by Lauren Moore
Breakout
It was hard to tell when the men came for him in the night. His face and hands were abraded and every orifice invaded with sand. The pain obliterated thought. He landed horizontally in a place that didn’t have hissing grit. He pulsed his implants until blissful sleep took him.
#
Van awoke to the chittering and screaming inside his head. He forced himself to relax and examined at the bars of his jail cell. They were a duranium alloy—hardly the best for a jail cell, but it was the two men who played cards outside of it that were the real deterrence for escape. Backwater must have duranium in spades. The nightmare and pain receded. He flexed his fingers; they were raw, like they’d been badly sunburned. He looked like a sand golem. He found his Stetson and beat the sand off of himself, already hating the planet more than ever. Damn stage twos! He groaned as every part of his body moved with grit ground into the joints. He tried to bang sand out of his ear and checked his chronometer. How much time left? Trust my classy plan. “Good work is often hours of patience,” he told himself.
“You say something?” one guard growled.
“Told you he was alive,” the other one said. “You owe me ten more credits.”
“Just a little prayer,” Van said.
The first guard snorted. “I reckon you’ll need a lot of prayer this morning.”
“You ain’t religious men?” Van asked, mildly curious. His throat was raw and dry. Sand and mucus caked his nostrils. He found a washbasin and splashed water on his face and hands. The water turned to a gritty slurry.
“Ain’t no religion worth a damn in the frontier worlds,” the first guard spat.
“Now that ain’t true. There’s plenty of religion in the frontier worlds. Hell, most of them worlds were named after some religious phenomena. Just because sometimes they got renamed when they were raised to be a proper core world don’t mean they don’t have religiosity at their roots.” It wouldn’t do to have too much religion in a core world. There was New Hope. That was a fine world. Maybe not too fine now that it was a core world, but he had no say in that. These worlds earned their place in the rising tides of humanity, pushing the frontier farther down the galactic spiral arm. “No, there’s plenty of religion out here in the frontier. Hard work scrabbling on newly terraformed worlds brought that out in people. Is it the hard work or the hard life that brought out the spirituality in frontier folk? Before you blast them, I mean.”
“You talk too much,” growled the first guard.
Van had been religious, but Little Big Moon cured him of it. Whenever he thought about who he was before the massacre, it was as though he were conducting an archeological dig. Sometimes he was surprised, but other times, it was nothing more than bare rock, devoid of anything useful. The massacre scarred him irrevocably. It was why he was here, after all. He hummed an old tune. Was it a song he’d once sang?
“Stop yer hollering!” the guard snapped.
“Is it my singing you don’t like, or the fact that you’re down fifty-seven credits?” Van drawled. “Sixty-seven, now that I’m not dead.”
The other guard chuckled.
“Alusia ain’t opposed to me shooting you,” the angry guard said, a hand on the handle of his ornately designed blaster.
Van stopped humming. “That is a pretty gun. Is it a lady’s weapon?”
“It is not! You got a mouth on you, boy.”
Van smiled, tugging the corner of his mustache. Wet mud and sand gritted his fingers.
“I got it from a banker who thought he was a crack shot,” the guard said.
“I take it he wasn’t? It is a fine piece of death dealing.”
“The weapon shoots true and straight. Just had a case of pissed-himself.” The guard bawled with laughter and hit the calmer guard in the shoulder.
“Take it easy, Wint,” the calm guard said. “Yer still losing.”
Wint frowned and read his cards. “You just wish you’d shot him first, Kelly.”
“Maybe,” the calm guard named Kelly said. “Looz is madder than an old wet hen.”
“Shit, we lost two scouts. Medina said he’d get that old rock hopper going any day now. Might be better if the dead man here has a ship.”
“All I know is Sally Forth is too big to sneak up on anything but a freighter. We might have to go to some of the more peopled systems.”
Wint snorted. “People means law enforcement. Cavalry. That ain’t always fun unless there’s scores to be had.”
“Mm, I’m just sayin’ Looz is mad is all. She’ll figure it out. She always gets us out of a jam.”
“How long have you been with Alusia? Looz?” Van asked, leaning against the bars.
“Ain’t no one talking to you!” Wint snapped again, throwing down a card and snatching up another.
“Curiosity is my nature,” Van lied.
“Does that include all your screaming and hollering when you sleep?” Kelly asked.
“Don’t you worry about Looz none, stranger,” Wint said.
“She doesn’t concern me one bit,” Van said.
“She should. She’s got core ’netics. She’ll kill you before you realize you’re dead. That’s how she got Mad Morgan. She didn’t even use a gun. Didn’t need to. Just punched right through his ribcage. ’Course, he didn’t have any of his armor on…” Wint snickered.
“Feminine wiles, you mean,” Van said.
“Looz is a sight, but you cross her, and there ain’t nothing feminine about her. You already got one foot in the grave as it is.”
Van opened his mouth to speak, but the lights went out in the jail.
“Damn!” Kelly got up from the makeshift table.
Van closed his eyes and listened. The hum and buzz of technology went away. He smiled to himself.
“Keep your fancy lady gun on the prisoner. I’ll check what’s going on,” Kelly said.
“I ain’t got a problem with that,” Wint said and turned to Van, drawing his blaster. “And it ain’t a lady gun!”
Van leaned on the far side of the cell. He heard shouts and curses through the open doorway to the rest of the compound among the click and whine of powered up weapons. He spied a cylinder on the floor next to the table. “Is that whiskey?”
“No talking!” Wint snapped.
Kelly returned.
“What’s going on?” Wint asked.
“Grid’n net’s down.”
“What’s Xu sayin’?”
“He ain’t sayin’ nothing. Something’s shut the whole thing down. Get to the perimeter.”
“And him?” Wint pointed at Van with the barrel of his blaster.
“Leave him or get rid of him. Looz won’t care either way.” Kelly tipped his hat to Van. “No hard feelings, stranger.”
“None taken,” Van said. He could use his implants if he had to, but he trusted the plan. It was classy. Elegant.
A red bead of lasersight trailed down to Van’s heart from the guard’s gun. The man grinned.
Two explosions knocked the men off their feet and the blaster shot hit Van in the upper arm, searing away fabric and flesh. He landed on the floor with a grunt. More men shouted and screamed. Wint got up, Van forgotten, and stumbled to the door. He opened it in time for a taloned claw to grasp the man by the throat and slam him into the wall. Delicate little talons plucked the blaster from the Wint’s limp hand. Ace entered the jail. She hooted at Van.
“Drama queen,” Van muttered, getting to his feet and to the door. He saw Ace’s killknife in her claw. She handed him the ornate gun and her fingers worked the lock.
“Chirp?”
Ace warbled, and the door opened.
“All right, all right. And the horses?” Van grabbed the gun and pulled the man’s holster off one-handed.
Ace ruffled the feathers of her neck.
“Yes, I know. You wouldn’t be here if you didn’t.”
Ace bent and sniffed at his arm.
Van pushed her beak away with his fingers. “Leave o
ff. We had worse, you know. Let’s get going before Chirp really blows us to kingdom come.” He grabbed the cylinder and tucked it into his jacket and buckled on the holster.
They left the jail, a low building off the larger compound of the Haunt. Pirates were running back and forth as fires and various minor explosions went off. Ace hopped onto a nearby hoversteed modified for her bulk.
“Where’s mine?” Van yelled above the commotion.
Ace squawked.
“Fine! Just go!” He hopped on back of her steed. “I got a nicer gun at least.”
There was a shout and blaster fire erupted around him. Ace snapped the rein-controls. A woman shrieked, and Van glanced back at the angry mask-like visage of Alusia. She ran after them, but as the hoversteed accelerated, she turned away, heading in another direction.
“She’s seen us. If she’s half the pirate I think she is, she’ll be after us. I just hope Chirp makes sure the rest of them bastards don’t make a posse. It’ll only make things difficult.” He wondered where Black was in all this commotion.
Showdown
The star drive detonated, destroying Sally Forth and the Haunt. The shock wave slammed into the steed and sent Ace and Van spinning. Van flew off before he’d thought to bring his implants online. He struck the ground, drawing his arms in and rolling. He hit his shoulder and his mind blanked with pain before he shunted it away. Ace vanished in the dust cloud of the explosion.
“More dirt and sand,” Van spat.
He sat upright, watching Chirp’s handiwork. That ancient alien AI was dangerous… able to crack just about any ship subsystem. There were a lot of fail-safes to be overridden in order for a ship’s core to drop and explode, but Chirp could do it easily.
He saw Ace coming back for him. The looming shape of feathers and hoversteed coming out of the dust cloud…
He jumped aside as the hoversteed slammed past, the rictus snarl of Alusia and Nidian feathers whipping by. The killknife sliced through his jacket and neo-tech shirt, leaving a thin line along his chest. Van activated his implants and drew his blaster.
Alusia swung in a tight arc, coming in faster than he could track. He amped up his implants and spun, firing a continuous burst and melting the side of the hoversteed as it screamed past. He ducked Alusia’s arm, whipping like an ebony blur.
She’d jumped from the crippled vehicle, and it spun and broke apart. She landed like a cat; her legs planted, knees bent, and her killknife dragging a long trail into the rocky soil to arrest her momentum. Her green eyes glinted and the feathers on her head rippled.
She launched herself at Van, her powerful legs flashing and pumping. Van amped higher, his hand catching her wrist, but it was like holding on to a swinging hammer. Van twisted into her motion and his elbow struck her perfect face, stunning her. His fingers dug into her wrist, snapping into the housing and breaking the bio-servos. She dropped the killknife.
Surprised at his speed, she fell back as her mind processed.
Van hit her in the solar plexus with his knee and the blow knocked her flat. It felt like he’d hit a duranium strut. He snapped the gun to the ready.
She drew her gun as she rolled backward in a blur.
Van dodged, smelling ozone as the shot went past. His own shot went wide. Blaster fire was too fast for a human, but you could react to a human’s motion, even a mostly ’netic one. They would each get off one more shot …
He planted his foot and kneeled, his hand swiveling as his motion reversed. Her hand came up as she landed on her feet through her roll. Her angry green eyes met his own unremarkable brown.
They fired.
Her blaster pulsed and snapped out of her hand, bursting in sparks.
Her bolt hit him in the shoulder, knocking him from his feet. He rolled to his side, pushing the pain away through his implants and coming up in time to block her overhand strike. His arms slammed into her, holding back the killknife. She was strong, and his arms hurt and his shoulder burned. He swept his foot and knocked her from her feet, his fingers locking on to hers. The killknife was at her own throat in her own hands.
“Ranger…” she hissed. “You’re a Ranger…”
“Yes…” he panted. “And you’re a murderous pirate.” His implants came awake, and he took control of her ’netic system. Her body locked into place.
“You’re… here… for… justice…” Alusia gasped, her body shutting down.
“You killed the people here on Backwater. But I ain’t just here for that.”
He shut everything down in her body.
Alusia’s jade eyes went dull.
Van let go of the knife, her cybernetics locked into that final deathlike pose.
“No more pirates,” Van panted, frowning at the wreckage of the hoversteed. “It was a classy plan, and I had to go and ruin it by shooting my own horse.”
Resolution
It was midday when Van and Ace returned to Sliver’s location, and Van was happy to be back to his ship. The ramp was lowered. “Did you leave the barn door open?”
Ace hooted.
“Well, somebody—”
Black strolled down the ramp. “Nice ship you got here.”
Van slid off of Ace’s hoversteed. “It is.”
“I thought I smelled Nidian.”
“Yep, we’re a pair, aren’t we?”
“You destroyed the Haunt and the ships. Alusia?”
“She’s on permanent shutdown.”
“Why?” Her eyes were like dull nickel, half lidded. He sensed the wariness from her, emanating like heatwaves now that his implants were online.
“You’re pirates. I heard you killed the terraformers and took over Backwater.”
Black frowned. She spied the silver star implant on his chest. “You’re a Frontier Ranger.”
“I am or was, depending on your point of view.”
“I should’ve guessed… they’d eventually send a Ranger…”
Van waited at the ramp. “You were at Little Big Moon?”
“Yes.”
Van snatched the killknife from her belt and touched the tip to her chin. She flinched. “Don’t lie,” Van said. Not Sonya. Sonya wouldn’t flinch.
She stared down at him, meeting his cold dead stare, and then she looked away. “No.” The tip of the killknife had blood.
“You’re a Ranger, though.”
“So are you,” she spat. “What does it matter?”
“You deserted.”
“I never finished my academy training before they threw us onto a ship to go to Little Big Moon. The idea was to see the Rangers wipe out the Nidian raiders—we’d see how we’d be useful. Our ship crashed on one of Big Moon’s other satellites. I was the only one left when the pirates found me, scavenging over the system after the massacre. Mad Morgan took me in, then Alusia when she killed Morgan.”
Van lowered the knife and moved off of her. “So you weren’t there…” The ghost of Sonya wouldn’t fade away then.
Black shook her head. For the first time, Van knew what he’d missed at that earlier meeting. Shame.
“I wanted to be at Little Big Moon,” she said.
“No you didn’t.”
“You survived?”
Van slammed the killknife into its sheath at her belt. “Thing about killknives—when Nidians draw them, they don’t get put away unbloodied.” He pushed past her. “Are you hungry? I’m famished. All this walking and fighting and killing makes a man hungry.”
“I did all the work,” Chirp said, the ship AI floating by in its grav harness.
“It was my elegant plan,” Van said.
“You lost your horse,” Chirp said.
“It had some quirks.”
“The Foundation didn’t send you,” Black said.
Van, inside the ship, pulled off his hat. “No one sent me. There ain’t no academy, no command, no Foundation, no General Fox. There ain’t no more Rangers. Just… me and you—an academy student and a deserter. A nobody. Unless you’re still
a pirate…”
“Can’t be a pirate without a ship,” Black said, patting one of Sliver’s struts.
“This Quarterhorse is spoken for.”
“What’s this plan you’re talking about?”
Van handed Ace the cylinder of whiskey he’d purloined from the Haunt. Ace warbled and patted him on a dusty shoulder. Van grunted in pain. “Not so hard, you damn jackdaw.” He turned to Black. “I heard about the pirates, but I also heard one of them was a Ranger. I wanted to know if I was the only Ranger left alive after Little Big Moon. Maybe you were a friend of mine.” He shook his head. “But you’re just a trainee.”
“What’re you going to do?”
“Me? Nothing. I’m not going to do nothing. I got what I needed here.”
“Now what? You’re gonna just leave me here?”
“I reckon I will,” Van said, cradling his injured shoulder. “You plan on preying on any more terraformers and folks?”
“Take me with you.”
“That would be foolish. You don’t seem to have any redeeming qualities.”
“I don’t?” Black whispered, disappointed.
Van shrugged, which made his shoulder hurt like hell. “You’re a pirate, Black.”
“And you’re a nobody. A stranger. There ain’t no more Rangers. Why do you have to uphold a code?”
“Why do you have to be a pirate?”
“It’s how I survived out here!”
“We all gotta figure out our own way,” Van told her.
“Is that why you’re a Nidian lover?” Black said, eyeing Ace, whose plumage ruffled in the hot breeze.
Van frowned.
“You can’t see past that I’m a pirate, but I’m supposed to understand why you’re with a Nidian? They wiped out every Ranger at Little Big Moon!”
Van laughed, taking the sting out of her words. “I’ve killed your pirate band. You think I want you around?”
“I’m a Ranger!”
“You ain’t a Ranger, missy. You’re nothing.”
Black gripped the handle of her killknife. She eyed the Nidian. Ace regarded her with those unblinking, eagle-like eyes as she drank the whiskey. Van saw something new on Black’s face. Power, contempt, shame, replaced with… opportunity.