Susan shuddered quietly as she lay strapped to Gwen's bed as more everything than she ever dreamed possible washed over and through her.

Her screams faded hours ago, replaced by a rather damp giggling.

She knew she was probably making a mistake, but she also knew that she had to do this. Once it entered her thoughts, it had already happened.

It had already happened, she realized with another distorted giggle. It had already happened. That's why it happened because it already did!

She was just, finally, catching up to where she had been all along, her whole life, maybe even before that.

She had already been here, waiting for her to show up.

This caused another round of giggles and a moist little tearing sound.

"Sounds like she's ready," Gwen said to the glowing menagerie. "Ready, ducky?"

The small duck figurine seemed to glow and shift in reply. It was ready.

Gwen picked the small duck up and started to walk over to the bed. Weeping blood, Susan's eyes rolled to gaze upon Gwen's true form, her radiant beauty now fully manifest in the only place where such perfection could be allowed to exist.

She was so beautiful.

But that wasn't what held Susan's adoration. It was what was in Gwen's hands…

…the duck.

That was it! It was the piece she had always been missing! Just like she had always been here waiting for her, so had the duck.

As Gwen placed the duck beside her, Susan screamed once more, not out of pain but from joy. Finally, she was complete, whole...

...loved.

As the love of her life, the light of her soul, joined her for the first time, Susan looked over at Gwen and bubbled with amusement. Oh, Gwen was pretty, so very pretty, but she was nothing. She was nothing but a child's childish crush. What she now had... that was love. It was so much love that her heart glowed, bled, burned, and melted along with the rest of her.

It was exactly as it should be. Finally, everything was just right. In the timeless formless multidimensional chaos of the true void, Susan rejoiced in the touch and presence of her true love, the being that she was created for and who was created for her in turn.

Whether she lived a day in the “real world”, or a million years didn't matter.

Because she already had forever.

Forever was now.

***

An unknowable time later, Gwen, Sticky, and the glowing menagerie all floated at the edge of the room, gazing out into hyperspace.

“You don’t say,” Gwen said to a panda bear with black holes for eyes. “I hadn’t thought…”

Gwen looked away from hyperspace and towards the figure silently floating up beside them. She then glanced back at the now empty, blood-soaked bed and smiled.

“Looking good, girl,” she said with a grin.

Leaking both blood and light, Susan smirked back.

Taking her place among the others, Susan gazed out into the roiling void and smiled.

***

“This is a bad idea,” Belinda the Pirate said as the crew gathered in a darkened cargo bay. “We do this, and there is nowhere we can go. Even the Fringe… Fuck. Even the Asscrack…”

“I can’t believe I’m saying this,” Professor said as he used an ancient tech hydraulic pallet jack to pull a crate from its resting place, “but some things are bigger than one life, even if it happens to be one’s own.”

He lowered the crate and then opened it to reveal brick after brick of plastic explosive, its technology as ancient as the pallet jack that moved it and every bit as effective.

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Professor looked over at Ratchet, who was gazing intently at a three-dimensional holographic schematic of the ship.

“Do you have the demo plan yet?”

“Not quite,” Ratchet said as he hammered away on his calculator, a little quirk of his. Not many people had just a calculator anymore. In fact, he had to make the one he was using.

“Geez, old timer,” Professor snickered. “We’re just blowing one piece of a ship asunder while preserving the rest while hurtling through deep space. How hard could it possibly be?”

Ratchet snorted and returned to his calculations.

“Glitch?” he asked. “How is your end coming?”

A grey-haired woman wearing glasses with huge round lenses filled with glowing script looked up myopically and blinked.

"All good," she replied with a hint of an Australian accent. "Just give the go-ahead, and I'll White Star this bitch. Every hatch will lock down."

“Hey,” Belinda said, “If we are gonna do a White Star, why don’t we catch her alone in some passageway and just gas her like they did?”

“That would probably work,” Glitch said, “But do you want probably, or do you want definitely? The bitch breathes pure hyperspace for kicks. Who knows what else she can do.”

“I want her not only dead but gone,” Professor said. “The Devil herself has a hardon for Gwen, says she’s the ‘future of mankind’ or some bullshit like that. Her death won’t be enough. We need to erase her. If we don’t, they’ll just clone the bitch. No. We blow her whole playroom into hard vacuum in as many pieces as we can. We time it right, and we can get both her and that… thing.”

“And Susan,” Ratchet said grimly.

“Yeah. And Susan.”

The crew fell silent as they started to unpack the explosives.

Suddenly, the door to the cargo bay opened to reveal Captain Marakovich and Bloody Arissa.

The crew silently reached for their weapons.

Taking care to keep his hands visible, the captain walked over to the crew, reached down, and picked up a block of plastic explosives.

“Whatever you pirates are cooking up,” he said, “we’re in.”

“Captain?”

“You’re killing Gwen, right?” Bloody Arissa asked as she walked up.

“Yeah?”

“Then you heard what he said,” she replied, “We’re in.”

“You cunts could have told us yesterday,” Glitch grumbled. “I stayed up all night hacking. I’m old. I need my sleep, goddammit.”

“Really?” the captain asked. “What do you have cooked up?”

“I was going to do a White Star lockdown of the ship and gas the fucking Barbies,” Glitch replied. “the both of you, too,” she added unapologetically.

“Wait. You were going to kill the Barbies?” Professor asked.

“Weren’t we?” Glitch asked.

“You are now,” the captain said as he walked over to Ratchet. “So, what have you got cooked up?”

“…So that’s about it,” Ratchet said as he filled the captain in on his plan. “Bright side, it will definitely get rid of them. Downside, I could blow up the entire ship.”

“I know it’s a bit excessive, Captain,” Professor said, “but…”

“Considering what I was going to do,” the captain chuckled, “you guys are the paragon of restraint. We’ll try it your way first. If that doesn’t work, then we will do it my way.”

“Your way?” Professor asked.

“You really want your way to work,” the captain said. “You really do.”

***

“I had a ‘counseling session’ with my crew,” Captain Marakovich said to Jessica Morgan’s holographic face in his office. “I managed to ‘persuade’ them to stay on.”

Jessica narrowed her eyes at him and glanced down and to the left, looking at something on her screen.

Probably Analytica taking apart every word I say and reading every twitch, the captain thought with as good of a poker face as he could manage. I hope Glitch is as good as she says she is.

“Impressive, considering they were near mutiny yesterday,” Jessica said, “How did you manage that?”

“It wasn’t overly difficult,” the captain replied. “The consequences of failing you are well known. In the end, nobody wanted to be considered a waste of food. I just reminded them of one of your maxims. For every privilege, a price. We have all had it really good for a hundred fucking years. This is the bill.”

“If they were ready to mutiny,” Jessica said, “I am surprised that worked.”

“It’s all in the delivery,” Captain Marakovich said with a vicious little smirk. “They are a spirited bunch, but they all saw ‘reason’ once it was presented to them in a way they could understand. They weren’t the only ones that needed a reminder.”

“Oh?”

“For me to remind them that they were a pirate crew,” he said, “I had to remember that I was a pirate captain. After that, everything fell into place.”

“I see,” Jessica said. “So, I trust there will be no more issues?”

“None at all,” the captain said, “We are all on the same page over here.”

“Glad to hear it,” Jessica said.

“So, there is no need for a rendezvous,” the captain said. “We have plenty of supplies, and we still have over half a tank of fuel. We can last…”

“There will still be a rendezvous,” Jessica said. “I have a few people I wish to place on your ship.”

“Who?” the captain said, desperately trying to keep his heart rate low.

“Relax, captain,” Jessica smiled. “They are just some scientists, experts on people like Gwen. She is the most… advanced… of their kind. She should be studied. Besides, we still need to transfer little Vee and her adorable big brother off your ship of the damned, don’t we?”

“You are right, of course,” the captain said, “This is no place for a child. I thank you for finding them berths.”

“It wasn’t overly difficult considering Vee’s brother is at least partially trained as space crew. More than one homestead ship could use an extra hand, even half of one. Besides, they are exactly the sort of tough, smart, and adaptable sorts we want as the future of our race. We aren’t doing all of this bullshit for us. We don’t have much of a future left. They do.”

Jessica glanced at the lower left of her screen again.

“In fact,” she smiled, “Why don’t we push that forward? I will have you contacted with coordinates immediately.”

“Whatever you want,” the captain replied smoothly. “I’ll miss Vee, but I will be happy knowing she will be safe.”

“Pirate with a heart of gold?” Jessica smirked. “Have I misjudged you all these years?”

“Maybe I’ve never had a good reason before,” the captain replied with a gleam in his eyes.

“Hmm,” Jessica said, “You will be contacted very soon. Take care, Captain Marakovich.”

“You too,” the captain replied.

The image faded as the connection was cut.

The captain’s expression darkened.

“Glitch,” he snapped into his communicator.

“Yeah, boss?”

“You suck.”

“What?!?”

“Your mask didn’t fool Analytica. Jessica is on to us.”

“Shit.”

“Yes, shit, indeed.”

“What now, boss?”

“Now?” the captain said grimly, “Now we be pirates. We can expect interception at our next stop. Precaculate a hot jump for the second we pop back into real space. Tell Ratchet that we are going to have to override the drives. I don’t care if they break as long as we get away. Anything is better than being intercepted by who is going to intercept us.”

“Just like old times, eh boss?”

“Just like old times.”

“What about the Barbies?”

“You know what to do. Get Vee and her brother away from them, and then White Star the bitches. Don’t move until you can get them all at once. We don’t want to tip them off. They may just be kids, but they are dangerous. We’ve lived this long by killing, not fighting.”

“Yeah, and my back is acting up again,” Glitch replied, “Vee and her brother share a cabin. We can do it tonight,” Glitch said.

“Ratchet should have the demolition plan by then,” the captain said. “If he doesn’t, we can just lock down Gwen and the freaks where they are until we are ready to blow them.”

“Heheheh….”

“Jesus, Glitch,” the captain laughed, “what are you, twelve? Get back to work!”

“You got it, captain,” Glitch said cheerfully.

***

Kara lounged at the communications station on the bridge. Normally one of the “real crew” manned it but there wasn’t a whole lot to do while in hyperspace, and it was a good time to let her crew get some experience.

More importantly, it was a good time for the “real crew” to take a break.

Kara didn’t mind too much. It was a pretty good trade. The pirates crewed the ship in real space, and she and her friends could kick back a little. Then when they hit hyperspace, they could take a few watches and let the crew take a break.

Since they were in hyperspace so much, it was actually an equitable arrangement.

An icon flashed, indicating an incoming call. It was voice only. That was odd.

She idly clicked the icon and then started upright in her chair when she saw the source of the transmission.

“This is 0x4FFCC60,” Kara said as professionally as she could, referencing only their hyperspace transmitter’s identifier. “How…”

“Don’t speak,” Jessica’s terrifyingly familiar voice urgently said through her headset. “Just listen to me very carefully…”