He cursed his lack of armor, his lack of connection to his ship. At the very least, he should have been wearing the tungsten-kevlar bodysuit. Without it, he had no access to the control modules he needed to in order to pilot Stranger with the precise ferocity he was known for.

The Hound opened a line of screens with a filter specifically designed for detecting ion trails. A long, pale green haze stretched behind them, glowing as far as the eye could see; that was their own path. Further out on their starboard side was an erratic thread that ended where it intersected with their trail a third time; this one belonged to the missile, and, if he could track it down, the position of their enemy. He was having a difficult time following its path, however, due to its jagged pattern and comparative dimness to the environmental interference. This field was not an accidental choice.

"Come on out, you bastards," he muttered, sight on every feed at once.

"I don't see anything," the little bird mewled from his right.

"Keep your eyes peeled. Could be they're using something to hide their heat signature."

"What should I look for?"

"Sudden, bright light. Anything moving strange—"

Another missile spiraled out of the darkness. He was prepared this time. It was with deliberate care that he made his evasions seem frantic and unschooled. The little bird made several unsuccessful attempts at shooting it down before he took control of the situation and gave the combat AI permission to dispatch the missile.

The comm system flashed. He patched through the communication request. A square containing a scrubby man, well into his 30's, with a peasant's wide, blocky face, popped up on the top-left corner of the HUD. The man grinned, revealing a patchwork of rotting teeth. "I hope ye liked my missiles, 'cuz ye'll be getting' a whole pack of them if ye don't hand over all yer valuables."

His lips curled upwards, fingers flying over the console. "I'll be damned if I give you anything but a quick death."

The man hooted. "With those kinds o' moves, ye'll be singin' a different song before long. Though it's hard to carry a tune if ye're hull's full o' holes. Gimmer yer gold an' yer girl."

He bared his teeth. "On second thought, I'll make it slow and painful."

"Don't say I didn't warn ye."

The link closed, and with it the hateful square. He gritted his teeth, as a flurry of missiles approached from the aft and port sides. The Hound dodged the projectiles easily and allowed Stranger to pick off most of them. With his left hand, he inputted certain scanning parameters into the console. This bandit was a stupid one for several reasons, the foremost being that he sent his target's ship a comm request, and comm requests could be tracked.

He spiraled beneath a pack of missiles as the CIU modified the scan to search for radio waves, rather than ion trails. "Come on out, you craven son of a whore."

The Hound danced his ship around the projectiles until the scan completed. "There you are. Little bird, lock on that ship and fire."

"How?"

"Triggers are on the other side of the joysticks."

She grasped the joysticks with trembling hands. Her eyes swam with uncertainty. He opened the throttle towards the enemy's squat Garron-class ship. Enormous heat sinks sat on either side of its engine, lending credence to his theory on shielding its heat signature. The ship hovered, unconcerned. Instinct tickled the back of his neck. Something wasn't right; this was too easy.

Just before they closed into laser-ranger, the HUD exploded with warning signals. "Shit," he snarled and jerked Stranger into a steep climb.

A swarm of missiles followed close on their tail. The HUD numbered them in the low twenties. An explosion rocked their aft end as the Courser's lasers took out a trio of missiles at the front of the pack. "I got one!" the little bird cried.

"Don't get cocky," he jolted the ship towards the port side, dodging a group that tried to strike the starboard-side thrusters.

"How many are on our tail now?" he growled to the combat AI.

Seventeen— now fifteen from the original cluster. Five more are closing in at 4 o' clock. Energy signature is different replied a cool voice that was Stranger, and yet not-Stranger.

"Gotta be at least three others. A Garron couldn't hold that many missiles by itself. Back-trace the radio signal, tag the whoresons and shoot them down when they get into missile range. Leave the leader for me."

Confirmed.

A red Garron-shaped nimbus surrounded two patches of what seemed to be ordinary space. Bastards cloaked their ships with adaptive-camo panels. A clever trick, but not clever enough. He veered towards one of the enemy ships, counting on the pilot's overestimation of his camouflage. The Hound executed a canopy roll, sending half of the heat-seeking pack colliding into the hull of the enemy ship. At the same time, Stranger launched a time-delayed sticky missile onto the ship's fuel port. When they were a safe distance away, the missile detonated, incinerating both ship and pilot in a grandiose explosion. Scratch one bogey.

He grinned as Stranger continued to pick off the projectiles with the little bird's occasional help. The craven bastards might be pissed because of their friend's sudden demise, but it was doubtful they would sacrifice their entire scheme just for revenge; like as not, they would continue trying to cripple his ship by damaging the thrusters. He, however, was not so limited in his tactics. His grin stretched wider.

The second ship had caught on far before they closed in. Just as Stranger released a volley of missiles towards its fuselage, the ship launched into a barrel roll in an attempt at evasion. He pushed the throttle forward and countered with his own roll, putting both ships into an unenviable rolling scissors maneuver. They weaved around each other in a mostly double-helix pattern, both ships fighting to wrest away an advantage. Neither could break the roll without giving that advantage to their enemy, nor could they just blast their way through it; given the manner in which they were rolling, it would be difficult for either a laser or missile to hit its target, and therefore would be a waste of ammunition.

In the end, Stranger was more agile, and therefore the victor. At the apex of a helix, he found an opening and fired with both missile and laser, beating a mortal hole in the ship's fuselage. One target remaining Stranger intoned as the ship's guts spilled out into the vacuum of space.

The leader of the pathetic bunch was trying desperately to flee the battle. His egress was hindered by the massive heat sinks he had added to his ship; in return for all but dispelling his heat signature, the ratio of weight between the heat sinks and the engine had severely dampened the Garron's speed and agility. Stranger made short work of the man's thrusters with a quartet of small missiles, rendering the ship lame. Another thought prompted a well-placed series of lasers. A chime from the HUD showed a communication's request from the enemy ship. He reopened their comm link, spurring the return of the bandit's square on the HUD, though the man was looked intensely disturbed at how the odds had changed. He relished the look of fright on the man's face as he beheld the glimmer of bared teeth on the Hound's burnt face. "Listen, I know we didn't start out—"

"You hear that hissing noise?"

"Yes…"

"Well, I'm not singing and that noise says that you've started dying. Funny how that works."

The man's face fell. "Mercy! Oh gods, mercy!"

"I don't think so," he terminated the transmission.

"What's that mist coming out of his ship?" The little bird asked, her face unusually pale.

"Mixture of O2 from his scrubbers and liquid coolant from the engine turning into gas. Same thing will happen to him soon if he's unlucky," he chuckled.

"What do you mean?"

"Never seen a man exposed to the vacuum, have you? If he doesn't die from the lack of oxygen first, the absence of pressure will make his blood start to boil in his veins. His organs will liquefy and leak out of his orifices."

"That's horrible!" she cried, her nose crinkled in disgust.

"Aye. No less horrible than what he was planning."

She focused on the gunner's station before her, eyebrows drawn in concentration. "You should just finish it," she said quietly.

His grin subsided into a scowl. "And why, pray tell, would I do that?"

"If that's a coolant leak, won't the engines overheat before he runs out of air? That would defeat the purpose." She mumbled, as if unsure.

"So the little bird studies for a few days and decides that she knows all about practicality. All right. The fucker will get his mercy." He loomed behind her. "But you're going to give it to him. What was that your father used to say about the man passing the sentence?"

"'The man who passes the sentence should swing the sword'." Her hands trembled on the console as she recited the words.

"Get on with it then."

"I—I don't want to…"

"That waste of carbon was going to board this ship, wipe out Stranger, and rape you nine ways to Riverrun. You think he deserves your pity? Piss on that. Kill him. Kill him or let him suffer."

"But what if I try and—"

"There's no try. Either do it or don't." His temper flared.

"I can't just—" she stammered, looking left and right for a way, a path, something, anything to let her out. "What if—"

"Do it."

"No, I—"

"Do it."

"I can't—"

"Fucking do it, Sansa!"

"I won't! You can't make me!" She wailed and buried her face in her hands.

With his left hand, he gripped the joystick that controlled the lasers; the right he used to reach around, bat away her hands and lift her chin. "Look."

She quivered between his arms. Her eyes were dark with suppressed horror when they met his, and then focused on the gunning station.

He slowly lifted the crosshairs within the targeting reticle until they lined up with the spot he was searching for. He squeezed the trigger, sending out a beam of destructive light screaming across space into the enemy ship. A conflagration boomed outward as the ship's reactor was destroyed. He did not release her chin until the explosion died down, and placed his right hand on the back of the gunner's. "That's the heart of any ship. You want to end things quickly, aim for the heart," he rasped above her ear before returning to his place.

She continued to shiver intermittently in her seat. To his surprise, she managed to keep what tears had welled up in her eyes from falling by biting into her bottom lip. The white of her incisors gleamed from between her pressure-reddened flesh. A twist of sick pride curled up his sternum as he brought the CIU's AI back into consciousness and put the combat AI into a shallow hibernation. "How was your nap, you lazy bastard?"

Dry response: quite refreshing, captain. You should try one sometime.

"I'll consider it. Kick on the hyperdrive and put us back on target."

Command denied.

"What the fuck?"

It seems the fin retraction system was damaged in the melee. The hyperdrive will not function properly— and that is to say, not at all— until it is repaired.

"Son of a bitch!" He slammed his fists onto the console. "Find some place to land."

Luckily there is a suitable planet approximately thirty-four minutes away. It was a minor lord's terraforming project, though it seems to have been largely abandoned from the dearth of CO2 output. One can assume that is due to the war.

"Enough of the history lesson. Just land. Somewhere close to water. Seven buggering hells…"

They broke through the planet's atmosphere in a vibrant streak of flaming cerise on black. Beneath, an entire colony of short, scrubby grass bordered a stretch of hard-packed clay. A cloud of burnt orange dust was kicked up, just as the grass was trampled under the Courser's heavy landing gear. There were but two witnesses to the intrusion: just a hundred yards away was a small brook with a wealth of rushes and cattails sprouting from its banks; beyond that, were the beginnings of a wood due west of their landing, as shown by its spattering of young trees.

The gangplank descended in a gasp of release from Stranger's underbelly. Down its metal steps trudged the Hound in his light armor, the yellow glass eyes of his helm flashing beneath its contorted brow. The helm filtered the air he breathed, though it was unnecessary given that the atmosphere was the first thing to be normalized during terraforming.

He surveyed the area, flipping through the helmet's different filters of vision. What wildlife was in the area had retreated far away from the ship; he could trace their flight by the splotches of yellow heat upon a cool blue earth shown through the infrared filter. With his longsword in hand, and the vibraknife at his hip, he spent nearly an hour circling the perimeter. His gauntlets scanned the environment as he went, sending the information back to Stranger for processing as he went.

I do not detect any anomalies, captain. It would probably be safe to return and begin repairs. Stranger buzzed in a tinny voice from his left wrist after he had walked a good ways up and down the brook.

"I'm coming back then."

Confirmed.

He watched as a pair of water fowl landed downstream. "Stranger."

Query: how may I serve?

"What's the girl doing?"

Response: Lady Stark is playing her lute currently. I do not recognize the piece as any that is in my database.

"No, you wouldn't."

Query: may I ask for clarification?

"Permission denied. Let me know when she's done," he headed further upstream, following the brook's path towards the woods.

Affirmative.

An hour later, he returned to the ship sweaty and stinking of nature. Ropes of sweaty hair stuck to his neck and face when he pulled off his helm. He tossed the snarling dog's head on top of a counter in the cargo hold, then stripped off the remaining bits of his armor. While he hated to be vulnerable, doing mechanical work in full armor was an absolute bitch of an experience that he did not care to repeat unless absolutely necessary. Given the poor state of the bandits' ships and tactics, he could safely assume that they were not operating within some larger, more organized group.

The little bird touched the strings of the lute ever so delicately, leaving only the faintest whisper of music in the air while he changed into the shabbiest set of clothing he owned. Every now and again, he would hear a begrudged sniffle. His chest wrenched at the sound. You fucked up, dog. All you know how to do is fuck up. He yanked an oil-stained tunic over his head. A moment's thought had him stripping the sheets off the bed, leaving it bare but for the blanket and naked pillows. He rolled the bedding into a crude bundle as he entered the cargo hold, then dumped the bedding and a few other items into a small, steel tub.

The little bird did not greet him when he entered the cockpit, though she had already placed the lute in the corner closest to her. He dropped the tub at her feet. She picked up a long waxy bar and inspected it. "What is this for?"

"Washing things, generally," he replied sarcastically. "I imagine little birds don't appreciate sleeping in dog filth."

Her eyes sparked for a brief moment; had he not been watching her so intently, he might have missed it. "And this is what you would have me do," she stated tonelessly.

He ignored her apparent outrage at being asked to do servant's work, and instead removed the vibraknife and its sheath from his belt. He offered it to her, hilt first. "I don't care what you do. Be back in an hour."

She looked at the weapon, her expression that of distrust and puzzlement. "Surely you jest."

His eyes narrowed. "Do I have a reputation for making jokes?"

Her desire for freedom trumped her apprehension; she took the vibraknife and belted it to her waist. "Don't go into the woods, don't chase after anything, and under no circumstances are you to take off that suit," he rasped.

Her distrust turned into thinly veiled defiance. "Why not?"

"It lets Stranger know where you are, stupid bird," he snarled. "Now go on."

She placed both the soap and her lute into the tub before heading towards the gangplank. Impulse made him call "Little bird."

She spun on her heel, sending her skirts and braids into a graceful arc. "Yes, my lord?"

"In, ah… In the fight…" He scrambled to find the words. Fuck. He needed a drink. Badly. "You did fine."

She started, making him feel more like an ass than he did when the damned words left his mouth. "I thank you, my lord," the little bird recovered by making a small curtsey before skating down the gangplank.

He sighed heavily. "All right Stranger, let's get to work."


Thank you all for taking the time to review. It is greatly appreciated and encouraged.

And a major thank you to Kashicanhaz for helping flesh things out.