Captain Aris took a sip of her coffee. “How about this? I’d like to make a call to my planet, to see if there have been any new developments while I was in stasis. Can you do that?”

  “Sure, we can do that. And happy to take you home to your planet, as I said.” Long John turned to Limpet. “Set up a call to planet Hejmo in the Danje system.”

  “Gotcha, boss.” Limpet went to the control board.

  Captain Aris looked confused. “How can you understand them?”

  “Oh, I forgot.” He handed her a small device. “It’s a translator. Put it in your ear. I’ve learned spiderese, so I don’t need it anymore.”

  “Call ready,” Limpet said over his shoulder.

  Captain Aris went forward to sit in the copilot’s seat and took the headphones Limpet handed her. After confirming her identity, she asked to speak with General Stanza. “Sir,” she said. “I’m calling to see if there is any new information since I left. . . Yes, I was captured and held in stasis for a while, but I’m free now. . . That’s my plan, but there may be obstacles. . . Seriously? . . . Yes, sir. I’ll do my best.”

  She ended the call and stared at the headset in silence for a moment. “There is news.” She turned to Long John. “A colony ship landed on my planet. They had abandoned their colony out of fear of the approaching force, but they wouldn’t even stay on Hejmo. They stopped to refuel and then kept going. According to them, nothing can stand against the force. They’ve seen star systems swallowed up by it.”

  “That doesn’t sound good.”

  She clenched her fist. “I must get to Attike. As far as I know, they’re the only entity that has a chance against this . . .whatever it is.”

  Long John grimaced.

  She leaned forward. “What will you do, Captain Queeg, when there are no more planets in the galaxy, and no more ships to rob? How can you practice piracy in an empty system?”

  He stood up and jammed his hands into his pockets. “You have a point.”

  “Go another galaxy,” said Limpet. “There are lots.” He made a wide gesture with one of his eight arms.

  “True.” Long John sighed. “But I happen to be fond of this one.” He paced the deck. “Maybe we could take you to Galatia, the planet that the space station orbits around, and drop you off quietly.”

  She shook her head. “Then I’d have to find transport up to the space station. And I don’t have time! This is urgent. Do you really have to avoid Attike?”

  “For the last few years, my old crew has been blasting through space, committing murder and mayhem and claiming to be under my command. I’m sure I’ve got a boatload of crimes on my record by now.”

  “I’ll explain to them that you helped me.”

  He laughed. “Yeah, that will do it. No, I don’t think the Space Force will look the other way.”

  “But this entity—force—will affect the whole galaxy, eventually.”

  He looked at her. “Lady Alice was worried. She is rarely wrong. And you’ve confirmed it. So there is a serious problem.” He sighed and turned to the spider at the navigation panel. “Limpet, set course for Attike.”

  “They put you in jail,” Limpet protested.

  “We’ll face that when we come to it.”

  “Thank you,” said Captain Aris. She put a hand on his sleeve. “You won’t be sorry.”

  “Hope not. I need more coffee.”

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  “Six days to Attike,” Limpet said.

  * * *

  Two days in, Captain Aris came out of the aft storage area with a small airplane in her hands. It looked as if it had been crafted from spare parts, screws and bolts, for a child’s toy. “Why do you have this in your storage area?”

  “Oh.” Long John came and took it from her, turning it in his hands. ‘Haven’t seen that for a while. It’s . . . left from my childhood.”

  “Really.” She gazed at his face. “Theres a story behind it, I can tell.”

  He touched the little propellor, which actually worked. In his experience, women always wanted to know things. “My father made it, I assume. I don’t remember. I was clutching it when a salvage crew found me, after the colony ship I was on exploded. I was the only survivor.”

  She put a hand to her mouth. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to pry.”

  He gave her half a smile. “Not a big deal. The salvagers turned out to be pirates. They weren’t really thrilled at taking on a four-year-old kid, but the cook took me in. He raised me. Peter Brickner. Turned out to be a decent guy.”

  “That’s good. Where is he now?”

  He frowned. “Haven’t seen him for a few years. I’ve been looking for him off and on, but he seems to have gone into hiding.”

  She sat down at the foldout table. “Why did you become a pirate instead of a cook?”

  He laughed. “More adventurous. Ask any teenager which he’d rather be, a cook or a pirate.”

  “I suppose that makes sense. Tell me,” she said, “Why did you name your ship the Don Quixote?”

  He shrugged. “It had a nice Spanish ring to it.”

  “But he was crazy. He tilted at windmills.”

  “Tilted?” He gave her a quizzical look.

  “Tried to fight them. Haven’t you ever read a book?”

  “I have. Just not that one.”

  “You’d think you’d read the book before naming your ship after it.”

  He grinned at her. “You like bossing people around, don’t you?”

  She smiled back at him. “Yes, that’s why I joined the Guard. And I’m guessing you don’t like taking orders, am I right?”

  “That’s why I never joined the army.”

  * * *

  Every sixteen hours or so, he dimmed the lights so he could catch some sleep. That night, after he lay down on the bunk, he had the dream again. He had had it several times before, and was not sure whether it was a memory or his imagination, pieced together from stray comments and guesses.

  He had awakened to a huge explosion in the distance. The bunk shivered. His room was dark, even the nightlight had gone out. He sat up and called “Mommy!” But there was no answer. He got out of bed, padded across to the door and tried to open it, but it was stuck. That was fortunate, because as he realized years later, there was no air on the other side.

  He waited. Sitting on his bunk with his blanket over him, he ate crackers from the bag under his pillow and held on to the little airplane his dad had made. Hours, or maybe days later, he heard voices. He began crying. Footsteps stopped outside his door. He ran over to it, and when it opened, he was blinded by a light in his face.

  “Hey, it’s a kid!”

  “Give him a mask,” said a deep voice.

  Someone slid an air mask over his head. He didn’t recognize any of the voices, and said, “Mommy?” again.

  “What do we do with him?”

  “Dump him. I don’t want a kid running around. Too much trouble,” said a harsh voice.

  “Hey, no. Give him here.”

  Someone lifted him up and he felt arms around him. “Hey, kiddo, you all right?”

  “Want my mommy,” he said through sobs.

  “She’s not here right now. How about I take care of you? You okay with that?”

  He looked up at a plump, bearded face with kindly eyes behind the faceplate. “Uh huh.”

  “Now how about we get you something to eat?”

  The dream always ended at that point. When he woke from it, he always had a warm feeling, since that had been the beginning of a new, harder but exciting life.

  He woke and sat on the edge of his bunk. Crystal was still asleep on the opposite one. He was glad to see she finally felt secure enough to sleep without her armor. He admired the curve of her throat, but looked away when she stirred.

  He was reminded of a couple of other women he had transported on his ship. He had been attracted to the most recent one some time ago, but to his chagrin she had turned out to be an Artificial Intelligence, the AI of a stolen ship. He still felt the bittersweet aftereffects of that experience.

  * * *

  Crystal sat at the pulldown table in the small galley area, looking out of the viewscreen. They were still a day out from Attike, headquarters of the Intergalactic Coalition of Planets; ship traffic had increased after they passed the last space fold. She hoped she could persuade the Council of Planets to help them. There was a such a great distance between Attike and her home system, she suspected that the councilors on Attike would dismiss her concerns as minor or irrelevant.

  Long John, on the other hand, seemed to be taking her seriously. She glanced at the control panel, where he was explaining some controls to Limpet, the head spider. They had a strange relationship; at times he seemed to treat them like pests, sweeping them off his chair and ordering them around; at other times he treated them like friends or crewmates. Maybe it was a guy thing. She didn’t pretend to understand guys, except as enemies or comrades in arms.

  He did seem to fit the stereotype of a pirate, which she found amusing. He was at least six feet, muscular but slim, dark-haired, dark-eyed, with a rakishly handsome face. All he needed was an eyepatch and a parrot. She smiled to herself.