📘The Star Pirate's Folly | 30: Steel
The Record is often touted as an objective, ironclad history of agreed-upon facts from a broad spectrum of individuals, events, and perspectives—but like any human system, it bends for the powerful.
This is Hanlon’s Reader, an independent author’s publication. Here you’ll find stories, books, essays, and other things. I’ll be tinkering away here for a while.
If you’re using a web browser to read, you can use these links to help find your way:
📗Short Stories | 📘Books | 📙Personal Essays | 💌Newsletter | ❓About | 🏡Home
App Users: the categorized Tag links above don’t work in-app, so you may find it easier to use the Content Calendar or direct links to story posts to navigate my publication.
Chapter 30: Steel
At a table in the kitchen, Myra sat her projection across from Bee as the girl devoured her meal of spice sausage buns and hash brown scramble. She’d tried to ease Bee into the rest of the tale a little at a time. First, her former life and her relationship with Victor. Not so hard a pill to swallow for Bee, it seemed.
Truly didn’t believe her at all when Myra had told him years before. He’d said if it could really be done then anyone who could afford to would do it. Myra told him he was exactly right. Many did—and she was far from the first reconstructed consciousness in the system. It was shortly after that conversation that Truly asked Victor to put him down in cryo when he wasn’t needed, just ferry him along inside Wanderlust and wake him for trouble.
Myra guessed she’d rattled him. Coming to terms with what he’d do, maybe, if he had the chance. Another life after his own? Some new kind of existence? He and the Captain had long conversations about it as time wore on, but Truly withdrew from Myra for a while after he found out.
He never quite felt comfortable with her presence the same way he did when she was just an artificial intelligence. They worked together as crewmates, but Truly kept his distance. As such, Bee’s reaction delighted Myra. The girl was fascinated; all during breakfast she kept gawking.
“Can you pick anything up?” Bee asked.
“Nope.” Myra reached out to grab Bee’s cup. As she tried to lift it her skin slipped along the length of the cup, unable to grip it between her fingers. “Hardlight can only exert enough force to provide haptic feedback—like when you press a button on one of my screens. Safety reasons.”
“Can you feel it?”
“Not in the way you do, but I suppose so. I know where I’m touching it.”
Bee pushed her empty plate aside and took Myra’s hand in both of her own, inspecting it.
“What happened to you?” she asked, looking into the projection’s eyes. “Why are you like this?”
There it was—that connection. Trust. Closeness. It didn’t matter that when Bee looked into the hologram’s eyes there was nothing really looking back—the illusion of humanity was all Myra needed. Human feedback, more than just the sound of her voice. Only so much could be communicated effectively without a body. Eye contact, body language—every detail mattered.
“We made it safely to a colony on one of Ymir’s moons,” Myra said. “The raiders were on their way and Victor knew we couldn't stand by and do nothing. At the time, Wanderlust was more transport than warship, but she was still armed. Victor convinced as many other civilian ships as he could to join him and intercepted the raiding parties before they got to Ymir.”
“Brave.”
“It was.” A sad smile touched Myra’s face. “He wouldn’t let me go with him. Thought I’d be safer with the rest on the moon. The pirates weren’t expecting a preemptive attack—at first things went well. But after Victor and his volunteers gained the upper hand, some of the pirates made a break for the moon base. If he’d tried to stop them, his little fleet would’ve crumbled. There were just too many. He couldn’t chase them without losing everything.”
“He had to choose,” Bee said.
“It was no choice, really. Victor managed to beat the main group of raiders, but it took hours. By the time they made it back to the moon base it was too late. We fought to the end with what we had, but it didn’t take long for them to… well, they killed all the men. Kept the women alive.”
Bee looked away and swallowed, swiped a tear from her cheek. “Oh, Myra.”
“Victor and the rest came back and retook the base. They found me and a few others barely alive, managed to get us stable in cryo pods. My injuries were fatal—they could only delay my death. So that’s what he did. Loaded me up on Wanderlust, kept me frozen for the next ten years. That’s how long it took him to kill Dreadstar.”
“I didn’t know that was why he did it,” Bee said. “That it was all for you. How did you end up the way you are now?”
“Before Dreadstar came, we were well off. Victor had his soldier’s pay and we made money from trade. After he brought down Dreadstar, his name carried real weight all across the system. Everything he had went to making me this way. It was a controversial process, outlawed even back then. Victor didn’t care. He’d seen it done before for others so he made it happen again.”
Bee frowned thoughtfully. “Is that why you aren’t on the Record?”
“That’s right,” Myra said. “Victor used his position after the war to wipe me from the Record entirely. Very few people know about my existence.”
Looking bewildered, Bee sat back in her seat. “I didn’t realize they could just… change it.”
“Victor knows you now. He trusts you. That’s why I’m telling you all of this—so you realize how much we all have in common.”
“Part of the crew,” Bee murmured.
“If we’re extremely lucky we’ll hit the right asteroid first,” Captain Anson said, gesturing at the projected map of the Luxar system in front of him and Silver. “Only a little lucky and it’s the second.”
The tumbling asteroid belt Styx took up the majority of the display, most of the rocks smaller than grains of sand at current scale. Like dust they hung there, swirling slow and gentle through space. Wanderlust sailed along into the belt, their course from Optima plotted as a thick white line. Their first destination glowed bright green along with another of its icy brothers near Optima.
“And if we aren’t lucky at all?” asked Silver.
“Then we’ll go after another one. And if we get nothing there, the next. Myra’s got a whole list of candidates for us. I made it clear when I offered you this position how committed I am to this, did I not?”
Silver grunted his agreement but scowled with displeasure at their plotted route. “Three empty rocks means up to a year out there without resupply. That’s a long float through hostile territory.”
“None of the three is actually any more likely than any other,” offered Myra’s voice from above. “These are just the three closest to us. There are other potentials scattered across the belt.”
“How many?” Silver asked. “Total.”
“Well, there were a lot of possibilities. After I decoded the map, I tried the coordinates. But they specify locations in space from the time the map was created. Cross-referencing available Record data with those locations gave me the names of any asteroids that passed near those coordinates during the time Dreadstar had control of the belt. These three stuck out from the rest. They’re all D-types like the ones in the comet cloud at the far edge of the system, whereas the rest of Styx is carbonaceous or metallic. They don’t belong.”
“So you’re guessing,” Bill said, deadpan.
“Well you have to understand—” Myra began, cut short when Bill wiped a hand down his face and groaned with exasperation. “Yes. More or less.”
“Captain,” he said, “what exactly do you think our chances are of making it through this without getting into any serious engagements?”
“Depends where Starhawk went after he left Surface,” Anson said. “I’m thinking since he got rid of his hostage he’s not interested in dealing with the Core anymore. He’ll stay clear of Optima. Trashed most of his fleet on Surface so if he’s planning on heading into the belt after us he’s gonna need fresh ships.”
“Plenty of Family territory to find new recruits in,” Silver mused, leaning over the projected map. “Donovan, Ocampo, some Lee. Myra, light them up?”
Dozens of asteroids on the inner fringe of the belt near Optima emitted a colored glow as Myra marked each Family’s territory—Donovan in blue, Ocampo in yellow, and Lee in red.
“This is just based on recent data,” Myra said. “Everything with a grain of salt. They’ve been shifting around a lot, using temporary outposts for raids.”
“Fat lot of good the Core Fleet did,” Silver said with a snort. “They’ve started up again already.”
Captain Anson frowned and peered across the map at his quartermaster. “You really think any of them would be willing to join up with Starhawk after how many of his men he threw at Surface?”
“You mean after he made a suicidal attack on the Core and somehow slipped away to tell the tale? Embarrassed and humiliated the most dominant military force in this system?” Silver gave a firm nod. “They’ll flock to him after this, I guarantee it. We’ve just seen the tipping point in the balance of power out here. The Families are losing grasp and Starhawk is picking up the pieces.”
Anson said, “That’s trouble for us if we don’t find what we need on these first two rocks. Those two will only be a month’s travel since they’re coming our way, but that’s still plenty of time for Starhawk to gather another fleet and come after us. The third is deeper into the belt, almost halfway, and downstream—we’ll have to turn back the way we came and chase it down. That one could be six months on the float.”
The map zoomed out as Anson spoke and Myra lit up the third D-type asteroid in green, plotting bright lines between all three. Anson said, “If we don’t get lucky with one of the first two, I can guarantee Starhawk will find us before we get to the third.”
“Why not go for that one first?” Silver suggested. “Put some distance between us and them?”
“No.” Anson stared at the pair of glowing asteroids. “Two chances are better than one.”
The Quartermaster glared at the map as he stroked his chin. “I don’t like it. We’re stretching. Gambling.”
“Not much to like,” Anson admitted. “No turning back now, though. We’re on the run. Myra, gather the troops. Time to bring everyone up to speed.”
📗Short Stories | 📘Books | 📙Personal Essays | 💌Newsletter | ❓About | 🏡Home