By Dawn's Early Light

by Jason Fuesting

  “No,” Turing cut in and the humor evaporated. “We will not be atomizing a single square millimeter of my planet. Not even for Gliar. It may take decades, but I will be coming back.”

  “Oh, well, okay. I’ve got a few ideas, but I’ll just queue them up as awaiting confirmation so you can review them when you get here, Turing.”

  “Sleeping? Really?” Turing asked as he walked onto the bridge.

  Eric sat up and groused, “What? First rule of the infantry: sleep where you can when you can.”

  Behind Turing, Byron nodded and said, “You can’t say I never taught him anything, Turing.”

  One of the bridge speakers cracked, “Turing, Trevor here.”

  Turing walked over to the speaker and pulled down a hand set.

  “What is it Trevor?” Turing asked.

  “Engineering’s spun up already. Reactor is nominal. Life support terminal here reports all systems green except three log entries about a fire suppression system being used?”

  “Good, don’t worry about the log entries. We’ll be spooling up here in a few minutes. Keep an eye on things,” Turing replied.

  “Will do.”

  “Make yourself useful and go to the navigation console,” Turing said as he tossed a large binder into Eric’s lap.

  Eric shrugged, walked over to sit in the navigator’s chair, and gave Turing a questioning look.

  “Power cycle the box. While it’s booting hold down the control, alt, and escape keys.”

  “Okay?” Eric said while he did as told.

  “Ships in the Protectorate are tightly controlled. While this is a fleet vessel, it’s run by contractors so it’s treated like a civilian ship. Civilian routes are preprogrammed and the system won’t let you get around that without hefty authorization. We don’t have time nor the equipment to crack the authentication routines so you’re booting the system into its debug mode. No security checks at all. No corrections or sanity checks either.”

  “Oh, well, that’s different,” Eric said several seconds later as he clicked on things. “Uh, Turing? There’s no routes for me to select.”

  “Of course not, that’s what the binder’s for.”

  Eric opened the binder to find page upon page of handwritten notes. Notes written in his own handwriting.

  “You’ve got to be shitting me,” Eric snorted.

  “Better hope you were right,” Turing said with a smile. “Based off our fuel levels, I’d say Celion is our best bet. Unless something’s happened, I have contacts there. Input navigational route C-3.”

  Eric flipped through his stellar navigation homework. He chewed on his lip while he figured out which sections from his notes fit in what input boxes while Turing looked on.

  “That looks about right,” Turing said. “Byron, have you found our friends yet?”

  Byron’s head popped up over the row of monitors on the other side.

  “If I’m reading this right, we’ve got less than a half hour left in our departure window. The spinward destroyer is going for a gravity assist off the sun. The other is burning fuel like a madman. They’ll be first to fire.”

  “Good,” Turing told him and pulled down another handset. “Commander Grace, status?”

  The radio crackled, “Just set the last shuttle down. She’s spinning down, so I’ll be up front in about five.”

  “This all looks like it’s been put in correct,” Elizabeth said. “And it looks like out of the options we’ve got available for fuel, you picked the only one with a transfer window that doesn’t keep us here too long. Impressive, Turing. I’m starting the EM drives now. We’ll start burning mass in six minutes.”

  “I’m going to go rack out,” Eric said from the hatchway. “I’m taking the captain’s cabin if no one objects.”

  “Oh, Eric, I’m sorry, I’ve been so busy I forgot. I made sure we got all your personal stuff on the last trip. Muffin was scared senseless the whole way up. I think Anne has her in a crate.”

  Eric smiled. “That means a lot to me. That furball is one of the few reasons I haven’t done anything terminally stupid not in this room. Thanks, Liz.”

  “Sleep well,” Liz told him and turned back to her console. Byron and Turing waved.

  “This just isn’t right,” Eric sighed as he shucked off various piece of his suit. He laid back on the bed and Muffin jumped onto his chest, purring. He sighed again, trying to forget the sorrow eating at his heart by petting the insistent cat. I should have just come straight here and gone to sleep. I didn’t need to waste a half hour on the way back the observation deck watching us leave.

  Fuck it.

  Muffin hopped off his chest as Eric rolled over and dug out his tablet. He powered it on and pulled up his image gallery while the cat curled up on one of his pillows.

  A large photo splashed across the screen. Your first deer, hon. You were so proud. Next. You were so happy at our wedding. There’s Turing in the background. That sneaky bastard. Next. See, I told you that wedding dress looked better on the floor. You never thought you were pretty, hon. I never figured out why. Next. You always looked funny in full battle rattle. Helmet too big and a vest that didn’t quite work with your boobs. Next. Hadrian didn’t appreciate that joke as much as we did. I hope you have better luck explaining it to him than I did.

  One of the videos he’d dug out of Captain Morneault’s old files popped up and started playing. Oh, no, I’m not going to watch this. Try as he might, he couldn’t muster the strength to pause the video. You loved the version with the violin. You said it was our song.

  Tears dropped onto the screen.

  God dammit.

  “Couldn’t sleep?” Elizabeth asked from the navigator’s station as Eric stumbled onto the bridge.

  “No,” he grumbled.

  “As of an hour ago,” Turing announced, “Unless the Maelstrom gets a lucky shot in, they can’t stop us from reaching the gravity horizon. Commander Grace’s course variance makes that terribly unlikely. We might not be home free until we’re out of Protectorate space, but we’re a damn sight closer, Eric.”

  Eric gave Turing a weak smile as he slumped into the vacant captain’s chair.

  “We were talking about what we plan to do once we make it to Accorded space,” Turing said.

  “Accorded space?” Eric scoffed. “Hope your plans started at getting black bagged and ended at execution.”

  Turing stared at him.

  “Admittedly, Commander Grace did have an issue like that, I don’t see what other option we have.”

  “Easy, get Blaise up here. He should know enough of the charts to get us to one of the Fortune’s old haunts, provided we have the fuel. We sell off every last thing on this boat when we get there, maybe sell the boat, too. You can buy anything for the right price in the Reach. Passage to Confed space is cheap if you ask the right captain. Shavely’s has my money, too.” Eric paused a moment and then noticed the looks being directed at him. “Eh, sorry, I’m being an asshole. What was everyone else planning, long-term?”

  “Well, I have to return to Pershing or get in touch with our military at the very least. They’ll want to debrief me. Beyond that, I haven’t the slightest idea. Honestly, if I could afford it, I’d take the military pension they’ll owe me for this shit and go retire someplace quiet,” Elizabeth said. “I’ve had enough.”

  Byron nodded as he said, “Caledon would find what we’ve learned terribly interesting as well. They’d want to know what happened to Hadrian and his unit. I don’t know what they’ll want with me after that, but I’m too old for this kind of shit.”

  Eric looked at Turing and asked, “You? I seem to remember something about paying back family debts.”

  Turing’s teeth glinted as he smiled.

  “I’ve been considering my options. I’m still not sure which direction I’ll go. Too many unknowns as of yet and that won’t change until we make Celion and I get network access. Overall, you’re right. I always pay my debts. What about you, Eri
c?”

  “Honestly, I haven’t the slightest idea. Who would hire an unexperienced crewman, a former pirate with a raft of unrecognized degrees and no recognizable job experience? Everything I ever wanted to keep we just left behind and I don’t have anywhere to go.”

  Eric looked away from Elizabeth’s soft eyes.

  “Well, that does sound bleak,” Turing said. “But what if I knew someone who’d take you on?”

  “Who?” Eric asked.

  “Me. You did well as my factor and you do seem to have a certain set of skills that I’ll likely find very useful in the near future. There’s one snag.”

  “Which is?”

  “I’m bloody sick of being in charge of everything. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t tempted to take what I have and go slink off somewhere quiet. Inconveniently, I can’t do that. So, say you and I collaborate?”

  “I’m a bit fond of conspiracy,” Eric said with a grin.

  “Ah, yes, conspiracy. So, tell me Eric, if you had a sizeable sum of money, what would you have our conspiracy do with it?”

  Eric leaned back in the captain’s chair and took in the view of the bridge while he thought.

  After some consideration he said, “It seems your former associates have an excess amount of credits in their accounts. I say we rectify that. If some of those happen to find their way into our pockets, so much the better. Without more detail to work on, I’d say our main strengths seem to be piracy and business, so why not do both? But respectably?”

  “Respectably? How does one do piracy respectably?” Turing asked.

  Eric flashed a grin as he told him, “By using a different word, Turing. I vaguely remember reading that the systems of the Confederacy still issue letters of marque. We won’t be pirates, we’ll be privateers. We’ll still be breaking people’s shit and setting it on fire, but with a letter of marque, someone will pay us to do what we were going to do anyway.”

  Turing slowly clapped. “Brilliant.”

  Eric glanced at Byron and Elizabeth.

  “Provided I can,” Elizabeth said with an unknowing shrug.

  “Assume you can,” Eric said.

  “In that case, why the hell not? Would be nice to be on the giving end for once.”

  “Byron? Same assumption.”

  “Privateers are still bad guys,” Byron said in a noncommittal tone. Eric caught the twinkle in the man’s eyes.

  “Well, yes,” Eric said. “They’d be awfully useless if they weren’t. Think bad guys for a good cause.”

  “Oh. Put that way, how can I say no? I’ve spent my whole life being a bad guy for a good cause. This is something I’m good at. Sounds like it pays better, too.”

  “I can’t promise it will, Byron. It might just earn us all an early grave for all I know. Well, early for some of us anyway. Speaking of which, we need to have some sort of service for Hadrian. It wouldn’t be right to just keep going like nothing’s changed after what he did for us.”

  Everyone nodded solemnly.

  “What do you intend to do with the body?” Byron asked. “Spacer’s funeral?”

  “Leave him here? Fuck that. I’m not leaving one of my best friends in orbit around a Protectorate sun if I can help it. No, we’ll put him in cold storage. If I have any say in the matter, he’s going back home to Caledon.”

  Byron nodded appreciatively.

  “So we’re all in?” Eric asked as he looked each of his friends, his new crew in the eyes. They nodded in return.

  Eric leaned back in his chair and propped his feet up.

  “Then let’s be bad guys.”

  About the Author

  Jason currently resides in a non-descript Midwestern town where he is working toward an applied math/physics dual major. As a former member of the armed forces, he is fluent in multiple languages including sarcasm, profanity, and, thanks to the US Navy, acronyms. Along with his wife, he is owned by two cats who declined interview. When not writing or toying with powers reserved for the Elder Gods, he enjoys a wide variety of gaming, both in pen/pencil format and electronic. He may also be infrequently found punching holes in paper via applied ballistics depending on the market price of ammunition, which is, like the rent, always too damn high.