The nice thing about being dismissed immediately
after sex was that I rather liked sleeping in my own bed. I was willing to fuck Rikard, but I was glad I didn't have to fake any post-coital intimacy with him.
Despite not getting back to my room until far too
late, I slept well. I felt good. We'd made it out of port without any trouble. Maybe Rikard had been right after all.
I'd had extra men on duty through the night,
although what exactly they would have done if the pirates had pursued us, even I didn't know. Now those four men were sleeping, and the crew would be back to two-man rotations. The farther away we distanced ourselves from Roland, the more relaxed they'd all become.
Days en route were long and tedious. On such a
small ship, there wasn't much to be done. Some men read.
Some filled their free time with exercise. But no matter what, things always became tense after a few days. I often thought the crew would be better off if they'd simply shed their clothes and enjoy a good old-fashioned fuck, but they never did. As far as I'd been able to determine, none of the men on this particular trip were willing to fool around with another man, even if it was the only thing on board worth doing. By the time we reached our destination the entire lot
of them would be unbearable. The whores on Belhah would end up bearing the brunt of the men's frustrations. I hoped they charged well for their services.
Rikard didn't insist on sex that night and instead
dismissed me immediately after dinner. He was clearly bored with me and anxious to find somebody new to
entertain him on Belhah. I was too relieved to be offended.
I went to the exercise bay and pushed myself long and hard.
When I finally returned to my quarters, I fell into bed, too exhausted even to indulge myself with what lay hidden behind my dresser-drawer. I fell sound asleep.
I woke to men shouting, seemingly just down the
hall from my room. I couldn't make out their words, but there was no missing their urgency. Men yelling wasn't necessarily indication of a problem—more than likely, it was simply two men having a disagreement, as often
happened when we were locked together in such tight quarters for any amount of time.
I was halfway into my pants when the alarm went
off, a loud, blaring horn that caused me to clamp my hands over my ears. Still barefoot, wearing only my uniform pants, I stumbled into the hallway and turned toward the commotion at the end of the hall.
Pirates!
I had only a moment to see it all: Rikard, fully
dressed and blindfolded, with his hands tied behind his back, and the pirates with their loose silk shirts and their bright, spiked hair. They were all wearing wrap-around mirrored shades over their eyes, and I had just enough time to realize what that meant, but not enough time to do anything about it before the flashgun blinded me.
Flashguns were a favorite weapon of pirates—they
blinded the victim, but not permanently. With laser treatment, eyesight could be restored almost immediately.
Without treatment, eyesight would generally return in four to six weeks. It incapacitated without lowering the trade value of the commodity. Even knowing it was coming, the sudden loss of sight was unbelievably disorienting. I stumbled and fell into the wall. I had to use it to hold me up. I kept blinking—some part of my brain seemed to think it would help.
The blaring alarm stopped, leaving my ears ringing.
"Is he the last?" one of the pirates asked.
"According to our intel, yes. Good idea, pulling the alarm."
They'd already taken all of the men on the ship
without setting off any alarms? How was that possible?
I had my bearings back now. I pushed away from
the wall, moving to the middle of the hallway to give myself room to fight them. They'd already taken all of my
men, but they weren't going to take me so easily. The fact that none of them were behind me would make it easier.
I could hear their footsteps as they came for me.
There were two of them.
"No point in fighting," one of them said.
Nice of him to speak up so I knew where to direct
my attack.
I hit him with a solid kick to the face. I felt his nose break under my bare heel—my hand-to-hand instructor from years ago would have been proud. Predictably, the other one grabbed me from behind. It was easy enough to flip him forward over my shoulder. I drove a punch down into him. I missed his nose. It felt like I hit closer to his temple instead, but it was enough that he cursed.
Of course, the rest of them had figured out I wasn't going as easily as they'd hoped, and they jumped me all at once. I fought them as well as I could, and I was pretty sure a few of them took elbows to the face, but I couldn't see, and they had me vastly outnumbered, so it ended the way we all knew it would: with me pinned to the ground.
"Son-of-a-bitch broke my nose!" one of them said, his voice muffled, probably by his hands.
Another laughed. A couple of the others were still
moaning and cursing. The pirates wrenched my arms
behind my back and tied my wrists before yanking me to
my feet.
"You done fighting?" one asked, obviously amused.
Any sense of direction I'd had after being blinded
had been lost during the fight. I couldn't see. My arms were tied.
I knew when I was beat. "Yes," I told him. For now, at least.
"Good," he said. He took my arm and began leading me down the hallway. "I've never had a blind man cause so much trouble."
Still with the amusement. I wished he were angry.
"I suppose that will teach them to assume too
much," he continued.
"I wasn't trained to quit."
"None of your men fought like you."
"Fucking bastards!" I wasn't sure if I meant him or my waste of a crew.
He apparently assumed I meant his band of pirates.
He laughed. "Yes, I suppose we are."
"How did you get past the lock code?" I asked.
"You'd have to ask Captain Yima."
The truth was, I didn't need to ask Captain Yima. I already knew. Somebody had given them the code. There was no other way they could have gained access to our ship so quickly and so quietly. The question was, who? Which
one of my men had betrayed us?
Our ship was small. Even blind, I recognized our
route. He led me to the airlock, which meant he was taking me to his ship. I heard the door close behind us, then a wave of cool air washed over me as the door in front of us opened. It smelled awful, like some kind of feces, and I winced.
"Sorry about that," he said as he led me across a large, echoing chamber. "Our last job was transporting a herd of sheep. I'm not sure we'll ever get rid of the smell."
I didn't answer.
"You're Captain Kelley, are you not?" he asked. He was shorter than me by an inch or two—I could tell by the direction of his voice. "I thought so," he said when I didn't respond. "Rather young to be a captain, aren't you?"
Yes, but I wasn't about to confess anything to him.
"You can obviously fight," he said. "Is that why they promoted you so young?"
Again, I chose to remain silent.
"Leadership can be a burden. Especially at such a young age."
"What would you know about it?"
"Quite a bit, actually," he said, and I could tell he was amused again.
We stopped. I heard a door open in front of me and
he led me inside. Only two steps though, and we stopped again. The door closed behind me. The sheep smell wasn't nearly as strong in this room. I didn't realize we were in a lift until it began to move. The sudden motion caused my knees to wobble. It felt like we were going down, but I couldn't be sure. I braced myself against the wall and attempted to look less concerned than I really was.
"Tell me Captain Kelley, are you by any chance ganymede?"
The question caught me completely off-guard, first
because the term wasn't often used, but also because there was only one reason he'd be asking if my sexual preference was for other men. My heart began to pound with fear at the implications. My mouth went dry. I wanted to open my mouth and say no, that I liked women, but it was too late.
Whatever he'd seen on my face was all the answer he needed.
He made a low sound, almost like a growl. "That's the best news I've heard all week." I felt his hand land on my elbow. It began to move slowly up my arm.
"Don't touch me," I said through clenched teeth, although we both knew the threat was meaningless. My hands were bound. I was blind. What was to stop him?
"Relax," he said. "I won't hurt you."
It wasn't exactly being hurt that I was worried
about.
"Your stay with us doesn't have to be unpleasant."
"Fuck you!" Not my wittiest comeback, but about the only thing I could think of.
"You have no idea how tempting that offer is."
He let go of my arm. I jumped as his finger landed
on my collar bone instead. It began to trail slowly down my chest. I tried to move away, but I was backed against the wall of the lift with nowhere to go. It was a infuriating, knowing I had no way to stop him from touching me, and knowing that at some point, my body was bound to respond to him, whether I wanted it to or not. The flesh was weak.
Hadn't Rikard proven that me over and over again?
"I have to tell you, Captain Kelley, I find you…
intriguing."
"The interest isn't mutual."
He laughed again. His fingers reached the buckle on my pants and stopped. "I suggest you think of this little delay as something of a vacation. We could have some fun while you're on board."
The lift finally came to a stop and the door hissed open. I was relieved when he took his hand away from my pants and took my arm again.
"Think about it," he said as he began to lead me…
somewhere.
"Not a chance in hell," I said. Again, not exactly witty, but the only thing my mind seemed able to produce.
He sighed, sounding genuinely disappointed. "Suit yourself." We stopped again, and a door in front of us opened. The air that washed over us was warm and smelled of antiseptic. "Here we are," he said. "Your temporary home."