Message for the Dead

by Jason Anspach

  “Engine overload!” groaned Desaix. He stood to deal with the warning sensor indicators on the power management panels.

  “Don’t worry, sir!” shouted Rocokizzi over the bridge speakers. “That’s just me! I dialed in a reactor pulse to confuse their targeting sensors. Power’s stable. Keep drivin’ on, Captain.”

  Beyond the cockpit windows, matte-black and gray tri-fighters raced out ahead of the suicidal corvette. Some turned, or suddenly swerved, attempting to get the corvette to break off from her track to jump, but Atumna held course. She rolled the massive ship in a full one-eighty and gave all batteries near perfect engagement windows on the tangos swarming her hull.

  A deflector screen ululated its imminent collapse.

  Over comm, Casso said something about the fire on deck three spreading into the aft sections.

  In a monotone, the jump computer promised an impending successful solution.

  Atumna whooped triumphantly as the Audacity streaked off the starboard edge of the battleship and found her window. The Tennar pushed the jump throttles full forward, and the Audacity was gone.

  Bound for Tarrago.

  16

  Audacity

  Hyperspace En Route to Tarrago

  As the Audacity dashed through hyperspace, whatever repairs could be effected were made. The fire on deck three had done some damage, causing a need to re-route a few systems, but for the most part much of what was damaged was cosmetic.

  Desaix was alone on the bridge, taking dog watch, when toward dawn, X wandered in with two cups of coffee and sat down in the navigator’s chair. With the help of Jidoo, Desaix had assigned the major and X officer’s quarters, hoping to get them out of his way. Now it appeared the old man had sleep problems and wanted company.

  Which was the last thing Desaix wanted.

  The truth was, in Desaix’s mind, the original Audacity had never been holed in a dozen places back at the Battle of Tarrago. In his mind, he had just edited out the part where his original command got shot to pieces, boarded, and ultimately scuttled. He had done his best to forget being frog-marched to the brig aboard the Imperal ship in manacles.

  It was humiliating. To say the least.

  He knew editing all that out wasn’t good. Knew he might be suffering from some kind of PTSD. But there was a war on, and there just wasn’t time for anything else. So… this new corvette was the Audacity. His Audacity. His ship as it always had been.

  What had he really expected on return to Repub space? That was the thing that had occupied him for most of the dog watch. He’d expected…

  A hero’s welcome.

  A plan to crush the Black Fleet.

  A fight.

  Instead he’d found a desperate Navy that hadn’t time to reward his daring escape from Repub space—with, he might add as he flipped switches and checked systems, a captured enemy ship.

  The few conversations he’d had with other officers during the six-hour layover at Bantaar Reef hadn’t reassured him. Yes, there was a plan. But it was a crazy plan. Engage the Black Fleet in a running battle and wear out their flagship with ranged fire.

  And even that plan never had a chance. Because then the Black Fleet had shown up, brashly coming right at the foremost military base in the Galactic Republic, converging from all points of the galactic compass. There’d been nowhere to run to.

  And the armada, as it was being called, just jumped away without a fight.

  These were the things he was turning over in his head when the old man came onto the bridge and sat down with a groan and a sigh. Desaix ignored him other than to murmur acceptance of the coffee. Then he’d gone back to checks.

  This was the Audacity, he reminded himself once more. It was his ship. He’d fly it to hell and back. And if the Black Fleet did actually put an end to the Republic… well then… he’d just…

  “You’re thinking,” said X, “about playing pirate if this all doesn’t work out.”

  Desaix turned and smiled roguishly. Which was just how he smiled. This was his “caught me” smile. It was four o’clock in the morning by some ship’s clock, so what was the use in hiding it.

  “Yeah,” he confessed. He took a sip of the coffee and gave a small “ahh” he’d never been able to break himself of. Some female marine he’d once spent a weekend with on Gamula had counted all the times he’d done it. It drove him nuts, and when it was time for them to part ways, he’d never looked back. Now, at four a.m. on a quiet, too brightly lit bridge with a possibly senile old man, he wondered where she, that marine, was. What was her part in this big fight the galaxy was fixing to have? Like some party long in the making. He wondered if she was dead or alive, perhaps making runs in a SLIC to pull wounded legionnaires out of some fight. He hadn’t loved her then, but he’d thought about her now and again, wondered what had become of her. Including at four a.m. when the galaxy is catching fire and there’s not a damn thing anyone can do to put it out.

  “You would have liked working for me,” murmured X from behind his mug as he took a drink. “We’re all pirates over there.”

  “And where is… over there?”

  “Nether Ops, dear boy. The really dark stuff.”

  And then X just stared at Captain Desaix like he was looking right into his soul and seeing everything. Seeing the winner who always won even if he had to cheat. The reckless gambler who couldn’t afford the risks but had taken the chances anyway. And the pirate. The pirate waiting to be let out. Waiting to hoist the black flag and slit some throats.

  “As it were,” mumbled X, almost to himself.

  Desaix asked him what he’d meant by that. But X didn’t respond; he just sat quietly, occasionally humming a bit of some tune.

  Finally he spoke once more.

  “I know how you feel.”

  “Really?” asked Desaix.

  “Oh, yes, quite, dear boy. You’re thinking things look pretty hopeless, and you’re not too keen on getting captured again. In fact, you’re quite fed up with all these government games, and not for the first time are you thinking about polling the crew and possibly absconding with this ship should everything go sideways.”

  “Are things hopeless?” asked Desaix without meaning to.

  “They certainly seem that way from the outside perspective, don’t they? If you’re a legionnaire captain, or a ship’s captain, or any other cog in the grand system of the Republic when all the higher-up muckety-mucks are playing for the big prizes, you might just about be well and good fed up with the whole mess they’ve made of everything. Believe me… I’ve seen it on just about everyone’s faces as of late. The House of Reason hasn’t done a great job in the leadership department, unless you consider lining their own pockets a job well done.”

  He paused to take another slow sip. “This… this… Goth Sullus, as he calls himself, seems, if you listen to the propaganda coming through from the captured systems, to be all about cleaning things up and setting everything aright. At least, “aright” as he sees it. And to some… that’s getting attractive. But to others… like yourself, and a certain operative I know of… Well, you might be thinking about slipping off out to the edge and doing things your way for a while.”

  Desaix laughed and drank his coffee. “You’re crazy.”

  “Maybe. But it’s true. You’re a gambler. That’s well documented. I had time to pull up your file. We looked at you when you were an ensign. Wanted to use you to go deep cover. We’ve had luck with other daring naval officers who find out that the navy is mostly boring unless you find yourself in a good old-fashioned showdown with this pirate king or the other of the week. But how often does that happen? Three, four times in a career?”

  “I’ve been in a few of those kinds of engagements, and I’m not even close to cashing in yet,” Desaix said. “As the old joke goes, ‘What? And leave show business?’”

  X laughed. He knew the joke.

  “Apropos,” he murmured and sipped more of his coffee.

  “Well, all th
at sounds well and good,” began Desaix, checking their track through hyperspace, “but it feels like I just signed up my crew to get captured again because my admiral, an officer I respect, told me to. So, if I were going to run off and ‘play pirate,’ as you say, I think taking you to Tarrago would be the last thing on my list of things to do. As a pirate, that is. So here we are. On our way to get captured once more. Happy? Whoever you are.”

  “You won’t be captured,” X said soothingly.” In fact, we’ll be allowed to leave just as easily as we came.”

  “And how do you plan to accomplish that, old man? You some kind of hokey space wizard? Is the Republic down to the end of the bench?”

  X smiled and finished his coffee.

  “Indeed,” he answered after a contemplative silence. “I have the most powerful magic the galaxy knows of. I can pass through walls, enter the courts of the mighty, listen to things I’m not supposed to hear, and disappear just as easily. I can even kill, if I do it with a bit of finesse.”

  “And what magic is that?” asked Desaix.

  “Diplomatic immunity, dear boy. We come to convey a message. We will deliver that message to Goth Sullus himself, or rather I will, and then we’ll leave with a reply. If you wanted to avoid the battle the Seventh and her plucky admiral may try to get herself into, well, you couldn’t have picked a better space wizard to haul around the cosmos, my pirate captain.”

  “Easy as that?”

  “Easy as that, says I, young Jim Hawkins.”

  But X’s reference was lost on Desaix.

  ***

  As Audacity fell from hyperspace and swam into the starfield around Tarrago, Black Fleet Approach Control demanded the ship identify herself and prepare to be boarded. X handed a special memory device to Desaix and told the captain to transmit the diplomatic orders.

  “Jory, run this. And put it on screen here, too,” ordered Desaix.

  A moment later the official seal of the Repub diplomatic corps flashed on screen, and a QR scan code verified the transmission’s authenticity. Then a recording of Senator Orrin Karr appeared.

  “This is Senator Orrin Karr, House Oversight Leader on Diplomatic Affairs for the Ruling Council on Foreign Relations. I speak for the citizens of the House of Reason, and for the Galactic Republic.”

  In the recorded image, the senator smoothed his tunic and renewed his smile. Desaix thought the man was an obvious phony.

  “This message is for His Highness…” Orrin Karr’s acting ability wasn’t so great at that instant. He seemed to swallow badly on the phrase, as though tasting something unpleasant. Some prize un-won. Some defeat snatched from the jaws of victory. But the hiccup was brief, and the senator recovered in grand style. “… Goth Sullus. I have sent my emissary, the bearer of this authenticated transmission, to deliver a message to the Empire. We, of the House of Reason, see which way the winds are blowing, and we would welcome the leadership of a new and dynamic ruler. We would offer our service, and guidance, in this new governorship, if only to prevent the slaughter of war with the Legion and rogue Republic military units engaging in operations against you. Though at this time all we can offer is support. Even now the Legion and all the military forces it can muster are besieging Utopion with the intent of wresting power from the duly elected, and lawful, government of the House of Reason.

  “As you can see, this puts the current situation in a new light, and we hope that you, Emperor, seize this opportunity to be not the conqueror of the galaxy, but its savior. With our assistance, we can… guide you, in effect, toward a peaceful transition of power. Should you wish to discuss terms, our messenger will be able to negotiate on our behalf. Until such time as we may savor the fruits of your victory together, I remain a servant of the Republic, and a guardian of its safety.”

  And then the image of Orrin Karr was gone.

  The transmission ended with a set of diplomatic credentials that were, in theory, supposed to guarantee safe passage of the broadcasting vessel.

  Desaix shot X a look.

  “‘With our assistance,’” began an incredulous Atumna Fal from the controls.

  “Yeah,” said Jory over comm. “‘For a price.’ Those slimy slorgga beasts. They’re cutting themselves a deal before the battle’s decided.”

  “Generally,” lectured X, “that is when one cuts a deal. Otherwise it wouldn’t be a deal. It would just be asking for mercy. A weak position if there ever was one.”

  No one said anything after that, and Desaix turned to look at Owens. The man’s mask betrayed nothing.

  Sensors tracked an inbound squadron of wicked little tri-fighters coming in.

  “Do I engage?” asked Rocokizzi over comm.

  For a moment Desaix, who’d played many hands well, felt instead like a card being played from someone else’s hand. He searched the lined face and mischievous eyes of the old man, wondering if he was the player. Or was it the man on the screen who was holding all the cards? The senator who was really just some phony angling for his own deal before everything went sideways. Playing all of them. Or was there someone beyond… all of that? Some other player who no one even knew about? Pulling the deals, flipping the red queen, calling someone’s bluff while hoping that their own bluff would, for all the arcane reasons that one could imagine, never be called.

  “Stand down,” Desaix said to Rocko over the comm. Feels like a bluff, he told himself. It was also the only way through to the other side of this mission. “We’re under diplomatic immunity.”

  The squadron of tri-fighters howled over the hull, pulling hard gees to set up alongside the running corvette.

  “This is Guard Dog Leader,” came the call over the ship’s comm, broadcast across the bridge. “We have been directed to escort you to the Overlord. Back off your thrusters and set speed at half impulse. Stand down weapons. Deviate from the flight path and we will fire. I repeat… we will fire.”

  ***

  The approach to Tarrago was stunning. Hundreds of ships were in orbit. Weeks ago, when the Audacity had barely escaped, there had been only the battleships and interceptors, maybe a few commandeered freighters. Now there were all manner of strange ships that defied identification specs. But what stunned the crew—what caused them to collectively gasp—was what Atumna saw first.

  “Look at that!” she cried from the pilot’s controls.

  “Seeing it on sensors,” said Jory from back in the bridge ops stations.

  Only Major Thales seemed uninterested. He stepped onto the bridge, mindless of the view, and whispered something in Desaix’s ear. Desaix nodded, and Thales returned to sensors.

  Owens watched him work. The artillery major was running a scan on the orbital gun on Tarrago Moon. Finding out if that gun was still operational had been one of the Repub’s highest intel objectives, and as far as Owens knew, no one had yet determined its status. So the major knew enough to get a good look on the off chance they might make it out of this.

  But even the mystery of the orbital defense gun on Tarrago Moon paled in comparison to what lay ahead. The ship they were headed for drew the eye and dropped the jaw.

  It was massive. Larger than any ship any of them had ever seen. Desaix himself had thought the battleships were like things of ancient legend from the Savage Wars. But this ship was easily four to five times the length of those already huge ships.

  And it was still under construction.

  It seemed to have been formed by taking two of the split-hulled triangular battleship hulls—of the standard Black Fleet design encountered so far—and joining them along the port and starboard sides of a central anchor hull that resembled the hulls of the Imperator, Terror, and Revenge, but writ large. Within this center hull section a massive gun bore was also under construction.

  As they drew closer, more details came into view. Broad sections of the hull were still un-plated, and the internal systems lay exposed within. Crews were working in there on systems that, while semi-recognizable, looked to be built of the latest inno
vations in design. Innovations that the Repub had killed, in favor of contracts that, as was always rumored, lined the pockets of the deciders inside the House of Reason.

  “Audacity,” said Guard Dog Leader. “Make for hangar fifty-one, port side approach. Back off engines at ten thousand, and we’ll tow you in via docking tractor. I want those engines cold by the time we hook up, or I will fire. Repeat, I will fire. Do you read me?”

  “We read,” said Desaix. He nodded at Atumna, whose scowl indicated she didn’t like any of this one bit. Especially the part where she didn’t fly her own ship.

  The engines were cut, and a moment later a powerful yet invisible force clamped down around the slender hull of the hammerhead corvette. Atumna took her hands from the controls and sighed at the docking tractor’s rough handling of her ship. Then she crossed her arms and glared out the front windshield as the corvette was towed into a super-massive bay, one of many along the lower half of the ship.

  “If this is a carrier,” Thales said, “then it could easily hold six full wings.”

  Desaix reached over and lowered the gears, glaring at Atumna, who seemed not to even want to participate in the barest sense. She favored him with narrowed eyes and shook her pretty head in contempt. Desaix found himself even more attracted to the wild little fighter pilot that had become part of his crew.

  “Must be the pheromones,” he’d muttered to himself under his breath at times. Orange, two-tentacled Tennarian females were rumored to be rife with them. Which made them a special bounty prize out along the edge for any pirate prince looking to hack his harem to the next level.

  Outside in the hangar, crack troops in black-lacquered, highly polished shock trooper armor were set up in covered firing positions, with teams staged and prepared to board as soon as the gears were on the deck.

  X leaned forward.

  “Well, dear boy, we’re playing pirate now. Aren’t we?”

  17