Captain Phelan jumped from her chair.

 

“There, thirty degrees off starboard,” she said, pointing toward the view-screen.

 

The command crew of the Bellerophon followed the sight line of their captain’s hand, but her concern raised nothing but a tense silence.

 

“I don’t see anything,” first officer Gav Harrik said.

 

Phelan stepped closer to the view-screen, pointing toward the black emptiness of interstellar space.

 

“Tactical, any contacts on the scanner?” she asked.

 

At weapons control, Lt. Rohmer shook his head.

 

“Nothing captain. The short range sweeps come back blank.”

 

“There it is again. Where the stars form an arc.”

 

Phelan strained her eyes. Then she saw it. To the right of the bow, where a semi-circle constellation dominated the sky, the stars blinked. That wasn’t right. In the vacuum of space, there wasn’t supposed to be anything to make starlight twinkle.

 

“What is it?” Harrik asked.

 

Phelan didn’t answer. She’d seen something else. Lt. Rohmer started to speak, but Phelan didn’t wait to hear him.

 

“Battle stations!”

 

Emergency lights flooded the bridge in crimson. Sirens blared. The command crew hurried through their protocols half-panicked. Phelan's face went pale. A terrible image shimmered into view, hovering before her ship.

 

Across the void, the stars no longer flickered. They'd been eclipsed. A star cruise emerged from the emptiness. It came to light in staggered phases, shedding its stealth halo in a sparkling fog. The pirate-vessel was obsidian-black, with a sleek forecastle and an armored hull. Crescent-shaped wings swooped forward from its fuselage like a pair of sickles, locked in attack formation and lined with a dozen plasma cannons.

 

“Anubis,” she said. “I knew you’d find me, Kane.”

 

 

                                                                                     ***

 

The Anubis opened fire the instant its magnetic dampers secured its cloaking field.

 

 

Twenty-four turrets opened up at once, strafing the underside of the planet-orbiting freighter. Plasma beams sliced open the reinforced hull, melting through the stanchions that connected the cargo ship’s body to its hyper-warp engines, but leaving the volatile cores untouched.

 

Executing an inverted turn, Anubis cut across the length of its prey. On that vector, Bellerophon’s forward batteries couldn't return fire. As the agile starship strafed its helpless prey it launched a fusillade of ion torpedoes.

 

They obliterated Bellerophon’s rear defenses.

 

Anubis came about on a slower approach, bringing it even with the smoldering, broken wreck, now dead in space only moments after the attack had begun. It did not strike further. Instead, it merely hovered. After a long while watching the freighter falter and spark as its ruined systems began to shut down, it dispatched a message.

 

A hazy image appeared on Bellerophon’s cracked view-screen. Three figures standing on the bridge of a ship. To the left was a giant brute with silver eyes, his frame armored in a titanium exo-skeleton, the machinery seemingly fused with his flesh.

 

To the right was an even worse visage, humankind’s oldest enemy, a hissing, serpent-like Zal’khul clenching a pair of cutlass blades in his scaly fists.

 

The two figures flanked a tall man in a tattered Imperial Fleet frock coat, the gold-braid shoulder insignia and epaulettes still boasting the rank of Captain. Nothing else about him suggested the bearing of an officer. His dark hair was long. A buccaneer’s beard grew from his chin, with whiskers tied into braids that fell to his chest. Silver rings sparkled from each ear.

 

He was the one that finally spoke.

 

“This is Xerxes Kane, Captain of the Anubis. Prepare to be boarded.”

 

 

                                                                                          ***

 

 

Shrapnel and flame exploded into the corridor. Pirates with plasma rifles and ion swords followed into Bellerophon’s command center.

 

The raiders charged through the opening their docking skiff had blasted out of the crippled freighter’s hull, firing as they came. Crimson beams scorched the walls, sparking shattered control panels and raising screams as the bolts tore through the first line of defenders.

 

A salvo of blasts answered, incinerating one of the invaders into ozone fumes and scattered atoms. His body-armor clanged across the floor, but his comrades pushed ahead. Lightning flashed through clouds of smoke, and with it came the stench of burning flesh.

 

The reptile-alien Tsoth was the first pirate to emerge from the Anubis, leaping over the debris with inhuman agility. Despite the thick haze, he scanned the defenses with infrared eyes.

Beside him rushed the giant cyborg Alaric, Kane himself came up just behind.

 

A dozen other cutthroats flanked their captain. Tsoth directed them, as they advanced behind a blinding cascade of disruptor fire.

 

Clearing the lower level, Kane took the lead. Electrified saber in one hand and plasma rifle in the other, he slashed and blasted his way through Bellerophon’s out-matched crew. His men followed his trail of blood and broken armor, up the steel ramp to the main bridge, lagging a pace behind but shouting their battle cries as they raced to catch up.

 

When they got to the top, they stopped in their tracks. What they saw stunned them.

Xerxes Kane, the most feared buccaneer in the galaxy, had raised his arms as if in surrender. Standing before him was only a single defender—an unarmed woman.

 

 

                                                                                               ***

 

 

She was older than he remembered. Her auburn hair was shorter and had gone gray near the temples, but her face was the same. Beautiful.

 

Kane heard his corsairs mustering behind him, grumbling and rowdy.

 

“Gentlemen, this is Captain Jessica Phelan,” he said. “A former colleague of mine in the Ninth Fleet. We came up together, graduated a year apart at the Academy on Eridani Minor.”

 

The pirates backed off. A few of them laughed under their breath.

 

“I heard you left the Fleet, but I never figured you for an inter-stellar delivery driver,” Kane said.

 

“It pays the bills. And it’s safer than hunting aliens on the deck of a star cruiser."

 

“It’s supposed to be, anyway."

 

“And now you’re shooting me out of the sky,” Phelan replied.

 

“Nothing personal. If I’d known this was your ship--”

 

“You would have let us go?”

 

“Fair point."

 

She threw up her hands in a gesture of mock surrender.

 

“Well then, it appears I am your prisoner, Captain."

 

Kane shook his head, bowing as he extended his hand like an old-fashioned gentleman. “Your ship may be captive, but I am very much at your service.”

 

 

                                                                                             ***

 

 

Xerxes Kane stood at the center of Bellerophon’s largest cargo hold, watching his crew of convicts, cut-throats and aliens set about the mundane work of seizing the booty their cannons had just secured. His cyborg second-in-command stood beside him with his unblinking metallic eyes.

 

“You should be back on the Anubis,” Alaric said.

 

Kane scoffed.

 

“And leave you to account for the haul unsupervised? Unlikely, my friend.”

 

“It’s dangerous and unnecessary. Your place is on the bridge. If something were to happen--”

 

“Then you would assume command,” Kane said. “And with a heavy heart, I’m sure.”

 

Both laughed, but Kane knew there was more than a hint of truth in the joke.

 

“Danger is a relative question in our business,” he continued. “There are a hundred ships out there prowling the Rim, Imperial and alien alike. They all want my head. Hiding on the bridge is not going to save me. One of these days, this ugly mug of mine will decorate some admiral’s mantle.”

 

They laughed again, deeper this time. The mirth did not last long. Tsoth came up behind them, startling Kane with his silent approach.

 

“Damn it, you slimy snake-head. How many times do I have to tell you?”

 

The Zal’khul smiled, revealing his forked tongue and a pair of fangs.

 

“We’ve inventoried all the cargo, and you’re not going to be happy,” Tsoth said.

 

Every word slithered from him with a reptilian hiss.

 

“I’m always happy,” Kane replied. “Except when I’m not.”

 

“The drones managed to salvage the hyper-warp coils we severed from their engines, so we’ve made out well with fuel. But the ship-board holds are another matter. They’re full of only one thing: hundreds of crates of something marked VRD-9.”

 

“What the hell is that?” Kane asked.

 

His answer came from the other side of the cargo hold.

 

“The only cure for Altairan Plague.”

 

It was Captain Phelan, descending on a turbo-lift down to the floor of the cargo bay. She was unarmed, and while his guards mustered at her approach, Kane smiled the moment he saw her.

 

“I thought we agreed that you would wait for me on the bridge. Don’t prisoners follow orders on this ship?”

 

She laughed.

 

“And here I thought you were being chivalrous.”

 

“Touché. Would you care to see what a real star cruiser looks like?”

 

“Don’t you have work to do here, stealing all my property?”

 

“As a matter of fact, Alaric was just telling me how unwelcome I am here. And how often do two dear friends meet like this? If I’ve learned anything in the cold reaches of space, it’s that you can’t waste opportunities like this, even when they come under less-than-ideal circumstances.”

 

Alaric grumbled and Tsoth hissed, but Kane left them behind as he escorted Phelan away.

 

 

                                                                                        ***

 

The bridge of the Anubis was a monument to plunder.

 

Banners stolen from dozens of raided vessels hung along the perimeter. Many bore the scorch marks of laser blasts and fires. Some were stained with blood, both human and alien.

 

Skulls and other grisly totems from more than a hundred species dangled from the vaulted ceiling. Graffiti in several languages splashed across every surface.

 

Remnants of the original design were still visible, half-buried under the corsairs’ grim décor. All of the instrument arrays remained functional, with touch-screen panels under holographic displays. The front third of the bridge held the weapons and helm stations. The Captain’s chair occupied the center, a throne of pewter and steel draped with the purple cloak of a murdered alien king.

 

It was the first thing Kane pointed out to his long-lost comrade when they entered, the final stop on Phelan’s impromptu tour. By then, Alaric and Tsoth were already back, waiting to relay their report.

 

“We’ve finished inventory, but not transfer,” Alaric said.

 

“He thought it was best to wait for your approval before we brought the VRD-9 on board,” Tsoth said. “I disagreed.”

 

Kane nodded, turning to Phelan.

 

“That ship of yours is a cargo hauler, not a medical frigate. What was your destination?"

 

“We’re bound for the colony on Rigel VII, an outbreak there has already killed thousands,” Phelan answered.

 

“Is that medicine you’re carrying worth anything?” Alaric asked.

 

“To the colonists it’s worth everything."

 

“Then we ransom it off. Sell it to them for whatever they can offer in exchange. They must have something worth taking,” Alaric said.

 

“Very little,” Phelan replied. “The colony is a new settlement, and has nothing to offer yet.”

 

“Then forget it, dump it and let’s head home,” Alaric said.

 

“If we do that, every man woman and child on Rigel VII may die,” Tsoth said. “Care you nothing for the lives of your own kind?”

 

“You snake-heads killed enough humans to fill a thousand colonies during the war, what’s a few more?” Alaric said.

 

“Those atrocities pain me to no end, and it is for just that reason that I will not allow any more of your noble species to die without reason,” the serpent answered.

 

“Not my species,” Alaric said. “And not so noble, either.”

 

Tsoth hissed, baring his fangs as though about to strike.

 

Kane stepped between the two, well-accustomed to keeping his crew from each other’s throats. Then he turned to another of his lieutenants, Nestor Hawking, a thin man with a shaved head standing at the rear of the deck.

 

Unlike Kane, his Imperial Fleet coat was pressed and crisp and he wore old-fashioned spectacles perched at the end of his nose.

 

“How long would a detour to Rigel VII take?” Kane asked.

 

The impeccably-dressed pirate raised his index finger, as though thinking, even as his other hand sorted volumes of data on the holographic display.

 

“From our current position, roughly a day out, then two to return to base."

 

“Sounds like a nice trip,” Kane said, smiling toward Phelan.

 

He looked to his old Academy friend, a woman he knew his crew suspected had once been more than a classmate.

 

“See there, my lady? Chivalrous after all. Pirates we may be, but we’re not quite so bad as you might have heard. Your cargo’s going to make it just fine. Until then, consider yourself an honorary member of the crew.”

 

                                                                                         ***

 

The forward observation deck of the Anubis had once been a common area for the ship’s officers. After commandeering the vessel for himself, Xerxes Kane had turned the entire place into his Captain’s Quarters, complete with a 180 degree view; a giant bay window to the galaxy.

 

It made for the final stop on Jessica Phelan’s tour. An endless field of stars extended in every direction, a sea of diamonds set against a veil of perfect black.

 

“Absolutely lovely,” she said.

 

Kane agreed, though he wasn’t looking at the sky.

 

“I’d heard that you left the Imperial Fleet a few years ago. What brought you back to sailing the space-ways?” he asked.

 

Alaric was alone in the mess hall, slurping some kind of meat paste that was supposed to be stew. Tsoth came through the door with his usual speedy gait, but he stopped the moment the smell of beef hit him.

 

“As enamored as I am with humankind,” the reptile said. “I will never be able to stomach how you eat dead food.”

 

“If you’re hungry, I saw a mouse crawling around here earlier,” Alaric replied.

 

Tsoth’s eyes lit up.

 

“Brown or white?”

 

“Gray, I think.”

 

“Mmmm, the tastiest of all,” Tsoth said. “Appealing as that sounds right now, we do have bigger problems.”

 

“Having second thoughts about your humanitarian mission?” Alaric replied.

 

“Never,” Tsoth said. “We’re set to enter orbit around Rigel VII any minute, so I went down to the cargo hold just now, to begin preparing the VRD-9 so that the doses would be ready for distribution as soon as we land.”

 

“How thoughtful of you.”

 

“But there wasn’t anything to prepare.”

 

Alaric put down his spoon.

 

“I watched those crates get loaded myself.”

 

“The crates are there,” Tsoth said. “But they’re full of empty vials.”

 

“Are you certain?”

 

“I checked dozens of them,” Tsoth said. “There is no VRD-9.”

 

Alaric furrowed his brow, his silver eyes sparkling with fiber-optic pulses.

 

“If Bellerophon was carrying empty crates, then there are going to be a lot of disappointed colonists."

 

Tsoth clasped his hands, shaking his serpent-head.

 

“Or maybe none at all."

 

“You think our captain’s lady friend was lying about the colonists?”

 

“Perhaps. But if she is, then what was her ship doing all the way out there?”

 

Alaric puzzled.

 

“Good question. What possible reason could a virtually defenseless freighter have for being out so far in deep space, just waiting for someone to come along and--”

 

“Attack?"

 

“They were a decoy."

 

The entire ship shook in that instant. Lights flickered as the whole vessel shuddered. That meant only one thing.

 

“We’ve got to get to the bridge,” Tsoth said.

 

 

                                                                                       ***

 

 

As soon as Kane came to his feet, he activated the nearest holo-screen, calling up the tactical readout. The 3D light-works answered with a display that made him freeze. The Anubis was surrounded. Only minutes after entering Rigel VII orbit, a dozen Imperial Fleet battle cruisers hovered in formation all around them, hammering the hull with plasma beams.

 

“Shield capacity?”

 

“Seventy percent and falling fast,” Nestor replied.

 

“How did we miss them?"

 

“It was a trap,” Alaric answered.

 

He and Tsoth rushed onto the bridge. The cyborg pointed at Phelan. “And she led us into it.”

 

Phelan protested, even as she backed away from Kane’s lieutenants—and toward him.

 

“If they knew we were coming, they could have secluded themselves on the far side of the planet, shielded from our sensors until we put into orbit,” Nestor said.

 

“You lied,” Tsoth said to Phelan. “The VRD-9. The sick colonists. None of that was true, was it?”

 

She shook her head, waving her hands in the air. Another barrage rocked the ship, sending her to her knees.

 

A message sounded on the bridge.

 

“This is Fleet Admiral Jarrod aboard the IMS Perseus. It’s over Kane. There’s no way out this time. Give yourself up and you’ll get a fair trial. You have three minutes to signal before we commence firing.”

 

“This is your fault!” Alaric shouted at Phelan. “I swear I’ll gut you myself before they kill us!”

 

Already on her knees, she looked out at the array of gunships and then back to the crew of pirates surrounding her. She broke down.

 

“I never wanted to do it,” she said. “Please understand, they gave me no choice!”

 

“Who?” Alaric demanded.

 

“The High Command,” Kane answered, stepping away from her.

 

“They knew we were close once,” she said. “They knew that we left things unresolved. They offered me a ship and they offered to pay my debts.”

 

“If you set me up,” Kane said.

 

She nodded.

 

“I told them you would do the right thing,” Phelan continued, “that you had a good heart. I told them you couldn’t turn your back on children. I told them it would work.”

 

“It almost did,” he said.

 

“Almost?”

 

He turned his back on her.

 

“Nestor, do any of the attack ships have their shields up?”

 

“Negative captain, all shields are down in preparation to fire. Considering the odds, they likely consider us neutralized. Even with our firepower, we can’t destroy a dozen ships at once.”

 

He considered for a moment.

 

“Lower our shields and signal our surrender, every channel, continuous transmission. Then shut down power to every system but forward weapons and propulsion.”

 

“That will cause the attack fleet to close in on us in preparation for boarding, making escape even less feasible,” Hawking replied.

 

“Exactly,” Kane said, turning to the reptile on his other side.

 

“Tsoth, we still have the two hyper-warp coils from the Bellerophon, right?”

 

“In the front cargo hold,” the snake-man answered.

 

“Jettison them.”

 

“But captain. . .”

 

“That’s an order!”

 

The reptile hurried over to the nearest control panel, but Kane was only beginning.

 

“Weapons, synch the forward batteries on a single target-lock. When those coils are ejected, fix everything on them. Helm, make ready for standing warp."

 

“There are twelve gunships out there,” Alaric warned. “All of them are target-locked on us. Even with standing warp it takes a few seconds for the coils to build up enough for full acceleration. By the time we got halfway to hyper-warp they’d cut us to pieces.”

 

“That’s suicide!” Phelan said.

 

“Maybe,” Kane answered.

 

Tsoth called out from the far side of the bridge.

 

“Coils away, captain.”

 

Kane sat down in his chair, stroking the ermine cloak draped over the back of it. He saw the shock played out across her face. She clearly thought he'd gone mad, and he was happy to let her believe it.

 

“The High Command was right,” she whispered.

 

“Probably." He smiled, just for her. "Weapons, status on the warp coils?”

 

“Twenty kilometers, moving off at about five clicks per second.”

 

“How close to the nearest Imperial gunship?”

 

“About thirty kilometers and closing.”

 

“When they reach twenty, fire everything at the coils,” Kane said. “Helm, prepare to activate standing warp.”

 

“Twenty-five. Twenty-four. Twenty-three.”

 

Nestor interrupted.

 

“Sir, you’re aware that those coils are infused with highly reactive contramantium, as are the cores of all the ships in orbit here, including ours. Igniting them could set off--”

 

Phelan jumped up. “A chain reaction! My god, you’re going to kill us all!”

 

The weapons officer hit twenty, and without further order, he fired.

 

Kane leaped from his Captain’s chair.

 

“Initiate standing warp!”

 

The beams from the forward batteries converged on the floating engine cores at the same time the hyper-warp engines fired. The ejected coils erupted, sending shock waves out in red ripples of ionized particles. The nearest gunship rocked when the first round collided with its un-shielded engines, immediately sparking a second burst from within its own core.

 

“It’s causing the reaction,” Nestor said. “The contramantium in every ship’s engine is igniting.”

 

In that instant, the Anubis catapulted into full thrust, sending it careening into hyperspace.

 

Behind them, the entire attack fleet collapsed in a ball of plasma-flame as every warp coil in every gunship exploded one after the other, obliterating them in a cascade of super-hot gas and molten steel.

 

The Anubis was already light years away.

 

 

                                                                                            ***

 

 

Jessica Phelan entered the escape pod, nothing more than a single-passenger capsule. Alaric kept his pistol pointed at her as she settled in. Kane watched in silence.

 

“You knew all along, didn’t you?” she asked.

 

“No, but I suspected,” he answered.

 

Alaric initiated the launch sequence, and the pod door began to close.

 

“Where am I going?” Phelan asked.

 

“We’re orbiting a small moon. The climate is habitable, plenty of food and water.”

 

“You’re marooning me? Damn you Kane!”

 

“A better fate than you had in mind for me,” he said.

 

The pod door closed with a pressurized thump, cutting off her angry screams a moment before ejecting her into space.

 

“It might have been more merciful to kill her,” Alaric said.

 

Kane watched the pod drift away, shaking his head.

 

“I activated the capsule’s signal beacon. The nearest base is a few parsecs from here. Someone will be by, in a few months. Until then, let her curse me.”

 

 

 

 

                                                          *************************************

  Copyright Frank Cavallo 2012