QUEEN OF THIEVES
When Venatora and her entourage entered Tortooga’s infamous Gibbet Hall, she thought she’d never witnessed such a level of bloody chaos.
Things were always unruly in the Hall. After all, this is where felons from all over the region gathered to party, nurse wounds, and do business.
But this gathering made all her other visits seems funereal in comparison.
Hundreds of pirates and their sycophants were on hand to witness the confrontation between the Pirate Queen and the rebel princess. Criminals of all species and sexes shouted and fought for room enough to raise drinking appendages to the level of intake organs.
The hall was set in what had once been the rec area of an old starliner that in a hundred plus years had gone from luxury cruises to cut rate travel for pensioners. The Parlitas—Skink’s forbearers—ended up taking the ship in trade for overdue berthing bills.
While the crowd bickered and complained, booze drones whizzed overhead, delivering overpriced and watered down intoxicants. Loot hung from the walls in a gaudy display of how rampant piracy had become in the region, where the price of security had outpaced the willingness of mining companies to pay up.
They’d adopted the penguin method of survival, sending out huge convoys that bent Imperial security laws to the limit—and beyond. Ships on the edges of the convoy were fed to the pirates, while the others hurried away, leaving their convoy mates at the mercy of the pirates.
The convoy routes were the main piece of business at the annual Gathering of the Captains. Over the next few days the assembled pirates would bid for the routes, which would then become the exclusive hunting territory for auction winners. Skink took a percentage of each sale for the upkeep and maintenance of Tortooga.
Taking Father Raggio at his word, Venatora made her entrance the grandest of her career. At her command, the double doors slammed open.
Marta shouted orders and twelve Zabanya guardswomen formed a phalanx—six on a side with Palsonia making a formidable tip of the spear. In the center of this wedge of warrior women, Venatora barked commands, and they all marched down the center aisle. Beings cringed out of their way, fearing what would happen if they were too slow.
As well they should. The Zabanyas were an elite group among the Himmenops. They were specially bred, raised and trained to fight to the death for their queen and colony. They were all tall, muscular and for psychological shock wore skin-tight body armor. Their white skin and long snowy white braids glistened under the lights.
They carried the latest AM2 battlerifles at port arms. Black metal girdles encircled slender waists, bearing pistols and long curved knives.
In the center, Venatora was the most splendid of all. Her tall ebony figure was draped in swirling robes of many colors and her golden crown of office completed the dazzling display. She carried no weapons in the open, but secreted a few fighting necessities beneath her flowing robes.
At the far end of the hall, five beings sat on a raised dais trying, but failing to look unimpressed.
Skink, decked out in outrageous finery, from tooled leather boots to a broad feathered hat, was in the center. To his left were Captains Manzil and Barnid. Humanoids, scarred from countless boardings. To his right, Captain Clew. Female, reptilian, with cunning yellow eyes. Venatora had once participated in a boarding with Clew, who seemed competent enough, but she had no experience with Manzil and Barnid, other than the annual conclave of captains.
There was an empty chair at the head of the table. Princess Anthofelia stood behind it. The portrait of regal beauty, with flowing silvery hair, dazzling emerald eyes, a muscular, but curvaceous body, draped in rather plain, but elegant robes that bared her arms. A red and gold Sharkwire tattoo encircled one rippling bicep.
The chair was normally reserved for Venatora. Six fierce Himmenops rebels guarded the deposed princess, battlerifles at ready.
In awful fascination, everyone watched for the inevitable confrontation. But to the surprise of the crowd and Venatora, Anthofelia snatched a battlerifle from the hands of one of her guards and leveled it at Venatora.
“One more step, you dirty boslachee,” she hissed, “and you’ll soon be sleeping under the feet of our Fathers.”
It was the worst sort of insult for one woman to call another. Instinctively, Marta and Palsonia raised their weapons. A great silence descended on the hall. Nerves were on hair trigger.
Venatora held up a hand. “Wait,” she commanded.
Marta and Palsonia were jolted as if hit by electric shocks. They looked at her, confused.
Ignoring Anthofelia, Venatora turned to Skink. “What is this, Skink?” she demanded. “Violence has always been forbidden at the Gathering of the Captains. Open bidding has always been the rule.”
Skink harrumphed. “There’s those of us who think it’s time for a change,” he said. “At every gathering you come forward with your women and sweep up the most lucrative territories in the Possnet Sector. Why, with all your riches, you are always able to outbid every hard working pirate in the region.”
Someone at the far end of the table slammed down a fist. It was Captain Manzil, scarred face flushed with fury.
“Me and my crew are sick of gettin’ the dregs, Venatora,” he thundered, “while you get richer every season. Makin’ it impossible for anybody to catch up and match you.”
There were murmurs of agreement in the crowd.
Barataria bellowed support. “You tell her, Cap’n,” he said. “Whole clottin’ system’s been rigged for years. Rigged to keep the rest of us out, while Venatora gets richer. Guaranteein’ that she’s gonna win every bid at the next gathering. And we just get her leavin’s.”
Out in the hall, the murmurs were turning to shouts.
“Fair bidding,” somebody cried. Others took it up. “Fair bidding! Fair bidding!”
The building uproar was so organized that Venatora knew that Skink had planted shills in the crowd.
Skink grinned at her, exposing rows of long yellow teeth. “Hear them, Venatora?” he said. “Sounds like a lot of the captains here are looking for change, don’t it? Well, me and my kin have been talking to the captains the past few months and there were so many grievances we decided to bring the issue forward at the next gathering. It’d be more democratic, like.”
Keeping her calm, Venatora shook her head in amusement. “Skink,” she said, “No one has ever accused you of being the brightest pixel on the screen. Nor has anyone ever heard you calling for instituting a ‘one being, one vote’ democracy.
“We’re pirates, for clot’s sake. We don’t vote, we steal. And if the hostages’ friends and family can’t pony up the ransom, we space them to set an example and move on.”
To Venatora’s amazement, Anthofelia suddenly came unstuck. “Lies!” she shouted, pushing past Venatora to address the crowd. “Nothing but lies! She’s proclaimed herself the Queen Of The Himmenops. But she’s nothing of the sort. She’s just a sport. A mutant. A great whore. The mother of all boslachees.”
She turned to Venatora, shaking an angry fist. “I don’t know what it is that gives you power over your fellow beings. But I for one am no longer affected. I’m immune to your powers, Venatora. Immune.”
To Venatora’s frustration, Anthofelia’s declaration appeared to be true. Try as she might to flood the short distance between them with pheromones, her efforts seemed to have no affect on Anthofelia, or her bodyguards.
She felt suddenly out of sorts. The room seemed hazy. She became momentarily fixed on the sight of Anthofelia’s Sharkwire tattoo. Gold with blood red tips, that seemed to throb with an energy of its own.
Marta glanced back at her, puzzled. Even Palsonia, the always faithful Palsonia, was frowning down at her weapon, as if wondering how it got there.
A buzz in her ear. “Beware, daughter,” came Father Raggio’s voice. “Skink has flooded the hall with some sort of chemical. Can you smell it?”
Soon as he said it, Venatora caught the odor of dying flowers. The crowd was becoming more restive. She heard her name being cursed. And more shouts of “Fair Bidding!”
As she struggled to take all this in, Anthofelia gripped the battlerifle at both ends and raised it over her head, striking a classic rebels’ pose.
What appeared to be nothing but a plain set of robes, suddenly took on a golden flow with sparkles of light running up and down the seams. And for the first time Venatora saw just how beautiful her rival was.
She was tall—nearly as tall as Venatora. Her figure nearly as lush. Her skin was ivory white and her hair a silver cloud, framing a heart-shaped face, glowing emerald eyes and lips as red and full as ripe fruit.
“I say no bidding,” she shouted, her voice suddenly amplified by Skink, who also threw her image up on the big central monitor, blocking out Venatora entirely.
“I say the Possnet Sector should be open to all who are willing to fight for it.”
And then she seemed to really hit her stride when she thundered, “Let pirates be pirates!”
Her cry was taken up by the crowd. “Let pirates be pirates! Let pirates be pirates!” Louder and louder. “Let pirates be pirates.”
The crowd was barely in control. Faces were flushed. Beings were waving fists and claws and tentacles at Venatora.
In her ear, Father Raggio urged, “Get out! Get out now!”
There was a deafening explosion, and Venatora turned to see Clew on her feet. She had old antique hand cannon. Once again, she aimed at the ceiling and fired. Smoke and flame erupted from the barrel.
She grabbed Venatora’s elbow. “Come on,” she said. “Before they kill us all!”
And Clew led the way as Marta and Palsonia reformed the deadly phalanx of women warrior and they rushed off the dais and slammed into the crowd.
There were shouts and screams and no little blood as Venatora found herself trampling over pirates trying to block her exit.
And the last thing she saw as she burst though the big double doors was the victorious figure of Anthofelia filling the overhead monitor.
Standing tall in her rebel pose and shouting, “Let pirates be pirates. Let pirates be pirates.”
The doors slammed shut and Marta lasered the locking mechanism into a molten mess, sealing the crowd in.
Then they were running for the Takeko, desperate to escape before the jaws of Skink’s trap snapped shut.