The Star Pirate's Folly (20 page)

Bee wouldn’t hold still for Willis to treat her battered
hands. She fought the burly medic the whole time he bear-hugged her to the
infirmary and when he finally did get her in there she tried to make a run for
it. Myra barely shut the doors in time—and getting her on the table was another
ordeal.

Willis held her by the wrists, urging her to settle down as
she struggled against him. She was surprisingly strong, a wiry sort of muscle,
but really no match for him. With all her wriggling, though—

“I could just drug you and strap you down!” Willis barked,
softening his grip as his shout snapped her out of her frenzy. For a moment the
two locked eyes. A stillness went over her. She sagged back onto the padded
table, Willis easing her down, then curled up on her side and let the tears
flow, staring aimlessly with red-rimmed eyes.

Willis calmed himself by tending to her fingers. He was glad
he didn’t have to sedate her again considering what she’d been through already.
She’d broken the skin on her knuckles, tore up a few good chunks against the
metal grates, but no serious damage. There wasn’t much blood but bruises would
form.

They’d need to keep a close eye on her in the foreseeable
future. He and Myra could work out a recovery plan for her later—for now he
would just try to keep her stable, prevent her from hurting herself anymore.

All the damned stars seemed to have something against the
girl.

***

Bee refused to eat after she learned of Hargrove’s death.
The thought of food turned her stomach. All she could do was sleep and cry. For
a day and night, they kept her in the infirmary, Willis standing vigil with
Myra as company, but Bee hated it in there and wanted back into her room. At
least there she had the illusion of privacy even if she knew Myra would always
be watching.

The fog of sadness tinged her every waking moment. Bee
thought she’d steeled her heart to such pain long ago. Anything bad she felt
before just became fuel for the rage she carried inside her. Back then she
could believe she’d find him someday, tell him all about his terrible crimes,
and force him to beg before she killed him. Of course, back then she knew
nothing—not even his name. He was just a child’s memory.

Now that he was real she couldn’t even bring herself to
think his name.

She just felt so tired. It didn’t seem possible anymore. All
her troubles for nothing. All the death—for nothing. Hargrove. Mother. Who knew
how many other innocents on Surface. She was too small, too insignificant, to
do anything about any of it.

Bee rolled over on her bunk to face the wall, her back to
the door. She knew it would normally be time for her to wake up for morning
drills with Truly but they’d left her alone for—how long? A day at least, she
thought. They brought her food she wouldn’t eat, usually Silver or the Captain,
once Ferro. No one seemed to know what to say. Not that any words could make
things better.

She closed her eyes again, sank into darkness.

A piercing scream woke her up, some kind of feral
blood-freezing screech. When Bee sat up in bed she realized the noise came from
her. A nightmare she’d already forgotten.

“Bee?” came Myra’s concerned voice.

“Sorry. Dreaming.”

“Don’t be, I’m here for you. You want to talk? Or go back to
sleep?”

She shook her head, tears springing to her eyes in a hot
flood. “I’ll dream again.”

“I’ll stay up with you.”

Bee nodded, tears dribbling off her chin. “I can’t stop
thinking about Hargrove.” Her voice cracked at his name. She swallowed and
wiped her face with the sheet, embarrassed. “And every time I think of that it
reminds me of—of
him
.”

“I know, honey. I’m sorry there was nothing we could do.”

“I read about space exposure.”

“Bee, you shouldn’t—”

“Shouldn’t what?” Bee hissed, flashing an angry glare up
toward where she knew the camera was. “I shouldn’t know how he died? How he
probably held his breath before they vented him? I shouldn’t know how his lungs
popped inside him before he lost consciousness—”

“You shouldn’t torture yourself, Bee.”

“It’s my fault!” she cried. “I killed him! If I’d just
told
him
where I was, if I’d just left that pad, if I’d just…
Hargrove
….”
She trailed off sobbing, the agony of her choices too much to bear.

“There there, child, there there,” Myra said, fully aware
nothing she could say would ease the girl’s pain. “Just breathe. Just breathe.
This is only a moment in time. You’ll get through.”

“I don’t want to get through, I want to
go back
. I
want to take it all back, all of it.”

“The past has passed. What matters is now.”

“It’s too much,” Bee whispered, slumping back to the bed. “I
can’t.”

Myra fell silent as the girl wept quietly. Before she could
speak again Bee, calming down some, lifted her head from the pillow. “Will you
sing for me?”

“Sing?” Myra asked. “You want music?”

“No,” Bee said, smoothing her hair back before settling
against the pillow again. “I want you to sing for me.”

“Well, I’ve never—” The AI hesitated, unsure. “Like a
lullaby?”

Bee sniffed. “Anything.”

After another few moments of silence Myra began to sing in a
slow rhythmic contralto. She sang of travelers sailing the space between stars,
of what they hoped to find in their travels, of hopes and wishes and even
prayers. The song filled Bee’s thoughts, settled the churning waters in her
mind enough to let her slip into a peaceful slumber. She dreamt of distant
stars twinkling in welcome of the weary travelers, warming them with their
shimmering rays of light.

***

On the screen in his quarters, the Captain watched Myra and
Bee as they spoke. He tried to shake off the adrenalinee Bee’s hair-curling
shriek had caused, as it seemed Myra had the situation under control. Wiping
his face with one hand, Victor yawned and flopped back on the bed,
half-listening to their conversation. Poor girl was a wreck.

He almost nodded off when Myra started singing. Victor
jerked awake again, stunned. She’d never sung before in all the years since her
creation. He didn’t teach her, he knew that for a fact. Such a beautiful voice.
Sorrow touched his heart, a sharp shock that took him by surprise. He clenched his
jaw to keep it from trembling.

The screen vanished along with the song.

“Victor.” Myra spoke gently. She must have closed it.

“You’re singing,” he managed, his voice catching.

“She asked me.”

“Seems to have worked.”

“Yes, she’s calmed down for now. But I can’t really help her
unless you let me speak to her as
me
—the real me, the whole
me.
The one you’re talking to now. I need to connect with her, build trust, not
just…
interact
. She can’t trust me without knowing me fully.”

“I know, Myra. I know.”

“Look at me.”

Victor rolled over to face her on the bed. She lay on her
side with her head propped up on one elbow, a fist resting lightly against her
temple. A sheet draped over her waist left the rest of her body revealed,
pleasant curves inviting his eye to trace along her naked form.

“Just how I remember you.”

“How’s this?” Myra said, and her supple body wrinkled with
age to match his own almost sixty years. Crow’s feet tracked creases from the
corners of her eyes and radiant copper hair faded among silver waves, the dusky
red-brown of her original color still peeking through. She smiled at him and
her skin folded in places where before it held the tautness of youth.

Victor reached out one hand and caressed her cheek.
“Magnificent.” But his fingers felt only the faint warmth of a painfully
convincing hardlight projection instead of the face his brain insisted was
there. He pulled back his hand and a rueful grin played around his lips. “Wish
I could have seen it happen on my own time.”

“We can help her, Victor. We can give her another chance.”

“I know that. Let me be selfish for a moment longer. You’re
mine, I don’t want to share you.”

“You must have a heart of stone.”

“Until now you’ve been my personal
private
project.
They don’t know you’re… real. But I do—and all too well, Myra. Swear to me
you’ll behave and you can do your work. This doesn’t mean I’m giving you free
reign over the ship again but prove to me you can keep your word and we’ll put
full clearance back on the table.”

She huffed. “Oh, you know I just don’t like being cooped up.
I get bored and you’ve got too many rules for me. But now I’ve got something to
keep me fully occupied.”

“Myra, please. Just tell me you’ll be true to me. That’s all
I want to hear.”

Her answer came reluctant, half-serious. “Alright, I swear
it.”

His eyes found hers. “Swear to
me
.”

Myra’s body smoothed back to the young peach-skinned woman
and she crawled across the bed to Victor, her blue eyes locking with his as she
undulated toward him. The sheets moved with her—a trick of the gravity, he
knew, just Myra pulling puppet strings. A kind deception.

“I swear you’ll have no more trouble from me, Captain Victor
Anson,” she said, each carefully enunciated word bringing her closer. “My hero.
My love. My husband.”

Victor closed his eyes and sank back into the sheets as
hardlight lips trailed tingling kisses down his neck. He couldn’t help but
focus on the sensations still missing—the wetness left by her lips and tongue,
the tender pinch of teeth on flesh, her breath tickling the hairs on his
chest—but he let himself be fooled.

***

A loud thunk next to the bed startled Bee and she rolled
over still half-asleep to see her loaner nullsuit’s helmet ricochet toward her
after bouncing off the floor. She caught it, barely. Standing in the open
doorway was First Officer Truly, fully suited. He threw the rest of her suit at
her and rapped armored knuckles against the wall, the heavy ring of metal on
metal shattering her morning stupor.

“Alright, alright!” she shouted over the clanging, clapping
her hands over her ears until he stopped. “What’s wrong with you?”

“Let’s go,” was all he said before he vanished behind the
closed door.

The stiff white nullsuit floated straight at her on an
impossible trajectory, its limbs contorted at cruel angles. She’d expected it
to fall on the ground in front of her—still used to thinking in terms of
Surface. Out here things were different. Normal rules didn’t always apply.

Bee caught a fistful of the fabric and pulled the suit in,
crumpling it to her chest. Squeezing it tight with both hands, she pulled her
knees up, buried her face in the cool silky fabric, and let out a muffled
scream until her lungs burned for air.

“C’mon, where’s your steel?” Truly said in Bee’s ear. “You
beat already?”

“I’m never gonna catch you, Truly,” she panted, exhausted
after an hour of near-constant chase. Everything burned, ached, or throbbed.
Pulling herself to the lockers with her palm nodes, Bee landed solid on her
feet. She locked the nodes to act as anchors and relaxed her entire body to let
herself rest in the weightless delight of null-gravity before she took her suit
off.

“Safe bet, bumblebee. You lose again.”

“Someday,” she managed, still gasping deep breaths of her
suit’s filtered air.

It was a simple game with simple rules: touch Truly. That’s
all she had to do to win, just touch him. It drove her insane that she couldn’t
do it. She’d been careening around the nullroom ever since he came and woke her
up but barely even gotten close to him. At least the game kept her mind
occupied along with her body. Felt good to exert herself. Felt even better
finally being comfortable in nullo.

Truly even said so—she’d gotten much better at moving in the
suit since her first day in the nullroom. Instead of the gut-clenching terror
she once felt after launching off, Bee glided with confidence. She could gauge
where she wanted to go, how hard she had to push to get there. Before she had
to correct herself every time with her palm nodes, or just “fall” somewhere
onto her feet if she screwed up. But more and more often she didn’t need the
help and could keep herself in motion for long periods without touching
anything.

Still, she was nowhere near Truly’s caliber. Watching the
man fly was a marvel. Every time they trained together she learned something
new from him, some little technique she’d get him to explain to her. Today they
focused on altering trajectory. In order to teach more easily, Truly had Myra project
a neon-orange thread of light behind him as he moved around the nullroom.

While Bee watched, Truly used his palm nodes to pull himself
around the room. First he’d start moving straight ahead, with the trail of
light straight behind him. Then he’d pull in a different direction and the
light would follow him as he arced toward one wall, then another until the
thread snaked all over the place in wild knots.

Then he told her to follow his trail. Myra used an
aquamarine light to track Bee’s path as she shoved off. At the first arc Truly
had taken she extended her arm and pulsed the palm node but overcompensated for
the gentle curve and jerked away from his orange strand of light. She tried to
pull herself back down and wound up tumbling end over end until she shot out
both her arms and stopped herself by pulling against opposite walls.

Myra reset her trail and Bee went back to the starting
point. That was the first of many failed attempts. She got further along the
trail of light each time, but before long Truly suggested they switch to their
daily game of tag. That ended as always, with Bee wearing herself out in chase
until she could no longer keep up with him—although today she was noticeably
slower than usual, weak from hunger and fatigue.

With her heart settling down and her breathing returning to
normal, Bee looked up at Truly drifting toward her in his armor. “What’d you
say earlier? Where’s my steel? I heard the Captain say something like that
too.”

“
Find your steel
, he says. Something the rebels
started saying back during the war. Sort of a rallying cry. Catchy, I
guess—people just kept on repeating it.”

“I’ll have to look it up,” she said before removing her
helmet and peeling off her nullsuit. Still coated with sweat, goosebumps
prickled on her exposed skin and she shivered as she hung her suit in her
locker.

Truly settled down beside her in his gray armor,
orange-striped knees bending as he landed, and detached his helmet. He’d barely
broken a sweat, she realized as she watched him remove his armor piece by
piece.

“What’s it mean exactly?” Bee asked. “I think I get the
gist, but….”

“Best I can tell you is what I think.”

She shut her locker. “So tell me.”

“The rebels knew they were going to have to fight a war of
attrition against an opponent superior in every way with every advantage on
their side. They picked a fight with the whole rest of the civilized galaxy,
starting here. They needed dedication. Strategy. Loyalty—the unwavering kind.
Takes a lot of strong links to make a chain that won’t break, and fear of the
enemy is a poor motivator for rebellion. They wanted people to choose for
themselves to stand up and fight.”

Truly put away his last piece of armor, leaving both him and
Bee clad only in their black undersuits. He continued his explanation while
starting a routine of stretches and Bee took a seat nearby to listen. “The
rebel leaders knew they were talking mainly to shipbuilders and metalworkers,
so they went with relevant metaphors. Finding your steel is about inner
strength, keeping cool and sharp no matter what you’re up against.”

“Did he really fight for the rebels? That’s what the Record
says.”

Truly grinned as he bent over at the waist to touch the
floor. “One of the first. And youngest.”

“I couldn’t believe that. Fourteen?” Bee leaned her head
against the wall and shook her head in astonishment. “No way me at fourteen
would be signing up to fight in some damn war.”

“Different times. You never had Earth troopers knocking in
your family’s doors every week. Earth taxes gobbling up your food money. Earth
laws sending your loved ones to prison. Fourteen years of that, maybe you’d
sign up.”

Bee grunted. “Yeah, probably.”

Truly straightened his back and cracked his neck both ways
as he walked past her to the nullroom’s exit.

“Hey Truly,” Bee said as he went by. “Did you fight too?”

He paused only briefly, with a sidelong glance. “I’m gonna go
eat.”

Bee remained sitting against the wall. The hunger she felt
before was gone, replaced with the same melancholy cloud that always seemed to
gather when she had nothing to distract her. “Myra?”

“What’s up Bee?” The AI’s voice always sounded as though it
was coming from a conversational distance, even in a large space like the
nullroom.

“What’s with Truly?”

“Must be hungry. Aren’t you?”

Bee rolled her eyes for Myra’s cameras. “I mean what’s his
story. Where’d he come from? I couldn’t find anything on the Record.”

“Not my place to say.”

“Well
he’s
not going to tell me.”

“What’s life without a little mystery?”

“You can’t tell me, can you?” asked Bee. “Why are you guys
always keeping secrets from me?”

“Well, we don’t
usually
get asked so many questions.
We’re privateers, root word
private
. And anyway, I can’t tell you
everything—there’s a lot you’ve told me I’m sure you wouldn’t want me telling
the rest of the crew.”

“Or the Captain?” Bee asked, the question a barb.

“I’m obligated to share anything of importance with the
Captain, you’ve always been aware of that.”

“So he knows everything I’ve told you?”

“He wouldn’t be a very good captain if he didn’t, would he?”

Bee shrugged and stood up to leave. “Guess I just trusted
you.”

Myra snorted—she didn’t have nostrils, but the sound was
distinctly a snort. “Please. You knew exactly how far your story was going to
get you. It was a good play.”

“Story!” Appalled, Bee threw her shoulders back and glared
into the empty room. “It’s not a story, it’s my life!”

“There it is!” Myra said with a laugh. “I knew it was still
in there somewhere.”

“What—?”

“That fire. Starhawk took it out of you, I know. But it’s
time to use it now, Bee. You’ll only get one shot, if even that. When it comes
you’ll need to be ready if you expect to succeed. We’re all here to help you.
It’s time to explain some things.”

On the floor in the center of the nullroom a figure popped
into existence. Bee flinched when it started walking toward her.

“It’s okay, Bee,” Myra said. Her voice came from the person
now, a curvaceous woman with flowing garments, shoulder length red hair, blue
eyes, and a friendly smile. She waved. The voice matched her face somehow.
“It’s me.”

Beyond confused, all Bee could say was, “Myra?”

“Correct!” the woman said with another smile, twirling on
her heel. “I would say ‘in the flesh,’ but since it’s just a projection I’d be
fibbing a little.”

“Just a projection—” Bee sputtered, moving closer to get a
better look. “Myra, you’re amazing! You look so real. Why haven’t you done this
before?”

The woman—Myra—waved a hand in the air. “Just had to tweak
some things, it’s all new equipment.”

“Is it hardlight?” Bee almost grabbed one of Myra’s arms out
of sheer fascination, but stopped herself just short. “Sorry, can I…?”

“Of course,” Myra said, offering a hand. Her face lit up
with delight at the simple gesture.

Bee took the projected hardlight hand in hers and held it up
close to inspect it. The first thing that struck her was the warmth, like a
real body. Its surface was smooth as glass, though. She remembered the
hardlight arrows Myra had used to direct her around the ship, the pleasant heat
the particles gave off. This was far more detailed—even the skin looked
convincing. Myra had a
glow
that somehow seemed natural despite the
obvious contradiction.

“Amazing,” Bee breathed. “You look real.” A thought struck
her. “Is this… you? Who you were based on?”

Myra nodded. “It’s who I was.”

“Who… were you? Exactly?”

“Once, I was Victor’s wife.” She waggled her fingers on the
hand Bee held, drawing attention to the plain band of black-purple nullsteel
around her ring finger.

Bee’s eyebrows shot up. “The Captain? You’re his wife? The
Record never said anything about—”

“Not everything made it on the Record.” Myra interrupted.
“And I wouldn’t trust everything you read on there either. All kinds of reasons
to change facts, events, circumstances. Especially after the rebellion. A lot
went on during the war that went unreported. Afterward most people were more
than happy to take their newfound freedom and look the other way about pretty
much anything that went on back then. Plus, at the time we were all sure we’d
see an invasion fleet from Earth in fifteen, twenty years at most. It never
came.

“Victor and I married not too long after the Break. Lived a
good life for a while together, a peaceful life.” Myra turned away, beckoning
Bee to follow, and they walked together around the perimeter of the nullroom.
“We ferried goods back and forth between the Core and the outer planets. Back
then we still had a few more gates, easier access to some of the more distant
settlements. It was safer then. We saw some incredible things in those years.
Then the pirates united under Dreadstar.”

“What happened?” Bee asked.

“It’s not an easy story.”

“Well you can’t just stop there.”

“On our way out to the rim we heard the first reports of Dreadstar’s
fleet. We all thought we could drop our cargo at Ymir and return home well
before they were anywhere near us. By all reports we should have been able
to—but the reports were wrong. The pirates massed their fleet at Salatia’s
interplanetary gate, took it over, and cut off Core reinforcements to the
planets past the belt. Salatia and its moons became their stronghold.”

Bobbing her head as Myra spoke, Bee murmured in agreement.
“Okay, I read about that, yeah.”

“At the time no one knew where they came from. There were
theories of hidden pirate colonies in the belt, but no evidence. Just
unstoppable waves of fresh new predators. You have to understand, too, that this
was peacetime. Ten years of silence from the old empire. We were just traders—a
lot of ex-soldiers like Victor, but people of commerce at heart. The pirates sacked
Salatia’s wealthiest colonies and sent raiding parties out to Ymir and Atla
before anyone even knew what hit them. The settlements were beyond unprepared.
With Salatia’s gate blockaded we couldn’t get back home.”

“Home? You were from Surface originally?”

Myra shook her head. “Coronis, actually. That’s where Victor
and I met. A satellite colony called Sunshade.”

“Sorry to interrupt.”

“Nonsense. Any question you have I’ll do my best to answer.
No more secrets. I’m an open book to you now, Bee. You understand? That’s the
whole point of this. The Captain wants you to know everything. There’s no going
back for you now, not since Optima, so you’re with us ‘til the end—wherever
that might be.”

“Got nowhere else to go,” Bee said with a shrug. “You guys
are the only thing in the ‘verse I have on my side.” She grinned at Myra.
“Except maybe Silver. He doesn’t like me very much.”

The copper-haired hologram laughed, her lush red hair
bouncing as she did. Bee marveled at her, impressed by the realism she made
look so easy—and more than that, Myra was beautiful! Sparkling blue eyes, fair
skin, faint scattered freckles on her cheeks.

Bee had always enjoyed the AI’s company, but to see her
really drove her humanity home. She wasn’t just a computer, but an actual
person! Or she had been at some point. Was she still? What did that make her,
technically? Bee’s stomach intruded on her thoughts with a loud, prolonged
rumble and she clapped her hand to it to stop the noise.