Captain Bayne Boxed Set

by James David Victor

  “Go on,” Hix insisted, his gun raising ever so slightly.

  She put the bottle to her lips. The disgust showed on her face like a day-old bruise. She coughed as she swallowed.

  Hix smiled at her as he took the bottle back. “Good. It’s only proper to share a toast with those with whom you’ve run afoul of the law. Brotherhood of rogues and all that.”

  “We haven’t run afoul of anything,” Sigurd said, his jaw clenched and voice tight.

  Hix took another swallow of rum. “Oh, but haven’t you? Your captain certainly has. Breaking protocol like it was a dinnerplate. Unauthorized engagements with the enemy. Meeting with the most wanted man in the system without proper clearances. Failing to even report it to his superiors. One might think they were in cahoots.”

  A shadow fell over Sigurd’s face, a shadow he then cast over Bayne.

  “Even if that’s true,” Delpyne said, “breaking protocol is an infraction of Navy standards. It’s not the same as breaking the law.”

  Hix laughed. “The bureaucracy’s lucky to have you,” he told Delphyne. “Maybe you’re right. But I dare say murder is a mite more than an infraction of standards.” He gestured to Valoriae’s body. “I hear Central Intelligence does not take kindly to losing one of their own. I wager Colonel Tirseer will want to have a few words with you.”

  “You talk like we killed her,” Sigurd said.

  “In the eyes of everyone outside this room, you did.” Hix drank again.

  Bayne struggled to remain still, to keep from lunging forward and shoving his thumbs into Hix’s eyes. “What do you want?” Bayne asked him.

  “Nothing,” Hix said.

  “Must be a reason you’re doing this,” Bayne said. “Framing us for what, conspiring with Parallax?”

  Hix turned his back to them as he walked and sat at his desk. The man’s arrogance set Bayne’s blood on fire. “Just imagine how people will react when they find out that the Navy has been infiltrated by agents of Parallax. A well-respected captain, his crew, all pirates in sailors’ clothes. The betrayal. The mistrust.” His smile was cold and winding, like a broken winter road. He was a completely different man now, no sign of the man Bayne thought he knew.

  “No one will believe any of this,” Bayne said. “It’s a fiction and easily seen as such.”

  Hix shook his head. “If I’d simply woven this story out of nothing, then, yes, it would easily unravel. But when Tirseer has evidence of you meeting with Parallax and lying about it to the council, of taking two former members of his crew aboard your ship, of using one of those pirates to steal classified information, and then forging a reason to come here, to Triseca, to kidnap Captain Horus, one of the few men who can implicate the council in a vile act of mass murder against those who served it valiantly against the warlords, and the subsequent coverup… Well, those are all some very sturdy threads.”

  Bayne felt those threads wrapping around his neck and knitting into a noose. His every action since meeting Parallax in that ship graveyard seemed to have been either predicted or planned for by the pirate. Bayne thought he was cutting through a forest, but he was walking along a neatly-trimmed path the entire time.

  “Now,” Hix said after swallowing another gulp of rum. “You really must be going. There is a shuttle waiting for you in the hangar bay, which you will be stealing for your escape.”

  “And where are we supposed to go?” Sigurd asked. “How long are we going to last on a shuttle out here after you’ve set the whole of the Navy on us?”

  Hix’s communicator rang, and a bridge officer’s voice came through. “The Royal Blue is approaching, Captain.”

  “I took the liberty of arranging transportation,” Hix said to Bayne. Then he spoke into his comm. “Prepare to acquire a target lock,” Hix answered. “Those traitors cannot be allowed to escape.” He ended the communication and looked to Bayne. “Good-bye, Captain. Until we meet again.”

  There was nothing Bayne could say that would adequately convey his disdain for the man. There was nothing he could say at all. His mind was twisted in knots. His tongue died in his mouth. So, silently, he turned from Hix and ran out the door.

  The others followed, but Delphyne lingered a moment. She cast Hix a look like one a farmer does to a fox that just raided his henhouse. He upset the peace. He killed her livelihood. And he would turn her into killer. For the farmer has no choice but to kill the fox.

  She cast Bayne that very same look when they entered the hangar bay. Colston was there waiting for them. She directed them to the shuttle in the same manner with which she directed them before their spacewalk. Bayne wondered which Hix she served. Was she just a loyal sailor, or a pirate? How deep did this infiltration go?

  They climbed aboard the shuttle. Delphyne took the helm without being instructed to do so. Colston opened the hangar bay doors, and they were off. The first steps of their new lives as fugitives.

  16

  “Mao, this is Captain Bayne, do you copy?” The chaos of Triseca Station was fading away behind them. Delphyne piloted the shuttle toward the Royal Blue’s projected jump point considering their approach vector. But they had yet to make contact.

  “Captain?” a familiar, stern voice came over the comm.

  The sound of a friend cut the tension in the shuttle. “Thank god,” Bayne uttered. “Come get us, XO.”

  “Closing in on your location, sir.”

  The shuttle docked with the Blue two minutes later. Delphyne was correct in her prediction as to where the ship would emerge from jump.

  As soon as they were aboard, Bayne contacted Mao on the bridge. “Get us out of here, Mao. Take us out to the Deep.”

  Mao answered in a frantic tone. “Sir, the Esper just acquired a target lock.”

  “Just go, Mao,” Bayne answered. “They won’t fire. Meet me in my quarters once we’re clear, and I’ll explain everything.”

  They jumped clear, leaving their lives among the rubble.

  Two glasses, each with a generous pour of black rum, sat on the table between Mao and Bayne. They remained untouched as Bayne told Mao everything. The truth about Parallax and Ore Town. What the Navy did to the Rangers. Bayne’s actions on Central and his reason for going to Triseca.

  They remained untouched even as Bayne told Mao about Valoriae and Tirseer’s efforts to maintain the coverup. And about Hix and a potential pirate invasion of the Navy. They remained untouched as Bayne told Mao about Hix killing Valoriae and framing him for it, for using the circumstances to insinuate that Bayne and the entire crew of the Blue were secretly Parallax operatives.

  Once he was finished telling his story, Bayne picked up his glass. He gestured for Mao to do the same.

  “I do not drink while on duty,” Mao said, his chin pointed proudly to the air.

  Bayne sighed as he pushed the glass toward Mao. “You aren’t on duty anymore, Taliesin. None of us are. We’re fugitives. In the eyes of the Navy, we’re no different than pirates. No, we’re worse. We’re traitors. Deserters.”

  Mao eyed the glass. Bayne could see the struggle written on his friend’s face. With a heavy hand, Mao took up the glass, touched it to Bayne’s, and drank. “What is our next move, then?” Mao set the glass down and gestured for Bayne to pour another. “Whether we clear our names or not, Parallax must be stopped.”

  Or Tirseer does, Bayne thought but didn’t say. Or both. He didn’t know who his enemy was anymore.

  “Haven’t thought that far ahead,” Bayne said as he filled their glasses. “We need to get out into the Black. Get some space so I can think.”

  “And how will you tell the crew?” Mao sipped his fresh drink, savoring the flavor, remembering how sweet it was. “What will you tell them? They signed up to be sailors. What are they now?”

  Bayne swallowed his glass in one gulp. “No idea. I have no stars-be-damned idea what I’m going to tell anyone.” He slammed his glass down harder than intended. “I’ll sort it out. I just need to get out into the Black.”
<
br />   Mao stood. He straightened his jacket. Always intent on a crisp uniform. “Then I will chart a course for the most remote location in our computer.” He nodded and left.

  The obedience cut Bayne like a razor. A quick and unexpected nick that bled like hell. He would sort it out soon. Once he had space. He would figure it out. Set everything right.

  But there was one thing he needed to do first.

  Hepzah had his knees pulled tight to his chest. He sat on the observation deck, purposefully alone. Though he didn’t object to Bayne’s presence.

  “I’ve been looking for you,” Bayne said.

  “Figured you would be,” Hepzah said.

  Bayne sat next to him. They didn’t look at each other directly but caught glimpses of the other in the reflection of window. The stars pocked their ghostly faces, making them look celestial, like they were part of the cosmos.

  “How long?” Bayne said. “How long you been working for Tirseer?”

  Hep sucked in a breath, like he’d been punched in the gut. “A year. An operative infiltrated Parallax’s operation. Got to know me. Told me he’d gut Wilco if I didn’t feed him intel.”

  “The mine?” Bayne’s jaw tightened. He couldn’t separate his teeth.

  “I was supposed to let you die.”

  “Why didn’t you?”

  Hep was quiet a while as he watched the stars. When he finally spoke, he sounded like he’d fallen back in time. He sounded like a child. “I was orphaned during the war but not how you think. My dad was a Ranger. His ship went down, and the Navy didn’t even so much as knock on my mom’s door to deliver the news. They sent a letter. We didn’t have anything without him. Mom died a bit later. Just gave up.” Hep looked at Bayne for the first time. “I know what they did to the Rangers after the war. I heard Parallax talk about it.”

  They looked out the window again, at their faces and the stories the stars wrote across them.

  “Sounds like you’ve got a decision to make,” Bayne said. “Same one I need to make. About what course to set down.” He stood. “We’re heading out to the Deep Black. We’ll make our choices there.”

  Bayne patted Hep on the shoulder and returned to his cabin.

  He may not have known what course he was setting down, but he knew, at least for now, how he was coming at the decision. He removed his jacket. The medals clanked as he dropped it on the floor. He kicked open the chest under his bunk. The dual swords were a welcome weight on his hips.

  He was a free man.

  Ranger Bayne

  The Deep Black, Book 3

  1

  The bobber drifted atop the water, a lazy piece of plastic whose sole purpose was to float and be still. Most of the time. A few seconds every hour or so, it would move. But, mostly, its only job was to let you know where it was. Remind you that everything was just how it was the moment prior, and the moment prior to that, and every moment since you tied it to a line and dropped it in the lake.

  Drummond Bayne found staring at that ball of plastic more rewarding than hooking a fish. It was the meditation, not the sport, that he enjoyed. Looking out over the water, contemplating on the nature of inanimate objects. When his line finally jerked, he considered it an interruption.

  But he reeled it in just the same. Whether sport was the goal or not, one didn’t waste a good catch, or pass on the opportunity to have fresh fish for dinner.

  Bayne dropped the fish, a trout, into his basket along with the others, more than a dozen in all. It had been an afternoon full of interruption.

  He put new bait on his hook and cast his line. It plunked into the water, breaking the mirrored surface of the lake into an endless ring of ripples, and sank, leaving the bobber to do its job. Bayne fell into a stillness as he watched it.

  Until, like a hook hitting the water, a man broke Bayne’s peace.

  “You deaf? I said drop the rod.”

  The bobber held Bayne’s attention, commanded it. “I heard you,” Bayne said.

  “Then I’ll give you ‘til three to do as I say ‘fore I put two holes in you.” The man inched forward, crossing slightly into Bayne’s periphery.

  Bayne could feel a blaster on him, like a bug crawling up his neck. A faint tickle that he wanted to scratch. The bobber didn’t move. No disturbances. Nothing happening that should not be happening.

  “Goddammit,” the man cursed, inching closer. “Hell’s the matter with you?”

  Bayne gave a spin on the reel. “Just fishing.”

  The man gave a tense, uncomfortable laugh. “You’re voided, man. The Deep Black done sucked all sense out of your head.”

  A little pressure on the line. Nothing constituting an interruption, but something worth noting. Bayne could see most of the man now without turning to look at him. He was still in a spacewalk suit. His ship must still be in orbit, cloaked. He had probably dropped down in a shuttle, which meant there were more of his kind about—maybe more planet-side, but definitely more in his ship. But his suit was haggard, patched together one too many times. His crew would be small. His ship would be a midsize cruiser, not built for the Deep Black but modified enough to make do.

  “That could be,” Bayne said. “Been out in it a while.”

  “Yeah, I know all about it,” the man said. “The dossier on you ain’t light for detail. Navy wants you real bad.”

  Bayne felt a tug on his line. He’d hooked something, but it was best to let it sit a moment. Get too excited and start yanking on it, and he was bound to lose his catch. Let the hook work its way in first.

  “That they do,” Bayne said, still looking out over the lake. “What’s that dossier give you as far as their reason?”

  “Don’t much care,” the man said. “That much money, reasons don’t matter.” He moved toward the water, circling around in front of Bayne. A foolish move, one done out of curiosity, not necessity or strategy. He claimed not to care for reasons, and that was probably true, but he wanted to see what kind of man warranted such a bounty.

  “I don’t suppose they do.” The bobber ducked below the surface for a moment then returned like nothing had happened. “Money like that doesn’t draw out men of principle. Money is the principle. The driving force for all of this, I think. I fear it is, anyway. It often tends to be. I can tell you honestly that it will break my heart if that proves true.”

  The man spit out broken fragments of a laugh. “Stuff your heartbreak back in your chest. This ain’t therapy. Sounds like you got things you need to confess. I ain’t a priest or a judge. Save it for Central. You can find one of each there and cry to them all you like.” He spoke into a wrist-mounted comm. “I found him. Wasn’t worth the prep. Just a sad sack on the beach. Come pick us up.”

  Bayne sighed. “I’ve known my fill of men like you. Opportunistic. Self-serving. Was a time I believed that philosophy was worth dying for, ironic as that sounds.”

  “Shut up,” the man ordered.

  Bayne could see the blaster in the man’s hand now. A standard pistol. Looked to be Navy issue. This man may have been a sailor once. Or just took it off a dead one. “Not so sure what I believe anymore. Not sure it even matters. There’s what I believe and what I can do.”

  The man’s fingers tightened around the handle of his blaster. “I said shut up.”

  “I believe I’m obligated toward the latter, regardless of the former.”

  The battery pack on the man’s blaster whined with the half-squeeze of the trigger. “Man, if you don’t shut your mouth—”

  “That just feels so empty,” Bayne said. The bobber disappeared below the surface again. It didn’t return. “All I really want to do is fish.” He cranked on the reel and yanked back on the pole. A trout broke the surface of the lake, flopping and thrashing through the air.

  The man turned his gaze toward the fish, only for a second.

  Bayne dropped the pole in that second, drew his blaster, and put two smoking holes in the man’s chest. The man dropped dead. Bayne returned his attention
to his rod. He reeled the fish in, grabbed it, and dropped in his bucket with the rest.

  Then he cast his line again.

  As much as he loved this place, it wasn’t lost on Bayne that Backwater was an illusion. A moon in the outer reaches of the Deep Black, some industrious explorers had terraformed it generations ago. Part of the dream of colonizing the Deep Black, spreading the influence the Byers Clan or United Systems or whoever held the reins at the time. The dream was always the same, only the people driving it changed.

  Backwater was abandoned in the first decade. It was too far out, too far from supply lines and support. Too secluded. And that was why pirates loved it. They used it as a way station, a place to rest and relax, stash their loot, meet buyers. Before Bayne and the Royal Blue drove them all off. There were few left who knew about Backwater, either pirate or Navy. Bayne had never charted it. Never reported it to Central. He liked the idea of there being one place in the galaxy that was left untouched, wild.

  But it was only wild because it had been touched. Backwater should have been desolate.

  Now, he needed there to be a place like that. Not so he could hide, but so he had a reason to keep going.

  The wind was warm and carried the scent of a storm. Electricity on the air. A ship landed fifty meters up shore, in the clearing between the ridge of boulders and the tree line. Exactly where he thought it would. A midsize cruiser. Exactly what he thought it would be. A junker, made to function in the Deep, but just barely. The thrusters were the bare minimum capacity suggested for making jumps out here. A fraction less power, and you risked running out of fuel lightyears from any refueling station, left to drift until you either starved or suffocated.

  The hull looked like it was welded together with napalm. But it had managed to get to Backwater, which meant it had what it took to survive the Deep for at least a little while. And a little while at a time was all Bayne could focus on right now.