Skeletons in the Cupboard

Charon's Black Flags

December 2016

In the old days, the victim would only have at most sixty minutes from the moment when they noticed the black flag until their lives would very probably end. He couldn’t imagine what that sixty minutes would be like, whether the crews would scramble for deck, for their weapons, for everything they’ve got. Whether they’d pray, whether they took out the daggers they’ve concealed all along and started stabbing their friends in the back.

They had three days. More than anyone in the old days could ever hope for. The ship was in the radar, the signal was received: a misaligned static, the modern black flag. Neither of their course could be changed, and calling for help would be futile. In the deep darkness of space, you’re always on your own.

Whatever it was that he expected his captain to do, it was not this. On the day the signal was received, he called a meeting for all the crews, all nine of them. The announcement he gave was a solemn one, a funerary rites if anything. He told them of the incoming ship, the flag in the radars, the quiet and insidious ways their system had been compromised. He told them he was grateful for their service. May they be able to survive the coming ordeal, and, if they aren’t, that their next lives will be luckier than this one.

There were protests and terrified wails. But before any of that had a chance to start, the captain retired to his chamber and locked the doors. He shut the internal communication system down. If they were going to talk, they were going to have to do it face-to-face.

Three days was an unbearably long amount of time.

Piracy must be the most horrifying story an astronaut could tell. They came first not with their guns, but through tiny quiet codes crawling into the ship’s system. They’d lock the course, disable the weapons, and if they’re particularly merciless, shut the life system down. The signal was a formality. By the time you see it, you know there’s no chance of escape.

The pirates that came for his ship was kind. They shut the weapons down, but they left the life system was thriving. He almost hoped that they had shut that down too. For three days, he saw his friends losing their mind. The captain wasn’t the only one who locked themself in their room. Some took to the holodeck and never reappeared. Those who stayed spent their time trying not to tremble. They told jokes as they can, they shared their best expectations. Hardly anyone survived a pirate attack. Most were slaughtered, others, the stories said, were made slaves in the outer ring. There were discoveries of derelict ships in abandoned orbits, the cargo cleared, but the corpse inside had died of hunger.

But this one could be kinder than most. They might just take the valuables and leave them with their lives and enough fuel to come home. They might live, yet.