In the Wake of the Kraken

by C. Vandyke

  To the point. “Aye, sir. I do.”

  “Grand. Might I suggest brute force?”

  Yuri smirked over his glass. “No false IDs or ridiculous pretence to get me in?”

  “His robots have already sniffed me out,” and the way Ka’al drank the brandy, he was very put out by that fact.

  “Why’d I come up here, then, if you pardon my bluntness? Aside from your hospitality, of course.”

  “There’s another tidbit of information I have for you. Did you read the letter of marque?”

  “No. That’s up to Braddock.”

  Lord Ka’al stood, brushed his waistcoat flat as if it helped him think. Lady Ka’al began strumming on a tall harp, notes chiming delicately around the room. “His Highness has not only promised wealth to his privateers… the secret of thu’Alar itself he’s willing to divulge. But guess who else knows the secret?”

  “Jaccus Estany?”

  Ka’al chortled. “You got it, lad!”

  “Why’s he privy to the information?”

  “Because he’s a conniving prick, didn’t you know?” Lady Ka’al flubbed a chord at that. “And he’s been promised to one of the Princesses. He might be King one day if a specific line of Royals kick off early. Call me old-fashioned, Mr. Zayats, but a man like that marrying into the royal family…” He gave a facetious cluck of his tongue. “Plus, he owes me money.”

  “Nice ride,” one of the young men on the street jeered. His pals all snickered. “Looks as old as my nan.”

  “Rides better than her, I promise.” The cigar tilted up in Yuri’s teeth as he grinned—he could smell how eager they were to be little shits.

  “Oooh,” the crowd hummed. The one who made the initial observation rolled his eyes, tapped his sword hilt.

  An idea struck Yuri’s skull as he threw his leg over the seat. “Ever play chicken with the Agamemnon?” The engine warmed up before he let the exhaust kiss the crowd of idiots.

  All the youths eyed each other with various expressions of disbelief and ill intent.

  “What? Balls haven’t dropped yet? You insult my girl and you all sit there slack-jawed?”

  Another youth spoke up. “Sword, pistol, or race? He can take you.”

  Yuri very much doubted it, put his helmet on with a sideways look at the one he hoped would play.

  Chief Idiot spat. “Third tier up. Let’s go.” He whistled, the crowd parted, and his ride twittered over to him. Brassy and slick, but it hardly impressed Yuri, who watched with obvious amusement painting his face just to chafe the moron.

  Yuri let a blue cloud of cigar smoke puff and his hand was in a fist over the instrument panel.

  The kid straddled his ride.

  A gap behind them let bystanders know there was about to be a charred sidewalk. One of the girls let go of her sweetheart and tossed her gold wristlet—

  At the second it hit the ground, they were off. Lord Ka’al had told Yuri the hull was weak at the observation deck, so that’s where Yuri went, dialling in the path and letting the cigar ash fall as it pleased. The kid radioed over insults, increasingly agitated phrases as Yuri ignored him—his attention was stuck on the Agamemnon’s heat cannons.

  He let the pair of rockets keep neck and neck—until one cannon began sparking at them. The kid didn’t falter—Yuri cut in front to make sure the aim didn’t trail anywhere else. The sparking increased—he started counting, the kid started sweating.

  “It’s going to shoot us!”

  “Yep.”

  “Shit! You’re fuckin’ nuts!”

  Two… One! Yuri steered Junior up on a dime—looking back to catch the kid’s bones getting atomized in the beam, wincing in sympathy. But now Yuri had the time to breach the hull while that cannon recharged—too small and too close for any of the others to get him.

  Observation deck straight ahead. He rammed his spur into Junior’s side and it jolted to missile speed—his bones felt the rush, and he chomped the cigar firm.

  He breached the hull with a scream of busted metal and shatter of glass, spinning alarm lights and howling sirens greeting him as he let down Junior’s shield, debris hitting his shoulders. Cigar smoke vanished in the violent wind. Pistol out, he slapped the deflector on and marched through, stepping over bent metal plates. Junior purred in wait.

  A robot ran at him from a corridor—a kick of his spur to the floor sent a frequency to short circuit the brain with a tuft of black smoke and stink of burnt wires. Yuri went to the hunched machine and plugged into the radio.

  “I’ve got an appointment with a Mr. Estany on behalf of the Midnight Scythe,” his voice boomed over the ship-wide system. “Jackie-boy, I’m here to collect.”

  No response, but for another robot zooming at him—beam dissipating into the deflection shield in a warm red ripple. Yuri pulled his sword, jumped back—the spur did nothing, not enough time to recharge. After a flood of beams, Yuri lunged, parried by a steel hand—a swipe, a dive—a thrust into the robot’s chest with a small hiss of a failing motor. He pulled the blade free and forced it through the electric brain, and ran down the corridor, looking for Jaccus.

  The lights still spun, his shadow twisting around him up the dull steel walls. Sweat trickled down his neck and soaked his stock. He ripped it off, let it fall, pulled the shirt collar open. Hard work, dodging robots—he should have saved the kid for a decoy inside the fucking battleship.

  A low hum, the floor trembled. “I don’t know who the fuck you are—”

  Ah, so Jack did exist—

  “But you better run back to your rocket and fly on home to Braddock.”

  The lights spun faster, the alarm changed pitch.

  “Contamination cleansing procedure, deck C, in sixty… fifty-nine…”

  Yuri didn’t want to turn to ash, and heeded the advice; spinning to go back for Junior, he spat the nub of cigar and sheathed the sword. He bolted, muscles electric as the countdown continued. No wonder Jack staffed the whole thing with robots, he was willing to scorch Royal earth. Robots would survive.

  Yuri would not.

  As tempting as it was to use the watch, he never left a job unfinished—his own physical wellbeing was secondary to his principles (because he was just like the kid who got fried).

  He rounded a corner with a long porthole view. “Forty-seven, forty-six…” A glint of metal in Yuri’s periphery stopped him with a skid—a rocket had launched from an upper deck.

  “Jaccus, you yellow son-of-a-bitch!”

  A whistle from a doorway.

  Tall, broad, with a long raised scar down the side of his face, there stood Jack, pistols out—and Yuri had to swallow his heart down his throat. Jack wouldn’t let himself get cooked—would he? And if he was there, who was on the rocket?

  “Lay your credit ring down—nice an’ easy, Jack, I’m not fucking around.” Yuri pulled out his second pistol and felt both buzz in his hands.

  “You’re really going to try and rob me at a time like this?”

  “Ain’t robbing you. Taking payment. Lots of people are very disappointed in you, Jackie-boy—”

  Jack fired—Yuri fired back. Both men had deflectors—only Yuri held a sword. Jack spun on his heel and fled down the corridor, and Yuri gave chase.

  “Thirty, twenty-nine…”

  Skittered bits of robot crossed their path—Jack slipped on a chunk, flat on his back, and Yuri held the tip of his sword to Jack’s throat.

  There was something off. No glint in Jack’s eyes. “You’re a V-Model!”

  The shell wavered in time with robot-Jack’s howling laugh, and Yuri plunged the sword through the eye, crowing his rage over the time wasted. I’m gonna burn up… I’m gonna die.

  I’m gonna fucking kill Jaccus if I don’t.

  His earpiece buzzed. He tapped it.

  “Yuri!” Dianna was giving him a little call, all the way from Uptown, how nice of her.

  “I really don’t have time, Di…”

  “Aw, are you having some troub
le, babe?”

  His words came out as huffs as he ran—and he was starting to feel the thinner atmosphere. “If you want your watch back, you’ll do another favour for me.”

  “What’s that?” She sounded like a cat.

  “Hack the fucking Agamemnon and turn it to emergency power.”

  “I’m all the way out here, Yuri. Sorry.”

  Observation deck—the breeze from the hole chilled his skin. “It’s alright—I’ll get your watch to you soon.”

  “Good—”

  He slipped—“shhhit”—down on one knee as he turned to the room where Junior waited. Tunnel vision and aching lungs, he wished he could spur his own ass faster.

  “Because it has a homing beacon. I ought to ram it down your throat.”

  “You know I love it when you’re rough.” He leapt onto the seat, feeling heat at his back. Her voice shifted from his earpiece to the rocket’s instrument panel, he cut off her feed, lifted off and kicked both heels into Junior to put another hole through the Agamemnon—and he was going to find where that other rocket fucked off to.

  As much as he wished he didn’t, he loved her. Di’s one constant grace was that she always made sure he was alive, because one day, Yuri knew, she wanted to be the one to give him the final lights out.

  Meantime, he found the twinkling chrome of Jack’s rocket like tracking a meteorite, and watched his fuel gauge dip to catch up. Jack was heading to Last Moon, and these one-man rockets weren’t meant for that sort of distance. As the speck became a glow, and the glow became a blob, Yuri’s heart twisted against his ribs. They’d both be coasting on fumes to get to the moon.

  He stuck his hand into the saddlebag behind him, grabbed the converter mask without breaking Jack from his sight. Upright in the seat, Yuri affixed the mask, tested the seal. Last Moon had thin air, and he doubted he’d be landing gracefully on the welcome pad with the nice subsurface tourist kiosk.

  He could see Jack now, aggressive in his riding stance. Ignoring the hailing frequencies from the port, Yuri took out his pistol—it would do nothing through their shields—and held it out to get Jack’s attention.

  “I got you,” Yuri said, knowing he was heard over the radio by the briefest twitch of Jack’s head. The exhaust from Jack’s rocket went out, and Yuri positioned Junior to fly alongside, cut off the fuel. They were soaring by momentum, and the Holy Mountain cut into the sun in a black, jagged silhouette as they approached.

  Jack was playing chicken, now.

  Sorry, Junior, it’s been fun. If it’s any consolation, Braddock will be the one turning my insides outside after this.

  He returned the calls from port. “We’re coming in dry.”

  “Trajectory acknowledged. Deviation from the course will result in additional fines…”

  Jack and Yuri were both preparing for impact, standing up on their seats and slapping their deflectors back on—

  Yuri’s didn’t, and his blood turned to ice. That mountain was getting really big.

  Junior rattled, as if she knew her time was coming.

  “Well, shit.” All those goddamn robots. He dug out a fresh charge, stuck it into the deflector, turned off Junior’s shield, and leapt into the frigid shadow.

  “Hold on to your ass, Jack!” Quite possibly the final wise words of Navigator Zayats, three seconds before they both began their rough slide.

  His bones, tendons, meat, guts, teeth, brain—all at once regretted the decision to ride down the mountain face. Too much jitter to think, too much bit tongue; he couldn’t praise the invention of deflectors like he ought. The two rides had exploded into the rock and sent a nice big plume of debris to shower down on the men careening into the valley like surfers on a rough storm in Forden’s Cove—only, when the deflector charges were sapped, they’d both be rolling like pill bugs, ass-over-tit. Physics had no sympathy for either of them.

  A flat jut of rock caught up to them, and the impact knocked Yuri flat, a sharp exhale as lights swirled in his vision. More dust landed on him, pitter-patter, and the deflector faded. He rolled under an overhang and while his body attempted to settle the adrenaline, he began to feel the biting cold and ache.

  No time to freeze. Jack would be just as dazed, and Yuri was thirsty to get those goddamn credits.

  “Pilgrim, are you alright?”

  Two white-robed women wrapped in layers of silver blanket sat at a plasma fire deeper within the overhang, voices muffled through converter masks. A faint glint of jewellery under their hoods. No time for curiosity, either.

  “Yeah… fine.” His joints popped as he stood, pebbles clattering to the ground. Sharp rocks had sliced into the heels of his hands, and the wet slick made it hard to hold the deflector—not that it mattered, he noticed with a sharp curse, he had landed on it and cracked it through.

  In a panic, he checked for the watch in his pocket—and shuddered a sigh to see it was fine. He kissed it, put it back, and went out of the cave, pistols in his grip poorly staunching the bleeding of his palms.

  “All this trouble over a few credits?” Jack’s voice came in through Yuri’s earpiece.

  “You’re the one running, pal.”

  “That can’t be all you’re after.”

  “You’re right.”

  A spray of rock at Yuri’s feet—Jack was shooting, the flash from up the mountain path.

  The recoil was satisfying as Yuri returned fire, the sound of the firefight in bright twangs and screeches bouncing amongst the rocks and dulled his hearing. The moon turned; his shadow reached up toward his game over the iron-rich, rusty dirt.

  A sting in Yuri’s thigh—a hit, hardly noticed until he tried to run.

  Jack was struck, too—gagging wet.

  Yuri limped up the path, blood chilling in the air. A hit to the arm—one pistol dropped.

  Jack was slouched behind a boulder, hand at his neck, blood seeping between his fingers. His eyes through the mask shone bright in his rage—this was the real Jack, and he glared Yuri through, face held up by the pistol shoved tight under his chin.

  “Credit ring, please.”

  Jack didn’t move. Yuri knelt, seeing Jack was pallid under the mask. He pulled up Jack’s hand and wrenched the finger backwards with a crack and a shout from Jack. Their blood mixed while Yuri pried the ring free. He tucked it neatly into his pocket, returning his attention to Jack’s face.

  “What did the King tell you?”

  “Fuck yourself.”

  Yuri sent a blast through Jack’s foot. The mountain echoed Jack’s scream.

  “What did the King tell you?”

  Jack spoke harsh through the pain. “He didn’t tell me anything. Found out for myself. The core of thu’Alar… is eternal life. And you haven’t touched it.”

  Jack kicked Yuri hard in the stomach—while he stumbled, Jack raised his pistol and fired four shots into Yuri’s guts.

  He fell from the ledge. Long way to the valley.

  He tapped the watch.

  “I’m here… I told you…”

  A beautiful sight. “You’re bleeding on my good sheets.”

  She called the med crew in.

  Kiss & Tell

  J. Calamy

  If Joe DeBeers lived to be a thousand, which, given his line of work and the beings he chose as friends, was unlikely, he would never, ever forget the taste of Captain Maria Braddock. Even years later, he would catch a drop of something, salted lemons, ship’s biscuit fresh out of the oven, and he’d be transported back. Back to her thighs squeezing his ears, her breasts filling his hands, and the gorgeous silk of her cock in his throat. A thought to keep him warm in the old sailor’s home someday.

  * * *

  “Or tonight,” he thought gloomily. It was cold on Valadian, cold in the Casino, and cold behind the bar. How could it be cold? Most expensive hotel at the Gateway—everything in Joe’s line of sight was gold or red velvet. Was the climate system broken? The weather crew on deck five took care of all of that. But it was cold, damm
it. Cold and empty. Usually there were so many customers he didn’t have time to do anything but sweat and mix drinks. Tonight there was nothing to do but reminisce and shiver. The band was plinking away into the empty room- playing because they were on the clock but not giving it anything like their usual fire. Joe was fiddling around, too. But there were only so many times you could line up the bottles so their labels faced front—a platoon of soldiers at attention—inspection-ready. It left a lot of room for daydreaming.

  * * *

  “Could use you to stay warm tonight,” Joe muttered. He rubbed his hands briskly, as much to fight the urge to straighten the bottles again as to warm them.

  “Excuse me?” The bouncer, Ralf, gave him a rough up and down. “What did you just say?”

  “Weren’t talking to you, mate,” Joe said, waving a placating hand.

  “Who was you talking to then?”

  “No one,” Joe said. Someone I’d have to shoot if I saw her walking through those doors.

  “This is a tight spot.”

  “Yes, sir—ma’am! Sorry, Captain Braddock, ma’am—”

  “Sir is fine.”

  “Yes, sir, a tight spot, sir.”

  “Joe! Is that—”

  “No!”

  “Joseph Diamond Jubilee DeBeers—is that the Key to the multiverse in your pocket? Or are you just happy to see me?”

  “You have the Key, sir, and I can’t see you or nothing else. Nothing at all; it’s that dim in here.”

  “Well, well, well.”

  “Ignore it, sir, please. It will go down.”

  “How long do you reckon this passage is?”

  “Box says another 100 meters then it turns towards the Lounge.”

  “So I won’t be pressed up against you like this for much longer?”

  “No sir.”

  “Too bad.”

  “Sir?”

  “When was the last time you had sex?”

  “Yesterday, sir.”