Brody held his saber tightly. He took comfort in the hum of his anti-projectile energy shield as he wiped the sweat from his face. In the microgravity, the droplets floated away, little undulating orbs for the atmosphere filter to deal with.
'Am I shaking?' he thought. 'I am. Shaking like a little child.' He realized it without shame.
Every deep-space merchant knew the risk. Pirates were a threat, and no one had ever tried to tell him otherwise. He had looked at all the latest statistics, and he had done the math. On this route, only one-point-five percent of spacers died to pirates in their career.
But that was because pirate encounters were so rare. Now that they were docking with his freight ship, Brody's chances fell to sixty percent. But he knew they'd fall even lower if he panicked.
A sinister hiss filled the airlock as the pirate ship filled its unwilling space with air. The space freighter's pressurization system fought with the one on the pirate ship, doing what it could to slow their progress. But most pirates were wise to that trick by now, and these had invested in a stronger pressurizer. They wouldn't be stopped.
The clinical white of the freighter's walls flickered as the lights' power lapsed. Through the tiny window in the airlock door, Brody could see people gathering outside. They looked heavily armored, which meant they'd be heavily armed too, a rarity for pirates. Twenty precious percentage points dropped from Brody's survival chances.
The airlock opened. Bracing with his legs, Brody launched himself at the pirates before he knew which ones he would hit. He heard the heartbreaking thunk of his blade bouncing off mesh armor.
He looked up just in time to see the barrel of a stun gun aimed at his face. Kicking the pirate, he dodged to the side as the intoxicating blast flared in the air where he had been. Before he could decide who he was fighting or if he could win, another blast crackled, and this time Brody felt the debilitating shock course through his system. His world flashed white, then went black.
* * *
Iancah watched as her crewmates rooted through the captured freighter. The civilian crew had been smart enough to ruin the ship's fragile cargo of chemical medicine, but even so, the plunder was good. There were bank codes to be stolen from the computer terminal and good tools and weapons that could be pawned off easily. And, of course, there was the ship itself. Thanks to the fact that both sides had abstained from projectile and laser weapons, the freighter was ready to fly, and it would fetch a fine sum on the used market.
Iancah floated idly outside the airlock, watching as the captain, that short, stern, muscular Earth woman, carried all the most valuable loot off to her personal chest. Natia the first mate came after, quick and professional the way ex-military people always were. The mechanic and the medic followed, twin sisters just competent enough to earn a place in the crew. Then came Sirin, the crew's only male. He made a fine specimen, with handsome Middle Eastern features and a sharp face with a thin, jet-black moustache above a clean-shaven chin. The whole crew lusted after him, but only the captain could have him, and the invulnerable smirk on his expressive lips told everyone that he knew it.
Then, just as Iancah was ready for the call to detach, the captain took one last trip into the freighter and came back with another prize, slung inelegantly over one shoulder. It was a man, a member of the freighter crew, tranquilized but otherwise unharmed, with hastily strapped-on body armor looking completely mismatched over his smart Transect Corporation uniform.
Iancah let out a squeak. "Is that a new prisoner?"
"He's new," grumbled the captain. "He wouldn't fetch much of a ransom, but he's pretty, so we'll keep him for a while. All the others were either women or too damn ugly."
"Is he...?"
"He goes to the first mate," the captain cut off. "Don't even think about it."
Iancah pouted; she had indeed thought about it.
The captain raised her voice. "Alright," she barked at the whole crew, "Iancah, get ready to get us out of here before the marshals show up. Natia, the prisoner's all yours. You two..." she pointed at the twins. "Board that freighter and pawn it off. Meet us at Danube's. Don't even bother coming back with less than a hundred thousand credits. Understand?"
"Yeah," said the twins, in offset unison.
In a moment, the twins disappeared into the other ship. Before Iancah took to the pilot's controls, she cast one last look at the comatose prisoner. His thick, rectangle eyebrows rode high over sweetly closed eyes, and a thin, almost pouting mouth rested over his evenly tapering chin. His brown hair, barely long enough in front to reach his eyes, floated in bunches or was pressed to his skull by sweat.
Once they had him cleaned up, he would be a beauty. As the first mate disappeared with him into the cargo room, an idea flashed through Iancah's mind. She rushed to the pilot's controls, and as she prepared to fire the engines, she surreptitiously tapped into the security camera of Natia's personal quarters. Through it, she saw the first mate and the captured boy.
Iancah watched with interest.
* * *
Natia sat comfortably strapped into her plush chair, watching the comatose form of their newest catch-- Brody, said his name tag-- float around her quarters. A netcast she had downloaded at the last spaceport played softly from a single speaker in her entertainment suite in the wall, and she listened with half an ear.
She heard a crinkle, and she turned up the sound on her suite, thinking it had been an audio glitch. Then she shut off the speakers when she realized what she had heard. The boy was waking up.
Haltingly, his eyes opened. Blue irises slowly panned from side to side, then up and down, not seeming to register Natia yet. His arms flailed in slow motion, then his fingers began to twitch. Even after a minute, when his movements started to look coordinated, he clearly didn't know where he was.
Finally, his face perked with cohesion. He looked around. His clueless eyes centered on Natia, and his pupils shrank in their pretty blue irises.
"Wakey, wakey," said Natia. "You certainly kept we waiting, freshmeat. You'd better be all rested up."
"Why..." he coughed. "Why am I here?"
Natia gave a harsh laugh. "You really don't know?"
He looked around, as if he would find clues on the walls. "Ransom?"
Natia grinned. "You? Ransom? This isn't the twenty-first century, boy. Do you want me to spell it out for you?"
He was speechless.
