Skulls & Crossbones

by Andi Marquette

  Seri turned and saw Liz. She'd been too absorbed in the fight to see her arrive. "Go back. This is no time for interfering."

  Liz checked the setting on her laser rifle. "I'm here to help. Now, come on, while there is a break in fire."

  Seri wanted to scream. She knew Liz would do exactly as she wanted and she suddenly hated her for it. Jealousy fuelled rage. "Fine." She charged forward.

  Through the door, two security guards were waiting. A third was on the floor, her leg marked with a laser burn. Seri drew her sword and tackled the one farthest away. Surprise postponed his first shot, giving her time to dodge. Once in range, she had the advantage. He turned his rifle and tried to fence with her but she parried it easily. She feigned a low strike. When he followed to block it, she kicked the gun out of his hand. He crumpled to the ground. For a split second she was confused but then she saw the smouldering laser burn on his chest. She turned. Liz stood behind her, her expression confident.

  "Go back to the ship now." Seri punched each word out from between her teeth.

  "But—"

  "Now."

  Liz glowered but retreated.

  "Keep an eye on them," she instructed Kerfith as she moved toward her prisoner, who appeared to be unconscious. She felt his neck. A flutter under her fingertips. "He's alive. Hey," she addressed the guard with the injured leg, "do you have a medic on board?"

  She nodded.

  "Okay." She turned to Kerfith. "Abort."

  He looked mutinous.

  "That's an order."

  His jaw clenched but he led them back to their ship.

  Seri ignored Panda's curious stare and addressed her talker. "Jed, get us out of here." As soon as she felt the change in direction she headed for her quarters. She was pacing when Panda arrived.

  "What happened?"

  "Liz followed us. Shot a guard in the chest."

  "Is he all right?"

  "He's not dead. He needs a medic."

  "Is that why you aborted?"

  "Yes. What did you expect me to do, step over his dying body to steal some trinkets?"

  Panda eyed her. "Others would."

  "Like Liz. I know. Well, I'm not like that."

  "I know." Panda stepped forward and wrapped her arms around her.

  Seri struggled. Panda gripped her. Seri cried tears of frustration as Panda held her.

  The cargo bay was much emptier after their drop at Ravira. The delivery had been uneventful but tension among the crew had sapped Seri. As soon as they were back in the air, she'd started looking for the source of the trouble. "I'm surprised to find you in here."

  Liz looked up. "I was bored in my room but I thought you'd want me out of the way."

  Seri couldn't deny it. "Pirating is a lot different than what you'd think."

  "It looks like it."

  "Did you know we have a license to pirate?"

  "A license? That's ridiculous."

  "They had to do something. The skies were turning into a constant battleground. Also, it makes sense, commercially." Liz's silence showed she was listening.

  "Pirates, done properly, attract tourists. Ships require security guards. Insurance companies have a captive audience. The police know all the approved pirates and leave them alone, as long as they stay within the boundaries."

  "Approved pirates? Surely that's a contradiction?"

  Seri shook her head. "There are some who don't sign up but they get the full force of the law and are considered vigilantes. The police protect approved pirates where they can."

  "From vigilantes?"

  "Yes. They're the ones we have to watch out for. They've made it their mission to destroy all pirates whether they have a license or not." She paused. "What you did today puts our license in jeopardy. That man could die."

  "I didn't know."

  "I know. Things are different now. It's better in many ways. Safer for everyone."

  "Pirating isn't about being safe."

  "Maybe not, but the pirates have made that choice. What about the travellers? Do they deserve to die just for being in the wrong place at the wrong time? Fatalities are down ninety-two percent since the licenses were introduced."

  The silence extended beyond comfort. Seri suspected Liz would never embrace the new approach.

  "Skipper to command, incoming." Jed's voice came through the talker.

  "On my way." Seri turned to Liz. She couldn't think of what to say so she gave a half-smile and walked away.

  When she reached command, Jed indicated the communication panel. "Incoming police transmission."

  Great. "Thanks." She sat down at the comms station, then keyed in the commands to open the channel. "Solero Captain."

  The face of a male police officer appeared on the screen. "Secure channel?"

  "Yes, sir."

  "We've had a report of a pirating incident in your area. The description matches your ship. Have you engaged any passenger ships today?"

  "Yes, sir."

  "In the raid in question, a security guard was shot in the chest. Do you know anything about this?"

  Seri came to her choice. A proper pirate would say "no." She took a breath. "Yes, sir. It was a misunderstanding with a passenger aboard this ship. It was an accident, and the attempt was immediately aborted."

  "Accident or not, it is a contravention of the Terran Pirate Treaty. The Solero's license is hereby suspended, pending police investigation. Please report to the police unit when you dock at," he paused and looked away, "Andreas."

  "Yes, sir."

  "Any future acts of pirating will be treated with the full force of the law and your location and intent made public."

  "I understand."

  "Out."

  Seri closed the connection and released a sigh. Of all the emotions she expected, she was surprised to find her relief paramount.

  Without pirating to worry about, the remainder of the journey to Andreas was peaceful. Liz spent most of the time talking to the other members of the crew. Seri knew what she was doing. Testing them. Liz had found a reason to fight and wanted to know who would stand with her. Kerfith would. Panda wouldn't. Jed was an unknown.

  Seri felt the ship decelerate as it entered the slow zone above the city. Not long now. She sat in her command chair. The view through the windscreen was one of her favourites. Andreas was famed for its thirty-storey building limit. The result was rather quaint, by comparison to the other cities at least. The city had limited its outward growth, too. Even this close, Seri could still see green fields. The city sat in the middle like the yolk in an egg. "Docking in seven minutes," Jed said.

  Seri should be moving. There were things to do. She pulled herself away from the view and headed to the cargo bay. This time, the thought of docking sent a thrill through her. This had been the hardest journey in months, and parting company with Liz would be a relief.

  "Only a couple of crates here, Skipper." Panda handed her the itinerary for inspection.

  Seri looked without seeing, then handed it back.

  "And our passenger, of course."

  "Yes."

  "Do you think we'll lose our license?"

  Seri thought. "It depends how our case is pleaded. We have four years of good behaviour to our credit. We've always done minimal harm and theft.

  Less than the treaty allows for."

  "I've always liked that," Panda said.

  "Me, too."

  "What would you do if we do lose our license?"

  "I don't know." A few ideas came to mind but they were too embryonic to mention. "How about you? Would you try and join another ship?"

  "No," Panda said. "It wouldn't be the same. Better to try something completely different."

  "Prepare for docking." Jed's voice sounded simultaneously through their talkers.

  The next hour left no spare time for thought. The crew worked efficiently.

  They each knew their responsibilities and got them done with minimum fuss.

  The moment crept up and, su
ddenly, Seri found herself on the landing ramp facing Liz.

  "Well, thanks for the ride."

  "No problem."

  "I suppose it'll be another six years before I see you again?"

  "I don't know." Seri took a step closer. "I want you to have these." She released the talker from her wrist and took the captain's override key from her pocket. She passed them both to Liz. "She's more yours than mine. Always will be, I think."

  Liz looked at the talker, her expression too hard to read. "You're sure?"

  "I am." Seri grabbed the small bag and guinea pig cage from the open air lock. She walked down the ramp and paused at the bottom to look back. "Wait!" Panda ran down behind her. "I'm coming, too."

  "Where?"

  "I don't know. I'm sticking with you, though, Skipper."

  Seri smiled. "Right, then." She gave a brief salute before they walked away from the ship.

  "I can't believe you just did that."

  "What?"

  "Gave the ship to your ex."

  Seri looked at her and raised an eyebrow. "She's not my ex. She's my mother."

  Pipettes for the Pirate

  Holly Ellingwood

  "I hear you're the smartest person on this station," the stranger said, offering a drink.

  Ida looked up from where she had been nursing her drink in the station's only bar. The woman who spoke couldn't be more than 5'5", even in those black pilot boots.

  Ida glanced to the far side of the bar, where a group of people huddled around a table were drinking and snickering as they watched her. She shook her head. "You can go back to the other table where you were chatting up my work colleagues and tell them their little joke didn't work."

  The woman looked no more than thirty, close to Ida's age. She shook her plain brown hair over her shoulder, frowned briefly, and sat down uninvited. She slid the drink over. "I only chatted them up because they were obviously scientists—lab coats like yours. I asked them which of them was the smartest. They all said it was you."

  Ida didn't take the drink. On closer inspection, she noted the stranger's faded chocolate brown jacket held many medals. It was a worn military uniform, high collar and trim cut, but she didn't recognize which military bore that color, or the beige shirt and black pants.

  When Ida remained silent, the stranger slid the drink closer to where Ida's hand rested on the table. "I'm in need of someone smart."

  Ida narrowed her eyes, and she nervously touched her long braid. "You're not trying to pick me up?" Then, she quickly amended. "As a joke." She didn't need to elaborate whom she meant. She had eaten and drunk alone from the first day she arrived at the station two years ago, fresh from the academy. No one wanted a thing to do with a Terran who took her work seriously. "Pick you up?" the woman echoed, and a sudden smile transformed her face. "That's an interesting thought. We can discuss that later, if you like. But tell me, is it true you graduated at the top of the Allied Planetary Space Academy? Even beating out a Jilk?"

  Not expecting the flirting or the praise, she blushed, unsure if she was being played. "They told you that?"

  A nod and appreciative smile. "For a Terran to beat out a sentient with four frontal lobes, you must be a genius."

  Ida took the drink. The stranger's smile widened. "You wouldn't know it from where they put me."

  "Politics are rough," the stranger said sadly. "Being a Terran these days makes you last on the list for any position of real note." She clinked her glass against Ida's and flashed another smile. "All the more reason for us to stick together."

  Ida watched the stranger down the drink in one gulp and motion to the bartender for another. "Who are you?" She wasn't used to small talk and winced at her own bluntness.

  The woman grinned as she paid the suddenly pale bartender for their drinks. "You don't get out much, do you?" It sounded more like an observation than an actual question. "You can call me Val. All my friends do. I get around." The bartender choked as he left. Ida held out her hand. "Ida Willar. Saturn Seven."

  Val's eyebrows rose. "So you're Mi'kmaq. You're very far from home."

  Ida shrugged. One colony planet was the same as another. "I go where they send me."

  "And testing soil samples on the asteroid belt here is fulfilling your dreams?"

  Ida gave Val the look that remark earned.

  Val held up her hands. "No offence meant. It's just that—and this might sound odd—I was hoping you were unhappy here."

  "Why?"

  "I have a problem and it's one that needs a scientist, someone wickedly smart, to find me a solution." She looked at Ida meaningfully.

  "I already have a job." But she couldn't hide her curiosity.

  Val's blue eyes glittered. "That you hate here at the dead end of space. Besides, it's only a few hours. Nothing you need to lose your job over."

  "What's the problem?"

  "A sentient creature attached to my ship that I've never seen before, and I've seen just about everything. I've even gone past the Known Border. But this is new."

  "You've gone past the Known Border?" She gasped. That was unheard of. No one wanted to risk the unknown, not after what had happened in the Dukito System.

  Serious now, Val spoke low, pulling Ida in through the force of her personality. "I have. And farther still." Her eyes darkened with all the mysteries beyond explored space. "And I'm telling you truthfully, I need your help." A new being, completely unknown? Ida couldn't resist. She had to find

  out if it was true. "Is your ship in dock?"

  "No, it's too big. But I have a skiff , and it will take us to her fast. Two hours out. You can look, let me know what you think. If you can't help, I'll bring you right back."

  "Only two hours out?"

  Val stood and threw some currency on the table, an excessive tip. "Don't even pretend you're thinking of saying no. Any true scientist has curiosity instead of blood in their veins."

  Ida stood, nearly a head taller than the pilot, and followed her out. She hadn't fooled the other woman for a minute that she wasn't going to go.

  The time in the skiff went by too fast as far as Ida was concerned. She had learned more about the universe in two hours than she had read about in six years of science academy. What she couldn't figure out was Val. Every time she tried to steer the conversation to where Val came from, Val evaded answering with a skill Ida could only admire, even while it frustrated her.

  When Val had taken off her jacket earlier, Ida noticed a plasma scar on Val's forearm.

  Val caught Ida's stare. "Plasma beam. If the ship hadn't been rocked by a space mine thrown at it, making me trip, I wouldn't be talking to you right now."

  "Someone shot at you?"

  A shrug. "It happens."

  "So you're military?" How could anyone be so blasé about being shot at? A fierce grin came and went. "Not anymore."

  And that's what the entire conversation had been like, a clue here, a small kernel of information there, but nothing that gave Ida the full picture. "There she is." Val gestured grandly at the viewport.

  Ida looked through the view screen. "It's huge. And you don't have a scientist on board that big thing?"

  Another enigmatic smile as Val put on her jacket and strapped on a belt that had a laser pistol holstered to it. "It's actually not that big, not even half the size of a military cruiser. That's what makes her so manoeuvrable. I can dance circles around those clunkers."

  But why would you want to? The ship was sleek, like a large seafaring vessel of old, but without sails. The hull held different colored metals. There were patches of red, blue, and green peppered among the expected charcoal. It was the most unusual ship Ida had ever seen.

  "It does have an eco-bay. We grow enough food so that we can survive on our own. A farmer takes care of that, so he's not really a scientist. At least not the kind I need. Same for my linguistics officer."

  "What's the name of the ship?" Ida couldn't make it out from this angle. Val changed course, and Ida suddenly understood
all of the earlier evasions. In clear Terran Standard the hull stated Valhalla.

  Ida mentally cursed. She'd just been kidnapped by the most wanted space pirate in several galaxies.

  Val was still laughing well after they had boarded the ship, and Ida didn't know whether to feel angry or embarrassed. How could this ordinary woman with the big personality be the Valkyrie, captain of the Valhalla, said to have sent many a spacer to their final resting place, like the ancient Earth Norse mythic figure she was named after? No wonder the bartender had nearly choked at the name Val. He had recognized her from the wanted postings on the u-net that Ida never watched. A painfully obvious fact right now. "But you're so short," she burst out.

  Val only laughed harder. "Hey, I'm just not as tall as you. Besides, how is it my fault that you think anyone named after a Valkyrie should be a big, blond Amazon? I got the name because of the name of my ship. And my offer is genuine. I have a problem that needs your expertise."

  Ida stopped walking and crossed her arms. "I'm not taking another step until you tell me what is going on."

  "I'll do better than that. I'll show you."

  Reluctantly, Ida followed Val onto the main deck which had no view screen. People were at their consoles ignoring them until Val called out, "Tyluk, give me the wide shot of our problem."

  The lights dimmed except where the two of them stood, and suddenly, right in front of her from floor to the high ceiling, was an image of the other side of the ship and surrounding space. It seemed like space was all around them.

  "We don't have this kind of technology." Ida clenched her hands so she didn't reach out and touch the stars floating around her like dust motes. "Not the Allied Planets, no. Do you see it?"

  It was impossible to miss. Along the other side of the ship was a cloud, a cloying nimbus the length of nearly the entire space vessel and half as wide.

  "It simply looks like your standard interstellar molecular cloud. Space is filled with them. Did you scan its contents?"

  "Of course." Val sniffed. "Scans say that's exactly what it is. A beer cloud." She used the slang term. "It's primarily ethyl alcohol with large traces of cyanide and nitrogen. But the problem is that those things don't attach themselves to anything. I thought it was a fluke when we passed too close to one of them. But whenever we tried to go to warp speed, it started to discharge parts of itself and hasn't stopped since. It also began to somehow drain the engine cores until we stopped. We can only travel at impulse power now. Look there, you can see the emissions."