Privateers in Exile

by Jamie McFarlane

  Fortunately, my AI recognized my struggles and prompted me to raise my grav-suit's loose-hanging helmet. It was a good idea. Even while my lungs were racked with coughing, I managed to pull the hoodie up, which stiffened and dropped a clear armor-glass panel between me and the fouled air.

  "You okay?" Nick asked, jumping into the compartment beside me.

  "Just irritated," I said, as my suit cleared the haze. It was close quarters and I had difficulty seeing Nick through the dust.

  "Wait a second. Hold still a second," he said, clamping a hand onto my arm to illuminate my bicep with suit-mounted lights.

  "What?" I tried to get a better view of what he was looking at on my arm. "Is there something on me?"

  "No," he said, waving his hand in the space between us. "But the light is reflecting off the dust! Old holo projectors used the same principle. A machine would spray a small amount of steam and then bounce a projection off the molecules. Remember what Hambo said about the priests having the best kampa? Do you know what kampa is?"

  I shrugged and was surprised when my AI supplied the answer. Kampa leaves were a mild hallucinogen when smoked. Just where my AI came up with that information I couldn't fathom, but humans tended to ignore a lot of the spoken information around them. Machines did not. I would guess that someone around us had talked about the leaves and my AI had overheard it.

  "You think we need smoke for the projections to work?" I asked.

  Nick sailed upward, using his grav-suit to negotiate the crowded space. "Can't hurt."

  I tugged at the broken filter. Of course, this time it came free easily, and I switched it out with a fresh screen. I pulled two canister-type filters out, plugged them into a cleaning port and switched them out with replacements that had been cleaned years before. The ship's circulatory pumps surged on and the dusty air next to me cleared almost immediately. I made a mental note to repeat the process within a few days, given the state of the ship.

  Dragging the old filter behind me, I jumped back out of the hole and checked the next item on the list. We were down to eight liters of fresh water. Without operational grey and black septic fields, we couldn't reclaim any. Oxygen crystals were next on the list. We were desperately low, having only eight hundred hours available. With eight people aboard, that wasn't much more than eight days. Without a working septic algae field – frak – why did it always come down to the septic systems?

  Nick’s description of the smoking holo field had a certain ring of plausibility, but me standing around watching wasn't going to add any value, so I cloned his suit’s vidstream onto a window in my HUD.

  I sealed the deck panel that gave access to the air filtration systems and made my way back to the portside storage room. I pulled up four panels, rested them against the outside bulkhead and looked over the big black septic. It was my nemesis. Not this particular one, of course. No, this system had been refitted by Anino with the latest and greatest, which of course required the type of attention that was sure to get crap on my suit. The system had seen very little use and needed algae seed material and access to carbohydrates, bacteria, yeast and most of all, six liters of water, something we were desperately short of.

  As I worked, I glanced at Nick’s progress in the crystal grotto. With smoke filling the cavern, it looked more like a scene from a scary vid than anything else. For a few minutes, it seemed that nothing would happen. Then, to my surprise, three faint beams of light projected from Hotspur, etching a series of mathematical formulas into the smoke. I smiled to myself. Apparently, I'd quelled the gods of fate by diving into Hotspur's bilge.

  "Tabbs, report in. Any contact?" I said over tactical comms.

  "None beyond a few curious Scatter," Tabby answered. "I followed Hambo to make sure he wouldn't run into trouble. Locals are friendly to him."

  "Good," I said. "I think Nick's onto something with Jonathan."

  "I've got you in the ship. What are you doing and what was all that coughing about?" she asked. I took a snapshot of the bilge I was looking at and transmitted it to her. She guffawed immediately in response. "Are you just drawn to that stuff? What the frak, Hoffen?"

  "Long story," I said. "Hope you weren't looking for a cold one when you got back."

  "Twenty-year-old beer? Yeah, probably not. Are you drinking that crap? It can't be good," she said.

  I made my way forward to the galley and pulled open the refer. It should go without saying that there was bad stuff in it, even though it'd been kept cool the entire time we'd been gone. I pulled swollen pouches of beer from where they rested, skipping over those that had burst long ago. Unlike the deck, the refers had not dried out and were a petri dish of ooze. Placing two dozen bottles into the nearby sink, I wiped them down as best I could and then loaded them into a bin.

  My medical scanner analyzed the contents of each pouch as I opened it. Turns out the material left behind, while flat and devoid of carbonation, was a good baseline for the super-algae seeds I'd added. Not unexpectedly, my AI showed that the mixture simply lacked good levels of ammonia, something no in-use septic system ever lacked, since urea is primarily just that.

  Really, that was just a long way for my AI to describe what it wanted me to do: empty my bladder onto the already foul-smelling mixture. Normally, I didn't consider myself stall shy – that is, I didn't mind if someone was standing next to me in a public restroom. Pressure and expectation, however, was an entirely different thing.

  "What are you doing?" Ada's voice startled me and I jumped forward, just about the time things started working. Fortunately, I maintained enough presence of mind to finish.

  I shook my head ruefully at having been caught. "No way any explanation gets me out of this," I said, zipping up my grav-suit and closing the lid. "But if you must know, I was jumpstarting the septic. It needed ammonia."

  "That's right. There's no way that I'm letting this go," she answered. "But is that right? I gotta go pretty badly."

  "What the frak, Hoffen?" Tabby asked. "Ada just sent me a vid of you peeing into the bilge."

  I refused to answer, knowing it would only make things worse. I climbed up to the deck and started replacing floor panels.

  "He said it was necessary," Ada said. "I think living in the wilderness made him forget how to use his suit reclaimer."

  "That's a real thing," Tabby said, suddenly thoughtful. "I've been holding it for a couple of hours. Just feels weird to use the suit like that. I keep thinking I'm going to wet myself."

  "For the love of Mars could we stop talking about pee?" I asked.

  Our conversation was interrupted by a familiar and unexpected shudder that transmitted through Hotspur’s frame as her powerful engines fired. My eyes were riveted to the window on my HUD showing the cavern. Nick was just as surprised as I had been, because he turned from the cloud of formulas and sprinted for the ship.

  “Liam? Was that you?” he called, as the smoke cleared from the cavern behind him.

  “No,” I answered. I’d made it into the engineering bay but found no one there and nothing wrong.

  "My apologies," Jonathan suddenly announced over the comm channels. “We required a cycling of engines to complete the sequence you initiated within the cavern.”

  I exited the engineering bay and leapt into the gravity column that joined the ship’s two decks. Excited, I overshot my jump and had to adjust mid-flight so I wouldn’t plow into the ceiling. I landed on the bridge deck only a meter from where Jonathan’s android body still lay. He had looked dead before, but now his eyes were open and in a very human way, he held my gaze as if to communicate his understanding of the significance of this moment.

  "Glad to have you back, buddy," I said, nodding my head. "I was afraid we'd lost you."

  "In fact, only forty-two of us remain," he said, almost too matter-of-factly, his voice sounding foreign to my ears.

  "That's horrible," I said, helping him to a seated position as he struggled to gain control of his corporal body. "Where are they? We have to
find them."

  "It is unknown," he said. "We have not had access to external feeds. We are not certain as to what has transpired or even what the current time is."

  "Don't give up on your people," I said. "Maybe there's a way for us to recover them."

  Jonathan nodded mechanically. "We will not give up, Liam Hoffen," he said. "But our help is urgently needed. Hotspur's systems were infected by the same virus that damaged the sentient people you refer to as Jonathan. Us, as it were." Jonathan spread his hands out with palms up in a grand gesture. "We request permission to access these systems."

  "Of course, Jonathan," I said. "We trust you."

  "The concept of trust is difficult for us to process with the loss of so many, but we have been observing your actions and the majority believe you will prioritize the return of our missing members. We have also agreed to continue the mutually beneficial cohabitation between this crew and what remains of Jonathan," he said, pausing as if to listen. "You now have complete access to the systems of Hotspur. The virus has been eradicated. We also should communicate our knowledge that this virus was delivered from our android vessel. This fact was unknown to our members at the time, but the data is likely salient to the discovery of the origin of the attack."

  "You caused this?" I asked.

  "Indeed, this is correct. Although it does not adequately assess responsibility," Jonathan said. "Jonathan’s host body was infected at an inopportune moment. A war within our physical host ensued and we were unsuccessful at repelling the invading forces. In an attempt to separate ourselves from this overwhelming invasion, we took refuge in young Ada Chen's communication gear, later transferring to the vessel which held her safe. Unfortunately, our attackers anticipated our attempt at evasion and trapped us within the vessel.

  "And twenty years later, we came along and got you out," I said. "Was it Anino who was behind the attack?"

  "We do not know," Jonathan said. "And we would clarify that it has not been twenty of your standard Earth years. It is true you have existed on Fraxus for twenty Earth standard years. What you are failing to account for is that Hotspur sailed one hundred five point two three two years before arriving on Fraxus."

  Sweat formed on my brow and my pulse quickened. "Are you saying we've been gone for a hundred years?" I asked.

  "The statement is accurate, assuming a gross approximation," he said. "One hundred twenty-five point seven eight seven standard Earth years is more accurate."

  My mind reeled and my stomach lurched. If what he was saying was correct, everyone I knew was likely dead. Images of my mom and close friends came to mind as the depth of our predicament became clearer. I grabbed the edge of the chair against which the android body of Jonathan leaned. My chest felt constricted and time stood still. Then hands grasped my sides and Marny was helping me to a nearby chair.

  "Cap, you with me?" she asked, her face blurry in my vision.

  "They're all gone," I said. "Everyone we knew. Everyone we loved. They died thinking … I have no idea what they thought."

  "Cap, I need you to come back," Marny said. "I need you in this moment."

  "Why?" I asked, looking into her aged face. Time had been kind to her and she wore its passage well. Small wrinkles and long grey streaks in her hair were the only telltales. I suppose it was the warmth of our relationship communicated to me in her gaze that I attributed to beauty. I'd never been great at separating emotional from physical beauty and didn't care to.

  "My boy is still out there," she said.

  I nodded. She was right. I had the rest of my life to unpack what had happened. At this moment, however, people were relying on me to get my head properly relocated from my posterior.

  "Tabbs, time to load up," I said, accepting Marny's hand. "Nick, Jonathan, get gravity, inertial, atmo and engines online in that order. Marny, dig into our weapons systems. I need to know what we have and what we don't. Ada, prioritize flight systems. Figure out what kind of lift we have available."

  "Damn good to have you back, Cap." Marny smiled broadly, looking over her shoulder as she sat at the weapons console. Hotspur had three turrets; two on top and one on her belly. They were all configured as energy blasters because the ship had massive batteries as well as the ability to redirect energy production from one of its three engines if the need arose.

  I slid into the portside pilot's chair next to Ada and flipped through line after line of red and yellow system statuses. We had a lot of work to do to get Hotspur fully operational but the major systems appeared to have few problems.

  "We'll get through this," Tabby whispered in my ear, the smell of fresh pine lingering on her suit. She nibbled on my ear and kissed me suggestively.

  "No fair," Ada complained with mock horror. "I haven't as much as seen a new man in two decades and here you guys are making out in front of me."

  "More like a century," I corrected. "For the record, you were asleep for all but like two days of that."

  Ada waggled her eyes at me suggestively and in full view of Tabby, who quickly retorted. "Don't even think about it, pretty girl," she said. "I know you homewrecking types and I won't be seduced like that. I've got all the man I need, right here."

  "Wait, wasn’t that aimed at me?" I asked. The two women laughed and I joined them, although I wasn't entirely sure they weren't laughing at me.

  "You know," Ada said, lifting an eyebrow at Tabby. "Since there's some question about things, maybe I need to throw my hat into the ring. You know, make a run at your old man and all that."

  "You little hussy," Tabby said, thinly amused.

  I sighed. This could get out of control. "All hands," I said, so that my AI would pipe my announcement to everyone on the ship and interrupt current communications. "I'm going to loosen Hotspur up a bit from the cave wall. You might want to hold on, this could get bumpy."

  Ada tipped her head to the side, smiled impishly and mouthed, "You'll thank me later," as Tabby sprinted off to her own station to strapped in. Just call me confused.

  I pulled up the hull pressure readings on my forward vid screen. Most of the exterior force rested atop Hotspur's nose. It lined up with what I could see from the cockpit, which was mostly just a wall of rock, and what I'd observed when I had been outside inspecting the ship. I pulled on the controls and caused aft non-symmetric gravitational lift. I was treating Hotspur like a cork in a wine bottle, attempting to twist her up and out.

  No captain enjoys the sound of scraping rock against the hull of a ship. Between the engines whining, the groan of the ship's superstructure and the scream of rock against the armor, it felt like I was quartering my poor ship.

  "Come on, girl," I said, urging her from her prison.

  "Engines are getting hot, Liam," Nick warned. "You're going to need to shut it down."

  "You know better than that, we're only high nineties. These ships are built for bursts of one hundred twenty percent," I said, pulling the stick back. Perhaps I applied a little too much, because all of a sudden, we popped free, which I was both prepared for and not at all prepared for.

  Caves are small. That's the real headline. We smacked into the opposite side harder than I'd have thought we could survive. The fact was, I had seen the crash coming and reversed the engines, but I’d been slow and ships don't respond instantaneously. Whatever the cause, the results weren’t elegant. I ping-ponged off the cave walls crushing crystal formations and bringing down large sections of the ceiling. There was a moment where I thought it was possible we'd be buried.

  Turns out Hotspur is a thoroughbred in horse vernacular. She’d been an old British warship that we'd procured. Her bones were as solid as any ship built and with the recent refit, it seemed the rest of her was in very good shape as well. That is, until I decided to play grotto pinball with her, turning her nose up and blasting through the previously occluded skylight entrance.

  "All sections. Status update," I ordered, struggling to level our flight. A large chunk of something heavy hung off the side of the shi
p causing us to list badly to port. "Hold on a minute."

  I rolled Hotspur and heard a final horrible scraping sound as whatever had rested atop us fell off, crashing into the forest below. With the weight gone, our flight leveled out.

  "Course set for Marny and Nick's homestead," Ada said.

  "I hate to say it," Marny cut in. "We might have attracted attention. Three ships are coming up out of Thandeka. One of them is a pretty beefy sloop."

  "Coming at us?" I asked. "What about weapon's status?"

  "Offline," Marny announced.

  I banked toward a large body of water a few hundred kilometers south. "If it was easy, anyone could do it," I said, mostly to myself.

  Chapter 22

  Smoke Signals

  "Nick, how much time do we need to take on water?" I asked.

  "Full load should take eight minutes," he said.

  We'd pulled away from the pursuing ships, but had maybe a minute's separation. Without water, we wouldn't get far.

  "Jonathan, can you get a read on the depth of that lake?" I asked, a crazy idea forming in my head.

  "We have restored operation of Hotspur's primary sensor array," he replied unhelpfully.

  Nick jumped in. "It's deep, Liam, over a hundred meters."

  I pulled at the holographic field that sat between Ada and myself. The two cutter class vessels led the heavily-armed sloop by several kilometers.

  "Okay folks, hold on, this is going to get bumpy," I said.

  "Cap?" Marny asked.

  I pushed my flight stick down, dropped elevation and slowed so we fairly hugged the tops of the trees. The cutters accelerated, separating from the sloop as they sensed an opportunity.

  "Marny, tell me we have weapons," I said. Apparently, our pursuers had limited understanding of tactics. If I had anything to shoot with, I'd use the moment to teach them a lesson and level the playing field.

  "We're working on it," she said. "Nothing yet."

  The trees below gave way to a sandy shoreline and then to the blue-green waters of the large lake. I tipped the flight stick and dipped our portside wing toward the water, causing a rooster tail to spray up behind us. It was a cool move, but mostly ignored by the crew because I'd given the cutters a chance to catch up and get a good view of our topside.