by Scott Baron
“I fear that is my fault,” Hozark said. “When we discussed his inability to steal my ship, I pointed out that the docking spells were much stronger in space. He obviously took that to heart and was waiting for an opportunity to make another attempt.”
“Shit. We’ve gotta find him, Hozark.”
“Oh, indeed,” the Ghalian replied. “We must gather the others at once. He cannot have gotten far. Not yet, anyway.”
They rushed back to Corann’s home and informed the others what had happened.
“He did what?” Henni blurted. “Not cool.”
“That’s what I said,” Bud chimed in.
Hozark stopped in front of the head of the Five. “We will return as soon as we can, Corann.”
“Until you do, fly safe,” she replied.
“I don’t know about safe, but we’ll fly fast,” Laskar said as they hurried to the ship.
As they were in public and observed by the locals while boarding, Corann then gave each of the visitors a big hug, a massive smile plastered on her face. Henni, however, held back, and the Ghalian master did not press the matter.
She was an unusual one, no doubt, and of indeterminate power. She was an enigma. And while they were away recovering their little runaway, Corann had some research to do.
Chapter Forty-Eight
Space was a vast and mostly empty void. That emptiness was a good thing at the moment, as young Happizano had watched, but never actually flown a ship before. Had there been anything remotely near for him to hit, he undoubtedly would have.
Repeatedly.
But he was all alone in the black, doing his best to navigate his way back to his home. For a boy his age, it sounded like a great idea. That is, until the reality of the situation reared its ugly head. After he’d stolen a ship, of course.
The problem was, Hap had no idea how to navigate.
Sure, he had seen his father’s crew do it––they made it look so simple––and sure, they had let him power up and even steer the ship sometimes. But that was always under their close supervision, the experienced men and women correcting his mistakes and guiding him back on course.
But this was different. He was all alone with no one to fall back on.
It was all up to him, and the pressure was intense. He simply had no choice. From what the others had said, his home was being occupied by some bad guys as well as his father’s normal retinue. That was a problem, and step one would be stealing a ship so he could go back.
Surprisingly, Hap had actually done just fine accessing the small craft mounted to Bud’s ship’s hull. That was the easy part, though. In space, he hadn’t been able to access any of the craft’s interiors. But Hozark had been right. It was easier in atmosphere. It had proved to be a rather useful tip.
Hap almost felt bad about using the man’s attempt at sympathy against him. But he didn’t have time for that sort of thing. He needed to get back home to round up his father’s loyal staff to kick out whoever the hell was staying in his house. And from there, he would take them out into space and find his dad.
If he could. First, he would have to get home, and that was proving to be quite a lot harder than he had expected.
He had lifted off, albeit in a rather jerky manner, uneasily making his way through the sky and up into space. It wasn’t pretty, but he had done it. And from there he managed to fly to the very edge of the solar system, trying, and failing, to activate the jump spell the whole while.
Over and over he made those attempts, and over and over the Drookonus barely acknowledged his efforts.
At the end of the day, and at the edge of the system, it was clear. Happizano was a terrible pilot and an even worse navigator. And adding insult to that injury, he had no idea how to even read a star chart, let alone focus the Drookonus’s jump magic if he did.
There was one other thing he quickly learned he did not know. He didn’t know how to avoid pirates.
The large, battle-scarred craft had been lurking in the darkness at the edge of the solar system for some time, watching ships come and go, just waiting for a tempting prize to happen their way. It was tedious work, the waiting, but it often turned out to be worthwhile, the targets they did manage to acquire never expecting an attacker from the black void between systems.
When a small vessel was acquired by their scanning spells, they fully expected it to jump away far before it was close enough for them to strike. The angle of the sun was illuminating them at this particular time, and even the most basic of defensive spells would likely have picked up their presence.
But, miraculously, this ship didn’t seem to be changing course. It was so unexpected, they actually thought it was a trap. At least for a while. But when the ship came closer and closer, flying somewhat erratically as it did, they pinged its defenses with the smallest of spells, testing for potential weaknesses.
It was then that they realized this was something far more tempting than normal. As incredible as it seemed, this was an entirely undefended sitting duck.
Who would fly without engaging even the most basic of shielding spells they didn’t know? Perhaps the ship’s built-in konuses were damaged, or the casters were low on their own magic. No one knew. But one thing was certain. This prize was theirs for the taking.
“Go in for the kill, boys!” the grizzled captain commanded with glee.
“Aye, aye, Captain Darvin,” his second-in-command replied. “You heard the captain. Prepare to board!”
The pirates raced into action, taking their stations in a frantic yet orderly chaos. They were rough and ready for action, though given the diminutive size of this particular target, there wasn’t likely to be all that much action. In fact, it was so small as to be barely worth their time.
But the captain had given them his orders, and they all knew far better than to ignore them. There was a reason Captain Darvin possessed the reputation he had, and they didn’t want to be just another story reinforcing his iron-fisted legend.
Poor Happizano didn’t have the slightest idea what was about to befall him. And even if he had, there was simply nothing he could do about it. The ship he had stolen wasn’t fast, it wasn’t particularly robust, and it certainly wasn’t heavily armed.
Captain Darvin’s ship swung around the smaller craft as quickly as they could, putting themselves squarely in the small pinpoint of the sun’s rays, blinding any potential observer to their presence. At more central worlds this was a relatively easy maneuver, but this far out, the sun was just a dot. A bright dot, but a dot all the same.
It was an impressive bit of flying by any standards, and those at the Drookonus were putting on an impressive show. It was just too bad their intended target had no idea of the display of talented flying being put on so close by.
Captain Darvin focused his intentions on the little craft now in front of them and unleashed his carefully crafted spell, knocking out their Drookonus from afar with a disabling blast of magic.
Immediately, the ship lost propulsion, drifting instead, maintaining its speed in the vacuum, but totally vulnerable. Seconds after Darvin’s ship dropped down on top of it, boarding spells, akin to elongated umbilicals, streamed from his craft to the smaller one below.
His boarding party immediately dropped down and began casting their breaching spells. Two of them, one at the front and one at the rear, allowing them to catch the defenders in a crossfire they could not escape.
“Put down your weapons, or we’ll chop off yer bloody––” the leader of the team cried out when his boots hit the deck. But those words fell short when he saw the enemy he was facing.
“A feckin’ kid?” he said in disbelief. “It’s just a feckin’ kid?”
“What? Lemme see,” the man behind him said, suddenly deprived of at least a little bloodshed.
Happizano was frozen in place, terrified and utterly unsure what to do. The flashback to his very recent abduction and the murder of his tutor and staff was fresh in his mind, and in the heat of the momen
t, he simply locked up, unsure what to do.
“Bag the kid. Take him back to the ship. Cap’n will want to have a look at ’im.”
A pair of rough hands did just that, scooping up the boy and carrying him effortlessly up through the magically opened breach and into their pirate ship.
“The rest of you,” the pirate cried out. “Take all you can grab. The ship is ours!”
With a joyful cheer the pirates set to work, stripping the vessel of every last thing of value, then left it adrift, an empty shell floating in the void. And poor Hap was a prisoner once more.
Chapter Forty-Nine
Uzabud had scrambled their ship up into the air as soon as they could, all while making their departure seem as natural as possible and not a sudden, frantic race for the sky.
Corann had to keep up appearances, after all, and the extra few minutes of delay wouldn’t make a big difference in their search.
The sky was big, and space was bigger, and the boy could only go so far with his limited abilities. First and foremost, they would survey the area immediately around Corann’s home, just in case Hap had only managed a short flight.
When that came up empty, they then expanded outward to the neighboring regions.
“I do not detect any trace of that ship,” Demelza said as she adjusted her spells to refine them for the specific Drookonus that powered it.
Normally, that was simply not possible. Every Drookonus was different, and you had to know one intimately to hope to trace it with a spell. But this was a ship Demelza had plenty of familiarity with. It was one of Uzabud’s favorites, and its constant presence had afforded her the opportunity to become quite familiar with its magical signature.
“I do not believe it is still on this planet,” she said, having expended all of the tracking spells in her arsenal. “The traces are far too weak. In fact, I would wager that young Happizano managed to escape the atmosphere somewhat rapidly, judging by what I can find.”
“So, up we go, without further delay,” Uzabud said, then streaked skyward toward the stars.
It was a relatively quick search around the planet. Now that Demelza had a better feel for the traces of the ship’s Drookonus, she was able to rule out entire sections of space where there were simply no hits for the unique power signature. The farther out they went, however, the longer it was taking.
The distance between the worlds and moons in the system was, frankly, massive. And the ship could have flown anywhere out in that wide-open nothingness. But Demelza had a trace. It wasn’t huge, but it was there, and gradually, as they made their way farther and farther out toward the edge of the system where it dropped off into the real black, it was getting stronger.
“He went this way,” Demelza said.
“You sure?” Laskar asked.
“Positive. And not far now.” She paused. “Something is not right. The power, I felt it growing, but suddenly it stopped.”
“Did he jump? Maybe he did know how to do it after all. Clever kid, that one,” Bud said.
“No, it is different. Not the same power shift as with a jump. That is always more of a surge. This feels like an abrupt cessation altogether.”
Bud and the two Wampeh shared a knowing look.
“He wouldn’t have blown himself up. No, there’s no way. That Drookonus was way too underpowered for anything like that. At least, not in his hands.”
“Then, what?” Henni asked.
“The other option is almost as bad,” Demelza said. “For a Drookonus to suddenly stop emitting any power, its vessel would have to be more than just stopped. It would have had to be removed entirely.”
“And? Maybe he just pulled the wrong thingamajiggy and took it out.”
“That is highly unlikely. A Drookonus requires specific spells to release it from its cradle. And that is a particular bit of magic I doubt young Jinnik has ever learned,” Hozark said.
Bud looped them around the area where the last traces of the ship’s power faded away. There was no sign of the ship, but the former pirate had an idea.
“Demelza. Give me your last four hits for their Drookonus, will ya?”
“What’s that gonna do?” Henni asked.
“Just a thought, but it’ll show us the rough trajectory when the Drookonus went out.”
“But the ship is gone.”
“Yes, but you heard Demelza. No surge. Get it? It might not have jumped. It might still be out there.”
It was a logical move, for following debris or wrecks. But there was no sign of either here. Just a missing boy aboard a missing ship.
“Here you are, Bud,” Demelza said, giving him the last four readings.
“Great. Now, I’ll just plot that in and account for drift,” the former pirate said. “Aaaand... Holy shit. Guys, there it is!”
“What happened to it?” Henni asked. “It’s all messed up.”
“Stripped, is more like it,” Laskar noted.
“Pillaged, we liked to say in my pirating days,” Bud corrected. “And that’s what happened here. Seen it a thousand times. But the ship isn’t structurally damaged. It’s still intact.”
“Hang on,” Henni said. “Pirates? Like, honest, for-real space pirates?”
“Yeah, pretty much.”
“Shit. That’s bad.”
“Can be. Depends on who it is. Not all pirates are total assholes, you know. Look at me, for instance.”
“Terrible example,” she replied.
“Uzabud, do you think these might have been friends of yours?” Demelza asked.
“I can’t say for sure, but highly unlikely.”
“Why is that?”
“Because my ship is still here. I mean, yeah, they did a number on it, but it’s still sound. My people wouldn’t have left a perfectly good ship like this. Really, no self-respecting pirate would. Not unless they didn’t have a place they could sell it, that is.”
“What? Like, banned from the markets?” Henni asked.
“Essentially. And if that’s the case, they’re not just pirates. They’re Outlanders.”
“Is that some special kind of pirate?”
“Not exactly, though I suppose you could say that, in a weird sort of way,” he replied. “Outlanders are people who pissed off the wrong folks. The wrong powerful folks. That means they’re on pretty much everyone’s shit list. Almost no one will trade with them. It’s not worth the heat it brings.”
“Bud, this kid, he’s a visla’s son. Don’t you think they’ll try to ransom him? The family’s worth a lot of coin, you know,” Laskar said. “I know that’s what I’d do.”
“A paragon of class and culture, you are, Laskar,” Bud said. “But no, I doubt they’ll ransom him, so long as he keeps his mouth shut and doesn’t tell them whose kid he is. More likely than not, they’ll just try to sell him at the next slave market.”
Hozark and the others shared a look.
“So long as he keeps his mouth shut,” Hozark said with a sigh.
“Oh, hell,” Bud said. “We need to find him. And fast.”
Chapter Fifty
There was an old saying within the ranks of the rough-and-tumble men and women who called themselves space pirates. “Once a pirate, always a pirate.”
It was a familial thing, and though they sometimes fought amongst themselves, to the death at times, a deference and respect was given to their former brethren regardless.
That saying, however, didn’t quite hold true for the few who left the fold to become bounty hunters, which occasionally meant hunting down their former brothers- and sisters-in-arms.
Those former pirates were most assuredly not still members of the club, so to speak. In fact, if their former allies happened upon them in a dark alleyway, they might very well find themselves on the receiving end of a club of an entirely different variety.
Uzabud, however, was not only still in good standing, he had left the profession with the well wishes of not only his shipmates, but also most of the other pirates
he knew from his years of pillaging and mayhem.
It wasn’t just that he had always been a good shipmate and skilled pirate, it was also because he was going into a parallel career. One that could prove useful to his friends from time to time.
Uzabud had left to become a smuggler.
He fenced and trafficked all manner of items. Snuck both people and goods into places they would not have otherwise been able to go. And he did it all without backstabbing a single one of his friends in the process.
In fact, it seemed to all concerned that he had never really left, he had simply moved on to a new branch of the same field.
And now, with an Outlander pirate on the menu, it was those old friends he would need to turn to for help. The Ghalian spy network would most likely eventually find their culprits, but this was pirate life they were talking about, and that sort was always on the move and difficult to pin down. By the time you figured out where they were heading, they’d already arrived and left.
On top of that, they didn’t even know which pirates they were looking for. Bud had been out of that loop for some time now, and while he still occasionally dealt with his old friends, he was by no means nearly as dialed in as he once was. And that left them just one choice.
“You’re seriously gonna call in pirates?” Laskar asked for the third time as he plotted their jump course. “Like, actual pirates?”
“Again, yes. What is it with you, anyway? I thought you were up for any sort of adventure.”
“And I am. But pirates aren’t exactly known for being reliable. Or friendly, for that matter.”
“Aww, we’re just misunderstood.”
“We?”
“You know the saying.”
“Yeah, but you haven’t actually been a pirate in, like, forever.”
“Doesn’t matter. They’re still my people.”
Hozark watched the exchange with mild amusement. He’d worked with Bud long enough to have seen him call in his pirate friends once or twice, and despite their ruffian ways, the men and women had actually proven to be not only quite friendly, but also very, very skilled at what they did.
