The Star Pirate's Folly (17 page)

Pluck finished welding the door shut, satisfied it would at
least slow down a determined effort to break in. It wasn’t powerful enough to
completely seal the door, but Pluck did as much as he could to carry out his
captain’s orders. The blowtorch retracted itself into the armor on his right
forearm.

Pluck winced and put his hand over the hole in his leg as he
glided away from the shelter’s entrance. He wasn’t putting any weight on it,
but he’d run out of painkillers already and could feel the air passing through,
a biting cold against his burned flesh. The laser bored a one-inch hole
straight through the meat of his thigh but missed his vital bits, but Pluck
lived on—if a few ounces lighter.

Gruce had already checked the immediate area inside the
door, but Pluck gave it another sweep. Empty except for several tables and
chairs thrown haphazardly together in a corner, the room couldn’t hide much.
Pluck twisted his helmet off, eager to see things with his own eyes instead of
through the visor. He trusted his own senses better than the suit’s and he knew
Lee preferred the same. Better to see as Jensen saw.

Pluck inspected the room with keen eyes that scoured every
detail. He quickly turned his attention to the group of tables and chairs, the
only anomaly in the entryway. He lowered himself to the ground with his boots,
taking care to land tenderly, and started separating everything. He turned
tables over, checked them for drawers, but found nothing.

As he stepped away from the tables he kicked something on
the ground and heard the chime of metal against metal as it bounced across the
floor. A blur was all he saw—when it stopped moving he lost it. Pluck dropped
to his knees, forgetting his injury, and let out a strangled wail as the force
sent shocks of agony into his leg.

After several moments of frenzied groping he felt it
underneath his fingers. Carefully, Pluck picked it up. A ring? He couldn’t see
it but as he turned it in his palm he noticed a shimmering in the air, a subtle
bend in the light. Cloaking. Giddiness overtook Pluck as he realized what it
was and opened the comms channel to Gruce.

“I’ve found it, dearest. Come back and see.”

“Found what?” Gruce asked.

Pluck bared his teeth in a victorious smile. “One of
Jensen’s rings.”

Gruce, ecstatic at Pluck’s fortune, pumped a fist in the air
and roared with laughter. “I knew it! Jensen always left himself a back door!”

Two-Gut Gruce returned to his teammate, zooming through the
shelter’s corridors. This was exactly the kind of out he’d been looking for.
With Jensen’s rings they could escape the shelter—that must have been his
backup plan. If Starhawk’s extraction failed Jensen would have to get out of
the city somehow, and what better way than by making the enemy think he was
still inside the shelter? Misdirect, evade, escape. Too bad he got
stupid—things would have gone a lot smoother with Lee still alive.

***

Clean and refreshed after a long shower, Hargrove dressed
himself once more in the white Volunteer Core Militia jumpsuit. When he
returned to the bedroom he found Robert626 sitting in front of the hotel room’s
only screen.

“Tower sent us down the video records they’ve got of Bee on
the orbital station,” Robert626 said without turning. “I watched everything
already.”

“Show me.”

Hargrove leaned over Robert626’s shoulder to see the screen.
The camera angles changed as Bee progressed, hopping from shot to shot as she
followed signs to the docking bays. It brought Hargrove great relief to see her
alive even if it wasn’t in person.

“She got up there just before we all realized what was
happening with Orpheus. A few minutes later and they would have turned her away
on Surface.”

“Do you know anything else about Slack Dog?” Hargrove asked.
“Bee told me he used to be a privateer captain.”

“A fabrication,” Robert626 said. “He was neither a privateer
nor a captain. His arrival at your hotel was his first time on a Core planet,
in fact. Slack Dog was released from the Atla L5 Prison Cube two months ago.”

Onscreen Bee approached an airlock in docking bay B. It
opened for her after a few seconds and she spoke to someone inside.

“Who’s she talking to?”

“Records show the shuttle docked at airlock B46 at that time
belonged to the privateer frigate
Wanderlust.
A very reputable craft.”

“What do you mean?”

“
Wanderlust
is captained by Victor Anson.”

“Who’s that?”

Robert626 turned to stare at Hargrove. “You run a hotel in
the middle of Overlook City. How is it you don’t know the name of the man who
brought in Dreadstar?”

Hargrove ignored the recruiter’s remark, continuing to watch
the screen. “I don’t care about any of that propagandized barbarism.”

“Barbarism? The Record is quite clear on the whole debacle.”

“Believe what you want,” Hargrove said with a wave of his
hand. “I’ll trust my own memories, not some whitewashed collection of
handpicked material. What about everything that didn’t make it on the Record?”

“I’d like to know which events you take issue with. The
Record is an archive of verifiable data, not a comprehensive history. It’s only
meant to give an overview.”

Two figures appeared at the airlock Bee had just entered.

“Who are they?” Hargrove asked.

“Unknown,” Robert626 said. He touched the display to pause
it and pointed to their faces, which upon closer inspection Hargrove saw were
blurred beyond recognition. “Tower censored them before he sent it down to us.
Privacy protection. Since you’re Bee’s legal guardian we can see her, but
everyone else is kept anonymous.”

“What if we need to know who they are? What are they doing?”

“Just watch.”

Robert626 resumed the video and the two newcomers entered
the ship. Hargrove’s heartbeat picked up. What was Bee doing? Based on the
amount she’d been paid his mind jumped to conclusions he refused to entertain.
The video jumped forward, she came back out into the hallway, and relief once
again surged through him.

Bee tucked something into her waistline and covered it with
her shirt. She walked back the way she came, and before long a large man with a
red bandanna on his head followed her out. His face was similarly blurred and
as he stalked toward Bee Hargrove had to restrain himself from crying out in
warning. He gasped when the man reached out and grabbed her by the shoulder.

“He’s hurting her!”

They shouted back and forth as the man searched her pack.
Finding nothing, he shoved her into a corner. Hargrove bristled. She reached
into her pack, rummaged around, and flinched when the lights started going
crazy.

“This is when Orpheus changed trajectory,” Robert626
explained. “Everyone had to evacuate the station, get back down to Surface.”

“Then why isn’t she here?” demanded Hargrove.

More shouting with the attacker. He advanced on her—and she
slashed with a knife she produced from her pack. Hargrove stiffened, alarmed,
but as if fed up with her the man abruptly threw his arms up in the air and
left. Hargrove beamed with pride at her for defending herself, but Bee
immediately took off after him.

“What’s she doing?” he asked.

“She’s leaving with them,” Robert626 said.

“What!” he cried.

Hargrove watched in disbelief as she followed the man onto
the shuttle.

“
Wanderlust
is well on its way to Optima now. No one
was sure if the comet would come near the station or not, so I think she made
the right choice going with them.”

“I have to get there,” Hargrove said.

“Nonsense,” Robert626 said. “More than likely they’re
dropping her off on Optima and sending her straight back here.”

“Why hasn’t she contacted me?”

“Maybe she’s tried. The network’s been all over the place
with most of our satellites out of commission. I can try to send something to
her now if you’d like, but mostly everything in orbit has already been retasked
for military use.”

“Yes, of course. Just tell her—”

“No, I meant you can make a recording and send it. I’ll give
you some privacy,” Robert626 said as he rose and left Hargrove alone in the
room.

***

Gruce took the ring from Pluck and held it up against the
light, turning it back and forth. Barely even a shimmer. He could hear the
pounding on the shelter’s door as Overlook City police officers announced their
presence.

“How did you find it?” Gruce asked.

Pluck winked. “Got good eyes, dearest.”

“Let’s open it.”

“Careful, careful. The other end could be anyplace.”

“No time to waste on caution. Luck’s our only way out of this.”

Pluck took the ring back from Gruce and expanded it with a
flick of the wrist. In total it was a few feet across. As it widened the ring’s
band thinned and before long Pluck held a flat ring big enough for a man to fit
through. He set it on the ground.

“They never found this one, so it’s likely the other one’s
gone unnoticed too,” Gruce said. “With any luck Jensen put it somewhere close
to the edge of the city. If that’s the case, maybe we’ll actually get out of
this alive. These bumpkins will think we’re still in here.”

“Time to find out,” Pluck said as he accessed his hardlight
screen.

After he pecked in several commands the area inside the ring
instantly changed from smooth metal plating to a view from the floor up of a
darkened room. Light from the shelter’s entrance spilled through the hole,
revealing it as a vacant hotel room. Pluck crouched and peered inside.

“Empty.”

“Let’s go,” Gruce said. “Fast, fast. Silence once we’re
through.”

Pluck pulled himself through the hole and emerged in the
hotel room. Gruce followed and Pluck terminated the link after he was through.
The longer it was active the easier it was to notice. Both of their suits were
low on juice so they ran dark, using minimal power—as close to cloaked as they
could get. No filters, no tracking, limited computer assistance.

Captain Gruce took the lead, shouldering his laser rifle as
they approached the room’s door. Pluck drifted behind, still avoiding putting
any pressure on his wounded leg, taking the same stance with his own weapon to
cover his superior. The door slid aside and Gruce peeked into the hallway.
Clear. He stepped out.

Room number 133. First floor, thank the stars. Time to find
an exit. Just a little more luck and they’d be out of the city. Maybe one of
Starhawk’s ships could drop in for extraction. Gruce advanced down the hallway,
ready to put a beam inside anyone who got in his way. At the end of the hall an
exit sign hung from the ceiling.

They were almost to the corner when a white-armored
Volunteer Core Militia trooper came around it. He froze for a heartbeat and
Gruce dropped to one knee, firing for the head. A white-hot beam of light
lanced forward and melted the trooper’s helmet like plastic, burning through
and leaving a streak of fire on the wall behind him. He crumpled and fell
forward, twitching.

Gruce wasted no time, launching forward and careening off
the wall in his haste to get to the exit. As he rounded the corner another VCM
trooper came crashing out of a room with his rifle up, already priming with
deadly power. The trooper’s beam went high and Gruce ducked to avoid it, firing
from the hip in response. He scored a graze on the trooper’s shoulder and Pluck
finished him off with a few short bursts to the chest.

The exit to the city streets was just down the hall. They
were so close. So, so close. But these casualties would not go unnoticed. More
would come, and this time they had no back door to slip out of. Gruce had
almost resigned himself to death when another figure in white blundered out into
the hall. He brought up his rifle to fire—

At the last second Gruce changed his aim and fired a shot at
the man’s legs. No armor, no weapon. Another VCM judging by the clothing, but
not a soldier—an unarmed civilian would make a good hostage. Gruce approached
his quarry and did a double take when he saw the man’s face.

“It’s you,” Gruce said, incredulous. “You bagged Jensen
Lee!”

Bee once again found herself in
Wanderlust
’s shuttle
strapped into the tiny foldout seat behind the command chair, this time wearing
her white and gray loaner nullsuit. Truly and the Captain sat up front, both
fully armored. She noticed the pistol strapped to each man’s waist and wondered
how often they found a reason to use them.

The padded helmet on her suit didn’t restrict her movement
or visibility too much—she could turn her neck about ninety degrees and the
visor was wide enough to allow full use of her peripheral vision.

If she squinted at any object in her line of sight, the computer
inspected what she was looking at, outlined it, and provided extra information
about it. The level of detail astonished her—she tried the glove on her suit
and a window appeared next to it displaying everything from the manufacturer to
the list of materials it was made with.

Bee preferred the display disabled since she didn’t know
what half of it meant, but she’d been keeping herself occupied on the ride to
Optima by studying the flood of information the suit’s computer could provide
her with. In the bottom right corner, a square minimap displayed the shuttle
moving toward a cartoonish rendering of Optima. Above the map, two thick-framed
squares displayed the faces of her crewmates with accompanying labels showing
their names: Captain Victor Anson and First Officer Desmond Truly.

“Will there be pirates on Optima?” Bee asked into her mic.

“Can’t even sneeze in there without hitting one or two
convicts,” Captain Anson said. “And anyone who isn’t a marked pirate already
probably just hasn’t been caught yet.”

“The only kind of pirates we’ll run into today are just
flies buzzing around this floating turd of a rock. Optima breeds scavengers and
opportunists, not warriors,” Truly said. “The Families are the ones behind all
the serious plundering—they’re the pirates the Core Fleet went after.
Organized, effective. They use the belt like feeding grounds. But they don’t
operate in plain sight this close to the Core.”

“What do you mean? Starhawk’s attacking Surface right now,”
Bee said. “What’s stopping them from trying something here?”

“First off, Optima’s different,” Captain Anson said. “Used
to be a prison colony before the rebellion and they still run it like one. The
Core Fleet has a reserve here guarding the gate five times what they left back
on Surface. Troopers make regular patrols to remind everyone who’s in charge.
They keep the peace, make sure the goods are always flowing through the gate.”

Truly added, “And you also can’t forget Starhawk is acting
against the Families. They were very content to work in the shadows—they never
wanted the attention he’s brought on them. It’s only because of his aggression
the Core Fleet went after them.”

“So who are they exactly?” Bee asked. “The Families. Is that
a literal thing, or…?”

Truly said, “They’re not all related, but leadership does
tend to get passed along the bloodlines. There are five Families in total, each
headed by a Boss. They’re independent from one another, but there’s a set of
rules the Bosses vote on which every Family member must follow: no raids into
the Core, for example.

“The Families have been around for generations—since before
the rebellion, back when you could look through the interstellar gate and see
Earth on the other side. After the gate went down they realized they had a
golden opportunity: Earth had lost control and with the rebel fleet in tatters
the Families exploited the power vacuum to their advantage. That was piracy’s golden
age in our system.”

Captain Anson took over again. “That’s where privateers
entered the picture. Without a central force capable of policing the system,
the new government contracted privateers to defend traders and settlements from
pirates. I was barely fifteen when I went out the first time.”

“Fifteen!” Bee said. “I thought you couldn’t join up until
eighteen.”

“Different rules back then,” the Captain said. “They needed
every able-bodied soldier they could get, so nobody asked. You signed up, you
shipped out.”

“Why did you go?”

“I thought you wanted to know about the Families,” he
griped. “Why would you want to hear a boring old man talk about his past?”

“Doesn’t sound boring to me.”

With a begrudging grumble the Captain elaborated. “I was the
youngest of three brothers. They joined up so I did too.”

“Were you on the same crew as them?”

“No. Enough questions.”

“Did you ever see them?”

The Captain blocked her from the channel.

“Sorry,” Bee said, but heard no reply. She tried to open the
channel again, received an error, and muttered, “Captain Overreaction is
right.”

“You used my joke!” exclaimed Myra inside her helmet. Again
the AI surprised Bee enough to make her jump. Myra hadn’t said a word the whole
ride.

“Have you been here the whole time?” Bee asked, laughing off
the minor adrenalineee spike.

“Shh, don’t let them know,” Myra said in a conspiratorial
whisper. “I’m a stowaway.”

Bee straightened in her seat and tried her best to act
normal—then decided sulking would be more appropriate and crossed her arms,
looking away from Truly and the Captain as much as possible.

“Myra—! They don’t know you’re here?” asked Bee.

“It’s our little secret,” Myra said.

“Where… are you?”

“You’ll never guess. Go ahead, try. I love guessing games.”

“I wouldn’t even know where to start.”

“Fine, you’re no fun. I made a mini-sized version of myself
and stashed it inside your suit’s computer so I could talk to you. Wanted to
see what you guys got up to.”

“Inside my suit. Great. Now I’m your accomplice. I don’t
need to give them another reason to be pissed at me.”

“Oh, hush,” Myra said. “They won’t find out unless you tell
them and even if you did it was all my idea.”

“Still, why did you have to bring me into it—”

The channel she’d been kicked from opened up again.

“You talking to yourself?” asked Truly.

“Yeah, so what?” she snapped.

He snorted and shook his head. “We’re docking now.”

***

While the Captain went to pick up power cells to replace the
ones Myra vented into space, Bee and Truly remained with the shuttle to receive
the supplies Silver had arranged. They stood on the ramp of the open cargo bay
at the aft end of the ship.

“So this is Optima,” Bee said, checking out the pressurized
docking area around them. She walked down the lowered ramp, taking careful
shuffling steps, still getting used to the way the boots on her nullsuit pulled
toward the floor while the rest of her weighed nothing.

“Yup,” Truly said. “It’s a shithole—watch where you step.”

“Doesn’t look that bad,” Bee said, but as she looked closer
at the tiny private docking room she saw missing wall panels with loose wires
dangling free, scorch marks from laser fire, and massive dents where it looked
like ships had smashed against the walls. In places she saw bare rock behind
the metal.

“Glad you’re wearing a suit?” he asked.

“Why don’t they fix this stuff?”

“Works well enough they don’t need to. No sense keeping
everything in perfect condition when it stands a pretty good chance of getting
ruined anyway.”

“Makes sense I guess,” Bee said, wandering toward the
airlock Captain Anson had gone through minutes before. It had no screen like
the ones on the orbital station, not even a window. It was just a thick metal
door with a wheel in the center. “He gonna be back soon?”

“Yeah, soon,” Truly said. He waited a beat and added, “He’s
soft for you, you know. The Captain.”

“What do you mean?”

He crossed his arms and shook his head with a humorless
laugh. “Took me a damn long time to earn my way onto his ship and you don’t
even know who he is.”

Bee spun to face Truly. “Why, who is he?”

He went back inside the shuttle. “Find out yourself.”

She dropped out of Truly’s channel. “Myra?”

“Sorry, I can’t tell you anything. Captain’s orders.”

“Seriously?”

“He was very specific. Of course, if you took it upon
yourself to look him up I couldn’t stop you.”

Bee remembered what they’d said about the Captain’s
reputation on Optima, but she just assumed pirates hated all privateers. He
must have been a bigger name than she realized. Victor Anson, Victor Anson.
Come to think of it, it did have a familiar ring. Bee said, “Search results for
Captain Victor Anson privateer.”

A window appeared in the center of her vision. A row of
headshots scrolled across left to right. That was him, alright, but much
younger. Underneath the pictures dozens of links pointed to additional
information. Bee opened the first result and started reading.

***

“When will they be here?” Governor Strump asked, scowling at
the screen next to
Wanderlust’s
port side airlock. The screen showed the
view out the ship, Optima bright and inviting on its sunward side and consumed
by darkness on the other.

While the Captain and Truly took the girl to Optima for
supplies, Silver had been tasked with transferring the Governor to a Core Fleet
escort on its way to take the official to the safety of their military base. As
the last ship leaving Surface,
Wanderlust
was the Governor’s only option
for a hasty escape from the planet.

“Myra, any update?” Silver called.

“
Aristeia
says one minute until they dock,” she
replied over the speakers. “They’re matching course with us now.”

“Good,” Silver grunted, glad to get rid of Strump, though as
a passenger the man had been much less trouble than Silver thought at first.

The Governor kept opposite hours from the rest of the crew,
sleeping during the “day” and active at “night.” As a result, he’d been
practically a ghost—and even better, the fabricant Gim fetched the Governor’s
meals and anything else he needed. Silver had hardly needed to do anything at
all for them.

“Why can’t I see them?” Strump squinted and searched the
screen.

“Here you go,” Myra said as a golden yellow outline appeared
in the distance onscreen, growing with alarming speed as it moved toward
Wanderlust
.

Strump backed into the wall. “Aren’t they going too fast?”

“Don’t worry, we’re synced,” Myra assured him.

“But—they’re coming right at us,” he said with his hand over
his mouth. “Are you sure?”

Silver stood in front of the screen, dismissing the
Governor’s worries with a wave of his hand. “Just don’t think about it.
Starships are built to stop at any speed.”

“How—”

“I said don’t think about it. Myra knows what she’s doing.”

“Just want to be home again,” the Governor muttered.
“Everywhere else is miserable.”

“How long until you go back?” Silver asked.

Strump smoothed back his hair, regaining his composure. “Who
knows. As soon as this Starhawk fiasco burns itself out, I suppose. Until then
it’s back to running things remotely.”

Myra said, “
Aristeia
docking at the port side airlock
now.”

Silver turned to look at the screen, watching the sleek
white Core Fleet corvette on approach. The starship slowed just as quickly as
it came in, spinning on its axis to face its starboard airlock toward
Wanderlust
’s.
Myra’s yellow outline faded and Silver admired
Aristeia
as she drifted
closer.

A finely crafted ship with sultry curves and modern
weaponry, Silver guessed
Aristeia
must have been a new model fresh from
the ship forges on little Coronis near the sun. Smaller than
Wanderlust
but she didn’t need the extra bulk with all that compact weaponry. Silver
didn’t doubt the leaner craft could carve
Wanderlust
to pieces without a
problem.

The outer airlock swung open and two Core troopers armored
in black and blue stepped through. Silver grabbed the wheel on the airlock door
and spun it. As he pulled the heavy door in he said, “Best of luck, Governor.
Looks like you’re in good hands.”

***

“Hey, I got a video from your old boss,” Myra said to Bee on
their private channel.

Bee, floating in place in her suit as she read about the
Captain, tore her eyes away from the engrossing text in front of her.
“Hargrove?”

“Yep. I didn’t open it yet in case you were wondering.”

“Can I open it here? Or should I wait?”

“Go ahead,” Myra said. “It’ll pause if anyone starts talking
to you.”

“Thanks Myra.” Bee watched as the video appeared in a window
in front of her. She almost didn’t recognize Hargrove without his uniform. He
wore some kind of glossy white outfit that zipped down the front. Besides that,
he looked his usual self—clean shaven and dimpling with a smile as he spoke,
but Bee noticed he was sitting in what looked like a hotel room at the Midtown.
Maybe he sent it before they went underground.

“Hello Bee,” he began, fidgeting with the collar of the
outfit. “Can’t be too long here and I’m not sure you’ll even get this, but here
goes. I know where you are. I don’t blame you leaving—I always expected you
would someday—but I had hoped for a proper goodbye at least.”