Book Two: Chapter TEN Pirate’s Feast

Sandbar one, a crew, exhausted, emotionally spent, collapsed one by one.

Finn half dozed on the floor near the lightning bowl, legs crossed, head resting on her knees. Yoga slumber.

Jo Du intermittently checked the melting ice blocks for purity.

 Tom leaned against a supply crate, still recovering from the day — exhaustion, physical and emotional, clinging to him like shadow.

Jim stood by the hatch, scanning.

Then, without a word, he turned and stepped outside.

“Where’s he going?” Tom asked, voice rasping.

Finn shrugged. “He doesn’t always say.”

Jo Du didn’t even look up. “Maybe he’s had enough of us.”

Tom smiled faintly.

But the door sealed shut behind Jim, and he was gone.

The storm broke sometime in the night.

By morning, the wind outside Sandbar One was less a howl than a whisper, stirring blood-red dust across the frozen plains.

Inside, the gang moved slowly, stiff with exhaustion, bruised but breathing.

Jim returned without warning.

The hatch creaked open, and Tom jumped to his feet, hand reaching for the makeshift pipe-club he’d rigged the night before.

Jo Du froze mid-repair. Finn scrambled upright, heart pounding.

Jim stepped inside, moving slowly, deliberately.

Something large swung limp over his shoulder.

A mutant pig.

Its grotesque body hung twisted and ugly, tusks chipped, skin leathered and maybe diseased — but unmistakably dead.

Jim dropped it onto the central table with a heavy, wet thud.

“Human nutritional deficit identified,” he said calmly. “Solution acquired.”

The gang stared at him.

And then Finn barked a laugh — short, shocked, and entirely real.

Jo Du let out a low whistle. “You hunted that thing?”

Tom shook his head, a grin spreading across his face. “Good hunting, Jim.”

Finn stepped forward and clapped him on the shoulder. “You’re a freak, but I like you.”

Jim blinked once, interpreting the gesture.

“Objective: crew survival,” he said.

And somehow, it almost sounded like pride.

Later, the smell of roasting meat filled the battered bones of Sandbar One.

It wasn’t clean. It wasn’t pretty. But it was food.

Tom poked at the arcing lightning bowl, smoke curling into the rafters. He leaned back on his elbows, soaking up the warmth.

Finn sat nearby, sharpening a strip of metal into something vaguely knife-shaped, boots kicked off and tucked under her legs.

Jim stood close — not eating, not speaking — just present.

Jo Du crouched beside the lightning bowl, turning the makeshift spit slowly, eyes watchful but calm.

A rare peace settled between them. Thin. Fragile. But real.

When the meat was done — blackened, ugly, but edible — they tore into it with bare hands and grins that bordered on feral.

Tom leaned back against a crate, grease streaking his chin, laughing at something Jo Du said about bacon, humans, and evolution.

Finn smiled too, the ache in her chest easing just a little.

Jim sat just beyond the glow, his optics dimmed in the firelight. He didn’t need to eat — couldn’t — but he didn’t leave.

Tom raised a blackened chunk of meat in mock toast.

“To pirates, one and all.” he said.

Finn laughed. Jo Du smirked. Jim tilted his head slightly, interpreting the gesture.

“Pirates” Jim affirmed, voice solemn.

Finn wiped her hands on her pants, leaning back against the crate with a satisfied sigh.

“Not a bad crew.”

“Could use better planning,” Jo Du muttered.

“Fewer mutant pigs,” Tom added.

“Less prank trap-building,” Finn shot back, side-eyeing Jim.

Jim blinked once. “Tactical misjudgment noted. Age related.”

Finn snorted and tossed a bent spoon at him — a joke, light and unguarded.

Jim caught it in midair and placed it gently on the floor.

And if machines could smile — maybe, just maybe — he almost did.

Outside, the wind clawed at the walls — the last weak breath of the storm.

Above them, Hannibal spun silently in its orbit, circling like a slow predator.

They all knew what was coming.

A search.

A hunt.

Reckoning.

But not tonight.

Tonight, they were just kids around a fire.

Pirates.

Survivors.

A crew.

And nothing — not the storm, not the sky, not even Mars itself — could take that away from them.