The galley is a misnomer, because an entire football field could fit comfortably in here. Dozens of circular tables fill the room, yet many are empty. The fifty or so people present choose to huddle around six general areas of the room, some sitting at a table chatting animatedly with peers, some bolting up to get seconds, and most not bothering to hide their stunned expressions at seeing a prisoner next to their Captain. Foodstations line all four walls, serving assorted vegetables, meat, bread, cereals, blocks of cheese, and even ice cream. Airtight bags of snacks accompany the rehydrated “fresh” food, where a couple pirates dart in-and-out, scurrying back to the more important matters they were doing before their growling stomachs rudely interrupted.

“Wow. You Cosmics really go all out,” I remark, standing with Felix close to a wall by the entrance. “Aren’t you worried the food will fly everywhere during plasma turbulence?”

“No, this is an MSF Alameda-class battleship. It’s designed to be impervious to instability. But just to be safe—look.” Felix points to one of the foodstations. “See the plastic covers?”

I missed it at first since they’re so clear they’re practically invisible, but when a pirate lifts up a cover to dish out some noodles, the edge makes a jagged line—a shadow—across her gray jumpsuit. “Yes.”

“When lowered, they lock. And the to-go pouches are magnetically attracted to the tablestops.”

“Yeah, we have something similar on the IF’s ships. No self-serve buffets, though. It’s too risky in case something malfunctions, and even if it weren’t, everything is portioned out so no one overindulges and wastes food.”

He scrunches his eyebrows. “I’ve never been on an IF ship before, actually. Still eat out of sealed containers?”

“For the most part. Food and beverage spills are dangerous in zero G. I guess you can lay out your food and eat insidiously in the privacy of your own cabin, but I don’t know about you; the last place I want to spill anything is where I sleep.”

“Hmm. Sounds like Earth should hire more creative technicians and build better ships.”

“Hmm. I don’t see you sailing around in a stolen IF battleship.” I fake gasp. “Sounds like Cosmics haven’t been able to capture one yet.”

He scowls at me. “More like IF ‘astronauts’ are a bunch of sheep following their master. At least Martians have the will to think for themselves.”

“The IF is a combined effort between two incredibly different countries led by disparate government systems. You can’t lump us together.”

“The UE and Liansa are more similar than you think.”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

He gives me a haunted look, as though he’s been witness to a devil worshipping coven regularly sacrificing newborn babies. “As a matter of fact, I do.”

Before there’s time to unpack all that, a flash of red appears in my peripheral vision. “Hey guys!” Thomson lands beside us without his gear from earlier, grinning ear to ear. “How’s it going?” He turns to me, dragging his gaze down and up my body. Wiggling his brows, he winks and places his arm above my head as he leans against the wall. “So I see you’re done with the appetizer. Come with me if you want the entrée.”

“I hope you are aware, Gunner Bale, that the airlock is still an option for you,” Felix muses.

Throwing his hands up, Thomson backs off. “Relax, Captain. Our little Ailee here is stirring up quite the controversy.” He jerks his chin to a group of pirates congregating by the coffee machine, pretending not to be wholly interested in the three of us. “Half of them want to shoot her—smart of you to put the handcuffs back on—and the other half—including me—are just curious. We don’t usually keep prisoners for very long. I wonder why Boss wants her alive.”

“Indeed,” Felix doesn’t elaborate.

A few seconds of awkward silence pass, and Thomson finally breaks it by clearing his throat. “Well, it seems that you guys are busy. Sorry for interrupting. I just wanted to say—Ailee, you’re welcome to join me and my buddies anytime. We’re civil… in general.”

“Join you for…?” I trail off.

“Dinner.”

I stare at him blankly.

“Like, actual dinner,” he chuckles. “Or, honestly, come hang whenever you want.”

I dip my head. “Thank you, Thomson. I will if I can arrange that.”

“Cool.” He smiles then turns to Felix. “Captain.” Thomson salutes him and strides back to his friends—not the coffee machine clique, but a group sitting at a table near the shelf of cereals. Some of them continue to stare at me and Felix.

“He seems sweet,” I observe.

“Glad one of us thinks so.” Felix crosses his arms.

“You don’t?”

“My crew wouldn’t dare make friends with the captives, let alone in front of me. Thomson’s a whole other breed.”

“Is that how he usually interacts with you?”

“I like to be seen as my crew’s equal.”

“Really?” I draw out, suspicious.

“Mm-hmm. As long as everyone follows my orders and acknowledges I conceive the best solutions, of course.”

That’s more like it.

“Although,” he continues, “admittedly, having Thomson by my side is… beneficial. My strengths disguise his weaknesses and vice versa, yet I have an inkling that he’s…”

“Out to steal your job?” I fill in.

He abruptly uncrosses his arms and swivels to face me, the whites of his eyes enlarging. “You…” He wipes the perplexity off his face and shakes his head. “Something like that. Come on, let’s harvest some to-go pouches. I hear they’re in season.”

I’m surprised he doesn’t ask whether or not I want to eat from the buffet, but perhaps he senses I don’t desire staying too long in the presence of pirates who wish to kill me. We head toward a foodstation, and Felix holds a tray for the both of us as we pick out our snack bags. I’m slower than him due to my bound hands, but I ensure some combination of dried vegetables, fruit, whole grains, and protein chips survive the trip. “The only thing I need now is coffee,” I tell him. “I’ve had a headache for days.”

He raises an eyebrow. “It’s three past twenty-hundred hours, love. Isn’t it a tad late for that?”

“Never too late for a drink. Oh, excuse me, it’s actually never too early for you, right?”

He scoffs, “Ouch.”

“I’m agitated.” Which is fair, considering the situation. “And I’m addicted to caffeine, and I would like some immediately, please.”

“But you were so very adamant earlier about never using any drugs?”

“I denied using any illicit drugs.”

“And what if I said ‘no’?” He takes a step closer, and my neck strains looking up at him.

“Then I would be sad.”

“That sounds like a you problem, darling, not a me problem.”

“What if someone forced you to quit alcohol cold turkey? How would you feel then?”

“I believe you are mistaking me for a person who has the ability to empathize. Blink those puppy dog eyes at Thomson. I’m certain he’ll be more than ecstatic to oblige.”

I try to verify if he’s serious. He doesn’t budge after a while, so I scan the inner tables until I find where the russethead is sitting. He stops conversing with his tablemates and tilts his head at me in bemusement. Opening my mouth to invite Thomson over, somebody grabs my arm before the first syllable escapes and hauls me toward the coffee machine.

“You’re a pain, you know that?” Felix rhetorically asks, grumbling incoherent phrases along the lines of “entitled prisoner,” “stupid face,” and “ignorant sheep,” but I tune it out, too exhausted to be offended. After Timour and I were captured, the initial adrenaline and constant stress kept me from sleeping soundly, but they also kept me energized. As my strength wanes, just the thought of coffee becomes an ounce of paradise on this blasted ship.

Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.

Pirates by the machine step away—enough to not completely block access to the dispenser—but not far enough to comfort me. Many of their eyes narrow into slits as they hiss at each other, stalking me the way predators stalk prey.

Felix is either oblivious, or he doesn’t care. Putting down the tray and taking out a petite thermos from the cabinet, he asks, “Hot or cold?”

“Cold, with ice.”

“Yes, your majesty,” he sings and places the open thermos under a wide tube, allowing the machine to automatically dispense cold ice.

I cringe. “You wouldn’t have to do that for me if I could move my hands a little more.”

“Not making that mistake again.” He moves the thermos over to a tap that dispenses the coffee.

“These are a little tight.” I show him the bounds digging into my wrists.

“Good,” he acknowledges without looking up, more interested in the color of the coffee. “Cream and sugar?”

I suppress a sigh. “Just sugar. Eighty grams should be good.”

“Make it simple for me, sweetheart. How many packets?”

“Twenty.”

“Twenty packets?!” he exclaims, glancing at my arms, “I suppose you can afford it, but bloody hell, that’s… a lot of sugar. You realize this is synthetic sugar, correct? It’s ten times sweeter than regular sugar.”

“Yep.”

He takes a deep breath and blows it out loudly. “Right then, your divinity.” He tears the packets open and pours the sugar—four at a time—into the dark brown liquid, muttering under his breath, “Will this much saccharide even dissolve?”

A collection of squeals and grunts emanate from behind, and I spin around to face a thin man pushing his way through the small crowd, piercing me with rage-filled eyes. His blue mohawk, nose rings, and industrial earrings cannot distract from the hard lines covering his young face.

“Why’s this sheep taking what we rightfully worked for?” He bitterly questions, glaring between me and the thermos, probably hoping the coffee’s boiling hot so it can burn me alive when he throws it at my face.

“I don’t have time for this, Blaze,” Felix states absently, too focused on getting the last batch of sugar to dissolve.

“But you have time for her? This is for us,” Blaze seethes, gesturing to the coffee and then the rest of the galley in a flourish that can only be described as pure Cosmic. “You let some Earth girl come here—Earth! Who would drag us back to their dirty planet and bury us in the ground. Who wouldn’t hesitate to murder each and every one of us if they got the chance!” He’s no longer yelling at me and Felix, but at the crowd of a hundred pirates nearing the coffee machine like it’s the stage of an amphitheater. “Our ancestors left the rocks, because there was no freedom, and there is still no freedom to be found. Only laws dictated by greedy individuals, forced slavery by disgusting monsters, discrimination towards those who have less, eat less, live less. In their world, we are toys. We obey their rules, we conform to society, and we play Simon Says until they have taken everything that makes us who we are. Until we’re too old, too poor, and too tired to fight back.” A pause.

The audience chimes in with variations of “yeah” and “you got that right,” but grows deadly quiet.

Blaze lowers his voice, “And to that I say, ‘No. No, you do not get to determine my self-worth. Where I go, where I sleep, is my business and my business alone. You will not sell my data, you will not influence my decisions, and you will not govern what I can and cannot think.’ Screw Earth! Screw Mars!” He turns to glower at me. “We are Cosmics, and we spit upon those who wish to brainwash us.”

A third of the audience cheers and whistles, a third wipes away tears, and the remaining are a mixture of curious and bored. Felix finally finishes his task and hands me the open thermos. I clutch it between trembling fingers. Blaze’s speech leaves me dumbfounded, because I always believed that pirates couldn’t hide who they were from themselves. That despite knowing hijacking and stealing were immoral, they resolved to fall deeper into the abyss out of either selfishness, fear, or desperation.

But staring into the sea of faces before me, I couldn’t be more wrong.

These are true believers.

Perhaps initially joining to pay rent, over time they’ve come to view Earth and Mars as their enemies, and not simply because the three of us love to compete in a game of How to Get Away with Murder. In their minds, Cosmics possess more honor and are fighting for a greater cause.

Those who say that you can’t mend a wound with more spilled blood are full of crap. You can absolutely get where you want to go by trampling over others, but that doesn’t make it right.

Yet who cares about my opinion? I am not them, I can’t read their minds, and I can’t quantify the atrocities they’ve possibly been through. All I can do is absorb the tension and exhilaration flowing from person to person like an ocean wave, feel lucky to be alive and witness something unfathomable, if not incredible.

And how lucky I am to be staring into Blaze’s harsh eyes. When did he get so close?

He grabs my upper arm in one calloused hand and roughly pulls me to him. I stumble, about to hit the ground when he jams an elec against my collar bone. Tears welling up in my eyes, I cry out as the jarring pain paralyzes my limbs. The thermos crashes against the metal floor, splattering sweet coffee and semi-melted ice over a two meter radius. There’s no time for a funeral, because my knees stop working, making Blaze angrier until the hand around my arm cuts off its circulation.

I hope the new fashion trend is bruises for days.

“Hey—!” Felix reaches for his flintlock and realizes it’s missing. I left it in his cabin earlier.

Blaze’s gaze lingers on my neck and travels down my bodice. “You know, that’s one pretty little necklace you got there. A treasure to give my wife for our fifth anniversary.”

“Congratulations,” I struggle to say, “but sorry to disappoint. This isn’t worth anything.”

“I disagree. Property of an IF Admiral’s daughter? Looks like it’d be worth quite a bit.” He shrugs. “Not of monetary value, but—” he cuts off when a gun knocks against the side of his head and stays pointed at him. I peek at the owner of the weapon.

Thomson’s irises scorch like black fire, his mouth set in a hard line. “Let her go,” he demands. “She’s Captain’s prisoner, and we’re taking her to Boss.”

“If she were a prisoner, she’d be in a cell. Instead, I find her enjoying our amenities.” Blaze smirks. “Isn’t this cute? The rock boy protecting the rock girl. I always knew you were too weak to truly leave your shepherd behind. No Cosmic in you.”

Thomson clenches his fist, itching to pull the trigger. Another gun targets Blaze’s head from the opposite side, and I twist my neck, meeting charcoal-lined eyes. I guess Felix finally managed to pilfer a firearm off one of his crew. The nearby pirates raise their elecs, pistols, and machine guns, some aimed at Blaze—loyal to Felix—others at Thomson—loyal to “the cause.”

With exaggerated calm, Felix directs his attention to Blaze, emphasizing each word in a soft, baritone voice, “If you have an issue with her being here, you can leave. I hear space is…” he melodramatically draws out the silence, “vacant.”

So much for wanting to be seen as his crew’s equal.

The two enter a staring contest as I attempt to calm down my rapidly beating heart. But the more I focus on it, the more the sound drowns out reality. What if I have a heart attack during this artillery stand-off? Wouldn’t that be ironic.

“What the hell are you smiling at?” Blaze growls at me.

Oops. I compose myself.

Felix threatens, “I’m only going to count to three, and if you do not lower your weapon and step back by then, you’ll be spending the remainder of your very short life in unpressurized zero G. You won’t be crafting any more speeches for our fellow Cosmics after your blood boils and lungs rupture.”

Blaze’s grip slackens, barely, not entirely convinced.

“Boss asked me to bring her to him for a reason…” Felix continues, “aren’t you the least bit curious to find out what for?”

Blaze’s eyes sparkle at that. He waits a moment before opening his mouth to ask something.

A raspy voice interrupts from the entrance of the galley, “Sir, we have a problem.”

Felix keeps his weapon steadily pointed at Blaze’s face while his eyes locate the man in a Martian Space Force uniform—a high-ranking officer’s uniform, no less—that’s been dyed black. The area on his coat where the Martian emblem is usually located instead bears the Cosmic skull and bones symbol. He must originally be from Mars, but why would somebody of such elevated status turn to piracy?

“You have quite the timing,” Felix expresses. “Hold on a moment.” He shifts his glare to Blaze. “One. Two.”

With a snarl, Blaze stows his weapon and shoves me toward Thomson. “Fine. Match made on Earth.”

Thomson catches me fluidly, reluctantly lowering his gun. His eyes seek out mine, and he asks, “You good?”

Felix raises his eyebrows.

“Yeah, I’m good,” I answer, stepping away so that Thomson’s no longer touching me. A tingling sensation runs down my arm, the blood starting to flow again. I avoid everyone’s gaze except for the man in the dyed Martian uniform. His shoulder-length white hair frames his face in neat curls, and the lines around his dark brown eyes give away his age. Seventies or eighties. Unlike the other pirates, he doesn’t have any visible piercings or tattoos.

“Officer Jual, what is it?” Felix questions, pointing his weapon at the floor but refusing to put it away just yet.

Jual bounces on the balls of his feet, most likely dying to ask what’s going on. He doesn’t. “A Martian battleship is following us. I wasn’t sure at first, since they’ve been keeping their distance, but after some slight adjustments to our course, I’ve determined they’re mirroring our movements.”

“Do they have a lock on us?”

“I believe so. I can’t detect it though. It must be new tech. I set the alarm to prepare for high G maneuvers, and it should be—” A siren blares through the galley, and the pirates straighten their spines. I raise my arms to block out the noise, but my handcuffs decide that’s not in the cards for me. I lower them, gritting my teeth. Jual strides closer and yells so Felix can hear him, “Well—going off now! We four need to be in the command center. Nupan’s already there. She’s keeping watch.”

“Agreed.” Felix spots Blaze a couple meters away and points to the spilled coffee. “Clean this up. We may have to cut our acceleration soon, and I don’t want any liquids floating around. Then meet us in the command center.”

To my surprise, Blaze agrees, “Yes, Captain.” He heads for the nearest custodial closet.

Felix gives the lingering pirates an incredulous look and gestures toward the foodstations. “You ladies standing around for the next show? I’m not paying you to gawk. Get on with it! Trays away! Lock everything down—you know the drill.”

The pirates scramble to fulfil his orders, leaving me, Felix, and Thomson to silently converse. Actually, although the two men throw me the occasional glance, they’re the only ones engaging in a wordless debate as I look on, puzzled. Do they do this often? If so, how do they know—

Thomson shrugs. Felix frowns.

Delicately tugging on my wrist, Felix looks down at me and mouths, “Let’s go.”