Flight of the Reaper

by J. N. Chaney

  "My analysis suggests that there is no direct action you can take, Reaper Cain," X-37 said.

  "Fuck it! I'll just have to use my words, won't I?" I snapped at my limited artificial intelligence and anyone who cared to listen.

  "Are you sure, Captain?" Jelly asked. "Your record for diplomacy is spotty."

  The bridge went so silent that I thought I could hear the cold darkness of space causing the hull to creak around us. I'd been told during my training that this was a trick of the mind and was impossible. And yet here we were, listening to the most ominous sounds imaginable while traveling the void.

  "Open a channel. Everyone work on our escape and evasion options. This will get nasty. We’ll make a run for it as soon as we drop back into stealth mode," I said.

  "I am hailing the UFS Dark Lance now," Jelly advised.

  "Halek Cain," came a deep, gruff voice I recognized.

  "What's up, Nebs?" I knew my disrespectful tone would infuriate the man.

  To my surprise, he held himself in check, clenching his fist rather than punch something. "You really do have a death wish, don't you?" he asked. "I will give you one chance to surrender. At this point in our relationship, that is a mere formality. We both know how this will go."

  I stretched out the moment as long as possible, stalling for time. The slightest mistake would end badly for everyone. I needed time to think, and this was one of those moments where self-restraint was probably the best course.

  We had already lost three shuttles. I saw Elise gesturing that the Bold Freedom was heading toward safety, using whatever debris they could read for cover. It was difficult not to stare at the holo displays. I thought the ship could make it into a debris field, where it had a chance to hide or at least slow pursuit, but I couldn't be sure. There was a real chance the two stealth carriers would destroy it.

  "I've been shot, stabbed, burned, and left for dead so many times, it's hard for me to keep all the details straight," I said. "So if you're going to threaten me, save your breath."

  Nebs stared into the holo view. "Surely you understand things are different this time. I had a long, interesting talk with my advisers about your strange connection with these murderous traitors. They hijacked that monstrosity of a junk hauler, betrayed the Union and now you’re here to help them escape the consequences of their actions."

  "The people on that ship are innocent," I insisted.

  "Let's agree to disagree," he said. "My records show every one of them is guilty of a capital crime."

  I snapped my next response. "Like the children born on Dreadmax? I bet you didn't factor them in. Or maybe you did, you sick son-of-a-bitch."

  "Listen, Cain. You're pissing me off. Surrender now and I'll only punish you, your X-37 unit, and the girl," he said.

  "No deal. What the hell is wrong with you? That's your idea of negotiating?"

  "Then everyone dies," Nebs said. "The only question is when and how. You could've stopped this. You might've saved thousands of lives, but you're just a murdering assassin after all."

  "You started the Reaper Corps. You made me what I am. And that's going to cost you," I said, then reached forward to end the call.

  "I ordered the hit on your father. Felt good about it. He was another traitor to the Union," Nebs said, leaning into the holo view. "Just another coward who wouldn’t follow orders."

  My blood ran cold.

  "Surrender now and I’ll tell you where we put your mother," Nebs promised.

  Elise slammed both fists on her workstation, vaulting to her feet to shout at the man. "I’ll kill you myself, you worthless piece of—"

  I terminated the conversation with Nebs before Elise could spin up into a rage-inspired fury and do something even I would consider reckless.

  10

  "He's trying to bait us, draw us into making a stupid mistake," I said.

  "And it’s working, Reaper Cain," X-37 advised privately. "Your current biometrics match similar readings from previous incidents of murderous rage."

  I ignored my LAI. My vision pulsed in time with my heartbeat. I clenched my fists—real and cybernetic—hard enough to hurt.

  My young kinda sorta protege was having her own reaction and less success controlling it.

  Nostrils flaring, gaze locked on the man ready to send an army after us, Elise rolled her eyes and crossed her arms. "Then he'll get more than he bargained for. Give me a suit of Archangel armor and I'll smack him around like we did that centipede monster on Wallach. Nebs is scared, I can hear it in his voice. Loudmouthed son-of-a-razor beast."

  The man wasn't the least bit afraid of us, and as for the Archangel gear, I'd been through the same thing where a shiny new tool seemed like the greatest thing since the invention of the slip drive. I knew she understood the obvious problem with the logic, but she wanted new toys and she wanted them now. I kind of did too, but we needed to get real.

  "Alright, Locke, what’s your opinion? Do you think Nebs is scared of us?" I asked, calming my anger with each breathing cycle.

  The Chief Squad Leader of General Karn’s army took his time answering. I respected him for that. Nothing I'd seen since we met gave me any reason to doubt he deserved his rank as the highest and most qualified team leader of Wallach. He wasn’t the type to be baited or rush to failure.

  "I've seen enough of you and Elise to be impressed. I don't know that much about the Archangels, but I know that they have to be good. Even if you have the same gear, you'll be outnumbered."

  "I know that," Elise complained. "But are you seriously telling me we’d be better off with our old armor and weapons? This guy needs a kick in the dick!"

  "The first problem is time. The second problem is all the things that will go wrong when we start training with completely new gear." I hesitated, not sure how far I should take my negativity. I needed to lay out the stakes, not crush their spirits.

  Elise raised an eyebrow that suggested she wanted to say "We're waiting."

  "Let me lay it out like this," I said. "We still have to deal with the artificial intelligence running the Nightmare. Necron is weak but still dangerous. Best case scenario, we convert the AI to our cause. Even then, we still have to defeat Nebs, who has his own limited artificial intelligence, possibly in some sort of dual or quad LAI that has specifically built itself up to deal with Reapers like me."

  "There are no other Reapers like you," X-37 said privately. "That's not actually a compliment, in case you were wondering. Please consider it more of a warning that you're pretty broken down at this late stage in the game."

  "Not helpful, X," I grumbled, then resumed my lecture. "We have to defeat the rest of the carrier group, including the micro-fighters and two stealth carriers. All of that we have to do while not getting destroyed by the unknowns of the system, including scavengers who I don't trust. They may have a superweapon out there that may or may not work. Something destroyed all the ships in the system. And, to top things off, we have to avoid the comet."

  "Anything else?" Elise asked.

  "I still don’t have a lighter," I said.

  "You’re such a dork," she said, shaking her head. "And not in a good way."

  Elise and the others went back to work. We all had jobs, even if we disagreed about our larger strategy. Henshaw and the AI of his ship, the Lady Faith, were able to neutralize Necron for the time being. That made the situation on the Nightmare a standoff. Not great, but not a total disaster.

  The Bold Freedom worked its way deeper into the debris field, always attempting to move as close as possible to a slip tunnel without exposing itself to attack from the stealth ships.

  I stayed on the Jellybird with Elise and everyone who had helped refuel the Bold Freedom. For now, the ship stealth mode was equal to the two union carriers hunting us. From time to time, Nebs taunted me. Elise had standing orders not to answer without consulting me.

  "We're receiving another hail from the Dark Lance," Elise announced. "How do you want to proceed? This is the eighteenth a
ttempt they’ve made since you oh so maturely hung up on Nebs."

  "I need to move forward on my plan," X-37 said to me privately.

  "What you have in mind, X," My LAI was good, but I needed to know more.

  "The plan is to insert small snippets of code into the maintenance routines of all Union ships in Nebs’s fleet. If it works, it will make getting access to the ships much easier when the time comes," X-37 said. "To implement this strategy, I will need a periodic connection via their ship-to-ship communications systems."

  "I'm down with that," I said. "Elise, put Nebs on the holo."

  "Do not terminate this connection without my permission,” Nebs blurted the moment we connected. Red-faced and blustering, he was already pissing me off. Screw this guy.

  I raised one hand to kill the link.

  "I need you to talk to him for at least a little while," X-37 advised before I could complete the action. "It will actually be easier while the two of you are arguing and insulting each other."

  "Okay, Junior Admiral Nebs. Anything for you," I said, meaning anything for X.

  "That isn't even a real rank," Nebs practically snarled. "If you're going to insult me, do it like a man, not with these childish jabs. Turn over the girl before this gets ugly. Surrender your ship and your crew immediately."

  "I'm not surrendering anyone to your custody. And I'm not going to stop believing you're a washed out has-been who can't compete in regular Union politics," I goaded.

  "What the hell are you talking about?" Nebs’s anger was slowly giving way to caution.

  Good job, asshat. You’re learning.

  "Why else would you be this far out just to bully refugees as helpless as little kids?" I asked.

  "We've been through that," he shot back. "None of these people are innocent. If they were, they would just surrender and face justice…"

  "You're a real piece of work," I interrupted.

  "… just like these feral scavengers hopping around these debris clouds," Nebs presumed.

  "Why don't you leave them out of it," I said. "You've already shot down at least one of their shuttles without provocation. That's a war crime, in case you forgot."

  "Please! You’re going to lecture me about the ethics of war?" Nebs countered. "Remember that woman you threw off the bridge, Novasdaughter’s mother?"

  "Hey, you're a murdering psychopath. Don’t try to switch it around just because I’m a Reaper. Not even the Union would allow you to wage your own private war on civilians," I challenged. "That’s what cowardly junior admirals do."

  "You have no idea what the Union would authorize. It's your fault these people are involved. Their blood is on your hands," Nebs said, then gave a hand signal to someone off-screen.

  Rockets swarmed from the UFS Dark Lance, tearing into three distinct debris fields. Modified shuttles and escape pods exited from the chaos, only to drift into the void without hope of rescue.

  "You can't do that. What the actual fuck, you lunatic!"

  "I have actionable intelligence they are hiding a secret weapon to be used against the Union during a lawful expedition," Nebs said. "Don't be naïve, Cain. These people are obviously pirates. Are you not seeing what's happening in this system? All of these fleets fell victim to their ambushes. Take a look at the planets in this system. Why do you think they live in debris clouds instead of the two planets in the green zone? You're a fool if you think they're your friends."

  I cursed and made threats, but none of it stopped the saturation bombing of the scavengers’ pathetic homes. Small explosions grew. With no atmosphere to slow the expanding debris clouds, the effect was spectacular—dozens of explosions expanding thousands of meters in the blink of an eye.

  In time, the system would be filled with detritus moving in all directions, crossing paths and colliding violently until gravity wells of planets stabilized their courses. In the most extreme instances, this would take years or decades. Other debris fields were much closer together and were already exploding with chaos.

  "Jelly, shields," I ordered.

  "Right away, Captain," Jelly said.

  Moments later, detritus from the unprovoked attack peppered our shields despite our stand-off distance from the incident.

  "Are you crying, Reaper?" Nebs mocked.

  From the corner of my vision, I saw Elise snap her gaze toward me. She said nothing, but I noticed how hard her youthful visage had become the moment Nebs began the mass murder of innocent bystanders.

  "Like I said, Reaper. This is your fault." The fake, patronizing smile he’d adopted slid from his expression to reveal what kind of man he was—hard and soulless. "If you think that was bad, wait until I get my hands on the Bold Freedom."

  11

  I stared at expanding clouds of debris. It was like Nebs had stirred the entire system, sending pieces of old ships on journeys that would last hundreds of years. Chaos like I’d never seen blossomed as we watched.

  Stunned into silence, Elise summarized our entire situation with one of her amazingly juvenile—but poignantly accurate—observations. "This guy is such an asshole."

  "News of this will cause all of Wallach to mourn, even though these people are strangers to us," Locke said softly.

  "Jelly, X, search for survivors and distress calls. We’ve got work to do," I ordered.

  "Rescue attempts will be difficult with the Union hunting you and killing people indiscriminately," X-37 said.

  I was too tired and heartbroken to say something shitty. "I know, X, but we’ll do what we can."

  "There are twenty-seven distinct crises we might affect positively," X-37 said.

  "Pick one," I grunted, swiping through data that made me angrier and angrier. The scavengers had hidden themselves well and there were a lot more of them than I would've guessed. I saw a destroyed greenhouse, a broken shipyard, and modular habits gone dark.

  "Would you like me to mute the distress calls?" X-37 addressed me privately. "Your biometrics indicate you are quite disturbed. I wouldn't ask, but your heart rate and blood pressure are reaching a level that will affect your performance and possibly your health."

  I looked at my companions and saw they were also disturbed by the screams for help of men, women, and children. The worst were the ones that cut off suddenly when their ships or life pods violently decompressed from accumulated damage.

  A small piece of a ship that was moving very fast from one of the explosions zipped through a larger container. I had assumed the dark hulk was without power but it now appeared to be the home for hundreds of people in some sort of secret, long-term life module. Debris and bodies streamed out of a hole caused by the collision.

  "Just lower the volume and try to filter the most relevant information," I said. "Elise, I want you monitoring Union search and destroy efforts. Locke, keep your eye on the big picture and strategy issues."

  "Did you miss the part of my title that indicates I am a squad leader and not a strategist?" Locke asked, a trace of grim battlefield humor lightening the mood just enough to keep us all going.

  "Right, Locke. You're just a simple soldier and not one of the premier professionals of Wallach," I said.

  A few minutes later, we were all busy trying to keep ourselves alive and save others.

  "We are approaching the first distress call," Jelly said. "A small ship identifying itself as the Badger, whatever that is, as a hull breach that can only be fixed from the outside. They don't have EVA capabilities."

  I addressed my entire team, not just those on the bridge of the Jellybird with me. "Horvath and Carrie, you're up. Time to take care of business."

  Carrie responded, sounding like she was suited up and ready to go. "We’re in the airlock and just need the vector and closing speed calculations. Horvath and I have been monitoring this one and think it should be a straightforward fix as long as we don't take a rocket to the face."

  "I'm sending the information to your HUD displays now," Jelly said.

  I watched and listened, but als
o scanned for Union ships and other distress beacons.

  "There is something else," Horvath said, his voice husky.

  I thought he sounded like a man bringing up something personal before battle knowing it wasn't the time and place but unable to resist the impulse.

  "I located Gunner's beacon," he said. "It's easy to pick out from all the rest. It shows up as a yellow dot on my HUD when everything else is red, green, or orange."

  "Focus on the living, Horvath. We'll do what we can for him when we can," Locke instructed.

  The Chief Squad Leader of Wallach had just taken the words right out of my mouth. I looked for the next crisis and a solution, hoping Horvath would be okay on the spacewalk and that he would eventually get the body of his friend back for Gunner's family.

  It wasn't long before Horvath and Carrie were gliding toward the exterior of the damaged vessel, each of them carrying a large backpack of tools. They didn't talk any more than they needed to, going directly to the problem and beginning repairs like they had worked together for years.

  "Hells," Horvath grunted.

  "What happened?" I asked.

  "Gunner’s beacon just went dark. It was floating through a cluster of small ships that weren’t sending distress signals. These damned scavengers picked up his body," Horvath said.

  "Concentrate on your mission," Locke interjected. "We’ll investigate later. Don’t jump to conclusions."

  I pulled Locke into a private channel. "What’s the problem?"

  "I caught Horvath and some others in a chat room speculating that all the scavengers had to be cannibals. That’s what is really bothering him. Losing Gunner to the void is one thing. The thought of his body being eaten is another."

  "That’s a lot of assuming on not much information," I said.

  "Is it? What do they eat in these debris fields?" Locke asked. "I’ll handle Horvath. Just be aware of where his head is pointed."

  "Where his head is at," I corrected, then regretted it. Our languages were very similar but didn’t always match up.

  "How are you doing, Horvath?" Locke asked.