Vedara Lightstar
Vedara ground her teeth, and ground them.
You cross-dimensional—scatter-eyed—dungfly…
It was as though the little monster was toying with her, though with a brain little more substantial than the trace particles of matter occupying a cube of deep space, that would be a stretch. She glowered at the luminescent insect where it flittered back and forth, as if taunting Nyah, nyah, come get me; she couldn’t guess how the damned thing had gotten through the decontamination screens at that last way-station, or how it had come to harbor at an open-space outpost in the first place. But nonetheless, here it was; very annoying.
Judging by its size it must have enjoyed prosperous times on whatever planet it originated from, and it had certainly wasted no time freaking her out via an unexpected buzzing-strafe shortly after she’d detached from the supply station. Since then she’d pursued it off and on the entire trip, but it was so frakking fast she could never get close enough. The God’s bedeviled—the bloody thing followed her from cabin to cabin like some winged leech on a tether!
A wicked smile began to play at Vedara’s lips then, but she quickly shook her head no. That would be playing it too loose, and if one meant to survive interplanetary transit there were certain rules to abide. Then the mischievous grin won out. What the hell—life beyond orbit was rarely a matter of prudence and stilted decorum, and there was always something to be said for brute force.
She leaned to the side of the swiveling pilot console and popped the clasps holding the hand cannon in its bracket. She dialed it all the way down to its lowest stun setting, and weakened it to the max by spreading the coverage to its widest blanketing frame.
Maybe the frakking dungfly wasn’t quite so dumb as she’d thought, though, because it now began to buzz frantically around the cabin, faster than before and staying lit nowhere for more than a moment, as if it somehow realized that the ante had just been upped. Vedara sighed and settled into her console, with the weapon pointed toward the rear bulkhead where there was no sensitive instrumentation to be disrupted, and she waited. She had a fair bit of time for this; still an hour out from the transfer station.
Perhaps the dungfly decided she was bluffing, or maybe it really was scarcely brighter than a bulb with a burned-but filament. Whatever the case, when it returned to flit back and forth on the rear bulkhead Vedara squeezed the trigger and the hand cannon pulsed ever so slightly in her grip.
She stood and walked to where the insect quivered on the floor, and she raised a foot and brought her knobbed boot down with finality. There was crunchy, squishy sound, and she turned her nose up at the nasty smell. She lifted her foot and saw that she was anchored to the floor panel by long elastic strands of phosphorescent goop.
Yuck, what a mess. Like piloting a ground skimmer through a cloud of glow bugs on Tanzabnar.
She slid the hepca-vac from its slot and suctioned up the crud from the floor and from the sole of her boot, and for good measure switched it to irradiate and swept it back over both. The sole of her foot tingled warmly—yet another rule that she’d broken in just the last few minutes. Oh well.
She slid back into her console, almost disappointed that her interlude with the dungfly had finally come to its end. As irritating as the frakking bug had been, it had at least been a distraction and this had been a long and boring passage. But she brightened with the thought that the trip was now almost over, and she began to dial in the final coordinates.
Once the StarGazer was docked and she was on-board the transit station, Vedara stood scanning the crowd bustling purposely about the yawning cavity comprising the terminal. The outbound/inbound staging platforms appeared the busiest, with their decontamination pass-throughs working full-time, but the barter station was also quite active, as were the variety of feeding stations and troughs. Finally she spotted Moraine in the opposite quarter and rose up on her toes and waved. Moraine pointed to the lounge midway between, and there they met. There was a strange glimmer of excitement about her friend, and after ordering a couple of spiced synthales and bringing each other up to date, Vedara inquired.
“What is it that has you so charged up, Moraine? You’re squirming like you’ve got a scatworm.”
Moraine giggled and reached across to squeeze Vedara’s arm. “It’s our contact, Vedara. A Seleneen! Gods! I wish he was our assigned cargo; I wouldn’t even quibble over details such as male or female!”
Vedara shook her head. “Shades of a Dark Star, Moraine! You’d be well-advised to keep your libido in check. Not only are the Seleneen decidedly non-human, but I’ve heard some, ummm… very strange stories about their sexual proclivities.”
Moraine giggled again and clasped her hands between her thighs, managing to squeeze her buxom chest into even greater prominence. “Oh yesss! You have never been with a Seleneen, Vedara? Shame on you—such a sheltered girl! They are indeed very sexual—in fact they are tri-sexual, and you know what that means!” Moraine lost herself to yet another fit of giggling.
“Tri-sexual? Well, actually, I’m not so sure—”
“Oh look!” interrupted Moraine, pointing to a silver-hued humanoid that approached in their direction. “Here he comes! That is a male, I’m fairly certain! Oh, the Gods; thrice blessed!”
The Seleneen glided up to their table, moving with a singularly sinuous grace. “My greetings, ladies; I am Valtar Tasbok, of Selena. Per my Identity Scanner, I presume that the two of you are pilot Vedara Lightstar,” he nodded to Vedara, “and facilitator,” he gazed at Moraine’s chest, which seemed almost animated from her rapid respiration, “Moraine Fallasso?”
Although Moraine was the broker for this contract she appeared unable to catch her breath, much less speak in a business-like manner, and so Vedara opened her mouth to respond, and found herself unable to do so. Her pulse was accelerated and she actually felt a bit woozy, as if she’d been standing too close to a platform jumper and had inhaled a bit of the bio-exhaust that some humanoids seem especially fond of. Then she remembered why.
Bloody Gods, the Seleneen literally reeks of pheromones!
She glanced again at Moraine, who looked as if she was ready to hump his leg or even the bar stool if nothing else availed itself. Vedara pushed herself a distance back from Valtar and tried to breathe air not permeated by his presence.
“Uhhh, yes. I am Vedara and this,” she looked daggers at Moraine, who ignored her completely, “is Moraine. Per our agreement, I have delivered my cargo of Gordovian salt, bound for the Belavaar system, to the transfer facility here. After I have prepped the hold we will be ready to accept your cargo of—ah, you phrased it Selenian spirit, I believe? Bound for Drakor?”
“Um? Oh yes.” The Seleneen diverted his gaze from Moraine’s chest and shifted his chair closer to Vedara. Vedara jockeyed to keep the table between them, while Moraine tried to edge back into Valtar’s line of sight.
“The Spirit is a very powerful and sought after… ah, stimulant, is how I believe it would be phrased in Universal Speak,” said Valtar. “Quite valuable, and requiring a great deal of care during transport and storage. That is why our RFS specified that the cargo hold of the transport ship possess precisely modulated environmental controls, as well as grav-suppressors to eliminate the load of launch and deceleration. It is why the product is stored in a pressurized container requiring a hook-up to the ship’s environmental controls, and it is why we have offered a fifty percent premium for this transport.”
Valtar slid off his stool and glided around the table toward her, followed closely by Moraine, who tried to press in inconspicuously, as if that was something she was capable of.
Like a bloody game of contact-tag, mused Vedara, with poor Moraine desperate to be ‘it’.
The Seleneen drew a packet of papers from his breast pocket and laid it on the table. “You have already seen this bill of lading in digital format; here are two hard-copies. The group I represent has signed both. If you will look them over and sign, you can submit one copy to the freight-master at the transfer station when you are ready to pick up your cargo. All the delivery details are included with the manifest.” Valtar indulged her with a broad smile, and Vedara could very much feel its beckoning effect. Moraine literally sighed—nearly a whimper. Vedara shook her head, trying to clear her vision.
I’ll need a cold shower after this; this guy is a hormonal cocktail…
“If you have no further questions,” said Valtar, “then that would conclude our business today.” He spread his incredibly elegant hands on the table and Vedara found herself staring at his long, sensuous, blue-tinged fingers. She forced her gaze away.
“I will be taking leisure here at the station for one more duty-cycle,” Valtar smiled. “If you would care to join me?” He turned his gaze to Moraine, who was nodding vigorously. “Both of you? Perhaps you have a friend who might like to come along as well? A triple or quad, with its shared sensitivity, can be, ah… exceptionally stimulating—”
Moraine was tugging at her sleeve, but Vedara pulled free. “Thank you, Valtar, but no. I have to make my craft ready for the flight.” She looked to Moraine and arched her brow. “My facilitator will report in a timely manner to the StarGazer, before our scheduled departure just one lunar cycle hence?”
Moraine leaned in to whisper in her ear. “Oh, you can bet on that! I’ll then be able to regale you, in explicit detail, about everything you’re about to miss out on!”
Valtar nodded and began to glide away, with Moraine flouncing and bouncing along behind, and Vedara grinned as she watched them leave. I’m not sure if she reminds me more of a trampy station-girl soliciting a ride or a young innocent following her daddy to the carnival…
***
Vedara sighed in exasperation, pushing back in her console and shaking her head. “Moraine! That’s enough already!”
Quite more than enough, she thought, as she’d already endured multiple retellings, in far more detail than she cared for, of Moraine’s beneath-the-sheets exploits with Valtar the Seleneen. Not that much of the physically-improbable endeavors had actually taken place in a bed, to hear Moraine tell it. Vedara shook her head again, in grudging wonder—her friend appeared to have broken various precepts of biological science. Exultant Moiraine had been the sole target of Valtar’s triple-pronged attack—apparently to his slight disappointment and her extreme delight.
Vedara huffed and redirected her attention to the task at hand; consulting her star-charts to locate the numerous moons they skirted in proximity to a minor planet. Moraine tried to wriggle back into Vedara’s focus, unwilling to give it up. The woman was still flushed a bright pink, for the God’s sake!
“I told you you’d be missing out, didn’t I?” She danced from foot to foot, cooing like a dove. “Oh oh, yes! By the God’s, I don’t know how the Seleneen ever get any work done! Why, I’d never be out of bed if—“
Moraine took a petulant frown as she was shushed by an open palm thrust in her face. The control panel had begun to beep insistently, and a light was flashing on the lower port quadrant view-screen.
“Look at that scanner trace,” said Vedara softly, pointing. “Two starcraft have just emerged from behind separate moons, and they’re converging upon us.”
Moraine wound herself down, looking puzzled. “How could that be? Delefad is said to be very lightly populated, and those that do live there are an aboriginal, terra-bound species…”
“They’re coming at us from either side, in something of a pincer movement,” growled Vedara. “Bloody frakking pirates, I’d wager! Looks like they were lying in wait—some flapping tongue on the transfer station must have tipped them about the value of our cargo and its destination.”
Vedara jammed the pair of throttles to their stops and the hard thrust pressed both women back in their seats before the grav-suppressors compensated. Moraine had by now lost her radiant flush and was beginning to look rather blanched.
Vedara studied the monitor. “The size and configuration of those star cruisers is a Confederation military specification,” she murmured. “I’ve heard rumors that some of the clusters of pirates are becoming more organized; banding together and accruing enough wealth to acquire hardware such as that,” she pointed to the large craft fast approaching, “from certain manufacturers who harbor no qualms regarding the character or purpose of their clients.”
“That wouldn’t surprise me,” whispered Moraine. “I’ve brokered plenty of armament purchases where the origin of the funds was buried in a sham of fronts, as was as the ultimate recipient of the purchase. The Ministry of Galactic Commerce turns a blind eye any time I bring it to their attention—they are obviously very well paid for it.”
Vedara pressed her port thrusters and their course angled in toward to the denser cluster of moons. “We can’t outrun them in a straight line, but maybe I can shake them on a tighter course.” By the time they slipped in among the more tightly clustered moons and asteroids the pair of star cruisers had dramatically closed the distance, and Vedara bit down on her lip, flying a risky course, dodging and jagging between and through the asteroids. The pair of cruisers began to fall off, and she hooted.
“But what’s the point in opening distance on them in this maze?” asked Moraine plaintively. “We can’t zig and zag around the moons of Delefad indefinitely, and when we’re back out in open space they’ll easily catch us.”
Vedara gritted her teeth. “No. If I can open enough space, and place enough obstacles between us and them, they’ll lose their line-of-sight visuals. I can then shut down everything but emergency-support and coast on a straight trajectory, and they’ll have also lost our energy signature.”
“But,” Moraine shook her head, “there’s a very good chance they’ll be able to pick up their visuals again once back out in open space, or at least get a return on their pinging.”
Vedara pressed her lips thin. “Listen Moraine, I’m about to tell you something—but you didn’t hear it, OK?” Moraine nodded uncertainly. “I’ve installed upgrades to my ship,” said Vedara quietly, “and one of them is a third generation SpaceCloak drive.”
Moraine sucked in her breath. “Bloody Gods! That’s more than illegal, Vedara—that would be a pass-through judgment of treason on most of the planets in the Confederation! That’s just too dangerous—how did you pull it off?”
Vedara swiped a hand down her face, watching the bank of monitors while she plotted her words and dodged asteroids. “Like I said—you didn’t hear this, just like you won’t hear what I say next. As for the how of it, I have connections, greased by Galactic Standard ingots and by the transfer of difficult-to-acquire merchandise—and,” she winked, “I could describe in intimate detail the sexual preferences of a certain High Minister of the Confederation.” Moraine’s jaw dropped. “As for the why of it,” Vedara pointed to the flashing scanner, “I think you can figure that out.”
They were almost through the cluster of moons when Vedara saw the visual contact beacon blink out. She bumped the thrusters to rocket straight out of the scattering of asteroids, and she chopped all power. She flipped open a flush-set, concealed panel and her fingers began to fly over a keypad therein, but a gasp and a prodding from Moraine drew her attention. She followed her friend’s gaze, and there, hanging silent in space just a short distance off their bow, sat a third star cruiser, its curved bank of forward view-ports lit up like some great grinning monster. There came a pulsing from either cheek of the beast, and the StarGazer was slammed hard by bursts from the phase cannon. The impact was blinding and all systems went down; a piece of equipment jarred loose came spinning unseen through the darkness—it stuck one side of her head and Vedara saw a flash of red, and then all went black.
***
She put both hands to the small of her back, groaning as she forced herself upright from the punishing stoop. Gods, she was sore—she’d never have guessed she even had so many nerve endings. Vedara glanced to where Moraine labored just feet away, scraping and scrubbing at yet another selection from the bulky pile of crusty items that were too large to go through the particle cleanser and had thus simply continued to cumulate—by all appearances in anticipation of the arrival of a shanghaied pair such as herself and Moraine.
When she’d regained consciousness a couple days prior she’d been laid out in the brig, aboard the pirate star cruiser, with Moraine cooing overtop. They’d then been brought before the Captain, one Develroy Bansternob, and his full crew of misfits—men and women both. It was a very small crew for a star cruiser, less than a dozen, which told Vedara that the majority of the ship was running under the control of artificial intelligence.
To her immense relief the Captain turned out to be not nearly so barbaric or cruel as she might have feared. He certainly didn’t look the stereotypical pirate; no eye-batch or tangled beard or baggy bloomers and silks. To hear the Captain tell it, once upon a time his crew had all been more or less upstanding members of the Galactic Confederation, but each had suffered their own series of mishaps that resulted in the stripping of their privileges of citizenry, and they were thus presented with the choice of prosperous piracy or shunned destitution. The Captain fervently believed that it was ‘the system’ that was flawed, not him, and he in fact seemed intent upon eventually absorbing both Vedara and Moraine into his little band of brigands. But only after they had properly paid their dues, it seemed.
Vedara pressed her lips into a thin hard line—Bansternob might not be the worst she’d encountered, but his plans most certainly did not suit her purpose. And so she would retake her ship, along with her vengeance and a pirate’s bounty.
Moraine eased in close and whispered. “Vedara—this plan is just too risky. We’ll never pull it off, and failure will make for very unpleasant consequences.”
Vedara scowled. “So you would prefer to remain here, Moraine, as a pirate? You might fare better as a wench, serving from the galley and seeing to the personal needs of the men.”
“Please, Vedara, rethink this. So many dice; and they all have to roll in our favor. Remember that the punishment often exceeds the crime.”
Vedara shook her head and nudged Moraine toward the hatch. ‘These are nothing but a band of inept outcasts who have taken us captive, and so any action we take against them is no crime by my reckoning. Now undo another button and tip the odds a bit more in our favor—you play your role and I’ll play mine.”
***
She peered around a corner as Moraine advanced upon the cook, flouncing in a manner wanton even by her standards, those being what they were. In spite of their dire circumstances Vedara had to smile—Moraine had a rare talent, and well practiced at that. The way the cook’s gaze was fixated upon Moraine, somewhere between her hips and her neck, Vedara suspected that she could step out and wave a flag and still go unnoticed.
“Uh… wh…. what are you, uh, d.. doin’ here?” stammered the cook, a pudgy young man scarcely past his teens, judging from his pimply face. Good—such a neophyte should make an easy mark. Moraine strutted past so that his riveted gaze rotated away from where Vedara crouched in hiding.
“So… what’s for dinner, big boy?” breathed Moraine.
Vedara cringed at the hopeless cliché, but Moraine had unfastened several buttons of her blouse and when she leaned forward she displayed cleavage that left so little to the imagination that Vedara suspected her friend could begin reciting the dry Articles of the Confederation and still command the cook’s rapt attention.
Vedara slipped through the doorway and crept over to the storage cabinets, opening the door stenciled with a blocky red cross. She fumbled through the various medicinal supplies until she found a large bottle labeled ‘Resticol’.
Resticol, resticol—she searched her memory for the name. Yes! That would do it; a tranquilizer of sorts, used to calm nerves or sometimes aid sleeplessness. She resumed creeping along below the countertop, headed for the spot where the cook had been manning a large mixer, preparing the porridge or whatever it is they called the gruel that would be served come mealtime. She stealthily rose on the other side of the counter where the cook stood with his back turned, gabbing awkwardly at Moraine, and she dumped half the powdery contents into the large bowl. Then she shrugged and tipped in the rest. Gripping the large wooden spoon she stirred it in a bit, so as to make it not so obvious, but when she released it the spoon tipped in to clatter against the metal beaters. Her gaze darted up to see the cook’s head starting to turn her way.
“Oh my!” exclaimed Moraine. She bent low and then straightened; fumbling with a bit of jewelry pinned to her blouse, and smiled embarrassedly at the cook. “My brooch has come loose.” She fiddled with it and managed to get it unfastened without appearing to do so, and she stepped closer and thrust herself toward the cook, who seemed to have forgotten entirely about any unexpected noise from behind. “Would you pin it back for me?” she asked in her most syrupy voice. Vedara stifled a snort and bent to creep back to the door.
***
“Did you really have to whack those two over the head like that?” complained Moraine in an increasingly whiny voice. “They never treated us so badly.”
“Not badly—other than blasting the StarGazer with a phase cannon and taking us captive, you mean? Those two didn’t eat the frakking gruel, Moraine, what was I supposed to do? Wait for them to see their cohorts start falling over, and come to figure out what was going on?”
They stepped past the snoring guard at the entrance to the hangar and moved cautiously to where the StarGazer sat tethered down within. Vedara cursed softly.
“Bloody Mothers!”
The pirates had apparently decided to refit the StarGazer as one of their own, but in the process had discovered the SpaceCloak, and the vessel now sat partially disassembled.
“They were going to try to refit the cloak to their cruiser!” growled Vedara. “Damned fools—it was scaled for my ship, not so large a vessel as this!”
Moraine began to whimper. “I told you so! I told you, Vedara! Now what will we do? What can we do? We’re stuck in the lion’s den, just waiting for him to awaken!”
“Snap out of it,” growled Vedara. ‘It’s just a change of plans, that’s all.” She gripped Moraine and shook her lightly. “Don’t fall apart on me now. Look—there’s another option I had already considered, and which may actually be the better choice. I decided on slipping away in the StarGazer, because it would be easier and because I know the ship so well.” And because it had a SpaceCloak, she added to herself. “But there’s no time to restore the StarGazer, and so here’s what we’ll do.” Moraine looked at her through tormented, hopeful eyes. “We’ll commandeer the bloody star cruiser! This ship! I can pilot this thing!”
Noooooooo, wailed Moraine, and Vedara slapped her, hard. “Shut up, Moraine, and pay attention. First let’s drag the crew members into a non-critical compartment where I can contain them, and then I want to take a closer look at the cargo we carried aboard my ship. I can’t imagine any recreational drug valuable enough to get the undivided attention of three mil-spec star cruisers, especially since they could likely pillage that and more from any wandering mega-tourist boat.”
With the crew still zonked out and now confined, the women disconnected the cargo container and used a pallet truck to extricate it from the confined space of the StarGazer’s transport hold. Out under the bright lights of the hangar Vedara scrutinized the shiny stainless cabinet, and she waved a data printout at Moraine. “This log makes no sense. Valtar insisted that the cargo required precisely controlled temperature, humidity, and so on; all monitored by the systems on-board the container. But look,” she pointed a finger at the printout, “our e-control system reports the only request made of it by the pallet was a constant vacuum! A vacuum does not require external support; a passive container could provide that easily enough. And so why the elaborate fabrication, and why the extra expense to support the lie?”
“A… diversion?” ventured Moraine.
“Exactly! The Seleneen have gone to great expense and trouble to promote the appearance that this shipment is a serious recreational drug. Why might they suggest that the cargo is illegal? To lend the aura of danger and hush-hush, to make the cargo’s purveyors think they are already playing close to the edge, and thus quell any speculation about the true content before it ever got started!”
“What… what do you think it really is, then?” asked Moraine timorously.
Vedara grinned her grin. “There’s one way to find out…”
***
The loud and incessant banging upon the wall was becoming very irritating. Vedara keyed the microphone for the onboard intercom channel. “Captain,” she spoke reasonably, “have your crew keep the noise down, would you please? I’ll not be releasing you anytime soon, and I’m confident that I could figure out how to cut off life support to your compartment, were you to force my hand.” She flinched and held the handset away from her ear while the Captain vented his anger in what, she had to admit, was an impressively pirate-like spiel of profane invective.
“Captain,” she resumed, after he’d run out of breath and curses, “have you finished?”
“Hell NO, I’m not finished!” he stormed. “You’ll pay dearly for this, woman, and the longer you play this foolish game, the more severe the toll!!!”
“Captain, dear Captain,” mused Vedara. “You are in lock-down, and I control a star cruiser. Tell me again—how exactly do you expect to exact your penance?”
“ARR! You— you frakkin’… ARR!!! Have you forgotten that you are in the company of TWO other star cruisers, and that neither will take kindly to your actions?!!!”
Vedara glanced to her bank of monitors, where the other two cruisers rode alongside silently oblivious. “Well, I suppose the time will come when I’ll have to tell them. For now, though, the course that they’ve set suits my purpose. I’m sure that their intended ultimate destination is not the same as ours, but that will change.”
Bansternob resumed his tirade, and Vedara switched off the intercom link. She looked to where Moraine sat and they grinned at each other.
***
The Intership Comm link crackled to life. “Prime cruiser SC1, we were instructed to take direction from you when we transitioned from open to planetary space, near our destination. Is there a reason that you maintain radio silence beyond that zone?”
Vedara looked to Moraine, who had coiled up into a tense little ball. Vedara reached over to pat her arm. “It’s game time.” Moraine nodded, just once.
After a few moments of silence the voice came back, more cautious. “SC1, please provide the code-phrase intended to validate command identity.”
“Hmmmm.” mused Vadara into her handset. “Well, let’s see. How about PeglegPete? Or PollyWanna? Or just plain old ARRR?” There was a pained silence, and Vedara could almost hear the wheels turning across open space. She keyed the microphone again. “Star cruisers, ummm… SC2 and SC3, I presume? This is Captain Vedara Lightstar—pleased to make your acquaintance.”
“V— Lightstar? What foolishness is this?! You must summon Captain Bansternob to this channel at once!”
“Well, I could do that,” said Vedara, “but he might be sleeping and I’d hate to wake him. He’ll soon be facing more than trouble enough, and so he may as well be rested up for it.”
A number of warning lights began to flash on the sensor panels, and on the bank of monitors she watched the two star cruisers separate to either side of SC1. There was all manner of mechanical activity across the hull