“It’s not that,” Miranda said, taking a seat near the house’s front window. “There are too many memories here. I hadn’t ever planned on coming back to this place.”
“I am not going to say I get it,” Joe told her, “but you’re really blessed, ya know? Not many hunters like us have a place they can call home. You do.”
“Strider is my home, Joe,” Miranda corrected him.
“I won’t tell you how sad it is that you just said that.” Joe grinned at her, trying to lighten the mood. “When Brook and I retire one day, we’re going to find a planet like this and settle down.”
Miranda laughed, and it felt good. “You, a farmer? I’ll believe it when I see it, Joe.”
“Stranger things have happened, Boss!” Joe chuckled.
“Not many,” Miranda teased. “I can’t believe Brook would ever give up flying. It’s like she was born to it.”
“Speaking of flying,” Joe changed the subject, “we left The Brute back on one of Nix V’s moons. I’m thinking we should go and pick it up, Boss. Having a second ship might come in handy, and keeping it here where you’re the local hero would be a lot safer than just leaving it where it is.”
“That would require two pilots,” Miranda challenged the sniper.
“The old man and you are both qualified, Boss,” Joe reminded her. “When he sobers up, I was thinking Brook could take him back there to pick it up.”
“I pay you to shoot, not think, Joe.”
“But you have to admit…”
“Fine,” Miranda sighed. “Having two ships here could be a very good thing if trouble finds us. When Lee wakes up, he and Brook can go pick up The Brute and bring it back.”
“Smart call.” Joe laughed. “Glad you thought of it.”
Miranda wished she had something to throw at Joe to wipe the smug expression off his face, but she didn’t.
A moment of silence passed before either of them spoke again.
“This monster that’s after us…” Joe said. “You and the old man really don’t know why?”
“No, Joe, we don’t,” Miranda answered. “Up until we encountered it, there’s never been a monster we haven’t managed to slay, even before you signed up.”
“I don’t get it then.” Joe shrugged. “What in the heck does it want with us, then?”
“If I had the answer to that, Joe, you know I’d tell you,” Miranda assured the sniper.
“I know.” Joe nodded. “That thing just creeps me out. When I became a monster hunter, I never thought it would be me being hunted by one and not the other way around.”
“I know what you mean.” Miranda frowned. “I’ve never heard of anything like it before.”
“We need to find it and take it out before it gets lucky, and we find ourselves dead,” Joe said.
“Can’t argue that, Joe, but how?” Miranda asked him point blank. “We don’t even know why it’s after us, much less what it is or where the thing is from.”
“Brook’s been working on that,” Joe told her.
“Oh really?” Miranda was surprised by the sniper’s admission. “I don’t remember ordering her to do that.”
“You didn’t,” Joe answered. “But ever since she went up against that thing’s ship, Brook has been obsessed with it. That ship spooked her. She told me it was way ahead of even the tech of the core worlds of Earth Gov. More than that, though, Brook swears she’s heard of a ship like it somewhere before. She’s been running it through Strider’s data banks, and any others she can link up to, looking for info on it in her free time.”
“No luck so far, I take it?” Miranda asked.
Joe shook his head. “Not yet, but Brook’s sure she’ll run across something eventually. A ship that unique has to have a story attached to it somewhere. You don’t run into something like that ship and just forget about it.”
“Well, let me know if she does.” Miranda shrugged. “Until then, we’re still stuck waiting on that thing to make the next move. I’d love to be proactive instead of reactive, but without knowing anything more than the limited amount we do about that thing…”
“All we can do is wait,” Joe finished.
* * * * *
Chapter 37
The next morning after Miranda hauled Lee out of bed, she sent him off with Brook to retrieve The Brute. Lee wasn’t happy about it. He wanted to go back to the Nix system even less than she had wanted to come to Harold’s Colony. The chance of encountering Shelley again, even if just by long-range comm visual, terrified him. Lee went, though. He agreed having The Brute close at hand was a good idea.
She and Joe saw Lee and Brook off, then returned to the house they were using. Anna, Mr. Weaver, and two of his men were waiting on them when they got back.
They all went inside the house, Mr. Weaver closing the door after them.
“We have a problem,” Anna said.
“Someone told Earth Gov about us being here,” Miranda replied.
“No! Of course not!” Anna snapped defensively. “That’s not it all. No one here would do that to you, Miranda. How could you even think such a thing?”
Miranda grunted and then remarked, “I guess I’ve been hanging out with the old man too long. For him, being paranoid is somewhat of a natural state. I’m sorry.”
Anna frowned at her. “I would still expect better from you, Miranda.”
“I’m not who I used to be, Anna.” Miranda shrugged. “In my line of work, danger is something we have to deal with every day, from the monsters we hunt, to Earth Gov agents coming after us, to people not paying up, or worse.”
“Stop,” Anna ordered her. “Just stop. I won’t pretend to understand what people like you go through, but I know you, Miranda. You know you’ll be as safe here as we can make you, however long you decide to stay.”
“The issue isn’t with you at all,” Mr. Weaver spoke up. “It’s Earth Gov. They’ve managed to defeat most of the larger colonies along the fringes. Only Holland is hanging on at this point, but their position is solid. I can’t see Earth Gov taking them any time soon. However, with so many of the other large colonies out of the picture, the tide of the overall war is changing. Earth Gov is finding themselves with a lot more resources at their disposal to track you and yours down. From the news vids, it seems to have become a priority for them. The reward on you and your crew has doubled twice in the last few hours.”
Miranda’s eyes bugged out in shock. “Doubled twice,” she repeated.
“Yeah,” Anna nodded. “I don’t know what you guys did to tick them off so much, but whatever it was, it had to be something big, I am guessing.”
“We slaughtered two dozen Earth Gov troops and a band of monster hunters that were their agents on Nix V,” Miranda explained, but she still didn’t understand why that was such a big deal, when all the fringe worlds had started fighting back against Earth Gov’s oppression of them.
“Nix V?” Anna blinked. “Seriously?”
“That was where our last job was,” Miranda told her.
“You haven’t heard, then?” Anna’s voice was carefully controlled, though quiet, with an edge of sadness to it as she spoke.
“Heard what?” Miranda pressed her old friend.
“Earth Gov nuked Nix V,” Anna said. “They used it as an example to the other colonies in the fringes. There were no survivors.”
Her words hit Miranda like a punch to her guts.
“I just sent the old man and Brook to the Nix system,” Miranda muttered, more to herself than anyone else in the room.
“We saw your ship leave, but we didn’t know where it was going, or we would have warned them,” Mr. Weaver told her.
“Brook,” Miranda heard Joe croak under his breath too quietly for the others to hear.
* * * * *
Chapter 38
Strider dropped out of Void Space into the Nix system. Brook set a course for Nix V’s second moon, where they had stashed The Brute. The trip hadn’t been a long one, but it sur
e seemed that way. The old man was grumpier than usual, and that was saying a lot. There was no escaping him, either. He had plopped himself into the copilot seat as they had taken off from Tanatos IV and hadn’t left her side since. Brook knew the old man was upset because he hadn’t said goodbye to Director Shelley, and if truth be told, hadn’t wanted to leave her in the first place. Knowing that didn’t make things easier for her, but at least she understood where the old man’s crankiness was coming from.
“Best give the Nix V colony a heads up that we’re here. There’s a shooting war going on, ya know?” the old man grumbled.
Brook opened a channel. “This is the monster hunter vessel, Strider. Be advised that we’ve just entered the system and are on approach to your second moon.”
The only response that came back was silence, which took Brook by surprise. The Nix V colony was a high-tech world by fringe standards, and Director Shelley seemed like the sort of woman who ran a very tight ship in terms of how she did things. Brook repeated her message as the old man watched her closely. They should have responded to her hail.
“You sure you’re doing that right?” Lee quipped.
Brook glared at him. “You can try if you want to.”
Repeating her message a third time, Brook gave up. “Nobody’s answering.”
“I can hear that,” the old man remarked, “but it doesn’t make any sense. Seriously, are you sure our communications gear is working?”
“Checks out just fine,” Brook said. “Whatever’s going on, it’s not our end.”
“Scan the surface of Nix X,” Lee ordered.
“On it.” Brook went to work.
“God have mercy,” she exclaimed as the results of the scan flicked over her screen.
“What is it?” Lee growled.
Brook didn’t want to answer the old man but knew she had to. “The Nix V colony…it’s been nuked.”
The old man eyed her as if she was making a joke, and he was waiting for the punchline.
“I’m serious, Lee,” Brook assured him. “The colony is just…gone. There’s radioactivity all over the place down there, consistent with what one would expect to see after a nuclear strike. And from the intensity of it…I’d say whoever nuked the place wanted to make sure everyone down there was dead.”
The old man slumped back in his chair. Brook had expected him to start screaming at her, but he hadn’t. He just sat in the copilot seat like a man who had lost everything in the universe that mattered to him.
“I’m so sorry, Lee,” Brook said, holding back tears.
“People die in wars, Brook,” the old man’s voice was quiet, almost trembling. For once, he looked his age as she glanced over at him. “It happens. If I were you, I would run a scan of the system and make sure there aren’t any Earth Gov ships still hanging around.”
“There aren’t.” Brook had run a scan of the system, checking for other ships, as soon as Strider had dropped back into normal space. The mess they had come out of Void Space into at Moore Colony still haunted her.
The old man remained quiet. After a few moments, Brook asked, “What do we do now?”
“We pick up The Brute just like we had planned to and get the heck out of here.” Lee met her eyes. “Miranda is counting on us to bring that ship back to Harold’s Colony.”
“Right.” Brook nodded, not knowing what else to say or do. “We’re closing on the moon now. ETA in three.”
Those three minutes ticked by like small eternities. Neither of them spoke again until after Strider had touched down, and Lee rose from the copilot seat.
“See ya soon, kid,” he said, flashing her a bitter grin. “You be careful on your way back.”
“You sure you don’t want me to stick around until you take off?” Brook offered.
“No. Go on and get out of here. The Brute is built tough, and she handled just fine when we brought her here. No reason to think she won’t now.”
As soon as the old man was off Strider and aboard The Brute, Brook allowed herself to cry. Sobs shook her body. The people on Nix V had been good people, decent people. It was hard to believe even Earth Gov would just wipe them out to make a point.
* * * * *
Chapter 39
With Strider and The Brute on Tanatos IV, Anna was ecstatic. Harold’s Colony had no ships of its own, and the fringe worlds that were still at war against Earth Gov didn’t have any ships that could be spared to defend it. Miranda let her friend enjoy having the ships there. Anna wasn’t a soldier or a monster hunter, so she had no idea just how useless two older, Deathbird-class vessels would be if Earth Gov came for Harold’s Colony in force. Miranda didn’t think that was likely, though, as the small farming colony was unimportant in the grand scheme of things. The only reason for Earth Gov to come at all was if they got word of Miranda and her crew’s presence on Tanatos IV, and Lord willing, that wouldn’t happen.
The old man had returned from his trip to pick up The Brute a broken shadow of the man he’d left as. Miranda was beginning to realize just how deep his feelings for Shelley had run. Lee had had numerous flings over the years she had known him, but none had really seemed to matter to him until now. His relationship with Shelley, however brief it had been, had truly been something special. Miranda didn’t understand it, but it was easy to see how badly the old man was hurting. She was glad he had made it back safely, and Brook had, too. Had she known about what had happened to Nix V sooner, she never would have sent the two of them to retrieve The Brute.
All her attempts to comfort the old man had failed. He took solace in nothing but a bottle, spending most of his time alone in the small house. During the few times Lee did emerge from his room, he was always drunk, and crankier than ever. Joe and Brook, on the other hand, were happier than Miranda had ever seen them before. They helped out around the colony with whatever needed to be done, played with the farmers’ children, and spent their evenings together. Brook continued working on finding out more about the monster’s ship. So far, she hadn’t had much luck, but she remained determined, claiming that someone, somewhere, had to have a record of the black ship, or at least had sighted it before.
Miranda, for her own part, got busy at Anna’s request, helping Mr. Weaver train his handful of colonial security personnel for real combat. She knew it would make no difference if the war came to Tanatos IV and Harold’s Colony, but she couldn’t say no to her childhood friend. Anna was taking a huge risk allowing them to stay, whether she realized it or not, and if helping train her people made her feel better, it was something Miranda felt she was obligated to do.
Every day there were more dark tidings from the independent news broadcasts along the fringes. The fringe worlds’ forces were meeting defeat after defeat against Earth Gov. Things looked bleak, with little hope of the tides of war turning.
Mr. Weaver was an odd bird. He reminded Miranda a lot of her dad, which wasn’t something that worked in his favor. Miranda had loved her father dearly, but never truly dealt with his loss. Mr. Weaver, she had discovered, was a former merc, not an operative like her father.
Mr. Weaver’s reasons for turning on Earth Gov were simple ones. The man believed in freedom and hated Earth Gov passionately for its tendency to put the “state” above all else. He had plenty of insight into how to best defend Harold’s Colony against Earth Gov, but like her, knew no matter what they did, it wouldn’t really matter if the colony became one of their targets.
Having finished kicking the collective butts of her trainees in hand-to-hand combat for the day, Miranda headed to the small house that was her crew’s quarters. She was exhausted on numerous levels. All she wanted to do was crawl into bed, close her eyes, and escape the drama of the universe for a while. She and her crew were no longer keeping a rotating night watch. That bugged Miranda, but even she had to admit that Harold’s Colony was as safe a place as they were ever going to find. Letting herself into the house, Miranda wasn’t surprised to find Brook and Joe absent. The two them spen
t as many nights aboard Strider, where they could have some real privacy, as they did at the house. She checked on Lee and found the old man snoring in his room with several empty bottles next to his bed. Seeing that he was fine, Miranda entered her own room and took off her combat armor, and, after a quick shower, turned in for the night.
Miranda woke up to the sound of alarm klaxons. She rolled out of bed onto her feet. A glance at the room’s clock told her it was 2am. Not wasting any time donning her armor the slow way, she barked the suit’s emergency voice command code, “Beowulf!”
The armor flew toward her, encasing her body a piece at a time. As soon as it was complete, Miranda drew her sword and raced downstairs. She had to find out what was happening. Whatever it was had to be big for the colony-wide alarm to be used. Bursting out the front door of the house, Miranda looked up and down the street. Spotting Mr. Weaver and two of his security officers running toward the opposite side of town, she took off after them.
“Hey!” Miranda yelled at Mr. Weaver. “What the frag is going on?”
“There’s been a murder!” he shouted over his shoulder at her without slowing his pace. Miranda caught up and fell in beside him.
A crowd was gathered outside the open doorway of a house just below the west wall. The people looked to be on the verge of panic, wide-eyed and chattering among themselves.
“Over here!” a man in the crowd shouted to Mr. Weaver.
“Everybody, get back!” one of Mr. Weaver’s men ordered.
Miranda followed Mr. Weaver up to the house’s open door. They exchanged a glance as Mr. Weaver drew his pistol, and Miranda nodded. She took the lead, entering the house first. The place stank of blood and violent death. The lights in the house’s living room were on, and Miranda almost wished they weren’t as she saw the bodies sprawled out on the floor. The couple looked to be a man and wife, or rather what was left of them. They had been mutilated to the point that Miranda had to will herself not to be sick at the sight of them.
Miranda's War Page 18