Decisions
Amputations were an apparently universal concept and process, only so many ways to cut off a limb. Or so she had thought. Alwen had believed that since humans and Torweni had shared so many physical traits and were about equal in capability’s then the internal biology of both would be very similar. She was wrong, very wrong. The only thing that stopped her from completely mutilating the engineer was her five days of studying human biology and doctor Bachir’s calm guidance. Taking over when he needed to, but refusing to hold her hand entirely through the process. Which she had appreciated, Alwen had graduated top of her class in both medical, surgical, and medical research. People had begun to say that she was better than her elder sister, Toray.
Those comments, which were completely out of Alwen’s hands, had earned her sister’s enmity. As a head priest of the hospital Alwen had joined her sister was supposed to help Alwen rise through the ranks. Instead she had been relegated to a glorified nurse, and her attempts to transfer were blocked. But now she was doing what she had really wished to do, helping the sick and injured, and grow her skills. She was complete lost her the work and only realized they were done when Bachir stepped away to take a message.
He nodded a few times and said “Understood” and turned back to Alwen “I will finish up here, prepare the other table. A marine has been gravely injured, a steel beam pierced his chest and perforated his left lung. We won’t be able to properly take off his chest plate so prepare the grinders and shears to cut him out of the armor.” He ordered before turning back. She blinked twice before she turned to prep the second table. “Nurse Brevot will be able to assist, he was one of mine before he joined the marines as a field medic” Bachir added.
Not long after two marines bearing a stretcher burst in, followed by a third limping pirate. They moved with efficiency to the table and gently shifted the injured man onto the table. The object in question had already been cut down to his chest and back.
The molded snaring visage of a marine turned to her “the object is clotting the wound, but he defiantly needs an oxygen mask and pain killers.”
“I will prep, you two cut him out of his armor. The other man, is he critical?” Alwen said with a jerk of the head to the third marine.
The second pirate answered “Limey got cooked pretty bad, but he’s not critical” a female voice answered, Alice? This ones armor was black and gold, and had a molded face plate that looked a lot like Alice’s. She also stood slightly taller than the humans and her armor looked like it would shift if she dropped to all fours.
Alwen glared at the women who had misled her, she had pretended to be nice when she was really just a murderer “get him out of his armor, I will examine him soon” Alwen ordered curtly before turning away. Part of her knew that Alice’s attempts at friendship had been genuine, but that didn’t make Alwen feel any better about the crazy situation she had been thrown into.
Sparks flew as Brevot removed the sealed chest piece, once it was off they gently pulled it off the patients blood-stained furry chest, careful not to remove the object yet. Without the chest plate everything else was easy to remove, when Brevot removed the helmet Alwen saw that it was Gato, the black furred Felinoid she had first examined yesterday.
Brevot worked with a natural efficiency that came from lots of practice and had the IVs attached in a matter of seconds, and was already injecting painkillers into the blood stream. As Alwen brought the oxygen mask around Gato’s eyes flickered and he stared up at her blearily. “You’re not Brown” he murmured, likely referring to Doctor Bachir
She smiled for the pirate, a murderer. “No I’m not” she said as kindly as she could.
“You’re violet” he mumbled. “Did we get that slaving asshole?”
“Yes” the choked words came from her side, as Alice stepped up to comfort her injured freind . “You got Gaw.”
“Good, I didn’t get him the first time, I thought I did” Gato mumbled before fading.
His comments and Alice’s concern twisted in Alwen’s gut. They were pirates and murderers, but they cared for each other. Everyone on this ship had each other’s backs, something Alwen had desperately wanted from her own family, and only got from her second eldest Kalwen. Before he left, anyway.
She ordered Alice back and got to work saving this murderer’s life. And despite the empirical knowledge that this man would continue to kill, she felt good about saving his life. Felt good at being a real doctor.
~~~*~~~
Despite Gato’s injuries and the hull damage to the Astaroth, the job had been a success. They had filled their ships with precious alloys, refining material, and a lot of very high-end mining equipment. Some of it was damaged from the roof collapse. But most of the damage would buff out.
Virtue and Sin held their positions until both ships had their fill. The fire from the satellites was purely for show now. Only the rail guns had enough range to lob their shells uselessly at the shields. And Astaroth had lazily deployed her cooling foils shed some of the heat in the reactors.
When both ships were out of space and the marines had returned victorious they turned and fled the battle space at max speed. As they left they detected one ship, likely a lane runner, approaching. It was a little ahead of schedule, but ultimately it was too late to stop them.
“Helmsman, chart a course to Parox. We’ll sell our haul there. Send a message to Tartarus, they are to sell half the mining equipment to the contact’s buyer, the rest goes to Pandemonium, including the alloy.” She ordered before she and Karega retired to her quarters.
“Are you sure about sending it all to Pandemonium? That metal could be used to fund another Arch-Devil class cruiser, or at least start construction?” Kar asked.
“You still refuse to leave the Astaroth, so who would I get to crew a fifth Arch-Devil cruiser. Asmodeus was supposed to be your ship.” She countered.
“I’m not ready to leave the Astaroth, and you won’t have another lieutenant if I leave. Heizer isn’t really a good enough fit.”
“And I can understand that, but you will need to grow beyond being my second someday. That’s not important right now. I’m sending it to Pandemonium because I would like to expand the colony. The secrecy has effected its growth badly, it’s very behind our most pessimistic predictions. We need it to become a stable base for the Hellworlder fleet so that we won’t need to risk pulling into Mars for repairs every time we get a couple dents in our armor. Mining equipment and enough material to build some arc furnaces should eventually help with that.”
“Alright I understand, I just thought that this job would go towards our other goals.”
“We have time until the council elections come due, plenty of time to figure out a new plan for making money. And if we can’t we’ll just do what pirates do and steal what we need” she said with a cocky grin.
“I thought we decided that stealing in this case would be too conspicuous”
“Needs, wants” she said dismissively.
Karega scowled “Have I ever mentioned how much I hate that linguistic butchery of an idiom”
“Eh, once or twice.” They would have continued to bicker if her PA hadn’t chirped. Astarte smiled as she read the message “Gato’s gonna make it, a long recovery, but he’ll manage.”
Karega smiled “Glad to hear it, I’d expect nothing less from Bachir”
Aster smiled devilishly “I ordered Bones to do it”
He blinked “What?”
“I told Bachir to make Djani do it, I had faith in her. And she needed to see just what staying on could mean for her.”
“You’re evil”
“Hah, preaching to the choir.” She laughed. “I think I’ll confront her soon, go ahead and authorize her payment for this job.” She said.
Karega didn’t argue that since Alwen wasn’t signed on officially she shouldn’t get any pay for this job. But he knew that Aster was aware and didn’t care. They had worked together long enough to understand the each other’s foibles. If he had been into women they would have likely hooked up long ago, but as it stood Astarte was just happy to have a friend like him by her side. He got up and left to attend to the after-action reports.
This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.
She took in one deep breath and let it out in defeat, no matter how many times she ordered her crew into battle she never got used to the thought of them dying on her command. And with Gato’s injuries nipping at the back of her and she felt a powerful craving for something to dull her anxieties.
She filled a tumbler of brandy and sipped it slowly to calm her nerves, though with one so she could tell that it wouldn’t be enough. Maybe she would make a visit to Butch’s herb garden and a smoke would help her nerves.
Astarte had molded herself into the best captain she could be. She commanded her ship and crew with total confidence in their abilities, and knew that they didn’t need her help in doing their jobs. But a little piece of her yearned to be on those dropships with her marines. She was one of the ship’s strongest combatants, and her skills could make the difference in a life-or-death situation. But it wouldn’t do for her to abandon her self-appointed post just because she didn’t feel right standing on the sidelines.
She polished off her drink and stood up and began to undo the straps and seal on her armor. She carefully set the pieces of her armor on its stand and left her cabin.
~~~*~~~
Acts of piracy, the damn contract had the words written there in the geometric runes of galactic common and the weird angular squiggles of eenglish.
The surgery had been a success, and the huge Felinoid man would live. When Alwen had finished she felt satisfied, and maybe a bit elated. Not from saving the life of a killer, but just from saving a life in general. She couldn’t quite get her emotions in check and Brevot had offered to take over and give the exhausted doctors a break. There were still weeks of work and recovery ahead for the three patients, but that was for later.
She had tried to sleep, or to just sit down and calm herself, but nothing worked. She was so wired from all the caffeine and the days excitement that she couldn’t calm her heart down. So instead she grabbed the file folder that contained the contract she had yet to read and went for a brisk stroll. She had accidentally discovered the cargo bays, filled from end to end with stolen chemicals and metal alloys. The sight had sickened her somewhat, so she left the cargo section of the ship entirely.
She eventually found her way to one of the ships small side gardens. This one however wasn’t filled with alien flowers, instead there were red clay pots with fragrant plants. She had read that Terran noses weren’t as good as her own, it must still be pretty powerful if they made a room just for pleasant smelling plants.
The room and its aroma had calmed her enough to sit and actually read her unsigned contract. There in the beginning it stated she would be joining a pirate vessel and aid and commit acts of piracy. Why had it taken this long for her to find out?
And why were these pirates so unflinchingly honest?
The rest of it was impossibly dense legalese that she had spent hour stumbling through. It all boiled down to what Karega had said before, never once had anyone around her to lied. Which made her feel worse. If she had just opened this dammed folder she would have seen what she was signing up for and walked away. Or so she thought.
After today she wasn’t so certain anymore. When she had learned the truth all she could think about was pirate this, and pirate that. But now after a very long day she was starting to realize that the people she had been growing to like were always pirates and didn’t hide anything from her. It was really her own fault for being so blind.
Eventually the lights in the garden dimmed, maybe to simulate night for the plants? And she was left in a dimly lit room as her thoughts raced around in circles since she could no longer read the contract.
Eventually the digital device on her wrist pinged with a new notification. She opened its holographic display and saw the alert was from the galactic bank account Karega had her set up. Until a few minutes ago it had been empty, and now it had received half of her previous annual earnings as a doctor. Enough money to buy a cheap condominium and a means of transport with plenty left over. With just one job her bank account had gone from empty to wealthy. Not as wealthy as her father, but a still respectable amount to just have sitting around. It might be a smaller amount for the rest of the galaxy, but the current conversion rate of Union credits to Torweni shells was still very high. She sighed, this only made things more complicated.
“Ah, I see you found Butch’s herb garden” a feminine voice said behind her, Alwen didn’t even turn as the captain stepped around the bench and sat next to her. “Never been much of a flower person myself, they seemed so frail and delicate. It takes constant effort to match the spoiled little plant’s preferences, and the slightest mistake means they wilt. Their pretty colors seemed very sad next to how fragile the petal was, and the brief fragrance they released is far to fleeting. I prefer the tough herbs like thyme, rosemary, or mint. They assault the nose with their scents, easy to care for, and useful in cooking.” The Captain said wistfully as she took in a whiff and sighed “this garden always calms me down after a fight”
She then fiddled with a small wooden box and withdrew something long and slender from it, she put one in her mouth and lit it with a small lighter. “Want one?” she asked offering Alwen the case.
Alwen had seen hallucinogenic plants smoked before on Torwen and wondered if these were the same “Will they make me…woozy?” she said for lack of a better word
“Nah” The Captain said around the thing in her mouth before taking a long drag “It’s a sihgar, made form the finest Martian tahbahcoh, it contains nicotine not hallucinogens. I invested heavily into some new fields, and they send me a case every harvest. They even mark them with my crest” she said pulling her sihgar out and showing her the gold band marked with a five-pointed star in a circle.
“What is it supposed to be?”
“It’s a pentagram, specifically it’s the mark of Astaroth, arch-devil of knowledge.”
Alwen hesitantly took one and Astarte lit it for her, she breathed in a breath of foul smoke and coughed. Astarte chuckled to herself “if you think that’s bad you should try taking in a breath of Terran air, Hellfire and brimstone’s nothing compared to Earth air quality.”
“I’ve been meaning to ask about that” Alwen wheezed. And took another breath, cihgars tasted a lot like kelph, a form of kelp that contained nicotine. She wasn’t a habitual smoker, but she had learned to enjoy kelph at a few of her father’s fancy dinner event.
“About Earth?” the Captain asked.
“About the ship, and everything else. I don’t know much about human culture, but generally demons and devils are evil, yet you seem to embrace them at every turn” she said accusingly, using the Union words for such things since her own people didn’t have a similar concept.
Astarte took another drag and leaned back in the bench, slowly letting the smoke out as a sigh “You know the Union stole those words from us, demon, devil, hell. Those are all English words for concepts the Union didn’t have before they met us. And yet they had the audacity to steal them from us and then labeled our home world a Hellworld, and had the gall to call us Hellworlders. They were all too weak to understand the beauty of our world, and saw only its dangers. They couldn’t recognize the terrible beauty of a tornado, or a cyclone as it hits the shore. They couldn’t marvel at the reds and oranges of volcanic eruptions. They looked at the dangers and assumed that any creature who could appreciate natures wrath must be a wrathful and violent species. So I thought might as well own the title. They called Earth, a world once brimming with life, HJell? And people once capable of the most amazing and heroic deeds, demons? I decided to show them real demons, real Hellworlders. We cling to demonology and Satanism as a mantel of power, born of their own fears.” She lamented, taking another deep drag.
“So spite then?” Alwen asked, her tone dripping with condescension. Alwen could sort of see what the women meant, rain and lava could be beautiful. And those violent forces led to changes that brought on new life. Her home world was for fertile because a lot of its land mass was volcanically formed. And they never knew drought because ocean rains softly coated the lands regularly. Its why civilization had first arisen on the equatorial islands and spread with the winds as they learned to ride the storms. But the pirate Captains words didn’t simply refer to a personal aesthetic, she was also speaking of her choice in turning to crime and murder.
“And what about yourself, it takes something awfully powerful to motivate a wealthy and well-educated girl to leave her home, her family, and her planet behind” she asked lightly.
“I wanted to prove I was more than just the least of my father’s children, that I wanst another medal for him to pin onto his sash.”
“That sounds like spite to me”
“It’s not, its, its, I don’t know what it is but it’s better than spite” she spluttered.
“You want to prove you are better than the shadow your father cast’s, you want all the world to see the brave explorer girl who left home and became better than everyone who said she was only the least of his children. That sounds like spite to me, just a little more altruistic.”
“Its not!”
“Fine it’s not, so walk me through your mind set. You don’t like being in daddy’s shadow, so you think ‘I’ll just run away from home’. And when a ship named after a devil, crewed by supposedly violent deathworlders, comes by and accepts your application over a wake-com link without any interview, you didn’t think something was up?” every word out of this woman pissed Alwen off, but she couldn’t really argue with anything she said. Because it was all the brutal truth she had been softening for herself.
“I, I didn’t think it wise to toss a fresh fish back into the water”
She frowned around the sihgar “I take it that’s a saying for not turning away blessings, we have a similar saying on Earth. Though here’s one I like better ‘if it seems too good to be true, it probably is’. Seriously we could have been much worse people and there would have been no one out here to help you.” She was berating Alwen now, and she deserved it.
Alwen tried to think of anything that might make her sound like less of an idiot, but found nothing. Defeated she asked, “so what now?”
“Now you have a decision to make, if you’ve read through that contract and understand what we’re really about then I won’t stop you from signing it and taking the mark.”
“And becoming a pirate?” option one didn’t seem that great.
“Technically we’re privateers. Most pirates are generally much less organized than us. And it’s not all hit and run, some jobs we smuggle cargo check points, sometimes we transport VIPs from place to place. And sometimes it’s purely legitimate business, like selling chohk-ol-layt to the Balikstro, it all depends on what pays the bills. I won’t lie, it’s a tough life, I’ve lost friends and have come close to death far too many times. But on this ship we have each other’s back even if the whole galaxy turns on us. And I know you can make the cut and thrive here, it might not have been a part of your ‘original’ plan, but it’s not far off either.”
“And option two?” Alwen asked, wanting to know if she had an out.
“You don’t sign on, and next station we visit I put you on one of my freighters heading to Femeri and we say our goodbyes’, I don’t like option two myself. This ship needs another doctor, we were very lucky to get Bachir, and I won’t settle for any less than his equal” she firmly enthused.
Alwen sat and thought, piecing out any hidden subtext in the captains words. “What is the mark?” she asked.
The captain smiled and pulled at her robe, surprising Alwen to realize that the captain was unarmored for once. Her robes were a simple black on white with no embellishments. She pulled it aside to reveal her open chest, and right at the nape was the mark of Astaroth, a downward pointing star in a circle with strange letters running around the outside burned neatly into her flesh. “It marks you as one of us, permanently. You can complete your contract and return to Torwen, but you’ll forever grant apart of yourself over to the ship. That contract binds you legally, this one is more spiritual.”
Alwen stared at the captains chest for a long while, maybe longer than was necessary. Astarte didn’t fidget or blush like Alwen might have, and bore it all in stoic silence. Alwen gulped “and everyone is marked?”
“Everyone, the men get it over their hearts, women get it here.” She said trapping the gap between her two small cream colored mounds.
Alwen stared longer as a decision was formed in her mind. Finally after a long minute she looked away and stood up “Fine then, I will sign the contract. But I refuse to bind my soul to a demon ship.”
“That’s not how it works” Astarte growled as she fixed her robes. She stood and towered over Alwen, how the hell was this woman so tall?
“Yes it does, this is option three. I sign on as your doctor for the time described, and when it’s over we part ways.” Alwen said, her tone firm and unyielding. Every contract could be negotiated, that was something her father had imparted to her from a very young age. Astarte had tipped her hand easier by telling Alwen how much they needed her as a doctor, and now she was leaning on that position of power.
The Captain fixed her with those empty black eyes of hers, much like the Roeling hawks that skimmed over forests to snatch rodents from trees. The ship slowly moving past a star that illuminated the room for an instant. The shadows played over the women’s face and they made her seem much more than mortal, it made who look like a monster made flesh, but only for an instant. The star passed and so did the illusion “I will have to alert the crew that you’re unmarked and what secrets they are not allowed to tell you. This will create a rift in between you and the rest of the marked men” she said after coming to a conclusion of her own.
“That is acceptable” Alwen answered.
“And the next time your contract comes due, you either accept the mark or leave. There will not be another ‘option three’.” Astarte pressed.
“That is also fine” Alwen said while nodding.
The Captain sighed and pointed to the contract she had left on the bench.
Alwen bent over and picked it up, considering for one more moment whether this was a good idea, there wouldn’t be any going back from this point. “Do I need to sign in blood?” she asked.
Astarte grinned, “only if you’re feeling artsy. There’s a pen in the fold there, please sign in common and Torweni.”
Alwen signed her name in both languages and handed it to the captain.
The Captain snubbed the sihgar and tossed into a nearby trash can. “Welcome aboard doctor Alwen ‘Bones’ Djani, we look forward to working with you” she reached out her hand and Alwen shook it.
There was no going back now.