Privateering

The Lone Wolf floated through space. Its route was meandering and slow. And Alicia was bored. They had been in space for almost a month now, and no one had decided to come at them. Alicia just needed something to happen. Her trigger finger was starting to get itchy, and her people didn’t love that. Her captain certainly didn’t. She had a tendency of hurting people when she grew impatient. Standing on the bridge beside her, Captain Leslie Thomas looked down at his necessary evil. “What’s bugging ya, Alicia? Ya got that pinched up look on yer face like you’re planning on killing someone.”

Alicia smiled at the ship’s captain. “Why that is because I am, oh Captain, ser,” she mocked, throwing up a Service salute and everything. Formality annoyed the captain, which meant more often than not, Alicia was entirely too formal. She needed to keep the power dynamics of this ship clear, after all. He was the captain, this whole act was his idea, but she was the actually important one. She was the thing that kept it super profitable. After all, what are monsters for if not to scare the villagers.

Leslie rolled his eyes at the woman. “Yer a piece o’ work, ya know?” he said, only minorly exasperated.

“Well, Captain, Ser,” Alicia replied, standing at a rigid attention, “If we were to actually come upon an individual in this excursion, it would be far easier to deal with me.”

Leslie sighed. “We’re gunna,” he said, “Just need some time. Why don’t ya go beat up people in the gym while yer waiting.”

Alicia, still at attention, glared at Leslie. “Yes ser,” she said, giving him another mock salute.

Their pilot, Alessandra D’Angelo, rolled her eyes at Alicia. “You are the worst, you know?”

Alicia responded by raising her eyebrows in mock seduction at the young woman. “Am I now? And I thought we were getting along splendidly.”

Alessandra, not to be out mock-flirted with, shot back a smug grin and a wink, adding, “In one regard, perhaps. You know what they say about hate and love?”

Leslie laughed. “Alright, you two. Alessandra, ain’t you supposed ta be paying attention to space and what not? And Alicia, I thought you was going to the gym?”

“If I in anyway have made you uncomfortable, Captain, I apologise,” Alicia replied, a smug superiority permeating her voice.

Leslie gave her the most earnest look the far less than earnest man could muster, and somberly said, “Ya have, Alicia,” then, after a pause, began to smile and added, “I mean, have ya smell yer breath recently?”

Alicia laughed and, while she turned to leave, made sure to get the last word. “Indeed, and you are lucky to be graced by such a wonderous smell.” With those words she walked out from the bridge and into the corridors of the Lone Wolf. Well, corridors is a generous term. It was more like scaffolding around the “cargo” bay. When a junk freighter must disguise a weapon meant primarily for space stations to use, it takes a lot of space. That, in conjunction with the two separate fighters held in the middle of the Lone Wolf, Pack Prime and Pack Cub, the vast majority of the ship’s center was the docking area. Stretching across it were several independently pressurized overpasses, and down the middle of it was the grav-drive, but that was the only other thing in the middle of the ship. The front held the crew quarters and the bridge, the rear held the armory and the “recreational areas”, but the middle was simply a giant hold for all the stuff that needed to be hidden from prying eyes.

Alicia made it across the tubes into the rear of the ship. The upstairs where she was held the Canteen and some private rooms. The middle story held the gym. Climbing down the ladder to the second floor’s halls, she made her way into the locker-room for the gym. Taking off her old combat uniform, she examined her scars in the mirror. She’d been working on getting them cleared up, but they didn’t want to go away. She prodded at one of them, a deep gouge from her left collarbone down to her diaphragm. There was a delay, and she felt a stinging pain. She knew that was her brain playing tricks on her. There was no actual pain, just memories of it. She knew that because she only felt the pain when she was looking at the scars. Still, it hurt. Cracking her neck on way then the other, Alicia pulled on her workout gear. Walked through the door into the gym, and beelined for the industrial treadmill. It was time for her warmups, she thought with a blank expression. She ran in the morning, and before exercise. Those were the rules. That was how it had always been. Hopping up onto the treadmill, she turned it on. Slowly, she began to jog. As she ran, she picked up speed. This was a speed treadmill, designed to measure the speed of vehicles, not a treadmill for running at pace. Treadmills with fast enough speeds to accommodate her were generally unavailable, and the sort of thing that got people asking questions. The Lone Wolf didn’t need people asking questions. Instead, Alicia practiced self-regulation. It was supposed to help her with her patience issues as well, but it didn’t. Not really. She picked up the pace to her combat run. One-hundred-fifty kilometres per hour. She could maintain the pace for three and a half hours before it began to strain her. Her warm-ups required only fifteen minutes. Emptied her mind as she ran, focusing only on her feet, pounding against the treadmill’s surface. Feeling the rhythm of her run. There was, for a few glorious minutes of her life, nothing else in the world. Then, the fifteen minutes were up, and she began to slow back down to a human running pace, then eventually stop entirely.

Looking at the pacing chart, Alicia smiled. She’d maintained pace near perfectly, fluctuating between one-fifty and one-fifty-one the entire time, and importantly never dropping below one-fifty, which, when she was really stressed, occasionally happened. Strapping weights to her wrists, biceps, ankles and thighs, she walked over to the mats for CQC practice and training. “Anyone wish to spar?” she asked the three other people in the gym.

Kate, doing inverted sit-ups with a fifty-pound weight clutched to her chest, laughed. “Fuck no,” she spat, though she was grinning ear to ear, “Fool me once.”

“I’m wearing the twenties this time,” Alicia said, feigning innocence.

“Talk to me when you’re asleep,” Kate replied.

Alicia shook her head but smiled mischievously. “Always, dear Katie,” she stated, “Who do you think I dream about?” Kate paused her sit-ups to shift the weight into her right arm and flick Alicia off. Alicia laughed, then turned to the two men on the other side of the room. “What about you boys?”

Gregor shook his head, not even stopping his deadlifts. “Not here for combat,” he stated, gruff and to the point. He wasn’t. He came to the gym to ignore people and work out. Alicia turned to the third.

Ulrich was a good kid, for a pirate. He was also one of the best damned fighter pilots on the Lone Wolf. He put down his dumbbells and shrugged. “Sure, but you got to go easy on me, in case someone comes to get us.”

Alicia groaned and furrowed her brow, but she understood. “Fine. I’ll go easy on you.”

“She’s lying,” Kate shouted, along with her grunts off effort.

Alicia shook her head. “Don’t listen to Katie, she’s simply jealous.”

That made Kate laugh, which made her drop the weight. “Look what you did, Alicia,” she complained half-heartedly.

Ulrich looked between the two women. “I take it you guys work out together often?” he posited.

It was true. Kate, Alicia, and Gregor were pretty much fixtures in the gym. It helped relieve stress for Alicia, it got Gregor away from people, and it gave Kate an excuse to watch two of the most attractive people on the ship, in her opinion, get hot and sweaty while wearing remarkably little clothing. Kate dismounted with a flip and shrugged. “Some,” she said, bending over to pick up the weight.

Alicia smiled. “Are you coming or what?” she asked Ulrich, dropping into a guard position.

“Yeah, give me a sec,” he said, loosening up as he made his way across the gym to the mats. Arriving at them, he asked, “So, half-speed?”

“You realize that means I’m going at a normal pace and you’re moving slow, right?” Alicia asked.

He smiled and nodded. “Trust me,” he said, his smile exuding confidence. He dropped into a defensive stance of his own. He was smart enough to not attack someone that much faster than him, Alicia thought. Good for him.

Alicia feigned a right hook and slammed her knee up instead. Ulrich, staring directly into the monster’s eyes, moved his hands to block the knee, not even noticing the feign. As the knee bounced off the hands, they both grinned for different reasons. Ulrich because he had managed to read a monster’s attack properly and react in time, and Alicia because the man might prove a good challenge after all, even at half speed. She lashed her other leg out in a ferocious kick that Ulrich pivoted beside, but as she began her walking kick combo, a loud blaring noise shot through the ship. She stopped herself, mid kick. “Time to move, kid,” she said, tearing off her weights.

Before Alicia had finished the first word of her sentence, Ulrich was gone, rushing into the locker-room to put on his pilot’s gear. Kate tossed the fifty-pound disk to the ground and rushed out the door. She needed to get to the engine bay fast. Gregor looked up at Alicia. “To the Airlock?” he asked.

Alicia shrugged. “No real rush,” she said, “Best gear up, first.” They walked calmly into their respective locker-rooms and got dressed in their combat gear. Alicia finished first and made her way across the busy hanger area, to the far less busy boarding area.

Her other marine, Paul, was already waiting in uniform. Paul had been a Marine in the Hadrian Systems Security Department, and when he left, he kept his old stealth suit. While it was not current, it was still effective at stopping some projectiles, and could make him harder to see, in some circumstances. “Alicia,” he said with a smirk as she walked in, “How’s it hanging? Greg still hot as ever?”

“Save the smooth-talking for distracting the enemy, Paul,” Alicia stated, “You’ll have better luck with them then Gregor, in any case.”

As though on cue, Gregor entered the airlock. Where Alicia’s uniform looked casual and Paul’s looked professional, Gregor’s looked downright terrifying. He had grown up in a mine, no formal combat training. He got his training beating people to death. Then he joined up with Alicia on their last ship and adopted his signature cloak. It was tattered and loose, covering up the actual combat armor he wore beneath, making him seem less a human and more a ghastly shadow. “Plan?” he asked Alicia.

“I figure we wait until the we hear the big gun fire, then we launch ourselves over and kill all of the idiots. Sound good?”

“Aye aye, sir,” Paul said with a bloodthirsty grin. Gregor simply nodded. Alicia smiled as they waited. She watched their fighters begin dogfighting with the other pirate’s. She took careful aim at the hull of the pirate Carrier. The entire ship rocked suddenly, as the Lone Wolf’s Planetkiller launched a fighter-sized metal hunk through the carrier. Gregor pressed the launch button, and the boarding pod shot across space, penetrating through the hole made by the railgun and lodging itself in the wall of the ship. As the door opened, ten pirates stood, guns pointed at the boarders. Alicia smiled, a grin to match Paul’s, as she slowly walked out of the pod. The people opened fire upon her. The projectiles fell out as they barely penetrated her skin, the energy dissipated across her uniform. As they reloaded, she gave the signal. Gregor and Paul entered the hall behind her. Seeing the others with Alicia, the pirates tried to run. They made it less than three steps before Paul had shot two of them and Gregor was atop the other eight.

It wasn’t a fight. It was a bloodbath. None of the pirates had been prepared for the Planetkiller’s strike, and they were still dealing with the repercussions of that when Alicia took the bridge, Gregor took the armory, and Paul took the engines. Within seven minutes, the ship had been shut down entirely, and the surviving crew had all surrendered. The Lone Wolf attached itself to the boarding pod, and they began to offload all the money and cargo from the pirate. Alicia, still on the carrier’s bridge, greeted Leslie as he walked on. “Wasn’t that fun?” she asked him.

“Sure, I guess. This is the part I like, though. Thinking about this money makes me feisty.” Then, he looked out over what remained of the crew. Gregor was perched menacingly on the back of the captain’s chair, cloak falling around the chair and making him seem ten feet tall, and Paul was skipping between the people, all of whom were terrified on the ground. “Any of them useful?” he asked.

“Welp,” Alicia handed him a box, “That head will get us a cool mil, and everyone says their cook is to die for.”

“Alright, bring him and, lessay, three guests back with us. The rest can stay here.”

Alicia nodded to Paul, who wrenched the cook up and whispered in his ear. She nodded to Gregor, who walked out of the bridge. Then she walked with Leslie back onto the Lone Wolf. Thirty minutes later, they detached the boarding pod and began to drift back. As everyone settled in their travelling stations, Alicia pressed one of three buttons on her assigned bridge console, the biggest one. On their viewscreen, they all watched as the pirate carrier, in all her glory, burst alight with fire and electricity. Then, it was gone, just dust drifting across space. Alicia looked at Leslie. “To Portus Libertorum, I presume?” she asked.

Leslie smiled. “Yeah, think it’s ‘bout time for a little shore leave, don’t ya?”

#fiction #GalaxyIncorporated #sciencefiction #SF #story