Center Worlds - Spark

by Tim Morrison

  Chapter 6.3

  Pirate Vessel Alkadia -13 BA

  “Lyo, get into the pod, stay there, do not come out, no matter what you hear!” He heard Sergeant Ayo order as he drifted about the small cabin, shutting down the engines as the larger, dark plated ship drew aside their cargo runner.

  He stayed in the pod, listening as the mooring clamps grabbed their ship, feeling the vibrations underdeck as they were drawn into the cavernous bay of the other ship.

  The raised voice of the sergeant, abruptly cut off, then the corporal's screams were the next sounds he heard. Booted feet running over the deck as the pirates ravaged the cargo ship, then the glare of light as one of them opened the life pod and pulled him out “Look what we found, lads – a stowaway.”

  Lyo drew himself up to his full height; thin, scrawny, but still over 2 mets high, he looked the pirate square in the eye. “Get off my ship, and release us.”

  A searing pain in his gut as the pirate struck him with the butt of his energy rifle caused Lyo to double over, then he was being dragged through the hold and off the ship, where he saw something he would never forget.

  The sergeant's corpse, lying crumpled beside the docking port, blood flowing from a savage wound that had gutted him, and the struggling body of the corporal, covered by a pirate's as the beast heaved himself into her, brutally raping her. Two other pirates stood by, breeches already undone as they waited, while one was standing nearly, doing up his breeches as he had already finished.

  “Get off of her, you bastards!” Lyo cried, then yelled as he was hauled off his feet by a rough hand that grasped his hair and lifted him clean off the deck. He was dangling eye to eye with a huge pirate he would grow to know as Captain Eislan.

  “What's this then? A whelp from the Confederacy?” Eislan said, shaking Tyo like a rag doll and nearly causing him to black out. Out of the corner of his eye he saw a pirate get up from the corporal, only for another to take his place and begin thrusting roughly.

  “Don't like what you're seeing, boy?” Eislan said, noting Lyo's pained expression at seeing a woman abused so brutally. “You needn't worry about her, she won't live long. You, on the other hand, get a choice, being that I have need of some new blood in my crew.”

  Lyo's eyes widened. “I'll kill you, I'll kill all of you, let us go!” He struggled, then swung, and connected with Eislan, causing the much larger man to roar and drop him. Lyo fell to the deck, only to be hauled to his feet and felt the cold steel of a gun barrel pressed under his chin.

  “You want I should off him, Captain?” Came the word from the pirate who held Lyo in an unbreakable grip.

  Eislan glared at Lyo, then began to laugh, an evil sickening laugh that ended as he drew a gun and fired. A single shot that pierced Corporal Tya's head, killing her instantly, even as the pirate raping her hurriedly rolled off the sudden corpse and back to his own feet.

  “You got some chops, boy. I'll give you that. You can choose now – either you go with your crew, out the airlock, without a suit, or you join me, pledge on your Clan honor to serve me, and I'll let you live, and possibly even allow you to leave at some time in the future.” Eislan looked at Lyo and then stood back, waiting.

  Lyo looked around at the bodies of the other two crew who he had known for only a few weeks, the wreck of the cargo runner that was to resupply the battlecruiser, and the helplessness of the situation, then looked back at Captain Eislan.

  “I disagree with everything you stand for, pirate. You leave me no choice at all. May the gods forgive me. I, Lyo Helvaleso Camelin, pledge my allegiance to you, Captain Eislan. I will obey your orders and not try to escape.”

  Eislan grunted and nodded. “Then it's done. We also have honor, and you are now a part of this ship's crew. Your name, however, is going to have to change. Nothing of the Confederacy remains on this ship. I dub you Willem Hyens. You remember that, boy. You are no longer Confederacy, you are mine.”

  Lyo knew what honor meant. He understood duty, and knew that for someone who held the Clan to be important, duty was much higher than life itself.

  He had just sworn fealty to an Idolan Pirate to ensure he would continue to live. So that he could return to his Gya, and to the Confederacy, sometime later.

  Trust was different than swearing an oath, and he fully expected what happened next.

  He was dragged into the guts of the pirate ship and made to strip totally, then his clothing was thoroughly searched before he was allowed to get dressed again.

  He was given a rough medical examination to make sure he was healthy enough to not be a threat to the ship, and was then marched to a meeting with the enormous captain in his quarters.

  He was shoved through the lock without ceremony, and came face to face with the man he would come to hate with a passion, but also to grudgingly respect also.

  Captain Piotr Eislan sat on his couch and looked at the lanky Hablis that he had just captured from the Cargo ship. With an oath being sworn he had guaranteed two things. He would not kill the lad, and the lad would work for him.

  Lyo looked at the man. He was not so big now, a bit taller than Lyo, a lot wider, lots of muscle, some fat. Not the best specimen. But he also saw the augmentation points. The man would fit into a powered suit, and that was what he had been in when he had first met him.

  “Hello, Willem, is it?” The Captain said as he chewed on a stick of ration taken from the cargo ship.

  “Aye, Captain.” Lyo nodded.

  “You were a Corporal, I understand from the logs. What were you training for?”

 

  “My end goal is navigation, Captain.” Came the reply.

  “Navigation, good. I can do with a decent navigator. This crew knows it's ass end from the bow, but they can't pilot this tub worth a hot-damn. I have to do the blasted navigation half the time.” The Captain snarled.

  He leaned forward and stared at Lyo with steely green eyes. “Your oath means that any duty I put you do, you will not endanger me, or kill yourself. So as long as I keep you out of a pressure suit, this ship is your cage. You won't break your cage, will you, Willem?”

  “Captain, I never ran solo flight navigation.” Lyo stammered.

  The Captain laughed.

  “Boy, do you know what a range finder is?” Lyo nodded.

  “You also know how to work a radar suite?” Lyo nodded again.

  “Do you understand the basics of reaction drives in a vacuum?” Came a third question.

  “Of course, Captain.”

  Eislan laughed again. “Then you know more than eighteen of the twenty crew on this tub. I also, boy, would trust you over any of the others as I know how strong that oath is. I will keep you alive, I will keep you healthy. I will not guarantee to keep you undamaged. This is not an easy life, Willem. But it's a fair one. You work, you live. I will not prevent you from enjoying the rewards of our labours. I also will not force you to do something that is below your Honor. I have plenty of crew for those tasks as they have no honor to lose.”

  Lyo nodded again as he began to understand. The Captain had trapped himself as much as he had secured Lyo. Honour worked both ways, and this Idolan was as rigid with it as Lyo had been raised.

  “For now, you'll sleep in the engine gantries. That's where the other deckhands bunk. Prove that you deserve better and you'll get it, Willem. We're in flight back to the United Suns now, about this time your Carrier will have discovered the remains of the ship you came in, so I want to be well clear before they begin scanning neospace.”

  “It wasn't a Carrier, Captain.” Lyo said.

  Eislan narrowed his eyes. “Not many ships carry cargo haulers the like of what you were on, even less fully crew them. Which ship did you hail from?”

  “A TGX battlecruiser, Captain. Number 2, commanded by Ryo Camelin.” Lyo replied.

  Captain Eislan leaned back. “Impressive. I don't want to go up against that vessel, even in my worst nightmares. Regardless, that will be the last time you see that s
hip for a long time, Mr. Hyens. We'll be dropping out of Neospace in ten hours, then you'll have work to do cleaning the engine cores so we can make another jump. This ship uses Carbonized Drive Cores to maintain the Neospace field. They need to be polished after each jump to maintain the field.”

  “...Polish the cores.” Lyo thought as he scrubbed at the column of graphite that ran for ten mets along the inner hull. The graphite core had fine ripples running along it's length and they had to be smoothed to a mirror finish before the ship could make another jump. Each of the six deckhands, Lyo included, was at work on one of the three cores. Scrubbing them with fine wire mesh to polish down the ripples. There were laser guides shining on the cores so they could easily see where they needed to work, but it was backbreaking work. With the carbon dust clogging their noses and gritty in the back of their mouths.

  The dust was fine enough that mechanicals would not work as the fine carbon would clog up their servos, and graphite dust was a lubricant as well as an irritant. Not good for most people. Hablis can heal from this, robots would break down.

  By the third cycle of polishing the cores, Lyo had an idea. He worked with another of the deckhands to wrap the wire mesh in a ring of fabric so they could wrap it around the entire core, then used a small winch to begin spinning it as they drew it around the core. They managed to polish the one core in less than half the time using this method. The fabric kept the winch from getting dust into it, and the core was smoother than simple hand-scrubbing.

  The fifth cycle had all teams using the improvised tool and the cores were ready in only a third of the time. The Captain was impressed, as nobody in the Helva-forsaken crew had the stones to think outside their own blocky heads, except the new cabin boy. Before any bad feeling could occur, the Captain gave the crew leave on Idolis for a full two days, because of the dramatic time improvement with the ship's flight speed.

  Lyo became everybody's new best friend.

  The Captain gave him leave as well, but he was escorted by the old Navigator. A gruff pirate by the name of Hands. Because he only had one. Hands took Lyo to one of the many brothels that surrounded the port, and although Lyo had his choice of girls, he declined, and sat at the bar, waiting for Hands to finish his time.