The bullets barely make contact, either the crew has no combat training, or they’re firing blind. The pirates however place a few well aimed shots in my direction, and I curse as a bullet grazes my helmet. My first instinct is to duck, and in zero gravity all that succeeds in doing is pulling my legs to me. I barely manage to reach out with my foot and hook myself down before another shot lands. The gun shifts uncomfortably in my hands, and I slide myself sideways to try and catch them off guard. I push myself into a standing position, my knee catching on the edge of the beam to keep me from drifting into space. One of the pirates adjusts their aim, and simultaneously we fire at one another.

  I feel some of the bullets glance off, but a sharp lancing pain tells me a bullet found a chink on my torso. My target isn’t so lucky, they splutter as blood leaks from their throat, a mess where their jaw once was. I don’t hesitate, sending another burst of fire that tears up their shoulder and secondary pair of arms, and they shudder, only weakly moving. More bullets slam into me, and I feel a crack on my skull. I shift, pulling myself lower as I take aim again, swapping the rifle into my left hand as blood spills across the right of my vision.

  They’re in cover by the time I have them, and I curse, shifting myself along the beam with my feet. I press the Liaen against my face for a moment, letting it wick away the blood. Need to flush them out somehow. I think to myself. Ah. I take off a piece of the Liaen, letting it bind into a sphere, and lob it toward the recess they’re hiding in. As it gets close I detonate it, it makes a loud blast, though without shrapnel it’s hardly lethal. I quickly push myself into the alcove above them. Another burst of fire, and the gun clicks on empty. I throw it at them, and prepare to launch myself into them.

  A burst of gunfire interrupts me, and for a moment I wonder if they managed to shake off the effects, but it becomes clear it’s from what remains of the crew. One of the pirates weakly moves to aim his weapon, a last act that is cut short by a thrown blade. I breathe a sigh of relief, drawing the blade back to me. Some of the crew watch me uncertainly, while a pair of them move towards the consoles and electronics. They yell at some of the crew, pointing down the corridors, and some of them rush down, pulling themselves along the beams. I push myself into the group of pirates, ramming a sharpened piece of the Liaen to silence the ones still breathing.

  The crew doesn’t point their guns at me, which is good, I gesture towards one of them, picking up a rifle and what I assume is the magazine. They stare at me, and I frustratedly mime jamming the magazine into the weapon. One of them is pushed towards me, a short bark by one of the other members. They gingerly reach out to take the weapon, running through a series of motions to empty the chamber and eject the magazine, before placing the new one in. I nod, taking it from them and a few magazines from the corpses, before following the group down the corridor.

  They head deeper into the ship, starting to enter the internals, I stay back, watching the others as they enter. Better not, I could do more harm than good if I started screwing around in there. I split off, moving to search the rest of the ship for the pirates. One of the crew moves to follow me, keeping a short distance behind me. The way they grip their weapon makes it clear they’re not sure of my allegiance. That’s fine. I’d be hard pressed to trust me in such a scenario either. How are my injuries?

  [Nothing too severe, the bullets that penetrated the Liaen either lost a lot of their momentum, or embedded themselves in muscle or against bone. You are functional, any residual bleeding has already been staunched.]

  That’s great. I nod. I fidget a little, pulling myself along the corridors with one hand. The adrenaline is starting to run out, and I can feel myself coming off the high. The more I move the more I realize how nonsensical this is. How am I supposed to canvas the entirety of the ship without support? I shake my head, it’s odd how clear my mind is, I should’ve lost enough blood to at least make me woozy, is it the weightlessness?

  It takes another few minutes of miming before the one following me understands that I’m looking for a bathroom. For a moment I was worried I’d have to strip to get the point across. Mercifully the system itself is pretty intuitive. At least there’s no catheters involved… I chide myself, pulling the curtain closed.

  [It is red because you took trauma to the kidney, without the nanomachines you’d likely be bleeding out.] Yeah, it’s not like I had a month to get used to gunfight tactics. I’m just lucky the gun uses a trigger system and a design made for something with fingers and opposable thumbs. I wipe my hands with what appears to be some kind of disinfectant, distracted slightly by the novelty of a zero gravity environment. I laugh slightly, and shake my head. You know, I’ve always wanted to go to space.

  [A fairly common wish, from the records of the Chtichs, my archives of various cultures implies that a yearning toward the stars is common.] It pauses. [I do not truly understand this myself.] I wait, but it doesn’t say anything more. I snort, reaching for the gun.

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  A shout comes from outside the curtains, and I quickly move to pull myself against the walls as bullets sail through. At least they were gracious enough to let me finish. I take a breath, sliding the barrel of the gun past the curtains, sighting my opponents through the slit. One of the bullets impacts the barrel, skewing my shots, and the pirates duck into cover. Grimacing, I kick off into cover.

  My minder doesn’t seem too badly injured, they fire at them in bursts, and I try to synchronise, keeping the pressure on our assailants. It doesn’t take us long to flush them out. I let out a sigh, rolling my shoulders once before picking up a few more magazines from them. My minder stares at me, they’re stiff, obviously not used to this. Are they bleeding? I cock my head, gesturing to my waist. They look down, brushing away the fluids. They reach for something by their side, and a sort of gel is applied to the wound. Coagulant of some kind? Glue? I shake my head.

  [You are lucky your wounds can be sealed so easily.] Page notes.

  They pat themselves down some more, applying the gel in several other spots. Then look to me, I shrug, gesturing to the rest of the ship. Which way? I mentally urge. Something slams into the ship, and it lurches, slamming into me face first. I grip onto the walls. What. I blink away the stars as something else crashes into walls, sounds of scraping metal and howling winds. Craaaaaap.

  Something slams shut in the distance, and the sound of wind dissipates. Bulkheads… Of course there’d be redundancies… I grab onto my minder as they whip past, preventing another head on collision with the nearby wall, and pull them up beside me. They give a small grunt, raising their hand to their head. I pause, waiting for the next strike, but it doesn’t come, and I slowly turn them around, sticking them onto my back as I make my way back to what I assume was the cockpit.

  As I arrive it’s a flurry of motion. Several dozen people all running about screaming into their headsets. My minder detaches themselves, and I hang back, carefully sticking the soles of my boots to the floor (walls?) and covering the entrance. Besides the screaming, the room is oddly calm, no alarms, no red lights. I find myself curious, but I bite it back, last thing they need is for me to hover over them, and it’s not like I’d understand a damn thing they were doing.

  The lights in the room slowly flicker on, as computers sputter to life and the floor gains an unpleasant hum I never noticed before. The crew settles in, their boots now attached to the floor as a wave of relief washes over them. Magnetic floor. I think. That’s… an odd way to do it. The cacophony gradually silences, as those at the stations start sinking into the electronics, giving terse, one word communications to each other.

  I feel the ship lurch underneath me, and we speed away. For a few tense minutes there is nothing but silence, some of the crew looking between one another, then someone announces something. I hear a collective breath being let out, and they break up, some moving to hug others, some slouching in relief while a few others pull flasks to have a drink. I watch them for a bit, then shrug, quickly removing the magazine from the gun and emptying the chamber before setting the gun, and the magazines aside.

  They remember my existence after a few more minutes, by then I’ve started to collect all the bodies, carefully stacking them to one side of the hallway. Their guns, ammunition and electronics I pile to another side. It didn’t seem like they carried explosives, which was somewhat relieving. Someone nudges me on the shoulder with something hard, and I turn to see a small number of the armed crew stand behind me awkwardly.

  They aren’t raising their guns at me, which is good, but I’m still unable to tell what they’re saying. One of them mutters something under their breath, and their companion slaps them hard across the shoulder. The last one turns back to me, shrugging apologetically, before gesturing down the hallway. They move past me, leading me down the halls to what appears to be one of the bunks. One of their members states something in rapid fire, and they are pulled close, words exchanged in a whisper sharp as steel. I suppose I live here now?

  No words are exchanged after, and I am left to my own devices. I drift in the room, considering my circumstances. Some people show up, a diverse cast, some tentacled, some humanoid, and that one fairylike creature. They seem to pick up their things, leaving the room. One of them leaves a box, which turns out to be the rest of my things. Guess no one really wants to be associated with me. It’s… not surprising. The only thing they know about me is that I’m apparently really good at killing, and don’t even flinch at the sight of dead bodies.

  Am I really going to have to go this entire time without learning the language? I wonder to myself. Well… they don’t seem like bad people, but they could be. Wouldn’t be hard to try and dupe me into something stupid, or illegal. I take off the faceplate, collapsing the helmet into a hood as I run my hands through my hair. I feel something slick and cool cling to it. Right, blood… I think, listless. God what is wrong with me?

  [Lack of food, and the reality of a zero G environment likely exacerbating homesickness. Leading to depression.] Heh, sounds about right. I think to myself, turning over one of the Liaen shards I’d used on the pirates. What was it again? War doesn’t change? Feels like fighting is all I’ve been doing for a while. I’m reminded of my time with Alida, it feels weird to be missing my time there, and yet I do, I wonder how everyone’s been doing.

  I shift back, sticking myself to one of the walls as I distract myself with sleep.