Refusing Excalibur

by Zachary Jones

  In front of Victor, Fowler’s corpse hung from the command chair, blood seeping out the back. He was definitely dead.

  But others were alive. Toren fell from his own chair, righting himself just as easily as Victor had. Gaz wasn’t in his seat. For a moment, Victor thought Gaz had been thrown out. But then Victor heard Gaz’s voice from the front of the bridge.

  “Hey, you two fuckers. Help me out here!”

  Gaz was cutting away at the restraints to Fara’s seat. When she dropped, Gaz caught her and set her down on the deck.

  Fara suddenly woke up and let out a scream of pain, reaching down for her left leg. “Shit!”

  The thick pressure suit made it hard to tell, but Victor noticed her left leg below the knee was sideways, not like a human leg was ever supposed to bend.

  He opened his first aid kit and applied a painkiller patch to the side of her neck. She relaxed a few seconds later.

  Gaz patted him on the back. “Good thinking, Victor.”

  “Thanks, I—” Victor noticed a beeping noise coming from inside his suit. It was an unfamiliar sound; the suit wasn’t like those he used in the Republic Navy. He looked at the small status screen inside his helmet; the pressure was dropping. Breathing his suit’s air, he didn’t realize how thin the bridge’s air had become.

  “We’re losing air.” Victor looked to Fara. “Where’s her helmet?”

  “Don’t know,” Gaz said, flipping down the visor of his own helmet with a flick of his finger. He looked around.

  “My helmet should still be on my seat,” Fara said.

  Looking up, Victor saw it right where she said it would be. He grabbed it and sealed it over her head. The suit’s readouts confirmed she had a good seal, though her heart rate was still elevated.

  “Thanks,” she said.

  Cormac appeared from the small engineering space at the back of the bridge. He was fully suited and unhurt, much to Victor's surprise. Limbs as thin as Cormac’s looked like they would snap like twigs.

  “We have a problem,” the starchild said.

  “No shit!” Gaz said. “What now?”

  “The bomb is gone,” Cormac said.

  “You mean it fell out when we crashed?” asked Victor.

  Cormac shook his head. “I mean, it is gone. The bomb is not showing up on the remote interface. I suspect it was destroyed by whatever blew away our cargo hold.”

  Well, there goes our deterrent, thought Victor. “Is our comm still online? Can we contact the Fortune?”

  “I will check,” Cormac said.

  “You better check fast, Cormac,” Gaz said. “Those pirates are gonna be here any minute to look for survivors.” He pointed to Victor and Toren. “You two fuckers better be ready to fight.”

  “We could surrender,” Toren said.

  “Fuck surrender. I ain’t goin’ back to being a slave,” Gaz said.

  “Then we should send out a distress call and get the hell out of here. Hide out in one of the craters until the Fortune arrives,” Victor said.

  “Yeah, good luck with that. Warwick won’t risk his neck to save us,” Fara said. She propped herself up on her elbows. Her eyes squinted against the pain of her broken leg.

  Cormac pressed a button on a console. “The tightbeam laser comm is still functional. Captain Hyde should know of our status in just over an hour. I suspect he will jump from this system not long after he receives it.”

  Victor sighed. “So we’re on our own.”

  Cormac nodded. “I am afraid so, Victor.”

  “What are our options?” asked Victor.

  Gaz pulled back the slide on his grenade launcher. “I say we make a stand here and go down fighting.”

  “We could surrender. We don’t have to die,” Toren said.

  Gaz scowled at Toren, showing his spiked teeth. “Just for saying surrender a second time, you’re gonna be on point.”

  Toren snarled and drew his pistol, a vacuum-rated automatic, and fired two rounds into Gaz’s chest, staggering the man backward.

  Victor drew his own pistol as Toren brought his gun around. Victor fired at the same time Toren did. What felt like a sledge hammer hit Victor in the chest, driving the air from his chest and attempting to topple him. Thanks to the low gravity, he stayed on his feet.

  Victor looked down where he had been hit, seeing the dent in the right side of his chestplate. His investment in quality combat armor had paid off.

  “Good shot,” Gaz said, standing over Toren’s supine form. Gas leaked from the half-centimeter-wide hole in the middle of a concave dent in the heavy-worlder’s visor. The rest of the visor was painted red with blood.

  “Well, it’s just up to you and me now,” Gaz said. He pointed at Victor’s inverted seat. “Grab your carbine. We’re going outside.”

  Victor's gun was still attached to the side of his seat. He unlatched it and hooked one end of the gun’s strap to a ring on his suit. He then reached over his right shoulder, touching the hilt of his cutlass, finding it still in its scabbard.

  Victor looked over at Fara and keyed his radio. “Will you be all right?”

  She smirked through her helmet’s visor. “I don’t know about all right, but I probably won’t get any worse. At least for the moment.”

  Cormac walked over to Fara. “I will keep an eye on her. If we get the chance to bring her into a pressurized environment, I can probably set her leg.”

  Victor blinked. “I thought you were an engineer.”

  Cormac nodded. “I am. I am also a trained medic.”

  “Right. I forgot about that,” Victor said.

  “You coming or what?” Gaz said via the radio.

  “On my way,” Victor said. He turned and exited the bridge, traveling to the rear of the Corsair’s wreck.

  By the time he got there, the air had gotten so thin he could no longer hear anything outside his suit. Just his breathing and the thumps of his boots as he walked.

  Gaz stood at the sealed hatch leading to the cargo hold, staring through the porthole.

  “I’m here,” Victor said.

  Gaz turned around, a grimace on his tattooed face. “Take a look.” He gestured at the porthole.

  Outside the small disk of glass, Victor saw the barren landscape of the nameless dwarf planet on which Lucille’s Bay was located. A long trench had been cut into the regolith. Pieces of the Corsair, including the cargo hold and drive section, were visible in the distance.

  “Wow, that regolith is thick. Probably cushioned our impact. Helps explain why we’re still alive,” Victor said.

  Gaz looked bored. “Yeah, whatever. Help me open this hatch.”

  Victor checked the hatch's control screen. It was red with white letters written upside down in universal, helpfully warning of a hard vacuum on the other side of the hatch.

  Victor checked his pressure gauge. Almost a vacuum on his side as well. There would be no explosive decompression when they forced it open.

  He flipped open a panel and pulled the Emergency Override lever, deactivating the safeties. He felt a vibration through the handle, and the screen next to the hatch went green.

  He nodded to Gaz, who pulled against the hatch; the heavy door swung open with ease. Outside was complete darkness.

  Victor pressed a button on the back of his wrist to activate his helmet’s light amplifier, revealing the green-scale landscape of the airless dwarf planet.

  “Turn off your radio when we’re outside the ship. I don’t want to give away that we’re alive,” Gaz said. His face disappeared as he activated his light amplifier, his visor going opaque to contain the green glow the amplifier gave off.

  Victor gave a thumbs-up and switched off his radio.

  Gaz hefted his grenade launcher and crouched low as he went through the hatch. Victor shouldered his carbine and followed him.

  When Gaz dropped prone to the ground, Victor mimicked him, the move feeling slow in the low gravity. The dome of Lucille’s Bay loomed over the horizon as a great bl
ack shadow obscuring the bright green stars in the background. Below the shadow, a pair of dust trails moved toward the crash site.

  “Oh, shit,” Victor said to himself.

  Gaz walked up and pressed his visor against Victor’s. “Looks like they’re gonna see if we’re dead or not.”

  “You don’t think they know we’re alive?” Victor asked.

  Gaz shook his head. “They’d send more than two rovers if they were sure.”

  “You got a plan then?” asked Victor.

  “Yeah, ambush them and take their rovers,” Gaz said.

  “A rover won’t get us out of the system,” Victor said.

  “No, but maybe it’ll get us to something that can,” Gaz said. “Just follow me and start shootin’ when my ’nades pop.”

  Gaz got up and half-bounced, half-crawled down the trench cut by the Corsair.

  Victor followed, trying to match Gaz’s movements, careful not to use too much force and bounce over the lip of the trench.

  After moving ten meters into the trench, Gaz stopped, peeked over the lip, and then dropped back down.

  Victor came up beside him and tried to get a look himself, but Gaz put a hand on his shoulder to stop him, wagging a finger in front of his visor like a schoolteacher admonishing a student. He then hefted his grenade launcher, adjusting the knobs on the sides of the weapon’s scope.

  Gaz pointed at Victor’s carbine and then shouldered his grenade launcher.

  Victor gave a thumbs-up and readied his weapon. His heart raced at the prospect that he was about to enter another firefight.

  Gaz rose, aimed his grenade launcher, and fired. Each shot was completely silent in the airless environment.

  Victor got up and leveled his carbine. The two rovers were parked just one hundred meters away. Their occupants, four from each rover, moved toward the crash site with short low-gravity hops.

  Then Gaz’s grenades landed around them, exploding soundlessly, flashing bright in the light amplifier. Some of the figures launched in short parabolic arcs when the grenades exploded at their feet. Others—just close enough to be within the kill radius—simply dropped. The survivors scattered.

  Victor set the fire-selector of his carbine to a five-round burst, aimed at a pirate scrambling away from the rain of grenades, and squeezed the trigger.

  The carbine vibrated against Victor’s shoulder, its vacuum-muted retort reverberating inside his helmet. The rounds hit, puncturing the pirate’s helmet and backpack. Little geysers of air spewed from the bullet holes as the pirate dropped slowly to the ground and bounced once before settling in the low gravity.

  Victor aimed on another pirate and squeezed the trigger, dropping him as well.

  Then geysers of regolith erupted around Victor, and he felt something hit his chest, knocking him into the trench.

  I’m hit! he thought. Again! Panic crept in when he thought his suit had been breached. A quick glance at his pressure gauge showed he was not leaking atmosphere. The pile of regolith he’d been using for cover must have slowed the round down enough for his armor to stop it.

  Gaz crawled over to Victor while the regolith berm above was ripped apart by a constant stream of bullets. He rapped twice against Victor’s visor.

  Victor responded by making a thumbs-up in front of Gaz’s visor.

  Gaz helped Victor into a low crouch.

  The gunfire above their heads continued, resulting in a dusting of regolith raining down on Victor and Gaz, coating their suits. Whoever was firing must have had a machine gun to keep up that kind of fire.

  Gaz ejected the spent magazine from his grenade launcher and loaded another one before leaning to press his visor against Victor’s. “You run down the trench a ways and try to draw the fire of the fucker shooting at us. Do that, and I’ll pop up and waste ’em.”

  Victor was not in love with the idea of encouraging other people to shoot at him, but, if his years of service with the Savannan Navy had taught him one thing, it was how to follow orders.

  He got up and hopped on the tip of his boots, keeping his head below the lip of the trench. After moving about ten or so meters, he leaned against the side of the trench.

  He set his carbine to full-auto and rose over the lip of the trench. Green muzzle flashes blinked like a strobe in the light amplifier from a shallow crater some fifty meters away. Victor aimed at it, squeezing and holding down the trigger.

  The carbine buzzed in his helmet, and a dozen puffs of regolith were kicked up around Victor’s target. He kept firing until the carbine’s ammo counter came up 00.

  Victor immediately ducked as the return fire punched through the regolith above him.

  Ten meters up the trench from him, Gaz stood, aimed his grenade launcher, and fired twice.

  A second later, the fire above Victor’s head stopped.

  He crawled a couple meters down the trench, loaded a fresh magazine into his carbine, and then stood rose above the lip of the trench.

  He didn’t see any gunfire. Just eight motionless figures and a pair of empty rovers.

  “Cormac, we’re clear. Carry Fara out. We just got ourselves some wheels,” Gaz said over the radio. “And hurry, before more fuckin’ pirates show up.”

  There had been more than enough time for the pirates to radio for help. No point in maintaining radio silence.

  “Hey you, Victor. Keep a lookout while I grab one of the rovers,” Gaz said.

  Victor nodded and leveled his carbine against the side of the trench, keeping an eye out while Gaz hop-sprinted to the nearest rover and climbed in.

  Moments later, Gaz drove the rover over to the Corsair’s wreck, pulling up just short of the trench behind it.

  By that time, Cormac came out, carrying Fara. The low gravity apparently made the task of holding her quite easy for the rail-thin starchild.

  “Load ’er in the back, Cormac,” Gaz said.

  “Gently please,” Fara said.

  “Of course,” Cormac said. He walked over and carefully placed Fara in the right side of the backseat and strapped her in. He then sat down in the seat next to her. Sitting upright, the top of Cormac’s helmet rose above the rover’s roller cage.

  Victor sat down in the left passenger seat. Before he even had time to look for the restraints, Gaz backed up the rover. Victor put out a hand against the dash to keep his visor from smacking against it. Then he was almost thrown from his seat as Gaz put the rover into a sharp backward turn, parking the rover parallel to the Corsair’s wreck.

  Gaz then hit the gas, and Victor was thrown back into his seat.

  “Ah, shit! Careful, Gaz! You’re not helping my leg!” Fara said.

  “If you hit an incline too fast, you could send us into a parabolic flight,” Cormac said.

  “Yeah, yeah. I know how to drive in low-g,” Gaz said. “How about you fucks give me some radio silence while I find a place to hide?”

  The rover was going dangerously fast, but Gaz swerved the rover around every bump that looked like it could launch them into a suborbital flight.

  The hard turns threw everyone in the rover from side to side. Victor held on to the bars of the roll cage with a death grip as the wild movements threatened to throw him from the vehicle.

  At least with the radio silence, he wouldn’t hear the grunts of pain from Fara every time the rover turned.

  After what seemed like hours, Gaz stopped swerving and slowed down as the rover approached a small hill.

  When the rover climbed over the edge, they found the hill was actually the lip of a small crater. Gaz drove down the side of the crater and stopped at the bottom.

  For a moment, Victor sat quietly in his seat; the sound of his breathing the only thing he could hear.

  Then Cormac said, “This crater is deep enough that our short-range radios won’t carry from it.”

  “What about satellites?” asked Gaz.

  “We didn’t detect any on the way down. And, if there were, I suspect they’d be pointed at space, not at
the surface,” Cormac said.

  Gaz grunted in the radio. “Fair enough.”

  “So what do we—ah, ooh…” Fara took a couple deep breaths. “I’m okay. My leg just didn’t like Gaz’s driving. So what do we do now?”

  “Well,” Victor said, “we could sit here and wait for the help that the general consensus says is not coming. Or we try to break into Lucille’s Bay and steal a ship.”

  “And who’s gonna fly it?” asked Gaz. “Our pilot has a broken leg and is full of painkillers.”

  “I can fly,” Victor said.

  “You? Thought you were just a boarding specialist,” Gaz said.

  “I was hired to be a boarding specialist, but I do have some pilot training. If we get a ship, I can fly it,” Victor said.

  “That seems to be the most prudent course of action,” Cormac said. “In any case, I cannot set Fara’s leg while she’s in her suit. We need to get inside a pressurized environment.”

  “So how will we get into the base? Drive up and knock on the first airlock hatch we find?” asked Gaz.

  “The rover throws up too much dust. Chances are we’d be spotted,” Cormac said. “We will need to walk.”

  “Ah, shit. Do we have to?” asked Fara.

  “The surface gravity of this world is only one-sixth of a standard g. It will be easy enough for one or more of us to carry you all the way there,” Cormac said.

  “Okay,” Victor said, “but that still doesn’t explain how we can open the airlock.”

  “If their security is lax, I can hack an airlock to get us inside without being detected,” Cormac said.

  “But you’re not sure,” Victor said.

  “No, not until I know what their airlock arrangements are like,” Cormac said.

  “All right,” Victor said. “So the plan is we walk to the dome without being spotted, hack an airlock without being detected, and then steal a ship without being gunned down in the process. How does that sound?”

  “Sounds crazy, but I don’t see a better way to get off this rock,” Gaz said.

  “Sure,” Fara said. “Why not? At least if I get shot to death, I won’t have to worry about my broken leg anymore.”