Of Men and Spiders

Captain Drake looked over the reports with more interest than he'd shown in years as he sipped his morning coffee. Tiller was less than pleased to have been ambushed by a core patrol when he'd been anticipating an easy job. Still, the man had gotten out in one piece, more or less, which earned him his pay even if he left empty-handed. He might even deserve a small bonus in recognition of his troubles.

That was just like Lucy, thinking outside the box. Generally speaking, it was considered out of bounds to include the law in pirate squabbles, but seeing as she only had one very run-down ship and no crew to speak of, Drake wouldn't begrudge his daughter this minor infraction. He'd known she'd find the tracker. She'd have disappointed him if she hadn't. It was more a question of what she'd do with it. Planting it on a core patrol ship was certainly a new one. He wondered how she'd even managed that without getting caught. She'd probably bribed an officer somehow, but still, it was clever.

There was one other report that caught Drakes's eye. One of the bait ships he'd thrown to the wind had shown up as a salvage claim by a tiny freighter crew. Looking at the freighter crew and the ship specs, even considering several unregistered "upgrades," it was improbable they'd overpowered the pirates. It was more likely they'd gotten a helping hand. But for whoever it was to leave the ship for the freighter crew to salvage meant that the mysterious benefactor didn't want any attention.

Looking at where the ship in question was supposed to have been working, it was right about where Drake had assumed Lucy might have moved the ship she'd captured. However, according to several scans, there was no indication the ship was still there. It might warrant another scan, but Drake suspected it would come up empty again. Now, how was that daughter of his hiding a ship that size? It certainly begged a question or two.

Then there was the question of timing. Based on when the ship disappeared and when Lucy got rid of the tracker on her own vessel, the timelines overlapped enough that it wasn't too likely she'd been directly involved. On the other hand, her son, Drake's grandson, was seventeen, old enough to do something brilliantly stupid like take on a small crew of pirates. If the boy could pull off a stunt like that and then disappear into the void, it just reinforced Drake's opinion that it was time to bring the boy into the family business. Talent like that deserves to be encouraged by a proper guiding hand.

Looking over the pirate ship's crew in question, there wasn't much worth of note. They were more or less a throw-away crew, with one small exception. There was a girl about the same age as Drake's grandson he'd previously made a note to keep an eye on for having potential. Even if she wasn't particularly to the boy's taste for whatever reason, it was unlikely he'd kill her in cold blood. If he'd taken her captive instead...well, that might open a door or two...

Captain Drake sat back and let the reports drop to his desk while enjoying another sip of his morning brew. There were a couple of leads available to him now. It was just a question of how to direct his time and attention. He smiled. This was the most fun he'd had in a long time!

-

Lucy frowned as she skimmed over local reports. After going through the trouble of piggybacking onto a nearby relay and setting up several dead cells to make it virtually impossible to pinpoint her location, all she could get from local reports was mention of a patrol encountering a brief skirmish with pirates. Apparently, they'd gotten away, too. Leave it to central patrol to not even be able to capture one lone pirate vessel.

As loath as she was to include the law in her ongoing duel with her father, she'd expected a little more out of them. A capture and interrogation could have made them quite inconvenient to her father, giving her just the distraction needed to sneak into his little empire and cause trouble.

Lucy sat back and sighed. Maybe she'd been out of the game too long. After all, depending on the law to save her ass was never something Lucy the Red would have done. If she needed to create a little chaos, maybe it was best to do it her way. All she needed was a dependable crew, and Charlotte was as dependable as they came.

As Lucy started planning, she couldn't help but feel a little more like her old self again. Whether that was good or bad, time would tell.

-

So that was Lucy the Red. Cleo had to begrudgingly admit she was kind of impressed. Of course, she'd heard the stories. What woman working on a pirate ship hadn't? In her day, Lucy cut a red streak through space that fit her name, earning her fear and even begrudging respect from anyone unlucky enough to cross her path. Then, one day, she'd just disappeared, leaving no small power vacuum in her wake.

When her now-dead captain told Cleo they were looking for Lucy the Red, he'd laughed. Apparently, she'd quit to be a mother or something equally stupid. Like the rest of her crew, Cleo had assumed that more than a decade and a half away from the pirate life had cooled the flame in Lucy's heart, but looking into her eyes during their little meeting, she'd realized that fire was still there, and hotter than ever. That was a woman who could and would wreak chaos on the entire galaxy if you crossed her wrong, and someone had done just that.

Not that Cleo was about to let her own plans fall by the wayside just because some pirate queen was coming out of retirement. An opportunity like this came once in a lifetime, and if Cleo wanted to make a name for herself, she'd have to act when the time was right. It was just a question of waiting for the right moment.

-

Charlotte listened as Lacy explained the next steps in her plan. It certainly sounded impressive. It was as complex and orchestrated as any hivemind contest for supremacy. But She couldn't help but worry at the same time. Even with all the precautions She and Lacy would take, this would place Scott and Alice dangerously near the middle of this contest of wills.

It was meant to protect the two developing humans, but Charlotte couldn't help but wonder if there wasn't a better way to achieve that goal. Perhaps it was best to consider several contingencies, just in case.

-

As he worked in the garden, Scott couldn't help but consider what was bothering him so much. Was it just the way his mom had utterly disregarded him when she spoke with Cleo? That was undoubtedly part of it, but it felt more like a symptom than the problem.

Then, there was the apparent lack of respect Cleo had for him. In her eyes, he was just some innocent kid, completely helpless before her guile. That assumption served his purposes for the moment, but it was still part of what was bothering him so much.

Even Charlotte seemed to be communicating less and less about what she and his mother seemed to get up to together. Being left out of the loop on so much was also a part of the problem.

Scott grunted as he dug out another stone. Back on the forest world, life had been difficult for many reasons, but it had also been satisfying. He'd been in charge of his own survival, his own destiny, and he'd done a good job of it, too. Then, his supposedly dead father had descended on his little world, and Scott had been pulled along in the wake of one person or another since then. Now, he was being hunted, herded, looked down on, and otherwise ignored, and he was getting tired of it.

Just as the frustration was building up, Alice appeared to help him lift and move the stone. Looking over the field he and his sister had been maintaining, he felt a semblance of the pride he'd felt on the world below. This was something he and Alice had done; it was a difference they'd made in this universe, and even though it was largely inconsequential to the powers that be, it had been done by their own hands.

He grinned a little, and Alice beamed at him. "The garden is looking really good!"

Scott nodded back at her. "Yeah, it is, munchkin. Yeah, it is..."

Whatever Scott decided to do about everything going on, he couldn't act too rashly. After all, his sister was still depending on him. If the galaxy seemed cold and uncaring for him, how much harder would it be for her as she grew up? At least he could be there to listen to and support her if nothing else. Maybe it wouldn't matter on the level of pirate lords or immeasurable spider hive minds, but maybe it would make the galaxy a slightly friendlier place for one little girl.