Lost Valor

by Kal Spriggs

  I waited. Sure enough, after a minute or so, the craft circled back, screaming down over the alleyway and then back the way it had come.

  Francis gave a sigh and flopped back against the wall. “Hock,” he muttered.

  I couldn't disagree with the sentiment.

  ***

  A little while later, me, Jonna, and Murfee, as well as Francis and his remaining people all gathered in the courtyard. The box of Rex lay on its side, the small plastic-wrapped packages with their vials spilled across the stained concrete.

  “They didn't take the drugs?” I asked in surprise.

  “They don't care about stuff like that,” Francis said, his voice tight. “They only care about hunting. They'll hit a market, leave all the goods, even Imperial Marks, laying around. They just take people.”

  “How many?” Jonna asked.

  “Four of mine,” Francis sighed.

  “Two of mine,” Jonna told him. “Danggar and my lookout, Gabbon.”

  He gave her a nod, “We got off lucky, then.” He glanced at me. “Your fos saved me, believe it or not. We were in shelter. They did something, maybe a drug or something, had me about ready to step out and let them take me. He snapped me and my boy out of it.”

  Jonna shot me a look, though whether she thought that was a good or bad decision, I couldn't tell.

  “I owe him, for that,” Francis grunted. He walked up and toed the box of drugs. “This stuff is the real deal?”

  “None of my people have used it,” Jonna noted, “but I checked the numbers myself. I wasn't going to cheat you.”

  “We're even, then,” he told her. He gestured at the box and one of his people picked it up. “See you 'round.”

  Jonna watched him and his people as they walked away. She rubbed at her arms as if fighting a chill. “Well,” she said, “let's get back home.”

  ***

  “What are the Hunters?” I asked as we walked back towards the lair.

  Jonna had sent Murfee ahead to tell the others what had happened. The leader of the Ragabonds started a bit, almost as if she'd forgotten I was walking next to her. She looked around, as if making sure no one was listening. That wasn't likely, since we were in another narrow alleyway, away from the crowded streets.

  “They're from the Pirate Houses,” she answered shortly. “It's one of the few times you'll ever see them work together.”

  “Why...”

  “We don't know why they hunt people,” she interrupted me. “Maybe they hunt for fun, maybe they do it to augment their slave numbers, maybe it's just to keep the people in the Barrens living in terror and keep us all in line.” She spat on the street as she said that. I didn't think Jonna liked the thought of being “kept in line.”

  “They tend to go after the street gangs, which means they take teenagers or kids most of the time,” she told me. “If you're taken, no one ever sees you again.”

  “Why don't the Red Badges—”

  “They're here to keep us all in the Barrens and keep a lid on things, they're not going to get involved, otherwise they'd violate the Pact.”

  That answer didn't satisfy me. It seemed to me that if someone had the power to stop this kind of thing, then they should. I frowned as I considered it, “What's the Pact? You mentioned it before, talking about the Barrens.”

  “Right,” she shot me a look, “sometimes I forget how much of a fos you are.” She shook her head, “Anyone born on Drakkus knows about the Pact. It's the foundation of all this,” she waved a hand around, as if trying to insinuate that everything was the result of this Pact.

  “When the United Nations forces abandoned the planet, we were destitute, there was no one in charge,” Jonna's expression went hard. “We don't get enough sun to grow much in the way of food, and we didn't have the tech or infrastructure for hydroponics or growth vats, at least, not right away. The colonists had been supplied by the UN aid ships... which weren't coming anymore.”

  “What happened?” I asked.

  Jonna stopped walking and turned to me, her blue eyes cold, “What do you think happened? We had a nasty little civil war and about a third of our population died to violence, starvation, and disease. The faction that emerged on top was led by the Cult of the Dragon and their leader was the first Emperor of Drakkus.” She pointed up at the clouded sky and the concealed gas giant above us. “He renamed himself after the dragon, and his followers spread some kind of mumbo-jumbo that he had the blood of the dragon, therefore he ruled by divine will. In the meantime, we still didn't have any food and things were getting pretty desperate.”

  I winced as I realized where this was going. There'd been a lot of failed colonies where human compatible food just couldn't grow... and when technology failed, all too often those worlds had collapsed into a cycle of war, death, and famine. People couldn't live very long without food, and it only took so long before they did terrible, horrible things to survive.

  She saw my expression and gave me a nod, “But about then, a group of renegade military ships that weren't welcome under the new Star Guard Fleet got pushed out this way. They'd been surviving on mercenary and pirate work. Some of them had already resorted to kidnapping and indenture to keep their ships crewed. They weren't one crew, it was sort of a loose alliance, a dozen or more crews. They were looking for someplace to hide and base out of, and we had enough infrastructure to support them... and they had food and weapons, both of which our new emperor wanted. I think they probably planned to just take over, but the Emperor was a clever fellow, he played them off against each-other, kept them too worried about one another to move against him. And he established the Pact to keep them happy.”

  She waved a hand around at the black walls of the buildings around us, “He offered them the Barrens, the factories, the whole area. He made each of their crews hereditary pirate or noble Houses, depending on how much he trusted them. Each one was a pirate clan that could control sections of the city... they could do whatever they wanted here in the Barrens. Murder, enslave, manufacture drugs... anything. This became their base of operations and they could go out and take from other colonies, to keep the planet supplied with food and tech. In return, they'd give twenty percent of what they earned to the Emperor.”

  I considered that, “And he used that to build the Heart?”

  She gave me a nod, “And one of the first bits of that twenty percent was ships and equipment for the Drakkus Imperial Space Korps. One fifth of all the equipment and ships the pirates had... which made his military the strongest among them. They might have thought they could slip their own people in and take it over, but so far anyway, DISK has succeeded in staying loyal and neutral.”

  “Huh,” I considered it. There was a certain horrible genius to it, I supposed. This Emperor didn't sound like he'd been a very nice person, but he had managed to prevent his planet from descending into chaos or being looted by pirates.

  Of course, he'd done that by siccing those pirates on other colonies in the Periphery, which included my homeworld.

  “This system is kind of messed up,” I told her.

  “You don't know the half of it,” Jonna grimaced. “Trust me, you don't want to.” She sighed, “Come on, let's continue your education.”

  She led the way down the alleyway and then into the street. We walked a bit further and then into one of the crowded markets. I didn't recognize this one, it wasn't Wastrel Market, at least. The peddlers here weren't selling scrapped electronics or ragged clothing, either. Some of the stands had food cubes, vat-grown colored cubes that had the consistency of clay and all the taste of cardboard. I knew because often enough, that's what the Ragabonds had to eat. Most of the tables had vials of liquids or baggies of powders. They were in all shades of colors, purple, green, blue, metallic and sparkly, and even glowing. “This is what Drakkus's oldest industry,” she told me gesturing at where a couple of men argued over price for a handful of vials.

  “There's factories here that churn out drugs on an industrial scale,
” she told me. “Half or more of the Rex in human space is made here.” She pointed at a vendor's table where a man had dozens of vials of golden Rex Prime laid out. “This is all just the left-overs, the Houses export tens of thousands of tons of the stuff, to any planet you can mention, any drug you can think of: Rex, Gaz-more, Green-eye, more than you can believe exist. That's not all, they manufacture poisons, medicines, vitamins, supplements... all of it on a scale that you wouldn't believe.”

  A nearby vendor swore at us, “Make a buy or leave!”

  She made a rude gesture at him and then led the way back out. “The Houses bring in slave labor to work their factories, to make their toxins. Sure, there's industrial mines on the planet and in space, but this is their big source of income.”

  I thought about that as we headed back to the lair. The more I learned about Drakkus, the less I liked it. The surface of the planet was cold, ugly, and hard. The people were unfriendly. There were criminal gangs, pirates, slavers, and apparently drug-smugglers on a scale that made my head hurt. I hate this place.

  ***

  Chapter 16: I Try To Stay Focused

  Ted and I shared some food cubes a few weeks later, after everything had calmed down. The Ragabonds had taken the loss of two of their people more easily than I would have expected. Most of the younger kids had cried a bit, especially over Danggar, who'd spent a lot of time with them, but after a day, no one even mentioned the missing kids. No one, not Simon, not Jonna, even mentioned the possibility of rescuing the two Ragabonds that had been taken.

  “How are we doing?” I asked Ted as I passed over a couple of Imperial Marks I'd collected earlier that morning.

  “Well, at this rate,” he answered, “if you and I pool our resources, we can buy an implant to slip through security in about...” He closed his eyes, “Five hundred and eighty three days. I'm not real clear on how long a Drakkus year is, but that's about one and a third Century years or one point six Earth years, right?”

  I grimaced, “Yeah, that's right.” I'd been working as hard as I could to bring in Marks. I'd taken every job Jonna had offered. I'd helped Simon out moving things in his container. I'd stood lookout while the Ragabonds burglarized businesses. I'd begged on the corner. I'd helped Jonna to sell stolen goods. I'd done things that I knew my parents would have hated. I'd swallowed my pride and shame and I'd done them anyway. I told myself I was doing this to survive, to get home. I worried, though, that sooner or later I'd lose my soul, lose myself, and I'd be no better than a petty criminal.

  Some days I brought in one Mark, some days as many as three. Ted earned a bit from working the books for Jonna, and a bit more when she loaned him out to one of the local businesses who paid her for protection, where he'd help them do their numbers for a bit of side money. I was earning far more than I might as labor, carrying boxes or something. A single Mark was the cost of an expensive meal here in the Barrens. But we needed a thousand Imperial Marks each... and we had less than three hundred in total.

  I didn't know how long I'd been away from Century. It felt like years, but I guessed it was probably just months. Maybe it was a year. I'd lost so much time unconscious from when they'd put the slave implant in me. Then there'd been three weeks on the ship. There'd been weeks or months at Wessek's facility, where I'd translated the notes. Enough time that I'd lost count of days, anyway. Then living here on the streets. The days seemed shorter, here, so that might throw my count off, but thinking about it, it had been at least six months since I'd been kidnapped.

  Right now, if Wessek hadn't murdered my family and kidnapped me, I'd probably be doing my summer assignment back at the Academy. I'd planned to be a Cadet Drill Instructor. And to think, I wasn't sure I could be mean enough to be harsh to candidates... Here I was, stealing for a living.

  Could I take another year or more of this? I looked at Ted, noticing the hollows under his eyes, how gaunt he looked. He didn't look healthy, he looked tired and sickly. Living on the streets was tearing me up, but I worried that it was killing him. Maybe I could live through this, but I didn't know if he could.

  “We'll think of something,” I told him.

  “Jonna's got a stash of Marks,” Ted said in a low voice.

  “What?” I asked in surprise.

  Ted looked down at the floor, turning a food cube over and over in his hands. “She has some Marks saved up, either for the gang or for her, an emergency fund.” He swallowed nervously and looked up at me. “I... maybe we could rob her.”

  “She's given us shelter, Ted,” I told him. The idea of robbing someone who'd helped us... I wanted to reject the idea. It wasn't what a good person would do. It wasn't something my parents could be proud of.

  “I bet she's got enough that, with what we have, one of us could get home, get some help,” Ted didn't look up, clearly not willing to meet my eyes. He was afraid of what he might see on my face, I'd guess. “I mean, your family is connected... maybe we could pay her back after we get back?”

  I didn't answer. I couldn't imagine Ted surviving for long in the Barrens on his own. That wasn't even considering what Jonna would do to either of us if she caught us. And even if we did have enough to buy passage for us both... then what? We'd be taking money from the only people who'd helped us. The Ragabonds were thieves and beggars, but they were as close to friends and family that Ted and I had. They'd taken us in, given us shelter, food... kept us alive when we'd probably both be dead on the streets.

  “No,” I shook my head, “it's not right. We're not stealing from Jonna.”

  Ted sighed, “Okay. I didn't want to, but I thought I had to say it, you know?”

  “Yeah,” I nodded. I felt relieved, too. Apparently there were some lines that I wasn't going to cross. Not yet, anyway.

  ***

  I was helping Simon to pull some of the boxes out of the back of his container and rearrange things when a mottled gray and black civet dropped down off the wall and trotted over towards us. I started a bit and Simon grinned at me, “Gun shy?”

  I gave him a sour look.

  The civet paused a couple meters away, “Trade?” He asked Simon.

  “I'm a little busy,” Simon told it. “Later?”

  “I wait,” it said, moving out of the way and watching with interest. Now that I knew how smart the little things were, I kept an eye on it as well. As I took a break after shifting one particularly heavy box, I nodded at it, “Do you know Lokka?” I asked.

  It blinked at me and didn't respond.

  “I'm Will,” I told it. “I saved him. Could you pass him a message?”

  The civet yawned. Apparently this one didn't think much of me.

  “Well, if you see Lokka, tell him I'd like to talk to him, see if he's alright, okay?” I hadn't seen or heard from the civets since I'd come back here. I hadn't gone to their den, either, but I hadn't really had time. With how desperate things were getting, I was starting to wonder if maybe I could sell the information from my dad's datapad, somehow. Of course, since it had gone into the water and then Lokka had taken it to fix it, I didn't even have that.

  The civet closed its eyes and lowered its head to its front paws. Unless it's almost instant snores were some kind of signal, it was probably ignoring me.

  Simon chuckled from where he was sorting through stolen goods. “Civets are like that. Be happy it's ignoring you instead of spraying you.”

  I sighed and went back to moving boxes. It was probably a moot point, anyway, it wasn't likely that the civets knew how to recover data or something like that. It's too much to expect of an animal, I guess.

  ***

  A few weeks later, as I stood watch at an alleyway, I got a bit more of a reaction than I'd expected.

  “Will,” a voice chirped from almost directly above me. I started, jumping a bit into the air and spinning around, looking for the source.

  “Here,” a light voice said. I looked up, barely spotting the civet against the dark gray surface of the building, two or three meters above
me. I recognized Lokka as he descended a bit, “Looking for you.”

  “You almost gave me a heart-attack,” I scolded him. Then, because I was supposed to be keeping lookout, I glanced around. It was late evening, the dark street was pretty much empty, and I didn't see anyone looking this way. More importantly, I didn't see anyone heading towards the building I was supposed to be watching.

  “You not pay attention,” Lokka scolded me right back.

  “I'm supposed to be keeping watch...” I shook my head, “never mind.” I looked around, “Where have you been, is everything alright?”

  “Fine, fine,” Lokka crawled down the wall until he was head height, staring at me from upside-down. He flicked his tail around, then craned his head in a way that made my neck hurt and stared at me. “You smell bad.”

  “I washed,” I told him.

  “You smell chemicals, bad food,” he told me. “Food cubes, bleh.”

  “Yeah, they're cheap,” I told him.

  “Tasty rat is better,” he told me, baring his teeth.

  “Ugh,” I winced. “Why are you here?” I asked.

  “I hear you look for me,” Lokka answered. “I come.”

  “I wanted to see if you were okay,” I told him. “I sort of thought we'd stay in touch or something.” It was strange, but I felt a bit of relief seeing the civet. I'd never had a pet, maybe I thought of him like that.

  “You need to take care of self,” Lokka scolded. “You thin. Food cubes not good food.” His tone made it clear that if one of us was the pet, it certainly wasn't him. “You eat better or I make sure you eat better.” Faster than I could react, he leapt from the wall onto my shoulders, a heavy, dense weight that threw me off balance. I flailed at the air a bit and barely avoided falling to the ground.

  He patted at my head, “Being tall not good for brains.”

  “Thanks,” I said sourly. “Can you get off me, please?” I was half afraid to move, lest he spray me again.

  “Curious, view seems good, but you not use eyes,” the civet chirped in my ear. “You supposed to watch building, right?”