“I know. Orphan, right? I’m sorry that you never got to know your mom and dad. I’m sure they were good people.”
“Sir, I can’t take this,” Letho said.
“Go on, boy, take it. You asked me for a gun, didn’t ya?”
“Well, how does it work?”
Zedock’s eyes sparkled at the opportunity to educate.
“Well, first off, it ain’t loaded right now. You never hand a loaded gun to someone who don’t know how to use it. You don’t point it at anyone or anything you don’t intend to blow a hole in the size of a dinner plate. You don’t put your finger on the trigger until you’re ready to shoot. And last of all, you always treat a gun like it’s ready to shoot. No matter what. No scratchin’ yer ass with it or staring down the barrel like a dumbass. Think you can handle that, son?”
Letho became acutely aware of the front end of the heavy gun, and sheepishly lowered it to point at the floor.
“That’s better,” Zedock said. “Now, let me show you how it works.”
Zedock took a magazine from a pouch on his belt. It was about the length of the gun’s stock, with a stubby but menacing .50 caliber round held in place at the top. It had five more brothers waiting in line below it.
“Let me see the gun for a minute, Letho.”
Letho handed the pistol back to Zedock, turning it as he did so so that the muzzle was pointing at the floor and the stock was facing toward Zedock.
“That’s good, son, real good. Quick learner.”
Letho smiled, feeling warmth radiate through him.
“You take the magazine and slam it in hard, like this.”
Zedock slipped the magazine into the receiving hole with uncanny, practiced ease.
“You grip the slide here, on the serrated part, and pull back and let it go. The gun will do the rest. Now it’s live and ready to fire. You just have to point and pull the trigger. This here’s the magazine release.”
Zedock pressed a circular, serrated button about halfway up the gun’s stock. The magazine slid out with a satisfying little click, and Zedock caught it on the way down. He pulled back the slide again, ejecting the bullet from the chamber, which he caught after he placed the magazine on the desk in one liquid movement. Zedock handed the gun and magazine to Letho.
“Now it’s your turn.”
Letho brought the gun up so that it was pointed toward the ceiling, and attempted to slide the magazine home. It took him a moment to negotiate the right angle, and he had to give it another slap after it was halfway, since his initial action hadn’t quite locked it in place. Pointing it away from himself, Zedock, and any precious equipment, he pulled on the slide. At first it didn’t move, but he exerted a little more effort, pinching it tight, and it submitted to his will with a satisfying clack. He let it go and it rammed forward, locking in place with another satisfying click-clack sound.
“You now have a death-dealing implement in your hands. Now let me show you how to render it safe for stowing in your holster.”
Zedock showed him how the thumb safety worked, and how to cycle the round inside the chamber. Last, he showed Letho how to load and unload the magazine.
“Take this gun belt, too. I got another somewhere.”
“Zedock,” Letho pleaded, “I can’t—”
“Take the damn belt, son. How are you going to carry the gun without it?”
“I can just put it in my pocket.”
Zedock’s eyes flared, his brows threatening to join the dark slash of his hairline.
“Son, you don’t put a gun like that in your pocket. Besides, it’d pull your damn pants down.”
The consonant of the word “pocket” was like a gun’s report, firm and short, and a little bit of spittle escaped Zedock’s mouth, which he quickly gathered with a swipe of a kerchief.
“Fair enough,” Letho said.
Zedock helped Letho gird himself with the worn leather belt. The holster hung low on his left leg, a matching but empty holster on the other side. There was a pouch for extra magazines and an even larger one for extra bullets resting against his lower back. Letho eyed the sister gun to the one he was now carrying, and Zedock caught his gaze.
“Don’t be getting any ideas there, son. She’s mine. Now let me see you put it in your holster. Smooth movement, don’t force it. She’ll slide in nice and smooth like… well, never mind.”
Letho did as he was told. Sure enough, the supple leather welcomed the cold black steel as Zedock had foretold.
“Now let me see you PRE-sent,” Zedock said, with overemphasis on the first syllable.
Letho was starting to wonder if Zedock had a speech impediment. He paused, laughing to himself.
“What’s so damn funny, boy?”
“Nothing.”
“All right then, let me see you skin that iron.”
Letho pulled the pistol from the holster, and it gave with the same suppleness. He held the gun at his side, unsure. “Now what?”
“Bring it up and out in one smooth movement. And as you bring it up, grab it with both hands and push it out, straight away from your chest.”
Letho started to bring it from his hip.
“No!” Zedock barked.
Letho flinched.
“Start over. If you’re gonna do it, do it right, by God.”
Letho slid the gun into the holster, sighing, not out of frustration with Zedock, but with himself. He wanted desperately to demonstrate skill to Zedock. If only his teachers in the prep academy had been such great motivators.
Letho pulled the gun from the holster, and with one fluid movement, gripped it hard in both hands, outward away from his chest. Zedock smiled, his eyes widening for a moment.
So fast, the man thought.
“Now line up the sights front to back, and you got it. I could take you out to the range tomorrow and let you shoot a few rounds, but something tells me you won’t be around tomorrow morning.”
Letho shrugged.
“Guess you’ll be baptized by fire then. No pun intended.”
“Hey, Zedock, thanks for everything. I need to—”
“Letho, don’t go all mushy on me now. You done good, son. You make an old man proud.”
A span of time passed, much like the awkward silence that had begun their conversation.
“All right, I’m gonna get out of your hair,” Letho said finally.
Zedock nodded, and Letho began to turn away.
“Letho, a couple of things. Number one, I’ll be expecting that gun back when you return—with no new nicks and scratches, mind you. If you drop it, it’s your ass. That thing might be worth more than this whole station.”
There was another pregnant silence as they both considered the probabilities.
“And when you put a bullet in the head of that Alastor fella, I want you to say that it’s a special delivery from Zedock Wartimer.”
Just like in the movies, Letho thought.
“You got it, Chief.”
◊ ◊ ◊ ◊
Letho was back in his old apartment; it was just as he had left it. A thin layer of dust had gathered on all of his old belongings, giving everything an eerie softness.
Behold, the mausoleum of dear young Letho Ferron. His witticisms will be missed.
For a moment he almost did feel like his presence was an intrusion, the sound of his shuffling in this place impolite.
He sat in a cushy, moldy recliner, and stared at his holoscreen. He turned it on, and a three-dimensional representation of Hal Mickels, news guy, appeared just above it. Old Hal, known for his coifed hair and gleaming smile looked a little worse for the wear. He was giving instructions on how to reach aid or find missing loved ones, and urged people to contact authorities and give them names and descriptions of the missing. He finished by saying that citizens could also stop by the shelter set up in the city center and see if their loved ones were there; many were still in shock and unable to remember their own names or uCom numbers.
Sila, Letho t
hought.
Wherever she was, he prayed that she was safe.
Letho tried his uCom one last time, and to his surprise the screen appeared at the click of his fingertips.
Must have rebooted the implants when I came back home.
Home.
This isn’t my home.
“Probably no messages,” he said, thumbing across the home screen. A digital spasm passed through his forearm as messages began to flood his device.
Many of them were from Deacon. So many messages.
Good time last night. I drank way too much, head hurts. And some she-beast was in my bed when I woke up this morning. Awkward. :)
Hey, no response? You usually have some clever retort: “Deacon, you are such a gigolo.”
Hey buddy, just checking to make sure you made it to work this morning.
Hello?
Starting to get worried. Where are you?
They went on like this for some time, the concern growing as Letho failed to respond; Letho read them all, smiling, a tear tracing down his cheek. The last message simply said:
I miss u.
The man to whom these messages belonged was gone. New Letho had a lot of explaining to do, and he hoped that he could make it up to his old friend Deacon in time.
There were messages from Sila as well. They were similar to Deacon’s: letting him know that she had enjoyed having drinks with him, that it was all right if he wanted to call her, and a few days later a message stating that it was also okay if he didn’t want to call her.
He felt a pang in his chest. That night seemed to have happened in someone else’s lifetime.
After a moment the uCom lit up one more time.
Letho? What’s going on? I’m in the Envirodome. Some scary guy is on top of the Civil Services Building. People are getting really scared. Where are you?
Regret. Longing. Sadness. Resolve.
“I’m coming for you, Sila,” he said.
He wanted to jump on a ship right that minute, head out and meet Alastor on his own ship. But he knew that everyone was exhausted. Even his own eyelids sagged as though lead weights hung from them. Letho removed the gun that the chief had given him. He felt the edges, once sharp enough in some places to draw blood if you weren’t careful, now worn smooth by the repeated insertion and withdrawal from the chief’s and his forefathers’ holsters. The weight of the steel was good, the coldness of the metal smooth and reassuring. If he ran out of bullets, at least he could club Alastor to death with it.
He reclined in the seat, placed the gun on the center of his chest, and let sleep envelop him.
◊ ◊ ◊ ◊
He awoke with a start, unsure where he was. The gun was right where he’d left it; she alone had stood watch, perched atop his chest while he slept. He gazed at the 1908 one more time and then shoved it in its holster, hanging from the aged leather belt the chief had also given him. He tapped the metal of the spare magazines, making sure they were snug in their holders, and turned to take one last look at his apartment. The vestiges of his old life seemed to suggest the person he once was: candy wrappers, empty soda cups—so many empty soda cups—and clippings and printouts of news stories from a Eursus that he knew only in the electrons that marched at light-speed along the corridors of circuit-boards, as if through honeycombs inside the station supercomputers.
“Nice knowin’ ya, pal,” he said, choking a little bit on the words.
◊ ◊ ◊ ◊
Letho met Bayorn, Maka, and Deacon in the docking area at the very bottom of the Fulcrum station. A day before, the place had been completely silent, formed into a makeshift chapel for the Elder’s ceremony. Now it bustled with activity, the sound of machinery and people going about their work. They stole away to a storage room for enough quiet to hear one another speak.
“The plan is simple. Deploy breach charges, attach to the docking bay, find the people, and bring them back through the docking bay. There should be room for the citizens in your ship’s cargo hold, but it’s going to be tight,” said Letho.
“Sounds good. But you forgot one thing: horrible, bloodthirsty assholes with swords and a possessed armor suit,” said Deacon, chewing at his thumbnail.
“Deacon, stop that. It’s disgusting.”
“It’s fine, I’ll quit when we get back from the suicide mission,” Deacon responded.
Deacon’s physical presentation was always immaculate, from his perfectly pressed uniform, to the mirror-shined surface of his jackboots, to the coif of his hair, not a single strand out of place. Yet his nails were ragged, the cuticles sometimes bloody from incessant chewing.
“Whatever. Where was I? Oh yes. Horrible monsters and walking tanks. I think we can handle the Mendraga. I’m okay, I think, barring horrific dismemberment, and the restored Tarsi should be able to hold their own. But the Jolly Roger…” Letho said.
“About that. I checked out the radar images of their ship, and cross-referenced the pulse scans coming from my handy little bug. The ship is definitely alien in design, but it’s not too far off from the designs we use in our fleet. It has corridors, bunks, storage areas, a flight deck of course—” Deacon said.
Letho twirled his finger in the air, as if to say wrap it up!
“So anyways, long story short, it looks pretty tight in there. Hard for the big guy to maneuver. Plus it would be too risky to use that kind of ordnance inside of a starship. Maybe,” Deacon said.
“That’s a pretty big maybe, Deacon.”
“Well, look at it this way: if the Jolly Roger is up and running, it’s going to be a relatively short mission, and with the size of the shells that thing shoots, it would probably be over pretty quick.”
“I will prepare the Tarsi. Maka, I need you to gather twenty of our strongest warriors. The remainder will stay behind and assist with the rebuilding of the town center.”
Maka grinned and bowed his head to the new Elder.
“Okay, so what about me?” said Deacon.
“You fly the ship,” answered Letho.
“What? I just wait in the ship?” Deacon asked, crestfallen.
Letho nodded.
“Ahhh,” Deacon sighed, “that’s lame. But all right.”
◊ ◊ ◊ ◊
Mavus Wheatley stepped out of his apartment and began to make his way to Alastor’s quarters. On his way out, he was greeted by Crimson Jim, who was coming from the direction of the slave quarters. Their eyes met, and Jim grinned. Mavus noted that there was a tiny smear of blood just under his chin.
“Missed a spot, Jim,” he said, indicating the general area of the smear by pointing to his own neck. Jim stepped closer, and locked his steel gaze on Mavus’s. He leaned in and sniffed.
“You stink, Mavus. Why don’t you go eat something?” he said, grinning.
His eyes were cold. Dead. Not smiling in the least.
“Not hungry.”
That was a lie. Mavus’s brain screamed as if it were consuming itself in protest of the unrelenting hunger pangs. His vision blurred for a moment, and he saw dark things with teeth in the shadows of his thoughts. He had a suicidal impulse to tear out Jim’s throat, but the rational part of him assured him that he was neither strong nor fast enough. Even on a good day he wasn’t sure that he could take Jim, and that was with a full belly.
“Whatever floats your boat, old buddy,” Jim said, his face still spread in that stupid grin, his eyes still listless spots of coal. They were shark eyes. Jim fondled the hilts of his daggers, goading Mavus.
Go ahead, try something, big boy, Mavus heard him say, but not with his lips.
“I saw Thresha leaving your quarters earlier,” Jim said with a smirk. “She looked pretty upset. Trouble in paradise?”
“That’s none of your business. Quite pert for someone who’s directly defying the master’s orders.”
“And now it is my turn to say: That is none of yours.”
“Well, let’s just hope you disposed of the body better than the last time. Wouldn’t
want the master to find out that you’re raiding the larder again. That lashing looked pretty painful,” said Mavus, mustering some of his fleeting strength to show Jim his grin.
Jim’s own smile faltered a bit, and then he sneered through his shark’s teeth. Mavus was surprised when Jim backed off, turning to walk away. But then Jim turned back.
“Oh, Mavus, one more thing. We’re all so very proud of the statement you’re making. The Noble Sufferer: he who sacrifices himself so that they may live. But let me just tell you one thing: if you endanger the rest of us because you’re too weak to do what has to be done… I will kill you myself.”
“Duly noted, Jim,” Mavus said.
◊ ◊ ◊ ◊
Mavus thumbed the intercom to the captain’s quarters.
“Who is it?” the master asked.
“Mavus, sir. I wish to speak with you,” he muttered, clutching the doorframe to steady himself. The magnetic locks clacked and the door slotted open with a whisper. Mavus entered, seeing Alastor seated in a lavish leather couch, naked from the waist up. He marveled at the taut, sinewy strength that he saw there, the ragged scars etched on his body.
These were old wounds, as the Mendraga form didn’t scar. He wondered how much blood Alastor had spilled before he’d started consuming it. Before the great old one found him, a dirt-smeared barbarian whose tribe had worshipped a star that fell from the sky.
“Mavus, my child. You suffer; why do you not feed?” Alastor asked, still not looking up. He was caressing an ancient axe, the shaft shaped from a great old Eursan tree, the head hewn from some metal that did not seem to have originated on Eursus. It looked like it could cleave Eursus itself with one fell swoop.
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