This is the sixth of a series of short stories I am writing this December.
Click here to read the explanation of why I’m writing them.
I wasn’t ready for you to leave the way that you did. We had so many plans that we had never managed to get around to, but it still felt like we had lived a thousand lives together; they will never be enough. I would gladly have accepted a few more, maybe even just one more, before you had to go.
It wasn’t love at first sight because the visor of your spacesuit was opaque to prevent the unfiltered light of the sun from burning out your retinas. The feeling of fear that paralysed me as you blew the exterior hatch of the mining vessel I was contracted on; it feels like yesterday. You and your mechanised infantry stormed the bridge of the ship and killed my captain and second officer; I remember it fondly.
You removed your helmet and our eyes met for the first time. I couldn’t hear you commanding me to tell you where the command codes were because every word you spoke was a soft, sweet birdsong to my young, hormone befuddled brain.
When one of your robot goons smashed the butt of its blaster into my temple, my higher brain functions restarted, and I blurted out “You’re amazing” which I remember took you by surprise.
“I… I don’t mean you’re not scary and… you know, completely in charge of this situation. I just mean you’re… I’ll shut up”.
I was so young and stupid when you smiled back at me and commanded your robots to tie me up and throw me in your brig. In some ways, I wish we could go back to that time. It wasn’t simpler per-say, but you were less… dead.
It had been a couple of weeks until you let me out to roam around the ship; I couldn’t do much damage (given the kill-bots watched my every move). I’ll never know why you decided to spare me initially but I will always be glad you did. Without you pirating my ship and killing the crew, I would still be stuck in that dead-end mining job that I hated.
Our relationship grew slowly, but with only the two of us on your ship (if we ignore all the mechanical soldiers) we had plenty of time to get to know each other. I’m sure some psychologist somewhere will say that is not a healthy, and we should have had our own space. It was a story as old as time; boy gets pirated by girl, girl kills boy’s crew and kidnaps boy, boy and girl get to know each other and fall in love.
When you eventually let me come along on missions, I was so glad to get off the ship. Getting to see you ‘at work’ was a pleasure, if not a bit disturbing to start with. Piracy sounds cool in the holo-novels, but in reality there is a lot more viscera to clean off of your shoes than you would initially expect. You had taught me the ‘rules’ of pirating (which felt like an oxymoron) and I had found my new career, a family business you could call it.
God, I’ll miss pirating around the galaxies with you.
I stopped my tour down memory lane to look back at the Frenyaal captain that had managed to pull a blaster without either of us noticing.
One of the kill-bots had shot the weapon efficiently from his grip, following its orders to not kill unnecessarily, if not a touch late.
“Rule 5” I heard you say from the grave, “never let anyone get away with disrespecting you”.
Well, it was time to show you that I was paying attention for all those years.
“Hold him down”.
