Chapter 134: Chapter 46: Negotiations

Every gun in the gate was aimed at the Gyhera captain holding Lon. Caught in the open with no cover, Milia grabbed ahold of Dash’s shoulder and swung him in front of her.

The Gyhera captain climbed down from the pale-faced Lon’s back and slunk into the gate. Perspiration dripped from the brute’s forehead. His raised hands shook as he eyed his crewmembers. “I’ve seen y’all shoot. Nobody try to be a hero!”

“No worries, there’s only one of them,” Jido said as more Gyhera dropped from the ceiling in the terminal. The Gyhera fanned in behind their captain, weapons raised.

“That’s the last time you go on watch,” Milia snarled at Lon.

“It’s not my fault! They came out of the Lorddamn ceiling!”

Dash eyed the weapons, the claws, and the fangs of the approaching sentients. Terror swept over the faces of the Terran and Stardancer crews. If someone started shooting, it would be a bloodbath.

The Gyhera captain pushed Lon forward. Fresh streaks of blood marked her cheeks and arms. From her harness hung a clump of feathers and a pair of tattooed Human hands.

Someone retched along the perimeter of the gate. Standing tall, the Gyhera captain surveyed the room with a predatory glare. “Who is captain now?”

“I am,” Milia said, her throat hoarse.

“But you’re a prisoner.”

“Not anymore.”

The Gyhera captain eyed the body on the ground, then the crew watching from the perimeter of the room. “And the crew accepts a prisoner as their new captain?”

The Terran crew all nodded. Jido said, “We do.”

The captain pointed to Dash and Gaius. “And you keep some of your fellow prisoners captive?” she said to Milia.

“If you knew them, you’d understand,” Milia said.

“I don’t understand your crew dynamics.”

“I’d love to sit and explain it to you, but we’re leaving now.”

“Not without me!” Lon said.

The Gyhera captain pointed at Milia. “Rakton may be dead, but her actions have endangered this bartering site. Reparations must be made for the deaths and damage, both physical and to the relations between the crews. Rakton’s crew inherits this debt, which means you inherit it. And we’re here to collect.”

“It’s really adorable that you have rules for your little scumbag club,” Dash said, drawing a chorus of hisses from the Gyhera. He’d learned quite a bit about pirate culture during his brief time running cleanup on counter-piracy operations. The Reconciliation cleaned up a majority of piracy, at least the incidents known to the public. He wasn’t surprised it had begun to return with the Commonwealth’s struggles in the aftermath of Auturia. His revulsion at the vile trade remained as strong as ever all these years later.  

“Shut up,” Milia whispered to him through clenched teeth. She said to the Gyhera captain, “Send us the bill. We’ll be sure to transfer the creds.”

The Gyhera captain flashed her fangs. “You will pay your debt now, or you will be marked.”

“I told you not to mess with pirates,” Dash whispered back to Milia.

Milia ignored him and looked to each of the Stardancer’s ops crew. “You want in on my ship? Then you’d better be ready to fight for it.” Before they could reply, Milia tossed Gaius’s pistol to Henrik, who almost dropped it. Brock laughed, until he saw Betsy come flying his way. He reached out with casual confidence, like a pro rumbleball player, and bobbled the catch. Betsy clattered to the floor. Dash closed his eyes and groaned as the big tech retrieved the gun. Jido handed a pistol off to Rosalie and Draug. The Ghupto aimed it as best it could with its stubby hands.

Milia said to the Gyhera captain, “Odds aren’t looking too good for you now, are they?”

“You would abandon one of your crew?” the captain replied, and shook Lon’s shoulder.

“He deserves it for screwing up his guard duty. It’ll be a good lesson to the rest of them,” Milia said. 

Lon peered at her with pleading eyes. “You can’t do that!”

“Yes, I can! How many times must I say it? I’m the captain,” Milia said.

The Gyhera captain wiggled her snout. “If you leave with a mark on your crew, you will be an open target to all clans. What foolishness is that?”

“You’re telling me the clans work together to track down debts? They can barely be in the same room without shooting each other,” Milia said, and gestured toward the terminal.

“Milia, she’s telling the truth. You don’t want a mark on your crew,” Dash said.

“What do you care?” Milia said.

“I care because you’re taking my crew.”

“They’re not yours anymore.”

“He’s right, Milia,” Jido said. “We don’t want to be on the pirates’ bad side.”

“Keep working on that hatch!” Milia barked over her shoulder. She said to the other captain, “Fine. Tell me what you want to settle this debt.”

The captain paused, the short fur around her nostrils swaying with each breath. “Give us all the prisoners, to start.”

Milia tapped a hand on Dash’s shoulder. “All I’ve got left is this one. I need the Slyvarkian pilot for now.” She glanced at the tattooed hands on the other captain’s waist. “Since you’re wearing my previous one.”

The Gyhera looked over Dash, her eyes twitching in apathy. “That’s not enough to cover your debt.”

“That’s my offer. Take it or leave it.”

Something stirred in Dash, compelling him to speak. He detached from himself—his hate and disdain still unfurling from where he’d stashed it away in his mind—and let the captain in him take over. It wasn’t about him anymore; he needed to take care of his crew. “I think you should reconsider,” he said. “I offer myself with certain conditions.”

The Gyhera captain said to Milia, “Your prisoner negotiates for you?”

“No, he doesn’t,” Milia said, and squeezed Dash’s shoulder to hammer home the message.

Dash said, “The captain here will want to negotiate to take home the ‘Slayer of Outpost Ceta’. Trust me on that.”

The words elicited a subtle reaction from the Gyhera crew; snouts twitching, their bulbous eyes shifting to their captain and back to the scavengers. The captain made eye contact with Dash, apparently no longer beneath directly acknowledging a prisoner. Her hollow, barbarous stare weakened his knees, but he stood his ground.

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“That is a rumor,” the captain assured.

“The faces of your crew say otherwise. You don’t fool me,” Dash said. “I was there. I saw what your kind is capable of firsthand. No amount of lies by the Commonwealth, or the Human Coalition, or the Gyhera Dominion will change that.”

“You’re the one who lies!” the Gyhera captain snarled, her fur rippling in agitation.

“I may be a lot of things, but a liar isn’t one of them. I’m sure you heard the version passed down within the troops. The one where the Gyhera fought valiantly against invading foreigners until they were ruthlessly and dishonorably murdered in a surprise attack.”

“They were!”

“That story is an overflowing sewage tank, and you know it,” Dash said. He stepped closer to the captain, fire burning inside him. “The Gyhera were the ones who ambushed the colony ship and attacked the outpost. I watched from inside a storage bunker as your kind gathered up the bodies, roasted them over the burning remains of the outpost, and ate the dead around me. The few survivors I saw suffered the same fate, except you didn’t bother to kill them first. Some sort of ritual, I later learned.

“I sat there, in that dusty coffin, wondering if I should use a grenade to blow myself up to end it all and leave nothing behind for your kind to chew on. I thought about dumping chemicals on my body first, hoping that if you ate any of the remains, I’d take a few of you monsters with me. Then I got a ping on my PD and found an even better answer. Cargo pods in orbit, broken off from the destroyed colony ship. They had just linked with our satellite network and begun the landing process. I overrode the safeties and changed the drop zone to the outpost itself. I brought them down on my head, for the sole purpose of taking as many of your kind with me as possible.”

The memory was a vivid as the day it occurred. The Gyhera noticed the incoming pods too late. They peered upwards from their feeding frenzy, blood smeared on their fur, staring into the night sky. A few were close enough for him to see the fires in the outpost reflecting in those big brown eyes. The pods streaked down from the heavens like a celestial reckoning from the Lords themselves, obliterating anyone and anything outside the bunker. Somehow the bunker was spared. Somehow he walked out of there. But he knew some part of him didn’t.

The Auturia Incident changed the trajectory of the Gyhera race, for better or worse. The Commonwealth granted them approval for tier one status, yet on a probationary basis. An unprecedented turn of events. The Commonwealth needed to maintain legitimacy. They needed their process to work. They needed the Reconciliation signed. The Gyhera were admitted, despite the actions of alleged rogue factions of their population.

The Gyhera captain stared at him unblinking. No one in the gate stirred. It was as if time ceased flowing. Dash wondered if the captain had already swept her pistol at his head and blown him away into the afterlife. Maybe his spirit was stuck in a metaphysical holding pattern, awaiting a tow to his final destination. But then a bead of sweat dripped down his temple, pulling him from the dreamlike state. The Gyhera captain’s mouth twitched, each word spewing forth like venom. “Speak your proposal, Human.”

Dash sucked in a deep breath, collecting himself. “Rakton’s actions yielded a heavy burden for her crew,” he began. “The Stardancer cannot be a prize. It’s worthless to you with the casualties you suffered. You cannot staff it, nor operate in civilized space without raising suspicion. But the Trusty Terran has a pile of creds aboard, and a hold full of fresh salvage. They will give you all the creds and the yield from the salvage.”

The scavenger crew cussed at Dash. Milia said, “No deal.”

“I’m still not finished,” Dash said.

“Yes, you are,” Jido said, and stepped toward Dash. The Gyhera crew growled, sending Jido slinking backward.

Porter pleaded, “Let him talk!”

“Stuff it, Porter. This isn’t any of your business,” Milia said.

“Let him speak,” the Gyhera captain insisted.

“Like I said, you get the creds, the salvage yield, and the Slayer of Ceta Outpost,” Dash said. “I don’t know the names of the troops that were on Auturia then, or if I wiped them out entirely. But I’m sure there’s someone who’ll be interested in getting their hands on me.”

The Gyhera captain went to speak, but Milia said, “Fine with me,” and pushed Dash forward.

He held his ground. “I’m not finished! I haven’t spoken my conditions.”

“I’m running out of patience,” the Gyhera captain said.

Milia glared at the other captain, then released Dash. He said to the Gyhera captain, “You tolerated Rakton for the product she delivered.” His stomach turned at the neutral language the pirate code used to classify such vile acts. “But she wasn’t the only one who acted dishonorably today. She’s not the only one who made poor decisions.

“Twice now, Milia tried and failed to kill Rakton. She allied with Gaius and myself to claim the captainship of her former crew, only to betray us a second time when she killed the new captain without a formal challenge. A cowardly act, unbecoming of a pirate captain.” Dash could feel Milia’s seething stare burning a hole in the back of his head. “Now she announces her intention to flout the code while hiding behind a prisoner. Her offers of compensation are so pitiful they are insulting. She refuses to redeem the dishonor of her crew, yet wishes to benefit from dealings with the clans. The crew must reject her as captain—”

“You’re out of your Lorddamn mind!” she said.

“—not only because she hasn’t earned it, but allowing her to remain validates Rakton’s behavior. The other crews won’t stand for it.” 

“I’m nothing like her!”

“The evidence says otherwise!” Dash said. “It must end here. Milia cannot be the captain of this ship.”

“So, what then?” Milia said. “You throw me out the airlock?”

“No. You will be given fair passage to the next port. You may do whatever you like, but you cannot have dealings with the clans again.”

“That’s absurd,” Milia said, and spun Dash around to face her. “I swear, if you don’t stop talking right now—”

Dash stuck his face into hers. “You’ll shoot me? Go ahead, blow away your only bargaining chip.”

Milia placed her pistol barrel against his forehead. “Don’t tempt me.”

Murmurs rippled around the gate. 

Dash said, “Isn’t this familiar?” Milia recoiled as she remembered Rakton doing the same thing. Dash smirked at her. “Oh, the brutal irony. Rakton may be dead, but she still won. You won’t ever be captain of her ship. All because of bad decisions. Looks like you’re doing a great job at keeping her legacy alive.”

Milia stepped back, the pistol lowering. “No, Rakton is dead. I’ve won!” she said, though her tone betrayed her lack of belief in her own words.

Dash turned his back to her, addressing the Gyhera captain. “Do you accept the proposal?”

The Gyhera crew conferred, quiet and jumbled enough that the PD translators couldn’t process. “We agree,” the captain said.

“No, you can’t do this!” Gaius said, before a nearby scavenger pulled him back. The rest of the Stardancer crew watched, their faces ashen.

“It’s okay. Really,” Dash reassured his pilot. He met Milia’s rage-filled expression. “Consider that my parting gift to you. The art of negotiation. Something you can take with you. Maybe one day you’ll utilize it as captain. But not on the Terran.” He shifted his eyes to Jido. “You’d better get those creds here fast. You don’t want to keep them waiting.”

Milia stood frozen, a blank look on her face. Dash exchanged heavy glances with each of the Stardancer crew. They stared back solemnly. Even Henrik. Gaius’s eyes moistened, his mouth hanging limp. Dash nodded to the pilot, and stepped to the Gyhera.

Milia snapped out of her trance and grabbed him by the shoulder. “You’re not going anywhere. I’m not agreeing to this.”

He shrugged her off. “You’ve got no other play. Deal’s done. Be happy you get to walk away from this alive.” 

Milia’s face reddened further, then scrunched into an angry sneer. She grabbed his shirt collar and pressed her pistol to his neck. “You’re not in charge!”

“And neither are you,” Dash said. He shook her off and continued toward the Gyhera. “Captain, I humbly suggest we depart before—”

He’d only made it three steps when a blazing-hot pain speared him from behind, sending him tumbling to the ground.

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