Message for the Dead

by Jason Anspach

  Keel pressed a button at the top of the grip, just behind the trigger. An empty magazine slid out. Keel caught it as it dropped. He set the weapon on the table and began loading it from the ammo box. The spring in the magazine protested with each additional bullet he pressed into it, like a dinner guest who’d had enough courses and wasn’t pleased about being force-fed. This process was so much more time-consuming than slamming in a new charge pack and being ready to go. It made Keel feel like he was some kind of an ancient historical re-enactor preparing for a weekend excursion to bring to life an archaic battle like Bull Run Harbor.

  When the weapon was fully loaded, Keel picked a spot on the wall and lined it up in his sights. The slug thrower was heavier than his Intec, but it felt good in his hand, well-balanced, solid and weighty enough that the recoil should be relatively light. That was a good thing. Getting several shots on target with a pistol was of immense value.

  Keel became aware that he was allowing himself to get lost in thought. He hailed Ravi over his comm. “Find anything yet, Ravi?”

  “I am only now beginning to review the facility security holos and footage. Thankfully the data is microcompressed, which allows for fast review, however even at so fast a pace—”

  “What? Are you watching from the beginning? Just rewind until you see what happened.”

  “I was saying that while I can review what is there quite swiftly, it seems that Tyrus Rechs only kept an archive dating back over a rolling six-week period. All footage older than that is scrubbed. However, I am communicating with the facility AI to see if it might not be able to rummage up something.”

  “Okay. But let’s make it quick, huh?”

  “Understood. How about you? Have you discovered anything interesting?”

  “Maybe.” Keel examined the hand cannon. “Found a new souvenir.”

  “Oh. Yes, good. I was hoping that we would be able to stop at the gift shop before leaving. Anything of value for the mission at hand?”

  “Nothing yet, smart mouth, but I’ll let you know if I find something. Wraith out.”

  Keel moved back to the bench. It was time to leave. He looked at the ammo crate. It was heavy, but worth taking along, especially if the slug thrower could function reliably enough to be taken on ops. He spied an old bandolier with loops big enough for the old-style shotgun shells, and frowned when he didn’t see a matching weapon.

  A distant bang sounded outside the open door—it seemed to have originated from far across the great entry room. He moved to the doorway and saw Bombassa and Exo removing crates from the armory and stacking them up outside.

  He pinged the shock troopers over the com. “Finding anything interesting?”

  “No, not really,” Exo replied. “For an armory belonging to Tyrus Rechs, this place sucks.”

  “It is little more than former ammunition crates and rocket crates all loaded down with spare parts,” Bombassa added. “Anything to make it heavy.”

  That was strange. But, in the time Keel had known him, Tyrus Rechs had proven to be a sort of a weird guy. “Well,” Keel said, “the old man was loaded. So if it seems like he stacked up a bunch of junk, maybe go through it. Might just get us all rich. Maybe he’s got something good hidden and just wants to keep any nosy visitors away. You need a hand?”

  “No. We got it.”

  Keel was ready to go and help anyway. Until he caught the faint flash of a green light emanating from beneath the cluttered workbench. It blinked from an area that had been covered with rags and boxes. He hadn’t noticed it before; perhaps he’d uncovered something by mistake while poking around.

  He moved items aside until he revealed the source of the flash: a mound-like device, the light blinking up from its center. He attempted to pick it up, but it wouldn’t budge. It had no markings of any kind. Just a single button.

  Keel pressed the button.

  The base emitted a disjointed chime, which Keel interpreted as a prompt. The green light continued to flash, as if listening.

  “Uh…”

  The light flashed again, indicating to Keel that it indeed was listening. It was processing the sound of Keel’s voice.

  Keel remembered the passkey Ravi had used to shut down the turrets and open the airlock blast doors. “Reina.”

  He swallowed, hoping he hadn’t just activated some kind of diabolical self-defense system that would now end his life.

  Nothing happened for several seconds. The light just flashed and flickered, as though it were communicating in some visual code. Then the flickering intensified, and the device projected a figure suspended above the workbench.

  Tyrus Rechs.

  Keel took a subconscious step backward as he looked up at the bounty hunter. Well, a projection of him.

  “Good. You remembered her,” said the holographic projection of Tyrus Rechs—from the chest up.

  Keel tilted his head inquisitively. “Rechs?”

  Sometimes holograms like these were tied into artificial intelligences that did their best to map the minds of those who had created them. It was possible that what Keel was looking at was an AI simulation of Tyrus Rechs. But it soon became evident that this was simply a recording.

  “In case you haven’t figured it out yet, I’m Tyrus Rechs. Which means I’m you. Of course, if things are so hazy that you don’t remember that, well, all of this might be an exercise in futility.

  “But let me give you the refresher course just the same. You are Tyrus Rechs. You’re a bounty hunter. Or at least, we were when I recorded this. Maybe that’s changed now. Things do that. They change. Either way, you’re in a profession that enjoys killing. And you like to kill, Tyrus. That’s why you keep doing it—why you keep killing so many people. Just in case you’re wondering.

  “Now, before you were Tyrus Rechs, you were this man.”

  The reflection shifted, and Keel furrowed his brow at the sight of General Rex, the famed legionnaire who had led the Republic to victory in the Savage Wars—and who had then fallen from the graces of the House of Reason. There was no way this was the same guy. Same name, sure. But Keel had always assumed “Tyrus Rechs” was just the man’s chosen bounty hunter name. His real name was probably something unimpressive and forgettable—like Ford—and so he’d adopted the great general’s name for the sake of reputation. Out here on the edge, things like that mattered. But for the two Tyruses to literally be the same person? Rechs would have to have been—Keel did the math in his head—almost a hundred years old when Keel met him. And he certainly hadn’t fought like someone that geriatric.

  The holorecording shifted back to the familiar projection of the man Keel knew as Tyrus Rechs before continuing. “Before disappearing, you were General Rex. You ended the Savage Wars. You were also General Reeves in the middle of the Savage Wars. And someone else before that, going all the way back to whatever your real name was before the Savage Wars even started.” The holo of Rechs laughed. “To tell the truth, I’ve faked my own death and started over so many times, I’m not even sure who I really am.

  “What I’m saying, in any event, is that you’ve been around a long, long time. And today, for the first time, I realized that I couldn’t quite remember all of those long, long ago times. I can’t quite bring to mind who I was over the centuries, or what I was doing.”

  The hologram motioned to some unseen object behind Keel. “This is going long. You may as well make yourself comfortable.”

  Keel looked around, then pulled up the stool.

  “I asked myself this morning why I wasn’t General Rex anymore. I liked being General Rex. Why wasn’t I leading a company of legionnaires? Why wasn’t I on the battlefield?

  “I had to sit down and really think. After about five minutes or so of hard, concentrated thought, I remembered. And then I got scared and figured that if I didn’t stop everything and do this now, it would happen again. And maybe the haze doesn’t clear up so quick. And maybe I only think it cleared up all the way, but I still forget some key pieces
of information.

  “So I sat down to record this in case you ever happen to come back to this rock after who knows how long. Maybe when you’re forgetting and want something that can guide you along the way.”

  Tyrus Rechs pauses and looks straight down. He looks weary. “Hang out on the edge. Wait. Does that ring a bell? If it doesn’t, you should be terrified, Tyrus Rechs. Or whatever your name is right now. Probably Terrence Rods, with the amount of originality we have.” He laughed again. “Hang out on the edge. Wait. You remember Casper, don’t you? I hope so. He was a good friend who wanted too badly to be a good man, and so he stopped being a good friend. Then he stopped being a good man. And he went off to do the things that all three of us swore would never be done.”

  Rechs held up a finger, pointing at his supposed future self. “You made a promise to each other. You promised that if any of you tried to take that power, if any of you tried to harness it, no matter how good your intentions… no matter how bad the galaxy got… that if any of you tried it, the others would hang out on the edge and wait for them to come back.

  “And then they would kill ’em.”

  Rechs let out a long sigh. “Well, Rechs… That’s why you’re a bounty hunter right now, hanging out here at galaxy’s edge. Taking souls. Bringing justice. Amassing a fortune because there’s nothing else to do. No way we’ll ever spend it all, but at least when he comes back, we’ll be ready for whatever.”

  Keel became aware that he was holding his breath. He gulped in air, and felt somehow embarrassed for listening in on this most private of messages. The Tyrus Rechs of the hologram looked like he had tears welling in his eyes.

  “It’s important you don’t forget this, Tyrus. If you let Casper live, the galaxy will suffer. If you let that power leave its ancient resting place, the galaxy will be enslaved. It’s your duty to the galaxy to stop that—isn’t that why you started the damned Legion? And it’s your duty to Casper when he shows up—isn’t that why you call him friend? You have to kill him. Hang out on the edge. Wait.”

  The holographic image moved, as though the cam recording Rechs followed him in the motion of standing up. “Don’t forget, Rechs. Don’t forget nothin’.

  “All right. That’s about all I had to say.”

  Keel stood up, expecting the transmission to end.

  “Oh, there is just one more thing. Those little beasties—you probably noticed their carcasses all around—well, they’ve got a pretty good nest. They’re millennial hibernators. Can sleep for centuries without food. I was able to block up the nest and keep them trapped by stacking up just about every everything I could find over in the armory. I actually debated putting this message pod over in the armory itself because I had so much trouble stopping them the first time around. You know, as a warning. But if there’s one thing that I know isn’t going to change about you, it’s that your first order of business when getting back is going to be to clean and strip your weapons for the next time. Dirty weapons are like unfaithful friends. Never did anybody any good.

  “Oh, and if you’re looking for more ammunition, it’s in the mess hall. Nothing but trouble is left in that armory. KTF, Leej.”

  05

  Keel stood dumbfounded for several seconds as the hologram of Rechs faded away. The weight of it all, everything that the old man had spoken of… it took time to sink in. He had to shake off thoughts of this “Casper,” who Keel felt certain was Goth Sullus—what other man possessed an ancient, dangerous power? who else had Rechs been more determined to kill?—before the immediate danger posed to Bombassa and Exo struck him full on.

  “Guys!” Keel shouted across the expanse, forgetting his comm. “Stop!”

  “What are you yelling about?” Exo replied over the comm.

  Keel ran into the great loading bay, the ammunition can under one arm, the slug thrower in his free hand. “Put them back! Stack ’em back up!”

  But Exo and Bombassa were already running out of the armory. They slammed the door shut behind them.

  “Something’s in there, Wraith!” Exo shouted. “Inside the armory!”

  “A lot of somethings,” Bombossa added. “And they sound angry.”

  “Yeah, that’s what I was just shouting about,” Keel said as he joined them. “I found an old data recording from Rechs, saying that those crates were put there to block in more of those creatures. They’ve got a nest back there, and he trapped them inside somehow.”

  Bombassa scowled and shook his head. “And now we have un-trapped them. When we removed the stacked crates we spotted an opening behind the armory that appears to go into the mines themselves. We were discussing going in to investigate when we heard howls.”

  Keel switched on his comm. “Ravi! We have company!”

  The navigator’s voice responded calmly. “Yes, I can see it on the mines’ closed-circuit holo-cams. The armory is swarming with the creatures.”

  Exo was holding down the armory door’s emergency close button so its automated sensors wouldn’t open the door in response to the movement on the opposite side. Loud thuds were already sounding as the creatures pounded on the door. “Wraith, I don’t know if I can let this button go!”

  “Ravi,” Keel called again. “Can you seal the door to the armory?”

  “I can, yes. It may cause other complications.”

  “Do it. We need to start falling back.”

  The navigator appeared in the midst of them. “You can let go now, Exo. The door is sealed.”

  Keel sized up his holographic companion. “Glad you could join us.”

  Bombassa bounced with nervous energy, his body leaning toward the airlock exit. “I think it’s time for us to get out of here.”

  Ravi nodded. “Yes, I agree. However, this will prove much more problematic for you than it will for me. All the doors in the complex are on the same circuit, so when I shut off the automatic open for the armory, I also shut off the auto-open for the airlock. This was part of a design intended to lock down all doors in the event of a security breach.”

  Bombassa gripped his rifle. “That doesn’t make sense. There would have to be some kind of manual override to get in and out of the airlock in case of an emergency.”

  “Yes. They installed it inside the airlock itself. And you will not get inside the airlock while the doors are locked down.”

  “So we got no choice but to open all the doors and then hold the line,” Exo said. “Unless we can drive out of here in the big cargo mover?”

  Bombassa jogged over to it and tried the mover’s door. “Locked tight. Unless someone has a cutting torch?”

  “We fall back to the airlock blast doors,” Keel said. “Ravi, you lift the lockdown and open the doors. We’ll hold off any ghouls that come our way until we can slip inside and close things back up again. Then we’re home free to the Six.”

  “Sounds like a plan,” said Exo.

  They hurried to the blast doors and took up firing positions.

  “Okay,” Ravi announced. “I’m reactivating the auto sensors and opening the blast doors.”

  The mammoth gears and mechanisms required to open the massive airlock doors groaned in protest, warming up in a slow grind. The armory’s security door slid open much more quickly, and almost instantly the first creature, cautious but malicious-looking, padded out into the open.

  A single shot from a Bombassa’s blaster rifle struck the beast in its neck. It dropped to the deck, dead.

  Keel had set down the ammunition can so he could hold his new slug thrower in one hand and his blaster pistol in the other. His rifle was slung over his shoulder. “Well, at least we know they go down easy.”

  More of the creatures poured out. Their eerie, high-pitched squeals pulsed in Keel’s ears.

  Ravi took several steps forward, his phantom sword appearing in his hand, and the beasts ran toward him. Four of the monsters jumped at him in tandem, but Ravi swung his weapon through all four in a single stroke, sending eight dog pieces back to the deck. />
  Those four were only the beginning. Based on the howls, Keel estimated there must be hundreds more packed into the space beyond the armory. The narrow doorway the beasts had to pass through was the only thing preventing them from completely overwhelming the large bay, and even so, at least two dozen had already spilled through.

  Another trio leapt toward Ravi. He cut down one, but the other two avoided his blade and passed through Ravi’s holographic figure. They shook their hoary heads in confusion, apparently wondering why their jaws had clasped on nothingness instead of the firm flesh of a man.

  They didn’t stay bewildered long. They turned their attention to the three armored men standing at the blast door, which was inching open at a glacial pace. It had opened maybe a quarter of the way wide enough for one of them to slip through.

  Exo and Bombassa converged blaster fire on one of the two beasts, sending it tumbling down. The other kept running. Keel aimed his slug thrower and fired. The massive hand cannon recoiled much more than he was used to, but not so much that he couldn’t line up a second shot in case he needed it.

  He didn’t. His first shot was on target, proving that the gun’s sights were true. The blast had caught the creature mid-jump, sending it spinning in the air like a rotary blade. When the beast hit the ground, a massive hole just underneath its left eye poured blood onto the deck. An even larger hole gaped on the other side of its skull.

  “Damn,” said Exo.

  Impressive as the shot was, Ravi’s blade was doing most of the work, slicing through the creatures as they poured forth. But even Ravi could not be in all places at once, and more and more were coming around the holographic defender. Keel, Exo, and Bombassa dropped the squirters as they slipped through, divvying the targets between them. But each wave of beasts fell a little closer to their line.

  “We will be overrun before long,” Bombassa said.

  Keel glanced back at the door. “One of you give that door a try,” he said. “It might be just wide enough to squeeze through.”