The Privateers

Not just like you remembered it

I wasn't fully sure if I remembered my own ship properly anymore. Not that it had been my ship for the last five years; my "extended vacation" had left the people of the colony ship Orenomah to their devices for quite a long time, and the one thing I did remember was that she was definitely in need of an overhaul.

And an overhaul, she'd gotten. The prow was the only thing I still recognized, like a great arrowhead. The emblazoned ORENOMAH had been freshened to the point of legibility, while the preceding SLCG - Solar Liberty Coalition Government - had been left to flake off over the years. I knew well that the colonists of the Orenomah wanted little to do with the dealings of the Coalition now. Just as well - neither did I. And that's why I came back to her.

I shuttled around the outside for a few laps. The fifth deck, the one with most of the decaying crew quarters, had been covered over with all manner of scrap plates. The welding job was immaculate, but the materials were still clear as day. A few floor plates, a docking clamp or two, what looked like a wing from a Coalition Rampart bomber covering a few broken portholes. Another wing, whose source I couldn't identify, had its SLC insignia spray painted over with a bright red X.

My ship cruised from port to starboard. It looked like a few extra corridors had been added, leading into a line of old civilian freighters, stitched together fore to aft, like a great space-faring centipede. Each was decked out in swiveling turrets, such that it made me nervous even being on that end of the ship; they each pointed at me, then pointed in random other directions, as if to say, "You're no threat to us. But we see you."

Roughly around the ship's belly, I started to notice that, where the armor had fallen away over the years, the holes had now been patched with large chunks of asteroid. It was beyond me how they stayed in place, or whether it was even airtight. Small windows with lights in them, the fainted silhouettes of movement beyond them, indicated to me that this part of the ship could at least have people in it. Before I'd left, that deck was uninhabitable. Was I really holding them back?

I finally decided to tap together a hail on my keyboard. It took a few tries to get an answer, but I eventually got through enough to send my greeting. "This is Heidegger, freelancer gamma five two to Orenomah. Requesting landing procedure."

They picked up immediately. "Heideg--Boss! What the hell are you doing back?"

"That you on the bridge, Ingram?"

"Yeah it's Ingram, but Jesus, what's the deal?" It was definitely the scratchy, vaguely New Yorker voice of my chief engineer, and it'd only gotten scratchier. "Five years go by and I figure you're gone for good. And you're freelancing?"

"I'll explain in person, and keep it off the logs. I'm in a civvie freighter, model Orion, designation's Delta Five Seven Five Royal Cotillion. Gonna need a big bay."

"You're in luck, boss, we just installed one of those last month. Gunnery section confirms you, look below them for bay 47. ...Check that, bay 48." I didn't know what he meant by "install," but I could only figure I'd understand once I'd landed. Honestly, I was excited to figure out where they got it from. This amount of jury-rigging was genuinely impressive.