It’s been weeks since my last log. In my defense, things went sideways.

So, right after last time, I went to sort things out with Frances. I found her pounding on Jules’s door and convinced her to sit down in the kitchen instead so we could talk. Jules hung back for a minute while I led Frances there.

I put on tea because I had nothing better to do. “What kind do you want?” I asked.

“Coffee,” Frances spat.

She may be a pain sometimes, but believe it or not, I actually kind of like her. She’s–rational isn’t the right word, not with the fits she throws. But she’s very practical. Down to earth. That’s not something we have a lot of around here. Alec doesn’t have the maturity for it, and Jules is Jules. So I went ahead and put on the coffeemaker, too. I had to dig it, and the coffee, out of some forgotten cabinet and dust it off a little, but it still worked.

While it was bubbling, I sat down across from Frances. “So, why don’t you tell me what the problem is here?” I asked.

“The problem,” she said slowly, “Is that we just invaded a secure government facility to bust out our captain and they have not bothered to tell us why that was necessary, except to say that it could have been more than one thing. And quite frankly? I don’t find that comforting.”

“I see.” I wasn’t totally sure how to respond. My goal was to defuse the situation, but as much as I hate to admit it, Frances had a point. It was clear by now that Jules was mixed up in worse things than the average smuggler, and knowing that those things were multiple wasn’t reassuring.

“I don’t like mysteries, Marie,” she said. It had the tone of a warning to it.

“I’ll see what I can do.” I promised.

Frances snorted.

Jules came in just as I was pouring out beverages. They had their usual serene air about them, gracefully sweeping in and taking their seat as if they hadn’t spent the past few minutes being cornered and ranted at by an enraged former mob doctor. Frances glared as if she was about to start ranting all over again.

I took a deep breath. I’m not exactly a trained mediator or diplomat or anything. I used to break up fights when I worked as a bouncer, but those were generally physical fights. But I wanted to get this sorted out before I had to physically pull Frances off of Jules. “So, the problem as I understand it,” I began, “Is that Frances is uncomfortable with not fully understanding what she’s getting herself into as a member of this crew. And Jules, given recent events, it seems like we all might be getting into worse things than we originally thought. If there’s any more information you could give us, I think it would help a lot.”

Jules’s brow knit. They rested their braced wrist on the table. “As I said before, I can’t be sure exactly what prompted the Orange Sector to investigate me. I am not even certain I’m the person they wanted. It could very well be a case of mistaken identity.”

“Yes, but you did say there are many things it might have been,” I pointed out. “That alone is worrying. Can you tell us about some of those things, maybe?”

“Much of it has to do with the people I’ve been in contact with. I deal with all sorts,” Jules explained. “I once did business with someone who believed the entire universe was controlled by a telepathic species capable of mind control. Another client was utterly convinced that the scientists on Voltaire conducted unethical experimentation on sapient life forms. I have heard many of the conspiracy theories the Orange Sector would be interested in directly from believers who are more than happy to explain in great detail. And occasionally I transport people or things without being overly inquisitive about them. It could have been something I was entirely unaware of.”

I looked over at Frances. She seemed unimpressed.

“Can you tell us about the questions they asked you?” I asked. “Maybe it’ll give us a clue.”

Jules gave a half-shrug. “Very basic questions, initially. My name, where I lived, what I did for a living. I took a few liberties with my answer to the last–I told them I deal in imports and exports. From there it was primarily questions about where I was and what I was doing on specific dates within the past few years. All were long before I took on my current profession, curiously. I was, once again, creative with my answers, which they did not appreciate.” Their face was slightly swollen under the bruise.

“I don’t much appreciate it, either!” Frances snapped.

It went on like that for a while longer; Frances demanding answers and Jules delivering statements that failed to meet her standards. I occasionally stepped in to try to calm Frances down, but eventually Jules said, “My dear, there are times when we must make ourselves comfortable with uncertainty,” and nothing I said could stop her from storming out of the room. I hardly blame her.

Jules stared after her blankly. “That did not go well,” they said. They took a sip of their tea.

“No,” I agreed. “It didn’t.”

I’m not stupid enough to go after her right away. I figured I’d let her cool down a bit before I started preaching to her. In the meantime, I had a cup of tea to finish.

Jules stayed in their seat and was silent for a while, fiddling with their used teabag. Eventually, they commented, “This is genuine Camellia sinensis, you know. I source it from a greenhouse on Voltaire.” Then they sprang up and left in a hurry for no clear reason. They left their dirty teacup on the table for me to tidy up.

I took my time with my drink and the cleanup. I even found a few extra spots in the kitchen to clean while I was at it: the microwave oven Alec had splattered with an accidentally exploded meal a few days ago, the perennial layer of grime in the sink basin, some crumbs and things spilled on the floor over the weeks. Frances used to do a lot of the cleaning, but got frustrated that she was the only one doing it and decided to let the rest of us “live in filth.” At this rate I’ll have to make a chore wheel.

When I ran out of distractions, I meandered over to Frances’s quarters. I found her packing.

I stood there stunned for a moment. Frances glanced over. “Pass me that duffel,” she said.

I picked up the bag in question, but didn’t hand it over yet. “Where are you going to go?”

“Back to Demali,” she said, still furiously shoving fistfuls of clothing into a suitcase. “Might get me killed, but it can’t be messier than this. If you don’t wanna lose a shuttle, you could drop me off.”

The thing is, it’s pretty important that Frances stay with us, or at least not leave on bad terms. She knows we’re running wetware, after all. She could easily trade every crew member’s, and Athena’s, freedom for a huge bounty. And I figured she might, if she left as upset as she was. So I was panicking a little; desperate to come up with something that might make her stay.

“You were running from something when we picked you up,” I pointed out.

“And now I’m running from this,” she said. “If things really get bad on Demali, I’ll find something else off-planet that won’t get me murked by the Orange Sector.”

“I just wonder what someone like you could have been running from,” I said. I gestured at her eyes. “You’ve clearly already been through the wringer. Must be something big if it scared you off.”

Frances turned her back to me. “Fuck you,” she grumbled. “Hand me the bag already, will you?”

I passed it to her. She took it without looking back.

Athena must have told Jules what was happening, because they came hurrying down the hallway and didn’t seem a bit confused by the scene before them. They stopped a few feet from Frances’s door. “We will drop you off,” they called out. “Marie, meet me in my office.”

Jules’s “office” is the vestibule between the captain’s quarters and the rest of the ship. It’s a spacious room with rich red carpeting and walls the color of oiled brass. The edges of the room are crowded with shelves of souvenirs from Jules’s travels; mainly rare minerals and preserved plant specimens. It occurred to me for the first time that some of these might have come from Flora. Towards the middle of the room, just off-center, is Jules’s desk and chair. Both are your standard bolted-to-the-floor spaceship furniture, but done in a more opulent style than usual. The chair is padded and upholstered with what might even be real leather. The desk is the same brass color as the walls.

Opposite from Jules’s chair are two smaller seats, little more than stools with cushions. I planted myself in one of them and waited for Jules to sit down.

Instead, they paced around near their desk, gazing pensively at their shelves full of knick knacks. They picked up one of their plant specimens, a set of long, saw-toothed leaves that had been pressed and set in resin. “Castanea dentata,” they said, bringing their Latin name count for the day up to two. “Effectively extinct long before Terra’s ultimate demise. Frances is in conflict with Alexander Morgan, the man who controls the downtown area of Demali.”

If there was a segue between the two topics, I missed it. Jules put down the plant sample and turned back to me. “Mr. Morgan himself brought it to my attention when he discovered I had hired her. It has disrupted our business relationship somewhat, but I believe I still hold enough influence with him to smooth things out for Frances.”

“Wouldn’t that just make it easier for her to leave?” I asked.

“Yes,” Jules said. “That is the point of doing it. I would not wish for her to be in danger when she returns to Demali.”

“Aren’t you worried she’ll come forward with what she knows about… well, everything?”

“Would you like to know why Frances is no longer in Mr. Morgan’s good graces?” Jules asked.

“Sure,” I said. At that point, who was I to say no to concrete answers?

“Ms. Young had been a mob doctor in Mr. Morgan’s employ for several years, treating members of the downtown organization for all manner of injuries and illnesses. Mr. Morgan quite liked her, but was devastated to find, one day, that she had attended to the needs of an uptown man,” Jules explained. “The man in question was near death when Frances found him. She saved his life in spite of his affiliation. I’ll remind you that Frances has never taken any sort of an oath. She helped this man knowing it would earn her a dangerous enemy, not because of her profession but because of who she is.”

I nodded slowly. Frances had demonstrated that she would choose compassion over continued employment, and thus over money. Significantly less money than she’d get for ratting us all out, but the idea was there. I wondered if this was the trouble she’d lost her eyes over.

“So what is it we’re doing for her?” I asked.

“Mr. Morgan has been seeking a courier for a risky and time-sensitive delivery. He has not had much luck, and his time is running short,” Jules explained. “I will offer him our services on the condition that he leave Ms. Young undisturbed when she returns to Demali.”

“And the catch?”

“Is that making this delivery would take us through the Vizel-Mennen conflict’s most active war zone,” Jules said.

“We’re in space, with literally infinite directions we could go in. Can’t we just go around the fighting?” I asked.

“I’m afraid the conflict has grown too large. We could not avoid it and still make our delivery promptly enough for Mr. Morgan’s standards,” Jules said. “The skirmishes are sparsely distributed, however. With good fortune, we may never see any sign of battle.”

“And what is it we’re delivering?”

“Several pieces of genuine early 20th century uranium glass, made with nearly twenty-five percent uranium,” Jules explained. “Quite a collector’s item. Mr. Morgan promised it to a distant business partner in exchange for a favor some time ago, and now this partner grows impatient. She has delivered an ultimatum: the glass within the month, or else. Or else what I’m not certain, but Mr. Morgan did not seem eager to see these threats realized.”

So we were flying an unarmed ship into an active combat zone to deliver a bunch of artsy vases to some rich criminal. I might have mentioned this a few times, but I did not expect my life to turn out like this.

Jules and I talked strategy for a while. My military background is pretty far behind me at this point, but I’m still more familiar with how battles play out in space than Jules is. I left with a homework assignment: read up on how this conflict has been playing out so far, and get back to Jules with some basic predictions about where and when fighting might happen. In the meantime, we set a course for Demali.

When Frances found out what we were planning to do, she was… ungrateful, to be honest. “If you think doing me a favor will convince me to stay, you’re shit out of luck,” she said. “But hell, I’ll still take the favor.”

So I started obsessively following news of the Vizel-Mennen conflict. I took some time to brush up on my military strategy while I was at it. Like I said, it’s been a while. I’m still great in a brawl, but I’ve never seen a real battlefield and it’s been years since I’ve studied this stuff.

With Frances finally satisfied, we had some downtime during travel. Alec took the time to write home–he has plenty of family still on Darwin. Jules focused on selling Alexander Morgan on this deal. Frances herself was busy making arrangements for life on Demali–contacting old friends, finding a place to stay, figuring out a source of income.

We landed on Demali and Frances left before anyone could say another word to her. Her jetbike had been sitting in the ship’s vehicle hangar since her arrival. It roared off past us as we left the ship.

Alec elected to stay behind in case anybody came along and tried to sell him again, which we all agreed was fair enough. Once again, it was just Jules and I on Demali. I wondered if maybe we should try to pick up another medic while we were at it.

This time around, though, our arrival was more straightforward. Jules was expected, so there was no need to park out of town and go running after gunshots. Alexander Morgan sent a car to meet us, and its silent driver ferried us to Morgan’s base of operations; a mansion surrounded by what might have been real palm trees. Having never seen one before, I couldn’t tell.

We were escorted inside and through a blindingly white foyer, past a seating area, and finally to a room containing a wooden trunk marked FRAGILE set on a desk. Standing beside it was Alexander Morgan himself. He was a surprisingly average-looking man; middle height, balding slightly, a little out of shape. His style of dress distinguished him somewhat: he wore an ivory suit and a bolo tie with a turquoise slide, along with a bulky signet ring on one finger. He remained stony-faced as we approached, but extended a hand in greeting.

“Jules,” he said as the two of them shook hands.

“Alexander,” Jules said. “Always a pleasure. I take it this is packed to your standards already?”

“Protected by the best packing foam money can buy in the most shock-absorbent arrangement possible. Don’t touch a thing,” Morgan replied.

“I wouldn’t dream of it,” Jules said.

“I don’t believe I’ve met your associate.”

“Ah, of course. Forgive me. This is Marie Ruiz, my first mate.”

And with that it was my turn to shake hands. Alexander Morgan made unnervingly steady eye contact as he told me, “I hope you and your crew are as reliable as your captain claims. You should hope so, too, for your medic friend’s sake.” Then he turned back to Jules. “We are clear on that, aren’t we? If this isn’t delivered by the end of the month, our deal is off.”

Jules nodded. “The terms are clear. I will have Coril notify you the very second this trunk makes it into her hands.”

“And when should I expect that to be?”

Jules hesitated. “Regrettably, the timing and circumstances require us to cut things a bit closer than I would like,” they said. “Depending upon the movements of the Vizel-Mennen conflict, we would arrive, at the earliest, three days before the end of the month. In the event that fortune does not smile upon us so, it may take until the very last day. But you have my word that we will deliver before our time is up.”

Morgan grimaced and shook his head. “I don’t like it,” he said. “But you’re the only one I can find willing to go out there right now. Your advance is paid on my end, just needs to be processed. Now get a move on.”

It took both of us to carry the crate back to the car. Our escort did not bother to help. With some creative angling, we fit it into the trunk and headed back to the ship, where we loaded it into the cargo bay. Jules spent a few extra minutes strapping it down. “It wouldn’t do to make it through the fighting only for a little turbulence to doom our efforts,” they said.

And then we were off again.

It would take a little over two weeks to reach our destination on the planet Vr’roq. I continued to follow the conflict as carefully as I could, but there are only so many reports in a day. I ended up with a lot of downtime, and on such a sparsely-populated ship, that can get spooky fast.

The Adelaide is a ghost town, no two ways about it. It once had a crew of hundreds, and now it was down to three people with bodies and one AI. If I was looking for someone and they weren’t in their quarters, the bridge, or the kitchen, it usually took Athena’s help to find them within half an hour. I could wander the ship all day and not see a soul, without even trying. Nobody does inspections or maintenance alone in the far-off parts of the ship. It’s not that there’s anything dangerous there–Athena would know about it if there was–but it’s easy to start jumping at shadows anyway.

Which is very funny to watch.

Oh, I’m sure. You wouldn’t, by chance, have broadcasted some weird scratching noises last time Alec and I were doing cargo inspection, would you?

Of course not! Why ever would I do such a a thing?

Riiiight.

Anyway, it was a boring week and a half before we finally reached the area of the Vizel-Mennen conflict. Vizel and Mennen are two planets, both occupied mainly by an ET species called vizelans. Vizel is, of course, their planet of origin, and Mennen is a well-established colony world that declared independence from its mother planet. It’s been independent for a few years now, but the conflict is just now reigniting due to disagreements over asteroid mining rights in nearby space. Vizel claims that their mining operations take priority since they are the mother planet, while Mennen believes they should have priority since their planet completely lacks many of the minerals found in the asteroids. They both kept mining, and starting fighting whenever they met one another out in the asteroid fields. One thing led to another and now it’s full-scale warfare.

But the history behind it wasn’t what concerned me; it was recent fleet movements. I had studied the ongoing battles along our route carefully and tried to plot a course that would keep us out of the thick of it. Unfortunately, as I’ve said, I’m not an expert. By day two in the combat zone, we were making evasive maneuvers to avoid some dangerously close skirmishes. On day three, we got to test our shields–they work pretty damn well, but not well enough that we were going to stick around for more hits.

And then on day four, we were mere hours from our destination when we were caught directly in the crossfire.

A cargo ship is not as maneuverable or fast as a fighter. We were slogging through the line of fire like we were being dragged through mud. The shields took the first few hits okay, and then all kinds of warning lights started flashing. The next shot sent a reverberating shockwave through the ship, knocking down anyone unlucky enough to be standing at the time.

As soon as she saw the opening, Athena pulled the ship into a sharp dive away from the fighting.

“We’ll need the shields repaired on Vr’roq,” she announced once we were in the clear. “We won’t make it through another trip like this without them.”

By now, we were all standing in the bridge. In the distance, we could see occasional flashes of weapon fire. Around us, all was calm.

“How is the hull?” Jules asked.

“Cosmetic damage only,” Athena reported.

“Sorry about that,” I said. “I can pay for repairs.”

“Nonsense,” Jules said. “You’ve likely spared us a great deal of damage along the way. And it was not your decision to make this journey in the first place.”

“I’ll see if I can do anything for the shields,” Alec said. Just as he was about to scurry off to gather his tools, a shape appeared on the viewports, seeming to melt out of space like it had surfaced from a murky pond.

We all knew the ship that now lurked outside, circling the Adelaidelike a predator. Years ago it had been in the news nonstop. They tracked its movements as if it was a dangerous storm, though it was far less predictable. It would surface, strike, and not be heard from for weeks or months before its next appearance. It was the Widowmaker.

Most pirates are just thieves. They’ll board your ship and take anything valuable, but most people live to tell the tale unless they do something particularly stupid. Not so with the Widowmaker and her crew. They liked to steal ships, which tends to be fatal in space. And they had a reputation for much bloodier violence when it came to other pirates. Anyone infringing on their territory could expect a brutal death. Their captain, a man by the name of Hellstrand, personally saw to the fates of rival pirate captains.

Notice that I’m talking about them in the past tense. That’s because they disbanded a couple years ago after a crash killed their captain and destroyed their ship. Nobody’s heard from them since. Yet that very ship now crept along threateningly in front of us.

“It can’t be the real one,” Alec said.

“Indeed not,” Jules agreed. “Look there. I suspect these are nothing but miscreants with a ghoulish sense of humor.”

They pointed to the rear of the ship, where a small logo could barely be made out. It was a stylized human skull painted in orange against the dull charcoal of the ship’s exterior. Below, in the same color, was the word HAWKMOTH.

“Mere imitators,” Jules said, satisfied.

The screen flashed a warning. A black flag signal. “Cap’n, I think they mean business anyway,” I said. And they looked it, too. That ship literally bristled with guns.

We had size on our side–the Hawkmoth was sized for a crew of a couple dozen, not hundreds. But everything else tipped in the Hawkmoth’s favor. Maneuverability. Weapons. Number of crew members. Number of doctors on board. Number of functional shields.

I started figuring out how we could survive this. We sure as hell weren’t getting out of it.

The ship was not the real Widowmaker and Captain Hellstrand was dead. But we couldn’t discount the Hawkmoth crew’s proclivity for violence–they seemed to idolize the Widowmaker enough that they might copy her habits.

“If sending back a black flag doesn’t work, we should surrender,” I said.

Jules, already in the process of sending out our own black flag, hummed. “I can’t say I’m fond of the notion, but I suppose there is little else we can do. Well, one thing.” They typed something quickly, a little message to send along with our signal. “A little diplomacy. We shall see where that gets us.”

A few beats later, the message light lit up several times in quick succession. Jules sighed. “It seems I’ve only enraged them further. Very well. All crew to your quarters. Bar your doors–physically–and do not come out for any reason until Athena issues the all-clear.”

And that’s how we all found ourselves barricaded in our rooms while a crew of pirates took whatever they pleased from our cargo. It was humiliating, to say the least. I’m not used to giving up without a fight. I’m not used to having to. But this time, there was nothing we could do but huddle in a corner and wait for them to finish stealing from us. I almost hoped that one of them would try to force their way into my room so I could actually do something. Not that it would have ended well. I never did get a weapon.

My bunk isn’t the most interesting place to spend an hour. I have my bed, a nightstand, and a closet. I sleep there and that’s about it. Most of my entertainment comes in the form of digital media stored on the ship’s computer, which the pirates had just overriden in order to get past our security measures. I couldn’t watch any movies, but worse, none of the ship’s locks would work. The doors are easy enough to disable if you really want to, though. You open up the inside wall and rip out a gear or two. There’s no handle on the outside, so with the mechanism out of commission it’s tough to get in. A determined enough person could, though, with time and/or explosives.

I couldn’t do much except lay in bed and wait for it to be over. Athena gave occasional updates on the situation. All the pirates wore masks, so she couldn’t run facial recognition, but she assured us she would take note of every possible detail. And she kept track of the things they took. It was awful to listen to, but I have to admit it’s better than having to scramble around the ship afterwards trying to account for everything. They found the uranium glass ten minutes in and that was that for our delivery. They took a lot of batteries and fuel cells. Besides that, it was mostly things I didn’t even know we had. Who’d have thought we had a pound of gold to take? Or a collection of animal hides from Terra?

Adelaide is a large ship. They didn’t get everything. After a little over an hour, they got word that the authorities were in the area, so they split. We did, too, rather than make a report. I think we’d all had enough of the authorities for a bit, and besides, we still had restricted narcotics on board.

Once Athena gave the all-clear, we met in the hallway outside our quarters. The atmosphere was solemn.

“So the uranium glass is gone,” I said. It seemed the thing to lead with. “What do we do about our deal for Frances?”

“Mr. Morgan will not look kindly upon this incident,” Jules said. “I doubt he would go to the trouble of hunting Ms. Young down, however. I will send word to Frances and warn her to avoid the downtown area.”

“We can’t find more uranium glass anywhere?” I asked.

“Not genuine 20th century uranium glass manufactured on Terra. Not with three days remaining prior to the month’s end,” Jules said. “From what I understand, Coril is a serious collector who would spot the difference in a heartbeat.”

We got into the “now what” portion of the conversation. The plan was, we would do what we could to fix up the ship’s shields on the way to Vr’roq, then have them properly repaired planetside. Then we would focus on finally delivering that stardust we picked up on Thyris.

“It is good to wait a while before distributing certain substances,” Jules claimed. “The client will understand our tardiness.”

We landed on Vr’roq–far from our original intended destination, to avoid Coril’s wrath if she happened to know what our ship looked like–yesterday evening ship time. It was early morning planet time. We’re all jet lagged to the extreme and tired from everything we’ve been through, but on the bright side, the nearest repair shop was just opening. We all slept while they fixed the ship.

The day/night cycle goes by fast here, so we slept through about two planet-days and woke up on the third morning.

Vr’roq is a primarily vizelan planet, like many others in this neck of the galaxy. I don’t know much about vizelans, but I’ve seen pictures. About the same size and shape as humans, and that’s where the similarity ends. Their eyes are on the sides of their heads. Their mouths sit low on their faces, practically on the point of the chin. And they’re covered in fine scales, with a great deal of variation in color and pattern.

Vr’roq itself, I know nothing about. I’ll have more to say about it once I’ve actually left the ship.

This hasn’t been our greatest moment. I wonder what Jules would say to a little R&R once we’ve delivered that stardust?

For now, this is Marie Ruiz, signing off.