Bad Luck Charlie

by Scott Baron

  A burly man nearly twice his size charged at him, a bloody club in hand. As he moved, however, Charlie realized he could take him.

  He’s relying on brute strength, he thought as he used the man’s momentum against him, disarming him and flinging him into the nearby wall, while avoiding injury himself. The man was taken totally off guard, and the wall he hit so very hard did the rest of the work for Charlie, dropping him to the ground in an unconscious heap.

  Two down.

  And so it went, though for far too long. Charlie would punch, kick, and even choke opponents into unconsciousness, but despite taking a few hits and suffering a cut or three, he did not fatally injure anyone.

  They were mopping up, the prisoners from their own ship already carrying out the plundered cargo, when the young man with the dangerously long knife leapt out of nowhere, swinging wildly at Charlie. Apparently, he’d recovered prior to being taken by the other pirates, and now Charlie had to deal with him once more.

  The others all had clear angles of attack, but held off. This was his initiation, of sorts. A fight to the death in front of his new brothers. He only hoped neither of them would have to meet that fate.

  A glancing blow cut his arm, but it was shallow, and Charlie barely noticed it in the heat of battle as he and his opponent circled one another.

  “Get him, Charlie!” someone shouted.

  “Kill him!”

  “You can do it!”

  Cheers from his fellow pirates, urging him to violence. But that simply wasn’t his way. Exhausted from so much combat, Charlie realized his younger opponent would likely outlast him if he kept dancing around rather than actually fighting. A decision had to be made, and soon.

  The young man lunged, but rather than jumping back as the attacker expected, Charlie leapt forward, taking a small cut as he passed the blade but effectively cutting off the man’s angles of attack. With a sharp crack, he head-butted his opponent, breaking his nose in a bloody spray. The concussive effect made the man’s eyes water and balance waver.

  Charlie took that opportunity to grab his knife arm and spin him into a modified wrist lock, then drove him down to the ground, his arm locked out above him. His fellow pirates looked on with amusement as he casually removed the knife from the pinned man’s hand.

  “Kill him, Charlie!” one urged.

  Charlie tossed the knife aside and hauled the vanquished youth to his feet. “No. There’s been plenty of that today.”

  “But he cut you.”

  “We just boarded his ship. Can you blame him?” he replied. “Put him with the other prisoners and let’s get on with it,” he said, shoving the young man to his waiting colleagues.

  Ten minutes later Captain Saramin was walking the line of captured men, as Charlie had seen him do before. Terranz, the milky-eyed man, was with him, reading each of the new prisoners, seeing if they might possess any power of their own.

  The captain’s hands were still a bit bloody from the fighting, Charlie noticed. Unlike so many ‘leaders,’ this one believed leadership was setting an example. Leading his men in battle. Two words reinforced his role as their commander. “Follow me.” And his men would, with no questions or hesitation.

  Captain Saramin stopped at the young man Charlie had spared, Terranz whispering in his ear. He nodded slightly, then moved on to the next man. At that moment, the youth pulled a small blade the others had missed and lunged at the captain.

  Saramin easily stepped aside, catching his wrist and ripping the blade from his grasp before plunging it into his chest. The youth was dead before he hit the deck, a puddle of blood leaking from his pulseless body.

  The captain looked across the collected pirates, pausing especially long on Charlie.

  “This is why mercy is weakness. This is why we do not spare our enemies. Those who would surrender, we gladly accept into our service. Those who would rather die than be enslaved will have that desire fulfilled.”

  He looked at Charlie once more, his point clear. “Bring them,” he said, then walked back to the Rixana.

  “You heard the captain. Prisoners to the cells. The rest of you lot, we’ve got a ship to pillage!”

  A cheerful cry erupted among the pirates as they set out to find whatever remained of value to be taken. Charlie, however, was tasked with escorting the prisoners, as was the newest members’ traditional role.

  He was missing out on plunder, but didn’t really care. He was just glad to have survived one more day.

  And that was how he would continue to survive. Living like some bastardized space pirate motivational poster cliché. Taking it day by day.

  Chapter Forty-Five

  Charlie was a pirate.

  A space pirate.

  A space pirate on a ship of aliens.

  Every time he paused to assess his situation, the ridiculousness of what his life had become evoked a painfully amused laugh.

  ‘Look at me now, Ma,’ was one thought he had on repeat, though with all of the amazing things he was doing as a full-fledged space pirate, the sarcasm in the statement was only partial.

  It had been many days, or maybe even a few weeks. He wasn’t sure anymore. Once the ship got into fighting trim, they happened upon a largely unprotected trading route full of tempting prizes, the daily tasks of invading, pillaging, and surviving took up most of his time. They’d been relatively fortunate in their hauls, the ships targeted being pushovers, mostly.

  Mostly.

  A few, however, put up one hell of a fight, and there had been a several-day gap in action as Captain Saramin was forced to jump to the particularly tough world of Etren to recrew with veteran fighters.

  He would slowly fill his ranks with prisoners as they became seasoned, but for the immediate jobs at hand, he needed experienced men and simply couldn’t wait. There was a tiny bit of friction with the other crew at first––many had a sense of seniority due to the way they had come up in the ranks––but after seeing the new additions in combat, they quickly gelled into a cohesive team.

  The new guys, it seemed, were certifiable badasses.

  It was a crash course in pirating and space combat for Charlie, and he studied the fighting techniques employed by the different men with great interest––when not frantically trying to save his own life, that is. Through all of the raids, he stuck true to his personal ethics, never killing anyone, though he did suffer a few minor injuries for his trouble.

  Fortunately, the healing powers of the waters he and Rika had discovered seemed to have lost none of their potency, and his wounds healed with astounding speed. This durability was one trait he did his best to hide, not knowing what the captain might have him do if he were aware he had a crewman with such a gift.

  Now, this is not saying he did not harm anyone. Far from it. In the heat of battle, fighting for your life, you don’t really have the choice of simply not laying a finger on anyone. Fortunately for Charlie, it seemed Earth’s martial arts styles were unfamiliar to pretty much everyone they encountered. A few had interesting techniques of their own, but most seemed focused around the power devices they were suddenly unable to wield in close-quarter combat.

  Charlie left more than a few men with concussions that would leave their heads aching the next day, but at least they would live. Likewise, survival was the result for those he choked out, rendering them unconscious with a well-placed squeeze of the arms.

  Except for the few alien species who apparently had diverse enough physiology for his choke-out techniques to not work on them. Hence the concussion option.

  One aspect his scientific mind took in with great interest was the layout and function of all the different manner of ships they descended upon. Breaching their hulls was a fairly straightforward process, but once inside, the differing designs and built-in functions of each craft were a wealth of novelty for the human engineer.

  And all of the systems were voice-controlled. No matter whose craft they invaded, it seemed that in every single system they traveled to
, all tech was voice-activated. And all ran on the same odd language, no less.

  Charlie continued to add to his mnemonic song, making a point to keep his ears open for any new command words he had not already committed to memory. Unlike his previous experience with the Tslavar crew, the pirates seemed far looser in their use of the words, and though he lacked their voice-activated devices, Charlie nevertheless began amassing a decent amount of command words for all manner of things.

  “Marban, I noticed something about Captain Saramin,” he mentioned as the two ate dinner one evening.

  “Oh?” his friend replied.

  Friend. How unlikely that the very man who had captured him, then hauled him off to a life of labor and piracy, would become his friend. But oddly enough, the men had developed a mutual respect the more they talked. And the older pirate was clever. Very clever. Marban would never discuss his past life from before he joined Captain Saramin’s crew, but given his articulate nature and intellectual ways––especially compared to his comrades––Charlie was certain there was quite a story there.

  One day, perhaps his friend would tell it to him.

  “Yeah,” he continued. “These past weeks, I’ve really watched him, both on the Rixana, as well as when we board other ships.”

  “Good. You can learn a lot by simply observing,” his scarred friend noted. “The captain is one hell of a leader. Always in front with his men, never shying from a fight. That is why he has the loyalty of his men. He may be our captain, but he’s also truly one of us.”

  “Yeah, I’ve seen him fight. It’s almost like he enjoys the risks.”

  “Well, you didn’t hear it from me, but there’s talk that the captain was once a gladiator in his early days.”

  “A gladiator? Are you serious? Like fighting in arenas? People actually still do that?”

  “Of course,” Marban said, as if it were the most normal thing in the world. “It’s an immensely popular sport. Anyway, rumor has it the captain was captured in a pirate raid that took the ship he was being transported on. Realizing what was happening, his owners freed him and gave him arms to defend the ship along with the crew. He killed a lot of men, but at the end of the day he simply couldn’t fight off all of the attacking force. He wound up pretty badly injured, and was the only survivor, but apparently the captain of that pirate ship was so impressed with him that he let him live, fixing his hurt and making him part of his crew.”

  “And the rest is history.”

  “Precisely.”

  It explained a lot about the captain, actually. But whatever his combative life had been in the past, he was a learned man now as well.

  “The thing is, it seems Captain Saramin does nearly everything himself. Like, we board a new ship and he is diverting systems, opening sealed compartments, overriding power controls. From what I’d seen up until now, that’s pretty unusual.”

  “It is,” Marban agreed. “Nearly everyone specializes in their field, learning the spells specific to their tasks. Pilots learn all the maneuvering spells, repairmen learn the repair spells––”

  “Chefs learn the chef spells.”

  “Don’t be silly, Charlie. Chefs learn to cook,” Marban said with a funny little grin. “Well, okay, and maybe some kitchen spells too,” he laughed. “The thing is, there are thousands of spells––”

  “Voice commands.”

  “Spells, Charlie. Call them what you like, but they’re spells, controlling unseen power, bending it to do a specific task.”

  That was one area he and his alien friend had a never-ending difference of opinion on. It was clearly more than just a semantic issue. It was almost a religious one, though none seemed to deem this ‘magic’ as an actual deity. Rather, it was a power, an invisible force that was present in all things. To Charlie, it was ludicrous, though he kept that opinion largely to himself.

  “So the captain is a learned man, is what you’re saying.”

  “I’m saying he has prepared himself, as one would expect of a gladiator, to be able to overcome and be victorious in a wide range of situations. Most are so specialized, they wouldn’t know what to do outside of their own narrow spectrum of skills if something went wrong. Why, even some of the most powerful users, from mesters and emmiks, all the way to vislas, are limited once they step outside their chosen skills.”

  “Seems like a dangerous way to live. I mean, what if they lose their pilot or something?”

  “Men like that have resources, Charlie. Vast resources. They’d just get another. In fact, most have a few redundancies on hand. The truly wealthy ones, at least. That’s what slaves are for, after all.”

  The slavery discussion was one they’d had many times. Marban found it quaint that in Charlie’s world slavery had been abolished many centuries ago. The idea that no man could own another was quite novel in his eyes. Here, however, it was not only alive and well, it was an accepted part of society, though, obviously, none wanted to become enslaved.

  The only positive Charlie could see of their system was that at least there seemed to be no restriction on who might find themselves an unwilling servant. Race and species was not the driving factor at all.

  Sure, certain species, such as Drooks or Ootaki, held more value than others, and as such, were often taken if they strayed from their own systems where they were protected by numbers, but otherwise, it seemed anyone could wind up a slave. Even a former gladiator or a space engineer from another galaxy.

  “You know,” Marban said, a curious look in his eye. “The captain is not a fool.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “He knows what you’ve been doing.”

  Shit, how can he know I’m memorizing the control words?

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Charlie said with a straight face.

  “Well, he knows. And one of these days he’s going to call you out on it. Consider that a friendly word of warning,” Marban said, downing the last of his meal. “Anyway, it’s been a long day. I’m going to get some rest. Word is we’ve got a juicy prize waiting for us tomorrow.”

  He rose and cracked his back with a big stretch, then wandered out of the galley, leaving Charlie in his usual spot, pondering what he’d said.

  The captain knows. Somehow, he knows. Charlie looked at the others in the galley. All were either engrossed in their meals, or in conversations with one another.

  Then he saw him.

  Captain Saramin stood at the far end of the room, leaning against the doorway as he surveyed his men. His eyes locked on Charlie’s a moment and he smiled. Then he turned and was gone.

  I am so screwed.

  Chapter Forty-Six

  It was just after lunch when the captain sounded the call to arms.

  “We’ve got a juicy prize, boys, so gear up and get ready. It won’t be an easy one, but the rewards are great,” he said to his assembled men.

  “Number of enemies?” a man asked.

  “Expect at least forty, if not more,” the captain replied.

  “We can handle that.”

  “Yes. But my sources tell me the captain of that ship is one of the older caste. He is highly unlikely to surrender without a bloody fight, and there’s a very good chance he may try to scuttle the ship. We need to put up barriers at every major structural choke point to ensure we maintain atmosphere if he tries to blow the hull on us.”

  Charlie looked at Marban. This was beginning to sound a lot more challenging than their usual smash-and-grab brand of piracy. This was an actual battle, and careful attention to tactical details would come into play, lest they be unceremoniously evacuated into space.

  “Don’t worry, little brother. I’ve got your back,” he said, noting his friend’s worried look.

  Then the rush of preparation began in earnest. They were heading into harm’s way, and more than a few might not come back.

  Time flies when you’re having fun––or facing a number of potentially unpleasant ways to die––and before he had tim
e to get into his own head and overthink the whole thing, they fell upon their target.

  The ship was much larger than any they had taken since Charlie had been aboard the Rixana. Its long, multi-sectioned design seemed rather akin to the way a wasp’s abdomen pinched and separated from its thorax. Only this craft could be far deadlier than a wasp, with many means of defense and a half-dozen sections for the pirates to board.

  The narrow segments were apparently designed to make it easier to segregate sections in the event of a catastrophic decompression. In other more hostile circumstances––like pirates, for example––they would also create multiple choke points. Bottlenecks that hindered any invading force.

  Charlie noticed all of this as they hurtled toward the craft, Captain Saramin’s Drooks applying reverse thrust only moments before impact.

  The Rixana made hard contact, and Captain Saramin immediately unleashed his disabling ‘spell,’ rendering the ship incapable of jumping away.

  “Go, go, go!” he shouted to his men as three narrow force field tubes deployed, the sharp crack of shattering metal ringing out as they made contact with the hulls of three of the six sections, sealing instantly and providing the pirate invaders with a breathable atmosphere as they boarded.

  They wouldn’t need it for long. The pirates may have been rough and uncultured individuals, but when it came to the work of piracy, they were unparalleled, swarming into the ship as fast and efficiently as a crack commando team. Utilizing portable force field devices, they poured through the holes, quickly taking out any resistance and securing the path.

  “Clear! Let’s go, lads!” the first through cried out with glee.

  A few of the crew perhaps enjoyed their job a little too much, Charlie noted. He was, nevertheless, glad they were on his side.

  Section by section, the pirates flooded the disabled craft.

  “This one’s ours,” Marban said, scanning the dwindling resistance as he pulled his short sword free from the chest of the man he’d just impaled. “We need to get moving to the next section before they try anything cute. We’ve already blocked two attempts by their captain to scuttle the damn thing.”