Book Sunday

 Today's recommendation is a science fiction-space opera

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Rapier

by R.A. "Doc" Correa

Prologue

“Shit, I’m going to be late!”

     Kathy hops out of the bathroom of her tiny flat, pulling up her pantyhose. She looks at them as she does. “Damn, I’ve got a run in them,” she growls at the streak on her right thigh. Maybe no one will notice. You’d think that with all this new technology, being able to travel among the stars, that someone could invent pantyhose that don’t run. She frowns at the thought. Kathy adjusts her skirt so the patch she sewed will be covered by her coat.

     Kathy looks in the mirror. Her dark-brown hair has a graying streak by her right temple, but her deep brown eyes are still bright and full of life despite everything. Everything—space battles, raids, sword fights—and all this time trying to raise a young girl among battle-hardened raiders. It’s amazing that all my hair isn’t gray.

     Her white blouse is fraying in places, so to keep it covered, Kathy puts on the leather bustier he gave her. It still fits like the first time she wore it. Her figure hasn’t changed much at all, even after having a baby.

     For a moment she thinks of him, a tear forms in her eye. Kathy rubs his wedding ring, which she wears on her ring finger. “No time for this!” she admonishes herself. Still, she can’t help seeing the dark-brown eyes, salt-and-pepper mustache, graying hair, and devilish smile—a smile Kathy sees every night in her dreams.

     Kathy looks around her flat. It’s small and sparsely furnished, barely enough room for the three of them, and she can’t even afford this. Still, it’s better than the cells the Americans kept her and the others in. The bastards, how dare they. There was a deal, a deal that has given them the edge in the current war, and they didn’t even try to keep their end of it.

     Since her “rescue” (that’s how the Americans touted it in the media when they released her, Cindy, and little James—the Americans rescued them from pirates), she’s been trying to get by. The brothers gifted her almost all their loot. It was washed very clean by it being passed through numerous corporations, off-planet banks, and other entities. But the Earth government, particularly the Americans, has kept it from being released to her, claiming it was the ill-gotten gain from piracy. Piracy, that’s almost funny; it didn’t seem like piracy at the time. Somehow it seemed like justice. Justice for those that were abandoned, justice for those who were senselessly slaughtered, justice for those enslaved.

     The truth is, the Americans don’t want it known what happened to the people they wouldn’t fight for, and the Chinese definitely don’t want the truth of what they’ve done to come out. They know more colonies will join the war against them.

     Oscar looks lazily at her from the table.

     “If you don’t have anything helpful to say, don’t say anything,” she says to the cat. He just rolls over, keeping his eyes on her and answers, Meow.

     “Thanks,” she replies mockingly. Oscar responds with his usual indifference. Kathy hears the cab honk for her and rushes out the door with her bag and coat. She waves bye to little James and shouts, “Thanks, Mrs. Fuji. I love you, James.”

     “Good luck, Kathy!” Mrs. Fuji shouts in reply. Little James waves and says, “Bye, Mommy.”

     “The Galactic Geographic building,” she tells the driver as she enters the cab. “Yes, ma’am,” the cabby replies as he swiftly cuts into traffic.

     The cab drops Kathy Masters off in front of the Galactic Geographic building. It’s been over eleven years since the last time she was here. It looks the same as it did the first time she saw it. But she is definitely not the same as when she first was here.

     She enters the lobby, walks to the lift, and pushes the call button.

     The last time Kathy was here, it was just her. A twenty-year-old gifted photographer being offered the chance of a lifetime, to photograph the creatures of a newly discovered planet before full colonization begins. Now it’s Kathy, her son James, and Cindy.

     The lift doors open. She enters and punches the button for the thirteenth floor. Her thoughts continue.

     Cindy, her adopted daughter, a very brash and creative sixteen-year-old. The two of them have been together since she was five, but she’s definitely not five now. They’ve been back on Earth for just over two years, and she’s proven to be quite a handful. Five times now, Kathy’s been called to school because she’s been fighting. Not the silly girl fights most high school girls have, no. She’s been kicking the butts of the boys in school, specifically the jocks. She likes fighting wrestlers and football players the most. One time, Kathy entered the principal’s office to find she had beaten and tied up three eighty-kilo linemen.

     And the capers she’s pulled off—a floating gambling ring at school, the fake-diamond scam, and her favorite, the Gibb switch. That one nearly got her arrested by the Feds. Yet whenever Kathy looks at her, she still sees the frightened five-year-old she shared a cell in the brig of the Rapier with—the young girl she raised among a crew of the roughest raiders in human space. Their princess, their daughter, their lovely child that they entrusted to Kathy to teach how to be a woman.

     The lift door opens, and Kathy steps out into the hallway.

     Kathy has tried to work as a photographer since she returned, but no one will hire her. They all look at her with the same expression, but it’s their eyes that tell the truth of what they are thinking. She’s a pirate, a thief, and a cutthroat. They all fear her. Good, she likes it that way. Who needs them anyway?

     But her heart hasn’t been in it. Still with the Feds holding her money, she’s broke. She can’t take care of little James, Cindy, and herself this way. So she’s decided to play her last card. The pics. I sure hope this is the time the gods spoke of, please let it be.

     Kathy walks into the Galactic Geographic offices, walks up to the receptionist, and announces, “Kathy Masters for Mr. Baker.”

     “One moment, Miss Masters,” the receptionist says coldly. Kathy can hear it in her voice, pirate. She can go to hell!

     The pictures, they’re all Kathy has left from those nine years. As difficult as they were, Kathy and Cindy think of them as the best of their lives, and she misses them. She misses all of them—especially him, Commodore Black.

     The receptionist says, “He’s ready for you, Miss Masters.” She points down the hall. It’s there again in her voice, pirate. But she’s not just any pirate—no, indeed. She’s the pirate that caused the war. She survived to tell part of the story—that and what was recovered with her was all it took. And now the colonies of seventeen nations are at war with the Chinese, and it’s been the most bloody of conflicts.

     Kathy knocks on the door. A man opens it. “Come in, Kathy. Please have a seat. How long has it been?”

     “Eleven years,” she replies. “Yes, I remember. I gave you the assignment for Beta 3 Epsilon. That was the beginning of your adventures.”

     “Yes, yes, it was,” Kathy says.

     “Well, what can I do for you?” She looks at him and can tell he plans to blow her off, just like the others. But she hasn’t shown him the pictures yet. Pictures and vids of life as a privateer, a life she never expected, a life unknown here on Earth.

     “I know it’s not your usual fare, Steve, but I have an exclusive for you. One I know your readers will eat up.” “Really, and what would that be?”

     “The exclusive story of my nine years on the Rapier. Logs, journals, and pics, plus vids.”

     “Pics of everyone?” he asks.

     “Yes, everyone.”

     “Even him?”

     “Him who?”

     “You know, him.”

     “Why can’t you people say his name?”

     “I don’t think that’s important.”

     “His name is Black. Commodore James Ulysses Black!” She is nearly shouting. “And he was the most decent man I ever knew!”

     “Yes, of course he was. But he was a pirate, the most infamous pirate captain since the Spanish Main.”

     “He was a husband, a father, and a good, decent man,” she snaps back. Steve Baker says nothing. Silence hangs between him and her for several moments. Then he says, “I really don’t think I can help you.”

     “You haven’t seen the pictures.”

     He looks at her a moment. “Okay, let’s see them.”

     Her holographic display projects a screen between her and Steve. She starts going through the pictures of life on the Rapier. Tears build up in her eyes. Kathy never realized how many pictures had Cindy in them—Cindy in the pilot’s seat of the Rapier with Captain Gibb at her side, Cindy in engineering learning about antimatter reactors, Cindy flying the shuttle under the instruction of Captain Rawls and Commodore Black teaching her the art of the sword.

     “That’s him?” Steve asks.

     “Yes,” she replies sadly.

     “He doesn’t look all that dangerous. Flamboyant to be sure. Stern certainly and yet grandfatherly, but not dangerous.”

     Kathy whispers, “Looks can be deceiving.”

     The next pic is Cindy and Kathy looking out the observation dome, watching the great whales near Pi Delta Epsilon. They look like the great whales of Earth, “swimming” in the gas clouds like it were water. The look of awe was on their faces. Steve stops.

     “You actually saw these?”

     “Yes, yes, we did. As a matter of fact, we swam with them, Steve.”

     “Swam with them?” Steve asks. Kathy brings up the next pic. Cindy sits atop the “whale” as Commodore Black swims beside them. “Yes, Steve, we swam with them.”

     Then the elusive “Dire Wolves” of Pi Beta 2. Cindy, in this pic a precocious twelve, sits atop one of the great predators with Commodore Black and Captain Gibb standing beside them.

     Steve whistles, “Your daughter really rode one of these?”

     “Yes,” she replies. “Actually, we all did.” Kathy brings up the next pic. Cindy, Captain Gibb, and Commodore Black race across the plain on the backs of wolves with the whole pack running around them.

     “People don’t believe they exist.”

     “They do.”

     “We’ll have to verify these aren’t manipulated.”

     “Of course,” she says.

     Then the next pic. “What are those?” he says truly surprised.

     “Those are gods,” she says to him.

     “Gods?” he asks.

     “Yes, the gods of the aquatic natives of Safe Port.”

     “We’ve been on Safe Port for eighty years now. No one has seen anything like this.”

     Kathy looks at the picture—she, Cindy, and Captain Gibb are in their deep suits, floating before the massive god of the nanchiks, the squidheads of Safe Port. The next pic shows the god sitting on its dais, with Cindy, Captain Gibb, and Commodore Black standing before it. The one after that shows the city of the gods as they approach it. She softly says, “No one has dived in the right place or deep enough to see them.”

     He thinks hard.

     “There’s more, you know,” Kathy tells him.

     “Okay, okay. I’ll pay you two hundred thousand plus half a percent of net sales, but that’s for the whole story.”

     “Of course,” she replies.

     Steve turns on his transcription bot then asks, “So how did it begin?”

     “Begin?” she mumbles. Kathy looks at him and says, “It began right here. It began when you offered me the job, gave me the tickets, and drove me to the shuttle port.”

R. A. “Doc” Correa

www.goldenboxbooks.com/ra-doc-correa.html

A retired US Army military master parachutist, retired surgical technologist, and retired computer scientist. He’s an award-winning poet and author. “Doc” has had poems published in multiple books and had stories published in Bookish Magazine and Your Secret Library. His first novel, Rapier, won a Book Excellence award and was given a Reader’s Favorite five-star review.