Renegades: Origins

by Kal Spriggs

  “And the same goes for Malta,” Ariadne said. “And for both we’d need to go back through a number of Chxor systems.”

  “Whereas if we go on to 567X43, it’ll take thirty six days and then we’ll have two options, continue to Danar or go up to the independent colony in the Crow system.”

  “No relation,” Crowe drawled.

  Mike ignored the interruption. “We don’t know what we might find at Crow, or even if the colony is still there. The Sao Martino never went up that way, and none of the records show much more than the fact that there was a colony there. From 567X43, it’s eleven more days to Danar. We can make the Nova Roma system in four days after that.”

  “So we go to Nova Roma, then?” Simon asked.

  “That looks to be the best option,” Mike answered. “So unless any of you have any big reasons to avoid it, I think that our best option is there.”

  “Well, other than one glaring fact,” Eric said. He gave a sigh, “You do realize that we may actually need that Ambassador now, right?”

  “Huh, I’d forgotten about her,” Mike said. “Well, if she becomes an issue, we can always vent her out the airlock.”

  Eric snorted, “Don’t worry about her, I’ll manage her.” Everyone stared at him. “What, you don’t think I have people skills?” He smiled as he thought of how he had managed her so far. Perhaps more time with her would give him the perfect opportunity. I bet she’s all pent up inside…

  “Eric…” Ariadne spoke slowly, as if she had to choose her words carefully. “We know you try, but sometimes…”

  “Look, I said I can handle her,” Eric snapped. “And if I need any help, I’ll let you know, right?”

  “Okay…” Ariadne shook her head.

  “I have a question,” Anubus growled, “Since we are, as you all say, partners. What happened with Ghost’s corpse?”

  “I saw the Wrethe’s armor and weapons in the armory,” Eric answered after a moment. “I’m not sure who put it there.”

  “Oh, I stripped its gear and armor,” Simon said. “I wasn’t sure what to do with it after that.”

  “What about the body?” Anubus growled. “I worked up something of an appetite.”

  “Ew,” Ariadne said. “Don’t Wrethe have some kind of funeral practice or something?”

  “We do, we eat our vanquished foes,” Anubus growled.

  “Right,” Mike said. “Uh, what did you do with the body Simon?”

  “I didn’t touch it after that, I just left it there,” Simon answered, “It’s not like I wanted to mess with the corpse or anything.”

  Eric glanced at Run, “You doing some experimentation you need to tell us about?”

  “I have no need to tell you about any of my experiments. Your lack of understanding would make that a pointless endeavor,” Run said. He took a step back as Anubus advanced. “I will however, state that I did not touch the Wrethe corpse.”

  “That’s not the same as saying you didn’t have someone else drag it off.” Pixel noted.

  “Do you have any Wrethe corpses stashed away aboard the ship?” Mike asked with a tone that suggested his patience had expired. Well, Eric had to admit that the way Mike’s hand had dropped to his pistol suggested that as well. Of course, Eric thought, he’s got his damned finger in the trigger well, again. It would be a terrible shame if their captain managed to shoot his foot off.

  Run paused in thought for a moment, “No, I do not.”

  Mike sighed and rubbed at his forehead. “Right, someone find out where our dead Ghost went.” He lowered his hand, “Ariadne, start a plot for our jump. Pixel, start preparations for your repairs… how long will you need?”

  “I can use the time on route to the next system to make the preparations. After that…” Pixel frowned, “Maybe fourteen hours to repair the coils. I would suggest we go to the outer system, where we can conduct repairs with less of a chance of discovery.”

  “Alright,” Mike said. “Sounds like a plan. Anyone else got anything?”

  “Guys, are we sure we want to go back?” Rastar asked. “I mean, we’re doing alright without civilization. Why not stay out here longer?”

  Eric frowned, “Buddy, we’re barely on the edge of survival. We all nearly died because of this pirate and we have limited supplies.”

  “But we’ve had so much fun, I would hate to see that come to an end,” Rastar said.

  Eric frowned. He remembered how many Chxor they’d killed, and to tell the truth, he had found their fight with Ghost full of excitement. Other than the whole thing with Pixel’s injury, he amended. “Well, even so, we need supplies. Don’t worry about the whole Ghornath thing, I’m sure the Nova Romans won’t hold it against you.”

  “I might hold it against some of them,” Rastar growled and his hide flushed deep red.

  “We don’t have a whole lot of options, it’s there or the Centauri Confederation or Tannis,” Mike said.

  “Nova Roma is better than those,” Rastar said. “I just fear that our group will go its separate ways once we arrive, you know?”

  Eric patted Rastar on the shoulder, “Don’t worry, big guy, wherever you go, I’ll stick with you.”

  The big Ghornath looked down at him, and for a moment, Eric remembered his last team. The men who had stood with him on his final mission as a Commando. The men that Andreysiak had killed to keep Blackthorn’s secrets safe. He had viewed them as brothers, despite their flaws. The Centauri Confederation had betrayed their loyalty, but Eric still felt he had failed them. If only he had figured things out then, instead of later. If only he had made one right decision in that series of wrong ones…

  He would not make the same mistakes, not again. As he looked around at the mixed group, he realized that these people had become his new team, and for better or worse, he possessed that rarest of things: a second chance.

  For just a moment, the ghosts of his past went quiet.

  Fool’s Gold

  The Renegades (Short Story)

  Anubus figured his safest long term option lay in the murder of the entire crew.

  Unfortunately, in the short term, he required them alive. He knew little enough in regards to navigation much less engineering or half the other flight systems. Anubus figured the others realized that which explained why they disregarded his threats so far.

  As he sat with his back secured in the corner he did another quick threat analysis of the crew lounge. Mike stood with his back to the tank of water with the eel. Anubus had observed the human’s poorly hidden fear of either the water or eel or both. He thought the ploy too obvious to consider a true weakness, which made him wonder why the Captain bothered. Anubus also found the tank a source of annoyance, mostly at the others insistence that ‘Rainbow’ vanished when motionless.

  He could not understand how the others might not sense the Arcavian Fighting Eel. Even if Anubus couldn’t see the eel, he could smell the creature’s scent on the water from across the room. More than that, he could hear its heartbeat, a slow, rhythmic pump that could have almost lulled him into a relaxed state.

  Fortunately, the incessant chatter of his companions countered that hypnotic beat. Their scents assaulted his nostrils even as their rapid movements drew his gaze. They smelled like food, and they acted like it too, and it took considerable self control for him not to indulge in the buffet that they presented.

  Instead, Anubus forced himself to take shallow breaths and walk slowly towards Eric’s buffet. The scents there did not smell nearly as delectable, for he could not sense the blood just under the skin, ready for his jaws to plunge into the hot flesh…

  I need to work on my self control, he thought, or just kill someone, either would do.

  That reminded him that he had not finished off Ghost, Eric had taken that prize. Worse, the others insisted that they did not know what had happened to the corpse. Simon had gone as far as to accuse Anubus of the body’s theft and consumption. Anubus thought it a ruse of some sort, perhaps designed to frustrate h
im. He had prowled the entire ship, but though he caught traces of Ghost’s scent, they seemed faint, and grew fainter as time passed.

  “Anubus,” Crowe gave him a nod from the buffet table. The human had a substantial mix of greens and some other, non-meat, items. Anubus couldn’t help but wrinkle his muzzle at that.

  “What do you want?” Anubus growled. He realized that the distraction of the prey-scents and prey-movements of the crew had pulled him away from his measure of threats. A clever action, on their parts, he thought, for it kept him on edge and made it difficult to focus.

  He forced himself to look Crowe over as another predator, despite the obvious herbivore choices of meal. The human stood taller than most of the others, all except Eric. Yet Crowe seemed the least physical of the others, and Anubus had seen him engage in their hunt only once. This would have made Anubus downgrade him as a threat, yet the other man seemed to have a remarkable survival instinct. More, he moved with far greater stealth than the other humans, and seemed to view the others as expendable, which made for the possibility that he would bait a trap with one of the others should he and Anubus square off.

  Not that it would save him, Anubus thought. He had hid enough of his own abilities that he felt confident he could kill Crowe should it become either necessary or simply opportune.

  “Just saying hello,” Crowe said lightly. “I heard that Pixel plans to start his work prepping for the reactor coil rebuild tomorrow, I guess you must be pretty unhappy over that, huh?”

  Anubus cocked his head, the other man’s attempt to provoke him seemed to obvious for it to be anything but a ruse, but Anubus couldn’t see where the human’s line of questions would lead, so he decided to play along. “Whatever it makes me, I have agreed,” he growled.

  “You have, but I can tell you, it doesn’t seem right, you know?” Crowe said, his voice low. “I mean, you worked hard for that gold, you’ve protected it, hell, you moved most of it throughout our trip. It should be your choice, not Mike’s.”

  Anubus drew his lips back in what a charitable human might have called a smile. Anyone else would have seen it his bare fangs as the threat it truly meant, “If you seek to play me against the Captain in some game, you’re painfully obvious. I do not appreciate your assumption that I am so easily manipulated.”

  Crowe took a step back. Anubus could taste the sweat that beaded the man’s skin, and scent the metallic taste of fear in the air. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to come across that way at all.”

  “I’m sure,” Anubus growled. He realized that he had dropped into hunting mode, and forced himself to sheath his claws. The others would react poorly if I disemboweled him at dinner, Anubus thought, and then I might not restrain myself from further…excitement.

  He stalked past Crowe and went to where the meats lay out. Eric had called them something fancy, but he viewed them as burned food. He didn’t mind scorched prey, but only when he killed it himself. Anubus particularly liked the taste that plasma weapons left on the meat, the crispy on the outside still moist on the inside texture just completed the taste experience.

  As he selected the least burned items and put them on a plate, he unfocused his eyes and studied the others. The smell of the meat calmed him, and overpowered the other scents in the room, which made it easier to focus on the others as threats rather than just prey.

  The Ghornath Rastar made the most obvious threat. He stood over three meters in height, and massed over three hundred kilograms, Anubus estimated. Further, his four arms had bulky muscle and he had already shown his fighting prowess and an explosive temper. His simpleton charade at friendship to all irritates me though, Anubus thought, I know it’s a ruse, but I’m not sure what he hides under that act. Worst of all, the horrid Hawaiian shirts that Rastar had found among the former Ghornath crew’s possessions assaulted his eyes, the bright patterns clashed so perfectly as to cause Anubus physical pain if he focused on him. Also, the Ghornath had showed an as yet unknown ability to heal from his wounds. I’ll figure it out soon enough, and take it for myself. Any fair fight with Rastar would pose a substantial risk, Rastar certainly did not seem prey, but another hunter. Except that Rastar acted like prey, which gave Anubus a headache as if he’d looked at the shirt too long.

  Anubus thought he could handle Rastar, if only through an ambush attack.

  His focus ranged from the former policeman Simon to the mercenary Eric and then to some of the passengers and those not yet fully admitted to the crew, such as the two females Mandy and Miranda. Both had combat experience, though he suspected they would find him a greater threat than the Chxor they had fought before. The dark haired Micheal Santangel from Saragossa seemed cunning, and he stalked with a certain poise that suggested a fellow hunter, yet his attention seemed focused too much on the Nova Roman female Ambassador, which meant that Anubus could probably use her as a distraction to make the kill.

  Some of the others, particularly the two Nova Roma marines might pose a threat, though Mike’s insistence that they have access only to whatever weapons they had taken in their escape meant that most lacked weapons. Even as he thought that, he heard a scrap of conversation between Mike and Ariadne, “…Illario and Duello both want to join. Duello’s a merc, Illario’s a former ganger, both from Nova Roma, I’ve already interviewed them, but I’d like you to check them out.”

  Anubus nodded at that, it only made sense that the psychic would read their minds. He raised his expectation of the Captain yet again at the man’s forethought. He planned to use Ariadne as his secret enforcer, someone who could bend minds and ferret out their secrets would make any move against Mike almost impossible.

  Of the others in the room, Illario and Eric seemed the most dangerous at first glance. He had seen the scars that covered the former ganger. The stocky, heavily muscled, human also seemed very proficient with the knives he wore, which varied from the paring knife he ate with to the machete he had strapped to his side. Still, Anubus felt the other human would stand little chance if Anubus chose to hunt him.

  Eric, on the other hand, seemed focused on ranged weapons and under other circumstances, Anubus might have killed the human at the first opportunity. Yet the narrow confines of the ship eliminated his advantage in the ranged hunt. Anubus felt that Eric would require a careful stalk, but success would follow.

  Of them all he viewed the small blonde female human Ariadne as the greatest threat. He had already seen what one psychic could do when their Chxor prisoner Krann revealed her abilities. It had held Rastar, Eric and Ariadne at bay while it controlled Mike. While Ariadne might have such proficiency, she had already shown herself extremely dangerous. Her ability with telepathy and her pyrokenetics combined, as well has her odd precognitive flashes made her a difficult threat to quantify. His own abilities to heal himself were at a disadvantage against her abilities.

  Anubus felt certain that if he could get her within arms reach that he could kill her. She massed only fifty kilograms at most. Yet he wondered if he could get her within arms reach. Worse, she acted as prey might and seemed to show what Anubus could only consider actual care and affection to others. In anyone else, he would have considered that a weakness, yet when she viewed someone or something a threat to those she cared about…she unleashed her inner hunter.

  Ariadne the hunter scared Anubus.

  * * *

  The edge taken off his hunger if not entirely satisfied, Anubus returned to his normal post. The others might have expected him to return to the cabin and sleep, and at times he did so, if only to maintain that cover. In truth, like most Wrethe, Anubus did not need sleep. He could put himself into a semi-trance state while he put portions of his brain to sleep.

  Which meant he could stand watch indefinitely, other than the need to eat or relieve himself. And of course the paramount need to hunt. Which he somewhat satisfied with his post.

  The stack of gold bars appeared untouched since he left his vigil earlier. Even so, Anubus cautiously scented the air outside the door. H
e fully opened his senses as he stepped into the narrow room which housed the treasure.

  The others might have found it odd to see his ‘fur’ stand on end, and then to shift, as if in a breeze. They could not have known that each follicle sensed vibrations in the air, which allowed him to hear the heartbeats of the passengers down the corridor and the thrum of the reactor deeper in the ship. He sensed no sign of movement nearby, so Anubus did what he knew any individual might do. He seared the immediate area for traps and the likely ambush that awaited.

  That took ten or fifteen minutes.

  Once Anubus felt certain that the others had not initiated their move against him, he did his final check. He counted each of the three hundred bars that made up the stack. This required him to move the entire stack, but he had already moved them all to verify no concealed bomb or bug lay within the pile of gold. It took Anubus an hour to replace all of the bars in proper order and to verify their weight and heft and to examine them to ensure no one had removed portions.

  His examination of his position complete, Anubus settled down to his stalk of prey. He crouched, ready, in the shadows of the corner near the door. With a slight effort, his ‘fur’ changed colors to match the shadowed gray bulkhead behind him. He thought that he had managed to keep this a secret from his companions. They knew of his stealth and speed, but he did not think any had caught him when he allowed himself to alter his pattern.

  Anubus knew that the wealth would draw someone eventually. Wealth, as he knew, represented strength. Strength in turn represented security. All creatures needed security in order to survive, and as Anubus knew all too well, all creatures, both prey and predators wanted to survive.

  So someone would risk themselves, sooner or later, for the gold, if only for the security that it would bring them later.

  And then, Anubus would make his kill.

  Anubus let his conscious mind drift to sleep with that pleasant thought.

  * * *

  “You’ll never survive if you remain prey,” October growled. The big Wrethe loomed over Anubus. The golden brown pelt showed October’s age, for a lattice of scars showed October’s battle experience with dark streaks that gave the big Wrethe a tiger striped appearance.