The Star Pirate's Return

Chapter 2: Damsel

When Bee opened the outer airlock door, the remnants of air inside the room swept past them like a strong breeze. She shoved Starhawk toward the nearby ship, using his body as a distraction while she held back. Starhawk writhed in his final moments, drifting closer to the strange-looking craft. Bee watched the blue-eyed pirate claw at his chest, seizing up as he gave his last breath to the void. It was done.

Bee had no time to celebrate the injustice she'd finally avenged. Seeing the odd ship with her own eyes, the asteroid disguise was clearly intentional—it looked eerily sentient, hovering back and forth. Dust puffed out from the ship as spotlights appeared on its surface and it moved in close to the dead pirate's maimed body.

Seeing her chance, Bee leaped from the cover of the airlock and reached out toward the ship with her nullsuit's palm nodes, guiding herself to the panel on its belly. Myra's overlay kept it clearly marked, but it seemed to be buried underneath the black crust that gave the ship its camouflage.

As Bee pulled herself in, the strange-looking craft tried to jerk away from her. Starhawk's corpse had bought her some time, but not enough. A hard gravity pulse from her palms brought her in fast and she smashed against the ship face-first, leaving her breathless. Wheezing, dazed, and blinded by the cloud of thick dust she'd released, Bee scrambled to find the panel.

Clawing through what felt like soil or ash, she dug furiously with one hand while using the other to keep herself from flying into empty space. Bee could see the stars spinning in her peripheral vision as the pilot tried to roll her off, but she hung tight with her nullsuit's gravity nodes.

The clone Myra's glowing outline led her to the panel, and Bee pried it open with her armored gauntlet. Wrenching off the whole latched panel in her haste, Bee saw the mess of wires and sockets under it and instantly another marker from Myra lit up one tiny open outlet.

"Help me out, Myra." Guided by the suit, Bee reached for the recessed panel on her armor's waist, opened it, and snatched the extending cable free. With one smooth, robotic motion, the armor took over entirely and inserted the cable. "Take the ship!"

***

"What a great idea, Montez! Let's inspect the wreck! What could go wrong? Could a murderous, armored psycho pirate be waiting inside to kill and eat our faces? Let's find out!" Crane locked his helmet in place and glared at Montez as she checked his nullsuit's seals.

"Where else were we supposed to go? This was our only way out. And where's your guy, huh? We were on time, he wasn't. Go, go, they're in the airlock." Montez primed her pistol and took cover, crouching in the pilot's chair and peeking over the back. She didn't have an armored suit like Crane's, just a fabric weave rated for zee. "Crane. You ready?"

"No, I ain't ready. Nobody's ready to die." Crane aimed his pistol at the airlock door. "I hope you're ready, you psycho piece of shit. Did you see that guy's face? That is not happening to us!"

"Yeah." Montez realized she was trembling again, her gun quivering in her grip. "Sorry I got you into this."

"Neither one of us did anything we didn't want to do, Nita. I got no regrets." He glanced over at her and grinned. "Especially not our trip out here. I'd do that all again for sure."

Montez laughed despite the terror she felt, and her hands steadied some. "Yeah, me too."

"That last position in particular. I would definitely do that one again."

"Shut up, Crane," she said with another laugh.

"I ain't kidding, that's getting me through this. No way am I gonna pass up more of that sweet, sweet—"