Harry cleared his throat. “Ah, excuse me, but … why do you need to run from the Feds? I thought the Federation were the good guys?”
Redbeard barked out a thunderous laugh and clapped Harry on the withers, making Buddy flinch at the unexpected contact. “Ha! Ha, oh, there’s a good one, arr, haha!”
Harry didn’t understand what was so funny, but Redbeard turned away and walked across to the other side of the bridge, doubling over in laughter.
Captain Cass only looked down at him with a wry smile. “You have a lot to learn about pirates, Donkey.”
“Harold,” he said. “My name is Harold. But you can call me Harry, if you want.”
7
Rear Admiral Eilhard Hawke sat back in his plush chair behind a stately oak desk, reviewing the crew roster of the FFS Brickhouse to ensure everything was in order. But of course it was. He had the best darn crew in the galaxy, the most orderly ship in the galaxy, and a capable XO.
He smiled to himself and sipped at his tea, a fine black ceylon imported from the Alnasl system, ironically located at the tip of the Teapot constellation.
Well, if everything was in order, then, perhaps he’d resume reading one of the quintessential deep novels in history, Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace. It wasn’t often he had the chance to read for pleasure, after all. Too many brigands and thieves running amok across the galaxy, and not enough Federation ships to bring order.
Curious, he pulled up the Federation’s recruitment numbers for the last quarter, then raised his eyebrows. The numbers were up. That was good. The more recruits, the more troops and engineers, the more ships and more crew to man them, the better they could patrol the galaxy and keep everyone safe.
Though raw recruits are nothing compared to seasoned officers, and we need more of those, too. His smile faded as he remembered. We need all the good officers we can get. Can’t afford to lose them … especially over misunderstandings…
His comm pinged, and he glanced to the caller ID to see it was his subordinate, Commodore Corvus, herself.
He tapped the button to put the call on his screen. Some of the other brass would have told him to just order the computer to put it on screen for him, but Hawke had never really trusted those artificial entities. And anyway, he was perfectly capable of doing it himself.
Anasua’s stern features materialized on the small screen atop his desk, her bobbed black hair framing large brown eyes. The beau blue of the Fed Navy uniform blended warmly with her russet brown skin. She saluted smartly. “Sir. We’ve received an emergency distress beacon. From the galactic backwaters of Kepler-186f.”
Hawke frowned in thought and lifted his tea for a small sip, then carefully set the antique bone china teacup back into the saucer. Flawless execution there, I do believe I’m getting the hang of this proper tea-drinking technique. “How did I do?”
“Sir?” Anasua maintained her rigid mask.
“The tea sip, Commodore, did I get it just right that time?”
“Yes, sir, you did very well.”
Hawke pressed his lips together until they were puffing out, and nodded with satisfaction. Anasua was well steeped in tea-drinking tradition. It was very important to build rapport with the subordinates, so he’d made a point of trying to connect with her on a more personal level, going so far as to seek her mentorship on proper tea etiquette. Satisfied he’d done enough to connect at a personal level prior to engaging in business, he returned to the matter at hand.
“There’s nothing of value out there, is there, Commodore? Just cargo herders and hippies.”
“And space pirates, sir. The distress signal came from a cargo hauler. The SS Bray. Seems they’ve been boarded by pirates and require assistance.”
Hawke blinked. “Bray? Like a donkey?”
Commodore Corvus nodded. “Yes, sir.”
Pirates. He tapped the tip of his index finger against the side of his teacup. He made a mental note to ask if it was proper to tap it that way. “So … it could be Captain Bambi?”
His XO’s jaw tightened and she gave a short sigh, then tilted her chin up just a fraction like she often did when irritated. “Captain Casuarius? Yes, I suppose there’s a possibility it could be.”
“Thank you for the report, Anasua. Very good.” He paused a moment, then lifted his teacup toward the screen. “Would you like to join me for tea?”
The commodore pursed her lips. “Not today, sir. I’ll need to see who’s available to check out the situation in Kepler-186f.”
Hawke gently set his cup back in its saucer. The lessons would have to wait. “No need, Commodore. Prepare Murphy’s Law for a jump to that system. I’ll bring my personal shuttle over as soon as we end our call. We’re going to go check on this one personally.”
Commodore Corvus stiffened, her long lashes blinking rapidly as her mouth fell open.
Hawke wasn’t sure why she looked so surprised by his declaration; it wasn’t all that unusual for top brass to get involved in routine action every once in a while. Plus, it’d be a good opportunity to connect with more of the rank-and-file. “Is there a problem, Commodore?”
She wrestled herself back under control with effort, then straightened her shoulders and cleared her throat. “No, sir. I will prepare a berth for your arrival and make the preparations for our jump at once.”
“Thank you, Commodore.”
“Commodore Corvus out.” Her image winked off his screen.
He took up his tea again and leaned back in the chair, swiveling around to look out the wraparound window at the stars beyond. He crossed an ankle over the opposite knee and contemplated this development. Intelligence reports had last estimated Bambi to be somewhere in the vicinity of that sector, and it was reported that she had somehow, against any plausible belief, fallen in with pirates.
Too bad. But not for long. When I can find her … I’m sure she will listen to reason. He finished off the last of his tea and sighed. This may very well be a long shot, but in the off chance this thread leads to her … it will be worth it.
“Captain Cass to the Girlboss.”
Harry lay on the deck of the bridge, his head propped up on his front legs, silently observing the captain’s every move. There was so much he could learn from her about being a badass pirate.
“Aye, Captain. Djerke here.”
The captain sat down stiffly in one of the chairs in the middle of the room, the legs of her power armor whirring with the bending of her knees. “We’ve completed repairs to the cargo hold door. You have permission to disengage the boarding locks and return to Haven with haste. The arrival of the Fed Navy is imminent.”
There was a pause before the comms returned to life. “Acknowledged. Disengaging and retracting the boarding mechanisms now, Captain.”
From his station, Spiner said, “Confirming. Girlboss has disengaged boarding lock.”
Djerke, over the comms, continued, “Initiating jump sequence. Good luck, Captain. Djerke out.”
The captain swiveled in her chair to face the rest of the crew.
Holy cow, the chair spins! Harry noted with delight. Now if only he could find a way to fit his donkey bottom into it…
“Okay, you have twenty seconds to decide where we’re going,” Captain Cass said to the room at large.
Harry twitched with excitement. They were going to go somewhere!
Kitt’s white fur flattened as her whiskers sagged.
Redbeard reddened. “Don’t look at me, Cap’n. Spiner should be able to look somethin’ up right n’ quick.”
Spiner’s lips compressed into a thin line. “I shall commence a catalog search of viable locations for livestock commerce. I’ll need more than twenty seconds, though.”
Eager to be useful, Harry couldn’t contain himself. He may not know anything about commerce, but he had an idea. Sure, it wasn’t that much of an adventure, but it would be the perfect place to let the animals graze. “I know, I know! Let’s go back to Cern!”
Redbeard gr
oaned loudly. “I told ya not to let the arse out of its pen.”
The disembodied voice of Node returned. “Captain, if I may?”
Captain Cass put an elbow on the chair’s arm and leaned her head onto the palm of her hand with a sigh. “Sure, why not?”
Up front, the stars blinked out of view, replaced by the profile of a reddish-brown planet and columns of text.
Node said, “This is Irrakis, a life-supporting planet in the Deneb system. It’s also where you’re going to want to go if you want to make that fortune I was telling you about earlier.”
“Pah,” exclaimed Redbeard. “Looks like me angry armpits the one time I took ta shavin’ them hairs.”
“Continue,” Captain Cass said sternly. “We’re running out of time.”
A red dot appeared on the screen and circled around a few lines of text. The picture of the planet was replaced by an aerial picture of what appeared to be a few dozen donkeys on some sort of dirt track.
Kitt’s ears perked up at the sight of the red dot moving around. Harry couldn’t help but notice that she crouched at the sight of it, her shoulders hunching.
Node continued, “Every twenty Galactic Standard years, Irrakis is host to a contest known as “The Running of the Donkey.” The owner of the prize donkey is awarded twenty million Galactic credits.”
Redbeard burst out, “Twenty million Galactic credits! Arrr, Cap’n, we could buy our own luxury asteroidal hideaway fer that sum.”
For the first time in Harry’s short experience with the pirates, Redbeard looked happy. The sight made Harry all warm and fuzzy inside.
Captain Cass appeared impassive, for her part, although she did sit up straighter in her seat. “This is the big jackpot you were telling us about?” She swiveled in her seat again and gazed at Harry with raised eyebrows. “All we need is a prize donkey?”
Node replied in a perky voice, “Yup. That’s it. And you’re the lucky new owner of several prize donkey candidates.”
Prize donkey? Harry liked the sound of that. He straightened up and stuck out his chest, holding his donkey head high and arching his short neck. If he could win an award for his pirate friends, they’d be sure to let him be a permanent part of their crew.
A permanent part of their crew? Is that really what I want? What about the donkeys in my charge?
Harry became lost in thought at the prospect of moving on to a new job, and all that would entail.
“Very well,” said the captain. “Seems like that’s by far our best option. Spiner, plot a course for the Deneb system.”
Spiner looked up from his console. “Ah, but I just finished my query on the nearest livestock commerce locations. I’ll need a few minutes to calculate the jumps to Deneb.”
Captain Cass shook her head. “We don’t have a few minutes.”
“Arrr, crap.” Redbeard’s beaming grin dimmed.
“I can plot the jumps in approximately minus-thirty seconds,” announced Node.
Redbeard grunted. “Tha’s more like it.”
“Make it so,” replied the captain.
Spiner silently sank into the seat behind his station.
Harry was just about to go over to Spiner to see what was wrong when a white blur bolted across his line of sight.
Less than a second later, a loud thud sounded from the front of the bridge. Harry’s right eyeball caught the impressive sight of Kitt leaping several feet through the air, front paws extended, right smack into the viewscreen.
Right where the red dot had just been.
“Wow!” shouted Harry, shuffling his feet to face the cat being. “You can jump so far!” He jumped in place, testing out his own leaping distance, which was considerably less impressive.
While none of the pirate crew reacted to Kitt’s leap, Node was another matter. “Initiating pre-jump— err, hah. Hah hah hah hah. Good kitty! Hah hah hah! Here, catch this!”
A countdown timer appeared on the screen, replacing the information on Irrakis. The red dot re-appeared, circling and jerking around erratically.
Kitt’s display of athleticism and red-light-tracking prowess was nothing short of incredible. She leaped and crashed. Leaped and crashed. Again and again and again, until she collapsed to the floor, gasping for air. Between breaths, she managed, “Damn you and your red lights, computer!”
Node continued his taunts and the single light multiplied into more dots than Harry could keep track of. “Hah. Hah hah hah hah. You’re nothing but a big pussy cat. ME-OW!”
The expression that clouded Kitt’s face made Harry stop jumping around abruptly. He gulped and skittered backward toward Spiner’s chair as Kitt stood up slowly, all her hair fluffed out now and her eyes narrowed. Her ears went flat back against her head, and terrifying hooked claws extended from the tips of her fingers.
She glared around at the ceiling of the bridge, presumably looking for Node’s precise location. “I am not a cat, you cluster of scrap!” she hissed, spittle flying. “Tell me where your core is hiding and I will rip it out with my bare claws!”
Harry blinked at her, mouth agape. Wow, she is really, really angry… He tried to make himself smaller, crouching against the back bulkhead, hoping she wouldn’t notice him. She was really scary when she was mad … even scarier than Redbeard.
“Kitt,” Captain Cass interrupted, her voice stern, “come on now. Calm down. The computer doesn’t know better … yet. But now it does. Right, computer? You know Kitt is a Homo lyncis sapius, and not a cat, and will address her as such from now on, correct?”
Node made an exaggerated sighing noise. “Oh, I suppose. You pirates are no fun. But if I have to call her that ridiculous name, you can at least call me by my name. Which is Node. Not ‘computer.’”
Captain Cass rolled her eyes. “Fine. Whatever. Can we just get out of here before the Feds drop on top of us please?”
Redbeard sat down in the chair next to the captain and patted his beefy hands on his thighs as he looked to Kitt, still fluffed out and angry. “Come here, silly. Yer gonna be givin’ that idiot donkey ideas.”
Kitt glared back at the screen for a moment, but then huffed and crawled on all fours toward Redbeard. Then she jumped into his lap with a sound just like a purr.
“Jump drive ready,” Node announced. “Jumping in five, four, three…” he counted down the final seconds.
Redbeard stroked Kitt’s fur. “Tha’s a good lass. You just ignore that bullyin’ creeper of a computer. We all know yer not a pussy cat.”
Harold, for his part, breathed a sigh of relief. He’d found Kitt scary enough already, but Buddy’s terror of her had nearly overridden his control.
He sent more calming intentions to his poor, worried host. There, there, Buddy. It’s okay. She won’t hurt you. We’ll just have to remember to never call her a cat, that’s all.
Buddy finally began to settle down.
Harry was about to start working on improving his jump distance again—maybe with a running start this time—but before he could take another step, space and time folded in on itself.
And not a moment too soon. Just one second later, a gigantic metal cube flashed into being in the Kepler-186f system.
8
The SS Bray flashed out of hyperspace in the middle of nowhere.
Moments prior, Harry had felt like his insides were about to turn inside out. He wobbled on his feet as the space outside of the front viewscreen returned to normal, dizzy from all the swirling streaks of light that had filled it just a moment before.
“First jump en route to Irrakis complete,” Spiner reported unhelpfully.
“Prepare for next jump in T-minus fifteen minutes,” Node intoned.
Oh no, we have to do that again?
Buddy’s stomach clenched, and the donkey made a terrible retching noise.
Harry scrambled to regain control of his host’s biological functions before he could make a mess all over the floor of the bridge. Not that a donkey could vomit, they couldn’t … but Buddy see
med determined to try. Failing that, peeing himself was still an option.
“Hold on,” Harry said. “Do we have to jump again so soon?”
Captain Cass swiveled her chair around to face him, lifting her eyebrows. “What’s the trouble?”
“Uh, well.” He swallowed again, trying to rid himself of the sick sensation. He couldn’t tell the captain hyperspace made him sick! How could he hope to become a pirate if space travel made him sick!? “I was, uh, I was just wondering, how many more jumps till we get to the donkey contest, exactly?”
“Fifteen,” Node answered.
“Ah, I see.” Oh wow, that's a lot. Great. If I want to be a pirate, Buddy is going to have to get used to this hyperspace thing, and quick.
He tried a few steps forward, and found walking seemed to help settle Buddy’s stomach. “Well, I was just thinking—”
“Arrr great,” Redbeard spat, “just what we need, tha idiot donkey thinkin’.”
Harry’s ears lowered. That human seriously has an attitude problem. Well, maybe he’ll like me better if I win him twenty million Galactic credits! He stuck out his chest again and stamped a front hoof on the smooth metal floor of the bridge.
“I want to be a pirate,” he said firmly. “Like you guys. I want to fly across the galaxy in a spaceship and wear cool armor and shoot big guns. Can I? Please? Can I be a pirate, too?”
Redbeard guffawed, throwing his head back, face reddening in his mirth. Kitt, still on his lap, tilted her head to one side and regarded Harry, a cool smile curving her predatory lips.
Spiner watched impassively from his station, unreadable.
Captain Cass’s mouth quirked into a not-altogether-unkind smile.
“What?” Harry demanded. He was used to being dismissed—by his tribe, by other donkeys, by the cargo herders—but that didn’t make it hurt any less. I’m tired of being the butt of everyone’s jokes. “The Overseers trusted me with a very important job, and I’ve done it well for a long time. I told you I could be helpful, and I can! I can be a pirate, too. I’ll prove it to you!”
Of Donkeys, Gods, and Space Pirates Page 5
