Devotions for Astronauts No. 1

Chain of Command

“The stars are mine for the taking.” -Captain Villareal of the unregistered Dauntless

Moreover, if your brother commits a sin against you, go and show him his fault — but privately, just between the two of you. If he listens to you, you have won back your brother. If he doesn’t listen, take one or two others with you so that every accusation can be supported by the testimony of two or three witnesses. If he refuses to hear them, tell the congregation; and if he refuses to listen even to the congregation, treat him as you would a pagan or a tax-collector. -Matthew 18:15-17 (CJB)

Content Warning: Language, Combat Violence

“How you doin’ this morning, Aaron?” Captain John Mercall looked his youngest son over while taking a sip from his cup of black. Aaron knew it probably wasn’t a judgemental look from the years of working under his father and older brother, but it still felt that way for some reason, likely because he was the one who seemed to continually need the correction, unlike Noah who basically did nothing wrong and was his boss. Even as an adult, nothing had changed for him, except the size of the paycheck.

“Mornin’ dad, sleep well?”

“‘Well’ is a relative term these days, son, but nothin’ this here container of hot bean juice can’t fix. Did you get the docket secured this morning like I asked?”

Straight to work, as usual. Man would rather work than actually make money and enjoy time off. “Yeah of course, you wouldn’t doubt my efforts, right? Been doing it for almost ten years at this point, I’ve got it taken care of.”

“Even if you fly 10,000 times it only takes 1 for it to be your last. You check every time. Don’t forget that. One day you’ll have this job and you’ll need to do the annoying asking on that 10,001st time.” Captain Mercall took another swig “Let me know when Noah gets to the bridge. I’ve got to go inspect the other stations before we pull out of port.”

And just like that, like every morning, he walked off the bridge leaving Aaron to look around at the dark, spartan hull, the utilitarian patchwork of controls and comfy seating for babysitting their heavy long haul freighter known as the RSS Zebulon. And just like every morning of a short run they were picking up low value, high volume scrap from one of their regular dingus clients so they could keep the lights on. And that’s all it ever was, keeping the lights on. No, they weren’t about to starve, but they surely weren’t growing either, or at least not at an appreciable rate. Clearly his dad had earned a lot of money at some point since they were one of the only space trucks equipped with a lens capable of generating localized gravity. But now there was no sign of such wealth coming into the company coffers. Very likely if Aaron ever did inherit the business because somehow Noah had been deemed unworthy in some unlikely scenario, then he’d probably die with a business that hadn’t grown much past what it was now. At least, not if changes weren’t made. Which is why today was special.

Aaron walked over to the comm station and sat down. He keyed in the digits he’d been given yesterday by the supplier. He put the call through. Two long beeps rang out, his cue to punch in the 6 digit verifier to establish an encrypted line, a novelty for Aaron.

“This is Commander Kursk, who am I speaking with?” The voice seemed the same age as his father, but raspier, harsher, deeper. The voice of someone who had lived some real life instead of taking it easy. It sounded like a payday, like moving the hauling business forward.

Aaron recalled when he spoke with the fixer who set up the deal and he was adamant that Aaron should keep his identity hidden.

“This is Captain Dante of The Livermore. We are in possession of one 4 ton for cleaning services if you’re ready for receipt.”

“Understood, meet at Tantalus L5, 1400 UTC. Don’t be late. Don’t be short. Out.”

“Tantalus L5? Hello? Sir, that’s not-.” But the line was already dead.

Well, shit! That wasn’t in the flight plan!

Aaron knew he’d have to figure out how to get open space stop into the flight plan without his dad noticing. He hadn’t yet delivered the docket, so some massaging of the timeline could work. But a transfer of unregistered cargo at a Lagrange point without a station? How was he to do that when he was sure it’d be almost impossible to slip the transfer by his dad in a port where he could easily cover his tracks?

“Dad running you ragged?” Aaron whirled around in his seat to see Noah overlooking the bridge, giving him the visage of their father conning the ship thirty years ago. He also had a cup of coffee. He was irritatingly handsome. “Checking in with our clients?”

Had he overheard the transmission?

“Yeah, I was just confirming receipt for one of today’s shipments.”

Should I try to start getting our route changed now or will he be suspicious.

“I might need to call them back later, but there might be a slight change to the flight plan, but I’ll keep you apprised of any changes, Noah.” Aaron found that using his given name undermined his older brother’s attempt at establishing formal professional titles in their discussions. It was a good way to remind him that they were in fact still brothers and to never forget it. Dad might have assigned Noah to be his boss, but he would never be Aaron’s boss. He couldn’t ever love a boss, so that would never fit.

“Don’t forget the inventory check today, ok? You were late last time. I expect you there fifteen minutes early. You need to set a good example for the rest of the crew.” Noah drank his coffee and left without a response. Aaron was certain he did it on purpose.

But whenever I am early, I’m the one who has to wait on you and dad. I guess only your time is valuable, not mine also, right?

Aaron slammed his hand down on the console. “Dammit.” His jaw clenched, pain spidering across his face. He surveyed the room, eyes landing on the nav station, and looked away. He got up heading off the bridge and looked over his shoulder again at the nav station. He examined the red mark on his hand where his fist impacted the desk moments before. He opened and closed his hand and looked around the empty bridge. Aaron walked straight to the nav station, pulled up the computer, punched in the coordinates to change course and shut it down, expending no more than a single minute on the task. He had set the delta-v to occur over the next hour so as not to arouse anyone’s attention.

He left the bridge to carry out the duties of the day.

At the end of shift, Aaron had skipped dinner. His stomach knotted up as he thought about the upcoming rendezvous. Though Aaron did a lot of grunt-work, he did have one blessing as a result of his father being captain. He had his own room, which was uncommon aboard any ship, even big ones. But he had his own room. It was barely big enough to dress in and the bunk resembled a coffin missing it’s side panel since above and below were for storage, but it was his own room. He didn’t berth with other crew. And at moments like this, he appreciated the space. He needed to relax. He lay down on top of the scratchy wool, crossing his feet, interlacing his fingers, and resting his hands behind his head and breathed out a half sigh half frustrated grunt.

Cargo transportation, better known as space trucking, compared similarly to war, lots of boredom punctuated by brief periods of frantic but critically important activity. That was Aaron’s life except he was rarely charged with critically important work, just the mundane but sometimes necessary work. So in his case space trucking was boredom punctuated by rushed boredom. But in a few hours time things would change. He’d arranged a cargo transport for a VIP and they were willing to pay top dollar. It was less cargo for more money and less travel. Efficient. Profitable. His dad would have no issue once the transaction was complete. Sure sure, he’d mind the fact that he hadn’t negotiated the deal, but Aaron’s dad wasn’t the jealous type so it wouldn’t be anything like that. It’d be something or other about honoring his father and how not sharing important business with him wouldn’t be honoring. But honestly what could be more honoring that growing the family business and pushing it to greater heights? Was that not respect for the family business and in return respect for his father? It’d all work out. But now it was time to play the waiting game. Aaron relaxed in his bunk, day dreaming about having more money, more respect, more of life. They’d be blessed. And with that thought he relaxed entirely, drifting off.

He startled awake, alarms blaring throughout the ship and he felt himself being pulled gently to one side. The ship was under hard thrust. The ship was never under hard thrust.

Why is the ship under hard thrust? It’s never under hard thrust.

Dressing as fast as possible he tripped about the cabin, unused to the unusual forces now exerting themselves upon the ship. Bangs and yells ran up and down the corridor right outside his door. Indistinct yelling poured through the vents.

“General Alert.” The PA rang out.

What? General Alert is reserved for emergency situations.

But the ship wasn’t breaking up and they couldn’t possibly be near a port. They were just in the empty black of space between docks. Literally nothing ever happened out here. It was the single most boring part of the job where his father would invent work for people to do. Nothing made sense.

Out of the cabin finally, Aaron sprinted full speed through the narrow corridors, thankful for once that he had performed drills for exactly this kind of thing. He rounded a corner and plowed into an engine tech at full speed passing through an intersection of corridors. Aaron went sprawling, crashing into the metal grate that comprised the deck. The crew member picked him up and ran off mentioning that Aaron was needed on the bridge “ASAP”.

The pain cut through the adrenaline and Aaron couldn’t be sure he hadn’t torn or broken something. Nevertheless the catecholamine kept flowing, pushing his heart at a steady rhythm to keep his muscles going. He peeled himself off the deck, leaving behind something containing his DNA. He cursed and ran as fast as he could to the bridge. Mercifully the rest of the trip contained no falls, trips, or snags on anything in the corridors.

Aaron burst through the hatch, halting immediately trying to take in everything at once. Chaos reigned supreme. He’d never seen so many people on the bridge. His father ran from station to station, a stark contrast from the coffee wielding man this morning. Even his brother was moving from person to person. Nonstop chatter filled the air, people yelled over each other, each trying to gain the captain’s attention.

John looked up to see his son at the entrance to the bridge. Relief washed over his face, transforming the terror etched into his wrinkles into a sad hope of some kind. It was not a face he’d ever seen his father make in all his years. “Oh thank God, Aaron, take this.” He ran to his son and handed him the key that always hung about his neck. “Unlock the armory. We’re about to be boarded.”

“What?” Aaron practically whispered the words. His father took no notice. Then he screamed at the top of his lungs. “What the hell did you just say? Dad, what’s going on?”

“Pirates.” He looked ready to cry. “Son. They don’t take prisoners. Remember your training I’ve given you. You can handle this. Go. Lives depend on you. Go. Go now. A crew will meet you there shortly for weapons issue. God protect you.” He shoved his son through the door without another word and immediately fled back to the people at the consoles.

Aaron looked at the keycard in his hand, chain dangling, sweat and blood and fear clinging to its surface. He held the literal key to survival. And even that wasn’t guaranteed. He’d heard of pirates. And every story was one of horror. But how could they be in the clutches of such monsters now? Such thoughts would have to wait. Now, the only thing that mattered was survival.

He made his way through the ship, down the ladderwells to the lower decks, sliding and bouncing off every surface. Adrenaline dosing to the point of pure numbness. He moved so fast that even the fear hadn’t caught him yet. It simply wasn’t real. Pirates? Pirates were legend and myth. Pirates, like death, weren’t real. They were always something that happened to other people.

At the armory, the only double thick door on the ship, he swiped the keycard dropping it in the process. It failed to read. He ran it again. And again. The fear caught him. “Come on you fuckin’ thing, work damn you work!” He punched the bulkhead and then swiped again. And again it did not read. He inspected the card and saw his blood smeared along the read strip. He wiped it on his shirt, sloppily and ran it again. The light turned green and a loud “clang” rang out from the lock mechanism. He jerked on the door which slowly opened due to its heft. About that time several crew rounded the nearby corner, sprinting down the hallway.

He threw himself into the cramped room as soon as a gap big enough formed between the door and the frame. He looked around the space trying to reorient himself to it. He hadn’t seen this room in at least a year. But the training kicked in. He grabbed the roster off the wall and observed the inventory of armaments. It called out each specific weapon, attachment, accessory, and crew member as well as the specific location of each thing. He scanned the room and remembered everything was coded in a very intuitive way, an alphanumeric grid. And every weapon on the rack and magazine prefilled with ammo was labeled. It was dummy proof and it was the very thing that Aaron needed right now.

“Sir? Weapons?” The crew member, a tech chief named Joseph Cardina, stood in the door, the suppressed fear sitting on his face like a bad burn. Several other crew moved around anxiously behind Joseph.

The room shook violently throwing Aaron, Joseph, and everyone behind him to the ground. A loud bang echoed throughout the entire ship, piercing the corridors running their length and back several times. It was the single loudest noise Aaron had ever heard in his life.

“They’ve docked” Joseph said getting up.

His senses returned and he pushed himself back up, scrambling to check the roster. He matched Joseph Cardina with “H1” and looked at the grid of weapons and easily found the one labeled “H1”. He grabbed the appropriate magazines and body armor and stuffed it into Joseph’s hands. A sense of duty overcame Aaron and he looked Joseph in the eyes. “Remember your training. Work together. We will get through this.”

Joseph’s eyebrows came together in worry. “Yes sir. We will. I trust you. My men will be standing by for you.”

Aaron issued out the other weapons, ammo, oxygen system, and armor in less than a minute. Nine men in total armed as much as space truckers could be armed. Aaron issued out another three complete sets for some crew to carry back to the bridge. He desperately hoped beyond hope that his father and brother could be armed and ready and perhaps someone else with some kind of training on the bridge.

“Get these to my father. He’ll know what to do.” He shoved the three men down the hall toward the bridge. Five men remained with Aaron donning their gear. Joseph and Aaron inspected the men to ensure proper arrangement of their gear.

BANG!

The explosion hurtled through the ship careening off the bulkheads. The pirates hadn’t even bothered hacking the door to their ship, they just blew it. Their willingness to jeopardize hull and pressure integrity in the depths of space was somewhere between terrifying and impressive, but more the former than the latter. Aaron recalled his father’s training about pirates. They wanted the crew alive to help with access to the cargo, but it was only seen as a minor convenience. If the hull was destroyed in the process, it wasn’t a big deal so long as the cargo wasn’t harmed. Crew expendable.

Aaron grabbed words out of thin air hoping that it sounded inspirational. “They’re in our home, men. Let’s roll out the welcome mat!” His voice came out much calmer and commanding than he expected given that he could hardly catch his breath and could no longer feel his fingers. He looked down at the gun realizing he couldn’t feel it’s weight or shape. In fact, the gun looked bright and crisp in his hands but the details at the edge of his vision seemed fuzzy, almost black.

His hands still worked so he wrapped his hand around the grip, and supported the front of the rifle. It was short and light, made for exactly this kind of combat, tight corridors, close quarters, armored targets, and a desire not to puncture the hull of the ship, so it used ammo with extremely high velocity that fell off quick.

“Two men per corridor, slight offset for maximum coverage. Hug the walls, use the bulkheads as cover. Move from bulkhead to bulkhead as we push up. Stay on comms if you can. We want to stay as parallel as possible pushing up to the airlock.”

Joseph took off on an adjoining corridor taking several men with him and getting them in position ready to move down the main arteries of the ship from aft to fore, pushing away from the bridge.

Aaron faced down the corridor toward the sounds. And moved forward with someone trailing behind him. “Who’s that behind me?”

“David, sir, it’s David.” He stammered over his own name, twice.

“Lets do this David. I’ve got port, you’ve got starboard, got it?”

“Yeah, got it.”

The first sounds of commotion poured down the narrow passage. The airlock opened up on the starboard side of the ship. Aaron and Davide occupied the starboard most corridor on the ship, meaning they were likely to make first contact. Aaron swallowed parts of his vibrating heart. He couldn’t force it down. He cleared his throat to clear the uneasy feeling.

Shouts, metal on metal, rustling of bags, gear, armor all jumbled together into an incomprehensible wall of psychological terror. Implying things as yet unseen. Violence soon to be dealt.

Aaron’s life appeared in his mind like a timeline, a watch ticking the seconds by. And soon, a cliff, the point of no return, the point of his soul leaving his body. Clear as day, the cliff rolled closer in his mind. The very moment where the bullet would pierce his skull or some shrapnel ripped his aorta out and he bled, fading from consciousness, unable to move his body. The cliff loomed.

Seconds away now, seconds away now, I’ll go over the edge.

A yawning, black abyss opened beneath him. Blacker than any night sky, blacker than the unconsciousness of sleep. A forever black, so deep, and so big, it was incomprehensible.

A super-heated claw of molten lava reached into the middle of his body and clenched his stomach. Tendrils of hot, spiky fire shot through every part of his body like lightning. The air was knocked from his lungs and Aaron hit the ground, knees first.

I’ve been shot!

But just as quickly, the moment passed. One one-hundredth of a second had passed. He hadn’t fallen. It was just an even bigger dose of adrenaline.

“God save us all.” Aaron said as the first pirate crossed his line of sight, running at full speed down the corridor connecting the airlock and running transverse across the ship. “One pirate past our line of sight!” he said on comms.

“Roger” Joseph said.

Two more followed, so fast Aaron couldn’t get a round off. Their heavy boots slammed the deck echoing as they ran by. More boots were coming. They were clad all black head to toe. Fully armored with environmentally sealed suits. Weapons fire erupted from parallel corridors as the intruders were spotted. The fourth pirate, paused in the intersection weapon pointed down the long hall toward Aaron and David seemingly providing security, but instead of firing he turned back to the airlock to gesture.

Aaron did not wait for the pirate to correct his mistake. He sighted in, center mass, and started squeezing off rounds. He shot six? seven? fourteen? rounds at the pirate. Some found their mark as the pirate collapsed in the hallway. A fraction of a second later arms holding a gun popped out from behind cover and pointed down the corridor and fired a wall of automatic death.

Per his training, Aaron had already been hugging the wall and pushing up to the next bulkhead when the spray of munitions flew by. He wedged himself in the corner between the wall and the thick metal that separated one section of ship from another. He pressed himself so hard against it that he felt like he’d fuse with the cold metal. He looked across the corridor and saw David had done the same on the starboard side. Their forward movement was halted, but due to the intervening bulkheads, they were safe from the fire, for now. It was only now that Aaron noticed the extra plating on the bulkhead that wasn’t standard on other ships. How had he not noticed it until now?

A concussive wave ripped through the hall, snapping Aaron’s attention back to the present moment.

Grenades? Are they trying to kill us all including themselves?

Aaron chanced a peek through the hatch and saw a billow of smoke filling the whole space. He could no longer hear anything. He felt the air moving. He sensed what some might call “sound” but it wasn’t sound. He couldn’t actually hear anything. But waves of vibrations slapping his face, wiggling his hair, and tremoring through the metal grated floors told him many many projectiles were moving back and forth through the ship.

Do we push up through the smoke or sit here and wait for them to come to us?

Both options seemed like the wrong ones. Aaron went with his gut of staying in cover. He observed David and made a “shush” sign with his finger. Hoping he’d understand to stay put from the vague sign.

Aaron noticed small eddies forming in the smoke. And opened fire into the middle of the haze. Emerging from the smoke three black figures in full sprint burst from the gray, atmosphere spraying from a hole in one of the pirate’s suit. They had their guns up and fired continuously. Aaron had to duck back behind cover. The rounds hammered the other side of the bulkhead. David looked like he was screaming. Aaron heard nothing.

No time left to react he had to suppress the charge now or die. He took the risk and popped out to fire. David joined him.

The pirates had already closed the distance to the hatch and Aaron fired straight into the gut of the pirate in the middle of the bunch just meters away.

He staggered, tripped, and fell careening into the bulkhead as he did so. Aaron had an angle on the starboard side pirate and dumped the last rounds of his magazine into him. The pirate froze, neither falling nor charging. His arms hung limp. Then he toppled.

David’s head exploded, sending gore all over the starboard wall on their side of the hatch.

A barrel poked into the hatch, Aaron grabbed it and levered it against the hatch opening creating a fulcrum that launched the pirate toward the starboard side. He tripped over his dead comrade in the process planting his helmet face first into the wall. Unlike his compatriots, he was not dead, and immediately fought to regain footing.

Aaron had lost his own gun in the process of grabbing the pirate’s gun and couldn’t get it away entirely because the sling was snagged on something. He dove for David’s rifle, praying there were still rounds in the magazine.

He peeked back around the corner. The pirate had turned back over, face up and nearly had his rifle back in his hands. Aaron was faster on the gun. But a grenade landed on the pile of three pirates, the one left alive just as shocked as Aaron.

He dropped to the ground, hoping the lower portion of the bulkhead was sufficient to save him since it was the only thing separating the pile of bodies from where he lay.

a fraction later, he was kicked in his ribs, neck, face, and thigh all at once. Pain was the wrong word to describe the sensation because it lacked the intensity necessary to describe the hurt he now felt. He attempted to breathe and could not. No matter how many times he willed his lungs to work, they wouldn’t. He could move, barely. He stood. The motion allowing him a small gasp of air. There was nothing to see except smoke. A light was flashing from down the corridor sending orange spikes through the roiling gray. He raised his arms in an attempt to breath. Some clicked or cracked or snapped upon lifting his arms. An electric bolt ran through his side. More concussions slammed through his feet and bounced off his skin. More weapons fire? More explosions?

Something relaxed suddenly in Aaron’s diaphragm and he took a full breath coughing.

If there was still gunfire, there was still fighting. Which meant, there was still hope.

Get back in the fight.

Aaron felt like a sitting duck. He wasn’t sure if he should push through the smoke or fallback to a more defensible position, possibly with other crew, if they were still alive.

A quote from his father passed through his mind. “The difference between courage and stupidity lies only in the result.”

Let’s roll the dice. May God have mercy on me.

Aaron charge through the hatch into the ball of smoke, weapon ready. Aaron could see a mere three feet in front of him, but pressed on, hoping the corridor cleared before the intersection adjoining the airlock.

As hoped, the smoke gave way to a clear intersection. No one occupied it. And concussive waves seemed further into the ship, possibly closer to the bridge. No evidence remained as to who had thrown the second grenade.

He checked around the corners, peering through the airlock, some 50 meters away now, a gash open in the hatch gave way to a clear view into the pirate ship.

Let’s roll the dice again.

He headed for the airlock. For the pirate ship. The source of death itself. He stepped over the threshold entering the domain of the enemy. Perhaps it was empty. Perhaps he had sealed his fate. An invisible chord pulled him forward. What would happen would happen. At the first T-intersection he turned left, proceeding toward what he believed to be the front of the ship.

Between his heart rate staying elevated, the concusive injury to his side, and his now intentionally slow and deliberate movements as he glided forward, his breathing had become ragged, hard to keep steady, hard to keep quiet. His muscles shook from the effort to hold the rifle steady. His tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth as it had somehow become deprived of all moisture.

He passed multiple rooms and adjoining corridors, certain that whatever he was there to do it lay forward, farther forward.

The corridor wasn’t much wider than those of the RSS Zebulon. But they felt three times smaller. Suffocating. The path terminated and made a hard right, but into what?

He rounded the corner and found several other hatches and openings coming together like springs adjoining a larger river. A central corridor of some kind lay ahead just on the left. He stopped.

Even without hearing, he had sensed something that implied there was someone else on the ship. Still ahead, still forward.

This will either be the stupidest or bravest thing I’ve ever done. Possibly both.

He glided forward to the corner and popped out quickly from cover ready to open fire on anything. It was a large central hall that led to a room ahead seperated by bulkhead and hatch. As quickly and quietly as possible he covered the distance ignoring any possiblity for cover since it didn’t seem like a realistic option here anyway.

He stepped through the hatch to find a large control room of some kind. Different from a normal bridge, this was some sort of command center with a central display console.

And then he saw him.

A middle aged man on the older side of middle aged, in golden armor bearing a skull emblem. Someone Aaron had never seen before, but looked incredibly familiar. The pirate captain, to be sure. A wave of surprise passed over the stranger’s face. He immediately reached for a sidearm. Aaron opened fire, hitting enough body parts the pirate captain was unable to secure a hold on the pistol. Instead he fell to his knees with a cough. Aaron unsure if it was a feint crossed the room, dodging consoles and wiring in the process.

“On your feet asshole!” Aaron screamed, his own voice reverberating in his head producing the noiseless vibrations that all sounds had become.

The captain pulled himself to his feet, placing nearly all his weight upon the computer terminal in front of him to do so. “You got me.” He produced a knife from somewhere and lunged at Aaron. The blade sliced through the tricep of his supporting arm, causing him to drop the front of the rifle. The pirate continued his charge, ramming his armored shoulder into Aaron’s face.

The metallic taste in Aaron’s mouth was immediate, whether from the armor penetrating the oral cavity or the sudden gush of blood as the teeth dislodged remained unclear.

The pirate toppled over and crashed into the deck, clear that Aaron had at least done some kind of damage with his burst of fire moments before. Aaron retained his footing and tried to bring the weapon to bear. No amount of will could get the supporting arm up and he could not raise the front of the weapon. Instead he reached down with his good arm for the captain’s pistol laying on the ground and spun around to find the captain getting back up, almost certainly ready for another charge with the accurate blade he wielded.

“Stop!” Aaron screamed.

The pirate did not stop.

Aaron pulled the trigger again and again and again until every round was spent. Rounds hit. At least one passed through the captain’s jaw. Something else vital seemed hit. He collapsed backwards. The armor hit the ground hard enough to tremor through Aaron’s legs. Aaron warily approached the captain to check on him. The pirate tossed the knife to the side and put his hands up, blood pouring from the side of his face, eyes not making contact, staring into the distance.

He looked for the pirate comms and found a station that seemed to fit his conception of what that might be. He put the headset on.

“Lay down your weapons and surrender or your captain dies.”

Static returned over the line. A few seconds of no vibrations. Complete stillness.

Aaron pressed the speaker as hard against his ear as possible and turned up the volume. He could barely hear the response.

“You’ll die, scum,” A pirate said.

“Do as he says, Klein,” a different pirate said. “Weapons are down. Don’t kill our captain.”

Loyal pirates willing to protect one of their own?

“I’m here with your captain, if anyone tries anything, he dies.” Aaron did not wait for a response. He turned his attention back to the captain, who continued to bleed out of his face. Maybe he’d live, maybe not. He wasn’t sure he cared right now. He suddenly felt very tired. He looked himself over. He was covered in blood, his clothes were torn, his ship patch was missing. He touched his face, teeth were missing, there were cuts, he pulled his hand away, realizing his lower face was probably nothing but blood at this point, and noticed that drool and blood dripped from his chin. His off hand, the supporting hand for handling his rifle, was limp, inoperable, and completely soaked. He wanted to sit. Instead, he kept a watchful eye on the pirate captain.

The next few hours passed in a blur. The crew secured the last few pirates left alive with restraints, activated the distress beacon, and prepared the captain for interrogation or transfer to appropriate authorities.

Thankfully the restraints were good enough and the damage to the ship minimal enough that the blurred hours turned into blurred days and later they were able to hand over the pirates at their next port. There were debriefings and even media got wind of everything. Aaron was overwhelmed. Lights, cameras, questions, doctors, surgeries. The pirate they had captured was no normal pirate, but the very wanted Captain Villareal and his crew. The bounty was more than anything promised in the fake deal that had served only as a trap. Aaron didn’t care at this point.

After a week, things died down. Aaron lay on his bunk, staring at the coffin lid. He still had trouble resting. If he kept his eyes open he could just stare and remain thoughtless, but if he closes his eyes he saw people dying.

“Aaron, you’re wanted in father’s quarters.” Noah said, poking his head into Aaron’s room.

Aaron didn’t fight, didn’t argue. He just slid out of the rack, and shuffled about the room putting himself together and proceeded down the hall several hatches to his father’s state room.

Once inside he found the room to be the same as always, but today it felt different. His father stood behind his desk, and gestured to the chair in front of the desk. It felt like judgement day. Possibly because it was. “Sit please.”

Aaron crossed the room and sat.

John also sat. He breathed deeply and let out a sigh. New scars etched his father’s face, nearly as deep as the sadness, frustration, worry, and anger that seemed to sit there now too. “I know that it was you who rerouted the ship off the planned route, Aaron. I should be more angry. I should be furious. I should be disappointed. Mostly, I’m just sad, Aaron.”

Aaron looked down.

“Look at me son. You’re not a boy. Look at me. Face this like a man.”

Aaron looked back up. Tears pooled in his father’s eyes.

“I will not punish you. There will be no reprimand. No dock in your pay. And even, once this conversation is over, I’ll not refernce your specific wrongdoing on this issue ever again. Because we lost three crew and you had to take lives. You will have to live with that for the rest of your days and that’s a far worse punishment than anything I could do to you. That said, son, I only need to know one thing. Why?”

“It doesn’t matter.” Aaron said softly using all his strength to hold the penetrating gaze of his father. The look of defeat weighing heavier by the minute reminding him that he was a disappointment to his father.

“You will obey me on this one thing. You will tell me why. Why do I have three dead crew? Why is my ship in shambles. Why, Aaron? For what?”

And Aaron broke. He sobbed and the words tumbled from his mouth. His years of frustration came out, unchecked, unhindered, irrational. He laid out his entire thought process and reasoning behind the deal he was sure would make them wealthy. And he knew in the face of the death that had been their company on the ship just a week ago, all of it sounded pathetic. He knew and yet he laid it all out. He finished. “I know, I know all of that is childish and ridiculous and I should have just done what I was supposed to. And had I known it was a trap, I would have never. I would have never—.”

“Stop. Now.” John said. He stood, walked around the desk, kneeled next to his son and embraced him in the tightest hug Aaron had ever known. “I’m glad you’re still alive. I’m glad you’re still here. I love you.” With a heavy sigh he stood again, stroking Aaron’s head gently. “I wish only that we could have discussed this sooner. But what’s done is done. It’s time for our ship, our crew, our family to heal. After today, we won’t talk of the error you made trying to arrange a deal on your own. Instead, we will do what we’ve always done, try to make each other better and hold each other to high standards. May God bless us and keep us. May He make us strong. You are forgiven son. Do better from now on. Go talk to Noah.”

Aaron got to his feet and left to find Noah knowing that nothing he could do could erase what happened, the loss of David and the others. He would always be haunted by the lives he took. But he also knew, though not how, that he would become a better man whatever that meant, however that should be achieved. God would guide him to be more some day.

Disclosures: This work is entirely my own and made without the use of aids or generators. Art created using AI powered dream by WOMBO via dream.ai.

Feedback on all work welcome and encouraged, especially negative feedback as it helps me improve. Thanks for taking the time to read my work. Love you all.