It was called the Gypsy’s Ribbon by the few who knew about it. On the Klingon star charts, it was identified only as Pulsar 1138-T. By following a particular distortion of the Ribbon’s pulses a careful captain could navigate the Purple Moor Nebula to Polo’s base.
The Highwayman was a solo raider of the privateer class. Three Kzinti-style drone racks supplemented its main phaser armament. It was easily capable of defeating the individual merchant ships that were its usual prey. The occasional ISF ship that it ran into seldom returned to its base. Her crew complement was one hundred seventy, over half of whom were raiders for boarding and capturing ships. Most of the rest worked in the cargo areas. Captain McKenna could handle this ship with twenty men.
Her holds were empty as the Highwayman came riding upon the cloudy sea. The reason for the visit to Polo’s Inn was personal. Captain McKenna had a fondness for Bess, Polo’s black-eyed daughter. McKenna carried his personal sense of style with him. He had a flair for the roguish. His clothing fit him perfectly with never a wrinkle. He wore a coat of claret-velvet and had a bunch of lace at his chin. A twinkle of jewelry shone from the butt of his disrupter. His high leather boots clattered and clashed over the plasteel floor of the Orion base.
He tapped with his ring at the entrance to Polo’s dwelling. He whistled a tune as he waited. The door opened and who should be standing there but Bess, Polo’s daughter. She had plaited a dark red love-knot into her long black hair.
“One kiss, my bonny sweetheart, I’m after a prize tonight, but I shall be back with full cargo holds before the morning light. If they should press me sharply and harry me through the day, then look for me by the Ribbon-light. Watch for me by the Ribbon-light. I’ll come to thee by the Ribbon-light, though hell should bar the way.”
She loosened her hair in the doorway. His face burned like a brand as the black cascade of perfume came tumbling over his breast. He kissed its sweet black waves, tapped on the wall with his ring, and hurried away.
He did not come in the morning. He did not come at noon. Out of the tawny light of the nebula following the beacon of the Gypsy’s Ribbon, a Klingon squadron came flying up to Polo’s Inn.
They spoke no word to Polo. They confiscated his contraband and drank much of his spirits instead. They took his daughter and bound her to a chair in the station’s control room. Klingons manned the control stations and their ships faded into the nebula. There was death at every station and hell at the viewscreen for Bess could see it focused on the path McKenna would sail.
They had tied her up with many a sniggering jest. “Now keep good watch!” and they kissed her. She had heard the dead man say “look for me by the Ribbon-light. Watch for me by the Ribbon-light. I’ll come to thee by the Ribbon-light.”
She twisted her hands but all the bands were tight. She writhed her hands until her fingers were wet with sweat or blood. They stretched and strained in the darkness and the hours crawled by like years until, now, on the stroke of midnight, cold on the stroke of midnight, she did it! One free moment at least was hers!
Beep-beep! Had they heard it? The alarms were ringing clear. Beep-beep on the console. Were they deaf that they did not hear? Down the Ribbon of starlight, through the cloud of the nebula the Highwayman came flying, flying, flying. The Klingons looked to their weapons. She sat up straight and still.
Beep, in the frosty silence. Beep, in the echoing night. Nearer it came and nearer. Her face was like a light. Her eyes grew wide for a moment. She drew one last deep breath. Then her hand moved in the starlight, a phaser shattered the starlight, a disrupter shattered her breast in the starlight. She warned him with her death.
The ship turned and spurred out of the nebula. He did not know she sat bowed, with her head o’er the console, drenched with her own red blood. Not until the dawn he heard it. His face grew grey to hear how Bess, Polo’s daughter, Polo’s black-eyed daughter had watched for her love in the starlight and died in the darkness there.
Back, he came like a madman, shrieking a curse to the sky. With the engines smoking behind him and his drones ready to fly. Blood-red were his boots in the golden light, wine-red was his velvet coat when they shot him down in the nebula, down like a dog in the nebula and he lay in his blood on the Highwayman, with the bunch of lace at his throat.
Still of a winter’s night, they say, when the Gypsy’s Ribbon shines over the Purple Moor, the Highwayman comes sailing, sailing, sailing. The Highwayman comes sailing up to Polo’s Inn’s door.
Topic: Recovered Artifacts from Forums Past (Read 3238 times)