Andromeda's Pirate

by Debra Jess

  The holo of her at the landing pad switched to the first ring, where the bio-bed rushed her to sick bay, followed by two rescue crew and one other, who was probably the doctor on duty.

  From this angle, though, Hart could see her eyes, still open and staring at nothing. He'd seen more life in the eyes of the dead. The holo changed again to sick bay, where a privacy net dropped, cutting off Darvik's view while the doctor examined her. Just as well, he didn't need to see her exam.

  No matter how deep into the recordings he delved, he couldn't get the image of her on that bio-bed out of his head. The image made him want to track down Kelra and pull her into his arms and just hold her for a while. He couldn't, though, not without her demanding he make a decision about allowing her on the Majesty of the Stars first and by herself.

  The look in her eyes from the holo made the decision for him. He couldn't let her go first or by herself. Whatever she saw that caused that look, he didn't want her going anywhere near it, not while he lived and breathed.

  Making the decision, of course, was one thing. Telling her what he'd decided was something else. No matter how he couched his answer, she wouldn't be sleeping in his bed any time soon, if ever again.

  Was this what Johza had meant when he talked about Darvik's parents allowing him to visit Naz on the Unity Homeport despite the dangers? His folks had tried to do the right thing by allowing him to explore what life would be like outside the Iron Heart, unknowingly saving his life. Yet they had also sealed his fate because he could not allow Manitac to get away with killing entire families, including his own. His anger had fueled his vengeance for the past decade, but only now did he realize how much of himself he'd given up to achieve his revenge. His anger was never-ending so long as Manitac existed, unlike Kelra, who could see the end point of her own quest of finding a creature that she insisted had killed everyone on board the Majesty of the Stars.

  True or not, she believed it, and her path mirrored his in so many ways. Who was he to deny her the right to fulfill her the mission she'd created and scarified for almost as long as he had? His logic told him there was no alien on board the Majesty of the Stars. His heart told him if he didn't allow her on board the ship as she'd asked, he'd lose her and he'd have to live with the fact that his decision made him the worst sort of hypocrite.

  It wasn't fair. After all this time, he'd found the perfect woman, and fate would have him sacrifice his love to keep her safe and maybe even alive.

  Love her? Did he? By the Stars, he wanted to. If putting the brakes on her mission wasn’t proof of love, then what was? How could he be sure? What if he didn’t tell her his decision and found a way to board the ship before her? No, that was a coward’s way out. Screw fate. He'd tell her his decision to her face and do everything he could to show her that he only had her best interests at heart.

  Maybe he'd tell her he loved her, and this decision should prove it.

  He needed her to believe him, but the niggle of doubt in his gut said otherwise. After all, he didn’t believe her story about aliens. Why would she believe for one second that he loved her when he wasn’t even sure himself?

  "I found it." Rusa's grim smile held enough satisfaction for the entire crew. "I found the flight path of the Majesty of the Stars."

  A rush of adrenaline pulsed through his veins. So close. With a flight path, they could calculate an approximate location, assuming the ship had drifted from the location where it…stopped. If it had stopped. No one knew for sure, not even Kelra. Unraveling a mystery had the same pulse-pounding excitement as plundering a ship.

  But he still had to tell Kelra. Even though they didn't have the exact coordinates yet, it was only a matter of time. Despite their argument, he wouldn't keep this information from her. It was, in fact, the perfect excuse to go see her. Her wrath wouldn't lessen when he told her that he'd decided she wouldn't be allowed to board alone, but that was a wave he would have to ride until she either forgave him or not. If not, then he would let her go when this was over.

  Excitement mixed with sadness did not make for an easy transit to the hallway outside her door. Two other pirates moved about the corridor, one entering their quarters, one leaving. He almost never had a reason to enter the quarters of another crew member, so both looked startled at his presence. He just nodded at them before hitting the annunciator. If they had questions, they knew better than to ask.

  The door dissolved in a heartbeat, so she must have been waiting for him. Inside, she sat on the sofa, legs tucked up under her as she leaned on the arm, her right hand supporting her head. She watched as the holo broadcast one of the hundreds of holo-vids they'd acquired over the years.

  There was no point in delaying the inevitable. "We found the flight path. As soon as we calculate out all the possible coordinates the Majesty of the Stars could have drifted toward, we'll pick one and get underway.”

  Kelra nodded, her sad eyes never leaving the holo-screen. "You've made a decision?"

  She wasn't about to waste time either. "I have, and…I'm sorry, Kelra. I can't let you board by yourself. I wouldn't allow anyone else on my crew to do the same, and I…care too much about you to let you risk your life on a foolish plan.

  She said nothing. She didn't even look at him.

  "If this were the Silt and a member of your crew wanted to board a derelict ship, you would make the same decision. You know you would because you're a fine captain who cared about her crew."

  "Do I?" She spared him a glance. "I didn't care so much that I didn't reveal the weakness of our port side or set off an explosion in the midst of an operation."

  "You knew I wouldn't exploit the portside weakness unless it was absolutely necessary, and no one died because you aimed your shot close to the shuttle, which could withstand the brunt of the explosion."

  She said nothing to contradict his words because it was all true. Still, the holo-vid played, and she continued to watch through eyes as dead as they were on the station's records when she was six.

  He couldn't win this argument, not with her in the mood she was in now. Later, maybe later. The thread tying them together frayed even further.

  He turned his back, punched open the compression gate, and returned to the bridge. There was nothing left to say.

  No one looked at him as he took his seat, which said more about their curiosity than it did about why he returned alone. No sly glances meant they'd figured out whatever had been said between himself and Kelra hadn't gone well. Well, fine. Let them speculate to themselves about what went down. His affair with Kelra wasn't their business outside of how it affected their ability to find the Majesty of the Stars. Right now, Kelra's attitude changed nothing about their course. Only math and science could do that.

  "Have we released the array yet?"

  "Not yet." Rusa flipped through her controls. "I was waiting for confirmation that the Queen of Hearts had finished her shift."

  "We’re at ninety-nine percent complete. That’s good enough for now,” he said. “Unfold the array and launch the mass detectors. I want them working in tandem along with traditional radar. If the Majesty of the Stars launched their beacons, we should pick up those signals first. Johza, calculate the coordinates of those beacon signals, if they exist, against the path we know the Majesty of the Stars flew and the amount of time Kelra was in the escape pod. Assuming the pod traveled at maximum speed from launch to rescue."

  Johza didn't acknowledge Darvik's command, more than likely to preserve his voice in case of a real emergency. It didn't matter. Almost immediately numbers projected from Johza's head-up display to his own.

  Even with experienced hands, it could take days before they found anything. They didn't know anything about the interior of the nebula. What types of new stars did it contain? Were there asteroids between them and the Majesty of the Stars? He hoped not. Asteroids were dark, reflecting two percent to twenty percent of any incoming starlight, which was why most civilian ships were painted white specifically so it would be ea
sier to find them if lost.

  More noise rumbled through the Queen of Hearts as the array rose from its bed on the spine of the destroyer. Two sharper shots rattled the bridge as the mass detectors ejected from their bays.

  "Any signals from the slipstream?" he asked Mirin.

  She frowned and shook her head, which sported a ratty sweatband. "Nothing. Not so much as a blip."

  "Good. Keep watching, though. I can't imagine Silt will take much longer to figure out where we disappeared to. If we're lucky, they won't exit the slipstream until we're long gone."

  "And if we're not lucky?" Johza looked up from his console. Darvik knew the old man wasn't just talking about the Silt.

  Darvik stared at the older man. "Then we'll fight it out to the bitter end, like we always do."

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Guardians bless coincidences. Darvik's decision to disable every tracking system within the ship gave Kelra the advantage of using the compression gate to locate the equipment she would need and bring it back to her quarters with no one the wiser. Most of what she needed she filched from backup supplies or redundant systems. Using them would have no effect on the Queen's primary systems, so it was unlikely any of the crew would notice anything missing.

  At least, not until it was too late.

  Her arms ached along with her heart as she dropped the last of the fire suppressants. Twenty years of planning how to kill the alien, followed by two years of plotting how to manipulate the Manitac legal system, followed by prayers to the Guardians that she'd read Darvik right and he would rescue her off Ruintalos, cumulated in her list of necessary equipment, but none of her preparation work calculated on her falling in love with the rogue pirate.

  Was this what her parents experienced when they first fell in love? She had no idea, but perhaps she would after she got her hands on the holo-vid recordings in their quarters.

  Even if they did, it wouldn't compare to her situation. Both of her parents had the same adventurous spirit they bestowed on their only child, but they never broke the law or deliberately hurt someone close to them. Not like she had. Not like she was about to.

  From out of the closet, she pulled out a large jug and filled it with water. She used one of the bathroom cloths to wipe the excess from the rim.

  A quiet chime sounded from the clock on the wall. By now, the bridge crew would be searching for the Majesty of the Stars. She'd imagined herself on the bridge with Darvik while they searched. Together, they would pore over the information as it was acquired. She would offer suggestions for narrowing the parameters of their search field while he redirected the array and mass detectors. Such equipment wasn't a part of the usual complement of systems on a typical destroyer. She'd only found out that the Queen of Hearts had them while she chased Hart across the Calypso arm. Since Darvik's reputation did not include scavenging, she assumed he'd incorporated the equipment into a security protocol of some sort.

  For the briefest of moments, she thought about the questions she would ask him about the Queen of Heart’s defenses the next time she saw him, but her distracted brain slammed into the remembrance that once she committed to her plan to incapacitate the crew, Darvik would no doubt kill her rather than answer questions. He certainly would never kiss her again, never lie beside her in bed, making her body sing with joy and pleasure as she wrapped her legs around…

  You can still back out you know.

  No, I can't.

  Says who?

  I do. I've planned this for far too long.

  So what? It's not as if you wasted your life. Despite what others might say, you did good when you were captain of the Silt. You saved lives, you helped people, and you protected the puppets.

  Darvik will die if he goes over there. So will Ezick, and Rusa, and Johza and Mirin. Nazaniel will survive because he'll stay on board the Queen of Hearts with the puppets, but his life, his family, will have been murdered for the second time in his life.

  Did Darvik become the most successful pirate of both the Calypso and Callisto arms by making foolish mistakes? He can take care of himself. He can watch your back, just as he said.

  He doesn't believe me. I won't have someone at my back who doesn't believe me.

  There's a difference between not believing you and not believing in you. He’ll come for you regardless. The others will follow him.

  I can’t let that happen.

  You can’t stop it. The crew respects you now, even Ezick.

  Maybe not, but even if I fail to kill the alien, the others will know there’s something dangerous on board the Majesty of the Stars. My death will warn them. Then they can decide if plundering my ship is worth the risk. They might even succeed where I failed and kill the alien for me.

  Before Kelra’s conscience could answer her, her door chimed. She dissolved the door to find Mayla standing there with food and drink on a tray. Perfect timing.

  Kelra waited for Mayla to set the tray on the end table, just as she'd done before.

  "Mayla, would you stay a moment? I'd like to talk to you."

  Mayla turned to face Kelra, her face passive. Kelra reached over the tray of food to where she'd laid the Z-nips, plucking the box off the furniture and opening it, so Mayla could see the bricks inside.

  "Are you scheduled to return to the kitchen?"

  "Yes."

  "Good. I'm glad to hear that. Are you ever alone in the kitchen?"

  "Yes."

  "What do you do when you're alone?"

  "I clean all the equipment."

  "Do you do this every night?"

  "No. Every other night."

  Every other night meant Kelra would have to carefully monitor what days Mayla cleaned the equipment. Maybe she should pause her plan? No, for now, she would stay on track and damn her conscience anyway.

  "Mayla, I'm going to give you this package. Would you keep it safe for me?"

  "Yes."

  "You must keep it in your quarters. When I contact you, I want you to take all the bricks inside and drop them into the water tanks, the ones we use for drinking water. But you must not let anyone see you. If someone else is in the kitchen, don't do as I ask until you are alone. Can you do that for me?"

  "Yes."

  "And remember, only if I ask you to. If I don't ask you to do it, leave this in your quarters, and I'll come get it."

  "Okay."

  That left them at the awkward moment when a puppet didn't know the conversation had come to an end and it was time for them to leave. Kelra's anxiety over using Mayla this way made pushing her out the door so soon after she arrived almost untenable.

  "Are you feeling okay, Mayla? Is Ez…the boy, bringing you more food as we discussed."

  "Yes."

  "Good. I'm glad to hear it. Is there anything else you need or want?"

  This time, Mayla tilted her head ever so slightly as if she were trying to think or remember something. The moment passed, and Mayla straightened. "No."

  "Okay. Thank you, Mayla. You may leave now. We'll talk again soon."

  Kelra held her breath until the door resolved behind Mayla.

  Half the battle was over. Now, the hard part started: waiting until they found the Majesty of the Stars. With nothing else to do, she stretched her muscles, easing into a few exercises to increase her stamina and flexibility. The tiredness from earlier, while stealing the equipment, had passed. Still, it worried her. If the alien forced her to run far, she might not make it to her destination.

  Bending forward to touch her fingertips to the floor, she reviewed every scenario she'd related to Darvik earlier. She had only given him the barest of details because he wasn't really interested in the rest. In her mind, she had memorized each action and possible consequences right down to timing herself by running the scenarios on board the ships she served. If anyone questioned her antics, she would shrug once and tell them she was practicing for her next officer's exam or she had a bet with another crew member that she could run a full circuit of the ship
in less time than them.

  Standing straight again, she tilted her body to the right, stretching the muscles along her torso. Blood rushed to her head, the sound roaring in her ears, not unlike the roar of an engine. Rising once more, she bent in the other direction. This time, her hip joint popped, making her cringe. Please, that wasn't half as bad as her first day at boot camp. Legs next. Squat. Raise your arms. Stand…twist…again…

  Smack!

  She'd forgotten about the jug of water and slapped it with her hand. The jug didn't spill, but the water inside sloshed around. The sound…that sound…she remembered it like it was yesterday…

  Twenty years ago…

  The bathtub water sloshed violently as the Majesty of the Stars groaned. Startled by the soap burning her eyes, Kelra yelled for her dad. The waves in the tub stilled, but her dad hadn't returned with a big, warm, fluffy towel. The eerie silence scared her. Even the familiar, low-level hum of the engines no longer tickled her ears. She waited and waited, long after her fingers had wrinkled. Finally, she had stepped out of the bath on her own, shivering in the cold air. There had been no towels or clothes waiting for her, so she opened the door to call again for her mom and dad. Neither answered.

  She found both her father and mother lying on the floor next to the dining table, their dirty dinner dishes exactly where they'd left them before her bath. She shook her dad to wake him up. He remained still, his face covered in ugly red splotches.

  She leaned back on her haunches, when she heard a loud snap-hiss. She turned her head to see the light in her bedroom on the opposite side of the cabin go dark.

  She shook her dad harder. He still wouldn't wake up. Dread clawed at her stomach. She tried shaking her mom too. She wouldn’t wake up either.

  The snapping and hissing grew louder. In her panic, she remembered what the nice crew lady had taught her to do in case of an emergency, but it would mean leaving her mom and dad on the floor.