Phantom Star: Chapter 28

Sinclair Kirkbride

“What the fuck.” She hissed as she stared into a mirror. Grandpa… Her Grandpa had shown up out of the blue with an AI warship and rescued her…

The same man that had said without hesitation he would put a blaster through her skull when she ran off to join Trent. She’d thought it funny then. As she called him a relic on the comm, the last time she’d seen him fourteen years ago.

But now?

She’d sent out the distress message through some tricky routing to keep any of her crew, or worse other pirates from finding out…

She ran a hand through her hair. Actual hot water, what a fucking luxury. She needed a Klitz to calm her nerves.

She took the towel that had been supplied warm and fluffy and finished drying off. A few minutes later she was re-dressed enough and stepped out of the bathroom into the hold. She swallowed. She never did get used to just staring out into open space, especially not without a suit and  Forcefield.

But what was worse was the swarm of AI floating around. They chattered to each other, and worse to anyone they saw as they floated around.

“Hello! Nice and clean!” One called out to her as it floated past heading back out of the hold. She shuddered. This was a disaster. Was the AI in control? Who flew around with an active AI!?

Yet she couldn’t help but stare as part after part was brought floating into the hold by a team of the drones. 

It was part of the Huskarl Shield Emitters, and she was pretty sure that part was part of the weapons systems.

I guess having AI to help scrap a ship down was useful.

“Sinclair.” A rumbling familiar voice spoke up and she turned from where she was staring to see her Grandpa. Standing a bit awkward and looking like he wasn’t sure what to say.

Yeah her either. 

Especially since all she wanted was to get into whatever room or cell that was waiting for her and just not, for a while.

“How did you even know to come?” She finally spoke, the question that had been burning on her mind throughout the shower.

“The Bounty… I always kept an eye out for you. I saw your bounty and started searching for you… I had to be the one, couldn’t let anyone else catch you. One of my contacts reached out to me, with your message.”

“So you thought, to just capture your pirate granddaughter?”

“Rescue.” He said instead and she flinched as she looked away.

“What happened to a blaster to the head?” She asked harshly, and he stopped looking at her, just as she had stopped looking at him.

“I said that in anger… I’ve dealt with pirates for decades. Couldn’t… I couldn’t deal with my own blood joining them.”

“Yeah well… How's Grandma? Aunt Cass?” She asked, it had been fourteen years since she’d even… Heard from them.

“Your… Grandma passed. About eight years ago.” He said almost gently. 

“Fuck.”

“Cass is fine. You should call her sometime… The Captain of this boat is… Nice. She’ll probably allow it.”

She nodded and then shuddered as she was reminded of what was going on.

“What’s up with this ship? The AI, and the Captain… She’s kinda young looking.”

“She is. Not sure. Disavowed Noble maybe. She’s a bit awkward, but a good person.” Her grandfather finally offered. “A bit green, but she’s… Well she flys this thing.” He said while waving around, and yeah that fit.

“Fucking monster of a ship. When I saw it on the radar I thought I was dead.”

“You called out though.”

“Well of course I did! This thing would have butchered the Huskarl just like… It wasn’t a fight. Barbatos had delusions of grandeur.”

“Barbatos?”

“The Captain. He was… An evil bastard, but he protected me from Trent. So I… I guess I sort of regret it.”

“He was a pirate.” He rumbled, angrily, but breathed in and out. “I’m glad you’re alright.”

“Yeah well… They needed my skills. It kept me safe. Mostly.”

“I’ll keep you safe Sinclair. Sinny.”

“Ugh, don’t call me that.” She grumbled, her childhood nickname came off so lame. “I just go by Sin now.”

“Nothing wrong with your name.” He grumbled, but he stopped and spoke seriously. “I’ll talk to Katherine. We’ll get dropped off somewhere, and I’ll call in some favors to get home. Once there we can hide you out.”

“Sure. I’ll just go hide in the mountains living off stream water and fresh air the rest of my life. Nevermind the fact I’m an Electronic Warfare Specialist! I’m meant to be on a ship.” She hissed. All her life was down the drain. She’d hoped it would be a merc outfit that would have picked her up. Or at least a bounty hunter willing to put her to work.

She didn’t want to be useless on some dirtball.

She’d run away to the pirates to get away from that!

“We’ll figure something out.” He said then, but she could tell he actually meant that he just wanted to wrap her in fabric and hide her away.

“Hey Uh, Crabbit. Where is Captain Katherine?” Grandpa suddenly called out, and one of the fucking AI drones, jerked from it’s path out the hold to float over.

“Hello hello!” I greeted as it floated sinisterly around her grandpa’s head before seemingly coming in to land on his shoulder, its gripper grabbing at his jacket to stabilize itself. “Captain is sad crying on the bridge as she oversees scrapping!... Oh I wasn’t supposed to say that… Uuuu. I’m a bad girl.” It offered as it seemingly donked itself on the head with it’s free arm.

Sin blinked as she stared at the drone. What the hell was that?

Grandpa seemed a bit more used to it and nodded. “I… Won’t tell her you told us?”

“Oh no! Lying is bad. Red! Very very bad!” It warned him before seemingly perking itself up from… It’s mood? It was all artificial, why would it have moods like that? Was it trying to trick them? Make itself seem slower than it was?

“Alright… We’ll leave her alone for now.”

“Okay okay! Back to work! Hehehe!” It giggled as it floated away rejoining the line of drones floating around the hold and back out of the ship.

“This ship is weird.”

“Hmm. I’ll take weird over broken. Tramp haulers…” Grandpa said with a tone of utter disgust. 

“Oh yeah, I’ve been there. The Huskarl is the newer ship, we uh, captured it, before that the piece of junk we were flying around on would break down at random.”

His face tightened up for a minute before relaxing. “I wouldn’t mind hearing… About everything.” he offered and Sin knew a trap when she saw one.

“Maybe another time. You know where I can… Well I guess bunk? Unless there’s a brig I’m being stuffed in somewhere?”

“Yeah c’mon.” 

—--

“Make sure you pull those power lines.” I said, as I looked over the Tab screen. 

“Yes yes!” Chirped the Crabbit that was resting on my stomach. I had moved to my room and was currently curled up with a warm blanket and my Tab floating in front of my face thanks to my Crabbit as I took in the scans and data the Crabbit were sending over from the wreck.

I rubbed at my eyes again which felt puffy and itchy. Stupid crybaby.

All because I got scared in a fire fight. At least my Crabbit shield had sort of worked… It’d need a lot more adjustments. Considering how bad that had gone, it was now a much higher priority. Maybe… An additional attachment? 

If I made a box that had the shield emitter, and just used the Crabbits as carriers it would probably work a lot better than trying to turn Crabbits into shields…

Then again both were a good idea. No reason to only have one source of shield. Emitter did work better in a group.

I sighed and looked back at the Tab. I had a thought of just keeping it. The whole ship I mean. It was… Well a Junker, but even a Junker had value. But I didn’t have the crew to even hope to handle that, much less want to put them in such a crunchy vessel.

No better to loot it down, including its really well equipped EW setup.

Sinclair… She was a pirate, but going over the scans of her EW equipment, she definitely knew what she was doing. The crabbits knew some basics, but… They weren’t amazing. Fast, but rigid. They only knew how to do it like they’d been shown by the Barons staff and what little I’d managed to work with them on.

But an actual EW specialist? Already the Crabbits were going to be grabbing every bit of the equipment. I’d have to set up a new console on the bridge really dedicated to it. 

I swiped the screen and relaxed. The other wreck was drifting, but thankfully it was still in range without the sensors scattering too much, and it was still safe.

I’d have to go grab it soon to keep it from getting too far, but for now I wanted to ensure I got the best bits out of the ship first…

Well if I decided to leave it. I could fly it back to UNK-L. Its navigation system was still intact, and it still had its Iris Drive.

I groaned and turned over. Did I want to go home? Should I? I currently had a bounty target on board, and that would be really bad. Yet… Hammond had wanted to rescue her in the end. Not actually hand her over. 

Can’t say I was pleased he had lied to me about it. If I had known this was a rescue mission from the start… Well I wouldn’t have done much differently, but I would have felt a lot better!

Plus there was the pirate issue. Sinclair was registered as a pirate. She even had a bounty on her head. No matter where she went she’d have to stay off any scanners, or anything like that, or she’d instantly be taken and thrown into prison.

Or worse. 

Most places in the Duchy considered holding pirates a pointless affair. They were simply shot and spaced. Or if they were disliked, just spaced.

I rubbed my face. My hands weren’t shaking anymore. Not that I felt comfortable with what had happened today. I’d… I’d messed up. I shouldn’t have chased after Hammond with a half assed shield and no training.

“I’ll need to add some blaster training into my schedule.” I muttered, maybe Hammond could run me through some military drills?

No wait… He was leaving…

Hammond had been vital in taking out that pirate ship. I could probably have swarmed the inside of the ship with Crabbits, if I had bothered to actually arm them.

But… It still would be a risk. He had the training instincts, and equipment to do it himself.

Was I going to let that talent walk off my ship?

Former space marine, and former pirate Electronic Warfare specialist… That sounded like the beginning of a pretty good crew. Sinclair had managed to not just lock her own ship down, but keep the other ship from escaping all at the same time…

There was the start of a plan in my head, but I’d need to actually talk to people first.

I sat up. No point in hiding. 

“Hmm? Kat?” My Crabbit asked, almost sleepily, she must be sharing most of her hardware with her sisters to sound like that.

“I’m feeling better, want to come with me?”

“Yes yes!” She cheered coming back online and flying around me.

I headed down and then into the mess room, fortunately it wasn’t empty. Hammond was there. Using the countertops to clean his blaster rifle. The large gun was disassembled and he was going over it. 

I took a moment before I alerted him to actually listen. 

The gun sounded well taken care of. Its tones were clean and clear. Yet… It felt old. Worn in places. No doubt it’d seen a lot of conflict. I considered how to broach the whole thing, and this was a good enough offer as anything.

“If you ever want me to go over that, I can do that. Replace some of the old parts if anything is getting worn.” I offered in greeting and he stopped. 

“I’d appreciate it, but if I’m running Sinclair back home… There won’t be much reason to use her anymore.”

“If.” I added, and that finally got the older man to turn to me fully.

“If?”

“That’s what I said… I don’t… Need a crew exactly. Not for the Phantom, not if I’m just doing normal jobs. Going place to place just delivering packages, and stuff like that I can do alone… But hunting pirates? Getting into fights. That’s something… I’m not so good at, but you are.”

“Honestly I only came back to it, to hunt down Sinclair… I retired back to Callum after everything… Expected to live my life there. Lived with my sister's family for a while. Helped out around the place. Cattle ranching, farming and hunting…”

He went silent for a long while. “So you want to go back.”

“Hell no. I hate cattle, and I hate farming.” He said back instantly, surprising a laugh at how blunt his dislike was. “But it’s the sort of place that Sinclair can hide out. No one’ll ever look for her there… So that’s where I’m going.”

“But you’d prefer to keep working? On board a ship that could use a man that knows his way around a gun?” I offered, and with that he turned from his rifle to look completely at me.

“If I had a choice, that’d be preferable.”

“Sinclair’s a pirate. You’d need a noble, or someone in the government to help out.” I mentioned casually.

“I figure I would.” He responded back, his eyes intense. “This the big reveal that you’re some noble kid?” He asked suddenly and my entire thought process ground to a halt.

“What? No? My dad is a scrapper, and my mom is a… Let’s call her a socialite.” I explained and his face shifted into confusion.

“Really? With the ship I expected?”

“I made the Phantom Star myself. With a whole lot of help from my Crabbits.” I explained and the Crabbit on my shoulder waved at being acknowledged.

“Then… That still leaves us where we were. We need a Noble.”

“I… I know a guy. I could talk to him. I'd probably owe him a favor, but he’s a Baron. He’d be willing… Probably.” I offered and I saw something kind of flattering in Hammonds eyes. Hope.

“You’d do that?”

“I… It depends. I’m not entirely altruistic here. Sinclair’s an EW specialist. I’m sort of lacking one of those right now. But… I don’t like the idea of demanding she work for me, if I did this. I mean, we haven’t talked to her, to find out if she would even be willing-”

“Probably something you should do first, yeah.” Another voice called out startling me, as Sinclair came around the corner. She was wearing the same clothes as before, but she’d obviously showered, and wasn’t quite as done up. She looked… Tired to be honest.

“Sinclair. Eavesdropping is rude.” Hammond rumbled, but Sinclair despite being in her twenties rolled her eyes like a teenager. 

“We haven’t had a chance to talk, and it seems like you’ve been coming up with some ideas.” She offered to me, and I nodded my head. 

“That’s right. You did a good job on that other ship. Kept them from jumping away.”

“It’s what I did for the last decade.” She offered simply, and I could see Hammond tense at the explanation.

“Then… If you could do it to hunt pirates instead, would you?”

“I’m not picky about targets.” She said which earned her no points for me, but she settled against the counter across from Hammond and crossed her arms. “But I don’t want to live the rest of my life on some dirt ball. If you can clear my name. I’ll work for you… Until it doesn’t work anyways.”

“Sinclair. Be more polite. Captain Katherine is offering you… Your life back.”

“And I’m thankful, but that doesn’t mean I’m swearing myself to slavery here.”

“I’m not asking for that.” I offered and then breathed in and out. “I’ll offer you the standard crew contract. You’ll get paid. You’ll work, and if you want to leave you break the contract and I drop you off.”

“And what’s the price then?” She asked, a bit harshly. “People don’t just ask favors from nobles for nothing. That’s a big cost.”

“I’ve already worked with him in the past. It’s fine.” I said despite it kinda not being.

Was this the right thing? She was a pirate, she didn’t even seem all that bothered by the fact. This wasn’t a woman that stopped being a pirate because she saw how horrible her actions were, she did it for herself…

I stared until her eyes caught mine and our eyes locked.

She looked away first. Almost instantly. Was that regret? Shame? Or was she just unhappy about her powerless position right now?

It was impossible to say, the only thing I could do…

“Okay. I’ll put my faith in you then.” I decided and that earned a look of surprise from the woman.

“What?”

“Well there’s no way for me to know for sure if you are really going to be a good fit, or a good person. So I can either turn you away, bring you on and constantly doubt and suspect you, or just have some faith. So I’ll do that. It’s less stressful.” I decided, and shrugged.

“That’s so stupid.” She offered back, and I smirked, because someone that was trying to trick me, wouldn’t have said something like that!

Probably!

“Alright, I need to go find the other ship and scrap what I can from it. We’re going to keep the hull of your ship, and sell it off back home. I’ll be able to talk to the Baron from there.”

Hammond nodded, while Sinclair continued to just stare at me with an array of emotions constantly appearing and hiding on her face.

“But before that… We did just finish a big battle so we should celebrate right? Anyone hungry?” I asked, pointing at the protein resequencer and earning myself a bit of a surprised look. “Great, what does everyone want to eat?” I asked before anyone could actually say anything. Some food would likely break up the tense atmosphere.

I hurried over to the protein resequencer, and started it up, slowly getting it turned on and active.

“Anything is fine.” Sinclair offered, but Hammond came over and put in his order as well. The fact both of us were setting up the machine got Sinclair interested.

“Wow. That’s not a cheap unit.” She muttered as she got closer.

“Nope. I splurged on a good one. Good Protein too.”

“The meals here are good.” Hammond offered to his granddaughter and she seemed to perk up at that. 

“Wait, you buy high quality protein?”

“Yeah why wouldn’t I?”

“Maybe because it’s expensive?” She offered back a little shocked. 

“It’s really not.” I couldn’t help but argue. “I bought a ton of it when I was first picking up rations. Oh we have some fruit in the freezer. It’s called Vinefruit. It’s pretty good.” I offered and that had Sinclair’s jaw drop a little in shock.

“Fresh fruit?”

“Well… It’s frozen now. But it should still be pretty fresh.”

“And I can just have some?”

“If you’re hungry you should eat.” I explained simply. And then smiled as the resequencer dinged. “Foods up!”

I smiled as Sinclair perked up at the smell wafting from the steaming plates. I grabbed two and carried them over. I handed one of the identical meals to Sinclair. “Welcome aboard.” I offered, and for a moment she smiled an actual normal look.

“Thanks.”

—--

It was a bit hard to have a big crew meal around the mess hall without a table, but that was still on the important things to buy list. But we made do, and Sinclair seemed to actually get used to the whole thing.

After the meal, I got back to work. Sinclair was still settling in, and Hammond was hovering over her, but that left the real work to me.

Which was fine. This was the fun part.

“Okay you know what to do?”

“Yes yes! Navigation complete!” Chirped the Crabbit and I reached down and stroked her chassis. 

“That’s a good girl. We’ll be following you soon, just head straight to UNK-L and send the message once you arrive, but we’ll probably beat you there.”

“We can do it! No problem!” She responded excitedly, and I couldn’t help but stroke all of their chassis for a minute.

Five of my Crabbits were taking the Huskarl, and would jump it back to UNK-L while I scrapped what I could out of the ship I’d blown apart.

It’d be good Creds, and… I already had to head back to UNK-L anyway to talk to the Baron.

But it still meant I had to leave my little Prize Crew traveling on their own.

I’d taken a bit of time to make sure the engines, navigation, and comm system were all functioning on the ship. Although not much else was.

Still… I didn’t like sending them off on their own. When I left the Crabbits back in the old freighter when I’d left it’d been something I had to do, and it was mostly safe since they were where they always were.

But now they were off on their own.

“Okay. I set up a Tab that’ll play lots of shows, and you can pause and stop it, but don’t get distracted and forget to check on navigation, and don’t watch it all the time. Do something else sometimes… Don’t forget to sync up, so you don’t overload your databanks.” 

“Roger roger! We’ll be good girls! Everything Green!” They all nodded at me, and I nodded along with them. I’d picked some of the calmer less rambunctious girls for this. 

“I believe in you. I’ll see you soon.”

“Yay!” They cheered as they floated onto the Huskarl. I hit the switch closing the airlock and disengaging the clamps.

They were on their own now.