“Who is your leader?” Al Hamra demanded of the ship’s captain, who was shackled and broken on his knees in front of the Firebirds. He was a big, heavyset middle-aged man with a slight paunch, receding hair flecked with grey, and a round, impassive scar-tangled face. He had come out of the ship accompanied by the pilot Slim Pickens, his two gunners and the only other remaining crew members, a doctor and a sleazy-looking civilian type, all now on their knees on the blood-slicked deck in front of their captured ship, which loomed over them like an angry Icon of hate. Al Hamra gestured to some colonists and they started dragging away the gunners, thin pale-skinned sisters called Selina the Younger and Selina the Elder, who screamed and remonstrated as the colonists hauled them towards the air locks at the far side of the docks. Al Hamra pushed the pilot on the side with his booted foot, leaving a smear of blood and ash, and snapped at all of them. “Turn! See what we do to those who threaten our habitat!”
Reluctantly the remaining men and women turned to watch as the sisters were thrown without ceremony into the air lock on the vacuum side of the dock. They struggled on their knees to the plexiglass door, faces contorted as they screamed for mercy in voices that could not be heard through the vacuum seal, until one of the colonists hit the button marked EMERGENCY EVACUATION. A second later both women tumbled out into the void, their brief struggles clearly visible from the dockside as they fell away into the waiting Dark.
“You’re next, Slim,” Al Hamra turned to the pilot, “Unless you or your boss start talking.”
“Samina’s Corsairs,” the doctor yelled urgently, receiving a grim sideways look from the captain. “We serve Samina’s Corsairs!”
Silence followed this revelation. Samina’s Corsairs were an almost mythical outfit, a gang of pirates said to be thousands strong with dozens of ships, who had the miraculous ability to turn up almost anywhere in the Third Horizon, with a record of marauding ships all across its most lucrative trade routes. No one knew where they were based or how they were able to slip through the Portals undetected and unimpeded, and debate raged between those who said they were a myth, those who thought they had special technology to cloak their ships, and those who believed they had connections all the way to the top of the Syndicate and at least one other Faction. Amongst those who believed they were real and maintained their secrecy through corruption, equally furious debate raged over which Faction was helping them and why.
“Nikak!” Al Hamra sneered, and gestured to the returning colonists, who grabbed the doctor and started dragging him away.
“He’s telling the truth!” Slim Pickens almost squealed. “We are! We really are!”
Al Hamra held up his hand to the colonists, who stopped in place a few metres away and unceremoniously dumped the doctor on the ground. “Is this true?” He demanded of the captain, who spat at him in response.
They spaced the captain, who refused to even cry out or protest as they dragged him to the air lock. He went into the void a stoic defender of his secrets until the end, but his death had the pilot in tears as she watched their end coming closer.
“Now tell us,” Al Hamra ordered. “Who is this spiv?” He pointed at the sleazy-looking, slender man in kameez and leggings at the end of their line of prisoners, who rested on his knees patiently looking at the deck, face calm and impassive.
“He’s called Halam,” the pilot told them. “He’s Samina’s representative, our negotiator. He won’t ever talk.”
“Is this true?” Al Hamra asked the man, who looked up at him and nodded, his face calm and unruffled. “Are you people fanatics?” Al Hamra asked him, and when he received no response flicked a gesture to the colonists, who started dragging him away too. Al Hamra watched the two remaining prisoners, who whimpered and looked away as Halam flew out into space.
“This colony has an excess of pilots,” he mentioned in a casual tone as he faced off with the remaining two prisoners. Behind him other colonists were dragging wounded, dead and dying pirates past them to the same airlock, leaving long smears of blood across the deck as they took them to their fate. Spacing pirates was standard practice across the Third Horizon, though some considered the punishment too quick, and everybody agreed it was a waste of resources to treat men and women who were destined for hard vacuum. The colonists stripped them of their weapons, data tags and exo-suits at the door to the air lock and then threw them in, grim and hard work that they took on with great pleasure.
“We could use an additional doctor though,” Abraham added from his position behind the Mystic, “Though it’d be on a short leash and a lifetime of bonded servitude.”
“Please!” The medic yelled, his shoulder-length hair tangled in the sweat and blood and tears on his face. He almost fell forward in his eagerness to plead for his life. “I’ll tell you everything I know.”
The interrogation proceeded smoothly from there, against the backdrop of the brutal clean-up. A few pirates who were able to walk were marched past and shoved into the airlock on their feet, pleading desperately until the last moment, and the pilot watched them with a despairing look as the doctor told them everything they wanted to know. Yes, they were Samina’s Corsairs, and they had come here some weeks ago to begin the plan. Yes, Samina wanted to establish an observation post in the Kua system, so that she would have an easy way to watch the comings and goings of Coriolis itself. Yes, Aslam really would have been made the ruler of Rockhome 3, although he would be completely a servant of Samina, who would maintain a detachment of troops here to enforce Aslam’s law and make sure the colonists stayed in line. No, they did not know how their secret plan had been leaked and yes, they had destroyed the Vision Thing when it left seeking help. Yes, Samina would be expecting a report in a few weeks and no, there were no other ships coming to support them. Captain Salivad was a ruthless and deadly operator who had long held Samina’s trust, and she saw no need to send a more violent or dangerous vessel than the Host of Avernum to support him.
No, the doctor would not tell them the location of Samina’s base.
“You’re flirting with the vacuum here,” Al Hamra pointed out to him. “Are you sure you don’t want to change your answer?”
Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.
The doctor looked with wide and desperate eyes to the pilot, who looked quickly away. “I can’t,” the doctor told him.
“Interesting,” Al Hamra observed. He gestured to Olivia and Siladan, who were standing nearby, and with a brief apology to Abraham drew them away from the prisoners. “Did you feel it?” He asked them in a low voice, but they looked at him in confusion, shaking their heads. “When I asked him the location of the base, the Dark itself moved. I felt something on him. He is bound by a Mystic power not to reveal the location.”
“Samina’s a Mystic?” Olivia whispered, “Or someone with her?”
Al Hamra nodded. “It feels strong too. I did not know this was possible.”
“You’re sure?” Siladan asked. “We can’t learn their secrets?”
Al Hamra nodded. “If we want to know where they are, we need to look the old-fashioned way.”
“I bet they’ve already wiped their star-maps too,” Siladan said. “Though I’ll check. I guess they’re useless to us?”
Al Hamra nodded and returned to Abraham’s side. “We just conferred, and we have no need for a doctor or a medic,” he told the old man, to cover up the nature of the conversation they had just had. “It’s up to you what to do with them,” He told him. “But if they won’t tell you their leader’s secrets they can’t be trusted. I would space them.”
Abraham shrugged. “I don’t care where their leader’s base is, if she isn’t sending more of their kind. We can hire doctors we trust, if we need them.” He gestured to the two colonists, and they started dragging the doctor away. “Come,” he said to them. “I have something to show you.” The three of them followed him out of the blood- and ash-streaked dock into the central residence, climbing an ivy-covered steel staircase to a higher level. As they walked, Al Hamra asked him about the consequences of the raid. “Four of our enforcers are dead,” Abraham told them, “Thanks to that railgun.” He pointed in the direction of the distant far end of the centre of the residence section, where smoke still hung in the air. “Twelve colonists are dead too, and we have a lot of injuries. The medlabs are full, but your Dr. Delecta and Dr. Angbat are handling it.” At the top of the stairs he led them into a corridor, sealed with a security card of some sort, and up more stairs. “Two pirates are also holding hostages in residential zone two,” he finished, “I assume they slipped in there during the confusion of the railgun.”
“What will you do with them?” Olivia asked.
“We’re negotiating now. We’ll offer them lifelong servitude if they don’t harm the hostages, and exo-suit exile if they do.” Exo-suit exile was one of the alternatives to spacing pirates, in which they were sealed in their own exosuit and thrown out of the airlock, abandoned to drift in space until their air supply ran out. Sometimes they would be put in a faulty suit, to make the process a little more unpleasant, or given extra air to draw out their end. Sometimes they were used as target practice. The punishment was not common, because it wasted an exosuit.
He led them through another security door into the colony’s control centre, where all the space operations were conducted. It was a simple half-oval, the flat wall a line of windows overlooking the tiered upper levels of the residence district and the curved wall clustered with viewing screens and diagrams. A whiteboard in the middle of the screens listed ship names with dates, times, captains and notes on them. Three people sat at control panels near the viewscreens, and he led them to another set of control panels on a raised dais near the windowed wall, turning to face them as he reached it. “Thank you for helping us to defend our home,” he said warmly as he did so. “Without your help we might have lost our freedom and some of us our lives. We have repairs to do and lives to mourn, but with your help we are free, and with Aslam’s shares and the proceeds of selling the pirate ship our financial position will improve. I’m glad you came.”
“Our pleasure,” Al Hamra replied, and the three of them took seats where Abraham pointed as he spoke. “I’ve been thinking, if you fly the Host of Avernum a little distance into the asteroid belt we can shoot some holes in it, and after a week or so you can claim it as salvage. Then if Samina’s agents come sniffing around you can tell them that our ship turned up, battle-damaged and needing repairs and carrying a hold full of the supplies you needed. Tell them we sold it at cut-rate prices along with a large load of exosuits and weapons. They’ll assume we intercepted the Host, captured its cargo and spaced its crew, then came here for repairs, and your miners found their ship in the belt. I doubt they’ll bother with their scheme a second time, and Samina will be looking for revenge with us, not you. You’ll be in the clear.” He looked around at the control centre. “Why are we here?” He asked.
“I like your plan,” Abraham told him. “I thought you might like to watch Aslam’s departure. He wanted to leave immediately, I think he was worried we might space him along with his mates.” He turned to the terminal and moved his hand over the screen, until a large visual feed appeared on the wall opposite them. One of the control centre staff started giving instructions, and they watched on the visual feed as Aslam’s small ship, the Foundation, disengaged from the rock where it was docked and began drifting into space. More instructions followed from the staff, and they watched as the ship turned in place and began moving away from the colony. “We typically give ships a pre-programmed trajectory,” he told them, “Prepared by our staff. It ensures safety among all the rocks, and Aslam isn’t the best pilot.” Then, in a slightly louder voice. “It did occur to me, though, that our cannon turret hasn’t been test fired in about fifty years.” As he spoke a set of crosshairs appeared on the visual feed, which zoomed in on the Foundation’s pre-programmed trajectory, perfectly tracking his engine trail. “I think we should test it. Fire when ready, Zatif,” he instructed, and although they heard and felt nothing from within the station a moment later there was a brief flash in the air behind the ship, a brief explosion, and a field of glittering debris began to expand around the rear of the ship.
“Oh, it works,” Abraham observed in a dry voice as the ship changed course and began to spin uncontrollably. A moment later they saw another small explosion from somewhere in the middle of the ship, and more pieces of plastic and metal began to tumble away from the stricken hull. “That,” he added, as the visual feed began to shift erratically to follow the complicated motions of the crippled ship, “Was his emergency beacon and comms relays blowing up. I guess someone must have sabotaged his ship.” He looked back at them with a satisfied smile. “How ironic! It looks like he’s going to have to drift helpless in the dark until his life support system fails and he freezes to death.”
“Could take weeks,” Olivia observed drily, as Siladan stared at the tumbling cradle of metal in horror. Al Hamra sat in the chair, face impassive, watching the traitor’s ship spin out of view behind a rock.
“It might be hours if he encounters an asteroid, though,” Abraham replied. “I guess his fate is with the Icons now. I trust they will give him the end he deserves.” He turned to face them. “You have saved our colony from treachery and slavery,” he reminded them. “If you find yourselves in need of somewhere to rest or hide, you will always be welcome here.”
They stood up, Al Hamra accepting the offer, and the old man added, “It will take a few days to tally up the loot and transfer the ship’s vehicles to yours, as well as to follow your plan with the Host of Avernum. Your soldier Adam could also do with some rest and recovery, and we appreciate Dr. Delecta’s support in the infirmary. Why don’t you stay until we have a full account of the loot? Then, once we have split it as we agreed and Adam is able to limp to your ship, you can take your leave. As I said, you’re welcome to stay as long as you like.” He bowed to them and gestured for them to leave the control room, his small lesson in the consequences of treachery well understood by everyone who witnessed it.
