Eric Olafson: Space Pirate

by Vanessa Ravencroft

Bandaged and derma patched as much as the equipment allowed, I went to the bridge. After checking the basic systems, I concluded the ship was marginally space-worthy.

  The dirty man, who’d managed to clean himself up a little, delivered the bad news, looking at a read-out on the panel he was checking, “We won’t get far, Soldier; the fuel tanks are nearly empty!”

  I rushed over and checked, even though the gauges were quite different from Union tech. The red fields versus the blue fields of the fuel level indicators showed ninety percent red.

  The Saresii woman came on the bridge and said, “We got more trouble, human. The local lord is coming with a Kartanian landing tank and armed troops!

  I cursed the former owners of the ship; nothing was labeled or arranged in any way that made sense to me. Where were the controls for the viewers? Where did they put the weapon console? This would not have been easy even if I had time to figure things out.

  The comm system came on, and a rough voice said, “I repeat, land your craft, or we will destroy you!”

  I didn’t know who had turned on the communications or if the channels were open, but I could not spend time or concentration on talking. My mind reeled as I tried to recall what I had learned about Velorian technology in xeno-tech class. I wished Wetty was here; she would have no problems figuring it all out, just glancing at it.

  The speakers blared with the unfriendly voice, “There will be a reward. If you give up now, I will personally set you free and see that you are returned home! I will take you to Netlor and from there you can reach Checkpoint 96! Just land the bloody thing and let us talk about things!”

  “Liar!” I grunted and paid no further attention. I muttered to the rest, “That was the biggest load of Fangsnapper Dung I’ve heard in a long time. Either he wants to save the ship, no matter how old and badly maintained it is, a ship this size is still valuable. Or he is afraid I found the weapon and shield controls.” I had seen the weapon turrets when it landed, nothing to really scare anything bigger than a D 40, but more than enough to take care of a landing tank and ground troops and liquefy some of the local landscape.

  Maybe they had planetary defense batteries, but they were useless against a ship already on the ground. I doubted they had the kind of hostile ship containment hardware needed to deal with a rogue ship on the ground.

  I finally found the helm controls and flooded the Arti-Grav while I tried to take reactor from standby to full.

  I cursed even worse as one of the freed slaves pulled a lever that looked as if it was connected to the main engine control. Not that I had seen any levers on a starship before, but it was next to a panel that indicated the ship’s power-generating status.

  A clunking sound could be heard, and the lights flickered. All my engine indicators went dead and the AM that had just lifted us a few meters off the ground cut out, and we slammed hard back on the telescopic landing gear, most likely bending or breaking what was left.

  Someone pointed out the main viewport. “Whatever you did, human, they’re running like hell! The landing tank and troops just turned around and are hightailing it back to the settlement!”

  The dirty man delivered the bad news. “I think we just ejected the reactor core.”

  No wonder they were running. There was still enough AM in that core to blow a sizeable crater in that landing field. However, even if it didn’t explode, our chances of leaving in this dung heap were gone!

  The human who’d just pulled that lever turned, holding a blaster trained on me. “I think I take that reward.” He fired, sweeping the bridge with paralyzing energies. My impulse to jump at his throat and strangle the traitor was stopped by the same rays that toppled the dirty man and the Saresii woman fractions of a second before me.

  This place, this planet, was getting to me; it felt like the amusement park ride I had taken on Twilight. Up and down and without any control where the ride would go. I found myself in a cavern-like room with sturdy-looking metal bars across the open end. The cavern’s floor was covered with reeking straw and about thirty others who were naked as I was. We all wore metal collars. While the others could walk around, mine was attached to a chain, which in turn, was locked to a steel loop bolted to the rock wall. It gave me very little room for movement. My hands, however, were free.

  To the right of me was the dirty naked man and to my left the Kermac. The Kermac had in addition to his steel collar, a blinking device attached to his forehead. Probably some device blocking his psionic abilities. There were no women with us and no non-humans, but on the other side of the cave, leaning against the wall, the cursed coward who had paralyzed us.

  Seeing his guilty face as he glanced over made my blood boil and I jumped up, forgetting and then disregarding the shocking collar, I tried to reach him. Of course, that was completely impossible; the chain was way too short to reach across the nine meters that separated him from my longing fingers. However, the coward shrieked and scurried like the vermin he was, farther away toward the opposite end of the grotto. I also noticed more than I heard a grinding noise from the loop. It wasn’t as solidly attached to the wall as it looked. Two of the lower anchor bolts were somewhat loose and gave the whole plate a little room to move.

  I settled back down but said in his direction, “You better hide, before I try to escape or find a way off this planet. Before I do anything else, I am going to kill you.”

  The thin man shivered and said, “They did not keep their promise! He said he would let us go!”

  “You are as stupid as a bag of rotten Snapper fur, you backstabbing, cowardly slime fish excrement. Of course, they didn’t keep their promise. They are slave traders, and you are nothing but merchandise to them.”

  The dirty man next to me said, “He is a Gal Drift; they are as wacko as they come.” He turned his head to look at me and exposed his bright teeth. “You did well out there, real well. We could have made it. Somehow, I think you’re Fleet, right?”

  I took the chain between my fists and began to rhythmically yank at it. With satisfaction, I felt the play in it, and the fine dust grit dropping on my naked and sweaty back. “Yes, I am.”

  The dirty man’s disposition that appeared so unshakable did change as he glared over to the coward. “We really could have made it, if it wasn’t for him!”

  The Kermac spoke for the first time, and his voice sounded weak. “What is a Gal Drift?”

  Another slave not tied to the wall and one I didn’t recognize, said, “Galactic Drifters are a bunch of ideology whackos in need of psychosurgery. They don’t believe in Union laws and that includes schools, citizenship, and so forth. Children of the universe, they call themselves, and believe all war is wrong, weapons are for evil purposes only and think if you Kermac want to rule over us, we should accept it instead of fighting.”

  The dirty man added, “He was probably a stowaway when whatever ship he was hitching a ride on was caught and raided by pirates.”

  The traitor hissed, “No, that agent of your establishment, the freighter captain, sold the entire container we were hiding in to slave traders!”

  I glared at him. “Lucky for you. If I had been that freighter captain, I’d spaced you!” Still, I didn’t like what I heard; it reminded me of little Exa and her story of how she ended up on Twilight.

  Someone wanted to know, “What is going to happen next?”

  Again, the dirty man, responded with an answer, “It’s still early in the week. So, we wait until market day in two or three days and then we are auctioned off and sold. The Union soldier here will go for much money to one of the fight arenas or, if they realize he is Union fleet, some of the Kermac agents might purchase him. Where everyone will end up is hard to say, depends on who shows up and what demand there is.”

  I turned to the Kermac. “I guess that’s your ticket out of here, right? Your agents will recognize you, and you’re back home in no time.”

  He shook his head. “I am a Ranig; I am not important enough to be rescued. Our agents
here try to stay low profile and would not risk exposing themselves by buying me. They are only here to pick up the occasional Union Fleet member, Saresii or Union techs and scientists. Picking me would serve no purpose.”

  The dirty man said to me, “The name is Tirko. You don’t have to call me dirty man anymore. Not that I mind, but we are all quite filthy again, and it might be a tad confusing who you give orders to.”

  I blinked. “Sorry, I didn’t even notice I said it out loud. I am Eric, by the way.”

  “You did as we raided the ship and on the bridge, you barked orders. Again, I didn’t mind; they all made sense, and I know I used to have my own ship.”

  The Kermac looked at me and said, “It figures, you had to be Union Fleet. Terran even, I think.”

  I didn’t want to give the enemy too much information. I didn’t like Kermac, and he was one of them. Why I suddenly remembered Egill’s words while I had to clean his tower burg, I could not tell, but I could almost hear his dry voice. Don’t be so quick with your judgments until you see the whole picture.

  So, I answered, “No, I am not Terran, I am from Nilfeheim.”

  Tirkov laughed and slapped his hand on his naked thighs. “A genuine Neo-Viking. Now that explains the temper.”

  His response surprised me, “You know Nilfeheim?”

  He glanced at the steel loop I was working on, gave me an almost unnoticeable nod, and said, “Years ago, I had two Nilfeheim Low men in my crew. Hard men they were, reliable. Didn’t mind working, could drink Botnaars under the table, and if they started singing their Valhalla Songs and praising the houses… They had braved much hardship to escape the ship. Never been to Nilfeheim, but I know a thing or two about it.”

  I actually stopped yanking the chain and stared at him. “I was told I was the first one of Nilfeheim that ever joined the Fleet.”

  He motioned me to continue working the chain, and I did, feeling much more play now than before. The lower bolts now showed almost an inch of shaft.

  Tirko said, “Maybe you are the first to join the Fleet, and I didn’t say my ship was Union either. From those two I told you about, I heard that it was rare but not uncommon for third and fourth born sons and for Low men to book a passage on a space bus or hide on a freighter and leave that world to find their destiny elsewhere.”

  He didn’t have to tell me about the fate of those not firstborn. During my last year on Nilfeheim, I had my eyes opened to the almost slave-like conditions Clans, including my own, kept their Low men.

  I knew Uncle Hogun had spent some time off the planet in his younger days, not that he had ever talked about it, not even to me. Only now, being off planet myself, I could tell that Richard, the outcast who was one of my teachers training me how to fight, had also spent time away from Nilfeheim.

  I asked him, “Merchant freighter, or something like that?”

  He grinned. “No, not a merchant but a mercenary; I ran a mercenary outfit until recently. The problem was that our Intel for the last job wasn’t exactly accurate and instead of a small band of local cutthroats we faced two companies of Harlequin’s Jokers, complete with Zealot Battle Walkers. They had no problem to sell the surviving rest of my crew, including me, to the Mulwhur Trading Company.”

  I had no real reply to what he’d just said. I knew what the definition of a mercenary was, but I never thought something like that existed in the Union.

  It appeared he read my facial expression as he snorted and lost much of his toothy grin. “I know you Union Fleet types look down on us and consider us criminals, but there are many shades between the white and black.” He spat into the straw before him. “Now if I could just once borrow a real Marine Heavy Destroyer Suit and maybe a few Cerberus robots. I would love to drop in on Harlequin and make his clowns weep.”

  I followed his example and spat into the straw. “I am here more or less because I used a sabotaged Cerberus.”

  The Kermac tried it but didn’t really manage to spit on the ground. “You humans are disgusting!”

  I grinned. “No one asked you to try that.”

  He tried again with not much more success, and then said, “I think I saw a tri-visual on these Cerberus robots once. The High Wizard of Public Education, of course, prohibits such tri-visuals.”

  I had to slow down my efforts; I didn’t want the traitor to see that it would take little effort now to yank the chain off the wall. “So how come a Kermac can be found here among slaves? I thought you guys love enslaving others and promote the whole business.”

  He actually sighed and said, “We don’t call it enslaving but giving lesser species the opportunity to reach their potential by having the great fortune to be guided by Kermac wisdom and tutelage.” He looked straight at me. “The Grand Wizards who rule the Kermac society still believe that, and you have to be very careful with any critical ideas. The Thought Police take subversive thinking very serious. That and the fact that we Kermac love to denounce others to look good ourselves.”

  He reached for the blinking device. “We are a race of telepaths and psi talents without the ingenious psi laws the Union has. That’s why we wear false beards with all kinds of anti-psi technology just to provide ourselves with a little privacy.” He then touched the scarred wound on his chin. “This is where my artificial beard was attached. It concealed a mental shield; they ripped it off before I ended up here.“

  He looked straight at me and continued, “We Kermac envy your Union, for one thing, more than anything else, your psi laws. Simple laws that protect one’s thoughts and guarantee privacy; that sounds like paradise to us.”

  He paused, looked at the straw, then turned to look at us. “I was not completely truthful before, because I am the Grand Wizard of Information, or to be more correct, I was. I challenged the Grand Wizard and instead of murdering me, I was abducted in my sleep. My psi shield and other implants were forcefully removed and dumped. How I exactly ended up with the slave traders, I can’t tell, because I found myself aboard that cursed ship.”

  He actually tried to move away from me. “You have places to go; somehow I know you won’t be a slave forever. I do not. If I reveal myself to the Kermac agents, they won’t go against the Grand Wizard and have to make sure I never return to Kermac Prime. To this add the general dislike common Kermac feel toward us Wizards, and I will be lucky if I end up in a mine or smelter farm and not on a Togar barbecue spit.”

  I couldn’t believe my own feelings as I actually felt sorry for a Kermac, a Wizard no less, but I said, “You could try to reach Union Space, you know.”

  He laughed dryly. “Getting interrogated and then dissected in a secret Union lab, what would be the difference to being eaten by a Togar family?”

  Instead of simply shutting up, aiding, and abetting a declared enemy, I said, “I think you believe your own propaganda then. We do not do things like that. You ask for political asylum at any customs office, and you will get it. Once that is done, you become a citizen. Doesn’t matter in the Union if you’re one individual or a whole civilization. We even took in the Dai. I know from the news there are a few Nul living as Union Citizens and no one dissected them.”

  He said, “You make it sound so easy.”

  As I sat there, I realized I also believed my own propaganda. The Union did have secret lab facilities, and I had transferred two Y’All warriors to one of them.

  The entire facility was nothing but a research center conducting experiments on sentient species. True, the samples I had seen were of the worst enemies but still… maybe the mercenary was right. Not everything was black or white, and I caught myself thinking still in absolutes. Of course, as a soldier, I understood that it was necessary to find out everything there was to know about an enemy and conducting research on Y’All warriors could lead to new tactics and new weapons. By the strict sense of our laws and by the application of the fundamental core values the representatives at the assembly recited loudly every year at Union week, we were as guilty as the Kermac. It did not ma
tter if you did it only a little bit in secrecy or on a large scale and in the open.

  Something happened at the steel bars, and that pulled me out of my brooding thoughts. Two Oghar, and a brown-cloaked humanoid figure had approached. Under the hood, I saw an ugly somewhat humanoid but certainly not a human face, and he said to the Oghar, “Take them out to clean the Moog’s cut, but leave the ones chained to the walls; they are too dangerous to give tools.”

  The guards opened the portcullis by operating a lever and herded the other slaves outsides. The coward came too close, and I used a leg sweep to make him fall, followed up with a barefoot heel kick to his nose, then rolled to the side to evade a shocker prod.

  My hand was free, so I grabbed it behind the exposed electrodes and gave it a hefty tug. The big Oghar grunted, yelled and stumbled forward, and I placed a kick against his jaw. Nothing that would seriously harm the Oghar; my seeming madness had a reason. In the tussle and due to the restricting chain, I came close to the other Oghar and he took me in a bear hug, which I did not even attempt to escape. I had accomplished what I wanted.

  The guard that caught me laughed rough at his comrade, “I pay money to see this one fight in the arena.”

  The other rubbed his lantern jaw with the upward-pointing brass-topped tusks and grunted, “He’s a wild one indeed.” He hit me a few times with the whip and shackled my hands as well then they left, closed the steel bars and tended to the other slaves, using their shocker prods liberally. Then they got shovels and buckets and were marched off to so some kind of labor.

  As soon as they were gone, I strained my muscles, and with a grinding sound, the last bolts gave. I stumbled forward, almost colliding with the other wall, but I was free.

  Tirkov shook his head. “You are crazy. They could have whipped and beaten you to death. Why risk all those bleeding whip cuts?”

  I grinned and dropped the wrist cuffs to the floor, holding a metal key before his eyes. “Because I saw this on his belt.”

  Silently, I thanked the Sojonites for the specialized training, I had received so recently. It had included a few lessons on how to pick pockets.