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The day the Dread Pirate Mizar plunged a battleship into the sun was the day that would immortalise her. Neural news networks beamed images of melting metal and shredded hull into minds all across the UL, and in that moment, she was reborn.
Reborn not as a person, but as a figure. As a feeling. As a legend.
The day the Dread Pirate Mizar plunged a battleship into the sun, stories began to be passed around.
It was said that the Dread Pirate Mizar was a tactical genius. She must have had inside knowledge to outmaneuver the Avada; it was said that she was a deserter, a former general of the innermost circles of the empire.
It was said that she rotted in prison for ten, twenty, fifty years, plotting the UL’s destruction.
It was said that she was crazy. It was said that she was all too sane.
It was said that she and the pirates like her were the UL’s most existential threat; it was said that she was a monster, a hero, a murderer, a revolutionary.
So many tales were told, each one taller than the last. But of these stories, a few would be left unsaid.
There was an old man, sitting in the living room with his granddaughter as his neural chip read him confirmation of Martha’s death. He grimaced to himself, thinking back to a time he’d rather forget.
Biquilage Astradust was not proud of his past. He’d never had much in the way of a stable home life; his mother had died fighting in WEFIDS, and his father didn’t make enough to cover rent without him chipping in. He worked odd jobs until he fell into a group that paid much better… if you could stomach it.
He didn’t start out killing people, no. It started out with something he couldn’t help but understand.
It started out with anger. A common anger bound them all - anger at the hand they’d been dealt in life. Anger at the family they’d lost, anger at the situations they’d been trapped in, anger at the people who got what they didn’t deserve while they rotted in the gutters. Biquil didn’t remember a whole lot about where he went or what he did, but he remembered that anger.
It felt good, to share that. It felt good, to be with people who would understand. Who cares what they were doing?
…They were stealing. They were mugging. They were hurting people. And when Biquil was seventeen and fighting with his dad, they were saying they had some friends off planet who’d give him a place to stay for a while.
Pirates. These friends were pirates, and Biquil remembered the hard swallow he gave at the markings on the side of their ship. Jigeitef, who was accompanying him, gave him a playful shove.
“You look scared, B.” His grin had a gleam to it. “Don’t tell me I brought my buddies a chicken!”
“No! No, I’m ready! I’m ready to do whatever they say!”
“That’s more like it.” They were docking; Jig clapped his back. “You’re lucky. Captain’s putting on a bit of a party before the big hit tomorrow. I’ll introduce you to him - if I can catch him sober, hah!”
The pirates were all crowded in an old UL mess hall; there weren’t even close to enough seats, and Biquil had to step between a dozen or so swaying crew members before he made it to the captain. The captain was a large, bearded man who seemed more interested in nursing his bowl of ERNARERE brew than saying hello; after a moment, Jig gave up and thrust a bowl in Biquil’s direction.
“S’no matter. Let’s go enjoy ourselves, eh?”
The stench of alcohol burned his nose, and the two of them had a hard time finding a place to sit. Eventually they settled for sitting cross-legged in the middle of the floor; a pirate tapped Jig from behind and they started to talk, leaving Biquil alone in the deafening chatter around him.
Only for a moment, though. There was a nudge, and he turned to see Jig and the other pirate motioning at him.
“...yeah, he’s new,” Jig was saying. “He’s from… ah, whereabouts you from, B?”
“Up north,” said Biquil. He’d learned not to be specific.
“Yeah, he’s up north, round the, uh, Polar neighborhoods. Like me.” Jig cracked a grin. “You know his mom was a UL’er?”
Biquil’s blood ran cold as the pirate looked up at him. The pirate’s face twisted into a black anger, and he spat at the floor. Biquil huddled up a little closer to Jig.
“What are you doing?” He hissed. “I don’t want people knowing that!”
Jig waved him off. “Oh, you give him too much credit. He won’t remember it in the morning.”
The pirate made a slitting motion against his neck, and Biquil gulped. “Are you sure?”
“Yeah, don’t worry about it, kid. Just relax, okay?” Jig rustled his hair, and then snorted at something. “Your mom, she died in WEFIDS, didn’t she?”
“What?”
“Your mom died in WEFIDS?”
“Um, yeah… she-”
“That’s amazing! Oh, dude, I gotta show you something hil-lar-ious.”
Biquil was taken aback by that, and watched as Jig got to his feet and looked around. He grinned when he spotted someone in the crowd, and cupped his hands over his mouth to yell across the room:
“Hey, Mizar!”
The room quieted for a moment, but there was no reply. Pirates started turning their heads and snickering; Biquil craned his head to see who they were laughing at.
“Mizar. Mizar.”
Jigs’ lip lifted in a sneer. He was staring at a woman lying facedown in a corner of the room, wild hair tangled in a dirty halo around her head. She didn’t respond, didn’t move a muscle, and he rolled his eyes.
“Oh, for star’s sakes. Can someone check if she’s dead?”
At that, a couple sniggering pirates prodded her. She groaned, but didn’t move much. Biquil glanced over at Jigs.
“What’s going on?” He whispered. “Why are you-”
“ARGH, FUCK!”
That came from Mizar; one of the pirates had poured their bowl all over her hair and she’d shot up, frantically pawing at the back of her head.
“I’m hit! I’m bleeding, I’m…” She stared blankly at the tarry mixture all over her hands, and then noticed all the pirates laughing at her. Her expression twisted into a furious glare. “Oh, fuck you guys! Leave me alone, I’ve got such a hangover right now!”
“Hey, Mizar!” Jigs called out. She turned that glare on him.
“Fuck off.”
“You know WEFIDS, right?”
Mizar visibly flinched at that. Her whole body went tense, and her hand went up to clutch at a dirty pink shawl hung around her shoulders. She reminded Biquil of a cornered animal; while the other pirates cackled, he shivered.
“You know WEFIDS, right?” Jigs repeated. When she didn’t respond, he patted Biquil’s shoulder. “D’you know we got a newbie who’s mom fought there?”
Biquil physically recoiled. He tugged at Jigs’ sleeve. “No, don’t-”
“Just sayin, I thought you’d be interested.” Jigs grinned wide. “Your folks, they bit it in a UL attack, didn’t they? Damn, that sucks. Who knows, maybe this newbie knows who did it, eh, B?”
Mizar’s eyes, small and beady and bloodthirsty, suddenly jumped down and fixed on him. Biquil still remembered the shiver that shot down his spine as she rose to her feet, shattered a bottle against the side of the ship, and stumbled forwards.
Stumbled down. Fell on a group of pirates, and suddenly there was kicking and shoving and swearing and Mizar dissolved into a bloody bar fight. Without her eyes on him, Biquil felt like he could breathe again; immediately he rounded on his friend.
“You’re trying to get me killed!”
“Relax, kid,” Jig sat back even as Biquil put a hand on his knife. “You’re not special, we do it to all the newbies. Sometimes she makes them scream, hah!”
“I don’t…” He frowned. “I shouldn’t have come here.”
“Well, you’re here now, and you’re not leaving.” Jig looked at him, and there was something dangerous in his smile. “Where’re you gonna go, huh? Back to Daddy? I’m sure he’ll be happy to have a pirate back at home.”
Biquil didn’t know what to say to that.
“Yeah, that’s what I thought. You’re ours now, boy. Get used to it.” Jigs took a gulp of his brew. “And since you’re being so whiny about it, why don’t you have this?”
He handed Biquil a key. It was slightly bent, and there was dried blood on the handle.
“What’s this?”
“For where you’re sleeping. You’re lucky, that one’s for just a two person room! You’re gonna love your roommate.”
“Who’s my roommate?”
Jigs just stared ahead, to the barfight. Somebody had Mizar in a headlock as another person was punching her all over. She was clawing at his arm, and then finally she took the broken bottle and drove it backwards into his face; they all fell over, and blood painted the wall. Biquil’s blood went cold.
“Not…”
“Yeah.” A chuckle. “Hey, maybe you’ll have the room to yourself. Seems like this fight could go either way.”
There was a shout, and suddenly Mizar was pinning the other guy to the wall; he held his hands up, but she stabbed him in the neck, and stabbed him again and again and again and again until he fell down and she kept stabbing at the wood. Finally she staggered back, dropping the bottle, staring at her bloodsoaked hands. Jig raised his eyebrows.
“Or not.” He patted Biquil’s back. “Yeah, have fun tonight, B. Might even see you tomorrow.”
Biquil stared at the monster curled up against the far wall, and honestly wondered if he was going to die tonight.
Mizar wasn’t there when Biquil made his way to their room. He’d actually made sure to go to bed before her - his plan, if you could call it a plan, was to just be silent and hope she wouldn’t notice him. He didn’t know what to expect going into her room: bodies? Weapons? Some kind of sick collection of things taken from her murders? His heart was thumping in his chest as he turned the key, braced himself, opened the door…
And found not a bad room. It obviously wasn’t the neatest place to sleep at; there were clothes and knives strewn about everywhere, and a collection of alcohol bowls at the base of one bed, but nothing horrifying. Most surprising of all, he remembered, was a sketchbook on her bed, opened to quite a pretty drawing of this system’s asteroid belt.
Strange.
Her stuff was all over Biquil’s bed, too, and he froze, unsure of whether to move it or not. He eventually decided to carefully lower it all to the floor, and then turned out the lights so she hopefully wouldn’t notice.
Then he got in bed, and waited for her. He couldn’t sleep a wink knowing that she was coming, not knowing what she was going to do when she saw him. Jig didn’t seem to think she was that scary, but that look in her eyes when she was pacing towards him…
It was a long wait. He didn’t know how long exactly, but an eternity later, he heard the doorknob move, saw the door open and a figure stumble in. Backlit by the hallway lights, she looked like some kind of shadow, and she froze in place.
Biquil couldn’t see her eyes, but she moved her head, and suddenly he felt her gaze like he was being dropped into a sun. Slowly, deliberately, Mizar turned and closed the door behind her, locked it… and then there was something cold pressed up against his neck.
“What are you doing here?” Mizar’s voice was dangerously low. “You come to kill me? Who sent you this time?”
“What?” Biquil strained against the knife. “I don’t - they just sent me to sleep here! I wasn’t, I-I’m not trying to kill you, I promise!”
“Fuck off! Fuck off with your promises! Why don’t you guys just leave me alone?!”
“I’m sorry! I-I just got here, I don’t- please don’t kill me. I can leave. I’ll go, I-I’ll sleep outside in the hallway, I’ll…” He felt the knife relax a bit. “I’ll…?”
Mizar didn’t say anything for a long moment. Suddenly, the lights switched on, and he jumped at the sight of her looming over him. Her eyes squinted a bit in the light, and then glared down at him.
“You,” she said, after a pause. “You’re that kid from earlier. Jigs’ little friend.”
Lost for words, he nodded. She looked down at the floor.
“You moved my stuff.”
“Sorry.”
Mizar gave him a strange look at that. He couldn’t figure out if it was good or bad, but suddenly she pushed off him and tossed the knife into a corner. He could finally breathe… and he didn’t know what to do now. She was picking up all the clothes he’d moved to the floor; he reached down to help, but she glared at him and he thought better of it.
It was silent, for a long, awkward minute. Then Mizar spoke.
“B something.”
“Huh?”
“Your name.”
“Oh, uh… call me Biquil.”
Mizar nodded to herself as she folded up a prison jumpsuit. “And how old are you?”
“Um… Twenty?”
“You asking me if you’re twenty?”
“No! Uh, no, uh… seventeen. I’m seventeen.”
“Seventeen, huh.” Mizar opened a drawer. “You’re young, aren’t you.”
“Yeah…I can still fight, though! I’m not gonna run away!”
“Run away. Heh.” She shook her head. “You should, kid. While you still can.”
“What?”
“Where you from?”
“Uh, ODDIK.”
“How far away is that?”
“It’s, uh… we’re in ODDIK right now.”
“Oh.” Mizar shot him a death glare. “I’m not dumb. I’ve had a long day. I’ll hurt you if you laugh at me.”
Biquil shook his head, and watched her glare deepen.
“You think I’m dumb. You all think I’m dumb, and you’re all wrong. I know why they made you come here; they think I’ll be a part of their little hazing.” She muttered to herself. “I’m gonna kill Jigs. Gonna kill him. One day I’m just gonna kill him.”
He shrank back in his bed a little as Mizar finished putting her stuff away. She stalked towards the light switch, and shot a look at him before she flicked it.
“You need anything else?”
“What do you-”
“I said. Do you need. Anything else.” She glared at him. “Once this goes off it’s not going on again. Hurts my eyes.”
“No, I don’t- I don’t need anything else.”
“Good.” She turned off the lights, and there was a shuffling as she got into bed. “Oh, by the way, don’t plan on sleeping tonight, kid. There’s a reason they gave me my own room.”
“...Why?”
“I, uh, snore. Yeah, I snore real loud, apparently.”
Biquil frowned. “That’s the reason?”
“I mean I also strangled someone with their own bedsheets once, but that was self defense.” The bed creaked as Mizar rolled over. “Anyway, goodnight, or whatever.”
She didn’t speak again, and Biquil was suddenly alone in total darkness. He tried to shut his eyes, but it didn’t make much difference.
Unsurprisingly, Biquil didn’t remember getting much sleep that night. He did - very vividly - remember why, though. It wasn’t the snoring. Mizar didn’t snore once.
It was the crying. She cried all night, sniffing and muttering and breath-hitching… and he just lay there, with nothing to do but listen. He didn’t dare make a sound, and when the alarm went off for them to get up, he didn’t say a word about the blotchy face who turned on the lights.
“Hmm…” She wiped her eyes and frowned at him for a second. “Oh, you’re the kid from the… Right.”
“Good morning,” Biquil said, and then immediately regretted how dumb that sounded.”Uh-”
“It’s a good morning? That’s news to me, heh.” She chuckled as she picked a knife up from the floor. “Big day. Think we’re raiding a UL outpost today. Apparently the captain thinks they keep a lot of gold in little space stations at the edge of empire space, but hey, what do I know.”
He didn’t know what to say to that, so he got out of bed. There wasn’t a whole lot of getting ready he needed to do - he’d slept in his clothes - but he did check his pockets. You’d be surprised how easy it was for things to go missing over the night.
“How you feeling about it, kid?”
“Huh? Oh, I’m ready for anything.”
“Anything, eh?” She shot him an unpleasant smile. “That’s bold. Anything at all?”
Biquil made a face. “I mean… you know, ready for whatever happens on the job, you know.”
“Oh yeah, I know. I know what happens on jobs, you don’t.”
“...Okay?”
She paused, and then took a step towards him. “This is your first job, isn’t it.”
“No, I-”
“Sure, sure, you’ve messed around on your home planet or whatever. That’s not what I’m talking about, kid.” She stepped forwards again, close enough that he could smell her. That pink shawl - stars, it reeked. “I’m saying this is your first job. Your first real one.”
There was something unreadable in Mizar’s eyes… he nodded. Anything to make her go away, and fuck she put a hand on his shoulder.
“Listen to me,” she said, quietly. “You’re not gonna go on this job today. You’re gonna stay in this room, and I’ll come back after and get you off the ship.”
Biquil frowned. “What?”
“I’ll just say I killed you. They always believe that, they won’t go looking for you.”
“Wh- but, no! I gotta go on this job, I won’t get paid-”
“Then you’re gonna walk right off this ship and get yourself a different job - asteroid miners, they hire off the street these days! You still have that option.” Her grip tightened. “Listen, kid, that UL outpost is gonna be stuffed with cameras and chip scanners; you think you got problems now? Wait until your iris scan shows up on every piracy database in the galaxy. Once you’re in, you’re not getting out.”
He stared at her. “You want me to just… run away?”
“Yes, that’s exactly what I want you to do.”
“I can’t do that! Jigs is gonna think I’m a-”
“Argh!” Mizar suddenly shoved him back. “I’m gonna break something if you keep whining at me! Just stay here for a few hours and I’ll get you off the ship-”
“But I don’t want to get off the ship!” He clenched his fists. “You can’t just kick me out like this!”
“Oh yes I can, and also, I don’t care what you want. You’re seventeen, what you want is dumb.”
“Shut up, shut up!” He stabbed a finger at her. “Stop telling me what to do! I came here so people would stop telling me what to do! You’re not my mother!”
Mizar stared down at him. “Yeah, and I’m real glad I’m not. She raised a piece of work, didn’t she?”
Biquil froze as the words registered; at first there was disbelief, and then red hot rage like she’d stabbed him with fire. Before he even knew what he was doing he drew back his fist and was driving it right into her stupid smug face-
And she caught it. A second later, the cold rim of a blaster shoved itself against his jaw. She wasn’t smiling at all.
“Don’t try that again, kid.” Her hand forced itself into his pocket, and grabbed his room key. “This is what is going to happen. You’re going to stay right here until I come back, and then you’re going to get off this ship and go do something else with your life.”
She started walking backwards, still pointing the blaster at him. He glowered at her.
“I hate you.”
“Join the club.” Mizar opened the door, and then motioned around the room. “Oh, yeah, and while I’m gone, don’t trash my room. I may kill you for real then.”
“Oh, yeah? Try me! We can fight it out, we can-!” The door slammed in his face, and he kicked it. “Argh! I can’t believe this!”
He jiggled the handle, and then tried banging and hollering on the metal; no one came. He stepped back, shaking from anger, and started kicking all her stupid clothes strewn all over the floor. One of her knives was right by his foot - he took that and started gouging holes in some of them, and then he went to her bed and sliced right down her mattress.
Her sketchbook fell on the ground. He picked it up, chest heaving, and tore the pages right out of their binding. He tried to rip them all together but they were too thick to tear, so he picked one out.
It was a drawing of an asteroid. The detail in it gave him pause; he stared at the little flecks of shining ore in the grey shading, the sky behind it peppered with stars… this must’ve taken hours, he thought.
Biquil made to tear it, but then he paused, and then he scowled and tossed it to the floor instead. He stalked over to his bed and threw himself onto his pillow.
There he lay for a long time, glaring into the fabric.
It felt like an eternity before Mizar returned. Biquil paced around the room for a while, listening to the oxygen system whirr on and judder off, the idling engines chugging deep in the hull, the creaks and moans of an empty ship. He tried picking the lock, but he’d never been very good at that; he didn’t like fiddly things. He didn’t like waiting around.
Which was why it was almost a relief to hear footsteps down the corridor. He heard the key turn in the lock, and saw the door crack open.
Nobody came out at first. He moved a bit closer, and then it swung wide; Mizar shuffled in, hunched, with her hand clapped around a wound on her forehead - he could see the blood still running down it.
“Oh…” He said as she threw her backpack on the ground. “Uh… are you…?”
“I dunno… what’s my name? What year is this?” Her eyes flicked up to his face, and she let out a chuckle. “Nah, just kidding, kid. Had to see the look on your face.”
He watched her laugh a bit more to herself, then rifle around in her bag. Her eyes dropped to the floor, and saw all the torn clothes he’d left strewn about.
“Oh, you’ve been keeping busy, eh? You little gremlin.” Shaking her head, she picked one up and made to tear off the sleeve. “I do remember telling you I’d kill you for touching my stuff, but I guess…”
A crumpled page fell out of the shirt, and Mizar froze as it came to rest face-up; it was her drawing of the asteroid belt. Biquil could feel the air drop ten degrees as she shot up, noticing for the first time the pages scattered about her room, the spine of the sketchbook carelessly tossed behind the bed. He could see her breath hitch, her jaw set, her fists clench… and she spoke.
“You…” She said, with a dangerous quiver. “You destroyed my sketchbook.”
Biquil felt a bit of a pang at that, but he stuffed it down. “I… I told you. I don’t want to leave.” He watched Mizar bend down, flip her bag over, and start shaking everything out of it. The blood from her head was dripping now; she seemed to have completely forgotten about bandaging it. “Uh, what are you…?”
“Get in.”
“Get in what?” He blinked as she tossed the bag at him. “What? I won’t fit!”
“Magic. It’s bigger on the inside.” Mizar stalked towards him. “Get in, I’ll carry you out.”
“But-”
Mizar punched him in the mouth. Biquil remembered it like a shot of pain and then he was on the floor, stars dancing across his vision. He tried to blink open his eyes, and saw Mizar looming over him like the shadow of a giant.
“I am so, fucking, SICK OF PLAYING NICE FOR YOU!” She drove her foot into his chest. “Do you think I’m some sort of joke? That you’re just gonna come in here and tear my shit up and walk all over me? Fuck you! FUCK YOU!”
She kicked him again, and he recoiled from her. She grabbed his shoulder and wrenched him up to her.
“Look at me.” Mizar seized his stinging jaw. “Look at me! You’re gonna get in this bag, you’re gonna get off this ship, and you’re gonna pray to god that I don’t see your shitty UL face again because I will do something terrible to you. I will. Is that clear?”
Biquil stared into her eyes, and could only imagine he was seeing the face of pure evil. Her breath was rancid, and her blood was running down the side of her grimy face and dripping onto him. He couldn’t breathe; he could barely manage a single, terrified nod.
“Okay.” She took a breath. Her eyes flitted down, and then wandered up to meet his again. “Can you stand?”
He nodded, but he struggled to get his legs underneath him. She made a face and hoisted him up herself.
“Alright…” Mizar said, and brushed him off a little. She didn’t look him in the eyes. “Alright. Now… just get in the bag, okay?”
This time, she didn’t have to ask twice. He quickly stumbled over and drew the bag around him, then winced as she hoisted it up over her shoulder. His face, his ribs - he tried to cradle them as best he could, but with every little movement they sent out sharp shots of pain. It stank in the bag, too; maybe he was a little grateful now everything hurt so much, because it didn’t occur to him at the time to wonder what had been stashed in here before him.
No, in the utter darkness, all he tried to make out were sounds from the outside. Mizar’s feet, pounding on the metal. The beeps of doors as she walked through them. The odd chatter of passing pirates. They seemed to get to a place with a lot more voices; Mizar took a hard turn right, and then-
“Hey, you! Mizar!”
Jigs. Biquil perked up at that voice.
“Where you going? We’re leaving in less than a trentile, and… what’s in that bag?” A dark chuckle. “Don’t tell me you’ve got other plans.”
Mizar stopped, and turned around. She didn’t say anything for a moment, and he could feel her swaying a bit, like she was suddenly way too drunk to stand.
“Hey, you listening to me? What are you, stupid?”
“Huh?”
“I said what’s in the bag!”
There was a pause, and then… “The kid. Biqop or whatever.”
He blinked. What?
“Yeah,” she said, and dropped him to the floor. “Came back to my room, and the body - w hoo - it was already leaking and stinking up the place and all that junk. Gotta dump it out before we jump; oh, hey, wanna take a look?”
“Eugh!” He could hear Jigs take a step back. “No! Why the fuck would I want to look at that, you gross little-”
“Because you’re gonna be in here too some day.”
“Wh… i-is that a threat?”
“I dunno. Maybe.” She picked up the bag again. “Enjoy yourself. You know I’ll be back before we leave.”
Then she walked away, and there wasn’t another word from Jigs. He could feel the air change as they walked off the ship; Mizar was still going somewhere, and he wasn’t sure where that was until they went through a door and stopped.
“Alright.” She set the bag down, and uncovered him. They were in a bathroom. “Seems like I can let you out here. Come with me.”
“What?” Biquil frowned. “Where?”
“I saw a sign as I was walking over here.” Mizar took off her shawl and placed it gently in her bag. A bandage was now tied around her head, he noticed. She offered a hand. “C’mon, I’ll do you a favour.”
He was a little dubious of that, but he took her hand and let her lead him out of the bathroom. He’d seen the ODDIK station before; the pirate ship was stationed in a pretty seedy part of it, with grime on the walls and neon neurovertisments flashing at him through a crowd of shadows. Mizar kept her hand on him as she led him out, past doors and through hallways, into a different part that looked a tiny bit more cleaned up. There, she stopped and took a look around.
“What are you looking for?” Biquil asked. He saw her snap her fingers and start walking towards a man leaning by a docking station. “Who’s he?”
Mizar gave a sunny smile. “Mr Mazul?”
“Yeah?”
“Hi, we saw your ad about asteroid miners! Sorry about the look - just got out of work, at the mines. Long shifts and all that, you know how it is.”
He blinked. “Oh? Where do you work? On planet?”
Biquil saw her freeze a little at that. “Uh, yeah, sure, at…”
“There’s a uranium mine in the Polar Neighborhoods,” Biquil supplied. The man nodded.
“Oh, yeah! My cousin works there! Jedislef Mazul, you know him?”
Mizar nodded. “Yeah, uh, I think that rings a bell. Yeah, it’s a good job. It’s good pay, uh, honest work… but anyway! We’re not here for me, we’re here-” She wrapped an arm around Biquil. “-for my nephew!”
He blinked at that. Mazul looked over at him.
“What’s your name, son?”
“Biquilage.” He paused. “Uh, Astradust.”
“Alright. And how old are you?”
“He’s seventeen,.” Mizar said. “but he’s a very good worker, very driven.” Her grin turned wry. “Heh, honestly, sometimes it’s annoying how hard he works to get stuff done sometimes, you just wanna punch him in the face!”
Biquil awkwardly rubbed his chin as the man wrote something down. He looked up at Mizar, and she winked at him. He didn’t know how to interpret that.
“Okay…” Mazul started. “Just to clarify, we’re asteroid miners. We go out for cycles at a time, so you’ll go long periods without seeing your family. That okay with you?”
“That’s okay.” He made a face. “That’s… yeah. That’s okay with me.”
“Alright, then. We’re going out tomorrow, so actually it’s great you stopped by; we were hoping to get a few more onboard before then.” He extended a hand. “Welcome to the team, Biquilage.”
“Oh… oh, thank you!” Biquil took it. “That’s great! Tomorrow?”
“Yeah, we’ll go over the details with all the new hires tomorrow. Just show up here at 11th trentile, and don’t be late, okay?”
“O-okay! I won’t!”
He felt Mizar clap his back. “And voila!” She said, and the smile on her face was wide and genuine. “Nice, kid! It’s that easy!”
“Yes, it was good to meet you, Biquilage, and…” The man looked to Mizar. “Oh, I don’t think I got your name.”
Mizar blinked. “My name?”
“Yeah.”
“Uhhh…” She seemed genuinely caught off guard; Biquil could see her search for a name, but in the end what came out of her mouth was: “Martha. Martha, uh, Astrapuff.”
“Astradust.”
“I knew that,” she said, a little distantly. “Was just making a joke. Let’s go.”
They walked a little ways away, and Biquil didn’t quite know what to do now. Mizar’s arm was still around his shoulders; he tried to extract himself, and that was when she seemed to come back to herself a bit.
“Uh,” She drew her arm back, and dug into her pocket. “Hey, one more thing.”
Mizar drew her hand out, counted a couple crumpled credits, then handed them over.
“This’ll probably get you a room for tonight. Won’t be the nicest, but hopefully that don’t bother you.” She flashed a smile. “You’ve slept in worse places.”
“Thanks?” He looked up at her. “Why are you - this is your money!”
“Eh, as long as you don’t ask the people I took it from.”
“But… why are you being so nice to me? What’s in it for you?”
“I dunno, what’s in it for you asking questions like that? You want me to take it back?” She laughed, but there was an edge to it. “Look, you’re all set up, I’m going now. Have a nice life.”
She started walking away. Biquil frowned. “Mizar?”
“Byyye!”
“Martha?”
Martha froze at that. Biquil saw her hesitate; her hands clenched a bit, her shoulders rose as she breathed, and then she turned around. There wasn’t quite a smile on her face as she spoke.
“It’s a nice fake name, right? I like it. Got a good ring to it.” Her smile fell a little. “Not my name, though. Doesn’t really fit, y’know, this.”
She chuckled, and hoisted her backpack up on her shoulder.
“Anyway,” she said. “Time for me to go. Bye, kid.”
Then Biquil watched Mizar turn, and walk out of the station without another word. She disappeared behind a bend in a hallway, and a part of him thought that was the last time he’d ever see her… and he didn’t. Not for decades.
Biquil spent his life mining asteroids, making friends, sending money back to his dad. He met, he married, he settled down somewhere far from ODDIK, and some nights when he tucked his kids into bed, his mind wandered back to that one dark night on the pirate ship, the night before he almost made the biggest mistake of his life.
The night Martha stepped in and turned him back. Saved all this. And that wasn’t to say she was good, or nice - even forty years on his jaw still clicked when he ate - but when he thought of her, he liked to imagine she’d caught a break at some point. Maybe she was living somewhere outside even the UL, getting to have a quiet life where no one bothered her and she could sleep peacefully at night. It wasn’t likely, but it made him feel a bit better when he looked around at all he had and knew how lucky he was not to end up just like her.
But, of course, he did see her again. For weeks the news broadcast her mugshot on every building of the UL, and Biquil could no longer imagine that she’d lead anything close to a comfortable life. She’d spent her life in piracy, and for the last five years she’d sat on death row before she got out and tore a final, bloody rampage through UL space.
That face. Those eyes. They haunted him for the rest of his days… because no one else could see what he saw in them. Some people said they were eerily blank, others described the calculated intelligence in them… none of them would just admit she looked tired. Really, really tired.
They did, didn’t they? I mean, wouldn’t you be tired after being sent to prison? She looked the same as she did when he first laid eyes on her across the dining room.
Like she just wanted to be left alone.