by Nick Cole
“Is there still power to the ship, Tin Can?”
“Yes, sir. The ship says he’s hooked into the main grid so that salvage crews can continue their work of tearing him to pieces.”
“Tell the ship to start the main power-up sequence for launch.”
“Sir… This ship, sadly, will never fly again. He says he’s incapable of starflight.”
“Tell him to do it anyway. Power in the main start-up sequence will give me access to the security panels. If I can find one.”
“Ah! Brilliant idea, sir. The ship tells me that he’s powering up. And that it feels like old times,” announced the war bot proudly.
One deck down, Rechs skidded to a halt in front of a panel set in a bulkhead. He ripped off the security shielding, revealing a touchscreen with a keypad. Alphanumerica, we used to call it.
“Don’t think about it,” he told himself when he tried to recall the numbers, the password sequence. It’s there. Don’t trust your mind. Let your muscles do the remembering.
Then he chuckled with disgust. His mind wasn’t what it used to be. Which was good in a way. Maybe he didn’t like all these memories. Maybe they reminded him of all the things he’d left behind. The things that were missing.
His fingers flew across the pad. Until the last number. The last digit. His finger hesitated over the nine. Unsure.
And then he just punched nine, because, he thought, what else could he do? What other option was left but the gamble of a guess?
One day the house will win.
“Let it not be today,” he muttered.
The main functions screen appeared.
Seconds later he had some of the blast doors between them and the legionnaires irising closed.
That should hold them for a few.
He brought up the ship’s schematic and cycled through the layout until he found what he was looking for.
“Lyra,” he said into his comm.
“Yes, Captain. ETA your area three minutes.”
“Good. I need you to fly right into the superstructure of this ship and find the main gun bore. It’s what they used to fire the old planet-killer weapon out of. Halfway down its length there’s a maintenance platform. Try to get the Crow as close to that platform as possible!”
A long pause.
He heard the unmistakable sound of a laser torch cutting through a distant bulkhead. The legionnaires. It wouldn’t take them long. Those torches could cut through anything, durasteel and ceramic even, like it was warm butter.
He remembered the year he’d had nothing but a laser torch for a weapon during the Savage Wars. It had been like a sword, or a ceremonial sabre. It had been both elegant and brutal. And he’d killed more than he cared to remember with it.
Why?
Because the galaxy had been that close to going into permanent darkness.
“Follow me,” he told the little girl and the bot.
As they moved, he heard a distant bulkhead clattering to the deck, then the metallic clack of legionnaire boots coming for them.
They followed the maintenance tube forward, then crawled through an oxygen grate and out into a curving hall that would lead off toward the bore of the main gun. The planet-killer.
MG42. That had been its military designation.
The Republic didn’t build those anymore.
But back then… we did, he thought. We built weapons to kill planets. As bad as things had become, they weren’t as bad as they were then.
Rechs stopped at a T-intersection. One way led to the bore platform where Lyra and the Crow would soon be waiting. The ship could at least get the girl out of here.
He checked the low-quality blaster once more, as though still not believing he was carrying such a useless weapon. It was anathema to him. Every weapon he’d fought with had always felt a part of him—but not this. Maybe that’s why he’d been dragging it along. Keeping it as far from his body as possible.
“Listen, Tin Can. Take her and follow this passage.” He indicated the one on the right. “Find door M3. Tell the ship to lock it once you’re through. My ship is coming. It’ll get her off the platform.”
“Ah! Excellent, sir! And what about me?”
“Once she’s in the ship it can take you both somewhere safe.” But that was a lie. There really wasn’t anywhere safe anymore.
“You’re not listening to me,” said the girl. “I want to hire you. I want you to kill—”
“Shut up!” he shouted. He fixed her with an emotionless turn of his soulless battle helmet. “You don’t have enough to pay me to get your revenge! And you need to get over that. The galaxy is full of that kind of stuff. Full of it. Get over whatever happened to you. It happened, I’m sorry, but get over it. Trust me. You don’t need revenge as bad as you think you do. It’ll just eat you up and spit you out. There’ll be nothing left of you at the end of it.”
Trust me.
She stared up at him. Her eyes were hard and angry. Stared right through the helmet he’d hidden himself in for so long.
“I’ll never get over it,” she said. “He was my—”
“You will!” shouted Rechs desperately. He could hear the legionnaires coming for them. He needed her to move now. “You will. You’ll fall in love someday and you’ll forget all the bad things that ever happened to you. We can’t remember every terrible thing that’s been done to us. Otherwise we’d never make it. We couldn’t go on. And we have to. Trust me, you’ll survive this. You have so far. You will. Tin Can—” He looked at the old war bot someone had turned into a servant. Remembered seeing these things ripping Zengaari raiders to shreds in the half-light of a carbon-dust-storm-shadowed Cyclon. “Get her out of here now. Command override ‘Reaper 19.’”
The tall war bot grabbed the girl’s hand instantly, without hesitation or reply—as if the polite, watchful servant had never been. As if a deadly machine—a monster, used to obeying orders—was all that remained.
“What’re you doing, Crash?” the girl screamed. “Let me go!”
“Take her to the platform,” ordered Rechs. “Get her on my ship and get out of here. I’ll try to buy you as much time as I can.”
“As you command, General.”
The bot lumbered into the darkness of the right-hand corridor, dragging the screaming and kicking girl like some immense boogeyman, the nightmare of all fragile and good things.
The legionnaires were coming closer. Calling out blind spots to one another. Moving tactically. Moving smart. Coming for him.
It’s you they’re here for, he thought. Give her time to get clear, and they might forget about her.
He pressed himself against the wall, blaster held against his chest plate, readying himself as he’d done countless times before. Readying himself to die killing others.
The first footsteps came near. Rechs waited. Then pivoted smoothly and fired. Two shots. Both were badly sent by the wonky blaster, but one hit, spinning the advancing legionnaire into the wall.
Now he kept up a steady stream of inaccurate fire.
“He’s pinned down!” called one of the Rep-Army sergeants. “Try and flank him!”
Of course, thought Rechs as he sent more shots down the dark passageway. They returned fire, but were more interested in cover. They were smart that way. They knew he was dangerous.
He tried to calculate whether the war bot and the girl had reached the platform yet.
A legionnaire poked his head out far down the hall, in the left-hand passage, then quickly ducked back. They had him from two directions now.
In a moment now they’ll set up a crossfire. Then I’m done for.
That was when his blaster broke.
A small high singing note warned him it was about to happen. Then the smell of something burning. Probably the crystal focuser fusing. He tossed it to the side and drew his hand cannon from his hip, slick as a pit viper.
The indicator in his HUD told him there wasn’t much ammo left.
He put five rounds int
o a legionnaire who had decided to rush during the two-second pause between the blaster fritzing out and his drawing of his third-to-last weapon. All center mass. The legionnaire fell to the deck.
But others were stepping over him, swarming Rechs all at once. And at the same time, more legionnaires appeared in the cross passage, hemming him in.
He drew his rocket-powered grappling hook from his combat harness belt and fired it at the first legionnaire in the cross passage. When it entangled the man’s weapon, Rechs flicked the thumb switch to reel it back in.
Still firing with his hand cannon at the advancing legionnaires in the main corridor, he secured his grappling hook with his other hand and caught the N-6 battle rifle smoothly.
Now I’ve got something to work with.
He fell back, firing. There were more legionnaires behind those dying just in front of him. He dropped back, corridor by corridor, running, firing. Making them pay all the way to the platform.
He lost count of how many he’d taken out, but obviously the first two squads had been reinforced. Still, he managed to stay ahead of them.
And when he arrived at the maintenance hatch that led onto the platform inside the gun bore, he overrode the panel, stepped through, and locked it shut behind him.
He’d made it.
The girl and the old war bot were standing near the edge of the abyss—the massive gun bore of the ancient weapon that should’ve never been built. Through that bore, the running lights of a ship were slowly approaching. His ship. The Obsidian Crow.
Behind him, the legionnaires started on the door with a cutter.
Two minutes.
“Kick it in gear, Lyra. We’re running out of time.”
“I’m really not good at flying, Captain. You know that.” But the ship’s speed did increase. “And Captain, I cannot land.”
That was true. The tiny maintenance platform wouldn’t even hold one of the three main gears of the Crow.
“Just get as close as you can.”
The flat ship came nearer, its bulbous cockpit sticking out from the top forward portion, and then suddenly stopped. Its screaming engines shifted into the lower tones of throttling down. The legionnaires were halfway through the door.
“Bring it in closer, Lyra!” Rechs yelled into his comm as he turned to face the door, blaster ready.
I can take out a few, he thought. Surrender never even occurred to him.
“Captain, this is as close as I feel comfortable at this time. I just run the systems. I do not fly. You know that. We’ve discussed this—”
“Put the prisoner on!” growled Rechs.
The legionnaires were three quarters of the way through the hatch.
“That’s an odd request, Captain,” replied Lyra. “But very well. It’s a wobanki. So of course… you know how they are. He’s patched into your comm now.”
“Attention, prisoner. You’ve tried to steal my ship. I can have you jettisoned in deep space according to Republic law.”
The cutter was having problems getting through the last few bolts in the door. Then it stopped. They’re switching out, thought Rechs. The fresh one will cut faster. It’s a small break. But it’s the only break I’ve got.
“I can only guess you were trying to get off planet because of the Republic,” he said quickly. “I am too. So how about instead of jettisoning you, I hire you as my first mate?”
“Taju janki tegu…” yowled the wobanki.
“It pays!” shouted Rechs indignantly. “I’ll pay you.”
“Tabu janki? Tabu janki!”
“Well, we’ll discuss amounts later. But right now, I need you to get that ship, especially the lower access hatch and boarding ramp, as close to this platform I’m on as possible. Do that, and yeah… tabu janki. Bugu tabu janki.”
It didn’t matter how much the wobanki wanted. If Rechs didn’t get himself and the girl off this platform in the next few seconds, they’d be dead. And the legionnaires no doubt had a surface-to-air trooper somewhere nearby. One of those guys equipped with an MLAR anti-ship missile could knock a light freighter out of the sky in seconds.
The wobanki yowled wryly, which was the wobanki way of indicating it could do something. It was also the wobanki way of meaning many other things.
The cutter started up on the door again.
“All right then. I’m instructing the ship to release you from your harness. One move to escape before you get us off this platform, and I’ll have the ship eject you.”
He hoped Lyra knew he was bluffing. The ship couldn’t eject, but the ship was a bit of a literalist, and it might choose this moment to speak up and correct his error. It had done so before. But thankfully, it remained silent. It was probably glad someone else was going to fly it.
The Crow moved haltingly toward the platform in a series of thrusts from the maneuver jets and main engine yaw thrust controls. It rotated around to bring the cargo ramp, which was already lowering, down to meet the platform. Expertly done.
And it still wasn’t close enough.
The whine of the cutter stopped. The legionnaires were through. In a moment they’d kick it down and come out blasting.
Rechs grabbed the girl and activated his armor’s rockets. A short hop, and he was off the platform, across the empty void of the gun bore, and landing on the ramp.
“Oh, my,” intoned the war bot. “What about me?”
“Crash!” screamed the girl as Rechs tossed her up into the hold. “Don’t leave Crash!”
Legionnaires squeezed through the ragged cut in the door and began firing. Rechs returned fire from the boarding ramp.
“Don’t leave him!” the girl demanded.
Hell, thought Rechs.
As the Crow began to maneuver for departure—the wobanki, thankfully, was not waiting for additional orders—Rechs grabbed one of the platform struts to hang on to, targeted the war bot with his grappling hook, and fired.
“Get us out of here!” he screamed above the whining engines as he anchored the hook in the old war bot.
The ship spun, and a moment later it was pointed back down the bore exit. Rechs knew the wobanki would now be reaching for the throttles on the forward panel. He gripped the strut tightly and reeled in the bot with the last of the armor’s power as legionnaire blaster fire found the bottom of his ship.
He grabbed the bot and fell backward as the cargo door closed, bringing them up into the main hold. The primary engines ignited, and the Obsidian Crow raced away down the gun bore of the ancient battleship, headed out. Headed up. Climbing toward the Republican blockade.
Readying to make the jump to light speed.
11
Tannespa had more cantinas than traffic bots, and Keel imagined he must have just about visited all of them, never staying long enough for so much as a sip of ponteeran ale. The interior of the establishments varied, some dingy and rank, others attempting to exude a core-world sophistication that came across more tacky than anything else. Results were another story altogether.
Keel had a name for the coder and a rough description from Lao Pak, who was just as likely making it up given the pirate’s attention to detail. That was about it. Bartenders—human and bot alike—didn’t remember seeing who “wore a pair of sled gunner’s goggles around his neck” and “probably” a green shirt. Certainly the name Garret didn’t ring a bell, but why would it? Based on Lao Pak’s own admission, the kid wasn’t the type to make a flashy show of himself.
It was a surly group of a drunken space pirates who gave Keel his first real clue as to the coder’s whereabouts. A clue that cost him five bottles of Rypian brandy—or would have, had Keel not paid the bartender to fill empty bottles of the ultra-elite liquor with watered-down spacer rum.
“Bam Tammo’s junk shop,” hiccupped the inebriated pirate who served as something of a leader, spilling his glass as he wobbled to keep his balance. He drained what was left of the knockoff beverage, hissed, and wiped his mouth. “Yeah. That’s good.”
&nb
sp; “I’m glad you like it,” Keel said, hiding an amused grin behind his hand. “It cost me a pretty credit. “Where is this… junk shop? Come to think of it, what is it? Are we talking narco-stims?”
This caused an eruption of laughter from the booth holding the pirates. Keel feigned laughter along with them.
“Nah! Not Garret,” slurred another pirate, this one stinking of orange ryhnn, most of which ran in a stain from her lips down her neck. “Oh, you know, Garret. Heesh alwaysh goin’ around that place. For the junk. To make… his… schtuff.” She made a point of closing her fist around her thumb so it stuck out between two fingers, as though she’d forgotten how to ball a fist. “Schtuff.”
Keel gave a half smile. “Sure.” He rose from his seat at the end of the booth. “Tell you what, I’ll just ask the bartender. Enjoy the drinks, huh?”
The motley crew of pirates toasted Keel as he left for the bar.
“Bam Tammo’s junk shop?” Keel inquired of the kimbrin bartender.
The barkeep bristled the spikes on his neck and shoulders and pointed south. “Two blocks that way. No sign, but it’s full of salvage. Can’t miss it.”
With a flick of his thumb, Keel tossed a credit chit at the barkeep. “Thanks.”
The junk shop was easy enough to find once Keel knew which direction to go. An assortment of spare parts, used-up servos, and disassembled bots sat like buoys on an endless sea of scrap metal. It all seemed to spill out from the squat, box-like shop’s entrance, nearly to the street. No signage was visible, just like the bartender had said, but Keel couldn’t imagine what else the place might be other than Bam Tammo’s junk shop.
Stepping over a dented comm dish that looked like it was pried from some deep space hauler shortly after the Savage Wars broke out, he entered.
The shop was lit exclusively with discarded neon ad boards and partially functioning holoscreens. Bright colors glowed, touting products Keel had never heard of in a dizzying number of scripts, some of which he couldn’t comprehend. Most of the ad boards only had a few letters or characters lit up, the remaining burnt-out sections giving the illusion of misspelled words or incomplete sentences. The effect of this… peculiar form of illumination gave the inside of the junk shop a certain ambiance, like a seedy space-station nightclub.