“Was that my bar?” Tetch shouted. “I hope that wasn’t my bar.”
Bayne tried to raise Delphyne on comms, to get a status on Mao, but he couldn’t hear anything over the noise. He told himself that his crew—his friends—were not in that bar when it exploded. He repeated it.
The man with the vibro-knuckles rushed at the crates as the one with the dual pistols laid down cover fire, pinning Bayne in place. The knuckles crackled with energy as they charged. Bayne tasted metal on his tongue a split-second before the man punched the crates, sending them, and Bayne, hurtling backward.
Bayne used his momentum to his advantage, ignoring the screaming pain in his back, and rolled closer to the shuttle. The man with the vibro-knuckles was already on him by the time Bayne made it back to his feet. He ducked a right hook, the knuckles sizzling as they passed overhead. Then he leaned to the left just in time to dodge a downward blow. The man’s hand plunged into the ground like a jackhammer and unleashed a burst of energy. The point of impact exploded like he’d punched a small landmine. Again using his momentum to his advantage, Bayne drew the black blade as he was thrown into the air. As he hit the ground a few feet away, so did the man’s left hand.
He screamed only for a moment before Bayne brought the blade down and removed his head. The captain barely made it to his feet before falling forward to seek refuge under the ramp of the shuttle.
“When I first spied those blades hanging on your hips, I thought you an imitator,” Tetch called. “A bureaucrat who takes a dead man’s swords and thinks himself a bit closer to adventure. I’m beginning to rethink my estimation. Tell me, how was it you came by Shill’s swords?”
Everything had a shimmering mirage, doubled from a possible concussion. He dabbed a finger in his ear and pulled away some blood.
Just a few more minutes, Bayne thought. How long had it been already? Less than two. He’d forgotten how slowly time passed in situations like this. A crawl. Every breath drawn out into infinity. Every second a hot blade scraped across the skin.
“He gave one of them to me,” Bayne said, trying his damnedest not to vomit. “I did, however, take the other off his dead body.”
“You don’t deserve those,” Tetch said. “They were a gift.”
“So I heard,” Bayne answered. “But they’re mine now, regardless of deserving. Unless you plan to take them from me?”
Tetch hummed, like a soundtrack to his thoughts. “I just might. How about you give me the same chance that Shill gave you? I knew the man well. He challenged you to a duel, didn’t he? He loved the old ways.”
The feeling of squaring off with Shill on the bridge of the Blighter overtook Bayne. The thrill of life and death hanging on the slightest misstep. The joy of beating the pirate at his own game. He would gladly relive it if he could.
“What say you then, Captain?” Tetch said. “Just you and me. Settle it the way us types should.”
He cringed at being lumped in with men like Shill and Tetch. Bayne was a Ranger in his early days. Likely, he still was at heart, but he was never a pirate. “What assurance do I have that you won’t gun me down soon as I step out into the open?”
The man’s dual pistols slid into Bayne’s view.
“You may not be aware, Captain Bayne,” Tetch called. “But you have garnered quite a reputation among the riffraff and cutthroats of the Deep Black. A man on a mission. A man of honor. A bored man with a leash around his neck. A learned man. You know of us and our ways, and you respect them as we do. You should know by now that if a man such as I offers his word on a matter such as this, then it will be upheld.”
Much to his frustration, Bayne knew all of that to be true. Furthermore, he knew this to be true of himself—he would not back down from a challenge. With fire in his belly and a knot in his gut, Bayne stood. He stepped into the open.
Tetch had his hands dug into the pockets of his vest. They seemed to have little intent on ever coming out. “But you’re also naïve and overly nostalgic.” The suited scoundrel waved his men forward. “Just like he said.”
Bayne drew his second sword, the blue blade. The man pulled the sword off his back. A broadsword, bulky, sturdy and powerful, but slow. Had he not been concussed, that would have been Bayne’s advantage. As it was, he could barely even raise his blades.
“End him quick,” Tetch ordered. “Then we take his shuttle, track down the Royal Blue. Let the black take all them aboard. Won’t bother dirtying our blades.”
Rage swelled in Bayne, filled his muscles, urged them to move though his mind still could not focus his movements. He swung wildly and hit nothing but mirages. A very real and solid hilt slammed into the side of Bayne’s head. A fresh stream of blood spilled down his face. His knees slammed into the ground. Laughter echoed in his ears.
The man standing above him kicked the black blade out of Bayne’s hand then slapped the blue blade away with his own sword. He grabbed Bayne by the collar of his UNS regulation shirt, gripping the stars pinned on the lapel in a massive fist. It was then that he remembered not what he used to be or hoped to be, but what he was.
The man pulled Bayne close enough that Bayne could smell the cave tobacco on his breath. “You’re a pretender,” the man grumbled. “Ain’t no damn pirate.”
“No, I’m not,” Bayne said as he pulled his regulation sidearm from the holster inside his jacket. “I’m a damn Navy captain.” He pressed his blaster to the underside of the man’s chin and pulled the trigger. He was thankful in that moment that his vision was still blurred, so he could not clearly see the man’s head explode.
Bayne fell back to his knees. His ears rang from the blast of the shot, but he could still hear Tetch screaming. Could hear the scrape of the gun barrels as the last of his men picked his dual pistols off the ground. Could hear the sizzle as the blaster fire tore through his shoulder. Hear his own sidearm hit the ground.
Tetch stood over him, glared at him, yelled, screamed like a demon. “Kill him!” he ordered his last man.
And that man would have happily obliged had a dagger not embedded itself in the base of his neck. Without hesitation, Tetch took up the dead man’s pistols, but he would never have a chance to fire them. Sigurd obliterated the left side of Tetch’s body with a barrage of blaster fire.
Mao lifted Bayne off the ground with one fluid motion, not missing a step as he carried the brutalized captain up the ramp and into the shuttle. Sigurd stood at the bottom of the ramp firing at a swathe of men trying to retake the landing platform. As the shuttle lifted off, Wilco and Mao pulled the security chief up and in.
The thrusters lit up, and they broke atmosphere.
Just before losing consciousness, Bayne saw Wilco wiping blood off the dagger that had saved his life.
14
The viewport of the Supernova was so large that Bayne could press his body against it and see nothing but the open black before him. He spread his arms out and felt only the polycarbonate shield separating him from the vacuum. He imagined himself floating through the open nothingness, weightless and alone and totally free.
He often felt weightless and alone, but it was a different sort of feeling while hustling the traders in the market on Io, either ignored or disdained. Swept aside like dirt on a kitchen floor, a nuisance to be moved and forgotten. He had no agency in a world that heaped rules on him. No say in his own life.
But out there, it felt different. There would be no force acting on him. No push and pull. He could not be swept aside because any who tried to push him would be equally pushed in the opposite direction. Every force was met with equal force. Bayne found that the vacuum was the only place where that law was completely true. He had never been able to react with equal force.
He only did this when the ship slept. The night crew was thin, and their orders never took them to the observation deck. He should have been sleeping as well. His days as a deckhand were physically grueling and mentally monotonous, an exhausting combination, but he would forego sleep every time
for this opportunity.
“So this is why the viewport is always smudged?” a calm voice came from behind him.
Bayne jumped, knocking his forehead on the viewport sill. Rubbing the pain away, he turned to face Captain Alexander Kyte.
“Sorry,” Bayne said.
Kyte stared at him expectantly.
“Sir,” Bayne added, realizing his omission. “Sorry, sir.”
Captain Kyte sat on one of the benches meant for observing the passing cosmos. “It may seem a little thing to you, addressing me as such, but it has its purpose. Helps keep the order.”
“Why?” Bayne blinked several times before correcting himself. “Why, sir?”
“Why what, boy? How can you hope to ever get a proper answer if you don’t ask a proper question?”
“Why do you need to keep order?” Bayne asked. “Thought that’s why we’re out here, to keep away from rules.”
Captain Kyte leaned back on the bench and folded one leg over the other, seeming to relax. “There’s always rules, whether they’re known or not. The beasts in the jungle operate under a set of rules. They enforce those rules, though not consciously, it’s just their nature. Every society has rules whether they have governments or not. If it was just me, the only living man in this universe, even I would have rules, because life is just a set of rules that keep us going on one path or another.”
Bayne scratched his chin. “Then why bother? Why do the Rangers exist?”
Kyte smiled. “So we can make our own rules.”
Bayne turned back to the window just in time to see a meteor rocket by in the distance. He followed it for as long as he could before it faded into the black. Then he noticed Kyte’s reflection in the window, watching him.
“You have more questions,” Kyte said, not asking. “How can you hope to find your answers if you are too afraid to ask your questions?”
Bayne had been encouraged to keep quiet his entire life, even before his parents died. He was unsure about this permission. “Then why join the alliance to fight the warlords? Governments and rich folk calling the shots. They’re the ones making the rules, and Rangers are the ones dying. How is that any different than how it’s always been?”
Kyte took a deep breath. It seemed to create a breeze in the room, a natural breeze of sweet-smelling air, not the stale whoosh of recycled sailors’ breath Bayne had known for months. “We’re born into the rules the way they are. We have to earn the right to make our own. Sometimes that means keeping others from pushing their rules on folks. These warlords, if they were left to their own, they’d put others under their heel, force their rules on the rest of us.”
The captain rose from the bench and stood beside Bayne, looking out the window. “You can live by your own rules, but you can’t force them on anyone else. To protect that principle, I’ve joined the alliance, chosen to take orders. Only for a time.” He put his hand on the glass, as if to touch the emptiness. Bayne had forgotten until he heard the thud of it against the glass that Kyte had a cybernetic hand, lost in his pursuit for freedom. “It’s because I can’t protect it alone. But you can be damn sure once this fight is done, that I’m cutting out my own piece of the galaxy, and I’m going to do with it whatever I please.”
The navigation officer rounded the corner. Murton, a skinny man with bags under his eyes and a scar that looked like a fat caterpillar on his forehead. “That recon report you’ve been waiting for is in, sir.”
“Taking these warlords out is like weeding the garden, kid,” Kyte said as he followed Murton. “Once they’re gone, the soil will be rich and ready, and that’s when I start planting.”
His lips were dry and cracked when he woke, his eyes bloodshot and head throbbing as though a large man were standing on it. His shoulder screamed, sending a shockwave of pain through his entire body when he tried to move.
“Sit!” Dr. Simmons cried. She reminded Bayne of a grade school teacher. An almost grandmotherly demeanor at times, which could instantly transform into a ruthless authoritarian. “The nanites haven’t put you back together yet, you damn fool.” She cupped Bayne’s head with one hand to ease it down and pushed the other against his forehead to force him back.
It was rare that Bayne found himself in her care, but it always made him feel like a child, vulnerable in ways he hadn’t been since before his mother died.
“What happened?” Bayne said, words scraping through his dry throat.
“Mao tells me you went and tried to get yourself killed,” Dr. Simmons said between sips of lavender tea. She set her cup down and picked up a tablet. “You’ve a blaster wound in your shoulder, the laceration on your thigh from your last visit reopened, bruised ribs, several contusions, and a major concussion. Nanites are patching up the shoulder and leg. The rest will heal quickly with some stimuloid injections.”
“The others?”
“Fine,” Dr. Simmons answered. “Treated them for some minor cuts and bruises. Should be along to see you soon. I had orders from the acting captain to alert him the moment you woke.”
Mao stepped into the infirmary, the sterile environment seeming a natural fit for him.
“Acting captain,” Bayne said with a sarcastic smile.
“Someone needed to, seeing that our current captain has been unconscious for two days,” Mao answered.
“Two days?” Bayne said, sitting up. “No wonder I feel so rested.” He looked up at Mao, expecting to see the man’s dry smile, but there was nothing. Blank, but with a great deal of effort. He was hiding something.
“What is it?” Bayne asked, his mind racing. “What happened?”
Mao sat on the bed across from the captain. “We rendezvoused with the ship inside the junkyard after taking off from Ore Town, but we haven’t been able to leave.”
“Why? Have we taken damage?”
“He’s waiting for us,” Mao said. “Parallax is just outside the edge of the debris field and he shows no signs of leaving.”
Bayne’s legs felt shaky even though he hadn’t stood. He felt like he might pass out, or like he wished he hadn’t woken up. He wasn’t as rested as he joked. All he wanted to do was sleep. “Has he made contact?”
“Yes, sir.”
“And what does he want? For us to surrender?”
“No, sir,” Mao said. “He just wants an audience with you.”
That caught Bayne by surprise. Parallax rarely made contact. It was part of the specter of fear that he’d created. “A trick?”
“Most likely,” Mao said. “I’ve yet to meet a pirate whose intentions were honest. The Black Hole is too big to navigate the debris. He offered to meet on one of the dead ships, a larger one near the center. Just the two of you.”
Bayne tried to stand, but his head emptied and he fell back to his bed, suddenly sweating and gasping for breath.
“That wasn’t a good idea,” Dr. Simmons said. “Lay down, you stubborn man.”
“What did Parallax say would happen if I didn’t meet him?” Bayne asked Mao.
“If you declined his invitation, Parallax said he would launch an EMP into the ship graveyard and leave us to die cold deaths.”
Bayne looked to Dr. Simmons. “I’m not being stubborn. I’m being a captain.”
“Of course you are,” she said, offering him her hand and helping him to his feet. Once he was steady, she grabbed three syringes from her lab coat pocket. “At least let me give you these. The stimuloid injections. I’m supposed to space them out by a few hours, otherwise they can cause some discomfort, but there’s no way you’re walking out of here under your own power without them”
Bayne nodded.
She stabbed them into his arm one after the other. It was only after all three were done that he felt the burning in his veins. His muscles tensed near to the point of convulsion.
“That’s the discomfort I spoke of.” She grabbed Bayne by the chin and looked in his eyes. “It’ll pass in a few seconds. Take a deep breath, hold it, and wait for it to pass.”
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Bayne did as he was told, and it did pass, though the echo of the burn lingered.
Mao tried to assist Bayne to his chambers, but the captain refused the help. Still, Mao walked closer than he would have normally.
“Just to be preemptive, XO, you can save telling me that this is a bad idea.”
“I’ve resigned myself to the fact that it does no good anyway, sir.” Mao had a bit of levity in his voice, but not enough to bring a smile. Enough to bring some calm, though, and that was all Bayne needed.
Once inside his quarters, Bayne dressed in a fresh captain’s uniform, one free of blood and holes. Then, feeling nostalgic, he opened the lid of the lavender box. As much as it pained him to admit it, Tetch was right about him. He was naïve and nostalgic. Even seeing what he’d seen, Bayne had a storybook view of the way things should be. The Rangers. The Navy. Pirates. He held the fantasy in his head while living in a different reality. It was a disconnect that nearly got him killed. He wouldn’t allow that to happen again.
After glancing over his trinkets, he took the one that was most important to him—the pin that Kyte gave him the day he joined the crew. The day he stopped being a starving orphan, the day he took to the stars, the day he took control of his life. He pinned it to his lapel. He realized then that his swords were gone, left on the docking bay of Ore Town. He tried not to think of them, of the feeling of the hilt, the weight of the blades. They were pirate weapons, and he was no pirate. Good riddance to the temptation.
He made for the hangar bay, but for one detour. Wilco and Hep were bouncing a small rubber ball back and forth in their quarters. The simple act reminded him of his time in the orphanage. A repetitive motion to pass the time, almost hypnotic, to help you forget where you were. “So who are you, really?” Bayne asked them
Wilco caught the ball. He spun it around in his fingers as he smiled. “Most of the story was true. Orphaned on Io. Taken as slaves. Worked in a mine for a time. Only we weren’t sold to Parallax. He took us on. Made us part of his crew.” He tossed the ball back to Hep.
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