Chapter 3: Can't Hack It

“If you mean to win a man’s heart, you must first win his belly.”

-Mama Fifi, of Mama Fifi’s Boarding House, 174 U.E

Stephan finished his tour of the Tits Up by his lonesome.

There was a large cargo hold below the crew deck. That struck him as odd considering this was a pirate ship, and they would get more use out of speed than storage. It seemed that the ship was an overhauled salvage runner, which meant that the pirates likely didn’t have the funds to buy a proper one.

The cargo hold held boxes of various loot, some of which had been plundered from the slaver ship, but most notably, a smaller, sleeker skyship was held within. A one-person fighter, no doubt used to harass particularly hardy prey.

After that, Stephan went up to the main deck via the angular staircase that connected the ship from top to bottom. He had only just entered the quarterdeck when a voice made him jump.

“I see the shirt fits you, huh?”

Stephan spun. Quintilla sauntered out of the captain’s cabin. Kurko the behemoth glared at him from inside the cabin until the wooden door swung shut.

She gave him a once-over and clicked her tongue. “Well, mostly.”

“Thank you for the hospitality thus far,” Stephan said with a polite nod. “Preferable to slavery, for sure.”

Quintilla gave a quick chuckle. “I should certainly hope so. Now, listen. Once you’ve seen everything, I’d like you to make yourself useful. We won’t arrive in Tumba until morning tomorrow, so until then you’ll be expected to pull your weight.”

“Um, yes, of course,” Stephan said. “What would you like me to do?”

“You said you were a good cook, yes? We’ve not had a decent bite to eat on this wreck since… Well, ever, actually. So I’d like you to use those magic hands of yours to fetch us up some dinner.”

“I suppose you’ll kill me if I do a bad job,” Stephan said with a nervous chuckle.

Quintilla regarded him quietly. After a few moments, she turned to walk away. “Anyway, get started on that!” she called over her shoulder.

Stephan was certain no harm would come to him. After all, the pirates had already gone out of their way to ensure his comfort, in their own strange way.

Reasonably certain.

Regardless, he was happy to have something to occupy himself. For over three weeks, he had been stuck with nothing to do but stare at the ceiling and await the next beating.

As long as they had some halfway decent ingredients, cooking dinner would be an easy task.

Stephan had never officially trained to be a chef, but he had enjoyed cooking ever since he was a child. Alas, as was often the case in life, other priorities had come first.

Stephan went down to the rec room on the crew deck and had a look in the pantry. There was nothing in there apart from three half-empty bottles of cheap liquor, a large bag of rice, and several dozen plastic pouches.

Stephan thought he recognized those pouches, and upon further inspection, his fears were realized.

He picked up one of the dark green, bulky packets and read the text on the front. It read: ‘Valerian Issue MRE, Temperate Climate Field Ration’.

Stephan wrinkled his nose. MREs? Do they seriously eat this stuff? They might be even more savage than I had thought.

He scrounged through the rec room for any other edible ingredients and came up empty-handed. As he looked inside the sad excuse for a pantry once more, the gravity of his task dawned on him.

He was going to have to craft something decent out of nothing but ready-to-eat rations.

Stephan took a few hard swallows of rum before he got started.

The rec room was equipped with a small oven along with a stovetop, so at least he would have the ability to cook everything properly.

He had several different kinds of rations to work with, so he started out by cracking open a few to check their contents.

The base was the same for most of them. A bit of quickwheat, two packets of crackers, a small tub of jam in one of several flavors, two small sticks of butter, a cup of oats, and a fifty-gram bar of dark chocolate.

Where the pouches differed was in the ‘main course’, as it were. There were two varieties: dehydrated lamb stew or dehydrated curry.

He had a few ideas of what he could make from those contents, so he set about doing all of it, as to not waste any of the ingredients.

“Whatcha doing there?” someone whispered in his ear, uncomfortably close.

Stephan jerked around, but when he looked there was nobody there. Perplexed, he made several full revolutions, scanning every surface of the rec room, but he simply couldn’t see anyone.

Then he heard giggling from the ceiling.

He looked up and saw Yin holding onto the ceiling, feet wedged into a corner and her hands somehow finding purchase on the slick metal. She looked down at him with eyes like black, prismatic diamonds, hair hanging over her face.

“You looked so fucking scared,” Yin said. “I thought you might piss your pants again.”

Stephan craned his head to look at her. “Instead of playing juvenile pranks, why don’t you come down and help me cook?”

“No thanks. Looks boring, anyway.”

There is something off about this girl, Stephan thought. No reason for someone this young to be on a ship like this.

“Sounds about right for you, then,” he said. “You’re clearly bored out of your mind.”

“No, I’m not,” Yin said.

Stephan raised his eyebrows. “Right. And I suppose you’re going around pranking people because you’re having so much fun?”

Yin went quiet.

She dropped from the ceiling and landed in a crouch on silent feet.

“Good. Let’s get started. I need you to help me crush up these crackers.”

Stephan pulled out a packet and placed it on the counter. He rolled up his sleeves, took out a pot, and started smacking the hard crackers with it, breaking them up into small pieces.

“You’re just ruining them,” Yin remarked, hovering around his shoulder.

“You haven’t seen what I’m doing yet,” Stephan said.

“What’s that, then?”

He winked. “You’ll see if you stick around.”

Stephan put out a packet of crackers and a pot for her to use, then went about his business. She didn’t pick up the work, but she didn’t leave, either.

Stephan struggled to think what Yin could be. Torch had called her Aqithi, so that was something. She plainly wasn’t human, but she was no Awakened, either.

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She was something in between.

Something other.

“Got a family back in Tumba?” Stephan asked. He had a feeling that he already knew the answer.

Yin didn’t speak, but her silence said plenty.

“How old are you?”

Yin seated herself on the table behind him, crossed her arms, and scoffed. “Hmph. Creep.”

“Not like that. I just meant… is it really appropriate for you to be flying with a pirate crew? Especially one such as this. You’ve clearly got some fighting talent, but…”

“None of your business, old man,” Yin said with a sneer. “I just like it, alright? It’s like you said—I’m bored.”

There was more to it than that, but Stephan let it sit.

He focused on his cooking. Once the crackers were thoroughly crushed, he mixed them with a good chunk of butter to make a pie shell. He added water to the dehydrated lamb stew to make the innards. He also added in just a little dash of rum to give it an extra edge before sticking it in the oven.

He ignored the quickwheat. The bio-engineered supercrop was popular in Eurinos, and technically had the nutritional value to feed a person if needs must, but it had an unpleasant, mealy texture and tasted absolutely null.

Instead, he set a large pot of rice to boil. A far more appetizing alternative.

He mixed together a thick oatmeal paste with some sugar he had found in two of the MRE pouches and separated them into smaller, round-ish pieces. He broke off some dark chocolate to stick on top and added a bit of jam on each to finish it off. Once the pie was ready, he switched it out for the impromptu oatmeal cookies in the oven.

The room was starting to smell like actual food, which put a smile on Stephan’s face. Once the rice was boiled, he set the curry to heat in a pot, just as an alternative to the pie in order to waste less of the MREs.

As the oatmeal cookies browned in the oven and their subtly sweet aroma spread throughout the room, Yin drifted closer. By the time he took them out, she was once again by his shoulder.

“Wanna try one?” Stephan asked, placing the tray of cookies on the crowded countertop.

Yin nodded slowly, gaze firmly set on the cookies.

The girl was a strange one. A part of her seemed older and more callous than her age would suggest, while the other was intensely juvenile.

It’s likely she uses the violence and rudeness as a defense mechanism, he mused. Not strange, considering her circumstances.

He decided to push his luck.

“If you want one, you have to ask nicely,” he said.

Yin hesitated.

She opened her mouth to say something, and her face turned purple.

Then she turned around and ran away down the crew deck. A few moments later, he heard the door to her cabin slam shut.

Stephan shrugged and clicked his tongue.

Too much.

I tried, at least.

*****

The pirate crew was assembled around the table—all five of them—with a steaming assortment of food in the middle, as the ship ran on a set course.

“So, this is to be our latest addition?” Kazzul the pilot said as he took a seat. “About fucking time we had a cook.”

The man was a lubbard—part of the race of fish people that hailed from Solam’s oceans. He was lithe and effeminate, and he moved with slow, sexually charged grace. He could tell Kazzul was a man because of his voice. Otherwise, it would have been hard to know the difference. It always was with lubbards.

“Oh, I won’t be staying on permanently,” Stephan said. He stood while the others sat, and took each person’s plate, in turn, to slice them up a bit of pie and heap on some rice. “I will ride with your crew until we arrive at Tumba, then I’ll go my own way.”

Kazzul nodded slowly and regarded him with a secretive smirk. “Sure.” His Elandran was almost perfect, but with unusually hard Rs and a slight lisp on the Ss that gave it an exotic quality.

His skin was blue with green around his hands and face. Instead of hair, a bright red frill stuck up from his head, bobbing slightly when he spoke. His eyes were large and dark, and his mouth was lipless and wide, with sharpened teeth that showed when he smiled, which he did a lot of.

He wore an open-front, see-through tunic of softest seasilk that left none of his body to the imagination, along with a set of tight leather pants. His body was well-sculpted, with subtle curves and just the slightest muscle definition.

Kazzul’s relaxed, cat-like stance—leaned back against his chair with his arms thrown back and his chest thrust forward—suggested that he knew exactly what he was doing with his body, and what effect he was trying to put on.

Stephan thought the meat pie got a passing grade. The only one who didn’t eat it was Yin, who only had a few nibbles and then glared at the plate as if it had offended her.

Part of Stephan regretted that he wouldn’t be able to help the girl in any way. They would arrive at Tumba in the morning, and by that point, he would never see her again.

That’s not my responsibility, he told himself. I’ve got a home, a job, and a wife to worry about.

For the most part, the crew ate ravenously and in silence. It seemed that subsisting on nothing but MREs for an extended period of time had worked up quite the appetite in them.

Kurko ate surprisingly daintily, considering his bulk, wielding a fork between the tips of his fingers as he gingerly sliced up the pie and placed the small bites on his tongue. He sat on the floor, as none of the chairs would hold his weight. His long beard was white with frost, and his cold aura chilled the room seemingly without his knowledge or input.

Torch used a bit of his geomancy to fry his food black and crispy before putting it in his mouth. He seemed to enjoy it that way because he ate with gusto, flecks of black char in his yellow teeth.

The captain, Quintilla Wenezian, ate with practiced precision. There was nothing in her expression or body language which revealed if she enjoyed the food or not.

“So,” she said, looking intently at Stephan, “it’s come to my attention that you solved a dispute among our crew earlier today. Is that correct?”

Stephan shrugged and studied his food with added interest. “A small spat, Captain Wenezian, nothing more. Easily resolved once tempers faded. I only acted as the middle man.”

“Spoken like a true diplomat. I may have misjudged you, Stephan Lordling. Not many can wrangle these two monkeys.” She nodded at Torch and Yin in turn, who glared daggers at each other from opposite ends of the table.

“I may have misjudged you, Stephan Lordling,” Torch said in a mockery of Quintilla’s voice, holding his hands to his breast and fluttering his sparse eyelashes.

The captain threw a hard look his way. Not annoyed. Not angry. More like a disappointed parent about to scold their child.

Torch’s smile quickly faded and he muttered an apology.

“Why are we letting this dog live?” Kurko rumbled from his spot on the floor. He glared down at Stephan, irises like pale blue ice. “I’ve been going through it, over and over, and I just can’t find a reason. He’s MOG, we all know that. Which means that as soon as he gets his paper-thin ass back to Concord territory, he’s going to spill everything he knows about us to his superiors. We’ll all be at risk because we were too soft to take a life.”

Stephan nearly choked on a bit of pie. He coughed, thumped his chest, and swallowed hard.

The rest of the crew were looking at him with the intensity of a lion pack circling a juicy prey.

The behemoth wasn’t wrong. He would have to report everything he had seen once he returned to his duty, including his time on the Tits Up.

“Wrong on two counts, Kurko,” Quintilla said in the same smooth, conversational tone. She held up one finger. “First. If Stephan were to return to the Concord, nothing would change. Tumba is out of the MOG’s reach. They can do nothing but shake their fists in impotent rage at us.” She raised another finger. “Second. Stephan here will not return to the Concord in the first place.”

“Exactly!” Stephan said.

Then his mind caught up.

“Wait, w-what?” he spluttered.

Quintilla turned her head just slightly to regard him. A half-smirk gave a curve to her full lips. “I have decided to add you to my crew. Like our good pilot said: it’s about fucking time we had a cook.”

Kurko stared at her with wide-eyed shock. “You can’t be serious.”

“I find myself agreeing with Mr. Kurko,” Stephan said. “You intend to rob me of my freedom?”

“No such thing,” Quintilla said. “Our arrangement remains. You’re free to go.” She smiled. “But you won’t.”

Stephan frowned deeply. He cleared his throat. “I… Your hospitality is truly heartwarming, Captain Wenezian, but I have to decline. I must return to my family. My home. I’m not a fighter or a renegade. I simply don’t see why you would want me on your crew.”

“You have the look.”

“Look?”

“Yes. You may not be any of those other things, but that look in your eyes alone tells me that you belong on this crew.”

Stephan licked his lips nervously. “What… What kind of look?”

Quintilla grinned wider. “Hunger. Not the kind that can be sated by this delicious pie. The kind of hunger that defines a person. It appears that yours has been held back for far too long.”

Stephan pushed his plate aside and stood. “I’m sorry, but I’m afraid I have to excuse myself. This has been a lot.”

Kurko rose to his left, his head nearly brushing the ceiling. His massive bulk took up a good chunk of the room, and he blocked the way to the exit. His fists were clenched as though he planned to punch a hole in Stephan’s ribcage.

“Sit,” Quintilla said softly.

“But—” Kurko began.

“Sit down, Kurko!” she barked, slamming her fist on the table and making the plates clatter.

The behemoth reluctantly obeyed.

Quintilla glanced in Stephan’s direction. “Perhaps it’s better if you withdraw to your cabin, for now. I need to have a talk with my crew.”

Stephan did not need to be told twice.

He scurried out of the rec room and into the unused cabin that had been prepared for his use.

He didn’t sleep a wink that night. Holding a wrench that he found among the miscellaneous equipment, he backed himself into a corner of the room and stared at the door.

By the Codes, what have I gotten myself into?