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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