have included saving the world, and has been nominated for the Push Cart awards. She now lives in Bristol, where she works four jobs, and spends most of the rest of her free-time volunteering at the local concert hall.
Visit Emily's web site at http://purple-pen.dreamwidth.org.
GHOST OF JUPITER
JANA DENARDO
TELEK struggled to break out of the chokehold. When he stomped down hard, his opponent’s grip shifted. Telek twisted, biting down hard on the first bit of flesh he could sink his teeth into. Howling, Jyrgal released Telek, and Telek plowed into him, taking him to the floor. He ripped into Jyrgal until pain lanced through him. His body jerked as his handler emptied the full potential of the shock bracelets into him.
Panting as the pain faded, Telek rolled to his feet and waited on Hanne’s signal. She crooked a finger at him, and he padded over, breath rasping. The doctor put a hand on his sweating chest.
“Aren’t they lovely specimens?” Hanne’s grin made Telek shudder. “This was a bit of a bad day fight-wise, but I think you can see their potential.”
Telek didn’t know what species of humanoid was studying him. He’d never seen their like. Feeling the challenge of their stares, he fought down his rage. If Hanne thought he wasn’t selling her product, she’d shock him again.
The three humanoids conversed quickly; then one of them turned to Hanne. “And they can really do everything you said? They barely hurt each other. Do the nanites work?”
Telek looked down at Jyrgal, who still wasn’t moving and was bleeding heavily. Barely hurt? By what standards?
“Telek, dear.” Hanne’s tone made him take an instinctive step back, but it didn’t help.
He gasped as she buried a length of blade in his gut and yanked it out. As he dropped, he heard her tell the buyers to watch over him and see the nanites repair him. Telek wove in and out of consciousness. He heard them agree to buy him before he stopped fighting the drag on him and embraced the darkness.
SWEAT rolled down Al’s spine, even though the cargo ship was cool. Adrenaline fed his body, improving his reactions, honing every shot from his blaster. This cargo ship had been swift, hard to catch up to, but the Ghost of Jupiter was more than up to the challenge. Unlike his crew of privateers, the unlicensed cargo vessel’s crew were shooting to kill, but Al’s team was more experienced in a raid. They had cut through the ship like a supernova.
“That’s the last of them. We’re clear,” Arianna’s voice came over the ship’s comm system.
Wiping salty perspiration from his eyes, Al hoped Arianna wasn’t being overly optimistic, and he found the closest comm-link. “Everyone to the cargo hold. Arianna, tell Dr. Odd to get over here and pick up our wounded.”
“Got it,” his twin replied.
Al raced down the metal ladder to the service tunnels, heading for the hold. The ship’s crew had locked the hold off, but the ship was a Gioahm style, strong but cheap. If he cut the power to the electronic doors, they would open. It only took a few moments to disconnect the power source.
Pressing his way out of the service tunnel and into the hold, he discovered his men having trouble subduing the crew inside of the vast structure. The metallic-smelling aftermath of a heavy electrical discharge tickled Al’s nose.
&nbs
p; “What happened?” he asked as Jaydon bound up one of the brawny men guarding the cargo bins.
“They hit the boxes with a charge. Hell knows if there will be anything useful now,” the Sonrol replied, his tusks chopping his words.
Al grimaced. A lot of valuable cargo could be rendered so much garbage with a few well-placed charges. “Take it anyway.” Useless or not, he was pissed now. He’d sell the damn bins themselves out of spite if he had to.
“Filthy pirates,” the brawny man spat. He was already shaking off the stun blast. Al wondered what was in the man’s DNA makeup.
“Privateer,” Al corrected, sending a signal to the Ghost of Jupiter. His crew were experts at this transfer of goods.
Haulers docked in the decompression bay. The Ghost’s crew swarmed into the defeated cargo ship, transferring bins onto the hauler craft. Within twenty minutes, they had emptied the cargo bay. Oddly, it hadn’t been tremendously full, but that only served to convince Al the bins held something very valuable, worth the fuel to fly a half-empty ship.
“I’ve disabled their engines. It’ll take hours, if not a day or more, to fix,” Arianna smirked.
“Are all our crew off except those in here?” he asked.
His twin nodded, walnut curls flopping into her face. “We’re ready to star jump out of here.”
Al ordered everyone off with the next hauler. The crew they hadn’t tied up—he preferred to not leave them in a position where someone could lose their life—would be waking soon. As soon as everyone was safely on board the Ghost, they executed a series of complex star jumps to cover their tracks, in case there was a redundant system Arianna hadn’t sabotaged, and the raided ship came back online too quickly.
He stopped by the sickbay, probably the best stocked area of the privateer ship after weapons, to check on the injured crew. Gage had died. Unhappy, Al stomped down to the cargo hold where the haulers had been unloaded. He wanted to see what was in the bins that Gage had died procuring. Arianna and Gyal, their third in command and head of security, were waiting for him.
“We’re ready to open these if you are,” Arianna said.
“Let’s see what we’ve got.”
A couple of crew members started working the crackers on the bins’ locks. This part of the job never failed to make Al’s palms itch in anticipation. Sometimes they had a clue what a ship they raided might be carrying, but more often than not, when an unlicensed ship cut across the territory without a Confederation beacon, it was a complete mystery. Whatever was in the bins, it was likely to be damaged by the electrical charges. He hoped the contents weren’t completely ruined.
The first bin door swung up to show a long, black, ovoid container. Al went to open it himself. Getting the lid off, he fell back, his breath rushing into his lungs.
“Al, what is it?”
Arianna crowded against him, looking over his shoulder at the contents of the box, or should he say coffin? Inside lay a man, human—well, mostly. Blue hair framed his face, and his fingers ended in inhuman talons. Then he spotted the man’s chest moving.
“Son of a bitch.”
“We hit a slave trader.” Arianna patted the heavy cuff bracelets on one of the man’s wrists. “These are Poulchino shockers, illegal everywhere in the Confederation. That’s probably why they set off charges. They were trying to kill the cargo.”
“Human hybrid?” Gyal asked. “Or is it a chimera?”
The latter suggestion made ice form inside Al’s veins. Chimerae were even more illegal than Poulchino shockers. “We had better get Dr. Odd down here with her team.”
Arianna nodded, heading for the comm-link. Al knew one way or the other, slave or chimera, he would either have to call in the military and turn over the booty or jettison it all to cover up his part in this. Somehow, he didn’t see himself being capable of the latter.
“WHAT are we going to do now?” Arianna asked as they headed to his office after Dr. Odd confirmed their worst fears: they had plundered a ship carrying chimerae. “Are you really going to call Rollins?”
“Do we have a choice?” Al’s eyes flicked over to his twin, studying her face. If anything, she was a bit harder than him, but she couldn’t be thinking of spacing or selling their latest haul.
Her shoulders slumped. “Not really. Like you said, it’ll probably be easy to convince the colonel to let us help out if they go after the people who were trafficking the chimerae. It should be profitable, even if we have to put up with those military jackasses looking down their noses at us.”
Sinking into his office chair, Al nodded. Across from his desk in the cramped office was a holo-picture of an eighteenth century tall-masted ship. He wondered if those pirates had ever faced conundrums like this. Al and Arianna’s uncle had brought them up on rollicking stories of the original pirates. Al had wanted to name his ship after one of theirs, but so many were uninspiring, he’d taken the name from the Ghost of Jupiter nebula.
Swiveling to face the other wall and its embedded monitor, Al brought up the interplanetary comm-link and punched in his code—one that usually got his call bypassed over the colonel’s adjutant and straight to the woman herself, if she was in.
Al’s interest in women was purely aesthetic. He might not find them sexually alluring, but he could appreciate their beauty. He was always struck by Colonel Rollins’s attractiveness. Her dark skin was flawless enough that the drab uniform couldn’t distract from it. Her chocolate eyes bore into him with an eagerness he appreciated. She trusted him not to waste her time.
“I wasn’t expecting a call from you, Bellomi,” she said. “What trouble have you found now?”
Next to him, Arianna snorted, but Al ignored her. “Trouble is a word for it. We raided a beaconless ship and came away with a dozen chimerae in drug-induced comas.”
Rollin’s body stiffened, but she kept her voice modulated. “Are you sure?”
“The doc is. I wasn’t expecting it. I want nothing to do with transgenics.” Al sighed. “I need to know what to do with them now I have them. I’ll transmit the data on the trafficker’s ship. We didn’t damage it badly, so they’re probably nowhere near where we last saw them.”
“Do it anyhow,” Rollins said. “I’ll set a course to meet you. You’ll have to turn the chimerae over to us. In the meantime, your doctor might want to keep them sedated until we can get a military transport there.
“I’ll pass that along,” Al said. “Colonel, what about the actual owners of these chimerae?”
“Don’t you go chasing them down just yet. You need to let us investigate. If we pick up their trail, we’ll use your assistance, but this needs to be handled delicately. I need to go speak to my people.” With that, Rollins killed the link.
“What does she expect we’re going to do?” Arianna sniffed.
Al smiled. “Blow things up and rob them. Ari, see what you can backtrack on that ship. Maybe we can find out where they were going, or at least where they came from.”
His sister slapped his arm. “Good, I’d hate to think we were just going to sit around waiting on Rollins. What will you be doing?”
“Checking back with Odd. I don’t want a bunch of chimerae running loose. If Rollins was nervous enough to warn me, then you know these guys are probably worse than we’ve been told to expect.”
Arianna’s nose wrinkled. “I’d like not to die at the hands of some genetic warrior.”
“Neither would I.”
TELEK’S eyes pulled open, dry and painful. The last thing he remembered was being stabbed. He didn’t bother to check for the wound. It would be long healed. The scent of his surroundings forced his tired body upright. Astringent, different. He wasn’t in his cell. Had he been sold and transported already?
Shaking the sleep from his brain, Telek studied his surroundings. The room barely had space to move around in. Most of it was stuffed with equipment that flashed and beeped. Sitting up, Telek grabbed the edge of the bed as his vision swam. Someone had given him some sort of
drug, probably to keep him asleep. He lifted his head, testing the air. He could smell more of his kind close by.
He put his bare feet on the cold metal floor, standing up. The room whirled again, but he fought it off. Telek felt the fever rising, those instincts that kept him alive. He’d have to fight soon. He knew it. That was what he was for, after all. The chimerae were little more than animals, bred to kill.
Telek made it across the floor. He was staring at the control panel to figure out how it worked when it slid open on its own. A tall, very pale woman stood there, grey eyes widening. A soft “oh” escaped her. Telek fell back into a defensive position. Was she his new owner?
“You weren’t supposed to be awake yet.” There was a slight tremor in her voice. He made her nervous. “Why don’t you lie back on the bed and I’ll make sure you’re okay. I’m Doctor Oddveig Eklund.”
Telek’s breath caught. Hanne had sold him to another doctor. He should kill her now before she could do to him the things that Hanne had done. But he couldn’t move. Sweat broke out over him, chilling him in the cool room. Hanne had done her job too well. She hadn’t needed the shock bracelets to control him. He was too terrified by female doctors to even move.
“It’s okay. I’m not going to hurt you. What’s your name?”
Telek backed up, hitting the bed. He fell against it.
“Odd,” someone called. Telek’s body coiled for attack, seeing a dark-haired man coming into the room. The man’s very dark eyes narrowed. “Oh. I was coming to tell you Rollins said to keep them sedated. I see I’m late.” The man’s hands edged toward a stunner. Telek paused, knowing a stunner was no real threat to him.
“Just a little. He’s a bit afraid. Pretty sure I don’t like that,” the doctor replied.
The man brought his hands up, palms facing Telek. “It’s all right. We rescued you and your companions. You’re safe now.”
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