The Starlight Lancer

Chapter Twenty-Two: Waylaid

"They'll hang you, too, once there's none of us left."

—The Pirate Lord Almus Almazar's final words, spoken to the mercenary captain Dras Andaga

The empty darkness of space drifted by. Zaina Quin stared through a hyper-glass pane and watched the stars; they lazily floated past, each seeming to take longer in meandering across the window of her fallen friend's ship.

I thought this trip was supposed to be quick.

A sharp, frustrated sigh escaped her nostrils. Her eyes fell to her hands. Dirt, blood, and sweat had built up everywhere after her last adventure on Demelia—beneath her cuticles, on almost every inch of her dark brown skin and all her clothing. She couldn't help wrinkling her nose whenever she got a whiff of the odor emanating from beneath her arms.

Her eye caught her blurred reflection in one of the ship's sensor panels; her violet eyes, her long, thick black hair, and thin face were all the same. The blackened skin around her eye, the Mark of the Recalcitrant—the curse laid upon her by the Eldritch—filled her with dread. It had stopped hurting once the Eldritch was destroyed, and the whispers that plagued her mind were barely a dull buzzing in the back of her head now; but it was still there, and that worried her. Gir, the lancer who sacrificed his life for her, had warned her the galaxy wasn't terribly accepting of those bearing the Mark.

It had been two days since Zaina and Gizmo departed from the wreckage of Demelia, her homeworld; in that time, she'd barely slept—the floor of Gir's ship was very uncomfortable—and she hadn't showered or changed her clothes. There was no point in the latter until she scrubbed all the grime off herself.

The shoulder wound she'd sustained fighting Beni throbbed. It was getting better, but she still didn't have much use of the arm. She tried moving it every so often, but the jolts of pain took their toll.

She turned to Gizmo, who was in low-power mode while piloting the ship. When it wasn't jerking around in the air and short-circuiting every time it tried to say something, the little glyph was actually kind of cute. As bored as Zaina was, she decided to let it sleep for as long as possible.

Not like he's a master conversationalist anyway.

Buttons on the cockpit's dashboard flashed to life, flickering on and off. A sensor above Zaina emitted a high-pitched beep while flooding the ship's interior with intermittent yellow light. There were too many buttons, knobs, vis-screens displaying readouts—it was all too much for Zaina.

This looks way too complicated. I wonder what it all means.

Her thoughts were interrupted by an odd whirring noise. "Zzzzzrrrrrppppttttt—low—power mode deactivated. Hello, Z—Zzz—Zaina!"

"Hey, Gizmo. How'd you sleep?"

"Power res—zzz—erves—zzz low. Alert level: high. S—zzz—trap in, Z—Zzz—Zaina. We may have encountered friends—zzz."

She blinked, then swiveled toward the flashing displays on the monitor. The biggest screen had big words colored red and surrounded by a black border, reading: Proximity Alert: Unregistered Ship.

Zaina's stomach sank as her heartbeat went wild. Oh. That's what it meant.

"Gizmo," she said, trying to sound calm, "what does 'Unregistered Ship' mean?"

"All s—zzz—pace-rated craft mus—zzz—t be regis—zzz—tered with the proper intergalactic authorities—zzz. Failure to do s—zzz—o can res—zzz—ult in a fine or impris—zzz—onment. Mos—zzz—t unregis—zzz—tered craft are us—zzz—ed by pirates—zzz or marauders—zzz."