Sunrise.
A long, dark shadow gently came to rest at Jared's twelve'o clock. He hadn't noticed it the first six times it had appeared and subsequently disappeared but now, in a room filled with the latest in space faring amenities, the thin, faded line that just barely managed to obscure her frail figure was the only thing he could focus on. That and the monster that had consumed his teenage daughter, self-doubt.
Two days of trying, two days and he had barely managed to gather the crew into a single spot, only the first step of a two step solution. He had hoped the other part would not have had to take as long but that was now seemingly like a possibility.
Eyeing the silhouette of the girl, the most human shape in his periphery. Jared was pulled back into reality long enough to come to the conclusion that he would eventually have to make it official.
"I-"
He paused. His eyes had adjusted to the grey of his shadow some time ago but it was in that moment that the girl's silhouetted figure finally registered in his mind. It was a small kindness that her face had been censored by the veil of his shadow.
His decision had undoubtedly affect her more than any single subordinate of his and yet Jared had neglected to even contemplate how she would react. Jared grimaced as he realized he would have to live with that uncertainty. With the crew beginning to imitate his grim expression, no doubt growing restless -after six sunrises, not even Jared could blame them- there was no better time for his grand speech and nothing better to say it to than the only other entity, aside from himself who had heard it almost a dozen times now.
With the sun behind him it was hard to keep her focus, but Leslie and the other crew mates did. The alternative would be to stare at the single most convincing proof of the depravity of the universe, in the shade of their employer's shadow.
Leslie's eyes suddenly brightened.
Facing the teen, the captain spoke a single word. But it was looking into the intense light of Ketly 6 that he finally made the announcement.
"I sorry I misled you."
For the first time in an hour the crew removed their largely confused gazes from their employer to the badly disfigured, pregnant teen in his shadow. Figuring she would have some response to this. She didn't, to those that could make out her grotesque features it was obvious that she was as confused as they were.
"All of you"
He clarified. Jared could feel their eyes slowly lock back onto him.
"We didn't..pull through our last engagement...Jun?"
Jared felt a little selfish distributing the consequence of his decision. But it was a necessity if he wanted to ease the crew into the proverbial gut punch that he had to deliver.
The crew turned their attention to a massive figure amongst them and no sooner had they done so that they heard its deep croaky voice.
"You said we jumped out just in time..."
Jared turned to face the crew. His decision to stare directly into the sun now made it somewhat difficult to tell between his crew and the sun.
"I said what I had to."
It took a while for Jared to realize that it wasn't the sun he was speaking to anymore. His mind went blank after that.
"What the fuck have you done now?"
Brigadier Kasimere asked, for the crew and himself. If anyone among the crew had felt misrepresented by the question or the Brigadier's tone, they didn't speak up. And neither did Jared in his regret fueled trance.
In his silence, his oldest dissenters and some first timers took to answering their own question.
"He sold us into slavery!"
"They'll spare him if he kills us!"
Two of Jared's most trusted subordinates discretely began to form a barrier between him and the rest of the crew. By the time Jared had regained his ability to speak, his voice needed to be multiples of times louder than it was.
Thankfully the small device clipped onto his shirt happened to provide just such a function.
"Privateers, I assure you that this is not the cause for mutiny you think it is..."
Jared trailed off as the crew began to push back his makeshift barrier. Confused, Jared peered past the Rockman and Engi barrier hoping to find an explanation for this mutinous action. Unbeknownst to him it would take a Xenozoologist to properly gauge the faces of his extremely diverse crew. His gaze did; unfortunately for him turn up something.
It was hard for his sunbathed eyes to make out what it was but it eventually did. Despite now being a complete silhouette in the combined shadow of the crew, Jared was able to see the girl clearer than he ever could. She was scared.
Jared could only hope that she too could see him and could see the apology on his face. If anyone was owed an apology it would be her.
The genuineness of his expression faded as he put on a stoic face for the crew.
"...Crew! As your captain-"
"You're not a real captain!"
A young female voice immediately interjected. Despite the many more creative uses of words, Jared found the most straightforward of truths the most hurtful.
It was the straw that broke the proverbial straw horse's back. Unfortunately for his crew, this horse was able to locate the "captain's button" on its voice projector.
Jared plugged both ears with his fingers as he held the button down, shutting his eyes just before the first crewmen fell. Jared couldn't pretend that his foresight had helped all that much especially holding the device as close to his face as he had. But at least he was still standing, the ringing in his ears did not detract from the thought that he might have finally brought the situation under control.
That was something Jared had to see to believe.
Even with his eyes closed, the occasional brushing against his feet let Jared know that there was something or more likey someone at there. He was right.
That was something was his former body barrier, now just two aliens writhing on the ground, clutching their sound receptors in pain. "Sorry" Jared mumbled as the Rockman's back brushed up against him.
The only crew that heard his apology was the human-sized slug on the other side of the room, despite it being the only crew mate without some sort of hearing receptor.
It barely registered Jared's words as it continued to telepathically absorb the sight of its formerly upright crew mates as well as their pain and anger before shifting its theoretical gaze back onto Jared. Unlike before however, Jared's mind was free of any crude psychic dialog.
The slug's telepathic relieve overshadowed Jared's own as the crew began rising a few minutes later.
Finally catching a glimpse of the only other human in his crew, Jared could tell that the mutineers or at the very least that crew mate was now at the very least willing to let Jared listen even if that was now significantly harder.
"In case you forgot, this ship is not fit for combat. No matter how many powerful guns we install it still won't be the vessel most of you are used to..operating. If you need a reminder of that, than well...you that you are not on the UMM Supremacy or whatever anymore, the well being of this ship is your top and only priority now, as per you contract...Everything else is secondary..."
Jared cringed as he completed the latest line of his sales pitch, the crew did not find that too reassuring.
"...Look, we are really close to the end now. All we need is to catch a break...our hull is..."
Jared's eyes finally found the being he was looking for. The mantis however hadn't taken its eyes off him.
"Kasimere. What's the status of the hull."
The venomous gaze of the mutineers was not so easily thrown off this time.
"Kasimere!"
He repeated, unsure if its silence was in protest or a symptom of hearing damage. Jared was optimistic.
"What's our-"
"Four percenttt"
Jared could only assume its slur was intentional attempt to spite him.
"There you go. Straight from the horses mouth. We were lucky we managed to get away at all...and you know? luck is a fickle thing, best not to push it."
On cue, the light of Ketly 6 was instantly blotted out by a seemingly infinite wall of red. In the middle a poorly drawn skull of some mythical beast was painted white.
With the crew slowly beginning to divert their attention to the grisly re-purposed mining frigate. Eventually only a single pair of eyes remained fixed on him.
Jared turned his attention to the space window trying to avoid its hopeless, fearful eyes.
"Nobody can say we didn't try."
Jared mumbled to no one in particular.
"You said you were going to help me..."
Jared shut his eyes. Ignoring the girl's accusation.
If it was only the darkness he had to face, Jared's day would have been vastly improved. Instead he knew that he would have to face the girl again that day, not as her liberator this time. A beep came from the unmanned communications room followed by a retroactive reminder to Jared that "We couldn't find a teleporter that ain't shit" and to "personally bring ms piggy back to the Baby maker".
Rockmen do not possess an emotion equivalent to that of disgust. Even still Jun Wei found his gaze shifting from the intimidating build of the pirate vessel to the thin man that he had only minutes ago been willing to take a plasma round for. Jared might not have recognized the regret in Jun's face were his eyes to be even opened, but even in the darkness he could feel respect of the once loyal crew mate slip off into the void that it had came from.
The humiliating nature was convincing enough as nightmare. And while his eyes were close, Jared could almost pretend that it was. His curiosity eventually got the better of his sense of security and Jared found himself peaking into the world, convinced that he would see the peeling, flaking paint of the ship's ceiling. Somehow reality was much more disappointing.
The Rockman's reflection was the first thing Jared saw after opening his eyes and the only thing he needed to see before locking his eyes to the floor. Turning to face a former and upcoming slave was a lot easier without pesky eye contact, Jared noted.
Jared brushed past the crew's presumably disappointed gazes as he found himself going through the motions of boarding an enemy ship. Only this time unarmed and with a pregnant teen following close behind.
"Isn't it this way?"
A soft female voice called out behind him. Jared looked up from the floor to see a grey airlock in front of him, he turned around to see the girl pointing to the black and yellow doors of the transporter room.
The dark interior lit up as the two entered within proximity of the transporter pods. Jared's mind flew into overdrive, dozens of plans materialized each seemingly more plausible than the next.
"You know he'll kill us right?"
The girl asked eerily casual before cramming herself into one of the pods.
"No. I don't know that. And from the way he speaks about you, I don't think you know either"
Jared replied looking intently at the base of the only other pod in the room. His hands digging through his pockets.
"I do, captain. He only wants the baby. He doesn't care if it rips it way out like I know he will and he doesn't leave witnesses, especially captain's with luxury ships...please captain, kill me-throw me out the airlock for all I care but DON'T send me back there."
Jared hated this. The combination of a slave's final plea for freedom and the increasing plausibility of his plans always created the slightest illusion of success.
"No"
His hand now vigorous dug through his pocket. He looked up at the girl grimly hoping to see a look of fear and despair, or perhaps peace. Instead her eyes burned with righteous anger. Not at him directly but at her tormentor and the weak men who had allowed them to prosper.
Jared quickly looked away, but it was too late. The allure of rebellion and the chain of expectation had dragged Jared back into the familiar mindset of The Liberator. And he wasn't comfortable with that.
"This is not our fight. I'm sorry."
He said more to himself than the girl. Jared spent the brief silence shifting through his pockets. It wasn't long after he stopped just miming the action before his fingers found the superconducting metal he had been digging for.
With one swift motion he pulled it out and placed it on the console. The memento stayed there for only a second before Jared found it back in the palm of his hands, staring at it with relevance.
A beep echoed through the hallways, a second later the Centaur automatically responded to the hail.
"BEEP-SHT dumbfucks this is the Baby maker speaking, just wanted to let you know to hurry the fuck up or hurry up and depressurize your piece of shit ship already...And just so you know, if you choose the latter. Rip-face is going to use your corpses as a place to store his fat Mantis-BEEP"
Jared took one last look at the crystaline memento before dropping it into his transporter pod and turning away from it.
Looking out from the edge of the doorway, Jared was far from being able to see the comm room. But he didn't need to see to know who was responsible for the pirate's abrupt speech.
"Leslie!"
He yelled down the hallway.
"Huh!?"
A young female voice echoed back in much the same way as his own.
"Get out of the comm room!..."
He didn't need to turn to see the confusion on the girl's face.
"...and prepare the Halberd beam!"
He turned and saw it anyways.
"You!...uhh"
"Marry"
The girl replied. Stepping out of the pod, her confusion was slowly replaced by unmistakable blood-lust.
"Marry. On my signal, hit this button."
Leslie cautiously treaded out of the comm room. Catching a glimpse of an Engi as she stood in the doorway, she gave it a shrug as her eyes made contact with its light receptors. She wasn't sure if the ringing in her ear had distorted the captain's order in someway or she had just misheard him. Either way it did sound like that was what he said, she reasoned and she would never even think of questioning an order from the infamous liberator Jared. A rebellious smirked crossed her face.
"yes sir...you-spineless-coward"
She found herself uncharacteristically mumbling.
The weapon consoles each had their own softly glowing holo-display, all of which combined barely contributed to the illumination of the dark room. With no other alternative, Leslie had to use the dim light from the hallway to make her way through the maze of wires and tubes running along the floor of the room.
"Heavy Ion-Nope. Repair-nah...M4 Halberd beam"
Leslie found the latter displayed on the console adjacent to the door. Finding it allowed her to confirm that, no she had never even heard of this weapon before. Leslie found herself smiling in what felt like ages as she scoured the console for its charger button if it even had one.
The surprisingly complicated task made for a superb distraction. Allowing Leslie to continue relatively free of any thoughts of self preservation.
It was almost disappointing when the Halberd beam's countdown began. Leslie could only stare at the tiny counter; barely included with the many features of the holo-display as she realized what she had just done.
Allen Tiber-the Centaur's quasi mascot- was today just a face in the crowd, passively watching every sway of the pirate vessel from the large window of the common room. Not two minutes ago, he and the other crew of the Centaur had heard their employer call for the arming of one of the ship's many prototype guns. Allen had chalked it up to the side effect of hearing receptor damage and continued to watch in quiet despair the U-shaped vessel.
The massive gun that un-sheathed itself into view could not be as easily reasoned away however. From his perspective the gun was almost twice the size the massive mining frigate.
A second later Allen felt his gyroscopes churn as the pirate ship disappeared from view. With only one of his three brains, Allen knew that it was the centaur who had moved and that was now most likely aiming its massive weapon directly at the other ship.
A short period of darkness followed as something briefly obscured the light from the hallway. Leslie barely managing to avoid tripping over the entangled mess of wires as she hurriedly trekked the few feet required to establish line of sight with the hallway.
She bit down on her lip as she watched Captain Jared stroll past her department.
Before she could stammer out an apology, the Captain yelled out three words that would forever change the way Leslie would view him.
"Battle stations, everyone!"
The familiar beep of a hail rang out just before the captain disappeared into the communications room.
Leslie could only hope that the "Halberd Beam" was anywhere as powerful as she imagined.
The hail was manually accepted this time. The image of a badly scarred man barely had time to materialize onto the comm-display before his voice became audible.
"You don't look like a half breed to me. So I got gotta ask what kind of retard are you?"
Jared pretended to give his question some thought before replying in a sarcastic tone.
"I don't know, but you sure look like you have some kinda disorder. Maybe it is I who should ask what kind of retard you are for warping into. A quantum minefield."
The pirate immediately started laughing, the two other pirates behind him; a Mantis and Engi, performed their equivalent processes.
"Rip-Face! Fire the Mark ones!"
The pirate unnecessarily shouted. The mantis in the background suddenly began sprinting, presumably to the weapon's station.
"Damn it you fucks! Get to back to your stations!"
And the remaining Engi jogged out of frame.
"And you.."
The pirate re-focused his eyes onto Jared.
"...You're about to learn what happens when you make me laugh."
"Jokes on you. I love a good education."
Jared had chosen to play the role of a carefree man. He could only hope that the pirate didn't scrutinize his acting abilities too much.
Jared had tried his best to sustain eye contact, but after almost a minute he had no doubt that the pirate had seen his eyes stray away from the comm-display a good few times now.
"What are you looking at?"
It was now pointless to pretend now. Jared shrugged as his eyes shifted to get a better look at the sensor display. The pirate looked on in amusement as he stared at the mysterious blue glow on Jared's face.
"A horse."
"Heh, what?...I just thought you might be looking at Mr fuck face over here..."
Jared's smirk instantly faded. Turning his attention back to the comm-display, he could see the scarred man looking off into a glow of his own.
That was impossible, Jared thought. The ship had no sensors, he had checked it himself. The scarred man turned to face Jared when he was sure he had his attention. A holo-screen in his hands.
Jared stared at the life form scanner. The display had some latency issues but from it Jared could clearly see that even the slightest detail of his smirk was replicated in the display.
The digital simulation that was Jared, soon lost its smirk as its dead eyes darted towards something in the void around it. Jared now had some idea of how unhinged he looked.
The only other thing his eyes found more morbidly interesting was the girl in the transporter room, seemingly ready to pounce into the transporter pod.
"...what do we have here. She didn't forget how to use a transporter did she? After all those years..."
The scarred man stared genuinely confused at the scanner. Jared had no time to discern the man's reaction as his head swiveled to meet the sensor-display. His heart sank as the movements at the edge of his vision were confirmed to be what they had seemed.
The Mantis had made it to the weapon's console. In his shock, Jared though he saw the Mantis wink at him through the display before firing the MK I.
"Allen! Jun! Shots incoming!"
Allen nodded solemnly as he stood by the engine control display. Jun had barely made it to the cockpit when Jared's warning traveled down the hallway. He stopped briefly to face the direction the voice had come from, swiveling his head 180 degrees, the entrance to the cockpit lay mere feet away.
His features contracted.
Jared's eyes shut in anticipation, the behaviour more of a habit than anything. He knew that if only one of those two shots found their target, he would not even have time to shoot his eyes open before space would consume him.
Jared decided last minute that he would die the way his father had-his eyes shot opened-instead he managed to catch a glimpse of the second and final plasma bolt before it dashed past the window.
"You ready to quit boy?"
The irony of calling a fifty year old man "boy" was lost on either of them. Jared, because he was too busy reciting a prayer in his head. It took a while, but the scarred man's question and Jared's plan was put in motion all in a single sentence.
" .yet...AHHH!"
The pirate clutched his ears in pain, the man's face was then replaced with a view of a ceiling definitely much cleaner than that of the Centaur. Jared ignored the man's screams as he watched the sensor intently.
He had given the signal, all that was left was to wait for the memento to materialize. It eventually did even if it wasn't how he had expected.
The Engi reacted instantly extending a stun baton from a tiny cube in its hand and frying Marry into unconsciousness. Jared finally understood its previously strange posture, it had been preparing for a boarding party though he could tell it wasn't expecting Marry. Jared watch as the Engi approached the incapacitated girl gingerly as if afraid his mere movements would hurt her any futher. Its posture changed again as it got close enough to see the crystaline necklace around Marry's neck. Going through its memory faster than any human could hope to, the Engi began a sprint out of the room. But it was too slow.
The explosion engulfed it and the entire room before the Engi could doing anything other than turn away from it. When the flames had died down, the originally blue room was now a shiny bright red.
"Hoot?!"
A familiar female voice interrupted Jared's grim thoughts.
"What?"
He called out instinctively. Passively wishing the ship had a viable PA system.
"We have a shot, should we take it?!"
Jared answered with the nod of his head. Somehow that was enough.
Red consumed everything outside Jared's view port. When it had faded, only a red particle trail leading from the Halberd beam to the mining vessel was evidence that it had even been there.
At first glance the mining ship seemed unscathed but it only took a rudimentary sensor far beneath the one Jared had to see that it was anything but unscathed.
The plasma had phased through the ship's hull, melting most of the systems inside and leaving a vicious fire tearing through the ship. Jared knew how inappropriate it was, but he couldn't help but smile at the sight of this.
The remaining crew of the mining vessel sprinted rounds across the sensor-display, in a silent display for their only spectator. Somewhere along the way the scarred man had halted his screaming.
Jared welcomed it at first, but as with most things today things were about to change. Jared could only clasp his hands together and pray for something to jump out from the screen and attack him. Instead he was left with the un-explainable sinking feeling of dread.
This feeling showed on his face even as he watched the scarred man put his hands up in defeat and walked away from the fire he had been trying to put out, usually the only time in combat where it would be appropriate to smile.
Jared watched with a grimace as the man walked to the end of the room, where he picked up some device off the floor.
The face of a bitter man with a lot of scars and facial deformities burned its way into Jared's mind.
"Boo"
The man said with a tangible hatred in his voice. Jared stared at the pirate and the pirate stared into him. Both of them finding something vaguely interesting in the face of the other.
"You're very sad for someone who just won...you feel bad for cutting my ship in half?"
"I'm not sad...but if you're offering up surrender than you will be something akin to sad."
Jared only knew Marry for two days, still he would not wish for her or any sacrifice to result in a mere ceasefire. There was to be blood, more than there already was.
The man scoffed as he sat on the floor. The device still projecting his face onto Jared's comm-display, though the pirate had shifted his gaze away from him. For a few moments Jared was sure that the man was viewing his own ace in the sleeve just as he himself had done.
It didn't take long for Jared to realize that he was looking at nothing at all, regret showed clearly on his face as the man thought deeply about something.
"Ee Kai Ee Sui"
He mumbled.
"What is that?"
Jared fianlly regained the man's attention.
"Can I talk to my daughter?"
Jared's first instinct was to accuse the man of lying. But at the back of his mind he knew the man wasn't, in a way he had always known.
The puzzle had been completed, leaving Jared with only the ugly portrait of himself.
"Can you at least tell me what you are planning to do with her?"
He had found her in the galactic equivalent of a supermarket. Why did he think she was a slave?
"...she won't work as a slave...she has a mental condition you see..please..she's just a girl..you can't..."
The pirate's begging finally drew the dead eyes of Jared onto him. With his lizard brain having taken over, it was now well within Jared's means to inform an already grieving father of what had become of his daughter. Jared made the mistake of delaying when he saw the desperate features of the man.
Seeing Jared's "cold look" for the first time, a simmer of hope entered his mind as the man mistook Jared's expression to be one of confusion.
"...you're not a bad guy. They only want me, right?..once you get the money. You can drop Marry off at her home system...here i'll send you the co-ordinates.."
An unmistakable smile stretched across the man's face, a few numbers hopped up onto Jared's holo-display.
"You won't regret it-"
"Your daughter is dead."
The man's face shot back to one of worry as he saw Jared's words as a challenge to overcome.
"No no no. You don't have to kill her...she won't-"
"If it were up to me she wouldn't be dead. But she is."
Jared found himself unable to stop his lizard brain as it pulled the sensor display into view.
Though the man remained silent Jared could tell that he was grieving in his own way. It felt like hours passed this way. Jared's hope that the man would break the silence himself after seeing the multiple fires on his ship was eventually quashed.
"I'm sorry..."
The man didn't show even the slightest sign that he had heard him.
"..If you want I can get you aboard the Centaur..we can drop you off at the nearest depot..Mr?..."
"None of it matters."
Jared didn't realize it was a man that had said that initially. Its demeanor and tone had suggested the voice of an Engi.
But it was the man who had said it. He stood up soon after, walking out from the view of the comm-display frighteningly casually. The rest of his journey was visible on the sensor display.
The blip representing the man, stopped as it entered the door way to the weapon's department. A Mantis was inside, frantically tapping on the trigger of an anti-fire canister with an appendage and aiming its nozzle with the other.
The fire he was aiming at showed no sign of dying.
The mantis made quick turns to address the man, not allowing its eyes to leave the fire for more than a second. It occasionally gesturing to a canister like its own at the other end of the room. The scarred man didn't respond in any visible way, he continued to stand in the doorway watching the Mantis.
His peculiar behaviour did eventually take president over the fire and the mantis found itself turning to face the man.
Without a visible warning, the man drew a plasma pistol from his holster and in an instant the mantis had slumped to the ground. Jared could see it a lot better now that it was prone.
In particular he could see the massive hole in its head. Despite the high resolution of the Mantis corpse, it was that blurry dot of a man that had Jared's undivided attention.
Was that a gun pushed against his temple? Jared blinked and the silent movie was over.