CRUISE SHIP CELESTIAL PRINCESS: DECK TWO, GRAND BALLROOM
After five minutes of preparations, everything was set. The ballroom was vast and quiet and dimly lit. Unoccupied, except for the two women standing off to one side.
“Ready?” asked Aki01.
“For you? Always,” Évangelique winked.
“What about them?”
“As ready as I’ll ever be.”
“Then let’s do this.”
Aki headed outside and accessed the nearest visiphone terminal. She dialed the operator, voice only, and asked to be transferred to the bridge. The line was put on hold for a minute. Then a familiar voice answered.
“Who is this?” asked Rezuda.
“I have what you want,” said Aki. “In the Grand Ballroom, Deck Two. Come and get it.”
She hung up before he could make any demands.
This is it, she thought, and headed back to Éva.
* * * * * * * * *
They burst into the Grand Ballroom suddenly, seven minutes and forty-six seconds later: a dozen men armed with photon knives and submachine guns. Some were covered with tattoos, some with scars. Four were sporting bandanas on their heads. Two had eyepatches. Every one of them looked vicious and ready for a fight.
They were expecting a trap… but didn’t get one. At least, not right away. The ballroom appeared to be empty. There was no catchy music playing from the speakers. No couples bobbing and swaying on the dance floor. It was just one big, open room.
With one exception. To one side of the central staircase, a spotlight was shining on a glass display case. Inside the case, a meter-wide scale model of the galaxy slowly rotated on its axis. Saldoran Uranti’s famed “Infinity” sculpture.
Still wary, the dozen pirates crossed the room, their footsteps echoing loudly each step of the way. They stopped two paces short of the display case, like they couldn’t believe it was really that easy. Some of the men looked at each other in bewilderment. Others glanced around the room, waiting for the inevitable hammer to drop. They were greeted with silence instead. And then…
Clip, clop. Clip, clop. The sound of approaching footsteps.
The cadre of pirates spun around in unison. Headed towards them from the door they’d just entered was a gorgeous purple-haired woman in a low-cut dress, side-slit stockings, and high-heeled shoes. She was walking at a casual pace, her mouth stretched wide in a smile, arms spread wide in greeting.
“Gentlemen! Welcome,” she exclaimed cheerfully. “I shall be your host for this evening’s entertainment.”
The pirates were understandably confused. One of the dumber-looking guys raised his gun towards her and shouted, “Halt! Don’t move!”
She kept walking. Kept smiling. No one was going to shoot a beautiful unarmed woman, and she knew it.
When she was just outside striking distance, she stopped. With a clap of her hands she said, “How would you boys like to see a magic trick?”
The pirates just stared at her, dumbfounded.
“I have always been a great lover of magic,” the woman continued. Her voice was warm, almost lyrical, and lightly accented. “That spark of disbelief, the suspension of rational thinking. That moment when, just for an instant, you allow yourself to believe the impossible. It’s a wondrous feeling, no? Like the world you knew has somehow turned itself on its head and all the rules have flown away.
That is the true essence of magic.”
All twelve pirates were in a trance. They were completely mesmerized—by her beauty, by her voice, by the narrative she was weaving.
She’s good, thought Aki, hidden atop the spherical holo-projector high above.
The purple-haired woman clapped her hands together again. “In that spirit, I present to you a feat of unparalleled illusion. A feat so dazzling, so mind-blowing, you won’t believe your own eyes. For you see, gentlemen, I am about to make the entire galaxy… disappear!”
She began waving her arms back and forth in front of her. Slowly, rhythmically, hypnotically. They moved left, then right, then in, then out. It was like a slow-motion dance with her hands, almost sensual in its execution.
Then, all of a sudden, she stopped. “And just like that,
voilà!” She snapped her fingers. “The ‘Infinity’ sculpture is no more!”
The pirates whirled around. True to her word, the scale model of the galaxy was missing. The glass display case was completely empty.
In reality, of course, the sculpture hadn’t been there in the first place. It was the same hologram Éva used the night of the Cosmic Ball. Aki merely shut off the portable holo-emitter when the pirates’ backs were turned, making it seem like the sculpture had vanished into thin air. Simple, but effective. Like most magic tricks, it was all about misdirection.
The pirates were surprised at first. Then anger took over. They demanded that the purple-haired woman return their prize, and fast, or there would be
severe consequences.
She smiled sweetly at them and replied, “Ah, but the trick isn’t over yet. This one has two parts, you see. For the grand finale, I shall make all of you disappear as well!”
She clapped her hands together just as Aki killed the lights. The ballroom faded to black in an instant, rending the pirates temporarily blind.
But not the two women. With their night vision and infrared sensors, they had no trouble seeing in the dark. No trouble at all.
Aki dropped down from her hiding spot above them, landing directly behind the largest of the twelve men. A quick tap to the back of his neck was all it took. The man grunted in agony and toppled face-first to the deck. Lights out, literally.
Aki had to remind herself to hold back against the pirates. Humans and Newmans were much more fragile than CASTs, after all. They were slower, weaker, squishier. Luckily for her and Éva, there wasn’t a single CAST in the bunch. That made their job a whole lot easier.
By the time the pirates realized what was happening, it was already too late. The pair of Caseals moved swiftly from one pirate to the next. A single blow dropped each man in turn. Every knockout was accompanied by a grunt or a groan, followed by a thud as their bodies hit the floor.
When the seventh man went down, the remaining pirates became desperate. They started to panic. Two of them started firing their machineguns indiscriminately, almost hitting their buddies in the process. The muzzle flashes lit up the black room in sporadic bursts. It was like watching a series of progressive still frames, each one a moment closer to the pirates’ doom.
The eighth man dropped. Then the ninth. Ironically, the gunfire made it easier for Aki and Éva to track their opponents. They danced around the pirates, taking care to avoid the line of fire.
Three men remained. Éva took the first one, Aki took the other two. It was no contest. Three quick blows ended the fight, one for each pirate.
Afterwards they stood there in the silence for a moment, assessing the situation. Aki fished a remote control out of her jacket pocket and pressed one of the buttons. With a blinding intensity, all the lights in the ballroom flared on at the same time.
The only people left standing were the pair of women. A dozen pirate bodies, eight machineguns, and four knives littered the floor.
The battle was over.
* * * * * * * * *
Rezuda was growing restless and impatient. His guys were supposed to check in every five minutes. That was the plan, and they were good at following orders. He had trained them, after all, and they knew better than to disappoint him.
But they hadn’t called.
Rezuda paced back and forth. The bridge of the
Celestial Princess was filled with the sound of his boots slapping against the cold tile floor. He glanced at his watch. Its little holographic display stared back, taunting him. Twelve minutes had passed since he gave the order. That meant two missed check-ins.
Finally, when he could wait no longer, Rezuda activated his comm. “Where the hell are you?” he growled.
* * * * * * * * *
Back in the Grand Ballroom, the two Caseals were busy surveying their handiwork.
“Which one is Rezuda?” asked Aki.
“That I cannot say,” Éva replied. “I’ve never met the man.”
Aki checked the pirates one by one. They were all breathing, just out cold. None were seriously injured, but Aki figured they wouldn’t wake up for at least a few hours.
She was standing over the largest of the twelve guys when his comm beeped. “Where the hell are you?” growled an irritated Rezuda. The voice echoed loudly in the big room.
Aki and Éva traded looks, startled. An implied moment of
should-we-answer-it followed. Before they could decide, Rezuda tried again. “Dayton? Dayton, you there? Answer me, dammit!”
Aki started to reach for the comm device. Éva asked, “Are you sure that’s a wise idea, darling?”
The red-haired Caseal shrugged. “He already knows something’s wrong. Maybe we can still negotiate with him.”
Éva looked skeptical but didn’t argue. Aki picked up the comm and activated it. “Dayton can’t come to the phone right now,” she said. “Can I take a message?”
There was silence on the other end of the line. A deep, calculating kind of silence. Then Rezuda said, “You didn’t follow my instructions. That was a big mistake. I should shoot Captain Orville here just for that, like I said I would. But I’m a nice guy. To show you how nice I am, I’m going to give you another chance. But only one. This time you’re going to bring the sculpture to me on the bridge, and you’re going to be completely unarmed when you do it. Otherwise I’m going to put a bullet through your head, then I’m going to put a bullet through Orville’s head, then I’m going to kill the rest of the bridge crew, plus a few random passengers to boot. Oh, and by the way, you have ten minutes to get up here. Better not be late.”
The line clicked off.
“So much for negotiations,” Éva quipped dryly.
“He’s right,” said Aki. “It was my mistake. I made a bad assumption thinking he would be here. But there’s still a chance to make things right.”
“You’re going to give him the sculpture, then?”
“No,” she replied. “I’m going to end this once and for all.”
“Then I am coming with you.”
“You don’t have to do that.”
Éva took Aki’s hand and kissed it, gently, as she had done when they first met. “
Au contraire, mon chéri. I must. My honor and my love demand it.”
Aki raised an eyebrow in amusement. “In that case, I would be grateful for the assistance.”
* * * * * * * * *
They had eight and a half minutes remaining—assuming Rezuda kept true to his word. On such a large vessel, that wasn’t a lot of time to reach the bridge. The journey required walking nearly two hundred meters, followed by an elevator ride up one deck, followed by a short hike down a corridor to reach their destination. All things considered, Aki estimated it would take six minutes to get there. That left a two-and-a-half-minute margin of error.
First, though, there was something she had to do. Aki opened the panel underneath the display case and retrieved the portable holo-emitter. She had a feeling it would come in handy about eight minutes later. Together with Éva, she left the Grand Ballroom and headed forward, towards the front of the ship.
They had only gotten halfway to the elevators when they ran into more pirates. An entire band of them, six in total. Their leader was a hawk-nosed Newearl, the first female pirate they’d seen. She looked tough and vicious. Even tougher than the men, despite being smaller, and probably twice as vicious. Or maybe just crazy.
A moment after spotting the pirates, the pirates spotted them. The tan-skinned Newearl grinned wickedly. “Well, well, well,” she sneered. “Lookit what we have here. Dunno if you heard the news, but you ladies are out past curfew. ‘Fraid you’re gonna have to pay the toll for that little blunder.”
Aki ran some calculations in her head. All in all, she and Éva had less than two minutes of leeway to reach the bridge. They didn’t have time to get waylaid like this.
She said, “We’re on our way to deliver an important sculpture to your boss.”
The Newearl’s grin grew wider and more predatory. “That so? Well I’m Glace, his right-hand woman. So what say you give the sculpture to me, then I’ll hand it over to the cap’n for ya.”
“We don’t have it with us. We’re… on our way to get it,” Aki lied.
“We’ll come with you, then. You don’t mind the extra company, right? That way you get to deliver your sculpture, and we get credit for bringin’ you in
safe and sound.”
Aki didn’t like the way Glace emphasized that last part. Either way, she was going to have to refuse. They weren’t really on their way to get the sculpture. Even if they wanted to, there wasn’t enough time left.
“
Mon chéri, go,” Éva whispered. She pointed with her eyes towards a passageway to their right. “You want to save Orville, no? So go. I will take care of things here.”
“I’m not leaving you,” Aki whispered back. “We’ll fight them together.”
“We have no time to waste here and you know it. Fear not, I shall catch up with you shortly.”
Aki hesitated. Once again, Éva was right. “At least take my pistol,” she offered.
“I assure you, darling, I won’t need it. Not against this vermin.”
Meanwhile, Glace was growing impatient. “Hey! What’re you two whispering about over there?” she demanded. “I asked you a question and I expect an answer. Not that I’m givin’ you much choice in the matter.”
“Good luck,” Aki told Éva. Before the pirates could react, she darted into the nearby passageway. The roar of machinegun fire followed behind her, sharp and deafening, but Aki didn’t look back. She ran as fast as she could towards the elevator that would take her up to the bridge, and the inevitable confrontation to follow.
* * * * * * * * *
There were no doors to the bridge of the
Celestial Princess. Just two open doorways, one on either side of the room. The lack of doors had been a conscious design choice on the part of its chief architect. While this offered less protection, it also prevented anyone from sealing off the bridge in the event of a mutiny or invasion.
Rezuda got around that fact by posting armed guards at both entry points. So far it had worked. No one had tried to enter, no one had tried to leave. A crude but effective countermeasure, he thought.
The pirate leader slowly paced back and forth. Just passing the time, waiting for his prize to show up. On the other side of the room, the bridge crew all stood in a line. Like soldiers, but without the military discipline. All except Captain Orville. The man was completely composed, hands clasped behind his back, standing straight as a rod. An impressive display of cool-headedness, especially given the fact that one of his men lay dead on the floor only a few meters away.
Aside from Rezuda’s footsteps, the bridge was as quiet as a tomb. Its various stations—navigation, propulsion, shipboard power, and the rest—remained unmanned for the time being. Colorful status lights flashed on consoles, holographic star charts plotted their upcoming route, graphical displays tracked power and fuel levels. All of them went unattended. But that was alright. The
Celestial Princess was designed with automation in mind. Once a course was locked in, it only needed to be checked periodically. Occasional adjustments needed to be made, but they were rare.
Across the room, one of Rezuda’s men stepped out into the hall. He returned a minute later with a redheaded woman in tow. A CAST, judging by her ear pieces. She was carrying an incredibly detailed model of the galaxy in her hands—Saldoran Uranti’s famed “Infinity” sculpture.
Rezuda smirked in triumph. “So, you’re the one who’s been such a pain in my ass. Considering how much trouble you gave my men, I was starting to think there were a dozen of you. But now it all makes sense.” He looked her up and down, appraising her. “You’re a pretty fine woman. I’m almost tempted to offer you a place in my crew—clearly you’ve got the skills to earn your keep.” His smile faded—and with it, his good cheer. “Too bad you’re a CAST. I can’t trust a single one of you damned machines.”
The red-haired woman cocked her head slightly to one side. “Ironic, seeing as you’re part machine yourself.”
She was looking at his robotic right arm. Rezuda scowled and clenched his metal hand into a fist. “I’m still human where it counts,” he replied sourly. To the pirate standing behind her, he asked, “Did you check her for weapons?”
His man nodded. “She was armed only with
this,” he answered, holding up a small pistol in his left hand.
Rezuda’s gaze shifted from the gun to the woman. He was not amused. “I instructed you, in no uncertain terms, to come here unarmed. I told you that your life depended on it. That Orville’s life depended on it. And yet you continue to defy me?”
The Caseal shrugged. “I forgot.”
Bullshit, thought Rezuda. CASTs don’t forget. The woman was disrespecting him, pure and simple. He was tempted to shoot her right then and there just for the aggravation. Certainly he’d killed people for less. Unfortunately, she was still holding the “Infinity” sculpture, and Rezuda didn’t want her to drop it by mistake. “Well, you’re here, and you brought the sculpture, so I’ll let it slide,” he said. “Now, hand it over before I change my mind about our little deal.”
The red-haired woman didn’t respond to that. Instead she turned to Orville and asked, “Are you alright, Captain?”
“Just fine, Colonel. Though I can’t say the same about my crew,” Orville responded, referring to the dead man on the floor.
Rezuda’s eyes narrowed.
Colonel? That explains a thing or two. He said, “Are your ear pieces malfunctioning, android? I told you to hand over the sculpture. Or do you want the dear captain to end up like his former crewman?”
“Come and get it.”
He wasn’t sure he heard her correctly. Or maybe he just couldn’t believe his ears. “What?”
“If you want it so badly, come and get it. You wouldn’t want me to accidentally drop it, would you?”
Rezuda was incredulous. Incensed, even. Was she actually threatening him? Or was she just being defiant? Either way, it was a stupid move. Rezuda had all the power here. Her life, and the lives of Orville’s crew, were completely at his mercy. They were nothing but bargaining chips. The most she could do was break the sculpture—which would be unfortunate, certainly, but was she really willing to forfeit her life over it?
“On second thought, I changed my mind,” said the woman. “Here, catch.”
Before Rezuda could comprehend what she was saying, she tossed the “Infinity” sculpture at him. It was an underhand lob, slow and deliberate, like they were playing a game of catch-the-precious-art-piece. Rezuda watched the sculpture come at him with a mix of shock and dread. His hands rose up to grab it—
—but the sculpture passed right through them.
The next second passed by in slow motion. Rezuda’s brain tried—and failed—to comprehend why the sculpture was still on a collision course with the deck. He should have grabbed it, yet he hadn’t. It should have been safely in his arms, yet it wasn’t. How was that possible?
There was no time to wonder about the “how” or the “why.” The fact was, it was happening. And there was nothing he could do about it. Down, down it fell, his prize about to shatter into a thousand pieces at his feet. The “Infinity” sculpture struck the floor—
—and flickered out of existence.
Rezuda blinked. The only thing lying on the deck was a black disk no larger than a drink coaster.
A portable holo-emitter.
He’d been tricked. Swindled. The redheaded woman never had any intention of delivering the sculpture to him. It had been a setup from the very beginning, one big lie.
But in that case, what was her real goal?
Rezuda heard someone cry out in pain, followed by a single burst of machinegun fire, followed by an agonized groan. By the time he looked up, both of his men were lying facedown on the ground. The redheaded woman was standing there facing him, a pistol clutched tightly in her hand.
TO BE CONTINUED
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I was also thinking of going with the alternate reality route if I had to, but maybe it's not necessary. I probably won't ever bring it up in my stories themselves, anyway.
Of course, his arm looks completely metallic. I was imagining something like 
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