Captured Pirates Tell Tall Tales
A small-time net runner joins a heist on a Consortium shipping vessel, hoping to uncover the truth about her missing brother Da'ni, but soon finds herself fighting against more than she expected.
Tu'vi's stomach heaved into the crinkly metallic bag for a fourth time. Not many net-runners could handle a transition from crunching military grade ice to hyperspace acceleration without a few ill effects. But now, as she gripped both armrests on her accelerator couch and felt her heaving breaths shake it down to the bolts, she knew this wasn't just post mission jitters, or a squirrelly stomach from Kent's cooking. Run, her body screamed. Don't let them find you.
Stars blurred through display ports as the Delta4 light frigate finished melting out of hyperspace and back into reality. Ship-board lights flickered into existence, transforming dim green shadows into the crew. Tu'vi flicked through sensor display after sensor display, forced to use her eye tracker software instead of trusting her shaking hands to hit the correct sequence. Powerful sensors searched empty space around them for any sign of their pursuers. "Clear," she said finally. "No Consortium registered ships in detection range."
With a flicker of her eyelids, she ran another diagnostic program, this one checking the integrity of the data she'd hidden in a sub-directory in the bowels of the ship operating code. It had been a messy exit and there was no telling what ware'd crap she'd brought back in her frantic mining attempts. The program pinged once, twice, finally giving her data a clean bill of health. She let out a faint sigh of relief. At least one thing on the op had gone right.
From the pilots seat nestled in the bow of the ship, the Captain let out a whoop of celebration. He tossed his skullcap into the air and caught it with a flourish. "They said we were washed up. Who else would think to climb through the garbage shafts? Who else could have fought back that much metal?" He clambered out of his seat with a grunt, his bulbous belly straining against the seams in his dark green flight suit.
Tu'vi caught Kent's eye across the cramped ship. Kent had served two terms on Eyolere during the mining rebellion. Hear him tell the story, his flight out had been ten seconds on the right side of history. Now the former jump marine's face looked flatter than the ship's outer hull, lips pressed into tight lines, head shaking from side to side. "Bad," he mouthed at Tu'vi’s inquisitive look. "Real bad."
The Captain danced through the cabin, as light on his feet as a fuel tanker. "We're unstoppable, we're absolutely impeccable. You know what I think? We should pool the reward and fix the ship up. Get 'ole blue eyes here a few upgrades, maybe a new gun or two for the tough guy?"
"A most astute observation," From the co-pilots chair, Bowser's triangular metallic head spun a full hundred and eighty degrees around. Circular ranks of cameras made the motion superfluous, but they continued to do it anyway despite the crew's insistence at how unnerving it looked. "I, as assistant ship's captain, would do a fine job of bookkeeping. May I suggest uniforms as a first order of business? We seem to have lost some crew morale despite the successful mission."
"Assistant to the ship's Captain," Captain corrected. "And no. Budget considerations run through me,"
Frosty drafts filtered from the circulation vents as the ship ran through its hyperspace detox procedures. Tu'vi ran her dry tongue over teeth fuzzy with bile. She could reach him, she knew. Reach out and grab his fat neck and squeeze until his eyes turned purple and bulged. Listen to him squeal until he coughed up the ten years of shipping contacts and whispered bribes that he'd blown up in smoke. All for a piece of circuitry the size of a carton of stims the galaxy would be after. Did he even understand what he'd done? "Whatever backwater planet we dump this ship on will be the last time it ever sees orbit. And if the rest of us are smart, it'll be the last time we ever see you either. Crippling the target? Are you insane?"
"That wasn't my fault we had to scuttle the ship. We were two las-packs away from being overrun by battle droids. Blowing the EMP was our only shot."
"I didn't even get ten goddamn seconds to bring down the defense grid after you made contact. Your first and only decision was to blow our nuclear option."
"We're in one piece, with the goods, in empty space," the Captain ticked down three mechanical fingers on his left hand. "I'd say that makes for a good mission no matter how you cut it."
Tu’vi held up a middle finger. "You forgot point number four: the Consortium will never stop looking for us. We could have been subtle and covered our tracks. Buy time for us to get off station before the questions started coming. But now they're probably already asking which crews were out of berth when this went down. You think some fuel-tender working eighty hour weeks is going to have enough professional integrity not to take a pay bump in exchange for our flight plans?" Tu'vi took a deep breath, moving her anger from the most obvious target to where she knew the real blame belonged. She'd known this job had red flags coded into its DNA from the core. But measured against the chance to find where Da'ni had been sent? She took two short breaths. "We need to disappear. We make the drop, split the cash, and bury ourselves so deep they get bored looking."
"Splitting the proceeds may not be the most equitable solution," Bowser spun the chair until their body orientation matched their head. Thick ropes of plasma burns had melted away their left arm, revealing sparking wires extruding from a hole in their chest chassis. "Your job was to disable the defense grid. That includes the auto-cannons that intel pointed out covered the hanger doors. Or did you think you deserve payment for failure?"
"I would have, if I had gotten a chance to do my job."
"Enough!" The Captain yelled. "I'll decide what the loot distribution is. Bowser has a point. We'll have to renegotiate contracts in light of the circumstances. Until then, we'll lock this in a stasis crate in cargo,"
Tu'vi flinched as the Captain held the chip in the air. Light glistened off of the plastik case holding the nano-wafer thin circuitry safe. Years of AI driven research had produced the first chip capable of decoding any intelligent communications transmission in seconds. Every MegaCorp in the galaxy had invested hundreds of millions of credits to find it. And, in the end, one drunk smuggler talking about the wrong ship docking at the wrong station had been all it took to throw the civilized world into chaos.
A status report from the hyperspace detox pinged on her data console. A slow air leak in cargo, probably hull stress from debris micro-impacts on their way out. The recyclers could create more atmosphere if needed, but the leak would have to be repaired before they could continue traveling.
"We're just supposed to trust you with that thing?" Kent said. His vocal cords had been eaten by the vapor grenades used to clear tunnels on Eyolere. Sounded like he'd been chewing concrete for years. "We've already negotiated contracts. What's done is done, and I'll be taking my cut."
The Captain clapped his hands together. "Okay, okay. A lot of passion, a lot of team hustle today. Everyone is fired up, this is good. After the drop we'll vote and decide what’s fair for everyone. Preference for those who had successful mission accomplishments, of course."
"I'll help tally votes!" Bowser chirped. "I know humans generally prefer paper ballots, but I've had plenty of practice counting."
"I wouldn't trust you to count backwards from three." Kent said.
The Captain smoothed his mustache back with one hand. The wispy grey hairs refused to stay put. "I've been in leadership positions long enough to know how to make a fair arrangement. And if we don't get a majority vote, we'll negotiate until we do. That's a promise."
"You're not my first boss, and this ain't my first gig. If such a skilled negotiator wants to make contract changes, I figure you can get it right on the first shot." A las-pistol appeared in Kent’s hands. The barrel drifted across the interior of the cabin, pointing at nothing and everything in the same motion. "And if not, I'll get it in one shot."
"Easy, tough guy. I'm not trying to cut you out of anything. Tu'vi I can understand. She gets to sit safe up here while things get hot. But didn't you serve two tours? You scared of a few thugs with spooky names and metal faceplates?"
Bowser chirped, clearly annoyed at the insult.
"Running towards something ain't the same thing as running from something,"
"Your little pet Sateh?" The Captain laughed. "He ask you to move in yet? Or you just floating his tattoo shop out of a depth of compassion."
The pistol drifted a little higher, a little closer to center of mass for the Captain. "None of your business,"
"It is when your business is affecting my business. We were good in there, the three of us. She wants to split, fine. She can cut and run like a bitch. But we can find another runner and make a real run at this."
Tu'vi shrugged off the insult with practiced efficiency. No sense wasting breath on someone she'd never see again. "Argue later. Right now we’ve got a hull leak in cargo. If we try to spin up to hyperspace with it we'll never need to worry about getting found again. Bowser, are you ambulatory in vacuum?"
"Perfectly ambulatory-- if I hadn't been riddled with auto-cannon holes a mere hour ago. At this point I'm more likely to weld myself to the hull instead," A mechanical whirr sounded as they pistoned out of their seat clamps and moved to the back of the ship. "I will begin downtime modifications to be fully operational before the drop,"
"Well, don't look at me," The Captain shrugged. "I haven't fit in a vacuum suit in years. My escape plan is a kiss goodbye to the closest living human."
Tu'vi swallowed hard. That meant what looked like her only ally on board would have to be on the out in space. 'Ally' didn't even feel like the right word. Contracted partners? ‘Only reasonable humans on board’ had a nice ring, but who knew what would happen if push came to shove. "Kent, can you get it done? You won't be able to see the leaks visually, but I can direct you from here to make sure they're sealed."
He nodded, already pulling his faceplate on and standing. "You point and I shoot. Got enough practice doing that. Let me grab the tools,"
Kent clambered out of the airlock and into hard vacuum. A nano-tether ran from the waist of his vacuum suit to a plasteel bar hooked around the airlock exterior. His body jerked with each step on cameras, the magnetic boots taking extra force to clip and unclip from the hull. Methodically he made his way along the hull, around bulbous sensor pods and rectangular thruster calibrators, passed the crew living space and towards the cargo exterior. Tu'vi divided her attention between giving directions and watching the Captain for sudden movements.
The Captain had come highly recommended through her network of contacts, in so far as they could find anything. He'd been on a few ops that flew under the usual radar. One on her own station, as it turned out, an in-and-out using fake berthing cards to steal a cruiser from under security's nose. Yet another reason this job stank to high heaven. Anyone that good should have had their pick of net-runners. And yet he'd singled her out, only to flatly ignore her instructions. Almost like he'd planned it that way.
"First leak is two bulkheads down, one bulkhead to your right. About halfway down the panel towards the thruster-side," Tu'vi said after a quick glance at the screen.
Kent didn't respond. He moved with maddening precision, bringing up the sealant gun and spraying slow even streaks of the foam where she'd indicated. One of the alarm bells stopped chiming in her ear when he'd finished. That left one more.
"This one is a little harder," she said, her head bent low over the display. "Two bulkheads up spin, one towards the thruster. The leak isn't in the panel itself, but the joins between panels."
"Is the spray gonna work?" Kent's voice sounded flat, modulated through the comms gear to an efficient even tone.
"Well I'd prefer a dry-dock tech to answer that. But it's either spray it down or sit here and wait for someone to find us."
A chime came from another external camera as Kent began spraying. The exterior airlock door hissed open to reveal Bowser. The android had soldered a crude metal gripper in place of its missing arm. The other hand held an ultrasonic cutting torch to the nano-weave cable securing Kent to the ship. The corded metal strands frayed and split within seconds.
"Watch--" Tu'vi tried to yell.
Strong hands grabbed her shoulders, ripping her away from the console and onto the floor. Her breath rushed out of her in a whoosh. The Captain yanked her comms gear out of her ear and stomped on it. He stank of stale sweat and dehydrated onion bagels. "I knew you couldn't handle a role this large,"
She tried to push him off and sit up, but years of drinking rocket fuel whiskey had given him the physique of a tractor trailer. Instead she beat at him with her fists until her arms burned in exhaustion. He wound back and slapped her across the ear. Pain exploded into a million stars behind her eyes. Her arms fell limp to the side, all the fight gone out of her.
"You scuttled the ship on purpose. Why?" she asked. Her brain swirled from side to side, looking for any exit to leak out from her head. His dead weight crushed against her chest.
"You thought you were so smart trying to double dip. Get invited on the op, and take a little something else for yourself. No chance we get out clean once you'd left your fingerprints all over their data. They'd come for me right after finding you."
"But now you've forced them to respond. You haven't changed anything but the timeline."
"Wrong. We just spit in their face and kicked them in the balls for the universe to see. The Consortium needs a head on a pike. They need to show everyone they have the resources to handle this, or every yokel with a blaster is going to take a run on the top dog."
Understanding blossomed like wildfire in her chest. She fought for enough air to respond. "You're gonna pin the whole heist on me," She landed another awkward punch to his chest. Stabbing pain ran down her forearm where he blocked. "I'll tell them who you are. You can't hide."
"Oh, I'm counting it. They'll spend all their time and energy running down the leads you'll give them, and they'll find nothing but paper trails that lead no where. I have worked with some dirt dumb runners in my life, but Christ, you win all the medals. Did you do any research at all?"
Stars blurred outside as her lungs gasped for air. Her vision faded to deeper black with every pump of her heart. Dimly, she heard a door slide open from the cargo hold.
"Debris jettisoned," Bowser said cheerfully. "I'll plot a course to the closest inhabitable star system. Should I dump her outside with the other human?"
The crushing weight on her chest disappeared, and Tu'vi sucked in oxygen like a sponge. Her ribs creaked with every wonderful, agonizing breath.
"Toss her in cargo. Need to keep her alive until we make planet fall at least, give them a warm body to find."
Metallic bands closed around her legs. Her arms trailed limply behind her as Bowser pulled her towards the cargo bay. Every step he took jostled her face against the easy-stand rubber matting that cushioned the deck of the ship. She tried to kick out with all her strength. Bowser’s didn’t even have the decency to flinch.
"Aye, aye, Captain. Gosh, doesn't it fell better to be part of a crew that knows how to work together? As assistant ship's captain I can't wait to see what adventures we get up to next."
The door to the cargo bay slid open. Bowser pulled her a few feet inside, dropping her limp body next to a stack of dehydrated food stuffs. She lay where she fell, feeling pain crackle in her chest with every labored breath.
"Just fly the damn ship," The Captain ordered. "And shut the fuck up with this assistant business."
Bowser's cheerful "Yes, sir!" was the last thing Tu'vi heard before she slid into darkness.