Yesterday's Spacemage

by Timothy Ellis

  "Ah. That."

  "You have any food handy?"

  I waved her towards the kitchen. She came back with one of the gold class meals, a bottle of white wine, and a single glass. A tap on one end of the console turned it off, and she laid her meal down on top. I watched her eat as if she hadn't eaten ever before.

  I hadn't yet figured out how to bring a cooked meal to me. It made me get up off the chair and move, making me realize how long I’d been sitting there. I came back with a snack, and a beer.

  "Are you old enough for that?"

  "The beer?"

  "Yes."

  "Where I was when taken, I'd just turned legal. I've no idea if I am here or not. And don’t care."

  "Don’t get drunk. Jen will toss you out an airlock."

  I raised the bottle, and saluted her. She went back to eating.

  After we were both finished, we sat there in silence, watching the HUD show us creeping up behind her selected target.

  At ten kilometers, I closed my eyes, drew on my power source, and cast my sight at the ship. I could feel it was a bit too far, but I was able to see inside the hull.

  "Can you show me what you’re seeing?"

  I jerked back abruptly, and looked at her.

  "Sorry. Did that hurt?"

  "No. Just wasn’t expecting it."

  "Any chance I can see what you do?"

  I had no idea.

  "Tell me how you'd do it."

  She thought about it.

  "You can copy things I hear?"

  "Yes."

  "So copy what you see there, to a screen here."

  I blinked at her rapidly. It could work.

  "Which screen?"

  She quickly cleared one of the side screens, leaving it on, but displaying nothing.

  I concentrated. My sight cleared inside the ship, and I added the intent to copy the visual to the screen.

  "Nice," she said softly. "Find the main cargo hold. Down two levels, and it's most of that deck."

  I went down two levels. The first level down went through a bedroom, and I paused for a moment, looking at a couple having sex. There was a gasp beside me, and I moved down without further comment. The next deck down was indeed the main cargo hold, and appeared to have hundreds of containers stacked three high.

  I went directly to the back, and started in on the top level labels. Most of it made little sense to me.

  "Wow. It's like a hole bored though the container in front of it, allowing us to read something which otherwise couldn’t be. Go back."

  I nearly lost the connection, but did as she said.

  "Nice. That one please."

  I concentrated harder, felt more power flowing through me, and moved the container into my little cargo bay.

  She popped up a view of the bay, and there it was, perfectly positioned.

  "Not bad for a first try."

  I chuckled.

  "I was actually practicing earlier, moving a mockup between the main cargo bay and that one."

  "Ah. Next label."

  She had me take another eleven containers. By the time I was done, I was sweating, but my head wasn’t in any pain. I brought myself back, and found her looking at me intently.

  "Can you do more than one at a time?"

  "No idea. Why?"

  "Because I want to stick it to them."

  "You want more?"

  "I want every cargo bay on this ship full of their cargo."

  "Jenna said she wouldn’t have anything to do with piracy."

  "Yes, I heard that speech a while back. Maybe this is a once of, but let's do it while we can. I'll take the heat for it. Those bastards owe me. And since I can now take what they owe, I want it. I want it bad. Let's see the next lot of labels."

  After, she hit a button.

  "Jen, slow us down a bit will you? I want to stay less than ten kilometers from the nearest ship for a bit."

  "What the hell are you two up to?"

  "Tell you later."

  "Will I like it?"

  "Probably not."

  There was a groan, and the com shut off. The level of trust between these two was showing.

  We looked at every container and pallet on the ship, Jessica making a map indicating if she wanted each one or not. She showed me a block of twelve containers two high, and suggested one of the other small cargo bays to move them to. I concentrated, drew power, and moved all twelve as if they were one. Which they basically were, given they were all touching.

  An hour later and I was drenched in sweat, and very close to exhaustion. Every nook and cranny on this combined ship was stuffed full, and yet, we'd taken less than ten percent of the other ship's load.

  "Probably just as well that was all we could take."

  I looked at her expectantly.

  "The power plant you're using is red lining. If you take any more from it, it'll probably melt down."

  The smile was firmly on her face this time.

  She told Jenna to push us back up to cruising speed, as if we'd been having problems. She looked back at me.

  "One last thing before you go get some rest."

  I waited.

  "If you ever use that sight thing to look in on Jen, and she finds out, she'll kill you."

  Twenty Six

  "What the bloody hell is that?"

  Jenna was pointing at a line on the ship's main account.

  "Rent."

  "Rent?"

  "Rent."

  She looked at me, waiting.

  "Cargo hold rent."

  She sighed, removed the display, and left.

  I sighed in relief when she was gone. She hadn't liked the fact we'd ripped off a ship full of cargo, especially without her knowing. She'd ripped us both new ones.

  We were so far behind the ship Leanne was thought to be on, it was long gone from the next system Jenna had expected to find it in. We'd taken the opportunity to dock, and offload our cargo, which sold rapidly, and at very good prices. I'd downloaded a new set of books, found a local dessert I really loved and bought it in bulk, and otherwise stayed out of Jenna's way, until Jessica messaged me to say it was safe for me to return.

  Before we undocked, a huge payment hit my account, and I worked out it was a full fifty percent of the cargo sales. I checked, and Jessica had the other half.

  I'd calculated ten percent of my share, and transferred it to the ship account, before transferring most of the balance to my legit card.

  Hence rent. I understood why she wanted nothing to do with it, but I also understood the ship needed funds to operate with. She now knew I understood both. I learned later, Jessica had followed my lead.

  Jessica had been working on the ship rebalance, as she called it, from well before I woke up after the cargo move. I'd woken to find my power source was gone, my head aching, and found her doing some serious maintenance on it. The power source, not my head. She assured me it would be working much better than before, well before I needed it again. A doctor had once said the same thing about my head, but I think I actually believed Jessica. The tablet helped my head, but I felt in withdrawal from the power. Perhaps I was.

  The days had passed, and I always found her working happily doing something in one of the engine rooms. A few times she'd had me make replacement parts. And once she had me look inside a sealed box, so she could see if it really was broken or not. It turned out to be something easily fixable by me, but not by anyone else. And seeing we didn’t have a spare for it, it turned out I was useful.

  A day out of where we offloaded the cargo, she dropped a heavy spanner unexpectedly, and her swearing made me jump.

  "Sorry."

  "No problem. I've heard worse."

  "You know what the worst thing about being a slave is?"

  "No, what?"

  "Everything."

  I nodded sagely, and waited for her to go on.

  "Not enough food. No exercise. Repeated torture. Constant humiliation."

  "I get the picture."r />
  "That’s not my point. The worst thing is they all collude to make you weak. I mean physically weak. I've used that spanner hundreds of times, and never dropped it before. I'm as weak as a bloody kitten."

  "How can I help?"

  "That’s what I like about you. The average male would be suggesting I use a gym regularly, and offering to buy me the membership. Not you. You ask what I need. It's very female."

  "No need to get insulting!"

  We both laughed. Now the ice was well and truly broken, I found she laughed often. I asked the obvious question.

  "Why isn’t there a gym on the ship?"

  "Never needed one. The normal routine was three or four days in space, three or four days on a station. I run the cargo bay loop on board, and have gym memberships on stations. It worked nicely to keep me in shape."

  "And now?"

  "I can't leave the ship. As an escaped slave, especially given how prominent the shithead who bought me is, going out on a station would be stupidity of a high order, since they undoubtedly have a bounty out on me."

  "What about Jenna?"

  "The slaver probably has a bounty out on her too, but their reach isn’t as great as the complete fuckwit who'll be wanting me back. And if you hadn't noticed, when she does leave the ship, she is armed."

  I hadn't noticed.

  "So. Back to how can I help?"

  "I guess I need a gym on the ship somewhere."

  "Show me what you need, and I'll try and make it for you."

  "Thanks. I will when I get this mess fixed."

  "Thank me when it all works. If it doesn’t, we'll go to plan B."

  "Plan B?"

  "We steal it!" we both said together, and laughed.

  I left her to it.

  Sometime later, I was doing my ritual star gazing, when the HUD beeped at me. I saw a set of schematics, and a ship plan with a room ringed. I checked the room to see what was in it, and how big it really was, and found it empty.

  An hour later, the room was full. Most of the time had been spent doing a lot of searches to see how each …thing… actually worked, before I could try to make one. When I say searches, I mean following the links Jessica had listed for each thing she wanted. I’d never have figured out how to find them on my own.

  My power source was back up by now, and feeling even more powerful than before, I methodically worked through the list. Not so much as a single drop of sweat as a result, and not even a throb in the temple.

  I sent word to try things out, and settled down again with a new book. Just as the hero was about to go out the airlock in only his boxers, Jessica came running in, pulled me out of my chair, raised my arm not holding my tablet, and high fived me vigorously. She hugged me next, dropped me back into my chair, and was gone.

  I sat there in shock for several minutes, rose, and came back from the kitchen with a beer.

  I really needed a drink.

  Twenty Seven

  Two systems later, after having extracted ship movement data each time, and done some real freight haulage to each, we down jumped into the system we expected to find our next target in.

  "Shut down your engines, and prepare to be boarded."

  The voice was male, with substantial command in it. The HUD feed I was getting from the main bridge highlighted a ship ahead of us. It was much the same shape as the pirate ships we'd encountered before, but a lot bigger.

  Information on the ship popped up, and I could see it was both a privateer, and a bounty hunter.

  "Over my dead body," responded Jenna.

  "I can arrange that," said the voice. "The bounty is for dead or alive, with the same payment for either."

  There was a pause.

  "So I see is the bounty on you."

  "Stop your engines, or we do this the easy way."

  "No, we do this the hard way."

  The hard edge in Jenna's voice should have made him pause. But the arrogance in his, meant he probably wasn’t even listening.

  Missiles launched, and I started turning them around, although several simply exploded. I was on the last one, when Jessica burst in.

  "What the hell are you doing?"

  The last missile hit our shields, as I lost concentration.

  "Huh?"

  "Stop mucking around. Just project a shield in front of us, and then punch it at them after each launch."

  "Takes more energy to do."

  "You have more. I linked every power generator on this ship, and the unused ones on the other two, all together into the one you were drawing from."

  Which explained the extra.

  "If the shield hits the ship, the hull won't survive it."

  "Do we care?"

  "How much bounty is there on these bozos?"

  "Not as much as on us. But it's healthy."

  "And the ship is worth?"

  Her eyes shone.

  "What's your play?"

  The remainder of the first set of missiles had hit the shields of the other ship, but they'd held.

  The next set of missiles appeared, making me wonder if they'd even wondered for a second what happened to the original ones, and this time I formed a wall of energy in front of them, and then hammered it forward at them. They all exploded. I let the wall dissolve.

  I looked Jessica in the eyes, and grinned at her. On the seat in front of her, a double holster belt appeared, with a gun on each side. A second one appeared next to it. She looked down at the guns, looked up at me, and reached for the first one.

  "It could be risky."

  "Risk is my middle name."

  I buckled on the other belt. Jessica pulled all four guns out, checked they were charged, and ready to fire.

  "Are we killing, or stunning?"

  "STUNNING!" came through the coms.

  She re-pulled each gun, and changed the setting.

  "You know how to use these?"

  "Point and click."

  "Not quite, but close enough. Do you need them?"

  "If we want them alive, yes. Dead, no. Dead is easier."

  "Let's do it."

  I waited until the next salvo was launched, and wiped them away, hardly even thinking about it. Now we could go, giving Jenna the biggest window before the next lot.

  "Jen?"

  "Yes Jess?"

  "Stick around. We're going to board them."

  "So I lose my missile protection?"

  "We'll try and be quicker than that, but perhaps."

  "Great. Have fun."

  The last sounded like it came through clenched teeth.

  I cast my sight across to the other ship, which was now chasing us. Six on the bridge. Two in engineering. Fourteen in two shuttles, preparing to launch.

  I looked at the shuttles, found they had a single airlock, and turned the outer door into hull on each. Just to be sure, I merged the landing legs with the deck.

  "Shuttles neutralized," I said. "Engineering or bridge first?"

  "Shut down the power first."

  I stood behind her so my right arm was clear of her side, pulled a gun out with my right hand, waited for her to pull both, and put my left hand on her shoulder. An instant later a shield formed around us.

  "Jumping," I said.

  I chose a spot in the engineering section behind the two people, and jumped us there.

  Jessica's guns spat four times, and both went down. I looked at her.

  "I'm an engineer, not a bloody marine." She started shutting things off. "Go take the bridge."

  I chose a spot, and jumped. Several people were shouting at the others.

  The moment I appeared, I started shooting. The pilot went down first, followed by the captain. Someone was fast to react, and she put two shots into my shield before she went down, with a surprised look on her face. The other three managed five hits on my shield between them, and went down one by one.

  I thought for a moment about what to do with them, grinned, and one by one, dumped three of them into empty space on each sh
uttle.

  Jessica appeared behind me, puffing like she'd run the whole way. She probably had. She looked around at the empty bridge, nodded to me, and sat in the captain's chair. She studied it, and pressed a button.

  "Ship taken Jen."

  "Casualties?"

  "None. I think."

  "You think?"

  "Thorn did most of the work. There are two sleepy heads in engineering, but no-one else on the bridge."

  "Thorn?"

  "I put them in their shuttles. I forgot about the other two though." I concentrated for a moment. "Okay, all in the shuttles. They can't get out. The shuttles can't lift."

  "Better check the shuttles for weapons."

  I looked around both shuttles, found a small armoury full of them in both, and moved everything back to the room Jessica wanted to use as one. Just to be sure, I checked each person one by one, and removed an assortment of small guns hidden on them.

  "Done."

  "Jess, do you remember how to slave ship systems?"

  "Eggs."

  "Fine. Do it, and both of you come back."

  The command in her voice said don’t dally. But now the shooting had stopped, and given how far away we were from the station, there seemed no reason to hurry.

  I watched Jessica set up the ship slaving. None of it made any sense, but there did appear to be some level of order to it.

  "Jessica?"

  She looked up at me.

  "We should discuss what you’re doing sometime. It might be useful if I can do that remotely one day."

  Her eyes went wide for a moment.

  "Indeed!"

  She paused, looking like she was thinking about something.

  "Call me Jess."

  Twenty Eight

  Jess and I walked the whole ship, taking our time, looking for anything worth looting. Knowing Jenna would disapprove, we left the private cabins and the twenty person barracks alone. Everything of any value in the cargo holds was transferred over. I knew Jess was with me on this, as more than half of the suggestions came from her.

  Jenna informed us the salvage claim had been registered with the bounty hunter guild, along with notification of bringing in the crew. Since the bounty was just for the crew, claiming the ship was a separate process.

  Regardless of the success of the claim or not, I intended to get some benefit through the cargo, which we could always claim had never been there. We were leaving enough behind to show they had some, as not having any would have looked suspicious.