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His name was Tommy Innit Craft, son of the great Captain Philza Craft, and he was finally free. Free from what? Everything, the expectations put on his shoulders by every adult that he ever spoke with, each one expecting him to be like his father and oldest brother, a natural leader, a tactical genius. Unfortunately for them, Tommy was much more similar to his other brother. The expectations were like blankets, smothering his flame, any love for piloting that he may have had as a younger child. And so, he ran. He was allowed off the ship when they were docked planetside on his own now that he was seventeen, he just left, and he ran. Ran as far away from the ship as he could, getting lost in the crowd of the busy market planet. He hid in an alleyway, away from the eyes of his father’s men who had no doubt been sent to find him after he didn’t show up in time for boarding and take-off. He stayed hidden for three days, after those three days, his father must have assumed that he had made his way off-planet. Now, finally, Tommy was free.
His face was everywhere, posters claiming that he had been kidnapped, begging people to find him, return him to the smothering hold of his father and his tutors. Tommy took to wearing a bandana around the lower half of his face, face coverings weren’t too unusual on market planets, where cultures from all over the galaxy mixed to sell their goods. He got rid of his clothes as soon as he could, exchanging the pretentious-looking uniform of a Captain’s son for a simple white tunic with red detailing. No one would expect to find the son of Captain Philza Craft wearing commoner’s clothes covered in dust on a dingy market planet that it was already assumed that he had been taken from.
Once he secured a change of clothes and was confident that no one would be recognizing him, he set out on the next part of his plan. He found a public Galaxy-Net cafe and started looking. Information was hard to find, but Tommy had always been good with computers, though not in the ways that his father would appreciate. It took him a week of coming into the cafe every day, but eventually he was able to find what he was looking for, now it was just a matter of getting where he needed to be. He had been doing odd jobs around the market in order to pay for clothes, food, and Galaxy-Net usage at the cafe, so once he knew what he needed to do it wasn’t hard to find one of the market stall owners who was willing to take him on as an employee while he saved for passage on a ship. He had time to make the money, the next passenger ship going where he needed wasn’t scheduled for another week, and luckily for him, he wasn’t going far.
The morning that the ship that he needed came into port, Tommy quickly thanked the shop-keeper who he’d been working for for the last week and took his last payment. The passenger ship that he would be spending the next week on loomed above him. Passenger ships were massive, hulking vessels equipped with the latest safety technologies and packed with enough living quarters for a small city’s worth of people. They weren’t the most common method of getting from planet to planet, but they were cheap and if they were going where you needed them, they were convenient. Tommy had a bit of trouble in that he was currently a missing person, and thus couldn’t really show his ID, but that was solved by the fact that he wasn’t eighteen yet. All children were given an identification bracelet that showed that they were a minor and were therefore protected under the Galactic Provision for the Protection of Minors. This meant that Tommy could prove that he wasn’t eighteen yet and wasn’t required to show any ID to board the ship.
Getting on the ship was relatively easy, all things considered. Just as Tommy had planned, he showed up at the gate early in the day and paid for passage. He was only going to the next stop, so he paid the cheapest fare possible. It meant that he would be sequestered away in a tiny interior room and would have to pay for each meal individually, but he would manage. Getting there early meant that he would be getting on the ship just as most people were getting off to stretch their legs and enjoy a few hours planetside before boarding the ship for takeoff. Anyone who might still be looking for him on the market planet wouldn’t be looking for him boarding a passenger ship until the later boarding time, in all likelihood.
Much like he expected, his quarters for the next week were a cramped room with metal plate walls and a tiny bunk coming out of the ceiling, with a small chair and table positioned beneath it. There was a tiny toilet room and a separate shower room. All of the doors were reinforced and sealed so that in the event of a hull breach the lodgings wouldn’t become instantly depressurised, and rather would seal off from the main vents and switch over to the in-cabin oxygen backup. Essentially every room was equipped as its own escape pod. Being back on a ship was strange, for Tommy. It felt almost like home, with the humming of the engines reverberating through the metal panels, the hums of life support machinery making a constant background noise, the lullaby of space. At the same time, it was so much smaller than his own room back home, the room that had been his since he was old enough to have his own room, with its posters and drawings hung everywhere and colorful warm blankets draped over his large comfortable bed to fight off the inherent cold of space travel in a metal machine. This room was empty, soulless, with a single pillow and thin blanket draped over the bunk. Tommy didn’t have anything else to do, so he sat down with the last thing that he had bought on the market planet, an e-reader, and started reading a book.
Tommy was only drawn from his reading when a panel on his wall opened up and started playing a video.
“Thank you for traveling with Schlatt Co. Spaceliners! On board this Ram Class passenger vessel you will be traveling with the utmost care given to your safety, but you’re responsible for your safety as well. Inside every passenger cabin is an emergency supply of oxygen designed to last a human passenger of average lung capacity one week, which should be long enough for help to arrive and restore the ship’s own circulating life support system. If the alarm ever goes off, please calmly proceed to your cabin, ensure that the door is securely shut, and wait for further instructions,” The safety video went on like that, but Tommy didn’t pay much attention, he knew how ship safety worked, probably better than most people on this ship did, anyway. It came with the territory of having your father be an important Captain in the Galactic Commission of Space Travel and Trade. He couldn’t count the number of times that their ship had been hailed to rescue some poor fools who hadn’t calibrated their life support properly for the number and species of crewmates that they had onboard.
Tommy decided that he would treat himself to an actual dinner that night, given that he hadn’t really been eating properly for the past week as he saved up money for this trip. He still went with the cheapest dining option on board, a little quick-serve pizza restaurant in the inner corridor of the ship, but it was the best food he had had since running away.
The week passed quickly, Tommy read as much as he could on the digital library connected to his e-reader and contemplated how he could convert the e-reader into an unregistered access point for the Galaxy-Net. The e-reader didn’t have any sort of tracking available inside, as all it was was a cheap e-ink display with a limited network connection, but that network connection? That he could easily convert into full Galaxy-Net access. That became his project for the week, carefully separating the casing of his e-reader to access the network antenna and modifying it to be able to pick up more than just library access. An e-ink screen wasn’t the most ideal for accessing the Galaxy-Net, since the refresh rate was so low, but it would work for Tommy’s purposes.
By the end of his one week journey, Tommy had a functioning Galaxy-Net access point, and he was on the planet that he needed to be, New L’Manburg. It was where the trail he had been following for the last year ended. Following the path that his older brother took when he left home six years ago. From what Tommy could tell, Wilbur had taken essentially the same route that Tommy had, just with permission from their father. He had been dropped off on the market planet during a regular supply stop, and their father had bought him the Passenger Ship ticket to the next major port, which at the time had been L’Manburg, before massive natural disaster had necessitated the civilian population be relocated temporarily to their moon, Pogtopia, while rebuilding efforts took place. Why was Tommy so sure that he could find Wilbur here, then? If there had been a natural disaster only three years before? Because from what he could tell, his brother led the evacuation effort.
~
New L’Manburg port was interesting, the entire planet was now a city built on stilts, massive pole stuck into the ground top circumvent the now too unstable to build on ground. There were market stalls dotted around, but it wasn’t a market planet, really. There were people playing music between ship docks, people handing out coupons for bars and restaurants. It was both alike and different to any port that Tommy had ever been to. After wandering through the rows of docked ships, he did manage to find what he was looking for, an old refurbished vessel named “The Camarvan”.
Tommy waited on a bench, outside of his brother’s ship, waiting for any sign of the man. In all likelihood the man was further into the town, gathering supplies for the next branch of whatever journey they were on. Tommy was there for what felt like hours, watching the ship as he read articles on his modified e-reader. Eventually, he saw him. Really, Wilbur didn’t look all that much different than he had at eighteen. He was older, sure, but he was still young, he still had that same stupidly fluffy hair, and warm brown eyes. Other things had changed, rather than a well worn uniform, Wilbur now wore a patched coat that bore an old L’Manburg flag over top of a bright yellow sweater. He was walking beside a woman with pink hair that reminded Tommy painfully of his other brother, talking while carrying what looked like crates full of supplies.
“Wilbur!” Tommy called, deciding to just get it over with.
“Wh- Tommy?!” Wilbur yelled as soon as his eyes saw the figure of his teenage brother, “What are you doing here? Where’s Phil?”
“I left, like you did. I couldn’t stand it anymore, Wilbur, so I found you,” Tommy explained.
“What- Tommy, you can’t be here,” Wilbur stuttered, his pink haired companion took the crate that Wilbur had been carrying and stacked it on top of the one that she was already holding, it was comically out of proportion, but she seemed to have no problems carrying it to their ship.
“Why not? I promise I won’t get in the way. I just, I couldn’t stand it there anymore Wilbur,” Tommy pleaded, bringing out his patented Tommy Innit Craft puppy dog eyes.
“Fine, get in,” Wilbur sighed, and led Tommy onto the small vessel, “Welcome to The Camarvan.”
The inside of the ship looked about as pretty as the outside, which is to say not at all, but there was clearly love put into how the clearly second-hand ship had been carefully pieced back together to meet safety standards. And it did meet safety standards, there was no unnecessary clutter anywhere, and the walkways were clean.
“Why are you here, Tommy,” Wilbur asked as he sat them both down in what looked to be a small common area, Tommy idly wondered how many crew members his brother had.
“I told you, Wilbur, I couldn’t handle it anymore. The tutors, they always want me to be just like Techno, like Dad, but I’m not like them, I’m like you. I’m a free spirit, I don’t work well with the structure of the GCSTT,” Tommy explained. Wilbur got a complicated look on his face.
“Listen, Tommy, you’re not even eighteen yet, why don’t I call Dad to come pick you up? You shouldn’t be here like this..” Wilbur trailed off.
“Why not, Wilbur. I’m not happy there, Wil, I can’t be happy there, don’t you care?”
“Of course I care, Tommy! But I don’t live a safe life, I am going between warzones, on this ship, delivering medical supplies, food, clean water, to planets where citizens are constantly in danger. We are constantly in danger, and I don’t want that life for you, Tommy. You deserve stability, and dad can give you that stability,” Wilbur explained.
“I don’t want dad’s stability. He wants things from me that I can’t give him, and he doesn’t want the things that I can give, I just want to be somewhere where I can do what I want and not be berated for it,”
“Fine. But when we’re planetside on a not safe planet, you are staying inside. If you cause trouble, or don’t follow that rule, I’m calling dad. We can reexamine when you’re eighteen,” Wilbur relented. Internally, Tommy did a little cheer, externally he just nodded his thanks. Wilbur showed him around the ship, the crew quarters, where the cargo hold was, where the engine was, what safety features had been installed to make sure it was up to code. Finally, they came to a tiny room, it was empty, with a single bunk, a desk, and a window.
“This is the only empty room that we have that isn’t reserved for refugees, it’s small, but, it’s yours while you’re here,” Wilbur let Tommy take his bag in. He didn’t have much in his bag, a couple of changes of clothes, his e-reader, a worn plush spaceship, and his stash of money. It was really depressing how little he had brought with him, how much of his things had been left behind with his father.
“Thanks, Wil,” Tommy called, as Wilbur left him to his devices.
Tommy flopped onto the bed, it wasn't lofted like the one on the passenger ship had been, despite the rooms otherwise being of about the same size. There were drawers under the bed where he tucked his clothes away, he would have to wash those soon. He placed his e-reader on the desk, and hung his bag over the frame of the bed.
True to his word, Tommy stayed out of the way for the rest of the day, only emerging from his room and his browsing of the Galaxy-Net when it was time for takeoff.
“Alright everyone, this is my younger brother Tommy, he’s seventeen, he’ll be staying with us while he figures out what he wants to do once he’s an adult," Wilbur introduced him. The crew of the ship was small. Wilbur turned to face Tommy and pointed out each crew member.
"Niki, our chef and hydroponics expert" he pointed to the pink haired one that Tommy had seen earlier, who he could see now in the harsher lighting of the ship had faint scales along her cheekbones and arms, an Atlantean, then.
"Jack, our engineer," Wilbur pointed to a bald man with many cybernetic enhancements.
"Fundy, our cargo management specialist," Wilbur pointed to a ginger man with pointed furry ears and prominent freckles.
"Eret, our navigator," Wilbur pointed to a tall man, though slightly shorter than Wilbur, with long brown hair wearing sunglasses indoors.
"And you know me, I'm the captain, I guess. It's my ship, I make sure everyone has what they need and does what they need to," Wilbur pointed to himself.
"Following in dear old dad's footsteps, huh?" Tommy laughed.
"You could say that," Wilbur chuckled, but there was something off about the laugh.. Tommy shook it off, Wilbur had been away for six years, Tommy probably just didn’t know his laugh properly anymore.
The crew all took their turns shaking Tommy’s hand and taking a brief moment to personally introduce themselves, and then it was time for everyone to get to their stations for takeoff. Tommy hadn’t experienced takeoff on a smaller ship, his father’s ship, while definitely not as massive as the passenger ship where he could barely feel the rumbling of the ship’s takeoff, was still much larger than The Camarvan. He strapped into his designated seat and felt the rumbling of the ship’s engines beneath him. It shook his very bones and he grinned, knowing in his heart that this was where he was meant to be, in a tiny second hand ship with his brother, off to explore the galaxy and help people.
Tommy, of course, as per his agreement did not take part in any of the aforementioned ‘helping people’. He definitely saw the crew moving cargo on and off the ship, as they went from port to port, and he looked out the windows of the ship when they were on planets where he wasn’t allowed outside, oftentime they were barren desert worlds, or hostile worlds covered in vegetation, places where getting resources other ways would be nearly impossible. His brother sure knew how to pick where he would be needed. Tommy had never been on such planets, his father’s ship stuck to the more well traveled routes, keeping on watch for any distress signals or blatant violations of Galactic Law. Tommy could see why his brother had chosen this path in life, it was about as opposite of their father’s career as you could get. Going to unpatrolled planets suffering from drought, or plague, or war, and providing aid and supplies, rather than sticking to the most populated parts of the galaxy and merely looking out for idiots who don’t know how to take care of their own ships, or watching for people breaking the law and bringing them to the nearest GCSTT holding center. Tommy has always detested it, they weren’t really helping anyone, and the few people that they did help, were often ungrateful idiots who were going to do the same thing again a month later because they were too lazy to get their ship fixed. Tommy had seen it happen, time and time again.
Of course, staying inside the ship at most of their stops didn’t mean that Tommy was ever bored. The crew was almost never all off the ship, so he could usually hang out with whoever was left behind with him, often Eret or Jack. Eret was interesting to talk to, the navigator had traveled all over the Galaxy on a handful of different ships before meeting Wilbur and his crew, they had all come together in L’Manburg before the disaster, and had supported each other through it, though apparently Eret had left at one point due to a family emergency on their home planet. Jack, the engineer, wasn’t often one for conversation, usually patching up whatever damage had been done to the ship by the harsh climates of their stops, but he was usually content for Tommy to ramble at him about whatever topic he had been reading about most recently.
That was the other thing that Tommy did a lot of while on the Camarvan, reading. Currently he had been keeping up on a series of articles covering pirate attacks on various planets that had already been going through struggles. Mainly smuggling controlled substances, but there were also reports of weapons dealing and theft. A lot of the planets that had been reporting issues with the pirates were actually planets that they had been visiting. Tommy supposed it made sense, the pirates seemed to be primarily targeting planets with already existing civil unrest, the exact sort of place that The Camarvan crew had been providing assistance. It did make Tommy worry more every time the crew went out to deliver supplies, worrying about the possibility of them being attacked and stolen from by the pirates. He actually mentioned it to Niki one day, on a rare occasion when the Atlantean woman was left on the ship, it was a particularly harsh desert planet and her biology wasn’t made to handle the heat and abrasive sand.
“Oh don’t worry about it Tommy, The Camarvan has nothing to fear from those pirates. Even if they were to try to attack us, Wilbur, Fundy, and I are more than capable of defending our supplies until they reach their destination. You should have seen Wil back in the days of the L’Manburg disaster, it was a horrible time, certainly, but he really shone as a leader,” She had reassured, talking with him as she prepared their meal for later that day.
After they had arrived in the morning Wilbur had stopped in with a crate full of fresh desert produce for her to cook with, but it had to be made before they left the planet in the evening, didn’t want any spreading of invasive species after all. The fruit of the peculiar spiny desert plant was supposed to be incredibly sweet and work well in a salad. It was very rare that they had fresh fruit on the ship, as most planets that they went to were having troubles with food shortage and thus had nothing that they could spare. This planet wasn’t dealing with any sort of food storage, it was the sort of planet where Tommy might have even been allowed out to explore if he were to ask very nicely, not quite in a state of complete civil on unrest, but rather suffering from medication shortages due to a massive fire taking out the production facility of the planet’s largest pharmaceutical company. It was fairly rare that The Camaravn had to transport so much medicine, usually when they were transporting medications it was one specific medication that was needed to treat an outbreak.
After his talk with Niki, Tommy went back to his room to scroll the Galaxy web. He was once again on his favourite news site, trying to avoid the videos because they didn’t work well on e-ink displays. It looked like there was actually breaking news coverage from the planet, Tommy clicked onto the page. The video, as expected, wasn’t the best due to the limitations of e-ink, but the audio player worked just fine, so he listened to the news report as the video played, looking like a slideshow.
“Breaking news out of The Badlands, amidst an ongoing medicine shortage, it appears that the infamous Misfourtune Pirates have made an appearance, stealing weapons from renowned manufacturer Skephalo Industries. This is the latest in a string of attacks all on planets suffering from some pre-existing civil unrest, hence why they have been dubbed the Misfourtune Pirates. Security cameras were only able to catch this short clip of footage of the incident before their cameras were rendered ineffective by a cyber attack,” The newscaster reported, Tommy watched eagerly, knowing that the video would be made even worse by his display.
To his surprise, however, it actually worked in his favour, as the screen froze on a frame of the security video, where he was able to quickly pause it to examine it further. There were two figures visible in the video, faces obscured by plain black face masks. Their clothes, however, gave Tommy pause. He knew that jacket. He knew that hair. Staring back at him, from a news report about pirates, was none other than his own brother, and the ship’s cargo manager, Fundy. They were both wearing what appeared to be modifications of their usual outfits, changed just enough to not raise suspicion, Wilbur’s jacket was covered in some sort of black shawl that covered the patches and was clearly able to be raised to form a hood should hiding his hair be necessary. He was wearing the white shirt that Tommy had seen him wearing that morning, much more bearable in the heat than his usual yellow sweater. It was undoubtedly Wilbur. What. The. Fuck.
Tommy paced nervously in his room. Surely there was a reasonable explanation? He would just ask Wilbur when he got back. But what if it was true, what if Wilbur really was a pirate? Surely he wouldn’t hurt his own younger brother? But then again, pirates are merciless, if Wilbur thought that Tommy was going to report him to GCSTT, would he hurt him? Tommy hated even entertaining the thought that his brother would ever intentionally harm him, sweet, gentle, funny Wilbur, who had always hated when they had to deal with criminals on father’s ship. Nothing made sense, it almost made Tommy wish that he had never opened the news app in the first place, but he also couldn’t ignore this, couldn’t bring himself to close his tablet and just forget that he ever saw it. Tommy, for all that he resented his father and the way that he was raised, still had been raised by an officer of the GCSTT, with a strong set of morals, and an innate sense of right and wrong. And piracy, especially the sort that had been reported on the news, very much went against Tommy’s morals.
~
It was torture, waiting for Wilbur and Fundy to return to the ship, and then waiting even longer while they got changed into their ship clothes and stored the cargo. The cargo, which very likely contained the very weapons that had been stolen earlier that day. Tommy shuddered to think how long he had been on this ship, unknowingly sleeping just a few hallways down from a room likely full of guns and explosives. Finally, he heard Wilbur exit his quarters, just across the hall from Tommy’s own, and went out to confront him.
“Wilbur, could we talk?” Tommy said, emerging from his room to the sight of Wilbur, dressed in just his yellow sweater and loose fitting trousers.
“Yeah, sure. What’s on your mind, Toms?” Wilbur asked, following Tommy’s lead and entering his room.
“I saw something on the news today. A breaking news story about a pirate attack on a weapons manufacturer’s building. Right here in this city, actually. They even had some video footage. Now, my tablet’s not the best at playing video, but do you know what I saw when they played that clip, Wilbur?” Tommy watched the realization settle on Wilbur’s face, the way his expression went from open and listening to what Tommy had to say, to eyebrows drawn, face set.
“I… can’t say that I do. I’ve been working all day, as you know,” Wilbur answered carefully, as though Tommy would let him maneuver his way out of this. Maybe Tommy should have, should have let his brother walk away and ignore the fact that now Tommy knew what he was doing in his time on planet.
“I saw you, Wilbur. You don’t get to talk your way out of this. Sure, there was a shawl covering the flag on your coat, and you were wearing a mask, but you’re my brother, and I would recognize that fluffy hair of yours anywhere,” Tommy said, all in a rush.
“Okay. So you know. Now what?” Wilbur asked.
“I want to know why, Wilbur. Why are you stealing weapons, why are you terrorizing people? I thought you were good, Wil, I thought you were my brother!” Tommy answered, voice desperate.
“I am your brother, Tommy. I love you, and I’m sorry that you had to find out about this, but this is why I didn’t want you on the ship in the first place. It’s not like I exactly ever lied, either. We do really provide supplies to people in need of aid, it’s just that galactic regulations on the transportation of supplies are really strict, and it’s not cheap to get all of those supplies either, so sometimes they need to be… otherwise acquired,” Wilbur tried to explain, but Tommy wasn’t taking that.
“Then why the weapons, Wil? Why the explosives? Are you just protecting yourselves? No, you took too much for that to be the case. Are you providing those weapons to people fighting wars? Aiding in the waste of more sentient life?”
“No, no, we’re better than that! The weapons are mostly for self-protection, at least ones we’ve stolen previously have been. The ones from today… I don’t know what we’re going to do about them, we were just taking them so that they didn’t end up somewhere else, I swear. Skephalo Industries has been providing weapons to an extremist group on the planet who has visions of turning the entire planet into a theocratic empire, we merely took their stock,” Wilbur hurriedly answered, looking horrified at the idea that Tommy would even consider that he would do such a thing.
“Okay, so you’re all moral and righteous in breaking the law or whatever. You don’t sell weapons to planets at war, good job. Where will you draw the line, Wil? One day, will you get sick of just ‘helping’ from the sidelines? Maybe you’ll start transporting people, getting them to places where you think that they’ll have a better life, when really you’ve just dumped them on an unfamiliar planet with no money to get home, no connections, and no money. Or maybe you’ll bring produce to a planet going through a famine, no thought put to the ecological ramifications,” Tommy ranted.
“It’s not like that at all, Tommy, I swear. We put thought into the things that we do, we discuss them, and if any of us are uncomfortable with the proposed actions we don’t do it. We work as a team, and my team? Are good people,” Wilbur promised.
“How am I supposed to believe that you are good people when the media has literally nicknamed you the Misfortune Pirates?” Tommy asked quietly, anger draining away as quickly as it came, only to be replaced with cold emptiness.
“Let us prove it to you, I’ll include you in the group discussions, hell, you can monitor us if you want, I know you’ve got the tech skills to do it. I’ve seen that tablet of yours, I recognize the model, those aren’t meant to be able to connect to the Galaxy-Net, you must be pretty good if you could modify it that much,” Wilbur responded.
“You want to make me one of you? Make me one of your little pirates who you can order around?” Tommy scoffed.
“No, I just want you to be able to understand,”
“Fine.”
Tommy couldn’t believe that he was actually hearing Wilbur out, but he didn’t really have much of a choice in the matter. Could he have chosen to stay mad instead? Insist that the entire crew must be horrible people due to their pirate activities? Sure, but what then? Would he stay angry and sulk in his room until he could convince him to drop him off on some market planet, where he would be back to square one until he turned eighteen and could properly function without a guardian? It wasn’t like he had anywhere to go, any one planet that he had connections on, anyone to talk to outside of his father and older brother, and the whole reason that he was here in the first place was to escape them and their expectations. Maybe that was why Wilbur did it? The true opposite of their father’s profession, a criminal.
“Why is the child here, Wilbur?” Jack asked as Tommy entered their meeting.
“He found out about our… less than legal activities and I told him he could sit in on our meetings, to prove that we’re not just random criminals killing civilians and selling people weapons,” Wilbur answered. Tommy snorted, that was one way to put it.
“Oh Tommy, don’t worry, we’re really not like that,” Niki smiled softly at him.
Tommy stayed silent for the meeting itself, listening as Wilbur and Fundy relayed the details of their weapons acquisition and asked the group about what they should plan to do with the liberated guns and explosives.
“Well, we should probably keep some on hand. Maybe not so much the guns, and definitely not the larger explosives, those are too volatile to have on the ship long-term, but the smaller ones are certainly helpful in creating distractions, and they aren’t very lethal,” Fundy suggested.
“That sounds like a plan,” Wilbur nodded, “But what about the ones that we shouldn’t keep on board?”
“We could always dump them somewhere. Plenty of empty planets where we could just bury the things and be rid of them. Or, I could always take a look at what you’ve got and see if I can tear it apart for scrap. Probably not the explosives, I like my working arm to stay that way, but melting down the guns for scrap shouldn’t be too hard, and I can take the wiring out to be used as patches for the ship, we’ve got some areas where the wiring is starting to need replaced,” Jack suggested.
“I’m not sure if I like the idea of just dumping it all on some random planet. Surely there’s a better way?” Eret chimed in, having been previously a silent observer of the conversation.
“Why don’t you dump it somewhere and leave an anonymous tip with whatever authority you guys trust to actually dispose of the things?” Tommy found himself asking.
“How would we do that without them not knowing that it was us and tracking us down?” Fundy asked.
“Well, it’s pretty easy to create a false access point on a Galaxy-Net device, or, even better, to modify a non-tracked device to be able to access the Net. You just use something like that to leave the tip, there’s literally no way for them to track you down with that, because it’s not even like you’re rerouting through an external server, there just isn’t any location data associated with the device at all,” Tommy explained. It was basically what he had done with his tablet, after all, and his father still hadn’t found him.
“I could agree to that, as long as I get to keep whatever I think I can use for ship repairs,” Jack said.
“I agree, I would feel much better knowing that some authority knew where the weapons were stashed and were taking care of it,” Eret nodded along. The rest of the group all quickly spoke their agreements, and Tommy could just curse to himself, he really hadn’t meant to help the pirates.
After the meeting, Wilbur even came up and congratulated him on coming up with the idea for the untraceable tip, and had Fundy go out and buy an e-reader just like Tommy’s for him to modify to become the pirates’ untraceable Galaxy-Net access point. On one hand, Tommy was touched that his brother thought he was skilled enough to do this for him. On the other hand, Tommy hated the fact that he felt like he could do nothing except help these criminals. His brain had helpfully pointed out that even if he decided to get off of the ship, and try to make his way on some random planet, he was also still being actively searched for by the GCSTT. He was stuck.
“You know, this reminds me of when we were kids,” Wilbur commented, he was sitting on Tommy’s bed while Tommy worked on the new e-reader.
“How?” Tommy asked, glaring at the little device beneath his hands. It wasn’t the poor piece of plastic’s fault, though.
“I mean, when we were younger it was always the two of us, Tommy and Wilbur, making trouble, pranking our teachers, avoiding Phil, if you think about it, this is just that but scaled up to adult proportions,” Wilbur explained.
“This is nothing like that, Wilbur. We were kids who were sick of our tutors and wanted to play, now you’re an adult, and I’m almost eighteen, and we’re committing actual crimes with the possibility of hurting real people, it’s not some kids game,” Tommy said.
“Of course it’s not a game, and I’m sorry if I made it seem like I was treating it like one, I was just trying to say that it’s nice not having to keep this from you anymore,” Wilbur snapped back.
“You are treating this like a game, Wilbur, you’re treating people’s lives like a game, and I don’t like it,” Tommy said.
“And yet you’re still helping us,” Wilbur pointed out.
“Maybe I shouldn’t be,” Tommy spoke, but his hands were still working.
It really was all too easy to make the e-reader do what they needed it to, and soon enough they were off the planet and on their way to an uninhabited ocean world where they would drop the loot and send an anonymous tip to the Dangerous Materials Disposal Service for the sector. Tommy thought it was a bit funny, pirates dropping their loot on an ocean planet, just like in those really old pre-space travel stories. Tommy felt empty, as the rest of the crew patted him on the back and congratulated him for his idea and his technological skills.
~
Tommy fiddled with his tablet, lying awake in his bunk as the sound of the rattling engine soothed him. He thought through his interactions with the crew, trying to make sense of it all, how they seemed like such nice, genuine people, while still committing the atrocities that the news reported on. It wasn’t like this was biased reporting, either, every local news network on every planet had the same things to say, the same horrible footage to show. The same laundry list of crimes that the Misfourtune Pirates had committed. Sure Wilbur claimed that they didn’t like to hurt people, but their track record showed otherwise. Tommy wasn’t sure how long he could stand living here. Not much longer, that was for certain.
“I’m leaving,” Tommy announced the next morning, in front of the whole crew.
“What do you mean, you’re leaving?” Wilbur asked.
“I don’t want to be here anymore. Listen, I’m not going to sell you out or anything, you guys are doing some amount of good, however much I personally disagree with your methods, but I can’t live on this ship anymore. So if you would kindly drop me off on the nearest market planet, I’ll be on my way,” Tommy explained.
“Snowchester’s not too far, I suppose,” Eret was the first to break the silence, it was rare that they were present at a meal when they were flying, but Fundy was taking over this morning.
“Now hold on, Tommy, what is your plan here? Are you going to call up dear old Phil and ask him to pick you up?” Wilbur scoffed. Tommy was in fact, not going to be doing that, but he played along.
“And so what if I am, Wilbur?”
“Really, you want to go back to living with Phil, and perfect child Technoblade? Do you really want to deal with them?” Wilbur asked.
“Like you were going to make me do originally anyway before I convinced you to let me stay?” Tommy shot back, “And besides. I’m not going back to dad, I’m done with that. I’m just also done being here.” Wilbur nodded his understanding, seemingly deflating.
Just as promised, the ship made a quick stop on the planet Snowchester, which really did live up to its name. It was more than just a market planet, there was also a lively actual city and plenty of opportunities for work. Tommy would essentially be starting from scratch, but he could do it, he could start a life. Wilbur had left him with enough money to rent a room until he could find work, which wasn’t too hard with his technology skills. He got a job at a used tech repair and reselling shop and started looking for someplace to live, it took a few weeks to find anywhere promising, until he saw a local Galaxy-Net listing of someone looking for a roommate. He contacted the profile linked on the listing.
“Hello, I’m Tommy, I’m calling regarding the listing for a roommate?”
“I’m Tubbo, nice to meet you,”