by Nick Cole
“How long till jump?” Rechs growled impatiently.
“Unless you are going to climb and get us clear of the atmosphere, Captain, the jump metrics are suboptimal,” said Lyra. “I’m really not comfortable with these numbers.”
Over the ship’s internal comm the little Nubarian bot currently occupying the omni-cannon gun cupola yowled in Signica, the binary programming language of its technical-class build.
“He says…” G232 began in his role as human-bot interface. “Oh dear. He says we are to call him Death, destroyer of worlds.”
The powerful blasts of the omni-cannon surged across the ship, smashing into one pursuing Republic Lancer and vaporizing it. Debris spread away from its expanding explosion.
“He can call himself whatever he wants as long as he keeps up that kind of shooting,” said Rechs as he fought to keep the freighter out of the blaster sights of the pursuing interceptors.
“Oh, please, master,” erupted G232, “don’t encourage him! This sort of thing in a bot never leads anywhere good. I can assure you.”
The Obsidian Crow hurtled through canyons of dark gray clouds to break out into a clear field of sky. Behind it, a Diplomat-class destroyer descended through the storm, dropping a hornet’s nest of fighters into the running contest to bring the rogue freighter to heel.
“Unidentified freighter!” barked an authoritarian voice over the ship-to-ship comm. “You are currently eluding pursuit from Republic forces. Back off your thrusters and prepare for tractor lock and boarding.”
Rechs switched off the comm.
Back in the omni-cannon, the little Nubarian bot was ululating and whooping through electronic beeps and sudden beatbox giggles at the target-rich environment as more and more fighters joined the chase. Rechs knew enough Signica to understand at least that much.
“Lyra, I need a jump point in the next thirty seconds. We’re not reaching orbit,” Rechs said matter-of-factly.
Nothing came back other than G232 telling the Nubarian bot to stop crowing at each Lancer it managed to knock down. “No one likes a braggart!”
A swarm of Lancers swam in at the Crow from a different heading, their colored markings indicating a second squadron had joined the chase. Rechs brought in the yaw destabilizer on one engine and pushed more power into the opposite. The Crow rolled three hundred and sixty degrees, presenting a much less stable profile for targeting as she passed through the swarm of angry oncoming fighters.
One of the pursuing Lancers from the first squadron smacked straight into two of these oncoming Lancers. The two squadrons’ flight leaders were clearly not communicating with each other.
The digital war whoop of the little bot in the omni-gun seemed to indicate the maniacal thing was taking credit for this accidental collision and increasing its kill count.
“Captain,” announced G232, who had been quizzically interfacing with the sensor panel while fighters erupted all across the cockpit’s forward view. “Sensors are telling me that big ship up ahead is preparing to engage her capture tractor. I’m not a pilot, of course, but if they succeed while we are at maximum throttle—as you now are in your reckless press forward with little regard for our collective runtime—then we shall be ripped to pieces at an altitude of thirteen thousand, four hundred and ninety-one meters. If you like, I can compute our rate of fall and time to impact with the planet’s surface below, though factors such as rapid decompression, current momentum, and the explosion of the reactor may alter my calculations significantly.”
“We’re going in,” said Rechs through gritted teeth. “If we get close enough, they won’t be able to get a lock.”
The Crow pulled up hard, streaking straight toward the midsection of the slender destroyer looming in the background of the sky battle. Rechs noted that they no longer built them the way they did back during the Savage Wars, when he and Casper needed every ship they could get to be able to stand up to the Savage cruisers, and even then they would take a pounding in a toe-to-toe broadside that might include upwards of a hundred heavy blaster turrets, PDCs, SSMs, and main ion guns. And woe to anyone who got in the way of an Iowa-class battleship and her main gun.
Pulling out of her collision course with the bigger ship, the Crow raced along its hull. Massive portholes the size of several decks revealed crew and techs turning away from their internal tasks to watch the rogue freighter streak by. Collision klaxons were surely scrambling damage control teams within the behemoth. But any amazement the crew might have held at the sight of the old freighter twisting and turning to avoid blaster fire likely turned to horror when the Nubarian bot working the omni-cannon unloaded a blue streak of fire, ripping up the destroyer’s un-defended hull. The ship’s captain—probably a point—had failed to engage shields. Had been too busy telling the comm operator to order Rechs to pull back on the throttles and submit to boarding, search and seizure. Confident that this would happen. Because it always happened. Because the authority of the Republic was unquestioned.
You get lazy like that when you’ve never been in a real fight, thought Rechs. Guy’s probably never been punched in the face.
“Captain,” began Lyra, her voice rising above the whooping power management system crying out damage from incoming blaster fire, “I have the jump calculated. We can depart for Roaxshell, but the safety parameters are only—”
But Rechs had tuned out the AI as soon as he heard the words “jump calculated.” He watched until the jump window controls went solid green, then immediately engaged them, and the starfield turned over to a hundred thousand lines of starlight.
***
Republic destroyer Cooperation watched the tiny freighter leap away, helpless to pursue. A plot on possible locations would yield at least a dozen worlds… all of which could be just as easily jumped away from in the seconds after Rechs arrived.
Hess, who had arrived to the bridge from planetside in time to watch the bounty hunter’s little stunt, stood disfigured among the bridge officers. He sneered and swore a silent oath.
Tyrus Rechs would never, ever, escape him again.
Today was the last time.
The swarm of fighters out there beyond the bridge realized they were pursuing a ghost and slowed to maneuver speed. The target was long gone from this system.
07
Lost in hyperspace, Rechs turned toward weapons maintenance. That was always his first priority. Then healing, and finally, rest. Those responsible for Medusa’s death had all been dealt with. He could go quiet for a while.
He stowed his armor in its rack, cleaned his weapons, ate the first thing he pulled out of the galley’s cupboard, and slept. He was hungry again when he woke up hours later, so he got up, ate something more, then took a seat in the captain’s chair on the flight deck, just watching hyperspace while he pretended to run a basic systems check.
“Is something wrong?” Lyra asked in the silence that was the background hum of the engines. So much white noise while traveling among the stars. You stopped noticing unless you thought about it. And there was always the ghostly, almost inaudible howl of hyperspace below everything.
G232 was aft in the lounge. The bot, in its spare time, liked to read things off the web. Mainly academic articles about the ruins of the Ancients. And the tiny Nubarian gunner’s mate bot, endlessly fascinated with the ship’s weapons—any weapons for that matter—was still by the workbench, where it had watched Rechs silently clean his weapons. The bot had sighed some digital sigh each time Tyrus had selected and cleaned some new killing tool that looked even more wicked than the previous.
There’s definitely something weird about that bot, thought Rechs. But… it was a more than capable gunner. And it didn’t want much, or cost much, in the way of power.
“I said, is there something wrong?” asked Lyra one more time.
“No,” he answered. “Nothing.”
It was odd talking
to her. Hearing her voice. Knowing who the AI was based on. Knowing the AI viewed itself as something different. Something not her. Not the woman he’d once known.
AIs could be temperamental. Could even turn schizophrenic.
Give the install time to settle in, he reminded himself. It was the same advice he’d given himself after every one of these stilted conversations she’d attempted.
In time she’ll…
… come back?
… understand?
But deep down, Rechs knew that only one of those things was possible. For an AI based on a dead person, only one was possible.
“Am I not running the ship to your liking? Is there something wrong with my parameter decision matrix that we can improve upon? I’m here…” There was a pause. Then: “I’m here… to serve you… Captain Rechs.”
Tyrus waited.
Waited to see if she’d come back.
But after a long pause, he decided that now wasn’t the right time. The AI was still insecure about its new place in the universe.
So he thought of something else. Something that had been bothering him. He would share it with her and let her feel like she was helping him. That might… help.
“It’s something else,” he began. Rechs was not a sharer. Not used to revealing anything to anyone. “That’s bothering me.”
He felt her waiting. Listening to everything within and without him in order to… better serve him.
“Gabriella told me there’s a big contract, bigger than the one on my head, being offered on someone tagged ‘The Dragon.’”
“Why does that bother you?” asked Lyra.
Tyrus paused. Asking himself anew the question he’d been vaguely aware of during the whole of downtime after the op he’d just pulled.
Why does it bother you?
“To be honest… I don’t know. But there’s something familiar about this. Something I should remember. And for some reason… I can’t.”
“You’ve lived a very long time, Captain. Obviously, some memory loss is to be expected given your extreme age.”
Tyrus knew this. He’d even had himself checked out a couple of times when he’d noticed several drops of common memories he should have never forgotten. The name of an old ship he’d flown for twenty years. His father’s first name. The state he’d been born in on long-lost mythical Earth.
Usually the forgotten details were mundane. The battles, the deaths of comrades, the killings, the victories, the losses… those stuck around. So did the systems, weapons, bombs, and all the tools of killing. Those things were hard-wired into him. He never forgot those things. Even if he wanted to. And if he could have chosen right then and there to choose what to remember, to mark down what really mattered, he knew that somehow the right choice would be to forget all those things of war and death, and keep the memories of the good and simple life.
That was the right choice.
But it was not him. It was not Tyrus Rechs.
He’d been built for war. For conflict and killing.
And sitting there on the flight deck, something happened. Some tumbler fell into place. Something. It wasn’t an epiphany. It was more like the snatched line of a half-remembered song heard a long time ago.
“Project Phoenix.”
“What is that, Captain?”
Rechs didn’t answer. He was trying to untangle the meaning of those words for a long while as hyperspace howled in its low keening moan and vast interstellar distances were crossed almost effortlessly. But the more he thought, the more he tried to hold on to it, the less of it there seemed to be. Like it no longer existed.
Occasionally the big questions got lost in his mind. Things he’d wondered about. Things he was supposed to remember. Things that would save the galaxy from itself.
Like tracking down an old friend who’d gone off looking for something he never should have. Waiting near the edge. Waiting for his return.
Then what…?
Then the thing you were made for.
But right now, sitting on the flight deck and watching the static light of hyperspace shifting slowly all across the void beyond the ship… right now, that was not the thing that was bothering him. It was something about what Gabriella had said in the moments before everything went to pieces back on Minaron.
The Dragon.
It was a tag. A tag that was common but unimportant… except for one unique and familiar instance. And that one needed to be remembered. But no matter how hard he tried, or didn’t try, he could not coax the memory from within.
Nor could he forget it.
There was something very important about the Dragon.
And a program he’d once been part of. Back when he was a general. Back during the Savage Wars.
Doomsday.
That was the next word, after Dragon and Project Phoenix, to appear in his mind.
Doomsday.
[redacted]
To: Lt. Col. [redacted]
From: [redacted]
Re: Assignment Subject 33
Subject 33 has become eligible to transition from the Project into the Legion. Testing in the 99+ Percentile, the subject is a solid 1111111. Subject 33 greenlit for advanced training.
Subject 33 issued identity as [redacted]. Ordered to Legion Academy for Basic Training and application to Legion OCS. Testing to determine schools pending, but highly recommended for Pathfinder, HOLO, and Sniper before first unit tour and application to the Q-Course for Special Warfare. Observers in place at all levels.
[redacted]
Lt. Col. [redacted]
Section 19
Project Phoenix
Asymmetrical Warfare Command
08
After arriving at the jump point in Roaxshell, Rechs set the Crow to cruise through the empty system while he jumped on the nets and dove into what he could find on this “Dragon.”
Which wasn’t much. At least not of the real deal. The one he couldn’t remember.
But there were rumors, if you knew where to look. At best they were half-truths. Most were probably outright lies. Yet they were there.
The Dragon wasn’t Rechs, as Gabriella had feared. It wasn’t some clever trick by the House of Reason to re-target him and engage the overly optimistic into taking a crack at the unofficial bounty they offered. The Dragon, according to the dark webs, was a terrorist bent on violent overthrow of the Republic.
Other reports claimed he was the instigator of something known as the Avivo Massacre a few years back. A whole colony at galaxy’s edge had been wiped out. Executed and nailed to crosses. Some hung upside down. The colony disappeared overnight, and now images, shot by adventurous chroniclers, showed the remains of the small colony sinking into the wastes of a vast salt desert.
Digging deeper into the incident, Rechs found an odd connection: the colony was an authorized importer of Sinasian goods. To get such a permit was exceedingly rare, seeing as how all Sinasian worlds were currently off-limits.
Rechs sat back and remembered that little nightmare.
The Sinasian Conflict.
Thirteen years of brutal warfare. No holds barred. No friendly forces. Everyone an enemy. The Sinasian worlds had sided with the Savages at the darkest moments of the war, and the Republic had sent in three legions to quell them.
Rechs’s own had been part of that. And only his legion had survived the conflict.
Now the Sinasian worlds had been reduced to an almost pre-industrial state. Forbidden the use of all advanced tech and weapons. Forever at the mercy of the Republic for daring to stand with their greatest foe.
Rechs went back to tracking down rumors about the Dragon. The misinformation piled up. Either because every bounty hunter wanted to throw every other bounty hunter off the trail, or because in lieu of hard information, people just tended to make things up.
There was a rumor that a secret cabal within the House of Reason wanted the Dragon alive, to lead a revolt. To become a dictator and rule with iron fist. All to this secret cabal’s benefit, of course. Another rumor said the Dragon was a fiction, a mere distraction to draw fire away from the ongoing disaster of a dozen brushfire conflicts raging along the edge of the galaxy. Conflicts where the Legion was spread too thin. That part of the rumor, anyway, was true: the Legion had repeatedly allowed itself to be drawn into conflicts that members of the House of Reason had a personal financial stake in. It was all there to see if you opened your eyes and knew where to look.
Finally Rechs tapped into the Dark Ops clouds using some old credentials that had been kept valid by friends on the inside. He couldn’t get too far without attracting attention, but he got far enough to look at some intel on Nether Ops, the House of Reason’s version of Dark Ops. The naughty stepsister of Dark Ops was prepping its kill teams for the hunt. Entire groups were being switched off mission and trained up for something big. Whether that was to find and kill the Dragon, or some other mission… that was beyond Rechs’s access. Had he tried to hack in, a dozen monitored-at-all-times warnings would have triggered within the first nanosecond of the attempt.
He sat back and stared at the screen as all the data he’d pulled floated across at random. Artsy photographs of the remains of the colony massacre, haunted and forlorn, stared back at him.
The little Nubarian gunner beeped somberly next to Rechs.
“Grim, huh?” said Rechs.
The bot did not respond. After a moment it rolled away.
The question, Rechs thought to himself as he studied the entirety of the little he’d managed to collect on this Dragon, was whether a lot of people, leejes too, his leejes, were going to get killed trying to bring this target in, or…
Or…
Or what?
Because there was definitely an “or.” Another option. One no one was considering.