Message for the Dead

by Jason Anspach

  A ferocious streak of fur, claws, and predatory teeth flew in front of Keel. Skrizz. He threw his considerable size and strength into the massive Titan. The bot actually rocked backward from the impact, and it registered in Keel’s mind just how dangerous the big wobanki truly was when angry.

  Skrizz dug his claws deep into the bot’s circuitry, tearing relentlessly at the machine’s neck as Keel sprinted around the melee and headed straight for the ramp of the Indelible VI. He had no doubt that the nimble Skrizz would be able to extricate himself from the fight and rejoin him.

  As Keel reached the ramp, he spun around to see Skrizz darting back and forth in front of the big Titan. The wobanki dexterously dodged left and right, then finally leapt high in the air, directly over the war bot and toward the Six.

  The jump was impressive. But not impressive enough.

  The Titan reached overhead as Skrizz soared, grabbing the wobanki by the ankle and slamming him back down. Keel searched for Ravi, but the navigator was occupied and must not have seen what was happening. The war bot plodded toward the stunned wobanki.

  “You need a weapon,” Keel told himself, looking around the ramp for something—anything—that might save Skrizz’s life.

  “Here.” It was Prisma, and she held an N-18 long rifle, which looked comically oversized in her hands.

  Keel grabbed the weapon and turned to see that Skrizz had found the wherewithal to kick the Titan’s N-50 away. The war bot raised its free hand and prepared to slam it down on the prone wobanki.

  The air cracked as Keel squeezed the rifle’s trigger. A blaster bolt plunged directly into center mass of the Titan’s great frame, putting a hole clean through it. Sparks flew as the machine froze and tumbled forward, threatening to land on top of Skrizz. But the apex killer had recovered enough to undertake a backward rolling somersault before springing to his feet and avoiding being crushed. It was all so smooth and effortless that Keel couldn’t help but be impressed. Skrizz reversed his momentum and ran on all fours toward the waiting ramp.

  Leenah began to take the ship up even as Skrizz loped toward it. Exo and Bombassa continued to send relentless bursts of turret fire into the bots, and somehow the Six’s shields glimmered and absorbed the Cybar assault.

  Skrizz leapt up and landed with both feet on the ramp. He and Keel ran inside, and the captain hit the manual close, sealing the ship.

  “Tu hessa chenra Keel.”

  “Thanks,” answered Keel. “But let’s call it even.”

  Skrizz purred in gratitude.

  Ravi materialized beside them. “I think it is time for us to leave.”

  Keel agreed. There was still some flying that needed doing, especially if starfighters were scrambled from another bay. “I think you’re right.”

  Leenah shouted over the cockpit comm. “Will you get up here and get us out of here?”

  “Yeah,” Keel called back. He tossed the N-18 back to Prisma. “Glad you had that on hand,” he said, running for the cockpit.

  “I wanted to be ready in case they came on board!” Prisma shouted after him.

  Keel smiled.

  “Incoming starfighters!” Bombassa shouted. “From all over!”

  Keel burst into the cockpit to find the Six facing a full-pitched assault force of what were probably AI-controlled starfighters. Leenah ceded the pilot’s chair to Keel, who quickly dropped into his seat and squeezed his hands around the flight controls. Bombassa was controlling the weapon systems from Ravi's navigator’s seat.

  Ravi should be here, Keel thought.

  But he wasn’t, and there was no time to worry about it. He threw the ship into a sharp fork, rolling downward in tight spirals and evading a flurry of incoming blaster cannon fire. “Okay,” he said to Bombassa, “I can give you targets of opportunity while I keep us from getting shot, but you have to take them the moment you see them. Don’t worry about depleting charge, this baby can shoot all day and a night.”

  Bombassa grunted, “Yes, Ravi told me.”

  “Wonderful,” Keel said, jinking left and providing Bombassa a perfect kill shot. “Get the nav computer working on getting us jump coordinates. I don’t care where to, just make it fast!” It occurred to him that Bombassa was probably inexperienced when it came to this part of piloting a spacecraft, so Keel added, “Actually, I do care where—make sure you’ve got safety protocols on. I don't want us to jump into the middle of a star.”

  The big shock trooper nodded and focused on his nav controls.

  Keel’s instrument panel showed nearly forty hostile starfighters inside effective firing range. Streaks of green blaster canon fire were everywhere. The shields flickered, and the ship shuddered with each glancing blow. With the beating they’d already taken, their only hope was getting out of there by making a jump to hyperspace.

  Bombassa cursed and hit his nav panel.

  “Don’t hit her!” shouted Keel. “What does it say?”

  “Failure to pre-identify transponder,” Bombassa read from his display. He looked over at Keel. “What does that even mean?

  Keel shot out a finger to indicate a target of opportunity racing across Bombassa’s weapons screen. “Take that one down!”

  Bombassa returned his attention to his burst turrets, sending blaster cannon fire just wide of two passing ships, but disintegrating a trailer starfighter.

  “Nice work,” Keel said. One was better than none. “The message means that you picked a Republican-controlled system that requires security clearance for entry. The typical nav won’t let you jump unless you pre-broadcast a transponder so they know who you are the moment you show up.”

  “How do you do that?”

  “Give ’em a fake transponder code from the collection?”

  Bombassa looked from left to right, as if they would be on the dash itself. “Where are they?”

  Keel pulled the ship up into a loop. “How ’bout we just pick another system?”

  “Okay.” Bombassa sounded flustered. He was as cool as anyone Keel had ever seen when it came to combat, but figuring out astronavigation while in a dogfight was a new experience, and it was showing.

  Keel felt relief when Ravi appeared in the cockpit. “I can take over from here, Mr. Bombassa, and I thank you for your work.”

  “No arguments from me,” Bombassa said, removing himself from the navigator’s chair.

  “Why don’t you head back and take manual control of the other burst turret like Exo?” Keel suggested. “You’re a hell of a shot.”

  “Gladly,” Bombassa said, heading aft.

  “Okay, where are we?” Ravi asked as he looked over his console.

  “We were getting out of here,” Keel snapped. “Where were you?”

  “I was reviewing with Prisma her experience on the ship.”

  “And that couldn’t have waited?”

  “No. It could not.” Ravi’s fingers danced across his display. The Six’s canopy lit up again with flashes of near-misses impacting against the shield array. “How does the sanctuary in En Shakar sound? Or perhaps the Ryteer Nebula?”

  “The nine hells sound fine so long as we’re out of here!”

  Ravi nodded. “En Shakar it is. We are ready.”

  Keel reached forward and squeezed the hyperspace controls, sending the Six slingshotting into hyperspace. The Cybar ship and swarming starfighters were left behind.

  Safe in the folds of hyperspace, Keel leaned back in his seat, feeling completely spent. He could barely muster the energy to pull off his helmet and let it drop at his feet. His hair was soaked in sweat. “I feel terrible.”

  Leenah rose. “Med bay is occupied, but I’ll take you to your quarters.”

  “That sounds nice,” Keel said.

  “Yes,” Ravi said. “You should be inspected for any injuries you may have sustained.”

  “Yeah.” With Leenah’s help, Keel rose like an arthritic man out of his easy chair. “Just need to sleep for a few days first.”

  PART II

&n
bsp; THE BATTLE FOR UTOPION

  13

  Seventh Fleet

  Republic Naval Station

  Bantaar Reef

  Bantaar Reef was a maelstrom system. Long ago some runaway stellar body had smashed into several of the outer moons of the massive gas giant that watched over the Republic’s premier naval station, and ever since then, time, gravity, and physics had equalized the destruction of the system into a slow dance of micro worlds and massive asteroids that formed what everyone called “The Reef.”

  The Republic’s fleet headquarters lay inside the crescent-shaped remains of an ancient moon. Tall defense towers and sculpted impervisteel buildings merged into the remains of the fractured worldlets and large tidal-locked chunks of rock. Below the surface of these floating rock cities lay massive parks, gardens, and even farms twinkling from opaque domed covers. Docking ports extended their spindly boarding arms for smaller corvette-class vessels to connect, while in the distance the massive, bulbous, almost football-shaped carrier Freedom rode in slow orbit alongside the rest of its spreading escort fleet.

  The augmented Seventh Fleet was the only sizable group of Repub Navy ships standing between the upstart, aggressive Black Fleet and the core systems of the Galactic Republic—including, of course, the crown jewel world that ruled the galaxy: Utopion. Where the House of Reason lay.

  Control of Utopion was control, at least for the moment, of the entirety of the Galactic Republic.

  And even though the current state of affairs looked bad for the House of Reason and the government of the Galactic Republic, the media and news networks were still solidly in support of a House of Reason–dominated galaxy. The rumored reports—that Republic intel services had been conducting a decade-long deception about their true number of fleets—were being suppressed as slanderous gossip. One prominent ship enthusiast, who had long maintained that the Republic did not actually have the amount of ships and fleets it claimed to have, had even been disappeared by a Nether Ops team.

  Now, in the subdued lighting of the Fleet Operations conference room at Republic Intelligence Command, X sat across the table from the admiral who’d been defeated at the Battle of Tarrago: Admiral Landoo. A former protégé of X’s who had gone legit had arranged this off-the-books meeting. The only people present were X, Landoo, and the compact and muscular man who’d been tapped as X’s new assistant. The latter stood in the shadows behind X, quietly listening to the conversation.

  “I understand,” X began slowly, composing himself. He’d just slammed his flat palm down on the table. The truth was, he was losing control. Of himself, and the situation he was trying to craft.

  Some voice inside his head whispered, When did you really ever have control, old boy?

  And…

  What was your original game anyhow?

  I know what the end game is, X replied inside his own mind. Reminding himself who, exactly, was in control. He was. He still was. For the moment. He still had a few more hands to play in a game he’d started long ago.

  “I understand, Admiral,” he began once again. This time much more calmly. “That your fleet is ready to go head to head against the Black Fleet. But have you asked yourself what options are left to the rest of us if the outcome isn’t favorable? In other words… What if you lose?”

  Admiral Landoo simply stared back at the man, knowing the question was rhetorical by tone—and by the fact that they had been over this subject already.

  “I will tell you what happens if you lose,” continued X as though he were lecturing in some academic setting. “Utopion falls because there is no one to defend it, contrary to the House of Reason’s news network campaign. We both know yours is the only fleet standing in the way of Black Fleet. And on the other hand, if, somehow, miraculously, you win… well, even then, because of what the House has done with respect to all their back-door double-dealing with the zhee and… other interests… you will still need to fight the Legion, because Article Nineteen is still in effect and is being pursued with extreme prejudice. And battered and wounded as you no doubt will be after having faced the Black Fleet… the outcome of that second battle is not in doubt. Either way, Admiral… you will lose to someone.

  “The only question left within your calculations is: where? As in, will you lose to the Black Fleet at Tarrago, keeping the terrible hardships of battle away from the House of Reason—or will you lose on Utopion’s front doorstep to the Legion when they assault the capital? The funny thing is, it matters little to anyone other than you and your fleet—because to tell you the truth, the side trying to save themselves and only themselves doesn’t much care where you die. The House has already factored in your defeat, Admiral. They’ve already hedged their bets. They just didn’t bother to tell you that before you went out to die for them.”

  Landoo seemed not to follow this bit.

  “For whom are you fighting, really, Admiral?” said X when he saw that his arcanely masked allusions were lost on her. “The people who are busy hanging the blame for Tarrago around your neck? Or the citizens of the Republic whom you swore to defend?”

  Still Landoo said nothing. Because that part, what the old man was saying, was true. She knew it, even if she didn’t want to admit it. Everyone knew there was the House of Reason, and then there was the Republic—whose best interests the House of Reason was supposed to have at heart. Wasn’t that really the reason why the galaxy was in the state it was in? Wasn’t that the Black Fleet’s core grievance? Or rather, its reason for being. Goth Sullus and his upstart Empire saw themselves as the most swift and decisive answer to all the swampy insider politics and perpetual back-scratching that allowed the powerful to stay in power.

  “You have,” began X, letting go of the argument that had preceded this and warming to his theme, “much more in common with the Legion than you do with our masters at the House. Honestly, Admiral, what has the Legion done, just like you and your Navy comrades, but die in a thousand foreign places trying to save the Republic from itself? And all for what? To be mostly forgotten unless the galaxy needed an object for its scorn. In which case the House of Reason was always more than willing to allow you and the Legion to take the blame for its misadventures. ‘Don’t be mad at the people who sent the Legion to die,’ we’ve heard the House of Reason payroll activists and journalists opining… ‘Be mad at the Legion.’ And all so the members of the House of Reason can get a little bit richer off each conflict. For them to take a little bit more control with each supposed defeat. To—”

  “The Legion revolted, sir!” said the admiral stridently. “They crossed the line that should not be crossed, whether they had the right to do it or not. And now they’re out there wiping out whole races like they’ve got some divine right to be adjudicators of us all.”

  “They were pushed!” shouted X. His voice echoed off the dull walls of the conference room.

  He caught himself. Composed himself. Leaned forward.

  “They were pushed, Admiral,” he said quietly. “Pushed with their backs right up against the wall to invoke something that was their right all along—and the right thing to do in the end. Let’s just say this Empire, whoever they really are, and this Goth Sullus, whoever he really is, go belly up in the next few days. Just folds up shop and disappears out along the galaxy’s edge like everyone wants him to. Let’s just say that, Admiral. And furthermore, let’s also say the Legion says, ‘Oh, sorry. Our bad. Article Nineteen? Got that one wrong. Jumped the gun on wanting to hang you all as traitors and such. House of Reason is back in charge and we’ll be good little boys. We wont decimate any more of the protected species who seem to be behind every bombing behind the lines, who seem to be orchestrating this week’s campaign of terror that cost us a transport full of schoolchildren.’ Let’s just say all those things, Admiral. What then? In six months, the House will have you court-martialed for incompetence at Tarrago. Then you’ll be glad for what the Legion has done. You’ll only wish they’d succeeded.

  “You see, Admi
ral, the only reason they, the masters of the House of Reason, can’t court-martial you now is because somewhere in that nest of stuffed cuckoos that call themselves the House of Reason—and isn’t that a joke if you ever heard one—someone knows that switching horses mid-stream is still as bad an idea as it ever was. Bad because you’re the last fleet standing between the Republic and what appears to be, for all intents and purposes, a despotic tyrant. And so they’re more than happy to let you go out and throw this fleet away against a superior force if it gets them a better deal in the end. Buys them some time so they can shift assets around, and hope you do enough damage that some kind of early offer of truce looks like a deal.

  “I’ll even stun you, Admiral. I’ll say they’d actually like to see you win with your little torpedo ship strategy. That would at least allow them to stay in total control for a few days more. And what with the massive amount of credits they make on the slimmest of margins… that means a lot of money. And money is power.

  “But don’t hesitate for a second in thinking they won’t cut a deal with this tyrant, whoever he is, to save not just their necks, but their slice of the pie. We already have back channel information at Nether Ops that this is happening as we speak.”

  Landoo closed her eyes, peeved. Tired of all the games. To her, flying her fleet out to meet the Black Fleet in battle was the only thing that should’ve mattered.

  But X was right. Of course the House was betting both for her and against her.

  Except it wasn’t just her. They might think like that, but she did not. She was responsible for those who served alongside her. She was always betting on them. That was the sacred expectation that formed the bond between commanders and their troops.

  “I won’t go over the strategy with you again,” Landoo began. “I took this meeting because of your past and the recommendations that came from those close to me. I said I would listen to what you had to say. And… frankly, all I’m hearing is that I still have only one choice—with two lousy outcomes. Die at Tarrago, fighting the Black Fleet as the House of Reason wishes me to, smashed against the orbital defense gun—or die facing the Legion afterward. And yes, I agree, either way I’m going to lose a lot of ships. And people.”