Thez sat, surrounded by crinkled food wrappings, and watched a star die.
For the seven hundredth day in a row.
Proper days of course, not the star’s local system’s days. All three of its planets had been tidally locked; fried crisp on one side and frozen solid on the other. But those world’s days were long gone; the star’s bloating senescence had swallowed them up one after another and now it was the only thing left in its system, a terribly empty ball of gnawing, churning, dying fire.
Very poetic AND very informative to the thousands of instruments that filled Thez’s ship. But after seven hundred days of anything, the awe and the thunder of it always started to fade just a little, no matter how sincere your appreciation.
Thez, for instance, was only watching with two of her eyes. Her third (installed on the back of her head on a dare in her student days) was preoccupied with some Sol system dramas playing on her personal journal, the real shitty kind with one thousand years of convoluted backstory and eight hundred characters, all of whom had sixty secrets each.
Lois Lane had just suspected that Clark Kent was Superman. Thez’s toes curled in anticipation.
“Proximity alert,” interjected the calm, neutral voice of her ship.
Well, shit. Had one of the others drifted a few tens of thousands of miles off course? There were dozens and dozens of other vessels here to watch the fireworks; reality prospectors looking to make a quick buck from the torn seams of space and time the star’s corpse would leave; fellow scientists out to harvest some juicy thesis data or tweak a paper; tease-riders who were here to experience the sweet sweet agony of waiting for literal years for a proper BANG. But most of them preferred to stay still and wait after their initial explorations for a proper observation post.
Maybe this was someone new.
“Unauthorized docking,” commented her ship. “Boarders arriving.”
Oh. This was piracy.
***
“I can’t believe she never noticed,” said the pirate for the sixteenth time.
“He looks completely different when he’s Clark,” said Thez.
“Please. It’s just posture and expression. Same build. Same face. Same hair.”
“He styles it differently.”
“Oh like that matters. Anyone can see it’s the same hair.”
“Lois can’t.”
“Because she’s an IDIOT.”
“She’s a reporter.”
“This is exactly why we have drones do news research. This woman here. Precisely her.”
“Well, I still like her.”
“You just think she’s hot.”
Thez drew herself up with all the dignity she could vaguely recall possessing at some point, possibly during graduation. “Do NOT,” she said.
“Do so,” said the pirate. She took a swig from one of Thez’s beverages, but she didn’t make any complaints. There was still a gun pointed at her, however casually.
“And anyways, you’re all over Clark.”
“Damn straight. Boy’s a ten.”
“He’s gormless as a gutless fish!”
“All an act.”
“What, you want a liar?”
“Lying’s a good skill in my trade.”
“Piracy.”
“No,” said the pirate, somewhat peevishly. “Academia. This is just a side-gig.”
“Really? What’s your field? And why the piracy?”
“’Branes,” said the pirate.
“Oh.”
“Yeah.”
“My sympathies.”
“It’s fine.”
“I mean, you know. It’s just funny that, how it all makes perfect sens-”
“It’s FINE. Stop talking about it.”
“Sorry.”
“It’s fine, fine, fine, fine, fuckity fine-fine-fine-fine-finerino, fine fine Finnegan’s finewake,” chanted the pirate. Then she shotgunned Thez’s beverage, crushed the can on her forehead, buried her head in her arms and burst into tears.
Thez wanted to hug her, but the gun was still pointed at her.
“Proximity alert,” interjected the still very calm voice of the ship.
The pirate continued to cry.
“It’s… probably nothing,” said Thez. The gun wasn’t particularly big, but they didn’t need to be unless you had some sort of fetish for inefficiency.
“Unauthorized docking. Boarders incoming.”
“Let me do the talking?”
The pirate’s aim didn’t waver, but she made no protests.
***
“This beer is shit,” said the professor.
“It’s not beer,” said Thez. “It’s tea.”
“No wonder it’s shitty beer then,” said the professor. She took a swig anyways, belched, and threw the beverage can into the waste disposal. “Ten points!”
“I’m still ahead.”
“You’re a grad, your points are worth half as much,” said the professor, the smugness that infested her very soul intensifying. God, Thez hated her. She hated her so much. Hate hate hate. And of all the godawful times to schedule her academic checkup. The far side of a dying star was too close by half already, and now they were in the same ship.
“That’s not fair.”
“And that’s just realistic.”
“Realism is overrated.”
“Reality,” mumbled the pirate, head still buried in her arms, “doesn’t matter a flicking fistworth of fly-spit on a fucking tarmac.”
The professor looked at Thez.
“She studies ‘branes,” explained Thez.
“Oh dear,” said the professor. And she very gently gave the pirate a hug.
“’M fine,” she mumbled.
“Of course you are, dear,” shushed the professor. “Of course you are. There there. There there.”
Thez picked up another beverage. She was getting a lot better about not noticing the gun pointed at her by now. She wondered if the pirate’s arm was starting to hurt.
“Proximity alert,” chimed in the ship.
“Oh, fuck off.”
“Proximity alert.”
***
After the next two dockings they all sort of blurred together. Some arrived out of curiosity; some arrived looking to be rescuers; some arrived just because everyone else was doing it.
At some point everyone moved out of Thez’s ship to the pirate’s, which was larger and more comfortable and most importantly had muted the ship’s proximity alert for professional reasons long ago, which was much more relaxing. No matter how calm and neutral the alarm sounded, sooner or later you hated its guts.
“Good party,” said the professor, who was wearing one of the pirate’s sweaters backwards and upside down.
“This isn’t a party,” said Thez.
“Tell the news drone in the corner. It’s switched over from science reporting to sapient-interest piece in the last ten minutes.”
“Fuck!” said Thez.
“Oh, hush up. Live a little. You’re only young once.”
“Easy for you to say.”
“Damn straight.”
The pirate mumbled something and the professor handed her another beverage.
“Are you trying to get her drunk?” asked Thez suspiciously.
“No. It’s tea.”
“Are you trying to lower her inhibitions?”
“I have nothing but honorable intentions towards a fellow academic.”
“She’s pointing a gun at me, so you’d better.”
“I know!”
The ship’s speakers made a small but precise ‘ting’ sound, and another vessel docked into the tethered fleet.
***
Thez woke up upside down and hung over and surrounded by food wrappings and crushed beverage cans and awful, half-shadowed memories.
There had been an argument. Yes, there had been an argument. An argument about whether or not the professor could crush more cans on her forehead in a minute than she could. And at some point she’d realized that she’d save time if she crushed the cans when they were still full.
It had been very sensible at the moment, and everyone else had agreed that it was such a good idea.
She was never, ever, ever, ever going to drink ethanol teas again.
Hell on earth it was dark in here. Where was she?
“Multiple unlicensed dockings,” said a calm neutral voice.
Oh. She was back on her ship again.
“Multiple unlicensed dockings.”
And it was still so dark, so dark because – oh.
Thez checked the computers to make sure.
Yes, the star had finished collapsing before she woke up.
That had been some…night? She’d never had relativistic forces be a party game before. Or done shots from a gun’s barrel. Or a lot of other things she couldn’t quite remember and probably would very carefully avoid recalling.
“Multiple unlicensed dockings.”
With any luck, her ship’s data harvest had collected things on her own. As long as the party hadn’t damaged it, or they hadn’t turned them off on a dare, or one of a million hilariously fun disasters hadn’t targeted them, or, or, or, or.
“Multiple unlicensed dockings.”
“’urn it offfff…” mumbled the pirate beside her.
Thez turned off the ship’s proximity alarm, gently threw the gun out of the bed, and snuggled down under the covers.
So her grad work was done, one way or another. However it was, that was nice. It was nice to be done.
Maybe this was something new.