Rebelhawk

            My pressure suit didn’t fit.

This was unsurprising – the models onboard were designed for six-foot tall, multi-limbed Terwellians, and it had taken a lot of cutting and welding to make even an approximation for my scrawny, twelve year-old, probably-human form.

It didn’t fit. But it kept the vacuum of space from imploding my fragile body, so I didn’t complain. Not-complaining was, in fact, an ingrained habit for me. When you’ve spent your formative years as a slave working maintenance on a derelict piece of space junk, serving under a crew of aliens as liable to smack you as feed you, you tend to learn how to cope with the suck.

So I clambered into my ill-fitting suit, grabbed my toolkit, and met up with Znarr at the airlock. He was the only other creature onboard the Ugowan who I gave a damn about (or who gave one about me), and he’d taught me engines and systems and ship repair since I could fit my fist around a wrench. He was as battered as the ship, and we both knew I’d been bought as his replacement, though that wasn’t a knowledge I was comfortable thinking about for long. His fingers were gnarled, his face creased with age, but he’d taught me how to weld plate and splice cable and – most importantly – how to keep going until I found a fix.

I stepped into the airlock and it sealed shut behind me. Znarr tapped the bone at his eyebrow ridge, right where the O2 meter displayed on my faceshield, his face solemn. I gave him a thumbs up, and then I laid a hand on the button for the outer door. He raised his fingers in a count to three, and I hit the button.

The outer door slid open, the greedy pull of space sucking out the little atmosphere in the room, and trying to take me with it. My grav boots held through the decompression though, and I made my way onto the outer hull of the ship with the ease of familiarity dulling the thrill of mortal peril.

I headed for the communication array and saw, to my complete lack of surprise, a jagged hole about three centimeters wide punched through the cheap durasteel paneling. Terwellians were frugal to a fault, and this crew no exception - and when I’d voiced my concerns about armor plating and reinforced panels they’d looked at me like I was speaking Arkanian.

I opened the panel and found a jagged shard of a meteorite about the length of my hand floating next to the severed communications cable that had once carried our long-wave signal. 

The familiar tingling in my fingers that suggested how to make the machine right again was curiously absent, but maybe it just recognized (as I did), that I had no solution available. I sighed. We had no replacement on board, and the delicate filaments inside the cable weren’t suited to a quick weld, glue, or patch. Looked like our interstellar frequencies were out of commission until we made port. Fortunately, the cables for short-wave hadn’t been damaged. I carefully extricated the glinting, glittering shard of meteorite, loath to leave those sharp edges next to the cables. I wrapped it in a thin piece of flexsteel and tucked it in my thigh pocket.

At that moment my wristcom beeped a signal that flashed on my faceshield. I frowned, worried that I’d bumped something akilter by mistake, but the image that flashed across my visor was no mere error code.

A black screen, and then three white pixelated images resolved into a cackling skull and crossbones. A voice as chill as frozen steel spoke over the image, at odds with the cartoonish caricature.

“Greetings merchant vessel,” the voice said. “You have been targeted for capture by the captain and crew of the Rebelhawk. We take no prisoners. You may surrender and flee peacefully, or fight and die painfully. The choice is yours.”

The image clicked off, and I saw there, sleekly shining against the starry void, an old but clearly cared-for Phoenix-class manual drive. The wide panels of hyperspace boosters stretched along the top and sides like wings, the skids of landing gear curling underneath its belly like talons. The angular deck housing the bridge arched up at the front, protective panels covering the bridge for battle. The body of the ship swelled wide at fore and midsection, tapering aft into the standard combustion engine. Archaic technology, no AI to speak of, a modern autoship would leave it in ruins – even our rusty bucket of bolts had a fighting chance.

So why was that thrill of mortal peril now approaching a scream?

The Ugowan’s aft turret whirred and swiveled, bolts of plasma firing for the Rebelhawk with surprising precision. But the pirate ship sidestepped through space as if it were dancing, firing a volley of laser blasts from its own turrets which seared and scored the hull of the Ugowan. At the same time, bursts of light blasted out of the sides of the Ugowan as emergency shuttles detached from their berths and headed for what safety they could find.

Terwellians tended to pragmatism. They’d set the ship’s AI to handle the defense and scrambled into the escape pods. And the AI did, handling the piloting and guns as near to error-free as technology could boast.

The hull was rapidly becoming a lethal environment. I headed back toward the airlock, but I could see multiple breaches in the hull spilling the interior air into vacuum, and I knew the Ugowan’s inside was no safer than out.

The Rebelhawk swooped close, probably preparing a boarding party, and as I saw that ship hovering overhead a crazy idea occurred to me.

I clicked the button on my arm controls to release my grav boots, and a pair of jet controls unfolded into my hands as my thrusters kicked on from the pack on my back. I hurtled through the closing distance between the two ships, spun myself with a deft move, and engaged my grav boots just in time to lock into place on the hull of the Rebelhawk. I’d done it.

Now what?

The Rebelhawk was a different class of ship entirely than the Ugowan, built for speed and strikes rather than long distance hauling. But I had a knack for repair, and repair is just breaking stuff backwards, so I thought I could cause a good bit of trouble. I doubted I’d find any of the prime controls, like life support or navigation, but a crawlspace wove around the ship between the outer and inner hull, providing access for maintenance. I saw a likely looking panel and hustled over to it, popping it open. Inside was a narrow and dark and airless metalbound tunnel, with the inner hull as floor and the outer as ceiling. It was what I was looking for. I crawled in, lugging my toolkit and looking for my target.

Dozens of sensors spaced over the hull transmitted images to the bridge’s viewscreens, providing a 360 degree view of the space around the ship. But all those sensors fed into one main line, so tiny compared to the large ship that no one had ever bothered hiding it. You’d have to be the galaxy’s most crack shot to hit that cable from a gunner’s seat.

Or insane enough to slice it manually.

I moved quickly. It’s a lot easier to break things than fix them. I scurried through the crawlspace until I’d reached what my instincts and a lifetime of learning told me was the correct cable. It was plated with durasteel, but I had a welding torch handy in my toolkit, and soon had the cable severed.

Then things got interesting.

I hunched over a panel, seeing if I could disable the turrets from the cramped space of the tunnel, when my suit beeped a high-temperature warning. I cursed, sure I’d overcharged a turret and bought myself a one-way fireball to the afterlife – and then the plating under my knees exploded.

The crawlspace saved me. I sprawled pinned against the interior of the outer hull as the force of decompression pummeled me from the new hole in the inner hull. My grav boots were still attached to a piece of the hull, somehow cut loose underneath me, still red hot at the edges.

Then two figures drifted through the hole, wearing pressure suits with mirrored faceshields and pointing pulse rifles at me.

A voice came over my com. “Drop your weapon.”

It was a wrench. But I didn’t argue. I let go of it and the still-escaping air carried it away from me. I put up no resistance as they pinned my hands in binders in front of me, gave me a bodyscan for weapons, and confiscated my toolkit. They maneuvered me through the hole, one in front, one behind, and as soon as we were inside, another pressure-suited figure slapped a piece of plating over the hole and started welding it in place.

We stood in what looked like a bunkroom, bunk on one side, storage lockers and cabinets for belongings on the other, all in complete disarray after the decompression. There was a single sealed door, a pressurelock (I noted with some surprise). Having airlocks at every point of entry had distinct advantages, but most shipowners decided those were outweighed by the expense.

Apparently not this one, though. The two pirates held me there until the third had finished welding. Then one of my captors tapped a few buttons on the keypad next to the door – there was a whoosh and a hiss of equalizing gases – and then the readout on my faceshield informed me pressure had reached one atmosphere, O2 at 21%. 

The welder, their task finished, looked at me with curiosity visible even through their faceshield. “I thought it would be taller,” they said over room frequency. “Aren’t Terwellians taller?”

“Terwellians also have six limbs,” retorted the figure behind me dryly. “Ergo, unless this one has a dedication to disguise that is truly fanatical, this is no Terwellian.”

“What is it, then?” asked the welder.

“I imagine the captain is even more eager to find out. We shouldn’t keep him waiting.”

The pressure door slid open and the hard barrel of a pulse rifle jabbed the hollow between my shoulderblades. “Move it, half-size.”

I stumbled, caught myself, kept walking. The metal plating of the hallways was worn dull with age, but clean and cared-for. We emerged at last onto the bridge of the ship, a large room with stations for piloting, gunnery, and navigation, all currently unmanned. The front half of the room to all the way overhead was a massive clear canopy stretching from side to side and halfway across the ceiling. The ending fight was clearly visible now that the protective panels had been retracted.

In retrospect it seemed obvious. Of course a captain eccentric enough to fly a manual drive would be crazy enough to outfit it with analog viewports. All that effort and I’d managed to cause only a mild inconvenience.

Frack.

My captors hustled me over to stand before the chair in the center of the room, where sat a humanoid male, trim and compact, who seemed too young for his long gray hair – until you looked into his watchful gray eyes. He manipulated the controls in front of him rapidly, handling all the empty stations at once, and still had the presence of mind to look up at me. His gaze was piercing even through my faceshield.

“Is this the saboteur?” he asked.

My captors nodded. I decided it was past time I gave discretion a try, and so said nothing.

He spoke to me next. “Saboteur, I am Captain Ash Porter of the free vessel Rebelhawk.  Can you give me a good reason not to space you right now?”

I really, really wanted to come up with a brilliant excuse – being tossed out an airlock with no pressure suit is among the worst ways to die – but all my words seemed to have coalesced into a ball choking up my throat.

So I said nothing, and merely stood there. The captain looked at me for a long moment, lips pressed together, brow furrowed, hands flying over the controls.

“Taki,” he said.

The captor to my left hefted his rifle. “Sir.”

“Remove the prisoner’s faceshield.”

The captor – Taki – slung his rifle onto his back and reached for the helmet seals on my neck.

And in one swift motion, I spun around his reach, dipping my bound hands into my thigh pouch and pulling out the shard of meteorite. I held it wrapped in the flexsteel at the base, the wicked cutting edge laying across Taki’s throat. My bracer-pinned wrists wrapped around his neck, the shard held at an awkward but effective angle.

“Drop your rifle,” I said to the other one. “Drop it, or he dies.”

The captain made a small motion with his hand, and the other captor let his pulse rifle slip to the floor.

He spoke, and his voice was curiously gentle. ”I know Terwellians. They are slavers and swindlers, cold and consumed with credits. Why do you fight so hard for those who enslaved you? They don’t deserve your loyalty.”

”I’m not loyal to them,” I said. “But that doesn’t make me loyal to you.”

“What do you want?” the captain asked.

What indeed? Surrounded by enemies, dug in deep with no escape route. Time to be smart, time to think, time to find a way out –

Then I had it. “This ship is Phoenix class, model M363. With the two attached Flame-series fighters. I want one of them, and a clear path to hyperspace.”

“I believe I can accommodate your request,” the captain said. “Please release my crewman.”

“Oh, no,” I said. “He’s coming with me. Just him. You can upload the fighter control codes to him, and once he’s transferred access to me and I’m safe inside my ship, he can go.”

I was so focused on the captain I paid no attention to the crewman in my grasp.

This was a mistake.

In a swift move, his hand clamped over the edge of the shard at his neck and he yanked, pulling at my arms with his other hand. He ripped me right over his back and slammed me into the bulkhead, hard, twisting the shard clean out of my hands even as it dug deep into his own. How could his fingers still grip? It had to have sliced to the bone. And yet I saw no blood, heard no curse or cry of injury. He kneed me in the chest and held my bound arms pinned with one hand. Then he unlocked the seals at my neck and tossed my helmet away.

“It’s a kid!” he said. “Just a little girl!”

“Interesting,” said the captain. 

“Airlock, sir?” Taki said, sounding hesitant.

“No. Take her to the brig.”

“Aye, Captain,” Taki said, relieved. 

Warily, he grabbed hold of my arms and marched me out of the room, down the hallways, past the hold where the rest of the crew were hauling in crates of goods, a few splotched with purple blood. We kept going, ending up at a simple room of durasteel plate with a wide bench, a toilet, and a barred door.

Taki shoved me inside, heaved the door shut and locked, and turned to leave.

“Wait,” I said. “What’s going to happen to me?”

“I’m pretty curious about that myself,” he said, paused a long moment, and added, “I’ll be back with some food in a bit. Terwellians never feed their slaves well.”

“How did you know–?”

“And what else would a human be doing on a Terwellian ship?”

He left me to my thoughts, and I sat alone, wondering if I were – as seemed likely – the only one left alive of Ugowan’s crew. The thought left me with a gaping hollow in my chest that reared up to sting my eyes.

I sat there a long time. But then I heard footsteps, the heavy tread of deactivated grav boots. 

“Through here,” said a cool voice I recognized as the captain’s. Then they entered the room, and my curiosity gave way to joy.

“Znarr!” I shouted, and ran to the bars, stretching my hands through them.

He clasped them close in his own. “My little Kiona. Alive and still causing trouble,” he laughed, eyes wet.

“Quite a bit of it,” the captain said wryly.

“You saved him,” I said. “Saved us both. Why? You said you don’t take prisoners.”

“We don’t,” he said. “But we don’t take kindly to slavers, either. My offer to you both is this. A share of the Ugowan’s cargo, as reparation, and a ride to anywhere in the system. Or –”

“Or?” I asked.

“Or you join the crew. A fair share of the loot and a free life.”

I pondered that. “Why would you want us to join you?”

”Because I have a feeling your loyalty might be worth earning. What say you?”

Znarr looked at me, and I at him. “I wouldn’t know what to do planetside,” he said slowly. “Been shipboard going on forty cycles now. I like to roam.”

“We can help with that,” the captain said, and turned to me. “And you?”

“I’m in, too.” I said, more confidently than I felt.

“Good.” He opened the cell door, deactivated the cuffs, and let me out. More footsteps sounded in the hallway and I tensed, suspecting betrayal – but it was Taki, holding a bowl of what looked like some kind of stew. My stomach grumbled and gurgled at the savory smell.

“Ah, signed on already, did you?” he asked. “Good, then we can eat this in the mess and all have some.”

“You guys really know how to treat prisoners,” Znarr remarked.

“We don’t take prisoners,” the captain said again, then continued with a small smile. “We take crew.”

“Welcome to the Rebelhawk.”