For me and my sister, all of this began as a trip home to settle our grandfather's estate. It was the first time Lynn and I had spent much time together since well before she had gone off to college. We both looked at the trip as a bit of a lark. Having to return to earth to settle Gramp's estate was just the kind of codicil he would place in his will. He could easily have liquidated his estate and sent the resulting funds to us at any galactic bank branch, it's not like death crept upon him, but there is only so much medical science, even in the twenty-third century, can do against the very rare and aggressive form of cancer that claimed his life. We realized that he wanted Lynn and me together to share our memories of him as a family one last time. Both of us would probably have given it a pass, but as I said, his estate was considerable. If we did not claim it in person, we would get nothing.
Lynn and I adored our grandfather, he practically raised us. Vacations were spent with him seeing all of the wonders of the universe, from Yosemite to the Swiss Alps to Epcot Antarctica, Dry Wells, Mars, and Crystal Cities on Rigel, Proxima Centauri, Job's World, and the wind caves of Orion Five. It was a wonderful childhood. My career took me to the Barnard's Star colony and Lynn followed me to a nearby planet a few years later for college. Despite our proximity, we did not get together often. Lynn was enjoying college and her new life as an independent woman and I had such a busy professional and social life, that we really didn't get together much outside an occasional holiday. We had been moving in different circles for quite a while. That was fine by us, but both of us could use the money Gramps intended to leave us so we booked passage on the same liner and settled into the boring routine of trans-light flight.
Some folks really take to being locked in a tin can for a couple of weeks, I'm not one of those. There are only so many holographic dramas you can watch and no matter how carefully I fill my E-reader, I somehow never manage to choose the right novels and books for my voyage. I was sitting in the pathetically tiny lounge trying to get into a novel whose promotional material promised was "spicy" and "gripping." If that is spicy, chili peppers are latex. The only gripping I was doing was at the arms of the chair in frustration.
While I tried to settle in and make the most of things, I heard an announcement from the pilot come over the intercom, "Attention passengers, because of a distress call, we are rerouting our course. This should add no more than a day to our scheduled destination. I groaned with the rest of the passengers. Fortunately, Lynn and I had a wide window to reach earth, still, I resented spending more time in hyperspace than I absolutely had to.
A few hours later, alerting chimes rang and our ship dropped out of translight speed. For the first time, I had a view of stars out the viewports. I think the utter blackness of hyperspace is the most disarming and distressing things about space travel, it's like voyaging through endless nothingness until you reach your destination. We were in orbit around some nondescript hothouse jungle world. An Oxygen-rich atmosphere, but probably full of all kinds of dangerous beasties. Near a small inland sea, a medium-sized passenger yacht sat on the shore with a gigantic hole in its side and a small campsite of survivors. I brightened. It should not take long to finish this rescue mission. I doubted that the extra passengers would even cause much disruption in the normal routine of shipboard living. The captain set us down.
After a test of the atmosphere, the hatches were opened, filling all our lungs with fragrant floral air. Then, a whole bunch of people armed with blasters tumbled out of the wreckage and made a beeline for our spaceship. There was no way the captain could get the hatches closed or the ship in the air before the crowd of very large and powerful people entered it. Suckered by the oldest trick in the book! With no alternative, I rose to my feet and placed my hands above my head. It was all over very quickly. Their leader resembled a shaved gorilla. All the passengers who could fit were in the lounge as he addressed the rest over the intercom.
"Have no fear, folks, we will have you back into space in about an hour or so. Of course, the destination of this craft has been altered, but you will find out for yourselves what awaits you when we reach our ultimate destination."
"And WHERE would that be?" ventured a passenger far braver than me.
The ugly pink gorilla simply laughed uproariously, gestured with his weapon and stated, "As that question again, and it will be the last query you ever make! That goes for all of you!"
A huge ship dropped out of orbit and landed next to us. All of the pirates they didn't need to secure our ship, climbed aboard that one. Our pilot and co-pilot were transferred to that vehicle as well. A set of pirate pilots replaced ours. The damaged space yacht broke down into small pieces and disappeared into the hold of the larger vehicle and then we were off. Before we jumped into hyperspace, I could tell that our liner was following the much larger ship. Other than bitch or moan, what could we do?
Later, Lynn and I talked in her cabin.
"What do these pirates want, Joe?" she asked as she nervously stroked her luxurious black hair with her left hand.
"It's not simple robbery, they could have done that easily. They also do not seem interested in killing us. I don't know, maybe they want hostages. They could be one of those terrorist groups from one of the outer rim planets that want independence, perhaps they think a few hostages will cause Earth to bargain with them."
"Earth has never negotiated with rebels before, why should that work now?" asked Lynn sincerely.
"It's the only thing that makes sense, sis."
"I wished I shared your confidence," replied Lynn as she bent to embrace me.
In my sister's arms, I realized that she had done quite a lot of growing up in the last few years. She looked like old pictures of our mother only prettier and with darker hair. Her eyes were always the bluest I have ever encountered, and she was sleek and trim in a way that a good brother should not notice. Her enticing perfume would be deadly to most mortal men. She briefly bused my lips and then kissed my cheek.
"Promise me, Joe, that whatever happens, you will protect me. Just like you did when we were kids."
I promised her that I would and, as quickly as possible, my head spinning both from our captivity and the close embrace of my sister, I made my way back to my own cabin. The armed thug in the hall outside Lynn's cabin winked at me as I exited. It was all I could do to keep myself from telling the guy to go fuck himself. I spent a mostly sleepless night tossing and turning in my cabin. Two long boring days passed.
When I arose the third morning, I became aware of the ship dropping out of translight speed and, shortly thereafter, the onset of natural gravity which could only mean we had made planetfall. The pirates or terrorists, or whatever they were, herded us out of our cabins, regardless of our state of dress. The hatches were opened, and I discovered that were in a large building or hanger. I found Lynn, grasped her hand and, at the tip of a blaster, we made our way out of the safety of our space liner.
I noted that my sister wore little more than a nightshirt. I admired her fine long legs and tried to avoid looking at her ample bust with her perky little nipples clearly outlined by the fabric. I realized that I did not look much better in sweatpants and a tee shirt and chastised myself for looking at my own flesh and blood that way. I tried to place my mind elsewhere.
That was not hard to do. I and my fellow passengers were formed into ranks and assembled before an oily guy on a raised chair. It was not hard to tell that he was in charge of the men ordering us around. Whatever our fate was to be, it was clearly going to be decided by this joker. He was tall and dark. His face was handsome and sported a neatly trimmed goatee. Beneath his slicked-back widow's peak, on either side of his forehead, he had had two obviously live and sharp looking horns implanted in his skull! His resemblance to the ancient bogeyman known as Satan could not have been a coincidence. Now, I am not a religious man in any sense, yet I knew that no man would go to the trouble of looking like the devil himself unless he was a very evil character. I swallowed hard and held my sister's hand more tightly. He began to speak; his already deep voice was amplified with an intimidating electronic echo effect. I imagine a god, or a demon would sound just like this.
"Welcome, folks, who I am is unimportant, you can call me Hobbs, or Old Jack if you like, or nothing at all if you prefer. As you have by now, no doubt realized, the space wreck that lured you into my hands was a clever ruse. Now you are, well it doesn't matter where you are, now does it? My men are quite clever, not only could we lure your ship to its doom, but we were also able to capture your last few day's communications with flight control. Your pilots may have thought that they were talking with old friends, but they were not. The point is, that no one knows where you are or what happened to you. It will be several days at the earliest until flight control realizes that you are missing when they DO search, they will find NOTHING. What this means for all of you is that you are already dead, meaning that I can do ANYTHING at all to anyone of you!"
Gasps went up from the crowd, mine among them. People asked about ransom, others offered bribes or rained down threats. Hobbs waved his hand and some of his men warmed up their blasters and leveled them at us until we were all silent. The man began speaking again.
"Now I am someone who works outside the system and I live quite well. There is always a market for used spaceliners for smuggling contraband or people. Each of you has jewels and wallets and bank accounts we can loot. What sets me apart however it that I use ALL the raw material that comes my way. In certain parts of the galaxy, the ultra-wealthy have both the freedom and the means to indulge in vices, vices which planets like earth believe they terminated generations and generations ago. For those of wealth and inclination, the idea of slave ownership has quite an appeal. I find it quite lucrative to supply that desire!"
