by wkirk | Feb 24, 2020
Now breaking ties with him would be ten times more difficult. Kaau li swallowed the lump in her throat and sat up straighter. “Kaur, what happens when you grow tired of me?”
He shifted in his seat, puzzlement on his face. “Tired of you? Why would I do that, Kali?”
“It’s happened before.”
Kaur made a dismissive gesture and leaned back in his seat. “Those other women weren’t like you.”
“How so?”
“They didn’t have your forthrightness. Your honesty. All of them wanted something from me. You never request anything.”
Kaau li’s situation was not improving with the conversation.
Just then, Kaur’s comm beeped. He picked it up from a side table and looked at it. Whatever he was reading wasn’t good news because a scowl creased his face and his eyes darkened. He stood, tossing the handset back to the table.
“Wait here,” he growled out.
Surprised, Kaau li did no more than murmur an assent as he stalked out of the room. The hatch door banged shut behind him.
She listened intently, waiting to hear the click of a lock being bolted. But it never came. Despite Kaur’s absence, Kaau li did not relax. The fire crackled menacingly in the fireplace, blazing up as if it planned on jumping out of the grate.
Startled, she turned to look at it, but the flames receded on their own. A draft must have fanned them.
Her gaze fell on Kaur’s abandoned handset, and she fiddled with the edge of her cloak. The device would have a map of the Star Wraith. It could even give her directions to leave.
An overwhelming desire to run away washed over Kaau li. The pirate was gone. Now was her chance. Of course, answering his summons at all had been foolish. She had been foolish. Kaur wanted her to stay. She should have anticipated that, knew it could be a possibility. But she couldn’t stay, especially not now.
Kaau li swallowed and looked away from the handset as if turning away from temptation.
If she grabbed it, she could use it to get back to her ship. It was a long trek, but if she left now, maybe she’d have a head start.
No. The ship had security cameras. He would find her within seconds of her leaving.
So she would bide her time. Take the handset now and wait until later, when he was sleeping, maybe.
Her eyes shot back to the handset. It held her gaze, its image burning into her retinas like a bright star. Kaau li’s hand twitched, like her fingers were working of their own accord. Quickly, she pulled her hand back into the folds of her cloak. Stealing his handset would be suicide if she were caught with it.
But what if she needed to leave and she didn’t have it?
She would be trapped.
The thought made Kaau li’s throat close up. Faced with the choice of dying while trying to escape or living on the Wraith forever, she preferred dying.
With a pang of guilt, she cursed herself. If she died, so would the child. And then her brother was waiting for her on the Inimical. If she was killed trying to escape, he could be killed, too. Kaur would never let him leave.
But if Kaau li didn’t get the handset now, she may never get another chance. Just as she was about to reach for it, she spotted the service bot in the dark corner of the room. She balled her cloak in her fists, and her skin felt clammy. She had forgotten the bot.
Even if it looked disinterested, it was certainly watching her.
Would it stop her? Or would it simply report to Kaur when he returned? Either way, she couldn’t risk it seeing what she was doing.
“Could I have some water?”
The bot turned its expressionless eyes on her. “My master has commanded that I stay here.”
“I’m not asking you to go anywhere. I’m asking you for water.”
The bot looked down at the steaming drink on its tray and then back at her, as if contemplating how to fulfill her request without disobeying its master. Its protocols should not have been that simple, but perhaps it possessed older technology.
“Isn’t there a lav somewhere close?” she asked. “A sip of water is all I require.”
The expressionless bot rolled forward toward a smaller door Kaau li had barely noticed earlier. Unlocking it required the bot to take its attention away from her for a moment, and she seized her opportunity to snatch the handset off the table and stuff it under her cloak. She settled back into her seat as the robot went into the lav and came back out with a cup of water sitting next to the amber drink it had offered her earlier. Kaau li took it gratefully. The water tasted of metal, but it was cold and wet, and not whatever horrible drink Kaur had expected her to enjoy.
The service bot returned to its corner, resuming its quiet watching of the room. Had it seen her steal the handset? Kaau li resisted the urge to stare at it. There was no point in looking suspicious. As she drank, she quietly worked the handset into a pocket inside the lining of her cloak.
Feeling relieved and exhilarated, Kaau li sat back and finished her water. But after a few moments, the small adrenaline rush ebbed away, leaving her more fearful than before. She had to ensure Kaur never found the device on her, or she would die.
by wkirk | Feb 21, 2020
Kaau li allowed him to lead her because she had no power to resist, nor had she anywhere to go if she had.
They stepped into a warm, luxurious room that she had never entered before. And a real fireplace with a hot fire blazing inside graced the center of the room, casting flickering light all around. The stone chimney towered up into the ceiling, disappearing into what must have been the deck above. Kaau li wondered if the smoke were vented into the brig, to suffocate Kaur’s prisoners.
She shook her head. No need to keep thinking such thoughts. They wouldn’t do her any good.
The room’s metal walls were disguised with tapestries, and the furnishings looked like real wood from Old Earth. How or where he’d got them was anyone’s guess.
One of the tapestries caught her eye. It depicted a space battle at the top, with armored soldiers charging each other in front of a smoking ship below. Many had already died grisly deaths, their bodies headless or limbless. Dark red blood splattered the tapestry, pooled under the bodies. It looked suspiciously real. Kaau li shuddered and turned away.
Kaur was watching her. He always watched her. “You haven’t said anything,” he remarked. “Drink?”
He swept his hand toward a service bot standing in a dark corner. It rolled forward, its smooth face expressionless and uncaring, and offered her a drink from the tray in its hands. The amber liquid in the cup steamed like it was on fire, but it wasn’t. It smelled sweet and almost made her gag. Although service bots were common throughout the galaxy, this one, like the cyborgs, only reinforced Kaur’s image as a cold, heartless man.
Kaau li’s throat was parched, but she shook her head politely.
With a scowl, Kaur moved toward her and put a hand on her shoulder. “What’s the matter, my Kali? Did any of my crew bother you?”
She did her best to smile through her fear, but her heart was pounding so loudly she knew it would give her away. “No, Kaur. No one bothered me.”
Kaur’s eyes searched hers, looking for the truth. Kaau li held his gaze, aware that not many people were ever invited to do so. He pulled her forward, leaning in for a kiss. She didn’t protest, tried to make hers seem genuine. After all, if her plan were to work, he couldn’t feel rejected.
Kaau li must have been a better actor than she thought, because when Kaur pulled away, he smiled. “Is your crew docked, or did they drop you off?”
“They are docked.”
“Invite them aboard.”
Pushing aside her fear, Kaau li smiled, slipping into an easy familiarity with him. Time to execute her plan. “Are you trying to recruit my crew?”
“Perhaps I am. I could give them positions, rank. They are more than capable.”
“Yes, I know. I hired them, remember?” Kaau li smirked at him and moved to sit in a chair, pretending to be tired. She was tired, actually—her heightened state of awareness and her anxiety were causing an exhaustion all their own.
“That’s not a yes,” he said, frowning. He snapped his fingers, and the robot rolled forward again. He took the steaming drink that Kaau li had rejected.
“As I have told you many times, my love, we work best when we don’t have to work together.”
“Is it the Wraith? I agree it’s depressing inside. That could be fixed.”
“All for me?”
Kaur set down his drink and leaned forward. “If you will stay this time.”
Kaau li’s heart pounded in her chest, and she silently cursed herself. He wanted her to stay.
by wkirk | Feb 17, 2020
Kaau li marched along the dark, metallic corridor, keeping an eye on the cyborgs flanking her. They looked neither right nor left as they led her deeper into the dank, musty halls of the ship. They wanted her to think she was in control, that they were there for her protection only, but Kaau li knew better.
If she had wanted to explore, to go through a hatch, or turn down a different corridor, they would stop her.
Kaau li paused at an intersection. A box-shaped drone buzzed past, hovering above her head like a giant fly without wings. She watched it turn a corner farther down, on its own mission through the labyrinth.
“Either one of you gentlemen ever get lost in here?” she asked. At least, she thought the cyborgs were men. With all the cybernetics sticking out of their bodies, their skin peeled away to reveal metal and circuits beneath, Kaau li thought their general profiles were still male.
Neither answered. Maybe Pirate Kaur had ordered them to remain silent in her presence. Or maybe they had gone too far down the path of the robots, and they didn’t want to converse with a human.
“This is my fourth time in this maze,” she continued, “but still no one’s thought to give me a map.”
The joke fell flat as she said it, but she was nervous, and it helped to break the eerie silence in the corridor.
The cyborg to her right turned bland eyes on her. Kaau li thought she read a hint of confusion in his eyes, but it was hard to tell with the visible red implants inside them. With his half-metal, half-human body and the glowing red eyes, he looked like a demon from some robotic version of hell.
And he was creeping her out with that stare.
Not to be intimidated, Kaau li stared right back, determined she wouldn’t show fear.
No, that she wouldn’t be afraid.
Never mind that her sole purpose in returning to this creepy ship was to tell Kaur that they were finished.
A cold shiver ran up Kaau li’s spine. As far as she knew, no one had ever broken things off with the dreaded Pirate Kaur. A relationship wasn’t over until he said it was. And as far as she knew, he’d never ended one unless it involved the woman dying or disappearing.
But Kaau li had other things to worry about now. Someone other than herself. Her hand subconsciously went to her belly, which swelled gently beneath the fine dress and heavy cloak she wore. Right now, no one except the most observant person would even detect that she was pregnant.
The more pressing question was why Kaur had summoned Kaau li at all. She had visited his ship before, it was true. But always after meeting him somewhere else. He had never requested that she fly her own ship, the Inimical, to him. Refusing him had been out of the question. No one refused a summons from Pirate Kaur.
Although Kaau li had seriously considered it.
Feeling as if she’d done something wrong, she suppressed a shudder. Kaur had eyes and ears everywhere, which is why Kaau li had not told anyone about the baby at all.
But she couldn’t shake the feeling of being watched. She glanced at the cyborg to her left. Were the cameras in their eyes sending video feed straight to Kaur?
She swallowed the growing feeling that there was danger ahead. And the cold horror she felt whenever she had been on this ship. Kaur knowing about the baby would be impossible. She was overthinking things.
The Pirate King had always been observant, but Kaau li was not going to give him the chance to scrutinize her. He would not find out she was carrying his baby. To tell him would mean she would never leave this monstrous ship ever again. And her crew, standing by aboard the freighter Inimical, would never be able to infiltrate Kaur’s labyrinthine Star Wraith to rescue her.
Rumors abounded about the internal structure of the Wraith. Since few people outside Kaur’s loyal crew had ever seen the inside and lived to tell about it, Kaau li didn’t know what was true and what wasn’t.
But the prevailing theory was that Kaur had commissioned drastic changes to the ship as soon as he wrested control from his predecessor. Entire levels had been rearranged, the passageways turned into mazes, and the bones of the starship reinforced against a nuclear blast.
It was true that the ship was powered by a nuclear reactor, so that much made sense, but Kaau li had the impression that the reinforcements were to make the Wraith into a flying fortress, rather than a well-constructed starship.
If the Empire Triton’s military arm, Unity, ever wanted to “storm the castle,” they would not only have to contend with state-of-the-art weapons systems and heavy artillery, but also find their way through the mazes.
And getting lost wouldn’t be their worst fate. The mazes held some of the most brutal booby traps in the galaxy. Kaur had learned about them from the alien ships he had overrun and dismantled.
Another shiver ran up Kaau li’s spine, leaving goosebumps on her neck and arms. She pulled her cloak around her as if it would protect her. Kaur had no reason to keep the ship cold, other than he liked the idea of someone getting lost in the corridors and dying of hypothermia. Kaau li half-expected to encounter skeletons in the dark corners, torture implements hanging from the ceiling, and blood-stained walls.
But the dark corridors didn’t give up their secrets so easily.
Her sweaty palms wouldn’t hold still, so she gripped the cloak to steady them. Then, she tried to memorize their path through the ship, but after so many turns, she was hopelessly lost.
In a few minutes, she would find out how she would spend the rest of her life. Either Kaur would accept her decision, or he wouldn’t.
She was crazy to think he would.
As Kaau li fought the rising panic in her throat, the cyborgs herded her toward a hatch at the end of the corridor. It was an old-fashioned hatch with a real handle. No advanced motion-sensing doors here, lifted on hydraulics. The handle itself was a relic of ages past.
Before any of them could touch it, the door swung open. Kaau li thought she’d been mistaken about the motion-sensors until Kaur himself stepped out of the hatch with his hand on the inner handle.
He was as broad as ever, with powerful shoulders and arms that barely fit through the door. Originally, his physical presence had attracted Kaau li, until she found out who he was. The pirate king was so big that his combat armor had to be specially made. He wasn’t wearing his armor now, though, but a soft shirt and loose slacks. His dark hair was pulled back in a short ponytail, his dangerous eyes piercing into her.
With a slight wave of his hand, he dismissed the cyborgs. They turned back the way they had come, but Kaau li didn’t watch them go. Her eyes were on Kaur.
“Kali,” he whispered with a slight accent. It was his pet name for her.
Kaau li didn’t address him. Instead, she found herself rooted to the spot, her body going cold and hot all at the same time. A bead of sweat trickled down her back, like a finger drawn slowly down her spine. She’d rehearsed what to say for weeks. But now, standing in front of the most feared pirate in the known galaxy, she was too terrified to remember any of it.
A distant clang sounded from the depths of the ship. Aboard any other vessel, Kaau li would have dismissed it as a normal, mechanical occurrence. Aboard the Star Wraith, she couldn’t help but wonder if it were the sound of someone being beheaded or thrown out an airlock.
She should have run away from Kaur’s summons, should have done everything within her power to disappear before it came to this.
“You’re trembling,” Kaur said, taking her hand and pulling her through the hatch. His hand was calloused and strong, but gentle.
For now.
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~Wilhelmina
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