The Star Pirate's Folly (13 page)

The Captain stood with Bee at the center of the nullroom
floor.

“You have to remember at all times in nullo that you’re
human. Your brain’s used to having two feet planted on the ground and it’ll
rail against you for changing that. Your mind needs conditioning as much as
your body.”

He lifted his bare left hand, revealing a lens only
millimeters across implanted in his skin. It projected a hardlight screen into
which he tapped several commands, and the nullroom plunged into darkness.
Spud’s container back near the entrance spilled a reassuring glow, but Bee
couldn’t see the walls anymore.

“Lesson number one,” the Captain said. “Space is big. You
literally cannot imagine the amount of emptiness out there. When you’re in
vacuum you are
always
alone. Always. People who can’t remember that get
dead quick.”

Captain Anson tapped on the screen again and a green glow
enveloped them. The walls and ceiling emitted the same light.

“This shows the field of effect the gravity plates have.
There’s a one-g pull everywhere you see green. In the center of the room
there’s none, which brings us to lesson two: if you jump high enough….”

He crouched then sprang off the floor with both legs and
thrust his arms toward the ceiling. He sailed up past the green glow and spun
his body in midair, then rebounded off the ceiling and repeated the twist again
to land where he started.

“… you just keep going,” he finished. “So be careful.”

“Well I don’t want to do flips or anything, I just wanted
somewhere to run,” Bee said.

“I’m offering to teach you. I can guarantee you’ll get more
exercise out of a basic zero-gravity training regimen than you would from just
running. We can start slow.”

“I
like
running,” Bee said with finality.

The Captain shrugged and walked away, ticking orders into
his hardlight screen. The green glow vanished and the normal lights returned.
“Suit yourself.”

Bee started her routine, stretching her legs and especially
her back—the mattress she’d slept on was thinner than she was used to. Not as
bad as some places she’d been, but compared to the comfort of her hotel room it
was sorely lacking. She jogged to the wall farthest from the entrance, as close
to alone as she could get.

There were two railed ramps at each corner of the floor that
seemed to lead nowhere, just a forty-five-degree angle from the floor to the
wall. Curious, she approached the ramp and grabbed the waist-high rail,
stepping onto the steep incline. She felt a slight lurch in her stomach as she
tried to take another step and clutched at the rail with her other hand,
pulling herself toward it.

Her perspective felt off, and her brain screamed at her that
she was falling—yet she stood straight up. The rest of the room was crooked,
and the ramp she was standing on was a level surface. From where she was
standing at the bottom of the ramp she could reach out and touch the floor, but
she could feel herself being pulled
that way and snatched her hand back.

Bee walked further up the ramp, her stomach fluttering as
she adjusted to the new perspective. She looked over at Spud’s container where
the Captain leaned against the wall chatting with the armor-plated gorilla of a
man as he reclined in his impossibly supportive hammock.

She considered trying to continue up to the wall, but the
thought of falling from that high brought her back to the nullroom floor. For a
moment the perspective shift dizzied her and she wobbled a bit as she took her
first steps. That would take some getting used to. She began running laps from
wall to wall near the two ramps. Condition your mind, Captain Anson had said.
It was a start.

Just as she was getting winded Bee noticed the Captain and
Spud talking to another person in an undersuit she didn’t recognize. She slowed
to walking speed to get a better look while she caught her breath. The newcomer
was a slender whip of a man, as tall as Spud but lanky, with brown skin and
close-cropped black hair. From her distance it was hard to tell how old he was,
but he looked much younger than the Captain.

Captain Anson went inside Spud’s container, closely followed
by Spud himself, and emerged with a black fabric bag. From it he pulled a small
metal ball which he threw into the center of the nullroom. It spun in the air,
glinting, and then took on a life of its own, curving to avoid the walls. Spud
in his bulky armor grabbed for the bag and the Captain whirled on him with some
sharp words she couldn’t hear, pointing to the container. Spud’s shoulders
dropped and he stomped to his room shouting obscenities.

Bee laughed at the exchange—the Captain looked dwarfish next
to his towering crewmen, but it was clear who was in charge. He produced maybe
a dozen more of the little metal spheres and threw the rest of them with the
same results as the first, each whirling along its own orbit. The Captain’s
personal screen flashed open. Moments later the spheres turned into holographic
spaceships, half of them emblazoned with blue markings and half with red. They
swooped into formation with each other, the blues on Bee’s side of the room and
the reds on the opposite.

The Captain noticed her watching and waved her over. She
walked toward them to see what he wanted, and he tilted his head toward the
tall stranger beside him.

“Bee, this is First Officer Truly. Truly, this is Bee. She
and the Governor are our passengers until we reach Optima.”

Truly nodded and shook hands with her. “Good to meet you.”

His voice was low and smooth. The black undersuit covered
his hands and feet as opposed to the Captain’s which left them exposed. The
material was cool to the touch and silky smooth, but also thick enough to provide
some protection. She felt grippy pads on Truly’s palm and fingers.

“We’re about to run a match,” the Captain said. “You want to
watch? Truly’s been in cryo for a while, so he’s about to get spanked by an old
man. Should be fun to see.”

“Sure,” she said, taking a seat near the center of the room.

Truly smiled with confidence and walked to a row of lockers
nearby, where he pulled out the legs of an armored slate gray nullsuit with
orange stripes across the waist, knees, and ankles. The way he held the armor
with one hand made her wonder how much it weighed. What protection could it
provide if it was light enough to be picked up like that? Truly slipped into
the “pants” and from the locker produced boots, torso, arms, gloves, and
helmet, equipping each piece as it came out until he was fully suited.

The suit’s joints and neck were marked by the orange
stripes—Bee guessed the whole thing could detach from those points. Truly was
even taller in the suit, and with the added bulk he looked fearsome as he flexed
and stretched to test the seals. He looked down at her from inside his helmet
and winked, then vaulted off the floor into the center of the nullroom, soaring
through the air like a diver.

Truly reached his hand toward the wall behind him, palm
open, and a beam of jade light lanced from the gravity tether in his glove to
the wall. He pulled on the beam as though it were a rope, adjusting his
position several more times using the other walls until he hung motionless in
the air behind the red ships’ formation.

Another green beam streaked out and the Captain pulled
himself over to the blue formation of ships. Bee hadn’t noticed him suiting up,
but he wore an armored suit similar to Truly’s—black armor with white stripes
over the joints. Both of them commanded a fleet of five ships.

“Myra, you’re referee,” called the Captain. “Last man
standing.”

In response the lights went out. A green bar appeared over
both opponents’ heads and each ship, displaying full meters of health. A timer
with five seconds popped up between the two and started counting down. At zero,
both teams launched into action.

Three of Captain Anson’s five blue ships clustered into a
defensive stance in front of him while the other two zoomed off together toward
Truly’s fleet. Truly sent three of his red ships to engage the Captain’s
offensive strike while he and his remaining two ships advanced upon the
Captain, pulling himself along using the ships as anchor points for his tether.
Truly’s three exchanged a barrage of laser fire with the Captain’s two strike
ships, focusing fire on one and quickly erasing its health bar. The hologram
vanished and the metal ball at its core tumbled to the nullroom floor. The
score updated to five-four in Truly’s favor.

The remaining blue ship from the Captain’s offensive strike
dodged away from the beams of Truly’s three red ships while the Captain pulled
himself away from Truly’s advance. The lone blue ship rejoined with the
Captain, and he sent all four of his remaining ships straight toward Truly and
his two defensive craft. Truly immediately threw his hands behind him to pull
himself into a retreat, and the Captain revealed his feint, pulling his four
ships back to swarm the three that had taken out his first lost point.

Truly moved to defend his outnumbered fleet, but two of his
ships were already down. Four-three to the Captain. The four blue ships mopped
up the last of the three they’d engaged and turned their attention to Truly
himself, buzzing around him with stinging lasers. He led the Captain’s fleet on
a desperate chase with the last two of his red fleet, weaving and flying all
over the room, even managing to whittle down the blue fleet to just three—but
the Captain clinched the victory with a cautious, persistent pursuit. The final
score read three-zero.

***

After another two rounds the lights came back on and both
armored combatants descended to the nullroom floor. The room was littered with
silver metal spheres, and the two used their suits’ palm-mounted tethers to
pick them all up. The Captain tossed them into the bag and brought them all
back to Spud’s container before making his way to his locker. Truly had already
started disassembling his suit.

Bee approached them as they removed their armor.

“Change your mind yet?” Anson asked.

“Can you teach me sometime?”

Captain Anson opened a locker and pulled out a crumpled ball
of stiff white material from the bottom. When he unfurled it Bee saw it was an
unarmored nullsuit wrapped around a helmet. Its limbs were folded and twisted,
misshapen by hard creases, but as the Captain shook the suit out its wrinkles
smoothed.

“This one’s pretty old, but it should fit you,” the Captain
said as he held the suit by its shoulders, offering it to Bee. “It’s only a
nullsteel weave, not armor plated like ours, but it’ll keep you from hurting
yourself. Consider it a loaner—and you’ll probably want to clean it up first.”

“So Lee got himself killed,” Starhawk said. “And by a
civilian! He’s a disgrace to all of us.”

“What’s next?” Zeeda asked.

Starhawk mulled the question as the two watched a live feed
of his fallen carrier
Red Shade
streaking toward Overlook City. She
billowed
fire and smoke. Most of the layers of nullsteel wrapping her hull had already
boiled away in the atmosphere, and with the ship’s guts exposed to the pull of
Surface she plummeted without hope of recovery.

She wasn’t built for atmospheric flight—no true starship
could travel at speed without nullsteel covering every exposed surface, but the
stuff didn’t hold up against heat and friction.
Red Shade
fought to
maintain her collision course, straining against the might of gravity. As long
as she held her angle of descent the massive inferno of wreckage would hit its
target.

Pilots attempted to deploy from
Red Shade’s
bays but
either crashed trying to take off or got perforated by flak once they were
airborne. The crew had already launched all of its escape pods, some of which
were damaged, raining in the carrier’s wake along with debris that peeled off
during entry. Those left aboard the ship were dying, dead, or soon to be.

“We can’t stay. The Fleet’s right on our heels and their
orbital guns are almost in range. We don’t have the map, but we can’t stay.”
Starhawk opened the comms to his officers. “Any of you grubs got boots on the
ground?”

Flak cannons from Overlook City targeted the escape pods and
aircraft while heavier projectiles shredded what was left of
Red Shade’s
hull.
She lost power and tumbled in complete free fall. Another salvo from the city
had her crumbling to pieces. The remains of the ship plowed into the forested
hills south of the city, far short of causing any damage to the dome. Escape
pods and debris peppered the area with smaller impacts.

Captain Gruce responded with shrill panic in his voice. “Got
a squad of three armors with me, uh, two miles from the south side of the dome.
Lost a lot of grubs, boss. What about extraction?”

“You get me that map and we’ll talk about extraction,”
Starhawk said. “Jensen Lee’s dead. The map’s saved to his suit. It’s still got
tracking—Zeeda, give him a beacon.”

Zeeda nodded and tapped some commands into her console,
pinging the location of Jensen Lee’s nullsuit for Gruce. The marker blinked in
the center of the city.

“Can we get some air support?” Gruce pleaded.

“I’ll make you a front door. Just get to the dome.”

***

Only hours had passed since the story about Jensen Lee broke,
but that was the third recruitment call he’d gotten. He should never have
talked to that damn reporter. It seemed every privateer outfit in the city
somehow had his personal contact information—and they all wanted Hargrove the
humble pirate killer to be their poster boy.

He was no fighter. What he did went completely against his
nature, against everything he believed in. He never wanted to kill anyone.
Maybe Lee deserved it, but Hargrove felt queasy thinking about the way the
helmet felt in his grip as it bludgeoned bone and skin. He shuddered with
revulsion.

After city emergency workers rescued Hargrove and the other
evacuees from the collapsed tunnel, armored police officers quickly ushered
them to a high-security bombardment shelter deep beneath the city. Hargrove’s
sudden celebrity status landed him in a room of his own—the officers separated
him from the other evacuees, marched him into the room, and locked him in. They
said it was for his protection, ignoring his protests.

Hargrove just wanted to find Bee. He’d checked for her name
in the evacuee roster, and reported her missing after finding nothing, but she
was only one among hundreds of others lost in the chaos. If she was there she
would have shown up, but none of the shelters had her on record. She had to be
in the city somewhere.

He knew she used to live on the streets—maybe she thought
there was somewhere better for her to hide, some safe place. Or maybe she went
back to the hotel after Hargrove left. Needles of doubt stabbed at his
conscience. He couldn’t have stayed behind. If it came to bombardment the dome
would never hold, and he wouldn’t do her any good buried in rubble.

If Bee was left behind he could bet others were still up
there too. If not other civilians, at least some city workers and guards would
have to keep certain things running. The network was obviously still managing
calls. Maybe someone up there would find her and help her.

Maybe. Hargrove didn’t leave things to chance. He checked
the time on his pad. A sergeant was supposed to meet him ten minutes ago to
discuss his release. Hargrove had made it clear he wanted to be moved with the
other evacuees immediately, but the officer guarding his room insisted he was
ordered to keep him from leaving.

Hargrove’s pad rang in his hand as he paced the empty
holding room and he eagerly flicked the call open.

“Bee?”

“Is this Hargrove Levene?”

A male voice, no image.

“Yes,” Hargrove grunted. “Who’s this?”

“I’m with the Volunteers. We’re a privateer outfit—”

“I’m not interested thank you, goodbye.”

“We’d like to accept your application,” the caller blurted.

“What? I never applied for anything.”

“Well, yes, but if you
did
we would be happy to
accept—”

Hargrove hung up and put the pad in his pocket. He knocked
against the door, three loud thumps of his fist.

“Excuse me!” Hargrove shouted. “You said your sergeant would
be here ten minutes ago.”

“I told you what he told me,” came the guard’s muffled
reply.

“I’m beginning to resent being held against my will like
this.”

“It’s for your own protection. We didn’t know about Jensen
Lee until he wanted us to—there could be others. Maybe even in the shelters.
Until we know for sure, you’re staying here. It’s our job to protect you.”

“I’m not afraid! Someone I know is missing and in real
danger. I won’t sit inside here while she’s out there alone.”

“I’m sorry, sir, but—”

“That’s enough! Let me out!” Hargrove pounded on the door
with rapid strikes of his fist. “Let me go! I won’t be held here any longer!”

He couldn’t hear the guard’s reply over the noise, so he let
up for a moment and a new voice shouted orders with an edge of steel.

“Step away from the door!”

Hargrove backpedaled until he felt the wall. The door slid
aside and a navy-uniformed police sergeant much less imposing than his voice
conveyed walked in. He was barely five feet tall, with narrow shoulders
carrying a head too large for his body. Round bulging eyes squinted fiercely up
at Hargrove as the officer marched toward him.

“I’m Sergeant Mallory. What do you want?”

“Immediate release,” Hargrove said. “I have to go back to
the city.”

Hargrove was surprised at the confidence behind his words—he
hadn’t decided what exactly his plan was, but he knew he needed to get out
there.

“You can’t. They’ve got artillery in orbit. Why do you think
we’re all down here?”

“I have to. Someone I know—she’s up there still.”

“You can’t go up there. There are pirate escape pods
crashing all around the city, not to mention the debris, and it’s only a matter
of time until they breach the walls. She’s probably in one of the other
shelters—”

“She’s not in another
damn shelter
!” Hargrove yelled,
furious at the officer’s dismissive tone. “I already reported her missing. I
spoke to her just before the comet passed. She went for a walk and never came
back. You have to believe me, she’s still up there somewhere. I can find her
and bring her back here.”

Sergeant Mallory gave Hargrove a dubious top-to-bottom
appraisal before replying, “You’re an idiot.”

“You have no right to keep me here!” The big man’s voice
shook with indignance.

“Actually, we do,” Mallory said. “The Governor declared a
state of emergency. Besides, if you’ve already reported her missing we’ve got people
on it. There’s no sense putting yourself in danger. What do you think you’re
going to do that our officers can’t?”

“There were over three hundred other people on the list of
missing and your officers are spread all over the city. I won’t just
hide
down here and hope someone else finds her!”

Sergeant Mallory sighed at Hargrove’s refusal and with great
reluctance said, “I’ll talk to my lieutenant.”

***

Captain Gruce made short low leaps through the forest in his
nullsuit, keeping below the treetops for cover. Twigs and branches snapped
against his armor. The gravity nodes in his boots tugged him back to the ground
so he didn’t hang in the air too long—the city’s guns had already sniped one of
his armors. The moron made a flying jump high above the tree line, trying to
catch up after falling behind.

The hills provided them cover, obscuring them from view, but
little protection from the instruments of death raining from the city. They
leaped breakneck through the dense forest up the slope of the hill. Once they
crested the top they’d be even more exposed. His men were used to operating in
nullo, not on the ground, and he knew it was going to be a bloody sprint to the
city.

Two-Gut Gruce had seen enough combat to know he was cannon
fodder. The plan to retrieve the map from Jensen Lee’s nullsuit was a suicidal
effort, same as
Red Shade’s
attack against the station. But he made it
out of that blazing wreck alive and left her smoldering in the dust. Long as he
didn’t get stupid he’d keep on breathing that sweet scrubbed nullsuit air.

“Whistler, tighten up your formation,” Gruce snapped.
Whistler’s squad had itself spread thin on his left flank.

The map on his lens display tracked the other two squads of
four left in his command. Those eight plus his remaining two men and himself
were all that survived the drop and the blitz to the top of the forested hills.
Eleven battle-scarred brutes against the civilized world.