LOREBOOK: Sayle and JD

Back of the box Summary: Sayle and JD are an odd pair of privateers in the employ of the mysterious Mr. Lhyte. But when the duo takes on a side job for a down-on-her-luck diplomat, Sayle is forced to re-evaluate her life and take a stand for what she thinks is right.

## Chapter 1

In a sector of space where computers were practically everywhere, people thought Sayle was mad for writing her plans down with pens and paper. But, then again, no one was as successful as she was.

The interior of her ship was pitch dark, powered down and hiding on the far side of an asteroid. Holding a flashlight in one hand and a pen in the other, Sayle pushed off of a wall and sailed through zero-gravity to another, plastered with poorly-handwritten notes from edge to edge. She scanned the notes and calculations one more time, making certain she had everything correct.

A synthetic voice spoke up from beneath her. “Sayle, this is the seventeenth time you’ve checked your notes. Just chill for a sec, you’ll be fine.”

“Shut it, JD. I don’t pay you to complain.”

“You don’t pay me at all, actually.”

“Exactly.”

The droid whirred and clicked softly, almost like a sigh. Tossing her dark hair to the side, she penciled in a few more quick number-crunches.

“See, look, JD. I just noticed I forgot to carry the one here. That could have cost us this entire operation. You can’t be too careful when you’re dealing with orbital mechanics.”

“You make up all the numbers anyway.”

“They are *not* made up. The basis for my equations are arrived at through a very complex algorithm.”

“And that is?”

“Guesswork. Now, quiet down. The ship’s coming. I need to focus for this part.” She pushed herself back down to the cockpit of the ship, settled into the pilot’s seat and strapped herself in. JD, in the seat next to Sayle, turned to face her. Sayle looked back for a moment. The droid looked something like a large trash can with arms and two beady eyes.

“How do you even know it’s coming? You don’t have sensors.”

“What do you think the equations are for? Come on, man, this is like the seventh mission you’ve flown with me. You oughta be getting the hang of this by now.”

“Whatever. Just give me the signal and I’ll fire up the ship.”

She pointed her flashlight at her watch - an analog antique - then looked back at her notes. It was 05:53:23. If her numbers were right, the ship would be arriving at 05:53:49. *Just a few more seconds,* she thought to herself. She always loved planning missions like this far more than she liked doing them. When she was planning, everything was just strokes on paper, perfect and orderly. When it made contact with reality, however, she could do nothing but trust the plan.

*45, 46, 47, 48…*

Nothing.

Where had she gone wrong? The freighter was supposed to have shown up by now. She had checked the stellar charts, the gravitational wave calculations, and the acceleration numbers a hundred times. It should have been…

The massive freighter took over Sayle’s vision as it came into view past the blockage of her asteroid. She cheered. “Only five seconds off! hell yeah!” Now all she had to do was sit back and do what she did best.

The asteroid she was on wasn’t stable - Sayle had made sure of that yesterday. It was hurtling through space at extreme velocity, at just the right angle such that it would fly right in the path of the ship, but without hitting it directly. The *Star’s Bounty* wouldn’t take the energy expense of raising shields for such a trivial non-threat. She was counting on that.

In between her notes, she picked up a print-out of a news article she found on the quantanet about the new Plutus-class freighters. “The Unraidable Ship!” It proclaimed above a picture of the *Star’s Bounty.* She held up the picture, lining it up with the ship as it appeared out of her cockpit window. She smiled. *Unraidable*. *We’ll see about that.*

“Hit it, JD.”

“Alright then,” He sighed, lackadaisically  hitting a few buttons and switches. The ship whirred to life right as it passed next to the freighter. With a yank of the controls, Sayle pulled the ship of the asteroid, rolling through space as she flew right next to the ship.

The shields of the *Star’s Bounty* burst to life, a crackling field of green-blue plasma. The news said that no ship could penetrate shields that strong. That was only a problem if you were stupid enough to try and raid a frieghter head on. She was already inside the field.

Powering up her ship’s railguns, she fired on the ship’s exterior. It was all too easy. The makers of the Plutus-class had specifically excluded weapons from the designs, saying that the shields were so strong they wouldn’t need them. What kind of person would make a plan without at least five failsafes?

Still piloting the ship with her feet, Sayle grabbed one of the hundreds of papers taped to the cockpit, checking off a box. “Alright, we are now officially in phase two. JD, hit the autopilot.”

“Mhm.” he pressed a few buttons, then got up from his seat along with Sayle. The ship began to follow a pre-planned route, Blowing open the doors of an airlock. Sayle adjusted her rebreather, then walked to a side room in the ship, harboring the boarding pods. “Come on, hurry up, JD. We don’t have all day.”

“Technically, you always have all of your days,” he said, waving a mechanical hand as he stood next to Sayle in the boarding pods. She slammed the eject button, shooting out into space at the exact right angle to land in the opened airlock. Only a few seconds had passed before she she felt a prodigious *SLAM*, signifying her arrival.

Kicking open the boarding pod door, she pulled her gun from the holster at her hip. It was an antique gauss pistol from the 23rd century. It was old, yes, but if it killed as well as anything else, why would she get some newfangled gizmo?

She encountered little resistance as she walked through the long corridors of the *Star’s Bounty.* Freighters were huge ships, but AI would handle 90% of a ship’s functions. By her estimates, there were probably only five to ten people on the ship.

Ducking into the elevator, she held the door open as she motioned for JD to come along, who sauntered over at his own pace. She hit the button for the bridge with one hand just as she finished bypassing the security controls with the other. Facing down the elevator doors, she cocked the gun.

“Did you remember to bring any firepower, JD?”

“Nope.”

“I - what do you mean, ‘nope?’”

“Sayle, I’m a Janitorial Droid. I wouldn’t know what to do with a gun if I had one.”

“Ugh, whatever.” The elevator doors clicked open. The members of the bridge were in such a panic that they didn’t even notice her.

“Can we bring the shields in closer?!” Called a high, nasal voice from the captain’s chair.

“I’m trying to sir, but that’s not anywhere in the controls!!”

“Oh god, we’re done for!”

Sayle coughed conspicuously,  getting the crew’s attention. “You’ve got that part right.”

“You’re the pirate ruffian!” said the captain, a tall and slender Sulinarian. He had his face in the best approximation of a sneer his froglike face could manage. He puffed up his chest and stomped towards Sayle until she raised her pistol, stopping him in her tracks.

“I’m not a pirate, and I’m offended that you would say such a thing. I’m a privateer, which is a respected and very legal profession. I have a letter of marque and everything,” she said, gesturing with her gun to a rolled up piece of paper tied to her belt. “I’m no Captain Flynt, gallivanting around in search of plunder or whatever. You stole something from someone very important. I’m just here to see that it comes back to its rightful owner, and then I’ll be on my way. Now, let me have a look at the cargo manifest.”

“You think you can just -”

She held up her gun a little higher, silencing the captain. “Yes, I think I *can* just. Manifest. Now.”

The captain looked at a crewmate, gesturing with his eyes. The man walked up slowly, and offered up a data pad.

“I’m not looking at it like that. JD, do you have the printer, at least?”

“Yeah, uh, hold on a sec.” JD opened up a compartment in his chest, jiggling around a few baubles before he found the device and threw it to Sayle. Using the printer, she scanned the datapad and hit the print button. Sayle, JD, and the captive crew shared a long uncomfortable silence as the printer chugged, hissed, and thumped until a stack of papers were procured.

“Much better. Alright, so long as you give up the placidite shipment, the salvage from Cestus IV, and the Iridal cube, I’ll let you go. Now let’s see if you have all that…”

“Oh, thank goodness,” a crew member said, “I thought we were goners for sure.”

“Yeah, no worries,” Sayle flipped through the papers, mumbling to herself. “Let’s see here… Mirtacium, spices, the placidite… wait, slaves?!”

Sayle shot the captain in the head.

“Jesus christ, guys! Slaves?! Really?”

She shot the rest of the crew, tracking each one with deadly efficiency.

“Oh my god, I fucking hate merchants, man. Slaves are in deck 33. There are 500 of them.”

“What do you wanna do about em?” JD asked, nonplussed by the gruesome scene.

“Let’s get the shipments we need and then hand the ship over to the slaves. God damn, even saying that word out loud sucks. Slaves. Yuck.”

She turned her back to the bridge and walked up to the elevator, holstering her gun. Before she could slip inside, a voice boomed from a corner of the bridge.

“This is for Captain Shlepdor, you bastard!”

Another Sulinar crew member snuck out from the shadows, leaping towards Sayle. She didn’t have time to react, and found herself pinned to the floor, bowled over by the man’s attack. She desperately tried to open up her holster, but the man held her right arm down. He lifted up his knife, and -

Promptly fell on top of her, unconscious. Pushing the man off of her, Sayle looked up at JD, who was holding a mop in his hands.

“Huh. Maybe I did bring some firepower.”

“Hell yeah you did!” Sayle said, hopping up to her feet. “Nice work. You totally saved my life.”

“Hey, you reactivated me. Fair’s fair.”

“I guess so. Alright. Let’s free those slaves, take what we need, and get out of here. Mr. Lhyte doesn’t like to be kept waiting. Oh, and grab like a kilo of spices from deck 5.”

"Why's that? That wasn't on Lhyte's list."

"Two reasons. First, I want you to keep 90% of it. That's your share of the loot."

"I don't need money, Sayle. I'm a droid."

"Yeah, but this whole slave business makes me think I should pay you anyway. It'd be a little hypocritical if I didn't."

"Okay, whatever. Not like I'm gonna complain. What's reason two?"

"I'm hungry as hell. I wanna make a stir fry with some fancy alien spices."

With that, Sayle and JD walked into the elevator. pressing the button for deck 5, she pulled out a peice of paper from her pack, and checked an anachronistic box with an anachronistic pencil.