I rolled over in my capsule and turned on the screen built into the wall. The movies came in all flavors, including “entertainment for the single and lonely,” which wasn't a label I ever wanted to give myself, but life had an unfortunate sense of humor. Luckily, the capsules had thick, steel-alloy doors and sound-dampening walls. I could watch whatever I wanted, and I wasn't going to disturb my neighbors.
After scrolling through a list of lackluster options, I went with Bar Whores: Return of One-Eye. Hadn't seen that one before.
I stretched out on my back and tossed off my sheets, ready to get the party started, but I stopped when my thoughts considered odd possibilities. I muted the screen and listened.
“Sawyer?” I whispered, wondering if she could hear me, even there.
For a second, all was quiet. But then I heard her soft chuckle.
“Yes?” she said over the capsule's comms.
I gritted my teeth, half-amused she'd answered and half-stunned that I'd never thought of it before.
“You've been listening in?” I asked, painfully aware of my nudity and prepared activity. “Can you see me, too?”
“The starship has comms and monitoring devices for every millimeter of its insides.”
“How long?”
Her lack of response told me everything I needed to know.
I smiled. “You've been watching me since I boarded the Star Marque.”
“Just about.”
Exhaling, I relaxed back and stared up at the ceiling of my capsule. I wouldn't have taken that kind of behavior from someone I disliked, but Sawyer was a different story. Her creepy omnipresence fueled my imagination, and she was a good flirt when she wanted to be. I liked Sawyer.
“You don't need to watch,” I said. “You could come join me.”
“I'm busy,” Sawyer said with a yawn.
I laughed. “Fuck you.”
“It's the truth.”
“You were about to watch me get it on with my hand. You're not busy.”
She sighed. “Trust me, because I know, you yanking your wank isn't that entertaining. I just like to keep an eye on you while I code.”
“If I had known you're a voyeur, I would've upped the showmanship.”
Sawyer's laugh got me smiling wider.
“You've got no shame,” she said.
“And you're awfully talkative for someone who's busy. I say you should take a break.”
“I don't think you understand the complexities of a starship's operating system, Demarco. The main code keeps all systems working in tandem, and it allows for the ship to communicate with other ships and docking ports within the Vectin Quadrant. The latest mandated update really messed with some of the Star Marque's core security and self-control systems, and—”
“Hey, hey,” I said, holding up a hand, even though I was talking to the ceiling. “I get it. You're busy writing computer code for the ship we live in, and it's important. No need for the details.”
“Endellion expects me to finish before we arrive at our destination. It's not a reasonable request, but it's one I intend to fulfill.”
The insistence in her voice betrayed her loyalty to Endellion. It was important to Sawyer, either because she was afraid of failing or because she wanted recognition, I couldn't tell. And I was impressed she'd dedicated so much of herself to the project. Although I basically never saw her, anytime I did catch a glance, she was working.
Then it hit me—I hadn't seen Endellion in months.
“What is Endellion doing?” I asked.
“She's adjusting one of her cybernetic enhancements to work with our starfighter interface.”
“So, she can be a better pilot?” I asked.
“That's right.”
“Cyborg parts can do that?”
“They can do a great many things, so long as you have the right equipment.”
The knowledge seeped into my thoughts, coloring old memories with confusion. I'd thought cybernetic enhancements only improved a person's strength and agility. Maybe mental speed as well, but creating an interface to deal with computers or ships wasn't something I'd thought possible. Endellion's improvements helped her in every way, not just physical.
“So, you're tweaking the ship's code, and Endellion is improving her skills as a pilot?” I asked.
And I was sitting around in my capsule, stewing in blue balls.
“Is something wrong?” Sawyer asked.
I sat up, grabbed my jumpsuit from the built-in drawer under the screen, and shoved both legs into the pants. If they were going to work every second of every day, then I supposed I knew what I needed to do to keep up.
Once I was somewhat decent, I kicked open the capsule's door and hopped into the walkway.
“Go back to work, Sawyer,” I said. “I've got training to do.”
* * *
Almost there—75 days left until we reached our destination.
That fact energized me as I aimed my laser pistol in the holographic targeting stall. Everyone else had finished their drills an hour ago, but I'd stayed to work on my spotting.
I had 100% accuracy in most situations, but when the computer included targets I shouldn't shoot—like innocents, or teammates not in uniform—I found I was a little trigger-happy. To curb my enthusiasm to kill, I had taken it upon myself to practice selective shooting.
While I plugged away at my targets, someone entered the room and programmed the stall next to mine. Once the simulation ended, and the holograms faded, I realized the newcomer was Noah. He'd set up his stall to join me for a run before stepping into it.
There was a brief moment when we were both standing and waiting for the next simulation to begin. He shouldn't have been here. That wasn't what Lysander wanted. But I didn't say anything.
Right before the simulation started, Noah tapped both our screens and paused the simulation.
“I'm going to continue with the extra training,” he said, staring a hole in the floor.
Again, I opted for silence.
“I told Lysander I could handle it,” he continued. “And I can. So, I will.”
“I take it your brother isn't happy about this,” I said.
Noah shook his head.
The kid didn't look great. Not like he was sick, but like he was hurting. I wasn't that great when it came to dealing with other people's emotional bullshit, and I tended to cut relationships off before anything substantial could develop. Despite that, I could tell this feud of theirs was taking a toll on both of them.
I sighed, removed his hand from my stall's screen, and gave him a sidelong glance. “Just tell him I pressured you back into training.”
Noah cocked an eyebrow.
“Trust me,” I said.
Lysander could be angry with me all he wanted—I didn't give a shit.
“I really can handle the training,” Noah said.
“Sure, kid. I believe you.”
Noah replied with a curt nod.
I got a little nervous because ambition could wreck a man before he was ready to face a challenge, but I figured Noah would be prepared. He already stood taller than he had before, and he had me backing him, after all.
I just hoped I wasn't misjudging him.
* * *
61 days—two months—and we would finally arrive.
When I was training or relaxing, the time didn't get to me, but when I tracked the days, it grated on my patience. I knew the solution. Don't fucking stare at the clock. But my self-control failed me now and again, and I found myself calculating the trek down to the minute.
“Are you paying attention?” Quinn asked me.
I took a long swig from my rum pouch and smiled. “Yeah. We're playing a game. You're explaining the rules. Poorly.”
“Would you rather explain the rules?”
“I've never played Pirate's Gambit before.”
Noah, Mara, Yuan, Advik, and Lee crowded around the table, each with an old key drive in their hand. Those key drives used to be th
e rage a generation ago. Everyone locked their doors and computer terminals with the KeyMAX locking systems. The thumb-sized key drive acted as a physical plug-in. Once inserted, the computer and door functioned properly. Without the key drive, everything remained locked. Hackers and knock-off models made the system obsolete, which was why people used them as betting chips or game tokens now.
I glanced down at mine. One side had the word trust etched into the metal. On the other side, the word betray was inked in red.
“It's a simple game,” Quinn said, holding up her key drive. “We're in pairs, and each person has to decide whether they're going to trust or betray the other.”
Lee nodded along with the words. “I've played this a few times.” He threw back the last of his pouch. “Great game.”
Mara smiled wide. “I've never done it before. How do you get points? Why trust or betray someone?”
Quinn held up a hand. “Without speaking or communication, you need to decide whether to trust or betray your partner. If you both trust each other, you each lose a point.”
I raised an eyebrow. Lose a point, huh?
Quinn continued, “If you both betray each other, you each lose two points. But if one person trusts, and another person betrays, the person who trusted loses three points, and the person who betrayed doesn't lose anything.”
“So, the highest score is zero?” I asked.
Yuan gave me a quick nod. “Yeah, but no one ends the game at zero.”
“Is that right?”
“We switch pairs every round,” Quinn said, ignoring our side conversation. “Until everyone has paired with each other. Since we have seven players, someone will have to sit out this round.”
Advik scooted to the edge of the bench. “I'll watch,” she whispered.
No one protested. No one even looked like they were surprised. Advik stared down at her key drive, examining the device as though it were infinitely more interesting than the conversation. Maybe she had a mental defect.
“Everyone, partner up,” Quinn said.
I turned to Lee, and he gave me a smile.
Quinn slammed her hand down on the table. “No talking. Choose trust or betray and keep your token under your hand until the reveal.”
I stared at Lee, and he narrowed his eyes. We fidgeted with our key drive, one hand held up to cover our decision. Everyone at the table did the same until the movement died down. Then Quinn motioned with her hand.
Everyone revealed their choice.
Lee moved his hand away. He chose to trust.
Figures. I chose betray.
Lee threw his hands in the air. “Seriously? First move? Damn.”
“That's zero points for me,” I said. “A big negative three for you.”
“Yeah, but now you've got a reputation. You'd better watch your back.”
The others at the table gave sideways glowers. I didn't care. I knew how this worked. Everyone was out for themselves, they just didn't want to admit it. My time on Capital Station had taught me nothing less.
We switched partners. Mara sat across from me and giggled, her cute button-nose red from drinking. I stared into her eyes. She gave me a playful scowl.
“Reveal your choices,” Quinn said.
Mara chose to trust.
I chose to betray.
“Aw,” she said. “Really? I thought you liked me more than that.” But she never dropped her smile, not even once, not even after losing three points.
Zero points for me, so what did it matter? Lee shook his head and motioned to my key drive with wild arm gestures. “Can't you see what's happening? Demarco doesn't get the long-term game, you guys.”
“New partners, babe,” Quinn said.
Again, we switched. Noah slid into position across from me. Unlike Lee and Mara, when we locked eyes, I could have sworn he had an entire conversation prepared. He knit his eyebrows together, but I kept my face still, betraying nothing. Noah let out a quick sigh before fidgeting with his key drive. When he looked at me again, he frowned.
Did he think he would get pity points from me? He had another think coming.
We flipped over our key drives.
He chose to betray. Ah. So, he felt guilty.
I chose to betray. That made us even.
“Damn,” Noah said. “You really are going to betray everyone around the table, aren't you?”
Yuan snorted. “Not the best strategy, but at least you know what you're getting into.”
“Wait, wait,” Mara shouted. “We need new drinks! I'll go get some.” She bounded away from the table, and Yuan watched her every step with a slight smile.
“I'm going to hit the latrine,” I said as I stood. My enviro-suit could technically collect human waste, but I wasn't so sloppy drunk that I would opt for that. I walked out of the mess hall, but my mind returned to Sawyer.
I pulled my helmet over my head and activated the comms.
“You've been watching, I assume?” I asked.
“That's right,” she replied.
“If we were playing a round, what would you pick?”
“Betray, of course.”
“Of course? What's that supposed to mean? Is it because I've betrayed each time? Or you just want to betray me specifically?”
“No,” Sawyer said, a hint of boredom to her. “Because it's rational to betray. Game theory really boils down to how you can make yourself the winner. The worst possible outcome is to trust while your opponent betrays. However, if you always betray, you safeguard yourself from the least-desirable outcome.”
“Uh-huh,” I say. “So, you're saying the numbers add up in my favor, right? I'm playing the game better than they are?”
“Sure. Whatever helps you sleep at night.”
“C'mon. Tell me the statistics or something. I know I'm right.”
“Very well. In a game with a defined number of turns, it's best to betray on the last turn, no matter what you did in all previous rounds—that's true for everybody. So, why wouldn't you betray the round before that, and the round before that? All it takes is for one person to trust to net you the best outcome, and even if they betray, you both get the same negative score, resulting in stalemate.”
I mulled over the information and half-laughed. In theory, trusting all around would result in everyone having a similarly low score, but what did that matter? You wouldn't win.
I finished pissing, zipped my enviro-suit back up, and exited the latrine. When I returned to the table, I found Mara had supplied us all with two extra pouches of liquor. I was down with that.
Mara and Yuan whispered to each other, Mara giggling nonstop. Yuan smiled. I didn't think she did it often, because her face contorted a little for the effort.
“Here's the asshole now,” Lee said with a smile, motioning me back to my seat. “Everybody ready?”
I could see it on Quinn and Yuan's faces—they knew I was going to betray, and that was what they were going to do, too. We were in a deadlock, knowing each other's strategies. But the path was set, so-to-speak. No pulling out now.
I felt a slight bit of guilt for being hasty with my decisions. Neither Lee nor Noah had appreciated the gesture, and now I felt like they didn't even want to sit that close to me at the table anymore. No one on Capital Station would've taken this personally. No one on Capital Station would've trusted, though.
Maybe I should've thought about the long-term.
I wondered what Endellion would do if she played a few rounds.
CHAPTER NINE
UNEXPECTED ARRIVAL
56 days to go.
I sat in my training pod and waited for the simulation to begin. Quinn said she needed to speak to Endellion before we started, but that had been several minutes ago. Left to my own devices, I switched through the comms channels until I had the others together.
“Any of you hate the smell of these pods?” I asked.
I got a chorus of stifled laughs and muttered agreements.
“Beats the starfighters
we had back on the Orbit Cruiser,” Mara said with a giggle in her voice.
“Yeah it does,” Yuan said, her voice as hard and unfeeling as steel when compared to Mara's.
I smiled. “They reek or something?”
“They were constructed from scavenged starfighter parts,” Mara said. “The parts that survived after they were wrecked by enemy fighters.”
“So, you rode in the stitched-together corpses of old starfighters?”
“Yup! Not only were all the pilots certain it was bad luck, they all had a bizarre odor to them. Like death itself was trying to remind us that someone already died in our seat. It's pretty hilarious, thinking back on it.”
Hilarious, huh? Mara was an odd one.
“Yeah, the Orbit Cruiser was terrible,” Lee said with a sigh. “I thought I was going to die every time I got deployed. And it wasn't even because of the enemy—I just figured my ship would give out at any moment.”
“Right?” Advik said, her quiet voice barely registering over everyone else's comments.
“Did you all serve on the Orbit Cruiser?” I asked.
Lee coughed a few times before replying, “Most of us. Me, Mara, Yuan, and Advik, at least. We served with the Orbit Cruiser enforcers, until the captain got himself killed on Midway Station. He got into a bar fight.”
“A madman brawl, more like,” Yuan said.
“Yeah. The guy got drunk, killed several people, destroyed a small section of the station, and then got gunned down by the station enforcers.”
“Sounds like a stable dude,” I quipped.
Lee said, “The station overseer seized the Orbit Cruiser to pay for the damage. We all thought we'd be stuck without a job, but there Endellion was. She said she'd heard about our piloting skills, and how well we flew—even with junkers—and we all got a new lease on life when she took us on.”
“I like it better here,” Mara interjected. “Lots of interesting people, and we find more every time we stop at a station. Great times!”
“Enough of that,” Quinn said, joining us in the comms. “I'm back, and it's time to get to training. Endellion has some specific maneuvers she wants us to practice.”
“Roger,” everyone replied in semi-unison.
Star Marque Rising Page 11
