Course Correction

by Christian Kallias

  “You wouldn’t understand.”

  “Try me.”

  “I…I just wanted to fix an injustice, that’s all.”

  “That’s as vague an answer as I would have expected from you.”

  “Why do you pretend like you care? You have no problem delivering me to my death, so why are you asking questions?”

  Keera was forced to agree with Eleni. Why ask questions that could make her job more complicated than it already was.

  “You know what? You’re right; I don’t give a shit. You’ve been nothing but trouble since I found you, and I wish to gods I had chosen another warrant.”

  “You and me bot—”

  A laser blast shot through Eleni’s stomach as her eyes bulged. Keera instantly reacted as she turned around and instinctively shot toward where the blaster fire had originated.

  After shooting, she acquired a visual of the man. He dropped his blaster to the floor as his hand covered his gaping neck wound. He was the second mercenary she had incapacitated. In the midst of the chaos that had ensued, she assumed that his wounds were too severe for him to get back on his feet.

  Out of anger more than necessity, she supercharged her next shot and blew the merc’s head off. A trail of smoke rose from the man’s spraying neck before the headless body impacted with the floor and blood splattered everywhere.

  At the same time, Eleni collapsed with a thud. Keera ran to her side.

  “No, no, no; don’t you dare die on me!” she exclaimed.

  Eleni was panting, and blood bubbled from the corner of her mouth.

  “Hang on; let me get you to medical.”

  Eleni shook her head from side to side; fear and sadness mixing in her pretty blue eyes as they filled with tears.

  Keera’s soul filled with dread, her stomach knotted, and her heart raced. She had been around enough carnage and dying people to tell that this wound would claim Eleni’s life. She had been careless, and now someone would die because of it.

  “Fuck!” Keera shouted in frustration.

  “Keera…” mumbled Eleni, as blood ran down her mouth.

  “I— I’m sorry.”

  “Ne— never mind that. There’s…” Eleni coughed up more blood. “Nothing you can do for me; please, help my daughter.”

  “What? What daughter? Your target sheet didn’t mention anything about you having children.”

  “Try— trying to protect her.”

  Keera’s throat clamped, and her chest felt tight. Deep down she knew she was too soft to be a ruthless bounty hunter. If she was to survive and make a living from her profession, she needed to be able to separate business from her feelings. And even if she felt responsible for Eleni’s upcoming demise, they would never have been put into that position if Eleni hadn’t tried giving her the slip at every turn.

  “Look, Eleni. I’m sorry, but that’s none of my business.”

  “She will die if you don’t help.”

  Keera got up, turned her back, and took a couple of steps.

  None of my business. None of my business, she repeated mentally, trying to use the words as a mantra to counter the pain and compassion that was invading her soul.

  Eleni was sobbing. Keera’s mind was thrown all over the map; a million thoughts were rushing toward her at light speed. Eleni’s warrant was only good if she brought her back alive so that payday was gone. And while she hated herself for thinking of money while someone was drawing their last breath near her, the implication that came with that could not be ignored. Her own life was in jeopardy if she didn’t get Tron’Tak what she owed him.

  Somewhere, a little girl was about to lose her mother, and Keera couldn’t help but feel some responsibility in the matter. At least at that moment.

  Keera loathed her job right now. She wanted nothing more than to quit and find something else to do, but the cold, harsh reality was she couldn’t until she cashed in some credits.

  “K— Keera…” pleaded Eleni.

  Eleni was breathing rapidly, and then she suddenly stopped. Keera turned around and saw the life leave Eleni’s eyes.

  Dammit!

  Keera crouched next to Eleni and tried resuscitating her.

  “Breathe, dammit! Breathe!” she exclaimed.

  Keera alternated between chest compressions and mouth to mouth for several minutes, eventually punching Eleni in the chest out of frustration. Tears filled Keera’s eyes at the realization that Eleni was gone for good and the implications that came with it.

  Keera kept staring at Eleni’s dead body while her mind spun and took her to a dark place. Everything she had been counting on for the short-term future had been thrown out the airlock. She was still nowhere near recovering her ship, and feelings of guilt over Eleni’s death and the future of her little girl dominated her thoughts.

  What was she to do? She was on her way to Ponos One where her ship awaited, but she had no credits to get it or her life back. Instead, she could very well incur Tron’Tak’s wrath for not bringing him what she owed. She could try to make a run for it, but that would undoubtedly cost her her bounty hunter license and paint a permanent target on her back, which was something she’d rather not have to live with.

  But her immediate concerns were what to do with Eleni’s body. If they had been on a planet, she would have dug a grave. On this filthy transport though, options were limited. She could either leave the body or hide it, but it would soon decompose. That didn’t seem fair to Eleni.

  They had not been friends by any means, but Keera felt compelled to give Eleni a proper send off. Her only real option was to send her to the stars from an airlock. She could mark the point in space and perhaps recover it later, though that implied she would get her ship back. An outcome that seemed less likely with each passing minute.

  She picked up Eleni and placed her body on her shoulder. Eleni was already cold. With fresh tears still burning her eyes, Keera made her way to the nearest airlock.

  At the airlock, she laid Eleni’s body as delicately as she could. A metallic device fell from Eleni’s pocket and bounced off the floor with a clang. Keera picked up the round shaped item. It was a portable holo-projector.

  She turned it over in her hand and then pressed a button to activate it at which point the face of a young girl, not older than seven, hovered an inch above the holo-projector’s base. The child was beautiful with shoulder length, golden hair and deep blue eyes like her mother’s. Keera’s heart skipped and she felt a sting as if someone had thrust a knife through it.

  What have I done?

  It didn’t matter how much she tried to justify that Eleni had been a wanted criminal and that Keera was only doing her job. All she could think about was the child and what would happen to her now.

  To Keera’s surprise, just when she was about to turn the holo-device off, the little girl’s face merged into a holo-recording of Eleni.

  “If you’re seeing this message, it more than likely means I’m dead. If that’s the case, then please listen carefully. My little girl’s life depends on what you are going to do next. When the DT, known as the Data Thieves Consortium, put a bounty on my head, I had to act fast. So I hid my little Tanelis in a safe place. But this is a temporary place, one she can’t stay at for too long for fear of being hunted just like I was.

  “I made many mistakes in my life, but the one thing I did right is Tanelis, and it’s not fair that she may pay the price for her mother’s sins. I was only trying to help a group of people that got screwed by the DT’s shady business practices; preying on the poor, stealing their hard earned money to grow their fortunes. I thought I had covered my tracks well when I redistributed that wealth back to their rightful owners, but the DT found out.

  “Because I had hired a top-level hacker to do the job, the DT wanted me alive so that I could reveal my source, and they could get their credits back. But the fact of the matter is that the money is gone. Well, most of it. I kept a little on the side for my escape plan and to pay the people who are hi
ding Tanelis. I’ve only paid for a couple of weeks, as I thought it would be enough for me to shake the DT’s tail. In two days time, and for their own protection as well, they’ll just abandon my child. The DT will most likely capture her, and I wouldn’t put it past them to torture her for information she does not have.

  “Whoever you are, I beg you, don’t let this happen to my little angel. She is innocent and doesn’t deserve this. I can’t promise you any sizable reward and have to ask upon the better facets of your personality. Please help my daughter. This holo-device contains a briefing package with all the information related to her location as well as the digital key to access the limited resources I hid on the same planet that would allow us to make a run for it with a ship I had purchased.

  “Tanelis’ father doesn’t know she exists, we broke up before I knew I was pregnant, and while we didn’t part on the best of terms, I’m hoping he would be willing to take care of his own flesh and blood. I’ve hesitated to contact him many times, as I thought I had no right to throw his life into chaos after all these years. He’s moved on, and I owed him, so I didn’t involve him.

  “The DT will stop at nothing to try and get the info they want, but the enclosed digital key opens a decoy file in a safe deposit package. I spent weeks working on it with the same hacker that helped me recover the credits that were wrongfully stolen. He’s embedded an intricate money trail that will take years to unravel and should, I hope, make the DT abandon their quest once they learn of my passing.

  “All I ask is that you get my daughter back to her father, and find a way to deliver that file to the DT, ideally with my body or some proof of my death. Please help me; you’re my daughter’s only hope.”

  The holo-recording merged back into the holo-picture of young Tanelis.

  Keera accessed the file and reviewed the data in the holo-message. Tanelis was on Pyros III; a world that was less than a day’s travel from here, except the ship was heading toward Ponos and she would not make it in time unless she found a way out of the ship or redirected it to Pyros.

  Keera deeply inhaled as she tried to recenter herself and assess her options. She could get Eleni’s ship and hope its value would be enough to get Tron’Tak off her back; then she could try to track down Tanelis afterward. With her valuable cargo, Keera could acquire enough credit to achieve this option. But, that meant letting the deadline pass, which could result in the kid’s demise; something Keera wasn’t willing to risk.

  For all her faults, and based on the feelings from Eleni’s recording, Keera saw Eleni under a new light. She wasn’t the type of criminal Keera had thought she was. Like Keera herself, Eleni hated injustice and got into trouble trying to right a wrong. Something Keera could relate to; an unspoken code she strove to live by, in fact.

  In her heart, she knew she couldn’t abandon Tanelis, even if that meant she’d put her own life in further jeopardy.

  Keera grabbed a tracking device from her pocket, activated it, and injected it into Eleni’s cold, blue skin. She had no idea if she ever would recover the body but she preferred covering all her bases. She grabbed her holo-scanner and took a biologically enhanced picture of Eleni. The holo-picture would contain a medical life-sign scan of her body, proving her death. Hopefully, with that attached to Eleni’s decoy file, it would get the DT off of Tanelis’ trail.

  Keera stepped out of the airlock, closed the inner door, and looked at Eleni one last time before hitting the outer door’s airlock button.

  “Goodbye, Eleni. I’ll take care of Tanelis; I promise you.”

  Keera ran back to the cargo bay where the fighting had occurred and checked the bodies strewn about the floor. She needed a way off the transport ship without losing her license. She searched the bodies, and on the last one, she found a starship key.

  She yanked it out of the pocket and made her way to the cargo bay. Three craft were available; two luxurious liners and a decrepit old merc ship. She knew very well which one she had the key for, but, right now, all that mattered was that the bucket of bolts got her to Pyros III. She would be able to get Eleni’s ship from there.

  She lost no time, boarded the ship, and familiarized herself with the controls before running a pre-flight check and making sure to disable any beacon that could be transmitting. Once off the transport ship and into the darkness of space, she set a course for Pyros III and prayed the crumbly old ship wouldn’t explode when she activated its hyperspace engines.

  Once inside a hyperspace corridor, Keera ransacked the entire ship and gathered everything she felt would be of use. Grenades, some blasters, and more. She didn’t find anything of real value, but from the looks of the ship as well as the men who had attacked them back on board the transport, she wasn’t surprised.

  After exploring the ship, Keera’s body was heavy, and she realized she was exhausted. Having been on the run for days meant she only was able to get very short bursts of uneasy sleep. She eventually found a bunk bed to crash onto and get some much-needed rest.

  Before letting her mind go dark, she looked at Tanelis’ holo-picture one more time. This was a way for Keera not to lose sight of what she needed to do. While she followed her heart in doing what she knew was right, her brain was constantly teasing her just to get whatever she could out of Eleni’s hidden stash and get on with her life.

  Most bounty hunters worked in a calculating, cold manner; detaching themselves from their feelings and blocking out emotion. She couldn’t do that. Not anymore. Once upon a time, perhaps, and certainly after her first kill warrant turned personal vendetta. But years later, her humanity had caught up with her again.

  She would have to seriously reevaluate where her life would go from here on out. But right now a veil of darkness cast over her mind and she fell into the welcoming arms of Morpheus.

  The ship rocked, sending Keera crashing down from her bunk bed where she hit her head against the rusty metallic wall.

  “What the hell!” she exclaimed. “Where am I?”

  It took a few seconds for Keera’s mind to jump-start back to reality and for her to remember where she was. She must have slept a long time because she felt foggy and had trouble coming back to the present.

  The ship rocked once more, and that did the trick to clear her head. She ran to the cockpit, sat down, and wiped some viscous liquid from her forehead.

  Blood. She must have cut her forehead when she fell out of bed. She hadn’t felt much pain, but from the quantity of blood now present on her hand, she could easily surmise that the cut had been relatively deep.

  While she would probably need to patch up the wound, right now the number of alarms and red LEDs lighting up the ship’s old navigational computer told her that she had bigger fish to fry.

  She brought up radar information only to see two smaller craft on her six, pounding her ship’s weak-ass shields to oblivion.

  She went evasive and turned about to face her assailants. Their digital signatures were unreadable, which told her that she was dealing with either some pirates or perhaps the DT consortium itself.

  She opened a channel to the enemy ships.

  “Stop firing at once if you intend to live, and identify yourself. This is your first and last warning.”

  But the ships kept firing. She used complex evasive patterns and dodged the ships’ incoming fire, all while letting the shields recharge from the nearly depleted state they were in when she arrived at the cockpit.

  “Oh, it’s like that,” she exclaimed. “Very well, you asked for it.”

  She brought weapons online and took an inventory of the ship’s offensive capabilities. Not in her entire life had she flown such an underpowered, rusty piece of crap, but it mattered not, she had to make it work.

  A quick hack of the system’s power distribution allowed her to transfer power from life support, inertial dampeners, and some secondary systems. She injected all the extra power into the measly dual laser cannons. These were old generation cannons; their power output was barely enough
to take out the shields on any of the ships currently firing. But with the extra power injected into them, and some fancy flying, there was hope.

  Keera swiped more blood from her forehead with the back of her hand. She strapped on an old leathery seatbelt and buckled herself in. With part of the inertial dampeners down, she would feel the Gs and could be easily thrown out of her seat, something she had to avoid. The belt didn’t inspire much confidence though; it looked like it could snap at any moment.

  She spun the ship to avoid more incoming fire and repositioned herself behind one of the enemy ships. This maneuver bought her a little breathing room and her ship’s shields were back to seventy-five percent.

  She opened fire with her lasers and hit the enemy ship multiple times, only to see a ten percent drop on her instruments. It would take forever to get them down and the second ship was already acquiring a lock on her. She didn’t have forever. She barely had minutes, in fact. She’d have to get creative.

  She pushed the throttles to maximum, reducing the distance between her and the ship she was still showering with weak-ass laser fire. She keyed in a few commands on the old school touch-panel screens and wrote on-the-fly macros allowing her to change the firing rate and power distribution of her measly weaponry.

  The second ship had also accelerated to compensate and was now entering firing range. Soon, her ship’s instrument panel wailed to inform her of incoming fire.

  “Let’s try something crazy.”

  She activated her macro for super rapid fire. In this mode, her lasers would fire ten times faster than usual, but deliver ten times less destructive power. They would, however, drain the enemy shields faster. The ship had entered evasive action, but there was no shaking Keera now that she was locked in and determined to blow it to smithereens one way or another.

  The more her prey tried to go evasive, the closer she got, which helped her own evasiveness, and the ship targeting her only managed to score the odd lucky hit, which didn’t do much damage to her continually recharging shields.