A Perfect Life nd Other Stories (12 page)

“Welcome, my friends,” Bella began. She smiled, and her blue eyes
still held their glint, but Tate saw something else in her expression. A
fatigue, maybe sadness. “I know you are wondering what happened, as did I.”
Bella paced before them and spoke slowly, choosing her words carefully. “Where
you came from was a planet of refuge, a safe haven, chosen by our families
fleeing a vast galactic war between groups known as the Grans Confederation and
the Oshen Alliance. Who these people are and why they fight is unclear, and is
beside the point.”

Bella stopped pacing and stared at the ground, as though composing
her thoughts. Tate sensed a rise in tension, and her joy at being reunited with
her friend who had vanished three years earlier was turning to dread.

“To supply the armies with food, weapons, and warriors, a
syndicate of privateers strip whole solar systems of people, animals, water,
minerals, and forests,” Bella said, her voice filled with disgust. “Children
and adults are enslaved to work the supply lines or sold to fight for whichever
side offers the highest price.”

As Bella spoke, the nervous fidgeting and murmurs of Tate’s
companions settled into a stunned silence.

“The idea to flee, to hide the children on a desolate planet that
had already been stripped bare, began with a small resistance movement and was
meant to be temporary. Each of us has a chip implanted under our skin that
allows our transportation through space. As each community flees their homes,
they pass the planet and send their children to the surface.”

Tate massaged the tiny bump under the skin of
her forearm and thought about her family. Were they alive? She looked around
the seated group and the older adults, who stood farther away. She counted
seven from the planet, including herself and Emily. Bella was the only older
one she remembered. The others were strangers, though her parents could be
among them and she’d never know it. Emily nudged her. Bella was still speaking.

“Moving from planet to planet,” Bella said, “we keep one step ahead
of the syndicate, setting up temporary camps to retrieve refugees, then moving
on. Now it is your turn. You are old enough to help send supplies to the
children.” Bella paused as though to let this news sink in. “I won’t lie to
you. It is dangerous work and many have died. We retrieve some of our goods
from the privateers,” she continued, her gaze settling on Tate. “They call us
pirates, but we are only taking back what was stolen from us—to keep our
children alive, to keep ourselves alive. Each of you will become a member of
this force.”

Emily squeezed Tate’s hand. “Pirates. You’ll be right at home, me
hearty.”

Tate felt sick to her stomach.

Later that night, lying with Emily in a soft bed that hurt her
back, Tate felt bile rise in her throat. “Do you think it’s true?” she asked.

Emily stroked her hair. “Is what true?”

“Everything. Our parents. They’re dead?” That’s what Bella had
told them in private, after speaking to the group.

Emily nodded. Tate’s eyes filled with tears. It was Emily who had
more to suffer. She had mourned her family once already. Tate barely remembered
hers. But now it was Emily who curled around her in comfort and held her. They
were all the other had left.

For the next year, Tate and Emily and the other recruits underwent
an intense apprenticeship. Real pirating, Tate learned, was nothing like the
games she’d played as a child. The pirate ship, with its narrow bunks,
claustrophobia-inducing passageways, and the constant awareness that all that
separated her from the deadly void of space was a thin metal shell, was nothing
like the roomy craft she’d imagined in her youth.

Tate’s first mission had terrified her. The point, their captain
had instructed them, was to overtake their prey with minimal damage to either
side. “We need their ships as much as their cargo,” he told his apprentices, so
firepower was limited.

Tate stared at the dagger she had been handed. “What? No laser
rifles?”

Captain Reilly laughed. “Someone has a vivid imagination. If you
miss with a laser and pierce the hull, you die. Lasers need to be powered and
fuel is expensive. If we do our job right, we can hit them before they know
we’re there.”

Space portals were the key to their success,
he said, because they allowed fighters to jump from ship to ship. To
demonstrate, the captain guided the pirate vessel behind a small asteroid as a
large cargo freighter floated by. When they were close enough, he opened a
portal, like a simple doorway onto the other ship, and his fighters streamed
across. “Cargo ships have few crew members,” he’d told them in his briefing.
“And they carry few weapons.”

Tate’s heart pounded as she jumped through the portal, Emily ahead
of her, daggers drawn. They entered a cargo bay filled with crates of food and
building materials. Silently, their leader motioned them to spread out. As they
entered the passageway, they split up, one group heading to the bridge, another
to the engine room, and the third, including Tate and Emily, hanging behind to
secure the route back off the ship.

Huddled by the bay door, Tate heard shouts
but couldn’t see the fighting. Then darkness enveloped them. The dagger’s
handle grew slick in her sweaty palm. She reached for Emily, but did not dare
speak. They held hands in the dark, listening. The ship lurched to a halt. Footsteps
rang out on the metal floor of the passageway. Emily’s hand slipped from hers,
and she shook as she held her weapon ready. Someone slammed into Tate, knocking
her to the floor. Pain seared through her bicep, and she swung her dagger,
feeling it slice into flesh. Hot, raspy breaths grated in her ear as she
struggled to free herself from under whoever had fallen.

The lights flickered on. Tate blinked, blinded
briefly. A man lay at her feet, blood pouring from a deep wound to his gut.
Emily knelt beside him, pulling her own dagger from his back, her eyes wide.

It was over in an eyeblink, yet every detail seared into Tate’s
memory, down to the sound of her blade cutting the cloth of the man’s shirt,
then his flesh. As he fell, he’d sliced her arm with his own weapon.

Emily was quiet later, as they sat on the bunk
in their cabin, and she wrapped a gauze bandage around Tate’s arm. She’d put
five stitches in to close the wound. That had also been part of their training.
Tate watched her, unable to read her expression.

“What did you think, Em?”

Emily looked up, startled, as if out of a daydream. “About what?”

“The fight, the mission. What else? Are you
okay?”

Color rose on Emily’s cheeks, her breathing deepened. “It was
amazing, T, wasn’t it? This is it. What we were meant to do.”

“We killed a man,” Tate said. She didn’t know
which of them had dealt the fatal blow. She didn’t want to know. Until that
moment when she’d struck with her blade, the reality of a pirate’s life had
been abstract, unreal. She was torn between her loathing of what they had done,
what they needed to do to survive, and the responsibility she felt to those who
relied on her for their own survival.

Emily didn’t say anything, but returned her focus to Tate’s arm.
When she finished, she put her hand against Tate’s cheek, her eyes dark and
fierce. “I was afraid I’d lost you today. I won’t let that happen.”

From that moment, Tate watched Emily’s transformation. Emily
studied everything she was told, practiced every move they were taught, and
pushed herself physically and mentally to prepare for their new life. She
seemed almost comfortable, certainly unflappable, in battle.

Tate felt less sure. Instead, she focused on her piloting skills,
something that held value but didn’t require direct combat or killing. She
reaffirmed her goal to keep herself and Emily safe until the combatants moved
out of the sector. Then they would be able to find some place to live in peace.
But first, they had to survive. And while Tate was happy to keep a low profile,
Emily took a different tack.

In every port of call, Emily questioned the locals, searching for
information about the mysterious Crief Ul, head of the Galactic Enterprises
Group, the syndicate overseeing the privateers. His massive mining and
harvesting operations stripped everything a planet capable of life could
produce—all to supply the armies doing battle. Emily told anyone who would
listen that she was convinced he was the key to ending the war. If it weren’t
for him, she said, both sides would be forced to negotiate. They were too busy
fighting each other to coordinate such a vast supply line.

“Lop off the head and the snake dies,” Emily often said.

As the years passed, Tate honed her flying
skills while Emily rose through the command ranks. While serving as first mate,
Emily led a mission that captured a ship, so she was awarded it and allowed to
choose her own crew. For the first time, Tate felt a disconnect between them as
she watched Emily fill positions without naming her. Was it possible Emily would
want a life without her?

Sulking in the upper bunk instead of lying with Emily, Tate felt a
poke from below.

“What’s going on?” Emily asked.

“Nothing.”

Tate felt a strong kick through the mattress. She sighed. “You
haven’t picked me,” she said, near tears.

“So that’s it.”

Tate leaned over the edge to look at Emily. “Don’t you want me?”

“Of course I do. Plus, you’re the best pilot around. But . . .”
Emily paused and let out a sigh. “Don’t you want your own ship?”

“No.”

Emily looked puzzled, her expression an unasked question. “I don’t
know, T. My priority is to protect the crew. I wouldn’t be able to put you
above the others. And you couldn’t—”

“I know,” Tate said, relief flowing through her. “I’ll make sure
we don’t have to.”

With that settled and Tate assigned to helm and first mate,
together they outfitted the ship, doubling its weapons capacity and clearing
storage space for the supplies they’d haul in. A small cruiser, its nimbleness
made up for its lack of speed and armor. Emily christened it the
Sea Devil
,
garnering odd looks from her fellow pirates. Tate smiled.

With a small band of fighters, the
Sea Devil
patrolled a
narrow shipping lane between an asteroid belt and a dense lithic debris field
too hazardous for travel. It didn’t take long for Captain Emily Hart to make a
name for herself, using methods that confounded her enemies. If she needed a
ship, Emily would release the captured crew and their cargo on a planet,
leaving an emergency beacon with them to ensure rescue. If it was the freight
she wanted—food, clothing, or weapons—she’d simply leave them with an empty
vessel and no lives lost. As her reputation grew, some shipments were
surrendered with little resistance, as the privateers saw no reason to risk
life or limb for a few supplies. They also knew she would treat them well, so
many defected and told tales of Crief Ul’s brutal micromanagement. More than
one crew had been executed for nondelivery, and rumors flew of dissention in
Ul’s ranks but that no one dared confront him. Many warned her that to Ul, lost
shipments meant lost payment, so Captain Hart was wanted.

SLIPPING INTO HER seat at the helm, Tate forced herself to focus
on the present. The space train was approaching. Gunner was already seated to
her left and running down his weapons checklist. Behind them, Emily sat in the
captain’s chair, the first mate’s seat empty beside her. On Tate’s other side,
Collins, the engineer, ran through his own checklist.

“Run silent,” Emily commanded.

Tate flipped switches and the lights dimmed. All systems except
life support and weapons went idle. The only light glowed from the command and
control consoles before them. There would be no communication, no engines, not
even food prep in the galley. Any energy signals the ship generated would be
masked by background noise. They hunkered behind an asteroid.

This appeared to be an easy mission. Tate checked the sensor
readout that identified the approaching ship as a long row of freight
containers pulled by an unarmed, unescorted command module. This is too easy,
she thought. Convoys had started adding security escorts. She sensed a trap,
but all she could do was wait for a visual verification. As the ship came into
view, she did a double-take out the window then back at her sensor readout.
What she read didn’t describe the large, fully armed and armored battle cruiser
she saw. Tate banged her fist on the console. “The signal’s a fake,” she said,
furious.

“Hold position,” Emily ordered. “Let’s hope he doesn’t notice us
and moves on.”

The battleship passed close enough that Tate could see a logo:
GEG. Galactic Enterprises Group. The
Sea Devil
was dwarfed by
comparison. “We’d fit on that one’s bridge,” she muttered. When it stopped, she
felt sick to her stomach and quickly plotted an escape route, however improbable.

Emily answered the ship’s hail. The screen flickered on. A thin
man scowled at her, his eyes dark and narrowed. “Captain Hart, I presume,” he
said, his polite greeting belied by his expression.

“To whom do I have the displeasure,” Emily replied, leaning
forward in her seat.