by C H Gideon
And the power started to spill over.
He touched it, and sharp agony fired through him.
It was then that he remembered why he was there, what he had to do.
Some piece of himself that sat in the captain’s chair recalled his purpose. It drew him back from oblivion.
It’s the pain. That’s why I’m drifting.
Reynolds spat his defiance at the agony that threatened to consume him, and he remembered the enemy ships he was facing down.
The ones that wanted to kill him.
No!
His voice roared, and he rode it out alongside the gushing energy. Blackness appeared ahead, a circle of emptiness that grew larger with every passing instant.
It hurtled toward him as he rode the energy upward toward the enveloping darkness.
That same voice that had summoned him back from the edge warned him about the darkness, warned him away from it.
It was a place for the light, not for him.
His job was to see the light to the end of its passage within him, and then let it go.
So that was what he did.
At the very edge of the tunnel, he braced against the walls, clutched himself, and held tight.
The raging energy spilled past him, tearing, tugging, desperately trying to drag him along, but he resisted. He wouldn’t give in to its pull.
He clung to himself as great tremors rattled through his frame, trying to shake him apart.
Reynolds hung on because he knew Bethany Anne would want him to. Because he knew people were counting on him.
Because he needed to.
At that moment, he was everything and nothing at the same time.
Still, the energy clawed at him, trying to drag him along.
Reynolds denied it.
He screamed his defiance into the rage of the energy surging past him, and he felt it give way and weaken.
It had bowed to his will, and then it was gone.
Spent.
And so was he.
Yet he still held on.
The next thing Reynolds knew, he was back in the android body he’d been sporting for the past several months.
Battered and beaten, missing a limb and barely able to walk, he smiled as he settled in again.
He blinked to clear his vision and saw the crew standing around him, eyes wide with wonder. They saw his motion, and smiles rippled across their faces.
“There’s no place like home,” he said, letting his head loll back against the headrest for a second.
“Are you okay?” Jiya asked, gaze darting about, examining every inch of him.
He nodded, straightening in his seat.
“I’m okay,” he told her, easing his neck from side to side while listening to the squeaks of its motion. “I might be about a quart of oil low, though.”
Jiya laughed, and the crew crowded tighter around, murmuring platitudes and saying how glad they were he’d made it through everything.
That touchy-feely shit lasted all of two seconds.
“Get the fuck back to work, you slackers,” Reynolds ordered. “I don’t pay all of you to hang around and grease my wheels. Man your stations, and tell me what the fuck-all happened while I was riding the LSD trip up my asshole. And get rid of Phraim-‘Eh’s fucking flagship, while you’re at it. Might as well take out all of the trash before we leave.”
“Good to have you back, Captain,” Asya remarked.
“Good to be back,” he replied. “Now, someone track down Takal and tell him I need a tune-up. And a new arm.”
Epilogue One
Jiya stood on the corner, staring down the street as though she were watching the parade roll by like all the other people gathered there on a quiet holiday morning in the sleepy city of Augst.
She wasn’t, of course.
She’d been stationed there to keep an eye out for the Voice, or as they’d learned, his real name was Commander Ast, and he was from the same world as Asya, a Loranian.
That had been a real kick in the ass to find out.
Asya had even worked for him for a time.
She’d damn near flown into a rage once she realized Ast had been the reason for Reynolds’ earlier mistrust of her. The male had manipulated everything, giving the AI cause to doubt her loyalty before she’d proven herself.
All that just pissed Jiya off even more.
It was one thing to stalk the crew across the universe and try to murder them, it was something else entirely to betray Jiya’s friend and use the crew.
He’d been behind everything from the very first mission, Phraim-’Eh’s eyes and ears…
Jiya laughed about that.
He’d have to be now, seeing how the wannabe god didn’t have eyes or ears anymore, or nose or mouth or anything now that his head had been blown off.
Jiya wanted to do the same thing to Commander Ast, but so did Asya and the rest of the crew.
They’d worked it out that the first person who found him got to put a bullet in his head.
It’d become a bit of a competition.
Now, nearly three months later, the crew had figured out where he’d been hiding since they’d killed all the rest of the Phraim-’Eh cultists that had scattered across the universe.
He’d vanished as soon as he’d learned that Phraim-’Eh was dead.
Jiya couldn’t blame him, but she sure as shit didn’t have any sympathy for the guy. He was a dead Loranian walking, and she wanted him found and taken out sooner rather than later. He’d been free far too long as far as she was concerned.
The chatter of the crowd threatened to lull her to sleep with its tepid pitch as she casually used her peripheral vision and her suit’s computer systems to scan each and face that came anywhere near her. Every whispered “ooh” and “aah” gave her reason to glance around and scan even further.
She hadn’t been lucky enough to catch sight of him, though, and she was beginning to think they’d followed bad intel.
“Anyone see him?” Ka’nak asked.
“Would we tell you if we did?” Maddox answered.
“The mission is what matters, people,” Reynolds said over the comm. “And I’ll let you know if I spot him…right after I scoop his fucking brains off the sidewalk.”
“You are all much too competitive,” Geroux told them.
“You’re not exactly immune to it,” Jiya fired back. “I saw how much computer equipment you packed when we heard he was down here. You took half the damn ship with you just so you can find him first.”
“It’s for the team,” Geroux retorted.
“Is that why I’m stuck using my suit scanners while you’ve rigged up half the city’s security cams and sent out a horde of mini-drones?” Jiya asked.
“See how helpful I am?” The young tech laughed.
“Keep it down, people,” Asya told the crew. “I can’t hear myself think with all your chatter, let alone concentrate enough to find that bastard.”
“Someone’s cranky,” Ka’nak chided.
“I think I see him,” Maddox interrupted.
“Where?” the rest of the crew asked simultaneously.
Maddox chuckled across the comm, saying nothing.
Jiya really didn’t care who got him. She just wanted to be sure that he was caught and put down.
Every other true cultist with the exception of Jora’nal had been killed, and that bastard was in jail on Lariest, where he’d rot in a cell forever alongside her father.
It was kind of a fitting ending for both of them, and she hoped the two were locked up close enough to piss each other off regularly.
That thought gave her great satisfaction.
A flurry of movement against the flow of pedestrian traffic caught her attention, and Jiya cast a furtive glance that way.
And there he was.
Her heart raced, and she almost hit her comm and pointed him out, but as much as it wasn’t about the competition, she needed to see the job through.
This
guy had made a fool out of all of them.
Jiya relaxed and sucked in a cool, deep breath to calm her nerves, then she leaned against the wall, turning her face away so he couldn’t recognize her.
He glanced at the crowd, then ducked into a narrow alley off the main street the parade traversed.
Jiya eased behind the crowds, their good-natured pushing and shoving nearly pressing her against the shops that lined the street. She dodged both vendors and sightseers as she wound her way toward the alley he’d gone down.
She didn’t want to trigger her cloaking device, since the rest of the crew would know she had and would come running. That would be a sure sign she’d spotted him.
Jiya reached the corner of the alley and eased to the edge, stepping off the curb and daring a peek around.
She nearly lost her head for it.
A burst of gunfire tore apart the bricks just inches above where her head had been. He’d apparently misjudged her height, thanks to the curb.
The crowd reacted to the shot, all hell breaking loose.
Children started crying, and people started screaming and wailing, and the thunder of footsteps of those who were part of the parade and those watching it joined into a singular cacophony.
“Where did that come from?” Reynolds asked over the comm.
Jiya resisted answering, but the question had come from her superior. It was instinct to reply.
“Small alley by Wallaths grocery,” she answered, knowing the rest of the crew would be breathing down her neck in seconds.
She dropped low and sprinted down the alley.
Of course, Ast had already bolted out the other side.
“He’s loose on the street parallel to the parade course,” she reported. “And I better get a damn raise for being a team player.”
She skidded around the corner just as Commander Ast made the next one. Jiya recognized the vague outline of his attire before he disappeared.
Without hesitation, she continued the chase.
She wasn’t alone.
Asya thundered up on her heels and the two wordlessly followed, Asya drafting off Jiya’s lead.
Ast hit a straight patch and was forced to press hard to find cover while he ran. He darted left to right, bobbing and weaving to avoid being hit in the back. Asya gave it her best shot, though.
Blaster fire illuminated the alley and scored the walls around the runner, but he was fast and unpredictable, and Asya hit everything but him.
“You’re going to bring the police down on us,” Jiya warned.
Asya did her best to shrug while running. “Like him shooting into a crowd hasn’t already set that in motion?”
She had a point.
“North on Clatterdun,” Jiya reported as Ast skittered and darted right down a side street.
“On him,” Maddox called.
“Damn it, Jiya,” Asya bitched at her friend. “If he gets to him before me because you’re calling the chase, I swear…”
She let the threat hang, but Jiya had a pretty good idea what Asya was willing to do.
Honor was a big thing to her, much as it was with Bethany Anne.
Asya might not have the same sense of absolute Justice in the face of any and all circumstances, but she sure as hell did everything she could to avenge a slight against her or her friends.
“East on Malfar,” Geroux reported, growling at herself when she realized she had given up Ast’s location freely. “Damn it! Now you’ve got me doing it, Jiya.”
Jiya and Asya shifted course to intercept, letting Maddox burn his energy in the sprint to catch up.
“He’s coming back toward you, Jiya,” Ka’nak called.
Ast popped out of a side alley not more than twenty seconds later. He skidded to a halt in the middle of a four-way cross-section as he saw Asya and Jiya, believing he had given them the slip.
Since that was clearly not the case, he raised his gun, but both Asya and Jiya fired first.
Ast ducked and spun back around, just barely missing colliding with Ka’nak, who barreled out of the easternmost alley.
Maddox appeared and blocked the way he’d just come, so Ast spun again—and ran face-first into the barrel of Geroux’s extended pistol.
He winced and stumbled back, regaining his footing and raising his gun to shoot his way out.
The problem was that he was surrounded on all four sides.
Actually, five, since Reynolds appeared on one of the rooftops, whistling down at Commander Ast as he aimed a rifle at him.
“Today is not your day, Ast,” Asya told him. “Or do you prefer ‘Voice of Phraim-’Eh?’”
“I find that last one a bit gaudy,” Geroux admitted as she inched closer, leaving Ast no room to run around her without guaranteeing he got shot.
“You know your god’s dead, right?” Ka’nak asked him, then mimicked a grenade going off. “Boom! God bits everywhere.”
Commander Ast snarled, spinning in a desperate circle.
“Come on now, Voice, you have to have something to say,” Jiya told him. “I mean, it’s right there in the name and everything.”
“Just take me in,” Ast argued. “I’ll go peacefully.” He moved like he was going to set his weapon down.
“Oh, no, no, no. That will not do,” Asya taunted. “We’re past the point of you surrendering and earning yourself a comfy prison cell. No, we’re taking care of this here and now.”
“You’re not murderers,” he told them. “You won’t kill me in cold blood.”
Ka’nak chuckled. “You might have us mistaken for someone else.”
Jiya appreciated the Melowi’s bluster, but Ast was right; they weren’t murderers. They weren’t looking to gun down a person in cold blood, regardless of the crimes he’d committed.
But that certainly didn’t stop them from pushing to make sure the killer in Ast came out so it could be punished properly.
The crew inched closer, guns up and at the ready. Reynolds covered them from above.
“A bunch of people died because of you, Ast,” Asya explained. “You don’t just get to walk away from that. There’s blood on your hands. Innocent blood, and lots of it.”
“I was simply a servant of my god,” he pleaded.
Asya laughed in his face. “Pathetic. He wasn’t even a god. You were schlepping drinks and running errands for a pretender. A crackpot.”
“He wasn’t worthy of calling himself sentient, let alone a god,” Maddox pressed.
The gun in Ast’s hand trembled as he spun in slow circles, facing the crew and their judgment.
“The sound of his jaw snapping is something I’ll remember forever,” Ka’nak said.
Ast twisted to glare at the Melowi, but Asya’s words caught him cold.
“He died crying,” she said. “Did you know that? Your god wept and pleaded for his life before his head exploded.”
“No!” Ast shrieked and turned, bringing his gun up and pulling the trigger.
His shot went wide.
Asya put a smoking hole between his eyes and killed him right there.
The rest of the crew fired right after, each claiming their right to Justice for what he’d done.
Commander Ast, the Voice of Phraim-’Eh, stood in the middle of a dingy alley, a corpse already, but his body too stubborn to realize it.
He held his ground with rigid defiance, then crumpled to the ground in a heap, nothing more than a bad memory like his would-be god, Phraim-’Eh.
The crew lingered for a while, not moving, simply staring at the end of their mission lying dead on the ground.
“Okay, people, let’s wrap this shit up,” Reynolds called from the rooftop. “He got his, now it’s time to move on.”
The crew nodded and put their guns away, glancing around the group. Small smiles crept to their lips.
Yeah, they’d killed someone, but he’d fucking deserved it.
“Six to beam up, Scotty,” Reynolds called to the Reynolds. “And a corpse. Don’t forget th
e corpse. We can’t just leave that in the gutter like some Old West movie.”
Takal came back over the comm, “Who is this Scotty you keep bringing up? Did we hire someone new?”
Epilogue Two
The mission was over.
At least this part of it, Reynolds thought.
He and the crew had come through it all and had taken out the evil descendants of the Kurtherians who had invaded the Chain Galaxy, and who had hoped to expand beyond even that.
And they’d killed a god.
Well, not really a god. More like a delusional nutbag who’d managed to get his hands on corrupt nanocytes somewhere and juiced himself into an early grave.
He’d convinced a lot of people, though, and had brought a lot of bad shit down on good worlds.
Reynolds was proud to have taken part in helping those worlds recover. Him and his crew.
They’d been a big part of it, regardless of how shaky their start had been. He couldn’t have done it without them.
It was also nice to have the last leader of the cult dead and accounted for.
Now that he was fully recovered—Takal having rebuilt his body and the crew having repaired the ship, making them both whole—it was time to make a decision.
Reynolds sat the core crew down in the meeting room and used the audio-video system to project his message to the entire ship.
He felt it only fair to tell them what he intended and give them a choice.
He sat at the head of the table and looked out across the closest of his crew. Reynolds dreaded this moment, but like every other circle of life, it begins and it ends, and it isn’t entirely up to us when it happens.
“Given that my mission here is over, the Kurtherians I sought vanquished, I figure this would be as good a time as any to clear the air and see what the future holds and what roles you play in it.
“I’ve enjoyed spending time with each and every one of you, and our experiences will forever be locked in up here…” he tapped the side of his head, “but I feel I have to be honest with you.
“I really don’t know where I’m going from here,” he admitted. “I’m thinking I’ll travel to High Tortuga to resolve a personal issue, but that’s not a guarantee.”