Chapter 15

“I had to know you were the real thing,” Aurora told him. Fortuna was sitting next to her. Both had mugs full of beer. Sol had one as well. Around them, pirates, almost all of them women, milled about with drinks and food. The mess hall, which looked like it had been a barn at one point, was big, hot, poorly insulated, loud and full of people. Glancing around, he saw Sophie and Star talking to one side. Tammy was close to Sophie. He’d lost Erinys in the crowd.

“You took a real risk by coming along though. What if I got us all killed?” he asked.

“That’s what I was watching for, Sol,” she said. “Your instincts are good. We worked well in concert.”

“Ok ... now that you’re back with your people ... who is going to be captain of the Revenge?” he asked.

“Revenge is yours, Commander,” she said. “You can put whoever you want in it.”

“Ok, but I thought I had two highly qualified members of a crew in you and Fortuna. Now what?” he asked.

“Now take your pick. I have a quite a few pretty girls here,” she waved her hand around the room for emphasis. “Some of them won’t bite your dick off if you try anything.” She smiled.

“Fortuna?” Sol asked.

“She grows on you, doesn’t she...” Aurora said.

Sol smirked.

“Captain,” she said to Fortuna. “Feel free to choose a first mate.”

“I want the cameras out of my room before I agree to anything,” Fortuna said. Sol shrugged in acceptance. It wasn’t his idea to put them in in the first place.

“Don’t want me to find out what you’re doing with your first mate in my absence?” Aurora asked?

Fortuna smiled. If snakes could smile, that’s what it would look like, Sol thought.

“She’s a good ship, Captain. Take good care of her,” Aurora said. Then to Sol, she said “and please take care of my favorite Captain. As I understand it, our first shipment will be ready tomorrow. I’ll take your passengers off your hands unless there are any of them who want to stay with you.” She looked at Star as she said it. Star, meanwhile, had an arm around Sophie’s waist. Erinys now appeared to be talking with Tammy. That’s dangerous, Sol thought, before turning back to Aurora.

“What do you do with them?” he asked.

“I have friends. Most of them have nowhere to go. The ones who can call some place home ... we’ll try to return them there. The others ... Well, there’s a reason I have so many mouths to feed here. They aren’t all soldiers,” she said.

“The boys?” he asked.

She laughed. “We have those too. There aren’t as many boys in the slave trade. And they’re easy to unload on others. Like you, for example. Give me some months with a few of them, and they’ll come back to you knowing how to hold a gun.”

Sol considered.

“Ok,” he said. None of this was ok. But it was probably the best they could do. He drank his beer.

Sol stood on the foredeck of Sinaan Reis, as he had so many times before, and watched as Cepha receded behind him. They’d been making trips between Cepha and a few other ports for a couple of weeks now without incident. Sheba even appeared on Cepha and stuck around for a few days. By the looks of it, she’d been doing that for longer than Sol realized. The pirates seemed to know her.

Vera hadn’t been upgraded yet, so their next sortie – a slaver raid – wouldn’t involve it directly. It would be nearby to help with coordinating, but the two ships that would come in direct contact with their prey would be Sinaan Reis and Pallache’s Revenge. That meant that Star had given up her post as Vera’s captain temporarily so that she could join Sol on Sinaan Reis. She sat in the seat next to Sol. Sophie stood behind both of them. She didn’t need to be at the controls in order to take control of the ship – a simultaneously frightening and comforting thought.

“Here she comes,” came Fortuna’s voice over the com. She and Ensign Janelle, formerly of the Barbarossa, Sol remembered, were in command of the Revenge. Sol told them he didn’t give a flying fuck who was on top and who was on bottom – something that made Janelle giggle, and Fortuna smirk begrudgingly. Stefano was with them. He’d upgraded his arms during the last stop at Cepha. A younger man named Tom was aboard the Revenge as well. Jamie, who had taken to Stefano, had been placed aboard Vera for the sortie, something that seemed to annoy Stefano.

Finally, Sol had picked up a second gun named Elayne, a slight Cephan with long straight blond hair who seemed too young to hold a gun, and yet disciplined enough that she’d clearly been in this lifestyle for some time. Sol couldn’t tell whether to feel sorry for her, but he appreciated that she apparently didn’t have either Janelle or Fortuna’s contempt for authority. As the thought entered his head, he shuddered. Being an authority was now at least some months old, but it still hadn’t become comfortable to him. It did have certain advantages though. Elayne and Sol had had zero sexual tension since she came aboard. He was a superior. She was a subordinate. It was aye aye captain, and that was about it.

Also, she was wearing at least two guns visibly, and Sol was given to understand that she was quite capable of using them.

“We see her,” Sol responded.

The ‘her’ of whom they spoke was a sizeable slaver ship, a Clipper class vessel, capable of carrying thirty to forty people comfortably. Sol knew that the people who were being shipped in that vessel likely weren’t comfortable. It was preparing to land in one of the bubble cities that supported several of Potamos’s mines. They’d parked themselves far enough away from the surface of the planet that they likely weren’t being watched by any planetary authorities. But they were close enough that they were inside of the radius in which ships dropped out of FTL.

Sol nodded to Sophie. “It’s coming from the direction of Crete,” she said.

“Is that enough?” Sol asked.

“Does it matter?” she responded.

Sol pushed a button and activated his com. “This is Sinaan Reis, calling the Clipper Class ship that is presently making for Potamos Sector 5. Please prepare to be boarded as part of a random search of suspected slaver vessels.”

The ship did not respond.

Suddenly, Sinaan Reis’s guns came online and the ship fired several bursts. The Clipper was too large to move out of the way, but it also was well shielded just due to the strength of the material it was made of. The shots hit their mark.

“They armed weapons?” Sol asked Sophie.

“Yeah. If we keep on doing this, they’ll enter Potamos’ orbit with weapons already hot,” she said.

“That’s kind of the idea. Raise the price of the trade to the point that it isn’t worth it,” he said.

“True and true, but its going to make our lives that much harder,” she said.

The Revenge had closed the distance between the ships and was docking already. In retrospect, they would all agree that this was their first mistake: they should have docked at the same time. The starboard and port hatches were typically connected by a hallway that intersected the ship in these larger Clippers. Coming at both sides at a time would have given the pirates an advantage that they’d blown.

By the time Reis docked on the other side of the ship and Sophie hacked the door’s opening mechanism, they stepped into a scene that was total pandemonium. Sophie and Star stood on one side of the narrow hallway opposite the starboard hatch. Sol stood opposite her with Elayne right behind him. As soon as the door opened, shots were fired into Sinaan Reis. Sol cursed. Sophie waited for a break in the firing to peer around the corner as two crewmen who were heavily armed stepped into Sinaan Reis. She fired a small pistol and retreated behind the wall. Sol, on the other side, took shots at the crewmen who were now distracted by Sophie. He got a shot off, killing one of the two who were standing there. But as soon as he exposed himself, they took gunfire coming from inside the Clipper. One shot grazed Sol’s shoulder. He knew that would hurt later, but for now he was fine.

“Two down,” Sophie said. “It looks like there are over four of them.

Elayne, coming from behind Sol, said “cover me,” and peered around Sol into the hallway. Sol opened fire blindly, and Elayne stepped further into the hallway from behind him. With one gun in each hand, she started firing into the Clipper ship. The return fire hit her in the left shoulder. She ducked back behind the wall, but the damage was done. Sol saw her trying to get her left arm to respond with limited success.

Star and Sophie both peered around the corner and started firing into the Clipper. There was a volley of return fire for several moments, but it quickly receded. When it was clear that the return fire was weakening, Sol looked around the corner to find that it was clear. He stepped into the hallway and, with his gun drawn, entered the Clipper. Stefano nodded to him from across the hallway. The Clipper was wide, and the hallway was strewn with bodies. One crewman stirred. Sophie stepped on his hand, breaking his fingers. Then she grabbed his gun and slipped it into the band of her pants.

“We have company, Sol,” Sophie said.

“How long do we have?” he asked.

“No more than 10 minutes before we’d better be gone,” she said. “Make that 5. Cargo hold is that way.” She pointed down a long hallway towards the back of the ship.

“Go with Elayne. I’ll head to the foredeck and make sure we aren’t leaving our flank open. Star, stay with Reis!” he told yelled, trusting his com to pick up the communication. It looked like Janelle, Stefano, and Fortuna had come to the same decision, but had done so earlier.

Sol walked quickly in the direction of the foredeck. One crewman came out from behind a bulkhead with his hands up. With the adrenaline flowing through him, Sol almost shot the guy. “Who else is on this ship!?” he shouted.

“They all ran that way,” the man said, pointing to the aft of the ship, back where Sol had come from. He looked terrified.

“How many?!” Sol barked again.

“There were 12 ... maybe...” he said, his teeth chattering.

“Fuck!” Sol yelled. He clubbed the guy with the butt of his gun than turned around to catch up with the others.

“We need to be gone Sol!” Sophie’s voice said on her com.

“Can we fly this boat out of here?” he asked.

“Negative,” she said. “These big suckers are tracked. We have three minutes before the federales have us on visual.”

When Sol came upon his people, they were in the midst of a firefight.

“We have to go,” he said to them.

“We have this,” he heard Fortuna say back.

“Captain, that’s an order,” he shouted back.

All he heard was shots for several moments. Nobody seemed poised to retreat. Then he heard Fortuna say “thank you Commander. You’re right. Let’s go. I’ll cover the retreat.”

The retreat was nearly painstaking. What was left of this ship’s crew didn’t let up just because their opponents were retreating. They continued their fight. When they came to the hallway that attached both starboard and port hatches, the pirates split up and ran for their ships.

They didn’t dare communicate with one another, so instead they made for their agreed upon backup point if anything went wrong. They’d meet Vera and its adopted crew at Piso.

It wasn’t until the ship was closed and Sophie took control, pulling it away from the Clipper and gunning the engines, that Sol noticed Star. She’d been hit in square in the stomach and had bled a good deal.

“Oh,” he said. The understated reaction matched the gut punch the sight delivered to him. It was as if he’d been flushed out of an airlock. There was no sound. He had tunnel vision.

Sophie was there, too, pressing a cloth against her wound and helping her into a better position. When Star convulsed, Sol felt a momentary pang of hope. She was alive.

“We need to go to Kithira,” he said.

“Sol, I need you to keep your head. I want to save her life right now but I don’t want to have to argue with you at the same time,” Sophie said. “We’re not going to Kithira.”

“Turn this boat around,” he said. “We’re going to Kithira.”

“I’ll do whatever you tell me, but I just want to make sure that you know what you’re saying. She’s fucking green, Sol. And she’s probably wanted for murder just like all of us. They’re more likely to take her apart than they are to help her if we go to Kithira. I think I can help her, and when we get her to Piso, we can find help there. So what is it Sol? You’re the captain. Are we saving everyone’s life? Or are we going to Kithira.” She said it while she worked, not once looking up.

“Ok,” he said. She was right. She was always right. They’d go to Piso.

“Fuck,” Sol yelled. --

Several hours later, Star was asleep. Sophie had extracted some of Sol’s blood and was in the process of giving Star a transfusion. He was suddenly very thankful that Sophie had bought medical supplies. She wasn’t kidding either. She’d bought a kit that a field doctor could use to do impromptu surgery if the issues weren’t too severe. Star had lucked out in two ways: the bullet went clear through her without doing too much damage to her internal organs – it mostly had just caused her to bleed a hell of a lot; and part of Star’s augmentation was a more resilient body. A normal person wouldn’t have survived. Star looked like she’d pull through just fine, though she’d be out of commission in any type of combat situation for some time.

Sol took a beer from his fridge, leaned in his captain’s chair, and drank.

Two days later, Star’s condition had improved considerably. She probably wasn’t going to be running, jumping, or participating in violent encounters for awhile. But with Sophie’s help, she was able to be brought to the foredeck to sit with Sol on the bridge. Sophie stood, as usual, behind both the captain and first mates’ seats.

“If it makes you feel any better, the federales arrested the surviving crew of that Clipper for trafficking in human chattel,” Sophie told Sol. Sol was working through his thoughts and didn’t immediately realize that she was speaking to him. Piso was far enough away that anyone searching for them in a local system wouldn’t find them. There were enough space stations around – even ones with ne’er-do-well reputations like Piso – that you’d have to cast the net pretty wide to find them on Piso. Sophie had done an admirable job of blocking the recording devices on the Clipper – Isles Charter Transport IV – so that nobody was identifiable in the videos, which were mostly just jumbled static. The story, therefore, had merited a twenty second mention on a news program that was specifically local to Kithira and its surroundings.

“So they did have slaves,” Sol said, after a few moments. He was sitting in the foredeck looking out into the expanse.

“Sixty of them,” she responded. “They’ll be relocated to orphanages in local systems” she said. “And those of them who are adults will probably be released in Kithira somewhere.”

“We could have saved them from that,” he said. Most of them had likely come from a similar situation, and they’d sold themselves to get out of it. Sol felt like he’d personally failed sixty people, many of them children. “Fuck,” he concluded. “How many people died?” Sol asked.

“Only four. The rest retreated to the cargo hold,” she said. She explained that she’d found the report not in the feds’ servers but in Isles Charter Transport’s servers. Not surprisingly, they were a favored transit firm for some enfranchised corporations that made runs from and around Crete. It didn’t take long to find a connection to Alphan.

The more he thought of it, the less he understood whether that number – 4 dead – should be meaningful to him.

“On to the next sortie,” he said. “How long before we try that again?” he asked Star, swiveling the chair to face her.

“There’s a sentient machine with an intimate knowledge of human history and trade routes standing right there,” she said, pointing at Sophie, and wincing as she did it.

“And there’s a green girl with street smarts sitting right there,” Sol said, pointing at her.

She shrugged at first. Then she offered her thoughts. “Federales will be all over the place, particularly in the direction of Crete,” she said.

“And what about Cepha?” he asked.

“Too close to home base,” she said. “Fortuna will nix it. And Aurora will concur. When did you become such a freedom fighter? You want a target on your back?”

“Hmmm,” Sophie said.

“What?” Sol asked, as if puzzled.

“The undernet ... you called yourself Sinaan Reis when you attacked the Clipper,” she said. “Someone got the audio somehow – probably from inside ICT. They’re saying ‘Sinaan Reis strikes again.’ I think some of these guys think you’re a hero,” she said.

“Then they’re idiots,” Sol offered.

“I don’t think so,” Star responded. “They’re hopeful. They’re happy to see someone standing up to the corporations.”

Sol had never really cared about the business world. But now, when it was clear that the governments’ owners were ever-present, pulling the strings behind the scenes of their so-called democracy, he was starting to think that Star’s brand of radicalism may not be so crazy.

“Can we use that?” he asked.

“Well for one thing, it means you have a friend in ICT,” Sophie said, flatly.

“With no way to get in touch with that friend, and without knowing his intentions at all,” Sol said.

“Or hers,” Star said. Sol rolled his eyes internally.

“Maybe,” Sophie claimed. With ICT based in Crete, Sol did not envision himself sneaking anyone into their home base so that Sophie could access their intranet.

However...

“What if we pounce on a slaver ship leaving Crete instead of one landing on Potamos. I mean, there’s a slave trade on a few worlds. But we know that one of those is Crete, and we have a pretty good idea of who is sending the ships with the people on them, no?” Sol said.

“ICT is a charter company. So they’ll haul anything,” Sophie said. “We only know which ones are slaver ships through deducing that there isn’t much legitimate trade between Crete and Potamos. One of these days, we’ll be wrong about that, by the way. But we don’t know anything about ships leaving from Crete. I think your focus here is a little off.”

“Unless we can coordinate with the mole...” Star said.

Sol thought about it. “How?” he asked.

“By doing what the mole did,” Star said. “Posting a message to the undernet.”

“The undernet is a big place. I found this message by searching a board whose main feature is its anonymity. My guess is that the mole only said anything because he knew he’d be anonymous. And it’s the fact of his anonymity that makes it impossible to verify if anything we send is being responded to by the right guy – not to mention that the mole has no reason to believe that anything we send is being sent by the same Sinaan Reis,” she said.

“Not if he sends a message in his own voice,” Star said.

“Oh, do you take me for a rookie? Everything he said, I published in a totally different voice. I didn’t mod his voice. I produced a new one,” she said.

“Then do it again,” Star said.

“Every time we do that, we get closer to being found out,” she said.

“Then do what you did here. This file is traceable to ICT. Send another one to ICT and mask where its coming from,” Star said.

“That might be easiest on the ground...” Sophie said, not looking at either Star or Sol.

“You mean on Crete?” Star asked.

“Yeah,” Sophie said.

“All great fodder for our happy reunion on Piso. Right now, I’m tired and I’d like to drink some beer,” Sol said.

“Cheers,” Star said.

Sol woke up at night to find Star sleeping next to him. Her bra and panties were all she was wearing, and the gash in her side was truly something. Sophie had managed it as best she could, but her skin was discolored and the wound still looked fresh. She’d been moving slowly, and spending chunks of the day sitting in one place. The decision to crawl in bed with Sol underscored to him that, adult though she clearly was in some ways, she was a scared little child in others. Sol kissed her forehead. She opened her eyes and looked at him groggily. Her hair was messy, but other than that, she was gorgeous as always.

“Hey there,” she said, and smiled at him.

“Hey there,” he said back. “When did you come in here?”

“After you were asleep,” she said. He recalled that at some point, he’d stumbled into the room, feeling the effects of the alcohol he’d been drinking. “You ok?” she asked.

“I should be asking you that,” he said. His head hurt, but other than that, he seemed to be fine.

“I’m superhuman, and you drank so much that you passed out. I get to ask it this time,” she said. Sol smiled at her.

“Minor headache,” he said.

“I bet,” she said, and smirked. “That’s not what I meant though. I mean why’d you drink so much?”

“I don’t know if I’m awake enough for this conversation,” he said.

“Well tough. You woke me up. This is your punishment,” she said. She tapped him on the nose.

“I’m upset about fucking the last sortie up,” he said.

“You didn’t. They were ready for us. Next time we’ll be ready for them,” she said.

“You could have died,” he said.

“And I didn’t. Life is wonderful. One of these days, I will, and there will be one less green person on earth. I can live with that. You should be able to as well,” she said. It was almost a monotone.

“Maybe life is sacred,” he said.

“I’ve seen little evidence of that,” she fired back, but she smiled as she said it to soften the blow.

“You’re dumb. Go to sleep,” Sol said.

“Want to play?” she asked.

“And open your wound back up? No thanks. I have a left hand,” he said.