The Deep Black Space Opera Boxed Set

by James David Victor

  “Again, you only demonstrate your limited understanding of power with such a question.” Sigurd looked on Bayne as though the captain were a jewel long missing from a set. He reached out, ready to pluck the gem and place it in his crown.

  Wilco slapped his hand down on the metal of Bayne’s table. “Perhaps we should talk terms before we get to the exchanging of goods. I know you’re not from around these parts, but that’s usually how it all goes.”

  Sigurd cocked his head to one side.

  “Goods,” Wilco said, pointing to Bayne, clarifying. “Now, the payment.”

  “Your survival.”

  “Right. That. But let’s just say I don’t much care about the survival of all them back there. Let’s say I only really care about mine. What could we negotiate in return for my invaluable assistance in returning your comatose friend whilst also serving up total domination of the coalition standing in your way?”

  Sig regarded Wilco like an oddity, a thing that wandered into a carefully-controlled environment and disrupted the balance with his mere presence. “You are lying.”

  “About which part?”

  “All of it.” Menace crept into his voice. “This body knows you to be an opportunist. He recognizes this attempt as a legitimate act on your part, backed up by years of data. But I can see through cracks that he cannot. He can see what you are really trying to do.”

  Wilco couldn’t keep the sly smile from creeping across his face. “That right? I’ve been told I’ve a pretty solid poker face.”

  “Solid enough to fool this body,” Sigurd said.

  “But not you?”

  “No.”

  Wilco’s smile widened. “The way you talk, almost like the two of you are two separate people.”

  Sig cocked his head, again regarding Wilco like he was a fly in the ointment. Then he jolted his head to the other side, tilting his ear to the air like he was listening for something. He crossed the room and placed his hand on a communications panel that no longer seemed operational. “They’re doing something. Captain Mao.” He locked Wilco in a deadly stare. “You are the distraction.”

  Wilco ran his hands down the sides of his body in a seductive way. “I can be very distracting.”

  Sigurd raised his hand. Wilco saw Sig’s palm glow with a blinding blue light just before dropping for cover behind Bayne. A row of control panels exploded behind him. He tipped the container on which Bayne lay, dropping the unconscious man to the deck with a thud.

  “Do it now,” Wilco said into his comm. “Or not at all.” He opened the lid of the container and dove inside. When it slammed shut, Wilco was swallowed in total darkness. The container was designed to transport radioactive materials mined from asteroids. Its shielding blocked all communications and, hopefully, the energy from Void attacks. Whether they would protect him from the force of Void attacks, Wilco did not know. But he was a planner, and, as such, fully planned to die in the coming seconds.

  He waited, taking each breath like it was his last. The calm was a lie. The moment just before the snare tightened around the rabbit’s throat. He didn’t want to die in the dark, inside a box. He wanted to die in the sky, warmth on his face, sun in his eyes.

  The hairs on his arm stood on end. Energy coursed through him, dancing across the surface of his skin. Then everything shook. His head slammed against the side of the container. He might have blacked out, but was unsure since he couldn’t see anything. The following silence felt like another lie. The moment after the snare tightened, but the rabbit could convince itself that it would be okay, the moment before the panic of strangulation.

  He lifted the lid.

  Sig was on his knees. His veins surged with energy, glowing like batteries beneath his skin. His face was taut with pain and anger and confusion, each emotion battling for control. “What was that?”

  Before Wilco could answer, someone else did so for him. “That was one hell of a wakeup call.” Bayne stood, his legs shaky, glowing with the same energy as Sigurd. He rolled his neck and swung his arms in circles, like he was warming up for a fight.

  Sigurd struggled to his feet, body shaking like he was in the throes of a seizure. “How are you standing? Why am I—”

  Bayne let out a yelp, a sudden burst of pleasure. “Hot damn, that’s some good juice!” He looked at Sigurd. “You were saying?”

  Sigurd clenched his jaw, anger winning out over the others. “What did you do?”

  Bayne shrugged as he turned to Wilco. “I’d ask that one. I have a vague feeling that I was sleeping. Weird. Don’t think I’ve slept in a while.”

  Wilco threw his legs over the edge of the container and dropped to the deck. “You’d have to ask the big brains if you want specifics. What I can gather is that they took some of the energy Bayne here pumped into our engine and they pumped it back into Bayne. Can’t tell you what’s wrong with you, though.”

  “Oh, I can,” Bayne said. “See, the three of us—Sig, me, Ayala—we’re a bit different. I know you can feel it. My energy is meant to create. Ayala destroys. You, I’m pretty sure, you’re a bit of both. So when they pumped you full of my juice—sorry, that sounds a bit crude—well, I corrupted you, as I’ve been known to do.”

  Sigurd dropped to his knees again. Bayne knelt in front of him, touching his cheek gently.

  “Why aren’t you like us?” Sig asked. “Why haven’t you joined the whole?”

  “The collective,” Bayne said. “I feel it calling me, pulling me.” He shrugged. “Don’t want to.”

  “It can’t be that simple.”

  “It is. It always is. Sigurd. Ayala. They’re organization types through and through. Gladly give themselves over for the sake of something bigger. Not me. And not that one back there.” He jutted a thumb over his shoulder at Wilco. “I reckon that’s why we’ve still got personalities and you’re a bit of blank slate. Not to worry. I think I can help you with that.”

  Bayne’s hand began to glow. It washed Sigurd’s face in a pale light and made him look like the chief again, like the man who would gladly charge a line of pirates with a blaster in each hand if it meant protecting those standing behind him. But that look melted away in a flash of fire.

  He grabbed Bayne’s wrist and punched him in the chest so hard it would have put a hole in the hull. Wilco drew his sword and rushed Sigurd’s flank, hoping he was in the Void zombie’s blind spot.

  He wasn’t.

  Sig’s leg swung around like an ax. Wilco brought his metal leg up just in time to meet it. The frame of his prosthetic limb bent against the force and he was thrown back several meters into the wall. Luckily, Sig seemed to regard Wilco as little more than a nuisance. His attention quickly shifted back to Bayne.

  “People always fight hardest in the end,” Bayne said. “Always seemed like a joke to me. If they had the guts to fight that hard when it mattered, then maybe it would have made a difference. The hell does it matter giving it everything you’ve got when you ain’t got nothing left?”

  “I have quite a bit left to give,” Sigurd said.

  Bayne clenched his fists and his entire body started to glow. Sigurd matched his stance. Both grew in intensity by the second, emanating more power, making the bridge of the already destroyed ship more inhospitable to a lowly (mostly) human like Wilco. Even so, knowing what was about to happen would likely kill him, Wilco didn’t say to Bayne, “Would you mind not blowing everything to hell until I’m a safe distance away?” He instead said, “Is it possible to fix him?”

  Bayne didn’t look away from Sig. “Wilco, I forgot you were there. You should probably go.”

  “Can you fix him? Without killing him?”

  Without the glow, one might have seen Drummond Bayne’s eyebrows arch in surprise, an emotion that, after dying and returning as a space god, he thought he might never feel again.

  “I don’t know.” He raised his arm out to his side and pointed an open palm at Wilco.

  Wilco suddenly found himself inside a structure lik
e the old pirate ship Bayne had been sailing when they first found him in The Shallows, something that felt and acted solid but was made of pure energy. It was an escape pod.

  “I’ve only just realized where we are,” Bayne said. “I do not like this ship. I like even less having to do the same thing twice.” With a flick of his wrist, Bayne sent the escape pod shooting out through a hole in the hull, one that wasn’t there a second ago, punched open with another act of god-like will.

  Before he was completely swallowed by black, Wilco saw Bayne and Sigurd charge at each other, their bodies bent like animals fighting over the last scrap of fertile ground. And then they erupted in a flash of light. A quiet death, it felt like. The universe yawned, and the reanimated corpse of the Black Hole slipped down its throat.

  A frantic voice cut through static. “Wil…co…read?”

  Wilco pressed his hands to his temples.

  “The hell…pened?”

  “I’m here,” Wilco said.

  Delphyne’s voice ripped through the interference from the explosion. “Did you just screw everything up?”

  He stared at the spot where the Black Hole had been moments ago. “I would like to say no…” But he didn’t honestly know if he could.

  9

  Hep felt like he’d just put a ball through his neighbor’s window. He stood frozen, certain he’d just done something wrong, knowing the reckoning was coming, and feeling totally unable to run from it. But there was doubt. “Did I do that?” He looked at Akari. “You followed the specs, right?”

  She narrowed her piercing eyes at him.

  “Of course you did. I just…” He stared at the monitor that hung in engineering. Hep had the idea to reroute power from the engines, power that Bayne had pumped into them, to weapons. Not for a concussive attack, nothing that would destroy the ship. They needed something to absorb and redirect the energy, like a lightning rod. The real stroke of genius was using the crate on which they transported Bayne. They siphoned a small amount of the energy from the engine into a modified core, nothing powerful enough to run a ship. It would draw like to like, attracting the blast and redirecting it outward in a wave rather than slamming into the ship like a wrecking ball.

  Theoretically. Hep had thought up the idea. Akari had made it happen. Dr. Elias had said it should work. Theoretically.

  Now, three of Hep’s friends were gone. As was their only hope of fighting off the Void.

  “All hands!” Mao shouted over the comms. “Battle stations!”

  Akari ripped her eyes from Hep like pulling a blade from his gut and began work on Plan B, which was redirecting what energy of Bayne’s they had left into weapons. They would confront the Void, do as much damage as possible, and provide cover for the rest of the fleet to escape.

  Hep barged onto the bridge. “I hate Plan B.”

  “Then you should have made Plan A work,” Delphyne said.

  “Are we sure it didn’t?”

  “Did you see the big flash of light?” Delphyne said. “That was Plan A not working. That was—” Her voice cracked.

  She didn’t need to finish. Hep knew what she was going to say. That was Sigurd dying. That was them losing Bayne as leverage.

  “We have Wilco in range,” Delphyne said. “Coming around.”

  “Wait, what?” Hep said.

  “Wilco escaped before the ship blew,” Delphyne said without looking up.

  “How?” Hep didn’t wait for an answer. He knew how. Bayne. He had the power to create ships from thought. “We need to scan the blast site.” No one acknowledged him. He assumed it was because they stood on the knife’s edge of annihilation, but a little part of him also thought it was because it was his idea that put them there. “Captain?”

  Mao bustled frantically around his command chair, barking orders at each member of the bridge crew as he passed, getting the ship ready for one last fight, a blaze of glory.

  Hep blocked his path. “They could still be alive. We may still have our leverage.”

  “Do you think the Void will give us time to search? If Bayne and Sig are alive, do you think the Void is not collecting them right now?” Mao’s eyes were a cocktail of rage and desperation. “We have no time. The fleet has no time.” He pushed past Hep and continued readying the ship. “One minute, and then we move on the Void front lines. We will use what energy we have left from Bayne’s charge to make for Central. Our goal is not victory. Our goal is to inflict as much hurt as we can and buy the fleet time to escape. Our goal is to ensure the survival of those who will continue the fight.”

  Hep ran off the bridge. He didn’t stop running until he reached the shuttle bay. He arrived just in time to see Wilco arrive through the airlock. The glowing escape pod entered the ship as if controlled by an invisible hand. It landed and disappeared, leaving Wilco standing alone.

  “What happened?” Hep said as the airlock doors opened. “What did you do?”

  “What did I do? I walked straight into the lion’s den with steaks hanging around my neck, that’s what I did. And this is the thanks I get?”

  “Thanks? You just doomed us all.”

  “When did the fate of humanity suddenly hinge on me?” Wilco pushed past Hep. “I said I could distract Sig. The rest was your idea.” He looked around, suddenly noticing the frantic activity around the shuttle bay. “I suppose we’re bound for certain death now?”

  “Mao is going to charge the front. He plans to make a suicide run for Central. Hopes to stab a needle in their heart and let the rest of the fleet escape.”

  “That’s dumb.”

  Hep was surprised that anything Wilco said could still surprise him. “Not brave or selfless? Just dumb?”

  “What’s it going to achieve? Even if the others get away, what are they going to do? Keep dropping ships in their path until they’ve got none left? They should all stand together right here. We just removed half of their strongest pieces from the board.”

  Hep winced at the indifference Wilco seemed to have for Sigurd. The two were never friendly, but they had once sailed together. Hep thought that would have at least meant a little. “Survival is all that matters now.”

  Wilco looked like he wanted to respond, but he didn’t get the chance. A warning sounded through the ship. They knew the sound well. They braced for impact. Something slammed into the ship. They recognized that feeling as well, the concussive force of something ramming nothing. Quite different than being hit with a blast.

  The personnel in the shuttle bay, deckhands trying to tie things down and secure vital machine parts, froze. Only a handful of them. Then a collective understanding seemed to dawn on them. An understanding of what was happening outside. Of what would happen to them in the coming minutes. They shared a sense of impending death, exchanged looks as if to say good-bye. Hep felt as if he was eavesdropping on a private conversation.

  “They Void is ramming the ship,” Hep said, experiencing his own sense of sudden understanding. “Most of those zombie ships are half-destroyed. They don’t have any weapons.”

  Wilco understood then, too. “They’re just going to throw themselves at us until we crack apart. The air is too crowded. We’ll never make it to Central.”

  “Unless we clear a path.”

  Wilco didn’t answer.

  “I thought you wanted to fight back,” Hep said.

  “I wanted a plan with a reasonable chance of success. This is still suicide.”

  “Better than rolling over and waiting to die.”

  Wilco slapped Hep on the shoulder. “Good point. I know we’ve wanted to kill each other for a long time, but I think I might like you again.”

  “I never wanted to kill you.”

  “Yes, you did.”

  “…yeah, I did.” The exchange felt easy, easier than it had for a long, long time. Hep could barely remember a time his body wasn’t tightened with anxiety or anger just being in Wilco’s presence. Now, facing the end, his muscles were loose, his mind clear. He always knew he wou
ld die at Wilco’s side. Maybe he’d just never accepted it. Taking it as a certainty, it put him at ease.

  Hep returned the friendly shoulder slap as he walked past Wilco. “Bet I can drop more than you.”

  Wilco laughed. “Have you not seen me fly before? No, more pertinent, have you seen you fly before?”

  “What’s wrong with my flying?”

  “Nothing,” Wilco said, walking toward the shuttle adjacent the one Hep was now boarding. “It’s perfectly acceptable for an engineer.”

  Hep sat in the cockpit and keyed on the control panel. “Funny.” The cockpit closed around him. He opened communications.

  “Because it’s true,” Wilco said through comms. “But I’ll take your bet. Loser dies in the cold vacuum of space and probably gets resurrected as a mindless zombie. Winner probably also does that.”

  Hep keyed in a request to open the shuttle bay doors.

  “Mind filling me in on what you’re doing?” Mao’s voice was tight, empty of humor.

  “Is that a real question, Tally?” Wilco said. Hep could feel the tension through the comm. “No?” Wilco asked the silence. “Not a fan? Thought I’d try it out as it’s likely to be my last chance. Captain Mao it is.”

  “We’re clearing a path, sir,” Hep said.

  The sigh that came through the other end of the comm was like a break in the storm, a sudden rush of cool air that pushed the tension out to sea. “Very well. Do some damage.” There was a pause. “I have my money on Wilco.”

  The shock was audible. Both pilots yelped their surprise.

  “You wound me, Captain,” Hep said.

  The shuttle bay doors opened. They piloted the starfighters into open space and took up flanking positions on either side of the Blue. The Void fleet was a wall before them. If he squinted, Hep could start to distinguish individual ships for just a moment before they all blended fuzzily together, like a swarm of mayflies.