Refusing Excalibur

by Zachary Jones

  “Captain Gale, how are things up there?”

  “Ah, the hole is close to a complete circle,” she said.

  “All right, I’m on my way. Hold on!” Victor said. The light on the inner door went green and opened.

  Victor raised his assault rifle and peeked through the corridor. It was empty.

  He called up the interior map of the Ian. The bridge was located four decks directly above him, at the top of the pressure hull.

  He stepped into the corridor where the bodies of the Ian’s crew littered the deck. Putting himself up against a corner, he opened his comm to the bridge.

  “Captain Gale, could you show me where the pirates are located inside the hull?” Victor asked.

  “Our control of the security system is patchy, but I can give you something. Here’s our real-time feed.”

  Red dots appeared on the minimap in Victor’s HUD. A cluster of them waited just outside the bridge, with a few scattered dots guarding points leading to the bridge.

  “I estimate we have no more than four minutes until they breach the blast door.”

  “Moving,” Victor said. He climbed the stairs to the bridge deck and waited at the landing. On the other side of the next hatch above him was a guard post set up by the pirates.

  “Fara, has Gaz breached the Fortune yet?”

  “He’s about to,” Fara said. “Did you need him to hurry up?”

  “No, just tell him that I’m ready for him,” Victor said.

  “Roger that, Captain,” Fara said.

  Victor turned up his suit’s exterior microphones to listen to the pirates waiting to gun down anyone who came from the stairwell.

  “Shit, someone’s boarded the Fortune!” one of the pirates said.

  “What does Captain Hyde want us to do?” asked another.

  Captain Hyde, Victor thought.

  “Me and Rexy will go back to the Fortune to help fight them off. You and Chandlers stay here and shoot anyone who comes from that stairwell.”

  Heavy boots thumped against the deck as two of the four pirates guarding the stairwell exit jogged away. Now Victor just had two to deal with. Though two would be more than enough to kill him if he screwed up.

  He waited for the sound of footsteps to recede, then waited for a few more seconds. He couldn’t wait too long though. Knowing Warwick Hyde, he was probably pushing his people even harder to break into the bridge so they could take hostages.

  Holding his assault rifle in his left hand, Victor took a grenade from his belt with his right hand. The grenade was a high-end model that Gaz swore by, because, unlike many grenades, it had an exact five-second fuse. Victor flipped the plastic safety cover off the grenade’s Activation button with his thumb. The small piece of plastic hit the deck and bounced toward the exit, right into view of the pirates guarding it.

  “Did you see that?” one of them said.

  Shit. Victor pressed the Activation button and then let go, starting the countdown. Just as he was about to throw his grenade, another came bouncing into the stairwell, right in front of him.

  “That oughta take care of things,” the other pirate said.

  Oh was all Victor had time to think before he threw his grenade along the corridor and then dived into the stairs toward the landing below.

  He landed halfway down the flight and tumbled the rest of the way. The armor plating and thick padding of his combat suit softened the impacts as he tumbled onto the lower landing with all the grace of a rockslide.

  He rolled onto his back and thought, I wonder how long…

  Tandem blasts echoed inside his helmet, causing his ears to ring despite the protection provided by the suit.

  He got up and noticed he had lost track of his assault rifle. Looking around, he found it lying at his feet. Its barrel was bent, probably because he fell on it during his tumble down the stairs.

  “Oops,” he said, drawing his pistol in his left hand and his variblade in his right. He ran up the stairs, taking two steps in each bound.

  He took cover at the exit and sneaked a quick look around. One pirate was down; the other stood over his friend, rendering aid. Victor walked around the corner, raised his pistol and shot the standing one in the face.

  The man fell. The one already on the ground, presumably wounded by Victor’s grenade, raised his hand.

  Victor shot him twice and moved to the next intersection, where he blundered right into a trio of pirates moving from the direction of the bridge.

  The pirates raised their guns. Victor swung his variblade, forming it into a longsword with just a thought.

  His first swing cut the nearest pirate’s assault rifle in half, taking the man’s left hand with it. Victor then kicked the man, driving him into another pirate.

  The third pirate rounded the corner, and Victor raised his pistol, firing four close-range shots into the man’s chest before he could level his shotgun at Victor.

  As that man dropped, Victor slashed down on the head of the second pirate. The sharp, thin blade cut through the man’s helmet and split his skull.

  The pirate whose hand had been severed tried to reach for his sidearm with his other. Victor stopped him by planting a boot on his forearm and then drove the tip of his variblade through the gap between the man’s chestplate and helmet.

  The man gurgled and died. Victor pulled out his variblade and retracted it. He continued toward the bridge. No other pirates came his way—hopefully because Gaz was giving them too much trouble to notice the lone man moving to flank them.

  Victor reached the last turn before the bridge hatch. He could hear the sizzling of a cutting torch working on the bridge’s blast door. The pirates at the door had been clever enough to destroy all the security cameras outside the bridge, so Victor had no way to tell how many pirates were there without exposing himself.

  He considered his next course of action, taking time to reload his pistol as he did. He had another frag grenade and a stun grenade, and he was coming from almost the opposite direction Gaz would be. He could wait for Gaz to arrive, then toss a grenade while the pit fighter and his team distracted the pirates. But Victor doubted he had enough time to wait on Gaz before the pirates broke into the bridge and took hostages, including the chancellor. Then things would get complicated.

  He heard the torch stop cutting.

  “Get that door open!” a man with a familiar voice said. “We need hostages if we want to get out of this mess alive!”

  It was Warwick himself, which surprised Victor. His former captain had never struck Victor as the type to lead from the front line.

  A screech of a broken door echoed around the corner, followed by gunfire. The bridge had been breached. Victor was out of time.

  He holstered his pistol and sheathed his variblade, then took both his frag and stun grenades off his belt. Priming them, he tossed his frag grenade around the corner first, followed by the stun grenade a couple seconds later.

  “Grenade!” shouted Warwick a moment before the frag went off. The stun grenade went off two seconds later with a flash of light illuminating the corridor like a camera flash.

  Victor drew his weapons, formed the variblade into a longsword, took a deep breath, and then charged down the smoke-filled corridor.

  A dazed pirate stumbled in front of him. Victor cut him down without stopping, finding himself in the middle of the room.

  Dead and stunned pirates littered the floor, but three remained standing. Stunned from the two grenades going off, they reacted slowly to Victor’s presence. He didn’t give them time to recover.

  Raising his pistol, he put four rounds into one pirate, then trained his pistol on the next and similarly gunned him down. But before he could aim at the third one, the remaining pirate fired his shotgun, catching Victor in the left shoulder.

  Victor spun, dropping his pistol as a sharp pain stabbed his upper arm. He kept his balance and ran for cover. Another shotgun blast took him full in the backplate, driving him to his hands and knees.
He crawled from the line of fire as a third shot ricocheted off the wall.

  Victor pressed his back against the wall, noting he was breathing easily, though his suit warned his rebreather pack was damaged. It must have absorbed the worst of the second shot. He flexed his left arm. At least one of the flechettes had made it through his suit, but he could still move the fingers of his hand. A flesh wound, he guessed.

  “I don’t know who you think you are, going into a gunfight with a sword, but I’ve got the advantage. Drop your weapons and come out slowly,” Warwick said.

  Victor lifted his visor. “I think you’re the one who should surrender, Warwick.”

  “Victor?”

  “Surprised?”

  “You stole my reward.”

  Victor needed to distract Warwick until Gaz reached them. “No, I finished the mission you abandoned, along with your crew, you coward.”

  Boots clumped on the deck as Warwick approached him. “I have to say, I was a bit surprised to learn you took down that pirate base.”

  Victor attempted to use his radio to contact Captain Gale, to see if her people on the other side could help. However, the status light on his radio was red. It must have been damaged by the same shot that hit his rebreather.

  All Victor had was his variblade, although time was on his side.

  “It’s over, Warwick. The Waynesburg is mopping up your little fleet, and Gaz is on his way here. Do you think he’ll be happy to see you?”

  Victor’s former captain answered with a blast of his shotgun, blowing away a chunk from the corner Victor took cover behind. “Gaz works for you now? No wonder he cut through my crew so fast. He always was a savage fighter.”

  “Drop your weapon, and I’ll tell him not to kill you,” Victor said.

  The sound of Warwick’s approaching boots stopped. “Not a bad offer,” he said a moment later. “But I think I’ll just go down fighting. I’m not nearly the coward you think I am.” He walked closer.

  “Shit.” Victor got up to run, only then realizing he was in a dead end corridor. Who designed this ship?

  Cornered, his only option was to stand and fight, variblade against shotgun.

  Victor turned and charged, forming his variblade into the longest, thinnest sword he could. Warwick stood a distance away, clearly expecting Victor to attack him with a sword but did not take into account the variblade’s ability to change shape.

  Before Warwick would bring his shotgun to bear, the tip of the elongated variblade punched through his chestplate. Victor’s momentum drove Warwick into the bulkhead, driving the blade deeper.

  Warwick tried to raise his shotgun one-handed, but Victor twisted the blade.

  “Ah, shit!” Warick coughed, blood splattering the visor of his helmet. His weapon fell to the deck.

  Victor shortened the variblade as he walked forward, until he was close enough to Warwick to kick away his fallen shotgun.

  Gaz and his team arrived at that moment.

  The pit fighter flipped up his visor and locked his eyes on Victor. “You got ’im.”

  Victor pulled out the variblade, causing Warwick to yelp in pain and slide to the deck. “You can finish it.”

  Gaz walked up and glanced at Victor’s shoulder. “You’re wounded.”

  “Not badly,” Victor said.

  Warwick flipped up his own visor with one hand, covering his wound with the other. Blood seeped from his mouth. “Hey, hey. It wasn’t personal. You know that, right? It wasn’t personal. Just a judgment call.”

  Victor retracted his variblade and reholstered it on his thigh. “I never took it personally.” He pointed a thumb at Gaz. “He did, however.”

  Gaz leveled his assault rifle at Warwick’s face.

  “Wait! Wait! Wa—”

  A three-round burst silenced Warwick’s protest.

  Gaz sighed, his armor bloodied. “Thanks,” he told Victor.

  “Don’t mention it,” Victor said.

  Taborian crewmembers appeared through the ruined bridge hatch.

  “You give them the all-clear?” Victor asked.

  “Fara did,” Gaz said.

  “Well, let’s make our introductions.” Victor turned to greet them, but a spasm in his shoulder stopped him.

  “Maybe introduce yourself to their doc first, Cap,” Gaz said.

  Chapter 14

  “Ouch!” Victor said when the General Ian’s doctor pulled the flechette from his shoulder. He was bare to his waist. His damaged and bloodied combat suit rested in a pile in the corner of the sick bay.

  The doctor, whose name Victor didn’t catch, dropped the thin needle into a tray, which plinked next to the two other needles that he had pulled out. “That’s the last one, Captain,” he said. “You’re lucky. Those rounds went out of their way not to hit any bone or nerve tissue.”

  “Well, good for me,” Victor said. He held up his left hand and wiggled his fingers. “I’d rather not have to replace any more parts.”

  The doctor glanced at Victor’s artificial hand. “If those replacements come from the same place your black hand came from, I would almost be happy to lose a limb.”

  Victor grunted and looked at his “black hand,” flexing its fingers.

  “It looks like you have visitors,” the doctor said.

  Victor looked over his shoulder. Approaching him were Harlan Quill, a dark-skinned woman in a Taborian military uniform, and a heavyset man wearing colorful robes.

  Victor turned to face them, indifferent to his bare chest and bandages. “Captain Quill.” He nodded to the woman. “Captain Gale, I presume.”

  The woman nodded. “Indeed. And may I present to you—”

  “Chancellor Abu Ibin Salah Forsythe of Tabor’s illustrious parliament!” said the big colorfully dressed man. “I wish to extend my deepest gratitude. The arrival of your ships was most opportune.”

  “You can thank the planet Guthrie for that,” Harlan Quill said.

  “Yes, the timing of their trade conference and your visit couldn’t have been better,” Chancellor Forsythe said.

  Oh, you have no idea, Chancellor Forsythe, Victor thought, keeping his face neutral. “I’m just glad we could help before you came to harm, Chancellor.”

  “Well, you and Captain Quill showed great magnanimity in helping us not long after my world refused to join your alliance,” Forsythe said.

  Victor shrugged and nodded toward Harlan Quill. “You should thank him. It was his idea to render aid. I'm just a hired escort.”

  “You are much too modest, Captain Victor,” Forsythe said. “Is Victor your surname by the way?”

  Victor shook his head. “No, it’s my first name. I don’t have a surname.”

  “Don’t have one, or don’t have one you want to share?” Captain Gale asked.

  Victor glanced at her. “Does it matter?”

  “I suppose it doesn’t,” the chancellor said. “But it does seem a little unseemly for a starship captain to go by his first name.”

  Victor shrugged and winced at the pain from his left shoulder. “It’s worked out well for me so far.”

  “Yes, well, as a man who knows a thing or two about image and reputation, I can think of a more appropriate name for you,” he said.

  “And that would be?” Victor asked.

  Forsythe smiled and glanced at Victor’s prosthetic. “Blackhand.”

  Victor held up his prosthetic and glanced at it. “A bit much, don’t you think?”

  “I don’t know. I think it has a certain ring to it,” Harlan Quill said.

  Victor resisted giving the son of his employer a hard look.

  “See, Captain Blackhand?” Chancellor Forsythe said. “It’s already catching on.

  ***

  A week later, the Alexander and Waynesburg escorted the General Ian and the captured Fortune back to the Tabor system.

  Interrogations of the few surviving pirates and the evidence found aboard the Fortune uncovered a Lysandran agent had been responsible for the
attack on the General Ian.

  Victor, the newly christened Captain Blackhand, was publicly rewarded by Chancellor Forsythe, as well as covertly rewarded by High Councilor Quill.

  News of the Lysandran Empire’s attempt to assassinate Tabor’s head of state spread quickly through the world’s news feeds, creating a wave of anti-Imperial sentiment, particularly among the down-and-out, who generally blamed the empire for their economic troubles.

  And, therefore, just as Quill had planned, the negotiations restarted, only this time the Taborians were much more amenable to joining the Free Worlds’ Alliance.

  Victor’s services were no longer needed, so he was contracted to ferry a message back to Mustang and then “take some leave,” as Quill put it.

  Two weeks after “saving” Chancellor Forsythe and the General Ian, the Alexander landed in Waynesburg Spaceport to deliver Quill’s messages and Victor’s crew to their vacation.

  “So, Captain Blackhand…” Gaz said. He, from all of Victor’s crew, got the most kick from Victor’s new nickname. “What orders do you have for us?”

  Victor shrugged. “Be back here at this time in three weeks, or I’ll replace you. Otherwise, do as you wish.”

  Gaz made a toothy smile and departed, followed by the entire crew of the Alexander, save for Victor, Cormac, and Fara.

  The starchild was staring at the frigate with a contemplative look on his face.

  “What’s on your mind, Cormac?” asked Fara. She had a duffel bag slung over her shoulder.

  Cormac turned his head toward Fara. “Oh, nothing. It’s just that’s it’s been two years since I’ve spent an extended period of time off this ship. That is all.”

  “I know what you mean,” Victor said, walking up beside Cormac. “She’s been a good home for us, I think.”

  “Yes,” Cormac said. “A good home.” He turned to depart. “But not a large one. I think I’ll start my leave by stretching my legs.”

  The starchild left, leaving Fara and Victor alone at the boarding ramp.

  “So how do you plan on spending your leave, Captain?” she asked.

  “Me? Getting a room at an expensive hotel and sleeping in it,” Victor said.