by Lauren Moore
“Ready,” the ship said.
The altimeter fell as the ship spiraled toward the canyon. Van held on to a pylon near the release, amping his implant a little more, his tendons almost bending the alloy in a death grip. He should’ve worn his shipsuit, which was funny, considering the effort he put into the littlest detail here… even remembering to bring along this little toy he found on his last tour.
The walls of the canyon flashed in the spin.
“Now!” Van hit the release and pounded the manual eject. The bomb punched out of the bay. Gravity returned, and the stardrive ignited as the bomb went off to tremendous megaton effect. Van killed his implants and everything went dark.
Long Walk
Van screamed and his body went rigid, as though he were falling. He banged his head on the polyalloy deck, groaned, and rolled over. He waited for the stars in his vision to clear in the darkness. Sonya’s face swam in his vision, her red hair and silver eyes flashing in a smile, then fear. He pulled off his glove and ran a hand over his face. “Ace? You ain’t dead, are you, you old harpy?”
Ace twittered in reply.
“Ah yes, well, always another day to die,” Van grunted, sitting upright. His arm hurt like hell and his nerves jangled. He didn’t need to run his implant diagnostics to realize he might’ve overdone it. Question was, did it work? He pulled a smoke from his jacket and put it between his teeth. He was about to light it when Ace warbled. “I know, mother hen.”
He couldn’t have been out long; he’d been dreaming. The screams echoed in his memory. He put his hands behind his head, trying to let time fade the images of that horrific massacre. They ruined the present by reminding you of the past and stripping away your future. He dreamt of her and he knew it was impossible for Sonya to be alive. Could it possibly be her? He checked his chronometer. He’d been out for two hours.
“You reckon they’re still out there?” he asked the Nidian. He smelled Ace’s musk and sensed her squatting nearby. For a bulky alien, Ace could move quickly and be as still as stone with equanimity.
Ace clacked her beak.
“Yeah, they jes’ sore ’bout losing their ships and their prize.” Van drew up his feet. “But this is Backwater. Ain’t no sense loitering when you run the planet from your little pirate haven, right?” He got to his feet and pulled the manual airlock release. “Let me look see. You can turn Chirp on if all’s well.”
Ace rumbled deep in her throat.
“Yeah, yeah.” Van pulled on his holster as he climbed through the airlock and down into the hot sunshine. His eyes hurt from the intensity of the light. He caught the handheld scanner Ace threw him.
Curls of dust swirled around his boots and he pulled on his Stetson to shade his eyes. His boots crunched rocks as he ambled out of the shadowy crag Ace expertly tucked Sliver into. He scanned the blue-black skies and swept his surroundings with the scanner. Nothing but the low-level radiation of a recent antimatter bomb. No stardrive or thrust signatures. He snapped the tip of his smoke, lighting it. “Ain’t nuthin’ here,” he said and took a long drag. He should probably eat something first and he was powerful thirsty. He heard the internal power systems whine to life inside of Sliver the cargo bay and ramp lowered from the slim underbelly of the ship.
Damn, it was hot. He hated early stage terraformed worlds. The frontier was dotted with them, though, and he lived in the frontier now. He missed the civilization of the stage fives. Hell, he even missed the neighborliness of the herders on stage fours. But Backwater was a stage two—it had a helluva long way to go before it got to stage four. Plant life was one thing. At least the atmosphere was stable. He finished his smoke and strolled back into the ship to find something to eat in the tiny galley.
“You eat already?” he asked Ace as he passed, her little taloned digits doing the fine work her large kill talons couldn’t do to unstrap his hoversteed. She crooned.
“Drink, then?” Van pushed his hat off, setting the meal prep unit for something cool or at least room temperature to eat. He grabbed a cup and a cylinder of whiskey. He waved it to Ace.
Ace bobbed her head, her feathers rippling a bluish-green in the shipboard lighting.
“Yeah, I know. You’d drink the whole cylinder if I let you.” Van poured himself a finger and tossed her the cylinder and cup. She’d learned to not drink straight from the cylinder, but sometimes Ace got too excited over a lick of whiskey. “Chirp, you ready?”
“I’m operational.”
“How’s my plan looking?”
“Ridiculous,” Chirp replied. “Why don’t you just ask her?”
“It’s simply not done, my ancient friend. Besides, we get paid to do what we’re doing.”
“We aren’t getting paid for this.”
“That’s my point. What I’m doing is for free. And what I do for free is classy. Elegant.”
“It’s also riskier. We can’t go up against their ship again. She’ll use everything she’s got on us next time. I don’t like being blown to pieces.”
Van downed his drink and ate. “Black Andalusia thought she was getting swag and maybe a new ship. That’s why we plan on there being no next time. Hey!” He waved to Ace. “Don’t drink all the damn whiskey!”
Ace hooted.
“No, I’m not going into a pirate haven full of pirates to get you another cylinder! We get another cylinder when we’re done. It messes up your flying anyway, you jackdaw.”
Ace hooted, more softly.
Van sighed. “Fine. If everything works out. It’s a pretty low chance.”
“Seventy-seven point three four to one,” Chirp said.
“No one asked you!” Van snarled. Damn, he was grouchy. He scarfed down his food, occasionally rubbing the primary implant in his chest. No, it wasn’t the implants. Sonya and the nightmares hadn’t exactly faded from his mind. He put his food tin in the recycler and wiped his face with a warm towel, making sure the crumbs were out of his Van Dyke. “I’d change, but I’m just going to sweat through the synth weave anyway. And I ain’t goin’ courtin’.”
Ace chirped and patted the hoversteed before sliding it down the cargo ramp.
“Ship locked down, Chirp?” Van asked.
“Once Ace has removed the cargo and I’m out of my chassis, I will set the ship on autonomic defense.”
“Wouldn’t want some jackass to steal you before we get back.” Van pulled his Stetson back on.
“Remember your implants,” Chirp said. “And there’s a sandstorm rolling in.”
“Thank you kindly.” Van dialed his implants to nil output. He could turn them off, but every human in the frontier had some augment—mostly to deal with the environmental harshness of these lower stage worlds. His Frontier Ranger implants were another matter entirely. Best to not play that hand—not yet, anyway. He checked his blaster charge and lit another smoke.
Ace powered up the hoversteeds. Her fine feathery fur scintillated in the sunlight. He squinted up at her. Ace was intimidating, standing almost three meters tall with a massive head with those eagle eyes and beak. Nidians were killers of the highest degree, both female and the smaller male. Ace was special. Maybe disfigured or disabled was a more accurate word, in Nidian terms. Whatever it was about her that made her different from all the other Nidians he’d met was important. Humans and Nidians were sworn enemies. But Ace? She and Van were survivors.
Ace placed a taloned claw on his shoulder. The three killer talons and the three little ones gripped gently. He whistled her name, which he could never say properly.
“Van,” she said, sounding more like “Tak” or “Kak.”
“Don’t get mushy, old harpy,” Van said. “You know what to do. I’ve got to do this, all right? I have to know.”
Ace shook her plumed head, but she lowered her arm.
Van hopped onto his hoversteed. “Remember, wait until I’m good and captured, okay? It might take a bar fight or two. Maybe none, but probably one or two.”
He pulled the respirat
or over the lower half of his face and kicked the drive over. The hoversteed floated off the ground. He pulled the rein-controls, and it glided over the canyon bed.
Black Andalusia
Van landed on the dusty floor of the saloon. That last hit was a good one. It almost made his mind blissfully blank.
A black-booted foot jabbed him in the ribs, and he rolled over involuntarily. “What do we have here?” a contralto voice spoke.
In the dim saloon light, Van made out the lithe shape of a woman—Black Andalusia. She wore a neo-tech leather shipsuit fitted to her curves. A blaster hung low on her hip, but her hand rested on the unmistakable hilt of a Nidian killknife. A sardonic smile graced her lips. She radiated confidence, power, and something else Van couldn’t quite name. Her hair was flaming red—that much was right, but her face was all wrong. It wasn’t Sonya.
“Sensor field tagged him coming toward the Haunt. He was armed but surrendered,” someone said.
“Why didn’t you shoot him?” the woman asked, silver-gray eyes boring into Van.
“I think he survived the courier ship we shot down. There ain’t no other ships in this sector. We woulda picked him up.”
“It’s good to know you’re using your brain, Garl.” She leaned over slightly. “Are you from the courier ship? The Quarterhorse?”
“Yes. My escape pod ejected before you blew me up,” Van lied. “Lucky me.”
“Where’s his gun?”
Garl handed his blaster and holster to the woman. She drew the gun and examined it, pulled out Van’s smoke pack, took one, and lit it with a snap with his lighter. “You’re lying,” she said. She stepped on Van’s hand. Van clenched in pain as she ground her boot. “Your ship is over two hundred kilometers away. You want me to believe you could walk that distance in just a few hours?” Her eyes shifted to Garl and his men. “Search the immediate area. He’s got transportation—probably a horse. Search for his ship after the storm. What else is he lying about?” She removed her boot. “Get him in a chair and give him a drink.”
They hauled Van to his feet, and he grabbed his hat as they threw him into a chair that had seen better days. It creaked under his weight, and he rubbed his injured hand. The saloon was as he expected it—a cobbled-together patchwork of ship parts made into a room. None of the chairs matched and there was a long bar made from a space wing. Kegs, barrels, and cylinders lined the back wall. A barkeep with a cybernetic eye poured him a drink and slid it down the wing.
Van took the drink with his good hand and sipped the bourbon. It tasted excellent. He downed it, clearing his parched throat.
“He’s got implants,” the barkeep growled. “Nothing special, though. Standard frontier tech.”
The woman put her boot on his chair, the toe jamming into Van’s crotch and making him wince. She took a drag and leaned over him. “Why are you here?” A dark eyebrow rose at the question mark.
“I believe introductions are in order,” Van said. “Don’t you agree?”
“I don’t care who you are.”
“That’s a mite inhospitable.”
“I’m a pirate. What do you think about that?”
“You seem to be very successful at it,” Van replied. “Big ship. Nice place.”
“That’s right.”
“You’re Black Andalusia.”
The woman laughed, and the crew joined in. There was a glittering, tinkling sound, like strings of diamonds colliding, and another woman came into view. His heart hitched with hope but sank back to normal. This woman’s head and arms were black as midnight, and she had a plume of feathers mounted on her bare head, bright iridescent Nidian feathers. She wore a glittering poncho. The second woman smiled, her veneer dimpling and showing perfect teeth. This woman was almost all cybernetic, and Van wondered from which core world she’d come to make her meager mark in this hellhole.
“I’m Alusia, stranger,” she said, tapping perfect nails on her breastbone. Through the glittery diamond fabric, he saw the shape of another killknife. Pirates liked the Nidian killknives, apparently.
Van tried to not be disappointed.
“Are you surprised?” Alusia said, her hand vanishing under the poncho to rest on the butt of a powerful blaster that peeked out the bottom. The first woman handed Alusia a fresh smoke.
Van sighed. I should’ve left my smokes on the ship. “I’ve heard of you. I wanted to meet you, truth be told.”
“Oh, really now?” Alusia smiled, the smoke clenched between her teeth. She leaned forward and Van caught the subsonic purr of tiny motors.
How much of her was human? This may be a challenge.
Alusia blew smoke into Van’s face. The other woman chuckled.
Time for more lies and half-truths. “Yes, ma’am. I wanted to meet Black Andalusia. I wanted to know if you were really a Frontier Ranger—”
“I’m no Frontier Ranger!” Alusia hissed. “Do I look like some implant-crazed scum like them?”
“’Netics, implants, potayto, potahto,” Van said.
“They were supposed to make the Frontier safe, and here we are! We have to do it ourselves!” Alusia snapped.
“I don’t know what your idea of safe is, but this ain’t it.” Van nodded to the red-haired woman. “What about her?”
Alusia’s green eyes glinted like a cat. “You don’t get it, do you?”
“I’m Black,” the first woman said with a puff of smoke.
“Black Andalusia is two women? Black and Alusia…” Van drawled, and the group roared with laughter.
“Stranger, that confusion never gets old.” Alusia grinned. She waved a hand. “It’s an old ruse, but it lets us run the Haunt and Sally Forth well enough.” Her smile vanished. “What’s on your little ship?”
How droll. Van shrugged. “Little of this. Little of that. That was business between me and the governor of this little rock.”
“I’m the governor of this little rock and I want to know what we’ll find when we get there.”
“I told you, my ship was destroyed. All I had was the escape pod and my gun.”
Alusia leaned back, poncho sparkling. It was changing color, rippling through the visible spectrum and into ultraviolet.
“Put him in our little guest room?” Black suggested.
“No. Put him outside. Let the Backwater Breeze scour him for the night. Perhaps he’ll be amenable in the morning. It doesn’t matter. We’ll search for his ship after the storm then. After we find his ship, whole or broken, kill him.”
A Real Meeting
Dust devils swirled in the late daylight when Black and her crew marched him out to a post in the Haunt’s central yard. They placed duranium manacles on his wrists, chaining him to the duranium post. Black waved the crew away, and they happily returned to the saloon and battened the door against the oncoming sandstorm—the Backwater Breeze. She had another smoke clenched between her teeth, her silver eyes burnished bronze in the dying sunlight.
“It sounds like you’re not really in charge,” Van said.
“Whatever gave you that impression?”
“Your deference.”
Black’s face was impassive, but he could tell that something rippled beneath the surface. His hand hurt like hell, but he’d been beaten none too kindly by Garl and his pirate brigands already. She leaned forward, opening her shipsuit to the navel, exposing smooth, pale skin. The dull alloy shape of the Ranger star implant on her breastbone was unmistakable.
“I was a Frontier Ranger,” Black whispered.
Van examined her face again, trying to marry his eidetic memory to this woman’s face. She could have been altered…? No, Sonya was a full Frontier Ranger…
“Get a good look?” Her fingers caressed the implant’s five-pointed star with the tips of her fingers. “Last survivor of the Massacre at Little Big Moon, if’n you wanted to know.”
“Now that is a lie,” Van drawled.
Faster than human vision could register, her killknife was at his throat. The blade
sliced, a trickle of blood running down his neck. Black’s breath was hot. “I could gut you like a pig!” she hissed. She zipped her suit back up.
Van gestured in supplication. “Seems unkind to gut an unarmed man, but you are a pirate.” He regarded Black’s steely bronze gaze. “Ain’t no one survived Little Big Moon. That’s what I heard.”
“You heard wrong.” Heat radiated from her skin—such rapid motion had to be the implants. Were they fully active?
“You survived Little Big Moon? How?”
Black gave a sardonic grin. “Why would I tell you that, nobody courier? Backwater stranger.” She sniffed. “You smell like Nidian.”
Van smiled. She had the heightened senses a Ranger could tap into. “Says the pirate with the Nidian killknife.”
The killknife slid into its sheath. “That’s not a story you get to hear.”
“Funny, you wanted me to know what you were. Alusia must know.”
Black took a drag. “Perhaps I’m just entertaining myself to let you know. What do you think of that? We can’t all be monsters, even if we’re also pirates.”
“You got a funny way of thinking about the world. There ain’t nothing good about being a pirate. Not the murderous kind who kill hardworking, hard-living terraformers.”
Black’s eyes squinted against the gusting sand. “The Frontier Rangers are all dead. There’s nothing left of what they were. Does it really matter what you think?” Her eyes were thoughtful. “Are you Foundation, then?”
“There ain’t no more Foundation either. That’s all been taken apart.”
“Just because you take something apart doesn’t mean the pieces aren’t functional.” She strolled away, swaying in confidence. They left Van alone with the howling sand and his own demons. Echoes of a woman he knew was dead.