A King Word And a Gun

by Yuri Hamaganov

  At first, the new government pondered over selling Boddicker to its former bosses, but he persuaded them not to do that but to instead take him to Venus, where his skills would be extraordinarily useful to them in the conditions of a new, extremely harsh world. The colonists agreed, and this was a big mistake—as soon as he came aboard the Columbia, Boddicker escaped and captured the ship, using several former accomplices who had served Father Washington and stood under the banner of the new ruler. Only then did the fathers of New Heaven tell the Supernova about who was among their flock—and this was the second big mistake, for the corporation’s bosses were serious about getting rid of their former employee, as well as all those with whom he could communicate. The assault was carried out in such a way to guarantee that the Columbia would crash into the garbage asteroid. The few who survived then also disappeared, and the history of New Heaven was quickly lost in a row of endless tragedies of war. But the story of Boddicker and Elizabeth was just beginning.

  The stewardess related that not all the passengers of the Columbia had been killed in the shipwreck and that some, perhaps, were still alive. Boddicker, well aware that he couldn’t hide from his former owners, was preparing in advance for an emergency landing at the Big Dump. There, among the drifting debris, a different criminal element had long been gathering, gradually settling in garbage asteroids and erecting long-term bases. And now, after the dump grew day by day, gradually turning into Tartar, the gangsters considered the L2 point to be their sole possession, where, fearing mines and debris, the Navy wouldn’t sail. It was there that Boddicker led a doomed ship, in advance having conspired with the local authorities about shelter.

  Knowing that disaster was imminent, Boddicker and his men ordered the passengers to take their places in the rescue capsules, and then, when the military attacked the transport, they turned to the battering ram, sending the ship to the nearest garbage asteroid. The capsules allowed most of the passengers to get out of the dying ship, but Boddicker's allies were already waiting for them.

  Leaving a lot of mutilated bodies at the crash site and a few dozen survivors to slow down the search for the military, the bandits led the hostages into the depths of the Big Dump, following their secret paths where no one else could safely pass. There, in the center of the garbage cluster, the fugitive scientist was already waiting for the King of the Big Dump—Lord Isaac, one of the first space pirates, for many years considered the most dangerous gangster of near-Earth space.

  Of course, Boddicker didn’t receive shelter and protection for free. In those days, the technology of Changing was only beginning its victorious procession, and to get a hold of its components was the dream of any bandit. And here, Isaac had in his hands one of the godfathers of the Changing, and the Lord intended to use his unexpected luck under the full program. To begin with, Boddicker had to make the Lord and his henchmen immortal and eternally young. And then, when the work of the scientist was crowned with complete success, the Lord ordered Boddicker to create for him an army of intrepid and invulnerable soldiers, ready to unconditionally obey any order of his master. Boddicker, of course, gave his consent, and transports with equipment and materials came to Tartar in a roundabout way, because the increased scale of work required the most modern laboratories. He didn’t lack any biological material—the concentration camps at the Citadel of Lord Isaac contained more than two thousand passengers from the Columbia, as well as prisoners from dozens of other ships.

  Realizing the fate that the Lord was preparing for them, the prisoners instigated a spontaneous uprising led by the senior officer of the Columbia. They had nothing to lose, and with hand-made weapons, and even with bare hands, the rebels attacked the Lord's soldiers in a desperate attempt to capture the Citadel and get to the ships.

  A long time later, legends were written about a brutal battle that went on in the depths of Tartar for several weeks in a row. Having accomplished the impossible and suffered unimaginable losses, the rebels managed to seize the Citadel, lynch the Lord, and kill almost all his people—with the exception of Boddicker, who managed to hide in his laboratory. And so, when the victory was already in the hands of the rebels and they stormed the docks in the port, Boddicker used his secret weapon against them—a children's battalion. The Children of New Heaven, the first experimental battalion of his army of Changed, finally received their first order: at any cost, save their tormentor. And they handled the task. They simply returned to their parents, allegedly escaping from the laboratory, and then hit them in the back, interrupting the rebels in a short and furious attack.

  Found in the rescue coffin, the stewardess, the only survivor from that slaughterhouse, didn’t remember exactly how she had managed to escape—her mind was clouded by severe shock, numerous wounds, and the long flight in the capsule. She didn’t remember if anyone else had escaped and didn’t know what had happened to Boddicker’s young soldiers. From the whole nightmare of the last battle, she remembered only one thing—a seven-year-old girl who killed her parents with her bare hands. The girl's name was Elizabeth.

  “And why were the Supernova bosses so eager to get rid of Boddicker?” Olga asked, after listening to the story of her mentor.

  “I don’t know; no one knows. I don’t believe in the official version, especially after what happened to the passengers of the Columbia. One thing is clear—this scoundrel knows something that the leadership of the corporation fears very much, and the Supernova bosses want to prevent the disclosure of this truth at any cost. But, no matter how it happened, they couldn’t get rid of Boddicker; he was firmly ensconced in Tartar.”

  Olga collected additional information independently for several years, continuing to carefully weed out the truth from the lies and conjectures. The picture was the following.

  With the help of the children's battalion, having won the fight for the Citadel, Boddicker was eventually the only ruler of the Big Dump; all other competitors fell in battle. There were only miserable pieces remaining from the once-powerful gang and the pirate fleet of Lord Isaac, and for a long time, it was believed that the Tartar bandits had finally disappeared from the scene, at least so thought the lunar mafia bosses who decided to take the empty kingdom into their hands. But Boddicker had a different opinion about this.

  The landing squads from the Moon, which came to Tartar, never returned—they simply disappeared without a trace somewhere in the jungles of the garbage cluster. And then, at the very end of 2062, a return courtesy visit followed. The Red December came—so this first major operation of Boddicker was called.

  Not having a large fleet and army, the Lord, or, as he was nicknamed later, the Fuhrer of Tartar, applied pointed retaliatory strikes, concentrating on the enemy’s highest ranks. For three weeks, his assassins committed forty-seven liquidations, almost completely decapitating the moon mafia and forcing the few surviving bandit leaders to run cowardly back to Earth. All the other participants of the space criminal businesses have since learned an obvious lesson—it’s better to not mess with Boddicker.

  The blitzkrieg, which the Fuhrer of Tartar arranged for his enemies, was provided at the expense of technical superiority; Boddicker's enemies seemed to have forgotten who they are dealing with, believing that he had only a few surviving civilians. No one took into account the fact that in his laboratories, Boddicker could turn any civilian into a machine of death. That was a big mistake.

  Professional killers, changing guises a dozen times, successfully infiltrated deep into enemy structures, slowly and carefully getting to the leaders. The most scrupulous checks and strict interrogations with the use of neuroviruses, telepaths, and psychokinetics couldn’t crack their legend, for there was no legend at all—the future killers knew nothing about what they should do and why. Before sending them on their errand, Boddicker erased their true identities, having written a dozen new ones instead, each of which, like a suitable tool, could be activated at the right time, depending on the situation. And somewhere deep beneath the heap of those
masquerade masks was a simple and understandable order to KILL, patiently waiting for the code phrase for activation. And when, at the right moment, the trigger phrase was uttered, the Changing came into full force—for a few seconds, the ordinary human turned into a berserker possessed with rage, who didn’t know pain, fear, or regret. Since a suitable weapon might not be found at the right time, everything needed was already with them, from poisoned teeth that were stuffed with explosives and razor-sharp propellant hair to implanted combat modules and micro drones.

  Nowadays, such combat modifications are available to all for good money, but thirty years ago, their simultaneous mass appearance produced the effect of a bomb exploding.

  The vast majority of these berserkers didn’t return: Boddicker originally planned to use them as kamikazes, knowing that at any time he could make new ones. But five were still lucky to survive and returned to Tartar for new orders. One of the lucky ones was a young girl who had previously entered the largest network of brothels owned by the richest woman in the cosmos—Madame Ilsa. She made her way to the very top, in the personal harem of the hostess, and strangled Madame with a whip used for sadomasochistic torturing. The murderer was named Elizabeth, and Olga was ready to bet that it was the very same Elizabeth who killed her parents on Boddicker's orders.

  Evaluating his best killers, the Fuhrer awarded them in his own way: he carried out another modernization, further increasing their combat capabilities. And then he formed a special team of extra-class liquidators, known as the Bureau. Red December had its educational impact, and Boddicker continued to actively win a place in the sun, by using the Bureau for himself or providing its services to his allies.

  Years passed, the pirate gang in Tartar became stronger, gradually turning into the Space Reich, and the Bureau continued its work.

  New soldiers replaced the dead ones, but Elizabeth remained the same; by the beginning of the seventies, she was already widely known as the Secretary of the Bureau, the head of this factory of death. Her aliases aroused fear, numerous impostors tried unsuccessfully to imitate her, legends were written about her, and the wildest, sometimes diametrically opposite rumors were dismissed. But on one point they all agreed: a more dangerous hired assassin couldn’t be found in the entire solar system, and if you really need to get someone, then the Wasp Queen will do the job for an appropriate fee. Of course, that is only if the Fuhrer gives his permission, because Elizabeth, in addition to being endowed with unprecedented sadistic cruelty, was famous for fanatical devotion to her lord.

  And then, during her next operation, Elizabeth suffered a severe brain injury. The partners managed to pull her out of the battlefield and then send her to the hospital in the center of Tartar. And there, the local surgeon performed a small miracle, managing to save her life. But the miracle had a serious side effect.

  Severe brain injury in combination with emergency resuscitation led to the deletion of all previous personal settings, and they fled like masks. And under them, as it turned out, there was still a little girl who suddenly remembered herself and her actions, along with all the other events of the last ten years.

  Elizabeth continued to be treated for a long time, and on her way out of the hospital, she continued her work as Secretary of the Bureau, as she had been unquestioningly following the orders of her Fuhrer. But all of her activities are nothing more than a disguise for the most important task in her life—the elimination of Richard Jones Boddicker.

  Knowing well the possibilities of Tartar's security service, Elizabeth understood that she didn’t have any chance of destroying Boddicker alone, which meant that allies were needed. At the risk of death, she managed to persuade several of the most loyal Bureau fighters to come to her side, but this was still not enough—she needed more soldiers. So she decided to use the Boddicker Empire against him, using the draft system. The Fuhrer always relied on children, from which, in his opinion, it is easiest to make a berserker. Therefore, he bought orphans throughout the solar system, sending them to laboratories and training camps. Using her high position in the Reich, Elizabeth managed to obtain some of these recruits for her own disposal, allegedly for the expansion of the Bureau. By personally directing their Changing and subsequent training, she didn’t lie to Boddicker; they really were trained to eliminate a particularly important target.

  But Elizabeth didn’t have time to bring a decisive blow—someone betrayed her not long before the operation began. Like many years earlier, a fierce civil war broke out in the center of Tartar, but this time the rebels weren’t unarmed civilians but a team of perfectly trained soldiers, so the battle was on an equal footing. The Wasp Queen didn’t manage to liquidate Boddicker, but he couldn’t handle the rebels; realizing that this time, luck wasn’t on her side, Elizabeth and her squad captured several warships and broke away from Tartar.

  For a long time after that, in the most diverse parts of the solar system, the echoes of the Queen's uprising were heard. Without abandoning an attempt to destroy Elizabeth, Boddicker threw his best killers in her wake, and bloody battles between former colleagues of the Bureau took place everywhere—from the melted plains of Mercury to the chilly glaciers of distant planets. The Queen didn’t leave unpaid debts, having inflicted a series of crushing retaliatory strikes on the Space Reich and its allies, and then she disappeared without a trace in the void.

  The failure of the first uprising didn’t discourage Elizabeth; on the contrary, it only strengthened her determination to get Boddicker. But with her small forces, shabby after heavy fighting, it was difficult to achieve this, and she decided to take a breather. Hiding herself in the vast Asteroid Belt, she began re-creating her squad, which later received its own name, the Red Dawn.

  Acutely needing replenishment, the Wasp Queen used proven methods, using orphans and former slaves who were released in their raids. Many of them were Changed to become full-fledged space soldiers and join the Red Dawn, but unlike the Boddicker fanatics, they volunteered, without having their past personalities forcibly erased. This was the fundamental difference between the irreconcilable enemies: unable to forget the countless crimes and atrocities she had committed on the orders of the Fuhrer, Elizabeth swore to never use brainwashing on those who voluntarily followed her. And she also swore to correct at least some of the evil done over the past ten years of her fanatical service for Boddicker. She swore it and set to work.

  By the time the three-month-old Olga Voronov drove to High House 8, the Red Dawn and its Queen were already widely known. Believing that peace could be found at the tip of the spear, Elizabeth became a kind of antithesis to Boddicker in her firm intention to root out evil and lawlessness in outer space. And if for this good purpose it was necessary to use violence, let it be so, for the good side should have a big gun.

  Realizing the need to fight evil, Elizabeth unexpectedly discovered not only the meaning of life but also an empty economic niche that promised mountains of gold with the right approach. The vast spaces of the Free Zone have always been overcrowded with criminals of all kinds, from petty thieves to the leaders of pirate armies, such as Boddicker. And there was no one who would take on the unbearable burden of bringing law and order to these wild lands. Of course, criminal groups have long profited in space with the usual racket, charging the colonies a tribute for protection, and small teams of mercenaries, such as the Bolsheviks, periodically eliminated especially dangerous bandits for an appropriate fee. Any semblance of order ended in the Free Zone; everyone who wants to survive here should be ready at any moment to shoot first or pay well for their own skin.

  The exodus of Earthmen from the native planet continued, the colonies of the Free Zone grew richer, and Elizabeth was well aware that the lawlessness couldn’t last forever. The inhabitants of new lands would sooner or later call on someone who would be ready to take their side in the fight against the bandits. As usual, demand gave birth to a proposal.

  To begin with, the Queen, with a series of targeted strikes, got rid of a few
small gangs to take their poor colonies under the tutelage of the Red Dawn. As the payment for protection, she requested much less than the bandits, and each received ruble she worked for with full return. When racketeers tried to return the colonies by force, they unexpectedly didn’t face gangs of competitors but a small, well-trained and well-equipped military fleet. Only a few of the bandits returned from the campaign, and Elizabeth followed them, in the best traditions of her former master, leaving behind mountains of skulls of gang leaders and their families, so that no one would be left in doubt—a new sheriff had come to the city.

  Having received a stable income, the Queen began to expand her business, gradually obtaining wealthy colonies. Many of those who had yesterday given an unreasonable tribute to the bandits preferred to pay her instead; Elizabeth exacted a reasonable price for their hard work. Growing up with fanatic asceticism, she didn’t demand anything for herself, releasing all the money for the rise of the Red Dawn, which continued its rapid transformation from a small squad of mercenaries into a large military force capable of waging a full-scale war throughout the Free Zone.

  Using a complex network of dummies, Elizabeth replenished her fleet, buying mostly old civilian vessels and turning them into real warships. Secret bases were built, weapons were created, and new orphans and freed slaves underwent the Changing in order to become soldiers of the Red Dawn. All of this was done in preparation to sooner or later again fight against the Space Reich and its Fuhrer.

  Having garnered a reputation for reliable protection against bandits, Elizabeth continued to fight evil, shifting from defense to attack. Where life had no value, death, sometimes, had its price, and the Queen opened the hunting season for the heads of known criminals. This was a far-sighted step, for such a hunt allowed Elizabeth to establish contacts with the Union and the Supernova Corporation. Space superpowers often used mercenaries for the destruction of especially dangerous criminals hiding in the Free Zone, and the Wasp Queen implemented this process on an industrial basis. Knowing the wild territories as well as her five fingers, she had the ability to find anyone anywhere, still preferring to receive bounties for death; capture was practiced extremely rarely, only in the case of a special request. In addition to money, she earned the desired status of an unofficial ally of the most powerful military and economic formations, which was especially important for her business—in a game without rules, principles must be strictly observed.