"You'll have to be more specific, Darlena."

"Buttercup, the orphan girl from Surface. I've been watching her for months. She's the key to all of this. This one girl ties together so many separate threads across the system. Connections between everyone from the Governor of Overlook to the worst pirates in the system. We start with her."

"Uh, I saw what she did to that pirate. Are you sure we want her?"

"I'll show you my charts. I've been tracking things since before you and I started working together. I never make contact directly, of course."

"Wow, this is really detailed. Your notes go back years. Wait, this is more than just observation. Darlena, these logs... you've been meddling already."

#

Spud shuffled blindly forward as he tried to make his way off the bridge of Deep Fog, but he couldn't see much through all the floating dust. Even turning on the headlamp on his helmet didn't make a difference. "Trying to find you, ship lady, but it's dark. Don't know where to go. Are you there?"

No one could help him. Not yet, anyway-Spud knew something must be wrong with his suit, otherwise the lady would show him where to go. He'd just have to find them on his own. It had been a long time since he'd been away from the whole crew.

Spud didn't like to think about things from before his life aboard Wanderlust, but the thick dust blocking him in reminded him of the time his sister locked him in an airlock and threatened to space him. Being walled in, not having any way out, made him hate tight places ever since then.

Optima was a hard, cold place to grow up. Spud hated the way people treated each other there. Ever since he was a kid, he got made fun of by his brothers and sisters for his size, his ugly face, or how slow his brain worked sometimes.

His parents never stepped in for him, so Spud got good at hitting his siblings, and they stopped insulting him so much. But he never wanted violence. It was just the only thing they would respect. Too bad for him-Spud got so good at it, that's all anyone wanted him to do.

When he got old enough to work, his parents had him guard things for the family-clients, clubs, ice mines, anything someone needed a big, strong body to stand in front of. Spud gained a fierce reputation, but he had no true friends, unlike on Wanderlust where the crew was always so nice to him.

For his whole life, Spud felt weighed down by bad feelings from his horrible memories. The nice lady Myra helped him understand that he tried to take out his anger on the people he hit, but it never left. It just kept burning him up.

When his parents finally died, Spud learned that his brothers and sisters had cut him out of his share of their inheritance. He raged about it, broke some stuff, hurt some of them. But as the new owners, they kicked him out of their home and left him nothing.

Spud didn't have much after that, but people knew him. He worked as a bouncer at a nullo dance club, smacking people around when they misbehaved. Usually, it was enough to just give them a certain look and walk them out. He didn't make much-enough to live on, but he struggled without his family for support.

One night, Spud heard about an open recruiting call for a privateer ship traveling far away from Optima. At first he didn't think much of it, but everyone he knew volunteered when they saw what Wanderlust offered for pay. Spud thought, why not? If they needed soldiers, he always stood out in a crowd. He had nothing to lose.

After days of weeding out the weakest applicants with long interviews, physical trials, and battle simulations aboard Wanderlust, Spud and a few others were handpicked out of hundreds by Captain Anson himself to became part of the crew. Spud met men and women from all across the Luxar System, places he'd never even heard of.

He left Optima without regret, having spent his life serving a family that didn't care about him, and it turned out better than he could have hoped. Spud might have been a slow learner, but he understood true respect when he saw it. Wanderlust became his home, its crew his family. He just had to get back to them.

Spud worked his way carefully along a wall, looking for an exit. The closeness was starting to get to him. It wasn't as bad now that he could see the gray metal wall in front of him, but sweat dripped into his eyes and his breathing kept getting quicker. "Slow it down there, Spud," he told himself, thinking of Myra's voice, trying to mimic her calmness. "Deep breaths."

Continuing to follow the wall, Spud whimpered with joy when he found an open doorway and clambered through into an empty hallway. Finally free of the smothering black dust, Spud took a long, trembling breath to steady himself before moving on. His headlamp lit up the area ahead, and Spud noticed several sets of footprints in the dirt coating the floor. So, others had survived. He lifted his beam rifle and moved forward.

#

Victor and Willis, with the two little drones leading them, advanced down the crushed hallway toward the barracks. Near the airlock where they'd entered there was enough room to walk shoulder to shoulder, but as they advanced, the two armored privateers had to slide by sideways in single file.

Victor clicked his tongue when he saw the door to the barracks didn't have enough room to open. "The drones can cut through if we give them a few minutes, but that'll drain them."

Myra said, "The pirates are trapped inside, and Spud's moving in from the bridge. They'll see you coming. If you'd just let me, I could lock their suits-"

"You have your orders, Myra. Willis, go ahead." Victor turned away when the two round utility drones started slowly cutting through the airlock door, spitting sparks in the confined space. "Myra, are you listening to them?"

"It's mostly repetitive cursing, but yes."

"Patch me in. I want to say a few words."

"Be my guest," Myra replied.

The pirates' communications channel immediately exploded in Victor's ear. "-worthless grubs, we fight to the last, you hear me!? Anson don't take prisoners, he makes corpses. Everyone fights, or I start executing you cowardly shitbirds myself!"

"That's a nice thought," Anson interjected, speaking directly into the pirates' channel, "But how about instead you all surrender and tell me where the rest of your fleet is?"

The pirates erupted into an unintelligible stream of shouts and curses until the their lieutenant's roars for silence quieted them down. He responded with a quiet gruffness. "Ain't nothing to tell-we don't know, either. So, best you come on in and say hello. Maybe we take you with us, Anson. What you say?"

"Hmm," Victor replied, mockingly mulling over the offer. "No, I think instead you should all surrender and tell me where the rest of your fleet is. In return for your eager cooperation, I'll let you all keep breathing. My AI wants to lock your suits and asphyxiate you all to save us the trouble. If you'd prefer, I'll let her."

The drones completed slicing through the door and hovered patiently in place for new orders, holding the hunk of metal still for the moment with their gravity nodes. Victor saw Spud's marker approaching from behind the pirates, but he had no way to communicate with the giant.

"Bullshit," the lieutenant spat. "You'd have killed us already if you could."

"Well, that's the thing-I can. In so many different ways. I've also got a dozen cannons above us, which could vaporize all of you with a few shots. But as I keep saying, I'd prefer it if instead you'd just surrender and tell me where the rest of your fleet is." Victor sighed. "At this point, though, you're wasting my time. So what do you say, grubs? I, like you, want nothing more than to get off this rock. You all want to die in there?"

The lieutenant snapped, "He's lying. We know you're lying, Anson. You'll just kill us anyway."

"Your lieutenant's signing your lives away right now. Give me what I want and I can make you an offer. Three meals and a hot shower, daily. Sure, you serve some time on a cube, but it beats not breathing." Victor nodded at Willis behind him, who gave his drones the command to push the door in.

No response from any of the subordinates. With a smug laugh as the door drifted inside, the lieutenant retorted, "It's like you said, Anson, you're wasting your time. These grubs ain't gonna-uh-"

Staccato shots from several beam rifles silenced the lieutenant. Moments later, their weapons came sailing through the open doorway and clattered against the wall, settling into a pile in the low gravity.

A deep, older voice ventured a blunt statement to Anson. "Lieutenant was right, they ain't told us shit about the fleet. If anyone knew anything, it was him. But I aim to keep on breathing."

"Well, that wasn't the deal," Victor said. "You got the surrendering part right. But I'm still no closer to finding out where you sneaky fucks came from. Who's speaking?"

"Sergeant Tooms. Guess that makes me captain of the ship, eh, boys?" A cautious chuckle from a couple of the disarmed pirates.

"Form two lines," Victor ordered. "Put your backs to the door, your hands on your heads, and sit. If at any point you resist, you will be shot."

Willis's spherical utility drones pushed the slab of metal forward while keeping it raised upright. He and Victor entered the barracks with their blasters raised, behind the two drones and their impromptu shield. From the entrance at the other side of the room, a massive figure emerged holding his rifle above his head with one hand and pumped it in the air victoriously.

"Good job, Spud," Victor said with a grin.

#

Click "external link" below to join the Hanlon's Reader email list at Substack:

https://jhanlon.substack.com/about