“Oh I’m telling you they’re real,” said Aldamane, gesturing with his mug of coff. It sloshed a bit. His chest started pounding. “A whole fleet. No reason for me to lie.” Aldamane was known in these parts as an emotional wreck whose judgment of reality was suspect for a very SPECIFIC reason. He brought a lot of people down. He was just not very fun to talk to lately.

“Prove it, guy. All I’m hearing from you is a bunch of nothing.”

“I’ll prove it someday.” Aldamane’s chest was tight now and his breath felt tight too. He hated this topic but also he loved it. He never tired of it, at least. “But just hang out in lightspace awhile. Trust me.”

“Sure, I’ll do that,” replied the man who would not do that. “Leave me alone, guy.” He went back to his own cup of coff.

Some claimed pirate elves roamed the lightspace lanes, the shipping corridors that many renegades used to supply the Society of Worlds, but it was all rumor. NO PROOF. Nobody had ever seen one but stories occasionally came out of the endroutes, stories traded at Waypoints, passed along by smugglers and hunters: the sort of folk that couldn’t be trusted. The sort of folk that had good reason to believe.

The Waypoint steward who monitored this sector said in a jovial tone, “You want more coff, Aldamane, or we just spewing it all out again this morning?”

Aldamane scowled and didn’t answer, instead accepted another pour of coff. Coff was great. It was just coffee but without the second syllable.

Someone down the hall, seated at one of the rear tables with a group of unapproachable men, anti-gov hunters probably by the insignia tattoos on their arms, coughed and spat. “Any news out of Ydr’rg?” Nobody answered, so he continued. “Uh yeah didn’t think so. Damn cover-up. Gov’s outta control, making up wars. Ain’t no war happening. Ydr’rg’s DESERTED!!! BEEN THAT WAY FOR A DOZEN YEARS!!”

Aldamane couldn’t help but eavesdrop. This was a Waypoint after all.

“Where you get your news then?” answered one of his buddies.

“Reputable sources.”

“Huh. Name one.”

“Maybe I’ll name four, you jackass. And they all say Ydr’rg’s a false operation. The Great Grail. Umbrick’s. Opoorti. ReTur—”

“Whatever. All bought and paid for.”


“Oh fuck off then.”

“YOU.”

Aldamane groaned. Every Waypoint had these types: obnoxious screamers who enjoyed babbling about corruption and offering no solution to it. He turned around and shouted, “You believe all manner of crazy about the gov but ain’t got the wits to think maybe pirate elves control lightspace?!”

“Nobody wants to hear that ELF wash again, ya old bag!” hollered another Waypoint guest. “Get outta lightspace!”

“That’s why you’re stuck in a Waypoint,” Aldamane retorted, trying to remember what he was even retorting to.

“Yeah. Keep talking, smuggler. Keep talking and just keep talking. Go find your fuckin’ girl.” He laughed.

He knew they would bring up Merina. They always did, whether he heard them or not. Aldamane was about to march over there to show he could do more than talk. He could also commit murder, how would they like that? But the steward refilled his cup o’ coff and said, “Forget it, pal. Ain’t gonna convince ‘em.”

Aldamane snorted and sat back down. “Yeah, like you believe it either.”

“Ain’t your business whether I believe or disbelieve. My job is to keep order in my establish. You guys’re getting a little too BIG for my small place here. Myself, I think you could do with a break from lightspace.”

“Thanks for the career advice, but my job is to keep the lanes open, or YOU lose half your infrastructure funding.” Excessive lightspace travel ran the risk of hallucinations and paranoia. The sickness, they called it. All the smugglers knew it but the rewards were almost as big as the thrill. Every seasoned lightspacer had the look. You could tell.

His bleeper sounded at his belt. Probably his vessel was done with the maintenance check. Aldamane chugged the last of his coff, ordered some more, chugged that, ordered a bit of hot choc, CHUGGED THAT, ORDERED EVEN MORE AND CHUGGED THE SHIT OUT OF THAT TOO, then paid his bill and left. All eyes followed him, probably waiting for him to leave so they could talk about Merina.

----------

Let’s talk about these Waypoints because I have no idea what they are yet and we gotta figure them out before this thing falls apart. A Waypoint was a large flat disc floating in the solitude of deep space. A hundred of them lay scattered around this system alone. Officially serving as refueling stations, recharge zones, and gossip centers for anyone who wanted to trade it, they also housed more SECRETIVE DELIGHTS for those who knew how to find them. You could find anything here but they weren’t a place to make your home, even though I guess you could if you wanted. But anyone who spent more than a few days at any given Waypoint was someone you should probably avoid.

There was a quiet lawlessness to the Waypoints, a comfortable relaxed agreement that whatever went down was fine so long as everyone involved walked away satisfied. Politicians in the gov were always yammering about the Waypoints and their threat to the wholesome fabric of Society values but only because the constituents they represented in the solar systems didn’t understand them. They thought they were nests of disorder and carnal reveries WHICH THEY WERE but deep down the politicians didn’t give a fuck. Most of them spent their days off at the outer Waypoints anyway, disguised as civilians or other hunters, indulging in the excesses their positions afforded them. They didn’t care.

Waypoints. They were pretty cool if you were into them. Aldamane liked them because after docking he could disappear into these smugglers’ havens. Lightspace culture revolved around the Waypoints. They were the endroutes for all the runs so everyone here always seemed a little dazed. It made for a casual looseness that most of the public didn’t relate to, bound up in their laws and codes and rules that dominated the rest of the Society of Worlds. Nobody in the Society seemed to give a thought to how they got their water or conditionators or anything else that made their lives so comfortable. If not for the smugglers, Waypoints, and lightspace, the whole thing collapsed.

Cool that’s a Waypoint. I think we got that down pretty well. Aldamane exited the Waypoint Entry Station Entrance Center and shuffled over to the docking bay where the Vectoress, his vessel, was bayed. It was a busy one, this docking bay. Not many smugglers here today, but plenty of marketeers and anti-gov hunters. They formed bubbles of buzzing conversations and mechanical work, a cool hum peculiar to docking bays that Aldamane always enjoyed, but today he didn’t appreciate it because his mind was still spinning with the rage of not being taken seriously by the fuckin’ randoms at the Waypoint Entry Station. Nobody took him seriously when he brought up the pirate elves. THEY WERE REAL.

He needed the company of a few more smugglers, that’s what. They’d all seen the shit that happens when you’re in lightspace for the long runs. They all came back with stories they couldn’t explain. His thoughts drifted to Merina. She always believed him. Merina was his partner, buddy, and LOVER. They were in business together and everything was great. Profits, respect, attraction, THE LIFE. Then her vessel never emerged from the lightspace lanes. Just like that. A routine solo run. He’d never gotten over it. Like a sudden amputation, she was gone, swallowed up in the infinite. He could not adapt to the missing part of him and he felt like a ghost.

He reached the Vectoress’s docking station and found the chief mechanic. “How’s it looking, Jixtiamdem?” he asked with the casual air of someone who expected perfection because he was used to it. This Waypoint had a reputation. Aldamane was a regular here and on friendly terms with Jixtiamdem and his maintenance crew. THEY DID GREAT WORK HERE AT THIS WAYPOINT.

“We are ready to fly,” answered Jixtiamdem, wiping his greasy hands off in the greasy bin of grease that rested in a bin on a shelf at his chest near a boiling cauldron of excessive prepositional phrases. He laughed for no reason. “We headed out?”

“Eventually. Want to clear my head first.”

“Where you headed?” Jixtiamdem was a nosy man but Aldamane forgave him for it. He worked in the Trades, and usually the Tradesmen had the right of it where the existence of certain mythical PIRATE ELVES was concerned.

These fucking pirate elves occupied his head. Wouldn’t get out. He was nearing another anniversary of Merina’s disappearance and this happened every year. If he could keep her memory alive, maybe she would be alive. But then he would be keeping the pirate elves alive too, giving them credence. He was going nuts. Just totally nuts. He realized he had forgotten to answer Jixtiamdem and it was too late now without seeming like a shitty bastard, so he kept walking.

He wandered to the steely edge and peered over it into an abyss of blackness. Sometimes red or pink flares would zoom by depending on the Waypoint station’s proximity to weird celestial phenomena. He liked to catch those when he could but none were in the reports today so he gazed at an inky untextured void that contained nothing but his own delusions. Men AND WOMEN often went mad staring off the Waypoint edges. Not mad exactly, but infinity left some kind of impression. It was just something that could happen.

His bleeper bleeped again. A reminder that if the Vectoress remained in its docking station for thirty more minutes he would be charged a dozen more pocs for it. He headed back to the Vectoress. He needed to leave extra time to remove all the trackers the other smugglers had no doubt planted on his vessel. Common enough hazard in the smuggling life. He could deactivate whatever he found, but he would not reveal his methods. It was easier to write about that way.

Everything looked like it was in GREAT SHAPE so he powered up his pre-flight power-uppers, pre-flight flight check pre-checkers, pre-initialization handling mechanisms and whatever else and then the Vectoress blasted off. The great thing about space travel was that it was great. Aldamane loved it. Even when he was on a job, which he was now. He loved it even more when Merina was his co-pilot but he was making do with the gigantic pile of nothing that currently helped him out. He licked his fingers and slapped the control panel in a ritual he’d always done with her. It was intended to ward off, YOU GUESSED IT, the pirate elves.

Fucking pirate elves. It had been four years since Merina’s vessel failed to appear at Waypoint 5R-2C for her routine transfer. He waited days for her. It was a risky run only because it was one of the longest lightspace lanes in the system, but they’d done it before and it paid well. Aldamane often wondered if the gov knew about pirate elves. He didn’t want to think about that.

All right, he was about ready to make his run to Waypoint 5R-2C. He didn’t know why he kept accepting these assignments, the ones that Merina used to take. Actually he did but couldn’t admit it to himself. He secretly imagined he would run into her in the lanes if he kept following her old routes, took her old jobs.

That’s not how the lightspace lanes worked. They weren’t LINEAR. They bounced you all over reality in a matrix of incomprehensible jumps but that’s about all I know about them. Basically the routes were in a state of flux. But Aldamane’s heart wouldn’t listen. He desperately wished he could learn what had happened to Merina in the lightspace world. He suspected the pirate elves could predict the endroutes and picked her off moments before she came out. HOW?

He didn’t know. “Vectoress here, prepped for lightspace,” he radioed to the Waypoint controllers.

“Copy that, Vectoress, you’re marked. Emerging at 5R-2C at 0720.”

“Yah.” His cargo was secured and there we go, another lightspace transition in the tank. He didn’t even know what he was hauling this time. Could be anything from planetary bridge beams to illegal transistor yuauers. He didn’t care. He got paid regardless. He really needed to get out of this career. It was killing him. He tapped the control panels thoughtlessly in imitation of Merina’s ritual. Every time he did it he imagined her at the copilot’s station.

The stars flashed, stretched, glittered like a necklace and then all exploded into a colorful array of colorful colors that destroyed THE CONCEPT OF COLOR. Aldamane’s vessel hurtled itself into the center of these collisions and leapt into the vast beauty of the lightspace lanes. YYYYYEEEEESSSSSSSSSSS here we go again. He and Merina would gaze into this wonderworld for hours, hands clasped. One glimpse at this madness and you’d understand why the gov outlawed lightspace. Officially, anyway. Supplies had to get through to the other worlds somehow. Everything was OFF THE BOOKS. There’s where the smugglers came in.

“THINKING ABOUT HER IS A CHOICE!!!” he howled to the colors in front of him and slammed a fist into his thigh, sending shooting pains through it. “THINKING ABOUT HER. IS. A. CHOOOOOIIIIICE!!!!” He shredded his throat with a roar. He sounded like a wild regurgurter. It felt good. This was self-abuse but HE KNEW the pirate elves were real. He needed to catch them. He would see Merina again.

Where were the PIRATE ELVES? They were here, he knew it, patrolling these cosmic highways and picking off the smugglers one by one. The stories had to come from somewhere. They weren’t just MADE UP. Aldamane looked out his viewports with an insane wildness in his eyes. He was sick of this not knowing. What did they even look like? Did they fly PIRATE ELF VESSELS? WHAT??????? He punched a control panel and sparks shot into his fucking face. He was coming apart. Four years he’d lived with the unbearable loss of Merina and he was no closer to coming to terms with it. Instead it was getting worse, this lack of closure and he was about ready to die. He knew the pirate elves had gotten her on her last run. He just needed proof. He just needed to know.

He screamed and screamed until he fell delirious with exhaustion. Breathing heavily, he collapsed against his pilot’s chair and stared with bloodshot eyes into the lightspace visuals. He couldn’t think, was caught up in hysteria. He finally caught his breath and screamed again until he passed out.

----------

Some of Aldamane’s friends back on Alxatoar IV had cautioned him against running lightspace so hard. He threw himself into his work when the depression came on. Every smuggler knew the stories about the sickness. It was a liability, not just for the Guild but ultimately the whole Society of Worlds. Briefly Aldamane wondered if he was becoming one of those casualties. He probably was.

He poured himself a boiling cup of coff and threw it into his chest, just so he could feel something and redirect his hurt. Before its full agony ARRIVED he quickly tossed another cup in his face. He screeched in unfathomable physical pain.

Between convulsions he thought back to his last joint run with Merina. He hated those pirate elves. They took her.

The run to Waypoint 5R-2C was nearly over. The computer came online with a calculation to the endroute. It would drop him just outside the 5th Quadrant of the Waypoint: PERFECT. Suddenly the fun colors faded away and all that remained was a bland field of stars, pinpoints of white light. The new Waypoint hovered directly ahead. He would land there, refuel, find some medical attention for the BURNS he sustained from the pirate elf attack, and try to find some other smugglers.

“Welcome, Vectoress, to 5R-2C!!!!” The EXCITED voice of the Waypoint Controller hollered into Aldamane’s exhausted ears. “Docking Bay 36 if it do please you why thank you so mu—“

Aldamane clicked off the bullshit and angled for Docking Bay 36. The pirate elves almost got him with that hot coff but he was still here. He’d make them pay. Next time. PAY. THEY WOULD PAY. HE WOULD MAKE THEM. HE NEEDED REVENGEAGEGNENGNEGNENGENGENEGNENG

----------

“…still thinks the pirate elves are real… couldn’t deal with it…”

“A CUPPA COFF,” screamed a hoarse Aldamane to the steward, LOUDLY, to announce to the other gossipers that they should keep their fucking voices down now that he was in earshot. He knew they were talking about him. Aldamane had a reputation. He and Merina were once the best smugglers in the Society and everyone knew how he’d handled her disappearance, which is to say, not well at all.

“Heya Aldamane,” greeted one of the men down the way. A smuggler by the name of Reutëm. Aldamane hadn’t seen him in a few months. Working smugglers passed each other at Waypoints often enough but rarely were they good friends. Reutëm was one such friend from long back, a former partner before he met Merina. Reutëm had introduced them in fact!


“Yeah.” It took all of Aldamane’s effort not to just fall down and die.

“Have a seat, pal, let’s have a conversation.” Reutëm motioned him over to his table. “The fuck happened to your face?”

“The pirate elves,” muttered Aldamane in a whisper as he sat down. A whisper was all he could manage. “You finish a run?”

“Taking a break from the lanes. Out here for pleasure this time.”

“Lucky. I just got in from 94-X. Long one. Rough.”

“Listen…” Reutëm said slowly. “Word’s getting around.”

“Yeah. I don’t care.”

“Well you should, buddy, because the Guild is talking. Nobody wants another loss in lightspace and you’ve been hitting it hard.”

“The pirate elves are—“

“The PIRATE ELVES, Aldamane?!?!” Reutëm lost his composure. “They aren’t real!”

“…You too, then?” answered Aldamane with a disappointed calm. He figured Reutëm had stopped believing. He was taking a break, by his own admission. When you lighten up on smuggling runs you tend to forget what happens during them.

“The lightspace is getting to you. Look I’m just saying this because nobody else will, but everyone can see it. You have the sickness.” Reutëm was distinctly uncomfortable. “Now what happened to your face, Aldamane? Honestly.”

“I just have to find Merina,” muttered Aldamane instead. He stared into his coff.

“Merina’s gone, buddy. She’s gone. It’s been four years.”

“Yeah. They got her in lightspace,” Aldamane responded automatically. “They got her. They somehow… tracked her endroute. Got her.”

“Nobody got her. She—“ Reutëm stopped.

Aldamane was peering intently out of the Entry Station Entrance and into the docking bay. He saw a woman at the other end of the long platform, staring at the parked Vectoress. “Merina? Merina???” Aldamane’s chest exploded in a red spasm. “It’s Merina. Merina?????” Passing mechanics and maintenance workers and their large equipment obstructed his view. He couldn’t see her anymore. “Merina???” He knocked his steaming cup of coff off the counter as he scrambled out of the Entrance Station, out to Docking Bay 36.

Dismayed, Reutëm tried to call him back. “Aldamane, don’t.”

“MeRiNA!?”

Where’d she go? WHAT the fuck? Was that her? That was her. He recognized that long black hair!! “MERINA!” Where’d she go. Where did she go. Where. Where did she go. She: where? Where? The docking bay was large yes but it was an open space and nobody could hide in it. His eyes burned into every passing stranger and made them all intensely uncomfortable. He roamed the docking bay in a desperate daze, driven by his four-year obsession.