Compelling Evidence

by Michael Anderle

Scott frowned. “What about the rest of it? The fights, the sex trade, and the crime?”

  Bethany Anne shrugged. “Not our problem. If they want to live like this, I’m not too bothered about it. It suits what I had in mind, anyway.”

  “You’ve settled on this place, then?” Michael asked.

  Bethany Anne grinned and spread her arms wide. “Welcome to New Devon.”

  Chapter Six

  New Devon, First City, Mercenary Compound #1

  The Pod hung in the air above the mercenary compound. Bethany Anne studied the heat signatures on the screen. “Looks like they’re mostly concentrated on the ground floor like the fucking roaches they are.”

  Michael made a face. “Hardly a challenge.”

  Bethany Anne rolled her eyes. “Has everyone got their comm in?”

  Tabitha answered in their ears, “If it’s a challenge you wanted, then you two should have picked this place.”

  Michael leaned over and pressed the button to open a video link to Tabitha. Her face appeared in a window on the screen. “What have you got there?” he asked.

  She did something, and her face was replaced with a feed of the compound below the Pod. “Mine’s bigger than yours,” she teased.

  Her teasing was cut off by Scott’s voice. “We’re in position. Ready on your go, BA.”

  “Bethany Anne isn’t here to take your call right now,” Baba Yaga snarked. “Now let’s go fuck up some pirates!”

  “Mercenaries,” Michael corrected.

  She flashed sharp teeth at him. “What-the-fuck-ever. They all bleed the same, don’t they?”

  Michael turned off the video. “That they do, my love. That they do.”

  High Tortuga, Space Fleet Base, Nursery

  Alexis woke from a dream about her mother. Rubbing her eyes, she sat up inside the Pod-crib and brushed her hand on the light sensor. “Phyrro, where is Mommy?”

  The twins’ EI appeared on the small screen beside her head. “Your mother is still on her date. Would you like me to tell Aunt Jean you are awake?”

  Alexis shook her head and scooted to the edge of her bed. “No, thank you, Phyrro.” She wrapped her blanket around her shoulders and opened the Pod. Gabriel, wake up.

  I’m already awake, he replied. His Pod opened and he sat up in his bed, rubbing his eyes like she had. Why are we awake?

  Alexis shooed him over and got onto the bed beside him. “I had a dream that Mommy was fighting with some bad guys.”

  Gabriel put his arm around his sister, who was shaking a little from the residue of the dream. Show me.

  Alexis shared the scattered images from her dream.

  Gabriel’s eyes grew wide. That doesn’t look like a dream. “Phyrro, where are Mommy and Daddy?”

  “They are still on their date, as I told Alexis.”

  “Are they safe?”

  A micro-pause. “They are.”

  Gabriel’s nose scrunched in thought. “Can you show us where they are?”

  “I’m not sure,” the EI admitted. “One moment.”

  In the living quarters, Jean was getting up close and personal with a pint of triple chocolate something-or-other ice-cream and the specs for a device she was considering installing in her lab when the twins’ EI pinged her. “What’s up, Phyrro?”

  Phyrro’s avatar came up on her tablet. “The children are asking to be shown where their parents are.”

  Jean furrowed her brow. “What’s the problem?”

  “This.” Phyrro’s face was replaced with a feed to wherever the hell Bethany Anne was. The Queen wore Baba Yaga’s face, and she was in the middle of delivering a serious ass-kicking.

  Jean snickered and pointed her spoon at the video, a glint of amusement in her eyes. “You can show them.”

  “I certainly will not show them that,” Phyrro argued. “My duty is to protect them from harm, not scar them psychologically.”

  Jean stuck the spoon in her mouth. “Whath’s the harm in thowing them their parents can protecth them—and othersth—when it comes down to ith?”

  Baba Yaga beheaded three mercenaries on the screen, and let rip a string of expletives as the blood sprayed her. Phyrro’s face reappeared, judging Jean.

  She shook her head, biting back a smirk as she twirled her spoon in a “go on” motion. “Okay, okay. You can time-delay the feed and cut out the gory bits. But let them see the strength they were born to.”

  Phyrro sounded pretty uncertain for an EI. “If you say so.”

  “I do,” Jean stated.

  Phyrro cut the connection, and Jean got back to her manual. The smirk she’d hidden appeared at the corner of her mouth. It was the smirk of a mother who was finally getting her own back on a family member who’d been a pain in her parenting experience.

  New Devon, First City, Mercenary Compound Number Three

  Gabrielle frowned as she looked up and behind her head. “There’s nobody here. This place is creepy.”

  Michael’s surprise came through on the comm. “Is it abandoned?”

  “It doesn’t look like it,” Gabrielle confirmed. “Although…if they were out on a contract, it would explain why this place is locked down. We’re going to do a quick search, then we’ll head on over to you.”

  “No,” he told her. “Get over to the other location once you’ve got their data. We’re going that way too once we’re done here.”

  “Got you.” Gabrielle turned to Darryl and Eric. “You heard the man. Let’s move.”

  They worked through the lower level, clearing each room as they passed it on their way to what had to be the administration offices.

  “What are we looking for?” Darryl asked when they were inside.

  She opened a filing cabinet and began to rifle the contents. “Names? Accounts? Anything that points to where we can find the slaves the bastards took. Anything that tells us where they are now.”

  Eric laid a brief hand on her shoulder as he walked past. “We’ll find them. We’ll find them, and we’ll make them pay.”

  She looked at him with hard, too-bright eyes. “Too fucking right we will.”

  Darryl called from a side room he’d gone to explore. “I got the boss’s office over here. EI says the guy’s name is…Melien.” Darryl’s head popped through the doorway, one eyebrow raised. “Didn’t the dick John’s team got into a fight with mention that name?” he asked before his head disappeared once more.

  Gabrielle and Eric made their way to the office and Darryl waved them over to the computer he was sitting at. “This guy is exactly the kind of fuckface who needs to stop wasting this planet’s oxygen.” He pulled up a file. “Or anyone’s oxygen, really. Damn, look at this.”

  Gabrielle’s voice growled low in her throat, and her lips drew back in a snarl. “These are people, and they’re listed like…like commodities!” Her lips pressed together. “That’s it! This bastard is going to die. Tonight.”

  She opened the link to Bethany Anne as she stalked out of the office. “BA, we’ve got the ringleader’s name.”

  “Do you have the leader?” Baba Yaga asked.

  “No, but I know where he’ll be very shortly,” Darryl cut in. “There’s a message from the asshole at Location Two calling for help.”

  “What’s your status, Location Two?” Baba Yaga demanded.

  Tabitha came back almost instantly, and the link was filled with the sounds of weapons fire and screaming. “Hoping like hell you’re all done fucking around on your walkabouts pretty damned soon so you can get over here and save our asses.”

  Baba Yaga’s eyes narrowed. “You three okay?”

  “We’re okay for now,” John cut in. “Just don’t take too long.”

  Baba Yaga’s cackle chilled them to the bone. “Oh, don’t worry. I won’t.”

  New Devon, First City, Mercenary Compound Number Two

  “Well, this all went to shit pretty quickly.” Tabitha spat as she hacked the alien weapons.

  John and Scott knelt at opposite windows of
the turret they’d taken. Their enemies were on all sides, filling the narrow walkways at the top of the wall on each side of the turret and gathered around the base.

  John shot one mercenary after another as he considered the options. “We only need to hold out until the others get here.”

  Tabitha tossed a piece of the machinery out with a clang. “Like I don’t fucking know that already?”

  “It’s not like we have gone on a rampage. If we wanted to, we could just kick it up to eleven.” John continued shooting.

  Scott hissed softly as a projectile whizzed past his ear. “Where the fuck do they keep coming from? It’s like every video game ever. This many goons usually means there’s something they want to protect.” He risked a quick glance out of the window. “Shit, we have more incoming.”

  John looked out at the approaching ships. “How many fucking soldiers are there on this planet?” He fired into the seething mass outside the window, the high-velocity flechettes obliterating each mercenary they hit plus the five or six behind the target.

  Tabitha’s reply was muffled. “Maybe it’s the only thing that pays around here.”

  “Apart from crime, you mean?” Scott leaned back to give his wrists a rest from the pounding they were getting from using his pistols on Level Ten. “How are you managing those on eleven?” he asked John incredulously. “You know that’s a joke setting?”

  “It’s only a joke if you can’t handle it. My wife made these with me in mind.” John winked and fired again. “I could go to twelve.”

  Scott surreptitiously dialed his JD Specials up.

  The narrow walkways were slick with the blood of many species, and yet still they kept coming, spurred on by the knowledge it was three against their full forces.

  “Has the Pod got a flamethrower?” Scott asked. “I know we can’t puck the walls without fucking ourselves, but maybe we can burn them off?”

  “I do not have a flamethrower,” the Pod’s EI confirmed.

  Tabitha looked up and made a face, scrunching her nose. “Shit. That would have been useful and cool.”

  “Let’s see about getting some backup of our own.” John opened a link to Bethany Anne. “Hey, boss. How long until you ride in on your white horse?”

  Baba Yaga’s voice ground out in their ears. “I’m a little busy here. One minute.” There was a series of wet thuds in the background. “Son of a scuzz-guzzling scrote-ripping cock-bobbin! That went in my mouth, you ass!”

  John looked up. Three of the ships had peeled off to surround the turret. “Um, never mind. You just finish up there and then come and give us a hand, yeah?”

  Baba Yaga let out a throaty chuckle. “We’re done. Gabrielle’s team is on their way to you already. They’ll be there before us.”

  “Good, then we’ll try our best not to die before you get here.”

  “Make sure you do,” she told him. “You don’t have my permission to die on such a lame-ass planet.”

  He cut the link and looked up. The ships were all aiming at the turret. “Tabitha? Please tell me you have those fucking things working.”

  “I’m in.” Tabitha tapped at her tablet, which had multiple lines running to the big alien guns. They swiveled upward to point at the looming ships, and she pressed the button with a feral grin.

  “Say sayonara, motherfuckers.”

  New Devon, First City, Mercenary Compound Number Two

  Gabrielle pounded the arm of her seat. “Can’t we go any faster?”

  “We cannot,” the Pod’s EI replied. “However, we will arrive in less than a minute.”

  “That will have to do,” she grumped.

  Eric pointed at the sky over the compound. “Fuck, what’s going on there? It’s raining fire.” He opened the link. “We’re just outside your location. Where do you need us?”

  Tabitha panted over the link, “Holy shit, can you not see the burning ships? We’re under all of that.”

  The Pod swooped in to hover beside one of the burning ships above the turret.

  Gabrielle pulled the door open and jumped, pistols drawn. Eric and Darryl were less than a second behind her.

  They landed on the right side of the wall and dashed toward the turret, shooting anyone still foolish enough to still be there while the burning ships rained molten metal on the wall.

  The door opened and Tabitha’s head appeared, followed by her big-ass rifle. “We cool?”

  Gabrielle nodded. “We’ve got you covered on this side.”

  The cover provided by the burning ships began to peter out, and the mercenaries started to leave the safety of the building again. They made straight for the walls.

  Tabitha had her rifle ready. “Do they want to die or something?”

  John shrugged and raised his pistols. “Most do.”

  “Incoming!”

  The yell in their ears had them ducking behind the lip of the wall just as two pucks hit the middle of the compound’s yard. The mercenaries were knocked flying by the shockwave.

  Baba Yaga’s Pod came to rest on the mound created by the puck impacts, then the door opened.

  Two points of red light shone out of the open door, and they advanced.

  She pushed fear in heavy waves, incapacitating the mercenaries. To a person they fell to the ground, many sobbing from the abject terror Baba Yaga was instilling in them, from both the fear she was pushing and her reputation over the decades of her existence. She was the horror of the human Empress, the Witch in the darkness, the nightmare become real.

  You’re laying it on a bit thick, my love, Michael whispered in her mind.

  Hell, yes. Don’t spoil my fun.

  Baba Yaga eschewed the rough ground altogether. She stepped out of the Pod and walked across the air.

  Up on the wall, Tabitha burst out laughing. “Oh, Jesus.”

  No, I’m not, Baba Yaga replied. I just don’t want to get scratches or mud on these boots.

  High Tortuga, Hidden Space Fleet Base, Nursery

  The nursery was lit by the Interactive Recreation Training tool, which Phyrro had co-opted to turn the back half of the nursery into a 3-D theatre. The projection painted the corners of the room in shades of blue and gray. The twins huddled on a beanbag and shared a blanket, both utterly transfixed by the heavily-edited version of the events on New Devon.

  “Who are those people on the ground?” Alexis asked. “Why are they scared of Mommy?”

  “They are bad people, children,” Phyrro told them gently. He was programmed to nurture as well as educate. “They work for people who hurt others.”

  Alexis sniffed and stifled a yawn. “But there’s no blood!”

  Gabriel nodded. “I know, right?”

  They snuggled up, lulled by the rhythm of the unfolding battle.

  Alexis pointed at the roof of a building that looked like the front had collapsed. “Look, there’s Daddy. He’s going to catch those bad guys before they escape!”

  Phyrro chuckled. “You two are definitely your parents’ children.”

  Gabriel’s eyes were fixed firmly on the screen. “Mommy is making them stop hurting people.”

  “That was not a question,” Phyrro queried.

  Gabriel shook his sleepy head without shifting his gaze. “I know.”

  Chapter Seven

  New Devon, First City, Mercenary Compound Number Two, Shipyard

  Baba Yaga crossed the compound and entered the shipyard, continuing to push fear ahead of her. She came down to the ground but used a little buffer of Etheric energy to remain just a touch above it as she walked.

  She brought her arms up and willed the Etheric energy to appear. It coated her hands in red light and she pulled until more energy than she had dared hold outside of the Dome was concentrated in her upturned palms. She allowed the excess to drip as she passed over the mercenaries on her way to the main building. Her hair rippled behind her, as did her cloak.

  I’d like to talk about this look when we get home. Michael’s voice was silky in
her mind.

  Stay on task, she told him sternly.

  I’m always on task, he replied. It’s called multi-tasking for a reason. Time-slicing too.

  “I’m in position,” he grumped in her ear.

  We’ll talk about it later, she told him with a small smile. “ArchAngel?”

  ArchAngel’s reply was instant and eager in her ear. “Yes, Mother? Do you have a task for me?”

  Baba Yaga smiled. “Yes. Make sure none of the ships leave the atmosphere. Any that try, terminate them with extreme prejudice.”

  ArchAngel’s voice dropped into a growl. “Yes, Mother.”

  “Then what the fuck are we waiting for?” Baba Yaga raised her hands and threw the energy at the front of the building. The doors and all the surrounding stonework started melting, running down like a Dali painting. “Why are you all still on the top of that wall?” she called over the comm. “Get your asses over here, or you’re gonna miss all the fun.”

  Baba Yaga advanced one magnificent boot at a time through the melted ruin, cutting through to where the remainder of the mercenaries were scrambling for their ships.

  It was too late.

  She jumped onto a platform and released bolts of super-concentrated Etheric energy into the rising ships, willing them to act like Jean’s flechettes—the explosive ones.

  The results were pretty much what she had expected.

  Ships dropped out of the sky as Baba Yaga hit them with bolt after bolt of red, blue, and white energy. The mercenaries poured from their ships, angry now that Baba Yaga had dropped the fear and they could think straight again.

  She was joined by Michael, who approached with fire in his eyes and Etheric energy moving over his arms. I can’t tell you how much I’m enjoying this opportunity to cut loose. He punctuated his greeting with a knife-hand strike that cut the attacking soldier in two.

  Baba Yaga wrinkled her nose at the smell. Maybe I’ll ramp up the fear just a touch less next time. She pulled again on the Etheric. Here, honey. She filled the air around Michael with enough power to fry a human being.

  He had a moment of confusion as the energy hit him. Is it my birthday?