Corsairs of the Void

James Abraham Carter

The atmosphere of the uncharted world shrieked past the spherical life-pod as it tore through the alien sky. Inside, the air was hot, acrid with the smell of scorched insulation and the sweat of terror. Edmond Roy, a man whose youth had been prematurely hardened by the harsh reality of the void, clutched the restraint straps of his safety harness as the pod listed violently. A jagged breach in the titanium-alloy hull whistled, a siren song of impending death, trailing a plume of thick, oily smoke that stained the strange world’s sky.

A loud thud echoed in the confines of the pod as its parachutes deployed. The tiny vessel slowed its mad descent. But the chute, like the hull, was damaged. Its fabric hummed, straining against atmospheric pressure, before finally losing its battle with gravity. The canopy tore with a terrible ripping sound. The pod plummeted straight toward the surface of a sea that glowed with the restless, bioluminescent hue of microscopic life, like a vast pool of starlight trapped in brine. With a bone-jarring impact, the module splashed down a hundred yards off a shore of sand that shimmered like powdered diamonds.

The ocean was a ravenous beast that sucked the module under. The hull, already damaged, had now been completely breached by the jarring impact. Seawater surged through, rising around Edmond’s boots with terrifying speed. He didn’t hesitate. Fighting free of the safety harness, he kicked the hatch release and allowed the pressure differential to blow the seal. Edmond plunged into the phosphorescent water, and the cold shock stole his breath. He sucked in air and began to swim with powerful strokes toward the shore. Behind him, the sinking life-pod vanished beneath the heaving swells.

He was halfway to the beach when something in the water beneath him moved. A serpentine shape, sheathed in mirror-bright scales, coiled upward from the depths; the swimming man was the focus of three faceted eyes. The creature’s maw, lined with venomous needle-teeth, gaped wide as it darted at the Earthman. But Edmond had seen it coming. He didn’t panic. The young man’s survival training took over. He drew his knife, a serrated blade of hardened durasteel, and dove at the monster, blade thrusting.

As the thing veered from the stabbing knife, Edmond caught one of its dorsal fins. He wrapped his legs around its girth and hung on tight as he drove the weapon deep into the soft gill-slit behind its head. The beast thrashed, churning the glowing water into a froth of light. Blood streamed. The monster writhed, then its body stilled. Edmond released his hold. Lungs burning, he swam to the surface as his horrific foe sank into the depths. Edmond burst through the briny barrier, heaving air into his tortured lungs. He trod water for a moment, regaining his breath, and then swam for the beach. He staggered through the shallows and up the strand, then collapsed onto the sparkling sand as the adrenaline finally receded, leaving him trembling from exhaustion in the isolation of an alien world.

**********

Edmond, one of the drive system engineers, was the only survivor of the Space Eagle, a United Earth patrol ship of the Space Navy. He closed his eyes, and the horrific memory of recent events flashed before him: the chaotic bridge, the sparks showering from the command console, and the looming, sinister silhouette of the Iron Maiden - the flagship of the pirates of the Barbary Moons, those satellites that orbited the gas giant, Toruga.

The corsair raider, with its death’s head insignia in a yellow circle, was a behemoth made from repurposed spaceyard junk and strange technology. Its commander, Eric the Butcherer, as he was infamously known, had been the shadow haunting the Polaris quadrant for a decade. The Space Eagle’s mission had been to bring the pirate leader and his crew to justice, to capture them, or failing that to kill. But instead, the hunter had become the prey.

They had traced the savage buccaneers to this uncharted solar system of five worlds and had been working their way cautiously inward from the outermost planet, but as they approached the inner worlds, disaster struck. The pirates, who were hidden in the system’s asteroid belt, launched their ambush from concealment. The Iron Maiden, its ray-cannons and missiles blazing with deadly firepower, sprang upon the Space Eagle like a monstrous raptor, rushing forth from the crater of a shadowed mass of tumbling rock.

The battle was short but brutal. Deadly rays slashed the blackness of space with their flaring beams. Silent explosions bloomed like deadly flowers in the void as each ship intercepted the other’s speeding missiles. Then a hurtling space-torpedo from the Iron Maiden slammed into the Space Eagle. The patrol ship shuddered as the projectile furiously detonated. Men were hurled to the deck. The lights flickered. For a moment, the Space-Eagle’s weapons went offline, and in that brief second of vulnerability, more missiles slammed into the ship, dealing her a death blow.

He remembered the terror, the crackling of onboard fires, and the choking smoke. Through the chaos, Captain Mannering’s calm voice came over the failing comms: “Abandon ship, lads. This bird’s cooked.” 

Edmond fought his way through the blinding, choking smoke, stained with the lurid glow of the raging fire behind him. He tripped over a body, kept going. Heart pounding, he gained the safety of the life-pod and slammed the eject button. The small vessel was flung from the dying ship. Edmond gazed through a viewport and swore in sick horror. The ejected life-pods were being picked off by the pirates’ merciless gunners, as if they were nothing more than clay pigeons in a shooting match. Edmond’s pod shuddered, hit by a glancing ray; he looked back to see the Space Eagle, a flaming wreck in the dark, ram directly into the midsection of the Iron Maiden. It was a glorious, sacrificial act by Captain Mannering to try to save his surviving crew. The resulting explosion was like a second sun, then Edmond’s pod tumbled into the atmosphere of this nameless world, and the sight was lost to him.

*********

On the bridge of the Iron Maiden, mere moments before the collision, Eric the Butcherer stood on the command deck, the dim red light casting his scarred face into a mask of satanic delight as he reveled in the destruction of the life-pods. When just sixteen, the Butcherer’s parents had been slaughtered by Captain Pugen of the Star Hammer, a United Earth patrol ship, as had many others in the mining colony of Aspin who were rebelling against the tyranny of Govonor Adams. It had been a terrible stain on the otherwise unblemished record of the Space Navy.

Captain Pugen had been court-martialed, found guilty of the atrocity, and sentenced to life imprisonment. But this hadn’t satisfied young Eric. His bitterness and hatred grew, first directed at the Space Navy, then expanding over time to encompass United Earth and all that it stood for. Eric was gifted with charisma and a talent for organizing, which he could have used for a noble purpose. But twisted by hate, as he was, he attracted other dangerous malcontents, and so the nucleus of the buccaneers was formed.

A harsh, sadistic laugh burst from the Butcherer’s throat as another life pod was vaporized, but his joy was cut short as the first mate, eyes wide with terror, rushed up the stairs of the platform where Eric stood.

“Captain,” he gasped. “The Space Eagle! She’s activated her hyper-drive. The ship is on a collision course, and there isn’t time for evasive action.”

**********

Edmond brought his mind to the present. He wouldn’t survive long by lying on the beach as if he were on vacation. Painfully, he stood and gazed at the wild alien jungle that fringed the unknown coast. Trees with huge vivid green heart-shaped leaves towered over him. The air was redolent with strange vegetative scents, and the weird cries of unseen creatures high in the canopy filtered down to him. The pod had sunk quickly. All he had time to grab was the survival knife and the first aid kit, both now fastened to his utility belt. Bracing himself to confront the unknown, he entered the greenery and was swallowed up by its fecund expanse.

For three days, Edmond lived like a wilderness hermit. He was a creature of the jungle, scavenging spiky nuts that tasted of almonds and honey, hunting the armored crab-like things that scuttled through the twilight of the undergrowth, and drinking from a stream whose water tasted of minerals. He fashioned a lean-to of branches, roofed with broad, waxy leaves, and a spear from a sharpened sapling that he fire-hardened. He was surviving, but he was alone.

The night of the second day came, and he nearly died. Creatures emerged from the darkness and assailed his camp. Monstrous six-legged dog-like beasts lunged at him; their insectoid mandibles snapped like shears, and their three green eyes glowed like demonic lamps. He fought the horrors, thrusting at them with his spear. One fell, its central radiant orb punctured by his weapon. The other monsters, driven wild by the scent of blood, fell frenziedly upon the wounded creature and began to tear at it with their frightening jaws. Edmond retreated, and in the morning built a sleeping platform high in a tree where the frightful beasts could not reach him.

At noon on the third day, as he was hunting fish-like creatures in the shallows with his spear, things changed dramatically. Looking up, he saw two outrigger canoes slicing through the glowing waves, their sails like the wings of dragonflies. Edmond, uncertain as to the nature of the beings piloting the strange craft and their intentions, which might be just as deadly as the nocturnal horrors that he had fought, hurriedly abandoned his fishing and ducked into the dense foliage, intending to observe and to await developments.

The first canoe hit the beach, its keel grating on the sand. A figure vaulted out—a young woman, though not of Earth. Her skin had a red tint to it; her frame was lithe and agile. She possessed four breasts, and she bore striking tresses of emerald hair that framed her refined features. The alien woman cast a frightened glance back at the rapidly closing outrigger, then she looked toward the jungle, her eyes wide with terror. She vanished into the trees, a blur of red motion.

The second canoe was beached in a similar manner. Three men leaped out. Edmond’s breath caught. He recognized them immediately from the pictures in their dossier. The Imris brothers, clones to be precise, all identical in vileness and depravity. They were clad in their pirate garb, with the leering skull - the cruel insignia of their vile trade - emblazoned on their black and yellow uniforms. They were survivors of the Iron Maiden, hellspawn that should have been distroyed.

The wild trio didn't hesitate. They sprang after the fleeing girl with the predatory instincts of a savage wolfpack. Edmond moved, his spear braced in his hand, his survival knife sheathed at his hip. He trailed them, determined to prevent the girl from falling victim to their vile foulness.

Edmond tracked them through the dense undergrowth, his spear held loosely in his strong hand. He found them a mile inland: the crimson woman was pinned against a gargantuan, moss-covered tree. Close-up, she was clearly alien yet breathtaking. Her only apparel was a simple bark-cloth skirt. Her four breasts heaved in terror, and were the focus of her degenerate pursuers.

"Eric will be pleased to have such a centerpiece," one pirate sneered, his hand hovering over his ray-pistol. "Don’t make it hard, girl. You’re lucky the Butcherer has an eye for you."

“Look at those tits,” crudely said another. “There’s more than enough for all of us. I don’t think the captain will mind if we tenderize his meat.”

The girl hissed, her emerald hair bristling like a cat, but she was cornered and wounded, and the bronze dagger in her hand trembled.

The clones grinned. One grabbed her dagger hand before she could strike. The others reached for her with eager, grasping fingers. Edmond didn’t wait. He threw his survival knife with every ounce of his pent-up rage. The blade whistled through the humid air and buried itself in the back of the leader. The pirate collapsed without a sound.

The two survivors spun, ray-pistols leveled, but they were too slow. Edmond’s spear flew, an extension of his own body. It thudded into the second clone’s chest and sent him crashing to the ground. The third pirate squeezed his trigger, but Edmond was already moving, and the bolt of electric fire seared the air where his head had been a second before. The young man crashed against the pirate in a bruising tackle of kinetic energy. The two of them crashed onto the loamy earth. Edmond rained a frenzy of savage blows on his enemy until the clone’s skull cracked under the weight of his wild assault.

He stood up, panting, his knuckles covered in his dead opponent’s gore. He looked at the girl. She had slumped to the ground and was trembling from fear and from the pain of a ray-pistol burn on her calf.

"I won't hurt you," Edmond said after he had activated his universal translator implant and picked up her dagger, which had fallen from her hand.

The girl stared at him, her four breasts rising and falling with her rapid breath. Her eyes were deep, violet pools. "You... You look like the sky-devils,” she gasped, glancing at the corpses at her feet. “Keep back. Don’t touch me.”

"I'm a friend, not an enemy," Edmond said, kneeling beside her and handing her the dagger. “See, I’m returning your weapon to you.”

She snatched the blade from him, tense and wary. The young man opened his first-aid kit. "My name is Edmond. I have medicine that will ease your pain and heal your burn."

"I am Tianu," she said, her fear of him beginning to abate.

As he treated her wound, she told him of the horrors that had come upon her people. Her village, on the island of Bora, had been a peaceful, joyous place. But then, three days ago, a strange object shaped like an egg fell from the sky and struck the earth near her settlement. The demon-egg, as her people now called it, opened, and from it burst forth the sky-devils - evil beings who slew with lightning that leapt from their hands. Her father, Chief Huara, had been murdered within an hour of the pirates' landing. The chief of the devils had turned her home into a den of vice, terrorizing the peaceful villagers with weapons they deemed supernatural. Many women and young girls had been brutalized. Tianu had barely escaped that dreadful fate, only to be pursued by the pirate captain’s evil henchmen.

"They are not demons, although they act like them,” Edmond said, his gaze hardening as he collected the fallen pirates’ ray-pistols. He checked the energy cells—half-depleted, but functional. "They are just men. My companions died trying to stop their deviltry. I will continue the fight, and now they are going to learn what it means to face someone who isn't fooled by their lies. I’ll show you how to use these weapons."

Edmond set about the task, well aware that the confrontation with the pirates, particularly Eric the Butcherer, would be the most difficult undertaking of his life.

**********

The voyage to Bora aboard Tianu’s outrigger was a test of survival. The ocean was treacherous, home to predators that dwarfed the craft in which they sailed. The girl told him about Pasi, her world. The planet was mostly ocean, dotted with numerous archipelagos. Bora was one of the major settlements. It had large deposits of copper and tin and was the centre of bronze manufacture and trade with the surrounding islands. It was a largely peaceful society. There were no major continents, so huge armies and navies were unknown. Most islands were ruled by tribal chiefs or kings who were content to govern their own people. The majority of the conflicts were limited to raids, usually the result of the village shaman apportioning blame for some misfortune on the sorcery of a neighboring island kingdom. To these people, magic was a very real and dangerous thing.

Halfway through the crossing, the water erupted. A sea serpent, fully grown and armored in scales that reflected the phosphorescence like mirrors, rose from the deep. It was at least three times the length of their craft. The girl screamed. The zeem, monsters of the deep, were rare, but incredibly dangerous.

Edmond swore in fright. He fired his ray-pistol, as did Tianu. Their beams sparked against the beast, but the stabbing rays were harmlessly reflected by the creature’s mirror-bright hide. It rushed toward them with all the speed of a torpedo. Tianu swung the tiller to avoid the hurtling beast. But the speeding monster was too fast. It slammed into their outrigger, nearly capsizing it. The sea-beast reared. Its fang-lined maw gaped wide.

Edmond, who had been knocked off his feet, saw their only chance. His ray-pistol blazed, its trigger pulled to maximum discharge. The fiery beam lanced between the monster’s distended jaws. The full power of the weapon pierced the sea beast’s unprotected palate, and the ray cut through its brain like a blazing sword. The zeem let out a piercing cry. Its scaly body arched in agony. It crashed to the surface of the sea in a spray of brine that drenched the boat, and then sank back into the watery abyss from which it had emerged.

Edmond tore his eyes from the sinking horror. He looked around, and his heart skipped a beat. Tianu had been flung overboard and lay face down in the water some distance away. The young man swiftly lowered the sails to slow the outrigger. He then tied a long rope around his waist, fastened it to the stern so the craft wouldn’t drift away, and dived overboard. Reaching the unconscious girl, he felt for a pulse. Cold fear struck him: there was none. He hauled her aboard and began CPR. Grim minutes passed, but he refused to give up hope. He prayed that her anatomy was sufficiently similar to a human for this to work. At last, he felt the flicker of life return. Tianu gasped. Her eyes fluttered open, and he held her tightly.

*********

They reached the island of Bora under the cover of a bruised, purple twilight. The outrigger glided into a cove several miles from the village, its keel grating on the sandy beach. The couple disembarked. They moved through the jungle, silent shadows in the greater darkness. Several hours later, Tianu peered through the foliage. They had reached the village. She beckoned Edmond to come and look. He joined her and gazed at the settlement. The silence was unnerving. No one was in sight, and a dark miasma of suffocating fear seemed to hang over the entire community. 

The village was surrounded by a tall, thorny hedge that acted like a palisade, a section of which had been cut through by the attacking pirates. The breach was unguarded. There simply weren’t enough surviving buccaneers. The couple moved through the gap. Slinking from one pool of shadow to another, they crept to the chief’s hut. It was much like the other dwellings of the common people. The building was raised on a rectangular stone platform. Its roof of thatch was steeply pitched and overhung a wide all-round verandah. The walls were woven from reed-like growths, and the window and door frames were intricately carved. The chief’s hut was denoted by its veranda posts, which were carved in the form of tall ancestor figures with shells for eyes. Four space-pirates stood by the entrance, their shadows cast long by the flickering torches.

Their conversations came to the hidden pair. “The clones should have returned by now,” said one. “I don’t think the captain was wise in sending them after the chit. There are few of us as there is.”

Another laughed derisively. “You worry too much, Brak. These superstitious savages think we are mighty sorcerers with magic weapons. There are enough of us to cower them. Relax.”

Edmond grinned. The pirates were overconfident. They hadn’t counted on any of the Space Eagle’s crew surviving, or the fact that a survivor would come after them. He checked his weapon and that of the girl, and sobered. One ray-pistol had been completely depleted during the battle with the sea monster. The two that remained were low on charge. He grimaced. Every shot would have to count, and he didn’t know the power levels of the remaining pirate’s weapons. Still, they had the element of surprise, and that could tip the balance in their favour.

The young man gazed at his companion. Tianu looked nervous but resolute. He whispered to her, “On the count of three, we rush them. Are you ready?”

“Yes,” she replied without hesitation.

Both leaped from the shadows in a wild charge. The pirates saw them. Their hands darted for their guns. Two buccaneers weren’t quite fast enough. Tianu and Edmond fired. The crackling discharge of their ray-pistols filled the night - twin flashes of searing light that found their mark. A corsair’s ray grazed Edmond’s ear. He shot the fiend through the heart. Another sizzling beam missed Tianu by an inch. Her return fire killed the final man. Up the steps they raced, vaulting the bodies of the slain. Edmond slammed his foot against the door. It flew open under the impetus of his wild blow.

The scene inside was a tableau of depravity. Eric the Butcherer stood in the center of the room, holding a terrified native woman by the hair as his shield, his ray-pistol pressed against her temple, his semen dripping from her brutalized vagina. He looked at them, his face a map of scars and cruelty, and as his cold, hard gaze alighted on Edmond, his eyes widened in surprise at recognition.

“I’d heard you’d joined the Space Navy, though I didn’t know you were aboard Space Eagle. Are you trying to wipe the stain from our family with heroics? Ah, I see by your reaction that I’ve hit the mark.”

"Let her go, Uncle Eric," Edmond said, his voice steady. “Surrender peacfully. I don’t want to spill the blood of my father’s brother.”

The pirate captain laughed derisively. "But I have no compunctions about spilling yours, you traitor. The cursed Space Navy murdered my parents; your grandparents. Your father was too much of a spineless worm to join me. I spit on his name for his cowardice, and I will spit on your grave for siding with my enemies."

“My father is no coward,” replied Edmond, hotly. “He let go of his anger. You let yours consume you. Now, release the girl.”

The woman cried out as the Butcherer ground the barrel of his weapon against her temple. “Enough talk,” he snarled. Both of you, drop your guns or the slut gets a hole drilled through her head.”

Edomon silently cursed. He had hoped to catch his uncle by surprise, but his desperate gamble had failed. Still, all hope wasn’t lost just yet. He dropped his ray pistol.

“Tianu, do as he says,” he ordered.

Edmond’s pulse hammered as the girl’s weapon joined his on the floor. He watched the subtle shift in Eric’s weight. As the grinning pirate shifted his aim toward Edmond, the young man threw himself to the ground, diving for the pistol he had dropped. A hissing ray sizzled over his shoulder, scorching the doorframe behind him.

Edmond grabbed the gun and fired. The beam struck the Butcherer’s weapon. Sparks exploded. The pirate captain cursed. His ruined ray-pistol clattered to the timber floor. The native woman screamed. She broke free of her assailant’s hold and bolted out the door.

"You think you can stop me, boy? The Butcherer roared, jerking a long knife from his belt.

Edmond’s own weapon clicked—out of charge. He hurled it at his uncle, missed, then swiftly freed his own blade. Tianu tried for a shot, but the two men leapt at each other in a whirlwind of steel and fury, and she feared hitting Edmond. The Butcherer was powerful; his squat body was thickly muscled - the product of a high-gravity world, but Edmond fought with the cold precision of the Space Navy. He evaded a wild swing, ducked beneath Eric’s guard, and drove his knife home.

The blade sliced through cloth, then grated on concealed metal. Edmond cursed. His uncle was wearing mail armor beneath his tunic. The Butcherer lashed out with a brutal kick that slammed into Edmond’s gut, felling him to the floor. Tianu saw her chance. She fired. The hissing beam struck the Butcherer before he could stab his nephew. The pirate captain screamed, but not fatally. Again, his mail saved him. He charged the girl, roaring a wild battle-cry, knife plunging in a killing stroke.

Tianu cast aside the ray-pistol and drew her bronze dagger, a weapon she was far more familiar with. The girl was small and slim, and the brutal pirate was overconfident. She sprang aside with feline agility, avoiding his bullish rush, and before he could stop or turn around, she pounced upon him like a leaping lioness as he lumbered past; her dagger struck at his neck.

The Butcherer screamed as the blade bit into his flesh. He staggered. His eyes went wide with shock. The knife fell from his hand. Though mortally wounded, the Butcherer let loose a wild yell of defiance at death and all his enemies; he grabbed Tianu’s hair. The girl screamed as he tore her from his back and cast her to the floor. Pulling another knife from his belt the pirate captain staggered toward the girl, blood spurting from his neck.

Tianu tried to scuttle away, but the Butcherer slammed his boot on her hand, pinning her. She screamed in pain and fear. The pirate captain raised his gleaming knife, his eyes wild like the devil incarnate. For a moment, he stood there swaying, then slowly, like a tree falling, he collapsed to his knees, the knife clattering harmlessly on the floor. The Butcherer mumbled a bitter curse. His eyes rolled in their sockets, and then he fell quite dead upon the boards.

Edmond stumbled to Tianu and helped her up. Both stared at the dead pirate captain, the terror of space, now a blood-soaked corpse. It was a fitting end: he had died as violently as he had lived, and all his innocent victims were now avenged.

“Perhaps,” said Edmond quietly, “in death my uncle will find the peace that eluded him in life.”

**********

Over a year had passed, and the worst of the trauma the pirates had caused was beginning to abate. With the Butcherer dead, the remaining buccaneers, two in all, had surrendered without a fight, and were now imprisoned in the local equivalent of a jail, which was a deep, well-like pit impossible to escape from.

Tianu had assumed the role of unapu, or leader of her people, and life on Bora had resumed its peaceful continuity. For Edmond things were rather different. He was now among friendly people who were grateful to him for saving them from the brutal tyranny of the buccaneers. But nonetheless, he was marooned, cut off from all with which he was familiar, with little chance of rescue, for a hyperspace radio, which would allow instant communication with fleet headquarters, was still in the process of being invented.

In an effort to make himself useful, Edmond had begun to teach the people as much as he could about science and technology and the worlds beyond their own, as well as using his engineering skills to improve things, such as inventing a better bellows for the forges of the islands' blacksmiths.

At the moment, Edmond was sitting at a table in the workshop that had been built for him, drawing up plans for a small watermill that would power a triphammer. The island of Bora was quite large and had several rivers and smaller streams that could provide a source of power for the beginnings of mechanized industry. The technology was medieval, but with time, the natives would improve upon it.

The sound of someone entering the workshop made Edmond look up from his work. He smiled as Tianu approached him.

“I’m not interrupting?” she asked.

“Never,” he grinned as he pulled her onto his lap, for their relationship had become far more intimate.

She smiled, and then sobered as she looked at the plans he was drawing. “A machine from your own world. You must miss it at times.”

“Occasionally,” he admitted. “And then I think of you, and my cares are forgotten.”

This statement wasn’t mere flattery; it was the truth. Edmond had arrived as a survivor, but had become something more. The barren desert of his loneliness had bloomed under the grace of Tianu, and each had found in the other a treasure more precious than all the wealth of the stars. 

The End