It was 3:17 AM when the Parataxis’s ship alarms started to blare. Red flashing lights drowned out all the other colors in my bunk as I forced myself to my feet. Sure, Olympios Rex just had to start an episode of Starpoint Guard at 3AM. I, personally, didn’t care if it was dead noon in some other star system. I had to get up and fight in my pajamas rather than putting proper armor on. Half asleep and pissed to hell, I pressed my fingers to my commlink and searched for Penelope’s connection.
“What’s it look like this time?” I said, my words slurring together as I fumbled to tie my boots.
“Xorosian pirates, two marks off our starboard side. Only one ship is in range. No hostages or extenuating circumstances.” Penelope’s dry voice rang through the comm like she’d been practicing this for the past three weeks.
“Shit, Pen, why are you so awake?” I asked as I booked it down the corridor. Two marks off did mean we had about fifteen minutes of leeway.
“That’s Captain Matsumoto to you,” Penelope said, not even a hint of irony in her voice.
“Yeah, yeah. Save it for when people are actually watching, Captain,” I sighed as I strapped myself into the one working gun in the belly of The Parataxis. The camera focused on me like a little metal tiger’s eye, stalking me, waiting for me to show just one hint of vulnerability before it pounces and crushes my trachea.
Those cameras were the only thing on that entire ship that worked correctly until I came aboard. Our very first run, Penelope and I had to subdue an Xorosian smuggling operation with no working guns and no nav systems. It surprised even ourselves that we made it back alive. Once, on a previous season of Starpoint Guard, Olympios Rex gave the competitors a ship that didn’t even have a functioning life support system. They lasted three episodes. Pen and I figured Olympios Rex wanted to set a new record with us.
“Leda, are you with me?” I called into the comms the moment I saw the gun’s cyan command module burst to life under my fingertips. No response. “Lieutenant Selihu,” I grumbled under my breath.
“I’m here and awaiting requests from both you and Captain Matsumoto,” Leda’s languid voice chimed. Just listening to that was going to make me fall asleep again.
“Acknowledged.” I typed the command to charge the gun with a light warning shot before we approached the target. Frankly, a light shot of pulsar beam might just do it if the target is a single Xorosian pirate. If that were an accurate assessment, Leda could go back to bed. We don’t need a doctor on a mission so frivolous.
Therein always lied the catch, however. Since Leda came aboard a year ago, Penelope never led a mission without all of us together. There was no telling what dirty tricks Olympios Rex would play on us. One day they could send us towards a full battalion of Xorosian Warbirds, the next they could cut our power in the middle of a simple perimeter run.
The three of us on Starpoint were very annoying like that. We just didn’t know how to die.
“Lieutenant Selihu, what’s the target’s position?” Penelope asked. Leda never bothered to turn off her comm when she wasn’t using it so we could both hear her hum as she thought.
“ 0.5 mark, bow-starboard, Captain,” Leda said. “It does not appear that they’ve noticed us yet.”
“Target is within range of a light warning shot, Captain. I can fire at your command,” I said, letting my sleep-addled mind just run through the script. It was dumb, anyway, making the engineer man the gun. I’d be the first person that’d be hit and then no one would be able to fix the ship. Too bad that hasn’t happened yet.
“Hold fire,” Penelope ordered.
“Holding?” I didn’t quite mean to say it like a question. Then, I heard the aggravating little jingle that let us know we were on a commercial break.
Nothing interesting can happen during a commercial break, you see. How disappointing would it be if the feed tuned back in and you saw us pulling off a daring feat of starcraft only for you to have no idea how we got there in the first place.
This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.
“0.3 mark and closing, Penelope,” Leda said, dropping the act now that we can’t be watched. “If we get much closer, it looks like they’re going to start shooting.”
“They’re charging a pulsar beam now. Can’t tell what quality it is, though.” I trained my gun on the tiny speck of pirate starship that I could make out past the polarized glass. “I might have to shoot before the break is over.”
“I’ll give us a wide margin. Try not to shoot unless you need to.” The sound of Penelope entering in the new course played over the ship’s shitty audio system as well as over the comm.
Regardless of my personal feelings towards it, course correcting like that was a dumb tactical move. It would put us right in the pirate’s line of fire and give them way more time to lock on to our location.
“It’ll be okay if I do. Promise.” I shouldn’t be surprised at Penelope trying to protect me from Olympios’ punishments anymore, but still, I always was.
“You will not shoot. Do I need to make it an order?” Penelope snapped back at me.
“No, Captain Matsumoto.” Now was not the time to tell her off for her martyr complex.
“Thank you, Lieutenant Zonaras.” Penelope’s voice verged on gentle.
We waited in complete and utter silence except from the faint hum of the Parataxis’s sleeping AI thrumming in our ears. The AI runs the comms, but at that point, it was about the only thing it was qualified to do.
Three minutes and thirty seconds later, the tone played again, letting us know we were back on the air.
“We are diving for the target. Fire at will and be prepared to receive fire,” Penelope’s commands played over the audio system rather than the comm.
The moment we got within an effective range, I fired the light shot at the cockpit of the spacecraft before charging a heavier shot of pulsar. I half expected the pirates to pull away and retreat, but no. Nothing can ever be that easy, now can it.
“Myrmidons exiting the vessel,” Leda so helpfully informed us.
***
I hate Myrmidons almost as much as I hate Olympios itself. They are little single-person spacecrafts that are usually used to mount boarding parties. Back then, they didn’t have any of the cool new attachments that let them saw through a ship's shields and outer hulls, so at least we had that going for us. The problem here was that there were only the three of us. Getting outnumbered was always the concern.
***
“Just focus on taking out the engine, Cress,” Penelope said, this time switching back to the comm. Even though her voice was as steady and clear as ice, that was how I knew she was nervous too. My name was not supposed to pass her lips when we were on a mission.
“Acknowledged.” I fired into the belly of the pirate ship and it exploded in a perfectly spherical ball of yellow light. Great, so it was a trap. I almost hoped there was no one left on that ship. Dying on a fake suicide mission for a rival government’s TV show would be a pretty pointless way to go.
“How many Myrmidons, Lieutenant Selihu?” Penelope barked into the comm. I could already hear the bright tone of her charging pulsar gun and short swords.
“I have eyes on thirty three,” she responded.
“Thirty three? Fuck me!” I undid the straps of my seat at the Parataxis’s gun and grabbed for my own.
“Language!” Both of them snapped at me.
“Oh, I’m sorry, swearing’s distracting from our family-friendly dose of murder?” I said as I ran up to the corridor and into the main control room where Penelope and Leda were waiting for me. I turned off my comm and took my place at Penelope’s side. “ If they didn’t want us to swear, they shouldn’t have employed sailors.” I joked, just to see Penelope crack a ghost of a smile.
The tone for a commercial break played again and all three of us groaned.
***
There were a bunch of things that the space marines prepared me for, but one of the few things they didn’t was how boring it is to fight a battle in space. Unless you’re in a Warbird or being boarded, it was as bloodless and clinical as typing in a power level, approximating some coordinates, and nearly vaporizing dozens of people, all without even raising your heart rate.
Getting boarded, however, was terrifying. It was messy and intimate. Books from before spaceflight, before firearms, even, talk about how killing changes you as a person, but that’s not really how it works. Killing from a starship is like a video game. Feeling someone die? The blood on your clothes and watching the light fade from their eyes? Even if you do it from a distance with a pulsar gun, you feel the air go cold and you see the marks climb up their skin. That sort of thing is the thing that changes you.
***
We could hear the invaders pounding out our door. It must have seemed trivially easy to them. The Parataxis didn’t even have any shields to get past at that point. Penelope pointed her pulsar gun at the door.
“Don’t shoot unless you need to,” I whispered. The tone saying we were back on air hadn’t played yet. Penelope didn’t respond so I put my gun up too.
“Stand down,” she tried to order.
I rolled my eyes and kept the gun trained on the door. Sure, we all acted up once in a while, but she managed to take the blame far more times than she should have.
***
That was the thing with Olympios’ punishments: Interstellar law forbade them from being broadcasted for public consumption, but they were corporal, brutal, and short. More briefly said, they weren’t that big of a deal. We had Leda to patch us up, after all. Having to sleep on my stomach for a week or so after getting my back lashed was a very small price to pay.
***
“Stand down,” Penelope ordered again.
“No.”
“Cressida.”
I didn’t put down my gun. The pirates struggled with my mechanical locks, the ancient type that needed a physical key to be unlocked. The on air tone played, and our fight was back on.