The expectant eyes of the crew burned holes through Hep. He wanted to swat them away like a swarm of bees. Answers may have been buried in that asteroid field. Sig saw something in there. Something in there did something to him. He didn’t want to leave, to abandon it to Byers when he’d barely begun to formulate the questions to which he needed answers.
“Sir?” Akari pressed.
Was the Black Hole really in there somewhere? Was Parallax’s ghost coming back to haunt him? Maybe Sig found Hell in there.
“Chart a jump course out of here,” Hep ordered. “Scramble our signature. Buy us as much time as you can before Byers track us down. And get me the location of a ship. I want it by the time we exit jump.”
“Which ship?”
Hep looked at the monitor, the flashing red dots representing the coming fleet. He looked at the feed from sickbay. “The UNS Royal Blue.”
12
It is my most solemn duty to inform you of the passing of the most honorable United Systems Navy Captain Jacob Horne.
It is my most solemn duty.
Solemn.
Duty.
Mao wrote the words over and over, crossing them out, scribbling over them, stabbing his stylus into the tablet’s screen so fiercely it threatened to crack. He had lost sailors under his command. It was wartime. It was understood that members of his crew would die. It was the expectation. But this…
This.
He dared a glance at the monitor mounted above his desk. The body of the most honorable United Systems Navy Captain Jacob Horne lay on a table in the lab, medical staff and techs standing at a distance in full decon suits, afraid to get too near.
This was not expected. This, he did not understand.
He’d written many of these letters over the past two years. On one occasion, after the Battle of the Dual Moons, the bloodiest he’d encountered, he had the misfortune of penning thirteen. He wrote them all in a day, back to back, and had become numb by the end. Signing them became like signing a stack of commission papers, barely glancing at the name as his drew his pen across the bottom. Mao had been working on this particular letter for half a day now and had no more to show for it than It is my solemn duty…
The Royal Blue and the Bucket were saddled together three klicks from the Inferni Cluster. Mao didn’t want to let the mysterious formation out of his sight, but he also couldn’t stand to be too close to it.
Not after the debrief. Delphyne laid it all out in meticulous detail. He knew her to be an objective observer and cataloguer of detail, which made the story all the more terrifying because he had no reason to doubt her recollection. He ordered the ship to pair with the Bucket, for Horne’s body to be taken to the lab for observation, and then he retreated to his cabin.
He scoured his mind for protocols dictating his course of action. Something to determine his next move for him so he could absolve himself of that task. He found plenty of the such protocols that dictated accident reports, the death of an officer, the destruction of a ship, reporting mass casualties, securing the sight of a potential biological contaminant, securing the sight of an unknown encounter and further exploration of said event.
He ran through them all as an exercise in distraction rather than as a means of decision making. They all required running up the chain of command. He would need to inform Calibor of what had happened, which meant informing the force commander that he went against orders and sent an expeditionary team into the cluster. Calibor would then inform Colonel Tirseer. And then everything would crumble. Mao would be stripped of his captaincy. Court-martialed, likely.
And none of that would provide answers. None of that would do justice to Captain Horne.
The display on the monitor changed, set to switch at designated intervals. It now showed the brig and its inhabitants. How would Mao explain them to Calibor? He had trouble reconciling their presence himself, let alone justifying it to his superiors. Mao knew Tirseer already suspected him of harboring a shadow loyalty to “rebel forces,” as she called them. Pirates. This conflagration of circumstances would solidify her theory, no matter how far off base it actually was.
Tired of the mounting unknowns, Mao left his desk, his notes, his letters. He found Horus standing outside the brig with one of his men, the one called Spetzna. He acknowledged Mao with a probing look. Mao responded with one of his own. The two locked into a stare-down heavy with uncertainty.
Horus finally relented, his stoic stare cracking into a smile. “Just waiting for you to take out the cuffs and toss me in there.”
“I’m glad to see you’re making it easy for me to do so.” Suspicion clouded Horus’s smile. “I’m not here to arrest you,” Mao said.
Relief brightened Horus’s face. “Good. Not that you’d have cause to. I’m squeaky clean. An honest businessman if ever you seen one. Now that’s out of the way, we do have one other thing to discuss.”
“You’ll get the rest of your money, Horus.”
The big man slapped Mao on the back. “Of course. Never for a second did I think you’d consider stiffing me. The job might not have gone to plan. I mean, who could’ve predicted we’d run up against whatever that freaky…thing…was? But I did get your people in and out as was promised.” Leaned against the wall, his shoulders relaxed. Spetzna, standing next to him, did not appear to know how to relax. “If you ain’t here to see me…” Horus began.
“I’m here to see him,” Mao finished, pointing at Wilco’s cell. A low grumble rumbled up from Horus’s chest. Mao eyed him with renewed suspicion. “Maybe I should speak with you. You were close with Bayne and Wilco. Perhaps he reached out to you after Ore Town. Maybe you have some insight.”
“None,” Horus said. “Ain’t spoken to the boy since Ore Town fell apart. Hell, I thought he was dead.”
Mao had thought the same. The Navy had declared Wilco dead along with Bayne after weeks of searching with no evidence to the contrary. The blast radius of the Black Hole explosion was so large and so hot that it was assumed any organic material caught within it would have incinerated. Mao didn’t bemoan the twinge of frustration at hearing the Navy was wrong in that assumption.
He input his code, and the door to the brig slid open, allowing access to the long hallway that ran the length of the brig in front of each of the dozen cells. Wilco was housed in the last. That allowed Mao the opportunity to study each of Wilco’s apprehended crew members as he passed. Delphyne had taken three others aside from Wilco into custody upon leaving the Forager. None gave their names or spoke a word, on order from Wilco. They were either terrified of him or fiercely loyal.
As Mao passed, he judged that it was the latter. None of them showed any sign of fear.
Upon reaching the final cell, Mao stopped and stared at the tips of his boots. He had hoped this chapter of his life was closed permanently after Ore Town. It was finding the boys Wilco and Hepzah that began a descent that brought Mao low, nearly to a depth from which he would never have climbed. It was finding those boys that sparked the end of Drummond Bayne.
When they were gone, Mao thought his life would return to the way it was before, a life of duty and service, a life of orders followed and given, in line with a strict code and set of protocol. A life dictated. Even when he was given command of his own ship, a position that should have required his strict adherence to that code, life was never quite the same. A seed had been planted. Little at a time, it blossomed and bore rebellious fruit. Disregarding Calibor’s directive and venturing into the cluster was only the most drastic example.
“You lock me up just so I can watch you stare at the floor?”
Mao smiled despite himself. Under the guise of a pirate lord, a kid playing dress-up, he was still the same irreverent child. “Why are you alive?”
Wilco laughed. “Well, isn’t that a hell of question? Just ask me what the meaning of life is.”
Mao’s temper flared. For a moment, it took control of him. Whether a moment or lifetime, it didn’t matter. He lost his
composure. He lost himself. He grabbed the bars of Wilco’s cell and screamed. “Why are you alive? Why couldn’t you stay dead?”
Wilco shrank back from the bars. He studied the captain. “Can’t say I much enjoy this new version of you, Mao. The pressures of captaincy seem to be wearing you down.”
Releasing the bars was an act of great effort. Mao stepped back and focused on his breathing until his heart steadied and the only reason his face burned was the shame. “How did you survive the explosion of the Black Hole?”
Wilco twitched at the mention of the ship. He walked from Mao, stepped up onto the cot, bounced on it like a child testing the springs before jumping, and then sat cross-legged. “Who is it you think you’re speaking to?”
The question felt self-indulgent. A childish attempt at obfuscation.
“Take off the mask,” Mao said.
Wilco shook his head.
“You used to be the sort of man who’d at least look me in the eye.”
“I can see your eyes just fine.”
“But I can’t see yours.”
“You haven’t earned the right.”
Mao scratched the back of his head, quickly growing exasperated. He paced away from the cell then turned back, hoping to have gained a new perspective. “Are you responsible for the destruction of the Forager?”
“I think highly of myself, but not so highly as to believe I could destroy such a legendary Deep Black ship with just a handful at my side.”
“Was it your intention to try?”
“I do have aspirations.”
“Are you trying to sound like him, like Parallax? This new persona you’ve adopted, what’s the endgame? You have a small crew who appear somewhat loyal. No ship, from what we can tell. Do you have aims to be a pirate?”
Wilco jumped off the bed. He hit the ground hard, sounding a thud that seemed deeper than his frame should have allowed. “I am a pirate. I am the home of the spirit of every pirate lord who turned to dust in these spaceways. They are reborn in me. And they are angry. I will see their vengeance done on all who are deserving.”
Mao had exposed something. He would have dug in quicker, ripped that wound open more, if the outburst hadn’t caught him so off guard. He gathered himself, pushed that bud of fear down deeper. “How did you come to be on the Forager?”
“I stepped foot on it same as everyone else.”
“Why are you so intent on walking around my questions? Why not answer them directly?”
Wilco spread his arms, gesturing to his surroundings. “My current accommodations do not lend to a sense of cooperation.”
“You killed a Navy captain. I can’t let you out.”
“Horne was already dead when I shoved my sword through his chest. If your people debriefed you fully, then you would know I wasn’t the only one who stuck him. There were two other blades in your captain, and a hail of blaster fire. So, unless you plan on hanging your own XO, I’d wager on you letting me out of here sooner rather than later.”
“You overestimate your chances.”
“You underestimate the situation.” Wilco stepped to the bars, his hands folded behind his back, moving in a graceful yet menacing fashion. For the first time, Mao doubted the identity of the man beneath the mask. He had been a brash, headstrong, and volatile kid when Mao knew him only three years ago. In subtle yet important ways, this masked man was very different. “I didn’t happen upon a devastated Navy ship in the middle of an extremely rare star cluster. I wasn’t caught off guard at seeing Captain Horne in such a state. As I’m sure Delphyne testified to. I went in knowing exactly what I was going to find.”
Mao’s comm sounded, followed by Delphyne’s voice, tight with urgency. “You’re needed on the bridge immediately, sir.” Mao couldn’t take his eyes off the twisted image displayed on Wilco’s mask, the clashing colors, black and red, twisting around each other like they were locked in battle. “On my way.”
Wilco waved as Mao left.
Delphyne was waiting outside the lift door as Mao exited. She handed him a tablet that displayed a battle map of the area. “We’ve run across a Byers frigate, sir.”
“Run across? They haven’t spotted us?”
“Doesn’t appear so. Diagnostics show that it’s low on weapons. Mostly scanning equipment. We believe it’s a recon ship.”
“Then we can’t let it leave. If it makes it back to the Byers fleet with our location, this sector will be flooded in a matter of hours. And if this cluster has any importance at all, we can’t allow Byers to control it. Alert the force commander. Then block all long-range transmissions. Acquire a target lock and open fire.”
“Aye, sir.”
They entered the bridge to find the crew fallen into battle mode, taken to their stations and fulfilling their duties. Nothing made Mao prouder than to see his crew excel when they were most needed.
“Byers frigate off our bow, Captain,” Officer Graeme yelled. “One minute and twenty-two seconds until they are within target range. Scans say their weapons systems are active.”
“Open a ship-wide channel,” the captain said. “This is Captain Mao. We are about to engage a hostile vessel. All hands to battle stations. Lock this ship down.”
“Sir, we have target lock,” Graeme said. “Should we open fire?”
Captain Mao was about to give the order when the XO interrupted.
“Captain!” Her voice was elevated by surprise.
“What is it, Delphyne?”
Something on the battlefield display caught her attention. An energy signature. A familiar one. One she hadn’t seen in nearly two years. “A ship on our tail, sir. Just came out of nowhere.”
“Byers?”
“No, sir,” she answered. “A Ranger ship. The Fair Wind.”
Mao’s face twisted in confusion.
“Sir, the Byers frigate just initiated a hard burn,” Graeme said. “They’re gone.”
Mao cursed. “Open a channel. This is Captain Taliesin Mao of the UNS Royal Blue. You better have a damn good reason for entering this battlefield and an even better reason as to why I should not open fire on you immediately.”
“Easy, Mao,” a voice responded over the comm channel.
Delphyne couldn’t keep the smile off her face.
“Didn’t mean to interrupt.”
“Identify yourself,” Mao snapped.
“Such a stickler for protocol,” the voice responded. “This is Captain Hepzah Montaine of the Fair Wind. It’s good to see you again. And I could use your help.”
The leak in the dam to the past now cracked wide open. The flood let loose and swallowed Mao whole. “You’ve picked a very bad time, Captain Montaine.”
“Yeah, you don’t know the half of it,” Hep responded.
13
The serums still burned in her blood, her muscles, her bones. She had spent three days hooked up to tubes being pumped full of the drugs that officially existed on paper only. Centel had presented them to the Joint Science Council, but they were denied approval to begin human testing. Apparently, Centel did not abide by the council’s ruling, though considering her current circumstances, Ayala wasn’t displeased by that. Objectively, she would have agreed with Tirseer’s decision anyway, even had she not been a direct beneficiary.
The cocktail of drugs was proposed as a food substitute. During animal testing, it was discovered that, administered correctly, the drugs could reverse the ravages of extreme malnutrition at an accelerated rate.
By all accounts, Tirseer had laid the first stone in the road to eradicating starvation. Whether that would counteract all the terrible things she’d done would be left to history to decide. Miracle aside, the cocktail was a real pain in the ass. Fire poured straight into the veins. Muscles pumped full of acid as they stretched, ripped, and stitched back together. Heart punching the inside of the chest, beating so fast, trying to exist outside of the body. She felt like she was melted down into a cellular sludge and then regrown.
Still,
the pain was preferable to the closet-sized cell she’d been locked inside, body slowly shutting down and turning against her. Waiting to die. Now, she at least had something to look forward to: life. What kind, she did not know.
The doctors removed the last of the tubes and left her alone in the sterile room, strapped to the bed. Every few minutes, a wave of pain shot through her body that made her convulse. The white room went red as blood pulsed so strongly through her that she thought her head might explode. After a few hours, the pain subsided. Slowly, her strength returned. She felt better than she’d felt in recent memory, better than she could remember ever feeling. The torture of recent months—had it been years?—was the only memory she had anymore.
The locks on the metal door clicked. The hinges screamed as the door opened. “I must admit, I wasn’t sure you’d survive the process. We’ve only tested on seven others. Four of them are dead.” Tirseer pulled a stool to Ayala’s bedside.
“Glad I could boost your numbers.” Ayala’s throat was hoarse. A powerful thirst burned in her.
“Yes, well, you can celebrate later. After you’ve learned the conditions of your resurrection.” She produced a tablet. She scrolled through a seemingly endless file, eyes flicking like snakes’ tongues. “You will receive a full briefing before embarking on your mission, but I thought you might benefit from a quick rundown of the parameters of your new position.”
“And what position is that?”
“An asset.”
Ayala went cold. There were fewer things in life more terrifying than the thought of being Maria Tirseer’s asset. She’d read enough intelligence reports to know that.
Tirseer turned the tablet so Ayala could read it. It displayed schematics for what looked like a small electronic device, something like a transmitter.
“What is that?” Ayala asked.
Tirseer smiled. “That is a low yield, localized explosive device. A teeny tiny bomb. Surgically implanted next to your heart.”
The Deep Black Space Opera Boxed Set Page 45