In the deep night, those moments of the blackest hours when all is still and one day merges into the next are almost silent with mystery and wonder, for the solitude of the darkness can maintain both the illusion of isolation, as well as the feeling of inclusion all at once; the feeling that all in the cosmos is connected, and yet separate. It was as the night was in its fullest that the passenger sloop entered the lower atmosphere of Y-18_667 (why-dash-eighteen-underscore-sixty-six-seven) and began the decent to the planet’s surface. Over the intercom, a disjointed voice issued out the usual safety announcements and the cultural expectations of the planet they were about to set foot – or limb – onto.

Red Sven slunk down in her seat beside the dirty window as most of her fellow passengers scrambled to their feet, stretching and groaning. Children moaned and whined as they were woken from sleep and not a few adults appeared put out at the interruption to their dreams. Luggage littered the gangways and there was a cloying smell of unwashed bodies filling the cabin Red had been assigned to by her ticket. Many passengers were refugees from the recently war ravaged Realm, and were finally returning home after ten years in camps that flooded when it rained and where elveri argued with the borgs and the humae tussled with the jabervns while the pixies flitted around humming incoherently to themselves, annoying everyone else. All the while under the supervision of the Fleet.

Up on deck, the crew were making ready to dock. Unfortunately the sloop hadn’t passed all its safety requirements meaning passengers were not allowed up on deck during transit. She could hear – just – over the yammering in the cabin, orders from the captain. “Deactivate the gravity field Marshes! Lower the mainsail Gibbons! Prepare to dock Haron! Run out the gangways!” It made her yearn for her own ship back on Twilit. She had recently been promoted to the position of lieutenant in the planet’s Galactic Navy although she was currently on a three week suspension for failing to relay orders fast enough and in danger of demotion. But as important as her career was, Red Sven had issues that were of more significance … Bablyeon Ford had asked her, personally, to deliver a message to the only person who might be able to help them in their struggle against the oppression of the Galactic Militant Realm. The chances, however, of success were slim to none, since Red had already asked the person in question for help and been given a flat out ‘no’ in response to the request.

Again the intercom buzzed over the noise in the cabin, barely audible over all the commotion – although that could just be because the intercom system was severely out-dated and about three or four upgrades behind times. Red had to remind herself that this was a low-budget service and the ship a retired naval sloop that the company had bought from the Fleet. “All passengers are asked to remain seated until a member of the crew directs you towards your designated exit. Local sunrise is due in ninety standard minuets and lower atmosphere temperature, a mild twelve. Currently the exchange rate is thirteen local harvs to one galactic ya. Thank you for flying with System Thirty-Six Void Travel, your vessel has been The Gallant Goose and your captain Vernon Grey.” Getting to her feet, Red grabbed her travel bag – a standard issue Twilit Naval travel pack – and bravely pushed forwards into the throng gathered round the door to the deck and freedom. It had been a long voyage – Twilit was almost twelve parsecs from Y-18_667 – and thus had taken a good three days to get there, mainly because the sloop still ran off a hyperdrive.

New technology meant that, with a Phasor one could travel faster than light without having to enter the hyper dimension that the hyperdrives required. A Phasor ran off the harvested energy of a split neutron star and enabled vessels to travel at a rate of one parsec in roughly three hours – which was damn fast … although at times not fast enough. If the sloop had a Phasor, the journey would have taken a whopping fifty-seven hours off her journey. The Galactic Militant Realm had restricted the vessels able to install and travel with the new tech, since they didn’t want any ship to rival the Fleet. Strict sanctions were in place along with an Inter-Galactic Law stating no vessel was to travel at infinite speed within planetary airspace. It wasn’t new tech since Phasors had been around for the past hundred and forty years at least – in fact the individual she was journeying to see had constructed a Phasor engine out of a couple of broken hyperdrives and an air generator less than fifty years ago – but the GMR was trying to keep that bit quiet and make sure they could cling to their totalitarian ways.

A low cheer from the front of the crowd jerked Red out of her thoughts; the door had been opened and she could taste fresh, sweet, air. Hungrily, like a flock of wyghts (creatures of deep space that travel in packs, there was a similarity to the animals of the legendary ‘Earth’ called hyenas, only they had wings and swept through space scavenging unlike the mythological beasts), the inhabitants of cabin Y-6j surged through the door, nearly trampling the poor deckhand, and swept up onto deck where three gangways were already crowded with refugees and passengers eager to get off the sloop as fast as they could.

Red Sven shivered in the cold night and savoured the feel of the breeze on her face. Shouts from the harbour were calling to the refugees as the Fleet officers called attention and ordered them to specific holding grounds until their new accommodation was ready for them. Red wondered over to the rail and looked out over the surrounding terrain. The sloop had docked in the port of Phen, which was the third biggest port city on the southern side of Y-18_667 and the nearest port to Red’s destination. The harbour was situated atop a cliff overlooking the rest of the city, which lay several thousand feet below. Vessels lined up docked to the piers that shot out over the edge of the tall crags, about half were empty while the rest all had vessels rising gently on the planet’s air currents. Some were dark and quiet while others bustled with activity despite the lateness of the hour. At the far end of the harbour, Red saw a spectacular Ship teaming with life as the crew and dockhands worked to raise a new mainmast in place.

“Sorry missy, but yous has to leave now.” Red jumped and looked round, cursing herself for allowing her mind to wonder again. A young grunp was hovering by her elbow, no doubt the cabin boy or a lowly mate. Red smiled at him, which unnerved the boy for he scuttled backwards on his spindly legs and accidently stepped into three separate buckets. “Oh! Not again!”

Red Sven would’ve helped but she knew from experience that the aid would just add to the boy’s humiliation. She skirted round the grunp and joined the back of a line. Some of the passengers were sniggering at the cabin boy, but then jabervns sniggered at everyone so there was little point in Red trying to talk some manners into their bills. She let out a sigh though, one that lingered between annoyance and irritation, and stood up straight glad she had her uniform on under the long trench coat she’d shoved her arms through before boarding the sloop. The three jabervns shut up and eyed her warily though she knew that they wouldn’t show her the respect they’d give a midshipman of the Fleet.

A commotion at the front of the que caught her attention and a loud voice issued over the crowd; “Out of the way. Move aside sir. Let me pass madam. Thank you … out of the way!” grumbling the line Red was in parted like the Tuli Folds and a humae in the crisp dress of a Fleetsman strode onto the deck of the sloop, nearly knocking a small child and her mother over the edge of the gangway as he went. As he passed, he caught sight of Red in her uniform and smirked, Red immediately narrowed her eyes at him.

“Can I help you good sir?” the captain Vernon Grey asked pleasantly as the Fleetsman stepped onto the deck.

“How soon will you be departing?” he asked arrogantly. “Only we have a Ship in need approaching that requires this dock.”

Captain Vernon wringed his hands and spread them wide. “Well … I – we are to depart tomorrow afternoon to take passengers back to Twilit and –”

“Our ship will be in the lower atmosphere by daybreak. You must depart and make room for them at once.”

“But … sir …” Red sympathised with the captain. By galactic law, once a ship had departed from the docks, it could not return within twenty five standard hours. If The Gallant Goose left now then not only would the sloop be leaving a goodly number of passengers stranded, but it was highly likely the company would get sued and therefore put out of business.

Red decided she couldn’t have that – even if she had hated every moment of her voyage; it was unfair for the Fleetsman to ask Vernon to depart when there were plenty of empty docks available and other vessels which could leave sooner and not mess up timetables or schedules. But The Gallant Goose had come from Twilit, a system which remained outside the Realm’s control and therefore, decidedly second class. Dropping her bag to the floor and shrugging out of her coat, Red kicked them out of the way, cleared her throat and stepped forwards.

“What is the issue Sailor?” she asked in her best lieutenant’s voice. ‘Sailor’ was a term used to address one of lower rank, without having to state the rank in question. It was considered an insult buy those in the lower ranks.

The Fleetsman whirled around at glared at Red. “And who do you think you are? Calling me Sailor?” he demanded.

“I am Lieutenant Red Sven of The Wyght’s Wing and I just asked you a question, Sailor!”

She was glad to know that the Fleet still leant heavily upon the same hierarchy that the Twilit Navy did; if a superior asked you a question you answered it at once.

“Our ship needs docking,” he began.

“So dock it then,” Red said bluntly. “I see plenty of open docks here, don’t you?” she gestured at the dark empty docks to the left of The Gallant Goose. “What’s your name, Sailor?”

Working his jaw furiously, he said, “Bil Jared. And those docks are closed.”

“Says who? Surely your Realm gives you authority to open the closed dock in any harbour within the GMR’s jurisdiction, right? Just because this sloop originated from Twilit doesn’t mean you can shirt your duty and take the easy route out. What was it? Too much paperwork for the Harbour Master before he opened another dock?” Red glared at Bil Jared and he glared back at her.

“I don’t take orders from amateur naval wannabes.” The jabervns that sniggered earlier at the grunp boy’s mishaps sniggered loudly.

“Lucky for you, I am not an ‘amateur naval wannabe’ as you so put it,” Red said through clenched teeth. “Your Fleet was founded upon the basis of Twilit’s Navy – or has the Realm deleted that from the history archives? I am a lieutenant. And you are a boatswain – in charge of the cleaning and maintenance on board a ship. The janitor. Take yourself off this vessel Sailor, and go order another dock open because this sloop isn’t going anywhere.”

Bil Jared’s hand twitched to the cutlass at his side and for a moment Red thought he was going to draw it and charge her. But instead he just shook his head and sneered at her. “Fine. Whatever,” he glared at the captain and snorted in disgust. “You, Red Sven –”

“That’s lieutenant to you Sailor!”

“Watch your back.”

“I always do.”

Red watched the Fleetsman stalk off the sloop, shoving passengers aside as he went, and muttering furiously to himself under his breath. Red was sure he was swearing about her and shook her head in amazement, heartily glad that the Academy had rejected her because there was no way she could serve alongside toe rags like that Bil Jared.

“I … I – thank you,” the captain was wringing her hand with tree of his, her whole arm in danger of being pulled out of the socket, and stammering his heartfelt thanks. Red just shrugged and tried to regain custody of her hand.

“It’s nothing …” she looked round for her belonging and shrugged into her trench coat once again as the last of the passengers departed the deck. Scooping up her bag and slinging it over a shoulder, Red stood as the crew circled her, thanking to the point where it sounded like a broken record or faulty communicator. “No, seriously … it was nothing …”

But apparently it wasn’t nothing, and the captain insisted on refunding her ticket – even though Red pointed out that was against company policy. He shrugged and thrust a handful of coins into her hands and personally escorted her off his ship and out of the docks where a handful of transporters were waiting to ferry passengers down the steep cliff-face path to the city. Waving Captain Vernon off with another round of “… but it really was nothing …” Red paid four silver ya to the driver and clambered onto the back of the cart. “Go … quickly, before he can thank me again …” she muttered into his ear. The driver winked and slapped the reins sharply on the rump of the farhio which grunted and stomped forwards, tossing his horned nose into the air.

By the time they reached the bottom of the cliff, day was breaking over the horizon, and Red spotted a Galactic Fleet Ship sailing down through the lower atmosphere towards the docks. The standard flapped in the breeze and the deck was crawling with tiny crew that looked no bigger than ticks. It was, she admitted grudgingly, a beautiful sight with the planet’s sun rising behind the Ship, catching on the sails and almost directing the Ship forwards. Red turned away from the view in disgust as shouts from the streets all pointed the arrival of the Ship to Phen port city.

“Where to, Lieutenant?” the driver asked pleasantly.

“Erm … d’you know a place I can get a lift out of town?”

The driver grinned. “I can do that for you if you’d like; it’d cost a bit more though, dependent on how far away you’re going, but I can take you. Call it a special favour from one vannie to another, eh?”

Red spread her hands as if to say ‘why not?’ “Alright then, I’m going to Ponitibrak Farmstead … you know it?”

“Yup I know it. Cost you about three gold extra though – and I’m doing you a favour!” the driver insisted loudly over her protests at the extortionate price, “If you go elsewhere – to the ferry station like, they’ll charge triple!”

Nodding, Red frowned, handing over the money. “Why is it so expensive? Last time I came things weren’t nearly so much.”

Directing his farhio down a side street – the beast gouged a nice chunk out of the pavement as he went – the driver shrugged. “Taxes. The damned GMR bleeding us dry they are … for this war or that war … soon as they finish one they start another! I mean, what is that all about?”

Red shook her head, “The Realm views the Independence as a personal insult. It’s all the Navy can do to defend the Independence from, well, losing its independence.”

“Now there’s a lost cause if ever I heard one.”

Red settled into a more comfortable position on the cart. “Depends on your point of view.”

The farmstead was a modest establishment – the farming lands had long since been sold to a local food company that exported across the cosmos – situated at the bottom of a hill covered in blue grass. Trees tall as skyscrapers grew along the river three hundred yards from the back door and in the evenings arowfish flew in flocks big enough to obscure the stars.

The house itself had three floors and was, as was typical for the planet, built in a spiral-cone design that ended in a point. The idea being – since the elveri that inhabited this part of space were long-lived – all the family could live under one roof, and the building could keep growing to accommodate the growing size. Houses indeed, had the architectural look of having grown up out of the ground; huge mounds of rock or wood or sometimes piles of dirt were shaped to create the distinct look of Y-18_667’s buildings. Apparently there was something in the planet’s structure that enabled the constructers to … sing … the homes and structures into existence. Red had seen it happen – watched the workforce gather and raise their voices in song, producing complex harmonies that caused a mound of rock and glass and other elements known to rise and twist into the desired shape.

Unfortunately, after learning that the elveri were unable to work their mysterious powers over the elements on other planets, the other races ridiculed them and drove them very nearly into extinction. Now their planet bore the label ‘Y-18_667’ and was home to more Borgs and humaes than elveri, and the planet’s true name forgotten in the passage of time. Red had been told the elveri still know it, but hadn’t ever been able to get one to tell her what the planet was supposed to be called. She had spent enough time at Ponitibrak Farmstead and around elveri to know that it took a lot for an elveri to trust someone enough to reveal that kind of information.

Wincing as the cart wheeled over a series of potholes, Red thought back to the last time she’d been trundling down this road towards her destination … it had been a good few years ago and, now she thought about it, two incarnations back – so anyone who saw her then wouldn’t recognise her now, unless they knew about the mole cluster in the small of her back or the fact that her eyes remained the same …

Shaking her head, Red Sven pictured the welcoming blue-grey walls and the crystal windows and the obsidian roof. She remembered lying on the blue grass by the river under those trees larger than life – she could just about see the tops of them now, looming on the horizon – laughing at an insane story involving three grunps, a pixie and a humae who’d tried to bet an elveri pirate that it wouldn’t be able to sail a ship through the Constance Pillars on the outskirts of System 22. Much to the disgust of the grunps, the pixie and the humae, the pirate not only sailed the ship through the Pillars, but to add insult to injury, passed through the Turmoil Straights in less than eight parsecs – thrashing the record to dust in the process.

It made Red sad, to think of all those stories she’d been told and then to know the protagonist was currently sitting under some tree tethered to an earth, not doing what they’d been born to do; sail among the stars in pursuit of the next adventure. It was all Red ever dreamed of, seeking the lost and the forgotten – the unknown and the knowable … but the stories were better than nothing and she wondered idly if there would be any new ones when she reached Ponitibrak. Thinking about it, Red realised she had never heard how it began – she knew the end of course, she had been part of the end, but still, it would be nice to know the beginning and the middle for a change, rather than hearing of all the days pirating across the cosmos.

All in all, it took about three hours to get to Ponitibrak Farmstead and Red passed the time in easy conversation with the driver. Hunger and the needful desire to rest without either the constant swaying of the sloop or the bumps and shudders as the cart bounced along the road began to wear down upon her. “Not long now,” the driver said, evidently aware of Red’s growing discomfort, “just over the rise here …” glancing over her shoulder, Red caught a glimpse of the squat spiral blue-grey rock with crystal windows and obsidian shale roofing bathed in the glow of a freshly risen sun blazing from the north sky. And an explosion shattered the moment.

The establishment burst apart from within, debris raining upon the landscape as flames licked up the shell that remained. Red and the driver were thrown backwards off the cart as the shockwaves hit them; the farhio reared and bellowed as the transport driver seized the reins to stop the beast from bolting. Flames were licking the roof of the farmstead and black smoke billowing up into the sky, staining the picturesque perfection. “No, no, no, no, no …” Red murmured to herself as she watched, clambering to her feet and grabbing hold of the cart for support, “jeeze … no – this isn’t …” this couldn’t be happening to her … no house exploded that violently without someone purposefully letting off the charge. Someone wanted the inhibitors dead. Red didn’t waste time wondering who – there was only one culprit.

What was Bablyeon Ford going to say when Red got back with the news that their number one hope was dead? Her dreams shattered with the building; visions of the oppression from the GMR being lifted and the democracy restored vanquished in the flames. Letting go of the cart, she hurried down the blue grass hill a little ways and sank to her knees part way down the hill, staring in stunned disbelief at the fire.

The transport driver appeared clueless as to what he should do when someone burst out of the charred door and fell in a heap to the ground. Hardly daring to believe what she was seeing, Red ran down the hill towards the figure and, dodging the sparks and hissing fire clawing through the open door and the debris that was floating in the air, dragged the survivor away from the inferno. They collapsed down on the safety of fresh grass under a holly tree. Red could hear the survivor panting and gasping as they forced clean air into their lungs. Covered in ash and muck and what looked awfully like blood, it took a few moments for Red to recognise the face peering up at her with a somewhat feral grin and green eyes alive with mirth.

“Gin!”

“Shout it to the world Red. Because we really want the Fleet to know I’m not a smouldering pile of charred flesh.” She rolled over and heaved.

“The Fleet did this!” Red almost shouted.

“Shhh!” Gin doubled over, heaving and coughing. Looking up she frowned and turned to Red, with the nerve to ask; “Who’s the guy – another of your stringers?”

Red Sven would’ve hit Gin at that point, but considering the fact she had just fought her way through a fire to escape she held back. “He’s the transport driver.”

Gin snorted into the blue grass and fell into another coughing fit. “Got yourself a new face I see … how many have you had now? Seven? Eight?”

Red worked her jaw. “This is the fourth, Gin. And I’m still relatively new to it so …”

“So you don’t recognise yourself in the mirror …” Gin waved that aside as if it didn’t matter and retched a few times.

Turning up her nose, Red said; “Which begs the question: How did you know it was me?”

Gin shook her head, gasping and panting, and shrugged. “Because I know you. Your eyes don’t change and, let’s face it, I don’t get any other visitors out here do I?” she fell to coughing and retching again and Red decided to leave her be.

“Did it hurt?” Gin asked after a moment.

“Did what hurt?”

“You know … the new face.”

“Look. I know you’ve just had a brush with death and all, but that doesn’t excuse you.”

Gin snorted. “It was only a question – I’m making small talk!”

Red was about to thump Gin, but the charring elveri chose that moment to resume coughing and retching. Pulling a face, Red turned away and the driver wondered over, concerned, and Red sighed. “She’ll be alright.”

“But … we need to get her to an infirmary!” he pointed to Gin, lying on the floor her clothes smoking slightly. Red saw a nasty wound on her friend’s side that clearly hadn’t been inflicted by the explosion – it was too clean to be a gash caused by falling rubble.

“Gin,” Red said firmly, “what exactly has been going on here?”

Gin staggered to her feet, pressing a hand over her injury, “Oh … nothin’ much. Just your average hit ‘n’ run arson from the GMR – and a little brawl underneath a burning building and a mad dash through falling wreckage that happened to be crawling with flames … other than that Svenny … other than that nut-ting at all.”

Red couldn’t help herself as she grinned, ignoring the nick-name. “So you’re still Urheart Kai’s Most Wanted then?”

“Yup,” Gin gave a sloppy salute, “Ginnifer Ruth; pirate, traitor and bandit at your service.” She tried for a bow but had to grab hold of Red to keep from falling over.

“Captain,” Red said automatically. Gin frowned at her. “Captain Ginnifer Ruth.”

Ginnifer shook her head, “I swore all that off, remember?”

Red steadied her friend, and smiled gently, squeezing her shoulder comfortingly. “You know we’d be happy – honoured even – to take you on as an Admiral. No provisional or anything.”

“You wouldn’t want a retired pirate running your Navy, Red. Trust me.”

“I didn’t know pirates ever retired.”

Rolling her eyes and shaking her head again, Gin peered at the transport driver and snorted as he stared at Gin in alarm. Ginnifer turned back to Red, “What’d you bring him along for Svenny?” with that, she fell to the floor in a dead faint at Red’s feet while her house burned to ash.

“Don’t call me Svenny,” Red muttered under her breath as Ginnifer Ruth lay in a heap at her feet, smouldering from the explosion that had shattered her family home. True Ginnifer was now all that was left of that family – but even so, it was a low move for the Realm to make, an unprovoked attack on one single establishment that lay on a system within their control.

The transport driver was fumbling with something in his cart. Red ignored him while she checked Gin’s pulse and determined that the idiot was, in fact, still alive – but that wound looked nasty. She heard the bleeping and whirring of some form of machinery and spun around, blasting the device out of Mic Arris (she deduced that was the driver’s name)’s hands. It lay on the blue grass in a melted heap of metal and ore.

“It wasn’t a weapon!” he protested shrilly.

Red slid her blaster into the holster. “I know damn well what that was. You do realise if you called the authorities then you’d be forever on their radar? And what happened to that whole ‘one vannie to another’ thing, huh?”

Pointing to the unconscious Gin, Mic said, “She’s a criminal!”

“The only criminals are the damned Realm: Gin’s innocent.” Red paused, “Well, innocent of the crimes Kai has her wanted for anyway – I … she’s a bit rough around the edges, I’ll grant you that, but – well … she’s the best captain in all the cosmos.”

Mic Arris shifted on his feet and glanced at his cart. Sighing, Red pulled out her E/i-v and pointed at him, the blaster whirred as it glowed red with energy; Mic took a step backwards. “Don’t make me use this again, Mic. I’d hate to have to go back to the Navy and file an incident report on how you melted into a pile of goop.”

“You’re barbaric!” the driver said, stepping away from his cart with his hands above his head. Red shrugged as she pulled out a miniaturised E/i-t, which she promptly used to stun her hostage; he froze in place with his mouth half open to speak and his eyes looking in different directions.

“Barbaric is a little harsh,” Red murmured as she pocketed the mini-gun. “If I was barbaric I’d of killed you already …” she tethered the farhio to graze, gave Gin a small injection of Proton Ice which temporarily froze the blood and preserved her current condition to prevent deterioration. Then Red turned to the smouldering remains of Gin’s house: because of the remote location, they were in no danger of being interrupted by the local authorities anytime soon.

Luckily the blaze didn’t rage on for long; it was already dying out by the time Red had gone through the boxes in the back of Mic Arris’s cart and removed any form of weapon or communication device she could find. Using her E/i-v she blasted them all to goop beside the holotransmitter and glanced at the smoking skeleton of Ponitibrak Farmstead.

Red scavenged what she could from Gin’s house – a few items she knew her friend had possessed for a long time and a few she had never known Gin owned, such as a sword with an edge so keen Red felt as if it were slicing through her very soul … she quickly replaced the thing inside it’s sheath, unnerved that Gin would possess such an – unwholesome weapon. Just by holding it, Red could tell it was unaccountably old; forged before the cosmos had been split into such concepts as good and evil. It was from a time before and had about it a sense of ancient power, a force untameable: there was nothing else of like anywhere in the known universe. The blade possessed an indifference to whom wielded it and to what purpose it was wielded for – so long as the wielder could survive with the omnipotent nature of the blade. Swirling marks identified the name of the sword but the language was some flowing script Red had never seen before – and she’d been trained to know and recognise every language on sight.

Sighing she put aside the weapon in the pile of small belongings she was scavenging for Gin. She resolved to ask her about the spiteful and vindictive indifferent weapon she had in her possession – and why there was a startling lack of loot in the wreckage. Red found some clothes and a few rudimentary gadgets for deep space: a scope that could glimpse through to the void, a miniaturised portable holotransmitter, the hilt of a dagger with the name ‘Buckler’ carved crudely into the underside of the crosspiece, a roll of Hatto’s All-Purpose, All-Terrain Fix-it Tape, a wad of material that turned out to be a faded standard from a Ship’s mainmast and some krystel rope. Red glanced up at the sun and realised that she ought to get a move on back to Phen if she wanted to catch Captain Vernon’s sloop back to Twilit.

Dusting off her coat, Red shoved the items into a charred knapsac and slung it into the back of the cart. Drawing her E/i-t, Red hit the reverse cycle and Mic Arris the transportation driver unfroze from his state of paralysis. Under Red’s gentle persuasion (gentle – try gunpoint), Mic lifted the unconscious and Proton Ice preserved Gin into the back of his cart, took the reins of his farhio and with Red sitting on the driver’s bench beside him, they headed back to Phen. Behind them black smoke stained the lilac sky and the blue grass was charred while the green river ran ash and trees taller than skyscrapers were tainted with fragments of crystal windows and obsidian shale roofing and blue-grey rock walls.

2: Table

When Gin came to, she was lying on a low bunk sunk into the walls of what she instantly recognised as a Fleet’s retired sloop converted into a passenger vessel. She groaned and tried to sit up, only to be met with a searing pain in her side; she let her head fall back against the thin mattress and sighed. Where are you taking me Svenny? She wondered. Gin had no intentions of going back into the world of politics and sailing – she had lost too much in the service of ‘honour’ or even ‘freedom’ – and she didn’t plan on losing anything more. Red’s intentions were honest and noble, but there no longer remained a cause to fight for; the Fleet had control and there existed no force or organisation to oppose them. The Unionist Alliance was nothing more than a group of hot-headed idealists, ex-Fleetsmen and rich Independencers who didn’t realise what they were up against. Armatures.

But Chester lived.

Gin groaned and flung her hands over her face. Yes, the boy had lived – but that didn’t mean his descendants were necessarily the right people to reclaim their ancestry and birth right. She had made her peace – tentative and reluctant – with the circumstances that had arisen due to her mistakes and only wanted to live out the rest of her existence without bother. Unfortunately Urheart Kai wasn’t going to rest until she was dead, as her, no doubt personally issued, recent orders demonstrated. Gin’s family home was now nothing more than a pile of ash along the banks of a blackened river with scorch-marked trees and crisp blue grass and she had a lovey new gash along her ribcage and a set of lungs that felt as though they had inhaled the exhaust fumes of a type 37 jet-fighter.

The door to the cabin creaked open and Gin pretended to be asleep. Red didn’t buy it.

“I know you’re awake so quit pretending. We need to talk.”

Actually, they didn’t. There was absolutely nothing for them to talk about.

“Gin …” she heard Red sigh and close the door with a snap. “Ginnifer.”

The sloop swayed and juddered; Gin suspected they were passing by the Suvn. Solar flares were probably proving with some mild turbulence in the hyper-dimension.

“Captain!”

Gin sat bolt upright – knocking her head on the bunk above her – and swore. “How many times do I have to tell you? Don’t call me captain. Captain Ginnifer doesn’t exist and never has.”

Red sat down at a table bolted to the floor and smirked. “Well … it got a response out of you didn’t it? Besides it’s hard to keep track of your aliases and whatnot. How many identities do you have Gin?” 

Ignoring the question Gin rubbed her head gingerly as she swung her legs over the side of the bunk. Glaring at Red, she got to her feet and walked across the cabin to glance out of the dirty windows that ran the full width of the sloop’s aft cabin. She couldn’t see anything of interest out there so she gave up and turned on her heel to inspect Red Sven, whom had saved her life on numerous occasions without giving Gin a chance to repay the debt. Thankfully she hadn’t decided to use that fact in order to get Gin to go along with the ridiculous schemes of Bablyeon Ford.

There was a drinks cabinet bolted to the wall opposite the bunks. Deciding whatever Red was going to say would sound a lot better with some alcohol in her system, Gin raided the cabinet and pulled out a dusty bottle of whiskey and two glasses. She plonked herself down and poured out two decent measures of the liquid.

“Okay. Let’s get whatever it is you came to see me for out of the way, huh?”

Red rolled her eyes. “I don’t even need to say it do I? Your answer won’t be any different from the last time I asked … or the time before, or the time before that.”

Gin took a sip of the drink. “Glad we got that out of the way.”

Red shook her head, but smiled slightly.

“So … you gunna tell me what luck has it that I haven’t woken up in the custody of the Fleet? Or have you turned to the dark side Svenny?”

Red snorted. “You know full well that the Academy never accepted me – why would I join them now?”

“Um … because they’re winning? Because any attempt to try and alter Kai’s rule is futile and the Fleet is never going to relinquish control over the Realm, not after almost a century of ruling it.”

“You know what? If I didn’t know you better, I’d say you were on their side. That had an almost learned-by-heart tone to it.”

“Good thing you know me better then, isn’t it Svenny.”

Red clenched her teeth. “Don’t call me Svenny.”

“Don’t call me captain.”

“There’s a difference though; you are a captain. I have never been Svenny.”

“What do you mean you’ve never been Svenny? You’ve always been Svenny.”

Red drained her glass. “Shut up Gin.”

Gin might’ve responded but the cabin door opened and a dumpy humae entered the cabin. He tipped a salute to Red, who nodded her head. “Your detainee is in the brig – I’ll have the cook send some food when we feed the passengers later … is there anything I can get to make your journey more comfortable?”

Red shook her head, kicking Gin in the leg as she was about to open her mouth and ask for some nachos and cheese. “No, thank you Captain. And you really didn’t need to give up your cabin for us – I assure you, we would’ve been fine sitting with the other passengers.”

The captain shrugged. “It’s thanks to you I have passengers for this trip. If that Fleetsman had his way I would’ve returned to Twilit empty.”

Gin was curious to know what they were talking about, but Red kicked her in the leg again when she opened her mouth. True she was going to ask if the Bo ‘sun could give the cabin a quick once over with his mop, but still. Red was shaking her head.

“Honestly, it was nothing … but thank you anyway. I’ve just had a chat with Mic, and he doesn’t seem too happy about the situation. Perhaps you could take him on deck when we pass by the Vibrant Moons of Dagshow – it might calm him down a bit.”

The captain smiled. “That I shall … well I’ll be on deck if there’s anything you need.” He gave Red another sloppy salute and left, shutting the door behind him.

She turned back to Gin, who raised an eyebrow expectantly.

Red shrugged. “It’s nothing – some jackass from the Fleet wanted to use the dock for his Ship. I told him to go do his paper work and open up another dock.”

“All hail the mighty hero was it?”

Red snorted into her empty glass. “He insisted on refunding my ticket.”

“Isn’t that against company policy?” Gin asked.

Sighing Red shrugged, “I pointed that out but he didn’t listen. He’s letting you and Mic Arris travel for free too.”

Gin finished the last in her glass and then topped them both up. “You bought your fabulous driver along with you now? I thought he wasn’t one of your stringer? But then he is kinda handsome I guess … if you like that sort of thing. Or maybe the Captain is more to your taste?”

“Seriously, if you don’t shut up I shall toss you overboard.”

Gin held up her hands in surrender. “Okay … so what happened?”

“Not much: he tried to call the authorities, but I managed to disarm him. Then I got him to load you onto the back of his cart and drive us back to town; I sent one of the port staff to get Vernon Grey out of the captains’ lounge. He had his men take Mic prisoner and load you aboard. It went very smoothly I might add and without anyone the wiser since I never gave Mic a chance to kick up a fuss and shout that he was being abducted.”

Shifting in her seat, Gin winced as the movement tugged her injury. “And this?” she asked gesturing at her side.

“Vernon has a retired Naval surgeon working as the cook. He stitched you up for me.”

Reluctantly, Gin admitted how impressed she was. “You’re not the same forlorn reject I met in the streets of Yenta.”

“Don’t you take anything seriously?”

“Life’s too full of misery for that – if I looked at the world the way you do … I’d go mad.”

Red tilted her head in agreement, “The differences of our races,” she agreed. “I get to change who I am every so often but you must remain who were born. Fundamentally I am the same, but what makes me me is not that that made me me when I was first conceived.”

Gin looked at her glass, a good measure still remained within. She downed it in one. “Urgh … my mind is not up for philosophical debates today Sven. Let’s talk about something else …”

Red’s eyes lit up. “We can talk about the beginning.”

There was a very stagnant pause, and then Gin went: “Run that by me again?”

“You. Where it all started – tell me about your years before you were a pirate … come to think of it you never told me how you came to be in sudden need to flee Yenta – the lies aside.”

Pouring herself another drink, Gin didn’t respond at once. Red had come into her life as the first act was ending; after being accused of murdering that officer of the Fleet when all she had done was duel the man to the death since he’d killed her father in cold blood. The injustice of the accusation still made her blood boil. Duelling was perfectly legal – providing there is a legitimate reason for it that can’t be settled any other way and you had a licence. It was a couple of days after having the charges cleared that Gin had met Red Sven – a young vannie hoping to join the Academy and become a sailor of the Fleet. Of course she hadn’t got in, which was lucky for Gin since she found herself in a tight situation without allies.

Red had smuggled her out Yenta and been a solid friend ever since. All Red knew was that the Fleet was telling lies about the extinction of the Family Royale and the extermination of the Admirals – Gin had had nothing to do with it whatsoever. Red had the rare ability among vannies to know when someone was lying; Gin had told her that what the Fleet was saying was false and Red had accepted it as gospel. They had slipped out of Yenta before the news had spread and the lies begun; Port, the second Moon of Yenta, was a picture of chaos and it had taken little trouble to round up a motley crew, commandeer a Ship and sail to the Independence as fast as they could with a broken hyperdrive and no Phasor. Everything after they parted ways, Red to Twilit and Gin to pirate deep space, Red knew about. It was everything before they had met that Red wanted to hear. Gin took a large mouthful of whiskey and shook her head. “Not today Svenny.”

She looked up through her eyelashes at Red to see the disappointment in the other woman’s face; before Red could protest, Gin got to her feet stating abruptly that she wanted some air and was going to go up on deck. Red nodded and let her go, pouring the last of the bottle into her glass as Gin pulled open the cabin door and stepped out into the sloop’s network of corridors and passages. She had spent enough time on vessels to know her way around; thus it took her no time to find the stairs leading to the deck without getting lost.

Up on deck the sailors went about their chores, grumbling about the Fleet and the state of the galactic economy and how much the Unionist Alliance and the Freedom Corps were stirring up trouble when the common citizen just wanted to live out their lives without trouble. That Gin could agree on – a quiet life wasn’t exactly possible with the resistance making problems and allowing the Fleet to tighten security and laws and drag people from their homes never to be seen again. Nursing her glass, Gin strode to the railing where she leant against it and stared out across hyperspace; a vast expanse of nothingness where pathways were mapped out and Fleet or Naval captains told never to abandon the Route otherwise they’d be lost in the void forever.

No one knew who had constructed the Route. It existed both in and out of hyperspace – glowing auras of red showed the path through to a destination, floating stationary far enough apart that the next three could easily be spotted ahead and behind. What they were – well if anyone knew who had made the Route then they’d know what the auras were. Passenger and merchant vessels were only granted access to a fraction of the Route; navigational officers of the Fleet had to go through arduous tutorage to understand and navigate their way along approved paths of the Route. The Galactic Navys of the systems outside the Realm all had their maps and paths and all – the Fleet and the Navys – forbade the departure of the Route. Strict laws put in place by the Galactic Militant Realm made it punishable by imprisonment if any vessel was caught off the beaten track.

Only the brightest of stars could be seen in the void. Gin had never liked sailing in it – there was no wind, no sound: nothing. When the Phasors had been invented with the promise of fast travel without the need of entering hyperspace, Gin had volunteered to captain the prototype. The feeling of sailing through the cosmos with stars and planets swirling around her and the winds of the deep whipping her hair and catching the sails – Gin had fallen in love with sailing all over again that day as her Ship, The Avenging Angel raced through the Turmoil Straights.

A commotion behind her caught her attention, she glanced over her shoulder as the Captain Vernon ushered the transport driver onto the main deck. He spotted Gin and his eyes widened but otherwise did nothing more. The captain gave their prisoner free rein of the deck since there was nowhere for him to run to: unless he wanted to take a trip overboard and go floating through hyperspace for the remainder of his existence that was. Gin doubted it. Shaking her head at Red’s compassion, she turned back to her observation of the void, sipping the whiskey from her glass and growing increasingly bitter as she reminisced about what happened before she met Red Sven the vannie orphan.

Thinking about it, she wasn’t even the same person she had been before she met Red – she didn’t even use the name she’d used back then anymore, the name her mother had given her before promptly dying. Deep in the back of her mind, her memories swirled like luminescent motes from the Shores of Dunlave. Try as she might, Gin couldn’t supress them and was glad Red wasn’t a telepath; she’d have a lot of explaining to do if that was the case.

“You know who I am?” Gin asked quietly. The tutor nodded. “And you trust my word as truth – I would never lie before a Royale?”

“Of course you wouldn’t!”

“Kai has killed his family. The Admirals too. She has taken control of Yenta – and Port – and lays the blame upon me: Twilit’s Navy is offering Chester sanctuary. If you will, I shall escort you both to the planet before Kai traces you here. My Ship is docked half a mile away.”

Tutor Mothew nodded; “Yes … yes, we must leave.”

Red slouched at the rail beside Gin and handed her a battered tin case with a flip-lid. Frowning, she took it off her and turned it over in her hands; her family motif had been embossed upon its surface, all grimy and faded for dirt and dust had embedded into the cracks and corners of the carving. It was also now smoke damaged; the fire that had burned her house to the ground having spared this one relic of her family legacy for her to hold on to.

“I saved what I could … a few clothes – your brother’s dagger hilt. And this. I know it’s not much, but at least you have something to remember them.”

Gin nodded her thanks and flipped the lid open, needing what was inside, except that the tin was empty … she looked up at Red in horror because she had refilled it three days ago. “Where’s my smoke?” she demanded outraged.

Red pulled a face. “Really Gin, it’s a horrible habit – and it’ll kill you.”

“Hasn’t yet.” She held out her hand expectantly.

Shaking her head in defeat, Red gave over the small tube and the lighter. The lighter produced a miniaturised proton flame that was a pure white – some establishments sold filters that added chemicals to change the colour of the flame, since proton flames were always cold. The chemicals not only changed the flame’s colour, but warmed it up as well. Gin preferred to use the cold flame since it worked just as well as a normal flame. The smoke itself was made from nitrogen glass that was impervious to melting; roughly the length of her forefinger when compacted it had a diameter of a centimetre. Fully extended the thing was about seven or eight centimetres long and disassembled divided into three separate parts; the stopper, the capsule and the fume tube. The capsule was where the leaves went and the stopper fixed onto the end so that they didn’t fall out – there were four rows of tiny holes for smoke to escape in the stopper’s end. The capsule fitted inside the fume tube, which got pulled out so that there was an empty space between the filter at the other end of the capsule and the end where the fumes were drawn into the lungs.

Gin disassembled and reassembled the smoke and checked the lighter before turning back to Red Sven. “So where’s all my bacco?” she asked.

Red stared out across the void. “I threw it into the trash. Grey ordered a jettison about half an hour ago so you won’t be able to salvage anything. And I also asked the cook to clean that tin out – so don’t bother looking for dust.”

Gin stared at her friend. “I had no idea you could be so cruel!”

Red snorted. “Find a healthier habit Ru,” she told her as she wondered over to where Vernon Grey was at the helm.

“I’m too old to change my ways Svenny.”

She didn’t bother telling her not to use that name, Red probably knew Gin wasn’t about to stop calling her that. Instead, much to Gin’s disgust, she turned on her heel and snapped a sharp salute to Gin, along with a “Captain!” Gin flipped her off and turned back to her observation of nothing, slipping the tin into her pocket.

It was a few moments before Gin realised what it was she was looking at. Far out into hyperspace, and coming closer and closer at an alarmingly fast rate, was a ship. Judging by the colours she was flying and the fact that the vessel was sailing beyond the Route, Gin realised it was a pirate. While it was against the law to sail off the beaten track when it came to the Route, Sailors still did it; especially pirates.

Gin should know, she’d been a pirate.

Up from the crow’s nest came the call: “Ship ahoy!”

Captain Vernon replied: “All hands to stations! Run out the guns!”

Reluctantly Gin moved away from the railing and stood beside Red and the captain. “D’you know it?” Red asked her quietly. Mic – the transport driver – was close by.

Gin frowned. “There are more pirates than Fleetsmen, Red. The cosmos is huge – and expanding. I don’t know them all –” she trailed off, staring at the colours, which she could now make out through the nothingness. Outrage gripped her. “That’s my Ship!” she yelled, forgetting herself.

Red swore.

Which was strange – since Red never swore. Anyone who knew her would instantly realise the sudden peril they had found themselves in because Red never swore.

A holotransmessage flickered by the mainsail. A shady figure in a ridiculously floppy hat (her hat, incidentally) and a faded jacket grinned up at her (and yes, her jacket). “Prepare to be boarded; hand over your valuables and women and we won’t blast you out of existence.” His voice hadn’t changed all that much during twenty years – although he looked older, much older, than when he had led the mutiny against her. Age wasn’t sitting well with him, as if guilt was weighing down his skin and making it hang off his skeleton. Good. Serves him right. The bastard.

Before the holotransmessage could flicker out, Gin lunged for the control panel beside the wheel and jammed it. She then sent her own holotransmessage onto the pirate ship in response so she and the figure could communicate.

“I want my Ship back, Fredri!”

The figure blinked and lifted his head to get a better look at her. “Skeewif Silver … it’s been a long time.” He smirked and she could hear the jeering from his crew. “How’d you get off that asteroid? I thought I had successfully stranded you.”

“Keep underestimating me like that you’ll end up wyght fodder.”

The pirate spread his hands wide. “Aw c’mon don’t be like that babe … was I ever bad to you? I tell you what, you can have your old bed back, how does that sound? Of course I’ll be in it with you but … better than nothing, right?” she could definitely hear the crew of the other vessel laughing.

Gin glared at him. “Why? You were always disappointingly unfulfilling in that area.”

Fredri shook his holographic head, ignoring the insult. “Have you really sunk so low as to captain a passenger sloop though? Dear me, I expected better from you Skee.”

Gin clenched her fists. “I happen to be passenger. Much to your misfortune … give me my Ship and my crew and maybe I won’t throw you into the Nebular System.”

Fredri laughed. “You’re not in a position to make threats, Skee – besides, you know the rules. A captain doesn’t stay captain if he, well in this case she, lies to the crew. And you lied to them, didn’t you, babe?”

“You and I both know I am the better captain.” Gin told him, wishing she could strangle that smug expression off his face – he knew she hated being called ‘babe’. The crew of The Gallant Goose were looking back and forth from Gin to the holotram like a game of ball. “I’ll out run you before you get close enough to board.”

Fredri laughed again, a hearty laugh as like he used to when hearing the punchline to a good crude joke. When he finished, he sneered at her, the holotram flickering. “That sloop is running off a hyperdrive. You yourself installed the Phasor in Limit here. Tell me – how, exactly, are you going to out run Sky’s Limit in that old tub?”

It was Gin’s turn to laugh. “You really ought to stop underestimating me, Mad.” She ended the communication and turned to Vernon. “Show me your engine room. Now.” His eyes widened but he pointed to his first mate who led the way below deck. Red followed behind them. Vernon was issuing a message to the passengers – something about everything is fine, but we may be boarded by pirates any moment so sit tight. He also jammed the doors to the passenger cabins so that they wouldn’t be stampeded on deck. Smart move.

Opening the maintenance panel, Gin set to work, rewiring the mainframe to direct more power to the thrusters. She told Red to go order life lines and Red raced off. The first mate had already returned to deck leaving Gin alone in the engine room. The easiest way was to forgo the gravity field and direct that energy to the thrusters, since sustained gravity required a lot of energy, but the sloop’s whole system was outdated and held together by a lot of rust and determination. So she rerouted the energy for the shield to make up the extra power needed and closed the panel – Gin had made sure her changes were reversible. She didn’t much fancy clinging to a rope all the way to Twilit.

Most vessels were large enough to generate their own natural gravity field, but for safety it was necessary to bind those on deck either to the main mast or the rails and shut off the lower decks so that no one was lost overboard, especially on smaller vessels like sloops. Gin went aft where Red was standing beside the captain who seemed out of his depth. Red handed her a rope, which Gin bound round her waist and glanced over her shoulder.

The Sky’s Limit had swung into the Route and was chasing them with deadly accuracy; the pirate colours flapping and the engine thrusters igniting the Ship from behind. Fredri had redesigned them since he became captain – hideously, Gin noted. Sky’s Limit didn’t suit its new standard. She could just make out Fredri at the helm of her Ship, commanding her crew, wearing her hat … Red glanced at her.

“Hey … you okay?”

Gin nodded and whirled around. “Alright. Full throttle cap’ and away we go.”

Vernon Grey flicked a switch and hit a couple of buttons. The sloop lurched forwards, as if reluctant to go so fast. Every judder felt like the seams were about to spring and the hull buckle from the pressure of sudden increased flight. Gin had seen it happen before. It wasn’t pretty.

“We’re losing them!” Red called over the turbulence, clinging to the aft rail and her rope. Gin leant lazily against the rail beside her and watched the captain as he sailed through hyperspace at speeds forbidden. Idly she wondered how much of a thrill he was getting out of it. Back in her pirating days, she would turn the Phasor on in hyperspace and sail flat out for as long as she and the Ship could stand it. As back up, a Phasor engine always had compatibility for a hyperdrive just in case it broke. If they both broke then unfortunately the vessel was stranded.

“Asteroids!” came a scream from the crow’s nest.

“In the hyperdivension?” Red questioned. “That’s not possible is it?”

“We’re passing by the Heart of the Cosmos!” Captain Vernon’s first mate yelled back. “There’s always turbulence … company policy has us to wait until it clears!”

“There’s no such thing as the Heart of the Cosmos!” Gin shouted. “When a star dies it slips into the hyperdimension. Some of the debris tags along for the ride!”

“Nay!” Captain Vernon disagreed. “It’s the Heart for sure!”

Gin swore. She marched across the deck, her feet lifting off the deck, and shoved Vernon out of the way. He tumbled to the ground and would’ve fallen overboard if not for his lifeline. “I didn’t make it this far just to be caught now!” she yelled. “Not by pirates, not by the Fleet, not by anyone! Heart or no Heart – I’ll see us out of here!” Gin lurched the wheel to the right and sailed them through the asteroid field at speeds against the law.

The sloop’s crew blanched and clung to their life lines while Gin made wide and dangerous and reckless manoeuvres through the chunks of rock – some the size of small planets and others the no bigger than copper pennies.

“They’re firing at us Gin!” Red yelled from behind her.

“Our shields will deflate them!” the captain yelled.

“I dismantled them!”

“What!”

“I needed the rerouted the energy for the thrusters!”

The captain was spluttering. Gin just hoped she’d rerouted enough energy into the tired engine – she could feel the sloop protesting the speeds she was wringing out of it. I know, she thought, just trust me … thankfully the sloop did. Red was ordering the gunners to fire back at Limit; several shots hit the deck and small bursts of fire broke out. The crew began a fire-extinguishing mission. Gin whirled the wheel hard over to the left and then dove them straight down under a particularly nasty looking hunk of space rock. “How close are they?” she demanded of Red. Red responded automatically.

“About thirty clicks Captain!” she replied. And then screamed when Gin directed them into the middle of a huge asteroid last minute. “Are you insane!” she screeched.

“Trust me!”

“Not likely!”

Captain Vernon tried to wrestle the wheel from her, but Red pulled him away. However much she doubted Gin’s judgement just then, she wasn’t crazy enough to remove her from the helm until the danger had passed. “If you want to get out of this alive then leave Gin on the helm!” she informed the captain Vernon.

“You just said she was insane!”

“Yes. But she’s been sailing the cosmos for just short of a century! How long have you been sailing?”

The captain didn’t answer, but he stared at Gin in wonder as she spiralled them through the inner passages of the asteroid. Behind them, Sky’s Limit was still firing its cannons at them. “Red! Do you know how to hack into their HIPS and disable their cannons?”

“No!”

“What do they teach you at the Academy these days?”

“I hate to admit it to you, but that’s a pirate trick Gin. You don’t learn that at the Academy!”

The top of the main mast scraped the asteroid as they sailed out the other side. Gin pulled back on the wheel and looped them overhead so they sailed directly up through the clutter – below them Sky’s Limit almost sailed straight into an asteroid the size of Tidbett’s southern Moon. It was enough for Gin to quickly lose them in the multitude of asteroids – they went sailing out the other side of the field virtually undamaged with no sign of Sky’s Limit at all.

Gin stayed on the helm for another hour, by which time they were certain Fredri Mad and his pirates weren’t in pursuit. She gave the helm back to Captain Vernon and at Red’s urging (and under her supervision) redirected the correct levels of energy back to the gravity fields and the shields. The sloop’s sudden decrease in speed was sickening. They were traveling at a snail’s pace. Gin wanted to rework the thrusters and coax some more speed out of them, but Red shot her down and dragged her bodily out of the engine room and back on deck.

Captain Vernon thanked her gruffly, and shook her hand. He nodded and went back to the wheel, as if he feared Gin would steal it from him if he didn’t stand by it constantly. Gin had no intentions of commandeering the sloop. It was far too slow and old and besides, Gin had a taste for something grander; preferably a Ship of the highest standards of craftsmanship and speeds unmatchable – if she couldn’t have both she went for speed. But she was able to make the best out of what she had – Red said that hacking into the mainframe of a Ship was something Gin had picked up during her years pirating. Gin had been born with that ability – the ability to understand a ship and what it needed and what would disable it.

“There was another holotransmessage while you were below deck,” the first mate said.

“Can you direct it to the cabin?” Red asked. “I need to sit down … come on Gin – you don’t need to corrupt these sailors any more than you already have.” She took Gin by the arm and steered her below deck, back to the captain’s cabin at the aft of the sloop with its dirty windows of plasma, low bunks and furniture bolted firmly to the floor.

“So,” Red said as she shut the door behind her, “that was interesting … Gin?”

Gin had taken the empty whiskey bottle from earlier and hurtled it at the wall. She was surprised at the malice in her action: there hadn’t been time while escaping to dwell on the fact that Fredri Mad had had the nerve to try and loot a vessel she was taking transport on. But his betrayal was still a raw subject for her – he stole her Ship!

3: Tree

Red was hopefully wishing she hadn’t thrown out Gin’s bacco. Gin paced the cabin issuing every vile and disgusting swear world she could think of in every language she could speak as she went about explain what a mutinous, traitorous, backstabbing, heart-breaking, ship-stealing lout Fredri Mad was. Her smoke was in her hand, but she had nothing to light in it so that also added to her agitation and her foul mood. She needed something to help calm her nerves and the smoking of bacco had always in the past had always ensured that. Only Red didn’t agree with the practise and had thrown it all away.

“Calm down … I don’t get why you’re making such a great deal over a stupid Ship, it’s not like –”

“A stupid Ship?” Gin questioned, pausing in her march and turning to face Red. “Just a Ship?” she questioned again. “How can you say that to me? When sailing means so much to you – what if someday you wind up captaining a Ship to have some oaf steal it from you! Some oaf – I may add – that you trusted and helped when they were in dire need and who you believed in and who you, despite your better judgement, wound up …” She trailed off.

“Wound up what?” Red asked, watching Gin from the doorway. “Falling in love with? I’m not you, Gin.”

“That’s an understatement.” Gin muttered. “You just string anyone along who shows interest in you and then jettison them when you’ve had your fun.”

Red was in the process of taking off her jacket. She flung the thing to the floor as Gin finished speaking. “That was uncalled for!” she snapped, kicking the jacket out of her way as she grabbed Gin’s arm and yanked her round to face her, standing tall in her uniform. “What is your deal Gin? So what, he stole your ship – it’s only a ship.”

Reclaiming possession of her arm, Gin pushed Red away and slumped down at the table, sinking her head into her hands while Red took out another bottle from the drinks cabinet and poured them out some fresh liquid. “It’s not that,” she muttered. “Well maybe it is a little … you know I posed as a guy for most of my years pirating. When we left with the crew from Port on Sky’s Limit most jumped ship when we docked at Twilit to join the damn Unionist Alliance; later, at the Port of Beginnings, I realised no one there was going to take me seriously as a captain, because I was a woman. Pirates are backwards like that.”

Red handed her a glass. “You’ve already told me this … countless times, I might add.”

“Yeah … Fredri was a stow-away faking amnesia. I’ve had experience with that and so I called him out on it and he ended up being my first mate … when he discovered I wasn’t a bloke he kept the secret. Well he kept it until it suited him not to keep it. Turns out all he wanted was my Ship …”

“I know all this Gin. You’ve ranted about him often enough whenever we meet. How does this explain your tirade and reaction?”

Gin downed her drink in one gulp and set the glass down on the table with a clink. Automatically she extended the smoke with a shake and flipped open the tin, but if course Red had gotten rid of her bacco and so she regretfully stowed the items away in her pocket. “Look, my reasons are my reasons so can you just accept that he stole my Ship and I want payback for that?”

“No. But since that’s all you’re going to give me I’ll just have to find the real reasons out myself won’t I?”

“Play the holotram.”

Red rolled her eyes – she had a habit of doing that whenever talking with Gin – and activated the HIPS screen which was integrated into the table top. The whole surface glowed blue and they were able to access the company’s data bank … so long as they stayed on the Route. The company logo sat in the middle, rotating, as it waited to load. Since it was a sloop, it the vessel didn’t have a data bank of its own and had to rely upon either a Ship’s data bank or in this case the data bank of the company.

System Thirty-Six Void Travel’s HIPS system was outdated and extremely slow. Red surfed through the junk the Captain had stored on his personal archive and found the holotram that had come when they had been in the engine room fixing the engines back to how they were supposed to be – or rather, Gin had been doing the fixing and Red the overseeing ... Red was allergic to dirt and grit.

“Here it is.”

“No wait; go back.” Red gave Gin a look, but scrolled back through the data she’d been shifting through. “Yeah that –” Gin took the file and opened it while Red cleared the table, but keeping hold of the holotram. Smirking, Gin was about to delve deeper into the file when Red snatched it from her and replaced it in the captain’s archive. “Did you see –?”

“Yes. I saw. I don’t think Vernon will appreciate you going through his diary.”

“It wasn’t a diary, Red.”

“Grow up!”

“No, but seriously … why are all guys the same, regardless of species?”

“It’s an inherit weakness.”

“You think?”

“No. Now can I play this holotram?”

“If you must.”

“Don’t you want to know what darling Fredri has to say?”

“Not really.”

“Oh. Shame. Because Vernon and his crew have already viewed it.”

Gin gestured to Red to play the damn thing. She smirked to herself as she flung the holotram into play.

Fredri Mad flickered into view, twelve inches high and glowing blue like the table, his face a twisted picture of contempt and satisfaction – which was a shame because he’d had a rather nice until victory had gotten to his head. Anyways the message went on about how there wasn’t enough loot on a passenger sloop to make chasing them worthwhile.

“But I’m after a bigger prize than the payment for slaves to Zarlon’s Mining Moon. The GMR has put out the word: forty million ya for the living descendant of Chester Royale. What d’you say Skee? Fancy coming along for the ride – I’ll make it worth your while, if you make it worth mine that is. Besides – you know where they dropped that kid off don’t you, Captain Skeewif Silver? According to the rumours, The Sky’s Limit found the kid and took him to the Unionists. How much did they pay you to give them transport? Not that it matters. Word has it that the heir is on some planet in System Fourteen.” The holographic Fredri smirked. “Well, I shall be off … I got myself a little Royale to catch ...” the holotram flickered once more and then died, the table turning off and resuming its opaque normalcy.

Across the table, Red sat in a tense anticipation for what was about to come. Gin had closed her eyes as she fought to keep a lid on her emotions and the frustration that she had earlier let loose. How could the Unionists been so damn stupid! “You left the boy within the reach of Kai?” it was strange how she didn’t shout. But fury had a way of doing that – reaching a level beyond shouting. “When I got him from the Lagoo and handed him over to you thrice-damned Unionists, I told you only one thing. What was it again Red?”

Red opened her mouth to speak, but Gin didn’t give her a chance.

“Oh yeah … keep him in the Independence.” Gin shook her head in disgust. “Was it so hard to do as I say?”

Red’s temper flared. “It’s not like there’s much of the Independence left! The GMR keeps waging war on the Independence – the moment they subdue one system they move onto another. But we thought Chester Royale’s heir would be safe on Anlvoon, since it is a relatively small system with not much strategic or resourceful usefulness to mount a full-scale war upon the planet.”

“I should’ve just dropped him off someplace secret and not told you. Maybe then the kid would’ve had some peace. Or kept him on board Limit. He made a good cabin boy, now I think of it.”

“… You made the heir to the Union your cabin boy?” Red repeated faintly. “Systems above Gin – if you’d of had your way the Royale family would be pirates by now.” Shaking her head, Red went back to their conversation, staring Gin in the eyes. “The heir’s overseer had the sense to evacuate with other refugees and we lost contact with them; that’s why Bablyeon sent me to convince you to take up our offer: you’re the best captain in the cosmos Gin. If anyone can find the Royale it’s you …

Gin looked out of the aft windows. “I don’t know about that Red. Fredri isn’t exactly stupid and neither is Kai. And never have I ever said I am the best … I just happen to be the only captain of any decency who is on speaking terms with the Unionists.”

“Modesty doesn’t suit you Gin.”

Sighing heavily, Gin slumped back against the cabin wall, throwing her feet upon the table as she ran her hands through her hair. “What a happy coincidence for you Red, huh? You need to find the heir and I want to go after the bastard that stole my Ship. Oh what do you know, the guy I am looking for is going after the kid you want to save.”

“I didn’t engineer this, if that’s what you’re implying.”

Gin snorted. “That’s beyond even you … so. Twilit it is then.”

“Twilit it is.” Red agreed.

“Did you save my hood? From the fire in my house. Did you save my cowl?”

She sensed Red rolling her eyes. Seriously, they would roll out of their sockets if she kept that habit going. “It’s in the draw under your bunk. Along with everything else I salvaged. Your sword is there too – where’d you get it anyway? I never asked.”

“Huh?”

“The ruddy great big shank Gin. Did you steal it from some Officer of the Fleet back when you were a pirate?”

“I’m hungry Red. Go see what’s for dinner.”

“Aye, aye Captain.”

“Less cheek from you, Sailor.”

Red got to her feet and strode across the cabin, grinning at Gin as she slipped through the door as she pulled it open, leaving it to swing shut behind her as she went. Gin hated the sloop. Everything about it was antique and old – the doors had hinges which was not good during high speed sailing and tight manoeuvres. Gin didn’t realise that hinged doors were still around – most worked off hydraulics, and retracted into the walls, the floor or the ceiling. If she was going to go on this mission then she first had to be certain she had a Ship she could captain – otherwise Red would have to find herself another captain altogether.

Gin waited until Red’s footsteps died out then launched herself across the room to the draw Red had indicated. Riffling through it, she found the blade Red had been on about: undamaged and unblemished, she traced out the symbols on the blade and read them like a comforting friend giving her a reassuring smile. I am the Venom. Slow. Direct. Painless. Excruciating. Inevitable.

It was a single-edged blade that gleamed wickedly in the dull light of the cabin. Like solidified ice it could send a chill down the spine from nothing more than a glance. Gin had never used it. She had often taken it out back home and held in in her hand, flowing through the forms and movements and techniques of swordcraft; but she had never used it. It was a blade able to be wielded in one hand or two, and was just short of a metre long, including the phoenix-feather wrapped handle. There was a subtle curve to the entirety of the weapon and the sheath was nothing more than a tube with golden cord wound round the opening.

Hearing the oncoming of pounding feet, she hastily shoved it back into the draw and pulled out her hood – a simply a loop of fabric with a slit in the top for her head and a hood attached. The whole thing sat over her shoulders, looping over either her left or right shoulder to gather under the opposite arm. The material was weather proof and had once been a rich black that had over the years faded to grey – there were still some gold threads glinting in the fabric. Somewhere the old Union logo had been embroidered, but when the Union fell Gin had taken her brother’s dagger to it and picked out the stitches and now all that remained of the emblem was the symbol outlined in a black thread. A reminder. That’s all.

A reminder that nothing lasted and everything got destroyed.

Red re-entered the cabin followed closely by someone else. Ignoring them, Gin rummaged through her belongings discovering that the only clothing she had that were wearable were the ones she was wearing: an old shirt that she was surprised still held together, some leggings that were the same green as the glow of the Ion Sun of Arth, the tabard-vest that had belonged to her mother (she had been a guard of the Empress before Gin was born) and a woollen scarf used as a sash tied around her waist in place of a belt and her scuffed boots. The only wearable extras that Red had salvaged was a pair of scarred leather gauntlets that she had forgotten she still owned. And her hood. Gin had made do on less before now.

Stuffing everything into the draw to hide the sword from view, Gin turned to inspect the items she had left in her possession. A grand total of five – not including Venom and the old tin with her smoke and lighter. In truth she wasn’t that bothered by what she had left – but she wanted to listen in on the conversation Red was having without the other person knowing. Red wasn’t fooled.

“… barbarians.”

“You do realise you haven’t yet said anything to keep me from throwing you into jail the moment I reach Twilit?”

There was a scoffing sound. “On what authority?”

“Gin’s. Pirates are considered royalty on Twilit.” Gin wanted to applaud the sarcasm in Red’s voice. It was literally dripping with it. She’d come far since they’d first met; Gin had had to educate the young vannie in sarcasm – as a race vannies were immune and unaware of such forms of communicating and thus often a vannie would take what was said literally. Red had been an apt pupil … once she discovered that it was essentially stating the obvious and selling a lie badly – basically.

“On my own authority dingbat. Any commissioned officer can throw who they like in jail without question by those of lower rank – and the gaols on Twilit are all policed by the cadets.”

“You people are …”

“Are trying to restore the cosmos back to how it had been before Kai took over.” Red said lazily.

Gin shook her head. She wasn’t. She just wanted her Ship back.

“How old are you, Mic?”

He grumbled somewhat, but replied, “I was born over six hundred years ago.”

No doubt Red’s face was a picture of awe. She always wore her heart on her sleeve. Even though no one could see her face, Gin hid her own admiration at such a weighty age behind a neutral expression. Generally the elveri were considered the race with the longest life span, but that wasn’t accurate since elveri tended to waste away by the time they reached three hundred years or so. A vannie however, had up to nine incarnations and thus could, potentially, live for about nine hundred years – so long as the didn’t get killed before they exhausted the life span of their current incarnation. But because a vannie wore different faces each incarnation people often forgot how long they actually lived for.

“You remember the Union of the Cosmos then, don’t you? You were there during the height of it then? You remember?”

“I remember.”

“Don’t you want that back?” Red asked quietly.

Mic Arris was silent for a while, and Gin suspected he was pulling some thinking faces. Bored of kneeling over the draw, Gin closed it and got to her feet, wincing as she stretched and turned to see Red watching her with amusement. Rolling her eyes, Gin sat down on her bunk and picked up a book that had been discarded on the floor.

“The Union wasn’t perfect.”

“Nothing ever is. If we go looking for perfection my friend we will never find it.” Great philosophical talking there Red. “But surely you agree that the Union – yes it had its faults – but it pleased the majority rather than the minority the Realm serves.”

Whether or not Mic Arris was going to reply was up for debate, but the Captain Vernon entered just then to say that they were serving dinner in five and that up on deck the Vibrant Moons of Dagshow were visible to the starboard side of the sloop. Mic Arris got to his feet and followed the captain out, shooting a frowning glance at Gin as he went by. Gin gave him a cheery grin in return.

“You think he’ll join?”

Blinking, Gin turned back to Red. “Your damned Unionist Alliance?” she snorted.

“Thanks for the vote of confidence.”

“I’m sorry, but have you forgotten the part where you had Grey’s crew abduct him for you?”

“Minor details.”

“Do you get a bonus or something,” Red frowned, “for every newbie you get signing up to the Alliance?”

“Remind me why I put up with you again?”

“Because without my recommendation you would never have gotten into the School.”

“Fake recommendation. You faked those credentials Gin.”

Gin shrugged. “You still got in didn’t you?”

“Yes.”

“And graduated – what was it? Top of the year?”

“Top of the class.”

“Well then. What you complaining about? And then there’s you uniform.”

“What about my uniform?”

“You’ve been promoted.”

“Oh. Yeah.”

“And you haven’t bragged yet?”

Red seemed to realise this for the first time. Her face fell. “I … I’ve been distracted.”

“By a handsome transportation driver that happens to be older than just about everyone you’ve met.”

“By your flipping house exploding when I was on the doorstep! Distracted by dragging you – unconscious I may add – back to this sloop in time to leave before Mic Arris managed to tell the Fleet that I was helping their number one fugitive escape.”

Gin crossed her legs. “Considering that I lived inside the Realm for twenty years or so without them realising, our leaving can’t really be called an escape.”

Red scoffed but let it go. “Aye Captain.”

“Is that really the best you can come up with Svenny?”

“I don’t need anything else. Captain annoys you well enough for my liking … come on; dinner won’t walk here by itself. Bots don’t function in hyperspace.”

They traipsed down to the kitchen where they joined the crew in the partaking of the evening meal (it had to be evening somewhere in the cosmos). Mic the prisoner was eating next to the sloop’s gunner and they seemed to be rather chummy as they ate their rations, shooting Gin and Red furtive looks as the two women took seats beside the cabin boy. Vernon Grey’s first mate entertained them all with a lively jig once they’d all helped clear up; amidst many mugs of beer and glasses of whiskey Gin noticed Red was missing. Shrugging it off, she carried on instructing the crew in the correct lyrics of Jolly Sailor ensuring may roars and cheers of crude laughter. Somewhere during the tenth pirate song, Red reappeared and grabbed her arm – dragging her back to the captain’s cabin.

“You’ve had too much already. And corrupted these honest sailors enough.”

“Where were you?” Gin asked in reply, and then when Red blushed she grinned. “Oh yeah? Well I hope he knows what he’s getting himself into.”

“Oh. He knew.”

“Red … can you drag your mind out of the gutter?”

“It’s your own fault Gin. You are, after all, the one who corrupted me in the first place. We spent six months sailing through hyperspace because the Phasor was broke and the hyperdrive damaged.”

“You gunna tell me?”

“Nope. Find one yourself Gin if you’re that desperate. Don’t come stealing mine.”

Gin let Red push her into the cabin. “Yeah … not my type.”

“Why not? What’s wrong with my type?”

“Red. You don’t have a type.”

Red paused in the act of getting undressed. “That’s because I don’t concern myself with labels.”

“I’ll label you.”

“Please don’t.”

“You’re greedy.”

“No. I’m … open.”

“Open – because that’s how Mic found you tonight right?”

“Go to sleep Gin.”

“Can’t. I have found fault with your statement.”

“Oh?”

“I’m open.”

“Agreed. So then what am I?”

“You? … You’re just not bothered by definitions and labels … really Red, you defined yourself earlier in the conversation. Weren’t you listening?”

“Yes. I don’t like labels or definitions – remember?”

“Remember. So want your label?”

“Shoot.”

“You’re not bothered.

“I was plenty bothered tonight.”

“Sure you were. Bothered enough come tell me about it afterwards.”

“Go to sleep!”

“So you can slip out for another dally with your driver?”

“Gin!”

“Oh yeah … forgot. You have no type and no standards.”

“My standards aren’t low!”

Gin laughed as she laid back on the lower bunk. “Honey, I’ve got heels higher than your standards.”

“You don’t own any heels.”

“Do too. I’ve got two of them – one on each foot … see, look!” she stuck her bare feet over the edge of the bunk and Red threw her uniform jacket at them.

Red shook her head as she clambered into the top bunk. Gin settled down on her own bunk and sighed as she shut off the lights. “Night Red,” she waited but Red didn’t reply. “Hey … Red … Red?” Nothing. “Red. Red. Red. Red. Red!”

Still nothing.

“Svenny!

“What!?” she hissed, sticking her head over the edge of her bunk to glare ominously at Gin.

“G’night.”

“Systems above … I swear I’ll kill you one of these days.”

“Nah you won’t.”

“Won’t I?”

“You’d miss me too much.”

“You’ve drunk too much.”

“And you had a nice long drink didn’t you Red?”

Red disappeared from view. A rather stern; “Good night, Ginnifer,” came from the boards above Gin’s head and she laughed as the alcohol swirled in her system.

“Night, night Svenny. Sweet dreams!”

Of course when everyone woke up the following morning, (morning? How could they tell in hyperspace? Who knows …) most walked round with their heads in their hands groaning a headache and hangover. All aside Gin. She was immune. Even Red was contemplating throwing her overboard as she roamed around the sloop cheerfully remarking how beautifully dull the void was looking that morning. (Let’s just assume it was morning somewhere.) She had also managed to procure some bacco leaves from one of the crew the previous evening and leant against the prow smoking absently as they sailed through the Route towards Twilit.

They emerged from hyperspace about noon the following day: Gin and Red passed the time playing board in the captain’s cabin. The holographic board and pieces lighting up the interior of the dingy cabin as they waged war upon each other – Red was winning; Gin was more interested in going through Captain Vernon’s personal archives than actually playing the game with Red. Red had given up trying to teach Gin some respect for privacy, she probably realised it was a lost cause what with Gin being a ‘retired pirate’ as she put it.

“I’m going to have Mic taken straight to the gaol when we dock,” Red said. “You and I will need to see Bablyeon as soon as we can. Fredri already has a two day head start on us as it is.”

Gin decided speaking would only result in arguing and arguing would only result in Red having her Navy mates lock her up in the gaol. And Gin really couldn’t be bothered to break out of prison when it would be much less hassle to go along with Red’s plan and weigh the pros and cons of going through with the mad venture Red was going to propose. Gin had come across one major flaw in Red’s proposition. The Navy of Twilit wasn’t going to be able to move as readily and easily through the Realm as it did through the Independence, meaning that their search for Fredri (and the Royale heir) was going to be hampered by Fleet vessels demanding they leave Realm planetary-space before the Fleet viewed it as an invasion. The only way for Red’s plan to work was for the ship to be a pirate … and Gin didn’t see Red adapting well to the life of a pirate.

But she said nothing of her concerns as they gathered their belongings while Vernon Grey docked his sloop and issued the usual and pointless announcements over the intercom. Gin swung her meagre supplies over her shoulder as she followed Red Sven out of the captain’s cabin and up on deck where they joined the long que of passengers clamouring to get off (it hadn’t really been smooth sailing through the void) while three of Red’s Navy inferiors escorted Mic Arris from below deck. They all saluted smartly to Red, who nodded, as they passed, getting several stares from other passengers as they were forced to move aside.

Bablyeon Ford’s headquarters was actually a Sighting Ship that had grounded on Twilit about a century before. It had been big news throughout the cosmos because the Sighting in question had been about to set sail upon its maiden voyage only to sink back to the planet’s surface before it made the upper atmosphere. No one had been able to raise it and so it lay half sunk in a lake three miles from the city of Kik until the Realm took over and the Unionists needed somewhere to base their resistance from. Officially the grounded The Rum Runner SS was nothing more than an empty shell where the occasional event might be held since the city Kik had no huge venues to accommodate vast amounts of people. Officially.

The Galactic Navy of Twilit wasn’t part of the Unionist Alliance, in fact it maintained a very public disapproval of the rebel group. In private however, Admiral Jefferson and Bablyeon Ford often discussed ways in which to thwart and over throw Kai’s totalitarian rule: most of the Naval Officers held minor positions of importance within the resistance and the whole planet knew full well that the Navy and the Alliance were one in the same with many young cadets choosing, as Red did, to serve the resistance through servitude to the Navy. The resistance actually made up about thirty percent of the Navy’s annual intake each academic year. Very few people outside the resistance actually knew that Twilit’s Navy funded the Unionist Alliance’s campaign.

Red was all for reporting immediately to her captain and so when they left the docks the two of them took a communal hover tram to the barracks. Gin had to go through security when they reached the entrance: her belongings were put into a lock-up behind the desk and the pudgy two foot high pixie handed over a small disc to present at the desk when she wanted her things back otherwise they’d be incinerated.

Walking through the Navy’s dockyard, Gin looked around admiring the Ships and vessels teaming with life as sailors worked over them. Red strode on ahead as she marched towards the Ship she was serving on leaving Gin to tag along getting a good look at not only the Ships themselves, but the security and the logistics of the entire dockyard. Already she was figuring out the best way to commandeer one – with the right crew she could manage it … and she’d need some kind of distraction to get the inhabitants of that security booth out of the way …

“Gin!”

She snapped out of her day dream again heartily grateful Red couldn’t read minds. It took her a few moments to find her friend; she stood on deck of a respectable ship alongside three sailors, one in a master’s uniform and two in the Captain’s white vest (Red’s was cream) and peaked cap. Gin hopped up to the gangway and strode aboard the vessel, looking around as deck hands and petty officers bustled around in breeches and high-waist-jackets. The deck was painted a red with the railings and fittings either crisp white or deep blue; the standard colours of Twilit’s Navy.

“This her then?” one of the masters asked. Gin cast a brief glance over his sallow skin and leathery wings and guessed he was the master surgeon of the crew since he had the inevitable cross-eyed expression and thin nimble fingers. “The one Ford had you running half way across the cosmos for? I thought you said she wouldn’t come?”

“The Fleet destroyed my house. I was hardly going to stick around there waiting for them to figure out if they’d actually succeeded in killing me this time am I?”

Red rolled her eyes, “Captain Jones, Captain Kyle, may I introduce Captain Skeewif Silver, more commonly known as Gin.”

The two captains shook both shook her hand. “Ford will be happy you’ve come,” Jones said. “Having Skeewif Silver out of retirement and on our side will greatly increase the numbers of people joining us.”

“Us? Declaring public allegiance to the Alliance are you Captain?” Gin asked with a small grin. “Don’t you know the Fleet has ears everywhere?”

Captain Kyle snorted. “They are forbidden by Galactic Law to come within forty clicks of Twilit or any of our Deep Space Bases.”

“My home planet is within their Realm and yet they blew up my house without provocation or excuse.”

“The Realm will be the death of us all,” the master surgeon muttered as he stumped off below decks, shouting to his apprentice as he went.

“Charming fellow,” Gin observed.

Red rolled her eyes, “Yeah – well we need to see Bablyeon … permission to leave Captain?” she asked Jones.

“Granted. Suspension ends next week lieutenant and mind you spend that time learning I want my orders relayed the moment I issue them.”

“Aye Captain!” She saluted both Jones and Kyle and strode down the gangway. Gin nodded to the other two captains before following Red off the ship, letting her amusement show on her face as Red tried to look as if she wasn’t wearing a stolen uniform. Which gave Gin an idea about how to slip past the security booth …

Once you got over the fact that his skin was red and he had an extra arm coming out of the middle of his chest and a long forked tail and hands instead of feet, you realised that the monstrous appearance of Bablyeon Ford was just that – an appearance. He was actually a pretty nice guy. After getting rid of Red by sending her back to the Navy’s docks with the promise he’d gotten her suspension lifted, the two of them locked the office and discussed their situation – that is to say Bablyeon discussed it and Gin wondered round the room and looked out of The Rum Runner’s many aft windows at the setting sun. Built to sail through space and never have to dock, it had over a hundred floors and dwarfed any Ship of the Fleet.

“I’m not here to join your resistance Babs,” Gin interrupted. “You know full well that I have no intentions of getting involved – all I want is my Ship back.”

He tutted. “I’ll wager there’s more to you than a pirate, Ginnifer Ruth! Don’t try and tell me all you want is your damned Ship because if that be the case you’d have gone after it when Fredri Mad stole it from you! Not sat growing fat in your father’s house for the past twenty years!”

Gin tightened her fists but otherwise didn’t react. Bablyeon Ford had an uncanny habit of speaking the uncomfortable truths that didn’t want to be voiced. “We can’t fight this war without you Ginnifer: you were there when the Union fell apart – blast it Ruth, you’re the only one who knows why it fell apart!”

There was a silence that stretched on for an age. Gin licked her lips: “It fell because …”

“Because what?”

Because I did nothing … because we all did nothing …

Gin shook her head and sat down across from Bablyeon Ford.

“I know you’re keeping things Ruth, and I understand that perhaps there’s a reason for that – and a good one too I hope … only,” he sighed. “Only don’t you think Red deserves to know whatever it is you’re hiding? She practically hero-worships you!”

“Red …” Gin shook her head. “Red wouldn’t understand. I – I …” but she didn’t know how to explain it. “I’m no hero.”

Bablyeon Ford surveyed her over his folded arms. “It is odd, I grant you – Red looking up to a pirate like she does … but then you never did strike me as the pirate type.”

Gin shrugged, “I became a pirate after the Union fell. Maybe that’s why you and she never think or thought of me as a pirate … that and I never pirated under my own name. Kai would’ve blasted me out of the skies if I had.”

“And that’s another issue: this thing going on between you and Kai – it’s personal, Gin. You’ve got to realise that.”

“I know it’s personal.”

“Do you know why it’s personal?”

“Of course I do!” she snapped, banging her fist upon Bablyeon’s desk. “It wouldn’t be personal otherwise would it!” she closed her eyes and leant back in the seat. “I’m retired.” She stated adamantly.

“A retired pirate … yes the entire cosmos knows that. Most of the cosmos doesn’t know that he famous Captain Skeewif Silver is also Ginnifer Ruth – the GMR’s Most Wanted – which is where we have an advantage: the Fleet and Kai don’t know that you’ve gone by that name and they also won’t know you’re siding with us. Ginnifer Ruth is apparently responsible for the fall of the Union of the Cosmos – having her on side won’t boost recruitment.”

“You’re saying that you don’t want Gin the criminal, you want Skeewif the pirate?”

Ford bobbed his head energetically. “That,” he said, “is exactly what I am saying … now, are you in or not?” Bablyeon Ford looked long and hard at her.

“I just want to get back at the bastard that stole my Ship.” Gin muttered finally.

“And the heir?”

She sighed. “I’ll find him,” she promised quietly. It was the closest she was ever going to get to saying yes – so Bablyeon wisely did not push her to actually mouth out the words to say she would join them.

“I’m sure the Navy can lend you a ship and a crew,” Bablyeon nodded. It was hard to tell, but Gin suspected he was smiling in satisfaction.

“No. I’ll find my own crew and my own Ship. If I’m doing this then I am doing it my way Babs, no red tape, no rules and no interference. The pirate way.”

The head of the Alliance rolled his eyes – which was probably where Red got the habit from. “What do you need from me?”

Gin thought about it, “I need Chalk. And a distraction.”

“Done.”

4: Frog

Chalk White was a large fellow with a square jaw and broad shoulders – his skin was grey and he had no hair. He looked strong enough to lift a hyperdrive engine, but was in actual fact stronger (he could lift two) for he was a light-miner from the Mining Moon of Zarlon but he left when the Fleet began overlooking the usage of slave-labour. He and Gin had fallen into step when she had been journeying to her home planet to see her father who had been fatally wounded in an unprovoked attack by a Fleetsman. They’d lost contact when Gin had had to leave Yenta in a hurry but when Red caught up with her twenty years ago she’d mentioned in passing that Chalk was now Bablyeon’s chief engineer consultant for his ‘get up and go’ program. Whatever that was. Chalk and Red wouldn’t tell her.

She’d been shocked that he was still alive. Red told her that he’d been caught by bounty hunters and Proton Ice-frozen for over seventy years until one day someone accidentally turned the switched and unfroze him. The Mining Lords that ran the Moon of Zarlon had placed a price on his head for running away like he did – he’d been stuck in a fridge someplace until the fridge overheated and he thawed. With a little help of some undercover Unionists, Chalk escaped and made his way to Bablyeon – the father of misfits and outcasts and ‘branded traitors’.

Now the two of them sat in a corner of a dining hall talking in low voices about the proposed voyage into GMR territory while all one hundred and forty-six decks of The Rum Runner SS buzzed with the news that Skeewif Silver – the Skeewif Silver – had joined their ranks. Gin kept her head down as she and Chalk discussed where would be the best place to pick up a crew of Realm-hating sailors who knew one end of a ship to the other.

“Ideally the Port of Beginnings would be the best place to go looking,” Gin said quietly.

“Yes but do you want a ship full of pirates? They’ll be out for looting every vessel we come across and harder to keep in line than Naval sailors.”

“I’m not crossing the cosmos with jackasses saluting me and yelling ‘Aye Captain!’ every time I give an order!” Gin hissed.

“What about mercenaries?”

Gin snorted. “What am I going to pay them with exactly?”

“Men of the Alliance?” Chalk suggested. “There’s bound to be a few good sailors aboard this carcass.”

Gin pushed her food gloomily round her plate. “Have to be ...”

“I’ll put out an ad for worthy seamen over the communal HIPS data banks – everyone has access to them.” Gin nodded, only half listening. “You’ll have to be there Gin – you know that right?”

“Yah … I want at least three voyages’ worth of experience – and simply being passenger doesn’t count.”

“Fine. What about the cabin boy and deck hands?”

“Just find whoever fits best.”

“Anything else?”

“We’ll need carpenters who can work with all known base elements as well as riggers who can withstand climbing the rigging with winds from deep space coming at us. A cook who can cook more than gruel. I refuse to eat gruel – are you getting this down White?”

He pulled out a pen and started scribbling on a napkin.

“I want some spies and thieves too, just in case … and a barber: we’re not barbarians after all. See if you can find a decent doctor or surgeon, preferably both, otherwise we’re all going to die of some disease or other.”

Chalk nodded, “How many spies and thieves do you want?”

Gin leant back in her chair, “Two of each ought to do it. You and I can bulk up the numbers if we have to.”

“Right … what about a blacksmith and a gunner?”

“A master gunner and a gunner if you can. And go for a weaponsmith rather than a blacksmith: blacksmiths are outdated.”

“Right-o … and I take it you and I shall take helm?”

“Yes – you’ll be quartermaster and first mate so find people we can both work with.” Gin scratched her head. “I don’t think we’ll need a lookout – the hands can trade watches. And only expedition crews have scholars and chroniclers …”

“I’ll find us a decent Bo ‘sun … but do you want to be in charge of discipline?”

“Yeah. I hate janitors with attitude. Find me a meek one will you – preferably one who hasn’t been Bo ‘sun on a ship before now.”

Chalk went through his list. “I can be engineer unless you think I’ve got too much responsibility?”

“Nah – you and I can fix up an engine just fine from practically anything. Besides I don’t like sailing a ship I haven’t personally sweated any blood over the engine for.”

“Good ol’ fashioned sailing you are Gin.” Chalk grinned. “Your origins are showing!”

Gin shrugged, “I was born with an affinity for sailing. It’s all I’ve ever known.”

Chalk checked his list one last time. “What about a navigator?”

Gin rolled her eyes and snorted. “I’ve never needed to rely on a navigator my whole life.”

“Very well. I shall start looking for your able bodied crew then Cap’n.” He frowned. “I hope you’ve already decided what Ship we’re commandeering. Knowing you, we’ll be in the dockyard with the authorities breathing down our necks while you’re busy um-ing and arr-ing over which bloody Ship to take!”

Gin flashed him a smile. “I’m working on it,” she promised. “Svenny’s Captain offered to show me round the docks tomorrow.”

“I hope he knows what he’s getting himself in for … you’ll check the security and everything?”

“Of course … Babs will provide a distraction for us when we need it. He’s preparing it now actually and we just need to give him the word.”

Chalk got to his feet. “Well then, I shall go bully Junden into putting this ad out on the HIPS. Shall we say noon three days’ time? In office 89-j on deck 43?”

“Yeah whatever.”

Chuckling Chalk stomped off, leaving small piles of dust in his wake. Gin looked round the dining hall before getting to her feet and gathering up her belongings. Abandoning her uneaten food she exited the hall and wondered down the corridor until she found an information point. Bablyeon had given her a small cabin near the prow of The Rum Runner and she really couldn’t face walking all the way there. Chalk had told her that the information desks could provide you with transport across the Ship and all you had to do was ask. A bored jabervn with the name ‘Loona’ embroidered on her uniform sat behind the reception booth reading a magazine. Behind her on the wall was a large sign with deck levels and an exploded view of the Ship’s layout – there was also a small board with pictures of transport that either used the traditional method of wheels or hovered a few feet off the floor.

Gin cleared her throat loudly and the jabervn lifted her bill to glance at her.

“IDC please.”

Gin raised an eyebrow. “My what now?”

Loona tapped a glowing fragment of glass hanging round her neck. Gin reached inside her tabbard and pulled out a narrow fragment the width of two fingers and handed it over. It looked nothing more than a scrap of glass since it wasn’t glowing or anything which had Loona frowning. She glanced at Gin. “Are you new?”

“You could say that.”

“Has your IDC been activated yet?” Gin shrugged.

“Babs handed it to me earlier and said I’d need it. Dunno what it does though.”

“Hmm …” she inserted the fragment into a slot in her desk. The HIPS glowed brightly on a sheet of glass Gin had though was there for the receptionist’s protection. Absently she fiddled about in the data banks for a few minutes while Gin wondered if it would just be easier to walk to her cabin. Loona pulled the stick of glass out of the slot and then re-inserted it. The thing lit up and flashed green while a swarm of figures and symbols migrated from the large screen to the small slither of what Gin now realised was star-glass – the only substance that had an electronic charge running naturally through its molecular structure meaning it was perfect for viewing and accessing the data banks and archives of the Holographic Information Processing System.

“Alright then …” Loona peered at her screen, “I need your hand print – both of them.”

“Where?”

The receptionist pointed to a glowing square on her screen indicating that was where. Gin placed her hands over the glowing square and then winced as the scan took a bionic heat signature and stored it securely in the Alliance’s data banks. Nursing her hands, Gin saw the screen now displaying her profile, complete with picture (an old one taken when she was still captain of The Sky’s Limit), hand prints and a bionic heat signature.

“Captain Skeewif Silver ...” Loona peered at Gin, “you have the top access and clearance codes here.”

Gin spread her hands wide and exaggerated her blank expression.

With a note of irritability, the receptionist said; “It means you can go anywhere on the SS and access anything on the SS’s archives and data banks … access the records saved from the Union – read battle reports from Fleet officers and Naval officers and so forth …”

“Oh. Right … yeah I just want a bike.”

Loona the receptionist heaved a sigh as she stood up and waddled over to a large lever sticking out of the ground. “Engine or man-powered?” She asked in the same bored voice, her fingers tapping against a star-glass pad on the wall, selecting the revolving holographic sketch of a bike.

“What do you take me for? A health nut? Engine.” Loona selected the option and the bike began to assemble itself on the screen.

“Treme or Benign?”

“What or what?”

Loona sighed again and waddled over to her desk and pulled out a leaflet from a pile of paperwork. She thrust it into Gin’s hands. Gin opened the brochure and nodded her head.

“Treme.”

“Traditional or upgraded?”

Gin checked the brochure again. “Um … traditional …”

“Colour?”

Scanning the options Gin said; “Sunset Orange.” Sometimes life demanded a bit of colour.

Loona yanked on the lever. A panel slid open in the wall and four Bots scurried out wheeling the bike Gin had chosen with them – she just managed to see a lift sliding down to the lower decks as the panel slid shut and grinned. These Bots had constructed the bike in next to no time at all, making it specific to what she wanted as she chose. Loona shoed the Bots away and waddled over to her desk as Gin inspected the bike: she’d wind up taking it apart later just so she knew how it worked and what she could get out of it. Her strange affinity with the inner workings of a Ships’s engine and structure seemed to extend to any vessel or vehicle.

“Since you have top access codes the bike is free … apparently your service to the Alliance means you deserve the perks available at no extra charge.” The receptionist had a disproving tone to her voice. “Maintenance is in the Hold and you are to give way to those on foot at all times!”

Loona yanked out Gin’s IDC and handed it over to her. “Your IDC will unlock doors and gain you access to the HIPS – it’ll also be how Bablyeon Ford and the other leaders contact you. Holotrams can be traced you see and the Realm doesn’t have access to this tech. Your bionic heat signature means that you don’t have to wave the IDC at every door you meet – although some of the older doors will require it … anything else?”

“Nope.” Gin slipped her head and arm through the strap on her knapsac and then swung her leg over the seat of the bike. She needed no instruction how to use it and was holding the throttle in check as she felt the thing roar into life. “Thanks!” she called over her shoulder as she released the throttle and sped off down the corridor with the receptionist’s shout of keeping to the speed limit echoing behind her.

The layout of the ship was such that, in the centre of the Ship was a lazy spiral that allowed anything too big for the lifts or unable to use the stairs to move between decks. Many other Unionists were whizzing around on bikes like Gin’s as well as cruisers and speeders and other forms of small local transport. The Rum Runner SS was so big it virtually housed a small city of people. It was a wonder the thing had made it out of the dock, but not so much a surprise that it had sunk so quickly and so close to home.

Perhaps Bablyeon had foresaw Gin’s indulgence because there was a parking bay outside the cabin she had been assigned to. Not that she used it of course – pressing her hand against the panel the door slid up into the ceiling, granting Gin access into one of the smaller staterooms. She wheeled the bike inside and let it stand in the centre of the modest lounge, where she discarded her knapsac and inspected the rest of the cabin. A bedroom and a bathroom and a small kitchen facility, complete with cupboards and a pantry already stocked with basic necessities. There wasn’t a balcony though.

The windows ran from floor to ceiling and were made of fluctuating plasma and star-glass. Although the glass might just be an over large HIPS screen because Gin saw a slot control panel on the wall beside the bedroom door. Deciding she was in no mood to inspect the data-banks and archives and networking of the Alliance, Gin discarded her – what did that receptionist call it again – IDC on the kitchen counter and slumped down on the large sofa, kicking off her boots. So much for retirement then.

But now Red had dragged her back into this life, Gin was unable to sit still. She up-ended her knapsac once again reviewing what little she had and then replaced the items back into the bag only to pull them all out again and catalogue what she might need on this voyage. Clothes. Clothes was perhaps the only thing that stood out. Clothes and food. And a ship. Pulling her boots back on, Gin ducked into her knapsac and hopped back onto her bike, reaching over to close the door as she rode out of the cabin.

Following the over-head instructions, Gin managed to exit The Runner and join the small amounts of traffic heading into the city. It was late – a couple hours after sunset – but that didn’t mean you couldn’t go shopping, most establishments didn’t close at all, unless for holidays. Hoping no one tried to steal her bike, Gin parked outside a superstore and emerged half an hour later with five new shirts, three pairs of trousers, some all-important underwear and socks (like, a bazillion of those) and an extra pair of boots just in case. Checking that her bike was still where she had left it, Gin strode along the street to the engineering workshop she’d spotted as she parked.

Inside was the comforting smell of engine oil and grease, accompanied by the roar of engines and the smell of exhaust fumes. Behind the counter a bald humae was letting his apprentice hop off home for the night – literally hop because the kid only had one leg. The shop owner chuckled as the apprentice raced out of the door and looked over at Gin, who was surveying the shelves, wiping his hands on his apron.

“Just looking?” he called over.

“Perhaps … not sure yet. Probably just some basic stuff so I can keep myself occupied – you know? A couple of screwdrivers and spanners – enough so I can fix up an engine or reconfigure a mainframe if the desire takes me.”

“Aha! I get you lass … hmm – well I’ve got them kits over there,” he pointed to a shelf and Gin wondered over. “Yeah, they’re real popular with the mechanics and engineers on them deep space sails. ‘Course most of them Ships have mech-Bots nowadays … which is a shame – nothin’ beats the working mind, eh?”

Gin smiled. “I agree – but the Bots can be handy – I generally get them to fetch and carry for me.”

“Yeah … yeah – and they can work a production line in less than the blink of an eye. But I’d rather sweat and bleed meself over this tech – then ya know it works.”

Gin nodded again, “I know, I rather sail a Ship I’ve worked the engine on – that way I know what it’s capable of and how far I can push it.”

The shop owner’s eyes widened. “A Sailor are you now? Well what’d you know … don’t get many of you sailor-types coming in and knowing mechanics so well. Rather refreshing.”

“My father always said if I didn’t go into sailing then I’d be a mechanic.” She lifted the middle took kit off the shelf and handed it over to the sales man. “But I take the view that if you’re going to captain a ship then you should know it from sail to hull and be able to work any part of it at any time – be it scrubbing decks or climbing the rigging.”

She handed over several coins from the purse she had just happen to find in the pocket a pixie waiting in front of her in the que to pay in the superstore.

“You, lass, are one in a million. You don’t get sailors like you anymore – only in it for pure joy of sailing …” he sighed. “Ah me grandpap used talk about them Captains of the Fleet, back when the Realm was the Union and all that … yeah he said they used to captain expeditions in their spare time – that they used to sail into space for months or even years on end discovering new planets and wonders.”

“Things were simpler then,” Gin agreed softly. She thanked the mechanic and left the shop to find someone had stolen the padded seat off her bike and most if not all of the coverings. She resisted the urge to swear as she shoved the tool kit into her knapsac and strapped that to the back of the bike. She clambered on and kicked the engine into life – the pipes and inner-workings glowed – and she set off through the streets towards The Rum Runner SS.

Riding without the seat was difficult owning to the fact that the bike was so heavy – Gin was sure half the pipes and gears and everything else weren’t needed. Already she had several modifications planned as well as a few upgrades of her own – she’d seen some of the bikes Unionists riding were hovering above the ground and decided she could go one up on them. She wanted hers to fly … the engine would have to be re-constructed of course … and somehow she’d have to shed about two-thirds of the weight …

The corridors and passages of The Runner were decisively less crowded as Gin raced recklessly through to her cabin. Several Unionists had to jump out of her way and yelled after her as she disappeared round the corner. Once again she ignored the parking rack outside the cabin and wheeled the bike inside, letting it stand in the lounge area while she searched for the lights. A florescent glow from large columns in each of the four corners lit up the cabin as brightly as midday on the Suvn.

Dumping her shopping in the pile of belongings on the counter, Gin grabbed the new tool kit and set to work on the bike. She removed her tabard and sash rolled up the sleeves of her shirt as she took the bike apart and laid the components out on the floor. It didn’t occur to her to sleep – but then Gin got like that at times, especially when she was single-mindedly focused on something. About midnight she made her way down the Hold and talked with the engineers down there for a while returning to her cabin with two Bots in tow lugging equipment and parts between them. They bustled off chattering between them leaving Gin to it. She was in the process of reattaching the tyres (now thinner and more agile) to the new and improved frame when someone knocked on the doorframe (she’d forgotten to close the thing after the Bots departed).

“Huh?”

“Found yourself a new toy to play with I see.”

Gin frowned in concentration as she tightened the bolts, feigning inability to hold a conversation while in the process of working. Lying on her back with her head stuck under the bike (suspended in a magnetic field constructers used) she didn’t answer and acted as if she was only vaguely aware that someone was in the room. Unfortunately the intruder was Jaxx. He had the weird ability to hold a conversation with her without needing her to contribute anything to the conversation.

“Babs is gonna throw a fit when he sees the mess you’ve made – this was the only cabin still in its original state.”

He probably guessed her glaring look asking why he was there.

“Hey – I’m one of the Alliance’s founders. Surely I can come and go as I like?”

There was a few moments of silence as Jaxx presumably made himself comfortable. “Have you eaten? The Cams say you hardly touched your dinner.”

Gin rolled her eyes.

“And their records state you went out for a couple hours earlier and returned with some stuff – then went down to the Hold at midnight … have you even slept, Gin? Not dreaming again are you? Because we can go see the Med lot if you want a sleeping serum.”

The urge to tell him to stop mothering her was too great.

“Someone has to look out for you Gin – you sure as hell can’t do it yourself.” The sounds of him rummaging through the cupboards reached her as she focused on getting the back wheel’s rotating axle on straight. “Anyways … word has it you’re heading out after the missing Royale – but we both know,” there was a hiss as the stove was ignited and some cooking oil plopped into a pan, “that all you really want is revenge on Mad for dumping you on that asteroid as he did.”

Gin closed her eyes and counted to ten. Perfect. Now he was cooking. She pushed herself out from under the bike and sat up, inspecting the movement of the rear axle before grabbing the new tyre and rolling it closer to the bike. “You need a hand with that?”

He came over and looked at the bike. “Not bad – you’ve completely remodelled the framework and built a miniaturised Phasor engine to replace the old standard issue one … remarkable – but why?” Jaxx frowned as he spotted the Neutron disc that had been fitted to the rear wheel. “You’ve built a flying gear into it …” She glanced at Jaxx, waiting for his verdict. He looked at her and grinned. “I’m impressed … the rear axle has to be attached to the engine so it’ll go – and in order for it to fly the Neutron disc has to be horizontal so you’ve got the engine to rotate …”

Gin wiped her hands on her shirt and shrugged. “It’s not – well it’s not quite working yet …”

Jaxx bumped her shoulder with his. “You’ll get there though. Got enough time to get it how you want it.”

“Depends how quickly Chalk can get a crew together and how long it’ll take for them to learn how to commandeer a Ship.”

Jaxx went back to the kitchen. “You’ve got to choose which Ship you’re commandeering first Gin – I hear you’re visiting the dockyard later?”

Gin looked out the window to find the red glow of dawn approaching. “Yeah … Svenny’s captain offered to show me around.”

“Get him to show you The Star Dust.” Jaxx said as he added food to the pan and stirred. “I think you’ll find it to your taste. There’s no Phasor in it though, but that shouldn’t be a problem. You can build one in a couple of days right?”

“Probably – I built the one in Limit myself, but that was a while ago now.”

She slumped on a stool at the kitchen counter and glanced at Jaxx’s back as he worked over the stove. The smell of whatever he was cooking was enticing and comforting at the same time. Jaxx had known her longer than anyone.

“What you been up to since you brought me here twenty years back?”

Jaxx’s shoulders raised and fell in a shrug. “Not much. System 22 fell to the Realm so I scarpered before Kai could gut me personally – she’s still not forgiven my demands for her head. I’ve mainly been captaining expeditions to the unknown … Arno went about fifteen years ago so it’s just you me and Kai left.”

Gin shook her head. “He’ll be in some dingy pub someplace laying low because he has a bounty on his head.”

Dishing the food onto two plates, Jaxx turned and placed one before her and handed over a knife and fork. “Oh c’mon Gin – remember those stories we used to listen to when we were kids? It’s real Gin – and Arno’s gone.”

“Halahyri?” she said sceptically. “The Heart of the Cosmos – the planet orbited by twenty-four suns and the resting place of The Albino Phoenix?” she laughed. “Oh grow up Jaxx!”

“You forgot legendary home of the elves,” he said mildly. Then rolled his eyes at the mutinous look on Gin’s face. “How can you go from being the instigator in playing those games to stubbornly refusing to believe in the Lost Planet?”

She skirted round the question. “So these expeditions? Trying to find Halahyri are you by any chance?”

He shrugged. “Trying. But I don’t know the deep like you do Gin – if anyone can find the Heart of the Cosmos it’s you. Red’s right in saying you’re the best captain there is.”

“It’s a myth.” Gin stated stubbornly.

“And you used to make a living chasing myths – found some too, I may add …” Jaxx sighed and pulled out a krystel key. Gin eyed it carefully as he placed it carefully on the worktop beside his hand. “Look at the facts; you have a standard of a white phoenix and a sword from forgotten times.” The items in question lay in the heap on the counter beside them.

“Incidentals. Coincidence.”

“And then there’s your blood.”

“What about my blood.”

“It’s green.”

Gin showed Jaxx her bloodstained shirt. “That looks red to me.”

“When you’re in space. Deep space – when you’ve been away from a sun’s light for too long. Your blood – our blood – turns and our skin takes on a greenish hue.”

“It’s just how elveri are.”

“Elveri have blue blood. They go blue in lack of sunlight. No creature in this universe has green blood – they just don’t. Legend tells us that an elve did. Since you and I are both very much real, then we must conclude that we are elves and that elves exist. Since they exist they must have come from somewhere and that somewhere has to be Halahyri – which means, since we exist, then so too must that planet.”

“Your reasoning is flawed.”

“How so?”

“It just is. There could be a million and one reasons why our blood goes green due to lack of sunlight – for all we know it could just be contamination from that testing-plant near where we grew up.”

“Heart.”

Gin groaned. “We are not going through that again! Halahyri is a myth – nothing more!” she didn’t realise how loudly her voice had risen; her words hung in the air between them as Jaxx stared at her intently before closing his eyes in defeat.

“You couldn’t find it,” he whispered softly.

Gin looked down at her plate, clenching her fists. “It’s the only reason they kept me alive …" a heavy silence hung between them. Jaxx did not need to ask who 'they' were and he sat watching her intently while she took a deep breath, clearing her mind. "Maybe you’re right somewhere Jaxx – maybe we are the last of a lost race … but as for Halahyri,” she shrugged.

Jaxx’s hand jerked suddenly, as if he wanted to cover hers in his but thought better of it. Instead he took hold of the krystel key and fiddled with it. A pained silence filled the space between them – Jaxx had gotten her out of there, he’d gotten her out of many situations in fact, and asked for nothing in return.

“You never told me that before,” he said softly.

Gin tried for a shrug. “It … I … I don’t know.”

“Hey,” Jaxx nudged her hand with his, “it’s okay …”

The sombre mood got to Gin and when she said what she said next she surprised herself – although apparently not Jaxx. “I loved you once.”

“I know.”

“It’s why you insist on keeping an eye on me isn’t it? Out of some misguided sense of guilt at breaking my heart.”

Jaxx frowned to himself, agonising over some internal dilemma and when he opened his mouth he clearly changed his mind last second and instead shrugged. “You never said if you were coming back – and I was an impatient lout.”

“Still are.”

“Yeah …” he got to his feet and cleared their plates away. Gin went back to the bike but was in no mood to resume tinkering on it.

“Why are you here Jaxx?” she asked.

“Babs said you were around and I figured I’d come and see how you are. You were in pretty bad shape when we docked here after Mad stole Limit … and I guess because I miss you – strange as it is. Kai is … well Kai – and Arno’s gone. It’s just you and me now.”

“Feeling sentimental then?”

Jaxx sighed and scrapped the krystel key of the counter, tossing it to Gin as he did. “Maybe – but I figured it was time to hand this over.” Gin pocketed the key before Jaxx could change his mind. “When Kai wiped you from the records the data couldn’t just be deleted – HIPS don’t like erasing data – so they had to put all your records, archived information and whatnot in one place and then destroy that hardware.”

Gin rolled her eyes. “You said as much when you waved that in my face and called it leverage. You do realise I’ll toss it into the first nuclear storm I come across right?”

Jaxx chuckled. “I don’t think you will … that’s the only evidence of who you were Gin. And one day I think you’re going to need to reclaim who you were.”

“And what will Red think of me when I do?”

Jaxx shrugged. “She’d forgive you … eventually. Besides it’s not like she can claim the moral high ground – she believes her hero is a pirate!” Gin chuckled at his expression and fiddled with the handle bars of the bike. “Which leads to another question I never got round to asking you before now.”

Gin looked up at him, waiting.

“You hate pirates.”

She froze, her mind racing and also partly amused that it had taken him this long to point that out to her. As he’d said last time they’d met she’d hardly been in the right frame of mind for long chats about why she’d disguised herself as Captain Skeewif Silver the pirate.

“That’s not a question.”

“I know – but you already know the question. If you hate pirates so much then why did you choose to be one for nearly a century?”

Looking round at the mess and agreeing that Bablyeon wasn’t going to be happy when he saw the state of the room, Gin made a half-hearted attempt at cleaning up. Surrendering to the fact that the room was well and truly a mess, Gin looked up at Jaxx, who was leaning against the doorway. “Honestly I have no idea … it just – seemed like a good idea at the time. A good way to disappear.”

“You had already disappeared Gin.” Shaking his head, Jaxx pulled out a flat screen of tainted star-glass and handed it to her. “You’ll need your own HIPS system when you’re out there chasing Fredri and finding that Royale … this is the mainframe device. It’ll project onto any reflective surface and provide an echo chamber if you need one.”

An echo-chamber was a virtual library of data that could be manipulated through projected holograms.

“I … thank you.”

Jaxx bumped her shoulder with his again. “Don’t mention it … just keep in touch yeah? And Gin? Try not to get yourself in a pickle will you? I haven’t got time to come and save your ass – Babs needs me here.”

She shrugged. “It’s not intentional I assure you Jaxx.”

He laughed. "It never is with you."