but starting to get my second wind. If I had to take the whole host, if I had to fight all fifteen or so that had come on the longboat, I’d most likely die, but they’d regret ever tangling with me.
“No reason to be scared,” I continued, taking a few steps toward them. “I’m Blackjack, and I got all the time in the world.”
I expected that to incite them into fury, goad some of the dumber ones into charging. I was hoping to hurl a couple off the narrow shard before the cannier fighters closed on me, but what I wasn’t ready for was the confusion and stupefied dread that was clear despite their fundamentally alien features.
The captain lowered her sword, “Brackshock?” she asked, and I saw terror in the back of her throat, noticed her take a half step back.
“That’s right, angel,” I told her. “I’m Blackjack. Brackshock,” I added, pounding a fist on my chest.
I was expecting them to run off and board the long boat, to rush their ship and bombard me at range with the heavy guns she sported on either side. Conversely, they could charge me, try to overwhelm me and hope for a lucky shot. Instead, they did the last thing I expected. They roared in adulation, sheathing their weapons and surrounding me as if I had hit a walk-off homerun. I expected it to be an attack; a strategy to lower my defenses, but the conglomerate of disparate species mobbed me, saluting me and clambering over each other just to get to touch me. Even the warrior I had defeated came up to me and placed his massive, clawed hand on my shoulder in salute, though I could barely hear what he said over the clamor of his companions. The imp girl wound through the crowd and jumped into my arms, kissing me deeply and drawing the laughter of everyone with whatever she said.
The crew parted for the captain to approach. She ambled up to me, motioning for the imp to leave my side, and then waved another of the crew closer. This was the fellow she had spoken to earlier, who from a distance looked mostly human, but up close, it was clear he was nothing of the sort. His head was much taller, oblong with an oversized forehead. His eyes were white, lacking an iris, and he had no ears beneath his long white hair. I saw what looked like chin whiskers jutting from his jaw line, but as he came closer, I noticed his mouth wasn’t where it should be, in front of his face and beneath his nose. Instead, this creature’s mouth was under its jaw, just beside where the Adam’s apple would go on a man; dripping beside it were some sort of feelers or whiskers that that looked like they were used to help him eat. His hands were also strange, ending in rows of barbells that made it almost impossible for him to grasp anything. Instead, he carried a clear, rounded crystal that he held out to me.
He mumbled a meeping noise that came from under his chin, and the only word I could recognize was ‘Brackshock,’ the same old Shard World bastardization of my super name. I expected the crystal to light up or something, but it did nothing, and after a few seconds, the newcomer just pocketed it and motioned to me saying my name again, as if verifying it once and for all. The captain smiled, rushing the space between us and grasping my shoulders with deceptive strength.
“Brackshock!” she shouted, joined by the others in applause and blandishment. The captain took one of my arms and raised it high in victory, yelling my name again.
And that’s how I joined a space pirate crew.
Chapter Two
They brought me onboard the Black Ship, and I called her that because I couldn’t decipher the scrawled language on her stern. Above the illegible name were the five windows of captain’s cabin adorned with a long ribbon over and around the windows, and two red stars. Beneath, where there would normally lay a tiller on an earthbound sailing ship, was a battery of thrusters and engines, some small and others large, that supplemented the ship’s forward speed.
The black ship was an anachronistic representation of a 17th century sailing ship, squared-rigged and lay out like a brigantine straight out of Earth’s history. Yet there were obvious differences, like masts and sails. She had a fore, main, and mizzen along the