"Cheese Pirates" by Chris A Jackson

Cheese Pirates

By

Chris A. Jackson

"Double compound fracture of both radius and ulna with severe tendon damage and disarticulated cartilage at both wrist and elbow." 

The doctor gave me one of those 'You're really screwed, buddy' looks that they hope you don't understand.  Unfortunately, I understood.

"How the hell did this happen?  You get your arm caught in heavy machinery?"

"Turk," I gasped between jolts of agony as the nurse positioned my arm on the exam table.

"What?"

"I said, Turk."

"What's a Turk?"

"It's not a what, it's a who.  Well, it's kind of a who.  Hell, I don't know, maybe it is more of a what, but Turk is a man, and he's what happened to my arm."

"A man did this?"  He gave me a disbelieving chuckle and a sardonic smile.  "Not unless he was wearing powered battle armor."

"Turk doesn't need powered battle armor.  Turk is powered battle armor."

"Hmph," he said, as if it was some deeply insightful medical diagnosis of my shattered arm.  "Nurse, administer 500 milligrams of morphotrex, IM.  The patient is delusional."

"Hey!  Wait!  I am NOT delusional!"  I swatted the hypo away and glared at the nurse, which had all the effect of a fly upon the windshield of a speeding skycar.  I don't like general anesthetics; I mean, who knows what secrets could be revealed under the influence of some brain-influencing drug. "You've got to believe me.  Turk is… uh… well… he's rather large, and when his temper is up, he does things that break bones.  I was dumb enough to get my bones between him and what he was upset about, which cost me."

They both looked at me like I was delusional.

"Put the hypo away," the doctor ordered, which was just what the doctor ordered, as far as I was concerned… okay, maybe I was a little delusional, but I'd been sitting with my shattered arm in a pressure splint for three days before finally getting somewhere it could be treated.  I was a little punchy.

"So, while I put the 682 pieces of the two bones in your forearm back together, why don't you tell me how this happened."

"No hypo?" I asked, eying the nurse, who looked a little hypo happy, if you know what I mean.

"No hypo.  We'll numb the arm with a neuralizer field."

"Good.  Okay…"  My arm went numb as the field was activated.  "Well, where do I start?

"I usually find the beginning a good place.  Nurse, give me a retractor and a drape.  I've got to get these bits of bone aligned."

EXPLETIVE DELETED sarcastic physicians, I thought as he applied the drape and began extracting bits of shattered bone from my arm.

"Well, we were delivering some… uh… product to a buyer in the Argulus system.  I'd just been promoted to Executive Officer of the… uh… ship we were on, so I was on the tactical monitors, right?"

"Sure."  Something went crack and my arm moved.  I tried to ignore it.  Yeah… good luck with that, Harry.  "Sono-cautery on that bleeder.  Yeah… perfect.  Go on?"

"Oh, anyway, we had just dropped out of stringspace, and I was a little jumpy, you know.  There was a signal coming in, and two vessels on the scanner.  The signal was a distress call, and the two ships were way too close for anything but an intentional maneuver.  You know, like within two-hundred klicks of one another."

"What's a klick?"

"A kilometer, doc.  Don't they teach you stuff like that in medical school?"

"Uh… no…  They only teach us how to put together broken bones and stuff.  Go on?"

"Oh, so anyway, the captain didn't want to do anything, but the distress call sounded pretty urgent.  They were saying they had all kinds of wounded and that the other vessel was completely hulled, crew dead, cargo abandoned… That last bit got the captain's attention, so he brought the ship around in a short parabolic, or rather the pilot did after I typed the orders in for him.  He told me to run the nav calculations through the computer, but I had figured them out already and didn't see the need to waste time."  The doctor glanced at me over the drape.  "I'm pretty good with numbers."

"Okay, so you flew over to the other ships, and then what?"

"Well, we didn't really fly, since flight implies some type of aerodynamic interaction with an atmospheric component…"  He glared at me.  "Uh… air, you know…  but we did maneuver over to the two damaged ships."

"They were both damaged?" he asked, extracting another bit of broken bone from my arm with a jerk and a curse as blood sprayed his surgical mask.  I swallowed and tried not to watch.

"Uh… yeah… they were both pretty banged up.  Looked like a Farfnian patrol cruiser had chewed them up and spat them out, but there wasn't another ship for a whole parsec."

"A what?"

"A parsec."

"What's a parsec?"

"About 30.86 petametres, 3.262 light-years or 1.918×10¹³ miles."

"What are you, some kind of encyclopedia?"

"Uh… no.  Not exactly."  He stared at me, clearly unconvinced again.  Okay, so maybe I'm not so persuasive.  "I've just got a way with numbers, that's all."

"But I thought you said you were in a system.  Three and a quarter light-years is a long way.  No ships in the whole system?"

"I said we were in the Argulus system.  They're pre-space flight."

"Oh, so what were you delivering?"

"Farfnian entertainment equipment," I said with a completely straight face.

He stared at me over the drape for a few seconds, and the two or three non-medical neurons he possessed clicked together.  He got it.  Smart boy!

"There are Farfnians in the Argulus system?" he asked, his tone measured.  I always wondered how you measured a tone, and I was about to ask him, but I figured this wasn't the time.

"Yeah, they're helping them develop space flight."

"Makes sense."

"Not really, but the Argulans have some resources the Crabs want, and the Crabs are using the excuse of training them in space flight to cover the fact that for cleaning the system out and leaving them without a cent to their names."

"What's a cent?"

"A penny?"

"No idea what a penny is."

"Uh… know what a dollar used to be?"

"Oh, sure.   I have one myself!  It's a collector's item!  Pre-Farfnian, and everything!  I've got it in a nice oak frame on my wall."

"Well, a cent is one one-hundredth of a dollar."

"They used to cut a dollar into a hundred pieces?  Oh, come on!"

"No, a cent is a coin that used to be worth one one-hundredth of a dollar."

"Huh?  But that'd be only about one one-millionth of a Farf!"

"Yeah, I know.  That's why they don't use them anymore."

"Oh.  Okay.  Well, what about the ships?"

"Oh, yeah.  So, anyway, we brought our ship in carefully, right between the other two.  The one issuing the distress signal, a little courier-class freighter, looked a little less banged up; the other one, a larger Farfnian ore hauler, looked like it had been really mauled.  The captain decided to board the first one, and put me in charge of the boarding party."  I actually smiled at the memory.  "I was pretty jazzed-up, you know.  My first command, and everything."

"Mmmm?"  Something sizzled, and smoke rose from behind the drape.  I swallowed and tried not to smell; not an easy thing to try not to do.

"So, anyway, I met the rest of the boarding party on the main deck, two security goons and our med tech.  The captain was a little nervous, so the security detail was armed.  That's when I met Turk."

"He was one of your own security detail?"  The sizzling stopped and he peeked over the drape.

"Yeah.  Didn't I tell you that?"

"No."

"Oh.  Sorry.  Yeah, he was."

"And he broke your arm?"

"Well, not right then.  That happened later."

"Why don't you just tell me how it happened?"

"I thought I was."  He gave me a quizzical look, so I explained.  "It's a story, doc.  Just go with it.  Didn't your mommy ever tell you stories?"  Okay, sarcastic cracks about your doctor's childhood while he's putting together your shattered arm might not be a very bright thing to do, I admit, but there are certain things that just have to be said.

"As a matter of fact, no."  He went back to his work without a word.

Oops, I thought.  I must have touched a nerve

My arm jerked as he touched a nerve, but I didn't feel anything, thanks to the neuralizer field.  Lucky me.

"So, anyway, we were waiting by the lock while the pilot docked with the ship that still had a live crew aboard, and I was chatting with the boarding party."

"Chatting?"

"Uh, yeah.  Well, maybe I was yammering a little.  Nervous energy, you know."

"Yammering?"

"Okay, I was blathering like an idiot.  I admit it."

"I thought so."  He chuckled and returned to my arm.  Something whined like a dentist's drill, and I felt the vibrations up in my shoulder.

"So, we were chatting, when my comm bleeped and the captain told us we were about to dock, and to be careful.  I told him, no problem, and we felt the thump of the lock seals matching with those of the other ship.  The pressure indicator flashed green, so we cycled the lock and I stepped through.  That was when Turk grabbed my arm."

"And broke it?"  He cocked an eyebrow at me.  "He broke your arm for walking through the airlock first?"

"Oh, no, that didn't happen until later.  He just dragged me back and told me the captain had said to be careful, and that meant security went first.  He hefted this big rifle-like thingy, and he and his partner advanced like they were expecting a squad of Farfnian shock troops.  He apologized for grabbing me, so I let it slide and even thanked him for keeping me safe."

"You thanked him?"

"Well, uh, yeah.  I might have been a little sarcastic, but I did thank him."

"Uh huh."

"I don't think he picked up on the sarcasm anyway.  He's not the sharpest knitting needle in the basket, if you know what I mean."

"I think I'm beginning to understand why he broke your arm."

"Well, yeah, I already told you he had a short temper.  He really needs to get a handle on that."  The doctor looked at me like I'd said something ridiculous, but since I hadn't, I just ignored him.  "So, we filed into the other ship's airlock, and the inner door cycled.  A female officer was standing there with her arm in a sling and blood on her uniform, and she seemed really shaken."

"Shaken?" he asked.

"Yeah, you know, as opposed to stirred?" I said with a chuckle.

He looked at me and blinked.  "I don't get it."

"Oh, come on!  Don't tell me you've never seen a James Bond movie."

"Who?"

"How old are you, anyway?"

"What does that matter?" he snapped in a defensive tone.  Ooo, I little touchy, aren't we?

"Oh, it's just an old joke.  You can usually tell someone's young by the jokes they don't get, you know."

"Oh?  Well, how old are you, then?"

"Older than I look."

"How much older?"

"You're the doctor.  Can't you tell?"

"People aren't like trees, Mr. Fische.  You can't cut them in half and count the rings."

"Uh, well that's a good thing, I guess.  But with all the new technology, you've got to be able to do some kind of scan that'd tell you how old I am."

"Yes, we could, if you wanted to buy the hospital a cortical stem-cell scanner.  They're only a few million farfs.  In your line of work, that's a drop in the bucket, right?"

"Well, not exactly.  Anyway, let's just say that I might give that dollar bill on your wall a run for its money in the age department."

"You're kidding me?"  He looked a little stricken.  Maybe even shaken.  "You've had a rejuvenation treatment?"

"One or two," I admitted, nodding back toward my arm.  "Don't you have a few bones to put back together?"

"Uh… yeah." 

He went back to work, and I went back to my story.

"So, the officer said her name was Kikira, and she was obviously the ship's pilot."

"Obviously?" he asked, then realized what I meant.  "Oh, you mean she was bald?"

"Uh-huh."  I was really starting to wonder about this guy.  If his medical skills matched his wit, he'd put my arm together backwards!  I tried to peek over the drape, but the nurse gave me that dirty look that they teach in first year nursing school.

"And you said she looked shaky?"

"Yeah.  She said the captain and the exec were dead, and that about half the crew were badly wounded.  I introduced myself, and tried to get the point across that we were going to help them, and that she didn't have to worry.  I guess I should have figured something else was wrong, because she didn't seem too convinced."

"You already said that you weren't very persuasive," he said.

"Yeah, but she was acting strange.  Kind of twitchy.  You know?"

"No, I don't know.  Twitchy how?"

"She kept blinking, and jerking her head to one side.  I figured she might have nerve damage, or a head injury, so I really didn't think much about it.  Our med tech said she was okay, except for a sprained shoulder, so we just followed her down to the main hold where the rest of the wounded were."

"Wounded?  Don't you mean injured?"

"What's the difference?"

"Well, wounded usually result from a violent action, like gunfire.  Injured are just hurt, like in a car accident."

"Oh.  Well, I never really thought of it, but in that case, no, I did mean wounded, though I didn't really know it at the time."

"Oh.  So she was trying to tell you something."

"She was?"

"Yeah, with the head twitching and the blinking."

"Oh, you know, you're probably right.  Huh!  I never really thought of it that way.  I guess I was a little distracted."

"Distracted?"

"Uh, yeah.  You know, with… uh… stuff."

"Stuff?"

"Yeah, stuff!"  He stared at me, obviously not buying my witty repartee.  "Okay, so the pilot was a knockout, alright?  She's like a 20 on a ten-point scale, and she was all injured, and her jumper was torn, and she was acting helpless.  I was distracted."

"That explains it."

"Yes, it does."

"Perfectly reasonable."

"Yes, it is."

"They put her there on purpose, as a decoy."

"Well, yeah, I figured that out later.  They had her bugged, so she couldn't just blurt out that they'd been boarded by pirates, and that the rest of the crew were being held captive in the hold, and that we were going to be next as soon as she lured us down there."  I thought about it for a minute.  "Maybe she was trying to tell me something, with all the winking and twitching and stuff.  I just thought she was coming on to me."

"There's a surprise," the nurse muttered, earning a glare from my side of the drape.

"Well, anyway, I found out later that I'm not her type."

"Oh?  She wasn't wooed by the sarcastic, dashing executive officer?"

"Uh, no.  She wasn't wooed by a human."

"Huh?"

"She's a xenophile."

"Eew!" he said, dropping some little bit of electro-surgical gadgetry onto the floor in his shock.  "That's disgusting!"

This coming from a guy whose idea of fun is probably cutting people open and rearranging their insides?

I didn't want to offend him again, so I said, "Well, I'm not into it myself, but she seems happy enough.  She does a lot of travelling, and meets a lot of… uh… things."

"Ick!"

"She makes a lot of friends."

"I'll bet."

"No, really.  She kind of like a one person inter-species public relations department, not to mention being a pretty fine pilot."

"So she led you into a trap, huh?"

"I suppose you could call it that, but she didn't do it on purpose.  They were holding about half the crew hostage, and told her they'd kill them if she didn't bring us down there.  What else could she do?"

"You said the pirates had her bugged.  She could have written you a note or something."

"I suppose she could have, but that might have given it away and killed the whole crew.  I guess she just didn't want to risk it."

"So who were these pirates, anyway?"  He started squirting NuBone^® into the gaps of my broken bones, humming tunelessly.

"Oh, well we found out as soon as we stepped into the loading bay.  One of them cracked Turk along side the head with a piece of steel reinforcing beam, while another grabbed Kikira and held her like a shield.  The other security guard got off a shot, which must have hit something, because he went down in a hail of gunfire.  My med tech fainted, and a claw about the size of a Buick^® StratoNavigator™ closed around my arm."

"I thought you said Turk broke your arm."

"I did.  The claw didn't break the bone, though it did hurt like the dickens.  I kind of yelped, which --"

"You mean you screamed."

"No, I yelped.  Kind of an involuntary cry of alarm, you know."

"He screamed," he told the nurse.

"Yep, he definitely screamed."

"I did not scream!  I yelped."

"Fine, so after you yelped…"

"Well, the crab that grabbed me garbled something at Turk, which must have made him mad."

"Wait!  I thought you said Turk got hit with a piece of reinforcing beam."

"Yeah, he did.  Maybe that was what pissed him off.  I dunno.  The Farfnian who had me was using some pretty harsh language, too.  It was hard to tell exactly what set him off."

"So they were Farfnians?"

"Oh, yeah.  I thought I said so."

"Nope.  So, why didn't they just shoot you all?"

"Well, I think they wanted us alive to talk our way back onto our ship, and take it without damaging it as badly as they had this one.  There weren't many of them left.  They probably should have shot Turk, though that might have pissed him off even more, and he was pretty mad already."

"How did you know?"

"He was bending the piece of reinforcing beam around the crab's neck like he was tying a bow on a Christmas present."

"Uh… you're kidding."

"I told you he was mad."

"Yeah, but… uh…  okay, so what happened then?"

"Well, then the other Farfnians did try to shoot him, but the one Turk was holding soaked up most of the gunfire.  He pulled a sidearm, since he'd dropped his big rifle thingy when he got hit, and fired.  He must have fired more than once, but the shots were so close together it sounded like someone walking on bubble-wrap.  One hit the crab who was holding me, and peeled back his carapace like a lobster at a picnic."

"Wasn't he afraid of hitting you?"

"Oh, Turk doesn't miss what he's aiming at."

"How many Farfnians were there?"

"Well, none when Turk stopped firing.  He kind of made a mess."

"How many?"

"Uh, six or seven, I guess.  It was hard to tell.  I should have done the math, but I didn't have time to count up all the claws and divide by ten."

"And he didn't even get hurt?"

"Oh, I suppose he was scratched up a little, but he lives for that macho crap.  He started spouting orders and waving guns around like he owned the place.  That's when I made my mistake."

"What mistake?"

"The one that broke my arm."

"What did you do?"

"Well, I kind of told him to shut the hell up and stop waving his stupid gun around before he hurt someone."

"And he broke your arm?  For that?"

"Well, I kind of made a disparaging remark about his former profession, too."

"His former profession?"

"Yeah.  Turk used to be a Marine."

"And you said…?"

"I said if he didn't stop acting like a dumb jar-head, I'd take his gun away and… uh… put it someplace uncomfortable."

The doctor chuckled and the nurse even broke into a smile.  "That doesn't sound too smart."

"Well, I've never been accused of being politically correct."

"So, he got mad and broke your arm."

"Yeah.  So I was forced to promote him to security chief."

"Huh?"

"Well, someone had to take the job, and I had to take command of the ship, since her officers were all dead.  Kikira was the pilot; she couldn't take command and fly at the same time.  Her hold was full of some pretty low grade ch-- uh… product, but it paid for our trip home, and my boss promoted me to captain."

"So, you ended up with your own ship and a broken arm!  Not a bad trade."

"I'll take it," I said, smiling as the last suture clipped into place.  "How's the arm?"

"You tell me," the doc said, switching off the neuralizer field.  "I put a nerve block in, so it shouldn't hurt for a day or so.  Can you wiggle your fingers."

"Yep."  I proved so, and said, "Thanks again, Doc.  What do I owe you?

"The bill will be processed by the accounting department," he said, peeling off his gloves and thanking the nurse.  "You won't have to pay it, though.  The joys of the Farfnian Medical Plan.  They just take it out in resources."

"I'd rather pay it now."  I pulled out my wallet and leafed through the sheaf of notes and dusty business cards.  "I'm a little short on cash.  How about a wheel of nice sharp cheddar?