The Deep Black Space Opera Boxed Set

by James David Victor

  “Access the external cameras.”

  She shot Hep a look that could have frozen him from the inside. “Obviously.” She returned to her tablet. Cameras were mounted on every side of the Fair Wind. It was standard for most ships, especially salvage ships. The 360-degree visibility allowed them to navigate tight spaces. They also served as a form of security system in a pinch, allowing remote access. “The syndicate has the ship surrounded. Looks like a dozen men dug in pretty well. Energy barriers set up. Shit. A mounted gun. They really want us dead.”

  “But they haven’t attacked?”

  “No. I ran diagnostics. The Wind is at one hundred percent. No external damage detected.”

  “A buffalo run,” Hep growled. “They’re attacking each team. If they can’t kill us on sight, they drive us back to the ship, into the waiting arms of a kill squad.”

  “And we’re doing exactly what they want.”

  Hep smiled. “Almost.”

  Their craft had something that wasn’t common among most ships—remote access to the helm. It was one of the pricier modifications, but Hep knew from experience how handy such a tool could be. It wasn’t exactly legal by United Systems mandate because they feared widespread hacking of navigation systems. Hep was glad he sprung for it.

  Hep banked hard to the right. Mueller cursed as he toppled over. “Fire up the engines,” Hep said. “Have the Wind make for Horus’s location.”

  “Aye.”

  Sunbrella Dunes. God, the names of these resorts should have been enough to kill the residents long before old age took them. The most direct route lay across rocky terrain, making for a bumpy ride. Mueller let loose with a string of curses that would have made Horus blush.

  “Horus, we’re en route to your location,” Hep said. “How you holding up?”

  “Wonderfully,” Horus answered. “If the Void scum don’t kill me, the food here will. I think I know what they do with the residents after they bite it.”

  The thought made Hep’s gut bubble.

  “Why are you eating?” Hep said. “Never mind. Just be ready to board. We’re sending the Wind your way.”

  The path that had suddenly opened before them, one that led to them sailing off this mass grave of a planet, closed just as quickly. A scene like the one outside the Fair Wind lay spread out before them—energy barriers set up side by side, forming a ten meter long, two meter high barrier. On either end of the barrier sat a skimmer like the one Hep was piloting. Six Void-infected syndicate soldiers lay in ambush.

  A barrage of blaster fire peppered the ground around Hep’s skimmer. He yanked the helm, putting the skimmer into a sharp skid—a maneuver the old machine couldn’t have handled in its best days. The engine screamed. Hoses snapped. Steering columns crumbled to rust. Hep was just happy the skimmer didn’t roll end over end.

  He grabbed Mueller by the collar and dragged him out of the skimmer as he jumped over the edge. It offered them some rudimentary cover, though a well-placed, low-angle shot could have taken out their feet. Or, with enough blasting, the skimmer itself would fall apart or explode.

  “We need to move,” Hep said.

  “I see why they made you captain,” Mueller chided.

  “Go!” Byrne fired at the blockade, disrupting the steady flow of blaster fire long enough for them to sprint to a nearby rock formation.

  They collapsed behind it. It stood like a Roman column cut off halfway up to the ornate ceiling it was supposed to be supporting. It was barely wider than one Horus. If Hep, Byrne, and Mueller stood single file, they were protected enough.

  Mueller heaved. Sweat ran down his red face. “Not made for this anymore.”

  Hep doubted the old man was ever made for this. “Where’s the Wind?”

  Byrne consulted her tablet. “Arriving at Horus’s location.” She brought up the feed from the hull cameras. More Void soldiers. Seven of them stood in a semicircle outside an administrative building that looked identical to the one from Fedora Beach. In fact, the entire Sunbrella Dunes resort looked exactly the same. The cookie cutter complexes started to seem more like dressed-up coffins the longer Hep stayed on Genarian.

  On screen, the Void soldiers spun around, suddenly seeming alarmed. The angle shifted drastically as the ship touched down.

  “Now,” Hep ordered. They watched as Horus ran out of the building, a blaster in each hand. He shot three in the back before any of them had time to turn. Hep wouldn’t have seen Dr. Hauser tucked behind the big man had a stream of blaster fire not sprouted from his back and stuck another Void soldier in the gut.

  Horus charged forward like a runaway train. He slammed the butt of one blaster into a soldier’s face as he passed and hit another in the throat. Hauser shot the last soldier in the chest from two feet away, spraying the air with a mist of iridescent blue blood.

  The two disappeared from view as they ran up the boarding ramp and into the ship.

  “Delphyne, what’s your status?” Hep said.

  He was answered with a cacophony of noise. Blaster fire. Twisting metal. Screaming. “Terrible!”

  “Could you elaborate?”

  “The Void soldiers have us pinned down in the rec hall. Me, Calibor, and about a dozen of the residents. They caught us in the middle of Bingo.”

  Hep looked at Byrne. She nodded, silently giving her consent, and then returned to her tablet.

  “We’re sending the Wind your way. Horus and Hauser are on board.”

  “Where are you?”

  Hep peered around the edge of the rock column. “A little stuck. Don’t worry about us.” He ended the transmission.

  “Can I worry about us?” Mueller said. “Because this seems like an awfully dire situation.” He gestured to Byrne’s tablet. “Does that thing have a word processing program on it?”

  “We’ll be fine,” Hep said. “We just need to hold out a few minutes. Then the others will swoop in and pick us up. Then we can leave this hole behind and race toward the next near-death situation.”

  The blaster fire ceased. The ensuing quiet was unsettling, like the calm before a very unpleasant storm. Hep dared another peek. “Shit!” He grabbed Mueller by the wrist and ran out from behind the column. Byrne followed without question or explanation. Though she spotted the reason rocketing toward their hiding spot in the form of a plasma missile.

  Hep and Byrne took their eyes off the blockade. They focused forward. Counted their steps and their breaths like they were cataloguing the things they’d leave behind after they died. A sudden rush of heat hit them in the backs. The force lifted them off the ground and propelled them forward. They slammed into the ground and rolled another few meters before stopping.

  Hep let the adrenaline take over. His mind emptied. His muscles moved of their own accord, falling into sync like a well-trained army still knowing how to function despite having just lost their general. He grabbed Mueller, who lay face down, and dragged him in the direction they’d been running—toward a dip in the terrain. He wouldn’t let himself wonder where Byrne was until he got the old man safe. One thing at a time. Split focus meant death.

  He rolled Mueller, still motionless, into the dip and out of the line of fire. Hep slid down after him. He positioned himself as close to the crest of the dip as he could without getting his head blown off. He scanned the area, frantically searching for Byrne. He spotted her a few about fifteen meters away, laying on her belly, face in the dirt.

  His heart froze. His face lit on fire.

  And then she moved. She pressed herself as close to the ground as she could, recognizing that, at that distance, the very slight decline in the terrain put her just out of view of the soldiers at the blockade. They would have to get a few meters higher to have a clear shot. She was safe for the moment, but if she even got to her knees, she would become a target.

  She turned her head to the side and made eye contact with Hep. He nodded, tried to convey to her that everything would be okay even though he did not believe it would be.
/>   Mueller coughed behind him. Not the sort of cough that gave Hep any comfort, the kind of cough that let him know Mueller was alive. It was the kind of cough that said something really bad just happened, the kind of cough that left blood on the lips.

  Hep slid down next to the old man. He wasn’t a doctor and had no field medic experience, but Hep didn’t need any to know what the problem was. That was evident by Mueller’s misshaped torso. “Broken ribs, I think,” Hep said.

  “That’ll do it,” Mueller said.

  “Just lay still. I’ve got a doctor on the ship. She’ll patch you up once we’re on board.”

  The barrage of blaster fire began again. As the seconds passed, the shots seemed to be getting closer to finding their target. Hep snuck a look. The Void soldiers were marching toward them.

  “Shit.” Hep slid back down to Mueller’s side.

  “Not something you want to hear,” Mueller said. “Our dire situation getting more dire, is it?”

  “Something like that.”

  “You need to get that lady and get out of here.”

  “That would be nice,” Hep said. “But we’re a bit pinned down, and you’re in no shape to move.”

  “Don’t worry about me.” Mueller spoke with the casually dismissive attitude of an old man offered help carrying a bag to his car. “I’ll be alright.”

  Hep laughed. “Sure you will, old man.”

  “I’m serious,” Mueller said. He looked down at his hand. He clutched the sawed-off scattershot he’d previously stuck in Hep’s face. It had been strapped to his side.

  Hep laughed again. “You couldn’t pull the trigger when all your ribs were still in one piece.”

  A regretful shadow fell over Mueller’s face. “Spent my life writing stories. Other people’s adventures. Adventures I wished I had the courage to take. Never left my desk. Been waiting to die on this dustball.” He coughed. Blood ran down his chin. “I mean to have one adventure before I die.”

  Hep recognized the obstinate look in Mueller’s eyes. He knew he couldn’t change the old man’s mind. “Okay.” He took Mueller’s wrist and hoisted the scattershot to his chest, laying it across him like a knight’s sword.

  “Just one,” Mueller said. “Just need to take out one.”

  Hep crawled back to the crest of the dip. He met Byrne’s eye and held up three fingers. He counted down. When he hit one, Byrne jumped to her feet. She sprinted toward him, blaster out to her side, firing indiscriminately in the direction of her attackers. She was two meters from Hep when a shot hit her in the thigh. She fell forward into Hep’s arms. They both fell back, crashing in a pile on the ground.

  “No time for that now,” Mueller said. “Get up and get going. I’ll distract them. I’ll just need a little help.” He gestured to Byrne’s blaster. Hep put it in the old man’s hand. He and Byrne pushed Mueller to the top of the dip and aimed his blaster at the coming enemy.

  “Give them hell,” Hep said. Then he squeezed Mueller’s finger on the trigger.

  The old man may have lacked the strength to pull it himself, but he had enough strength left to keep it squeezed. Byrne climbed onto Hep’s back. He ran, ignoring the pain shooting from the bottom of his feet through his back to the point where his skull met his spine. He pretended that he was just thrown through the air, didn’t have a possible spinal injury. He was fine. Everything was fine.

  He collapsed about a hundred meters away. He didn’t trip. His legs just gave out. Byrne rolled away from him. Her face turned a dirty ashen color. Pale skin caked with dirt. She was losing blood fast. She tried to lift her head. It fell back to the ground.

  Hep stopped trying to crawl to her, stopped willing his arms and legs to move because they refused to listen. His body was spent. The constant barrage of blaster fire turned to white noise, the soundtrack to which Hep would die. He couldn’t help but laugh at the absurdity. Dying on this backwater retirement planet after surviving pirate wars and microscopic alien viruses that turned people into zombies. It wasn’t funny so much as hauntingly sad.

  The bang of a scattershot rose above the blaster fire. Then silence. The firing stopped. Mueller was dead. And Hep and Byrne would soon follow. And then everyone else. If they couldn’t get off this planet, couldn’t tell the others what they learned about the Shallows, if Hep’s sword was lost here, then everything else would die. The Void would sweep across the systems like a plague, killing everyone and then bringing them back as twisted, dead versions of themselves.

  His sword felt heavy on his hip. This blade. This blade was everything. He didn’t realize until now how much it meant to him. A gift from Drummond Bayne. He used to think it was a weight tied around his ankle, pulling him down into the murky depths. He understood now what it really was: a key to the Shallows. To a future that Hep never knew he wanted. Bayne knew. He always knew.

  Dirt crunched underfoot as the Void soldiers approached. Even their steps sounded dead, hollow. Their actions carried no malice, no intent. They were empty. That angered Hep, to be killed by something that didn’t care, that felt nothing as it pulled the trigger. His death would mean nothing.

  He felt pressure on his hands. Byrne. She squeezed his fingers. Tears rolled down her cheeks.

  Blaster fire.

  Hep expected to feel the familiar burn of lasers tearing through his body. He wasn’t sure what death would feel like, but he was certain it would be unpleasant. But he felt nothing. Not until Horus rolled him over.

  Hauser pushed the big man out of the way. “Move it. Let me get a look at him.” She pulled a medical scanner from her pocket.

  “Hurry it up, doc,” Horus said. “There’s a lot more of them Void zombies inbound. We don’t move now, we get run down and shot up.”

  “He’s got some bad bruising,” Hauser said. “But he’s good to be moved. Gently,” she said, preemptively scolding Horus’s brutish attitude.

  “Byrne,” Hep said weakly.

  “Already on board,” Hauser said. “Delphyne and Calibor have her.”

  “The old man.”

  Hauser scrunched her face, unsure.

  “Must be talking about that guy there,” Horus said, gesturing to the dip in the ground a hundred meters back and the bloody body inside. “He’s got a lot more than some bad bruising.”

  “Just get him on board,” Hauser hissed.

  As he bounced along like a limp child in Horus’s arms, Hep drifted in and out of consciousness. He thought he saw a swarm of blue coming his way. Black eyes. Dead faces. Coming for him.

  “My sword,” Hep said, suddenly overtaken with urgency.

  “Got it,” Horus said. “Now relax before you die.”

  Everything went black.

  When Hep came to, he was on the Fair Wind, tube in his arm, looking up at the overhead lights with the stringent odor of alcohol in his nose. “What…”

  “Sickbay,” Hauser said, placing a soothing hand on his shoulder. “You’re okay. Byrne’s okay. We all are.”

  “Well, not all of us.”

  Hep turned his head. Delphyne leaned against the wall by the door. “I just got a call from the diplomatic team. They hit some trouble. Someone didn’t make it.”

  7

  They all agreed that the first priority was getting some weapons. Wilco was rather insistent that it be their weapons. More specifically, his weapon. He needed his sword. He felt no need to explain when pressed on the matter. It was his. And he wanted it. Mao, at least, understood that much.

  After they had their weapons, they would retake the Royal Blue.

  Trapper, who was reluctant to join the mission in the first place and so had been keeping quiet, was finally putting himself to use. He’d learned that the Void-infected had no emotions, so he could not sense them the way he did others, but it was different than simply being not there. The absence was notable. Like looking up in the sky expecting to see the moon and it not being there.

  With that realization, Trapper was able to navigate them through t
he complex avoiding the Void soldiers as much as possible. They moved in a tight formation. Trapper in the middle of the huddle with Bigby on point and Wilco at the rear, both with the blasters they took off Mr. Grey’s men.

  Trapper led them first across the vacant lot behind the shed where they’d been ambushed. They soon arrived at the main building, which housed all the tools and facilities used for the now-defunct research project. Trapper took a moment to emotionally scan the massive building, then nodded. The building was empty, but it wouldn’t be for long.

  The Void soldiers would hunt them relentlessly.

  Having reached as secure a location as they were likely to, they decided now was their best chance to stop for a planning session.

  Mao paced a dusty stretch of floor.

  “What are you thinking, Captain?” Amelia asked.

  “These Void soldiers are little more than robots, as far as I can tell.”

  Amelia interrupted. “Before you go any further, could you elaborate a bit on what you mean by ‘Void soldier’?”

  Mao told her everything he knew, everything that Tobin had told them, everything that Dr. Hauser and all the top scientific minds in the Navy had theorized about the Void. Condensed for brevity, of course.

  Amelia was dumbstruck.

  “Aren’t you glad you agreed to parley?” Wilco joked.

  Mao continued. “My point is, they seem to lack insight or knowledge about who we are.”

  “And that’s important why?” Bigby asked.

  “Because that means they have no idea of my connection to the Royal Blue. If they possess only basic reasoning faculties, then they’ll assume we’re going to race back to the Glinthawk and attempt to flee.” He pointed to Amelia. “They’ll assume you’re going to go back to your ship. Doing something illogical may actually work in our favor.”

  Wilco laughed. “Are you sure you aren’t just trying to justify your irrational behavior?”

  Mao didn’t stop to respond. “Resistance at the Blue should be minimal. We just need to get there. Once they realize we aren’t going for the Glinthawk, they’ll move to intercept, assuming we’re moving toward some other means of egress.”